[MrFlibble]

Forge, on 07 January 2019 - 07:48 AM, said:

Only one character gets ammo on pick-ups - eventually the bot will have nothing to fight with other than kicking & it'll die quickly. A lot. And waste a lot of health if you want to try to keep it alive (and having two live characters is required in at least one map)

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I had the impression that the AI sidekick in its current state doesn't use up ammo from the ammo pool when firing. I didn't check specifically though so I cannot tell for sure.

But even if each character used actual ammo from their own pool whether controlled by the AI or the player, replenishing it would not be a problem because you can switch characters and pick more ammo at any time.

Forge, on 07 January 2019 - 07:48 AM, said:

The other would be having pick-ups for each character - now you've doubled all the ammo and health in a map. Doubling enemies would take away from the rest of the level's interaction, as it would be almost constant fighting. That would get boring af after a couple maps.

Having more pickups should not be a problem at all if the arsenal is split between the two characters as I suggested above. Then again, there are FPS games that support a co-op mode for the singleplayer campaign(s) and manage to avoid being boring.

necroslut, on 07 January 2019 - 08:19 AM, said:

If the mod was only meant to be used on maps made exclusively for it I guess you could add Duke-only and Bombshell-only pickups, but it's not.

Have the arsenal split when playing with two characters, full arsenal when playing with one. The original maps are still modified for the mod anyway. I guess all this can be coded in at least in theory because open source.

Anyways, I had another idea. I really like the vending machines (although the soda can and food package sprites could use some polishing) and I immediately remembered their counterparts from Blake Stone. What about the characters got change for the machines (they audibly use coins and not paper money) from some of the NPCs?

[Forge]

doubling the ammo & health sounds like half the fun.

MrFlibble, on 07 January 2019 - 08:23 AM, said:

The original maps are still modified for the mod anyway.

other than a general code to randomly replace some aliens, exactly how are the original maps modified?


You have some interesting ideas, but I'm guessing they probably require an extraordinarily large amount of code to pull off.

[The Battlelord]

Trooper Dan, on 06 January 2019 - 02:08 PM, said:

Coooool! audio and light effects fit very well!

Now that we can count on a purple laser gun (Dukeinator) and a green one (Alien turret), what about a red one?





How to forget about a Blue Ray laser gun then? (not a DVD thrower!), ok just joking on this one .

But what you think about some of these sound effects?

https://freesound.or...ry/packs/16689/

https://freesound.or...cer/packs/9318/

[Marya]

MrFlibble, on 06 January 2019 - 05:59 AM, said:

So I finally got around to play this, having lots of fun!

All new art fits seamlessly with the original assets, you did a a great job at this. (I wonder what it would look if the sprites were at a higher resolution, I remember possible plans for this being mentioned somewhere here?) Love the NPCs' behaviours and animations (as Forge said above, the smoking idle animation is hilarious).

I got through the first two levels of the new episode. I must say the layout sometimes confused me, especially in the first level. I found all the secret areas while circling around in the search for at least any key, because I overlooked the sewer passageway leading to the red key. The area with the boxes you get to either through the manhole or one of the buildings is very dark and the passageway is easy to miss. I also did not exactly like that some parts of the level were at some point shut off with the Battlelord face doors, and after using the yellow key I had to circle around trying to find the way to the newly opened entrance in the area that got shut off.

Personally I have nothing against changing pathways through a level as the player progresses through it, but in this case it felt very confusing, and not exactly motivated. For example I did not really understand what happened when I used the yellow key, except that the Pig Cop boss apparently emerged from somewhere while some further destruction was done to the city. But there was no vantage point from which to observe this, especially since I had to take cover from the Octabrains that spawned with the boss.

The first level is generally very large and saturated with content. At times it almost felt like the size was still not enough to put in everything the authors intended, making it feel like a theme park ride, rather than a city invaded by aliens. I think this could have been easily split into two levels, with more balance between portraying half-ruined cityscape and some gimmick areas.

I did like the use of railgun snipers on top of the buildings, and the ability to sneak up behind them. If only the city streets were more spacious and less mazelike. I liked the starting pool area, the video game store, the gun shop, the motel interior and the tennis court area, and of course the bar and the square in front of it. But again as I said this abundance of content could have been easily split into several levels.

I didn't get the reference with the purple clad woman in the secret room on the roof with pipes (I actually reached it by jumping on palm trees in the courtyard). And are these supposed to be StarCraft Confederate Marine Armour suits?

Spoiler

T

Due to the introduction of Starcraft 2 and the destruction of the confederacy in the orginal game the armored suits could also just be the standard CMC marine armored suit... All factions of the terrans use the armor even the foreign, from earth United Earth Directorate used a similar suit, which leads me to believe they are just standard CMC suits, also if you notice some of the new pig-cops use the armor. Nice little detail there...



as far as the new Alien turret, it looks nice i'm just sad this mod hasn't done anything with the orginal alien turret sprite that's unused in the base game, oh well....keep up the good works.

[Danukem]

As pointed out, if Duke picks up a weapon and X amount of ammo for it, then when you switch to Shelly as a player-character she will have the equivalent weapon on that slot and X amount of ammo for that weapon (and vice versa). However, bot Duke always has the shotgun with infinite ammo, and bot Shelly always has the SMG with infinite ammo. Instead of this arrangement, there are many other possible ways it could work, and I have considered some of them. The main reason it is this way is so that the human player can remain the star without competing with the bot for resources or glory. A secondary reason is that Bombshell was being developed simultaneously with the maps and we didn't have a more-or-less finished version of her to play with until very late in development of the released episode. Moreover, I wanted the player to be able to use bot coop mode in all vanilla maps and have them play pretty much normally. And that is why, as pointed out, it's simply a matter of personal preference which character you use, and there is (almost) never any compelling reason to switch characters. There are a couple of puzzles in the AA episode where you do have to use the switching feature (a la Lost Vikings). There would have been more if the second character were finished earlier in the process and there had been more coordination in level design.

Here's some more detailed analysis:

1. If the player is competing with the bot for pickups (weapons, ammo, maybe health) then it's going to get frustrating. In a singleplayer game, the human player should be the star. It is nontrivial to make the bot smart enough to know when to not pick something up because the player needs it more, or not use a weapon. For example, let's say a bot picks up a pipebomb, and the pipebomb is needed to blow up a crack. If the bot uses it to kill an enemy, then you can get softlocked.

1b. As an alternative to competing for resources, the world could be populated by a second copy of everything when the bot is in play. This doesn't necessarily require that a mapper put the items in the map -- a script could insert them when bot coop is in effect. Alternatively, a single pickup sprite could be programmed to not delete unless both players have picked it up, and it could change its appearance depending on which player is closer. This is better than the competition model, but it would mean the bot will need much more sophisticated AI, because now the bot has to be programmed to use all of the weapons and decide which to use at which time. I'm happy to do this and actually have a prototype for it from another project, but integrating that into the game is not the highest priority right now. Also, this would mean that the bot becomes more powerful, and as Forge has pointed out that leads to a balance issue. It raises the question of whether more enemies should be added to compensate, or whether the existing enemies get buffed.

I actually do have an ambitious plan that involves the bots but I want to wait until the current incarnation of AA has run its course before attempting to implement it. Right now, with my limited time, trying to do that would prevent me from getting the basic scripting done needed to finish the project in front of us.

[Marya]

Trooper Dan, on 07 January 2019 - 12:56 PM, said:

As pointed out, if Duke picks up a weapon and X amount of ammo for it, then when you switch to Shelly as a player-character she will have the equivalent weapon on that slot and X amount of ammo for that weapon (and vice versa). However, bot Duke always has the shotgun with infinite ammo, and bot Shelly always has the SMG with infinite ammo. Instead of this arrangement, there are many other possible ways it could work, and I have considered some of them. The main reason it is this way is so that the human player can remain the star without competing with the bot for resources or glory. A secondary reason is that Bombshell was being developed simultaneously with the maps and we didn't have a more-or-less finished version of her to play with until very late in development of the released episode. Moreover, I wanted the player to be able to use bot coop mode in all vanilla maps and have them play pretty much normally. And that is why, as pointed out, it's simply a matter of personal preference which character you use, and there is (almost) never any compelling reason to switch characters. There are a couple of puzzles in the AA episode where you do have to use the switching feature (a la Lost Vikings). There would have been more if the second character were finished earlier in the process and there had been more coordination in level design.

Here's some more detailed analysis:

1. If the player is competing with the bot for pickups (weapons, ammo, maybe health) then it's going to get frustrating. In a singleplayer game, the human player should be the star. It is nontrivial to make the bot smart enough to know when to not pick something up because the player needs it more, or not use a weapon. For example, let's say a bot picks up a pipebomb, and the pipebomb is needed to blow up a crack. If the bot uses it to kill an enemy, then you can get softlocked.

1b. As an alternative to competing for resources, the world could be populated by a second copy of everything when the bot is in play. This doesn't necessarily require that a mapper put the items in the map -- a script could insert them when bot coop is in effect. Alternatively, a single pickup sprite could be programmed to not delete unless both players have picked it up, and it could change its appearance depending on which player is closer. This is better than the competition model, but it would mean the bot will need much more sophisticated AI, because now the bot has to be programmed to use all of the weapons and decide which to use at which time. I'm happy to do this and actually have a prototype for it from another project, but integrating that into the game is not the highest priority right now. Also, this would mean that the bot becomes more powerful, and as Forge has pointed out that leads to a balance issue. It raises the question of whether more enemies should be added to compensate, or whether the existing enemies get buffed.

I actually do have an ambitious plan that involves the bots but I want to wait until the current incarnation of AA has run its course before attempting to implement it. Right now, with my limited time, trying to do that would prevent me from getting the basic scripting done needed to finish the project in front of us.

a simple solution would be to go with the old fashion multiplayer solution of having infinite pickups of the weapon in it's spawn slot(Al la Doom) or Duke 3d's respawning items idea. Just examples and each have their downsides, in a single player mode.

[Danukem]

Marya, on 08 January 2019 - 06:28 PM, said:

a simple solution would be to go with the old fashion multiplayer solution of having infinite pickups of the weapon in it's spawn slot(Al la Doom) or Duke 3d's respawning items idea. Just examples and each have their downsides, in a single player mode.

That sounds more like how multiplayer pickups should work. For singleplayer, I believe it would be better balanced with what I outlined in 1b above. Also -- sorry to be contrarian -- but from a coding standpoint they are equally simple.

[Mark]

I'm late to the party but I finally gave the first map a try. I'm a fan of city in ruins type maps so this was a plus. I liked the new features such as the enemies, talking NPCs. I liked how there were plenty of places to take cover while fighting. There were a number of minor issues but they are mostly a matter of me having a different style in mapping and not worth going into details. I've only played about 10 minutes of the first level. I didn't save so I'll start over from the beginning next time I play. I have to say good job by the team.

[MrFlibble]

Trooper Dan, on 07 January 2019 - 12:56 PM, said:

Alternatively, a single pickup sprite could be programmed to not delete unless both players have picked it up, and it could change its appearance depending on which player is closer. This is better than the competition model, but it would mean the bot will need much more sophisticated AI, because now the bot has to be programmed to use all of the weapons and decide which to use at which time. I'm happy to do this and actually have a prototype for it from another project, but integrating that into the game is not the highest priority right now. Also, this would mean that the bot becomes more powerful, and as Forge has pointed out that leads to a balance issue. It raises the question of whether more enemies should be added to compensate, or whether the existing enemies get buffed.

I actually do have an ambitious plan that involves the bots but I want to wait until the current incarnation of AA has run its course before attempting to implement it. Right now, with my limited time, trying to do that would prevent me from getting the basic scripting done needed to finish the project in front of us.

Personally, a model where level design and character balance encourages the player to switch characters more often is more appealing to me than any type of gameplay where you have a relatively independent AI sidekick with little control over its behaviour. In its current state the bot gets in the way in many fights, often gets injured by friendly fire because the most powerful weapons in the game have area of effect damage (I have no idea how far away I should tell Duke to stay from an encounter and hold position because he constantly gets caught in the blast of Shelly's RPG, it gets him even if he's behind a wall), and is generally more of a liability than anything else. I mean, if getting the sidekick down meant game over/restart, the game would be practically unplayable unless you'd stick to having the bot waiting while you clear the level.

Sometimes the bot gets useful, like when there's an ambush spawning behind the player's back and the bot disposes of them. But what gameplay value does this kind of interaction have? Did the bot help, or did it steal a fight from the player?

To my mind, any kind of game mode where an AI sidekick is actually fun to have all the time, and not just as a novelty gimmick, and its presence is meaningful to gameplay, requires its AI and controls to be on a far more advanced level than it is now in the mod (please don't get me wrong, I'm trying to be constructive here, not criticising). On the other hand, if the AI plays a secondary role while the player switches between characters as the game situation demands it, seems like a more productive model to me.

[Danukem]

Good points; I can't really argue with any of that. In the builds we are using, the AI has improved somewhat from the version you are playing, and now the bots tend to hang back more and not run in to kick enemies from as far away -- this helps with the getting in the way/getting downed problem. I will see about making some more improvements before the next public release. The next release will have an overhauled version of Duke it Out in DC and another overhauled old episode, so it won't have maps built from scratch that take advantage of coop. Coop will also be completely optional, as it is now if you play the vanilla maps using AA. When we finally get around to releasing another true new episode built from scratch, I will push for having more situations that require both players and make the bot an essential (and fun) part of the experience.

[Marya]

Trooper Dan, on 08 January 2019 - 09:55 PM, said:

That sounds more like how multiplayer pickups should work. For singleplayer, I believe it would be better balanced with what I outlined in 1b above. Also -- sorry to be contrarian -- but from a coding standpoint they are equally simple.

if i recall correctly originally duke 3d mutliplayer had all weapon spawns and iventory items on a respawn a sort of duke nukem coin would spin in the spawn place the nuke logo on the 'coin' would change from red to yellow to green as it got closer to respawning...

[necroslut]

Marya, on 12 January 2019 - 03:28 PM, said:

if i recall correctly originally duke 3d mutliplayer had all weapon spawns and iventory items on a respawn a sort of duke nukem coin would spin in the spawn place the nuke logo on the 'coin' would change from red to yellow to green as it got closer to respawning...

In DukeMatch - yes - but in co-op the pickups remained forever and could be picked up only once by each player.

[Marya]

necroslut, on 13 January 2019 - 11:36 AM, said:

In DukeMatch - yes - but in co-op the pickups remained forever and could be picked up only once by each player.

Oh so it used both methods? I thought in co-op it use the respawn idea.. been so long since i've played the orginal let alone megaton with other peoplez.

[sebabdukeboss20]

We're getting pretty close to the next update.

[MrFlibble]

Nice! Are the blue craft EDF vehicles or enemies?

[Danukem]

MrFlibble, on 26 January 2019 - 02:07 AM, said:

Nice! Are the blue craft EDF vehicles or enemies?

Those are EDF drones.

[Marya]

Trooper Dan, on 26 January 2019 - 02:50 AM, said:

Those are EDF drones.

are we getting some wierd Octobrain mech and slimer mech enemies?

[sebabdukeboss20]

Octa, yes. I nicknamed it OD-209.

[John Brown]

I'm pretty excited for the new update. Now I wonder which will drop first, the Alien Armageddon update, or update 4 for the GOG version of Ion Maiden (knowing GOG, probably this one).

[Forge]

Did a little work on the weapons?

Spoiler

sebabdukeboss20, on 25 January 2019 - 11:29 PM, said:

We're getting pretty close to the next update.

Trooper Dan, on 07 May 2018 - 12:05 PM, said:

[The Battlelord]

sebabdukeboss20, on 26 January 2019 - 10:19 PM, said:

Octa, yes. I nicknamed it OD-209.

I suddenly thought to Octo Mind, somehow it remember me the Master Mind from Doom, just this one is a screamer one with 8 brains and 8 tentacles on a two legs robot.

I was thinking that 3DRealms always used to pair the Octobrains with the Slimers, because levitating make them immune from being eaten (1 hit kllled), i will feel weird watching them "learn walking" .

Btw, the scientist into the darkness is the Dr. Wily from Mega Man right? And he will scream "Now the World is mine!" (just joking ).

[Marya]

Forge, on 27 January 2019 - 08:51 AM, said:

Did a little work on the weapons?

Yeah i saw that too ,but was more interested in the enemies... who knows maybe we'll get an infected slime babe enemy that upchucks poisonous slime at you or something.

[Danukem]

[Ninety-Six]

that's a trailer I feel like I'd watch multiple times even after it comes out. That's a good one.


I missed the initial release due to newer editions of eDuke being fairly unstable in one way or another. I hope a lot of those issues are fixed by the time this comes out. This looks even more fun than the first trailers.


Is this the one with the custom singleplayer-multiplayer hybrid campaign thing? Or is that still upcoming?


As for DC, this may be an obvious question but I feel it's worth making sure. Does it still use the DC GRP file? Is it something that can be loaded with DC and everything else works fine? Or does it require a restart and loading up the respective GRPs to work properly? I mean it's fine no matter what because I still have my DC grp (and you would have to pry it from my cold dead hands before I ever relinquish it), but I know that Nuclear Showdown did kind of a weird thing with DC where it (mostly) worked properly in its entirety if loaded with the DC GRP.

It's not super important to know and I could find out at launch, but knowing these things at run time will lessen the time between pressing start and beginning the murderfest.



Also, does this use the DC Music pack or something else? Again, not important, just curious. Lots of prying questions, I know.

[Danukem]

Ninety-Six, on 03 February 2019 - 04:14 AM, said:

I missed the initial release due to newer editions of eDuke being fairly unstable in one way or another. I hope a lot of those issues are fixed by the time this comes out. This looks even more fun than the first trailers.

Just use the build of Eduke32 that will be included. We are using r7140

Ninety-Six, on 03 February 2019 - 04:14 AM, said:

Is this the one with the custom singleplayer-multiplayer hybrid campaign thing? Or is that still upcoming?

That will be a later release -- Gladiator still needs a lot of work and we want it to be a great single player experience, not just a curiosity. If you poke around through the files you will be able to find some half-finished Gladiator stuff, though.

Ninety-Six, on 03 February 2019 - 04:14 AM, said:

As for DC, this may be an obvious question but I feel it's worth making sure. Does it still use the DC GRP file?

All you need is the Duke 3D GRP. The DC levels have been significantly modified and AA uses its own version of the maps. We consider DC to be abandonware so we are distributing our modified version of it (with credits to original authors as well of course).

Ninety-Six, on 03 February 2019 - 04:14 AM, said:

Also, does this use the DC Music pack or something else? Again, not important, just curious. Lots of prying questions, I know.

The DC levels will use the old midis, and the DC Music pack should work fine if you want to use it.

[Ninety-Six]

Did the original release come with a prepackaged eDuke32 version and I skipped it for nothing like an idiot?

[Danukem]

Ninety-Six, on 03 February 2019 - 04:32 AM, said:

Did the original release come with a prepackaged eDuke32 version and I skipped it for nothing like an idiot?

It did, but at this point it's best if you just wait until the 16th and play 2.0. It has everything that the original version had, plus hundreds of improvements, lots of new content, etc.

[Ninety-Six]

Oh I know it's too late now. Still I feel kind of like a moron for skipping this the first round. Oh well. Can't do anything about it now.


Regardless, the hype has been gotten and I am ready to kill some alien bastards when this drops.



So many big projects lately. Some returning, some new. Damn is it a good time to be a fan of this game's modding scene.

[John Brown]

Looks awesome, I'm especially looking forward to the new weapons (as long as AI Duke/Shelly doesn't get in the way of the nukes of course). In regards to the new art, I'm looking forward to seeing what else was added to the Smithsonian.

[sebabdukeboss20]

John Brown, on 03 February 2019 - 07:38 AM, said:

Looks awesome, I'm especially looking forward to the new weapons (as long as AI Duke/Shelly doesn't get in the way of the nukes of course). In regards to the new art, I'm looking forward to seeing what else was added to the Smithsonian.

I added LOTS to the Smithsonian. I had a lot of fun enhancing it considering I'm very fond of the DC museums. I really wanted the player to look around it like a real museum. And also we modified the museum so it isn't as confusing for [new] players.