Developer Journals

Developer Journal: Mulchman

Posted 1 decade ago Programmer
At last, my dream is alive. :) If this entry makes it through then I'm not dead... wait, wrong window.

So... I've been working mainly on the detpack, dispenser, and sentry gun. The dispenser is the most "done" of the three - being fully skinned and looking quite awesome in-game. The detpack is almost there as well - it's latest addition being that scouts can now run over it and disarm it. And then there's the sentry gun... it's buildable and everything but right now is used as a table for when the engineers want to play cards or have a cup of tea. It will also shine your boots, but we'll probably remove that from the finished version of the mod.

Developer Journal: Defrag

Posted 1 decade ago Lead Map Design
Things have been a little slow of late; I've been working a lot on my uni projects (one of which is now late, oo-er) and neglecting to do any FF-related work for the last fortnight or so. Don't expect many updates on the mapping front from me, at least not until I get all this stuff out of the way. I've got another two courseworks then a huge maths exam in the next six weeks. Once that's all out of the way then it'll be back to the good stuff. Summer holidays will bring an accelerated rate of development as well as sunshine, hayfever and warm beer.

I may as well fill you chaps in on what I've been beavering away at. Firstly, most of bases is already complete. This was mostly a learning experience to become familiar with the Source development tools. What better way to do it than with a familiar map? I also have created the vast majority of another (as of yet) un-named map. Whether this map is released with the mod or later on is undecided at this moment in time, but I'm pleased with its development thus far. In short, I've got two maps sitting on my hard drive; they just need detailed and polished up a bit. Dospac and I have spent some time going over gameplay changes, attempting to cement any changes needed for the coders. My plea for the inclusion of a Steven Seagal class with the special ability of "Crazy SEAL Arms" was ruthlessly rejected, I'm sorry to report. Van Damme is still a possibility.

In addition to the aforementioned activities, I've spent some time exploring the engine and also writing up tutorials for fellow dev team members (mostly concerning technical stuff, processes and optimisation). Hopefully it'll help people avoid any pitfalls I've already discovered. I must say I am extremely pleased with the quality of the maps. In particular, the (in)trepids and eat have created some absolutely superb pieces of work, and lots of it. I'm sure they can't wait to unveil everything they've done at some stage in the future.

Fortress Forever will cure what ails you.

As a certain Dr. Neil Fox once said:
"That is scientific fact. There is no real evidence for it, but it's scientific fact."

Developer Journal: trepid_jesse

Posted 1 decade ago Map Design
Jon and I are finally taking a break from working on Hunted. We've spent a great deal of time talking about a lot of aspects of the map that won't be obvious until it's finally played, and we're hoping those details don't get pushed aside in the minds of the players come release day.

Barring some less important aspects, most of the areas are ~50% done. The areas that still need the most work, by comparison, are the exterior of the ruins and the escape area. These two areas we've yet to really tackle because we're always getting distracted with ideas on how to improve some areas of the map where we'e already done some work.

We could've pretty easily ignored a lot of the things we've spent hours talking about, but we're really wanting to mitigate the issue that Hunted is an arena, of sorts. In the original Hunted it's a bunch of walls everywhere, and it's pretty cool how the new Hunted is shaping up when opening up those areas. We're also not taking too many liberties with Hunted. When we started out making Hunted we had already decided that we wanted to simply take the original, and just bring it up-to-speed with the Source engine, or at least try to. Most all of the spots that you're familiar with in the original will exist in our version of Hunted, but there's some new areas to investigate along the way.

Jon and I have also recently started work on cz2, and it's such a nice change of pace to not have to worry about all the constraints that we've put on ourselves when working on Hunted. I doubt we'll be as strict with things on cz2 as we were with Hunted, and it's going to be a much less involved process. Right now we have a pretty primitive reconstruction of the pathways from cz2, and we're thinking things will go rather smoothly in the weeks to follow.

Oh, and I suggest that you go play Rome: Total War and experience the experience of experiences.

Developer Journal: Ghroth

Posted 1 decade ago Lead Sound Design
Lately I've been working on the sounds for the Napalm- and frag-grenade, so keep an ear or two listening for these as they'll likely appear in an upcoming media update.

Developer Journal: Mirvin_Monkey

Posted 1 decade ago Vacationing Programmer
Aha, a developer journal!

Hmm... what to write in my first post. Well, I guess it'll be helpful to give an indication of what's done so far on the coding side:

Weapons are pretty much all implemented now - there's one or two missing and most are a little rough around the edges but are ready for tweaking, testing, tweaking some more, etc. Of all the weapon projectiles, only the IC rocket remains to be done.

The class system is pretty much in place too, with all the class characteristics and abilities set. billdoor has been concentrating on the player movement (such as ramp sliding, trimping, bunnyhopping), and already quite a few of these are in place.

The grenade system is now working along with at least half the grenades, L0ki is currently working on those that are remaining.

Mulchman has both detpacks and dispensers operational and hopefully will be adding SGs to that list sometime soon too!

There's a whole bunch of other developments but these are the most important ones so far. I'm sure the other coders will post some entries to give a more in-depth view of the areas they are working on, and I'll try and keep this updated with whatever I am doing.