Forum posts

After a good 12 hours of work, I'm nearly done with the structural part of the map, a skeleton really because I think the extra theme work that will go into it will change its feel. I just need to finish spawn rooms, one of the entrances to the flag room, and one of the water ways.

After I finish those few things, which I hope will be done tomorrow, I can maybe get you guys the .bsp if you want to get the feel for it. That is, I still need to add the ladders and elevators to the level.

I think a lot of this map will involve the middle because holding it will allow flag captures to be easier. It is harder to get to the flag, but leaving the base is much easier. You are actually safer in the middle with the flag then you are on your way to the flag return in your base. Carelessness will cost you your effort to get the flag and bringing it back.

I should be able to do the fancy VM work myself since I am now able to use it more effectively. I'm not sure how lining up textures and lighting will go once FF is finally released. Is it a good idea to be working on the VM stuff before the textures are out? I don't want to do all the hard work and have to change everything because of the textures.

I'm not sure how you guys deal with this, but I am at a loss here. I know vertex manip. is the safest and best looking way to go, but even if I'm doing simple wedges, a total of 5 faces, one of the faces ends up messing up the brush, turning it into a black brush with no way to replace it. What do you guys do to battle it? Do you just redo it and hope it doesn't mess up? It's been going OK recently but I had a horrible time before.

I've finished the struture of the middle and am now working on the bases. It doesn't look fancy, as it is just the structure of the level. Once I finish the structure and the playtesting with it. I'll look at doing the fancy VMing around edges and such. Hopefully the textures for FF are out by the time I get to that. I'll have pics of the structure if anyone wants them; they won't look pretty, but you can at least see how it functions.

Finally figured it out with the prop_phys boxes. I needed them indestructable and got that working to. I'm not liking the new ladder system a whole lot. I'm working on the elevator system now. I miss the good old days

I just recently cleaned up my computer by uninstalling and removing like half of the software I don't use anymore. The thing is I also played one of my older creations and it didn't give me this error. It seems to happen about five seconds after the maps starts. Everything is fine, then BAM, this.

I forget where I say this but I know I saw it somewhere. Someone had the exact same problem, thinking that all of the sprites were missing. Text doesn't show up in-game, console, or menu. I forget where I saw it. I wanna say I saw it only Fortress-Forever.com, but I can't seem to find it.

I'll have to either remake the map and see if that helps, maybe try single player. This shouldn't stop me from continuing with the map but it does get kind of annoying as I have to ctrl-alt-delete to get out of it.

UPDATE: I turned off my computer last night and just restarted it this morning. It seems like the problem is gone. I'm guessing it was something with Hammer that would have been fixed with closing it and reopening the app. Now I can continue!!! Don't they make func_pushables anymore, I'm stumped!

Everything seems to be going OK now. I've gotten the exact reference size I want for my buildings. Now I need to figure out how to make pushable boxes; man, its been a long time.

I did get this in my first test and have never seen it before. Any idea what it means? This

I should be able to get pretty darn far on this map tomorrow, that is if my shipped stuff doesn't arrive .

I am anxiously awaiting the beta release of Fortress-Forever have some time to mess around with Hammer. I'm waiting for several items to be shipped to me for various projects so I figured I could get lots of hours of mapping in. Once I get the structure set up, I'm guessing the sure drooling sensation of finishing it will carry me from there.

I seem to have lost all my content on my previous map "Adrenaline", only having the BSP downloadable from this site. I've redesigned the map with loads of extras yet keeping the main concept. The one thing I don't like about TFC is the maps are so dry cut. There are lots of hallways, open areas, and places for turrets, but you can't find cover. I figured that if you add the cover, and put them in a position where they will benefit from it, they will use it.

The map focuses a lot on the middle, rather than the bases themselves, which allows teams to occupy more than just their own base, giving teams territorial advantage. I also tried to make the map as compact, as in combining the maps many different pathways to collide and mix and match. The one feature I like is the glass waterway, which allow people walking by to see someone going down the waterway. You may think that would defeat the purpose of using the waterway (in hopes of going undetected), but I put them in places where most of the offensive players would find them. This puts them in a situation to either engage them or just ignore them.

As of now, all I have is a bunch of sheets of paper filled with the layout and details of the level. I'm not sure how far I will get to do finished up texturing, lighting, and smoothening (something the FF maps seem to show off nicely). If I get to the point where someone would like to help out with that, I am open to assistance. I will let my map present itself and if you like it, the job is yours. I have hardly any experience with advanced lighting and polygon smoothing. I may start tomorrow, otherwise the day after.

I just got it to work so check it out under the Unfinished Stuff section.

I just spent an hour this morning and got a quick little demo. I haven't been able to get it to run, something about a
"Brush 629, Side 2: duplicate plane
Brush 629: FloatPlane: bad normal
Side 5
Texture: BUILDING_TEMPLATE/BUILDING_TEMPLATE013A"

I won't have time the rest of the day to fix it, so I'll put it in the unfinished maps section under, "Tactical Map"

Couldn't have put it better myself. Religion seems to have grapsed itself into society very well. We have morals in our laws. I'm not saying it is wrong, it's just there. I bet that the government will push more for things like this, rather than choosing a New World Order. What we deem as humane through religion may be the cause of inhumane results through our society, via conformity.

I don't know, I'm sure someone will be genius enough to figure out the whole thing. Maybe people will be smart enough to actually listen to this person, then we don't have split ideas, resulting in even more chaos. If the right man was incharge of the population, I would imagine everything to be dandy. If Hitler wasn't mentally ill, we might have seen a possible super power today. Then again, all it takes is one person to screw it up.

Azura is all forgiving in the eyes of the Tamriel population, she would have spared this unfortunate fellow.

Sorry its been so long, and to tell you the truth, I haven't done a darn thing with the demo. School is a botch on my time, I'm also a dedicated discus thrower in track . We are also moving in the next few months and prom is this weekend. I believe after this weekend though, I should be able to whip something up.

If anyone has an idea, please, do tell. I need brain thought; I feed off of it . Anything at all, could even be stupid, I tend to think genius when someone says something stupid; I don't know why, I just do.

There's not a religion besides voodoo and Satanism that says to kill other people.

I meant that they influence their actions, but to a large degree. The examples of such are very much real in everyday life. Does the Christian belief state that "Thou Shall Not Kill"? That is influence, though positive, very powerful to those that hold this to be a deadly sin. Terrorist believe in a religion which they hold to be very dear. If two religions hold to their beliefs dearly, they have a high magnitude of action. When one slips onto the other, hell brakes loose.

I think Satchmo meant more so with his previous arguement that without religious DIFFERENCES, we would notice less hatred. If everyone was the same religion, lets say strictly Catholic, and followed the Commandments, Beatitudes, the Bible, to death, we would see no fighting. Everyone who follows a straight path will not collide.

I've always had this feeling that in the future, not to distant, we will be under one of the greatest times ever. There will be a defined path for humanity, not through religion. No one will die. The truth about the universe will be known. Its weird, I've actually had dreams about it. It's pretty cool though. Maybe I'm just seeing things, but I feel this even after I dream, like its actually happening. What do you guys expect in the future? I have also dremt that if we never achieve this in the future, if we are still where we are at now, something has gone awfully wrong. I've had very few dreams like this but dreams just feel so real.

Its the religion that starts the wars not the people. Religion influences the people into doing stupid things. I have been both religious and quite atheist in my life, obviously atheist being the latter chronologically.

Try not to be too simplistic with disorders, diseases, and such. Some happen at different levels, others either happen or they don't. Cancer usually starts with one cell, then becomes quite large. The thing is we don't see the cancer so we don't consider it cancer. Once it is visible, it becomes cancer. Same goes with psychological problems. Things like ADD have syptoms that classify it as ADD. Once theys symptoms get to a certain level of visibility, it becomes classified as ADD. Thats where people confuse things. We normally show these symptoms at a near non-existant level, once things escalade, they become known as ADD.

If you take for example high blood pressure. Technically, I don't have "High Blood Pressure", but it is higher than normal, and most likely caused by the same things that cause High Blood Pressure.

This obviously doesn't apply to everything, and I expect that, but psychology is not exempt. Many things in genetics lead to very definitive traits. Sickle Cell Anemia is genetic, and happens to be either had or not had.

None of this really applies to the homosexual issue, as it is quite complex.

Sorry, nickelplate if I sounded like I was talking directly to you. I was just generalizing to anyone that hated homosexuals or thought they were not welcome at all. I guess as a very smart History teacher would put it. If there was a room full of homosexuals (he usually uses African-Americans when we talk about oppresion) and a room full of heterosexuals, which room would you go in. His emphasis was that you need to seperate uncomfortable situations and racist situations.

I personally would have a preference of going to the heterosexual room, not because I don't like homosexuals, but because I feel more comfortable with heterosexuals. If there is anything that I have said that would contradict this or not go in line with such, this would be more of my view than the previous statement.

Most people, at least at my age just make fun of others. It makes me feel good when you have people like Dave Chappelle, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Carlos Mencia, etc. make your jokes look like nothing. These guys make everyone look like an ass; whites, hispanic, blacks, asians, celebrities, rich people, poor people, green people, purple people, etc., and that is how it should be.

System restore if it wasn't too long ago.
Otherwise I boot up with one stick of ram if I ever get a IRQL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS

Why not put [unecessary harm] [/unecessary harm] around that last post seventh. I have no idea why you choose to side with the paritsans and not the objective thinkers. I have not witnessed one instance in which nickelplate has made a remark punishable by your last post.

This goes for everyone, guilty of such or not. I have stated it before, your post means nothing if it is not based on some objective thought, or clearly states the perspective it was based on, whether that perspective be from experience, observation, or so on.

But I have to agree with what seventh, zombie, etc. have been saying about the homosexuality "issue". They are a minority if you consider African-Americans minorities. They suffer in many of the same ways, along with Native-Americans, Women, legal Foreigners for that matter. They are to be accepted as along with African Americans, Native Americans, Women, legal Foreigners, etc. I'm guessing you would be one of those people to openly express your hate for niggars if you would choose add insult to injury to the situation that homosexuals are already in. I believe the KKK does still exist, so I'm sure they would gladly except your devout thinking into the Klan.

How bout a movie where you are one of the other people, occasionally witnessing Freeman's greatness, something like opposing force. Well, Movie to Game has yet to make a noticeable feat. Lets give Game to Movie a try, one with a story line. No, I dont count Doom3 to be movie material, even though it is claimed to be so.

Why is everyone so tipsy by the way? We've got people who believe one extreme calling people of true objective viewing radicals and bastards. You must approach this in a conductive way to make any distance. And leave your religious belongings at the door because they are no good here. Religious arguements are for religious purposes only, that is how it has been for the past couple milleniums. Science and common sense arguements are for anything. So no more religious crap.

Everyone should label their experiences with "From my experience, ...".
Everyone should label their opinions with "What I think, ..."
Everyone should label their observations with "From what I have observed, at the point of view I viewed it at, ..."

Anything else is prone to confusion and ultimately unnecessary fighting amongst each other, people we share a common ground with, yet choose to negatively judge.

You wanna know what I have observed:
Environment isn't sole responsibility for being homosexual. Private all-boys schools in my area to not grow homosexual students.
A homosexual whom has seen and lived the life of a heterosexual and homosexual can make an educated decision on their lifestyle. This would be a very interesting study, and would prove to have very interesting results as I could only predict from natural behavior the outcome of the decision.

Oh, by the way, enough with the logic stuff, it will just get too heated. For what technology and capacity of knowledge we have, it is too hard to come out of it without agreeing to disagree.

EDIT YOUR POST!

Zombie, you can't seriously believe that correlation = causation. The fact that guns are less restricted in America does negetively correlate with the increase in murder rate. Though you fail to acknowledge two things. One, that a murder will procede, gun or no gun. Two, the American culture is much different to that of other countries, leaving a huge correlation issue that would take forever to narrow down. Bias and incorrect knowledge leads to confused statement.

That is if I can find it, which doesn't sound to promising. Though if you want a Half Life 1 demo because you don't have HL2, I could certainly put in the 2 hours I did before and whip it up again.

With Half Life 1, I used the sheer amount of grunts as being the tough enemies. Hopefully Half Life 2 will either allow for smarter enemy use, rather than so many grunts on the screen at once.

Alright to clear it up, I remember each of you pretty well, and I doubt you remember me. I doubt you would really treat much different anyways had you known me or not.

Tycell, you got a pretty decent idea. I didn't want to do anything that extreme, the point at least where you could train yourself. I know it might be hard to imagine, but bare with me. You have 2 guns in your inventory, and a third one which is 2 pillars away from you in this facility. You are being held down by constant fire and need to get to the end of the hall. Your main goal can be accomplished in a variety of ways: distraction, sneak, guns-a-blazin, or a combination of such to get to the end of the hall. Now if you want to do a distraction: grenades, cover fire, or a decoy, might be advantageous. If you want to go guns-a-blazin, that gun 2 pillars a way would give you enough fire power, but getting there might be tough.

As you can see, there is emphasis on constant pressure on the player to think, for there may be a grenade coming his way, so a decision must be made. There is no way to retreat once you have started and there is no picking off each one, one by one. None of this recharging shields so you can go hide behind a pillar and fight only 2 guys instead of 4 at full health.

It's much to hard to explain without at least some sort of demo or experience in which you have to think and react. I actually did do this with Half Life 1 and I must say I played a three room series of action like this for 3 straight hours. I continued to play it because I wanted to try it on a harder level, finish with more health than the previous time, finish in a certain time period, etc. I'm not quite sure I still have it but it only took 2 hours to make. No real texturing and nothing fancy, pretty blocky, but loads of fun.

I'll get that demo out hopefully by the end of the week.

I figured I would remember mostly everyone that stood out, you being one of them, and I wouldn't be the one remembered. But theres nothing like a reunion.

I have just gotten word directly from one of the designers for Nintendo on the controller design for the Nintendo Revolution. He felt so proud of his design that he just had to get it out to the public. He specifically stated that their goal was to improve even more on the Gamecube controller design (which I might add is an immensely difficult task, as both Jing Ling and I agreed on). What he gave me was astounding. I was taken back by the genius put into the design. I would like to know your reaction to this. I agree that this design put the Gamecube design into the stone age. This might even be a selling point for the Revolution. With this controller and the remote that has gotten such popular fame, I think there will be a Nintendo Revolution in nearly every home. What do you think?
Nintendo Revolution Controller Design

Lets back up and ask what hardcore gaming is. I have my intrepretation of it, now we would like to see yours so we know where you are coming up short.

I wouldn't bother calling psychonauts a harcore game, let alone much more than a game to giggle with because of its maturely humerous approach. Its much like the Crash Bandicoot of its days. All the childish humor and jumping around make me feel 7 years old again. Though I will say there are plenty, and I mean plenty of hardcore Halo 2 gamers out there. So to say consoles are limited to childish games is false.

It's been so long since I've been active on these forums. I haven't done much since 2004. First off, I am glad to be back. I've been working with computer stuff for the past year and am currently working on building a projector. I wasn't very active back when I frequented here, but I went by Griz, with the poop smtih avatar, however I have seemed to lost the where abouts of my password and email for that account. I still recognized many of you who have been devout to the forums for longer than the past year, and I knew many were devout far longer than that in previous years. So really, its great to see some very familiar faces.

I have had Half Life 2 ever since it was released and am still impressed with its ability to entertain. Specifically I've been following Fortress Forever for the past 6 months and am eagerly awaiting its release. Currently I don't have any busy DIY projects, as the projector seems to move at a very slow pace. I just recently upgraded my PC, though looking to upgrade the 8 month old graphics card to a X1800XT and can't wait.

So I guess I am in the mood for ideas. I'll throw one out, and let you guys tear it apart, put it back together, adjust it, and what not. It's more for me than the Half Life community, but I would expect I will be able to make something enteraining that goes beyond enteraining just me. I will say I have experience with Hammer, bits and pieces of XSI, texturing, and coding. I gained magority of my experience from playing around with the software, just like any other app I use. I would also like to say it will not amount to much, something I could handle myself, but am willing to share the burden with any glad volunteers.

I was imagining a different sort of gameplay. Something that sat in the realm of tactical based, squad based, stealth based, etc. Its hard to explain, and thats why I planned to whip up a decent little demo on the gameplay, so you can get a taste for it.

I realize from playing such a variety of FPS games that there are many, many different variables that can be adjusted to change the 'feel' of the game. You may notice this when you play several games like Halo 2, Battlefield 2, Half Life 2, Call of Duty 2, Far cry, and TimeSplitters 2. It is a combination of the different values given to the variables like, speed, gravity, acceleration, etc. I often find myself admiring the different values given to variables in many different games. Though I have never found one game I deem to have all of these variables perfect.

There is also the gameplay, like a mentioned before. You might play Far Cry, and notice the infiltration involved. You might play Doom3 and notice the amount of gore to make up for the lack of tactics. You might play Battlefield 2 and notice the amount of team work needed for success. You might play RTS games and notice the amount of strategy required to win. I never find anyone of them to be completely satisfying, though Far Cry has come the closest. I like to be able to choose different ways to carry out my tactics or manage my squad or decide which guns to carry along. It feels like there is a new area of skill. You now don't need the quickest aim or the most steady timing of a grenade. It feels more real, and makes my character more unique. Imagine the pride taken in multiplayer games when the fastest quickdraw aiming gamer gets pwned by the tactics of another gamer. Imagine when how more diverse we can vary our clans, our teams, our squads. I see that though some teenager who will never be able to be a good marksman, can outwit the best marksman, and possibly succeed in a new way.

I guess I will not force you into my line of thinking, and I wouldn't want that necessarily, for I would rather have discovered things I missed or never thought of from you guys.

I would again like to stress the importance of something short if I were the only one taking on this miniature project. I was actually also leaning towards a lesser known gametype to channel this idea through. More so for two reasons than any other I can think of. I need something that is replayable, something that will allow me to come back 1 hours later and want more. I need something that is compact, thrilling, and short. I figured an arcade style would fit this perfectly. I don't want to go through with a story, thus entitling me to a corresponding modeling, texturing, setting, plot, gameplay, coding, etc.

The arcade style always seemed to attract later generations like we see today with out old school games and such. Though not for that reason, I want something that is thrilling every time you play it, has a clear objective, but the player gets so distracted by the constant need for interaction that the end in sight is no more, until that heated, bloody battle is over, and then it starts up again. The next time you come through, it is a bit different, it might require a new strategy, there is something different, and it can't be completed the same way.

Im not asking for random mapping or anything close to that, maybe something random, but something that gets the player to change up their strategy, reproducing the feel from first time they played it, something that will want them to come back and play more, something that will make them come back and become better at something they have never actually played before. I don't think any other style represents this idea better than an arcade style.

I wanted something that will allow for both planning and on the spot thinking. You don't get to many story games where you have to multitask on the spot and come up with the best solution before that grenade blows up. I wanted something that could simulate real-life thinking, like you really were in a heated battle, the illusion that you were really fighting for your life.

I won't expect you to interpret this idea the way I did, and like I said before, I don't really want everyone to. It is something that I hoped I could fuel by myself and with the help of other visionary people. Something that I could build myself and with the help of other creative people. Make of it what you want but I hope to create some sort of demo in the mean time. Maybe a bit of a sample will fuel those interpretations and reactions of your's.