Well, one thing that *might* work is a take on the Battle Royale mode. In Firefall we had a test PvP map called "collapsing melding pocket" which was a shrinking area of melding and a last man standing type thing. Given how popular battle royale is, I'm sort of kicking myself for not pushing to release it.
The problem with PvP in Em-8ER is that players abilities and weapons can be anything, and customized for PvE which may not be fun when used against another player.
But we can have a mode where its a BR type map, and a shrinking terraforming bubble. You start with your frame choice (light/med/heavy), and there are free resources scattered on the map (no thumping req).
You run around collecting these resources and then insta-crafting them into weapons and abilities, a fixed set or recipes that we deem "balanced" for PvP. That way you start to equip weapons and abilities as you play.
You play individually, or in teams or with your armies.
This *might* work, and it's a take on an original, unreleased Firefall PvP map mode.
The problem with PvP in Em-8ER is that players abilities and weapons can be anything, and customized for PvE which may not be fun when used against another player.
But we can have a mode where its a BR type map, and a shrinking terraforming bubble. You start with your frame choice (light/med/heavy), and there are free resources scattered on the map (no thumping req).
You run around collecting these resources and then insta-crafting them into weapons and abilities, a fixed set or recipes that we deem "balanced" for PvP. That way you start to equip weapons and abilities as you play.
You play individually, or in teams or with your armies.
This *might* work, and it's a take on an original, unreleased Firefall PvP map mode.
There is no video update for this week. We've been working through a few things.
First off we have been doing a lot of housekeeping this past week that just doesn't make for good video. Our team size has grown by three more members, and we have to switch to source control to allow us to all work together. We had to research and identify the least bad tool for the job (they all have pros and cons, esp give our large binary files and world distributed team), figure out where we wanted to host it, and start setting up our projects and art and source files there. We've selected Assembla and SVN to host our repositories and are in the process of training everyone and getting everybody (and all the assets we've made) into source control this week.
We've have been working on the missile swarm system as our first test of a weapon blueprint system, animations, models and a lot of R&D about how we want to set up our animation graphs, etc. I've also had to rebuild parts of the Omniframe to allow for better animation. These are still in progress and we hope to show you some of this next week.
Thanks for all your feedback on weapon types. Last week we asked if you agreed with our choices of an "SMG that doesn't suck," a Plama-Cannon style projectile weapon, and alt-fire Nova, and a shoulder mounted missile swarm. You also gave us a ton of additional "nice to haves" or weapons that you want to see in game, including engineer turrets and a return of the healing beam (and other healing weapons) of the BioTech from FF. Great job! We're as excited as you all are to see some of these in the final version of the game.
Thanks again and we'll be back with a video update next week!
First off we have been doing a lot of housekeeping this past week that just doesn't make for good video. Our team size has grown by three more members, and we have to switch to source control to allow us to all work together. We had to research and identify the least bad tool for the job (they all have pros and cons, esp give our large binary files and world distributed team), figure out where we wanted to host it, and start setting up our projects and art and source files there. We've selected Assembla and SVN to host our repositories and are in the process of training everyone and getting everybody (and all the assets we've made) into source control this week.
We've have been working on the missile swarm system as our first test of a weapon blueprint system, animations, models and a lot of R&D about how we want to set up our animation graphs, etc. I've also had to rebuild parts of the Omniframe to allow for better animation. These are still in progress and we hope to show you some of this next week.
Thanks for all your feedback on weapon types. Last week we asked if you agreed with our choices of an "SMG that doesn't suck," a Plama-Cannon style projectile weapon, and alt-fire Nova, and a shoulder mounted missile swarm. You also gave us a ton of additional "nice to haves" or weapons that you want to see in game, including engineer turrets and a return of the healing beam (and other healing weapons) of the BioTech from FF. Great job! We're as excited as you all are to see some of these in the final version of the game.
Thanks again and we'll be back with a video update next week!