Blood Frontier Alpha 2 by Acord and Quin RELEASED

by Acord on 07/26/2008 09:47, 100 messages, last message: 12/09/2008 13:36, 62602 views, last view: 11/01/2024 05:05

It's been over a year coming, but we've finally released Alpha 2 of Blood Frontier. If you feel like shooting the hell out of strangers and some fairly good AI that plays online, drop on by and download it:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=198419

This release feels really good - way more solid. The graphics are a huge improvement, and I've replaced almost everything in the whole project at least once, maybe more. The gameplay is super solid, you can add bots in to play online. The models are *almost* professional quality. I'm getting there, dammit. There are now a lot more modes, including mutators a la unreal. If you like CTF, try mayhem - it swaps the team spawns and results in some fairly maniacal firefights.

The online AI is the beginning of implementing monsters as well - once completed, this sucker will be multi-player online co-op against hordes of the undead. Due to the fact that it utilizes an altered P2P system, the more people you have online, the more bots you can add without lag - at least until your processor gets hot.

Very, very graphics intensive. Everything has normal mapping, parallax mapping, specularity mapping etc.

That is something that'll need to wait until Alpha 3 though(hopefully NOT another year-long wait). For now, I'm taking a much deserved break from my PC for awhile.

One nice thing: Now we have the ability to release the occasional patch, instead of needing a full release.

Control cheat sheet:

wasd - movement keys
space - jump and double/trick jump
q - switch to grenades
e - pick up weapon on ground - replaces current gun, a la Halo
r - reload. The shotgun and sniper rifle must be loaded one round at a time.
left mouse button - shoot or throw grenade. The longer you hold it down, the farther the grenades go.
right mouse button - alt fire. Right now, the only weapon with an alt fire is the rifle, which uses the scope.

9 - switch from first person to third person view and back. Whatever your preference.

tab - view the scoreboard

esc - bring up the teeming multitude of menus

Lemme hear your comments. Keep in mind it is still unfinished.

Big thanks to Eihrul for the huge amount of help(seriously, he got bugged a *lot*, and this release would be nowhere near as good without his help), Verbalshadow for the excellent interface graphics, Hirato for his endless scripting and menu tweaking, Pundit for the sound help, our hosts, and all the people who dropped by and gave feedback/criticism/entertainment.

Super special thanks to Quin for possessing the amazing capability of putting up with a zillion tweaks and changes and experiments, as well as my screwed up sense of humor. There would be no Blood Frontier without you.

If I missed anybody, I blame it on a severe and prolonged lack of sleep, and apologize from the bottom of my heart.

AND DON'T FORGET TO OPEN THE CORRECT PORTS.

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#82: ..

by Acord on 09/02/2008 09:59

You know, there have to be some idiots out there that click on this spam crap or nobody would do it.

If anyone should happen to meet them, punch them in the throat.

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#83: Re: ..

by Quin on 09/02/2008 15:00, refers to #82

Educate, not retaliate, mate. :P

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#84: ..

by Font on 09/02/2008 16:49

the atmosphere feels really thick in that game. i can\'t keep momentum from a \"trick jump\". is that intentional?

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#85: Re: ..

by Quin on 09/03/2008 02:06, refers to #84

Yeah, the physics have been a point of some contention. I've set some new defaults in SVN which should feel a little better to most people, but it is something I would like to tweak right before we solidify it. So anybody using SVN right now - your input is required!

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#85: Re: ..

by scanf on 09/03/2008 07:36, refers to #85

Guys you did a great job and I think people forget this is WIP.

There are a lot of fools on these forums. Just ignore them and focus on what you believe the gameplay should be like.

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#86: ..

by Grogan on 09/10/2008 10:22

I just grabbed this (0.75, Alpha2) last night and I've been playing single player deathmatches.

Not bad guys, not bad. I haven't been playing it that long to be able to give much criticism, but it seems to be a fun game and the maps are cool.

I especially like that there's an instagib mutator that can be used in the single player mode AND... it's most unlike traditional instagib, in that there are alternate weapons to pick up. An instagib shotgun, flamethrower, machine gun... heheh

I'm using it under 64 bit Linux (compiled my own client because I don't have any 32 bit libraries)

I'll be watching for updates... maybe I'll grab from SVN soon, to see how things are progressing.

Great work so far... I like it.

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#87: ..

by Grogan on 09/11/2008 07:25

Boy, was I ever late to the party. I grabbed with subversion this afternoon, and I see there's been a lot of polish since the last formal alpha 2 release.

What I said about instagib and weapon pickups is no longer applicable ("no items" forced when instagib selected). I guess that was inevitable :-)

It seems to work very well, except that I can't seem to find a way to get it to save my resolution. It always seems to revert back to 1024x768. It saves my other in game settings OK, but I have to select 1280x1024 every time I start the program. (no problem, really)

It doesn't seem to take the traditional -w1280 -h1024 as command line arguments but in main.cpp it looks like it's still supposed to.

I also tried adding scr_w and scr_h variables to the config and that prompted to apply settings once the game started, but strangely caused it to forget some of the other settings so that wasn't of any use either.

I'm sure this is known (kind of hard to miss) but I get a lot of red "can't find entity spawn spot!" (with set of three coordinates in brackets) messages.

Other than that, this is a treat to play.

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#88: Re: ..

by Quin on 09/11/2008 10:38, refers to #87

Yeah, there were some complaints and I sorta made noitems mandatory with it for now. I personally liked playing instagib with my flamey, but I can see it is a bit chaotic in regular play situations ;) I'm pleased by the fact people are still stumbling on Blood Frontier and finding out just how much effort we've put into the tweaking. I'm sure you can see why I promote people to have a tinker with SVN too now!

As for your resolution problems, it has most likely been stored in your "init.cfg" and being restored from there on start (the shell scripts are set to load it automatically). Simply delete it and use the command line "-dw1280 -dh1024" (BF command line args have been segregated into 'categories' now), or you can edit the scr_w and scr_h variables in there directly.

Linux: ~/.bloodfrontier/init.cfg
Win32: C:\Program Files\Blood Frontier\home\init.cfg

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#89: ..

by Grogan on 09/11/2008 19:59

Ahh, I don't have a ~/.bloodfrontier/init.cfg, because I just run the program out of the main bloodfrontier directory (not using the supplied shell script) and that's where my config.cfg gets created.

Since the cube days, what I've always done with these games is just make my own little script that cd's into the main directory and runs the binary with path and arguments. (bin_unix/whatever_client -w -h etc.) I put my own bfclient in a separate directory (bin_unix) away from that other stuff too. So that's probably why it's not saving my resolution. My fault. If I run into any more issues, I'll try running it properly.

But thanks for the help on the -dw1280 -dh1024, I missed that. The game now starts at the desired resolution with the correct switches.

Instead of getting my work done today, I've been playing bloodfrontier :-)

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#90: ..

by makkE on 11/28/2008 13:40

I just checked out the svn, and I must say I see vast improvements over the alpha.

Physics are now way better, the in-air jump is actually useful and fun now. Though I still find the gravity a real bad idea (even worse is the idea to let mapper´s fiddle with it).

Guns have more purpose and character overall... btw, are the bouncing shots only gfx, or do they still do damage?

Though the effects are all very nice (nice real hud), you should by all means find a sensitive default for the next public release. At the moment, it´s totally overloaded, and will get you "what the fuck is going on in this game, can´t see a thing" - reactions for sure. The first impression counts, nowadays ever more..

Damage numbers, frag messages, player names all clutter up the screen a lot, and should be reduced to only the really neccesary stuff.. first information should be reduced to "here´s your gun, point it there" ...

On the contrary, player model visibility is very poor...

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#91: ..

by Acord on 11/29/2008 02:03

The jumping in air is actually there to compensate for the low gravity stuff. Before, if you jumped, you were about as well off as a clay pigeon.

The other thing it does for us is to keep things moving if someone makes a zero gravity map. The lower the gravity is, the more jumps you get.

The bouncing shots do damage. Quin stuck it in there and it's just plain fun :)

There's a lot of message spam, but that way we can tell if something has been messed up and doesn't interact with the netcode right, which is essential with the addition of bots. We'll probably only reduce it down when we're making minor tweaks and little improvements instead of big code changes just to make sure we can catch the bugs.

Player model visibility is not great, but that's the way it is in dark environments. You have to be careful not to kill your friends. Most of my maps have the ambient lighting set way down, so there are a lot of dark corners for players to hide in.

I may eventually make more prominent skins, but I'm not planning on it atm.

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#92: Re: ..

by Quin on 11/29/2008 02:16, refers to #90

Yeah, we took alot of input from the Alpha 2 release to refine the gameplay alot more. On the subject of physics variables though, it is just like any other mapping aspect; if used incorrectly it just results in a bad map.

Blood Frontier is a multi-environment game (the current maps are situated where the 'story' starts, on Mars), but for example MitaMan's SP map will be located on earth. I also plan for some space-ish battles, which is why the 'impulse' jump is so finely tuned to the gravity, allowing you to move better in lower gravity. Load up a Cube 2 map, you'll find the physics are very much like Sauerbraten, except with double jump.

As for the new weapon effects, that was indeed the idea. Every weapon has its own "personality" if you will, and the bouncing projectiles do indeed do damage. To counter the suicide effect a little the reflective angles are clamped (albeit a tad unrealistically) so as to not return in the direction it came from (you!).

On the HUD, you've managed to take a look at this at one of the most inopportune moments; we're currently doing a massive overhaul to reduce the clutter while improving visibility and removing distractions. When I go about redesigning a subsystem I just turn every feature I create on and wait for the feedback from those in the #bloodfrontier channel on freenode. So yes, it will indeed be refined much more than it already is, I think it's quite stunning already though :)

The in world texts I do agree get a bit spammy, again this is a matter of just chucking everything in and seeing which bits we want to keep. What do you mean by "On the contrary, player model visibility is very poor..." - something get lost in translation, or is it just an unfinished thought?

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#93: ..

by makkE on 11/29/2008 16:05

Playermodel visibility: What I meant was, that all the output makes spotting them even harder.
Them being hard to spot being a gameplay decision is fine.

I just meant that when you are about to make a public release, keep in mind that you have been looking at your project all day for months. What you may be used to and not notice anymore might actually be overkill for others.

Just try to take a step back and look at it from a fresh, player´s perspective... you want the first impression to be intresting, not overwhelmingly complex. Gamers nowadays are not willing anymore to work their way into complex environments, they want it simple. They may dive in deeper later, but only if what they found was fun and if they have been able to pick it up rather instantly.

Named weapons, for example are a good thing in this context.

Knowing the name of your opponent, and the damage every little shot does are not an important information if you play the first time.

Keep in mind, a first time player is not accustomed to regognizing the specific playermodel as the target to sort out of all that´s going on in the screen, his brain has to learn that first. I would say get rid of the damage-numbers and the frag message (in world), because it´s already put out in a \"traditional\" place....

I think you must really avoid any \"wtf is going on\" reactions the first time the game is played if you want it to be successful.

Btw, where is health displayed? Didn´t get it.

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#94: Re: ..

by Quin on 11/30/2008 01:39, refers to #93

Yeah, I understand exactly what you mean, which is why we're constantly taking community and group input. The latest revision should reduce the spam alot more, with the projectiles everything got a bit chaotic eh? :P

Your health (and regeneration) is represented by crosshair effects in the latest few revisions. Again, alot of it is still very WiP, the whole HUD is in a state of flux right now.

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#95: Sniper

by Toxik on 12/02/2008 00:58

Blood Frontier is a good game already and if u work on it abit more ill choose it over all my other games.

One thing though...the sniper is really annoying, from the fact that one must click the aim button off/on and also that the cursor is by its self. personally i like the traditional sniper better

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#96: Re: Sniper

by Quin on 12/02/2008 01:41, refers to #95

Both issues have been fixed in SVN, A3 will be out soon, so patience :)

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#97: ..

by makkE on 12/07/2008 13:52

I hope more people start playing with A3 !

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#98: ..

by Acord on 12/08/2008 02:53

Alright - We're officially play testing the first release candidate for A3 tonight! We'd really appreciate it if we could get a lot of players, new and old to help us hunt for bugs :)

In order to playtest, you'll have to use SVN in order to download.

Windows users: Use Tortoise SVN
1. Install Tortoise SVN
2. Create a new folder
3. *right* click on the new folder, and choose SVN Checkout
4. enter the URL https://bloodfrontier.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/bloodfrontier
5. Make sure it's set to download the HEAD revision
6. Click OK
7. If it asks for username and pass, leave them both blank

Linux users:
Follow the instructions at http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=198419

Controls:
wasd: move/strafe
mouse: look/aim
left mouse button: shoot
right mouse button: zoom
spacebar: jump
left shift: duck
Q: switch to grenades
E: pick up weapon
R: reload

Notes:

Grenades: The longer you hold down the fire button, the harder you'll throw the grenade. If you keep holding it down, the grenade will "cook" before you throw it. If you hold it for too long it will blow up in your face.

Ammo: Ammo for everything except grenades is unlimited. The ammo counter is the ring around the crosshair. Press R to reload. The rifle and shotgun hold more than one bullet, but must be loaded one bullet at a time.

Health: The color of the border around the screen indicates your current health. Red is bad/near death. Your health will regenerate quickly on it's own if you hide and rest.

Bullets: All bullets travel. That mean that you will have to lead your target. Some bullets ricochet, so be careful.

Double jumping: Double jumping has changed little since A2. If you are moving, the second jump will boost you in the direction you're facing. If you are not moving, the second jump will boost you straight up.

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#99: ..

by MovingTarget on 12/08/2008 15:35

I think this thread is messed up, because I can't see the latest post(s).

Anyway, aside from the fact that my computer completely freezes for about 10 seconds after I close BF, I am *very* impressed with what you guys have done so far.

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#100: ..

by chris777 on 12/08/2008 16:24

Yeah! I can't wait, i'll definetely try to get play tonight. The bots are fun but real people would be nice for a change. :D I already have the svn but seeing as its updated from about two weeks ago, i'll download it. Hope to frag tonight!

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