Shocker: In The Shadows Released (!!!)

[Baker]

Version 1

Sock has released version 1 of the "looks too good to be true" long-anticpated mod he has been developing "In The Shadows" (of which several YouTube videos have been posted highlighting game aspects). In The Shadows is a very sophisticated single player mod with some complex ground rules ... read more in the thread ...

Recommended engines: FitzQuake Mark V and FitzQuake 0.85 (0.85 has gameplay speed issues with multi-core CPUS = all recent computers *).

Download: In The Shadows V1.1 - 15 MB (Updated)

Editor's note: Sock is an uber-talented Class 1 boss-level modder and the author of Q3 maps, an entire texture set in Nexuiz, a photography professional and far, far more than that.

[R00k]

WOW! Truly a masterpiece in the making! Now I really need to add protocol 666 to Qrack

[RawShark]

Can't wait to play

[Spiney]

Had to change max_edicts to something higher than 1024 (fitz) otherwise game wouldn't run.

Also tried DirectQ, but any change to any of the edict settings seems to instantly crash the engine. (MH plzfix0rz)

Let's check this baby out ...

[Spiney]

Pretty awesome

Very moody, the models and animation look great too. Especially like how the knights drop their sword, looks very convincing.
Brushwork and trim are superb, colors and fog work nice.

Gameplay is good, if not a little bit simplistic. Like Rook said, masterpiece in the making

[Syluxguy28O3]

voted. Hope you win sock!

[Baker]

Had to change max_edicts to something higher than 1024 (fitz) otherwise game wouldn't run.

FYI: FitzQuake Mark V doesn't need any changes to max_edicts to run anything.

Source is highly documented for metlslime or Quakespasm to stealz code @ will. Like super-highly documented in the source code.

/+1 infos

[sock]

Gameplay is good, if not a little bit simplistic.

Which gameplay, the vanilla or stealth mode? Is there anything you think would make the gameplay more interesting?

Had to change max_edicts to something higher than 1024 (fitz) otherwise game wouldn't run.

The max_edicts is defined in the quake.rc file inside of the pak file, are you running the mod correctly? does your engine shortcut load properly with the -game option?

FYI: FitzQuake Mark V doesn't need any changes to max_edicts to run anything.

I noticed that! For the old engine (0.85) I set the max_edicts in the quake.rc file.

@syluxman2803, the competition is over and it seems the quake community is crazy tiny, the mod did not make it into the second round. At least it gives me a better idea of how many people are actually interested in Quake nowadays.

[Baker]

@syluxman2803, the competition is over and it seems the quake community is crazy tiny, the mod did not make it into the second round. At least it gives me a better idea of how many people are actually interested in Quake nowadays.

Sock you are wrong. I'm embarassed to say that ... uh ... well ... I was part of a team of Quake-derived project that wasn't a mod of the year finalist, but a MODDB mod of the year winner.

But crazy stuff like that just seems to happen with me so I'll file that in with all my other "sounds like bullshit but actually provable true stories".

Hence, I try to not talk too much lest people point out how these things don't even make sense ....

Hey look, a nickel!

/Distracts sock, leaves when he isn't paying attention.

[sock]

Sock you are wrong. I'm embarassed to say that ... uh ... well ... I was part of a team of Quake-derived project that wasn't a mod of the year finalist, but a MODDB mod of the year winner.

For some reason this comment really winds me up because the example you give is from 2008 and we are in 2012. The quake communities across several sites (func, quakeone and inside3d) are probably less than 50 active people and to be honest that is me being generous. When this is compared to the massive active HL communities on moddb it sort of puts Quake in perspective, crazy tiny community. Another good example is that Quake is so far off the radar of most people that no major news site or magazine even keeps tabs on the cool stuff going on with the Quake community.

I would like to say I did not create my mod 'In the Shadows' because I thought quake was popular or has a large community. I created my MOD because I love Quake, but we should not all kid ourselves and think that the size of the Quake community is anything more than an extended family. Out of curiosity I went back through moddb's top 100 for the past 6 years and the quake engine has only appeared once in 2008 for a mod called :[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgL-Bd2lb7w"]Solitude[/ame]

Moddb past top 100 [2011] [2010] [2009] [2008] [2007] [2006]

[Baker]

For some reason this comment really winds me up because the example you give is from 2008 and we are in 2012.

Heh, I like to think I can get people thinking.

Here is the modern environment: Ever more sophisticated mods, by ever more talented teams. Your right about the 2008 comment mattering (and you successfully identified the mod in question, btw).

To win a popularity contest or even get in the radar in 2012 someone has to:

1) Have a sustained ground-game of publicity.
2) Or have a incredible niche.
3) Having a huge number of friends and social network and the time to maintain it is almost required.

The Solitude mod had all 3 Publicity beyond imagination (that page even though inactive for 2 years still gets massive page views), an incredible niche (at the time a Playstation Portable mod could do that), a large and enthusiastic and passionate number of followers (maybe 15 people on the development team, another maybe 75 people who wanted to be).

Your observations and conclusions are in many ways accurate.

Winning a popularity contest involves being able to pull in the attention. Attention and merit don't ever correlate, if they do it is because a lot of work in making it so.

[sock]

Winning a popularity contest involves being able to pull in the attention. Attention and merit don't ever correlate, if they do it is because a lot of work in making it so.

Yeah, you are totally right, you hit the nail on the head! I was naive enough to think that the ModDB contest was all about quality MODs and totally under estimated how much of it was marketing and popularity. In retrospect I did leave my pimping to the last minute (contest started beginning of December) and I think I could have done it better if I had more time and more friends! hehe

I checked out some of the other MODs and they are pumping out screenshots, news updates almost daily and I don't have time for that, I want to create stuff for the MOD. I am sure there are people on the top MODs that just do the marketing stuff only because the news updates are just an endless wave!?!

I do have plans for another update (version 1.1 hopefully in the next couple of weeks) which should fix a lot of bugs that everyone has found (mostly visual stuff) and then I will go on another marketing drive but this time with larger news sites and see what happens. Maybe I can get more people thinking/playing Quake and wanting to play some old retro user made content again!

[Baker]

I checked out some of the other MODs and they are pumping out screenshots, news updates almost daily and I don't have time for that ...

Exactly. Although not impossible, a "one man army" is probably not going to ever win a MODDB popularity contest.

You would need at least one communications guy to do updates all the time at moddb to interface with the "crowd" and making YouTube videos and chatting up people. If someone with your talent was doing it you'd be misallocating your time doing grunt work ...

Fun realities of how things work, but it is true.

On the plus side ... you seem to have a fairly good sized pool of interested users here, at Func and at Inside3D.

[R00k]

Exactly! I've even started adding protocol_fitzquake to Qrack just to play this mod!

[Baker]

Exactly! I've even started adding protocol_fitzquake to Qrack just to play this mod!

Sock ... you actually have R00k playing a single player mod. Do you understand how rare and profound this is.

Many mods have won a MODDB popularity contest. Only your Quake mod has gotten R00k to play a single player mod.

Clearly you have achieved something of understated profound significance ...