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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Realm of Chaos

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dobugabumaru said:

Steve should be commended however as he's the only player I know that chooses to walk in Doom. I couldn't imagine not moving like a fighter jet at al times.


Alas, those days are over. It was Coffee Break that did me in. All the way through 2002:ADO at a walk, even in those later Hansen maps putting you and a Baron or 3 in a phone booth. All the way through Hadephobia, including purist's insanely difficult Map29. And just imagine what Map20 was like for a walker, with monsters spawning everywhere in the complex. But then, I ran into Coffee Break. In the end, there were too many Revvies for me to handle it. Like you said, Revvies are murder on us keyboarders. Reading your description of how we tend to maneuver into their fire brought up many painful memories. ;D I made the switch either during or soon after Map07 of Coffee Break. It's kinda sad, really. I'll always consider beating Capellan's MM2 Map15 from a pistol start at a walking pace to be my crowning achievement. That was just fucking brutal, and yet, so satisfying! ;)

Ironically, I began as a runner. All my maps in RoC were made when I typically played at Turbo 255. It was Antoni Chan and Rob Berkowitz who talked me into walking, the devils! :D

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Sorry if I'm a mouse player guys. I was a keyboard player once, but I was way too slow, and I never even beat Plutonia with only the keyboard. Ever since I discovered sourceports that support the mouse I no longer feel the need to use the keyboard [well except for the keys Alt (strafe), Tab (automap), and number keys (weapons)] and it's much easier on me :p.

And since some of you are on MAP03, and it's an hour before midnight in my area, I decided to knock it out of the way.

MAP03 Mars Base Alpha

Gotta love Hitherto's route here, chaingunning enemies up to the SSG and going around the nukage pit killing the perimeter imps/zombies, then grabbing the radiation suit and getting the first key before taking the lift back up. All the while ignoring the cacos for later. Not much else to comment on the route later on as most of it was pretty straightforward. Of course I follow it, almost to a tee in fact. Very nice fast-paced gameplay that isn't much challenge. Final Time 1:54.

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Map03
I guess Steve's hatred of unavoidable pick-ups was not yet in evidence in 1996, as this map features a couple :)

Quite fun, on the whole. A little disappointed the ledge in the nukage room didn't count as a secret (or have one leading off it) but oh well.

Combat was pretty straightforward on HMP continuous. I was never in danger of dying and left plenty of health and ammo behind. The caged HKs were a total non-threat in the BK room, as were the pinkies in the "trap" near the exit. I put trap in inverted commas since they would actually have to reach you to be a danger, and they couldn't get past the pillars in front of them. Is a trap with no threat actually a trap?

Looks were fine.

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MAP03 - “Mars Base Alpha” by Clint Sago and Rob Berkowitz
Can't offer any real complaints here with some unusual texture choices in places. One thing I wish could have happened is that the player would have to make an effort to grab weapons and armour instead of giving them all at the start. Also the final battle was a bit disappointing as the cover trivialises the fight.
Other than that I really enjoyed this map.

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Map 3 -- Mars Base Alpha
Yeah, this is the best of the first three maps. The action is very straightforward and I dug the metal theme. Some things struck me as silly or odd, though, for example the yellow key section with its dead-end and no trap, the trap with trapped monsters at the end (as has been mentioned -- and BTW, yes it is a trap but not a well-executed one...) and that it's very easy to accidentally teleport out of the blue key section when fighting monsters there. Enough action to keep you on your toes but still very easy. I like the fact that the authors were thoughtful enough to make an escape stair out of the YK teleport pit (I, err, accidentally fell into it early on and was glad to find I didn't have to restart). Then again, why make it a pit in the first place? --3/5

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MAP03 - MARS BASE ALPHA
by Clint Sago and Rob Berkowitz

Short, but very good-looking. This is let down a little by being far too cramped in places; such as the descending stairs on the way out from acquiring the yellow key, and the room before the exit - where the monsters don't even have room to move properly. Peaks early with a dangerous volley of shotgunners that sapped a bit of health (easily replenished though, supplies are not short on this map), but it loses its 'oomph' quite quickly; fight in the blue key room is entirely optional and you can sneak in, grab the key, then dash out. Thank heavens for small blessings though, as the giveaway of the SSG makes the hellknights a breeze.

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Capellan said:

Map03
I guess Steve's hatred of unavoidable pick-ups was not yet in evidence in 1996, as this map features a couple :)


Unavoidable items are the heart and soul of Doom, as my maps will soon demonstrate! ;D

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MAP03 - “Mars Base Alpha” by Clint Sago and Rob Berkowitz

This map started off quite interestingly, with a creative layout and monsters attacking from various angles, through things and rising from the nukage. But it seemed to be over just as my guns were getting warmed up. Keys didn't feel like they had to be fought for, and the only trap I can remember was the weird hellknight ambush just before the exit - they were more trapped than I was.. The design was cool though.

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Trying to learn to play in a more demo-friendly port so I switched to glboom+.

Map 03: Mars Base Alpha

Pretty good map, I agree that it's the best of the first three. Exciting first minute with the shotgun and fireball crossfire but after that it turns into a really easy ssg-fest. Visually it's pretty standard stuff, nothing much to write home about. Didn't even notice that bloodred decorative "roof" above the teleport pit unitl I watched my fda. Looks neat. I have some minor complaints though which have mostly been mentioned already. Yellow key tunnel is simply too cramped and wasn't very interesting or challenging. Then there's the reverse trap behind the blue door which is poorly designed. In fact I felt the other two hell knights in the teleporter area were a bit too easily disposed of too since they can't move around freely either. Seems like a lot of complaints but I guess the start makes up for them. Overall it feels more laid back than the previous map which might have added to the enjoyment factor a little.

Recorded an FDA which turned out pretty funny. I voluntarily dropped into the yellow teleport pit, oblivious of the yellow switch that's in plain sight and thinking the bars would lower when pushed. Well they didn't and I thought I was screwed since I didn't see the stairs either. Went for the glide as a last resort and it fucking worked instantly :D Thing is, I have never done a glide like that before so it was pretty funny how it worked so fast. After 4:30 I went to an unfruitful 30s expedition for the secret so you might want to stop watching there. Movement's pretty awkward since I'm so accustomed to zdoom movements.

PS. First boom demo I've posted so hopefully it works like it's suppose to.

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Map03 - Mars Base Alpha 100% Kills|100% Items|100% Secret - 06:47
Health 87 - Armor 100 | 2 Deaths

First impressions of this map are fairly positive. It's pretty, uses lighting well, and has good monster layout. The introduction of the SSG to the mapset was done very well. (Frankly, much better than in the original Doom 2 levels, IMO.) The height variation and monster variety is a welcome sight, and the difficulty caught me twice, coming up from the red key cell and when I teleported directly into a fireball from a Hell Knight.

The third map of this set is definitely the best so far. It's got great flow, architecture, challenge, and is just, in general, very fun. Although it is rather short, I was pleased with the experience afterwards. The demons in the rooms before the exit are stuck behind the pillars in Zdoom, however, and the one secret is pretty underwhelming.

Other than those two issues, this map is fantastic.

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04 - demo - well, this is different. As Hitherto once said, "no matter how skilled you are, this map will be difficult for you". That is because it is full of cruelly placed monsters that will definitely kill or at least seriosly damage an unprepared player, so you will probably have to die several times before you develop a winning strategy. The worst part is, of course, the dark room with arch-vile. To understand it I had to make a few "ignore all monsters on the map and just get to that area" runs before I found the small room with amp visor in it, and even after that I failed to survive that fight at least once. Grrrrr. Yeah, I was annoyed a bit, but not to the point of "ugh, I hate this!". More like "No, I'm not letting this level beat me!". So I enjoyed it. :)

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MAP02 - “Outpost 27” by Antoni Chan

This map is more accomplished than MAP01 but I had less fun with it. The circular layout and window linked rooms gave it a more professional look than MAP01 and the constant views outside gave the station a sense of place too.

Still, it didn't look particularly good. Lighting was again too flat, texture mixing jarred at times and the whole thing was too cramped to make use of the interconnection as nice architecture.

The tightness obviously hindered gameplay as well as looks. At times it's the player who falls found of being at close quarters and other times it's the monsters getting caught with no room to manoeuvre. Liberal health items were used to counter but this gave the gameplay a stop-start survive-or-die flow rather than incrementally chipped at your health from battle to battle as I prefer.

MAP03 - “Mars Base Alpha” by Clint Sago and Rob Berkowitz

Well this is my favourite so far, certainly the first that transcends it's year of release and other mitigating factors for the megawad's quality.

I dove quickly towards the SSG and enjoyed the multi-angled firefight. The sense of space was a breath of fresh air from the previous map as well. Although there were a few tight encounters, contrasted against wider spanning fights makes it so much better.

I think the aesthetic owes to the designer playing it safe with detailing and letting architecture do the work instead. That and the first good usage of lighting in the wad so far. Nice.

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Memfis said:

well, this is different. As Hitherto once said, "no matter how skilled you are, this map will be difficult for you". That is because it is full of cruelly placed monsters that will definitely kill or at least seriosly damage an unprepared player


I was prepared but I still got obliterated 17 times! ;D

Awesome demo! I especially love it when the screen shakes around like crazy; ;)

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early macintosh wad ey, out of curiosity what editors were used? back in the day I used to goof around with Hellmaker, absolute piece of shit by modern standards. Look at it the wrong way and it crashed while irreparably breaking your map -.-

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Map04 – Sewers by Jim Bagrow – Kills – 78, Items – 100, Secret – 100. Time 18:11. End Health – 65, Armor 45. Death Count – 17

Mapper History

I knew very little about Jim Bagrow. I might have exchanged one email with him, but mostly anything I had to say was communicated through RoC’s XO, Rob Berkowitz, and I had plenty to say, about this map in particular. ;D

Jim was clearly one of the axe-murderers of TMT, and the only thing I can remember about the guy is that he didn’t respond well to suggestions for changes, and at some point he seemed to lose interest in mapping altogether. I recall that Rob and I were underwhelmed by his final contribution, which felt unfinished. This doesn’t mean I disliked his maps, because I always have a sneaking admiration for anyone with the balls to actually submit some of the things he submitted, and stand his ground when people squealed at the pain. I’m probably on safe ground when I say that Jim submitted the most wildass crazy maps in the whole megawad, and some of them were really cool, at least in parts. Jim was just one of those mappers who comes into the game with a clear and simple goal – he’s going to reach into your mouth and tear your tonsils out. ;D

Map Commentary

I really, really, completely and totally hate this map. I mean, I really fucking hate it, and I always did. I have no idea how many times I playtested this monstrosity, but it was enough to where I reached the point of actually beating it easily and UV-Maxing it from a pistol-start. But damn, this map sucks. Baboon-ass ugly 1994 architecture, misfiring and misguided traps, inconsistent use of damaging floors, and some stupid squinchy areas designed to rob your health and maybe even get you killed. But even at that, I gotta admit, this fucker knows how to use a Pain Elemental. ;D

However much I hate this fuckin’ thing, the core Doomer inside me says, at least Jim Bagrow decided it was time to smack the player upside the head with a baseball bat full of razorblades.

So, to start at the start, here I come in at 50% health knowing I’ll be toast in no time. This map isn’t a ‘ramp-up’ in difficulty, it’s like getting nuked at a picnic, as I said about another map recently. ;D If you go forward you can drop down to a platform where you will be damaged or killed by a Chaingunner, or you can jump off that platform into a huge non-toxic nukage pool loaded with monsters. But you also have the option, before any of this, of going into a secret side room off the start area, where you fight a small army of hellspawn for some ammo, a Chaingun, a Chainsaw, a Shotgun, Green Armor and the SSG. Pistol-starters take note! Since Rob and I playtested each map as they came in, my first experience of this nightmare was on pistol start, and I basically said, “You gotta be kidding!” But my comments fell on deaf ears because the whole team wanted to promote difficult maps so we wouldn’t look like a bunch of pussy-wimps next to the PC guys. ;D

Anyway, this side room contains the first instance of what I’ll call “The Pestov Structure.” This was suggested by Slava Pestov, one of the first members of the team, and for some insane reason people actually went along with it, at least at first. The structure is the huge Stargr1 platform with a switch on top and a specific number of stairs of a specific height. The goal was to provide some sense of continuity between maps, and I forget if it was supposed to be in every map or not. I think I only put it in Map09 and I did it in a sort of “Fuck you!” kinda way . . . but it was hilarious when I read a comment on idgames about how “several maps contain an ugly platform . . .” Oh, the larks! ;D

Now back to the forward progress. I got killed the first time I leaped into the nukage, so on the next go I killed the Chaingunner and performed crowd control by peeking over the edge to induce some infighting. Cleared a lotta critters that way.

After you finally kill everything down in the nukage pool, you might, if you’re lucky, find a secret area containing 2 much-needed Medikits. But here, the nukage is suddenly toxic, so woe betide any player entering at 5% health or less. At least you don’t have to go far, so you might make it. ;D

We next see another flagrant violation of the Floor Texture Rule when nukage changes, without changing height, into Rrock12 at the doorway. There’s some nice Dr. Sleep-style lighting in the hallway, along with some enemies, but nothing major.

You soon arrive at a doorway leading into another nukage room, where the nukage up high is toxic, but the nukage down low on the other side of the platform is safe. The immediate fight against the PE, with distant Sergeants sniping, may drain a lot of your ammo. You’re never really safe in this room unless you kill all the Sergeants and Hell Knights, but if you keep moving it won’t be too bad.

After grabbing some Stimpacks and dusting-off some Lost Souls, I sucked it up, walked along a platform, and descended into The Fucking Archvile Room! Most of my deaths occurred in that room. On the face of it, it’s not so bad. Just 1 Archie, 1 Manc, 1 Baron and 6 Spectres in a big, square space. And a bunch of barrels, too. And tons of Hanging Victims and Legs and such, some of which are blocking. And it’s really dark, too. The Archie is turned away when you walk in, and there’s even a couple of dwarf walls to hide behind. No problem, right? I mean, you’ve got the SSG . . . ;D

I decided not to re-watch Heretic’s magnificent demo until after I was done, because I wanted to enjoy the full agony of figuring out the right strategy. I started with the wrong strategy – hiding behind the dwarf wall farthest from the Archie. This resulted in Spectres opening a secret door, which unleashed a Revvie – definitely not what you need when you’re already under fire. After several deaths, I decided it was better to charge the Archie and hope the Manc or Baron would hit it, and I’d be able to either kill it while it fought them, or I’d kill some Spectres, which were everywhere. This is what Heretic did, only he was much, much better at it than I was! ;D

As these things usually go, I got killed again and again and again before I finally won the fight in great shape. But this nightmare ain’t over yet.

One of Jim’s best jagoff moves occurs after you ride a lift out of the Light Goggles room. There’s a radsuit I chose to dodge away from before engaging in a frantic hall fight. Then I go through a door and step into a little toxic slime area. Small, but big enough to get me every fucking time. Now that’s worth smiling over. ;)

The next horrific area is the open walkway over another huge non-toxic nukage pool. Down below in the pool is a ton of monsters you don’t need to kill unless you’re going for UV-Max. They are only there to kill you if you fall. Remember, we could not record or play demos on MacDoom. No Doom Honorific Titles for us! As a result, we had no idea that this kind of design would piss off speedrunners. We just did what we did for the reasons we did it. ;D

The tactic I chose for this area was to kill the PE, the Lost Souls rising from below, and all the monsters on the platform, then run like crazy to get down to the red key area, which requires a tight and annoying fight against a well-placed Chaingunner and Arachnotron. More of my blood was spilled here.

Then it’s back across the platform – and keep in mind that I didn’t kill the Chaingunners on the tall columns – and back the way I came, with one more “Fuck you!” from the slime room, and down into the Archie room again, where you find a butt-ton of Hell Knights and a Manc waiting for you. They are not placed in such a way as to prevent your escape, but if you step onto the lift and wait, they’ll converge on you. I didn’t have enough health to take on all this meat, so I outmaneuvered them, rode up the lift, and was presented with another pointless trap unleashing some Cacos and Sergeants. No need to fight them unless you want 100%, so I went past them to the exit.

This map has many problems. It is exceptionally ugly, nothing but big square rooms with virtually zero detail. But it does have some significant height variations, often featuring the too-tall sectors common to noob mappers. It has schizophrenic nukage, safe here, toxic there. It has many and sometimes hideous violations of the Floor Texture Rule. And despite killing me 17 times, it has two major traps that you can easily avoid! In short, it’s a mess. But then again, it killed me 17 times. If Jim Bagrow had been able to optimize a couple traps, it would have been even nastier! :D

So this is probably a polarizing map. Some players may actually like it despite its many and manifest drawbacks. Some will hate it. But no matter how ugly it is, it does have some snarling Doom gameplay. And so, while I really do truly hate this damned thing, I kinda like it at the same time . . .

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Ribbiks said:

early macintosh wad ey, out of curiosity what editors were used? back in the day I used to goof around with Hellmaker, absolute piece of shit by modern standards. Look at it the wrong way and it crashed while irreparably breaking your map -.-


Yep, that's why I saved a new copy of the map after every 10 sectors. ;) Almost all of us used Hellmaker. It was more stable on some machines than others. Rob Berkowitz used a PowerMac 7100 and seemed to have no problem. I had a PowerMac 9500 clone, the PowerWave 604/132, and all I got was pain, pain, pain. :D

The only guy I know of who didn't use Hellmaker was Antoni Chan. He used Demon, the Mac port of DEU, which was supposedly even crashier than Hellmaker. And Deimos, the lump editor, was crashy, too. And let's face it, MacOS 7.5.x was a POS on top of all that. ;D

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Map 4 -- Sewers
Steve already covered this one well, and I concur with his complaints. I beat this one 100/100 after a handful of attempts (I died once at the start and the rest of the times in the AV room) but had no fun at all doing so. The nukeage use is inconsequent, most of the fights are completely awkward and/or annoying, there're unmarked secret sectors (which don't count as secrets) ... ugh, need I even go on?

The difficult parts are difficult for the wrong reasons: poor lighting, placing shit in the ceiling blocking movement, placing chaingunners and PEs in spacious rooms, etc. Noob stuff such as stuck monsters (a Cacodemon in the trap at the end), complete style clashes, totally pointless fights -- at two places there are monsters down in nukeage which you have no incentive to visit at all. Oh, and even though I'm aware that I tend to waste ammo a bit when not used to a map, I still found the ammo supply to be very limited and had to chainsaw a bunch of monsters, I left with 4 shells left. Ugly, boring, irritating. Yuck. --1/5

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SteveD said:

Almost all of us used Hellmaker.


You mentioned tweaking some maps recently. What do you use these days?

I finally made the switch to DB2 a couple of months ago, after years of DETH.

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Capellan said:

You mentioned tweaking some maps recently. What do you use these days?

I finally made the switch to DB2 a couple of months ago, after years of DETH.


I'm a DB2 loyalist. I love it. Yes, I use it to finish off some of my unreleased Hellmaker maps, and to modify my RoC maps, but doing a new map in DB2 is a total joy. Last year, I did an E1M7 with over 1,100 sectors and 520+ monsters in a month. Both of my current Team Mapping projects are over 1,000 sectors -- not that I'm wedded to giant maps! -- but it's so easy to do in DB2. ;) Woulda been super-difficult in Hellmaker, saving after every 10 sectors. ;D ;D

I probably tried DETH back in the day. You seem to have liked it a lot to stick with it so long. What was it about the app that really grabbed you?

I got my first PC shortly after the release of RoC, so I could play Quake. I tried WadEd, DEU and DCK for sure. And Deep 97. But ya know, I stuck with Hellmaker.

Hellmaker had some greatness. Yes, it was crashy, but the UI was wonderful. It had a light gray/white background and sectors were color-filled. DB2 goes far beyond this with visible flats, but back in '96, Hellmaker stood alone, IIRC. It also had a 3D feature that showed your map as a full structure in isometric view.

I stopped mapping in 2000 because my old Mac died and by then it was no longer possible to register Hellmaker, though a cracked version has been available for several years now. Blame DB2 for getting me back into it. ;D

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SteveD said:

What was it about the app that really grabbed you?


Honestly, it was just that I knew how to use it :)

I got started with DEU5, back on original Doom. DETH was an enhancement of that, so it used interfaces I was familiar with, while progressively offering extra features (sprite-view for things, ability to select multiple lines and auto-X/Y align them with a hotkey, prefabs doors and lifts, and so on).

Once I actually made the effort to learn DB2, I quickly grew to prefer it, as it is quicker and easier. But until making that effort was unavoidable (which it was because I have Win 7 64, and there is no 64-bit version of DETH), I didn't see a need to make it.

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Capellan said:

Honestly, it was just that I knew how to use it :)


Which is no small thing. Whatever keeps you productive is the most important.

I was the same way with Hellmaker. I couldn't give up those color-filled sectors, and I didn't want to learn to visualize from a bunch of lines. ;D

One last thing -- it seems my old maps had a bit more height variation than my newer ones. I can't help wondering if Hellmaker's 3D view encouraged that.

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MAP04 Sewers

Suffice to say, difficulty makes a big difference. On HMP I had an easier time. The starting secret didn't have demons on the top silver pedestal for example, and only zombies in the other secret sector. In the dark room, I only encountered spectres instead of the bigger monsters. Of course these don't hide blemishes that make this an awful level. That walkway with the nukage walls SUCKS. What's with that big ass elevator? And yes SteveD, it did piss me off. Add to it the bland design, nukage that causes zero damage (well...this could be excused, considering it's a sewer level, and it could potentially just be green water and not poisonous shit), and the horrible placement of damaging floors...this is the worst level so far. I took it much easier on myself by playing on HMP, as I didn't encounter the big meat that the UV players are getting. Final Time 3:36.

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Map 04 -- Sewers - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
This certainly has the feel of an early PWAD, even of a vintage that predates RoC. The signs are everywhere--rooms that are long and/or tall for no particular reason, completely random thematic transitions along a completely linear route (the most pronounced is probably crossing the slimefall crevasse and suddenly ending up in a red/rocky hellzone), inconsistent doormarking, etc. Strange to say, though, that the lighting, while hamfisted, is fairly sensible--things are dark (sometimes quite dark) where you'd generally expect them to be, and brighter where you'd expect them not to be. It's quite homely, but far from the most abominably hideous thing I've seen, I suppose.

I didn't particularly hate it, to be honest, although it seems I didn't have to spend as long looking at it as some of you folks did. In truth, I cleared it on the first try, although granted this was due in part to A)remembering the secret Pestov Yard with all of the guns in it at the start and B) being very lucky in the arch-vile basement (he was hit by an errant mancubus fireball before he could attack me). The best part is probably the big rectangular slime cistern at the start--you can use the arachnotron there to kill just about everything else in the room just by circling him from a distance, which is amusing. Most of the rest of the map's combat is a bit grindy and corridor-based, or just simply pointless, exemplified by the narrow hall full of nobles and pinkies and the crowds of little guys down on the floor of the slimefall crevasse, respectively.

Some have referred to the inconsistently-harmful slime as an error, but I reckon it was deliberate--most of the harmful slime has health packs or other stuff in it, making for a lazy sort of 'trap', I suppose. On the other hand, the unmarked secret rooms behind pushwalls (including one with a horrid slimefall 'door') seem like oversights, as they are generally more hidden than the initial double-secret with the weapons in it at the start; I only found them in searching for monsters I had missed.

I didn't really find it especially offensive, and I even kind of like some of its 1994isms (for example, the exaggerated height contrasts, as someone else mentioned), but it still doesn't play particularly well and rapidly loses focus as it goes on. Not much of a keeper.

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MAP04: My complaints about the mapset becoming too easy are suddenly flushed down the toilet as Bagrow releases a series of fights that beat me into the ground. I thought it was quite peculiar to have such a large secret area and walked out of it after eating a revenant missile, leaving me with a measly 30% health. This entire map would provide to be an uphill battle after that, as I dropped down into the murky depths to eat my first death at the hands of a chaingunner directly below me. The deaths continued to stack as I faced a hallway of hitscanners with no cover, into another corridor with hitscanners from afar, and eventually a dreaded sacrificial pit where an archvile laid in wait with several mancubi and spectres, combining two of my three major gripes together (AV with no cover and spectres in the dark).

I proceeded to bang my head against a brick wall for the next 5 minutes as I got stuck on hanging corpses and died, try to painchance the AV and died, ran into the rooms on the side and died, and tried to get all the monster to infight just to die in the end. I finally got a successful run after dashing into the room with the revenant, killing it, having the AV run in, painchancing him, and then downing him while he resurrected the bag of bones. After that it was spring cleaning until I ran into the next roadblock—a long bridge with perched chaingunners and mobs of baddies down below me. This would’ve been far more straightforward if not for the pain elemental and low ammo I had going into this, forcing me to snipe the chaingunners and then chainsaw the massive flood of lost souls the PE had indulged itself in so happily vomiting. I bolted across the bridge, dealt with the bastard at the bottom of the stairs, and then the rest of the journey was more or less fair game.

This map was entertaining for me, but for a lot of wrong reasons. The fight with the AV in the dark, while doable, is utterly asinine and completely unsuited for the fourth map of the project. Likewise the bridge is a good idea but forces the player into some unfair situations, as even clearing out the hordes down below leaves you vulnerable to the chaingunners as you ride the elevator back up. These were mildly interesting fights but felt like there was no strategy to them, and, if you look at the minimap, you can tell the level was created with large scale open monster encounters in mind and little else. Overall I’d have to admit it had a severely obnoxious design and not much else.

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Demon of the Well said:

Map 04 -- Sewers - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
In truth, I cleared it on the first try, although granted this was due in part to A)remembering the secret Pestov Yard with all of the guns in it at the start and B) being very lucky in the arch-vile basement (he was hit by an errant mancubus fireball before he could attack me).


ROFL!!! I knew this was gonna happen! I feel ashamed that I didn't outright predict it on the forum like I intended to. The funny thing is that, yes, all it takes is one bit of luck in That Fucking Archvile Room for a player to sail right on through this thing. I would have survived the "cistern," as you call it, if I hadn't entered the map at 50%, and the fight where I beat the Archie with no trouble at all could have been my first, rather than 15th, encounter. Ah, well, so it goes. ;D

I was worried that this would be a rage-quit map for some players. Not a big deal if they were pistol-starters, they'd just say "meh" and go to the next, but a rage-quitting continuous player is liable to just give up. And this map is the main reason I haven't played through the entire megawad since 1998 or 1999. Just didn't wanna deal with it.

A couple issues I'd like to address -- Kristian said it was a noob move to put a PE in a big room. But what about IWAD Map 20? That had two PEs in a far more massive space. I remember waiting and waiting for them to get close enough to shoot rockets at. ;D

Some things that might seem weird in these maps are probably because most of us had only recently finished Doom 2, and I hate to say it, but the IWAD maps themselves are mostly flat-out hideous. Barrels of Fun, Romero's Map 17, and many others come to mind. And you want dick moves for cheap difficulty? How about IWAD Map15 where, in a game where you can't look up and down, you get blasted continuously by monsters too high for you to see. Remember that Sergeant on a tower so tall you had to back up a virtual quarter-mile to see him? And what about that platform in the middle of a lava river, that you had to blind-jump at because you can't look down, again and again and again. Everything about that map is basically Jagoffy from beginning to end. And it's ugly to boot! Amazing that it was designed by Romero.

So the way we looked at things, back in the day when we talked about how to beat Barrels of Fun, was basically, if there was a strategy to beat a room, and That Fucking Archvile Room can be beaten in at least two ways, well, then it was valid in gameplay terms. So Memfis saying it had cruel monster placement is correct.

Most players seem to hate this map. Can't blame 'em.

Sure, I still hate the map, too, and I still like it. It's a love/hate relationship. ;D

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MAP04 - “Sewers” by Jim Bagrow
Oh man this was bad.
Inconsistent use of damage sectors check, map near enough impossible without finding secrets at start check. So this was going to be fun **
Most of the areas are bland, randomly shaped and textured poorly, the texture theme is all over the place too with horrendous clashing. Still this would have been redeemable with good gameplay.
RANDOM BULLSHIT ARCHVILE ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously this room is just plain unfair. The main problem isn't the mancubi or the archvile. It's the spectres, they block, they seem to have the ability to allow projectiles to clip through them, trapping you and making you eat a fireball. I skipped this fight only to my horror to discover I had to go through it a second time with extra monsters. :/
The slimefall area has about a dozen monsters which serve no purpose whatsoever. I ran out of ammo and tried to chainsaw an arachnotron to death and failed miserably.
All in all this map was dreadful. No beating round the bush.
Looked at the start of map05. Oh man :P

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Don't worry, I'll get my comeuppance soon enough, no doubt. I'll good-at-Doom myself (to use an Alfonzoism) on a specter in the dark--which I think is one of the the best ways to use them, by the way!--or get shot by a Nazi (the only enemy that is a poorer shot on a bullet-to-bullet basis than the spider mastermind) from about 1.47 miles away while standing right next to a medikit or something.

I'll grant you DooM II is kind of sleazy-looking, Steve (although I reckon that that's at least in part something they were aiming for), although I've always kind of liked the look of Tenements, myself. Industrial Zone--and the IWAD in general--certainly does have its share of dick moves (that blind jump is easy if you game it by using the automap to aim yourself, though ;)), but they generally have more spectacle to them than the corpse-room in Bagrow's map, where there's simply an arch-vile just loafing around at the back, and he either toasts you or he doesn't based primarily on the whims of the RNG gods. I didn't mention it in the writeup, but I sort of assumed that the short metal walls at the back corners of the room were supposed to be a possible shield from him (assuming you could make it there through the specters and such before he attacked)....except I can tell just by looking at them that they're not tall enough to reliably interrupt his line-of-sight. Now, if that was an intentional red herring as opposed to a random piece of terrain or a misbuilt feature, THAT is truly a dick move, in a more-evil-than-id sort of way.

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Good-At-Doom is a Tarnsmanerism adopted by Alfonzo. Much like "mmmmmm" and "THAT *Insert thing we find amazing here*"

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