Hello, my name is Michael, and I’m the part of an organization called ICTX. ICTX is a large group composed of Branches. The main goal of ICTX is to build an Online RTS, and to do this, we search the branches for people willing to help. The ORTS we are making is a sci fi type game, with 4 factions. Its still deep in development, and we've come here looking for help. We are looking for any and all skills, and you will only be doing things that you want to do. One thing we make sure of in ICTX is that everyone is enjoying themselves but still working hard. And a side note, if you want to work alone, community interaction is not required. In order to get started contact Dan... or it may be possible to just message me if he's not around... (hateheretic@hotmail.com) AIM: DannyMartn MSN: imperiachaos@hotmail.com Feel free to message us any time. -------------------------------------- The story of the game, as of June 30th 2008 given the working name "Planet of Conflict", is as follows: Setting- The century of 2300 Earth has finally become un-inhabitable due to the overpopulation of Humans, thus they began looking for other places to live. The Moon, and Mars are being terra-formed, but can only be formed so fast, and the Humans decide to explore a wormhole that has opened up at the edge of the solar system. The Earth's government sends the TEF7 (Terran Exploration Force 7) into the wormhole. They find on the other side a binary star system (a star system where two stars orbit each other) with orbiting planets. The government tells TEF7 to colonize a terran planet they call POC11746. Upon landing and setting up colonies, the government begins to become corrupt, as the Generals and Leaders of TEF7 start to hide information, knowing that Earth will know nothing of it. Upon further expansion and exploration, the terrans find alien artifacts, belonging to an alien race that had been wiped out not long ago. Some scientists wanted to use the technology to better their expansion. They wanted to study this technology, and integrate it into their lives. The government, for their own corrupt reasons, decided that these scientists and supporters needed to be purged. The supporters fled, only to find that they have only have enough time to flee with their persons, and were forced to randomly disperse throughout the planet. They would later form tribe-like settlements, having to re-create everything they had, and because of their interest and understanding of the alien technology, they would re-build their society solely on the technology, which they would use to transform themselves into Cyborgs, being able to make their consciousness turn into data, granting immortality and the ability to transfer their consciousness to different machines. Later on, the Tribes would become one again, but they would never lose their tribal sense of belonging to a clan. Back in TEF7 territory, the government was developing battery technology, capable of multiplying its own power. The laborers, forced with the task of expanding the borders, planned to revolt. They were tired of the government's abusive behavior and ruling, and they rose up against the TEF7, allowing most of these supporters to evacuate without many casualties and loss of direction, following the scientific supporters example. They would find a well-protected region of the planet, full of mountains and lush terrain to create their paradise. Once the 3 new factions had been set up, the scientific supporters, who named their nation "BloodVaine", the "Freedom Fighters", who named their land the "Nation of Civil Protection", or "NoCP", and the TEF7 who had settled themselves into a corner of the planet, which is when the new problems arose. The alien technology that BloodVaine had used to make them cybernetic was held within. They were angry, and by integrating this technology with their own consciousness, the Humans took on a half-consciousness, shared by the alien. Because of this, though, they would have no way of knowing what had happened to them, and their lust for purging all other life from the planet would only seem natural. Also, another big happening involving BloodVaine, is that some tribes discovered old vaults containing spare DNA of the extinct aliens. For the sake of experimentation, they used their high tech methods to fuse themselves with this DNA, through generations, eventually into these aliens. (The aliens are then discovered to be Anthropomorphic creatures, ranging from felines and canines). After BloodVaine's happenings, a new horror would be discovered on the planet. Strange creatures began appearing and attacking BloodVaine. The attacks became stronger and stronger, until finally an underground explosion placed a enormous crater in the planet's surface, erasing half of the BloodVaine's population. It was then understood by the humans that these creatures were indeed sentient, and wanted anything to destroy BloodVaine. They were from then on, named "Misery". Unknown to the characters of the game at the time, Misery is simply a race of creatures (much like the zerg from StarCraft) that live underneath the planet's surface. They were responsible for killing off the aliens the BloodVaine get their technology from and have re-awoken to remove BloodVaine from the planet as well. Additionally, the BloodVaine who have not used the cybernetics, and have chosen to become genetically anthropomorphisized, are not possessed, and see that their brothers have gone haywire. They remove themselves from the empire, and form their own faction. Eventually, the 4 factions war with each other, NoCP trying to keep their independence, BloodVaine bent on purging all others, TEF7 always expanding, and the anthropomorphs, (as of this point in development have no name for their faction) who fight to understand their planet, and are considered the peace keepers, using their far superior technology to turn the tides of battles, while keep the other 3 factions in check. -------------------------------------- The game of which has the working name "Planet of Conflict" contains 4 playable factions, as well has one NPC mega-faction, who is used as a balance to keep high level players from attacking lower level players. Random attacks by the faction Misery, a zerg-like race who are dark and eerie, will be triggered and can give players something to fight now and then, if they aren’t actively expanding. Additionally, if a high level player tries to attack a low level player, to prevent too much damage, Misery will appear and try to disrupt the force attacking. The 4 playable factions are as follows: Terran Exploration Force Seven (TEF7) BloodVaine (BV) Nation of Civil Protection (NoCP) Anthropomorphs (has no name at this time) The TEF7's playing style revolves around the fact that their empire is so large, that there will never be a loss of recruits. They do not have a population limit of ANY kind, however all units and buildings consume power, which is fabricated using the game's single resource (covered later). In theory, a TEF7 player can have as many buildings and units as their energy budget can support. More faction specific details will be covered later. BloodVaine's playing style revolves around their cybernetic technology. Each base you build contains about 5 "ghosts", which are the consciousness of the bloodvaine people. You will build autonomous robots that, for instance, can seek out and harvest the game's resource, bring it back, and keep it saved to be used to build other buildings and units. Building machines which require a ghost to operate, will place the vehicle or mech in a parking lot type area of the base, or, depending on the size of the base, keep it under ground, until it is called upon. Then, the player can chose to inject a ghost into the vehicle, and it becomes active, and the player loses 1 ghost. If the vehicle is destroyed, the ghost will attempt to get back to base how this works is this: if the ghost dies in the vicinity of the base, the ghost WILL return to base. Otherwise, the player needs to build Infrared towers, which will pick up the ghost if it is close enough at death, and carry it by a network back to the base. If the ghost is not close enough to be instantly picked up, it will try to travel to the nearest tower, or base, but can be easily destroyed by some weapons of the other factions. More faction specific details will be covered later. NoCP's playing style revolves around the fact that through peace, they had more time to advance in technology. BloodVaine's technology may be conceived from alien technology, but NoCP's technology manages to surpass BV's, but still has the terran style of construction. In other words, their buildings and weapons vehicles etc have a earth-like futuristic feel, as opposed to a rounded smooth and sharp space-age look. They take the resource and sell it back to the main empire, gaining money to use to buy things. Their population limit is handled by a farm system; in other words, You can only have many people and vehicles as you can support using your farm buildings, which in this game are "Agricultural Centers", which require money to operate, but can be upgraded through tiers to become more efficient. More faction specific details will be covered later. The Anthropomorphic faction is still in development, but what is certain is that they will use the same technology as BloodVaine, only tailored to their new bodies. This faction will be focused on infantry and heavy infantry, as well as very powerful troop-movers such as drop ships. Also, because of their need for powerful drop ships, we've decided to give this faction powerful airships as well. Their vehicles, while using the same technology and shields BV is known for, is less powerful, and this faction requires the same farm system NoCP uses. -------------------------------------- The scale of this game is big but small. The map is huge, but each base can only support a relatively small amount of units. The game is designed to be a game of tactics, rather than strategy, and the focus is on what ever battle is happening at that moment. Instead of managing massive armies, we find it to be easier to track multiple task forces. Below is a detailed explanation of the units for each faction. TEF7, as said before, revolves around their masses of worthless human life. Their standard units tend to be large squads of very weak infantry. Later on, TEF7 players gain access to vehicles, which tend to be odd weapons. To prevent boring tanks and the every day artillery piece, we gave TEF7 some interesting weapons, usually to maximize pain, and at no regard to the cost of the weapon. For instance, the as-of-now called "Chain Launcher" that is standard to most light vehicles, is a powerful anti-personnel weapon, which, as you may guess, shoots a rotating chain towards enemies. The technology level given to the TEF7 is the smallest of the 4 factions, but is still considered futuristic for the fact the game takes place in the 2300's. NoCP is based on the fact that because they do not spend their time expanding, they had time to technologically advance. Their heavier weapons, such as heavy tanks and artillery etc, use elemental weapons, ranging from flame throwers, incendiaries, weapons that create ice, static electrically charged ordinance, etc. Each type of element tends to be more powerful against a specific faction, but that is not to say each faction will be vulnerable to a single element. Static Electric weapons, such as a tank shell that releases it's charge upon impact, is equivalent to EMP weapons of other games. They have a chance to shut down vehicles, but do not hurt BloodVaine shields, like other games might say they would. Fire is able to overwhelm these shields, but is very poor at damaging the hulls of BloodVaine's vehicles, so using a single element against an enemy is rarely effective. Ice weapons tend to be good against the TEF7 and their un-protected infantry. Although the NoCP is advanced, the only faction with hover tech is BloodVaine. BloodVaine's players should begin to feel dark and sinister while they play. Their empire may not consist of soldiers forced to fight like the TEF7, but their weapons and methods tend to come across creepy to new designers. Every original BloodVaine settler (besides the anthropomorphic ones who belong to a different faction), has undergone extreme cybernetic transformation, making their consciousness into data. Their consciousness, as data, can be transported around using infrared emission. The front-line facilities constructed by BloodVaine operate by storing the data of these people, then injecting them into a vehicle, or even a prosthetic body. Because BloodVaine vehicles are so powerful and shielded, Only a small number of Ghosts, as we call them, can be held at a base. To make this slightly more interesting, mid-level BloodVaine players will gain methods to capture NoCP and TEF7 infantry and vehicle crews, and brain-wash them, turning them into light infantry. The process is similar to the Strogg from the Quake universe, and the Combine from the Half-Life universe. There is not much yet designed for the Anthropomorphic faction. All we know, is that they derived from the main faction of BloodVaine and use much of their technology. However, due to their new more powerful bodies, they focus on infantry and infantry movers such as drop ships and other aircraft and support craft.