Mod Ideas/ShineMatch

=Shine Match=

Description

Oh great, i manages to do another long-read description :rolleyes:

(if you have the game, you can skim past the obvious points to paragraph 3 where all the UT2k3 version stuff comes in)

This mod would quite simply be a multiplayer version of Super Mario Sunshine, but with Juggernaughts, Robots and Anubians. The idea is simple, each player has a powerfull multi-purpose backpack mounted water cannon, which, along with the usual spray forward, can do 3 other unique things:

With the hover nozzle allows you to hover in the air for 3 seconds while shooting water downwatds
The Boost nozzle forces you to run 5 times as fast while you hold down fire untill you run out of water
The rocket nozzle charges, then launches you uber-high into the air

The aim of the game is simple, it is played out in eight rounds, and in each one you have one goal, collect a "shine" which scores you one point, and then the level resets, but with a different mission, so like the first mission could be getting to a hard to reach place, then the second one being a boss or something. The player with the most points after all eight rounds is the winner, then the server goes to the next map.

You can damage other players by jumping on them (obviously), and spraying them with the water cannon. Collecting the yellow coins (found scattered around the level, have a line pattern on them, and dropped by dead enemies and players) restores 20 health, and gives you cash, so you can buy upgrades for the pump, which are stored in a file on your computer keeping your current coin total, upgrades, and lives (kind of like in an MMORPG). You can earn lives by finding 50 yellow coins, finding 10 blue coins (rare, and have a star pattern on them), getting 2 shines, or finding a mushroom (uber-rare). If you run out of lives (dieing when you have none left), you lose half of your coins, and all your upgrades.

You can buy upgrades (such as napalm or acid tanks to replace water, but can be switched back with an assigned tank-switch button, or extra nozzle spaces for 200 coins a peice) in the buy menu in the 3 or so minuite wait at the begining of the round, or when you arent playing. Different nozzles can be found scattered around the level (in crates), and dont go away when you pick them up, so you can get the one you want even if someone reaches it before you. The hover is in blue crates, speed is in grey crates, and rocket in red crates.

Water can be gotten in three ways:

A.) Firing while standing/swimming in a body of water

B.) Collecting water bottles

C.) Standing in/running through water jets

but acid or napalm would have to be bought pre-round, seeing as you wouldnt normally find bottles of acid or tanks of napalm just sitting around all the time (well, there may be acid/napalm/other ammo bottles lying around in maps where it fits in, but if you made a map for it, KEEP IT slightly REALISTIC). I'm taking out yoshi oand the fruit and stuff, because it would probably be a bit hard to code.

There would also be AI enemies just milling around the level, waiting to kill/be killed. Most are killed by water and jumping on them, others just by water, and other by jumping. They are all weird, cartoony looking things that need to be wiped off the face of the earth. Doing so will earn you cash for the upgrades which you need to kill more enemies, players or bosses. Some enemies can only be killed by special means, because they are too dangerous to approach or are not damaged by jumping on them or water. Bosses would need a really good ass-kicking to beat, and it may be wise to team up with other players to beat a boss, before a mad fight over the shine. Wen you kill another player, s/he drops 10 coins.

The translator from Unreal 1 could make a comeback, but in the form of reading signs or talking to people. The use button would activate it, popping up the message. This could be a useful way of finding hidden stuff, or getting free upgrades hidden in secret areas.

As well as extra tanks, you could buy/find water rockets and water balloons. Water rockets, which if you havent mde one before, launch really fast from a high pressure inside it, forcing water out the back, these, upon contact with a player/enemy/surface, could burst causing splash damage (no pun intended) ovr a large area. The water ballons would be simmilar, but act more like grenades out of a grenade launcher. Both would be launched by the pump, allowing variable levels of power to launch them with.

If i can think of anythin else, i will add it...

Interested Coders

Map Ideas

Go To: Map Ideas

Discussion

AlphaOne: I really like the idea of the multip purpose backpack. One thing though: (no offence)I think the actuall game would be a bit too childish (ie: cartoonish characters, jumping to kill someone). But I am not a mario fan, so you can understand. Anyways, it's not the content that makes it fun, but the gameplay! Good luck!

Foxpaw: If you were to store the player's equipment on the local harddrive it would be very easy for them to cheat and set arbitrary values. You would likely have to keep a list on the server of all players and their equipment.

inio: I like this idea, but I have a few issues:

nobody's going to wait around 3 minutes for the match to start
eight rounds will take a very long time to play
storing anything on the local HD is asking to be hacked, and does the purchasing system really help the fun factor?
still way to close to the copyrighted inspiration

So how do the following modifications sound:

All players are going for all shines at the same time.
player/team with the most points when the last shine is collected wins.
collecting a shine gives you(r team) 10 points, collecting 50 coins gives you(r team) ~7 points, killing a player (on the other team) or enemy gives you 1 point (plus team points for "boss" enemies).
divide the groups into two or more teams, shooting a member of your own team refills their tank. shooting a member of the other team damages them. teams are color-coded and shoot color-coded water.
you start out with the cannon and hover nozzle, and can collect other nozzles which may only last a certain amount of time and are selected by the weapon select keys. The specifics of the other nozzles would need to be changed for copyright reasons. Some ideas: Sniper Jet (think super-high-powered-supersoaker), sprinkler (much wider range effect than standard nozzle, sorta like Flak normal fire but wider)
take the lives stuff out entirely.
"shine" would need to be changed, for copyright and/or trademark reasons.
tank power-ups that work until the first time you refill your tank after collecting, such as: High Pressure (all weapons shoot twice as far and hover nozzle makes you gain significant altitude, tank also empties twice as fast). Sticky Water (water sticks to surfaces and explodes with a small spray after a short period or when touched). Muck (all nozzles shoot muck instead of water - players that come in contact with muck are slowed down, but the hover nozzle doesn't work as good with muck).
no fixed number of shines in a map, but a HUD indicating how many there are and how many have been collected by each team.
HUD that shows the direction to 3 shines randomly selected for each player by the server. This way all shines are guaranteed to be collected on a reasonable time scale

And finally one idea that I'm not really sure of:

Make players carry the shine they collected back to a team base. This would be hard if you want to allow [i]n[/i] teams as mappers would have to construct enough bases. Maybe something less significant like a team color coded teleporter thing that they need to run through. Don't limit players to carrying only one shine though. This would increase the tension and activity of the endgame significantly (especially if it's tied up between two teams), it would add more roles for players (shine drop defense & opposing shine drop monitor/attacker), but it would make the first several shine captures take longer and thus slow down the beginning of games.

Icedude: Yeah, i like those ideas sounds like that'd make it better than the origional idea, but i dont really like the "Carry the shines/whatevers to a base" thing, makes it too close to CTF. The muck idea is nice, could be improved by having water wash away muck, as well as diferent types of muck (fire muck, slippery muck, glow-in-the-dark electric muck, etc.) as well as having a different type of muck thats placed by the mapper that stays on the level untill it's washed away.

Those new nozzle ideas are good too, like the sniper one. That could slowly curve downwards, and do less damage the further away the target is. Maybe the rocket boost one combined with muck would make a muck cloud that you have to clear with water otherwise it hurts you?

And how about the mapper decides what the objectives are? like you could have fluffy animals in oe map, and machine parts in the next?