Phase one: Studio Introduction

[J Wilson]

Twin Planet concept. Not exactly crashed, but more they came very close and the smaller crept into the larger planet's orbit.

[Earendil]

'splodies! *runs off to paint...is incredibly pumped from new job*

[Form]

hey guys just to clear up a bit of confusion...

when i said 'dont use texture brushes', that was a bad choice of words. What i meant was 'dont JUST use texture brushes'. Sometimes people with thumbnail just by using a big texture brush to scrub in or suggest shapes. This results in a chaotic and unreadable value heirarchy.

But if you are working your thumbnails at a larger size and then rezzing them down you can by all means use texture brushes if you need to. Just keep in mind that suggesting actual texture in the thumbnail is a bad idea (generally).

Just make sure your values read.
A

[daldbaatar]

ok guys...here is my idea. in massive multiplayer online game...all of the characters are all on the ground right? But im my idea there is a gas world that lets the characters fly around. But only at a certain limit of space---but still huuuuge tho. Its like flying in a huge sphere of gas or air just like fish underwater or in ocean. But of course there will be lots of houses shops floating here and there...maybe even a shapeless city buildings chained to each other without making them fly out of the gas sphere. So that means there will be no gravity in those worlds...pretty neat idea huh? ( gonna make a challenge in designs here ) i will start putting thumbs of them soon.
The other worlds however will be just like what we have seen so far...on the ground, jungle, desert etc...
There will be manny clans that fight each other and race to reach the goal that they're assigned to by the admin or whoever in control. The society is mixture of so many kinds of creatures from many worlds. But it would be nice to tell that this world im describing here is not our world...its where the karma rules everything and all the characters we see are ghosts---not material creatures...and some creatures are so huge, like the boss from "painkiller" but most of the times they are harmless...etc. Still not sure on what culture i should base them on...but most likely to be something that came from ancient world cultures like "egypt, india, china, syria, greek....etc"
Thanks...comments wil lbe welcomed

[Gundersen]

hehe dald nice you have your own idea here, but you should read Forms post about what direction we are going in atm, we have an idea we are following now, "Two planets that have orbitet so close they have become attached to each other in some sort of way, leaning on each other"

[daldbaatar]

oh ok...hehe thanks gundy....Will do...got some ideas!!!!

[iwantjelly]

Keep the goodies coming Dweller and Gundersen, I'm affraid I've slowed down a bit my pace but I'll try to do more stuff soon.

Dweller, your idea of a non-rotating planet is exactly the plot af a french comics by caza called Arkadi, where the night side is very, very cold (deadly for humans).

Gundersen, I think it's a bit too early to stick to a single idea, and I like what Daldbaatar suggests, especially the floating city. That makes me think of something : what if one of the planets is a giant gas planet like Jupiter, which slowly swallows a smaller earth-like planet ?

In my modest opinion, I think narrowing the universe to two planets is a bit disappointing, it would be great to have a space MMORPG, a mix of genres (space strategy and RPG). I think mixing genres is a good way to have something really new. And this way we could have all these ideas of planets (jungle creeping on the desert, immobile planet, gaz planet with very low gravity, all of these ideas could be awesome if designed right) in one game.

I still want to try my galaxy collision idea. But enough words, visuals are definitely required to express all these ideas. I'm at work right now, but I will try to do something at lunch break...

[robmorfin]

*How could he have found the beer cans?, maybe hiding them behind the kleenex box wasn't such a good idea, will have to be more creative next time*

Here are some sketches of a Civilized and a Primitive cities each in one of the planets, by the way, the collision occured millions of years ago, lifeform just randomly started to evolve 400,000 years ago.

[Gundersen]

I am not sure about the "floating" part.. Sounds a bit like Second life where you can already fly around, and it makes the game pretty cheesy

BUT i do like the idea that you can rage space battles inside a mmorpg! Would be cool if you cold start colonies with other people on planets, and develope cities and then rage wars against other planets!

hehe. Try to sketch it out IwantJelly, look forward to see it

Robmorfin: I think the idea about a sudden collision is alot more interesting then something that happend million of years ago. If it happend so long ago you loose the "omg wtf will we find there" element. Cause a 400.000 year old civilazation would surely have discovered the other planet and found out all stuff...

[Gundersen]

ohh and one more thing: since its a MMORPG it needs to be a "stable" universe, It might be hard to have something as a planet slowly eating another planet.. Its more a single player shooter then instead of a mmorpg. Its easier to have a story line in single player shooter, in mmorpg you need to be able to play FOR EVER

[Earendil]

Some theorize that the asteroid belt was created by a planet(oid) collision in our very own solar system. Both ideas are good, but I'm more interested the aftermath, and the varieties of systems acting on each other to produce unique biological/cultural/technological rhythms and systems. And it would seem to me to take much longer than 400,000 years for life to exist on planet after colliding, but at this point anything should be possible.

I didn't get the impression we were narrowing anything down, so much as saying "this looks interesting, let's explore". So let's explore! There's nothing specifying what type of planets are colliding, so two gas giants colliding could produce interesting super giant, or a weird figure 8 thingy in which you can fly around, and what little landmasses are created, actually float and move around...

Hey I'm gonna go draw that.

[Lez]

Well, narrowing down a mmo to only two planets isn't that bad. Think it gives enough freedom to actually give a huge world.

What I though about when I saw the two worlds idea was a lot inspiered by the world of Prester (Last Exile). My thoughs goes something like the gravitation of the two planets affect each other in such a way creating a huge storm that divides them. (I will try to illustrate this when I get back home tonight).

-or-

That the gravitation creates a area around where the two planets are close or touch each others where stuff is allowed to float, say when they crashed together a lot of stone and debri was forced of the surfaces and is now floating forming a dense stoneline connecting the planets.

I like the possibilities to play with the rules of nature.

[iwantjelly]

I was only able to doodle for 10 small minutes : here is a view of the two galaxies from a distant nebula :



Lez : you're right, two planets is a pretty huge universe already. The point is more about how we want people to play, not really the richness of the universe.

In a nutshell, do we want space battles AND planet exploration/fighting, or only exploring the world and fighting as a single character (like in most MMORPG) ? Maybe it could be interesting to let people fight also in space, even with a little fleat and strategy.

But maybe not ! What do you people think ?

[Toxdel]

I'm a little more keen on the interaction between two planets being bridged in a couple of different fashioins. Kind of like what daldbaatar said. One idea is to have a desert planet meet a water planet. The two get so close that the water from the water planet gets drawn to the gravitational pull of the much larger desert planet and creates a whirlwhind area between the two that is used to travel between them. On the surface of the desert planet is a large swamp area where the planet is closest to the water planet. Its the only space on the large desert planet that has vast amounts of plant life. I'll have a thumbnail up hopefully tonight, along with some other ideas I had.

-later

[Killroy]

My idea was that one planet would be technologically advanced, and the whole planet is just covered in buildings and infrastructure because the population is totally out of control in relation to the size of the planet. Nature is barely surviving. The other planet is the opposite, mostly wild jungles with savage primitives. The savages are physically stronger because the wildlife on their planet is much more fearsome than on the first planet, so although they are not as technologically advanced as the people on the first planet, they are physically stronger. They also have a deep connection with nature and can use "magic." The city planet predicts the collision and allows it to occur, because they intend to take over the wilderness planet. However, the mother nature on this planet is much more fearsome and cannot be controlled by technology, also the "savages" aren't as stupid as they assumed.. For a MMORPG I think this would be a good balance allowing for a full range of different classes... and maybe be similar (not TOO similar of course )to the hoard vs alliance dynamic from WOW, but in a new environment. and the game could be about which planet would engulf the other. Of course on both sides, there are those who are willing to take the best of both worlds, are are willing to fight for compromise.

EDIT: I just remembered that Gunderson had a similar idea with the wild jungle planet concept.
I'll get my thumbs us soon.

You guys have some pretty tight ideas, too this is so much fun. =D

[daldbaatar]

yo yo yo fellas...arent both of the planets are still rotating mashing each other's surface as they roll? if they arent rotating then there has to be a night side and a day side? or if they be rotating-sticked together, then there will always be some days that makes sorta eclipse or what? and there will be a place like ever eclipsed zone right?

[J Wilson]

I think at this point we're all allowed to explore our take on the general concept. Less words more pictures!

[Form]

and remember, this is an environment painting class at the end of the day, not a game design course. So think what would work visually. Enjoy the freedom while you can

[Gundersen]

Here is one vision i have of this world/worlds.

"Planet 1" was once a great human civilization on a rocky/desert planet. There was large skyscraper cities and technology was highly advanced. As "planet 2" started to come closer and close the human race started going crazy in fear of death, and alot of wars raged over the planet, destroying most of the cities, and killed alot of people. Now the human race are in small millitary colonies, defending themself against each other. As "planet 2" started comming close enough to almost touch, plants started to grow from the jungle planet over to "planet 1", forming a sort of bridge connecting the two planets. The planets becomes one massive planet. "Planet 2" is inhabitet by some ferosius aliens, whose technology is simple, their power is in their number (Similar to Zerg on Starcraft). In humans battle against the invadeing planet the question emerges, did this planet come here by accident, or was it purposly controlled into orbit by the alien race?

Sorry for more text, will start to paint hehe, but i have a hand in for an architect competition on friday, so will be little time for this sadly ;(

[J Wilson]

Concept showing one planet from the surface of the other. I've been playing with the idea of ancient machinery that has long since been abandoned, and nature both over growing it and incorporating it into itself. You see that theme in some of my other sketches so far. In this one I just have a lone machine out in this remote serene landscape. From a game play point of view players could perhaps eventually scavenge and learn to use some of what it around (and rogue ancient war machines may still roam the landscape, evolving almost like organic beasts). From a design point of view I think it adds an interesting element that hasn't yet been done to death.

Edit: Art is mislabeled. Not a Dark Side planet concept, but a Twin Planet concept

[~Faust~]

Damn I am a fucking homeless buzm with no internet right now. And I forgot my stick so my nifty concepts will have to wait till tomorrow.

Anyway, here is my idea ; One planet Technologically advanced (Mid 20th century, architecture fairly stalinistic) meets planet of primitives who don't even have huts to live in and have an average lifespan of 30 years. Those are living in a dream-world though and everytime they turn to sleep, everyone of their tribe that sleeps also can use other's body to walk around. Something like a soul-trade So you gain stats strickly with mental shit like telepathy and stuff like that whereas your physical stats can change with your body. Sometimes you are a child (So you can crawl into small places) and sometimes you are a woman (So you can be raped by the stalinistic police).

Anyway, or you play the tecnologically advanced race and throw beercans at the primitives.

Edit: Oh And gunderson, that jungle upside-down is neeeeeeeat!

[Lez]

Like storms or something... turned out really messy but I hope they are readable anyway.

[J Wilson]

Lez, I really like 22. I can feel the energy and I like the debris in the storm.

[Gundersen]

yeah 22 is realy cool, well made dude!

Here is some sketches i did today on the jungle upside down in the city concept ... hehe

[J Wilson]

Looks like I'm not the only one with nothing new to show just yet. Now I don't feel quite so bad about taking the night off last night to see a great band. I'm going to try to produce at least one quick image today while at work, and then do a bunch tonight for tomorrow. I've got a few specific ideas I want to flesh out.

[iwantjelly]

A quick one before dinner :

[iwantjelly]

Another one :



These rocks are the remains of a small moon that would have crashed when the big background planet came close.

Ok, I need to do real concept now; this is only random doodling... I'll try to do something with real new ideas tomorrow.

[Toxdel]

The Dweller: Don't feel bad, you've done more then me so far, I too am going to try to do a TON tonight though.

you all are allowed to call me mean names if I don't.

[iwantjelly]

I continued the last one :

[Earendil]

Thumbs.