Unholy Realms Public Release Thread (/idgames link posted)

Map27 might want to change to 15% damaging lava so radsuit leak isn't a potential frustration. Same for any other cases of prolonged mandatory damaging floors.

Played this in multiplayer a bit (well, actually almost played through the whole thing twice :-) tonight, was very fun but we spotted a few problems. Mostly of "player enters an area, bars close behind him, he dies, admin please change the map" type.

map15: some players appear in the yellow key area and I suppose the other players are supposed to "rescue" them, but what if these players die and respawning isn't allowed?
map17: that classic closing bars problem in the plasmagun area (doesn't totally break the map though since you can press linedef 1803 from below and then you don't need to visit that area) and in that small room with one revenant trap (no way to bypass this one).
map18: enter the red key area, die, the end.
map23: not 100% sure but I think the exit gets blocked if you cross linedefs 519-521 too early?
map24: needs some way to lower the fake bridge from below, otherwise a player can get stuck there if someone else raises that bridge. Also consider this situation: someone is standing on the bridge, the other player lowers it. Now if the first player goes towards the teleports, he will be greeted by three HKs in an illusio-pit.
Also spotted some "leaking sectors" in skillsaw's map, will try to find them again later.

Aside from these problems UR seems to be a great wad for survival coop, the server was very popular today with about 20-25 players at times. :) I think skepticist recorded the whole thing on the demo so you can ask him if you want to see it.

Memfis said:

Played this in multiplayer a bit (well, actually almost played through the whole thing twice :-) tonight, was very fun but we spotted a few problems. Mostly of "player enters an area, bars close behind him, he dies, admin please change the map" type.

map15: some players appear in the yellow key area and I suppose the other players are supposed to "rescue" them, but what if these players die and respawning isn't allowed?
map17: that classic closing bars problem in the plasmagun area (doesn't totally break the map though since you can press linedef 1803 from below and then you don't need to visit that area) and in that small room with one revenant trap (no way to bypass this one).
map18: enter the red key area, die, the end.
map23: not 100% sure but I think the exit gets blocked if you cross linedefs 519-521 too early?
map24: needs some way to lower the fake bridge from below, otherwise a player can get stuck there if someone else raises that bridge. Also consider this situation: someone is standing on the bridge, the other player lowers it. Now if the first player goes towards the teleports, he will be greeted by three HKs in an illusio-pit.
Also spotted some "leaking sectors" in skillsaw's map, will try to find them again later.

Aside from these problems UR seems to be a great wad for survival coop, the server was very popular today with about 20-25 players at times. :) I think skepticist recorded the whole thing on the demo so you can ask him if you want to see it.

Yeah, co-op/survival was the only thing in this wad that went absolutely untested. Luckily most of these are easily fixable by utilizing repeatable functions and opening triggers for co-op play. Map15 is something I'll have to think about... I don't know, I was playing MM a lot at the time and the way players sometimes started in separate areas was something that appealed to me. Didn't quite get it to work the way I intended, I suppose.

Now, Map24... That's going to take some thinking. That's a hacky-as-fuck bridge to begin with and shoddy design in general, so we'll see if I can find some way to refine this. The HK thing could at least be fixed via teleporters (though I've grown a bit resistant to depending on teleporter traps), but the actual situation with raising/lowering is a definite issue.

Thanks for the report. I'll definitely have to PM skep to see if that's a thing :)

Map 04- The dual chaingunner trap at the start can be defused to one chaingunner at a time if you creep forward very slowly. Ditto with the HK/Chaingunner/Revenant trap after the blue key, if you know where the line that teleports the Revenants in is. Not a fan of the hitscanner/HK trap that happens after the red key; if you don't know it's coming, you can easily end up with HKs blocking your shots at the chaingunners, leaving you no way to prevent getting chewed up by the hitscan.

Map 05- one time, I opened the blue door and ran out of the room to fight, and wasn't able to open it a second time, forcing me to idclip to continue. The trap at the blue key can be defused by moving close to the switch to teleport in the cacos, dealing with them, then hitting the switch, to deal with the two parts of the trap separately. I'm not a fan of the line in the first outside area that stops the Cacodemon from getting over the wall to attack you; raise the ground up to 25 units, remove the "impassible" flag. An SSG would probably make this map a lot more fun, too.

EDIT: Map 06- HOM visible near end here: http://imgur.com/xH4cBI5 (near center of screen, on "upper" part of cliff)

i'm having problems with the music in zdoom, after 2-3 seconds the instruments hang until the song is over (i guess), then restart, then "crash" again - which is a shame, because what little i can hear before that rocks.

AtTheGates said:

i'm having problems with the music in zdoom, after 2-3 seconds the instruments hang until the song is over (i guess), then restart, then "crash" again - which is a shame, because what little i can hear before that rocks.

Is this a particular map? I'm having no troubles with music in ZDoom, personally.

Some serious ammo problems around map09-map14. I've been close to only having the fist several times. :\

Hmmm... Ammo shouldn't be that tight until later maps, and even then it's not jodwin-level balance. Have you been finding the secrets? I tend to use a number of them for berserk packs and weapons. That could be a bit of a difference-maker.

Looks really nice, the sort of aesthetic I dig in Doom maps. Only played through a couple so far but liking it so far.

Very minor things I've noticed:
- One of the "hazard bar" rings near the red key in MAP01 has the wrong texture Image
- Map 17's name is misspelled on the minimap ("Mising" instead of "Missing")

^ That's intentional I suppose. The problem is that in DEHACKED you can't replace strings with longer strings. And in Doom2 map17's name on automap is 19 characters long (so not enough to fit "missing gamma sector").

Why should secrets have to be necessary to finish a map? I had this same issue with UAC Ultra 2 and thought it was just as stupid there too.

BlazingPhoenix said:

Why should secrets have to be necessary to finish a map?

Don't mistake necessary and convenient. Almost all of the maps also provide 'zerks and chainsaws, so you can always save a few shells by tysoning pigs and imps.


ANYWAYS. I gave the whole thing another OCD run and I saw plenty of everyone's favourite hoveritems. Some are improbable to trigger, but still, it's there. Here are the vacation photos, all from travelling around beta1:

map02: Helmet t. 152 (this one boggles the mind, it hovers around the corner).

map05: Medkit t. 141 also hovers.

map06: So do shells t. 18 and 20.

map09: RL t. 89 can get stuck like this and it's going to show in multiplayer.

map10: A squadron of fighter shells, t. 142-144. And a bomber box, t. 254.

map11: Hoveritem central. Pretty sure I reported at least a few of these all those years ago. :P Let's see, flask t. 207, stimpaks t. 154, 155, cell t. 234, shells t. 28 (another corner bender).

map13: The RL (t. 150) hovers a little. It'll be extra visible in coop.

map15: Flasks t. 217, 218 (I think), those bastards.

map17: Plasma in the sky, as mentioned by memfis. The map also has coop hazards - the W1 close door lines around plasma with no way how to reopen bars s. 697. Linedef 3641 (the trap just before the final arena) is even worse, because it can't be bypassed if the guy inside dies.

map19: Hoverpak t. 345, hovercells t. 122, 219. Also the exit teleport should probably get some exit signs, it can be pretty easy to derpmiss.

map25: Flying shellbox t. 132. This map can also trigger a rather unexpected bug: the HOM rampart. You need idclip to obtain this catastrophe in vanilla, BUT me and memfis totally witnessed exactly that in the Zdaemon test session. It takes skipping over l. 1599 somehow, then pressing switch l. 1027 without triggering l. 1132. This is impossible in vanilla, but ZDoom-based ports tend to not block use action with walkover lines. It's rather obscure, but I'd suggest a redundancy non-orthogonal (just oh so slightly) line for that WR floor action in front of the current one.

skillsawmap: Ye vintage skillsaw HOM, courtesy of nodebuilder hating the way he builds maps. It's in the first cave, you can't miss it, I just forgot which sector it is. One of the nodes will need moving, even if by just one unit. That should help - if not, you need to move more, or move another node instead. Sorry for vagueness, but this is skillsaw curse, so pretty much voodoo.

map30: Except you caught it too. I told you rebuilding nodes would help, but seems like you need to move 'em as well. I think I got it fixed by moving v. 6135.

BlazingPhoenix said:

Why should secrets have to be necessary to finish a map? I had this same issue with UAC Ultra 2 and thought it was just as stupid there too.

Well, they aren't necessary, they just make things easier. There should be sufficient ammo on these maps without the secrets, as any mention of ammo issues in playtesting were generally addressed (though Map11 is intentionally tight on balance as it's sort of a "challenge" map). What's more, these were all tested by myself without secrets to be sure that there was enough there.

If it's an issue that several people experience, I'm more than willing to add a few shells 'n rockets here and there. It's just that I feel secrets should assist the player in a helpful way. Having extra ammo on the maps that use ammo secrets feels like it'd defeat that purpose.

dew said:

List of stuff

Thank God for betas.

PRIMEVAL said:

Is this a particular map? I'm having no troubles with music in ZDoom, personally.

it happens in map02 and map 03, haven't played much further yet.

edit: interestingly, changing from "fmod" to "microsoft gs wavetable synth" fixed the problem. it doesn't properly work in fmod for me.

^ Same thing happens in Zdoom on my mac. Zdoom is pretty strange with certain midis in Fmod; unfortunate that it doesn't work since I enjoy the midis that were chosen for this.

AtTheGates said:

it happens in map02 and map 03, haven't played much further yet.

edit: interestingly, changing from "fmod" to "microsoft gs wavetable synth" fixed the problem. it doesn't properly work in fmod for me.

I had a feeling it was the driver or whatever. I was going to recommend changing it. There are others out there you can use like BassMIDI and Timidity. I personally never really liked FMOD.

Having fun with it so far. Been having a few ammo problems for my casual run through, though.

Memfis said:

Oops, I forgot to mention that when I was looking at map22 in the editor, I noticed a W1 teleporter in the cyberdemon closet. I guess it's not very likely that the destination will be blocked when he tries to teleport, but it might happen.

I had a failed Cyberdemon teleport on map17 because of what I believe was this problem. The Cyber appears to be meant to teleport into an area that is full of monsters at the start of the fight, so it's quite possible for it to be blocked. In this case it breaks the map completely unless you use noclip.

I'm really enjoying the mapset so far.

Map 11... what's with the "choose between Plasma and SSG" at the start? Plasma is always the right choice, it seems like; either do roughly 1.5x damage with shells against big enemies vs. get a damaging, rapid-fire weapon that flich-locks the shit out of everything and lets you use half of the level's ammo that otherwise would be useless seems like a total non-brainer to me.

Also, I'm not a fan of the teleporting Cyberdemon. It *really* sucks when you have to restart the level because he teleported right behind you and instantly fired before you had a chance to even figure out where the fuck he is.

Cynical said:

Also, I'm not a fan of the teleporting Cyberdemon. It *really* sucks when you have to restart the level because he teleported right behind you and instantly fired before you had a chance to even figure out where the fuck he is.

I recently played a PWAD that had 3 of them x_x
I personally like the concept but that was a bit ridiculous.

Map 13- the "between stages" text says "Temple of Leviathan", but the automap says "Village of the Lost".

Map 14- This map needs a lot of work.

At the start, the SSG is in a secret, and the first non-secret weapon you get is the Chaingun. Yet, what is all of the ammo for? The SSG. Meaning that the secret is straight-up mandatory.

Then, the pinkies on the ground create the worst "infinitely tall" clusterfuck I've ever seen whenever you're forced to jump down into the slime; even when you do eventually get down there, you're utterly surrounded, taking damage from the ground, the demons, and the absurd number of hitscanners around. Get rid of them.

The first time you get the Shotgun is when a Sergeant drops one. While you're trying to fight a bunch of things. In an enclosed area, where you can't dodge, so the forced weapon switch kills you. A shotgun pickup needs to be added earlier in the level.

Once you survive the start, the rest of the level is just a painfully dull affair of "snipe at Arch-Viles from afar with rockets". Boooooring.

Map 15: The Arch-Vile spawn in the Revenant Gazebo is really bad; actually killing the Vile from behind his Revenant shield is almost entirely luck. It's possible to render this one unwinnable if you go for the Red Key before the Rocket Launcher. Every last Spectre in the opening area should be changed into a Pinkie; this fight has too much going on to have invisible enemies.

Bleugh, guess I really... Misunderstood that post. @_@ I'm enjoying this megawad otherwise though. :D

I will keep an eye on this one.

Cynical said:

Map 14- This map needs a lot of work.

It may need a SG in the first room (it is there on easy). The rest of your rant is mostly personal gameplay preference and solving some fights the wrong/boring way.

Map 16- the pole jumps at the start can get blocked by infinitely tall imps on the other side. Also, the Vile being able to shoot into the first area when you're trying to make a bunch of delicate jumps is just frustrating and luck-based.

Why are there water flats on the ceiling of a room?

EDIT @ Dew- saying that wow.wad is bad is also a matter of personal preferences. That doesn't make the statement "wow.wad sucks" any less legitimate.

Did some map checking this morning:

All testing was done with urbeta1.wad.

It would be nice if all maps had 4 deathmatch starts regardless of intended play mode.

I have prefixed some issues as follows:
- = Stuff that doesn't cause a problem and could be ignored.
? = Not sure if this is a problem.

MAP01
-Lines 94, 108, 112, 128 have actions that don't do anything.
Lines 1569, 1576, 1583 perhaps should be WR just in case.

MAP02
-Lines 1678, 1679, 2201, 2210, 2211 have actions that don't do anything.
Line 2616 perhaps should be WR just in case.

MAP03
-Lines 1701, 1708, 2011, 2019 have actions that don't do anything.

MAP04
-Things 229 is touching the thing above it.
Lines 1935, 4011, 4402 should be linked to a sector.

MAP06
-Lines 1409, 1412, 2474, 2476, 2477, 2479 have actions that don't do anything.

MAP07
-Doombuilder start.
-Lines 1408, 1410, 2868, 2873, 2876, 2879, 2882, 2885, 2891, 2894 have actions that don't do anything.
Lines 4034, 4038 perhaps should be WR just in case.

MAP08
Sides 3058, 3062, 3064, 3066, 3068, 4843, 4854, 4855, 4856 reference missing texture IIWSTON2.

MAP09
Sergeant (thing 268) has no skill flags set.
-Exit line 2951 has a tag set.

MAP10
Lines 2684, 2685, 2686, 2687, 2688, 2689, 2690, 2691, 2692, 2693, 2694, 2695 perhaps should be WR just in case.
?Lines 4545, 4547, 4550, 4556 aren't linked to a sector.
Side 382 has missing top texture '?'.

MAP11
-Doombuilder start.
Thing 64 looks slightly out of position.

MAP14
Has 2 player 3 starts and no player 4 start.
?Lines 2369, 2370, 2371, 2372, 2377, 2378, 2379, 2380, 2393, 2394, 2395, 2396 perhaps should be WR just in case.
Lines 2385, 2386, 2387, 2388, 2401, 2402, 2403, 2404, 2405, 2406, 2407, 2408, 2440 aren't linked to a sector.
Side 305 has missing top texture 'A-DBRI1'.

MAP15
-Lines 1520, 1537, 1597, 1605 have actions.

MAP16
-Doombuilder start.
-Revenant (thing 201) does not have a standard angle.
-Line 1100 has action that doesn't do anything.

MAP17
Has no 2, 3 or 4 player starts.
-Lines 1780, 1898, 1901, 1902 have actions that don't do anything.
Lines 3679, 3684, 4055, 4121, 4132, 4139 perhaps should be WR just in case.
Side 1975 references missing top texture 'AASHITY'.
Sides 2608, 2623, 3038 reference missing top texture 'ASHITTY'.
?Thing 77 overlaps thing 290 on medium skill.

MAP18
Has no 2, 3 or 4 player starts.
-Lines 642, 643, 644, 645 have actions that don't do anything.

MAP19
?Thing 367 may be redundant.
-Lines 29, 505, 509, 772, 1208 have actions that don't do anything.
At least one of the lines 3670, 3672, 3676 perhaps should be WR just in case.
?FIRELAV2 is used (doesn't animate).

MAP20
-Things 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334 do not have a standard angle.
-Lines 145, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572 have actions that don't do anything.
At least 1 line of 1536, 1538, 1535, 1542, 1519, 1534 perhaps should be WR.
Line 1529 is not linked to a sector.

MAP21
Sectors 245 and 246 have less than 3 lines and have zero area.
-Doombuilder start.
Has no 2, 3 and 4 player starts.
Sides 2747, 2749, 2751, 2753, 2755, 2757, 2759, 2761, 2763, 2765, 2767, 2769, 2771, 2773, 2775, 2777, 2779, 2781,
2783, 2785, 2787, 2789, 2791, 2793, 2795, 2797, 2799 reference mispelled versions of 'AASHITTY'.

MAP22
Imps 325 and 337 are stuck in each other.
Imps 326 and 338 are stuck in each other.
Imps 327 and 339 are stuck in each other.
Imps 328 and 340 are stuck in each other.
Line 2539 perhaps should be WR just in case.

MAP23
Line 529 is not linked to a sector.

MAP24
?Red key is not present on easy skill.
Lines 1816, 1817, 1824, 1825 perhaps should be WR just in case.
Side 1211 references mispelled texture 'AASHITTY'.

MAP26
-Doombuilder start.
-Line 21 has action that doesn't do anything.

MAP27
Sectors 706, 708 and 725 have less than 3 lines and have zero area.
-Doombuilder start.

MAP28
-Lines 1934, 4913 has action that doesn't do anything.
Side 6127 references missing texture 'MIDPN2R'.

MAP30
-Doombuilder start.
Side 2755 references missing texture 'SP_HOT1]'.

MAP31
Lines 370, 373, 374, 376, 383, 384, 604, 1629 have boom action special 24720.

MAP32
-Doombuilder start.
Has 2 player 4 starts.

So far the only problem I have noticed while playing is on MAP02 sector 222 did not rise (I may have blocked it and stopped it moving).

Here's an UV playthrough of map14, 100% kills without the secret weapons: http://www.mediafire.com/download/tvaou03wde28onh/ur14-845.zip

That start is a bit evil, because you gotta reach the shotgunners with 70 bullets and therefore you have to risk too much (and hello there, a priori knowledge) - I agree with that part. Then it's just control and efficient rocket usage. It's a tough map on UV, but then again, it's a tough wad on UV. It's almost impossible to get blocked by the pigs if you stay on course, because they're too fat to insert themselves in the important gaps.

I have to say the SSG secret is really telephoned in though. Generally, UR has a lot of these "almost insultingly easy" secrets and I don't really see a problem with them. A more oldschool-styled wad would have the same setup without marking the sector secret, heh.

Oh, I almost forgot - thing 178 is a hover medkit, as seen in the demo, heh.

Was marinecontroller built by hawkwind? Can't have too many play testers of his kind :-)

dew said:It's almost impossible to get blocked by the pigs if you stay on course

The "On course" part is where our routes differ greatly. My approach to the start always involved the SSG secret immediately followed by the Chaingun, then a jump in the slime to grab the ammo and kill the Revenants guarding the first narrow path, then Rocket Launcher, then kill the Arch-Vile, then back into the slime for Rockets. The first "slime jump" usually goes OK, but the second one always seems to go worse? I can never "get in" cleanly, too many Pinkies around. Copying what you did and just going in near the Red Key area seems to fix this, although it's still annoying to have to know where Hell put the diving boards today.

The way I'm doing the Viles at the end that I consider to be really boring is the same way you're doing it- snipe across the gap with the Rocket Launcher. When Viles lose their mobility and ability to approach, they lose their threat. In this case, the fight is just a dull matter of "shoot, take cover when there's flames", which is really boring.

(Also, you really hate hovering items, don't you?)

Unrelated, but a map 17 bug:
http://i.imgur.com/Q7oAyv3.png

The pillar here gets cut off in the center weirdly from this angle (taken just before going for the blue key).

Cynical said:

Copying what you did and just going in near the Red Key area seems to fix this, although it's still annoying to have to know where Hell put the diving boards today.

I get what you mean, but technically the only time you need to slimedive is when going for the YK switch late into progression. The rest is more of "I want to do this and the map is not letting me", sort of. I like what the pigs do to cacos - slow them down when crossing the mid section, make them shoot more before reaching you. I guess Snakes could add an inconspicuous monster blocking line where the blocking-from-below tends to happen, but it'll be guesstimating everyone's thought processes, heh.

The way I'm doing the Viles at the end that I consider to be really boring is the same way you're doing it- snipe across the gap with the Rocket Launcher. When Viles lose their mobility and ability to approach, they lose their threat.

The idea is that they revive some of the meat in their area, but that's very inconsistent based on where the player drops the bodies. I specifically tried to avoid that (a priori knowledge yet again), heh. I may have a possible silly solution for this that wouldn't compromise the other design choices, I'll discuss it with Snakes.

(Also, you really hate hovering items, don't you?)

I wouldn't hate them if they stayed in their home country!