| Tuesday, June 29, 1999 |
Of Arenas & Tournaments
This is bot related, if not Doom bot related: Apparently, id has included a limited, disabled version of the bot code in the Q3Test 1.05. A hack is out that allows you to enable the Q3Test 1.05 bots & frag away. The full story is here. The bots only use the Gauntlet & the machinegun, & have a few bugs: The bots apparently lose track of you when you are in the air. Jump around a lot, & they have trouble. Also, if you duck, they cannot shoot you with the machinegun--but only if you are the same elevation as the bot. If they are above or below you, they can hit you. Okay, on to something else . . . One mod I would love to see for one (all?) of our Doom ports is a Doom Arena / Doom Tournament type of thing. A ladder type thing, with bots, with people, with plenty of options like Unreal Tournament has like Domination, Assault, CTF (which is of course not unique to Unreal Tournament), etc. I have always preferred the DM game to SP, & I am very glad to see id & Epic going in this direction with their respective games. As for the Doom version, I could see Yoghurt coming up with something along these lines, as he is becoming a wellspring of bot mod ideas (Yoghurt, take a hint, eh?). I'll tell you right now, Unreal Tournament is looking very, very good, & it will be a tough choice to this or Q3. BTW, MTawney is working on his Q2DM1 wad, & plans to have a release party for it over at Doomserv this Friday. I remember when he & I were trying to make this map work for CTF with Fly's 2.3 Doombot. Well, it was too complex to be properly noded, so we kind of gave up. But it was still a great map, & a fine conversion of Quake2 DM1. Doom port technology (i.e. ZDoom has now made a more accurate representation possible, so go over to Doomserv for his release party later this week. On the same note, look for Qe1m1 at Doomserv--it is a good conversion, using the spiral staircase effect to reproduce the ramps. I am very impressed with what mappers are doing with ZDoom effects these days.
| Saturday, June 26, 1999 |
Cajun Testing
Bots work in network multiplayer now! Very good news. I recorded a demo with the current beta. I typed:
cajun -record botdemo -warp 1 -altdeath -nomonsters
& began to play. You add a bot in the game, but not from the console. You press "b" to add a bot. I got killed alot of time, but I got some frags too. It shows the bot scores like real players rankings. I remember that I got third place, which is good for me! :-)
| Thursday, June 24, 1999 |
State of the Cajun
I have a bit of news from Yoghurt about his progress of the next version of the Cajun Bot. I have some goals-
- Demo recording
- Improved teamplay
- Avoid running up close all the time (already fixed)
- Maybe some coop (but that takes time maybe wait )
- Use all the skills like ISP
- Cool Brains (some special things, I hope)
| Tuesday, June 22, 1999 |
New look of Yoghurt
An update of Yoghurt that he got the Cajun working again since the big crash. Also, Yoghurt gave his home page a new look, which is very nicely done. Yes, it is true that he also planning to do an additional mod for doom. Here's the word from Yoghurt re: the mod: Tonight I'm coding the mod.. I really got the most things in my head and I'm sure how to do things and all. Then there will be bot shaping up into version 1.0--then i'll celebrate and try make that clan program. It would be really fun.. Imagine,, popping up in windows when you start it: Clanmatches today:
"Concrete VS DeathRow 313-231 (whatever)
Big Ben left USD for the better clan DooMeD"
| Sunday, June 20, 1999 |
Call Me Sherlock :-P
Hmmmm.. I've had this new computer for ~ a month now, & I finally discovered that it has a 3d card! Don't I feel like a dork? It wasn't mentioned in the specs, & the device manager gives no clue, unless you know what to look for (which I didn't). A coworker advised to me try enabling 3d acceleration in one of my games to see if it indeed worked, as 3d cards are pretty much standard on new computers. Well, I was amazed to see how good Half-Life looked & played. The 3d acceleration world is a completely unknown culture to me. My initial attempts to set up GLQuake sent me reading up on wrappers (i.e. program that converts 3dfx calls to Direct3d calls to enable non-3dfx cards to run 3dfx-only games), which gave me a glimpse into some of the politics in the 3d card industry, as well as the dizzying plethora of drivers. Well, let me tell you that GLQuake is the stuff. I never knew that Quake could look that good & run that fast. & Jedi Knight runs so fast, even at maximum resolution, that I had to turn the mouse sensitivity way down. Even after trying out all these top-notch games in 3d accelerated splendor, I still found that Doom could match them all in sheer fun & playability. & thanks to all of you guys in the community, Doom just keeps getting better. If any of you have been watching the Half-Life bot scene (as I have), you will know that there are still no bots, due to a bug in the HL code which doesn't allow the fake client emulation. The handful of HL bots are currently held hostage until Valve releases the fixed code. You know what? Here is my prediction: the code fix will not be released until Team Fortress 2 (which will have bots) comes out. It would make sense from a business standpoint, as bot-hungry players will jump all over TF2, but there wouldn't be as much of a draw if HL & TFC bots were already freely available. British Export
One thing that I have long admired about the British Doomers is their mapping, which exemplifies a great balance of aesthetics & gameplay. If you have tried Brit11, you know what I am talking about. Well, Execution is still in the works by Brit Vicious Killer & his crew, featuring that great British mapping style, an emphasis on playability, as well as killer new sound effects & music. If you still haven't checked out their beta levels, you really owe it to yourself to give them a try--they rock.
| Thursday, June 17, 1999 |
Yoghurt is Hurting
Yoghurt has fallen on hard times atm:
My computer locked badly (couldn't get anything to work) assumed hardrive physical problems, but it wasn't that either.. scanned for viruses (no result) I have ended up with a 20% functional computer that locks now and then = ( But i'll take it back to 100%. Luckily i had plenty of backups of the cajun.. Im also going to make my own mod. (somewhat tired of only bot making)
What's that mod that he mentioned?
My new mod:
- There's Techno priest mode and normal mode.. in normal mode, you can fire your weapon normally in priest mode, you can spawn your own legions of monsters (to battle against other players/bots or player/bots monsters)
- The main idea with it is, you go around killing others monsters / players, while deploying troops with your techno priest rod at locations that need to be guarded (much ammo etc)..
- The most fun part (why im doing this in Doom and not another game) is that there can be a helluva lots of monsters in doom.. so there you go, among 100-200 friendly monsters (that you have created), searching for enemy monster hordes to storm and techno priests to take down. (once a techno preist "player" dies, it will be out of the game). I like the idea of leading armies.. (Red alert like Doom)
| Wednesday, June 16, 1999 |
Mellow Map
Yes, I finally tried my hand at mapping, & here is my very first map. It's a DM map, of course, & the layout was the most important thing to me as I was designing it. I wanted to make a map that flowed really well, & had great connectivity. There are some melee pits, as well as some sniper's nests. There are some dark tunnels where you can lurk to ambush unsuspecting Carnevils (heh), as well as a nice little rocket fighting room in the middle. Carnevil, of Skulltag fame, tested it out with me on Doomserv (what a bummer that the server's been down so much lately), & we had an amazing amount of fun running around that map. I was told that it was definitely the best first map he'd ever seen. We found that there are quite a few styles & strategies that you can use. It's big enough for lots of people, yet the layout allows even two people to find each other quickly. It uses Iikka's IKSPQ5 textures, thanks to Wildman. The textures aren't perfectly aligned, but I did make an effort to hook them up as well as I could in the time I was willing to spend on such details. Layout is king. Playability is paramount. And running RMB & Dshrink made such a difference in making it run better. BTW, if you intend to edit the map, you need to unshrink it, or contact me for the pre-shrunk version.
| Thursday, May 27, 1999 |
More Cajun News
Hmm, it looks like Yoghurt is going to fix the fact that bots run up close all the time. The remedy will be ISP (Instinct of Self Preservation, a parameter that can be found in the Cajun's bots.cfg file. -Capt.) based. Also, he's going for an "Estimate Enemy" thing that makes the bot more "smart", I guess. Yoghurt hates seeing it standing around getting whacked badly by a SSG because it's proud of its pistol. Well, He'll put an end to that, It's ISP Time for Yoghurt... Go check it out at his homepage very soon and wait for the next version of the cajun bot! I'll update when the cajun bot is released! :-) Cajun v.s. Doombot?!!!
Ok doomers out there, you know you love these bots...but whitch one od you like? Do ya like Doombot created by Fly, or Cajun Bot created by Yoghurt? Well? Please email me and do tell me of what's the best bot for doomlegacy! I'll count by the email's of "Doombot" and "Cajun" Please put those in subjuct: For example: "Cajun" Get the idea? :-) That's all I have for ya now, until next time... NOTE: I just set up a java-powered survey for this bot poll, which should have popped up when you loaded this page. If you don't run a java-enabled browser, then emailing ParadoX would be a good alternative for casting your vote
-Capt.
| Friday, May 28, 1999 |
Doombot 2.5 Beta Notes
Fly just sent me the latest from his workbench, the Doombot 2.5 beta. It features a new node system in which the nodes are placed by starting up the Doombot with certain parameters, & then you wander the map & place nodes by pressing the "B" key. He was somewhat secretive about what the parameter was for starting it up in node-making mode, but we'll all know how to do it when the time is right. Until then, to paraphrase Paul Masson, we shall place no nodes before it's time. In the meantime, he has already coded TNTGrievance map18 into the bot, & I must say that the new Doombot is very, very tough. It moves very quickly, dodges more than the Deathbot, & hits just as hard with killer aim. I tried the bots in map01 of the same wad, just to see how well they fared without the nodes in place, & they still kicked my butt. I was getting fragged 7-1 easily. Better turn that mouse sensitivity up to the maximum setting to keep aim on this bot. The bot doesn't get stuck at all as far as I can tell, & this is good, as the previous Doombot got stuck often, in the most inexplicable places, like right in the middle of a room. But that is now a thing of the past. Instead, it now roams & moves with all the fluidity you could want. There is now a new parameter, -addbot #, which will add up to 15 bots at startup. The bot can use teleporters & open doors! This door opening thing has eluded Fly for some time, & so it is great to see his bot now going through those doors. They don't activate switches--good thing, because one bot ran into the end level switch room, & then back out, without ending the level. The Doombot still can't go from level to level without crashing, so there is still that limitation to deal with. And so I really dont want to see the Doombot tripping that end level switch. & the bot should not IMO be allowed to trigger switches until the level changing crash bug has been fixed. Also, one thing that has annoyed me to no end has been fixed. The old Doombot would not allow you to pick up weapons if you had already picked up that weapon, until the next time you respawned. This meant that you could not get more ammo by picking up that weapon again when it respawned, which was very, very annoying. Well, now you can, so you don't run out of ammo on those maps where the mapper didn't bother to leave any ammo lying around. Heh, it seems that all the older bots are getting tougher these days. The Cajun used to be a pushover until 0.71 came out. The Doombot was the second easiest. Now, it seems that the Deathbot is the easiest bot, because the new Doombot absolutely smokes it. Too bad it's not DDF compatible . . . Dusty botdesc.htm
Heh, one thing I have been really negligent in is keeping that botdesc.htm up to date. It has some major cobwebs, & needs some major updating. Sorry, folks. I'll have to do that soon.
| Thursday, May 27, 1999 |
Cajun Update! (another released!)
Yes! At Yoghurt's homepage of his latest version 0.71 is now also available. He adds a few fixes over the 0.70. Now it also includes all files, includes the a new bots.cfg which sets the bots weapon preferring (fixes the "only use pistol" bug = ). So go get the latest right now and start playing!!! :-)
| Thursday, May 27, 1999 |
Cajun 0.71 Notes
Woah, this bot is looking incredibly slick. It has functional teamplay that I just tried out. Bots that spawn the same color as you are on your team, as are any of the same skin as you, You set this with -teamplay 1 for color, -teamplay 2 for skins. CTF is in place, but unfinished. Thankfully, it is supposed to be compatible with Fly's Doombot CTF maps, which have been in production for a while now. The documentation in this version is the best I've ever seen for the Cajun or back when it was also called the Doombot (which caused some initial confusion). All the parameters are well explained. Heh, nevertheless, I will redundantly enumerate a few of them here. Another great new feature is that you can specify it to start with bots from the command line using -bots botname botname, which is a great step toward making this bot demo capable, which I have yet to test out. You can play with the freeze feature by invoking the console command allow_freeze 1 & then pressing "p" during the game. Very interesting--blood drops float in midair, & then fall to the ground when you unfreeze. "The Bot & the Gold Watch", anyone? I was amazed to get fragged by a bot which had the berserk powerup & sucker-punched me! This is the first time I have seen a bot get a frag in a close-range attack. Amazing. Did I mention that the dehacked support is great? I'm getting into ROKS all over again. The Cajun is currently the only bot that remembers to keep the bots from one level to the next, which is very nice, as you can exit one map & the bots will follow you to the next map. Set up the -timer parameter for how many minutes you want to spend in each map, & you have yourself a sweet run through a dm megawad! Outstanding! The Cajun used to be the easiest bot to fight, but that is not the case any more. This bot can smack you around pretty well, though it will still sometimes charge you kamikaze-style, but I think this is configurable via the ISP (Instinct of Self Preservation) setting in bots.cfg. The Cajun used to have terrible roaming, but now it is excellent, especially since it can use a nodetable. Invoke nodes 1 in the console, & then roam around the level on your own, making sure to go to all the areas on the map where you want the bot to go. Then, invoke nodes 0 or save. Now, the bot knows the map as well as you do! & Even if you don't use the nodetable, the Cajun roams very well. Yoghurt recommends that when you are building the nodetable, you should not go to the same locations twice. All in all, I am ecstatic to see this bot has come so far from its humble beginnings, & the fact that they are porting it to DosDoom makes my heart soar like an eagle, Little Big Man.
| Tuesday, May 25, 1999 |
Cajun Bot v0.70 for Doomlegacy v1.28 (Dos version)
A new Cajun? That's right! It has the same features as in the last, but it's in Legacy 1.28. It's available at Yoghurt's homepage (only the .exe)! You'll need the files from v0.68 for it to work.
NOTE: This version is only for Dos (that means no 3dfx but still runnable through windows). The reason? Yoghurt has no win32 compiler that goes with Legacy 1.28. Sorry folks, but maybe he will get Fab to compile it for him. Only the known "SIGSEVS" occur when monsters are around. Yoghurt will fix that one soon. Until then...go to his page and download his NEW CAJUN BOT DOS VERSION!
| Monday, May 24, 1999 |
I Stand Corrected
Yoghurt was curious if the dehacked support was indeed still not working for his latest Cajun bot, & wouldn't you know that I hadn't tested it out on the latest version of the Cajun? Well, rest assured that now the Cajun does just fine with running ROKS. I traded off playing against Doombots & Cajun Bots in ROKS, & they both played very well. These bots are both quite capable, although I would love to see the Cajun do CTF . . .
| Saturday, May 22, 1999 |
Up From the Ashes
Fly has been feverishly rebuilding his Doombot since the source code was thrashed by the Chernobyl virus. ParadoX has word on the current status: Fly's Doombot next version...
I just had a chat with Fly and he told me about his next version of his bot. In the next version bots will be very clever. Fly was playing his favourite map with one bot. (new version) The bot got 20 frags but Fly.... only 12 :-) He's play doombot v2.4 on this map tntgrvnc.wad. He told me how many frags he get. And here's his frags. :-)
I played on the tntgrvnc.wad map18
the new version: Fly - 12 frags, Bot - 20
v2.4 Fly - 20, Bot - 16
He wanted to use Legacy v1.28 as a base for his next version but he can't compile it correctly...Fly told me that 3Dfx mode doesn't work :-( But he have to wait for the next version of the Legacy. May be it will work. Denis Fabrice uses MS Visual C++ v6.0 for it but Fly have only v5.0. I need v6.0! :-(
Sounds good to me! Bring it on, Fly. On another note, ParadoX mentioned that he is working on his own dehacked-based Star Wars Trilogy TC, using some material from a few previous TC's, Swdoom2 and Sw TC Storm.wad. He also mentions his disappointment that it didn't work well with the Cajun. this is something I had observed a while back when trying Fanatic's mods with the Cajun. Silly rabbit, dehacked is for Doombots! The Doombot is the only bot for running dehacked mods. Cajun has some problems with running any dehacked mods, that is, until they can fix it. This is actually DosDoom-related, but since I'm feeling lazy I'll just put it here. I have noticed that in DosDoom 0.654 beta that the deathmatch weapons now appear during deathmatch! This may not sound newsworthy, but Dagger for one was quite put off by a bug in DosDoom 0.653 whereby deathmatch (that is, with the "no single play" flag set) weapons would not appear during dm, which means that no weapons would appear in Dm on the stck Doom.wad & Doom2.wad maps. No biggie, as I am usually playing some much better dm maps, which usually never have the weapons set to "no single play". But anyway, Dagger, if you're reading this, your pet peeve with DosDoom has been fixed.
| Saturday, May 15, 1999 |
Cajun / DosDoom "Merger" Clarification
The Cajun team is not "merging" with the DosDoom team per se. They are simply going to "DosDoomify" the Cajun Bot. Our team has been admiring the Cajun Bot for some time, & we have wanted to see some of the Cajun code replace some of the Deathbot's code. The Cajun may wind up replacing the Deathbot as the internal bot in DosDoom, though there has been discussion of having different ai modules in the internal bot code to allow the spawning of different type bots within a game. And lest any other people freak out that the Cajun is going to become a DosDoom only bot, let me remind you that Yoghurt is taking steps to make the Cajun code more portable across the board, which means that the future may see a Cajun Bot for every port: Legacy, DosDoom, ZDoom, Boom, MBF, etc. etc. BTW, that TronicDM sound patch is sweet, especially on my new machine's sound card, which has more features than I have bothered to look into. I always enjoy decent new sounds in a DM experience, like I have heard in the Execution or Horizons maps or New Breed, & this TronicDm sound patch is intense.
| Thursday, May 13, 1999 |
Cajun Happenings
I tried out Afterglow's latest map, Sacrifice 3, with the big three bots: Doombot, Cajun Bot, & Deathbot. Let me first say that I am very glad to see that he got away from the Boom-only direction he was heading with Sacrifice 2, & has gone back to a more universally compatible map. I really want to see some ZDoom bots, so I can actually check out these Boom DM maps sometime. But until then . . . no Boom DM maps for me. Surprisingly, the (latest) Cajun was very passive. In fact, it wouldn't even shoot or acknowledge my presence. I wonder if the layout of the map had anything to do with it. Also, the Cajun respawned in the same point many, many times in a row. Since I was standing right there with a plasma gun, I mowed the poor bot down again & again . . . it got pretty old after a while. Spawning another bot caused telefrags. I have to check how many repawns there are in this map . . . With ports these days, you really need a lot of them . . . The Deathbot was its same twitchy self, but on this new computer its twitchiness is smoothed out quite a bit. It was the best fighter of them all, & it actually seemed to hunt me through the map. The Doombot was good, as you would expect. Now of course, I can now run all these bots at hi-res with extremely smooth framerates, so sorry, Afterglow, I can no longer relate to the massive slowdown the Cajun used to give me. The Cajun Bot is going to be Yoghurt's school project next Fall. Pretty cool, eh? The latest development for the Cajun is splitscreen mode, & a migration to the Legacy 1.28 codebase. Expect to see this bot become more portable--a very good thing. Seems that Thomas Sturm of Desktop Doom etc. is a little bent that the Cajun is being ported over to DosDoom. He seems concerned that his Super Legacy Launcher won't support it. no worries, Thomas, I'm sure that Yoghurt has no plans to abandon the Legacy platform. He's just expanding to the other ports. Let's hope he does a ZDoom version soon.
| Sunday, May 09, 1999 |
Yoghurt Cajun bot and Dosdoom bot?
A another word from Yoghurt that his coming up plan is, join with DosDoom team, develop a super nice bot, that is based on the same code stuff as the player itself, makes it easy to port to other ports (cajun in every port wadja thinks= ) Right now he's getting the DosDoom thing to work. So this is the progress of all that he's doing. Stay tuned on that! :-)
Progress? ZDoom bot? Theirs isn't that much to tell on his progress acept the part of Yoghurt is making his same bot, based on Doomlegacy, into DosDoom. Hmmm...two Doomlegacy bots and two DosDoom bots... one of Yoghurt's is coming up soon...and where's Zdoom bot?! Like Captain Mellow said, Captain and myself wanted to see a upcoming Zdoom bot. We want to see a bot for ZDoom out soon! That will be cool and nice! :-)
| Thursday, May 06, 1999 |
On a Diet
The page, that is. I finally archived the news, which has been needed for a looooong time now. The old news is here. As I have been visiting the different TFC servers & picking up games, I have been surprised at how consistently I have been at either 1st or 2nd place in the scores for either team. I don't consider myself to be a great dm'er, but if you see my scores, you would think that I was. One reason for this could simply be all the practice that I have gotten from playing against the Doombot, Cajun Bot, & Deathbot. I think the faster pace of Doom dm makes TFC seem to go in slow-motion for the most part, making it pretty easy to dodge enemy fire & run right through defenses like MJ taking it to the hole. I have heard people complain about the difficulty of the Doombot & Deathbot, & it's true that they have killer aim. & the Deathbot is aggravating because it doesn't stand still. But any good dm'er will tell you that you should not stand still, & if you're playing a good dm'er, he will be dodging around incessantly. I think that it is good to practice against difficult bots for the simple reason that you won't improve unless you are challenged. In a sport, the practices should be brutal--far worse than the actual game will be, so that the player's endurance will last throughout the entire game. I believe that practicing with difficult bots will make you a better dm'er against real players. Imagine how easy it is to deal with a human player who doesn't consistently dodge well, who you can hide from, run past before he can aim properly, sneak up behind, etc. after dealing with a bot that has perfect aim & vision, & in the case of the Deathbot, will dodge around constantly. Add to that the extra speed of Doom as compared to TFC, & I would contend that Doomers have a definite edge over a lot of players who cut their teeth on Quake2 or HL. In TFC, it's a turkey shoot. Play as a scout & you will literally run circles around these guys. I have routinely run right through a crowd of opponents in the warden's office in the Rock map to get the key, & these guys just stand around & shoot at where I was a split-second ago. Backpedal for an instant to let their demoman set off his trap, & then run right through as the explosion dissipates. The only thing that will daunt me is a sentry gun, & that's what teammates are for. Anyway, I know that there are some other Doomers who do TFC. Let's all form up a team & represent the Doom community at these TFC servers.
| Tuesday, May 04, 1999 |
Changed My Tune
Heheheh it's funny how having a different machine can change one's entire outlook on things pertaining to Doom. I just finished running Gothic98.wad in ZDoom at 640x480 rez, & it was as smooth as running E1M1 at 320x200. I am amazed at how well everything sounds on better speakers, & how great everything looks while I still get a smooth framerate. I really want to see a ZDoom bot come out soon, so I can play bots in Gothic98 & Reclamation. Highly detailed maps are no longer a detriment to gameplay for me. How well something performs on a slower machine will no longer be something that I can assess, but that is an ability I won't miss. TFC is the bomb. I've been quite proccupied with it lately, & am holding my own surprisingly well on the scoreboard. If any of you other Doomers want to get together on a TFC server, let me know. Maybe we can form a little team of TFC-playing Doomers. Help me represent! TFC Peeves
People who aren't team players. I dropped out of a game when my team in the Canal Zone was more proccupied with staying inside the fort & blowing each other up than going out securing command points. Bad strategy. Seeing a HW guy trying to run the flag in Canal Zone is sad. Having a demoman on your team in the Rock who won't go set a detpack in the tunnel under the enemy prison to give you underground access is frustrating. I'd love to get on a good team sometime, rather than just doing these pick-up games.
| Sunday, May 02, 1999 |
Cajun Beta Released
Cajun Bot V0.68 beta released by ParadoX...as is.
The word from Yoghurt from yesterday was that I should release this latest bot v0.68. So, you doomers have the latest legacy v1.28, this version is only v1.25, the old version for playing the bot. If you still have the the older legacy version, either re-installing it, or just make a new file called, "Legacy," folder without the ". Anyway, here's it is, the latest Cajun Bot V0.68 and you can download it here at Captain Mellow's Bot Page: Cajun Bot V0.68 Beta! (NOTE: THIS VERSION HAS NO FIXED SSG RELOADING SOUND AS IS YET! :-( )
What's in the zip file:
What's the latest features?:
- Cajun.exe (The main cajun bot program)
- Cajun.bat (Short cut or running the program)
- bots.cfg (The bot cfg file)
- You can edit the bots aiming, perfection, reaction, isp, all of those can be created by 0-100 and the bot's colors 0-10.
- The bot.cfg is included in the cajun v068 too!
The samething at my own page, a long information of Cajun bot, but same update: http://www.doomworld.com/mellow/ParadoX.htm
Installation:
Installing the bots.cfg:
- First you unzip the cajun v068.zip. (should only have the Cajun.exe inside)
- Rename the Legacy folder into, "Cajun," without the ".
- Put the Cajun.exe in your new folder Cajun.
- Copy the doom3.wad and rename it, Cajun.wad
- There, you shouldn't have any problems now, that's it! Just run it by typing: Cajun -warp 1 -(Either altdeath or deathmatch) -skill 4 -nomonsters
- The Cajun.bat is included in the Cajun V068.zip file. :-)
So this is ONLY a beta, you will see some bugs and lots of cool features. Don't worry about the bugs and crashes sometimes, let me do the worry. :-) So, there you have it, once you downloaded it, go re-install the doom Legacy, the older version and go play it!!! Email me and tell me what do ya think. :-) If ya having problems email me and I'll try to help you. There, now go fragging!!!
- Make another folder like the previous onel like this, c:\doom2\cajun\cajun
You have to create the two Cajun folder for playing the bot with bots.cfg file- Then, just put the bots.cfg file in the second cajun folder in it.
- That's it!!! When you run the game, adding a bot just pressing "b" Spawning different colors and names of the bot!
Cajun Bot progress of now...
For right now he's re-coding the bot and just to get use of the player_t structure (code thing) so i can include features like splitscreen etc. Maybe using the Doom Legacy V1.28...but kinda messy and state right know. That's all of his progress today!
A great job done by ParadoX. Thanks, bud.
Capt.
| Saturday, May 01, 1999 |
Cajun Progress
Word from Yoghurt is that the SSG sound problem has been fixed. I'll have to see the latest beta to confirm this, though.
| Wednesday, April 28, 1999 |
Another One Bites the Dust
And another one's down, another one's down, another one bites the dust. Doombot 2.4 source is lost, & Fly is very cross! Hey! Hey! Ahem. Sorry about the singing. This CIH virus is making its rounds like the angel of death. I was racing against time Sunday night, downloading a virus scanner & running it before midnight struck. Thank God everything was cool for me . . . though I would rather my own hard drive got thrashed than Fly's, because I think that Doombot 2.4 sournce was much more important than anything on my own hard drive . . . On a hopeful note, he does still have the 2.4 beta source, so hopefully he won't have too much trouble rebuilding (~3.5 hours of work).
| Tuesday, April 27, 1999 |
Cajun Inside Story
I have enlisted the services of bot newshound / Cajun Bot insider ParadoX to help cover the bot news. His debut article on the Cajun Bot was so long that I had to give him his own page. ParadoX has an enthusiasm that will be evident as you read, & he has a lot of inside info on the Cajun, being the beta tester for that bot that he is. Look for his future, more succinct articles on this main page. (ahem) A Gateway Essential 366c is on its way from the Dakotas to my house. I have hopes of successfully overclocking its Celeron CPU to 450+, though I have never before attempted such a feat. I may find myself somewhat distracted as I experience HL in a much higher framerate than I am accustomed to.
| Sunday, April 25, 1999 |
Cajun Update
Yoghurt reports that the Cajun bot will play co-op next version (huh? I thought it already did when you started it in SP mode), shoot monsters in dm, get hurt by slime (it really needs a lava/slime avoidance routine like Fly's bot does), use all powerups & the chainsaw, & lead its shots with the rl & plasma. It just keeps getting better . . .
Wildpack is Doombot 2.4 optimized
They don't call him the Wildman for nothing! I knew he would jump right on this. Here it is. You'd better name it wildpack2.zip so you don't overwrite your original Wildpack. BTW, Fly says that it is now possible to place up to 40 nodes in a map rather than the limit of 20 nodes in the 2.3 version of the bot . . .
Frog, er, Doombot Agony & Ecstacy
Agony: Now, this was disappointing to me. I eagerly downloaded the version 2.4 of Fly's Doombot, expecting to see some of the performace I saw in the test version he shared with me a few weeks ago, plus some new fixes. What I discovered was seriously bad--no mouse! It seems that installing that Legacy 1.28 had killed my setup somehow, & even after re-installing 1.25, I had no mouse. It didn't matter if I ran straight doom3.exe or the doombot, the mouse just wasn't working. & not having the mouse working made me want to just hang it up for the night. I don't expect any of you keyboarders to pity me, but you fellow mousers know how devastating this can be. I would warn anybody against installing the new Legacy 1.28 if they want to be able to play the Doombot afterwards. I finally got it to work, but only after deleting c:\doom2\*.* & starting with a fresh re-installation of Doombot 1.24. Nasty! Now, then--the co-op mode is fun, but the bots don't follow you around. They are very independent, & they don't seem to roam the level too much. The ctf mode is pretty similar--nothing much new that I noticed. Ecstacy: But what has been really improved is the deathmatch! When you fire up map01 or map07, you will notice immediately that the bot will greet you. But far more importantly, this thing moves like a dream. It uses the nodes that Fly has set up in those 2 maps (look in dbot.wad), & it is uncanny how well the bot patrols these maps & gets to the powerups & weapons. And why not, it knows the map as well as any seasoned Doomer! I am truly impressed. This is the most like a real deathmatch that I have ever experienced with a bot. Fly, congratulations! You have again raised the bar for the other bots. Your bot now rocks as hard as the Frogbot for Quake does, & it is much easier to code nodes for your bot than it is for the Frogbot (which is impossible unless you are the author of the Frogbot, heh). Now, for the best kind of performance, you will have to set up nodes in your favorite dm maps. So get busy folks (coughWildmancough ;-) ), & send me some links to any maps that are optimized for Doombot 2.4.
Wanna Upgrade Blues
Heh, I just came back from a friend's house with an armload of my gaming magazine cd's. He has a new Celeron 336 or whatever, & I was amazed at how well it ran all the game demos that I can't run on my own decrepit Cyrix MediaGX-150. Quake2 ran like a dream, not the slideshow I was accustomed to. Jedi Knight was as smooth as silk. Wow. The Shogo demo was breathtaking. I was so impressed with this that I would definitely get it before I got Quake2. It was lightning fast, & the graphics were gorgeous. The explosions in the mecha level were the most intense of any FPS I have ever seen--over the top! After all that gaming delight, I am now home at my sluggish, aging MediaGX with its dim, dying monitor that is too dark even at the brightest setting. Back to getting a slow framerate even in hi-res Doom. I am really, really interested in upgrading now. & that Celeron 300 seems to be an exceptional bargain, because you can reliably overclock it to at least 400mhz.
| Saturday, April 17, 1999 11:04 AM |
Ack!
It's a bummer, cuņado. I just tried out Legacy 1.28, & it is extremely broken on my machine. Notice that I said on my machine. It crashes within moments of starting a level. I am depressed. Guess I'll have to reinstall the older Legacy to finish Batman Doom . . . The launcher is nice, but I still say the c:\> prompt in a dos box is my favorite launcher. All the pointing & clicking gets annoying. I use keyboard shortcuts a lot to get around Windows, & nothing beats cranking out exactly what you want in a command line in a moment (clackety-clak) rather than hunting through a bunch of browse windows & dropdown lists, & fiddling with radio buttons (hmmmm.... click . . .hmmmmm..... click . . . .). & I can always plug some batch files into my start menu if I want some single-click launching. But the launcher does have its merits, so I am not going to get down on it too much. It sounds like Legacy is going to get into the DDF act soon, as is ZDoom. This is great, though I will be sad to see some of the distinctiveness of these different ports be somewhat diminished. Legacy has some of the very best dehacked support, & I would hate to see that disappear. But then there's nothing to stop us from running an older version, so what's the point of griping?
| Friday, April 16, 1999 12:59 PM |
State of the beta Doombot
I just finished trying out the test version of Fly's Doombot:
You can set up static nodes within a DM map to enhance the bot's navigation, like the Frogbot for Quake. Unlike the Frogbot, the latest Doombot can still make its way around non-noded maps (but not as well). This means that you can set up maps for the Doombot to navigate more like a player than any other Doom bot. Static node-based navigation has its limitations, but it has some major strengths as well. This is not completely new for the Doombot, as static nodes are necessary for the CTF function of the Doombot, but it has now been implemented in DM as well. The bot is more talkative in DM, like the Cajun. It does co-op! Yes, there is a -coop parameter. Spawned bots will use the co-op player starts & run around battling monsters. CTF is broken. Whoops, only you & a red bot spawn now. You will probably have to use addbluebot at the console. I'm sure Fly will fix this before it goes public. Unlike the Cajun & the Deathbot, it doesn't open doors or activate switches yet.
BatBots
You know I had to try Batman Doom with the Doombot, right? If you haven't tried it yet, you will be truly freaked out--but not in all the right ways. There were some problems. First, let me say that Batman Doom is the best TC I have seen in a very, very long time, maybe ever. If you know me, you know that I am not a big single player fan. But Batman Doom has brought me back to single player. It is outstanding. The missions you are given really make you feel like you are the caped crusader. Is it just me, or does it seem like most of the bad guys in this game are black? Hmmmmm . . . does Batman swap his cape for a pointy white hood on the weekends? Anyway, I tried running the Doombot with the batman wad & deh, & with bothered. The most bizarre thing was the presence of these orange cones that crawled all over the place. According to Carlos, those cones are meant to move around, but they are penned in by impassible linedefs in the Batman levels. But in BOThered.wad, they are running free . . . The weapons were great, except that the BFG replacement is not meant for deathmatch. It was meant only for the final battle in Batman Doom, & switching from it to another weapon will result in you getting a "you didn't fight Bane with your fists" message, & you will be unable to choose any more weapons until you restart. I will be making this weapon more DM-friendly for sure. Anyway, Carlos gave me the okay to port the Batman Doom weapons over to DDF for use with the Deathbot in a DM mod. Very cool, & I will start work on that shortly.
| Saturday, April 03, 1999 11:33 AM |
New Map
Ahh, it's been a while since I've taken the time to try bots on a new dm map, & Afterglow's Sacrifice is a fine map indeed. Its asymmetrical layout reminds me of the classic map30 of Gothic2.wad. I appreciate Afterglow's plan to release the maps as soon as they're completed He mentions trying it out with the Deathbot at his page, & I agree that it does like to hang around that exit. Its killer aim & the tremendous slowdown I experienced on my machine made my experience with the Deathbot on this map a tough one. I think the slowdown is a result of the amount of linedefs visible at a time. Some Gothic2 maps had the same effect, as did the yet-unreleased House of Pain . . . I stood a much better chance against the Doombot on that map, though the Doombot got stuck quite often. I could often count on finding it standing motionless amidst the pillars, but it still was more playable than the Deathbot, since the Doombot has the least slowdown. I still haven't tried the Cajun on it yet . . . This isn't completely related, but I noticed that there is a secret door to the outside area of RageDM map03 when the Deathbot found it for me . . .
| Thursday, April 01, 1999 07:06 AM |
Back in Black
I added an info area for the Deathbot while I was on vacation. I'll have to catch up on everything since I've been gone. Being off-line for almost a week makes me wonder what's been happening.