Coop.... why hasn't it been done yet?

[mrbean1112]

hello, i have just registered on these forums... and i have a question.. are there any mod developers either making a coop mod, or have already made one??? i am sure that a coop mod would greatly raise the community for painkiller..... i dont know why they didnt include it...... can someone tell me why a coop mod hasnt been even announced yet? Also, can someone tell me if it would be possible to load up multiplayer, then start a server on the singleplayer map.... then have my partner on the LAN connect to my ip? would that work for coop? i dont care how buggy it is... i just want a new game to play with my freinds at the next LAn party.... lol.... sorry for how annoying i sound... :)

[Luigibuddy]

hello, i have just registered on these forums... and i have a question.. are there any mod developers either making a coop mod, or have already made one???

I doubt it's possible considering PCF didn't release the SDK.

[spyware]

No you can't do that I would like that too,Thats why I play serious sam.
as well as pk.

[B6r6n6]

I try to make an coop mod for pk, & this not work !

Because :
-need to re-write all MP code
-pk netcode; 10 monsters for 2 players, but this is little :/

[mrbean1112]

they didnt release a SDK? what a waste.... oh well... that really sucks.... dangit.. so there is no way possible to do this with painkiller......... why would they not release a SDK..

[T'krau]

There was some noise about it a long time ago, but I think PCF got bogged down in trying to stay ahead of the patches...

Welcome to the boards, mrbean1112!

[mrbean1112]

thanks for the welcome! :) :)

[PeTjA]

1.) PCF is a verry little & young Company = SDK Noway!
2.) Someone told me a Coopmode worked with a Mix of:
2a.) MP-Demo
2b.) The Serverversion
of Painkiller (guess 1.00)

So i suggest to unpack this Stuff & have a closer Look into it!:eek:

[PeTjA]

No Comment? F*ck You!:eek:

[dooguesgoober4]

I had actually got my hands dirty trying to figure this one out myself....I loaded up a singleplayer map in the editor and saved the names as dm_cathedral (for instance). It worked, BUT, the monsters did not have any AI and they would just walk around aimlessly, not knowing you were an enemy. Also, slabs didnt show up therefore allowing you to advance through the level without beating a certain part.

Therefore, coop IS possible, but as b6r6n6 said, youd need to rewrite the MP code so that the monsters had AI.

[T'krau]

...youd need to rewrite the MP code so that the monsters had AI.
How hard is that to do?

[spyware]

Couldn't you use the A.i from the sp version? Why?

[Maiden_Canada]

Coop in a game like Painkiller would ONLY make sense, >loads up Swat4 to play CooP online<

[spyware]

Couldn't you do something like changing the bots skins to monsters?
as use them as ememy team?

[B6r6n6]

Remake all Mp code with Sp part is an very big work :/
All maps need to remove physic !

---------------------

For coop based on bots :
Monster don't have all anim. (ex: jump)
12 Max players , very little for monsters + players coop

But if an good Lua coder work hard on it , perapse ...


... a mod with bullet-time in MP is more easy to make ;)

[mrbean1112]

anyone thinkin about rewrtiimg the mp code??? i tried looking in the pk files and stuff.... but uh.......... well lets just say i didnt know what to do ;)

okay...coop would be fun, but if it would be too hard, then i understand.

[dooguesgoober4]

I think basically the main problem is that all the monsters dont recognize the player as an actual threat to them and shoot at you like they would normally do in the SP game....I think if you could get possibly the code for bots and organize it so they would see you as an enemy then maybe it would be possible to achieve coop abilities.

[fleabay]

The monsters are looking for a player by a certain name variable. You could easily fix the code to look for one of the MP players. The other MP player(s) would have a far easier time.

Another problem is making sure both players are in the same section while opening and closing doors.

I tried creating a co-op mode about a year ago but as soon as one problem was solved, another, more difficult problem arose.

[spyware]

Door's? Couldn't use mp maps?

[Evil-Incarnate]

if you mean young as in nieve then yes they are.

[fleabay]

Door's? Couldn't use mp maps?

If you don't use doors, you have to spawn all the monsters at the start of the game. The game runs to slow and creates some

*other, more difficult problems*

[kalme]

If you don't use doors, you have to spawn all the monsters at the start of the game.
You could still use triggers without the need for doors, could you?

[fleabay]

You could still use triggers without the need for doors, could you?

Imagine cemetery without doors. Not much of a challange.

All the gameplay with PK is based on being locked in a section until all the baddies are gone.

[kalme]

Imagine cemetery without doors. Not much of a challange.
Take a look at Tree of Woe. Same there, you can run through the whole level in a fraction of the time compared to the intended way, but it still is fun.

But you are right of course, it's a very basic concept in Painkiller. On the other hand I think that it's almost impossible to ensure both/all players are in the same room so the doors can be closed without problems. If you wait for the last one, the first one may already have proceeded into the next area, if you trigger doors by the first player, you may lock out the other one etc.

Edit: I just thought of Serious Sam. There, the doors to the next areas are closed by default and the ones backwards are closed as soon as the last player arrives (which also triggers spawns then). The better way imo.

[Varus77]

If you don't use doors, you have to spawn all the monsters at the start of the game. The game runs to slow and creates some

*other, more difficult problems*

That's not right. There is no reason to use doors. You know that you can trigger what ever and where ever you want. It's at first a problem of logic and then under a tactical view that you'd be able to pass all monsters. But I think that most players will never miss to kill all monsters besides of funny run-through actions. And on a very wide open area you have to tweak the AI, maybe by using some waypoint scripts and others if you won't make the gameplay to easy. Sure - I'm not a great fan of those door close - door open game play. It's an often used feature of devs to make an easy handling for linear game play (for zoning too :) ) but restricting players creativity isn't the right way. I think we have seen over the last years a very increasing of optical game system but the part of AI wasn't improved on the same way. At all it isn't at a level it should be.

[PeTjA]

I was thinking about Forest, that have 1 Door & at Hills that have no Door or 1 Door?
I agree, It should be done by clever Monsterplacing & Triggering.

/callvote gamemode With Door or without Door:)

[kalme]

I made a quick mod that removes all doors from PK's levels and spawns the level end at level load. I thought it would be fun (at least for some levels) to be able to bypass all monster spawns and to speedrun through it. There are three drawbacks however:

1.) It's way too easy. I finished the first levels in Nightmare without losing more than 20 health points.

2.) It's getting slooooow. I tried to run through Abandonded Factory and the more enemies spawn, the slower things get. At the end my screen froze for about 10 seconds as the last number of enemies appeared, and my framerate went down to 15.

3.) For some levels, it's absolutely not appropriate to remove the doors :-). Think of asylum (yay, I finished it in 0:01).

[Varus77]

LoL...you're funny...

If you pass all monsters then you'd have in some cases at the end 350 monsters on the map. Therefore you'd need a monster-PC. :D

@ PeTjA
tztztztz...Hills has of course no door :p

[kalme]

You don't trigger all of them, because often you don't explore every area and a lot of monsters are triggered by killing others. But it seems like 50-70 monsters at the same time still is overkill. After all, Painkiller is not Serious Sam, right Dark? :D

[Varus77]

PCF changed the logic for the using of triggers during the making of the levels. Eg. in the Docks level they triggered the monster by run through...
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/9503/dockstriggerall2nn.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[dooguesgoober4]

Here is an IDEA....

You start a level like you normally would in SP....you spawn the first set of monsters and whatnot and kill as many as you can BUT if you dont, you could create a CBox at the end of that particular section that has a command "Kill:AllEnemies" per se, then you wouldnt have to worry about lag problems with all the enemies. And then at the very last CBox that would kill all the enemies you could also spawn the end level spiral thingy.

What do you guys think about that???

[kalme]

This would require alteration of all levels. I'd prefer a solution that only requires game script changes. When I wrote that mod I thought of two alternatives:

1.) Kill existing monsters after a certain time to live. That means every monster has a built-in timer, and after a certain period of time (10 seconds?) it gets killed/deleted automatically. This would be easy to do. To also make levels like Asylum etc. playable, the level end would be only triggered as soon as all monsters died or (better) as soon as (dead monsters + active monsters) = total monsters.

2.) Alter checkpoint behavior. As soon as you touch a checkpoint, every currently alive monster is killed (I'd disable the save-function of checkpoints to avoid lags caused by it). The last checkpoint spawns the level end. This would require a change in the spawn behavior of checkpoints. Supposed their indices are in a logical order I could just spawn them gradually. If not, maybe I could use the one next to the player (easy to find out), but this may not always be the one that is the next one in game-flow.

Any other suggestions? I'd like to see a mod like this...

[PeTjA]

If the original Maps not good for Coop, Y not Hills (ask Varus)?!:confused:

[hund_schraube]

i would pay for another pk that included coop[he11 it was all i could to do to not get black-edition];)

[PeTjA]

If the original Maps not good for Coop, Y not Hills (ask Varus)?!:confused:
:p :)

[dooguesgoober4]

The monsters are looking for a player by a certain name variable. You could easily fix the code to look for one of the MP players. The other MP player(s) would have a far easier time.

Another problem is making sure both players are in the same section while opening and closing doors.

I tried creating a co-op mode about a year ago but as soon as one problem was solved, another, more difficult problem arose.

What if you made this mod for a team dm type of setting where the monsters are looking for the variable of one team? Then they would attack all on the team correct?

And how about making teleporters in front of all of the slabs and only activate them after all the monsters in that section have been killed then teleport to the next section?

[PeTjA]

I have to burn & install the PreAlpha of Painkiller (from Nov 2003).
Some say there was a COOP-Match on a LAN with this Version (+the MP Demo?).
PreAlpha:
- 2 solo Levels - Cemetery and Town
- 1 boss Level - Meet Alastor
- 2 LAN-only Multiplayer levels - DM-Unseen and DM-Sacred
Looks like COOP doesnt work for MP?

[Jaspos]

I hope someone gets this worked out. I would love to set up my new level HellCamp to suit co-op...

[Born Dead]

I know this is a bit off topic but relates I think.
If someone does manage to do it I will be curious to try it I addmit I would also like to see a Dungen Lords DM & CTF as well with all the moves and weapons.
That would be someting to see.:)

[Taxidermy]

How about making it so that the trigges/checkpoints in the sp maps have to be "triggered" the number of times equal to people playing the map? that way none of the "zones" pop up while someone is left out, and monsters would only spawn when everyone is inside the spawning area.
I havent tried the PK editor yet (cant make it work =( ), but is is ANYTHING like the source editor? or more like the Unreal editor? Over at facepunchstudios.com you have allot of good LUA scripters, but I dont know if the language is universal for Painkiller and HL2 as they are deifferent games with different engines.

[PeTjA]

I like the idea with the triggers. Sounds good. The LUA used in the game is almost english and only some words are polish.
I never tryed the Source- or Unrealeditior.
If U need some help with the PainEditior: http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26614&page=1
Feel free to ask there questions about the PainEd.

[Taxidermy]

I like the idea with the triggers. Sounds good. The LUA used in the game is almost english and only some words are polish.
I never tryed the Source- or Unrealeditior.
If U need some help with the PainEditior: http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26614&page=1
Feel free to ask there questions about the PainEd.I cant run the editor =P It needs a DX 9 rendered it seems, wierd thing is: I have a X1800XT 512 mb with the newest drivers =P, so prolly som installing issues.
Il look into the editor some more, as I make allot of stuff for HL 2 and CS source

[PeTjA]

Weired.
Keep in mind that the PainEd needs 32bit Desktopresolution. But in this case U get a errormessage.
BTW: I have a X800XL 256MB and used a fx5600 256MB over a year without any problems.
But U game works?

[T'krau]

...I have a X1800XT 512 mb...
I've heard/read where some apps are having difficulty with 512mb cards - the hardware is outpacing the software.

[Taxidermy]

I've heard/read where some apps are having difficulty with 512mb cards - the hardware is outpacing the software.


HAHA! Awsome =P
The game runs like clockwork ;) Il jsut wait for a patch ^^