GoldenEye: Source mod for Half-Life 2

10 comments by wake[of]thebunt on Feb 5th, 2010 digg this super bookmark

What does beta 4 provide that it has not before? You are going to see first hand within a month! To help you transition into our new release, we thought it a good idea to give some educational tips and rundowns for game-modes and feature additions from the code department. If you want an early edge over competition, read the write-ups of this update and our next, as understanding the contents is step number 1 to you becoming an expert for launch day. We've included pictures to make it nice and entertaining!

Token based gameplay is the hallmark of Beta 4's gameplay enhancements. We have taken the idea of capture the flag and other types of gameplays and made ours entirely dynamic. Killermonkey has inserted an active token manager that is fed parameters by the particular gameplay, and this manager spawns tokens (flags, keys, intelligence) in the designated locations. While the locations are random they also are intelligent. Capture points (if needed) are spawned as far away from the token as possible in the level in the corresponding team's base. This system is extremely flexible and doesn't even require additional entities, as existing Weapon and Ammo spawn locations are used. However, we also gave mappers the ability to add specific token spawn locations (dm, janus, and mi6) to allow them to setup their levels as they see fit for teamplay. This means much less work on the mapper and also greater compatibility with existing levels.

As mentioned previously we have also transitioned from LUA to Python. Python offers greater control over the C++ script interface and allows us to easily share more information and interact with more features. The python language is also object based and offers the ability for easy "utility" scripts to be shared amongst gameplays.

In Beta 4 we will be shipping with 3 brand new gameplay scenarios: Capture The Key, Living Daylights, and Live and Let Die. Each of these scenarios utilizes the token system to great success.

Capture The Key is a game mode that didn't exist in GoldenEye 64. Our take on this concept is similar to most team-based flag capture scenarios. The Janus team is trying to steal the GoldenEye Key from the MI6 team and the MI6 team is trying to steal Janus' intelligence briefcase. Each team must take the token from the other team's base and bring it back to their base to be captured. The token cannot be captured unless your token is back in its original position. Each token has a respawn time of 15 seconds from being dropped. To make it easier for you to see where the token is they will glow your team's color.

You earn points for yourself by killing the enemy and capturing the token. Capturing the token earns you 5 points. Your team can only earn points through token captures, where each capture earns 1 point for your team.

The radar is outfitted with lots of information. The tokens are squares and colored by team. When a player is holding a token their blip will be the color of their team (normal teammates are WHITE and enemies are GREEN). The capture points are represented by hollow circles on the radar and also have bright lights the color of your team.

Living daylights was a bastard child in GoldenEye 64. It was the game play that was played the first time you started the N64 game because it sounded cool, but you quickly found out it was not satisfying replayability. Well, in GE:S we took the original idea and put in a couple of exciting twists and also revamped it for scalability with over 4 player limits.

The basic gameplay has flags strewn about the level that must be held to earn points. There is one flag per 4 players, and when you walk over a flag it becomes your current weapon and you cannot use your other weapons. Here is how you earn points:

Methods of Scoring:

1) Carry the flag. Time spent carrying the flag counts toward your score. You must carry for up to 12 seconds to earn a point. Points will be awarded faster when the player count is high and you have just picked up the flag, but scoring periods always lengthen to 12 seconds. (5 per minute)

2) Pick up equipment. Just because you can't use any items does not mean you can't grab them. Deny your opponents while earning carry credit. Ammo crates count as 1 second, weapons 1½, plate 2½, and full armor 3½. Note: When you pick up a flag, your HP and AP is refilled to full. Any HP and AP not used to restore your status is converted to carry credit, so don't worry about taking an armor before grabbing that flag, you will get your item credit either way.

3) Slap 'em silly. Each time you successfully damage an opponent while carrying a flag, you steal one point from that player. But be careful, if your opponent kills you with a slap, not only will he get your flag, but he will collect up to ten of the points you earned during that inning from carry time.

4) Run away! When you are damaged by an opponent, a ten-second clock begins. If you can avoid fire until it expires, you earn a point and recover 25% AP. Each escape is worth one point more than the one previous, so you can turn five Klobb wounds into 15 points.

Living Daylights also has a teamplay variety:

Same rules apply, except instead of one flag for every four players, there is a flag for every player on one team. For example if it is 5v5 there will be 5 flags available for pickup in the level. The more flags your team carries, the more points you earn but the fewer people you have carrying guns to defend with. Can you carry them all, or are you better off protecting flags at their spawnpoints while your weakest couple players generate the points in a defended alcove? The tactics of this will definitely be vital to your team success!

This is a complicated gameplay, but is easy to pickup once you understand the principles. The premise is that each "round" of a map one player gets assigned automatically as character Baron Samedi (the voodoo witch doctor from the movie "Live and Let Die") and is credited to being invincible. To the other normal players (we call them "Bonds") that is true. However, Samedi's one weakness (as in GoldenEye 64) is to the Golden Gun. When hit by the Golden Gun he takes damage and will die.

Now, as a Bond your job is to grab the one Golden Gun available and kill the Baron. Simple enough, right? Well all the other Bonds are also going for the gun and will be competing with you to get it. Here's the catch, if you are killed by the Baron, you are immediately eliminated from the round! That means you must avoid the Baron while also trying to kill him.

As the Baron, your job is to eliminate all the normal players. Simple enough, except for your Golden Gun weakness. If you die due to normal damage you will simply respawn somewhere else on the map, with no punishment and level up 1 value. As the Baron levels up he gains more weapons and more damage stats. To avoid the Golden Gun holder you also have, at your disposal, voodoo powers which instantly respawn you and level you up (these powers trigger with a bind key which you set in keyboard options). You get three voodoo powers per round, however, you can get extra powers for killing players with your machete (knife).

If the Bond with the GG kills the Baron, the round ends and the Bond is the victor receiving points to compensate for his valor. The baron always receives the number of kills he dealt during the round.

This character, which was seen in the previous update is now fully working in-game and beta 4 ready. It is classed per the original as a "generic" character, like moonraker, civilians and the male scientist. And how we handle the look of the face is modeling them after developers of the mod. Each who wishes, gets to choose a generic to apply their face to. This is the same way Rare handled it for the n64. It's actually a good way to shoot each others faces without anyone going to jail... Being serious though, enjoy these various screens showing off the first of the developer head generics in the mod! The real person this was modeled after is not a developer exactly, in this character's case, it's an ex-flame of the character modeler responsible ; Spider!

We have gotten an unexpected but welcomed exposure from our teaser trailer shown last update, and anticipation for beta 4 is spreading around the gaming news circuit and video sites on the web. Check out all these links to further support the buzz we are seeing from curious, and the loyals fans alike. We consider any help you can give an awesome guesture to us, and much appreciated!

Break.com - 115 thousand views
Gametrailers]Gametrailers.com - 13 thousand views/ 100's comments
Boston online mag - gaming news article
Digg.com submission - digg us now!
HL Fallout forum exposure
News For Gamers - Dev news post
Steam Friends news - 590+ reads
Gamerz Ink news post
Level Select - UK blog post
Beta 4 Discussion - Impending release

We are in a phase we call "lockdown", which basically means the coding is going to have no more additions needed for testing with beta 4. Currently the features are set, and are now in the final stages of the test process. And so far so goo....scratch that ; So far so GREAT!

If this brings about a certain hype induced excitement, for good reason! As within a few days we will be able to confirm a release date for you. The date will be front and center in a news post next week! However, If you would like to be among the first to hear what our release date is, from the horse's mouth as it were, we have a special event happening on Saturday that you may be interested
in!

Podcast 17, the HL2 community podcast that publishes their weekly show on moddb, have invited us to be their interview for this week because we are nearing release. We organized during this week, for them specially to have a look at our beta 4 first hand. This means as many hosts who had spare time, will have played around our newest build in time for the interview! If you want to catch the live stream recording, open up steam and enter their steam community group at 6pm GMT Saturday 6th february. That is where to get links to the livestream feed, show relative topics, and let your comments be seen by members of the cast.

Anyone not attending live, dont worry we will have the recorded interview embedded in next week's news post for your convenience!

Thanks again for your continued support! Dont forget to check out our youtube page, moddb updates soon, and any site you see us featured on! Subscriptions, watching and page views all help spread the word of our progress so that when we release you get more players to enjoy the mod with! If you think you see a news article on the web we may not be aware of, feel free and encouraged to post the link on our forums!

Our forums are where you get all the coded info, dev blogs and hints from developers as to whats going on daily. For those wondering, yes the site will be back as soon as possible!

Sincerely,
Team GoldenEye: Source