What port can I use to make the player a resurrection object for the archvile?

[printz]

Is there any way to make the player avatar with a raisestate into a completely alive and controllable creature after having been raised by an archvile?

I tried something totally different in MBF: I gave the player avatar a raisestate *looking* like the corpse would resurrect, but instead of going into player's default walking/standing frames, it was supposed to become invisible (TNT1 and not removed!) and spawn a computer-controlled marine of archvile's allegiance (hostile or friendly) in its place.

The thing is? That computer-controlled marine was stuck! Reason? The real resurrected marine was typically alive and solid, and not in a TNT1 frame, resting in the same place as the spawned computer marine (I verified that in Eternity)! I think it could also take damage again. Unfortunately for the player, it wasn't controllable. It was more like a crippled zombie or voodoo doll, than a living person. I can't remember if the status bar data, HUD weapon or viewheight were updated to living conditions either.

But still, interesting thought. Is there any port or editing trick that bestows full control to the player whose marine was raised by the archvile? Preferably if that archvile was flagged as an ally, because it doesn't make sense to be raised by an evil archvile and still be good... and the player's (human's) mind can't be controlled.

[Mordeth]

printz said:

Is there any way to make the player avatar with a raisestate into a completely alive and controllable creature after having been raised by an archvile?

I don't think that's possible, but maybe you should try while being in a (fake) multiplayer game. In that state, the engine does continue after a player's death and allows for respawns.

For a hostile 'undead player', I just spawn a new dying-player-look-a-like Thing during the (real) player's death frames that also 'dies'. Its resurrection frames spawn another Thing while it removes itself, which is a monster with an undead player look.

[Gez]

Spawning during the death state a "player zombie" corpse that an archvile can revive as a monster is probably possible; but having an archvile actually resurrect a player seems impossible. You might be able to fake it with heavy scripting (ZDoom ACS) so that the player, upon near-death, is put in a paralyzed state, then a friendly archvile gets a goal to move to that player, is set into doing the resurrection routine, and the player control is restored then. But it'd be very hacky.

To go this way, you'd need to combine:
- SetPlayerProperty: PROP_BUDDHA to prevent true death; PROP_TOTALLYFROZEN to prevent player acting when at 1 hit point
- Custom player class
- A_JumpIfHealthLower to check for the player having less than 2 health and going into a "FakeDeath" state
- ACS_Execute to call ACS scripts from actor states, notably to obtain the totallyfrozen property and setting the archvile into motion from the FakeDeath state
- Thing_SetGoal to move the archvile
- SetActorState to control archvile and player states from ACS.

[andrewj]

It was years ago when I wrote the code, but EDGE supports players being resurrected by a friendly Archvile. EDGE used to have a cheat code to resurrect oneself too, idlazarus, but I removed that since it ruins the gameplay if you can always continue after dying.

[printz]

I kinda expected that answer (that EDGE can do it). But why did you remove that cheat code if it ruins the gameplay? Cheat codes are supposed to do that.

[andrewj]

I personally found that this cheat was just too tempting and I began using it all the time, and that changed the experience of playing the game, with no threat in dying anymore. So it seemed best to remove it.

Whether an "infinite continue" cheat is truly different than other cheats (like godmode) could be the subject of an interesting debate -- I think yes it is, though can't really articulate it at the moment, something to do with being in emotional state after dying (where you have no other options but to replay from a savegame or from scratch) and hence the temptation to cheat is much higher.

[Quasar]

EE has resurrect but I personally never use it if I am playing seriously. It's the same to me as any other cheat.