Custom campaign?

[Crow]

So, say that there is a campaign in the making, not that there is, but...

say it wasnt a cheat map. No chests littering the floor ungaurded in some crappy looking box. Say it was made with the sole intent of providing entertainment. And it might look half decent, and it might acually be a challenge...and fun.



Would you be for it or agianst it?

 

[Kuroneko]

I'd say "Thats cool!"

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

If this idea would be allowed I'd make a custom campaign and send it to Kuroneko/Ewok/dRkILL. Sweet idea.

 

[Chopsuey]

wasnt this already discussed???

 

[Crow]

Beats me (obviously)



Maybe we could have all decent mappers who want to start bringing ms back to life (while we wait for ms:c) by making some decent stuff. I get the feeling that custom maps are accepted by the general public, and that this mod is "6 feet under" so it doesnt really matter, but we would need the support of some poeple higher up to get a little info from. (like maybe how the transitions work...)

 

[Crow]

Well, either no one checks this out anymore, or you're all too lazy, or uh, something else?

Anyways, I'm not the patient type so I'm just gonna put this out there and see what happens, and I'm assuming it will be fairly good since so far the score is Yes: 10! No: 0



There actually is a campaign under development, and I'm proud to say its by me =D!

I'd say these maps were made with about half of my skill concerning visual quality, and most of my skill in entity knowledge and sprites and all that other crap that I'm not very good at. I've never put out anything I've tried really hard on, so I'm merely assuming this is half of my skill in the looks department, but I can bet I would be able to put out a mean looking thing if I spent the time. =P

I just put this stuff together pretty quick to get something new out there half decent, and I have to say I'm disappointed with the stuff that is out there, with few exceptions. Not that i'm real happy with mine, but I've seen some real crap.

There are currently four maps finished, 6 planned. If you have suggestions for my next campaign (if, that is, I get some good reports on this one) they are welcome.



(I know the names are lame, I didn't say I was good at that did i? =D)



Finished maps:



Lowlands:



Uh, I was going to write a story to give this thing a bit more, but it turned out retarded. This first map was basically your home, so it's really small, and there is basically nothing but some stuff to get you started and a few orcs. You'll need a torch later on, trust me. Its really boring, but it fit the story, so... yea. If you really want the story, ill put it up, but it's a bit lame =].

Highlands:

I rather like how this one looks for the time spent on it, which wasn't a whole lot. The secret quest in this one is really tough, and the treasure you get is definantly not worth it, but I think the more experienced players would like a challenge =D. There is a key you need to get to open the door to the treasure, but it's not that hard to find.

Castle of the Lost:

This is my favorite just because it's more a puzzle map then anything else, and good luck solving it. I made it really tough, and it involves a lot of keys. My tester didn't even bother to figure it out, and it gets really fun once you get past the locked doors, and it looks pretty weird/cool.

Skycastle:

Well... Unfortunately I got bored of this one real fast. It looks exiting, maybe, but there really isn't much to it. As small as lowlands but with actual stuff to do. The treasure in this one is a lot better, and I figure if my players had to go through hell and back(lost castle) they deserve it. Of course you could just go to equip3 and get anything you want, so don't make a big deal out of it if u think it sucks. It would be good if... well i dont want to get into that.

Maps in the making:



Ruins: so far so good. No really that big, and not a whole lot to do, but I really wanted to use some old stuff I made a while ago but never did anything with it. These pics are done without vis or rad.

Orc Stronghold: Haven't really started this one. All I have is a big main hall, and it ain't really done.



NOTE: I made these maps with strong players in mind, mostly =]. This campaign is meant for SINGLE PLAYER. I can guarantee grand amounts of retardedness if you try to play it with a bunch of people. Trust me, it wont work, but you're welcome to try =).

 

[-=Night Goul=-]

All I have to say is "OMFG THAT IS AMAZING!" But does Kuroneko have to test it to see if its too easy to get things? I like people who make cool maps that are challenging and you EARN what you get.

 

[Kuroneko]

If we to ditribute it, yes. If not, I'd still like to at some point.

 

[Witness of God]

Looks cool from what i see. Get me a torch and ill be all set* other wise than that im siked to play it.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

There actually is a campaign under development, and I'm proud to say its by me =D!

I feel I should say that those maps are sweet! I played the first three (I guess you're referring to me by "my tester") and I pointed out some bugs but next to that these maps have great quality.



Those first two maps are awesome and I'm sure everybody will love them as much as I did. But about the third...

I made it really tough, and it involves a lot of keys. My tester didn't even bother to figure it out

I found a key, but those bastard doors never opened... And the map is a tad dark.



That fourth map looks nice though... Although I'm assuming it'll lag. I don't want 20 FPS like I got in some areas of 'highlands'

Well just tell me on MSN if you need your tester again



And the last pic... Is that 'The Old Mighty Sarlac'?

 

[Crow]

that would be the entrance to the orcs underground thingy. Scary eh?



Thanks for the imput everyone I'm almost done with ruins, just gotta fix a few things and add a few things.



lostcastle... well, trust me it opens a door on the first floor.



Unfortuneatly my transitions are retarded even though everything is set up right, the game wont accept it, and i cant get ahold of any poeple who made custom maps and accually got it to work, so you might get a bunch of maps with usless transitions, and you just have to change map by console. And you'll be able to get into any map at anypoint since they will all be enterable without going through the transition. which would be a bummer but i guess if u want to play it how it was meant to be played then u could resist the urge...

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Or we could ask developers how those entities work.

*HINT HINT*

 

[Kuroneko]

bah, just look at the edana -> thornlands transition.

 

[Crow]

I did. I know how it works in theory, but it wont work for me.

I get some error like:

Your character is not on this map, your character is on "name of map you were just on"

JM can back me up on this one.

Surely someone ran into this problem... ?

 

[Raptor]

personally, i could care less about cheat-maps right now... since ms:c will remove all characters and everything, and (hopefully) change all the entities around so it will take more than 10 minutes for someone to make a cheat map with everything in it... looks real nice, i'd like to see you make them more for multiplayer games though, since me and my sister still play MS from time to time... although i absoloutely HATE puzzles in maps on the hl engine, but whatever... i'd figure it out sometime



i say yes, distribute these until ms:c comes out, just because they look good and they would add something new for a change... too bad noone can modify thornlands real quick and add a transition in the empty zone (right next to the edana one) to the first map, with a transition back of course

 

[Incivad]

Have my children. Please.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

bah, just look at the edana -> thornlands transition.

Believe me, I decompiled tons of maps, both official and custom maps (with working transitions!) and I set my transitions up as in those maps. But it doesn't work.



[Nice voice]Please help, Kuroneko? Pleeeeeaaaase?[/Nice voice]

 

[Raptor]

[Nice voice]Please help, Kuroneko? Pleeeeeaaaase?[/Nice voice]

*cough* ripent.exe *cough*



it shows EVERY key/value of EVERY entity in the map you rip (-ripent -export mapname.bsp - ripent.exe must be in your maps/ folder and if using windows type it in the address bar)... decompiling sometimes gets some corrupt data and/or missing brushes, entities etc. ripent doesn't miss any entities, although you don't get to actually SEE them...



mods: feel free to delete this post if you actually give a crap about anyone cheating in ms 1.3 anymore... i don't, which is why i posted this (and besides, i'm sure 95% of the community already knows about ripent and decompiling maps by now)

 

[Kuroneko]

Acctually, you'd be surprised that ripent hasn't gotten that deep into the community. And when I say 'community', I mean the HL community. Alot of people are still totaly ignorant to ripent.

 

[Lanethan]

I'd say fan created expansion campaign is a cool idea, and I'm sure we don't have a problem with it. If you follow how the transitions are set up in the official maps then they should work just fine.

 

[Crow]

I wish they did

I've tried the ripent thing with 2 different tutorials and i still cant figure it out

They actually do work, because i see the next map after the transition for a split second before it disconects me becuase of some wierd problem it has. Hopefully i can firgure out what it is im doing wrong or if its something i even did b4 im done, which will be fairly soon



i need to have lostcaste force a model download. its just a key, really small, and aperantly i need to



"to force download a model you need to make a .res file for the map its used in mapname.res and the file contains models/modelname.mdl"



this i dont understand. Anyone wanna explain it to a retard?

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Making .res files is freaking easy. Here goes:

- Open Notepad.

- Type this in the first line: models/mykey/mykey.mdl (if I remember correctly that's where you told me to put the model).

- Type this in the second line: maps/lostcastle.res to have the .res file 'link' with the map.

- Save As 'lostcastle.res' in your /maps folder.



A .res file is pretty much an über-fast way of telling clients where their computers can find map-essential files. Simple as that. So your .res file should look like this:

models/mykey/mykey.mdl

maps/lostcastle.res

One more example. Say I'm making a map called 'lmao.bsp'. This map needs 'wtfbomb.wad', 'ttyltank.spr' in /sprites, 'moosic.wav' in /music and 'roflmodel.mdl' in /models/rofl... My .res would be named 'lmao.res' and it would look like this:

wtfbomb.wad

sprites/ttyltank.spr

music/moosic.wav

models/rofl/roflmodel.mdl

maps/lmao.res

Okie?



And about RipEnt... I know what it does but I never used it



And Lanethan, setting up transitions as in official maps never works. I tried tons of times and other mappers also did.



Edit: I exported an .ent file from edana.bsp using RipEnt but it didn't make me any wiser. I searched for 'msarea' in the file and found only one 'msarea_transition' which has the same flags and options you see in a decompiled map... So it didn't really help me.

 

[Crow]

Alrighty.



I have a couple of key problems that i want to solve b4 i start my next campaign, one which I'm sure someone knows how to do: Add a custom skymap.

 

[Kuroneko]

goto the map properties

 

[Crow]

erm... ok

Say i downloaded one, and all it is is a bunch of pictures in different formats (tga and bmp). where do i go from there?



EDIT: nevermind i fixed my own problem.

If i have a custom skymap do other poeple have to download it from me?

Also, im almost done just gotta figure out this transition thing and add some finishing touches