[NOLF Series Reboot/Trademarks 2014]

That would make my year if it were to happen.

[A letter From Chris Miller !!!]

Hello NOLFers,

 

Sorry it's been so long! My name is Chris Miller, as you might've guessed

and I was the Executive Producer of the N.O.L.F. and F.E.A.R. series. I

wanted to take a minute to first thank all of you who are still faithfully

supporting the game by playing and generating new content for it and

I want to thank all the community sites for keeping things running and

fostering such a tight group of gamers.

 

(posted here and TGF, hopefully someone can route it to Chris if it's useful)

 

Hi Chris!

 

It's nice to see people still taking an active interest in No One Lives Forever. We had a lot of fun making the SP missions for both CJ and Nolf2 work in COOP mode. The best part about it is that you don't really need a mod for this, because we didn't need to modify any assets. However, we did find some issues with some of the missions, due to the fact that the SP maps were never designed for multi-player COOP. If there were to be an update that restored the entirety of the SP maps to COOP play, I think a lot of people would like to see that. I hope that CANADA and Belladonna can forward this to you.

 

First, here's a few of the posts that show how we normally run our server. As you will immediately discover, this was much easier to actually do than it was to write about

 

The "How do to your own Voodoo" thread:

http://The site that shall not be named/forums/showthread.php?t=3048

 

The "More than 5 players in COOP" thread:

 

http://The site that shall not be named/forums/showthread.php?t=3623

 

Again, we had some issues with some of the map, here are the most important issues for COOP play as I see it. Getting these fixed in an official update would mean that everyone can play with no need to load a mod.

 

*Spawn points

 

Most maps spawn you in a sane place at the start, but you don't always respawn in a good spot if your avatar dies. If it is useful I'll generate a complete list of these with chapter / scene numbers. Here's a few examples:

 

* The boss fight with Isako in the tornado: you respawn under the trailer and can't get back in.

* The Submarine Base (c12s01): during the initial infiltration you will respawn on a platform outside the base, instead of in the submarine bay.

* HARM outpost in India after Evil Alliance is decimated (c0: you respawn under the map.

* The Super Computer (C04s05?): once the lift is activated, the respawn point is on the lower level, so you can't get out!

* I recall something about getting trapped (after respawn) where Anders spawns in Ice Station Evil (c09), but I'm not certain, I'll need to test it again.

* Respawn for (c10) is off the cycle, but sane. You can run around. However, it's possible for the Mime King to get stuck in (c10) in COOP mode, and the end of level cutscene won't trigger if this happens.

 

*Transitions

 

In the SP missions, any player can trigger any transition at any time. This makes some of the maps, especially in daytime Siberia (c3) and in the Submarine Base (c, very difficult to play in COOP. In some cases, two players will be positioned such that you get an infinite transition loop (until someone drops or the server crashes). Making the server always wait for everyone to be at the same transition point for the COOP maps would be a boon.

 

* Tweaks

 

We need to set some custom properties for the simulation every time we restart the server. We haven't yet discovered how to put these into any of the INI files. Instead we just enter them into the command line on the server console. If there is a way, maybe someone here can tell us. If not, it would make the server easier to maintain if these were added to some INI file.

 

* aidamageincreaseperplayer 0.1

* playerdamagedecreaseperplayer 0.1

* runspeed 2

* jumpspeed 1.4

* respawnscale 9

 

*Contract Jack

 

For a few months we actually had the Contract Jack SP missions running in COOP mode. There were even more issues with this but we had so much fun with it, it was worth watching the server to make sure it stayed up. I can get a list of the missions we had cut, I think, and maybe that will jog my memory as to why. One day, suddenly, the server stopped showing up in the server lists and I never could figure out why. Here are a few of the problems we noticed:

 

* A problem with the spawn point in Ch2 (Malta), whereby you end up trapped after some of the gates close behind you.

* A problem with the batteries "not spawning" or maybe "disappearing" if a player who had them logs out in the moon base.

* I seem to recall there was an issue spawning with a less-than-default set of weapons in the railyard scene.

 

I know that I have a lot of fun with NOLF and CJ, and have made many good friends here. Thanks for checking in on us, Chris, and I'm sure we can look forward to updates and exciting new games that carry on at least the tradition of this community, even if they don't happen to be in the NOLF franchise.

 

Best Regards,

 

f00