New EntityPlus map: Dissent Breach

[Eraser]

Hi!

For the past few months I've managed to cobble together some hours here and there to work on a new map for my EntityPlus mod. For those who don't know, EntityPlus is a mod that allows you to build and play traditional single player maps in Quake III Arena. In all honesty, not a whole lot is happening with the mod but from time to time I get this itch that needs to be satisfied, and I just work on some new content for it.

Now, my latest creation is called Dissent Breach and it started off as a project to convert my FFA/TDM map House of Dissent into a working EntityPlus map. This would free up a lot of time that I'd otherwise have to spend actually building the map geometry and now I could focus on just the interactions for the player. Eventually, that itch ended up being a little worse than I anticipated so the whole thing grew out to become much larger than initially intended.

If you already have the mod installed, all you need to do is download the map and put it in your EntityPlus mod folder. If you haven't installed EntityPlus yet, grab it from the Github project page.

I built this map mostly for my own pleasure, but I'd love to know what other people think of it. I hope you all enjoy it.

Some screenshots:
[lvlshot]http://theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_dissent/0.jpg[/lvlshot] [lvlshot]http://theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_dissent/1.jpg[/lvlshot] [lvlshot]http://theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_dissent/2.jpg[/lvlshot] [lvlshot]http://theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_dissent/3.jpg[/lvlshot] [lvlshot]http://theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_dissent/4.jpg[/lvlshot]

[KittenIgnition]

Two minutes in, I got stuck in the door because I was hugging it and a bomb spawned on me, and then I skipped the power cube thing because the broken ladder still has ladder clip so I can climb up it - strange choice imo to put that there. Then I accidentally map_restarted and had to go to work. Awesome map tho

[Eraser]

heh, I just uploaded a new version that has both issues fixed. You should be able to use the ladder after eh... well, spoiler:

[spoiler]...reaching the top level and shooting the barrels behind the crates on the other end of the broken bridge. One of the crates falls down and you can use it as a step up to reach the ladder.[/spoiler]

[KittenIgnition]

I still just jumped over to the ladder from the upper level, after finding out that the straight jump is clipped off :/

[Eraser]

That's not really a problem.
As soon as you've reached the upper level, I don't care how you get to the other side of the broken bridge. The ladder is now clipped off until you step onto the bridge. What I said in the spoiler section above isn't entirely correct, but still a required step because there will be a point where you can't continue until you do that thing I put in those spoiler tags.

[KittenIgnition]

Yeah I noticed. It's a really cool map. It was a regular map until I got to the sewer area, then those enemies put a real grin on my face. That brought it to another level.

It took a few attempts for me to figure out how to beat the boss though, which again is really cool. Now I just need to find the last secret without cheats

P.S. One thing that'd be nice is the ability to skip cutscenes. The intro one is fun for the first time, but it's too damn slow

[Ganemi]

Awesome.

So this is based on 1.32b full source code?
Are you able to play through the SP maps with multiple players?
Is there monster AI?
Are you ever going to mount any kind of scripting language onto the engine to make scripting easier like in Doom 3?

[Eraser]

Awesome.

So this is based on 1.32b full source code?

EntityPlus is a mod just like Rocket Arena and OSP are mods. It doesn't make any changes to the game engine itself, so it runs on the vanilla 1.32 quake 3 executable likeany other mod.

Are you able to play through the SP maps with multiple players?

No, it's strictly SP. Coop would be cool, but the reality of the matter is that it's a significant investment of time to get that implemented, and seeing how few people have actually released maps for the mod, I think that any such features will fall on deaf ears and won't actually be used.

Is there monster AI?

It's just the bots doing the same thing they're always doing, really. The only addition is that you can set waypoints for bots to patrol along while they haven't spotted the player yet. By being smart about where and when they spawn, the bots can do a decent job of being plain old SP style monsters.

Are you ever going to mount any kind of scripting language onto the engine to make scripting easier like in Doom 3?

Haven't got any plans for that. Similar reasons as for not doing coop but also because it was always my aim to have people be able to use their existing quake 3 mapping knowledge for building EntityPlus maps. Learning the possibilities and functions of all the new entities is hard enough, but at least it fits within the existing concepts of Quake 3 level editing. Adding a scripting language to that requires people to learn a whole new set of skills.

Personally I've always felt the possibilities something like RTCW (Return to Castle Wolfenstein) offered were a bit intimidating, so with EntityPlus you can stay within your Q3 comfort zone. If you really want to break out of that, making the jump to RTCW or Doom3 might not be a bad idea.

[Ganemi]

I want to start working on an SP campaign in it within the next month. Can you PM me your discord or slack or something?

[Eraser]

Call me old fashioned, but I do neither

[Ganemi]

Alright, well I'm sending a PM.

[CZghost]

How am I supposed to make that impossible jump? I was clowning around good ten minutes, still wasnt able to jump it...

[CZghost]

Okay, nevermind, found out it's not to jump over

However, I am struggling with the levitating rocks portion. It just keeps spawning more and more enemies and I can't destroy the damn grenade launcher!

[Eraser]

Keep shooting at the tentacles and the eye

[CZghost]

I've managed to destroy the eye. I was expecting to get it destroyed after that So tentacles also? Okay, thanks

[Fruity]

It is a pity that it is not possible to play 2 players or 3; - / .. I had plans to make a map on "EntityPlus" with destruction (something like Battlefield 3) and combat system something like (Alien vs Marines) and some tactically special map for this climate. Recently, he tries to set up dedicated server settings to change something on style (Alien vs. Marines), but there is no possibility :-(

[Fruity]

Recently, I played the map on "hard" and it was perfect, this climate, music change, new alien models, finally you can move the map slowly and look where the "monster" pops up, keeps you in suspense, that's what I missed in quake 3 on new underrated maps, of course, graphics settings on ultra.

Are there any more commands to set quake 3 for the best graphical detail?

[CZghost]

@SzczurMr:
I don't know what "single-player game" means in your language, but for me, it means literally single-player game. EntityPlus is aimed for single-player experience as you know from many single-player aimed games (like Return to Castle Wolfenstein). Do you mean coop game? I'm afraid this is currently not possible. Quake 3 engine might actually support coop game, but only with mods. It is only question of implementation. But as I said, EntityPlus is aimed to be single-player only and I don't think Eraser is going to make any changes on this approach.

[Eraser]

Honestly, you're not the only one talking about coop play. CZghost is right in that EntityPlus was made with a single player in mind. It wouldn't be impossible to include coop play, but I never made an effort into that because the amount of work required to get that implemented is quite substantial and I always felt EntityPlus came too late in Quake 3's life-cycle. The mod never really picked up any traction, despite enthusiastic responses. Besides myself, only two other people made maps for it so I felt that the effort that would go into implementing coop would be better spent elsewhere. I fear that if I do implement coop, no one would make a map for it and no one would really play it.

I had lots of fun building EntityPlus and the maps for it, but at this point, it kind of is a closed chapter.

[Fruity]

OK I understand.
I'm a bit sorry for this "EntityPlus" fashion with so many new possibilities and few followers. :-(
Maybe in the future I will try to make a map for this fashion, for now I am learning and fighting with "shaders" to the usual map under q3.

[Hipshot]

Eraser, I'm, not sure how I win, or did something bug when I reached the end? I killed the big eye at the "last fight", at least I think it is. But nothing really happens after that?

[Eraser]

Did you shoot the tentacles as well? You need to destroy all of them as well as the eye. When you do that, the ending should kick in.