Version 1.01 is released! Get it from the idgames archive (or if it hasn't updated yet, my Google Drive).
What has changed in this version?
- Marines now have their weapons colour coded
- SSG marines now have a reload time
- Someone found a rather major dead end with the yellow key, so there is now a safety barrier in place
- Miscellaneous bug fixes
Further to this, I have recorded a commentary and (near) 100% playthrough for Prime Directive. If you don't want to play, or you want some insight in to the plot and how I approached creating it, then devote two and a half hours of your life to listening to my voice and watching the following:FAQ wrote:Does this work with weapons mods?
No. I define a new player class, and all vanilla weapons are reimplemented with tracking abilities. Weapons mods cannot deal with this. If you want to make it work with your favourite weapons mod, by all means do it yourself and release a path/remixed version for the community. Prime Directive is released under a Creative Commons license and as such remixing is encouraged.
Should I play this if I can't stand story in Doom mods?
No. This is not the mod for you.
Should I play this if I can't stand RPG elements in Doom mods?
Maybe. If you can stand the story, there is a path you can take through the mod that doesn't want you to level up a weapon. The Gateway Experiments aim to give the player choice and freedom, so while I don't signpost things the choice of progression is entirely up to you.
Should I 100% this thing? What have I missed?
There are some pretty silly goals required to 100% this mapset. That's intentional. The idea of 100% completing a game is something I find a bit silly, especially in such a choice-driven experience as Prime Directive, so there's some silly things you need to do to 100% it. More interesting though is how little percentage you can complete it in...
Older posts:
Spoiler:
30 june 2015 - [RELEASED!] Prime Directive (Space Station Omega 2)
COME AND GET IT! Requires GZDoom 2 or greater.
Release Blog
When I set out to make Prime Directive, it was simply because I thought it was cool to finally tell more of the Gateway Experiements story for Doom's 20th anniversary. I missed that release window. Oops. Considering I actually started work on Episode 2 in 2003, at the very least this release is eligible for a Mordeth award.
But in the interim, I did find that I had set myself up a rather rich palette to draw from to tell a story that hasn't really been tried in Doom before. There is a heavy emphasis on the psychological condition of your companion Elaine, as well as an emphasis on body horror for your own progression throughout the game. All with the choice that you could see emerging from Space Station Omega. I'm pretty sure I can repurpose this story away from the fan-fiction that it currently is and create a professional episodic FPS out of the structure I've set myself up.
There's also quite a few well-hidden secrets in there for those that like hunting for such things. Props to the first person to 100% the thing without looking at any of the source files to see all the conditions required to do so.
24 June 2015 - [RElEASE CANDITATE] Prime Directive
RELEASE CANDIDATE 1
What are you waiting for? Download it!
Requires GZDoom 2.0 or greater.
I call it a Release Candidate, but realisitically there's a few more bits of polish I need to put in to it before I upload it to /newstuff. None of this is in any way consequential to the gameplay (namely, I need to clean up the TITLEMAP). Point is, this is it. This is effectively the finished product.
I will waffle on in greater detail once I've actually uploaded the full release to /newstuff.
Oct 25, 2013 [WIP] Prime Directive - ALPHA RELEASE
ALPHA RELEASE AVAILABLE
COME AND GET IT! GZDoom 1.8.02 is the minimum required.
The mod can be played through to completion. However, there are still things missing such as cutscenes, some computers, some geometry, etc. Basically, from here it's all polish. But what I really need right now is bug hunting. There's one that's got me stumped with screen wipes - they shouldn't happen, but on some map transitions they do. I don't know why.
So, what's the feature list looking like since last time?
If you download and try this, as well as bug reports I'd appreciate if you uploaded the autosave that is made as you enter the final map (GE5MAP08, easily identifiable by the fact that it's where your stats are told to you).
- A almost-complete HD remix of Space Station Omega. Need to go through and do a few more things to it.
- Cutscene cancelling. I really only did it so that I didn't have to freeze the player in select circumstances while another cutscene finishes.
- Goal system which gives you a percentage at the end of PD.
- Weapon stats tracking.
- A discoverable squad of marines that you can teleport to your location.
- More MD3s.
- A new lighting pass. Combined with the 3D polyobject trick, it can stress GZDoom in some areas.
- The characters you talk to over the radio are now represented by a real-time hud graphic.
I'm not sure I'll hit my original release date limit of November 10th, but it should be in a complete state within the month.
Post 6 (May 12 2013) [WIP] Prime Directive - SECOND public Pre-Alpha RELEASED
SECOND PUBLIC PRE-ALPHA BUILD RELEASED
And it's obtainable from this location.
THIS REQUIRES A CURRENT SVN BUILD OF GZDOOM (obtainable from here if you've not done it before)
It's been a while since the last pre-alpha release. What's different this time?
As the entire mod is now open, you may find the need to noclip out of one or two areas.
- Everything's open. Incomplete, but open. Still, it's possible to "complete" the gameplay part in this build.
- This is the first public build in which the new demon weapon is available (obtainable from the Hell level in the video).
- There's a decent bit of polish in some previously-accessible areas.
- VENTY!
- MD3 grabbag.
- Voxels! In GZDoom! You maniac!
- Gameplay examples of my moving 3D floor trick.
- Well-hidden impse.
- More unbalanced marines than you can poke a BFG at. Because there is no BFG in this mod.
General feedback would be good, but as always I'm mainly trying to get the marine balance right. If they seem unfair at any point, tell me. There's probably quite a bit of balancing required for the demon weapon too, so feedback on that (and the "trials" you need to go through to increase its power) is also appreciated.
Post 5 (18 March 2013): [WIP] Prime Directive - PUBLIC PRE-ALPHA!
FIRST PUBLIC PRE-ALPHA BUILD AVAILABLE
A PK3 is obtainable from this location.
THIS REQUIRES THE LATEST SVN BUILD OF GZDOOM (r1540 at time of posting)
So. After months of talking to myself in this thread, I'm finally unleashing a version upon the public. Being a pre-alpha, it is still in a very incomplete stage. Architecture is just plain missing, battles haven't been balanced or added, and I halt progression upon finding the yellow card. Why have I gone and uploaded it in such an incomplete state?
Quite simply, I need feedback on the marine battles. They are the one thing that will make or break this project. I'm starting to get to the point where I know how to efficiently take them down, so any balancing I attempt to do is based on a higher skill level than what the new player would bring. The marines aren't the stock ZDoom scripted marines. They're stupidly overpowered. So I've hit up DECORATE and have attempted to balance them out to be challenging but not overpowering. Encountering a couple of pistol marines can really mess your day up if you approach the battle the wrong way, for example.
So, if you please, I would kindly ask that you download and provide feedback specifically on the marine battles. Of course, there's a ton of story and other elements in there that you can comment on too. A whole heap of the branching and user choice stuff is already in there (and yes, playing Space Station Omega through will have an affect on what you see in Prime Directive).
Post 4 (16 February 2013): [WIP] Prime Directive - FIRST GAMEPLAY VIDEOS
The first gameplay videos of Prime Directive are up on youtube!
(Youtube appears to have done things to the quality, so the text is blurrier than I wanted)
So. First gameplay videos. The first one shows off the chunk I've been polishing - namely, the area between the sewers and the labs. There's still a fair amount of polish to go, and probably a fair amount of balance and extra battles to be put in to it, but quite a few of the features I'm putting in to Prime Directive are on display in that one:
[/list]
- Day/night cycle
- Half-Life style level transitions
- Contextual communications with Elaine
- Marine enemies - you are invading a marine base, after all
- Extensive use of 3D floors
- Half-Life/SSO style cutscenes
The second video is of a secret area. As a part of the story, you gain some demon powers. In this video, you compete in a stylised arena with Barons of Hell for a crowd. Your prize, should you win? An increased capacity for your Baron fireball launching power. Of course, having such a thing isn't entirely fair against unarmed marines. That's why some of them are armed - while the last wave has them on berserk packs. This is meant to be a competition, after all.
So. Now that I've shown off what I'm talking about rather than just talking incessantly about it, feel free to drop me a line if you wish to test it. There's a ton of balance issues I need to sort out, at the very least.
POST 3 (27 January 2013): [WIP] Prime Directive - SECOND ROUND PRE-ALPHA TESTING
SECOND ROUND OF PRE-ALPHA TESTING IS READY
The development schedule is slipping slightly. I haven't quite finished whiteboxing everything, and frankly it's because I just couldn't get inspiration for the marine barracks section. Which has held me up somewhat. I've done something with it now, and it's not a complete waste of space. So there's that.
The flow up to obtaining the red key is finally in. This only leaves two critical sections before the final part of the mod - namely, administration and the power generators. I still haven't started on the warehouse level, but it's going to be a side mission and probably the best marine battle in the mapset.
I've sent out information for the new test package to the current testers. But hey, fear not. If you find this mapset interesting (which, being the sequel to Space Station Omega, should make it of interest to a few of you) then drop me a line and I'll include you in on the testing.
POST 3 (7 January 2013): [WIP] Prime Directive - seeking willing testers
In a day or two, I'll have a nice PK3 ready for some testing. It will be the first pre-alpha build. The flow up till you get the Yellow Key is in, and I've been putting some battles in, tweaking existing battles, and incorporating the actor dialogue in to the setup. And to that effect, I'll be seeking bug reports and gameplay suggestions (mainly to do with the new "enemies" I've put in).
This first section has turned out a bit more linear than I originally anticipated, but it does show the scope of the project and sets the rest of Prime Directive up quite nicely. The mission statement is to create the greatest story-based ZDoom map/mod ever. The story script is hitting the right notes, and I'm really quite happy with what I'm doing with the dynamic dialogue system (it's incorporating ideas I've had for eight years, and Space Station Omega does impact how it plays out).
Testers can send me their email address via my private message inbox, but do keep in mind that I'll be biased towards the more senior members around here. It's only because I've known them much longer (and some of them have tested my old maps previously so I know what kind of feedback I can expect) so don't take it personally if you registered in the last six months and don't hear back.
POST 2 (5 January 2013): [WIP] Prime Directive (aka Space Station Omega 2)
Now with an updated version of Space Station Omega! It contains a completely reimplemented conversation script. The idea is that people download the map, try it out, and tell me if it completely breaks on them. I've only given it a complete run-through once, but it seemed fine.
The update, I figured, would take about an hour. I needed to write the speech system for Prime Directive, and Space Station Omega was a good testbed. Instead, it took three hours to write the new ACS and get it working proper in Space Station Omega. Those scripts are FREAKING TERRIBLE GUYS! HOLY BALLS!
Download it from here! (Just a note if you've never Google Drive'd before - this is a link to a ZIP file, you can click File/Download from the page to download the entire thing as a ZIP)
POST 1: [WIP] I might be working on a new project
And it might be a sequel to Space Station Omega.
The belated Cacowards this year inspired me to get something together for Doom's upcoming 20th anniversary. Over the last few days, I've been whiteboxing and playing with both ACS and all other manner of lumps, as well as writing a script for the dialogue and story flow. The story looks like it should be quite satisfying actually. Once the script is finalised, I'll be seeking volunteers for voices. I plan on having every line spoken (except for ye olde on-screen writing said by no one).
New items, female marines (using Alice Jameson's sprites), and as you'd expect some rather impressive scripting work are some of the features you'll find in it. There's one script I've written in particular that should turn a few heads - and it is in fact one of the reasons I've decided to go with GZDoom. It's still ZDoom compatible in its current state, but it looks rubbish.
I've also tweaked Space Station Omega slightly and will be packaging it up with the new release - and yes, that does mean playing SSO again will impact how the new chapter plays out.
The plan is to have it out before 10th November 2013 so that everyone can have a chance to play it before the Cacowards. I'll probably actually be active on these forums during development. If I have features I want, I'll probably stick to feature requests rather than altering the code myself.
