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Would you still be willing to play a Silent Storm mod?

Diogo Ribeiro

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And if yes, just what would you like to see in it regarding:

Code:
a) Storyline:

1) A story-based campaign where fixed or player-created main characters go through their respective campaigns in a variety of exclusive missions dealing with the aftermath of the war and of Thor's Hammer spilling into the Cold War? A crossover into Hammer and Sickle, perhaps, or alternate situations?

2) 1) A story-based campaign where fixed or player-created main characters go through their respective campaigns in a variety of exclusive missions continuing the alternate timeline theme of the original and having it continue after Sentinels, potentially regarding the return of Thor's Hammer for their final attempt at world domination?

3) A story-based campaign where fixed or player-created main characters go through their respective campaigns in a variety of exclusive missions dealing with parallel or alternate depictions of World War 2 conflicts intertwined with Thor's Hammer activities?

4) A single campaign with any of the above options but changing sides (characters) ocasionally? Perhaps even teaming them up?

Code:
b) Powers involved:

1) Would you like to see distinct campaigns (with possible missions intertwining missions) with an American, British, Russian and German perspectives?

2) Or would you prefer seeing the standard Allies and Axis but given more depth and scope for each?

3) Whatever of the above, would you prefer to see campaigns with fixed endings that would relate the intentions and actions of each involved (ie, the Allies would manage to save Europe regardless of what was done, while ze Nazies would manage to conquer Europe?); or would you prefer to see each campaign to have at least two different endings depending on player decision, even if it meant a "choose your own ending in the last 2 minutes"?

Code:
c) Gameplay:

1) Would you be comfortable with the game maintaining the same basic structure of 3D models, textures, sounds, voiceovers, equipment etc.; or would you demand it had more of all of those?

2) How would you feel about multitiered or more varied missions which required different objectives, as well as multiple ways of achieving them?

3) How would you feel about bonus, optional missions (non-random) being added depending on secret information the characters would find which could reward them with new recruitable characters, bits of parallel stories, new equipment, etc.?
 

Naked_Lunch

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Story said:
1) <snip>
Yes, definitely this one. I've had my fill of Dubya-Dubya-Two and the Cold War is just a damned cool setting for a game.
Powers Involved said:
3) <snip>
I'd like to see more in-depth view of the respective nations, rather than just the sides. Going along with the Cold War motif, you could examine the impact of it on each country listed and so on and so forth. And yes, multiple endings for the win no matter what.

I don't really care about the adding in more 3D models, though new weapons would be neat. If it you can do it without it getting in the way of the meat of the game (spending too much time researching weapons and modeling them, rather than focusing on the gameplay) then go for it. If not, no big deal.

Definitely go for the multiple objectives with different ways of achieving them. I'm suprised you even asked, heh. The optional missions would be cool, too, along with random encounters along the map, such as stumbling upon the ruins of some secret bombed-out bunker and exploring it and finding secret documents inside that shed more light onto the story, characters, woteva.

Godspeed, RP. Can't wait to see what you come up with. The Silent Storm engine has a lot of potential, and Hammer & Sickle did a good job of unlocking some of it, but there's still room for improvement.
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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I would really like to see or even make something that did not necessarily rely on World War 2, although to imagine a follow up to Silent Storm and Sentinels would likely require some of its conventions to be used since it's still based on it, even if it has alternate events.

The crossover into Hammer and Sickle would be nice to explore, although I have no idea how the events of Sentinels add up to Hammer and Sickle since I have not played them. I read that H&S was happening in the same setting as Silent Storm and that it was an outcome of sorts, so I'd have to analyze it thoroughly to be very careful so as to not botch it up.

The addition of models is one of my main problems. If I know little about game engines and associated development tools, I know even less of 3D modeling. I had some ideas like adding more weapons, some vehicules and including new Panzerklein models but without technical expertise or any means on that field limits what I can do considerably.

I asked about the objectives because it's not uncommon to find people sticking with primary objectives and leaving secondary ones go to waste, and if that is definitely the case then would it be worth it from a development point of view to add multiple ways of solving primary and secondary goals if people will just adopt one path to victory and forget about secondary goals? The gamer in me would say 'yes' for obvious reasons, but the would be modder is flinching. Since I was writing up a mission structure that gradually presented more (and more varied) goals to perform in missions as well as ways to perform them, I'd have to strike some sort of balance between what I could include and what would provide a satsifying experience.

The concept of secret/bonus/optional missions is pretty much based on finding recon pictures or secret documentation providing hints of events (and subsequent locations) that could prove useful for the player who wants to get more out of the game. I must confess that this idea was lifted from Commandos 2 which I'm currently playing, but I really like that idea.

Thanks for wishing me luck :) although I have to seriously question just how much I can do with the engine and this will take some time to analyze as I don't want to launch into mod development only to find I'm going to come up short because I can't include this or that feature. For example, I'll have to see what exactly I can do regarding including new models because one of the things planned was to have Thor's Hammer develop a much more advanced Panzerklein variation - which would require modeling talents which I don't possess.

I'm still only writing up some core missions for one of the imagined campaigns yet, so we'll see how this turns out.
 

Crichton

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Jul 7, 2004
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Yes I would. I even fooled around with making one myself a while back, but it came to nothing.

Personally I never want to see the Cobra/Hydra SUPA SEKRET TERRORIST ORGANISATION ever again, that was probably in a tie (with "tanksmalls") for the worst idea in silent storm.

The 2nd place slot for worst idea was the Captain Planet international crime-fighting organisation, cut that too, stick with reasonable factions.

If people are sick of WWII, may I suggest the spanish civil war (Silent Storm already has most of the art you'd need), factions could include-

Franco's people
-Monarchists
-Carlist Monarchists
-Facists (with german advisors)
-Falangist Italians

Republicans
-Communists (with russian advisors)
-Anarchists
-Actual Republicans
-one of the international brigades (made up of either Americans, Brits or french)

You could pick two of the subfactions for each faction and follow them around, or have basically two campaigns and allow a choice of subfaction for each of them to give two possible endings for each campaign (example, for the republican campaign, be the republicans to restore the republic, be the comunists/internationalists to create a communist spain, for the Junta campaign, be a facist for a historical ending (dictatorship), or be a true monarchist to restore the throne).
 

Jason

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"I suggest the spanish civil war"

That's an excellent idea, Crichton. I'd totally be down for that. There's a lot of material that could be done with the international volunteers.
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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Well, the plan was to have Thor's Hammer reappear and make another move for world domination, taking advantage of a somewhat combat weary Europe; by association, the Panzerkleins would also follow. But unlike the original Silent Storm, I was looking at inserting Panzerkleins into the story and game in a more reasonable way instead of only adding them in the later minutes. The idea was to have players confront opposing forces and perform several types of missions depending on the gravity of the situation, ie, the closer you got to the location of Thor's Hammer the more Panzerkleins you'd confront (and possibly use). Until that part, players would generally perform missions without any PK intervention or use. However, this doesn't mean that PKs have to be unbalanced, god-like items; but I think it would be a waste to suppress the sci-fi elements in Silent Storm.

From the get go there's no plan for a worldwide, super organization. It's basically about Thor's Hammer taking advantage of Europe's state right after the war and demonstrating their power. They do this by either launching an offensive against specific Allied targets, or by almost levelling an entire city which may have Allied interests in it, thus getting their attention. One suggested way of doing this was to have Thor's Hammer do their move in 1945, when post-war Germany was partitioned by the Allies into four military-occupied regions controlled by British, American, French and Russian powers. If an attack was made there, each nation would likely have a reason to get involved.

Spanish Civil War sounds interesting, although I'm not sure it would be something I'd pursue now. I'm not even sure I can do what I am thinking, much less tackle that. However, that's a good suggestion and I'll keep it in mind.

EDIT: Only problem at this point is that this somewhat excludes a German campaign, unless I somehow go out of my way and link Germany with Thor's Hammer.

Ho ho ho, Hitler's not dead bitches!
 

kingcomrade

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What about World War One. Why do people always overlook it? Almost all of the WW1 guns are already in the game anyways. WW1 has a wonderful and untapped setting. I'd like to see a game based on a squad of Frenchies or something. And there are practically no WW1 games out there.
 

LCJr.

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Panzerkleins have to go. Practically everybody hated them.

Spanish Civil War would be an excellent setting and far as I know has never been done.

If you're after post-WW2 something modeled after the small "bush wars" in Africa might be interesting. Instead of a super-duper terrorist organization the big baddie could be a ruthless "profit by any means" mulitnational corporation trying to exploit a regions mineral wealth or simply a fading colonial power trying to maintain the last vestiges of it's empire.
 

bryce777

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Don't limit yourself to the original story arcs as they are nothing special. Just make sure not to use panzerkleins or if you do then as a special challenge where tehre is no more than one at a time.

As for models, why there are plenty of them already. I would love to see a silent storm mod where unlike the original game things didn't fall apart at the end....
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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World War 1 would be a good setting. It's as good as an idea as using the Spanish Civil War. However, I'd like to reiterate that I am planning on working with the Silent Storm setting and more specifically, a follow up to the official storyline. I could try to make a mod which presented different ages, or different war theaters wheter realistic or imagined. If I ever get anywhere with this mod, it might just convince me to do one of those. It's a good idea and something worth trying; it's true that there aren't enough World War 1 games out there. But currently none of that is part of my plan.

I'd also like to point out that I expect Panzerkleins to very much be in it. I am not going to remove them because presumably "everyone" disliked them. I liked them; that alone indicates that not everyone hated them. This isn't to say I think they were expertly used in the game. I don't think they were. I enjoyed their concept but the application was most definitively flawed, as I said so myself here. I can't promise their inclusion or the way they will he handled will please everyone. If you're one of those people that can't stand Panzerkleins in the game, then I'm sorry but if this mod ever gets finished will only disappoint you. You can pretty much forget about anything else I say at this point because that's not going to change anytime soon. But because I dislike how they were used in the official game should be enough to suggest I will look into ways of improving them. I may fail, true. But it's terribly easy and shortsighted to suggest getting rid of something simply because it wasn't as good as it could have been, and I prefer to fail miserably than to not even try.

I also don't think this is a question of limiting myself to the original story arcs. I'm not quite doing much with them either, as I'm just imagining a follow up to the events in them and forwarding the story by using common elements - war, opposing forces, a catalyst for conflict - as themes. Sure, Thor's Hammer is in, so are Panzerkleins. It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the same thing all over again.
 

bryce777

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"But it's terribly easy and shortsighted to suggest getting rid of something simply because it wasn't as good as it could have been, and I prefer to fail miserably than to not even try."

Well, the issue is they were intolerably slow. Unless you can change that then 99% of the people out there will dislike your mod if it centers around them.
 

Crichton

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I wouldn't say the speed was really that big a deal, the real problem is that they're both unmanuvrable and invulnerable to conventional weapons, so rather than a pseudo-modern skirmish tactics game where you're trying to maximise cover and stealth to gain a favorable position and the element of surprise, a game of 5 on 5 all "tanksmalls" is like final fantasy or KOTOR, you just roll up and blaze away until someone drops, position is meaningless, any weapon that isn't a laser weapon is irrelevant. If everyone has laser weapons, than it's just a matter of luck, if you have all laser-weapons and the computer doesn't, it's just a slaughter and if you don't have laser weapons, it's probably hopeless, invisable scouts with katanas can kill them (at the higher levels, the stealth system is utterly borked), some snipers can also kill them with the magic headshot.
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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The mod won't center around them. You can quote me on that. The campaign is, as I've said, centered around the return of Thor's Hammer. Yes, Panzerklein will still be available but the larger part of the campaigns won't feature them until the later levels. While this won't follow the same pattern as Silent Storm, which suddenly made the suits of armor available for the last missions and left it at that, their inclusion is gradual and mostly left to the later stages where Thor's Hammer will attack on large scale with their Panzerkleins, both standard issue and new prototypes.

But as I was saying, a large part of each character's campaign is to go across Europe into specific points so they can mount a large offensive against Thor's Hammer. This will involve things ranging from frontal assaults, to espionage, to sabotage (I can't stand it, I know you planned it'), to rescuing POWs, to stealth, to disruption of convoys, even to prison breaks, etc. Panzerkleins, at this point will only become available in the later segments of the campaigns and are definitely not the focus of the mod. They will be featured, but will not impact the game to that degree.

Because Panzerkleins are basically invulnerable to most conventional attacks, with the exception of aimed shots to the pilot's head or explosive damage I won't be using them as you fear. There are some tricks planned to reduce their effectiveness, such as heat increasing their temperature and affecting the pilot.

Panzerkleins are mostly there to be used against Thor's Hammer's armored forces, mainly against an all-out invasion of theirs. You won't be able to deck out one platoon full of PKs and launch them against standard infantry in standard missions. By the time you have a PK for each party member, you will almost certainly need it to fight only other PKs as that will be pretty much all that's coming at you. Hopefully there will be a couple of new Panzerklein models also but they are mostly experimental and their use will be limited. Some prototypes will attempt to trade speed for power while others will try to do other tricks... But since they're experimental there will be some side effects; you'll have to decide which is best, potential or actual rate of success.

I'd appreciate it if people stopped telling me Panzerkleins suck and actually gave some input regarding the story elements I've suggested because PKs to me are a non-issue, and will remain that way.
 

LCJr.

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Face it Panzerklieins suck. They ruined what was a decent/mediocre squad-based tactical game.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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Fuck the stupid Panzerkleins. I'm pretty sure you're the only one that liked them, so good luck with that. I'd think the purpose of a mod would be to improve on the original game, not include its weaknesses. You should at least incorporate one of the various mods available for SS that makes them suceptible to certain conventional weapons to offset their retarded-ness a bit.
 

bryce777

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You can't attack them with a katana. God knows I tried. I had a lot of luck coming up from behind with a sniper and doing tommy gun bursts to the head, but one false move and you're toast. I ended up just going to their max range and hunkering down and rotating my troops as they got injured until the enemy bullets ran out most of the time. What great fun that is!

The stealth 'scout' panzerklein was the lollercaust to me. Sneaking up on someone in a tank to attack them with a sword!

I agree this guy is the only one I have heard of who actually liked them.
 

bryce777

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"Well, the issue is they were intolerably slow. Unless you can change that then 99% of the people out there will dislike your mod if it centers around them."

Which you never agreed with, so I assume you don't plan to do so, which would make this mod about as fun as masturbating with a cheesegrater.
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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bryce777 said:
Which you never agreed with

I said I didn't like their implementation, which should have been enough of a clue that I actually agreed.

so I assume you don't plan to do so

I said I was planning to work out some of the problems with them and even mentioned the inclusion of a new kind of Panzerklein that traded speed for power, which should also have been enough of a clue that I plan to fix those - and other - problems.

I assume you're being intentionally dense and looking for some kind of entertainment because masturbating just isn't quite cutting it for you.
 

Crichton

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You can't attack them with a katana. God knows I tried.

My invisable scout used to cut them up nicely using katana blows to the head (since it's late-game silent storm, everything's a headshot, sigh), anything that can hit the head consitantly seems to work which is why snipers can also kill them. It still took 2-5 turns of slicing though, so my scout would have to walk up to them, slash them 2-3 times (aimed slashes to the head) and then walk back to his hiding place, it was tedius, but as long as I didn't get sloppy and let him get spotted, it always worked.

It doesn't change the fact that PK's blow chunks, it was just one bug (the stealth system) counteracting another one (man-amp VOLTRON suits). I have no idea why nival went through all that trouble making a good engine with good WWII era art to make a sad GI-Joe rip off. Oh well, if you just ignore the strategic game and play a non-PKmission while pretending that you're playing a WWII era skirmish game, it's still fun.
 

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