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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 29, 2015 6:13:36 GMT -5
It's a vicious circle: Q2 getting less popular, so people shutdown servers; less servers to play with comfortable ping, desired mod, etc. in turn leads to further interest decline and community erosion...
Running a Q2 dedicated server costs little to nothing these days, and I don't see reasons strong enough to shut them down (ir)regardless of how many visitors they'd seen last few months. Not too many servers left in the world these days; we should change this trend, not further contribute to it IMHO.
P.S. Mind the fact that not everyone noticing servers being gone would complain here or try to find you on IRC; those folks could've simply quit playing Q2 altogether and go elsewhere. :-(
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 28, 2015 10:40:17 GMT -5
I've run around it for a short while giftmacher, nice map with personality! Ambient sound work is especially impressive and helps to establish overall atmosphere. Being a relatively large map, it would take me some time to remember all items' locations and get the grasp of, but nothing feels particularly "odd" at the first glance (I didn't try earlier versions though). Placing the only slugs under the bridge in muddy waters was good idea, BTW. :-) DJ from the first floor (near the RL on the stairs, western part of the map) is quite doable and high enough to reach the second floor quickly (can be helpful when being chased). There's one thing that looks like a bug to me: brush 1277 (lamp) emits light, yet there is quite prominent triangle shadow on the ceiling right next to it, does not look very natural IMHO. Also it's not parallel to the wall-ceiling edge, is it intended? P.S. Purely technical issue: many brushes are not strictly aligned to the grid (have non-integer coordinates). Sometimes they're pretty close, like "41.999..." or "42.000...", but often are not. I don't know of any real taboo on fractional values, but I personally try to avoid them, even if it requires to reshape and reposition a few brushes. Integers also make map source look more neat. ;-)
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 26, 2015 12:47:31 GMT -5
I've always been using the following settings for software and OpenGL renderers (my client is pretty much vanilla 3.21 build from icculus.org sources): // X11 video settings set sw_mipcap 10000 set sw_mipscale 10000
// GLX video settings set vid_gamma .3 set gl_modulate 2 set intensity 2 Full config available here [GitHub]. These are for FreeBSD/X.Org on some lousy ATI card; not sure how would it look on Wind0ze. ;-) For taking screenshots though, I have to bump GLX values to some insane numbers, otherwise they come out really dark.
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 26, 2015 12:16:13 GMT -5
Kudos for keeping more Q2 servers alive amplif1er, but it looks like there's something wrong, both WRT mod vs. port number relationship and general availability. Several days ago q2servers.com monitor was indeed reporting about ten active servers, but now it lists only three of them: play.q2lithium.com::Lithium DM 77.249.41.35:27910 play.q2lithium.com::SP maps 77.249.41.35:27911 play.q2lithium.com::RAIL-ONLY 77.249.41.35:27913 Servers on missing ports (e.g. custom maps on :27914 or rocket-only on :27917) are not accessible right now (cannot be connected to).
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 25, 2015 10:25:02 GMT -5
Anyway there are a few trickjumps but you need some jump experience to find and do them: => couple of shortcuts to YA using the walllights and a jump to get across. -> There's also hard jump straight to MH using a doublejump from the 2nd step down (one short pre-jump followed by a quick doublejump before you touch the side) Just got a chance (I'm quite new to Quake 2 Café) to try this map of yours Pan, feels very nice and fluid! I especially enjoyed that DJ to the MH: awesome feature, although I find your recommended way (with a pre-jump) actually harder to master than direct DJ+CJ from the staircase itself (it is wide/long enough to gain initial speed and enough of angle to move the mouse to land exactly at the MH). Did you calculate those distances deliberately (with the shortcut in mind), or just accidentally discovered those tricks during test/play runs? On a larger scale, does anyone know of a summary of common distances (with optional elevation compensations) published somewhere for those who want to include a tricky (but certainly doable) jump in their map and doesn't want to spend a lot of time to debug it?
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 25, 2015 4:03:06 GMT -5
3ZB2 (3rd Zigock Bot II) webpage is (and AFAIR always was) working just fine, with all stuff there in place: ponpoko.tri6.net/3zb2. They are indeed probably the best bots for Q2 available to date. While 3ZB2 bots are not totally dumb even without waypoint (route) files, they still greatly benefit from them. There are many pregenerated chain (*.chn) files available for most popular DM and CTF maps on its homepage. Routes for the new maps must be generated manually, like this: /set chedit 1 /map yournewmap ... run around the map for a while (don't do fancy stuff like RJ and GJ) ... /sv savechain /set chedit 0 /map yournewmap ... now add some bots and see if anything had improved ^_^ ...
There is also slightly modified/improved version of these bots by Dmitry Briliuk (aka Reanimator's Edition) but it's pretty old stuff, and I do not have a link handy ATM.
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 22, 2015 10:58:39 GMT -5
Thank you for your assessment spirit, much appreciated (esp. after seeing your own beautiful works). :-) I understand and share your feelings about the jumppad fan; it got oversized while I was trying to find the best integer coordinates that were 1) aligned to the grid, and 2) allowed for a better, smoother circle and Golden ratio (for those Pentagram brushes) approximations. Since I'm ultimately not very excited with the final result, I'd probably rework the whole thing to make it both more Q2ish and less gross. As I've mentioned before, I'm open for suggestions and fresh ideas, so share them (when you got them). However, before releasing another beta, I'd also like to collect more feedback about non-cosmetic issues with the map. Update: I've just regoogled, and apparently someone back in December 2011 did attempt to make a Q2 port of Q4 version (per my understanding of badly Google-translated Polish), but the download is no longer accessible so I cannot test or comment anything about it. :-( If someone can manage to connect to 148.81.130.52:27910 (me myself had failed with my vanilla Q2; looks like they require modern clients like r1q2, aprq2, or EGL with working and up-to-date anticheat module), and the map is still in rotation, it would be nice if it could be fetched and uploaded somewhere for the rest of the world to take a look.
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 21, 2015 1:23:25 GMT -5
That's great amplif1er, the map does need more exposure. But shouldn't correct port be 27914 rather than 27917 which is for rocket-only?
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 18, 2015 21:23:53 GMT -5
Thanks for the feedback and those links giftmacher! Yes, I know about lowering spawnpoints by 10 units trick, and likely eventually will submerge (push) them inside, but during development and test runs actually seeing them was beneficial. On the other hand, some old-school maps like q2dm1 have them unhidden, so go figure! :-) It does indeed make sense to hide them on Phrantic though, as they do not always align nicely with the floor textures (particularly, with e1u1/tram01_1 parts). Teleports are a weak spot, true. I eventually reluctantly decided to fall back to default (nothing short of boring, agreed) Q2 teleports after failing to find suitable texture from the standard pool (staying away from custom assets was one of the constraints I've set to myself while working on Phrantic). I wish I could use that old Q1 teleport texture (e.g. Jens Andreasson did exactly that for his old fbdm4 "The Hunt" map). I've also studied the teleports on ztn2dm1, admittedly Sten Uusvali did a great job, but my similar implementation did not look that good on Phrantic. Windows were added precisely to compensate for dullness of default teleports, BTW. ;-) I'll see what I can do after I have a short break from it to regain a fresh eyesight.
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Post by sP1Sp0pD on May 18, 2015 7:13:33 GMT -5
As my first Q2 mapmaking project I've decided to port Phrantic by Richard "swelt" Jacques (nodm11/cpm24 in Q3, swd3dm1 in D3, swq4dm1 or q4cmp3 since patch 1.4.2 in Q4). I didn't know about this map before Q4 though. :-) It caught my attention mainly because of absence of RG and its rather compact, hermetic style (and of course I just adore that greenish e2u3/floor2_8 texture). Strangely enough, I failed to find a Q2 version of this map (be it official or unofficial; please point me to if you know of one, maybe my google-fu sucks). While not every good Q3 (or any other game FWIW) map could (and even should) be easily ported, there are two IMHO sound reasons why I believe Q2 version of Phrantic makes sense. 1. When watching skillful players fight on it in Q4, I've found it's a little too fast paced to my liking, especially with those through-teleport shooting of Q4. Another thing which bothered me was RL being weapon of choice too often, which makes battles and kills less varied. Slow rockets of Q2, I think, theoretically might improve weapon balance on this map and fun of play (for instance, I'd love to see some nice SSG and HB frags). Henceforth we're talking about original cpm24, not swq4dm1/q4cmp3 which is quite different. 2. Another reason to port Phrantic is that, being originally a Q3 (CPMA) map, it yet does not use some exotic shaders or Bézier curves (patches) of Q3, and vast majority of its textures have their nearly identical versions in vanilla (base) Q2 texture pack! That said, and given its size, porting it deemed quite doable even for an inexperienced mapper like myself. I'm now releasing the first beta to the public. It does not feature any major structural or item placement changes (with an obvious exception of PG/LG which absent in Q2, and new "brushed" jumppad fan), being rather faithful representation (direct conversion) of cpm24, and certainly offers a lot of room for improvement and optimization. There are no clip or hint brushes for the moment, some brush overlaps still remain (leftovers from initial map decompilation), soundwork is missing, etc. which would be taken care of in the next release(s). Weapon replacement: Q3 has only one version of SG, which should naturally be SSG in Q2 (simply renamed the entity). How to place PG/LG vs. HB/CG was not immediately obvious to me, but after some consideration I've decided to replace PG with HB and LG with CG. Here's why: HB is easier to get as it lies on the first floor, and can be picked up quickly from several spawn points. Au contraire, CG is located on the second floor, at the end of tight passage (cannot stop thinking of grenade spamming :-) with only one spawn point nearby (not counting teleport destination at the top). CG can also be grabbed via strafe jump from the spawn point near GL, but it must be performed accurately (read: not as easy as getting MH on q2dm1, yet not as hard as reaching RG from the bridge on q3dm6); probably not an issue for a pro, but for casual player this makes CG less accessible than HB. This, in turn, helps to compensate for CG's higher damage rate. Second floor generally offers more possibilities for weapon pickup control in that area, ergo more powerful CG suits it even better. There are one of each ammo packs for both (bullets and cells) in the jumppad/fan room (near lower YA). I fear it might not be enough though, particularly for CG — maybe adding another bullet pack there or near the CG itself is in order. I'd like to get general feedback (please be hard on me, I love critics) on the conversion overall, its playability and weapon/item placement and balance. Feel free to nag me about texturing and lightwork as well. Enjoy, and thank you for your attention! All credit goes to Rich (with an exception of that jumppad fan perhaps); I just did the grunt work of converting his awesome map to Quake II, changing as little as possible, for a start. Grab the map: Attachment Deleted, or use alternative download. Obligatory screenshot (from info_player_intermission point): Attachment DeletedP.S. I realize that Pentagram does not really suit Q2, but I cannot come up with a better idea for the fan decoration right now (open for suggestions). I hope eventually to replace it with something else, leaving it for QW map version (if it ever appears). P.P.S. Developed with GtkRadiant 1.5 on FreeBSD, compiled with Q2Map v1.0 (comes bundled with the Radiant). Used 35 textures (including origin, sky1, and trigger) from the standard pool. Update: Known issues with beta1: - Lights in SSG and GL alcoves are too bright, they should emit at 120 instead of 160 — fixed (will appear in the next beta)
- e1u3/metal3_1 should be replaced with identical e1u1/metal3_1 for consistency with other metal textures — fixed (will appear in the next beta)
- Two brushes in the lower YA room (374 and 683) must be reshaped to avoid strange ceiling texture flickering (not due to z-fighting) — fixed (will appear in the next beta)
- Not very neat brushwork of the first floor in central area (inherited bug) — fixed (will appear in the next beta)
- One light (entity 83) near the RA room (below "broken" flickering light) is too high/bright, causing bogus flare on the ceiling — fixed (will appear in the next beta)
- Boring default teleports, oversized fan, tawdry(?) Pentagram — TBD ;-)
- Unhidden spawnpoints, remaining brush overlaps, missing soundwork, potential ammo shortage — unfixed yet, or pending feedback
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