Whilst I don't mind the idea of a flashlight too much, I don't really like the thought of having to use a modified engine to get it to work, or even forcing players to set gl_flashblend 0, even though it can be done in an autoexec.cfg if the pack has its own directory and progs.

Another way of adding dark areas to a map is to have switchable lights to sections of the map that the player can turn on as they progress. This needn't be as obvious as a light switch, but could be (only marginally less obvious, I know) disguised as power generators that the player must turn on in each section of the map.

Anyway, if anyone wants to add a flashlights mod, that's fine with me, but I don't think we should force people to use a certain engine (darkplaces or whatever) to play.

As for a turret mod, that sounds ok. The ones in OUM aren't so bad, though I'm not sure they can be activated and deactivated at will. I'm not really that keen on the Zer ones either. 

I'd prefer the flashlight as a separate weapon as Metl suggested. It would have to be done really well and implemented into the gameplay effectively to not piss me off though. Always on (and set in WS) is also not a bad idea, and would require no model.

As for level structure, I think it's best that we just have a hub structure similar to that of Chapters, because it allows everyone to be as creative with the gameplay of their map as possible without having to think about what how hard the previous level was and what weapons the player is carrying. It also means that players can check out any map they like at any time, without having to endure a really hard/annoying (e.g. three shambler ambush with no cover and confusing layout) map before getting to one they like.

COOP friendly is also something I am for 100%, so if code is written for the pack, perhaps some coop specific stuff wouldn't go amiss. My thoughts are improvements to existing entities to make them more coop friendly, players keep guns they have picked up (but no ammo or minimum pickup ammo) when they respawn, coop only appearflags (possibly, could be a lot of work) and perhaps some other stuff.

Is anyone reading this versed in qc and willing to contribute? 

You rock. You rock for the floor turrent thingie, too. Also, Asaki has shown an interest in helping out with the coop-friendly coding, but since I'm pretty much ingnorant in this field, I defer to you or Senor Gove in letting him know just what may need to be done. And you rock. 

Give my elite team a few days. I think you guys will like what is produced... 

The turret idea sounds slightly interesting... but I'd like one that could be set to only attack the monsters (like in a real base). Flashlights are also interesting, but surely it requires Darkplaces in order to do the dynamic lighting?

As for monsters/etc... why not just use Quoth, it's got about everything you need. I mean, that's the point of it. 

a flashlight in an engine outside of DarkPlaces will look the same as the light emitted from a travelling rocket, only kept still cause its a flashlight

in Darkplaces it will look the same by default. if you turn on Real Time Dlights then it will look the same except dlight entities (the flashlight, rockets, spawn exploding etc) will cast realtime shadows for their duration. so a rocket exploding will flash the ogres shadow over the wall, and the flashlight will peel silhouettes of grating across the floor. granted if you did DP only you could fancy it up with a cool cubemap and so on, to render the lens of the light, but eh, not necessary.

but yeah, its easy for it to look fine in other engines and cool in DP - or the same. 

The normal way to do it is just to spawn an entity with no model, give it the glowing light effect and then position it at the end of the traceline from the player. Basically, the way the hl 1 flashlight worked. This causes problems in multiplayer because entities with no model aren't updated over the network. A good fix is to make a 1x1 pixel transparent sprite, and set the model to that instead. This isn't necessary in single-player, but is worth doing if you're gonna support coop.

Of course, if you're smart with the way you write it, you could put some checkextensions code in there too, so any engine that supports checkextentions and dynamic pre-pixel lighting uses a true flashlight, and any other engine just uses the cheap method above. Darkplaces supports both these things, I don't know if many others engines do.

Also, while I'm posting, I'll throw my weight behind the always on flashlight if you do decide to go ahead with it. It's the neatest option in my mind, a seperate weapon will cause (some of) the same complaints doom 3 received. 

the special enforcer there was pretty good. I just recently played the map/pack. It had other cool things too, stuff rotating in multiple axis and lightnings zapping. (ouch!)

flashlight, have you looked at asaki's speedmod from qexpo? It has a flashlight that's kinda working. Try it in dp and you see dynamic shadows even! :) I don't know if it works in other clients since it's supposed to work in normal maps that are darkened somehow for the mod. 

The only thing I want from Quoth that isn't included - at least, that I can think of right now - is func_breakables.
The sadlark level was that kind of disney themed one. 8 worlds in one map. What has that guy been up to? after q2 he kind of dropped out, didn't he? 

Also, I still say no progs so you can play it on a QW coop server. 

I thought everyone played with flashblend off, it looks like total crap. Does it cause much slowdown or something? 

After releasing Sadgron 3 for Q2 (1999?) did drop off for a while. I fired off an email to him around 2004, where he said that he was working on a 12 map quake2 mission pack, that was about 60% done. Since then, his email address has become obsolete, so i haven't been able to follow up. 

not all the maps will use a flashlight. I don't plan on using a flashlight in my map anyway. I agree with SB though, who actually has flashblend set to 1? Maybe QW players? They are probably all savvy enough to turn it off, and we can always disable it in an autoexec.cfg as mentioned before if we have a mod.

I had a thought about the start map earlier. Since I don't particularly like the type of start map that is just a series of unthemed slipgates, I think each author should make a little entrance area, which has the same theme as his level, and then one mapper can glue them all together and make the start map coherent and consistent.

For example, if the map requires the flashlight, perhaps it should be made clear by requiring the player to use it to find their way to the entrance. For the flooded base level, maybe a flooded lift shaft that the player swims down (with air pockets along the way. For the spaceship themes, perhaps a small escape pod like module that fires the player to the level. etc. etc. 

Cool idea :) 

that sounds great! 

My level casts the player as a self-aware cyborg. 

In my level the player is a World War II spy, so you'll have to have a cutscene at the end of your level explaining how the cyborg had his brain transplanted into a human body, and was sent back in time to 1940 France. And explain how he accidentally drops the flashlight into the timestream when he opened the window of his time machine mid-journey. 

Cybernetics as a term was coined by Norbert Wiener in 1948. It is rumored the Nazis did some experiments during the war but they were kept hush-hush so that high level scientists could keep working for the western and soviet governments. 

Metlsime and Inertia really should explore this theme if they feel it suits them to do so.

In my level the player is a male prostitute whose
clientale is made up of alternative dimension, Lovecraftian creatures. As always, I ask myself, WWCZGD? 

It's fairly easy to set a variable like this in a safe way, without overwriting anybody's autoexec.cfg - something that does annoy people.

The secret lies in quake.rc. The following is the total contents of the standard quake.rc


// load the base configuration
exec default.cfg

// load the last saved configuration
exec config.cfg

// run a user script file if present
exec autoexec.cfg

//
// stuff command line statements
//
stuffcmds

// start demos if not allready running a server
startdemos demo1 demo2 demo3


Simply add a line under stuffcmds that reads gl_flashblend 0
It'll always execute on loading the mod, and occurs after autoexec.cfg sets it to the id1 default setting. It won't overwrite any other autoexec.cfg settings, or require one to be packaged with the mod.

The only problem then lies with people who deliberatly make the effort to switch it back once the game starts. Then again, people might put r_fullbright 1 in if their monitor is too dark, there's no accounting for some folks... 

http://daz.quaddicted.com/images/TEMP_dazbase.jpg

Just finished vertex manipulating the terrain... damn that was "fun". Dont even ask what the r_speeds will be in this area when its all done, I dont want to think about it :) 

i am intrigued by your 2 crates that are angled non-orthogonally

that and the grey tech pipe connecting the 2 main structures 

those supports wouldn't happen to be the same ones from crdm3, would they?

Which reminds me: finish crdm3!!!! 

yes they are, I love them so much I had to get them into a map I will actually release :) 

looks fucking cool, DaZ.
Anybody else have pics of their maps?