Mod Features

[Geggs]

Ogre was right in the Desktop Wallpapers Thread.

From now on post questions or ideas on the mods Features or aspects here.

Thankyou

[AlCaTrAzz]

as soon as we have a feature list for alpha1, we will let you guys know,

thanks for the support so far, i hope we can create somthing thats worthy of the support! ;)

[PHOENIX_12]

that's right i'd hate to go to all the trouble of supporting u guys only to be dissapointed :P

[AlCaTrAzz]

dont worry, i think you will find that our hardest critics will be ourselves

[PHOENIX_12]

not sure wether to post in this one or the "mod features" thred but this one will do, r u going to have bots for a single player function? caus unless ur gonna have online play in this mod somehow, ppl won't play it outside of lans, are u thinking about adding bots? if so what about dificulty levels and special single player modes?
just an option to think about not harrasing u into adding a single player.

[PHOENIX_12]

yea reason most games get delayed is the developers want to fix problems no one's ever going to notice, it may take u forever but u'll get it eventualy

[AlCaTrAzz]

i'll field this one, as this is the area i've been looking into

at this stage we plan on releasing Multiplayer with bots, as well as a complete Single Player mode with computer controlled enemies...

also, we want to do a co-op mode and a counter-op mod... i'll leave ogre to explain these 2...

but yeah, multiplayer will be the first part out, then MP with bots, then SP...

[Ogre]

Hehe. Sorry about the crazy discontinuity here with the post times, I didn't realise that merging threads would do that. I'd do that with the Desktop Wallpapers thread, but that would actually cause confusion because of missing bits of conversation.

Anyway, back on topic.

Judging by your question Phoenix_12, i'm guessing not everyone understands exactly what we are trying to acheive here. We are not trying to use UT2004 to make another fully MP game with a little SP mode based on the MP game.

Perfect Dark was a complete game with a complete storyline for the SP game. Now some people might think this means that the MP is nowhere near as good as other games such as Counterstrike or the UT series. You couldn't be further from the truth. The MP game was fully fleshed out as well, with challenges against bots (called simulants or just sims in the game) which could be taken on with 1-4 players, and the difficulty of the challege would adjust according to the number of players which were used for unlocking maps, weapons and character models in MP. There was also kind of multiplayer matches we are used to, like deathmatch, capture the briefcase (similar to CTF) and King of The Hill (a mode where you had to capture parts of the map).

We will be attempting to recreate *all* parts of the original game. I must stress again, this isn't going to be anything like the way UT works.

Now, to explain Alc's mention of Cooperative and Counter-Operative modes. On the original N64 version of the game, Co-Op allowed two players to take on the the SP missions together. It didn't allow any more than that because the N64 wasn't powerful enough to handle any more players on the rather large SP maps.

Counter-Op on the other hand, was one of the greatest additions to the genre (which I haven't seen repeated since). Again, it was a 2 player thing. One player played as Joanna Dark (the main character in the SP game) while the other player spawned in the location of one of the enemy guards (determined by the game based on Joanna's location). When this Counter-Operative died, they would respawn as another enemy, and their goal was to prevent the first player from completing the mission objectives in any way they could, whether it meant killing them before they completed their mission, or perhaps killing an important character they had to protect. I think with this mode we might allow for more human enemies, maybe even combine Counter-Op and Co-Op to allow 2 players to take on the mission together and a certain number of human enemies trying to thwart them. Playtesting and hardware capabilities would determine the final numbers available.

There. Hopefully there's no more confusion as to what the structure of the game is meant to be like. Sorry about the length of that, I wanted to be absolutely certain I got my point accross.

[PHOENIX_12]

so ur pety much going to make an exact replica of pd on pc with a few impuvements?

[Ogre]

Yes. That's exactly what we are doing. Although we're trying to keep it as true to the original as possible, but if we (or you guys) find any chances for us to improve it, without ruining the same basic formula, then we'll take them.

[General Fuct]

since its called PD2004 do you think you should create the SP to be more of a sequel then a remake? or even both...

[PHOENIX_12]

remake of some of it would be good with the UT engin some of it just remade would be good, as for a sequal where would u go with the sequal storyline? although if u can get the storyline hapening that's all good i'm up 4 it ^_^

[James]

Originally posted by Ogre@Feb 14 2005, 07:39 PM
Yes. That's exactly what we are doing. Although we're trying to keep it as true to the original as possible, but if we (or you guys) find any chances for us to improve it, without ruining the same basic formula, then we'll take them.
72404


that's a collossal task you've set yourselves... being a fan of PD i say good luck... you're gonna need it! :)

[Ogre]

Originally posted by General Fuct+Feb 14 2005, 08:12 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(General Fuct @ Feb 14 2005, 08:12 PM)</div>since its called PD2004 do you think you should create the SP to be more of a sequel then a remake? or even both...
72406
[/b]


<!--QuoteBegin-PHOENIX_12@Feb 14 2005, 08:33 PM
remake of some of it would be good with the UT engin some of it just remade would be good, as for a sequal where would u go with the sequal storyline? although if u can get the storyline hapening that's all good i'm up 4 it ^_^
72409


It's only being called PD2004 because it's based on the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine. We don't want to make a sequel, because we wouldn't want to step on Rare's toes in this matter. Yes, they are making a prequel at the moment, but if you remember the end of PD (which I won't spoil for those who haven't played it), it was a pretty good setup for a sequel, and I think we'd all rather see what Rare come up with themselves without us trying to work out a storyline.

However, one of the purposes of this project is to learn how to use the Unreal engine, once this is completed, we'll probably make an original game of some kind with our own storyline. That's a long way off though.

[AlCaTrAzz]

yeah, one of the main reasons we started doing this was basicly 'to see if we can'...

the team has hit a low point (about 48 hours ago i think...) which was basicly when i think we realised what we had gotten ourselves into... but i'm glad to be able to say that i think we are all more commited now than before...

as for the sequil/prequil idea, by the time we finish this i'm sure we'll be sick of coding Joanna... but you never know...

maybe we'll even take on unreal2 and make that into the game it should have been... who knows...

ohh... and for the people who have played PD... we have a supprise in the works for you ;) stay tuned... cos i'm thinkin it might be fun to drop hints along the way...

[James]

i just want that laptop gun ^_^

[AlCaTrAzz]

the laptop gun will be back... :D

i mean, villa just wouldn't be the same without it...
that was a good map that one

[PHOENIX_12]

lappy gun's secondary mode all the way ^_^

[James]

Originally posted by WirlWind
can u make random stuffs on the ground that you can throw around like on halflife 2 just to make it more realistic? it doesnt have to add into the original, just make it another nice little realism piece or sumthing. i get endless fun throwing cans at guards...

This idea was dismissed by alcatrazz as "re-making Half life 2"... when i dont think that's what was meant by what wirlwind said at all.

Look at max payne 1 and 2 for example, max payne 2 utilises the havok physics engine, just like Half-Life 2 (albeit half life 2's one being heavily modified)

My point here is that in max payne 2, the gameplay dynamic was essentially the same, except they utilised the new technology and just added in ambient objects, etc.

I think what WirlWind was trying to suggest was that you utilise new technology to take advantage of making a good game that you're recreating on a new engine, even better. Why not have volumetric lighting, why not have a desk cluttered with objects that can be blown off the desk with a shotgun blast?

If you re-make the game and it looks like perfect dark N64, I assure you, that will discourage many people! (me not being one of them, but you get what i mean)

[AlCaTrAzz]

righteo, stuff like what you talking about is what we are planning to do... but...

"i get endless fun throwing cans at guards..."

thats HL2... in PD if u want to avoid guards you either use cloaking or stealth tactics... if u look at the Area52 map were working you can tell were not out to reproduce exactly the original... again, were out to make this look as good as we can and be as enjoyable, while still keeping the same original gameplay

[Ogre]

You raise a good point there James. When WirlWind talked about picking objects up and throwing them, to distract guards or for whatever other purpose, I think we all took it as being something that would change the way the game is played entirely. Of course, there won't be any running around picking up random objects and throwing them around, but when it's put the way you have put it, that's quite a possibility.

It's probably something we'll look into when we get into the finer details of the game. Having objects that are part of the scenery being affected realistically by weapons would be pretty cool. Thanks for pointing it out.

[PHOENIX_12]

if u cound make sure the guards react to noises though it would be much better, but annoying in PD when u fun right behind a guard and he dosen't hear u or u'll empty a clip of any gun and the guards won't react unless another guard shoots. that of coarse is just related to bots though.
other than that what about underwater physics and are all weapons going to be able to work under water?

[AlCaTrAzz]

we have put steps in place where guards will react to noises as well as other things not expected (such as a crossbow bolt in the wall next to them)

also, if in real life som1 was to shoot at you even with a silenced weapon and only missed slighty... you might feel the air disturbance... i'll say no more on this point ;)

as for water, as PD didn't support water, we will decide the best way to accommodate it... we are going to make sure that there are steps in place for map makers to build PD maps for this mod...

[PHOENIX_12]

just as another question what about hover bikes and stuff like that if i remember right they had hoverbikes u could ride in the area 51 missions and the carrington institute (not the mission)

[AlCaTrAzz]

the hoverbike will be back :D

[PHOENIX_12]

^_^

and one other thing what about dule weapons if i remember right at some points throughout the game u could get dule pistols etc, but only if the guy u got the other one from had 2 him/herself and only if u picked them both up, are you going to have dule weapons and how r u going to work it?

[AlCaTrAzz]

dual weapons... yes, they will be back... basicly you will need to grab a pistol from 2 different locations (such as a weapon pickup then a killed player)...

they will operate the same as they did in PD

[Geggs]

Think about the enforcer from UT99 or the Assult rifle from 2003 and 2004... it will be incorporated exactly as it was in PD...

Edit By AlC - just cos u can code doesn't mean u can spell ;)

[WirlWind]

well originally i had the idea of cans to distract teh guards and stuffs, but when the comment about recreating hl2 came up, i changed it to just random stuff that you might hit/shoot r whatever. Like what james said. and also, does UT2k4 have ragdoll? (been a while since i played it lol) Would be kewl to shoot sumone in PD 2k4 like in the arm or whatever and have them spin around from the power of the shot and stuff

[James]

yes it does have ragdoll...

its just hard to notice sometimes cause the bodies despawn so quickly after people die... but its there :) its good too

[WirlWind]

can you turn off the sudden random dissapearence of the bodies then too? let em lie for like 10 secs maybe? love body carnage.maybe make an option in the gfx menu or sumthing about how long until bodies disapear, and have an option to leave them there perm. that wouldnt add onto the game, it would just be more realistic and more fun :P

[Ogre]

As far as I remember guards in the original PD were able to react to sounds such as running, weapons fire, and reloading. It wouldn't have been anywhere near as challenging if they didn't.

As for dead bodies, i'm pretty sure it's an issue of rendering and data storage. As such, perhaps an option for how long bodies stay "in play" could be included, and if you notice massive frame rate drops when lots of bodies accumulate, you know what to change :D

[James]

well there was already mutators available to make bodies stay, or to die in slow motion etc...


im sure a mod team making a TOTAL CONVERSION can have bodies stay there indefinitely in singleplayer :)

[Geggs]

Bodys left on floor can be done, and will be, but not until later... :rolleyes:

[BlastM]

Originally posted by PHOENIX_12@Feb 15 2005, 03:20 PM
and one other thing what about dule weapons if i remember right at some points throughout the game u could get dule pistols etc, but only if the guy u got the other one from had 2 him/herself and only if u picked them both up, are you going to have dule weapons and how r u going to work it?


That was GoldenEye. In Perfect Dark you could carry any 2 of the same type of gun at once, as long as they were handguns. For example, you could carry dual Falcon 2's or dual Phoenix's or dual Cyclone's even, but you could only hold one shotgun or Farsight.

R.e. this project. It seems very ambitious, a little too ambitious if you ask me. Great things start small. If I were you I would set smaller goals and work on them first. Remember watching the development of Desert Combat for Battlefield?

I would suggest starting on the Perfect Dark multiplayer first. Get deathmatch working for the first release, then add the other scenarios, and if you make it that far then start on the singleplayer missions.

Anyway, good luck. The idea of a Perfect Dark remake was the reason I signed up for these forums! :D

[AlCaTrAzz]

BlastM, welcome ;)

yeah, our first goal is to get the MP working... i'm pretty sure we've mentioned that somwhere around here... the SP is going to be a goal once the MP is well underway.

and yeah, we are taking small steps, but we do have medium and longer term goals set as well... it's alot easier for the group to focus if we know what we are working towards

[PHOENIX_12]

gg and welcome, btw yes i realised that it was only pistols etc after i posted but thx

[WirlWind]

will the first mp release have all/most of the weapons? atleast the crossbows and the magnums and pistols and a few random guns. Would be nice if first release had all guns, but obviously, as a first release, im not holding my breath lol.

[Ogre]

Not all weapons will be available in the alpha version, and I find it unlikely that all of them will be available for the first beta release.

Our current goals for the first alpha are to have one map, one weapon, and to have some basic game mechanics sorted out. For example, there needs to be no jumping, and the game needs to move slower than UT2004.

At the moment, Geggs has successfully created some UT2004 mutators to put the above two things that I mentioned into effect (with a few errors at the moment, but that's being sorted). Eventually this will be part of the game engine itself.

[AlCaTrAzz]

i think we should start a thread and let these people know when to expect alpha1... and what we are planning for it... although we need to keep that 'thing' as a supprise for now ;)

[Geggs]

I say we keep that a surprise seen as I have no idea yet either. I do expect to know first seen as im writing parts of it :P

We will do that when we have a rough idea in our minds cos we have to get alpha testers in to do it. Remember, Alpha is not public. Though we will be using the CCGL to get the testers. :D

[PHOENIX_12]

don't know bout the rest of these ppl but my experience with programing tells me exactly what's going to be in the alpha version, nothing that works as it should, with no fancy features :P that's why it's an alpha version.

keep it as a surprise u may surprise urselves

[AlCaTrAzz]

current working name for current build... Perfect Hop 2004 ;)

[James]

Your imperfect light mod will be great if you pull it off :)

Multiplayer should be great.

[Geggs]

Sorry to dissapoint, but the Hop Issue has been resolved... I'm sure there will be other problems though... Perfect Hop 2004 would have been cool (might still add a way to get hopping back) :P

[Geggs]

Originally posted by WirlWind@Feb 15 2005, 06:33 PM
can you turn off the sudden random dissapearence of the bodies then too? let em lie for like 10 secs maybe? love body carnage.maybe make an option in the gfx menu or sumthing about how long until bodies disapear, and have an option to leave them there perm. that wouldnt add onto the game, it would just be more realistic and more fun :P
72596


Bodies are being left on the floor for anywhere up to 25 seconds atm... and this time will be tweeked...

This will be ok ragdoll wise, but not for gibbing... god damn I hate people who gib-rape dead bodies... Necrophelia is just wrong ;)

[Kaygo]

But it is so damn fun! (not the Necrophelia stuff - you sick minded people).

[AlCaTrAzz]

PD2004 - Necrophelia Edition ;)

lol, in all seriousness, we want to work out a system where the bodies stay for as long as possible without effecting the system requirements to play the game (our models are very high poly count... near the 7-10K range... so a stack of dead bodies all karmaing around would kill most PC's ;)

if possible, we are looking into a dynamic system where a player will never actually see a body dissapear... ;) more as this develops tho

[Geggs]

"Karmaing around" - I like that... I think I'll use it more in day to day sentences like... im going to karma to work... would that work? lol

I can really see bodies become major CPU/RAM rapers, but it will obviously be a testing concern. For now... the bodies stay! The bodies Gib! The Bodies unfortunately turn green and float away after 25 seconds... god damn i wish that those ghosts were karma affected... i'd OWN their sorry souls!!! LOL

[ihaveknoweye]

Ahhh, call me noob if this has already been bought up, but have u ppl seen the pd
mod for hl2?



http://www.pdark-mod.net/

[WirlWind]

hmm that blows poo, couldnt read much though. bloody frogs...

[Icefire]

Could have just clicked the button that sends you to the english page....

[PHOENIX_12]

lol but meh it's on the hl2 engin UT engin is WAY better souted 4 pd, much better

[Jimmeh]

Originally posted by PHOENIX_12@Mar 12 2005, 08:49 PM
lol but meh it's on the hl2 engin UT engin is WAY better souted 4 pd, much better
75713

not only that, we will be the ones rofling at their - when unreal 3 hits the scene

[PHOENIX_12]

mwahahahaha *picture evil look on me face*

[WirlWind]

yeah but wont you have to retexture the game on the unreal 3 engine? I suppose its still all good, cuz most of it will be done already, but yeah. new skins/textures for unreal 3 engine.

[AlCaTrAzz]

whoa... lotsa new posts... see what happens when i go away for a weekend ;)


ok, we are very much aware of the HL2 mod... and really, we couldn't care less. i mean, lets look at what we can se of their work so far... we have

-Maps that are not the same as the original
-Some pretty lame ass weapon skinning (models arn't too bad tho)
-An article on how leet PD would be if it was more like CS... (check the english page for this)

so yeah, we couldn't really care less about em... oh, and just for comparison, lets look at PD2004 so far... (btw, the rest of the mod team is prolly gonna hate me saying what we've been quiet about up until now...)

-Maps which are geometrically identical to the original PD
-Coding to change the unreal physics engine to make it identical to the PD physics engine
-alot of weapons coded to make them identical to the original weapons
-professional 3d modellers that do models for a living making weapons based of the original weapons


oh, have u tried to get in touch with that other hl2 team? it's basicly impossible, they never even answer their own forums except to say that they are hard at work and the community can expect to see stuff in a few months... whereas we have 2 PR people as well as a website and forums under construction... i make sure i read these forums whenever i'm online and we've made it clear from the start that this is going to be a community based mod.

now, this is the bit where the rest of the team kills me, but i'll make my statement bold to make sure it gets through.

THERE WILL BE A MAJOR MEDIA RELEASE FOR PD2004 IN UNDER A MONTH. THIS MEDIA RELEASE WILL FEATURE BOTH THE NEW PHYSICS ENGINE, AT LEAST 1 NEW MAP, AT LEAST 1 PD WEAPON (HOPEFULLY MORE) AND PLENTY OF OTHER COOL STUFF!

This media release will not be just a couple of 3dsmax screenshots (cough hl2 mod :) ) but will be a video release in both high and low quality flavours :D

oh, anyone know where we can host some video files? ;)

[AlCaTrAzz]

Originally posted by WirlWind@Mar 13 2005, 08:06 PM
yeah but wont you have to retexture the game on the unreal 3 engine? I suppose its still all good, cuz most of it will be done already, but yeah. new skins/textures for unreal 3 engine.
75779


thanks to the way that the unreal engine works, making the higher quality skins/models will be quite easy. for the unreal engine, the basic way to make a kick ass looking character is to make an insanely high quality model, skin it so it looks cool, then apply that skin to a lower poly model... so the lower end systems get the same kick ass looking model but with less poly, while higher end systems get the high poly models

[PHOENIX_12]

me waits 4 end of month

[WirlWind]

sounds good trazz. cant wait till the full release :( I reckon you could get a job from rare or whoever from this like the dudes from DC did :P Its showing major potential

[AlCaTrAzz]

lol, remember that rare are supposedly hard at work at PD0 atm... despite the fact that we've never seen anything about it... the only piccies i can find are of a stupid looking animated joanna... looks bad...

keep in mind that as we get closer and closer to finishing this, we will be releaseing a series of tutorials that teach u how to map for it... so i'm hoping we can get some community content made up for this as well

[Ogre]

Originally posted by AlCaTrAzz@Mar 14 2005, 05:41 PM
lol, remember that rare are supposedly hard at work at PD0 atm... despite the fact that we've never seen anything about it... the only piccies i can find are of a stupid looking animated joanna... looks bad...
75918


Don't make me start the cel shading debate that has been argued over sooooo many times on other forums.

Just keep in mind that cel shading does have it's place, and most of the time it works out really well. Especially in motion, screenshots never do it justice.

[Geggs]

Sigh...

Cell shading is teh 14m3z0r!

NO ARGUMENT OGRE (we know how much you love Rare), but seriously... PD0 is hella **** - atm!

EDITED BY GEGGS - "It took out my word... DAMN IT!"

[PHOENIX_12]

lol the word censor arives only at the worst moments, but lay of pixel shading, it has it's place.

[AlCaTrAzz]

yeah, and it's place isn't in a realistic game like PD or PD0...


oh, and i started mapping carrington institute last night... had to do somthing to keep active ;)

[Geggs]

Remember this isn't the dev forum AlC...

[AlCaTrAzz]

i know... but i like teasing ppl by letting em know some of the stuff were doing but not all... imagine if they saw the map i've done for single play[EDITED OUT... DONT REVEAL THAT YET]

[PHOENIX_12]

Originally posted by AlCaTrAzz@Mar 17 2005, 08:29 AM
yeah, and it's place isn't in a realistic game like PD or PD0...
oh, and i started mapping carrington institute last night... had to do somthing to keep active ;)
76183


neva said u couldn't insult pd0 lol