Duke Nukem Arena

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Tea Monster

I saw this, but then someone was shooting at me so I didn't get a good chance to really look at it.

An ARCADE???

In the next release, the game will not start until the player starts it from the menu, so you won't have to worry about getting shot at right away.

The lobby that I have in mind is inspired by console games: in particular, Ape Escape and the Ratchet and Clank series (and to a lesser extent, Zelda type games where you can hang out in town before questing). I should also mention Deus Ex, where you can skulk around in the base, hacking into personal computers and looking for items in secret places, etc. The idea is to have a nice homey place where you can kick back and do some fun stuff, enjoying the spoils of your victories before going into battle again. I think it's important for creating an atmosphere which is otherwise missing in this kind of game. UT and Q3A always seemed lacking to me in the singleplayer department for this reason -- playing them offline is kind of a cold, mechanical experience. If it's supposed to be a tournament, why not have a place where the competitors hang out and talk trash / play games / goof around / whatever ? Or, maybe even invest in certain weapons and equipment using the money they have earned, rather than finding everything in the maps? The arcade could have a few simple mini-games that would be unlocked by winning battles in the arena. ...Or, if I run out of steam before then, it would just be a room with some nonfunctional arcade machines in it.

[Ryanthelurkster]

that would rock

[Dopefish7590]

for a mode of game it would be awesome to be a certain alien in dm
but you can only use certain alieins once or twice (like battlelords)
Spoiler:

show spoiler

It would be awesome to be a sentry drone

[C. M. Dratz]

'Think this is ready to copy-flip for the blue side, DT? I don't want to take it too far if you are going to have some standard banner sprites in the near future. I think this could be playable...but oh yeah, the ladders. Should I leave the lifts in though, with the ladders beside them? Also, should I shade the map before copy-flipping? It might look strange with the light appearing to come from somewhere else on the blue side.

[DeeperThought]

DUKE NUKEM ARENA UPDATE


changelog


V. 25 November 24, 2006

-Added Monster Arena gametype

-Fixed the “too many sprites spawned” bug
-Fixed the sprites stuck in the air bug
-Added "Roch Island" map for all gametypes
-Added "Chibi-Lord" monster (a small version of the Overlord)
-Reduced rate of team monster spawning
-First game does not begin until it is started using the in-game menu (happy now, Teamonster?)

-Adjusted positioning of some text

Full Documentation.

Anyone who tries this -- please play the Monster Arena gametype and tell me what you think. I need suggestions for tweaking the gameplay. The new gametype-

Monster Arena: A team of players faces a horde of monsters that is generated by monster spawners. The number respawns each player starts with, as well as the amount of spawning energy (MONSPAWN) available to the monsters, is determined by the score limit. There is no time limit in Monster Arena. When the monsters are out of MONSPAWN, the Cycloid Emperor is spawned. The players must defeat him in order to win.

I would suggest trying it with a small number of bot teammates at first (like 2 or 3) and with a low score limit (like 10 or so). Some maps work better with this gametype than others. Also, due to imperfect botpathing, certain sides of certain maps make for better play (i.e. try games on both red and blue teams).

Oh, and the Cycloid Emperor...he's not exactly vanilla, although I haven't done anything really fancy with him yet.

[Iggy]

If you want a mirror;
http://files.duke4ever.net/misc/DukeNukemArena.zip (6.44Mb)

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

-First game does not begin until it is started using the in-game menu (happy now, Teamonster?)

I'm happy now too.

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

Anyone who tries this -- please play the Monster Arena gametype and tell me what you think. I need suggestions for tweaking the gameplay.

I'll give it a shot today. Any change that edited Iron Will map of my will make it? Also, have you noticed that I sended you a PM on AMC with a downloadlink for that (w.i.p.-version) HighWire level?

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Iggy

If you want a mirror;
http://files.duke4ever.net/misc/DukeNukemArena.zip (6.44Mb)


I'm happy now too.


I'll give it a shot today. Any change that edited Iron Will map of my will make it? Also, have you noticed that I sended you a PM on AMC with a downloadlink for that (w.i.p.-version) HighWire level?

Thanks for the mirror! And yes, Iron Will is going to be incuded soon, as well as some other maps (like probably that Ledges map, if I can figure out how to get the botpathing right). I was focussing on Monster Arena this time, but I will turn my attention to maps again soon.

[C. M. Dratz]

The new Cycloid Emperor owns; it's cool, if somewhat unpleasant, when it teleports on top of you like the alien queen in Unreal 1. "Monster Victory[....]"

One thing I think could improve the lesser monsters' lot is a change in how the Octabrain attacks: perhaps there is a way to make the range unlimited and make the circular pulse formation out of sprites that would gradually spread apart and act like the shotgun alternate fire spread, the difference being that you see it on the way to hitting you and that it has a set formation that increases in size with distance. Maybe working out the damage code would be hard...I thought I'd bring it up, though.

[Edit: I was thinking of adapting on old game type idea I had for Unreal Tournament. It was "capture the missile key(s)" so you could launch a nuke at one of your enemy team's base. It this case it could be like UT2K4's onslaught, except that instead of attacking the enemy power generator, a spiffy new Cycloid Emperor is spawned on your team until the other team(s) manage to take an adaptable percentage of the territory points which relates to the number of teams involved. Or, instead of territory points, it could involve keycards used in much the same fashion. I don't know what a good name could be for it. Maybe Genocide Spawn or something.... ]

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by C. M. Dratz

The new Cycloid Emperor owns; it's cool, if somewhat unpleasant, when it teleports on top of you like the alien queen in Unreal 1. "Monster Victory[....]"

That's, uh, not quite a bug and not quite a feature...let's just say he'll be doing less of it in the future. I'll also be giving him more new tricks.

I just uploaded a version that fixes a few problems. The bots are now better about picking up items and the monsters are better at using waypoints. I also adjusted the CTF ai a bit. It's available at the usual place, and I put a copy here as well.

[Dopefish7590]

i love the monster arena but after a while my computer crashes... probably because there is so much goin on at once... an idea to speed things up a bit... if you put in an option that makes corpsed fade away or dissapear while no one would be looking... this will also decrease lag on my 1 ghz cleron processor (yes i know its slow... so sue me )

and it can make battlefields become less confusing so you dont have to see through 10 battlelord corpses to fire on someone

thats just my thoughts though

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Dopefish7590

i love the monster arena but after a while my computer crashes... probably because there is so much goin on at once... an idea to speed things up a bit... if you put in an option that makes corpsed fade away or dissapear while no one would be looking... this will also decrease lag on my 1 ghz cleron processor (yes i know its slow... so sue me )

and it can make battlefields become less confusing so you dont have to see through 10 battlelord corpses to fire on someone

thats just my thoughts though

I'll do something about the monster corpses. Probably, I'll just have them shrink/fade into nonexistence after a while, as with the bot corpses. Until then, you can always do what I do and blow them up.

Are you using the HRP? I haven't had any problems with lag, but then again I haven't been using the HRP (it's a pain to wait that long for the game to load, when usually I just want to test something for a few minutes).

The game shouldn't crash just because there is a lot going on. If you tell me the exact nature of the crash I might be able to fix something (what does your log say afterwards?)

I've made steady progress since the last update, including many bug fixes, and I'm hoping to release something by this weekend. It will be a refinement / bug fix / new map release.

[Dopefish7590]

i play no hrp (my hrp doesnt work)
2 teammembers (not including me)
using roch island (or any other map)
after a bit of gameplay it gets laggy
after it gets really laggy it closes eduke32 and asks me if i want to send an error report to microsoft (i say no because i dont have internet)
all i can say

this is on monster arena

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Dopefish7590

after it gets really laggy it closes eduke32 and asks me if i want to send an error report to microsoft

That doesn't sound like it's an error in my code. I'll make the bodies go away after a while and that should help, though.

[DeeperThought]

Duke Nukem: Arena V.30



V. 30 November 30, 2006
-Added "Iron Will" and "Agony" maps
-Added map previews in game menu
-Various bug fixes
-Monster bodies fade away after a minute
-Minor improvements to how bots choose weapons
-pistol shoots with perfect accuracy when player is not moving
-new formula for determining number of player respawns in monster arena

Documentation

[TerminX]

Looks nice.

[The Commander]

You have to admire DeeperThoughts work. It is most impressive. If only I could download this latest version!!! it keeps cutting out on me. My stupid ISP.

Oh and DT maybe one day when you have some time you could also make a seperate documentaion in your download for mappers explaing the high tags and low tags of the way points and starting points and monster points ect. Might make things a little easyer for some people. lol

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by The Commander

You have to admire DeeperThoughts work. It is most impressive. If only I could download this latest version!!! it keeps cutting out on me. My stupid ISP.

Thanks. Get a different ISP already

Originally Posted by The Commander

Oh and DT maybe one day when you have some time you could also make a seperate documentaion in your download for mappers explaing the high tags and low tags of the way points and starting points and monster points ect. Might make things a little easyer for some people. lol

I would rather add the botpaths and stuff myself than write an explanation of my system that maybe one or two people will ever look at. Even if people did attempt it, I'm afraid that I would end up redoing/adjusting their work, which is harder than starting from a clean map.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by C. M. Dratz

I was thinking of adapting on old game type idea I had for Unreal Tournament. It was "capture the missile key(s)" so you could launch a nuke at one of your enemy team's base. It this case it could be like UT2K4's onslaught, except that instead of attacking the enemy power generator, a spiffy new Cycloid Emperor is spawned on your team until the other team(s) manage to take an adaptable percentage of the territory points which relates to the number of teams involved. Or, instead of territory points, it could involve keycards used in much the same fashion. I don't know what a good name could be for it. Maybe Genocide Spawn or something....

That's not a bad idea. Also, there's nothing wrong with the original idea of having a nuke launched at the other base. All it would require are some maps where the missiles would have unobstructed flight paths from one base to the other, and some coding. From the beginning, I stated that there would be a "War" gametype, but I haven't yet decided on the details.

[The Commander]

I WAS FINALY ABLE TO DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE THING!!! thank god it didnt cut out. Well I have to say I love the Monster Arena. I was a bit confused thoe at why bots didnt come back after a While but then I relised when the Final Boss came. Had it on 100 Score! on Rancid map i think it was? With the funny crane looking thing in it. The Lighting gun is the best weapon of choice IMO for that map.

[The Commander]

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

Thanks. Get a different ISP already

Other than the HRP+XTR+SDMOD

Your Mod is actully the only thing out so far that can acctully show what is possible with Eduke32 and that is what I find so interesting. We only have screenshot of other projects in the works but you have taken brave steps and accully release as you go. I might sound all sappy ect but thats what im thinking anyway, lol.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by The Commander

Other than the HRP+XTR+SDMOD

Your Mod is actully the only thing out so far that can acctully show what is possible with Eduke32 and that is what I find so interesting. We only have screenshot of other projects in the works but you have taken brave steps and accully release as you go.

I'm not being brave. I do it this way partly because getting feedback on what I've done helps motivate me to go forward and gives me ideas (although most motivation has to come from the inside with this kind of project). Also, there isn't a lot of Duke Nukem stuff being released (with the notable exception of the HRP), so I feel like it's good to release stuff, even if unfinished, as a way of saying "hey, Duke Nukem modding is still alive". If I were modding in, say, the UT2K4 community, then that would be a whole different story. In that case, I would not want to release unfinished stuff, because there are already so many huge, great mods out there.

[Iggy]

I'm not fully sure this is right but when I select "Pratice" and then "Dukematch" the game starts and monsters start spawning. I'm getting attacked by both monsters as well as other Dukes. It also doesn't seem to matter what level I pick.

For a suggestion, when I have yet to determine what exact gametype and level I wanna play is it really a good thing to already load up a map before I make a decission? Why not display the optionmenu without loading a map?

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Iggy

I'm not fully sure this is right but when I select "Pratice" and then "Dukematch" the game starts and monsters start spawning. I'm getting attacked by both monsters as well as other Dukes. It also doesn't seem to matter what level I pick.

For a suggestion, when I have yet to determine what exact gametype and level I wanna play is it really a good thing to already load up a map before I make a decission? Why not display the optionmenu without loading a map?

First, thanks for submitting your Iron Will map. It's a great addition to the DM selection.

If you start a Dukematch game, it will start with whatever options are selected. By default, monsters are on. You can go under "more options" and turn off "team monsters". In Dukematch, which isn't a team game, the monsters are "wild" are aren't on teams, but they still spawn when the option is selected. In future versions, I may have it off by default.

As for the starting map...when you first load the game you are going to be in some map, even if it is just a lobby (I guess there could be a map where you are just stuck in place staring at a wall, but that doesn't appeal to me). Right now, I don't have a lobby map so I have the player start in WG's Labrenth2. There are no enemies until you start a game from the menu, so this shouldn't be a problem. If you read that long post that I wrote above in response to Teamonster, you'll see that I do want a lobby for the campaign mode, and I have elaborate plans for it. Since I am not a mapper, I'm hoping to get some help with that...

[Loke]

Just played a bit, very cool I must say. I also liked the spectator mode.

Sorry if I missed something but I'm curious as to why the Duke models are 3D, and not 2D like normally, when I'm playing oldskool. However, everything else like items and monsters are still 2D though.

[Dopefish7590]

because ther are some models in dna.zip

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by Loke

Just played a bit, very cool I must say. I also liked the spectator mode.

Sorry if I missed something but I'm curious as to why the Duke models are 3D, and not 2D like normally, when I'm playing oldskool. However, everything else like items and monsters are still 2D though.

R.T.F.M.

You're suppose to copy your HRP zip-file over to the DNA-dir.

[Iggy]

Whoops, sorry for the double post.

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

First, thanks for submitting your Iron Will map. It's a great addition to the DM selection.

No sweat, heck, if it wasn't for DNA nobody would probably play Iron Will. I'm thinking of making a DNA-version of my future DM-maps anyway next to trying to revive my HighWire level for it as well. Did you had the change to check it out?

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

If you start a Dukematch game, it will start with whatever options are selected. By default, monsters are on. You can go under "more options" and turn off "team monsters". In Dukematch, which isn't a team game, the monsters are "wild" are aren't on teams, but they still spawn when the option is selected. In future versions, I may have it off by default.

That did the trick.

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

As for the starting map...when you first load the game you are going to be in some map, even if it is just a lobby (I guess there could be a map where you are just stuck in place staring at a wall, but that doesn't appeal to me). Right now, I don't have a lobby map so I have the player start in WG's Labrenth2. There are no enemies until you start a game from the menu, so this shouldn't be a problem. If you read that long post that I wrote above in response to Teamonster, you'll see that I do want a lobby for the campaign mode, and I have elaborate plans for it. Since I am not a mapper, I'm hoping to get some help with that...

I wouldn't mind trying to make a lobby for DNA. If you want anything in particular send me screenshots of it. I'll get on to it after Sewerside (or nex to it).

[Dopefish7590]

Originally Posted by Iggy

R.T.F.M.

You're suppose to copy your HRP zip-file over to the DNA-dir.

no you don't the required textues to play are all in dna.zip
even if you only use the low res batch file... ther are still some high res models... like duke nukem himself

you only need it if you choose play high res dna.bat

[Loke]

Originally Posted by Iggy

R.T.F.M.

You're suppose to copy your HRP zip-file over to the DNA-dir.

Huh? I did what the manual said, copied Duke3D.GRP over to an empty folder, extracted the contents of DukeNukemArena.zip to that folder then used the DNA.bat application to run the game. Worked fine.

Not that it bothers me in any way, I was just curious.

[Iggy]

Looks like I haven't fully understood your post. The Duke-model shouldn't be used when people are playing with the original graphics. (When choosing the normal .bat-file it also includes the DNA.zip-file containing the Duke-model.)

[Dopefish7590]

Originally Posted by Loke

Huh? I did what the manual said, copied Duke3D.GRP over to an empty folder, extracted the contents of DukeNukemArena.zip to that folder then used the DNA.bat application to run the game. Worked fine.

Not that it bothers me in any way, I was just curious.

apperently you didn't read my post

[Loke]

Originally Posted by Dopefish7590

apperently you didn't read my post

Yes I did. I was just answering Iggy's post.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Loke

Just played a bit, very cool I must say. I also liked the spectator mode.

Sorry if I missed something but I'm curious as to why the Duke models are 3D, and not 2D like normally, when I'm playing oldskool. However, everything else like items and monsters are still 2D though.

The bots are separate actors from human players, defined with a different tile number. In the BOT actor's action definitions, they can refer back to the tiles used by the player's animations, and this is what I tried at first. But there were glitches. The main problem was that bots would be suspended above the ground when they went into their death animation. I tried changing their cstat to half-submerged when they died, I tried manually moving them downward, I tried everything I could think of, but they still insisted on floating in the air. So finally I just gave up and used the models instead. The same problem existed with the models, but I was able to overcome it by using a separate model definition with a different zadd value for the death animation and lying dead frames. I then discovered that the same problem came up for crouching, and the same solution worked.

[DeeperThought]

I just uploaded a new version of DNA. I wasn't going to upload again this soon, but I discovered a really stupid bug which caused the players to always start with 9 respawns when playing the monster arena gametype. Now it should be challenging, as intended.

This version has preliminary support for gore. Basically, I took the gore code that I wrote for my other mod, combined with the models from sd_duke, and added lots of blood. If you've used sd_duke, then the jib models and blood textures will look familiar (much thanks to Hellbound, Parkar and Dr. Kill for making this possible) but they are coded completely differently. My jibs fly around and bounce around a lot, some would say unrealistically (although I have heard that human body parts fly off in different directions after an explosion). It WILL drop your framerate, but you have the option of turning gore off in the menu. Actually, if your framerate is too low, you won't see much gore anyway because it will simply refuse to spawn and the game will default to the classic jibs. In later versions I will work on wall and ceiling blood. Oh, and the gore applies mostly to the monsters at this point -- I still don't have models for player jibs.

The batch file for running in hi-res mode assumes that you have the latest update pack for the HRP (2.03). I have not even attempted running it in hi-res lately, as my computer is not very good.

Download from the DNA link in my sig.

[Iggy]

Here's the usual mirror;
http://files.duke4ever.net/misc/DukeNukemArena.zip (8.26Mb)

[Dopefish7590]

thats a bug???
the wierd thing is that i managed to beat it with only 1 teammate

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Dopefish7590

thats a bug???
the wierd thing is that i managed to beat it with only 1 teammate

Yes, that was a bug, although the formula still needs tweaking, because it tends to be too easy when there are a small number of players (fewer players = more respawns).

EDIT: Speaking of bugs, I just found a nasty one which messes things up if you play a monster arena game with more than four players. So, until the next version comes out, I would advice against doing that.

[The Commander]

I also have found a weird bug, It was on the Reclaim map with 6 Players on Monster Arena. After I had kill all monsters and defeatd the boss I went and tried finding the key cards for the doors. Then at some point I herd shooting and went to the crane thing out side and the bots where shooting at the crane even thoe there was nothing there??? Then al of a suden a plasma ball shot appherd from somewhere and started circling the crane??? What is up with that?

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by The Commander

I also have found a weird bug, It was on the Reclaim map with 6 Players on Monster Arena. After I had kill all monsters and defeatd the boss I went and tried finding the key cards for the doors. Then at some point I herd shooting and went to the crane thing out side and the bots where shooting at the crane even thoe there was nothing there??? Then al of a suden a plasma ball shot appherd from somewhere and started circling the crane??? What is up with that?

Well, you've expressed curiosity about how things work in the mod, so...

There are invisible sprites that are supposed to be spawned when an enemy monster is spawned, stay with that monster for the duration of its life, and then die when the monster dies. These invisible sprites are what the bots look for and shoot at -- it's more efficient than having the bots look for each type of monster separately. There are three tilenums for the target sprites: SHOOTME, SHOOTME1, and SHOOTME2, corresponding to team 0 (no team), team 1 (blue), and team 2 (red). Actors look for the appropriate type of target depending on what team they are on. Problems occur if a target sprite fails to be spawned when it should, dies when it shouldn't, stays alive when it shouldn't, or fails to stay where its owner is. You might think it is simple to keep the target on the monster, but not really: if the monster is not inside of a sector, and the target moves itself to the monsters coordinates, we get the dreaded stuck sprites and too many sprites spawned problems. And if the monsters are forced to stay inside of sectors, then often they get stuck and refuse to move. Then there is the problem where if a monster is deleted from the map for some reason and its target sprite fails to take notice, the target will stay in the map and bots will shoot at it forever, which may be what happened in your case. The basic idea is simple: the target sprite monitors the hit points of its owner, and if it finds that its owner has zero hit points, the target kills itself. But there are complications. Sometimes, monsters can be alive with no hit points. Then there are lizard troopers who play dead. It's also possible for actors to get deleted without being killed, which means that the sprite ID will still have hit points even though the sprite is gone (the solution for that one is to check the statnum of the sprite and not just the hit points). If I did away with the targetting sprite system I'd have even worse problems which I won't go into. Anyway, it's a big mess and I'm trying to fix it.

The "heat seeking" blaster shots will sometimes circle stationary targets if they are at just the right distance because they have a constant speed and turning rate.

[The Commander]

Well this was the first time I have only noticed it and it was after the Monster Arena game was finished. As in when It says Blue team wins at the top, So that isnt to bad.