August 8th, 2000Stupid Internet Explorer...Well, I did write some nice little news update about the new map I was working on, but apparently it somehow got lost in the process of posting it. I hit back in order to post again... and, well, the fields were all blank! Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That's the last time I try to update with IE. While I'm on the subject, anyone know why the "Have a Pic for DP? Send it in!" thing under the potd is on the left in IE? And more importantly, why is it split into two lines? It works correctly in Netscape (centered in one line). Heh, a better question: does anybody know that link exists? :) I know I just get flooded with POTD emails - about 3 a year (not that I actually get around to updating any more often than that anyway...).
Anyway. Back to the original point of the post. I'm finally getting around to making another map. With only un poco de los ratos libres left, I decided I'd better do something productive before college started. Midnight2 should be coming out in the next few days (I hope - at least for beta testing). For an idea of what it's like: Imagine the original Midnight. Ok, now imagine it looking a whole lot cooler with strategically placed barrels and water and stuff. Now imagine it inverted. Woo, trippy :) For those with weak imaginations, you can just look at the POTD for today. The map is subject to change with or without notice. It is also subject not to change much. It is also the subject of this news post. I think I'll stop subjecting you to my torturous puns. :)
Stupid IE. July 28th, 2000Coldfire's SiteColdfire has put together a site where you can download skins and maps and all kinds of stuff like that. Check it out here. July 25th, 2000ToesWhat would a whale do with toes? July 3rd, 2000Paintball II is W2K CompatibleFor those who wondered, Digital Paint Paintball II works quite well on Windows 2000. I purchased a new hard drive and after a few days "%#&^*#^@#$&@%& why isn't this working?!" I finally got Win2k installed and functioning properly (of course it only took like 3 clicks to install on my parents' computer... figures... my computer is always difficult). Unfortunately somewhere in the process I had moved my Quake2 folder over to the new drive temporarily to free up some space to do something on another drive... then forgot about it when I reformatted the new drive (It was on a partition in a format I couldn't read at the time and I thought nothing was on it) ... oops. Anyway. Long story short. The .map files and stuff were in that dir, so if there was anyone who wanted the sources to my maps, well, you can't have them. June 23rd, 2000Quake 3 Paintball dropped.Because of an overall lack of support, and dissapointing results from initial attemps to work with the quake3 engine, I have decided to cease work on quake3 paintball.
A couple reqeusts I would appreciate you respecting
request #1. Don't ask me to reconcider. I've had months to think this over. If I do pick it back up it will be of my own choice, not because of anyone else. The only thing you can do is annoy me. I don't need that.
request #2. Don't talk to me about any of this in ANY way until you read all of this. I'm not typing for my health. In fact I'm adding this after I've typed most of whats below, and my wrist is killing me.
I'm making this decision after having a fairly indepth talk with sunspot about quake, halflife, paintball, school, and the mod communities. No, do NOT concern him with any questions or flames [thats assuming any of you were actually looking forward to q3pball]. I've pretty much had this idea in my head for a long time, but I wasn't really ready to come out and say it.
request #3. No asking for source code. I can give DETAILED advice to others wanting to undertake the project, or a similar one. Don't ask me why I won't give it out either, just chalk it up to selfishness if you must have a reason. I really don't care what you think.
The Quake3 engine was a step in the wrong direction, at least as far as I'm concerned. iD software made two products which were fairly easy to modify, and generally made good sense as far as the technology allowed. Quake3 took a wrong turn. Here are the problems I've encountered with the quake3 engine.
The lighting was returned to a quake1 style, which with better graphics made all existing paintball maps look a bit poorly lit. Above and beyond that, the intensity of the lights could be modified, but falloff couldn't be. The change in falloff is what allowed quake1 maps to be able to be compiled for quake2 and still look semi decent. By disabling this in quake3, forcing a lighting style more suited for indoors, and NOT RELEASING THE SOURCE TO THE MAP COMPILER [while i haven't looked for it lately, I'm under the impression it still isnt out] so I couldn't waste a week remedying the backwards step.
That was problem number one, but probably the most discouraging, becase every time I tested a map, I was looking at something which I concidered downright ugly, and I knew there was no good way to fix it, atleast within my skill range. [damnit, I'm a coder, not a map lighter].
Beyond that, all HUD graphics were "blurred" around the edges, because they've been forcibly streched by quake3 so the hud looks the same size in all resolutions. UGG. I did not find a way to render items without having this problem, although making the images HUGE [and yes, that wastes hard drive space and texture memory like mad] seemed to cause less blurring.
third of all, the weapon system was designed for X different weapons which each did a different thing, and each had a specific spawn entity. The client handled which gun he held, and which was selecte. The system was NOT designed to be able to easily FORCE a player to use a specific gun type, especially when the entity on the ground was the exact same for all the different guns. ... I could go on for an hour on this part, but lets just say, it was NOT designed in a manner which supported what I was trying to do.
While the shader system is VERY nice for texture makers, it's a BITCH for making a map with an eclectic set of surface lights, brush ents and surface flags. Not fun.
Those are just a FEW of the problems I've had with the engine... Don't even get me started with the built in bots. Even still, that was not the ony problem.
As most of you know, I'd been putting off work on the mod quite often, citing school as the problem. Even with school, I probably had more than enough time to work on the mod, but when I think about it, what I said was more of an "excuse" to not have to deal with quake3. I found that over the weeks I had Q3DP looming over my head, and thats not a fun thing. I was feeling that it was more of a responsibility than a fun thing to do. NOT GOOD. It didn't help that I was working on the mod alone.
BTW, I've noticed the HL community rallying around halflife paintball [ETG: #hlpball] [http://Paintball.HLcenter.com] and I must say I'm impressed. I encourage all you DP and QWPB fans to show your support, and join in the HL festivities. They have a REALLY good thing going there, and with a little help and feedback from the community, I bet we can see some great things happen.
No, I'm not quitting the mod scene. I'm taking a break while I get a summer job and maybe even through the beginning of college. I have a few other project in the wings, namely "QServer" which I'll let you know is an mIRC script I started a year or so ago. An initial version should be coming out any day now, so keep your heads up. I also hope to start contributing to code3arena again. I've been out of the loop there for a while also.
Well, thats about it for now. We'll see if I need to modify. Thanks for everything.