Eagle Claw, ready for beta testing

[JohnTC02]

Hi folks,

My next mission Eagle Claw v1 is ready for testing.

There are a few new features in this mission so please read the following carefully.

Custom sounds:

This is the first ever co-op mission to include custom sounds.

To take advantage of these sounds you need to install the supplied sound mod, the mission will still work fine if you don't install the mod but if you don't you will be missing out on some cool new sounds for GR:AW2.

When you download the mission you will find another folder (apart from the usual bundle file) called "Custom Sounds Mod" there are two readme files in the folder.

"README regular weapons", this is for those that don't use any weapons mod, full instructions for installing the mod are in this file.

"README Weapons mod", this is for those that use a weapon mod, full instructions for installing the mod are in this file.

Please note: installing the sound mod is a one off process so once installed it will work without needing to be changed for all my future missions.

Elevator:

Also in this mission is the first ever elevator in GR:AW2, I'm pushing the game engine to it's limits with this so there are some potential problems that I need to mention.

When using the elevator I have had a problem where you can fall through the floor if you move around to much so with that in mind I have made the windows in the lift shaft so you can't get shot while using it nor are you able to shoot any AI. both myself and Sonia have tried this mission several times and we haven't had this issue if you remain as still as possible while the elevator is moving.

When you enter the elevator you will see a marker labelled "Lift" walk up to this marker and you will see a on screen message, press your action ("x" by default) to start the lift, it can be quite difficult to get the message to show so you may need to move around or crouch before it will show.

If you get killed when you are at the top of the building you will spawn at ground level, all you need to do is go to the lift shaft and you will be prompted to press your action key to call the lift down.

As there might be problems for some of you when using the elevator this particular objective is optional so you don't have to complete it to finish the mission.

I'm still working on a fix for these issues but I'm not hopeful I can fix the falling through the floor problem, if the elevator turns out to be unusable I won't be including it in future missions.

New buildings:

There are a few new buildings in the mission, one is a prison which took considerable time to make so I hope you like it. The others are small garages to use for spawning AI and filling gaps. Pics below.

Prison:

Garages (images are from 3ds max. There are 4 buildings in total):

Wood hut:

Thanks for testing and I hope you enjoy the new features,

John

Download:

Eagle Claw v1

[Blame]

I like the wood hut

[Rocky]

Sounds awesome,

[Rocky]

HA, that was great, some nice touches!

A think to run the batch file from desktop, on windows 7, you have to right click and Run As Administrator.

[JohnTC02]

Thanks Rocky, pleased you liked the mission.

To set the batch file to run as administrator in win7 right click on the desktop shortcut (not the file in your GR:AW2 folder) then select Properties, on the Shortcut tab click Advanced then tick the Run as Administrator box.

The usual way of doing this is from the Compatibility tab but in this case the setting in there may be greyed out.

[rahnman]

Hi John,

Great Mission! I really enjoyed the new sounds!

Here is what I came up with:

1) Terrorist Leaders - The elevator worked great. The walls need some of that "excellent" wall paper though. . The normal stair entry to the upper levels of this building was blocked off and for a moment I thought that the door needed to be opened or blown up. It confused me a little. After a bit I found the elevator to the top floor, which I thought was very well done and liked working the building from the top down. I think that the players will need to have some kind of cue that they need to take the elevator though since this is a new feature. Maybe a sign posted somewhere close by that indicates where the elevator is. Maybe Spik@ could make one up for you. Either that or you could have a sound that says something like "Hmm .... Looks like we need to take the elevator". I wonder how difficult it would be to create your own sound files?

After I completed this objective I swung around to the SSW and there was a 2 vehicle depot there which opened and the two humvees moved to positions which would protect the building I just cleared. So the trigger for those guys happened too late.

2)Humraam A & B - I loved when I came around the corner to this objective. I immediately got blasted by a 50cal. Sweeeeet! (That's all I have to say about this objective, I just couldn't help myself!)

3) Weapons Depot - Great Sounds! The containers were really cool! It doesn't seem very realisic though to have an enemy waiting in a sealed container. Maybe you could put one of your ammo/weapons boxes in there too.

You have one of your small wooden huts outside and to the left of the main gate for this objective. He didn't trigger until I was right next to the railing in front of him. Because of the small gap in the time that the AI spawns and then mounts the gun it is real easy to take him out if you are close to him when the door opens. I think you should trigger this guy when the ghosts are a little farther away.

4) Prison - AWESOME BUILDING!! Great objective! There were still no sounds for the keys or for the documents though. Were you not able to find anything for these? I also thought that it was strange to have enemy AI behind locked cell doors. Maybe you should leave these doors open or something. Also, after blowing the objective on the bottom floor AI just appeared in cells that I had already checked. The prisoners ran to the extraction objective without any apparent problems. .

That is all I could find. I also think that there is lots of room to put all kinds of sounds in the game. Even though you put some in, I was expecting more. I like the Laptop music but thought that putting the same music in three different places was too repetetive. The morse code beeping was fantastic and the gate sounds really made a big difference.

I am wondering how difficult it would be to record your own sounds. The prisoner objective made me think that it would be great to make the rescue more personal by making it be a well known player. You could have a nameplate next to the cell that says "Radiator" or "JohnTC02" and then when they are rescued you could have them thank the players using a real recording of the actual persons voice. I think the players would really like that.

I'm rambling. Another Great Mission John!

Cheers,

Rahn

[JohnTC02]

Hi Rahn,

Thanks for testing.

I think that the players will need to have some kind of cue that they need to take the elevator though since this is a new feature.

When you get to the blocked door you will see an on screen message saying "Damn!! The Door Is Locked..... Find The Elevator It Will Take You To The Top Floor" it should be pretty obvious where the elevator is due to the huge lift shaft.

After I completed this objective I swung around to the SSW and there was a 2 vehicle depot there which opened and the two humvees moved to positions which would protect the building I just cleared. So the trigger for those guys happened too late.

Yeah, the trigger there is quite small but I did it for a reason, if it was any bigger you wouldn't hear the sound of the doors opening, as these sounds are all new I wanted to show them all off, LOL!!! it you think it needs changing to improve the game-play then I'll get it done, no problem.

Weapons Depot - It doesn't seem very realisic though to have an enemy waiting in a sealed container.

You have one of your small wooden huts outside and to the left of the main gate for this objective. He didn't trigger until I was right next to the railing in front of him.

Probably isn't that realistic to have an AI in the container but it gives you a nice surprise.

I'll make the trigger near the wooden hut a bit bigger.

Prison - There were still no sounds for the keys or for the documents though. Were you not able to find anything for these?

TBH I didn't think about it, but it can be difficult to find the right sound that is the right length plus it needs to be royalty free, I do have a good site which hosts royalty free sounds so I'll try and find some.

Prison - Also, after blowing the objective on the bottom floor AI just appeared in cells that I had already checked.

Not sure what you mean here Rahn, all the AI in the main part of the prison are spawned by two sets of triggers, one set is for the ground floor (trigger 06c), the triggers are at the inner main door and at the top of the stairs, the second set (trigger 6d) spawns the AI on the first floor and these are located at the bottom of the stairs and the door on the first floor leading into the cell block.

There are no AI spawned in the prison after you complete any of the sub-objectives.

I will take a look there to make sure all the AI are named correctly in case they are being spawned at a different trigger.

Sounds in general:

As this is a new feature it's still early days so don't expect to many sounds in the first mission, I still have many new sounds I need to find but this is a slow process, as I find more you will see them filter through in my missions.

Cheers,

John

[Rico686]

Hi John,

I gave the new map a first run but unfortunately I couldn't end it because it crashed after several attempts to open the door where it said 'Access Point'.

At first (just like Rahn did) I thought that the Access Point was the way to go up and I had to blow up the door but as that wasn't possible I started looking for the elevator.

I noticed that the keypad (or keyboard) was upside down, but it worked fine getting the elevator to come down.

What I also noticed was that when the elevator was coming down, the shadow of the elevator made it look like it was outside the building and not inside the elevator shaft.

And as Rahn already mentioned, the elevator needs some of your "excellent wallpaper" LOL.

I moved around in the elevator but didn't fall through the floor while going up.

What I did try was standing in the elevator shaft while the elevator was coming down and in that case I went through the floor without any other problems.

Normally an elevator would kill you when standing underneath it, so if someone is getting crushed by the elevator you should be killed with the default GRAW2 message "SUICIDE".

The notification with "Press x to activate" popped up and I went up.

I was only wandering what you were referring to with "Lift".

If you mean 'going up' then maybe "UP" would be better.

In dutch 'Lift' means elevator.

After doing every floor from the top all the way down, I came at the door I mentioned before but I couldn't open it.

I got the notification: "PRESS X TO CANCEL" which I did several times but nothing happened until suddenly the game crashed.

One last thing though: if you sneak through the map (which is the most common way to do a mission) some of the groudforce and snipers are triggered too slow (imho). In some cases they were just looking at me without getting triggered.

Apart from all that the map is awesome and the new buildings and sounds are great

It's really cool what you did with the containers and all those new buildings.

I'm gonna give it another run; this time with the other crew members and hopefully on one of the dedicated servers.

Cheers,

Rico

[mexicobob]

John,

We played this today on the TAW server. Everything seems to be working just fine. I did crash a couple of times thou. I loved the music in the prison. I am with Rahn about the AI inside a locked cell. Kind of gave me a start. I was expecting a prisoner. Loved the helo plans on the wall and the Gr game disk next to the computer. I did notice that I had to turn up the special effects volume nearly all the way up to be able to hear the sounds. At first I thought there was something wrong as I had heard the sounds when I played solo on my own machine. We did not get to the elevator as there were only two of us and we both got killed at the same time and the server reset to the next game in sequence, so maybe next time.

Loved it.

Edited October 8, 2012 by mexicobob

[JohnTC02]

Hi Rico,

Thanks for your detailed report.

At first (just like Rahn did) I thought that the Access Point was the way to go up and I had to blow up the door but as that wasn't possible I started looking for the elevator.

Ok, when you get to the access point and that waypoint marker is removed I'll add another one to indicate where the elevator is.

What I also noticed was that when the elevator was coming down, the shadow of the elevator made it look like it was outside the building and not inside the elevator shaft.

Hmm, I should be able to fix this by removing the "ShadowCaster" setting form the elevators model xml.

Normally an elevator would kill you when standing underneath it, so if someone is getting crushed by the elevator you should be killed with the default GRAW2 message "SUICIDE".

Haha, sorry but I can't do anything about that, it's just the way the game handles collisions plus the fact that the engine was never designed to have this type of feature with static props having moving collisions.

I was only wandering what you were referring to with "Lift".

If you mean 'going up' then maybe "UP" would be better.

It was just an indicator to show you where the switch is located, I'll change them to "UP" for the ground floor and "DOWN" for the top floor, BTW the elevator will take you down to the ground floor as well.

After doing every floor from the top all the way down, I came at the door I mentioned before but I couldn't open it.

I got the notification: "PRESS X TO CANCEL" which I did several times but nothing happened until suddenly the game crashed.

This is strange!!! I was using some code to try and cancel the on screen "Press x" messages but they didn't work to well so I removed them but they were only there for the elevator controls, I'll have a look at the code to see what the problem is.

Hey Bob, thanks for the reply.

I am with Rahn about the AI inside a locked cell. Kind of gave me a start. I was expecting a prisoner.

Haha, ok I'll open the cell doors where the AI are hiding.

One thing I forgot to include was the waypoint markers on the minimap, I'll get the problems mention here fixed then add the markers to the minimap, I'll try and get a new version posted in the next few days.

Thanks all,

John

[JohnTC02]

Eagle Claw v1.1 is ready for testing.

I was able to get this done sooner than I thought.

IMPORTANT:

Please delete v1 from your custom levels folder or the sound mod may cause conflicts.

Changes to this version:

• Minimap has been updated to include the LZ, EZ and OBJ markers.
  
• 
  
• Added a new waypoint marker to indicate the location of the elevator after you reach the "Access point"
  
• 
  
• Fixed the issue that Rico had with the "Press X to cancel" crash.
  
• 
  
• Removed the shadow from the elevator.
  
• 
  
• Changed the waypoint markers at the elevator to "Up" and "Down"
  
• 
  
• Increased the size of the trigger that starts the Panhards at the Terrorist Leaders objective.
  
• 
  
• Increased the size of the trigger near the wooden hut at the "Secure Depot" objective.
  
• 
  
• Opened the cell doors in the prison where there are AI inside, apart from the cells that are part of the objective.
  

I think that's about it, hope this version is more stable and the errors above have all been fixed.

Many thanks for testing,

John

Download:

Eagle Claw v1_1

[mexicobob]

John,

We played this tonight on the TAW server.

1.There were NO AI in the prison. None of the doors would open so we could not complete that part of the mission.

2.One of the guys blew up one of the dragon wagons with a Zuse so we were not able to plant C4 on it and could not complete that objective either. We restarted the mission and tried again. That is when we discovered the problem with the prison.

3. The elevator is nice, but it get to be a nuisance after a while.

All of the other objectives finished OK but we never got to the extraction to see how that was.

[JohnTC02]

Hi Bob,

Which version were you playing and what direction did you approach the prison from? was it from the Dragon Waggons or the Depot/Terrorists. Not sure why you had this problem as it worked fine in testing.

It doesn't matter how you destroy the Hemtt's as the mission is just checking to see if they are destroyed, so you can use Zeus, RPG or C4.

I'll take a look at the prison code to see if there is a problem.

Cheers,

John

[JohnTC02]

Ok, tried the mission twice approaching the prison from both directions and both times it worked fine, there are AI in the prison and all doors worked.

When you opened (if you could) the main doors did you go into the room to your right and collect the keys and documents? if you didn't then the inner doors wont open.

There was a problem at the Dragon Waggons objective, even though the code checks to make sure both vehicles are destroyed I didn't start that trigger until you detonated the c4 on the first vehicle, DOH!!!

Say thanks to your team mate for finding that problem Bob!! this will be fixed in the next version.

[mexicobob]

John,

We were playing v1_1 and Reddog is the one that was first in the building. I do not know if he retrieved the keys or not, the waypoint message for them was not showing when I got there. There were also NO doors open for any cells and no AI in the cell areas at all. We had approched from the Dragon Wagons. When we played V1 everything in the prison worked as it should. I will play it again and see if it works like it should.

Edited October 10, 2012 by mexicobob

[JohnTC02]

Just to be sure I downloaded the mission again from the link above (v1.1), took the same route as you Bob by completing the Dragon Waggons first then the prison.

The Prison objective worked as it should with all AI and doors working ok.

This is very strange! all I can think of is that you had glitch when testing so hopefully it will be ok on your next test.

Look forward to your findings, but don't forget to destroy the vehicles at the Dragon Waggons objective using c4, this problem will be fixed in the next version.

Hopefully Rahn or someone will also test v1.1 to see if they have the same issues.

[rahnman]

Hi John,

I tried V1.1 and had no problems whatsoever. The prison objective was good as was the Draggon Wagon objective. I saw the waypoint marker for the elevator as well. Love the elevator by the way!

Looks good to go. I played on my own server on hardcore.

Cheers,

Rahn

[Mille_RS]

Hi John,

I was playing today with my TAW buddys this v1.1 and everything goes fine except one thing, we could not finish map because there is no way to blow out hammets in Dragon Wagons building with C4 as Mexicobob just mentioned in previous post. It just won't let us place it on, and I noticed that there is no laptop and intel on office table like it was on v1.0 in that building. I don't know if that has anything to do whit it, but this is what I observed there...

The prison is ok, we didn't have problems with it, we manage to finish that objective, only that Dragon Wagons objective caused problem for us....

The sound mod is fantastic it gave a game totally different atmosphere, a very nice to here something new.... KEEP IT COMING ON MORE...

P.S.... I don't know why do you need markers for elevator (UP and CALL LIFT - totally unnecessarily), because those switches are obvious there, now they just causing confusion that there is objective left to do... (don't get me wrong, this is just my opinion)

[JohnTC02]

Hi All,

@Mille_RS, All that is on the office desk in the Dragon Wagon building is a laptop and that is only there to play the music.

I tend to agree about the waypoint markers for the elevator, I'm just trying to make this as user friendly as possible.

V1.2 is now ready for testing.

Only a couple of changes here to try and make the Dragon Wagons objective more stable.

The trigger that checks to see if the hemtts are destroyed now starts earlier. The objective should still complete if you destroy the vehicles with a Zeus, RPG or c4.

There is a small piece of code that checks to see which of the doors opens first, this has been improved.

That's it, I hope this objective now works for all players.

Cheers,

John

Download:

Eagle Claw v1.2

[Rico686]

Hi John,

I just finished testing v1.2 and didn't come up with any issues. The map ran smoothly and this time I could finish it without a crash.

The only things I noticed were at the Dragon Wagons and at the Depot.

1. When I wanted to plant C4 on the Dragon Wagons I got the message 'Press X to open hangar doors'. By moving away a little or left-right it dissapeared and the 'Plant C4' message popped up. I had that with both Dragon Wagons. But I could plant C4 though.

2.Standing on the street in front of the depot I already got the message 'Press X to open gate' so I could open the gate while standing 10-15 yrds away from the gate.

Other than that I really enjoyed the map and the many surprises. Each time when you think you're done, or you consider taking a short brake you're not done at all in this map LOL

Another outstanding map John!!!

Rico

[kaapo]

Hi John,

your hard work finished in a awesome map. Absolut fantastic

If the beta test is completed you shoud write in the description: This is no walk in the park

the good thing is that we finished the complete mission in about 5+ hours and had just 2 normal GRAW2 crashes. Each client had one but the server was still running. As alway we played hard mode with 2 older clients on our old dedi LAN server. Hardware has still not changed yet but the mission ran smooth with 30+ fps on mine and 60fps on Erikas (previously I installed Borderlands 2 on mine and changed some drivers but this made my system slower for Graw2).

The bad thing is we used v1.0 but.......we had no problems at all. Not with the elevator, prison doors or anything else. The AI inside of the containers and cells surprised us very much but we thought it was a great idea. Our guess is if an Alarm comes up in that area, some of the AIs are hiding itself in the container or cells and closed them from inside for a better surprise. That#s because they new that some Ghost recons are outside and they need to use all there dirty tricks

We was not able to shoot the leader terrorist because a chair blocked the entrance but a granate did that job.

The music is great and we like it very much.....it sounds like ZZ Top :'>

New buildings are great as ever and ohhh, Erika said that the elavators gray color is much better as putting the old ugly english style wall papers to it (may be there exist some who like the engl. wall papers but this is a medical story I guess).

Ohhh, the sound of the elevator is perfect and of the door is is great. Now you can hear if a door opens behind you (which is also one of the great new things from you, we like it very much).

Yes, all we can say is FANTASTIC

I hope we get time to test the latest version as well at least to get to the prison to see if there are AIs.

WELL DONE JOHN!

With greetings from KAAPO - Erika and Klaus

[JohnTC02]

Hi Rico,

Thanks for testing again, I'm still trying to find a different way of opening the doors and displaying the"Press x..." message, at the moment there is a small trigger around each animated door so once you enter the trigger you see the on screen message, the problem here is that the message stays on the screen until you press x which means you can walk to the other side of the map and still open the door.

I used to use a modified version of the hac alarm switch for this but you are limited to the generic "Press x to activate alarm" message, I can't find any way of changing that message, the benefit of using the alarm switch is that you only see the on screen message when you are close to the prop.

It's a case of using my triggers where you can choose which message to display and putting up with the problem mentioned or using the alarm switch and having the same message for every animated prop.

Thanks for testing Erika and Klaus,

I also had some problems with the chairs when testing, these chairs used to be dynamic so you could completely destroy them but as there are so many on this map (in the prison) they were causing some lag so I modified the prop so they only move when hit, now they are moving around and getting stuck in doorways, hahaha you can't win can you!!!

Yeah, the elevator sound is real nice, took me a while to find that plus it needed a lot of editing to get it to sync with the elevator.

I hope you do get a chance to test v1.2, some are having problems with the Dragon Wagons objective but I can't see anything wrong.

Thanks all

John

[mexicobob]

John, We played v1_2 last night on the TAW server. Everything worked just fine. Almost everyone had at least 1 crash. I had 3 and I think Reddog had up to 5. All objectives worked just fine. I am really impressed with this mission. You have out done yourself.

(The only problem I saw was at the Door (closest to hemmit A) at Dragon WAgons. It took some moving around to get the message to open the door, but it finally showed up. The prison worked great. Like the morse code at the Depo.

I beleive it is ready to release.

Edited October 12, 2012 by mexicobob

[JohnTC02]

Thanks Bob, pleased you didn't have to many problems this time round.

I'll try to add some more sounds before this is released.

My next mission is progressing well, this will be the first ever map to have all custom buildings (38 in total) so there are no stock buildings on the map.

[mexicobob]

:'> Elevator music would be nice! Edited October 12, 2012 by mexicobob