Strangers In A Strange Land

[Springheel]

We're coming up with all kinds of ways to make these guys more powerful, but remember, the more powerful they are, the less 'peripheral' they can be to the story.

 

I'm not totally sold on them either. I think they should either be more supernatural, with the floating and whatever, but have them not integrated into society (more like intelligent haunts), or have them more mundane, but integrated into the politics, like a mysterious mafia. Trying to do both is too much, IMO.

[Darkness_Falls]

Yes. I think at the most they should be shadowy silhouttes that quickly glide across a wall or shadowy wall, observe something take place, say something, then quickly flee. In this way they are purely ghosts. In this way, maybe they can be ghosts of old, dead guards. Thus, when the thief takes some random extra valuable loot or knocks out a guard or something, they can quickly fly in across the wall, whisper twisted comments to the thief, then leave. IMO this should only be used very rarely and on only a couple levels of a 10 level campaign, so as to not be overused. In this way, maybe they need to be somewhat scripted. I wouldn't want these guys constantly commenting every time I took loot. And I wouldn't want them being there adding woo to a level that shouldn't have any woo.

[sparhawk]

Being Myrdraal style, they would be a seperae character class. Just like guards, or zombies are different classes. In this way I can see them fit in as regular AI models that can be plugged in a level. Of course their power has to be balanced with some weekness, but I see nothing wrong when players have to figure out a way to defeat them. So far we have only AI that is already known to the players because they are clones from the LGS games. And I didn't like the assasins either because they were made very cheap.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

I think, if presented properly, they could be perfect in the thief world. I agree they shouldn't be some sort of political group, but instead are a shadowy faction, that rarely is ever seen, and when you do, watch out!

 

I don't really like the previous designs i did much. To flowy and extravagant. I'm gonna do a few more tries to try and get the design right, but for any final concept art, one of the better character artists should do it.

[sparhawk]

I think, if presented properly, they could be perfect in the thief world. I agree they shouldn't be some sort of political group, but instead are a shadowy faction, that rarely is ever seen, and when you do, watch out!

Yes. That"s why I like Oddity's suggestion of "The Order". We don't really need to define it, and it can keep a mysterious aura around it. And the name sounds generic enough but still mysterious that it can be used in a number of scenarios.

[pakmannen]

Well let that be a lesson to you, if you have a character idea, post it in a forum regularily perused by civilized folk.

Noted. (I hate our smiley! It looks too happy. Grr! Now this is more like it: )

[Renzatic]

Instead of going transparent they should deflect the arrows. Like you shoot one at the guy and right before it reaches him, with a rather nonchalant wave of his hand, it'll suddenly veer off to the left or right at an almost 90 degree angle and strike the wall instead.

 

As for the "you're a thief, not an assassin" quote, that's the whole point.

 

You're supposed to sneak by these guys cuz they could quite easily tear you apart without breaking a sweat. It'll be a rare occasion when you run across them in a potential combat situation, most of your encounters will be either conversational or just bare glimpses, so we might as well make em live up to the hype.

[Ishtvan]

Heheh, I just hope we don't get sued by Dark City

 

That reminds me, wouldn't the water arrow be the ultimate weapon against those guys?

[Renzatic]

lol, I doubt it. They'll be somewhat similar in style, but thematically they're totally different.

[saxmeister]

Here is a sketch of my take on what could be a leader from "The Order". Definitely a darker and moodier bunch than the wimpy Keepers... I do like the idea of a dark mafia that isn't really involved in a hands-on way, but moves the story line along by shifting balances in the background...

 

Possibly someone who floats and can cast spells like the shamens and priests of T:DS but not one you would actually fight.. remember, we don't fight with The Order.... they just control us!!!! I couldn't decide whether to have solid white eyes or almost black shiny eyes.....

Edited January 30, 2005 by saxmeister

[Darkness_Falls]

That's a cool take on them, Saxmeister. With them floating, they can gracefully float in or out of a scene. Gives them a sort of "heir apparence" to them. I suck with cliches, so I have no clue if that's the right one You know what I'm trying to say, ROFL.

 

EDIT: Dude, just went over to the TTLG forums and someone wrote something about an "air of mystery." Heh. Please toss this cliche into my above description also. Thank you very much.

Edited January 30, 2005 by Darkness_Falls

[Renzatic]

Nice.

 

A couple of suggestions though. First off you gotta have the hat...the hat is teh style. Secondly I didn't want to have them too close to mages in appearence because that seems to make them less inclined to be (for lack of a better word) physical. They need to have magelike attitude, they are intelligent, educated, and in their own way quite sophisticated, but they're also capable of sudden violence and prefer to get down and dirty when the need arises. The mages are the mages, these guys are more akin to assassins when it comes right down to it.

 

Make the robe more like a long coat, so that you can see their legs and feet when they walk...other than that I really like the design.

 

Oh, and almost black eyes would be better in my opinion. Not totally black, have some slivers of white at the left and right side of the irises...like their eyes are a bit enlarged.

[DeepOmega]

I like the idea a lot - but how's this for a bit of a (visual) twist. They float, but instead of, say, flying around like they're on an invisible hover board, it looks like they're dangling from an invisible string coming out of the top of their heads. Legs and arms limp, kind of trailing behind them.

[saxmeister]

I like the "hanging from a string" idea. I was leaning toward doing that with the legs but wasn't sure how it would look. Verl cool idea...

 

Now, if we had to have fighter versions of these guys (kind of like the Keeper Enforcers in Thief:DS) then they could look a bit more like the warriors they are. I was thinking of different "classes" within their guild or group.... like the first sketch would be a leader or boss like Orland was in the Keepers in T:DS and the second sketch (here) could be an assassin of some sort....

 

I still like the idea of them only controlling from the background and not really being fighters though. Just thoughts. Ignore me.. I'm just the sound guy who found some inspiration to do some sketching....

 

-sax

Edited January 30, 2005 by saxmeister

[saxmeister]

BTW, I found an archive of hat designs through the years. Here is one hat from 1790 that closely resembles what may be the design for the hats. Just sharing again.... Ignore the sound guy.....

[Renzatic]

I like it....if you throw (what we'll now call) the 1790's hat on the floating guy up above and make the robe more of a coat it'll be perfect.

 

Oh yeah, Goldfish mentioned having them wear spectacles...at first I panned the idea, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. You should try it out and see how it looks.

[oDDity]

I like the first one. With a hat he'd look fine. But no decoration on his gown and no long droppy sleeves, it's too mage-like.

The hat is going to be the most difficult thing to get right.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

I'v got a few more ideas i'de like to implement on it, i'll be drawing that version up today.

[kfmccall]

The hat reminds me of van helsing.

 

[Springheel]

They need to have magelike attitude, they are intelligent, educated, and in their own way quite sophisticated,

 

If they are going to be sophisticated, intelligent, AND super-powered, then at the very least there should be very few of them. Otherwise they would simply dominate all the other factions in the city.

 

As I've been thinking about them, I keep imagining them as some kind of ancient creature. Not a vampire, but something not really human. At least not anymore.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

I've been talking to renz about what kind of style they should be and i should have near-final sketches up tomorrow.

[oDDity]

Well That was a week ago, I guess I'll just model them without concept art.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

sorry, let me post that up

 

You should probably try to include your own ideas as well though.

 

EDIT: Here it is, the face is bad though, ignore it on this one

 

 

THis is an older one that ended up looking too much like the strangers. The face here is probably the best example of what i was trying to achieve though.

 

 

This one was good for the hat-

 

 

One thing that me and renz agreed would be nice is the whole "insane-ish" looking eyes, with the severely dialated pupil and iris. He also suggested having extremly large irises with small pupils, though i don't know how that would look.

 

Thanks.

Edited February 7, 2005 by god_is_my_goldfish

[Springheel]

Don't model them yet, oDDity. I've got some concept art to post as well. We should spend some time on these guys to get them right as they will be prominent in the campaign. It's not like we need the model for the first milestone or anything. If ever there were a model to not show off ahead of time, this would be it.

 

At the moment, GIMG, the outfit looks a little too anachronistic. It looks very western to me. Coming up with an outfit for these guys is the challenging part, although I think I've found the right hat, at least. I'll be able to post it in a day or so.

 

edit: As far as weapons go, I think they should use something more mysterious than just a fancy dagger. I don't think the Thief should ever wind up in hand-to-hand combat with them to begin with...the moment you kill one half of their mystery will be gone.

 

However, if they must have a hand-to-hand attack, I would have them use some kind of overhand slash that is so fast you barely catch a glimpse of a glint of steel. You never get to see exactly what hit you, whether it is a knife, claws, or something else. I don't think they should ever be seen holding a weapon. For a ranged attack they could simply make a throwing motion at you, and seemingly from nowhere a half-dozen needle-like projectiles come your way.

 

Also, I don't think we should literally show their feet off the ground...we just have their robes fall to the ground, but they move smoothly across as if floating. So we don't know exactly HOW they move. But it looks abnormal. The more things left up to the imagination with these guys, the better.

 

I also thought it would be cool to give them the ability to increase the darkness around them, as if they are able to banish light from the area. Someone has already achieved this effect with the D3 engine, essentially making a reverse lantern. Our thief wouldn't benefit from this though, as they can see perfectly in the dark anyway. It would be a great effect for the player though, making it even harder to get a good look at these guys, and harder to successfully fight them.

 

In fact, I think if we do allow hand-to-hand combat with them, if you win, the entire body should just be gone when the lights come back up, so you're never sure whether you actually killed them or they just disappeared to come back later.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

I like that, i'm sure you'll get the design closer as well. I was just playing more into what me and renz wanted, which is a more victorain design.