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Q1SP: Alkaline: A Base Enhancement Mod/map Pack
Alkaline is out now! After many months of development, the Base enhancement mod/map pack is available to enjoy.
MORE ENEMIES, MORE WEAPONS, MORE FEATURES,
With maps from Bal, Bloodshot, bmFbr, Greenwood, Grome, Juzley, Makkon, Mista Heita, Scampie, and zigi.
More details available about the mod via the Quaddicted forum post below.

Download (175 MB): http://www.born-robotic.net/alkaline.zip

Quaddicted forum post (with screenshots): https://www.quaddicted.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=4871#p4871

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J9UYEJ9jbE&lc=UgxnrG7n8k9iFAy6sFZ4AaABAg
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Playing Thru Four Maps For Two Days. 
Two maps per day is quite enough for this. Remember how it was as a child? You take new favorite glossy magazine from mailbox and carefully read every glance page. Сlosing the page, you can still feel its pleasant aftertaste. New Depeche of Mapping Mode is revealed. 
Dancing In The Golden Sun 
Impeccable brushwork, lighting, and texturing.

Gameplay wise, this seems like an even more evolved version of the formula from Tears of the False God. Big, open, explorable, with various tasks to unlock areas of the map. (though of course, this is not nearly as massive as Tears.)

The more specific identity you gave to each unlock event (lifts, lasers, jump pad) helped make it feel more like I was completing objectives.

I really liked the little ventilation duct that connected various secrets... oh, and I just realized I forgot to go find all the circuit boards :P

It would be nice to have an indicator which direction the jump pads will send me, because, if I enter them from the wrong direction, my velocity from entering it might make me fall short of the destination. That happened a couple times. 
Thanks For The Feedback, Metlslime! 
That is was very informative. I really appreciate it. I am also glad that overall you really enjoyed it!

The only part that confused me was the the "have the buttons try to say in text what happened" comment, because besides the ones that are not next to lifts, they do (like "west stairs open" or "east lift access available"); however, the LAST button seems to not have a message, so I will definitely add one.

The other suggestions were spot on. If we end up doing an update/expansion to the mod, then I will definitely implement most, if not all, of those changes! 
The Mod As A Whole And Bal's Map In Particular 
This is most impressive. It is astounding what you and your team have done in such a short amount of time. Not that I know how long it took exactly, but the mere fact that you count your development time in months and not years is mind-boggling.

So far I've only played through bal's map and can echo most of what metlslime wrote. Aside from a small visual niggle at the start, which I see has been pointed out by others elsewhere, this is a really beautiful piece of work.

Gameplay in this map was a bit of a mixed bag for me, though. Much of it flowed very nicely, but unfortunately I also ended up getting really lost several times and just running back and forth trying to figure out what I should be doing, or which button I missed. To me the environment, beautifully crafted as it is, tended to blend together a little, with all parts looking somewhat similar. But maybe I was just tired when I played the map.

And I second metlslime's suggestion re the jump pads.

Slight spoiler warning for what follows:

I liked how some secret areas showed you inactive robots waiting to be deployed (depending on when you find the secret, I suppose).

The intermission screen is really, really lovely too. It looks like it was made solely for that purpose and contains no actual gameplay, right? Love that sort of thing.

Lastly (this part pertaining to the mod itself, so maybe rather feedback for Greenwood), I've noticed that loading from a saved game resets gravity back to normal -- just as it does under id1 if you manually change sv_gravity via the console. Don't know if that is something that can be fixed, but it would be good if you could.

/end of potential spoilers

Also, is the start map supposed not to have any music? Not a big deal for me personally (I prefer to play Quake without music anyway), but seeing as you had custom music for each map and even for the intermission screens, the silence in the start map felt strangely out of place.

Oh and metslime, even though I have nothing to do with this mod, I really enjoyed reading your analyses of the two maps you've played so far. Please keep them coming! 
@threekidsinatrenchcoat 
Glad that you are enjoying it so far!

As far as the start map goes, it does have an atmospheric ambient music track. If you lower "sounds" in game you'll notice it. It's Verbum Mentis's "Communion I." It's not melodic in nature & super subtle, so I can see how you might not have noticed it. :) 
Oh, Whoops! :) 
I should have done my homework better.

For what it's worth, though, I did raise my music volume and lower my sound volume so as to check out the music set for the various maps.

I went back now and had to turn my computer's volume all the way up and set music volume in QS to maximum level before I could hear the music track in the start map. Maybe it's just me, or maybe the track is just a little too quiet? 
Metlslime 
Thanks!
It's actually an older map than Tears, a lot of what I had planned with it ended up in Tears later on as I ran out of steam. Alkaline was a good excuse to polish it up and release it without pressuring myself that it had to be some massive thing.

Yeah I definitely should've put some kind of directional lasers on the jump-pads. Jumps in Quake are a bit awkward cause of how much air control there is, impossible to make them as focused as in Quake 3.
It might actually be interesting to have a dedicated jump-pad trigger entity, that reduces air-control for a short, set amount of time after the jump. 
Bal (#9) 
Don't worry about it too much, I can't seem to be able to reproduce the bug. It'll remain mysterious, but on the upside, I was able to enjoy your map till the end without any further problem. Thanks a lot for your work, and same goes to the rest of the team! 
@bal 
Jumppads are okay, I liked the fact that player is able to spare the station and just ascend with properly timed rocket jump on a final jumppad if found all circuitboards. 
Finished It Today, Here's Short Summaries Of Maps As I Recall Them 
Bal's Map: Easy 9/10 secrets (and a mailbox!) without deaths on nightmare, just as usual. Good nonlinear exploration and beautiful sights as expected. Le epic ost with EPIC REVERB DRUM BEAT just like in ad_tears. And if you found all circuitboards, you'll find a way to skip final sequence with station destruction alltogether as a kind of easter egg.

Zigi's Map: Very good amount of fighting, well hidden secrets, mezmerizing landscapes and skybox, also good ost.

Bloodshot's Map: Usual for him horror theme, cool sounds and scripted sequences. Very intuitive map navigation, never felt lost. Good amount of possible infighting. There are lot of conveniently placed non-secrets with useful stuff or a shortcuts. Also you can run away from final boss to the exit with a sequence of rocket jumps.

Juzley's Map: Good music! Juzley does many things just right when it's challenging yet not punishing like combat and secrets, so map flow remains solid and it's cool. Also the humor is still there, even in combat they always ambush you, but not quite deadly ambush, just to surprise not to actually kill.

Bmfbr's Map: Interconnected map with nonlinear progression? YES. Objective:ESCAPE? Yes.

Grome's Map: Convoluted, got lost while searching charlie board a few times until found that letters actually mark map's districts. This brownish rust somehow feels so comfy. Good combat. Zero secrets but I'm totally satisfied.

Greenwood's Map: Easy, but fun to traverse with all nonlineality and platforming. Lots of secrets, also TOPLESS RAILGUNNER WTF CENTURION STOP HIM! https://imgur.com/OFVwy9c Can skip the last terminal with nade jump btw.

Mista Heita's Map: Finally some grimy industrial cyberpunk. Not so difficult, just overdesigned, got stuck at some corners and some paths are not so intuitive. Killing the player who tries to jump onto roof is not fun. Good combat and exploration. Don't detonate all barrels on sight, there will be use for them later! Well hidden secrets, found 2 of 3. 
@So Rangers Name's Jim? 
Whoa. First person who I heard state that my map was easy! Glad that you liked it, as well as the rest of the pack in general.

Yeah, that Prowler bug (missing top half) happens on rare occasion. We have since located the issue and hopefully solved it. The Malice code available is a tad squirrelly and appears to have been reverse engineered from the original progs. Still far better than nothing to work with!

Thanks for the feedback! It will help with future updates. 
Low Gravity In Bal's Map 
*Slight spoilers*

Are you meant to keep [spoiler]the low gravity after doing the warehouse section in Bal's map? It's a bit annoying as the jump pad to the last section tends to catapult you to the heavens and thus immediately to the end screen.[/spoiler] 
Please Be Patient 
and turn off low gravity before leaving warehouse :) 
 
Ah, right, didn't even think about the possibility to turn it off. Thanks!

Sorry for spoilerish post btw. Thought it would be hidden, but it didn't work out. 
Well Done 
It's been a few months since I've really said anything here. I've mostly been lurking about watching and reading when things get really interesting, and this mod is one of those times. I've only played through the first map so I haven't fully fleshed out my thoughts.

What I can say though is that finally someone has bridged the large gap that Hipnotic and Rogue have with the base game. Thank you for increasing the availability of that and certain other weapons and enemies that are normally not available. 
 
No surprise I guess, but this is great!

Whenever there's so much emphasis on screenshot sexiness I can't help having a secret fear that some of that stuff will be a visual showpiece that's a drag to play. But nnnnnope. Not so far. :-)

(And I'm not normally a real "base map" fan.)

I'll come back to drop individual map comments after I finish, I guess. But good job fellas.

One quick comment: it's nice to have the hipnotic lasergun to play with again. Something about its look/sound/dps gives it a knife-through-butter feel when you use it to hose down a group of small fry. 
#25 
Agree on the Laser Cannon, it feels just great. The Plasma Gun however, feels weak and slow :(

The whole pack, of course is great. So far played half of it.

The intention of having a tech-base versions of medieval monsters is understandable and it does work, but I have to say it feels kinda weird to see base-style looking monsters and sounds that are burned into my brain and associated with the medieval versions since the 90s. 
Oh Yeah Btw... 
it took me about 3 days to realize "alkaline" = "base" 
Seems To Be I Found Decision Of Sound Issues 
in Alkaline and AD using QSS. Settings of my Realtek HD audio device were set to 24 bit / 48000 Hz. After changing settings to 24 bit / 44100 Hz sound issues gone. 
#27 
God damnit!!! 
Dev Kit? 
When will the Dev kit come out. I have some ideas on maps and this looks perfect. 
About Weapons And Mobs 
Stormtroopers' blaster minigun good. I know it's from HIPNOTIC, but my gut feeling tells me it is actually from somewhere around SW Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II.
Doom's Plasma Gun/Heretic's Hellstaff - meh.
Chainsaw - Suprisingly good, finally I have something capable of actually killing knights/ogres in melee!

Lightsaber Knights - ok
Gasmasked bootcamped ogres with rocket launchers - cool.
Berserkers - great!
Cyborg fiends - lazy, should've had their own models, I expected full fobotic enemies in style of Boston Dynamics/Red Planet's AMEE.
AD Seekers - fine
Floyds - silly, but ok.
Arachnofloyd - great!
Melee and other grunts - ok.
Ogregon - Silly. Not IMPEL-level silly, yet still quite silly. Gore and gibs fountain is expecially fun.
Drone - cool, wait is he deflecting my nail-ah, nevermind.
Annihilator - now that's some interesting stuff.
Probe - cool.
Railgunner - cool.
Strogg scorpion - HIPNOTIC/10
Super Nailgunner - annoying, yet somehow fun to play against.
1.8 AD Plasmagunner with shields - more annoying than SNG-er, yet not so annoying as Vore.
Bambler - cool, when will we see baby shamblers that player could kidnap and use against other monsters like in Bloodshot's mod from modjam 2019? Actually imagine the whole quake episode about Ranger and Baby Shambler, with Nandalorian-like story? How cool it would be... https://imgur.com/a/KppaE9Z And baby shambler would grow into a bambler, then into a full blown shambler in the episode's final level, or a fire shambler from AD depending which ammo you will feed him, like rockets or powercells. 
Geez 
How good is this !? Cheers. Been ages since i've seen a top notch base pack. Rubicons textures really fit in, and a ridiculously powered plasma gun too. Only played two maps so far. 
Fantastic Stuff! 
I love the official mission pack stuff, I love the Rubicon stuff, I love Base maps and I love the new music.

I honestly don't have a bad word to say about this release. Well done, folks! 
@So Rangers Name's Jim? 
There are ZERO AD or Quoth enemies in this pack.

The Hunter (what you referred to as the Seeker) is a direct port from the Rubicon Rumble Pack. One of the few untouched code critters.

The Mega Enforcer (what you referred to as the AD Plasmagunner with Shields) is from good old Zerstorer, albeit with our personal changes (more visible plasma blast & rocket, spiraling homing missile, texture changes, fixed shield glitch, etc.)

Of course, AD also adopted these dudes & massaged them into their own variant, so I can definitely see where you were coming from! We tried to purposefully avoid AD & Quoth enemies and focus instead on older, open source mods, in order to bring our own identity to the mix.

Ogregon is slightly tweaked & fixed Armagon, as you probably guessed. We removed the "forehead cleavage" from the model and I textured his face with the ogre's (which I think looks less silly). Also, his rockets are equivalent in damage to the ogre marksman's, so he's not as OP as the original Armagon; however, he's still a force to be reckoned with!

Oh, the Bambler actually is short for Bald shAMBLER; however, he is 20% smaller and has higher pitched sounds, so I can also see how he could be interpreted as "Baby Shambler." Folks do find him quite cute! :)

Anyway, just a little trivia. I am glad that you're enjoying the mod! 
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