Cypher
I LEFT!
Posts: 129
Registered: 10-01 |
nn
Better.
Anyways, kinda hard to say. I'm working on beta v0.90 at the moment, so I'd say around 90%. There won't be much difference in what's already done between beta v0.90 and the final game, but it's what isn't in the beta that will make the last 10%. Right now we're primarily focused on the boss and his arena. Zaldron's making an entire texture set for the thing. I'm not sure who's going to design the actual level yet, but it's certainly not going to be me. If Joel is able to code all that we have planned, this just *might* be the most complex and toughest boss in a Doom game/addon yet.
For levels, most are 95% complete. I'm going through the entire game at the moment level-by-level and fixing anything and everything I can find wrong, including item placement, difficulty settings, texture offsets, odd/improper lighting and shadow angles, custom floor textures... the difficulty settings are taking FOREVER. For example, we have a double-pistol, which ranks between regular pistol and chaingun in terms of firepower. But all the maps starting with level 2 had chaingunners, which rendered it a somewhat useless weapon. So I had to remove most of the chaingunners from levels 2 to 5 and substitute them with other enemies, re-test the difficulty and all that. It's the testing that really makes it a lengthy process, 'cause if you're gonna get it right, you have to start from map01 each time. I just finished up to map06 this evening. I don't know how much time I'll spend on the rest. I'm still looking for somebody to tidy up maps 07-11. 21-25 are mine, so that leaves 12-20 that I have touchups to do on. Most of those are in pretty good order so the most I'll be doing there is adding monsters. One guy left a shitload of voids in his three maps, and I've corrected two of them so far. The third one won't take too long. It's a pain retexturing the entire level though.
After that I have to get the final engine setup organized, which includes intermission storylines and graphics for each level, mapname changes, enemy tweaks and AI programming, as well as level continuity changes, all of which have to be planned before we can begin implementing. Fortunately, these are all very simple things and easy to code (most consist of modifying existing variables), so this part won't take too long. We'll most likely be changing the engine to support 26 standard maps, 4 secret maps, and 9 DM levels.
Currently there is more music than maps, but finding which map to stick which song to is driving me nuts. All the music is really cool but it's not always appropriate for the mood of the maps. That's really my biggest hang-up right now.
Zaldron's on the textures and sprites. I never hear much from him besides "they're getting done", so ask him for specifics. From what I understand, it won't be too long until most of them are done. I've already gotten a few previews and they all look great.
I just realized about a week ago that there are NO new sounds for any of the new weapons or monsters. Fortunately Julian is able to help out here, so I don't have to worry about that any longer. I may make/modify a few when I get the soundpack from him, but I assume they'll be pretty final.
So, overall it's coming along quite nice, if a bit slow. When I get the next beta out I'll be getting some good feedback from the beta testers (who've been waiting almost 6 weeks now) and then it'll really pick up. After I've made any necessary changes they suggest and play through the game a final time, it'll be out.
And I can finally leave the basement again :)
Damn it Lüt! You finally have 6,000 posts! Holy shit! That's a lot of posts. Now we just have to wait for Deadnail to hit 3000 posts.
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11-07-01 07:34 
