Battlezone Universe

Most modders have jumped ship on this one. Thus the idea to restart has appeared.

I want as many people as possible to cast a vote on this one. Even if you don't intend to have a part in the CP, cast a vote.

A complete restart will likely mean going back to the drawing board on all sides - not just the storyline. This would mean that assets already created may well be useless, though may also be incorporated. Fortunately not many have yet been created.

It does, however, that there will be more than three modders working on the project as there are now, and we will have a much more realistic storyline that fits with what we know so far.

If it is restarted, the modders will have final say.

I'm all for the more realistic storyline ;D

My advice, if we want to do this right, Lets look at BZ1 more the we do BZ2. Draw off that, and try to make a storyline and atmosphere that captivates the player just as much.

Personally, instead of the modders being in charge, I think it should only be the people who are actively contributing who get to have a say on anything.

For example, me and Ahadley spent a long time on the story only to have people who weren't helping at all, and didn't offer anything better, criticising it.

I genuinely believe that if me and AHadley went back to the start with the story we could make it much better if we weren't trying to accomodate everyone else's ideas (no offence meant). I'd certainly be willing to try anyway. I'd do a survey to find out what people liked and scrap everything else.

Forget the story for now, build your race/game assets, by the time you have done that, you will probably have a much better idea of the story you can tell using them.
I have not been involved in the CP, I saw design by committee and hid.  :-D

We just need to figure out what we need to build that's new.  Once we figure that out, we can start building assets.  The story can come a bit later, once we actually have something to show.

Maybe we should do more committee's like a writing committee then a different committee to review it and such then we present it to the public.

QuoteWe just need to figure out what we need to build that's new.  Once we figure that out, we can start building assets.

You need to build assets in order to figure that out, expect to build/rebuild the entire race 3 or 4 times, each time it will look and work better as your art improves and bugs are ironed out.

Committee's are lethal to artists, use all means you have to cast them back into whatever evil pit they crawled out of... :-D

May I suggest story submissions again then?

We have already established what people like in a story, if me and Ahadley cut out the compromises we made first time around we could make the story much better.

And I think we can acknowledge that story submissions weren't the best idea before, and probably still aren't. People will just re-submit their stories and we'll get the same result anyway.

I was actually planning on righting a completely different one. We all know what ppl want now so the writers have guidlines.

This might be a good idea, to restart the CP. We have a general idea for stories and such, but holding a community wide vote on planet and ship names, in retrospect, seems a little foolish.

It should be noted that the initial planning phase would not take as long since a lot of ideas have already been formulated.

I think that part of plot and asset development should be moved to the private CP. Those who have already contributed a large amount of story and are working on assets should discuss that amongst themselves -- so that the story writers already have a larger amount of freedom and the asset guys can contribute ideas as well, as well as say whether they are able to do specific things or not. In that respect it's good to have some of the CP done privately, and with realtime communications between its members (members who can IM each other will allow development to progress a lot faster).

I agree, everything got bogged down because there is always someone in the community who isn't happy.

What if we made it so that only the people who signed up for the project can vote in it.

Quote from: Mr X on December 10, 2009, 12:54:27 PM
For example, me and Ahadley spent a long time on the story only to have people who weren't helping at all, and didn't offer anything better, criticising it.

I criticized it a lot, more directly talking with Ahadley giving long detailed reasons for my concerns, but, meh.

Yes, the point is contributors should be the ones who get the say, 90% of contributors being modders. We can't have people latch themselves on for story or testing and then try to take full control. Only very good writers or those who have very specific knowledge in required areas should do story. Instead of pleasing EVERYONE, the story should please the modders and the writers.

Votes for names of things are foolish.
Votes for everything are foolish.
The point of a CP is the community comes together and makes a mod, not that some modders say they will help and get slammed with tons of weird stories and ideas from people not the slightest involved in actual work.

We had some WONDERFUL ideas from Tempest Storm, but many were randomly poo-pooed for no real reason (the name Anean, for example, when though more twists and turns than the last US Presidential election).

Also, people have LIVES. Everyone needs to understand that. Most of those who have the skills to make this project a reality can't be on guard 24/7 to police bad ideas and editorial misconduct. I mean, I was just WAY to busy to deal with it all. I just left at one point because of how far out of control it had gotten. I had finals (still have a presentation tomorrow I should be working on right now) and have job interviews coming up, I like many others cant be here as constantly as school children who seem to think their ideas are sent from some holy deity (you know who you are, and who you aren't).

I think we need a new system, were we use a private board for the majority of development but we allow people to join the group (provided they have something to SHOW, some sort of mastery of a modding skill, or of story writing, or of general knowledge and experience)

is a show and tell thread in order?

Quote from: Clavin12 on December 10, 2009, 02:46:41 PM
is a show and tell thread in order?

No, a big single thread is just a childish endeavor. A simple thread for a specific person to request to join the group and show their work should be fine.

The issue is we don't need dead weight modders. By that I mean modders that can only do a fraction of a section of modding. For example, cut and paste modelers, weapon smiths who can't balance, etc.

So, to get things clear here,

Are we re-submitting stories, are sticking with the old one?

Are we keeping everything or doing a massive re-vamp of what we have?

Is there a threat of suspension or cacelation?

Most likely going to use the general gist of the story we have now, making changes as needed.

WE have NOTHING yet but 20+ threads of words arranged in phrases, no maps, no FINALIZED models and no damn idea what is going on.

Yep.

Basically, this needs to be re-railed before it falls in a ditch and dies.

Lets all concentrate on making one of the races.

Quote from: Warfreak on December 10, 2009, 05:54:18 PM
WE have NOTHING yet but 20+ threads of words arranged in phrases, no maps, no FINALIZED models and no damn idea what is going on.

Well we had this that can be finalized in about 1 hour, but the constant story changes made it useless.
(http://www.bzcomplex.com/myfiles/CP2/Aenean/ship1-wip2.png)

We can't make a race with the story unstable, or I would have already. I specifically LOVE making races.

I believe that we have determined that a third Cthonian faction is wanted.  Let's work from that and build it.  We just need to figure out what should be done to set it apart from the current races.  That doesn't necessarily need input from the community (The only one who should have more weight than any other person would be Avatar).

I won't put my vote since I can't contribute ( except for a good wild idea here and there). But please don't give up. As players, Windy and I are depending on you guys.

my recomondation, I say we "gut" the current story. Keep the main points that we really like but completly re-do the other little details. I believe that one of the reasons for the project taking so long is that once we finally established story writers, the story they came out with got bogged down with criticism, the last part in particular. Per5haps if different people write a similar but different story, we could have a different outcome.


                                                 Opinions?

Quote from: Axeminister on December 10, 2009, 07:01:05 PM
I won't put my vote since I can't contribute ( except for a good wild idea here and there). But please don't give up. As players, Windy and I are depending on you guys.

We're not giving up, just starting again so that players are able to enjoy a better mod.

It didn't really get bogged down with criticism until the last section. Also, I agree that we should have more ppl on the irc.

TBH i couldn't care less about the CP, but from the outside starting something from scratch isn't overly easy. This CP idea has been tossed around for months now and with the exception of one or two models being put forward that are actually useable there is nothing.

Keep time travel out of it as well. That kind of thing doesn't belong in BZ2 as far as im concerned. Just take something already in progress and work as a community to make that.

Time travel is great but it requires finesse. Fines that is lacking.

Well then lets not try it.

I think we should strive for success in our ideas, but not be trapped by them.

As I suggested earlier can the people who have held onto the project when others left submit new stories? I think we'd get better stories that way.

Quote from: Clavin12 on December 11, 2009, 10:41:08 AM
As I suggested earlier can the people who have held onto the project when others left submit new stories? I think we'd get better stories that way.

Except good people left.

Hell I left.

The people who didn't leave kept driving the thing into oblivion.

I can write a good story. I'll take it from a completely different standpoint than my last attempts and if you don't like I'll stop bugging you. At least you'd have sum1 working on it.

I' d say go for it. If it doesn't cut it, then it doesn't cut it, but we won't know that until after it's written.

Quote from: Clavin12 on December 11, 2009, 10:58:45 AM
I can write a good story. I'll take it from a completely different standpoint than my last attempts and if you don't like I'll stop bugging you. At least you'd have sum1 working on it.

You know, I get the impression form that last line that you think next to no work went into the previous story. And I don't take kindly to it.

If time travel is now out, would you guys mind letting me have a go at re-writing the story to make it more suitable before we go completely back to square one?

Quote from: Nielk1 on December 10, 2009, 06:02:31 PM
Well we had this that can be finalized in about 1 hour, but the constant story changes made it useless.
(http://www.bzcomplex.com/myfiles/CP2/Aenean/ship1-wip2.png)

We can't make a race with the story unstable, or I would have already. I specifically LOVE making races.

Since when is that useless?

It's not. Of course we'll keep all the stuff we made in case it comes in handy. I don't think that little to no work went into it Mr. X but I do think I could do a pretty good job. But, instead I'll support you. I vote for Mr. X to rewrite the story.

The first thing I'd do would be to get rid of the time travel (and the causality loop that results in the end, that had been a compromise for the people who liked scrappool's "full circle" story), I'd also change it so that some of the humans and scions survive, as the ending seemed particularly unpopular.

In the meantime, as has already been mentioned, modellers can start to work on ships for a third Cthonian daction, as it seems more than likely that they will feature in the project at this point in time.

But, if anyone has any specific things about the previous storyline that they particulary liked/disliked can they please say so now so I'm not endlessly altering it.

SoI we are going with my idea of kind of "gutting" the story then?

That's for the current story guys to decide, I imagine. I would like to see the current selected story worked from the ground up, taking the suggestions from the earlier CP and letting the story guys choose to discard, adopt, or seek additional feedback on the specifics.

I'd like to be much more involved in the story. If anyone needs proof of my skills in such an environment PM me and I will dump a massive pile of "story" on you. Though it is for an unreleased mod that takes place alternate to the FE timeline.

NK1, i've seen your previous work and its impressive. It would be good for you to join the CP as a contributor on story related matters. I personally have not a lot of vested interest in anyone's particular story. I just want to see it done fairly and through consensus from the story guys AND the modders (who will ultimately have to implement the story)

Mmh, I have a strange idea. What about if those that want to each write their own version of the story keeping the main ideas and we have a vote on the best one?

A revote huh? It works in a way, but since we have already voted, we should just go with that -- just for the sake of expedience, and without invalidating the voting that we already did before. It would be up to the asset guys, really.

Perhaps, but so was the original storyline submission time, though i guess thats a bad example.

How about not worrying to much about the story for now, because when it comes down to it, it will be told in missions Make the content then make some missions, once you have those you can make  cutscenes, voiceovers, videos and text to tell a story that fits with the (good) missions you actually have.
The Horse goes in front of the cart.

You have a point, but it is kind of hard to build a race without a definate back story and not knowing whats going on. It's like building a faction with a lot of water based vehicles and the story takes place in the desert.

The good thing about developing assets, is that the assets can be repurposed later on. Modelers are welcome to make whatever they wish while the story is developed, and even AFTER it's developed. The story really just goes on top of everything, and mostly is needed so the texture artists and voice artists (mid-late in the project) know what to go for in their designs.

Quote from: iron maiden on December 11, 2009, 08:15:27 PM
You have a point, but it is kind of hard to build a race without a definate back story and not knowing whats going on.

Not really.
eg.
We want a third Cthonian faction, so let's make some units and texture them cthonian-like. Anything unique for missions can be developed later.

I think that part of the problem with the current state of the project is that people are waiting for signals before they go off and start doing some real mod work. I keep seeing "We can't do this because that hasn't been decided yet" when we know that people want a new race, and more to point people are interested in a 3rd Cthonian faction.

There is no need for any back-story to work on this; the information we do need however: What kind of play style should make this race different from the others? How many units and buildings should they have? Should they use a different resource system? Should they have an original tech tree?

These are generally decisions that should get chalked up to the modders/designers; to create a new race that is not only original in a visual sense but also from a gameplay perspective. Aside from these bits of information, it is more than likely they they will have the basic BZ units, a Recycler, Scav, scout, ST, Tug, etc. These can all be built now, there is no need to wait for a story to start working on assets that will more than likely be needed without a doubt (Unless of course a design change results in them being unnecessary, but of course those models and textures can always be recycled and used for new assets)

Build the story around the mod; don't build the mod around the story.

I also feel a bit like people aren't seeing the big picture here either. Bringing a project like this to fruition isn't just about everyone cooperating towards a common goal, creating realistic milestones for the project are important if this is really to get off the ground.

Having a predominantly Scion campaign with a female main character is really cool! But it certainly is taking the high road, when you are not even sure if you are going to make it all the way. I'm all for originality in the SP campaign but creating something like the current SP setup is far from optimal. Most modders do not even have experience making decent Scion models and textures; And finding a reliable female voice actor might not be very easy either, let's not forget that there isn't much material to work with for making good Scion VOs. It essentially feels like you guys are making hurdles for yourselves when you're not even sure if you can make the jump.

Don't get me wrong though, all of that stuff IS possible; but the project might not suffer so much if a different route is taken. Why not make the campaign form the new Cthonian faction's perspective? You get the advantage of being able to create your own unique VOs, and also possibly reason to incorporate all the other BZ races into the story by doing so. From a design perspective it is much more flexible for the modders to work on and it still retains originality.

Just my 2 cents on the current state of affairs, but it may be something to think about. :)

If you allow me DLL, I can design one hell of a funky race while still keeping it clean and understood. Picture a utility unit that simply erects an Mcurtain shield to enemy fire at all times. I can do that.

Tempest, it is generally agreed on that people want a scion campaign, and I have absolute confidence in the community's ability to make new things for them, though I share your worry about getting a female voice actor.

I'd like to propose something, and I think it would be the best solution here;

how about Neilk1 joins the story comittee, and we work to make an undetailed (and therefore fairly unrestrictive) version of the storyline that will get fleshed out and changed as assets get made. Its good to not restrict the asset making too much, but its also good to have some control over which direction the project goes in, otherwise we end up as we have before (lots of stuff that doesn't work together but we end up having to try to accomodate it anyway).

I vote for flying nuclear gumball machines  :evil:

Quotehow about Neilk1 joins the story comittee

I second that motion.

QuoteI vote for flying nuclear gumball machines

I also second that motion. :-D

Quote from: Mr X on December 12, 2009, 08:49:01 AMhow about Neilk1 joins the story comittee, and we work to make an undetailed (and therefore fairly unrestrictive) version of the storyline that will get fleshed out and changed as assets get made. Its good to not restrict the asset making too much, but its also good to have some control over which direction the project goes in, otherwise we end up as we have before (lots of stuff that doesn't work together but we end up having to try to accomodate it anyway).

This doesnt seem like such a bad idea.

How bout we do this like a normal writer would. You have one writer and a couple editors. And if we want to do this even more realistically we'd assign groups of writers/editors to submit stories, to make it out like the community project is a publisher, which in a sense it is.

When writing the aRc story and all the phases it went though, the final story evolved as thus:

The base rules of the story were decided, the pre-events, the post, and what emotional content we wanted to go for.
Ideas were gleaned from a few random locations, each adapted to the universe and science that is Battlezone.
A few of those ideas were chosen as sub story arcs evolved to complement the main arc.
Details for those events and how they tied together were found.
The characters were fleshed out from their age, gender, and general history right down to their place of birth, a detailed history, their emotional and moral blueprints, and their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Yes, all the above is done, the story is perfect for that mod and it only took me like 2 years to learn how to write a story and about a month to get everything 100% together from there. Of course VSMIT had nearly had it with me from the first 2 years but really my stories back then did not have the quality of thought and sound logic they have now.

Now, I think we should take a similar approach. First we find the most major of events in our story, what must happen. Then we find the feelings we want to portray. I normally listen to music that matches the mood I want while writing anything more from this point as it helps to keep me in the mindset. I can of course provide such things :wink:. Now, the weird way I work when I am doing this I begin to picture matching assets. For this reason hard asset developers would do best to be deeply involved in this part of the development to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Hey, if you're finally done with the story for aRc, does that mean that we can actually start doing stuff on it now?

And I don't think that approach would work well with a CP.  We knew going in that aRc was going to take a really, really, long time.  If we take our time with it like we did with aRc, people will lose interest before we have anything to show.

Quote from: VSMIT on December 13, 2009, 02:47:23 AM
Hey, if you're finally done with the story for aRc, does that mean that we can actually start doing stuff on it now?

And I don't think that approach would work well with a CP.  We knew going in that aRc was going to take a really, really, long time.  If we take our time with it like we did with aRc, people will lose interest before we have anything to show.

Use the 1 month part not the 2 year part >.>

Fine, fine. Lets just do something.

Quote from: General BlackDragon on December 12, 2009, 09:39:02 AM
I vote for flying nuclear gumball machines  :evil:

ha...ha...

I've got my ideas. I'm going to bring something to the table. You've all won me over the mod it first then story...

To the workbench!

so, do we have a final verdict on what we're doing here?

I know one thing, no more damn polls.

I haven't voted, simply cause I haven't kept track of this effort. What I did 'seem' to notice is that everything ended in an endless discussion. What I would suggest is that 2 or 3 of the most active contributers become 'CP-leaders' (call it what you want :)), and make the final verdict on how its going to be.
As it seems to be going right now it just takes some people a lot of time and effort with no results at all ....

A true democracy doesn't work, so don't even bother trying to work like that ...  :evil:

Still, kudos to whoever puts his(/her) time in this ;)

Quote from: Nielk1 on December 13, 2009, 10:35:37 PM
I know one thing, no more damn polls.

Let me whip up a poll for that.

(just kidding)


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Quote from: Nielk1 on December 13, 2009, 10:35:37 PM
I know one thing, no more damn polls.

Amen to that,

some people discussing the outcome of the poll to death and begging for a retake while others are whinging about the way its being run until the person running it wants to tear their hair out.

Quote from: Mr X on December 14, 2009, 11:09:33 AM
some people discussing the outcome of the poll to death and begging for a retake while others are whinging about the way its being run until the person running it wants to tear their hair out.

Running the poll or running the CP? :-P

Quote from: iron maiden on December 13, 2009, 09:37:57 AM
so, do we have a final verdict on what we're doing here?

There's a poll for that.

Quote from: VSMIT on December 14, 2009, 11:24:48 AM
Running the poll or running the CP? :-P

Fairly sure there might be a poll for that too :lol:

Lets start a poll to see if an other poll would be needed ......  8-)

I agree, but first we should start a discussion thread to see if we should put up a poll to determine whether the other poll is needed.  8-)

But how can we do that without a committee to first take the community's input and then hodge-podge it together? ;)

I can't even find the new poll button...

Right next to New Topic.

Maybe I'm just not endowed with the privilege.

I am confused.  :|

But that is besides the point, now, back to our original topic.