Wirehead Studios

Generations Arena now has five new and unique grappling hook weapons, one for each Generation!  These are intended primarily for Capture the Flag play.  Each grapple is unique, and has its own advantages and disadvantages to suit the generation its intended for.  These will be available for use in the next public release of the mod.  Here's a preview of the models.  Click the thumbnails for a more detailed view and description.  Be sure to vote for your favorites!

Earth grappling hook takes the cake. It's got this undeniable old-school feeling to it, making it super awsome. But I must say, the others are really cool. Great job, guys!

Note: they were all crafted by Phoenix and myself, except for the Arena grapple (which is id's).

I like the Slipgater one  :slippy_love:

The Strogg is close to the original.

The Doom one is refrehingly different  :doom_thumb:

The Earth grapple is a nice piece of Modeling.. well done Tab & Pho.

The only one i would change is the Arena one, I liked the original lightning beam for the grapple.

Alsolutly outstanding, now I hope more games will have it enabled and how they work ingame.  :slippy_thumb:
 Worth waiting even i wasn't waiting. :doom_thumb:

Arnie:  The Arena grapple does use a lightning beam of sorts, but it differs a bit from the classic Q3 lightning beam so you can tell them apart.  I'll see about getting some action shots posted sometime soon.  :doom_thumb:

Also, remember that if you want to leave comments on the images themselves, you can do so but you'll need to login (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/gallery/login.php?gallery_popup=true) at the  first. (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=GenArenagallery's main screen[/URL)

Holy crap... visible progress? Am I still asleep? Awesome stuff, love the harpoon.

Cool. I like the Quake one. Makes me wonder about what melee weapons ID originally had planned for Quake 1. I remember hearing it was initially based around them.

I remember the first teaser shots of Quake when it was in production.  There was a castle with a dragon flying around it, and it was supposed to be a dark medieval fantasy game.  I even remember seeing the Deathknight model with an arm missing, and there was talk of locational damage as well.  When the shareware version came out it was rather a surprise to me that it was guns and grenades, no locational damage, etc.  I was expecting something more like Heretic with a more sinister appearance.  From what John Romero said in a later interview, work was dragging so long on Quake that they just decided "to throw Doom weapons in it and be done with it".  The rest, as they say, is history (as was Romero's career at Id shortly after).

Cool. Yeah actually I've got that mission pack. Still havn't got around to playing through it, though it looks awesome. Especially with EZQuake. Any chance of some of those melee weapons turning up in Generations? Then it could be kind of more authentic to Quake than Quake was!

Actually I remember ID saying there would be locational damage in Quake 2, and showing screenshots of the enforcer with his head shot off. It really sucked when you found out that was all they meant by "locational damage"! And the lighting looked a lot better in the preview shots too. Everything just looked higher-res somehow than it turned out to be.

Awesome, I'm glad to see the grappling hooks being shown off.  Phoenix and Tabun have done an amazing job on them. :)

The Quake 1 and Quake 2 grappling hooks are very close to the originals.  Quake 3 never had a fully-functional grappling hook so it's great to see one finally implemented.  DOOM's and Earth's grappling hooks are very unique and great additions as well.

Haha, cool stuff. I like it.

Not quite sure what you mean there  :doom_?:

That Q1 grapple is awesome stuff. Very nostalgic from what I remember of the original (which isn't much, since I still hate grapples :)).

They look great tho, and that's all that really matters. :slippy_thumb:

Loving the Slippy mace - can't wait to find out how it works!

Arnie:  The screenshots used to have a comments section anyone could click to leave comments about.  Unfortunately, spam crawlers have been written that troll the net looking for Gallery pages, and automatically leave spam with links to hostile websites.  I had to lock the site down so only registered users could leave comments.  Thus, you will need to login FIRST and then navigate the gallery if you wish to leave a comment on the picture.  It's easy to register.  Take a look on the upper right on the main gallery page (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/gallery/albums.php) and only takes a moment.  Then, just use the login link and you can comment on any pic you wish.

For an example of a commented image, take a look at the Chainsaw. (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album38&id=csaw)

Nice!  And I love how they each do different things.  Some bring in the vitcim, others bring in the wielder.  Varying damages.  Excellent!  Very exciting stuff.  Doom's especially.

 :doom_love: :slippy_love:

Question!

So Strogg's grapple neither pulls in the victim nor the player, yes?  I actually like this idea quite a bit.  Is this trait going to stay, or are you guys thinking of something clever?  I ask because I'm picturing this grapple as a welcome alternative to the Blaster as far as running out of ammo goes - I.E. an actual melee weapon (sort of) for Strogg!  The fact that you can land pretty damaging hits on someone without being pulled anywhere (and without using ammo) sounds cool to me.

Strogg's grapple does not attach to players at all.  If it hits something that can take damage, it immediately resets and can be refired right away by pressing the fire button again.  So yes, you can use it as a close-range melee weapon by rapidly tapping the fire button.  I'd say it's only useful if you're lacking in the weapons department or low on health and don't want to use explosives if that's all you've got.  If you have ammo, close up the SSG will be more effective.  As for function, it works pretty much the same as the grapple in Quake 2 CTF, except that I took the liberty of upping the damage from 10 to 25 to help offset it's lack of other "fun" features.  Really though, Strogg is not the class that wants to get up close and personal with the other four Generations so it makes sense that his grapple does not do that.  It's more useful as a tool for getting into hard to reach places quickly to set up for area defense where Strogg's weapon variety can come into play.  You'll not chase down a grappling Slipgater or Doomer that's got your flag with the Strogg grappling hook, but the idea is to position yourself in a nice spot for a railgun shot before he gets the flag and let the slug chase him down instead.  If you want to hoof it to chase down a flag runner for close-range combat, Doom and Slipgate are the better classes.  Morning Star + Thunderbolt = OUCH!

Sweet!  Rapid fire semi-long range melee weapons make me happy  :doom_love:

I'm also looking forward to pulling people in with Doom and having a Combat Shotgun waiting for them  :doom_thumb:

There's a little catch with that though.  Doom has to switch off the tractor beam to deploy another weapon.  He cannot "offhand" the weapon and hang in place after launching the hook like other classes can.  That's his little penalty for having a near-instantly locking beam, and by keeping Doom from being able to grapple-hang with another gun out it keeps him in a more offensive, mobile role, for which he's best suited.  You can use the slowdown effect to get in closer and switch guns, but it's really more effective to hold the SOB in place and watch him squirm while your buddy runs up and plants his weapon in the offending flag-stealer's face.