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I don't even celebrate anything for the holidays, but I must admit that a Space Marine with the hat is quite awesome.

Thank you Nielk1!

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.

I second this! You would think that after being on these forums for so many years we would at least have a pension plan or something!

Someone needs to write up a good recount of TRO's storyline... I need to go digging for that CD and try it.

Just for a quick laugh, I saw this in a topic on another forum I frequently visit and it gave me a good chuckle.



In my opinion in that regard, would MW2 be better off with dedicated servers? Yeah probably, will it kill the game in the end though? Probably not. Plenty of games exist with excellent MP support in regards to what a lot of people want and are terrible in the end, and there a plenty of successful and fun games with lackluster MP options as well. IMHO as long as it a fun experience to play online, and the matchmaking service works effectively that is more than enough.

Might be a good idea to edit the first post with a list of all the currently submitted names. It's kind of a pain to wade through all the posts to pull out a few submissions here and there.

OK.

I personally like Aenaeds, it just sounds... bad. Cmon guys Aeneas was a person. It's not an entire race of Aeneas's.

I think that you are missing the point of using the Aeneads as a name. "The Aeneads" was the title of Aeneas' followers. Naming the Cthonian 3rd faction as they Aeneads makes reference to the Trojan people who followed Aeneas on his journey to eventually establish Rome, not to Aeneas himself.

Anybody think a mission on the Argos station might be a good idea, somewhere near the beginning...?

A mission might be a bit much, I mean...what would we do at Argos station? Might make a good opening movie for when you enter the campaign for the first time. Like that feflyby.bik that has the few space battles on screen when you begin the campaign.

Change the word Aenead a little bit and you have Aeneid, the title of the poem. Their pronounced essentially the same. The Argo was built by Argus.  We could name it the Argo II or something in that direction. Or, Its a warship right, so how about the Athena. Not particularly creative but it sounds good.

The problem with changing the titles is that they lost the general meaning that they are founded on. The Aeneads was the 'official title' of Aneas' companions during the poem, breaking down the work only loses the effect it has from being derived from the name of an actual group of individuals.

The idea behind The Pride of Argos is also similar. Argos is really a multipurpose name as far as Greek mythos goes; aside from being a city-state, and as others have pointed out it serves as the name of a few different people, animals and objects. (Jeeze how unoriginal of them ) But the title itself is what made the name special to me. Assuming that Argos was the first large orbital construction facility the Scion's would use to make a fleet, naming the Vanguard of their newly creating fleet The Pride of their new station puts a lot more feeling behind the ship itself IMO.

or what it was built by... if tempest doesn't put the name forward soon i might...

Fine! Fine! I'll do it already!

I haven't put too much thought on ship names yet but I happened to really like one of the first few I had brainstormed up:

The Pride of Argos

If my memory serves me correctly, Argos was a large port/port city. I think that after the events of FE the Scion's would probably have much more interest in creating larger capital ships to further the defensive capabilities of the Scion Collective as a whole. The Scions seemed pretty unprepared for what happened during FE; with the possibility of new hostile alien encounters and an eventual return of the Cerberi I think it is safe to assume that creating a large spaceport/orbital construction yard to create an actual fleet for the defense of the Scion culture would be on their to-do list. Going with a Greek mythological theme, Argos would be a pretty good example of what the Scions would name their first major fleet construction facility. (Considering that the largest space-faring Scion vessel we have seen is the Ark II, I have little doubt that Argos would be the first of such facilities to exist)

I've been a bit hesitant to suggest this however since "The Pride of Argos" would require additional back story and fluff to make the name meaningful, although if people think it fits well then it may well be worth considering writing it in. I really want to sit down and think hard of other names though, I'm sure there is something out there that can have strong meaning for it's purpose as well as fitting the context.

Everything seems pretty solid so far, the only thing that really rubs me the wrong way is the naming of the new Scion flagship as the "Ark III".

The Ark II was an interstellar colony ship made up mostly of Scion refugees from the Core incident. As far as I'm aware it was never a fully equipped combat/research vessel. I think it may also be fair to assume that the Ark II gets it's name from Noah's Ark as it's purpose was mostly to bring the survivors of the dead Core planet to colonize new land after their planet was destroyed. While following a culture close to the Cthonians, the Scions were still originally Human and I would not be surprised for them to carry on similar folklore to have them devise the name for their colony ship in such a manner. In such a case I think the name of the Scion flagship should probably be something other than the successor to their colony vessel.

As far as the name for the new Cthonian faction would go. I had not read the thread in it's entirety since it got kinda messy after a while, so I apologize if it has already been suggested but how about the Aeneads?

In Greco-Roman mythology, the Aeneads were the companions of Aeneas, who fled from Troy after the Trojan war to eventually settle in Italy and become the progenitors of the Romans. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid for more information of the story about Aeneas' travels) It doesn't quite fit entirely but if you are looking for a mythological reference, it is quite close to the mark as far as people who left their nation that was torn by war to start a new civilization bound for greatness.

Otherwise everything seems to be coming together nice, looking forward to seeing more.

That sounds a lot like the Articles of Confederation...that didn't work very well.

Indeed, BZ2 ST is a pretty complex game in itself. But I still feel that the general objective of the game is no further than fighting over pools to build up the force that destroys the other guys base. A system like this would hopefully make a shift from rather using your units to kill the other guys base you would use your units to fight the other guy's units.

After playing Company of Heroes so much for the past 2 years or so I have really come to like the Victory Point system used for standard auto-match online play. I think that the idea behind it is great and it really allows a strategy game to focus more on the battlefield rather than the opposition's base. I was thinking about seeing such a game mode in BZ2 today, and I think it could prove to make strategy games fairly interesting.

For those who have never played CoH (or Dawn of War II now. It is also very similar to how the Battlefield games work) the VP system works by having the two opposing teams start out with a certain number of VPs at the start of a game that is predetermined at the start of the match. On the map there are a certain number of capture-able points  that when captured by a player comes under his ownership. If one side has more of these points than his enemy does then his enemy's VPs will start to slowly deplete themselves. The more VPs under your control the faster your opponent's points will deplete, until eventually when either side hits 0 victory points they will lose the match.

So lets say for example this was implemented in BZ2 and you played a VP ST game on Dunes. Say there are 3 VPs on the map, 1 near the center pool in the middle and 2 others on the far sides of the middle area of the map. The host decided to set the VPs at 500 points. The game would generally function normally as a non VP game, although now your focus is to keep control over the map not just for the resource benefits from the extra pools but also for the win as well. So let's say you want to get an early advantage on victory points for the game. Now there is a decision that you must make as the player; Should I head out to capture one or two VPs and try to take the point lead? If I do then my Scavengers might be left open for attack, and an early resource setback could cost me the game. However, the point advantage could really pay off if this turns out to be a close match. You could also sit tight and defend for the time being, not capping VPs early in the game may put you at a disadvantage in points but you will also have more resources to put together an early offensive. (Assuming that your opponent is spending his scrap on defending his points, otherwise you could just run in and capture them unopposed)

Depending on how many VPs a player controls would control how fast the other side loses their points. If I only have 1 point in my control then the ticker goes down pretty slow. However having 2 points would increase this, and having 3 points would start to really put a strain on the other team, it could even be devastating to their point value if they are low as it is. The enemy's control over the VPs also has an effect on the ticker as well though. If we both only have 1 in our control and the 3rd is too much of a hot spot for either of us to capture it then the ticker stays the same as if we both had zero. Also if my opponent had 2 points in his possession I could still slow down my point loss by holding onto the 3rd VP treating the countdown ticker as if he only had 1 VP under his control.

Now how exactly would this work best in BZ2? Here a few ideas I would suggest:

- Bases need to be tougher to crack: The general idea of playing a VP game would be to keep the focus of combat away from the bases and onto the battlefield. Recyclers would probably have some kind of early defense system that would crush most light attacks. Other methods should be applied too, maybe harder to destroy buildings? Or stronger defenses? Aside from what needs to be changed, the idea would be that going for the base kill is generally very risky; While you are hammering away at the base, your enemy could just sweep through the map and cap all the VPs, and if your base assault gets crushed you will be at a considerable disadvantage. Raids on the base to kill power/unit production or on extractors should still be a viable tactic but to totally annihilate the base should not be a viable strategy unless you have a considerable advantage over your opponent.

- VPs would be capturable by players and AI units: A VP could generally be anything depending on the map. Generally an object that the map DLL would recognize and transfer ownership to the player who is able to stay there unopposed for a certain amount of time. It could be a building, a ruin, or a wrecked unit, heck it could just be one of those flagpoles from CTF . It could be more interesting to see different objects as VPs, it actually makes you feel like you are fighting over important stuff. As long as you or some of your units can stay at a VP for say 5 seconds or so and no enemy units are nearby then it is yours for the taking.

- There should be a limit to how hard you can put up defenses at VPs: VPs shouldn't be a race to who can get there and build more GTs at that spot than the other guy. Perhaps the terrain by VPs should only allow for 1 or 2 GTs if any at all. (although with no GTs at all there may be a need for more defensive types of units)

It is still a pretty rough idea in my head for BZ2 implementation although I think it would make an interesting new game mode to add a twist to BZ2 ST games. Players will have to use different strategies in order to be victorious and there are a lot more opportunities for a turnaround. Resource management, teching, and unit placement/tactics will play a deciding factor for the winner. I think that this could be a really interesting idea to put into practice in the BZ2 world. Please let me know your opinions on such an idea, and of course any suggestions and ideas are welcome too! If it would work out properly and be fun to play, perhaps it is something the CP could look into as a feature.

Who had that space carrier boarded idea? That model would be a CP in itself. Bays where you get in a tank or service bike for occurrences such as that slimming to no-vehicle corridors,.. Remember, BZ2 is much less of a pilot FPS than bz1 (and even that was pretty abbysmal, although it felt more like you were running forward than sliding on ice) unless you severely tweek pilot physics on that level, it will be no fun. Or Halo, which is the "both" option. Plus the texture O_O ' ' ' Generic bumpmap, anyone? New pilot model because you wouldn't wear helmets indoors (MASTER CHIEF?! ) A mission like that sounds fun but would have to be short or done with precision.

Anyway, the reason I liked scrap pool's so much was the ending. It had the same Meteor of Achilles flying towards Earth with Grizzly 1 talking about how history repeated itself; all those briefings and field manuels and artifacts finally give you the AH HA moment- it all makes sense and you leave the game with goosebumps. _{and then get to watch the so so blah bz2 ending}

Creating a space boarding mission would probably be a lot easier than it seems. The model work would be quite a job although I think there could be a ton of tricks to be done to scale down that work to a feasible level. FLS did some work with indoor infantry combat that was pretty fun although it was nowhere near the scale of such a thing. Zephyr also worked out the infantry combat physics way better than FLS did, there are some good examples to follow out there. I think that the real challenge would be finding the right AI processes to work everything out properly and possibly the scripting to make everything work smoothly. Would it be a lot of work? Yeah, but thinking outside of the box would make something of that scale reasonable and fun.

On the topic of Scrappool's ending I have to say I am against that one as well, it's just my personal opinion but I just don't like the outcome. Humans discover Bio-metal in the 50's and have a total secret war in space with the stuff, after the events of BZ2 Humans and Scions begin to find out that they are not the only races that currently have access to bio-metal, through this discovery they are almost wiped out by a corrupted Hadean Crown forces along with the Cerberi war machine only to come out victorious after a long and hard uphill battle, not to mention any other MOD story lines you may consider to be eligible to be counted as canon. And after all of this it turns out Bio-metal just comes into existence because the Scions went back in time? IDK but it seems like a let down to me

Up until now every other known species to make extensive use of bio-metal has destroyed itself or come near to total obliteration. Unlike the bio-metal users of the past however Humans and Scions have yet to actual face extinction like the others have. Have Humans and Scions reached the height of their power with bio-metal by now? Are they destined to fall? Or will they continue to prevail? Bio-metal seems to be a chain for others, it allowed the civilizations to rise to powers far beyond their standings before its discovery but they all eventually fell, eventually passing on the technology to a new race as time marched onward. Perhaps answering these questions is the right idea for a conclusion with a project like this, and perhaps the CP's story should finally reveal the creator's of the substance that has influenced many races. Although I feel like in such a case, based on how the BZ story has come along as it has, that a Progenitor race type of archetype is better suited for such a conclusion.

Of course it can't end the story of BZ, the cycle should and probably always will continue. Although after all this time and all the races before the humans wondering where this stuff came from it kind of kills it all to find out its just some kind of paradox IMO.

IMHO, I think what we have here is a good collection of well thought out plot lines each with their own individual pros and cons. I have to be honest, there is not one story line that I think is 100% on the money; however I do see a lot of potential in some stories over others.

I like the idea of time travel just a little bit. My main problem with it is that I don't think it should be the backbone of the entire storyline. Having an entire campaign in the past sounds like it could get old pretty quickly. Although I think that it could make some pretty good SP missions. I think that it is pretty important to have a story line that will not only provide something interesting to follow, but also provide a fun and original single player experience. It is one of the reason why I didn't vote for scrappool's story initially; it's a great story, but I feel like the campaign that would follow it would just be stale. :/

FE, Uler, QF, FS, etc had highly successful SP campaigns IMO because they had fun and original levels to compliment the standard "Destroy the enemy Recycler" objective. This is where time travel could play an interesting role in a campaign. I could see a level where something malfunctions or your recycler is destroyed at some point when you are in the past and you have to use the technology available to you being an interesting change of pace. (I could imagine commandeering some ancient hadean/olympian tech to be quite interesting! ) Or perhaps during a space battle there is a level where the ISDF carrier gets boarded by the enemy or perhaps even the opposite. They are really more ideas rather than suggestions but its stuff that is surely possible to do, and also has not been done before.

On the subject of alien races, the BZ storyline makes good use of Earth mythology as the backbone for the Cthonians, and if you include the Uler MOD as part of the story the Ulerians were another bio-metal aware race that had an influence on Earth's culture and was defined by ancient Egyptian Mythology as the Cthonians were based on the Greek Myths. There are also a lot of unexplored parts of the BZ storyline that could be worth bringing back with a new race/faction. Look at the Core system for example. We know that the ruins on the core system planets differed; the ruins on Mire, Rend, and Bane looked like they belonged to seperate civilizations. At the same time the Mire ruins were noted to have a writing system that was quite similar to the Cthonians (Another possible to link to a mythological race that made its presence on Earth at some point?) which could fit well with a 3rd cthonian faction or cthonian like faction as mentioned in Mr. X's storyline. It might be interesting to find that there are indeed remnants of the civilizations that lived on Mire and Bane out there somewhere that were a part of a coalition of races like the Cthonians. Take Norse mythology for example; originally the Aesirians and the Vanirians would have been at war with each other eventually allying themselves as a faction. What if during their war they discovered bio-metal? But rather than destroy each other like the Hadeans and Olympians did they joined together as one? Once again, just ideas to try and give an example of what I am getting at. Mainly, rather than creating race X from somewhere beyond the distant stars (which isn't necessarily a bad thing though) there are plenty of ideas to brought about that would provide new races with an original play style as well as something in the spirit of BZ.

All in all though, as I mentioned earlier I think that the stories that we have gathered so far have a lot of potential and need to be fleshed out to maximize that potential. If an interesting time travel plot can be decided on that would provide something fun and new I'd be all for it. Essentially I guess as a bit of a breakdown of what I am trying to say is that the story should be as fun to play as it is to read. And having it feel like it fits with what has happened along the current BZ storyline is also a huge plus IMO. (Although at the end of the day it is still fiction, and fiction can really be anything you want it to be)