Alien Arena 2006
polycounter lvl 18
(press release)
COR Entertainment has released Alien Arena 2006, the new standalone freeware online deathmatch game!
Included are 25 total levels, 9 detailed characters, 8 weapons, 2 vehicles, 5 gamplay modes(DM, TDM, CTF, All Out Assault, Deathball), and much more!
New for Alien Arena 2006 are five mutators(instagib, regeneration, vampire, rocket arena, and low grav), and Deathball, a mode in which you get points by capturing a ball and firing in into a goal. Eight new levels have been added, as well as alternate firing modes for several of the weapons. The game now runs on verson 4.03 of the CRX engine, based on the id Software GPL source codes, and adding nextgen features such as reflective water, shaders, light bloom, improved lighting, and much more, while optimizations allow it to still run extremely fast even on modest systems. The game now features colored names, an improved console, and an enhanced in-game server browser.
Also available is the "Nightmare Bots" patch, which adds a fourth skill level to the in-game bots, which will challenge even the best players.
Visit http://red.planetarena.org and download the game!
COR Entertainment has released Alien Arena 2006, the new standalone freeware online deathmatch game!
Included are 25 total levels, 9 detailed characters, 8 weapons, 2 vehicles, 5 gamplay modes(DM, TDM, CTF, All Out Assault, Deathball), and much more!
New for Alien Arena 2006 are five mutators(instagib, regeneration, vampire, rocket arena, and low grav), and Deathball, a mode in which you get points by capturing a ball and firing in into a goal. Eight new levels have been added, as well as alternate firing modes for several of the weapons. The game now runs on verson 4.03 of the CRX engine, based on the id Software GPL source codes, and adding nextgen features such as reflective water, shaders, light bloom, improved lighting, and much more, while optimizations allow it to still run extremely fast even on modest systems. The game now features colored names, an improved console, and an enhanced in-game server browser.
Also available is the "Nightmare Bots" patch, which adds a fourth skill level to the in-game bots, which will challenge even the best players.
Visit http://red.planetarena.org and download the game!
Replies
Great work on the new webpage as well, the old one really sucked
Crash on startup. "CRX needs to shut down"
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System specs?
Great work on the new webpage as well, the old one really sucked
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Haha, yeah, it sure did. I'm fairly horrible at webpages, plus lack of time doesn't help either. I used a template for this one
Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz
256 RAM
If it won't work on this one (my Internet computer) I can always move it over to my work machine.
GForce 4 MX 420
Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz
256 RAM
If it won't work on this one (my Internet computer) I can always move it over to my work machine.
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Yeah, your system should be able to handle it with those specs. If it's crashing, the first place to check is your firewall/anti-virus software. 99% of our reported Windows crashes have turned out to be because of that.
The chaingun seems a bit too powerful to me, bots constantly snipe me with the thing across the (first) map and I snipe them.
It could use a refresh rate selector, playing at 60Hz is annoying...
Bug: When I quit the game it doesn't properly reset my mouse sensitivity and I have to go into the control panel to set it back.
Bug: When I quit the game it doesn't properly reset my mouse sensitivity and I have to go into the control panel to set it back.
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The game doesn't set anything outside of itself, regarding the mouse. We've never had a bug like that reported before. The mouse sensitivity code is identical to Q2's.
You'll appreciate the power of the chaingun when you get to a map with the vaporizer
EDIT: AMD64 3k+, GF68h Forceware 77.77, 1GB RAM, Win2k.
How does the engine handle the mouse sensitivity? Perhaps it uses some deprecated API call for that?
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I stand corrected - the following code suggests that it does change the parameters, but then restores them upon exit -
if (mouseparmsvalid)
restore_spi = SystemParametersInfo (SPI_SETMOUSE, 0, newmouseparms, 0);
This is where they are actually restored -
if (restore_spi)
SystemParametersInfo (SPI_SETMOUSE, 0, originalmouseparms, 0);
Not sure why it's not working on your system though. That's definitely the first time we've heard of that bug. I would suspect that Q2/Q3 would have the same problem for you though. It's pretty basic, generic code.
1. No fast/european servers, which is a bad idea since all other freeware games, like Nexuiz or Warsaw etc are much more often played by europeans for some reason. But I realize that this is a difficult situation you can't change much about. (this directly translates to very few people playing unfortionally, even though I did some promotion work on German Linux pages).
2. The maps are STILL too dark. I guess a complete redesign of the lightning is the only solution, as menu settings don't change anything about this, at least not significantly.
3. The weapons need a redesign, not graphically (most of them look really nice) but the behaviour. There are too many single projectile weapons with slow recovery rate, that are exspecially bad to play with a high ping.
In that regard it also looks very bad that the muzzle flashes seem to be serverside and often lag behind the actual graphical representaion of the weapon.
Overall the weapons feel 'laggy' and unresponsive, which is probably due to bad pings on US-servers, but would look much nicer if it was just done server-side, while the client at least pretents to 'be up-to-date'.
4. Some of the playermodels look really quite bad, maybe drop those completely, as it would give a much nicer overall impression, even though it would mean less options to choose.
5. I haven't found a way to sort the internal serverbrowser after it's ping, which is what I usually do.
6. mouse sensitivity is already maxed out at levels I consider ok to play but others might want to go even higher.
7. Not sure what it is exactly, but aircontrol after jumping with jumppads feels strange, often resulting in unfortunate accidents
8. Spacemaps would look nicer with a real space background, instead of just black void.
I'm really curious as to what player models you thought looked bad? That is the absolute *first* time I've ever heard that said. Usually that is one of the things praised the most. http://red.planetarena.org/characters.html
Regarding level darkness, some levels are dark, some are not. I have no problem seeing in them. Of course there are some areas of levels with dark areas, but hey, I'm not a big fan of fullbright looking levels. But if you want to brighten them up, turn on multitexture combine. It evens out the brightness quite nicely. Most people that have complained about the darkness, had no complaints after doing that. And there is a brightness control as well. If these aren't working for you, I'm not sure what to say.
Weapons, well, everybody's got their own opinions on those. There is no way possible to make everyone happy. But the way they are now, is pretty much the product of a years worth of suggestions. The only thing that might get changed in the future is the addition of some more alt-fires. Sorry... The things you describe though, sound mostly like products of lag.
The servers are already sorted in order of ping.
Spacemaps have a black void? There's Jupiter, Earth, the Sun and some other planet there, well there *should* be anyway
I appreciate the feedback...
John, I have a lot of respect for what you've done here. Put together your own game, had such a big hand on all the art, and all that. This is a great accomplishment, and without a doubt, something to be proud of. That said, don't let any of my criticism rub you the wrong. I'm just calling what I see here.
My gaming experience went like this: spawn in, and railed by a lamp post before I hard time to move. If I did avoid manage to avoid that blast, I'd find myself stuck down in the rocky area with no idea how to escape this eventual death trap. I did find that if I walked into the blackness, I'd be blasted into the air by an invisible jump pad, to be railed down by that same lamp post. Now, I'm an avid FPS gamer. I set the game on easy just to give it a quick look and run through. Unfortunately, this forced me to uninstall the game after I discovered I lost that round.
JK made a lot of honest points that you should address. Yes, the maps are too dark, and a lot of the textures cause this, not just the lighting. There are some nice dark moody areas, but you have the technology to make things look nice. There is no sense in all this hide-our-crap-in-the-dark business. The weapons need redesign. Even from my short gameplay experience, ALL weapons minus the chaingun were useless. JK's comment about single project vs. higher rate of fire is technical and apt. I really find it hard to believe that is the absolute first time you ever heard the player models look bad, because yes, they look really bad. From a closer look on the web site, I can tell there is some technical know-how going on here, but these designs are just terrible. I get the whole "Mars Attacks" things, but there are severe issues of readability and basics of design that have just been tossed out the window here. What makes me feel bad about all this is there are so many issues that I couldn't possible explain everything to you without a serious, forget-what-you-know, heart-to-heart talk about refinement in all these areas.
With that, I leave you with this suggestion: Find some real serious professional developers who can give you honest feedback, and NOT compliments. Be selective about this as well, artists for art, designers for design, etc. Keep at this, and maybe AA07 could be a pretty hot product.
Brutal. Harsh.
ALL weapons? You just said you only played the first level. There are only the disruptor, chaingun and rocket launcher in that level. The RL is identical to that of Q2's, btw. I and most other people find it to be quite useful. In fact, it's my preferred weapon.
Hey, I have no problem with crits. This is just a hobby for me. I always think there is room for improvement in anything I do.
But one thing really bothers me, and that are the character crits. I get that people don't always like that style, but I didn't get crits anywhere in the remote neighborhood of this much harshness when I pimped each one of them here at PC as I made them. Most people seemed to like them, or at the very worst, offer some constructive things to improve them, which I heeded and did. To say there are terrible, my god, dude, that is just a slap in my face about as hard as it gets. I have NEVER seen any crit on Polycount that was that flat out mean. Never.
Lastly, how did this turn into a crit thread? I didn't ask for them, and this isn't the pimping and previews section.
You weren't there when Samurai was still making his rounds, eh?
EDIT: Whoa, I finally finished that damn first level! The healthpacks could use a major boost, as it is it's almost impossible to recover when your health is low.
The railgun should lower the sensitivity when zoomed, otherwise it's useless because the crosshair is moving around way too fast and all the zoom does is disorient you. Could use better hit feedback as well, I'm never sure whether I hit or not and sometimes projectiles seem to pass through parts of the playermodels.
Brightness could use some evening out as there are spots of absolute darkness while other parts of the level seem to be 3-4 times overbright. Since some powerups look a lot like enemies that's very disorienting.
I think I figured out what whacked my sensitivity back then, I used alt-F4 to quit. Apparently it doesn't shut down properly when that is encountered. Windows only sends a sigterm when you do that, you can catch that and exit cleanly instead of just killing the program.
I have NEVER seen any crit on Polycount that was that flat out mean. Never.
You weren't there when Samurai was still making his rounds, eh?
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LOL, nope, I don't remember him.
Oh well, everybody has their opinions. God bless them all.
The railgun should lower the sensitivity when zoomed, otherwise it's useless because the crosshair is moving around way too fast and all the zoom does is disorient you.
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I agree with you. It's hard to use the way it is. That was something I thought people might suggest, once they started using alt-fires.
The healthpacks could use a major boost, as it is it's almost impossible to recover when your health is low.
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Hey, there is an adrenaline powerup down in the rocks that'll give you 100% health...it's in the right side, if you're facing the electro orbs, and kinda close to the wall, to the right of the pool of water.
For brightness, did you have multitexture combine on? That really evens things out quite a bit. I wouldn't turn bloom on with it though, unless you want to hurt your eyes.
I wrote my disclaimer, and I respect your work. All love I assure you, tough love it may be, but sometimes we need to step back to reassess our situation. I've been there, fucking up and still getting compliments from people I thought were my friends. Then I took my fair share of beatings and slaps in the face from the veterans. These are our greatest moments as we come back stronger. We both know the work you do from now is only going to get better. Anyway, if you didn't want the hear both ends of the spectrum you would have put "compliments only" in your first post.
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No problem, I respect your opinion, quite a bit, and you're right, tough love only makes us improve.
The good thing is, now that I'm done the game for the most part, I can actually sit back, and take some time on making some new characters to add to the game when I feel inspired.
Maybe the best solution regarding weapons is - a) add some more alt-fires - b) more mutators that affect them. That way people can taylor it more to their liking. The good thing is, it can all be done server side.
Concerning the lightning, you are right with multitexture on, it is a lot brighter, but some areas feel overbright while others still lack brightness. And I like bloom (at least in your game as it fits nicely) but with multitexture on it is really over the top. Chris might be right when he suggests it might be due to dark and sometimes detail lacking textures.
The rocketlauncher is the best weapon, but I still think there should be more 'small projectile weapons' with fast recovery rate, kinda like the plasmagun from Quake3 for example.
It also looks really bad that all weapon effects, including the rockets seem to start/appear in midair next to you when sidestepping (which is not due to lag, as it is in singleplayer also).
Don't get me wrong, I really respect you work, and it is the most fully featured homebrew/opensource game, period. And it looks mighty fine overall also.
But the reason why so few people play it, as compared to Warsow for example (which is much less complete, and graphically less advanced) is that the weapons gamedesign an d general first impression gameplay (dark, hard to 'read' maps etc) kinda sucks (I bet a lot of people uninstalled it after a few minutes like Chris
Sorry if I turned this into a crit thread, but I got an strong urge to point out the things that make this game unpleasent to me, which are probably also the reasons why it is played so little online, which is a crying shame as it is so close to beeing a great game (but yet so far).
You might want to get your online play in now, yesterday there were 1300 listen servers started, right now, it's averaging about 100 per hour, and there are generally about 15-35 people online. I don't know how long this'll last...
You should be seeing something like this - though remember about 1/2 of the players are usually bots.
I have NEVER seen any crit on Polycount that was that flat out mean. Never.
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I suspect you haven't seen them because you don't recognize them. That's because the meanest ones tell you exactly what you want to hear, instead of what you should hear.
BUT (there is always a but on polycount) there are some things that need to be changed, looked at, learned from and pondered. Most of my crits are about the human player models.
- Face detail, sort of a blank expressionless face for someone in armed space combat. Squint the eyes, snarl the mouth a bit, or just give him a visor. The eyes really say "doe-eyes" to me.
- No pelvis, the belt has a hanging cod piece but its not large enough and does not hang down far enough to allow the legs to connect properly to the torso.
- Bow legs, His legs attach to his pelvis too far out on his hips, giving him too much space between his legs. Most peoples legs touch in the inner most part of the thigh, this becomes VERY true when you add cloths, and bluky armor.
- The texture on the inner thigh is darkened, so it makes the bow legged appearance even more pronouced.
- The texture lighting is oddly lit. The lower chest/abbs is brighter than the shoulders and upper chest? Normally light comes from above and would light the shoulders more and the chest/abbs less.
- His armpits are a bit low, I understand its armor, but they are almost at the bottom of the rib cage when they should be closer to the top. I am not sure why armor would have such low armpits?
- Doesn't appear to have much of a neck/trapezius muscle. Which gives him a constant shoulder shrug look. Like he is always saying "I don't know".
- The thighs seem a bit short, the bones in the legs are some of the longest in the body. But this doesn't look to be the case on the player.
- Gloves on the model, bare hands in the game. UT gets around this by never showing hands, just weapon models. This way, no matter what player model you choose you don't have to worry about the hands. It also keeps me from wondering "why are my hands bare?". Saves on polys, saves on rigging, saves on time, WIN WIN!
- Some of the weapon positions in the first person are kind of at an akward.
- For as many polys as the models are, you might want to consider giving them a trigger finger on thier firing hand?
Here is a quick/sloppy paint over I did, that kind of shows some basic changes I would make, most I talked about.
All in all its an impressive library of work and you should be busting buttons proud! AWESOME WORK!
That'll help alot. I do plan on making some more character models, so I should get more practice making humans, something I've never done much of.
You're right about the hands on some weapons. I should totally remove them. I have no idea why I didn't. Scatterbrained, I am. Like leaving the jumpad texture out of that one map...I totally *meant* to put it there, LOL. I swear