European Commonwealth : Paris (wip)

_________________________________________________European Commonwealth : Paris____________________________________________________________



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[Read this with the voice of Ron Perlman in your head:]
Mankind. Mankind never changes. After having claimed every foot of the world and depleting it's resources; after having pushed back the boundaries of science, and abolishing those of wisdom; Mankind is left with only it's self to face...

At the height of the Resource War provoked by the industrial nations in hopes of achieving perpetuation of the status-quo; the enduring allegiances of old proved transient, as foes who once called each other brothers, fight for the fat of the malnourished dieing lands.

All the efforts of the European Commonwealth governments to unite them selves proved a fruitless cause, as the E.C. became a commonwealth in name only. Mankind. Mankind never learns. West Germany achieved it's reunification with the German Democratic Republic, and it's more stable systematised economic system, while France and the United Kingdom quarreled over the last offshore resources in the North Sea. Threats and violence took precedence over diplomacy; borders were reinstated, only to be immediately contested. When the bombs of Word War III finally hit the ground, Europe was already reduced to ashes...
But a privileged few were able to enter the large underground shelters of the European Commonwealth Safeguard Program; it is in one of those shelters that you were born and raised, without any contact with the exterior world...
But the time has come to leave the safety of that shelter...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ShXZM92FM8[/youtube]
(the music is from Piaf)

We are also going to use the first minutes of the short movie "Bunker" made by Paul Doucet. Don't hesitate to check the whole movie (10min) here and leave a comment:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3yNDa3qAU[/youtube]

The World of European Commonwealth: Paris

Like the title says it is a mod with the particularity of being based in a part of the world other than the United States, namely the European continent, and since it's a French mod, it will be situated in Paris.
Since Fallout is a retro-futuristic universe, the first challenge of our team was to imagine how the 2070 France of the Fallout universe would have developed, if it was based on the spirit of the French fifties. Basically we tried to identify what graphical elements the devs of Fallout chose to create the retro spirit, then we tried to find the equivalent in our country, and adapt it for the mod.
We used what we know of the Fallout cannon concerning the EC, and then we built upon it (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/European_Commonwealth).

Warning! it is our take of what could have happened, and not the canon one. We only took elements of what has been confirmed in F1 and F2. We chose to transplant the problems facing western Europe in the 50s and transposed them into the 2060s.



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The Time-line:
[spoiler:e5c75c7cf1]1951: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC or the CECA in French), established by the Treaty of Paris, was declared to be "a first step in the federation of Europe"; the founding member states of the ECSC included Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany.

1952: Creation the Pan European Defense Force, which launched the process of military unification among it's members.

1972: The European Central Council, the executive organ of the EC is created. The governments of the commonwealth are now integrated into a single state-like entity.

1973: The military forces of the EC members are now unified into a centralised command, and become the Pan European Army.

1988: Grobatchev secures Afghanistan through heavy repression, and at a large cost of in troops, sending a clear message to any country that would want to attempt secession. The police of the USSR members begin a massive elimination of opposition leaders.

1991: The August Coup succeeded in putting an end to the Gorbatchev Era, and brought the return to power of hard-line communists. While reinforcing the position of Russia within the Union, this doesn't change anything with regards to the economic situation.

1999: The Vienna Agreement; The European Commonwealth agrees to buy soviet products, and to never contest the sovereignty East European USSR countries. In exchange, the neutral countries (Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden) are allowed to join the commonwealth. This treaty also marks the loss in influence of the USSR in the West, and the emergence of China as the new Red Superpower. The EC has reached it's highest number of members (12), and the armies of those new members are integrated into the Pan-European Force.

2010: A young team of developers start to make a game about an alternate universe, where the hippies would have made a coup in the 60s.

2027: In Austria, Gaston Glock's consciousness was somehow transferred into an advanced artificial intelligence. In this new form, Glock continued to design weapons, including the Glock 86 Plasma Pistol, and the Glock 54X Plasma rifle.

2032: Plasma Weaponry become the standard military equipment of the European Army.

2040: The European Commonwealth Safeguard Program (or the" Reseau d'abris de la communauté européenne", la R.A.C.E.) is launched. It's goal is to ensure the survival of the EC in case of a global nuclear war. The construction of large underground shelters are commenced.

2045: The Commonwealth, not being able to sustain their consumerist society is in decline, and the population of the states tend to lean towards communism (In the 50s the french communist party had something like 25% of all voices in the legislatives election). The working classes allied with the left-wings intellectuals (the Compagnons de route) advocate a stable system that has proven it's stability behind the iron curtain, leading to a civil war within the states between the nationalists and liberals against the communists, while the states themselves try to secure as much of the resources left of the as is possible.

April 2052: The Resource Wars begin. Many smaller nations go bankrupt, and Europe, dependent on oil imports from the Middle East, responds to the Middle East's rising oil prices with military action. The long drawn-out war between the European Commonwealth and the Middle East begins.[14]
May - July: The United Nations, already suffering, begins to collapse. In a series of heated debates, many nations withdraw from the organization as the U.N. tries to keep the peace. At the end of July, the United Nations is disbanded.

2053: The socially transmitted "New Plague" arises, killing thousands of people, but is finally contained through the quarantine of the infected.

2060: The Euro-Middle Eastern War ends as the oil fields in the Middle East run dry. There is no longer a goal in the conflict, and both sides are reduced almost to ruin.
The European Commonwealth dissolves into quarreling nation states, fighting over the remaining resources, the central council still exist, but has no authority anymore. All countries now reorganise themselves around their national government.

2064: West Germany 'joins' it's sister state and falls on the other side of the iron curtain. The soviet army secures the new borders, while, partisans and saboteurs oppose soviet rule in the Ruhr area. The European Central council protests against the breach of the Vienna Treaty to no end. Moscow assets that this is an internal German matter. Belgian and Luxembourg become French protectorates (at last!) and the Maginot line is reoccupied by the French army.

2077, October 23: Great War: Bombs are launched; who struck first is unknown. Other countries, seeing the missiles on their way, launch their planes and fire their warheads as well.
Reset.[/spoiler:e5c75c7cf1]

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Zhe European Vault boy : Charles 2.0







Charles is a name common almost to all european community members, "Tcharles", Carlos, Karl. It is of course a reference to Charlemagne who was sort of the first european leader, and some of the people who have one use to call it lil' Charles, by opposition to Charles the big...


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Zoe, zhe european most radioactive favorite drink will replace the nuka cola in the heart of the european consumer. In case you wonder, yes, it is a real drink...








Your Story :
When the bombs were flying over their heads, the population of Paris did the best they could to flee to safety. The luckiest entered one of the sealed shelters of the European Commonwealth Safeguard Program (one shelter for each arrondissement), while others had no choice but to seek refuge in the large underground networks of the city, in it's metro and Sewers, but also the deep caverns and labyrinthine tunnels that form the catacombs of Paris. But when the bombs stopped falling, many points of egress to the surface where blocked by the wreckage of fallen buildings; those that did find their way out, never came back, and those that settled too close to an exit... began to change... In the minds of the traumatized people, the surface became something as scary as the pits of hell. The survivors had to adapt to their new underground life, when the emergency supplies were finished, rats and mushrooms became the only substance on which to subsist, that is, if you are not into human flesh... The most courageous people improved their lot by hunting some of the new beasts that had recently appeared like apparitions in the darkness of the catacombs. Gangs of thugs settled in front of the underground doors of the EC-shelters to trade their scarce resources for the plentiful products of the hydroponic farms, and they protect this privileged arrangement fiercely against the others gangs.
It's 2167. Your were lucky enough to be born in the EC-Shelter under the 13 Arrondissment of Paris; but your shelter too is blocked underground, and without any contact with Abri Central or with any of the other shelters. As occurs more regularly in these times, the prefect has organised a lottery. Unluckily for you, your number was pulled out. You will have to enter the catacombs to find a way out, and ensure the survival of the shelter. Your secondary mission, is to renew contact with the other shelters and Abri Central.


Special thanks to Dude101 for correcting and upgrading my text.

 

Screenshots : Life in the Shelter
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/8121/marcel.png

So far, you have seen a lot of text and not that much "real" work. You probably haven't read everything, but it's okay! :=)
If you want, you can click on the spoiler button to see a description of the first location of the game : your Shelter.
In these screenshots, you can see some of the result of our efforts to adapt our mod to the european world, while trying to stay true to the fallout spirit.
The walls of an european shelter couldn't be the same as the ones for a US shelter, built by Vaultek. Which is why there are totally different walls, and each time we encounter something that screams to much american fallout, we try to replace it by a more european counterpart. We hope to do the same for every other location in the game.
You can recognise the work of Continuum, Pixote and Traider (the Zoe posters).
Don't pay to much attention to the interface, its a WIP.


Habitation area
[spoiler:a292cc59a0]
Habitation area/common area

The bar of the shelter

The buro of Préfet Durand.

the administration area

The" factory"

The robot maintenance

The intendance

The power generator

The hydroponic farm
[/spoiler:a292cc59a0]
We have plan to convert those screenshots to make a EC: Shelter advertising video. If we succeed, we let you know so you can reserve your place!

 

New (modified ) npc/ critters

Since the mod is based in Europe, we won't be able to use a lot of the Fallout critters, if we want to stay true to canon, that is.
We won't be able to use the two Power Armors, the supermutant models, the geckos, the Wanamingos...A lot of the critters and player animation are off limits.


We intend to use as many different critters as possible. That means all the new Critters mabe by Josan, Xi'l, Pixote and the others, like the robots and Moloch of Siren and others, but also some old modified ones (like the bordeaux CA, the Dark CA,) and new ones made by myself and my team (the red robe, the spider, and others...)
The goal will be to replace all critters too representative of the american fallout to replace it by a european counterpart


Completed npc and critters:
The following critters have all the necessary animation for a npc, unless i say so. I just won't upload all gif for everything...

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A spider. Be careful not to thread on them.



This a ghoul that roam the sewers of Paris. Like you can see, it is a glowing one, that aint glowing no more. That thing is dependant ro radiation and hadn't had is fix in a while, making it quite aggressiv...




This is the standart uniform of the EC shelter's dwellers. Sadly, it won't have all the animation ready, and the player will wear it only at the begining of the game, like the tribal skin of the temple of trials... It has the gun animation ready, and will have maybe the rifle one. I will post more of this one later...



And now is time to present my favorite one, and the most painful to do. This is a unique critter, and it will be one of the two possible protagonist.
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WIP CRITTERS
the following critters don't have all working animation. Yet.

The Idea is to have the soldiers of this faction to wear the same sort of trenchcoat, but with a helmet. There are only one or two finished animation, but the hard work was to do the trenchcoat, really...




Right now the color of the helmet is blue, but will probably be red or dark in the game.
A special flamer animation based on the work of Xi'l is in the work too, but will depend of the time factor and the work on the helmet animation.




There are word done on two others critters, but I won't disclose them.




Who are we?
Right now the name of our little "studio" is the Dead Master's crew. Don't look too much into, it's just a name.
Beside me in the team there is
Terbitator, critter/scenery creator you maybe have seen his Mad Max truck. He does a lot of other stuff too.
Aguirre, critter editor, video maker of first class and mapper
Snake, vaultboy, pipboy, rifles, you name it, he draw it.
Hekann mapper. likes to make caves map.
Soifran gives us a hand from times to times.
And myself. I do a little bit of everything, scripting, mapping, npc...



We are mainly a french team, but speak english, we are ready to welcome any team members that would be interested to help.
We are looking for:
A scripter. (now you didn't see that one coming, yes?)
Another mapper couldn't hurt.
A 3D/2D artist to help us create the art for the surface of Paris.

But mainly people to work on the new critters! Not necessarily a hard one like the trenchcoat one, but some simple head/pants replacing for an animation or two would help a lot! Even if it is just one every three month!

I think that's it for this post. I will try to uptdate regularly on the progress of the mod on the first post.

Thanks for reading so far!
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Mmm, I am not sure, that would feel a little like cheating i think
I haven't studied what the Vault says on that matter, but I always thought the US were the only ones to design Power Armor...

Actually, I hadn't even thought of that, since I was focused on making it more about Paris than anything else. But it is quite possible for some adventurous traders from far far away to be around. Or not. The date is 2167, about the same time from fallout 1, the european would be quite dangerous for travellers in those dark times...
But i would like to tell the stories of the other european countries too, following this rule: the Shelters have info (newspaper/archives) about the european coutries but not about after the war.
In the surface of Paris, you might hear about the fate of other countries.

So if you have ideas about what could have happen to one other european commonwealth country, and it doesn't contradict with the timeline I gave, please I d like to hear about it. If it is well writen, i might end up as an holodisk somewhere...

Thanks we will need it!

Thanks too!
I am affraid I chose to post at a time where Dude101 is away. That still give me some time to get feedback from the people of the moding section, before going out there in the open!

 

Lavo wrote:

The first part of the mod will be under the surface of Paris, and the second one will be in Paris only, yes.
As for size of the map, it's kinda a relativ question, the map of Paris itself will be the size of F2, but the travel speed is a lot more quick, so...
Overall as for the size of the mod, we are aiming for the same quantity of content as in F1.

But you can! Each person who posted on this thread can! Especially since you are already experienced with critter editing. Basicly the help I require for this matter doesn't require any experience at all. You just need to open the image of the leather armor :
[image of the leather armor]

Then on this image you paste the image of the corresponding custom combat armor i give you. Since the pants are at the same place, it is extremly easy.


Then you erase the helmet head to make the dudes head appaear.
And voilà!





Repeat the same procedure a few time, in half hour, you have a new animation ready.



I can upload one or two animation of the new Combat armor, if some people want to give it a try.

de Aynesworth and Little Robot wrote:

I have something like that in mind, like the PA was the "secret weapon" of the US lab, and the stealth armor the one of the Chinese, the european engineers have worked on a secret technology of their own, it just won't be armor related.

New Vegas almost had my skin, for me it was a much stronger blow than the fallout washington thing, especially since my free time went into playing instead of modding. But hey, i am still around!