Collaborative SP game?

Didn't know where to put this, but I figured this would be the best place...

I've seen a bunch of continue-this-story based threads.. so I thought it might be an interseting exercise for us to do a little continue-this-game kinda thing. Since I guess most of us know how to map for HL2, we should use the source engine.

I don't expect it to be anything fancy.. I doubt people will want to put a few months effort into a level.. Just keep it simple, doesn't have to be really pretty, just good gameplay and interesting plot. I think the easiest way to do it is just to sorta write our own HL episode, just use the baddies and weapons from HL2. But I'd really like to see something completely different from HL/HL2, just poach the enemies. Entirely different storyline, etc. If someone wants to model in a new weapon or bad guy and someone wants to code it, that'd be super cool.

I don't care if the plot has holes and shit, thats bound to happen with somethin like this. Just thought it'd be a neat lil project to work on, I personally have never done any single player stuff and I'd like to. Obviously we can't have 8 people working on the same level at once, so we'd have to designate who goes next.

Horrible idea?

Ferrett, I agree with you its not easy to do. As spartan said environments can tell a lot about what is going on. We could do some voice acting, even if it sounds like shit, who cares? I have a great digital recording device(M-Audio) and some pretty good mics, I wouldn't mind recording some small stuff. But it is the small stuff that drives a good storyline, the marine chatter in HL1 was a huge reason it was so good... Honestly when I got to Xen it got a little tired.

I was thinking of doing one of the different perspective add-ons, like Opposing Force or Blue shift, like you mentioned Spartan. We could do a Combine one, I don't think that has been done yet. That way we could use all the HL2 stuff and the basic background story, and write our own series of events that happened to one combine soldier along the way. However to do this we'd have to have someone do some coding, we'd need the rebels to act like enemies and the combine guys to act as teammates.. I don't know how hard that'd be to switch them around.. maybe as simple as re-naming the models so they get switched in-game? I like this idea, it gives us a good open setting to start from, we have all the models, weapons, and textures already made for us(although custom stuff is always welcome)... I like it.

If we have even a couple guys interested, I'd like to try it. I could make new hand-models to look like a combine soldier.

Quote from Polaris

Both combine and rebel point-of-view mods have already been done. Though I have to say Combine Destiny got a pretty bad review at Planet Half-Life so it may be worth another try.

d'oh, well who cares lets do it anyways, it makes the most sense.

Quote from insta

That's not necessary, just use an ai_relationship entity in Hammer and set the rebels to hate the player and the combine to adore him.

Well that makes it easy. Thanks insta.

As for how is this collaborative, its just that everyone writes their own little 'episode' of the game. Collaborative story telling I guess you could call it.

I just think it'd be interesting to see where the game goes.

Would anyone like to take first crack at it? I can give it a shot to get the ball rolling if no one else wants to.

Quote from Kabelen

Sounds like a great idea.To make it from a combine point of view has already been done as mentioned, but we could do a better job, right?

And how much space does each one get? 512x512 units is a bit small I think.. I'd let everyone joining in have 1024x1024 units, cause then you get room for a little more than just one single room or extremely small outdoor area.

I'm in!

Originally I had just planned on everyone doing a decent size level, so we can get some sort of plot going. If everyone does really small ones, I don't really think it'd play well. I'm not going to put a limit on map size, it should be make whatever size you want to make it. This way people won't shy away from it because they don't have time or want to make a full map, but if someone wants to they can. If we get a handful of rather small levels in a row, we can always combine them into one larger level to cut down on load points.

I'm going to start on the first one soon, tonight or tomorrow probably, I just have to think up a way to start it. Of course I'm always open to suggestions. I was thinking of making you part of an 'elite' squad who's job is to take out key Rebel positions, and such and such happens where your team and transportation is taken out, you're the only guy left. You have to work your way back to a combine base or something. That should leave it open enough for someone else to take it and run with it wherever they feel it should go.

On that note.. I'm not sure if we should go about sharing our ideas too publicly, I'd like to keep it as spontaneous as possible. I only posted my idea since it is the beginning of the 'game', and since this is going to really dictate the general plot, I thought it'd be good to get everyone's opinion on it. That way if someone doesn't like it, has a better idea, or wants to improve on it before it gets started they have the chance to voice their opinion. After all, everyone is making this game so I think everyone should have an input on to what its going to be about.

However.. To keep things moving along nicely, I think the person currently mapping should disclose their little plot to the next mapper, so they can start brewing ideas early and possibly start on it before the previous map is finished. Also, the previous mapper should at least send the next mapper the last bits of his/her level so we don't have to waste time re-mapping the end of the previous level to make it continuous. Either that or we do some cheesy thing like ending in an elevator every time like wolf3d and a zillion other mid-90s shooters. That would kill the whole idea of a continual plot.

I like dissonance's idea too, but I'd rather not discuss that in here, I'd like to keep it on topic... in another thread I'd be happy to talk about it.

So, do you guys think thats a good basic plot?