I'm the project lead for a Unreal Tournament 2007 modification, and I thought this would be a good place to talk about Southern Rise. About: Southern Rise is a total conversion modification for Unreal Tournament 2007. It is a project that is filled to the brim with personality and spunk. In Southern Rise, you're either a Union hero or a Condeaderate hero. The Condeaderate heroes are the living dead. Do to a powerful dark curse whispered out by Robert E. Lee as he died, all of the Southern soldiers that had fallen in battle have risen again as the undead to fulfill their duty. With new abilities never before seen and an army of the undead, the South will indeed, rise again. The Condeaderate heroes get to use skills while the Union heroes get to use items found on the map. Once a Union hero dies, that played respawns as a Condeaderate hero and loses ALL points they had as a Union hero. When a player dies, they have to go through a Purgatorial Challenge to get back on the battle field. Purgatory: After a Condeaderate or Union hero dies, they participate in a Purgatorial Challenge to get back into the game. Purgatorial Challenges vary from platform gameplay to riddles. Successfully completing a Purgatorial Challenge rewards the player with a shorter spawn time and a temporary damage bonus aura. The player can choose not to play the Purgatorial Challenge and wait the time before getting back into the game. So you don't HAVE to do the try the challenge, but you respawn quicker and you get a nice little bonus for doing so. Win Situations aka Devils Playground: The Union heroes will have a certain win situation depending on the map. What this means is that there is a location in the level in which a group of three players from the Union team can activate a win situation. If they complete the objective, they can win the match for their team. However, the Condeaderate heroes can stop the Union heroes from completing the win situation. To do this, the Condeaderate heroes need to sacrifice themselves. This can be done inside of the spawn location. Once the Condeaderate team has aquired ten sacrifices, the Union heroes in Devils Playground will be killed instantly. We have two gamemodes, Acquisition and Survival. You can check out the site for more information on those. The only thing I'm worried about is the repetitiveness of the Purgatorial Challenges and a possible exploitation of the Win Situations. I have quite a few plans for the Purgatorial Challenges so that will mix it up a bit. We want to make it really fun in the "Devils Playground" and I have some really nice scenery planned for that. The number of Purgatorial Challenges will have to be quite high, since people will be dieing quite often. One of the Purgatorial Challenge ideas was to have a "Undead Jeopardy" type of thing. A zombie Alex Trebek will ask historical questions about the civil war, so we could have tons and tons of questions for that, so it's not the same over and over. Tell me what you guys think, I'd love some feedback.

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Once a Union hero dies, that played respawns as a Condeaderate hero and loses ALL points they had as a Union hero.

Union heros change side when they die?

Now that is an awesome storyline.

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Original post by NotAYakk Quote: Once a Union hero dies, that played respawns as a Condeaderate hero and loses ALL points they had as a Union hero. Union heros change side when they die?

Yes. The Union heroes will die and respawn as a Condeaderate hero. Whoever lives as a Union hero for the server set time (default 10 minutes) will be rewarded with bonus points plus the kills they earned as a Union hero.

The Condeaderates are a lot easier to kill then Union heroes, but the Condeaderates can do a lot of damage if up close. They also have abilities they can use to help bring the Union heroes down.

It's just like in all the zombie movies. If a person is killed, they rise as the undead. The zombies are easy to kill, but are sneaky and can bite your face off.

I think the storyline and gameplay sounds like alot of fun, save one feature- Purgatorial Challenges.

Sadly, I'm not familiar with the UT games, so I don't know how they handle spawn times. But after thinking over it for a while, if the spawn times are only a few seconds (like in most fps games), are the Purgatoiral Challenges really necessary?

I'm excited to see where this goes, and see how you implement these Challenges in a way that is fun and unobtrusive.

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Original post by crazyishone I think the storyline and gameplay sounds like alot of fun, save one feature- Purgatorial Challenges. Sadly, I'm not familiar with the UT games, so I don't know how they handle spawn times. But after thinking over it for a while, if the spawn times are only a few seconds (like in most fps games), are the Purgatoiral Challenges really necessary? I'm excited to see where this goes, and see how you implement these Challenges in a way that is fun and unobtrusive.

They'd have to be pretty quick. We want people to be able to complete the objectives in 10 seconds or less. You have a 15 second time limit, so if you don't want to complete the challenge, that's 5 more seconds you have to waste, which is 5 more seconds the Union team has without you against them, which gives them more time to stay alive. Spawn times in Battlefield 2 are 10 seconds, so we will design the challenges so that they take 10 seconds or less.

We think its necessary for the Union players since they will want the Condeaderates to spawn as slow as possible, since they're trying to survive the clock AND the Condeaderates.

Purgatory sounds like a bad idea. Too different from the rest of the gameplay. I think it'll only detract from the fun.

Changing sides sounds like a bad idea because it means you have to tear down what you were just building up.

But, you sold me on style with this:

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Original post by Way Walker Purgatory sounds like a bad idea. Too different from the rest of the gameplay. I think it'll only detract from the fun. Changing sides sounds like a bad idea because it means you have to tear down what you were just building up. But, you sold me on style with this:

Thanks :D

Purgatory is a fun thing to do in-between spawning. You're playing a game, you should always be playing until you stop. Instead of just having it fade to black and a 10 second wait, we want them to keep playing, but we do want them to be out of the battlefield for awhile. So, we give them a new goal for a temporary time, and award the players with something they can use back in the battlefield.

The side changing thing I can see some players being annoyed with. However, it's up to the players how the game will commence. You can work alone and do your own thing, or work together as a team and try to survive. So it depends on the player if they get attached to the team or not. We want to make it so that the Condeaderates will be a little more fun to play since they get to use the skills and the claws and be little gutsacks of massive destruction.

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Original post by Ooghijmiqtxxa Purgatory is a fun thing to do in-between spawning. You're playing a game, you should always be playing until you stop. Instead of just having it fade to black and a 10 second wait, we want them to keep playing, but we do want them to be out of the battlefield for awhile. So, we give them a new goal for a temporary time, and award the players with something they can use back in the battlefield.

Don't fade to black. Make me see how they're losing now that I'm gone or how my sacrifice is allowing us to make headway in the fight. Both get me ready to go the second I spawn. I think a random Q&A would only do more to chop up the action. Maybe have the corpse sink into the ground and make it "swim" through the dirt to a spawn point. (But this would probably make "play dead" less useful, or maybe more useful.)

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The side changing thing I can see some players being annoyed with. However, it's up to the players how the game will commence. You can work alone and do your own thing, or work together as a team and try to survive. So it depends on the player if they get attached to the team or not. We want to make it so that the Condeaderates will be a little more fun to play since they get to use the skills and the claws and be little gutsacks of massive destruction.

So if I decide that fun isn't my thing and play for the Union, I'm probably going to join the Confederates (which are apparently too much fun for my tastes) in not too long anyway at which point I've become my own worst enemy because everything I'd just done is now working against me. Additionally, I think it'd be hard to balance such that the Confederates don't have a huge advantage from numbers. I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is a good idea. [rolleyes]

Also, what's involved in sacrificing a confederate soldier. Do I no longer get to participate in the action? But you seem to think that's boring and something to be eliminated (hence purgatory).

EDIT: And how about some Union concept art? [grin]

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Original post by Way Walker Don't fade to black. Make me see how they're losing now that I'm gone or how my sacrifice is allowing us to make headway in the fight. Both get me ready to go the second I spawn. I think a random Q&A would only do more to chop up the action. Maybe have the corpse sink into the ground and make it "swim" through the dirt to a spawn point. (But this would probably make "play dead" less useful, or maybe more useful.) So if I decide that fun isn't my thing and play for the Union, I'm probably going to join the Confederates (which are apparently too much fun for my tastes) in not too long anyway at which point I've become my own worst enemy because everything I'd just done is now working against me. Additionally, I think it'd be hard to balance such that the Confederates don't have a huge advantage from numbers. I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is a good idea. [rolleyes] Also, what's involved in sacrificing a confederate soldier. Do I no longer get to participate in the action? But you seem to think that's boring and something to be eliminated (hence purgatory). EDIT: And how about some Union concept art? [grin]

The Condeaderates will have the advantage of numbers, but if the Union heroes keep together and forify a location, they will be able to win since the Condeaderate heroes are a lot easier to kill.

I don't think anything will be boring, it might be a little repitive if don't have a lot of Purgatorial Challenges. Sacrificing is something that the Condeaderate heroes can do to stop the Union heroes from completeing the win situation. There will be a portal in the Condeaderate spawn that they will need to jump into to perform the sacrifice. It's as if you were just killed, you would spawn in Purgatory and have to play a mini-game to get back into the battlefield.

Union concept art is coming soon.

[Edited by - Ooghijmiqtxxa on May 3, 2006 5:14:11 PM]