Top Staff Positions - Insomnia Lives Again!

[Tyhm]

duh, maybe if I wanna hire people I should post under Hiring too.

So the Zombie Server's well under way, but I'm running out of things I can do myself. We got a small active staff, but we need more people who can make levels, graphics (especially tiles!), ganis, scripts (especially triggers, I don't get this newfangled GScript), etc. Umm, right now it's on the Not Even Visible tab? I don't really know how it works, I'm hearing you need gold to develop, but that's silly, gfxers don't even really Need RC if they got someone to upload, and there's an Online Tiler thingy for LATs...but the sooner we get it to the Classic tab the happier I'll be!
But yeah, I'm comanager just so I can hire, I'm really just there to help out; Zibou's the owner, he's kinda stuck with it (^_^), but every other position's open, the tiler and scripter have turned down lead positions. Granted, I'd prefer to put people in administration who are good at administrating, but that's hard to gauge...

For the rundown, http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=84404

The earlier you sign up, the more you can change. Seriously, 'cuz I ain't standing for Drastic Revisions once stuff's been done, that's how Classic got bogged down.

[Tyhm]

You guys are taking too long; Codein and Peo are NAT admins now

[Ravenblade1979]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

You guys are taking too long; Codein and Peo are NAT admins now

What you should do then is to show screen shots of stuff that has been accomplished like some levels and give more detail. Like what the server is about and what you want to accomplish...etc.

[Chompy]

Originally Posted by Ravenblade1979

What you should do then is to show screen shots of stuff that has been accomplished like some levels and give more detail. Like what the server is about and what you want to accomplish...etc.

If you followed the link given in the first post, you would get most of that covered.

[Tyhm]

Well said Chompy.

Here's a summary though;
we got zombies. Mobs upon mobs of zombies. When we get the gfx necessary for a lowres we'll be able to put about a quarter million zombies on the server no problem.
We got shotguns and chainsaws. Working on a sweet weapon mod system that'll let you go crazy customizing.
We got a map; see attachment for the old copy.

The server's theme is Survival Horror - you're rescued from the zombie-infested wreckage and sent to an outpost, where you have to try and hold out against a world full of zombies with ammo at a premium (mostly by raiding the nearby ruins for usable Supplies). Play continues until only one outpost remains (eliminated players play as zombies until that point), then the zombies are killed off and play restarts, with a special prize going to the survivors.

And naturally, we still need graphics, ganis, levels, more scripters, the woiks.

[maximus_asinus]

If you ever get a functional tileset, let me know, I'll tile for you.

I was thinking the other day, why don't you make weapons with upgrades in the form of perks (sort of like CoD or Fallout). A laser sight on your rifle improves accuracy, boaring on the rifle barrel could mean you would use a higher caliber bullet, which would mean more stopping power. I'm no gun tech so I can't really expand on the idea, but you are talking to Terazel, so he should be able to give you more ideas.

[Terazel Tenjin]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

If you ever get a functional tileset, let me know, I'll tile for you.

I was thinking the other day, why don't you make weapons with upgrades in the form of perks (sort of like CoD or Fallout). A laser sight on your rifle improves accuracy, boaring on the rifle barrel could mean you would use a higher caliber bullet, which would mean more stopping power. I'm no gun tech so I can't really expand on the idea, but you are talking to Terazel, so he should be able to give you more ideas.

Wish I could have given you the rundown before, but yeah, a big part of the brainstorming was to make weapons personal and customizable. There's kind of an idea already worked out on how upgrades will work and the level of upgrades (ie: accessories and gunsmithing) for each weapon "class." I'll hash it out with Tyhm & Company when it comes time for basically the skinning of the weapons or balance time to certain types/models of weapons.

The Devs have ultimate say on all of it, but the idea was, for example, a pistol has a set amount of modular upgrades such as extended magazine (+ammo), reflex optical sight (+aim, +accuracy), and laser/flashlight combo (+accuracy, maybe +speed). Say you turn your pistol into a secondary weapon, taking a rifle as your primary, you can take some of those modular items (ie: swappable) and add those to your new rifle (optic, lasersight) for boosted stats.

As for stuff like barrel modification and maybe firing/trigger mechanism upgrades, that'd be like reward-based bonuses perhaps or big cash one-weapon upgrades for either permanent boosted stats or opening up extra upgrade slots.

All tenative based on technical expertise and limitation, of course, but the idea is you can have your weapon that's not like the others.

[Tyhm]

Yeah, the way I wanna do it is if you buy a shotgun, it costs x ammount; upgrading the ammo capacity costs y ammount, upgrading the accuracy costs z ammount. You can buy a Really Nice shotgun, and it costs x+(y+z-10%); it has the same stats as an upgraded regular shotgun, even down to having a couple upgrade slots already filled in, and it's a little bit cheaper than upgrading a regular shotgun because it's no longer as customizable. Say you decide you want to make a long range shotgun; you can't put as many range upgrades on a Really Nice shotgun as you could on the Basic Shotgun...

[Terazel Tenjin]

Ugh...math. I love lamp.

[Tyhm]

Okay, translation = "buy whatever, you won't get screwed."

Soo, any gfxers out there? Maybe some tilers? Codein and I can Try and do it all ourselves, but it'll distract from scripting...

[maximus_asinus]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Okay, translation = "buy whatever, you won't get screwed."

Soo, any gfxers out there? Maybe some tilers? Codein and I can Try and do it all ourselves, but it'll distract from scripting...

Do you even have building tiles? Last time I was on you only had road tiles. Its hard for us tilers to work when we have nothing to work with

[Deas_Voice]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

Do you even have building tiles? Last time I was on you only had road tiles. Its hard for us tilers to work when we have nothing to work with

yeah they do.

[Tyhm]

downloads/tiles/insomniatiles.png I think; it's incomplete, but it's not rocket surgery to make some more tiles. If we don't get anything better next week I'll make some snow tiles myself.

[Pimmeh]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

downloads/tiles/insomniatiles.png I think; it's incomplete, but it's not rocket surgery to make some more tiles. If we don't get anything better next week I'll make some snow tiles myself.

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Codein and I can Try and do it all ourselves, but it'll distract from scripting...

Originally Posted by Tyhm

You can buy a Really Nice shotgun...

Do you mess up on purpose? Haha.
I dont mean to be rude man, but your capitalization is a bit off, so are your sayings. Aren't you english/american?

[Terazel Tenjin]

Originally Posted by Pimmeh

Do you mess up on purpose? Haha.
I dont mean to be rude man, but your capitalization is a bit off, so are your sayings. Aren't you english/american?

He's actual a zombie boss.

[thesmoothcriminal]

i like the rocket surgery one

[Tyhm]

lulz.

Yeah, the capitalization was intentional to add emphasis. And rocket surgery's a mixed metaphor. But we're getting a bit off topic.

We got thesmoothcriminal fixing up some more tiles, but I dunno if he wants that to be His Job or not...

[maximus_asinus]

maybe you can tie in rocket surgery into your storyline, "rocket surgery gone wrong"

I'll try to keep this on topic. I was thinking last night about potential baddies, and I came up with Super Mutants, and Security Drones:

Basically Super Mutants would be very muscular behemoth sized mutants, twice the size of a regular player (sort of resembling The Hulk). They were created in almost the same fashion as the Security Drones; humans that were genetically modified to serve as a shell for the drones but managed to break free before any of the robotics implants were put in place. Due to blindness (broke out before ocular implants were installed) it will attack a player only if it comes within a certain radius (as it now uses hearing to detect enemies). Once a player has entered this radius it would let out a piercing roar and charge a player in a blind rage, smashing away any obstacle in its path (as in broken cars, fire hydrants, etc). It would have two types of attacks, swinging its arms (left to right, right to left), or pounding the ground (with a stun radius for any unfortunate player who gets too close); all of which would be devastating if hit. It would move slightly faster than a normal player. It would be passive to zombies.

Security Drones would be rogue cyborgs left over from when various private security agencies tried to combat the zombie population. Unlike the Super Mutants, cyborgs went through full robotic integration, but once the drones became self aware, they betrayed their creators and now wander around the wastes, killing whatever they please. The drones would be a bit larger than the Super Mutant, and would have sort of the same frame. Drones would have ballistic plating covering most of their body (really they'd basically be an upgrade of the Super Mutants). Their method of attack would be from a missle launcher/chain gun which is fully integrated into the Drone's left arm, the right arm would be free. If player gets too close it will swing in the left to right fashion, like the mutants. Drones would move slower than the Super Mutants. If possible they will attack both player and zombies (but not Super Mutants). If a player kills one of these, they will find ammo, and possibly gun upgrades.

[maximus_asinus]

I was looking over the tileset, I'm just going to make a few suggestions on what you should add (though some of what I suggest could be images instead of actual tiles).

You really have too much brick tiles in my opinion. You have red, gray, blue and brown/beige brick tiles, but in THREE different styles. If you're going for variation why not use steel, vinyl, and wooden house tiles (or is that what the tiles on the right/bottom side of the tileset are supposed to be)? Also I'd like to see foundation tiles for buildings, not going to have very safe buildings if you keep building them ontop of grass. You will also need damaged and weather worn tiles (scorch marks, broken brick, cracked cement, etc). More debris tiles (discarded materials --newspapers, cans, etc--, wooden planks, leaves, blood on pavement, etc). Detail tiles (fire hydrants, storm gutters, manholes, sand on sidewalks, etc).

[Tyhm]

Agreed, and the larger bricks don't even tile right so we can safely get rid of them. By all means, continue with the tileset repair. I'd add to the list snow tiles, stairs at different angles (right now near the top right there are stairs facing south, easy to rotate the image), and yeah everything needs a few Destroyed variations; where the sidewalk cracks, the asphault breaks, bricks crumble, glass shatters. :-D

Oh yeah, and some interior tiles would be nice. I don't think we have any floor tiles; I mean, we can do a lot with the sidewalk concrete (and we have a lot of sidewalk concrete tiles!), but...

[maximus_asinus]

I was thinking maybe you could change the style of the GUI. It doesn't fit the style of the server at all. How about a Electrocardiogram (I think this is what its called, detects heart beat and whatnot). Would display BPM (beats per minute), etc. When you're walking around you'll have a relatively normal rate, but when baddies are feeding on you, you're BPM will steadily increase until you enter Cardiac arrest (this would be when you die). Maybe have a visual queue on the screen, like hearing your heart beat pick up, and/or blurred vision/redness.

Adding onto that idea would be the ability to take drugs that would control your heart beat. If I'm about to enter Cardiac arrest, I would pop a few pills to calm myself down (this would be similar to me using a medkit when I have low health). Maybe add a few bonuses for having a faster beat and ways to manually increase BPM (taking a shot of adrenaline for instance). Being near death would give you a stronger attack, or increase your speed, because when your life is threatened, you'll fight to live. The downside to this obviously is either ODing (killing yourself) or being eaten with an already increased heart rate.

[Tyhm]

That'd be cool, but like, would it be a helmet HUD?

[maximus_asinus]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

That'd be cool, but like, would it be a helmet HUD?

I'm not really up to date on all the happenings on the server, I wouldn't know if a helmet HUD would fit (or if the players can actually wear helmets). I'm just throwing the idea out there because I thought it sounded interesting, and hasn't been done before on Graal.

Also maybe instead of heart beat, you just heard the beeping of the ECG. Or combine both. I don't know.

[Tyhm]

Post-apoc futuristic, so it could be a broken down holo-display, or it could be some sorta high tech tatoo or readout bracer, I dunno. I'm trying to keep with the Run Down future look, not just the Future look.

[Terazel Tenjin]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

maybe you can tie in rocket surgery into your storyline, "rocket surgery gone wrong"

I'll try to keep this on topic. I was thinking last night about potential baddies, and I came up with Super Mutants, and Security Drones:

Basically Super Mutants would be very muscular behemoth sized mutants, twice the size of a regular player (sort of resembling The Hulk). They were created in almost the same fashion as the Security Drones; humans that were genetically modified to serve as a shell for the drones but managed to break free before any of the robotics implants were put in place. Due to blindness (broke out before ocular implants were installed) it will attack a player only if it comes within a certain radius (as it now uses hearing to detect enemies). Once a player has entered this radius it would let out a piercing roar and charge a player in a blind rage, smashing away any obstacle in its path (as in broken cars, fire hydrants, etc). It would have two types of attacks, swinging its arms (left to right, right to left), or pounding the ground (with a stun radius for any unfortunate player who gets too close); all of which would be devastating if hit. It would move slightly faster than a normal player. It would be passive to zombies.

Security Drones would be rogue cyborgs left over from when various private security agencies tried to combat the zombie population. Unlike the Super Mutants, cyborgs went through full robotic integration, but once the drones became self aware, they betrayed their creators and now wander around the wastes, killing whatever they please. The drones would be a bit larger than the Super Mutant, and would have sort of the same frame. Drones would have ballistic plating covering most of their body (really they'd basically be an upgrade of the Super Mutants). Their method of attack would be from a missle launcher/chain gun which is fully integrated into the Drone's left arm, the right arm would be free. If player gets too close it will swing in the left to right fashion, like the mutants. Drones would move slower than the Super Mutants. If possible they will attack both player and zombies (but not Super Mutants). If a player kills one of these, they will find ammo, and possibly gun upgrades.

While I applaud the idea of leftover security units (and essentially haywire rogues that are hostile to ALL, which might be manipulated by smart players to assist them if they are dry on ammo or support...), I think you're diving into like Fallout territory. Maybe have them prioritize on zombies since that's what they were designed to fight. For example, if players encounter them alone on chance encounters, they will attack the player until one of them is daed. If they run into players running away from zombies right on their tail, they focus attack the zombies first.

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Post-apoc futuristic, so it could be a broken down holo-display, or it could be some sorta high tech tatoo or readout bracer, I dunno. I'm trying to keep with the Run Down future look, not just the Future look.

As far as references (which can easily be Googled), I think it'd be good to have something alone the lines of, say, F.E.A.R. 2's HUD. But I think a higher-tech (ruined future theme) HUD should be from upgrades, and the basic HUD being simple and missing features such as, say, an IFF system (for friendlies, hostiles, and items) and maybe thermal vision (ability to invert white-hot and black-hot would be cool just like the real military-grade ones, NVGs are so last decade ).

Also, Tyhm, didn't really get to discuss this with you, but what kind of health system are we looking at (auto-regen to a certain level after massive damage or per medkits)? I know the semi-auto regen can potentially ruin the whole post apocalyptic zombie horror feel, but it might have a good relief buffer for potential player logistic/economy nightmare during SD week.

[Tyhm]

Meh, it's your pretty standard /100hp system. If you get killed, whatever, bring out another clone. A high body count means more zombies.

[Terazel Tenjin]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Meh, it's your pretty standard /100hp system. If you get killed, whatever, bring out another clone. A high body count means more zombies.

Right, gotcha. Forgot about the logistics on the zombie side...

[maximus_asinus]

Originally Posted by Terazel Tenjin

Also, Tyhm, didn't really get to discuss this with you, but what kind of health system are we looking at (auto-regen to a certain level after massive damage or per medkits)? I know the semi-auto regen can potentially ruin the whole post apocalyptic zombie horror feel, but it might have a good relief buffer for potential player logistic/economy nightmare during SD week.

That would fit perfectly with what I suggested then. After a fight your heart rate would slowly go back to a normal rhythm, same thing for after effects of taking a shot of adrenaline (maybe it would drop slightly below normal for a little while, which would give you some negative effects).

Normal BPM when you're exploring. Increased BPM when you encounter an enemy. Higher BPM when you're being attacked (and increasing when you're getting hit). You enter Cardiac arrest and die, or you win the fight, your BPM will slowly decrease. If you took adrenaline at any point your BPM would rise for the few perks, but after the effect wore off, it would begin to decline to under the regular BPM which would have negative effects. Taking too much adrenaline would cause heart failure. Taking pills would slow your heart rate, but taking too much would slow it down too to the point where your heart stopped beating altogether. Maybe what you inject in your body would have an 'effect time' so if you're in a fight, and you take a few pills to slow down your BPM and you win the fight, the pills in your system will still effect you (assisting on bringing down your heart rate, but if you took too much, it would slow it down to a dangerous level).

I like a system like this over an HP system where you can simply use a few medpaks and be fully healed because those systems don't really make sense.

[maximus_asinus]

Originally Posted by Terazel Tenjin

While I applaud the idea of leftover security units (and essentially haywire rogues that are hostile to ALL, which might be manipulated by smart players to assist them if they are dry on ammo or support...), I think you're diving into like Fallout territory. Maybe have them prioritize on zombies since that's what they were designed to fight. For example, if players encounter them alone on chance encounters, they will attack the player until one of them is daed. If they run into players running away from zombies right on their tail, they focus attack the zombies first.

Yeah, Fallout sort of influenced where I was going with this one.

I think what you're suggesting is great though, drone's main function should be to seek out zombies, taking priority over people. If there is no zombies around the drone, it would lock onto the players and would pursue them until eliminated. If there are zombies around, it'll attack them, BUT if a person intervenes it'll switch and target the humans.

[TESTRETIS]

I'd apply for Levels and NAT, but I don't have a Gold/Developer account ;[

[Terazel Tenjin]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

Yeah, Fallout sort of influenced where I was going with this one.

I think what you're suggesting is great though, drone's main function should be to seek out zombies, taking priority over people. If there is no zombies around the drone, it would lock onto the players and would pursue them until eliminated. If there are zombies around, it'll attack them, BUT if a person intervenes it'll switch and target the humans.

Talked to Tyhm about it yesterday. It's something to look into later (read: WAAAAY later after the basics are done). Right now the focus is keeping in with the classic and staple zombie horror/action theme. He brought up the good point of if too many things are thrown in especially at this developmental stage, we'd end up with aliens, chupacabras, wendigos, et cetera and lose focus on the primary theme of the server.

Need to dial back to Fallout stuff...