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In an effort to simplify things for everyone (including me), I made a page in the map folder on the redirect server where you can direct download any map file you need. Made sense to do this, and remove the AdditionalContent.zip file on my mambaville.com site since (1) the maps are already there in the redirect folder, and (2) I have a bandwidth usage quota on my site but not on the redirect site. I updated the F.E.A.R section in the Readme1st.txt file in our Gamefiles folder to reflect this change.
Speaking of maps....
I added a couple of veeeery kewl "old school" maps to the F.E.A.R. server today; "Hollywood2" and "VMan_Q3DM-A". The former is a remake of the classic "Hollywood Holocaust" map from Duke Nukem 3D and even includes soundclips from "the Duke" himself! It's quite the hoot if you ever played DN...I cut my 3DFPS game'n teeth on that game, on a 10base-T private local network we setup in our cube area back when I was a Desktop Tech. Ahhh...memories! lol
The latter map is another classic remake, but from the Quake 3 Arena game. It even has powerups, shields, etc. taken from that game and translated into corresponding F.E.A.R. objects! Very inventive and well done, but about a 40MB download...so better get that one ahead of time!!
And dunno if I should mention this but...
I also have another classic Duke map...one that pretty much made that game a nightmare for every prudish parent in the country in it's day, "Redlight District". The original was set in the Adult area of town and had scantily-clad pole-dancing girls, private booths for ummm....viewing, porn magazines and so forth. The younger male crowd loved it of course. This remake pulls NO punches, and while it doesn't have 3D dancing girls the mapmaker did integrate a lot of porn movie footage and "Girls Gone Wild" video...it's definitely a rated-X map.
For now I'm leaving this one outta the rotation. I think it would be rather..ummm..."distracting" to play anyway. But the layout is faithful to the original and it has the same kind of reproduced "Dukisms" found in "Hollywood2". Maybe if I throw this one in I should charge extra on the monthly donations...hahahaha
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The expansion pack for THE premier thriller 3D-FPShooter is scheduled to release next month, around October 24th. Below is a link to the demo (about .5GB in size) and one to more info:
http://tinyurl.com/ejhlw
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/fear-extraction-point/708927p1.html
The download rate for the demo was run'n pretty slow so I got it off Usenet...in about 10 minutes. If you have trouble get'n the demo let me know and I'll make it available.
I've played the demo and as described in that second link, it's very much just a short sampler of some of the different aspects of the game; shadowing, lighting, slowmo, and so on. You do see more of Alma, the creepy psycho psychic little girl, along with new transparent wraith-like beings similar to the smokey wraiths from it's predecessor. The new chaingun is kewl but I'd hoped for more expansive gun effects when using it. Still, 300 or so rounds cut'n loose in a glass office area is quite spectacular! Click here to download a video (about 20MB) of that section of the demo, captured while running on my recently upgraded Hornet PC.
As for our CO-OP server, that's been running well and proving to be a lot of fun. I added in one new map today (DocksCOOP) and tweaked the rotation a bit. The latter still alternates between CO-OP and TDM maps.
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As it turns out that the CO-OP server mod will run the other gametypes (like our usual TDM) just fine, but not vice-versa, I'll just be running the CO-OP server from now on. Due to it using a different profile both on the server and the clients, you'll either need to move over the custom maps (kinda confusing to do), OR just download them again, all in the ZIP file I created.
You'll find the maps in the "AdditionalContent.zip" file found in this path in my Gamefiles folder...about 22MB. Info on what to do with them is in the accompanying readme file there.
You'll also find a new batch file that you can replace the old "Coop-Warfare_0.5.bat" with to start the CO-OP game and directly connect to my server. Just rename the old "Coop-Warfare_0.5.bat" found in your C:\Program Files\Sierra\FEARCombat path to something like "Coop-Warfare_0.5.bat.old" first, then put the new one in there. All I did was add the usual connect info to the new batch file. The regular CO-OP game shortcut references that batch file so no other changes are needed.
OR you could make a copy of your current CO-OP shortcut, change my new batch file extension from a ".bat" to a ".cmd" and change the Target line in the new shortcut copy to point to the ".cmd" batch file instead. That way you'd have the default shortcut that still starts the CO-OP client normally, and one new one that starts the CO-OP client and connects to my server. Up to you...
As for the CO-OP server, I've added in 3 new CO-OP maps and set the rotation up to alternate between CO-OP and TDM maps, for a total of 23 maps. So how do you know whether to all be on Team 1 or split between Team 1 and 2? Well, if there are AI "baddies" in the map, everyone should join Team 1. Otherwise, split teams and play TDM. Sounds more confusing than it is in practice. Just holler if you have questions/problems.
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Now this is looking interesting...a CO-OP mod that works with F.E.A.R. Combat! I'll play with this over the weekend and see if it's worthy but have read a lot of good things about it on the forums. You can download it here. You'll need to install a copy locally to play on my CO-OP server...be sure to install it to your FC (F.E.A.R. Combat) path IF you have both F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R. Combat installed. Also note that you'll need to enter your FC CD key and configure your settings/controls/playername/etc again for this install since it uses a seperate profile.
Main Features:
-Support for up to 32 players on one server
-Supports ALL MP Game Types
-Additional Coop Mode
-2 New Weapons
-Lots of new Player models and skins
-11 Coop maps full of action ;)
-Lots of new insignias
The Changelog for version 0.5
-Fully compatible with the FEAR 1.07 Patch
-Fully compatible with FEAR Combat
-2 New Weapons (HC-3000 and CW1 Sniper Rifle)
-4 New Coop Maps: AIsylum, Underworld, Surface and AITech
-5 New Skins (Clown Mapes, ConcreteMan, PhotoMan, FleshGuy, GoreGuy)
-1 New Player Model: Krige
-Optimized all Player Models (fixed hitching camera)
-Fixed Font size of 1.07
-Updated Interface Including new Intro Clip (well, unfortunately it doesn't show up somehow)
-New Insignias
-Coop Warfare now creates a seperate user directory (CoopWarfare_User inside the game folder)
-Bunker COOP optimized and fixed scoring system
-Enhanced UI Game Mode settings for Coop (MaxWeapons can be changed, Respawn wait time can be set from 0 to 60 optionally)
