Question on Darkness and Zombies

[lt1956]

Hello,

First off let me say Cheers for finally making this mod and what is more releasing a demo of it! Not many Zombie mods released, they never make it.

I noticed though that its DARK very dark, and thats good for mood, but its a tad blending and makes textures look simular. But more important is the Zombies they look the same invisible infact watching the movie I couldnt see what you were shooting at. lol

I was planning on Buying Unreal04 just to play your mod, but would like to know if the darkness issues on the zombies may be addressed a little.

Also do you have any plans to make a game liike NIGHT of the Living dead near farms etc. That would be nice, since almost all Zombie mods are being made for MP only instead of SP.

Lt

[lt1956]

Forgot to Ask, Are the Zombies Limited? Or is their an unlimited number of them? It owuld be neat to see some maps where you have to clean out the infested areas. Waves and waves of endless Zombies isnt always fun.

Lt

[zynthetic]

The demo gametype is in short a duplicate of 2k4's Invasion. There are waves of zombies to fight against. Only x amount spawn at one time until some are killed off (so not to swarm the entire map w/ pawns). There are only x amount of enemies per wave. Once you finish killing them all off, or when time runs out, the next wave spawns. Each wave spawns a different amount of specific enemies. For instance the first waves will be generally easy compared to later ones which have less weak enemies and more stronger enemies. The gametype is completely customizable as well. You can set the difficulty, number of enemies, types of enemies per wave and number of waves. It also has the CS style respawn. If you die you dont respawn until the next wave. If all the players die the game is over.

About MP zombie mods, I havent' seen any in development. The released ones I've seen are pretty simple, usually small mutators. AFAIK Killing Floor is and will only be MP but not in a compeditive sense. It's coop so in a way it's like SP but w/o a cumulative story or linear map progression. Out of Hell in contrast is strictly SP.

[Saint]

i dunno if you'd really wanna crank up the brightness for the mod...because the dark spots can allow mappers to hide ugly parts of thier level and allow them to ease up on latency issue's which would allow the mappers to make the level longer and bigger or add alot more zombie's weapon cache's world models etc...i was amazed in the demo to see how they (wether by accident or intentional) blended the regular square corridors\hallways useing the darkness around most of the edge's and where there was light would put world models like desks or chairs or something to take the users eye away from the plain piece of a map and thus give the demo level a sence of realism rather then boring hallways with nuthing around...if your having problems seeing u could try a program called " Power Strip" this program allows you to brighten your moniter up and help with monitors that are "dark"...and also try changing the ingame brightness and gamma and tweaking it little by little each time till u get what you want...but seriously try "power strip" u might be surprised...hope i helped you out


ps
i dont feel like finding a link just yahoo or google it and you should find it if not post a new topic in forums so i can c it and say okay u need help finding it good luck

[lt1956]

Thanks for the replies, I noticed some of the pics that the Zombies are more bright, in the movie trailer I couldnt see what he was shooting at all! lol

I was hoping that there may have been an option to clear out a nest or section. That would have been fun, I remember AvP when it first came out and there was Waves and waves of aliens and you felt you never accomplished anything as it NEVER stopped. Is there anyway this feature can be added in UT04?

I agree on darkness hiding bad things but again if its too dark it can ruin a game, DOOM3 got blasted for it being TOO dark. I wont know until I play the demo when UT04 comes in.

Has there been any threads on an ETA of final release?

And what is the maximum Bots are you allowed to have with you? :-)

Lt

[Acid]

Well in the demo you can have a max of 2 bots at the moment. In the final release it's gonna be 3 bots max.
And umm....believe me, when you start playing, the graphics is the last thing you'll be looking at. You'll be to busy to save your own ass ;D
Anyways, the only reason Doom 3 was so dark, is so that low end machines could play it too, duhh. And it got bashed mostly because the wussies backfired in their pants more than once (you know I'm right).
ETA for the final release is still unknown, and probablly will be until the final stages of the game.

[Alex]

Dark areas are part of the natural game aesthetic, but like Saint pointed out they can be used to "tactical advantage" when i want to hide an unseemly edge or some ductwork that doesn't look right.

Either way, it's meant to be a dark game

In the trailer...well dont bother about that. That was a long long time ago where some zombies has a semi- translucent effect making them almost impossible to see.

Those things no longer exist.

[Slinky]

ETA on final release is, unfortunately, "When it's done." I know that can be kind of harsh, considering that we tried to whet you guys' appetites and don't even have a date for finishing. This is why we've tried to keep you guys up to date on every little thing we're doing since the demo, so that you understand that we're doing everything you can, and also to make sure that you guys have new something to look at at all times.

I can also tell you the things that I know have to be done on my end before release, and I'm pretty sure that comparatively, I'm gonna take WAY LONGER than Alex to finish my stuff:

1. The Buy GUI/Buy System (see the Progression of a Buy Menu thread to keep updated on that)

2. The after-round point divvy system/GUI.

3. Reworking melee weapons/zombie claws (it's a long story, but there's a reason the knife was the weapon included in the release)

4. AI tinkering to have them work with Good Karma (this will happen after the next release of GK)

5. One million little fixes.

And I'm certain there's at least one thing I'm leaving out. But I'll keep you guys updated, and I'm sure alex will always be throwing out new renders to show you guys stuff. But we really can't give you a date on when things will be finished.

[Alex]

Slinky said:

5. One million little fixes.

Lmao

Couldn't be closer to the truth, unfortunately.

But the big stuff is what's gonna take the time. The little stuff is all fun and games

[DaJMasta]

yea, once the main stuff is in place, the million fixes will be like one or 2 lines to change, minor things, an ongoing process with most mods.

And about #4, now that Ive completed a good step in EoG, its a high priority.

[lt1956]

Well I am really excited about this mod, I bought the UT04 because of it. I love the idea its in Briton, though you think weapons would be scarce unless military. lol

I love the squad idea and the bots, Mybe an addon for SP playing people to have more bots, maybe like for beginning levels? I like 5-6 man fire teams, I understand if not, But I dont see what it would hurt IF its an option even if a cheat. ;-)

I seen some of the pictures and the Zombies can be seen, the trailer is what was hard to see, I am glad you changed this. Is there going to be any opening doors maybe or welding?

I hope you give realistic ammo levels, because you know they do carry 13 30rd mags, ;-) = 390rds not including bandoleers if I was going into that ciity!

How will the buy options work whats some of the stuff I can buy more ammo? lol You know one thing that would be in a fire team would be a Squad automatic weapon for suppressing fire. Might be a good thing to add.

And my understanding is its still 6 man squads isnt it? 4 doesnt feel right 1 sarge, 1 cpl, 4 inlisted/pfc

Lt

[Alex]

Well 4 was just a number that made sense from a logistics standpoint.

frankly, having 3 players who all are expert could even be abit much for the zombies.

4 isn't concrete. The idea is to make it fair, but tense. Having a half dozen fully armed marines spraying the zombies to death is NOT what i would call tension.

But that's not to say that we dont want to encourage teamwork in order to put the enemies to bed.

you'll have to wait and see. This mod doesnt go for realism, it goes for fun. If we can put realism in there somewhere then great. But it's always going to take a backseat to action, and tension and pacing .

[lt1956]

I agree, I was just hoping to have enough ammo, lol nothing worse than playing a game and a weapon has the wrong size clip or so little ammo, especially since these are marines. On the Squad, a cheat would be fine, I think that might be best so it doesnt change your planned gameplay but allows SP people to have a couple more stupid bots. lol Waves and waves Will run ammo down pretty quick its good to have fodder. lol

Is it possible to make some maps where it is clearing a nest? Like cleaning a section of the city for a command post etc.

I'm hoping to have some tactics used more than run and gun if you know what I mean, and since I will most likely play only SP 2 extra guys never hurts. lol Options are always good. ;-)

I'll be playing the demo soon as my game comes in and I'll get an idea for the feel.

[Alex]

Well im not sure whether you knew this or not, but in the FULL release you will be able to constantly resupply ammunition and purcahse new/ additional weaponry at "weapon lockers" found at certain locations in every map. In addition to weapon lockers there will be ammo or health /armor pickups in certain places that are one-shot things and will not respawn.

basically, you get points each time you kill enemies (more for the bigger guys etc) and you lose points each time you die.

Points are what are used to purcahse items and ammunition , so if you find yourself dying alot you're either going to have to rely on a team mate to toss you a gun, or you'll have to work your way up with the menial starting equipment.

We're going to probably put in a small point reward simply for "surviving" a wave, even if you dont kill anyone, so players have a chance to get back on their feet again if they got massacred.

Obviously though, if all of the squad is dead, nobody comes back the next round

[Saint]

ya know thats not a bad idea...if the dev team really wanted a 28 days l8r they could make a roadblock map where its a hold the line style map etc etc...i doubt they will take this up but im sure if u find a mapper they can make u a map like u specified...