04.21:
Oh no, not the Chaos Mod Itself section!
Category: Quake
Posted by: cataboligne
Yes...the Chaos Mod.....itself.
The chaos mod was originally conceived to add enviromental features, and elements of Archon to a loosely class based mod.
In the pre half-life 2 days of its creation, having things melt in lava, being able to carry stuff around, and other neat effects seemed like a really cool idea. Since the release of HL2 the environment and physics features are kind of weak.
The concept is thus: The forces of Chaos (re: Archon) have been loosed upon the now familar quake realms and are wreaking havok. People are turning into beasts, ammo and weapons are all out of sorts with new weps appearing and old ones failing or disappearing altogether, and much more mayhem. As in Archon, the level of Chaos power would increase or decrease depending on players action. Part of the play is even to allow one player to be the ultimate avatar of Chaos.
What exists so far:
Morphing and morph states seem to work well. If you die as a morph, you leave a morph corpse, respawn as that morph and change levels as that morph. This in itself is some kind of zen like achievement. Especially when done all in quake C.
All the morph weapons also work with some enhancements for the weaker weapons (Scragg anyone?) There might be a few animation issues left on this front.
Start of game (net connect or 1 player start) offers a morph state selection. This may eventually change.
Environment effects are pretty killer. Stuff melts in lava. I mean everything that gets in lava! Ammo boxes will float on lava, and rocket supplied stuff (rocket ammo, rocket launcher, grenade launchers) tend to explode. And when stuff melts in lava, it throws up a red spray. Once I get more into the engine side of things this will become some kind of mist/fog effect.
Lavaballs can mirv now into multiple lava balls and fires. When they land back in the lava they dont just disappear, they slowly sink.
Napalm from the flame thrower will burn longer in lava and slime. Napalm can also cause flare ups in slime with little balls of the stuff flying all over the surface. This is a killer effect, I always felt the radioactive sludge inhabiting the realm of doom and quake should be a lot more volatile.
A new inventory system is in effect. There are 8 slots capable of holding 2 weapons and one ammo position. The two weapons sharing a slot must have the same ammo type or one or both must be "ammoless" weapons. Every thing a player can get must fit into these 8 slots. That includes armor (value is stored in ammo spot), all carryables (bear trap anyone?) and even built in morph weapons use slots.
An advanced part of the plan is to assign firing ammo bearing weapons a weight code. Not really an actual weight, just something like: shotgun, nailgun = 1, super nailgun, grenade launcher = 2, rocket launcher, gatling gun = 3. Then your standard marine will have a code limit of 6 to start. An experience point style system will account for enhancements in game play.
You can also drop anything you can carry. This includes all ammo, and every single weapon, including the ever present axe (why does a quake marine have a double bladed tree killer anyway?) and shot gun. Its also possible to holster all your weapons and carry around objects just like in HL2. (Yeah, I kind of had the brainstorm for this _after_ playing HL2...)
In progress now, and what I want to finish.
Unfortunately getting the mod to a releaseable state of any kind is a pain due to its complexity. What exists right now is essentially a weapons / morph / environment effects demo. It doesnt even do anything in the way of enhanced play style.
I am working on a new visible weapons support system that is pretty neat. I dont know how it will turn out, but theoretically every weapon carried by your marine avatar could be visible on his person. I'll find out how practical this is when I get more of the modeling done.
The idea is to have a pretty much seamless weapon visual from the 3rd person point of view. One thing that bothers me about most of the visible weapon support mods is that at some point weapons just flicker into different weapons. In this mod you will see every weapon dropped down and switched to a new one. The current plan is for most weapons to be held on a bandolier type of device, with carryables on the sides, and firing weapons on the back.
Also in mind are options for a fire spray from explosions and fires in lava, making explosions capable of moving and even damaging objects, and of course adding a crow bar, and bustable crates. (Hey it works for Freeman...)
Plans also exist to balance the morph weapon sets with attainable enhancements and experience advances so that playing a morph character isnt a liability. (Generally playing a limited weapon monster against a quake marine with a full weapon set available is futile.)
Also nice would be the experience point and Chaos effects system but neither even have code started.
Future plans:
I had an idea for a single player adventure. Fact is single player is much harder to work on than multi player especially when your creative time is broken up into disjointed segments.
The idea goes along the lines that the power of Chaos is warping all the realms of doom, quake, quake 2 and quake 3 together. This has its basis in my continual efforts to carry my favorite dm maps from game to game. (I have a updated doom e1m1 and doom 2 map01 for quake, quake 2 and quake 3!) You would then venture through the twisted mess in a "My science project" kind of adventure. You'd never know what kind of weapons and ammo you'd find, whether creatures would be enemy or favorable, etc. I have a whole realm of ideas for this design.
Final notes:
Some people wonder why I work with a game engine based on quake 1...quake 1 is going on 10 yrs, which in the gaming universe is like an aeon.
Still with many of the updates being done via the GPL'ed code it has kept up with some of the newer feature sets. Darkplaces, my current test engine, can load q3 maps & models, q2 models, and has a quite advanced graphic options. The main reason is the time invested learing quake C and the modeling system. Since I havent made a career as a 3D modeler the only format I can really edit well is mdl. Since no one is jumping out of the woodwork to offer me HL2 modeling skills I'll probably contiune in this vein for some time. Another reason to stick with an antiquidated language like quake C is to take advantage of as many engines as possible. With offerings like tenenbrae 2, this could be a significant advantage.
The chaos mod was originally conceived to add enviromental features, and elements of Archon to a loosely class based mod.
In the pre half-life 2 days of its creation, having things melt in lava, being able to carry stuff around, and other neat effects seemed like a really cool idea. Since the release of HL2 the environment and physics features are kind of weak.
The concept is thus: The forces of Chaos (re: Archon) have been loosed upon the now familar quake realms and are wreaking havok. People are turning into beasts, ammo and weapons are all out of sorts with new weps appearing and old ones failing or disappearing altogether, and much more mayhem. As in Archon, the level of Chaos power would increase or decrease depending on players action. Part of the play is even to allow one player to be the ultimate avatar of Chaos.
What exists so far:
Morphing and morph states seem to work well. If you die as a morph, you leave a morph corpse, respawn as that morph and change levels as that morph. This in itself is some kind of zen like achievement. Especially when done all in quake C.
All the morph weapons also work with some enhancements for the weaker weapons (Scragg anyone?) There might be a few animation issues left on this front.
Start of game (net connect or 1 player start) offers a morph state selection. This may eventually change.
Environment effects are pretty killer. Stuff melts in lava. I mean everything that gets in lava! Ammo boxes will float on lava, and rocket supplied stuff (rocket ammo, rocket launcher, grenade launchers) tend to explode. And when stuff melts in lava, it throws up a red spray. Once I get more into the engine side of things this will become some kind of mist/fog effect.
Lavaballs can mirv now into multiple lava balls and fires. When they land back in the lava they dont just disappear, they slowly sink.
Napalm from the flame thrower will burn longer in lava and slime. Napalm can also cause flare ups in slime with little balls of the stuff flying all over the surface. This is a killer effect, I always felt the radioactive sludge inhabiting the realm of doom and quake should be a lot more volatile.
A new inventory system is in effect. There are 8 slots capable of holding 2 weapons and one ammo position. The two weapons sharing a slot must have the same ammo type or one or both must be "ammoless" weapons. Every thing a player can get must fit into these 8 slots. That includes armor (value is stored in ammo spot), all carryables (bear trap anyone?) and even built in morph weapons use slots.
An advanced part of the plan is to assign firing ammo bearing weapons a weight code. Not really an actual weight, just something like: shotgun, nailgun = 1, super nailgun, grenade launcher = 2, rocket launcher, gatling gun = 3. Then your standard marine will have a code limit of 6 to start. An experience point style system will account for enhancements in game play.
You can also drop anything you can carry. This includes all ammo, and every single weapon, including the ever present axe (why does a quake marine have a double bladed tree killer anyway?) and shot gun. Its also possible to holster all your weapons and carry around objects just like in HL2. (Yeah, I kind of had the brainstorm for this _after_ playing HL2...)
In progress now, and what I want to finish.
Unfortunately getting the mod to a releaseable state of any kind is a pain due to its complexity. What exists right now is essentially a weapons / morph / environment effects demo. It doesnt even do anything in the way of enhanced play style.
I am working on a new visible weapons support system that is pretty neat. I dont know how it will turn out, but theoretically every weapon carried by your marine avatar could be visible on his person. I'll find out how practical this is when I get more of the modeling done.
The idea is to have a pretty much seamless weapon visual from the 3rd person point of view. One thing that bothers me about most of the visible weapon support mods is that at some point weapons just flicker into different weapons. In this mod you will see every weapon dropped down and switched to a new one. The current plan is for most weapons to be held on a bandolier type of device, with carryables on the sides, and firing weapons on the back.
Also in mind are options for a fire spray from explosions and fires in lava, making explosions capable of moving and even damaging objects, and of course adding a crow bar, and bustable crates. (Hey it works for Freeman...)
Plans also exist to balance the morph weapon sets with attainable enhancements and experience advances so that playing a morph character isnt a liability. (Generally playing a limited weapon monster against a quake marine with a full weapon set available is futile.)
Also nice would be the experience point and Chaos effects system but neither even have code started.
Future plans:
I had an idea for a single player adventure. Fact is single player is much harder to work on than multi player especially when your creative time is broken up into disjointed segments.
The idea goes along the lines that the power of Chaos is warping all the realms of doom, quake, quake 2 and quake 3 together. This has its basis in my continual efforts to carry my favorite dm maps from game to game. (I have a updated doom e1m1 and doom 2 map01 for quake, quake 2 and quake 3!) You would then venture through the twisted mess in a "My science project" kind of adventure. You'd never know what kind of weapons and ammo you'd find, whether creatures would be enemy or favorable, etc. I have a whole realm of ideas for this design.
Final notes:
Some people wonder why I work with a game engine based on quake 1...quake 1 is going on 10 yrs, which in the gaming universe is like an aeon.
Still with many of the updates being done via the GPL'ed code it has kept up with some of the newer feature sets. Darkplaces, my current test engine, can load q3 maps & models, q2 models, and has a quite advanced graphic options. The main reason is the time invested learing quake C and the modeling system. Since I havent made a career as a 3D modeler the only format I can really edit well is mdl. Since no one is jumping out of the woodwork to offer me HL2 modeling skills I'll probably contiune in this vein for some time. Another reason to stick with an antiquidated language like quake C is to take advantage of as many engines as possible. With offerings like tenenbrae 2, this could be a significant advantage.
