Expert CTF"Not items. All Combat."
How many times have you hopped on a CTF server only to find a bunch of "invincible" players totally stockedwith armor, resistance techs, and the power shield? Many times, the team that does the best resource managementat the beginning of the game can go on to dominate a match, giving the opposing team little or no chance to comeback.
Expert CTF puts the focus on combat: evenly matched, tactical combat like Rocket Arena with but the uninterruptedplay of deathmatch and the team strategy of CTF. Weapons come fully stocked with regenerating ammo, so you canspend less time searching for items and more time fighting. No longer will you have to worry about playersscrambling for weapons and ammo when they should be defending your base. Throw in a kickass grapple and a greatset of CTF maps to play on, and you've got one exciting mod!
Combat training
With Expert CTF, gone are the days when you'd have to scramble around the level looking for the right weapon.When you join a game, you'll automatically be placed on a team - fully armed - so you can immediately jump intothe action. Your ammo will regenerate as you play, fast enough so that you won't run out unless you overuse asingle weapon. You'll want to keep switching weapons anyway, because the weapon switching is Quake1-style instant,and the best players switch weapons constantly.
While weapons damage in Expert CTF has been tweaked slightly to enhance gameplay, your starting health and armorhave been increased to prevent those one-shot kills that drive you crazy. It now takes more than just a singlerocket hit or railgun shot to take someone out, so you'll have to get your combat skills up to speed if you wantto survive.
Health is served
Expert CTF servers have two different modes of dealing with health. The idea behind both is that it's easy to getback up to the health you spawn with.
"Health Regen": Your primary source of health is damaging and killing other players. You also regeneratehealth slowly, and weapons dropped when players die are also worth some health (15). There is no armor! Everythingis done in terms of health: you start with over 100 and your max health is also over 100.
"Balanced Health and Armor": There are health packs and armors as normal but the armors are balanced: combatarmor absorbs more damage per shot than jacket armor, but doesn't last as long. Stimpacks and armor shards are quiteworth getting! Dropped player weapons are also very important, worth 1/3 of max of both armor and health.
Toys
In Expert CTF, none of the powerups can really turn the tide of the match on their own - if you want it, you'regoing to have to earn it:
Power armor - now called "Blood Armor", this will put up a green protective screen in front of you for30 seconds, reducing damage from the front by a third.
Megahealth - now the "Ark of Life", this will give you back a third of your maximum health and armor.
Quad Damage - now the "Vampire Artifact", this allows you to absorb a portion of the damage you inflicton your enemies.
BFG - Gone. Goodbye. Cya. BFG lamers need not apply.
Grapple happy
What would a CTF mod be without a grappling hook? The Expert grappling hook may be the best out there, anddeserves a few words of its own. The offhand hook means you don't have to switch weapons to use it, and thesilky smooth pace of the grapple means that you can remain airborne almost indefinitely.
The Expert grapple has proved so useful that the grenades have been tweaked to help combat airborne players.Think you can just fly along to stay out of harm's way? No way - you'll have to actively dodge grenades ifyou want to be effective with the grapple.
Map happy
To top this all off, the Expert team have put together an official set of CTF maps comprised of some of thebest maps anywhere. In addition to "Cacophony" (one of their own creations included in the All-Star2 map pack),the pack includes other maps from the All-Star2 and L-Fire map packs, along with a few other standouts like"Rocky I" and Opposition (rctf4). If you're tired of playing on the official Q2CTF maps, find a server runningthe Expert CTF maps and you're in for a treat.
There are a lot of other features included with Expert CTF, such as the team audio (which allows you to communicatewith your teammates) and the option of the Eraser X bot (an Eraser Bot-based artiificial opponent designed specificallyfor Expert play), but I'm sure you're tired of listening to me go "blah, blah, blah" by now. Here's how to play!:
Everything you need to play Expert CTF:
Step one: Upgradeyour Quake II to version 3.20. If you're still playing Quake II v3.10 or earlier,grab the FullUpgrade and install it. People with version 3.12-3.19 can grab a smallerpatch to dothe trick. You'll need this to play Quake II online, anyways, so stop playing singleplayer and get with the program. ;) Additional download locations are available fromour File page.
Step Two: Download Q2CTF. You will needQuake II Capture the Flag, id Software's official CTF patch, to get the Q2CTF* maps. DownloadQ2CTF and run it -- it'sa self-extracting installer. Be sure to try Q2CTF if you haven't already. It's a ton of fun.
Step Three: Install the goods. Go to theExpert website and download the latest client package and map pack. If you want, you canalso download and install a "Team Audio" package, which will allow you to send out audio messages to your teammates.(This would probably be a good time to get WinZip if you don't have it already).
Step Four: Find an Expert CTF server!The easiest way to do this is via GameSpy 3D, using the handy-dandyExpert CTF GameSpy tab. Don't have GameSpy?Go get it!
Step Five: Join a game and start fragging!For complete information on how to play, check the Expert Quake homepage, theExpert CTF homepage, and the EQNews page.
That's it! Be sure to read the help files and check the Expert Quakehomepage for technical support on the mod. GameSpy help is available via achat room for registered users (click on the Community menu in GameSpy.) Beyond that, if you have any suggestionsfor Mod of the Week, Mail Sluggo!
