Miscellaneous demos (part 1) [please post in part 3 instead]

Hitherto said:

Btw, on my knowledge you are only one tysoner among the keyboarders.

Also, gggmork does much tysoning in his feckyoo demos.

Haven't done any demos in a short time! Now I've come out of my lazy zone to produce some more.

Whispers of Satan map28 in 8:46.

That sniping Mancubi totally cost me a lot of time.

wos28-826.zip

revbfeld.wad (see /newstuff #372) UV Max in 20:41

Not really a good demo, but I couldn't help myself after reading the usual naysayers shouting "jokemap ! unplayable ! garbage !" as soon as there's more than 2 zombiemen and 1 imp in a fight.

revb-2041.zip

revbfeld UV Max in 16:58

Using what I think is a better strategy (clearing the revenants on top first as they're the most dangerous) and being more aggressive at the maze (although still not enough during the cybie part).

revb-1658.zip

2002ADO
First episode UV Run (= UV Speed Movie) in 18:00, E1M8 included

and a little bonus
E1M2 (Helicopter Bay by Kristian Aro) NM100 in 2:58

ep1run.zip

Why do they still haunt me?

I already ran through their spaceship, blew it up, and went home.

Yet, every night, I lie awake, and I hear their ghastly murmur...

I must go back. They must die. THEY MUST ALL DIE!

I pray that then, at last, I shall be free...


equinox.wad MAP10 UV MAX in 5:28, 7:24 faster than the previous record.

eq10-528.zip

Creaphis said:
equinox.wad MAP10 UV MAX in 5:28, 7:24 faster than the previous record.

You'll probably never cease to amaze me.
eq07-257
eq10-248
eq13-551
eq13-507
eq12-243
and now this...
It would be an insult to you to call these demos just "excellent".
These maps look so easy in your demos... Yeah, just run past 40 arch-viles, grab the BFG and return to kill them - as simple as that.

vdgg said:

You'll probably never cease to amaze me.

Thanks a lot! I'm glad you're enjoying these.

vdgg said:

These maps look so easy in your demos... Yeah, just run past 40 arch-viles, grab the BFG and return to kill them - as simple as that.

That's a funny thing about all demos. The only demos that get published are the ones that end in victory, so when you watch a demo you can be absolutely certain that the player will succeed. It's easy to forget that, when the run was recorded, the speedrunner was not at all certain that this one attempt, of many, would be the good one.

Try watching my demos with turn-smoothing turned off. My frantic twitching should make the struggle more obvious.

Creaphis said:

That's a funny thing about all demos. The only demos that get published are the ones that end in victory, so when you watch a demo you can be absolutely certain that the player will succeed. It's easy to forget that, when the run was recorded, the speedrunner was not at all certain that this one attempt, of many, would be the good one.

I remember a finished 30nm where I got knocked into the moat on map14 by an arch-vile and ended up around 5% health. I was sure I was dead, but you never know.

I've had a change of heart.

Archviles are not actually eldritch abominations, bent upon my physical and spiritual destruction.

They're big, lovable, jagged and dessicated snugglebunnies, and I don't want to harm one square inch of their pasty hide.

I'm still going to blow up their spaceship, though.

equinox.wad MAP10 UV PACIFIST in 2:54.


Honestly, there isn't much in this demo that isn't already in my SPEED and MAX runs, and its status as a true PACIFIST demo could be debated, but I knew I'd be able to record this run with all the experience I've had on this map, so I did. Do with it what you will.

eq10p254.zip

revbfeld max 11:21

TimeOfDeath said:

revbfeld max 11:21

I liked it - COOL :)

TimeOfDeath said:

revbfeld max 11:21

I knew we could count on you.

TimeOfDeath said:

revbfeld max 11:21

Heh you never cease to amaze me with your insane max runs :D

2002ADO
Second episode UV Run in 23:58, E2M8 included

+

E2M1 (Station Alpha by Paul Corfiatis) UV Speed in 1:10
E2M1 (Station Alpha by Paul Corfiatis) NM100 in 2:18
E2M6 (Between Demons n' Insects by Rory Habich) UV Speed in 1:43
E2M6 (Between Demons n' Insects by Rory Habich) UV Max in 7:44

I must have switched personalities with dew, who records Maxes now with some Tyson action as well :)

ep2run.zip

Got bored and decided to a crappy UV-Speed for my happy birthday map (thanks 40oz!). Wad can be found here for now.

hbs-027.zip

Creaphis said:
Honestly, there isn't much in this demo that isn't already in my SPEED and MAX runs, and its status as a true PACIFIST demo could be debated, but I knew I'd be able to record this run with all the experience I've had on this map, so I did. Do with it what you will.

Good question because it could be argued that the final boss is a "monster" because it looks like a monster and because in a way it attacks the player character, by generating true monsters against it. In this case, the vulnerable part of the boss (Romero's head) has just been used as an "exit switch" that doesn't do anything against the protagonist, with a cool effect attached to it. Thus, I would say it is a legit pacifist.

Firing a weapon and thereby causing direct damage to any monster is something that definitely invalidates a pacifist run. That would include firing a weapon at a boss brain (Romero's head).

But pressing switches, activating linedef actions and entering teleporters can all cause deaths that come into the gray areas of the pacifist category. Traditionally, they have been considered OK as long as they are things that are necessary to complete the level and are not abused specifically in order to kill monsters (i.e. the main purpose of doing the action should be to reach the exit). That is clearly the case here - I have no problem with this being regarded as a legitimate pacifist, and believe that there are sufficient precedents for that to be fairly clear-cut.

One of the more notable cases for comparison are the e4m2 secret exit pacifist runs at compet-n where the telefrag of the cyber is considered perfectly OK. An even clearer precedent is ks21, which also has an "exit" switch that kills a boss brain.

myk said:

Good question because it could be argued that the final boss is a "monster" because it looks like a monster and because in a way it attacks the player character, by generating true monsters against it. In this case, the vulnerable part of the boss (Romero's head) has just been used as an "exit switch" that doesn't do anything against the protagonist, with a cool effect attached to it.

I thought about using the level's plot as a justification - a spaceship is merely an inanimate object after all - but I figured that such a subjective notion isn't the right tool to use when categorizing speedruns.

Besides, the very act of speedrunning a game strips away all importance from the game's plot and setting, so they can't be considered authorities later. I actually felt some cognitive dissonance while running these levels by B.R.P.D, especially when running Grove, because I admire these levels mainly for their setting and atmosphere. Reducing them to a bundle of things and linedefs to be navigated as quickly as possible is doing violence to them. I had to isolate the speedrunner in me from the aesthete to keep from feeling uncomfortable.

Grazza said:

Firing a weapon and thereby causing direct damage to any monster is something that definitely invalidates a pacifist run. That would include firing a weapon at a boss brain (Romero's head).

But pressing switches, activating linedef actions and entering teleporters can all come into the gray areas of the pacifist category. Traditionally, they have been considered OK (even if monsters die as an indirect result) as long as they are things that are necessary to complete the level and are not abused in order to kill monsters (i.e. the main purpose of doing the action should be to reach the exit).

Thanks, this seems like a good yardstick.

I'm pleased you found that useful. I've edited my post in an attempt to clarify that pressing switches, activating linedefs and entering teleporters (whether necessary or not to exit) is never a problem when monsters aren't killed - the "gray area" only exists if monsters are killed as a result. (Kind of obvious, of course...)

Creaphis said:
Besides, the very act of speedrunning a game strips away all importance from the game's plot and setting, so they can't be considered authorities later.

Not entirely; which is what I meant with the final boss not really being a monster yet being treated as such in this respect. I think the plot (and its visual elements) did play some role: Had it been a big computer instead of a demonic head, perhaps early runners would have considered using rockets against it valid in pacifist runs. If a mod is hacked (with or without DeHackEd) when does a thing that isn't strictly a monster stop being a "monster" and become a "switch"?

And if a mod uses a crusher-death as the common way to kill a boss, considering that viable in pacifist may make other more creative and less direct ways to get the boss killed wasted, so I think these things can vary with the nature of the level set, at least to make pacifist more interesting and distinctive from speed.

Revenge of the Reviving Angry Imps UVspeed 0:18
Exe: prboom-plus 2.5.0.7

A bitch to speedrun due getting killed by the archvile during several attempts(and I made the damn map). Got lucky when all 8 imps from the starting room was out and kill the demon quicker before getting blasted to death.

philhbc-018.zip

revbfeld max 10:34

TimeOfDeath said:

revbfeld max 10:34

I dare you to do a -solo-net demo of it. :)

Another one bites the dust...

2002ADO
Third episode UV Run in 31:51

+

E2M2 (Station Beta by Chris Hansen) UV Max in 5:58
E3M6 (Obituary Written by Chris Hansen) Anti-Sherlock with 100% kills in 9:25
E4M1 (Play School by Paul Corfiatis) UV -fast in 1:39

ep3run.zip

Jodwin said:

I dare you to do a -solo-net demo of it. :)

The extra revs make it unplayable on my computer because of low fps :( but I might edit the map and remove the rocket ammo, and change the rev death frame to the lost soul death frame (so it doesn't leave a corpse) for all the revs that can't be revived.

Philnemba said:
Revenge of the Reviving Angry Imps

Your WAD has a 0-size REJECT lump. This makes any demos a PrBoom+ exclusive, because it repairs the lump its own way on the fly. (They would desynch even on the engine that recorded them, without such a fix.) If you replace the lump with the one included in the attached ZIP file, your 18-second demo works with any Boom compatible engine and still plays back with PrBoom+ as usual.

philhbc_fix.zip

My demo watching (let alone recording) time is rather limited ATM, so I'd just like to single out vdgg's 2002ADO speedruns for now. Not to say that the other demos posted in the past couple of weeks are any worse, of course; I just have a soft spot for movie runs. ;) Thank you, these were very enjoyable - and best of all, apparently all vanilla-compatible, despite the WAD being in the /Ports section! At least Choco so far played every one to the end, on low detail. Looking forward to ep4, whenever it's done ... and some time to watch all four in a row.

myk said:

Your WAD has a 0-size REJECT lump.

It would be interesting to know whether DB2 or the user was the culprit. I thought maps with bad REJECT lumps became a rarity around 1995.

Never_Again said:

It would be interesting to know whether DB2 or the user was the culprit. I thought maps with bad REJECT lumps became a rarity around 1995.

I think he used ZDBSP to build the nodes. By default, ZDBSP doesn't build a REJECT lump, opting to leave it at zero bytes since (G)ZDoom (which uses ZDBSP as its internal nodebuilder) can run such a level just fine. You have to specify --zero-reject or -R at the command line in order for it to build one. The other nodebuilders available with Doom Builder 2 build REJECT lumps by default.

myk said:

Your WAD has a 0-size REJECT lump. This makes any demos a PrBoom+ exclusive, because it repairs the lump its own way on the fly. (They would desynch even on the engine that recorded them, without such a fix.) If you replace the lump with the one included in the attached ZIP file, your 18-second demo works with any Boom compatible engine and still plays back with PrBoom+ as usual.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention since I never bother looking at these soft of things. I merge the lump with the wad file using slumped and going to email it to Andy to update it on DSDA.

To The Green Herring: thanks for the info about ZDBSP since thats what I
usually use on Doombuilder 2.