answers to your questions!
Hello Friends! I'm sorry it took me a couple days to get back. I see there were a lot of questions, I'll do my best to answer them all.
First off, our priority is not to make an MMO. An MMO is just a goal thats out there to look forward to. We will only make it if there's enough demand. What I'm still talking to my team about is creating a map, character and item editor and letting the public have fun with it. That will be later on, I think opening the game to user generated content will be way cooler than an MMO.
In any case, we will immediately make a multiplayer game as soon as our single player is done. We haven't done any work on it yet because we're still trucking away with the single player game. Because we haven't started work on it, if you guys would like to see anything in it let us know! The floor is open!
andrzej - Thanks for your comments on the camera movement. With your criticism and others on this threaed we're going to change up the camera. I'll post a video once its done (within a week or two) and see if you guys like it more.
Yes, our zombie sounds are not where we want them to be now now but I've just gotten a really good sound resource that we're going to update the zombie sounds from. The product we got to update our sounds is here:
http://boomlibrary.com/boomlibrary/inde ... icle&id=27 It is SICK!
The guys who made these sound effects did a really good job. I look forward to using them for our zombies.
You also asked about random generation, maps, missions etc. Well, we dont have randomly generated maps. We have to build each one on our own. But there are missions that are random. Its going to work like this- There will be campaign missions where you can follow a story, and there will also be random missions. You can do either how ever you want but in order to progress in the game story you might have to do some random missions to boost up your skills before taking on the harder campaign mission.
Our stat skill system is the pride of the game. In this game, you dont get to pick stats when you level up. Instead- how you play the game will say how you level up. If you use shotguns a lot, your character's skills with that weapon will increase. Carry a heavy pack? Your strength will increase. RUN! Your speed will increase over time. We wanted to break away from the way most games have been going with level up systems. There is also a complex 'doctrine' system thats similar to reading books in EVE online. There will be skills you can learn from books, battlefield journals (ex. Rommel's War Diary will increase your skills at driving a tank) and other read-y things. ALso, there will be trainers that will send you on missions that will increase specific skills. So, theres a LOT of ways to go.
M4BE1R0- see what I wrote at the beginning regarding the MMO. Basically it's a goal we have written in pencil.
villain of the story - Im going to PM you with a link to a youtube video. Once we change up the camera this week we'd like to see what you think. I'll post the link in this thread too.
Teepo- You've nailed it! What I dont have is the unique encounters. We are definately going to do this now as per you and Aldebaran's advice. What we can't do at this point is have a map full of just lone hermits you learn skills from. What's important to us is 'Sanctuary,' the safe haven of survivors. Sanctuary is important for gameplay and for our story and is where there will be everything from trainers, dealers to mission agents. Sanctuary's ability to survive is the goal of all the uninfected people on the map. Thanks for your comments on possibly becoming an apprentice. Check out my response to Andrezj where I covered our game's level up system.
Something cool we want to do that's kind of like the encounter is having a bandit's den. Not everyone in the post apocalyptic world is going to be a good guy. Somewhere in the city we'd want the hideout for the bad guys who aren't zombies. Some special missions can come from them- but most importantly there will be the gambling arena. We plan to implement a module that lets you capture zombies, bring them in and make them fight other zombies and then bet on them. If you manage to capture a zombie boss, id bet a lot of money. : )
We have a lot of loot and weapons but we don't have a lot of vehicles. We will make more with DLC's but currently there is a car, a jeep and a tank. In the first release of the game this is all we'll be able to do. If there's enough people playing it you can be assured there will be lots of new vehicles.
sgc_meltdown - does your SGC have anything to do with stargate command? I just finished watching an episode of SG1 and your handle made me think of that. In our current beta state, our game balance is off and I pretty much do everything I can to get a machine gun. Dont worry though when we're done its not going to be like that. Balancing the game is a very high priority for us once we have all of the game mechanics in.
The editors of this site invited me to write a monthly journal about my game development. If you guys want me to cover anything specific let me know! If not I'm going to start from the beginning and talk about managing a software team. I'll have some very good lessons on leadership in it. Being in the military I think I have a unique perspective on leadership that I bring to the game development scene.