Freedom Reborn Archive

Howdy guys, I'm posting here to announce something that I've been working on for a while, to gauge intrest, and perhaps to enlist a few beta testers. 

I love the characters and the world that DC has created, but I feel like the mass of writers after the silver age have mishandled the great creations of their predecessors.  Do I think the Silver Age was what all comics should be?  No, I think it was a time of campy, shallow stories, but I can't say that things have gotten a whole lot better since then.  Anyroad, for a long time now I've been thinking, what would it be like if I could re-write DC history, guide the seminal characters from their beginnings to endings that they actually deserve.  No Emerald Twilight for Hal, no musical coffins for deceased characters, one long, single-authored storyline. 

This is a dream that is outside of my abilities for so many reasons its hard to even begin to list them, and I can't even think to accomplish it through FF because of the natural limitations of it being an interactive medium, you can't just produce one long cutscene.  Anyroad, the point of all this is that, unless the editors at DC just happen to choose my name out of a phone book and say "here, run the company for us," I'm going to have to go with the next best thing.  So, I've spent the last couple months putting together the DC Universe in Freedom Force: skins, meshes, herofiles, and my own voicepacks.  I'm in the process of setting them all up as built-ins, with proper descriptions and powers.  I'm doing this for myself, so that I can have my own version of the DCU to play with, but it occured to me that some of the community might enjoy it too. 

Now, I'm not going to try and put EVERY DC character into this, partially because I don't have the time, and also because there are several that I simply don't like or won't have in my version of continuity.  Ha, for example, you'll never see Nightwing in anything I produce ^_^  Still, does this sound like something that people would be interested in? 

I'm still probably a month or two away from being able to release it, but I'm also interested in seeing if anyone would like to test it for me.  With this many different characters, balance is a bit of a bugger, and I've been working on character accuracy over balance from the beginning. 

Once I get this finished, I'm going to start working on EZScript adventures, and I'll probably release those from time to time to go along with it. 

So, what do y'all think?

---

Alrighty guys, the moment we've all been waiting for, the DC Universe According to Grey is now available!

(You'd likely be better off waiting for the final version since it is almost done)

You can download the mod here:
dcug.freedomforceforever.com/DCUG.exe

And you can get the FX Pack with this link:
dcug.freedomforceforever.com/FX Pack.zip

Thanks to all the great artists and contributors who made this possible, 'cause all I did was put the pieces together.

A few notes about this release:

    * This is a BETA, I've tested it as well as I can, but I know I've missed some things, please keep an eye out for them
    * I'm open to all the feedback you can muster, I'd love to hear about it if you think Captain Atom needs to be more powerful, or if you feel like Green Arrow's explosive arrow does too much damage.
    * The EZScript 'comics' included aren't quite done yet.  I forgot to finalize the Question missions, and I should have an update of that available before too long, but they are actually completely playable
    * Green Arrow on the other hand, wasn't actually meant to be included.  I'll try and upload a fixed version soon.
    * The Batman EZScript campaign I was working on was not included because it decided to break all of a sudden the night before.  I'll fix it as quickly as I can.
    * I just know I missed thanking someone in the readme, if you can think of anyone, PLEASE let me know.


If you enjoy the first Issues of JLA and The Question, look forward to more exciting adventures coming your way soon!

*This mod is FFvTTR only.

Is this a mod, or a herofile package? :huh:  Either way though, it sounds cool.  I've beta tested several items, and I'd be glad to beta test this one.

It's a mod.  They're being remade as built-ins.

Anyway, it's a good idea, especially using it as an EZ Script platform.  Very nice.

If you need help looking at the characters and ballancing all their powers and such (but not necessarily to each other) I've had quite a bit of experience at that, thanks to LB.

Thanks for the responses and the interest guys!  Kkhohoho, alright, I'll let you know when I have a version ready for testing.  Cat, I will deffinetly take you up on that offer! 

Thanks. :D

This sounds cool. I'm assuming Barry Allen may be around like Hal. Don't tell me. I agree about the silver age but todays what I call the dark age of comics isn't much better.

Agreed DP, and I won't tell you if you don't want me too.  Ha, it should have a good cast  :D

Sounds good.

I feel like I should punch myself in the face for not backing up my files properly, but I had ALOT of the big DC heroes (along with alot of marvel and some Image) created as built ins with complete personalized powers and and strings dats that I was going to release with the idea that it could be used as an easy FFX ezscript mod that could be picked up that had just about everything someone could use for mods, or if you were new to the game instantly have access to most of your favorite heroes.  Unfortunately, my pc went into a "boot loop" (I just barely understand what that means, I guess it just keeps rebooting :blink:).  We had the memory backed up professionally and they did a pretty good job, except just about the only thing that didn't make the backup was those hero, powers, and strings dat (I had about 200 done).  So anyway here I am with nothing, but I would be up for helping out with rebuilding that hero data so I could contribute something more to the community than subpar skins.
One of the best things about the built-ins is once they are in, they are really easy to make changes to.  the other thing is I really like the descriptions.  I just think it adds to the game.
Secondly, I would suggest that attemps are made to get any data that has already been made from other mods to be included (if it is relevant, and with permission of course). No reason to re-invent the wheel.
The hard part would be to get everyone on the same page as to what the power levels would be for the characters.  Everyone has their own opinions, of course. 
Let me know what you need.

Hey Quiet!  It figures that I'm not the only one to have this idea, and I'd welcome your help.  I'd love to share some of the work load with you, I just can't figure out how to do it. ;)  If you have any ideas, I'll be open to it.

Well, I was thinking we could start off by making the basic ground rules here in the forums so that we could get feedback from interested an or experienced parties from the community, as well as recruit anybody that wanted to join in.  Any specifics that needed to be fine tuned could be done via pm, email or again the forums.  strings dats or custom attributes could be sent in notebook form easily through email.
once enough material was gathered to justify the need to start merging some dat files, we could set that up on a file sharing website to be consolidated. In order to keep everything moving in the right direction we should probably set our sights on any characters that are specific to the ezscript that you were working on, so as to not get bogged down with trying to get every character possible done before anything is released (I am talking about my own experience here, I even made Vibe as a built in. . . excessive!).  If we keep everything "mission focused" we can slowly build a database that by virtue of merging dat files can easily be built upon, and you can have releases of your vision of the "DC as it should be" coming out in a timely fashion, which will keep interest.  It actually sounds a bit like the DCAU in freedom force form!

Ha, well, that's a bit of what I'm going for.  Everyone knows that I love the Timmverse!  Anyroad, I was thinking about this, and about your experience and offer of help.  I'm making really good headway on the built-ins, but I haven't kept up with the power/character descriptions.  I can't very well just send you my character and power .dats, as anything that you did would overwrite what I was doing when you sent it back, however, what if I sent you my strings.txt once I get the characters and powers finished?  That way, you could start at the bottom, and I could start at the top.  We could release an alpha for testing while we worked on the descriptions, and we could get them done twice as fast. 

Let me know if you're interested in that.

As far as picking and choosing characters, well, I have sort of been doing that from the get-go.  I've got a lot of ideas for different stories, and I've tried to make sure that I've included characters that could be part of those.  I do, however, also have a good number of ancilliary characters, just for depth.

:EDIT:  To all concerned:  Okay guys, I've got a question for you.  How should I handle meshes?  I obviously can't host and release a 100+ meshes that aren't even mine on my little 'ol yahoo group, can I?  So, should I simply include a list?  I have several meshes that I'm going to hex the kf's on to provide more accurate representations of the characters, should I release those?  Even if I DID want to release meshes, I'm using not a few kitbashed skins, so I certainly couldn't release those.  Any ideas?  I would hate for people to have to spend a whole bunch of time chasing down skins and meshes, but I don't really see an alternative.

This idea sounds great, BG. Is it for FF or FFvTR? If it's for FF, I could help out a bit.

I agree that the use of a list of meshes would work well, unless someone has some web space that could just temporarily host all the meshes in one spot... barring permission from the mesh creators, of course.

I was under the impression that dat files would be too large to send via email but I compressed my characters dat and it went fine.  If you send me your charcters/powers dat and I put on additional characters and powers, you can just merge your characters/powers dat on top of them and you will keep any characters that I had put on.
About how many charcters do you have already?
As for meshes and skins you could just present this just like any other mod.  Just give credit to the creators. You would not be able to get around the kit bashing unless you got permission from anybody's stuff you used.  Probably not worth the effort.  I would just use skins already created for charcters, and save what ever you have for personal use.

Benton,

Just read this post and I think it's a great idea.  I've been doing similar...only with kitbashed skins and Frankensteins that can never see the light of day.  I'm also doing it with EZ Script in mind.

I'd love to check it out when you're done.

JM

PS--I've been de-nazifying/usaing/ussring the default game textures (and now, with nifskope, hexes) for some time now.  Let me know if you'd like to include them in your release....sort of a total conversion pack or something like that?

Well, Quiet, I've got somewhere around 165, give or take a few.  Those are just my hf's that I've ported into the .dats, so there will probably be around 10-15 more on top of that.  One or two of those are multiples of the same characer (I.E. Aquaman underwater), but for the most part, that's pretty accurate.  So, we've got Batman villains, flash villains, GL villains, Hawkman villains, some general JLA villains, Superman villains, GL's, JLU, TT, various henchmen (not included in the number estimate), and a few supporting characters like Harvey Bullock.

I am NOT including Golden Age characters like the JSA (Mr. Terrific, Hourman, etc.), nor future characters like the Legion, at least not at the moment.  I do have HF's for a large part of the legion, but I just don't particularly care for them, so I don't really want to spend the effort in doing them.  If someone else wants them bad enough to do them, I'll include them in the final release, but otherwise, don't get your hopes up.

As far as sending you my .dats, well, I'd like to get a bit further along before I did that, there's so many little things I've got to finish first.

On the mesh question:  I would never release my kitbashed skins, it's simply not done. 

JM: Howdy man, I'm glad you're excited about it.  Tell me a bit more about these new textures, I've been really itching for something to represent Gotham, and some darker textures would really help with that, plus the de-nazifying would be great for adding a bit more variety and accuracy.

You know if you guy's have YIM you could get together in conferences and discuss ideas and such. I remember some really good conferences in YIM with other FR members. A few good ideas came up. Those were the days, lol. I have built in characters, powers, descriptions etc for all my original creations, better than standard hero files. I never had much time to test peoples mods (sorry prem) but I have had time to test hero files. If you need any testing done feel free to give me a shout.

Having a list of meshes to download later is not good for any mod.  Trust me, that was done with Custom Force X, and it wasn't pretty.

If there only was someone on this forum who generously gives webspace to anyone who wants to host anything FF-related.  Someone with a feline avatar, perhaps?

Haha, I appreicate that Cat....it looks like I'll have to go through my mesh archives and pick out any that have kitbashed skins.....

Some of the artists may even be nice enough to give you permission to use them, if you ask nicely.

Still, there's plenty of skins for many of these characters, so I don't imagine it's a real emergency.

Benton,

Sorry, man, I didn't go that far.  All I did was alpha or paste out the identifying marks.  For example, I skoped out the banner on the Nazi War Factory and put "flammable" symbols on fuel barrels.

I must confess that I worked for speed, so I do need to clean up a few of them.  Bottom line is that it's nothing too major, just a time saver if you haven't done it already.

I know I saw a Gotham City Map somewhere....FXforce.com maybe?

JM

Thanks Joe, that would still be useful.  Yes, there is a Gotham map...I'm simply trying to put off doing the map conversion thing as long as possible....the last time I tried, I screwed it up and completely fouled up my FF2 installation.

Hey Benton, is this for  :ff: or  :ffvstr:?

Pretty much all the work I've done is for  :ff:, but you're welcome to anything I have, Skin, Hex, or NifSkope created.   

I normally don't check the mods thread, but this topic picqued my interest.   This sounds pretty cool.   Between family, school, work and other issues, (had knee surgery yesterday), I've been pretty busy, but like I said, anything I have is yours.

Hey Flash, I'm glad you're interested, and I'm afraid that this is only for FF2 because of the really wonderful new toys that the FFX gang have provided for us.  I really appreciate your offer of your work, thanks!

I'm sorry to hear about your knee surgery, I know that can be pretty tough.  How are you holding up?

Okay guys, I'm posting this here, and in requests:

I've been working on hexing Robin from Tommy's Batman_bike_tv, and I've got him pretty well.  However, as you can see by the kitbashed skin, I need something to put on the mesh before I can include him in Grey's DCU.

http://www.inaneasylum.org/users/bentongrey/Default/robin_bike.jpg
http://www.inaneasylum.org/users/bentongrey/Default/robin_bike2.jpg
http://www.inaneasylum.org/users/bentongrey/Default/robin_bike3.jpg

For the most part, surgery went alright, the only bad part is being laid up.

QuoteHey Flash, I'm glad you're interested, and I'm afraid that this is only for FF2 because of the really wonderful new toys that the FFX gang have provided for us.  I really appreciate your offer of your work, thanks!

As long as you can convert my stuff from FF1 to FF2, I'll hook you up whenever I have the free time, not a problem.

Hey Flash, glad to hear everything went well, but I know what you mean about being laid up.  I had a bit of surgery last january, and it about killed me being an invalid for the week or two I had to stay in the house. 

I REALLY appreciate you taking the time to do some requests for me, it'll be a huge help.  As a matter of fact, if you're willing, we might talk about finding a way to replace one or two of my kitbashes with something more permanent.  Between your help, and Unko volunteering for several things, I may not have to worry about this after all!

On another note, any people who feel like talking shop, want to toss ideas back and forth, or simply would like to keep tabs on how this project is progressing, shoot be a PM with your AIM ID.  I only use it sparingly, but while I'm working on VPs or inputing characters, I usually have it on.

Okay guys, just thought that I'd post an update for those who are curious:

First off, I've been putting off finishing a hand full of voicepacks, and I think I'll stop wasting time and do those tonight.  As far as characters being built-in, here's where we stand:

I have finished: Batman villains, flash villains, GL villains, Hawkman villains, and some of the general DC characters.  What is left?

General JLA villains, Superman villains, GL's, JLU, TT (and their villains), various henchmen, and a few supporting characters.

I'd say I'm roughly....half way done, maybe better.

I might finish this weekend, but we have a couple parties to go to and such, so I may not.  However, testers, if you could be ready to start testing the characters and powers (NOT the descriptions yet, they'll be added while you're testing) by the beginning of next week, that'd be awesome.  That means make sure you have a clean, working install of FF2....and...ugh...some free time ;)

Cat, if you'll send me a PM on how I should pack everything up and how I might go about uploading it to your site, that'd be awesome.

Send it to me by yousendit.com or similar service and I'll grab and upload it for you.

If you don't have my email, it's my username @ yahoo.com

Thanks Cat, I'll check that service out.

I wanna help, any fx or props  that you need?

Thanks Thor Reborn!  I never dreamed that my little project would engender so much interest.  It's really great to have so many people offering their help and saying how excited they are about it.  As far as FX and objects, I'm certain that I'll need some, I just haven't gotten quite far enough to figure out what is needed at the moment.  For example, I'm using several FX from FF1 that I've converted, or combined, and I don't have any permission to release them.  So, between testing and the final release, we'll need to figure out what to do with some of those.

I'll tell you what I could use right at the moment, maps.  If any of the map makers would feel like making some DC themed maps, especially some underwater ones for Aquaman, that would be awesome.  Even better, would be someone volunteering to convert some of the great FF1 maps.  I know about Ren's tutorial to convert all of the FF1 stuff, I just don't really have to time to work on it right now.  I intend to do it eventually, but if someone volunteers that understands the process better, it'll save me slogging through it.

For those skinners who have so kindly volunteered to help me, I've come across something for you.  I have been reading Alex Ross' Justice, and I really love how he portrayed the Cheeta.  It actually makes sense that she could be a threat to WW if she's empowered by dark gods.  I'd like to see a skin of her in her more classic costume, maybe on a VX hex so we can use the brute_kf's.  She doesn't need the cheetas head, or the ill fitting costume, but the stiches and the lines on her face would be a nice touch.  Here is a shot of it:

http://www.superherotimes.com/news/images/pic_lrgalexrosscheetah.jpg
http://www.emerchandise.com/images/p/JLA/pdAFJLA0004.jpg

Thanks guys, I'll crosspost this in the requests section.

if you wish to use any of my skins let me know and i'll try and help as much as i can

Thanks TUE, I believe I'm currently using more than a few of your skins :).

Quote from: BentonGrey on February 23, 2007, 03:54:41 PM
Okay guys, just thought that I'd post an update for those who are curious:

First off, I've been putting off finishing a hand full of voicepacks, and I think I'll stop wasting time and do those tonight.  As far as characters being built-in, here's where we stand:

I have finished: Batman villains, flash villains, GL villains, Hawkman villains, and some of the general DC characters.  What is left?

General JLA villains, Superman villains, GL's, JLU, TT (and their villains), various henchmen, and a few supporting characters.

I'd say I'm roughly....half way done, maybe better.

I might finish this weekend, but we have a couple parties to go to and such, so I may not.  However, testers, if you could be ready to start testing the characters and powers (NOT the descriptions yet, they'll be added while you're testing) by the beginning of next week, that'd be awesome.  That means make sure you have a clean, working install of FF2....and...ugh...some free time ;)

Cat, if you'll send me a PM on how I should pack everything up and how I might go about uploading it to your site, that'd be awesome.

Will the meshes and skins be included in the download?

Hey KKhohoho, yes, although, this will DEFFINELTY be an alpha, so I will have some placehoder skins and meshes.

Looks like you're ahead full steam.

Quote from: BentonGrey on February 25, 2007, 10:31:31 AM
Hey KKhohoho, yes, although, this will DEFFINELTY be an alpha, so I will have some placehoder skins and meshes.

By the way, I keep on forgetting what an aplha is.  Don't ask me why.  But none the less, I'll test both Alpha and Beta.

Haha, that's alright.  A beta is a non-finished version, right?  Well, an alpha is an even MORE non-finished version.  As far as the release goes, I thought that I'd be able to finish it today, but my wife spent most of the day using my computer to do research for her classes, so I still have some characters to do.  It's basically just down to a few League members, the Titans, (which are going to take a while because of Beast Boy :blink:) and their villains.  I may actually leave the Titan villains 'till next release.  I don't have herofiles for a number of them, so I'd have to build them from scratch, which would take longer than I really want to spend before I can call the alpha finished.  We'll see, I may still finish it tonight, so keep your eyes open in the next few days.

Quote(which are going to take a while because of Beast Boy blink)

The New Teen Titans mod did a pretty good job with him.  If you still have  :ff: maybe you ought to check it out.

Thanks Cat, I am actually using that mod for my blueprint for all of the titans, it's just a matter of entering in all of his powers and alt-forms by hand.  It's a matter of time and effort, rather than inspiration.  That's one thing that I'm thankful about with this quasi-mod, I'm deffinetly standing on the shoulders of a whole crowd of giants in putting it together.

Hey Cat, I've got a question for you, as an experienced modder, can I safely delete all of the FF built-ins?

Okay, KS asked me to give him a list of the included characters, so that he might make suggestions in case I left out any of his favorites, and I thought that I would give the rest of you the chance to do the same thing.  Included characters are as follows:

[spoiler]Metamorpho
Batgirl
Big Barda
Catwoman
Comissioner Gordon
Grey Ghost (MAYBE)
Harvey Bullock
Huntress
Lobo
Officer Montoya (MAYBE)
The Question
Beast Boy
Aqualad
Cyborg
Kid Flash
Raven
Robin
Starfire
Vigilante
GL Arisa
GL Arkkis Chummuck
GL Guy Gardner
GL Jade (may be removed later)
GL Kilowog
GL Kyle Raynor (good chance he may be removed)
GL Tomar-re
Atom Smasher
Black Lightning
The Creeper
Deadman
Doctor Fate
Dove
Etrigan
Fire
Firestorm
Hawk
Ice
Katana
Steel
Superboy
Vixen
Wildcat
Zatanna
Brother Blood
Circe
Fluronic Man (probably not in first release)
Metallo
Copperhead
Fire Trolls (Denizen of the deep, occasional foes of Aquaman)
Major Force
Man-Bat
Merlyn
Black Manta
Flying Fish (corny Aquaman foe)
Ocean Master
The Scavenger
The Shark
Bane
Clayface
Clock King
Harley Quinn
Killer Croc
Mad Hatter (won't be finished until Tap releases his hex/skin)
Mr Freeze
Penguin
Poison Ivy
Professor Hugo Strange (MAYBE)
R'as Al Ghul
Riddler
Scarecrow
The Joker
Two-Face
Ubu
Ventriloquist
Deesad
Dr. Bedlam
Granny Goodness
Kalibak
Kanto
Lashina
Mad Harriet
Parademon
Steppenwolf
Stompa
Vermin Vunderbarr
Captain Boomerang
Captain Cold
Doctor Alchemy
Gorilla Grodd
Heat Wave
Mirror Master
Professor Zoom
The Toyman (Including summonable toy minions, but not for Alpha)
Trickster
Weather Wizard
Black Hand
Doctor Light
Gold Face
Sinestro
Sonar
Star Sapphire
The Shade
Thunderers of Qward
Chronos
Gentleman Ghost
Shadow Thief (still need alt. form skin of Carl Sands)
Sportsmaster
Tigress
Amazo
Atomic Skull
Black Adam
Cheetah (KS has expressed intrest in the skin)
Despero
Eclipso
Psycho-Pirate
Solomon Grundy
Ultra-Humanite
Bronze Tiger
Cluemaster
Coutn Vertigo
Deadshot
Geomancer
Nightshade
Rick Flag (not in traditional look, my own re-design, you might say)
Silent Majority
Vulcan
Bizarro
Braniac
Darkseid
Doomsday
Lex Luthor
Mongul
Parasite
Deathstroke
Gizmo
Houngan
Mammoth
Monsieur Mallah
The Brain
Plasmus
Psimon
Terra
Warp
Aquaman (swimming and on land, maybe classic and modern)
Atom
Batman (not driver enabled for Alpha, but deffinetly for beta)
Black Canary
Blue Beetle
Booster Gold
Captain Atom
Captain Marvel
Elongated Man (I still think Gumshoe is a better name)
Flash
Green Arrow
Green Lantern (Hal, the one true one, as far as I am concerned)
Hawkgirl
Hawkman (Unless C6 gets inspired to update his skins to TB's mesh, we'll need new skins for the Hawks)
GL Jon Stewart (I have to admit, JLU made me like him)
Martian Manhunter
Mister Miracle (a personal favorite)
Orion
Plastic Man
Red Tornado
Robin (same as Bats, may also see mesh change)
Shining Knight
Superman
Wonder Woman
Lightray (maybe not in Alpha)[/spoiler]

There you are, if there are any characters that you love and I have left off, let me know and I will consider them for the Beta.  I will NEVER include Nightwing or Jason Todd in any form, also, not the new Batwoman, other than that, a lot of things are open for discussion.

sorry if this was addressed previously,  but is this mod going to be a version of FFX3.2 with new dat files, voicepacks and some cosmetic changes (ie. music, title screen changes),  or will this include meshes too?

i'm assuming youre not including meshes, so im wondering about the mesh listing for the characters,  will you also specify keyframes to be used?

Pretty good list  The only character I have a problem with is Robin.  If he didn't become Nightwing, then he at least should no longer be Batman's sidekick, but his partner, and he should be wearing a full suit, not just a shirt and green underwear. I don't see a grown up Dick Grayson wearing green undies in public.

It's Dick Grayson from Batman:TAS, and he's Batman's partner, more than sidekick.  It's pretty much the B:TAS dynamic I'm shooting for.

http://www.darkknight.ca/images/heroes/robin.gif

Yeah DM, this is basically just .dat files and meshes/skins.

QuoteHey Cat, I've got a question for you, as an experienced modder, can I safely delete all of the FF built-ins?

As far as I know, yes.

Since you've got Monsieur Mallah and The Brain (and Beast Boy), how about some Doom Patrol action? I'm thinking Negative Man, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and maybe Mento. The Chief doesn't need to be in there... then again you do have Gordon.

Thanks Unko, I actually have meshes for Mento and Elasti-Girl, but I couldn't find anything for Negative man.......didn't really want to have only part of the team.  If someone knows of one, I'll add them all in for the beta.

for negative man there is a VX mesh for his energy form and Ozzrif had done a great skin of him all bandaged up!

Bent if you don't have anyone doing Robotman I'd like to tackle him as well.
Kssaints

There are actually a couple of meshes with skins for him already.

But another one wouldn't hurt, I suppose.

I knew there were some out there but I have been wanting to do Cliff Steel for a while. Plus in answer to something Bent said earlier that he needed "Shadow Thief (still need alt. form skin of Carl Sands)". Hey bro tell me if this needs anything.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/ShadowThief.jpg)

Perfect, KS to the rescue again!  Ha, thanks man.  Yeah, feel free to take a crack at Robotman, but I would keep him on the back burner for a few days, as I can't add the Patrol in until the beta anyway.  DM, where can I find that skin?

Bah!  Ha, I forgot all of the heroes that I had added into my FFvTTR herofiles, so I've spent this afternoon adding them in.  They include Fire, Ice, Wildcat, Steel, and some others.  Now, I'm down to the most time consuming of the various characters that I've put off, but I literally on have a handful left.  I'm HOPING that I can finish these tonight, and if KS is able to finish the handfull of skins and such he's working on tomorrow, I should be able to package it all up, and send it Cat's way as early as tomorrow night. 

Well....I guess I should stop stalling and get back to work.....

Oookay!  I am DONE with the building in of characters for the alpha release.  As soon as KS sends me those skins and hexes, I'll update the three or four characters they concern, and we'll be ready for testing.  So, can I get a quick tally of how many testers we have again?

Quote from: BentonGrey on February 27, 2007, 08:48:07 PM
Oookay!  I am DONE with the building in of characters for the alpha release.  As soon as KS sends me those skins and hexes, I'll update the three or four characters they concern, and we'll be ready for testing.  So, can I get a quick tally of how many testers we have again?

Count me in. :thumbup:

Yes I'll be happy to test it.

And me!!
I love Dc universe!!  :thumbup:

RE: Negative Man
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Ozzrif_skins/files/

i wish this guy stuck around,  he had lots of potential and his skins were really vibrant!

Alright, great!  Thanks guys, and thanks DM, I've got the skin.  Yeah, it's good quality, I wonder why I've never heard of this fellow before.  Depending on how today goes, I might get some of the characters I was planning on leaving 'till the beta added in.  We'll see how KS' productivity goes today ^_^

Which Guy Gardner do you want?

I didn't know there were multipules....I have him set up as a GL, I haven't decided how I'm going to reconcile that yet, but I'll figure it out.

Are you looking at Bowl-cut Guy then?
I have 1985 Bowl-cut Guy, late 80s/early 90s Guy Gardner Reborn with Sinestro's ring and 2006/2007 Buzz-cut Guy. Just working on getting skins for the meshes.

Hmm, I have a mesh/skin for the bowl-cut one, I suppose he'll be the one I use, as he's the one I'm familiar with.

Well my friend I am sending you the stuff you've been waiting for from me. Hope they are up to par.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/GoldFace.jpg) (http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/HarveyBullock.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/RasAlGul70s.jpg) (http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/RasAlGulSuit.jpg)

They look great KS!  I still think that the face on R'as is one of your best yet.  Well, this is awesome, I should be able to pack everything up and send it to Cat.  If he has time tomorrow, he can upload it, and we'll be in business!

Hey Bent my e-mail is taking forever to attach these. I am going to stick them in my 9th yahoo group and you can download them there.

Fair enough, I'll let you know when I've snagged them.

K, I've got them, and check your PMs KS.

I'd be glad to help with the testing, if possible.

BG, you really have this thing rolling along!  Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Thanks Blitzgot, and consider yourself drafted.  Quiet, thanks, I feel like I'm doing alright, but I had hoped to be done with the alpha a little sooner.  However, the delay did enable me to include all of the Titans and their villains.

Well guys, I have good news!  It is all finished, and it is winging its way to Cat as I speak.  I'll post directions and a few caveats later tonight.  Cat will, I suppose, post where you can get it when he's ready.  I'm really psyched about this

:EDIT:  Okay, here are your install directions.  First, as always, back up your FFX3 folder, I would simply rename it to something else (like OriginalFFX3).  Second, unzip the FFX3 zip into your FF2 directory.  Third, unzip the generic archive into you data/art/library/fx directory.  Fourth, unzip all of the mesh archives into your custom/art/library/characters directory.  Now, remember that each of the mesh archives is an independent folder, so you'll need to actually open that up and unzip the meshes themselves into that directory, otherwise the game won't be able to find any of them. 

A few notes:
This is an alpha, meaning that there are probably plenty of kinks to work out.  For example, just after I sent this all to Cat, I realized I had forgotten Lightray!  He's built-in, but I didn't point his file to the location of his .nif, so he won't be useable.  Also, the FX and the skins/meshes aren't all ready.  Many of the FX I've sent out will be removed for various reasons, and a few of the skins/meshes may be updated.

Certain characters also aren't finished.  As I said before, that includes Batman, Robin, and Batgirl, all of whom will have the vehicle driver attribute set up for them eventually.  This also includes all of the Lanterns other than Hal.  They are all in-game, but they all share the same powerset.  I will have to spend some time customizing them.

What IS included in the alpha?  Pretty much just the characters, their meshes, and some FX.  Later versions will incorporate my voice packs, and hopefully a modified version of VPMAX, if CQ is willing.  The beta will include all of the descriptions, and that is my next concern, with Quiet's assistance.  I also intend to include some converted versions of the DC specific maps that were produced for FF1, and a couple of my own.  In the final release, I MAY even be able to finish the beginnings of an EZScript campaign, but we'll see about that.

What to look for:
Most importantly, anything that simply doesn't work, a-la Lightray, or an FX that doesn't show up, or a power that doesn't trigger.  For this, I'd like the testers to make an effort to play as many different characters as they can.

Second priority, (but what you'll probably be spending most of your time doing) balancing.  Is Superman strong enough compared with the Flash?  How about against Darkseid?  This also includes how the characters feel.  Is the way I have Green Lantern set up accurate?  I am going to rely on my testers to help me flesh out a lot of the fringe characters that I'm not very familiar with, or perhaps simply wasn't very inspired about while I was working on them.  I will welcome suggestions on how to more accurately or creatively capture a given character.

Third priority, what would you like to see?  Any characters left out?  Does Mirror Master need his own henchmen?  You let me know, and there's a chance we'll see it added in.  I've already got the Doom Patrol on the list to be added to the Beta, and I'll have some time to add a few others.

Most important of all........have fun!  Please enjoy yourselves, that's why I've done this!

Quote:EDIT:  Okay, here are your install directions.  First, as always, back up your FFX3 folder, I would simply rename it to something else (like OriginalFFX3).  Second, unzip the FFX3 zip into your FF2 directory.  Third, unzip the generic archive into you data/art/library/fx directory.  Fourth, unzip all of the mesh archives into your custom/art/library/characters directory.  Now, remember that each of the mesh archives is an independent folder, so you'll need to actually open that up and unzip the meshes themselves into that directory, otherwise the game won't be able to find any of them.

This is a very, VERY bad way of doing it.  It's far easier if you just install it as a separate mod.  In fact, with your permission, I'll go ahead and set this up for you before putting it up for download.  It should only take about 5 minutes, and should require no tinkering other than putting everything in a new mod directory and setting up the shortcut.

That would be absolutely fine Cat, I just had some bad experiences tinkering with changing the shortcuts and such for FFX3, and I hadn't taken the time to hash out what I needed to do before I sent this off.  I appreciate it!

If anyone takes this as me being rude or impatent, sorry.  It's just that it's been few days since the file got sent to Cat, and I was wondering if Cat hasn't been able to send the file to the testers.

Well, I wouldn't call that rude, but I'm certain that Cat is working on it.  He was kind enough to offer to package it more intiuitvely for me, so that may be taking extra time.  In the meantime, I'm making pretty good progress on the strings, and I think I've begun the process of converting FF1 maps without any major slip-ups.  However, if anyone has a copy of Ren's tutorial lying around, I'd really appreciate it!

sure whats your e-mail?

Thanks TR, check your PM's.

I've been very busy recently.  It will all be uploaded in a couple of days at the latest

And I wouldn't call one day several.

LOL, I suppose anticipation counts every hour twice ^_^.  I'm glad that people are anxious for this, and thanks again for hosting it Cat.  I have had a secret fear that I'd screwed up in trying to use that yousendit.com service, I suppose this means I can put my fears to rest! :D

Yeah, but sorting through that many files is going to give me headaches.  Oh well.

Sorry 'bout that, anything I can do to help?  I haven't exactly had a lot of experience with this :blink:

Well, just don't send me a bunch of 2 meg files next time, that kinda defeats the purpose of yousendit.

2 megs?  They were all close to 100, the highest you can send at one time!  There's obviously a mistake :(

I recieved about a dozen different files, and while some of them were large, several were indeed that small.

Bizarre, you should have recieved 8 zipped files, 6 mesh packs between 80 and 100 megs, the mod folder itself, somewhere around 30 or so, and the fx generic folder, around 34.  So, I can't imagine what you got that was 3 megs.  Obviously, there's been some kind of mix up.  I still have the files I sent, and they all seem to be the right size to me....what's going on?

Hey there,
I am working on Cheetah. Here is what I have so far. I like the sutured look down the middle of her chest. But not sure I like the more open rips in her costume. But since she was done that way in Justice. I went ahead and did it that way. Tell me what you think and if you think she needs something different.
Kssaints
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/Cheetah030407.jpg)

She's looking great KS!  I deffinetly like the stitched together look she's got, but I agree with you about the open rips.  I am looking for something in between Silver Age and Justice, and I think you've captured it pretty darn well!

Well do you think I should change the open rips to the more stitched look?

Yes, I think that would look a bit more sleek.

Well try this one on for size. I changed the tears to a tightly stitched look and gave her some spooky cat eyes. What do ya think?
Kssaints
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/Cheetah030407II.jpg)

Ahh, perfect!  Great work as always, my friend.  I think you got exactly what I was going for.

Okay guys, a couple of notes today.  First off, I've been trying to learn how to convert maps, and apparently I'm not QUITE as dumb as I thought I was.....just mostly....I think everything is working pretty well.  I should be able to convert some of the FF1 maps to go with the mod, so you will be able to duke it out in some DC locations...if I can get the creators' permission, that is.  Once I actually manage to convert them and work out all the kinks, I'll start contacting them. 

Second, I was wondering if there was anyone watching this thread who could take a image I sent them, and format it for use as the background for the main FF menu.  A friend of mine borrowed my photoshop cd before my hard drive went kaplooie, and he keeps forgetting to send it to me :P

Quote from: BentonGrey on February 25, 2007, 08:14:53 AM
Thanks TUE, I believe I'm currently using more than a few of your skins :).

cool i'd be interested in finding out which

Haha, I'll try and do a survey TUE, but it may take a while.  Please understand that I've got a LARGE catalogue of characters, and a lot of skins and meshes ^_^

Let's see, off the top of my head, I think I'm using:
Clock King
Two Face
Batzarro (although I haven't added him in yet)
Zatanna

Probably a few more.

no problem, its just something thats interested me, what if any of my skins are actully used by others amd if so which

Ohh yeah, I'm also using your Ventriloquist (great skin, that one). 

Here are some sites that may help with strings/general research for this project

http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page (http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page)

http://www.rapsheet.co.uk/index.asp (http://www.rapsheet.co.uk/index.asp)

Quote from: BentonGrey on March 05, 2007, 09:45:06 AM
Haha, I'll try and do a survey TUE, but it may take a while.  Please understand that I've got a LARGE catalogue of characters, and a lot of skins and meshes ^_^

Let's see, off the top of my head, I think I'm using:
Clock King
Two Face
Batzarro (although I haven't added him in yet)
Zatanna

Probably a few more.

lol out of the ones you said, 3 need badly redone and the 4th AA did a better one lol

just a character specific question, is black manta going to be in the the really cool looking guise of "Devil Ray" seen here from JLU

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/thad55/120px-DevilRaygun1.jpg)

or is he going to be the saucer headed guy from the comics?

The short answer is that he's going to be in the comics' costume.  The long answer is that there exists no mesh that really suits that version of Manta...although it just occured to me that a skoped version of Deadshot_VX would be PERFECT.  If I had a skin and hex for that version, I would use him in a heartbeat, as I've never cared for his top heavy look.

Maybe add an Iron Man helmet from one of Tommy's meshes to the Deadshot_VX?   The pic isn't big enough to so much detail, so I don't know what else would be needed.

this is all I could find for devil ray, I'll put it in the request thread as well.

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/thad55/DevilRaydeath.jpg)

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/thad55/DevilRaygun.jpg)

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/thad55/300px-Devilray.jpg)

I don't mean to pressure you guys, but what's going on with the mod? I read some of the past posts and it looks like you've been struggling with the files a bit. Looks like yousendit messed up or something of the like.

I hope it's nothing serious and I would appreciate some feedback on how things are going. If you can't tell, I'm really looking forward to test it out. :O

Haha, I really appreciate your enthusiasm Blitzgott, and I am also anxious for all of y'all to dig and tell me all about the many mistakes I'm sure I made!  :D  Ha, as far as what's going on, well, Cat is still working putting everything together on his end, and in the meantime as I was working on things for the beta, I discovered a LOT of errors, and sent him an updated version to go ahead and fix them.  So, it may take a little longer, but you're getting a better product for it ;).  When Cat is ready, he'll let me know, and I will PM all of the interested testers with download info. 

Okay guys, just to update you, Cat has had some troubles with the files service I used to send him the alpha, but I've re-sent it with another one, and it should be okay. 

I've got it.  I'll fiddle with it a bit and upload it sometime tomorrow (well, technically today)

Thanks Cat, and thanks again for going the extra mile for us!

And now, a few minutes ago, came to an end my first ride on BentonGrey's DCU Mod.

After the grueling work of changing the path of all templates from the standard path to the path where was the game and the meshes on my PC, I entered the rumble room and started a team mode game.

I choose as my team Supes, Guy Gardner, the Bat and Flash, with the computerd-controlled help of Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter.

As for my opponents, I picked Doomsday, Amazo, Bizarro, Prof. Zoom, Brainiac and Lex Luthor.

The battlefield would be city and I set the difficulty as hard.

So... BEGINS THE BATTLE!

The first thing I noticed as Guy Gardner threw his first emerald bolts is that the FX weren't working correctly for me. Instead of a pretty green blast or whatever, all I saw was a heavily pixelated purple... thing. But I'll get to it later.

Anyway, the second thing I noticed is that choosing Lex Luthor as an enemy was a terrible mistake, as Supes and Amazo started moving slowly and punching like middle-school girls. Still, not discouraged, I followed on my quest of riding the world of those foul personalities.

The first casualty was, surprisingly, Brainiac. MM raped him from a safe distance with his martian vision while the Bat gave it to him with his electrical batarangs. He put up a fight, though, and almost put the Bat down for the count when he got fed up of him throwing those d*mned batarangs and decided to engage him in melee. The beating the Bat took left him with a little over 10 points of hp before I (who wasn't even paying attention to their fight, since I was too busy trying to figure a way to hit that godd*amned Prof. Zoom) noticed his condition and spent a hero point to recover his hp, saving him on the last minute. Brainiac fell shortly with the combinated efforts of MM and GG, who decided to join MM after noticing that his attacks were but little nuisances to Amazo.

Meanwhile, Flash and Prof. Zoom were in a heated superfast fist fight that was going nowhere, since they hit each other once every 10 tries for almost zero damage and healed themselves faster than they ran, so they stayed fresh for a long time.

Wonder Woman, despiste being the only female member of the team, showed having the biggest b*lls when she engaged, without any help, the fearsome Doomsday in battle. Surprisingly, she was beating the cr*p out of him, so I just left her alone and concentrated on Luthor and Prof. Zoom, who were really getting on my nerves.

Luthor was the first one of the two to fall under the might of the heroes. He put up a good fight and almost killed the smallest fry, the Bat, who once again managed to escape death when I noticed his existance in the last minute. I later almost felt guilty for giving him so little attention when he gave the final blow on Luthor and showed himself vital on beating Prof. Zoom and gave a good help against Doomsday.

When Luthor finally fell, I felt beyond overjoyed, since I though that, finally, Supes could start doing his thing. However, was not big my disappointment when I found out on the worst possible way that, even if Luthor died, the effects of the kryptonita wouldn't go away...

Well, whatever. Now there ware only three left. Since Amazo was every bit as useless to the other team as Supes was to mine, I just ignored his existance and concentrated on Prof. Zoom, who somehow was starting to win the brawl with Flash and putting the hurt on him real bad. So I took Bat and GG to lend him a hand. It took a while, but the little bugger finally fell down when I remembered that Supes had the heavy hitter attribute and put it to good use on PZ's skull with the help of a nearby lamp.

Three down, three to go.

Meanwhile, WW was still beating DD silly. As for MM, apparently he finally run out of tea and decided to lend a hand to his fellow teammate. I also sent the Bat to help them, and now it was only a matter of time 'til DD fell down. I then decided to concentrate on Amazo, who at that point still hadn't lost a single dot of hp.

I had Supes beating him up with lamps, since he couldn't do anything else. Every now and then Amazo threw a punch, but it couldn't go past Supes invulnerability, so the fight was very one-sided. I sent Flash to help him since he at least could stun Amazo, so that it would be a little easier for SM to beat him silly. It didn't took long before Supes used all the lamps nearby, so I had to change the location if I wanted to keep damaging Amazo. As Supes crawled to the next block with the speed of a paraplegic turtle, I sat down and watched as the threesome MM, WW and Bat gave DD a licking. When returned my attention to Supes, I realized that, by taking some distance to Luthor, he at least could use some of his powers, so I had him using his dash to get a big distance from Amazo. Now that they were far away and since the parking loot was nearby, I decided to have Supes throw cars on him instead of just using lamps, who weren't even inflicting that much damage anymore, for some reason.

The idea proved to be very good, as Supes incredible strength enabled him to throw cars with the potential to inflict around 90 points of damage. However, I soon ran out of cars. The nearest one was in front of the police station, so I had Supes walking towards there. Meanwhile, the combined efforts of Bat, WW and MM proved enough to put an end to DD once and for all. I anxiously waited for them to go lend Supes a hand, but apparently they weren't really on the mood, so just stood where they were and took a coffee break.

Meanwhile, Amazo, now fully capable of using his powers (sort of...) catched up to Supes and started to change his state like crazy, leaving him stuck where he was. Realizing that I had to go help him, I sent the Bat there and had Flash hit WW and MM with super speed charge until they got near enough to Amazo to notice him and start attacking. It took long, but I finally managed to get them close enough for WW and MM to start god-murdering hellspearing him. They did their job very slowly, though, because MM apparently prefered to stay in the air using his freeze breath (who, by the way, freezed his friends too) instead of doing something useful and engaging Amazo in melee combat. He sometimes would land to punch Amazo, but he really liked to fly, and WW herself couldn't deal that much damage on Amazo due to his high invulnerability, so I, controlling Supes, realized that I couldn't trust on those fools and started my quest to find another thing to throw at him.

As I turned around a nearby corner, who was that that I saw? Yes! Bizarro himself. He stood there doing nothing for almost the whole battle and, therefore, was fresh. I though "D*rn!" and tried to move Supes away from that place as soon as possible, but Bizarro was quicker and caught up to him (for some reason, kryptonite didn't took his speed, although he was still as weak as Supes). Bizarro then started punching SM like crazy, but, fortunately, he was too weak to go through Supes invulnerability; still, he could knock Supes down, which was really d*mn annoying, let me tell ya.

I then sent GG and Bat to help him out, since WW and MM were too busy utterly destroying Amazo to go help. As expected, neither GG or Bat could inflict any damage on Bizarro that was enough to go through his invulnerability, but they still served as bait long enough to let Supes run to a nearby lamp and start beating Bizarro up.

Meanwhile, MM and WW were still slowly defeating Amazo. Flash was taking a coffee break because he was useless at that point, anyway.

Back to Supes, GG and Bat, I finally run out of lamps nearby at that location, and so Bizarro started retaliating furiously. First, he utterly destroyed the Bat. Secondly, he started knocking Supes down AGAIN. GG just kept watching, since he couldn't any damage on Bizarro.

Now, finally, Amazo was defeated by WW and MM. Then again, they got fed up with all the fighting and took another break. This part was really annoying, because Supes was really far from where WW and MM were, so it took a while before Flash finally managed to super speed charge them near Bizarro.

When MM and WW did start fighting, though, it didn't took too long before Bizarro was beaten. And so, finally, my first experience with BentonGrey's mod came to an end.


Now for the little technicalities:

Like I mentioned, I can't seem to run the mod's fx properly. It probably isn't a problem with the mod as much as me not knowing how to do it right. Anyway, if anyone could help me with this I'd be very grateful.

Another thing: I noticed that Doomsday had Supes kryptonian attribute. I think you need to fix that, since neither Doomsday has vulnerabily to anything (that I know of) or flies. I believe I saw some other minor flaws, too, but I can't remember anymore, even though I quit the game only a few minutes ago. Gotta hate my weak memory.

Another thing I noticed is that you, IMO, overly used the invulnerable attribute. Myself, I think that anything beyond 10 points of invulnerability is too much. Hell, even 10 points is too much. Even for the most powerful characters I only give 5 points. I think that, if you want to emulate their superhuman resillience, you could give them physical resistance instead. Sure, they will take damage from most attacks, but it'll not be that much damage and it at least gives non-powerhouse heroes, like Flash, Batman and others, a chance to hurt even the thoughest foes. I know that is realistic, comic-book wise, that the big boys be every bit as god-like as you represented them, but in a game there must be some sort of balance. This is only a suggestion, though. If you want to stick with invulnerability, do so. I'll play the mod regardless. =]

As for the powers, I didn't had much time to look through most heroes other than the ones I used, but so far I think they are pretty well represented. I'll play more later and get back to you on this.

Overall, my first experience was pretty fun, if a bit weird and goofy.

For now I'll say that you did a very good job, BentonGrey. I have high expectatives for the official release. =]

Edit: Oh, I just recieved Benton's PM with the fix to the fx problem. You can ignore that part of my post.

Great post Blitzgott, and I suppose I should probably clear a few things up.  In case anyone is wondering, I let a few of the testers have option of downloading the non-packaged version of the mod if they wanted.  Looks like someone decided to take advantage of that opportunity!  As far as the specific points of your post:

Well, the fx thing is my own darn fault!  I'm retarded and forgot a file.  I uploaded it to the service I was using, and if Cat hasn't already packaged up the rest of it, I'll send him a link.  If not, it doesn't matter, and can easily wait 'till the beta. 

Good point about Doomsday.  I may have to make another attribute for him, 'cause, even though he can't fly, he should still have the other abilities.

As far as the invulnerability, I have agonized over this SOOO much.  I finally have decided to try and go with mostly comic accuracy.  So, for Bats to hurt supes, he's gonna' need some kryptnoite.  I'll try and figure something out for things like that for the final.  I think it makes team matches interesting, because you've got to strategize to defeat an invulnerable opponent if only one of your team can actually hurt him. 

Anyroad, I'm very glad that you've enjoyed it, please keep me updated with any balance issues, missing meshes, or just plain out bugs you find!

:EDIT: On an unrelated note, Golden Age fans, are there any villains of the Golden Age that I should include?

Yeah, send the fix over.  Use regular email if you can.  For reasons I'd rather not go into, I can't use your newest file hosting service anymore, although I did get your previous stuff downloaded.

Hmm, well, it's 67 megs of textures......if I knew which ones were new (not included in EZFX) I could just get those, and it would be a much smaller batch, I imagine.  However, I haven't a clue.

And now for some more stuff I came across:

I don't agree with Aquaman being made of wood. I know that you want to give Aquaman electrical resistance without giving him charged, but I don't think that's necessary, because I don't think Aquaman is specifically resistant against this kind of damage. I mean, he may have survived a bolt of lightning, but how many other DC characters have survived deadly attacks without being specifically resistant against them? I think Aquaman survived it for being very tough, like you represented well by giving him endurance 6. Flesh is good enough material to make Aquaman out of.

Speaking of stats, I think they are mostly well represented, except for speed. I'd give Aquaman one more dot in speed, because he is one d*mn fast runner on land. I also think you should give land-based Aquaman energy 2 and give him battery powered, to simulate that, outside of water, Aquaman slowly loses his powers. You could also give him metabolic (strength and speed) and tune down his speed and strength to four or so, so that Aquaman, as he loses his energy, loses his superstrength and speed too.

As for water-based Aquaman (if you are even going to include him, that is) you should give him flier (to simulate swimming) and fast flier (he is VERY fast in the water). I would also give him nimble flier, to simulate that, in the water, Aquaman is more at ease, and therefore is harder to hit, but that's up to you. Maybe it would be better to, instead of giving nimble flier, give him two more dots of agility underwater. Also, perhaps a sprint power for when underwater Aquaman "lands" would be a good idea. Water-based Aquaman can, like you made standard for the three AMs you included, have energy 5 and should not have battery powered, because in the water he won't lose his powers.

Another thing I don't agree is danger sense. You should give him enhanced senses or tracker to simulate his super-hearing and night-vision. Solid skeleton is also not needed.

I actually think Aquaman is not vulnerable to fire, unlike what you simulated by making him of wood, and instead resistant to it, but I'm not really sure. You are right in giving him hirsute, but if you agree with me on Aquaman being strong against fire, just give him temperature control instead of hirsute.

Underwater Aquaman can have summon, too, if you manage to find sea-life meshes to make his minions.

As for powers, I'll check it later. I talked enough about Aquaman for now.


On the invulnerability topic:

Myself, I gave my Supes physical resistance and 5 points of invulnerability. I think it works well, because this way he can shrug off most very low and low magnitude attacks (except melee attacks from very strong hitters) and the damage that does go through his invulnerability will be very small. That way, weak characters have at least a chance of hurting the very powerful ones, but they will still have a hard time doing it. For very omnipotent characters, such as Darkseid, you can give physical resistance and 10 points of invulnerability instead of 5.

Another thing I don't like is giving characters "invulnerability" passive defenses. I think their attributes already make them invulnerable enough. I did give Supes a passive defense, though, but it's only to frequently deflect piercing projectiles, and it's more for the kicks than anything else.

I'm not going to mention using TMX's system for flying melee as I'm sure you're already working on it.

Again on the passive defenses topic, I don't think you should use "speed force aura" passive defenses either. I tend to believe that those auras only take action when the speedster is running fast and, although they do protect the speedster from air friction, windchill and whatever other ill effects that superspeed running can cause, they are not powerful enough to shrug off attacks. I think giving them that is just a waste of power slots.

I also think that giving super breath-esque attacks extreme angle is too much, and so is long range. Myself, I think wide or normal (I prefer wide) angle and medium range is more appropriate, and even looks better.

I think that's all for now. There might be more stuff I saw and forgot to include on this post, but I'm too tired to type anymore than this anyway.

I'll play more later and report anything else I find.

Edit: Actually, it might be a better idea to give 2 points of invulnerability and physical resistance to very resillient characters and 5 points of invulnerability to god-like ones. Believe me, it works very well.

Okay, some solid observations, and a couple things I see that I need to change.  However, I feel that I should probably explain my approach to Aquaman. 

First off, check this out:http://www.killermovies.com/forums/375903_1-the-official-aquaman-respect-thread

It has a lot of info about Arthur, showing his various abilities and his incredible resistance to damage.  I think you may be right about the speed, and I will look into that.  As for him losing energy, well, if I wanted to do a purely Silver Age AM, you would be absolutely right, however, as this is my own flavor of DC, I'm working on something with Silver Age morality mixed with modern sensibilites.  Aquaman, in modern comics, can stay out of water for at least a day before he starts feeling energy loss, and since no game mission would last more than 24 hours, I consider it a non-issue.

His material type and solid skeleton....well, Arthur is obviously tougher than just regular flesh, being able to withstand the rigours of the ocean depths and trade punches with super powered beings, but he's not tough enough to warrant an invulnerability score.  So, for me, the closest I can get is for him to be super tough.  Now, a punch from a normal strength opponent won't really hurt him, and gunfire will only hurt a little bit.  However, let Doomsday hit him, and he'll take some major damage.

I am going to include water-based versions of all of the Aquaman characters, and I already have versions prepared that include pretty much what you're talking about there ^_^, so we're on the same page about that.  As far as summonable sealife....well, that is a bit more difficult, but hopefully I can find SOMETHING.

Energy....well, this is really something that I should have talked about earlier.  I HATE the new energy system, actually, hate is too soft of a word.....I DESPISE it!  I hate it so much, that I've actually considered just making everything zero-cost.  However, I've resisted that temptation, and I feel like I've actually adjusted decently well to it, but I am in the habit of giving characters more energy than they really should have, because otherwise you can NEVER freakin' use a power that costs energy.  I mean, even brawler who shouldn't have to have anything but race enregy needs it pumped up to 3 or 4, just so that they can occasionally use their combos. 

How does this relate to Aquaman?  Well, I believe his water-hand version should have more energy, but his regular version is no slouch in this department.  He is often described as a hero with VAST untapped potential, and in fights he constantly finds reserves of hidden strength to pull through.  So....I think the energy is alright, but I will give it a review.

Danger Sense!  In several of the instances in that respect thread I posted above, 'ol Arthur is being hunted by assassins.  He has such acute hearing and such heightened reflexes, that he hears the click of the bolt being drawn back from a block away, dodges the bullet, then leaps five stories to pummel the fool.  I'd say that is the picture of Danger Sense. :D

Fire vulnerability: This is one that I've agonized over for a long time.  Should he, should he not?  What eventually made my decision was that he can get dehydrated by intense heat, so a vulnerability to heat made sense in that light.  Now, I'm not married to this facet of my interpretation, and if others also dislike it, I'll be happy to remove it.  From a gameplay standpoint, I thought it was interesting giving him a vulnerability to one of the most common damage types.  It certainly makes Black Manta a LOT more threatening.

---------------

Invulnerability: I feel that a punch from Batman should NEVER hurt Supes, neither should an explosive batarang.  *shrug* Let's let the other testers weigh in on this one, and I'll consider it after I've heard some more opinions.

Yeah, you're probably right about the 'invulnerable' PD's, and I'll try and edit those to only deflect projectiles or something.

Flashe's Speedforce Aura, whoops!  That's supposed to say 'superspeed dodge.'  The game handles dodges somewhat well, but a character like Flash should be nearly untouchable, unless you hit him with an area attack.  This PD is supposed to add some extra dodging ability to him, and nothing else.  It should only protect im from melee and ranged attacks, nothing else.  I'll check on this.

Super Breath: Well, I haven't really tested this one, I'll give it a look.  I imagine I won't be adverse to decreasing it, but I'm curious what the others think of it. 

Okay guys, keep 'em coming!

On the invulnerability topic:

I take it back. Invulnerability 2 plus physical pesistance is too weak. Attacks that causes 8 of damage will inflict 2 points of damage. Batman's normal punches were hurting supes almost all the time.

I then tested physical resistance plus invulnerability 5 and now Bat's punches didn't harm Supes at all. At lest normal punches. Overpowered punches inflicted around 1 or 2 points of damage, and so did normal batarangs. Overpowered batarands inflicted around 7 or 8 points of damage.

Although it might not be realistic from a comic stand-point, remember that a game needs balance. A character cannot be 100% or near 100% useless against another character.

If you want, you can give invulnerability 10 to monstrously powerful characters such as Darkseid, but 5 is reasonable enough, I think.¨

On speed force aura:

Actually, I wasn't talking about Flash. The one with speed force aura is Kid Flash.


I think you should remove bedeviled from Superman. He is not really vulnerable to magic. As far as I know, the problem with it is that Superman has no defenses against it; he is as vulnerable to magic as a regular human being.

I still stick with my point that Aquaman should have enhanced senses instead of danger sense. Another option is giving him both.

On the energy thing, the reason I told you to give Aquaman energy 2 and battery powered when he is on land is because battery powered gives you energy accordingly to your endurance, so having a high energy score is pretty much meaningless, but having only one point leaves you with no energy whatsoever. Also, battery powered gives you a cr*p load of energy, so you can really spam attacks that cost energy; however, you should not, because the energy bar won't regen. I think it would be cool giving him it and metabolic (strength and speed) in order to simulate Aquaman's inevitable loss of power when outside of water, but if you want to just stick with the mission time not being long enough for it to happen, it's pretty reasonable too.

Good point on Aquaman needing to be resistant in order to survive underwater, but I still think his material should be flesh. I disagree on him not being tough enough to deserve a invulnerability score if it's very low, like 2 or 5 (without physical resistance). If you give him invulnerability, you can ignore solid skeleton. I for one believe that Aquaman is not weak against fire damage, so I'd give him temperature control. If you disagree, just give heat sensitive and hirsute.


There are more stuff that I intend to post, most of it concerning some character stats I don't agree with. But I'll do it later. Too tired of typing right now.

I'm not sold on the invulnerability thing, but like I said, I'm curious what the others think, so I'll reserve final judgement for now. 

As far as Supes and his bedeviled....I kinda like it, even if it's not purely canon.  You're probably right, but I'll have to think about it.

Enhanced Sense AND Danger sense....hmmm...that might be a good idea.  I'll add that to the list.

Many of my character stats might be subject to change (Aquaman being an exception, seeing as he's my second favorite character and I've spent A LOT of time working on him ;)) so I welcome any thoughts you have on them!

On the subject of invulnerability? 5 Blitzgott? 10 for Darkseid? No way. Game balance? You actually want to have Batman and Superman duke it out with Batman being able to hurt Supes with an overpowered punch or batarang? Lets not forget this is the DC universe according to Grey, hell, even DC writers wouldn't allow for that. One of my first rumble room missions once this beta was installed was Superman vs Darkseid. I think the values of invulnerable were fine. If they had been lower the fight wouldn't have lasted long enough for me.

I haven't tested as much as Blitzgott, unfortunatly I don't have as much time, but one character I thought was too tough was Lobo. I think that is mainly because he overpowers quite alot. I put him upgainst Darkseid and although Darkseid came out victorious it was narrow. I also put Doomsday up against him, and Lobo beat him silly. One other character I put up against him was Black Adam. He got beat by Lobo the worst, lol. I know Lobo is tough, but is he really that tough?

I won't post anything more here as I've already PM'd Benton direct with missing meshes etc. I think we all know I like the invulnerable attribute hence the extra levels were added to FFX. The levels that are in there now are grades that IPS came up with. My original invulnerable code installer had more levels in it. It's a shame that my attribute solar stores is no longer in FFX as that and body aura together were coded by me with Superman in mind. I also used those attributes for other invulnerable characters who became 'weaker' when they were tired. It made it interesting as when they became low on energy they had to run away and recoup.

I disagree with everything Shazam said concerning invulnerablity.

First, it's not only 5 or 10 of invulnerability. It's 5 or 10 plus physical resistance.

The damage Superman will be taking from Batman or other weak characters is minumum, even when they overpower their attacks. I think it's pretty reasonable, since I believe it's lame as hell to put some characters in a game and let them be barely useful against only 25% of the roster of characters. It makes their presence feel somewhat pointless.

Besides, with the nigh-inexistent damage he will be inflicting, you will never see the Bat beating Supes one-on-one. However, Bat plus a bunch of other "weaklings", such as Flash, Green Arrow and what have you, might have a chance, if slim, of winning, which I think is very appropriate.

On this same topic, physical resistance plus invulnerability 10 is very reasonable for Darkseid. In fact, even high magnitude ranged attacks will have to be overpowered 8 out of 10 times or so to go through it, and even then for almost no damage. How is that not powerful?

Fights will last long enough with my suggestion. In fact, if you play on very hard, those fights will be very epic, and yet not extremely long to get annoying (like the Supes vs. Amazo fight I described on one of my later posts got).


Since you mentioned Doomsday having been beaten silly by someone, I'd like to use this opportunity to say that, for some reason, Doomsday is really easy to beat in this mod. I don't know why, but in my first (and only, up to this moment) rumble room fight I had, like I already mentioned, a computer-controlled Wonder Woman was fighting Doomsday by herself (she recieved help later, but she wasn't in need of it at all) and she was single-handedly beating the cr*p out of him. I think it might have something to do with the AI, because Doomsday stats look good enough for me.

Yeah, I was curious about that myself!  WW should barely be able to hurt him....I'll have to look into him a bit more closely.  As to the note about Lobo....hmm, maybe I'll turn down his invulnerability a bit.

:EDIT: I've modified both of them, should be a bit more appropriate now.

I'm posting again to defend my point on why invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance is a better choice than high invulnerability.

I'll be using invulnerability 20 (the amount you gave for Supes) for the following example:

So... we have two heroes being hit by a beam that inflicts 60 points of damage.

Hero 1 has invulnerability 20. When he is hit, he takes 60 - 20 points of damage, which equals 40.

As for Hero 2, who has invulnerability 5 and physical resistance, he'll take 60 - 5/2, which equals 27. Yes, 13 less points of damage.

So, unlike what it appears at first glance, against really wicked attacks, invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance is more powerful than invulnerability 20.

However, invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance also has a drawback (which I think is actually a plus) in that most attacks, even from weak characters, will inflict damage. So, if in one hand invulnerability 20 will take 40 points of damage against that beam, it'll ignore all attacks that inflict less than 20 points of damage. As for invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance, all attacks that inflict less than 12 (or 11, but I think the game rounds down the final damage value) will inflict nothing. So Bat's electric batarang, while useless against Hero 1, can cause around 3 to 5 points of damage on Hero 2 normally, and around 11 when overpowered.

The reason why I think invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance is better is because it makes the character both very resillient while at the same time doesn't make a cr*p load of attacks useless against him. I mean, why is it that Supes should ALWAYS overpower his mighty heat vision (that causes 20 points of damage on BentonGrey's mod, by the way) if he wants to at least hurt a bit a guy like Doomsday, who also has 20 points of invulnerability? That just screams ridiculous. And no, I'm not saying that Doomsday is not resistant enough to take a bunch of supes heat beams (which couldn't be more far from being true), but at least, with invulnerability 5 and physical resistance, Supes normal heat vision will inflict at least around 5 points of damage on him, which I think is more realistic even from a comic book stand-point than inflicting no damage at all. Also, like I stated already, there's the balance thing. And if you ask me, even with invulnerability 5 and physical resistance, it's already unbalanced enough. Just because Supes has invulnerability 5 and physical resistance instead of 20 points of invulnerability it doesn't mean he won't defile Bat on the blink of an eye; only the Bat will at least be able to put up a fight for a little bit. And, like I said, it gives a group of weak characters the chance to at least hold their own against the very mighty ones.

Some stuff I noticed:

Both of Captain Atom's blasts (atomic and full, I think) are exactly the same attack, with the only differences being the name (duh!) and fx (and maybe also animation, but I'm not sure).

Something more serious:

Although I don't really like that you completely removed Freedom Force from the mod (having mainstream characters and FF characters duking it out never gets old), it's not that big a deal. However, I noticed that you removed some of the villains/minions, which you should not have done. If you remove villains from the game, several game modes, such as iron man, action and race, will not work correctly.

And still on the invulnerability topic:

I tested a bit and I think that the best option is either 10 points of invulnerability to very powerful characters (Superman level) and 15 for god-like ones (Darkseid level), or 15 for very powerful characters and 20 for god-like ones ones. I recommend the former (that way, not all knockback damage will be ignored), but you seem to like high invulnerability levels, so the later might be a better choice for you. 20 and 30 is just too much, IMO.

Physical resistance should be ignored.

Captain Marvel:

I completely disagree with your Captain Marvel built-in. First, I think Captain Marvel, although incredibly strong, is not stronger or even as strong as Superman. I gave my Captain Marvel a strength level of 9.

Also, speed 6 for CM is way too low. CM is faster than Superman. In fact, much faster. Superman's top flying speed is considerably below light speed, while CM can reach beyond the light speeds (both on space). I think giving speed 8 to CM, dropping Supes speed to 7 and removing fast flier from him and giving CM fast flier is more accurate. In fact, I don't even think it; I'm sure of it. Even on DC's table-top RPG Captain Marvel was given higher speed than Superman.

I agree with his endurance level, but disagree with his energy level. I think CM should have at least 6 of energy.

I disagree with agility 5, too, but not so much. I gave him 6, but 5 is not bad either.

I completely disagree with the way you simulated Aquilles' courage. Why a passive defense? And why one that protects against most types of damage? I think you should remove it and give him fearless instead.

As far as passive defenses go, I think CM should have a frequent passive defense that protects him from all forms of mystical attacks. He must have unbeliever, too, like you already gave him.

I also think that you should give CM danger sense to simulate his clairvoyance, and tracker to simulate his accute senses (I won't say enhanced senses because, although CM's senses are very accurate, they are not SM level. For example, he does not have x-ray vision, for one).

Invulnerability is up to you, but I think 10 points is good enough. I also like giving acrobatic (amateur) to most fliers and heavy hitter to most bruiser-esque heroes, but both are optional. I don't like giving heavy lifter, but, just like agility, it varies from person to person. If you think you should stick with heavy lifter, then do so.

As powers go, you might want to give him an afterburner power for (even) quicker airborn movement, but it's optional too. A self-healing special power is also a good idea.

Superman:

I think you should remove nimble flier from him. Don't know why, but I wouldn't give it to him. Also, you should him enhanced senses and solar powered (to recover energy more quickly).


A miscellaneous suggestion would be giving freezing attacks the tag of affecting targets on the ground only. I know most freezing attacks in the comics also affect airborn opponents, but, in this game, flying characters that were frozen, instead of instantaneously falling down, will be transformed in motionless flying ice cubes and will fall down only after the ice melts, which is goofy, if anything.

I'm sorry for the lack of responses the last few days, but I've just started a new job and my free time is more limited than I would like.  Still, I'm plugging away.  So, let me adress your points:

Just out of curiosity, what made you change your mind about physical resistance?

Captain Marvel: Yeah, I don't have much of a problem with implementing those changes.  You didn't like the passive defence of Courage?  I thought it was a rather novel idea (it wasn't mine!), I'll consider chaning it.

Although I'm not saying I won't do it, giving non-speedsters really high speeds (over 6 or 7) doesn't work for me, on a visual level.  If you want Supes to burn rubber, put him in the air, or maybe I'll give him a sprint option (like I did with CM).  You ALWAYS see Flash zooming around, but not usually Superman.  I mean, he's pretty quick in the air, does he need high speed too?  Same for CM.  I'll think about it, but I'd like to hear other opinions on this as well.

I've considered the acrobatic (amateur) for some of the fliers, and I'll keep thinking about it.  They have the CAPABILITY to do that every time, more or less, but you usually see them get knocked for a loop and go crashing through bulidings, not just land on their feet.  Which characters, in particular would you suggest it for, besides Supes?

I may give Supes both of those, but I'm hesitant to give him solar powered, because he's just as strong at night, which he wouldn't be if that attribute were in play.  It only really affects him after a full day or more without sun.

You have a point about the visual effect of freezing attacks...but I'm hesitant to limit it like that.

NOTE FOR ALL TESTERS:  Hey guys, please take a long, hard look at Green Arrow.  Are his attacks strong enough?  Do they use too much energy?  Are there any other changes I need to make to him?  I am a little conflicted about it.  The same goes for Speedy. 

Alright, I've been working on maps the last few days, and I've made some progress.  I've managed to successfully convert the Batcave and Underwater maps, although I am having some major trouble with 'Gotham.'  However, I need to get back to work on entering in characters and sampling for voicepacks, so I'm going to put out an open call for help with maps.  Here are some suggestions, in order of importance.  Anyone who would be willing to offer help, I would really appreciate it.

Gotham: even if someone can just convert the old one, that would be good.  I need a large map, in which vehicles would be useful...and I'll say no more.
Apokolips: Red tints to everything, lots of fire, you get the picture
Darkseid's Throneroom: Red tints, rocky, fire...yeah.
Underwater Maps: ESPECIALLY one of Atlantis.  This is the one that I will most likely do myself, if no-one else volunteers.  I can build off the original Underwater.
Ferris Airfield: If someone could just remove the US symbols from the Airfield map, that's all this needs
Oa: Green.....and....yeah.....
Midway City Museum: Perhaps some kind of version of the 'pictures in an exhibition' level from The Strangers?  I will also do this one if there are no volunteers
New Genisis: A port of a Time Master disc?


Well, that's just a smattering of DC locations that I think might be fun to include.  Feel free to post suggestions.

oooh we always need the same type of goodies, I got every last one of those maps on my to do list.

about gotham. try deleting the gargoyles and the trucks in FFedit, that might work

Okay TR, I'll give that a try.  Ha, I'm glad that they're on your to-do list, maybe we can split up the work on them, get them done quicker :)

Benton,

I mentioned this a few weeks ago and totally dropped the ball.

http://engineering.freedomu.info/ (http://engineering.freedomu.info/)

This page has my "pc" (politically correct) textures.  All Nazi, Soviet, and US insignia have been removed.  This includes the airport hanger, military huts, fuel barrels, military crates, etc.

It should help you with the Airport map and any of the Berlin maps you might be adjusting.

The textures are:
blitz_Shield_Generator.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
cub_bomber.DDS -- changed to Boeing aircraft
cub_fruit_basket1.DDS -- changed spanish to english
cub_fruit_stand2.DDS -- removed (alpha) sign
cub_fruit_stand3.DDS -- removed (alpha) sign
cub_fruit_stand.DDS -- removed (alpha) sign
cub_fuel_barrels.DDS -- changed U.S. insignia
cub_hangar.DDS -- removed U.S. insignia
cub_hangar_roof.DDS -- removed U.S. insignia
cub_market_crate.DDS -- removed spanish
cub_military_crate.DDS -- removed U.S. insignia
cub_nw_fuel_barrels.DDS -- removed USSR insignia
cub_nw_military_crate.DDS -- removed USSR insignia
cub_nw_military_hut_interior.DDS -- removed USSR insignia
cub_nw_warehouse02.DDS -- removed (alpha) USSR insignia
cub_plane.DDS -- changed to Boeing aircraft
cub_stand_fish.DDS -- removed (alpha) sign
Euros_Generator&Extractor.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
Ger_Civ_auto1.DDS -- removed (alpha) Nazi insignia
Ger_guard_post.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
ger_manhole.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
ger_nazi_ammo.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
Ger_nazi_barrel.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
ger_nazi_tank.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
Ger_park_bench.DDS -- removed (alpha) Nazi insignia
ger_radar_large.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
ger_radar_small.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia (?)
Ger_RadioTower.DDS -- removed (alpha) Nazi insignia
ger_search_lights.DDS -- removed Nazi insignia
Ger_Sign_Bootmaker.DDS -- removed German writing
Ger_SignButcher.DDS -- removed German writing
Ger_SignHardware.DDS -- removed German writing
Ger_SignPub.DDS -- removed German writing

I've got to get my kid to daycare and then go to work, but I'll put 'skoped items up this afternoon/evening.  These include German factory (no banners) and a few other items (I'm not exactly sure what all I have right now)

Hope it helps

JM

Thanks Joe, no hurry. 

NOTE FOR TESTERS: Hey, as well as testing Green Arrow, please test the Joker as well.  I'm of conflicted mind about my mesh choice and setup.  I'm thinking of moving him back to Joker_Fixed with a 'skoped' gun animation with more contacts.  That way we can take advantage of the C6 skin, pluse the hammer and other custom anims (especially his idle!).  Please tell me what you think!

working on a joker hex

Quote from: Blitzgott on March 12, 2007, 10:08:20 AM
I think you should remove bedeviled from Superman. He is not really vulnerable to magic. As far as I know, the problem with it is that Superman has no defenses against it; he is as vulnerable to magic as a regular human being.

I think bedeviled is essential for Superman. 

Superman has a high endurance (9 or 10 in some hero files), meaning he can take lots of punishment before being KOed.  But if he's as vulnerable to magic as a regular human, then his endurance with respect to magic attacks should be 3 or 4.

So, a magic lightning bolt that KOs a normal human ought to KO Superman.  A magic hammer that takes half of a normal human's HP in one blow ought to take half Superman's HP in one blow.

If anything, bedeviled is not enough of a magic penalty to properly simulate the damage Superman ought to take from magical attacks.

Quote from: Blitzgott on March 13, 2007, 09:59:43 PM
I completely disagree with the way you simulated Aquilles' courage. Why a passive defense? And why one that protects against most types of damage? I think you should remove it and give him fearless instead.

Achilles is where Cap gets is invulnerability, just like he gets his speed from Mercury.

Calling it the "Courage of Achilles" is kind of a joke, I think.  Achilles was dipped in the River Styx, making him completely invulnerable to all harm, except for one spot on his heel where he was being held when he was dipped.  So of course he's "courageous," nothing can hurt him!  His "courage" is not bravery in his heart, but the magic protecting him.

Benton,

The objects are up if you want.  Turns out the only objects I skoped were the Nazi War Factory.  I found a second set of textures for nazi tank and civilian auto (in area_specific\berlin\vehicles\), so I included them in the objects.zip as well.

Use 'em if you want.  If not, no sweat.

JM

BentonGrey:

On the invulnerable thing, I changed my mind because, with physical resistance, uber attacks such as Darkseid's omega blasts won't inflict that much damage. See, with inv. 5 and PR, a hero will be taking only 27 points of damage. If he has only inv. 15, for example, he will take 45 damage. The later is more accurate from a comic book stand point.

I still stand to my point that you should tune down the invulnerability a bit, though. Invulnerability 20 should be the max you give a character, and only to Darkseid-level characters.


On speed, I agree with what you said, but giving 7 to Superman and 8 to Cap. Marvel looks good to me. They are fast, even if not Flash-level. If you just ignore what I said about giving them afterburner, although they will still move faster than Flash when they are airbone, if Flash starts spamming sprints or activates speed force, he'll move faster, so everything will be fine.

On a related note, you overused the fast flier attribute. For Cap. Marvel it makes sense, but Wonder Woman (not sure if you gave it to her)? Martian Manhunter? Green Lanterns? Flier by itself already improves a characters movement speed considerably, so I think you should save fast flier for only the very (very) fast fliers, otherwise it'll look strange, like you even said yourself when you mentioned Flash.


Acrobatic is another thing you overused. I think knockback damage is too much of an important part of the game to be completely ignored by so many characters. You should give acrobatic (amateur) to all those you gave acrobatic to, IMO. They will still avoid knockback damage, but it won't be 100% guaranteed it'll happen.

I think the only character(s) it makes sense giving acrobatic to are characters underwater that would have acrobatic (amateur) when on land, because, underwater, the water resistance makes it easier for one to regain his stability mid-flight, and therefore avoid damage, but even on this I'm not really sure.


You have a point on not giving Supes solar powered. I suggested it because I thought that characters with this attribute would regen energy faster during the day and at a normal pace during the night, but it's not quite like that. You should still give him enhanced senses, though.


Courage of Achilles as a passive defense really doesn't cut it, IMO. Stamina of Atlas makes sense as a passive defense, but since Cap. Marvel already has a bunch of stuff on the defensive department (high endurance and invulnerability) it doesn't seem necessary. If you must give Cap. a passive defense, give one that protects him from all kinds of mystical attacks, because he really excels at it.


Urthman:

I don't think bedeviled is needed for Superman. He is as resistant to magic as any regular person, and since mystical attacks can only inflict direct damage using the power swap mental damage, and invulnerability is not subtracted from such damage, he will be taking as much damage from it as any regular human being. Also, damage inflicted by mental damage attacks is always the same, so him being vulnerable to it will only increase the chances of him taking damage, not the amount.


What gives Cap. his invulnerability is the "stamina of Atlas". I agree that Achilles should be the one giving the invulnerability, though.

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/who/who-intro.php?topic=nightwing-flamebird (http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/who/who-intro.php?topic=nightwing-flamebird)
no nightwing?  who will flamebird team up with?
isn't there a batcave map somewhere with lots of stuff in it?
for green arrow, i think it's important to be able to run out of arrows.  especially the gimmick arrows.  battery powered works, so does the one that does limited number of uses on powers.  or the archer attribute that gives certain number of shots for different types of arrows.  that last one would need to be reworked a bit, increase the number of uses and the number of types probably.  also, the default animation would have to be changed from ranged 1 to ranged 16, or whichever mesh your using.
(http://www.weirdspace.dk/DC%20Comics/Graphics/Nightwing%20Earth%201.jpg)

Quote from: Thor Reborn on March 16, 2007, 09:07:56 PM
working on a joker hex

sort of a thread jack, but what have you planned

Blitz: Okay, I will review fast-flier usage, I'll specifically check those characters you mentioned.  Acrobatic...well, I feel like I've only used it on the most athletic/super fast reflexes type of characters.  Batman and Robin have it, Speedy and Green Arrow, the Flash, but that's about it, if I recall.  I think it's viable for the Dynamic Duo, perhaps a little less so for GA, but I think it still works.  The Flash, I remember Barry being able to pull off some pretty impressive stuff.  I will also take a look at the Marvel PD, not really sure what I'll do with it yet, but I'll let you know.  I'll probably bring it more towards what you suggested.

Thanks Joemama!

Ha, well, that's not the Nightwing I was talking about, but I'm afraid he's a bit too obscure for me to add him :D  I have thought about that Green Arrow issue...and I'm sort of reluctant to do it, mostly out of laziness ;).  I do need to at least test it out, I suppose.  I'll make a note of it, and I'll try to get to it eventually.

Okay.  After a week of a disconnected internet, I'm finally back, and I have been playing the mod.  Things of notice:

-After many meshes not working, I finally found that I did not unload Mesh Pack 1. :P  Now there's only 1 or 2 meshes that don't work.
-Joker can't use his gun.  If he tries to use it and he's currently running, he'll run in place till given another command.
-Mongul doesn't have a single attack.  I checked in the rumble room, and he doesn't have a single one.  None.  Zip.  Nadda.

Now that I'm connected, I'll download the textures. :P  The mod was still great fun though. :)

Okay, I've fixed the Mongul issue....someone forgot to add his attacks to his character..... :unsure: ....whoops.  Ha, Joker, I'm not really sure what could cause that, maybe I have the wrong anim selected.  I think I'll be switching meshes anyway, so I'll look it over when I do that.

Hey Benton,

     Any chance you could PM me on the mod's location?  I'm interested in shamelessly using you as my inspiration on my Marvel mod.

DEATH

Oh, has anyone noticed that Doomsday's grapple does not work?

By the way, is Starfire supposed to only have one attack? :huh:

You forgot to include Catwoman's weight.


I noticed that you gave Darkseid two three contacts beam attacks; Hawkgirl, an eight (or so) contacts cone attack, and Firestorm an eight (or so) contacts direct attack. Just though I'd let you know that cone, beam and direct attacks do not support multiple contact animations. If you choose those animations only for the look instead of the extra contacts, then just ignore this remark.

Bingo Blitzgott, just for the looks.  I'll fix Catwoman's weight right away. 

Starfire should have two...well....actually, she should have three, but I can't find fx for the other one I want, so I'll have to spend some time searching.  Thanks for the reminder.

Doomsday's grapple is probably an FX problem, as I didn't tweak that power.  I'll look into it.

Death, no problem, but remember, it's VERY rough at the moment.

Vigilante and Amazo's weights are also missing.

Oh, and Starfire has three powers here. She has a melee attack, a beam attack and a passive defense.

Edit: That's funny... I checked Starfire built-in and she had three attacks. Now I checked again and she has three power slots filled, but where her melee attack should be is a "power0" thing of some sort.

More bugs:
-Question's melle attacks are the only attacks of his that work.
-Martain Manhunter can't turn invisible.

Seriously Kkhohoho?  Man, I spent some time on him too, I'll have to check that out.  I'll see about the Manhunter issue.  Thanks Blitzgott, I'll fix those.

Yeah.......I know about that, and I haven't a clue what causes it.  Would someone be so kind as to test her in the RR and see if all of her attacks show up and actually work?

The thing with some powers not working is because of the fx. I was having the same problem, but then I changed the fx of Joker's joker gun and it started working normally. BG must have forgotten to include on the .zip some of the fx he used.

Edit: On Martian Manhunter, you forgot to set the special type tag of his invisibility power to cloak.

You also forgot to set the stat swap of Doomsday's grappling power (unless I misunderstood and the power is supposed to inflict density instead of pull).

Quote from: Blitzgott on March 19, 2007, 06:37:22 PM
The thing with some powers not working is because of the fx. I was having the same problem, but then I changed the fx of Joker's joker gun and it started working normally. BG must have forgotten to include on the .zip some of the fx he used.

Edit: On Martian Manhunter, you forgot to set the special type tag of his invisibility power to cloak.

You also forgot to set the stat swap of Doomsday's grappling power (unless I misunderstood and the power is supposed to inflict density instead of pull).

I don't know how to change the FX because the're built ins.  Is there a way to do this in game, or do I have to use the FF2 editor?

Quote from: kkhohoho on March 19, 2007, 08:44:33 PM
I don't know how to change the FX because the're built ins.  Is there a way to this in game, or do I have to use the FF2 editor?

You have to use FFEdit.


Black Manta's trident mini-missiles is not working either due to missing fx.


You set the three Aquamen and Atom Smasher's powers and attributes' start levels in a way that they do not start with everything you gave them.

Other than his passive defense and cloaking power, everything on Shade's tier b does not work.

Thanks guys, this is exactly the kind of stuff I need to know about.  It looks like I'm going to be busy tonight.

Okay guys, everything is fixed except for: Captain Marvel (I'll probably provide a custom attribute for him eventually), Joker (switching to a new mesh), and Manta (ditto). 

superman has the power "super super combo" but I don't see it in the powers tab of the editor, instead I see "super blitz".

Well, in my version (which, admittedly, is always being fiddled with) he's got 'super blitz.'  I'll check him in game later.

Flash's spinning vortex doesn't work due to missing fx.

Edit: It's super blitz in my version, too. Both in-game and on FFEdit.

Since I had absolutely nothing to do, I decided to look for as many bugs as possible in order to get this over with. Here's what I found:

Missing weight: Dr. Fate and Kalibak


Missing mesh: League Assassin, Riddler Puzzle Thug, Grey Ghost and Officer Montoya


Not working: Arisa, Arkkis, Hal, Guy, Jon, Kyle and Tomarre's lantern emerald punch; Batgirl's fist full of batarangs; Brainiac's battle mode; Clayface's streeching arm; Cluemaster's flare pellet; Deadshot's wrist-gun grapple; Desaad's death beam; Dr. Alchemy's river of glue; Gorilla Grodd's grodd subvert, grodd subjulgate and grodd groundthrow; Hal's lantern emerald golem; Kyle's stewart emerald monster; Lashina's battle lash tangle; Metamorpho's meta freezing nitrogen cloud; Mirror Master's mirror banishment and mirror teleport; Prof. Zoom's zoom hand vortex; Psycho Pirate's pirate friends are foes, pirate fear and pirate anger; Sinestro's anti-matter nuke; The Shark's shark mind drain and shark mind bolt; The Trickster's trick ultimate con; Tigress' tigress capture arrow; Vulcan's vulcan great flaming axe; Starfire warrior's assault, and The Question's entire tier b.


Repeated powers: Black Lightning's electric field and Jon's stewart emerald bolts.


Miscellaneous: Robin's electric batarang inflicts heat damage; R'As Al Gul's dueling dominance has a single contact animation; Kid Flash's speed punchas has a single contact animation, and you named Geomancer "Gentleman Ghost".


It's possible that I overlooked something because, near the end, I got kinda tired and started to make haste in order to finish it quickly, but I doubt it's much stuff.


Edit: Other than Starfire's, all the melee attacks I mentioned on the "not working" list actually do work, but they are missing fx.

Quote from: Blitzgott on March 21, 2007, 09:28:54 AM
Edit: Other than Starfire's, all the melee attacks I mentioned on the "not working" list actually do work, but they are missing fx.

That probally means that they have the "No_Effect" FX...

Quote from: kkhohoho on March 21, 2007, 01:45:54 PM
That probally means that they have the "No_Effect" FX...

No. Lantern emerald punch, for one, uses the fx_emerald_punch, but there's no animation. I won't check all the others, but I'm sure none of them has the "no_effect" fx.

There's a HUGE difference between having no fx, and having no animation.  Which is it.  (Anything lacking an animation won't have FX anyway.)

Quote from: catwhowalksbyhimself on March 21, 2007, 03:00:56 PM
There's a HUGE difference between having no fx, and having no animation.  Which is it.  (Anything lacking an animation won't have FX anyway.)

I mean there is no FX ANIMATION. The attack animation ("X" hero punching) plays normally, but, even though the fx of the power is set as (on the example above) fx_emerald_punch, the hero's hand does not glow or whatever when he executes the attack. It's LIKE he has the no_effect fx, but in reality the fx for that power is set as fx_emerald_punch.

That's alright, Blitz has been a huge help, I can figure out what's wrong with them, as I'll have to take a look at all of them anyway.  With 99% of these, it's going to be a case of an FX from their FF1 herofile not existing in FF2, and I'll just have to find an alternative.  I may request a few FX once this is done, however.  Thanks Blitz, I'll try and run down most of those errors tonight.  I'm not sure about the missing meshes though...that might complicate things slightly, but shouldn't be too much trouble.

Let's say we'll give Alpha testing until the end of this week (giving me a bit more slack time in the character-strings department) and I'll try and upload the new files for the Beta this weekend.  That is contingent on a few skins and meshes that are necessary being finished by then (Syn's ridiculously awesome new Batmobile for one, and my own hexing work on TR's Robin hex for another), but if they aren't we'll just push back the release a few days.  Those won't include voices yet, as I'll need to work in conjuction with CQ, and he's pretty busy at the moment.  They will include all of the characters and changes promised in the beta, as well as, of course, the ridiculous amount of bug fixes already in place and pending ^_^.

On the subject of invulnerability....I have to say, that Blitzgotts now retracted arguments for damage resistance did not fall on deaf ears.  It would make balancing much easier if a blow from Hawkman's mace could inflict SOME damage on Supes without having to be overpowered ridiculously.  The problem I see with this is character specific (aside from the balancing work that it would entail for me :blink:), what about characters that are vulnerable?  They would lose their invulnerability, but keep the damage resistance....anyroad, I would really like to hear some thoughts on this in between now and the final version, so no hurry.  However, I know the thoughts of Shazam and Blitz, so I'd really like to hear from the regular community members and the other testers more than anything else.

NOTES ON THE FUTURE OF DCUG:

Well, I have hinted about what my grand (and impractical) plans for this structure might be, when I mentioned using it as an EZSCRIPT platform.  The last week or so, while I'm bored at work, I've been sketching out storylines (or EZScript adventures, if you will) for various characters and teams.  I have a lot of material in skeleton form at the moment, and considering what I'm about to begin asking for, I suppose I should let you know what I intend to do with it.  As I said, my dream is to remake the entire DCU out of my own imagination, to write the over-arching stories of Batman's career, the adventures of Superman, the crime-fighting career of JLA, and the ending to the war between New Genesis and Apokolips (which I wouldn't dream of touching if the King had been able to finish it :( ). 

So, heavily dependent on time (moreso than inspiration as I've already got months and months of material lined up) I want to release monthly 'comic issues' in EZScript format.  An adventure, part of an on-going series, all tied together in a developing master plan.  Now, ideally I'd like to release issues of each of the heroes, and maybe even a JLA once a month.  That's ridiculously unlikely, however.  What I might be able to manage is three or four issues a month, two staple and two rotating titles.  So, we'd have Batman and the Brave and the Bold every month along with two of: Hawkman, Superman, The Atom, JLA, Blue and Gold, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, etc.  Will I be able to keep up the monthly schedule?  Will I actually ever finish my grand plan for the DCU?  Will Batman and Robin escape the dasterdly clutches of the devilish device that holds them down?  Probably not, but I hope to entertain the community for a while, and encourage others to put out some of their own adventures.

Why talk about this now, many, many, MANY moons before the final version will be ready?  Mostly because this is a pretty large undertaking, and although I'm willing to do all of the requsite writing and work myself, it would be a pretty big help to me to have a few oddball skins and maps picked up as people have time.  For example, sooner or later, I'm going to need an Atlantian Citizen skin or two, along with some rather evil surprises that will pop up for the first time in my Aquaman storyline.  I'll need simple maps, as I said, like a Thanagarian market and wilderness.  So, I'm going to be making a seperate 'map request' thread to handle these things.  There won't be any rush on any of them, but if any of the community members feel like picking one up, I'd certainly appreciate it.  I imagine that I can fashion something for my stories on my own, but a little help would help me meet my monthly goals.

Well, enough about impossible dreams, I'll get to work on fixing these issues, and thanks again Blitz!

No problem, BG. That's what I signed for.


On the invulnerability, I don't know... For balance purposes, I'd suggest physical resistance alone, with maybe a very little bit of invulnerability for the real tough guys. That's the best for game balance, IMHO. However, I'm aware that you are concerned with the comic accuracy, too, so the best thing would be try finding a balance between accuracy and gameplay. Maybe just tuning down the invulnerability a bit... Myself, I don't like giving more than 15 points, and only for the real (real) tough guys. Because, and I don't mean to disrespect Shazam's work, invulnerability is kind of a broken attribute to me. Even 15 points, which Shazam says to be little, is actually a lot. If you pit two super strong heroes against each other, invulnerability won't make that big a difference, since they will be constantly inflicting over 30 or 40 points of damage. However, when you add ranged combat on it, the problems start to be highlighted. Hell, in case some of you haven't noticed, 15 points is the base damage of all (other than melee) attack types! So now you want Supes walking around shrugging off every single atomic blast Captain Atom throw at him? Because that's what's gonna happen. I agree that tuning down invulnerability makes the character seem far from their comic counterparts, but what's better: comic accuracy or keeping melee combat from being pretty much the only alternative, damage-wise, of fighting?

On vulnerability, you could set another penalty other than loss of invulnerability. Losing strength, speed or being left powerless are good options, too, I think.


Oh, and on a related note, I'm looking forward to the next release. I never had the chance to see the vehicle/driver attributes in action, and there could not be a better way of being introduced to them other than by seeing the Batmovel zooming around a rumble room map.

I say; keep invurn., but tune it down.   I was fighting Superman with Kiliwog the other day (that would make no sense in the comics, but I did it for my own enjoyment. :P) and the only reason I won was by throwing a truck at ol' Supes.  If I hadn't whittled away his health beforehand, the truck would not be as signifigant as it was.  In fact, Kiliwog had a strength of 9, and his punches didn't do much, and his GL attacks didn't do much either. So I suggest tuning it down, so more characters like Kiliwog-a GL with superhuman strength-actually get a fair fight against more poeple, and so that even characters like Batman could at least do a very small amount of damage.

Blitz is quite right, invulnerable is a broken attribute, but then so is Physical resistance. By the way, I didn't create invulnerable Dr Mike did, I just made more levels of it. I believe that ips was the person that thought up the invulnerable attribute and he talked Dr Mike into making it. ips, was the one responsible for the grades of invulnerable we now have in FFX after I showed him and others how to make them. Physical resistance was created by me intially because I was unhappy with the invulnerable attrib and I was going to make different percentages of it. Stumpy was the man who fine tuned the attribute after I did much testing.

The trouble with FF is that melee does alot more damage than ranged attacks since the strength of the character is part of the maths involved, so characters like Superman will always have hugely powerful melee attacks. The only way to balance it right IMO is to power down melee attacks much like Alex used to with his hero files. In comics Darkseids Omega beams are more powerful than his melee attacks. You will never be able to well simulate this with FF unless you power down melee attacks, I have done this with my own hero files because I want ranged attacks such as Darkseids Omega beams or Supermans heat vision to be powerful. High invulnerability works with two powerful melee characters because the punches they both inflict on each other cause huge health loss. Invulnerable gives back health points making it seem like the character is invulnerable to a certain amount of damage.

It is very difficult to simulate Marvel and DC characters in FF, the game is just not designed for it. At the end of the day Bent, this is your mod. Not mine, not Blitz's. You're fighting a losing battle in trying to come up with a balance that everyone agrees with, it just isn't going to happen. Best thing to do is get it the way you want it and are happy with. People will still download this regardless of wether they agree with your setup or not. The main thing for testers is to identify bugs, not argue on how a character is setup. Remember the name of the mod is 'The DC Universe according to Grey' not Blitzgott or Shazam ;)

Quote from: Shazam on March 22, 2007, 12:31:42 PM
Remember the name of the mod is 'The DC Universe according to Grey' not Blitzgott or Shazam ;)

I know that. And it's not like I'm forcing him to do the way I think is best. I'm only giving suggestions because Benton himself asked for them, and it's up to him whether or not he will take them into consideration.


On the melee/ranged attacks issue, it's just like I said on my last post and you reafirmed on your own: melee attacks inflict more damage than ranged attacks, and the difference is not small. It's a small problem, but, hey, it's how you handle it. Myself, I try balancing my characters' powers in a way that they will all be useful at all times, so they usually inflict a very similar amount of damage. See my Superman hero file, for example. His three principal attacks inflict 23 (zero-cost melee attack), 20 (zero-cost projectile) and 20 (low-cost beam). Yes, my Superman inflicts 23 points of damage with his melee attack, even though he has strength 10. I made it like this because, like I already mentioned, I want to make all attacks useful. So, when Superman slugs it out with, say, Doomsday, he will be using his melee attack. If Doomsday happens to start gaining the upperhand, Supes can fly away from him and start zaping him with his heat vision. Now, let's say Supes is fighting someone that is superior to him in aerial combat. Supes will then fly at him and use his flying melee attack (the projectile) to drop the guy to the ground so that he can start pounding on him with his melee attack. The good thing about keeping the damage of your hero's attacks similar is that it "forces" you to mix your attacks well instead of simply spamming one, since you'll be inflicting about the same amount of damage no matter the distance you are from your opponent. So you'll not find yourself trying desperately to bring your opponent to the ground if you are playing with Supes, because it won't make much of a difference. This keeps the fights from looking shallow (characters with ranged attacks almost never using them because their melee attacks are so much stronger) and there's also the balance issue: since will try to make your melee attacks inflict a similar amount of damage as your ranged attacks, there won't be a huge gap of damage output between Batman and Superman, which means neither of them will be completely descartable.

I don't mean, of course, to say that the damage of melee attacks shall always be around 20; only those of heroes who are proeficient at both melee and ranged combat. So it's okay for Thing to have a melee attack that inflicts, say, 30 or more points of damage, since he cannot do anything else other than pound his enemies at close range.

Im with Shazam on this one. I personally like invulnerabilty quite a bit, so Im going to tweak these characters to the way I want when we are all done.  I think it is really easy to get bogged down in the way characters should be portrayed because everybody has their own theory and are generally passionate about it.  Lets focus on making these guys playable and then we can get in the weeds as to how they should be later on when we are just looking to polish the mod up before release.

Fair enough guys, consider the issue tabled for the moment.

Hey guys, just a quick update to let you know that all of the issues brought up so far have been corrected, BUT with the fact that I played delinquent last night and watched TMNT, coupled with the lack of a few needed vehicle meshes and such, it'll probably next weekend at the earliest before the beta is released.  I'm gonna' try and spend a good part of today working on the voices, since most of my work building characters in is over. 

if the characters are done, you could release the beta, and then later make a voices patch, and vehicle patch.

Hmm, I guess I didn't say that very well ^_^, what I meant was that I'm missing some vehicle meshes, but also some character skins, etc.  Depending on how much I get done tonight, and also depending on what everybody wants, I suppose I can upload an alpha mark 2 tonight or tomorrow.  That would just be the fixes, some extra characters, meshes, skins, and a work in progress vehicle/driver set-up or two.  Would everyone be interested in that?

I'm assuming this will be compatible with your voice packs as well?  That would just pack in an extra level of awesome.

ok.  :thumbup:

Yep Cat, as a matter of fact, most of the characters are already set up to work with them, it's just a matter of me doing the rest of them, and filling in the gaps with voices from other mods (if I can get permission) and with the generics, thanks to CQ and Sledgehammer.  That'll be the last phase of my finishing this up, especially considering how many JLU episodes I still have to go through.

Quote from: BentonGrey on March 24, 2007, 12:33:21 PM
Hmm, I guess I didn't say that very well ^_^, what I meant was that I'm missing some vehicle meshes, but also some character skins, etc.  Depending on how much I get done tonight, and also depending on what everybody wants, I suppose I can upload an alpha mark 2 tonight or tomorrow.  That would just be the fixes, some extra characters, meshes, skins, and a work in progress vehicle/driver set-up or two.  Would everyone be interested in that?

I'm interested. :D

Quote from: kkhohoho on March 24, 2007, 04:48:20 PM

Quote from: BentonGrey on March 24, 2007, 12:33:21 PM
Hmm, I guess I didn't say that very well ^_^, what I meant was that I'm missing some vehicle meshes, but also some character skins, etc.  Depending on how much I get done tonight, and also depending on what everybody wants, I suppose I can upload an alpha mark 2 tonight or tomorrow.  That would just be the fixes, some extra characters, meshes, skins, and a work in progress vehicle/driver set-up or two.  Would everyone be interested in that?

I'm interested. :D

Ditto.

Okay, looks like I need to get to work tonight ;)!

Hey guys, sorry about this, but I didn't finish adding in the last members of the Doom Patrol.  My wife and I ended up renting a movie, and the night just sorta' ran out on me.   :huh:  Anyroad, what I have left shouldn't take too terribly long, so I'll probably finish it tomorrow.  I'll try and have it uploaded by around 10-ish tomorrow.

BG

Im in the S's right now, just finished up shining knight.  I must say Ive never heard of silent majority before.

Hey man, glad to know you're still keeping at it.  Yeah, Silent Majority is just in on a whim from myself.  I know nothing about him, and I have none of the rest of the characters from his team in the mod, but I just think he's cool.  I mean, Silent Majority as a name for a guy who can clone, and who rarely speaks.....pure genuis!  Haha, well, as far as his back story, all I could find was this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Majority_(comics)

However, I would just say what little that has about him, but leave out all of his history, merely mentioning that he works for the government as part of Project Cadmus.

Okay guys, I'm sorry I've been such a bum, but work has been really tough lately, and all I feel like doing at the end of the day is coming home and laying down.  I really don't feel much like doing Freedom Force stuff.  However, I have managed to wrap up most of the things I was working on for the Alpha V2.  This has all of the fixes that were necessary, and the Golden Age JSAers...make that, MY version of them, as you won't see any Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Batman, or Wonder Woman in this group.  The whole idea behind this project is to create my own, cleaner version of continuity, and the modern backstory of the Hawks is WAY too convoluted, so that's why I'm going with the Silver Age version.  Anyroad, Elasti-Girl and Mento of the Doom Patrol are also finished, but Robotman and Negative Man...well, I just haven't found the time or energy to add them yet.  I'll probably work on this a little bit during the week, but I don't think I'll get much done until the weekend.  I hope y'all understand, but I did want to get the bug-fixed version out, at least.  I'll post the sendspace link here when it's finished uploading, but it'll only be useful if you've already downloaded all of the earlier files.

The new mesh pack: http://www.sendspace.com/file/b2maan

The new mod folder: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pod4bn

Sorry guys, Sendspace was acting werid for a while, but we're set now.

Will the packaged version be released anytime soon?

I'm asking because it's a pain to have to reset the directory of all templates (again), since they are set to C:\ and my Freedom Force stuff is on E:\...

Well, the inital plan was to wait until the final release to save myself the pain of re-setting all of the mesh directories, but seeing all of the voicepack work that still needs to be done for that...well....I'll think about it.  I'm plugging away at the beta this weekend, but I don't know if I really feel like tackling something so inherently painful.  You could just take the DC meshes and drop them in your custom folder temporarily.  I imagine that you'd like to avoid that, but it would be a quick fix.  It's a lot easier for me to edit and tweak everything with all my meshes in the custom folder.  I can have FFEdit open, tweak a power, then jump into CTool to check on an alternate animation without having to move files around.  If you have a hoss of a hardrive, you could even just copy all of the DC meshes and paste them into your custom folder.  Anyroad I will continue trying to provide a beta soon, although Quiet is helping me out with some different characters and strings, so it'll also be contingent on his schedule as well as my own lack of free time.

NOTE TO TESTERS:  Hey guys, please take a hard look at Dr. Light, I know nothing about him and I have a sneaking suspicion that I haven't done him justice.

The only issue I noticed with Dr. Light is that you forgot to give him summon (megaman). Other than that, it's cool. =X

Wha?  Megamen?  Like I said, I don't know anything about him, so if you want to illucidate, I'd be willing to go back and update him.

Quote from: BentonGrey on March 30, 2007, 11:17:37 AM
Wha?  Megamen?  Like I said, I don't know anything about him, so if you want to illucidate, I'd be willing to go back and update him.

Meh... You never heard of Megaman, the video game series? That was just a joke I made because, in the video game, the creator of Megaman is also called Dr. Light.

Edit: By the way, I don't know nothing about Dr. Light either. The only information I have about him is what is on Wikipedia.

LOL, you know, for a moment I was like, 'does he mean the video game character,' but I decided that it was some actual power of Dr. Light's. :P

Heh... Megaman... funny....

Dr. Light is a low- powered Green Lantern. He can do very simple constructs, but it uses a lot of his power. He usually just uses it for beams, blasts, and a weak force field.

He can absorb light energy with ease and presision, even to the point of absorbing the yellow sun energy from Superman, making him temporarily human!

For a while, he had control over the entire energy spectrum. He once converted the Electric Blus Superman to radio waves and shot him into space.

The guy used to be a compitant crook, but had his brain scrambled by Zatanna, so now he's just a C- list goof villian.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Hitman, that is a help.  I actually just read a story with him in it in the Green Lantern archives I'm going through, so I have a bit better idea about him.

Well guys...I've been thinking today, a dangerous occurence at the best of times, and I had an idea that I would like your opinions on.  For me to finish this thing completely, voices and everything, it would take a few more months.  Would you prefer it if I released it before I finished the voices, and they came in a seperate pack, or packs, as they were completed?  This wouldn't ensure the release of the mod tomorrow, but it would shorten the time between the beta and the final to weeks, instead of months.  I still have to sort through the FX and finish the EZScript missions that I'm including in the final release.  What do y'all say?  (I'd like to hear opinions from those waiting on the final release as well as my testers, if anyone is watching this thread.)

If it'll shorten the time between the beta and the final, I say release it the way it is.

It's never a bad idea to release it unfinished so to speak, then add 'patches' i.e. upgrades so long as they are  installed simply. Which reminds me, have you considered using a file installer instead of files that have to be unzipped and manually placed? I used to use one for my attributes before they were included in FFX and I provided the installer for TMX's FF1 AI modifications. Can't remember where I got it from (PREM!!!!!), I'll see if I can locate it.

Thanks for the feedback guys, and Shazam, I am planning on changing the format of the mod for the final release.  It'll be a self-contained mod file (ugh, I'm dreading resetting everything :P), but yes, I would consider using an installer.

sweet hope it'll have alot of missions ;)

I don't believe this is a traditional mod...I think it just adds meshes, fx, and skins...think Giant addon that provides tons of content that you dont have to track down and find. Though, I may be wrong

That's pretty much right, Previsionary, although I do have plans to release various EZScript adventures.  If you look back through the thread a page or two, you'll find a description of that.

Howdy guys, I just thought I'd drop a line in here, let y'all know that I'm not asleep at the helm.  Unfortunately my time is really limited during the week, and this past weekend was Easter, and my wife's family stayed with us, so I didn't get much done.  However, I thought you might like to know what I've been doing with my time, so here's a run-down.  Mostly I've been working on building in the last of the hold-over characters and adjusting those that need tweaks.  Here's what I've done since shortly before the last release:

I've finished-

Doom Patrol:
Mento
Elasti-Girl
Negative Man
Robot Man

Other Characters:
The Brain
Forager
High Father
Gordanians
Adam Strange
Hector Hammond
Devilance
Livewire
Mad Hatter (adjusted to new mesh)
The Shade (powers)
The Key
Per Degaton
Circe
Major Force
Manhunter Robot
Animal Man
Floronic Man
Multiplex

CSA:
Barracuda
Ultraman
Superwoman
Johnny Quick
Owlman
Power Ring


What haven't I finished and why?

Quite a lot, unfortunately...

New Characters:
Mantis - awaiting KS' skin and hex
White Martians? - can't think of a mesh or skin for the life of me, need suggestions
Deep Six - On KS' list
Forever People - ""
Fastback- ""
Lonar the Wanderer - ""
Alana Strange - Just have to add her once I recieve her mesh
Rannian Soldier - 'Ol KS
Major Disaster - Awaiting TAP43's hex and skin
Giganta - Awaiting...something, either a hex or a skoped version
Evil Star - KS is considering this fellow's henchmen

(Let me state very clearly that I am not being slowed down by Kissaints, or anything like that, I don't mean to imply that at all by saying that I'm "waiting" on his skin.  Instead, it's quite the opposite, as this project wouldn't even be possible without him.  The man is a skinning machine, and I merely mean that these things are coming, and will be here soon. (meaning that I will then have no excuse not to do them :P)

Characters to Adjust:
Batman (vehicle, waiting on Syn's beautiful Batmobile mesh)
Robin ("")
Batgirl ("")
Blue Beetle ("", but waiting on skin for Bearded's awesome mesh)
Booster Gold (sidekick-ify Skeets)
Toyman Plane (add bounding boxes)
Green Arrow/Speedy (limited arrows)
Hawkman (weapons: I'm going to give him shapeshifter, and allow him to switch between armaments!  However, this means I have to find time to finish skoping the various forms)
Steppenwolf (adjust to new mesh)

As far as the vehicle tweaks go, I've mostly just got to sit down this weekend and figure out how that whole thing works.  Thor Reborn and Em were both trying to help me, and I'll pick it back up soon.

Well, there you are, that's how far we are from a final test version.  Not too insurmountable of a distance.  Ohh!  And all of the strings are done, thanks mostly to the indefatigueable Quiet, who knocked them out his half in ridiculous time! 

Well I just finished the Rannian Soldiers. Here's a peak. I am hoping to upload alot of the stuff you need from me over the weekend. Been working on my truck and my wife's car. So my Wednesday off was shot. But did manage to put the finishing touches on these guys.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/RannSoldiers.jpg)

Hey, if you don't have him yet... how about some Tasmanian Devil?
Probably should find a mesh for his weredevil form... But if you want that, let me know.

Hmm.... I thought there had been a mesh for Impossible Man. That would've worked for white martians. Unfortunately, I can't find it. Maybe it was only a skin....
My other suggestion would be to use the Martian Jon Jonnz mesh and hex or skope off the cape, collar and bootcuffs.

Is there a real character called Barrcuda for DC Comics Earth-2 characters? If it my What IF one that's super cool. If not, I'd really like to see other design of the character. He was possibly my favorite "Take a throw away Dc idea and skin it" creation though Venusian Womanhunter was very close. I'm looking foward to this add-on pak.

Quote from: yell0w_lantern on April 12, 2007, 02:11:41 PM
Hmm.... I thought there had been a mesh for Impossible Man. That would've worked for white martians. Unfortunately, I can't find it. Maybe it was only a skin....
My other suggestion would be to use the Martian Jon Jonnz mesh and hex or skope off the cape, collar and bootcuffs.

There is a Impossible Man mesh (sort of) it was a hex I did which went down with GPL but it was originally by...you know what I dont know who did the original hex.

Did you find someone to take care of Giganta for you?   Classes have started back up for me, so between them and work, and family, and other issues, time is really limited.   However, If you send me what you have for her, I will take a look at the mesh and see if my limited skills can do anything in regards to NifSkoping it. 


Edit: Also, did you get that skin I sent you? Did it turn out alright? Like I said, I had no way of previewing it, but if it didn't work out, I'd be more than happy to make other arrangements.

Hey KS, that looks fantastic!  Great work on the soliders, nice variety of faces.  I wouldn't worry too much about uploading stuff for me, I've still got a dozen or more things to do before I'll be actually 'waiting' on a skin or hex of yours to have something to do. ^_^

Unko, I'm not a terribly big fan of the character, if you'd like to talk about it more, feel free to PM me.

I'm looking for something visually distinct from J'onn himself, who is Impossible Man?

Yep, AA, that's your 'what if' version.  I loved it, and decided that he needed to be included.  If you'd like, I'm curious as to your ideas as to who he is and what he does, you know, origin and such.  Drop me a line.

I still need a Giganta...probably.

:EDIT: Flash, I got that skin, and it was perfect, nice work.  I want to wait another day or so, to hear back on a PM, but if that doesn't work out, I'll send you what I've got on Giganta.

Should be no problem.

Thanks YL, I appreciate it!

Giganta_classic_yl is in my possession, if you want that.

I believe that Revenant has a current Giganta on Freedom Asylum.

Thanks Paradox, it's actually that mesh that I'm using, and Yellow Lantern has agreed to take a shot at hexing it to another size or two.  I'm usually not too much of a fan of the modern apperances of characters, but thanks for the tip. ^_^

Quote from: kssaints on April 11, 2007, 09:56:32 PM
Well I just finished the Rannian Soldiers. Here's a peak. I am hoping to upload alot of the stuff you need from me over the weekend. Been working on my truck and my wife's car. So my Wednesday off was shot. But did manage to put the finishing touches on these guys.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/kssaints/RannSoldiers.jpg)

cool rannian soldiers kssaints!

I had a really awesome write-up on Barracuda but it died with the board one of these times. However I will find my hero file and explain who he is too me in a bit. I need to finally go to bed.

Sounds great AA, I'm very curious.  It looks from your design that he's Black Manta recast as the King of Atlantis.

Quote from: BentonGrey on April 14, 2007, 02:12:38 PM
Sounds great AA, I'm very curious.  It looks from your design that he's Black Manta recast as the King of Atlantis.

Yeah he's Black Manta but he was a pirate who has waged war on King Orin and Atlantis and claimed the kingdom as his own. Pretty much he was Aquaman via science (think currently Aquaman's serum story) and technological enhancement (his scythe arm). He can also conduct electricity from his scythe (sort of like Aquaman from that issues of JLA: Earth-2 but actual electricity rather than a zip line that shocked people). So I'd go with the stats from Aquaman plus some electric attacks.

Hey AA, thanks for the run-down, how does this sound to you?

[spoiler]barracuda_DESC2_01, the man known as the barracuda was a ruthless pirate, his name struck fear into the hearts of all who dared to travel the seas, but he was not content to rule above the waves. he discovered the peaceful kingdom of atlantis, and waged a long and bloody war for control of the sub-surface nation. now he rules 3/4ths of the surface of his world with an iron fist, maintaining an uneasy alliance with the crime syndicate of amerika![/spoiler]

I'm afraid I can't really get any longer than that, because of the blasted space constraints of the bios, but do you think that captures the flavor of this fellow?

:EDIT:  I've finished some more characters:

Alanna Sardath/Strange
Rannian Soliders
Keymen
Giganta
Steppenwolf

I've been toying with Green Arrow, but I can't quite decide what I want to do with him.  I'm tempted just to give him battery powered, but I can't decide.  Trick Shot seems like a great attribute, but already having set up his powers, I'd hate to let them go to waste. :P  Any thoughts?

Also, I've been thinking about changing the way I handle martial artists.  Currently they have a zero cost punch and a low cost combo, but I've been debating on whether or not to make their combo their zero cost power, since it would make them much more effective in melee (as well as getting past that infernal energy system).  One downside to this would be more balancing work later, while another would mean a severe shortage of powers for most pure brawlers.  Thoughts?

sounds great

Just an update for those keeping track, I've now added in and updated just about everything that I've got skins and meshes for.  The vehicles are giving me no end of trouble, so I'll probably leave them out, they may not make an apperance until a later patch for the final. <_<  However, I've also added in the Metal Men, Ambush Bug, and some of the Ultimen.  I'd really like some feedback on them in my herofile thread if anyone has any ideas.  I've added a couple of guys to my list, and will probably do them tonight: Vandal Savage and T.O.Morrow.  I'll welcome any input with these fellows.  Also, I never got any kind of a response about my martial artist question, and I'd rather not just fly blind here.

Ohh, and I settled on Battery Powered for Green Arrow and Co.

I say leave martial arts the way it is. If you give a zero-cost combo to the characters, the difference in damage output between melee combat and ranged combat will be so big that it'll make ranged attacks neglectable in most cases.

Thanks for the feedback Blitz, that makes sense.  I'm much more inclined to leave them as is.  Do you feel like the standard human brawlers, like Wildcat, etc. are well enough represented?  Maybe I should add a 'throw' attack, hmm?

Throw attacks are pretty sweet. If you are using Ren's sweet mesh, it comes with that shove animation so you might as well use that...

Anyhow, for martial artists I would never give them a zero cost combo unless it was set to very low. I have a couple guys with low damage, two hits as their zero cost (I like the way it spreads out damage), but that's it. I'd say you could just give them slightly more energy. With melee guys I take energy to represent stamina, and with powered guys to represent how much they can push their powers. I'm sure you'll find a way, though.

In addition, FFX 3.2 will include two grades of a new attribute (the name was still being played with) designed for this kind of character that boosts all damage.

I think the current version was the unfixed one with way too much damage, though.

Ahh?  That might work to give someone like Wildcat a slight edge, without really jacking up his damage.  Thanks for the update Cat!

Thanks for the feedback Unko, I suppose I should do just that.

If it's working properly, the minor version adds 25% to all damage, and the major version 50%.  The original versions posted to the forums were 50 and 100%, but I figured that was too extreme.  The code is VERY easy to adjust.

I think in the public beta they are called Combat Skill and Chi Power, but I can't remember if they are the fixed versions or not.

Quote from: BentonGrey on April 28, 2007, 09:32:17 AM
Thanks for the feedback Blitz, that makes sense.  I'm much more inclined to leave them as is.  Do you feel like the standard human brawlers, like Wildcat, etc. are well enough represented?  Maybe I should add a 'throw' attack, hmm?

I think a throw attack'd be great for guys like Bronze Tiger and Wildcat. They need something to at least help them run away from those invulnerability 20+ monsters they can't/can barely hurt. Either that or a "nerve strike", like the one you gave Wildcat.

I think combat skill/chi power are way too extreme for even the mightiest martial artists. Blitzkrieg gives a good enough bonus already, IMO. Speaking of blitzkrieg, BG, I think you should consider giving it to Flash, too. It'd serve to simulate the extra inertia his super speed adds to his attacks, and just make him all-round more useful, from a combat stand-point.

I've considered Blitzkreig for various characters, and I have always felt that it seems too powerful.  Perhaps I should reconsider it, but then The Flash would absolutely demolish EVERYONE who wasn't invulnerable.  (Yeah, yeah, I suppose that is more realistic, but is that also more fun? :P)

QuoteI think combat skill/chi power are way too extreme for even the mightiest martial artists.

25% damage is too extreme?  That adds up to 1-2 more points in most cases.  Not that much IMO.

One or two hitpoints, huh?  That sounds really perfect for the martial artists Cat.

Quote from: catwhowalksbyhimself on April 28, 2007, 08:00:27 PM

QuoteI think combat skill/chi power are way too extreme for even the mightiest martial artists.

25% damage is too extreme?  That adds up to 1-2 more points in most cases.  Not that much IMO.

You're absolutely right. My bad.

It's just that I remember giving combat skill (expert) to a custom character and it dramatically improved the damage he inflicted. Maybe I used the unfixed version or something like that.

Just out of curiosity, how are you handling the Metal Men?

And will this mod be based only primarily in the classic DC universe in the modern time period or will it branch out into other areas--the Old West tales, LSH era, Vertigo characters, etc.?

Hey CF, you'll find a much more full description of my plans in the first post in this thread, but in brief, this is my take on DCU.  As such, it isn't any ONE thing, it's a combination of classic DC, some modern, and a heaping helping of animated continuity.  I'm seeking something that I've never found in the comics, something that I've only seen in the works of Bruce Timm.  I'm after my ideal, my vision of what the DCU should be, and since I can't find it anywhere else, I'm building it myself.  You won't see the Legion here, mostly because I don't really know them and there are so many of them!  I might do some western heroes later, since I do love Jonah Hex, but for the moment it's pretty much based on JLU as far as its roster, with several exceptions.  You won't see any Vertigo characters, as I've never much cared for them. 

The Metal Men....well, I just found some herofiles (by, I THINK Taskmaster X) and added them in.  I didn't change them overly much, but if you've got any ideas, please post in my thread in the herofile section.  I would deffinetly like some input since my only experience with them is from JLA Year One and Justice.

:EDIT: Quick update, I've now finished:

Vandal Savage
T.O. Morrow
T.O. Morrow Robot
Rocket Red
Wind Dragon

And I think I've got Red Tornado where he should be.

That leaves me with Shifter, Downpour, and Longshadow.  There the only characters left that I have skins and meshes for.

Quote:EDIT: Quick update, I've now finished:

Vandal Savage
T.O. Morrow
T.O. Morrow Robot
Rocket Red
Wind Dragon

Hey Benton, are you using the Rocket Red 'Skoped mesh that I did? If so I have the updated version with the reflections turned on if you want it.   I just never got around to uploading to my yahoo group.

Why yes I am Flash, and that would be great!  I'll send you a PM with my email.

Got your pm, and I'll send it tonight.

Quote from: BentonGrey on February 19, 2007, 02:38:38 PM


Now, I'm not going to try and put EVERY DC character into this, partially because I don't have the time, and also because there are several that I simply don't like or won't have in my version of continuity.  Ha, for example, you'll never see Nightwing in anything I produce ^_^  Still, does this sound like something that people would be interested in? 

i had time to read the first post
no nightwing!? gah! :o

Haha, sorry kiddo, but I never cared for the direction they took the Bat family.  I want to see Robin go the way he did pre-crisis, becoming his own man, but still owning his heritage.

Howdy guys, I'm still plugging along here, making good progress (I think, at least). ;)  I have now finished and added:

Supergirl
Powergirl
Metal Men
Fisherman
Alexander Luthor
Rocket Red (did I already mention him?)

KS is almost done with the Kirby characters, so I'll be adding in the Forever People and co. before too long, which means that the beta will be released before too long.  With that in mind, I need to ask for a volunteer.  I need one of my testers to do some checking for me, and it's going to be something of a hassle.  It might be easier if you divided it up amongst you.  Either way, here is what I need.  I can't release a public version of this with all the FX I've got, as some of them I don't have permission for, sooooo, I need someone to back up their fx.dat, then move their fx/generic folder (so the game doesn't know where it is) and install EZFX.  Then, re-merge and tell me which FX are missing.  I know I've updated Green Arrows, cobbled Robin's together from Ren's .nifs, and updated the Batarangs.  Most of the rest of them SHOULD be alright, as I've tried to avoid using random fx just for this reason, but I need to know what will be broken, so I can ship it with only a small fx pack.  Any takers?

Quote
It's just that I remember giving combat skill (expert) to a custom character and it dramatically improved the damage he inflicted. Maybe I used the unfixed version or something like that.

Yup, it was unfixed.  As I said, I think the public Beta is still the broken version.

Well guys...anyone?  Ha, well hopefully someone will be willing to do it once the beta is released.

I'd do it, but I'm not very good at messing with FX. I can try, if nobody else volunteers.

All you'd have to do is make a copy of your fx.dat, and install EZFX.  Then you can just go into the game and see which character's FX aren't showing up.

Cool, then. I guess I can do it.

Great man, I really appreciate it.  That will allow me to go ahead and start working on the FX I need to adjust.

IMPORTANT: I've just remembered why I didn't want to make my characters 'campaign only,' because they automatically start out with their powers leveled up.  Is there any way to change this?  I'd like all of my characters to have level 1 powers, instead of level 3, but I'd also like for them to be easily selectable in the villains/heroes menus.  Any ideas?

All built-ins powers are always level 3 if they have any powers after that in the same Tier.  This is fixed and unchangable.

Curses....well....hmm....I suppose that means that they'll all be non-campaign only.  That's darned frustrating.  Thanks Cat, I was afraid of that.

Hey guys, for those of you who are keeping score at home, I've now got the follow characters finished:

Fastback
Mantis

The Forever People:
Vykin
Mark Moonrider
Big Bear
Beautiful Dreamer

Hey, Benton. I think It'd be cool if you set all the characters to "campaign only". That way, the characters list'd be more organized, and you also wouldn't have to worry so much about the invulnerability levels, since the heroes would be inflicting more damage. The only con I can think off is that characters without invulnerability would be REALLY screwed in most situations.

Quote from: Blitzgott on May 09, 2007, 09:25:27 AM
Hey, Benton. I think It'd be cool if you set all the characters to "campaign only". That way, the characters list'd be more organized, and you also wouldn't have to worry so much about the invulnerability levels, since the heroes would be inflicting more damage. The only con I can think off is that characters without invulnerability would be REALLY screwed in most situations.

Benton has already stated that the characters will be non-campaign because of technical issues.  Look up in the thread a bit.

Oh... I see.

Sorry about it.

Yeah guys, it's really killing me, I went through and 'campaign only-ed' all of 'em, and it was so nice.......BUT since everyone's powers were pumped up (espeically their passive defences) everything was wonky, balance wise.  I played a game as the Aqua-foes against 'ol Arthur, and he DESTROYED me, because nothing I had could get past his PD's.

Ohh, and Blitzgott, thanks so much for making up that FX list for me, now I know I've got quite a lot of work ahead of me in that department, I can go ahead and take care of it.  Thanks man!

:EDIT:  Another updates, Serifan, Longshadow and Infinity Man are now all added in.  That means that the Forever People and the Ultimen are complete!

Hey guys, just another quick update for those following along, I've now updated about half of the characters that use flying melee with TaskmasterX's hexed kf's, and I have now finished the swimming versions of all of my underwater characters.  Plus, Queen Mera has been added, along with Aquagirl (Tula), and Tempest.  Mera could honestly use a bit more work, and I'm debating giving Tempest the spellcaster attribute.  Just how powerful of a sorceror is he?  Another concern is I don't want him to overshadow 'ol Arthur, and he's already pretty powerful.  I could use some suggestions on how to implement Mera's hard water powers as well.  So far she's got an area 'tidal wave' attack, physical guardian, a high knockback water beam, and a bubble trap.

Howdy guys, I'm still trying to come up with ways to expand Mera's powers, so I'm open to suggestions!

On another note, I'm alsmost done with the first couple of issues of the Batman 'comic.'  I'm just trying to iron out a couple different problems, but after that I'll have at least SOMETHING that can ship with the final version.

Related to that, I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how to go about setting up the comics for the loading screens in between levels.  I have some idea from looking at the mods I have, but I'd really love it if someone could point me in the direction of a walkthrough.

I don't know much about Mera. From what I've read and heard about her, tho, I believe she could have most green lantern powers.


Good to know you're already working on the EZ Script missions, Benton. Looking forward to it!

Why would Aquaman's wife have Green Lantern's powers?

I think that he means she can create hard water constructs similar to GL's hard light constructs.  Hmm...maybe I should talk to some of the artists who have been helping me about making some 'water' skins for some summonable minions?

I'm glad you're excited about the comics Blitz, I'm pretty excited with making them.  I'm honestly having a blast....provided things work.... :wacko:

Alright guys, I'm back in town and I'll be back to work on DCU asap!  After KS finishes the last of those skins, I will be just about done.

Awesome BG. Looking forward to your mod especially the underwater parts of it. It sounds like it's going to be a great mod. Thanks for all your hard work. It keeps interest in the game going.

Is there any way that I could get a copy of the DC mod to check out?   I've been following this thread for quite a while and I'd love to see how it's going.

Hey man, I'm pretty close to a public beta release pretty soon, I've decided to skip the second round of testing.  I'm just waiting on a few more things from some of my contributors.

That's awesome Benton, from what I've read, I'm really enthusiastic about getting to play this one.   Good Luck.

ooo I just can't wait

hey benton send me a pm (lost all my pc data)

If one of them is me... Ohznoez! I'll get a bunch done on Friday, probably.

I'm going to PM you with a question about this though.

What sort of download size are you looking at for the beta?

Haha........big, I'm not sure exactly how big, but there are a LOT of meshes.

wow alot sounds like 13 meshes!!!!
or 14!!!

there's more than likely more than 13-14 meshes in this mod. I'd be willing to bet there's over 50...and from my experiences...that's quite a few Megs...40-600 or so depending on the individual sizes (not including skins beyond the standard). That's unzipped of course.

maybe 30ish? :blink:

Quote from: Raijin on June 22, 2007, 11:09:29 PM
maybe 30ish? :blink:

I've tested an older version, which probally has less meshes in it then the later version, and the version I tested had many meshes.  13-14 meshes isn't a lot, especially compared to Benton's mod.  I didn't do a complete count, but I think it for sure has at least 50-60 meshes, and by now, there's probally quite a few more.

Quote from: kkhohoho on June 22, 2007, 11:22:08 PM

Quote from: Raijin on June 22, 2007, 11:09:29 PM
maybe 30ish? :blink:

I've tested an older version, which probally has less meshes in it then the later version, and the version I tested had many meshes.  13-14 meshes isn't a lot, especially compared to Benton's mod.  I didn't do a complete count, but I think it for sure has at least 50-60 meshes, and by now, there's probally quite a few more.

whoa thats alot of megabytes eh?

Yeah, I forget the character count, somewhere over two hundred by now, I would imagine, not counting multiple versions of some characters.  So, count on at least a third as many meshes as characters, probably more.

Well, just another 'I'm not dead' message.  I've finally gotten around to adding in the Deep Six and updating all of my flying characters to Taskmaster X's wonderful hexed KF's (they now look like they are actually swinging, which is pretty awesome) and I'm just about set.  I think I'm only waiting on three things.  Then I've still got to do all that freakin' FX stuff.......but that shouldn't take more than a slow weekend. 

:EDIT: The 1000 Director and his soldiers are also now added in and I've started to work on the whole FX issue.

I somehow managed to forget to add Dr. Polaris, Evil Star, Felix Faust, and Jericho, so they'll be added today.

On another note, I've been mostly working on the EZScript comics, and I've gotten four of the Batman adventures finished (somewhere around halfway through the story) and I've done a couple one-shots with Green Arrow and Hawkman that will probably tie back into their ongoing series when I get around to it.  I'm also trying to work up the will to start my JLA run, but just haven't gotten into it yet.  The lack of maps is killing me!

Quote from: BentonGrey on July 18, 2007, 10:33:19 AM
I somehow managed to forget to add Dr. Polaris, Evil Star, Felix Faust, and Jericho, so they'll be added today.

On another note, I've been mostly working on the EZScript comics, and I've gotten four of the Batman adventures finished (somewhere around halfway through the story) and I've done a couple one-shots with Green Arrow and Hawkman that will probably tie back into their ongoing series when I get around to it.  I'm also trying to work up the will to start my JLA run, but just haven't gotten into it yet.  The lack of maps is killing me!

What EZcomics are you currently planning to work on?

Happy to tell you Kkhohoho.  I think I mentioned this somewhere....but I haven't a clue where.  Aside from an ongoing Batman title, the first story-arc of which I'm somewhere close to half-way through with, my to-do list looks like this:

Hawkman: origin onward (not to put too fine a point on it :D), I'm going to re-tell a lot of Silver Age Hawkman stories, and eventually go into my own version of the Rann/Thanagar war.  One of my prime goals is to start with a clean slate, continuity wise using the Silver Age version as my base.
Brave and the Bold: my catch-all, team up two or more heroes every issue for some fun one shots.  I have a couple of ideas already involving The Atom, the Flash, Batman, and Mr. Miracle
The Question: Uncover a military conspiracy that is setting up puppet politicians and using scare tactics to get them elected, and in a second story arc, he teams up with Blue Beetle to stop a nihilist cult from destroying a museum (taken from a classic story).
The Flash: origin onward (this one's not as important to me as the Hawkman one.
Green Lantern: origin onward (ditto, but a higher priority than Flash 'cause I feel he needs more correction)
Justice League: I'm going to retell the White Martian invasion from JLU, and basically use that as my base.  I'll try and fill in some gaps, make some changes, so on and so-forth.  I want to tell the origin of Red Tornado, do a cross-over with the JSA (strictly Golden Age) where they fight Per Degaton.  I'll do some Earth-2 CSA crossovers too.  As far as I'm concerned, JLU is 85% canon, very little deviation, so I'll just sorta' use this to let us play some of those adventures, re-tell a few, and then just fill in gaps and continue afterward.
Aquaman: origin onward (this is my big one, this is the story that is going to be wildly different from the comics, because I feel that even though some writers have gotten him right, they've had their hands tied by bad story-telling decisions that went before them.)
Mr. Miracle: Just some random adventures where he has to escape from some places.
Blue and Gold: I'd like to do a couple of adventures with these guys, but I don't have any ideas at the moment.
Green Arrow: I'd like to re-tell some of his stories, and right some of those wrongs (especially the atrocities that were those issues in the early 70's).  I want Ollie to be a modern Robin Hood, fighting the fat cats, looking out for the little guy, but not be so ridiculously left wing he can't have a conversation with his best friend.

There are a few others kicking around in my head that I'd like to dabble with (Suicide Squad, Gotham Villains, the Cruel and the Covetous or the Vicious and the Villainous (a villains team-up), Superman, several 'events' where you play through a campaign in multiple 'books,' a Robin solo, New Gods....yeah...so more than a few...)

I'm very open to suggestions, and I love to kick ideas around.  Aquaman is the only character who I have a whole over-arching story laid out for yet (although the Hawks are close), so there is a lot open.

I have an idea.  Some sort of big timespace continuum riff could occur, bringing together heroes and villains from various parts of the continuum.  It could be done in several ways.  Firstly, the characters could be from various places of time in your version of DC continuty, and could give you the opurtunity to explain various past details you might want to cover, or delve into characters that you might not want to make an ongoing issue for, but perhaps focus on at least once, and this setup could allow you to do more then one or two characters at a time.  You could also introduce characters in "The Brave and the Bold", but some characters may have died in the past, so you wouldn't be able to do characters's you've deemed dead by now unless you disrespect the dead like many comicbooks have and bring that character back to life.

Another way is having the characters of your continuty meet with the characters from DC comics, from various times and places, and this would allow you to compare.  For example, your Hawkman and the current comics Hawkman.  Your Aquaman and the current comics Aquaman.  Your Batman and the comics Batman that always said "I've planned for this" whenever danger reared it's ugly head.

I also have another idea.  It's not because I think it would the most interesting thing in the world though.  You see, the Teen Titans had some good stuff back in the 80's, good enough that some of it has been reprinted in the modern era in TPB's.  The new comic used to be all right.  Nowadays, the're not being handled that well, and also, if you want to do a Robin solo, you might as well do this since Batman will probally both have a solo and be in the JLA.  You've also already made TT herofiles as well.

Yeah, I definitely want to do some time traveling stories, and the JSA/JLA crossover is going to be just that.  I should have LOTS of different characters, from Jonah Hex to Booster Gold.  Per Degaton will be the main villain, and I should be able to have tons of fun playing with different characters. 

As for crossing over to the mainstream DC, I don't think I'll do that, as I'm afraid I couldn't be fair in my comparisons...too bitter. ;)

Ahh, I knew I was forgetting something!  Yes, I DEFINITELY plan on doing some stories with the Titans.....eventually.....one day.....maybe......haha, I just feel like, because of the pure awesomeness that was the Teen Titans mod (made by people who know and love the Titans much more than I), they aren't in nearly as much need as a lot of other characters.  My version will be different, however, it won't be the classic team, nor will it be the new team.  It'll be an amalgam of both.

Maybe one of the Brave and Bold eps could be with Superman and Ambush Bug. Hilarity will follow.

Haha, well, I don't know that I'd be up to writing that one, I don't know that I know Ambush Bug well enough.  Ohh, and towards the end of my GL storyline, I'm going to try and do a version of the Corps. Wars.  I'm very intrigued by the storyline that's going on now.

If you ever need help with him, I do own all his solo comics, and three of his six appearances before that. So, yeah, I'm a bit into Ambush Bug.

hey grey is kidflash in it?!

LOL, well Unko, I'll tell you what.  If you want to write up a short story idea, I'll EZScript it up to say thanks for all the help you've given me!  ;)

Yep, XLR8er, Kid Flash is definitely in it, but it's the Wally West version.  (Although if I keep telling stories long enough, which would be a REALLY long time, I'd eventually have Wally claim the mantle and a young man named Bart become KF)

Just for those of you following along at home, I've now added in Dr. Polaris, Evil Star, Felix Faust, Jericho, plus some Atlantian and Thanagarian soldiers.

In that case, I'll do a short write up for a story that will keep close to a couple of his early appearances. I suspect you just want it all in one mission (is that how these issues things are going to play out)?

Yeah man, that's be cool.  For a character like this that I don't have a ton of personal interest in, I'd like to keep it to one mission for the effort and time sake, but as far as 'issue' in my comic stories is concerned, it might be one mission or a handful.  The second issue of my Batman series is two missions, for example.

Hmm.....I have a hypothetical question for all and sundry.  And I DO mean hypothetical.  Would anyone be interested in a free-roam Batman version of Patriot City?  Reading the 'what games do you wish they would make' thread got me thinking about it.  I wouldn't include it in the first release of DCU, but if there is a lot of interest, I might combine my Batman 'comics' with a free-roam build one day.

batman free roam city with nightwing and kidflash in it hhmmm that sounds cool!

Sorry man, perhaps you missed that bit, but there will be no Nightwing in my DCU....ever...ha, I don't care for how Dick Grayson got to be Nightwing, nor the terrible relationship between the Dynamic Duo that the character represents, even if, as Nightwing, he has had some great moments.  I'm afraid there is only one Robin in DCU according to Grey. ;)  Kid Flash, however...well, if you really wanted to recruit him, I suppose you could.

Quotethere will be no Nightwing in my DCU....ever...

Good, now maybe the joker can blow up Dick instead...  :P (I like Batman solo!)

As a big fan of freeroam, I'd have to say go for it.  It would be a good way to incorporate user submissions to the EZ Script library.

B92

Quotenor the terrible relationship between the Dynamic Duo that the character represents, even if, as Nightwing, he has had some great moments.

Actually the split up in the original version of Nightwing was apparently very amicable, with Batman very pleased that his ward had grown up to the point of going out on his own.

It was only the modern version that made the change represent a split in there relationship, although one that has apparently been mended more recently.

Quote from: catwhowalksbyhimself on July 24, 2007, 07:14:43 AM
Actually the split up in the original version of Nightwing was apparently very amicable, with Batman very pleased that his ward had grown up to the point of going out on his own.

Yup. When he made the switch, Dick made it clear that while he wanted to establish his own identity, he was also paying homage to his two great father-figures: Batman (color scheme) and Superman (code-name). And Dick personally handed his old costume over to Jason, giving his blessing for him to become the new Robin. The whole thing was very powerful and touching, but apparently not angsty enough for the post-Crisis crowd.  :rolleyes:

Well, one way or the other, the stories I want to tell, at least at first, are about Batman and Robin.  I definitely want Dick to grow up and take his own identity one day...but who knows if I'll do this long enough. ^_^

hah ha!
so richard will be in it eh?

Ohh yeah, Robin is actually tied for my favorite character with the great Bruce Wayne himself.

Hey benton,

just letting you know that I may be able to get you one or 2 more fx maybe friday (since i plan to finally finish up my captain fx), so expect something by friday or saturday. Also, good luck with all your mod work and it's nice to know you're sticking this out. :P

so whats this mod about?
is it about each dc characters getting a storyline and mission and then will met eachother and stop the leauge of villians?!!

or

its seperate

It's NOT a story based mod.  It is merely a collection of heroes and villains from the DC universe with meshes, skins, powers, and possibly voices already laid out.  EZScript missions may be put out as well, featuring individual heroes and hero groups.

Thanks Prev, that's awesome!  I really appreciate you helping me out man, I know you're busy.

Thanks Cat, I could not have said it better myself! ^_^  I think, for your webspace sake, I won't INCLUDE voices with the mod, but it will DEFINITELY be set up to work with my voices, and a whole slew of other DC and generic voices that I will (providing I can get permission for all of them) be providing somehow.

I WILL release at least the first several issues of my Batman story, and then, with any luck, several other 'comics' as well.  There won't be any one campaign, per se, but I do want to do stories with the Justice League, and a whole bunch of independent characters.  If you look back a few pages, you'll find some discussion about story ideas and direction.

Hooray!  Just another update for those who care, I finally made myself address the FX issues, and I believe that they are all sorted out now.  I have an FX pack of just a handful of FX that don't come with EZFX or simply needed updating that will be included with the mod.  Now I suppose I need to sort the tangle of sound files I have into a coherent whole, because for some reason the Subterrestrials are speaking with the female cheery's voice..........

That, those last few skins, and some tweaking on the last issue of Batman that I'm going to include, and we'll be set. 

I've recently re-campaign only-ed everyone and I'm testing to see if the adjustments I've made will make this workable.

So Benton, can you give us an estimate on when you'll release it? The anticipation is killing me.

Haha, you and me both.  My very vague estimation is by the end of this month, but that depends heavily on those last skins I need.  I'll try and do some work on the voices tonight...hopefully I can finish them by the weekend.  Then I've still got to finish this last issue of Batman, and I'm currently wrestling with writer's block.  (If anyone is a huge Batman fan who's watched TAS and feels like being a sounding board for ideas, PM me ;)).  After that, it's pretty much just a matter of packing it up.

i can't wait benton!
this mod is gonna be the mostest longest downloadin ever!!

Haha, it very well might, as it is pretty freakin' huge.  Still, I imagine Tommyboy's new FF for FFvTTR will probably outweigh mine, if only because he's included all of the FF1 objects!

Quote from: BentonGrey on August 05, 2007, 12:12:36 PM
Haha, it very well might, as it is pretty freakin' huge.  Still, I imagine Tommyboy's new FF for FFvTTR will probably outweigh mine, if only because he's included all of the FF1 objects!

Silly Benton, that mod was by alex/tommy and it weighs in at nearly 240MB zipped/exed. :P

Little known fact: meshes and objects arent the biggest contribution to size, music and sounds take the cake in that area.

Whoops!  Forgive me Alex, that was a typo, I promise. ^_^  Really?  Hmm......well maybe I won't include custom music after all.  I had toyed with the idea of one day adding in theme music to the missions.  I had some nice music from BTAS and such, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

I think a separate "sound pack" is the best way to go. I think you were going to do something with voicepacks? Anyhow, you could do a "music pack" as well, right? For those with better connections, or the time to wait, they would be able to get the extra goods.

QuoteI think a separate "sound pack" is the best way to go.

ditto

I'll have to keep that in mind Unko, thanks. 

Well guys, it took all night, but the voices are now complete.......until I get around to doing more VPs.  Still, I've updated my own collection and the Speech files, so you can now use this with the files from EZVoice, although I've had to change some.  I've also included references to DC voices in other mods, especially Teen Titans and Suicide Squad.  We'll see about releasing a DC voicepack one day, but until then most of those files can just be dropped right into your main directory and they should work with DCUG.  Yay!

Howdy guys!  Just a heads up, I'll be out of town until the end of next week, so if you send me messages, have questions, or whatever, I won't be able to respond until then.  The wife and I won a trip to Niagra Falls! 

As far as mod news goes, I'm still making progress, but it's slower than I'd like.

Alrighty guys, I've been chipping away at the mountain of work, and I'm pretty happy with the results.  I'm aiming for a release this weekend, but that may be a bit unrealistic.  Either way, this should definitely be out next weekend. 

Lately I've added about a dozen more characters, off the top of my head they include:

Kobra
Kobra Death Adders
O.G.R.E. Enforcers
Lois Lane
Jimmy Olsen
(Many other support characters for the mod minded)
Electrocutioner
Copperhead

And a few others I can't remember.  I've also finished the first 'issue' of a Question story arc.  I've been holding off on some of the other planned comics because of a lack of maps, but hopefully those will be more available after release.  I'd like to ship with a few more adventures for various characters, and I have a Hawkman and girl adventure almost done, and a few Green Arrow and Speedy adventures.  I'd also LOVE to have the beginning of an Atom story arc, but we'll see.

Sweet....
I'm excited.

*ishappy*  :thumbup:

Alright, so...aparently Grey forgot all about the 165 pages of reading he has to do before tuesday......so....umm.....next week it is!  Still, I'm really close to being done.  If I finish another comic issue, great, if not....oh well!  I've got all the characters added, and now it's pretty much just clean up work I have to do.  I'll try and work on it this week, and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to release the public beta by Sunday!

I just can wait...

Congratulations Benton, this is going to be BIG!!!

:thumbup:

Sounds very very exciting.

It's monday ! where's my precious?  :lol:

Haha, I suppose I should have been more clear, that was this COMING sunday. :P

Thanks for the excitement guys, it's really encouraging to see that people are actually waiting for this!

Imalonsof, yeah, it will be 'big,' I'm afraid it's going to be massive...in download size, that is. ^_^

I'm really stoked about seeing this.   Thanks for putting in all the hard work on this mod Benton.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this, even though it's for  :ffvstr:   I had always intended to do the same thing you're doing, one for DC and one for Marvel.  You've inspired me to at least dust off my Marvel plans for  :ff: so cheers for that.   :thumbup:

Well RMT, I had eventually planned to get around to Marvel....but after this, I don't know that it will ever happen.  If you'd like any help, please let me know!

Just a real quick update.  I'm doing alright on my schedule, but we'll see how it looks tomorrow.  I've got some more testing to do with my Batman issues, and #5 may not be included in this release if I can't figure it out.  HOWEVER, I just finished JLA Issue #1!  It's somewhat misleadingly named as it's actually about Martian Manhunter........well.......you'll see.  Still, that's another comic adventure completely ready to ship!

:EDIT: Ohh, and I would really like someone to help me with the opening screen and such, but if no one volunteers, then I'll just make do until I have the time/energy to tackle it.

What kind of opening are you wanting, Benton?  Are you re-skinning the standard  :ffvstr: nif or using a different one?  Not a fan of the spinning, personally.

I'm not a big fan of the spinning either, but I've got a really nice image of Alex Ross's cover for Crisis on Infinite Earths, and it's the right length for that kind of thing.  I could really go either way.  EVENTUALLY, I want to have all custom images, but with a release date of tomorrow night, I don't think I've really got time to do that in the Beta.  My friend apparently FINALLY found my copy of Photoshop, and it's supposedly on its way here.  So hopefully, I'll be able to do a lot of the rest of the leg work myself.  Eventually I'd like to replace all the loading screens and such, ESPECIALLY for my 'comic' missions.

Sir Benton,

the premo is just wishing you luck on reaching your release date and I'm glad you worked through most, if not all, of your problems with this huge DC add-on/mod. Maybe you can take over my projects next. ^_^

LOL......ha, if you want them done badly, maybe so. ;)  Thanks for the well wishes my friend, I hope it will inspire you to have some fun with EZScript and bring us some more story love.

Woo-Hoo!  The only thing left to do is to tweak my Batman issues, pack it up, and upload it.  I should make my release date for once!  Ohh, I just remembered, I've got to write the readme...gonna' be a long one, I've got a LOT of people to thank. ^_^

:EDIT: ARGHHHHH!!!!!  It figures, it just figures.  Everything is going smoothly, no major glitches...but now all of a sudden, all of my Bat missions which were working PERFECTLY last time I tested them are broken.  This is maddening!

Alright, the installer is compiling, then I've got to upload, but the Beta is finished! 

Thanks to a number of errors that came out of no where, the Batman campaign won't be included in the first release, but hopefully I can get it out in the next week or so. 

Well that just makes sense.  Batman needs time to prepare.

(Congratulations!  Can't wait to get my hands on it, but will have to as I'm out this week on business.  Stoopid monkey day job).

Okay........so.....I met my deadline, the whole thing was packaged up and ready to upload by midnight last night.........but apparently I'm deficient.  I couldn't figure out the instructions Cat gave me to do so, and then  I got tired and went to bed. :P  It's still ready, and it'll be uploaded as soon as Cat figures out how to explain the process to a dim-wit like me.  Thanks for you patience!

Woo-Hoo!  It's being uploaded!  The DC Universe According to Grey is now only hours away from being available for download!  The next post you see here SHOULD have instructions on how to get it.  Watch this space!

*I'm sorry for the flurry of posts, I'm just really excited about this, I've never finished anything of this scope before.*

I should point out here, that it turned out it was my fault.  Benton's account was never set up.

Anyhow, all is well now.

Alrighty guys, the moment we've all been waiting for, the DC Universe According to Grey is now available!

You can download the mod here:
dcug.freedomforceforever.com/DCUG.exe (http://dcug.freedomforceforever.com/DCUG.exe)

And you can get the FX Pack with this link:
dcug.freedomforceforever.com/FX Pack.zip (http://dcug.freedomforceforever.com/FX%20Pack.zip)

Thanks to all the great artists and contributors who made this possible, 'cause all I did was put the pieces together.

A few notes about this release:

• This is a BETA, I've tested it as well as I can, but I know I've missed some things, please keep an eye out for them
• I'm open to all the feedback you can muster, I'd love to hear about it if you think Captain Atom needs to be more powerful, or if you feel like Green Arrow's explosive arrow does too much damage.
• The EZScript 'comics' included aren't quite done yet.  I forgot to finalize the Question missions, and I should have an update of that available before too long, but they are actually completely playable
• Green Arrow on the other hand, wasn't actually meant to be included.  I'll try and upload a fixed version soon.
• The Batman EZScript campaign I was working on was not included because it decided to break all of a sudden the night before.  I'll fix it as quickly as I can.
• I just know I missed thanking someone in the readme, if you can think of anyone, PLEASE let me know.

If you enjoy the first Issues of JLA and The Question, look forward to more exciting adventures coming your way soon!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee  :thumbup:

I already tested it. I didn't check everything, but so far, I like this very much. Played Question's Issues, and started (but not finished) the JLA adventure. Everything works fantastic! You have done a wonderful, wonderful job, Benton!

Oh, for those that didn't install FFv3R in the default directory (like myself), just move the custom_characters folder to C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\DCUG\Act\

It worked for me. :)

I played with some of the heroes in the Rumble Room too. Zatanna, Big Barda, Black Canary, Huntress, just to name a few ladies I used. Pretty fantastic indeed, this is a great mod!

Keep it up. Soon, I'll help you with Voicepacks for this (JLH - almost positive the big 3 will be my first VPs), and you're obviously welcome to use anything I've already done, if you want.

I'm downloading the beta and I'd just wish to thank Benton and those who helped him in this project. Congratulations. :thumbup:

QuoteInstallation: You asked for it, and you got it.  This mod is provided courtesy of a click team installer.  However, this will only work if you have FFvTTR installed in the default directory.  If not, then you'll have to re-direct the install path AND do a lot of major editing in FFEdit.  You'll have to point every single character's template at the new location, so Heaven help you!

Mine is installed on... G:...
I feel...cursed...

Quote from: Volsung on September 11, 2007, 02:58:08 AM

QuoteInstallation: You asked for it, and you got it.  This mod is provided courtesy of a click team installer.  However, this will only work if you have FFvTTR installed in the default directory.  If not, then you'll have to re-direct the install path AND do a lot of major editing in FFEdit.  You'll have to point every single character's template at the new location, so Heaven help you!

Mine is installed on... G:...
I feel...cursed...

Yes, mine is installed on E:, so effectively, this wont be getting played by me without great effort on my part.
My personal preference with making Mods is to put all characters in "library/characters", then it works no matter where the game is installed.
I'll see if I can figure out a way to mass-convert the objects.dat, just because I'm curious... 

I also note that you've left the ".bak" versions of character nifs (which is a back up created by EZNifConverter) in pretty much every mesh directory.
You may want to delete those and save yourself quite a lot of space (if you update).

Aside from that, good on you for seeing it through, and thanks for all the effort.

I just finished editing the object.dat ^^;

But a character named sammy didn't have any nif file!

QuoteMy personal preference with making Mods is to put all characters in "library/characters", then it works no matter where the game is installed.

I'll have to keep that in mind for my own hypothetical mod.

Benton: just wanted to pop in here and say, "congratulations" for all you, and those in the community who helped, did to put this mod together.

you all worked on it for a long time, and such a massive effort -- 500 MB! yikes -- deserves congratulations. you should be proud for finishing this. :thumbup:

Quote from: tommyboy on September 11, 2007, 03:24:41 AM

Quote from: Volsung on September 11, 2007, 02:58:08 AM

QuoteInstallation: You asked for it, and you got it.  This mod is provided courtesy of a click team installer.  However, this will only work if you have FFvTTR installed in the default directory.  If not, then you'll have to re-direct the install path AND do a lot of major editing in FFEdit.  You'll have to point every single character's template at the new location, so Heaven help you!

Mine is installed on... G:...
I feel...cursed...

Yes, mine is installed on E:, so effectively, this wont be getting played by me without great effort on my part.
My personal preference with making Mods is to put all characters in "library/characters", then it works no matter where the game is installed.

I had the same problem, as I installed FFv3R on C:\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich.

Try moving the custom_characters folder to "C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\DCUG\Act\"

Of course, I'm assuming you have a hard disk at C:, following the typical drive letter assignment on modern days. If not, then you do have to edit a couple of things.

Egad, sorry guys, I didn't mean to cause so many problems with the custom characters thing.  Here I thought I was being nice by moving them all into their own specific directory!  Sledge's recommendation sounds like a pretty good work around, and I'll try and do as Tommy suggested for my first update to the mod itself. 

Hey Volsung......I don't know what "Sammy" is......he just showed up one day, and I didn't want to delete him, because I figured he was a built in.  Ha, go figure.

Good idea about the .bak files Tommy....ughh......I really don't want to have to clean all of those out, but I really do need to.

Well, so far, no real errors!  Woo-hoo!

RE Sammy: That's actually from the base FFVTTR dat and has nothing to do with Benton Grey's mod. I don't remember what it was for or if it was even used, but it's always been there.

Yeah, Sammy is one of those things that keeps popping up and I keep deleting him (and Schmidt, too!) only to find them back next time I merge a dat file.
And I recommend Agent Ransack as an easy way to search for those .bak files. (Windows search function will also do it). Just search for "*.bak" in your custom_characters directory and you can then select and delete them all in one go.

Awesome idea Tommy, thanks!  Is Sledge's workaround do-able for you?  I hope so, I'd hate to think that one of the major contributors for this mod won't even be able to play it! :P

Quote from: BentonGrey on September 11, 2007, 09:35:18 AM
Awesome idea Tommy, thanks!  Is Sledge's workaround do-able for you?  I hope so, I'd hate to think that one of the major contributors for this mod won't even be able to play it! :P

Even as we type I'm working my way through with the Editor manually changing objects.dat, whilst sporadically trying various half-baked ideas to mass-edit it somehow(and failing with those, so far).
I'll get to play it, and maybe make my altered objects.dat available for others like me who have non-standard install paths. Then they just have to copy the contents of "custom_characters" into "library\characters".

That would actually be really helpful Tommy, sorry for all the effort you have to go to man.  I hope you find that it's worth it! :D

I've installed the mod to the default directory and when I use the "Play DC Universe According to Grey" launcher for the game all I get is the regular campaign.   The icon appears to be pointing to the correct directory.  Anybody have any ideas?

Remember Justintyme, this is not a regular campaign type of mod, this is just (for the moment) a collection of characters and meshes.  I've included a handful of EZScript missions which you can play through the Rumble Room.  They are labeled as comic issues, Question #1, etc.

Heres the ammended objects.dat (copy the contents of "custom_characters" to "library\characters" first)
http://www.momoshare.com/file.php?file=a2e5b91cf764a710a5f668fce34d0445
Benton,
I've played the "JLA" mission, and it's good fun.
You might want to think about the possibility of stringing all the scripts together, into an EZscript campaign Mod. I dont think it would take much more work (easy for me to say :rolleyes:).
Because they are currently Rumble missions, I could take 4 randomly picked heroes into the JLA Mission, rather than Jonn, first time out, which was a little odd.
You should be able to script the missions to spawn only the heroes you want (at least you can in EZscript campaign missions), rather than selecting them.
That way you could have hero-specific mission/stories, and "generic" ones where you could choose anyone.

Anyway, thanks again for what promises to be quite some fun.

Well, here's what I'm thinking, and y'all can tell me if you like the idea or not:  I'm planning on doing a handful of short story arcs for various characters (Green Arrow, the Atom, Blue Beetle, etc.) plus full EZScript campaigns, release an issue or so at a time and eventually compiled for a few characters/teams (Batman, JLA, Aquaman, Hawkman).  That way, you'd have all the info for all the various missions, and you could swap out what campaign you wanted to play by renaming certain files.  Alternatively, I could just meld everything together into a 'comic run,' where you'd have one massive campaign, and you'd have to play through all of the issues.  So you'd play Question #1 and 2, then JLA#1, then Batman #1, then Green Arrow#1, etc, then the next round of #2's and 3's.

What do y'all think?

Ohh, and Tommy, I sorta' feel like it would be weird to play that first JLA mission with any other characters considering the story there, but you're always free to play these adventures however you like.  My plan for the first several JLA missions is to focus on the individual characters before they all come together.  I could re-title it Martian Manhunter #1 if y'all feel that is more appropriate.

good job Benton!!!
The objects.dat works fine to me, thank you tommyboy

Quote from: BentonGrey on September 10, 2007, 05:22:28 PM
Alrighty guys, the moment we've all been waiting for, the DC Universe According to Grey is now available!

You can download the mod here:
dcug.freedomforceforever.com/DCUG.exe (http://dcug.freedomforceforever.com/DCUG.exe)

And you can get the FX Pack with this link:
dcug.freedomforceforever.com/FX Pack.zip (http://dcug.freedomforceforever.com/FX%20Pack.zip)

Thanks to all the great artists and contributors who made this possible, 'cause all I did was put the pieces together.

A few notes about this release:

• This is a BETA, I've tested it as well as I can, but I know I've missed some things, please keep an eye out for them
• I'm open to all the feedback you can muster, I'd love to hear about it if you think Captain Atom needs to be more powerful, or if you feel like Green Arrow's explosive arrow does too much damage.
• The EZScript 'comics' included aren't quite done yet.  I forgot to finalize the Question missions, and I should have an update of that available before too long, but they are actually completely playable
• Green Arrow on the other hand, wasn't actually meant to be included.  I'll try and upload a fixed version soon.
• The Batman EZScript campaign I was working on was not included because it decided to break all of a sudden the night before.  I'll fix it as quickly as I can.
• I just know I missed thanking someone in the readme, if you can think of anyone, PLEASE let me know.

If you enjoy the first Issues of JLA and The Question, look forward to more exciting adventures coming your way soon!

I have a few questions if you don't mind.

1 How does this compare in terms of PC usage to the LSH mod? I ask because there mission 3 started off slow and eventually ground to a complete halt. If my PC cannot handle this I want to find out before dling it.

2 Is the FX pack required and will it affect the game if not using your mod? Again this is a PC performance issue.

Thanks for your time.

sir earl, i think you missed quite a few defining posts. This is not a "traditional" mod. It's more of an addon. It adds tons of meshes and skins as well as fx and herofiles for the player to use and play with. BG also did a few ezscript rumble room missions that you can play.

I would assume if any slowdowns occur 'in-game', then it may be pc related. If the old findings are true, after so many meshes/herofiles, the game may take longer to start, but that should be it. Also, the fx, i would assume, would affect the herofiles and not much else.

Thanks Prev, that pretty much covers it.  Thanks to the wonders of EZScript, you never have floods of meshes on the screen (the cause of slow downs in my own system) at one time in any of the missions I've created.  However, some of the later JLA missions will likely have larger casts.  You can pick and chose those as you like.  The FX pack will affect a large number of characters (all the archers, bat-family, and GL's among others) who's powers either won't work at all, or won't display properly.  However, it shouldn't do any more than take up a rather small bit of hard-drive space.

It could just be my system, but I'm getting a lot of blank FX powers. I tried using Batman in the rumble room and his batarangs were just magenta meshes with no skins. Is anyone else having this problem?

And I agree with the previous posts regarding the missions. You'll probably want to do them as straight up missions or else you'll end up playing the Question scenarios using Darkseid, or some other weird set-up.

Oh, and I noticed a few minor errors going through it: Green Arrow has Green Lantern's description, and Wonder Woman doesn't show up under either the "Campaign" character list or the "Hero" character list.

Still, it's only a beta. A great mod and I can't wait for the final.

I took the liberty of making the JLA (MManhunter) script into mission 1 in campaign mode.
It's actually pretty easy.
1. Identify the map folder used in the "missions" folder (in this case it was "martian caverns"). Copy and rename the copy of this folder to "01_jla_mars".
2. Open up the appropriate script in the "stories" folder (in this case "jla1.txt") with a text editor and save as "mission.txt" in the "missions\01_jla_mars" folder. (or just copy it in there and rename to mission.txt).
3. Open up the Editor and in the "campaign" tab press the "add" button. Select "01_jla_mars" and move it up the list of missions till its the top one. Select "1" as the number of heroes and "martian_manhunter" as the "required hero". Now save.
4.Go to the "Missions" tab in the Editor. Load up the "01_jla_mars" mission. Copy the "positional" marker "waking1_Hero1". Rename it to "hero1", make it a "character" rather than "positional", and select "martian_manhunter" from the drop down list. Save the map.
5. Now press the "Edit script" button for that map (or just open "mission.py" in the "01_jla_mars" mission folder with your text editor). Delete whatever the default stuff is and copy/paste instead the following:



#####################################################################################
#
# Module: Mission
# Author: m25
#
# Description: Create a text file called mission.txt and put your story
# in it.  It will then be used as the campaign mission for the folder it
# is in.
#
#
#####################################################################################

minimod_storyfile = 'mission'

import m25minimod
from m25minimod import *


#---------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Important Callbacks
#
#---------------------------------------------------------------------

def OnPostInit():
m25minimod.OnPostInit(campaign=1)

(the above cribbed from M25's "firelight Ezscript Mod)
Save "mission.py".

Now when you run the Mod and click on "start campaign", you'll go straight into the Mars mission, and can play through.
I've admittedly only done it for that one mission, but it works, so the principle is sound.
I'm pretty sure you can do the same for most if not all the other story missions (provided you know the map name, which I dont for some of them), and make it into a campaign.
All the stories are still available in the rumble room as they were before, because I didnt change any of the original files (the beauty of the "copy everything" school of Modding).
I hope you don't mind my butting in again Benton, but I just wanted to show you that you've done pretty much all the heavy lifting (ie the scripting, putting together the meshes+skins, building characters, map markers etc etc) for making a campaign.
Doing the above took about 10 minutes, and that included a bit of trial and error as I've never done it before.
Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there, and say that its a fun Mod to play, as well (even if you don't fiddle with it like me...). 

Quote from: CF Kane on September 12, 2007, 04:10:38 AM
It could just be my system, but I'm getting a lot of blank FX powers. I tried using Batman in the rumble room and his batarangs were just magenta meshes with no skins. Is anyone else having this problem?

Whoops!  I completely forgot a step with my FX Pack instructions!  I'll fix this right away.  Go look at all the files you dumped into art/library/fx/generic, and fish out one labeled '_textures.'  Go back up to art/library, and drop that folder into the fx folder.  Click 'yes to all,' and now everything should work fine.

Quote from: CF Kane on September 12, 2007, 04:48:01 AM
Oh, and I noticed a few minor errors going through it: Green Arrow has Green Lantern's description, and Wonder Woman doesn't show up under either the "Campaign" character list or the "Hero" character list.

Still, it's only a beta. A great mod and I can't wait for the final.

Fixed and fixed.  Yep, I'm afraid there are gonna' be errors like that, I tried to test as much as I could, but there is just too much info there to get it all right!  Anyroad, y'all can expect an update sometime this month if everything goes well.

Tommy!  Very cool, don't worry about 'butting-in,' that is precisely why I made this 'mod,' so that people could use it as a spring board.  I'm just glad you like my work enough to spend this much time on it!  So, I assume then that you'd like me to set it up with all of my issues in the campaign mode?  Or do you just want SOMETHING there?  I'm sorry, I'm probably just not understanding you properly, but if I can get some feedback on this, I'll be happy to adjust the next version accordingly.  So, does the community want it to look like: JLA1, Q1, GA1, Bat1, Q2, etc., or do y'all want just the JLA missions, just the Bat missions, just the Q mission in interchangable campaigns?

If it were me, I'd throw them all in, in whatever order seems appropriate.
If you include savedgames, people could easily skip any missions they didn't feel like.

Quote from: tommyboy on September 12, 2007, 10:18:28 AM
If it were me, I'd throw them all in, in whatever order seems appropriate.
If you include savedgames, people could easily skip any missions they didn't feel like.

I agree with Tommy. Also, having a custom campaign as Tommy described would make this mod more then just an add-on with rumble room missions, though it is very good as is.

Quote from: BentonGrey on September 12, 2007, 08:43:47 AM

Quote from: CF Kane on September 12, 2007, 04:10:38 AM
It could just be my system, but I'm getting a lot of blank FX powers. I tried using Batman in the rumble room and his batarangs were just magenta meshes with no skins. Is anyone else having this problem?

Whoops!  I completely forgot a step with my FX Pack instructions!  I'll fix this right away.  Go look at all the files you dumped into art/library/fx/generic, and fish out one labeled '_textures.'  Go back up to art/library, and drop that folder into the fx folder.  Click 'yes to all,' and now everything should work fine.

Quote from: CF Kane on September 12, 2007, 04:48:01 AM
Oh, and I noticed a few minor errors going through it: Green Arrow has Green Lantern's description, and Wonder Woman doesn't show up under either the "Campaign" character list or the "Hero" character list.

Still, it's only a beta. A great mod and I can't wait for the final.

Fixed and fixed.  Yep, I'm afraid there are gonna' be errors like that, I tried to test as much as I could, but there is just too much info there to get it all right!  Anyroad, y'all can expect an update sometime this month if everything goes well.

Sure thing. I'll keep an eye out if I see anything else like that again.

Oh, and thanks for using my Metal Men skins. I'm really honored.  :D

Alright guys, I'm happy to oblige.  As soon as I get those Batman missions fixed, I'll work up a campaign structure of all of them, plus a few new surprises. ^_^

CF, thanks man!  Well, they're great skins, and I rather like the Metal Men, so it was absolutely my pleasure!

Question: how come The Penguin can fly?

Ahh, well, that is a matter of mesh limitations.  I originally designed him to work with Ink's mesh, but became increasingly unsatisfied with his proportions (although the mesh and animations are great).  It had a flying animation using the Penguin's umbrella.  That was right out of the comics, so I gave him flier.  I discovered the mesh that I'm using now, which has no similar animation, but I feel that it still fits the Penguin's character to be able to fly.  I'm hoping that another mesh (or perhaps skope) will one day be available, but I feel like it's not a big enough issue to bother people with a request.  Do you have a problem with him being able to fly?  I feel like he's much better equiped to fight Bats when Bruce can't lay a hand on him too easily.

Well, seeing the Penguin fly with his current animation--the standard face-forward Superman style flight--just seems a bit odd. If it was skoped to use the umbrella as you described it the flying might work but out of context it doesn't jive with the character. But that could just be me of course.

Does anyone else feel this way?  If so, perhaps I should reconsider.

Also, don't be shy about giving feedback, I'd really love to hear y'alls opinions.  I know lots of you have downloaded it so far, so let me know what you think!  If you really think I hit a character right, tell me, or if you feel I really butchered somebody, tell me that too!

Quote from: BentonGrey on September 13, 2007, 06:56:04 PM
Does anyone else feel this way?  If so, perhaps I should reconsider.

Keep him that way.  Character accuracy is important, but so is character balance.

yea balancing is great and all, but i think the flying just takes away from the character (he's flying around like superman <_< ) I'd probably give him jumper, and private army* to make him little bit formidable



*maybe you could find/get skins of the female bodyguards from the TAS

Hmm, what if I gave him limited flying, or something to that effect?  To simulate his umbrella-copter?  Which female bodyguards are you thinking of?  Also, I've rather tried to avoid giving any of my villains private army because of the complexity involved in using them in mods along with that.

Speaking of Batman's corner of the world, I've got good news.  Issue one through four of the Bat-mod are back in working order!  Green Arrow issue 1 is just about set, it just needs a little more tweaking.  I'm going to double check everything, do a little editing, and try and put together an Atom#1.  Then I'll put together a bunch of base screens and campaign-ify everything up.  DCUG 1.1 should be available......ohh......sometime next week or the week after, depending on how my classwork goes.

Do I need to dl version one first? If not I will just wait for version 1.1.

Thanks to everyone for answering my questions earlier.

Nope, you won't need to download the first one if you don't want to.

hi im new with  :ffvstr: and i downloaded your mod and run the instilation and everything but where do i click to start the mod?
sorry if this is a lame qestion but im new

No worries Jocke, welcome to the community!  First off, let me remind you that this is not a traditional mod, there is no actual campaign included, although the next version will have "something" that you can play as a campaign.  This does include tons of characters built-in, and a few Rumble Room Adventures that you can play. 

To start the mod, if you open up your FFvTTR folder, you'll see a DCUG mod folder there.  Open that up, and there should be a shortcut that reads Play DC Universe According to Grey.  There you go!

 does you need to have a dcug mod folder ?
cause i can find Play DC Universe According to Grey in the FFvTTR folder but when i click on it i just get to the usual game,is that supose to happen?

When you run the installer, the files are all placed in this directory: FFvTTR/DCUG, meaning that a folder called DCUG is created in your FFvTTR directory.  So, yes, there SHOULD be a DCUG folder there, if there isn't, than something is wrong.  Do you have FF installed in the default path?  That is, on C drive?

Keep in mind, when you use the shortcut in the DCUG folder, it takes you to a main screen that looks EXACTLY like the default one.  If you want to play with the toys I've included, go into the rumble room, and you should see over 300 hundred DC characters listed in the character list. 

:EDIT:  Wow.......three hundred....I didn't really realize how bit this had gotten!

it works  :thumbup:ty for helping me and ty for this wonder full set of characters all my favorit dc's are in it  :D even ultra man from a other reality i gotta say you have realy put your soul into this

i just got one more qestion i was reading something about patriot city or something where you chould walk around  and fight villians do you know if its posibole to put your mod and that mod together and  play patriot city with dc charachters ?

and ty agin for this wonder full mod  :D

My pleasure Jocke, I'm just glad you're enjoying it!  I most certainly did put my heart and soul into this little project, and that's why I can't seem to let go. ^_^  So, you can expect to see a long list of new adventures coming your way from time to time.

Ahh, yes, it is indeed possible.  I don't know quite how to tell you to do it, but if you check the EZScript manul included with FFX or my mod, you should find information on how to set it up.  I asked the community earlier if they would be interested in a free-roam Batman mod, but there wasn't much interest, so I doubt I'll be taking that on any time soon.

Benton, I play again to  :ffvstr: when I've downloaded your fantastic project. There are some problems (no Black manta or ocean master mesh are in the list when I'll go to control panel), but the possibility to play rumble room like JLA vs CSA or New Gods vs Parademons is awesome! Now, a question: to play the Batman scenario, what's the map that I need to select? Thanks again, bro!

Hmm, I'm not quite sure what problem it is you're having John.  Are you saying that the Ocean Master and Black Manta meshes aren't showing up in the mesh selection for custom characters?  Or are you saying that the CHARACTERS aren't showing up when you go to choose them for a RR session?  It shouldn't be the later, as I've tested those two extensively.  (Although Manta isn't finished, I'm hoping for a new mesh or skope that will give me more options for him.)  If it's the former, then that's because the meshes for DCUG aren't in the custom folder, but in the mod folder itself, so they won't show there.

 can you just answer 1 little question ?
is patriot city a rumble room misson ?
couse i cant locate it anywhere.
ty for listen

Quote from: jocke32 on September 18, 2007, 11:54:19 AM
can you just answer 1 little question ?
is patriot city a rumble room misson ?
couse i cant locate it anywhere.
ty for listen

*jumps in*

No, Patriot city is not a rumble room mission. It is an individual mod that allows you to take your heroes through various types of 'missions' (used lightly since it's a free roamer). The mod was made by Dr. Mike and is situated on his web space. There should be a link to it on the FR wiki or the stickied topic on this forum.

i found a ff site with some great dc skins http://www.geocities.com/tooman21/DC.html (http://www.geocities.com/tooman21/DC.html) hope you can use them later

Thanks for the help Prev!  Well guys, I MAY just finish the next update for sunday night, but no promises.  It may be monday or even next week.  I've just about finished the first issue of Brave and the Bold, and my Batman missions are coming along really well.  I haven't even started on the first Atom mission, though.  I'd like to include a few more characters, but we'll have to see. 

Quote from: BentonGrey on September 18, 2007, 10:17:02 AM
Hmm, I'm not quite sure what problem it is you're having John.  Are you saying that the Ocean Master and Black Manta meshes aren't showing up in the mesh selection for custom characters?  Or are you saying that the CHARACTERS aren't showing up when you go to choose them for a RR session?  It shouldn't be the later, as I've tested those two extensively.  (Although Manta isn't finished, I'm hoping for a new mesh or skope that will give me more options for him.)  If it's the former, then that's because the meshes for DCUG aren't in the custom folder, but in the mod folder itself, so they won't show there.

The Characters arenn't showing up when I go to choose them for a RR session....I have the same problem with J'onn (no valide keyframes, but in that case simply overwrite the .kf file).

P.s: your Beast boy is marvelous!!!!!!!!!!

Very weird John, that doesn't make much sense.  So, you are able to use some of the characters, but not others?  Well, since they are all campaign only, they will show up differently in the different Rumble Room lists. If you try and look through the Villains, you won't be able to select heroes, and so on.  If that's not the problem, then I don't know what to tell you.  I'd suggest re-downloading it and reinstalling.

 yeah i had some problems too with powers some were pink and some dident work at all .
have any tips?

Okay, now, on that I've got a definitive answer for you.  If you downloaded the FX pack from the same location as the DCUG Beta, then you probably missed a step in the setup (which I forgot to include in the readme :unsure:).  Anyroad, if you HAVEN'T downloaded the FX pack, do so now.  When you get it downloaded, open up the .zip file.  You'll find tons of folders which the readme tells you to place in your Data/art/library/fx/generic directory.  However, one of these folders will say _textures.  You'll want to drop the contents of that in the folder by the same name in your fx directory.  Tell it 'yes to all.' 

If you've ALREADY dropped everything in the generic folder, you'll have to open it up and look for that textures folder.  Put those files where they're supposed to go, and everything should display properly.

 i dont think i have any fx directory so can i make one ?
and where shall it be?
next to the fx folder ?

The directory just means the direction you go through your folders.  So, you open your Data folder (which is inside you FFvTTR folder), which then gives you another set of files and folders, you open up art, then library, etc.

ok ty
/sorry for my bad english im from sweden

That's alright Jocke, you're putting forth a good effort man. :)  Is everything working right this time?

The FX still aren't working for me! I moved the _textures folder into the fx folder like you said. So the fx folder should have two folders in it right? "generic" and "_textures". I don't see what I did wrong.

D'oh........I think I just realized another mistake I made with the readme.  So, did you have EZFX installed before you installed the DCUG?  If not, then that's your problem.  Here's what you do, move your 'generic' folder someplace else (just in case), download EZFX, run the installer, drop your generic folder back where it came from (Data/art/library/FX) and if it asks you if you want to overwrite anything, just click yes to all.

installed EZFX 6.0, re-downloaded the FX pack you posted on page 11 of this thread, dropped the fx into the "generic folder" and moved the _textures into the "fx" folder. I did this for the Data path in the regular FFvTTR game as well as the DCUG mod folder. no change

Hmm, CF, is FF2 installed to the default data path?  If it is, then I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you.  I can tell you that you don't actually have to install any FX in the DCUG folder, all of that goes in your Data folder.  Does anyone notice anything I'm missing?

:EDIT:  A quick progress update, just about everything is done, but since I don't have time to polish it up this weekend, I'm going to go ahead and give it a while longer, add in the new characters that KS is doing for me, and try and release both the Villain Pack and DCUG 1.1 all together.

Am I installing the right version of EZFX? I noticed that the version of the mod I downloaded has a lot of slots for powers, but no animations (as opposed to the animated-but-skinless problem I'm having). Maybe I just didn't install the correct version of EZFX

Something I should clarify, and I can't believe I didn't think about this before, the DCUG FX .dat includes references to a lot of FX that I don't have permission to re-distribute.  So, I didn't.  All that's included with the Mod is those FX that you NEED to play with the characters included.  So, if you install EZFX 6.0 AND the DCUG FX pack, if you go to create a character, there will be entries for FX that don't exist, since there are too many of them for me to delete.  So, if you're not getting invisible FX and pink textures IN RR, then you're probably fine.

Well, classes are running me ragged, so it's going to be a while before I can release anything, but I'll get to it eventually, and it should include lots of goodies.  Anyroad, I've got a request.  I found the perfect image for the main screen, but it won't fit in the whole spinning nif thing.  What I'd like is for someone more experienced than myself to take this image and design a nif that WILL fit it, or tell me which files to replace that will fit it.  It's dimensions are 1356 X 1024.  I think this will actually fit the whole rotating look really well, as it's big enough to actually have something to rotate through!  However, the only thing I've figured out is to replace the 00_back2.dds file with whatever I want as the background.  Can anyone help me out here?  Here's the image before I made it play nice as a DDS:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/1/19/Historyofthedcu.jpg

Won't that be perfect?

Quote from: BentonGrey on October 08, 2007, 12:49:13 PM
Well, classes are running me ragged, so it's going to be a while before I can release anything, but I'll get to it eventually, and it should include lots of goodies.  Anyroad, I've got a request.  I found the perfect image for the main screen, but it won't fit in the whole spinning nif thing.  What I'd like is for someone more experienced than myself to take this image and design a nif that WILL fit it, or tell me which files to replace that will fit it.  It's dimensions are 1356 X 1024.  I think this will actually fit the whole rotating look really well, as it's big enough to actually have something to rotate through!  However, the only thing I've figured out is to replace the 00_back2.dds file with whatever I want as the background.  Can anyone help me out here?  Here's the image before I made it play nice as a DDS:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/1/19/Historyofthedcu.jpg

Won't that be perfect?

Ha ha that's the same backing of abenavides' mod.

Is it?  Well, I thought I was being original. :(  Ohh well, it's still perfect!

Help? :(

What are you on about with spinning nif things? Several things came to mind so I figured I'd wait until you specified before i went on, though I think you just mean the continuously rotating screen (which you can replace with a stationary version). That file is actually too big for the main screen nif, iirc, as I believe it takes 1024 x 1024 and other commonly used multiples of 2 (IE: 256 x 256, 512 x 512, etc. but I could be wrong...it's been awhile).

00_back2.dds is the only thing you need to replace for the BG alone, but you'll have to alpha out or replace the other dds files if you don't want them to be seen.

Sidenote: Look like my exiles mod isn't an excuse anymore. :P Also, I believe the DC mod by danny also used the pic as well. You DC people all think alike! *ducks* ^_^

Yeah, I suppose I'm not terribly clear here.  I realize that the image I've got is too big to fit the vanilla .nif.  What I'd LIKE is a larger area in the screen's set-up (I suppose this has to do with how the .nif of the main screen is mapped, but I'm morbidly out of my depth here) which would actually showcase the image I've got without me having to cut it up or distort it too badly.  Since the screen already rotates, it would be able to rotate along the entirety of this image.  Does that, perhaps, make more sense?

Ohh, and *swings*

I'm not sure if it can get much bigger than 1024 by 1024. I did try a quick test with the default image using nifskope, but the rotating nif will stretch it out no matter what size it's at it seems (thought i didn't try 1024 by 1024, but instead it's default size and 512 x 512). It was only really noticeable with batman's long crooked nose...ironically. Anyway, it should work fine on the stationary version and I'll do a few more tests to see if I can get it working if no one else jumps in.

Thanks Prev, I appreciate any help you can offer! ^_^

Howdy all, I have an announcement to make.  I'm going to be taking a break from the DCUG for a while.  The situation with my family is so chaotic, and school is so demanding, that I just don't have the time, energy, or even the interest, to keep it up at the moment.  Never fear, I've done this before, although it was much quieter, and no one was really waiting on it like they are now.  Still, I'll get back to it eventually, maybe in a month, maybe two, but I can promise that I'll definitely get back to it.  Thanks for your patience!

No worries.

Considering the seriousness of you family crisis I'm sure we all understand. You've done some great work so far, but it'll keep. We will all still be here after the dust has settled.
Good Luck.

No worries, man. RL always comes first.

Anyway, since Benton is probably too busy to check the forums and/or mess with his mod, anyone else's help on the following matter is much appreciated.

Well... the thing is... I can't play it properly. Almost all beam textures are missing, and some fx I think are necessary are missing too.

To my surprise, I haven't read many complaints about this, so I assume everything is working fine for everybody else, right? So what is it that I'm doing wrong?

First things first: I installed EZFX v6.0 on the main folder (of FFvTTR), put the generic fx of the mod on the data/art/library/fx/generic and threw the _textures folder on the folder of the same name. I think I already know why only the meshes of some fx's are working, and it's related to the TGA folder inside of the _textures folder, but even there there are way too few .dds and .tga archives to make all the fx work properly.

And so I repeat: what am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Hey there Bent,
I hope and pray all is well with your family my friend. If you ever need an ear to bend just pm me. We can always exchange phone numbers as well my friend.
Dale

Thank you for all your good job and good luck with your family.

Kssaints, thanks man, that means a lot my friend.  Thank you all for you patience and your understanding.  I'm hoping things will calm down after Christmas, if not before. 

Can anyone help Blitzgott out?  I don't really have the mental energy to try and unravel it at the moment.  If no one else can help you by this weekend Blitz, I'll try and devote some time to figuring out the FX issue everyone is having.

Ack! I never check ANYTHING anymore! Hope you are doing alright Bent!

Hey, wait.. did you get your background for your title screen? Because I can do that in a jiff, no problem. It's a real simple matter of resizing some things, which I've done before (see Liberty Bay).

Thanks for the well wishes Unko, I appreciate it. ^_^  No, the background is still in limbo.  Prem has been valiantly trying to figure it out, but his time has been really limited.  If you know how to whip it up, that would be really awesome.  I'll send you the image right away.

As you know, done and done. Glad to help.

Yeah, let me publicly thank Unko for fixing the main menu screen for me.  It looks AWESOME!  The mod is still on hiatus until the end of the semester, but once the next two weeks are history, I'll be back to it.

Y'all might get a kick out of this.  I've been screwing around with making videos from Freedom Force during my very limited down time here at the end of the semester.  I hit on the idea of doing some quick and easy little teaser trailers for the DCUG, and letting them circulate among the comic blogs.  I've finished the first one, The Question!  I thought y'all might like to see them, and I'd welcome some feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6nHMHWk_Ng

Who did the skin for The Question?

It was Gni, nice skin, huh?

Another one, this time reaching out to the much abused Martian Manhunter fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5AYuhHVwbU

Cool idea!

Glad you like it HT!  Hey, if any of you know of other sites devoted to specific characters, let me know. 

My big papers are due monday and tuesday, so next week the DCUG will be officially OFF of hiatus.  (and there was much rejoicing) :D

And the last paper is finished and turned in!  My semester is FINISHED!  Do you know what that means?  That's right, the DCUG is BACK ON TRACK!

Is that what it means? I totally thought you were gonna say, "time to party and mod for prev...". You've ruined my dreams!

...

Congratz, BG. Hopefully you'll dish out a buncha stories.

Haha, thanks Prev!  I'm working hard on the stories.  I'm almost (SO FREAKIN" CLOSE!) done with the Batman campaign.  Eight missions of the never ending battle.  I'm also out of town for the next week and a half.  I'll be back around new year's, and the plan is to finish and release the DCUG (with somewhere between two and five campaigns) sometime before the semester starts, which should be around the 12th.  Wish me luck!

Best of luck Benton. Enjoy your holidays. I look forward to the return of the DCUG.

The DCUG won't work for me! :huh:
I think it's because the nif directory is starting with C:\ instead of just custom_characters so it would work with everybody.

Thanks CB!  I am BACK from vaction, in every sense of the word.  I have two weeks until school starts again, so I'm going to do everything in my power to polish the DCUG into a at least somewhat presentable format before then. 

GG, if you look back in the last several pages, you'll find that Tommyboy (I'm fairly certain it was him) was gracious enough to provide a generic version of that directory for those who don't follow the default install path.  Also, you may just want to wait since I'll have an all new version up in two weeks.

Okay, thanks!

No problem man.  I have a question for everyone though.  I've finally figured out what I wanted to do with my first JLA story arc, and I've begun work on the other missions.  I've got them all plotted out, so I should be able to knock them out relatively quickly.  We start with the MM mission many of you have already played, and then there is a Batman solo, a Superman solo, and an Aquaman solo mission before they all team up.  I probably have time and space to include a Green Lantern mission (and I have a few ideas for it, but nothing solid).  Would y'all want to play a GL solo mission after the Superman mission, or just get straight to the League action?

The more missions the better, so I'm all for a solo Green Lantern mission if time permits you to do it...

Now I apologize if you've answered this before. but are these being put together as a actual campaign or just as individual playable missions?

Per requests and my actually learning how, these will be full, playable campaigns.  As I said earlier, that is a PLURAL there, as there will be at least two, maybe as many as four (although seeing as this is Friday already, probably not more than 3.)

Sweet.
I likes me the campaigns.
I have played around with EZScript Campaigns and they were really easy to do. I think the hardest part is coming up with something creative and interesting for the base screens.

Are you going to have multiple campdef.dat files for each of the campaigns to choose from, or just link multiple campaigns together into one long "DC" campaign (having something like a narrator saying "meanwhile in the batcave" to separate them out?)

I WAS going to do the second one, but I'm sort of jumping around in my own continuity here, so it was going to be way too much trouble to try and sort it out, so instead we'll have a Batman campaign (starting after the end of the Animated Series, a JLA, starting from the beginning, an Atom/Hawkman starting from the beginning (and alternating missions), an Aquaman starting from the beginning, maybe eventually a Flash/Green Lantern starting from the beginning (and set BEFORE the JLA forms), and a general DC campaign (maybe called Showcase?) including Brave and Bold adventures as well as seperate story arcs.  These will all be separate campdef.dat files.  If I finish a bunch of stuff and find myself with more time than I really have any right to expect this semester, I might also do custom load screens for each campaign.  I really want to, I just don't have the time. 

I gotta say that all of this sounds really awesome. Playable campaings would really be great. I know nothing about modding whatsoever, but anything I have is yours to use if it will help make things easier for you.

Thanks CB!  I think I may be using a few things of yours, but I've got so many different things that it's pretty hard to keep track of! ^_^  So, that's one vote FOR a Green Lantern mission....

Consider this a second vote for a Green Lantern Campaign.  :thumbup:

Quote from: Cyber Burn on January 12, 2008, 11:50:20 AM
Consider this a second vote for a Green Lantern Campaign.  :thumbup:

:bandwagon

Haha, y'all are getting ahead of me there!  I was thinking of doing a single GL MISSION for the JLA campaign (before he meets up with the others), but I DO intend to do a GL campaign soon...ish.

Howdy guys, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I sort of missed my release date....a lot...I just couldn't get everything finished before the semester started, and now I'm finding myself quite busy with classwork.  However, I'm still working on the DCUG, it's just going to take me a little longer than I had hoped.  I'm hoping to get ahead a little, and then...well, we'll see.  Sorry if I disappointed anyone!

i finally put  :ffvstr: back on my machine.  and this was the first mod i installed. 
i was able to play the jla #1 in the rumble room.  but i couldn't get batman to work.  is there something i need to to?

Howdy Bearded!  I'm thrilled to hear that mine was the first mod you downloaded.  The Batman mission wasn't finished, it and Green Arrow were included by accident.  I believe the Question mission works....if I included it...ha, I rather forgot what all I put in there.  As soon as I finish the final release, it will include the finished Batman campaign, JLA campaign, and at least one or two others.

Boy, I can't wait until you release the final version of your mod, Benton. I barely have any DC hero files and have no patience to make them, despite wanting to play with DC heroes really bad, so your mod is kind of Godsent to me. Looking forward to the release.

Hey Blitz!  I'm very happy that you're so excited about my little project, and it means a lot to know that there are actually people who are actually anxious about its release! ^_^  Ha, to be honest, I'm pretty anxious to SEE it released, so I'm working on it in all of my spare time...which isn't too much here lately, but I'll get it done eventually.  I just hope y'all find it worth the wait!

LIAR! You totally tried to get me to do your work. HMPH, I just wouldnt do it because you weren't offering enough moolah. :P

So, hopefully you'll get everything done with minimum problems. Then you can start on marvel, then image, and so on... :P

Haha, you bum, if you had done my work for me, I would have been closer to being finished. ^_^  As for moving on to other projects......well, if I ever finish the DCUG, and after I've slipped into a coma for a few years, I might very well take on some Marvel projects......especially if DEATH does all the hard work for me.  Image......well...I wouldn't touch Image with a ten foot pole! :blink:

Quote from: BentonGrey on February 18, 2008, 10:57:38 AM
Hey Blitz!  I'm very happy that you're so excited about my little project, and it means a lot to know that there are actually people who are actually anxious about its release! ^_^  Ha, to be honest, I'm pretty anxious to SEE it released, so I'm working on it in all of my spare time...which isn't too much here lately, but I'll get it done eventually.  I just hope y'all find it worth the wait!

Little project? LITTLE PROJECT? Benton, the DCUG is the reason of the re-installation of  :ffvstr: in my pc...It's awesome to play with many heroes of the "FIRST" comics universe.

Benton, This is Qman from vicsage.com! the sever got hacked so i was not able to talk to you!
i downloaded your mod last night! it doesn't look like it got on my copy of  :ffvstr: but it's loaded on my laptop alright! how do i open the mod?  :banghead:  :banghead:  :banghead:

Haha, thanks Johncostantine, that's high praise!  I hope you'll enjoy the finished version as well. 

Howdy Qman, welcome to the FR forums!  Sorry to hear about the hacker trouble over there, we've had similar problems here.  I hope I can help you here, but there are a few things to keep in mind.  First, the version you downloaded is a beta, so it is not finished yet, and thus, does not have playable campaigns.  Second, I made a mistake in the readme for that version, and there is another step to follow to get the FX.  First off, the way to start the game is through the shortcut in the mod folder.  If you open up your FFvTTR directory, you'll see a folder named DCUG.  Open that, and look towards the bottom.  There should be an shortcut that says "Play the DC Universe According to Grey." 

Before you play it though, go to this directory: FFvTTR/Data/Art/Library/FX/Generic and look for a folder that says "_textures."  Get it and drop the contents into FFvTTR/Data/Art/Library/FX/_textures.  That will take care of the step I missed.  Alright, that should give you the game ready to play.  Even though there isn't a campaign in the BETA, you can still play in the Rumble Room, pitting heroes and villains against one another.

Hey Benton, I was just wondering if any of the CSA/Anti-Matter characters were going to make it into the DCUG, or if they are going to be put into a seperate mod, or add-on?

Hi, Benton. I'm pretty late to the party here, but I tried to install DCUG last night and it crashes out during the install, citing problems with the Cluemaster mesh. Any insights?

Howdy guys!  Okay, CB, ALL CSA/Anti-matter characters that y'all produce will be included.  If I can ever get to it, I also have a major crossover story that would include all of them.  It involves the JLA, JSA, Per Degaton, and the CSA. ^_^

Garf, wow, that's a new one on me!  It sounds to me like a corrupted file, as I don't think anyone else has had trouble installing the mod so far.  My advice would be to delete the DCUG install program you downloaded and try to download it again.  That might solve the problem outright.

Hey, I'm just grateful in the meantime for that terrific Ambush Bug mesh. Is that yours, or someone else's?

Haha, I didn't even realize I had included AB yet, but no, as the readme states, none of the art elements included with the mod are mine.  They were all made by vastly more talented people.  All I did was put the pieces together.

Whoopsie, got the whole thing installed but now it won't run, and neither will FFX3, FFVTR or the Character Tool. Back to the drawing board -- does DCUG tinker with the other versions' .dat files, or something?

Okay, that's weird.  No, DCUG ONLY installs into its own folder.  The FX pack that you download separately goes in the main data folder, but that shouldn't effect anything.  What gets me is that no matter what, nothing that the DCUG could conceivably do should effect CTool.  All I can say is try moving the DCUG file out of your FF2 directory and test all of the other programs.  If they work, then we'll know it's a problem with the mod.  If not...well, I haven't a clue!

I uninstalled it all, and I'm still all screwed up. Like I say, something got rewritten somehow  :doh: ... ffxEdit etc. reveal that the necessary files are all there. Heaven only knows what I did. Come to think of it, I did take Ambush Bug and copy him into FFX3. It'd be just like him to muck things up ...

Here's what the FFVTR Edit file reads after my failed efforts to start the game:

00:00:02.54: FFVTTR Edit: Error - ObjPage: can't find template
00:00:02.57: FFVTTR Edit: clearing manager
00:00:02.58: FFVTTR Edit: reading database: C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\ffx3\objects.dat
00:00:02.60: FFVTTR Edit: loaded 933 items
00:00:02.63: FFVTTR Edit: Error - ObjPage: can't find template
00:00:12.51: FFVTTR Edit: Error - CHeroPage: can't find character
00:00:12.52: FFVTTR Edit: clearing manager
00:00:12.52: FFVTTR Edit: reading database: C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\ffx3\Characters.dat
00:00:12.55: FFVTTR Edit: loaded 478 items
00:00:12.56: FFVTTR Edit: Error - CHeroPage: can't find character
00:00:31.81: FFVTTR Edit: clearing manager


At a guess, I'd say it can't find some or all of my characters now. Ah well, a guy needs something to keep him busy ...

Garf,


I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but did you install FFVTTR on your c: drive or somewhere else?  If it's somewhere else, you'll need to make sure all file paths are pointing there.

You may also want to post in the technical assistane thread.

B92

PS--sorry to swipe your thread BG!

Heh heh, no offence taken. I've had a couple of system crashes recently -- everything was working pretty great before that -- and I suspect that's the culprit. Shouldn't take more than a day or two to get re-established. Folks, return to honouring the hard-working Mr. BentonGrey.

QuoteHowdy guys!  Okay, CB, ALL CSA/Anti-matter characters that y'all produce will be included.  If I can ever get to it, I also have a major crossover story that would include all of them.  It involves the JLA, JSA, Per Degaton, and the CSA.

For your cross story, what characters do you have in mind. I think I would rather try my hand at those, than just pick and choose miscellaneous DC characters.

Garf, let me know how your reinstall goes, and if the DCUG begins to work!

Well CB, I've only got it sketched out at the moment, it isn't fully written.  I'm using the CSA as my main villains, and then Degaton will pull their enemies, the heroes of that world, out of the time stream and send them to fight the JLA (classic mistaken identity).  I'm thinking of using pretty much whoever you produce, but any members of the Secret Society or Injustice Gang will work just fine.  An alternate Star Sapphire, Grundy, Sonar, Ocean Master, Cheetah (or Circe), or Grodd could all be useful.  At the same time, I'm completely willing to use whoever you feel like creating.  Any of the characters that have been suggested in the Alternate Reality thread would be awesome.

QuoteAn alternate Star Sapphire, Grundy, Sonar, Ocean Master, Cheetah (or Circe), or Grodd could all be useful.

Are there existing reference pics to go by for these characters? Or is free reign acceptable?

There are existing pics, but I wasn't terribly thrilled with the redesigns, so feel completely free to do whatever you like.

Hey there.  Let me start by saying that I just got this mod and I think it's awesome.  Really good job.  I'm having some problems though and was wondering if anyone could help.  First, I'm not sure if my driver/vehicle attributes are working correctly or if i'm using them right.  Also, come to think of it, I'm not quite sure how to use the other in-game attributes like rope swinging.  Are these attributes available in the rumble room?   Lastly, the custom voices and most of the custom power animations don't seem to be working.  Help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

Okay TK, sorry for the delay in my response, but I'm really busy at the moment.  I'm glad you're enjoying the mod, but let me see if I can't help clear up your problems.  First off, the version of driver/vehicle that is included with the Beta, which is what you've downloaded, does not work at the moment.  I have a working version in my current build of the mod, and I am, among a million other things, trying to add appropriate vehicles for certain characters.  Rope Swinger SHOULD work as far as I know, and you should be able to add it to any custom character you want.  I don't know that I utilized it myself. 

As far as the custom voices...well which voices are you referring to?  I didn't include any voices with this mod, and the only packs that I know will work with it right out of the box, so to speak, are my own.  Have you downloaded my packs?  Also, what do you mean by custom power animations?  Do you mean the FX?  If so, I did make a mistake in the readme, and you are supposed to fish the _textures folder out of your fx/generic folder, where you put the FX pack, and copy the contents into the folder of the same name in the fx directory.

Thanks for returning my post and don't worry about being busy.  Happens to everyone.  So do you know where I could find a working version of the driver/vehicle attribute?  Other attributes that don't work for me seem to be the ones that combine attributes such as caped crusader.  The custom voices i was reffering to were the ones that show up here: http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/tylerkenny/1.jpg (http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/tylerkenny/1.jpg) in the character creator but not in the game.  Maybe there is automatically one for every dcug character that is just blank, but I assumed they were supposed to work like the Question voice from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6nHMHWk_Ng (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6nHMHWk_Ng).  Also I tried as you said with the _textures folder but the custom FX still aren't working.  Some don't show up  and the ones that work at all come out pink/purple. http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/tylerkenny/3.jpg (http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/tylerkenny/3.jpg)  http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/tylerkenny/2.jpg (http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/tylerkenny/2.jpg) Thanks for your time.

Okay, let's see here.  If you search in this forum you'll probably find a thread with the corrected vehicle/driver code, but I'm not sure exactly where it is off hand.  I don't know what could be causing you a problem with the Caped Crusader attribute....that's the first I've heard of an issue with that.  Try out some of the other combos, like Atlantian, Thanagarian, Kryptonian, and Martian, then let me know what works and what doesn't. 

As far as the voices, yes, there are automatically entries for every DCUG character, and when I release the final mod, I will also release a copy of EZVoice and my own voices that will be configured to work with it.  At the moment, however, you're stuck with just the built-ins. 

For the FX.....that's odd, the textures folder fix should have worked.  Do you have EZFX installed?  Ohh, and make sure you put the FX pack in your FFvTTR/Data/Art/Library/FX directory (not under the DCUG directory), with all everything except the _textures folder going in 'generic.'

QuoteIf you search in this forum you'll probably find a thread with the corrected vehicle/driver code, but I'm not sure exactly where it is off hand

The updated Vehicle Driver code was also included (among lots of other things) with the recent ffx 3.2.2 release that TaskmasterX put together

http://freedomreborn.net/archive/index.php?topic=46662.0

I tried the Atlantian, Thanagarian, Kryptonian, and Martian attributes and none of them worked, but now the caped crusader attribute (or, at least, utility belt, flyier, and tracker attributes) seems to go on every custom character I make, even if I don't assign it.  I don't think I have EZFX installed.  I'm not sure what that is.  And my FFvTTR/Data folder doesn't have an art folder. Should it?  Oh, and I tried that ffx 3.2.2 driver/vehicle but I can't figure out how to merge the files without overwriting.  When I start a level it says:

EXECINITATTRIB: ERROR IN INITIALISING
ATTRIBUTE DRIVER

Okay, wow, obviously we've got several issues here, and I'm not entirely sure how to sort them all out.  First things first, download the newest EZFX here: http://www.alexff.com/ezfx.php 

That should create the art directory for you, and you can put my FX pack in the right place.  I don't know what is going on with your install, but it sounds like there is a much bigger problem than the DCUG itself.  Does anyone have any ideas here?

Ok I got that. Now some attacks that didn't work do.  Some still have that purple/pink look though, like the batarang and some of GLs attacks. 

Well, after you install EZFX, you still have to put my FX pack where I said earlier, the pink stuff is because you are missing certain textures, which is corrected by putting the _textures folder in the right spot.

I've tried putting all kinds of textures everywhere but still pink batarangs.  Could you please tell me exactly what the folder is and exactly where I need to put it. 

Okay TK, I suppose I wasn't clear enough.  What you do is you unpack everything from my FX pack into your Data/Art/Library/FX/Generic folder.  Then, you go into that folder (Generic), and you'll see a folder named _textures.  That's the mistake I made, because that isn't where that folder is supposed to go.  So, you can just cut and paste the folder into your Data/Art/Library/FX directory, where it will overwrite the _textures folder that is already there, or you can just copy the contents of mine into the existing folder.  Does that make sense to you?

Ok thanks for clarifying, but even after doing that I still have pink fx.

Could this problem perhaps be something in the nif?

Is this in the character chreation screen, or in game? It could be a video card issue, missing tga's that you could be downloaded by finding the original FX or there may be other fixes.

This happens in both the animation chooser and in the game.  I'm pretty sure my video card is up to date and I don't think I'm missing any tgas.  Some of the FX work and some don't.  For example, out of all of the batarangs, only the tas ones and the 60s ones are pink.  The bolo works, the begins ones work, the edged one works, and the forever one works. The 2 generic ones and the new one don't appear at all.  My pink problem isn't limited to batarangs, but that's just an example.

I really don't understand what could be the problem here, TK.  The nifs are included in my FX pack or in EZFX, and the textures (the things that make sure you don't see pink) should have all been in that _textures folder.  So, if you installed EZFX, and put my FX pack in your regular, Data/Art/Library/FX directory, then you should be able to see it fine.

I put the contents of my FFvTTR\Data\Art\library\fx folder here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tk3groupmembers (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tk3groupmembers).  I had to break it up because it was too big.

You're not the only one with fx problems.

I have trouble with all the lanterns with their bolts and cages. (Shield and some blasts work fine), Cyborg's beam, Superman and Supergirl's, Dr.Fate's "Egypt" fx,  eyebeams, and many, many others.

Some specific fx that aren't working for the heroes:
[spoiler]
fx_flying_punch
fx_aquaman_harpoon_stabv2
fx_aquaman_harpoon_stab
fx_gl_green_hand
fx_gl_corp_beam
fx_green_bolts
fx_green_glove
fx_glgreen_net
fx_unbeam_orange
fx_sonic_cry_blackcanary
fx_energy_punch_blue
fx_shazam_area
fx_grab
fx_red_beam_wasp
fx_redwin
fx_egypt_eye
fx_heat_vision
fx_firestorm_fusion
fx_flash_hurricane
fx_spudarrow_electric
fx_spudarrow_net
fx_spudarrow_acid
fx_spudarrow_smoke
fx_spudarrow_explosive
fx_windcone
fx_arrowedged
fx_twin_beam_red
fx_sandbeam
fx_waterbolt
fx_waterbolt2
fx_waterbolt2_explosive
fx_soul_self_protective
fx_laser_eyes
fx_red_tornado[/spoiler]

Okay, here's what I want both of you to do.  I want you to go into your FFvTTR/Data/Art/Library/FX/_textures folder and look for a certain file.  TK, I want you to look for batarangset01 or 02.  Yodaminch, I want you to look for aquamanharpoon(whatever).  My guess is that the files simply aren't there, because it doesn't make sense that the .dat files would be pointing to the wrong place for just the two of you. 

If you don't find them, I want you to open up my FX pack.  Look through it and find the _textures folder.  Look through it and see if you can find that particular file that did not show up in the previous folder.  If so, copy the ENTIRE CONTENTS of MY folder, and paste them in the folder in your FX directory.  I was having an issue a while back where IZarc decided it did not want to unpack subfolders, so that may be what is happening here.  Tell me if that works, and what you find.

Ok that partially worked.  The batarangs that were pink are now normal, but the batarangs that didn't show up still don't.  They don't appear at all.  I don't see the nif files for them in the directory.  I'm also having pretty much the same problems with the fxs that Yodaminch mentioned.

Okay, then my suspicions were correct.  What likely happened is that the archive didn't unload everything it should have.  This probably explains your other issues as well.  What zip program do you use?  Try and update it, and unload everything again. 

I didn't see aquaman_harpoon in textures, but I didn't see it in the zip file either. :(

Now, Yodaminch, did you check in the _textures folder INSIDE the zip file?

I use Winrar.  I don't think it needs an update.  I tried it with other stuff and it seemed to work fine.  I don't know if I even can update it. 

Okay.......hmm....well, I can't think of anything else to tell you, other than to unpack each file by hand....and that ain't going to be fun.  I'd suggest trying to open up the FX pack, select all of the individual folders inside, and drag them into the generic directory.....maybe that will work, but if not, then you'll just have to do them one at a time.  You can check if it worked by, simply enough, checking to see if batman_tas or batman_60s has made it into the generic folder and (IMPORTANT) if its own folder has anything in it.

Yes, the _textures file only had a few files inside as well as a TGA folder. I can provide a screenshot if you want.

Also I forgot about this, but  I had had trouble with the batarangs and had to get them from here: http://www.renegadetoybox.com/fx.htm

I have the tas and 60s batarangs and they are now working right.  However, I still can't find the new, generic 1, generic 2, or 89 batarangs.  I tried redownloading the fx and couldn't find the folders in there.  I put what I found here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/tk4groupmembers/ (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/tk4groupmembers/).  I also tried downloading the fx on another computer (my laptop) which doesn't have Winrar, just the normal zip file, and I still couldn't find the folders I need.  

Thanks for that link Yodaminch.  Those batarangs are all working now.  Still having problems with other fx, though.  Like the ones you mentioned.

Ok, Thor Reborn told me to do this and it fixed the rest of my fx problems. 

"first download ezfx5.1
http://alexff.com/downloads/EZFX_v51.exe

install it
then go to C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force\DATA\Art\library\fx
copy the _textures folder and paste here
C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\Data\Art\library\fx"

Still having problems with combined attributes, like Caped Crusader, and the Driver Attribute still isn't working.   

Weird, but glad that worked for you.  I am really busy for the next day or two, but I'll try and hash out what's wrong with your combined attributes as soon as I'm able.

yea I took pity on you. everytime I wanted to check on benton's I had to read about your problems :P

Thanks for the help TR, I really appreciate it man.  I'm so swamped right now that it may have taken me weeks to sort that out.

Benton Grey, I have read a bit through this forum, and this mod sounds very much like something I would like to play. Is the "Beta" version still available? If so, where would I be able to download it from? Or would it be better for me to wait until the full version was released? Thank you.

Howdy HOUR_MAN, if you are dying to download and play it right now, you can find the beta by doing a search for DCUG in the release forum.  If you are a patient man, I would suggest waiting until I release the final version, although, be warned, that is going to be a good while.  I had hoped to finish it long ago, but my classes this semester overwhelmed me.  It will probably be months before I can finish it.  I am very glad to hear that the concept appeals to you! ^_^

Just a reminder that I'm having trouble with the custom combined attributes.

I haven't forgotten you TK, my last paper is due on Saturday, so I'll try and delve into your issues next week.

I understand. I have a lot of papers myself.

Good man, hang in there, and hopefully we can get you sorted out with a minimum of fuss.

Well TK, I suppose that I should take time out from my vacation to try and help you, huh?  Man, I have REALLY been enjoying the last few days with nothing to do, as this semester just about wrecked me.  Anyway, you're having trouble with the custom attributes, right?  Okay, first things first, we're going to find out if you've got the requisite files.  Go to: FFVTTR/DCUG/Missions/Scripts and open the file called FFXmulti.py with notepad or something similar.  Look through the lines and see if you can find the following=

[spoiler]['kryptonian', 'ffqnimbleflier', 'vulnerability', 'fastflier', 'invulnerable', 'toughguy2', 'heavylifter'],
['thanagarian', 'ffqnimbleflier', 'fastflier', 'grimresolve', 'fasthealing'],
['atlantian', 'disciplined', 'heavylifter', 'superleaper', 'fasthealing', 'grimresolve', 'levelheaded'],
['atlantianheritage', 'disciplined', 'flier', 'fastflier', 'ffqnimbleflier', 'heavylifter', 'fasthealing', 'grimresolve', 'levelheaded'],
['mera', 'disciplined', 'flier', 'fastflier', 'ffqnimbleflier', 'guardianp','heavylifter', 'fasthealing', 'grimresolve', 'levelheaded'],
['martian', 'disciplined', 'invulnerable0', 'toughguy2', 'guardianm'],
['white_martian', 'disciplined', 'toughguy2'],
['ringbearer', 'guardianp', 'plasmasculptor', 'summoner4', 'metashieldp'],
['mastermagnetic', 'magnetic', 'pupetu', 'grimresolve', 'metashieldp'],
['capedcrusaderbat', 'disciplined', 'presence', 'utilitybelt', 'nimble', 'acrobatic', 'grimresolve', 'ffqtracking'],
['capedcrusader', 'disciplined', 'utilitybelt', 'nimble', 'acrobatic', 'grimresolve', 'ffqtracking'],
['sorcerersupreme', 'firecontrol', 'earthcontrol', 'icecontrol', 'sensitive', 'puppetn', 'guardianp', 'levelheaded', 'groupteleport'],
['kryptonianclone', 'ffqnimbleflier', 'vulnerability', 'fastflier', 'invulnerable', 'heavylifter', 'metashieldp'],
['azaroth', 'levelheaded', 'sensitive', 'telekinetic', 'illusionist', 'fasthealing'],
['reptile', 'unheroic', 'bezerker', 'fasthealing'],
['mutatedshark', 'unheroic', 'fasthealing', 'hatemonger'],
['kryptoniancloneevil', 'invulnerable', 'toughguy2', 'heavylifter', 'superleaper'],
['wardog', 'invulnerable', 'toughguy2', 'heavylifter'],
['shazam', 'ffqnimbleflier', 'fastflier', 'invulnerable', 'toughguy2', 'heavylifter'],
['zatanna','earthcontrol','firecontrol','icecontrol','weathercontrol','puppetn','supertk'],[/spoiler]

A few of those might not be there, because I think I added some of them in AFTER I released the Beta.  However, the caped crusader will be our litmus test.  Do you see any of those?  If not, then we can solve the problem very easily, if so, then there is a more serious problem.

I see em. :(

How serious?
Will I need an operation?

Hmm......well, that isn't good, we may have to open ya' up. ;)  So, all the code is there, but the attributes are still being funky.  They were not working at all, right?  Have you modified the attributes in any way?  Go look at the Batman in the character window, and tell me if his attributes list caped crusader.

No, I didn't modify the attributes.  Do you mean the character window in the game or the ffedit?

Well, if you are comfortable with FFEdit, I'd like you to check there as well, but I actually meant in the game.  I'm afraid I don't have a clue what could be causing these issues, but I think a good stopgap would be for me to send you new versions of several pertinent files.

It shows up in-game not ffxedit.

Seriously?  Not in FFXEdit?  Well, I think there must have been a problem with your install.  If I had to guess, I'd say that the file was corrupted when you downloaded it or something.  Either way, we can probably fix it by me emailing you the .dats.  So, before I do that, are there ANY other problems that you are having?  Also, what is your email addy?

A quick update for the DCUG faithful out there:  I have finished the first 5 JLA missions, which comprise all of the solo missions, and now I'm starting on the last three or four of that campaign.  Next up will probably be The Brave and the Bold, or perhaps Hawkman/Atom.  I'd like to do Aquaman next, but I still need too much stuff, both from myself and the community.  So, progress is definitely being made, and I've managed to knock out three missions in a week!

Hey Benton, when the finished version does get released, will it be as an add-on to the beta, or will you package the thing?

Hey CB, I'm afraid that I've changed SOOO much that it'll have to be its own package.

Okay guys, a quick update and a plea for help.  First off, I am still working on this, never fear.  I am working during the week, and my hours are a bit exhausting, so I'm not covering as much ground as I'd like, but I do have Fridays off and the three day weekend is very valuable.  The situation with the passing of my cat and troubles with our new pets have taken up a lot of my time lately, but I'm hoping those will be resolved soon.  So, the short version is that the DCUG isn't the juggernaut of accomplishment I was hoping it would be this summer, but I'm still getting stuff done.  Also, matters should improve as I go along. 

On to the bit about help.  I find myself stymied by bugs in my mission scripts, and often hit a wall for days or weeks at a time.  It is not in my nature to work on things out of sequence, so it is tough for me to move on to something else without solving the problem.  What would be incredibly helpful is if a member of the community would troubleshoot problem scripts for me from time to time.  I can solve many problems my self with relatively little trouble by now, but things like the latest JLA mission that just stump me...well, I would make a lot more progress if I could hand it off to someone else to fiddle with for a while.  Obviously, this would have to be someone relatively familiar with EZScript, (the utility isn't terribly difficult to learn, even if mastering it is something else entirely) and modding in general.  If anyone out there is willing, I'd really appreciate it.  I'm sure I'd make much better progress on the mod if I wasn't constantly fighting technical battles (mostly of my own creation, admittedly, and therefore more difficult for me to spot!)  If you are interested, you can post here or PM me.  Thanks guys!

:EDIT: Head on over to the poll forum and let me know what characters you want to play as in the final JLA mission!

Just to let everyone know, I'll be out of town this week, so I won't be able to access my DCUG stuff until next week.

Woo-hoo!  Just an update for anyone who might care; I have finished the JLA campaign (well, pending the end of my playing through it to test it) and am going to try and finish the Batman campaign next.  I'm still debating about what comes after that (I'm open to suggestions: I've got the most work done on Brave and Bold or The Atom, but other possibilities include Aquaman and Hawkman), but I've just about decided that I'm going to release with only three campaigns, as I'm fast running out of summer to work on them.  The others will have to be handled as expansions.

:EDIT: Well, Batman is pretty much done, barring some testing, and since I haven't had any responses, I guess I'll just finish The Atom campaign.  I'll release the others as expansions as I finish them.

hi there, nice to see that the DCUG is still evolving, you're doing an awesome work and i hope it's not consuming all your free time (unless you want it :rolleyes:)
i just have a few question/suggestion
I'm currently going through my old JSA comics and decided to see what they look like in the DCUG (by the way: they look great) but...i couldn't find Alan Scott
i don't know if he's not done yet or if you just don't like him (after all, you said you would left out some character you dont like or you think won't fit)...or if i wasn't looking in the right place (i must admit that after i didn't find him at "alan scott" nor "green lantern" i kinda stop looking...)
could you tell me wich it is? it just sort of bugs me to have Jay Garrick without Alan Scott by his side
about the suggestion, if you haven't guess by now: please do a JSA campaign as your first extension  ^_^ (pretty please?)

well, you don't need to hurry to answer, i realise that all the custom fx of your mod are not there, and therefore not working, i'm going to fix that first...(by the way: a beam attack without proper fx doesn't work at all, whereas a melee or projectile attack works just fine. weird)

keep up the good work, and keep us inform while you do it if you can

(PS: apologies in advance for any mispelling/grammar error, english is not my native language)

edit: ok now that i have fixed the fx problem (same as yodaminch and tk), new suggestion: I think the missing texture are actually there, but they have been renamed.
In EZfx5.1 (for the first freedom force), the texture of the fx were in the form "name". In Ezfx6.0 (for FFVTTR) the texture name lokks like this "aff_name". So i'm guessing that the texture are there, but renamed "aff_name" and that's why thez won't work. That the case for a lot of the beams (gl beams and yellow beams and such). But some like aquaman harpoon no longer exist in EZFX6.0. Maybe someone should warn the maker of ezfx, or ask him if it's normal (maybe our download went wrong or maybe he just forgot to put a few old fx in that new version).
Also, i random encountered Raven in one of my fx test in the rumble room; and i realise that the new "Free Spirit" attribute in FFX3.3 was ment for character like her. Will your hero files be updated in the next release? or are you going to wait for people like USAgent to release new list of hero files for you to use?
damn i look like a chatterbox :banghead: i think i'm going to actually give you time to answer my message before bothering you with new questions ^^

Howdy Trelau, sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but I've been traveling the last week, and been somewhat busy since I got back.  Don't worry at all about asking too many questions!  I'm just thrilled that you're interested enough in my little project to be wondering.  So, to address your concerns, no, Alan Scott is NOT in the DCUG, but that will change before release.  I felt that he didn't fit, didn't really 'make sense' with the world I was creating, but a friend of mine convinced me that people would be disappointed if he were not included.  Apparently he was right!  He'll be under the name Sentinel, and I'm not entirely sure how his powers will work out, but we'll see.  I'm glad you thought the rest of the JSA was accurate though, I'm not as familiar with those guys as I'd like.

The FX problem is most likely because of a mistake on my part.  The missing textures are in library/fx/generic, you need to add them to the folder of the same name under library/fx. 

There seem to be other problems, but I don't know what they are, and hopefully I can solve them before the final release.  I like your suggestion about Raven, I'll have to check it out.

Glad to see you're still working on this, Bent. I still don't have FF2, but I think it's really cool this project is still alive.

I have an idea for a fun mission, quick mission, if you 'd like to hear it.

Sure Hitman, let's hear it! 

I just realized that I forgot to respond to Trelau's suggestion of a JSA campaign!  For the actual release I want to use something that I've already got the outline written for, and maybe even something that I've already started the FF work on, so a JSA campaign is out for the moment.  However, one of the first JLA expansions I'd like to do is a classic Crossover style story with the JSA, in which you'd play missions with each team, and then with combinations.  The villain might just be a certain time treading ne'er-do-well.

OK Bent, here goes. I don't have a real plot outlined yet, but I got the idea from a pannel of an old JLA one- shot. A while back, DC put out a bunch of different issues all titled "Justice Leaue of... Something," where something would be replaced with a word that starts with "A," like Justice League of Aliens (Supes, MM, Guy Gardner's Warrior, etc) or Justice League of Arkham (Bats and a few more refined Bat- Vogues), etc. Well, in JL Amazons, there was one pannel of where Plastic Man was during all of the mess. Enter Justice League of Anarchy- Plastic Man, The Creeper, Harley Quinn, The Trickster, and my favorite, Ambush Bug. I think it'd be neat to expand on this short- lived team a little.

Haha, I imagine that would have been a pretty entertaining issue!  I'm afraid that doesn't sound like the kind of thing that I'd have time to do, since I've got so many storylines that I want to follow already, but if you ever pick FF2 up (and hey, it's only 5 bucks) you can create it yourself!  That's one of the main reasons I am working on the DCUG, to allow people to tell their own stories.

well there's some good news if i ever saw one
i'm glad to hear that alan scott will make it for the final cut, but i admit i haven't thought about his hero file, and how to make him different from a "classic" green lantern (the wood weakness in particular)
a JLA/JSA crossover would definitely be cool...having the old flash teaming up with the new one, the first Atom and Ray Palmer...hugue potential for dialogue/cutscene

Hitman, those JLA one shot sounds pretty cool, could you tell me when they were release (to...err..."buy" them)

and Benton, if you wanted to inspire other to get into modding, it worked for me, but i really advise the others to start with a quick easy-scripted mission, because i tried something awfully complicated (a bat/question teamup for a detective investigation oriented story) for my first attempt to scripting and wel...i think i'll do a simple beat'them all as a warm up first

Trelau- Don't know the exact date, but it was definately early 2001 (March, maybe).

thanks! hum...this mean i should already have them somewhere...i'll start digging

edit: found it! those are pretty awesome team...

Just a quick update, issues one through three of "Mystery in Space" have been finished, which leaves plenty more, but I am making progress!  I hope my choice of subject for this campaign will be a pleasant surprise! :D  This third mission took a while since I had to make a lot of modifications to the map to capture the setting, but I'm hoping that the others will move more quickly now.

:EDIT: Issue 4 is now done as well!  This is the smoothest mission I've ever made.  I didn't have a single problem with it! *Knocks on wood*  Anyway, I've got roughly four more to go.  After that...I've got to do some base sceens, a little touch up here and there...but not too terribly much more.

Yay!  Mission 5 of "Mystery in Space" is done!  Three more to go!

Oh, is it? It only took 22 years, Benton. Will we see missions 6-8 before my 50th birthday? Yeah, I'm hardcore challenging you! :P

*ahem*

Good job, buddy.

Well, maybe by your 51st birthday........but I don't want to nail myself down to any hard and fast deadlines.......

thank you. That's very considerate. I just wish Aquaman was as considerate with his eyesore of a costume. BURN! I went there. :P



Im done teasin'. ^^

Hey, at least he's not a grown man in a green speedo and elf ears........

Hey to everyone following the DCUG, I'm still working on mission 6, but I was hoping that those concerned with my work might head to the Polls section and give me some feedback on what else you might be interested in.  Thanks!

:EDIT: Update, mission 6 is finished! :D  Two more to go!

Quote from: BentonGrey on October 15, 2008, 09:24:37 AM
Hey to everyone following the DCUG, I'm still working on mission 6, but I was hoping that those concerned with my work might head to the Polls section and give me some feedback on what else you might be interested in.  Thanks!

:EDIT: Update, mission 6 is finished! :D  Two more to go!

   That's really cool, looking forward to the finished results.

Thanks CB!  So am I! :D

Ooookey doke.  Mystery in Space #7 is finished, which leaves one more full mission, and a bunch of base screens.  Expect to see some posts by me in the script section, as base screens don't like me much.  That's why I've put off making them.  Anyway, I'm not just writing this to update those who care, I've actually got a request that I hope someone might help me with.  I have some concerns about the AI in the DCUG.  I've run most of the roster through the AI generator, (and that has improved their performance tenfold) it tends to create strategies that I don't like in characters like Superman and his ilk.  Instead of brawling like you would expect from the big blue, the AI keeps him in the air, using heatvision or superbreath, and generally flitting around wasting time instead of dealing out real damage.  I understand that characters like him obviously need custom AI (the same with shapeshifters, who tend to keep their first shapes), but I don't really have the time to do this myself.  I was wondering if anyone might be willing to adjust the AI for a few of my characters.  I've been looking into it, and it seems to be a fairly straightforward process.  I can provide the AI files that the generator...err...generated, and if someone would be willing to make some minor editing to encourage Superman, Black Adam, Wonder Woman, etc., to keep to the ground and duke it out, and to encourage Giganta to grow when she is facing tough enemies, that would make the final version DCUG a lot more complete.

I'm going to append a to-do list to this thread, partially so that anyone interested can get a decent idea about how close I am to finishing and release, but mostly because if I don't put it somewhere I'll forget it.  I keep forgetting elements of the project, only to rediscover that they aren't done.  It is, in all honesty, too big for me.  I'm quite amazed that I have managed to get it this far.

TO DO:

• Finish final "Mystery in Space" Mission
• Test Mystery in Space all the way through
• Do Base scenes for MiS

• Fix Base scenes for MiS

• Edit final mission for Batman
• Do Base scenes for missions 4 and 7 for Batman
• Edit Base scene for JLA mission 5
• Test Batman all the way through
• Test JLA all the way through
• Test Base scenes in JLA
• Get skins for Ray Palmer, Carter Hall, and Barry Allen
• Fix AI for brawlers/shapshifters
• Set up comic covers for JLA
• Set up comic covers for Batman (May not have time)
• Set up comic covers for MiS (May not have time)
• Collect comic portraits for the other half of the roster (May not have time)
• Get voices for Blue Beetle, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, etc. (Probably won't have time)

Completion....96%?

If I come across anything else that needs doing, I'll add it.

I just wanted to let anyone know who was following that I am really busy at the moment and won't be able to do much work on the DCUG until the end of the semester.  I'm in super duper crunch time for the next three weeks, with three major papers and an application hanging over my head.  I've really got too much to do, so I've got to spend every waking moment on this stuff rather than my project.  Hopefully after I finish these papers I'll be able to finish the project.  I'd like to see it released before we leave for Christmas break, but that might not be an option.  Any way, just a heads up.  I still need help with the AI if anyone is interested.

   Best of luck with the end of semester struggles. I just finished up, and I'm feeling much more relaxed. I'm glad to see the DCUG still going.

Thanks Cyber!  Well, it has become increasingly apparent that I'm not going to have the time I hoped for in order to finish and release the DCUG before Christmas.  I've been working on my papers nonstop, and I still don't think I'll be able to finish them even one day before they are due, meaning that the last one will probably be finished the day before we leave for Christmas vacation.  That being said, I am setting a hard release date.  For anyone who cares, the DCUG WILL be released on January 10th.  I still could use help with the AI issues but whether I get it or not, I'm releasing.

:EDIT: Ohh, and I've finished a bit more stuff...instead of working on my papers. :P

(É. notices that BG didn't say the January 10th of which year.)  :ph34r:

Looking forward to playing your mod, BG. Good end of semester. :)

Time is almost up, Benton; GnR's Chinese Democracy is out. Duke Nukem Forever can't be far behind...

LOL, you caught me E!  Thanks for the interest, I hope that you'll enjoy it...after all, you and M25 pretty much walked me through the creation. :D  YL, I will beat them, I swear I will!