the theme of the mod?, important decision #1 Options

[Team Black]

OK we've had several ideas, the most popular one being "What CNC3 should've been" - or "Scrinvasion", as others have called it. We'll decide on a better name later OK

It can be based off of things talked about on the Petroglyph forums.
If you didn't know, most of the ex-Westwood staff are now working in Petroglyph, including the ones who made Tiberian Sun.
There is awesome info here on the intentions of TS, before EA butted in, including some plans for CABAL and the Scrin. There were planned something like 2-3 expansion packs planned, that were cast aside for the crappy RA2 folly...
The information they gave is enough for a guideline, but there's more than enough gaps in to fill in with our own creativity.

Or it might be good have something entirely new and unique, but it'll be a lot more tedious to plan since there's no real guidelines, and anything is open game.
Not only that, but most 'unique' ideas are sometimes more cliche than ones that are borrowed from elsewhere - If our story is going to have an evil dictator plot world domination, we may as well use the Tiberian Universe anywho

Another idea is to have a star wars mod, but ehhh....

When I get a clear idea on what the theme should be, we'll proceed with the more detailed planning, like campaigns and unit concepts and stuff -
Right now there's a great deal of ideas already planned for the "scrinvasion" theme, so that's what I'm leaning toward.

But I want to hear what everyone else thinks. It is, after all, a community project

This post has been edited by Team Black: Jun 15 2007, 05:55 PM

[Bittah Commander]

Actually... I think that petroglyph is using ideas Westwood originally had for the Scrin for UaW.

@ Lin Kuei Ominae:
In my opinion the C&C feeling shouldn't be an issue as long as the gameplay is enjoyable enough. The lack of C&C feeling (though I don't think it's absence of it will be too noticeable) doesn't necessarily have to be bad either... Since this mod is for TS, I think having the C&C feeling is inevitable (we wouldn't be able to get rid of it if we wanted to).

The reason I didn't want anything to happen on Earth just yet was actually because I think it'll be a lot more unique and interesting when the story is only focused on the Scrin for now (like I said, in a sequel to this mod, we'd see GDI and Nod again anyway).
Mods that have new terrain (especially the tiles) usually look a lot more impressive, so even for the part that occurs on Earth it would be best if a lot of terrain was replaced. If that would be done, it would mean there'd have to a terrain set for on Earth and one for on the Scrin planet, which I think would be too much work. When having the mod occur both on the Scrin planet and on Earth I think there 'd be way too much work and might never be released because of it.
My vote is for saving the Scrinvasion for a future mod. Besides, there more than enough people that are already using this idea for their mods.

To elaborate on the idea I had for the story a bit more...
My idea was for the Scrin to be a dominant species within their solar system and that there 'd be life on multiple planets within their solar system. The reachable resources on the Scrin planet are about all exhausted (which is really something that is inevitable to happen when intelligent species occupy a planet long enough; it will eventually happen here on earth as well) when twhen simple weeds (similar to the pesky weeds that kill plants in peoples gardens by absorbing all the minerals the plants need here on Earth) evolved so that they could "live" from different kinds of minerals and could reach for them deeper in the soil (this is obviously the tiberium).
When the first sign of this evolution was discovered by the Scrin, they examined it and at first they just improved their means of exterminating it (they could already easily exterminate the weeds the tiberium evolved from). Eventually they saw the tiberium as a perfect way to extract minerals from the soil that were too hard to reach.

The Tiberium kept the Scrin wealthy for a while again (and also really seeded up their development), but after a while there were hardly any resources left. To Scrin exterminated the tiberium on their planet to keep it from getting sucked completely dry and started harvesting (using the tiberium again) on other planets. The the surprise of the Scrin, the tiberium eventually started to change all plant life on the planets to that similar of their own planet. If there were animals present on the planets, they eventually also started to mutate and even endanger the harvesting operations when the Scrin returned to the planet to harvest the tiberium. For this, the Scrin developed a very effective weapon against the tiberium lifeforms.

At first only on planets with no intelligent life were harvested on (which was approved by the majority of the population on their planet), but eventually the Scrin also started harvesting operations on a planet with a bit primitive but intelligent inhabitants (call it planet X).

Because of this there was an uprising and a Rebelion faction is formed. When the rebels are close to defeat, they retreat and head for planet X to possibly make allies with the inhabitants. When the rebels arrive on the planet, their welcome isn't exactly warm; not only the tiberium lifeforms are hostile ones, but also the few (now mutated) intelligent inhabitants of the planet that survived.

With casualties, the Scrin rebels evacuate from the planet and flee out of the solar system. The Scrin send a fleed of their own after that of the rebels and during a battle, both the Scrin and the rebels receive the transmission from Tesla.
The rebels lose the battle... Most ships are destroyed when a small number of rebels manage to escape from the battle in a small ship and head towards the location they received the transmission from (Earth).
Very shortly after that, the Scrin used a device to sent tiberium meteors to Earth (with a much greater speed than regular meteors).