MOD: (UT3) WAR-Corruption

Short entry for WAR-Corruption for Unreal Tournament 3.  PC version here, PS3 version here.  

My intent was to make two maps for UT3, to familiarize myself with the engine.  I actually really like the game and as I type this in May 2008, I wish the online presence was a bit higher.  Having such a low online count make me hesistant to take the time to make maps, since why bother if it'll never be used?  In my opinion there were three problems with the way UT3 was released.

1.  The game is also out for PS3.  Why not allow the two groups to play together online?  I'm not sure what problems that may present.  The only one that springs to mind is when you have to download a map, the two systems are very different and so different files would have to be downloaded.  You would have to make servers distinguish who is playing on what and have both files available, and if they aren't then only one kind of player could play on the server.  But that point is moot since...

2.  Map downloading is broken.  If you are playing and a custom map comes up and you don't have it on your system... it boots you out with a download error.  Ugh this needs to be fixed in a big way.  It prevents any custom map servers from being played.  Custom content is what keeps the UT series going, and without it...

3.  Third, the game's release had bad timing with little fanfare.  I won't get into this but suffice to say it had a lot of competition upon release, and nobody knew about it.

Anyway.  To learn the quirks of the new engine I converted the map VCTF-Corruption into a warfare map.  Warfare is my favorite gameplay mode- I was over deathmatch after UT1 and prefer something with a little more meat to it.  It's an extension of UT2's Onslaught mode, with more vehicles and node-capturing orbs.  Some people don't like it, but I think the orb adds more strategy to the game and is therefore a good thing.  There are situations where, when probably handled, you can simply deny a losing team from ever gaining ground, but that usually occurs when one side has pushed all the way to the other side and is on the brink of winning.  (For example, WAR-Downtown is an exercise in utter frustration when trying to win your prime node back.)

Anyway again...  I wanted more WAR maps in the rotation and a conversion was the quickest way to solve both issues- more maps and my editor knowledge.  Looking over the official forum it hadn't been done (it was attempted once), so here is my version.  People seem to groan at Corruption as a VCTF map since it frequently ends in stalemate that lasts for hours; you won't have that problem in WAR.  Strange how much time I spent after everything was placed just tweaking little things here and there... details matter. 

I was originally planning an unbalanced map like Islander but decided against it.  The map is still Axon vs. Necris however.  Orbs are limited to the home base so you'll need a runner if you want to use them.  Most vehicles are also located at the base, although there's a free center node which has some powerful vehicles.  The center area is the focus of the map and usually ends up as a bloodbath.

MOD: (Oblivion) The Dread Knights Return

My mod for Oblivion called The Dread Knights Return. This post will discuss the mod plus it will add my negative views about the Oblivion engine- well, not so much the engine but the game design decisions that were made. More on this below.

This mod is a sequel to Dread Knights for Morrowind, discussed in a different part of this blog. The plot: With the death of the Emperor, the mainland is in chaos, and the dread knights prepare to strike. There is too much of an Imperial presence in the land to maintain a base of operations- but they have discovered how to maintain an Oblivion gate and use it to build an army on another plane. If you join them, you will plot to occupy various towns and villages and eventually kill the commander of a major fortress, using it for your own. In the meantime, you must advance their cause, collect weapons and keep the native Oblivion creatures at bay.

This mod is much, much larger in scope than the Morrowind mod. Because of this I decided to completely minimize the Imperial choice; you can refuse to join the Dread Knights and hunt them, but there are no additional quests down that line (you may run into them as they run from town to town, etc. One neat thing about Oblivion was the option for realtime travel for NPC's.) All of the meat of the mod is in the "evil" quest line.

Don't read any further if you don't want spoilers.

A strange orc is seen scouting out the Imperial Palace, and if you choose to follow him he runs back across the continent to a gate hidden deep in the forest. If you follow him in, he jumps you with two associates. Defeat them and find your way to their hideout in the plane. The guard may inquire why you are there... Once in, speak to the leader and you'll get the history and purpose of the order. You must then prove your worth by eliminating and razing an entire village, along with killing the Imperial guard who told you to follow the original orc (to make sure you don't still work for him). You may then work your way up the ranks of the order by doing tasks for their alchemist, fletcher, weaponsmith and high priest. You may also do random quests for their cook, and you must also prove your worth to their weapon trainer (no magic allowed!).

Once those are all completed to satisfaction, you then start working on the major tasks, such as crippling and defeating Imperial forces. There is one thing the Dread Lord did not predict however... there is another who desires his position.

This mod is probably the largest I've done yet. It contains six new dungeons/locations, new items, and more tasks than I can count for every type that I can think of. I don't have any objects that are nearly as script heavy as the sentient weapon, but I do have some new features (such as the razing of buildings, see below).

But now the negative comments about game design decisions.

There were a few things that bothered me about Oblivion, and I pray that these issues are changed in the next Elder Scrolls game. The first is the auto-levelling of EVERYTHING.

As your character levels, so do your enemies, and the items they carry, and the items you find. What this means is, you will never find that dragon sitting out in the wilderness. You will never find that chest which contains a rare artifact. It's all... so very generic. There are a few unique things but they're pretty uncommon. It also makes exploration feel very very pointless. This is not helped by the fact that the landscape remains the same throughout the continent. Morrowind had several very-different feeling regions. That in itself is not a crime; but add some unique locations and critters in the meantime. I use autolevel for maybe 20% of my critters. The rest are hand placed by me to levels and abilities I choose. My mods are not for beginners and have have challenges. This is by design, and keeps the game fresh, IMHO.

I also have a problem with the magic and skill systems. They are so VERY generic and make it real difficult to not only have a character that feels unique, but items as well. It hit me when I was making this mod that the system almost cripples any sort of creativity you can have as opposed to say, a DnD-based game or even any of the current MMRPG's. Now, it is also true that you can script a lot of unique effects in, as I know from making Sentient Weapon. It's hard to give the PC any unique skills when there are so few in the game. So this weapon does more damage then that weapon... so? Sure, I could script in a Gravity Flux spell, but guaranteed there will be a lot of unforseen problems with it. It just makes it difficult when you have to fight the game mechanics to come up with something interesting.

The game could be so much more interesting than it is. They have a beautiful engine and it just CRAVES something more. As I write this, Fallout3 is not out yet, and I'm optimistic. I'll be all over that like a cheap suit. The SPECIAL system for skills is (was?) much more interesting than the ElderScrolls skill system. I hope they don't change it and allow for some complexity (and if they allow custom skills/perks to be scripted in, all the better!)

MOD: (Oblivion) The Sentient Weapon

My first mod for Oblivion, called The Sentient Weapon.

A wandering weaponsmith makes you an offer- get him some materials that he needs, and he'll make you a sentient weapon of your choice. It promises to be unique for you can enfuse it with the soul and personality of another. Who will you take? A hero, a coward... a murderer? Oblivion mod with 1000 lines of spoken dialogue. New quests, including a seperate quest for each weapon personality. Weapons have hated enemies, which give cumulative bonuses against a particular kind of creature. New creatures, locations, items and quests.

I had hoped this mod would get a good reaction, and it did (and then some!) I ended up releasing three versions of it, each one with significantly more content then the previous. It went from a single quest to create a weapon, to multiple quests for each personality, customization, hundreds of sounds, frenzy modes and more. The weapon can fall asleep, it can go berserk, it can complain, comment on what you're doing and what you're fighting, and more.

In fact, I even got a mention in CGW as one of the top-five Oblivion mods. Neato!

I don't remember exactly where the inspiration for the mod came from. It wasn't my normal kind of quest mod- less emphasis on the quest and more on the prize. I believe I was thinking about how the game has voices for everyone, and it triggered in my head that it would be neat to have a talking weapon, commenting on everything that you do, complimenting and berating you. I thought my idea was so novel, as I had not seen it done before in this style of 3D RPG game. Unbeknownst to me it had been done before in Morrowind. I wasn't aware of that mod until after the first version of my mod was released, and then the comparisons began. Although the attitude of my weapons was much different, I believe I offered much more to the player in the end (a few suggestions coming from players, as well).

Scripting was a big part of this one. I ended up with so many processes going, especially when a weapon was unsheathed- mostly dealing with dialogue conditions and timing, quest functions, and plain ol' random events. A lot of time went into figuring out neat little things I could have the weapons do or say. Another big time sink was coming up with and recording all that dialogue, ugh. I think each personality got about 350 dialogue sounds, so that ended up being quite a bit. I was a little nervous about voice acting since... well, I'm not a voice actor, but the response was positive for the most part. I did get some comments about people not liking it, but that's to be expected, especially when I tried to make at least six different voices (including a female; with some creative sound editing I think I pulled that one off pretty well. Thankfully that was an NPC with only a few lines!) Looking back I think the only atrocious voice was the main quest character, I'm not quite sure what I was thinking with that one, but even then someone said that it sounded like what the race should sound like, so whatever. If I can find another hosting site (the one I was using shut down) I'll put some samples up so you can judge.

No point in presenting screens for this one I suppose. The mod does contain one new dungeon but I use a lot of pre-existing locations otherwise.

The mod is not very difficult to complete (although Atkivir's quest can be difficult since you must kill town guards). Some people do have trouble with it since I frequently do not give quest markers on the map. My logic is, you shouldn't know exactly where something is unless you DO know. So if someone gives you a map, or tells you a location, fine you get a marker. If you're going on a rumor however... you have to find it yourself. I think it makes much more game-logic sense to do it that way. Having markers for everything makes quests trivial and no fun.

There's still a few sites hosting the mod that have many user comments about it. If you want to read reviews/opinions, check em out! The one linked has a lot of comments.

MOD: (Morrowind) Dread Knights

My second and largest mod for Morrowind was Dread Knights. The impetus for this mod was twofold. First, moderate level characters in this game become godlike- there's nothing in the natural game world that's a challenge. For a freeform game as this, there is no excuse for that- there should be areas that a weak character could have no hope to survive in, populated by the meanest critters. (In fact, Oblivion suffers from this far worse. They tried to fix the problem by having everything level with you, when all that achieved was ruining exploration. Let me find that hidden away chest guarded by something terrible, dammit!)

The second reason was for exactly that, exploration. This mod makes use of the entire continent. Whether you decide to side with the Imperial Legion and hunt down the Dread Knights, or if you decide to join the evil faction (the more interesting path), you will have to seek them out in all corners of the continent. The idea wasn't that you would actively pursue this mod, but you would run across them in your travels assuming you took the paths less travelled. (Most of the orcs are in hiding, and are scouting out the towns for capture. They won't be on the open road!) There were clues you can get to learn of their locations, but they are somewhat vague. If you want to find them, you'll have to work for it.

The plot: a new faction of orcs have rolled into town. They are not docile like their civilized brothers, and prefer strength over politics. They practice dark arts and do not fear death. Their goal- to enslave the weaker races of Morrowind. You have a choice- help the Imperial Legion to hunt them down, or join the Dread Knights by finding their leader and gaining his favor.

Pictured are new sets of armor that you can receive. You can either receive pieces of Dread Armor as you rise in rank, or you can receive gold knight armor from the Imperial Legion for turning in the Dread pieces. As you can see, both have new textures. (Funny note- I had someone ask me how I got bump mapping to show in the Dread Armor. There isn't! It's just a part of the texture.)

I must admit part of the inspiration for this mod was the quest for bloodforge armor in Everquest, red armor for shadowknights. It took forever to complete since you had to hunt these critters that were rare... but so satisfying just to complete it. I wanted to replicate that experience!

Reviews!

I wish I could find some online reviews for this, it had some good ones. I didn't save any and the mod is a bit old to find now. To sum up, you can look at the link I have for the mod and check the ratings:

Excellent : 67 votes

Very Good : 3 votes

Good : 6 votes

Average : 0 votes

Fair : 0 votes

Poor : 1 votes

Total Votes : 77

Doesn't get much better than that! I wonder what the one poor vote was all about...

MOD: (Morrowind) The Theurgist

The Theurgist, a mod for Morrowind. I believe this was my first mod for Morrowind... finally, a full free-form RPG game which I could add content for! This was the beginning of what I realized what I wanted out of creating game content. Through this I could tell stories, have humorous characters, create my own tasks and adventures... basically a full nerdgasm, if you will.

Let it be said that I'd toyed around with games such as NeverWinterNights, and it never grabbed me. If NWN or a similar game was presented in a full 3D environment, I'd probably be all over it (although I don't think the DnD rules are particularly well suited for this kind of game, mainly with spellcasting). I think it's almost the single-person MRPG aspect that I like.

I seem to have a sort of unwritten set of guidelines when I create quest content. I like to write stories that don't interfere with the main story but tie into it somehow. I like to make memorable characters, sometimes pure evil but usually good-hearted with a great sense of humor. I'd like to think I make dialogue that's better than average. I try to make items that are unique, and tend to push elements of the engine where I can, scripting in unusual qualities. I try to make good use of the gameworld map, using areas that are overlooked or unused. I also tend to make higher-level content, since frequently that is where it's needed the most.

Pictured in the shots are one of the new robes you can receive as a reward, plus one of the many new spells.

"Once a great Telvanni mage and theurgist, J. Scorchblot has become a bit of an enigma. Most think he's gone crazy, some say he was never really sane in the first place, but all would admit that he wields great power over the elements. Most would also say that he's actually a fairly nice guy- but many fear him just the same. No longer with the House, he lives as a hermit amongst his own creations. Older and more frail now, he looks for one to help him with his tasks, and to perhaps pass on his knowledge." This plugin is designed for mage classes. Although anyone may complete the quests, non-mage classes may not be able to cast higher level spells. The quests themselves range from easy to medium-hard. They could probably be started by someone in their teens, and completed at a higher level.

MOD: Unreal Tournament (original)

UT came after the original Unreal, focusing more on competitive matches than on a story mode. I quickly hopped into it and loved it just as much. Assault mode was my favorite, the objective-based gameplay was more interesting to me than pure frag matches.

I'm going to list two maps I made for UT, both unique in different ways, but both based on Assault mode.

The first is AS-Planeshifter, of which you can see screens fill the first part of this blog entry.

I thought it would be interesting to create a multi-world level where the player had to race through the different worlds to reach the end goal within the time limit. Along the way various critters would get in your way. Four worlds are themed for the elements, there's a pyramid theme, and alien them, and a couple dungeon-style themes. I used Assault to build this level since it already incorporates the race-against-time theme.

To win the level, you must make it to the last level and destroy all ten crystals there.
Players start in a hub which is a safe zone. Starting out they have access to two planes, fire and water. Each of those planes has an exit to the alien plane, which in turn has exits to the air and earth planes. From there you exit to the temple plane, and then to the final stages, the last with the crystals. If you die, you start back in the hub. You then must make way through the chain of planes again... unless you complete the side objectives. In each plane there's a crystal off the main path. Activate this crystal and the door to that plane opens in the hub. So then if you die you can hop right back into a plane that's further in the chain, saving time.


The opposing team starts in their own hub, with the ability to travel to any plane. They have indicators that show if anyone is in a particular plane, so they know how far the enemy is getting along the chain. (This is for the multiplayer version. In the single-player version you are facing monsters in a race against time.)

Reviews!
UTBooty: "This map gains a well deserved 90 mark and an essential download tag because although it may use an idea which has already been put to use in other games or maps, there are many functions which make this map a worthwhile download even if you are not a fan of the fantasy genre. It has the eye candy, the assault action, creative use of scenery, music, and much more." 90 out of 100

UTAssault: "Yikes! This map is so damn large I don't really know what to say about it. I say 'map' because it is really several maps in one and every single one is gorgeous and large as well. This man knows his textures all right!" Only reviewed map to receive 10/10 in Graphical/Technical category

Mapped: "Textures, lighting, and sound are all done very well and create the most atmospheric areas that the Unreal engine can spit out. Hauntingly good look and feel creating a real sense of immersion, totally original gameplay and layout, unprecendented proportions, ending which makes you eager for more. Yes, even you modem users will find that these 8MB are well worth the time to download. If your computer doesn't run the level you can always delete it, but Planeshifter offers just about the best single or cooperative player action for UT Assault." 8/10

Frags in the Attic: "What's that? How did I like it? I'm glad you asked! One of the things that I LOVE the most about Unreal/Unreal Tournament is the amount of creative talent out there on the web striving continuously to make an excellent game better! So many people have created maps and mutators all designed to make the playing of the game more fun! But, this is NOT just a MAP. It is an experience. To begin with, the map itself is HUGE, and broken up into several component maps (planes). The Assault Goals are challenging and the gameplay exciting!"


The second map is AS-Resurrection. This was the first Assault map I created, and it received a huge amount of positive feedback on the boards. It's a large map and various strategies can be successful. It has some of every kind of gameplay- some sniping play, some short range twitch, some in between. I tried to create a map that the attacks wouldn't blow through in 30 seconds. Bots are fully compatible and will give a challenge. In fact, I believe this was the first custom map that managed to have fully functional bot work... probably adding to its popularity. The level starts in a graveyard which leads up to a tower. You make your way up the maze in the tower to the top level where you must hit four targets to win. (In hindsight I made some bad design decisions with this one; the outdoor areas had way too much in view and I made poor use of blocking volumes.)


Reviews!

UTBooty: "This here is a breathtaking map. From the iron gates, to the flame torches, to the open graves full of weapons, the author of this map took his time in creating a great setting that sucks you in and makes you want to see what's next. Let's face it, bot pathing is tricky stuff. The author comes through better than I've seen anyone do yet in a user-made assault map, making the map actually possible to play single-player! My first assault map review... thanks to this author for making it an easy one. Great map and a lot of fun."

Double Take: "If you're part of the assault fan base and haven't had the chance to experience Resurrection of the Warlock yet, what are you waiting for? This map could easily have shipped with the original set on the UT CD. Forget about the high system specs needed for a very smooth game this one should remain in server rotation a long time. For those who don't play online on a regular basis but thrive on botmatch need this. At the time of this review there isn't a better experience for the assault game type. Congratulations go to NarkyBark for creating a masterpiece that'll be tough to top."

Nexus: 9 out of 10.

MappeD: 9 stars.

UT Center: 5 out of 5 stars.

UTWorld: I'm not exactly sure what this site says about it since it's not in English, but they gave it a 93%!

MOD: the original Unreal

I'll spend a lot of time with this one, since I consider the original Unreal to be my largest step into modding. I fell in love with the game when it came out. It provided large expansive areas to explore, atmospheric graphics, and colored lighting. Colored lighting! Be still my heart. Nowadays of course it looks a little crude. It's amazing how fast game and graphic technology advances. As I write this I'm fiddling with the Unreal3 engine and it's a different animal entirely. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Once I got into editing, I was pretty entrenched in the Unreal community. I ran a skinning site in PlanetUnreal called House of Style (I took it over from the original founder if I recall... I'm sure I would've named it something different). I made several maps, some even with, you guessed it... colored lighting. This also gave me a chance to experiment with a lot of different concepts. I'll run down some of the maps I've made and add blurbs for each one. I'll add a screenshot if I have any handy plus any reviews I might have saved. It's funny looking back at some of these now... so basic!

Faithless isn't a great one to list first since it was never intended as a public map; it was instead a portfolio piece for a company that I applied to (because of this it looked like I would've been hired at Looking Glass but then they closed their doors! Ugh...) This map was an experiment for triggered sequences. They wanted me to make a few locations and give a few scripted sequences just to show I could do the basics. The map itself is a stone chapel, with passages to a bedroom and some secret caverns beyond. Funny how much more complex everything is nowadays. This never got reviewed since I never released it publically.

DM-Chessboard (and DOM-Chessboard) is the simplest of the levels I've made, being a Morbias-style arena. It's multi-level, a single large room with a couple wings and a large chessboard in the center, complete with moving pieces and trap doors. The idea was to make a simple, elegant environment, and the addition of a classical soundtrack helped this immensely.

A review from Atticbat (Frags in the Attic:) Though far from mammoth in size, Chessboard makes up for it in quality. Based around the huge chessboard namesake, the map is basically an arena for the eight-ball of deathmatch domination. While attempting to avoid being crushed by the larger than normal chess pieces as they 'move' along their paths as if some larger unseen beings were in the middle of a weekend game, one must also beware the ample shaodws above and surrounding the board. A second level encircles the chessboard, along with multiple lifts giving access. Weapons are no problem to find, hiding places are. Again, I played with six bots, and they thrashed me!! All the time, I felt as if I had played this map before, possibly on-line, has it been out for that long? Regardless, I found myself returning, repeatedly, and that's what it is all about! Check this map out! Get it? 'Check'?? Nevermind, just play the map!!!Graphics- 8.5, Variety-8.0, Gameplay- 8.0, Freshness- 7.0

DM-Ether was another early level of mine, an experiment in open space and bizarre atmosphere. A real sniper-heavy map. This kind of level wouldn't go over well nowadays- well I suppose it could but it would have to be a lot fancier visually and vertex counts would have to be put in check. The map used a silly amount of what these days are called "emitters"... effects that are rendered on the fly (such as lightning, smoke, fire, etc.) It was a new technology then! This was also probably the first map I put easter eggs in. If you fell off any of the platforms anywhere, instead of dying you would get teleported to a different part of the map. But if you did it in a few certain places, you'd end up in secret areas (one of them is the picture I chose to the left). Various reviews...

Frags in the attic: Gooooo, NarkyBark!! The play area is limited to levels of ramps (careful around the edges, there, boyeee!!) giving multiple angles of fire. The lightning backgrounds are awesome, I kept waiting for a strike on one of the ramps, that would have been rad! The ramps lead to a few different areas. There are 'rooms', with some interesting areas to play around in, and secrets... shhhh! ;) My bots played reaaly well, keeping me hopping, but the true gameplay here is with other humans, and it rocks!! Definately a desirable addition to the 'maps' folder, fraggers!!Graphics- 8.0, Variety-7.0, Gameplay- 8.0, Freshness- 7.0

Nali City: NarkyBark is the curator of The House of Style here on Planet Unreal but who knew he could make maps? DmEther is definitely original - it's a system of platforms and catwalks floating over a swirling ether storm. Lightning flashes in the distance make this map all about atmospshere. But does it make a good Deathmatch? Hell yes! Even with the huge open area frame rates are still good. It's got some of the best sniping you'll see anywhere. Best of all, if you've got 2 health and someone's chasing you then just leap into the ether. You'll get teleported back to a different location on the platforms. Score 8 out of 10

DM-TheMatrix.... ok, so just like everyone else, when this movie came out I was crazy about it. (Still am, actually. But those sequels...) I wanted to try to replicate some of the physical effects in the movie- want to walk on walls? No problem. Want to stop those rockets that were fired at you? Make 'em stop in mid-air. Want to be totally confused? No problem! Seriously though, you can do all of the above. Prepare to be confused! You can walk on almost any wall or ceiling- there IS no right side up. And with the special powerup (it appears as boots) you can stop projectiles fired at you in their tracks.

Plus a few other little items that you'll remember. It'll take some getting used to- the view shifting due to the player orientation as he jumps around on the walls is a little disorientating at first, but you learn how to get around quickly.

The Darkside Collection- a series of maps with minimal lighting. Lighting comes from only natural sources such as lava, and the skies are twilight. Provides for lots of hiding and stealth and makes for a different style of deathmatch. I believe there were a dozen or so maps in the pack.

There are a couple more maps to be had, but that brings us to Unreal Tournament...