Animals - Even if radioactive ;) we need.

[Merowingg]

Hello Gentlemen

I have just been recalling good old times when I was playing Age of Empires 3 and an idea come to my mind.

I know the word of the year 2100 is almost entirely destroyed and except the Scavengers who are sort of animals our maps are rather dead

What if some wondering here there and everywhere animals were implemented? On Urban it can be dogs on Rocky Mountains maybe deers? and on Arizona Coyotes? Something alive and it groups, that would escape when you approach it, and when angled smashed with tanks, or killed by shooting.

Even a bird from time to time could fly the sky. It would be Crow, Eagle and.. vulture?

Those are only suggestions, it can be anything other within reason, and considered to be able to breed in 2100.

Also the animals could make clouds of dust, and appear on the map, which would be to destruct a player, as radars would pick them.

I have so many suggestions I wish those were so easy to implement as maps

[aubergine]

For old gamers like me, a camel that I could target with VTOL missiles would be much appreciated (I can't remember what game it was in, something with helicopters IIRC). And maybe sheep like in Settlers or Widelands.

In order to provide animals, we'd need:

* Someone to make models / textures and basically get the animals available in the game
* A 'factory' for producing animals (maybe a special type of tree?)
* A player script associated with player 99 (map features) so we could provide an AI for features

I've already been working on a "flee" script that makes units flee an object, including moving objects. So it would be possible to have animals moving around, grouping and ungrouping randomly, and running away when tanks approach. The animals would just be custom droids for player 99.

If we had birds, and had some way to determine when there is a loud noise, we could have them suddenly fly out of trees all scared, and flock to some other trees elsewhere (trees = bird rearming pads). Birds would just be custom-designed vtols for player 99.

Player troops won't attack features (or stuff owned by player 99) unless instructed to do so. So the animals would just roam around mostly unharmed, unless things near them start exploding or burning or a player decides to go animal hunting.

Other benefits of animals are the ability to put engine sound effects with them to add more atmosphere to maps.

And, because animals are droids, they can attack (not that they'd be able to kill anything other than perhaps scav infantry). So we could have birds with, erm... "bombs" dropping on to enemy troops. And camels spitting green phlegm...

If we could add a tornado or UFO, we could even have cows flying in to the air...

[aubergine]

... and, if there was an invisible truck unit, it could construct new features - so forests could slowly grow new trees and stuff.

And I've always wanted tumbleweeds on arizona maps...

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Sounds like something that ought to be in a list of features to implement in the not-so-immediate future, alongside placeable ambient sound effects, and weather effects.

[Lord Apocalypse]

So radioactive snow.. sand storms etc.

As for animals.. Not really.. a growing forest sounds interesting but don't really need the animals. We could however use more animal sounds.

In Neverwinter Nights when creating an area you could place sounds and set the audio type, volume, and several other things. Was always nice to have scattered about for crickets and other sounds. Could also set what times the sounds would play so certain sounds would only happen during the day or night.. have the sounds of large crowd in a market while only using a few dozen NPCs set to wander about with random dialogue. There is a good bit that can be learned from the NWN toolset (including how it could be used to place triggers, waypoints, sounds, etc.)

err forgot one.. Tumbleweeds could be part of the particle system since they would be small enough. No need for a model if you have a texture that looks like a tumbleweed. Just use some billboards or point sprites. Particle systems are a cheap way to create great eye candy.

[Merowingg]

aubergine I have to admit I was reading your line about invisible truck to find sarcasm in it.. and I am yet not sure if you are or not, although you have said something about forest and arizona balls before.

And at the very beginning I would like to say I know we have 999 other more important things to do. I just wanted to point out that our post nuclear word is so dead that I am sometimes happy to see the Scavengers

Aubergine maybe not tree, but a couple of trees? I already have crazy ideas how I would use it

Shadow Wolf TJC I do know Sir as I mentioned that are extra wishes, but still Ideas and Suggestions

Can you please give me ling to those ambient sounds and water sounds? And what ambient would be attached to? And indeed our water is so calm

Lord Apocalypse Why se serious Sir think how dead dead our maps are. What our armies eat? what scavengers eat? we have already established they drink high percentage oil, but eat? Why animals are bad?

And forest trees cracking with nice cound under tanks or burn with flames from a flamer

P.S.

Ups I see I begun to smileylaze again, I will improve. <no smiley here>

[Rman Virgil]

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First thing that occured to me in relation to this was the scale of scavengers which you can barely discern at the games normal play view distance. Can't imagine anything smaller than a full grown cow. Now mutant flora and fauna like in the classic 1950s SciFi horror flix might present some interesting possibilties - tarantulas the size of Hummers perhaps.

After that line of thought something else jumped at me. If the option to port WZ to Torque were ever to gain any real traction the downside of the whole scavenger scale thing would become moot. The reason for that being that stock Torque has a rather unique capability when it comes to making maps. You can make a 3rd person POV map like WZs that can also have FP POV scale portal adjunct. That opens up worlds of possibilites with experiencing gameplay all the way around. But, all rather pie in the sky at this time.

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[Virus- A]

very good, but should be a very small thing, would be a bit unusual to see a dog as scavenger bus.
I'll be honest, I hardly see scavengers, imagine a dog more tiny.
is very good, I like your idea

[Lord Apocalypse]

.

The reason for that being that stock Torque has a rather unique capability when it comes to making maps. You can make a 3rd person POV map like WZs that can also have FP POV scale portal adjunct. That opens up worlds of possibilites with experiencing gameplay all the way around. But, all rather pie in the sky at this time.

.

I don't see why the WZ terrain engine cannot be made to have such a view. As long as the gui can be changed over cleanly from an RTS typical view to an FPS POV why not do it. Would probably take a little more work on the terrain engine but I think it might be worth it. Especially if the graphics will be using more shaders and more extended graphics tech such as normal maps, spec/diffuse, and a greater degree of freedom with animations (extended submeshes anyone?).

On the subject of submeshes... WZ to some extent already uses this though is is rather primitive to behold...

Anyway, time to wrap up before I stray too far off topic.

[Rman Virgil]

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Such a seminal possibility could be but I think between here and there we are seperated by at least one parsec and a metaphorical FTL transit has never existed in this domain, nor will it ever.

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[Galacticruler]

For old gamers like me, a camel that I could target with VTOL missiles would be much appreciated (I can't remember what game it was in, something with helicopters IIRC).

Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 perhaps?