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Here you can post ideas for the story.

Some of my ideas:

- aliens have invaded the earth and blown up major cities. the people have retreated to mountains and other primitive areas, and they have to fight the high-tech aliens with rusty old weapons
- it's the future, almost all of the oil is spent and a world war has broken out over the little bit that's left of it
- there's war between the US and EU, don't ask me why, but it's original

it's the future, almost all of the oil is spent and a world war has broken out over the little bit that's left of it

More informations? It's around 2020, 2030? And it's a war between who and who? Because we can't make too much factions, 2 or 4 factions maximum (maybe more if there are much modders  )

well i do hope there will be more 

anyway, i didn't really think about the exact year, it was just a general concept

Here you can post ideas for the story.

Some of my ideas:

- aliens have invaded the earth and blown up major cities. the people have retreated to mountains and other primitive areas, and they have to fight the high-tech aliens with rusty old weapons
- it's the future, almost all of the oil is spent and a world war has broken out over the little bit that's left of it
- there's war between the US and EU, don't ask me why, but it's original

I'd like to partially combine the first and the last:
- Almost all of the oil is spent and a world war has broken out over the little bit that's left of it, combined with people have to resort to primitive/low tech weapons, as a result of the ongoing oil shortage.

That would be in a more distant future. The oil reserves won't be gone in a few years. More like 2060, than 2030, unless some crazed idiot has to set a few of the bigger depots on fire...

At the other end, I really like middle ages/fantasy theme games. The sort that has a low presence of magic.

Solinx

At the other end, I really like middle ages/fantasy theme games. The sort that has a low presence of magic.

I agree with you.

well we could do something with history/fantasy, i was just posting some ideas 

by friday i'm going to spread out some flyers, and i'd like to have an indication of a story line, so we must decide something soon

i too think that we should do something fantasy/medieval with this game

Ok, so we got four votes that speak for fantasy/medieval, if Darvin doesn't mind me counting him in this.

Don't know if it's a good idea to rush on the story, but then again, for RTS games, storylines are less important than with RPG games.

Schoolwork will take a lot of my time, untill wednesday, so don't expect a story from me before friday, not a good one at least

Edit: 100th board post!

Solinx

hey, i wanted to say that    but yeah, 100 is cool 

I'm in for fantasy, for sure.  I'm not certain about storyline; I'd hopefully like to avoid the terrible cliches that plague the genre (anyone who so much as breaths a word that sounds like prophecy or destiny will be promptly eviscerated)

Did you mention prophecy? Or destiny? Ahh men, that would be sooo cool !!!  Yeah, some guy (or gal) does some thing that has been written about in some prophecy and leads his (or her) nation to world domination. Why did noone ever think of that before ?!?!

Ok, seriously now, we really can do without any of that. And coming up with something really original is going to take some time.

Solinx

we could use some real war from the middle ages

Check this out:
http://www.medievalmap.net/

It's an interactive map of Europe between 400AD - 1500AD.

It shows who governed where and which battles were fought.

Solinx

an idea:

some dark sorcerer has risen in eastern europe and beyond, and he's terrorizing the countries around him to fight for him. with their help he has taken over a large part of the world, but there are still some countries offering resistance (france and uk england and neigbours among others, i don't know much about medieval history). a hero of some sort rises from a peasant village (but not with destiny or prophecy ) and inspires kings around the world to fight back

Here's mine.

Think of C&C, but instead of a war, a HUGE terrorist organization slowly infiltrates the U.S. over many years, without drawing suspicion. Then they strike at the heart of the major cities, taking the U.S. by surprise, and creating a gateway for other terrorists to land an air and amphibious assault on the homeland. To prevent the U.N. from helping the U.S., the middle east invades Europe to distract their forces. (Obviously in reality Europe would ultimately win the war against the middle east, and it wouldn't even be in the game. It just gives reason why Europe couldn't help the U.S. in their fight.)

I have no idea what side Russia, China and other countries would play a part. Perhaps Asia would take this opportunity to conquer each other, or Europe, or maybe they'd team up and destroy Africa and Australia. I haven't worked the the kinks exactly

Maybe Korea would attack Japan? And maybe India would have a civil war over whether to help America or not?

I like my theory personally because it could have a ton of factions, or it could just center around American civilians fighting for their lives in major cities. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to control a guy named Bob and family in the middle of New York or Las Vegas, running around with guns they stole from dead terrorists? Maybe this idea fits FPS's more than RTS', but it's just an idea.

Hmm, still a bit cliche although it is nice to see that the sorcerer uses other countries to gain power in the world by force.
(ps. The UK didn't really exsist in the middle ages, and France was like... smaller than today )

Ok, let me give it a try...


You are a page to a knight, almost ready to be knighted yourself. Your liege has lands and riches that rank him as a middle class lord.

Your country is attacked from both the east and south. Your lord has enough riches to buy himself out of service, but he is still obliged to send serveral knights, footsoldiers and archers.

The knight you serve is among those who are send to the south. While that field is further away, reinforces are most needed there.

Coming close to the fighting, you are ambushed by a group of opponents that underestimated the situation. (Tutorial mission)
In that ambush you will have a few direct orders from the knights and get to command a small band of footman.

You fight a few more small and medium battles, in which your skill/courage is recognised. You are raised to a knight or lord. (Depending on your performence in early battles) During the fighting the reasons for the fighting becomes clear bit by bit.

You gain command in medium battles and serve in big ones, now both in south and east. You come to know that the king is not the one in control, and that magic does exsist. The reasons for the sudden war are revealed and you start to doubt the intentions of those who rule the country...


How about it? It's part cliche too, but Ive never seen a game with a story line like this.
The performance in battles determens the position you take in the next battle. The battles don't vary if you are either knight or lord (or ...), but the amount of forces will. The remaining forces would be handled by allied knights, lords, etc.

And no, I don't know the reasons for the war yet

Edit:

Think of C&C, but instead of a war, a HUGE terrorist organization slowly infiltrates the U.S. over many years, ...

I like my theory personally because it could have a ton of factions, or it could just center around American civilians fighting for their lives in major cities. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to control a guy named Bob and family in the middle of New York or Las Vegas, running around with guns they stole from dead terrorists? Maybe this idea fits FPS's more than RTS', but it's just an idea.

CoonDawg, your idea is interesting, however, since we want to stay away from any political conflict, we can't use your storyline. Terrorists attacks in the U.S. spark political discussions we really want to avoid. It would be a good theme for a mod when the engine is finished.

At the moment we're looking into a middle ages/low fantasy based storyline. That doesn't mean we won't consider good theme's outside that genre, as long as it isn't going to be a source for a lot of political discussion.

Solinx

pretty well thought out. it sounds nice, but we already kinda decided to something fantasy/medieval. but hey, if enough people help, we might as well do two games 

Oops, sorry. I didn't see that. I saw aliens at the top of the page and figured we hadn't narrowed it down to a category, I hadn't read through the ideas

So what are the specifications you're aiming for? It'd help to know what you want to do graphically so we don't suggest things we can't possibly implement, although it's not overly important.

Solinx, no reason to be so gentle A "No, that's retarded" would have done just fine.

Alright, lemmie just rethink this really quick...
Posted on: 20 November 2006, 00:19:38

Hmm, still a bit cliche although it is nice to see that the sorcerer uses other countries to gain power in the world by force.
(ps. The UK didn't really exsist in the middle ages, and France was like... smaller than today )

Ok, let me give it a try...


You are a page to a knight, almost ready to be knighted yourself. Your liege has lands and riches that rank him as a middle class lord.

Your country is attacked from both the east and south. Your lord has enough riches to buy himself out of service, but he is still obliged to send serveral knights, footsoldiers and archers.

The knight you serve is among those who are send to the south. While that field is further away, reinforces are most needed there.

Coming close to the fighting, you are ambushed by a group of opponents that underestimated the situation. (Tutorial mission)
In that ambush you will have a few direct orders from the knights and get to command a small band of footman.

You fight a few more small and medium battles, in which your skill/courage is recognised. You are raised to a knight or lord. (Depending on your performence in early battles) During the fighting the reasons for the fighting becomes clear bit by bit.

You gain command in medium battles and serve in big ones, now both in south and east. You come to know that the king is not the one in control, and that magic does exsist. The reasons for the sudden war are revealed and you start to doubt the intentions of those who rule the country...


How about it? It's part cliche too, but Ive never seen a game with a story line like this.
The performance in battles determens the position you take in the next battle. The battles don't vary if you are either knight or lord (or ...), but the amount of forces will. The remaining forces would be handled by allied knights, lords, etc.

And no, I don't know the reasons for the war yet

I'm really not a big fan of fantasy RTS' (Excluding the Craft series of course ), but I had an idea.

Instead of "discovering" magic, it is Dependant on difficulty level. So if you chose easy, you would get a "magical" class, which would be stronger and easier to use. If you chose hard, you would get only normal units. Or perhaps it could be divided into two campaigns, one easy and one hard. And perhaps there could be a "medium" difficulty, like you have access to both units, but the ones with magic cost more money, or knight points, or fairy dust, whatever you're using for currency (If you're using any at all). And, of course, you could make it so the AI can or can't get magical units.

This probably won't be a widely accepted idea, but I (personally) like it because it would give people an opportunity to turn off the whole fantasy part. Or, just be able to turn it off through "options".

If you must have magic implemented all throughout, I suggest a "Harry Potter" magic, instead of a dungeons and dragons or LOTR magic. aKa, you don't get scantly clad magess' and dragons running around, but magic that is implimented well, and helps alot, but it's more secondary than summoning trolls like Pokemon or something

Just my thoughts. I just like to think out loud so feel free to ignore me entirely.

Don't know if it's a good idea to rush on the story, but then again, for RTS games, story lines are less important than with RPG games.

While a good RTS doesn't have to have a good story, there are no great RTS' without good stories. I doubt we're aiming for Starcraft here, as it's just an open source game, but I think the story should be original and well thought out.

Solinx: Sorry for editing your post CoonDawg, but I didn't want to bump this old topic.

This discussion has passed over after Darvin posted the first few of his factions.
You can check his topic here

I think it would be cool since the main goal of all this work is to create an engine for all RTS genres, that the story could have elements of furutistic combat and that of high fantasy. Figure this....

In the year 2120, mankind has undergone significant changes. Technology is greatly advanced, artificial life has already been created. It grew self-aware and we are currently fighting a war with it. Have the game start in the last few battles of the war as a tutorial for gameplay and have the player wipe out A.I. He'll get to experience first hand a major turning point in history that allows the rest of the game's elements to be actualized.

The next level (or whatever) takes place about 200 years later, when technology has undergone it's first recession since the dawn of man. With this, man has kept some higher aspects of technology but have eliminated the number-crunchers like desktop computers. This has forced man to become reliant on himself for much more than in the past, and he wakes parts of his nature that lay dormant since the Paleolithic times. This, coupled with genetic research, has given man the ability to process and manipulate the kenetic energies of his cells and thus transfer it to his environment... the first mages.

This, along with any political storyline to account for the differing factions results in: really cool technology (because humankind has to watch its back), mages or magic-users, and the potential for lots of war!

One added note... in Dune by Frank Herbert (where i got the idea for the war on AI... not the matrix) he also has these shields that protect the wearer from objects moving faster than a few miles an hour. The implications of this are that bullets are useless and man has to revert to knife fighting... another example of the past inside the future! Perfect for a  high fantasy/sci-fi mix.

Just a thought............

PS: sry guys... this was before i read the other topic darvin started. i was throwin an idea out there but damn... darvin seems to have it covered hahahaha

The idea is that the game we create is just an example; the engine itself can be adapted to make anything you might want. 

Can I write a story based on the darvin factions.

Go ahead

Is there any fixed period to make a story or simply,small ideas.

You can write about any time period you like.