Forthcoming EMZ Release

[simulation]

Hi All

In the near(ish) future I shall be releasing a bug-fix release for EMZ to make it up to version 1.22.

I know you guys still run 1.1 on your D3 servers, but I thought I'd ask just in case you know of anything that needs fixing.

On the list so far...

Banning bug fix
Corrupt user info file fix
Master Server heartbeat update fix

Possibly add the ragdoll deaths from the 1.3 beta 'cos they're simple enough to do again and look cool.

[Edit 2008-03-21 - I renamed this thread to be more generic as the idea of a 1.22 release went by the wayside a long time ago]

Sim

[eXg. Pun1sher]

Wow, thanks alot Sim. I think I'm going to put it on one of our servers. Is it purely incremental, or a full version that is available.

PuN

[simulation]

Wow, thanks alot Sim. I think I'm going to put it on one of our servers. Is it purely incremental, or a full version that is available.

PuN

It will be a new set of gameXX.pk4 files that will require the existing emz000.pk4, emz001.pk4, emz002.pk4 and emz003.pk4 data files (from 1.21).

I'll reorganise the downloads page on the EMZ site when the time comes so it will be simpler to see what is needed. I'll do a ZIP with the new 1.22 files only and one with the whole lot. Its easier to upload the whole thing these days since my ISP improved upload speeds.

If I remember I'll add the net_clientDlTable change from 1.3 in too so that you can just set it to "*" - as long as you upload maps to the download host you won't need to edit the server config each time you add a map.

Sim

[eXg. Pun1sher]

Sim, that is GREAT news, and I'm ready for ya.

Do you have any "representational" SS's of it, I could use to show it off ?

PuN

[simulation]

Sim, that is GREAT news, and I'm ready for ya.

Do you have any "representational" SS's of it, I could use to show it off ?

PuN

No. Not even started coding it yet, but as for screenshots it wont look any different to 1.21 - the current release. Well, with the exception of the ragdoll deaths, of course - but they look rather dull as a SS and need to be seen in action really.

Are you confusing this small patch with the larger scale changes that were the 1.3 beta? Sorry if I didn't make it clear. This is a minor bug-fix patch to the currently released 1.21 code to correct just a few little things.

The 1.3 version of EMZ isn't going to be released - the official server has been dropped back down to 1.21 which is why I want to release a small patch so I can ban people again and not lose my player data

[eXg. Meckta]

can u get the coding for the different arenas in toruney. like q4. that would make the best mod ever!

[simulation]

can u get the coding for the different arenas in toruney. like q4. that would make the best mod ever!

It would be possible, but its not going to happen. I think the 1.22 patch will be the last EMZ release. I've lost enthusiasm after the 1.3 stuff.

[simulation]

Ok. I've had my Diva moment.

I've just had a long chat with TN|iluSion who has persuaded me to ignore the negativity and press on with 1.3.

So I will. Does seem a shame to abandon 9 months worth of evenings.

However, if people do find it is too much for their servers to handle I will be glad to do the 1.22 small patch release mentioned above.

Simon

[eXg. apo]

Ok. I've had my Diva moment.

I've just had a long chat with TN|iluSion who has persuaded me to ignore the negativity and press on with 1.3.

So I will. Does seem a shame to abandon 9 months worth of evenings.

However, if people do find it is too much for their servers to handle I will be glad to do the 1.22 small patch release mentioned above.

Simon

OMG you were going to abandon it? jesus christ people should be gratefull of the time and effort thats been put into to tryng to make theyre D3 gaming experiance better.

I for one think the 1.3 version of EMZ is sweet and i have no problems with it what so ever.


Keep going sim!

[simulation]

OMG you were going to abandon it? jesus christ people should be gratefull of the time and effort thats been put into to tryng to make theyre D3 gaming experiance better.

I for one think the 1.3 version of EMZ is sweet and i have no problems with it what so ever.

Keep going sim!

Yes, thats how dispirited I'd become. I am constantly impressed by how much effort id are still putting into Q4 given the huge whining I see over at ESR.

Anyway, bitchslapped by iluSion and back on course

One thing I've learned when adding new features is to NOT enable them as a default setting. The public release of EMZ 1.3 will look just like 1.21 (well, apart from menus) until players choose to turn new stuff on.

Simon

[jonnnyh]

maybe it would be more interesting if you added functional and useful things to your updates instead of just eye candy.

by functional and useful, i mean tournament style like q4 has, the ability to record netdemos, the capacity to turn rocket smoke off, a better hud adjusting system, a standard white "+" shaped crosshair, and adjustable crosshairsize

these things might be too hard to do or alltogether impossible but they are in quake 4 and quake 4 is based off the doom 3 engine.

in any event, the 1.3 release is just new menu art and other eye candy that nobody really wants. not me anyhow.

i like emz, and i appreciate what you do, i just don't understand some of the implementations and why they are prioritized over more fundamental ones.

[BugZz]

Good job sim even though i don't play doom 3 anymore but good job with eMZ and i hope fix the bugs in emz 1.2. but has jh said stop going for eye candy and focus more on game play for gamers. eye candy = FPS lag.

[eXg. Pun1sher]

Well Sim you kinda caught me off guard with the mention of negativity ?? Who is negative on EMZ ??? I, well, WE, have been supporting you guys, since the beginning, and have always had EMZ up, running, and done everything I/we can do to support your efforts. I did choose to use 1.1 for our purposes, but others use the 1.21. Really depends on what you need to get out of it. I'm glad you had some sense smacked into you , and if there is anything we can do to help you out, in your next gen. please let us know.

PuN

[simulation]

maybe it would be more interesting if you added functional and useful things to your updates instead of just eye candy.

by functional and useful, i mean tournament style like q4 has, the ability to record netdemos, the capacity to turn rocket smoke off, a better hud adjusting system, a standard white "+" shaped crosshair, and adjustable crosshairsize

I must have missed the posts you made on the EMZ site asking for these things. Apologies. I'll try and take more notice in future

How can I make the HUDs easier to adjust/have a better system? I'm open to suggestions. Thats the point of running a beta. I don't think the system that Q4MAX uses works in D3 because loose GUI files are ignored by the pure server checks in D3. And anyway, can you seriously expect people who can't be bothered to read the new options in a menu to code their own GUI scripts?

Granted, the spinning anim stuff isn't to everyone's taste - but we may have some static icon replacements on the way. In the meantime I'm sure you've already switched back to the standard HUD.

{EDIT: I just realised something about the Q4MAX style HUDs and tried it out - hadn't realised they had to be packaged up in PK4 files to work. Just tried that with a test PK4 in D3 and it works, so for the next patch release after 1.3 (prolly wont have time before that) I shall redo the "standard" set of 1.3 HUDs as fixed GUIs and put something up on the EMZ site to explain how to make your own. You see - this is what happens when suggestions are made - stuff gets looked at! Thx for bringing this up again and making me look closer.}

You can turn smoke off in 1.3.

You can also turn off the standard lighting model and have a simplified version like the "ambient" option in Q4. Can give a nice FPS boost depending on your hardware.

If by "a standard white "+" shaped crosshair" you mean a solid white crosshair then I'm sure that request can be accomodated. I assume you're ok with it flashing red on a hit? Or is that something I should add as a general option? I'll look at sizing - I assume you mean you'd like to be able to make them larger or is smaller on the cards too?

There was ONE request posted to the EMZ site for Q4-style tourney mode. It would be possible to add it - the Q4 SDK is, after all, very similar to D3's so it would be possible to port it over. But are there enough players to need such a function? And you'd have to live with my stick-man artwork for the scoreboard thingy.

A "functional" change that I hope people do like is the per-weapon sensitivty, fov and weapon model stuff. Although again this has been a cause of hate because people don't take the time to find out/can't be bothered to ask how it works. Only takes a couple of minutes to look through the menus. And, heaven forbid, the release version may even include some documentation instead of the useless ingame help that nobody reads.

I like to think the vote system is a little better in 1.3 - you can now vote for more than one change at a time within groups. And admins can create their own votable configs to add into the list for specialised setups.

Wins/Games stats and rankings are "fun" rather than serious measures of relative skill. At present thats all EMZ records so there aren't many options for ranking players. But maybe a future version can include a proper elo (or something else) ranking system.

I'd argue that dual-spec isn't just "eye candy" - i like running it in SbS mode to see what both players are up to.

And there are a lot of useful changes in EMZ that you may not even be aware of because they're features for server admins. 1.3 has much improved player management commands and includes some built-in cheat detection features too.

these things might be too hard to do or alltogether impossible but they are in quake 4 and quake 4 is based off the doom 3 engine.

Yeah, some are harder to do in D3. Some are nigh-on impossible. Take netdemos for example. The Q4 engine has additional support for netdemo recording and playback that just doesn't exist in D3's version.

Ambient lighting is now in the Q4 engine and not in D3's but I managed to use a variation on TTK-Bandit's orignal Q4 techniques to make it work farily well in D3 despite the more limited lighting options.

in any event, the 1.3 release is just new menu art and other eye candy that nobody really wants. not me anyhow.

Well the menus are now actually maintainable. They're also better organised and have a lot of stuff in that wasn't there before. Like the in-game server browser for example.

If you ever tried adding a new entry to the old ones it was like pulling teeth. That was the reason for the redesign - to make editing them simpler to develop and less error prone. I'm not going to apologise for making my coding life easier.

i like emz, and i appreciate what you do, i just don't understand some of the implementations and why they are prioritized over more fundamental ones.

Thanks. Gald you like it. As I said above, if nobody points out what the "fundamental ones" are then I can only go with what I feel might be fun to code/experiment with. "The time of my thought is my own to spend."

eye candy = FPS lag

Agreed. But I think the only case of that in 1.3 is the new HUDs, which you can turn off if you want. All other visual changes either have little or no effect on FPS or make it better (ambient for example).

Well Sim you kinda caught me off guard with the mention of negativity ?? Who is negative on EMZ ??? I, well, WE, have been supporting you guys, since the beginning, and have always had EMZ up, running, and done everything I/we can do to support your efforts.

It's the in-game negativity toward the 1.3 betas that have depressed me - nothing to do you with you guys here. Your support/encouragement has always been appreciated. I really don't mind people not liking/using features - but when people come on the server and moan about being sh*t without taking the time to open the menu and find the "off" button/be constructive about why it's bad, then it grinds you down. I deliberately turned all the new features "on" as a default so people could see them and choose whether or not to use them.

I'm sure half the people joining the servers (well, more like 80%) don't really understand what beta software is for. Originally I was going to run a closed beta but was persuaded to make it public. I think in future I'll choose a list of players I know I'll get feedback from and restrict the betas.

I guess this is no different to what you see on pub forums (SyncError must be the most patient man alive to read/post on ESR) where 100 will post to say they don't like a pixel being out of place but only 1 of the same 100 would post to say if they DID like it.

I'm wondering where to go with "EMZ 2.0" if such a thing should ever see the light of day.

Some of the existing stuff can be done better. Should it be a 1v1 only mod or should it have MORE gametypes? Right now its used almost solely for Tourney. Supporting RoE is a pain in the butt - would anyone really care if we lost CTF support and only do "base"?

Long, rambling post, courtesey of...
Sim

[eXg. apo]

I have no idea why people think 1.3 lags them? it doesnt play any differently for me.


I dont think it would matter what game anyone modded for, you will always come up againt moany rude people.


You cant please everyone unfortunately.

Im playing D3 a bit more recently so i can spend some time looking at things, i think i said this a while ago but had alot going on recently.


keep up the good work sim! id hate to see EMZ die, youve come to far with it mate!!!