Rules of _p

CS:GO ZE map making and porting project
13 February, 2016

Third official map pack: Zombie escape pack #3

We are putting out the third map pack after a somewhat long period of time. The delay has mostly come from both the maps being ported, most of which fall on the more complex side of things, and a general attitude that has been making the process more and more of a chore. Time will tell how things will develop in the current environment.

All of the maps are bound by the same constraints as always, with filesize being the greatest issue at the moment. As such, the larger/more complex the maps are, the more likely it is the porting process will require a serious filesize-shaving that isn’t always straightforward. Gameplay and performance wise they should be fine, as they have been tested thoroughly, though certain maps (such as ze_deepice) might put extra strain on servers due to how they were originally designed (and how little could be done about their flaws). As always, we will be open to address issues when they’re reported in a clear, specific manner.

The included maps are:

ze_ApertureScience_p2
ze_biohazard_manor_004_p4
ze_biohazard2_rpd_004_p3
ze_biohazard2_sewer_004_p8
ze_boatescape101_p
ze_colorlicouspilar_p4
ze_cyberderp_p3
ze_deepice_p3
ze_escape_the_eye_p2
ze_Flying_World_p
ze_forgotten_facility_p2
ze_grand_boatescape_p2
ze_interception_p2
ze_isla_nublar_p3
ze_motanuminc_p2
ze_NY_marathon_p2
ze_ocean_base_escape_p
ze_paper_escaper_p4
ze_Parking_p3
ze_Predator_Ultimate_p5
ze_saw_p3
ze_surf_facility_p4
ze_toaster_p3
ze_UT2004_Convoy_p2

You can download the third map pack from HERE or HERE.

Enjoy.

2 Comments
19 October, 2015

A miscellaneous update, more textures, FGD and automatic particle precaching (PRECACHER UPDATED).

Although updates have been sparser than before, our porting efforts have not stopped. However, given the nature of the maps to appear in the upcoming mappack, the time window required to polish and get them to work in full has been much longer. Given the current situation among the community (which has recently had a very interesting new project launched), we are doing a small miscellaneous update.

First of all, we are posting an updated version of the additional textures pack. Overtime we have been adding variations and creating new materials (alongside  with some much required textures missing from older Source titles) to get  the job done. Although people should be able to extract the materials from ported maps, a complete pack is ideal for mappers that want to start creating NEW things for CS:GO. You can find the updated texture pack below:

MEGA: Here
MediaFire: Here

Beyond that, we have updated Hammer’s FGDs to include entities that do not appear normally (but do work, at least in most cases) such as func_monitor, skybox_swapper or func_weight_button. The updated FGDs also address the issues caused by Valve after the weapon/playermodel updates, which left some entities having error models in the viewport. Some of those entities will let mappers create  situations that are novel to the players, since they have not been used extensively before. The FGDs also include a good degree of documentation, to make usage of those entities simple enough (if you take the time to read).

MEGA: Here
MediaFire: Here

We are also releasing an autoprecacher for particles which gives support for ‘maps/mapname_particles.txt’ (which is nonfunctional in CS:GO). This plugin is an extension over the previous particle precacher, and should precache particle systems stored within maps so long the mappers pack their particle manifest in the same way as it used to be in CS:S. Forced precache modes (using ! before a particle file path in the manifest) are not supported, so mappers will have to strip all their exclamation marks (!) from their paths within the manifest. Since all of our ports DO use the manifest files already, server admins will no longer need to add ‘sm_precache_particles’ to their bspconvars_whitelist.txt files. We recommend you still do, however, for maps not ported by us with uncaring mappers. The plugin will also help mappers trying to create maps of their own that make use of particles (through Alien Swarm’s editor) both for testing and simplifying what they have to do (not depending on an arbitrary command anymore).

MEGA: Here
MediaFire: Here

Finally, we want to divert some attention towards an event that is taking place. We were hesitant about it, but it seems that it is snowballing and gaining some traction. A community wide mapping contest is being hosted by Mapeadores, but all Zombie-Escape communities have been invited to take part on it. As such, there are quite a few mappers that seem to be getting involved. We are not very informed about this, so we will leave a few links below:

Communities (we will edit this with your communities’ threads if we are missing something):

Maps/showcase so far (submit more in the comments):

We are happy to see that the community is putting some effort into creating new maps for CS:GO. The map pack, however, will still be coming soon (when the last few maps are tested out). Until then, have fun.

4 Comments
3 May, 2015

Playermodel pack and a (reasonably) working zombie arms plugin.

Since we published the second map pack, we have been focusing on getting a deeper knowledge about what CS:GO brings because we know for a fact it will be needed for the third pack. We have been working on a second plugin pack to help the community get rid of the need to pay for really simple scripts that are more often than not done shoddily. This release was going to be delayed because, at this time, nobody really knows the exact cause of the SlerpBones crash to an exact, reproducible state. Working on playermodels while not knowing if they will actually work because the game’s code can’t be checked to ensure the validity of what has been done is both tedious and frustrating. With this in mind, we can do nothing but thank Kaesar (whose name is being mentioned for reasons we will explain in further detail later) for his free, open and fantastic work.

First of all, why is his name being published? Isn’t this meant to be an anonymous project, aimed to avoid issues such as people claiming that they did something and deserve special treatment? Well, yes; but not only he is not part of the project per se (and, instead, just helps in any way he can with nothing but good faith and a great work ethic), his work was used and sold (without his permission and before it was under any _p umbrella) by people whose only personal trait is being greedy while acting righteous. These people had, in fact, managed to make him upset enough to stop modelling for a while; something that we understand as it hits very close home in terms of mapping. With this reasoning in mind, we believe it is not only fair, but also what should be done, to mention him as who he is, not part of the porting team but so close in our mindsets that he deserves the attention (that he doesn’t want) and that others (that wanted it) did not even come close to get.

Why are his models particularly valuable? Because they are hypothesis, little tests that will hopefully lead to understanding the SlerpBones crash. As such, they can’t be taught, they are a matter of trial and error, of issues arising time and time again until the problem gets solved. That is why we are so pleased to announce these playermodels, alongside with the two zombie arms model (from L4D’s hunters and spitters) and the zombie arms model: they will not only help servers and communities alike, but also will lead us to an understanding on what exactly isn’t working and why.

Now, with the actual release (click on the image to open it in full size):

Playermodel pack pic

It contains 19 different models (22 if we consider the 4 variations of the TMNT, which use bodygroups and skins). Some of them you might know already from some maps in the second map pack, some of them you will be seeing on the third map pack and some of them are just hilarious to look at.

With regards to the TMNT and the bodygroups, if you want to use them you should set the skin and bodygroup to the desired turtle, with each turtle having the same skin/bodygroup (ie. set skin and bodygroup to the same value between 0 and 3 both inclusive to get each of the different 4 TMNT). The SM code to be used would be SetEntProp(client, Prop_Send, “m_nBody”, num), where num is the bodygroup to be set. The same must be done with the skin.

Download the playermodel pack:

HERE and HERE

In the arms model department, we have:

 

Despite how the arms on the right might look in the model viewer, both look fine ingame and, hopefully, won’t produce any sort of problem. Of course, we want you to report any issues you can find, but we’d rather have no issues found at all.

Download the two arms models:

HERE and HERE

And last but not least, here is the SourceMod plugin that will let you have arms models for zombies on your server without (most) annoying glitches. You will be able to set:

  • An arms model for mother zombies, by setting up the zr_motherzm_arms cvar (default: “models/player/custom/ghoularms2/ghoularms2.mdl”)
  • An arms model for zombies, by setting up the zr_zombie_arms cvar (default: “models/player/custom/ghoularms/ghoularms.mdl”)
  • An arms model for humans that spawn in the CT team, by setting up the zr_human_ct_arms cvar (default: “models/weapons/ct_arms_idf.mdl”)
  • An arms model for humans that spawn in the T team, by setting up the zr_human_t_arms cvar (default: “models/weapons/t_arms_phoenix.mdl”)
  • Whether to use the arms set up by the original mapper(s) in the map, by using enabling the zr_arms_use_maps cvar (default: “1”. This cvar being set to 1 means that the two previous ones, related to human arms, will not have any effect)
  • The time after round start at which the arms should be set for humans, using the zr_arms_set_delay cvar (default: “0.5”. This cvar should be changed to delay setting the arm models on large maps where the server suffers from lag at round start, such as ze_Frostdrake_Tower)
  • The time after the first correction to move players back to their original team, in order to avoid issues with buyzones, filters, triggers and anything else imaginable, using the zr_arms_correction_delay cvar (default: “0.25”. Although we didn’t test thoroughly, it is possible that using a delay of 0.0 will cause issues).

The system for using arms models defined in the map is somewhat experimental and dirty (as is the rest of the plugin, being fair, since the requirement to change team in order to get the arms models swapped is absurd), but we recommend it for the sole fact that it should make both server admins and mappers happy. There exist improvements for the plugin, such as using playerclasses to decide the arms model to be applied and allowing clients to select the arms model they prefer, but this plugin should be enough for now and helpful for decent developers (those that, instead of preaching altruism, practice it). Also, since we might have used an outdated compiler, it is advised to recompile the plugin with the most up to date compiler to  go with your SM version.

Download the plugin:

HERE and HERE

Have fun! We are not exactly sure about what will be published next, but we hope it will be, at least, interesting.

7 Comments
13 April, 2015

Second official map pack: Zombie escape pack #2

It has been a long while since we published our last post, with this being mostly caused by:

  • The fact that we noticed things acting weird on CS:GO and, thus, maps needing to be updated/changed.
  • A seemingly lower edict limit/the same behaviour as in CS:S on which you will run out of edicts despite having free positions on the edict array
  • Bigger, more complicated maps being more complex a tad to work with
  • Atrocious updates that hindered progress quite a bit
  • Communities acting in ways that are an annoyance making people to really lose interest, albeit the fact that these very communities live off the efforts of others and rarely do they give anything back

These problems, however, have in one way or another been sorted out to a reasonable degree and, now, after some testing that has taken arguably too long, the second map pack is here.

The main intention behind it has been to port some bigger maps (as opposed to most of the smaller maps on the first pack), trying to move over different kinds of gameplay (including vehicular maps, about which we will talk in a bit) and acting as a middle ground between the (simpler) previous pack and a smaller pack that should be coming in the future with most of the ‘big’ maps that everybody knows. An update pack will be coming at some point, addressing some of the CS:GO issues we have mentioned and containing fixes/tweaks for a small subset of maps from the first pack and, of course, all maps that happen to have issues on this one.

In such regard, and despite the general environment of smugness among some communities (which is most of the times completely baseless since they have little idea of what they are doing), we will require as much help as possible to eliminate any pitfalls from the maps. If you happen to find any sort of issue, whatever it might be, leave a comment below and we will try to address them. Please try to be specific and do NOT assume that your server is flawless: it most likely is not, just as our ports.

The included maps are:

ze_arctic_escape_p2
ze_ATIX_extinction_p2
ze_barrage_p2
ze_biohazard2_rpd_004_p3
ze_bp-infested-prison_p2
ze_Breakable_p3
ze_colors_p3
ze_crashbandicoot_p3
ze_DOOM_p2
ze_eternal_void_p3
ze_fapescape_p5
ze_fast_escape_p2
ze_firewall_laboratory_part1_p2
ze_firewall_laboratory_part2_p2
ze_hazard_escape_p2
ze_Hell_Escape_p2
ze_indiana_jones_v4a_004_p4
ze_legoland_crackheads_p2
ze_LOTR_Mount_Doom_p3
ze_moon_base_p3
ze_notredame_p3
ze_omega_p3
ze_opti_variety_missions_p3
ze_PoR_island_p3
ze_PUTA_p3
ze_raccoon_facility_v6b_p
ze_Random_p2
ze_resonance_cascade_p3
ze_retribution_p
ze_rollermine_factory_2010_p
ze_rooftop_runaway2_p
ze_sg1_missions_v2_1_p2
ze_showdown_v4_1_p
ze_shroomforest2_p4
ze_sst2_p
ze_stargate_escape_v8_p2
ze_thelostworld_redux_p2
ze_underground_escape_p
ze_urban_laby_of_death_p2
ze_zombiemod_corporation_p2

 

Among those, ze_ATIX_extinction_p2, ze_retribution_p and ze_thelostworld_redux_p2 contain driveable vehicles (helicopter and cars, cars and trucks and the jungle bus, respectively). For those to work appropiately, you should make a map-specific configuration containing ‘sm_cvar sv_turbophysics 0′ and ‘cs_enable_player_physics_box 1’. Since CS:GO happens to be very resource intensive when it comes to physics (despite anything physics related looking the same as in older Source Engine branches if not worse), make sure that these cvars are only enabled on these maps.

Finally, it is worth noting that both ze_DOOM and ze_moon_base now feature custom player models. We have been trying to talk with modellers to get new playermodels rigged for the updated skeleton (and arms models, some of which have been released/used without permission or even sold with dubiously made plugins), so a playermodel pack might be published in the near future with a few arms models.

You can download the second map pack from HERE or HERE.

Enjoy the map pack and stay tuned for more stuff soon.

20 Comments
23 December, 2014

Updating the first map pack, christmas presents and changing how we work.

Since we released the first map pack for Zombie Escape, issues arised in a few of the maps ported. We, since then, started working on them (trying to accomodate as much feedback as possible in our fixes, in order to make the maps playable for all servers that reported issues [and the rest, but with less certainty for obvious reasons]). The highlighted part of the previous sentence is very important since from it we mean that we can only produce ports and fixes that are good enough for all servers if there is input that lets us know what the different issues are. A few of the maps that were tweaked had what, basically, could be called non issues (they didn’t affect gameplay) but were changed around anyway in an attempt to make things decent for everybody. Others, however, had issues that would yield the maps simply unplayable to some communities (which, obviously, made us feel pretty bad). We’ve tried to address them and we want to believe we managed to do so. This update pack (from the delays it has had, sadly) has been tested more or less thoroughly and we think it won’t need further tweaks. If it did need them, though, feel free to contact us and we’ll try to think of a way to polish whatever that is left without having to release any new pack.

So, here it is:

MEDIAFIRE – MEGA

The maps included are:

ze_boacceho_p4
ze_death_star_escape_v4_3_p2
ze_dust_escape_p3
ze_FFVII_Mako_Reactor_p8
ze_gods_wrath_p2
ze_LOTR_Helms_Deep_v5_p6
ze_minecraft_v1_1_p3
ze_PotC_p3
ze_shroomforest_v3_p3
ze_siberia_1990_v1_2c_p5
ze_sst_b2_1_p5
ze_surf_danger_p2
ze_voodoo_islands_v8_5_p4
ze_winter_p3
ze_zk_fapescape_p3

This the first christmas present out of, hopefully, 3. The second one might not come from us directly but it might be a nice surprise for zombie escape servers. The third, well, it’d be the second big thing we release; what could it be? Hmm.

Finally, we have been thinking about the model we have been following for both testing and releasing the maps. We still believe that releasing as packs is the best possible solution that there is to ensure that some quality standards are met and not to cause much hassle to server owners (who otherwise could be suffering from a map-release spam that would be unbearable for them and their players) but the way it has been done so far is not good enough. It is obvious, however, that the current system does not produce what we initially desired: equal access to maps to all communities once they are proven to be (almost) flawless.

The issues at hand are obvious: test servers have to put up with maps that aren’t still buggy and don’t live up to our self imposed standards and their player bases can suffer from this; they, however, have access to the final version sooner. Bigger maps, which are harder to test, get delayed for the sole reason that not enough feedback can be obtained. Topping it off, certain communities use maps that are not fully done and expose unfinished work to their players (hurting both the perception of the maps and the mods).

As a result we have decided to go for a hybrid testing approach from now on: smaller/simpler maps will be tested on test servers and, since there’s no demand for them really and are barely a benefit for them. Bigger maps will be tested by test servers first and then communities who have given us feedback or want to contribute (by contacting us). Communities that want to use maps that are only in test servers/given to communities will suffer from the problems that come with unfinished work and will just cause issues for themselves and their playerbase. We have already done this and we believe it has worked well enough so far. From this point on only time will tell but otherwise have fun!

2 Comments
17 November, 2014

Mapping tools and assets.

CS:GO as a game, and among other problems, suffers from a severe lack of textures and models. This is often a shame because it ends up getting in the way of developing content at times and, for a project like ours, it also becomes a hassle. During the beta, there were more textures and models (which were removed on release for no apparent reason). Some of those, though, remained.

We have been doing a little material pack with materials from either props or textures that had been left without use. We’ve also made non-blended materials for those that usually are (such as grass, dirt, rock and so on) since on CS:GO the support for blends in normal brushwork was removed. Since some of the textures come from models, the tiling might not be great at times (although most of them will work just fine). To avoid inane ramblings, here are the download links:

MEDIAFIRE – MEGA

In other matters, we will be trying to upload the fix pack (it has been long, we know) and more maps relatively soon. We don’t know how long will that take, though.

 

19 September, 2014

On progress and customization that couldn’t be done in CS:S.

As we keep progressing and trying to produce either new content or map ports with an at least decent quality, we find ourselves having to walk on our previous footprints to solve problems we left behind. The issues in the first map pack are mostly fixed (but we kept getting suggestions on what to change and tweak and decided to hold the fix-pack off), and the second map pack is on its way. In terms of fixing what we either broke or didn’t see, we think the best approach is to do this before releasing anything new. Ensuring that everything is somewhat solid before jumping onto newer projects is the approach we think acts more in favor of quality in the end. In these terms, then, we have to post a new version of the spawn_unlag plugin (see previous post) since it had a minor quirk as the timers were not correctly ended. You can find the .sp and .smx here (we didn’t set up the scripting/plugins folders, sorry for that):

SENDSPACE – MEDIAFIRE – MEGA

We released the plugin pack expecting to give a boost to the community, albeit it being a small one. Of course, these plugins didn’t really give anything new but minor fixes, tweaks and simple functionalities that had to be covered for Zombie:Reloaded to feel smoother in CS:GO. We’d love, however, to do things that we couldn’t do in the old iteration of the Source Engine (just like some of us might be working already on [new] maps that take advantage of the things CS:GO provides). Because of these aims of ours, we’re pretty pleased to release this: a custom fire particle plugin that lets server managers change the way their burning players and molotovs look.

The plugin isn’t exempt from quirks, of course, as particles in Source aren’t as great as we’d wish them to be. We work by loading on top of the default particle systems ours, but they remain cached so doing map-specific particles might not be the best idea. They can’t be loaded while an instance of them is running either, since they will crash clients. The plugin tries to solve the second issue by loading particles only on round start (if a server admin was to try to load them mid-round) or at map start normally (which is when maps do it in CS:S and, probably, the best moment to do so).  Also, since the particle editor is broken in CS:GO and doing particles is a godawful chore, we’ve created a few particle systems (9 for ignited players, 3 for molotovs) for servers to use. These systems should help the fps (removing unnecessary GPU-burning smoke effects, for example) and also change how stuff looks a bit.  You can check screenshots here:

IMGUR ALBUM

And you can check the fire effects as videos in the following links:

Aqua Fire:  https://mediacru.sh/O1Frkd4swgIJ
FPS Fire: https://mediacru.sh/mseVx5RUkCzG
FPS Fire 2: https://mediacru.sh/9w2aujy3oFgt
Alternative Fire: https://mediacru.sh/YnnO0HADKFCc
Alternative Fire 2: https://mediacru.sh/D1Av-46B1qKI
Sky Blue Fire: https://mediacru.sh/JO2FU7unq7NO
Alien Fire: https://mediacru.sh/gzYWVquHLKxt
Green Fire: https://mediacru.sh/31S2z-P78VOI
Red Fire: https://mediacru.sh/zXgqKjoXWzMU

FPS Inferno: https://mediacru.sh/NwPu-c6MKJUf
Alternative Inferno: https://mediacru.sh/Oqur184SVJvt
Alternative Inferno 2: https://mediacru.sh/_eshIS0o1ECz

Finally, in these two links you can download the particle systems (remember to add them to your downloads table and your fast download server, they should go in the /particles directory):

MEDIAFIRE – MEGA

And the plugin here:

MEDIAFIRE – MEGA

The plugin uses two cvars, sm_fire_ignite_name (for players being burnt) and sm_fire_inferno_name (for molotovs), which should be set to the name of the particle system we want to use. For example, if we want our server to use the alien fire, we would set sm_fire_ignite_name to ‘burning_fx_alien‘.

And that’s all. Report bugs, if any (although the plugin just precaches the particles, nothing fancy), and enjoy these particle systems. (And remember that you’re free to post this elsewhere, it’d be nice if you linked back)

4 Comments
31 August, 2014

Plugins and opening the gates for more, different configs.

Since we started this blog we have been trying to point out that one of the things we (as a group) felt was an issue in CS:GO was the fact that most servers kept their stuff for themselves without sharing a tiny bit. Although it isn’t bad per se, communities seemed to participate in a ridiculous bragging contest that lead to nothing but to a situation where nobody helped eachother. Some of us firmly believe that this attitude was, probably, the cause for a knockback fix taking so long to appear. A bit of this general way of doing things remains, and although we know we can’t change it we would like to at least add our tiny bit (not only for ZE but for custom gamemodes in general).

On these grounds we have been working on a small set of plugins that we believe could be helpful in general. They address issues that have been around for long (although not as many as we would wish to cover), and should be decent enough to be helpful for server admins and enjoyed by players. Some of them were thought in a bit of a greedy manner so to speak, giving tools for mappers (and developers overall) to pinpoint issues in what they produce.

The plugin pack will be published here, and we think it should be seen as a beta work in progress. We’re probably not going to upload it to the official Sourcemod’s forum on AlliedModders, but we have no problem with the plugins being posted either as a pack together or separately. We don’t care about you posting them as your own work since people that act that way are surely not people to care about. The only thing we do demand is that the plugins are distributed for free since one of the reasons behind them was the amount of SM coders that would ask for what, in our eyes, were absurd amounts of money for relatively simple plugins.

Although some of us might have had a humble SourcePawn background, we’re obviously (and as seen after the release of the first map pack) as prone to error as any other human being is. We’d appreciate if you could pinpoint issues and suggest changes so that in the end more people can enjoy themselves playing.

And now, without more obnoxious wordathons, we’ll describe each plugin and its cvars and commands so that everything’s clear.

(Also, the names of the plugins, their authors and their descriptions are a bit of a joke. You’re free to change them)

burn_slowdown.sp : One of the big issues in CS:GO’s zombie gamemodes is that the classic napalm nades don’t slow the zombies down. Some of us believe this is actually good because it means that different alternatives might appear and make the gamemode evolve, but despite our personal thoughts we’re aware that some servers might prefer it. This plugin makes players get slowed down by means of stamina when they are hurt by fire attached to them (that is, when they’re burning). This means that this plugin will be completely compatible with Z:R’s napalm on classes, and the slowdown will not affect the players’ jumping (as it happens with speed-multiplier based fixes). There will not be problems with maps where a velocity multiplier is set, since stamina is completely independent from it.

CVars:

  • sm_stamina_burncost [DEFAULT : 25.0] – Stamina penalty to be applied when you’re burnt.
  • sm_napalmonly [DEFAULT : 1] – Whether or not to apply stamina penalty on all kinds of burn damage types. It can make you slowdown on certain maps with env_fire so perhaps it’s not the best idea (since the fix isn’t Z:R specific and humans would be affected too).

No commands.

colorshit.sp : Although players who have been in CS:GO since the beta might be accustomed to it, the chat colors in the game are not really helpful for map console messages. It might sound trivial, but being able to easily see what the map hints and displays as important can greatly help players do well on maps. This plugin lets you tint console messages with the several colors CS:GO has built in.

CVars:

  • console_chat_color [DEFAULT : 9] – Color to be used. The default is a pale yellow to mimick the yellow console in CS:S, but given that CS:GO’s lighting usually comes yellowish from the post processing + usual mapper choices, it’d be a good idea to mess around with this.

No commands.

CSGOJoinTeamFix.sp : CS:GO has the bad habit of blocking people from going back into a team after going into the spectator team. Since rounds on zombie escape servers are long and at times you spectate and then want to go back (playing as a zombie), we made this plugin. It forces the server to let you change your team so you don’t end up being annoyed (but Z:R command blocking should still block your suicide attempts before hand we’re wrong, use at your own discretion). We are not sure, but perhaps there is a cvar that aids on this matter, so we would be grateful if we were told if such a thing exists.

No cvars.

No commands.

EDIT + NOTE:  The plugin makes use of  ‘ChangeClientTeam(client, desiredteam);’. Perhaps using a FakeClientCommand(client, “jointeam %d 1”, team) would be better. Use this at your own discretion, we don’t think it’s that big of an issue for most servers either way.

devdisplay.sp : This is one of our favorite plugins as mappers. It lets you dump a bunch of interesting information, both useful for mappers and server admins. The original idea behind it is Kyle Sanderson’s rdisplay, which you can find on the AlliedModders forums for CS:S (sadly hudhints in CS:GO won’t let us display as much text as we’d like to). It is registered as an admin command so you can change the flags for it, but we’d recommend leaving it public (since we might want to use it in your server at any point in time.)

No cvars.

Commands: sm_devdisplay.

easy_spec_r.sp : Another rather helpful command for us, this one lets you spectate a given player by its name. It’s particularly useful when a player asks you to see something (be it a bug, a secret or just to see him doing good/bad/trolling). In the same vein as devdisplay, it is an admin command so you can set its access level, but we’d ask you to consider leaving it unrestricted.

Cvars:

  • easy_spec_enable [DEFAULT : 1] – Enables or disables the plugin. Useful for mixed servers that catter for both barricade and escape gamemodes, since they might not want ghosting in zm maps.

Commands: sm_es.

Note: comes with translation support. Feel free to send us your translations via the comments section and we’ll be glad to add them. Right now english and spanish are the two supported languages.

grenadeboost.sp : Remember when, above, we stated that some of us thought alternatives to napalm grenades could exist? This is one of our proposals; one that seems to do fairly well for what it is. This plugin makes HE grenades have vertical knockback only, sending zombies upwards when they’re hit by a grenade. It makes failnades happen less while still slowing zombies down but without causing a huge fps drop form the burning particle effects. Of course, Z:R grenade knockback is expected to be set to zero although low values for it might be interesting too.

Cvars:

  • zr_vertical_nade_kb [DEFAULT : 7.0 ] – Amount of vertical knockback to apply by multiplying it with the damage dealt when hurt by a grenade.

No commands.

inf_knockback_hook.sp : One of the things that nobody seems to have addressed properly in Z:R’s code (or perhaps nobody noticed?) is that both molotov and incendiary grenades damage you by means of another entity whose classname is ‘inferno’. Because of that, those weapons happen to have no knockback at all and they become rather stupid to have on your server (despite being, alongside with HE grenades, the most logical weapons to use by their looks and effects). This plugin will let you have knockback coming from these inferno entities that push zombies outwards of the fire’s center. It will also let you decide whether you want them to push upwards or not (that is, have knockback as an sphere or as a circle/cylinder).

Cvars:

  • zr_inferno_novertical [DEFAULT : 1 ] – Whether to allow vertical knockback on inferno-based damage or not.
  • zr_inferno_knockscale [DEFAULT: 112.0 ] – Amount of knockback to apply on these inferno entities. Perhaps a bit high by default, so toy around with it.

No commands.

inf_slowdown.sp : Similar to the previous plugin, this one makes inferno-based damage to slowdown. The slowdown is performed with stamina as in the burn slowdown plugin, so the result will not affect either maps nor other plugins.

Cvars:

  • zr_inferno_slowdown [DEFAULT : 40.0] – Amount of stamina penalty to apply when being slowed down by inferno damage.

No commands

invisible_knife.sp : Based off a similar plugin from CS:S, this plugin will let servers have zombies that don’t go around waving their knives. Instead of getting mugged by gangsta zombies we will get infected by actual zombies with nothing else but their blood drenched claws.

No cvars.

No commands.

map_content_downloader.sp : Although we’re unsure about it being necessary, this plugins lets clients download radar files and loading images from the server so that they have those locally and can see them while joining. While porting we’ve tried to pack everything and also provide the loading screen image at the very least in hopes that Valve would eventually change things around, but for now it seems that this plugin will be good enough. We will appreciate, of course, information about whether it is actually necessary or not, since we’re pretty clueless.

No cvars.

No commands.

nightvision.sp : Although a bit annoying at times, nightvision is a key component for darker maps or servers with a more survival-oriented theme. Since a fairly recent update, nightvision has been in the game but it can’t be obtained by common means. This plugin provides several commands to toggle nightvision and also lets you restrict its usage on zombies.

Cvars:

  • zr_zombie_allow_nightvision [DEFAULT : 1] – Defines whether zombies will be able to use nightvision.
  • zr_EmitSoundToAll [DEFAULT : 1] – Defines whether other players will be hear your clicks and beeps when you enable your nightvision.

Commands: sm_nv, sm_nvg, sm_nightvision, sm_nvision, sm_vn (they all do the same, toggle nightvision).

spawn_unlag.sp : Perhaps too much of a name, but it is probably the one that suits it the most. One issue some servers might have in maps with cluttered/small spawn areas is that weapons being dropped cause sheer amounts of lag. At times, when a server is full, the lag can take painfully long before getting back on track. The cause behind it, or at least one of them, is the great amount of weapons being bought making the server have to do a bit of its physics homework. This plugin lets you remove weapons dropped by players provided that they have no children (so maps’ special items remain unaffected) nor a targetname (since they might be in a non-parenting hierarchy with logic_measure_movement). You can define the amount of time you want the plugin to clean weapons too, for if you don’t really trust it working flawlessly.

Cvars:

  • sm_weaponcleaner_timer [DEFAULT : 15.0] – Time to spend cleaning up weapons after the round starts.

No commands.

Note: It might be good to pair it up with mp_t_default_secondary “” and mp_ct_default_secondary  “” so that the server load is reduced by in-built means too.

And that’s it. You can download the plugins in the following links:

SENDSPACE MEDIAFIRE

We’d also hope that you’d get in touch with us in case something went wrong. The plugins have been tested more or less and they should work, but we’re sure issues will arise since they always do.

Soon, hopefully, we will be doing another post with something that makes us very happy to have managed to get working. After that, we believe that we will post the map fix pack patching the issues that have been reported to us (and we will attempt to fix the seemingly (?) server-specific issues reported by fur10usd and Jargon, if you happen to experience similar issues as the ones depicted here please try to tell us the maps in which it happens and when) . Until then, enjoy playing!

 

4 Comments
24 August, 2014

On the future, new maps and maximizing playability.

One of the things we have been trying to do (with some degree of success, we believe) is porting maps in a way that allows them to be played in most (if not all) servers with their distinct settings. This process implied that:

  1. Maps had to be adjusted to an ideal average player, usually making them easier
  2. Maps had to be able to house most of the gamemode’s setups

As so, we have been trying to follow those rules. For the first point we usually looked at different versions of the same map and created mixed versions to make things simpler or easier. For the second, however, we had to take more care.

The degrees of freedom that server admins have always had to set up their servers are huge. Mappers, sadly (and even more so in CS:GO, with that useless command whitelist that should be a blacklist), have to deal with a few more limitations. As so, making a map that works for most if not all possible setups is tad hard. For example, maps with bosses really suffer if a server has unlimitted ammo (or, what’s worse, become unbeatable in limitted ammo servers if the mapper had an infinite ammo server as its target). Over this things we have little-to-no control (whereas in CS:S we could have worked something out, but that’s another story for another post), however, there are things we can work with.

In this point we can bring in a bit of story. Back in the beginning of the CS:S days, servers used to have only 1 (or a few) zombies spawning among the human crowd. The maps were wide and used several paths from the spawn area onto its later regions. The mod kept developping and, eventually, some servers decided that zombies should be teleporting back to their spawnpoint when spawning as so. From this point, and during a relatively long time span, maps tried to target either oen or the other (or both) and the teleport-back-to-spawn crowd grew stronger. Some servers kept the spawn in the crowd (tainted with chance and hilarity, not so much with trying hard to beat maps based off movies and other games), but eventually mappers stopped shipping (enough) maps for them and their settings stopped being important.

We believe, however, that those settings should be viable again in CS:GO, since there is both a demand (as a few servers use them) and they can be as fun (if not more, depends on each person’s views on whether if Zombie Escape should lean towards fun and laughs or pure hot blooded tryharding) and, thus, we reach to our point: most of the ports have been adjusted to support servers with spawn in the crowd (if the maps, natively, didn’t support it).

The reasoning behind (and this is what links to new maps) is that every map which has spawn in the middle of the crowd taken care of will be playable in a server where zombies teleport, but the opposite doesn’t hold (that is, any map with multiple paths from spawn or voodoo islands styled team filtered boxes will be playable if zombies teleport back to spawn, but servers with zombies spawning among the crowd will have issues playing a map with only one path that doesn’t let humans spread out enough).

We’re writing this post not only as an explanation of what we do, but also as a suggestion for others: to make their maps with multiple paths and thinking ahead a bit they will ensure that what they produce can be played in more servers and, as so, enjoyed more. Of course there is a bit more of effort into it (and it seems that most mappers or porters haven’t worried much about putting effort into what they do), but if the result is more satisfying for more communities and players we believe it’s the way to go.

Also, stay in tune for new things soon.

22 August, 2014

More playermodels! Extending the typical zombie models.

The half zombie and the fast zombie, two all time classics from CS:S. Both are gamechangers (since their hitboxes are prone to sneaky play), so we think it’ll be great to see different servers with different ideas flowing.

For each update we’ve done we have been a bit generous with words. For releases, though, unless they’re bigger packs, we doubt we need obnoxious ramblings going on. As so, and without much more to say, we’re presenting those two models.

Those that have played zombie gamemodes in CS:S will recall either of both or both (or perhaps none, if we want to get tautologic). They’re models that cause gameplay to change and lead to hilarious situations (and infuriating ragefests), so we believe they might be a great addition for servers that want to base their differences not only on class properties themselves but also zombie sizes.

Enjoy the two, and stay in tune for more things coming soon.

Fast + Half zombie: MediaFire

EDIT: Updated with tweaks and fixes on the player models. It should be better now.

EDIT #2: Hopefully final update on the half zombie.

EDIT #3: Reuploaded, tweaked and finished.

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