Posts by jackophant

  • [CS:GO] King of the Hill gamemode development/suggestions thread

    Quote from Vinneri

    So I wanted to make you a graybox


    Feel free to use, but let the name be ;D


    It looks like a masterpiece of optimisation


    ALSO! I had an idea about the armour situation... What about spawning people with kevlar only? That way aimpunch is reduced and people aren't dropping like flies, but weaker weapons like pistols and SMGs still hold weight with headshots. That way people only have to fork out $350 on spawn for the helmet part?


    With regards to the capture aspect, I don't know how easy it is to make a visual for the HUD (I imagine this would have been the first port of call...) but could you make it visible in the game? Use some logic and tower of 10 lights for instance?


    If CT are in control all 10 lights are blue, as Ts start to capture, red lights creep up from the bottom and if they die during capture the lights decay back down the pole accordingly. You could have a few of them dotted around the map for reference. I realise then that this relies on the mapper getting across the gamemode, unless you were to create a freely distributable prefab?

  • [CS:GO] King of the Hill gamemode development/suggestions thread

    I quite enjoyed it, but it was a lot of killing, but it turned into a shooty pistol fest because when you're getting $150 a kill and no round end bonuses, you have to kill people to do anything.


    The second map, the TF2 watermill map was far too large, proportions were out massively, but the money was so much better, some people still struggled, but at $900 a kill and $5000(?) for a knife kill the money was faaaaaaaaaaaaaar better. I even stretched to armour a few times in a row! Additionally the working health kits offered some relief to the onslaught.


    The mode might be easier to test with a better map.


    Maybe commission a couple of small grey boxed maps for testing?


    EDIT: maybe enable "sv_infinite_ammo 1" to force time consuming reloading, but allow for weapons to be reused.


    Is there a way to clear up the entities as well? I know a lot of people were complaining about lag.

  • [CS:GO]de_barista

    Moving spawns backwards is a very poor way of correcting timing. You can for maybe... 0.5-1 second or so, that makes minimal impact on the size of the map, but you are missing the point here:


    Your map is too big


    Look at the size of the van on mid compared to the road it sits, it's practically a highway.


    You need to move elements of your map around and reduce the time it takes for Ts to get into the action rather than extending how long it takes for CTs, because you still have the problem that CTs can rotate very quickly and practically see each site from the other.


    You also have a lot of unnecessary twists and turns at the T side of the map which literally only serve to extend T travel time and will never be used other than a labyrinth to hide in when the round has finished and CTs will rarely ever see as they serve no purpose (think how often Dust2 T spawn is scanned by CTs on a long rotation to check for lurkers).


    Here are some changes I would consider:


    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/EW1p41K.jpg]


    You also have some brutally large sight lines which won't be nice for frame rates and are very awp friendly. You need to try and consider more medium/short range for other weapons to be of any use.


    However, your detailing looks good, I can appreciate that you're clearing putting a lot of effort into it, but making it pretty won't improve game play.

  • What software package should I use? [Intentionally Ambiguous Title]

    I've done a bit more digging and InDesign can even be utilised as a PowerPoint alternative with adobe PDF supporting video playback and timed page/slide changes...


    I would like to throw myself into AE but with the nature of the travel industry, unless it's a limited time offer (which will still expire and have to be changed) as soon as you post a price it's immediately out of date and it seems massively inefficient to keep updating series of video clips every week to stay up to date...


    I was even maybe thinking connecting to our price database and making an HTML/CSS "slide show" with help from jQuery/php so it can update itself (I'll just assign some variables that I update from a text document) and self reference on the last slide to go back to the start. It would support all the standard web trimmings, but there would be a drawback


    SO MANY OPTIONS

  • What software package should I use? [Intentionally Ambiguous Title]

    Sorry this isn't really on topic, but I was hoping someone here might be able to help out / point me in the right direction.


    The company I work for, a small travel agent chain, have decided they want some sort of visual playback in their client facing shops showcasing a few lovely panoramas, latest deals and a few ads.


    One of the agents knocked together a very rough After Effects file in his spare time which functionally was not much more than a glorified PowerPoint presentation. I initially looked into After Effects and Premiere Pro but chose Ae and started poring over tutorials for After Effects and Premiere Pro, but then I found out that they want to be able to update it regularly as well, potentially a couple of times a week.


    The way I was going to compose the "video" was a playlist of 30-120 second clips so that we can playback through something like Windows Media Player and mix and match, and if anything needed to be updated it was a single file and not re-rendering an entire video.


    As can be the way, they're very casual about the whole situation and just expect a finished product.


    What should I use? I'm seriously considering PowerPoint now, but was hoping for the chance to use Ae/Pr as an opportunity to learn something new. Is there an entirely better product that I've completely missed?


    [Blocked Image: http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/234/765/b7e.jpg]

  • [WIP] Half-Life 2: Dreaming

    It was mentioned in an "all access feature charting the development of Portal 2" but this particular article is from kotaku:


    http://kotaku.com/5799661/valve-…ayer-says-chief


    The topic in question goes:


    Quote

    I think what we're trying to talk about is the fact is not that we're not thinking about single-player games..Portal 2 I think is a pretty good example of what we've learned over the years in terms of how to create those [single-player] experiences.

    It's more that we think that we have to work harder in the future. That entertainment is inherently increased in value by having it be social, by letting you play with your friends, by recognizing that you're connected with other people.

    Single-player is great, but we also have to recognize that you have friends and wanted to have that connected as well.

    It's not about giving up on single-player at all. It's saying we actually think there are a bunch of features and capabilities that we need to add into our single-player games to recognize the socially connected gamer. Every gamer has instant messaging, every gamer has a Facebook account. If you pretend that that doesn't exist, you're ignoring the problems that you're taking on.

    It's single-player plus, not ‘no more single-player.'


    But I've always loved games where you can have a friend just drop in or like portal, a special set of missions specifically meant for coop, but maybe with more people like synergy?

  • [CS:GO]de_barista

    Holy shit those times are huge!


    So you're telling me CTs stand there like lemons for a whole 10 - 15 seconds?


    I would say given a good T spawn (always have the extra spawns for that element of random) the Ts should get to the site within 1 - 2 seconds of the CTs arriving. For a non rush site, maybe allow 3-5 seconds of set up time.


    10 - 15 is wasting a lot of the round time, and probably quite boring for CTs. It also means you are making a lot of map that the CTs don't need to use, but due to the large waiting times may well push right up against Ts encouraging aggressive play.

  • de_smoke (Greybox)

    Hi, I know you recorded a few bits from the play test, but I thought I'd jot down some of my thoughts here for you:


    • The rain was very loud and visually distracting, you need to check your func_precipitation parameters.
    • I'd recommend switching to the reflectivity textures as it will give a better idea of the lighting colour, there is a lot of orange pollution right now.
    • Going for a dark map is one thing, but I would increase the brightness of your light_environment and reduce the brightness of your various lights. I struggled to tell if you did or not, but you can use a light and light_spot in tandem to create more natural lighting. (add an env_sprite in there for the little glow to make lights pop)
    • Don't be lazy with your clips! The CTs on mid shouldn't need a clip for those huge boxes, but the T stairs on mid could definitely do with it.
    • Both bomb sites are very long (I mentioned in game that they are so long that I looked straight at a flash and it had almost no effect on my vision), they could probably do with being a third or half the length that they are right now.
    • The timings to each site are hit and miss. Due to their long nature there are lot's of long range flashpoints and no real chokepoint that need to be manoeuvred through.
    • That door... (take reference from nuke) But in all honesty it would make more sense to just remove it. It's a more dangerous, longer route into the site,# which comes out at almost the same place as the main entrance, so there is no real pay off?
    • Swap your bomb site triggers over, the first trigger placed is automatically labelled A. Your signage in the game is the wrong way round and swapping triggers is faster than replacing all the overlays. But this isn't overly important until you get the radar working.
    • The CTs can rotate in about 3 seconds from the back of each bombsite, and you direct line of sight more or less from the back of both bombsites. I would try and contain them as their own thing
    • The bombsite that Ts run to with a lower area and a ladder up to the top area (I think radar said B, signs said A) is massively CT sided as the Ts feet can be seen far too in advance without a chance to shoot back.


    Over all, what I think you need to do is look at a valve map and take note / copy their values for lighting on a map similar to what you are going for. On the whole night time maps aren't very competitive, even though people romanticise the idea in their heads, visibility is always a core issue.


    Good luck!

  • What's going on with your life?

    Quote from Sentura

    So you're implying that everyone who practices a religion is a terrorist? What the fuck man.


    I think what he means is that religion is a powerful tool to "control" people and we shouldn't play into it's hands and surrender ourselves to it.


    Control is used loosely, but anyone God fearing (emphasis on the latter word) lives a certain way, due to a certain context to prevent themselves from eternal damnation.


    Religion will be forever a divisive topic...