Arcie suggested in the “Would anybody actually like to make Genos a real game?” topic that someone should make a thread where people could suggest ideas for the story of Panzer Dragoon Genos. Since I volunteered to Feveth to work on the game’s storyline, I thought I’d post what Lance, Geoff, and I have come up with so far. These is our current plans for the story, although if anyone else would like to input their ideas here they’re most welcome to do so. Also, any objections (with reasons) to what we have here so far would be worth posting as well… I’d like to see the storyline become a good quality one.
Below are a series of emails that Geoff, Lance, and I have exchanged (I hope they don’t mind me posting their emails here):
I apologise for the huge length of this post, but I felt that it was important to post of our thoughts on what Panzer Dragoon Genos should be like.
I think that some of these ideas are really good, and I personally would like to add my own thoughts, but unfortunately, I don’t think my ideas can be implemented within a 2-3 hour story plot.
I do think, however, that if Azel had the knowledge to genetically create Orta out of simple DNA, then she also would possess the ability to bring Atolm back to life in some form. The idea of Azel with a different dragon just isn’t very appealing…unless, of course, she takes control of the Heresy dragon…that would be something else entirely.
The reasoning behind not bringing Atolm back to life is that Azel is only going to use those production-plant ruins (from PDO) to make Orta at the end of the game. She won’t discover those ruins straight away, but we would like her to ride a dragon in the meantime. Also, I think we’re trying to avoid the Heresy Dragon so as not to invite any potential continuity errors. But it’s still very early on, and all this could change. The idea of it being the Tower of Uru’s absent guardian dragon (Geoff’s idea) seems like a very good way to, erm, “kill two birds with one stone” (I never thought that figure of speech would come in handy…)
Yeah, I’d personally love to help create a story the length of Saga (or even longer :)) too but I’m trying to be realistic here so that this game will actually be able to be finished in a reasonable time period. Considering that there still aren’t a lot of people who are going to work on other parts of the game apart from the story, it would cause a lot of problems if it was a long game and one or two people had to do the whole thing themselves. Arcie also had some good ideas he posted in the other thread but it would be difficult to fit of all them into a game this short.
I know we can’t have rendered cut scenes but we could get our awesome 2D artists from here to draw up some story sequences instead
Just a pretty picture with text generated on it by the game to tell the story sections
Is that possible in Dark Basic? I think the result could be really great considering how cool art some ppl here can do
4 areas are too few for an RPG, should this be an action adventure game instead? I mean what kind of character development can exist in 4 areas, or even say 10 areas visited tops (considering there can be going “back and forth” plot tricks to make the game feel longer than it is…)
Or if anythin how about an adventure game without combat at all and instead just exploration and riddle solving in the style of games like Gabriel Knight or URU: Ages Beyond Myst (did I say this title right?)
Just throwing ideas around because I don’t think such a short story with so few areas is enough to even give an RPG feel to the game.
How big can those 4 areas be? And will it be just a matter of going from A to B like in Saga? That way four areas wouldnt provide more than an hour of play depending on the battle system really… Thoughts?
Another thought: Is it possible to create this game similar to Lagi’s idea and make it possible for people to take what is created and create their own adventures from it and even if possible import their own areas and story sequences and characters/monsters?
I like all ideas u’ve written so far… I just dont really know how much fun gameplay u can squeeze out of so few areas…the game could end up feeling as little more than a demo teaser if it’s too tiny… Atleast try and make a lot of back and forth things and also a lot of dialogue in the cities and such to make the game feel like it’s got a little more depth.
I still think you should start with just ONE test area and work on the gameplay mechanics to get them as good and fun as possible. Since the game will be very short it should atleast control well. After that’s done you might even realise that u can make the game longer since it will basically be up to the artists to create the areas and then built in the story… (though I assume coding all the quests and such will be tedious and that might be the reason it has to be small)
Hmmm.I haven’t read it all but from what I red it was good.A sugestion (and this ain’t just cause I’m it’s fan) :
The Empire could try and give a new life to the “drowned” corpse of the Dark Dragon.You know you want a dragon VS dragon battle
Dragon sugestion : I think some new forms would be good.But this time and unlike Orta, we would have some panzerish dragons.The dragon classes in the Solo Wing form have commmon points and mixing them and adding something new could produce some very cool looking dragons.
Oh and I don’t know if you have such a thing in mind but I urge you to consider at least one forest level.It’s part of the PD mystique in my opinion.
What other characters are you thinking of?Paet is a must if you ask me.
The four areas should (I believe) vaguely resemble Saga areas in size. Four flight areas, that is - there will be a full-sized town and probably some other on-foot areas as well. To be honest, I’d love to make a game the length of Saga, but we need to be totally realistic from the start.
We’re already kind-of discussing having return-to-previous-areas-to-find-that-things-are-different-and-do-new-stuff puzzles, as this would increase the length of the gameplay without greatly increasing the amount of programming.
Also, the level desing should be far, far less linear than Saga’s, which should make the areas much more interesting, and both longer and more varied at the same time.
I think I’ve put forward the idea of an Imperial base in a forest setting. I think the game will end up with a mix of old and new areas - I know we’re trying to think of completely new “styles” of location which could be made Panzery, but which have never been done before. While the game needs to be recognisable, it also needs to be unique.
Paet was joining the Seekers at the end of Saga, if I remember correctly. I think he could put in an appearance at a Seeker base if we end up doing one.
An objection : Have you considered the fact that dragons are suposed to eb bound to their riders and won’t obey anyone else?How is Azel getting a dragon just like that?
Here’s my idea.
Main character: someone new
Main villian: Orta & “son of Lagi”
A few years after PDO, Orta become more and more drone like. Her baby dragon has matured and she’s flying around on the dragon of destruction killing tons of people. She destroys the empire in the first cut-scene. The Genos comes from the fact that Orta’s Genos goes from “human” to drone.
The main character gets the spirit of the gold dragon within some creature (mabye not Coolia) and turns into it’s giant form by the end.
Possible plot twists include Orta recreating the towers and resurecting Abadd’s imfamous “ancient masters”. Eventually, Azel’s body could be found preserved and she could be “resurected” per say by downloading her brain from Sestern.
I remember reading in Saga that there were MANY Towers across the world - not just the Tower of Uru and Shellcoof. I think the story should again focus on the Towers - because, that’s what made Panzer Dragoon Saga so interesting. I also think that Orta was a failure because the Towers were not seen or mentioned anywhere…that was one of the disappointments of Orta for me, anyway.
This isn’t a truly ‘story’ element, but more of gameplay element.
I’m not sure what you all are considering the style of game to be, and even though Saga was a AWESOME game, I think the new game should keep true to what started Panzer Dragoon and be another railshooter.
That said, some elements of Saga should be incooperated. For example, when using your dragon, you will have a berzerk bar, but when achieving it, you will be able to morph your dragon into one of 3 or 4 forms. Each one having a special attack for the time needed. The berzerk attacks will not do as much damage because the bar will be able to change faster, but one will be able to heal, one will create high speeds to dodge/fire faster, one is a giant one blast attack and one is a classic multi-beam attack. These could evolve with the more use of them.
This creates a sort of ‘Action RPG’ element to the game, maybe be interesting?
Well, the entire Tower network was totally deactivated at the end of Saga: that aspect of the story had kind of come to a logical conclusion. PDO’s Pandora’s box confirms that the Towers are now lifeless and no longer having an effect on the world.
Though the Towers were certainly a cool design element, I feel it would have been a lot worse for Smilebit to dig up a plot element that had already seen closure. I guess the Cradle replaced them, but I personally don’t think that it was as well-realised.
Whether or not a Tower can be included in PD Genos will come largely down to which time period it ends up being set in. With the proposed between-Saga-and-Orta timeframe, a Tower would probably not make sense - unless it was an abandoned, empty Tower, and then it might not be particularly interesting from a gameplay point of view… but all these ideas deserve contemplation.
Though you definitely have some interesting ideas there Sade, I would suspect that this will end up being an RPG. This project was started by Feveth, who should also be heading up the programming side of things; and I believe the intent is to make a Panzer RPG rather than a Panzer game in general. However, I can’t speak for Feveth, so I hope that she’ll post on this subject at some stage.
But yes, gameplay suggestions should probably be posted here as well; they generally link to story elements, anyway.
Well, the entire Tower network was totally deactivated at the end of Saga: that aspect of the story had kind of come to a logical conclusion. PDO’s Pandora’s box confirms that the Towers are now lifeless and no longer having an effect on the world.
Though the Towers were certainly a cool design element, I feel it would have been a lot worse for Smilebit to dig up a plot element that had already seen closure. I guess the Cradle replaced them, but I personally don’t think that it was as well-realised.
Whether or not a Tower can be included in PD Genos will come largely down to which time period it ends up being set in. With the proposed between-Saga-and-Orta timeframe, a Tower would probably not make sense - unless it was an abandoned, empty Tower, and then it might not be particularly interesting from a gameplay point of view… but all these ideas deserve contemplation.[/quote]
I would personally like to see the Towers reactivated again…though they are now lifeless, considering they don’t have Sestren controlling them, it is possible that they could be activated again through human intervention. I think the Towers were so well thought out, that it would be a shame to just keep them in their current lifeless state.
