Wirehead Studios

So you've downloaded and played .99f, and you've also read the manual we hope.  Now you're ready to tell us what you think.  If you have a bug, please report that on the bug reports forum.  If you have an opinion you'd like to share, do so here.  Love it?  Hate it?  We want to know why.  We do respond to feedback, in the form of explanation and description, so if you're wondering "why did you do X" we'll answer your questions.  We do listen to all suggestions, though some will get treated like a skeet target.  Some suggestions might actually make it into the game.  Your feedback helps us improve things, and is a general indicator of whether or not we're doing a good job.  So squawk up!  We want to hear what you think!

I haven't played it yet, but I noticed the speed on mortars was reduced a lot, in addition to a reduction of blast radius. I don't remember the mortar being particularly overpowered given it's falling arc and slow speed; was it in need of such a drastic change?

Slow speed? I think you might need to find a backup of .99e or something, because it was (and still is) the fastest rocket-type projectile in the game.

The projectile's speed, damage, and the weapon's refire rate were all reduced because it was nearly impossible to combat in most situations. Regardless of what anybody says, you can dodge a Slipgate or Doom rocket at the right range if you know what you're doing. You simply could not dodge Earth's mortar shell's, and more often than not, barely missing was just as good as a direct hit, since they could be launched and hit so quickly.

Aye, at medium range the mortar was basically instant-hit, and at long range it was almost as bad.  It's still faster than even a Q1 rocket, but at long range it takes some skill to nail someone.  Medium to close range it's not really much different than the other rocket launchers now, except it's still got quite a concussive radius and you can still land those bombs in hard to reach places.  We only slowed it down a bit, we didn't change the flight arc.

Not a whole lot of feedback to give, but I would like to give kudos to the team for the excellent work they did!

*eagerly anticipates the next version, with axe, knife, and dualgat animations*

I like new earth armor shards, they work as shards not as "yellow" armor in 5 pieces.
 And i was wondering what do you thing about makeing ranger arena red and blue skins selectable  like sarge/arena  ?

Gat's with no laser lights looks strange  O_o

... humm... this is not 'directly' related to 99f feedback, but rather one or two suggestions: the Earth class could use more weapon models similar to Wolfenstein? If they're supposed to be re-modeled anyway, the MP-40 and the Gats are the main things i had in mind - just like RtCW both (almost).

Also, the weapon selection icons, when you mouse-cycle... i know these are mostly done in a identifiable manner, but making them further specific (like the class-HUDs :D ) would be an improvement. Specifically, i was thinking:

 - Gladiators: the base Q3A class doesn't need any change obviously.
 - Slipgaters:  could the icons be turned into something not unicolor, but rather, brown with little yellows - in essence, like in Q1 HUD, but adapted to easy eye recognition and to a square icon (of course).
 - Strogg Troopers: these are the easiest to envision whats wanted. Remember those icons at bottom screen when you cycled items (if i remember correctly)? Those were even a square already! Just need to make new, high resolution versions of those for this class!
 - Earth Soldiers: for this class, i though in using (again, fitting a square icon, like you have already in place for all classes) the weapon models 2D unicolor-shade as icons for selection, much like Soldier Of Fortune II, problably using dark brown with white outline. The RtCW ones let you "see the weapon" drawing, but SoF II ones are just the "shadow" of it, wich i think would fit.
 - DooM Warriors: for last DooMers... for these guys i don't have a clear vision of what exactly would be appropriate/fitting, but i guess you could go with the trend of using the old game's HUD as base inspiration. Since DooM(s) don't portray the weapons but rather the slot number on the HUD, i was thinking maybe using a mix of the 2D pickups in-game with a color pallete of greys, reds, some whites where necessary.

... i don't have good drawing skills to really show what i have in mind, but i assume what i just writed is a good start...  :rules: ...

Who said anything about the Earth weapons getting remodeled?  And seriously, wtf is wrong with the models we have?  Last I checked our MP-40 looks a hell of a lot better than the RTCW one.  Ever see a real MP-40?  That's what ours looks like.  As for the Gat, it's not a Venom gun.  This is not RTCW, nor is it based on RTCW, it's based on Wolfenstein 3D (including the Mac version weapons) with a bit of artistic license on our part.  If you really want to play with RTCW weapons that bad, play RTCW.

You did read the part where it says "beta" on Gen's version number right?  The mod is far from complete, and piddly nitpicky stuff like this tends to take a backseat to more important things, like making sure the guns you're trying to select actually work.  We'll get around to the menus and HUDS and icons at some point in the future.  Right now at least we have some kind of icon so you don't have to play complete guesswork as to what you're using.[/color]

I'd like to add to that; our HUDs as they're included in the mod are basically placeholders. Eventually we'll get HUDs that resemble the original game displays more closely.

... hey Phoenix, i didn't write that to offend anyone... and about the HUDs, i really like them like they are now :) (always use big HUDs BTW ;) ) ...

Anyone remenber the problem we had where when using the supernailgun, it would swop to the normal nailgun to fire the final nail, before going to next weapon? Sorry, but I think we have this again guys. :ownage:

Yes, I know.  I know what caused it, and it's been fixed already.  Id used server snapshot info for out of ammo checks instead of using predicted ammo amounts.  That's fine until you introduce lag, and unfortunately nobody caught this before .99f was released.  Normal Q3 doesn't have this problem because all of Arena's weapons use one ammo type.

Hey,

How come s_ambient 0/cg_nochatbeep 1 dosen't work?

Also does r_swapinterval work with GenArena?

Thx. :)

r_swapinterval works, that's vsync.  I've not modified code associated with the other variables, so I'm not sure.  I'll have to try them out.

I think I spotted a problem again in the team deathmatch section of the Euro game yesterday.

We had about 4 players on each team, can't remember who, but Alucard and I were both on red, but he appeared to me as blue.  Anybody else see any colour changes?  

Apart from that I really enjoyed the game. I played until I got Dizzy!

Uh oh, turncoat bug back? :(

I did not notice this yesterday, any screenshots?

yeah i noticed it as well, i was on Tab's Team yet he kept trying to chop me up with the chainsaw

LOL. Bane, that wasn't due to the turncloack bug mate :]
I knew you were on my team but I also knew we were going to load a new map within a few seconds, so I was keeping you from going anywhere by sawing you :]

No, it wasn't turncloak bug.  Friendly Fire was on for a portion of the game.  I got nailed by my own team several times until it was turned off.  *grumbles*

... on a unrelated note, i think FF should be always ON on team games (especially delicious CTF). It encourages players to take a second to think if they should shoot that rocket or not - wich might hit a teammate, and thus losing some edge in an hypotethical battle (for the flag?); it should discourage the projectile spam as well. Of course, hitting a teammate *is* a reality, but c'mon... and about teamkillers... i believe GEN servers have enough of Code Of Conduct to look for that... or admn warnings ;) ...

Personally, I hate getting fragged by my own team.  I also don't like having to babysit a server because one jackass thinks it's funny to start chainsawing his team mates in the back.  I had my fill of team killers when I still played Counter-Strike.  Small, organized, 2 or 3 player TDM's it may be reasonable, but for pubs team damage is not something I'd want enabled by default.

Gen is hectic, so like I and Pho said, FF is cool for up to 3v3 tdm. In CTF it's always a mess unless you're playing with trained teams.

I find FF better for team games, it means all the people who would usually shoot rockets aimlessly have to think a little bit more.

saying that though i must have roasted most people on saturday, when i was earth, so sorry guys.

but really FF makes for a more tactical game, and personally i think it would be cool to have most TDM and CTF games with it on.

I don't. Friendly fire is fine in a game like CS, where almost everything is hitscan.

But in Gen, rockets have giant blast radii, grenades bounce everywhere, BFGs can clear a room, and the hitscan weapons do hundreds of points of damage in seconds.

No. Friendly fire is dumb in Gen unless it's a small, small game. In which case it's meerly annoying.

Depending on the game style, I love FF... mostly in a CTF environment where a teamkill could be especially hurtful. Makes one think more when he wants to send out a BFG ball... unless it's one of those punks that don't care.. in which case he'll actually hurt his team more.

But then my opinions don't mean much because I haven't played Gen in about........... wow.. I don't even remember. Pretty sad.. maybe I'll dust it off and try to get some of the already crappy aim back. :)

:rockon: <----even after all this time away, I'm STILL rockin'!

You know what would be awsome for the next release?
Orange blood when the shaft hits someone!
 :ownage:  :ninja:  :wtf:

New particle effects are already planned.  :ninja:

I don't know what Washu is smoking, but lightning in Q1 (GLQuake) surely does NOT produce orange blood. Any perception to this effect is due to the yellow coloration of the screen blending with normal red blood.

Maybe not, Assamite, but new particle effects -- ones that match better to the original games -- are still planned. :doomed:

I beg to differ:


The code says they have different color values.

Wow. I suppose there's an explanation for that aside from "we thought it'd be cool," but... wow.

Is there a different blood splatter color for nails hitting a body, too? Or are those just considered bullets?

What am I smoking? That's harsh man. :(
and take a peek at the screens if you can't understand the code.

(http://www.denken.com/dzone/screenshots/q1shot095.jpg)

(http://www.denken.com/dzone/screenshots/q1shot019.jpg)

Now compare the blood particles with his pic.


(http://www.denken.com/dzone/screenshots/q1shot071.jpg)

pic one looks SLIGHTLY orange. Both two and three look red.

How about reverse friendly fire, where shooting your Teammates damages you instead of them? :evil:

That would work if the blame for teamkills lay totally on the shooter's side. Which it does not. Ever lined up for that perfect rail, only to have your teammate jump in between at the last second?

True, but there is a definate difference if you compare two and three closely, you'll see that one is more orange then the other. Also there is a separate set of code lines for a "TE_LIGHTNINGBLOOD" parameter.

NVM - I cross-referenced blood made by lighnting on a monster with my own blood with its attacks on me. Different color, even despite the colored screen. Lightning blood is orange. I stand corrected.

As far as i rember of my ol q1 days the lightning blood was orange. and i doubt this is very  :offtopic:

It was still red.. but it was a 'orangish red'. Not really a huge issue if you ask me..

Well, BAT has finally tried to update from 99e. It won't install, and gives him an error message. He's using windows 2000, and 99e works fine, as does everything else. I can't remember what the message said (sorry) but is this a know issue?

This belongs on the "Bug Reports" forum really, and we need the error message to do any good.  I'd advise looking through the "Troubleshooting" portion of the manual.  I'd link you to the online copy, but it's still showing the .99e manual.  I think we forgot to update the site!  :wtf:

Heres the error message:

I have no idea what this means. :huh:

I don't know how to fix that, all I know is that Quake 2 gave a friend of mine a similar error, as did the Quake 1 mission packs when I tried to install them on my PC -- we're both running Windows XP, but the error was the same.

You might try using the ZIP version instead of the EXE installer.

means the windows installer crashed at some point, rebooting SHOULD fix it.

Or you had a corrupted installer.  Try redownloading.  If it keeps crashing then try the .zip.  Also, make sure you have administrator priveleges whenever you're doing a program install.

Will do. I'll let you know how it goes. He seems not to keen on Gen at the moment, just got FF11for PC  you see. Ah, the younger generation, FPS are not good enough for them........ :smirk:

FF made me the man I am today.
 :wall:  :sob:  :hat:  :daddy:  :idiot:  :321:

I would also consider re-downloading. Probably got corrupt somehow.

First I've got to get him to shut down FF. At the moment he just swears at me if I even talk to him :offtopic:

I'm thinking that sniper should have some visible muzzle smoke after shot.  
I sometimes ged desperate when Tab kills me many times in row and i cant see from where, specjaly now when all snipers have same damage.  -_-

Especially now? It used to do more damage!
I myself don't have any problems spotting a 'sniper' after a shot; the distinctive sound gives a huge clue in what direction to look, and by considering the possible angles and seeking shelter, one can usually lure the bastard(s) out. And set them on fire. ;]

That said, I wouldn't mind smoke, or even a tracer (although the latter would look unrealistic indeed).

When it had 150 it was almost certain death and i was used to it.
Usualy I im able to spot sniper if i'm not dead and scoreboard , and that was those "moments".
 Surviveing close mortar shot isn't realistic either   :rolleyes:

Within the realm of Q3, it is. How damage works is not really comparable to visual appearance for this kind of thing; it is accepted that a player can survive a rocket blast simply by wearing only a couple of shards of armor, but that does not mean it would be equally acceptable that the rocket-explosions were rendered purple.

I think what were getting at here is that

1. there are now more snipers than any other type of player
2. it's not always easy to spot where the shot came from

to people who can hear and recognise where the shot came from this isn't a problem and can be overcome

however..... to people unaccustomed to sniper rifle sounds (playing ut games makes this a whole lot easier) will find themselves disorientated and easy meat

I personnally think that adding smoke to the rifle would be a bad thing.  as it punishes people who are better, just so people can spot them.

just practice listening for them tell tale sound and make sure it's not you it hits

... dito... last thing we want is to make GEN look like sissy UT2004 Sniper Rifle...

In addition to that, I don't think there are more 'snipers' than other types of players around. In the games I've observed, I've seen more mortar than sniper kills..

Then there's the actual way the sniper rifle works. Like the mortar, it's a little different from standard Quake-type weapons; unlike the railgun, it is not a hitscan (instant hit) weapon, but an arced-projectile gun. This means it requires extra leading and compensation for the curved flight pattern.
The bullet can rebound from a surface and hit people around corners - which does two things: it makes the gun more powerful, and it would impair the visual aid offered by muzzle smoke etc. One can also hit oneself this way, which is always good for a chuckle.

All in all I think the sniper rifle is less dangerous than its futuristic counterparts. It is more difficult to hit with and the actual effect of 'remaining hidden to the target' is very much dependant on the inabilities of the opponent - something which should, after a few rounds (or at most a few hundred ;) be a thing of the past.

To my knowledge, there are a few reasons that the Earth sniper rifle doesn't have any kind of a trail:

1) The bullet does not travel at sub-light speeds, like rails do. You actually have to lead a moving target, instead of just "point and shoot" like you do with the railguns.
2) As a result of #1, you can actually see the bullet in the air if you look for it.
3) The bullet will fall with gravity over any distance. On smaller or more enclosed maps maps (Fistful of Steel) is isn't much of an issue, but on larger maps (Longest Yard), it forces you to have to aim differently.

And just a personal opinion, I really don't think the rifle needs any kind of a trail on it... because it would look stupid. Doing that would make it too much like the sniper rifles in the Halo series, which is never a good thing.

Edit: Tabun wallhacked my post and got it his in before I could see it coming. Damnit! :D

Absolutely brilliant but... it seems like the slipgate models are the worst out of the lot. They look nothing like the originals. However the models on the website seem to look almost perfect. Why is this? Have you just not put the new models in the game yet? Or did you just put them in badly in the fps view? I am however not so sure about the Thunderbolt gun, it just doesn't look like the original. And also the rocket launcher seems to look a bit thin in gameplay. Have you done the animations for the axe yet because it doesn't seem like it should take you this long. From the demo, the slipgate class seems to be the worst at sticking with the originals. The doom one being the best even though you have made them 3d which is an excellent job. I hope you do fix these things for when the full version is released however far away that will be. Considering I think the slipgate class should be the best one this is very bad for me.

I honestly don't know what weapon models you're looking at -- most of the Slipgate weapons look a lot like their original versions, with some artistic liberties taken on them. Our Slipgate rocket launcher, for example, is simply more rounded than the one in Quake 1. Nothing is spot-on, of course, but they're all very recognizable.

The exceptions? First, the axe. The model in .99f will be replaced in 1.0, and you can see the model that will be there in the gallery.

Second, the shotguns. Once again, the models in .99f will be replaced in 1.0. Again, you can see these in the gallery.

Third, the Shaft. You're right, this one doesn't really look like the Q1 Thunderbolt... I'm personally hoping it gets replaced with a model that looks more like the brown bolt thrower from Q1, with an "open housing" like the Doom plasma rifle... but that's my opinion. I don't make the models.

As for animations, they're being worked on. Slipgate's weapon animations are the simplest out of all the classes that need this work done, but that doesn't mean it's an easy process. It takes time to get them "perfect," and we have no plans of releasing anything but what we see as perfection when 1.0 comes around.

As for the "Slipgate class should be the best one," that's an opinion, and I'm not going to go there.. :ownage:

Er, anyway. The aim is to have the classes accurate to the original games, but on a level playing field. In this realm, Slipgate is very similar to Quake 1. Keep in mind that Quake 1 didn't have things mortar shells, Doom plasma, and Q2 rails flying around. The Slipgate class itself is fine -- it's his environment that makes it seem different. The only issue with Slipgate right now is his jumping, but that will also be fixed in 1.0.

and Tab i meant "Sniper" as a generic term as in Railguns, sniper rifles and the like.

not just the earth class, as yes most people do use the mortar more as that class

Gotcha.
I'll be sure to use my shotguns on you more often! :]

The Thunderbolt model will not be replaced.  A reskinning I would not mind just to make it consistent with the style on the other weapons, but there's not a thing wrong with the model itself.  If you check the geometry and compare it to the original you'd find they are very similar, except where I've added geometric detail, opened up the center to show the electricity, made it two-pronged on the auxiliary poles instead of single-pronged, and lengthened it slightly to accomodate Ranger's arm positions for holding the gun during play.

As for the other guns... .99f does not have some of the newer Slipgate weapons, like the Axe and the two shotguns.  We're also in the process of writing the animation code and animating the models, and repositioning them so they look as close to Q1 as possible.  This is just part of the fact that we're not done with the mod yet.  As for it taking so long to animate stuff, that's a very long and detailed response.  Let's just say writing animation code from scratch and animating multi-part models is not as easy or simple as it may seem.  I've also had to spend a lot of time fixing bugs and making what's already written work right so that people don't get a beta full of bugs, crashes, and otherwise bad gameplay.  Take a look at our change log sometime in the manual, and you'll see what I mean. ;)

Slipgate, right now, is also suffering from bad movement physics.  This is something I need to rewrite because he's a bit sluggish when he jumps.  His air control is good, but it otherwise he feels a bit "off" in that respect.  I can't really comment on someone's opinion of which class should be "the best" other than everyone has their favorite, as well as their "best class".  I've seen people do things with the Slipgate class I couldn't dream of doing.  On the other hand, I have a reputation of being nearly indestructible with the Doom class, whereas some other people who use the Doomer end up being cannon fodder or railbait.  It also changes when you're used to Quakeworld where it's just Quakeguy vs Quakeguy.  Throw in a railgun, plasma rifle, mortar, flamethrower, gatling guns, etc, and it all changes really quick.  The usual tactics no longer work, and you have to adapt to the playing style of your opponents and their respective classes.  That's part of what makes Gen so unique.  You also have to watch who you're playing against.  Some of us are veterans and very tough players, others are fairly green.  Tab is wicked with the Q2 grunt, I'm deadly with the Doomer, BigRob is evil with the Earth Soldier, and Makou is overall a pretty dangerous player.  If you're on the Central server and you see any of us expect a pretty tough fight.  If more than one of us are there, well, expect a very tough fight.  :)

Just remember that Gen right now is still a beta, and we're still working on it.  We have a lot left to do, but we're a long way from where we started.  If you're not satisfied with how Gen's current beta looks, then hold off playing until we're done with 1.0 and everything (minus a few bugs I'm sure) is as perfect and spot-on as it possibly can be.  You'll miss out on a lot of fun games that way though!

Being a q1 veteran.. I see absolutely no problems at all with the weapon models of the Slipgate class. As was stated a few times before, the shotguns are being replaced... hence why I no longer have a problem.

The shaft is amazing... I love the model. Top notch. The skin I see no problem with, so I think it's fine the way it is.

As it is.. there might just be weapon placement issues on a few guns in first person. SNG for example... I think just the guns' barrels showed in q1. I'm not sure how that would look in Gen tho... might be too plain.

I will agree that it doesn't 'feel' right. I've been saying something along those lines since I started playing Gen a long time ago... but I have yet to be able to say why. I just don't know...

Smaller maps in q1? Sure.. but then why does Doom 'feel' fine? Boggles the mind it does... mine anyway...

It's usually veterans of a particular game that tell us the class doesn't feel right. There's a simple answer to it: Generations is not that game. The engine is different, your opponents don't play like the people you played in the originals, there are a few balance tweaks to keep things entertaining, etc.
If I launch up Quake 2 again, and run around -- then play as a Strogg Trooper in Generations, it won't feel the same. But it will be extremely close to it. It's just that the more you've grown into something, and the more 'zoomed in' on a particular experience you are, the bigger the differences start to seem.
I say enjoy the nostalgia - if you don't experience that in Generations, then probably the mod is not for you; only the real thing will suffice to meet the demand in that case.

I still blame the nails. :)

EDIT: As a side note... I was wrong about the SNG... because I own. hah hah... *sigh*... feel free to ignore me now. :rockon:

I didn'tknow that about the earth sniper. I alwaysjust used itas a railgun. explains why I never hit anything.

That goes to show that the lack of a railtrail is also a disadvantage to the shooter ;]

Well having been too late to be a Doomer, i ended up playing quake for hours on end.

the same happened once i got got Quake 2 and quake 3, i lost a significant portion of my time over to these games

they say everybody has an opinion, so here's mine the slipgate class while close to quake 1 will never truely feel like quake world of old, for one thing the models are better, the graphics crisper and your opponents a whole lot different

sure the same class games help recapture the essence of the games, but they will never be the games.

As a mod Gen is pretty darn good, it captures the feel and playing style's of Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake and it's many sequels.  but will never be those games.

the models are close to the originals, and in many cases better the gameplay is fast and furious

and best of all it's free, all you need is a copy of Quake 3 and 1.32 Patch.

Now doesn't that give you a warm fuzzy glow

... i've passed by a crap load of MOD's in several engines/games... UT JailBreak & Q3A Generations still keep up as my absolute favorites :) - After Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, that is, but that's a standalone game made by professsionals gone free at last moment ;P ...

... go GEN  :ownage:  :rules:  :ninja:  :thumb: ...

So basically, it will all be alright in the full version yay. I would hardly say I was complaining. I was just wondering if you were going to keep the models for the full version and luckily you are not, well apart from the ones which are alright anyway. It was really just the axe and shotgun models I was worried about so everything should be alright now. Although I would definitely like to see a different thunderbolt skin.

And Can you believe that everyone hasn't caught on to this mod?
Strange I tell you, strange.

Indeed, well Q3 is getting on a bit,
but it's one of those games you can keep coming back to and enjoy..

I think a lot of people 'did' catch on to the mod but caught it at a much earlier stage with a lot of the features incomplete and without any servers to really play on (convinced a lot of people to try it back in the day).

Tis great to play now, with the regular organised games and a more finished feel overall, but I think the thing that holds back the people I know from playing is things like the memory of empty servers.. and melee weapons that didnt animate seemed to really put people off for some reason..

Still trying to grab more people and get them on servers anyways, such a brilliant mod  <3

Weapon anims probably turned a good bunch of people away... wanting to see the Doomer break open that double barrel and replace the shells... and then not seeing it. Axes, knives, and the like not swinging.

Probably mistaking whatever version it was as being final. I'll be the optimist for once and say 1.0 will bring them back.

You know what?  I love this mod so far.  just because of all the reasons mentioned about it.  bringing all the games together under one roof, the weapons, how you have to adjust your tactics.  it's great.  All the weapons feel a lot like their counter parts, although the combat shotgun from Doom 2(the double barrel) feels a little off.  I'm not complaining though.  Just patiently waiting for the next update.  But so far it's been a blast.

Wow, just wow. You folks have done an AMAZING job on this. I've been a hardcore doomer for many years now:

(http://www3.telus.net/public/daewoo/pics/me_john.jpg)
(I'm the guy who's not the incredibly talented and wealthy coder)

and gotta say your guys are really kicking ass with this mod. So far this has been a real blast offline and I'll probably be stinkin' up your servers real soon. Gonna miss the rocket-rail combo's tho. :-)

One question: Though I have a feeling it would really throw balance out of whack is there any intention to get DOOMey closer to his original speed of about 56mph? :-)

Doing an excellent job guys, PLEASE keep it up. Mods this rocking should be fought tooth and nail for.

Here's a DOOM 2 frag you might get a kick out of, guy was waiting for me to come screamin out of the plasmaroom, I was in the SSG room. :-p

 DivX 680kb:

http://www3.telus.net/public/daewoo/pics/f...unnyfrag1-3.avi (http://www3.telus.net/public/daewoo/pics/funnyfrag1-3.avi)

Everything happened just perfect, I fired just as he did, my shot damaged him bad and shoved him towards the corner, the RG finally fired hitting the corner and gibbing him, the gibs then flew threw the door and into the SSG room. Shoulda got a better cap of it but I don't have time to re-cam etc.

Great feedback!  That video is classic, but I'm not familiar with the HUD, is that Skulltag?  So you got to meet Teh Carmack!  That's awesome.  :thumb:

We won't pump the Doomer's speed up for standard play, owing to Q3's typical environments being non-friendly to the average speed of a classic Doomguy, plus having Doomers running about at 60MPH would kind of make the other classes pointless to play.  He may get a slight boost for our upcoming "oldschool" mode, which will the kid gloves off all the weapons and be completely unfair, but if he starts going void-diving too much we'll have to restrain it.  However, if you want to run around faster it is possible to do with the current build on a local game.  Just load up any map and change the g_speed cvar to something higher than 320.  This will pump the running speed of the bots up too, regardless of class, but you can load up with nothing but Doom bots and get some old-school feel in Q3.  Just watch out on those space maps!

We look forward to seeing you on the servers.  We hold regularly scheduled games Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, 3 PM eastern (9 PM CET) on the European server, and 9 PM eastern on the US server.  We have a server page listed on the main site, and the in-game browser should filter only Gen servers as well, though I prefer The All-seeing Eye myself.  Also, drop by our IRC channel, #wirehead on irc.wireheadstudios.net.  If nobody's playing at the time, you might be able to stir up a game.  Just be aware that we like to keep the games friendly for all players on the Wirehead servers, so we don't tolerate blatant chatkilling, excessive spawnkilling and camping.  Everything within reason of course, if someone's standing on a powerup spawn with a chatbubble up they're abusing our good nature, so that's asking for a fragging.  We just like to make sure everyone has a good time, so our basic rule is "keep it a fun game for everyone."  We save the "no rules" form of play for the yearly QuakeCon tourney.

Oh, and  :rules:  

The game was in Legacy (http://legacy.newdoom.com), my port of choice. Yeah I only play for fun. I never understood those people who have to be winning to have a good time, they're missing the point.

I forgot to do a real check but are the first two shots out of the chaingun perfectly accurate? I hope so, chaingun sniping can be a big part of dooming on larger maps and it's the closest thing we have to an accurate distance weap. :-)

Feathering the trigger when using Doom's Chaingun will grant you the "first shot" accuracy that you're used to. A lot of people (myself included) really hate that gun as a result. :slippy_thumb:

Aye Mak, but to be fair we currently have the damage too high on it.  The Doom pistol also has first-shot accuracy.

... DooM chaingun in GEN is, if anything, somewhat underpowered, NOT OVERpowered. Please, do not lower its capabilities more...

fifteen damage per shot, two shots at a time, rapid fire, perfectly accurate.

It's more powerful than any railgun.

Seriously, I can understand that you love the class and have come to enjoy racking up kills with it. But don't spout nonsense like that. If your aim is worth anything at all, the chaingun is grossly overpowered. I won't accept nonsensical denial, and we can battle it out on the server if you want proof. :]

I'm no railgunner, and I've always thought that the Doom CG is pretty damn efficient anyway. I see no harm in reducing the damage a bit to, say, 10. I never knew about the first-shot-accuracy, though. That seems too much like hard work for my right index finger :rules:

I haven't been playing long but I think I'd agree that the CG is a little overpowered. But if you don't lower the hit damage I won't complain. ;-)

Whether it's the old Doom or Generations the single shotty still totally blows. :-) I'm gonna have to work on my weap binds a bit. It'd be nice if you could work in some reloading sounds for the SSG as then you have a better idea when you'll be ready to fire again. If you don't have these sounds I think FreeDoom has some useable ones.

Aye, sounds have been our weak point, and still are.  As for the shotty, it's not so weak if you play Doom 1 as opposed to Doom 2.  When Lyfe still had it up I used to run around the shareware Doom server a lot in Zdaemon.  Single shotty in Gen does 70 points of damage if all the pellets hit, which is nothing to sneeze at (especially if quadded).  It's great for people attacking you with weaker weapons, or when you need to hit someone at medium range where the SSG patterns too loose.

I know this sounds really daft, but I have that problem again.....

I set up Q3 with Gen and then I copy the entire folder and call it LOW-quake3 so I have 2 copies of the game on my drive. I set the LOW- one to 640x480, with low quality textures etc, to get it as clean and fast as I can, and leave the other at 1024x768, high textures etc. for other stuff.

nothing surrial so far... but now both versions seem to have got low textures, no shadows, etc.

so I adjust that copy of Q3 back to high textures and 1024x768, close that copy down, and open the other copy....its also high textures 1024x768 etc.
I kid you not.

Dumb question.  I assume you're using a shortcut to load Quake 3 in both cases, correct?  If so, have you checked the "Working folder" to make sure it's not pointed to the same copy of Quake 3?  It does sound like you're running from the folder both times.

No different shortcuts, but I think its something in the Q3 folder, as I copied the entire folder,  rather than a fresh install to a different folder...

I mean that a line in the folder still points to

'  "C:Program FilesQuake III Arenaquake3.exe" +set com_hunkmegs 220'. rather than the new

'Low-C:Program FilesQuake III Arenaquake3.exe" +set com_hunkmegs 220'

don't have any idea what, but thats my theory so far.

I could do a whole fresh/second install, and see if that solves the 'problem' not really a problem.

So nVidia is overiding the Q3 settngs?

I know I have a setting that says 'let application decide' if I use that the game decides, otherwise I can set a general setting using the card.

No no, what I mean is this part (the highlighted part) might be the same in both your shortcuts to the program.  Even if the "Target" line is correct, it will reference the data, and hence your q3config.cfg files, from the specified "Start In" folder instead of the one the "Target" line references.

Right again! you are the man.....or bird....

I'll have another go to night.

Guys nice to see ya again....

So ill go directly to it... what was the option of ``set_somethingbasegame`` kind of command that you added to a shortcut to be able to play generations with Team Arena???

Thanks, and i also have some problems with the drivers, so cya around....

"+set fs_basegame missionpack"

No other complain's except there's no sp skirmish, and some of the weapon's don't kick back when you fire with them, almost all of them. The nail guns and the new guns in general have animation, but it just doesn't feel that I'm shooting with them, you know what I mean? Like, quake3's shotguns and machineguns clearly kicks back, you can see it when you shoot with them, it feel like I'm actually presing fire.

 :thumb:

We're working on that.  ;)

I'd love to see a Strogg or Slippy teaser video that makes the wait even longer.. but no.

Meh.. I even feel tainted by offhandedly requesting such. Ignore me.

Well we have to save some kind of "ooh, ahh" stuff for 1.0's release.  If we preview everything, we kind of lose that.  ;)

So there IS an update coming! That's fantastic.

So tell me, *light's cigar, puffs cigar* ,when's it gona be done?

I hope this isn't one of those "duke nukem 2000" promises, though.

You need to make the update, because I want it. I need it. I'm hungry. Make it, no bugs, it has to be perfect, because I insist.

Thanks....  :thumb:

 :D

Generations Arena 1.0 will be available when it's done.

No, seriously, that's it. We have no timeline for its release, as there is still quite a bit of work to be done on it. But be assured, it will happen, and you'll certainly know when it does. :doomed:

Aye, it's the "perfect, no bugs" part that makes development a bit slower, plus we can't keep up the breakneck pace we had when we first started.  Just about everyone involved in the project has to devote more time to other things right now.  That being said, rest assured that the mod is being worked on.  I post some things on my .plan now and then, and my changelog continues to grow.

"When it's done", as Mak said, is the only answer we can give on the next release.  In the past we've typically tried to release in time for QuakeCon.  That's not likely to happen this year.  I'm intending our next release to be 1.0 full, and it's requiring a lot of work to go from .99f to 1.0.  

This certainly isn't a Duke Nukem situation.  We actually have playable betas.  DNF is still 100% vaporware.  All I can say about DNF is, when and if it actually is released, it better be the mother of all video games or 3d-Realms will have some explaining to do.  :smirk:

Until then, you will play .99g and sporking like it.

It's good to know it will happen.

Thanks, my blood presure went from 200 to 160, I'm all good.


 :thumb:

OMG this MOD ROCKS!!!!!11 OMFG KANT VELIEVE THAT IS SO DAMN GOOD!!!!!


 :shifty:  :doomed:


 :rules:

Thanks mate!

We enjoyed having you in the Euro game yesterday. Too bad you didn't ping well, but I'm glad you (apparently) enjoyed it!

Blast!  I missed the Euro game.  Oh well, we did have a US game too, and it was fun.  :thumb:

Diggin though old topics gave me that thing:
Would be a big "respawn" unbalance to give strogg some shells at start like 5 and have more use of singleshotgun?

You do realize he spawns with a machinegun and 50 bullets, same as Earth and Arena, right?

I do, but I just don't have much to use that singleshotgun.

The only reason Doom and Strogg tote around an empty single shotty, and why Skippy runs around with an empty nailgun, and why Doom spawns with a chainsaw is normally there's no other way they could pick up those weapons.  You can get ammo for the Strogg single shotty by either offing a Slipgater and plundering his booty (backpack), or by running over a shotgun spawn or shotgun ammo.  If it wasn't for the fact that Q3 maps don't have single shotgun and machinegun weapon spawns, I'd spawn everyone with exactly what they had in the old games.

Ok i get it. Thanks  :thumb:
Than now I just hope next release soom, I'm on release drug or something.  O_o :evil:

There was a colective page here with models and teamskinpack i think, where it is now :?:
 I'm trying to convert a friend to play gen and i would be helpful for those packs.

It should be on the downloads page, and looks like the link got nuked.  Here's some direct linkage for now:

Wirehead Model Pack (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/generations/files/wirehead_modelpack.zip)

This includes the new skins, the Qforcer model and Enforcer bot, and the Q2 Guard model and bots.

Haha, I wonder where I heard that before... ;)

I know how slow development can go at times, I make games and software myself. -From what I have seen in GA0.99f, all I miss are the weapon animations. No bugs bothering me. x]

Go see the preview/teaser video (link is on the Generations news page), to get some idea of how the weapon animations look.. :]

Hey,

I've been playing Generations 99f and I had a bunch of thoughts about it that I thought I'd ask about:

1. Are there plans to have decals for the Wolf 3D Napalm launcher? I think black marks would look good. Also if the flames stayed longer that would be cool, too.
2. Any chance of increasing the player's mug shot so it fills the box that it is in at the bottom?
3. How's about getting someone to re-draw new, higher quality mug-shot animation frames for the Wolf 3D, Doom and Quake guys, based on the originals? That is if we can find someone to do so I mean.
4. Any chance of using the sound effects from the Mac version of Wolf 3D? They were a lot better than the originals but I don't know what the deal is with copyright etc.
5. How's about having the gatling guns in the game eject masses and masses of shells that stay on the floor a while? That would be really cool.
6. Any chance of having some kind of dead bodies stay/ don't gib option- that would be kind of like Doom 2 where you ended up with dead bodies everywhere.
7. How's about new speech effects for the Wolf 3D/ Doom/ Quake / Quake 2 guys? Based on the originals I mean. I know a few voice actors if you want me to ask around.
8. Will the Doom 3 plasma rifle eventually animate like the old one with him pulling it up to the side after shooting?
9. How's about making the explosions louder. I know it wouldn't necessarily be authentic but right now if you shoot a rocket at the wall you can barely hear it over the sound of the launcher firing. Actually I remember in Doom the explosions being a lot louder. It was only since Quake 2 they made them quieter. Also, I don't know if anyone here has played Total Annihilation but in that the explosions were amazingly meaty. It'd be great to have ones like that in an FPS game. Maybe you could beef up the animations a bit and even have a little debris come out of the walls when a rocket hits etc. I might have a go at drawing some new sprites for some of them myself if you like.
10. Any chance of some ladders?

Anyway, thanks guys.

EDIT: Oh shit, I just noticed there's a 99f feedback thread. I should have posted this there, really. Sorry.

1.  No plans for decals right now.  If any effects change on the napalm launcher, possibly, but I'll have to check Q3's max marks limit.
2.  If we modify the HUDS, possibly.
3.  Possible, yes, but the problem with that is the hud shows what head model you're using.  Having the Doomguy's mug in there when you're Crash or Klesk doesn't make much sense.
4.  Sounds are an ongoing discussion internally right now.  Most of the weapon sounds for the Earth Soldiers class are already "in-house".  I do have a new sound for the MP-40 that sounds very close to the original.  I've checked out what the original sounds from Wolf were like out of curiosity and I did not care for how the gatling gun or luger sounds behaved.  As for the Mac version, I don't have it nor do I own a Mac so I have no idea what it sounds like??
5.  All new brass-ejection effects are planned.
6.  Permanent bodies... no.  Dead bodies use up what is called a bodyque.  Having them stick around can overflow this, which starts to cause problems.  Also, too many corpses laying around uses up rendering power that's better suited to other things.  It may be possible to make some corpses stick around longer than others at some point, but it was problematic the last time I tried.  I may look into it again sometime.
7.  I'd only accept it if they sounded dead on to the originals.
8.  Yes.
9.  Yes.  Improved sound attenuation is part of the new executable functions I've coded for the current non-public version.
10.  Already done.  Try req2dm2v2!

No problem.  I can merge topics easy enough.  :doom_thumb:

3. Yeah true but a mug shot/ old school themed HUD would give you some serious nostalgia value- and you could always have the option to turn it off. That said we'd obviously need to find someone to draw new ones.
3. There's a video of the 3D0 version here, which uses the mac graphics/ sounds- this first clip shows the chain gun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1uf3hVMCl4

and to see/ hear the machine gun, watch this clip, from about 0.50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EQlk27eAD4

Actually looking back the machine gun doesn't sound so great, but I still love the chain-gun. The music is awesome too (that's the in-game soundtrack in those videos). Actually I used to have the 3D0 version myself. I used to love blasting the bad guys with that chain gun. The game made you feel like such a bad ass.

6. Cool, well, thanks. Maybe you could have a bodycount limit or something? After which gets passed they start to disappear or something? Obviously I'm not suggesting this be a priority, just that it'd be cool for the future.
7. Cool, well I'll see what I can do. I've been really impressed with some of the voice actors I've met online. What's the maximum audio quality you can use?
9. Awesome. It'd be good to get some new sound effects too. Like I said the ones from Total Annihilation really had some serious kick. Something like that would rock.

Thanks for considering my points!

I've heard that machine gun sound before.  Many Doom 2 modders made some "remakes" of the Wolfenstein games, as well as some creative things of their own (set in the wolfenstein universe).  They used that machine gun noise quite a bit.  Now I know why :).

I do think the MP-40 should have a different sound from the other machine guns in Generations, either way.  It sounds like that will indeed happen though.

I have a machinegun sound that is very close to what the MP-40 sounded like in Wolf 3d.  It works quite well in the test version, so Strogg's and Wolf's machineguns won't sound identical.

About the Mac sounds... I believe a lot of these were also used in the Spear of Destiny expansion packs, which were in turn used in WolfenDoom as well as the original Wolfenstein sounds.

Yeah there isnt that any players online at all

There are scheduled games might be easier to find ppls playing then. But the other sulotion is to get your friends or any other ppls you know to start your own game! :)

There are scheduled games still?!  And now that I'm here, what happened to Phoenix's server?  I can't reach it anymore. . .
I'm also quite daft, if that's any indication of the help I need.  ;)

My server is still up.  I had to repair the electric yesterday so it was down for a few hours.

Scheduled games have always been Saturdays, 9 pm CET for Alucard's Euro server, and 9 pm Eastern for the US server (currently my server).  I have been unable to attend any kind of games lately owing to having zero free time.  That's no reason everyone else can't get a game together though.  :)

It's just been so long since I've actually played Gen that I forgot there were scheduled games!  Hopefully I'll be around Saturday!
I still have a problem with actually seeing the server.  The in-game browser hasn't picked anything up anything other than the Euro server, something I never see used (time zone issues?)  :(   What really gets me is that I'm still able to join servers for DM, defrag (argh!), excessive, or what have you.  Nor have I done anything to my computer recently.  Manual IP, perhaps?  I don't know...
Remember, I'm not a member of the software cognoscenti  :)

Strange that it's not showing up, but the in-game browser is kind of flaky since it's Q3's in-game browser.  It may also be because I'm using a prototype of the new executable for my server and it's not detecting.  I'll have to look into that.

In the mean time, check out the Servers Page (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/generations/servers.php) for our website.   :doom_thumb:

Vielen dank!
...
Sad though that you had to point out the server page to me.  It's been looking me in the face all this time and it never registered.  This brain is worn the * out.
Something else of note regarding game browsers: I attempted to use gamespy (gasp!) and your server didn't display there either.

That could be because I'm using a modified executable for my test server, and I'm running the same executable for the game server as a Q3 backward-compatibility test.  My renaming of a few things in the engine might have broken the recognition of it as being a Q3 server by the master server.  It appeared in All-Seeing Eye just fine (before Yahoo ditched support for ASE) but it does not show in QTracker either now that I've checked.  I'll have to look at correcting that little issue.  Thanks for bringing it up.

Good Day Wirehead.

First an extended paw of appreciation and admiration towards the team and players alike for breathing luminous life into the morbid and dull eternal arena. Empowering the entity of Q3 and revitalizing gameplay with the delicious variation brought by the five generations. Yet I ponder, how can a mod which opens limitless doors in variation, replayability and bring a pleasurable doce of authenticity be surprisingly unpopular? Spirits are dampened to view the bare layer of sediment which make up the player database, for what should potentially be a popular mod. I can comprehend that the modern game industry has influenced past veterans away from Gen or perhaps the cards dealt in life for the time being are proving troublesome. However I see the initiative has been taken to organize games of CTF by howling the message across the cosmos of the forum board. A shame I only came across that thread in September when the majority of bloodaths were savoured in August which has worked to a degree, company higher than 0 is greatly appreciated :doom_thumb: let us view the situation from another perspective. A small group of veterans encourages familiarity with one another, well mannered players and thus the company is indeed pleasurable despite the rarity of battles.

Gather round as I recall the slaughter of my recent bloodbaths. I had a number of matches with hardcore bots in CTF, I was impressed they adapted to their surrounding environment and level layout quickly. Taking full advantage of different paths through and without the map. The opposition became unpredicatable in their behaviour and flag running escapte routes, using multiple paths throughout my team's base. At a number of instances up to 3 enemy bots would rush our flag room, usually when their flag within the grasp of a team mate. Their desire and strength to claim what is rightfully theirs, while commendable is foolish considering they forgot to protect their own carrier! :smirk: Overall their quick study of the map and remarkable teamplay (escorting carriers, defending bases and capturing flags) counterbalanced the A.I's predicatable movement pattern in combat which makes aiming easier. I made sure not to hog all ammo and weapons, taking only the bare necessities an armed bot is a useful one! A few times the enemy would storm our base with nothing more than a machinegun, only to be riddled with bullets or splattered on a nearby wall.

Alas I wait with anticipating eyes and sweaty paws for the arrival of 1.0, in hopes it will sprout new seeds in the garden of Gen. I actually wanted to get more into this post but I'm afraid my time is up for the moment. I'll attempt to clear my schedule for Friday and Saturday night, definately looking forward to it :slippy_thumb:

Thank You once again folks.

Many thanks for your appreciation of our mod.  It has been rather puzzling as to why we don't have a larger player base.  As the mod has become more refined, we've had fewer players.  When we first released the .99a version, we had packed servers though the quality of work was vastly inferior.  The .99f version is the most stable build, most net-friendly, and most refined, short of the current build in the works.  Perhaps it is that players who favored Quake no longer have the time to play, and development time seems to be even harder to allocate at present.  I can speak for myself and Tabun in that respect.  I know our development team has shrunk greatly, though I do not complain about the workload involved for myself, Tabun, ReBoOt, and others who have stuck with the project since its inception.  It is my hope that more people can drop in and play regularly, and that I may have some more free development time in the near future to move the project along.  Generations seems to be best enjoyed with a fairly large number of players as to a few, where the action is frantic and unpredictable as opposed to measured and methodical, although a 1 vs 1 match with one class against another can be extremely tense and interesting.

When our development team was much larger we had hosted some tournaments at Quakecon a few years in a row.  We had prizes ranging from a high-end graphics card to a Koolance case complete with a Wirehead casewrap decal.  Alas I fear those days are well past, but I can assure you that development will continue on the mod until it is done or some catastrophic event (such as a meteor landing on my nest, a divine appearance summoning me from this world, or the earth exploding from a shot by the Death Star) renders development impossible.

If you want a peek at what's on the way for 1.0, check out this preview video (http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/index.php?topic=3381.0) that Tabun put together that shows off some weapon animations and a few new special effects, as well as some pictures of our new CTF Grappling Hooks (http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/index.php?topic=3525.0) that will make their appearance in 1.0!

Join the fun this saturday, Krypto.  I should be there.  I guess I should be updating that thread letting people know when I'll be there or not.  I have been there the past 2 weeks, and, although marne only popped in for a game or two, phoenix and I had some enjoyable games (enjoyable to me :) ).

It seems like I can't rail lately, in unlagged or in generations, so now is a prime time to play! :slippy_thumb:

Cheers for the welcome I appreciate it :) and Phoenix I have been enlightened by the nostalgic and original designs of the CTF hooks along with the trailer's sleek animations for quite some time indeed! Expect to see feedback in the appropriate threads soon enough. Glad to hear theirs a high chance you'll be able to attend today Fourier. I suspect I'll be able to arrive somewhere around 11PM however I'm enthusiastic enough to dwell into the late hours for U.S players :doom_thumb:

Is it worth taking advantage of Generation's IRC channel to coordinate games? In the past the few who lingere were quiet as mere shadows of themselves :ninja:

Ive noticed that Doom and Phobos have skins where they dont have helmets.  Any chance of a similar skin for Crash?

And why is Slipgate the only class w/o a female character?

It may be possible for Crash, but we'll have to create a head for the model first.  I'll have to look at the torso mesh to see if it's feasible.

There's no female Slipgater because there's no female model in Quake 3 that really works for that class.  We might address that further down the line.

Thank you, Mr. Phoenix.

On a more gameplay related note, since every thing but explosives, plasma guns, and railguns appear as gatling guns to Earth soldiers, isn't it a little easy for them to get the Dual Gats?





 :offtopic: In an unrelated question, do the bots gain health as their "level" increases, or do I just really suck...

It is fairly easy to get the Dual Gats.  In fact, all one has to do is stand on a shotgun spawn and have the gun respawn 5 seconds later.  There's upsides and downsides to the gats as well:

Pros:

Devastating firepower, especially at close range.
Easy to acquire quickly.
Can take out several people at once in a crowded fight.

Cons:

If you're killed with them out, it drops a BFG for everyone else.  (Slipgaters get a Thunderbolt)
Eats ammo like mad, and if you run out your single gat, MP-40, and luger are also useless.
Not effective past medium range.  The spread is a lot wider than with a single gatling gun.
(Next version) Slower to deploy and put away than other guns.
(Next version) Having two weapons out at once is rather conspicuous.

At present the second gun is only visible from the first-person perspective, so if you see an Earth Soldier with a gatling gun expect that he has a second one.  Also, listen for the distinct sound of the Dual Gats, and watch the scoreboard and obituary messages to see who's using them, and try to either ambush the person or avoid them.  An ambush can score you a free BFG, but it's risky, so try to wait until the Earther is weak or has exhausted a lot of ammunition on another player before attacking them, that is, provided you don't get ambushed yourself.

I may also have a modification to the weapon spawning behavior in the next version that might help with the 5 second "gun camp" issue, but I don't want to go into detail here as it's only an idea at this point and I don't want to say anything before I explore the idea with the team first.

Regarding bots, I modified the behavior for bot skill levels.  They always spawn with full health and inflict the same amount of damage at any skill level.  What changes is their artificial intelligence.  A bot at skill 1 can hurt you the same as a bot at skill 5, but the skill 1 bot will act extremely stupid.  In addition, player handicaps only affect how much damage the player inflicts on other players.  Handicaps no longer lower your health.  I did this for a few reasons.  First is that I did not like the health handicap system.  It made low skill bots too easy to kill, and it made it very hard for more experienced players to use a handicap to help less experienced players out.  I felt it better to make it harder for a handicap to give you points than it was to make it easier for others to score easy frags on you.  The second is that I wanted bots to better simulate what a player will face online as best as the current Q3 bot logic would allow.  Gimping the weapon damage and health on the bots at lower skill levels doesn't help a player practicing offline.  Players online are going to inflict 100 points of damage with a railgun whether they can aim or not, and very few players online will actually use a handicap.  I felt this was better as a training tool and also to make offline play more consistent.  It does have the effect of making Generations bots, on the whole, more difficult opponents than standard Q3 bots, though at skill 4 (Hardcore) and skill 5 (Nightmare) there's not much of a difference except with the weaponry.  There are a few bots that are notoriously difficult opponents.  Deathknight, for example, lives up to his name quite well.

^ One of those drawbacks reminds me: will Earth move to instant switch in 1.0?  Like during his days of storming Nazi strongholds in '92?  Or since he's the least like the source material will he have his own weapon switching speed?

If we made Earth Soldiers 100% to Wolfenstein 3d, you'd have 99 bullets, no armor, die in two shots, and have only 4 weapons (and no dual gats).  Since we pretty much overhauled the Wolfguy so he could be up to date with the Deathmatch Era generations, he'll have his own weapon switching speeds and animations.

On a bit of a tangent, what are the Q1 rocket's stats (and are the same in generations) -- missile speed, refire delay, damage, splash damage (which I believe are both 120), splash radius?

Found my problem with the bots.  My handicap was set to 15, which I fully realized wasn't normal when I scored an impressive on a newly spawned bot, and he lived. :P


A thought for another con in using Dual Gats.... How about he cant use the harpoon with them out.  It's not like he could off-hand a gat and the harpoon.

Well, off-handing the grapples doesn't really off-hand them, it's more like clipping it on your belt.  In CTF where weapon grapples will have a prominent roll, I'd rather not alter the behavior of the grapple in relation to only one of a class's weapons.  That's counter-intuitive and would certainly generate bug reports.  Switching off the grapple when it's active can be risky enough as it is anyway so I don't feel a need to handicap it for a single weapon.  Grappling to the ceiling or a wall and hanging makes you a pin-up target, and grappling to other players, while very useful, works both ways and your opponent might not need to switch guns to turn and shoot you while you're in the process of changing yours, which in the case of dual gats means someone can score a BFG if you screw up.  On the upside, Earth's harpoon is a vicious weapon if you can hit someone with it.  It will inflict quite a bit of damage, and then reel in your victim so that you can finish them off up close.  While they're being reeled in they're completely helpless to move, though they can still turn and attack you.  A quick and well-aimed harpoon shot can stop a flag runner from escaping your base.  Harpoons can also reel in friendly players, so if a flag runner has a long distance to cross you can give them an assist and pull them out of harm's way.  Multiple Earth Soldiers hitting a player with two or more harpoons simultaneously also results in a rather fatal game of tug-of-war that has to be seen to be appreciated. ;)

The only grapple that cannot be switched off of while active is Doom's.  This was done primarily because Doom Warriors are already fast enough and it keeps Doom Warriors on the move as opposed to grapple-camping.  Doom Warriors are also commonly used to run the flag, so it serves two other purposes.  First, it prevents an accidental weapon switch from sticking you to the wall with the flag.  Second, it makes the Doomer concentrate on either attacking with his guns, or using the grapple to move about.  This will put the Doomer in a spot of relying a bit more on teammates for cover fire while making a fast getaway, as opposed to trying to be a one-man army charging into the flag room.  That may or may not work, but teamwork in CTF is a much better idea.  The third aspect of his grapple is the effect applied when hitting another player.  The beam has the effect of slowing down the movement of an enemy while slowly inflicting damage and tugging them toward the Doomer.  It can also remove a grapple-camper from a wall and prevents grappling players from hanging in place.  They'll move slow on their grapple, and once they reach the end of their travel they'll get pulled down again.  This allows a Doom Warrior the chance for a quick grab on an escaping flag runner or slowing down someone charging into their base.  It makes the person caught in the grapple beam very vulnerable to fire from the Doom Warrior's teammates.  There's a hitch though.  The person caught in the grapple beam CAN still attack, and jumping into the air will close the distance to the Doom Warrior quickly.  While the Doom Warrior has the beam active he cannot attack with another weapon, so again the reliance on teammates is crucial since the drain damage is very slow, and releasing the beam to switch to another gun will likely result in a flag runner getting away.

=================

Q1 rocket stats:

Projectile Speed:  1000 units/second
Refire Delay:  600 milliseconds
Impact Damage:  100 to 120 points.
Splash Damage:  120*
Splash Radius:  160**

*  Splash damage inflicts 40 units minimum damage at radius edge up to maximum 120 points at radius center.
**An extra 40 units is added in the radius check to the 120 units sent into the T_RadiusDamage function.

Generations Slipgate rocket stats:

Projectile Speed:  1000 units/second
Refire Delay:  600 milliseconds
Impact Damage:  100 to 120 points.
Splash Damage:  120*
Splash Radius:  140**

*  Splash damage inflicts 22 units minimum damage at radius edge up to maximum 120 points at radius center
** An extra 20 units is added in the radius check to the 120 units sent into the Generations Slipgate damage function.

As you can see there is an adjustment to the Slipgate rocket launcher's damage falloff curve as well as a slight reduction in the "extra" radius added in the radius damage function.  This was done mainly as a balance measure so that in normal play the Slipgate rocket launcher performs very much like it's Quakeworld cousin, but not to the point of absurdity.  More accurate shot placement rewards you with more damage.  As for knockback, the knockback is identical.  I split the knockback and damage curves so that, while damage might be slightly less for a less proficient shot, the kick will be the same.  This rewards more proficient rocket jockeys without losing the feel of the weapon for less proficient marksmen.

Some purists might squawk about tweaking the Skippy bombs, but as a comparative note the Doom rocket launcher could inflict damage between 148 and 288 points of damage for a direct hit.  Doom rockets have a 128 unit splash radius and damage with a linear 1:1 falloff curve (1 unit damage at maximum distance).  For a direct hit, a value of 20 multiplied by a random value of 1 to 8 is added to the radius damage, resulting in the insanely high direct hit potential.  Doom rockets also have an in-flight bounding box of 22 units wide and 8 units high, whereas Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3 rockets have no in-flight bounding box at all.  In Generations we've scaled this back to a flat 125 units for a direct hit and a smaller in-flight bounding box.

For those of a more purist mindset, 1.0 is going to have an "oldschool" mode that will put in the exact, horribly unbalanced values to all the guns, as well as the huge 200 point armor pickup values, etc.  That way those wanting to see which class can, game vs game, 1:1, beat up on another class will have that mode available.

Thanks, Phoenix.  Why is the impact damage 100-120?  Is it the same case as the doom rocket you described -- a random value added to the 100 base?

In Quake and Quake 2 the impact damage is 100 + random 1-20 points.  Quake and Quake 2 rockets deal either impact or splash, but never both to the same target.  That's the same behavior in Gen.  Quake 3 rockets, damage-wise, are comparatively weaker for both impact and splash, and also inflict direct hit or splash, but never both to a single target.  A direct hit from a Q3 rocket does a flat 100 points, and the splash is a Doom-style linear curve from 1 point minimum to 100 points maximum, spread out over a 120 unit radius.  Doom rockets are fairly reasonable with splash, but a direct hit and you're pretty much sporked since they do impact and splash.  I think I forgot to mention the splash radius on a Doom rocket is a fixed 128 units.  For an old-school class vs class comparison the breakdown is pretty much like this.  These are the original game weapons I'm referring to here.

Wolfenstein 3D:  N/A.

Doom:  Most damage potential, fast refire, bounding box makes them somewhat tricky to avoid.  Most destructive at close to medium range or in tight quarters.  Fairly slow flight speed makes them easier to dodge at longer ranges, but in a corridor you're doomed.  First-shot hit potential is somewhat hampered owing to a firing delay, so usually multiple rockets are "spammed" for maximum effectiveness.  Hard to inflict splash damage in the original game owing to the lack of "floor aim" ability.  Later source ports like Zdaemon allow/disallow manual vertical aiming depending on server settings.

Quake:  High damage potential, huge blast radius, incredibly high knockback.  Fast flight speed and blast radius makes them the splash damage king.  Refire rate is moderate.  The high flight speed and huge blast radius makes them deadly at any range.  Has the ability to disorient and "juggle" opponents in the air from the knockback.

Quake 2:  High damage potential, moderate blast radius, low knockback.  Slow flight speed makes them really only useful at close to medium range, and a moderate refire rate requires high aim precision to be effective.  A high splash damage curve makes any hit by them fairly damaging so long as you actually hit someone.  As a close-range weapon they're one of the safest rockets to use without hurting yourself, but they're the hardest rockets to use effectively.  At long range they're only useful for suppressing fire or the occasional luck shot.

Quake 3:  Moderate damage potential, moderate blast radius, moderate knockback.  Fairly fast flight speed and fairly decent refire rate makes them quite easy to use.  They're not as damaging in a single shot, but the combination of refire speed, initial ammo pickup of 10 rockets, and a decent refire rate provides a multiple hit potential that makes up for the lack of single projectile damage.  Like the Q1 rocket, they can work at long range and are fairly decent for knockback juggling.

Most of the balance concerns with rocket weapons in Generations have been directed toward the Doom rocket launcher of all things.  The projectile bounding box, even though it's smaller in Gen, has been a source of contention so for balanced play in the next build we've actually tightened it up a bit, requiring a bit more precision for direct hits.  I think the combination of the 125 unit direct hit damage plus the fact that the projectiles tend to "cluster up" from the fast weapon refire combined with a charging Doom Warrior makes the weapon seem a bit spammy to some.  Multiple Doom Warriors crowding the same server result in many rocket deaths and hence complaints about the weapon being overpowered, especially when a Strogg Grunt is sandwiched in the middle of a rocket fight.  I don't entirely agree with that sentiment myself, but I'm also a bit biased so I have to work from feedback as well as my own thoughts.  It is a fairly easy weapon to score multiple hits with, and combined with the Doomer's speed it can be tough to avoid once cornered.  To me it's one of those things that's just in the nature of the gun, but tightening up the bounding box seemed to help a bit in the complaint department, much like knocking a little bit off Slipgate's radius and damage curve made his rockets remain quite effective but not quite as overpowering.

One other aspect of Doom launcher that Old-School mode will bring back is the initial shot delay.  Like the BFG9000, the Doom rocket launcher takes a moment to fire.  We did testing with the delay and in balanced play it feels awkward and makes the gun extremely hard to use.  You have to spam the gun and surprise attacks around the corner are an "always lose" situation vs any other class.  Without the bounding box the gun just doesn't work with that forced delay added in, and also makes rocket jumping impossible except for absolute experts.  For Old-School mode it's a reasonable tradeoff for the high damage potential and huge bounding box.  It means the gun will get more spammy in Old-School and rocket jumping will be very, very hard, but in that mode we won't really care much about balance much anyway. ;)

Out of curiosity, how exactly will the Earth Soldiers be handled in Oldschool Mode?

Also, so as to not waste space posting elsewhere... Has the Wirehead team ever considered redoing the visuals of the Arena Gladiators' weapons? They look awfully dated when compared to some of the other classes' armaments. I realize that remodeling them might be a bit much to ask, but perhaps a more detailed texture for each would work. Maybe give them some rust and burned muzzles? I don't know... It's just a thought. ;)

Actually a bit disappointed that I never thought about it to ask this myself.. good question.

Old School Mode sounds more intriguing the more I hear about it.. and think about it..

I would like the option for what Phoenix mentioned in regards to my prior post: 99 rounds, no armour, rapid death, and insane weapon power.  He shouldn't jump either  :D  Maybe a special DM flag for the insane?
Old School, especially in regards to Earth / Wolf, is such an exciting prospect.  Frankly, it can't come soon enough!  Heck, I'm looking forward to that more than the weapon animations.

I hadn't really planned on reskinning the Arena weapons.  Maybe we could work on some high-res skins after everything else is said and done, but I make no promises.

Regarding Earth... That's something I've not really thought too heavily on to be honest.  I do have the actual Wolf3D source code so we could look at how damage was handled and adapt that, but I don't know how keen people would be on losing the rifle, mortar, napalm, hand grenades, second gatling gun, as well as armor and ammo count.  Killing someone at close range with two shots out of the Luger would be rather dirty though.  That's something we'd have to explore heavily in play testing to see if it's really something worth doing, or if we want to keep the class as it is or what other changes we might decide to make.  Most of the consideration has been to Doom and Slipgate.

On the subject of weapons, is it just me, or is the Nailgun weaker than it used to be?  Can we please speed up those projectiles, at least on the Super one?

Also, does the Slipgate 'launcher have a smaller blast radius than the Arena and Strogg ones, or am I just being thrown off somehow?  It seems like the Slipgate 'launcher is the only one that's really giving me trouble.  :\

After watching the 1.0 video from a while ago.. I have hope for the nails. I've lobbied for something to be done for the longest time, and they seemed perfect in the video. Just hope I'm not being too optimistic.

As for the launcher.. I think Stogg actually has the smallest splash radius, but I could be wrong. Slippy rockets never gave me a problem and felt just fine to me.

Projectile damage and radius values in Gen:

Earth Mortar:  100-120 points direct hit damage, 160 unit splash radius, 18 - 75 points splash damage.
Doom Rocket Launcher:  125 points direct hit damage, 128 unit splash radius, 1 - 128 points splash damage.
Slipgate Rocket Launcher:  100-120 points direct hit damage, 140 unit splash radius, 22 - 120 points splash damage.
Strogg Rocket Launcher:  100-120 points direct hit damage, 120 unit splash radius, 40 - 120 points splash damage.
Arena Rocket Launcher:  100 points direct hit damage, 120 unit splash radius, 1 - 100 points splash damage.

Strogg and Arena actually have the smallest splash radius, but the radius is not the only factor.  Notice how some rockets, like Arena and Doom, can do as little as 1 point of damage at the edge of their splash radius,whereas Strogg can do 40, and Earth and Slipgate do 18 and 22 respectively.

I think where a problem lies right now with the Earth, Slipgate, and Strogg projectiles is the timers I'm using to move them through the world.  These don't affect the speed of the projectile, but rather they cause a delay in spawning them into the world, up to 75 milliseconds for Strogg's projectiles.  I've fixed the timing issue in the next build and the projectiles feel a lot more responsive as far as actually landing hits, especially the Strogg rocket launcher.  I've removed this "artificial lag" without affecting how the projectiles calculate trajectory data, which is very important for grenade behavior.  The nails have not technically been the wrong velocity since I reworked the projectile code in .99c.  The problem is the above timer concern and also the nail model currently in use is two large, giving them a slower perceived motion.  I believe I also had Slipgate projectiles calculating on a 50 millisecond frame, when they needed to be a 25 millisecond frame.  This may have had a slight effect on real projectile speed vs defined projectile speed.

If this sounds a bit complex, don't worry.  I've tested this to death, even using a converted Q1 map to verify everything works as it should.  Suffice it to say that Slipgate projectiles in 1.0 will move through the world with the exact same velocity and bounce characteristics as in Quakeworld.

What about Jaeger (PMS)?

It has been considered, but after all, turning her hair into a "helmet" is a half-assed attempt. It'd be better to just slap a Ranger head (with different skin) on Major's body, or something like that.

Personally I'd rather see a completely new female model done using similar armor and helmet to what Ranger wears, kind of like how Crash is set up as a companion model to Doom.  Maybe in the future we'll do something like that, but at present... well, Tab and I BOTH have little to no time to mod at the moment.  Every time I think I can get some free time, something comes up.  I'm still trying to get muzzle flashes in place for Doom, something I thought would be quick and easy.  It's the quick part I'm having trouble with.  Player models right now are right out until other more critical things can get done.  :(

Aye. I still need to make a Lost Soul model, and that's probably less than 1/10th of the work needed for a full player model.. Grmbl.

Does the Ranger model still change the color of his armor and pants to match your railgun colors?  So far I haven't seen that happen other than in some of the screenshots hosted on this site.

Yes.  You have to set a cvar value:

cg_playercolorlevel

0 = off
255 = fullbright

Anything inbetween 0 and 255 blends the colors.  I've found 192 to be a nice setting.  This only works on the ranger/default skin right now.  Also, right now Ranger glows in the dark with this.  I've added code for the next version that blends the colors and lights them properly so they don't glow in the dark.

This might be a silly idea, but i just had a vision. I always remember doom rockets and their 8 direction sprites. Could this be done using the Doom powerup always facing code, based on angle to actual orientation?

Every 45 degrees it allows the rocket to appear correct. You know what I mean? I think it would add some nostalgia feel to it. :ninja:

Possible yes, but that's one I think I'm going to pass on.  There's nostalgia and then there's overkill.  :rolleyes:

Aye, indeed. Was just a thought. I love the classic sounds pack! Doom feels perfectly doomy...mmm

What are these new special effects for weapons mentioned in your update blog, Pho?

Primarily some smoke effects, and some tweaks to how the muzzle flashes work a bit.