Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

«‹›3135 »

JLaw: Feb 10, 2008; - harmless -

Some discussion about that on this page: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3420790&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=82

# ? Sep 11, 2012 06:31

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 04:20

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Yeah, the entire game runs at 30 ticks per second, including polling the mouse and updating the player's direction to match it. Frames are generated synchronously and a lot of aspects of the game's "feel" like the player's handling characteristics or the arc an object under gravity follows are implemented with very fragile, messy math full of magic numbers that have been carefully tweaked for 30hz updates.

The Xbox port does pull 60fps, but only because the team was willing to build a brand new renderer from scratch and redo the aforementioned tweaks- and they still didn't quite get there in a lot of places (e.g. grenade hopping is completely hosed and it's a miracle that you can still get into all the secrets that use it). The A1 team doesn't find that acceptable because they don't want the gameplay to change in the slightest and preserving it is a lot harder than it would be in a game that was better written in the first place.

# ? Sep 11, 2012 06:49

Paul Pot: Mar 4, 2010; by Y Kant Ozma Post

closeted republican posted:

Good thing you've never tried the nightmare that is the Assault ladder on higher difficulties. You literally have to do everything because your teammates will just sit around and pretend it's a deathmatch instead of a team-based mode. AS-Mothership in particular is a complete bitch to do because the enemy team will constantly hound you as soon as they spot you, but your team mates will just fly around and enjoy the scenery (or later on, stare at the pretty green walls while you keep going into an overglorified meat grinder set up by the enemy team).

Of course, when you're defending, the enemy team will quickly cut through your teammates and complete the objectives in record time.

I eventually beat it on Godlike & while the flying part of that map is total luck, the rest (like all of Assault with bots) is about blasting through objectives before the defending team can set up a meat grinder. Your bots will eventually defend just like the opponent, the hardest part is holding off the initial wave while your bots are all over the place. Overcoming/being a meatgrinder is a littler easier for your team imo because you do do poo poo like shoot around corners & take alternate routes that bots typically won't. In terms of ladder difficulty it goes DM>CTF>BR>AS>DD>TDM.

# ? Sep 11, 2012 11:37

Convex: Aug 19, 2010

Thanks! Interesting to know, I guess there are more complex mechanics involved in the Marathon games than Doom that might be screwed up by increasing the framerate.

# ? Sep 11, 2012 17:45

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Well, needlessly complex mechanics that is. I'm sure if you had had a Carmack on the Marathon team and had him implement that stuff it'd be less fragile.

# ? Sep 11, 2012 18:03

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Convex posted:

Thanks! Interesting to know, I guess there are more complex mechanics involved in the Marathon games than Doom that might be screwed up by increasing the framerate.

ZDoom's gameplay logic is still running at 35fps, just like the original Doom. It just does a bunch of stuff to seperate the render framerate from the game logic.

# ? Sep 11, 2012 21:40

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

An even better comparison would be GLBoom+, which has:
- Uncapped framerate
- Undistorted up/down look (though freelook is an option you have to turn on)
- Basically perfect accuracy as far as gameplay goes (otherwise, it wouldn't record or play back demos correctly)

# ? Sep 11, 2012 22:20

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cat Mattress posted:

An even better comparison would be GLBoom+, which has:
- Uncapped framerate
- Undistorted up/down look (though freelook is an option you have to turn on)
- Basically perfect accuracy as far as gameplay goes (otherwise, it wouldn't record or play back demos correctly)

IIRC when you go to record or playback a vanilla demo, it switches the game engine stuff to a compatibility mode. Normal gameplay, unless all vanilla compatibility flags are set, is not vanilla-exact.

# ? Sep 11, 2012 23:11

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

It uses the so-called complevels, and you can set a default complevel in the ini. In practice, people only ever use complevels 2 or 9.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 10:20

JackMackerel: Jun 15, 2011

closeted republican posted:

Good thing you've never tried the nightmare that is the Assault ladder on higher difficulties. You literally have to do everything because your teammates will just sit around and pretend it's a deathmatch instead of a team-based mode. AS-Mothership in particular is a complete bitch to do because the enemy team will constantly hound you as soon as they spot you, but your team mates will just fly around and enjoy the scenery (or later on, stare at the pretty green walls while you keep going into an overglorified meat grinder set up by the enemy team).

Of course, when you're defending, the enemy team will quickly cut through your teammates and complete the objectives in record time.

I had... only because I couldn't win Double Dammage (trying FIVE TIMES IN A ROW) and eventually resorted to cheating.

To be fair, AS-Mothership gets loads easier if you manage to breach the drat hangar, which AI can't seem to do.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 10:30

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Heads-up: ROTT is 60% off at GOG for the next 24 hours, if you somehow don't have it already.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 11:07

Obeast: Aug 26, 2006; �_~ ANIME BABE LOVER 2000 ~_�

The Kins posted:

Heads-up: ROTT is 60% off at GOG for the next 24 hours, if you somehow don't have it already.

Finally! I was hoping the next sale wasn't gonna be a week before the remake's release, but given that the remake is slated to be released by the end of the year, it gives everyone who buys it plenty of time before the remake comes out.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 11:28

Yodzilla: Apr 29, 2005; Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch

gently caress yes time to remember how bad and dumb that awesome game is.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 14:31

Stark: Jun 9, 2007

Yodzilla posted:

gently caress yes time to remember how bad and dumb that awesome game is.

Singleplayer ROTT is terrible. Multiplayer ROTT is awesome. Is there any easy way find/play multiplayer games on the internet?

# ? Sep 12, 2012 14:37

Yodzilla: Apr 29, 2005; Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch

Oh hey Wrack is on Greenlight.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 14:56

JLaw: Feb 10, 2008; - harmless -

Well that's pretty cool. Thumbs up from me.

Edit: my earlier Wrack impressions at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3420790&userid=131814#post406373341

# ? Sep 12, 2012 15:54

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

I need to try out the latest Wrack build. Apparently they've been working hard on giving the combat a bit more weight and impact.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 16:08

QwertySanchez: Jun 19, 2009; a wacky guy

Stark posted:

Singleplayer ROTT is terrible. Multiplayer ROTT is awesome. Is there any easy way find/play multiplayer games on the internet?

Not really, other than hosting your own using GLROTT/WinRott and having friends join. Perhaps the group could arrange something.

Hopefully when The Skulltag offshoot gets enough of ZDoom's features we'll be able to play the TC for doom with a server browser.

# ? Sep 12, 2012 16:42

Zeether: Aug 26, 2011

Some guy made a Blade Runner map for UT2K4 and it is loving amazing. It doesn't work as a DM map (because of the spawn point being on top of a very tall building) but holy crap, it's really well done. I don't think everything is entirely correct but it has stuff like the Off World Colonies blimp and you can actually walk around inside the Tyrell Corp. building and ride in the elevators.

Kind of makes me wonder if anyone would try a TC with Blade Runner, or some TDM mode where one team is Blade Runners and the other is Replicants.

e: There are vehicles on the map, the roof has a Spinner (which doesn't look like a Spinner at all) that you can fly and you can also drive several sedans and JF Sebastian's van.

Zeether fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Sep 12, 2012

# ? Sep 12, 2012 20:12

Maximum Planck: Feb 16, 2012

Hell yeah, finally completed Thy Flesh Consumed on UV-fast. :black101:

I originally planned on going without mid-level saves, but by the second map I got fed up and just wanted to finish the game. Even with saves TFC took me almost as long to finish as the first three episodes combined. Some of the maps were just painful.

How are Final Doom and Doom II levels in comparison? Looks like Doom II had Sandy Petersen on the payroll again, at least his levels ought to be alright.

# ? Sep 13, 2012 19:51

RyokoTK: Feb 12, 2012; I am cool.

Maximum Planck posted:

Hell yeah, finally completed Thy Flesh Consumed on UV-fast. I originally planned on going without mid-level saves, but by the second map I got fed up and just wanted to finish the game. Even with saves TFC took me almost as long to finish as the first three episodes combined. Some of the maps were just painful.

How are Final Doom and Doom II levels in comparison? Looks like Doom II had Sandy Petersen on the payroll again, at least his levels ought to be alright.

I wouldn't say Doom 2 is any harder than TFC, but Final Doom definitely will test you on UV-fast. Especially Plutonia :gonk:

# ? Sep 13, 2012 20:02

Mak0rz: Aug 2, 2008; 😎🐗🚬

Maximum Planck posted:

How are Final Doom and Doom II levels in comparison? Looks like Doom II had Sandy Petersen on the payroll again, at least his levels ought to be alright.

People tend to be divided about this. I personally think all of Doom II's levels are boring at best, especially the latter 2/3's or so of the game. The two Final Doom WADs are pretty different. I had a lot of fun with TNT Evilution, but Plutonia is a pile of garbage I'm not likely to ever play again.

# ? Sep 13, 2012 20:20

glam bam rock: Jun 2, 2009; aaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww
WHAM BAM THANK YA GLAM

Maximum Planck posted:

How are Final Doom and Doom II levels in comparison? Looks like Doom II had Sandy Petersen on the payroll again, at least his levels ought to be alright.

Doom II is just a more vibrant combat setting, getting used to the new cast of monsters. Evilution is harder but has a heavy zombie / imp ratio and isn't too terribly difficult compared to Doom II outside of a few levels where you will be killed by mere attrition (Metal). Plutonia is much harder than either on UV, with most of the levels pretty manageable (IMO) where a select few, like The Twilight, will kill your will to play through. If you can muscle through Plutonia, you're doing pretty well.

# ? Sep 13, 2012 20:30

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Since we were all talking about Unreal before... someone asked Cliffy about it during a Reddit AMA Thing.

cliffbleszinskiama posted:

I was quoted recently on a Fortnite panel about the first Unreal and what a reboot might look like. Having really grown into a big Bethesda fan lately (Skyrim rocked my world) I couldn't help but wonder what a reboot of Unreal would be like if it was more "SciFi-Rim." Sure, there would be shooting involved, but exploration would almost be more important. Get back to that sense of wonder that the first game had. (Caves and castles and crashed ships are basically your dungeon instances, whereas the "overworld" is less intense.) Put it on a high end PC and prepare yourself for amazing visuals never before seen in real time.

As far as a new UT, it's hard to say. Shooters and their sequels are a tricky beast. Often you wind up upsetting your core whenever you make a sequel because sometimes you change things the users didn't want changed, or the users are so very in love with their memory of the original game that there's nothing you can do to live up to the first game. This happened with Counterstrike: Source, Quake 2, Unreal Tournament 2003, heck, even Halo 2.

(All that said, I do personally believe that UT3 suffered a bit from an identity crisis in regards to whether or not it was a PC or Console game.)

So if, when? I don't know, honestly. We're understaffed right now for all of the projects we've got going on so I can't say if or when it may happen. I do love that IP and do hope to return to Na Pali some day.

# ? Sep 14, 2012 18:36

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

cliffyb posted:

return to Na Pali

I see what you did there

# ? Sep 14, 2012 18:38

RyokoTK: Feb 12, 2012; I am cool.

The Kins posted:

Since we were all talking about Unreal before... someone asked Cliffy about it during a Reddit AMA Thing.
[url=http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/zvrzf/i_am_cliff_bleszinski_design_director_at_epic/c685r1b]

I'm not super sure the world needs another UT right now. Gamers don't seem too into those kinds of shooters these days, and the few that are can continue playing Quake Live or whatever.

Another, better Unreal would be a different story though.

# ? Sep 14, 2012 18:39

Guillermus: Dec 28, 2009

A more open world Unreal remake keeping its colour schemes would own (not a grey/brown shooter please). Unreal had some huge spaces that were mindblowing back in the days compared to the claustrophobic quake games. Unreal is still my favourite FPS.

# ? Sep 14, 2012 19:09

OXBALLS DOT COM: Sep 11, 2005; by FactsAreUseless; Young Orc

Guillermus posted:

A more open world Unreal remake keeping its colour schemes would own (not a grey/brown shooter please). Unreal had some huge spaces that were mindblowing back in the days compared to the claustrophobic quake games. Unreal is still my favourite FPS.

I feel like the original Far Cry was the next game to sort of capture that feeling. Amazing (and colorful!) graphics for the time and just enormous areas, plus gameplay that took advantage of such things: huge open spaces that encourage non-linear problem solving.

You got a mixed unit of bad dudes/skaarj/whatever chilling in these giant islands/ruins. You have a certain amount of weapons and ammo. Do whatever it takes to kill them all/get past them.

# ? Sep 14, 2012 19:43

RyokoTK: Feb 12, 2012; I am cool.

Far Cry remains one of my all-time favorite FPS games. Even though the Trigens were just awful, awful enemies.

# ? Sep 14, 2012 19:46

RyokoTK: Feb 12, 2012; I am cool.

Apologies for the double-post.

I just released the new version of Marathon: Phoenix (1.2.1) which has some real gameplay improvements.

No one really responded the last time I posted about it -- the pool of Marathon players is pretty drat small -- but it's worth another shot. :shobon:

# ? Sep 15, 2012 02:53

Segmentation Fault: Jun 7, 2012

Seeing as how it hasn't been mentioned in this thread for a while, I figure I'll link to it. Black Mesa Source, the (in)famous Half-Life 1 total-conversion mod for Source is out, and free (gratis, of course). You'll need the Source 2007 SDK Base to run it, however, but that's free and available on Steam.

The Soundtrack is available to download for free as well.

# ? Sep 15, 2012 03:08

Lork: Oct 15, 2007; Sticks to clorf

RyokoTK posted:

Apologies for the double-post.

I just released the new version of Marathon: Phoenix (1.2.1) which has some real gameplay improvements.

No one really responded the last time I posted about it -- the pool of Marathon players is pretty drat small -- but it's worth another shot.

I didn't mention this before because I uh... didn't get around to it, but Marathon: Phoenix and the Kill Them All series are my favourite Marathon scenarios.

Even if I did rage quit both of them because I got fed up with Aleph One's lovely mouse controls. I wish there was some way to import scenarios into the XBLA port; at this point that seems like a more feasible thing to hope for than actually getting decent controls in A1.

# ? Sep 15, 2012 03:21

Chinese Tony Danza: Oct 30, 2007; Crappy Cat Connoisseur

I just don't get why that is. Would it really be that difficult to improve the controls? Is the reason they don't seriously because one of the devs is an elitist prick who doesn't want to do anything to make the game more "accessible" for newcomers?

# ? Sep 15, 2012 07:24

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

RyokoTK posted:

Far Cry remains one of my all-time favorite FPS games. Even though the Trigens were just awful, awful enemies.

I thought the sections where the mercs and trigens were fighting each other was hella cool.

But yeah, eventually it turned into a bad 90s shooter.

# ? Sep 15, 2012 07:26

Guillermus: Dec 28, 2009

RyokoTK posted:

Far Cry remains one of my all-time favorite FPS games. Even though the Trigens were just awful, awful enemies.

Far Cry is a fantastic game and I agree with you, Trigens killed the mood of the game wich was fighting mercs on a beautiful setting.

The problem with FC is that you had semi-realistic gameplay then they threw mutants while in Unreal you were the alien in an unknown planet. I still liked more Unreal's setting.

# ? Sep 15, 2012 08:42

JackMackerel: Jun 15, 2011

The Kins posted:

Since we were all talking about Unreal before... someone asked Cliffy about it during a Reddit AMA Thing.
[url=http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/zvrzf/i_am_cliff_bleszinski_design_director_at_epic/c685r1b]

Wait, people hated Quake 2? I hear much about it just as I do with Quake 3 and Q1.

# ? Sep 15, 2012 11:32

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

JackMackerel posted:

Wait, people hated Quake 2? I hear much about it just as I do with Quake 3 and Q1.

Well, it's hard to remember so far back, but it originally shipped without any deathmatch-specific maps or co-op mode. They added them in a patch, but it probably ruffled a bunch of feathers back in the day. (Can you imagine a Quake 2 without The Edge? Crazy stuff.)

# ? Sep 15, 2012 12:05

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Chinese Tony Danza posted:

I just don't get why that is. Would it really be that difficult to improve the controls? Is the reason they don't seriously because one of the devs is an elitist prick who doesn't want to do anything to make the game more "accessible" for newcomers?

They're obsessed with "preserving the original experience". Which is admirable and all but the original experience actually kinda sucks unlike for most other early FPS games.

# ? Sep 15, 2012 13:55

NoodleBox: Jul 11, 2009

Hey guys I'm having a little bit of a problem with my blood one unit whole launcher, it seems as though Bloody pulp fiction has some misnamed or missing textures and has resorted to putting up enemy sprite textures on certain walls

It has also broken some of the skyboxes as well

I just wanted to know if any of you guys have a solution for this, or have experienced any sort of similar issues

and before you ask, no I didn't replace any of the files that were in the "pulp" folder

NoodleBox fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Sep 15, 2012

# ? Sep 15, 2012 14:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 04:20

RyokoTK: Feb 12, 2012; I am cool.

Install Gentoo posted:

They're obsessed with "preserving the original experience".

At this point, it's probably equal parts that and not having the desire to do the hard projects, since both the devs have full-time jobs and one of them has a kid (in other words, laziness). Given the quality of Bungie coding, a relatively simple task like improving the mouselook is probably a horrible tangled mess of eighty million things that will cause the engine to desynch in multiplayer or something. (For example, just the ability to turn off autoswitch causes multiplayer desynch.)

I can safely say Treellama isn't an elitist prick, though, but adherence to the original experience has been a stated aim of Aleph One forever, and it is an open source project so someone could freely fork it.

RyokoTK fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Sep 15, 2012

# ? Sep 15, 2012 14:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

«‹›3135 »