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):
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]Okay, here are the ideas that I have so far for the story of Panzer Dragoon Genos. They’re not much so far, but more are likely to come to me as time passes:
Main Character: Azel
Theme: Azel’s search for Edge.
Enemies:
- The failing Old Empire (those who are left of the Old Empire).
- Biomonsters that have been let loose by the Towers (the game will be set over the time
of the Great Fall, so the Pandora’s Box descriptions will come in handy here).
- Maybe a drone/dragon enemy as well, but it depends if there is room.
Locations:
- Sestren. Considering that Azel’s quest takes her to Sestren in PDO, I think that would be an ideal location (it would be different from Panzer Dragoon Saga if it actually had free flight bits as well - so the dragon could fly into different memory cells at the player’s desire).
- Desert. Another location I had thought of is a desert level. Panzer Dragoon Saga ends here, so it would seem logical to maybe start the game here.
- Ruined landscape/structure. One other location I thought might be interesting is a “collapsing environment/ruins” type level. During the Great Fall the landscape changed dramatically. I’m not sure how possible this level would be for Feveth to create, but I’m just tossing around ideas here. A ruined Tower of Uru could be interesting too.
- Seeker base. For a town location, a Seeker base would probably be the most appropriate.
Dragon: I have three ideas for the possible dragon that Azel could ride.
- Firstly (and this probably quite far fetched) the coolia that Azel rides at the end of PDS could mutate into the dragon. This could be an excuse for ground battles to take place.
- Secondly, our old friend Lagi could reunite with Azel after leaving Sestren. “Watch over our friends”. Lagi could lead Azel to Edge’s remains in Sestren.
- Thirdly, Azel could be reunited with Atolm. Some dragons, such as the Guardian Dragon, could never truly die until their purposes had been fulfilled.
I personally like the second option the best. Maybe a coolia riding level could take place first in the desert, and then Azel could be reunited with Lagi after that (to add variety).
Feveth said that game couldn?t be too long (and I agree with her on this point - if the story is too long the game is unlikely to see the light of day). The game would have to be no longer than a few hours (about the length of one Saga disc), so we’d have to keep the story quite short and straight to the point without too many alterations from Azel’s main goal (to find Edge). So, no more than about 4 locations and one town.
So these are my ideas. I haven’t really touched on what could happen in the actual plot, as I’m still trying to think of exactly how it could work. I think the next step is to hear both of your ideas so we can put them all together and decide which ones would be appropriate for the game and which ones should be excluded. Geoff came up with an idea “some remnants of the Empire will need to exist to try to kill Azel or even succeed.”
That’s an interesting idea worth adding to the idea pool.[/quote]
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]Ok, how about instead of Atolm coming back from the dead, Azel finds a new dragon? She would know the location of all the ancient ruins/Towers and their dormant guardians after all. Unless Atolm and Azel were originally meant to be the Tower of Uru’s guardians, a dragon guardian must exist something, sleeping, waiting, and indeed, begging to be found.
A desert full of tornadoes sucking sand up into the air sounds like a cool idea too.[/quote]
[quote=“Lance”]Ok, here are my ideas based off Chris? first email. All shorthand, so forgive the absence of grammar. All just basic suggestions, too:
The idea of doing it with Azel is great, as it lets us tie this in with a known character without contradicting what official game(s) may come in the future. Just for reference, my other idea would be the Sky Rider, as his story would be conveniently quite short 
ENEMIES:
- If we?re having only a few areas, each one could have a specific ?set? of enemies ? i.e. one with mutated monsters, one with pure-type, one with the Old Empire, and one in Sestren as Chris suggested, with Sestren enemies.
LOCATIONS:
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I think the Sestren system being the free-flying final area would be great. We could have enemies similar to the ones in PDO in it, and maybe some “computerised” versions of past Panzer favourites (along the lines of the Sealance Images and Sandworm sub-boss in Orta, but other classic monsters instead).
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Prior to the Sestren bit, we would need to have Azel enter the Episode 6 ruins from Orta. (I think the implication is that she entered Sestren from there; she made Orta in those ruins using the data from Sestren, so that would make sense.) We don’t have to necessarily devote a whole area to that, though, or even use it at all if we can explain things some other way.
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We could also try and do some kind of location that has never been done in a Panzer game before ? i.e. not desert, not forest, not sunken ruins, not open sea, not generic ruins interior. I?ve no idea what that could be at the moment, though - and we?d have to make it ?Panzery?.
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For the Town, a Hunter caravan could also make sense, as Azel was last seen heading out into the desert. It could be a little bit bigger than the Saga caravan, too, and give more insight into Hunter culture (?)
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Could have a section where Azel has to go out and destroy the approaching Imperial fleet, which want to take out the Town she has befriended. Maybe something like Saga?s Imperial Air Force Post, but in a desert / forest setting instead?
DRAGON
- I actually came up with a fourth idea regarding what the dragon could be. Given that Azel seemed to have decent control over Ancient Age technologies, could she seek out and reactivate a dormant Ancient Age dragon? Something like the Dark Dragon, Guardian Dragon or Atolm. That would give us (maybe not us personally, but whoever designs the dragon) absolute free reign over what it would look like, too. Here is one way in which this could basically be incorporated, so tell me what you think:
BRIEF SUGGESTION FOR START OF GAME
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Starts in the town, a desert caravan (something like the one in Saga). After asking around a bit, Azel hears legends/folklore regarding a “sleeping dragon”, which resides in some ruins to the east, through the wasteland. Obviously, none of the Hunters will go there. Azel understands the truth behind these legends (possibly reminding her of information she knows from the Ancient Age?) and sets off to find this dragon, which should be of great use to her in her quest if she can reactivate it.
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Alternatively, could be a Seeker base - run by Gash, who set it up after Edge never showed up? - and he could direct Azel to a Compiler, who directs her to the sleeping dragon.
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First “main area” is a short ride through a desert on the Coolia (which Azel still has). No real puzzles, akin to the simple “Valley” levels at the beginning of Saga. Mutated monster battles.
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Second part of the area is the interior of the ruins. Azel could explore this on the Coolia. (Or even on foot - on foot battles?) Some very basic keys/switches puzzle-solving here. At the end, cutscene shows the Coolia unfortunately getting squashed by some kind of pure-type monster, but Azel is able to escape, reaching the chamber with the dormant dragon, which she reactivates.
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The dragon is obedient to her, and will help her in the quest to come. After this, she could return to the Seeker settlement for the next bit of plot to take off.
Just the first stream of thoughts that entered my head, so tell me what you think.
Either way, I think riding the Coolia for the first ?introductory? area before you find whatever dragon we decide on would work well. This would be good for continuity, and easily allow for ground battles
In terms of game length, we could just incorporate very short side-quests into the Town, which would net you some items. Apart from that, maybe keep it all on the same plot.
So what do you guys think?[/quote]
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]It all sounds pretty good so far. I think from what both of you have suggested so far, the idea of Azel as the main character with an all-new dragon will be the idea that we go with. Also, having a new dragon instead of Lagi (which we’d have to use if the Sky Rider was the main character) gives much more freedom of design like you say. I like what both of you have suggested so far.
I’ll briefly go through what I think of Lance’s points:
The game could start off with Azel travelling west through the desert on the coolia. If we made the caravan/town in the desert a Seeker base (perhaps a temporary one, since they would have only just left the waterfall base from PDS) that would save on having to make the location later on (we know that Azel must at some point make contact the Seekers because they have her daughter). Other than that, I think what you’ve got here is a good intro.
That sounds good. I think coolia battles would be the best option, as Feveth would otherwise have to program a separate game engine for on foot battles; coolia battles would be simular to dragon battles except that the coolia wouldn’t be able to attack, but Azel could have a handgun. Maybe the boss for this ruins stage (some sort of Guardian would no doubt be protecting the ruins) could be the one that destroys the coolia, but then the sleeping dragon could awake and help Azel defeat the guardian (the dragon could have be created/modified by the Ancient rebels to obey her or other drones stolen by the rebels).
Azel could return to the Seekers to find that the Empire has appeared again, which could set the stage for the next stage. At some point I think it would be cool for the Seekers, or some of the Seekers, to doubt Azel’s motives. I can imagine some Seekers thinking “Ever since she awakened the Tower things have gotten worse, there have been more biomonster attacks and now that the Towers have been deactivated nothing better has happened, the Great Fall has only caused the deaths of millions of humans”. There could be lots of reasons why some of the Seekers would doubt Azel’s true motives and it would be great to show their lack of faith in the drone.
I think this would be a good idea too. If there are only four areas it could go something like this:
- Desert Level - Mutated enemies
- Ruins of the Sleeping Dragon - Pure Types
- Fight against the Empire - Imperial ships
- Sestren - Sestren enemies.
Yeah, this seems like a great idea to me too. A fused-Atolm maybe?
We could have the ruins of the Sleeping dragon as the same ruins as Episode 6. After the third stage (fighting the imperial fleet), Azel could find out a way to enter Sestren via those ruins, from the Seekers. Reusing these ruins would mean that the same textures, etc, could be used so it would be easier than developing a whole level.
How about a larva/volcanic stage? Before I mentioned that the world was constantly changing and there were many earthquakes after the Great Fall. Panzer style ruins sinking into patches of larva would create the feeling that there had recently been a volcanic eruption, or a great shifting inside the earth due to the Towers not holding the landforms together any longer. Merging this level with a fight against the Empire (and the odd rock monster like the Hellions from Geogious) could be quite dramatic. What do you guys think?[/quote]
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]I like the basic outline of the game so far. Azel
would have no trouble synchronizing with another
Ancient Age dragon since I doubt it would have the
free will to side with Sestren (drones were created to
control them, or keep them in check after all). The
sleeping dragon itself could wake up once the guardian
of the ruins both creatures call home reaches
half-strength, at which point the dragon would
obliterate the guardian and thus bring the battle to
an end.
I have some ideas about how the Empire could feasibly
be introduced into the story, even temporarily. We
know the Empire only sent its command fleet to capture
the Tower of Uru, which means at least a fraction of
the Imperial fleet would still be lingering in places.
A few ship battles could logically be incorporated
into the story after Azel takes control of the dragon
that once slept within the ruins. Here’s the real bulk
of this idea: we could explain what happened to the
remainder of the Imperial armada by having it wiped
out by some kind of natural catastrophe, like being
destroyed at the hands of lightening bursts
originating from a sudden electrical storm. What do
you think?
Anyway, the Empire (or faction thereof) would be just
as keen to acquire an Ancient Age dragon, if not more
so, than Azel (even at this point in time), so this
sole motivation could lead them to Azel at some stage.
The following encounter with the Empire could be set
against the backdrop of cloudy, followed by stormy skies.
G Duke
[/quote]
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.
