Q&A 4 - 2.1, HW Guy, Pon Pon Pata Pon!
Posted 1 decade ago by Fortress Forever Team
Welcome to Week 4 of community Q&A! We love listening to your questions and we'd love to see more - send 'em our way in this thread:
http://www.fortress-forever.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16481
Now onto Q&A 4...
Question 1 ([AE] 82694):
What plan does the Dev team have for FF after the 2.1 release?
1) Will you be concentrating on models.
2) More maps with all the new mappers the Dev team has.
3) What your plans for FF in general are.
Answer 1 (-pF-)
1) There will be changes to the models. From what it looks like right now, there will be tweaks in size and proportion to help distinguish classes. Also, we will probably switch to a new skeleton to facilitate the addition of new animations. Finally, we'd like to retexture some, if not all of the models. So texture artists with prior experience in texturing characters, please apply (like, now)!
2) There's a few really good brand new maps being made up by beta testers and devs alike. When 2.1 comes out, you'll enjoy them for sure!
3) We plan to keep refining the game and make it as fun and balanced as possible. We'd also like to add features to help new players understand the Fortress genre better.
Question 2 (cfive):
Why don't you just make hardcap a serverside thing so people can choose?
Answer 2 (Nezumi):
Since this question has been asked and answered many times in the past, I'll answer again now: different bhop mechanics in different servers would divide the community, and segregate people to their own prefered play style, which we don't want. We want everyone to learn to play together. It's okay for maps to have different and interesting playstyles, but the basic look and feel of the game should stay roughly the same no matter what you're playing.
Question 3 (cfive):
I want to help FF gain popularity, is there anyway I could join the PR team?
Answer 3 (Implode, Iggy):
We do not have any specific plans for community involvement ready at this time, but they are being worked on. When we have something we need you guys to do we'll let you know about it! However, please feel free to continue to invite new potential players to the mod. Basically, tell your friends, and try to get them interested. Hopefully they will like it, and do the same.
Question 4 (reaper1):
What changes, if any, have been made to the Heavy Weapons Guy?
Answer 4 (Ihmhi):
I'm just going to paraphrase the general reaction of the beta testers for this question: "Holy shit, the HW Guy destroys now!"He's not overpowered, but he's not a pansy anymore.
Question 5 (reaper1):
Have any core changes to the mod been made that have had an effect on the frames per second for clients?
Answer 5 (-insert any mapper here-):
As for maps, any FF mapper can tell you this: framerates are a result of map optimization. That said, Elmo- has busted his butt improving the FPS for Monkey. Waterpolo no longer drives your FPS into the ground. Most other dev maps are getting little FPS improvements here and there.
And as for code, we haven't focused very much on optimizations, but rather fixes, tweaks, and additions. We're going to wait to do a lot of code optimizations until the Orange Box is our code base, simply so we don't have to do a lot of Orange Box merging once again and so we don't spend a lot of time fixing what Orange Box might have already fixed.
B-B-Bonus Content:
This week, we have an interview with one of the devs. Ihmhi asked Pon (one of our Lua guys) some questions about Lua and his experiences with FF in general. If he can wrangle the devs into a corner for a few minutes in the future, we hope for this to be a regular feature until we run out of devs.
So with that, here's the interview!
Ihmhi: We'll start with an easy question: describe your position on the Dev Team.
Pon.id: Well, my position is that of an Lua scripter. Generally, our mappers come to me, ask if 'such and such' a feature can be done with Lua, and if it can, can I get to work on it. If it can't, I tell them to bug the programmers until it can
Ihmhi: How did you manage to join the dev team? Did you apply, or did someone invite you?
Pon.id: I was invitied by squeek., who seemed to notice the work I was trying to do to help community mappers with their Lua, I guess.
Ihmhi: A lot of people, including myself, view Lua as this sort of mystical language invented by insane people. Could you give us a little insight into how Lua works with FF maps and why it's such a powerful tool for us?
Pon.id: Well, insane is a bit strong... close, but a bit strong The main reason it's so useful and is a powerful tool, in my opinion, is the control over damn near everything it gives you. You can use it to dictate how most everything in FF should work if you want, from map entities to the damage dealt by each weapon. Alongside that, you can customise the feedback your map gives the player via the HUD. Most importantly though, you can use it to build pretty much any gamemode you can think of. Technically you could have a Fortess Forever map that plays like Counterstrike, for example.
Ihmhi: Is there anything you can't conceivably do with Lua in FF?
Pon.id: Hmm, well, yes, I guess there will be. Most everything has limits. But, given that FF is in active development, anything that can't be done, and is needed, can be added. For example, for one map, it was nessecary that the player's health be drained, which currently wasn't possible. So, someone set the AddHealth function to accept negative values, and that was it, job done. So, I guess that, conceivably, I can't think of anything that can't at the very least be added if needed.
Ihmhi: So if FF's lua functionality can't do something, the other devs can code it in for you?
Pon.id: Yeah, pretty much. It's also something I should learn to do myself as well, I guess.
Ihmhi: One of my personal peeves with Lua (and coding in general) is uncommented code. Pretty much all of the core lua files and nearly every single released map's Lua is uncommented. Will there ever be an effort to get the Lua code commented so it's easier for people new to Lua to get a handle on it?
Pon.id: Hopefully. It would would be useful to a lot of mappers, I think.
Ihmhi: What was the hardest bit of Lua coding that you've had to do recently?
Pon.id: Probably for a map called Impact which is currently in development. Without wanting to give too much away, the main problem was to have a system in place that allowed for multiple flags to be in play at any one time, without spawning a new one every time one was needed and being a massive resource drain. And that also switched teams each round.
Ihmhi: Last question (and make it quick as I have to leave for work now). Did you ever regret mercilessly beating on chickens in a Legend of Zelda game?
Pon.id: Never.
Ihmhi: Thanks a bunch!
Discuss on the forums →
View all news posts http://www.fortress-forever.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16481
Now onto Q&A 4...
Question 1 ([AE] 82694):
What plan does the Dev team have for FF after the 2.1 release?
1) Will you be concentrating on models.
2) More maps with all the new mappers the Dev team has.
3) What your plans for FF in general are.
Answer 1 (-pF-)
1) There will be changes to the models. From what it looks like right now, there will be tweaks in size and proportion to help distinguish classes. Also, we will probably switch to a new skeleton to facilitate the addition of new animations. Finally, we'd like to retexture some, if not all of the models. So texture artists with prior experience in texturing characters, please apply (like, now)!
2) There's a few really good brand new maps being made up by beta testers and devs alike. When 2.1 comes out, you'll enjoy them for sure!
3) We plan to keep refining the game and make it as fun and balanced as possible. We'd also like to add features to help new players understand the Fortress genre better.
Question 2 (cfive):
Why don't you just make hardcap a serverside thing so people can choose?
Answer 2 (Nezumi):
Since this question has been asked and answered many times in the past, I'll answer again now: different bhop mechanics in different servers would divide the community, and segregate people to their own prefered play style, which we don't want. We want everyone to learn to play together. It's okay for maps to have different and interesting playstyles, but the basic look and feel of the game should stay roughly the same no matter what you're playing.
Question 3 (cfive):
I want to help FF gain popularity, is there anyway I could join the PR team?
Answer 3 (Implode, Iggy):
We do not have any specific plans for community involvement ready at this time, but they are being worked on. When we have something we need you guys to do we'll let you know about it! However, please feel free to continue to invite new potential players to the mod. Basically, tell your friends, and try to get them interested. Hopefully they will like it, and do the same.
Question 4 (reaper1):
What changes, if any, have been made to the Heavy Weapons Guy?
Answer 4 (Ihmhi):
I'm just going to paraphrase the general reaction of the beta testers for this question: "Holy shit, the HW Guy destroys now!"He's not overpowered, but he's not a pansy anymore.
Question 5 (reaper1):
Have any core changes to the mod been made that have had an effect on the frames per second for clients?
Answer 5 (-insert any mapper here-):
As for maps, any FF mapper can tell you this: framerates are a result of map optimization. That said, Elmo- has busted his butt improving the FPS for Monkey. Waterpolo no longer drives your FPS into the ground. Most other dev maps are getting little FPS improvements here and there.
And as for code, we haven't focused very much on optimizations, but rather fixes, tweaks, and additions. We're going to wait to do a lot of code optimizations until the Orange Box is our code base, simply so we don't have to do a lot of Orange Box merging once again and so we don't spend a lot of time fixing what Orange Box might have already fixed.
B-B-Bonus Content:
This week, we have an interview with one of the devs. Ihmhi asked Pon (one of our Lua guys) some questions about Lua and his experiences with FF in general. If he can wrangle the devs into a corner for a few minutes in the future, we hope for this to be a regular feature until we run out of devs.
So with that, here's the interview!
Ihmhi: We'll start with an easy question: describe your position on the Dev Team.
Pon.id: Well, my position is that of an Lua scripter. Generally, our mappers come to me, ask if 'such and such' a feature can be done with Lua, and if it can, can I get to work on it. If it can't, I tell them to bug the programmers until it can
Ihmhi: How did you manage to join the dev team? Did you apply, or did someone invite you?
Pon.id: I was invitied by squeek., who seemed to notice the work I was trying to do to help community mappers with their Lua, I guess.
Ihmhi: A lot of people, including myself, view Lua as this sort of mystical language invented by insane people. Could you give us a little insight into how Lua works with FF maps and why it's such a powerful tool for us?
Pon.id: Well, insane is a bit strong... close, but a bit strong The main reason it's so useful and is a powerful tool, in my opinion, is the control over damn near everything it gives you. You can use it to dictate how most everything in FF should work if you want, from map entities to the damage dealt by each weapon. Alongside that, you can customise the feedback your map gives the player via the HUD. Most importantly though, you can use it to build pretty much any gamemode you can think of. Technically you could have a Fortess Forever map that plays like Counterstrike, for example.
Ihmhi: Is there anything you can't conceivably do with Lua in FF?
Pon.id: Hmm, well, yes, I guess there will be. Most everything has limits. But, given that FF is in active development, anything that can't be done, and is needed, can be added. For example, for one map, it was nessecary that the player's health be drained, which currently wasn't possible. So, someone set the AddHealth function to accept negative values, and that was it, job done. So, I guess that, conceivably, I can't think of anything that can't at the very least be added if needed.
Ihmhi: So if FF's lua functionality can't do something, the other devs can code it in for you?
Pon.id: Yeah, pretty much. It's also something I should learn to do myself as well, I guess.
Ihmhi: One of my personal peeves with Lua (and coding in general) is uncommented code. Pretty much all of the core lua files and nearly every single released map's Lua is uncommented. Will there ever be an effort to get the Lua code commented so it's easier for people new to Lua to get a handle on it?
Pon.id: Hopefully. It would would be useful to a lot of mappers, I think.
Ihmhi: What was the hardest bit of Lua coding that you've had to do recently?
Pon.id: Probably for a map called Impact which is currently in development. Without wanting to give too much away, the main problem was to have a system in place that allowed for multiple flags to be in play at any one time, without spawning a new one every time one was needed and being a massive resource drain. And that also switched teams each round.
Ihmhi: Last question (and make it quick as I have to leave for work now). Did you ever regret mercilessly beating on chickens in a Legend of Zelda game?
Pon.id: Never.
Ihmhi: Thanks a bunch!