04_09_2013

Making mods on your own is a fairly large undertaking. Not that I do everything myself; there’s a lot of content, in addition to the stock, original, Quake items, that I acquire along the way, be they tutorials, help and advice, art assets, ideas or helpful comments. But generally, yes I’m doing everything myself…

The hardest part of this, aside from the years and years I’ve spent on earthQuake: Ghosts of Despair (eQ:GoD) in particular, is keeping on top of the mountains of tasks to be done. Broadly speaking there’s just mapping, art and coding to do. That’s it, for me anyway. But within each there’s a multitude of different types of task, as well as probably thousands of individual pieces of work to accomplish. But to add complexity you also have to consider two things: planning the most efficient and sensible order to complete each task in and also trying to vary what you’re doing to keep up enthusiasm levels and to stop me feeling ‘bogged down’.

So I write a To Do list. I write the jobs down in a semblance of a logical order, but in all honesty, I tend to pick and choose, often going for the path of least resistance; either the easiest task or the one most unlike what I’ve just been working on. This may not necessarily be the most efficient or speedy way of going about things but at the end of the day, it’s a hobby, not a job, and it’s 1) got to be fun, and 2) it’s often about the journey, not the destination, to misquote someone more intelligent.

So, when formulating a To Do list, where do you start? You clearly need to know where your mod is going, broadly speaking. What the story (if it has one) is going to tell, what characters are going to be in it, a rough, or indeed detailed, idea of the map or maps you need to make, what other features, visually, code-wise or gameplay-wise you wish to add. Once you have a rough idea, and it will be rough, as you’ll no doubt change your mind, change your plans or just come up with better ones to add, you can then start thinking of the individual tasks that you’ll need to complete to achieve your overall goals.

Before I get to that, he’s the five categories of ‘jobs’ for eQ:GoD:
1) The map, called equake.bsp during development, there’s only one map, although that both simplifies and complicates matters.
2) The code; subsequently broken down into gameplay features (e.g The Gate, effects,) AI (how the non-playable characters (NPCs) behave) and models (for NPC and map models)
3) Models; NPCs, weapons, map models (all sourced, none made by me)
4) Art; textures, skins, sounds, music (most sourced, some made)
5) Story and/or gameplay structure

What’s interesting is that none are likely to be complete much before the whole mod is. For example; I can’t consider that I’ve made/sourced all the textures I need until the map is done, or I can’t consider that all the coding is done until both the map and the story/gameplay guide is. There’s an interconnection between all facets of making the mod and very often the To Do list grows based on either an idea spawned from a different facet of mod-making than the one it’s added to, or a problem/bug from one that complicates or necessitates a change in another.

Fundamentally though, what should always drive 1 to 4, is number 5, and that should be reasonably, aside from small amounts of tinkering, tied down before the bulk of the rest of your tasks start in earnest. However, that’s where things get a little bit complicated with eQ:GoD…

When I started the mod, my main goal was to actually make a mod based on the original story and game type of Quake itself. All my previous mods had either not been about Quake, or not been a first person shooter, or indeed, both. From the off, however, I knew I didn’t want to base the mod in any of the type of worlds that Quake inhabited originally, even allowing for the potential enhancements that newer tools and engines would allow. The idea of basing it on earth; in a real world environment was too tempting, as well making it a loose representation of an amalgamation of UK cities.
In the early days, when I started mapping the early versions of buildings and streets, I envisaged a number of quite small maps (allowing for Quake engine and tools restrictions) and possibly a hub system to allow returning to previous areas.

As the map grew, and I realised the amount of work needed to make even a sparsely populated city, I quickly began thinking of how to both limit the number of maps I would need to make, and how to not limit the opportunities for gameplay while I did so. I therefore chose to have just one map and use a (hopefully subtle and imaginative) version of Gears of War’s Horde gameplay, to allow for developing and changeable gameplay within one, albeit large, area. The idea of “The Gate” was born, allowing, in a similar way that the teleporters in Quake itself allowed the human soldier into Quake’s world, the “Quake monsters” to came back to ours.

This seemed promising and even managed to get the basics of it both mapped and coded and ‘mostly’ working. All I needed to do then was to plan the gameplay and finish the map. I wrote a background story to define the player’s purpose and made lists of environments within the main map and the scenarios that would be played out in them. But then I hit a problem; the original engines used for Quake and the tools used to compile maps had/have limits, and the map I was making started exceeding them. It wouldn’t compile, engines wouldn’t run it, the map and by extension the whole mod, was lost!

But I was far from the first person to hit this particular wall, and others were working on the problem, resulting in new tool and engine versions that extended the old limits. Not for the first time, the cleverness of others had saved the mod! So I was back on track; one huge map to tell one complicated story. But it wasn’t entirely gelling; this idea of subtle, Horde gameplay to tell this “father looking for his son” scenario; the bits were there but the details were not. Trying to pull it together just helped to reveal more and more holes, and what I really wanted to do more than anything was tell a story, and, in attempting to fill the holes, I began moving away from that.

This has resulted in two things. Firstly, I’ve begun overhauling the gameplay and even game type, and tinkered, significantly, with the story. Secondly, I’ve determined to be far more organised in how I structure the game play and the storyline within it. This, getting back to To Do lists and organisation (finally), has meant that my planning has to be led by the story’s priorities and needs to be detailed and functional.

So, my current To Do list. For multiple reasons, some obvious, others a little pretentious, there’s going to be some vagueness here that isn’t in the real version and some omissions also; spoilers etc. But here goes:

The Map
– Finish the tunnel/hillside in the NW corner, complete the blocking and scenery
– Overhaul “The Gate” warehouse, removing it completely and possibly replacing with something more subtle
– Continue building the structure of the flats and the surrounding ground area (currently ‘void’ since removal of the church)
– Plan for the NE corner and E side
– Begin the replacement of complete buildings with partial destroyed versions
– Start the inner details of all buildings (currently only approx 5% of buildings are fully completed)
– Plan routes and access points for all houses
– Complete destroyed car prefabs
– Build boat prefabs
– Build train prefabs
– Continue to play with light/ fog levels, consider replacing fog and using ‘sun’ light
– Start making detail prefabs
– Replace streetlights with new versions
– Underground areas….
– Experiment with puddles and dynamic rain
The code
– Make secret flashlight enhancement work!
– Learn CSQC and get image presentations working
– Update AI to.. *REDACTED*
– coding in ghost monsters
– Most everything else either undecided or just secret!
Models
– Player torch model (to be seen, like Nahuel’s mod – very cool)
– Updating more monsters to ghost ones
– Consider replacing various brush prefabs for models ??
– Human NPC models
Art (incl sounds)
– Detail textures, incl street signs
– Information images (see CSQC)
– Sounds (see gameplay, especially scripts) – think voices
Story/Gameplay structure (this is where vagueness will reach new heights)
– finalise story
– conclude structure by which theory and story drives gameplay
– Finish gameplay flowchart
– Lots more stuff 😉

As you can probably tell, even within that To Do list there sub-tasks not written down (this post is long enough without all that) and even as each is developed and complicated or decided upon or created, new tasks will be born from them. People have asked me when it will be finished, and literally, I have no idea. Could be 2104, could be 2015, but it won’t be ‘never’.
I must admit that there are times I think of just making it a serious, UK based Dead Rising clone and just check in hundreds of zombies and let the player just run round “killing shit”, but to be honest, I’d probably be more likely to give up on that, easier though it would be…

Finally, as this is meant to be an image based blog; an image: