PSX Doom: The Lost Levels - New Pre-Beta Available courtesy of Salahmander2

Average said:

Ah, okay. I'll do that. Thanks for your help and thanks for a new build. I appreciate it. :)

Hey no worries, let me know if there are any bugs.

As I promised in the shitbook group, here's some nitpicks, primarily on the soundtrack, and some suggested alternatives. MajorRawne isn't around these days to do this job.

LOST02 - Slough of Despair
Current track: The Broken Ones (PSXMUS02)

It's one of my favourites of the PSX soundtrack. I'm sure that applies to many of us, but it feels really out of place in this map, and I believe that's because of the maps overall brightness.

Taking nearby map slots into consideration (that includes the hypothetical superturbomega edition, which I now have a maplist for), I'd say Corrupted (PSXMUS12) goes best here.

LOST07 - Downtown
This isn't actually a musical complaint, but the start position appears to be misplaced.

LOST08 - Industrial Zone
Current track: Mutation (PSXMUS08)

The other popular choice, and this stops fitting the map at the moment the strings come in. The close proximity to Dis is all the more reason for changing this. I initially thought A Calm Panic Rises (PSXMUS10) would suit it better, and it does, but sadly LOST10 uses this track, where it really can't be anything else. Too close together for repeats, so it needs something else.

Well this is difficult. Sanity's Edge (PSXMUS03) is the best I can come up with.

FINMUS09 and 10
Okay I think this must be an issue with the TC itself. Both these tracks are silent.

LOST25 - Stronghold
Current track: Steadfast Extermination (PSXMUS13)

First, I'd just like to say that I feel this level is too bright in a quite a few places. Secondly, I know this track was used on Refueling Base, but for me it's just too much of a hellish track to appear here. The Foulness Consumes (FINMUS06) stuck out to me as a nice alternative.

LOST28 - Steel Works
Current track: Corrupted (PSXMUS12)

It took me a while to determine if this felt out of place or not. I'm still not sure, but I think it's definitely worth considering Breath of Horror (PSXMUS09), and maybe even Lurkers (PSXMUS16).

LOST33 - Administration Centre
No player 1 start?

LOST34 - Habitat
Again we have some outdoor areas which I'd say are too bright (think it was only firesky maps where outdoor areas were full brightness). Didn't really feel the track fitted initially, but I could think of no alternatives, so maybe it's ok.

LOST35 - Baron's Den
Current track: Beyond Fear (PSXMUS14)

I'm very concious of the fact that if the super turbo edition becomes a thing, this'll be coming right after Quarry, which also uses this track. I know that's less relevant, but it would irk me in such a case.

My idea, since Den and Lair are synonymous, give this the same track as Baron's Lair, which is Creeping Brutality (PSXMUS17). It feels quite suitable for the map to me.

LOST36 and 37 - Mount Pain and River Styx
I think these should be fire sky maps. The tracks will fit even better, and it'll fit in better with the progression of the original TNT PSX maps, where we had fire sky introduced on Ballistyx.

LOST39 - Caged
Current track: Creeping Brutality (PSXMUS17)

It's not that it doesn't fit. It does, but in the hypothetical turbo super edition of PSXDoom, this'll be pretty close to Baron's Lair. Additionally, this map is also an opportunity for Twisted Beyond Reason (PSXMUS19) to get some love, it's been very underused in Lost Levels.

LOST43 - Hunted
Current track: Sanity's Edge (PSXMUS03)

I could've gone past this and not given it a second thought. But maybe it's just slightly too close to LOST46 to be used here. I'd say this is the one that should have a different track assigned to it, and my suggestion would be Hopeless Despair (PSXMUS20).

Later plutonia sky inconsistency
Temple of Darkness has a firesky, none of the others do. Personally I'd have though the firesky should start appearing at that stage in an episode. If this is done, I'm going to suggest (yet again) that Odyssey of Noises uses In the Grip of Madness (PSXMUS15). If not, 14 works as is.

Also worth noting that OoN also has the player start in the wrong place.

Icon of Sin (LOST61) and The Sewers (LOST59)

Same track (PSXMUS13). Too close together, so at least one needs to change. I think Sewers might be a decent opportunity to use The Slow Demonic Pulse (PSXMUS11).

LOST64 - Fear
Phobos sky? Really?


Anyway, I think that is all.

Hey Salahmander2, thanks for putting up a new version! I'm still not feeling much motivation to work on this project (although the Doom itch is starting to come back -- played a bit over the weekend), so it's really appreciated that you've taken the reigns and are making improvements. I've updated the link in the first post to point to your post and updated the title to draw a little more attention to the thread.

Thanks again for all your contributions to the project!

-edit-

Eris Falling said:

LOST64 - Fear[/B]
Phobos sky? Really?

Fear has always been an E1/Phobos homage, it seemed appropriate. PSX Doom didn't have to limit skies to episodes, after all.

Salahmander2 said:

Hey no worries, let me know if there are any bugs.

Will do. :)

Dragonsbrethren said:

Hey Salahmander2, thanks for putting up a new version! I'm still not feeling much motivation to work on this project (although the Doom itch is starting to come back -- played a bit over the weekend), so it's really appreciated that you've taken the reigns and are making improvements. I've updated the link in the first post to point to your post and updated the title to draw a little more attention to the thread.

Thanks again for all your contributions to the project!

Hey no worries, glad I made some major progress with it, just a couple of things though, would you say it's pretty much a full fledged beta now? And secondly, what do you want me to do with Castle and Escape? Not sure if the Baron is working on them, he hasn't been on DW recently either, I left them both just in case he is.

If you feel it's far enough along to call it a beta, I'll change the thread title. Personally I think for Castle and Escape, it's probably not a bad idea to take care of those now -- if Baron does submit his own modifications, we can always use those instead.

Dragonsbrethren said:

If you feel it's far enough along to call it a beta, I'll change the thread title. Personally I think for Castle and Escape, it's probably not a bad idea to take care of those now -- if Baron does submit his own modifications, we can always use those instead.

That shouldn't be a problem. I'm still certain he is re-splitting the Icon maps however.

wow this is a shitload of gameplay

New version, implemented fixes and suggestions from Eris Falling. Link is in the OP which links to the post with the new link.

Eris Falling said:

Icon of Sin (LOST61) and The Sewers (LOST59)

I assume you mean the Plutonia Sewers. Those maps should get some name differences..

For the turbo edition, I think there needs to be some distinction between the two central processings as well.

I have a first draft of the map list, and I did take it into account for the music suggestsions, just to be on the safe side. It contains a rather glorious 160 maps.

Most of it is pretty much what you'd expect, but I've put Dis at the end of E4 (MAP35), so it will follow Threshold of Pain and precede Entryway.
PC Hell Keep comes before its PSX counterpart, but still after Hell Gate.
Lost master levels just fit in alphabetically with the stock ones. I might make some small changes for difficulty's sake (as Williams themselves did with Virgil and Combine).
Onslaught and the Death Domain appear the correct way around. That's pretty much it I think.

Pretty sure Master Levels was already covered a long while back, both in regards to superturboultra edition and LL, using a mix of PSX style and the "official" ordering from the PSN release, which grouped all 21 together as a continuous episode.

Hangar and TNT's "Hanger" are also guilty of the name thing.

I'll probably take a look at this again when im home from my mountain vacation (and have finished looking at all the Revilution stuff that piled up while I was busy moving house), but I'm not the kind of person that will notice monster point limits (Which have been revealed to not have been static) or texture use etc, just general "this shit is broken" stuff. I really want LL to be "done" and released.

I need to rediscover my motivation and wrap my contributions up.

Shit shit shit shit! There is a unwinnable situation in Industrial Zone, somehow one of the teleports has been deleted and no surprise, it's an important one. So uploading a new Lost Levels PK3, it has other changes as well and some minor fixes.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/edh8wy99uyaxavh/PSXLOST.PK3

I think River Styx and Mount Pain will need their outer sectors fullbrighting since they now use firesky. Fortunately not the time-consuming task one might expect.

EDIT: I also notcied massive homs around sky borders on River Styx on Dead Zone, but that might be a software renderer thing. Also gonna repeat that Habitat's outdoor areas are too bright, as is Stronghold in general.

Eris Falling said:

EDIT: I also notcied massive homs around sky borders on River Styx on Dead Zone, but that might be a software renderer thing.

One of these days I will edit PSXDOOM to make it a Software render friendly experience (for me and all the other non-GL peasants who can't upgrade) by editing the light levels and fixing certain HOMs because it is really hard to work with when my "computer" is basically a toaster.

[QUOTE]Salahmander2 said:
Shit shit shit shit! There is a unwinnable situation in Industrial Zone, somehow one of the teleports has been deleted and no surprise, it's an important one. So uploading a new Lost Levels PK3, it has other changes as well and some minor fixes.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/edh8wy99uyaxavh/PSXLOST.PK3 [/QUOTE

Oh, geez...

But thx for this new pre-beta :)

Blimey, I played this through last winter and it's still under development? The maps seemed finished to my (untrained) eye. Still, congratulations to all involved, this is a hell of a project.

Finally figured out why Mephisto wasn't loading, it turns out Megamur left the MAPINFO in the lost17.WAD, will upload a new version later.

MajorRawne said:

Blimey, I played this through last winter and it's still under development? The maps seemed finished to my (untrained) eye. Still, congratulations to all involved, this is a hell of a project.

Look on the bright side -- maybe it'll get a Mordeth award when it's finished.

Seriously though, I'm sorry it's taken so long, my motivation to work on it just completely ran out a while back and I didn't even touch Doom for months. I'm so glad Salahmander has taken over and is fixing it up.

You guys still have your "unreleased Midway maps" to make too.

And then theres the child projects for NRFTL and D64, the latter which is waiting for two projects ;p

Isn't it great having long drawn out project goals?

I think it's great when project won't beat the DNF record ;)

Anyway, I think that project was finished few months ago, we just waiting for something unusual, I think.

Anyway, Salahmander2 - keep it up! I think you would be the releaser of this project :)

Personally I think Hanger should use SKY08. Seems to fit much better than SKY04 and indeed the sky from the original map.

As a software renderer user, in the original PSX maps, I can't see a single thing in areas that aren't lit by anything. It doesn't seem to be the case with many of the lost levels, so I'm wondering if maybe the authenticity there is off a bit. Or perhaps it's different in OpenGL.

Eris Falling said:

As a software renderer user, in the original PSX maps, I can't see a single thing in areas that aren't lit by anything. It doesn't seem to be the case with many of the lost levels, so I'm wondering if maybe the authenticity there is off a bit. Or perhaps it's different in OpenGL.

It is different in GL. Try increasing the R_Visibility variable, the default is 8. Speaking of which, GZDoom should be responsive to that variable when the software style lighting is used, but it isn't.

Open Season shares the same music as Steel Works, which one should be replaced, and which music to use instead?

This post may get updated with more of the above.

Sure it's an issue? There's 5 maps between them. I thought that would be enough to make any repetition unnoticeable.

EDIT: For the record, those maps are also the only 2 uses of PSXMUS16 in the whole of lost levels.

I suppose it isn't too much of a big deal to be fair.

For Open Season - you can use PSXMUS04.

Good thing I am playtesting this, there are an awful amount of bugs in the TNT levels, up to Admin Centre, and 100% all on HMP.

Edit: My god, the amount of unwinnible situations is fucking insane!

I think my map used that track before Steelworks was out, I think Stealworks music should be replaced but you do have to realize maps shared the same music in the original PSX Doom also.