The third race talk

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illwieckz
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The third race talk

Post by illwieckz »

Quote by Jake Wall from comment on Surviving the third race (April 1st blog post of 2020):

Hey, me and my friends have been interested in this game for years now, we used to play tremulous as kids and we’ve been following the progress of unvanquished as we grew up.

In our group we have talked about how this game might implement a third team. I’m not sure if you’re actually considering this but if you are I would love to add some ideas to this. for starters, our current alien group should have a name for their species, instead of it being just aliens and humans they should have a name that sums up the entire species as a whole so that this new species can have a completely different name and thus not be seen as the exact same thing. It should also take inspiration from a different real life species on earth. our current alien team is more insect, our new one should be maybe a water based alien (amphibious), or bird, or reptile. doing this can easily breed ideas for different gameplay mechanics that set them apart from both the human and current alien group.

An issue that might arise is that it seems that humans and aliens are such polar opposites (aliens are melee and more aggressive attackers while humans are ranged and better at building) that this new team would have to either add something completely new to the game or fit somewhere in the middle. Maybe the current human or alien team could be tweaked a bit.

I feel like the idea of adding an unstoppable infection that reanimates the dead as you mentioned is very interesting and exciting but for me at least I feel like it’s quite unsatisfying and might cause some balancing issues as if it spreads by touch the melee team would be most effected.

I personally love the feelings of creating a base or even a few eggs as an alien in some area that humans might find difficult to find or reach, even just placing them on the roof and hoping they don’t look up. I feel like adding in a bird or water like species would allow that similar feeling to close over to this new team. maybe adding in maps that are surrounded by water or larger maps with more open areas. if you were to add in a reptile like alien you can take inspiration from snakes, lizards, crocodiles and obviously have some massive reptile monster as the last stage to compete with the tyrant and battlesuit.

To conclude this crazed fanboy rant. This game works great without a new team, but if this is being considered then I feel like adding a new team would not only be the coolest thing, but it could also be used as an opportunity to add heaps new gameplay, more exciting maps, more players in a match, some much needed variety and also iron out some pre-exciting balancing issues.
Thank you guys so much for making and continuing to work on this great game.

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illwieckz
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Re: The third race talk

Post by illwieckz »

Hi Jake, while this post was an april fool blog post, the thoughts on the viability of a third race were my real thoughts about the idea.

An issue that might arise is that it seems that humans and aliens are such polar opposites (aliens are melee and more aggressive attackers while humans are ranged and better at building) that this new team would have to either add something completely new to the game or fit somewhere in the middle.

Emphasis is mine, that's my concern: a third team would be only viable if it not only add a team, but add something new to the game, in a big enough way.

I'm not sure something in between would be that good. It would maybe fit the game itself, I mean being consistent with what we already have, but I'm convinced doing a third team that is not very different is a bad idea bad itself and it may be better to not do it at all. Sometime to do good things we have to remove things that are not bad but are just not good enough.

I give an example: As a photographer, before delivering photos I not only remove photography that are bad, I remove many photo that are good, because otherwise, the quality of the set would be lower because of dilution. :smile:

instead of it being just aliens and humans they should have a name that sums up the entire species as a whole so that this new species can have a completely different name and thus not be seen as the exact same thing

That's much a lore problem but yes, that's not a bad idea to give them names other than just “aliens”, like Stroggs in Quake. But that's not the biggest issues, alien is a poor name but is a name, the AVP thing shows there was possible to have two alien races with one being named aliens. They did not called the movie “Xenomorphs vs Predators” but everyone understood. At least, giving them another name than “aliens” would make sure there is no confusion with xenormorphs, but at least no one pretends the “alien” name is reserved to them (hopefully).

I feel like the idea of adding an unstoppable infection that reanimates the dead as you mentioned is very interesting and exciting but for me at least I feel like it’s quite unsatisfying and might cause some balancing issues as if it spreads by touch the melee team would be most effected.

This was the part of the joke. If this was the third team, the players of the third team would just be passive spectators and hope for others to be infected. Not fun at all! :grin:

At least, this kind of deadly virus may be a kind of sudden death mechanism that would appear after some time to make sure the game does not last forever. :wink: Currently sudden death is done via build points being lost and being hardest to recover over time. A Deadly virus is an interesting alternative. :thumbup:

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Gireen
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Re: The third race talk

Post by Gireen »

There used tho be such a virus mechanic in an tremulous mod.
Adv Dretches could spread the virus to humans who then take constant damage for 30s to a minute or so like normal poison.
Humans could infect each other trough close poximity and the only way for healing was to wear a biokit or battlesuit.
It would always result in the complete team being infected or harsh "quarantine measures" like teamkills :grin:

fear ma engrish :granger:

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