Wirehead Studios

Ok guys, here's a pledge, (and I MEAN a PLEDGE!!!! please!!!! I don't care to get on my knees to ask for this but....) or a suggestion, could it be possible to add back the feature that lets you play the Team Arena maps??? and by the way, for stupid that it could seem, are ya planning to add a Team Arena Class???       :thumb:

The weapons of Q3A and Q3TA are the same, aren't they? If they are, there's no need to make a Team Arena class.

EDIT: although i've never played Q3TA, i'd like to try the game maps. BUT, to include them in a map pack, the WHS Team need to ask permission to ID.

There will be no Q3TA 'class', I can guarantee you that. I dunno about compatibility though..

Are there new weapons on Q3TA Tabun?

Yes Krusader, there's a nail gun, a chaingun, a mine gun, and something else...I forget what it is. Plus, new powerups.

Pho allready said he's working on (and basically completed) TA map compatibility. Of course, you have to buy TA to play the maps though. There's no way Id would let wirehead distribute them as a map pack.

A TA class would be cool, but WHS would probably have to make their own models for the chaingun, nailgun, minegun etc, otherwise everyone would have to own TA to play Generations. I don't know if anyone cares enough about TA just to do all that work.

Here's the official word on Team Arena related stuff.

1)  We are not planning a "Team Arena" class, since Team Arena is already Quake 3 and is covered by the Arena Gladiators.
2)  We ARE planning a degree of compatibility WITH Team Arena maps.

How does this work?  It works like this.  If you own Team Arena, you'll be able to play Generations Arena ON Team Arena maps.  Right now this compatibility does not fully exist, however it will exist as follows later:

1)  Weapons:  No new weapons from Team Arena will be present within Generations Arena.  We've had to use the weapon slots TA would normally use, so the TA nailgun, chaingun, and prox mine won't be featured.  Besides that, to be fair, we'd have to create all NEW weapons for the four remaining player classes.  That's a bit too much work!

2)  Item conversions:  All weapon and item spawns that have a "similar" role in Generations Arena will be converted over.  Basically it works like this:

Weapons:

TA Chaingun converts to lightning gun.
TA Nailgun converts to shotgun.
TA Prox mine converts to grenade launcher.

All ammo types will convert in kind.

Other items:

Kamikaze will convert to Lost Soul of Vengeance.
Persistant powerups will convert to Team-based CTF techs.
Holdable invulnerability - not decided yet.

3)  Harvester and Overload gameplay modes:

Not yet decided.

4)  FFA Compatibility

FFA modes are planned to check the map to see if only one single player spawnpoint is present (often used for the personal teleporter and also so the map doesn't crash) and if only one is present it will borrow the team spawns to use as random spawnpoints.  This way you can get your fragging on FFA-style on some of those huge terrain maps.

Basically you'll be able to play Generations Arena on any Team Arena map, with one known exception.  Mpterra2 crashes Generations Arena with a zmalloc error.  This is consistant, and as far as I can tell it has to do with the fact that com_zonemegs cannot be changed.  I've tried numerous ways to change the cvar and it always stays latched, so it never actually sets.  All other Team Arena maps have been tested and so far there are no memory or other related issues.

So when is this compatibility planned?  1.0 of course.  Now I know some people are going to ask "But why can't you (insert complaint with above list here)" so I'll try to address that right now.

Q)  Why can't we have the TA weapons?
A)  See above.

Q)  Why can't you have the TA invulnerability powerup?
A)  That's a damned complicated thing and a lot of our weapon interactions would be near impossible to work properly with it.  Besides that, we kind of erased a lot of the TA code because it was mucking up the weapons code. ^_^

Q)  Will you support the Harvester and Overload gameplay modes?
A)  Gameplay modes are being saved for discussion AFTER we get Gen's core functionality complete.  We make no guarantees that we'll support these exact modes.  We may come up with alternate gameplay modes to fill their spots.

Q)  What about 1 flag CTF?
A)  Yes, we plan to support this.

Q)  What do you mean about "team-based CTF Techs"?  (and/or) What's a CTF tech?
A)  A CTF tech is a powerup native to Quake 2's CTF.  For examples, see this part (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=Items-and-Powerups&page=3) of our screenshots gallery.  The techs are described as follows:

Autodoc - regeneration for health and armor.  It will regenerate 10 health, 10 armor (if you have any armor), or 5 of each (again, if you have armor to begin with) every second, depending on what is needed, up to 150 max each.  You can also pickup additional health packs while you have the autodoc to boost your health up to 200.

Damage Amplifier - double the damage of any shots fired.  Think of it as "Quad's little brother".

Time Accelerator - Weapons fire at twice their normal speed.  They also chew through ammo twice as quick as a result.  It can be as effective as the Damage Amplifier as long as you don't run out of ammo!

Disruptor Shield - Absorbs 50% of all incoming damage.  Great for those glory charges or whenever you're expecting a pounding.

In normal play, when CTF techs are enabled (include 2048 in the DMflags) they spawn randomly around the map.  Once you pick one up you carry it with you until dead or you issue the command "drop tech".  Only one of each will appear on any given map.  You can only carry one CTF tech at a time.

For TA-style play, each team will have their own set of techs.  They'll appear at the normal persistant powerup spawns, and upon player death will return.  You'll only be able to grab techs from your own base as well.  The TA persistant powerups will convert as follows:

Ammo Regen - Autodoc
Doubler - Damage Amplifier
Guard - Disruptor Shield
Scout - Time Accelerator

Q)  Will you include the TA models?
A)  No.  The way TA player models work is vastly different from normal Q3.

If any other questions come up please feel free to ask.

This gives me a reason to install Team Arena, I guess. :)  Good to hear it's going to happen, but just one comment:

Not quite accurate. Earth and Doom would need some new weapons created, but Slipgate and Strogg could borrow weapons from their games' respective mission packs. :)

But, I agree with the decisions entirely. The conversions sound good, and will open up some new locations to get some fragging on. <3

Very much accurate. Pho's not referring to the ideas for new weapons - that's the easy part. "All NEW weapons" -- read: New code, models, skins, effects, testing, insomnia. I hope you don't think that we're contemplating the work for 80 hours, then slap it together in 5 minutes afterwards? ;]

Absolutely not, Tab. Unless something should take only five minutes, rushjobs are bad. :)

"Create all new weapons," obviously, could have meant two things. I had a feeling somebody would chime in and mention code and modeling and such -- I thought he meant the weapon concepts alone.

Full TA support with added weapons for everybody would be nice to see... but that would be a lot of work, as you guys said. Not to mention the balance issues that would come up, especially with the Slipgate class, since his Quake MP2 weapons were in no way designed with multiplayer in mind, I'm sure. Multirockets and exploding plasma? :wtf:

Taking on board everything above with regards to weapons and player models, one thing I still need to ask - all TA weapons slots are full, right? As it stands if you do

quake3.exe +set fs_basegame missionpack + set fs_game generations

the TA maps will show up in Gen, but the TA weapons and items are missing (with the exception of the LSoV which replaces the kamikaze I noticed). This also applies to the 3WCTF maps in the Gen CTF pack, which are also TA compatible.

So, all this considered, is there any way of filling the empty spawn points with the items that are already in Gen?

Let me give an example:
TA chaingun = gat = doom cg = shaft = strogg cg = arena lg*
TA nailgun = napalm = plasma rifle = sng = hyperblaster = arena pg*
TA proxmine = mortar = doom rl = slippy gl = strogg gl = arena gl*

Also, spot on about the TA player models, but just to be annoying, what about Pi & Fritxzkrieg (both bog-standard VQ3 models - I checked)?

I'm not as articulate as I'd like to be, but if anyone understands that, hit me back. ;)

*VQ3 weapons included to avoid legal issues, probably.

That's exactly what Pho just said he's working on. Except the Nail Gun doesn't become a PG, it becomes a shotgun (because the TA nailgun was not like the Q1 nailgun; it fired in single shots of several nails in a scatter pattern).

Thanks, Gnam.  I'm glad someone read my post.  :)~

Er, yes. Just a lot to take in in one go :shifty:

Sorry.

Anyway, looking forward to this, especially as there are some really good custom FFA maps for Team Arena out there.

-And now it's time for:
NEWBIE QUESTION
Today's question comes from: [KruzadeR]
So, What's your question [KruzadeR]?

-How do we activate CTF Tech items?-Ask [KruzadeR] while shooting the crap out of
"that" Slipgater.

The question is on the air, awaiting for an answer...

 :D

:rtfm:

and you will find it . ( note it has something to do with deathmatchflags or genflags .)

:rtfm:

wow...

gameskeeper, dishing out the RTFM... who would have thought.... Thats like, impressive

so yes..
 :rtfm:  and all shall be answered

TFM, BTW, Can Be Found Here:
http://www.wireheadstudios.org/generations/manual.html (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/generations/manual.html)