SC2Mapster

That's one ugly loading screen thing.

@Sephiex: Go

Yea :D...I dont like it...so ugh....

Quote from Sephiex: Go

That's one ugly loading screen thing.

That's me :(

Someone can get this on EU? There are only crappy the thing versions where you can spawn NPCs and the thing dealing tons of damage. Complete map revealed. Zealots running around killing everything. WTF?! I never have seen anything compareable in the movie nor in any sc1 version. SC1 the thing was good, best team and mind game if you had good people with ya.

It was simple. Everyone was a simple marine without any ability (maybe in SC2 one could add a flashlight system). They spawned on a labyrinth-like map, everyone in a different spot, so everyone was alone. Everyone had the same player color, thus no one could say "lool red (or name) is thing!" (in SC2 you definitely have to remove that name-mouseover-display thing.

Now, we reached perfect monotomy and as everyone spawned on a random dot (random to each game), no one could say where the thing spawned.

The thing was the same marine, but was able (in sc2 this should be done by an ability) to swap into a zergling which couldn't do special thing as well except for swapping into a marine again. When swapped to a ling they unallied eachother (take care that this aint visible in alliance window) so they wouldn't be reacting dumb like "Oh hey, the thing, lets not attack it :)".

Well, that's pretty much it. Quite the simpliest version. Other version had cars as well and the like. But that aint necesarry.

So yea, this is a complete mind game. Oh and NO SINGLE NPC was roaming around, the marines were the only units on the map. The thing could win by rushing into roaming marines when they are alone (thing always wins in a 1n1. 2n1 not necesarily). When they stand in a group you sort of have to try to become their leader and tell them where to go (you could add some side quests for this, to avoid them simply idling in a group). Make them split to get a chance.

Random Idea: maybe give the thing a veterancy behavior which makes it stronger after each marine kill.

So, keep it to the basics. I hate how most eu-mapmkers are simply adding stuff to show off what they can do with the editor, no matter whether it fits in the game or not.

I remember the Thing on sc1 using civilians and a zergling. Although, with sc2 you could make the thing appear as a zergling on the Thing's screen and everyone else he looks like a civilian and when he attacks he turns into the zergling. I don't see a point in a flashlight unless it's tps with really dark settings but everyone would still brighten up their screens so they wouldn't have to use it.

SC1 had triggers. 16 max conditions per trigger 64 max actions. Been executed all the time, there were no events ;) Also no variables, haha.

around 20 different available conditions and, estimated, like 60 different actions.

Thus, we've been highly limited.

1.) In some maps, crappy ugly doors were added. 2.) I guess the size was like Xel Naga caverns 3.) No, not really, but he could run and hope for a mate to find him in time. I wouldn't want him to be able because this would make the thing lose 90% of the game as it is not occuring often that you find an idling marine. 4.) Ya, there was a timer till a ship arrived to escape them OR they killed the ship (btw, they only said that with the ship in the briefing, there never was one :D simply a stupid timer.) 5.) How are they able now? I don't fully get your question. It's a mindgame, nobody knows who just said that. Everyone was same color. It's not a real cooperative game but further more a behavior analysis for every player on his own, then you can try to convince others to kill X. 6.) See point 5. He, by default, is the marine. He sneaks into the group and tries to get single marines out there, no matter because of what. Behave like "oh someone's over there" or "He, thats the thing" and hope ya best.

Keep in mind that the thing itself is quite weak, not much stronger than a marine.

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I have figure out a simple and easier way to make the game a bit more horrify and frightening.

Timer should be a countdown to the peoples hottot instead of winning. If timer hits 0 the thing would be able to grows very strong and can kill more people depending on difficulty level that the player voted on.
There should be 3 selectable difficulty that the players can vote on. Friendly, Normal, and Survival.

Friendly Mode- In friendly mode the thing can kill up to 3 person if the timer gets to 0. A total time of 15 minutes. For every 5 minutes taken off the count down, the thing grows a new skill and he gets more health and becomes stronger. Thing should be able to kill a person by at least 2-3 hits. He will have lower health when at 15minutes. At 10 minute thing will have grown movement speed. At 5 min the thing will not have more attack damage. At 0, this is where it gets scary, the thing will have grown fully and should have high hit points. All these stat put together will give him movement sped, attack damage or speed, and health. since this is friendly mode, It should take at least 4-5 marines to bring the thing down.
( Why did I choose this method? Because if people would group up then the thing will have no chance of winning. This new countdown gives the game a whole new experience that is frightening and challenging. People will randomly start killing each other because they do not want the thing to become strong.) Now you should already have a good idea on where i am going with normal mode and survival mode. You already know what I mean so you can do these modes on yourself since I already explained friendly mode. You just increase or decrease the units to make the game more intense. I choose 3 mode because noob will be most likely to choose friendly mode and experience players would choose normal or survival mode. If you don't want 3 modes then u should at least make 2 modes.

Vic, I know you love playing mafia so I have figure something out and came up with an idea that will make this game a very good challenge. We have to add different units that will be assign to different players randomly in the game. since they're 14 players in a full house, I thought there should be 2 of each unit.
This way the thing can turn into which ever person he's killed.

Units- Unit 1- Marines, equipped with automatic riffles and have a maximum of 30/300 ammo.
Unit 2- Nurse- They can heal an ally or not heal them depending on whatever. Since nurse will be added to the game, we should make marines use health if they stim pack. ( Since you don't want to add health packs I thought making a 2 unit nurse)
Unit 3- Firebats- Equipped with flame thrower and stimpack that uses heath and also have cool downs. They deal the most damge to the thing. (Everyone just been asking for the flame thrower and so lets give the people what they want if they're lucky they'll get the flame thrower.)
Unit 4- Ghost- A long range rifle and the ability to cloak for a few seconds.
Unit 5- Civilian- Don't know what this one is for yet but whoever get civilian would just want to leave. DX so i don't know if we should add it. Or we should give civilian a good skill so people would want to be civilian too. I was thinking that when timer hits 0, A random room with Thor or tank idk whatever you want can be unlock and the civilian is the only one that can ride in it and have a good match against the thing in a 1v1 or with a team. unless the thing is the civilian he can ride thor lolz.
Unit 6- SCV: These baby will be the only guys that can lock and unlock doors and repair the doors. So everyone will want to follow the scv. If the scv is kill by the thing then he can turn into a scv. :o
Unit 7-(Final unit) Marauder: These guy can slow other units.

Alright now make everyone change back to the color black. lolz
and the game will be more than 70% done if you think that I had good ideas and was a good helper. :D

Oh yeah and remember to add the sound affects and background song.
Remove the sound the unit makes whenever you click for the them to somewhere. just make them silient and add sound affect whenever they died.

*If the thing gets killed he'll turn into body parts like in the movie. He would be lings or something that can burrow and are fast. He needs a heat vision spell that has cool down so he can see who is on mini map for just 1 second like a doppler style.

Since this is a thread for dumping ideas about The Things maps, I worked on one with another mapper for SC1. We won't finish it for sure so feel free to use any ideas as you see fit:

The whole place is rigged to blow in N minutes. To survive, you must repair a ship (maybe its' the one you were on but it crashed, or it's just a ship in the bay). To repair the ship you must collect repair materials that are scattered around the map in boxes. Each box you bring to the ship contributes a little bit. Everyone can see the repair material counter and when it reaches X, the ship is ready. Everyone who gets on it is saved and the thing can't get on it because it has advanced sensors that don't let the thing through. This means the players will have to split up to find the materials in time, allowing the thing to attack them. One other strategy for the thing to win is to be an active supplier of repair materials. Each patch of repair materials the thing brings in its human form is "sabotaged" (nobody knows whether each new box someone brings is sabotaged or not) and if M% of your overall repair materials are sabotaged by the time the ship is ready for take-off, it will take off as usual but then lose control and crash, killing everyone inside.

This main framework, although complicated, gave potential for some great tactical play. One one hand the players want to stick together for protection. However they need to collect the materials before the time runs out so they have to separate. The thing can kill off half of the humans and then just stick to pretending to be a human and bring the "critical" amount of materials in to sabotage the ship. Another question is once the ship is built, will everyone want to get in or will they be paranoid that it's been sabotaged. Can't remember what we did story-wise if not everyone gets on the sabotaged ship. It is easy to just say that if the ship is sabotaged all humans lose but the choice everyone has to make of entering the ship or staying on the ground is just too awesome and dramatic not to use as a game twist. Of course you have the problem of there not being many humans left and the thing with them. SO you need a plat device that allows the remaining humans to win anyway even though so much time and effort has been wasted on repairing the ship which ended up being sabotaged. But that's for you to think about if you want to. :P

Another element was the medical station. It's a sealed-off room with a control unit outside. One person steps into the room and the door locks them in. Another person outside the room, controls the procedure. They have the options of either healing the person in the room, poisoning them or testing whether they're the thing or not. So it's a place for set-ups and ambushes. The medical center can only be used rarely or at the cost of some repair materials or some other high-value asset.

There you go. If I remember something else I'll let you know. :)

@JaLFrenzy: Go Those sound as very interesting twists to the game. Adding more complexity to player's decisions in this level is very nice.

Perhaps a camera room that allows you to activate cameras around the map that you can see but the other marines cant. Cameras give vision over certain areas of the map. Everyone can kill the cameras. The thing has vision over the camera room.