MOH Central

I orginally posted the following on modtheater but mods-r-us seem to be more active in comparison.

   

   Its been a while since I played MOHAA, a thought provoked me, while I was messing with the Source SDK. I saw so many similarity with good old MOHAA. Some examples the console/map editor/mod friendlyness/ file names like .cfg .bsp etc.

   

   So I thought I tried to convert a map within the Source SDK in this case it was Stalingard (perhaps my favorite)

   

   Follow up thought, while I've read some recent posts about X-null dev team trying to their hands on the MOHAA source code. I say why not use the source SDK (It can be done in a complete legal way). What do you say? Are there still mohaa modders active like JV_map etc?

   

   http://www.modtheater.com/attachments/stalingard_sourcesdk-thorongil-jpg.1988/

   http://www.modtheater.com/attachments/stalingard2_sourcesdk-thorongil-jpg.1989/

Hi Thorongil, im in touch with JV via email but i dont think hes coming back to Moh anytime soon, were also working alongside XNull and TMT and MohAAAA - the community is a little smaller now but were working ok together most times.

   

   I guess it depends on what you need the Source for and what you want to achieve with it, your screenies look pretty good there, what have you been doing?

   

   Elgan wanted to port Moh over into another engine, im sure he still does.

   

   Cobs

i cant access modtheater, my ip range is banned...

   

   The thing with the source engine is , it's closed off a lot, Valve has made modding for it a nightmare trying to fix their hacking bugs. They have almost given up and stopped caring, while they are working on other things.

   

   i would be more inclined to just go with the quake engine.. infact openmohaa is very good, but instead of making it load the models, just convert them to a new format.

Oh hey Cobra good to see a familiar 'name' around still...

   

   I've only found out yesterday about the server affair. Luckly you guys came together and made the server query work for the community. Just out curiousity, do people play 1.11 or is it 1.12 these days?

   

   About those screens what you see is an almost identical copy of the stalingrad map within the Hammer editor of valve.

   

   The only requirements for the "customer/player" in order to play your game is

   a. Have an steam account

   b. have one of the Valve Source games registrated on his/her account ex. Team Fortress 2 (which is free)

   note: likely not feasable however the option is there to make an agreament with in other words get a license from steam so that the game can be standalone without any requirements.

   

   The developer have access to the source of the game.

   Players/modders using your game can use the implemented map editor (hammer). (This hammer editor is VERY similar to Mohradiant)

   

   Since you have access to the source itself this allows you to make your own

   - dedicates server application (linux or windows)

   - multiplayer

   - single player

   

   There is always the legal matter you can't use the trademarked name Medal of honor obviously and can't use its sounds, textures & other content.

   Except! if you ask your players to copy/past/extract the mohaa content into the required folder.

Added 22 minutes later:

Hellow Elgan another familiar name to me.

   

   Modtheater must had lots of Ddos issues or spam bots etc in order for them to block YOUR ip(range)

   Hows the progress over openmohaa? I just checked but can't find much about it online.

   What do you mean by "Closed off a lot", so I can look into that more.

   

   What you say about cheaters etc is very true. But can you agrea on me saying that its issue on any shooter game...

Hi matey

   

   Its one thing to move to another engine but moving a community just doesnt happen in reality, these peeps are glued here lol ... i also keep coming back myself - nothing else quite compares tbh. If we obtain the source then that would be a big bonus of course, if not then well still be having fun yrs down the road and the guys on Xnull will no doubt still be doing their magic - its in yer blood - stop resisting and come back - oh you have

   

   Think the patch i last used was the 1.1

imo i think if mohaa was on truly open engine. it would mean it's possible to have control of everything. or at least a proper SDK

   

   To be honest, whats wrong with mohaa? we have maps, mods, why is the community dead? Does the game suck , no? whats the problem?

   

   are we talking source or source 2? imo source is quite closed and i do not like the whole steam enclosure.

   

   unreal, ioquake, maybe crysis, but i dont know, convert things,

   

   community, there is little, it goes wherever there is the most activity and updates,. if a ported game was done, and it was updated to 100% then it would have followers.

Cobra: oh yeah The mohaa is still in my blood

   

   Elgan: Excuse me, I wasn't clear on that. I use the latest Source SDK 2013.(you can't really tell by the quality of my screenshots yet )

   

   I follow you guys arguments in that you can't just make a mod and expect everyone to get with it. It needs that same 'base'.

   

   I've found some interesting royalty free 3D weapon models I can import. Could I perhaps ask through you guys if you have by any chance a ww2 character model that isn't made by EA and so I could use legally...

   

   Elgan, What you say about the strictness -- I'll make up a word here -- the enclosedness it has is very true. They even emphasis that in the wiki/tutorials, they don't want you to use their services as your main forum or webpage... Their spaces are there only for a very simplistic overview. (the CEO must have OCD or something similar).

   

   I understand the imago they create through this but that shouln't be an big issue in my opinion.

no you miss understand

   

   once upon a time the SDK was amazing and so open and had loads of code but its less extensive now days, also there is a 2014 release, called source 2.

   

   Also i think using any material that is not mohaa is not ..mohaa..its the wrong way to go,

   

   i would love to go about building mohaa in another engine, im still not totally sold on source, steam <- hate it, the SDK only? hm...

   

   The only way to go i think is to import every single mohaa modela dn export ewvery single mohaa model for use in another engine,

   The fact that they are EA's, go fuck a duck EA, we can just simply say "You are only allowed to use this content if you own mohaa" done...

Added 11 minutes later:

and i quote "your game is not going to be commercial, you can use the Source engine for free, but then you will have limited access to the engine and be at the mercy of the SDK tools. Valve has not done a great job (I am putting this lightly) at maintaining the SDK lately and the tools remain in a near-broken state."

   

   also this;

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_engine#Criticism

   

   which is why ive never used source SDK and would hate to be limited, if you wanted and need to implement fine tuning things for mohaa "feel", you may need the full source.

   the best SDK's i know of are unity, Unreal engine and cyengine ...or using a full open source engine like quake or irrlicht

   

   

   also http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/8111/why-should-i-consider-using-the-source-engine

Its THIS engine that MAKES Moh, you can put all the Moh assets into any engine but itll never feel the same, your just kidding yourselves, your trying to take a piece of Moh with you - why reinvent the wheel when its already round and rolling

youre so short sighted.

   

   reinvent the wheel? what do you call reverse engineering a game to add things which are in most new engines?

Added 9 minutes later:

multiplayer bots, need i say more?

I call it unlocking the secrets slowly and prolonging the fun

   

   Im not short sighted Elg, we discussed all this about 10yrs ago, ive nothing against people doing it either - i would even look in and have a play in it to see what the differences were (sure ive done that before somewhere???).

   

   It is a lot of work and i wish Thorongil the best in his quest, if anyone here can help him i would hope they do, like Elg says - use EAs assets

i would go unreal engine 4, C++,

   

   and i would be in...

Added 7 minutes later:

ah not sure the UDK 4 is out yet,

Elgan: I'm curious: Say you have full access to the source, what kind of changes would you wanna make?

   

   The link you gave me dates back in Feb 4 '11

   Same for the wiki if you go trace back to the source of the articles you see dates like 2009 etc... The 2013 edition must been changed a lot cause I don't have any criticisms. Also back then you didn't had the free game option of team fortress 2 so you were in a sense forced to get a license. I think you should revisit it, they seem to have fixed a lot.

   

   I can bring over all the mohaa textures to the source engine without any problems, it would speed up the time even more.

   The same thought is applicable for sounds.

   

   Now the main reason of why I think source SDK is an easier step is because its pretty much the quake engine(mohaa..) but with revamped graphics. It is so simple that in the map editor you just need a tool somewhat like the MS paintbucket pick an texture like 3D skybox, VIS, Caulk or whatever.

   

   It also has an ready to go map downloader. You can include custom sounds within the maps BSP file. You got even an easy to use lip sync tool. You combine an audio file and type the text and the algorithm does the work for you.(great for mp taunts or a possible single player).

   It also has the voice commands like mohaa has.

   

   Like you mentioned above, Elgan, the subject of an AI. Well that is all ready to go with the source SDK.

   

   If you wish take a look at the following guy his videos you get the hang of things in no time then:

   https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfwtcDG7LpxF7-uH_P9La76dgCMC_lfk3

   

   A more like tech video showing the steps another map maker took to build an very professional map area.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aEwzTQfhOo&list=PL4A6F8C4EECF8F05E

UDK is known for being way easier than source,

   

   and actually its VERY easily to convert all mohaa to any other maps, and actually UDK was quake once too.

   

   The hardest part and always will be, is the models, but its still possible to convert them.

   

   LOD is harder..

Which engine do you suggest with all things considerend.

   

   What progress has been made on converting the viewmodels & worldmodels, anything?

   

   If that does not work I can always take the painful road animating it myself. There are some tricks that can help speed the process up.

   

   I checked for UDK 4.4 it is out but you need to pay a fee of 10 US dollars per month just to use it. It seem like they have hidden any previous releases of UDK.

   Found this thought: https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/unreal-development-kit-download

i havent tried converting anything,

   

   i think its looking at pros and cons

   

   1. ioquake,

   2. UDK

   3. cryengine

   4. source

   5. unity??

   6..other?

   

   I think i would go with UDk, even though i would like the updated version with C++ to be out..im not sure when..

   Reasons are its known for easy tools, it can convert easy, is the most moddable with downloadable too, can support many players easily, is built as an FPS engine and has a good licence.

   

   cons is its overkill and have to quickly learn their scripting language unless their 4th version is out which is C++.

   

   ioquake is near the same engine as mohaa, can even import their shaders, ui and maps. However its tools for building new maps are dated and people might not come to it as a new moddable game, the same with source.

With unity its easier to decompile the final project that said I wouldn't wanna go with that.

   

   One 'pro' I've read about UDK is you don't get compile erros like leakage.

   

   UDK or Cryengine can be options for you perhaps. The reason for me saying that is unless its something I'm only good with modifying existing working source code.

   

   Recently I found out about this wonderful 3DS max plugin which pretty much allows you to make all its game assets including maps and directly compile them into an final product... (ps source SDK)

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sV4_3Ybtbc&index=1&list=PLlBuIU3hqWizLgiQTxTJVcVrtpPhLsdhy

   

   

   I made an overview of the pricing, when picking an engine that cost monthly for example you'll want to ask for donations/money and through that you are using EA content for commercial use. So I don't think thats really an option.

   

   Now about the pricing(cheap to expensive):

   ioquake 0

   

   Cryengine   Free for non-commercial use or $10/month with no royalty required.

   

   Source sdk free for non commercial use + have to have steam & have the free team fortress 2)

   

   Unity  $1,500

   

   UE4 $19/month with a 5% royalty

   

   UDK Free untill you release: a $99 license fee and a royalty fee of 25% only after you've made at least $50,000 on your game.

   

   Perhaps a project with custom assets suitable for a kickstarter/Indiegogo funding behind it or a free to play with mohaa assets... (Note: you can't earn any money in any shape or form like ex.  ads on your site not even asking for donations)

Added 4 days later:

# Elgan :
   

   1. ioquake,

   2. UDK

   3. cryengine

   4. source

   5. unity??

   6..other?

   

   

   

   I checked Cryengine & UDK both don't allow you to import your maps and use convert them as working BSP geometry while the source does and I haven't done it myself but seen it done with unity too..

   

   That makes the conclusion for me to either use Unity or source...

   (quake = pretty much starting from scratch)