Doombringer : Episode 1 Released on Steam!

[kristus]

Thanks. :)

Smilescythe made a video demonstrating different techniques available to making the jump to RA on Aerowalk. See his other videos too where he demonstrates the same thing in other games which got Aerowalk as well.

[kristus]

Working on adding a classic map to the game:

[kristus]

[kristus]

Working on getting another map in the game.
Making textures and stuff. And making mp maps lets me explore the art direction without feeling like I am wasting a lot my time and effort just getting somewhere to jump off of.

[MrGlide]

This is really cool.

[MrDeAD1313]

Damn that map looks like a lot of fun ;)

[PRIMEVAL]

Really diggin' this!

[kristus]

Haven't posted anything here in a while. But I uploaded a video today where I talked a bit about the game and commented on a duel between me and GMT as well as showing off the latest version a bit.

Not exactly my forté. But hopefully you'll find it an interesting watch.

[MrGlide]

Looks like a lot of fun, the gun and player models look a tad stiff but great stuff non the less. Can't wait to see more, thanks for sharing.

[VGA]

Suppose someone forks Darkplaces and creates some 3d models and some textures. What more does Doombringer offer than him?

Is the plan to create a single player campaign around Quake physics and gameplay? Because there are many arena shooters (a metric shitton) with zero communities.

[kristus]

MrGlide said:

Looks like a lot of fun, the gun and player models look a tad stiff but great stuff non the less. Can't wait to see more, thanks for sharing.

Yeah, that's why it's Alpha. ;)

[kristus]

Another video, looking a bit closer at what the game offers right now. And also talking briefly about what it is supposed to offer in the future.

[kristus]

Today we had a stream with a showmatch between GMT and Smilecythe.

Each map won would earn the winner 10€.

Along with us we had Le prax and z0mbie90 to cast. Later Mtrop came on as well and we had a nice discussion to follow the games.

[geo]

I'm watching it now. If anyone ever snares you for its name Doombringer, just rename it to Hatbringer. I still like the map and the outline on platforms. Even the textures when you stop to type I can see the details on the floor.

Is there a list somewhere of the modes? I heard someone explaining them and they sound interesting like Follow the Leader and Aggressor.

[Ralphis]

What sets DB apart from Quake 3?

[kristus]

I'm going to take this question and use it as a spring board to go from why anyone should give a shit about Doombringer to explain a bit of the immediate plans.

Ralphis said:

What sets DB apart from Quake 3?

I get this question a fair bit, and I think it is a fair question. But I must admit that it's kinda funny having that question coming from someone who invested time into a project like Odamex (and before anyone jumps to conclusions, I am not making a jab at Odamex. I totally get why people made Odamex).

If you're actually interested, I recommend you watch the showmatch. We talk quite a lot about what the game currently do different from the other AFPS titles.
In a lot of ways, it's similar. But the actual game play differs from Quake 3 quite a lot. Not in terms of bells and whistles. But in weapon balance and effect, ammo usage, player movement (speed and abilities) and so on.

I like to think of it as an amalgamation of the things I love from Doom's more chaotic game play and Quake Live's more cerebral one. In the video I liken it to how kung fu movies play. You move around a lot, exchange shots. Fall back to reposition and try another attack. Looking for an opening. Sad thing about playing QL is that if you make a mistake, you are probably going to die. Because you move too slow to get out of harms way. In Doombringer, you move fast, like in Doom. From the start.

That being said, the end goal isn't and has never been to make another AFPS MP title. It is to take these games into Single Player territory again.

I have always thought that Doom2 is the pinnacle of FPS single/coop gaming. There's been a lot of games that have tried different things to great effect. Like System Shock. But there's never been any AFPS style games that even came close to Doom2's level, not even Quake1 could claim that. And that was still pretty damn good.

But making games like these take time and energy. It's not a certainty that you will get to your end goal. So, the first goal I set up was to make a duel game. Where everything important could be tested out and resources could be kept contained to the most important. And, while there are a million things I can think of to add more. For the most part, we've met that goal now. We have a complete functioning duel game now.

There are a few more features in the game. Like regular FFA Deathmatch, Instagib, Rocket arena and a rudimentary Team Deathmatch mode.

But apart from some features that still are out of my abilities (like having the player hold his actual weapon in his hands) as well as some other things I just can't be bothered to invest time into now. Reason being I've had a rough fall season at work, that almost had me quit my job, and making/animating models right now is just too much effort for me. We're closing in on making a public release.

The reason we are planning to release a public build, is part due to that we think the game is good enough now to actually start letting people play it. Also hoping that some of those people will get invested in it enough to offer their help in different areas.

But we'll see what happens.


EDIT:

geo said:

Is there a list somewhere of the modes? I heard someone explaining them and they sound interesting like Follow the Leader and Aggressor.

I think you misunderstood what we were talking about in those cases. Follow the leader was our agreement for spectating the same players when casting the games. Ensuring that we were all watching the same player.

Aggressor is a map in the game which I thought was a Open Arena map at first. But apparently it dates back to the original QW. Andrew Apted ported it from OA to DB when he were still working on the project.

I'm myself not going to invest much time in adding game modes to multiplayer. Because if I did that, then I would never be able to move past the MP stage of the development and get into making the bestiary and other SP focused things. Though the source will always be open. So anyone who wants to can make their own changes and additions.

Though that being said. It is possible we'll make a invasion style mode (like the one in Skulltag). I always enjoyed playing those with friends. But that all depends on how things turn out with people joining the project to take over things like coding from me. I was lucky enough that Andrew did the brunt of the work before he left. I could take what he made and fix bugs and in some cases finish what he started. But with things like the bots and the player model handling. I don't really know anything of how to handle that. I've learned a lot from looking at what Andrew did and studying his code etc. But it would take a lot of time for me to get to that level where I could program an ai like the one Andrew was planning.

[Agentbromsnor]

So this is running on DarkPlaces? I looked at DarkPlaces before, but I could never find any tutorials to get started with created my own custom content. I know you need a map-editor such as GTKRadiant, but how do you implement scripts and such, and where do all the files go? I have no idea.

[qdash]

Where's difference between Doombringer or any other CMPA clone?

[kristus]

Agentbromsnor said:

So this is running on DarkPlaces? I looked at DarkPlaces before, but I could never find any tutorials to get started with created my own custom content. I know you need a map-editor such as GTKRadiant, but how do you implement scripts and such, and where do all the files go? I have no idea.

Yeah, getting information about working on any of the Quake source ports are a bit of a pain in the ass really. There are no really good resources for information. You got to scrounge around and find bits and pieces.

You don't need to use GTKradiant though. You can use pretty much any map editor for any of the Quake 1-3 games you want. Also support Half life format maps. But of course it only out of the box got support for the Quake1 entities. (Or at least assuming you got the quake1 resources)

This is where I find most information about the material system in Darkplaces. It's based off of Q3 shaders. So a lot of that can be used as well. But there are a few differences.
http://omnicide.razorwind.ru/wiki/index.php/Darkplaces_material_system/General_Keywords
Here is some more on material creation, modeling formats etc:
http://www.quakewiki.net/darkplaces-wiki/

The folder format is pretty open ended, mostly determined by the QuakeC orientations.

This page also holds a lot of information. It's just a matter of knowing what you are looking for.
https://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/readme.html

I also recommend you look at other Darkplaces games and quake mods and see how they did it.

EDIT: To be honest though. I think you should just start looking at how to edit Quake itself. And you will go from there. Darkplaces are using a lot of similar methods and formats to the 3 main Quake games.

[Agentbromsnor]

That's interesting. Looks like a lot of work, haha. I'm creating a game in GZDoom myself, and I sometimes poke fun at how different it is compared to working with a typical modern game engine. Seems like this is a similar situation.

[kristus]

Work continues on new characters and resources.

[kristus]

We've launched the website for the project. You can check it out here:

http://www.doombringer.eu

[kristus]

Doombringer alpha version 0.16b has been released. Check out the website for the project here:

http://www.doombringer.eu

[PRIMEVAL]

Gonna have to look at it when I get the chance!

[kristus]

Working on another character for the game.

[kristus]

Doombringer v. 0.17 Alpha has been released.

 

A couple of the updates include improved spectator mode. Rudimentary Quake1 support (lets me test Single player using Quake1 maps) and Quake3 map support.

 

http://www.doombringer.eu/files/Doombringer-0.17Alpha.zip

 

New in v0.17 2017-07-20

Game engine: Updated bundled version of Darkplaces to new build.

 

Game: Added small ammo crates for single player.

Game: Worked on making barebone versions of monsters soldiers, ogres and fiends for single player.

Game: Added compatibility for Quake 1 and Quake 3 maps entities.

Game: Sloppy animations applied for Soldiers, Ogres and Fiends.

Game: Fixed a bug where you wouldn’t actually be joining the game if you tried to join while the game was in intermission instead causing issues. Still have kinks with this to work out, but it works better now.

 

Rulesets: Updated TDM rulesets with dropped backbacks.

Rulesets: ArenaDuel updated.

Rulesets: Added AltDuel ruleset.

Rulesets: Added RocketArena ruleset.

 

Server: Added option to run your server with dropping backpacks on death. These currently have no model and show up as colorful diamonds.

Server: Added option to have tiered armors, specifically for use in modes like TDM and Single player. These aren’t used in Duel.

Server: Made sure the server no longer go to crash if no player starts for a given mode can be found. Instead it will give a warning and then opt for using a different type of player start than the one desired.

 

Client: Made sure that spectators are not included in the force model/skin/color adjustment on the client.

 

Maps: Updated Duel1 with additional work being done to it.

Maps: Fixed jumppad on Duel4 who’s trigger wasn’t covering the pad properly.

Maps: Added rain effect as a test to Duel4.

Maps: Updated Duel5 with additional work being done to it.

Maps: Added rain effect as a test to Duel5.

Maps: Aduel1 added.

Maps: Aduel2 added.

 

GFX: Heads and Tails plaque artwork redone.

 

Textures: Changed formats from PNG to DDS.

Textures: Skull decal alpha shading fixed.

Textures: Worked on different versions of slime textures.

 

Menu: Added menu options with prefab settings for people to pick between, potato (for people with terrible computers), competetive, and casual.

Menu: Made first run instance pass you off to the prefabs menu instead of the default options menu.

Menu: Added option for Decals on models.

Menu: Added option for pain haze effect.

Menu: Added option for tesselation on patch meshes to offer a smoother looking curved surface.

Menu: Added options to adjust crosshair effect on Zoomfov scope crosshair.

Menu: Reorganized the options menu a bit.

 

HUD: Added bold style text messages to the HUD. Currently only used for “you fragged X” type messages.

HUD: Fixed the timer in timelimited games. So it will start at 0 when the match starts.

HUD: Made the clock return 0:00 when not actively in an ongoing game.

HUD: Added scope shadow for zoomfov function.

HUD: Added crosshair effect for zoomfov function.

HUD: Cleaned up scoreboard and started work on an added end of game effect where the winner is heralded on the screen

HUD: Added a pain haze effect that start to show up when you go below 25 hp. Can be adjusted to show more or less, or be deactivated through the options menu.

 

Misc: Added rain particle effect.

 

Sounds: Announcer fraglimit warnings added – 1 frag remains etc.

Sounds: Added sounds for entering lava or slime when in a shallow pool.

Sounds: Made sure sound effects when swimming in lava or slime doesn’t get overridden by other sounds.

Sounds: Added a placeholder sound effect for when the “coin” hits the screen at the end of a game.

 

Configs: Removed deprecated g_warmup_time cvar from configs.

 

Spectators: Made spectators hear client specific sounds sent to whoever they are spectating. Client specific sounds include hitbeeps and announcer messages.

Spectators: Made spectators see client specific HUD effects. Like no ammo warnings, and “you fragged X” messages etc.

[Cupboard]

good luck bud!! Love the art style and unabashed Unreal Tournament / Quake 3 vibe.

[kristus]

Thanks, it's certainly going to be interesting moving on to the next step of making the single player aspect of it. :)

[kristus]

Doombringer Version 0.18 has been released.

 

This verison of Doombringer is supposed to improve the user friendliness of the game for new players. Make the menus more clear and appealing as well as better communicate the game's rules and what is going on in a match when spectating. There's still a lot of work to be done of course. This is just a first few steps to reaching that goal for what currently is a one man team.

Get the latest version here: http://www.doombringer.eu/files/

 

The menus 

All the menus has been improved upon and given new artwork to replace the previous obvious placeholder art. But also a lot of effort has gone into revising them to be more uniform in structure and content. Removed unnecessary content, straightened out ordering and all round just tightening things up a bit.

Another thing that has been added is loading splash screens that will give you something to look at as well as giving brief information on a few things in the game. Currently only weapons are featured here, but eventually more things in the game will get attention.

Specatators Spectators can now more clearly see which side of a game they are spectating. This is especially useful in Team games where it before was almost impossible. But now you also have a quicker overview of which player you spectate in Deathmatch (aka FFA) and duel games. Especially in Deathmatch where you now have a good overview who is in the lead and how the player you spectate compare to the leader.

More is of course planned for this. But currently there are more pressing issues that I want to focus on for the game that I think will have bigger impact on the game as a whole.

 

Monsters

I've started working more on adding monsters to the game. Currently you can load up a classic Quake 1 map and have it populated with a few of the monsters from that game. There's a few issues you will have to be aware of though. Like that you can't change level in the game. Instead you need to use a cvar in the console called "changelevel " should you want to move to the next level in a campaign.

 

Tournament 

Finally I want to pay some attention to the upcoming tournament we'll be holding. It's called the Road to Timcon tournament. The name is chosen because on the 14th of September I'll be leaving for Liverpool where I'll participate in the TimConlan where Doombringer will be played in a Duel tournament on Lan.

The Road to Timcon tournament is intended as a fun warmup to said LAN. It will be hosted by myself and has a pricepool of 50€ and anyone who wants to is welcome to join in.

The Road to Timcon tournament will go off on September 9th and can be found here. http://challonge.com/doombringer

Edited August 31, 2017 by kristus

[kristus]

Leaving for Timcon LAN in Liverpool. DB's first proper LAN tournament coming up.