Project X Update - WE WANT YOUR INPUT!

[Number1SuperGuy]

Here's a quote from our Forum detailing the current status of Project X's conceptualization. We have a lot of awesome concept art being submitted on the Forum which you can see HERE (the most recent concept art will be in the later pages). We want anyone and everyone's input so tell us what you want in the final version!

Last updated: 11/11/07 by JohnnyInfamous
Freshly updated sections are in light blue, older updates are in darker blue.

Anything posted here is semi-final. Everything is subject to change but these are the things we'd REALLY like to be in the final game. If you see a suggestion you'd like to add, post it here.

Story:
An enemy country (specific country to be determined) fires a biological weapon (codenamed Project X) at a skyscraper in the middle of a major US city. Our hero is a US soldier who exudes patriotism. He was on duty there because the government suspected an attack on the city. After the attack takes place the government quarantines the area and sends in our hero. His job is to fight his way to the heavily guarded skyscraper (which has been mutated into a giant living beast from all the civilians that were inside) and kill it. Along the way, the hero is likely to find his way into troublesome situations, including underground scenes where he might need to navigate his way through a hellish sewer system, complete with pitfalls, surprise zombies, and incredibly dark areas that require a flashlight (yes, scary). The hero may also spend some of his journey searching for uninfected survivors, and may even hold his own judgment as to whether or not these civilians are able to be saved from the virus or if he should just fire a bullet into the foreheads of the people he's unsure about. He can't risk being attacked from behind by a person he didn't expect to change.

Characters:
Main Character:
Name - To be determined (we'll call him "our hero" for now)
Physical Description - Imagine Serious Sam with a badass beard and sunglasses. That's our main character. He's bound to have a lot of memorable quotes, like Duke Nukem but will be fairly serious about his job, because that's what he's here to do... His job. He will also be receiving orders from higher-ups in the military, though we'll let the player decide what to do in some situations.

Soldier Allies:
Their very existence is still to be determined. We may just throw our hero into the fray by himself. If allies of some sort do end up being incorporated, you can bet that there will be plenty of interesting radio transmissions for our hero to listen to. Nothing cheesy though, and nothing stupid. They're probably not going to have their communication system active as they're being killed. That's been done way too many times. Our hero should have to figure out that his ally is dead once communication stops or a simple & unpleasant noise is heard.

Enemies:
Zombies:
Lots. Zombies will be the fragaholics dream. They'll basically be evil, slightly mutated humans so they'll still be able to run at you full speed (although some might be missing a foot or something crazy like that). One bite will turn you into a Zombie so you'll have your work cut out for you! However, since they're just basically humans they'll only take a few bullets to take down. These "Zombies" serve as a spreader for the virus and have little other purpose to their kind. Once bitten or otherwise infected, there are two possible outcomes. 1) The infected person becomes a Zombie and must therefore spread the sickness further or 2) The infected person mutates instantly requiring additional biological mass to feast on in order to grow at a grotesque rate and in grotesque ways.

Mutants:
Mutants are people and animals who were mutated by the biological weapon. They are much more intelligent than the zombies, however they can still infect you, like zombies. But really, they prefer to just smash you to bits. There's no telling what type of mutations could occur. I've got my vote in for a 50 foot hell hound. Buuuuuut we'll see.

Skyscraper:
When the biological weapon hit the skyscraper, a lot of humans inside became mutants. This place instantly became a point of interest for the Zombies and the more intelligent Mutants. The beasts worked together to bring large quantities of food (people and in some cases, random Zombies) in order for the mutants in the skyscraper to accrue mass. Eventually, they mutated together to form a giant living building that wants you dead. You want it dead too. It's also probably worth mentioning that random arms and large mouths and such would end up protruding sporadically throughout this living building, attempting to rip you apart.

Weapons:
All weapons are still to be determined, however, the game is set in the near future so you can expect to get your hands on some experimental government weaponry. Along with the usual shotguns, assault rifles, snipers, rocket launchers, think Duke Nukem 3D type weapons.

Everything else in Project X is still up in the air (give us a break, we've only been talking about it a few weeks now). But that's good news for you! That means that you can impact the way it turns out by creating concept art or even just giving us an idea for the story. Every concept art will be looked at and every idea will be considered so don't hold back!

[Harmatia]

I'm sure I'd enjoy it, but the story could use some work. A generic soldier, who 'exudes patriotism'? C'mon, modders can come up with something more interesting than that. How about some war-detesting liberal who enlisted out of spite after falling out with a loved one? Hell, throw the girl somewhere in the city, make the story a little more personal. To hell with saving little sisters, the games moral choice could be rescue the girl, or rescue the city (in hardcore mode you could get the option to do both, with an awesome bonus cutscene ).

Just messing around, of course. But my point is that the story could be more original.

Also, an undetermined country shooting the biological agent opens up a whole mess of storytelling. What country, why, does it tie into the story? Leaves a lot of loose ends that you wouldn't want to waste precious game-time explaining. Why not make it an accidental experiment? An asteroid? A dream? Something that you won't have to waste as much precious game time explaining.

Will definitely keep up with the mod though. Zombies are awesome, and I'll be looking forward to it.

[Number1SuperGuy]

As I mentioned before, everything is still up in the air and these are just ideas we came up with in the first few days of brainstorming, so you really shouldn't expect it to be a narrative masterpiece of Tolkien proportions just yet However, you have some good suggestions and we'll have to look into those ideas. You're more than welcome to give us continued ideas and support as the project continues, do you have any mapping or modding skills? Perhaps concept art skills? It sounds like you at least know how to put a decent storyline together

[Harmatia]

Haha, well thank you very much. Sadly, I have no skills to speak of in terms of modding or mapping, or even concept art. I do hope to become a writer, so I'd be happy to help in terms of storyline, or even just testing once that becomes necessary.

[NakhtiUT3]

Haha, well thank you very much. Sadly, I have no skills to speak of in terms of modding or mapping, or even concept art. I do hope to become a writer, so I'd be happy to help in terms of storyline, or even just testing once that becomes necessary.

Well I have always said there can never be enough good testers on a team but the testing has to be done in very controlled manner with reports and test plans etc. My background is also SQA work for hi-tech companies so I know all about testing and how to implement it so down the line when the time comes for QA people who are ready to work in a structured environment maybe you can come aboard ... but there will be a lot of mods for UT3 so you may also be testing for another mod. For our team though we need dedicated QA people who are only on out team and not spreading themselves across other projects. Experience with this UT modding has shown me this does not work well.

[Caravaggio]

I'm also in the "would like to see more details" camp. At the very least you could replace "soldier". Is he Army? NSA? FBI? INS? You've got 24: The Game so far. I guess that's not a bad thing. As long as it's one of the good seasons. Maybe with an Elisha Cuthbert model running around in a cheerleader outfit.

The one bite=kill thing is a little severe but ok. Can I have an anti-zombie-fying emergency eyedrop at least?

I haven't read the other two threads you have (?), is this all sp or will there be mp modes?

I like the idea of a living building though. But you'll have to exploit the hell out of kismet to make the building itself fun, not just pack it full of baddies. Otherwise what we have here is more of halflife/RE hybrid than serious sam?

[Number1SuperGuy]

Note: The first post has been updated to reflect recent changes and additions.

Thanks everyone who has given input so far, we're absolutely taking everything you're saying into consideration.

One-bite-kill: This is an idea we're tossing around at the moment. We like the idea as it is more realistic (lol... realistic zombie bites) and it adds a lot more chaos. Imagine trying to fight off a 15 foot mutant beast while keeping your eyes open for zombies charging at you in the meantime. Utter chaos, the good kind. We want the game to be difficult but also forgiving. We were thinking of a respawn system similar to Halo's where you get checkpoints frequently. You'll probably get less checkpoints as you raise the difficulty, as well as faster running zombies. I'd say on the lowest difficulty they'll just lumber towards you like frankenstein and on the hardest difficulty they'll be charging you full speed. But difficult games are the most fun in my opinion.

Living building: I thought it was a stroke of genius too. You can see that we've added a bit to that section of the post. We're definitely going to have a lot of fun with the living building. Especially random limbs sticking out of walls trying to hurt you. Imagine random giant mouths on the floor for you to fall in or legs sticking out of the wall trying to kick you

Thanks again for the input, keep it coming!

[JohnnyInfamous]

Note: Another update to the original post.

Also wanted to let everyone know, if you want to take part in something related to Project X, you should just go ahead and sign up at our site and introduce yourself and such. We're forming a pretty large team and want to know who's going to be contributing what. (Link in signature.)

[PricklyPoo]

How did you know! I have always wanted to play as a soldier that exudes patriotism!

Hehehe

This actually sounds really cool though, I especially like the living building, I like big monsters too, REAL BIG ONES! The 50 foot hellhound thing would be cool but maybe not a hellhound, that just doesn't seem scary enough. Maybe there could be a giant boss monster inside of the building? I'm takin one that is 10-20 times as big as you (Like the ones in painkiller) :P

[WickedPenguin]

Sounds fun.

On the one-bite kill: Make it like 28 Days Later where you transform into a zombie pretty quickly, but still have about 30 seconds before you fully change and "die". In those 30 seconds, you can stop the virus from "catching". Off the top of my head, here are some of the methods I came up with.

* Inject yourself with an antidote. This will either be provided by your commanders or found along the way. You only carry a limited amount, maybe 2 or 3.
* You can "bleed" yourself to get the virus out using an "extraction device". Basically it sucks the virus out of you, but at the same time drains your health since it's draining the blood in the local area of the bite.
* A little "out there", but whatever: The virus is susceptible to the thoughts of whoever injects it. The zombies are "children" of another zombie and are under their "parents'" control. In other words, Zombie A bites Person B. Person B becomes Zombie B. Zombie B bites Person C. Person C becomes Zombie C. Zombie C follows B, B follows A, so on and so forth.

If you get bitten, you need to kill the highest "ranking" Zombie in the room within those 30 seconds. Killing Zombies B or C won't save you, but killing A will. The A's would typically be the strongest and most intact zombies around.
* Instead of all the above, just simplify it and kill the zombie that bit you.

[Number1SuperGuy]

You can "bleed" yourself to get the virus out using an "extraction device". Basically it sucks the virus out of you, but at the same time drains your health since it's draining the blood in the local area of the bite.

I'm really liking this idea. We'll have to talk about including this. If we do decide to include a way to get rid of the virus it would probably be this. You've got some good ideas, you should come over to the forum and contribute some more

[NakhtiUT3]

Sounds fun.

On the one-bite kill: Make it like 28 Days Later where you transform into a zombie pretty quickly, but still have about 30 seconds before you fully change and "die". In those 30 seconds, you can stop the virus from "catching". Off the top of my head, here are some of the methods I came up with.

* Inject yourself with an antidote. This will either be provided by your commanders or found along the way. You only carry a limited amount, maybe 2 or 3.
* You can "bleed" yourself to get the virus out using an "extraction device". Basically it sucks the virus out of you, but at the same time drains your health since it's draining the blood in the local area of the bite.
* A little "out there", but whatever: The virus is susceptible to the thoughts of whoever injects it. The zombies are "children" of another zombie and are under their "parents'" control. In other words, Zombie A bites Person B. Person B becomes Zombie B. Zombie B bites Person C. Person C becomes Zombie C. Zombie C follows B, B follows A, so on and so forth.

If you get bitten, you need to kill the highest "ranking" Zombie in the room within those 30 seconds. Killing Zombies B or C won't save you, but killing A will. The A's would typically be the strongest and most intact zombies around.
* Instead of all the above, just simplify it and kill the zombie that bit you.

Is this the same WickedPenguin that was helping out with the HaloUT mod (I believe it was the weapons that you were supposed to be working on ... could have been vehicles though) and then just disappeared off the face of the earth?

[WickedPenguin]

Is this the same WickedPenguin that was helping out with the HaloUT mod (I believe it was the weapons that you were supposed to be working on ... could have been vehicles though) and then just disappeared off the face of the earth?

I was working on my own stuff, and had offered to help out some on a couple HaloUT vehicles if possible. However, it quickly ballooned from one or two vehicles to all of them. In addition, I had been told that there were already existing models for the vehicles, and when I got them they were all in formats I couldn't use. In addition, there was all kinds of politics and legalities in effect regarding the models. Essentially, instead of modifying existing models, I would have to create everything from scratch. All that combined to make the project far more than I could handle at the time.

Basically, I felt the project had been misrepresented. It's a lot of work to make a UT vehicle and by that time my interests were also shifting.

To quote CaptainValor from HaloUT: "I've just been informed that none other than Wicked Penguin has taken it upon himself to convert all of the Halo Vehicles that Scully originally developed (or stole and said she developed), and even adding one or two more that were never even started (think "Pelican")."

I had never said I was going to for sure remake the entire vehicle collection, and when I read the above it really put me off.

We all do these projects because we want to and enjoy the process. However, when someone starts saddling you with more work than what you signed up for and makes public announcements regarding it that put the pressure on you, you get a nasty case of "job creep" and it starts to feel a lot more like work.

</End Thread Hijack>

[Number1SuperGuy]

I was working on my own stuff, and had offered to help out some on a couple HaloUT vehicles if possible. However, it quickly ballooned from one or two vehicles to all of them. In addition, I had been told that there were already existing models for the vehicles, and when I got them they were all in formats I couldn't use. In addition, there was all kinds of politics and legalities in effect regarding the models. Essentially, instead of modifying existing models, I would have to create everything from scratch. All that combined to make the project far more than I could handle at the time.

Basically, I felt the project had been misrepresented. It's a lot of work to make a UT vehicle and by that time my interests were also shifting.

To quote CaptainValor from HaloUT: "I've just been informed that none other than Wicked Penguin has taken it upon himself to convert all of the Halo Vehicles that Scully originally developed (or stole and said she developed), and even adding one or two more that were never even started (think "Pelican")."

I had never said I was going to for sure remake the entire vehicle collection, and when I read the above it really put me off.

We all do these projects because we want to and enjoy the process. However, when someone starts saddling you with more work than what you signed up for and makes public announcements regarding it that put the pressure on you, you get a nasty case of "job creep" and it starts to feel a lot more like work.

</End Thread Hijack>

I feel the hurt. We all know what it's like to be given more than our fair share of work to do.

[JohnnyInfamous]

I feel the hurt. We all know what it's like to be given more than our fair share of work to do.

Sorry about the troubles of the past. The internet can be a harsh mistress (especially if you're looking at dominatrix pr0n).

[Number1SuperGuy]

The Project X concept is progressing really well but we'd like more input from anyone who's interested in having an impact

[JohnnyInfamous]

Did somebody say... IMPACT?!

[NakhtiUT3]

I was working on my own stuff, and had offered to help out some on a couple HaloUT vehicles if possible. However, it quickly ballooned from one or two vehicles to all of them. In addition, I had been told that there were already existing models for the vehicles, and when I got them they were all in formats I couldn't use. In addition, there was all kinds of politics and legalities in effect regarding the models. Essentially, instead of modifying existing models, I would have to create everything from scratch. All that combined to make the project far more than I could handle at the time.

Basically, I felt the project had been misrepresented. It's a lot of work to make a UT vehicle and by that time my interests were also shifting.

To quote CaptainValor from HaloUT: "I've just been informed that none other than Wicked Penguin has taken it upon himself to convert all of the Halo Vehicles that Scully originally developed (or stole and said she developed), and even adding one or two more that were never even started (think "Pelican")."

I had never said I was going to for sure remake the entire vehicle collection, and when I read the above it really put me off.

We all do these projects because we want to and enjoy the process. However, when someone starts saddling you with more work than what you signed up for and makes public announcements regarding it that put the pressure on you, you get a nasty case of "job creep" and it starts to feel a lot more like work.

</End Thread Hijack>

Well ... as I recall that was not the way it happened ... you were given vehicles that were finished .. they just needed some proper coding ... you didn't even do one vehicle though ... but that is behind me and you and that is another matter altogether so we will just leave it alone and move forward.

If you join this project though you will definitely have to do what is expected of you and if you think it is too much talk to me immediately. I think that was the problem before ... you never spoke directly to me.

I could have fixed any and all difficulties you were having with Valor and with anything else to do with the project. So this time around if we end up working together I really do expect for you to communicate with me more effectively.

[NakhtiUT3]

The Project X concept is progressing really well but we'd like more input from anyone who's interested in having an impact

Did you get my pm about the Project X name? If so I would appreciate an answer ... if not I will resend it.

[WickedPenguin]

NakhtiUT3: I appreciate the reply. I would just like to state that I'm not interested in working on Project X. I was just offering some input on the story/mechanics, not offering services. It sounds like an excellent project and a lot of fun, but I've got a lot going on in my life and don't want to commit to any outside projects right now. I barely have time to work on the Noderunner 2 as it is.

[Number1SuperGuy]

Did you get my pm about the Project X name? If so I would appreciate an answer ... if not I will resend it.

Sorry, I hadn't noticed it. I responded though

[Number1SuperGuy]

UPDATE: We've started getting some pretty sweet concept art at the Forum. Check it out by clicking HERE. The most recent concept art will be in the later pages.

[Number1SuperGuy]

We're still looking for more input. Remember, you can have an impact on the most ambitious mod planned for UT3! Just tell us what you want.

[Number1SuperGuy]

UT3 is coming out TOMORROW! Get on board while we're still looking!