The /newstuff Chronicles #183

Well, I only have one word to describe r.e. lubbelinkhof's maps .. frustrating. Actually, a few more words. Goddamn fucking frustrating. They're all insanely difficult .. if you make even one mistake , you're screwed, since there's almost no health, and killer traps everywhere. It's almost impossible to play without save/loading after every room. It's not even remotely fun, and IMO a huge waste of some good map architecture. Bleh :/

MasterOFDeath said:

I haven't had any bugs with the exit door myself, it ran just fine.

Well, if you arrive at that door carrying both the red key and the blue key, then it will open, and you won't realize that the red key wasn't needed.

udderdude: Like I said, these maps really need to be played as an episode, rather than from pistol starts (though there are rough spots even when playing as an episode, so a few saves are strongly recommended). Anyway, it's nice in a way to have it confirmed that I wasn't just being a complete wuss about these maps. ;)

Grazza said:

Zombie.deh :) It turns the player into a zombie (by setting initial health to zero), so no weapon is shown, and the monsters don't react upon seeing the player (but you can still trigger events). I think it can help to get better screenshots, assuming you don't want the screen full of fireballs.

I remember somehow you can do that without any dehacked jazz and stuff, the only way I remember doing it was when I telefragged myself or something rather, in any event, it was cool. :D

Bloody hell...
Deus Vult is awesome! It may not be for everyone, but I love that type of gameplay. Those huge levels and art reminded me a lot of Mark Shan's Quake 2 maps. Thank goodness for IDDQD... Good job, Huy.

BTW, the trusty "NOTARGET" command (in the console) works on zDoom. Makes the monsters not react to you (unless you fire at them).

Nym was pretty cool, though it was rather annoying waiting for that Marine to slowly walk around before it decided what to do. I loved the textures in Brains 2 and those self re-spawning Muties were fun. And Starport was very impressive for such an old map.

Sweet mercy Deus Vault's got some nasty fights! Love the architecture, especially when mixed with the new textures. There is strategy to the gameplay of this wad, but unless you can do HR,AV,HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hoards of monsters. I've found normally on these maps, the direct approach of gung-ho charge/guns blazing, is usually not the best way to do things. You've got to know when and where to use the powerups, where the "safer" areas are, and just know how to exploit the design of these maps to your favor. I'm almost through my first time on these, and looking back I can already see several things I would do differently now that I know the layouts.

Might be nice to try the MAP05 summation, but I'll need a new computer to do it:)

udderdude said:

Well, I only have one word to describe r.e. lubbelinkhof's maps .. frustrating. Actually, a few more words. Goddamn fucking frustrating. They're all insanely difficult .. if you make even one mistake , you're screwed, since there's almost no health, and killer traps everywhere. It's almost impossible to play without save/loading after every room. It's not even remotely fun, and IMO a huge waste of some good map architecture. Bleh :/

This man needs a helpful .deh . . .

heh

Seriously though, great week, I am in love with DV and I like the gameplay as well. I think the arenas are better than HR and prettier even than AV.

I notice that the missing lubbelinkhof map has now reached the archive intact: dfortres. So you can load up all ten wads together and play them as a rather nice and challenging episode.

[sarcasm]ooh look a mp with 600000 monsters and 400000 sectors, wow[/sarcasm]

yes i'm sure it took a lot of hard graft to put together and that it wins some kind of award for being the biggest baddest map ever, but, really. why? fighting a cyberdemon is certainly an acheivment unto itself. taking on 15 at once is NOT an achievement when you have a massive arsenal of bfg ammo, rockets, soulspheres, megaspheres and invulnspheres. and the exact same goes for the rooms full of revenants,barons and archies. total fucking waste of time and energy when you could just type idkfa iddqd and have done with it. really. after 5 mins of one of the 20 mins demos i quitted out and deleted the whole lot.

For further reference on the proper use of smaller amounts of enemies for difficulty purposes, seek the DTCA Demo MAP20 or whereever City of The Damned is located.

Ahh! We have had some kick ass levels in here this month!
Keep them coming!

cycloid said:

fighting a cyberdemon is certainly an acheivment unto itself. taking on 15 at once is NOT an achievement when you have a massive arsenal of bfg ammo, rockets, soulspheres, megaspheres and invulnspheres. and the exact same goes for the rooms full of revenants,barons and archies. total fucking waste of time and energy when you could just type idkfa iddqd and have done with it. really.

Not if there are no invincibility spheres, though (that's the one that takes away the challenge) - even if there are a ton of megaspheres, as you still have to survive a limited number of hits and then reach them. (and if you cheated it wouldn't be a challenge at all)

cycloid said:
fighting a cyberdemon is certainly an acheivment unto itself. taking on 15 at once is NOT an achievement when you have a massive arsenal of bfg ammo, rockets, soulspheres, megaspheres and invulnspheres. and the exact same goes for the rooms full of revenants,barons and archies. total fucking waste of time and energy when you could just type idkfa iddqd and have done with it. really.

Imprecise; don't butcher it. You may not like the gameplay, but the fact still remains: unless you can do HR, AV, or HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hordes of monsters.

Those demos you saw were probably recorded by Ragnew, who held the PrBoom UVMAX record for HR24 [11:04], and there were two demos as I recalled, recorded by stx Vile. These people are pretty respectable in terms of Doom skills, so unless you have massive credibility and have actually TRIED beating Deus Vult, let's not try to be cool and pass DV off as worthless, dumbass.

pritch said:

Seriously though, great week, I am in love with DV and I like the gameplay as well. I think the arenas are better than HR and prettier even than AV.

yeah DV rules that's for sure ... I love this gameplay.
I am just sad that the complete thing (map05) lag slightly on my comp with zDoom (anyone knows another port that can run it ?).

About your AV / HR comments, they are meant for doom2.exe which has pretty limited engine. So they cannot be as detailed as DV is.
Despite that, AV is much better looking (and playing) than many port-specific WADs that are released nowadays.

Final verdict on Deus Vult after finishing it on HMP: Absolutely excellent architecture and texturing, slightly less excellent gameplay. The middle part of map01 is kind of a dog, but most of the rest of Deus Vult is a great romp through huge HR/AV-style fights. There are several areas that could use better flow and gameplay - parts of map01 and map02 are just sequences of rooms with lots of monsters in them - but there are even more areas with extremely intense and satisfying gameplay. Strongest in terms of gameplay and variety are map02's central chamber and most of map04.

Deus Vult's gameplay won't appeal to everybody, but it's excellent for what it is, and is really just a hop, skip and jump away from mindblowingly awesome. If Converted DOOMer can take some of the lessons he's learned from Deus Vult, he could become one of the best mappers of the community.

Deus Vult has very good atmosphere and architecture. An exemplary first wad from a new mapper. However, I think that the player will find themself dreading the tedious battles as they interfere with the enjoyment gotten from the levels and music. This is, of course coming from someone who wasn't a fan of HR/AV. For those who are of like mind, though, it can be agreed that -nomonsters will be your best friend when perusing the eye candy in Deus Vult.

DV certainly looks good, but as has been noted by several other folks here, it just doesn't hold up as well in the gameplay department. Rationalize how you want, and I know you will, but for me, these (big and oh so beautiful) maps were just basically rooms crammed full of enemies. Strategy? Heh. It's possible, but I'm not going to try it.
Verdict: Otherwise excellent first map coming close to ruin due to its over the top gameplay.

And yes, this is my opinion, before anyone catches me out and tells me I'm wrong.

Hmm, everyone talks how good/bad DV is... i cant even extract it... winzip and internal winxp zip says that the zip is fucked up >.<

Try redownloading the file to make sure the copy you got is not corrupt. If that doesn't help, try one of these:

http://www.7-zip.org
http://www.rarlabs.com

Converted DOOMer said:

unless you can do HR, AV, or HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hordes of monsters.

This is a really lame argument. What are you trying to do - strongarm people into agreeing with you by implying that if they don't, they suck at Doom?

I'm enjoying Deus Vult (much more than the test versions I played months back), but I do just see them as huge hordes of monsters. Because that's all they are, regardless of strategies to control them.

I state facts as they are, no euphemism, no beating around the bush... clear and simple. You may not agree with me, like people who doesn't agree that 2 + 2 = 4.

Converted DOOMer said:

I state facts as they are, no euphemism, no beating around the bush... clear and simple. You may not agree with me, like people who doesn't agree that 2 + 2 = 4.

You state your opinions as you see them. Not facts.

Let's get back to this...

This is a really lame argument. What are you trying to do - strongarm people into agreeing with you by implying that if they don't, they suck at Doom?

Nobody sucks, you really don't get the message: "Unless you can do HR, AV, or HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hordes of monsters."

Translation: If you're used to hot food, you can taste the flavor. If you can't stand hot food, it's going to burn your tongue. Is this less offensive for you?

Converted DOOMer said:

Let's get back to this...
Nobody sucks, you really don't get the message: "Unless you can do HR, AV, or HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hordes of monsters."

Translation: If you're used to hot food, you can taste the flavor. If you can't stand hot food, it's going to burn your tongue. Is this less offensive for you?

It wasn't offensive to me in the first place, just ignorant. Your analogy doesn't account for people who can stand hot food but still just consider it hot food. Your opinion that people who see them as simply hordes of monsters are players (avoiding sucks this time) possessing lesser skill, is not a fact at all.

I'd draw a Venn Diagram if I could, anyways, here's the logic:

Some players likes lots of monsters.
Some players likes less monsters.
Many unskilled players cannot perceive organization in chaos.
Some skilled player cannot perceive organization in chaos.
Many skilled players likes HR, AV, and HR2.
Some skilled players prefers traditional megawads.

Now let's dissect my statement again and again: "Unless you can do HR, AV, or HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hordes of monsters."

Note the word "probably"; there are always exceptions to the rule, and now you can argue all you want, but the logic of the statement does not contradict the facts.

In other words, I like the Demo artist's megawads.

Converted DOOMer said:

Now let's dissect my statement again and again: "Unless you can do HR, AV, or HR2 on UV you probably don't have the skills to see it as anything more that huge hordes of monsters."

Note the word "probably"; there are always exceptions to the rule, and now you can argue all you want, but the logic of the statement does not contradict the facts.

Ok, I'm bored of this now, so last response.

The probably you mention is referring to whether the player has the "required" skill or not, as opposed to whether having this skill or not affects perception of this organisation.

Well, that was quality. Except the fire walk, that was near-impossible (why are they always like that?). I managed it, but only with an undisclosed number of F9's and a huge amount of luck. (well, how else do you get at a few archviles in the midst of 100 revenants with not much room to move?)

I don't know about you, but I love those mad fights =)

So do I, but not when the laws of DooM (ie. revenant/archvile behaviour) prevent it from being done without cheating. (although there was none of that here, despite many close calls)

btw, when I said 'why are they always like that' I was referring to fire walks (original and clones), not mad fights in general.

Ugh, I'm sick and tired of people whinging about DV.

Either get better at Doom or get yourself a weapons upgrade wad or deh to play it with or something, just stop whining. The guy made something that is truly amazing and all people can do is fucking whine. I HATE WHINING! Perhaps I should ban wad-whiners.

Way to kill the thread Zatoichi.

edit: oh yeah, you can't ban me, so... I agree with most people about DV's 1994-n00bie gameplay being one of the most obnoxious things I've played, but the maps certainly have one of the largest and most comprehensive visions I've seen since decently executed in Doom since Lutz's Inferno. This is one of those WADs like UAC_dead and AV map20 which I'll probably play at least 4 times a year until the day I can't use a PC. And for that purpose, I've got my own personal playable version of Map05.