DarkAct V1.7 for Blood2 or Blood2: The Nightmare Levels
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A REZ file that modifies and adds to the game.

Features:

- Limbloss
- Summon The Chosen
- Zombie SoulDrudge
- Akimbo-Alt Fire
- Alternate-Hand Firing
- Improved Hit Location
- Enhanced AI
- Shikari ChestBurster
- New BloodBath Options
- Disarm Cabal Members
- No Bullet-Gibs
- More Directional Damage
- More Gibs & Bloodsplats
- Fixed Player Speech
- No Item or Ammo Glowing
- New Orb-Cam Colour
- New Eyeball-Cam Colour
- Akimbo Assault Rifles
- Drop your Knife
- New Death-Cam position
- Weapon Damage Changes
- Weapon Model Changes
- Enemy Behaviour Changes
- Stronger Suicide level enemies
- Secret MAIM effects
- More NightGoggles Time
- New NightGoggles Colour
- Improved Flashlight


INSTALLATION: Simply unzip the REZ file into the "custom" folder within Blood2, then select the REZ file from the customize dialog when launching the game.


***VERY IMPORTANT***
Due to the new inventory items, Saved games from previous versions are no longer compatible - you will have to start a new game. You may get crashes if you don't.


Summoning and Controlling The Chosen:
You can Summon randomly selected Chosen characters, to fight alongside you as was expected from the original game (although they will still also appear in the cutscenes when playing the original levels as Caleb). I have built upon the existing routines and coded several new states so that they can be commanded by the player (in a similar fashion to Half-Life) and will follow you around the level shooting at the enemies. They DO NOT follow you across level changes (yet). There are new text messages for when you command them and when they run out of ammo. They drop their weapons when they die, but they are not damaged by your weapon fire, and vice versa so you can't kill them for their weapons (or accidently). They also turn to look around when idling or guarding.  

To Summon: First you must find a "Summoner" inventory item... these will randomly replace other items in the game. Make sure there is some space infront of you, then activate it. The Summoner creates a Rift to pull a being from "Beyond", each time this is done the timelines are destabilised, so you can repeatedly Summon a previously killed Chosen character again and again, each incarnation coming from a different timeline. You can summon all the other three chosen members individually, but each only once per level - using a fourth summoner in a level will pull through an enemy from Beyond the Rift. You will get other Chosen characters depending on which character you are playing so it will never bring out another 'you'. You can only pick up 3 Summoner's.

To Command: Go near to your Chosen teammate and press the Operate/Open key. This changes their state between "Follow Far", "Follow Close" or "Guard Location" - they will automatically fire upon any enemies in range in any state. They point where you do when in "Follow Close" mode, and also duck when you do so they'll stay ducked down in tight spaces.

What happens when they get stuck?
Navigating Blood2's complex 3D worlds is hard work - so I have made it so they instantly Teleport to your position when they get stuck! - this also means they can follow you anywhere in the level, up ladders, over jumps or through holes, as they will always appear next to you again. I'm still working on this, and they still get stuck sometimes, or just dont realise they are going the wrong way or have got stuck in the scenery - moving around a bit or backtracking to find them usually gets them going again. Try to bring them out in the more open levels and where it would be easier to get around or not get killed - the Museum level, for example, is a bad idea as they'll just run behind you straight into the laser beams. If you see only their gun in mid-air, they are "In Limbo" awaiting a clear space around you in which to Teleport into, to appear.


New BloodBath Options:
You can now select "Drop Weapons" and "Random Level Selection" check-boxes on the first BB Wizard options dialog. I haven't made any changes to the "Dedicated Blood2 Server" yet, so I wouldn't recommend using it with this release.

"Drop Weapons" means you can drop your weapons as you would do in the single player game. This also means you drop your current weapon when you get killed, losing that weapon for the duration of the game (unless you pick it, or another of any type, up again). As you can now pickup weapons in BB, you can pickup a dead players weapon for Akimbo guns (or even switch weapons), which also deprives them of the chance to reacquire their lost weapon... unless they kill you to get it back! You can't pickup another weapon just for the ammo though, only if it's for akimbo, and you always drop both guns if Akimbo when killed. Your weapons are restored back to your starting selection when the next level starts. This adds a whole new tactic to BB.

"Random Level Selection" means that instead of playing through your selected levels in order, the next level will be randomly selected from your list. You wont get the same level twice in a row, but it will repeat levels at the moment.


The Scanner:
This is a BloodBath only item which shows the positions of your opponents relative to your own. The Scanner IS included in this release in an early, but fully working, form (appears as NightGoggles) but I havent got it into the levels yet, so unless you can use DEdit to place a ScannerPU in a level you wont even know its there! There's still a Ghost-player bug at the moment.



Please see the DarkAct Project page at:

http://planetblood.com/darkact

for more information and the latest updates.


THIS IS NOT A COMMERCIAL QUALITY ADD-ON, this is a MOD I have done to enhance Blood2 in the ways I want to play the game. A lot of the changes I have made are purely my preferences for how I like the game to play and as such are just modifications to the original source code. I wasnt even going to release this until somebody pointed out to me that Blood2 players were desperate for anything new to play. There are no new levels included, yet.

IMPORTANT: Please read ALL the information on this patch on the website page "Whats Been Done So Far" and understand the bugs that exist. I've tried to minimise the bugs associated with the changes I've made, but I havent yet fixed everything. I'll be constantly fixing bugs and including new features during the time I'm working on this patch and posting new versions on the site as and when I complete them. Dont expect a new download every week :)

Please make sure you downloaded the correct version of DarkAct for your Blood2 installation. Also make sure you have Blood2 patched up to the latest version available. You can get the upgrade patches from:

http://www.the-chosen.com/


guzz (26-7-99)