The /newstuff Chronicles #163

the_Danarchist said:

Virgil: you're a flippin loony.

That's one way to put it, and a rather nice one for that matter. :)

Anyway, aside from the Claustrophobia insanity, you should all check out DSV 5 and Wolfen.

DSV 5 is really refreshing with it's new enemies and weapons - it feels almost like a total conversion. The most you see of the original enemies are a few Imps, Cacos and Arachnotrons hanging around. I had loads of fun playing it.

Wolfen is great fun for Hexen fans, it's got offical quality maps that could easily be considered the real thing. The amount of new enemies is impressive as well. Although I do think the secret boss should have been the final boss.

Prison is worth a try too. I liked the E1 theme. The general lack of detail didn't bug me too much cause there were so many enemies to kill :O

And oh yeah .. try ZUUL. Please? :P

Virgil: If you can't make your wads suitable for any level of player skill, then you don't love doom2 enough. If you loved doom2 enough, you'd be able to set difficulty levels properly. I edit it every day. I love it enough to create addons for it that people can play without cheating, without saving more than 3 times per level no matter how good or bad they are. My skill at catering to all types of players is there only because of my love. Where's YOUR skill? I'm not angry with you for not being as good at utilising skill settings as I want you to be. (And god knows I want you all to be even BETTER than me. To love more than I, a not-so-human, could love it.) I'm sad and disappointed that it is so. I thought you loved doom2 more than that. :(

Oh, you mean you like doom2 as a game but don't like the original levels?

Lol, aw cmon, I made skills 1-2 for Claust as easy as I could. I removed like 3/4 of the monsters, making the ammo/health to monster ratio go through the roof. I didn't think it could possibly be too hard for anyone. Man, I gotta stop making mistakes when it comes to difficulty settings...

The Doom2 levels suck, especially as a whole game. Some of them might have been good at stand-alone maps though.

udderdude said:

And oh yeah .. try ZUUL. Please? :P

Ok, ok, since you said please I'm trying it now. :P

Damnit, nobody has replied to my poll by emailing me with their answers. :| I wasn't joking when I said I wanted to know how good everyone is.

Here's a hasty demo of Claust map04, where I beat everything and then get killed by the very last boss because I (accidentally) forgot to press my jump button. (You do get to see how I dodge the spells, though.) If a lot of you request me to demo the very last boss, I will. But only if it's A LOT of you.

http://www.geocities.com/jomgobar2/cld4_1.zip

Virgil said:

Here's a hasty demo of Claust map04, where I beat everything and then get killed by the very last boss because I (accidentally) forgot to press my jump button. (You do get to see how I dodge the spells, though.) If a lot of you request me to demo the very last boss, I will. But only if it's A LOT of you.

I'd sure like to see a demo of that, so count me in as one of the lot.

Schneelocke said:

I'd sure like to see a demo of that, so count me in as one of the lot.

Well, I guess two is a lot. :) Ok, I'll do it. Later. Gtg or my boss'll kill me. :D

Virgil said:

Well, I guess two is a lot. :) Ok, I'll do it. Later. Gtg or my boss'll kill me. :D

Just remember... strafe, jump, be on your toes and avoid those spells, then the boss won't be able to kill you. ;)

I meant my employer you frad.

Virgil said:

I meant my employer you frad.

You probably wouldn't recognize a joke even if it hit you, right?

• Nukage Arena - Lament
  Any port supporting midis - DM - 17k - img
  I had the honor of playing this map with Ralphis, Lament, and some other people on ZDaemon. I have to say it makes it really easy to forget about all the other DM maps I've played before--this supercedes them in terms of gameplay, grandiosity, and just overall interest. The weapons and ammo are well-balanced, although perhaps the plasma rifle is too easily obtainable. The Bach midi included helps the mood, and if you weren't blowing people to bits you could easily forget you're not British royalty entertaining some houseguests. Classy, fun, fair, Nukage Arena will definitely earn a permanent place on your hard drive.

sargebaldy said:

supercedes

supersedes

Virgil said:

I meant my employer you frad.

schneelocke said:

You probably wouldn't recognize a joke even if it hit you, right?

Can't we all just along?

Schneelocke said:

You probably wouldn't recognize a joke even if it hit you, right?

Nope. :D

/Just joking with you.

I played through Claust again on HMP (my first time through was UV) and it was indeed far more suited to the cramped conditions. I'm usually very good about scanning text files but I only read the story that time, oops. Overall, excellent set with a chilling atmosphere and a cinematic feel; the reuse of the icon of sin gibberish on map04 really set the mood, it made me think hearing something like that near the end of Doom 3 would be damn freaky... which would be a nice dose of nostalgia too... anyone from iD listening? :)

I noticed a bug in map03 BTW. It's after the first cutscene involving Kjull and his conversation with the player. After going to the next room and killing the imps, it's possible to walk into the purple teleporter but not be transported to the next screen; instead you get stuck in the same area. It's easy to avoid, since a quicksave is very recent, but something to remember in the future.

EDIT: perhaps making a thread for those lmps in the demo forum wouldn't be a bad idea.

There are other places in map 3 where you can get stuck in a similar fashion. I got stuck at the small entrance room on top of the teleporter and a couple of times in the room with the brains flying out of the walls (after hitting the switch nothing happened).

Erik said:

stuff about difficulty

I haven't played Claust yet, but I think your advice should be mandatory reading for any mapper. It's SO much easier to beat your own map.

Thank you for being honest and for paying attention to the text, Vile. Anyone else not CAREFULLY read the text file like you SHOULD have?? EVERYONE SHOULD READ MY WADS' TEXT FILES, AND DO SO VERY CAREFULLY, NO EXCEPTIONS! I read text files thoroughly and therefore get the most experience out of PWADs.

Now be honest. Did I just make a scene for nothing? How many of you just SKIMMED the text file? You have to READ it. SCAN, not SKIM. I'm going to cry if most of the people who played Claustrophobia neglected the text file. That text file is the difference between a bad experience and a surreal immersion into a deeply thought-out world.

Well, I got the demo of the boss's final form done. DON'T dl it if you don't want the game spoiled. Here it is:

http://www.geocities.com/jomgobar2/cld4_2.zip

P.S. Thx for reporting those bugs. I think I now have a more clear understanding of what ACS_Execute REALLY means...

...looked at the demo...

That last part (where he was below 1000 HP) was definitely an exercise in patience rather than dodging skills. If he was constantly on fire for that last part (starting at around 2500 or so), and constantly firing things at you, it would have been a lot better. The guys who made the Korax mod had a similar problem. They increased Korax' health to around 100,000 HP, yet didn't change any of the attacks. When you got to Dark Crucible, it took around 15-20 minutes to beat him, not because it was super hard, but because it took so blasted long to kill him.

Schneelocke said:
Actually, looking at README.INCOMING, it seems that *no* mp3s are accepted at all: "Do not embed MP3s as music in WADs. Besides the obvious copyright infringement likelihood, we simply can't be an MP3 storage area."

Hmm. So if I record an MP3 adio track for a WAD and embed it, I'm more or less automatically a pirate, no matter what music the file actually contains? Sad.

Sad is your mother!

It doesn't say anything about being a pirate. It says MP3 files are not allowed for the stated reasons. The specific copyrights of any song are unrelated to this, but also come into consideration (the fact that nondistributable copyrighted stuff is not allowed is clearly mentioned in README.legal.)

As Ty has said before on these threads, he can't be checking every detail of every file uploaded; so it's often up to the users/downloaders/players to spot anything amiss in a wad, be it an any MP3 or an OGG that contains a song that may not be freely distributed.

Ichor said:

When you got to Dark Crucible, it took around 15-20 minutes to beat him, not because it was super hard, but because it took so blasted long to kill him.

Yeah, that fight was awful.

Cmon, Claust needs those OGGs to survive...

I don't know if I'm just stupid or what, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to beat the final boss of Chosen. Otherwise, though, it's a really fantastic WAD, as is Wolfen. :D

/edit Never mind, I got it. :D

læmænt said:

um cyb
where's my wad?

did you upload it on late friday or saturday? if so it'll be reviewed next week since I didn't get a chance to download anything uploaded past friday night (the last wad I dled was mountgod.wad)

and uh, even if you uploaded it before then (meaning I missed it) it'll still be in next week's :P

yeah, he uploaded way back on the previous sunday and it was in the archives by monday morning so i guess you missed it.

myk said:

As Ty has said before on these threads, he can't be checking every detail of every file uploaded; so it's often up to the users/downloaders/players to spot anything amiss in a wad, be it an any MP3 or an OGG that contains a song that may not be freely distributed.

To quote Virgil from his WIP entry:

I converted the MP3s to OGGs and re-uploaded as Ty instructed me to do.

That sounds to me like Ty told him to convert the illegal MP3 to (still illegal) OGG, so that it will be accepted.