create a new freedom force with a freeware game engine like ogre 3d?

[abenavides]

Yes, eventually there will be "material" traits added (also thinking of adding gender and a few other things). I am expecting to add basic ones like metal, but also have a way to add special flags you want, for example "alien" or "made in japan" that you can chk with our own scripts.

[daglob]

Concrete-like Stone but vulnerable to heat*.
Diamond-Highly Resistant to Crushing and Piercing, Resistant to everything else except Mystical and Mental.
Uranium-Like Metal but Resistant to Energy and Highly Resistant to Radiation.
Mithril-Like Metal but Resistant to Energy and Highly Resistant to Mystical.
Plastic-Like Rubber but Resistant to Acid.


*I've seen a Concrete described at Freedom Fortress, but whoever came up with that probably has never tried to cut a steel plate out of a concrete wall with an acetylene torch.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

One of the screenshots shows individual selectable resistances, so I don't think material will have anything to do with that anyway, which is better, I think.  Alex can correct me if I'm wrong on that.

[GogglesPizanno]

What if in addition to defining traits (which makes sense form a game engine/gameplay perspective), each character could just be assigned tags (like anything social network related) so that you could implement checks on basically anything. It would be up to the person scripting things to determine how they are used (if at all), but if a character were flagged as "Avengers, Short, Old, injured, goldenage, ultimates" etc... it could be used as like XML for characters allowing them to be defined and tagged with any kind of info that may or may not be used but personalized for each player as the tags are not essential to the basic gameplay.

It could be used with sorting and viewing characters if you have 1000's of them and you just want to view/select ones tagged with certain terms.

[abenavides]

Cat, yep you've got it right. Since Resistances are directly controllable by you , there's no need to come up with materials for every combo.

Goggles, yep, the "tag" idea is exactly what I meant by "flags". I would like it to be open-ended text so people can put in whatever they like to use in their game or for filtering.

[Podmark]

Thanks Tommy.

That sounds good Alex. I like the idea of flags because we could have a Kryptonian flag then create a Kryptonite object that effects only Kryptonians, etc.

[lugaru]

Glad to see that there will be material traits besides the drop down resistances (which Freedom Force needed baddly). I got really happy when I saw that early drop down screenshot.

As for flags that is one of those things I put in most of my "sequel" threads, so I'm happy to see you are considering it. It would rock to be able to instantly get all the "avengers" I have made or perhaps do "peter parker" and get all his costumes or "heavy hitter" and get all my hulk and superman level fighters.

Also have you considered equipment slots? I've always liked the idea of "powers" tied into equipment as an option... stuff like having characters pull a gun if it is not meshed to them may or may not be possible but I think it would be a great way to fine tune a character before sending them on a mission, adding to their prestige cost therefore lowering your reward. What would rock is is players can create these similar to characters but in a separate category. Examples:

Bullet Proof Vest: +1 piercing resistance.   (Batman might equip when going after gun smugglers)
Knuckle Dusters: extra melee damage.
Plastic explosive: 1 use summon of a bomb

More interesting is using it as power stacks:
Symbiote costume: extra strenght, agility, web attack, weaknesses
Vampirsm: hypnotic gaze, life stealing attack, etc.

That way you could do some crazy "what if" situations if you want.

[Figure Fan]

Just read the dev diary. Man, I'm really excited about this game. Keep the diaries coming

[Sevenforce]

Uhh.....Holy...Wow.

I have so much more to say, but for now, I think that will stand. What a testament to the dedication of some members of the community

[tommyboy]

I don't see why Cap and Batman should hog all the attention...


"Thou desireth Aerial Melee? Thou desireth Aerial Melee? Thou canst not HANDLE Aerial Melee!"

Aerial melee, now with 20% more awesome....

[Podmark]

 

[lugaru]

Very cool... love how the characters are looking with the extra effects too.

[Outcast]

Wow, i'm really impressed with how far you guys have taken this whole panda project thing. You guys are really good.

Seeing how you guys are slowly being able to make everything look and feel a lot like Freedom Force and more, it's all cool and great to me too, but don't you guys worry that there will be some legal issues here?

[tommyboy]

Wow, i'm really impressed with how far you guys have taken this whole panda project thing. You guys are really good.

Seeing how you guys are slowly being able to make everything look and feel a lot like Freedom Force and more, it's all cool and great to me too, but don't you guys worry that there will be some legal issues here?

No.
The game we release will not use or contain any copyrighted characters, or any models, textures, animations, sounds, music, artwork or code from anyone except ourselves.
We are making it all, from scratch.
I'm just showing pictures of well known characters to illustrate that you can create any type of character within the game, even your favourite hero. But none of them will be in the game.
As to any similarities to FF, it's a tactical strategy game. There's a million like it, from Balder's Gate to Command and Conquer. We aren't using any FF code, or art assets, and our game will differ in many significant ways. The idea is not to recreate FF, why would we need to? There already is FF.

[Outcast]

That's good to hear Tommy. Just checking to see if you guys got that part covered. That's all.

One less thing to worry about. 

[John Jr.]

The animations are impressive! Looks like your fight system will be light years ahead the FF model.

[Tawodi Osdi]

Makes me jealous because I lack the talent to participate.  It looks like it will be great once finished.

[Amazo Version 2.2]

Wow, i'm really impressed with how far you guys have taken this whole panda project thing. You guys are really good.

Seeing how you guys are slowly being able to make everything look and feel a lot like Freedom Force and more, it's all cool and great to me too, but don't you guys worry that there will be some legal issues here?

No.
The game we release will not use or contain any copyrighted characters, or any models, textures, animations, sounds, music, artwork or code from anyone except ourselves.
We are making it all, from scratch.
I'm just showing pictures of well known characters to illustrate that you can create any type of character within the game, even your favourite hero. But none of them will be in the game.
As to any similarities to FF, it's a tactical strategy game. There's a million like it, from Balder's Gate to Command and Conquer. We aren't using any FF code, or art assets, and our game will differ in many significant ways. The idea is not to recreate FF, why would we need to? There already is FF.

Will this be a story-line based game? Will there be new standard characters since the original FF ones will not be used?

[tommyboy]

Wow, i'm really impressed with how far you guys have taken this whole panda project thing. You guys are really good.

Seeing how you guys are slowly being able to make everything look and feel a lot like Freedom Force and more, it's all cool and great to me too, but don't you guys worry that there will be some legal issues here?

No.
The game we release will not use or contain any copyrighted characters, or any models, textures, animations, sounds, music, artwork or code from anyone except ourselves.
We are making it all, from scratch.
I'm just showing pictures of well known characters to illustrate that you can create any type of character within the game, even your favourite hero. But none of them will be in the game.
As to any similarities to FF, it's a tactical strategy game. There's a million like it, from Balder's Gate to Command and Conquer. We aren't using any FF code, or art assets, and our game will differ in many significant ways. The idea is not to recreate FF, why would we need to? There already is FF.

Will this be a story-line based game? Will there be new standard characters since the original FF ones will not be used?

Yes, there will be a story.
Yes, there will be new, original, built in characters. (In fact, one of them has already appeared in a pic in this very thread...)
There will also be danger room type scenarios, quick battles, random missions, and so on, for those who just want to pit superhero v superhero without a narrative rationale to couch it in.

[Figure Fan]

Cool! I was wondering about that, actually. Will you guys be showing us the original characters in the game?

[tommyboy]

Cool! I was wondering about that, actually. Will you guys be showing us the original characters in the game?

Prior to it's release?
I dunno.
Preview pics and such? I'll ask him about it. Or if he reads this first, you will have asked him about it..

[tommyboy]

An intermittent series of character previews, part one:


And a later version:


He may, or may not end up in the game.  

[Podmark]

Cool looking guy. I see his name is Sgt. Shield.

[tommyboy]

Cool looking guy. I see his name is Sgt. Shield.

Yep. I was surprised to see the name had never been used. Obviously elements of Cap in there, but he's not a "super soldier" and absolutely will never throw his shield in battle:
"Throw my shield? In a fight? Son, this is the only thing between me and bullets, knives and the occasional death ray. What kind of idiot would throw away a shield in a fight?"

[Outcast]

Never thought I'd finally get to see one of your original creations Tommy. Wow, I think that's a really nice character/costume design. And besides being unique, i think the name Sgt Shield kinda has a nice ring to it as well.

I've always enjoyed looking at these creative designs/ideas people come up with. They just always seem fresh and unique to me. I never know what the next one's gonna look like.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the original cast of characters that might make it in game.

[Panther_Gunn]

That is one big honkin' shield.

[Cyber Burn]

Everytime I open this thread, I just get more and more impressed. Sgt. Shield looks really cool. Thank you guys for putting so much work into this project.

[GoldenGladiator]

I can't find the words to express how amazing it is, what you've done so far and what you're going to do.

Looks fantastic. Hope that sums it up enough.

[panoramac]

This is a fascinating project and I must say I'm impressed. 

[tommyboy]

Soooo....busy busy busy.
Firstly I've been getting the models set up so that they are all compatible with the male_basic anims. Yep, no more stretching or compressing if you give a female character male keyframes, or want those male_basic keys to work with a male_heavy based character..heres a couple of hulks duking it out with the male_basic keyframes


Secondly, I've been setting up the characters to be able to talk and have facial expressions, and animating those for cutscenes, and adding some facial expressions into some of the in-game anims.
Which means cutscenes will not need talking heads (though you could add those if you wanted, I suppose).
Heres some of the work in progress animations from 3ds max for some of the emotion and talking expressions:


I've also been messing around with a system for trees and foliage which is coming along nicely:



And throwing together more combat stuff.

I might be able to post a video of combat later, or tomorrow..