there's nothing wrong with lava nails, but what is the point of them?

I think your to literal in your intrepretation of the game here, not everything in quake [or any computer game for that matter] has to have a "point".

they are fucking cool, thats enough. 

that they are really no different to normal nails.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. 

cheers, much appreciated. 

They are unimaginative, rushed and even a bit redundant - "I know, lets make a new type of nail that makes the nailgun just like the super-nailgun, and turns the super-nailgun into a super-super-nailgun!!".

The other weapon "enhancements" weren't much better. 

I prefer to have a new gun that uses old ammo, rather than new ammo for an old gun. 

from my cold dead hands . . . Yes! Now a fight worth fighting!

I haven't examined the lava nail code (in fact whenever I try to compile Rouge QC, Frikqcc chokes on it) but it seems to me that having weapons that differentiate in their attack values, and damage types (fire, ice, penetration, etc.) adds tactical flavor to any game.

Hell, why does Quake have to be any less sophisticated in this regard then say, Dungeon Master, a game that came out in 1987? 

---
apparently, lava nails do full damage regardless of armour levels in DM, but the do the same damage as regular nails (9).
with super lava nails, it appears as though armour is only 50% effect, and they still only do 18 dmg.

against, monsters besides the lava man, they do 50% more damage.
super lava nails do 30 dmg against non lava man monsters and lava nails do 15.
---

i personally dislike the rogue weapons, for the record. i find them redundant and lacking in imagination.
what's next? slime nails? also, the weapon skin was terrible. wow, they pasted a redish square at the end of the barrel, that's SO worth making a new gun for. cripes, we didn't even get a new model. same for the plasma gun... i mean, come on... the Zer chain lightning gun was way more useful and actually had it's own model and it wasn't even a commercial project. 

And the multi grenade/rocket launcher model had yellow and black hazard stripes painted on the barrel, to show that the end of the weapon is, you know, dangerous. 

 

having weapons that differentiate in their attack values, and damage types adds tactical flavor to any game

Yes, of course. But it depends on what values you give them and, more importantly I think, how different they are from each other.
The lava weapons in DoE ( which I've just completed just now ) add nothing new to the arsenal; they're just orange nails with a few more dmg points. It's almost impossible for me to distinguish between the four nail weapons I now wield. Obviously, the perforator is better than the nailgun, but between NG, LNG and SNG there's no clear choice to be made. Most of the time I choose whatever of the four I happen to scroll to first and move on. This is what my above post refers to - it is better to make a new weapon with a new combination of gameplay properties ( hitscan/projectile/ballistic, ROF, ROD, ammo consumption etc. etc. ) using an existing ammo type, instead of inventing a new type of ammo but for an existing gun-type.

There are basically two ways to invent a new weapon - balance and gimmick. Most of the DoE stuff is gimmick, without question; taking a familiar weapon and merely giving it a twist.
The SoA weapons are not brilliant, but at least they add something to the gameply not avialable in vanilla.
For example, the lava nails could be differentiated from regular nails by not working underwater. Instead of appearing as extra weps in the inventory, they could simply superced the NG/SNG unless the player takes a dip, in which event the guns revert back to normal cold-iron nail ammo and therefore less dmg. The preferable solution, imo, would have been to make the 'lavagun' a different weapon altogether. Making the plasmalightning gun automatically gib zombies would be another specific gameplay benefit.

What the gun looks like is less important, though a new model with a decent skin is preferable for visual identification.
The DoE weps are the other way around. Average skins ( the multi-RL is a joke; I have this mental image of one of the Rogue guys, with his tongue sticking out to make more room in his head to think, cutting off strips of hazard-striped duct tape and carefully applying them to the id weapon barrels. ) The lava nail boxes look cool. But they add nothing very useful. Just a little more dmg and a very confused inventory. The multi 'nades/rockets are only beneficial against certain monsters in certain combats. Most of the time they are merely an inconvenience. And they don't assist in gibbing zombies, something I would expect of an advanced explosive-ammo.

The two weapons in Arcane Wizard that sound like the best inclusions are the chainsaw and chaingun. Completely replacing the axe makes sense - there's still only one melee weapon and its benefits can be taken into consideration in the map design. The chaingun may be similar to the perforator, but at least it's distinct from the nail weps and is precedented by, among others, Doom.

The best example of 'balance' weapon design is, like it or not, Q3A. Each of the guns was clearly designed - and playtested - to fulfil a role in combat. They all have their own ammo type which they do not share with another gun, they have obviously different properties when being wielded and they even have noticeably different sounds to emphasise their identities. Regarldess of what the intro cinematic or player manual would have you believe, the main characters of the game are the guns.
If making a new weapon, there's more to be learned from Q3A than DoE.

So, yeah, adding content like rarely-found powerups or exotic enemies because they're 'cool' is fair enough, but weapons are the backbone of any fps, especially in something like Quake whose gameplay is raw and simplistic. Get them right, and the gameplay will be good enough to excuse some shortcomings elsewhere. Get them wrong, and no amount of gimmickery will entertain.

ps: Starbuck, I divided this one into more paragraphs just for you ^_^ 

tronyn-i sent you two more models for inspection,


fatty-did you finally get the file d/l to work? 

those look really good. Perhaps on the fragwiz, you could modify it more to differntiate it more from the normal cultist (this guy can cast magic spells and should be more badass, right) - my usual suggestion is, ahem, more spikes :) 

I liked multi-rockets/multi-grenades in multiplayer. Curse of Osiris CTF was great. 

This is what my above post refers to - it is better to make a new weapon with a new combination of gameplay properties ( hitscan/projectile/ballistic, ROF, ROD, ammo consumption etc. etc. ) using an existing ammo type, instead of inventing a new type of ammo but for an existing gun-type.


That sounds about right. Except for the ammo bit. By bringing different forms of ammunition into the game, you add to the scarcity factor. Scarcity adds to the tactical edge and the realism of the game.

I digress in this sense as well, the DoE weapons do not rise to the level of gimmick. They are simple changes in the basic weapons and nothing more.

The gravity gun in Half Life, now there's a gimmick.

Lava nails,
proximity grenades,
Enforcer style laser rifle,

All are decent additions to the basic Quake format, they are just not over the top cool like the Zerst�rer weapons.

As for Q3A, sure it is balanced (though some pro-moders may disagree with that), but it is also too simple to be of much value when accessing the design of a modern single player FPS.

Dues Ex, for instance is much closer to the ideal that I'm looking for in weapon balance design. The weapons are extremely modifiable, and thus they progress in value as you play.

What Are We Supposed To Use, Man, Harsh Language?

Not a good idea. 

Regarldess of what the intro cinematic or player manual would have you believe, the main characters of the game are the guns.

indeed. 

...I am now a fan of the crowbar. 

maybe they should not work underwater, not take armour into consideration when doing damage, and be 1.x times as powerfulas regular nails (hey, maybe except against shamblers or something, as heat doesn't seem to bother them). To further differentiate, perhaps regular nails could richochet once. But then again, all of this stuff is probably not nessecary - this is an SPQ pack, not a tightly balanced Q3 that'll be played for years by discriminating millions. 

What version of QMe do I need to read .mdo format? 

Version 3.1 of QMe reads the .mdo format. If you have the full version of 3.0, download the demo of 3.1 and you'll get a patch that upgrades 3.0 to the full version of 3.1(no frame restrictions) 

i can send you my version if you prefer? 

can u implement the nail ogres, if so i can think of a good cultist model to make from it, also have you gotten a chance to open those files? 

HL1 I guess? 

any special requests on map models, let me know, i will start on them soon, because they are quickly done. 

I've created a base model to replace the drone. No animation or skin for it yet, but it needs a mere 40 frames to match the drone.qc. If you are interested, I'll send it your way. 

what is the drone, an enemy?turret

just send me the model dylansartain1@aol.com and a list of frames