[SUGGESTION] Cold truth about any Story mode for Xonotic.

Ok hello folks, long time no see.

You know I see so many threads about single player and whatnot but really no action or actual planning. So I decided to share something with you guys to open up some eyes on what it really takes to do such a feat.

I'm going to get down and dirty and spill the beans about a single player for Xonotic. I'm gonna start off saying that to some degree the community WILL be out of the loop and not even asked for advice and opinions. And in some cases even blatantly ignored.
It will also need a SET team which works on it. But as always, of course contributors would be much welcomed and appreciated.

I'm now gonna try to explain this.

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Project Manager/Coordinator:
There are many roles to fill and many hats to wear in such a production.
The most important thing is organization, without it don't even think of starting anything, it WILL fail.
You will need one or two project managers. Their roles would be to drive the project forward, give advice, make decisions if in a stale situation, look after the team, know what they are working on, give out directions and tasks for the team, looking for more talent/contributors to pitch in, basically make sure the project isn't dead or standing still.

Story teller(s):
Basically have one or a few story tellers which can work in tandom with each other and the community. Make them whip something up, something good as well, not just the first story go. Don't underestimate this part and also don't overestimate it. It's an important step but not all can actually come up with a good plausible and entising story.

Coders/Programmers:
Then of course you need coders which is very hard to come by, and not just one coder either. Not many are too eager on working on a single player story campaign.

Concept artists:
People who can visualize the world for the next step of people. They'll draw out the world, characters, weapons, different environments, props and whatnot. It's almost never a good idea to start doing anything until you have a clear idea of what you're trying to accomplish.

Modelers/Texturers/Riggers/Animators:
I took these for major roles in one go cause I don't want to type too much. But basically you know what these guys do. Also, more than one would be very good to have.

Music and Sound effects:
From all to folly sound effects to kickass music playing in the background giving an even deeper feel to the game and storyline.

Community Relations A.K.A Relaytor(s):
Not PR as you would think but basically some people who live with the community and mingle around them. These people know the status of the teams progress and relay that information to the community. This way if the community has any suggestions and ideas, these people will sort between all the mass of suggestions and take the good parts back to the team and integrate them. Of course discussing said ideas to see if they are feasible to begin with.
In laymens terms, this is the doorway between the team behind the scene who works on the project and the community and their suggestions.
That said, this doesn't mean the community won't be able to talk to the team directly, but if they are busy and whatnot it's the job of these Relaytors to make sure they get heard.
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Now with that said. Be certain of that some of the community members will get angry, discouraged and just leave never to be heard of because of a bunch of reasons.
This setup is almost a must if you want single player. There's just too many suggestions on how this campaign should look like and turn into. Some wants UT3 style thing with various game modes like assault, ctf, deathmatch etc. for each stage. Others wants a clone of Q1, no story just a bunch of mindless killing bots in a linear fashion.

I for one am NOT happy with either of those suggestions. When I think Single Player I think awesome story, some nice action and other goodies like perhaps cutscenes and whatnot. I do NOT think "offline multiplayer with bots instead of real players". That is NOT a single player in my mind, it's usually called 'Skirmish'.
So, already there I bet I made a few people cringe. When making a single player for Xonotic remember, it is impossible to make everyone happy, someone will get pissed complaining "You don't listen to the community at all you stupid liars! You don't care about us!oneeleven!!211!!".
Sure we would listen to the community and their feedback as much as possible, but just know not all ideas would be accepted. Feelings will be hurt.

This is why we need to stop beating around the bush and actually start planning. I am completely happy with a Half-Life kinda style, and remember that's pretty much all we can do at this point anyway. We cannot have cool awesome next-gen single player campaigns with thousands enemies at once with hovering vehicles spewing lava melting the entire map.

If you get together a good and serious team, I would be happy to offer my services as a modeler, texturer, rigger and animator. I can do all those parts however, I prefer not to be alone though.
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EDIT updated: 2011-02-07:
These are the offers currently. Maybe, just maybe, there could be light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder how many story tellers it takes before it gets messy. In any way, if you could coordinate your work efforts I don't see why it shouldn't work:

N/A

Yeah! You're right! We need to work together and not against each other (thinking of the story)!
I offer myself as Story teller! (and maybe as concept artist)
I'd really like to work on the story with some others!

looking forward to a nice Singleplayer in Xonotic

A singleplayer Xonotic? Well, the Q1/Q3A concept is plain stupid. Campaigns are also overrated. Let's say, have a game where you have to go from one teleport/ship to another, killing bunch of enemies before. I don't mean anything like Half-Life, but, say, have the Xonotic Corp. main space base infected with a virus, and you (the player) have to escape and get to the Phoenix Base to get a cure. The cure, however is taken by the final boss and voilà, place for Xonotic 2 is ready. That's of course only one of the ideas.

Yeah, I'll be a storyteller. I can do some maps too.

i could do maps and story telling, if needed

This is [url="http://dev.xonotic.org/projects/xonotic/wiki/Tech_Conglomerate]not[/url] as undeveloped as you think.

I completely disagree with the group hermitage style of development - xonotic is supposed to be a step away from that.

This is [url="http://dev.xonotic.org/projects/xonotic/wiki/Tech_Conglomerate"]not[/url] as undeveloped as you think.

Yes, I agree. That's shaping up to look very nice, I think in terms of storyline that could be quite viable

Still, imo any storymode should be a secondary focus, and if it's done, it should be a game in itself. Otherwise, it ends up as a minor feature which developers have poored a disproportionate amount of time into.

Coders/Programmers

This is the only place where I could really help out, and even then my programming skills aren't terribly great :p. But if not many people really wanted to take this up, I'd be happy to help out

Community driven single player campaign based game, without organization is as sure to fall as the Berlin wall did. There's just no way around that.
You can't have one contributer make one little part of a story, leaves never to be seen again, then another one months later comes and takes over for a while and continues on the story while changing some of the previews parts.
Same story goes for models, maps, animations and all that. The style wouldn't be contingent or make any sense at all.
Besides, maybe some people would work on the same thing without knowing it and when only one result could be choosen the other person would get mad for spending time and being rejected.
People need to know who works on what and being kept updated on the status, so as if the person doesn't make any progress, quits, dies, whatever, someone else could do that thing. Instead of waiting and waiting for nothing to show up.
This has happened so many times with Nexuiz and 9 out of 10 times the other person gets angry, depressed after having high hopes for his thing to be included, or just ignored by the others getting discouraged to contribute more.
Instead of that he/she could have worked on something else.

Now keep in mind, I'm not saying the community SHOULDN'T try to contribute. I'm just saying that someone has to be in charge of organizing the contributions and the community.
Here's an example. One dude wants to add a model to the game, he asks the lead project manager if the thing he want to contribute could be used and if someone else is already working on it. If no does then it's all clear for him to do his thing.
But one can't just start doing something and then force it into the story somehow. Like trying to shove in a flying penguin somewhere.

For multiplayer it works just great, but not single player where everthing has to stay consistent. And would you know, for multiplayer that's exactly what Xonotic is.

I don't know if you have worked on such projects before Roanoke but I'm coming from tons such environments which lacked in organization and ALL eventually died and you spent perhaps months on wasted effort.

IF you know a better system which doesn't require such a group hermitage but still is organized and including the community AND holds up for years to come not just a month then it gets disorganized all over again, I'm all ears.

That link you sent is a very good start for a story which one could work from. But one still needs someone who decides what's viable and what's not. Preferably someone who knows the limitation of the engine. But nevertheless, it is a base to start from.

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Basically put:
The community SHOULD contribute. This group hermitage is just a 'core' team which doesn't necessarily hold more power than a community member. They are there in case there are no contributions coming in from the community, in one or several areas. The 'core' team IS the community.
The project managers are there just to make sure things keep going forward and are organized, they don't decide how things looks like and turns out. They only decide stuff if there is no consensus, then it would be necessary of them to step forward and make a decision.

Everyone are eager to help out at the beginning that's for sure. But their will, enthusiasm and energy will fade away with time and they'll be gone. This 'core' team is here to make sure that doesn't happen. That's why I asked for SERIOUS people who are willing to put up, possibly YEARS, in development (because it is during our spare time and it varies from individual to individual). Not quit as soon as things goes boring or hard.
I am one such serious person, but I'm not willing to do anything before there is a structure. I'm not gonna waste my time and effort on a dead project.

I for myself think this would be a great singleplayer mod, or at least a part of it.. You learn about weapons, movement etc. http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=841

I for myself think this would be a great singleplayer mod, or at least a part of it.. You learn about weapons, movement etc. http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=841

I don't think having an "Invasion" game as an entire story level is a good idea, although a similar gameplay mechanic could be used as a single objective within a map.

Like trying to shove in a flying penguin somewhere.

We DEFINITELY need this! Maybe as a hidden easter egg or something.

I agree with you! The Invasion would be a great game-type but it has no story! We need to have a REAL GREAT story through whole Xonotic Singleplayer!

YAY! WE NEED EASTER EGGS!!!

Before thinking of things to do and add for single player, let's first concentrate on the organization. Let's not jump over very crucial steps into the 'good' stuff before we've set a solid foundation.
What I want is people to sign up for this, before anyone has done so nothing can start.

In that case I'd be willing to join a story development team

I am interested in helping to come up with a plot for the story mode of Xonotic if I am needed. I am a novice author. If you need a portfolio of some sort, you can check out http://romanceotaku.com/other-writings/ for a full list of my publicly released writings. I know I may not be the best, but considering that there are mostly coders and map editors around here, my skills may come in handy. Drop me a PM and/or email if you needmore information or just want to contact me.

seems like people are interested. I hope these people would stick to the project for some months.
There are still important positions needed like a programmer

I can do modeling/animation/(some)textureing/ and concepting. I can also do some coordinating, if that becomes necessary.

at the moment, my primary objective is to remodel ALL of the weapons. (longterm)

I can do some QuakeC and mapping where needed.

But I'm busy during the 4-5 next weeks. After that I'll happily help out.

hai

ive been annoying the guys for a while now (crappy music) , and ive helped whereever i can.

so to sound like a broken record , any sound/music help , ill try my best.

but if not , then i could maybe be a pr guy.

honestly though , from my limited insight into the making of this , i think its goin quite well
i read alot of chat here and on irc , etc
but ,again limited insight , i do agree on a "core" group , but i thought they are already there!
and i think they are!

idk

so , whos driving this bus?

:^

(p.s , not me , i cant drive a bus)

These are the offers currently. Maybe, just maybe, there could be light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder how many story tellers it takes before it gets messy. In any way, if you could coordinate your work efforts I don't see why it shouldn't work:

rainerzufalldererste - Story, possibly concept artist
Minkovsky - Story, maps
Cortez666 - Story, maps
ThePWTULN - Story
MANERS - Story
clanclanclan - Coder
FruitieX - Coder
theShadow - Concepting, modeling, animation, some texturing, possibly coordinating
Seijiro - Modeling, texturing, rigging, animation
chooksta - Sound, music

maybe if I spend a bit more time with blender I can also help with modeling or animation

I'll help out on the story since that's what I've been doing so far.

These are the offers currently. Maybe, just maybe, there could be light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder how many story tellers it takes before it gets messy. In any way, if you could coordinate your work efforts I don't see why it shouldn't work:

rainerzufalldererste - Story, possibly concept artist
Minkovsky - Story, maps
Cortez666 - Story, maps
ThePWTULN - Story
MANERS - Story
clanclanclan - Coder
FruitieX - Coder
theShadow - Concepting, modeling, animation, some texturing, possibly coordinating
Seijiro - Modeling, texturing, rigging, animation
chooksta - Sound, music

Having 5 story writers is a bit too much, isn't it? In my opinion, the most important thing we need at this stage of development is a fixed story outline that the writers can develop later, after we've got some basic code.

Instead of a being a writer, I think I'm more suited to level design or perhaps a coordinating role.

Yes, I too believe it's a bit many story writers, it would be up to anyone who wants to take charge of organizing to manage the whole thing. THIS is why I made this thread. Cause basically what I've been seeing is people only signing up for the story writer part, but all the other parts pretty much no one wants to take.
Hence why we need ideas and whatnot from the community while having 2-3 or so 'core' story writers which can take both the community's and their own ideas into play.

Cause you see, this is the case without organization and in the end it becomes a jumble mess. I would LOVE someone to lead this project, having two coordinators is ideal. Basically you ThePWTULN and theShadow. I would be ok with that.
So if you guys are willing to take charge, we could start any time. I'm all ready to go and put some effort into this and whatnot.

i dont have be a story writer in any case, i just offered it if there arent enough.

well, it seems like at this point, our MAIN priority is getting the game itself "finished". it is coming along really well so far, but it would be better to have that done so we have a core to build off of.

we can, however keep working on story/concepting so maybe at this point having 5 writers isn't such a bad idea. they can bounce ideas off of each other until we have something really good that we can start working on once the core game is finished.

I also forgot to mention, you can put me down for mapping as well, and I can do animation. (I reworked all of the current player animations.)

It's ok. I'm not saying people can't contribute with ideas and whatnot. You can if you want to and it's good that you do. I just don't want things to get too messy.
Yeah Yoda, aka theShadow does have a point. You could for sure bounce things off of each other and whatnot, get a rough outline and just a bit warmed up till the first release of Xonotic comes.

@Yoda: It's good that you can do so many things just don't try to take on every role there is. :p It's a lot of work, heh. Though it's good to know there are 'backups' in certain areas if it is needed.