So, this is a real mod idea and also my entry for the mod contest…I have been watching Left 4 Dead for what seems like forever and I have been overly obsessed since more and more info about it has started to surface over the last year.
I haven’t done anything for the Source modding community since 2004…Half-Life 2’s original release. But this has brought me back into the idea-crunching mode and I am ridiculously fueled to actually get something done…
Now whether or not the infected are re-animated corpses or just people who got infected it makes sense to me that the infected wouldn’t always be fast. That being said I would like to go into what I would like to do.
This mod is definitely a Left 4 Dead mod to make a different experience with new content but something that takes place in the same universe. Going with the movie cliché ideal in mind the first thing is having an over-world, a living-breathing world that is being taken over by the infected invasion. A place that encompasses most experiences found in Left 4 Dead as well as maybe more. I mean safehouses, bands of survivors (good and bad towards you), weapons, food, leveling up, and much much more! So here we go.
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DESCRIPTIONS
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-Story- (kinda)
The game would take place on the first days of the infection and last until you figured out a way to be totally safe, leave, or die (of course you could save). The game would have a night and day system (an undetermined amount of time, it depends on how big I can really make the game without killing myself). The number of infected would grow and more types infected would surface, faster, slower, etc. Around the end of week one mutated infected (boss infected) would start to show up and as things went further one or two boss infected would become three and four.
Anyway, the game should start with some sort of introduction leading you into the house and into a text conversation after some of the infected “re-animate” and get shot running towards the barricaded house you would start in. From there other things would unfold leading you on to other things, things I’d like to keep a mystery until after I can get my fill of Left 4 Dead and then start actually working on the mod. Basically it would stand as kind of a precursor to Left 4 Dead and then a side-story to it instead of throwing you into the middle of it…
Maybe something like this:
::First credits roll over a black screen, a screen twitch (white noise and distortion) and back to black with a fade in to a small suburbian neighborhood with a city in the background and smoke billowing upward in a few spots.::
::The camera pans down through the town into a street where infected are ripping into a corpse, the tearing flesh can be heard from the corpse as blood splatters upward and hits the ground. Suddenly a gunshot is heard one of the infected’s head flies back with a cloud of blood.::
::The camera pans to a house, blue in color with metal bars and wood are plastered on a window. Something very small can be seen moving in the shadows. Another shot is fired this time you see a flash from the window.::
::The camera cuts to the group of infected, but they are no longer hovering over the corpse. Another shot is fired, an infected falls with a spurt of blood. A hooded infected gets to full run before being gunned down by a different caliber weapon. ::
::The camera cuts back to the house and multiple shots are fired from an automatic weapon of some kind. Two “Zombies” fall in front of the camera and then the camera moves around scoping the area. Stopping on a movement from the corpse in the middle of the street, it gets up and begins to run at the camera and one last shot is heard. A blood splatter mattes the forehead of the creature and it falls.::
::The Camera pans to the house and travels through the window to show the main character holding a scoped hunting rifle.::
“Nice shot, gamer name here.” And from here the game begins with a dialogue and choices.
From here your mission would be to stay and receive quests until something happened or go out and explore.
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-Gameplay & Mechanics-
Now, utilizing the great AI director and system with a few modifications what I would like to do is create a world with a higher scope than Left 4 Dead. What I want to accomplish may be impossible, but I would still like to try…I would like to create something that makes you really feel like you’re in the Zombie apocalypse rather than in a playable movie of it.
Think of starting out with the choice of a male or female and then the game starts...Then opening movie and then you in a barricaded house with a group of survivors that are fixed on staying in that area, first off you’re given the choice to stay with the group’s limited supply of guns, food, and ammunition (yes food has been added but for health regain). Or you could choose to leave, maybe bring some willing participants along with you. If you leave, then choosing what weapons and ammo you wanted to bring along (total of three one long gun and two short either two pistols, a pistol and a mac 10 or other small machinegun I don’t know yet, probably something already in Left 4 Dead.), or a pistol and a sawed-off shotgun. The long gun could be a three round pump shotgun or a hunting rifle.
With those selections stated all short weapons could be used to duel wield, however, your accuracy would be decreased if you did so. You would be able to choose the option in a menu.
Speaking of the menu it would have your bag in it, instead of a weight system you’d have bag slots…automatically there’d be slots already for your long and short weapons. Hopefully spots visible on the character models (mainly for a death cam mod I want to work on, considering the game would be fps and no one would ever really s you)…But the slots would be for food, ammo, and special items like grenades, pipe-bombs, body armor, flares, and other things. Another menu tag would be skills because for every infected you kill you would gain a certain amount of experience (more depending on the type of infected). With skills you can increase your bag slots, health points, your accuracy (by that I mean less movement of your hands while aiming), reload time, and gain abilities to make items easier to find, infected easier to spot (red or maybe green aura that gets brighter with higher levels), friendly’s easier to spot (blue aura, gets brighter with higher levels), and even special gore mode for the sick and twisted, plus others.
Using the AI for the Left 4 Dead Survivors you might be able to work something out for actions to make AI friend’s stay or do their own thing and follow you and hopefully a good assortment of talk to commands. Then while following you they have the ability to help you kill the infected and scout for new items, safe-houses, and information.
Unlike Left 4 Dead this would be maybe one to two players but I’m leaning towards single as I am not a game developer and do not have the funding to work on something involving co-op and personal servers…But along your way you could find other AI survivors (I’m thinking of modding the infected to have opposite normal looking skins for infected continuity) and even hideouts for other survivors that you could do quests for. In the idea of a living world you might find survivors running around killing zombies on the map or even trying to kill you.
I want to try and create a totally active world (Yes a world map would need to be created). The longer you stay in it the more of the hideouts die out and the less safe places you have. I want an entire city (I mean not thousands of buildings but more like hundreds, a house section, airstrip, city section, and outskirts. Something with farms, tall buildings,, a mall, a airport, houses, apartments, offices, a hospital (probably a lot of this straight from the textures and things in Left 4 Dead), and other such areas. You can go anywhere at any time.
Also I want to try and make everything destructible so the zombies can overrun safe havens and whatever else. Everything I want to do would take a long time and a lot of tweaking on the engine and AI of Source and Left 4 Dead. But damn it it’d be cool if over time a building you visited earlier was destroyed by the infected, walls broken truck exploded, maybe even bodies! That being said like a real city it has a dedicated number of people (more people on harder difficulties) and each person represents either a survivor or an infected once that counter reaches zero you win because you killed them all and you’re the last one left (that’s if the infected counter goes down to zero).
Anyway, if you managed to get to safe havens they might ask you to do quests or something like gather food or find us ammunition and your reward would be experience and some of the loot. There would be a store system where you traded your guns, ammunition, and food in for Reputation. Be careful though because stores even though currency would carry to each they would only be at safe-houses. So if they die, no more store.
In heart to Left 4 Dead I haven’t decided whether there will be a limit to how many survivors you can get to follow you around…I always loved having like six Barney’s with me in Half Life…
One last twist would be that not all of your friends and survivors would be immune to the disease and if attacked would change over time and if killed change right away into one of the infected adding a fun “The Thing” feel to the mod, never knowing if one of your friends is immune or not.
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-Graphics-
Nothing would really be upgraded from Left 4 Dead except maybe a different sound set, maybe male and female boss models and the mostly destructible environments….I know this would be hard and take a lot of CPU but I know there’s someone out there that could help me work it out….I really want to feel like the
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LISTS
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-Guns & Items-
Currently what I have in mind:
Short-
Revolver
Magnum Revolver
Compact Handgun
Handgun
High Powered Handgun
Mac10
Sawed-Off Shotgun
Long-
Retail Pump Shotgun
Modded Pump Shotgun (higher ammo capacity)
Semi-Automatic Shotgun
MP5
M4
AK47
Hunting Rifle
Semi-Auto Sniper Rifle
Extra-
Food
Drinks
Med Packs
Weapon Silencer (not for all weapons)
Pipe-Bomb
Grenade
Flash Bang
Smoke Grenade
Flare
Rocket Launcher
Rockets
-New!-Laser Activated Claymore
Body Armor
And maybe more….
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-Enemies-
Armed and Unarmed Survivors (yes enemy survivors ;D)
Slow Infected
Medium Infected
Fast Infected
Child Infected (thinking maybe thirteen in appearance, male and female, probably spawn less than tanks even in later days)
(I would like to make male and female versions of each of the bosses except maybe the witch, could you imagine a female boomer?!)
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-Features-
Fully Open World
New Experience and Level Up system
Night and Day
Iron Sights (this idea has been removed)
Quest for Other Survivors
Recruit Other Survivors
Battle Other Survivors
Male and Female Boss Infected
Body Armor
Food and Health System
Survive or Die Your Own Way
Barricade Yourself In
Hideout With Other Survivors
Run and Gun
Scavenge For Supplies
Walk, Run, and Sprint (Will bring your weapon down when you sprint)
Jump, Stand, Crouch, and Prone!
AND MORE!
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-Locations-
Elm Street Suburbs (a grid of houses)
Silent Hill Hospital (a Hospital)
Raccoon Police Department (a Police Department)
Night of the Living Dead Memorial Graveyard (Graveyard, Crypts, and Church included)
Con Air (an Airport)
Massacre Gas Station (a gas station)
Food Mart (a grocery)
Monroe Mall (a mall)
Jeepers Creepers Farmhouses (a small area of fields and farms)
The Omen Elementary School (a Elementary School) -removed-
Crimson Carrie High School (a High School)
Scream College Campus (dorms and college grounds)
The Suffering Prison (a Prison) -Newly Added-
(a grid of apartments, parking complexes, grocery store, diner, and office buildings)
I think thats everything so far, all names of areas and blocks are subject to change and are not final, if you have better names let me know because some of them are lame and some of them aren't names. These would not be replicas of their names either, so don't let the replication factor make your choice on the name because all areas will be custom and not really based on their named counter-part.
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-Additions-
If you guys can think of anything that you would like (that’s not more crazy than what I’ve already said) please post it and I will either draw a sketch or write a description or copy and paste your idea to additions (if it is a serious post/good idea for the mod).
Addition-1-Rough Map
(The proportion and scale isn't what it will be but it gives you an idea of the layout idea I have for the city)
-Addition-2-Infected Reskin (This is for their human form counter-parts)-
Obviously not an exact replica of a real reskin but as much as I can do until the game comes out and I can actually play with the infected models (yes I was a little lazy on the eyes and skin color) But this might be what an infected looks like before the infection.
-Addition-3-Sample Menu Screen-
What the in-game menu might look like. (The HUD in the bottom right is made by me as well, maybe the real one will look similar?) Bag or Weight!?
or
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-New Addition - Infected Mode!-
Just like Left 4 Dead I think it would be fun to play as the infected. Only this time you play from day one as an infected beastie! So you've got your fill of the Single-Player Human mode in Infection Day and now you want to do something different. You could replay Human mode and try a different play style, but why do that when you can play INFECTEDMODE!
The mode opens with the choice of male or female and then the openning sequence begins, your friend who has been really sick lately stops breathing. You go over to check on them, they have no pulse, you panic and call 911. The body on the bed moves, you hang up the phone and then it happens. Your dorm friend rushes you, bites you and knocks you out of the window. The screen blacks out and credits roll in the blackness. You blink, opening your eyes, everything is fuzzy but then becomes clear.
You're in the back of an ambulance, the amulance swerves and crashes. the screen fades to black and then back to you. The door is open and you are now in the housing section (same starting point as playing as the human character) only this time your only choice is that there is no choice. There are humans around, some armed some not, some other infected attacking them. You join into it of the player's will or you can do whatever.
The point is you are now a regular infected and can play in the city as you wish. Killing off humans and turning them, the more you kill the more experience you gain, the more experience you gain the more levels you get. Levels equal skill points, you can make yourself stronger, faster, climb walls, better hunting vision. And once you get high enough in levels you'll mutate into one of the boss infected (if you choose to).
Essentially this would remove the hunter and witch infected because at max level you'd be like an overpowered hunter/witch anyway....Staying a regular infected would allow you to take full advantage of your abilities while changing into one of the other three would five you a whole new but more restricted range of abilities! The only way for this game-mode to end is to die or kill all the humans...
We'll see how this mode progresses and developes after the game is released and I have a full chance to play as the infected in the regular game....I need to see what all the infected can do ^^;!
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I am thinking about vehicles…..
And soon I will add a Story Board for the intro and other sketches or example shots of the weapons.
Thanks guys for everything I hope to be getting feedback soon!
(And sorry for all the times certain ideas or what not is repeated, most of the current images are provided by CS-Nation!)