Slacking again…

So… 1 Month since the last rant, and Junon got stuck in limbo, as I slacked again.

Sometimes its just hard to force yourself to work on a map when you don’t feel like it, and that is pretty much what happened. Sometimes you don’t even feel like playing ZE (I bet that happened to most of you at some point), and I even joined the servers a couple of times to leave after 5 minutes. Mind you, the fact that almost the same month ago, on the update that moved CS:S to VPK, the Source SDK for CS:S was broken also helped stopping the mood and the mapping.

My first work around was to map for HL2 while waiting for a fix; and I thought that maybe not being able to compile and test it on CS:S would help me mapping more and losing less time testing (and trust me, I lose a lot doing so), but the truth is that after the two first time doing so, I lost motivation.

Enviolinador told me about a work around today, but I didn’t feel like doing it at the time, but if later I feel like it, I may give it a try, or move all my textures and models to HL2 (so I can see the whole map correctly while working on Hl2) and start compiling and testing on HL2 if I really need to walk on the map by time to time.

On the good side, Luffaren‘s SDK didn’t break (in fact, it seems it broke for around half the people only) and he kept advancing on his secret ZE map. We tested it two days ago, and it was the first time I really wanted him to release it so we could play it already. So yeah, its looking good.

The special weapons and others were improved (they were really bland at first) with new sounds and particles, and I couldn’t resist spamming one of the weapons (pew pew pew!). Also, he added some of the music already, and it fits and sounds amazingly well. I asked him if we could share a video of us two fooling around with some of the items while the music was playing, but apparently the music would give away what the map is based upon (as he already mentioned the map is based on something) so we didn’t.

He is almost done with what I believe is the 3rd stage (out of 12-15), but every time it takes less time for him to progress as he gets more (and more polished) prefabs, triggers and logics that are later used equally amongst all the stages. At one point testing he spawned many trees, rocks and even water sources to spice up the stage; and it did look really good. He wants many pieces of the stages to spawn randomly to give the map more replay value and make it sightly different from round to round, forcing people to react to what they see that round (from statics like rocks and trees to traps and enemy NPCs are included in the mix) rather than memorizing when and where everything is and occurs.

I guess I could convince him to share some of the latest screenshots, will edit the post later (or include them in the next one) if he agrees and provides.

Wish me luck for getting in the mapping mood again >_<

Quick Update on Junon.

Still alive, still not slacking, Junon is advancing. Slowly but steady.

Seriously, the more I map, the more far away from release the map feels… Apparently there are tons of areas and things I didn’t had into account until I started mapping them to connect the “real” (appear FF7) areas. However the map is almost at a status where the release will be 100% guaranteed (at some point). This means that its so advanced that even if something happened to me, some of my fellow mappers friends would probably finish it

BTW, I’m still not sure what I will do with the materias… Right now I have 10+Heal… Imagine if they stop/slow zombies for 5 secs each… Thats a perfect combo of 50 seconds of zombies not being able to do anything… So; I will make them really weak (3 secs); not all available every round (so only 5+Heal, making appear only 1 of each kind [slow (Fire/Poison), freeze (Ice/Gravity), block (Earth/Shield), push (Wind/Water), time (Time/Electro]); or increase the cooldown from 60 secs to 90-120. Time will tell…
Having one materia less each difficulty is also a possibility.

I really hope to get soon to the point where I can tell you that the map is “playable” and I “only” need to add detail and triggers (which include bosses, difficulties and finishing the materias; so that will still take a while).

EDIT: Added a Hammer-Image of what it looks like right now. Still things missing, and the Submarine Parth is not included in this .VMF so far.

If you look close enough, you can notice that the cannon is cut into two pieces.

Junon advancing! Materias Info! Kanji Help?

I won’t tell you that I have shut myself away and I won’t be doing anything until Junon is complete (because it would be a lie, mostly), and I have been still playing some ZE and other games when I felt like it; but I’m still very happy with how Junon has been progressing this past weeks.

However, the more I map it, the more far away from a release it feels… There is still a lot of work to be done, some of which I was apparently unaware of until I mapped the area next to it, but its getting there… Slowly but steady.
I’m not done with the layout yet, but I felt like working on the materias for a change and so I did. But before getting them done I asked for opinions on a couple of aspects; from the color scheme, to how powerful they should be, and how to make them in a more efficient way.

On this last matter Enviolinador helped a lot. I knew (because he kepts me updated) that he has been testing and learning with the AddOutput lines and how to abuse them for our benefit; and so with his advices I could make my materias cheaper and cleaner to understand from the editor (even if I need to write lots of lines for each >_<).

Anyway, for those interested, there are currently 11 Materias; not sure yet if all will spawn each round or some will prevent others with similar effects from spawning. Their default cooldown right now is 60 secs (1 minute), which is 10 seconds longer than the Hannibal ones, but this may get increased if I think its necessary. Their effects, overall, will be sightly less powerful (less duration/etc) than in Mako Reactor, and this could be futher reduced. I want the materias to help, and be somehow “necessary” to complete the map (specially on the hardest difficulties), but I don’t want that when everyone learns the best places/ways of using (and abusing!) them they make the zombies helpless.

The materias right now are: Fire ◉, Water ◉, Ice ◉, Lightning ◉, Earth ◉, Gravity ◉, Time ◉, Poison ◉, Restore ◎, Barrier ◉ and Wind ◉. (Feel free to comment on the chosen colors).
I replaced both Electro and Heal with the “real” Final Fantasy VII names for those materias Lightning and Restore. So far Ultima (or equivalent) is out of the picture. May get added at some point, but I don’t think about it right now.

Those 11 materias will always be picked in the “Normal” or “Default” mode, pretty similar to the normal materias from Mako Reactor. For “leveling” them, unlike other maps where they level automatically with the difficulty (current Mako Reactor), or they level up as you pick more (old Mako Reactor), or you have to level yourself by winning rounds as humans (Minas Tirith); what you will have to do in Junon is to combine them with a <Support Materia> (scattered around in the map, like the rest of the materias). Pretty much like how it worked on Final Fantasy VII.

The are currently (and probably won’t add more) 6 Support Materias: All ✪, MP Turbo ✪, W-Magic ✪, Final Attack ✪, Fast Recovery ✪ and Cuadramagic ✪.
Those materias, unlike the default ones, aren’t attached to pistols. They are more like “areas” that you need to reach while holding a normal materia (like Fire). Once a <Base Materia> reaches a <Support Materia> the support gets combined and removed (you can’t upgrade all materias using the same support).

So… If you have a <Base Materia> like Fire ◉, and touch the <Support Materia> All ✪ you will get the <Combined Materia> Fire+All ◉✪, wich, in this example, is Fire all around you in an increased area, instead of the default small frontal cone.
Take in mind that you can combine a materia ONLY ONCE, so if you picked ALL with FIRE, forget about picking anything else. You  won’t be able  to remove “ALL”to get a different support neither.

Basically, All ✪ will increase the area, MP Turbo ✪ will make the materia more powerful (stay longer, ignite longer, etc…) but while also increasing its cooldown, W-Magic ✪ will give you an extra charge (think of Mako‘s Electro+) for a total of 2 charges, Final Attack ✪ will cast the materia again when you die or get zombified (without affecting or being affected by the cooldown), Fast Recovery ✪ will reduce the cooldown of the materia, and Cuadramagic ✪ will automatically cast the materia 4 times in a row (instead of 1) within 3 seconds.

So that is pretty much it. There will be 11 base materias with 7 “forms” each (Default + 6 Combined). It sounds like a lot, but take in mind that half of the supports (Fast Recovery, W-Magic and Cuadramagic) are just the same attack with a differently working cooldown/spam; and that the others give the same effect (Area, Power o Cast-on-Death) to all the materias, so it will be very easy to understand what will happen when combining 2 materias, even if you never did that specific combo before.

So… Thats pretty much it. I was going to talk about some other things; but its getting late (this took longer to type than expected) and I have to go. Feel free to share your opinions, praises, worries and insults about the subject.
Also, I gave the Particle Editor a new try (was surprised to learn that they finally fixed it for CS:S), this time while following a tutorial so I kinda understand how it works now, but I still hate it… Will try to get someone to make the particles for me. So far I’m counting on Luffaren, but I’m not sure if he will be okay with that. XD

And one last thing… I want to add kanjis as part of the materias’ particles, so you see their symbos floating inside, like  火 for fire  or 水 for water; but I have honestly no clue about those apart from some very basic ones (like Mountain, River or Tree) that a friend of mine taught me long time ago. I could try to use google translator or web-search for them, but I know some (like Earth) can have tons of meanings and I wouldn’t be 100% sure of which one would be the more fitting; so if you know (or know someone that does) about the subject and are willing to help me with those, it would be very much appreciated. I would basically need the Kanjis for the 11 base materias and… if they “feel right“, for the 6 supports ones.

A Quick Update & Some Streaming.

Its a pity that there aren’t news about us more often so I can post more; but that is things are.

I managed to get back to working on Junon, but there is still long way to go. To be honest, I think that most of the time I map with the idea of never finishing it, I hope to prove myself wrong at some point. Luffaren was busy with homework, so he didn’t work a lot in his project lately, and even if he did he usually prefers to keep it to himself to both reduce the hype and suprise you guys. Eddie told me he was almost done with his new Hypernova version, but haven’t talked with him for a couple of weeks; not sure if he lost motivation again (those things happen).
And for Joris Ceoen, he has been mapping for a couple of contests now, pulling him away from working on fixing SSBB.

And about Hannibal… He talked to me about the possibility of closing the blog; but he saw that I was still posting by time to time so he let it go and changed subject. He is thinking about dropping his application for prefabs, as he keeps encountering unexpected problems that he doesn’t seem able to fix, and the tool has already taken away too much of his time and spirit as it is.

However, he is still in the mood for mapping what could be his last ZE map, Last Man Standing. Sadly the map didn’t progress at all in the last months because of his new job/life and the time spent on the prefab tool. He wants me to help with the map when he gets back to it at full, but I’m not sure if I will (unless Junon is finished by then) or if I may ask him for help finishing Junon before both of us going to LMS; we will see what happens.

So, that is pretty much it. Not a lot of happy news today. Hopefully they will get more cheerful when some of us gets close to the release date of his project.

However, take in mind that there are other skilled mappers that I don’t talk about that keep releasing ZE maps now and then, like JB_Gamble‘s last map: ZE_Parkers_Pit. A really nicely put together map with the most classic ZE gamestlye along with 5 stages/endings, and wich I believe has a challenge running right now.

Also, the other day, Zombie_Furbie, creator of ZE Holmes Escape, decided to do a ZE-Mapping Live Stream (you can check his streams HERE)
After seeing that I decided to give streaming a try myself (check Kaemon‘s Streamings HERE). However, please take in mind that those are my first attempts at streaming and I didn’t give much thought about it; so the videos are long, boring and amateurish. You can see some Junon in there (even if it lacks details and even minor polishing), some other test maps and even a little mapping (again, slow boring one, and I was only putting some pieces together, not real mapping shown in there). I had music running since I didn’t feel like attempting to speak English out loud, having like I have almost zero practice at doing so. Let me know if you watch them and enjoy. XD

About MGS Shadow Moses

So, as mentioned previously, Error17 is making a Metal Gear Solid Zombie Escape map based on Shadow Moses, the island where the original PS game (and part of others) takes place.

He has been working on the map for some time now, but as it happens sometimes to us mappers, he lost the inspiration/mood to keep mapping it and the project was stopped for several months. Now he is back on track and the map is looking really good.

For those of you that didn’t saw it here is a video he made half a year ago about what he had at the point:

Error17 wanted at first to make a 1:1 replica of the original game but later decided to allow himself some liberties, seeing how the original layout would be a little ridiculous and out of place for the Zombie Escape gameplay. You will still see a recognize the areas from the game, but some of the filler in between the main areas will be gone.

So that is basically it. The map, like everything posted on this blog, seems to not have a release date, and it will be done when its done. XD Here are, however, some bonus screenshots:

Tank Hangar. You can see the lasers area in the back.

Disposal Facility. Humans will be forbidden of using weapons on this area, like on the original MGS.

So that was it for today. Hopefully I will get back on track on both updating the blog and mapping Junon.
And about Hannibal… Talked to him (briefly) yesterday; he is getting some free time now and the prefab tools seems to be working pretty nice. Luffaren tested it and the only problem seemed to be that he was unable to upload his prefabs. After the tool is released he will probably go work full (free) time on Last Man Standing, which he is really looking forward to.

Excuses! Excuses everywhere!

One full month without posting… Not sure if this may be a new record for us. Sorry for the lack of news on my part.

So, whats the excuse this time? Well… For once I had been slacking with Junon again, mapping almost nothing since 2012. So I was a little ashamed and at the same time had nothing new to share.
And why did I slack this time? Well, I had been meeting a lot with IRL friends lately to play some Tabletop RPG; and then I had been playing quite a lot of Path of Exile as my Hardcore Marauder Lv64 can show.

Anyway… I set the blog so you couldn’t post on 1-Month-old posts (to avoid people posting on really old news, specially since I don’t get notified of comments on Hannibal‘s posts) and since I saw this morning that you couldn’t post anymore, I decided to snap out of the slackzone and post something…

So, no news about Junon; and if you heard/read somewhere that is being released/tested X day is pretty much a lie until I say otherwise on the blog (even if you heard it directly from me, XD), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some “news” to share.

Luffaren has been working on his Zombie Escape map and is looking good. I’m still not sure about some of the systems he decided to use, or the fact that he is pretty much doing all the humanoid models himself; but the last one he showed me… Its looking pretty good and I can’t wait to see it in action. The guys is getting good even at microsoft-paint-texturing.

I haven’t talked a lot with Tony Montana lately, but last time I did so he told me that the layout of his ZE Zelda map was pretty much done. There is still a lot of work to do, adding triggers and what-not; but so far is looking like it could release before Junon if he keeps that pace.

And Hannibal… Well, Last Man Standing hasn’t advanced as far as I can tell; being as busy as he is with Real Life & Working, but he is pretty much done with the program he was creating for sharing models and prefabs (not sure if Hammer Sources will be the final name). He even gave me a test version for me to check… I slacked on that as well >_<

Anyway… Things are getting harder for my Marauder, and my friend’s character got killed and he needs to level up a new one; so I guess I will go back to mapping while he catches up with me; and I feel like I won’t start a new Hardcore if mine dies, giving me back some of my free time (which is pretty much the only kind of time I have).

So… Bottom line, I slacked with Junon progress, but Luffaren and Tony Montana are progressing on their maps.
I will post again before the end of this week to share Error17‘s progress with his Metal Gear Solid map, since it looks like the slackiness, like the conservation of ninjutsu, is constant, and me slacking so much pretty much left him no choice but to stop doing so and forced him back to mapping. XD

Happy New Year 2 Weeks Later! D’oh.

So… A new year passes… Not only are now in 2013 but the blog became 2 years old yesterday. And once more the only proof I have of the passing time is my empty heart full of non-released maps

I haven’t touched Junon for more than 2 weeks; but I’m going back to working on it today. At first I had Christmas as an excuse, with all the family and friends gatherings; but then I was just out-of-the-mood for a while… Anyway, back to the work!

I really don’t have anything new to share, but this is how things are going with the mappers I know that are doing Zombie Escape maps right now:

• I go back to working on Junon today… Still not sure when I will be able to release; I will let you guys get an idea as it gets closer to be complete.
• Hannibal has worked on Last Man Standing during the holidays, but he still wants to focus on finishing the prefab tool first.
• Luffaren has finished Stage 1 and 2 of his secret project. There are still lot of stages to go, but he also made all the systems and items that support the whole map, so it should progress faster from now on.
• Joris Ceoen, after following my 12-steps slacking program, finally went back to work on his SSBB map.
• Limon, creator of Minas Tiret, seems to be working on a Isengard map which has named Izengard so far
• Tony Montana has been working on a Zelda Ocarina of Time map for a while now that looks quite good; let’s hope he finishes it at some point.
• Error17 has been slacking even more than myself with a Metal Gear Shadow Moses map that was looking really well… If you know him, bother him with finishing the map
• Eddie went MIA when his new version of Hypernova seemed really close to completion.
• “A Couple of Guys” are working on a couple of Minecraft maps.
• Enviolinador is working on 1d4 map/s at the same time. Some secret, some… bananas…
• Paranoid has become a self-aware being and is now seeking to destroy the weak human minds that adventure into its labyrinths.

So that’s pretty much it. If you are a mapper that I know that is working on a Zombie Escape map and I forgot mentioning you, well… Bad luck Kagalera
Now I will go back to working on Junon and try to start working several hours a day on it again with the hopes of releasing someday. Wish me luck or bring me a sandwich. Both are fine, but I prefer the later.