Learn modelling and coding :D 

I learn best in a very specific fashion that's (to the best of my knowledge) impossible to do with models. I COULD conceivably learn maps and coding, but that'd require someone willing to get me started.

I learn best by picking apart a small number of simple (but complete) examples that cover pretty much everything I need to know, along with having someone to pester about things I don't quite get. Modelling doesn't work for this because models look like they're all one big piece -- which doesn't work with the method I use.

Hate to be picky about how I learn and all, but when that way of learning is the difference between 3 days and 3 years, it matters.

Also, thanks for the welcome. Click here for free Viagra sample clearlyfakeurl.com

--Caitie 

Yes, but if you just want to get a monster into the game to test it ... make a cube with a single frame of animation. Done. Now you can play with QuakeC (referencing the existing monster code) to your heart's content. Just a tip. :) 

zomg, a disclaimer Zwiffle? Clearly over the line ;p 

Goddamn it there's no viagra at that url :(

hax 

I'll code the Insularis with a free headjump with Necro's suggestion headcrab poison, followed with a bud-jump with free Viagra samples.

I wonder which side's the strongest? 

I personally like monsters that do different things. I think I have become jaded on monsters that are just hit points and ammo.

One reason I like L4D is because the special infected aren't just guys that shoot at you - they play so outside-the-norm that it's a refreshing change of pace. They actually DO something different than run and shoot, and there is some strategy in how to handle them and play as them. The Jockey/Boomer both use the hordes of zombies in slightly different and unique ways, the Charger is a different sort of fast character than the Hunter, the Smoker and Spitter are also different yet provide great ranged support.

The humans on the other hand are familiar to play with, but really are just kind of boring.

I can come up with other examples of neat enemies such as the Archvile from Doom, the Medic (Doctor?) from Quake 2 that revived dead enemies, or the Pain Elemental which spawned Lost Souls. I would be more interested in things like that which provide some elements of different ways of thinking about the combat. 

That would be a cool feature to put in a certain community Quake 1 mod which is in the works ATM:

A medic-grunt who can revive downed enemies 

I don't think it would work in Quake. The doctor would be dead in seconds - he'd never reach a downed enemy. 

This idea is somewhat related to what Zwiffle said...

I once thought that the scattered gibs of Shubby could turn into smaller, bud-like forms of the Hell Mother -- but with little nubs for tentacles -- still lacking movement and having only the defensive ability to repel non-melee attacks, leaving the Quake axe or the Quoth hammer as the only effective weapons against it. In combat, it would give an added "push" to grenades / nails / rockets / monsters in its vicinity causing extra unpredictability in already tense fighting situations.

Or maybe something similar to a Shrieker in Dungeons and Dragons: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/alumni_shrieker1st.jpg 

Something like a HellKnight or a DeathLord or something. Imagine an enemy with a crazy projectile attack, like fireballs or something, some sort cool coat and armour, and also a savage mele attack.

A room with a hoard of Knights that could be easily taken down, and then two fo these Apothecarys turn up, and whilst you battle one, the other has healing the downed knights as a higher priority than attacking you. 

I'd like to suggest that the apothecary get an appropriate weapon, probably a polearm as those are large enough to be memorable in close combat. Probably a scythe or lochaber axe, the lochaber axe being preferred if the apothecary is supposed to be good at combat.

The crazy projectile attack should serve the purpose of suppression. If one is trying to give the other time to revive enemies, then make that attack more of a "threat" than an actual danger. It'll be easy to avoid but only if you stay the hell away. If you start getting close and it does that attack, you can expect to be damaged severely. (Unless, of course, you can close the distance fast enough to get it into melee.)

Melee should, IMO, be a combo attack to make shambler-dancing possible but either risky or with awkward timing (depending on the risks the player is willing to take).

Lastly, I'd like to say they should be exceptionally weak to melee. That's your ticket to killing the bastards, an axe in the face. That would make them fearsome, but not a total hindrance to someone willing to take the risk of some damage.

I really do enjoy the idea of armor under a long coat, maybe with a hood too (sort of like the Necromancer of Hexen 2).

Of course, these are all just suggestions, albeit exceptionally in-depth ones, for an idea that doesn't even belong to me. Hope Ricky doesn't mind that I sprinted away with the concept so fast that we crossed the Pacific in ten minutes. (If you do, sorry.) 

Another suggestion, before I forget, although I don't know if it's possible in Quake: a "swarm" enemy, where every individual enemy will be killed by a single shotgun pellet and do very little damage, but you're facing, like, 30 of them at any given moment. And they're fast.

--Cait 

Thats pretty much exactly the kinda idea I had.

I mean TBH im no monster designer, just a daft Quake mapper who comes up with daft ideas sometimes but rarely follows through with them.

'Twas a good idea though methinks ;)

I mean there will be people reading this (hopefully) who do make monsters and know how to code them and stuff.

Problem is I can think of a few reasons why this could be difficult do 'do' in Quake:
1 - it would meddle with the killcount. I would say that a revived monster could either count as one more overall count, or on revivng a moster the killcount would drop by one, to be raised again if the moster was killed again.
2 - Navigation - How does the apothecary know not to kill the opponent if the other one is fighting the player......

(lol "stream of consciousness")

cutting myself short - if the one which is on revivng duty wanders off to earlier parts of the map healing loads of corpses, is may or may not know when to stop, but wouldnt it be cool having monsters coming back towards the player from earlier parts of the map. When they are revived they are already aware of the player and (lol Quake AI) running towards him.

Imagine the glorious chaos...... !!! 

Well it could be just as simple as attacking the player, check to see if there's any corpse in a 128 units radius (or something), if so try to revive it, attack player. Something like that.

Then it doesn't have to run off to find corpses. You can spawn a medic at the beginning if you needed the player to go back through there again.

You could solve the kill count a number of ways - going over the kill count (200/25 kills!), killing the monster once is the only kill that counts (not sure if that's possible) or adding another monster to the total number of kills, etc, as you've said.

Or the medic could just spawn a monster using a corpse - ie uses the monster's soul to spawn a ghoul or something different. 

I don't know how coding works in Quake, so I'm going from what little knowledge I have of scripting and etc in other games.

It might need to be set up so if the player is "targeted" by one, it triggers a switch/flag/whatever that is shared by both of their AI routines, which sets the second apothecary to ignore the player and simply attend to healing duties. You could also make pairs of apothecaries be controlled somehow by just one AI routine, so that you could have, say, 4 apothecaries with two attacking and two healing. I'm not sure if this is possible, but if it is, similar routines could be used for other "cooperative" monsters, including my swarm-enemy idea.

Oh, an idea just came to mind, could the apothecaries be set to be immune to in-fighting, given their place as healers? Perhaps they could only infight with the (clearly mindless) zombies, making that a possible way to deal with them if the player has too low health/ammo to do so directly?

As for monsters able to be revived... I dunno, I'd limit it. I can easily see if you activate the apothecaries, but don't see them and walk out of the room... you could quickly have literally the entire goddamn level biting your ass before you can blink. This gets worse in Quoth. And it could get to the level of literal impossibility in a Quoth "miniboss-rush" style level.

Lastly, regarding the monster kill-count thing, I want to say revival would subtract from the kill counter so that killcounts would still have some kind of meaning. But at the same time, I think you deserve SOME reward for beating the same vore in a tiny room 4 times in a row. 

I like the uber-damage medic idea, although it does seem like they'd need to be forced use in groups (with, as Ricky points out, code to work as a team), else they'd merely be high dmg, weak def enemies when used alone (and there're already those in Quoth).

I'm not dismissing the idea, it's very good, I just think you'd also need a more 'solo' medic monster, possibly something with high survivability but low dmg that prioritises ressing monsters over attacking the player. It'd give the mapper more variety of situations/monster groupings to use it in (depending on the numbers of high dmg monsters grouped with it and their relative damage absorbion the threath/'kill priority' of the player would vary more than with the Apothecary) 

These are supposed to be high def, middling-damage healers. The damage is only dangerous if you let it be dangerous (e.g. are an idiot), but avoiding it means letting the other one heal other nasties to its hearts content. They're supposed to take awhile to kill unless you get right in their face and chop it off. But yes, I agree they'd probably be forced to work as a team. 

Heh, posts while posting...

But at the same time, I think you deserve SOME reward for beating the same vore in a tiny room 4 times in a row.

Possibly have respawned enemies drop small health packs rather than their normal ammo drops. Certainly I agree beating the same enemies several times deserves increased reward, although there is the 'risk' of players farming relatively easy, respawning enemies if they drop extra items.

And Quoth has a fast, weak swarm enemy in the Vorelings. 

How about one with low health and damage, but taking from a previous suggestion of mine: extreme speed? Runs like hell away from the player, ressing anything it can get its hands on, but it only takes one good SSG blast to put the damn thing down. Problem of course, being that you'll have a hell of a time getting that good SSG blast in. 

THe vorelings don't seem to follow the same idea as what I mean. They take two shots from an SSG to put down, do decent damage, and only appear in groups of roughly 5-6 to my knowledge. I'm talking enemies sort of like the Parasites from Metroid Prime: great, huge swarms of little things that can barely touch you and you can kill pretty much by running into them, enemies where the ONLY danger comes from the sheer numbers. 

Keeping it simple could have its advantages from a practical point of view.
Imagine an enemy as tough as a shambler, suddenly arrives in a room you just cleared and starts reviving the corpses whilst you try and kill it. It ignores your attacks and keeps on bringing back the other dead foes. And as it revives more and more dead enemies you are forced to attack them rather than it. And as you kill them, it keeps bringing them back multiple times. The player would have to adjust its tactics to "avoiding the attacks of the minions/other enemies and concentrating fire on the apothecary until its dead" 

Yeh, seen. Was going off of Ricky's initial description, didn't see the bit about making the attack a suppressive threat rather than a damaging attack. Same effect on gameplay then, and the team idea makes for an interesting element to what is effectively one monster.

Unfortunately I'm not a coder either, but I imagine it'd be relatively easy to code AI for 'just' healing if the monster is in a team of it's own (either through design or death of the other apothecary(ies)) 

I don't know. That's not quite what I saw, Ricky, I saw the apothecaries being intelligent and working together in a way that suggests that. Maybe that could be their behavior when alone? 

I think that would work. Almost nothing for humanoids (including ogres) because it's simple to kill those without sustaining any damage. Possibly just half of the ammo normally dropped when they die. Stronger humanoids (Quoth assholes and Death Lord) maybe drop 5-10 health packs, along with weaker non-human enemies.

For stronger enemies, possibly 25 health packs, or even 50 health packs for exceptional badasses (e.g. the gug).