How popular is Co-op?

I've been watching a lot of old-war movies lately (Band of Brothers, Enemy at the Gates, Saving Private Ryan, etc.) and also playing games like D-Day: Normandy ( http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~dday/site/ ). It got me thinking about making something similiar for DOOM. It would be a co-op squad trying to retake a large facility, initially just trying to obliterate the perimeter defenses composed of machine gun nests, cybers raining rockets down, aracno's firing plasma everywhere... I was also thinking of making it like D-Day where you choose your class of player and then enter the game with just that weapon. That way before laying seige you have to figure out how many rocketgun players you need for attacking the outer defenses and how many chaingunners and shotgunners you need to retake the building. I know it would be extremely controversial but I think in order for something like this to work I'd have to cut the players speed in half atleast.

But before I get into that, are their enough people that would want to play this to make it worth the effort? Or should I forget about it and just play D-Day: Normandy? :p

I think some kind of new team deathmatch game would be fun, something where players have to choose ahead of time what kind of weapons they'll have as they battle the other team. I've already got a simple attack and defend map worked out where a single player with the aid of a bunch of monsters has to keep all the other players from taking the base for a certain amount of time. That way you can do it with as few as 3 or 4 players and it can all easily be done with BOOM.

I see many of such movies too and I like your idea. Id for sure would try it out, but if I would play it depends on how well-done it is.

What are you planning in development? I mean; Will you make your own engine (based off from another) or stick to scripting (which sounds like an impossible job with classes and such)?

Oh no, I can do all that I want with BOOM. With the start positions being static everything should work fine in co-op mode with freindly fire turned on. Players spawn in the center of small corridors, a the beginning of the round you choose to attack or defend by going either left or right. By doing this you seal off the other direction making your choice permanent, now which ever way you chose will be the only one available each time you respawn. After you go down one side or the other you'll choose what weapon class to be and teleport onto the feild. If there's enough interest I'll make a version for Legacy with onscreen menus for choosing class and stuff, but it'll be more popular if it can be used on any BOOM capable port.

If I can get the BFG to shoot medkits there'll even be a medic class. :p

The map is coming along nicely and one person will be able to command the hellspawn quite nicely. They'll be able to attack the attackers and also put new spawn in the gun nests after they're killed, not to mention send 'troops' onto the feild to engage the attackers. I'm going to be beefing up the spawn though, they'll move and shoot faster and some will be tougher as well. There's even plans for time / proximity detonating barrel bombs that can be tossed via high up conveyors at the advancing troops. :D

Sound very cool. I just hope its not gonna crash or do weird with all the scripts and 'hacking'.

Nah, BOOM is solid as a rock. If it gets popular enough I'll have to figure out a way so that people can change sides if they wish, but in such a fashion as to make it not too easy. I also have to find out if Zdaemon and Skulltag support extended co-op starts like Legacy does.

Hmm, come to think of it I'll have to just put up doors or something that read "attack" or "defend" that people go through. I can't make it permanent because if player2 leaves player3 becomes player2. Not a big deal. Maybe I should make it take atleast 10 seconds before a player can get back on the feild so that it doesn't just turn into "run forward, die, respawn, repeat". Maybe if it takes a while to get back in the game people will be more careful about dieing.

ZDoom (and ports based on it) supports 8 player starts.

hey cool, good luck with this. i for one love some good coop.

Rellik said:

I also have to find out if Zdaemon and Skulltag support extended co-op starts like Legacy does.

I've done a lot of work on co-op for the next version, so it should work really good. I'll be interested in hearing some feedback on it.

deathz0r said:

ZDoom (and ports based on it) supports 8 player starts.

as should any port with hexen support.

Cool, I'll make it with 4 player in mind but I'll add a few extra DM starts just in case. It'd be great to make a 4v4 map but realistically how often are people gonna be able to scrape that many people together? :p Once I'm more sure about how extra co-op start things are handled I'll think about putting real starts in instead of DM starts.

In co-op mode Legacy supports the starts defined by the JDS group, so things 4001-4060 are for co-op starts from 5 to 64 (though it currently only supports 32 co-op players in-game). Any chance Skulltag and ZDameon will use the same thing ID's?

Rellik said:

Or should I forget about it and just play D-Day: Normandy? :p

I've been playing that recently (by myself). I must say that it's a damn awesome mod for Quake 2.

Especially coinsidering it's a free stand-alone game. I've been using their auto downloader to get more maps and holy shit do some of them suck. Playing around in the levels by myself really makes me want to make something like this for DOOM.

I think I'm going to call it D-DAY: 2099 or something dumb like that. It'll include one skin file so players can make themselves look like the Nazi and it'll be DOOMguys vs. the Wolfenstien Nazi's. I'll make Nazi's that shoot plasma and rockets but leave most of the hellspawn the same.

For me it sounds pretty interesting because I'm into that Coop stuff :)

I <3 Co-op

BBG said:

I <3 Co-op

Same here. I'd love to see something like Rellik described in the first post. I have no idea how to make it though, so I'll leave this up to someone else. And maybe it would be cool to have a conquest mode such as in BF1942. You'd have to take over a sector, but you can already hear growls in the distance. Fight for every sector.

deathz0r said:

I've been playing that recently (by myself). I must say that it's a damn awesome mod for Quake 2.

Dude, the game really rules online and play it a ton! I also made an updated hudpack for the graphics for it. geocities.com/wario_81/temp.html It updates the text and preview weapons.

Relik that sounds like a cool project.

That sounds like a really good project idea. 'Nuff said.