i would like to post a good idea or two for nodding projects:

modded campaign

Titanfall map/mod. Recreating the feel of large units amongst a bunch of small ones.

Workers party mod. Only workers. Victory conditions include revolution and resource collection.

Environment mod. Constant resource dwindle endangers players.

'Modded campaign' is very vague and includes pretty much every project I've ever attempted to do, whether the attempt was successful or not, so you might want to establish some more specific ideas that use a singleplayer experience.

Titanfall's concept could be ported successfully into SC:BW from an RTS perspective but not from any other perspective since the title doesn't support that kind of gameplay (which is a similar flaw with installation/commando missions, in that they attempt to offer distinctive gameplay but generally lack the kind of polish or compelling playability that the core RTS values of the game hold dear).

I believe 'workers party' has been attempted, but I'm not sure that taking one aspect of the game and making it the only victory condition (in this case, we're talking about resource collection) is a sound idea for a project's core direction. 'Revolution' is too vague by itself to mean anything significant in the context of gameplay, so you should probably elaborate.

You can have dwindling resources through triggers so I'm sure something like that is possible through modding (even if it requires .trg modifications), but explain more about the environment and how it endangers players. Also, what causes the resources to constantly dwindle? Do some pop up in various locations at the same time as others are depleted? What else can we do with this concept?

By modded campaign I largely meant just finishing one. Corbo had the idea of a mod with campaigns that utilize the standard T Z P menu screen for campaign/single payer selection, and it would be nice to work on a multi-worker project again, having distinct modders, mappers, and so on.

I was actually thinking of something a bit like sniper maps in SCBW with added functionality and twists like calling down large GRP Goliaths, jumping mechanics through plugin and scripting, etc. This would largely be a technical demo but I imagine that a polished project would be fun.

Workers Party: it was mostly a joke. However: resource collection need not be the only victory condition. Standard destroy all buildings could remain. Revolution was very much a joke, but it could be implemented as periodic unit redistribution. Every x min (or when a mechanical condition is fulfilled under the player's control), some y units owned by player p is randomly given evenly to ask other players (and maybe neutral player as well).

Resource dwindling: This is the most serious idea I've had and an old one. By resource I mean any factor in the game that a player normally interacts with that will continuously decrease, pressuring the player to complete the objective (enemy destruction or whatever else). This might be a standard melee mod with the addition of conditions like "your gas continually decrements and if it hits zero you lose or your units start dying" a la typical survival genre premises. The current idea I intend to experiment with is unit fuel: units require fuel to move and movement without fuel will cause unit damage. That is to say, "resource" is an abstraction of any useful factor.

Another example of this idea is a mod idea inspired by the idea of heat loss (a winter themed mod someone released) and environment radiation: player gas, "lead", was continually decreased and hitting 0 would start causing buildings and/or units to sustain damage.

Similarly: every x minutes, all units not inside a transport or bunker or other unit-hiding space takes heavy damage/dies, to mimic the effect of natural disasters. (here, the resource is like hp). There is opportunity to construct very interesting gameplay here. A battle between two players might be occurring, the battle is even. A storm is about to occur and both players have safety transports nearby. However, one player has a unit with lockdown. That player locks down the enemy transport and retreats safely from the storm. The enemy player suffers losses because they cannot put their units in the transport.

Things like that.

Ideas that are 'mostly a joke' will generally not be treated as such when posted in a thread with a topic like 'very good modding ideas'.

I wouldn't really be personally interested in working on a project with a team of other people, but I'll share my expertise in testing, voice acting, music composing, etc. if I feel the project's qualities are worth the time investment.

I can't see why "joke" ideas need to strictly be "bad" ideas. A joke idea can still be good.


Sand Wraith started this topic because of me having an idea for a mod. (I'm guessing?) It actually started as a SC2 campaign I had written for when I was still attempting to map for SC2.


The idea consists on the mod being the one and only true TC. I've always had the idea of creating such thing. Even our current mods that could be called TCs are not really such thing. I actually started making my TC under the name "Legacy Alchemy" where I had already modified a lot of the UI (.bin files) beyond recognition by using a hell bunch of smks
Farty might have some screenshots of that mod, I lost everything unfortunately.


Though, my current idea is making a mod completely based on space and the early terran colonies, So like starcraft BEFORE starcraft and the history of the three terran ships that departed from earth in order to coolonize the koprulu sector. You know the deal, terrans came in three ships, one colonized Tarsonis which became the confederacy, the other ones stablished Morian and Umojans.

So basically having the three "races" act like a commandment for those ships. You could freely choose which ship you'd like to control (without that pesky "must finisg ACT I first" message) and your main objective (campaign-wise) would be to stablish a working colony. Upon controlling said "ships" (clicking the ship's missions) you'd be sent on to the star map to the missions you can do. Those being planet colonizations, space exploration, resource gathering missions and such and these missions, instead of being in a listed form just like SC1 does right now, they'd be presented in a "starmap" form. Meaning you'd have to be knowledge able in smk editing and it'd also take some clever .bin editing as well.

This idea is without a doubt very possible, like I said, I have already done it for a previous mod. And it does not even begin to cover a lot of aspects a true TC should have, I'm just talking about how the main storyline of the mod would affect the main UI I would dare say that the hardest part would be finding the old smacker tools to create the smks I remember it took me a while to find them back then, I have no idea how hard it would be now, 5 years later

I'm interested in some collective brainstorming, especially since there are so few modders now, it's sad.
farty and i don't really even make any mods lol

(p.s. "very good modding ideas" was a joke as well, but we all know jokes make the best mods)

funguscraft

EDIT:

I think I might have the old smacker tools.

With some C++ plugins, we could be reading/writing files as I originally intended my "Little Map" experiment to do, and use these files to record data and game progress and alter in-game states. (I'm not so certain for outside-game states though.)

These are from my previous mod:








The first one would have played a cinematic as an introduction. Cool concept, right? atm it was just a placeholder (the staredit icon)

Then there's was the menu with the missions. Split in three and smks were animated and had hover animations because I can.

I'll upload the mod so you can play with it. Also, somebody should play it in a map with water to see how it looks. It does say color cycling in the title so it might have some testings I did with color cycling.



EDIT: I just noticed the font was also modded. Guess I really was going for a full TC
http://www.mediafire.com/download/myjwyn5ovnm/Legacy+Alchemy+Cycling.rar

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 11 2015, 11:04 pm by Corbo.