City 17 (mod)/Archive July,2007
From Valve Developer Community
back to City 17 (mod)
| Table of contents |
July 4th,2007 - Cory
Well its been a while. About five months perhaps now since I've really updated the page at all. Updated in about march but that was briefly. Well anyway City 17 has been doing great so far but i dread terrible news..... and that news is the sad leak of Sourceforts V2. I was away without internet for a while now due to family problems and whatnot, however to my surprise the mod was leaked by a certain someone. Kg has sadly left the sf team and i haven't been really in touch with him for a while now it appears he has been wiped off the face of the planet. Also to top that off Nick Nos and curtis mcpheil have sadly left. They will be missed. Well sadly to say City 17 will no longer have sf multiplayer and who knows about the other multiplayer currently as thats being worked on but don't worry I'm getting there! So far its just me Cory and thats it. Everyone has been quite busy and well just out of contact for a while now so work has been moving at an incredibly slow rate. My partner on crime Kristin been using a laptop but that blew up one unfortunate day and now shes in the process of getting a new one. Richard's computer was getting awfully slow lately and then lit on fire. Kg has well been missing from action. And as for neil hes in the process of getting a new pc as well. However in the months that have passed by TONS and i mean tons of work have been done. Ive somehow managed to finish the second map and now onto the third and near the end of that one. Yet Major problems occur lately, Props not showing up, getting ep 1 content to fully work on the mod, Vrad constantly crashing on me, and last but not least some certain frame drops. Oh but wait theres good news! So far after toying with XNA Game Studios I've somehow have gotten City 17 to work on the Xbox 360 Oh My! Also its quite great really, mainly all the maps run at 3 frames less on an Xbox 360 which means optimization time! However am i making any promises to have the game on the 360? No not yet, not at least until the pc version is finished, which been much to delayed already to begin with. When will City17 come out you ask? Well at this rate of development I'm not sure, maybe around ep 2 time or beyond that. Time will only tell. Great thing is the map process so far though. The maps have come quite a long way. Even farther than i ever imagined. Originally my mod idea was this large box room where you could play with the physics of HL2, but when i saw garry's mod i felt crushed hahaha. Now the maps all take place around the ep 1 time line and now have ep1 skies.... ah so beautiful and also the large glooming citadel, with the cloud effects! So yeah its been a long time and tons of fun. Mainly I'm trying to lead my team to create a fun mod thats great to play and not want to make the player yell and throw things or really in total get angry and bored. We want the player to sit in his or her chair and say man I'm having fun and when they get a game over they won't feel like quiting the game. Mainly the goal is a good game thats fun to play. Hopefully the community will like it; which can only be said by the community. So after toying and long hours of getting inspiration form many great mods out there like SF, Minerva, Coastline to Atmosphere and many more "and sorry if i didn't mention you, your name currently escapes my mind :D". So I'm working on new screenshots of all the new maps and whatnot. All the maps that used to be on the front page no longer exist any more. They were what we like to call alpha maps. It's sort of a design process we use but although, currently all the maps look great to me and the rest of the team, and well we hope you'll like it when it comes out. Tell then enjoy the rest of the internet and try the Wiimote mod it's great. So cya! --Geardev
July 5th,2007 - Cory
Well alrighty then I've just about finished getting all the screenshots of all the new stuff but mainly just some of the underground stuff. Mainly the player will be underground for about two maps or so and above ground for perhaps three. Currently just two at this moment but it's geeting there. Well Hope you all like them! --Geardev
July 6th,2007 - Cory
Well after getting the game out to about 5 playtesters finally today they seem to quite enjoy it. From my looks of it anyway hahaha but yet eventually something wrong would be bound to happen and yes some really odd errors, bugs, and even slight nodraw mistakes have appeared. However its going well which means i have much more to finish up and peek a bit at tell each map is just about perfect. Also a few things the playtesters did discover where a few mistakes in player direction and player spawn at begin new map. Player is faced the wrong way and might end up going backwards. But so far in terms of frame rates and whatnot the game stays at a even 30 fps at 1440 x 990 with all the settings cranked up to maximum. The great thing is if the game runs smooth like that at that resolution then it should glide at any lower resolutions. In total the game estimates to be about 2 hours and thirty minutes without dialog and storytelling so far, when those get added in the game should be about 4 hours long. --Geardev
July 9th,2007 - Cory
Well after a few fixes to the mod I've now changed the page name to City17: Episode 1. Mainly I needed to change the name for a long time now and I mean a long time. The name was changed when we decided on the episodic span. Yet finally I've got it down there and thats about it on the wiki side. A few people though have looked a bit at the page and really don't know what the mod is about due to the very little detailed information applied. So to address this issue mainly now i get a chance to really say what's going on. Mainly the game was to take place around Half Life 2 and its first idea was to be Gordon Freeman. The story was about, if the nova prospekt incident never had occurred and what really happened in that time period that alyx and gordon freeman were somewhere in well, space... Then the mod moved up to a new idea and the mod was to take place at the end of Half Life 2 as a Rebel named jack. Later on we added the "Unnamed Character" to aid help to you and have a connection in the story toward Jack. So now we re-moved the storyline toward the beginning of Episode 1's time line, hence the new areas and all the new maps and whatnot. So the story is mainly just about a normal guy named Jack who is handed a gun and commanded to do a few missions and really to aid in the war. The entire idea was really to have the player play as a Rebel and really see the game or at least the Half Life 2 storyline and events through a rebels eyes and tell events that have happened while Gordon freeman was off doing his other tasks. Mainly Jack is assigned to clear a way toward one of the very few remaining train stations that exist in City 17 to get any remaining Citizens out of the city so its sort of a "clear anything between point A to point B" type of thing. Mainly clear the way enough so little enemy's remain or at least little shots be fired as possible. However along the way of course you run into other distractions, goals and many other things the player has to accomplish. So taking the point a to point b thing into consideration, the player has to cut through many things finding the best possible shortcut to the train station and make it out of City 17. So really the player is going to be taken through many places and things like destroyed buildings and whatnot, Combine controlled areas ad all that. Along the way is "Unnamed" who is yes, still Unnamed at this time, who helps you out along the way to aid much like a male version of alyx although that sounds quite weird yet fun to play along side him. The player is in the ep1 time frame so theres a lot of things mainly like the citadel glooming in the distance and other hints explaining the story in game and perhaps where Gordon Freeman might be. Yet i cant say to much or else that will give everything away so hopefully this has answered any body's questions. So see ya till next media update. --Geardev
July 30th,2007 - Cory
Well after a bit of work here and there a lot has happened in the past days so far. I have managed to get all that mod file compilation under way and so far the mods structure. But mainly its really hit me in the head of late, but the mod is well getting quite long! After really playing everything in order i finally time checked the mod and well it came out to about 2.2 hours. Thats not to bad but yeah its getting there as for new media? Well none really at the moment to be honest. A lot has happened but not really a lot in those terms. Yeah so the other day i was thinking a bit about that demo I've been talking about since well........ hmmm a long time now i suppose. Is it going to come out? When will it? Is it any good? You may ask your self "Should i care"? Well i cant answer any of those questions now but i can say i would like to do it. Like i have said many times before to many people is the fact that perhaps delays in games and mods is good. Why? Well delays mean more work but not just to fix things. In fact its really to make sure things are good, fun and work well. It a show of affection and care for the mod rather than truly rushing it out the door to compete. I would rather make a mod any day thats fun rather than say i want to make a mod to take Minerva down or top Rock24. Will City17ep1 be as good as those? Well only you can say that really. But one thing this mod is going to contain is love, care, and dedication. So with that hopefully it will be good i mean really who knows? But to be honest City 17 is going great and I'm having fun working on it. So tell next time and maybe perhaps a good mod update, i will post later --Geardev
