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shambler
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This has got to do with the amount of memory that is set aside for Q3 to use. Gen needs more, so check the manual about setting com_hunkmegs. Mind I could be wrong....I'm not a tech or anything. On the euro server thing, we often have a game at 8pm satuerday night, GMT. There is often a few of us euros there with low pings. You can check the server list, or use gamespy, or all seeing eye.  |
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
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mpb: I noticed your presence on the Euro server the other day, but when I joined, you were gone again.
And alas, 'tis true about pings - I ping 130-140 to the Central server myself too (I'm a Dutchie). Even so, Generations is amusing, and kicking ass with that kind of ping is tough, but possible. But you knew that, ofcourse.
When you feel like a Euro game, but no-one's on, drop on by in the #wirehead channel (more info can be found on the Wirehead site) - I'm usually there, and easily persuaded to play for a bit, plus I can give a shout out to my mates, who are equally likely to join the game.
The memory problem is indeed due to the higher requirements of Generations - read the manual (esp. the bit concerning server setup) for more info on preventing problems.
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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PirateX
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Um... slick just sayin I dig the mod minus one thing. Slipgate class. What's up with the weird physics? I read on planetquake that you used 'Classic Quake Arena's' ? I don't suppose you'll make it netquake or quakeworld physics strictly anytime rather than a mixmesh of them or whatever it is. I personally would really love it if you had actual quakeworld physics. Otherwise I enjoy it alot minus what would be favorite class.
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ConfusedUs
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We ditched the CQA physics a long time ago, I believe.
We've done out best to imitate quakeworld physics, but it's quite difficult to get them 100% true to the old game. They're close, but not quite perfect. Same goes for Strogg physics.
We've tweaked the physics several times, and probably will do so again in the future.
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Angst
Rabid Doomer
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not to mention that if slippy's physics were 100% spot on he'd own every other class more than he did before the .99c/d explosive railgun.
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"Who says a chainsaw isn't a ranged weapon?"
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Phoenix
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Well the weapon physics are spot on. I think he's referring to Slipgate's movement physics. I definitely plan on revisiting the physics code at some point in the future. As always, feedback is certainly welcome, good or bad. Keep it coming! 
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  I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Angst
Rabid Doomer
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Posts: 1011
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I meant movement physics  Slippy's mid-air strafe is a disturbing thing. |
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"Who says a chainsaw isn't a ranged weapon?"
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PirateX
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Yes I was meaning the movement. Though I can partially empathize on the weapon differences. Course all you need to really do is keep slippies away from RL with weapon control, or dodge the rockets, but that's a whole strategy argument aside  . Anyhow, after spending a couple of hours fragging a way with daily quakeworld practice I would jump into generations and it would feel very very awkward as far as movement. Accel jumps are a lot slower, air control is a quite a bit different, turning is extremely slow for the speed. Corners that I would be able to take with ease in quakeworld are difficult because of the slow air control turning etc. There was a mod that was called custom quake arena that had the movement just about perfect (minus jump pads), perhaps you could find the author and email and find out what he did for the movement? Well, regardless of your course of action I will look forward to seeing what you do with it. It's always fun to get away from from vanilla q3 once in a while with friends. Actually on a side note, custom quake 3 had just about all the movement correct from quake1-3 and weapon speeds and damages. with exceptions of rotating of hyper blaster and the rules for BFG triangulation of q2. wasn't sure if they had the correct directional ray-cast BFG from doom down though. |
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« Last Edit: 2004-10-28, 21:39 by PirateX »
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Phoenix
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I have the source codes to both Quake and Quake 2. The current physics code for Strogg and Slipgate that we have was donated and I had to add a lot of hacks. What I plan on doing is revamping the movement code for both Slipgate and Strogg to be as close to 100% in line with the original games.
The weapons for Slipgate use the exact same projectile physics and knockback calculations from the original games. Shotguns pattern the same, nails fly at the same speed, etc. Same with Strogg's weapons. You should notice grenade bounce behavior in-line with Q1 and Q2. Slipgate and Strogg projectiles utilize different physics than Arena, Doom, or Earth at present. This owes to the fact that Q3's projectile physics work drastically different from Q1 or Q2, so I had to write completely new projectile physics code. Our previous release (.99d) had horrible grenade physics. If you're familiar with Mastaba's Q2 to Q3 map converter I invite you to convert Q2DM1 and try the Strogg grenade launcher, then compare it to Quake 2's grenade launcher, barring animations (for now). Also bear in mind that the Slipgate weapons are based on Quake 1, not Quakeworld. I know the Quakeworld super shotgun, for example, patterned extremely tight, whereas the "out of the box" gun patterns like ours. We also need to do some visual tweaking on the Thunderbolt's lightning beam. Overall we plan to sticking closer to Quake as opposed to Quakeworld in regards to the Slipgate class, but I will examine both Quake and Quakeworld's sources for movement physics and see which works best for Gen.
The BFG10K triangulation currently in .99e is incorrect. It was correct in .99d. I've already fixed that for the upcoming bugpatch.
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I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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rdwilson
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This mod is great.. a great idea and its really come together almost perfectly. I say almost, because I do have a few minor gripes, nothing serious at all, but if you will abide..  (Just as a side note, I've played competitively in every id multiplayer game since doom, with the exception of maybe q2, which , while I played it quite a bit and did pretty well, I don't feel as qualified to comment on your mod about it, I'll let the real diehard q2 players do that.) 1. Doom guy. I played competitive doom2 with all the best players, and right off the bat his combat shotgun reload time irked me. Its just a titch too long, like maybe .15 seconds or so. The exact time I counted out in my head is like nearly 1 second perfectly. I mentioned this on the irc channel and someone said something about making it 'balanced' Which, I'm all game for, but the way to do that IMHO is not to adjust the core of the classes attributes (i.e. movement, reload time, weapon switch time, air control, splash damage) but adjust the one most unobtrusive thing.. damage. Here's what I said on irc [17:01] yeah thats fine
[17:01] but just scale the damage back
[17:01] its cool if its feels like the original game so you dont have to modify your impulses
[17:02] doom2 is built into my brain
[17:02] heck, all id games are
[17:02] when i load up as slipgate i constantly hit shift for my rl .. which is funny
[17:02] cuz i play q3 1000x more and i use shift for zoom
[17:02] its .. genetic
the Slipgate guy is pretty close to perfection, and when I see the HUD and the RL i just impulsively (pun intended:) hit shift for my rl, even though in generations (a q3 mod) my RL is bound to F, like it is in q3.
So anyway, back to the doom guy. His movement speed seems about right, but in doom/doom2 the standard run forward speed is about 15% slower than the holding strafe speed. Go ahead and test that one out, back in the day we had FAQ's about it. If you want to get really hardcore you could make him boost off the walls when you rub up against a wall and strafe toward it and hold foward and look away at about a 30 degree angle. This if you look in those old FAQ's was called the 3x wall run.. and you could use it on doom2 map01 to fly down the long hallway with incredible speed. I could post a demo if anyone wants to see this.
But thats really a trivial thing. The SSG reload really irks me and man I'd love to see it mirror the feeling of doom2, because that game to me is the all time greatest FUN to play dm experience. Maybe not the most balanced competitively but definitely the most fun.
Finally, speaking of balance.. right now doom guy feels too strong for what he was/is in my mind. In doom/doom2 he could not take a hit from anything, not matter how much armor. Right now he seems like a tank in comparison. Maybe to really balance him out, you could leave his weapons ultra strong, but make him comparitively paper-like in terms of getting hit. When we would play doom2 ffa or even 1v1 we would routinely race to 100, as opposed to going for 15 mins. Thats a lot of fragging, because basically it was about 1-shot kills the whole time. 2 or 3 shots with the single barrel, and just a quick burst from the chaingun.
2. Slipgate
Pretty much awesome, I don't mind the slightly modified physics, because it feels like a mix of qw/nq, and I can get used to that. My only gripe here is the rocket launcher.. the initial fire feels like it has a q3 style built in lag, but that wasn't really present in q1. It's noticeable to me, but then again that might just be my ping. Also the splash doesnt hurt quite as much as I remember it hurting in q1. Lg is perfect, everything else seems perfect. [EDIT]: So one little niggling thing here.. is nothing you kill as a slipgate drops ammo for you. You can't ever get a decent pack of lg cells going unless you play purely other slipgaters. I'm not even sure if they drop their cells in their pack ala q1. If you made it so people dropped a q1 pack with the ammo adjusted over to q1 ammo maybe that would help?
3. Q3 guy
well.. duh. he's perfect. Not sure why you changed the lg sound but whatever..
Which brings me to my final hope, that you use the id animations and sounds from doom and quake, because man THEY ROCK. Nothing would make me smile more than to see and hear the oldschool quick load CHIK-CHOK of the doom2 double barrel. And hearing the q1 rl's thunderous boom, and the ultra low frequency thunder of the shaft( with the backround ZZT ZZT) .. and lets not forget doom's insane plasma rifle. All in all a great mod if you tweak out the weapon firing/reload time issues I mentioned. I really didn't see anything else wrong with it. It's awesome, great work.
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« Last Edit: 2005-01-15, 02:19 by rdwilson »
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Makou
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As far as I know, weapon refire times for Doom, Slipgate, and Strogg have all been timed and code-checked to be accurate to their source games. Doom, as I understand it, is a hard one to do, because the game runs on an entirely different clock (Hz) from Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3, so I guess it might be a tad off -- but I highly doubt it. Phoenix is pretty much the Mr. Doom of the team, and he's the coder. You're never going to be able to time any weapon properly in your head. The reasons it might feel "off" to you are 1) it has a different firing sound, 2) it lacks a reload sound, and 3) it lacks a reload animation. See below for the fix to some of that! As for Doom's armor... he's already been weakened!  Both Doom and Slipgate have had an armor nerf at some point since 99a. Doom still dies the easiest, overall. There is one major difference between Doom and Gen's Doom class that should be noted, and that is his weapon damage: None of it is random in Gen, where it was random in several cases in Doom/Doom 2. The SSG and RL do a set amount of damage now, instead of a possible 300-somesuch. If you're used to getting pasted point-blank with the SSG and dying in Doom 2, but are survivng those shots while armored in Gen, there's your reason. Also keep in mind that the other classes' weapons do varying amounts of damage, and there is nothing in Doom or Doom II that you could accurately compare them to. Also, you say the Slipgate shaft is perfect. It's far from perfect, actually.  I don't remember the lightning stream lagging behind the gun the way it does in Gen, and that's something that will be done as close as possible to the original for 1.0... if I'm remembering the Q1 Thunderbolt correctly. As for the animations and such: Hold onto your shorts and keep waiting for 1.0... .gif) Thanks for the feedback!  |
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« Last Edit: 2005-01-15, 06:20 by Makou »
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If you see a "Rona Altana" out there on the internet somewhere, that's probably me
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ConfusedUs
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All the weapon reload times are 100% identical. The difference in 'feel' is the lack of animations.
As for the other stuff, Doom's armor is roughly as effective as a wet paper bag. Unless you can control the megahealth, any other class can chew a doomer to bits in seconds. Earth in particular is the anit-doom class.
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Angst
Rabid Doomer
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Elite
Posts: 1011
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Also, Doom had semi-random damage values. The rocket launcher and ssg were both capable of 300+ damage iirc. Which is why you died so easily in Doom DM, the weapons vs health were crazy unbalanced. Where the quake titles had relatively static damage values.
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"Who says a chainsaw isn't a ranged weapon?"
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Phoenix
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I have a reputation of slaughtering just about anyone on the server with the Doomguy. He does dish out a lot of damage. However, a good player in any other class that uses the class properly can give him trouble. I played a lengthy 1 vs 1 match with a VERY good Q3 player just last night. We were neck and neck throughout most of the match. He'd get 3 frags on me, I'd get 3 on him, and we'd see-saw like this. We won roughly the same number of matches against each other. Among most Gen players, the default Q3 class tends to feel week and "middle of the road" unspecialized, but in the hands of a good player he can be just as dangerous as the Doom Warriors or any of the other classes. This holds true for every one of the classes. Those who think the Strogg Troopers are weak and pathetic should play against Tabun sometime, you may find it quite humbling. If you think Earth is underpowered, give ConfusedUs a try. Think Slipgate's a wimp? Tekhead will play ping-pong with you and show you some mad physics tricks. Gen's gameplay varies a LOT from one game to the next. How many players you have of a specific class on a map can affect how the map plays, and the maps themselves make a huge difference. Some maps favor Doomers, some favor the Q2 grunt, etc. Gen is a complex mod, and balance is a very hard thing to pin down since there's so many variables involved at any given time. That's part of the appeal behind Gen is that you never know how things are going to play out.
As for the Doom physics, yes I'm aware of the wall-running and strafe-running techniques. However, Doom's source code used polar coordinates, and a primarily 2 dimensional movement system with z calculations hacked in for elevation. Quake 3 Arena uses vector equations. The math is completely different, and not easily adapted. Also, as Makou correctly stated, Doom ran on a 35Hz clock, whereas Q3 runs on a 20Hz clock. There's also a question of how much of those old physics do we actually need. Doom's maps were mostly flat with slight elevation changes, and any serious elevation changes were handled by elevating platforms. Q3 maps have much more severe geometry, and fewer areas where straferunning and/or wallrunning would actually be useful. We usually jest about people wanting Doom to walk on water when these things are brought up, but we do have to pass everything through the filter of necessity. Would it be better to write a completely new movement system for Doom, and try to adapt it to Q3's environment, or would it be better to use the existing Q3 movement and add some enhancements as we've done? Some things get finished before others as well. Movement physics are an ongoing project. We're not finished with them, and there's going to be improvements to all the classes (save Arena) during our development of the 1.0 version. We're still in development on many things, which is why we're only a publicly playable Beta version at this point.
On to those weapon reload times. I have timed, both numerically from the source codes, and by using a stopwatch, all the weapon reload times for Doom, Quake, and Quake II. Every weapon's refire time is exactly as it is in the old game. Now keep in mind the client's predicted module runs asynchronous to the game server. So long as you're running g_synchronous clients 0 in a local game, if you get 100 Frames per second in Q3 your client will run as close to that as possible for it's movement timer, including weapon refires. However, the game's server module runs at 20 frames per second, so the actual damage impulse will be rounded to the nearest multiple of 50 milliseconds. There's no way around this fact. I know the Combat Shotgun might "feel" a bit slow, but if you hold down the trigger and time over a length of a minute and count the shots you'll find it will match the Doom II SSG precisely. Once we get those animations and reload sounds in you'll notice a pronounced difference.
Gen's current mode of play primarily matches the old games as much as is possible, with balance tweaks where necessary to ensure no single class dominates every other class 100% of the time. There's always going to be some give and take, but we're dealing with the law of averages. We want everyone to have fun no matter what class they use. For our 1.0 build, we're going to incorporate an "oldschool" mode. That is, everything as exact to the original games as much as possible. Weapon damages will be as unfairly unbalanced as in the original games, armor pickups, health pickups - you name it. Both modes of play will be available through a simple server cvar, which should satisfy people wanting to play Gen as it has been so far, as well as the die-hard oldschool purists.
Unfortunately, we cannot use the original game sounds because they are copyrighted. It would be illegal for us to do so, and it would mean the doom of this project (no pun intended). The only way we could use them was if Id were to grant us carte blanch to do so, which will never happen. Even then, some of their sounds are under license from a third-party sound library. That license is not transferrable, and the library costs over $1,000. Unless someone is willing to make a hefty donation so that we can procure this sound library we cannot use those sounds at all.
I hope this helps to answer any questions you might have. Thanks for the feedback!
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I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
Team Member
Elite (3k+)
Posts: 3330
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I'll use the sounds issue as another opportunity to plug: We need good sound engineers, with the upcoming weapon animations and just the general lack of good sounds in Gen, someone with the right skills could really help us get the mod sounding nostalgic, too :]
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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rdwilson
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Indeed those were good games. I should know, since I was that good player hehe. But I do see your point, and I did in fact double check the reload on the double barrel, and it seemed a lot closer on further inspection. Maybe just the tiniest of a fraction of a second slow, at least in my mind it seems that way. But I think you are right about the weapon reload animation and sound being important for the visualization and 'feel' of it. Someone mentioned the shaft, and I'd argue its pretty close to "looking" like what it feels like when you play. While the original q1 shaft was immobile in GL mode (like truelightning in cpm/osp) it had a tiny lag to it in software mode, incidentally i always played in software. It feels very much like the q1 shaft, adapted of course for Q3. As far as the sounds go, completely off the record, is there any chance of.. lets say, an underground 'tribute to id' sound pack that might not be specifically bundled with the game.. ?  |
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« Last Edit: 2005-01-15, 11:27 by Phoenix »
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ConfusedUs
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Single emoticon replies tell us absolutely nothing. |
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« Last Edit: 2005-01-15, 06:28 by ConfusedUs »
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
Team Member
Elite (3k+)
Posts: 3330
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Underground packs can only be.. well.. underground. Couldn't be posted here, couldn't be distributed by WH or advertised on the site. But if you want to make your own, go right ahead - just don't count on it working on pure servers :]
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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