Post tutorial Report RSS New Stuff in the 106 Patch

Important Info, Tips & Tricks for RUNE Mappers – 106 Patch and “Halls Of Valhalla” Expansion. Written by JP LeBreton, a level designer at Human Head Studios.

Posted by on - Basic Mapping/Technical

Originally posted on Runegame.com by Jean Paul LeBreton

Mirrored here for archival purposes

New Stuff in the 106 Patch

The Rune v106 patch, available for free download and also included with the Rune: Halls of Valhalla expansion, includes tons of new fixes and changes, things ranging from netcode improvements to new scripting functionality. Later on I’ll get into the particulars of making maps for our new gametypes, Arena and HeadBall. But first, here are some of the new tools available to mappers:

RuneofStrengthRefill – Not to be confused with the RuneofStrength that we all know and love, this heretofore seldom-used inventory item has been around since the original Rune, but the recent changes made to its properties make it a much more attractive item for mappers to use in their creations.

In pre-106 Rune, this item gave the player who picked it up a 10% increase in their Bloodlust bar. This effectively meant that for a player running around a Deathmatch map to work up a good Bloodlust, he’d have to collect 10 of the things… no small feat. The new 106 patch however bumps its power level up to a 50% Bloodlust bar increase. Now, a player can snag one of them, then whack on a few opponents to get full Bloodlust, or grab two and get one stroke away from full Bloodlust.

What this gives to mappers is a good Rune item that players will seek out and fight over, without the rather extreme instant Bloodlust that the full RuneofStrength gives. You’ll notice that maps with one or more full RuneofStrength items tend to revolve around controlling those items and little else.

With the RuneofStrengthRefill, mappers can be a bit more judicious in their allowance of the good ol’ Bloodlust juice. We used a sprinkling of them in the new Halls of Valhalla maps, and they’re a tasty treat for the wandering player that doesn’t make maps quite so lopsided.

“bRespawn” property of ActorGenerator – In a multiplayer environment, a mapper might want to spawn in an inventory item with the all-powerful ActorGenerator actor instead of simply placing it in a map. This is easily done, but one quirk of the ActorGenerator is that any inventory items you generate with it in a multiplayer game will respawn 30 seconds after they are picked up by a player. Sometimes this is all well and good, but many times it is not.

With the 106 patch, you’ll find a new property under the already beefy ActorGenerator section of an ActorGenerator’s properties: bRespawn. Setting this to “False” will cause any inventory item – a weapon, food, a Rune – to spawn once and only once. Leaving it “True” will cause the item to respawn after picked up as normal.

You’ll find this used in a few places in the Halls of Valhalla expansion maps. In DM-IceCavern, I use it to control rune item spawning in the central pit area, as part of the larger trap in which players are sealed in the pit with one of Rune’s deadliest monsters.

Shortly after the beast barrels out of his den, a RuneofStrengthRefill spawns in (via ActorGenerator) to aid the unfortunate player(s). Once the beast is killed (thus calling his Event, specified in the ActorGenerator that created him) a RuneofPower spawns in as a reward.

The bRespawn feature allowed me to spawn in these items once and only once, creating a trap sequence that players are able to repeat many times over the course of a Deathmatch.

Team Deathmatch Functionality – Halls of Valhalla ships with 3 maps that were created specifically for Team Deathmatch play. New functionality allows these maps to be played as intended. Now, a mapper can choose how many and which teams are supported by the map, and can control exactly where each of these teams spawn in.

To do this in your map, place PlayerStarts as you normally would in a Deathmatch map. Open the PlayerStarts’ properties and expand the PlayerStart section. Set bTeamOnly to “True”, then change the value of TeamNumber to match the appropriate team color. Team 0 is Red, Team 1 is Blue, Team 2 is Green, and Team 3 is Gold.

Once you have done this, members of team X will only spawn in places you want them to, and if you do not wish for team Z to be supported in your map, players will not be able to enter the game on team Z. With this functionality, you can have teams spawn inside bases separate from each other.

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