AlphaCoop/Progress

Updates (In completely reverse-chronological order)

There is a funny bug with the ut2k4 version: If you host a dedicated server all monsters use human character models!

YAY! I just ported the mod to UT2004: http://www.yucc.yorku.ca/~plouj/AlphaCoop/AlphaCoop-2004.zip

Going to start my own test server!!

Crap! I have to wait another day before I can port this to ut2k4.

I'm gonna put on hold the this mod for a while. I'm 'helping' out the DA2 team with some code.

El Muerte: screw DA2, finish this mod first

I just noticed that the monters should be relatively bigger than players based on Unreal1 scale. Gotta figure out the exact proportions.

Ah, I'm glad that I've told more people about this mod. It was never hidden in the first place anyways. Just needed a bit of pimping:)

I finally made my own uber crappy map actually playeable and finish-able.

Today I played (haven't do that in a long time) the whole map from beginning to end, and it seemed better then I expected.

El Muerte: you should have asked for mapping support in your pimpage.

AlphaOne kicks himself.

Uh oh! I'm starting to neglect this mod. Not good.

Anyways, I decided to officially start using version numbers. Format as follows (thanks to elmuerte):

<major>.<minor>.<build><fuck up count>

Obviously the first official version would be: 1.33.7b

Maybe someday, somehow, it will come back to that same version

Just gonna show you what are the current additional properties of the monster pawns that I've coded: [AC_Monster > Properties]

I fixed the player spawns so that its easier to define 'goups'. Instead of adding the adjacent player spawns to the main one, all you do is increase the main spawn's radius so that the game calculates the adjacent ones. Great simplification for the mappers at no performance or functionaly cost:)

I made monsters which are placed in UEd drop pickups specified by the mapper!

I added a teamTag property to the monsters so that the mappers can define what monsters area /not allowed to fight. Only monsters with the same tag will not fight

• Downloads updated.
• Thats just great. I get a GPF: Assertion Failure when I call Canvas.("Test",XL,YL);

This is when crap hits the fan. Luckily I have an umbrella! (This has nothing to do with this mod other than the fact that it slows down my progress)

• changed the progress indicator, which still looks UGLY!
• fixed the bot's PRI
• fixed the scoreboard to draw only one team
• Downloads updated

School is killing me.

• downloads updated.
• I've added a progress indicator, which shows with a percentage value, how much of the level has been completed. Note that you don't have to reach 100% to win the level, since some objectives are optional;)
• I'm thinking of reducing the player speed(s) to make the gameplay more like Unreal1, and more focused on the monsters. The slower u move the more detail u will notice. Also, less speed means that the monsters will be harder to beat, which lets me use less monsters for performance considerations.
• I've been thinking that reducing the # of monsters is a generally good idea because it's just good. I really have to have to fight 1000 repetitive monsters - I think that is where games like Serious Sam, and Pain Killer failed. I'd rather have more focus on individual monster.

Maybe I should make an arena game type too. Just like MonsterHunt. I found it quite fun recently. At least I can actually map an arena type of thing!

• wow this mod has been in development for 40 days. And most of them I actually did something for it - my 1st time.

I've been going to sleep late this week. As a result I'm so tired that all I can do is stare at the monitor and chat to people.

This week I found some cool mutators which work great with my mod. They are all made by Pfhoenix. What a great guy he is!

You can get them here: [MEP], go to Projects > Inactive.

Download:

• radar2003
• dropitall
• haloshield, if you want the game to be a little easier

Screenshots folder updated, with all the monster shots. I think...

downloads updated.

Oh my! TEH DEMO is addictive...and hackable!

Anyways, I finally separated the meshes from the code, so no it will be x10 easier to upload files (speed wise).

• The game server has been restarted with the latest packages.
• downloads have been updated
• I have finally worked on the map. It is much more playable and enjoyable now. There is a variety of monsters, the player spawn points work properly. There is enough ammo. I've added some cool things, such as fish in the water, and warlords in addition to the stone titans in the final area. I have also fixed the pathway down to the bottom of the last area. Now you can either walk down, or jump in the pool. AND you can walk back up too! The files should be uploaded to both the file and the game servers so get ready to download and have some fun!

• I changed the way that the MonsterCount is scaled based on the number of players. Now, it is only changed once, when the spawn point was activated, or when it was spawned (if bInitialized is initially true).
• Yay! The AC_RoundRobin (RR) seems to work. It is well triggered by 4 monster spawners, when all the monsters are dead. The last time the RR is triggered it triggers 4 movers which are the huge gates that open a path to the next area!
• I changed the gate meshes to something that has slightly better collision.

Oh my gosh! I was looking at some of my monster spawner class, and it looked like I wrote it while I drunk or something. Not that I drink or anything.

• I coded a round robin, to trigger the doors in my level, when triggered by a number of monster spawners. It does not work properly so far.
• I fixed a crash which was caused by wrong monster types spawning in one place.

As of today, I've fixed up some problems, and trimmed some options that are given to the mapper. I've also implemented the damage based scoring thingy.

• downloads have been updated, again, and the server has been restarted.
• I'm thinking of whether I should multiply the monster's health by the log of their skill as WELL as by the player count.
• I'm also thinking of scaling the actual monster's skill based on player count.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

• downloads and the server is updated
• I've coded it so that you score by damaging monsters instead of killing them. Each 10 health that u take away from one monsters, gives u 1 point. Every 100 points u gain a life. You start with 3 lives.
• aaand there is something messed up: online the # of lives is always zero. Plus, the game doesn't end when the last person dies.

• I've had a small but important talk with Pfhoenix about the game's balance, and I have made some decisions. I'm going to 'trim' some of the features out of the monster spawners to keep the gameplay rather constant. Also, I'm going to make scoring based on damage dealt rather then kills.
• I'm going to divide the map into 'arenas' by means of simple gates. That would reduce lag, made the game more fun, easier to play (don't need to walk too far), and more logical.

• wow, it's February!
• With great thanks to MWGemini, I can now host beta games of AlphaCoop on 24.225.94.146 !!!!

• I rushed, and I just copy+pasted Satore's monster pawn class, which made a lot of problems in online play. Now its all back to normal.
• Downloads updated. Woo! I finally uploaded the files (23MB total). That includes the zip, and all files separate.
• YES! I finally added those cool options to [Monster Spawners].

• Yesterday, Satore was nice enough to send me both the code AND the .3d files for the monsters.
• I'm gonna export the textures today, and try to fix the alpha problem where the textures are SUPPOSED to be transparent.
• No, I didn't fix the textures. I just barely put all the monsters in to my package so far. I don't even know if it works in game. All, I know is that it compiles.
• I'm still waiting for Satore to send me the StoneTitan rock meshes. I unable to export those from his package, or from UT1 using WOTGreal.

• Okey, I got a reply from Satore - the guy who actually exported the monsters. I think he agreed. He replied: "Ok, ok. What should I do?" to "Will you allow me to use your monsters' models and code?".

• Still waiting for their reply. It appears that 3 people have released the same mod (satoreMonsterPack) so I emailed all of them.
• I removed the ScaleActor from the map because it has done its job.

• I found someone who imported the other monster models into UT2003!!

• Fixed so that the bots spawn with different characters now.
• Its fun watching the bots fight the monsters, while I camp on a side!
• Downloads updated, again
• Map's general layout is finished
• Testing revealed scoring imbalance
• I decided to automate the choosing of spawn points, a little
• Added some more monsters in the forest

• Downloads updated
• I finally got bots to behave nicely (they stopped crashing the game) when I add them. I copied half of the invasion.uc code. Tomorrow, I'll try to clean it up and trim the useless stuff.
• I have to make them load different characters now.
• Fixed some monster spawns so that they don't flood your CPU with monster actors
• I got permission from NozzeM to use his Unreal1 exported/imported art. I hope he got permission from Epic;)

• Downloads updated
• I added another option to the monster spawns - bUnnoticedSpawning. What it does it is look for the most unnoticed spawn point (out of the list of associated nav. points), and spawns the monster there. The code was 'ripped' from the invasion gametype With this installed, there are two ways that monsters spawn now. with bUnnoticedSpawning=true, they spawn once per spawn interval. When its false, monsters spawn as many as there are available nav. points, per interval.
• I also fixed up my map
  • Improved the bridge logic.
  • The gameplay is insane now. Monsters keep coming and coming, and the performance is much better. Instead of spawning all monsters at once (slow) I spawn little by little, which is much more CPU friendly, and gives a proper feeling of monster attack.
• Latest testing identified the following problems:
  • ALL spawn points need weapon bases and some health.
  • I'm not sure which guns to actually include in the weapon bases. So far, only RL, shock rifle, and flack cannon. I might have to make some variety from point to point.
  • The first lift needs a way to move back up without defeating its purpose
  • I need to make it much harder to advance to the next point without defeating the current 'bunch' of monsters.
  • Multiplying the # of monsters by player count tends to slow things down - should be turned off for huge areas like TEH VALLEY.

• Downloads updated
  • Fixed MORE monster spawning bugs. I have learned that SetTimer(0,true) effectively turns OFF your timers (as well as SetTimer(0,false)).
  • The bridge and the lifts work a little bit.

• downloads updated
  • Fixed some monster spawning bugs

• Thats when I started working on the first lines of code.