It's been like too long since I have been here, anything new going on?

We are working slowly on SE, but nothing to show as of now <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->.

If you check the news, you'd see we need mappers and 3D modelers, if some helped us out, SE would progress a lot faster.

Have you guys posted help needed at moddb? That's where the general population of modders is nowadays. I would also reccommend that you post all your projects there so you can get some advertising going.

In my opinion you guys are unnecessarily secretive about your projects. You have a closed development forum - for what reason ? Are you afraid that someone may come to your forums and read the mod's storyline ? Also, perhaps I'm missing something, but I was unable to find the source code. The archive I've found contained only an .exe file and I think some documentation. My point is, you seem to be quite closed with your development and it doesn't seem to be doing you any good. Compare this to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - a successful community project on GPL licence. The wiki we use <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start">https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start</a><!-- m --> for discussing development is perhaps a bit chaotic, but a lot of interesting ideas were born in there. And the FR/Bug tracker keeps things tidy <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php">https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php</a><!-- m --> . ------------- I lost my interest in Korax Mod / Scattered Evil because my tastes changed. Korax Mod seemed a lot like a typical RPG game, and I don't think it serves Hexen well. Hexen, Heretic already have character development of sorts - it's item-based. You are what weapons you find. Player classes are already there. Korax Mod (and presumably Scattered Evil) seems to be aiming to make the game deeper, as opposed to wider. That is, you accumulate more and more stuff and gain access to more powers with time. But some changes I find questionable: - xp for kill is the source of much evil in games. Suddenly monsters stop being just guardians and become the resource you seek. You start playing like a janitor, mopping up all monsters you can find. You develop distaste for disposing of enemies in some ways, such as pushing them into lava, traps, causing infighting. All creatures must die by your hand or you're missing out. - silver dropped by enemies. It makes you wait until that afrit or bishop moves away from lava or deep pit. You could fix that the way Trine does: if an item drops from monster into an unreachable spot, it flies to player. - Magic/Faith/Rage . I'm not sure what adding these resources really accomplishes. Hexen already has common resources available to all classes: blue mana, green mana, flechettes, discs of repulsion. Do all classes use discs of repulsion differently ? Does warrior pull enemies closer, for instance ? Banish, the instakill spell is rather uninspired. Charm, something that turns monsters into friendlies, would sound more interesting. Call it Conversion. I think it's better than summoning monsters, too, as these are generally weak and add clutter. - I'm not a fan of Berserk mode of fighter. Deal damage faster and take less damage. I would prefer genuinely game-changing abilities instead. - stat increases: you begin to deal more damage, basically, so you compensate by making monsters more durable. Power spiral. As said Hexen already has character development, and it's item-based. Stat increases are hard to balance, and the effect is often subtle. Faster attacks, or stronger attacks ? Two names for the same thing: more damage.

1) I thought we are on moddb, but when I went there right now, I couldn't find us through search. 2) We are "secretive" because back when we communicated our plans in advance, we got endless flak about "why are you not done with this and that yet?".

[quote="RambOrc":3k4mh5lo]1) I thought we are on moddb, but when I went there right now, I couldn't find us through search. 2) We are "secretive" because back when we communicated our plans in advance, we got endless flak about "why are you not done with this and that yet?". 1. You only show up when you go to the MODs section and look up the list of all MODs for Hexen, other than that, yeah you guys barely show up at all. 2. This is something all Modders/Mappers/Coders/Programmers have to deal with, you gotta think of it as business ethics, stuff needs to be done because time is money. In this case, stuff needs to be done because time is popularity.

[quote="borsuk":3tsed8i9]Heretic already have character development of sorts - it's item-based. You are what weapons you find. Player classes are already there. And that was the thing - the only difference was the weapons (speed differences are negligible in gameplay terms). While it certainly gives replay value, it stops right there after. Things like KMod make it go further by having different playstyles too...even within one class depending on what options you have in terms of attribute specialisation.

- xp for kill is the source of much evil in games. Suddenly monsters stop being just guardians and become the resource you seek.

Which also makes most meaningless areas in a map have a meaning. Plus it rewards you later on by making you more powerful at the business end of the game.

You develop distaste for disposing of enemies in some ways, such as pushing them into lava, traps, causing infighting. All creatures must die by your hand or you're missing out.

Unless it's coded so that doesn't happen...after all you have to push them into lava pits, you have to cause them to infight etc. so it makes sense you should get the reward for killing them that way. (I ended up doing it like that cos I don't know how to set it up otherwise, but in the end it makes better sense this way unless it's for multiplayer)

- Magic/Faith/Rage . I'm not sure what adding these resources really accomplishes. Hexen already has common resources available to all classes: blue mana, green mana, flechettes, discs of repulsion.

Different spells for different classes. Better than just bashing hordes of identical mobs with the same 2/3 weapons (which was a big fail in Hexen IMO, hence why I added a load of new weapons, mobs and spells to my mod). New items/spells are also easier to implement than trying to make every item work differently depending on class. (there's only so many ways you can use a porkalator or a banishing device. Maybe the mage could summon a horde of pigs which then fly towards their target and explode or something...but then again pigs might fly <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc4.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P -->).

I'm not a fan of Berserk mode of fighter. Deal damage faster and take less damage. I would prefer genuinely game-changing abilities instead.

The fighter isn't meant to be any good with magic so I guess they went with RPG tradition in giving him the rage <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc4.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P -->

- stat increases: you begin to deal more damage, basically, so you compensate by making monsters more durable. Power spiral.

Only some monsters were given more health, and they don't scale with level.

Faster attacks, or stronger attacks ? Two names for the same thing: more damage.

But not when you take time into account - ie. will one stat give you more burst damage (over a single attack or a short period) or will it give more sustained damage (over many attacks or a long period). The number of enemies you're facing at once will also influence which is better...hitting harder suits single targets, hitting faster suits multiple targets.

[quote="The Ultimate DooMer":u4nob0dq][quote="borsuk":u4nob0dq]Heretic already have character development of sorts - it's item-based. You are what weapons you find. Player classes are already there. And that was the thing - the only difference was the weapons (speed differences are negligible in gameplay terms). While it certainly gives replay value, it stops right there after. Things like KMod make it go further by having different playstyles too...even within one class depending on what options you have in terms of attribute specialisation. Weapons can be a very significant difference. The problem I see is that it was not fully realised in Hexen and Hexen 2. It's hard to say anything about cleric's mace other than "it sucks". Sapphire wand and Spiked Gauntlets differ a lot, though. There's also a lot of difference between Timon's Axe and the other two, especially Serpent Staff (which arguably suffers at touch range). Starting with green mana weapons, things go downhill. All classes get quite similar big long ranged weapons. On level 4 it's not interesting either: "wraithverge owns" is not a playstyle. Bloodscourge thrives in open spaces, but you don't get to choose your path (this is likely a failure of very linear Hexen levels). And Quietus just disappoints, I mean - sure it's better than no weapon, but that's it. The way I see it, the game's designers thought too little about impact of weapons on gameplay. The issue I have with Kmod is that extra differences don't show up until late game. Why hold off ?

- xp for kill is the source of much evil in games. Suddenly monsters stop being just guardians and become the resource you seek.

Which also makes most meaningless areas in a map have a meaning. Plus it rewards you later on by making you more powerful at the business end of the game.

For me the meaning is "I feel obligated to clear the area even though I already have what I came for". I would rather go somewhere more challenging. Rewarding tedious, low risk activities is the definition of grind. I think grind is bad. If a player finds an item like Partial Invisibility/Shadowsphere, which (in Zdoom) allows sneaking past monsters, a player aware of xp for kill mechanic probably won't use such item. Or a shapeshifting spell: Rat Form for sneaking around and going through small holes. Coding such an item is putting dead code in a game. You discourage stealth and limit options, which is not necessary at all. This also hurts speedrunners (not that Hexen is good for speedruns anyway, but this is making things worse). One more side effect for you to think about: with xp for kills, a player who puts a weight on fire button and comes back 2 hours later will be rewarded with extra experience (and in case of Kmod, silver bars... unless there's some new mechanism I'm not aware of). If character improvement is tied to items instead (i.e. finding weapons), or even there's arbitrary XP bonus for finishing a level or something similar, you can't farm your way to max level in the first area. I like random encounters and spawned monsters in Hexen, but as a threat, not a reward. xp for kills changes the way people behave in the game.

You develop distaste for disposing of enemies in some ways, such as pushing them into lava, traps, causing infighting. All creatures must die by your hand or you're missing out.

Unless it's coded so that doesn't happen...after all you have to push them into lava pits, you have to cause them to infight etc. so it makes sense you should get the reward for killing them that way. (I ended up doing it like that cos I don't know how to set it up otherwise, but in the end it makes better sense this way unless it's for multiplayer)

Endless parade of special cases. Maybe I'm a bad programmer, but I wince at the thought. If I lead impossibly difficult monsters to a room, close the door and escape through a small hole, I've beaten them, but I'll get no reward. With no xp for kill I also won't get rewards, but I'm not expecting them.

- Magic/Faith/Rage . I'm not sure what adding these resources really accomplishes. Hexen already has common resources available to all classes: blue mana, green mana, flechettes, discs of repulsion.

Different spells for different classes.

You can have spells use blue or green mana instead. I like the fact they're not renewable. Last time I played Kmod I was a cleric and I left piles of Quartz Flasks and Crystal Vials lying everywhere. Self heal is too powerful. Worse, it encourages sandwich gameplay (badly wounded ? Stop playing until you're healed). I'm getting offtopic, but I think basically unlimited green/blue mana for mage was equally bad. And the nerf of sapphire wand: it affected only very early levels, then you'd get it back anyway, and stronger.

New items/spells are also easier to implement than trying to make every item work differently depending on class. (there's only so many ways you can use a porkalator or a banishing device. Maybe the mage could summon a horde of pigs which then fly towards their target and explode or something...but then again pigs might fly <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc4.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P -->).

I agree with the first sentence. They were noticably out of ideas for some Tome of Power effects, especially in Hexen2. Cleric could use Porkalator as usual, while Fighter would transform... himself into a dragon. There, all 3 classes covered. As for banishing device, has Ramborc posted my PM about Abyss in developer forums ?

The fighter isn't meant to be any good with magic so I guess they went with RPG tradition in giving him the rage <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc4.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P -->

See above. An ability like berserk is not worthy to be put into a sequel of Heretic, which had Tome of Power ! I want to be a dragon !

Faster attacks, or stronger attacks ? Two names for the same thing: more damage.

But not when you take time into account - ie. will one stat give you more burst damage (over a single attack or a short period) or will it give more sustained damage (over many attacks or a long period). The number of enemies you're facing at once will also influence which is better...hitting harder suits single targets, hitting faster suits multiple targets.

I'd say the difference is negligible in most cases, and besides, the optimal build is to increase both equally. If damage is a product of strength and speed, you do best by increasing the lower attribute.