[WiP] Frost_Temple

[Thothie]

That video about keldorn slaying the dragon is no big deal, i did the same last week using acid lance the most and no potions (was looking for new drops this patch).

The point being that battle is not the "omg I needz four maxed out players" event that it was intended to be. However, it's probably more difficult to reach than any other battle, currently, so that's not a major problem... That dragon is supposed to be immune to poison, I think, but I'm not going back and fixing that. I can say the same of the Felewyn Guardians. They are bloodless, yet seem vulnerable to poison, but meh, not going back and fixing that either, unless it's something that affects all mobs with the bloodless flag.

Also, bit of a spoiler, not all of these crescents are where you might think they are...

I still consider ihotohr the hardest boss in the game at this very moment

To solo, yes, probably, (it's supposed to be impossible) but if you have the three to four, 35-40 leveled, players that he's intended to deal with, not so much so. He can only keep one player out of the game at a time, and can't do much to deal with any other players while he's focused on his target (being so locked for 80% of his battle cycle). His minions are nothing to sneeze at, of course, but he's fairly easy to dispatch with the intended force. Every time I've seen that scenario, I've never seen an FPK, or even an HPK, and he's rarely lasted more than a few minutes when facing those odds. This is doubly so, if one or more of your crew already has bear claws, or leadfoot, and is thus immune to his only passive defense.

But, of course, as always, if they can't solo boss or event, everyone says wtfh4x... >_> I can't remember if he's smart enough not to lock onto summons, but even if he isn't, there's only one summon that's liable to last long enough to help as fodder, and it post-dates his inception.

Back to topic, yet again...

Now that I'm more or less done with Cyax's map, I've started on your Desert Temple map again. I've been adding a lot of secrets to it, with the intent that you need to gather eight artifacts to open a final (or semi-final) boss chamber, which may add some exploration to an otherwise nearly straight forward map. The original source does already have some loop arounds, routing decisions, and what appears to be a platform jumping challenge, but not much. I dunno how much this will change the intended play style, but as always, I'll submit the map to you for final approval when I'm done populating/raping it. I'm intending several new scripts with new models, so I'm uncertain I'll be done in time for SEP2013a. (Though, at this rate, it could happen.)

...and yeah, I suppose I should point out, while I do tend to rape maps gently, I've always re-submitted them to their authors for approval first, and never had any real objections (and always fixed the few nitpicks they point out). Obviously, the exception to this would be Nasharlwhatiztz, but in that case, the one person who would have objected didn't have much to do with the map, somuchas the world raping adding-new-gods lore behind it. (And even then, I did it with a heavy heart.) >< I don't think anyone else has complained about the change, and even he has been silent on the subject - though his objection is implied.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

even he has been silent on the subject - though his objection is implied.

I laughed out loud.

 

[Thothie]

Well, he's hasn't said anything to me or on the forums regarding the change... But yes, he was certainly vocal about his catdog gods before that, hence the "implication". >_>

I actually offered this dragon change as an alternative, just to throw him a bone - kinda sorta offered keeping his digger-elves in the process, if not his new god(s), but meh, turned me down. In any case, everyone seemed to be in agreement that the army of ghost Bludgeon placeholders was rather pointless.

 

[Regorty]

I had a spur of creativity hit me to where I remade the main room in this map. I opened it up a little bit more and added some new features, oh and lowered the ceiling. So please give me feedback and tell me what you think, I still plan on reworking the lighting and parts of the ceiling, finishing the snow pile and a few other bits.

Frost Temple Main Room Remake:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1mq9mgykgfl6q ... _00001.jpg

 

[Thothie]

Encouraging!

Let me get you the progress on the source for Desert Temple before I find myself lost at sea...

 

[Regorty]

I'm starting to wonder what sort of additions, if any, should I add to the hallways of the map. ATM they seem a little plain but then again I know I should avoid decorating them too much. So anyone got any ideas?

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

I could give you a million and one ideas if you'd let me take a look at the map

 

[Regorty]

I could give you a million and one ideas if you'd let me take a look at the map

I thought I already linked you the BSP? Weren't you missing the alliedmod.wad or something?

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

I could give you a million and one ideas if you'd let me take a look at the map

I thought I already linked you the BSP? Weren't you missing the alliedmod.wad or something?

I never got a chance to look at it I forgot

edit: if you go straight all the way to the broken staircase, the top of the doorframe has a missing texture.
If you go to the left through a door, and left again, there's a place where the floor collapses. It has a delay, so when you walk over it you end up running into an invis wall... this is sloppy.
There should be more signs of frost. Perhaps icicles or snow drifts. maybe a blue lighting

 

[zeus9860]

idk how your map works or how it looks, but since it's a frost temple and if by any chance it makes any sense to have frozen beings in the map that *melt* or *break* depending on the player's reaction.

Like having frozen temple guardians in a hallway that can be melted with fire to release them or you can break them with blunt or other types of damage.

Their release could be something you plan, they could be friendly npcs that were frozen by someone or hostile npcs just to have fun with.

 

[Thothie]

Having things blow into icy shard gibs is simple enough - melting takes quite a bit more effort...

Then again, MiB did once say something about being able to scale X/Y/Z separately, though I dun see the code for it. If said scale system scales by the origin, as the global scale does, it might be possible to make something "melt" by scaling it into oblivion on the Z axis, which would simulate melting fairly well for any creature or object that looked apt to melt, I suppose.

 

[zeus9860]

Well it would be fun to have something like that in frozen maps.

I got the idea from catacombs, the tiny reaver room. Frozen enemies melting and moving again would be a nifty addition, even more if you have special plans for those (based on what you want to do with your map, could be triggers to open a secret room with a chest, or have them friendly to the player and helping us, or simply add more of a challenge and make them hostile to us, etc.)

And i would guess you could use some sort of ice glowing objects for lanterns in the walls/floor, could even make them glow certain bits of the hallways while other spots remain with "no light/glow".



Image is just an example, the light from outside reflects itself on the ice, makes it nice and attractive. I don't expect you to do any of that in your map, it would be overkill in many ways. It's just a little bit of an idea i wanted to suggest. Ice crystals reflecting glow's in hallways, probably still a push over in the resources.

 

[Thothie]

If you take a mostly black texture with some white splotches, and throw it up on the wall as additive, you can make some nifty glowing snow. Achieving the chrome-ice you see in a lot of the more sophisticated games is also possible, but a tad more difficult, as it involves a model - atm there's no chrome render for world brushes... Not sure why that is though - or of it'd be possible to add one.

Those natural looking rounded caves be a b*tch though, and rough on all the counters.

 

[Regorty]

A lot of these aesthetic suggestions with the shiny snow or the melting NPCs all sound very difficult, if not impossible for me to do. I would be more able to pull off adding some more snow piles and maybe icicles. Now about the missing textures in the main room above the broken staircase, that area and the ceiling I am still working on figuring out how to design it and craft it to look good. Also as a reminder Frost Temple won't have a lot of overall snow inside the temple, just gonna save more of the iced over works for Frozen Temple. I do like the idea with having NPCs frozen in giant ice cubes like how the player can be, but have it be permanent until some one breaks the ice encasing them and have them either be hostile or friendly randomly would be neat as well. I already had thought of doing that in the Frozen Temple map, where you would have to kill the boss for the ice to break and free the entrapped NPCs where you can then run around some more killing them or helping them and maybe get bonus rewards if you manage to save them. But, again, I have no idea how to pull that off.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Why have a Frozen and Frost temple? Why not just make it one thing...? Seems really silly and strapped for ideas.

 

[Regorty]

Why have a Frozen and Frost temple? Why not just make it one thing...? Seems really silly and strapped for ideas.

Are you asking me to just combine the 2 temples, just get rid of one, or change the names of them? Be in mind I don't see the maps as having those names as concrete, I made them more as place holder names since I'm terrible at coming up with stellar map names. The current names are bland, but at least they give an idea on their theme-ish.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Why have a Frozen and Frost temple? Why not just make it one thing...? Seems really silly and strapped for ideas.

Are you asking me to just combine the 2 temples, just get rid of one, or change the names of them? Be in mind I don't see the maps as having those names as concrete, I made them more as place holder names since I'm terrible at coming up with stellar map names. The current names are bland, but at least they give an idea on their theme-ish.

Perhaps do all three. It seems really redundant imo

 

[Regorty]

Why have a Frozen and Frost temple? Why not just make it one thing...? Seems really silly and strapped for ideas.

Are you asking me to just combine the 2 temples, just get rid of one, or change the names of them? Be in mind I don't see the maps as having those names as concrete, I made them more as place holder names since I'm terrible at coming up with stellar map names. The current names are bland, but at least they give an idea on their theme-ish.

Perhaps do all three. It seems really redundant imo

The map merger was really just a joke, I can't actually merge the two. I hit the Allocated block limit on Frost Temple and 3/4 full on Frozen Temple. Also the two maps span most of the mapping grid so I would run out of grid space as well. So map name change is all that is left. Who wants to come up with new map names? I would like there to be 2 temple map names and then I can name the section of temple accordingly.

 

[Thothie]

How about, goddamnitthothiereleaseapatch.bsp and holycrapwhatstakingsolong.bsp?

*sigh* The planned cruise didn't happen cuz I broke my leg... And then a bunch of work related crap I wouldn't have been here for came up, and... Jeeze... I really gotta get cracking so all your work doesn't go to waste!

 

[Regorty]

So now that I have redone the lighting in several of my rooms I went with making the map darker. I dimmed down new lights I put in and lowered them to the ground more so they would light the ground more than the ceiling now, but would still light up the walls and such. (Note: the hallway lights are currently set to a brightness of 200 and the new lights are between 90-125)

Entry Way:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1dlk88m03ar8b ... _00001.jpg

Main Room:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3uad7384qw4i ... _00002.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vy1tpxq69xqsi ... _00003.jpg

So feel free to give feedback on the lighting changes. Keep in mind my personal bright setting is in the middle/default.

Side notes: Going go with a suggestion on adding invisible ramps to the staircases. Also I 'fixed' the missing texture atop the door at the top of the broken staircase when I added the new lights to that room. I reworked the mini-boss chamber to the 'lava' map so that you jump off a ledge into the room and when the boss dies a teleporter opens up so you can get out.

 

[Thothie]

So now that I have redone the lighting in several of my rooms I went with making the map darker. I dimmed down new lights I put in and lowered them to the ground more so they would light the ground more than the ceiling now, but would still light up the walls and such. (Note: the hallway lights are currently set to a brightness of 200 and the new lights are between 90-125)

Entry Way:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1dlk88m03ar8b ... _00001.jpg

Main Room:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3uad7384qw4i ... _00002.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vy1tpxq69xqsi ... _00003.jpg

So feel free to give feedback on the lighting changes. Keep in mind my personal bright setting is in the middle/default.

Side notes: Going go with a suggestion on adding invisible ramps to the staircases. Also I 'fixed' the missing texture atop the door at the top of the broken staircase when I added the new lights to that room. I reworked the mini-boss chamber to the 'lava' map so that you jump off a ledge into the room and when the boss dies a teleporter opens up so you can get out.

Getting to be on par with some of Crow's later work, aesthetics wise.

Be careful that your invisible brushes don't wind up being shot through and exploited. If need be, ye can avoid that, to some degree, by making them null brushed func_wall's, instead of player clips.

 

[Regorty]

Crow's later work? What were his later works? Also the player_clip is a Monster_clip for ranged creatures, but does the floor gotta be textured or can it be nulled?

 

[Thothie]

Thinking maybe around the World Walker era. You're bordering on the Lodagond era already - just need more trim and func_illusionary decor.

If yer just trying to get an archer to stay still, add set_npc_turret to "Additional Parameters" (params). If they still need to move around some to get at the players, on the other hand, then, yeah, monsterclip pen should do the job.

func_monsterclips do not render, they're invisible, so it won't matter what color you paint then... It's designed to use an aaa texture, such as aaa_mclip. ...Although if you mean the floor is out of sight of the players below, and you figuring you midas well null it - yes, a normal null brush (or normal brush with one side painted null) will stop mobs from falling (as well as players, items, projectiles, and what not). The clip for the face remains, even though the face isn't rendered.

 

[Regorty]

I would like to know if there is a single snow tree model I can use. Currently the only one I have found is a group tree model which contains 7 trees lumped together, they look great but are too many for what I need... I wanna spruce up my little pit i got going and give it life with some snowy plants to sprinkle around.

 

[Thothie]

There's the pine tree model:
models\msc_riverwind\pine_tree.mdl

And I think Shender_East uses the three models in models\nimble:
models\nimble\snow_tree*.mdl
...Which I also used to build that cluster from, IIRC.

Ye might have an easier time browsing models, if you download JHLMV and associate it with .mdl files. (If it's causing you issues on close, try setting it to run in Windows XP compatibility mode via the executable's file properties.)