Here are a couple of ideas I thought of ages ago when I was going to make an sp map especially geared for coop play.

A hub design is helpful to avoid retreading large, empty areas when killed. Very linear designs really do not work well in coop.

Have weapon pickups trigger opening of doors at the startpoint where said weapon is also located. This way, players needn't run around recollecting all their stuff.

Large lifts for connecting the main areas if you are going to have lifts at all. Make sure several players can fit onto any lifts you might have. I also think that having button operated lifts might work better than having the usual auto-trigger ones (you can drop back down the shaft of a button operated lift more easily.)

Pretty obvious, but make sure that if a player dies in a locked room monster ambush, they can get back into the room to finish the fight.

Try and put multiple small ammo and health boxes around instead of using large ones. This is obviously so that one player doesn't have an excuse for hogging the items. Make sure there is adequete space between the items too. A bit of lag might mean the difference between walking over one, or all of the items.


Somebody mentioned this before (in GA, I think), but it seems slightly pointless to play coop (with 2 people) if you split up and don't see each other for most of the game. Most of the fun in coop is in cooperating, and seeing the other players fighting alonside you.

I think if players are splitting up the tasks each player is attempting should be within close range and preferably allow the players to see each other whilst doing them. Pressing buttons on the opposite side of a large atrium to open a large door in the centre is something I'm not against.

that's all I think. 

Basically, some cool things would be:

Saved inventory - Maybe when playing a campaign, each players state when starting the map could be saved to either the players computer or to a world server, allowing people to start on the map they were on last, even if they take a week-long break.

Map thoughts - I think there should be specific coop maps, needing players to stand on each other to get to secrets, and bigger enemy count. Also there should be a avoidance of thin corridors. Quake 2 is littered with these, and they are just a friendly fire death trap for players. Bigger areas, or multiple and intertwining routes leading the same direction. 

...very timely advice, thanks! I'm just about to put a lift in a main vertical thoroughfare in a map that has 4 coop starts. I'll now make sure the lift can accommodate four bodies at the same time.

Having said that, I do have another lift/ambush setup that will only accommodate one player at a time. The vertical distance is not great, so the idea is the first player has to get up and survive long enough for the cavalry to survive. Yes there's a mega-health near the top of the lift.

Reading back over the coop stuff in both threads (most of which is useful), I get the impression that players respawn in coop. Is that right? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose if monsters don't respawn? 

...bleh, "arrive." 

Full title is back ! After posting the thread, the title was cut: this explain my first post... Anyway, thanks to the guy who solved the problem, if problem there was ... ;)

To go forward with coop mode, I really think the two players have to fight together, side by side, against monsters, rather than play alone their own "half SP map".. Each player have to help the other one, in order to preserve the cooperative spirit, and to survive from the beginning to the end of the map.. otherwize you should have to restart it (it means no rebirth after death for the players)...

In the same order, I think ammos/weapons/health sharing have to be banned. When you are fighting, there is no good reasons to share health items with your partner, even if he is low in health, the more if you are low in health.. (and the same with ammos/weapons/armor..)..
I agree that ammos sharing can be an acceptable idea (75%/25%-like sharing), but not more... The guy who pick-up ammos item have to keep naturally the most important part of it...

In fact, you just need to consider that the cooperative spirit is in the strategy against monsters, not in the item sharing..

In the same order, I think the good strategy to start coop mode is to create special maps dedicated to coop mode, without any Quake code modification, just thinking about this coop spirit I was talking about..
Why should we need to change code ?? All the stuff is in there, and ready to be used... The only thing the mappers have to do is to think for 2 players, not only one... 

I agree, there isn't a neccessity for a full on coop mod, but it could be useful, since you need a special QWcoop mod to play coop online anyway, so this could be improved upon.

As for ammo sharing. This should NOT be a code thing, but I do think that it is part of the coop spirit to share ammo by not grabbing it all when you enter a new area before other players. If you have no ammo and hardly any health/armour, then grab it. If you are both in a bad situation, the goodies should be shared.

Mind you, I do remember not wanting to share magic potions and dragons in golden axe :) 

Maybe if a player could drop ammo for a friend? So there could be a console command for like: "drop 5 shells" which would drop 5 shells out in front of the player, this could be bound to keys, and if no ammo type was written, it would drop 5 ammo for the current gun. 

Correct, players do respawn. But, you see, it's a necessary thing because Than keeps shooting you in the back. Therefore, it's more like You vs All Monsters + Than, and because Than respawns, it is also necessary for you to respawn so you have a chance of actually finishing the map. 

it was just an accident 

what about if ammo only disappeared after all players had picked it up?

ie: box of shells on the ground. four players in the map. one walks over it, and gets 20 shells. the box remains on the floor, but the player can't pick it up again (behaves like weapons do when you've already got the same weapon in coop)

the other two players pick up the shells too, and the box remains. finally, the fourth picks up the box, he gets the shells then it disappears.

would solve ammo problems for normal maps not specifically designed for coop play in mind (esp if monster respawning is implemented)

also, speaking of monster respawning, i already wrote a mod that makes monsters infintely respawn every 15 seconds after they die, so you could give that one a shot in coop and see what it's like...

i don't remember if there's a link or not for that, so i'll try to remember to upload it when i get home. 

The ammo thing could easily be done as a serverside mod I'd think. Just remove the server tracking ammo boxes and make the server trust client's ammo counts (who the fuck is going to cheat in coop?). Hell, alot of simple things to make coop better could be made into a serverside mod. Might be a cool idea to get one put together, pack it with some awesome coop maps (author's permissions of course), and see if we can get some of the servers to run it. 

actually, i routinely cheat in coop.

if i die and loose all my guns, i will usually just use the give command to get back all the weapons i had before instead of wasting time to pick them all up again. it lets me get back into the fight faster.

also, if i run out of ammo completly, i tend to give myself a few shells so i can at least continue to fight with the sg or ssg.

what i was suggesting would actually just involve a bit flag on each item, and would check the bitflag value against each player, checking to see if they've picked it up before, and if they hadn't, adding the player's bit value into the ammo's bit value. 

If monster respawning were to take place, I think the ammo and health should both respawn, too.

Unrelated to respawning discussions, I think a coop mod should keep track of how many monsters each player kills, and penalize each player if he kills another player. And on Nightmare when monsters respawn infinitely, you could have an event where seperate teams of players try to get the highest ratio of frags per minute. 

console cheats do not have to be enabled necros. I think scampie was referring to �berhaxes that run in the background and stuff :D

Cool idea about the frag contest.

Maybe there could be a thing where you have two identical maps next to each other, and there are two teams competing to finish the level the long ass level the fastest. Maybe there could be buttons to use traps against the other team, or such things :D 

While the two identical map idea might be fun for a round or two, it would require a minimum of 4 players, plus specially built maps. But just seeing which set of players can have the highest ratio of frags/minutes when monsters respawn constantly is something that can be done on existing maps, and you only need two players to try for a record. 

lol, guffaw. blurt... 

Must be avoided in coop mode...

Another idea: I think it's really cool to be close to the reality as far as possible.. For example, when you die, why to rebirth ?.. In real life, like in SP mode: it's impossible !! When you died, you "are" dead, and you have to restart the map from the begining.. so why don't apply this concept ?? Some will say why rebirth at the map start when the fun is where you died in the map ? Yes it's true, but so far away to reality, without talking about monsters which don't exist in reality... bleh...
So the ideal way would be to start a map like a commando mission, and if a player die (sorry for him), but teh reamining ones have to finish the map alone, otherwize restart from the begining... like in real army commando operations.. ;) 

don't you dare bring "real life" into this.
don't you dare.

hm... actually, it's fun playing in coop mode alone for the respawning, actually. 

I like the idea of having co-op with one life each, or perhaps with 3 lives each? (or free respawn if tked?). I also like the idea of 'anti-coop' where two teams push buttons to make the other team's job harder by dropping extra monsters in, or forcing them to go a longer way around or whatever. It'd be nice to see some kind of sacrifice for such, actually - you can drop a shambler (or a Than :P ) right in your opponents' path, but you have to go out of your way to make some tough jumps or fight some extra beasts for the privilege.

I also think the ability to drop ammo / guns is a far better way of sharing than any multiple-pickup-of-the-same item method. I'd rather weapons / armour disappeared in co-op once one person picks them up, but possibly have them respawn after 30sec / 1min or so. Of course I implemented all this in my coop realism (*cough*) mod 'Black Ops' about five years ago :) 

I'm going to be different again.

I think a better mode of coop would be one with no special allowances whatsoever. No extra weapon pickups or special key stuff - if there's one grenade launcher in the map, then one guy picks it up and he becomes the grenade launcher guy. If another player picks up the gold key, he's gotta be the guy that opens the door. Coop is often a lot easier just because there's a fairly infinite pool of ammo and health available as long as the players keep dying. I would rather see Coop with the extra challenge of making two guys finish the map with only as much supplies, or maybe a tad more, as the designer deemed necessary for one.

This would, of course, still require a few extra items that are coop only, like a few more armors or multiples of the staple weapons like the SSG. It wouldn't be entirely fair to have one shotgun in the map and make the other player faff about with the pistol until a machinegun shows up.

Also, as long as the map isn't too hard, I say, if one player dies, game's over. Dying in Coop doesn't seem to carry any kind of penalty other than the mild inconvenience of having to walk back from the start point. Staying alive in SP is half the challenge - why should coop be any easier? 

i think what you're describing would work better in something like D3, where a constant shortage of ammo would help to make more tense gameplay.

but, i think for something so radical, the map would have to be designed with it in mind (not necessarily coop only, but that there was some real thought put into item placement w/regards to coop)

also, if weapons weren't available to all, then i'd think it would require a way to drop weapons and ammo to give them to other players

i still am unsure about permadeath in coop...
it wouldn't be as carefree fun as it is currently.
the whole fun part comes from the lack of penalty from dying.
if death becomes permanent, then that means people have to play a lot more seriously. it becomes more of a tactical challenge than anything else, instead of just running guns blazing.
it would also make other players angry if you accidentally shot them. this, i think, is the reverse of what coop should be.

i'm open to discussion though. 

www.coopordie.com is a pretty cool quake 2 coop mod. If one person dies, everyone dies, and you have to play the map over again from the start. This is pretty fun, and there is a large deal of cooperation needed, but its alot less spontaneous than normal coop as you need to organize a bunch of good players in order to get a proper game going. The mod changes item placement on the maps, for coop bonuses(with one guy standing on the others head to get something etc). It's quite fun, but it doesn't have difficulty levels, and that makes it a bit too hard for me and my friends in many spots. Friendly Fire is also forced, which is both fun in some ways and irritating in some. 

forgot to mention that weapons stay is on in coopordie. I think Lunarans idea is pretty cool, with each one carrying a role. But as he said, maps would need to be made with this in mind, so that there are several grenade launchers throughout the campaign, etc. 

that's just what i'm talking about though. coop shouldn't be a serious affair, at least, it should necessarily be one.

coop is one of those things you can just say "yo, let's go beat up on some monsters"
and you go in there and just have fun.
it's simple and straight forward like dm.

you add in things like tactical decisions, preplanning, perma death, and you make it into a serious thing, where every action you take matters.

like i said, this is cool for slower paced games like d3, but i don't think this would work in q1 (which i assume we are all still talking about, no?) 

"at least, it shouldn't necessarily be one"