STraTOS 1997 April & May/STraTOS 1 - 1997 April & May.iso/CD01/INTERNET/SITES/RAND/ALL96.LZH/t0130/text0009.txt

Text File | 1996-03-07 | 10.3 KB | 189 lines

Hi again, people!

I've been exchanging email these last few days with a new participant. He
seems reluctant to use the list because his mailbox is restricted to very
small e-mails (around 48Ko, iirc).
So if you want to talk to him, don't send any binaries and write to him
directly. I'll try to relay his things here or to Johan for him to put on
the web page.
His email is [e-mail]
He may be very precious to us, because not only is he a programmer but also
a graphist. And the best thing is that he has a video digitizer! So this
solves the problem of textures and human characters. And perhaps some of us
can be in the game as Magnus suggested ;)
He wrote a storyline that I relay here. Personnaly, I don't like it too
much. Perhaps I'm not too objective here because I already suggested my own,
much simpler storyline which was that you woke up in a bad mood and felt
that this justified shooting everybody. You begin in a metro station in
Paris where you shoot ticket controllers, then you reach the famous parisian
catacombs (skulls, skeletons, zombies, etc.) and then you reach a large
underground secret base of microsoft and atari (didn't you know that atari
corp really worked for microsoft? ;) where you can shoot some mutant
engineers and executives.

But here is Robby's storyline. After it, there are several technical
suggestions for bad mood levels that I find really good, even if some of
them have already been suggested here or done in other games. I send this as
it was sent to me. Please tell me or Robby what you think.

Here begins Robby's message:

  Here is the story line I created a little while back..
----------------------------------------------------------------

Rough draft to Bad Mood story line.. written on: Jan. 16th, 1996.. revised
on Jan. 22nd.


  Time and space are one entity, they converge into a point to equal one
second, then pass from the scene as a backdrop of history and a sketch of
the future. If time and space were both to converge into one tangible
object, the citizens of many unseen worlds would have no probable in
conversing with others.  Within this object, the product of wisdom beyond
understanding, a tangible force would have to reconcile with every living
thing able to touch it.. no matter how bizarre.

  Ruins of a palace, once a magnificent structure expounding across multiple
dimensions, was recently discovered by beings whose sole purpose seemed to
be created just for finding/guarding this palace of wonders.. they renamed
themselves to "The Guardians" and with the help of citizens of other
realms(including Earth), the Palace was rebuilt and all life forms were able
to converge upon this world where time and space lapsed... where no
restrictions fell upon living beings, almost as if this palace teetered on
the edge to the spiritual world. A frightful and dangerous place to be. The
original creators and destroyers of this great Palace, remained unknown to
The Guardians.

  Earth's rulers, opting to limit the knowledge of this palace to those of
ruling statues only, used this realm to converse with other rulers and
citizens. Knowledge was gained, information abroad, it knew no boundaries
and flowed like a river. Technology on Earth grew in leaps and bounds, with
no thought to the consequences of actions.. we were unknowingly creating
demons, forces of dark powers filled and educated from information of the
day.

  The Palace was suddenly assaulted by these demons and caused anarchy,
disarray, and distrust to fall upon those conversing in the Palace. The
ruling council of the Palace was unable to cope and The Guardians, fighting
an unnatural force, turned upon themselves. Anarchy reigned. The demons,
slowly ate away at the palace like a cancer, infecting the other realms like
a disease.

  The Palace's foundations were gone, and the wearer travelers/war mongers
of the No Lands(barbarians), used this time to attack the Palace and gain
access to worlds that were before beyond their reach. Some rulers of the
Palace, now knowing the cause of their problems to have originated from
Earth's realms, encouraged the barbarians tribes to attack Earth's realm.

  Earth's rulers, in fear, sent their best warriors that had the
physical/mental capacity to fight the barbaric and dark forces of the
palaces realm. That were capable of seeing these demons, and surviving the
mental assault of the now dangerous Palace. Their orders "Reestablish
contact with ruling council members, purify Palace of unknown forces, and
protect Earth from the barbarians. If not probable, close the gateway to
Earth." This was a suicide mission! Earth's rulers knew what was to really
happen, the gateway would be closed thus sealing off the Earth from the
Palace, with the warriors from Earth trapped, possibly forever. At least the
Earth would be safe from an impending attack of forces built up against
them....upon it's unsuspecting citizens....


----------------------------------
      Additional notes/thoughts:

  The above story was written to leave open a lot of possibilities, it terms
of expansion, enemies, additional story lines, etc. However, it is
functional as is. Some things should be pointed out though.. : The palace is
a place/object that expands dimensions, it exist with all realms at the same
time. If a person were to pull away time/space here on earth, as a person
unwinds/unsews a knitted sweated, then what is underneath or beyond it
shines through.. i.e. a place where physical reality and mental spirit
collide. Thus, the palace exist here on earth, as well as all other
dimensions, but is unseeable from all sides.

  The palace is growing, crossing the turbulent energies of time/space like
freezing water.. it brings stability to the scenes behind time. However it
is fragile, one bad move or construction can shatter this area where the
palace is taking residence into tiny of thousands of pieces.. allowing warp
holes into realities.. known as black holes to us on earth(I thought it was
a nice touch.. :-)).

  The no-lands is an area that is best thought of as a spooky cellar or
basement to the palace. Here, in the no-lands, species evolve from the
negative energies of reality.. like a trash area. Here where negative energy
flows and thrives to form monsters/individuals of chaotic nature, are what
we know are barbarians. Not barbarians who carry clubs and wear animal fur,
but races of monsters whose purpose is to eat upon positivity.. so unless
your an evil person, you are an attractive meal in their sight. The monster
here can resemble anything like UFOs to energy personas.

  Earth's defenders may be actually trapped inside this world(hence, their
'Bad Mood') after closing the gate, but it also offers many opportunities to
them in other realms. This can be continued in other games or in one game,
gradually. Imagine going through different levels/areas of a palace, each
place changing graphically as you are entering into other world gateways,
even some  areas could change gradually in graphics like traveling down a
tunnel whose background changes slowly from an odd palace to a strange alien
world, etc. All dimensions effect this palace in some way or another.

  While earth's defenders are trapped(it could be possible for them to
return for a good ending) but in my original writing of the above story(the
ending to this game), they are now ready to adventure other lands and become
pseudo 'gods' from all their experiences. Not actual gods but very powerful.

----------------------------
   Thoughts about the level/game design:
- Saw blade projector, lauches rotating, spinning blades of sharp steel.
- Weapon probe, launches and flies through the air while shooting at enemies.
- Rubber bullets, some gun shotscan bounce off of walls.
- Net capture, lauches a net where it freezes the opponent temporarly.. even
an ice projectile would do this same effect.
- AI replicator machine, replicates a mirror image of you, and goes off by
itself.. shooting at enemies or other players.
- Enemy pod producer, launches enemies continuosly from a pod until the pod
is destoryed.. think about a machine that manufactures enemies, this is it.
Not all enemies come from here though, probably the vast majorioty wouldn't.
- Weapon pod producer, players don't usually just pick up new
weapons(sometimes they do) but instead must find separate pieces of plans,
much like a torn map, and then feed the information into the Weapon producer
that createsthe new weapon.
- Sneak mode, a mode that allows players to move more quiet(tip toe) and
even dims the graphics of the players character(deathmatch, etc) while in
stealth mode thus making you harder to see. Maybe even just an outline of
the character is visible but the bad point of this mode is that you are much
slower than normal.
- Leach projectile, a projectile that can be lauched onto monstes and players
that leach their energy into yours. Leaches must be shot, burned(by walking
into an explosion), or shaken off.
- Different sounding/reacting floors, floors makes different sounds while
being walked/ran upon.. such as sand, metal, plates, snow, etc. Even some
sliding will occur when a player is walking on snow/ice.
- Echo sounds, guns fired in hallways cause echos, same thing with voices.
- Rocket/grenades collide in the air to form a big explosion, not go
through each other.
- Other features such as crawling, hiding under platforms, ducking behind
objects, etc would enahnce gameplay tremendously.
- Different looking human fighters, have a few different looking human
fighters for player fights.. even monster looking.
- Trip wires, laser beam sensors, motion plates etc for setting off alarms.
-  Different ways to change the ways to seem, like a predator.

  I guess that's it for the moment. Let me know what your opinion is on these
so I can try to draft the list into a better form.

Thanks,
Robby


+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|Bertrand Le Roy      |A Darwinian theory of Gravitation:   |
|[e-mail]|In the beginning,  mature apples fell|
|tel. [phone]     |in all directions. But only the trees|
|fax. [phone]     |whose apples fell down have survived.|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|Laboratoire de Gravitation et Cosmologie Relativistes      |
|Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, tour 22-12, 4e etage     |
|4, place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05                     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+