FreeGameDev

oh well, i guess lich can replace vampire? or become a new strong spellcaster, it your decision in the end.
Also, how many factions are there in total? i think the wiki and actual list are different

Danimal {l Wrote}:oh well, i guess lich can replace vampire? or become a new strong spellcaster, it your decision in the end.

Ok, lets replace the vampire then. A vampire is also not a real undead anyway

Danimal {l Wrote}:Also, how many factions are there in total? i think the wiki and actual list are different

There are the following faction: Humans, Corpars, Undead, Constructs, Mercenaries and Elves, so a total of 6 factions So lots of variation possible in gameplay

The Undead

The undead will have the following creatures. We now need more detailed descriptions of them, and then we need to make proper concept art of them, so modeling can begin

Scout:
- Flying skull (maybe with a spinal cord), not much to say, fast, likes to scout and is a very poor fighter.

Weak fighter:
- Skeleton, fast, medium to good damage, low hp (battered and falling to pieces light armor (leather + chainmail))
- Zombie, slow, low damage, good hp, heals hp eating corpses

Weak spellcaster:
- Plague acolite, low damage spells, low hp, fast, and can poison or do some low debuffing

Strong fighter:
- Death Knight, an all rounder, good hp, damage and speed (fully black armored squeleton, big ass but broken in the middle sword)
- Bone golem, slow, medium damage, really high hp
- Ghoul, damn fast, good damage, medium to low hp, heals hp eating corpses, can poison (there is a good one in opengameart)

Strong spellcaster:
- Necromancer, low damage spells, strong debuffs and able to raise dead enemy units as basic undead units, medium HP
- Liche: no debuffing or support skills, just really strong damage spells and medium HP.

Guard:
- Wraith knight, a ghostly armored knight, without legs(floating) and armed with a scary crossbow, low speed, high HP,high damage, can stun (terrify enemies)
- Skeleton sniper, squeleton with a bow, battered archer armor and a bow made of bones, coupled with arrows also made of sharpened bones, high speed, medium damage, medium health, poison effect(or bleeding)

Weak builder: (I am not too found if this guy, so any other suggestions would be cool )
- Undead Gnome, poor little guy, low stats on everything, builds.

Strong builder:
- Revenant, a undead version of a talented blacksmith (like Grisworld from Diablo 2), with good stats overall, builds.

Summons:
Atrocity (Strong mindless fighter - can feed on corpses to increase life time and HP - Hates water - Don't fight it with weak creatures)

Super creature:
- Abomination, a horrible creatures stitched together of several corpses, does heavy melee damage, but is pretty dumb, and slow moving.

NB: Any suggestions and/or corrections to the above? Also I do not really like the undead gnome, so any suggestions to a replacement is very welcome

As a builder, maybe something like undead or skeleton orc/goblin/imp instead of gnome.

svenskmand {l Wrote}:

Danimal {l Wrote}:
Also, how many factions are there in total? i think the wiki and actual list are different

There are the following faction: Humans, Corpars, Undead, Constructs, Mercenaries and Elves, so a total of 6 factions So lots of variation possible in gameplay

There's actually no consensus on the factions yet and you should see them more as a suggestion. I think we should focus only on one or maybe two factions, everything else would be overkill atm. That doesn't mean you can't continue to design the factions as in this thread, but I think we shouldn't try to implement them all at once. BTW what was the conclusion of the factions vs alignments discussion?

I've prepared a new concept for the constructs. Maybe it looks a bit too sci-fiy. What do you think?

Looks good I guess that would be one of the more powerful creatures.

I think a bit more flowing (perhaps in the joints) to imply magic rather than pure machinery. That looks a bit too much like a robot.

Skorpio {l Wrote}:I've prepared a new concept for the constructs. Maybe it looks a bit too sci-fiy. What do you think?

A bit too sci-fy you think? Really :P, I think this could be taken right out of Warhammer 40.000 or something - do not get me wrong, it looks nice - but does definitely not fit in this type of game, I think I have told you that before with your other mechs

By the way how did you make it? All digital? What programs did you use?

Regarding designing each faction one by one; I think we should get clear descriptions of each faction first, so we agree on what kind of creatures there should be. We can then focus on each faction at a time when modelling them though, which might be a good idea. But a description for each creature for all factions would be good, and even better if we have concept art for them all. I think that will be the hardest part, that is to come up with good creatures and making concept art for them. Then the design is settled, and the modelers will have an easier job.

Skorpio: Nice concept, a very Warhammery though And I agree, a bit too sci-fi instead of fantasy magic/steampunk

The Mechanist automata from Thief 2 could be a good source of inspiration for the Constructs (see here). They've got a pleasing mix of sinister and mechanical-primitivity. Also a common element like the Mechanist mask would help visually tie the various forms together.

So does this close the undead faction creature list? If so, time to do the next, what do you propose next?

Yeah lets go on to the next one. Lets take humans, they should be pretty easy.

Here's another one. I think I'm gonna turn this one into a 3D model. It probably has to be simplified to get a reasonable poly count.

svenskmand {l Wrote}:By the way how did you make it? All digital? What programs did you use?

Yes, all digital. PS.

Again I must say it is awesome , but still not suitable for OD :S. For example it has exhaustion pipes, and looks more like a hi-tech future robot.

The next time you make a sketch like this would you consider making a video of it, to show the process? I would really appreciate that

I see the constructs this way: skilled craftmen have forged their metal parts and put them together, but the parts by them self cannot do anything. The construct only comes to life when the craftmen embeds a soulstone into the construct, and here most of its abilities comes from the soulstones powers, which is able to move the constructs limbs by magic, not by powering some mechanical device that drives them. They are a bit like a golem, a golem can only move because of the magic powers that control it, else it would just be a pile of rocks and dirt. It is the same with the constructs, without any soulstone they will only be a pile of forgede metal.

The problem is that when you paint a mechanical, humanoid or avian creature, it almost automatically gets a futuristic or at least Industrial Revolution look. It's not easy to make them look magical, unless you add some glow or other effects.

And you kind of contradict yourself. First you wanted some golden army like characters, which are clearly mechanical, and now you want metal golems that are only a pile of metal parts. I get the impression that you don't really know what you want.

Very true Skorpio.

I think the latest picture is headed in the right direction. Perhaps try it without the exhausts and a glow effect around the joints, chest, and neck areas.

Skorpio {l Wrote}:The problem is that when you paint a mechanical, humanoid or avian creature, it almost automatically gets a futuristic or at least Industrial Revolution look. It's not easy to make them look magical, unless you add some glow or other effects.

We can try the glow, that is also used in the golden army characters.

Skorpio {l Wrote}:And you kind of contradict yourself. First you wanted some golden army like characters, which are clearly mechanical, and now you want metal golems that are only a pile of metal parts. I get the impression that you don't really know what you want.

I consider the golden army characters to fit my description above. And they are actually not really that mechanical (if that is intentionally by the filmakers or just because your are not supposed to think that much about their workings I do not know). But an example is in the scenes where they are taken apart by Hellboy, then they reassemble themself again, where each limb simply flys close to the largest parts of the body and reattaches themself. If you look at them in the movie their metal parst also only really acts as limbs, and does not really work in physical/mechanical way like gears normally do. The description I made above should support my idea of the golden army characters, if you think it does not then where do you see contradictions? Then I will try and clear them up.

Another thing that I liked about the golden army is that when they are not deployed, that is they are staying dorment, they are folded together into an egg. Which is kind of nice, this also influences their bodies looks, so they appear round. Actually when I think more about it that would probably do a great deal on changing the appearance of you construct/robot, if you could try and make a quick sketch where you can see that the construct can be folded back into an egg (if you want to try?) that would probably do allot.

Another thing could be to make some parts of its body have opening so you can look into its inner parts, where the soulstone is visible and maybe some gears. These openings comes because the construct is able to be folded into an egg, so the holes in its armor/plating comes from the break lines of the egg (that is the places in the eggs shell that are broken when the construct is folded out). Then you can also add the glow effect to that. By the way I like the left hand weapon of it, the claw thing. And the right hand could be changed so that the ball connects to the arm, so it looks like a ball hand, then it can shoot the ball out agains an enemy, and drag the ball back in, and make a new shoot. Also I like that the green version has a more heavy look to it, than the red version.

Is any of this usefull to you or am I just babbling?

I think the construct are a really difficult to model faction, wouldnt it be wiser to model first human, and maybe undead or corpars later? you want a bit of eyecandy on the game and humans should be easiest to do.

Yes it would be easier, but we have to make them eventually. Also this discussions have turned out to be very good at making us think about what we really want the Construcst to be (at least on my part). The easy factions would be the Undead, Humans and Elves, as they are stereotypical. The Constructs, Corpars and Merchenaries is much harder, in my opinion.

What's most important at this point is getting one or two factions ready so we can get some modelling going (and sound effects). We really need some more models, especially for rooms.

oln {l Wrote}:What's most important at this point is getting one or two factions ready so we can get some modelling going (and sound effects). We really need some more models, especially for rooms.

True.

is there a todo list for rooms or other models unrelated to creatures?

Not that I know of, but I made a page on the wiki showing what people are doing what, but I do not know if people know of it, or updates it. It is here: http://opendungeons.sourceforge.net/index.php/People

so more or less you dont even know what rooms will go into the game?