Off-Limits Media Release

[Sui]

The Off-limits mod- which pitches players against each other in the race to slay a single alien - has released a long awaited media release. [br] [br] To elaborate; you’d never believe an alien could cause this much hassle. In the world of Off-Limits, not only is the player-controlled alien incredibly strong, but it can only be hurt with a hefty piece of machinery- the immense “Rail Gun”. Luckily for humanity, the Vangard players start the round with one of these to hand. It’s not a walk in the post-apocalyptic park though; in this shattered world where civilisation has crumbled under the relentless brutality of these alien invaders, it’s dog eat dog - and a number of reckless survivors have sprung up with the intention of stealing the all-powerful Rail Gun from the arrogant Vangard and using it to claim the alien kill for themselves. And what do these haphazard rogues have in order to combat the Vangard's power? They have the initiative... or more specifically, an alien-tracking radar.
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[br]To visit their website, click here.

 

[SimonomiS]

Some awesome talent there.

 

[Dodo]

looking great. :thumbs:
ive seen that car ages ago.

-dodo

 

[Sulkdodds]

This mod looks damn cool. Although you slightly mis-explained it: one team has the railgun and this the power to kill the alien. But the other team has the radar and the power to find the alien. The railgun can be stolen but whatever team possesses it has their radar disrupted. Thus, both teams must engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse to corner the alien and railgun it. The alien itself will only attack when provoked - so if you miss your shot, it'll go crazy evil on your ass.

 

[Sui]

Yrah... they posted this Rogue ages ago as well, but I decided I should repost the car because it makes a good inverted pyramid pattern of screenshots D:

Note to Sulkdodds: I know what you meant!

*edit* ARRGHH there you are sulk! You slipped that in before I could reply!

 

[simon]

not only is the AI controlled alien incredibly strong

I'd like to correct something (we need to update our Q&A)
the Alien is no longer AI controlled, but will be playable!

“Rain Gun”.

And it's a Railgun, Quake Style :>

Sulkdodds pretty much hit the nail on the head. And yes we posted the Rogue character before, but never released it on a media update. We like to post some new material on our site/forums first and do a media release when we have more then one new update, so it's worth the update.


- Simon

 

[ironclad]

the immense “Rain Gun”.

umm wtf lol?

i can see it now:
vanguard yell "I am going to go hurricane on your alien ass bitch!"

 

[Sulkdodds]

You defile the inverted pyramid Suicide.

EDIT: lol. Rain gun? :E

 

[Sui]

This mod looks damn cool. Although you slightly mis-explained it: one team has the railgun and this the power to kill the alien. But the other team has the radar and the power to find the alien. The railgun can be stolen but whatever team possesses it has their radar disrupted. Thus, both teams must engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse to corner the alien and railgun it. The alien itself will only attack when provoked - so if you miss your shot, it'll go crazy evil on your ass.

I know that's how it goes; I did read the site you know But my job is to write "there's been a media release by...", and any elaboration is purely for my own enjoyment, and I felt that just copying a description from the FAQ was just rather pointless. I wasnted to describe the atmosphere; the VIBE; not the radar system1!!!

Although I'll slip it in because my VIBE might confuse people :ninjar:

EDIT: lol. Rain gun? :E

GOD DAMNIT D:

/me curses keyboard

 

[Sulkdodds]

the Alien is no longer AI controlled, but will be playable!

Hey wait a second, weren't you guys like, not going to do that because of the possibility for really lame griefing/camping tactics, team bias and uber alien rampages that don't give anyone a chance?

 

[Sui]

I thought it was only going to be playable in the beta :O

But I can see how AI would be a problem; sure, it's a lot fairer and all, but to be honest it's much more fun to fight live prey

 

[keats]

Hey wait a second, weren't you guys like, not going to do that because of the possibility for really lame griefing/camping tactics, team bias and uber alien rampages that don't give anyone a chance?

Aye, but we've discussed it a lot, and a playable alien will be much more intense and more fun. So we went the other way and brainstormed on how to make a playable alien as impartial as possible, even if he did try to be prejudiced.

So we've come up with a bunch of ideas that will not only enable that, but make playing the alien a lot more fun. E.g. as we speak I'm writing a custom shader to have a very funky alien vision, which will effectively limit the alien player's focus to what he's looking at. Also, we're making it so to the alien, all players will have the same, generic, player model. It won't see as far as human players, it won't see what player belongs to what team, it won't see the different types of weapons, etc. We're most likely also gonna either randomize the team's spawn points, and/or have different spawnspots per team to start with, so the alien player can't possibly really be biased. (Except perhaps towards the hunter... it will be able to see the railgun's beam, so you'd better aim straight ).

AI still is a path we can go down later though, depending on the demand and the success of the playable alien.

 

[polyguns]

just give him only heat vision, which you can use to lead him to convienient hiding and excape places other players won't see, possibly teleports.

so he can see a spawnable teleport, run behind a box andvanishes, spoooky


awsome stuff, i think ive see that guys weapons before

damn. reason skinned those? nice job d00d.

 

[Sui]

Making the players all look the same to the alien is an excellent idea

 

[Beerdude26]

Simon = Modelling and skinning god.
If I recall correctly, he was awarded 2 (or was it 3?) "Best model" awards at a prestigious site.

But it's been a while since I visited their forums
Keep 'em coming Simon :thumbs:

 

[Ennui]

beautiful work. simon's a beast.

 

[kronos2]

beautiful work. simon's a beast.

wait till you get him in bed.

 

[Ennui]

oh, but that's what i was referring to.

he's a good modeler too.

 

[efuxer69]

Subspace vision gives alien ability to escape instantly!

just give him only heat vision, which you can use to lead him to convienient hiding and excape places other players won't see, possibly teleports. so he can see a spawnable teleport, run behind a box andvanishes, spoooky.

Wouldn't it be cool to have the teleport spots move randomly to spots within a certain proximity of the alien, that way you can't learn where he can go over the course of a few rounds on the same map. It could be part of his scary alien powers, to find random wormholes that he can exploit to instantly travel to another spot not too far away. His limited vision could be the price he pays to be able to spot his quick getaways. Anyway, sounds cool to me
BrainM

 

[NeoNight]

This mod looks damn cool. Although you slightly mis-explained it: one team has the railgun and this the power to kill the alien. But the other team has the radar and the power to find the alien. The railgun can be stolen but whatever team possesses it has their radar disrupted. Thus, both teams must engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse to corner the alien and railgun it. The alien itself will only attack when provoked - so if you miss your shot, it'll go crazy evil on your ass.

I like that its like the hidden but probably less boring. No offense to the hidden folks, I love playing as the hidden but when your not playing as the hidden the mod does get boring.

 

[RaBiD WeAzEL]

Can't wait for this mod...

Well... I guess that I'll have to....

 

[omikron]

is it me or they are making some buildings in max ? as low poly (and beautiful) as it might be won't it make the game lag like a pig ?

 

[polyguns]

not at all really, bsp is very ineffeient modelling program. Its great for really low res undetailed objects like a wall, cause its speedy, thats why it was so big back in the day when there was only .....walls. plus i think it has to be a model to be physicalized.

thing about bsp modelling, you lay out a cube, its a cube, you can't tweak merge the verts, delete hidden backfaces like you can in a model, well i don't think you can.

alot of statics ive made for hl2 mods amount to taking their brush geometry, and rebuilding it, cutting down the faces by about 3/4. in hammer it may not look too bad, but everything renders as triangles, and the triangle count on bsp geometry is somewhat insane. that whole building may not be more then 2000 tris, the cost of a player model, to do things complex like that in hammer not only would take forever, but would be more resource intensive.

I think bsp is going the way of the dinos, and the new tech, like that unigen engine, will allow you to take your models straight from max or maya straight into the engine, without compiling, probably be able to work on the fly in realtime with realtime lighting etc. models are so much better and more effecient for complex maps. appreciate your archaic bsp mapping while you can people! you can do so much more in a real modelling application

OR, the will simply incorporate a great poly modelling system into the level designer

 

[omikron]

thanks for that dude, I was not aware of that and I m myself working as a 3D artist for a mod (using UT2004), I was a bit scared when making static meshes, making sure theyr as low poly as possible, but never knew I could just make a whole (basic) building in max with the engine handling it, good to know.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

BSP is very efficient. That's what it's for. If you made your geometry purely out of non-BSP static meshes, there'd be no occlusion done on your map, and it would run like complete arse.
That's why you don't make maps out of static meshes. Even engines like UE3 don't - the maps have a BSP base with all the pretty shiny stuff added on top.

 

[pur3r4ge]

At least currently, BSP lights a lot better as well. In UT and Source, non-BSP uses vertex lighting, while BSP uses lightmaps.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

That too, although Source uses static props in the lighting calculations for BSP geometry (i.e. they cast shadows)