Greetings,
I'm Sodium, a UE4 developer from China. At first I'd like to greatly appreciate Gildor and the UEViewer program as my start of contacting 3D game design. In recent years I've been planning a
UE4-based fan game of Lineage 2, and have already succeeded in implementing a few parts of the gameplay.
Some planned/possible new features: ("*" on index = lower priority)
a) Combat system based on collision. As the collision system of UE4 is well-developed and convenient to use, it's not so difficult to make combat much realistic and fun with collision checking.
*As one of the best games with collision-based combat, see
Monster Hunter: World (by Capcom, available on Steam).
*For what it may like as the combat I plan to implement, see
Genshin Impact (a Chinese 3D cartoon online game by Mihoyo, official website: genshin.mihoyo.com/en/download).
b) Collection of L2 people/monster/story/equipment/etc. handbooks.*Old-version
Maplestory contains a monster handbook, allowing player to collect monster cards rarely dropped from corresponding monsters. The more cards a player collects from a specific monster, the more information the handbook will show about it. Regretfully, in a certain update
Maplestory deleted this feature and now it's no longer available. Although I don't plan to design the handbook system samely as
Maplestory, it's anyway a good example.
c) More quests and more detailed stories based on L2 original universe and main story.d) Partner system.It allows some NPCs/monsters to become your partners which you can: (1) let them follow and fight for you, and/or (2) get hidden items/weapons/quests/stories/etc. when having high favorability.
e) Crafting. Expand the types of crafting materials and let them available more reasonably. For example, a wolf may drop a material named "Wolf Fur", and you may get "Iron Ore" when mining at veins randomly spawn in the world. With these materials you may be able to make "Wolf-Fur Jacket" or "Iron Sword" respectively. The crafted equipments can also act as materials of other stronger equipments, leading to "Equipment Trees".
f*) Improved models. UE4 Landscape system provides a convience way to make a fancy world with simple models and materials. Also, original L2 models don't have even normal maps. If possible the original L2 models can be refined. By the way, L2R and L2M have some delicate models, which may be taken directly.
g*) (Pending) Custom buildings. It provides some area in the world for players to build their own houses. If this feature is added, the game will allow only single player or small servers, as the world don't have much space for many people to build.
*For an online game with custom-building feature, see:
ArcheAge (Available on Steam).
h**) (Pending) Smarter monsters.Current machine-learning algorithms allow to train monsters how to better fight against players, which can make the game more challenging. For example, with machine-learning programs, it's possible to train the monster AI just by making several monster teams fight against each other. Unfortunately, due to the complexity and difficulty of machine-learning, this feature is extremely hard to implement and has the lowest priority.
Those will not change from L2:a) Universe settings and main story. (Details of stories should be changed/filled.)
b) Regions and landscapes. I.e. the world map will not change from L2. (Although we may not create the whole map.)
c) Most existing NPCs and monster types.
Those I've found methods to implement:a) Combat system. I've already created a system which allows the player fight against monsters, although in the simplest form.
b) Item system (partly). A system shop has been created which allows the player to buy items both with coins and with other items. Also, a usable HP portion has been implemented.
c) Methods to remake L2 landscape in UE4. I've ever found an L2 server provider which also provides the landscape height maps, which can be imported into UE4 landscape system. I've already created the landscape of the Speaking Island, although not textured.
*Actually in L2 world map each region occupies a square area, so we can create landscape of each region seperately and simply combine them together. However, I've not found the method to create underground complex structures yet.
These features were implemented with Blueprint, which need to be refectored to C++ at first.
Please do not hesitate to reply this topic or contact me (sodiumzh@outlook.com) if you're interested in this fan game program. It's better if you have at least one of the following skills:
(a) UE4 Blueprint / C++ programming or any other skills about UE4;
(b) Programming with any language (e.g. C++, Python, etc.);
(c) 3D art (modelling, materialling, skeletal animation, etc.);
(d) Much knowledge about L2 original story and game system;
(e) Story writting.
I will launch this program once the conditions are enough. Again, my email address:
sodiumzh@outlook.com.
Also, I'll appreciate it if you could provide any information of other L2 modding communities or forums via email.This topic about L2 fan game program has been permitted by Gildor.