Outerra forum
Outerra Engine => Ideas & Suggestions & Questions => Topic started by: Banshee on February 03, 2014, 10:51:02 am
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THE SECOND WORLD
Premise:
Year 2385, the solar system is completely populated, but humanity abandons unsuccessful attempts to overcome the lightspeed barrier or to develop space-warp technology in the face of a new discovery. A tragic space-warp experiment ends with the mysterious relocation of the test ship to directly over the Sun's south and north poles simultaneously. Both manifestations of the ship and crew are instantly vaporized. Investigations of the phenomena reveal that stars are interconnected via polar array wormholes - space-time folds which allow near-instant interstellar travel.
As it turns out the interstellar array is the exclusive means of travel for all advanced life forms. This discovery leads to the first contact with an alien species.... A species, whose homeworld has been scorched through civil war. This species immediately proceeds to colonize and conduct civil war and scorch the Earth over centuries. In 2872 the solar system is starving because of the alien takeover of earth. Humanity successfully consolidates the remainder of its solar fleet and flees the home system via the interstellar array, arriving at a newly discovered solar system which contains among its otherwise barren makeup three co-orbital planets. The living conditions and the elemental makeup of the individual planets are less than ideal.
This is the setting.
The same alien species has already occupied one of the new planets fully, but has only begun to colonize the second. The third, least desirable planet becomes the operations base for the newly arrived humans, who discover that the second world can be made elementally complete with components of the third. The humans establish war industry on the third world and proceed to challenge the aliens for the second world... all the while dumping key elemental components of the third world on the second... and conducting preemptive raids on the alien occupied 1st world.
Such is the basis for the persistant worlds. Within the MMORPG format, thousands of players must assume constructive and combatant roles in order to flight the persistantly agressive (but procedurely balanced) AI alien forces. Players will have access to all three worlds, acting as soldiers, builders, farmers and merchants, either traitorous or loyal in order to seek advantage in establising fully hospitable living conditions on the second world. The persistance of gameplay should include the entire KNOWN Space of BOTH new and old solar systems in order to allow an epic range of play which includes scavaging Earth for additional resources, raiding all alien bases for technology, and building functional human bases/ ships which contribute to the overall effort of domination.
The alien AI, operating at a .01% disadvantage continuously will provide continued resistance to players until the verge of the next game release. At this point the AI will be directed to assume a higher rate of disadvantage (or advantage) precipitating a rapid demise or victory which drives either the humans or the aliens to discover another interstellar pathway, and another habitable system. This will be the continuity of the franchise.
Shoot me an email.
-Nate
Appendix:
+First person characters. You exist as a person.. not outside, above, or immune to the game.
+Infinite spectrum of tactical or practical play. You could begin as a military pilot and become a ship's captain. You could land on the second world as a seed farmer and become a mogul.
+Spacial Continuity - It makes no difference where you are.. you can get anywhere else if you have the vehicle that is space or inter-system capable. Otherwise there is real-time real-space transit either military or private.
+Military law. The backbone of human efforts will be the persistant presence of an AI military command that employs players. You can also become integrated into the command or become a private operator.
+Dynamic Outerra landscape. Every habitable world, star, dead planet and asteroid is procedural.
+The three co-orbital planets are co-orbital to the system star AND to each other. Visible to each other from each planet surface.
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Mind = Blown! Berhaps the only MMORPG I would be temted to try!
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One of the things I like with the dynamic is how the players are collective HUMANITY.. and the aliens are AI. There could almost be a fraternal spirit to the thing. Although the player could elect to be parasitic and profiteering .. betting on the demise of humanity, there will be a cold detached presence to the alien race, and a warm familiarity to the humans.. since they are in-fact REAL people.
Imagine having social dynamics emerge with human players forming clans and squads. You could have cells of people attempting to establish and defend independent farms and industrial cities... or rogue squadrans of maveric fighters who wreak havoc on the alien 1st world for profit. You'd have people gaining enough power and influence to construct massive destroyers and recruit other playrs as crew/ pilots. Think about the massive organic "teamwork" of humanity trying to survive on thousands of tiny fronts.
Sounds fun.
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I wonder if any First person elements could be used in this. Perhaps for vehicle driving/equipment usage.
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Absolutely... much like "Star Citizen" this is my intent... that you can assume a strategic or practical role. Absolutely first-person everything.
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Keep planning. Be ready when the SDK arrives! :D
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Hey you know, I wouldn't mind story-scripting this thing at all. I'm a Architect as a day job... and I only write in spurts - but I could get in to this. Maybe there would be some programmers out there who'd be interested. Who knows?
Anyway, I gotta say how inspirational this Outerra engine is. It's gonna remove a lot of barriers.
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:( Architect = My dream job! (Well, one of them)
Anyways, being an Architect would be usefull for the game assets.
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I'm planning an apocalyptic MMORPG myself. I have tons of game design, but tons more to come. I'm just wondering if I should share it with everybody or keep it to myself and those who are going to help me with it.
Anyways, good luck to you and yours! :)
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I'm just wondering if I should share it with everybody or keep it to myself and those who are going to help me with it.
Time to write some books. :D
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I'm planning an apocalyptic MMORPG myself. I have tons of game design, but tons more to come. I'm just wondering if I should share it with everybody or keep it to myself and those who are going to help me with it.
Anyways, good luck to you and yours! :)
Thanks! Yeah I'm not too worried. Putting something out there on a forum with a timestamp helps to attribute proper credit. Some authors circulate their work amongst their peers before submitting to publishers.
I'm more interested in hearing feedback on the idea and maybe getting some attention from likeminded talent. I love that Outerra is going to be an engine, and not exclusively a game. This will change everything. I can't imagine the myriad of titles that will come out of this technology.
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I'm just wondering if I should share it with everybody or keep it to myself and those who are going to help me with it.
Time to write some books. :D
I've decided to go ahead a throw a plot together. I'm about a quarter through the barebones plot with 5,000 words of on-and-off writing over the last couple days. I'm targeting a 20,000 word plot summary and if I can handle it I'll continue to flesh that out to full novel size. I dunno.. it's a big random project to strap on. HA!
If I get any book interest great, if not... then hey, like John514 said, I'll be ready when the SDK comes out ;-)