UE3 - UT3 Mod Ideas

[HarvesterUT]

Hello all, I've gotten the modding bug recently (again) and I'm simply using this thread to babble on about mod ideas and what not. I've got a few ideas floating around in my head and I'll spout them out here in some random fashion.

Feel free to read my pseudo-blog and add comments if you wish.

First, I'd like to comment about the lack of mods for UT3. Is it just me, or does UT3 seem rather.....dead? i remember for UT2003/4 there were dozens of mods. Perhaps that was a result of the MSU contest? I'd like to think the community existed not simply because of the MSU contest!

Anyways, on to my ideas that have been in my head

Mechwarrior-esque mod

I've had this idea for over a year. Basically this is a "mech mod" using original machine designs. Gameplay would focus on teams of mechs duking it out on various terrain. The key selling point is the ability to fully customize your mech with different weapons and armor, and further have the ability to select "upgrade trees" to make your mech/team different from the others.

Gameplay would be similar to warfare, but instead of linked nodes to capture, teams control objectives to gain powerups and resources, which gather resources so one team can outlive the other team.

The ebenfit to this game type is the ability to use many of the stock UT3 resources and modify them for mod uses. Special effects, sounds, meshes, and gametypes are all similar to the feel of the game.
RPG style mod

This is a newer idea i've had for a few days. I thought about making this strictly PvP centric, like UT3 but with melee weapons and spells, but I'm leaning towards a single/coop game where players or groups progress through a storyline. Similar to Diablo where you can team up and fight different levels. View would be 3rd person either overhead or over the shoulder and have a quick, action style play unlike popular games such as WoW where you generally stand there and hack enemies without moving.

The problem with this game is the need to create a lot of custom content. Things like weapons, players, and meshes would need to be created. Heavy scripting and a new game-type mode would need to be created.

I'm not saying I will be working on any of the ideas, as I only have experience mapping and modeling, but I'll use this to keep track of my ideas for now.

 

[fleshsniper1]

Yep, seems the UT3 modding community is disappearing. I havent checked moddb but last time i checked nothing new was happening. Just old incomplete mods being moved over to UE3.

I do have a 'badass' TC going on, the cool thing is that i have acquire the multiple skills needed. But its a lot of work and going pretty slow... AH!!!!!

 

[[SAS]Solid Snake]

First, I'd like to comment about the lack of mods for UT3. Is it just me, or does UT3 seem rather.....dead? i remember for UT2003/4 there were dozens of mods.

It is. It is much more hassle to set it up now. You have a rather complex directory structure of published, unpublished, home, my documents home, cooked, uncooked ... it's just to much for the average user who still thinks that replacing a few files is going to be enough for a mod these days.

Secondly, seriously, no one is going to be able to simply pick up UE3 and start modding it these days. It's a complex engine, and it isn't simple to learn. Even to do a basic thing like weapons is hard now.

Lastly, to do anything decent you need a team of dedicated people. To build a character in a month for a studio, is going to be like 3 months for a mod simply because these won't be trained professionals or they'll work part time. Look at how long it takes to even build a map now. It's ridiculous.

Perhaps that was a result of the MSU contest? I'd like to think the community existed not simply because of the MSU contest!

Player base is also another aspect. People get excited about making mods because they get excited about the exposure. There's just not enough players on the PC to grant a big mod (that will probably weigh in a few GB's) and no one is going to sit and download a few gb's just for a mod these days.

MSUC may have helped, it would have brought in the smaller indepedent studios who could do it like a job, but I think the reasons above are why modding is simply not happening for UT3 and UE3 games.

 

[Leonardo]

Yup, Alo t of them out there are going OH lets move everything over to UT3 and it will be cool and glorious...wrong ! 5 Gallons of coffee and a truck full of various brands of cigrettes and 120 Hrs + of Mapping Modeling cooking and composing and to have fail 12 x in the process is a bit deflatting in the pride dept. Thats why some of us are just staying put and finishing wha we started. Hopefully......

Well the file size would be becuase of the uncooked asests. if they were cooked it might lower the d/l base size. but the best way to do a mod with UT3 is to start building a player character set and develope the weapons being used 1st. then start the coding. After that then maps *could* be built to be used with the mod. IMO that is....

 

[[SAS]Solid Snake]

To be honest, any content creation for next gen games is just long winded these days. All about achieving realism, when really what people want is probably style.

 

[Leonardo]

Very true. example we're trying to stick with the type of art style the series were based off of.

 

[[VaLkyR]Anubis]

Good idea of thread,really.Well,actually I would love it if there would be a Stargate mod for UT3 in the future.You know,UT3 got the right engine to create beautiful maps / levels and the whole design of vehicles and weapons.With the power of the Unreal Engine 3 it is possible to make maps which are very similar like the series / movie(s) and this rocks like hell.The same is also possible with the design of the battle ships and so on,but it is just a matter of time,because those idea of a mod couldn't ever be finished within some weeks,it takes much time.Anyway,I love it if there would be a Stargate mod with all details from the series / movie(s) for UT3,it would be marvellous.

 

[RoninMastaFX]

Does bringing back Domiantion to UT3 counts?

 

[dragonfliet]

I've had a few ideas that I've been thinking about that I've never really had the time to start, nor the energy to lead. I've done a fair amount of work, laying out basic outlines (sometimes) and writing ideas/dialogue/ narrative thoughts, but that's as far as it's gone. Since mods mostly suck from a complete and utter lack of originality, PLEASE feel free to take these ideas and run with them PROVIDED that you credit me with the idea and PROVIDED it is a non-commercial mod. Try and make money with these ideas and I'll sue the pants off you. ;-)

Mod Ideas I've wanted to write:

Noir Mod:A slow paced, Condemned style game of investigation and action. The idea of this is that it's story is reliant on the interior monologue of noir. Conversations matter, sure, that's how the plot is moved, but the STORY is the character's inward reflection. How the player plays influences that. Spend your time lost between puzzles? The character will feel lost and frustrated and will voice that, throwing out the occasional hint buried in self doubt. Decide to head to the bar for more information instead of to the dock for a meet? You'll question your priorities and lose the contact, though perhaps learn something at the bar. This is a game of CHOICES that the player must make and the importance of those choices, the reflection of a good choice versus a bad choice, etc.

While I think this would be cool (I've written about a dozen pages of ideas and cool lines) it would be a programming/scripting nightmare. Having the player "reflect" on the right things at the right times, talking about the monotonous nature of plodding, thinking through decisions, keeping track of past decisions and current directions, etc...well, that would be a whole lotta work. Feel free to steal it, but don't complain to me that it's unwieldy. This is mostly borne of my desire to give the bulk of the game experience to the writer and voice actor. While designers/programmers/modelers, etc. would be massively important (obviously), they would be overshadowed by the stream of dialogue and thought process.

Identity: This mod is a play on a fairly standard trope of the super soldier. In this story, the player is a fairly regular, if athletically gifted, researcher/analyst for a large private corporation (the storyline I thought out is a near future pharmaceutical company and gene manipulation, but truthfully it doesn't much matter). The gimmick is that he/she(again, doesn't matter) isn't a fighter. Thus an artificial intelligence is popped into their head that reacts to external stimuli. This AI is built for fighting. It lays dormant until it senses (through interpreting the person's feelings/chemical reactions) that it must play a role in defense, and then it takes over. So to explain a little further, it is always "watching" and "listening" but in a completely passive way, until it is needed in which case it takes over the body functions while the person watches and listens and cannot control their body until the danger is over. It's more fluid in writing, I swear.

Anyways, the researcher/analyst is given this AI because they are going into hostile areas and are a valuable member of the team. Bodyguards are also given, but not believed to necessarily be enough. Anyways, the story is told in a series non-connected instances when the AI is "loaded" into the person until it is removed (don't want it misinterpreting domestic fights, etc. and killing the person do they?). The researcher grows increasingly paranoid and has the AI increasingly loaded for longer and longer.

Concurrent to the corporation plot, the player will occasionally have the opportunity to do an easy minigame, in which they can very temporarily take over the person (think Being John Malcovich when Jon Cusak first takes over in a small way). Eventually, like BJM, the AI can fully control the person. The player then realizes THEY are the AI and the story diverges from there. Anyways, the idea is to think about what is life, what is natural, what rights we have to create/modify life and what rights that life has when it has been created/modified. A bit philisophical I realize, but the point is to convey this through the method of tricking the player into thinking they are the character and then slowly revealing they are the AI. Speachification is not my goal and I think the mechanics of telling the story should be enough to get the point across to apt individuals.

Airport Ride (not a real title): This story is a first person driving game. Yeah. I know. The point here is options and diverging storylines. The player is driving a person of the opposite gender to the airport. An old friend with nebulous romantic pinnings. Their is a navigation GPS and the the friend for communication. The story begins slowly, picking them up, talking while following directions (from both friend and GPS, both the same), getting a little backstory. Things quickly escalate when the driver of truck tries to run you off the road. Think Driver/GTA burnout sorts of driving, the point being to escape. The friend suggests an alternate destination and you can agree or disagree (try to get to the airport). Let's say you agree, the GPS gives one set of directions, the friend another. These lead to different ACTUAL locations, the question of how much you can trust this person, what exactly is going on and the increasing number of people trying to kill you. Light puzzle solving (for the times when you gotten rid of/ditched enemies and have some time to slow the pace down), but mostly driving and decision making. The story here is based on conversations of conflict and resolution. Trying to decide what is a lie, what is true, who to trust and how much. Players will be given very small conversation trees and reaction time will matter (to a small degree). Conversation choices will effect destinations and destinations will effect conversation choices. While the airport is still the overall goal, the plot of the story and the impact of the story will have a good deal of variety and depend heavily on how the player chooses and acts and what they say. Level design would be quite a doozy here. It would have to be set in a rural enough area to limit choices to a manageable chunk. Roads would have to force the player into similar positions and the player must be forced to keep moving forward without annoying artifice. Scripting would be heavy but not that HARD, though a ton of writing and dialogue recording would be needed. Finally, the lead designer and level designers would have a hell of a time working with the writer (me of course in my head, but again, feel free to steal the basic idea) to keep the action fun and well paced and timed with the conversations/characters/plot.

~Jason

 

[MrMaddog]

Yup, Alo t of them out there are going OH lets move everything over to UT3 and it will be cool and glorious...wrong ! 5 Gallons of coffee and a truck full of various brands of cigrettes and 120 Hrs + of Mapping Modeling cooking and composing and to have fail 12 x in the process is a bit deflatting in the pride dept. Thats why some of us are just staying put and finishing wha we started. Hopefully......

So true, too true... I remember helping out for a TC mod and just going from UT2003 to UT2004 was bad enough, since the games were incompatible with each other in spite of being the same engine. But just looking at the UT3 code classes and the directory structure made me drop bricks. I too planned on moving to UT3 but looking at it now it's not just worth the extra effort. And this is a gametype mod we're working on.

I'd say UT2004 as a mod platform will be here for a long while. Plus the game's like only $10 now...