My new Halo game idea

[ferret304]

-snip-
Weapons will NOT be able to be customized (scopes, grips, heavy barrels, what have you) YET. Everything will be based on your player stats.

As for armor. I think that armor shouldn't effect stats. Once we start assigning stat bonuses to armor parts, we almost steer players to certain armors depending on their play type, rather than what they want to look like. So by assigning + agility to H4 variants, and say the player wants to play more as a tank but like a certain H4 perm, he won't get to play the way he wants because the stats are limiting him. The only restriction would be that Spartans can only wear MJOLNIR, marines can only wear marine armor, grunts can only wear grunt armor, etc. etc.

So to sum it all up, damage and stamina and all that will be solely decided on player stats. By leveling your character you can upgrade your health, damage, etc. and your class bonus adds a little extra. -snip-

Also, may I add my two cents here? I think customizable weapons would be a rather good idea (especially with cryengine, because it already has an attachment system that we could take advantage of) personally, customizable weapons have been something I've always wanted in a halo game, so things like different ammo types, grips, scopes, flashlights, butts, ammo counters, etc.
Also in regards to armour types: How deep would we want to go with armour? Personally, I am all for different armour pieces giving different perks, but limited, in a sense. For example, if one player picks out, say, the h4 recon helmet, that might give them, say, extended radar scan range or something like that, but there would also be other armour pieces that have that same function, so it's not solely that armour piece. Also, maybe we have ways of installing the same things into different armour pieces? So if a player wanted the radar scan range bonus from the recon helm, they could take that, and plug it into, say, the halo reach MkV helmet, but it might need a specific skill to modify armor pieces like that.

 

[spartan spec ops]

Or you could just have a way to assignor buy stats you want for each body part then just equip armor

like legs agility 5
2nd legs lockec till officer
Head recon 5
And so on then choose the armor you want

 

[Demogorgon]

----

I really would like to have customizable weapons, I just didn't know how complex it would be to do.

I really like your idea of the player being able to add stats to armor parts by making it a skill, like putting items in slots on an armor piece. I think I'm just over-thinking things haha.

----

I also like this idea.

 

[Lonewolf260]

I really would like to have customizable weapons, I just didn't know how complex it would be to do.

I really like your idea of the player being able to add stats to armor parts by making it a skill, like putting items in slots on an armor piece. I think I'm just over-thinking things haha.



I also like this idea.

Also able to add scopes, silencers, etc

-Ian

 

[Lonewolf260]

I just played the last level on halo reach and you know how you visor cracks then you take it off? how about armor will get damaged then when its too weak it does a quick 3rd person cinematic of you ripping it off? it would be kinda cool i think.
then you have to find more armor
-Ian

 

[ferret304]

I just played the last level on halo reach and you know how you visor cracks then you take it off? how about armor will get damaged then when its too weak it does a quick 3rd person cinematic of you ripping it off? it would be kinda cool i think.
then you have to find more armor
-Ian

Ooooh. I like this idea, although with spartans, it could be a bit hard if it's anything except a helmet, 'coz they normally have machines to remove their armour pieces, and, in-lore, it's supposed to be a very complicated process. Also, Demogorgon, in regards to customizable weapons, scopes, silencers, flashlights, and rail attachments already have built-in support in cryengine... It takes a little bit of... "gentle persuasion" to get them working, but they are there

 

[Master Builder]

This would not be possible with out a large team that knows what there doing. A few things to point out.

Sense this is a Halo game what are the environments going to be like? Now skyrim works because it has a very basic landscape, just mountains, flat lands, trees, and small castles and the such. So skyrim doesn't have major problems with drawing stuff out far. But if you where to make a world as big as skyrim but yet have it be Halo. The only way I can see it working is separating the cities to a entirely different part of the wold. Because you wont be able to stand on you big mountain and over look into new mombasa (that would be cool though). So you have to think more on the technical side when it come to how the world is laid out and what kind of inhabitants will be in the open environment.

The whole idea sounds good and would be functional except for the world. I like the idea of keeping everything in one world, like Skyrim. But not will not be possible unless the world is a none-heavily inhabited world (like Skyrim). Having big cities will not fit into the picture, also having enough lever designers to build these world/cites.

Skyrim worked because it have a lot of modular pieces. If you where to stray from that, you would need a lot more people
then what was working on Skyrim in the first place.

It is a good idea though.

 

[Demogorgon]

-Snip-

It's much more feasible than you might think with a small team. Major cities and dungeons within Skyrim are all separate from the open map. Every time you see the loading screen, it's loading up the new map of the city or dungeon and the open world part is dramatically reduced to no clutter, reduced resolutions, etc. The way we plan on doing this within CryEngine is the map will be cut up into squares. Once you get to a certain point, the next square loads, only having the adjacent squares in the memory. Clutter will not be visible until a certain distance away to reduce resources needed. Major cities will be their own map while rendering a very basic version of the open map surrounding the city. Essentially, you are not rendering the entire map all at once, just loading the map section you are in and adjacent to you and rendering within a certain radius around the player for the clutter.

Standing on top of a hill, overlooking New Mombasa is possible by eliminating clutter and lowering resolution slightly of the textures. So the open map will show a low-def version of the city and the high-def version is loaded when you enter the city gates.

The number of level designers really don't need to be plentiful. One or two would do the trick just fine. Because we are using extracted assets from the actual Halo games for the "Iconic Locations", we don't have to recreate the entire city, just load up the extracted map (of course it's easier said than done.)

So logically thinking, we will be loading 9 sections at a time, only rendering the clutter within a certain radius. This SHOULD be a successful way of creating a large, open world without depleting your resources too heavily.

 

[spartan spec ops]

Well you might start making a team list ane seeing who has what skills youll need a few writers programmers a test team coders for areas not done yet and all that

 

[Master Builder]

Yeah I know of all the level loading techniques. I'll see if I can explain the ones that I know here.

First off you have it like a Halo or call of duty game. vary linear but as soon as you get close to one end of the level the other is loaded. So you get seamless loading without even noticing. This is probably the easiest, efficient, and smoothest way, but it's limited to linear path.

Next you have chunks (like minecraft), and they are just like you think. you can adjust how many you render if front of you but you will always get that effect of thing popping up in front of you especially land masses, and you wont be able to see that far. and of course depending on where you are it could have a dramatic change in resources needed to render the chucks you are in. allso it take a lot more cpu power because you are always loading as you go.

Next you could have it like skyrim. where you have a few LOD's in the actual level geometry, witch is no big deal. But you will still need to have the cities and any other heavily occupied areas separate, witch is still no bid deal, and in a game like skyrim it works, but do note that nothing in skyrim is saved like Deus Ex, and what I mean by this is no object data like positions, people, and the such is saved when you leave the area (except your house and maybe the cities). That is why it can load so fast.

Most all the dungeons are made up of modular props, witch really cuts down on level building, loading, file size, and of course handcrafted-ness.

Shrinking the textures is called mipmapping. It shrinks the texture by the power of 2 as many times as you want, it only takes 1/3 more data in the texture file. All games use it.

Also you can not use assets from all the Halo games. It would be more trouble then it's worth and they wouldn't look as good as if you where to make all new ones. And don't even think about extracting the maps, there are a lot of rules you have to follow just in making them and you will have to go back and weld every single vertex that was split by the smoothing groups/hard edges caused when exported. Also you would have to re assign all materials. And if you where to use any assets from anything older then Halo 3, they would not have any normal maps or baking.

I do have an idea for seamless level loading that I haven't seen used yet. I'll have to wip up a diagram to show.
You need at least one codder that has a lot of experience, or this project would be over before it even started. And believe me, I've been a part of a few projects and have see many many more fail because of not being able to find coders that are willing to work for free, or having them quite.

I do not mean to sound rude at all. I really like the idea, I just want to point out some big problems that you will run into if you are not prepared.

So basically you NEED some people know how to coded systems for a game like this. The rest like level design, modeling, animation are not something you should worry about.

If you can really make this turn into a promising project people with skills will come.

I think I've typed enough for now, I didn't get all the points acrossed as I would have liked but this is a start.

 

[Master Builder]

Yes I think you should make a list of people we have here.

Ideas are what will make the game good or not. You already have that covered.

Codders are what will make this project possible. Hardest thing to get.

Modelers/animators are what make the game look good. Don't worry about finding them, there are plenty out there compared to codders.

Level designers, don't mistake them as the ones that make the layouts and ideas. Their not, they are the ones that make the actual level. You should be able to find a lot of new one that are looking for experience.

Also if you were thinking of multiplayer you will need some really good network codders that know what they're doing. Making it multiplayer probably doubles the complexity or even more.

Telling 343 will not do a thing. they are working on their own games and will not make some 3rd party game that is more complex and different then what they make allready.

 

[foxleader]

and we became bungie.

 

[Halo Master]

I really wish I could be apart of this! But... I dont know how to do any of the things needed to help out. But if anybody has a shortage of ideas I will be happy to think of some to help out!

 

[Rheiner]

This sounds FANTASTIC! We need interesting NPCs though.

Another idea, is if you get up there enough in ranks, you can build your own fortress/base, Forge style. Instead of just the typical "house" in Skyrim.

 

[Lonewolf260]

I really wish I could be apart of this! But... I dont know how to do any of the things needed to help out. But if anybody has a shortage of ideas I will be happy to think of some to help out!

I feel the same way haha, i dont know how to do computer stuff and i dont have the right equipment to do anything

Also the game shouldnt be multiplayer, youll have plenty of AIs to select into your squads and what not, i dont think multiplayer should work. if anything ONLY 4 players
-Ian

 

[spartan spec ops]

Its never too late to learn

 

[foxleader]

for some it could be.

 

[Gaming239]

Damn straight.
Tucker:Yeah,straight...
Both:Bow-chica-bow-wow...
*pause*
Damnit.I just HAD to hardwire my brain to do that.
Tucker:Bow-chi...
Don't.Even.Try.