Ara (aka The Unnamed Map)

[Thothie]

It maybe a simple matter of separating your map and your valley with some void or making the valley curve more.

Tell me if ya have anything ready, or if ya need any scripts, I intend to have a B patch out tomorrow.

Blarg - btw - I noticed the reqhp thing is broke-ed on the AUG2007a patch, although nplayers still works. In AUG2007b patch it'll work right, and then you can scale the type and number of orcs you use based on the total hp of the local players. - Just make sure it's impossible when J-M logs on, as he seems to like your gauntlet map, which must mean he's dominating it.

 

[J]

A void might've solved the r_speed problem but I would've had to make high rocks and stuff to cover it up and I think it would've ended up looking somewhat bad.

I don't think I need any more scripts.
Edit: but we should probably discuss the chests.

What do I need to do to scale the number of orcs to the total hp of the players? Sounds like it would require some more work on the map to make it balanced.

 

[Thothie]

Ya just sprinkle meaner orcs and and give then "reqhp" properties, meaning, they won't spawn if the total HP of players on the server doesn't meet that number.

So if say, you don't want something to spawn unless there are 6 people with 600hp or more (or some equivalent combination). You add reqhp 3600.

Orcs that don't spawn won't count against fireallperish events, so ya needn't worry about that.

 

[J]

Aha, I just grabbed a newer FGD and now see what you mean by reqhp and nplayers.

I haven't used fireallperish in the map at all, just counters and trigger on death. Does fireallperish work now? If it does, I probably should switch to that method to decrease the number of entities, which is pretty high at the moment since I've split entities to reduce drawing.

Also, I'm rather doubtful about adding more enemies because the entity count is so high already.

 

[Thothie]

Trigger_counter's don't "think" so they are fairly kind as entities go. Fireallperish doesn't work in certain situations (such as fireing one monsterspawn with another) so the trigger_counter method is much more dependable.

 

[J]

Yes, but you said that

Orcs that don't spawn won't count against fireallperish events, so ya needn't worry about that.

So I was wondering if my counters would work if I used reqhp. Or was that what you were implying by the first sentence?

And there's a small problem with the reqhp thing: I have absolutely no clue what kind of values different enemies should have.

 

[Thothie]

Well they'd be "extra" monsters, so ya wouldn't want them to target your trigger_counters when they died.

What sort of orcs would depend on what levels you were aiming at.

 

[J]

First public version released, see the first post.

 

[Dark_Force9999]

Taol's door won't open. Tried the map 3 time and it's continuously locked.

 

[J]

You probably tried the wrong door. You get in the room from the other side of the building.

 

[Thothie]

Tao works so far as I can tell.

It wasn't meant to be released yet but it was.

SORRY! I must be subconsciously getting revenge on Barnum who released his final map before I tested it for final FN approval.

-too many enemies, it gets a bit boring after a while

I don’t think it’s too many so much as too many of the same ones, over and over again, in the same spots. Multi-life spawn waves get tedious. Need to break up the types, locations (especially locations), and have more enemies with flashy entrances (have walls blow up, break, sealed doors open, battle wagons roll in, etc. etc.). Remember inactive monsters don’t “think” so they don’t really add any lag. (Also don’t add any resources, if you are already using the monster’s media.)

-one chest doesn't spawn because of a wrong spawnarea name

Hm… I didn’t realize there was another chest. :/ - I’ve only designed one chest script for the map, and it’s pretty generous as, well, I thought it was the only one on it.

-only one chest has something in it, the others only contain a few gold coins

Again, missed the other chests entirely.

-the boss minions keep spawning after the boss has died, it was suggested to be changed

There’s a boss? :| Somehow I missed that too.

-Taol can speak to the room above

This maybe a hard code bug. Requiring monsters have LOS to talk was causing issues so I removed the condition and required only that they be in range. Then again, under the old system he’d likely still wind up talking, just no one would hear him. (Suspect I need to make LOS speech a separate function or something.)

 

[The Man In Black]

-one chest doesn't spawn because of a wrong spawnarea name

Hm… I didn’t realize there was another chest. :/ - I’ve only designed one chest script for the map, and it’s pretty generous as, well, I thought it was the only one on it.

-only one chest has something in it, the others only contain a few gold coins

Again, missed the other chests entirely.

-the boss minions keep spawning after the boss has died, it was suggested to be changed

There’s a boss? :| Somehow I missed that too.

ROFL!

Thothie? Quality Dev.
Thothie? Observant.
Thothie? Sober.

(jk - Thothie? All forgiving? )

 

[Thothie]

Well I did run through the map six times, and never saw any of those things. :/ I did the standard ripent scriptfile search, but only for any outrageous, cheaty looking scripts and ents - didn't notice the extra chests in that scan somehow, but I suppose they weren't what I was looking for.

I might have noticed them in the source, but he uses ms_npc for every spawner, so they don't look like chests in hammer.

 

[J]

SORRY! I must be subconsciously getting revenge on Barnum who released his final map before I tested it for final FN approval.

No worries, I'm sort of glad it's out now.

I don’t think it’s too many so much as too many of the same ones, over and over again, in the same spots. Multi-life spawn waves get tedious. Need to break up the types, locations (especially locations), and have more enemies with flashy entrances (have walls blow up, break, sealed doors open, battle wagons roll in, etc. etc.). Remember inactive monsters don’t “think” so they don’t really add any lag. (Also don’t add any resources, if you are already using the monster’s media.)

Those are possibilities to look into.

Hm… I didn’t realize there was another chest. :/ - I’ve only designed one chest script for the map, and it’s pretty generous as, well, I thought it was the only one on it.

There are 5 chests, but some of them are only meant to give out generic stuff like potions and some arrows maybe.

There’s a boss? :| Somehow I missed that too.

The "boss" is the bigger orc that comes when it starts raining (the fourth wave).

This maybe a hard code bug. Requiring monsters have LOS to talk was causing issues so I removed the condition and required only that they be in range. Then again, under the old system he’d likely still wind up talking, just no one would hear him. (Suspect I need to make LOS speech a separate function or something.)

It's probably no big deal. I've made him spawn quite early which could be changed. That way players wouldn't see his lines when going to talk to Jae'em in the beginning.

I might have noticed them in the source, but he uses ms_npc for every spawner, so they don't look like chests in hammer.

Not for the chests, they are msworlditem_treasures.

Oh, and I might tweak the light_environment values now that J-M pointed out they're not completely correct. It would be nice if I could have the latest version of the map for fixing, you can of course remove the scriptfile name from the chest so I don't see it.

 

[Thothie]

Er, I'd kinda like you to know the scriptfile name of the chest on your own map.

The only things I changed in the source you gave me were:
I added an NPC to the boat with the scritpname:
ara/charon

And the final chest, which I'll PM you the script name for.

I'll give you some script names for some generic chests too. (We've got a few pre-built generic resupply chests)

There's a B patch due, so I'll take a stab at fixing the NPC's talking through walls bit too... Although... It maybe as easy as just adding a $cansee(talk_target) thing to the script. Just I know $cansee() goes buggy sometimes.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Oh, and I might tweak the light_environment values now that J-M pointed out they're not completely correct.

Linky

 

[Thothie]

BTW - while yer working on this, if your rotating doors have any move or stop noises, remove them, for if a monster (or even a player) jams them, they'll crash all the clients.

I'm gonna fix this bit in Chapel on the B patch.

Also, after running through this map in large groups a few times, I can say, ye may want to reduce the spawn counts a bit, in addition to making them more interesting, as often the server won't hold up long enough to finish it (tisn't a low-ent map like Cleircert).

 

[J]

Alrighty, since people have been asking about Ara I'm just posting to say that it should be out quite soon. In addition to Thothie being busy, there was some miscommunication between him and I: he was expecting a new version from me a while ago when I was waiting for his comments on the latest compile.

Nevertheless, there was a lot of progress on Ara this week, Thothie requested some changes to the enemies to reduce the tediousness and I made them. The map should be quite a bit shorter now (but you can always play it twice if you don't get enough ), and I hope there will be significantly less lag, too. Thothie will be away for a day or two after which he should be able to test the map and release it unless I need to make changes to it, and if I do, they shouldn't be anything major. So anyway, it should be out in a couple of days. You can start holding your breath now.

 

[Thraxis]

Yey! I can finally enjoy one of the more enjoyable (imo) maps without having lag fests and won't have to hear steak complain about how lag kills his ability to level archery!

Keep it up J/Kreisi.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Thothie requested some changes to the enemies to reduce the tediousness

Wow.

 

[Dark_Force9999]

i'd kinda suggest that once all the orcs have been removed from the map- the town should become active again with vendors and stuff.

a perfectly good waste of a town map :\

 

[Sabre]

OR maybe, we could do a 'Nightmare Ara,' like have there be a given chance that the town is being owned, or that it is functioning normally

 

[J]

It would take some reworking and scripting to make shop keepers appear or have the town function normally at random. Making a separate bsp (à la Thornlands/Nightmare Thornlands) would be easier mappingwise but I don't know if we need more town maps.

 

[Dark_Force9999]

this map has a town in it, might aswell complete it when the map is done

 

[J]

So.

I told you to start holding your breath quite a while ago, and to those of you who haven't yet suffocated I apologize for the long, long wait. There were delays, and after the new compile was ready to be released we thought that it'd be a good idea to put it in the next update pack. Anyway, I was away for a week and it seems Thothie released the new Ara with the update. If you haven't played it yet, do so, and let me know how it works. I'm downloading the pack now and I hope to get to play soon.

Edit: I see FER has reported low FPS in Ara, does anyone else get that? Where does it happen?
Edit2: It was apparently due to him using the wrong bitdepth, so the map shouldn't be any more laggy than the previous version.
Edit3: People seem to shun Ara like a plague, it seems that they are not aware of the new version so they run away as soon as the map changes. Therefore I haven't yet tested the map but I hope I'll find some help later today.
Edit4: I've played the map a few times now and it seems a lot easier. I've gotten some mixed feedback though: most people think it's better now but a few players (lvl40+) preferred the previous version. But it's the majority that counts I guess.