I'm considering doing a new TC for EVN. The reason for this post is to cheack the response, gauge the water, cheak the accuracy of the tachyon cannon, whatever :). I have come up with a basic "shell" for the story (below).

Set several hundred years ahead of Nove this TC called Escape Velocity: Final Days tells the story of humanities last days as a race. When the Mek'lar first showed up from another galaxy they were just thought to be a hoax. But then planet after planet began falling to the might of these mostly cybernetic beings. The Fedaration, even with the resorces of the anexed Auroran Empire, the Fedaration is still losing. The Polaris have been untouched so far and have done nothing.

The Mek'lar use technology far more advanced than even the Polaris could dream of. It is possible that the Mek'lar use ships that are much like ships that were in raids that struck and then vanished a few years ago.

Anything you have to say about this please post it here. Thanks.

My suggestion is to put more content. It's very, very vague right now, so I don't know if many people will tell you they are interested.
Once you put in details concerning the storylines, , then we can have a better idea of what it's all about, and then give our point of view.

I wouldn't worry too much about 'testing the waters'- if you want to make something, make it. When you have something to show, you'll be much more likely to generate a lot of interest.
Weather or not you finish something on the scale of a TC you'll learn a lot about 3d modeling, 2d graphics, writing and coding that could spark some real use in the future. It's fun stuff...

Hm I'll second rmx256. Very sensible advice.
Many things actually start that way. Some actually stay unheard-of until their release, and that can also be very good (Arpia came out because I wanted it to, because I was satisfied with it, and suddenly people were discovering it and liking it).
Usually others will give you advice, comments, from the moment when they taste a piece of the pie onwards.

You'll still find it fun/interesting to work on it: you learn a lot, and you enjoy writing and creating a story. (sometimes I shiver or shed a tear when I'm writing. true)

Creating a plug is a bit like composing music: you don't know exactly what the tune you've just got will become. You have an idea, but it gets modified throughout the process. In the end, you love what you've done (usually, you've played it so many times you know it off my heart). And you're pleased to have completed it.

Who cares about what the others think (I mean, only about what they think)? It's not the most important. The most important is being yourself happy with your creation.
Some will not like it, but that's inevitable. Just try to turn it into something you like.

So follow Rik's advice: just do it.

Hope you can make some sense from all this.

I'm going to give you the standard boilerplate warning about vaporware. Don't be too ambitious and annonce tons of awesome new stuff, creating a lot of pressure on you, if you don't know if you will be able to do it all. If you get too ambitious, your TC may very well become vaporware. Don't make a huge list of crap to put in your TC so that you haven't a clue where to start. Organize it, and do a little at a time. Also, do it in a logical order; Bomb's plug-in guide (link, anyone?) can be very helpful here.

Also, just remember, even if you only get halfway through it, that's .5 of a TC more than most of us will ever be able to make by ourselves.

Lastly, keep in mind that people will love it, and people will hate it. The best thing is to thank the former and ignore the latter, unless they have a valid reason (buggy, typos, etc.), in which case you should do your best effort to make it better. If they lay this BS on you that "they explored 1/5 of the universe and hated it, but the universe sucked, and the storylines were s###ty because I said so" (COUGH!STEELIX!COUGH!), ignore them. Keep constructive criticism in mind, but crap like that is just, well, crap.

What do you have against Steelix?

Pace, orca and rmx give good advice. Don't be too ambitions, plan it first, get together a good team.

Vaporware can come very easily from am overambitions project - never let features come in the way of a good story. You can always add things later.

Ignore the people who don't like it, they're self-respecting, brainless pieces of crap who think that because they're too lazy to make TCs, noone can make them.

I hope your TC comes out good.

--Prophile

(NB 1000th post! w00t!)

Due to the fact that I don't want people to think that I am doing all kinds of stuff and then be disapionted when everything that they wanted isn't in the TC. I already have the baseline of a plot. It should be finished in a few days. I might post it here when it is done. I also might release some teaser plugs containing ships and outfits from the TC. But hey, no promises.

This post has been edited by general11 : 15 January 2005 - 02:39 PM

Sounds kind of familliar.

Best of luck though.

rmx256, on Jan 15 2005, 01:28 PM, said:

Sounds kind of familliar.

Best of luck though.
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How so?

My suggestion - write all the missions and your replacement text for the planets, ships and upgrades etc. Just use the graphics etc from Nova until you've done all this.
Then get some people to beta test it and play the missions. They'll tell you if it really works. After that, you'll probably get loads of offers to do the graphics anyway. In any case, you'll know what the stuff should 'really' look like by that point. If you do the graphics first, you'll only end up redoing them afterwards.

Most TCs fail because the missions are never completed, not because of a shortage of graphics.

Thanks, I might just do that, although I might do a few of the graphics first because I can just us the current ships and graphics for the Polaris and Fedaration. By the way, does anyone have any ideas for ship, planet and/or still graphic renderers, modelers, designers that will work on a windows machine. Preferable free ones, as I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars.

This post has been edited by general11 : 15 January 2005 - 04:32 PM

Martin Turner, on Jan 15 2005, 01:40 PM, said:

My suggestion - write all the missions and your replacement text for the planets, ships and upgrades etc. Just use the graphics etc from Nova until you've done all this.
Then get some people to beta test it and play the missions. They'll tell you if it really works. After that, you'll probably get loads of offers to do the graphics anyway. In any case, you'll know what the stuff should 'really' look like by that point. If you do the graphics first, you'll only end up redoing them afterwards.

Most TCs fail because the missions are never completed, not because of a shortage of graphics.
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Hey!
I did that, and I've only gotten one offer...!

(But he is the best with Mechanisto...)

When're these guys going to call?!?!?! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Well, if rmx256's experience is a hint at the future, I might as well start doing the graghics now.

Hope I din't go over my credit card limit.

That's why I am using Mechanisto, see?

rmx256, on Jan 16 2005, 09:06 AM, said:

That's why I am using Mechanisto, see?
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I'd love to use Mechanisto, but I have Windows.

Basilisk II?

Anyways, the thing about Steelix was a joke. It was in reference to his absurd post about EVO.

Did you know that the Mek'Lar are also the name of a race of cyborgs from the seminal space opera empire building games, "Master of Orion" I, II and III?

You may want to check out thier renditions for inspiration... or to silence the people who say (idiots)"OMG! j00 totally ripped off teh Mek'Lar!!!!onehundredeleven!"(/idiots).

You owe it to yourself to check the games out - they're exceptional, especially the second. (The first is simplistic, and the third... well... let's say it's "an excruciatingly realistic look at running an empire" and leave it at that.)

I'd just start brainstorming about the stories, characters, and factions, and start doing research, especially on history and prothstetics, if I were you. Best of luck on your endeavour.

Actualy I have MOO3, it's not all that bad once you get to know about. I had completly forgot about the Meklar

I am going to change it so I don't get sued.

The race formerly known as the Mek'lar is henceforth known as the Ncharlen.

Meklar was a command word to activate a wand of missiles in a DND game I used to run

rmx256, on Jan 19 2005, 07:40 PM, said:

Meklar was a command word to activate a wand of missiles in a DND game I used to run
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I'm really glad I changed the name... with a random word generator.