So, there I was, right in the middle of a fire fight and I thought how useful would it be if I could send in a few dogs to give me some breathing space?
A Weapon?
Think of them as another weapon, but with perhaps a little more flexibility. They could be used as guard dogs while you rest, or perhaps placed in strategic places and used as early warning systems.Depending on the game and its objectives they could be used to search for something or someone. Although the primary use would be as a simple weapon.You send them into battle first while perhaps looking for a easy escape. After a while if they are still alive they follow you, unfortunately you may have lost one or two.
Controls?
My first thought is that they would be control via a menu system – select a dog and choose an order – Stay, kill etc. Almost exactly the same as a CTF game. If you had different “Classes” then you would need a different list of possible instructions for each class.
A Price to Pay?
They would also have a cost. You would need to decide if and when to feed them. As with yourself you need “health”, well so do they. Perhaps with good coding you could kill a dog for it to become food for the others. It would also be interesting if when their health level runs very low whether they attack you! There could be different “classes” of dog, some bred from wolves (more likely to attack you) others from the domesticated dogs, less likely to attack but perhaps slightly less vicious?
Other types of animals
Of course you wouldn’t only have to be dogs that you could use. Wasps are the first things that spring to mind and there may be others.
Get attacked by dogs in Riot in Progress mod!
http://www.migandi.org.uk/images/rottweilerlow.jpg
In Neverwinter Nights you get to have a Wolf and a Puma in your party as Familiars!
That’s a really good idea mate, I like it a lot. Makes me wonder why it hasn’t been done before.
An idea like this actually has been realised in a Quake1 mod long time ago, just on a more simple level. You could assign a key to spawn your dog (who was called Cujo). The dog accompanied you, attacked your enemies and it could restore it’s health by devouring gibs!
I forgot how this mod was called (it was called a “patch” also), and as far as I remember it was a compiliation of a number of popular Quake mods, with a load of different weapons and tools.
considering dogs as a weapon is completely wrong. After all they are living creatures.
oh come on man…the topics about implementing the idea into a video game.
Seriously….
Killing people is wrong but we are talking about a computer game.
I wonder if someone might remodel the Snarks as dogs……preferably without their delayed explosions though….A pack of Dog-Snarks tearing into the soldiers would be quite a gruesome scene though I suspect…..
As for “considering dogs as weapons is wrong” don’t Police forces all over the world do just that already? Just a thought….
Fear Of Evil (HL1) has dogs instead of Houndeyes. Maybe that model could be used to make it a friend, or a sidekick.
I agree with tom that dogs should not be taken as a weapon.
I’m with Gypsy Jim’s statement. Do you boycott your local K9 unit ?
I don’t think that would work in reality. You are assuming that dogs are robots.
They would quickly realise what was really going on and dessert you – and they would be right!
But it does work in reality. Many dogs are used in attacks. Dogs love their master and would do anything to protect them, that’s why they defend their master.
I wonder if someone might remodel the Snarks as dogs……preferably without their delayed explosions though….A pack of Dog-Snarks tearing into the soldiers would be quite a gruesome scene though I suspect…
Dogs that are part of your squad, a lone companion or your own pack.. As well as dogs that are loyal to the Combine.. BadA$$ idea!
Should be able to do that as an add-on.
No, I think it would have to be part of a new mod that was designed to work with this idea. I don’t think you could just add it on to any mod.
Modders have added new weapons, new enemies, I know very little of how these things work. In one mod for Quake 2 there were dog like spider looking creatures/machines. Could those be reskinned as dogs? Or dog like critters? Used in the new remakes? Or are the models too different between Quake and HL entities?
Yes, modders have added a lot of new stuff but this would seem to require not only new code but also have levels and paths for the dogs defined. It’s like saying we should add a vehicle to any mod. Mods based in apartments would never be able to use it.
Wow, I didn’t think it would be that complex..lol.. Some of the modders out there make it look easy.. Weren’t there dogs,………… never mind that was Return to Castle Wolfstein..
Logging off, but I did spawn a Jeep in MOP and used to run down ant lions…lol, That was fun catch ya later