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Murdoch

Can I have... :P

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Working on the Spear of Destiny mod, I have some requests...

1. Can the Doom II "cast call" be turned off with a map header command? It doesn't really make sense in SoD, plus a trick Laz used to make the ghosts regenerate as they do in the original game means you can't go past the lost soul anyway.

2. The original game ended with a series of 320x200 graphics, each slide being dismissed and the next shown by the player pressing a key. I can remember trying to do this back when I coded the original engine but it crashed the game. How hard would it be to add this to Eternity? This is not important but would be nice.

3. I know weapon definitions are being worked on, but just as an FYI here is what I would like to see...
- Change the ammo type a weapon uses (I swear this used to be possible with DEH but can't find a reference anywhere)
- Change the ammo type incremented by an ammo pickup
- Decrease the number of pellets fired by the shotgun

The weapon changes would be nice but not necessary. Basically in the original port, the shotgun became the machine gun, and the chaingun and pistol remained as is. So what Laz did is he made shell and bullet pickups look identical, and distributed them evenly throughout the maps. Ideally I would like to get all three weapons using the same ammo, and rather than modify the levels get the ammo pickups behaving the same way.

Decreasing the number of pellets the shotgun fires will let me bring the weapon more in line with the original game in terms of damage. As it stands now it pretty much slaughters everything.

I am actually downloading the original game source code now to see how practical it is to give the weapons and enemies similar damage values, to try and restore the original game's balance.

I think that's all... for now :D

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JoelMurdoch said:

2. The original game ended with a series of 320x200 graphics, each slide being dismissed and the next shown by the player pressing a key. I can remember trying to do this back when I coded the original engine but it crashed the game. How hard would it be to add this to Eternity? This is not important but would be nice.

I've been bugging quas about reading keyboard input for the longest heh. But I can think of a way to do this using hud widgets. You could create a final map with the player in front of a usable line and then have that line call appropriate hud widget functions and display your image lumps when used.

Not the most elegant thing in the world but it should work.

For that matter I think this might work to obscure the role call at the end of doom2. Not really sure if it's possible to call scripts during that part.

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Interesting idea amaster but let's see if something more elegant can be found :)

Another question - is there a way to change the message shown when the player is about to quit?

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JoelMurdoch said:

Working on the Spear of Destiny mod, I have some requests...

1. Can the Doom II "cast call" be turned off with a map header command? It doesn't really make sense in SoD, plus a trick Laz used to make the ghosts regenerate as they do in the original game means you can't go past the lost soul anyway.

2. The original game ended with a series of 320x200 graphics, each slide being dismissed and the next shown by the player pressing a key. I can remember trying to do this back when I coded the original engine but it crashed the game. How hard would it be to add this to Eternity? This is not important but would be nice.

3. I know weapon definitions are being worked on, but just as an FYI here is what I would like to see...
- Change the ammo type a weapon uses (I swear this used to be possible with DEH but can't find a reference anywhere)
- Change the ammo type incremented by an ammo pickup
- Decrease the number of pellets fired by the shotgun

The weapon changes would be nice but not necessary. Basically in the original port, the shotgun became the machine gun, and the chaingun and pistol remained as is. So what Laz did is he made shell and bullet pickups look identical, and distributed them evenly throughout the maps. Ideally I would like to get all three weapons using the same ammo, and rather than modify the levels get the ammo pickups behaving the same way.

Decreasing the number of pellets the shotgun fires will let me bring the weapon more in line with the original game in terms of damage. As it stands now it pretty much slaughters everything.

I am actually downloading the original game source code now to see how practical it is to give the weapons and enemies similar damage values, to try and restore the original game's balance.

I think that's all... for now :D


The cast call can be disabled, but you'll need *some* kind of finale to occur to end the game. Now that the finale type for a map can be specified in EMAPINFO, I've been meaning to add a "slideshow"-type finale where pressing space takes you through multiple fullscreen pics. I'll add this for you :) However, it is also possible to customize the behavior of the DOOM II cast call via EDF. You can make fake copies of enemies that use different frames so that they don't break the sequence, for example.

You must currently use DeHackEd to edit weapon ammo, since EDF doesn't have a weapon definition system yet. Ammo type incremented by a pickup item is controlled by what effect the pickup item uses. This currently is editable via EDF in the most rudimentary of manners.

Decreasing pellets fired by the shotgun is possible by using the parameterized player gun codepointer FireCustomBullets. You'll have to look it up in the codeptrs.html reference (it may also be documented on the Wiki, but I'm not sure if I've gotten that far down the list yet).

To override the randomized quit message strings, replace the BEX string with mnemonic QUITMSG. You can only specify one custom message, however, not a randomized set of them.

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Quasar said:

The cast call can be disabled, but you'll need *some* kind of finale to occur to end the game. Now that the finale type for a map can be specified in EMAPINFO, I've been meaning to add a "slideshow"-type finale where pressing space takes you through multiple fullscreen pics. I'll add this for you :) However, it is also possible to customize the behavior of the DOOM II cast call via EDF. You can make fake copies of enemies that use different frames so that they don't break the sequence, for example.


Right, good thinking.

You must currently use DeHackEd to edit weapon ammo, since EDF doesn't have a weapon definition system yet. Ammo type incremented by a pickup item is controlled by what effect the pickup item uses. This currently is editable via EDF in the most rudimentary of manners.


Ah, I thought DEH could do it. I'll have to look harder for some reference.

Decreasing pellets fired by the shotgun is possible by using the parameterized player gun codepointer FireCustomBullets. You'll have to look it up in the codeptrs.html reference (it may also be documented on the Wiki, but I'm not sure if I've gotten that far down the list yet).


That's what I was trying to remember! I had a feeling you had done something along these lines.

To override the randomized quit message strings, replace the BEX string with mnemonic QUITMSG. You can only specify one custom message, however, not a randomized set of them.


Any chance of that being expanded?

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More...

- Ability to adjust the amount of time it takes when you start the game to go from the title to the demo. The music track is much longer than Doom's.
- I must admit a scoring system appeals. Does small and hud scripting make it possible?
- I'm moving as much of the DEH to EDF as possible, but cannot seem to find an EDF equivalent for the Reaction time variable from DEH
- Need an option to block or change the sounds played when the game is exited. Very weird to be playing Wolfenstein and having the archville cry play upon exit

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I tried to remove the lost soul and player from the cast call in cast.edf, but it threw the whole thing off. The pain elemental came in place of the lost soul and it was all wrong from then on. Is there something else I need to change?

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You need to specify names for the things if you change the order. The default behavior for the first 17 cast members is to use the name strings defined via BEX. If you just want to change the names of the first 17, you can edit the BEX strings. Otherwise, you will need to define the castorder list and override the things whose names you want to change.

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JoelMurdoch said:

3. I know weapon definitions are being worked on, but just as an FYI here is what I would like to see...
- Change the ammo type a weapon uses (I swear this used to be possible with DEH but can't find a reference anywhere)
- Change the ammo type incremented by an ammo pickup
- Decrease the number of pellets fired by the shotgun


OK got all these bases covered. Used DEH to change the shotgun to use bullets, used Doom Builder's find and replace to change all the shell ammo pickups to bullets, and used FireCustomBullets to change the pellets as mentioned above.

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Whew! Got all the DEH possible into EDF and EMAPINFO. The only stuff left in the DEH now is a few text strings, weapon configuration, player tweaks (max health etc) and cheat changes.

I've got EMAPINFO changing level names, musics, intermission music, finale setups and secret exits. All the thing and frame definitions are now in EDF, with the hit points from the original game at the Bring 'em On level. Interesting thing about Wolf is the enemy hit points changed based on skill level, not just the number and placement of the enemies. Laz laid out the enemies based on the Death Incarnate skill level and didn't fine tune for other skills, and since Doom's damage model is less forgiving than Wolf's I thought it best to use the Bring 'em On hit points.

Time to play test both games side by side to tweak the little details, get the player weapon behavior and damage as close as possible.

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