[Total Conversion] Under Siege

[Russel]

His argument is that the positives outweigh the negatives in the case of being standalone. Considering the negatives are literally just "What about resources!?" which are being ported from 8BDM core at this point anyway. True, the mod would be smaller if it didn't have core resources, which would be an advantage of using core 8BDM. Due to it being a total conversion there is really no need for core and I firmly believe it is for the better, because it means we won't have to have silly workarounds for removal of GLOBAL.acs, WCOLORS.acs, and SINGLEP.acs, which are all global/mapscope scripts that make a mod look less classy in general if it requires replacing things... I know that is barely an argument, but I have one more argument that is considerably large. This mod is not going to have anything in it from Megaman except for textures. This is huge because if it were a mod of Megaman 8-Bit Deathmatch, it is pretty much expected to see Megaman in it somewhere.

Pros:
Less replaces
No constraints on character creation
No constraints on visual content (in spite the use of 8-Bit sprites and graphics)
Use of alpha builds at any point, which means we can take advantage of new features/fixes.
Cons:
None...
No seriously are there any, because I can't think of any besides file size, which almost doesn't matter because it would be its own game anyway...

[Hallan Parva]

CALLING ALL ARTISTS OF ANY INCLINATION


We're looking for cute things to shove in the game. Minions, neutral creeps, mid-bosses, you name it. We really don't want to be boring and have gremlins / robots everywhere, and the idea's to have a few maps in the game to change the scenery... and being a community mod, I had the idea of asking the community directly for things. Even if you can't sprite, draw some concept art; something's more helpful than nothin' at all!

this has been an announcement from the Under Siege Dev Team~

[Colonel ServBot]

Sure, I'll take up the challenge!

[ZeStopper]

You wanted something, you got it! even though its not art

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Since this adds a MOBA to the game, why not have bosses:
At each base there will be 2 bosses. One a huge guy trying to kill your team and another a small guy who is also trying to kill your team and must be defeated before proceeding to "Huge Guy". "Huge Guy" is not spawned from the beginning of the match but spawns inside the base when "Small Guy" is killed. The player with the highest score on the team is then turned into "Huge Guy" and must fight the invading team.

"Small Guy" is a bot controlled AI who guards the base from the outside. He should be able to combat a medium group of players efficiently. If "Huge Guy" kills the enemy team, "Small Guy" will respawn outside the base and will continue. After killing the enemy team, the player controlling "Huge Guy" will revert to normal to continue to fight, giving anyone a chance to be "Huge Guy".

Each team gets it's own unique "Huge Guy" depending on the map (or not) but  have the same type of "Small Guy" (example: Team 1 gets "Scorpion d00d" and Team 2 gets Lizard gUy on the Desert Map. But both get Killah W0rm as their "Small Guy"

Note that "Small Guy" isn't gonna be small, more like the size of your average robot while "Huge Guy".......well DUh he's pretty powerful and Huuuuuuge!
 I also took some inspiration from Smite with the Phoenix and Minotaur thing.

[Myroc]

CALLING ALL ARTISTS OF ANY INCLINATION

This reminds me of something, have you people decided on an artstyle yet? By that I mean an artstyle that isn't just "mega man with more than 8-bit colors thrown in", because I find that to be quite lazy when you can easily do much more. I'm not asking for Ultra-High Detailed Hand-Drawn HD Sprites (TM), nor for you too look like any of the other infinite amounts of doom mods out there, but there are plenty of pixelated artstyles available. For example, you could trying to make it look similar to, say, a 16-bit era JRPG, in the likes of Seiken Densetsu or Chrono Trigger. I just want something other than a lazy poorly thought out megaman-like aesthetic.

[Russel]

I like this idea, but the entire reason the mod was being built based around the "Megaman-like" artstyle was because apparently no one on the development team knows how to work with anything higher...which I think is completely bullshit. This being a total conversion, it is capable of much, much more.

Sure, you can't do much with 8-Bit- wait...yes you can! You see, we could move from NES 8-Bit to...I don't know...real 8-bit in the technical sense, which is a limit to 256 colors, which is just slightly above what we have now. I agree with this sentiment on a new artstyle and I think it would be that one little thing that would just drive this mod into being a good one.

Now, from our current standpoint, would that be an easy thing to accomplish? By all means not, considering it would mean we truly would be independent from 8BDM's core and would thus mean we ourselves would have to fabricate our own resources...our own worlds, which I'm fairly certain no one of the developers truly wants to take on by themselves.

tl;dr - Would it be better to have our own artstyle? of course! The real question is, would it be a goal worth pursuing?
Also when writing this post, my focus was probably keeping 8-bit...but I can't feel myself holding ground to that idea...I think vast, dynamic worlds with brilliant texture flow would be just what the doctor ordered. By this, I mean I was just kind of thinking of how Good Chrono Trigger looked.

I also feel I should add that it is possible to create so much with even 8-bit. Just look at Zexion's work, how it varies from the Megaman style while still retaining the same feeling; or while probably not fully 8-bit exactly...the many, many, many, texture packs that exist for Minecraft.

[Balrog]

I like this idea, but the entire reason the mod was being built based around the "Megaman-like" artstyle was because apparently no one on the development team knows how to work with anything higher...which I think is completely bullshit. This being a total conversion, it is capable of much, much more.

Sure, you can't do much with 8-Bit- wait...yes you can! You see, we could move from NES 8-Bit to...I don't know...real 8-bit in the technical sense, which is a limit to 256 colors, which is just slightly above what we have now. I agree with this sentiment on a new artstyle and I think it would be that one little thing that would just drive this mod into being a good one.

Now, from our current standpoint, would that be an easy thing to accomplish? By all means not, considering it would mean we truly would be independent from 8BDM's core and would thus mean we ourselves would have to fabricate our own resources...our own worlds, which I'm fairly certain no one of the developers truly wants to take on by themselves.

tl;dr - Would it be better to have our own artstyle? of course! The real question is, would it be a goal worth pursuing?
Also when writing this post, my focus was probably keeping 8-bit...but I can't feel myself holding ground to that idea...I think vast, dynamic worlds with brilliant texture flow would be just what the doctor ordered. By this, I mean I was just kind of thinking of how Good Chrono Trigger looked.

Wait, crippling your art style is a good thing? "8-bit in the technical sense" would be sheer hell to work with. For example, the NES PPU only handles 16 colors onscreen at a time. That's for the entire level, all the actors, and the HUD. Also, you have maybe two artists at this point. Staying tied to MM8BDM lets you reuse Mega Man assets, which means you might be able to get something shipped within the decade without paying through the nose for commissioned art and audio. Save the grand ambition for after you have some groundwork laid down.

[Russel]

8-bit in the technical sense just means it could basically be up to Doom's standards. That's it. Redoing the art style was an idea broughy up by Myroc and I was just supporting it because I think a new art style would be freaking amazing.

[Ceridran]

Anyway uh

Fine, Smash. You guys can use Drilvee.

but Drilvee is still er mine because I might use it for something else who knows

bwararararar

[Hallan Parva]

This reminds me of something, have you people decided on an artstyle yet?

hahahaaaa NOPE

There are plenty of pixelated artstyles available. For example, you could trying to make it look similar to, say, a 16-bit era JRPG, in the likes of Seiken Densetsu or Chrono Trigger. I just want something other than a lazy poorly thought out megaman-like aesthetic.

Even if we don't jump into 16-bit, I'd like to bring up something I mentioned in the dev chat.

[12:48:39 PM] Cobbler: there's more to 8-bit than just Mega Man
[12:48:43 PM] Cobbler: cough
[12:51:19 PM] Cobbler: look at the differences between Final Fantasy II and Super Mario 3
[12:51:27 PM] Cobbler: and then compare both of those to Batman: Return of the Joker
[12:51:37 PM] Cobbler: they're all 8-bit, technically speaking
[12:51:45 PM] Cobbler: but holy fuzznuggets would you look at those styles
[12:51:52 PM] xColdxFusionx: ...There's a thought

Even for non-NES examples: Cave Story, Mutant Mudds, the original Meat Boy, VVVVVV, Super Smash Land... they all have a retro pixel feel to them, but each game is vastly different in appearance. Sticking to "8-bit" or even a fake 8-bit imitation isn't bad, it just shouldn't scream "Mega Man" in an obnoxious high-pitched voice.

this has been an announcement from the Under Siege Dev Team~

[Colonel ServBot]

CALLING ALL ARTISTS OF ANY INCLINATION

Well, heres two things i thought of...

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Cant have a game without Skeletons!

AND

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BAM! A fanbot!
Well, he does not actual damage, but he pushes you backwards and shove your projectiles back in your face! you can also call it AirManJames Mark II!

[Russel]

While not my own designs, I thought these two would be fun minions. (Specifically the latter)

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[ZeStopper]

I call it TNT d00d, a mini-boss/"Small Guy."

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[Ceridran]

I've got some fancy dancy handy dandy Shell Soldiers for you

I think I heard something about an area around a beach.

I had no idea what I was doing when I was drawing the one on the right.

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If you use special minions for each map, cool. If not, just use the blue one as a neutral enemy because that is way better than the red one.

Also also also I made a Mixed/Physical/Tank/Sniper type character but I can't really put him up because I don't have any good names for him. by the way I haven't gotten any info on if Sharahin is accepted or denied but it probably doesn't matter he can be scrapped I guess

[Hallan Parva]

I think I heard something about an area around a beach. If you use special minions for each map, cool.

I haven't heard anything about a beach, though I'm putting together a quick seaside villa for Lego so he has a more... erm, flat and simple map to test out minions and turrets. You know, make sure they work and everything. It's called Stardust Plaza and the idea was to make the team-based minions into robots shaped like little girls. That explode. Because why the hell not.

The idea was to have a few different minion types for each stage, which is why I made this "open challenge" of sorts in the first place. I thought that would help to make each stage more unique and liven up the game a bit, and so far nothing's gone wrong or anything. Some pretty groovy designs have come in already and it seems like we're having a bit of fun with this. Because why the hell not.