beta testers

[gopostal]

Wow...I hadn't considered bots....

I'll have to rethink things on the doors.

[*POTS*]

Wow...I hadn't considered bots....

I'll have to rethink things on the doors.

I'm almost sure there's the same problem at the entrance of the canyon of IndianaJones(fixed). Now I understand the odd behaviour of bots. I'm such an evil tester.

[gopostal]

Probably. There is a thing you can place in a map called a monsterblock which will, surprisingly, block monsters. It seems it will block bots too. Dang.

OK, I put up version3 with the problems fixed and some new areas. I replaced the church with a standard building and added a boss room. (Every map needs a boss room )

I'm pretty close to being happy with everything.

[*POTS*]

OK, I put up version3 with the problems fixed and some new areas. I replaced the church with a standard building and added a boss room. (Every map needs a boss room )

1 - Yes, I've found a secret weapon cache. The church texture was nice, but unfortunately buggy

2 - I see the wooden bridge has been fixed too. What was the problem BTW?

3 - Ops I almost forgot... The music has been removed or is it just me? I think the music change according to night and day was cool.

4 - As regards the monsterblocker issue I've had an idea: you could remove the monsterblocker and place a switch/trigger so the door can be opened only from the inside. What do you think?

5 - Finally a silly question: what does NOFFzombie mean?

[gopostal]

1. Did you find where all the "cool" people hang out?

2. It needed to have a whole section added above the bridge. It's kinda hanging there in space. Since it really served no purpose, I just didn't pursue it to fix it. I think I'll remove the whole thing so there isn't a question.

3. See number one. It was zone music meaning it played over the entire map. It interfered with number 1 and I couldn't find a resolution so I nulled out part of it. You still get the gongs warning you of the time though. Maybe I'll go back in and add the music by section.

4. Then you would be stuck if you were outside? The damn zombies are so fast too that if the door is open often they will charge in. If only one or two get inside, they can really work spawning players over before they get killed.

5. Not silly at all. (NO) (F)riendly (F)ire. They very much tend to exclude attacking any other monsters at all. Without this modification they would clear the town out in about 6 or 7 minutes of any monsters.

[*POTS*]

1. Of course I did.

2. I don't know why, but it doesn't kill me any more, it's kinda self-fixed now.

3. Hmmm zone music? MH-IndianaJones has zoned music hasn't it? I think the author of that map has already solved your problem. :hint: :hint:

4. My last resort: two buttons, one for the inside, another one for the outside (monsters can't activate buttons as far as I know), and plenty of teamcannons/turrets in the main building that would kill possible intruders.
Please try to avoid monsterblockers whenever possible.

5. Thanks I couldn't really figure that out.

[gopostal]

The problem with the zone music in DeadCity is it is being called in by the DC-Pawns.u and not by the map like a normal setup. If you took any map, added the time actor to switch day and night from DC-Pawns, you'd get the same music played. There are few settings built into the mod to allow it sound control. I suppose I could rewrite it to make it more zone friendly but it's only used here AFAIK.

I totally get what you are saying about the monstersblocks. The problem isn't with how the door is triggered. It's a simple matter to make the door triggerable only by players and not monsters. The real problem lies in the zombies being able to get in at all. Once they get in it's chaos until you spawn enough times to kill them, which in my opinion sucks hard. Perhaps I can recode monsterblock, I'll look into it. If I were you and you wanted to play these maps offline, let me know and I'll remove the blocks and ship it to you to use offline. For the server, I just don't see any way around it with the tools available. If I put in a cannon, people will just sit there with the door open and rack up kills.

BTW should #1 be hidden better? Oh, and I'm curious as to what could be added to make the map better. Maybe a larger underground? Some more things to accomplish?

Lastly, is it cool with you if I list you in release credits as a betatester?

[*POTS*]

I totally get what you are saying about the monstersblocks. The problem isn't with how the door is triggered. It's a simple matter to make the door triggerable only by players and not monsters. The real problem lies in the zombies being able to get in at all. Once they get in it's chaos until you spawn enough times to kill them, which in my opinion sucks hard.

I understand... Monsterblockers are just a way to "fix" bad monsters' behaviour. Mapping is such a hard job. Have you already tried to delete those pathnodes between the door and the main gate? Without pathnodes monsters shouldn't be able to reach you inside the building, but maybe it's impossible to modify pathnodes, I don't know.

BTW should #1 be hidden better? Oh, and I'm curious as to what could be added to make the map better. Maybe a larger underground? Some more things to accomplish?

I think that secret #1 is OK, it's the best add-on IMO, I really like it.
Speaking of the indoor pool, there's a secret weapon cache which was already present in the original version, well it'd be cool if there was another underground corridor linked to the zombies' cave, so zombies could exit also from the pool.

Lastly, is it cool with you if I list you in release credits as a betatester?

Sure

[gopostal]

Pathnoding is almost an art, especially in 2004. You can make the computer AI do so darned much with it if you understand how it works. UT is a bit less complicated and therefore less powerful but you can still make the bots/monsters do a heck of a lot.

The problem with deleting the pathnodes is that it won't help. Pathnodes only give a monster the instruction "go this way". They will follow the path unless something else higher up the chain of desires is present. Like if a bot was following a path and a health pack came into "sight distance", he would leave the path to get the pack if he needed health. Same with a weapon. Monsters on the other hand have players at the top of the list for desireablilty. They will leave any path/pickup/roaming area/patrol point as soon as as a player is within sight distance unless specifically instructed not to do so. In the case of the building door even if I removed the nodes as soon as a zombie sees a player inside they will head right towards them and once inside would roam until they found the playerspawn room as it would have the highest desireablilty as they can "see" the playerstarts. That's why they won't leave that room once they are in there.

I hope you don't take this as "my way, not yours". The problems you are presenting are some of the things that make mh REALLY hard to map correctly for. Oftentimes it's a "best of the situation" thing and you have to just live with certain things. A good example is the glass in the zombie room. Online the zombies have trouble rendering through the glass once they are triggered. Offline it works fine though. I did find out though from WarMaster that once a monster is >50% hidden oftentimes the engine will not render them. This is the cause of the disappearing monsters "bug" we discussed a long time back. You see it a lot in Minas Tirith (thank you War for the perfect example), the snipers are still there but because they are partially hidden they often stop being rendered online. Anyhow I could hack the glass in the zombie room to maybe work better but it's just a limitation on a 10 year old game, and we should all keep that in mind I guess. It's amazing it works as well as it does considering how old it really is.

Also I'm not totally sure but I *think* you can't even force the zombies into the water. All monsters are coded to strongly dislike water zones and the ones that do have specific code in them to allow a like of water. In fact one really good way to keep a node from spawning monsters in 2004 invasion is to make a small water volume around the nodes/playerstarts you don't want monsters appearing from and them making that volume not do anything other than just "be". Not a single monster will ever spawn there.

Whew, sorry to be long-winded. I just wanted to explain myself. You have taken the time to help me, the least I can do is take the time to hash everything out for you.

[*POTS*]

Pretty explanatory, thanks. Mapping is just a pain in the...

I did find out though from WarMaster that once a monster is >50% hidden oftentimes the engine will not render them. This is the cause of the disappearing monsters "bug" we discussed a long time back. You see it a lot in Minas Tirith (thank you War for the perfect example), the snipers are still there but because they are partially hidden they often stop being rendered online.

Wow really? I thought it was a MaxClientRate server-side problem.

[gopostal]

Nope. I was able to test this using the zombie problem and he is spot on about the cause. He outlined a hack using zones to force rendering but honestly it makes me a little uncomfortable to screw around with that part. I guess it will just remain.

I have however taken to looking at monsterblock and I'm trying different things with it.

[gopostal]

OK the map is posted as a download now HERE. It has all the packages needed and you probably already have some so just disregard them if you run across 'em. Thank you guys for the beta testing! This has been a blast to work on

[Gregwards]

Is it just me or has no one else wonsered about the zombie thing?

it says zombies cant come out during the day yet all the monsters who are only there in the day are zombies. was it planned or does it happen automattically? other than that i only done a quick run through. i ghosted a few secreats but didnt know how to open/unlock them. i found a few how many are there?

[gopostal]

The zombied creatures are simply reskinned monsters. What I was trying to do was give you something to do during the day on the map. It works out pretty well if you play through. You can switch back and forth between zombies at night and the other monsters in the day. It takes about 3 days in single player to clear everything, probably one maybe two nights to clear the zombies with a gang.

At first I set the map up to be open but with the zombies and other monsters in the streets at the same time it was almost impossible to get anywhere. Sectioning the monsters into the various buildings isn't a perfect solution but it helps to give things to do for multiple people versus the map being boring during the day.

If you want directions to the various things, let me know and I'll PM you.

[Gregwards]

i know where 2 are but have no idea how to unlock them. would like to know if its the way im doing it or my pc. can you pm me how to unlock them please? wont be on till next friday unfortunatly ive had to start a course so im staying up my nans who has no internet. will hopefully get back to you after a complete run through then.