Community's choice #1 : A nice place to die

[Izual]

The game's development is slowly progressing. We're really not under pressure and both Amarok and I know that there is no problem in not doing something for the game for a while, if you keep working on it after that. But today there's something we can't do all alone; today, we need your opinions on something!

As you know, when dying you leave the current location and respawn somewhere with all your items. The only way to leave this instanced location, though, is to talk to a medic from the Gravediggers that found you on the battlefield and has rescued you. He will only let you go if you leave enough items behind you (based on their weight). There will be a skill related to this that will increase the weight of the items you can keep after death. For example, with 0% in this skill you will be able to keep 5 kg of equipment, and with 50%, 8 kg (numbers are off the top of my head ). The medic will tell you exactly the weight you can keep on you. When you have dropped enough items, he will let you pass (and teleport you to the Gravediggers' HQ where you will be able to rest and, if you want, get another mission).

What we can't decide is where you should awake after your death with the medic. City ruins? Fortified church? Cornfields? Basically, the choice is entirely yours :) Suggest, vote, and if the majority of you agree on a location, then I'll map it and show the result!

P.S. When we will have several mission maps, there might be a post-death location per map, for example a cornfield for Ashtown, a church if the next mission map is a city, etc.; however for now there is only one mission map and we'd like to know what you do want

[Rosmy Sundr]

Considering so far these seem to be temporary missions (ie: in-and-out, not capture-and-hold), I cant see the gravediggers establishing any permanent fortifications near the mission area. Perhaps a convoy of vehicles, not necessarily armored but whatever the diggers have salvaged and use for transport. As if they dropped off the troops and then literally "circled the wagons" and dug in until needed for evac. A few guards and driver NPCs around to liven things up, and demand compensation for dragging your sorry ass out of the zombie pile

[Harald]

Yeah, I like the idea of Rosmy Sundr. Possibly, for the start it could go on with abandoned military outposts, fortified farm houses in the middle of Cornfield. It would also be cool to see random guard NPCs that shoot zombies with 1 hp outside the safehouse (where you can't acces), to give a little cinematic feeling. Different evac vehicles is a nice idea too.

[Warder]

Small camp surrounded by vehicles is great. When i was a child i happened to travel by car for quite long distances, and every time it was terrific. I think majority of people have similar impressions when they see (or imagine) such place somewhere in the wilderness. Try to remember that "in the middle of nowhere" feeilng from movies "28 days later", "RE:Extinction".

But personally id prefer some basement map: blocked tunnels, steel shrieks, echoing moans

[Izual]

Very good to hear your feelings about that, thanks :)

About permanent fortifications, don't forget the zombies rising everywhere and the nuclear war could lead to fortification by people that died anyway: Ashtown is a post-war settlement that was just slaughtered by the zombies, but the people living there tried to survive a bit before dying. That's just to clarify that a fortified church is not a problem background-wise.
I like the circle of cars idea too, but I hope Fallout sceneries will be enough for that

[Shangalar]

A place zombies could be not interested in : the graveyard. Zombies could be strangely avoiding this place for understandable reasons, or all possible dead who were buried there could have left it already. That place would then be safe, with large lines of sight and deep family sepulchers to hide in. A choice that can possibly make sense then.

[Amarok]

Happy to see such enthousiam there ! :o)
@Rosmy, take care about staying in the topic.

[LagMaster]

how about a random dude appears and saves your sorry ass, then tells you to give something in exchange or he kills you yourself, after giving the stuff he leaves you with some "water" and you are again in gravediggers HQ

but there can be some more "respawn places" that work diferently, one is Shangalar ideea, other is mine.... and at every death you can respawn there, like in 2238 b4 the wipe(if you remember random respawn)

[Rosmy Sundr]

Oh boy, I got a good one. I'd like to retract the "convoy" suggestion if possible.

This shouldn't require any new art, but would need a few art assets from fallout 1 (the background wasteland viewed from high up, used in the upper floors of the Cathedral).

So, how does a paramilitary group of nuclear/zombie apocalypse survivors move supplies and troops when the roads are swarming with the undead? Airships! (I'm stealing this from the zombie survival guide, not tactics) Well, maybe not an airship, but how about a medium sized hot-air dirigible? all you would need is a medium sized room using the tanker wall and floor set. maybe throw in a couple of port-hole, a (locked) hatch-door, something mechanical to look like an engine, and a ships wheel. surround it by the Cathedral's upper floors wasteland background, and you have a room up above the chaos. But there's a problem, the gravedigger who rescued you wasn't planning on carrying any extra weight. "We cant gain altitude and get back to HQ with all that junk you're lugging. Flush it quick before we start to lose lift, keep it down to X kg." The player would then use-item-on the porthole (or maybe a toilet) items he wanted to ditch overboard.

Nice clean way of justifying the weight limit, and it could work for practically any outside map.


http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/6/6c/Fo2_PMV_Valdez_Interior.png
See Captain's bridge (top most room) for general idea.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090222184049/fallout/images/b/b2/Fo1_Cathedral_Tower.png
See wasteland-from-above background.

[Warder]

Izual wrote:

we will have several mission maps, there might be a post-death location per map

Do you plan to have several locations for each mission map? The more the better, imo

however for now there is only one mission map

So the "target map" is Ashtown? If we have to select one map, and there is only one vote, i stand for "circle of cars". Some basement would be times easier and faster, but it wont look so good.
Rosmy`s "airship" idea is bit too much for me :). But who knows, maybe Gravediggers are powerful enough to own airship and enough lifting gas and fuel to run it. Would like to see that.

Shangalar said:

Zombies could be strangely avoiding this place for understandable reasons, or all possible dead who were buried there could have left it already

Only if there is going to be any kind of building (cemetery lodge maybe). Zombies can avoid it, but i dont think it gonna stop them from following. Theoretically, in that case it is good to have place to hide. :)

Small question:
There will be one respawn map, common for everybody, or each player gonna get his own copy after death?
The reason why i ask - if the map is confined space, like dirigible or one-entrance basement, it is really odd when somebody suddenly appears near you. Tiny annoying detail but still...

[Amarok]

Small question:
There will be one respawn map, common for everybody, or each player gonna get his own copy after death?
The reason why i ask - if the map is confined space, like dirigible or one-entrance basement, it is really odd when somebody suddenly appears near you. Tiny annoying detail but still...

One map by player.
There will be only one mission map at first "Ashtown" untill the SD will be fully stable & finalised.
This map will be duplicated as needed to absord the players.

About map idea, keep in mind that the Gravediggers are a small, poor and bad equiped organization.
You can forget the Zepplin/Airship concept. Sorry Rosmy
In the same way, this organization trie to survive at first, his members will not grief/abuse eachother. Surface time is hard enough.

The "weight limit" justification is more a "Gravedigger basic Law". You can keep n part of stuff, the rest goes to the community.

[Izual]

So, I shall produce a small draft of the map, but which one should I take? Circle of cars, basement, graveyard..? I'm afraid Fallout sceneries really lack cars, but I can try.

[Rosmy Sundr]

perhaps supplement the convoy with crates/barrels or other portable barricades. Some of the destroyed vehicle sceneries could be photoshopped into passably operational looking vehicles.

[LagMaster]

you can try to use Junktown walls for that

[Amarok]

I am against the "car circle" because of Gravediggers background. They dont have such "car park" in my mind.

[Izual]

Indeed, but they could use some traffic jam near some city to take cover, couldn't they?


(Walking Dead)

[Amarok]

Yes they can !

[Izual]

So, to go a bit forward I looked for cars in the mapper, here's what is there:


https://i.imgur.com/FBZ1F.jpg

After that, I did a short try and spent a few minutes moving them, resulting in this:


https://i.imgur.com/y1QwG.jpg

[LagMaster]

E P I C
good work Izual, looks awesome

[Amarok]

Nice first draw, yep.

[Izual]

I don't know, I'm not too happy with that

[Harald]

Looks nice to me.

[Shangalar]

I would just say : it's not original. Destroyed cars on a highway ? Seen 100 times. Except that, looks good.

[Izual]

After quite a lot of time...

I finally took some time to do this. It was quite low-priority, to be honest, even for me - dialogs require much more attention. But we need this map to be able to do some testing, and thus I decided to map it. It's a kind of abandoned church, in the middle of the desert, near a highway. Not a very exciting map, indeed, but at least that does the job.



In the future I want to make a lot more of these respawn maps so that when you die you don't always get teleported to the same place.

Also, we should have some fancy news soon

[JovankaB]

Also, we should have some fancy news soon

! Can't wait.

Church looks good, maybe only the fridge seems a bit out of place ;)

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