Allied Assault Friendly Faces Demo

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:21 am

Screenshots are linked at the bottom.

THE DOWNLOADS
http://rapidshare.de/files/19492851/All ... s.zip.html The primary file.
http://rapidshare.de/files/19493316/AAF ... c.zip.html Ambience and music.

THE DESCRIPTION
Have you ever wanted to experience Allied Assault with teammates, the way it was meant to be? ... No? Well, that's what you'll get, anyway. This mod- dubbed Friendly Faces- will be based entirely on the player getting allies on the single player levels. Each level will be more than just a change of terrain, however. I'm going to try to mix around the way teammates act. Sometimes, the player will get a commandable squad (thanks to Lizardkid's squad script!) and other times, the player will just get a bunch of charging teammates that won't follow any particular orders.
This demo supports m1l1 (1st level) and m1l2a (2nd level). Although m5l1a has enemies and allies that constantly respawn and are meant to charge around, allies will stand around oddly and the level will be overly difficult.

THE OBVIOUS CHANGES AND FEATURES
Music and ambience will be added to some levels. Not every level will have its own song, like on this demo. Most songs that are added will be from other Medal of Honor games. The music volume is blasted really high compared to the original songs to ensure that the songs could actually be heard in-game.
A new enemy is featured on the first and second levels, called the Super Soldier.
Enemies will never fall down for more than a split-second. Sorry, it was annoying.
Many levels will feature a squad that can be commanded, and most levels will contain a friendly medic, irrelevant of commandable squads. I intend to make it so the health of the medic and other important, uncommandable characters can be seen. But not in this demo.
Major Grillo is invincible and he can't aim. Done so he wouldn't run straight into danger and get himself killed. All allies that are invincible will be completely unable to aim, with the exception of the first level.
The first two levels are given huge amounts of enemies. This will happen in every level to ensure the levels are actually difficult.
Enemies have painfully large amounts of health. The theory is that the player and his allies will be shooting the enemies repeatedly, so the large amounts of health seem like nothing.

SQUAD COMMANDS of Lizardkid's Squad Script - Only for the second level right now.
DEL: Follow - Makes the squad follow the player. ALWAYS DO THIS AT THE BEGINNING OF A LEVEL, AND WHEN A NEW SQUAD MEMBER IS ADDED! Otherwise, allies will follow weirdly close, and allies that are added will not follow you.
PGDN: Regroup - Makes the squad move to the player, but not follow him.
PGUP: Advance - Makes the squad go to where the player is looking.
HOME: Hold Position - Makes the squad stand still (and not shoot at anything?)
END: Covering Fire - Makes the squad fire at where the player is pointing. Point near the feet of your allies (somewhere between them) when they're standing really close to eachother. Or point at the sky. It's hilarious.

THE INSTALLING
Just extract the download(s) into your Main folder. The actual mod, and the music/ambience for it are a different download (because the music and ambience are big downloads). Music and ambience won't play inside of .PK3s, so they're in folders. To get rid of them, delete the BROADUS ambience sound in amb_stereo and delete the BROADUS folder. You'll not be able to hear any music on the first two levels, or any music/ambience on the m5l1a if you don't download the music/ambience.
You'll doubtlessly notice that the normal mod file comes with some player models and a soundfix. The soundfix is so... Sounds are fixed... And the player models are for the AI in the mod that use stuff from the player models.
Only one of the player model .PK3s will actually come with a player model. The others will only be data, so you won't get a bunch of unwanted player models in your menu. The player models (mostly just data) were made by Hardgore and Sgt. KIA.

THE PLAYING
Start up the game and play the very first level like you normally would. After beating the first and second level, that's the end of the demo. If you want, you can play the first level of Mission 5 by starting Mission 5 normally, or typing maplist in the console and double-clicking on "m5l1a". Once you beat that level, that will ALSO be the end of the demo.
There's a change to Omaha Beach, but the only change is that there's some sad music (same music as on m5l1a), and the appearance of the friendly soldiers will be changed a little.

THE PROBLEM
Yes, there is a problem. Sometimes, AI will stand completely still and they won't do anything. They'll try to aim at enemies through friggin' walls that they can't possibly see. It's stupid and annoying, and I'm not sure how to fix it. This problem never occurs on the first level, occurs sometimes on the second level, and is just a huge, obvious problem on m5l1a.
Because of this problem, you won't really be able to beat m5l1a, because you'll constantly be attacked by huge masses of enemies, and your allies will be way back in the beginning, constantly staring at nothing and being useless. TO THE MAX!
Also, on the first level, when you blow up the barrels the enemies are standing next to in the beginning, there may not be an explosion, because a bunch of enemies will spawn right when the barrels explode. Sorry, but I couldn't figure out a better way to make the enemies spawn when the player gets near the town, and it won't be fixed unless someone tells me of a better way, so don't just wait around for these problems to fix themselves.
If you'll notice, the squad names on the squad list are way far away from their health numbers. Well, I plan on moving them so they're closer together... I just haven't, yet.

THE SCREENSHOTS
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4130/ff19gv.jpg
The soldiers on the first level are all tan, and behind the soldiers is the medic.
http://img315.imageshack.us/img315/6738/ff24zb.jpg
Clearly, there are more enemies than usual. The new Super Soldier enemy is sitting there, though it's hard to tell (because he's shooting at me).
http://img315.imageshack.us/img315/1214/ff32ep.jpg
Notice anything different? What? You don't? Come on! Major Grillo has a British airborne uniform! There's some soldiers and a medic right there! There's even a list of squad members! You don't see it? You've got to be kidding me. Forget it.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2078/ff47hy.jpg
The prisoner guy! Featuring the brand-new... BLACK PEOPLE! Sure, prisoners shouldn't have grenades or knives on them, but what are you gonna' do? Take them from him? Another ally is added to the squad list on the HUD, too.
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/8363/ff57uq.jpg
Charging allies on m5l1a! And, look! More black people! God, I'm so terribly racist.

Give me any feedback and tell me what you think!

Post by **jv_map** » Fri May 05, 2006 5:42 pm

Downloading now.. will try it soon... one thing, are you aware your download host is extremely annoying?

Post by **jv_map** » Fri May 05, 2006 6:37 pm

Well... it's an interesting change.. and I commend you for you work... but it's not really my taste honestly.

Ophisâ„¢ · Post by **Ophisâ„¢** » Fri May 05, 2006 6:45 pm

jv_map wrote:Downloading now.. will try it soon... one thing, are you aware your download host is extremely annoying?

gues you dont have an account with them. I get all my cough ripped music cough and other "software" from there because they have super fast download speeds for me.

snipester · Post by **snipester** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:04 pm

so what exactly does this do??

Post by **Rookie One.pl** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:24 pm

Makes espresso coffe with milk and sugar.

PKM · Post by **PKM** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:43 pm

Rookie One.pl wrote:Makes espresso coffe with milk and sugar.

lol, no offense broad but the kid ^ is getting good .

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Sat May 06, 2006 4:49 am

Wow. For several days, no replies. JV says something, BAM! Replies. Now to answer them all individually, making each of my replies as long and boring to read as possible! You know, like I always do.

JV: Thanks for the commendation. If you don't like teamwork with AI (if that's the reason it doesn't satisfy your tastebuds), then so be it. We can't all enjoy everything. I just find AI to be more fun, trustworthy and team-based than players that just happen to be on the same team as me, and it's always fun to have teammates that will run and hide behind stuff and shout things frequently like "MOVE IN!" and "GRENADE!", while players are always dead-silent.
Team Deathmatch on Medal of Honor and Call of Duty is just Deathmatch with people that you're not allowed to shoot, and enemies that will all gang up on you.

JV and Snake: Well, I use Rapidshare because... I can share rapidly! I would use Filefront, but they go down all the time, and uploading feels so laborious.

Snipester: I bet if you read the description, you would have gotten a basic idea. It puts allies into the original Allied Assault levels so the player goes on oh-so-wanderful adventures with a squad that often includes a medic, though some levels are warzones where the player just follows his allies around as they get slaughtered. And I laugh! On Allied Assault, the medics will just follow the player and his team and heal people. In Spearhead and Breakthrough, I managed to get the medics to not only heal regularly, but to also fight enemies with whatever weapon they're given. Makes the medic a lot more fun to have around, rather than just a free health machine.

Rookie: It makes DELICIOUS espresso! But, uh... I wouldn't drink it, if I were you.

PKM: I'm not gettin' why I'd be offended, I'm afraid. Rookie was responding to Snipester for Snipester's inquisitive, challenging question.

lizardkid · Post by **lizardkid** » Sat May 06, 2006 5:03 am

i've got to try this out, i was meaning to do something similer to this as a demo of the script...

Makes espresso coffe with milk and sugar

rook i'm loving you more every day.

snipester · Post by **snipester** » Sat May 06, 2006 5:13 am

great ill try it right now!

lizardkid · Post by **lizardkid** » Sat May 06, 2006 6:38 am

After playing through a bit of it (first couple levels) i have to say, WELL DONE.

it finally makes use of all that good fighting ground that really needed using in hte game. plus all the germans make the fighting so much nicer, none of this rambo-pistol-bashing-only through levels, you actually have to apply cover and fire technique for this. plus i have extended mods that give more smoke and dust to the scene, so by teh time i get through an area it's literally blown down with a low-lying layer (LLL) of smoke and dust... noting quite like a job well done.

i noticed the squad AI wasn't the fixed version, if you told them to advance somewhere tactical to regroup while they were in combat they wouldn't. i think i still have it, i'll toss it your way if i can find it.

or maybe i'll just recode

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Sat May 06, 2006 6:56 am

Well, thanks, Lizardkid! That's one of the things that bothered me the most about the Medal of Honor level design. They would often have these areas where you could put in a terrific battle or some extra enemies, but they would be completely empty.
I've been working on taking the rear area of the second Omaha Beach level (the bunker level) and turning it into an actual area that can be played. There are some weird brush problems I can't fix, but they're not very big problems. It's weird how the area behind the bunker in single player is almost perfectly designed and prepared to be used, such as landmines stopping the player from seeing things he shouldn't.
It'd be great to have the fixed version of the Squad Script. I modified the non-fixed version so the squad could support up to ten people. I was also thinking of using your cool health display script for characters that could be killed, but weren't a part of the actual squad (such as medics).

What's the mod you use that adds all that smoke and dust?

Post by **jv_map** » Sat May 06, 2006 6:58 am

Ahh I think I have to elaborate on the 'not my taste' comment

I love friendly AI, they're cool

, and the increased German resistance isn't a bad thing.

I merely didn't like the uberhealthy Germans that take a full clip in the head to die (either that or I just can't aim

), and especially the uberbosses I think were better left out. You can't shoot them in the head, because that bit of them is nonsolid. Also their texture is not in any of the pk3s you provided (there are more missing textures).

Hope that's a better way to put it

lizardkid · Post by **lizardkid** » Sat May 06, 2006 9:44 am

i integrated it with my UI mods a while back when i had to download a bunch of custom maps to play with my clan(so i didn't accidentally delete my UI mods when i was done with the maps) so i don't know the name. but it just increases size and life of the particle effects, such as nades and bullet impacts. it's somewhat glitchy if you throw a nade, because for some unknown reason the smoke shows through walls completely. but it isn't a bit deal here since you're mainly fighting in one concentrated area, makes it look quite good with the "box room" fight in the first mission. it lags quite a bit though, if there's any fighting happening.

i think it was called something like Richochet's Ultrasmoke Mod or something..? pretty sure it was Richochet.

it's entirely possible to have that display for health, in fact it'd be pretty easy.
i'll dig it out tonight and work on it a bit more, was a fun project i have to say, and now that i have a halfway decent demo map of the thing i might have to go to it a bit more seriously

It's weird how the area behind the bunker in single player is almost perfectly designed and prepared to be used, such as landmines stopping the player from seeing things he shouldn't.

i think the developers used the same basic frame of the map for both the SP and MP maps of the thing.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Sat May 06, 2006 4:05 pm

Oooh, JV. Didn't realize the textures and models for the boss weren't even included. His head might not be solid because the model for his gasmask head wasn't included.
Enemies having a lot of health can indeed suck. My theory was that the player and his allies would be shooting the enemy so frequently that they would die too fast for the player to notice exactly how hard they are to kill. In practice, the player can sometimes find himself alone (or his allies will be busy or won't be helping enough or whatever), so the player has to pump the enemy full of two or three magazines before the enemy even dies.
If I set everyone's health to normal, however, the game is just too easy. The player and his allies can just tear through the enemy with no problem, so the game just stops being challenging. Even without the allies (if they die because they have low health), it's pretty dang easy to kill enemies, whether they have huge amounts of health or not.
I wish I could accomplish something like Call of Duty. That game is always challenging, even when the level is swarming with helpful friendlies. I guess I could set the health of everything lower, then put in the description of the mod that the player should play the game on Hard if he wants to actually be challenged. It would require a lot of tweaking, but I could probably pull it off.
I actually liked the bosses having super-health, though I feel the health would have been better-justified if the bosses never flinched from pain (though I don't know how to do that). Sometimes, it boils down to the player and his allies hitting the boss so often that he never even gets a chance to fight back.

And your squad script was certainly awesome, Lizardkid. It was disappointing how nobody was really using it. But I plan to integrate it into this mod of mine as much as possible, so if you do work on the squad script more, rest assured it will be put to good use.