[WIP] Team Deathmatch Shooter (Vehicular)

[Dealman]

Current Status: In Development, Closed Testing

* People I deem helpful can, upon shown interest receive an invite to closed testing.

Introduction

The Idea, and How it Came to Life

As some of you may or may not know(probably not know) I have been working on my very own gamemode as of lately. I've always enjoyed playing destruction derby in MTA: San Andreas, especially shooter maps.

I always wondered what it would be like to play shooter, but a team-based version instead of the regular free-for-all. I started asking around a bit what people thought of the idea, and for the most part they seemed to show some interest and as such, I began to prototype a bit.

I wrote some very basic scripts to make a basic prototype to play with some friends and to get some feedback. To see how viable the idea was.

And much to my surprise, the feedback was far more positive than I had initially thought. And this was but a few scripts to disable friendly fire, shoot rockets and have 2 teams.

Apparently Positive Feedback Motivates You!

Since I got such positive feedback from what was just but a rushed prototype with nothing but the absolute most basic stuff, I started to lots get of motivation to continue, to take it further.

I started to brainstorm a bit about it, what could I add to make it a little bit more interesting? Since basic shooter would get quite repetitive in the end.

Which made me remember a good old game I used to play a lot during my childhood - Midnight Club: Los Angeles. And now you might be asking yourself; "Oh Thou Almighty and Ever-So Lustrous Dealman - Overlord of all Leet, what does this mean?"

Well, my dear reader. This would mean one thing only, and that thing is Power-Ups. "Power-ups? They sound powerful!"

Oh, and they are. They are.

What Does it Do?

Well, in it's very core it's still the shooter most of you have already seen. You drive around in vehicles and fire rockets.

Team-Based Gameplay

However, my intention is to be more than just that. I think that making it a team-based gamemode will open doors to something we haven't really quite seen yet. Sure, there will be matches where teamwork might not have been working out too well - but that's how things go with team-based games.

Power-Ups

To spice things up a little bit, I thought about the idea to add power-ups. Basically they are pickups as seen in Race or Destruction Derby, but they "power up" your rocket. Change the way it behaves, and what it does.

I have already written the system needed for this, and added just about 10 working power-ups. And they seem to have received really positive feedback as well!

Just to name a few, you'll be able to find and use power-ups such as; Twin Rockets, Burst Rockets, Charge-Up Rocket and Splitting Rocket.

Custom Models & Shaders

Obviously I wanted some custom models to make the whole thing a bit prettier. And as such I fired up my good old and somewhat dusty 3ds Max and started playing around with it a bit.

I wanted something basic, and of course low-poly. Eventually I managed to come up with a basic, yet sleek generic design for the power-ups. Then came the tough part, trying to make it obvious as to what the power-up is.

Okay, I had some models now. I started playing around with textures, but couldn't come up with anything that looked even half decent. Especially since I wanted it to be transparent. So I began looking into shaders, trying a few that already were available for download - and I immediately realized that shaders is the way to go. (Yes, I know there will be somewhat of a performance impact for those with a weaker PC. But we're in 2014, come on.)

I soon realized I wasn't experienced enough to create shaders that fit my needs, and so I began to lose motivation until a good friend of mine suggested that I contacted the author of those shaders, Ren_712.

I didn't expect much, but received a reply pretty soon and ever since he's been helping me a lot. I was finally back on track, I was again motivated to continue working on the project.

Ren kept helping me customize and create new shaders and things started to look really good! Huge shout-out to Ren for being so astonishingly helpful!

The Gamemode

The biggest obstacle, and what's making it take a lot of time. I underestimated the time and expertise needed to write a custom gamemode, I started to think I wouldn't be able to do it - but after a lot of hair loss, I managed to make something out of it.

Even though it's just the foundation, it's something. It's playable. And this is pretty much where I'm currently at(as of writing this).

Current Features

• Team-Based

There are 2 teams, Red vs Blue. Friendly fire(for now) will be off to prevent accidental and/or intentional teamkills.

• Team-Based Spawnpoints

Both teams will have a dedicated area of spawning, usually at opposite ends of the map. Means of preventing spawn-raping will be looked at a later stage. With respawning.

• Power-Ups

There are several power-ups to make the gameplay a bit more varied and interesting, as well as to occasionally do that super cool 360-donger-ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ-scope-trickshot. Includes repair and nitro.

• Custom Gamemode

Entirely written from scratch, this is a risky move since I can't guarantee I'll be able to fully complete it myself(I'm not a professional coder).

• Login Panel

Custom and fully DX-powered login panel, with functional auto-login using encryption and protected files for security measurements.

Planned Features

• Talent Trees

I'd like to implement a kind of talent tree system, where players can specialize in either; Offensive, Defensive, Evasive and/or Support talents. Those will improve the player's capabilities in the specified area. Both as activated abilities, and passive ones.

• Level Progression

This would go hand-in-hand with the aforementioned feature. People will gain experience through various means while playing, and level up which will grant them points. They can then spend those points in the talent trees.

• SQL Database

I'll store most of the data in a SQL database. I believe this will be the most efficient, and flexible way of doing things. Since that data can then be easily used in other means, such as a leaderboards and whatnot. Not to mention the ease of making backups.

• Conquest Gamemode

I have plans to upgrade the original gamemode to a conquest-based one. Similar to that of what Battlefield has.

Media - Screenshots

Screenshot 1(IMGUR)

Screenshot 2(IMGUR)

Screenshot 3(IMGUR)

Screenshot 4(IMGUR)

Screenshot 5(IMGUR)

Media - Videos

Coming Soon!

Maps Needed!

Since I'm working on this all by myself, I don't have much time to spend on making maps. Nor am I even a good mapper to beign with.

So I'm reaching out to all you mappers out there to, if possible, help me out. Having more than 1 map to test things on would be of great help to make the gamemode load maps properly. And to get a little collection of maps before I push out a public testing phase.

There are however some criteria that need to be met in order for the maps to be added;

1) The map must have 32 Spawnpoints.

2) The spawnpoints must be split into 2 teams of 16 each. And placed into different areas of the map. (1 area with 16 spawnpoints for Red Team. And 1 area with 16 spawnpoints for Blue Team)

3) The map must be pretty large (To support 2 teams charging eachother. I'd say the airfields are a good reference in terms of size.)

4) Information Regarding Power-Ups (Where you want them, and what they should be. You can place Repair and Nitro like you'd usually do. I will replace those manually.)

5) The map must not use objects of those IDs; [8593, 8594, 8595, 8596, 8607, 8608, 8081-8085, 8969]

Other than that you should be free to do what you like. There might be some issues that'll arise as I start receiving maps(if I do). And if such would be the case, I will of course be updating this.

I'm hoping to make my own EDF later to assist in making maps for the gamemode. Would make it easier both for you and me!

Thank you for taking your time to read and (possibly) showing interest. I would greatly appreciate any kind of feedback and criticism, suggestions and opinions are of course also welcome. Though try not to start a flame war, and respect other people's opinions!

I'll be trying to update this as regularly as I can, and hopefully a public testing phase shouldn't be too far away!

Dealman,

Founder of Freaking Awesome Guys

http://www.FreakingAwesomeGuys.co.uk

[Driggero]

More screenshots!

But yeah, lookin' good Deal (and the gamemode, ofc).

[-.Paradox.-]

Nice work.

[Dealman]

I apologize for the lack of updates. I really don't have anything to update you with either, since I haven't had too much time nor motivation to put into this as of lately.

I also rejoined a old team I used to be part of to help them out a bit, even more limiting my time to work on this. Hopefully, I'll get back on it soon.

Just posting this to let everyone know - it is not dead. Just paused for a moment while I sort other things out. And writing a gamemode from scratch really makes you lose hair fast.

[Perfect]

How many hairs you loss so far.

Looks like i am bit late here. (Don't know if you are still working on it though)

This is a great idea and surely will bring some new atmosphere in the field of mta. Tired of Dayz,Role play and other sh:~ except freeroam and some unique game modes.

Good luck from meh.

[Dealman]

Nah, it's not dead. Just kind of halted for the time being. I might record a video today to showcase each of the powerups. Majority of it I would say is done, I'd just need to make a prettier interface.

Really, the biggest thing left to do is the actual gamemode itself, which is pain to set up. But I've got team-based spawning to work, and objects and all that. I just haven't found the motivation to create more maps to ensure it's loading maps properly.

I will continue work on this at a later stage, as I'm writing a few other gamemodes as well for my upcoming server. One of which will be a very unique type of shooter. I'll probably announce it today!

[Perfect]

Haha, new gamemodes always make me anxious.

Waiting for the video and your announcing.

Good luck again.

[Dealman]

Hey, sorry for the delay. I recorded and put together a quick video just recently.

Currently it doesn't show much other than a few of the power-ups, as the others still need more work. And it also features a very, very old and out-dated HUD interface. I'm not sure why I didn't disable it before recording, really... Haha

Will be announcing and showcasing the other gamemode within the following days!

[Et-win]

Looks good!

[Driggero]

Looks great of course... but not as great as you :*

[Dealman]

Looks great of course... but not as great as you :*

Well aren't you one to talk, you sexy beast