[Danukem]

I have been working on this mod at a slow but steady pace since announcing it. I plan to release version 1.0 of Attrition on April 8, which is the fourth anniversary of my becoming part of the Duke Nukem gang (the word "community" doesn't seem right for us). Working on Attrition has been a lot of fun, because it's given me an excuse to play lots of user maps that I had never tried before.

I'm not usually this quiet about my projects, but this mod is not very visual. Most of the time when you are playing it, it just looks like regular Duke 3D with a modified HUD. I have focused my efforts on tweaking gameplay, getting the balance right, fixing bugs and other unexciting things. I will be showing some screenshots and movies in the next few weeks, though.

[Lunick]

DeeperThought, on Mar 11 2010, 05:08 PM, said:

I have been working on this mod at a slow but steady pace since announcing it. I plan to release version 1.0 of Attrition on April 8, which is the fourth anniversary of my becoming part of the Duke Nukem gang (the word "community" doesn't seem right for us). Working on Attrition has been a lot of fun, because it's given me an excuse to play lots of user maps that I had never tried before.

I'm not usually this quiet about my projects, but this mod is not very visual. Most of the time when you are playing it, it just looks like regular Duke 3D with a modified HUD. I have focused my efforts on tweaking gameplay, getting the balance right, fixing bugs and other unexciting things. I will be showing some screenshots and movies in the next few weeks, though.

Cool bananas, hope it turns out well

[Danukem]

This screen shows the weapon upgrades the player has acquired. There are 32 different types of weapon mods, and weapons receive them automatically upon leveling up from use. The display code I am using for this has the advantage of being tidy (I mean the way it is coded, not the way it looks), but there are some disadvantages to the system. Upgrades are not listed in the order in which the were received, instead there is a global ordering of upgrades (so for example BLEEDING WOUNDS is always listed before STUNS, regardless of which the weapon got first). The other disadvantage is that if an upgrade (such as + DAMAGE) has been received multiple times, it is only listed once. However, I like the fact that all of the upgrade information for a weapon can be contained within a single variable, so I'm probably going to stick with the current system.

It's very unlikely that the game would go on long enough for all the weapons to be upgraded as much as you see in the screen shot. An actual game would probably end with about half of the weapons upgraded as much as pictured, and the rest with only a few upgrades. It depends in part on which maps got randomly selected, since different maps contain different weapons. The more popular weapons (e.g. shotgun) require more experience points to upgrade, whereas some weapons (e.g. tripbombs) take vastly less to upgrade.

When starting a new game, most weapons are nerfed. For example, RPG has a lower firing rate and lower running speed. The "upgrades" for RPG that give it faster rate of fire and faster running speed merely restore it to its normal vanilla state (but of course it also receives a lot of other upgrades which eventually make it into a super weapon).

The blue pistol in the third row is the laser pistol. I still need to get a pickup sprite for it.

Leech is the final upgrade for each weapon, received when the weapon reaches level 7.

[Lunick]

DeeperThought, on Mar 12 2010, 09:19 PM, said:

This screen shows the weapon upgrades the player has acquired. There are 32 different types of weapon mods, and weapons receive them automatically upon leveling up from use. The display code I am using for this has the advantage of being tidy (I mean the way it is coded, not the way it looks), but there are some disadvantages to the system. Upgrades are not listed in the order in which the were received, instead there is a global ordering of upgrades (so for example BLEEDING WOUNDS is always listed before STUNS, regardless of which the weapon got first). The other disadvantage is that if an upgrade (such as + DAMAGE) has been received multiple times, it is only listed once. However, I like the fact that all of the upgrade information for a weapon can be contained within a single variable, so I'm probably going to stick with the current system.

It's very unlikely that the game would go on long enough for all the weapons to be upgraded as much as you see in the screen shot. An actual game would probably end with about half of the weapons upgraded as much as pictured, and the rest with only a few upgrades. It depends in part on which maps got randomly selected, since different maps contain different weapons. The more popular weapons (e.g. shotgun) require more experience points to upgrade, whereas some weapons (e.g. tripbombs) take vastly less to upgrade.

When starting a new game, most weapons are nerfed. For example, RPG has a lower firing rate and lower running speed. The "upgrades" for RPG that give it faster rate of fire and faster running speed merely restore it to its normal vanilla state (but of course it also receives a lot of other upgrades which eventually make it into a super weapon).

The blue pistol in the third row is the laser pistol. I still need to get a pickup sprite for it.

Leech is the final upgrade for each weapon, received when the weapon reaches level 7.

Looking good, Vortex Of Doom? Sounds Nice

[Gambini]

I like it, mostly because it´s tidy and doesnt need experts in the matter to understand what´s going on. A flaw in DNWMD was that items+coins+upgrates+et cetera were confusing.

[Geoffrey]

I like how there's a boss in the street of E1L1 Nice work! I agree with what Gambini says, it's simple and to the point.

[KillerBudgie]

I'm gonna enjoy playing this mod once it comes out. Looks even better than DNWMD!

[Sebastian]

Agreed! Does the armor get upgrades depending on how many hits you take without dying?

[Mike Norvak]

AWESOME, LOOKS VERY GOOD!!

All a dukefan wants! without freak or complicated things.

Does the mod hav any prop of dukeplus? like pickup items as battlelord auto cannon, etc

[Danukem]

I can't release Attrition on April 8 as I had planned because I will be away from the internet during that week. I will either release it next week, or in three weeks from now, depending on how quickly I can finish it.

There's a few things that I could use help with. The main one is beta testing. I have played it a lot, but I don't have enough time to do an adequate job by myself. If I had a few people who could play some episodes from beginning to end, and then report on bugs, balance issues, etc., it would be a big help. Any volunteers?

Also, I could use some help picking music for all of the included user maps (most of them did not come with any).

[Spiker]

My WGR2 map is about 80% done so I could play some attrition during breaks

[VinsaneOne]

DeeperThought, on Mar 24 2010, 01:38 PM, said:

I can't release Attrition on April 8 as I had planned because I will be away from the internet during that week. I will either release it next week, or in three weeks from now, depending on how quickly I can finish it.

There's a few things that I could use help with. The main one is beta testing. I have played it a lot, but I don't have enough time to do an adequate job by myself. If I had a few people who could play some episodes from beginning to end, and then report on bugs, balance issues, etc., it would be a big help. Any volunteers?

Also, I could use some help picking music for all of the included user maps (most of them did not come with any).

I play an episode or two nightly anyway. I'd be happy to help test them out and report what I find from a players point of view.

[High Treason]

Testing? I'd sure be up for testing it out, probably in Episode 4 for the most part as most people don't seem to like that one so much. And I could probably go through some of the included user maps and think about what music might fit with them.

[Danukem]

I just sent out a PM to everyone who expressed interest in beta testing (5 people so far).

[The Commander]

So I take it that this mod will play more like DNWMD than DP?
If so, I like that.

Still miss the good old DNA though.

[Stabs]

ill have a go at it, sounds interesting fpsrpg

[Danukem]

Beta testers: I'm going to send out a significant code update later today, so you might want to wait until then before doing any more testing.

[Spiker]

I've almost completed episode 1 and I wanted to give some feedback after that. But I can test the new code during the second episode. So far I haven't noticed any bugs but I was just playing and not looking for bugs

[Danukem]

I made a video last night: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=kzrVWS2Vk0Y

It wasn't supposed to be a trailer, just some random gameplay footage, but then I added some titles so it looks trailer-ish. At 6+ minutes, it's way too long for a trailer and needs editing. I'll probably make a real trailer in April.

[supergoofy]

It looks very nice

Fighting a dukebot to make it yours? A cool idea

No super shotgun? Why not?

[Danukem]

supergoofy, on Mar 27 2010, 12:11 PM, said:

It looks very nice

Fighting a dukebot to make it yours? A cool idea

No, it just happened that I spawned a Dukebot at around the same time that I was fighting one of the evil purple Dukes. However, the expander becomes a cloner when you level it up, and you can clone enemies to fight for you.

supergoofy, on Mar 27 2010, 12:11 PM, said:

No super shotgun? Why not?

Because there are already enough weapons, and the regular shotgun becomes super enough when it's upgraded. And I don't have infinite time, and other reasons.

[supergoofy]

Ok then, I forgot about the weapon upgrades. I always like my shotgun to be super cool.
And that thing with the expander/cloner looks very interesting. Will I be able to clone a boss?

How many maps and how many episodes do you plan to include? I hope that you will include as many as you can.

I'm interested in this mod, but I suck in beta testing, thus I didn't ask to be a beta tester. (I don't know if I can be of any help at all).

[Danukem]

supergoofy, on Mar 27 2010, 08:42 PM, said:

Ok then, I forgot about the weapon upgrades. I always like my shotgun to be super cool.
And that thing with the expander/cloner looks very interesting. Will I be able to clone a boss?

That was a useful question to ask. At the moment, only monsters that can be blown up by the expander can be cloned (because I used the genericgrowcode state as the cloning state) and it turns out that does not include any bosses. But that sucks! The expander/cloner should work on bosses, as long as they aren't pal 0. I'll change it. Unbalancing the game is not really an issue in this case, because (a) the expander is a rare weapon, and ( cloned monsters aren't THAT useful. You have to inflict enough damage on the original monster to kill it, in order to clone it, and it probably won't be able to follow you very far. Clones are excellent for setting up a battlefield where there will be respawns later, though.

supergoofy, on Mar 27 2010, 08:42 PM, said:

How many maps and how many episodes do you plan to include? I hope that you will include as many as you can.

Currently there are 73 user maps. Most of these are in the random mission episodes. You have to complete 12 randomly selected maps, followed by the boss map (for the boss map, I'm using the last map of WG's alien episode, which is damned near perfect for this mod.) At some point I will add more, and the number will probably reach at lesat 100.

[VinsaneOne]

So far, the only thing that happend after the con update (which probably had nothing to do with that), was when I got killed some where in the second random mission, the restart began a different one. I'm guessing the 3rd mission. Don't know why that happend. The maps are great, some I never played some are tough, but that Nuke, I love it! The auto-save is a cool feature and just so happend to save at the right moment. Is that the default, or will a save ever be at a bad time, like low health or in an uncomfortable situation? Well, got more playing to do. BTW, it's awesome and addictive!

[Spiker]

Ok, so I finally completed the first episode (using the old cons) on CGS. Apart from the last battle which was insane and unfair I didn't cheat. The selection of maps is really great! The gameplay is very good. You don't have to learn anything to play it, especially if you are familiar with Duke Plus. I've managed to max out only the shotgun but some other weapons had very high level too. Enemies indeed become more powerful while you progress but evil Duke definately stands out becasue he is so powerful, especially when he shoots a series of RPG right in your face and also he moves really quick. That's why I had to load the game sometimes while encountering him I will play the next random missions with the new code.

[Danukem]

Spiker, on Mar 28 2010, 12:31 PM, said:

Ok, so I finally completed the first episode (using the old cons) on CGS. Apart from the last battle which was insane and unfair I didn't cheat. The selection of maps is really great! The gameplay is very good. You don't have to learn anything to play it, especially if you are familiar with Duke Plus. I've managed to max out only the shotgun but some other weapons had very high level too. Enemies indeed become more powerful while you progress but evil Duke definately stands out becasue he is so powerful, especially when he shoots a series of RPG right in your face and also he moves really quick. That's why I had to load the game sometimes while encountering him I will play the next random missions with the new code.

Wait a few hours and I'll have another update ready. As for the last battle: I have won it on CGS with the new code, but I used the expander a lot which helped tremendously. You can level up the expander from 0 to 7 in that map (just hold the expander and use nukes or the dukebot to get the first few levels). Then use it to make good clones of the enemies in the arena area and they will do a lot of the work.

[Headless_Horseman]

When everything will be ready & smoothed, this will be one of the most kickass mods since WGR2 !

[Danukem]

I could use some help. I want to make a Mod DB page for this, but I need more than just a logo. Here is the logo I made:



Eh, I guess the bullet holes don't look very good, now that I see it large.

For Mod DB, I need a preview image, as well as a profile header image. At the moment I don't have any ideas for them. I suppose the preview image could be made from screenshots.


I also need some ideas for finishing the mod. Specifically, I want to include some unlockable extras for getting high scores or perhaps for other achievements, but at the moment I don't know what those would be.

The mod plays very well now with hardly any bugs. It's still on track to be released in April.

[lostroamer]

Considering that I liked a Doom mod called Scoredoom, I'll be thrilled to test this one out since I'm a fan of arcade-style mods.

[Danukem]

lostroamer, on Apr 1 2010, 02:35 PM, said:

Considering that I liked a Doom mod called Scoredoom, I'll be thrilled to test this one out since I'm a fan of arcade-style mods.

I'll send you a copy as soon as I make a few more changes.