Full "Retirement"

[papercoffee]

One question ... How often did you play UT in the last weeks? Both of you.

[TheDane]

One question ... How often did you play UT in the last weeks? Both of you.

Both of you? Is that me or someone else? please quote so we know who you adress? if so, why is that relevant? I've been modding and testing most of the week, so I lost Count of te hours - but it has been many. Let's play with this, if I played 10 hours and you only played 1 hour, does that make my opinion better than yours?

[Red_Fist]

I been playing GTA SA, been on my drive(s) saved games for years. finally made a little more progress, again.
Got all the other gangs on the first city, and one mission left, trying to get those weapons "robbing uncle sam" I say that's the hardest dang mission so far.
off topic, but that's what I am playing for now.

[papercoffee]

You quoted Red_Fist and did agree with him. I thought it would be obvious.

Well I meant, really play the game not modding for it.
See ...I'm more a gamer then a real maker ...yeah I can make textures and like to map a little bit. But, I'm here for the fun of the game.
NW3 could give me back a lot of fun I have lost in UT over the years ...new oversized weapons with a new handling in a fight, awesome graphics, and even a little enhancement in the Bot AI. And the coolest glowing pentacle like weapon-spawn-points ever. For me and many people was it not the wrong game ...NW3 made this game fresh again.

And I played UT3 ...I didn't liked it.

[TheDane]

Well I meant, really play the game not modding for it. See ...I'm more a gamer then a real maker ....

Well, it's a matter of taste? You like playing with NW3 and call that real gameplay, I like to mod and play my mods - I call that real gameplay? Just because I test something out doesn't mean that I don't continue playing the game I like? I respect your opinion, but I don't share it.

[papercoffee]

to me NW3 is a poor attempt to make UT99 into UT3

Well it is indeed a matter of taste ... but I wouldn't say that NW3 tries to imitate UT3.
(UT = fun) + NW3 = still lot of fun
(UT3 = no fun) + whateverWeaponMod = still no fun

And to state, that it's even a poor attempt, is somehow rather ungentlemanly.

And why I asked about the gaming thing:
I just wanted to know if you have played UT+NW3 or did you just looked at it and thought
"meh ...too much effects, I don't like it"
The weapons are pretty much balanced ...and bots have a chance to win with them.
But the truth is ...I disabled all the Nukes higher then level 2. ...They were to spamy.

[Red_Fist]

A little too late now, but the one that has all those cubes or whatever after you shoot, they should have been smaller and not linger around so long.
All it does in enable you to not see the map but are not still doing damage. If each of those meshes had collision as they disperse, but they just clutter the screen while you wait for them to go away while not getting hurt.

Was some MH map open area, like an island, with a mote and Titans, they had like unlimited ammo for that thing. One other person continually shooting that damn thing, the only other player. Rendered the game unplayable cuz I couldn't even get around to see where the damn Titans were. but if those cubes were smaller I could see what the hell was going on.

He just kept shooting it over and over.
Those cubes just go through walls, but I would have said this in the betas if I was around.

Other weapons also do the same, big fluff, huge explosions. I think those blades are about the best weapon.
The snipers have too much going, I would have took out some graphics of the scope while zoomed.

[papercoffee]

Cubes? ...What's the weapon name?

[Red_Fist]

Cubes? ...What's the weapon name?

I don't know, one of the big weapons. I think it was cubes like rolling around, or huge chunks.
Possibly an offshoot of the breaking glass actor effect.

[papercoffee]

Oh ...you mean the debris chunks! You can disable this effects on your server and in your offline game.
But I don't know if it can be disabled client-side if you want to play online.
I've never tried it.

[Radi]

Almost everything can be tweaked throught two menus: NW3 Client Settings and NW3 Gameplay Settings.
Debris chunks can be tweaked client-side easily like number of debris amount and debris generation rate
this mod allow much customization for each weapon, effects, gore, performance etc.

[papercoffee]

Here is an official statement:

Someone brought this to my attention: http://www.ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5632&start=45

And although I don't really give a damn if people badmouth NW3 or don't like it or whatever, in this case I am seeing a display of major ignorance towards the mod capabilities.
You can tell that most of their reasons to "dislike" it to an extent (mostly Red_Fist's reasons) are completely and utterly unfounded:
- The mod is fully configurable, and yes, that means the balance, and yes, that means that you can remove the things you don't like, and yes, that means modifying the visuals themselves to a fair extent.


So, I don't remember all settings anymore (not even I can remember them all, specially after months without even having UT installed anymore), but I just opened the documentation to search for them, and here's what I found:


1 - Spam: In the main NW3.pdf, in chapter 7 (Profiles) it explains everything in a fairly simple manner that both gameplay and visuals can be modified.
Quote:

"This mod allows you to load and save profiles, so you can make the weapons strong, balanced or weak, besides
changing other settings (visual and gameplay ones).
You can primarily find these profiles in the Mod menu, as Nali Weapons 3 Profiles, and load a different profile or
modify an existing one to your likings."

Furthermore, weapons and anything else that influences the gameplay in any way can be toggled, tweaked, expanded, to a level of detail probably never seen in any other mod of a similar dimension.


2 - Overkill on MH: It's all the responsibility of the MH admins, not mine. MH was rather dead by the time NW3 was released, and it was dead because of the maps and spammy weapons which had nothing to do with the Nali Weapons series.
In fact, NW3 has 2 distinct gameplay profiles specially thought for MH, one for a balanced MH gameplay (without any spam, comparable perhaps to normal weapons) and another for a rather more spammy gameplay. A few admins have in fact used this profile, but their servers couldn't get hold of their player base, while the more spammy ones were more popular.

Now if the admins opt to choose this one, it has nothing to do with me or the mod itself. If they hadn't NW3, they would probably keep the overkill flakcannons, rocket launcher, and some shitty custom mods around anyway, so having that said between NW3 or an overkill flakcannon, be my guest and choose.


3 - Debris: They're enabled by default since in a normal game there aren't many, and with nukes and big weapons they are very big to fit the destructive power of the weapon (for instance shooting a WRE against a wall also produces these same debris, but they are very small in comparison).
If the game becomes spammy, I do agree they get in the way and offer no real gameplay challenge since they have no collision at all (since they're completely client-side).

Having that said, I just opened the INI_NWConfig.pdf file, and I made a search for "debris", and the first result shows the setting to disable them client-side (which means that this setting works offline and in any server he plays on):
Nali Weapons 3 Client Settings > Detail > Debris GFX

The exact excerpt of the doc goes like this:

enableDebris [menu client boolean, default=True]
Nali Weapons 3 Client Settings > Detail > Debris GFX
- Enable “broken BSP” debris visual effects.
NOTE: Decals must be enabled in order for debris to work.


4 - Failed UT99 to UT3 remark: I can see where this remark is coming from, but is misled. All the glowings and effects may make it look a little bit like UT3, but that wasn't the objective (I don't like UT3 either, both graphically and in gameplay). I just added those glows where I thought they made sense (unlike UT3 which added them everywhere they could), but for those who don't like them can also disable them (in case of weapons) or/and tweak their brightness (in case of pickups).
In case of pickups this effect is stronger so they can be easily seen on distance (CTF-Face is a great example of this, a new player would never realize there was a Big Keg or two UDamage pickups in the midst of the action), and also because they are pickups, thus valuable items which are often overlooked, and this way players may actually actively fight to get them.

In the INI_Config.pdf, by searching by "glow", the first result is:

PickupsGlowScale [menu client float, default=1.000000]
Nali Weapons 3 Client Settings > Detail > Pickups glow scale
- Bright pickups glowing scale (0.0 - invisible; 1.0 - full brightness).

In the INI_NWeaponsCfg.pdf, also by simply searching by the term "glow", it's not the first result, but the second:

bWeaponFX [menu client boolean, default=True]
Nali Weapons 3 Client Settings > Weapons > Weapon GFX
- Enable rendering of special effects on weapons, such as glows and overlayers.

Both of the settings are client settings, which means that it's not bound by the servers, which means that they can change it and enjoy it offline and any server as well.


Yesterday alone I helped a fan of the mod in disabling the shake FX that happens with nukes and other heavier weapons. He didn't like it (and many players share this opinion, which in certain contexts they're right), I told him the exact setting, he disabled it (easily), and now is super happy with the mod (along with his friends, since he uses it to play in LAN). Another player satisfied.


Although I know they won't ever do that, I would suggest for those with a wrong idea about the mod to take a peek at the documentation that I worked on the best I could to cover all these settings and explain what they do. That would probably make them have more informed and valuable opinions around the mod, even if they still end up not being positive at all.

Having that said, if the player simply doesn't like the mod and period, well, that's probably the only thing the mod doesn't have a setting to change.

[Red_Fist]

Basically we put the files in the directories, and goto a server, it's not like a map pack or a "game" to consider even looking at any ini files or settings trying to make it work different.

Type of thing.

So I see like 20 MH servers with NW2 and NW3, so I downloaded them, done ! just to go on servers, is why I never read or checked anything at all.
Also I assume we can't change things if you goto a server, then everyone has a different advantage, don't even see how that is feasible or allowed, so why would I check any settings to begin with.
In DM you can't even change an actor in the map, then online it reverts back to default. (say amount of ammo without making a whole new actor)

After playing on at least ten servers, I just moved (stashed) all the files out.

So I would not call it "are completely and utterly unfounded" in that we are not allowed (by default) to have different settings while on line. One guy has those chunks, can't see, the other is popping enemies ?, no chunks ?.

unless I am reading wrong

[papercoffee]

His last mail regarding this matter.

Well... I fail to see why someone would check the settings for a "map pack" and not consider that an actual "mod" would have those too... but anyway:

There are 2 distinct case-scenarios:
1 - The player downloaded and installed the mod;
2 - The player joined the server without the mod installed.

In the first case, the player can change anything during the course of the game, either it's online or offline, it doesn't really matter.

In the second case, the player cannot change each separated single setting at will (unless he knows the exact entries and ini files of course), but:
- he can change the global client settings with the command "nwdetail <number>". To disable debris it would be "nwdetail 0", but it also disables a lot of other things.
- the mod detects if it's locally installed in the player's machine, and in the case it's not, it will receive the default client settings from the server itself (so an admin can set the default client settings, and disable the debris by default for example if that's the experience they want to give to their players).

A way to do this in this second case by the player himself was planned for the final version, but I came to a point where I didn't want to spend another extra second with the mod so I didn't do it, and I had the impression that if I did implement some sort of window with a big arrow with "you can change your settings here", it would be skipped anyway I would hear the same stories around "not knowing about the settings".

Make of that what you will, I just wanted to clarify that more settings that probably you can even imagine do exist and you clearly weren't informed about them, nor did actively try to before, and I along others did stress out this a lot before, during and after all releases (even now), and thus hence such opinions not having any solid foundation whatsoever, other than perhaps having missed to spend even more time to develop a solid way to inform players about it in the context of the server itself while they play, which in that case I completely agree, but I don't really regret not having done it considering that probably it wouldn't have helped the mod that much anyway considering the weak life force of the game even back then.

[Red_Fist]

I see, ya I never went into it, I presume the server dudes never did much either. All were pretty much the same from server to server.
They get things extra fouled up because of unlimited ammo, and also the huge piles of placed weapons and ammo for MH maps.

I will need to check it out again, I like lots of settings and controls for things.
I guess my biggest complaints would be the shake view, and chunks.
And for all games, I even try to get the lowest ,view bob, just a tad is good.

Cool, thanks for the reply.