I was just dozing off in my chair when an idea struck me. Tricky things, ideas.

 

Anyway, the image suddenly popped into my mind of this airbone mass of tubes connecting different bits of an alien hive, or industrial complex or what have you. The tubes were transparent, and made of tough polymer or alien goop or whatever. This means that you get to appreciate the beautiful maps Obs are going to give us while still being constrained, while still having to find your way around a 3d maze, and bypass big chambers, etc.

 

Still more excitingly you'd be able to see aliens in other tunnels scuttling about, but since the overall architecture of the tunnels can be complicated by opaque spires, distance, cloud vapour, and your own tunnel walls, you rarely know quite what kind of threat they are.

 

You also get some interesting problem-solving coming into play if you allow players and alien blood to destroy bits of the tunnels. Doing so may be to your advantage in thet it can allow you to shoot across the gaps, or prevent aliens from following you. But equally you can end up boxing yourself in, or even so badly damaging a stretch of tunnel that it collapses and you plummet to your doom.

 

Thoughts?

Wow.

 

That's just fantastic idea

 

Alien gootunnels! Genius I say, genius!

Thanks, buddy!

Very nice idea. Will the tunnels have their own light source, or only what the players bring with them?

Not only is that a great idea Mr moderator, but the aesthetic appeal of all those Gigeresque transparent tubes would be a sight to behold.

 

This is definitely the type of imagery I want to be presented with in Obs RPG. I want the same types of feelings I got from experiencing my surroundings in Prey.

And which poor sucker gets to program the pathfinding algorithm?

you could take it a step further and have the entire area your running around it be a giant body (similar to say buts of Prey) with each different organ being a room and your method of transportation is running through the circulatory system.

 

Of course all of this is coming from an FPS standpoint not an RPG standpoint.

Calax, your point sounds interesting, but I've not played Prey, so don't know how that would tie in. Clearly the notion of having the tubes occasionally sluiced by fluid would be very cool indeed. Imagine the feeling as you hare up one, only just making it and see the pursuing bugs getting washed away! However, to my mind it is the process of creeping along, exposed hundreds of feet up, that gets me. A complete reversal of the typical feeling of groundhog security one normally gets by diving into an air vent.

 

EDIT: Steve. I would imagine that you would have to rbing your own light source where appropriate. Obviously during the day is all well and good, but Night would be something else! Perhaps your way would be lit only by the flickering bale fire of burning tower blocks or cars. Perhaps by the pale green of comets burning up in the atmosphere overhead? Or the cold hard stamp of beam weapons being deployed by a desperate colonial navy!

I think OE could pull it off well, too. In both their games I've run the PC around a corner and had to stop to appreciate how cool the environment looked.

And which poor sucker gets to program the pathfinding algorithm?

 

 

That's the best bit. We can decide amongst us, and use the threat to make the devs fetch us sherbet!

Great ideas, the hive description is also visually promising.

 

Hopefully logistics, survival and resourcefullness elements are strongly represented in this game to make good use of the license, since they are otherwise pretty scarse in arpgs in general. Managing approaches escapes and preventing and or surviving zergs would be great and natural for the material. On paper it sounds very challenging to make a good rpg and a good use of the aliens license in the same time.

 

I am also somewhat hoping for a semi episodic component with high mortality like in Eternal Darkness for GC rather than a PC who manages to trumph the aliens individually somehow. This would allow more diversity of challenges by manipulating player resources in addition to the environments which is where much of the potential variety and challenge can come from as the alliens are typically a static component and shouldn't have their lethality articificially enhanced or reduced, or at least not too liberally

Edited June 16, 200718 yr by leombruno

Love the idea, even if crawling around transparent tubes might give me video-vertigo.

I think it would heighten the suspense factor, too - often glimpsing possible threats in the distance etc. but didn't know exactly where/how/what.

Maybe I didn't read it right, but it just sounds incredibly awkward with no basis in anything we've remotely seen. I mean, what is creating these see through tubes?

It

Why, out of all the existing hive designs, would there be one like this and especially why should it be used by Obsidian?

 

I agree with Tale, it sounds akward and rather outlandish.

It

It has advantages:

I think it would heighten the suspense factor, too - often glimpsing possible threats in the distance etc. but didn't know exactly where/how/what.

and the construction of a hive would depend on the local geology, I imagine; a lot of silicon (eighth most common element in the universe, second most common in the Earth's crust) might provide a clear building material.

 

Sort of like seeing the lift (elevator for you Americans) in System Shock 2 has a lot of floors, and the PC has to unlock them all one at a time.

Why, out of all the existing hive designs, would there be one like this and especially why should it be used by Obsidian?

 

Because its different.

 

More descriptive

Edited June 17, 200718 yr by Sh0dan

Because it's different is a terrible argument. I guess that's why you stuck out your tongue. :Cant's contemplating a tongue sticking out icon icon:

 

I like the idea, although I wouldn't want them to use it everywhere. I think of some of the areas in DOOM 3 where the player can see outside at the landscape. Something like this could really work to build suspense. ...But I don't think of it as the gameplan. Only part of a plan that includes some dark, tight passages. Since the idea the designers should completely avoid air vents is patently stupid, we're going to have them or something like them in the game. My vote is for air vents because the only argument against them is that they are cliched. So what? Humans fighting for their lives against a powerful and determined enemy is just as cliched.

It

Edited June 17, 200718 yr by Sh0dan

Why, out of all the existing hive designs, would there be one like this and especially why should it be used by Obsidian?

 

Because its different.

 

More descriptive

Edited June 17, 200718 yr by Tale

One of those two "designs" is the product of a single drone over the course of a single day. The other is the widely accepted design created by entire hives who have a bit more time on their hands.

 

I think its more likely that they are different because Aliens was made before Ridley changed his film and restored the hive footage. It didn

Edited June 17, 200718 yr by Sh0dan

The xenomorphs are blind, so they wouldn't need nor have light sources in their hives.

 

I would expect that the hives are made from whatever the surrounding material is, so if that is the Nostromo's hold, then it'll be lots of carbon fibre, aircraft aluminium, ceramics ... whatever is used to build a spaceship. In Aliens, the hive was built using the components from Hadley Base.

 

If the xenomorphs are on Mars, they would have a red hive (all that red dust is corroded salts).

Because it's different is a terrible argument.

Insecure much?

Because it's different is a terrible argument.

Insecure much?

 

I have no idea what you're talking about, doofus. I still think that this idea could make for a great experience, even if the transparent tubes aren't alien made. Maybe they're man made.

I wouldn't mind occasional opennings to see out, or occasional transparant sections, but a huge part of what makes the alien series is CLAUSTROPHOBIA and darkness. A complete transparent tube would really kill the claustrophobia of the environment.