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Monsters
Thought I'd start a thread on this, it could have gone in Gameplay Potential, but this is more specific.

What are the favoured special abilities for monsters to have?

Shield
Homing shots
poison
wall / ceiling climbing
leaping
explosive death
ressurection
cannabalism
spawning / cloning
Teleportation
Dodging

That's off the top of my head, anyone have any other cool ideas or concepts?

And what new abilties could the old monsters have - like Scrags that change to swimming if they enter water (thanks text_fish) or an Ogre that pisses on the player after killing them (thanks Romero).
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Omus / JPL 
Check out this http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/DownLoad/src.zip
and/or ask aguirRe for further details and qc source code ;)

BTW I think the CyberDemon model I used was quite good ... test it and let me know.. 
Wasn't That Babel? 
For the cyberdemon.

Or there's YPOD - Your Path of Destruction. 
Ijed 
Indeed, Babel is the original bsp where the CyberDemon model has been first used ;) 
Iirc 
the ypod doom models were pretty terrible... the jdoom md2s are much better 
QDoom Models 
Thanks for the map, jpl, looks good, but I haven't Quoth installed, so I 'll try it later. I thought it had a progs map.

I have six doom models now and beside the fact the texuture thing isn't right yet,they get harder to beat!

http://members.home.nl/gimli/do0m.jpg
http://members.home.nl/gimli/doom.jpg

Lost souls has a fine explode end. Another thing is that killing the Mancube or the Demonpig gives that awfull lot of gib.
Maybe let them all explode. 
Hehehe 
the mod im making at one point all the monsters gibbed at -0 health, and i had about 40 lines extra of "ThrowGib ("progs/gib3.mdl");"
and on top of that i had pices of monsters cut out and made gibs of those, it wasent too bad, it would only drop you to 3 fps if u killd 3 monsters in a row, but in multiplayer online it ould paketoverflow and cut the sound out {it has monsterbots and i removed alot of the "if != Deathmatch stuff"}

hehehe the sever would crash 5 times a playtest XD 
Do The Imps Have Socks On? 
 
Cyberdemon Source Code 
Diabolic 
, Hellish socks woven from the screams of a thousand damned.

The monsters look great, the best Doom conversions I've seen.

But is the screenshot a bit stretched vertically? Or is it just the fov? 
ZDoomGLmd2 Models 
Must be a great carnage, meTch. I never managed to bring up more than eight monsters at the time before the package overflow killed the game.

Lunaran - no he just came back from the herrador.
It's a tough job to make them stand centered, as registering the frames can make them fly a little from the ground, or make them shake horrible. Hope the dimensions are more to your apreciation?

Baker - thanks! I'll take a look at it.

Ijed - The screenshot is made in air, because I had hardly time to survive!

I found the zdoomglmd2 models, which were easily convered with md2mdl. I think in Doom it are sprites, which circel around, while now it are 3Dmodels. Makes the texture thing harder.
I'm trying to add the same subroutines to them as in Doom. For now only Soul Souls is suceeded. 
Lost 
souls... 
Make Them Roam Around And Steal All The Ammo And Shit U Need 
http://minion.planetquake.gamespy.com/tutorial/tutor11.htm

its great fun having to wait for the healths respawn whilst doging nails 
Whoever Mentioned Swimming Fiends 
You cunt, I had a disturbing dream about them the other night. Some massive map partially flooded and fucking Fiends swimming along the surface. I think in my dream Ijed made the map, so I'll blame him too. 
Fiends Can't Swim 
the water hurts their eyes. 
Yes, I Did 
A friend of mine had a nightmare about z-fighting. I told him it was time to change jobs. 
This Map. 
Didn't have any z-fighting in thank fuck.

What it was....imagine a series of vast, open, intertwined canyons. Some islands in the bottom and maybe the odd random structure. Very tall and very deep water at the bottom. The walls had a typical Quake rock texture and the water had various Quake water textures depending on depth. Standard Quake sky too.

There were lots of Scrags around and plenty of Fiends. I remember luring Fiends off structures and the diving into the water to get out of trouble. And ending up in more trouble because the Fiends were swimming around not romping around on the deep bottom. And there were loads of Scrags shooting me from miles away. It felt pretty hard and reminded me somewhat of the "out of depth"-ness I felt in Warpspasm.

Errrm yeah. 
 
The exceptional number of map releases has left its mark. 
And How Did Zis Make You Feel 
please, tell me about your mozzer 
Hey 
falling into the hom dreams, anyone? 
Thoughts 1. 
Further to my previous post a while back about monsters.

Bear in mind I say what I say because I am a fervent supporter of Quake, the Quake mapping scene, and good enhancements (map and mod-wise) to Quake itself. I may say belligerent stuff but it is all for the goal of encouraging people to do what I firmly believe is best for Quake, and avoiding what I believe is detrimental to the Quake experience. There has been a lot of both of those over the years!!

With monsters as with other mods and indeed maps, I firmly believe in enhancing and building upon the sheer Quakieness of Quake. This is a scarcely definable concept but will be fairly obvious to many fellow fanatics. Many people "get it" and have demonstrated that in their work. There is a certain atmosphere, a certain brutality, a certain individuality and distinctiveness from other brands, a certain viscera, a certain dislocatory flair to Quake that makes it what it is. I don't believe in "sticking to the old ways" and keeping Quake solely Quake but I believe additions that are Quake 1.1 or Quake 1.2 not non-Quake.

I sense in this thread there are 3 concepts at work:

Firstly, fixing Quake monster bugs. Non-self-damaging Vore-balls, monsters drowning or burning, and Z-aware monsters being part of this. I.e. behaviour that people feel that *should* have been part of the original Quake but wasn't for whatever reason (technological limits or laziness). This concept is the least changing of the Quakiness of Quake but I do think for many veteran players it changes the experience quite significantly. In particular we are used to exploiting some monster behaviours (Z-unaware monsters) and not exploiting others (monsters surviving in harmful liquids). This could take some adapting to for the Quake purists, myself included. The idiocy of Ogres is not a fundamental part of the game, but it IS a fundamental part of the gamePLAY, for better or for worse. Fixing these bugs might be done with the best intentions but I think it needs to be done with care - I personally would like to see some visual differentation and some different classes of monsters, rather than the old behaviour completely overriden.

Secondly, enhancing current monsters. For example swimming Fiends, strafing base enemy, better AI etc etc. There is a lot of crossover between this and the first concept but there's definitely an area where you're adding to the monster rather than fixing something that is "obviously wrong". This is sort of an in-between concept - it changes the Quakiness somewhat but not as much as custom enemy, and it changes the gameplay BUT it's also a bit more obvious that the enemy are enhanced and one must tackle them differently (i.e. more obvious to get used to than bug-fixed enemy). However I personally question how worthwhile a change it is....further than the bug-fixing, it's starting to change the Quake monsters' characters, and thus Quake's characters. If it has to be done, visual cues are even more important, but I think it might be better to go the whole hog and have clearly new monsters in addition to the standard bestiary.

Thirdly, clearly new monsters. New skins, new models, new attacks, new behaviour. BUT hopefully still QUAKE ones ;). This area is the clearest potential departure from Quake but also the clearest potential enhancement. Okay Quake monsters are a great selection but there are only a few of them....especially in comparison to the vast number of maps and gameplay-hours most of us have experienced. I still really like pure Quake but I think there's a lot of potential for great additions IF THEY'RE DONE RIGHT. I.e. in keeping with the spirit of Quake both aesthetically and gameplaywise.... AND to have value and worth in their own right - the discussion of additional swimming monsters being a good example of that, an enhancement concept with a clear purpose.

Okay....next....some thoughts on current monsters. 
Thoughts 2. 
My opinions on various monsters I can remember. From the perspective of how they enhance Quake in it's ethos and gameplay.

Scourge:

Centroids:
Good. Good combat style, good to have nails. Fairly well done but too based on a real world concept, needs to have more Quake abstraction.

Spike Mines:
Great. A sort of abstract and bewildering enviromental hazard (e.g. why do such arcane things track you?). Good, different style of gameplay from them.

Gremlins:
Very good. Adds a useful small enemy into the equation and has good character. Stealing weapon is a novel concept but without being overly irritating. Plenty of potential there. Model is a bit....well....Gremlin-like. A bit more Quake weirdness would be good.

Armagon:
Good. Looks like a pretty suitable Quakey bio-construct. Boss gameplay yadda yadda.

Dissolution:

Enhanced Ogres etc etc:
Average. Decent enough to fight against but don't do anything that interesting.

Flying wizard dudes:
Average. Quite a good fight against them but pretty un-Quakey style.

Gay dudes with staffs:
Rubbish. Nothing to do with Quake. Okay gameplay but too badly themed.

Mini-Chthons:
Very good. Fits into the Quake style very well and adds some good, if un-revolutionary, gameplay. A solid addition.

Zerstorer:

Mega-enforcers:
Excellent. One of the first monsters that really gave a fresh gameplay feel, and still one of the best. A good new challenge to face but not excessively so. Good new model and effects BUT the colour was pretty weak.

Nemesats:
Good. Pretty weird and worrying which is good for Quake, but the robes are somewhat....too wizardy. And the attacks, although very interesting, can seem somewhat random (i.e. random instant death).

Sanguinoch:
Very good. Not a monster but has a similar ethos to a monster. Very cool and different effect, but with a brutal feel well fitting with Quake.

Nehahara:

(Embarrassingly I can only remember one Nehahra monster!!)

Vomitus:
Good. Easy to fight but a good style for fitting into the more evile Quake maps.

Quoth:

Enhanced enforcers:
Okay. Effectively done and well skinned, but some issues with them (i.e. instant reaction for DBS grunt), and a disproportionate challenge for mere humanoids.

Bob drones:
Poor. Too out of place in Quake and although the challenge is fair, they just seem a tedious ammo-sink.

Slow-moving drones:
Okay. Better than Bobs - less tedious to face and more fitting with the arcane Quake style.

Nail-firing Ogre thing:
Very good....ish. Great new base challenge. Looks a lot more bad-ass than normal base monsters and appropriately IS a lot more bad-ass. Very well-fitting model for Quake....but unfortunately also a very well-fitting model for Quake2. I'm not sure how that could be avoided though....

Polyps:
Very good. Cool gameplay, worrying without being too dangerous, and a different approach for them. Like Zer's ME, a fresh and good challenge. Fits in pretty well to Quake being somewhat of an advanced Spawn.

Vorelings:
Excellent. Spot on. Fills a small monster niche and fits into Quake perfectly. Cool new baby-Vore model.

Knights who slice you from miles away:
Average. Decent model and ranged attack and stuff, but I can't see they offer anything that new.

Hell lord Knight thingies:
Good. Like the Zer ME a fresh new challenge although not as clear-cut as Zer's shield effects and not quite as needed as MEs were. The "easy to kill but very dangerous in sight" aspect is good. The strolling is good, I'd prefer a slightly more impressive model though.

Flying things:
Good-ish. Good attack (although I never knew it could be dodged), good sounds and good to have another flying challenge. But the model, although well done, doesn't feel very Quakey to me. Too much standard fantasy and not enough abstract monsterousness that say Scrags have.

Droles:
Good. Good attacks and stuff (apart from the hitting you from miles aware). Good to have another BIGish monster. Good weird monster but doesn't quite hit the Quake mark for me. Not quite....brutal enough in it's style.

Gugs:
Very good....ish. Great to have another seriously bad-ass monster. Great attacks too. Good model, good head....BUT it strikes me as very simian with the arms and pose, this always distracts me from the Quakiness. Close to greatness apart from that.

... 
Maximum Length Is Whatever Homie... 
I think there must have been some bollox monsters I've forgot as many more of these get my appreciation than I'd have thought. What I find noticable is that the ones I don't like are mostly....don't have much point to them, they don't seem to add a lot to the game, or they add stuff that's in a very specific direction (e.g. pure base). And equally noticable are several monsters that are close to greatness but by some quirk or small feature of their design just don't quite hit the Quake mark. Ones where you think "just a different colour" or "just a different arm design" and they'd be proper Quake bad-assness....but not quite yet.

Word. 
Shambler... 
You forgot the new jumping knight things in Nehahra :o my favourite custom Quake monster by far!

Agree with most of what you wrote though, although I thought the model for the Drole was a bit,err, funny in a way, the way its apendages flap up and down when it walks/runs makes me laugh out loud, but it is a good enemy to fight.

ROFL at the gay dudes with staffs btw... I had totally forgot about them :) 
I Tend To Agree With Bambuz 
that the voreling has too much health. It's supposed to die from one dbs shot ffs. 
Monster Enhancements. 
I've played Quake since it came out, like most people around here, I'm sure. We all know the ins and outs of fighting every single monster in the original game, and I'm pretty sure most of us are overly familiar with the newer Quoth additions too. If you ask me, this is an argument FOR adding z-axis, and other small enhancements. I want to be surprised and challenged, not only by new monsters, but by improved monsters. As long as the mapper introduces them well [as in that e2m5 remake where a z-aware ogre fires a grenade from stupidly far away at the beginning of the map] then I don't see it as unfair on the player.

I still think swimming fiends would be stupid though. They simply don't look like they would be good swimmers. It's hard to be scared of something when you're laughing at it. 
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