Hey everyone, time for a (maybe not so quick) update.
First off, received PMs from the three modders very quickly - Zo Kath Ra does not currently have the time, minmay should be ready to implement hopefully in a couple weeks and Isaac is progressing when he can.
So let's talk a bit about what's left to do:
Town of Bardwell (has places for Store and Blacksmith which need to be completed or removed, etc)
Story (more below)
Final encounter
Cut rooms (Bog: 2, Towers: 2, more below)
Implement remaining rooms (Dungeons, Labs, Towers, Bog)
Cinematic design
Testing
The first major thing here is the overarching story to glue the rooms together. Let's look at our options:
First, some of John's early ideas of progression:
1. The party starts in the Cemetery/Graveyard Area (Easy Area). They have to do a few tasks here before they can get out of the area. But there are also "special bits of ore" lying around (see next section).
2. You then reach the town. The world is a bit open (Medium Difficulty) here as you need to go around and collect special ore from the Bog, the East part of town and the Asylum (and the rest of the Cemetery). There will be about 15 bits of ore (Mithril / Meteorite Metal ?). You need a certain amount to make a special weapon to get into the Twisted Forest (harder area). [Twisted Forest might always be open, just very tough without the special weapon].
3. In the Twisted Forest, there are remains of tortured souls who are now ghosts that guard the Castle Entrance. It is expected that you get 2 sets of remains to placate the ghosts guarding the tower.
4. You enter the tower. In the tower you must collect 5 of 6 <items> to open the way to the final fight. Depending on what people want to do, the Dark Tower could be spooky/gritty/high magic.
5. Walk along the beach to a boat to leave?
This doesn't seem like quite enough info to build the whole mod around, but could be expanded on.
Isaac and I discussed a few concepts by PM. First, I drafted something in which the four party members are retired adventurers who had previously worked together, and are surprised with another sudden adventure. You can read a bit more here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gws ... sp=sharing
Isaac thought that, with the party being Lv 1, this story of them having been adventurers doesn't really fit, and that many people would rather have a very minimal background for the characters for roleplaying purposes. Additionally, given the ORRRs previously did not have much background info, Isaac thought we should follow that pattern for ORRR3.
Isaac's suggestion draws from a couple source materials:
Feel free to let me know your thoughts on all of these ideas, and your own. We need to decide what we're doing regarding story to determine exactly what to do with leftover rooms, etc. The final encounter itself is also somewhat dependent on this.
Next, let's have a look at the remaining rooms:
First, the remaining implementations needed are from minmay, Isaac, and AndakRainor. This is two more Dark Tower rooms and one more Bog room.
That leaves a few things. There is an Asylum Lab room. If anyone has interest in doing a second room, let me know and you can have this one. It doesn't have to be very big or complicated, just a lab themed puzzle. Have a look at sps999's room to get an idea of what he went for. I can do this room if no one else is interested.
There is an Asylum Dungeon room which currently belongs to John. I don't want to do anything with it yet since it's his, but if we haven't heard more from him once we get closer to done, we can do something with it.
There is an extra room in both Catacombs and Town East. If we have extra volunteers to make a second room, these are the rooms you'll be doing. More likely, these rooms become something specific to building the story/lore (of whatever story we decide we want to do), which are optional rooms, maybe with small puzzles and treasures.
Both Dark Towers and Bog are going to have two rooms left open. It seems very unlikely that they will be filled as intended. My idea was to have Dark Tower's two rooms become "challenge" rooms (for example, the Arena from ORRR2, etc). However, I don't have any good ideas for the Bog. Suggestions are welcome here - if I don't get any, these will likely be cut.
What's left:
Once the story is worked out, I'd like to get a cinematic done similar to ORRR2's. I didn't work on ORRR2 so I don't know who made the art for that, but if someone here likes to make concept art, assistance in the future is welcome. I'd like to make a trailer for the mod, and I should be able to do that part myself once we have everything else ready.
Other than that, the mod will need extensive testing and quite possibly a lot more work from there. But first we need to decide what to do about everything else here, so anyone who reads, please leave your feedback/opinions about everything I asked.
One final question: is a new thread a bad/good idea? In one way, it might get a little more attention to renew our progress, but it also would no longer notify anyone subscribed to this thread (though that hasn't personally been working for me for months now).
Everyone please leave feedback/opinions/ideas on: Story, Cut Rooms, New Thread, What Can You Help With
), it will be called the Rat Laboratory. It will be simple and contain only one puzzle. Which room is it? (haven't looked at ORRR3 file in a while). I could pre-implement it into the latest file I have so transferring it into the main file will be easy.