EpochVR - Hardcore Multiplayer Survival For VR
Gameplay Overview Taking inspiration popular Hardcore survival games, and seeing the untapped potential it has in VR. I have started this project out of the love I have for this genre, and built EpochVR from the ground up as an incredibly engaging and immersive VR Game in a post-apocalyptic scenario. The core game is focused around emergent gameplay and immersion from its many systems. It contains many mechanics that you would expect from a multiplayer survival, such as; The mechanics are primarily physics based, anything can be used as a weapon or tool in many ways. Base Building Raiding Guns Melee weapons and tools Explosives Vehicles (land, air and sea) Crafting Wire and electricity Farming, hunting, cooking Events (Race, Airdrop, KOTH) Player Economy Here are a heap of Images showing all the spawnable items, vehicles, tools and NPC's: https://imgur.com/a/ROBalyx Anything dropping furniture on someone, crashing a helicopter into an enemies watchtower, or hitting someone over the head with a book. The combat will be balanced to benefit those that use stealth, and making smart decisions during combat, rather than primarily being able to out-gun them. For example, slow movement speed with weapons would mean its more dangerous to run out of cover, and camouflage is a powerful tool. And as such combat will be much more tactic and stealth based. Many open world survival games have "invisible walls" in their mechanics, by this I mean artificial restrictions that for example will block you from being able to build in certain areas. Because the game is fundamentally physics based, players will have the freedom to build anywhere, and on top of anything; inhabiting sewers, towers, houses, shops, highways, huge bridges, massive electrical towers, caves and many other locations. The game will also feature many environmental clues, and clues about other players based on their clothing and loot, adding to gameplay depth through players use of deductive reasoning. You'll need to protecting you base through hiding your keys, setting up traps with wires and triggers and other tools, and finding unique and creative ways to hide and protect your loot and supplies from intruders. Each item's value will be mostly subjective to each player, and they are stored in physical space within containers and backpacks. This also solves many griefing issues (like despawning loot, and destroying/walling in bases) that is seen in other games. Raiders wont burn/claim down your base and take all your stuff because of the effort and time and resources required to accomplish it. Each building item has different properties based on its material, shape and mass.It has different bullet defence based on whether its wood, stone or metal etc. Each building object has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. For example; Plywood has low bullet defence and is flammable, but covers a large area so is good for walls. Metal beams are hard to destroy, but are heavy and really long, so are best used as pillars or support beams. Brick wall segments are heavy and small, but make a strong wall and cant be burned down. Pallets are wood and thus flammable and are quite heavy, but they can be looked through like a window while blocking players, and used as a gun rest to improve your aim. The players are not restricted to a few objects and how they can be placed, allowing players to use the plywood board, brick wall segment, bookshelves, furniture, wooden planks, bricks, logs, crates, pallets Building inside static buildings is a good idea, as it conserves resources, only having to build your own platforms and ramps to get up to the collapsed higher floors, barricading doors and windows with furniture, and patching holes in the walls and ceiling. As a result, each base is unique, and has its own very dynamic weak points that players can exploit in various ways. This also prevents the bases strengths and raiding mechanics to being simplified to 24 explosives for a base with 3 doors or something. Vehicles and barrels contain fuel, which can be exploited by players and shot till they explode. Players have to safely store fuel so its not used against them or their base. Some items can be crafted by hand from various other items, and some in combination with tools. Like cutting up a shirt into cloth strips, than a cloth strip onto a stick to make a torch. The open world has a has a city as the epicenter of the loot and chaos, that transitions to more rural areas the further from the city the player goes. This creates a gradient of loot and safety depending on the players location. Rural areas will be less dense, and thus safer but has less loot. Many unique locations will exist for players to build and survive in. Loot will be found in intuitive locations, civilian clothing, furniture in residential areas, food and supplies from stores, boats from harbors and building items in construction sites. With a high variety and balanced distribution of loot, there will be a natural supply and demand for different items and resources across the map. This will help to inspire conflicts and trade, adding to the emergent experience. Tool's to allow players to communicate, like laptops, and trade safely like a safezone will help to invoke a player driven economy and central trading area. The game will not primarily feature zombies, as I think they are incredibly mundane. However server hosts will have access to many settings for customizing what kind, and the amount items, vehicles and mobs that spawn. This will allow the community to host their own servers for a different style of survival games however they like throughout the games development. A hardcore survival game is such an untapped potential for VR, and should be done by a passionate Dev that wants nothing more than for this game to take this genre to new heights. I don't think anyone will argue when I say mechanics are more important than graphics, so have focused the majority of my time on the functionality of the game. While I consider the games state to be in alpha, all core systems are already implemented and will be released with a large amount of content ready for the players. The tasks for the beta will be polish, new assets, and testing for balance and optimization and improvement of gameplay. The aim is to release the game into beta in early 2019, where it will be in a fleshed out playable state with all central mechanics implemented from the start. Beta will be devoted to optimization, refining and balancing of content and mechanics. The next step is to start posting development updates, grow the community, and livestream development to display the game throughout its transition into beta. I appreciate any and all support and feedback, so please join the discord to keep up with development of EpochVR. Also please be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel for the upcoming development streams, and visit the website to see screenshots of the implemented items, vehicles and NPC's, as well as the map. Thank you all for your time! Discord: https://discord.gg/79Ngb96 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Aa_Ws04yH5sr_LroLF0gg
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