Blasphemer discussion

[Cire]

Hmm, it actually hadn't crossed my mind that there may be compatibility issues in that way... It probably needs further investigation. I Think your concept look great, by the way. I had a friend who drew some concept art for me, but he happened to misplace his drawing book and can't find it anymore. :( Also, my sister and her boyfriend talked about doing sounds, but that hasn't happened yet, they might have lost interest.

[raymoohawk]

here are two more concepts that may be useful




the lizard is in heretic pallete and the elephant in doom pallete, but i could change them to the proper one, i could also the changes for them to fit into whatever theme is chosen of course

[Cire]

Yup, those concepts looks very nice. Also, I guess the question is which pallete Zauberer should use; the straight hexen one like Freedoom uses Doom's or a modified Hexen like Blasphemer uses a modified Heretic one. At the moment Zauberer uses the Blasphemer pallete which is bad, mainly because it breaks compatibility with Hexen mods.

[jute]

If you put that female player sprite into Blasphemer it would be a playable multiplayer game.

[raymoohawk]

i think the pallete should either be the exact hexen pallete or a direct translation of the hexen pallete (for example same number of reds, but with a different hue)

also if it is to be changed maybe it could be brighter, most sourceports dont handle super dark palletes that well i think

[HorrorMovieRei]

I don't think having a female character would conflict with anything gameplay wise, but it could be a bit tricky to implement this. Mainly because the character in Hexen were very Doomguy like. As in, just generic enough so most players could easily self insert into any of them.
But if that's not an issue, I'm all for having a female character. Maybe make her the mage, as is common in RPGs. Or make her the cleric instead, and make the mage a Gandalf-like wizard.
Fighter should remain a big brute imo, though :p

[Cacowad]

jute said:

If you put that female player sprite into Blasphemer it would be a playable multiplayer game.

this seems like a really good idea, it could be a nice turn of events.

Also, OMG that giant lizardman is so awesome! could fit the maulotaurus so perfectly...

I remember about zauberer, but i didn't heard about it from a good while, did you made any progress?

[raymoohawk]

honestly if we can have female player characters than maybe all 3 could be female, it would be a good counterpart to the all male hexen. now if we do go for female protagonist lets try to not give them steretypical designs

should i give two heads two the the giant lizard? as a homage to the ettin

[Xindage]

raymoo the skull monsters maybe they fit better in blasphemer code because they are much big in hexen/heretic the only big monsters are disparil, korax, minotaur and the mage of 3 runes (i forget the name atm), and for disparil they fit better to be a monster that die and return in a new form like a revenge soul, maybe they can be minotaur also.

About sharing of sprites the minotaur really need to be shared between the two games since the mod horde of chaos use the dark servant iten thats is from hexen if you dont share the sprites between then the mod is going to a have a walking hexen monsters using heretic death sprite monster so it not work well at least this monster need to be the same in both game for mod compatibility.

edit: a screenshot of the mod -

here you can see doom monsters - heretic itens texture - and hexen texturs
but some maps use lots of doom texture and other use lots of hexen monters this game is played in any theses iwads - doom2, hexen and heretic

[DragonMorpheus]

I suggest we use Raymoo's female design for Blasphemer's player character, and I was thinking that the three classes in Zauberer could be different sexes. Like one could be male, another could be female, and the third being ambiguous/sexless.

And Protox, the minotaur doesn't need to be the same between both games. Each game can have their own monster, just as long as each sprite set has the correct names.

[Maz Hades]

The barbarian should be a female Ettin-type thing, the mage could be a fatass old witch, and the cleric could be a time-travelling fighter of the evil dead, complete with mechanical hand (not too similar to Ash though, since this is the libre version)

[Xindage]

DragonMorpheus said:

And Protox, the minotaur doesn't need to be the same between both games. Each game can have their own monster, just as long as each sprite set has the correct names.

oh looking into the iwads i see the hexen has too the unused minotaur frames so it dont conflict whit multi iwads mods forget what i have sayd

[raymoohawk]

protox, game play mods that add aditional frames to the monsters are always going to break compatability, take a look at smooth doom or demonsteele, fredoom can run them, but the monsters chage back and forth between doom and freedoom frames. in the mod you described the same would happen even if the monsters from blasphemer and zauberer where the same, because it would display heretic frames

i like morpheus idea of female, male and gender ambiguos, we could make it even better by having different species for each of them. ill try to mock up some more concepts soon, prioritizng the player so we can at least have amultiplayer game.

maz and hmguy (and anyone i missed) do you think you could do some concept art to get the ideas flowing?

[Maz Hades]

Ok, I did some concept art:

Fighter

Spoiler

Mage

Spoiler

Cleric

Spoiler

If Zauberer is a sequal to Blasphemer, maybe the witch could be an older version of the Blasphemer player. The fighter could be her bodyguard, and she could have summoned the Evil Dead-lookin' dude from the future to help her.

[raymoohawk]

thanks maz, those look good, but could you make some alternate concepts? i think we should brainstrom ideas before we commit to a design

meanwhile here is some random monster i designed a while ago, maybe with some changes it could be the new death wyvern since its the same size



EDIT

another concept i had laying around, maybe it could work as a wizard enemy or one of the player characters

[Maz Hades]

Sure, I realise that not everyone wants to play as a senile old woman :D
Here's a few more sketches:

Spoiler

I know there's not a whole lot of variation in these particular designs

[raymoohawk]

i actually like the idea of playing as a heroic old woman, its not very common ;) althoug i think she should have a emaciated appearence, as if her very life got drained out to become magical energy or something, something resembling darth traya maybe

[Maz Hades]

I was basing her on this character:

Spoiler

It'd be cooler if she was a big, crankey old witch, rather than a skeletal mage, IMO. Also she looks more dangerous and tough.

[raymoohawk]

i had forgotten something important i wanted to bring up, and that is the license. Cire are you sure you want to use the modified bsd. freedoom may use it, but that is because freedoom predates the creation of CC licenses. i believe that the atribution license would help make the zauberer assets more appelaing for aspiring developers than the modified bsd could because CC licenses are more standard among OSs game developers, and seeing how we are at a very early stage of development we can make a shift in license that the more established freedoom does not have the luxury of doing. ideally i would even suggest that we take up the CC0, but that may scare away some people from contributing

thoughts? (just to clarify ill stay on board even if we keep the modified bsd)

also lets discuss the theme a little more so we get an idea for the art direction (sorry for getting ahead of myself posting and aking for concepts before discussing story more)

[Jon]

raymoohawk said:

i had forgotten something important i wanted to bring up, and that is the license. Cire are you sure you want to use the modified bsd. freedoom may use it, but that is because freedoom predates the creation of CC licenses. i believe that the atribution license would help make the zauberer assets more appelaing for aspiring developers than the modified bsd could because CC licenses are more standard among OSs game developers, and seeing how we are at a very early stage of development we can make a shift in license that the more established freedoom does not have the luxury of doing. ideally i would even suggest that we take up the CC0, but that may scare away some people from contributing

thoughts? (just to clarify ill stay on board even if we keep the modified bsd)

also lets discuss the theme a little more so we get an idea for the art direction (sorry for getting ahead of myself posting and aking for concepts before discussing story more)

Just to explain the licensing decision for Freedoom a bit more, here: CC was created in 2001, as was Freedoom; I'm not sure that Freedoom definitely came first. But even so, we could have gone with a software license that did have an attribution clause if that was important to us at the time.

CC0 does not require attribution.

[Cire]

Thanks for the concept art guys! Regarding the license, I was thinking about this myself. The only reason I put Blasphemer's license in there was that I used Blasphemer Resources as placeholders and that required adhearing to Blasphemer's license. I would be happy to use a Creative Commons license instead.

[Xindage]

The fighter and cleric concepts was true awsome but the mage looks much fat and for me dont goes well.

[raymoohawk]

you make a good point jon, thats actually why i said a CC0 could discourage people from contributing. in any case how about we toss around some story ideas for now. having a solid direction from the start really helped projects like btsx or going down

[Cire]

That sounds like a good idea. I Think your idea of haveing a kind of Steam/Cyberpunk Mythology mashup is good. What does other people Think? I Think deciding upon a general theme and story would be advantageous for Zauberer as others have said Before. Would be nice if people could help flesh out a story draft. I've started Writing a novella, trying to go for a dystopic cyberpunk kind of theme. It's not for this Project though, but it might give inspiration for some people. If anyone's interested, I could post it here.

[raymoohawk]

go right ahead ;)
have you talked about getting a zauberer treadh btw?

[Cire]

Here's the current early prototype I made one day a few months ago. Sorry if it's a bit weird.

"Title

Prologue

In the near future:
Aliens invade. Only the Aido Fighting Team can stand against them.

Chapter One - Welcome to (Sunnyvale? Sunnyville? Will decide later)

A few years earlier:
My life is fantastic. I have no money, no job, and the weather is bad. As always. Such irony, to live in a city called Sunny(whatever) when it always rains. People have started to use a new kind of drug that's smoked as a cigerette. Everything is run-down and broken and most things are done by machines. What's worse is this new virus that has started to spread in the city. Makes people throw up puke and parasites and later, die. Even my wife, Jennifer, has caught the infection. I just hope our daughter doesn't get it too.
I'm on a visit to my neighbour and friend, Ryan, who also has the virus, in hope to borrow some money from him. I'm in his flat and I see him standing, leaning over the railing with the window open. He is smoking one of those new cigarettes. The view is bleak and depressing. "Hey man," I say to him, "I need some help". "What are you looking for, drugs?" Ryan replies. "Not today," I say, "I need to borrow some money". Ryan doesn't have time to answer before he starts vomiting puke and parasites over the railing outside and on the the red carpet he has inside his flat. The carpet is now partly covered with white puke with small, transparent worms crawling around in the mess. "You better leave before you catch this infection too." Ryan says to me. I get the point and start to move towards the flat's door. Before I get there however, Ryan interrupts me. Feeling better for the moment, he says "Hey man!". I turn around towards him. "Take this!" he says to me and throws a package towards me. I catch it, and check its contents. There's some money and a few coins in Swedish currency, and one of those new kind of cigarettes in it...

Chapter Two - The Pig-Man

When I get out from Ryan's flat to the streets, I get confused because I can't decide what to do next. I feel a little better now at least, now that I have some money and at least can afford to pay this months rent. Still, having no job and no hobbies gets really frustrating in the long run. I feel really bored, almost depressed at this moment. I start to glance towards the cigarette Ryan gave me. It looks more and more inviting. I've never used this new drug before, and I really don't want to either, it being illegal, addicting and all that, not that the corrupt police force cares much about it though. There's too much other problems in this city for them to have the time to care about petty drug addicts. To hell with it. I stick the cigarette in my mouth, get my lighter up and light the cigarette. After a few smokes, I start feeling really tired and dizzy and start to faint. The last thing I see before blacking out is me lying on the street with the cigarette beside me...
The Pig-Man is sitting in his car on one of his usual trips on his way to the slaughterhouse with the truck loaded with pigs. On the street in front of his, he sees an unconsious man lying there, right on the ground. He decides to pick him up and put him in his truck and starts driving towards the hospital instead of the slaughterhouse, being the helpful kind of man he is. When he get's to the hospital, the medical staff there helps me get to a bed in one of the rooms, something which I am unaware of at the time, still being unconsious...

Chapter Three - The Bomb

When I finally wake up, there is quite a commotion in the hospital. Oh noes! Apparently, they've just found a bomb inside the hospital, one of the scared staff tells me. No one at the hospital knows how to disarm it. They've called for an bomb disarm team, but they're too far away to be able to reach the hospital in time. I now come to think of the time I spent, mostly out of boredom, researching bombs on the internet. "I can give it a try." I say to him. "I guess we have no other choice." he replies. I go ahead and succesfully disarm the bomb...

(Insert a few more chapters here...)

Third to last Chapter - The Car

I decide to buy a car to be able to get better job oppertunities. I get a job as a driver. My current mission is to go about 6 miles outside of town to a shore. When I get there, a really aggressive man is there and he starts spraying grafitti on my car and beating it up. My car gets damaged so that most of the gears stop working. Only the rear one still works. I panic a bit and start backing my way back into the city which is really hard. I keep my head outside the window looking behind and at the same time try to dodge the hanging loose electric cables to keep myself from getting electrified. Being so distracted, I miss to notice the hole in the ground and drive right into it. The car with me inside fall down into the hole...

Penultimate Chapter - The Aido Fighting Team

When I hit the ground I climb out of the broken car, feeling quite dissoriented, and find myself in the Aido Fighting Team's hideout. Every punk and lowlife there are out to get me. I have to use everything around me to survive. I find a meat grinder and start it up. Poor Mats-Erik's life end's in it. After having obliterated them all, I'm declared this years winner of the Aido Fighting Team. As I'm on my way up to the winner's stage, I grab a Diet Coke and some soft ice cream being served on the way there. When I finally get there, I feel proud over my accomplishment, but also a bit scared due to my stage fright...

Last Chapter - The Alien Invasion

Aliens invade. Only the Aido Fighting Team can stand against them."

Regarding a Zauberer thread, that would be really nice to have. Is there a specific moderator or something I should speak to about it or how do I go about it?

[raymoohawk]

fraggle and jon are the moderators of the subforum

[Cire]

Should I just send fraggle or Jon or both a PM and ask if I can have a Zauberer thread?

[raymoohawk]

yep, i think so

how about asking jmickle if he wants to participate?

[Cire]

What did you Think of my story? Kinda good or does it suck? :)
Edit: Yup, would be great if jmickle would like to participate, should I send him a PM and ask?