Transformers: Open World will be an expansive multiplayer third person open world RPG for Starcraft 2 that aims to immerse you in the universe of the Transformers movies.
This thread is focused on the development of the mod and the discussion of the work in progress builds.
PRE-ALPHA GAMEPLAY DEMONSTRATION:
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THIS MOD HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES
Hai everyone,
so, its been a while since the last update and theres a reason for why I have been so quiet over the last few weeks.
Unfortunately, I regret to inform you all that the mod has been cancelled due to copyright issues
I really didnt see this coming, but I guess one cannot always get lucky. There was no specific complaint filed from Hasbro (atleast not to my knowledge), instead, Blizzard decided to remove the mod from the Arcade as a preemptive measure and adviced me to seek an official permission from Hasbro, which I did. However, unfortunately, Hasbro politely declined the request and as such this mod project unfortunately wont come to fruition.
Future of the project
However, fear not! As stated in the opening post, the impressive engine behind this mod was NOT made specifically for "Transformers: Open World".
The massive third-person open world RPG mod for Starcraft 2 will still happen!
Currently, Im evaluating in what other direction I can push this project, now that it is is clear that I cannot make this a Transformers mod.
Thanks again to all the people who were interested and looked forward to this mod! In any case, you can look forward to the future of this project!
* Several playable Autobots (Decepticons may get added later) * A deep transformation system * A huge atmospheric open world (about 5 times bigger than the playable area in the current build) * Advanced third person mechanics and combat * A character progression system (ranks, stats and perks) * Intelligent enemy AI * Relatively large enemy variety * Bosses * NPCs and dialogs * Quests * Advanced visual fidelity (Huge amouts of custom models and animations) * Limited PvP
While this may seem like alot (it is), alot more of it is actually already done than the current Pre-Alpha build may lead you to believe. More on that later.
Description
General
Since before the release of "Psionic Warfare: Total Destruction" I have been working on creating an RPG experience in Starcraft 2 unlike anything the Arcade has seen before. Transformers: Open World is a big step on that path. Again, more on that later.
While the game is currently truly just in Pre-Alpha, what I want to achieve with "Transformers: Open World" is a visually stunning, atmospheric RPG experience with mechanically advanced gameplay, a huge open world aswell as a pretty large amout of content. Getting the atmosphere of the Transformers movies right is important to me.
The mod will have you choose from one of several playable Autobots (Decepticons may get added later) and allow you to traverse a huge open world - both in robot mode and in vehicle mode. The game is called "Transformers", so of course getting the transformations right is one of the key aspects of it.
While in vehicle mode, you can also perform a variety of actions, like shooting, boosting, aswell as an arcady "gear boost" system that allows you to go even faster and adds alittlebit of skill to the driving. Its important that the vehicle mode too feels like its a complete thing.
Combat
You will be fighting a large variety of different Decepticons, each with a fully programmed enemy combat AI, aswell as indepth third person combat mechanics making for a deep and responsive action-oriented third person combat system that really hasnt been done before in SC2.
You can make use of basic melee attacks, ranged shooting, dodging, power attacks aswell as make clever use of transforming.
The enemies can dodge your attacks, shoot and interupt your own, do special attacks and you really have to pay attention to what you are up against.
Of course you will also be fighting the most iconic Decepticons as bosses.
The combat system is 50% character stats and 50% player skill. It is based around dodging, stunning, countering enemy attacks and awareness of your enemy. Technically, you are capable of taking on even the strongest bosses at level 1 - if you´re good enough.
NPCs and Quests
The world will offer quests for you to complete, aswell as a large amout of NPCs that you can talk to. A straightforward character progression system, consisting of ranking up, increasing your stats and gaining perks will allow you to upgrade your Transformer both in robot and vehicle mode. All of this will make for a pretty lengthy RPG experience.
While there wont be a storyline //per se//, there will be plenty of little stories in the world itself. You will talk to interesting NPCs, read about interesting things and overall get to know the world you live in.
The World
But it will be more than just combat. While the current build of the game offers relatively little in terms of gameplay, basically just beating the crap out of enemies (as seen in the video above), my aim with the finished project however is a much less combat heavy experience. While combat will be a large part of it, a huge goal with this mod for me is nailing the atmosphere of living in a huge open world as a Transformer - a world that is at your mercy. Traversing a large open world, finding interesting locations and just chilling out should be one of the major appeals of this mod.
I want players to slow down and take in the atmosphere. And there will be plenty of mechanics and little details to ensure this.
Play the Pre-Alpha
UPDATE: For now, the Pre-Alpha version is currently unavailable on the Arcade. Please be patient for future updates!
Simply search for "Transformers" on the Arcade. The mod is called "TRANSFORMERS Open World PRE-ALPHA".
WARNING: You need to have shaders atleast on MEDIUM to properly play this! Otherwise, extreme graphical bugs like the streets not appearing will happen!
The current Pre-Alpha version features Optimus Prime as a playable character, Transformations, a large city placeholder world, a programmed enemy combat AI, several types of Decepticons to fight and all the main third person mechanics for combat and movement are in place. You can also increase the stats of your character by gaining energon from killed Decepticons.
While the mod currently doesnt look all that bad, it currently still lacks the level of direction and polish both in terms of visual and sound that my mods are known for and which defined "Psionic Warfare: Total Destruction". But dont worry, all that stuff will come later on. Once again I will try to push what is visually possible with Starcraft 2. The final game will look much much better than what it currently does.
You are welcome to offer feedback in this thread, but keep in mind at every step that this is the truest form of a Pre-Alpha. There is still alot to come.
I will continue to post updates in this thread. Thanks for reading and feedback is appreciated!
I love Transformers and this looks great, but one burning question: why oh why choose the movies instead of G1 or Prime as the style of the mod? The movies were so bad I didn't even see the last one, and I was a total TF-maniac when I was a kid. This severely lowers the chance of me ever playing this mod, simply because of the bad memories it conjurs up
On February 14 2016 01:33 Shkudde wrote: I love Transformers and this looks great, but one burning question: why oh why choose the movies instead of G1 or Prime as the style of the mod? The movies were so bad I didn't even see the last one, and I was a total TF-maniac when I was a kid. This severely lowers the chance of me ever playing this mod, simply because of the bad memories it conjurs up
The answer is simple: Because I love and respect the movies, I think they are great, and I have little interest in both G1 and especially Prime.
If you wont play it, its your loss. The mod has plenty of interested players already, even in this early pre-alpha stage, so it doesnt matter to me.
good work, just curious though, are there any copyright infringement issues to be concerned about? The Transformers brand is obviously owned by Hasbro. Just wondering if things like this are even allowed.
On February 14 2016 04:46 billynasty wrote: good work, just curious though, are there any copyright infringement issues to be concerned about? The Transformers brand is obviously owned by Hasbro. Just wondering if things like this are even allowed.
Its not an issue. Blizzard has proven time and time again that it doesnt care about copyright on the Arcade. Neither does Paramount or Hasbro (which has allowed several other Transformers mods to exist for other games), atleast not in these cases. Both of that is good.
I think this is a good moment to state that all of the UI is very much a placeholder atm. The final UI will look much better and immersive.
Just two actual perks done at the moment, though.
The plan at the moment is to have 20 perks, aswell as 10 special perks. To unlock regular perks, you need to spend Allspark Shards which you get by ranking up. Currently Im thinking to have about 15 ranks/levels, so you never will be able to unlock all perks in 1 playthrough. A single rank up will take about an average of an hour (thats the plan atleast), so we are looking at atleast 15 hours of playtime just to get to max rank with one character.
Specials perks you will unlock by doing special things in the world, defeating bosses among them. They cannot be unlocked by using shards. I think this is a good substitute for the lack of "loot" (I think loot is boring) and it will give more incentive to properly explore the world.
I have some really cool ideas for different perks, some of which will make transforming a more important part of the combat experience (as seen above) and as such add more and more depth to the combat system as you progress your character.
Im not 100% sure yet wether or not to have perks locked behind stats requirements (like having a perk require 10 points in "melee"). Currently, the plan is to have all 20 perks available from the beginning, but maybe it is a good idea to lock 2 perks per stat (so 6 perks in total) behind stat-requirements to make character building more interesting? What do you think?
As I said, there will be probably 15 ranks, each granting you an Allspark Shard which you can spend on perks. Each rank will take an average of an hour to get. I also added small notifications now of how much EXP and energon you gained from enemies.
Again, all of the UI is just placeholders at the moment.
Balancing the time it takes to get ranks with the seperate gaining of stats aswell as making the strength of the enemies appropriate to the strength of the player throughout might be a bit tricky, not sure yet. Anybody who has some RPG making experience wanna throw in his opinion/tips on a decent leveling/enemy difficulty curve?
I wanna do a few more things before releasing a new update for the Pre-Alpha version (make all of the UI tabs connected, making shared energon/exp a thing when multiple people take on enemies and maybe even enemy health bars), however, it shouldnt be that long now before a new update gets released.
That's truly amazing, how did you put the transformers models and their animations ? from what game did you take them? are the buildings from the SC2 editor or did you extracted them as well? I would love to work on those kind of projects one day, that's great !
On February 19 2016 04:14 nicopower5000 wrote: That's truly amazing, how did you put the transformers models and their animations ? from what game did you take them? are the buildings from the SC2 editor or did you extracted them as well? I would love to work on those kind of projects one day, that's great !
The animations for the Transformers arent from any game. Technically, some animations are based on stuff from World of Warcraft, however, I heavily modified most of those animations to better fit my needs and fit them into the theme. Alot of the animations are made by me completely from scratch, too. As for the Transformers specific animations (like Transforming), I made them completely myself from scratch aswell.
The buildings arent from SC2 or from any game. They are original models and are currently treated as placeholders, meaning they will probably get replaced by better models later on.
THIS MOD HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES
Hai everyone,
so, its been a while since the last update and theres a reason for why I have been so quiet over the last few weeks.
Unfortunately, I regret to inform you all that the mod has been cancelled due to copyright issues
I really didnt see this coming, but I guess one cannot always get lucky. There was no specific complaint filed from Hasbro (atleast not to my knowledge), instead, Blizzard decided to remove the mod from the Arcade as a preemptive measure and adviced me to seek an official permission from Hasbro, which I did. However, unfortunately, Hasbro politely declined the request and as such this mod project unfortunately wont come to fruition.
Future of the project
However, fear not! As stated in the opening post, the impressive engine behind this mod was NOT made specifically for "Transformers: Open World".
The massive third-person open world RPG mod for Starcraft 2 will still happen!
Currently, Im evaluating in what other direction I can push this project, now that it is is clear that I cannot make this a Transformers mod.
Thanks again to all the people who were interested and looked forward to this mod! In any case, you can look forward to the future of this project!
On March 07 2016 03:09 Golgotha wrote: Please make it a japanese style gundam robot game. please please
I think its really cool that people are excited and hoping to see their favorite settings in this mod project and Ive already received a multitude of requests and suggestions.
However, while I am always open to suggestions, this really is a decision I have to make on my own and for myself and I cant just make this mod into something that people want to see, instead of something that I want to see. Developing a mod like this is alot of work and it needs to be fun for the developer in order for the project to succeed. And the only way to achieve that is to have it be in a setting that is really compelling to myself.
My brother in Christ, don't let Blizzard stop you they are just bunch of lazy jerks, instead continue to develop this project dont post it in their mod library, better use other mods libraries so nobody would stop you, I see potential i. This project, shame I can't watch the video BUT still this mod must NOT die like this, we Transformers fans support you and hope that you will come back to finish this project, and make thousands or even millions of StarCraft and transformers fans happy. Good luck brother.
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