EmeraldTiger wrote:Ahh, just had some thoughts (and bugs to report):
The bugs:
- In the room where you grab the master key and fight off the monsters, there is a chance that you can kill them all off but the alarm still rings, and you can`t get out. I`m not sure if it`s just a bug with the particular map, but if it`s not it could be a serious problem in other potential maps, so you might want to look into this.
dONKEY wrote:This mod is simply brilliant.
Couple of things to report:
I had the same issue as ET, in not being able to escape the master key room. The console reported all player slots full, I wondered if there was a bot unable to spawn?
Yeah, it's caused by the way the bar that's blocking the way out is removed again after you kill all the bots. It's triggered by a trigger_death that's set to 23 bot deaths, meaning you have to kill
all of the bots you've encountered in the level so far. If you haven't done this, the way out will never open up again.
So you can run into this problem in two ways: first being to run past an earlier bot and not kill it. Second way is indeed if there aren't enough player slots open.
The first problem is pretty much a level design issue I guess, but unfortunately in the current version there aren't any tools available to make a more robust setup like this. For the next release I will implement a more robust method for this.
The second problem is a bigger one that's harder to tackle. The problem is that the Quake 3 engine (the code that ends up in the quake3.exe executable and which I can't change in a mod) forces sv_maxclients to 8 when you load a map with spmap. However, sv_maxclients is a latched cvar, which means that it isn't changed until the
next map load. If you use the entityplus.bat file to load the game, it'll set the sv_maxclients cvar to 32 and then load the map. This appeared to work. However, if you manually load another map (or reload the same map) without setting sv_maxclients through the console again, the maxclients will be set to 8 again. Because the master key area in the ep_example map spawns 12 bots in there, you'll need at least 13 open player slots (unless you kill the bots fast enough). I haven't found a real solid solution to this yet, unfortunately.
EmeraldTiger wrote:
- The lava, when it drains - you can drop down early and you`ll go right through it like it wasn`t there.
lol yes, it's a bit of a quick hack solution to a bug in Quake 3. Turns out that when you have a liquid such as lava or water and make a func_door out of it to make it "drain", when the lava is at it's lowered point and you drop down, you still get the warped water view in the area where the lava previously was. I also tried making the lava a very thin brush so you wouldn't really notice this problem, but then you still heard water splashes as you ran around.
So what I did was make a new lava shader that had a surfaceparm nonsolid instead of lava and have a trigger_hurt there to deal the damage. The trigger_hurt is disabled as the lava lowers so once the lava starts lowering, it's basically a non-solid brush that does nothing. Might have to see if this can be fixed easily, but it's not a priority I think.
EmeraldTiger wrote:
Thoughts / Ideas:
- The backpack system is a very nice idea. But what about if someone has to take a break during their journey? (eat dinner, bedtime, etc.) They`d have to quit and start all over again when they got back. Personally, I think that when you quit the game it is automatically saved, and you can load it back up when you come back. For right now you can do it through a new console command, (/loadgame ep_example) but hopefully, if someone is willing to do so and has the experience, you could have a redesigned graphical interface / main menu, with one of the options being to load a game from a list.
Eventually I'll get to implementing some kind of savegame mechanic
EmeraldTiger wrote:
- target_difficulty. You know how in Quake 1 you had to select your difficulty from a series of hallways, rather than a by-menu system? I always thought that was so neat, and it would be cool to have an entity in Q3 which does the exact same thing. You mentioned that EntityPlus has difficulty levels which determines the difficulty of the bots. Have four spawnflags, Easy, Medium, Hard, and of course Nightmare - or you could use the Q3 system and have five spawnflags, for I Can Win, Bring it On, Hurt Me Plenty, Hardcore, and Nightmare. Attach the target_difficulty to a trigger_once / trigger_multiple and the difficulty will be changed the next time a map loads.
Heh yeah could be neat. I'll look into it.
EmeraldTiger wrote:
- On a similar note, have spawnflags so that entities only spawn in certain difficulties. That way, perhaps you can have a weak guy on lower difficulties but a rough and tough tank dude in higher ones.
- func_rotatingtrain, a combination of a func_train and a func_rotating. Mostly aesthetic, though it could be good for rotating elevators. Don`t think it would be terribly difficult to code either, just put the code for func_rotating and func_train together.
Keep up the good work man!
These are good ideas. Don't know if a func_rotating train is as trivial as you assume it is but it certainly is a worthy addition.