Do you like medeval maps? Good Opensource Music? Varied Weapons. Lightning gun?

[Haeylleh]

I wish people would download this and comment.

What do I have to do?
Clearly programming, mapping, making music, doing it all opensource is not enough.
What more do you want?

[Haeylleh]

Also guy in upper screenshot is looking the "wrong way" from the missile only because I set slowmo 0 and camera to 3rd person and spun around and took the sshot. Was pointed the correct way when fired the missile.

[PrimalLove]

@Haeylleh

I much like this mod/tc and enjoy it for what it is. I also recognize this is a labor of love for you and you have put much time and effort into creating and improving the experience.

Having said all that, its not surprising its not all that popular or well received. As cool as all the additions are, there is nothing structured about the game. It's like having xonotic with lots of additions on top of it that detract from what xonotic or similar games are suppose to focus on. In other words, it's not focused. It's more of an experiment. Open to many possibilities which is great but that isn't great for a great gaming experience. Unless you are making the next Garry's mod or similar its not going to cut it. This is a type of game you pick up to try fun stuff once in a while but nothing to keep you coming to it. I have no doubt the time and effort you have put into this has helped give you lots of experience with programming, modeling, level design, etc. which will help you with all your future endeavors. Also its likely this mod will help inspire others with future projects. But beyond that it is more or less just a oddity that you look at with curiosity for a little bit and then move on. Nothing to keep the interest of the player for any extended period of time. Xonotic is clearly an arena shooter. It has probably more added to it than is really needed for such a title in an effort to distinguish itself but at the end of the day its an arena shooter and everyone knows what that is and its purpose. This mod/tc isn't so clear. It's like an arena shooter with alot of noise.

Let me be clear in saying that the work you've done is terrific and you should be proud of those achievements. Using this platform to build your skills is a great way to build a portfolio for future endeavors and I hope to see new things by you in the future. But this title has nothing to give it focus, meaning, or make it particularly compelling to play other than a curiosity. Making something free doesn't do anything to detract from this reality.

Also, this is more of a Quake community focused forum and although you will get some feedback here and praise from fellow Quakers I doubt many of them find this game particularly appealing. It will undoubtedly be a terrific resource for future modders in the Quake community and beyond. So thank you so much for all you have done so far. It would be nice if you did an interview or similar about your experiences while making this mod. I would find it facinating. Also, don't know if you come by #qc or similar but I am often there if you ever want to discuss things! I am a big supporter of your work and very appreciative as a fellow modder.

The mod does play pretty well but has so many additions it often feels buggy which I would expect given how many additional mechanics you have included. At the end of the day simplicity is a good thing to strife for. A lesson I am having to learn myself often. Good luck with this project and any future ones you will be working on!

Regards,

Primal

[Spike]

What do I have to do?

my three(ish) suggestions would be:
1: make a 'light' version that is only 500mb or so.
2: use zip (or exe/msi for windows users). not iso.
3 (optional): provide a downloader/updater app/mechanism that can make keeping up to date trivial.

1 will make it more aproachable (and may help you focus on quality over quantity, which is something primallove touched upon). 2 will make it actually usable on windows instead of being a 'wtf is this' or 'omg I have to have a dvd burner for this?!?'. 3 will make it practical for people to keep up with your changes because they won't have to re-download the entire thing every single time.

[Haeylleh]

Thank's for the feedback.

My plan is to keep adding to and polishing this forever.
(Example: latest release, amongst other things, added a third level of detail model for all the WW1 biplanes, aswell as for other vehicles such as the yugo)

I know some like to focus on a small amount of things because there is only limited time, and thusly create a polished statue within the limits of the time they have. Each project being a painting of it's own, or a separate poem.

For me though, recording songs and making maps fills the seperate poem/polished statue need. The game is a container that holds those seperate things and enables whatever one want's to create. It's the pages and the ink, not really the words.

I've always wanted a virtual world where one can do anything in though.

As more pieces and features are added, they can be used with allready existing features within the same world, if wished, and you can combine them to make any match/game you want. Thus the worth of each code addition is perhaps multiplied.

As I see it, Darkplaces / Nexuiz / Xonotic allready has bumpmapping/normal mappind sRGB, realtime lighting, flares, coloured gloss, HDR, etc etc that it pretty much has all the features one would need to create great looking worlds. It's not lacking that, it's just up to the mapper / texture artist / etc. What else is left to implement? Maybe fractal-generation of terrain and stuff like that (and I'll try to patch that in if ever an idea comes), but it has the ability to make good looking areas.

I'm not planning on using this as a stepping stone (where would I step to? and to just throw away what one has allready done. I have no ambition for making a portfolio (those are for jobs right?), as I cannot trade that for what I want in life (it's banned, long ago was not banned, but times changed)) I'm just going to keep plugging at it I hope, and as that happens I'll keep polishing stuff, rounding out the rough spots, etc. I like to decide on a thing and just stick with it once a solid base is found. DP and Xon was/is that solid rock. I really don't like churn or abandoning past work: once one abandons something it's as if much work was done to no avail... and then you want what you did in the previous project in some new project (1 step forward, 400 steps back... treadmill, etc... systemd-like)

The idea of the world in the game I have is that it's in the future, but all the things from the past still exist, some have been upgraded. Thus many cars have their tires replaced with hover pads, but are otherwise similar to old cars, but there are also newer things that don't have legacy and upgrade style engineering. Older upgraded vehicles now have the portable shields like futuristic vehicles, as that's a tech that everyone would put in their vehicles once it was portable. Medieval weapons still exist (you can buy them on the internet right now for instance)

If you've encountered bugs tell me what they are
I do alot of testing each time I make a change to make sure things don't regress, but I miss things.
(Note: not all bugs do I know how to fix (like the limit on entities to 30k or so (or is it 60k?).. that requires engine changes, a new protocol version for netcode that will use some more bytes to address the entity numbers... and though I've done a liiiitttle bit of engine hacking, I would need guidance from others if we were to start adding big features like that... also a way to compile for OSX and windows 32 bit and 64 bit new binaries)


I chose iso as zip can't go over 2gb it seems on some platforms but iso can for somereason. Also I figured windows users would know what to do with it from their decades of unending software piracy, where a tarball would just raise question marks.

Thanks for the feedback and keep it coming. Also tell anyone that might be interested about the game please

(Someday someone might even put up a pub server if enough people like the game/mod)

[Haeylleh]

my three(ish) suggestions would be:
1: make a 'light' version that is only 500mb or so.
2: use zip (or exe/msi for windows users). not iso.
3 (optional): provide a downloader/updater app/mechanism that can make keeping up to date trivial.

1 will make it more aproachable (and may help you focus on quality over quantity, which is something primallove touched upon). 2 will make it actually usable on windows instead of being a 'wtf is this' or 'omg I have to have a dvd burner for this?!?'. 3 will make it practical for people to keep up with your changes because they won't have to re-download the entire thing every single time.

3 would be a security hole / violation of privacy. Xonotic allready has this ability but I've disabled it. What happens is every time you start up Xonotic (regular) it checks it's version, connects to a webserver, checks that version, and if there is an update, it downloads new pk3. That is fine for Xonotic, but I do not like that way of doing things. I think updating and connecting to an outside server should be a conscience act on the part of the owner of the computer, so with Chaosesque there is no connecting to any webserver on startup and no downloading new executables etc on startup. Downloading of new game code only happens if you choose to connect to a server with new game code (CSQC), and that's only for that session with that server. Remember: malicious quakeC can delete files within your quake folder, and webservers are easily hacked. Imagine if you were working on maps and someone's QC deleted everything in /data/maps . Thus this ha to be chosen by the player.

For 1: really the whole point of this game/mod is infact quantity over quality. What I've seen in xonotic and before it nexuiz and such is endless arguing over...

Please forgive me for saying this word, I don't want it to happen here
(/me breathes)
(/me pauses)

balance

This is where much of the time that was being spent on quality went.
Arguing over default configuration settings.
Why not take that time that's been wasted on quality and use it for quantity instead? And when playing and seeing something is amiss, add some quality in there in stride. Look around the world, why is a botanical garden great? It's the quantity of the quality. Why are palaces wonderful, the same thing: just alot of good stuff... like a ball pit.

It's just more fun to have more options I think. It may not win awards but if you want to test out the theory you hear about how someone could defeat the police with a crossbow and their sword ("my weapon never runs out of bullets"), you can equip blue team with pistols and limited bullets, and red team with a sword and a crossbow, and then come back in a few min and see who has better score. You can do the same for different types of vehicles, mountedguns, etc.

You might also want to test out a theory of weather you should turn your pistol to the side or not (press L), or how would it be if you were drunk while fighting, or could you best someone with fistfighting if you had nothing and they had a knife? (WW, WW+Jump, etc)

You can build castles and towns and take over eachothers places, fight in generated forests, burn all that stuff down with meteorshowers from the heavens you summon, delve into the depths of diablo like levels, mix and match it all before the match if you want.

While others speak about what should be in balanceXonotic.config by default.

[Spike]

As I see it, Darkplaces / Nexuiz / Xonotic allready has bumpmapping/normal mappind sRGB, realtime lighting, flares, coloured gloss, HDR, etc etc that it pretty much has all the features one would need to create great looking worlds. It's not lacking that, it's just up to the mapper / texture artist / etc. What else is left to implement?

For me, a framerate. anything lower than 20fps is basically unplayable for me or certainly a major barrier to enjoyment.
maybe disable the realtime lighting.
possibly use some sort of lod system for particle trails (use cheaper trails with larger particles but also a larger spacing for distant trails).

also, if you want to implement something, consider using and abusing this:
Q3Map2 Shader Manual
'grass' surfaces that are astro turf just look stupid.
its a shame you can't do lod with q3map2 (due to the camera being able to move). maybe you could come up with a better solution in csqc?

The idea of the world in the game I have is that it's in the future, but all the things from the past still exist, some have been upgraded.

So long as your art style is fairly consistant.
If its not consistant, the whole experience can be a bit jarring (doubly so if the art gets mixed on a single map).

like the limit on entities to 30k or so (or is it 60k?)..

Its 32k in DP, due to 15bit encoding in the network deltaing protocol. The other bit of the short is used as a 'remove' flag.
FTE uses weird encoding for entity numbers that give it 22 bits of entity numbers but is otherwise similar to DP, hence why 15+7. bit 15 is still a remove bit, but bit 14 means 'extra byte'.
It currently only allows 18 active bits, because tracking 4 million ents is excessive.
Of course, if you're actually reaching 32k, then its no wonder your framerates are so low. There are typically better solutions out there than spawning a few thousand ents...

I chose iso as zip can't go over 2gb

zip64 is needed for large zips. its some wierd extra extension thing to provide the real offsets+sizes of huge files.
Supposedly vista's windows explorer supports it (but not xp, and earlier versions didn't support .zip at all). Third party stuff like 7izip, winrar, or winzip should also support it without problems even on winxp.
of course, if you're running win9x then any file larger than 2gb will bug out anyway. Use .7z or .rar if you want to force xp users to use a real archive program, either is preferable to iso - in part because you don't have dead space inside the iso (yes, I know transfer compression will remove any of that, but that doesn't stop it from saying 5,046,586,572 bytes or so).
Sure, you CAN open an iso with stuff like 7zip, but it won't match most people's file extensions or expectations.
Either way its not an issue if you make a 'light' version of your mod, or have an installer that installs the extra content as needed (episodic content or so).
Also, not everyone on windows is a pirate - they don't have good enough dress sense for pirate hats.

[Haeylleh]

Perhaps the screenshots aren't compelling...
For those who like the oversaturated look, Darkplaces/Xonotic does that too:







It's up to the mapper.

[Haeylleh]

...

I wish Darkplaces could do shader based 3d grass, small rocks etc, like other engines. The shader tells the engine "show this mesh when the player is within range" (usually there are 1 or 2 lod too). Compiling it all into the BSP is no good, and making an entity for each clump of grass also has the problems you speak about.

(If you have an idea of how to do this ...)

The reason why I need tons of entities is for trees: each individual tree has to be knock-down-able by the tanks, and cutdownable by axes/mines, burn down etc. Otherwise I could make a set of trees as one model and do things that way.

Or... if there was grass shader that could have "client side furshading", use that with clientside physics for more substantial foliage (maybenot full trees but median things).

[Haeylleh]

Someone mentioned that the "god aura" (lensflare from suns)
(like this: http://red.planetarena.org/mediathumbs/impact.jpg )
Exists allready
and perhaps could be put into DP.

"The main portion of the source resides here if anyone is interested in porting the effect to DP:"
http://svn.icculus.org/*checkout*/al...e=text%2Fplain

" Clouds don't cast, but that could probably be added pretty easily actually. "

(void R_GLSLGodRays(void))

Source of discussion

I wonder how. I guess a cvar to enable it would have to be added, and a cvar to set where the sun is, and then a call to the right subs in the right area of DP... /me has no idea.

If anyone knows where to paint the X, ill add it to the version of DP this game uses.

[Ebisu]

In all honesty, other than the fact that these screenshots show you can do a hell of a lot with the engine, I personally find artstyles like this to be a bit generic. Or, maybe it's just me, who knows. I do like the second screenshot in the OP post though, it reminds me of home!

[Haeylleh]

Release 51.

Release 51:
New weapons: M16 vn, M16 mini (like an m4), 44 Magnum, Browning HiPower 9mm pistol.

New buildables: Vineyard (adds to your team's grape resources, also spawns grapes on the ground you can pickup and eat with the eat console command (eat grapes)) Things are picked up via the F button.

New farman LOD model (3 levels of detail now) to improve performance.


Added droping of casing links for the miniguns (in addition to shell casings)
(think of those grey things falling down in the matrix scene where Neo is shooting
out of th helicopteriea)
Ex:

Fixes: put the muzzle flashes in the correct spots.

(Release 50: New weapons: AKS-74u, Tokarev pistol (TT-33))

Enjoy.

M16VN:



Tell me what you think.

[Haeylleh]

In all honesty, other than the fact that these screenshots show you can do a hell of a lot with the engine, I personally find artstyles like this to be a bit generic. Or, maybe it's just me, who knows. I do like the second screenshot in the OP post though, it reminds me of home!

Load up the map darkhold with some medieval starting weapons (reccomend: torch, axe, crossbow) and enjoy. It's a large map and changes on every map start.

[Haeylleh]

New release

Release 52:
New weapons: English Longbow, Cudgel (modeled in blender this week)

New Mutator options: remove weapons from map on start.
Replace weapons on map with: spikes, fire, pillar of flame, jumppads, bouncer, baloon, tanktraps, buildings, foliage.

You can also light up your crossbow bolt or longbow arrow if near a burning item (something on fire or fire particles) by pressing F+R keys (use and reload keys).

Also you can move your gun to the center by pressing the Semicolon ( key next to L. Thus you can more easily shoot out of arrow slits in Castles etc (also works with L: turn gun to the side)

Enjoy!

Info and such: ChaosEsque Anthology | Linux game database

[Haeylleh]

Those cloudfare capatchas are almost impossible. Wish you didn't have them. Always takes me 3 times.

New version, please give feedback if able:

Release 54:

There are now over 72 weapons, thus code has been reworked to
allow up to 24*4 weapons (96). (items.qh code in qcsrc/common)
New weapons: War Mallet, Japanese Mallet (making 74 weapons total).

Caltrop secondary now is more useful: drops many caltrops (10 to 15).
(old secondary which threw them like darts can be enabled via cvar if desired)

Added: AT mines
Landmines and AT mines can be placed by hand. AT mines create large explosion.
If a player has landmines and the minelayer weapon (throws mines), and
has no ammo, the minelayer weapon will use the placable landmines as ammunition.

If the player has the minelayer weapon equipped while placing the small landmines
by hand (via the toss grenade button (G) after selecting a grenade (v)
those landmines will be remotely detonatbale by pressing the minelayer secondary.
Otherwise they will not be (this is intentional and required more code to
set up).

Mines (landmines / AT mines / mines layed by minelayer weapon) can now be buried if
placed on dirt, snow, grass, etc via the bury command.

Check out create>startweapons button to set what mines/grenades/etc you start
with.

Bot now have a _mele weapon priority list, in addition to the normal _far, _mid, _close
Thus they know when not to use a bow but use a cudgel instead.

Be sure to check out the ( and (L) keys when aiming (center aim, tip gun to side)
(Commands: altaim, shootfromside).

An additional buildable medeval door has been added for the multitool.

Download: Download ChaosEsqueAnthology from SourceForge.net
Direct link to v54 not needing javascript: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pro...=liquidtelecom

--------------
Note: If you have a recent version (53 etc) and just want to update the code
a contributor has uploaded those files, additionally, seperatly.

You can place the following files in the directory XonoticChaosEsque/data/
replacing the older versions of these 2 files:
Partial codeonly update from v53 etc File1: (zzzzzz999999_xmod-chaos-esque-xonotic-full_source_and_exec_binaries.pk3)
Partial code only update from v53 File2: (z9_buildable_buildings.pk3)

(There are also git repos available)






Full Download: Download ChaosEsqueAnthology from SourceForge.net