Wirehead Studios

K guys, we have here a remake of q2dm8 ready for your viewing pleasure.  Please take a look at the map and tell me what you think and give any suggestions you might have.    I've had a few people tell me about lighting... some say it's too bright and some too dark.   If I can get a general idea of what most people say about lighting I'll kinda know what to do about it.

Note: the bsp in the pk3 does not have the _b03 at the end of it.  Also, bots do work.

ll_q2dm8_b03.pk3 (http://www.people.ku.edu/~zagorski/gen/ll_q2dm8_b03.pk3)


John "Llurk" Zagorski
Team Reaction

Team Reaction? as In Reaction Quake3??

Making a scrolling conveyer belt, also, attach a func_hurt to the boxes so that you can't get stuck on the boxes

Team RxN as in, Qpong, Gloom.. etc..

On the map:
If anything, it's too bright in some spots... but overall, i think it's fine :) In playtesting, with myself and bots, I found that doom owns this map, but ya gotta be careful running around, those little 'lips' around all the platforms, will send you into the air a little bit, making you unable to turn until you land :) i ran off a few platforms a few times before i got it down :)

Adding a func_hurt to the crates means you wont be able to get up to the BFG, if they are set to instagib on touch.

Whats quite annoying is if you get stuck between a crate and the vertical 'climb'.Either have to RJ out or /kill
A func_hurt with a small damage variable might do the trick. But dont make it too much that you have to tank like mad just to get the BFG.
This is gonna need some playtesting :)

Apart from that, everything looks awesome :)

Ofcourse, it would be awesome if the crates could just crush you, like they did in Quake 2 :]

add an invisable func_hurt around the sides of the crate, but not the top :)
Simple as that :)

Well, what some of you fail to realize (I guess) is that you can't attach other entities to entities.

ie, you can't have a func_door on a func_train.   It just doesn't work that way.  However, some newer engines are allowing this.  Doom3 w/ the scripting and HL2 w/ entity hierarchy.

Anyway, yeah... I can't make it hurt.

Lighting, however, I can definitely change... I made it as bright as it is now because people said (when looking at sshots) that it was way too dark.  We'll see.

oh yeah... and Team Reaction (http://www.planetquake.com/teamreaction/)


John "Llurk" Zagorski
Team Reaction

My bad I wrote func_hurt, I meant to write trigger_hurt that you can attach to a func_train by means of grouping, at least I think although i may be wrong ^_^

EDIT: I checked, its not possible at least with func_trains, so could you guys alter the code to make func_trains hurt?

As I said before in irc, the structure of the map is perfect - a true homage to Quake 2! However, omitting the yellowish lighting takes away from the classical feeling of the map. Even the visual effect when you go on top of the map is right on, minus the HOM effect :)

As far as balance goes, here are my predictions on a scale of 1-5 (5 meaning the class has all of its strengths available and the construct of the map is favorable, and 1 meaning the opposite - lack of good items and a struggle with the map layout)

Earth - 5
Doom - 3
Slipgate - 5
Strogg - 4
Arena - 4

I gave Earth a 5 due to the fact taht armor shards are EVERYWHERE! He had no problems getting up to speed in terms of armor. Also there's bullets everywhere, so he'll always be packing heat.

Slipgate gets a 5 simple because of all the grenade ammo in the level. Once he gets his hands on a RL, odds are he'll never run out of ammo. He'll be well off.

I gave Strogg and Arena a 4 simply because of all the tight corners in the level, which can hinder their movement going from one room to another  as well as when they dogfight. There'll be a learning curve to the level, but once they get over that they should fare as well as slippy and earth.

I give Doom a 3 because there is nothing in the level to push him past 100 health - no +5 health pickups or a megahealth. The armor shards don't do much for him. Doom is almost garunteed to lose the map since the megahealth is to him like red armor is for the rest of the classes. Without it, he'll always go down in one or two good shots.

With a little polishing, your map is done! It'd be cool to see an easter egg or two of [RxN] or something in the BFG area or on the roof. I like the trim with the blue light - it adds a nice touch to the map.

Of course, this is all in my opinion, so here's your pinch of salt :)

Edit: I wouldn't mind if the boxes crushed outright, like in Q2.

Well why don't you just place a trigger_hurt at those areas you get stucked? then you don't need damaging boxes. however me too wants to be able to set the dmg key on trains, func_rotatating.

Anyways im downloading this map rite now..i never liked the warehouse in q2 but i must say this map looks quite good! well done lurk! aight off to do that testing part.. :)

Ok well i got some suggestions for you

1. those "flashing" lights you're using looks weird, they are not blending correctly could be because youre using ambient lights.I whould remove that "flashing" effect on those lights.

2. i found an area that is not visible to the play but it is fully textured.. add caulk on those areas cuz it is kinda pointless to let the engine draw areas that u can't see and it also affects your compile times.

3. Maybe youre reapeting the textures too often..maybe add some more?

Screenshots: http://reboot.wireheadstudios.net/llurk/llurk.htm (http://reboot.wireheadstudios.net/llurk/llurk.htm)

And a reminder: don't forget those clip brushes... :)

Anyways this is a good map and im sure it will kick ass once it's finished! great work llurk!

Oh! One more thing: Could you rotate the respawning of the red armor with an adrenaline pickup? If I remember right, the RA and the power armor in Q2 alternated in their respawn times. If Strogg were to get power armor in Gen, it'd probably be in place of his adrenaline shot, which would in effect make the map more like the classic  B)

It was always a red armor as far as I remember...

Well, you remember incorrectly :]
It was an alternating RA / PShield.

We don't have a powershield, nor do we have adrenaline (although the berserk/medkit is more or less the same thing).

I'd say just leave it as a RA.

Tek: i disagree with your 3 for Doom... This map has alot of small, tight, areas where earth & slippy would do lots of damage to themselves with the explosives... Doom however can get a DBS on here all over the place, and simple owns the small tight areas... I'd give doom a 4, and slipgate and earth a 4.5 each

I guess we'll just have to see how it turns out in the forum games, then! :]

Looks and plays great, but I spotted a few visual errors. Can't wait for the finished product!

Ok, here's an updated beta pk3...

This one has no ambient light values.  In general, the only thing changed was the lighting.

Again, bots work... and _b04 is not part of the actual .bsp name.

ll_q2dm8_b04.pk3 (http://www.people.ku.edu/~zagorski/gen/ll_q2dm8_b04.pk3)

Have at it!   Oh yeah... and tell me if you like the ledge/light things around the hole looking to the lowest sections w/ the conveyor... I'll probably be changing them all to look like that.

(http://www.people.ku.edu/~zagorski/gen/ll_q2dm8.jpg)

In Quake 2 it was a random teamchain of Red Armor, Power Shield, and Mega Health.  I've played Q2DM8 enough times to know this 100%.

I'll check out the beta soon to take a look at it.  Tek could be right about the Doomers having a tough time of it.  Any class with a long range gun is going to do good.  Still, there's every weapon in existance on that map, and a lot of corners where a Doomer can pin someone with plasma saturation, long halls you can't escape or dodge said plasma, and let's not forget the hand cannon.  The plasma/hyper spawn is shunned a lot in Q2 since most people suck with the gun, but Doomers will end up flocking to it and plowing into crowds with the thing.  There's no shortage of cells on Q2DM8 either, and up close "surprise" encounters with freshly respawned players usually mean a quick frag for a shotgun-toting Doomer.  We'll just have to play it out and see.  Gen games are full of surprises.  :)

I'll be looking into movers in Quake 3 and getting them behaving like Q2, so crushing boxes/rotators will make it in.  I want that to happen for the .99e release since the map SDK is going out along with it.  Just... bear with me and be patient on those movers, for the reasons mentioned in my .plan post.  I'm lucky I got a bit of a reprieve tonight to do some surfing.

Yes you're right pho, I'd forgotten about the MH.
Keep it up, and good health to ya - all in good time!

Well, since school has resumed for the week... there will be no updates to the map.  You continue w/ ideas.

Also, the map has been retextured using the "Clockwork Droid" texture set.  Looks much better.  I'll have pics up later.

Llurk:  You have a shader in your map that's breaking portal surfaces.  I kept getting blacked out portals on Vesperas and Q3DM0 until I disabled your beta pk3.  You need to fix that. :o

will have to look into that...

actually, I shouldn't... unless it affects the pk3 w/ clockwork droid textures also.

In fact, here (http://www.people.ku.edu/~zagorski/gen/ll_q2dm8_b05.pk3)  is the map w/ newer textures.  The map does NOT have bots enabled, etc.  Also, I already know of several errors (but feel free to tell me any you find).

well that's one reason why you should place all shaders and texture in a unique name.. i try to do this before starting to texture the lvl.

aight cool downloading the latest beta..gonna try this tomorrow!

dna was going to ask this but I'd like to know too, how did you change the textures so fast? is there a replace texture option in Radiant?

Yes there are a replace texture option in radiant. works quite well too! :)

How?

Click Textures --> Find/Replace.... bingo :)
Pretty self explanatory from there

OK, I've got a new more "presentable" release that I made a while ago that I can post on here.  So, expect something "soon".

Llurk out.

Awesome - I can't wait! The last build looked almost done =D

Here (http://www.people.ku.edu/~zagorski/gen/ll_q2dm8_b06.pk3) is the link to the latest version I have.

Pretty much all that is left to do is to do any weapon placement adjustments that are needed and to do something about the crates since they do not crush.

Check it out. (bots work, etc)


Llurk out

Llurk:  Generations .99e fixes the lack of damage problem for movers.  I still have to clean up the prediction for func_rotating and add some additional functionality, but boxes can and will crush you now.  It defaults to 2 damage units per frame, or 40 damage/second if no damage value is specified.  Id just forgot to do the damage in the code.  Since you don't want the boxes to slow down when they hitch against a player just assign a damage key of 10,000 or so and it will instagib anyone between the box and a wall.

Cool Pho, that just about completes the authentic feel of the map :]

The map is meant to be rusty now, may I suggest you change the overly clean box textures, they don't seem to blend in properly with the rest of the rusty surrounding

My observations:

IIRC the lighting in the area with the rail gun spawn was blue in Q2. Of course, you don't have to follow the visuals of the level to a T, but the blue lighting would add some nice variety to the map, which right now suffers from all looking pretty much the same.

Perhaps the fact that no one else seems to have mentioned it yet means I'm the lone objector here, but I'm not into the second RL spawn you put where the MG used to be. A couple bullet boxes would be more appropriate IMO, especially since the bullet boxes on the floor below were turned to lightning ammo. Keep the lightning ammo wherer it is though, cause it will still feed the chaingun for Strogg class and other classes will need ammo for their LG or whatever other weapon they get for chaingun pickup. At any rate, going from an MG to RL is a big jump, and excessive IMHO.

I think that's it. Besides that everything's pretty much perfect. The structure is spot on, and the weapon/item distrobution is all exactly right except for the RL/MG thing I mentioned. The textures are all just right, except for the fact that the lighting exposes their repetition. If you make a couple areas a little darker and put in the blue lights that were in parts of the original, I think it will break up the monotony nicely.

Anyway, great job, I'm looking forward to playing the final release.

Reason for no blue lighting up top:  It looks like crap... trust me, you wouldn't like it.  Changing light values is certainly not a problem however... I'll look into it.

I'd love to make dirtier crates also... not sure how I'd want to do it yet though (as I didn't make the crate texture).

I haven't really had the time to play with the map at all recently.  Been getting stuff done w/ school and been quite busy at work.  Also been getting stuff sorted out for my move...  I'm moving to Plano/Frisco, TX to get started at The Guildhall.

Anyway, thanks for input... it's always appreciated.

I'd really like to see this finished before 99e comes out.

Please? :)

Yeah, the medkit is Adrenaline for Strogg now. Just see it as an updated version of the original (it doesn't have experiation date NOW() ;)). Just an RA for that spawn would work fine in the map, if you ask me.

Bump!

Here's to hoping Llurk finished this great map!

The download link is dead... :(

Bump for the final version

The crates will crush you in 99e. ;)

Great job Llurk! This map RULES!! That BFG spawn is awesome. The only problem is that the crates don't crush  :( . But ConfusedUs said that the crates will crush us in .99e and that's good.

Like I said Kruzader, the crates will crush in 99e. They won't in Gen 99d or earlier, or in plain q3

Alright!  We get to check it out!