The Gathering

v 2.0

http://www.planethalflife.com/gathering/

Runs on version 1100 of Half Life or newer.

Contents:

 1.  Description
 2.  Runes
 3.  Power-Ups
 4.  Blessings
 5.  Other Items
 6.  Suggestions
 7.  Maps
 8.  Commands
 9.  Z_Malloc errors
 10.  Installation
 11.  Credits
 12.  Contacts

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1. Description

The Gathering is a multiplayer mod for Valve's Half Life.

Well, I had done quite a bit of coding for my Oz Deathmatch server, Death At Ground Level(DAGL), and also coded the 2.0 version of Soul Reaper.  Well, Soul Reaper 2.0 still hasn't been officially released. :-\  While I was working on both of these projects I was thinking how cool it would be to combine the two.  I mean I was getting bored with both types of game play by themselves.  I made an off hand comment to some friends about my idea of combining the two games together.  They thought it would be a good idea as well.  So I started talking with a few of the "regulars" on DAGL about what they liked and disliked about the current version of Oz.  I got a bunch of great ideas for the project.  A few days later I started coding.

The Gathering is NOT built on either the Oz source or the Soul Reaper source.  It does include code from both however I started with a fresh clean SDK and then built the MOD.  I tried to clean up the code used from the other mods(there where a bunch of bugs) when I move it over.  I am still going back over the code to improve it and add more features.

I wanted to redesign the rune system to make it more robust.  I wanted to have a multi-tier rune system that would allow players to have more then one rune.  I tried to balance out all the runes into three categories Runes, Power-Ups and Blessings.  This gives the user more control of what items they can have and also adds a new twist to the game play.

One of the things I wanted to do was keep the server variables from Oz.  However, I also want to keep the "one shot wonders" down to a minimum.  I am not a big fan of servers that if you hit a player with one bullet they are dead.  I have added some new variables as well to control the new options I have added.  All in all there are now 184 server variables for the MOD.

I have added new runes, power-ups and blessings into the game.  Most of the ideas came from friends and players on DAGL.  You will see their names listed on the web site by the items they recommended.

At the request of just about everyone I HAVE included the bot code into The Gathering.  The original bot code came from botman.  I combined his bot #8 into the game.  I had to make a bunch of changes to get them to work in the mod but I think everyone will like them.  I have also included a radar based on botman's radar tutorial.


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 2.
Runes:

These items will provide the player with special abilities.  Look for them on the map as HEV suits or backpacks with colored shells.

Frag:  White shell, grants the owner additional points for each kill.  Number of extra frags is adjustable by the server.

Cloaking:  Light Blue shell, grants the owner partial invisibility, "Predator" style.

Super Hook: Orange shell, your grappling hook will do more damage, will fly faster, and pull you faster.  Damage is adjustable by the server.

Super Jump: Yellow Backpack, You can jump 4 times higher and don't take any damage from falls.

Jet Pack: Light Blue Backpack, You can fly around the board.

Teleport: Orange Backpack, you can teleport around the board. Once every 5 seconds is the fastest allowed.

Runes are kept until a player dies, drops one, or disconnects.  Runes can be discarded with the "droprune" command.  Your current rune is displayed above your health in the HUD.

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 3.
Power-Ups:

These items will provide the player with special abilities.  Look for them on the map as batteries with colored shells.

Booby Trap: Upon death, the user will explode taking out anyone nearby.  The rune only works if the user dies in some other way besides using the "kill" command.  The damage of the explosion is adjustable by the server.

Protection: Light green shell, the user receives half damage.

Regeneration:  Green shell, grants the owner continually rising health and armor.  Rates of health and armor increasing are adjustable by the server.

Super Speed: Light Blue shell, user can run twice as fast as normal.

Vampire: Purple shell, you will gain 1 health for every 2 damage you deal to someone else.

Power-Ups are kept until a player dies, drops one, or disconnects.  Power-Ups can be discarded with the "droppowerup" command.  Your current power-up is displayed above your armor in the HUD.

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 4.
Blessings:

These will provide the player with special abilities.  You gain these by gathering other players souls.  After you gather a set number(determined by server admin) you will receive a random blessing.

Super Crowbar:  Makes the owner's crowbar do infinite damage aka instant kills!

Haste:  Doubles the firing rate for owners weapons.  Does not affect the gluon.

SuperGlock: Gives the owner unlimited ammo with his/her glock, secondary fire becomes a zoom, and while zoomed, it gives almost one shot kills!

Super Hornet: Gives the owner unlimited ammo with his/her hornet gun!

Bounty: Gives the user all weapons and full ammo.

Divine Clone: The user will be able to "place" a clone of them self anywhere in the board they wish.  Used to setup an ambush.

Anti-Radar:  Makes the owner invisible to other players radar.

Longevity: Gives the player 250 Health

Durability: Gives the player 250 Armor

The next few are Time-Based and wear off after a set time passes


Unholy Armor: Player has a purple shell, The user can not be hurt while they have this blessing.

Quad Damage: Player has a light blue shell, Player causes 4 times the damage while they have this blessing.


Blessings are kept until a player dies!  The two exceptions being Unholy Armor & Quad Damage which are time based.


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 5.
Other Items:

Super HealthKit: Red shell over a healthkit, gives the player 1/2 of the maximum health they can carry!

Super Battery: Blue shell over a battery, gives the player 1/2 of the maximum armor they can carry!

Once a power-up is "used" by a player it will respawn somewhere else in the level.


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 5.

How to change settings: Simply edit the 7 config files in the "cfg" folder.  You can use wordpad, notepad, or any other text editor to open .cfg files.  The changes will show up when you start a game.  You can also change any of the settings while playing.  The variables are explained in the config files.

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 6.

A few suggestions:

Always start The Gathering with the included shortcuts.

Please do not make the grappling hook drag speed faster than 1000, otherwise it becomes disorienting for hpbs and nullifies the purpose of the super hook rune.

Remember that the more bots you put in the game the more CPU the game will use.  If you have to many for your CPU the game will be VERY laggy.

Servers running weapon damages extremely high (like one shot/one kill) are usually not very fun when the ping differences between players is large.

Please try to keep it fair, as said above, over-powered weapons are usually not very fun.

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 7.

"How come there is only two maps in the Create Game menu?"

This is due to the half-life menu system and it can't be fixed by us.  It is part of a section of code that is not available to the public.  Currently, the menu system will only look in the current mod's directory for the maps folder.  You still have complete access to everything in the valve folder, however.  You can either copy over you maps folder (wasting space) or just go ahead and start the game.  It will stop loading because it cannot find a map.  At that point, just type "map somename" and hit enter.  It will finish loading and you can play.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but there is nothing we can do about it.


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 8.

Commands:

CONSOLE COMMANDS:

showmotd	- Displays the Message Of The Day at any time during the Game
showmapname	- Displays the current maps name
showtime	- Displays the amount of time the current map has been running and est. time remaining
+hook		- Fire the offhand grappling hook
grapple		- Fire the offhand grappling hook and holds it
+jetpack	- Activates the jetpack so you can fly around the map
activateclone	- Places a clone in you current location
droprune	- Drops your current rune
droppowerup	- Drops your current power-up
playerid	- Toggles the level of player identification
radar		- Toggles the radar on/off
teleport	- Activates the teleport rune
taunt		- Plays a random player taunt

The easiest method to configure these commands is in the Control Screen.  However for you die hard players you can also bind them in console.

To bind these commands to keys use the following method:

Pull down the console while in game with the ~ (tilde) key.  Type bind <key> <command> where <key> is any key on your keyboard and <command> is any of the above listed commands.

For example, if you want to make the G key fire the grappling hook, you would type this:

bind g +hook

Then hit your enter key to lock the command in.  Now pushing and holding the g key will fire the grappling hook.

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 9.

Z_MALLOC errors:  These were caused by not allocating enough memory for the The Gathering config files and sometimes crashed the server.  Simply adding -zone 2048 or larger numbers to the The Gathering shortcuts resolved the problem.

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10.

Installation:  if you're using the The Gathering.zip, unzip it to Sierra/Half-Life/.

Note: The included "The Gathering" shortcut may need to be modified based on your system (IF you want to use the shortcut).  Currently, it will look for the hl.exe in c:\sierra\half-life.  Just right click the shortcut and pick properties, than edit the command line for hl.exe.  Everything else in that line MUST stay the same, otherwise the mod will not be loaded.  If this mod was installed through half-life, you can "activate" it on the custom game menu.

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11.

Credits:

I would like to thank the following people for their part in The Gathering.

The Oz Development Team for the Code used from Oz Deathmatch - http://www.planethalflife.com/oz/

Phillip Baldwin for the code used from Soul Reaper - http://www.planethalflife.com/soulreaper/

Scarecrow for his models( Spawn, M41a Pulse Rifle, Lawgiver2) - http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/scarecrow/

Dave Tanforan for his models (Battle Droids) - http://freespace.virgin.net/simon.bursey/

botman for his bot code and the radar code - http://www.planethalflife.com/botman/

EvilClone for his tutorial on a jetpack



If I have missed anyone please forgive me.  Send me an e-mail and I will get you added ASAP!


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12.

Please contact me with ideas, bug reports

Questions?  Comments?

ToonCop - Programmer, Founder
half-life@inet-pro.com


Half-Life is a trademark of Valve Software and Sierra Online, used with permission.
The Gathering Deathmatch is (c) Copyright INET-PRO, 2000.
The Gathering Deathmatch is a trademark of INET-PRO.  All Rights Reserved.
