Quake: Nexus Aftermath - /me casts Resurrection

[Ghastly]

I just took a look, and realized that I missed out the date the Strogg attacked in the story section. I'll try to find it and edit the page.

Edit: Okay, added. Apparantly we have 52 years before the Strogg attack .

[Ghastly]

Oh, there are a few things that need some discussion.

Medics, while possibly the most useful class in a group, are almost useless in single player. We balanced out their uselessness for competitive game modes like Deathmatch, LMS and even the team game modes by allowing them to use Strogg Health Stations. From a gameplay standpoint, it should really change things, especially in LMS where you can't really heal. Because it is so story-unfriendly, it -WILL NOT- work in single player, cooperative or survival. Still, that doesn't really fix the problem it has in single player, without anyone else to heal. One idea is an alternate fire mode for the medic tool that heals 25 health for the medic, though that might prove overbalanced, as a player could just sit in one place and heal himself. One solution, that is currently implemented to test, is that Medics start with an Adrenaline powerup, which is stored in the inventory and, when activated, restores the player to full health.

Second, Techs in competitive game modes, such as Deathmatch, can be very powerful. With the ability to manipulate it's surroundings (hotwire doors, operate machinery, etc.), it opens up several possibilities for a player to gain an advantage. Unfortunately, if a Tech, for example, opens a door that'll never close, it allows other classes to take away that advantage fairly quickly. On the flip side of things, if that aforementioned door closes, and only a Tech can open it, it would make Possession and Team Possession (and LMS to a lesser degree) very difficult for non-Techs. My opinion is that doors and similar things that could be abused in Possession should be activated permanantly, and things that wouldn't affect that (lights, coolant leaks, etc.) should be temporary. what do you all think?

[FuzzballFox]

After reading through the topic, I'm quite looking forward to this!

But a question...You say weapons, but will this include the Black Matter Gun?
I hope so...<3

[Ghastly]

Yes, but unfortunately it can't suck targets in because of engine limitations. It still is very powerful, though, and it does a good 500 damage, when the projectile explodes.

There's a full list of weapons, powerups and monsters on the wiki page Toenail made.

[FuzzballFox]

Shame about the lack of suction, but like you said- engine limitations..
Unless there is some hacky way around, but I think others have been after the same effect a few times before so I doubt anything can be done yet..

[Ghastly]

Demo is released: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ULBCCGV5. (I was only able to put it on Megaupload, ZShare locked up. I'd be grateful if someone could put it on another site)

Since this is somewhat of a beta, it could have a few bugs. One of which, in the latest (G)ZDoom, the menu graphics aren't working. Several sprites are going to be replaced, like the flare and teleportfog, as well. It, also, doesn't have a new status bar, yet. I recommend you play it in GZDoom, so you can use the machinegun's and blaster's flashlight (Altfire. The machinegun's stays on, so you can shoot, as well) and flares.

[Remmirath]

Don't worry about putting it on another site...i'll take care of it...
I can put it on MediaFire...and on my profile it will never expire (i think)...

EDIT: Did a speedrun through the first map...and i watched some of the weapons sprites...some of them are too small compared to others...IE the blaster and the grenade launcher are too much small compared to the shotgun or the machinegun, so try to resize them...
Otherwise gameplay is pretty good...love those Q2 textures...

[Enjay]

This is a pretty impressive mod. It felt very Quakey. The look of the level was very much in keeping with how the original Q2 levels looked and the gameplay was good too but with the advantages of Doom's gameplay added into the mix.

With the latest GZdoom SVN (r131) and the latest Zdoom (r1069) the game crashes pretty horribly for me shortly after starting the map. However, it works well enough with the last official release of GZdoom. There is an error message at the console about a "floatingtactical" missing frames in all versions.

My major beef with it, however (and this may have been covered elsewhere in the thread) why oh why the low res sprites? Some of them look like stick figures whilst others are horribly blurry. Were these captured from a model viewing program? If so, why didn't you just use bigger images and scale them down to the size you wanted in (G)Zdoom? To me it's the only thing that really detracts from the mod.

[Ghastly]

Ah, the floating tactical was because I deleted the decoration's sprites because I thought it wasn't being used in the map itself. Apparanly, I was wrong XD.

The low-res sprites were from trying to keep the Doom feel. Several of the monsters looked worse, if you can believe that, when they were higher-res. The enforcer and gunner were re-ripped in the Q2 model viewer's OpenGL mode since the original rips looked terrible, and didn't mesh well with the Q4 monsters. I didn't do that with the other monsters, originally, because the OpenGL mode makes the sprites too dark, and I had to increase the contrast by 30% on all frames. I thought the Gunner and Enforcer were the only two monsters that looked bad enough to be worth that.

If you think it would help, I could OpenGL-rip the Guards.

[DBThanatos]

... or you could use my rips...

[Enjay]

Problem is, it doesn't keep the Doom feel - and it never will. The Quake 2 monsters don't look like Doom ones at all. For a start, the Quake2 monsters are relatively normally proportioned. The Doom sprites, especially obvious with the humanoids, are relatively short and wide. This squat shape makes their legs etc wide enough to have enough detail on them to look OK. The Quake2 enemies are, by comparison, tall and thin (ie normal). If you shrink them down to Doom height, they end up very skinny, with limbs sometimes only a pixel or two wide. This, combined with the technique of reducing their size in a paint program makes some of them look very spindly, grainy, lacking in detail and, simply, not very good. It's a real shame and a big contrast to the quality of the rest of the mod.

[hnsolo77]

if i find the time i might make a map for this as well, i love Quake with the Strogg storyline

and somewhere in my head there is the idea that the Demons from hell met the strogg on some occasion IE why there is demons with tech parts, since the strogg uses teleporters they were bound to come across hell at some point...

that and the fact that the BFG10K pretty much puts it in the same universe as doom as far as i am concerned

[Ghastly]

@Enjay: I see your point. Which monsters, exactly did you feel needed work (I know, the Guards definately)? I'll make them higher-res than they are now and rip them in OpenGL, so there's a better color gradient. It's about 2 hours worth of work per-monster, though, from my experience with the Enforcer and Gunner (counting increasing contrast).

Also, can track down exactly what's causing that crash? I've been getting it in the second visit to the main room, when the repair bots are released.

@HnSolo: Cool! Just say when you're able, and I'll PM you the resource. I, also, was going to make a small sub-mod, where the player(s) can pick a Strogg as a class and play through regular levels, with all ammo and weapons removed (ammo regenerates and you go through with the weapons you start with ). I'd definately want to play as the Berserker Tank.

@Morpheus: I think I ripped the blaster and grenade launcher at a different resolution, and that's why they're smaller. I never really noticed a problem, though, so I'll get to that when I can.

[Enjay]

It's late, so I'll look at which enemies I think look the worst tomorrow but I'm sure you can work it out yourself. I know it will be a real pain in the neck to have to re do them but, IMO, it will be worth it.

as for the crash, I don't know what's causing it myself, but I made a debug build of Zdoom and got it to crash and have posted the results as a bug report.

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 5&p=351478

[edit] Looks like Graf was able to make sense of the crash report and I think I've pinpointed the bit of ACS that causes the problem.[/edit]

[Ghastly]

Okay, I've re-ripped the Light Guard. Here's the before and after:


I messed up with the brightness/contrast increase with the standing and walking frames, so I might have to rip those again :/.

By the way, we'd like to get anyone who can to make muzzle flashes for the monsters (the hitscan monsters, at least). Just post if you're interested, and I'll send the pack. Right now, the hitscan monsters just look like they're pointing the gun.

Edit: Oh, the maps are meant to be in units (kind of like sub-episodes, where the maps are directly related to one another and have a single objective). The units should be at least 2 or 3 maps, and almost directly linked (for example, the end of U1M2 will be a door that you're on the other side of at the start of U1M3). If you can't or don't want to do more than one map, try to make as easy as possible for people trying to continue the unit.

Well, this should be interesting, coordinating maps like this through two seperate Doom communities .