8-11-97 Extended (long) documentation follows the following description. I'd like it if you read it. PLEASE read the Bugs section. ========================================================================== Name : Trilogy Multiplayer Date : 8-11-97 Filename : trimp.bsp Author : Rich Tollerton Alias : Publius E-mail address : rtollert@tranquility.net Homepage : None (yet) Synopsis : A small yet difficult DM level for 2-6 players. Teamplay is doable. deathmatch 3 HIGHLY recommended. Expert Quake highly recommended, but optional; see http://www.planetquake.com/expert/ for details on the mod as well as the design philosophy behind this. This could be a decent 1v1 map, though some problems are evident. There are several problems with the map which you should be aware of, read the Bugs section (at least) before playing. Please. This map will be in the Expert level pak (up and coming) as well as the Quake Workshop DM pak. It may (possibly) be added to another pack. Non-Obvious Credits : Myrkul - lots and lots of advice and testing. Tony Distler - Identifying improper textures. Various people on #Clan_Lagitus and the Thred Editing mailing list who reviewed this. Several people playing on Expert 3v3v3 for playtesting (sorry, don't remember the names) ========================================================================== * Play Information * Single Player : No Cooperative : No Deathmatch : Yes (7 starts) Difficulty Settings : No * Construction * Base level : New level from scratch Editors Used : Stoneless 1.01 Build Time : 4+ months (approximately) Compile Machine : Pentium 150, 80M RAM Utilities Used : Transparent QBSP 1.61, arghlite v1, rvis v1 MipDip v1.55/qART used for texture moving/copying newwad 1.4 used for texture creation Photoshop v4 used for texture modifications Known Bugs : See below # of Textures : 24 Texture WAD2 Used : Cropped textures.wad (of all id textures), plus custom modifications of id textures qbsp -verbose Time : 46 seconds light -extra Time : 220 seconds (3 minutes 40 seconds) rvis -level 4 Time : 354 seconds (5 minutes 54 seconds) Brushes : 516 Entities : 230 Portal Leafs : 424 # of Portals : 1138 Average leafs visible : 108 * real docs begin here * Storyline --------- The Trilogy Battleground was hastily prepared during the Quake Wars by the alliance of human armies, assembled under the Trilogy standard, as a small combat practice field for a select group of incoming soldiers. It was located in recently captured enemy territory - an small, isolated planet, completely overrun by volcanoes, and having only one usable slipgate. For lack of transportation and materials, alien architecture (of a blue metal) was put to use for its construction. The Battleground did its job well; the armies of Earth were victorious. After the war, the Battleground had no use to them; all known slipgates to the planet were destroyed, although the actual Battleground remained intact (mainly for cost reasons). Shortly after the detonation of the slipgates, the Battleground underwent severe modification. It is unknown who desired it, but it is clear that the Battleground was going to accomodate a completely different function - hold reserves of lava taken from the planet's surface, and ship out that lava to a nearby lava refinery when needed. The changes were made using a greyer metal more resistant to fire than the impure blue walls that existed before; only about half of the Battlegrounds were converted. The main slipgate to the facility was also sealed - with a Trilogy logo. Due to the design of the magnetic pumps that propel the lava, the new outpost (for it is no longer technically a battleground) requires little to no manual operation. However, once in a few years pumps may get miscalibrated or lose calibration (espescially when some lava has no magnetic potential), or too much lava is input into the facility, or something along those lines. When any of this happens, the lava clogs up, overflows the pools, and anybody who is there gets one hell of a spa. Some of the lava immediately pours back into the ground grates, but quite a bit cools on the ground, creating mounds. Most of the kinks in the pumps have already been ironed out, however, and force fields have been erected to keep the lava from overflowing. There is some intelligence to suggest that whoever controls the facility is organizing a military force. If that is true, then the Battleground may be used for its original purpose, although with a more malevolent intent. Description ----------- trimp (trimp) v. [Quake] To jump off a steep slope, gaining more altitute than a normal jump in some computer game physics models. n. 1. A mound or slope that permits trimping. Use is deprecated, see mound, hill. 2. Any piece of terrain that exposes and exploits computer game physics bugs. 3. Raw gameplay. Usually added as an ingredient in most maps. Some people prefer fried trimp, trimp batter, or popcorn trimp. Pure trimp is difficult to manufacture and requires distilling. 5. Trilogy Multiplayer, a deathmatch and teamplay map written for Quake by Rich Tollerton, aka Publius. Trilogy Multiplayer is a smallish map, written in a combined blue/grey metallic architectural style, although there are many things of my own devising. It's maximum capacity is about 6-8 players (although it gets pretty crowded at 8); any more creates total chaos. This map will be in the Expert Quake level pak (info at http://www.planetquake.com/expert/), as well as the Quake Workshop DM pack (info at http://www.quakemania.com/qworkshop/). It is built on Expert Quake design principles, so the ideas in the Expert Level Design page (from the Expert Quake home page) are used throughout the map. The map is designed with gameplay and skill in mind. The type of 'fun' that you'll get out of this level is different from most degrees of 'fun' that you'll get elsewhere; there are no caches or extremely powerful items, and all items and health are scattered pretty much evenly across the map, so that there really isn't an optimal path of the map. (Taken differently, there is an infinite number of them.) I call it difficult because your score is only limited by your relative combat skill - there are so many different combat possibilities that players MUST use the terrain to their advantage. No two parts of the map are similar in combat; you can't expect a strategy that works in one room to necessarily work in another. You can be attacked from any direction; you can defend yourself with just about anything. There are no tight corridors or extremely wide-open spaces, so that you are never guarenteed a hit and never degenerate into infinite-plane combat. Features -------- Several new design elements are in this map that have rarely been seen before, espescially in this usage. First, note the several hills and slopes on the level. This is the primary reason why each part of the map is different - the dynamics flow around each slope differently. (You can also quite easily jump from the hills - a very good tactic for offense and combat. I have dubbed this technique 'trimping'.) (AFAIK, this is brand new in usage. Myrkul's Isis had isolated mounds, and I got the idea from him, but they did not take advantage of trimping at all. Some maps do have isolated slopes that use this, but not in this fashion. In dm6, you trimp to get to the RL/100H room from the center room; no other usage is demonstrated in any id map.) Second, note the stairs which can be accessed from every possible direction on the lower level. I call these omni-directional stairs. You will no longer be troubled by running backwards through a level, fighting your opponent, when you run into a stair rail or wall and stop moving. (The Canal Zone uses a ramp version of this, though this is again an independent invention. Somebody said he saw this before somewhere else...) Third, note the very high spawn locations. This *eliminates* telefragging. Period. (well, except if a player is trimping or rocket jumping to the same location as the spawn spot... but still, the odds of telefrags are substantially reduced.) The twin teleporters also use this spawning system. (This has been demonstrated effectively before by a few level writers.) Fourth, notice the two-way wind tunnel. Yes, that's right. Come in one way, turn around, and go through in the opposite direction. Without QuakeC. It even works on grenades, too. (Well, mostly. See Other Info for details.) (If somebody else figured this out already, the world would have already known it.) Some other things should be pointed out: - Note that virtually every part of the map has 3 (or more) connections to the rest of the map. I believe that this is the optimal number of connections in a DM map. - Note that there are very few (if any) nooks, crannies, or high (sniper) spots that are relatively inaccessible. Simply put, you MUST keep moving in this level; there are no chances for ambushing, and very few for sniping. - Notice the use of columns and struts. Now, I've already had complaints about these, but I think that they have a legitimate use as a small visibility barrier for architecture (visual as well as tactical). - A compass is placed on the map, to facilitate descibing parts of the map. I got sick and tired of saying "the doorway between the room with the SSG and the room with the LG", or making my own jargon just for that particular spot. So, I put in a compass, so I can just say "the doorway south of the SSG". - There is plenty of armor and health. Players should be able to replenish themselves between battles; the health is placed so that [most] of it is out of the way of most combat (i.e. against walls). Trilogy? -------- Clan Trilogy was my former clan. It was begun in July 1996 by Vovin; I was in it (as TR-Apollo) for virtually its entire lifespan. It was discontinued because of inactivity, loss of web site, loss of server, loss of administration, loss of some members, and more inactivity. (So no, you can't join it. :) ) However, one of the plans that still (theoretically) remained after Trilogy's demise was its editing project. Vovin has turned out two maps following an advanced storyline, which I have tried to follow. The first, TMI (Trilogy Military Institute), earned very good reviews when it was released last year. The second map released was Hall of Trilogy (hotril.bsp). This is my contribution to the project. * Other Info * Reapers may or may not like this map. I didn't design this map for robots. I designed it for humans. Reapers don't play human. All lava is protected, either by columns or clip brushes. I think it's simply stupid to have your butt fried just because you made a wrong step. The consequences are too severe for such a small mistake. That's not going to happen here. There is a trigger_changelevel in the map, inside a clip brush (so it is impossible to get to). It points back to itself (trimp). The clip brushes (as well as the struts) covering the lava in the room with the triangular mound have a small lip on the top. This is mainly for jumping onto it (between the columns above) and walking off of the clip brushes (although that does take a while), but you can walk in front of the columns. Due to the implementation of the two-way wind tunnel, it is possible for weird things to happen if you do something stupid while inside it or aiming at it (firing a rocket inside of it, for instance, or grappling). The implementation is actually quite clean, though, and it should be fairly possible for the advanced player to reverse his course inside the wind tunnel at will. (Exercise left to the reader.) The upside-down intermission shot is NOT a bug. Two doors are placed on the map in the two hallways. This is done to solve a gameplay problem introduced in the room's fundamental design: while in combat, that connection is the most difficult to observe, and thus it is possible for somebody from that hallway to quietly enter the room, where he can attack or ambush as he pleases. The doors have an extended triggering radius and a loud sound that eliminates this problem; anybody triggering the door will be heard. The teleports are added to make sure it is easy to get from one level to the other. It is quite easy (by falling) to enter the bottom level from the top; but the reverse requires a fairly involved trimp. Teleporting introduces an alternate connection that requires little to no skill to use, and does not make a quick escape from either level. The teleport destinations are raised, but it is still possible to telefrag. Caveat emptor. All of the (sourced) lights are covered with glass (read: trigger_multiple with an insanely huge health). The reasoning is a little erudite: because the lights are inset into the wall, if rocket fire hits an inner corner, quite a bit of the splash is blocked by the wall itself, essentially adding randomness to combat. (This also makes it tougher for hooking.) So, an invisible (NOT clip) brush is placed in front, so that in combat the wall is, for all practical purposes, perfectly flat. (Except that the glass bleeds...) LoadMod (the automatic item-placement engine in Expert Quake) will place a red armor in the northeast corner of the indoor RL room with 7+ players. Since all of the items are balanced anyway, this should not be a problem. This is my first released map. * Bugs * The surf counts could get a bit big, at times. It can max out in one place. But the actual gameplay visibility (what the player actually sees) is relatively small, so I don't think it will be that much of a problem for net play. QuakeWorld v1.64 and below have modified physics that prohibit trimping. Live with it. QuakeWorld servers v2.0 and above fix this. The storyline could be corny. Some parts of the storyline may conflict with the architecture. Some parts of the storyline may not be implemented in the architecture. In short, don't take the storyline for granted. In single-player mode, the name wraps around the screen with +showscores (Tab key). Do I care? I'll leave that question to the philosophers. (Using '\n' in the title is a neat trick, though.) Please report all fireproof comments to me at rtollert@tranquility.net . * Copyright / Permissions * Organizations are allowed to distribute this map for free, provided that it is not bundled into a compressed file with any other map and that the rest of these permissions are observed. No organization may distribute this map for a fee without my written consent. Nobody may modify this map without my written consent. All distributors are required to keep this text file, unmodified, in their distributions, in the same compressed file as the BSP.