Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mephansteras]

Nah, I'd prefer to see the classic Snakemen show up. Someone on the X-Com forums did an amazing bit of concept artwork for one. Made them look really scary. And I think gave them a sniper rifle, which would be a terrifying thing to have to fight against.

Found the picture!

Misremembered the sniper rifle, though. Might have been thinking about a conversation about them.

Still..that'd be a nice addition to the game. In addition to more enemy types in general.

[Mrhappyface]

Ah yes, reapers. They tended to look quite menacing, staring at my rookie through a one tile doorway before it got plinked to death by a pistol.

[Mephansteras]

Ah yes, reapers. They tended to look quite menacing, staring at my rookie through a one tile doorway before it got plinked to death by a pistol.

They were decent at killing civilians, though, since those tended to run out to go yell at it face-to-face before running back inside. Or down the street. Or maybe in circles.

I did actually lose a guy to a Reaper once. Happened in a crashed terror ship. I was smacking floaters around and one dropped down beside a guy and killed him. I was pleasantly terrifying to realize that I had to kill this thing quick before it squashed anyone else.

[Mrhappyface]

TFTD had a bunch of design issues and bugs. You couldn't hot potato grenades for example, and the ink grenade was accidentally nerfed to the point of uselessness. Also, the terror missisons tended to be nightmarish due to the horrific labyrinthine level design and it became a game of hide and seek, with the lobsterman peeing himself in a remote broom closet.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm pretty sure disabling the Grenade Relay was an intentional choice.

It was kind of one of those things that could only arise from the sick genius that one has while playing X-Com.

[EnigmaticHat]

I really liked Thin Men.  They were new, but drew from culture (Slenderman, MIB, menacing government agents in suits) and fit with the XCOM universe.  They should try to do that more often.  I'd say maybe run with the "lizardmen rule the world" conspiracy theory, but there are already too many XCOM aliens that are too similar to that.

Its a bit late for this one but maybe they could try something Mayan to tie into the whole 2012 apocalypse thing?  I'm trying to think of pop culture stuff that could be incorporated into new aliens.  Maybe something Lovecraftian?  Obviously nothing I write here is going to be considered for the game but its fun to think about.  They could add an item that summons horrors more powerful than the aliens and hostile to both sides into the world as a sort of Godzilla Threshold (warning: tvtropes link) for when missions are going badly, and then if you ignore the main story mission and certain conditions are met you could go down an path where you fight just the horrors as a sort of bonus campaign that's really hard and gives you an alternate ending.

[WillowLuman]

So, giant horror fleas from nowhere?

[Neonivek]

but drew from culture (Slenderman

You know what? No... They certainly have somewhat of the appearance, but if Slenderman was completely unrelated I wouldn't be surprised, but their true origin are from the lizard people who have infiltrated every part of our government.

I'd say maybe run with the "lizardmen rule the world" conspiracy theory

The Thin men ARE that.

[forsaken1111]

All this talk about the spoken accents and such, is it really that big a deal? They repeat themselves so much that after hour 10 or so I turned soldier speech off anyway.

[Tellemurius]

So, giant horror fleas from nowhere?

How about Giant Mosquito men?

[WillowLuman]

As long as I get to make a squad of power-punching mech troops. Guns are for sukkas!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Its a bit late for this one but maybe they could try something Mayan to tie into the whole 2012 apocalypse thing?  I'm trying to think of pop culture stuff that could be incorporated into new aliens.  Maybe something Lovecraftian?  Obviously nothing I write here is going to be considered for the game but its fun to think about.  They could add an item that summons horrors more powerful than the aliens and hostile to both sides into the world as a sort of Godzilla Threshold (warning: tvtropes link) for when missions are going badly, and then if you ignore the main story mission and certain conditions are met you could go down an path where you fight just the horrors as a sort of bonus campaign that's really hard and gives you an alternate ending.

I could see it. Let Vahlen have her way with an Ethereal, and you learn about "the coming threat" early, as well as enough information to build a beacon that would call them. You can build the beacon, but the Council deems it too dangerous to use, regardless of their opposition to the current aliens.

Then, if the Doom Counter fills up....

[EnigmaticHat]

So, giant horror fleas from nowhere?

There'd probably need to be a flavor reason why they were around, but yes.  Something like that.  The only reason I added the bit about summoning them into the world yourself is because it would be a little cruel to release an expansion with only optional endgame content in game where people can ironman themselves into only being able to play the last mission, yet lovecraftian aliens wouldn't quite fit with the feel of the current aliens.  Thus, add a way for the player to call them into the fight whenever.  Which should probably cost money to balance out the potential exp gains.

Designing interesting new Xcom aliens is hard.  I've given it some thought because of the possibility of me sometime modding X@COM.  They've covered a lot of their stereotypical alien bases, but at the same time have a very unique style.  There's a reason the remake only has 4 new aliens, and 2 of them are variants on Mutons.

-snip-

This is my source.  Specifically the trivia at the bottom.  The only source cited has Soloman quoting MIB as an influence, with no mention of slenderman or lizard people.

I could see it. Let Vahlen have her way with an Ethereal, and you learn about "the coming threat" early, as well as enough information to build a beacon that would call them. You can build the beacon, but the Council deems it too dangerous to use, regardless of their opposition to the current aliens.

Then, if the Doom Counter fills up....

You posted this just before i posted, so might as well respond here.  That's a really good idea!  I've always thought its annoying how you can win your fights but still lose the strategic layer because you didn't spam satellites hard enough.  This way you would still be punished for triggering the doom counter, yet have a chance to save yourself.  The main problem is that because the hardest part of the game is the early game (in my opinion, the difficulty reaches its peak at the first council mission, or the first terror mission), most players would have to intentionally lose to fight the horrors.  Perhaps any live psychic alien could be enough?  Or maybe you get a special mission if the doom counter advances to 4 that lets you get what you need for the beacon research.

For my totally made up expansion I mean.  Maybe in the far future I'll complete a programing project ever and it'll be this as an X@COM mod.  That's the in-development XCOM RL on these very forums if you guys somehow don't know about it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

My view is that it would be a sort of reprieve for people who get trapped in the meatgrinder in the latter half of the game. You'd have a few missions of lower level aliens (though now including Horrors) as the two battle it out over Earth. Then, the Temple Ship is blown out of the sky by the Horrors, freeing the mindslaved Council from Ethereal control....and now the Horrors have their eyes set on humanity.

[Neonivek]

or lizard people.

The Thin men specifically ARE allusions to the "Lizard men who secretly rule the world" though you can only find this out by dissecting them.

It is one of the things that made the fact that there was no enhanced Thin man rather disappointing... because there were two directions
1) You could see their original unaltered form that uses the Thinman gimmicks to the next level (very fast, very accurate, with lethal spit)
2) You could see their perfected human form that could... pretend to be a civilian.