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sock

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Everything posted by sock

  1. I saw a similar system recently in the game Mark of the Ninja - http://www.ign.com/v...ja-video-review and even thou it is an awesome game for stealth game play, the obvious '?/!' symbols just breaks the immersion for me. This is why I went with the stealth eye because it felt like something that was alive and helping the player. I also linked it with story and idle animations (it looks left/right and blinks at the player). The other problem I have with ?/! symbols is that it makes me think of WOW and quest givers. The ?/! symbols have become an universal visual language in games, especially mmorpgs. Now this is something I can do! When the player has the amulet their weapon is partly visible (alpha 0.75%). I do play the ambient invisibility sound in the background but you will never hear this in the video demo's I do. I would love to add the invisibility icon to the HUD but the engine stops drawing all weapons and that is awkward if you are trying to work out which weapon is active. Ideally I should have proper HUD icons showing player states but that would require an engine update.
  2. This is something a lot of people say, 'The AI looks dumb because you are standing infront of them' 'why does the AI not notice you' 'this looks too easy because the AI don't notice you'. The problem is a visual thing, people (watching the video) do not feel the player is invisible. People assume because the player is not lurking in the shadows (aka thief) or hiding all the time that this is not stealth. Another problem is the stealth eye, a lot of people are not realizing what it does and are wondering why the player in the video can walk around and not be noticed. The stealth system starts when the player gets 'The Amulet of Shadows' which is similiar to an existing Quake item called 'The Ring of Shadows'. When playing Quake I liked when the player could get this ring because it can be used to scout a new area. I wanted to extend this mechanic and allow the player to see what is ahead and then plan their next move. In the traditional sense this is not pure stealth, the player is not forced to hide in shadows or avoid AI. The best analogy I can think of is imagine the player is like the film predator with a suit of invisibilty but it is flawed up close and there is no Arnie! http://www.simonoc.c...sign/sp/its.htm I know this is not going to be popular but I did write up an article explaining the stealth eye system, how the AI detects the player at distance and if the player is in the AI's field of view. Check out the section ' How does the stealth system work?' There are images explaining the AI FOV, the radius and angle zones around the AI and what the colours of the stealth eye mean. This does raise an interesting point, how to create a video that shows stealth properly. One problem is that stealth is often slow and can be difficult to watch because it lacks lots of action. The next problem is the assumption of what stealth is in games. The final problem is I know how everything works so it is easy for me even on the top skill level and my play throughs videos make the system look too easy.
  3. The idea of this article is to get people looking at negative feedback in a different light. I think people should not be afraid to say if they feel something is wrong because this can lead to things improving. I know it is impossible to make everyone happy and some people will always dislike what you are doing but any feedback is better than no comments.
  4. This series of articles was inspired by some people I know who claimed to have received 'hateful' feedback. Their comments made me wonder what exactly did they mean and how did it influence their project in the end. Personally I think feedback is the best way to improve a project and I believe that people here at mapcore should try to offer as much feedback as possible to new people seeking advice on their projects. It certainly is good trait for a professional career to be able to give feedback on other peoples work. If anyone thinks there are some more feedback catagories missing, please let me know. I would also love to hear from anyone about how forum feedback influenced their project and was their final outcome, better or worse?
  5. When a developer creates something that they feel proud of, it usually involves a large amount of time, energy and emotional investment. It is not uncommon for people to pour their heart and soul into something creative and then feel overly sensitive afterwards when confronted with a stranger's opinion. Understanding what type of feedback is being offered can help you get past defensive feelings and realize that feedback is about helping to improve something, not hinder it. "Yeah your game is awesome!" Receiving compliments about something that you have worked on for a long period of time is great. Apart from the feel good factor, Candy feedback can also lead to other people being curious enough to want to try the game as well. The best type of Candy feedback is when it is specific about something in the game and that is usually a good indication that the game is going in the right direction. "Why does it work that way?" Questions are always good feedback because it is someone trying to understand why it works. This is the perfect opportunity for you to learn how to express your ideas in a way that others can easily understand. When someone initially asks a question they usually have further feedback, but they don't know how to express it yet and need more information. Always remember there is no stupid question and answer politely because it will often lead to feedback that has been thought about over a long period of time. "Your game sucks!" Nobody wants to hear negative comments and it can be really easy to take this the wrong way. Feedback posted in anger is about frustration and lack of understanding. You need to put on your detective cap and find out why, be polite and ask simple questions. Why? What? How? Remember to keep your replies free of emotions and to the point, if this is someone who genuinely does not understand it will often lead to good feedback because their problem was so frustrating that it drove them to comment! "Your game is good, but..." Usually starts with a good compliment to break the ice, quickly moves onto the feedback and then sometimes a solution to fix it! The perfect feedback is when someone has logically thought through a problem, able to explain themselves and give a possible solution. Thinker feedback is often referred to as constructive criticism and is the easiest type of feedback to understand because the thinker is direct and to the point, they want to improve the game. "No comment" There is nothing more frustrating than ‘no comment'; I would take a hundred angry people shouting feedback at me any day of the week than wondering why no one has made a comment. Besides access problems (lack of login id, restrictive websites and foreign language) the lack of comments often stems from social convention that if you got nothing positive to say, then say nothing. At least a negative comment can lead to change, ‘no comment' leads to nothing. If you are defensive and angry towards feedback eventually no one will comment and this is not where anyone wants to be. Try to engage people with questions, get people involved in the process of creation and most importantly accept all kinds of feedback without prejudice. "This game feature is so stupid!" Fanatically feedback is ultimately positive because it can highlight really obvious problems that should be fixed. Passionate fans of games get a bad deal when compared to sports fans because they are so vocal. Having someone engaged and wanting to be heard is the perfect starting point for a conversation and once all the feedback has been broken down into facts it can often highlight the most obvious problems that are overlooked because most developers don't think like new players. Conclusion Feedback is something that should be embraced because it can take a game in new directions and add features that were obvious to new players. Looking past the emotion of Internet feedback will stop you from getting upset when someone is not being subtle with their thoughts. Posting stuff on the internet is about asking for feedback and expecting only good comments all of the time is naive. The best kind of feedback is pointing out things that are wrong because then your game will improve rather than just be ‘no comment'.
  6. I thought it was strange how the features just stopped for no reason. I think the article idea has a lot of potential because there is so many industry people here and it would be interesting to read stuff from their point of view. I certainly would like to see more interviews of people who post here and would love to hear about their thought process for creating content. I also have a couple of articles I would like to summit and have PM'd Thrik with the details.
  7. I think you need to get some people who have not played your MOD before to test it, because I see players getting really confused and frustrated. Like for example the bit where you go up to a second floor office to switch on a button to progress. The pacing feels gated all the time, walk, push button, unlock door, where is the puzzles, the exploration, the drive of the player to move forward and see the next part. I can understand it must be frustrating just working with existing assets and trying to make a new jigsaw puzzle picture but your level feels like it needs more focus, what exactly are you trying to do? what is the player suppose to do? What type of gameplay are you trying to create?
  8. The last one in the set of gameplay videos showing hints, tips and sudden death moments. It took me ages to plan the routes, enemy encounters and then finally syncing it all to music to make the right impact. Some of the sequences I probably played 50+ times to get the perfect demo but it was worth it in the end. I played a lot with poison bolts in the gameplay videos and it turned out to be a lot of fun, I might try a poison bolt only mode (no axe) and see how it works out. Anyway thanks everyone for the feedback so far it has been awesome. Time to get back to making stuff and not constantly talking to myself in this thread!
  9. I have been busy the last couple of days creating promotional videos of the stealth gameplay. The previous videos were looking really old compared to the latest stuff. So here is some stealth hints, tips and sudden deaths to keep everyone wanting to play the mod and give feedback! S1M1 - Shadow gate Start - Training area EDIT: Typos
  10. I wrote a couple of articles about some of the features for the MOD In the Shadows: Discussing the new AI systems with screenshots from in-game and editor: http://www.moddb.com...s/looking-smart Talking about exploration and how it can integrate with the storyline: http://www.moddb.com...tion-is-the-key Review of the MOD: http://www.quaddicte...shadows_by_sock
  11. Well here is it, 'The Cosmetic Upgrade' because it has so many visual additions. New particles, new models, new skins, new textures, new tutorial, more main story, new stealth books, new menu/help system and a few changes to the layout of some maps! V1.1 Download Link (16.5Mb File Size) V1.1 Readme File
  12. I finished my concept map Florentine Library a while ago and I thought it is about time I release the textures, so all of you can have fun creating floating palaces in the sky! Texture pack web page : http://www.simonoc.c...alace/index.htm The textures are a mixture of different resolutions (512x512 and 1024x1024) and there is only the diffuse layer, I am sure if someone wants to use them they can create the other texture layers. Oh by the way, Happy Christmas everyone! Here is some texture examples, more on my page:
  13. While on my honeymoon I found this gorgeous old (extremely rundown) bull fighting ring. With the help of my wife (holding the fence open for me) I sneaked in and took a couple of pictures! So cool to see an old iron frame building ... Large 1152,x768 jpgs Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Inside under the seating
  14. @hipshot, hey what's happened to your website!?! @Warby, thanks, hope you enjoy the videos instead. The final part (3) of the Daz-athon playing through the second map s1m2.
  15. Part 2 of Daz from Custom Gamer trying out stealth in the first map
  16. I personally use Radiant because I love the floating window arrangement and using one large 2D window. The latest version of radiant even has a special Quake mapping pack so that it can read the old texture format. The compiler tools have command switches for radiant editors so you can use func_groups as well. I know a lot of quake mappers use WC 1.6 and there plenty of tutorials and support files for this version.
  17. Daz from custom gamer has posted a video review of the start map. @kedhrin, I have not created any assets (light patch) for DP, this MOD is designed for pixel loving engines! @seir, nothing like a trip down memory lane, install quake!
  18. This place always surprised me, I really was not expecting anyone to pay much attention to this because, well it is Quake and damn old! My reasons for picking this engine was even after all this time I still think the style and atmosphere are just so good regardless if they are pixelated and made up of crude shapes. Yeah I think you have to be a fan of Quake to really do anything with it nowadays. I know most people here won't have access to Quake (this is mostly a HL centric site) but I have another video showing some more of the stealth gameplay which was my primary focus for the MOD. I also added a vanilla gameplay setup because I know not everyone in the Quake communities are Thief fans, but I do think the levels really come alive when played in stealth mode instead. So here is a short video of Stealth gameplay but using the Avoidance system. It is very much like a puzzle where you need to learn where things are going to be and what routes offer the least amount of resistance to being discovered. It also demonstrates all the extra locations and features that have been specially added to create the stealth gameplay experience. (youtube video with an HD option if you got the bandwidth)
  19. Finally after months of testing, tweaking and huge amounts of coding, drawing and level design I present version 1 of my MOD 'In the Shadows' which features three maps, two game play modes (vanilla/stealth) and a readme file packed full of hints to help ease your way into the MOD. For people not familiar with the state of Quake 1 nowadays, there are several engine replacements that extend the original format so that more can be done. This MOD relies on the new engines to work with the old Quake 1 assets. You will need a full version of Quake 1 to get this working, so check out steam for a cheap copy. Then download the custom engine (links below) and setup a shortcut using the extra parameters I have specified in the readme file. Once that is done (I know, a bit complex and long winded) you can play the MOD and enjoy the new gameplay modes and have a good old fun journey down memory lane. Things to note, this is old tech, monsters have square bounding boxes and simple graphics, when playing stealth be aware that hit detection will not be precise and try to learn what size monsters really are. If you are curious to see this in action, drop down the console and type 'r_showbboxes 1' and it will draw they hit detecton bounding box. This will be more apparent in stealth mode because you are trying to avoid waking up the AI and need to distract them with objects around them. The MOD features, new maps, mapmodels, monsters, animations, texures, sounds, sprites and crazy amount of new code (quake scripting about 3-4K new lines) to create the new game mode, stealth. The maps all support new AI features and they are not the usual quake style, they will hunt you down and play more like DM style bots. Please take the time to record some demo's with Fitz because this will be the perfect way for me to understand how you played the maps. If there any problems or things you think should be different, please let me know. Download v1.1 Link (16.6mb) Web Page v1.1 Readme Moddb Recommended Engines: Fitz0.85 Mark V Game play video's on my youtube channel Screenshots (1024x768)
  20. I want to ask a favour... ModDb are running their 'Mod of the Year' competition and I want to get my Quake MOD through to the top 100 and I need your help. Please take some time to go over to the 'In the Shadows' mod page - http://www.moddb.com/mods/its and vote! sign up, tell your friends and lets get a Quake MOD into the top 100! About me : I have been lurking here for sometime and creating stuff for years, check my website if you want more infomation on what stuff I have done over the years. (http://www.simonoc.com/) The Project : Has been active for the last 6 months and getting very close to a public beta (fingers crossed should be before xmas) The primary focus has been gameplay mechanics with lots of 'under the hood' changes to AI and a new game play mode 'stealth'. Being an old engine (quake) the graphics are certainly not modern day standard but the gameplay is still fun and I would say the graphics fall under the heading of retro. More Info : Currently there are two video's showing some gameplay elements and plenty of screenshots to show off the direction of the level design (new maps and updated graphics) I have included links below if you want to see what the MOD is about. Video 1 - Steath Combat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRrW9c3TpXA Video 2 - Stealth Mechanics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YArCZDpkcSA Latest Screenshots : http://www.moddb.com/mods/its/images A screenshot from the latest map Thanks SimonOC
  21. Thanks everyone for the replies and interest in the article and project. Sadly that youtube playthrough is very dark (I was living in a cave when I recorded it) the map is a lot better in game. It was certainly was a cool experiment and the article is really the final piece of the project. If anyone has some questions about the project, let me know here.
  22. I have always wondered about the idea of 3D scripting with the logic functions being defined as 3D shapes. A couple of years ago I started experimenting with a small set of entities to see what stuff I could create and the initial tests were a lot of fun. Eventually the test maps turned into a huge single player puzzle map called Edge of Forever which consequently took forever to finish. Afterwards I was going to write an article about the puzzles in the map and then I realized, no one would be interested, the project was a crazy idea to start with! After two years of avoiding the idea I recently found the time and energy to finish writing the article on puzzle logic I promised. Funny enough it turned out exactly how I imagined it would ... barking crazy! http://www.simonoc.com/pages/articles/puzzlelogic1.htm A big thank you to PJW for helping me with the proof reading of the document
  23. It is not often I see modern day level design (block-outs and scripting) on forums and explained in detail as well. It certainly would make for a cool Level Design competition instead of the usual visual environment contests that I see on so many forums.
  24. Wow that is very cool, I especially like how you showed the kismet stuff. It is always cool to see the actual nuts of bolts.
  25. The map has 5500 Brushes, 390 models and 150 lights. Most stuff is models because of rotation and scale issues with Q3 and the editor. The crane map has no optimization, so the rspeeds are crazy (100K+). Lots of stuff could be turned into alpha textures and tons of models could be reduced in detail to make it playable, but the exercise was to see what the textures looked like with a map pushing Q3 to the limits. Here is some links to showtris screens (massive images 2Mb+) rspeed counters in the corner if you are curious.
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