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Soul Of Evil: Indian Summer: New Version (Includes New Content)
Today Patrick Martin and I release a new version of Soul Of Evil: Indian Summer, which includes the following:

-A new map, Nsoe6: Summer's End, with 300+ monsters, including previously unused ones such as the Warlock and Gremlins.

-Newly rebalanced gameplay throughout the episode, both maps and monster code, making the fights fairer while remaining challenging.

-Other new features and items including a new version of the legendary Mjolnir, Dragon Armour, and the deadly MIRV.

Download here:
http://www.quaddicted.com/filebase/nsoe2.zip (28 MB)

Screenshots here:
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/screen_shots/nsoe2a.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/screen_shots/nsoe2b.jpg

We have also released the nsoe devkit, containing documentation and source code, here:

http://www.quaddicted.com/filebase/nsoe_devkit.zip (1MB)

And the sources for my major maps (nsoe3,4,5,6) are now available here:

http://www.quaddicted.com/filebase/nsoe_sources.zip (2MB)
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RE: Low Framerate 
@Orl:
Me, but i can run Crysis maxed with above playable framerate so i dont count :-P

@Tronyn:
I haven't played the original but so far i can say that this is an awesome episode - and i loved the small touches, like the monsters dropping stuff, the extra sound effects (like the metal "klangs" when you hit an armored monster), the AI that assists you and of course the atmosphere-enhancing music :-) 
Corpse Removal 
The corpse removal do help a lot. Where do I put the "temp1 4" to make it run automatically for each map? command line, config, or autoexec? 
Yhe1 
put it into autoexec.cfg 
Undocumented Temp1 Values. 
Here are the 'temp1' values used by nsoe.

1 = DMSP
2 = Cranked
4 = Corpse Removal
8 = Footsteps
16 = Qrack
32 = Summon Test
64 = Angry Monsters

Cranked mode powers up some of the monsters to make them even nastier, and falling damage becomes variable and deadly.

Qrack mode is for engines that replace flame models with other custom graphics. Such replacements can make some attacks that use the flame2.mdl look bad, and turning this mode on will make those attacks use an alternate model.

Summon Test enables all of the monster summon impulses. All monster files get precached, which means standard engines would crash due to exceeding precache limits.

Angry Monsters means every monster spawns aware and angry at the player.

The values can be combined to activate multiple features. For example, 'temp1 12' turns on corpse removal and footsteps.

I would have used the 'saved1' variable for these options so they could persist from game to game, but since the Frikbot code uses all of the saved variables, I had to settle for temp1. 
Framerate 
@ Tronyn:

My computer may suck, but it has no problem running Marcher. I thought Marcher was the largest map ever created?

Btw, does Masque have corpse removal too? Haven't try it yet, just in case I get bad framerates with that one also. 
Hmm 
Marcher is technically superior to everything I've designed. Also even if it is larger overall, the average line of sight in it is probably shorter, both due to the indoor areas, and the better visblocking. In contrast nsoe6 is almost entirely outdoors and has almost no visblocking. heh. I tend to make retardedly huge outdoor maps, and then worry about the practicality of it later.

You should get better framerates in Masque - it's much tidier and has many more indoor areas. It comes with a hipnotic-pack - I don't know if it supports corpse removal, but if not you can always go into the .pak, extract masque.bsp, put it in the nsoe directory, and run it under nsoe. 
 
Just played this from start to finish, even though I played the first version back when it was released. I used to have a 945G back then and its poor performance didn't help much over my countless deaths in skill2, thus my run was in medium the first time around. This time I went for Hard and didn't get frustrated much: it's clear that there's definite improvement in gameplay balancing. My current graphics card being a Geforce8500GT, I didn't have any performance problems, apart from fps drops around 20 in certain points of nsoe3. Being free of rendering issues helped me to get a better vision of things - I really appreciate the effort Tronyn put into this, even though I still think that overwhelming combat prevents the player 
Doh! 
from fully enjoying the design. The new map is also fantastic, despite being highly systematic. It serves as a fitting ending as 'the last stronghold'. I also found all the secrets this time around - yay! Congrats, Tronyn. 
I Just Can't Beat The Bane 
On Hard... I can hang on until he splits into three, then I die within seconds. 
 
The trick is keeping the distance between him and yourself - if he ever gets close, you're doomed. 
Guys 
How do I turn the music off?! 
Music Toggle = Impulse 18 
 
THANKS 
 
Nope 
that does not work 
Aw Crap 
Wrong thread - I need this for ARWOP. 
Epic Battles In God Mode 
I really like how the story begins straight away after the starting map and the guitar music during the text was awesome. It really set the mood of the map pack perfectly and it was something I looked forward to at the end of every map. Well what a journey this map pack is, spanning 6 maps and probably more monsters than all of original id maps combined!

As usually I started the map at skill 0 and found the first map fun to play. I thought it was a really nice touch the books lying around for extra information and it was cool stopping and reading them. I was surprised with the ghost creature following me, at first I thought it was an enemy because it just appeared out of nowhere and was in my face. It would have been better if the ghost appeared from the wall opposite the book which talked about it. I think the situation needed a greater dramatic build up and not suddenly appear out of nowhere.

The first map felt lacking in general detail but it had a really nice up and over layout which I did not find confusing. I always felt like I was progressing forward but it never felt like a place, just a series tunnels and corridors winding their way upwards.

The second map the city of angels felt very sparce and barren. I did not realise the first AI were team mates and killed them! So much for friendly fire mode. :P The city layout did not feel city like and it lacked any kind of detail to suggestion what it was suppose to be. I loved the various books lying around again with diary entries and letters explaining what was going on.

I finally got to the dragon battle and walked outside and instantly got killed by the dragon. I suppose it was bad luck on my part but I did not see anything, no warning just instant death. So I reloaded and got back to the dragon battle and spent ages just wandering around trying to find a way up to the roof. Eventually I just got bored and went into noclip/god mode and zoomed around the city to find out where I was suppose to go.

I am not sure why the stairs up to the roof were put on the opposite side of the city because it did not make any sense. There should of been several ways up to the roof and at least a special path that opened up to hint at the right direction. Eventually I got the dragon morph trinket and I thought it worked really well. I also saved the city and then ran off! :)

The third map was just plain nuts, it was just crazy the amount of AI that was wandering around that map. At this point I permanently switched on god mode and it was full steam ahead with the AI armageddon. I really liked how the map was initially setup with the open air cavern section leading across a bridge to a church/bell tower on the cliff edge. The actually setting and scale of the map was amazing but the amount of AI was just ridiculous. :)

It was interesting how the route around the map went from underwater sunken ruins to the top of a bell tower to a sunken pyramid in the sea! (The pyramid bit was weird) The sequence inside of the pyramid was just beyond words of how crazy it was with regards to the sheer amounr of AI on easy skill level. The end battle with the mega spawning bouncing spawns was nuts. I can't think of any other way to describe it.

The fourth map with the towers and black sky was again crazy and I can't understand how anyone can get through that without serious amount of rage at the quantity of AI. Eventually I found way to complete it and run like crazy to the next level. The architecture was bold and gigantic but none of it made any sense of what it was suppose to be. I thought it was suppose to be a staging area for bane's troops but the spiral towers and castle draw bridge felt like a mismatch of styles. I sort of expected a huge cavern or underwater tunnels with large rooms.

The next level was like something from doom with long church like rooms jammed packed full of crazy hard AI all hell bent of trying to kill me at least 100 times over. There was the familiar cage fight sequence with raining AI and then the final battle upstairs in the mini church landscape affair. I really liked the setting and the scope of the level, I was just dumb struck with how many AI were running around trying to kill me at once.

The final level (it is ironically called the epic battle) was mind blowing again with the amount of AI wandering around. The layout was fun and interesting but the AI layout was crazy. I just can't see myself wanting to die endlessly trying to complete it, which I think is a great shame.

Overal the story, map architecture and the locations were fantastic, I just can't see myself playing it without god mode permanently on. 
Have To Admit 
Like the end of ARWOP, I've never beat this one without god mode, haha! Haven't tried it on easy - just normal and hard. It's that last battle, in either case - can't do it.

Sock, the pyramid in map 3 is a tribute to "shadow over innsmouth", one of the best old school Quake maps of all time. Still haven't read that story, but I'm pretty sure the pyramid in that map is a tribute to the HP lovecraft story of the same name. 
Wait, What? O.0 
Eventually I got the dragon morph trinket

you turn into a dragon? i just had god mode on and emptied all my guns into the dragons. 
Waitaminute 
All you guys just use god mode in tronyn maps? Is tronyn a far better quake player than all of us, or is this some sick joke?

(not hatin' just curious) 
Playing Test 
was done by ijed, so he must of been able to complete all the skill levels? without excessive death? It does make me wonder, can Tronyn complete his own maps on all skill levels without getting frustrating or dying all the time? How exactly is the skill levels created for horde style maps? 
Except For The Last Fights 
in Nsoe and Arwop, I can do his other maps on normal. Maybe one or two deaths every now and then but I do use quicksave after reasonable progress in all quake maps (and other games too). 
It Was Tough 
And I did complain about the difficulty. Tronyn and PM's stuff I find much closer to NM Doom.

The vores hitting from miles away (without a cue) and some other stuff put me into quickload spam mode a couple of times.

I was playing on skill 3 until PM said 'WTF are you thinking!?'

Normal is a reasonable difficulty for veteran players I reckon. 
Hmm 
But... Does that not seem ridiculous? If veteran players can only get through normal then why even have hard/nightmare. You're just excluding the non-hardcore for the sake of it. That doesn't seem like a sensible use of skill levels... 
 
In my opinion Tronyn maps are always played with caution... and even so I died more often that in other maps on hard :\ 
 
As long as monsters do not respawn, Quake can never be like Doom's Nightmare. At best, Quake Nightmare is just Doom Ultra-Violence with -fast monsters. Respawning monsters force the player to play the map like a speed run, at least if he wants to live.

As for Tronyn's maps, I can beat them on Hard. Of course, being the progs coder for Tronyn's later maps gives me an advantage in that I know exactly what the modified monsters are capable of. Even so, some of the maps are meat grinders on Hard, and the success rate can be low for me. nsoe5 on Hard is really nasty (but beatable) without savescumming. 
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