Character Development

[Hurlshot]

I wonder what the different characters will be like? XCOM didn't have built in characters, you just had a group of troops and for me, I developed favorites over time. This game seems to be more like Jagged Alliance in that you have a few soldiers, and there seems to be hints that you discover and recruit survivors over the course of a few missions. What do you think they will do? Give them personalities? What would you rather do, use your own imagination, or have built in characters? I don't know, if it's done well, it's nice to have character, like rpg's such as Baldurs Gate, but then again it can detract from immersion if your guys are annoying.

 

Hurlshot

[Bastiaan]

I hope that that if they have certain characters you still will be able to equip them with what you want, instead of having specialists who already have the weapons and have standard equipment, this could interfere with your personel preffered tactics and freedom of the game.

[Pete]

Well... I shouldn't imagine we'll get to know the characters by name, as you'll be able to rename them I suppose w might get to know a few of them by rank, but in a game where any unit can get killed at any time, you'd have to write sooooo many different parts of a story just in case every unit died at different times

 

In that respect, I can only see them referring to your men (and women?) vaguely whilst concentrating more on the story a a whole through the recovery of artifacts, aliens and so on... :alien2:

[ooda]

I think that there won't be alot of getting to know characters personally, as it looks like there won't be alot to unit to unit free-for-all communication, and units won't have a lot of information, except for like how they were in x-com.

 

But then again, there won't be a lot of people on earth, you might have less people to choose from, so you'll know your people better.

 

 

:dontgetit: I don't even understand what I just wrote, sigh...

[Pete]

Hehe... I understood it okay What you;re saying is that we'll be detached from the soldiers, like in previous games. However, since there are so few sldiers to choose from in this game, you'll be taking a lot more care of them rather than saying "Oh look, another rookie got slaughtered... better go back to base and hire another one"

[borinbugger]

as being an avid ufo type rpg i agree that some charector thought is needed ,

as in balders gate diablo type where after certain amount of upgrade /promotion is nessercery ie after 5 battles that person medic soldier pilot should get a choice but have a sting where some peeps not doing much get worse ,

i found in earlier xcoms most work was done by about 4 soldiers of the same

and also could maybe the civilians actually fire at aliens and also occasionally at the comops lol

would make interesting angles

plus as mentioned earlier by some one else occasionally on sorte find over ops to recruit ever by resuing or by finding scattered about the buildings...

got loads of over ideas but waffling on

....

[borinbugger]

also another comment i would appriciat if not listerned to or mentioned yet

if the names from xcom 1 coulld be kept or simular

lol

[Bastiaan]

Wow, I thought I was a terrible typer, is the Shift-button broken or something.

[Pete]

Lol @ Bastiaan

 

borinbugger: I doubt the names will be exactly the same as in the original X-COM games, as this is a totally different game, but you will be able to rename them, so if they're not to your liking, then you can make them into whoever you want

[Hurlshot]

I just worry that they will fall into the same character trap that Fallout Tactics did. They had generic Bio's, and you could even recruit people in missions, but they were the most bland and boring people ever. It sounds like it will be up to you to develop your characters, which is good. You can choose who will a be sniper and a medic, and then use your imagination for the rest.

 

Hurlshot

[The Doctor]

Remember!

 

This game is NOT developed by Microprose, it's a completly new game, even if there are some similarities. As we know, the rights of the x-com games are now at Infogrames, and I think they will not allow similar names, or whatever.

I'm very suprised, that they has no problem with ALTAR yet.

This is luck for us. I just hope the game will be released without any

"licence" problems with Infogrames.

 

The other thing about recruiting. The story mentioned, that most of the people are dead on earth because of the bio-shit. So recruiting will not be easy.

Maybe if you find a hidden village with survivors.

[Pete]

Hehe. I think that the reason that there's no problems with Infograms is because you can't put copyright on "Aliens are invading the earth", but you can put copyright on your code and unique game aspects, or something to that effect.

 

Since Altar are writing it from scratch and handling much of it in a totally different way, Infogrames can;t do much about it.

 

My only hope is that Infogrames will watch how this develops and pull their thumbs out if it's a success and give us what we want in terms of another X-COM game some time in the future

[The Doctor]

Can Infpgrams put licence on Geospace, or ufopedia?

If the Altar guys just call them something else, it is the same?

The question is:

Has it been licensed, or not?

 

It's just a magic of law manipulation.

 

[Pete]

Well, since it takes time and money to copyright and license stuff, and the back of the boxes only put TM and Copyrights on the names of the games, and there's no mention of anything else, they can't sue or anything unless they're EXACTLY the same.

 

Changing the contents of these screens and calling them something else kinda avoids any legal issues as far as I know

 

You're not worrying are you?

[The Doctor]

No, not any more!

 

I'm just not a lawyer type of guy.

 

[evan]

We're in no way involved with Infogrames (the current X-Com owners), so this is not in any way an X-Com game. So we can't go around using the same names or calling the aliens Sectoids or anything like that. However, there are some similiarites. I don't know if the Geoscape title is copyrighted, but it stems from a similar concept called a Globe. So I think that there is enough prior art to make any problems with the similarities a non-issue. And besides, as much as we all loved X-Com, it wasn't really all that original a game. As usual with games, it was the gameplay that made it interesting, rather than the same-old setting, or the universal grey aliens. And, let's face it, it doesn't really matter what the story here is, either. We're not making Metal UFO Solid, after all. Whether or not people like the game is basically going to be entirely predicated on the gameplay. We could make the backstory that the aliens came down and smothered most of the people on earth to death with cream pies and it wouldn't really matter all that much, as long as we deliver on the gameplay.

 

Anyway. Enough screeding about story in strategy games. As far as I know, the people under our command won't really have stories. They'll just have names that you can change, and basically, you build them up from nothing, allocating points to skills as you see fit.

 

Evan

[Pete]

And besides, as much as we all loved X-Com, it wasn't really all that original a game.

 

Indeed, after chatting with one of the guys involved with the original X-COM game a few months back and from a process of deduciton, a bit of it was based on a hit 70's sci-fi show called.. wait for it... "UFO"! The earth based craft were called interceptors. There was a group set up to combat the aliens. It was all very cheesy with flying saucers and the such, but Evan's right, it's not original

 

I do, however, feel that now you've mentioned it Evan, they should go with the cream-pie-smothering story!

[Mazdek]

Indeed, after chatting with one of the guys involved with the original X-COM game a few months back and from a process of deduciton, a bit of it was based on a hit 70's sci-fi show called.. wait for it... "UFO"! The earth based craft were called interceptors. There was a group set up to combat the aliens. It was all very cheesy with flying saucers and the such, but Evan's right, it's not original

Really! Cheesy or not, now I have to go find an episode of this to watch.

 

Back from vacation and will try to be more visible around here.

[Hurlshot]

Good to see you Evan! It's good to see people from ALTAR coming around. Nothing personal, but I can't stand your BBS so I only post here :angel:

Seriously, it is good to know we will be building the soldiers up from minimal statistics. That will help get us involved in their "character", which was the whole thing I was asking about in the first place. I'm happy, my question is suitably answered. Uh, I'll stop typing now.

 

Hurlshot

[The Veteran]

Wow... An altar person... That's cool... So! A new XCom game wow!

Sorry, I just had to! I think it would be quite cool if we get to acquire new soldiers from missions but I don't think it'd be a good idea to have actual characters. I know how much I hated the final fantasy games when a person HAD to die in order to complete something.

[synchro]

a character generation system, at least, at the start for your initial team would be a great idea. but perhaps it would take too long if you had to create 2 teams of 12. but if there was only 6 or so then choosing skills, abilities would be an interesting way of showing you what skills are needed to survive... or maybe not.

i do believe that there should be at least 3 or 4 core characters.. the type that players will reload a game for when they die. i always felt XCom:Enemy Unknown would've been great with something like this... and, because they are skilled[maybe, like officer types?] then they give a bonus to squad members nearby.

i mean, by the look of this game, it is tactical so why not introduce some tactical tools for the player to use? and, maybe, as these chars types become better trained/skilled in the field, you have to make a choice for them... do they continue in the field[fighting] or do they help toward 'training' the green/beginner characters. this could be the player's choice. if they choose for the character to 'train' then the allotted troops being traind advance in experience more quickly as they learn from his experience. on the other hand, if he is used in the field [fighting] then the benefits are obvious as his skills will be used to take on the alien menace.

perhaps some troop types eventually go into research?

but, tbph, i think i will be happy with whatever is done. i so enjoyed XCom:enemy unknown and Xcom:terror from the deep that i don't see how they can fail... XCom:Apocalypse promised so much but, for some crazy reason, the graphics actually got worse than the other 2 earlier games [the best 'graphically' has to be the first game XCom:EU as they were a kind of 'cartoon' style which worked as there really wasn't a gr/card at the time that could handle anything more than cartoon style graphics].

good luck!

[Warlord]

Perhaps a system similar to that of Jagged Alliance 2 would be in order. In that game, you create one character which represents you in the game world. This would allow players the flexibility to create a new hero each time they replayed the game.

[Tammy]

Now that would be very cool. I wonder if they're considering anything like that.

[The Veteran]

This is just similar to the promotion in the XCom games though. If a rookie dies then who cares but if a commander dies most people will reload because it just does not happen!

Having a main character would be just like that. In all of the XCom games I always remember the names of my base commanders. So they do become special characters.

(Try relating it to the fanfic over at XTC. Start with masses of wierd people but as they are promoted they slowly become special to you...)

[Warlord]

By having a character that represents you in the game it makes things a bit more personal. Instead of:

 

"Hey, that alien shot at one of the soldiers."

 

You get:

 

"Hey, that little b*stard shot at me! I'm gonna kick his arse"

 

It brings the game to a whole different level. I have also seen games that end if your character dies. It just adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay.