Going Down

kmxexii said:

i know some people hate it

Absolute bollocks to them, the music is one of the premier features; it embodies Going Down's lustful, gnawing chaos perfectly.

kmxexii said:

oh btw i am really diggin the music, i know some people hate it but its got this duke 3d meets gentle giant meets insanity that's great, very different

Cheers, the music is a bit of a love/hate thing for some people, but I'm well used to that. And this seems to be the case in a lot of wads anyway, even the original doom 2 music gets some stick, and I think it fits the game perfectly.

The music is chaotic and conveys perfectly well the feeling of something that's breaking apart without stopping. It's catchy yet discordant. Just like the levels themselves.

I hope you're still going to give proper titles to all songs in the text file before uploading the final version to the archive.

Gez said:

I hope you're still going to give proper titles to all songs in the text file before uploading the final version to the archive.

I certainly will, but if you can't wait that long here is a list of all the tracks:

map 01, 29 - 'Somebody set up us the bomb'
map 02, 30, 31 - 'Zombie goes shopping'
map 03 - 'The haunted supermarket'
map 04, 15 - 'Running from the jazz robots'
map 05, 13, 23 - 'The haunted aquarium'
map 06, 22 - 'Lost in zombie cyberspace'
map 07, 20 - 'Mega robo-clown boss battle'
map 08, 14 - 'The haunted waiting room'
map 09, 17 - 'The haunted skeleton factory'
map 10, 27, 32 - 'Robo-zombie mecha-brain boss battle'
map 11, 21 - 'Zombie maggots in the flesh cathedral'
map 12, 24 - 'Chased by dancing skeletons'
map 16, 28 - 'Wedding march for the princess of death'
map 18, 25 - 'Hiding from the robo-zombies'
map 19, 26 - 'Attack of the spider-clowns'

Can't remember if I said this when I commented on it before, but on top of the Discordance (YES), it also made me think of elevator music, so yeah mission accomplished.

Also, Hammond organs.

Finally played MAP14 till the very end. I now understand why I had the feeling that I'm incapable to do this - the title itself says it all. Madatory pathway is revealed as one progresses further via sources and hints which are considered to be dedicated to badly to moderately hidden secrets' hints. Still enjoyed, though, since 1. I've already beaten TNT's MAP18 2. I found this level even more fun than Mill.

I just started the wad again for DWMC, and I noticed you're using the older version of the tiling RSKY2 I made. You might want the newer one - it's very similar but looks much nicer at high gamma values, and even at normal gamma it tiles ever so slightly better IMO.

ah cheers man, I'll use that for the final version, nice work

MAP24. Sorry for slow uploading, but I don't want to hurry, you know.

Man, that map is easy on easy setting. Maybe the bfg was overkill..

Yeah, definitely it was. Maybe the barrels were the real overkill, but intead of BFG a plasma rifle would have been nice as well.

I enjoyed playing the whole wad.

Though I noted that there were more 'arena like' (as opposed to cramped, small, but normal, maps as the wad progressed (i.e in ep2 and 3), to the point that they started to feel a bit filler.

finished this today, it was v good. interesting playing a mapset that is basically just crazy set pieces. some brilliant stuff in here like insanity or forbidden fruit or buried alive.

Cheers Vermil and kmxexii, glad you both enjoyed it!

The tomatohead at MAP29 is really easy to kill once you clear out all the other monsters, you can hit it from behind a building piece with any weapon while it'll try to shoot you.

I'm not done playing this yet (up to 23 ATM) but the last couple levels made me feel strongly enough to write some words, so allow me to ramble at you a bit. I should note that I'm playing HMP, continuous, saves.

These maps are generally quite a bit more difficult than I usually enjoy but the size and the cool/goofy/creative nature of them keeps me coming back. Every now and then I realize that I could have done a map with no saves or UV or pistol start (or all three) and then I play another and realize I am maybe still pretty bad at doom. But I keep going cause I wanna see where this goofy elevator ride is heading.

I don't think I've ever played a megawad with such a coherent sense of place and progression as this one, the elevator tying things together is really great. I really love how improbable the elevator is becoming, especially how it seems like it's just been drilled straight down through whatever happened to be in the way and yet still operates (the debris around the shaft in many of the levels is what gave me this impression). I think it's this coherence that made maps 18 and 19 so interesting to me. 18 was cool on it's own, with the level flooding with lava and the weird UFO thing buried down there, but the fact that 19 was basically a weird side trip to get the red key was really neat. I don't think I've ever seen that done before either, and I doubt it would have worked without everything being tied together so well. On the subject of 19, I'm generally not a fan of gimmick maps but the profusion of invuln and cells made it easy. It worked really well as an aside though. The way the elevator splits in half at the beginning of 20 was a cool effect and I enjoyed mowing down the imps pouring out of the mouth, but after I triggered everything under the sun after shooting the eyes I decided to cut my losses and skedaddle. I don't usually do that but I like the change of pace of levels hard enough that I consider it. Thanks for the pistol, random demon! I don't care for tysony gameplay in general but I can appreciate 21 for what it was. Very impressively organic looking! Your odd style of music was particularly effective here as well. 22 was cool and the name made me laugh because I am a child. Meat-filled computers is a theme that is not explored enough I think! The view out the few windows into a huge cavern with hellish something-or-others hanging from it was a nice touch too, really ominous looking. It was nice finding Mr. Elevator again at the end.

Jumping back a bit, map 15 was one that gave me trouble. I had quite some difficulty with the spider mastermind until I realized I could bolt into the caco-hole and blast them in the ass with plasma while simultaneously hiding from spidey. A good concept executed well, and possibly the finest doom toilet I've ever seen. 31 was pretty difficult, not much room to maneuver on the stairs. I laughed while assassinating the poor toilet-imp.

I'll stop my rambling here. Seriously, this is something special - so many cool concepts! I can't conceive of this not getting a Cacoward.

I also think that the elevator should use a key card, same color on every map.

MAP25 vid. Loved this map, just like the majority.

cardboard42 said:

I don't think I've ever played a megawad with such a coherent sense of place and progression as this one, the elevator tying things together is really great.

Cheers man. I always enjoy megawads that try to tie the maps together into a whole adventure. Even the simple ornamental doors at the start of the original doom maps really helps add a sense of cohesion I feel.

joe-ilya said:

I also think that the elevator should use a key card, same color on every map.

Do you now.

Katamori said:

MAP25 vid.

Cheers for the video, funny you were blocked by one of the keens. I changed that with dehacked so they wouldn't block you, but not sure which version you are playing and when I changed it.

mouldy said:

Cheers for the video, funny you were blocked by one of the keens. I changed that with dehacked so they wouldn't block you, but not sure which version you are playing and when I changed it.

Never mind, not a huge problem. It was because I played in Boom compatibility mode - if I remember well...

MAP26.

Playing this megawad with the DW Megawad Club, I think I've found a bug:

scifista42 said:

MAP12 - "Dead End".

BUG ON HNTR - Lost Soul stuck in a Cacodemon. In the north-western side section, they're stuck in the middle one of those 3 poison columns.

scifista42 said:

Playing this megawad with the DW Megawad Club, I think I've found a bug:

aha, looks like a messed up difficulty flag, nice find

Here comes MAP27!

Spoilers below

First off, stellar mod. The amount of detail and style works perfectly together.

The music is highly unique and instantly became one of my favorite OST's of any Doom map set. As someone mentioned earlier, it has that sense of craziness with a slight pinch of mysteriousness to it that makes you feel more compelled to explore the map, at least in my experience. And how this quality comes through on songs like Pain Frame's where it starts up sounding like Doom electro or something but then it goes wonky later on. Excellent work.

You incorporated one of my favorite visual effects; glimpses into past places or levels. MAP 31 was brilliant on how it gave the player a strong sense of space in the world you created with your maps, and then finishing that off with MAP 32 starting with you off in that elevator found on MAP 01.

The ending struck me as hilarious for some reason. You start this map set outside of UAC's headquarters located somewhere on earth or mars or something, and then end it with Doom guy finding no surviving UAC members so he just blows it up. The humor in the mod in general was spot on.

One little nitpick though; some maps kept giving me a console warning or error about a BerserkToggle script that it couldn't execute properly. It sounds like the option in most modern ports that lets you switch from chainsaw to berserk fist but what does this have to do with it? Quite odd.

While this mod kicked my ass a few times (mainly because I pistol start everything), I could never get truly mad at it. Bravo Mouldy, for creating (imo) one of the best map sets of all time.

Platinum Shell said:

Bravo Mouldy, for creating (imo) one of the best map sets of all time.

High praise indeed, thanks for that! Regarding your strange console warning, I've no idea what could be causing that. I've not had any other reports about it so it might have to remain a mystery. Still, glad you enjoyed the wad.

Platinum Shell said:

One little nitpick though; some maps kept giving me a console warning or error about a BerserkToggle script that it couldn't execute properly.

Are you using any sort of mod (maybe autoloaded) in conjunction with GD? Like some sort of ZDoom auto-pistol-start mod?

Gez said:

Are you using any sort of mod (maybe autoloaded) in conjunction with GD? Like some sort of ZDoom auto-pistol-start mod?

I don't use auto load as it loads it in a set order that I can't change. Only thing I keep in ZDL's auto load (or my command line) would be the sprite fix mod, but I found out this weird berserk toggle thing that seemingly didn't affect game play was coming from Smooth Doom. I just don't know why, as idclev'ing to certain maps, such as 14 and 15 would display it, but other maps wouldn't.

Also Mouldy, the weird nazi mastermind boss in MAP 29 reminds me of the super nazi in MAP 30 of Kaiser's War 3.

Platinum Shell said:

I don't use auto load as it loads it in a set order that I can't change. Only thing I keep in ZDL's auto load (or my command line) would be the sprite fix mod, but I found out this weird berserk toggle thing that seemingly didn't affect game play was coming from Smooth Doom. I just don't know why, as idclev'ing to certain maps, such as 14 and 15 would display it, but other maps wouldn't.

Also Mouldy, the weird nazi mastermind boss in MAP 29 reminds me of the super nazi in MAP 30 of Kaiser's War 3.

If your sprite fix wad is the "Doom 2 Minor Sprite Fixing Project" one then I just tested that out with Going Down and it messes up the final boss if you load both wads in the wrong order, the sprite flickers between the mastermind and the ss nazi, dunno if thats what you are seeing... That probably goes for any other graphics mods that will conflict with the dehacked stuff in this one.

Shoot, forgot about that :D Thanks.

Small bug worth mentioning: in MAP 15, one (or possibly both) of the bloody coves to the left and right of the arena has a gap in the invisible barrier that lets a hell knight see you.