[SUGGESTION] Characters need life

When I think of xonotic being represented or spoofed or anything, I realize that the characters don't really say much about the game.
What I mean by this is that all the player characters, while given names and faces, don't have personalities, and aren't necessarily recognizable out of the game. If you look at Team Fortress 2, you can take any of the player classes out of the game and into anything else and he'll still be a person with a back story and a personality. He's someone you can like or hate. Another one I can think of is Sam Fisher.
I guess I'm asking for something that makes each character stand out. I don't want erebus or gak etc. to be just a generic drone that you control. This can be done through changing their silhouettes, giving them character-specific voices (I know that could be hard). There could be phrases that they say as a domination taunt, or maybe even animations that they perform at the end of the match to give them personalities(it would be a win or lose animation).
Thoughts?

as Scootaloo would say, "I'm liking this idea!"

Me too, i think it would be great.

Thanks for the feedback. I thought about it again, and I got the idea that if people just start making drawings, little cartoons, and stories, the characters could be fleshed out by the community. Maybe we could simply have a "media" forum where people can write stories, post songs, submit drawings, etc. That, or we could just have suggestions for character stories, and then vote on the "official" one.

Players already do have different voices. For example the pain sounds and tactical callouts (like "incoming") are different for different players. Also we do have taunts, which are again different for different player models. Taunts aren't very well known I guess, type

Code:

cmd voice taunt

in console to perform it, or bind a key to it.

Honestly though, I would be just as happy with this game if it had nothing but the mega erebus player model.

Type "cmd voice" and press return. Then it lists the possibly voices (i.e. taunt, see above). But more or less voices about gameplay like "attack".

Well that kind of fulfills the taunt idea, but it would be cooler if it was automatic, IMO. I'll have to try that out though :3
Nowego, about the "would be just as happy...if it had nothing but the mega erebus": At this point, that's pretty much how I feel, because they all feel like the same person, with mega erebus just being the coolest looking one. I don't know about your reasons, but I'd enjoy the variety of characters more if they just stood out more as individuals, and not drones.
By the way, Is erebus a robot? He's the only one who always has a mask on...

Good observation, I agree with this! There's indeed a lot more life for characters like Team Fortress 2's, and I can sense the same in the UT series (Campaign).

I remember how a few years back, I made a bunch of comics with Malcom Brock and Lauren (and my vixen character) using UT2004 screenshots. Did the same with a few other games, but it felt like it makes sense. If you look at all the TF2 shows and parodies, there are a ton of them, which might be a pointer for this also.

As for taunts: I made voice packages for games in the past, and have been planning to make some for Xonotic too. So that the fragging taunts would have more voices (about 20 at least) and be better. I might be able to make reasonable voices for marine, and probably good ones for alien and robot. Since there are no robot models however, and just one alien (the gak), I haven't felt so interested. My english accent is quite bad also, making it even harder.

I'd be happy to do some voice acting for taunts and whatnot. Native english speaking male here

I'd be happy to do some voice acting for taunts and whatnot. Native english speaking male here

You totally need to PM me some contact information for chat AIM? Gtalk? IRC? Do you use anything like that? As that would be really helpful but i'd like to discuss details with you directly (forums suck)

IM A CHARACTER...

i need a life...........

twoo!

t

:^

If I make any taunts myself, I'll likely just put them on a GIT branch without notice. But again, the lack of (different enough) characters has not encouraged me to do this. Also, I plan to make voices for non-existent taunts, such as "I have our flag", "I have the enemy flag", "I captured a control point", "I have the ball", "Yes, blue / red / yellow / pink leader" (I loved that one in UT).

[...]"I have the balls"[...]

Fixed.

[...]"I have the balls"[...]

Fixed.

I think you meant "I've got balls of steel"