Metroid Online: Recruiting

[kraid]

Hello lopers,

at first i would like to show you some footage of the Mod in it's current state.

As you might have noticed, this isn't the source engine.
The mod is under development since several years using the Halo CE engine.
But since the Halo community is dead, the remaining team has decided to switch over to the Source engine.

Here's the original post of the Teamleader Nebulon:

For those of you who don't play Halo Custom Edition, the original Metroid Online Mod ( http://playmetroidonline.com/ ) was a Metroid based mod made using Halo CE's engine. At the moment, Halo CE is dying, with very ,very few people left playing it, not to mention, the previous leader of the Metroid Online Team has resigned. So I am taking over to try to get it going again, and if possible, make it better. I had a few ideas to improve the game play a bit, but I need help on how to make a source mod. I am looking for people who have experience in this area and people willing to teach me, as well as join me to help me make this happen.

My plan is to make a TF\TF2 type mod, based somewhat on Metroid Prime Hunters Multiplayer

I have a few maps, but they will need to be converted

I need people with experience in making custom mods.

The basic gameplay I have in mind is:
Different characters to choose from, but if it is possible to set it up this way, you must unlock more by scoring so many points by getting kills and such in-game.

You start out with the basic weapon, the Power Beam, having a missile launcher as a secondary. Then you can pick up up to 3 other weapons and some other powerups. To stay with the past Metroid Online setup, you get energy units by defeating other players. I am also wanting to be able to have alt-forms (Morphball)

So as you can see, I will need modelers, animators, coders, and such who have experience. I am currently trying to learn how to use Hammer and will be attempting to convert a map or two for testing. If you would like to help, please sign up at the Metroid Online forums and post there in the thread I have started there and announce yourself.

This mod was started many years ago: I wouldn't want to see it just die!!!

More information: http://playmetroidonline.com/
Forum: http://www.opencarnage.com/index.php?/f ... -map-team/

If you got any ideas, comments, suggestions or if you're interrested in joining the team, feel free to post here or on the Metroid Online board.

[srredfire]

Well I got some things to say.

First off, what you had, or have, whatever, is pretty damn good. You got the key things like the HUD and feel of the game down pretty solid. It looks decent too. So props to your team for that.

Secondly, fuck Halo.

Thirdly, isn't this sort of going to be starting over in a sense? Sure you have resources and the like, but you're gonna have to build back from the ground up. That sucks.

My biggest gripe is your choice of gameplay and such. Ugh. Just multiplayer? I don't understand mod groups these days. Take a look at how many multiplayer mods have been released, then take a look at the percent of which actually get a fan base. Not too many. Sure, here and there players, whatever. But a lot of multiplayer games get released, people play for a week, few servers, then it dies out. Pretty fast. People go back to whatever they liked before. The only real way to counteract this is obviously create a REALLY good game, which in then it'll just succeed on it's own, or try and get it on, what is it, Steamworks? Mods like AOC and Insurgency and such are more popular and stay popular because they're on Steam. Meaning people who want to play them only have to click download and there it is. Not only does this mean Steam supports them so it's instantly a good publicity act, but people who are lazy, or even less technically inclined, aka people who download .rars of mods and are like "wtf", won't have that problem as it installs it for them.

With all that said, I think what you have to work with might be fun for a bit, but ask yourself how this game is going to be so much different or more fun than any other mod or retail multiplayer game. I'm sure shooting rockets and charged plasma balls at people can be fun for a bit, but what makes the player come back for more? I think since obviously making games and such takes a LONG time, you should definately invest time in studying and really looking at your competition. See what is working, see what isn't. See what old mods are alive, and which aren't, and if not, why did they fail? Creating a multiplayer game today is a lot harder than a singleplayer game perhaps these days. Lesser content, less coding, sure. But you really have that big aspect of a player base, and that totally can make or break all of your hard work.

So, that's my gripe really. I hoped to come into this thread seeing a single player campaign, so that dissapointed me honestly. It'd be pretty cool to see a solid Metroid fanmade game, but I know that'd be a lot of work, and maybe you just don't have the time, resources, skills, whatever to make it. My first thing I was going to say was, "If you don't have Ridley in this game, I won't support you, but this isn't even a single player game, so meh. Well, hopefully this has been good feedback, that's my opinion. I wish you luck on porting all that, it might suck. Hope to hear more.

[Nebulon]

There will be a SP Campaign. I am still writing a storyline for it.
But as a counter to your "gripe":
How many Metroid Multiplayer games are there in the world? The mod started as a multiplayer, it will continue as a multiplayer (to start).

And yes, Ridley will be in there somewhere.

[srredfire]

There will be a SP Campaign. I am still writing a storyline for it.
But as a counter to your "gripe":
How many Metroid Multiplayer games are there in the world? The mod started as a multiplayer, it will continue as a multiplayer (to start).

And yes, Ridley will be in there somewhere.

Alright good. Wonderful to hear about the singleplayer.

To counter your counter, understand I'm not trying to be a Negative Nancy, or tear you down, I support this fully. I'm just being realistic.

Your argument about "how many ____ are there in the world" is a good point, but at the same time, unfortunately a weak one.

Sure, yes, if the theme/topic/whatever is popular enough, you'll get an instant fanbase. Sorta like how if a sequel to a game comes out, the people who liked the first one are most likely to get the second one JUST because they liked the first one.

Same thing goes with any IP or theme. If someone likes Batman, they might get any Batman game. And every Batman movie. Etc, etc.

Problem is, if you don't have a good fan base to start with ( not saying you don't ), you have to really push the envelope, and create something awesome.

See, when you say "How many Metroid Multiplayer games are there in the world?" that saying can literally apply to anything. I could make a multiplayer mod about raping small children and I could say "How many raping small children multiplayer games are there in the world?"

Okay, that's a fucked up example, but still. Just because it's one of a kind or somewhat original, or even original, doesn't instantly make it good. You gotta back it up. Relying on the fact no one has done it before, or popularity, is a weak point to rely on.

Regardless, this looks good. It looks good on the Halo engine, and I have good faith you will do good with Source. Once again I'm not tearing you down, you just have to be realistic. This is constructive criticism.

And on the last note, good. I'm glad Ridley will make an appearance.

[Nebulon]

well the main reason for this was what was already stated.

...the Halo community is dead, the remaining team has decided to switch over to the Source engine....

with Halo CE out, I asked around, and it seemed that the Source engine was the best choice

So, enough from me, I guess. I want hear from everyone else. Do we have any volunteers?

[kraid]

It doesn't seem as there's much interrest. I really thought there would be at least more ppl responding here.

[Pwnd_Ja]

Wasn't there a mod similar to this a while back? Project Valkyrie or something along those lines? Can't remember if it died after release or before though.

[kraid]

There were a few releases, last one was Alpha 1.2 - (RC2). (sadly there are no servers anymore)
Yea it's pretty similar, but we would like to build our game with Metroid setting.

[ixin]

I guess metroid isn't as popular as you'd think.

[Major Banter]

Metroid and the Wii tend to go hand in hand these days. If you're not a fan of nintendo culture you're not going to know much anyway.

It's odd though, because you've got a lot of talent, obviously, and the mod in the CE engine seemed to be pretty well built. I dunno, I think most people just find Samus a bit....boring; I'd rather play against or as some of the more fleshed out, modern characters on console. Just my two pence.

[nub]

The Metroid series is actually my 2nd favorite, just beneath Half-Life. The last two main titles they've made (Prime 2 and 3) are kind of meh, but the first Prime was, and still is, my favorite Gamecube game. I like the old ones on Gameboy and SNES as well.

There's another Metroid game that's supposed to come out next year called Other M, and it looks damn good if you ask me. Youtube it if you get the time, it's a whole lot different from all the other games.

[kraid]

Just a little Status Update on our mod.

We decided to switch to Unreal 3 Engine.
I have to admit the reason for using source was only that i was very familiar with it at this time and convinced the others to use this engine.
Evaluating the pros and cons of several engines should have been our first step - like i said, my fault.

Changing to UDK gives us many benefits:
- stand alone distribution (users don't have to own a game based on that engine to be able to play the mod)
- far more advanced and open toolset
- we can easily build our own shaders with the material editor, while on Source we were restricted to the possibilities valves predefined shaders had
- map making is much closer to the way Retro built the Prime games (creating enviroment models in a 3D app, import them and do the lightning & entity stuff (now called actors))

Here's a compairisation screenshot of the Samus Variasuit playermodel. top: source HLMV Bottom: UDK Skeletal mesh editor


The UDK version of the model has also the ability to change the suit colors, allowing us to implement a color chooser in the GUI.
Smoothing groups still need to be edited somewhat.


What we need now are some more 3D modellers and texture artists to do all the cool enviroments and models we're planning to.

Requirements haven't changed much.

3D modeller
+ ability to produce uv mapped lowpoly meshes and also highpoly versions of these meshes if required
+ is able to bake texture maps such as color, ambient occlusion, specularity and normalmaps
+ is able to or would like to learn how to bake normalmaps from highpoly objects onto game resolution meshes
+ interrested in level design (since most parts of our maps will be built in 3d apps, splitted up and imported into UDK)

texture artist
+ experience in at least one picture editing software such as Photoshop or Gimp
+ ability to produce tileable texture maps
+ understanding of color theory

As for skill vs dedication, i'd rather see some beginners who dedicate their time to improve themself, then someone with proffessional skills who doesn't do anything and only comes by every 6 months to say hi.
Ofc. skill and dedication would be awesome, too.

If you're going to apply as a mapper, you should either have a good knowledge of mapping with UDK or beeing able to work as a modeller (even if just with very basic knowledge of modelling), too.
Since UDK is very much model based mapping, we'd only need 1 more mapper who really knows the advanced stuff of mapping in UDK, but at least 2 more decent modellers.

This would allow me to focus on building custom animations, work on characters and do some concept stuff.

We'd also accept help in these things, so if you'd like to join us for creating concept art, character design or animation, do it.
More help will only mean faster progress and earlier release.

If you're interrested, please contact me via PM, add me on steam (meta_kraid) or join our forum at http://metroidsource.freeforums.org and post in the join us section.

[Knights]

You should be using Unreal3 .. Still pretty awesome... Never was a fan of the the 3d version though...

[srredfire]

You should be using Unreal3 .. Still pretty awesome... Never was a fan of the the 3d version though...

Just a little Status Update on our mod.

We decided to switch to Unreal 3 Engine...

[Kosire]

Changing to UDK gives us many benefits:
- stand alone distribution (users don't have to own a game based on that engine to be able to play the mod)
- far more advanced and open toolset
- we can easily build our own shaders with the material editor, while on Source we were restricted to the possibilities valves predefined shaders had
- map making is much closer to the way Retro built the Prime games (creating enviroment models in a 3D app, import them and do the lightning & entity stuff (now called actors))

The UDK version of the model has also the ability to change the suit colors, allowing us to implement a color chooser in the GUI.

Now to go all unreal-source flamewar here but you can use alien swarm for stand alone distribution, and make you're own shaders with HLSL anything from ambient occ. to depth of field and then every model in source has the ability to change color with RGB.