Khaile
Saturday, 05 August 2000 -
Various stuff... comment
CPM CTF has been suffering from bad "side effects" that didn't suit CTF so well. With no "real" CTF player on the CPM team we didn't really know what was required for a good CTF game. We're very happy that es-vynn and VS-Insanity accepted our invitation to the CPM team. These two experienced players have already come up with a couple of new settings for CPM CTF. With no doubt CPM CTF will be as fun as 1on1 and teamplay with the next release.
This leads me on to my second subject. The last couple of days I've had lots of important stuff to do, but not the will to do them :P, so I've wasted my time creating another mod. This mod got the incredible lame name "Powerstyle" in lack of any better, and is based on CPM gameplay (of course). The mod's main feature is two new gametypes, "Capture and Hold" and "Powerball".
Capture and Hold (g_gametype 5) is just like the Unreal Tournament "Domination" gametype. Capture and defend the bases until your team hits the fraglimit. All id maps are supported and have one to five bases.
Powerball (g_gametyp 6) is a little more interesting. It's similar to the "one flag CTF" gametype that Q3:TA will have, except you have to take the powerball (the flag) to your opponent's base instead of your own. q3ctf1 to 4 and all q3wctf* maps are supported.
Now comes the real sucky part... I'd love to play CaH on some maps (especially the maps with only one base seem really cool), and I think Powerball could be fun as hell. But of course there are no servers with such a small mod like this, and the bots haven't got a clue what's going on :( (actually the bots think it's normal FFA action). It's quite annoying that I can't play my own mods :~(...
If you have 3 (or more) buddies to play with and happen to test the mod, please let me know what you think... You can get the mod here (370k).
Saturday, 29 July 2000 -
OSP .99c... 10 comments
Can't wait until Sunday... What happens on Sunday? Well, bds will be back from a small vacation, and I'm gonna make sure he upgrades all the GeekBoys Q3 servers with OSP .99c :). bds removed the single CPM duel server two weeks ago or something (for CTF), but now we'll have 7 servers back (including a CTF server)! =)
I think I'm in love with Rhea ;)
Btw... I've played some Rocket Arena lately, and it comfirms my suspicions. Quake 3 was made for Rocket Arena and not the other way around. Godsmurf also noticed this (I think) in his review of RA3, where he says:
During the period before the release of Rocket Arena 3, it was described by many players as being the mod that could 'save' Q3; a statement that implies that the author thinks Q3 sux, but that he still thinks RA3 may become a great mod. I've given this statement some thought, and concluded that I agree with the reasoning behind it. If you look at the things that are considered Q3's major shortcomings, you'll see that they are all irrelevant for a Rocket Arena mod:
- Maps. The maps made by id are generally seen as very poor, but Rocket Arena uses its own maps.
- Game rules. Q3's newbie-friendly game rules (weaker armor, weaker quad, more spawn health) may be bad for team DM, but they don't apply to Rocket Arena, which has its own rules.
- The BFG. Q3's BFG may spoil all the maps that have it, but standard Rocket Arena doesn't use it.
- Weapon balance. All pick-up weapons in Q3 are strong. That may make DM less tactical, but in Rocket Arena you spawn with all weapons and wouldn't use the weaker weapons anyway.
Godsmurf leaves me clueless, though. If he knew that Q3 wasn't the perfect game all along, why wouldn't he help us with good suggestions instead of trying to convince everybody CPM sucks (indirect promotion, though, so I'm not overly concerned)? Who knows...
Thursday, 20 July 2000 -
Wanted: Natestah, dead or alive 3 comments
No, alive really ;)
Natestah is the author of a Q3 teamplay map that you can get from his homepage, and I'd like to discuss the map with him. The thing is that when I sent an email to the adress in the readme, I got a friendly reply "i don't do maps, you must have got the wrong adress".
If anybody knows this guy, please let me know! :)
Wednesday, 19 July 2000 -
Thank you, Johnny Law 5 comments
This was originally posted on the Quake3World level editing message board in response to people who thought differently, and then brought to my attention by revelation on our design message board. Listen to Johnny Law's clairvoyance, I doubt anybody could put it better:
There is, absolutely, an increased likelihood of domination in CPM. As I mentioned earlier, that's one of the main goals of the mod: to make control and momentum more important by widening the range of capabilities that players can have. This makes for more ups and downs in a game -- scoring goes in streaks, and often there are periods when you are very vulnerable or very stacked. This is intentional. The changes are meant to create this roller-coaster effect; to re-introduce more fear (on the one hand) or feeling of power (on the other hand) than you would get in the mostly even-keeled gameplay of Q3. To allow a player to be "still in the game" even if the other player has a lead that is fairly large, since a modest lead is not at all safe if control gets swapped. To create a wider variety of combat situations. And finally, and not incidentally, to exaggerate the effects of mistakes, and exaggerate the effects of skill differences between the players... not just aiming skill, but skill in achieving, maintaining, and breaking control, thru item management and opponent prediction.
This does not mean that an attempt to regain control will "almost always be futile", or that the "dominator can stay almighty". Unless one player is significantly better than the other one. Theorizing about such things is fine -- obviously I do that a lot myself :-) -- but actual games speak louder. Check out the demos I posted near the end of the previous thread ( http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/006762.html ). You'll see control firmly established in a few of these matches, and the down player works their rear off (in a mode of play not often seen in base Q3) to get control back and take revenge. Of course, these are the late-round games in the tournament. Scores are usually pretty close and control is not unbreakable, because the players are well-matched. In contrast, if you look in the first round or two, when favorites are matched against Joe Average Quaker, then it's a much different story, and you'll see some absolutely huge blowouts. The CPM team would say that's what you should expect to see in such matchups.
As an aside: games against bots are not a great indicator of what goes on in human-vs.-human matches even in base Q3, and much less so in CPM. Bots have an almost complete lack of tactical common sense, and that's a problem when map control is important. I commonly crush nightmare-level bots in CPM duels; in base Q3 I use hardcore-level bots instead, and really don't even do quite as well against those.
I think it's pretty clear that the base Q3 design was meant to downplay the importance of control and momentum, and also to downplay the effect of differences in skill. The 125 spawn health, decaying armor, and effective spawn weapon are like big flashing neon signs to that effect; also, many of the early remarks from id people about Q3's design say the same thing. Note that I am NOT NOT NOT parroting crap like "Q3 is for newbies" or "Q3 doesn't take skill". It's simply a matter of degree. CPM punishes mistakes _more_ than base Q3, emphasizes control _more_ than base Q3, and exaggerates skill differences _more_ than base Q3. These effects are not absent in base Q3; just muted, compared to CPM.
IIRC, the id folks picked that particular point on the design curve because they thought that a new player stepping onto a server and getting repeatedly and rapidly crushed was not an encouraging experience. They wanted to make Q3 more widely appealing. And you know, they were probably right. The vocal old hands in the Quake community often claim that such experiences just made them eager to find out how they could learn to be so leet themselves, but there's undoubtedly a much larger audience out there who finds such experiences demoralizing rather than inspiring.
But speaking for myself: I played base Q3 for a long time, and I enjoyed it, but to me it's just a little too homogenized an experience. I like a game to have ups and downs; turning points and comebacks. A little drama. And that's just addressing the particular topic of this thread -- there's a laundry list of other CPM features that range from common sense items whose absence from base Q3 is puzzling, to innovative toys that are cool to play with. (Plus a couple of design decisions that I disagree with, but c'est la vie.)
Your suggestion to undo the spawn health and MG changes deals with the heart of the CPM philosophy. There are lots of peripheral aspects of CPM that might get changed or tweaked, but I doubt that these will. It's not quite so bad as saying "CTF is fine, but I just don't like the idea of having flags; take those out and then it could be a cool mod!"... not quite so bad, but maybe close. :-)
Now, to veer briefly on-topic... CPM does create some issues for map designers to think about, even though it is still very similar to base Q3. First of all because a sloppy item and/or spawnpoint placement will have a greater negative effect in CPM than in base Q3. Secondly, because even a really good itemset in base Q3 can be less effective in CPM (and vice versa). And beyond the health/armor changes in CPM, a map designer also has to take into account the increased air control and trick jumps, since players can reach places and take routes in CPM that would be inaccessible in base Q3, especially when coming off of jump pads.
When a mapper says that a map is "good with Pro Mode", as you've seen at LvL recently, a large part of that is them just plugging the mod because they like it, and the map will probably play just fine in base Q3 as well. But it also indicates that any playtesting of the map was done using CPM, so mistakes in dealing with CPM's gameplay changes are less likely to have gone unnoticed.
People who don't like CPM can probably just ignore that little "good for Pro Mode" phrase. For those of us that like CPM, though, it's a somewhat useful indicator that a) the map was tested under CPM's gameplay, and b) the map author has familiar opinions about what makes for fun gameplay.
Monday, 17 July 2000 -
By the master himself comment
Several awesome demos was created during Lansanity, and I've tried to look at as many as possible. Among these demos, this one must be my absolute favourite (looked at it after it had been suggested by Hoony). This demo was played by the master himself, a|revelation, and he surely showed us what CPM gameplay can be like. Unfortunately, he was smacked down by a|pureluck in this demo :) (but still a very close game).
You can get the demo here (played on CPM3). It's worth the download. :)
Sunday, 16 July 2000 -
Scoreboard during demos? 1 comment
Anybody thought about that before? ;)
Thought so... This has been an issue for some time now, but in the end it seems like the solution was too simple to find easily :) If you don't wanna hear all my ranting, just download the damn mod here (73k), but here comes an explanation:
When recording demos in Q3, it only saves the info on the client sides (not so strange, really). Unfortunately, the scoreboard info isn't clientside, it's just sent to the client on a server command like a "scoreboard message" with all the scores, pings and such info. Now this really sucks, because that means that a person who views a demo only will see the scores for a few moments after each time the player dies.
To solve this, I first created a new command that would allow people to view the scoreboard all the time. It's called "+demoscores" and can be bound to a function key if that's preffered. This doesn't solve the issue with the actual information in the scoreboard, though, so I created an easy score keeping system from the client death obituary. When somebody dies, I check the "eric raped kenny" message and saves the info in the usual scoreboard structures. This doesn't help much to figure out the pings, though, and it sometimes shows wrong values. But each time the player dies a correct scoreboard message will be sent and the scoreboard will be back on track again.
This small mod is far from perfect, but it works. The most obvious enhancement that I can think of is to make the scoreboard sort the players correctly (currently it only sorts them after a normal scoreboard message).
Ask me for the code if you want it. It's actually a very simple fix.
Update: Found a bug in the mod (the score is screwed up when somebody jumps into the lava), will post the new version sometime later today.
Update 2: Fixed the bug, works nice and sweetly now :) (same download location).
Monday, 10 July 2000 -
Re: Godsmurf's Column 1 comment
When I first read Godsmurf's column at Clanbase, I thought it was funny even though he made fun of the Pro Mode development team, and I never planned to "defend" Pro Mode in any way against that article. But now I've read some of the comments in the column, and realized that there seems to be a few things that people (still) don't understand.
If you look at the list of features for ProWo Mode, you see that there are two large "WARNING!" for air control and backpacks. This is a note to joke about the original CPM Candidates list, where it says "NOTE: Double jumping will make current map strategies and tactics obsolete" but no note about the air control feature. This might sound strange, but this was because there was planned for three different mods: the Q1Q3 remake, the "classic" mode and the "full" mode. Air control was only planned for the Q1Q3 remake, but the variables to change the settings was included in the tweaks mod (a mod that the designers used to set all settings for CPM).
The Q1Q3 remake was dropped already before the first public release (beta5), but "classic" and "full" remained. This meant that our goals changed a bit, but the candidates list didn't. When we released beta27, the "classic" setting had also been dropped, because it only caused confusion. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the "full" setting was dropped, because the weapons was set back to Q3 (with exception for some knockback values).
What's left to remember is that we're trying to create a mod that is fun to play and good for competitive playing. Though our achievements are based on individual taste, I think we're quite close to the mark. Our work this far has mostly concentrated on 1on1 gameplay, but if Lansanity goes well, we can start on refining teamplay gameplay aswell. Some changes that are in thought are to change the powerups so that they respawn like the megahealth (60 or 90 seconds after it runs out) and adding weapondrop.
But what is my point? My point is: we're still not making QW.
Friday, 07 July 2000 -
DOOMer on CPM comment
As you know, DOOMer also participated in the Nordic Championships that I wrote about two posts below. Though I never asked him myself, I saw an interview at Clanbase by PoK:
(PoK): Now I would like your personal opinion on the next subjects: Do you think the current Quake III Arena is good as it is and that there shouldn't be any changes made to the game or do you think certain changes should be made? What do you think of the ProMode, concerning things like the 1 minute quad spawn and the removal of footsteps etc.?
(DOOMer): Q3 is far from perfect but this discussion about what should change etc is getting a bit boring. I would like to make most of the changes to teamplay just like ProMode is doing. Stronger armors, weaker machinegun, less spawnhealth etc. ProMode is doing pretty much everything right to get a more interesting game teamplay wise. Removal of footsteps is really good I think both in 1on1 and teamplay. Gives a much more fast-paced game with surprise attacks.
They also discussed the (TMP) maps and some other stuff, you can read the whole interview here.
Wednesday, 05 July 2000 -
ProWo Mode alpha leaked! 5 comments
The new ProWo Mode that you could read about at Godsmurfs column has leaked!
You can get it here, but don't tell anyone where you got it...
;)
Update: Sorry, mistyped the link, should work now, though...
Wednesday, 05 July 2000 -
Some thoughts about CPM... comment
A writer here in the Challenge network once spent an evening asking several american (and other) players about their thoughts about Challenge Pro Mode, but he hasn't published it yet. Anyway, I thought I'd do a similar thing and ask a couple of players who participated in the Nordic Q3 Championships, but I lost interest when I discovered that all official pages about the tournament had been taken down (so I couldn't find out who actually played). But before I gave up the idea, I asked four players...
First off, I asked Lakerman_of_SC, who won the whole tournament and a cash prize of about 12,000 USD:
I haven't tried CPM yet. I don't care much whether it's Pro Mode or not at the tournaments...
Then I asked his clanmate, CapCop_of_SC, and he had a little more to say:
I've played it a little. I think it screws up for certain game types like 1on1 and Clan Arena that works fine in Q3. On the other hand Q3 teamplay sucks, only lots of MG. I think CPM could help there... CPM should only change things for teamplay, air control and such should be left along, I think. I'd play CPM a lot more if it was taken seriously.
And Sphere spent some of his time too:
Nope, I haven't tried. It seems to be more like QW, and because I liked QW I may play it. I will follow the flow, though, and play whatever is the most popular.
Finally, I asked Voo (who plays for Eyeballers):
Yeah, I like CPM. It increases the action during teamplay and I like the RG more. I'm not so sure about 1on1s, though. I haven't played many CPM 1on1s yet, I don't like learning new maps :]
So there you have it, a little of everything I'd say. It's interesting to hear "ordinary" players' comments and not just those that are active at message boards and columns. As a final note, I'd like you all to read Godsmurfs column, it's very funny (yeah, I know he's making fun of CPM, but it's funny none-the-less).
(All those quotes has been translated from IRC Swedish, but their points remain :))
Sunday, 25 June 2000 -
Q3 Sux :P 11 comments
Here's a news item I found on a Swedish gaming site:
Jag har aldrig sett något liknande på GameSpy Stats som det ser ut nu. 14500 personer lirar HalfLife, 2800 UnrealTournament, 1750 Quake2 (?!) och 1640 Quake3. Att HalfLife leder överlägset är inget ovanligt, men har både UT och Q2 gått och blivit populärare än Q3? Oh my!
GameSpys statistik bör dock tas med en nypa salt, TheCLQ till exempel har helt andra siffror.
In english: Both Half-life and Unreal Tournament are now more popular than Q3 (according to gamespy's stats). Hehe, and still there are so many out there who are complaining when we try to make the game better ;)
Update:
I checked out the stats myself, and as it seems now, Q3 has retaken is place as the second most played game, with UT close behind. Quake2 is only a thousand players short too.
Friday, 23 June 2000 -
Lack of good teamplay maps comment
After all these large CPL events with lots of cash prizes and such, people have all their attention to duels and forget about other game modes. I'm not a part of the CTF community, so I can't really say much about that, but I know a thing or two about the Quake 3 teamplay community. To me, teamplay is far superior to duels, and should be the main gametype of future events.
We all know that the maps included in Q3 are decent or worse, so we really need new maps. Actually I think it's quite good that id made such bad maps because now custom map makers finally get their chance to make maps that really are played... But the "duel focus" has resulted in hundreds of duel maps and barely any teamplay maps. We have more duel maps to choose from for the next "map pak" than we have slots. :( So what I am hoping now is that people discovers this problem, and starts producing teamplay maps instead.
As you can imagine, I think the id software map collection is rather dull (DM6, DM7, DM8 and DM14). But I still haven't found a teamplay map that will "save the day". I saw that Godsmurf suggested a map called "Sanctum" by VerMoorD for a Q3 cup at clanbase. I tested that map a couple of weeks ago (when I downloaded and tried LOTS of maps), and I found that it stood out quite well in the competition, but still wasn't good enough (VerMoorD or Godsmurf may explain to me why I'm wrong, perhaps).
I've complained about this problem on IRC a couple of times, so the future looks more promising. The guy who made the duel map r_tourney8a, twoAM, is working on a teamplay map that looks very promising (very qw-like with tight corridors and complicated architecture). Jude has also told me that his next map will be designed for teamplay, and some guys over at QuakeNet has promised me to create cool teamplay maps (MikeShade, phage, BlueBlood and others). But I still aint satisfied :P
If you're a mapper and you're reading this, you know what to do! ;)
As a side note:
/me pokes Phong ;))
Thursday, 22 June 2000 -
Next release 4 comments
Ok, another update about Challenge Pro Mode...
People often ask me questions about the next pro mode release at IRC or over ICQ (I even get emails from time to time), and I always answer them as good as I can. Most commonly is the question "when will the next version be released?". The true answer to this is that I don't know. Currently we're working on a special "lansanity exclusive version" for the Lansanity event that will include the latest gameplay settings and features. Our next release will be sometime soon after that. I hear you cry "OMG, lansanity isn't until 15th July! :(", but please calm down... :P Things sometimes require time to be done correctly. We should have the first "release candidate" completed at the end of this summer (or winter, if you're on the southern half of the globe).
Then people usually ask "what is new?". This is also a difficult question to answer because settings can change as the design team comes up with better solutions. I can tell you about the "lansanity version", though (out of a "what has changed since beta28 perspective").
The armor system has been completely remaked. This system might seem complicated but it really isn't. YA gives 100 armor points. YA is accumulated to a maximum of 150 YA. YA protects 60% of the damage. RA gives 200 armor, and that is the RA's max value (shards still accumulate beyond that point, though). RA protects 75% of all damage. The thing is that if you have RA, you can't pickup an YA unless you get less than 120 RA. This would leave you with 150 YA instead.
The air control has been extended to include backwards too. Otherwise it's unchanged.
There are a couple of weapon changes. The allowswitch setting has been increased to 1000 from 800, so it's more dangerous to fire railgun now, but still not as dangerous as in vq3. The grenade launcher has been reset back to vq3. Shotgun now shoots 16 pellets with 7 damage each at a 900 spread (from 700).
The powerups have also been slightly modified. BS now respawns slower than the other powerups (only once every 2 minutes) and has been powered up to a 75% protection. I've tested this myself, and the new battlesuit is much more frightening than the old one, I tell you! ;)
We've probably changed some other minor stuff too, but I don't recall them now.
Tuesday, 20 June 2000 -
Misunderstandings and rumours 6 comments
First off I'd like to say that in this column I write about my opinions and perspectives, they're not official announcements and can't be used to flame anybody else except me. During the development of CPM I've spoken to lots of people that hate the mod, love it or just hasn'd decided yet. I have been active at message boards and read through all those 250 comments at TrueGamers. I've noticed that some misunderstandings are very common, and that some rumours have been spread. I'll try to sort them out, though I can understand if you disagree with me on some of them.
The "CPM is a QW remake" misunderstanding
I know that writing "misunderstanding" already has enraged some of you, but let me explain. For the ones who know about CPM's goals know that "making a qw remake" wasn't one of them. I DON'T say that Challenge Pro Mode isn't similar to QW in certain aspects, I'm just stating it isn't a remake.
For example, if we tried to create a remake, why didn't we make QW armors in the first place? Why aren't the armor system identical to QW now? Why didn't we add QW-like air physics? Some people believe we "couldn't make it", or some devious strategy to hide our QW-remake goals. Believe me, the design team have tested almost every possible armor system that makes sense, and the air physics was chosen in such way it would be "added" to the normal vq3 physics.
I could probably write a whole article on this subject. Why did we remove the footsteps? Why did we increase the rocket speed (next release)? The list goes on. Again, rememeber and understand our goals. See beyond your prejudices.
Personally I think it's quite funny that Revelation (our design team leader), who comes from the q2 community, found the QW-like system the better.
"Double-jumps are going to be better in the next release" rumour
This one is really strange. Who said that? :) Double-jumping in CPM seems lagged for real q2 players, but they still work. We don't plan (AFAIK) to change the double-jumping.
"Weapondrops wasn't added because it didn't exist in QW" misunderstanding
This could get into the "QW remake" headline, but I felt that it required it's own space because it hasn't been discussed so much on the messageboards. Let me explain a couple of things first: "weapondrop" is a feature in Quake 2 that allowed players to drop weapons for their teammates. Quake 2 counted the number of weapons you had picked up, and let you drop as many. This created some really good teamplay situations where a team could lose control, regroup and share weapons, and then fight back again. A respawned player could almost always be helped by a teammate (if any was around).
Originally, I argued _for_ this feature, not against. I had discussed with e9-Judge about this feature (and helped him create a small teamplay mod with it), and he thought weapondrop would be good if it was connected with some sort of limitation or drawback (like "only one drop every life" or "each drop gives 10 damage" or similar).
So why wasn't this feature implemented? Well, the greatest drawback with weapondrop is that you no longer have to defend items for your teammates, just take everything and give it to teammates who ask for it at a later time. I don't say that defending a dropped backpack (or dropped weapon in normal Q3) requires more teamwork and communication, but it's definitely more difficult.
"Fatality does/doesn't like CPM" rumour
I really dislike when people put "words into somebody else's mouth". I've never seen Fatality making a public announcement about wether he likes CPM or not. I don't know Fatality's opinion, but until he speaks his mind, don't say what he thinks.
As a side note:
/me pokes Phong ;)
Tuesday, 20 June 2000 -
Introduction (and stuff) 2 comments
Alright, time for me to introduce myself and explain WTF i'm doing here...
Who am I?
My real name is Jens Bergensten, I'm a 21 years old swedish student. I have this need to constantly do stuff, if it's making a map or programming a mod doesn't really matter. I usually tend to get into more projects than I can handle. Otherwise I'm just an ordinary geek :)
Ok, enough bullshit :P
What am I doing here, and what is my connection to the CPM project?
Well, I think you could say that it all started with my dislike of the game known as "Quake 3: Arena". Basically it was the lack of air control that freaked me out, but there were other stuff that annoyed me aswell. I'm not a professional player, I just play for fun, and Q3 didn't fill that requirement (and QW was getting old), so I started creating a modification called "qwFix".
I can't say that the mod was a big hit or something, but I got in contact with lots of people about it (mostly was complaining that the air physics wasn't as similar to QW as they wanted, hehe), and one of these (some german guy, if i recall correctly) gave me an URL to the candidates list for CPM. At that time, I had never heard of Challenge World, so I thought it was a german site... :) So, unknowingly what I really put myself into, I emailed Hoony and asked if they needed help. That's it.
My responsibilites with CPM has been to help out with the programming. But I'm a restless guy, so I've been doing a little of everything (creating maps, promoting, contacting server admins, organizing a small online tournament etc...). Of some strange reason, it feels like people come to me to ask questions, and I usually post them on our design board.
I will update again tomorrow with my opinions about vq3 and CPM, and explaining some misunderstandings about the mod (and trying to get rid of some rumours).
|
