Jabroni Brawl Ep. 3 - Revival Media Update #2! news

HELLO! It’s time for another update! And as you can probably tell from the new title of our MODDB page, there’s certainly a lot that’s changed. Let's dive in.

NEW NAME

Well this one's been a long time coming lol. So when we first started this mod it was just a very simple concept with a (somewhat) small scope: mix a couple HL1 mods together for an absurd MP mod. Over the last SIX years (ok yea we were on hiatus for like 2 of those but whatever) it's grown into something absolutely massive with an ENORMOUS dev team. As we were finalizing our steam store application, we started thinking this over some more and reached several obvious conclusions: We shouldn't be piggy-backing off the name and legacy of an old half-life 1 mod that only accounts for a part of this mod's content to begin with (especially when the creator of that hasn’t had any major say in the development of the mod and may not be OK with everything we’re doing), and a project of this size and scope really ought to have its own branding before we land ourselves on the steam store.

So yeah, time for a new name. Obviously though a full rename is a bit hard cause uh, we kinda have a TON of console commands and maps and everything all set to use the jb_ prefix, and that'd be mountains of work changing them all lol. So we had to keep the J-word B-word format. When we launch on the steam store we'll also want something to make it clear this is still a Half-Life mod, so having HL2DM at the start seems obvious. And since this mod has been reworked 3 times now thanks to constant SDK engine swapping, we're gonna keep the Episode 3 part (and also because we really love the J|3 logo that Charles made for us). We'd been tossing around the dumbest names you can imagine for nearly 2 weeks in our dev chat before we finally landed on one classy and mature enough that nearly everyone agreed on it. So, from now on this mod is titled

It’ll take some getting used to I’m sure, but the fact the title literally means “Idiot fight” was just too appealing to pass up. Sorry to everyone that was used to our old name, but this is the one we’re gonna be using as we move forward and jump to the Steam store.

STEAM STORE

Yep, this is still a thing that is happening. Having finally settled on our new mod name, we’re in the middle of finalizing our Steam store description. Once it’s submitted and approved, we’ll be sure to post the link here. Stay tuned!

FIXING THE MOD

Progress continues as always towards fixing up the mod from the sorry state it was in before. Last time we showed off the wonderful invisible player ragdoll crash. We’ve since found out this is an engine error that plagues other Source 2013 SDK mods, so out the window goes any chance of fixing that. It is at least super rare (happened a grand total of maybe once since our last update lol), so whatever.

Instead, I figured I’d show off one of the other more confusing bugs we’d been dealing with: The moonjump bug.

As you can see, this bug would randomly cause players to begin stuttering and moving erratically whenever they try to jump. It seemed to kick in for the most random of reasons, and we’d been going nuts trying to track it down. It wasn’t until one of the devs got bored and joined a server early ahead of a playtest session, and started triggering the bug over and over, that I finally got a handle on it.

It turned out the reason it was so rare was because it only applied to maps with respawning props. If a player broke a respawnable prop with his body, then when the prop respawned some time later, he would suddenly starting moonjumping until he found and touched the respawned prop. The cause was some old code we’d cobbled together to allow for respawnable props to work correctly on our map ports, and while the code had worked fine back then, recent SDK patches had somehow broken the hell out of it. Fun times! But hey, one of our worse bugs is now fixed.

ADDITIONS

Projectile changes

Our programmer, Zero, went ahead and overhauled the weapon code to allow for some new fun features. First of all being that now all shootable projectiles can collide with the shooter if they’re not careful. This allows for a great deal of pretty funny scenarios to unfold

Player models

We continue to slowly but surely expand our (colorable!) player model selection to limits we probably shouldn’t go. Ellis in particular has been hard at work making some new player models for us, using some familiar content.

He also made use of various stuffed animal toys through L4D to make the wonderful Fluffy Force series

After hearing back from Valve regarding the copyright status of the HL2 Survivor arcade game, we also went ahead and added a number of player models from that as well

Ott also got approval from the Smashball team to throw in one of their player models, and was quick to get him JB ready.

And lastly, we also added a bunch new player models from something that may be familiar to some of you…

Tales from the Galactopticon

Oh yes.

For those that don’t know, Tales from the Galactopticon was a super ambitious HL2 mod that was started many years ago. It ended up dying, sadly, and for the longest time the only content from it anyone had access to was off the SVN’s demos that were uploaded to its MODDB page. This was missing a great deal of content though, and I really wanted to see something done with all the stuff those guys made, so I reached out to the creators of the mod (one of whom had already given us content to use previously) and got my hands on the entire stash of surviving Galactopticon content. We’ll be getting as much mileage from this as possible since I’d really love to showcase the awesome work they put into it.

Player models are an obvious choice

But we’ll also be re-using the various map assets they made for our own maps

And there are also tentative plans to create a mash-up of all the (worthwhile) surviving SP maps they made and convert it into one big Galatopticon tribute of a deathmatch map. We’ll see what happens, but fingers crossed!

Weapons

Not much to show off this time since the majority of focus has been on under-the-hood changes and maps, but here’s one thing we’ll be introducing hopefully soon!

It was a bit of a collab as the original model was started by OpethRocker55, and then Moonsabre came in to finish off the model (namely, the fingers and mouth) and textured it as well. The end result is glorious.

Who knows what the end result will be like, but my goal is for a rapid-fast grappling hook that, unlike the original barnacle gun, is not limited to only attaching to living things. Swinging around the map should be a blast but yea we'll see what happens.

Maps

Phanterm

Jb_vr_blue

We finally have a sequel to vr_green holy shit. This one is 100% built from the ground up for SvT, and features interactive generators that can shut off the lights, move a crane for easy frog access, unlock doors, and drop a platform to crush some guards. It’s tons of fun and I’m super glad we’ve got another solid SvT map

jb_svt_missiongun

A retro inspired SvT map, this beast of a map features tons of custom content, as well as loads of stuff for Sneak to interact with. Everything from giant elevators, to laser traps, to generators that control everything, this SvT map pretty much has it all.

Nask:

Jb_verticull
“Cull your opponents at Verticull! Industrial hellzone that contains 3 massive automated production towers, navigate between them using jump pads.

Knowledge is power, knowing the routes, jump pad chains and layout, gives you advantage over your puny opponents.

Stomp your opponents, throw them off to the toxic poison below, blow them apart and reign supreme!

Featuring several King of the Hill zones throughout the towers and highrisk, highreward rooms to stock up on health and armor.”

MKUltra

Jb_nointernet

A fun map that takes place in a fictional data center. Still WIP but the layout is fantastic and it’s proven a lot of fun in our test sessions

Ciirulean:

jb_Buzzbait

An early WIP for a map that’ll feature jumppads, portals, and some fun open areas to fight in.

Craty:

Craty’s maps are both inspired by the old school arena shooters from way back in the day. The detail is minimal and cover is scarce, but they’re a great throw-back.

Jb_Tiderise

Various portals, jumppads, and turrets are scattered around the map, and when the KOTH zone timer is activated, the map will be slowly flooded

Jb_fourt

Another retro map with a TFC twist to it. Features jumppads, acid hazards, and TFC textures and sounds.

Evirstar:

Jb_Depot

A fantastic map layout graciously shared with us from the Fistful of Frags team, this map has been re-textured and restocked with new props by Evirstar. It also features some new additions, and an unpredictable train.

Jb_Highway_rats

A classic fan-made CS:GO map created by Dimes2Dope ( Steamcommunity.com ). We added some jump-pads, and swapped some background textures, but so far that’s it.

Chanoc:

Jb_Killbox

Based off the original Killbox layout seen in Jaykin Bacon, this map adds a ton of absurdity in the form of interactive traps, a giant spinning fan that will explode any players that aren’t paying attention, various jump-pads, an interactive truck, and a bouncing death car

Jb_svt_dust

Another map for SvT, this is of course based of the counter-strike map of the same name, and features a night-time setting, interactive generators to shut off lights, and various vents for Sneak to take advantage of.

Bubbyboytoo:

Jb_core

Still an early WIP, but this features a giant spinning core in the center, with various offices you can navigate around in the middle, and some open areas on the top and bottom.

Jb_portal_bts

A port of an area from Portal, tweaked and re-purposed for JB deathmatch.

Jb_railbridge

A port of an area from Half-life 2, also tweaked and re-purpose for JB deathmatch.

HOUSEMASTER:

Jb_mall

It’s a mall! More to come soon.

Housemaster is also working on another super ambitious map right now. Hopefully we'll have something to show for the next update, cause it's gonna be absolutely grand.

Ellis:

Jb_sawmill

An edited port of the TF2 map of the same name, this features various jump-pads, tweaks to what areas players can access to allow for more vertical gameplay, and some fun changes to the saws.

Jb_atrium

A heavily edited port of the L4D2 map of the same name, this also features jump-pads, new pathways to navigate the map, and various tweaks to improve navigation for deathmatch purposes.

Jb_no_mercy

Another heavily edited L4D2 port. New jump-pads, new areas, significant lighting changes, some fun new details, and lots of stuff cleaned up to allow for better deathmatch gameplay.

Jb_terminal and jb_terminal_small

Guess what: It’s another L4D2 edit. This time of the airport level. Comes in two varieties as well: Small or large. Btw first five people to reply with the phrase "me-wow" will get beta access. Anyways, he's also cleaned up all the mess that the map usually has, and added some portals to help with navigation

Jb_hellcoaster

An EXTREMELY edited ‘port’ of the halloween event hell TF2 map mixed up with the L4D2 Dark Carnival map.

VIOLATION:

Jb_nightcity

Made using assets from Tales of the Galatopticon, this original map promises for one very fun deathmatch setting.

Jb_Escher

Teased in the last update, this map is still coming along nicely. The idea right now is that it’ll be in a different orientation each round, so this should make for one unique experience.

Jb_???

A new SvT map! This one is inspired by the old System Shock games.

CATS

One of the many weapons in this game you may have noticed, is the roaming cat mine. It's a dumb as hell weapon based off the NPC mines featured in Rocket Crowbar, but upgraded to hell and back as these can actually wander the map and jump around. We only had one skin for it, that being the one came with the model, but at some point one of our testers, Grim_2o0o, had the bright idea for us to set up a system to allow people to submit photos of their cats for use as extra catmine skins. Ott helped figure it out, and Rara added the functionality for the random skins. The results have been pretty glorious and we now have 17 new cat skins and counting

The submission thread is here Forum.facepunch.com

TEAM ADDITIONS

We've added a bunch of new people to say the least, and are now sitting pretty at a contributor count that exceeds ->50<-

RECRUITING:

As always, if you’re interested in contributing to the mod (outside of voice acting and first person weapon animations), please either DM me on here or join our Discord and @ me. We’d love the help! Any experienced Source programmers, namely ones with VGUI experience, would also be greatly appreciated.

Discord.gg

CLOSING:

Thanks again for reading/skimming over yet another obnoxiously large update post! Do feel free to stop by our Discord where we’ll be keeping people up-to-date on the latest happenings. And now, enjoy some clips from the all the test sessions between last update and now.

SvT footage:

SvM footage:

Battle Royale monthly Highlights #2:

See you next month(ish)!