HEXEN II community work and discussion

[sj1985]

Hexen II: Black Plague version 1.0 released

I've toned down the difficulty level and made a couple of additional changes.

D1G1T4L D1STRESS: Black Plague

[Seven]

Hello sj1985,

Thank you very much for this great news !

Why not post/link your "Development screenshot gif" directly here in your post ?
It includes really nice pics !

I like these the most:


Really great work.
Looking forward to your beta release.

Best wishes.

[sj1985]

Hexen II: Black Plague is nearing completion and I've added some new screenshots. I'll release a beta version soon.

D1G1T4L D1STRESS

[WhiteMagicRaven]

Hexen 2 Beta 0.23

[golden_boy]

Another editor is nice, but what this game really needs is an extended BSP format and new map compilers. The effective clipnode limit in the BSP is much lower than even Quake's. This means Quake mappers can run into a very, very nasty surprise when they try to map for Hexen 2 because the thing about the additional clipping hulls is not obvious.

[Mathuzzz]

There seems to be some kind of entities limit in the game. Whenever I surpass 140 entities in HC source, the game crashes at some point.

[Seven]

Hello Mathuzzz,

Regarding szo´s bugfixed H2 game-mechanics:
You surely remember when we discussed the bug with the invulnerable spiders in Hexen 2.
Szo fixed this issue as well in it.
So I am very sure he will be able to fix your mentioned AI bug too.

Spike already looked into the code and mentioned the main points to look at (ai_charge and movetogoal are major points to investigate here, as they make the enemy keep on moving towards the player while melee attacking in Quake).
So, this should be very doable for Szo as well I guess (as he is currently working on the .hc files, as the new release 1.29 from last month shows).

We already have the "unofficial fix for the game", as it is Szo´s game-mechanics.


Spike once mentioned that also engine side there are a lot of fixes to be made for Hexen2, but this is also handled by our brave engine coders already. All the existing H2 engines are advanced engines (and I guess/hope not only hardware & gfx focused, hehe).

Anyway, I am very confident that together we will also be able solve these issues.

Have a nice sunday Mathuzzz.

[Mathuzzz]

SleepwalkR, sure, I can try it. I was even looking for different map editors, TB being one of them. Even though I was using Quark for years and your editor works a bit different from what I saw, so I hope I will not have problems to get use to it.

Seven, I use his updated hc( 1.28 ) all the time as I add some new assets to the game, so the video I uploaded is from progs.dat compiled with his updated code. I think he mainly fixes some evident bugs and removes some redundant code.

Spike, I even tried to look into hc, however I am not that good at it (Hexen 2 seems to be more difficult than Quake). It would be great if we could locate and fix this thing, make some unofficial fix for the game.

[Spike]

haha, okay, yes, that's pretty stupid.
stand next to a wall and he can't hit you... lol
the gamecode tries to use walkmove to close the distance in order to hit you, but as the player is smaller, that just fails because he's trying to move into the wall, and it doesn't know how to slide along it. kinda comic really. :s
quake monsters use movetogoal instead, so they at least stand a chance of moving away from the wall in order to get close to the player. maybe they wanted them to run off cliffs to attack the player? (ai_charge got commented out!)

someone should probably make a 'walkmoveanyway' function that tries to push away from walls or something, that should (mostly) fix it.

[Seven]

The next version of my level editor TrenchBroom will support Hexen 2 natively. If you are interested in beta testing it, get in touch with me at [email protected]. You shouldn't have any of these problems in TB2 and if you do, I will work with you to fix them.

Hello SleepwalkR,

This is one of the best news/info I have heard in the last few months !
Thank you very much to give support for this game. It really needs it.

However, AI gets stuck even behind single square column in the room. I even tried the same thing with Quake monsters, which were smart enough to find the way. I remember in the Raven maps, most of the golems and yakmans got stuck behind 90 degrees corner. Most famous stuck monster, however, would surely be Eidolon It never happened to you in the game? I thought it was known issue.

Hello Mathuzzz,

I am sure SleepwalkR will fix the texture misalignement with TB2.
But I worry about the game-mechanic issue you described above...

But then again, do you remember szo´s improved/bugfixed Hexen2 .hc source ?
click me
He just updated his gamedata to Ver.1.29 recently (1 month ago).
I am sure to read about this issue in one of the change history files. But I may be mistaken.
In the end, he will most probably be able to help you with this specific game mechanic issue, just as Spike suggested too.
You can use szo´s .hc compiler and as far as I know all H2 engines can run it.

I am sure that together we can solve these issues

Best of luck,
Seven

[SleepwalkR]

The next version of my level editor TrenchBroom will support Hexen 2 natively. If you are interested in beta testing it, get in touch with me at [email protected]. You shouldn't have any of these problems in TB2 and if you do, I will work with you to fix them.

[Mathuzzz]

I realize the monsters are meant to be stupid, but I do not know whether this was intended. I made a short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FnpIyC6D90

[Spike]

by using clip brushes at a 45-degree angle or so, your monsters should stop being trapped within the 'box' inside pillars so much (eg: your 8th screenshot).
I've never really seen it as an issue myself, but yes, the ai can be really stupid.
it would presumably be possible to have the monster properly follow walls to try to get to the player, but that would significantly change the difficulty of the game - the ai is *meant* to be stupid!

[Mathuzzz]

Spike, I do use clip brushes, in the castle level, everything is inside clip brush, otherwise I would not be able to run it

However, AI gets stuck even behind single square column in the room. I even tried the same thing with Quake monsters, which were smart enough to find the way. I remember in the Raven maps, most of the golems and yakmans got stuck behind 90 degrees corner. Most famous stuck monster, however, would surely be Eidolon It never happened to you in the game? I thought it was known issue.

[Spike]

you can/should use clip brushes to simplify the geometry around details. this will help to stop the ai from getting stuck on it, and potentially reduce your map's clipplanes too.