Nonlinear Campaign

[Clbck]

Do you suppose it would be possible for there to be a custom campaign with multiple paths in it?

For an example of what I mean, think of Starfox, except you make the choice within the level. Say you get to a certain area in the map and you can take the rooftops or the sewers, and depending on which way you go you get to a different saferoom, and a different next map.

It seemed like a neat idea to me, but I think it might be wasted effort as people would quickly develop a favorite way to go and just go that way every time... Unless a tank spawned one way, and the team didn't have enough ammo/health to go that way and the retreated... I'm not really sure.

[Deadly]

Someone on these forums is making one. Go in the search and search topic titles for "Frostbite" Looks to be a good one.

[thethingexe]

i know what you mean, and i believe it's completely possible.

so like a campaign with the same beginining map, with, say two or three exits, to different maps each, and they may be linear or also lead to other maps,

there may even be some back tracking and shit... to open switches or something,

but eventually, they all lead to the same ending, or maybe a super ending, if you went the hard way, or completely all the ways, etc.

maybe, i went a little overboard.

but i'm sure you can have nonlinear campaigns.

[BaldingSteve]

I think it would be cool if you could have a map that made the survivors split up for some amount of time.

E.G: Having 4 separate tunnels in which each survivor had to go in in order to hit a switch/ perform some task, allowing them to meet up again later on.

[Scarneck]

I think it would be cool if you could have a map that made the survivors split up for some amount of time.
smokers and hunters make that impossible

[CookieJar]

You can shoot smokers in the first second or two that they're pulling you away and you can melee hunters in mid-air. Although you're right, since most people are incapable of doing that and it's heavily reliant on knowing where the boss zombies can come from. If you were to split the survivors up it'd have to be 2 and 2.

[Casshoo]

You can shoot smokers in the first second or two that they're pulling you away and you can melee hunters in mid-air. Although you're right, since most people are incapable of doing that and it's heavily reliant on knowing where the boss zombies can come from. If you were to split the survivors up it'd have to be 2 and 2.
You could add 2 tunnels instead so you only split up into groups of 2.

[Sifer2]

Something like a very short cutscene where an explosion blows debris in between the 2 groups would work for the splitting up part. And during that period the director could spawn less boss's an more horde instead.

They did a lot of stuff like this in Resident Evil Outbreak. But yeah making a none linear campaign that was 5 maps long but 7 total possible maps would be pretty doable I am sure. Something like Star Fox would take a lot more effort but would also be doable.

[Thor-axe]

think of Starfox
DO A BARREL ROLL!

[Otreum]

It's very possible to do this. The idea I would like to see are open maps where survivors are split up into either groups of 2 or all split up from one another. The map would be large and open with plenty to explore. There would be no set path, however there would be some sortof main objective which requires players to go collect objects within the map that are randomly scattered, which means that players would have to explore the map, and not just run up an alleyway from point a to point b.
This system would make the game lifespan a hell of alot longer due to the fact that the level is open, but also because the objects would be randomly scattered, meaning that every game would be different and the AI director would be pretty damn random aswell.

[Lobster]

The problem is one route is always gonna be more popular, if the map is gonna be of a good quality, then its alot of extra pointless work for a payoff that will become meaningless after a couple of rounds, if your happy to make extra maps, then surely its better to invest the time in a second campaign.

[Necrocide]

I think it would be cool if you could have a map that made the survivors split up for some amount of time.
smokers and hunters make that impossible
Just add a trigger to disable any boss type you want...and then re-enable after a certain point.

[askquestionslater]

From the commentary:

Our first maps created specifically for the game were giant, nonlinear city sections. The idea was that the Survivor team would have to find their way through the zombie infested city. Playtesting quickly revealed that keeping track of your teammates and fending off the hordes of zombies completely consumed player's attention. Adding on-the-fly team discussions of which way to go were slow and frustrating. More importantly, however, was that teams quickly found their favorite route, and tended to always run the same way every time, minimizing their on-the-fly decisions. By paring down the city to a representative and fairly linear route, we could better spend our limited resources making that area highly detailed.

[Otreum]

That valve commentary is typical of developers.
They just don't know how to give players a choice.

It can easily be worked around.
As I said, have a big non linear level to run around in, there is no start and finish, only random objective locations which are not marked that the players have to search out and discover for themselves.

While Valve are right that people pick the easiest or best route, they didn't explain ways to deter players from those routes.
I personally just like the random idea of having routes blocked that were previously run through alot (something the so called AI director can determine via triggers) it's simple and effective, and it has been done before.

If I were to make a concept map, based on my idea, I reckon I could snap valve out of gaga land and show them how it could be done.
But hey, I don't even need to do that, the maps are already out there, the working concepts already exist.
The first zombie master release came with a map that had a big crane that you could use (biggest feature of the map I guess) and the objective was to find randomly scattered objects that the players had to bring back to a large storage shed to repair a vehicle to escape in.

The different routes I can't remember exactly what game it was used in, but I know it was done, and it worked well.

Bottom line is that it CAN BE DONE, and it can be done well, but developers just dont get it.

[LordBhorak]

I support the idea of splitting the team in 2 for a while in the map. You know... the way, that you can see your friends advancing in the other area and you can see the hordes attack them and they can see you. :D And in the end there's something both teams must do to allow them to come together again and go through the level.

One team falls, both teams fail. And if could be even done so, that the other team can give supporting fire to the other team at times... from distance ofc.