[Hiatus] Cold Hard Cash 2

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wildweasel
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[Hiatus] Cold Hard Cash 2

Post by wildweasel »

WARNING. THIS IS ALPHA-QUALITY MATERIAL. IT IS NOT FINISHED. MANY THINGS ARE PLACEHOLDERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Cold Hard Cash 2, the official sequel to my old EDGE mod, is a ZDoom mod that aims to implement Privateer-style resource and financial management into Doom gameplay. In short, all enemies drop money. Money is used on vending machines (that replace all weapons in the game) to purchase new weapons, ammo, health, armor, upgrades, and (eventually) repairs.

For those that want to goof around with the current ALPHA-QUALITY version, here is a GitHub link. There are basic instructions in the readme, but please mind the clutter and mess, because this is nowhere near ready for prime time.
https://github.com/wildweasel486/ww-cash2
(Oh, also, make sure you've got an up-to-date Development Build of ZDoom or GZDoom; this WILL NOT WORK on stable releases.)

Here's an actually up-to-date screenshot!
Image
Spoiler: Old-ass screenshot.
Here's what I need a lot of help with.

Currently, Cash2's shop menus use the ZDoom Strife Dialog Format. This is hideously messy, because many transactions require multiple item checks (i.e. weapon upgrades), which requires me to reroute the Strife dialogue into ACS scripts. As such, if I need to (for example) change how much something costs, I wind up having to change the cost number in multiple places. It is not easy to maintain, even at this relatively simple level (weapon durability isn't even implemented yet, and that's going to be a major part of the mod).

What I need is some enterprising volunteer to help rewrite the shop system completely from scratch. I want nothing more to do with ZSDF, as it does not fit my needs. I need a system that is well-documented (so I can make changes as needed; I'm not exactly an ACS expert here), expandable (vending machines are, at this point, capable of having as many as eight or more different products, as well as the ability to sell, upgrade, and eventually repair things), and highly customizable (for the best example, find the Hell Vendor that replaces Berserk - custom shop messages everywhere, as well as ability to buy things with HP instead of money).

I simply do not have the expertise needed to design such a system from the ground up, especially with ACS-based menus tending to break multiplayer if not coded just right (MP support is a thing that would be quite nice to not have broken). Any help anyone can offer would be vastly, vastly appreciated.


Thanks to the efforts of Ed the Bat, the shop menu is now more-or-less fully functional, and all I need to do is work on some of the aesthetics of it, such as supplying icons for the weapons, and a couple other presentational touches like an on-screen controls guide and maybe some extra stuff for the Hell Vendor.
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Ed the Bat
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by Ed the Bat »

I'll help. Just give me some specifics on exactly what you want, offer suggestions for changes in what I do when necessary, the usual stuff a designer needs from a client.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by wildweasel »

Ed the Bat wrote:I'll help. Just give me some specifics on exactly what you want, offer suggestions for changes in what I do when necessary, the usual stuff a designer needs from a client.
Alright - brace yourself for shitty MS Paint diagram.
Image

Does this help explain what I'm looking for?
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by Ed the Bat »

Makes sense to me. One thing I have to mention from the getgo, though, is that anything mouse-driven is a bit beyond my talents. But I've done keyboard-driven menus before (I can even share some examples in private if you want to see any of my work). Having a scrolling list will be a bit new to me, but I imagine I can puzzle it out.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by wildweasel »

Well, I'm currently undecided as to whether mouse support is anything this menu really needs; the scrollbar is primarily there for informative purposes (if a shop has more products in the list than can be shown; I expect the ammo vendor to have tons of those).
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by Ed the Bat »

Yeah I'm personally not a fan of the mouse-driven ACS menus I've seen made by others. I'm impressed by their efforts but find the user interface uncomfortable and more trouble than it's worth to use, as a player. Regardless, if you find someone who's willing to add it in, I see no reason that the base groundwork (menu and text layout, etc.) I'd implement couldn't be reused for that.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by wildweasel »

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm currently in talks with phantombeta on IRC over getting some framework established.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by doony »

very good mod, you can use the money sprite I created for my mod if you want for your project :D

Image
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by wildweasel »

doony wrote:very good mod, you can use the money sprite I created for my mod if you want for your project :D

Image
Oh, I think I'm okay for money sprites for now, but thank you for the offer.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by Ribo Zurai »

I really like the looks of this. Can't wait to see more.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by xenoxols »

The shop system from my Duke mod (with a little polish) could work wonders here.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by wildweasel »

xenoxols wrote:The shop system from my Duke mod (with a little polish) could work wonders here.
I'm not sure your shop interface would help me that much; there are a LOT of items in Cash2 that would need to be accounted for, in addition to the upgrades, repairs, and the like...I haven't really looked at your code, but I can't imagine I'd be able to use it as is without a lot of expansion and retooling, which at that point, I might as well just make it from scratch.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by doony »

wildweasel wrote:
doony wrote:very good mod, you can use the money sprite I created for my mod if you want for your project :D

Image
Oh, I think I'm okay for money sprites for now, but thank you for the offer.
your welcome, I played the mod and I liked very much, the fist weapon is awesome ! 8-)
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by kodi »

I've learned a decent bit about making very easily modifiable acs menus for SCOOMM, but anything that requires multiplayer support or advanced ACS-Decorate interaction is beyond my knowledge(I define all my inventory items entirely in ACS lol). I could maybe collect the basics of my menu system and pm them to you or something if you think that'd help you out.
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Re: [WIP] Cold Hard Cash 2 - HELP NEEDED. BADLY.

Post by xenoxols »

wildweasel wrote:
xenoxols wrote:The shop system from my Duke mod (with a little polish) could work wonders here.
I'm not sure your shop interface would help me that much; there are a LOT of items in Cash2 that would need to be accounted for, in addition to the upgrades, repairs, and the like...I haven't really looked at your code, but I can't imagine I'd be able to use it as is without a lot of expansion and retooling, which at that point, I might as well just make it from scratch.
It's actually not very complicated, just a bunch of defining boxes where you can click, also you can up the resolution to fit a lot of items on the screen at once. The mouse input is Nash's though, so if you don't use mine, still check out his.
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