Upcoming Tutorial: The Seamless Multi-Map World

[Baker]

TODO:

Think about this some more and how to make it universally compatible with standard Quake with a mild engine modification like rotating brush models.

Rough framework is like this:

1. Since QuakeC support for such a modification would be necessary, have QuakeC somehow tell the engine that a mod wants multimap support --- AND can the QuakeC tell the engine EARLY enough in process?

Or is there a better way? One assumption is that a multimap mod certainly MUST have it's own gamedir. Or would it? (Thinking of and Universal Server project compatibility).

Ah ... let's just have the engine use a cvar. sv_multimap 1 ... easiest way. Is that cvar name "good"? sv_multimap_travel? sv_persistent_game_world? Whatever ...

Or perhaps better and more natively ... ALWAYS assume multimap support is wanted (ON by default) but if a changelevel doesn't contain a "." then it isn't acted on for that map ... effectively neutralizing the feature for all existing maps but allowing maximum flexibility for future maps.

I mean, this feature looks for an existing "Quake in progress" file and isn't ever going to find it for a traditional Quake map so on by default should be harmless enough. And if the new map name doesn't contain a "dot", it will never be saving one and no existing map names have a "dot" in them.

2. Treat all trigger changelevels with dots in the map name as parsable to extract the name of the spawn point desired.

3. How are save games going to be handled? They practically require their own folder with this.

4. And single player --> new game and typing map in the console would need to clear all the current .qip files.

But there is no reason to have to include all those progsdef.q2 stuff to get this to work ....

/End thinking

[Spike]

[mh]

[Ranger366]

This reminds me of the very old MultiMap/World server idea fo Quake.
If someone would do this for Quake 2 im going to pay.
But thats off-topic.


Still this would be really cool for most of everything.
But i think my words get ignored here so i will not say the rest i wanted to say for now. I already have enough Karma lost, i think...

Add to Scores:
Ranger366 -1

blarg.

[r00k]

[Max_Salivan]

[ceriux]

this seems like an awesome feature that every quake engine should have. it helps mappers and mod makers alike. baker do you have an engine with this already implemented ? (i would like to see sock work this into his project, would be awesome)

[Max_Salivan]

[Spike]

rmqe should already support it (at least its on the svn even if there's no public release!).

[qbism]

[Spike]

graceful autosave points, in that the 'restart' command restarts only the current bsp, as opposed to the entire hub (which is what would happen if you had only a single bsp). There are other methods of course, but this is the more intutive solution for that...
can run on public coop servers without requiring clientside extensions (and can still work in vanilla servers too, but with the caveat that it ends up somewhat like prydon gate's 'hub' stuff if you're take care over 'startspot' not being transfered).
lower ram use (bsps don't have to be loaded in their entirety, ents can potentially be zipped saved to disk between maps).
less active entities at one time (relevent if you use ode or gyro or other cpu-intensive qc stuff).
clearer demarkation of areas.
keeps the mapper aware of just how much backtracking they're forcing the player to do... I hate backtracking.
shorter individual compile times.

I'd state the disadvantages, but:
a) I'm lazy.
b) you didn't ask for those.

[qbism]

Most of the disadvantages seem related to continuity. But monsters frozen in their hubs could be a feature rather than a disadvantage by remaining as the player remembers.

Q2 is hubbed yet still with plenty of backtracking. Especially the palace levels... What was I supposed to be doing again??

[Max_Salivan]

[Spike]

max, does loadgamestate not contain an internal spawnserver call already?
quake's saved games (and thus presumably also hub system) involves loading a new map then wiping all ents and replacing them with ones from the saved game. only difference between a hub and a saved game is that you don't save+reload the player, player parms, serverflags, or startspot.
(you'll also have to save the other maps into actual saved games too, of course)

[Max_Salivan]