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Abyss Of Pandemonium v2.0 Improved Edition (2019)

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  • #16
    By pure chance I actually just finished what must be my 2nd or 3rd replay of the addon by now. In spite of its age, it's still a pretty solid experience. The new textures guarantee an original look that sets the whole thing apart from the classic id episodes and gameflow is good, also not overly hard.

    I admit I never use the new weapons that much since they act a bit unpredictably, especially that napalm grenade launcher and the lightning gun prototype. The laser system is useful sometimes against Shamblers. Are there more than two upgrade levels for it? Asking since I never find all secrets and wonder if there is a hidden upgrade to bring it to level 3.

    Anyway, great to get some insights into the development process after all these years! Teams often used to disappear after projects like this and members are never heard of ever again. Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge and experiences here, Ryan. It is highly appreciated. You and the rest of your team can be proud of what you have accomplished. AoP may not be the greatest Quake modification of all times, but it's still enjoyable these days and an important part of Quake's early modding history.

    PS: A pity about that X-Files TC that never came to be. I would have been highly interested in such a thing, even nowadays.
    Last edited by NightFright; 11-14-2020, 01:11 PM.
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    • #17
      The Laser system has 3 different levels

      level 1 - 3 spread projectiles
      level 2 - projectiles that zig-zag at short range before going straight at long range, these will send the enemy flying back and do not destroy when contacting enemies, meaning if you can line up enemies in a row it will damage multiple enemies behind the front one
      level 3 - dual projectiles that go straight and rapidly fire 3x in succession before a short downtime, the damage on this is excessive, absolutely the most powerful weapon in the game for damage-per-second, but the ammo cost is high, it can take down the largest enemies with relative ease

      From memory there are 4 opportunities to collect the laser weapon in the second chapter although some are well hidden, 2 are provided in the final level so that if you missed one earlier on you can still get to level 3. If you have level 3 and a full backpack of ammo, the damage of the level 3 laser is so high the final boss is killed very quickly. If anyone was to speed run the game, this would probably be the best method to shorten the final boss encounter.

      Also the reasons behind why the Laser system doesn't have a weapon model is still quite of a mystery to me, we had a model at one stage that suited the firing style of level 1 and 2, I felt it was adequate enough and one of the modellers could have done a quick modification to suit level 3, weapons only have about 10-20 key frames of animation so it's not as work-intensive as an enemy model. But then I was told to remove the model all together and call it 'shoulder mounted', I thought it was going a bit far to skimp on weapon models but perhaps the decision was also driven by the looming deadlines.

      Thanks for your kind words. Yeah I felt the X-files concept was very appealing, especially because the storytelling aspect of 3D shooters was in its infancy, I thought a mod featuring more heavily on story and character development would be very unique.
      Last edited by Gribe; 11-15-2020, 02:11 AM.

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      • #18
        @OV3RDR!VE
        Do you happen to have the QuakeC source for your progs.dat adjustments? I was wondering if I am able to get that annoying error message fixed about missing sounds when you break the glass in AOP1M4 "Temple of Moon" (see this video, roughly around 3:15).
        Last edited by NightFright; 12-14-2020, 03:14 PM.
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        • #19
          Originally posted by OV3RDR!VE View Post
          Regarding my "EVOLVE" avatar... I'm a big fan of Zaero Add-On Pack For Quake 2 and own an original US boxed version
          of the game which was released with 28 page user manual. EVOLVE team did an astonishing job on creating this so called "Mission Pack #3"
          for Quake 2 and I really loved it.
          ...yeah I was wondering about that avatar

          You prob have the boxed version with our replacement textures? During development we worked with id sofware's original textures but of course in the end couldn't get the license to use them in the product, so all the textures had to be replaced by us.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by mexx View Post

            ...yeah I was wondering about that avatar

            You prob have the boxed version with our replacement textures? During development we worked with id sofware's original textures but of course in the end couldn't get the license to use them in the product, so all the textures had to be replaced by us.
            Yes, I do. Original Big Box release bought off ebay in November of 2019.

            I saw the folder where you stowed all the textures you altered on the CD.
            Pretty useful for development purposes.
            I kinda noticed that some textures resemble the ones from ID.

            Also you guys somehow managed to stuff your scrnshot folder into Pak0.pak

            In addition, I want tho say that I spotted some very similar design aspects between "Heresy" (AOP) and The Gathering" (ZAERO).
            You love those blocky ledges which come out of the wall and are usually placed in a row, don't you Mexx?)
            Last edited by OV3RDR!VE; 10-13-2021, 02:04 AM.

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            • #21
              Would original textures in user maps still be an issue now? I mean, your texture replacements were great, but I'm kinda curious to see what AoP could have looked like if you had used stock ID1 textures.
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              • #22
                Originally posted by NightFright View Post
                Would original textures in user maps still be an issue now? I mean, your texture replacements were great, but I'm kinda curious to see what AoP could have looked like if you had used stock ID1 textures.
                Hasn't the quake engine been release to public domain several years ago? I don't think that applies to the content like textures thou. So technically that'd prob be still illegal. If anyone from id software still cares is another isssue.

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by OV3RDR!VE View Post
                  I saw the folder where you stowed all the textures you altered on the CD.

                  I just unpacked the .pak file again and had a look. After all those years I'm no longer aware of how that worked. Textures in a pak file override id textures with the same name I guess? So basically in order to play the addon with the original textures one could just delete the custom texture folder?

                  Odd - I thought textures were stored inside the map bsp files instead of just being referenced from there. AFAIK that was the reason noone could use id textures for commercial projects because they would automatically be redistributed within the files, and that would be legal trouble.

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                  • #24
                    In my copy of the game, the textures folder in pak0.pak just contains a couple of model skins. That's it. Textures are embedded in the map files.

                    If you have a different version which allows easy texture removal, try posting some screenshots. Would be cool to see what it looks like.
                    Last edited by NightFright; 10-20-2021, 11:43 AM.
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                    LIT/VIS files for Quake addons

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by mexx View Post


                      I just unpacked the .pak file again and had a look. After all those years I'm no longer aware of how that worked. Textures in a pak file override id textures with the same name I guess? So basically in order to play the addon with the original textures one could just delete the custom texture folder?

                      Odd - I thought textures were stored inside the map bsp files instead of just being referenced from there. AFAIK that was the reason noone could use id textures for commercial projects because they would automatically be redistributed within the files, and that would be legal trouble.
                      You didn't get it right. I meant the "Textures" folder on the Compact Disc (CD).

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                      • #26
                        What you could do in theory is to extract all id1 textures and load them externally as some kind of override. In ports which allow that, it should be possible.
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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by OV3RDR!VE View Post

                          You didn't get it right. I meant the "Textures" folder on the Compact Disc (CD).
                          Odd. There's no such directory on my Zaero CD.

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                          • #28
                            Zaero? I thought this was about AoP. Or was AoP on the Zaero CD for some reason? I never owned it, so couldn't tell.
                            Authentic Models Pack
                            OriOn's ID1 Model Fixes for MP1+2
                            LIT/VIS files for Quake addons

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by mexx View Post

                              Odd. There's no such directory on my Zaero CD.
                              Here you go. Just opened the CD Image (ZAERO.img).
                              Now you can see it.

                              source.png

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                              • #30
                                Originally posted by NightFright View Post
                                Zaero? I thought this was about AoP. Or was AoP on the Zaero CD for some reason? I never owned it, so couldn't tell.
                                No, AOP has never been on ZAERO CD.

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