Headhunters for Quake2 V1.0
By Charlie Zimmerman

 

Introduction
Congratulations! You have just spent your valuable bandwidth downloading a great deathmatch modification for Quake2. I hope that I can prove that it was worth your while. The following instructions cover all aspects of the game Headhunters from its violent objective to its compelling scoring system. Both Deathmatch and Teamplay versions are covered. Take some time to read this manual and check the credits to acknowledge the contributions of all the people who donated levels or time to Headhunters.

Have fun and drop me a line to tell me what you think of it. - Charlie Zimmerman

Setup
All files should be unzipped to …\quake2\hh. Run Headhunters using Quake2 +set game hh. You can also start headhunters using GameSpy or equivalent launch program.
 
 
 
DEATHMATCH
 

The Objective
The objective of Headhunters is very simple. Kill other players, pick up their heads, and carry the noggins to the altar where the gods will reward you with frags. In an effort to make the game more interesting, the gods devised a twist. The more heads you bring to the altar at one time the more frags the gods give per head. If you bring one head they only give you one frag. Bring two at once and you get three frags (1+2). Bring three and the gods dole out 6 frags (1+2+3). Try taking ten heads to the altar at once. 55 frags just like that. If you get killed, the heads you carried are dropped for anyone to pickup. So hoard heads at your own risk: there's always a head thief just around the corner.
 

The Altar
The altar is a fountain of blood that is located somewhere in every level. Many levels have more than one altar. If you happen to see a fountain with ghost heads blossoming out of it, then you can be rest assured that it is the altar. If you have heads all you need to do is touch the altar and your frags are scored. But don’t hang around the altar too long. The gods don't like altar campers and they will kill you if you stick around. If you see an altar camping warning come up on your screen then get away from the altar, you only have a few seconds before you start taking altar camping damage.
 

The Heads
When you kill a player the gods automatically gib them. Go and run over their bloody skull to pick it up. The value of the heads you are carrying is shown under your current score. You can't see your own heads but other players can. The heads a player carries can be seen trailing behind him hooked to his belt. Kill a player that is carrying heads and all the heads he carries will be dropped.
 

The Scoreboard
The deathmatch scoreboard from Regular Quake2 has been replaced. The new scoreboard lists every player by score, name, id, value of heads carried, ping, and time. Use F1 to bring it up. "Cmd sort" can be used to sort this scoreboard by a different column. I like to sort by heads.
 

The Hook
The Quake2 id CTF grapple has been implemented in HH. Select the grapple from your inventory and fire away.
 

The Level Vote
When enabled, players can vote at the end of each deathmatch level as to which level to play next. Players have 20 seconds in which to cast a vote. At the end of 20 seconds the votes are tallied and the winning level is started. If levels tie, a random level is picked from the winners.
 
 
 
TEAMPLAY 

 
The Objective
Teamplay Headhunters is played in almost an identical manner as Deathmatch Headhunters except for the following two differences. First, when you score you and all your teammates get the frags. Second, you can share heads with teammates by passing them. The implications of these two facts are far reaching as to the way a team should play. For example: Monsto and Creator are teammates and they each have 4 heads. If Monsto scores his heads then both players get 10 frags (1+2+3+4). If Creator scores his heads then they both also get 10 frags for a total of 20 frags each. However, if Monsto had found Creator prior to scoring the his heads and had passed all his heads to Creator then Creator would have scored 8 heads for a total of 36 frags for each player (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8). The winning team is the team that has the highest scoring single player.
 

The Teams
There are up to 6 teams in teamplay headhunters. The Red and Blue teams are open teams that anyone can join. The purple, black, green, and yellow teams are private teams that can be formed by players. When you enter the game you are automatically put on the open team that has the fewest players. You can determine what team you are on by checking your team icon located next to your health display.

Headhunters introduces a unique system for identifying your teammates. There is no requirement when playing HH for a player to use a special skin or model. Instead, each player can be identified by his "team disk." When you see another player in teamplay a circular indicator disk will be seen at the players feet indicating which team that player is on. Shoot at the people with a different color than you. Pass heads to the people with the same color as you. Pretty simple really.

Once people see how good you are they may invite you to join their private team. If you get hear an invite sound and see an invite icon appear next to your team icon then you have 12 seconds in which to accept their invite. If you want to join their team use "cmd join".

You never have to leave your default team if you don't want to. Feel free to stay and meet new people, kill, and share some heads.
 

Starting a Private Team
The purple, green, black, and yellow teams are private teams. If you want to start your own team you must first change teams to one of these teams. Use "cmd join" to change your current team. The command cycles your team icon through each of the available (not taken) private teams and the open teams. When you are on a private team you will notice that your team icon will indicate that you are an Op. Only private teams have team Ops. Open teams do not have Ops. Being an Op is the equivalent of being an Op of an invite only channel on IRC. You are the boss of the private team. Nobody joins your team unless you invite them. Nobody stays on your team unless you decide they should. Isn't power wonderful? Now that you have a team you have to get some teammates.
 

Inviting Players to Your Team
Once you form your own private team you can use the teamplay scoreboard to invite other players to your team. Bring up the scoreboard to see the list of available players. Use the [ and ] keys (invnext and invprev) to select a player on the scoreboard. Note that player selection cycles by Player Id, so once you start selecting the scoreboard is automatically changed to sort by this column.

Once the desired player is selected, use "cmd invite" to invite that player to your team. The invited player will get a sound indication and an invite icon will appear on his HUD right next to his team icon. That player then has 12 seconds in which to accept your invitation. To join your team the player does a "cmd join." When a new player joins your private team, you and all your teammates will get sound indications that he has joined. It's that simple.
 

Kicking and Oping
You can kick a player off your team by selecting them from the scoreboard and doing a "cmd kick". You can op another player on your team by selecting them and doing a "cmd op." Note that all ops are equal and that you cannot kick an op. Op at your own risk.
 

Leaving a Team
When you leave a team, whether private or open, your score is automatically set back to zero and all the heads you carried are fumbled. You won't be able to pick them up. If you were the op of a private team and there are no other ops on the team then a player from that team is given ops at random.
 
 
CMD SUMMARY 
 
 
Cmd Sort  DM / TP Cycles through which column the Headhunters Scoreboard is sorted by.
Cmd Throw  TP Throws a head. Used to pass heads in teamplay.
Cmd Join  TP Changes team by cycling through teams which are available for the player to join. Open teams are always available. Private teams are only available if not in use. When the player is being invited to a team, this command allows the player to immediately join that team.
Cmd Invite  TP Invites a selected player to join your private team. Can only be used by ops on a Private team. 
Cmd Kick  TP Kicks a selected player off the team. Can only be used by ops on a private team. An op cannot be kicked.
Cmd Op  TP Gives ops to a selected teammate. Can only be used by an op on a private team. 
 
 
LEVELS 
 
Because Headhunters doesn't require any special entities and will work with any deathmatch level designed, we were able to get permission to use the greatest levels off the internet and combine them into one pak for your enjoyment.  Additionally, we scoured every level for the best damn altar locations possible and coded those locations into the game.  The result, a collection of 5 star deathmatch levels from the most well known level authors around, each specially layed out to be the best head hunting experience possible.  Plainly put, these levels will blow you away!
 
 
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 

Web Sources
If you don't know something by now that you think you should know then head on over to Headhunters at Planet Quake. The page contains constant news updates and information on new servers and Headhunter related events.

Quake1
Headhunters also has information on Quake1 and Quake World versions of the game.
 

CREDITS
 
The creator of headhunters. Charlie created the concept of headhunters, designed all aspects of game play, wrote all the code, and created all the models.  What didn't he do?  Sleep. 
The second in command.  Monsto started as a fan and with the quake2 version became the main man on level selection.  He did all the leg work to pick levels and found altar locations.  Recently Monsto has taken the reigns of the web page and most importantly designed all the sounds for the game.
Headhunters needed an artistic touch.  Ky gave it.  Don't just take my word for it... Check out that console background.
Clan Total HeadThieves Clan ThT has been essential in testing and providing feedback and ideas.