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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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Hm 
Well tails and tentacles don't get into games much, because they're difficult to animate, same for odd numbered legs on stuff.

(Kudos to Madfox for taking on the tripedal Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath)

The tail can stay or go I spose, but I quite like it, and animation in Quake is 8bit interpolated - assuming the engine supports it / it's turned on.

Used a Shuffler and Shambler for size reference, but the mesh got taller. But the references were a bit counterproductive as well since he ended up too stocky, like I mentioned.

func_messageboard_vote? Wouldn't override a team_remakequake_vote, but would be taken into consideration -

Tail or no tail?

Mainly thinking of the finnicky animation it'd need. 
 
i think the tail is a good idea. it stops the monsters from looking top-heavy from it's spindly legs.

i'd only be worried that vertex dancing may distort the extremely thin and mobile tail. 
Ijed 
actually yes, kinda like that demon, accept with the wolfmothers teeth when she laughs in that one scene 
 
Good point, the tail is thin and ratlike, so a potential breaker is the .mdl format. If it breaks badly in testing we can remove it easily enough. Patience is a virtue and a curse.

Don't follow you there so much, meTch - Joker and the Thief? ;) 
They All Look Awesome! 
Madfox:
That will be awesome! Best monster yet, cant wait to see it with all of the frames of animation and some texturing :)

Ijed:
MeatHoleDemon looks proper scary. I think the tail gives it a very devilish look. Attacks could be a tricky one. Red fire perhaps? Wouldnt want it to looks cheesy :D Also that picture is very nice, who drew that?

Zwiffle/Metch:
That looks very sort of nightmareish. Kinda like a Cacodaemon with tentacles and no mouth. And bigger. So nothing like a Cacodaemon.

All concepts very quakey.
That Meatholedemon would make an OK boss, but I think it would be nice to see more than one of them in an episode. Like you say - a Shambler level enemy.
Man I wish I knew where to start with modeling. 
Long Baddass Bossfights, Yes Please 
Throughout the battle the player wears him down despite his regeneration until he resorts to destroying the floor, levitating himself around the arena. Heavy attacks can disrupt his concentration though, causing him to fall into the void revealed below.

This sounds like a really proper intense bossfight. With different stages to drag things out a little bit.

I never liked how, in some games, you go "oh shit it's the boss, I better pull out my big guns" and then splat him against the wall in 10 seconds flat, because you used the big guns. Regeneration would avoid this problem I'm sure. ;) 
 
well, doing the shambler thing where the 'big guns' are not that effective works too. 
Yeah 
But phases are important, just complicated. PainKiller, with all the bosses it had was a good example of what to do / not to do. Like the Cthulhu type swamp monster which nobody understood.

A decent variety of attacks is important as well. 
Painkiller Swamp Monster 
I remember getting really frustrated with that. 
 
I think I might like some kind of room-sized boss that was basically growing on a ceiling and would pop out monsters in self defense while you just shot rockets at it or something. It could be above some kind of arena with lava or other traps that you would have to maneuver around while avoiding other monsters and trying to line up a shot.

I guess the weak points would be eyeballs or something on this giant ceiling-growth, I dunno. Seems like it would be fairly Shubbish. 
Mantorok 
http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/sab/mantorok.jpg

Which was a massibe blob with tentacles, covered in eyes and mouths, also impaled by magical pillars which bound it.

Similar to what we're planning for Shub, yeah. But that depends on the team. 
Arkham Horror 
I really should write a bigger post about this sometime, but have you guys played (or heard of) Arkham Horror? It's this RPG-ish multiplayer board game where you fight tons of lovecraftian monsters spewing out of portals to other dimensions, controlled by elder gods. Tons of fun, and all the stars of the Lovecraft bestiary are there. Might be good inspiration for monsters I could figure out how to translate the experience to good ol' Quake. 
Oh Yeah, Also This 
Crazy intense boss battle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucahQg_wWZA

Makes me wanna play some Hexen. 
Messier Object 
Messiah Object? 
 
Sweet 
but im having trouble imaging it walking, it doesn't have legs like the shalrath with the knees bent out 
Right 
The legs indeed stand indsside out.
I don't know what it is.., making a fast chalk of the model goes fine, as soon as I try my best it ends up in verticemeshes. 
Would Be Cool To See Walk And Run Animations For This. 
It does look like it has three legs from where I am sitting.

You could have aggressive flailing of arms, Aggresive waving of tenticles, and running towards player; perhaps casting a spell with adifferent motion...... 
Happy Xmass 
I know, only the tentacle screw is hard to tend, because of the oppertunity to make them wail without getting crossed.

Also my usual three leg walk is a bit hard to lay hands on as I mostly experience this on drunk feet.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/zork4.gif 
Heh 
So that's how you're figuring it out :) 
Antlion 
Convertion of the antlion to Quake1.
Rather a heavy model as it takes 1050verts / 2361tris.
Sad I have only the standpose with skin, so to make it worthwhile it needs a decent base frame.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/AntLion.gif

The original skintex is 256x256, as doom files.
And that was also much work to get in Qml 199 x 300.
I've been trying with odd shapes of the baseframe, but it only gives vertice loss. 
Skinned 
Nice 
 
 
That Antlion is Excellent ! 
RE: Boss Discussion 
It has come to my conclusion following the response to A Roman Wilderness of Pain that it's best to just not have boss monsters at all. Personally I loved the end battle because it was immensely challenging and took me several goes to figure out, which is exactly what a boss battle SHOULD do. The whole idea of a boss is that the player has to figure out how to use all of the tools that he's been supplied with to engage in a battle that's probably five or ten times harder than anything that's come before. Tronyn's boss battle did just that -- had I not used the grappling hook to evade danger spots I would never have been able to recoup the ammo or gain the cover required to take out the final boss and win the game. Another crucial part of the strategy which I only figured out after two or three deaths was to conserve the Tome of Power until after I had activated most of the Boss moments, which thanks to the grappling hook was still reachable. To me, that's everything a boss battle should be. It required a very small amount of trial and error, but that only intensified the feeling of satisfaction at the end.

I think a lot of people are far too quick to turn on God mode as soon as they encounter a tricky situation that they don't immediately recognize, which is a shame.

There's a lot to be said for finishing an episode with an interesting or different combination of regular monsters, as it challenges those who enjoy being challenged but also doesn't scare off the people who don't. 
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