https://web.archive.org/web/20000818032854/http://www.captured.com:80/qfl/
QFL Screen Shots
https://web.archive.org/web/20000831092627fw_/http://captured.com:80/QFL/screenshot.html
QFL Story
You all know how the Strogg attacked the Earth. If you successfully completed the game, you got to meet the big bastard behind this whole mess. After you meet him, you had just battled that big bad ass at the end, you are in no condition for more fighting. You talk to the guy for awhile and even partake in his preference of (choke) women. He wants to know all about Earth, he is very impressed with your accomplishments, seeing that you just wiped out everything that he through at you. If life were like games you could just strafe into Saddam’s castle, after wiping out his entire army, and blow him and all of his body doubles away. In speaking with this major prick of the Strogg and telling him about Earth, you acquire a signal to Earth’s television broadcasts. You flick through the channels, but he keeps stopping you at a football game. He was very impressed how one team just marched up and down the field, totally decimating the other team. He comments on how fun the game could be with weapons. They were probably watching the Eagles (I’m from Philly). A deal is made and a date is set, the battle over planet Earth will occurr on a football field. Team Marine vs. Team Strogg. He gathers together the remnants of his army and sends the best Infantry men he can find (they’re the only one who could sit on the benches without breaking them. Both teams are given the same weapons, and a human head is chosen as the football, you can really sink you’re fingers into the skull and get a good grip after they’ve been sitting for a couple of days and get a little ripe.
Go Marine (or Strogg if you choose) and fight for the ownership of Planet Earth.
QFL Maps
QFL was written to use any existing CTF map. I have embedded the textures for Q2CTF (up to 1.5) in the pak file for QFL. I provide a link on my download page to get just the maps zipped up. There are so many map resources out there for CTF, that you should have no problem finding plenty of maps for this mod. Visited the download page for links to some sights that provide CTF maps.
QFL Game Play
The game plays like a football game, one team start with the ball at their end of the field and they’ve got to bring it to the other end of the field. No problem. There’s only one ball, a head, and anyone can pick it up. It’s like football, but no line of scrimmage, no refs. If you die, that’s a fumble. If you drop the ball, that’s a fumble. If you have an incomplete pass, that ball is live.
When you first join, you must choose what team you want to be on. Fight for the Marines or the Stroggs.
The ball always appears at the Marine endzone at the start of the game. We neglected to tell the Strogg about the coin toss and claim that home team always gets the ball. When the ball is at the endzone, only the base team can pick it up, as soon as someone on that team picks the ball up from the endzone, the ball is live, meaning it’s anyone’s ball. If you kill a player, they’ll fumble and you can get the ball. If your base is surrounded by the opposing team, DON’T PICK UP THE BALL. Get some fire power first. If you pick it up right away they’ll just kill you and score again.
When you have the ball you can drop it (fumble), or pass it. There are two types of passes, long and short. See the commands section for how to pass. When a ball is fumbled it falls to the ground and is anyones ball. When a ball is passed it flies through the air. Anyone can catch it, there is no pass interference. The other team can jump up and intercept it. Draw some fire power to yourself and have your teammate sneak towards the endzone, when the defenders flock towards you, lob the hail Mary and your in!
After a team scores, by bringing the ball (head) to the other teams endzone it will restart at the defenders endzone, the same one you just scored at, but you can’t pick it up. Only someone on the opposing team can pick it up. If someone respawns or appears at the endzone, don’t kill them till they pick up the ball. Then you can score another touchdown.
The ball carrier is very obviously marked. He glows white. In the future (when I get a better head model and the help of someone with artistic talent) I hope to show the ball carrier with the ball, but right now they have a very bold white shell around them. No hiding the ball.
QFL Development Team
Programming – Bob ‘Norb’ Timpko (norb@captured.com)
QFL Map – Sponge (sponge@captured.com)
The entire Q2CTF team. I started this mod from the ctf mod and pak. I was only able to write it due to the great programming that was already there.
Special thanks to ID Software for making their code available and creating this awesome game.
https://web.archive.org/web/20000613152758fw_/http://captured.com:80/QFL/about.html
QFL Server Admin Page
https://web.archive.org/web/20001002032640fw_/http://captured.com:80/QFL/sadmin.htm
KOTS: King of the Server Mod Artwork
https://web.archive.org/web/20010616231329/http://www.planetquake.com:80/nightbreed/kotsart.htm
KOTS / QFL Archives
May 5, 1999 – Getting Closer
We’re getting closer to the next release of KOTS. I apologize to anyone who downloaded the 1.1 version as the bug really sucks and can bring down the server. Some features for the new version that I haven’t talked about yet. First you have the option to use the global data server or not. KOTS will save the data to your local server if that’s what you want. This way you can report on your players. Or you can use the KOTS Global Data Server by providing the IP and the password.
Another feature that I am putting in the next release is the ability for the admin to control whether or not super powers are in effect. You can turn them off if you want to just use KOTS to rank the players on your dm server.
That’s it for now.
Norb
May 2, 1999 – All about KOTS
I thought of getting linux for Q3, but it was just a thought. I don’t have the time for it right now. Here’s the sales pitch for the next version of KOTS:
1. Keeps track of who plays on your server
2. Tells you when they last played
3. Tells you how much time they have spent playing
4. Tells you how many kills they have
5. Tells you how many times they have been killed
6. Will generate a HTML page with this information
7. Gives players a score based on the above information
8. Ranks players
Here’s the sales pitch for the Data Server of KOTS:
1.Keeps track of your score
2.Does all of the above plus tracks your data ACROSS multiple kots servers
3.You want to know how good your are? The stats don’t lie.
Sound good, got more questions? Email me.
Norb
April 30, 1999 – DATA SERVER!
Mother and myself got the data server running today for the first time. This is where all of the player data will exist and it can be obtained by any server running kots. I am thinking of find a way to make kots available to other mods, so that they can also have the great advantage and database that this gives players.
Make sure you stay tuned for new developments. We have big plans for this mod and although there are not many servers up right now, I predict that there will be very soon.
Norb
April 28, 1999 – Bug
Doesn’t it just suck when you release software and there’s a bug right away. It all has to do with the Player in game bug. But I really think that I got it now and the new way that I’m doing this will work better with the ‘Mother Server’ anyway. Mother is the mastermind who is writing the code for the GLOBAL KOTS PLAYER DATA SERVER. The next step in our trek to RPG status. I keep hearing, especially on the q2server mailing list, people asking for keeping player data around. Well KOTS does that already, but on a single server. The next release is going to do it across servers. And yes, we will be putting in the midnight oil for Q3.
The newest version is running on my server. I want to run it a little to see if this really fixes it. I haven’t heard of any other problems at all. So I think that we are pretty much bug free, minus 1. I also took out the grapple, I threatened to do it and I haven’t heard a convincing enough argument not to do it, so it’s gone. If you like it you’ll have to grab the 1 bug release 1.1.
The specs for the next release are on the mailing list and we’re discussing them. So if you want to take part just join the list. This mod is going to be what YOU want, not what a small group of people think you want.
So pop on the server and see if it’s fixed. I do have one small problem and if anyone can help me out I would appreciate it. I use a user variable for the kots_password.
What you do is ‘set kots_password yourpass u’ and this sets up the user variable. If your a regular kots player, you’re going to have a config that does this, but if your new, your going to join, see the menu, choose to ‘Start your reign’ and you’re going to get an error saying that you need to set your kots_password. Well at this point you have to enter it two or three times before the server sees it and I don’t know why. If it’s set up before hand I get it right away, but if you wait until you’ve entered the game, this problem happens. Any input would be appreciated.
Norb
April 27, 1999 – Grapple
Had some very interesting comments on having a grapple in an RPG. Essobie had some very good points about how it just didn’t belong and I’m pretty much convinced to remove it in the next version. If you have some thoughts on this matter email me.
The next version of KOTS, version 2.0 is going to take the next major step to making this an RPG. That is saving player data across servers, so that no matter where you play, you always play with the same guy. We’re going there, bear with us, we’re taking lots of little steps to get to the goal.
We are also looking hard at Q3. One of the major drawbacks, for my team, is the way that the coding is done. Since we are all developers, we have access to the tools required for these mods, in fact most people do in some form. From what I’ve heard, the new Quake will compile mod code. This is a real bummer since we can do some tricky stuff in creating the DLL. We rely on the Windows SDK for lots of stuff. One of the main reasons that we haven’t released on other platforms. I hope that the new format accepts both methods. We’ll have to wait and see.
The main server seems to be down, but mine is up running the new version. There’s a game on right now as I write this, so join in and start your trek towards KOTS.
Norb
April 26, 1999 – King of the Server v1.1
I am releasing the bug fix release that we’ve been working on. This fixes all of the known bugs that I have been told about, making them known bugs:
1. Player already in game problem – saying you’re in the game when your not.
2. Grapple stay problem – if a player died while they had the grapple out, the tip would stay around.
3. New grapple commands – added grappleon and grappleoff command for those of you who like that style of grapple.
4. Mega health countdown timer not working – put this back in, I had some wacky idea for this, but it ended up not making any sense.
Remember to email me with your feature requests, we are moving towards making this an RPG and if you have features that you think would do well in the game, then by all means, please let us know.
Norb
April 22, 1999 – SieShowBoB’s Maps
Bored of the q2dm maps. Well running on our new server are the converted q1dm maps. You’ll have to download a pak of the maps before you join. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to download from QuakeII over the internet, but it’s an experience I’d just as soon forget. I have the link on the servers page, so it’s real easy. Just head on over, download the pak (3.31 MB) and hop on his server. He has promised me to provide a link to his immortals page very soon, so that you can see your stats.
I have been upgrading my immortals page about twice a day. So if you play, make sure you check later that night or the next morning, you should be showing up.
Wondering what’s in store for KOTS? Wondering how far we’ll go to make QuakeII an RPG? Well there are no bounds. We have many plans in the works. The next release will feature two new levels, about four new super powers, and of course the bug fixes. The next release after that you may be in for a surprise, if I can get a bunch more servers. So if you like kots, contact your favorite dm server and tell them to try it out. I need more servers for my next plan. I keep hearing great reviews on the mod, so let’s spread the word. Then “mother” and myself are going to add the touch that is really gonna give this and RPG feel.
I just want to say one thing about what’s went on in Denver and the lawsuit against ID. There are millions of us who has been exposed to the exact same things that these wacko’s have. Many of us even went through a tortuous time in America’s public school system. But we just kill online. There’s a very large gap between thinking and imagining killing your real enemies and going out and actually doing it. It doesn’t take a game to bridge that gap, or porno, or having access to a gun. It just takes one good ole fashion, true blue, out of their friggin mind wacko, and that’s it. Nothing else. Otherwise there would be one hell of a lot more of them, probably every body who plays Quake, even you reading this page. So let’s just stop this crap about thinking that it’s games or sites that make these mental cases go over the edge. The percent of people who play violent games vs. the percent of loonies, is such a small percent, you might as well say ban cars, too many people die in them, ban babies, too many parents kill them, ban vegetables, it really smells when you fart.
My two cents, play KOTS, game on right now.
Norb
April 21, 1999 – Second Server is running – 24.92.39.236:27910
Was on the new server tonight (when it was running the q2dm maps) My pings are so amazing to this server. Thanks SieShowBoB. I also realized that I’m better making mods than playing them, as Lt Jon kicked my butt.
Getting all of the bugs out for the next release. We’ve found around 5, none show stoppers, but pretty annoying. There is one that sucks, you may get an unwarranted Player already in server when you try to connect. The only way to get around this now is to restart the server or change your name. Sorry, fixed in next release.
Thanks to SieShowBoB for getting the other KOTS server running. His is the server you should use. The other server is not very good, but I’m always getting good pings with his server. The IP is 24.92.39.236:27910, so go there. We had a lot of players last night complaining about the lag on my box, so here you go. Go over to the new server and restart your character. I will still keep mine running of course, because that’s where I test everything out.
Bolty is still the King of the Server at Norb’s.
Norb
April 20, 1999 – New Mailing List
Just a quick bite here. The old list completely sucked, so I got a GameSpy list going for KOTS. Join up, and see the behind the scenes of KOTS. We use this list to discuss new features and existing problems. Be a part of the team and join up. We really want to make this mod what YOU want. We take every suggestion seriously. I apologize if you joined the other list, just join again, this one is much better.
Servers – of course being a new mod, we need servers. I run a server myself. It’s on a cable modem and is usually not to bad. But the problem with cable modems is that they share band width with everyone else, so during peak hours it sucks. I’m in PA eastern time, so if you want to try out kots with some buds, just try to avoid evening hours eastern time. If your running a kots server, and I did see one other one running tonight, and you want some traffic, let me know and I’ll post it on the sight. We get a decent amount of hits a day and I can get your server listed on the news sites, so let me know. Everyone I talk to loves KOTS, so let’s get some servers going. Besides, I can’t play as long as I’m running my server and I really want to play.
I don’t know what happened to the other server. I have contacted the admin, but haven’t received a response yet. I’ll keep it listed for a little while longer in case he brings it back up. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Norb
April 19, 1999 – KING OF THE SERVER VERSION 1.0
HERE IT IS! The team is releasing the first version of kots! Just go to the kots download page and grab the new mod. Start your own server with your favorite dm maps and start gaining levels to see who will be King of your Server. The admin tool that generates the html is included. Here’s a link in case you don’t feel like going to the download page: King of the Server v1.0
I just put it out on the mirror tonight, so be patient if it’s not everywhere right away.
Norb
April 18, 1999 – Almost There
We’re almost ready for the first release. I put in the menu system tonight and it’s working good. Basically all it supports is a chase cam and a little credits screen to let people know who we are. I am planning on releasing the mod this week. I’ll make sure that I let the news sites know about it, so no one misses it. Our testing has been pretty complete and there has been a pretty loyal group of players running with it every night. Thanks guys. We’ve got some players up to level 2 and they’re kickin some serious butt. We are planning on adding some more levels, but I don’t think it’s a rush right now. I don’t expect anyone to get to level 8 for a while now.
We’ve had some interesting discussions on the Server during the testing. The first one was the use of the BFG. I am going to really draw a stretching comparison to Quake and personal freedoms. I know its a stretch, but basically the BFG is a weapon provided by Quake and if people want to use it, who am I to say they can’t. People say that it takes no skill to use, but I just consider another weapon that people learn to use. Everyone has got their favorite weapon and they learn to use it better than any other. I’m sure that if I had a BFG and I was playing someone much better than me, I would still get my butt kicked. Another thing that I thought was pretty funny was swearing. Some people like to swear when they play and sometimes they type this in at the console. I kind of lump this in with the freedom thing again. I have no problem with it and I’m not going to tell anyone else that they can’t. I swear all the time in my day to day talk. I don’t usually when I’m over the net, but I really don’t care if other people do. It’s such a part of our everyday life and speech. Anyway, my two cents on sh*t.
Two movie reviews tonight and I am completely bummed about one of them.
Vampires – This is the most recent movie by the horror master John Carpenter. You know this guy Halloween, can you get better than that. This movie sucked. It was a bad B movie. I was so appalled, I am a very huge horror fan. The only good thing that I can say about this movie is that it was pretty gory. I love gore. The characters sucked, the story sucked. No one really cared about this movie, there was so much crap that made no sense. If you want to see a Vampire movie, go see Blade, an excellent movie. We’ll just forget this was ever made.
Waterboy – EXCELLENT. I see why this movie made so much money. This was so funny and a great story. One thing that is absolutely excellent about this flick, if your a fan of American Football, is that there are some awesome hits. I just love watching football and this movie had some of the most incredible hits in it. Yeah, they were pretty unbelievable, but who cares. It was so fun watching this guy run through lines and completely take people’s heads off. Everything about this movie worked, go see it, or rent it.
Norb
April 16, 1999 – Beta2
The new scoring system is working awesome. I actually may have to make the levels harder to reach. We already found a problem in the Beta2, the Level 1 regen is not working, but it is now and on my server. The other server is not up tonight for maintenance, but it should be up tommorrow afternoon. Make sure you check it out, it is much better than mine. There is also another bug that is harder to recreate. Sometimes you lose the grapple. I haven’t worked this one out yet, but if your on the server and you can recreate it consistantly, let me know.
I’ve created a mailing list for kots. You can join it above. We’ll be talking about all sorts of things as soon as I get the team hooked up.
It’skingoftheserver@listbot.com. I just did it today, so it may take a bit to get going, but I’m going to use it to work out issues and to brainstorm over new features. We’re pretty open here at KOTS.
You may have noticed that the download pages were gone from the link bar, well they’re back up. I just noticed today. People are still download QFL at a descent rate. I even found some thinks on some clan pages. It’s a great mod and we’ll soon have a new Sponge map for it.
Real busy this weekend, and I can’t play anything while the server’s running, too much lag. So I’ll just sit back and get other stuff done.
Later,
Norb
April 15, 1999 – Beta
I’m shipping out two copies of KOTS tonight. One was requested for a lan party this weekend (could I ask for a better test) and one is for another server. I am going to put the link on the server’s page if you want to check it out. Thanks out to Rob V. at disaster.com and [Kv]LoW-Life for trying out KOTS.
OK, yesterday I had a little case of mis representation. Yesterday I made a mistake about someone’s gender based solely on their name, and if I had only looked closer at their email I would have seen the other name of Haggis [HnR]. At he informs me that he is definately a “bloke”. Thanks and my apologies Haggis. I took his idea and the naming problem is fixed so that you can use any Quake name for Kots.
I made some major changes to the scoring system and changed the super power for level 2. This is so cool, when you reach Level 2 and you hit someone with the grapple, you make them drop their current weapon. Then it’s up for grabs. This is pretty funny, we were testing it tonight. The new scoring system is mentioned below, though the old system of penalties for getting killed has not changed.
Frags – Frag award is based on health removed divided by a level factor
Factors: Level 0 = 10, Level x = 10 + 5x
It is possible to get no points for a frag. If you get a lucky kill on a player with few health. This is based on 5 points for killing someone your level with full health. It is possible to get more than 5 points for killing someone your own level if they keep going for health. If someone else shoots your target, you restart you health accumulation.
This actually works out very well and I think that it is better and more fair than the old system.
Like Inferno’s new graphic at the top of the page. I think that it’s pretty awesome.
Norb
April 14, 1999 – Thanks
It seems that I spend all my time thanking all of the people who give their free time to make KOTS possible. I am blown away by the response to KOTS, this is going to be very big (I hope).
Thank you to Leslie A. for here help with the file name problem. A very simple and elegant solution. I did receive many responses to my little problem, there’s a lot of us coders out there, but she was the first. I hope Leslie is she, I think that some guys have that name. Oh well, thanks Leslie (this is that ass kissing I was telling you about).
Inferno has once again impressed me with his artwork. Check out the new immortals page. This is the page that he designed and I generate (yes generate) with the KOTS admin tool, soon to be found on a server near you. He also did that new linkbar over there on the left, much nicer than the old one.
I have most of the features in the program for the first release. I have finalized the file format, it’s a little less than 1K and I even have some extra space in there for future use. Shouldn’t take up took much on anyone’s hard drive.
I’ve had some more requests about running the beta, even a request for a lan party (man you guys are trusting). You should see at least one more server up for the weekend. I know mine lags every once in a while. I have a cable modem, but the ISP doesn’t have very good support for it yet.
I’ve also added the new feature of kills/killed recorded in the kots file, as well as the last time the player was on the server, total time played and some other stuff. We’re testing it right now, hopefully it will work out well. I want a host of stats for server admins to post to their hearts delight.
I did mess up one thing and this is a problem that I’m not quite sure how I am going to fix. If you pick up the mega health and then disconnect it realizes your health level, but doesn’t keep track of the mega health. I have two options to this, set a max max health of 2x or make the mega health bonus smaller. Let me know what you think. Right now there’s a guy who came on today and kept gathering health. Then joined in tonight with like 300 health. The funny thing is that he got greedy and passed 1000 so it came back down to 100.
That’s all for now…
Norb
April 13, 1999 – Bug Fixed
First I want to thank KOTS’s very own Sponge for the PR for KOTS. I read something about KOTS on every major news site that I visited today: PlanetQuake, Mod Squad, Mod Central, Captured, Blues News, Q3Arena. Great job sponge.
We found a bug last night and I want to thank Lt Jonmaster and MBoffin for sticking it out through alot of crashes to find the bug. It was eventually Lt Jon that got it, grappling to the dead body. This brought the server down a couple of times yesterday, but today it’s been running smooth.
Found a couple of other problems in our testing yesterday that I am going to have to address. Grappling to the ground really hurts and player names. This is a big one because I’m not sure what to do. I save the player data in a file <player name>.kots on the file system. If you have illegal characters in your name, illegal as far as the file system goes, then this fails. I had a player tonight that has a colon in his clan name Ni: and because of this his data was never saving. Really not sure how to fix this, I mean I could substitute the colon, but what if that’s someone elses name? I’ll have to ponder this one for a couple of days.
I’m updating the KOTS description page tonight, had alot of new ideas/definitions in the past few days and I want to finalize the feature set for the release.
If your running a server and want to try out KOTS, please let me know. I am looking for 2 more servers to beta test on.
MBoffin has not been knocked off of the top yet, he is still King of the Server. If you think that you got what it takes check out the server page and join in.
Norb
April 12, 1999 – Great Day
More Stuff – I have the data page up, I just ran my program to gen the HTML. I know that it’s ugly, but Inferno’s working on the HTML source to get me something better, so be patient. The data is there though. I did make a mistake in my previous messages, I said that it was 100 pts to Level 1, well it’s 200. Sorry MBoffin (first player to hit 100). I am also going to add something to reset scores, or delete players if there score falls very low, as you can see at the bottom of the list. Oh, the link is the IMMORTALS link under the KOTS heading over there on the left. Pretty active for the first day. If you like this email me and I’ll keep trying to make it better and incorporate your ideas.
I’ve got TONS of great feedback for KOTS. Thanks for all the support, I think this will go somewhere. I still have tons to do.
There was a server crash today. If however experienced it could please email me and let me know anything that could help me locate it.
I should have the stats up later tonight. I wrote a quick program that will grab them and get some HTML, not real pretty, but it should give an idea about how much this mod can do.
Here’s the specs that I started with for KOTS, it should answer alot of the questions that I have been getting. A few things have changed and I want to still change a few things, but this is the overview I promised so many of the email that I got today:
This is a server side mod (very important, no new graphics or sounds)
All client data is saved on the server ( user name + password, for client login to server )
Any/all server side functionality will be added. This can include the following:
- Grappling hook
- player id
- play wav files to other players, maybe provide an optional pak file
- chasecam
- new HUD
- IP banning
- Player ID command
- new commands can be added if they make sense
There are different levels based on score, score is frags – deaths
Levels are based on score, you start out at level 0:
Level 1 – 200 – Regen
Level 2 – 500 – Speed
Level 3 – 1000 – Strength
Level 4 – 2000 – Resist
Level 5 – 4000 – Vampire
Level 6 – 8000 – Haste
Level 7 – 16000 – Ammo
Level 8 – 32000 – Quad
Runes are:
Ammo – You can hold 3x ammo
Strength – You inflict 2x damage
Resist – You take 1/2 damage
Haste – You fire twice as fast
Regen – Your health regenerates slowly
Vampire – You gain health for damage inflicted
Speed – Increases movement speed
Quad – Full time quad
(I’ve added a and taken away a few of the super powers, I’ll update the spec soon)
Frags – Frag award is based on level killed
0 – any level below you
1 – your level
2x – level above you ( you – 1, they – 2, you get 2 frags ) ( you – 1, they – 3, you get (3-1)*2= 4 frags )
Deaths – Death penalty is based on level that kills you (this is opposite of frag)
0 – any level above you
1 – your level
2x – level below you ( you – 2, they – 1, you lose 2 frags ) ( you – 3, they – 1, you lose (3-1)*2= 4 frags )
There will also be a health and armour bonus based on level (proposal):
Need to research this, because I need to know the max health and max armor, but proposal is 25 pts to each based on level:
(base + 25x) where x = level
The dedicated server for this will be a complete user friendly windows interface. This will not work on anything but windows, because that is all that I know.
Client data files can be copied to other servers, server’s must provide an email to honor client requests for copying. Maybe we have a registration database somehow, but that’s in the future.
Clients should be able to view the top players on a particular server.
Hope this helps…
As always email me any questions and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. I’ve also posted this on the KOTS description page for future reference and updates.
Norb
April 11, 1999 – KOTS SERVER!!!!!
Got a KOTS Server up and running! I finally have my NT Box hooked up to the network. So you can try out KOTS. I don’t have the deathmatch scoreboard in yet, so you can only see your game score, not your total across game score, but it’s saved so when it’s up it will show the score starting NOW. I’m going to create a page to show the top players on the server soon, so you better be good or don’t show up. This is a deathmatch server, you don’t need anything to run KOTS, just join and start fraggin, I’ll do the rest.
VERY IMPORTANT – you can’t play KOTS unless you do the following:
set kots_password <your password> u
don’t forget the u, won’t work unless you have it, passwords are between 8 and 16 characters, you can set this in your command line or from the options of q2plug. Example…
set kots_password norbrocks u
Now you have what you need to join. Don’t forget to bind grapple, there is one. Playing KOTS is pretty much the same as playing dm, you just better watch how often you get killed. You lose points for getting killed. Can’t wait to see who makes level one first.
I’m also going to post a demo of Sponge and me trying out the new server today. Too bad for him that he didn’t get any kills until after the demo stopped recording.
Norb
April 7, 1999 – Out of Town
Check out the new artwork on the KOTS description page. Our names are up in lights! Another thanks to the talent known as Inferno for doing the work.
I’m going to Seattle tommorrow night, so I won’t be around until Saturday. Keep the emails coming!
Once again I am going to scarf off of an existing map base, deathmatch maps. KOTS is pure deathmatch so you can use any map that you like. I’ll be using De Raven’s new map when I start my server, which I still get get to connect, but I’m going to work on it as soon as I finish updating this page. You can get his latest map from the KOTS download page, but that’s all you can get. I’ve gotten so much great feedback on making QuakeII an RPG. That’s basically what I’m trying to do. I know when compared to the real thing, it’s going to be weak in a bunch of areas, but I will continue to work on it and make it better. If your a server admin planning on running KOTS, make sure that I get your email address so that I can send you updates as soon as they happen. After I release the beta, I’m going to work on the data gather software. Hopefully it will generate an HTML page with the players stats from the server. I’ll be posting that on my machine nightly, so you can check it out the next day to see how you compare with the other players.
Back to work…
Norb
April 5, 1999 – Damage
On the Quake mailing list someone brought up the idea of a new type of scoring. It sounded pretty good and I’m going to research it a bit. Basically the idea is to get a score based on how many health points you removed from your victim. This sounds like a pretty good idea to me. I’ll have to look into it, but it really make sense for KOTS. So I would have to come up with a new scoring system that combines the level bonus with the health removed. I’ll have to come up with some formulas for this, but it comes down to you removing the health and the target getting killed soon after you remove the health. I think that it’s more fair. Let me know what you think.
Right now I am working on a server to run on my own. I have to get my NT box to connect. It’s all hooked up buy I can’t get it to connect to the network.
Anyone else a big Clive Barker fan. I just read his latest book Galilee, it’s ok, but not up to par with Clive. His last book Sacrament was kind of a let down too. It really sucks when your favorite author starts losing his touch. I mean Imajica is one of my all time favorites and it’s not even the reason that I started reading Clive. Hellraiser was the reason of course and his horror writing is very impressive. But Imajica wasn’t horror at all and it rocked! But these last two are making me rethink my purchases. I’m reading The Damnation Game again just so I don’t get totally bummed out on him.
Norb
March 31, 1999 – KING OF THE SERVER
First I have to give a big shout out to Inferno for the awesome logo for KOTS and the background. He whipped this up for me in no time at all. Thanks Inferno.
Here’s a little more info on KOTS. The basic idea of the mod is to save your data on the server. You know RPG’s, well I’m trying to turn Quake into one. This first release is server specific, so your data only exists on the server that your playing, switch servers and you start fresh. Since most people keep playing on the same server, I don’t consider this a big issue for now…. Nough said. You get experience points for the frags you score and you lose experience points for getting killed. You go up in level as your experience increases, and you get super powers for your effort. All based on the current techs and some other things we’ve dreamed up. The first version is going to be a beta. It will be fully functional, but I need servers to test it out. So if you run a server side dm mod, email me if you want to try out KOTS when it’s released, probably next week, but earlier copies could be had. The idea of King of the Server, is of course the player with the most experience points for that server. This works great for admins who want some hits on their web pages as players try to see who’s number one on that server. I will provide diagnostic tools to gather that information. Only a few people have looked at the specs since we started, so I need input once you start going. I am very open to suggestions, so please email me any that you have.
Hey, with all of this green and red, kinda reminds you of Christmas.
Norb
March 30, 1999 – BDay
Today my little girl is two. Unbelievable that I have been a Dad for two years. And I still play Quake, well actually right now I code it more than I play it, but still. She has a cool Dad, at least I hope she thinks so when she’s old enough to frag. I’ll have to write a kids mod someday, maybe take out some stuff until she’s old enough to understand that it’s all fake.
KOTS will rock. I assure you. Any server admins who like straight dm should definately send me an email so that you can be the first on the list. I don’t know of any that read this page though. I’ll send something out to the server admin mailing list. There is sort of a built in ladder, great for lan parties. I hope to release the first version in the next two weeks. That’s very bold of me, but it’s coming along well. I’m working on the admin interface right now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get that into the first release. All GUI, no console. What a BE-ATCH (cartman)!
Norb
March 27, 1999 – Movie
Just a quick review of What Dreams May Come. Sappy, tear jerker, gets a little long at times. The acting is good though. The only good reason to see this movie is for the special effects. They are truly amazing. The Heaven and Hell scenes really knock your socks off. If you can get through the sappy stuff at the start of the movie, and you like to see cool scenes with awesome effects, then this is for you. But if you can’t stand to sit through a very long sappy picture, then avoid this one. I liked it, not enough to see it again, and not enough to talk about it in work on Monday, but enough that I didn’t fall asleep. The wife is pretty attractive.
Norb
March 26, 1999 – Serbia vs. NATO
So our troops are somewhere in the republic formerly know as Yugoslavia, actually they’re just flying their planes over and bombing military targets. The Pres says this is good because we promised this one country (Kos something) that if they signed the peace accord we would protect them. Some other senate/congress guys say this is bad because we don’t have a defined goal. Is this going to be another Saddam where we just go and bomb every once in a while without ever really fixing the problem? Who knows the right answer? I see both sides of the story and it sucks for the people of Serbia (the target) cause they really have nothing to do with this, and it sucks for the people of the Kos country because they have all had to leave their homes and flee from the Serb army guys. Glad I don’t have to make the decisions. Why can’t they just all play Quake and sort out their differences there?
The damn video store didn’t have StrangeLand so I had to settle for What Dreams may come. Tell you what I think tommorrow.
If anyone knows anything about the coding of Q3, could you please drop me an email? Is it going to be C coding, are they going back to QuakeC? What’s up? I haven’t heard anything but rumours. I really hope they stick to the DLL thing, it’s helped out my game coding alot in that I know C pretty well. I know that there is going to be a client and a server part to code due to the prediction stuff, but I don’t know the details.
Well it’s date night and although I really love Quake, there’s this one thing that I love just a little more.
Norb
March 25, 1999 – KOTS
Lots of work done on KOTS tonight. It’s looking pretty good. Basically KOTS stands for ‘King of the Server’. And that’s what it will do, that and much more.
Added a table to the downloads page so it doesn’t look so messy.
Talked to a bud from good ole USNA tonight. Man are we old. I have two kids, he is expecting his first and just a little while ago we were completely trashed climbing over the wall trying to make it back by taps.
Make sure that you read the Paul Steed letters on PlanetQuake, sounds like lots of you really need some professional help.
Norb
March 23, 1999 – De Raven’s Map
Got a new map for you, Moebian. It’s a CTF map, no QFL specifics, but it works great with QFL. Basically I’m posting it for someone on the Q2 mailing list. I tried it out though and it’s really cool. It’s pretty big, so you’ll want to have a descent amount of players before tackling this thing. I haven’t tried it with CTF, but if it works with QFL it will work with CTF. The part that I liked most about it, very cool, is that you can see each flag from the other. There’s some of that bullet proof glass between them, now it’s not that easy to get from one flag to the other, but it’s really cool that you can see the other team defending and you can see your team trying to get the other flag. It’s well worth the download. So see the download page and grab this one.
We passed 4000 hits today. Thanks for the interest. I don’t know if the hits keep coming because of people waiting for QFL updates or they like reading my bs, but as long as I get the hits, I’ll keep updating the page.
I am really sorry about the lack of a server. For a while we had two up and running, but now nothing. I don’t know what happened with the 9th Circle server.
Hatemonger said that it would stay up as long as I wanted, but it’s been down for a long time now and I didn’t tell him to take it down. So I guess that they’re having some problems over there, hopefully it will be back up soon.
Norb
March 22, 1999 – Zarathustra Studios
I want to give a little plug here to the Studios. I’ve spoken of them before and it seems that Overman has released the mod that I wrote for him. There’s a bio of me on the page too. I really need to get him a picture. The mod that I wrote is called Q-Director and it basically enables/disables features of players so that you can control them over the internet. It’s server side and a small download, a must have for filming over the net. If you have questions or comments about it contact Overman or myself and we’ll see about getting the features in. You can use my link on the left to get there. Can’t wait to see the movie that comes out of this, I haven’t been involved since I finished the mod in February. So don’t ask me any questions about the upcoming top secret project, because I don’t know anything. We’ll I know a little, but I’m not going to tell. I’ll leave all of the fanfare up to the Studios, besides all I know is where it takes place. This is the most organized project that I have ever seen, a lot of good resources, so it’s bound to be really good.
Norb’s movie review – Mulan (sorry, was watching with my daughter and niece) – I really liked it, I’m a sucker for a Disney movie. The bad Hun guy was really cool, yellow eyes. They didn’t make him look like a fool, which happens often to the bad guys in Disney movies. I also liked the Eddie Murphy Dragon character, but he’s always great in a comedy role, other kinds of roles NOT. The only problem with the movie, and you can let me know if I’m wrong, was that the movie took place in China and they did all of these Japanese references, like the tea ceremony and geishas. I thought they were Japanese, may be wrong, but that’s what I thought. Great movie review next time, going to get StrangeLand, the Dee Snyder movie, heard it was very disturbing, my favorite.
Norb
March 18, 1999 – Nothing Much
I’ll take the blame. Right now there are two of us working on the new mod. It’s server side only so it can pretty much be completed by coders only. The other coder, hope he doesn’t mind me posting his name, is Patryn. He’s been doing alot of work, or so he tells me. I’ve hardly done anything. I will hopefully get some work done this weekend, might be my only chance. I am just to busy right now to do anything during the week.
There’s two parts to the mod and we’re splitting it up. I am doing the saving of the data and the server specific stuff, and he is doing the player information. All the cool stuff that happens to the players, super powers.
I am still building the team for the larger project. I really can’t wait to see how Q3 coding works, it will really affect what we’re going to do on the next project.
Got to get a new movie this weekend for a review. Need to write about something during this interm period.
As far as QFL goes… I haven’t gotten alot of new requests for features. Seems like my dedicated server has been down for awhile. I got over 500 downloads of all the versions, but it never really took off. Too bad it was alot of fun. We never got any big games going over the internet. I had some great ones at work, but just couldn’t get a crowd over the internet. Maybe I should have just called it one flag ctf and forget about the football theme. I don’t know. It’s really hard to get people to play a new mod. The big teams are out there already and us young upstarts have it tough.
There are so many mods out there, but only a few really get good play. Unless of course you get an amazing team together, and a team includes, skinners, mappers, sound guys, the whole works. One comes to mind, Gloom. That is an awesome new mod that really took off. But can you blame people, it’s great fun to play.
Hopefully I’ll have some luck with the new mod, KOTS. Try to figure out what it stands for.
Norb
March 15, 1999 – TOP SECRET
I want to tell you all about the new mod, but I’m going to wait until the first release. I’m working on it with another coder and we’re slowly getting along. I’ve gotten real busy at work, especially since I’ve been on vacation for the past week and a half. I’m still getting alot of hits on the page, so I’m guessing the people are interested in the new project. I’ll try to keep the page updated and give more info as we get closer to the release.
Norb
March 14, 1999 – I’m Back
What a great vacation! It started out real bad though. We sat on the plane in the airport for 3 hours before the plane even took off. That really sucked and then when we got to Orlando (at 3am) the damn car rental companies computers were down. I didn’t get to my buddies place until 4am. After that it was all very cool. We did all four Disney parks and Universal. It seems that there is a trend in these parks though. No rides, just cyber rides. They put you in a theater and give you 3d glasses and then do stuff to your seat to make it more realistic. It’s pretty cool, but really overdone. Over half of the rides were like that and it was getting a little old, but I do have to say that the T2 ride (or theater) at Universal rocks. I don’t want to give anything away, but if you go to Orlando and miss this ride you missed alot. The best ride that I went on was the Tower of Terror at MGM, that was really awesome and scary. They drop you straight down, it’s supposed to be that your elevator breaks, but the coolest thing about it is that they fake you out and drop you just a few feet and shake you about. This way you never know when the real drop is going to come, and when it does, you scream and it’s very cool. Epcot blows, unless you just want to shop and drink around the world. They have areas that represent a bunch of countries, we didn’t really do it because it’s just too boring for me. Epcot also had a latest video game area, but it was all sega and no Quake, so they can’t know too much about games and there really wasn’t anything new. The Animal Kingdom at Disney was pretty cool, they have a scary dinosaur ride and a rapids rafting thing that is way too short. But that Tree of Life thing is really cool, they have carved just about every animal in it and it’s fun to just look at it, it’s huge. We also went to Kennedy Space Center, which isn’t that cool overall, but they do have a new exhibit of the Saturn 5 rocket that is wild. That thing is HUGE and you get to walk all around it.
Now it’s back to business and I’ll be starting the new mod this week. I’ll keep the page updated on my progress. But for now I’m sticking to the server side only, no client download, so that in itself will make it worth trying.
Norb
March 2, 1999 – Vacation
I’m outta here. A long awaited for vacation is upon me. Myself and my lovely wife will be departing on USAirways to Sunny Orlando Florida, where we will spend 10 fun filled days and nights at the Sunterra Polynesian Resort. While we are there we will probably drink way too much, feel horrible every morning, just make it to the parks in the afternoon, and repeat the process over and over for 10 days, this trip is possible due to my parents timeshare as well as my best bud from highschool who works in MGM and will be sponsoring our entrance into the parks of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Park, and MGM.
This page will not be updated until my return March 13th. Sorry, I got no substitute right now.
NOTICE – I have a very good idea. Not just my own opinion, but also of people that I have discussed it with. It is a very involved project for a mod. If you are a mapper, texture artist, skinner, or modeler, and want to work on something big and pretty damn cool. Send me an email. I’m going to start forming a team for this new project and we’re going to work together to figure out the details. There’s lots of room for input and lots of room for creativity. So if you want to join what I really think will be a great team with long life potential, send me an email (no responses, of course until I return). How’s ‘Norb’s Nightbreed’ as a name for this dev team?
In the short term I will be working on a server side mod which will be a small representation of the technology that I need to develop for the larger project. I hope to have this one done soon and hope to make server admins very happy with me, more details in the future.
Until my return from the south……
Norb
February 28, 1999 – Projects
I’ve been looking for some new projects to work on lately. I sent out some emails to groups looking for coders, offering my services. So I’ve got back a bunch of responses and I’m trying to decide which one I want to work with. Well I start discussing things with this one group and I just don’t like the idea, I don’t think that it’s original enough. Anyway, they pretty much go crazy. The point, stay civil. Anyway in looking at their idea and not liking it, I’m thinking, what is an original idea? Pretty much everything’s been done. Not fair to criticize someone unless you got a better idea. Well I think that I got one, I’m going to start working on it. The result is original, but the idea is based on the work of many other mods, no details yet. Of course my biggest weakness right now is modelers, mappers, pretty much every other part of the team besides coders. It will all come about.
I’m even critiquing myself here. I mean QFL could just as easily been called One Flag CTF. Most mods are based on someone else’s idea.
My immediate next project is going to be a server side GUI for QFL. I’ve been experimenting with replacing the dedicated server console with a Windows GUI. I think that I’m getting somewhere, but it’s going to take a bit to get done.
Norb’s movie review: Urban Legend, I love horror movies and this one was pretty good. It’s just as good as the recent batch of horror movies if not better. The ending was kind of OK, I mean the killer just didn’t have the raw strength to pull off some of the murders, but you’ll have to see it for yourself.
Norb
February 27, 1999 – Updates
The QFL Server is now running the new version, verified, and the new map (football.bsp), is in the rotation. The pings now, for some reason, are amazing. When we first got the Server, my ping was 300+, now it’s at a steady 150. Don’t know what you did HateMonger, but keep it up.
I wish I knew the link for this next bit, but I can’t remember where I got it, might have been from the Quake2 mailing list that I’m on. But someone put together one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time, a men of gaming calendar. It was hilarious, complete with pictures and bios of some of our fellow game developers, glad to see they picked the best of the bunch.
Lots of news regarding the PIII and AMD K6-3 lately. Personally I think that I’m going to get the K6-3 since it will work in my current motherboard, therefore leaving more cash for a new video card. But there are so many articles coming out right now about the next wave of tech junk that is going to be hitting the market in the next couple of months. Time to consider upgrading your cpu and your video card soon. Or you can be like me and just wait for the card you want to come down in price, since the new version is coming out soon. Can’t wait to see the prices on the Voodoo2 and the TNT once their next versions come out. That’s the best way to play this market, unless you’ve got unlimited cash, of which I don’t (yet).
Currently I’m running a Banshee and a Voodoo 1. I’m a little pissed about my banshee purchase with all that I’ve read about the TNT lately, but it was 50 bucks more at the time of my purchase. Not that I’m disappointed with the Banshee, but from what I hear the TNT just looks that much better.
Oh yeah, QFL, I digress too much. Not really sure what’s going to happen right now. I’ve got a couple of ideas about what I want to do, still throwing them around up in the old noggin. I’m not sure at this point if I want to do bot support, I haven’t had enough requests to do it compared to the time required to implement it. Basically there is only one choice if you want to add bot support into your mod and that is the Eraser Bot. They’re the only ones that have exposed enough of the functionality for you to do it yourself. All of the other bots that I have see would require the bot team to do the port, which is next to impossible since their so busy. And in looking at the Eraser bot code, it really is a lot of time and work for the port and I just haven’t had THAT much interest in bots. So if I’m wrong, you can email me, but unless I get alot of requests, it’s gone from my plan.
I have a couple of other ideas for QFL, one is a server side GUI which I thought would be cool. Of course all of my coding and GUI expertise are Windows only. Which kind of sucks and it doesn’t mean that I don’t like Linux, I just don’t know anything about it and I have about 7 years of Windows coding experience to draw upon. Sorry Linux guys.
Another idea is a reward system for points in QFL, still talking with Sponge about that one, but we’ll keep the page posted with any decisions that we have. Hopefully we’ll have a new sound pak sometime soon.
Lots of writing today, don’t know where it came from. Rented Urban Legend, I’ll let you know how it is.
Norb
February 24, 1999 – Servers
Thanks to HateMonger for fixing the server last night. We were back up and running the new version. For some reason it’s down now, but I’m sure it will be up soon. I had a great game going with a clan last night on my server, when it crashed. They were beating me, 2 clan guys to 1 me, but I was putting in a decent showing. This one guy was awesome with the RG, and if you haven’t seen the new map, it’s all RG. That map is really fun to play. Work’s great for small games, even 1 on 1. You really need fov to see the other side of the field.
I hate Win98, usually I can run the server and client fine, but sometimes, it just blows. I really need to get an NT box to run my own server on. I like to play on the 9th Circle server, cause when I play on my own I get unfair ping.
Norb’s movie review: Zoro, pretty good, nothing fantastic, but a good story, not a waste of money.
Norb
February 23, 1999 – Stuff
Just some notes about the new release. First of all the pics are from the players directory, not hardcoded or in the pak files. So whatever skin the server sets up will show up with the pic in the HUD and the scoreboard. That way you can easily see who’s on what team, since there’s no red and blue team. This works with any skin too, Crakhor, Bill Gates, Clan Skins, whatever you want, just set it up on the server and your customizing the HUD. Same goes with the team names. In the players directory there are two files required for a skin. One is the actual skin for the model and the other is a small pcx file showing a thumbnail of the skin. I grab this thumbnail and throw it on the HUD. I’ve never seen it done before and I thought it was a good idea. If you want to know how it’s done drop me an email and I’ll tell you. It’s really not too difficult. The scoreboard is pretty easy too.
There are problems with the dedicated server. Seems that in doing the upgrade our port and the gloom port got switched. I’m hoping that this goes back to normal because we just got on the deathmatch database in a premiere spot and it’s looks pretty stupid advertising a QFL server, but showing a gloom server. But since there are more gloom players right now, maybe it will draw some gloom guys to QFL. Who knows? I did contact the admin and hopefully this will be fixed soon.
If you need to play now though, the other server is up and running the new version with the new map.
If you don’t know about the deathmatch database, check out this link.
It’s the best way to find a good Q2 Server. Much thanks to Rockn-Roll for this generous mention.
Norb
February 22, 1999 – THE STADIUM HAS BEEN UPDATED
Nothing much really, we’ve just had a lot of requests to add more spawn points around the field, and being the responsive developer he is Sponge did it, no other changes, just trying to keep the players happy. It’s a small download anyway, go to the download page, get the map and unzip it into your qfl/maps directory.
Don’t forget to check out our new screenshots of the new version!
Norb
February 20, 1999 – THE STADIUM IS BUILT
After much anticipation we are releasing the football stadium map. It’s just one VERY large room, perfect for qfl. There may be problems in software mode, so don’t use it. Sponge has worked very hard to get this map out, so email him and tell you what you think. I’m going to get the QFL server using this map and the new version as soon as possible. As of now though it’s still running version 1.4. So jump to the downloads page and get the first QFL map!
Don’t forget to check out our new screenshots of the new version!
Norb
February 19, 1999 – QFL Version 1.5 is out!!!!!
There are many new features in this release including some basic changes in game play. The new map is not ready yet, but I am hoping that it will be done next week. I will keep you posted as soon as I know anything.
– You no longer will respawn at your base every time that you die. Basically it was causing a problem in play. When you respawned and the other team held your base. You had no defense except to run. This got very irritating so we thought that we would have you start with the rocket launcher. This idea was killed because then you could just kill yourself to defend the base, where you would start out with the rocket launcher. So now the respawn works just like ctf, at game start you begin at your base, but after that you start at a random spot.
– There is a 60 second timeout on kickoffs. This does not apply to the first kickoff of the game. After that you have 60 seconds to kickoff, if you do not the ball will respawn at the other base.
– There is a 30 second timeout for fumbles and incomplete passes. If the ball is not picked up before the timeout ends it will respawn at the other teams base (the other team being the team that did not have last possesion of the ball).
– All timeouts appear in a countdown clock on the HUD, this shows up right below the frag count
– On the HUD instead of seeing the red and blue symbol, you will see the pcx file for the team skins. Your current team will be outlined in a yellow box. The top team has the red base, the bottom team has the blue base. Your team score appears below your team picture.
– Team scores are now real football scores, with every touchdown earning your team 7 points.
– When you have the ball, you will see the QFL logo blinking where the countdown timer appears.
– Your HUD will show you the ball status, if the ball is at a team base, you will see a goalpost over that teams picture.
– If the ball is being carried, you will see the outline of a football over that teams picture.
– If there is no symbol, that means that the ball is in no ones possesion and is anyone’s ball
– The scoring summary screen (F1) now shows the team picture and the team name as well as all of the previous information.
– There is a new head. It’s grosser, it squirts blood and shows blood trails when thrown.
– The CTF banners (the large moving red and blue banners that appear in most ctf maps to designate base), now show the score for that team imprinted in the middle of the banner. This, of course, is dependent on the map maker implementing the banners in their map. ( If you copied the CTF pak files into the qfl directory to get the maps, you could have problems with this feature, to solve it either unpack the maps into the qfl/maps directory and delete the ctf pak files or get the maps from the link on the download page and delete the ctf pak files )
– New sound pak file, these are the same sounds as before, but I put them in a seperate pak so that I can release new sounds. I’m planning on shipping new sound paks within a few weeks.
Norb
February 16, 1999 – QFL SERVER IS LIVE
Today is the day I’ve been waiting for and the help comes from HateMonger at http://www.9thcircle.net, I don’t think that his page is up yet, but the QFL Server (9th Circle Football League) is up. The IP that you want to go to is 208.129.164.7:27950. Thanks to HateMonger there will be football in the off season, we hope to be unveiling QFL v1.5 on this server later this week, but its up and running 1.4 now!
The new maps are coming along very well. We hope to unveil one with the new release. There is a tiny flaw in the map due to its large size. If you are running in software mode, your going to see it. For some reason the rendering mode works with the size of this map, but the software mode just shows gray. I’m not going to worry about it, hopefully most people have some type of rendering card, because software just runs so slow. The map is worth it and I hate to shrink it or to not release it because of this problem.
I’m going to end it here because I want to get the news of the new server out.
Norb
February 15, 1999 – FOOTBALL FIELD
I have just played the biggest room ever. The field is absolutely huge Sponge has really outdone himself. You are going to be amazed. This is a real football field. You have to use fov just to see the players on the other side. And the really amazing thing is that it plays very well. Just one damn big room, two goal posts, and alot of rail guns. I can’t wait to release this. We’re just going to add a few details, to make it look a little more like a football field and then we’re in!!!!
This is going to be some pretty wild game play, no place to hide. Scoring is really going to be tough. I cannot wait to release this. I’ve been playing with my team on my server tonight and it plays great. Stay tune to this page for the release, it’s going to be huge!
Norb
February 14, 1999 – Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Happy VDay fans. Today is my birthday too. A blood red birthday. And speaking of blood red, I got a head. I did it myself. I received some heads from other people, but they didn’t understand. I wanted it to be gross. So I fell back on Id, the leaders of gross, and used something from their pak. Basically the head gib. Now originally it was to small, so all that I did was take the skin from the gib and resize it to fit the head that I’m using. Tada… a gross head, in fact a head recently seperated from its body. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted more, I really shouldn’t say that I wanted more, to me a gross head was enough. My mapmaker, Sponge, wanted more, this guy wouldn’t leave me alone. He wanted more blood. This is a cut off head, there has to be more blood. So at his insistance, I added blood trails to when you pass the head, took out the smoke trails. You would think that was enough, no it wasn’t. He wanted blood spurting all the time, even when the head was just sitting there. So now we have a head, that spurts blood when idle, and leaves blood trails when passed, and it all looks really good because its really a gib. Can’t wait to release 1.5, but there are a few more details to nail down.
We’re working on two maps, one is a football field with stands, the other is an entire stadium. I am hoping to release the first one with the next version. It will happen late this week, keep your fingers crossed. The HUD design is done, the new rules are in, they should really pickup the game speed. We’re almost ready to go, are you ready for some football?
Always remember to email me with your QFL comments/suggestions, I always respond and I’ll implement any good ideas that I get.
Norb
February 11, 1999 – Planning for next release
We’ve got some good plans for the next release. First, hopefully, we will have a preview of our stadium, just the field basically. Spoke with someone tonight about maybe having a scoreboard, we’ll have to see how that works out. This field will be great for 1-1 or 2-2, but you’ll have to wait for the stadium to play bigger games. Don’t worry it will be work the wait. We’re redesigning the HUD a little too. So all of you clans out there with their own skins, QFL will be for you. We take advantage of the skin already, but we’re going to incorporate the _i.pcx file as well, just wait its awesome. We’re also putting in a 25 sec clock, so make sure you don’t delay your kickoffs, or you’ll be called for delay of game. Going to replace the passing trails with blood, it is a severed head, of course its going to shoot blood. I’m also going to implement team radio. What this does is that your team needs to have a set of wave files that you provide, then you can play them to your team. You can name them anything that you want as long as you put them in the sounds directory. This should make team communication alot better. One more thing, and I have spoken about this before, I’m going to split up the pak files so that the crowd noises and announcers are in a seperate file, that way I can provide new sounds without shipping the entire version. One drawback of all of these changes is that there can be no upgrade. Its going to require a full download this time.
Captured just had the list of CTF maps that the OGL is using. I’m going to provide links to those maps on my download page. I tried out one set of the maps provided by Strogg CTF, they were pretty cool. They place the endzone in the sky sometimes, so scoring isn’t as easy as just running over a single spot.
I’ve had a descent amount of comments about the head as a football. Lots of people have volunteered to provide me with a football model. I don’t want one. I like the head. I want a head, I just want a better head. So if your tired of the head, get me a better, grosser one. That I would put in. The head is in the baseq2/pak0.pak file. It’s not hard to find. So if your a skinner, you can just make a new skin for me, if your a modeler, put a football helmet on the sucker and lets see some blood on that thing, it was just cut off and people are tossing it around, it can’t be in great shape.
Always remember to email me with your QFL comments/suggestions, I always respond and I’ll implement any good ideas that I get.
Norb
February 10, 1999 – 2000 HITS
2000 thousand hits! QFL is growing, you can’t stop us now.
Norb
February 9, 1999 – Server Admins QFL is for you
Yo QFL fans. Played with the official mod reviewer, Sluggo, last night. He’s the man who picks mod of the week and puts his reviews out on ModCentral. QFL will probably get reviewed this week. There were only three of us on the server at the time, and basically QFL needs at least four people. Sluggo won by a touchdown, he ran down the clock when he was ahead by one. In that process, he pointed something that is a good idea, timeouts for the kickoff. Right now you have 30 seconds to pick up a fumble or dropped pass before it goes back to the endzone. So I figured that once the ball is in the endzone, when only one team can pick it up, I would start a 25 second clock, just like real football, and display the countdown on the offenses HUD, if they dont get it by the time the countdown ends, the ball will go to the other team. I really like the idea of the countdown, it will keep the game going. Just if your curious, there is a 10 second timeout when the head goes into lava or slime.
I’m getting desperate here for a server. If you server admins need some Lewinsky favors, maybe we can work something out lol. It seems that if your mod becomes mod of the week, then you get servers. So maybe we’ll have some luck there someday. I did have a clan guy tell me that QFL deserved to be MOTW, hopefully there will be a consensus and I can stop running this server on my box. The only problem with running on my box is that when I join in, everyone’s ping goes sky high but mine, a little unfair.
Since QFL is completely configurable as far as models and skins and team names, we need a clan tournament. If anyone wants to help organize one, let me know. I could get your skins and/or models and we could have our own SuperBowl. Let me know if your interested. I’d like to have something like to promote the new QFL Stadium, which is in the testing/modification stage. I’ll reveal my stadium builder at his maps debut.
Norb
February 7, 1999 – QFL v1.4 is here!
It’s all about the offhand grapple and its been fixed in the new version on QFL, available now from the downloads page. I put it up this weekend, so most of the mirrors will hopefully work. I put an upgrade as well as a full version out there. The new pak is smaller than the last one since I removed the Strogg model. It wasn’t very good anyway. I’ve been running the new version on my server all weekend and the grapple works better than ever, I haven’t been able to recreate the bug.
I got the code for the Eraser Bot today. I’ve had a bunch of requests for bot support in QFL, so I think that I’m going to do it. It may take a little while, but it seems like the next logical step.
Saw Rush Hour this weekend, it get Norb’s comedy stamp, very funny.
Norb
February 6, 1999 – Bug Fixed
The infamous frame bug has been fixed. Basically it had to do with the offhand grapple and your current weapon. One lousy line of code. I’ll hopefully have it ready for download Monday. I realized lately that the ctf source is way out of date. QFL is written right off of the ctf source and so are alot of other mods. The ctf source was released March of 98 while the q2 source was release late 98. So my mod was out of date. This past week I have been porting all of the ctf specifics into the 3.2 code, what a pain in the ass. But it’s all done and hopefully there is a difference because it took me a while. But of course it had nothing to do with the grapple bug, so after all of that the bug was still there. Then a moment of brilliance came over me and my eyes jumped to the offending line of code, fragging it out of existence.
Makes coding sound semi adventurous.
I got a new link for my visitors, it’s Zarathustra Studios. Reminds me of that song the Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001 Space Odyssey), bum…bumm….bummm…….. BAH-DAH——dododododo. There’s this guy Overman who does Quake2 movies. It’s pretty cool. If you haven’t seen Father Frags Best get over there and download it. I’m going to be doing some work for the next project, very hush hush, I don’t know anything about it anyway, it’s on a need to know basis and I don’t need to know. So check it out, there’s a really hot mod in the movie (does that make me sound weird?), there’s a boy you just plays quake all day (reminds me of someone), and there’s a physcho Beavis giggling little boy. Worth the download.
I got another QFL idea. I was thinking of splitting the sound into different pak files so that I could ship paks of different games with different teams. I’ll get to it after the bug fix. If anyone thinks classes would work in QFL let me know, I’m just not sure on this one, like a Quarterback class and a Lineman class. Like Team Fortress, but football, or should I just leave it the way that it is nice and simple.
I’ve had word from the mapmaker that progress is coming along, in fact we we’re fragging last night, but I got to tell you QFL needs at least four players, I should put in bot support. Any bot preferences if I was to look into this. But I’ve seen no map yet, though I can’t wait to take a look at the first football field. We’ll have a special initiation on my server when it’s here.
Norb
February 3, 1999 – QFL Rocks
Sorry to toot my own horn, but I love playing this mod. It’s all of the fun of CTF, but with just one flag. We had an awesome game going today. The forced fumble was hilarious. All of the sudded you lose the ball. If you get a good rocket shot on someone, they just fumble it. I don’t even kill them afterwards, I just go for the ball. It’s constant melee. That’s my plug. But I really do love playing.
BUG – found one. Haven’t heard this from anyone else yet, but I found one and I think I know how to fix it, but here’s a work around for now in case you see it.
Sometimes, you get an unknown frame message for your current weapon at the top of the screen. Just switch weapons and it will go away, you can switch right back afterwards. I’ll post the fix as soon as I’m done with it.
I’m thinking of removing the Strogg model in the next full release. Since we now can configure the server to use whatever models you want, I feel that it’s a waste. It just makes the download bigger. If your against this drop me an email, but I figure the smaller the download the better.
Check out the dev page if that’s the kind of thing that you like. I’m adding a new article after I post this news.
Got word tonight that we might have a football field map soon, I’ll keep you updated.
Norb
February 2, 1999 – Dev Time
Been doing some developement stuff lately. Today I worked on some mini tutorials that I am going to publish on my page soon. Don’t want to give away details yet, but there mainly for people who love to code. Since my work is in Windows and using the Windows SDK, I’m working on implementing the gamex86.dll using those features.
By the way, if you want to set up a game time with me on the server, shoot me an email. I still have people logging in and waiting, but getting no joiners. I have been able to run the dedicated server and the client at the same time, but I haven’t tried it in a hard core game. Usually I’m available after 8:00pm est. Of course my ping is going to rock, but I can’t do anything about that.
I’m making myself available for other mod projects. So if you need C coding help on a project, shoot me an email and we’ll see if we can work something out.
Norb
February 1, 1999 – Server
I am blown away by how many hits this page gets! Maybe it’s small for a page on this site, but it’s still amazing to me. What surprises me is how few QFL games happen on my server. The problem is that people keep joining, but no one else joins and they become impatient and disconnect. Then someone else joins, right after they leave. Here’s the game plan. I’m putting other non-QFL servers on my server page. That way you have something to do and can check back every once in a while to see if the QFL game is going. I’m putting two awesome servers on too. One Weapons Factory (which rocks) and one plain CTF (which started the whole thing). Sorry, but I really got bored with straight dm awhile ago, I haven’t played for awhile and I know that it has affected my skills, but I love teamplay way too much to turn back. These are the servers that I play on. But I can’t play when my server is up, I’ll solve that soon enough. So go and use the Server page and play.
I realized after I sent out the update that I really did not do a good job of explaining the new release. I’m adding a server admin page sometime tonight to explain things a little better. Here’s the release notes:
Version 1.3
Added the ability to change the team names as well as the skins that they use. This is shown in the example server.cfg file that ships with the new version. If you are running a dedicated server, your command line is shown below in the installation section. If you are a client, no changes are needed.
I’m moving into a little development help now. I wanted to write some dev pages for awhile and I’ll be doing that this week. Keep sending your suggestions for the next release.
I’m still looking for a dedicated 24/7 server. So be on the look out for one. We play at the office all the time and it rocks. By the way in my games the Falcons (my team) always beats the Broncos. But we didn’t have Elway or Davis on the Broncos team. Doesn’t Elway look alot like Clinton, or is it just me?
We got a permanent link on PlanetQuake today in the CTF & Teamplay section. So we’re in whether you like it or not. QFL is here to stay. Hopefully the Captured mod links will show us soon, they might already but I haven’t checked yet. Thanks to Dakota for the links.
One other note. I saw Blade this weekend. It Rocks!!!! Wesley Snipes is awesome. See it if you haven’t.
Norb
January 31, 1999 – SUPERBOWL FEVER!!! QFLv1.3
The big game is here and for those of you who need something to do while you watch or listen to the SuperBowl, QFL has a special new version just for today. In an effort to appease the numerous requests for configurable team names as well as configurable skins for the two team I have created QFLv1.3. This new version does just that and only that. There is a small upgrade for those of you who have version 1.2. I don’t think that clients need this since it’s just the DLL and an example server config file.
Anyway, my Server will be up during the game, so go to the Server’s page and join in. I’m using the new version and have changed the names to the Falcons and the Broncos and changed the skins to male/howitzer vs. cyborg/oni911. If want other teams start your own server and if you want to make it public, email me.
I won’t be playing, I’ll be in my hottub with my 35 inch TV out on my deck. It’s freezing here in PA, but it’s warm in the hottub. So if your not in the area, join my server and will see if the results in the Quake World are the same as the results in Miami.
Score those TDs!
Norb
January 29, 1999 – Need Servers
We’re getting alot of hits and a decent amount of downloads, but no dedicated servers yet. I’m really trying. I’ve emailed every sight that I can asking people to try the game out. I’m running my own server, but I can’t keep it on all of the time. So go to the servers page and see if I’m up if you want to play. It’s just that my box has Win98 and I hate that for running a server, NT works so much nicer. I’ll have to move my NT box downstairs so that I can hook it up over night. If you have any ideas about where I could get a dedicated server for a while, email me. I tried to run a listen server for a while, but it crashed, so basically if I’m running my server, I can’t play.
My next project is going to be an enhancement of the dll code. I’m going to try a few tricky things. Please email me suggestions, I’ve had a few, but I’m collecting the ideas for the next release.
Norb
January 28, 1999 – Our first day
Wow!!! Over 300 hits our first day. Hopefully the interest will continue. I’ve heard lots of comments about the sounds effects, glad to know you like them. I know that our links were broken today, I’ve fixed them. Great way to start. Also I’ve heard some comments about other uses for the QFL names, sorry. This is not associated with the Quake Foundation League or the Quake Fragging League. It’s pretty obvious where I came up with the name and I can’t think of a better one.
SERVERS!!! – QFL needs servers. I’ve added a servers page, I’ll list your Server if you email me. If you want to just do a weekend thing, let me know. I’ll just list you for a weekend or a week.
Version 1.2 – Updates
Added actual Strogg to strogg team. If you join the Marines you can be male, female, or cyborg, but the strogg team all looks like stroggs. I’ve implemented this model, I don’t know how good it is, but I tried. I put the vwep in the model, but again, I don’t know how good it is. I guess if this mod gains some speed, I’ll get a real modeler to do the work and make it right.
Changed the passing a little. Added a short and long pass, only the long pass is enhanced by Quad. Make sure you use the pass. This make this the ultimate team mod. If someone is guarding the endzone, draw him out and have your teammate sneek up behind him, pass the ball and your in. See the commands for the binds.
Added the uninitialized grapple, fancy name for being able to use the grapple without it being selected as a weapon. This makes the grappling alot more fun. This command will not work if you have the grapple selected, and if you select the grapple while grappled, you will drop. See the commands for the bind.
Added forced fumble. If you damage a player and in your one shot take away greater than 50% of their remaining health, you will cause them to fumble the ball!
Added some great new sounds to make the game more life like. You gotta hear these, we’ve got real announcers calling some of the game and a great new football theme song that you’ll probably recognize.
January 27, 1999 – Debut on Captured.Com
This is my debut on captured.com and it’s awesome. I started coding QFL just a little while ago and found out with the help of Dakota, that I needed a web page. So for a while this has existed on my local ISP which limits me to 5 MB web space. Now I have all the space in the world. The whole purpose of this site is to get people playing QFL. It’s really a great time, but I have limited resources, meaning that there is no dedicated server for the mod, no place to test it except for after hours at the office. I had a decent amount of downloads so far with the little exposure that I have gotten, but hopefully this release on captured.com will really get some people playing and commenting. I really want to hear what you think, so don’t be afraid to email me. I’ll respond and I’ll fix it or get it in the next release if your comments make sense.
The biggest weakness of QFL right now is a lack of artistry. I’m a coder (I’ve been coding using VC++ for close to 8 years, since 1.5, SDK before that, and DOS C before that). I have limited artistic talent as you can probably tell from this web site. I did make the logo which I think turned out pretty good. But I’m not too happy with the football (I found it in a baseq2 pak file), nor am I too happy with the Strogg Infantry Player. I worked on that forever, but I know that an experienced modeler could do a way better job. If you want to help out just contact me, we’ll arrange for you to send me some examples. I also need better pics for the HUD.
Join the QFL team. I’m definately going to Q3 with this mod, so I’m hoping to get a good following.
The one part of the game that I’m not so sure about is the touchdown part. If you get a good team together you could probably trap the other team at their base, since you always respawn at your base (which I want to keep). But I was thinking of having everyone respawn at their base after every touchdown, but I’m not sure if people would get pissed off that it interupts game play too much. I’m hoping that scoring is pretty hard. I’ve tried to make it that way, and recently added the forced fumble (if one hit takes over 50% of your remaining health you’ll fumble the ball). I think that this should make for some interesting scenarios. It also makes the game a little more real in that the less health you have the harder it’s going to be to carry the ball. So if your running from someone and they give you a good shot from behind, you might drop the ball.
My plan to use CTF maps is also due to my limited artistic talent. I’m no map maker, so I figured that I had better draw on a base of existing maps, and what better than CTF maps, already set up. I started this code from the CTF source code, it’s version 1.02 so there may be fixes in the newest release that didn’t make it into QFL. I would like to have someone make some QFL specific maps. I would love to have a real football field, maybe maps of existing stadiums, domes. That would rock! They’d have to be pretty big to make the game play good, but I think that the way that the mod is written, they would be alot of fun to play.
We’ll that’s it for the introduction. I want to thank Dakota at captured.com for the initial publicity and for making this site happen and also Sluggo at ModCentral for some initial publicity. Thanks Guys.
Norb
Norb’s Developement Page
https://web.archive.org/web/20001001161147fw_/http://captured.com:80/QFL/dev.htm
Donde Quake 2? 