singleplayer city map (DeusEx-like interactive city hub)

This is a project I started a few months ago but no longer felt like finishing, so I'm sharing it at its current stage. It was supposed to be a demo showing what Xonotic could do if it had actual single-player support. This map is also meant to be a level in a game / story I want to make in Xonotic someday, which will probably take years to finish if I decide to do it (and someone adds things like monsters / NPC's).

The action takes place in New York city in the near yet distant future. There is no real story or background, except that the player is supposed to be an escaped agent being chased by the authorities. Currently, you just roam around and talk to random people you meet on the street (fake NPC's simulated with triggers and models). There is also a club, a subway station, and a hotel in which you have a room of your own.

Special features that you don't commonly see in Xonotic include: An interactive city hub, people you can talk to in the street, doors that require typing in a code to open, and items that trigger alarms (linked to automated turrets). You talk to people by simply bumping into them, and each person will repeat one out of many messages. Includes both subtitles as well as HORRIBLE voices recorded by me (try the female characters for epic lulz ). The subway station requires an access code, which you type into the chat (magicear trigger), and you find in a note. The hotel contains windows that will trigger an alarm and uncover a turret if you break them.

It would be impossible to cover the reference to DeusEx in this map. That is indeed what this demo (and the project I wanna make) is inspired from. I always had a deep love for the way DX has interactive cities where you open doors using codes, hack computers, talk to people for clues, and so on. If I'll ever make my story, it will be something similar to that (magicear makes password-protected triggers and machines doable).

Here is a video and some screenshots of my demo. Spoiler: You are going to see Xonotic used for a gameplay style never attempted before





Obviously, there's also a download for anyone who wants to try this (map source included). Link 1, link 2. Please try it out and let me know what you think! AFAIK, all the assets I used (textures and music) are either GPL or Public Domain.

ALSO: If you like what you see, please consider donating! And by donating I don't mean money, but help with implementing essential single-player features in Xonotic. Such as monsters / NPC's, item persistence for trigger_changelevel, objectives (not like those in Assault), money, and other things. I can do a few of those features, but not all. And without some of them, I cannot make an entire story using this system. Hopefully this demo will motivate other developers to at least help with implementing monsters like those in Quake, which is the hardest thing. If what I need gets implemented, I might make an interesting story sometime

THIS IS AWESOME!

+1

This is what we need for a singleplayer. Of course it needs a lot more detail, and especially people to fight. But this is what people are looking forward to in a game.

Definetely great project, Mircea! I hope many people will start helping making models, mappig, doing voice acting, code enemy's etc.

This is what Xonotic needs.

Thanks Mepper, I'm glad you like I am happy with how this looks so far, including the textures and music I used. And I agree, Xonotic would do nicely with such a project! Do remember it's meant to be an arena game by default, and not something like Deus Ex. But as a mod, Xonotic would do wonderfully for this.

Problem is, I can't make a whole story (with a considerable length) until someone at least helps with implementing monsters (I might be able to code other features myself). Monsters should probably use the same bot AI (for movement and combat) but should not be real clients / players and be placeable as map entities. It's a hard task to achieve. At worst, I could use the normal bots, and invoke bot scripting to make them act like civilians or guards. But that would kinda suck, and be a hacky implementation. I'd also need to attach target_dialogue entities to bots, so the player can talk to them wherever they go, which would require some changes to misc_follow for attaching entities to players.

Like I said, my story aims at being something similar to Deus Ex. You would travel to different cities (futuristic versions), infiltrate corporations, talk to civilians, buy weapons / health / armor, have choices in dialogues, read news from public terminals, open doors and computers with codes and passwords, disable alarms and turrets, etc. In this case, vehicles would also be used. I've always wanted to map my own cities like this, and place all the systems and interactions. Pretty sure something very nice could be done in this sense

I always expected this!
I will try to help with something, like a 3d models or maps
I am not an expert, but I definitely want a real single player mod for Xonotic

VERY interesting, this really shows what could potentially be done with the game and may give us something to look forward to in the future if anybody were to jump on and do singleplayer. I think a more Turok 2 style (maybe a single hub with just a few HUGE maps that you have to back track through from time to time that have a couple of objectives in them, a boss fight here or there) approach as opposed to a Deus Ex one would be better though if Xonotic wanted to do something memorable with singleplayer. There's been far more first person RPGs made than first person metroidvanias. This thread just reminded me, Lab 610 seems like another map that could be adapted to singleplayer, maybe with a handful of objectives thrown in there (do A, B, and then GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!) or a boss fight.

I always expected this!
I will try to help with something, like a 3d models or maps
I am not an expert, but I definitely want a real single player mod for Xonotic

My biggest problem is the lack of coded features. However, I would require some models too for what I had planned. Mostly props of what you would find in a city, for indoors and outdoors alike. Such as trash cans, chairs and tables, appliances (refrigerator, oven, shower cabin / bath tub, toilet, sink, and anything else) as well as furniture (a bed included). In my demo, I ported such meshes from high-poly models made for Blender. But converting them to md3 and using them in darkplaces is both difficult and ugly looking. So if someone could make good ones from a scratch, it would help a lot. I don't need additional player / monster models, as I can texture people on the Ignis and Pyria characters (like bums or scientists).

VERY interesting, this really shows what could potentially be done with the game and may give us something to look forward to in the future if anybody were to jump on and do singleplayer. I think a more Turok 2 style (maybe a single hub with just a few HUGE maps that you have to back track through from time to time that have a couple of objectives in them, a boss fight here or there) approach as opposed to a Deus Ex one would be better though if Xonotic wanted to do something memorable with singleplayer. There's been far more first person RPGs made than first person metroidvanias. This thread just reminded me, Lab 610 seems like another map that could be adapted to singleplayer, maybe with a handful of objectives thrown in there (do A, B, and then GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!) or a boss fight.

Haven't player the Turok series, but that sounds nice. I'd still go for multiple cities around the world though... it disappointed me enough that Deus Ex 3 had only two city hubs As for Lab 610, I was thinking the same thing a while ago! I could easily make a non-DeathMatch version, add some props and stuff, and make that a great level for single player.

You should definitely play the first two Turoks if you haven't and I recommend you play the N64 versions of them with a RAM expansion pack as they only contain a fraction of the problems the PC ports did (you'll rage at the PC Turok 2's soundtrack, especially in the Lair of the Blind Ones map when it gets cut off at it's most suspenseful moment). The first one hasn't aged so well, but the second one is among one of the best games I've ever played and has some of the finest level design of all time. I will warn you though, getting used to the controls in them is rough and the frame rate hiccups in the second do get annoying sometimes. They also aren't casual games either, if you know where your going it's estimated it takes 45 hours to get through Turok 2. Turok 3 pretty much abandoned the game design of the first games and made the whole game linear.

This is just incredible! Really impressive!

Thanks, glad you like. Since others like this and I've been discussing single player again with the community, I decided to work on the map again today, and add more places and details. Here are some pics of what I did today:



Again, this is just the map. If you want the real thing to ever happen, I WILL require a lot of help. If you're interested and / or wish to help, please visit this thread for a description of the Xonotic single-player fork I have planned. If you wanna see the exact things I need help with, see this post. I'm hoping we can get something set up for a Xonotic-based toolkit that can allow people to easily create such games.

very promising ... and yes it would need lots of new code ...

there are some map place-able bots/monsters already (spiderbot ... and that little wheel thing ... they are under the turrets section) I don't know how they function in a death match though...

Also Also ... unless we get a good voice actor ... I would avoid voice acting altogether and go Nintendo mumbling style ... voice acting only works if it is very very good ... (not meaning to criticize your voice or anything)

Non linear = I love non linear things ... like mario 64/sunshine ... you can go wherever you want ... whenever you want ... nobody's forcing you to go in one direction ...

edit:: ---

I actually played it now ... and the voice acting is mandatory because the text leave the screen too quickly (and it provides major lols)
The laser makes getting on top of buildings easy

and what shotgun model was that ... is it something in the auto-build ... or git ... cause ... I like the old model better (the new one looks like a hair dryer)

The spiderbot (not the vehicle) and wheelee are both moving turrets. They can roam around and shoot but are far from NPC's. They don't use the player model animations, have no inventory support, and have their built-in attacks instead of picking up and using actual weapons. They plan to be used as security bots in my maps (if I don't use NPC's for that) although they also need to be turned into a text file and de-hardcoded. Once again, I'm curious about the zombie, if anyone tried it and knows how it works.

The voice acting in this map was just to give a feel of how it feels like to have voice. For the real thing, voices will be disabled by default until somehow, voices are made for all dialogues (I'll add a null wav file for each which people who offer to voice act, if any over time, can simply edit). Until that's done, people will only see the subtitles, which should be ok to get you through the game.

The shotgun model is called Shotgun Cannon and was made long ago by another contributor. I adapted and finished it, and proposed it as a replacement for the existing shotgun in Xonotic. Because no one likes it and believes it looks like a hair drier, it's optional and can be found on GIT and this forum. I like it much more than the current shotgun, and plan to use it in my game instead of Xon's shottie.

I really like this, the shield looks better than the crazy rotating texture that is now used. Awesome work.

How do you run this map?

How do you run this map?

Download the pk3, put it in the data folder. In the console write 'map lv1' and it will start.

Anyway, here are today's improvements. New details added to the hotel balcony, as well as an improved hotel interior. I also modified the park and turned the surrounding area into a pedestrian passage. Another improvement is a nice cover for the subway entrances, using the warpzone edge textures again. More to come.

Today's new stuff: Hologram traffic signs (which change and sync accordingly using the animmap shader key) and I tried adding a car mesh I found on opengameart.org to see how it looks. Now I'm working on a new area which will take some time, as I plan to make each city hub large enough.

Oh wow, I am speechless.
This is really cool, seeing Xonotic used for something like that! It felt like a completely different game when watching the demo

I hope something like this eventually becomes the singleplayer mode of Xonotic

Looks insane! Got any new .pk3s ready for download?

Alright everyone, major stuff today. Thanks to netRadiant being so sweet and awesome, I already finished the new area in one day for the most part. Screenshots of it below, as well as a video showing the new stuff since I got into the map again this week. Also, the map is now available on GIT and the BSP autobuild (it's called city_new-york). GIT branch here and aubotuild here. Enjoy and please let me know what you think of the new place

Once again: All this work is useless and will stay a demo until enough people show interest in the the single-player fork I'm hoping to start. I'm still waiting for more feedback and input on my single-player framework idea (topic here).

Looks good! I just wonder what kind of future train can drive on this railway. It must be kinda flat too.
But anyways: Looks great!

Looks good! I just wonder what kind of future train can drive on this railway. It must be kinda flat too.
But anyways: Looks great!

Thanks. I think those railways are good for futuristic trains, hopefully fitting trains of normal size. Sadly the trains themselves might never exist, since they would require entity animations not yet implemented (the best one can do is a func_bobbong / func_rotating but you can't add multiple positions and keyframes).

Looks good! I just wonder what kind of future train can drive on this railway. It must be kinda flat too.
But anyways: Looks great!

Thanks. I think those railways are good for futuristic trains, hopefully fitting trains of normal size. Sadly the trains themselves might never exist, since they would require entity animations not yet implemented (the best one can do is a func_bobbong / func_rotating but you can't add multiple positions and keyframes).

It's funny you'd say that because we have an entity that does exactly that, and it's ironically called func_train.

It's funny you'd say that because we have an entity that does exactly that, and it's ironically called func_train.

lol, epic fail on my end. I remember seeing it now, but never tried it out. Thanks for pointing this out... I shall see if it works on my map tomorrow.

looking very nice ...

It's funny you'd say that because we have an entity that does exactly that, and it's ironically called func_train.

lol, epic fail on my end. I remember seeing it now, but never tried it out. Thanks for pointing this out... I shall see if it works on my map tomorrow.

Now to be fair, I don't think it manages rotation. It might be a little tricky to set up.

Now to be fair, I don't think it manages rotation. It might be a little tricky to set up.

Ah, I was hoping it does. Can't use it for much then, since my rails change both height and direction. Maybe the developer of this entity can fix that, since IMO it sounds like it can't meet its purpose if it doesn't rotate (since no rails are usually straight). If that can be fixed though, I'll surely be using this on the map.

[EDIT] Tried out func_train. It works exactly like it should, with the exception that it never rotates. Therefore, it's useless here (since the train points out in the same direction). I don't really see the point of this entity at all if rotations aren't implemented, to be honest. Anyone feel like poking into the code and trying to solve this?

[EDIT 2] I tried fixing this, and spoke with divVerent about it on IRC. From what I understand, the only good way to have trains that turn is by using beizer curves (instead of linear movement between the path_corner entities). That would work the same way netRadiant handles patch meshes (defining several points and having a round surface between them). I have no clue how to do this, so if someone else wants to look into it that would be nice and helpful.