Wirehead Studios

This isn't exactly Gen-related, but I like to play Q2 coop.  I know other people do too, and Oz (House of Whack server admin) wants to run a coop server over the net.  Well, coop has a few problems, or rather, features that it's lacking that's always made public coop servers non-existant.  Well, I'd like to make a better coop for Q2, so I'm looking for what people might want to see in a coop mod.  This will be server-side only (gamex86.dll) so no media changes, only program code.

Here's my list so far of what I've got in mind.

1)  Disable cheats.  No "God mode/Give all" lamers screwing up the coop game.
2)  No team killing.  Friendly fire will either be OFF, or some other system implemented to eliminate the "coop-becomes-deathmatch" plague.
3)  Server-adjustable monster damage.  At its highest setting, all monster weapons will do the same damage to players as equivalent player weapons do to monsters.  Example:  Iron Maiden's rockets will do the same damage as your rockets do.  At its lowest setting, all monster weapons will do default damage from Q2.  The idea is to make the game more challenging for experienced players.
4)  Votable player kick system.  If you get a complete jerk on the server, you can vote him off.
5)  If you join on a later level, you'll start with some kind of decent low-power gun, say the machinegun and 100 bullets or single shotty and 20 shells, or even both, not just the blaster.

That's all I've got so far.  If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.  Keep in mind this is specifically for Q2 coop, and possibly Reckoning and Ground Zero at some point.  No deathmatch or single player changes (other than the monster damage) are planned, nor are new weapons, powerups, items, etc.  The above list should give you some idea of what kind of ideas I'm looking for.

And before anyone asks, yes I'm still working on Gen.  This is a side project and not my primary focus.

<3 Angst approves.

Single/multi item pickup. ie: if someone picks up a given item. health/ammo/armor/weapon.
or allowing multiple powerup pickups

I might be odd, but I like games where weapons and powerups stay but health and ammo doesn't.



There are other things I'd like to see in a coop mod, but those aren't quite vanilla q2.

ie: server-side classes. scout, heavy weaps, infantry, etc. roles that determine speed, health, armor, useable weapons, etc.

would be nice if you can give your oponnent some ammo and stuff.

its als oalways fun , if some idiot that tries to teamkill, gets the damage on its self.
(like with the emphaty shield. )
a wee bit of restricted lives is also fun. since people ill watch out more before they rush into battle.
and it also  helps the coop part since players will wait on eachother more before moving to a new area. ( I don't wanna die alone :( )

Kruzader:  Items don't respawn in coop.  Nor do monsters.  As for map changing, usually you have to do that to move on to the next area.  You walk through a door, or press the "Exit" switch.  Unless you mean voting on like the initial start map if the server is, say, on City2 and you just connect.  That's not fun.

Games:  Coop is rooted in the word "cooperative", as in, you work together against the monsters.  You don't have opponents in Coop!  As for ammo, you can just type "drop itemname" and it'll drop it, example, "drop shells" will reduce your shotgun ammo and spawn a box of shotgun shells for your buddy to pick up.

Hadn't thought about restricted lives, that's a thought... but I think a point penalty for dying is better since coop does have a score system (kind of).  I mean, what happens if you run out of lives?

I had thought about the "empathy shield" type behavior, but the problem is most people who join a coop server to TK don't care.  It would have to be a full "damage the shooter, not the guy in his way", but then you can still have people abuse it by constantly running in front of people's shots.  It's a tough problem either way.

Seeing each other's health and armor might be useful.  I'll have to look into that one to see how difficult it is to implement.  Probably add it to the scoreboard code if I do.

Angst:  One problem with existing coop is some powerups that stay (rebreather, envirosuit) can be picked up repeatedly.  You can only carry one in inventory, but if you use it and run over it again, you can give yourself an insane amount of air time.  Just sit on the item and hit "enter" repeatedly in coop.  You'll see what I mean.  Multi-player item pickups like Sam I don't think would work too well in Q2.  Part of Q2's coop involves balancing ammo by weapon by player, example, one guy uses shotguns, another machineguns, another explosives, etc.  This is where, again, the "cooperative" part comes into play, you have to work as a squad and allocate between yourselves. ;)

Weapons typically stay during coop already, so that's a non-issue.  Powerups staying, like Quad or invuln... bad idea, owing to the pickup behavior inherent in Q2.

Keep the suggestions coming, I'll keep tailoring them toward what I have in mind. :)

in sof2 there is some kind of system that calulates how much teamdamage you deal out / minute.
if it reaches a 100% you get kicked.
if you shoot sombody with a gun / accident , you will get some TK percentage ( depending on how many shots you fired ).
als , if game just starts and you imidiatly shoot your teammate , you get kicked inmediatly.

with other words , if your a time in the game and you shoot sombody, you will get less TK percentage then when you are just new on the server and shoot at teammates.

also the TK % wears off after a while , with 5% every minute or so.




abouth the empathy shield , thats exactly what i meant , the player you shoot at doesnt get damage , but you do.

Putting in artificial players (friendly units) is like coding bots.  That's WAY beyond the scope of what I want to do.  Keep in mind this is a minor project, not a major undertaking.

Sven Coop has a hugely customized system.  Again, that's way beyond the scope of what I'm trying to do.  Basically I'm trying to streamline Q2's already existant coop and make it more "net friendly" for players.

Here is how I think item pickups should be:
You can pick it up, but cannot pick it up again, however the item doesn't dissapear. So this makes everyone have the opportunity to pick it up, because I can already see a single player on the server hogging all the pickups.
I like how Serious Sam did things:
Shotgun pickup
Player 1 walks over it
Shotgun remains there
Player 2 walks over it
Shotgun remains there
Player 1 dies
Player 1 can go and pick up the shotgun again but before he can, Player 2 finishes the map
Next map starts, Player 1 has shotgun due to the other player having it.

whould chatting via microphone be possible without too much coding?

I don't have anything to add, as it's all been said, but co=op sounds like a good game for Q2 I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

Okay, random bored at work brainstorm time..

Replace minor powerups with tech-like items (1 max, droppable, constant effect)
 -silencer = perm. silence, energy shield = 75% damage, rebreather = more air/faster swim, adrenaline = +max health, etc.

Weapon slot 'unlock' players keep weapons on death, but not ammo.

Max lives
 -'1up' based on kills?

Droppable armor

Droppable armor wouldnt really be good because if you kill a monster, for example a tank, then it's armor would be all shredded and scorched. It would be reasonable for it to drop a low amount of armor, or armor shards.

I'm talking player /drop armor.

I see that not being very logical, it would be weird to see someone drop an armor pickup, but them still having armor themselves.
I would say dropping powerups, ammo and weapons would make sense.

Im the mod Lore and I have been working on for Q3, we had droppable armor, but it was too weird to see someone throw a red and yellow armor (there is no limit to armor in our mod, it does however effect your mobility, more you have slower and heavier you are, so jumppads are a bit of an issue on some maps if you have alot of armor, like the dm17 railgun jumppad you wont make if you have 500+ armor).

blar

to be more specific...

green(shards), yellow, and red armor classes

dropping armor results in reducing your own armor class.

if you've got red, it drops either a partial red, leaving you naked, or a full red with yellow or green left over.

A lot of ideas I see.

What I've always found to be a drag in coop FPS is the handling of death. In single player, if you die, you have to start from a checkpoint or save or from the begining of the level. In coop, you have infinite respawns, so there isn't a lot of motivation to not die. I was playing Doom 2 coop on Xbox the other day, and I was reminded of another recurring problem; while you get infinite lives, the ammo never respawns, and players don't drop all their ammo when they die, so after you and your partner have died a few times, you're stuck with pistols, chainsaws, and occasional shotgun shells and chaingun bullets to get you through most of the level. It gets so diluted, respawning over and over again and fighting to the death with your weak weapons and ammo, that it really kills the fun of coop.

I would rather have a system where if one person dies, they stay dead till the other player dies and they start over, or untill the remaining player completes an objective, allowing the partner to come back. Either that, or have both players start over any time anyone dies, with the object being to work together for survival. You could even allow a player to use a megahealth to bring a dead player back instead of healing himself.

A less complicated solution to the problem would be to add an option for item or ammo respawns on a periodic basis (or weapon stay), as in deathmatch, or have players drop ALL ammo when they die so it can be retreived later. This might make ammo too readily available, making it too easy, but IMO it's better than having to restart the server cause all the ammo was lost through dieing.

But, it's not all about ammo, so aside from item respawns or stays, my number one suggestion would be a system that address death in a manner other than 'infinite respawns'...something a little more structured; limited lives, or forcing both players to start over, either when they both die, or when one of them dies...you know, something along these lines. May be more complicated than what you're interested in doing, but it could be something to consider.