Thothie's MS:C Map Updates

[Thothie]

Unstick'ing this, as it seems to have been successfully integrated with the beta pack.

If you are hosting a server, you will want to download this package. Clients do not need to download this set - although if you tend to play single-player you should consider it. BE SURE TO READ THE !README N THE DOWNLOAD BEFORE INSTALLING


MAP UPDATES ARE INCLUDED IN THE LATEST BETA-PACK: Betapack Download Page

The Fixes to date:

Calruin:
- Fixed spawn merge on time change in Calruin
- Fixed issue where third riddle master would not spawn
[these fixes are not needed for Calruin2]

Challs:
- Fixed bug where skeletons would fall into bottomless pits
- Fixed bug where bottomless pit wouldn't kill you
- Capped Skele lives at 5 to prevent prolonged camping

Deralia:
- Fixed transition pointing to non-existent desttrans

Gatecity:
- Added zombie dwarves (REQUIRES SC.DLL JULY 7th 2006 OR LATER)

Keledrosprelude:
- Transition Warning

Helena:
- Added critical merchants
- Added chance for Bandit Raids
- Text notification for raids

MSCave:
- Added orc fire shamans

Sfor:
- Made invulnerable web breakable (lazy work around fix)
- Re-added missing treasure
- Transwarning
- Re-Re-Added missing treasure (requires SC.DLL update as well)

Thornlands:
- Fixed Thornlands Spider Queen FOR SURE THIS TIME! ><
- Fixed Thornlands CSpawn5 Skeletons Spawning in Ceiling
- Added easter egg surprises
- Added skeleton to closet
- Various FX
- Fixed issue where spider would spawn inside crystal and go wild
- Spider Queen can now attack

Fixes for Third Party Maps:

ms_snow: (via HLCSG)
- Made morc spawn chains more dependable
- Made Ice Queen death trigger more dependable
- Moved Morc chest condition to morc chief death
- Froze some exploit water

orcplace2_beta:
- Made door break trigger conditional on death of forward orcs
- Made orc chief death trigger mode dependable (downside: chair may move before chief dead)
- Upgraded the orcs in rafters
- Upgraded chief death treasure layout
- Removed false master from teleporter generating dev spam (downside: tele isn't locked)

skycastle:
- added monsterclip staircase so skeletons aren't trapped in pit at beginning
- added new chests

highlands_msc:
- added new chests
- fix possible spawn lock

Open the zip and check out the !readme.txt

I'm only uploading batch self ripenters with batch files, as it makes no sense to reditribute the 60MB or so of maps involved.

As such, I recommend getting these only if you host a server and are adept enough to easily find your MSC folder. There is a utility in the archive to help you find your Steam folder, however.

The batch file will make backups of the maps before it starts (and will not apply any updates if it fails to do so).

These updates are for MS:C up to version 1.01dev_h I cannot promise functionality with future versions - but I'll update as needed. Keep your backups.

DLL error: If you get this error during install, you *may* need these VS libraries. Install them to c:\windows\system32, or your msc\maps folder together with the rest of the update package.
__________
"If you are close enough to read this, I am close enough to slam on my brakes and sue you." - bumper sticker
Thothie

 

[Vomica7]

 

[DocMombo]

WHAT IS HAPPENING? THIS MEMORY LEAK HAS DRIVEN ME TO USE ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME

 

[Thothie]

Wrong thread... I'm looking into your issue now.

As for the MAP UPDATES - there was a minor FUBAR I did... So.. Umm.. If you got em - download em again. Sorry. Works now, promise!
__________
"There is no social theory on earth, short of the divine right of kings, that can justify a five-hundred-fold gap between management and labor, that can explain away the concentration of a decade of gain in the bank accounts of a tiny minority." -Thomas Frank, One Market Under God
Thothie

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Spawn Anywhere Users: Don't use this patch. Re-Download the anywhere patch from the same place you got it last time, all updates are included.

Do you have a link for your 'spawn users anywhere' patch? I assume you updated it with something I don't have

 

[Thothie]

I would give it to you, but I'd have to kill you.

Devs don't want that public as it would allow lone players to warp to any map.

It is rumored that in a near-future release of MS:C players will be able to join on any map that already has other players on it... And, aside from the crashing issue and the fact that it is near impossible to get every player to a transition - this would almost be good enough a solution for me to stop adding _begins to the maps. Until then, however...

The admins on my server are under strict instructions not to change to non-adjacent maps (except for root towns), and not to change maps at all when there are any objections.

Map transitions really need to require only 75% of players to be there though. It's near impossible to get 6 people to a transition point - let alone 8. Server option would be nice to. Ms_sv_transitionpercent..
__________
"Without money, honor is nothing but a malady." - Jean Baptiste Racine
Thothie

 

[ThomZe]

weee

AT LAST! now the spider queen is going to get ganked hehe Thanks

 

[gasved]

link is down

 

[imkongkong]

some reason when my friend was playin the calruin update, the last riddle master would not appear everytime we went there >_>

 

[Thothie]

Links up now... This is the same patch my server is using, sans the _begins - and the riddler works fine there... But I removed those via search and replace _begin - so I'll go back and make sure I didn't mess up any other script with "_begin" in it that way.

Update:
Okay, I looked at the original and there are no triggers with _begin in them but... I took the one from my server and replaced the full "ms_player_begin" this time, just to be sure.

You can download at the same link - which seems to be working fine atm - may have cought it in maintence cycle or somethin.
__________
"I never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back." - Zsa Zsa Gabor
Thothie

 

[Thothie]

OMFG.... I cannot possibly tell you what a headache this has been... But I suppose I better post something to prevent some mappers from going through the same.

Two things were preventing my thornlands fix from working 100% of the time:

1) The collision boxes on the critters are (apparently) larger than they used to be. I used the same spacing I did in MS 1.35 - and all the while I thought the spider waves weren't spawning - they were often just stuck in the air out of the reach of my torch (I had to add some sprites to actually see them). Keep in mind the spiders, at least, need about twice the spacing they did in MS 1.35.

2) Fireperish all chaining is more buggard than ever. It used to be if you tied different types of monsters to the same spawn and differing #'s of lives it would buggar on occasion - but now it seems to buggar no matter how simple you make it. Thus, when chaining spawns, or if having trouble getting events to fire via Fireallperish, I suggest using trigger_counters instead - this seems to have fixed the Thornlands issue beautifully:

{
"spawnstart" "1"
"targetname" "straptwo"
"classname" "msarea_monsterspawn"
}
{
"target" "straptwo_dead"
"targetname" "straptwo_death"
"count" "4"
"classname" "trigger_counter"
}
{
"strapthree" "3"
"shakin" "2"
"targetname" "straptwo_dead"
"classname" "multi_manager"
}
{
"origin" "450 -1350 -750"
"killtarget" "straptwo_death"
"note" "one of four"
"spawnchance" "100"
"spawnarea" "straptwo"
"lives" "1"
"angles" "0 270 0"
"defscriptfile" "monsters/spider"
"delayhigh" "2"
"delaylow" "1"
"classname" "msmonster_giantrat"
}

So, basically, this is the method you are going to have to use to similate the old MS 1.35 fireallperish events with chained spawns. I suspect the problem may lie in the increased CPU usage, but I'm not enitrely sure... All I know is this more traditional model works fine.

In short-
- Don't use fireperish all to chain monsterspawns
- Beware critters collisions maybe fatter than they once were

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to working on the damned restarter. Challs tomorrow... Lord K wasnts something done with Helena - but I don't quite understand what...?
__________
"Now for my favorite part of the show....What does that say? Talk to the audience! Ugghhh, this is always death..." -Krusty
Thothie

 

[Thothie]

There was an issue with the Third Riddle Master in Calruin, similar to the Thornlands spider queen bug, although I don't think the fireallperish bug was the primary issue in this case.

This time, it seems the final bat wave (originally "room6wave2" - now "riddlebatwave") monster spawn brush is simply too close to the walls (and it actually overlaps a wall in one corner). This configuration may have been fine in MS 1.35, but apparently the monster sizes have changed a tad. Plus there's always a chance that one or more bats will spawn in that overlap.

Mapper advice: Don't use brushes as monsterspawns - use point entities and spawnloc 0. This way you awlays know exactally where your monsters are going to appear. It generally doesn't make them all that much more predictable unless you have a really huge brush spawner.

I thought that making the bats appear in the same places may make them a tad too easy and predictable (although, it turned out not to be the case in such a confined area). So... I tried to add a giant bat to compensate... Fooker just will not spawn for some reason. I tried "monsters/giantbat" and "monsters/bat_giant" and "monsters/batgiant"... It maybe this monster spawns very high or very low from his origin point - in which case he's probably there, just in a wall or somethin. It has no affect on the map. I'll have to make a huge box with a gaintbat in it to find out what the issue is.

 

[Crow]

The giant bat is (looks at least) bigger than you are


__________________________

 

[Thothie]

Yeah, I have his spawner in the dead center of that room though... He must spawn higher or lower - or somethin... Again, I'll have to make a map to check it out.

 

[Thothie]

Made my "batbox" map - sure enough, he spawns quite a bit higher than his defined spawn point... It may not be feasible to put him in there anyways, looks like he needs a lot of room to manuver.

Holy crap - he summons little bats!

Worth noting that most of these fixes are beign applied to the testing patch, periodically.

 

[Thothie]

*bump* for update #5 (Challs)

Skeletons no longer fall off bridge.
Bottomless pit is now fatal.
You now MUST kill the Ghastly Knight to press the button.

Easier than I thought, just used the old lava pit I made in MS 1.35, raised it, and monster clipped it. It's not perfect (MS monsterclips never are) - but it works.

 

[Thothie]

TO THE DEVELOPER TEAM

I've noticed you've been using some of my updates but, not others.

If you've an objection to a map change please voice them to me, and I'll fix it.

Also if you want anything else done that can be done by ripent (and another team member isn't working on) do tell.

Is the sfor spider door fixed in this latest sfor patch? I noticed there was an update for it.

 

[Thothie]

Worth a bump I guess.

Fixed Deralia... The transition in Deralia had no matching ms_player_spawn in Daragoth.

If you have the Spawn Anywhere maps - this is kind of a non-issue, as when traveling from Deralia to Daragoth, you'll simply wind up at the Helena transition. (Updating from the usual source will fix this minor annoyance).

For those of you without such advantages, this may be a bigger deal, however, as you'll be stuck with a character with no legitmate destination - most likely you'll be kicked upon returning to Daragoth - and may have to return to Edana to repair your character. So, rejoice - fix is here.


In other news...

For future mappers:

It maybe hard to tell (I didn't have the right textures loaded to look at this) - but this is the "lair" in Thornlands where the two green spiders spawn. The larger AA texture there is the spawn, and the smaller is a func_monsterclip that covers the crystal. Note that, despite the considerable gap between the monsterspawn and the crystal (about 32 units) - a spider STILL spawns inside that crystal quite often. I fixed this in a patch a few days ago (said crystal is now func_illusionary, and monsterclip removed) - but I bring you this pic to reiterate what I've said before: spawnloc 1 is BAD - don't depend on brush area monsterspawns if you can at all avoid it.

(Hollowing everything also not good, I suspect.)

That does it for critical fixes, I guess...

Next thing I'm considering doing is optimization fixes - preventing everything from spawning at effing once at Daragoth and Keledosprelude - maybe even in Thornlands - it would fix many lag and sliding monster issues... spawnstart 1 - USE IT, FFS! ><

 

[Gaz]

Hey Thothie

I'm interested, did you decompile the bsp?
I'm asking because I've seen a more modern decompiler than WINBSP that decompiles stuff with null etc, as it does so it takes all edges in the bsp and makes a 1 unit brush for that edge, so a plain brush will become a hollowed out 1 unit box the same size as the brush.

If thats whats happened I think that may be why things appear hollowed, I've not seen the sources to the maps so I'm just asking

 

[Thothie]

No, run around and look at the crystals and such in Thornlands, things are actually hollow. Very odd. - Although it maybe they were taken from another map decompiled in the same way (but this thing doesn't seem to do that to every solid, so I dunno).

There is, to my knowledge, no publicly available BSP decompiler that will give you a working decompile. Basically, you can use them to figure model#'s and positioning on the map, and figure how the map works, but that's about it.

I've seen people *claiming* to have perfect decompilers, but they also invariably claim they won't dish them out due to the "moral implications." You know, God forbid that all this artwork, that no one is getting paid for, be open source. (Oddly enough, the only ones you have do have to pay for - ie. those that come with Half-Life ARE open source, in the SDK).

*shrug* Pride and prejudice.

 

[Thothie]

Been a long damned while - but two new quick fixes today:

1) Thornlands Spider Queen: Not only spawns (she's been doing that awhile now) - but can now ATTACK PLAYERS. Does a fair amount of damage too, with some knock back even. Problem was that Ewok and Lord K apparently don't communicate very well. (Ewok using wrong script or Lord K fixing wrong script - depending on how you want to look at it). - I tease of course! Solution:
Do not use scriptfile "monsters/giantspider" - it be buggard.
Use: scriptfile "monsters/thornlandspider"

2) Sfor's "invulnerable web": Thought we fixed this, but constant reports tell me otherwise... I wouldn't know - I weigh too much to make it over the damn falls. >< - Anyways, I made the buggy web breakable. It has 500hp though, so you will likely be forced to kill all the spiders in the area, lest they kill you before you get it open.

Proper solution to this would have been to add a trigger_counter. Do not depend on fireallperish! Trigger_Counter is your friend! It may also be that a spider or two is spawning outside the area, in which case, wavey finger #2 says- do not use spawnloc 1!

Trigger_Counter and Hammer note: Trigger_counter is not included in the ms1.4.fgd - but is part of the standard Half-Life entity set and not removed from the game. With the Half-Life.fgd installed (I recommend having BOTH the half-life and ms1.4 FGD's loaded when editing in Hammer) Hammer will only let you use it as a solid entity (despite the fact, like most entities, it can be used either way). Easy solution is just to put it up out of the way, some place where players can't touch it, but near enough the monster spawn that you make the assocation visually.

Spawn Anywhere maps have been updated as well, they can be acquired by downloading from the usual source.

 

[Thothie]

Decided to sticky this, since it's essential for running a server.

In addition, I've added fixes for these maps to the package:

orcplace2_beta:
- Made door break trigger conditional on death of forward orcs
- Made orc chief death trigger mode dependable (downside: chair may move before chief dead)
- Upgraded the orcs in rafters
- Upgraded chief death treasure layout
- Removed false master from teleporter generating dev spam (downside: tele isn't locked)

skycastle:
- added monsterclip staircase so skeletons aren't trapped in pit at beginning

[*] ms_snow: (SEE EDIT BELOW)
- Made morc spawn chains more dependable
- Made Ice Queen death trigger more dependable
- Moved Morc chest condition to morc chief death

I've made the "spawn anywhere maps" the official fix set, as the LS series hasn't been downloaded since freaking Febuary - hopefully Lord K doesn't kill me for that.

If you *really* want the non-spawn anywhere maps, they are still available on the website under misc.

[*] Sadly, it seems MS_SNOW is one of those rare maps that Ripent cannot do it's thing with, so we've had to do this through HLCSG - hopefully no one needs the msvs DLL's that go with that.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

I'll download this later today. Thanks Thothie

 

[davidos]

Game crashed when it loaded Deralia, any reason why it would?

 

[Thothie]

Not if this patch is installed proper. :/