Posts by Defrag

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Quote from Polaris

    Hmm, with all that new stuff defrag you'll probably scare away some TFC grognards. They do sound like a lot of fun tho

    If we scare away some old hands, so be it. We primarily need new gamers to make the mod a success -- if the TF oldies return and dominate the newbies, then we will have a lot of problems to contend with. I played TFC for 5 and a half years, and I'll be damned if I'm playing a verbatim source port for the next five. I never do understand why some people will settle for the exact same thing, much less demand it! Change is good. Look at CS: People may whine like bitches every time something is tweaked, but they're still playing it. I would imagine the numbers will be starting to tail off these days due to the focus on CS:S, but it just goes to show you need change to keep people interested. We won't shy away from making big changes where required. We have some fairly outlandish and cool ideas for the future, too (as obviously we haven't been able to get everything into the first version due to time restraints).

    Oh and http://www.fortress-forever.com New update. We're aiming for a private beta in August.

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Nobody is complaining about the value (I'll be buying for sure), they are passing comment on the fact that a game with a 7 year dev cycle ending up as a cut price extra in an episodic bundle (and in turn, what this means for the game's scope and content).

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Yeah the old TFC models were awesome. The new ones were technically better in terms of aesthetics etc (increased polycount) but they didn't "do" it for me at all. The old ones were perfect. Slightly cartoony, stereotyped etc. They didn't look like a professional army; they looked like a rag-tag bunch of mercenary lunatics.

    Friechamp:

    What will be different?

    Well, we've blended quite a few features from older TF mods. Trimping (the way you gain height when jumping on slopes in quake engine games) is in, as is a few other things (we've got a few surprises up our sleeve).

    There's obviously some new stuff, too. E.g. The spy can sabotage sentry guns and turn them on the enemy team. There's a few new spy disguise and stealth tricks, too. The scout has a new ability to make him more useful in avoiding enemies. The sniper can shoot enemies with a radio tag, letting their team track the enemy's progress as he moves around.

    The main changes we've made is in the interface and interactive teaching of players. We've revised the interface where it was clunky in previous TF versions so it's now streamlined and transparent. Radial menus are available to carry out various commands (such as aiming / dismantling a sentry gun, disguising as spy) according to the situation. Best of all, a lot of the weapons and abilities have been brought into the weapon slots. To build a sentry, players can now select slot 4 as engy then they get a nice 'ghost' helper appearing. The sentry gun, for example, will constantly update to show the player how it will look when built. Pressing fire will then build it. Same deal for the detpack. Players can deploy detpacks by using slot 6 then pressing fire to deploy.

    We've introduced a hint system (think BF2) that allows players to get information based on context sensitive actions. Players can also recall past hints using a hotkey if they didn't catch it the first time round. This works for both map hints and gameplay hints (for example, if a player's sentry becomes damaged, a hint will tell the player how to repair it). At the moment we're populating the game with these and trying to strike a balance between "DUH" and useful.

    Furthermore, we have an experienced bot programmer who has allowed us to introduce bot-based training modes. This is the final piece in the jigsaw and it's something that we may have to scrap for the beta and work on in the background so it's ready for release. We're planning on having hazard-course styled training using a bot voiced by someone for the training. Players will be able to pick up the basics or practice specific things by undergoing the training, but it will be optional. We will be tying the training maps into the hint system, too (so the hints can tell a player that a training map exists to help master certain things). The idea being that players who get confused or can't grasp the principles can take it one step at a time if they so choose, or they can just get stuck in. One of the major problems that TF has presented in the past is simply that the interface is clunky, there's too many unexplained nuances and ... players get totally overawed. Some of my friends have tried TFC/ETF in the past, and most of them quit because they couldn't understand what the hell is going on.

    So .. we're basically trying to make it as accessible as possible. Will it work? I don't know. I hope so. We have to try

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Quote from User Err0r

    7 years? It's not like they were making a game engine or a sequel to some best selling game within that time period... no, those kind of things should never take priority, that's just silly.

    Whatever, man. My point is simply that what TF2 was going to be has now been and gone and the current version of TF2 looks to be a throwback to traditional TF... after 7 years I think I have justification to be disappointed. I don't really care if Valve have released awesome games in the interim, they have the financing and manpower to work in several projects at once so I don't see that as justification for the direction TF2 has taken. I'm not going to say much more or criticise what I can't yet play or see, but the fact that it is being bundled as part of episode 2 speaks for itself. It'll probably be awesome, but I'm thinking not seven-years-in-the-making-with-far-reaching-and-revolutionary-concepts awesome.

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Quote from Bic-B@ll

    well, they;re kind of being fucked over here. they made ff assuming that tf2 would never come out, and if it ever did, would be radically different from tfc. out of nowhere valve pulls tf2 out of their ass and its tfc with a different graphics style. there goes a large amount of possible community and diminishing the value of their hard work.

    We're not fucked in the slightest. We have always known there was a possibility of Valve making TFC:S or TF2 reverting back to a traditional TF gameplay style. We made FF because valve has never stated they would fill the missing TF gap, so we decided to do it ourselves.

    We've been reading between the lines for some time and it's been pretty hard not to notice the numerous valve visit reports from random people that were posted up on community sites, where they stated they had seen "well" amongst other maps in progress. Obviously they were just that, rumours, but other stuff has gone on that basically confirmed that such a thing was in the pipeline. The other rumour going around is that Valve basically pushed the boat out big time with TF2 but realised it wasn't working, so they scrapped most of the work and went back to traditional TF. Considering the dev cycle is now 7 years or so(ish?) it's pretty fair to say they have been likely superseded by numerous other games (battlefield series etc) in the area they were trying to occupy. I personally see this as something as a cop out. If they were confident in the game satisfying the hype and the long dev cycle, it would be fully priced and marketed as a separate game; instead, it looks like it's basically TFC:S with a new art direction and is priced reflecting this fact. I could definitely be wrong, but it's hard to tell for sure.

    Although the art direction of TF2 is now radically different to pretty much everything out there, I would be surprised if the gameplay and abilities are a major departure from traditional TF. I think it looks great, but I'm having a hard time seeing myself playing it right now I guess. I'll buy it and play it, but the jury is still out on this. It looks like The Incredibles: Fortress or something.

    Since they're making something that is much more akin to traditional TF I think it's fair to say we're competing for a similar market, but a market that is big enough to satisfy both games/mods. Valve have major clout and we cannot compete with them in terms of exposure or quality throughout, and I highly doubt they will give us any marketing themselves, but like I said on hl2.net, valve own the rights to TF and could've just shut us down so we can't be negative about this. Given the disparity between art direction and styles and the fact that FF will be free, I think we have a healthy change of making the mod popular. If valve had come out with a CS:S style port (i.e. same art direction, same style, same everything but saucified) then we'd be in a majorly grouchy mood at the moment. Instead, this has just confirmed what we already suspect. Believe me, we're not upset over this. The only reason I'm personally disappointed is because I expected so much more than TFC:S with pixar-style graphics considering the seven year dev cycle. Valve might just being coy with their creation and I don't doubt they'll have invented some cool new game modes and abilities, but I can't see it being hugely different from TFC:S other than the art side of things.

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Yeah I initially thought they were just being coy, but then i read the bit in about the classes.. and it's just TFC's classes. Maybe they have more in store, or maybe it will just be executed so awesomely that our heads will explode in joy. Let's find out

  • Team Fortress 2 still alive :o

    Because it sounds like it's basically TFC:Source (which they probably could've made in the same time as CS:S), and it makes more sense to bite the bullet and ship it out as part of a larger package. I'm personally very disappointed in the news and not just because of FF, but because it sounds very much like the original vision for TF2 has been superseded by other games and Valve have copped out and decided to make TFC:Source instead of putting out something very new and exciting.

    TF2/TFC:Source will probably rule, but will it rule remotely enough to justify a 7 year dev cycle? I doubt it. Of course, Valve could just be fucking with us or being economical with the truth, but I will reserve full judgement until I play it

  • What would you pay for a book on leveldesign?

    I'd pay £25-30 (I think that's about 40-50 euros?) for a good book. The most I've paid for a book is £30 for game programming gems 1. I likely wouldn't pay more for a level design book regardless of its quality.

    Most of the LD books I've seen / heard about have a scattered/ramshackle quality to them. I was asked to write something for one book (which I won't name, but it's none of the books mentioned in this thread), but the payment on offer was paltry compared to the time it'd take me to actually write what was required (think minimum wage, then slice it in half, then probably cut another bit off). If that sort of approach is taken when writing books, then IMO the quality won't be too high (as if the money was totally worthless from a student's pov, then why would a professional person with 100x more experience than me want to write an article for one?)

    I'd definitely pay good money for a focussed, methodical and valuable insight into level design, though. I.e. if Hourences or any other experienced pro wrote a book on LD, I'd probably buy it. These types of book seem to be very rare. Most of the books you tend to see are (as mentioned ^ up there) very scattered and more like "hey dudes you can make a train, choo choo LOL!", or just so basic that it's not worth reading.

  • SVN directories being picked up by Hammer. Fix?

    Argh. This started happening with a steam update a few days ago.

    For FF, we use Subversion (SVN) for version control. The way it works is it maintains a working copy of each directory on your client and it uses hidden .svn directories in each folder to do this (for example /fortressforever/ has a folder called /.svn/ as does every subfolder). The actual files in the /.svn/ folders are NOT named as regular files. Here's an example of a file in an /.svn/ folder: motd.txt.svn-work. They all have a svn.work extension. This is designed to stop these files being picked up by any dev tools and it used to work fine. However, hammer is now picking some of these up.

    The main problem is caused by hammer finding some kind of config file in an /.svn/ directory and adding all of HL2's resources using this directory. It only happens with mounted .gcf files, it does not happen with actual FF resources themselves. I.e. every single material and prop found in the hl2 .gcf files are now showing up twice in the resource browsers.

    In the material browser we have a complete copy of all materials, all with the /.svn/ subfolder. For example: The first texture visible in the material browser is ".svn/brick/brickfloor001a". After this, there follows a full copy of the HL2 material resources. Once the .svn/ textures finish, the proper ones appear.

    The same happens for props. If you search for a prop, you will get two results back, one with a .svn/ prefix and the other in the proper location. This is driving me insane. We have been able to exclude the materials using hammer's exclude directory feature, as mirv wrote a script to generate a valid text file for this stuff (with all the appropriate directories). However, there is no functionality available that will block props from appearing in the hammer model browser.

    I know other people and modders are having this problem. Does anybody know what we can do about it short of waiting for valve to fix it?

  • DoD: Source update tonight

    Quote from ginger_lord

    I wish they'd actually do a code update to the main SDK aswell, its been 13 months without an update to it...

    Tell me about it, man. A lot of the major bugs in FF were down to SDK problems, not our own programmers.

    Namely: Interpolation problems (sentries would glitch when turning past half way), prediction problems (viewmodel animations would constantly glitch / fail to play), more prediction problems (reload animations would fail to play sounds), even more interpolation & prediction problems (doors freak out at times, lifts are like riding a parkinson's sufferer). We've fixed nearly all of these bugs now, but it has been a total waste of time as they should've never been inherent in the SDK anyway. And yes, before anyone asks, they are all inherent to the SDK, as if you create a new mod and test this stuff, they're all there. Even some of these bugs (such as the rotation glitch) are found in HL2, but some are not. Furthermore, the way the SDK has been handled has been very confusing and poor at times.

    Even more annoying is that when the SDK is updated at some point, if valve fix these bugs themselves then we'll have to revert all of our changes and integrate their own. So.. double waste.

  • Looking to buy a camera. Second opinion, please

    *edit - No-one had an opinion, so I ordered it. Thanks anyway.

    I've got a budget of £180 or so (as I will have to keep some money back for memory cards and rechargeable batteries & charger), and this camera will be used for a few things:

    General (people etc)

    Garden (parents)

    Texture base (what I need it for)

    I've spoken to a few people and read some reviews and at the moment I'm looking at the Fuji FinePix S56000 Zoom a.k.a. the FinePix 5200 in the US (Click).

    It seems a good all round camera, with only a few disadvantages. The size is fine, but the shape looks a little awkward. The LCD screen size doesn't stack up against some others in the price range, either. Also, xD cards are more expensive than other camera's memory types.

    Basically, what I'd like to know is if there's a better camera I can get for a similar amount of money and whether anyone has a camera in the same price range (I'm more interested in personal experience given that you guys are more likely to use your cameras for reasons similar to my own). Please, no recommendations that are out of my price range I always figure it's better to get a second opinion.

    Any advice appreciated.

    Cheers.