Posts by FrieChamp

  • mod thoughts

    Quote from Fletch

    I always wanted to use a mod that used the basic premise of Ikaruga. You can switch between white and black with the press of a key. Your white gun hurts black players and heals white players. Your black gun hurts white players and heals black players. Guns would probably need to function like UT shock rifles (half a second to a full second of charge up, then releases the rail shot) so that one or two shots would kill you. Switching colros would result in a 1 second buffer where you can't shoot and a 5 second buffer where you can't change color again. Your health can max out at 200%. Levels would probably be smaller deathmatch arenas to keep the action fast.

    Sounds simple and interesting, only you would need to make the colors red and blue or something else, white and black doesn't sound pc.

  • Two rants on level design, need opinions

    Quote

    Level design is way too complex to simply split up.While the increasing complexity of level design does require more people to work on one level there should always be someone who makes most of the level and keeps control over the level and the overview.

    The workflow at Crytek is similar to what you describe above and what seems to be present at Gearbox as well.

    The level-designer is the author of the mission, yet nobody "owns" a level, it is a contribution of all departments and often other designers. One designer might design the mission on paper, creates the layout and adds basic game logic and AI, then maybe another one takes over, reviews it and possibly revamps a few parts, then finishes it off (or goes back to the drawingboard if you realize that it simply won't work or will be satisfactory, can happen too...)

    All the assets, special AI or game code, sounds need to be requested by the designer and will be produced by the other departmens. Of course under the consideration of the timeframe.

    The designer might be able to block out the level with tools embedded in the editor, to test gameplay, but all that is concerning the look of the level, is up to the concept artists who sit with the designers to create the best possible look. 3D artists create the assets while communicating with the designer to take all gameplay relevant aspects into account.

    Sounds and animations of course also have to be requested and added, the responsible animators and sound designers of course often also give their own input (just like the artists) about what they like to see/hear in the level.

    The level-designer always needs to find a compromise between the needs and requests of the other departments, because some of them sometimes conflict. So the level-designer needs to have a basic knowledge about how to create nice terrain, what AI needs to work, how the lighting should vaguely be like, what the player would consider frustrating or boring etc.

    I think that sums up the responsibilites and tasks of a level-designer here, the content creation of the levels is split up between the departments, but the designers keep in control of the missions and add everything. Some of us are better at AI, another one always got the know-how about the latest magic from our R&D department, others have a better artistic eye, so we try to share our knowledge to give each designer a solid understanding of each area. We also got a few technical designers, who specialize in scripting, but we don't have somebody doing AI for each mission, doing lighting for each mission etc.

    But you need to decide, either you are a good author of a mission and create the basis for other people to work on a specific thing in your level to make it shine, or you specialize yourself and join a different department. It is getting to complex to be top notch at everything.

    About the hobby, amateur side of things:

    Duffy from ID software recently said "The MODding community is past its peek" and I think that is sad but true, at least it will take more people, work and better coordination to develop a MOD which is on par with the game's standards it is developed for.

    This got longer than it was meant to be, sorry. Good topic by the way.