Entire New Mod Concepts (Clue, Dungeon, ...)

[Baker]

About a week ago, I was talking with Lardarse and he had mentioned that LordHavoc made a random map maker that does a very intelligent job or making maps. Although Lardarse provided me with a binary, I haven't tried it yet but we got into a discussion of an idea.

1. Dungeon games



I wonder how hard it would be to modify such a thing to create random maps with, say, 5 levels and random halls and rooms and a limited number of options to decend further into the dungeon to reach whatever the goal is at the bottom of the dungeon.

There could be healing pools or what not and some treasure chests like used in maps such as rc3 or Duke of Ontranto.



Actually, Fat Controller's custom entities development kit (author or the above maps) has so many medieval monsters (archers, who knows what else) with the QuakeC and the models/sounds probably would suffice for the content.

2. Clue like murder mystery game (single player)

I have no idea where or when I got ahold of this old game, but there was once an old DOS game called Sleuth that was a very well implemented Clue-like murder mystery game.



Download of this old game I located

The theme of the game was that you went around a house and found items and asked for alibis and searched for bloodstains and eventually you had to identify the murderer or be killed. I can't remember if you got killed by hanging around the real murderer too long or if it was just a time limit, but there was a scary "THE MURDERER IS STALKING YOU ..." message.

I think I last played this addictive game with crappy graphics on my Windows 98 machine and remember little about it, but I don't see why a Quake mod couldn't do this superbly.



I think a map in the style of one of Scragbait's maps would be perfect, although the corridors would need to wider.

Then again, ORL has made many killer indoor maps, like Orlmap2.

[Canadian*Sniper]

sounds like a fun mod idea

[Zop]

A thought that came to mind is to be able to save character's progress on the dungeon game. The random generated aspect reminds me of a type of game I know called "roguelike" (names of such games: Nethack, Omega, Moria, Angband, T.o.M.E.) I think it would be interesting, to see at least, level maker and have a mod place items and monsters randomly. I think the level designed would have to put an entity in each square and the mod would choose (randomly?) what to place.

EDIT: QUESTION: Any ideas if/when that map makek can be released?

[Phenom]

Could this be spanned out across multiple servers ala Quake Hub (Gunter's creation) for different game play or harder Dungeon areas?

[=peg=]

could be neat

[Lardarse]

EDIT: QUESTION: Any ideas if/when that map makek can be released?

Do you mean the map maker that I gave to Baker? It's downloadable from LordHavoc's SVN. Look in the dgmapgen folder.

[Baker]

I've tried the map gen program and played the map (use DarkPlaces or Enhanced GLQuake with generated maps, they are too big for most engines).

http://www.quake-1.com/files/developer/mapgen.zip (just dpmg2.exe and then do "hmap2.exe dpgen.map" do generate dpgen.bsp and copy it to your maps folder).

This concept of randomly built maps is very nice. The maps made by this were rather basic, but I could image a sophisticated map generator that used prefab rooms and hallways as building blocks.

Different prefabs pieces could be a stairway, a tunnel, a hall.



To me, the real question is what rules would the mod need to have to make gameplay interesting? I think a timer would be necessity, and a goal instead of an exit (goal is find something or retrieve something and bring it back?)

How would vanilla "shoot the monsters" be avoided? How could the concept be more interesting?

One thought is very few encounters, grave health scarcity, grave weapon scarcity. But then the typical, it is so easy to flee the monsters problem arises. Hmmmm.

Unless the situations were constructed to make that somewhat difficult? Maybe doors open and close VERY, VERY slowly?

Also, it seems to me that the AI would be better if monsters lost interest in chasing you after several seconds of not seeing you?

Are there any 3D games currently out there that generate random maps? I know many simpler games probably did this in the past, but I've not recently known of any games that have the ability to randomly make a map.

/Thinking out loud

[ORL]

Are there any 3D games currently out there that generate random maps? I know many simpler games probably did this in the past, but I've not recently known of any games that have the ability to randomly make a map.

Doom has done this. Its a program called Slige, and it is quite impressive. You can specify just how large or small you want your maps to be. It uses different themes and you can specify which theme you want it to make. It makes use of locked doors, keys, teleporters, platforms, stairs and things. (which in doom are barrels, candles, light fixtures, etc)

You can specify how hard you want a map to be, or how easy.

It also uses secret areas and secret levels, which use a special theme each time.

You could make a 32 level megawad with your choice of skill and design in a few seconds with Slige.

The level detail is normally always blocky, but sometimes it will use slanted walls. It makes good use of lighting and textures, and it uses sky, slime, and crushing ceilings from time to time.

It can do a lot more than what I have said, but I just gave you a example of just how much it can do. Give it a try, and see for yourself.

http://www.doomworld.com/slige/

I know you said recent games, and Doom isnt very recent. But I just wanted to throw this out.

[hondobondo]

i like what valve has done

with Left 4 Dead. A purely coop mod with monsters preventing you from reaching a goal. Coop starts on one end of the map, with monster spawns (ala Aardappel's DMSP) spaced throughout the map. if the map generator could just generate a simple two ended map (start => exit), then place coop spawns on one end and monster spawns on the other, compile in a few seconds at run time...

even if the maps had to be edited slightly, you could have a multi-episode mod in no time, just use action quake player and weapon models, select a few zombie type monsters (player models with axes/fists/jump attacks and zombified skins). that would be cool. i'm terirble with skins and maps, but i could handle the weapons and maybe the monster code.

[Baker]

I think not providing any weapons -- not even axe or shotgun -- somewhere primarily inhabited by a sparse population of reskinned zombies -- face it, the Quake zombies do not look scary but they could look more so -- in such a way that they are at least annoying could be helpful.

Zombies in zombie movies are slow and not really a threat unless you manage to get surrounded by them.

Make weapons valuable! Make them very hard to get.

It can do a lot more than what I have said, but I just gave you a example of just how much it can do. Give it a try, and see for yourself.

http://www.doomworld.com/slige/

I know you said recent games, and Doom isnt very recent. But I just wanted to throw this out.

That information did give me some ideas

[hondobondo]

zombies are not always slow and stupid

left 4 dead has a number of variants, one that moves fast and kamikaze explodes on top of you, one super strong hulk zombie... in the counterstrike zombie mod they have near unlimited health because they have a huge regeneration rate, and they nearly ignore bullet hits. it's basically a bunch super strong melee monsters vs weak humans with unlimited ammo. on a side... i think blizzard should copy left 4 dead and call it Starcraft 3D: terrans and protoss vs zerg. does anyone know if there are any decent bug-type alien models out there for quake?

[Dooomer]

I recall that there is a strategy mod for quake, in which you control a team of starship troopers (using the model of quake2 marine) fighting against the bugs (modeled like in the starship trooper movie). I can't remember the name now tho...

[Baker]

Wow, this is worth checking out.

Unbelievable.

http://www.gozzys.com/article.php?cm_id=8

I need to locate some code like this (I have a feeling it would give me too many headaches to write my own) and build a series of prefab setpieces.

[Phenom]

Quake 1 + Dungeon Mod + random map generator = Quake Dungeons & Dragons

I'm not a huge fan of D&D but I'd like to see how this plays out for Quake!

There could be different classes like in FVF

The Worrior
The Dwarf
The Mage
the Rouge
etc..

That would be interesting!

and maybe R00k would get his dragon in a cave after all haha

"R00k, you are a lvl 15 dwarf, you run into a lvl 20 dragon, what do you do? what do you do!?"

[Canadian*Sniper]

hehe, worrior and rouge