Earth - Doomworld /idgames database frontend

Title:	Earth
Filename:	levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/earthzd.zip
Size:	1.39 MB
Date:	05/23/99
Author:	Roger Ritenour
Description:	Ten level episode for the game engine, ZDOOM. This episode fully accomodates ZDoom's enhancements of free-look, jumping and the Boom/ZDoom enhanced set of line specials. It also has areas of complexity and grandeur of archetecture and settings not previously possible under DoomII. EarthZD also has a custom sky specifically designed for ZDoom. It is based upon the Earth.wad episode for DoomII by the same author. Story Line You arrive home in Earth's planetary system exhausted from enduring vicious combat that started on Phobos and led to the Gates of Hell. You are on your way to sun, surf, and fishing for a spell of well earned vacation. However, upon arrival in low Earth orbit, you learn the terrible truth--Earth is not free. You study your options and decide to insert upon a remote and rocky coastline. Levels: The Ruins (MAP01): You stand at your point of arrival, facing out to sea with rolling breakers splasing on the rocks. This looks like it should have been your vacation site. But behind you are the ruins of civilization, haunted with alien hellspawn... The Tomb (MAP02): To have hope of freeing the world, you must take back the one place the enemy considers special. It is located under the great pyramid... Mines of Moria (MAP03): Like its Lord of the Rings namesake, it is crawling with evil things... The Chasm (MAP04): The enemy is bivouacked in rugged coastal terrain. You mission is to clear them out... Strategic Defense Command (MAP05): A deep underground command and control center, one of the last great hopes for mankind in repelling the alien invasion. However, it seems to be off line, You need to find out why... Observation Station (MAP06): This place has seen some action before it fell to the enemy. Beware!... The Emerald Tower (MAP07): The Enemy has established a command post in a giant ornate emerald green tower. Your mission is to disrupt their communications by taking it back... Ammo Pit (MAP08): This is the domain of the arch-vile. Trick him into helping you... Islands (MAP09): You arrive on an rocky island in a rugged fjord. Out to sea and somewhat up the coast is another, larger island that you must somehow reach... The Hill (MAP10): You must capture a heavily defended fortress on a hill... Combat These levels contain a wide variety of combat situations requiring different strategies. To win these levels, especially at the more difficult skill settings, requires thinking in terms of fields of fire, planning your cover, looking out for your flanks and backside, and keeping open your lines of retreat. Most of the monster placement is randomized so that their location and response are different each time these levels are played. Hence, you will be unable to count on finding specific monsters at specific locations. (And there will not be many opportunities for blasting monsters in their sleep.) The monsters occasionally show sneaky behavior due to features in the level designs. Setting: This episode is set on a rocky coastline. with spectacular outdoor views. These include high vistas and overlooks, live surf crashing onto the rocks, scenic elevator rides on the outside of tall buildings, spectacular bridges and a spectacular hilltop fortress new to EarthZD. General: Secrets generally have some clue that the thoughtful and observant player can spot. These levels are designed to be winnable at the easier skill settings without finding the secrets, but to win the more difficult settings requires locating most of the secrets. There are no totally hidden hazards or traps; there will always be some visual or audio cue to warn of there presence. Some of the pools and slime pits have depth, ie, you will sink into them, sometimes up to your eyeballs. Remember, though, this is ZDoom with free-look and jumping that plays more like Quake than the original Doom. Objects like trees, barrels, etc., are not infinitely tall and the player can jump up onto objects as tall as 56 units; this will be an important factor in navigating some places and finding some secrets. One final note; cliff edges at most of the high vistas are lethal to fall off of (one cannot expect to survive a fall of several hundred feet in real life).
Credits:	Olivier Montanuy, author of WINTEX. I borrowed his grandfather clock and television, though they have been enhanced. Stephen's DOOM Music v. 1.5 for some of the music selections. Doom version 1.2 for some additional music selections. Anton Baranov (AN_MUSIC.WAD) for other music selections.
Base:	Much enhanced version of the episode, Earth.wad by the same author.
Build time:
Editor(s) used:
Bugs:	Monsters sticking together, an occasional ZDOOM problem when a floating monster descends on top of a another monster, typically occuring at locations where floating monsters must descent to pass through doorway to pursue the player. Monsters remain stuck until the player kills one of them. The remaining monster goes free.
Rating:	(12 votes)

Download mirrors:

/idgames protocol:

idgames://10222

Reviews:

Anonymous	as bad as the original, needs zdoom 1.xx which isnt that hard to find if you know where to look. probably runs in ports based on zdoom 1.xx like zdaemon and odamex but i didnt bother trying them.	x
Anonymous	New for its time, but somewhat outdated now.	x
Anonymous	Level design is boring. Boring game play. The graphics do not work with the latest version of ZDoom. 2/5	x
Anonymous	I don't really like any of these levels, sorry. They all lack detail and fun. 4/7/07	x
Anonymous	This is the Zdoom port of the original Earth. As before, the readme hypes it up. Little bits of design work are clever (the waves at the beginning of level one, the ladder in level two, the elevator ride at the start of level five) but a lot of it is just crude and blocky. The random monster placement is a superficially clever idea that, in practice, tends to pit your pistol against barons of hell. And it's often much too dark. The sky appears to be corrupted in this version.	x
Anonymous	The waves in the sea alone are worth the download	x

View earthzd.txt

================================================================
Title			: Earth
Filename		: EarthZD.wad
Author			: Roger Ritenour
Emale Address		: ritenour@mail.rlc.net

Description		: Ten level episode for the game engine,
			  ZDOOM. This episode fully accomodates 
			  ZDoom's enhancements of free-look, jumping
			  and the Boom/ZDoom enhanced set of line
			  specials. It also has areas of complexity
			  and grandeur of archetecture and settings
			  not previously possible under DoomII. 
			  EarthZD also has a custom sky specifically 
			  designed for ZDoom. It is based upon the 
			  Earth.wad episode for DoomII by the same 
			  author.

Story Line	: You arrive home in Earth's planetary 
			  system exhausted from enduring vicious 
			  combat that started on Phobos and led to the
			  Gates of Hell. You are on your way to sun,
			  surf, and fishing for a spell of well 
			  earned vacation. However, upon arrival in
			  low Earth orbit, you learn the terrible 
			  truth--Earth is not free. You study your
			  options and decide to insert upon a remote
			  and rocky coastline.
			Levels:
			  The Ruins (MAP01): You stand at your point
				of arrival, facing out to sea with 
				rolling breakers splasing on the rocks. 
				This looks like it should have been 
				your vacation site. But behind you
				are the ruins of civilization,
				haunted with alien hellspawn...
			  The Tomb (MAP02): To have hope of 
				freeing the world, you must take
				back the one place the enemy
				considers special. It is located 
				under the great pyramid...
			  Mines of Moria (MAP03): Like its
				Lord of the Rings namesake, it
				is crawling with evil things...
			  The Chasm (MAP04): The enemy is 
				bivouacked in rugged coastal 
				terrain. You mission is to clear 
				them out...
			  Strategic Defense Command (MAP05): A 
				deep underground command and
				control center, one of the last 
				great hopes for mankind in 
				repelling the alien invasion. 
				However, it seems to be off line,
				You need to find out why...
			  Observation Station (MAP06): This place
				has seen some action before it
				fell to the enemy. Beware!...
			  The Emerald Tower (MAP07): The Enemy
				has established a command post in
				a giant ornate emerald green tower.
				Your mission is to disrupt their
				communications by taking it back...
			  Ammo Pit (MAP08): This is the domain of
				the arch-vile. Trick him
				into helping you...
			  Islands (MAP09): You arrive on an rocky
				island in a rugged fjord. Out to
				sea and somewhat up the coast is
				another, larger island that you
				must somehow reach...
			  The Hill (MAP10): You must capture a 
				heavily defended fortress on a hill...

Combat		: These levels contain a wide variety of
			  combat situations requiring different 
			  strategies. To win these levels,
			  especially at the more difficult skill
			  settings, requires thinking in terms of
			  fields of fire, planning your cover, 
			  looking out for your flanks and 
			  backside, and keeping open  your lines
			  of retreat. Most of the monster
			  placement is randomized so that their
			  location and response are different each
			  time these levels are played. Hence, you
			  will be unable to count on finding
			  specific monsters at specific locations.
			  (And there will not be many opportunities
			  for blasting monsters in their sleep.)
			  The monsters occasionally show sneaky
			  behavior due to features in the level
			  designs.
	Setting:	  This episode is set on a rocky coastline.
			  with spectacular outdoor views. These 
			  include high vistas and overlooks, live
			  surf crashing onto the rocks, scenic
			  elevator rides on the outside of tall 
			  buildings, spectacular bridges and a 
			  spectacular hilltop fortress new to 
			  EarthZD.
	General:	  Secrets generally have some clue that
			  the thoughtful and observant player can
			  spot. These levels are designed to be
			  winnable at the easier skill settings
			  without finding the secrets, but to win
			  the more difficult settings requires
			  locating most of the secrets.  There are
			  no totally hidden hazards or traps; 
			  there will always be some visual
			  or audio cue to warn of there presence.
			  Some of the pools and slime pits have
			  depth, ie, you will sink into them, 
			  sometimes up to your eyeballs.
			  Remember, though, this is ZDoom with 
			  free-look and jumping that plays more
			  like Quake than the original Doom.
			  Objects like trees, barrels, etc., are
			  not infinitely tall and the player can
			  jump up onto objects as tall as 56 units;
			  this will be an important factor in 
			  navigating some places and finding some
			  secrets. One final note; cliff edges at 
			  most of the high vistas are lethal to fall 
			  off of (one cannot expect to survive a fall
			  of several hundred feet in real life).

Directions for running	: EarthZD is a patch wad and is run with
			  ZDoom using an IWAD file. The IWAD file
			  can be DoomII, Plutonia, or TNT. Unzip
			  EarthZD.zip and place EarthZD.wad into
			  a directory of your choice. To start 
			  ZDoom (from the directory you have ZDoom 
			  in), enter on the command line of the
			  MS-DOS prompt something like:

zdoom -iwad c:\doom2\doom2.wad -width 800 -height 600 -file <path>earthzd.wad

If you run this with Plutonia or TNT,
			  the -iwad part of the command would be 
			  appropriately modified with the iwad's
			  filename and path. The <path> in the -file 
			  parameter is the location where you placed 
			  EarthZD.wad. The -width and -height 
			  parameters set your screen resolution.
			  In the example given, the resolution is
			  800 x 600, which produces a relatively 
			  crisp level of detail. On a Pentium 200 
			  MHz MMX CPU, this produced a satisfactory 
			  frame rate. Newer, faster CPUs may use
			  even higher resolutions. On a 133 MHz 
			  Pentium, 640 x 400 is recommended. Older
			  machines should use the standard Doom 
			  320 x 200. Note on delays in loading:
			  wads with tall sky textures sometimes
			  require extra time for loading. If 
			  the startup screen for ZDoom appears to 
			  lock up, give it at least 30 seconds for
			  the loading process to complete.
			  
Additional Credits	: Olivier Montanuy, author of WINTEX.
			  I borrowed his grandfather clock and
			  television, though they have been
			  enhanced. Stephen's DOOM
			  Music v. 1.5 for some of the music
			  selections. Doom version 1.2 for some
			  additional music selections. Anton
			  Baranov (AN_MUSIC.WAD) for other music
			  selections.

* Play Information *

Episode and Level #	: Map01-Map10 for ZDoom, 
			  (tested under v1.17b)
Single Player		: Yes
Cooperative Player	: Yes (untested)
Deathmatch		: Yes (untested)
Difficulty Settings	: Yes, full range, all settings are 
			  somewhat more difficult than standard
			  Doom settings.
New Sounds		: No
New Graphics		: Yes, a new non-repeating, vertically
			  retilable sky to support some spectacular
			  vistas plus a lot of new wall textures.
			  Special graphics to implement special
			  effects such as the animated surf. 
			  The graphics in this pwad are designed
			  to complement and enhance rather than to
			  replace the standard Doom graphics.
New Music		: Yes, a mixture of new music, existing, 
			  and a few pieces from doom1 as judged
			  appropriate for the mood of the level.

*Construction *

Base			: Much enhanced version of the episode,
			  Earth.wad by the same author.
Editors/Tools used:

WAD Builders:	  Wintex/Deutex, O. Montanuy
			  Patcher, Jim Flynn 
			(Wintex used in original Earth.wad, 
			Patcher used in ZDOOM upgrades)
 
	Level Editors:	  WinDEU32 5.23, R. Paquay, R Quinet, B. Wyber
			  DETH 4.16b, J. Burden, S. Oke plus 
				other contributors
			  Waded, M. Ayres 
			(Multiple level editors used throughout 
			history of development)

Node Builders:	  BSP 1.2, Colin Reed
			  Nbld 1.0, Jim Flynn  
			  WARM11, Robert Fenske 
			  RMB, Jens Hykkelbjerg (reject map builder)
			(Multiple node builders used in development,
			In the final version, 9 maps are compiled 
			under Nbld, with one under BSP (that would 
			not compile correctly under Nbld.))

Graphics Tools	  Corel Photopaint 6 and 8
			  CorelDraw 6

Known Bugs		: Monsters sticking together, an occasional
			  ZDOOM problem when a floating monster 
			  descends on top of a another monster,
			  typically occuring at locations where
			  floating monsters must descent to pass
			  through doorway to pursue the player.
			  Monsters remain stuck until the player
			  kills one of them. The remaining monster 
			  goes free.

* Copyright / Permissions *

You MAY use these levels as a base to build additional levels
You MAY modify these levels provided that you give proper credit
to the originator, whether it is me or someone I borrowed from.
If you do, please drop me a line, I would like to see what you 
come up with. You MAY distribute this WAD in any electronic
format provided you include this information file unmodified.

mong