The Mapcore Mod Team

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

When I posted this I would never have guessed that there would be so much interest. The shared doc already has a list of people and their skills. It's great to see so many jump aboard and share their ideas but you can't steer a ship with that many captains. I'm unsure on how to proceed. Suggestions would be appreciated.

Thoughts I had:

• Pick one of the suggestions, post that as the mod we are going to develop and see who wants to join that.
• Come up with something on my own and hope people are interested in that.
• Going the other way around. Pick an engine and a genre, see who wants to work on that, form a team and discuss with them what we are going to make.
• Drop the whole 'test' mini mod idea and directly start with what we want to make.
• Open a poll asking the Core what mod they would like the see. Listing genres, engines and games and pick to most favorite as the Core's pet project and take it from there.

I'd say pick engine see who is interested that far. Then put up a meeting and discuss what everyone is expecting/wants to do. General vivi said it the best, do something simple first before going too far. It doesn't have to be a HL2 level but doing something that all agree on would be nice and keeping that goal. You can always do a remake or part2 after that. Internet is full of projects that never finish and i would hate to see people @ here pull out another. After people have seen how others work, how easily or hard they are to work with and can collaborate with others, then you see if this ever takes on or not.

How da hell did i miss this ! This is a great idea, altho I srsly won't find enough time to work on any side project now, BUT I could help you guys as a QA if you need one, especially when it comes down to env/level art.

Anyways go go Hurg Software !

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

When I posted this I would never have guessed that there would be so much interest. The shared doc already has a list of people and their skills. It's great to see so many jump aboard and share their ideas but you can't steer a ship with that many captains. I'm unsure on how to proceed. Suggestions would be appreciated.

Thoughts I had:

• Pick one of the suggestions, post that as the mod we are going to develop and see who wants to join that.
• Come up with something on my own and hope people are interested in that.
• Going the other way around. Pick an engine and a genre, see who wants to work on that, form a team and discuss with them what we are going to make.
• Drop the whole 'test' mini mod idea and directly start with what we want to make.
• Open a poll asking the Core what mod they would like the see. Listing genres, engines and games and pick to most favorite as the Core's pet project and take it from there.

I would say:

• Brainstorm all the idea, stuff, moodboard and then...
• Make a poll

Quote from Em

I'm in for an exploration game, Ala Dear Esther. With some puzzle like Vivis was doing on Source few years ago !

Imagine a game, mixing Mirror Edge for the climbing part and Dear Esther/Last of Us for the nature environment : you have to make your way throught a ruined city (designed as a corridor, idc that much )

Quote from RaVaGe

Agree with Em', imo we should make something different, something without weapons like portal 2, like that since we are a mapping community, we will take way less time to try to tweak the AI and gameplay, and just focus on the level design and art.

I want something in space though, don't know why

We could do something into a civilized center of the Earth, with a spheric world, looking up and see big cities and great monuments. We could travel with giant lifts or cableway right to the other side of the planet

Like some already said, i think that to start it's best to do it with a very small and tight project, eg: first chapter of Minerva or Gone Home (in the sense that it's a limited environment).

Scrap the idea "we can always make it bigger": think something small and ship it.

Also, I don't think you necessarily need to create a team trying to get all hands on deck, it can even be that 8 people work on a couple of maps on Source and a few others on a UE4 prototype.

Don't make a monolithic team, but a space where people can collaborate in smaller groups. Pitch ideas like at a game jam and let people even start different projects if they like.

Personally I would like to see HL2 pushed to the limits, before Valve comes with Source 2. Or some small (explorative) game if you go by using a multi-purpose tech (ue4, unity).

I'd leave posting plots to the collaborative gdocs, makes the topic confusing.

I'm sure everyone has an SP project or something in the drawer. I worked on Riot Act: the project was more ambitious so i always dreamed to get it to completion, I can talk to Germano to get permission to do so if people is interested.

I always dreamt to see a next-gen Cannon Fodder, think that can offer an occasion for beautiful eye-candy and a game easy to pick up. Alternatively, I'd like to see a revisitation of Commandos. These sort of projects would allow independence for creators, like Minos suggested.

As per contribution, I don't have a workstation atm and have been inactive for ages. It's my intention to get back in the business though, gonna shop for a computer soon.

Have to sort out my life a bit first, as a few things are changing in my workplace.

I agree with blackdog. Small high quality project > big mediocre quality project.

I always wanted to make an awesome HL2map, failed everytime I tried

It's really nice to see so much talented people interested in such a project. I'd really like to participate in this, but i'm so new and unexperienced(and still bad) to all this mapping thingy, that i'd just be able to test stuff atm. I'm also trying to learn modeling, but this will take some time, too.

My idea for a project: I really like the gameplay style of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. And then, i see Minos' and PogoPs (awesome) futuristic scenes in UE4, which brings me to the idea to mix the exploring of an unknown environment with the sci-fi genre.

To be more precise, i imagine a "story" like this: A small team of scientists, is on the way to an abandoned space station orbiting around a former human colony planet. The team, or a single person, is trying to find out what happened on the space station first, and hops afterwards down to the planet to explore what happened there aswell, and to see if there are any survivors(or s.th. similar).

I think this would focus the game mostly on level design, since this is what most users on mapcore do anyways. Also it would be easy to split the story, to keep the game small in the beginning, to see if the team is able to work together. And if this is the case, HURGSOFT is born and the 2nd part is on the way

As mentioned by others, I believe such a project has a chance to happen only if it is made to support free contributions to it. We mostly have LDs and Env. artists in here plus a few coders, so it would make sense start from a simple base concept (e.g. it's HL2 deathmatch with no gravity in space environments; abstract shooter with only one weapon and levels made of primitives, etc.) and let people collaborate on creating maps when and how they want. I think it's fair to say that many of us no longer have the free time we used to when we lived at our parents or boarding schools and all, so it'd be madness IMO to expect a fully dedicated team contributing to the project in an organised manner. Better go with a simple core gameplay idea that doesn't rely on new characters or weapons etc. and let people then contribute content to it (which could be game design additions too, not just maps). Then you mainly need a few managers (e.g. staff members) who can sync it all (share updates, run votes about stuff, organise playtests, etc.) and a small core team who can create the base gameplay (some coders, some technical designers with the engine of choice).

Trying to do a SP map is going to be like too many chefs cooking the soup, better go on doing it the way some of us are already doing it, such as with RickD or FMPONE working with other designers on maps. We don't need a team for that sort of stuff, and trying to build a full one for a single level makes no sense. That's my view on it anyway.

You are sent to a far galaxy, when the core of the earth became unstable, the humanity had to leave the earth in order to survive, you are one of the least to leave and you are joining an old colony. Your spaceship crashed and you suddently leave your stasis phase. What happened ? Where are you ? Why isn't there any signs of life there ?

After some research, you understand that you traveled for 350 years, and you are lightyears away from your colony, alone, lost and out of scope for anybody.

I would like an end wich vehicle a strong and deep message that you can extrapolate to your very own life, by how much we takes our live so seriously, by how much we live like we will never die, is there even any meaning to life when you finally understand what really means the words like despair and alone ? I want a mindgame, where the player will do exactly what you want without understanding what he is really doing, and when all the pieces are finally together, the only thing that the player can say is "Wow, that's deep".

So of course, no weapons, no ennemies (except maybe yourself), only puzzles and the most gorgeous landscapes as possible.

I would make textures and/or a level or two. Depending on what we're planning, of course.

Quote from Corwin

Trying to do a SP map is going to be like too many chefs cooking the soup, better go on doing it the way some of us are already doing it, such as with RickD or FMPONE working with other designers on maps. We don't need a team for that sort of stuff, and trying to build a full one for a single level makes no sense. That's my view on it anyway.

I agree, since I was mentioning sp project I want to clarify that I would see it work the valve way: cabals. We know that a "chapter" usually is made by 2-3 physical BSPs, so you could have 2-3-4 ppl working on each: one designer making the base and the artists producing content for it to make it amazing.

let's remake half life in UE4 and call it hurg life

Make sure not to put all hope into one project, there will probably need to be a good few attempts before there is a nice process.

So where are the brainstorming doc? Any update?

I'd be in for 2D stuff... why the Hell not.

Wrote up some story in the Google drive page, as it's all i can do since people seem to go UE4 in which i have no experience of.