Synergy Update Coming, version 17 Options

[VOSK]

This version is a small update, but still, here's a changelog for you.

http://synergymod.net/Development/16
http://synergymod.net/Development/17

Sorry for the lack of work on the mod - I have courses to do and I am also thinking of earning a BCS at university.

In other words, "things" are happening - with all of us, to be exact;

4LT is currently at school, if I'm not mistaken, a university.
JQ works.
Deathstick is also at school.

Archanor is making progress on a brand-new TakeOver map. (Hopefully a sequel comes too.)

[ultradude25]

Nothing about fixing vehicles? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Oh well, item_ammocrate fix makes up for it.

[TGP1994]

How about fixing some of the maps? If you guys give me the VMFs I could fix up the bugs I know of.

[ultradude25]

Why would you use the slow Hammer way which requires recompiling when you have the edt system?

What is actually wrong with the offical non-campaign maps anyway? Besides needing save points, which I'll get to when I have time.

[TGP1994]

Why would you use the slow Hammer way which requires recompiling when you have the edt system?

What is actually wrong with the offical non-campaign maps anyway? Besides needing save points, which I'll get to when I have time.

I know for sure that there is a bug in a transition between the mines in HL2 and then to the beaches where you drive the buggy, just before you head out to the magnetic crane, the door does not open, allowing people out side. Also, check this out. There is a bug in an EP1 map where the citizens will not follow you right away.

[ultradude25]

Why would you use the slow Hammer way which requires recompiling when you have the edt system?

What is actually wrong with the offical non-campaign maps anyway? Besides needing save points, which I'll get to when I have time.

I know for sure that there is a bug in a transition between the mines in HL2 and then to the beaches where you drive the buggy, just before you head out to the magnetic crane, the door does not open, allowing people out side. Also, check this out. There is a bug in an EP1 map where the citizens will not follow you right away.

VOSK wouldn't have the VMFs for the campaign maps, Valve doesn't give them out, but you wouldn't use them anyway.

[TGP1994]

VOSK wouldn't have the VMFs for the campaign maps, Valve doesn't give them out, but you wouldn't use them anyway.

Well, regardless, there's problems to be fixed.

[ChexGuy331]

I still want to know the name of the intro music. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[Nibbler]

Posting for friend due to registrations on this forum board is broken.

I know theres only 4 of you working on this mod but really... your focusing
on non issue bugs and gameplay bits here

These are the rudimentary problems with synergy:



1. spawning with 60 health, one clip in the gun and having rare guns like the 357
and crossbow disapear from your inventory after you die really sucks and for most people has
has been a deal breaker.

(me included along with problem number 2)

what we need is to spawn with 100 health because there is not enough health to
go around (or ammo for that matter) and the give health system is completely
pointless and useless for this task (the ammo give thing not so much)


30 suit because the suit absorbses 75% of the damage otherwise the
combine can easliy shred us if they gang up on us which is what there programed
to do in all half life 2 games


and 2 clips for all guns and the grenades with the exception of the mp7, shotgun, pistol
AR2 Pulse Rifle and rpg since there pretty much your primaries

they should have full ammo with the exception of the rpg which should have
only one shot along with the mp7 grenade launcher.






2. the annoying 10 person server limit

listen if this was implemented for lag reasons its best to lag and have
fun then to not have lag or anyone to play with for that matter

all steam multiplay games have a stock limit of 32 players, why? because
30 is just about the optimum amount of people to play with to have fun,
hell even playing with 20 people sometimes gets boring

the people who create there servers for synergy should have the choice on
how many people they want to play on there server and it should be between
24 and 32 not 10

its just not fun to play with maybe 6 people out of the total of 30 playing
the ENTIRE mod now

hell we used to have 32 people on our xerocore server ALONE before
you guys disabled the plug in that allowed us to do so with V11

vids of the xerocore gaming comunity in action playing v10 for
those who dont know us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf9lsZRL6uQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v98bQjGXWvs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCIkbPzQY-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a_5VOeeZwQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghxi1Micnu4 - 4 year old on the server, turn your
volume down


these two issues alone have pretty much killed the mod in one swift update

nevermind the disabling of the autorestart when the whole team killed themselves
after the level glitched

which was a frequent occurance after the release of v11
I once found a level that had glitched and had been stuck on the same level
for a month, probably still is for that matter because of that.

the steam problems which also effected goldeneye source
and or the horrendous spawn time





3. the cars

having to wait for a car to spawn on highway 17 just to have it either
get stuck in the roof of the tunnel or spawn on its roof and never easily flip
back on its wheels just isnt fun and really needs to be fixed

and the vans handling badly needs to be redone and its speed upped

its steering is like steering a van with a high center of gravity with
2 flat tires and it can seldom even keep up with the muscle car

maybe make a new version out of one of the sedans lying around like that one
from the episode 2 level under the radar with the hotrod engine sticking out of it
that that one guys working on or that flatbed truck with the extremely long spawn code





4. the spawn time and spawn placement in large or hard levels

when someone dies on a level someone whos waiting to spawn should have
there spawn time reduced by 5 seconds not upped by 5 seconds since now

they need a new player asap especally on that god awful level with alyx and
the generator on d3_city17_o7

there should also spawn at a new checkpoint close to the action rather
than spawning at the beging of the level and having to run back there
especally on the highway 17 levels


the owner of the server should have the option to set a static amount of
spawn time for his server or to disable it all together like 7
seconds or no spawn time at all


5. the trains on Route Kanal and highway 17
removing these two events, the one on route kanal where the combine get
killed by the train Keystone cops style and playing chicken with the train
on highway 17 both ruin there respective levels for me,


As I already stated I'd rather lag and have fun watching or racing aganst the train
then not having these key set pieces in action on there respective levels
in the first place




Summary:

to sum it up all of the modifications and upgrades for V11 ruined it for alot of
people these suggestions if implemented would fix all of that, the checkpoint
system is actually welcome addition, but its the only positive out of all the
negatives that these post 11 updates have added


not to say that you dont have a fan base out there, this still is the only
mod that lets you play through all of the half life 2 series with multiple
people, its just that with V11 alienated almost all of your players me and most of xerocore
included.

if you do actually fix all of these issues the best way to get the word out
about it is to do what the goldeneye source team did with beta 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4hNJL2q5P8


make a cool trailer and post it on all the major half life 2 news sites.
althought you'll have to explain what the mod is first if you do,
most people dont even know what synergy is.


and hell this old pre steam vid is the most popular one of synergy out there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E36df0o_tlo

Signed:
Kavinsky

[TGP1994]

Posting for friend due to registrations on this forum board is broken.

I believe the reason there's a 10 person limit is b/c of the that player pyramid at the top... left I think it was. A bad excuse to limit it to ten, I say.

[ultradude25]

No it was because of lag.
I still think the limit should be 12 so servers can have 2 reserved slots.

@Nibbler: Tell your friend to actually try playing the game.

1. There is plugins available to do this.
But I agree that spawning with 60 health is annoying (Especially when in trials and people keep dying then spawning and eating the medkits) but 60 health is your penalty for dying.
Setting how much ammo you spawn with is stupid, what if you don't want people spawning with lots of ammo in your map? Leave it the way it is and let map makers decide what they want players to spawn with and how much. If you have a map that doesn't spawn with ammo properly, then fix it with the edit system. Or just stop playing old maps that don't work.

2. Synergy gets crowded and laggy enough with 10 people, I'd rather they don't up the limit too much, although reserved slots would be handy.

3. I'm pretty sure gmc.jimmy had a file for the jeep somewhere that makes it flip over when it lands on it's roof. Still it needs to be fixed (Get rid of those icey tires while you're there) and added to the game instead of being an optional extra.

4. Personally I don't like the long spawn times (This is why I don't play CS:S), there's plugins that let you set your spawn time, maybe you should try actually looking around?

5. Route Canal train is a bug, it's not there on all multiplayer (Possibly OB engines fault, I haven't tried loading the map in Ep2 without multiplayer) Campaign mods I've played.
Highway 17 train is still there I think the trigger just doesn't activate sometimes, I'd blame general multiplayer lag making you skip right through the trigger.

In summary:

[VOSK]

Nothing can be done about the vehicle parts really. Its very complicated especially now with the saving, loading and level transitions.

We would certainly like to create our own campaign, so we can show how Synergy maps should be made - without the use of the hacky methods used for converting the singleplayer maps.

Quite frankly, I say trying to convert a singleplayer game, that had no intention of being multiplayer from the start, to a multiplayer game is either extremely difficult, frustrating or impossible. I think we've still done a decent job though.

My favourite parts of the campaign maps, or the ones I find work the best with multiple players, would be any section of the games where you can still go to the beginning of the level, even after reaching the end. Also, maps with minimal scripted scenes and ones that have enough enemies for everyone.

With our own campaign in place, it would better define for other map designers how a Synergy map should be made.

[TGP1994]

@ultradude25: Depends on the server. Yours must be a bad one.

Yes, you guys have done wonders in converting a single player game into a multiplayer game. I would still like to harp, however, on the fact that there are(is?) still a few bugs in some of the hl2 maps, which have been around for a very long time.

[CMaster]

@Kavinsky

1. Weapon and ammo you spawn with are set by the map.
In addition, all the weapons you carry are now dropped when you die, so you can always pick them up again. Honestly, the setup you are describing however with lots of HP, weapons, ammo and armour, with later a near-zero respawn time is just giving people incentive to die. I'm not sure that respawning with partial health is good idea, at least not until we get a better P2P healing system mind.

2. Actually, I've never really had fun in Synergy with more than 6 people. Any suggestion of cooperation goes out the window at that point and the game just turns into a mess. Never mind the lag, there simply aren't any cooperative or SP maps that work well or even have the space for that many people, nor do people play in any coherent way. If you just want to play js_ maps, then just run HL2DM - they're built for that and work better that way anyhow. If you just want a massive sandbox, Garrysmod or again HL2DM may be better. Synergy is a cooperative game and that places some real limits on it.

3. Yeah, the vehicle bugs are irritating. That said, I don't think that the van should handle or go like the Jalopy really. Anyway, you can tweak all this stuff by editing or writing new vehicle scripts anyway.

4. Spawn times can be a bit painfully long sometimes. Honestly, I'd quite like to see a spawn mode where people only respawn at checkpoints enabled, to make it a bit more SP like, to make people really play the game in a more SP style. That said, it should probably be optional rather than forced on constantly, as some maps it would work for, others not. There is something to be said for the idea of all players respawning at once however. 0 time would ruin the game, just like it does with TF2.

5. Not much to say there. If it can be made work, more the better.



Moving on from that, I'd love to see a Synergy campaign. I'll even offer my assistance with any section of it needed. I think adapting HL to coop is a nice idea, and in fact have really enjoyed playing through some mods in Synergy, but the real possibility that Synergy offers is in providing a HL2-like oop experience.

[Nibbler]

Posting again for Kavinsky - Also request for forum registrations to be fixed. (Redownload the file and upload I guess)

to ultradude25

FIRST OFF FUCK YOU ASSHOLE

I used to play V10 all the fucking time how dare you acuse me of not even playing
the game, I used to play v10 synergy on nibblers server all the time, even
after the update till his server went down because of the lack of people who
played synergy anymore



v11 reduced everyones respawn health to 60, removed a necessary function in order to
restart a map without an admin on, and the dsiabling of the 32 person plug in

specifically the hey everyone the maps glitched everyone kill
themselves so it can restart function,

then once we found it didn't work anymore I had to pm one of the admins to restart the level,
if they werent on we'd go to another server till I found the !voterestart command on these forums


if anything knowing all that, that should have proved to you that I used to play
synergy but here I am in one of the vids for a breif period and there are only 9 people
on steam with that name if you really need anymore proof

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghxi1Micnu4 3:13 - 3:29



1. synergy was much more fun when you atleast spawned with 100 health in v10
spawning with only 60 has ALWAYS SUCKED and has NOT HELPED THE CO OP EXPERENCE
at all or in or in any way


with only one clip in each gun, no autoswitch to the next weapon if you run out
of ammo or anything with the ability to kill and low health it got
all the more frustrating REAL FAST


I want SOME ammo hell even just an mp7 and pistol will full
ammo would be a big help,
(and the magnum and crossbow with one load in each if I picked it up previously)


and I always play through the half life 2 campaigns never the custom shitty
ones

Along with 30 suit so we atleast have some sort of protection and wouldn't get
shreded that quickly




2. thats not up to you

it should be the server owner who chooses how many people can play there,
and if you find it laggy but everyone else found it fun tough shit,
go find a 10 server while I play with 32 fun fucking people
to play with


3. I was playing through both bits with one friend on a closed close server
with no lag whatsoever, they removed it



in summary:
I have a right to bitch because v11 caused everyone to stop playing the mod

when something starts sucking because of a new addition and/or removal
of a great function Id rather tell them it sucks rather than letting
something I enjoy die


by the way a wopping 22 people are on synergy right now divided between
6 servers out of 46 servers total




To CMaster
1. the problem is even with a normal amount of ammo and guns, as
soon as you die you loose all your ammo and weapons and then one person
alone picks up all of your stuff

then your not only out of all that ammo and health but the 357 and crossbow which you
now have to repick up and there isnt alot of them around.

if you died and kept you weapons ammo and health then it would be fine, maybe there should be an option
that when you die you can choose between -

1. respawning with full heath 30 suit, crowbar and only full ammo for the pistol and mp7

2. Or 60 health, 30 suit and all your weapons and ammo you would have lost, you know atleast
offer a trade for that loss of health



2. I honestly dont agree with that, it should be up to the server owner
how many people he can have on, I hated HL2DM because it wasnt a proper
half life 2 multiplayer, having only 10 out of 20 of your friends on because
of an arbitrary limit sucks



3. I know the van shouldn't handle as well as the jalapy but it should
atleast not handle like a car with 2 flat front tires and randomly get stuck
on nothing like it does


and I dont know how to create such scripts nor has nibbler found any only
a 2 seater script for the scout car



4. I agree that instantaneous spawn does not work well
with synergy but yet again it should be set by the owner not the mod maker.


about a static 7 - 10 seconds should be the norm
that doesnt go up or down when people die and why has the timer been removed?


yeah a synergy campaign is a nice idea but with no real fan base anymore
its not really possible




to vosk:
Yes I admit its a hard task to convert a single player game to multiplayer.

but the disabling of the 32 person plug in, lowering of everyones health
to 60, disabling the only way to restart a glitched map

and Not adressing any real gameplay problems with one swift update wasn't
too bright to say the least and to say the most pretty was fucking stupid


and it took you guys another 7 months to come up with the update to fix the
glitched level thing with v14

release of 11 -
9/02/2009

release of 14 -
1/09/2009

too little too late,
and whats with the release numbers why's it 14 and not 12?


Please just give us back spawning with 100 health and allow us to have a server
with alteast 32 people on it, I atleast want to see that back.

the 30 suit full ammo for mp7, pistol and having the 357 and crossbow with one
load (that doesnt disapear from your loadout if you die) would just really remove
alot of the the frustration in it and wouldnt break anything

dont get me wrong there are still alot more issues besides these but these are
the two bigest ones

and just curious are you making this mod for yourself or the comunity vosk?
everything thats happened since v10 has suggested to the latter one

and just a fun little note
http://forums.goldeneyesource.net/index.ph...pic,4184.0.html


signed:
Kavinsky
__________

[ultradude25]

Posting again for Kavinsky - Also request for forum registrations to be fixed. (Redownload the file and upload I guess)

I'm accusing you of not playing the game recently, which is obvious seeing as you are suggesting features that are already in the game.

1. That is up to the map makers to decide. You are obviously playing on maps that aren't made properly or aren't converted properly to use the OB engine if you have no ammo.
And about the health, like I said before just use the plugin to give people 100 health on spawn.

2. Well actually, since it's VOSK's mod, it is up to him. Sure you may not like it but, tough luck. Stop acting like a spoiled kid, you can't get everything you want.

@Other stuff:
1. You do know what dying means, right? It's ridiculous that you should get all the weapons and ammo back you had when you died.

4. Like I said before USE THE PLUGIN.

There was version 13, but that's the beauty of Steamworks, the update is simply downloaded automatically. Since it was such a small update it wasn't announced. V13 changes.

[TGP1994]

I think at least I would like the problem in the transition map to the buggy driving levels fixed as well as the player increase to be added. That's all I'm asking.

[MagicSwap]

@kavinsky

Well I personnally this synergy was great at V. 14 but you were complaining about the player limit well do you really want 32 assholes crowbarring the npcs and the map during cutscenes? And you dont need a army to play HL2

Then with the weapons having no ammo well thats not entirely true the crossbow i think you get 4 extra bolts

For the health and general HUD problems Theres medkits everywhere so I guarrentee that youll find more than 3 in every map. The reason its such a long delay is for co-op reasons you see... if you respawned instantly that will make the game too easy cause theres always a guy stealing your kill

this is all i say for now signing out
______________________________________
The cake......Was always a lie......

[ultradude25]

Updated item_ammocrate entity so that crate can be used even if there is an entity on top of it and it also allows other players to receive ammo, even while still open by another player.

This didn't work, unless I'm misunderstanding how it's meant to work.
Someone opens the create, I press E on it while it's open and I get nothing. Also, people still spam E on it and it stays open resulting in everyone getting nothing.

Only the part about it being able to open while something is on top of it works.

Also, (IMG:http://images.ultradude25.co.cc/zscreen/SS-2009.11.18-18.04.31.png)

[VOSK]

I don't understand the purpose of the image ultradude25.

Are you running a Linux server? Linux server wasn't updated yet. (Sorry, but I had to recently reformat my HD and had to re-create my virtual machine.)