rumble from the grave

[bearded]

just to have something to talk about.  i can't seem to mod  :ffvstr: at all, so i've been playing with the rumble mod for  :ff:.  it's based on furie's old design, but i've done a ton of stuff to it.
list of new features:
1.  all heroes and villians based on usagent's herofiles.
2.  every mission, a random hero to recruit, so neat random teamups, like badger and batgirl.
3.  click on a phone booth, removes your hero and replaces him with superman or a hero of superman's power level, such as thor, for those bad guys that are just too powerfull for you.  costs lots of prestige.
4.  hospital that cures states and heals hp, costs small prestige.
5.  batsignal in the police station, summons a batman family hero, and makes him/her recruitable.  i've discovered even if you don't recruit them they still gain exp!
6.  cerebro custom power in the schoolhouse that summons a mutant hero and makes them recruitable.
7.  teen titan tower, summons and makes recruitable random sidekick.  free of prestige.
8.  random building in empty lot.  going to implement random objects next.  barrells, crates, powerups.
9.  avengers assemble!

things i'm going to implement:
check!  placed it on the building tower, summon teen titan.  1.  sidekick summoner, not sure what object to place it on.  summons robin, bucky, speedy, kid flash, etc.
check!  2.  avengers assemble summoner, on the ff base.
check!  3.  justice league satellite dish, for summoning jla.
check!  unfortunately the building is facing away from the street.  have to figure out how to do rotation on spawns.  4.  an empty lot, each mission it will have a random object; police station, schoolhouse, sidekick, ff base, or the satellite dish.
5.  when/if galactus is spawned, somewhere hidden on the map will be the ultimate nullifier.
check!  6.  an endgame, where you can win, by defeating the mastermind behind the attacks.
check!  7.  newstand summon.  you will get a spider-man family, or a civilian child.  if you can get the civilian child to a phone booth, he then changes into captain mar vell, shazaam, the hulk, etc.

[BentonGrey]

Well Bearded, in what I'd heard of your idea in our little discussions, it seemed cool, but to see it all listed out like this is really neat.  I especially like the idea of being able to defeat the mastermind.  Lots of cool ideas, my friend!

[bearded]

i've just figured out how to do the mastermind!  i'll make a custom object that will teleport you to the villians base whenever you feel ready.  every mission you play before that will increase the size of your team, as well as exp.  when you get there, the number of badguys will be based on the number of missions you play beforehand, as well as the mastermind behind it all!  i'm excited now, going to implement this tonight.

[doctorchallenger]

Do you need ffx?

I'd love to test this.

[bearded]

you don't need ffx, what i use from ffx is already bundled into it.

[The Hitman]

Bearded, if you need a tester, I be more than happy to pitch in.

[jehingr]

I've never actually done anything for the community here before, just downloaded & played a ton of the amazing efforts you all have done.

So, I guess it's time to contribute something positive - I'd be happy to test it.

[The Phantom Eyebrow]

Sounds good Bearded!  I (too) will playtest for you if you're still looking.  For playtesters.

[bearded]

good.  i'll need about a week, to put the finish in.

[kkhohoho]

If there are still open spots, I'd like to playtest too.

[laughing paradox]

I've never tested a beta before, so I'd love to try this out. Besides, I've been wanting to play :ff: again, and I can't think of a better reason. I've been stuck on  :ffvstr: for a while.

[bearded]

update:  i'm checking to make sure all the necessary meshes are in the correct file, instead of in my standard data folder, which is super full by the way.
i'll have something by friday to download and test.  in testing, what i really need is for ppl to pick a single character and play them out as far as possible, and make suggestions on powers and how they should advance.
i appreciate you volunteer testers!

[jehingr]

Awesome - I am so geeked to try this out.  I even turned down a last minute gig for this weekend to play this!  (and if for some reason it isn't ready, I can probably still pick up the job - so no pressure implied  :) )

[bearded]

Awesome - I am so geeked to try this out.  I even turned down a last minute gig for this weekend to play this!  (and if for some reason it isn't ready, I can probably still pick up the job - so no pressure implied  :) )

wow, i'm not sure how to respond to that.  edit:oh, but don't worry about it being ready.  it's all totally playable.  it's just a matter of how much i want to improve it before i let it out.

here's a fun team up i had last night during testing:

last night i set up the final mission map, placed the ff car for going to the final mission map, and tweaked the custom team lists; sidekicks, temple, and created the amazing friends list.
the final mission map has been chosen, and set up, tonight i will place all the markers.

[Blitzgott]

Hey, bearded!

In case you're still looking for testers, I'd like to join.

[The Phantom Eyebrow]

in testing, what i really need is for ppl to pick a single character and play them out as far as possible, and make suggestions on powers and how they should advance.

Are you going to allocate individual characters to the various testers ?  If we all gravitate towards the same few characters (and it might happen) then you would get less coverage of the various options available. 

[bearded]

a strong point.
the way it works is when you start a new campaign you get a random hero, no mission.  if you don't want that guy, just hit replay until you get one you like.  then your missions begin.
at that point, you could post here that you've adopted that guy. 
you can play him for a bit, and then save, and play later.  no hurry.  but what i'm looking for is broken attributes, powers that seem under/over powered, and suggestions for new powers.
i'll post some rules about the custom powers when i do the testers release.  for example, you can't get a sidekick if you have more than one hero active.  however, when a hero dies, his slot opens up, and then you can get a sidekick, but note, dying in the mission means no exp for that character.

[bearded]

ok, got a working portal that takes you to the final mission.
the base lets you reduce the number of characters you have in the mission now, for strategic purposes with the custom recruit powers.
added a few more characters.
the final mission has a number of bad guys based on the number of missions you took to get there.  all i have to do now is spawn the mastermind, and set it up so when you beat him, you win the game.

[Peerless1]

Oh, my gawd! (Too valley-girl?)  :wacko:

I would love to test this also.  I can hardly believe it's possible...   :unsure:  You have at least doubled the nifty-ness since our last discussion! :ph34r:   Still, if you don't sneak out to the convenience store soon, your beard will be sweeping the floor of your lair.   :o 

:thumbup:  :lol: :) :rolleyes:  :D  :cool:

I will even take the most obscure random hero I can find.  Just because....


I will look for the update to your hosting site, and DL asap!

Mike

[bearded]

i decided to post instead of pm:
it's a little convoluted, but it works.  click here:
beardlair.com
and then right click on the link and save, then rename it from .gif to .ace and open it with winace.
thanks for your patience!

but if you download, remember, it's in beta, and please, post here and let me know whats up.

[Blitzgott]

Forgive my ignorance, but how do I install it? Also, the link for that "ips" file isn't working.

[bearded]

you are going to need winace to install.  you might be able to open the 3 files directly with winace, or you might need to change the .gif at the end to .ace, but either way winace is just like winzip.  then extract the files into your directory c:program files/irrational games/freedom force
actually the character files need to go into rumble/library and the custom characters need to go into rumble
then you need a copy of fforce.exe that opens the rumble file, or use the executable in the rumble directory.

[The Phantom Eyebrow]

All right, I have it working!

I've not had a chance to play much Bearded I'm afraid but I do have some comments:



The game is looking like it'll be a grower.  The initial battle with the first battle seemed a bit anaemic but then the second battle with two villains was much better and the third battle proved too much for me!  (Perhaps I had a bad team?)  I can see this becoming quite mental after a few more levels!

The extra features seem to be working on a hit-and-miss basis.  The hospital healed my hero a bit but base return didn't seem to do anything.  The call assistance feature in the phone booths normally did nothing either but sometimes it managed to replace my heroes with two very powerful ones (Doc Strange, Surfer, etc).  However, when it did this, these new more powerful heroes couldn't move or do anything and I had to restart.  This happened any time the call assistance feature worked.

Still though, this looks like it'll be a lot of fun and there's a great collection of meshes and skins too!



Also, my virus protection and spyware checker are going mad over this winace software since I've installed it.  I think they're happy enough just keeping an eye on it and the computer is working fine, but it is a little disconcerting to someone as computer illiterate as me.   

[bearded]

thank you for the bug report.  i'm trying to figure out why the call backup phonebooth isn't always working right.  the hospital should work up to 4 times per mission.
some the custom powers will only work because of special rules.  base return only works if you have at least 2 controlled heroes on your team.
check out the lot directly in front of the base.  there is a random building there, you can get extra heroes from, depending on the building.  if the hourglass shows up, you can go to the main bad guys lair, but he has as many allies based on the number of missions you've played to get there. 
the random buildings have certain rules also.  for example, you can only have one hero if you want a sidekick.
oh, and if you lose a battle, let the mission switcher play through without hitting escape!  see if you recognize the sound.

[Conditioner]

I have played few games with this great mod (always liked furie's old desing) and here's some bugs I've spotted so far:
some (few) meshes missing: annihilus, powerring, spiderwoman, fang, magneto
most of the special atributes didn't seem to work at all
problems with all special buildings (only sidekick-tower seem to work most of the time)
ironman didn't gain experience at all
visions dematerialize cost about 625 000

I think it's going to be great

[bearded]

I have played few games with this great mod (always liked furie's old desing) and here's some bugs I've spotted so far:
some (few) meshes missing: annihilus, powerring, spiderwoman, fang, magneto
most of the special atributes didn't seem to work at all
problems with all special buildings (only sidekick-tower seem to work most of the time)
ironman didn't gain experience at all
visions dematerialize cost about 625 000

I think it's going to be great

good bug finding!
i'll put a patch up this week.  new feature, radio, you click on it and it plays different music.
special attributes?  i hope you don't mean the ffx attributes...
all the special buildings have rules about number of ppl.  if you have less the three team member, they should all work fine.
i must have forgotten to click on the campaign tab for iron man in ffedit.  easy fix.

everything else working?  random recruits, the sidekicks becoming recruitable?

[Conditioner]

ffx attributes exactly

[bearded]

do you have ffx installed in your main data?  maybe it needs to be installed.
i changed the base retreat so you can retreat with one hero, and lose the mission.  then when you replay all the voices work.
yesterday i got a team up of she hulk and spider-man.  those 2 are very strong together.  they almost beat doomsday!

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Just to clarify, FF1 mods need to have FFX installed separately, FFvTTR mods don't.

[Conditioner]

do you have ffx installed in your main data?  maybe it needs to be installed.

yes, I have.. and some of them are working fine (for example acrobatic).

but anyways..
I have found two other character with missing mesh: kang and shadowcat
and some of attacks don't have a animation:
Black panther flip kick, panther combo and hide in shadows
Hellcat mystic mesmerize and hide in shadows
Scarlet witch alteration
Stingray ball lighting

Captain Americas ca shield strike doesn't seem to have special effect.
Vision disruption technic doesn't work.

As you see I have played mostly with Avengers so I don't know much about others..