Author Topic: FS2H: Engage  (Read 15943 times)

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"For Halo fans of the past, present, and future. For everyone that ever yearned in their hearts to fly through the cosmos. This is for you..."

Welcome, one and all, to the now revived Freespace 2: Halo thread here at HLP!

For anyone not familiar with the story of this mod, here's the quick and dirty:

Devrous, as a college student, had a lot of free time on his hands. He loved video games as most young people do, and found a strong affinity for Descent, Freespace 1 & 2, Counter-Strike, and Halo. He had spent a little time playing around with simple changes to Freespace 2 before getting addicted to the world-wide fanaticism of Halo. After reading the novels and logging more playtime than credit hours, he started wondering what the space battles would be like between Human and Covenant forces. From there, he came up with the idea of making a game to tell the story of Humanity's struggle from the perspective of it's space navy. For over four years he taught himself everything he could about modding Freespace 2, and delved deeply into the Halo Story. Eventually he felt confident enough to start promoting it on the web. After a long period of hype he was nearly finished with the mod and was ready to release the first stage. Then, tragedy struck.

His last remaining grandparent, an uncle and a cousin, all passed away within a few months. A faulty hard drive and the Vendo virus nearly ruined his computer. Data recovery efforts were only partially successful, yet he still pressed on, determined to finish it. But life continued to hammer at him, bringing more hardship. At some point, he made the decision to cut most everything so he could take care of his family. Sadly, computers was one of those things, and with it fell FS2H. Unable to recover enough data from his now second failed hard drive, he put it aside and swore he'd come back to it someday.

A year later, I ran into him. I had known him pretty well during my first years of college, and I had always wanted to play the mod he was working on. After he told me his story, I felt what I imagine most everyone on the forums felt; sad and disappointed. Before he left, he gave me a phone number of one of his friends that was staying near where I lived. Shortly thereafter, as I was visiting his friend, I saw a clear CD case on his CD rack. I asked if I could look through his games, and one of them was marked "FS2H Backup - Devrous, June 2007."

Long story short, I "borrowed" the disc, learned what I could from it, tinkered with it, and eventually called him to ask about some texturing problems. He informed me that he had gone to several websites promoting the mod, and that there still may be some people interested. Before I could get around to looking, I checked Devrous' old backup email account he had let me look through for Freespace stuff. There were several messages from someone named "Starlord." And the rest is history...

Now that you're up to speed, here's what I intend. With the help of modders here at HLP, we're going to finish this mod so that everyone can enjoy it. Instead of going it alone and risking data loss, incompleteness, and a long release date, I'll be asking for people to join our team. With any luck, we should have this thing up and running in no time.

Devrous' HLP Wiki: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/FS2H#Plot

Feel free to ask any and all questions. I'll do my best to answer, and as soon as possible I'll get the game information packed and sent off to the team members as they get added as such. So far:

Current FS2H Team (June 7, 2009)
FREDer: Wistler
Voice Acting: Spartan-367
Misc/Fanboy: Starlord

At the moment, we are in biggest need of someone who's good with texture mapping and/or painting models either in TrueSpace or something similar. I'd hate for these ships to look hokey because I'm a total n00b at texturing and I can only paint so many faces with the same look  :nervous:

At any rate, thanks to the Admins for generously (re)hosting FS2H, and special thanks to Starlord for 'keeping the faith.' I'll do my best to get more info out ASAP, but if you troll through the exisiting threads you'll find A LOT of information on what Devrous had planned. Tons of info, pictures, and a few movies. Check it out!

 

Offline Felix 039

  • 27
  • The One True Noob
Do you need someone to do some storyline for the campaigns? I am very familiar with Halo 1-3, Halo Novels.


Storyline: Mission Logic, Campaign Story... bla bla bla... Sum up: Story? I can do it.
Voice Acting: I could do that too.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2009, 11:33:06 pm by Felix 039 »
Turning pros into noobs since 1992.
---
Oh look, there's something down here!






No there isn't...

 

Offline karajorma

  • King Louie - Jungle VIP
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    • Karajorma's Freespace FAQ
My advice would be not to get too hung up on the way things look. The most important thing is to get the ships you have working in-game so that you can start mission design work. That way you can have all of your team working at the same time rather than leaving the FREDders sitting on their hands waiting for models. You've got a pretty ambitious campaign planned so getting a start on it now rather than once all the models are done would be a huge bonus.

If you look at FS Upgrade as an example you can see that even if you have ugly models now you can easily upgrade them to high poly beauties as the campaign takes shape.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Felix 039

  • 27
  • The One True Noob
Aye, but judging from the stuff Iv seen from Dev, they can start putting models in-game and make sure that they work as well as the story meant for it to be.

A Destroyer doing some evasive manuvering like the Keyes loop executed by Commander Keyes (later Captain Keyes) did would look very ugly if the model cannot do what it should be like.
Turning pros into noobs since 1992.
---
Oh look, there's something down here!






No there isn't...

 

Offline starlord

  • 210
One of the biggest reasons we are sad and disappointed would be regarding devrous' misfortune family wise. :sigh:

 

Offline Felix 039

  • 27
  • The One True Noob
Casualty? You gotta be more active yourself if you really wana bring the project back alive... How about giving us an update on how thing are going and if you have gotten some new team members?
Turning pros into noobs since 1992.
---
Oh look, there's something down here!






No there isn't...

 
As far as an update in progress, I have managed to finally get all the files completed an not corrupted. There were a few animations and images that were toast, so I have reproduced them as best I can. I have it just about ready to get out to team members. Right now the biggest problem is distribution. I could just physically mail the files on CD to everyone, but I think an online presence would be preferred. However, several of the VP files are pretty big, and I think the entire game is several hundred megabytes. If an admin or someone in-the-know could give me an idea on where to host the files (here at HLP, Rapidshare, etc) that would be great.

As far as new team members, I'm putting together a roster of people that have interest and what they can do. In the end I'll probably use most everyone that asked to join in some fashion of another. Just be patient and I'll address each of you.  :)

And a little bit about my personal life at the moment, I graduated college back in December and got a job in April. I just bought a car and I'll be getting a house soon. Until then I'm stuck on some slow internet at a grungy apartment. I also work 12 hours a day, so my mid-week free time is almost nil. This is yet another reason why I'd like to get the mod as it is out to people soon so that others with more free time can be cranking out missions and content when I can't. Rest assured that I'll be able to devote much more time come September when I close on a house and get hooked up with a good Business-class ISP  ;7

I'll be checking the forums here just about every night, even if I don't have time for a lengthy post. I'll get to everyone's questions as time permits. Until then, keep the discussion coming  :)

 

Offline Felix 039

  • 27
  • The One True Noob
Hosting it might be a problem... for the file size, anything up to 2 Gigs is okay for me atm, Im getting a new comp which should arrive within 2 days.
Turning pros into noobs since 1992.
---
Oh look, there's something down here!






No there isn't...

 

Offline aurora_energy

  • 27
  • Adrift in the never ending void
I'm having some weird s*** going on atm at my joint, however I am happy to help in anyway I can. I can Fred, betatest and a lil texturing
Imagine awakening, and hearing the heartbeat of the galaxy for the first time.
It is like a cloud, a mist that drifts from living creature to creature, set in motion by currents and eddies.
It is the eye of the storm, the passions of all living things turned into energy, into a chorus.
It is the rising swell at the end of life, the promise of new territories and new blood, the call of new mysteries in the dark.

 

Offline SPARTAN-367

  • 26
  • Olly olly oxen free
    • SPARTAN-367 (PAT)
[email protected]

If any voice acting needs to be done. I'm starting university in September and I'm in my last year in Engineering I have my big project so I won't be in HLP Forums that often but just give me a shout with the email if anything needs to be done in voice acting.
- SPARTAN-367 (PAT)

Without Knowledge, Skill cannot be focused. Without Skill, Strength cannot be brought to bear and without Strength, Knowledge may not be applied.

"TROOPERS we are GREEN, and very very MEAN!"

  

Offline achtung

  • Friendly Neighborhood Mirror Guy
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    • Minecraft
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If you still need hosting I can offer space.
FreeSpaceMods.net | FatHax | ??????
In the wise words of Charles de Gaulle, "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."

Formerly known as Swantz

 

Offline Stormkeeper

  • Interviewer Extraordinaire
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Do you have a story?
Ancient-Shivan War|Interview Board

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Offline MidniteHazard

  • 20
  • Children of the Revolution
    • danmangames
i too can do voice acting. just give me skits and i can send you recordings with the promise of good quality in sound and acting

 

Offline aurora_energy

  • 27
  • Adrift in the never ending void
Where is Causality anyway? He's been gone for more then a month. It's almost like this project is dead for the second time
Imagine awakening, and hearing the heartbeat of the galaxy for the first time.
It is like a cloud, a mist that drifts from living creature to creature, set in motion by currents and eddies.
It is the eye of the storm, the passions of all living things turned into energy, into a chorus.
It is the rising swell at the end of life, the promise of new territories and new blood, the call of new mysteries in the dark.

 

Offline starlord

  • 210
I've been sending mail after mail, but nothing at this time!

However, it's been only a month: perhaps computer failure is the problem.

the important thing in that case would be to get hold of the originals files in his possession: then things could proceed...

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

  • HLP is my mistress
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  • Aken Tigh Dekker- you've probably heard me
    • My old squad sub-domain
I want to voice act please thank you.
 
I'm quite good at fred and its newer features too.
 
No scripting though. . .
 
 
EDIT- is this dead whoops. .
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Offline starlord

  • 210
I certainly hope not: halo is too promising a universe to evade FS forever... :nod:

 

Offline Aardwolf

  • 211
  • Posts: 16,384
    • Minecraft
So, how many times has this mod died? 2?

 
:(

Let this please not die! I'd love to see it come to fruition! :D

I'd help whatever way I can...I tend to be a good voice actor (for what little work I've done in halo and guild wars machinima), but I'm pretty much way too young for that.

I can offer a lot of help story-wise, though, as I have a rather deep knowledge in the entire halo universe (all the books released I have read) and everything involved (as indicated by my username, which I want changed :P). I'm also a good story writer; I've done a bit of fanfiction work and I have a lot of writing done about a lot of subjects which I have been told are pretty well done.
Devrous also appointed me to beta-test way back yonder as soon as he had his first alpha done, but obviously I never got a chance to follow him up on that before he disappeared. I can also do some quick FREDding, as throughout the past 2 years I've been fiddling around with the program enough that I know more than an average beginner does.
Fun while it lasted.

Then bitter.

 

Offline aurora_energy

  • 27
  • Adrift in the never ending void
However, it's been only a month: perhaps computer failure is the problem.

Maybe the mod is so awesome it causes computer failure to the user.

nah bad joke  :nervous:

Anyway on a serious note, and I direct this at everyone, we really need a lot of people working on this, so that should someone go missing for some random and unexpected reason we can continue till they come back
Imagine awakening, and hearing the heartbeat of the galaxy for the first time.
It is like a cloud, a mist that drifts from living creature to creature, set in motion by currents and eddies.
It is the eye of the storm, the passions of all living things turned into energy, into a chorus.
It is the rising swell at the end of life, the promise of new territories and new blood, the call of new mysteries in the dark.