Hello all,
october'10 news : mod is quite stalled atm since i havent got any modeler in the team, thou most of the scripting is done. i might release a pre-pre-alpha version not using ant models see if the mechanics might interest someone to help me with the 3D.
I'm gonna work on Sumo Pars map and Soldiers of fortune mod in the meantime.
Right now consider this mod "dead" unless someone really help me with the 3d and modeling. If someone is interested by some scripts let me know.
mars'11 - back to working on the mod
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Antwars is currently recruiting modellers interested in making weapons and armors for the ant models you see page 9.If you are interested in contributing, please respond to this thread or leave me a PM
I'm also looking for modellers experienced in rigging models for testing purpose (as i have very little knowledge is that field at the moment)
Team wantedthe current "team" is made with just a python scripter (me) and that's about it
And of course all those contributors here who gave me good ideas.
This mod will need
in the future the following skills :
- ideas contributors
you'll need to improve the mod background and think of what will story be
imagination is the key, balanced with great pragmatism so this mod can actually be technically made
- module engine system guru
(maybe if you have ideas for scripts not done yet that arent available in the community)
i'm pretty familiar with python scripting, so i dont need a new scripter in the team, but if you have ideas on how to accomplich things i havent finish (like the fof intelligent rocket) let me know
- story/dialog/quest writers
my english sucks as you can see
so we'll need perfect english writers with lots of wacky ideas for ingame dialogs (quests, npc interaction, companion...)
- moddelers / texturers are very very (very^^) welcomed !!
- scenes maker
probably the biggest amount of work, with moddeling, but not a priority for now. love you already ^^
- music / sound maker
another key role that will shape the feeling of the game, with freaky funny music and sounds (i-e like the Lemmings, Worm, Ragging Rabbits game universes)
It is definitly not a historical mod, but rather a "cartoonish" and freaky/funny one.
Playing as an ant, you will experience some new kind of M&B playstyle. You live in a "garden like" world, with fence/wall/bush, swimming pool, pond/fountain and some other decoration objects.
At each corner of this garden there is an anthill HQ (town), each belonging to one of the 4 majors ant factions of the game..
Spread in that garden are various items scavenged by ants (the castles and villages) symbolized with icons like cookie, sugar piece, candy, chewed dog bone, garden gnome, rotten apple and so on...
This garden is the theatre of a long war between all 4 ants factions, each one struggling for the world "ressources". Player will be able to join one of the ant faction, or make his own to unite Garden world.
Story driven worldYou start as a very low worker ant, just good enough to breed larva and wash their diaper. This mod will be story driven, have my idea on this one
but there will be funny quests related to story and besides that its sandbox like every mods over there.
Release ?i hope to release something in "alpha" playable stage around december, guess that will give more than enough time to get into things seriously delayed until modelers join in.
This mod is planned for both vanilla M&B and Warband (solo-play only for now)
WIP status :donein progressnot startedFeatures planned for 1st stage (alpha test release) :-
world map (test map atm, will remake it later)-
ant 3d models-
5 new weapons, 2 new armors set, 2 wings (horse)-
4 major factions, 4 minor factions, 1 garden world faction, various bandits-
rogue ant smuggler dens traders-
factions troop tree-
special troops only hireable in castle and villages when you or your faction own them-
random disaster events (hosepipe flood, lawnmower typhoon, walking human crusher and so on...) - script working, needs polishing for animation, units on world map are damaged when trapped into such disaster-
rank system for faction based on your reputation (for hiring troops, this is not the RANK recruiting scripts that is commonly used by community, but a new and better script i made from scratch)-
castle are now strategic control location, each giving a specific bonus-
aphid hunting (similar to deer hunting script)-
kingdom management-
companions (just hireable, no story for 1stage)
-
party managementfor 2nd and 3rd stage ( beta ~Q2,Q3 2011) :-
a cartoonish styled world with many icons-
powerfull solo bandit boss models (spider, scorpion) and other bandits-
more armors, "horses" and weapons-
story/quests-
companions quests + easter eggs-
new scenes (town, battle, tavern, castle, village)-
special midge-rocket launcher weapon, a sort of close range artillery for "mechwarriors" ants units(mortar) not so happy with the launching script i made atm (the way midget-rocket is flying in the air with smoke) still needs polishing + need better explosion animation the player can also use it, with a special aiming sight when using it.
-
fire and forget locking rockets : rocket follow ennemies and explode around them. locking script done (weapon remember the target even when the target is moving), need to figure how to make the rocket change direction as ennemy moves with what game mechanics allow- aiming scaled sight for 1st person view for the rocket-launcher (like what you see in a sniper rifle scope for target scale depending on target distance)-
honeypot-thrower (kinda like a flamethrower)-
"catapultzor", a special catapult that allow you to throw fighters into a fortress during a siege (thrown soldiers selection screen pre battle done, catapulting soldier done)as you can see, much of the scripting is done, but zero modeling (beside my fail attempts at making ants^^)
World mapA little temp map under to show what it will possiblyl look like :
The 4 HQs are in world corners, the big central alley being the No man's land, an arid and deadly place where competition is ferocious
Castles will have various symbol, ranging from food symbol, to various objet like a lost toy, a bucket, a rubber duck and so on...
Castles will not be ants controlled at game start, but by a "neutral" faction of all other insect in a garden. Those castle will be "strategic" objectives for the ant factions, having villages where you could recruit basic specialized ants according to the "bonus" the castle represent (ant that could be later upgraded in more powerfull ants than those hired from the Towns).
World map screenshots (in progress) :
this is a close to final test map version, without icons but there will be lots of fun icons on map in the end.
top view of garden world (map direction is inverted)
all trees were polished and "retextured"
Final map will be with less decoration objects done with map editor and more icons
you can see some molehills (will add funny icons for those minor factions there)
chair+table+tremplin view, you can now walk ingame around the chair and table.
those acts like a "natural" fortress around Coconuts HQ, also with the little rocks you see behind chair.
There are same "features" for others HQ, rivers for the 2 south, and some impassable trees south of the one NE of map.
view of garden east side
view of garden west side
remade fountain ("retextured" and reshaped) with waterlily, ingame testing show that some ford make npc stuck need to fix that
Yellow Stone HQ location (NE of map)
Coconuts Beach HQ location (NW of map)
Beast lair HQ location (kennel, SE of map) with kitchen garden (there will be vegetables icons there in the future)
Mount Olynpus HQ location (SW of map) the trunc. with a "flood" from swimming pool
Some recent ingame map screenshots :
- about the ants models and since i'm a huge noob at modeling, texturing and so on, i choose to go the easiest direction for a start which is what you can see in Red Moon mod, or in Warsword or so many others mods : gears that will replace heads and gloves with ant heads and arm.
So the models you see under were some tests by myself and those contributed by antrfeak, but they wont be used for beta.
I tried again in december to polish the ant models, but animating them was far from my skill range so this is probably the best solution to get something cartoonish made the easy way (not making new skeletons and so on)
edit 25/07/10 : well seem according to the poll plastic isnt winning ^^ mmm tbh i'll go plastic first since it's less work for the modelling and i can focus on scripting. Will texture models after alpha release (for beta i guess).
FactionsThere are 4 major ants factions and one "Garden world faction" (not final names)
the ants :- The redheads (red fire ant)
Not arsonist ^^ but their look will definitly recall that fire element
Aggressive group, with some good but expansive elite troops
Those ants are living NE of map, Yellow stone HQ, in the children sandbox area (hot and arid place)
Anthill icon : probably a toy bucket.
- The black swarm (black garden ants)
Probably the weakest group, fast and agile ants, but with the best location (NW of map, near the swimming pool at Coconuts beach HQ), and very cheap army allowing swarm attack
Anthill icon : a coconut and drinking straw
- The yellow crazyz (yellow crazy ants)
Those are living SE of map near the dog's kennel, the Beast lair HQ
Average group with some very aggressive units (thinking of implementing a bersek mode, to make them hurt each others)
Their charge in battle is very deadly and dangerous, but can also turn into bloodbath for them
Antill icon : a chewed bone
- The Greens (green ants)
Those are the "flower power" ants
and will have a hippy style (long haired ants with round glasses)
They live in the trunc SW of map, the Mount Olympus HQ
Below average group, but with dangerous chemical weapons ^^ a very good archery troop tree
Anthill icon : a giant tree mushroom
The garden world faction :This faction is non playable. It will regroup all other garden insects (besides existing bandit spawn) and will hold nearly all location at game start, beside anthills, but will have no lords (or just a few).
You will find in that faction every kind of unit possible (see under)
Minor factions :Not decided yet, but there might be some minor smuggler faction, like 3-4 rogue tiny factions, like its working in the 1866 excellent mod (edit 17/03/2011, actually they are done, but no models for them yet, only troop tree)
Those rogue faction have settled into mole burrow, and surviving by selling various scavenged stuff found in those molehills
They wont be at war with any major factions.
Player could buy some special items only found in there
Mercenaries
Mainly variation of ants ( ie bulldog ants...), rogue ants without anthills that had turn into good fighters for survival
May be possible to recruit other insect (aphids bombers, scarab tanker, cockroach charger and so on)
Bandits
some ideas of bandits spawn, those will also be units of the Garden world faction :
aphids (used also for caravans)
termite
pill bug
cockroach (calvary like)
spider
grasshopper (calvary like)
dragonfly (cavalry like)
ladybird
wasp/bee (cavalry like)
scorpion
mantis
scarab
15/03/2011 for beta bandits are based on ants only.
The "cavalry like" thing dont mean you could ride them, just that they could knock you like horse charge
Powerfull units like spiders or scorpion will be solo on game map but very deadly and very tough to kill
Aphids will be hunted like all those deer/buffalo stuff in various mods. They will also be the main unit found in caravans travelling the world map, escorted by various ants warriors specific to each faction.
priority will be ant modelling of course, remaining insects could be done in a very later phase
There will be a lot of them. Either linked to some specific hour in day or random (edit 15/03/2011 this part is already made)
disasters :
some ideas :
hosepipe flood, lawnmower typhoon, walking human crusher (many variations, kiddies playing in garden, and adults going to work), giant dog rolling
might be huge icons randomly travelling on map and randomly killing troops, need to figure how to make that
bonus events :
in addition to the "static" bonus that will be castles and villages, there will be more random "treasures" to be found in that garden (cookies and so on...)
those will be scenes leading to battle and loot, or with possible troop recruitment
most scripts are made, planned for later beta stage.
Whatever wacky item we can think of
carapace and scale for armor and shields, various insect legs/antenna for sharp/blunt weapons
not forgotting the archer weapon, like the aphid bomber (ants throwing aphids that explode like a grenade), venom spitter (a gun styled venom weapon), honeypot thrower (like a flamethrower, have to bug Williamberne for that
, but with ant honey ) and of course the acid shooting gun (deadly formic acid^^)
and wings instead of horse
as of 15/03/2011 no items made
Troop treeall troop trees are done
Ants again and again ^^
Each faction will have a specific ant troop tree, some faction focused on resistance, some other on brutal force and so on.
So the basic unit would be larva looking-like, and after upgraded whatever you could imagine between that, soldiers and queens.
Also those special basic units you could recruit from villages with castles could lead to more powerfull types of ants (an ant that had feast on a cookie would be much stonger for example)
an exemple of troop tree for black or green ants :
larva
|
carebear
|
grunt
/ | \
(cavalry like) (archery) (heavy infantry)
cave runner aphid bomber meat ripper (ant with chainsaw?^^)
| | |
drone venom spitter stormanter (classic ant stormtrooper, with Scifi helmet?)
| | |
winged ace honeypot thrower bull ant (those ants with huge heads)
|
queen
|
zeppelin queen
the archery units will throw stuff at ennemy, like aphids exploding in a splash of slime, or honeypot ants strafing ennemies (and yes honeypot ants do exist^^)
There will be a large choice of them to recruit. With stories for each one of them.
Scenes ideasthe garden gnome
castle cookie
sugar piece maze
rotten apple
lost children toy
the great river (hosepipe)
the infinite ocean shores (swimming pool border)
rubber duck
(...)
Tournaments could also be rethink (have some idea like separating tournament area in 4, and teams throwing aphids on each others until one survivor remain
)
need to find more fun ideas for tournament (and scenes for them)
and more wacky ideas to come, please contribute
...
15/03/2011 - no scenes will be made for beta
Poll
