Developer Journal: Ihmhi
Posted 1 decade ago PR Lead
There's a lot we'd like to do with FF. I'm going to give you guys some examples of excellent ideas that have been posted in the beta and dev forums.
HUD Customizations
What if you never look at the map time? Perhaps you don't even both with looking at your armor count - you just care about your health. Maybe you want your armor and health to be on the right side above your ammo count. Maybe you want it to be below your ammo count.
We'd love to have a customizable HUD to a degree that hasn't really been seen in any game yet. You could drag around the individual elements of the HUD and place them where you'd feel comfortable. This would also, of course, support custom HUDs that the user can put in so they can really pimp out their own personal copy of Fortress Forever. Speaking of customizations...
HUD Refinements / Additions
That bar over the disguise area when the Spy disguises is one of many things we would like to do to improve the HUD. The short list:
Customization Management
Replacing standard files is so 1998.
Right now, if you wanted to use a custom model you would have to replace the existing ones. Rather than do this, we'd like to set up a menu where you could select from a variety of models.
Instead of all of the models being put in one folder, there would be a variety of folders divided by purpose and class. For example, a few of the main folders would be Weapons, Grenades, and Classes. The Weapons folder would have subfolders for every weapon - Crowbar, Single Shotgun, etc.
Moreover, if you change a weapon it also replaces it globally in the current version of Fortress Forever. This means if you have a custom crowbar, every class that has a crowbar would have that custom model. Aside from being able to just pick from different models, you would be able to set each model by class - so your Scout could have a giant fish crowbar and your Soldier could have a lightsaber crowbar.
Background Image
Pretty much the same thing as above. Right now, to replace it you would have to replace a certain file in your FF directory. I don't see why you shouldn't have a drop-down menu where you can pick from whichever one you'd like to use.
Converting images to textures is also a bit of a hassle for the average user, so if it could use .jpgs that'd be sweet as well, wouldn't it?
Multi-language support
The Source engine actually supports multiple languages. We have a project in our forums to get some translation work going, and implementing it would be relatively trivial.
But while we can swap out text messages (like "You have the flag!"), swapping out other stuff in-game would be a bit more problematic. For instance, the signs in the game are textures (like the ones that say "Flag Room") wouldn't be affected by the language change.
One idea is to make different versions of the textures - one for every language we support. When you choose Spanish, it switches out Flag Room sign texture with one that says "Flag Room" in Spanish.
Melee Hit Detection
Melee Weapons in Source are spotty at best - they're basically a one pixel dot that you have to hit the target with.
The first improvement we'd like to make is to just have the crowbar, medkit, etc. work better. One idea that has gained favor is that a melee swing is actually an explosion (or series of small explosions) in regards to the code - if an enemy is hit with the explosion, it does damage to them. This would make it easier to hit with melee (and we may reduce damage as a result).
From there, we'd like to work on giving each class their own melee weapon (something many people have assumed that we'd like to do, it's obvious) and have them be unique in their own way. Right now, these are our melee weapons:
So there's our melee weapons. We have 6 classes sharing the same melee weapon and we'd like to change that in the future. For instance, one suggestion was that a class had a melee weapon that gave a conc effect when you hit someone. Another suggestion was a weapon that could reflect projectiles/grenades - if someone shot a rocket at you and you timed it right, you could bounce it back at them. Most of them would just be "Damage dealers", but we can deal damage in different ways. The crowbar could be the standard quick taps like it is now. Perhaps the HW Guy could have a huge, slow, melee weapon that does damage in a wide, sweeping arc. Stuff like that!
Orange Box Stuff
We made a lot of modifications to the Source Engine. Our current build of the Orange Box broke a lot of the stuff that our coders have written over the years and we're going to probably have to rebuild a few things. That's a problem, but the bigger obstacle is the all the cool stuff we'd like to do with Orange Box - global stats (finally!), achievements (a possibility), integrating community stuff (your Steam icon & info), and tons of other stuff that trepid_jon is so excited about that he's having seizures in his computer chair.
Conclusion... FF needs YOUR help!
Why am I telling you guys all this stuff?
One (small) reason is that I wanted to give you guys insight on the kinds of ideas and plans we have floating around in the dev forums. Some of this stuff is solid, some of it is experimental, and some of it we haven't decided on yet. We'd love to get to work on it.
Sadly, we only have a couple of coders at our disposal. A lot of the stuff holding up more frequent patches is coding work. FF needs more coders.
If you or someone you know is skilled with coding in Source SDK and you can provide a few examples of your work, we'd probably bring you on board to help out! Any interested parties can send an e-mail to ihmhi [AT} fortress-forever {DOT] com.
Discuss on the forums → View all developer journals HUD Customizations
What if you never look at the map time? Perhaps you don't even both with looking at your armor count - you just care about your health. Maybe you want your armor and health to be on the right side above your ammo count. Maybe you want it to be below your ammo count.
We'd love to have a customizable HUD to a degree that hasn't really been seen in any game yet. You could drag around the individual elements of the HUD and place them where you'd feel comfortable. This would also, of course, support custom HUDs that the user can put in so they can really pimp out their own personal copy of Fortress Forever. Speaking of customizations...
HUD Refinements / Additions
That bar over the disguise area when the Spy disguises is one of many things we would like to do to improve the HUD. The short list:
- Cloak Cooldown Timer - You know that whole "You cannot cloak so soon!" message? A simple little bar or something that shows the cloak recharge time.
- Spy Disguised Weapon - A little-known feature that we'd like to make more obvious. If you have the nailgun out and you're disguised as a Soldier, it will show the Soldier's RPG. If you have the knife out, it shows the crowbar, and so on. You should be able to see what weapon your disguise is showing on the HUD.
- Detpack Countdown Timer - Shows the time until your planted detpack goes off.
- Sabotage Countdown Timer - Shows the time until your sabotage(s) run out. If you have multiple sabotages, it shows multiple timers - up to a limit. Basically, it would show the same icons as the Engy's SG and dispenser, perhaps like this:
- ICON - Sabotaged Buildable Location - Time Left
- Jump Pad Timer - How much time you have left before your jump pad goes kaplooie.
- Navigational Refinements - A lot of newbies get lost. We've been discussing some kind of entity-based waypoint system where its easier for newbies to navigate a map - basically the objective icon on crack.
- Team-Colored HUD Improvements - The Team-Colored HUD works decently at best - the text can be difficult to read with some colors and its a bit buggy. We'd like to make it look more professional and less buggy overall.
Customization Management
Replacing standard files is so 1998.
Right now, if you wanted to use a custom model you would have to replace the existing ones. Rather than do this, we'd like to set up a menu where you could select from a variety of models.
Instead of all of the models being put in one folder, there would be a variety of folders divided by purpose and class. For example, a few of the main folders would be Weapons, Grenades, and Classes. The Weapons folder would have subfolders for every weapon - Crowbar, Single Shotgun, etc.
Moreover, if you change a weapon it also replaces it globally in the current version of Fortress Forever. This means if you have a custom crowbar, every class that has a crowbar would have that custom model. Aside from being able to just pick from different models, you would be able to set each model by class - so your Scout could have a giant fish crowbar and your Soldier could have a lightsaber crowbar.
Background Image
Pretty much the same thing as above. Right now, to replace it you would have to replace a certain file in your FF directory. I don't see why you shouldn't have a drop-down menu where you can pick from whichever one you'd like to use.
Converting images to textures is also a bit of a hassle for the average user, so if it could use .jpgs that'd be sweet as well, wouldn't it?
Multi-language support
The Source engine actually supports multiple languages. We have a project in our forums to get some translation work going, and implementing it would be relatively trivial.
But while we can swap out text messages (like "You have the flag!"), swapping out other stuff in-game would be a bit more problematic. For instance, the signs in the game are textures (like the ones that say "Flag Room") wouldn't be affected by the language change.
One idea is to make different versions of the textures - one for every language we support. When you choose Spanish, it switches out Flag Room sign texture with one that says "Flag Room" in Spanish.
Melee Hit Detection
Melee Weapons in Source are spotty at best - they're basically a one pixel dot that you have to hit the target with.
The first improvement we'd like to make is to just have the crowbar, medkit, etc. work better. One idea that has gained favor is that a melee swing is actually an explosion (or series of small explosions) in regards to the code - if an enemy is hit with the explosion, it does damage to them. This would make it easier to hit with melee (and we may reduce damage as a result).
From there, we'd like to work on giving each class their own melee weapon (something many people have assumed that we'd like to do, it's obvious) and have them be unique in their own way. Right now, these are our melee weapons:
- Crowbar - The Scout, Sniper, Soldier, Demoman, HWGuy, and Pyro currently have this weapon. Your standard melee "do damage" weapon.
- Medkit - The Medic's melee weapon. It heals allies up to maximum health in one shot and can overheal allies. It also infects enemies with a poison that kills them slowly and can only be cured by other Medics.
- Knife - Does twice the melee damage of the crowbar. A backstab is an instant kill on any class, regardless of their health or armor.
- Spanner (Wrench) - Reloads/repairs Sentry Guns and Dispensers and it can restore teammate's armor (at the cost of cells). Otherwise, it does the same melee damage as the Crowbar.
- Umbrella - The Civilian's melee weapon. I think it does the same damage as the Crowbar, but I'm not quite sure. For all intents and purposes it's a crowbar clone.
So there's our melee weapons. We have 6 classes sharing the same melee weapon and we'd like to change that in the future. For instance, one suggestion was that a class had a melee weapon that gave a conc effect when you hit someone. Another suggestion was a weapon that could reflect projectiles/grenades - if someone shot a rocket at you and you timed it right, you could bounce it back at them. Most of them would just be "Damage dealers", but we can deal damage in different ways. The crowbar could be the standard quick taps like it is now. Perhaps the HW Guy could have a huge, slow, melee weapon that does damage in a wide, sweeping arc. Stuff like that!
Orange Box Stuff
We made a lot of modifications to the Source Engine. Our current build of the Orange Box broke a lot of the stuff that our coders have written over the years and we're going to probably have to rebuild a few things. That's a problem, but the bigger obstacle is the all the cool stuff we'd like to do with Orange Box - global stats (finally!), achievements (a possibility), integrating community stuff (your Steam icon & info), and tons of other stuff that trepid_jon is so excited about that he's having seizures in his computer chair.
Conclusion... FF needs YOUR help!
Why am I telling you guys all this stuff?
One (small) reason is that I wanted to give you guys insight on the kinds of ideas and plans we have floating around in the dev forums. Some of this stuff is solid, some of it is experimental, and some of it we haven't decided on yet. We'd love to get to work on it.
Sadly, we only have a couple of coders at our disposal. A lot of the stuff holding up more frequent patches is coding work. FF needs more coders.
If you or someone you know is skilled with coding in Source SDK and you can provide a few examples of your work, we'd probably bring you on board to help out! Any interested parties can send an e-mail to ihmhi [AT} fortress-forever {DOT] com.