Coop modding

[Disorder]

After reading some stuff about Doom 3 not having coop in the final version of the game, I'm wondering how difficult exactly it is to make such an option yourself. I've read somewhere that id Software is thinking about the mod community and so the'yll be leaving some modding possibilities there. Does this mean that coop is a no-brainer?

Can someone, with some knowledge of modding maybe, tell me what the options are? In other words, up to how many players could we expect? What about those cutscenes? How long will it take to make such a mod?

[Zoost]

You can read a nice article on doom coop here. I like that article because it focuses on some important gameplay considerations. The technical part of your question is best answered by the doom3 mod community overhere

[Funeral Fog]

They said in one article that the player limit can be scaled up from 4 to whatever, the limit isn't 4.

And if this helps, I read in one article that ID might include the option to include monsters in deathmatch.

Heh

[dEaThMaStEr]

oh, a coop mod could prolly be made lickety-split! :D dont think that would be ANY problem whatsoever.. :D

[Zoost]

dEaThMaStEr said:

oh, a coop mod could prolly be made lickety-split! :D dont think that would be ANY problem whatsoever.. :D

I guess the ":D" in your post indicate that your post is based on zero knowledge?

[Disorder]

Zoost said:

I guess the ":D" in your post indicate that your post is based on zero knowledge?

But why would it be so hard? I read the article that you linked to, but frankly I believe that it's not really that hard at all, except for cutscenes. I take it Doom 3's enemies react to sounds and sight, so if you have two players walking around it shouldn't be a problem for those enemies to act correctly. And maybe you can simply take all the cutscenes out of the game. I'm probably underestimating things, then again, I'm not a techie.

[Julian]

Disorder said:

But why would it be so hard? I read the article that you linked to, but frankly I believe that it's not really that hard at all, except for cutscenes. I take it Doom 3's enemies react to sounds and sight, so if you have two players walking around it shouldn't be a problem for those enemies to act correctly. And maybe you can simply take all the cutscenes out of the game. I'm probably underestimating things, then again, I'm not a techie.

A player could trigger events that would make progression impossible for another one. You have to think COOP from the very beginning you map.

[Zoost]

Disorder said:

But why would it be so hard?

I will try to answer, but I'm not a techy myself, nor do I have any understanding of the stuff I'm talking about.

Clue 1: Id makes the scripting very modable, via text files. But they do not release the source code. So if some features are not in the executables, it is going to be very hard.

Clue 2: The q3 engine (allthough designed for MP) does not support coop. All the SP modification like RTCW, Elite Force, Mohaa, SOF2 do not have coop. But do have seperate SP and MP executables, what may indiacte some hard integration of MP and SP. It would not surprise my if there were seperate MP and SP executables for DOOM3 as well.

Clue 3: Possible problems caused by absent synchronization of all triggered events. Tim Willits has definately ruled out CoOp. Even save games might be limited due to scripting issues.

Clue 4: It is possible that bot AI cannot handle more than one player.

Seems like it is not easy to implement, though nothing should be ruled out

[Arno]

Zoost said:

Clue 4: It is possible that bot AI cannot handle more than one player.

Considering that the bot AI is based on the Quake3 bots, it's likely that it can handle more then one player.

[Tetzlaff]

I guess cutscenes and scripted events are triggered by simple entities, so basicly you have to edit these entities out of the map. Since the Doom3 map editor should be even easier (real-time mapping etc.) to use then the Q3 Radiant, I imagine it shouldn´t be too hard to edit the maps to make them Coop compatible.

[dEaThMaStEr]

Zoost said:

I guess the ":D" in your post indicate that your post is based on zero knowledge?

LMAO!! ignorance is great!! im a very long timed and skilled modder jackass.. that was comment from true knowledge of making it.. Lemme run through this...

Now, assuming doom 3 will run like almost any other game does, in multiplayer its configured to not spawn monsters for deathmatch on the levels.. Now thats about 2 lines to change to fix. Next, you configure a new spawn point for coop play. You then make the new comand to select from deathmatch or coop, usually by making a new cvar just like for deathmatch. Also, add this in the menu for same as deathmatch. Maybe a few other configs here and there for your taste, and thats it. very easy... :D

Oh, as for cutscenes, u can prolly remove them, or with a little work just get em to run for all players in some fashion.. :D

[EllipsusD]

Well, although it may be just as simple as you say, dEaThMaStEr, there is still the issue of playability. This goes beyond scripted sequences. Doom 3 is designed with single play in mind. Some of the areas, as we have seen, are rather crampt and putting more players into an area like that than would normally fit means that you have to play the game commando style as opposed to being able to take cover as freely as you normally would. Second, resources. Unless you have respawning ammo and weapons... or weapons and ammo that can be picked by each player, you run into the problem of not having enough for every player. The same goes for health and armor, of course. And enemies as well. By simply adding more players all you do is simplify an act that one player alone could complete: killing the monsters and getting through the level. The solutions are to either add more monsters (bad idea, IMO, it will just cause slowdown), or add limited respawns after enemy death (like in Sven Coop). You could also weaken the weapons or strengthen the enemies... but that upsets ammo balance and causes more problems. Another thing t take into account is level, or area, size. If any of you have played Half-Life on coop then you know what I'm talking about: the smaller maps that make up an area seemlessly flow by in single player, but they are much more painfull when the server has to load a new map every few minutes. I haven't seen any examples of a Doom 3 map, so I don't know how often you would change maps, and I don't know how fast it loads maps for multiplayer either, but this could pose a problem.

Anyway, even if Doom 3 can support coop, I think it would be best to have coop specific maps made instead of just using the original ones. But that's just my opinion.

[Disorder]

Then again, I don't think the original Dooms were made with coop in mind, but they're a lot of fun to play together. Even when you're stuck on top of eachother in a narrow hallway. I don't really mind having people walking in the way when you're trying to shoot up a Pinky. Just the idea of battling Hell's forces together would make me very happy.

[dEaThMaStEr]

well the maps, nothing u can do there.. everthing else can be reasonable managed.. For example, make ammo and weps last forever, and respawn for you.. Like, say you touch ammo, you will pick it up, however the ammo will not remove. If you try to pick it up again, nothing happens, however someone else still can. And after 30 seconds or so, you will be able to pick it up again.. get wot im sayin? :D There are jsut little things u can get around.. as for monster strength, make it like quest from FvF, a quake mod... After so many are killed, they get stronger and stronger.. :D All that applys in wot i said about adjusting to taste.. however, the maps are something u cant really get around.. :\

[Disorder]

dEaThMaStEr said:

After so many are killed, they get stronger and stronger.. :D All that applys in wot i said about adjusting to taste.. however, the maps are something u cant really get around.. :\

This reminds me of someone else's idea (not sure where I read that) about having a map, in which the middle of the map is build out of a square. You and your pals start at that position and see a few zombies walking into the room. After a couple of blasts some ammo will spawn at your starting position and more zombies start coming in. The longer you hold your positions, the more zombies will pour into the room. Sort of like being in the middle of night of the living dead, and there's no stopping it. You simply have to keep fighting until you're dead.

[EllipsusD]

Disorder said:
This reminds me of someone else's idea (not sure where I read that) about having a map, in which the middle of the map is build out of a square. You and your pals start at that position and see a few zombies walking into the room. After a couple of blasts some ammo will spawn at your starting position and more zombies start coming in. The longer you hold your positions, the more zombies will pour into the room. Sort of like being in the middle of night of the living dead, and there's no stopping it. You simply have to keep fighting until you're dead.

That reminds me of one of the challenges from Timesplitters. Excellent idea, though. If a coop mod is made, then there should definately be a map like this.

[AirRaid]

Yes, because the Doom3 engine will really be able to handle all those zombies at once. Id did say they had to limit the number of monesters in an area at once...

[Disorder]

AirRaid said:

Yes, because the Doom3 engine will really be able to handle all those zombies at once. Id did say they had to limit the number of monesters in an area at once...

Yep, that's why the constant flow of enemies has to be kept low. So if you're still busy fighting off 5 zombies, no other zombies should spawn nearby. Either that, or more powerful enemies will have to appear, the longer you live. So the number of enemies will hover around, say 5, but it will become more difficult in the end.

[Wobbo]

Zoost said:

Clue 2: The q3 engine (allthough designed for MP) does not support coop. All the SP modification like RTCW, Elite Force, Mohaa, SOF2 do not have coop. But do have seperate SP and MP executables, what may indiacte some hard integration of MP and SP. It would not surprise my if there were seperate MP and SP executables for DOOM3 as well.

well i dont know what id will *do* but i can say that if theyve built the entire editing package into the same .exe then they certainly can integrate the SP and MP into one executable !

[dEaThMaStEr]

hm.. actually, does anyone know how easy to mod doom 3 is intended to be? :D

[Lectrix]

I really hope they do put Co-op in, the original was brilliant in co-op, i remember fighting that cyberdemon with my mates with our chainsaws LOL, got slaughtered, but was still amazing fun.

Plus Quake 2 was never designed for co-op but the official patch just added a bit of code to make it possible, maybe ID will do the same again, but take out all the cut scenes + misc stuff for single play.

(Lets all hope ID play it smart, and add to the replay value with co-op)

[Derrick]

I got network cards for my 486's just so I could play co-op!