ShamuQuest revival - RECRUITING!

[Shadow]

Well, the plans are: a Skaarj wielding a big sword, a floating-in-the-air Nali Goddess, a phoenix and a long uroboros-like dragon. So as you can see, fifty fifty

Well sounds good then, I'm in for pawn coding, or probably additional coding work !

[Delacroix]

OK, Shadow then. The other rework would include a Nali class (one variant will be later modeled as a female, but you might start working on a default Nali class) to become aggressive.

Variant 1: The female Nali: is to circle around the player, throwing alternate ASMD bolts or lightning bolts, summon a skaarj team composed of 3 Skaarj Lords at a time (when below 50% HP) and form small tornadoes homing at the player.

Variant 2: The Dark Nali Priest: stands still on the ground, throwing four dark bolts at the player and teleporting around the area after each bolt set was fired. Occasionally, this one is supposed to throw two exploding firebombs and teleport away.

[Creavion]

Variant 1: The female Nali: is to circle around the player, throwing alternate ASMD bolts or lightning bolts, summon a skaarj team composed of 3 Skaarj Lords at a time (when below 50% HP) and form small tornadoes homing at the player.

http://www.anvari.org/fun/Gender/Women_are_Evil.html

[Delacroix]

The point is that Rochefort in one of the six original Shamu maps made a mistake by calling the goddess of lightning/thunder as Talandri'n instead of Vandora. He also did not explain how come some of the peaceful Nali nation's gods can be evil, as Soquatre is.

I managed to hit two birds with one stone by retconning this a bit - I devised a concept of the entire Shadow Pantheon, an evil Ahriman-like reflection of the commonly known Nali pantheon. Each Nali God has their reflection in this Shadow Pantheon and several Dark Gods will serve as bosses in the pack.

You all know how Vandora looks like, you've seen her portrait in Unreal. Talandri'n will look similar to her.

[Delacroix]

I added the info about the new staff to the startpost.

Shadow, gopostal, Myth - I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[gopostal]

The easiest thing to do on the sword thing is to simply remesh the skaarj trooper class with the mesh of your chosen monster. Send me an exact class you want to use (and skin if it is non-standard) and I'll make the class. I'll check the anims are the same, but I'm pretty sure the calls are.

For the nali, you can do the same. Meshes are interchangeable if you mind the calls to animations. If you want the nali attacking, find the closest monster you want to emulate and then swap the mesh. Recoding the nali to have aggressive monster code is a waste of time.

[Delacroix]

Well, swordmaster Skaarj are supposed to look like Skaarj warriors and behave thusly: either leap at you with a sword attack, or perform a slash with the sword while standing or throw a pair or projectiles. So, they are to behave half-like Skarjtroopers (a weapon attack), half-like Skaarj warriors.

Now, here's the deal: the player is to meet various swordskaarj as the game progresses. A Scout should have a medium sized dagger and throw standard Skaarj projectiles. A Warrior should have a normal long sword, like a Roman legionist did and throw standard Skaarj projectiles. A Berserker would use a bastard sword, like the one in ChaosUT, and throw fireballs. An IceSkaarj is supposed to wield a zweihander based a bit like DMC1's Nelo Angelo's one and throw ICE projectiles, freezing you for 1-3 seconds, a Lord is supposed to wield also a large sword, haven't come up with what kind yet and throw ASMD-alternate shots as projectiles. Three more skins will also be included (probably), but first I need to do some asking.

As for the Nali, the behavior of both Nali monster types is outlined already in my previous post. For the Dark Priests, some queen code would suffice, I suppose, albeit changed (two kinds of projectiles), as for the Nali Goddess... well, I see no monster with similar behavior.

[Shadow]

So... which class do you want to code gopostal ? the Skaarj or the Nali ?

[gopostal]

Give me the skaarj. I'm pretty versed at them by now, AI wise.

[Delacroix]

GenMoKai just joined up and was tasked with modelling a sword for the Skaarj leader! THANKS!

[Shadow]

Ok, so I'll take the Nali

[Delacroix]

Okay then... just remember about the variants of behavior.

Dark Priests are to fight a bit like Castlevania's Dracula... a series of fireballs, teleport. A series of fireballs, teleport. Two or three firebombs, teleport. 50% health, they are starting to throw lightnings out of the blue once in a while.

As for Talandri'n, the girl will be circling around the player in the air, throwing lightning bolts and ASMDalt shots, once in a while she is to summon two or three Skaarj (when below 50% health) and... perhaps a special hit, say, she lands on the ground and releases a massive range explosion, taking you out completely if you are within range and w/o any armor.

These are the Nali variants.

[gopostal]

I'm beginning the subclass on the skaarj now, but here is a problem I see: You are going to spend a bunch of time importing and using the cutlery but the skaarj just aren't going to use it at all. They very rarely go to melee mode because players fear them pretty bad and tend to fight them from a distance. If they are going to have default ground/attack speeds you might reconsider how you are going to use them as the overall effect is going to be sword holding skaarjs shooting projectiles, which isn't what I think you intend them to "feel" like.

Also can I get a modeller to help me add some sword style anims to the skaarj base class? I need a couple of fillers to round out the stock animations for this. Nothing fancy, just a simple wide-arc slash, a three-frame anim of the skaarj holding the sword overhead (to fire projectile with other hand) and maybe an additional move anim including the sword.

[Delacroix]

First off, you are a Coder, gopostal. If the Skaarj very rarely go to melee mode because of this fault, this is a problem to be solved in the following way:

Check the Chaos Legion Lognakaiser boss and the way it attacks: he is able to minimize the distance with the player by QUICKLY leaping straight at the player - the Skaarj would have to do the same thing. Plus, they will be placed mostly in castle and temple areas, not on wide open spaces so the question of large distance will simply not take place.

As for the Sword models - GenMoKai has been assigned with these already. I'd advise you to contact him in this matter. If you wish to use a replacement for coding purposes, you might internally use the sword that is for example in ChaosUT as a placeholder for the swords GenMoKai makes.

As for the Skaarj animations, base them on the Staff-wielding Krall, albeit do not fear to modify them, after all swords are not staves

As for the moves themselves, I was always inspired by the DMC and other extreme combat games, such as God of War or Heavenly Sword.

For the sword attacks, I propose to do the following attacks:


- A leap at the player from a distance, with the sword overhead, aiming to cut you in half. A bit like helm breaker of Dante.
- An uppercut move (similar to the Krall's staff attack, throwing you up the air), followed by a horizontal wide slash aimed at you when you fall down.
- A horizontal wide slash of its own aimed at your stomach area.
- Another distance shortener move, where the Skaarj slides on the ground with the sword aimed at you, in an attempt to stab it.

This is all for the sword attacks.

Oh, and BTW, just on a side note. I often meet a Skaarj in narrow corridors (example is the famous first Skaarj fight in Rrajgar Mine) and in there you do not have enough room to dodge the projectile attacks. So, I run up to him to provoke melee attacks and dodge these... the only proper way to fight these bastards IMO.

[Delacroix]

Whoops, haven't read the post carefully, my fault, I apologize.

So we need someone to do character anims... Go ahead, get whomever you wish on board. Anyone is welcome.

BTW, startpost updated with first render thanks to GenMoKai.