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Please note before loading it that I've totally screwed up on offsets (will be fixed in the first proper release, somehow got the impression it was relative instead of absolute), several weapons are commented out because I'm still getting different errors with them or haven't even filled them in enough to get errors, and I've set the weapon speeds to the minimum to just get the proportions the way I want (I plan on adding 1 tic to every frame until it looks right for the next release). This is mainly to commemorate yesterday being Conan creator Robert E Howard's birthday, and also let people with WAD editors see what I'm up to.
Players... Crom laughs at you!
What is a keyboard compared to the hand that wields it?
Solve the riddle of steel!
Crush your enemies!
See them driven before you!
And hear the lamentations of their women!
Do you want to live forever?
Conan the Barbarian will be a cross-platform game/mod that replaces weapons and enemies to serve as a base for optional levels, all with kind of an early 90s RPG feel. Canon (should anyone here care) will be an open-ended mix of the original Howard stories, the movies, and the Dark Horse comic series. I have two characters mostly done (Conan, and Subotai the archer), another almost ready to implement (Malak the thief), and a caster character planned out (Akiro the wizard).
Conan has mostly standard Doomguy stats (technically 99 health with a stamina enhancement bumping it back to 100), starts with fists and a long sword, and can use any physical weapon in the game. Conan also has a chance of going into an invigorating rage when injured. Subotai has 80 health, is a little shorter, but is a harder to hit target (radius 14, RadiusDamageFactor 0.85), is overall more lighter, quicker, and agile (speed 1.1, gravity 0.9, Player.JumpZ 8.8), and sneakier (there's no chance for the alert monsters code to pop up when moving about, will be increased to almost no chance when Malak is included). He starts with fists, a bow, and a Hyrkanian sword; but can't use some of the heaver swords.
Malak will have 60 health, be a smaller and nimble target (14 radius, RadiusDamage factor 0.85), is even lighter, quicker, and more agile than Subotai (speed 1.25, gravity 0.8, Player.JumpZ 9), and sneakier (there's no chance for the sneak script to alert nearby monsters). He'll won't be able to use most of the two-handed weapons. Akiro will have 50 health, be a slightly smaller target (15 radius), but nowhere near as spry as Conan or Subotai (speed 0.9, Player.JumpZ 6.4). His light frame (gravity 0.9) actually becomes a hindrance where it is otherwise a boon for Subotai. He does have more resistance to magical explosions however (RadiusDamageFactor 0.70), and gains a variety of spells (which will not require any sort of "mana" ammo, but will be balanced by having to enter a code for each code).
Weapons have a chance for critical hits and for breaking. Maximum damage and the number of tics in the attack animation will be tied together, but minimum damage, range, critical chance, and breaking chance all vary regardless of speed. I'm still balancing this, though part of the problem is that I just need to outright replace all the enemies.
Weapons I've implemented or am working on:
Spoiler:
*Fists - The only weapons Conan and Subotai can't break. Primary fire includes a quick left jab, secondary fire does a powerful upper cut.
*Staff - Originally meant for Akiro, Conan and Subotai can pick up their own staff and not look like old men doing so (though they might actually break it)
**One-handed blades
*Dagger - Not as much damage as the short sword, but can be thrown (though not as well as the throwing dagger).
*Short Sword - A sickle sword modeled after the ancient Kopis or Falcata.
*Long Sword - A standard arming sword.
**Two-handed swords
*Hyrkanian Sword - Probably the best combination of speed and damage, with excellent critical chance and decent range, the Hyrkanian sword is also one of the most fragile weapons. The finesse required to use this weapon without snapping it on the first swing prevents Conan from dealing any additional damage during a rage.
*Stygian Sword - This sorcererous sword is soul sucking, but also comparatively weak and fragile.
*Atlantean Sword - This weapon is almost indestructible, deals plenty of damage, has good range, and isn't too slow.
**Ranged weapons
*Long bow - Primary fire can be held down for rapid shots, secondary fire does a slower aimed shot, and it's possible to zoom. If zooming or aiming for too long, the archer's arm starts to shake and their accuracy and range decreases.
*Hyrkanian recurve bow - Similar to the long bow, but with lower highs and higher lows (i.e. doesn't zoom as far or aim as accurately, but the quality of either doesn't degrade over time as with the Longbow).
*Throwing knives
*Javelins
**Blunt weapons: These will all have a great deal more knockback than other weapons, and I'll try to figure out how to get these to stun enemies as well (at least on critical hits).
*Mace - Will have more of a stun effect than the other blunt weapons.
*Flail - Got the graphics ready, just don't know what sort of special attacks it may or may not have.
*Warhammer - Aside from the usual massive damage, there'll be a small chance of getting a keycard for a few seconds with each hit (see the lockpicks, the idea being you beat the lock off certain doors). As with the battleaxe, may be throwable or wielded one-handed, but until I get either option worked in, this will be a Conan only weapon.
**Axes - These will be pretty vicious when it comes to damage, but are less versatile than swords.
*Pole Axe - The only axe with a secondary fire, the pole axe is light enough to whip around and smack someone with the back end of it with the secondary fire (which may be held down to jab them with the end of the pole). Modeled after some bronze age axes I've seen, rather than late medieval European halberds and such.
*Battleaxe - May be throwable, or (if I can get the graphics done), Conan will be able to use this one handed (either to get increased speed at the cost of reduced damage, or perhaps using a shield if I get those graphics worked out). Until I work in either option, Conan's the only character using this weapon.
**Polearms - These will have some good reach, but not deal as much damage.
*(Stygian) Sickle - Another life draining weapon, I'm going to see if I can do something like make the player temporarily invulnerable if they "kill" a ghost boss with it.
*Trident - Probably going to borrow Heretic's Ophidians as serpent men guards and have them drop these.
*Spear - Planned, got most of the graphics done, thanks to le_L. May be thrown, but not as well as the javelin.
**Utility items: Won't deal damage, but will help out in a variety of ways.
*Food - Equivalent to 4 stimpacks that the player can carry wherever they want. I didn't want it to be a complete healing item, just enough to get through tough spots and kinda cover me or other map makers if I/they forget to put in enough health (or if a level just wouldn't have any healing items lying around for no reason). May include food fight options.
*Torch - Not an inventory item because I don't want the player running around swinging a two handed weapon while also carrying a torch (it's actually kind of ridiculous enough that player characters operate switches and doors while carrying two handed weapons). Will be useless in regular Zdoom, since it's going to need ambient lightning to work.
*Lockpicks (planned, placeholder graphics done) - Only usable by Subotai. The lockpicks will have a random chance each use of giving a particular keycard (not skull key). Keycards placed in levels will be replaced with skull keys, and player possessed keycards will be invisible (allowing the creation of pickable doors). May also add a slightly less effective pry-bar for Conan or Subotai that does the same thing (but will save the player the risk of breaking their warhammer).
Pics (All taken in the first map of Rylaheh.WAD)
Spoiler:
Staff and poleaxe (the poleaxe's secondary attack is the same as the staff):
Mace and Warhammer:
Heavy hammer, Stygian sword, and Atlantean Sword (which Subotai can't use)
Subotai's starting weapons (though Conan can also use them), the Bow (secondary fire zooms, for a bit), and Hyrkanian sword:
Work so far and plans
Spoiler:
Done:
*Decorate code for the player classes
*Sneak checks (Subotai being exempt as the "rogue" character)
*Graphics for all weapons except a few pickups
*Formula to instantly sort out powerstrength and critical hits, weapon breakage, some animations, template for current rebalancing and most future weapons
Doing:
*Recoding and rebalancing weapons to using a template that just requires me to plug in animations and damage rendered as a dice pool (sort of)
Will do:
*Sprites (or at least placeholders) and coding for spells, characters, and enemies
*Enemies, ranging from cultists, priests, and bandits; to things that should not be
*A hub based on The Tower of the Elephant, and eventually a hub for the City of Thieves and Shadizar; then some more hubs set in Shem and Stygia.
*Ensure something like compatibility with vanilla Doom-engine games, including Freedoom
*Finish STBARINFO, and a slightly obtrusive vertical status bar (to give the game a slightly early 90s RPG feel).
*Finish Akiro the wizard's spells and uncomment his coding
May do:
*Dialogue in the town, perhaps buying stuff in shops, from gear to drinks for wenches (maybe not if female characters are included).
*ACS scripting for day/night cycles (every hour or so).
*A dungeon and cavern level in the hub as well, and maybe a desert level between the town and the ziggurat of a desert.
*Other hubs set in Nemedia or Aquilonia (fusion of medieval and Roman styles), somewhere between Hyrkania and Khitai (Asian-themed), somewhere between Vanaheim and Asgard (Vikings, and ice giants, and bears, oh my!), and maybe Mayapan (Mesoamerican-themed); with an intermission screen based on a map of the Hyborean age.
*Horses, perhaps with Turan hub (Mongolian-themed steppes) on the way to Hyrkania and Khitai.
*Proper skins for each character: I saw that there's supposed to be a Conan reskin of the Hexen fighter for KMod, but I haven't been able to find it. I'll resize a Daggerfall bandit for Subotai sometime, and if I have time, I may go and attach Lo Wang's head onto a Daggerfall mage bandit's body (though that will be and will take a while).
*Easter eggs referencing other Howard characters and stories, other Schwarzenegger movies, and maybe "rival" fantasy franchises, but without breaking the fourth wall, overturning canon, or otherwise assaulting suspension of disbelief.
More characters I'd like to work on:
*Belit, Red Sonja, and/or Valeria: Would need female arm graphics, and those are rather lacking. Valeria and Belit's death animations might spawn a valkyrie-like bot (this would make plenty of sense in co-op, but would be cheating in multiplayer). Belit would start with a sickle-sword, Red Sonja with a Hyrkanian sword, and Valeria with an arming sword; each with a bow as well. Probably has stats comparable to Subotai's. In terms of gameplay, there's no real need to include more than one of these characters; though they could graphically simply be hair palette swaps. Probably going to raid the Daggerfall bandits for skins.
*Hadrathus, priest of Asura: A less offensive character than Akiro, would start off with the ability to make himself invisible instead of the ability to drain life.
*Kalanthes, priest of Ibis: A more cleric-y character than Akiro, I'd have to come up with some new graphics (darker skin, no tattoos; maybe blue robes). Would start with some different spells (less offensive ones), wouldn't be able to use the Scrolls of Skelos, but would be able to swing a mace. Probably gets some spell where he throws a pinch of powder that royally screws up spirits ("oh, I'm sorry, was that supposed to be a boss fight?"), may code in a wand/scepter/staff that most of the casters can use but Kalanthes starts with.
*Pelias the wizard: Starts off with the ability to raise dead enemies temporarily instead of the ability to heal, otherwise similar to Akiro (but maybe won't be able to use Kalanthes's wand because Ibis just ain't down with that kind of creepy).
*Zula: As with Belit, Red Sonja, or Valeria, would need lots of new graphics. Her stats (only a touch weaker and a touch faster than Conan), weapons, and graphics would be wholly different from the other female characters, and would be nice to include in addition to one of the above three. Would start with a unique staff (featuring a sharpened point that can jab for additional damage), that could be thrown (and recovered) as a javelin. Might also need to work on spear graphics for all the fighter characters.
Monsters and monster related things I'm considering:
These will vary depending on what levels I get made. At the very least, I'll have to replace the default enemies to rebalance the game.
*From Strife: Peasant, Begger. The Loremaster might work as some sort of evil wizard if the mechanical bit are changed to fleshy tentacles.
*From Doom: Imp (replacing tougher enemies while the regular placements will no longer have fireballs), Demon/Spectre, Baron of Hell/Hell Knight (replacing tougher enemies), Archvile (replacing the Cyberdemon or Spiderdemon). Maybe the Cacodemon, Pain elemental, and Lost Soul. Perhaps Doom64 variations; as well as the Mother Demon and Nightmare Imp.
*From Heretic: Ophidian (with ranged attacks occuring less often to deal with increased melee combat), D'Sparil (with some reduced power and without the Chaos monster, to compensate for the mostly melee combat), gargoyle/fire gargoyles (replacing tougher enemies due to mostly melee combat), Disciple of D'Sparil
*From Hexen: Afrit (replacing tougher enemies), Heresiarch (replacing Korax), Menelkir, Traductus, Zedek, Stalker and Stalker Boss, Reivers (replacing tougher enemies), Wyvern
*From Shadow Warrior: The Ripper (ape monster), Coolie Ghost, Serpent God, Guardian.
*From Blood: Civilian, Cerberus, Hellhound, Tchernobog (maybe), Skull, Beast, Spider
*From Dark Forces: Gamorrean Guard, Kell Dragon, Dianoga
*From Daggerfall: various NPCs, bandits
*From Realm667: There's lots and lots of stuff here, but I'm not gonna dump everything in there and call it a day. At least Undead Hunter, Skeleton, Butcher, Crimson Disciple, Cultist, Juggernaut, Deep One (the Hyborian age was always part of the broader Cthulhu Mythos), Snake Imp, Pustule... May have the Lost Soul use the Phantasm reskin, and have the Baron of Hell randomly use the Lost Soul attack.
*The Shambler from Quake is really just a Gnoph-Keh missing a horn and two extra legs/arms. Would probably use the Qdoom one, since the (awesome) model one HorrorMovieGuy's working on would stick out like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Miss America swimsuit contest.
*Might go through Powerslave for some enemies, and maybe that serpent staff, but only a couple of things.
*Some boss monsters will grant health boosts when defeated (instead of working out a proper RPG level advancement), though the regular maps this won't happen more than 9 times (since Conan already starts off with one health boost to make his melee attacks stronger than Subotai's).
*IMX's Green swamp zombie wouldn't be out of place and is pretty cool.
Credits and thank you's:
Spoiler:
Corporate:
*Id Software
*The Robert E Howard estate, Universal Pictures, Dark Horse Comics, Mongoose Publishing, and other copyright holders in any way affiliated with Conan the Barbarian
*3d Realms Software
*Bethesda Software
*Capstone Software
*Raven Software
*Rogue Entertainment
*Arkane Studios
*Lion Entertainment and Strategic Designs
*Whatever company made the bootleg game TAO (the one that "borrowed" a number of graphics from the above companies, not the NES one with the Wikipedia article).
Non-corporate:
*Randy Heit, Graf Zahl, and anyone else responsible for updating and maintaining Zdoom/GZdoom and the Zdoom Wiki
*Vaecrius, edward850, Chronoseth, and TheMightyHeracross for help with coding questions
*Crudux Cruo (nee doomer1), Virtue, and Captain J for a variety of graphical stuff at the resource thread, particularly CC's dagger and kicking, and Virtue's and Cap J's recolorings
*TheMightyHeracross for the spellbook pickup coding and the cooldown mechanic for magic
*Eriance for the Vorpal blade (now the Stygian sword)
*le_L for this spearhead
*Donaldduck for the widescreen friendly full bow
*Korax Team and anyone involved in KArena for a variety of graphics
*NeoWorm for a variety of graphics
*Diodeus for rips from various games
*Realm667 and affiliates for a variety of graphics
*TorridGristle for the Kukri (now the sickle sword)
*Ravage for the crossbow graphics
*The author of the Conan the Barbarian Midi (the website I found them on didn't list the author nor claimed to be them)
*Alex Anlicker on Flickr for the cheese pic
*jspatchwork on Flickr for the lamb shank pic
*Abhijit Tembhekar on Flickr for the apple pic
*User:Fritzs at Wikipedia/Wikimedia for the bread pic
*User:Securiger at Wikipedia/Wikimedia for the Kukri pic
*Vincent N. Darlage for various maps
*Thulsa of Xoth.net for the Tower of the Elephant adventure and for hosting Darlage's maps
*Burnett's Vodka, for getting me through the Christmas season in retail
And anti-thanks to:
*Steam, Running with Scissors, and 3d Realms for their games on the Steam Winter sale delaying this further
*Nikki Haley for ruining my chances of getting affordable health insurance
Last edited by ThomsonI on Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:17 am, edited 6 times in total.
Like like like like it!! good way to go back into hexen and maybe heretic
try to do a well balance with all those weapons nobody want to have 30 swords and hammers and feel they do the same, for the rest just waiting to see what crazy stuff may add on future
Might wanna spoiler-ise those lists.
But this looks really fun to play!
Also, if you have page turning frames for the spellbook, you can use the multiple altfire system like the demo I have, for an even better spellbook system.
I did try to spoiler the lists, but it capped at 5 spoilers for some reason (rearranged things now that I've had some sleep). Unfortunately, I don't have page turning frames.
Mav3rick wrote:Like like like like it!! good way to go back into hexen and maybe heretic
try to do a well balance with all those weapons nobody want to have 30 swords and hammers and feel they do the same, for the rest just waiting to see what crazy stuff may add on future
I will be making it compatible with Hexen and Heretic eventually, just starting with Doom because that's what I'm most familiar with
I'm trying to give the weapons a diversity of effects. For example, the Stygian sword has the same crit chance, range, and speed as the Atlantean sword, but it deals half as much damage, is tied with the Hyrkanian sword as the flimsiest weapon in the game, and sucks life from targets. Since the swords were put in first, they're the closest to being balanced.
Some of those effects won't work until I start replacing the enemies, which I'm going to have to start doing more work on. I'm planning on the warhammer to have a pretty vicious knockback compared to the mace, but the mace will hopefully have a stun effect on living enemies. The blunt weapons already have a lower crit chance compared to the edged weapons, but I'm working on making them more effective against undead and armored targets.
It appears that this mod of yours will indeed be a lot of fun and offer a huge amount of replayability, given the differences between the various characters.
I have a question however: Is the "breaking" system going to work similarly to that in Witchaven? I mean, after a certain number of uses (or a very unfortunate check), the weapon breaks and becomes useless, so it needs to be replaced later on by another weapon either found laying somewhere or dropped by an enemy?
It appears that this mod of yours will indeed be a lot of fun and offer a huge amount of replayability, given the differences between the various characters.
I have a question however: Is the "breaking" system going to work similarly to that in Witchaven? I mean, after a certain number of uses (or a very unfortunate check), the weapon breaks and becomes useless, so it needs to be replaced later on by another weapon either found laying somewhere or dropped by an enemy?
It certainly looks that way given how he described it. Hopefully replacement weapons are common if weapon breakage is as common as this sounds. Given there's also so many weapons, it may be a good idea to limit the number of weapon slots you get, six weapons at once sounds about right, not counting your fists of course, and you can swap out weapons with ones dropped by enemies using a manual pickup system as seen in Hideous Destructor. This would also introduce a bit of thought to what weapons you're carrying. Do I carry this Stabby Rapier of Stabbing +2 which pokes eyes out with lightning speed but breaks if you breathe on it incorrectly, or this Sword of Ultimate Deathing +1, which is also cool but it's kinda slow although it's probably never gonna break unless I hit a solid adamantium wall with it? Decisions, decisions.
At the moment, weapon breakage is a double A_Jump check, so the worst chances still ultimately still close to 1 in some thousands (again, still balancing them, but the nigh-indestructable Atlantean sword has a 1/65025 chance of breaking, merely so that there is a chance of it breaking, even if it's never going to happen). It's not meant so much as an ammunition replacement as an additional balancing point, handled more or less the way my friends and I do "critical failures" in D&D (rolling a natural 1 doesn't automatically mean your weapon breaks, there's an additional check to see if bad stuff happens and then a check to see how bad the bad stuff is). I've been toying around with the idea of having them replaced with a broken version the first time a break check happens (with decreased damage and range), but I'll have to fiddle with the graphics some more (otherwise it's simple enough to implement, shove in "A_GiveInventory("brokenweapon")" before it takes away the original).
Right now, the limit on weapons is only class based. Part of the justification for the number of weapons was that the player wouldn't be stuck running around with their fists. In time (once I get the base of this more fleshed out, or start looking for people to recruit after I've figured out what my strengths and weaknesses are*), I may look at having 4 weapon slots or so (that could actually fill up one side of the vertical status bar quite nicely).
*(Doing this not just because I want it done, but because I haven't done any modding in almost a decade and need to learn and re-learn this stuff).
So it is indeed a very unfortunate check. It seems more fair that way, personally I found the system on Witchaven to be rather annoying, as a form of "ammunition", in this case it seems like it is more fitting for the game. Two things you might consider, if I may suggest them: 1) Having perhaps Light quick and Heavy slow attacks on each weapon (which appears to me is already what you have intended), and letting the chance for breaking depend on the use you give the weapon; 2) The idea of having a broken weapon leftover sounds pretty neat, if you opt for that one, maybe consider having an item that allows you to repair your weapon, rather than having to find a new one, or having certain "decorations" in the world that allow this (Such as anvils or forges).
You mean 4 weapon slots, counting the fists or fists in a different slot?
And despite not having modded in the better part of a decade, it still seems to me that you're quite skilled on your trade. I hope and wish your project the best of luck, it seems like it is going to make for pretty awesome and interesting gameplay.
I'd use a hybrid of the two systems: leave the breakage chance where it is right now, but instead of flatout breaking the weapon, take a durability point (out of 10 or more depending on the weapon quality).
If I do weapon slots, it'll be 4 besides the fists. And breakage may be in more than one stage (the Atlantean sword having to go though a few breaks before being useless, the bow pretty much snapping right there). I already have primary and secondary attacks for the bow and swords (slash and stab), but haven't done any for battle axe, heavy axe, or blunt weapons (been kinda debating about it, but I guess fast/weak/sturdy and slow/powerful/risky).
The anvil and forge idea sounds cool and appropriate (Conan's dad was a blacksmith), I'll try to work it out once I finish the weapons. Maybe require the player to pick up metal ingots before hand.
