DRD Team

The project will consist of four phases, with a release at the end of each phase, as a seperate wad. An all in one wad will be included with the last release. All phases will require GZDoom, but I may release a little ZDoom compatible asthetics enhancement.

Phase One: Weapons
My objective here is to utilize the features, in particular altfires, made available by decorate. I'll try to make the weapons more versitle, but keep their power around the same. In addition, a pistol and a shotgun will be added to fill holes in the weapon lineup. (These weapons will be available from certian monsters.) Alas, due to the strifeguy hand issues, reloading will be absent.

Spoiler: Weapons Changelist

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• Punch Dagger: Remodeled so the player can use his other fist to jab and punch. The two opitions use are balanced by rate of fire. I envision the dagger getting used for stealthy kills, so it is slow but powerful. Both attacks improve based on the stamina stat. Inspired by Doomrater's "Unarmed"
• Crossbow: Both modes merged into one weapon. Secondary fire switches modes. Posion bolt capacity decreased, as you can make some insane slaughter with it as is. Alternatly, I could make the poision bolt work like the posion darts in Hexen.
• Pistol: Nothing special. Each shot uses the same function as the assualt gun. Secondary fire is a slower, aimed shot, which becomes more potent as the player's accuarcy goes up. (Theorectically, he's aiming at vitals). Graphics by Scuba Steve (Not the ones in the existing ww-strifemod)
• Shotgun: Again, nothing special. Primary fire use a tight choke, making it more useful for longer-range. Secondary fire is a wider choke, for in close. Still looking for usable graphics.
• Assualt Rifle: Minor cosmetic changes, mostly. Secondary fire is an aimed three round burst that works like the pistol secondary fire.
• Minimissile Launcher: As is, this weapon is frequently unsuable. I'm going to make the inaccuracy of the rockets actually reasonable, rewarding players who have reached 9 or 10 accuracy with homing rockets. Secondary fire is a multiple warhead rocket that more closely resembles the Doom rocket.
• Grenade Launcher: I'm going to try to ressurect the gas grenades, which will function similalrly to the cleric's flechette in Hexen. All the modes will be merged, with secondary fire being the switcher.
• Flamethrower: Secondary fire will launch a ball of loosely packed napalm that scatters over a wide area. No other changes are needed, as this is the best implemented weapon in the game.
• Mauler: Both modes integrated into one weapon. Primary fire, the spray, is almost unchanged. The secondary fire, the torpedo, will be altered to produce a shpere instead of a ring of projectiles.
• Sigil: Completely remodeled into a real ultimate weapon. I'm keeping my changes secrect, so you'll have incentive to hunt it down (or cheat for it).

Phase Two: Monsters
Overall, the Strife monsters were unsatisfying and felt unreasonably stupid and weak to me. The lineup also lacked variety, pitting you against too many acolytes. I'll try to correct these problems, and in general make the creatures more challanging. Almost everyone will have their chance of attacking increased, as taking three shots and then wandering aimlessly while getting mowed down works for zombies, but not trained soldiers and cyborgs.

Spoiler: Monsters Changelist

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Spoiler: Humans

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• Peasant/Begger: I'm going to completely rewrite these guys, to make them not sucidally stupid. They wander about (or stand still) until damaged, at which point Peasants will flee, hitting you if they get close, while the Beggars will make a desperate attempt to kill you with their bit of piping. In either case, they will no longer talk to you, so watch your fire
• Rebel: There's not much to chage here. I'm just going to alter the attack sequence so that they open up on foes instead of firing bursts and then walking around.
• Macil: I'm gonna remove all the weird invincibility issues, and have him attack with very accurate rifle fire.

Spoiler: Cyborgs

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• Grey and Blue Acolytes: Equipped with the pistol. They thus fire single, discreet shots.
• Tan and Rust: Still using the assualt rifle, but at closer ranges, they will open up instead of using burst fire.
• Light and Dark Green Acolytes: Equiped with the shotgun, using the different chokes at apropriate times.
• Red and Gold Acolytes: Equipped with the Flamethrower, using the napalm ball at range and the normal fire up close.
• Templars: I'll let these badasses use the Mauler's secondary fire at longer ranges. You've been warned.

Spoiler: Robots

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• Turret: I'll stop it firing in bursts and let it autofire like every movie turret ever.
• Stalker: These little bastards are scary enough as is.
• Sentinel: I'm going to replace it's projectile with a railgun effect, and force it to keep it's distance. These thing will get massacered by the Shotgun if they contune to fly right up to player.
• Reaver: Not many changes to make. I'm just going to alter their shotgun to be consistant with the new one.
• Inquistor: These guys are very, very scary. I'm going to rewrite their attacks, giving them a Cyberdemonesque rocket launcher and allowing them to launch the same grenades the player does.

Spoiler: Bosses

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• Programmer: I want to change his attack to be consistant with the new Sigil, and give him the ability to drop teleport beacons that call in Acoyltes.
• Bishop: Much tougher, and fires big nasty cluster warheads instead of those puny homing missiles. He can also teleport, which will help escape that death-chamber they have you fight him in.
• Loremaster: I think his claws would be cooler as tentacles, moving slowly but unerringly tracking you down. In additon, he'll be able to raise up fallen Cyborgs.
• Spectres: Our floating freinds will be changed to use the new Sigil functions, and given the capability to teleport themsleves and others.
• Entity: No comment.

Phase Three: Asthetics
With this phase, I'm just altering some of the resources to make the game more neat and immersive.

Spoiler: Asthetics Changelist

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• A TERRAIN lump, based on Caligari's Splash3.wad, will be addded.
• Several sounds, notably monsters and weapons, will be altered to make the game more exciting and creepy.
• Some of the music is downright awful. I'll use some tracks from Zen Dynamics (as if I need to mention the name of the Great One who created it) and the Trigun soundtrack to make it a little more tolerable.
• Dynamic light defenitons, for both the original and altered actors.
• I'm going to try and make the game a little more visually intersting using my knowledge of Japanese. This will mostly affect textures, but I'm going to replace several HUD Icons with Kanji.

Phase Four: Between Heaven and Earth
Now that the game has some new toys, I'll provide some new maps as well. They'll be a new episode, complete with Dailouge scricpts and a storyline. I'll also include some simple DM maps in a third episode, becuase the game really needs them.

Yes please ax the list down a little. I like the list of weapons ideas but keep in mind that too many weapons can unbalance the game real easy. Good luck on the mod though.

Old Post.

I'd recommend either outsourcing a few weapons to the 9 and 0 keys, or scrapping a few of them - more than two weapons on the same key can tend to make things a bit more difficult than it should be.

It also sounds like you have a few "Me Too" weapons in that list - the Grenade Launcher and the Howitzer, the two Assault Rifles, the two Missile Launchers. One or the other. Don't overcomplicate things.

Also scrap the akimbo crap. Sorry to say but the reason why so many DooM mods do not go akimbo is because it is a waste of ammo. Think about, if you kill someone with the right hand pistol or shotgun then the left hand attack wastes a round. Plus you will save alot of space both code and graphics wise. It is better to not fill up your wad with a ton of akimbo based frames since that just bloats it size wise.

Edit: Just so ya know I have nothing against akimbo weapons. It's just that Decorate and Edge can not handle them properly unlike the more modern games.

Old Post.

Reconsidered the whole weapon lineup and made a lot of changes, which will be announced when I have a demo version to release.

Sounds good.

Terminal laziness and seeing the Pope aside, I am back on this project. I am currently working on phase 1, the weapons. I don't intened to create whole new weapons so much as jazz up the existing Strife lineup. I'll also be filling in some holes with a heavily modifed version of WW's pistol, and a shotgun of my own devising.

PROGRESS: Made sprites for the fist/punch dagger, and the kick. Got all the needed Kanji for the weapon/health/armor icons.

Woo! You saw the pope?

Does he really look like emperor palpatine?

@Chrono: Yup. Got blessed, as well. Benedict does kinda look like Palpatine now that I think about it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Scuba, I have pistol sprites, and thanks to Chrono, I have Shotty sprites as well. I hate the Assault Gun's sprites, and I am condsidering changing to a different sprite set for that weapon.

Soultaker wrote: Just so ya know I have nothing against akimbo weapons. It's just that Decorate and Edge can not handle them properly unlike the more modern games.

*eckurgh*

For EDGE, use NOFIRE_RETURN and use A_JumpIfInventory with a dummy item in ZDoom.

IMO, the only weapon tune-up that Strife needs is to have the Doom single shotgun. Something that filled that niche was always woefully missing from Strife IMO. Just adding a dozen or so weapons does not improve the game IMO. I doubt that this project will increase the popularity of Strife and it will just become a mini-WRW for a game few people play.

Strife does need some quality mods for it but I think it needs some good, solid levels and funstuff to play - taking advantage of the existing mood, style and gameplay. It does not need something that is little more than something of novelty value - which unfortunately is what this project sounds like it might be.

Alright. I've updated the first post to reflect the atcual plan for this project. I'm sorry about the missing monster changelist, I'll write it as soon as I get time, but please give me your opinions and ideas on the Asthetics and Weapons. Thanks for all your support.

Sounds pretty cool, I like how you're making the pistol and assault gun more powerful as accuracy improves. Will electric bolts do more damage/work better against robotic enemies?