Gotterdammerung

This is not my first attempt at a Doom level, but it is the first I've uploaded. It's called 'Frontier Base' and is the fourth map from a forthcoming eight level wad called 'Gotterdammerung', most of which has been built. It also has an elaborate (overly elaborate, some might say) storyline, which you can read below, if you have five hours to spare.

I built this map (and the Wad from which it's taken) with Plutonia. I would also suggest you play it with the Playstation sound effects and music (as well as GZDoom lighting). Everyone has their own opinion on this, but to me, PSX Final Doom is the defining version of the game, and I tried to build Gotterdammerung in its spirit (which I take to be more sinister, polished and technically more limited than the more frivolous and flexible PC version).

I hope you enjoy it. Any honest opinions, including criticism, would be welcome.

4shared.com/file/jJm27QF7/Map_4_Frontier_Base.html

And some images from Gotterdammerung:
http://postimg.org/image/ry3zer1jl/
http://postimg.org/image/hzpo94ne5/
http://postimg.org/image/xsnf8khnt/
http://postimg.org/image/d774pkuw3/

STORYLINE
In February 1945, with the Third Reich teetering on the brink of destruction, Nazi atomic scientists successfully opened the gates to Hell. In exchange for the survival of his evil empire, the increasingly unhinged Fuhrer entered into an unholy alliance with the emerging Hell spawn. An infernal combination of SS troops and demonic mutants proceeded to crush the Allied armies and re-establish Nazi Germany’s dominance in Europe. From then on began the darkest era in human history, presided over by the Fuhrer and his possessed minions in conjunction with the inhabitants of the deepest reaches of Hell.

The year is 1995. Nazi forces are in the Far East, fighting the final phase of their war to subjugate the entire human race. However,
free humans the world over have made their task difficult. A small band of rebels still holds out against the combined might of the SS
and the Hellspawn, living by their wits in the jungles of Burma. But it won’t be long before a combination of alien technology and Nazi
ruthlessness puts an end to their valiant resistance once and for all.

You are in occupied Europe, an American marine taken prisoner during the final collapse of the United States some years ago. You’ve spent
the last few years in ‘protective custody’, eking out an existence in a dingy SS prison cell. But there are rumours afoot that soon you’ll
be ‘transferred east’. God knows what awaits you there, but if the chilling rumours of mass graves and gas chambers are anything to go by, it won’t be pleasant. So you resolve not to go quietly. The night before you’re due to be transferred, a nervous looking conscript brings a final, derisory tray of stale bread and water to your cell. Mustering your final ounce of strength, you attack him as he turns to leave. He’s green, surprised, and within 30 seconds broken-necked and twitching at your feet. You take his gun, the key to the cell and venture out into the corridor of the prison.

Your mission is to escape captivity and make your way through occupied Europe to the SS teleportation centre in Nuremberg. From there,
maybe you can beam directly over to South East Asia – the final front in the Nazi war of conquest – and link up with the rebels. Your
only chance is to find the gateway to Hell, through which the Nazis are importing the alien troops and technology giving them the decisive
advantage in this war. If you can make it to Hell you can strike at the heart of the evil alliance and derail the Nazi vision forever…

PART 1: ESCAPE FROM EUROPE

MAP 01: PROTECTIVE CUSTODY
You’re armed again at last, but first you need to make it out of the SS prison alive. There are only a few high ranking officers here,
but their demonic guard dogs are along for the ride too.

MAP 02: CHEMICAL WEAPONS PLANT
The Nazis have used chemical weapons indiscriminately against combatant and civilian populations across the globe for over 50 years.
This is the kind of place where they’re produced. Time for vengeance.

MAP 03: SS TELEPORTATION CENTRE
It’s from this building that Nazi manpower and munitions are exported to the jungles of South East Asia to crush the rebels once and for all.
You need to jump into that teleporter. But watch out. It takes brains to manage this kind of demonic technology, and not just yours.

PART 2: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

MAP 04: FRONTIER OUTPOST
Welcome to Burma. The austere, stone walled SS outpost here was built some 50 years ago and has been under constant attack from the
rebels ever since. Fight your way through the cellars and storage rooms and out into the jungle itself.

Map 05: THE RIVER CAVES
You've escaped the SS outpost; now you need to negotiate a labyrinth of subterranean river caves beneath the complex if you want to make it to the gateway to hell and foil the Nazis' infernal plans forever.

Map 06: FORGOTTEN CITY
Rumour has it that Nazis are teleporting the hellspawn directly into this abandoned pagan temple deep in the jungles of Burma. And beware; this territory is still a warzone, so you can expect to meet both the Fuhrer's and Hell's finest down here.


PART 3: TARTARUS

Map 07: GETHSEMANE
You've fought your way through occupied Europe and the jungles of Burma. Now it's time for you to do a little invading and occupying of your own in the belly of the beast itself - Tartarus

Map 08: VALHALLA
If you can exterminate the highest ranking demons colluding with the Nazis, you can smash the Fuehrer's demented dreams of a thousand year Reich forever and restore humanity to freedom.

Here are the true screenshots.

http://s8.postimg.org/dewudc8et/Screenshot_Doom_20130321_164533.png
http://s22.postimg.org/ip8glhnxt/Screenshot_Doom_20130321_164627.png
http://s4.postimg.org/yi67kxi7h/Screenshot_Doom_20130321_164807.png
http://s21.postimg.org/nh9jotkrr/Screenshot_Doom_20130321_164857.png

Can you please upload the wad to a site that don't force me to register to download? For example speedyshare.com? The screenshots looks interesting and I'd like to play it.

Great to see more and more new mappers coming in. Those screenshots look great but may I recommend this for wad uploading? http://files.drdteam.org/

Thanks for the help gentlemen. And sorry about that - I'm relatively new to this.

http://speedy.sh/XsGKT/Map-4.-Frontier-Base.wad

BloodyAcid, why only one of your screenshots (the 3rd one) is actually from this map?

Anyway I just played through this and will write a little review soon.

(sorry for doublepost, I've been writing this a long time and expected that some posts will pass before I click "Post reply")

Well, this is quite interesting map. Has many good ideas in it but also several glitches. I didn't read the storyline description before I played, but after I read it, I'm delighted that I haven't encountered any nazi soldiers :)

First the visuals. Here is your strong part. Although maybe too symmetrical, everything looks great. Varied texturing and even your work with light seems professional-like, which is very uncommon for novices.

Then gameplay. Here it starts getting worse. You still need to improve your feel for balance and difficulty. Honestly, the start is immoderately hard. Now don't get me wrong, it's a challenge and definitely it's possible, especially if you have weapons from previous levels. But it took me about ten attempts before I finally survived all the chaingunners. I think a situation like that may happen, but not immediately after the start. Then you prepared many other situations that gave me trouble. Some of them were interesting fights, but for example the trap where six mancubuses encircled me was too much.

Secrets. I really liked the one with pushing switches and running from door to door. On the other hand, I didn't find the way to the secret behind the start. The secret looks like it could be accessed by a teleporter, but none of the teleporters I've found (with cheats) took me there. Maybe I'm just not attentive enough, in that case I would say it's good. I also still cannot find out what are the shootable switches for.

There are still many details in your map that indicate that you're new to mapping and don't know the commonly keeped mapping traditions. Here I would give you some tips how to adjust your map so they would fit these traditions. Only if you want, of course, since it isn't at all bad if you have your own specific style, and personally I like the yours. You should only know that majority of players are accustomized to these traditions.

• The lines on the sides of doors are usually flagged as lower-unpegged. It makes them not slide up and down when the doors are moving.
  
• It isn't common, especially in relatively smaller maps, to place the same powerful weapons in the map and particularly near each other (like what you did with the super-shotguns).
  
• Chaingun guys don't belong to large open spaces.
  
• Pain elementals are generally considered to be annoying bastards. Player's won't be happy if they encounter more than three at once, although I liked that particular fight.
  
• Absolute symmetry is in many cases a sign of a non-quality map from a beginner. Not in yours, symmetry in your map isn't absolute, but still I would recommend to use it less.
  
• Now this is not very important, but silver doors aren't usually directly openable, they're either permanently locked or remotely opened. However less and less mappers follows this rule (me too) and it's no big mistake.
  
• The bright slime is usually damaging. But that's similar case to the previous one.
  
• Teleport pads are expected to teleport you.
  
• Textures don't tile properly if they aren't 128 tall but are used on higher walls than their height. Exit doors are common case where this bug occurs and your one has it too.
  

I also found HOMs (Hall Of Mirrors, visual bug) right above the two main wooden pillars in front of exit door.

You proved a lot of patience when making those lots of spectre closets in the severs. But unfortunately, you can't expect the players to have the patience to chainsaw all of them and then explore all of the closets to eat ammo from them. Sorry that I have to say it this way, but this is the point where the game becomes a little tiresome.

However, despite what I've said earlier, the map is actually mostly fun to play, fun to explore. Definitely challenging, only sometimes annoying (for a pistol starter), but after you release the whole mapset (I'm looking forward to it) and players will play the map equipped from previous levels, I believe it'll feel better. And I like how successfully you blended the Wolf textures with the standard ones, I wouldn't believe it may result so good. All in all, your map has strengths and weaknesses, but I like what you did there.

The map looks interesting......

scifista42 said:

BloodyAcid, why only one of your screenshots (the 3rd one) is actually from this map?

The first is probably from MAP01 "Protective Custody" (which hasn't been released yet), don't know where the second and last pics are from.

Scifista, first, let me say how grateful I am for your detailed and articulate review. I'm glad that, on the whole, you seemed to like the level, but more than that I appreciate the criticism which should make for an improvement in the Wad when it's finally released.

Let me try to address some of the criticism.

"Then gameplay. Here it starts getting worse. You still need to improve your feel for balance and difficulty. Honestly, the start is immoderately hard. Now don't get me wrong, it's a challenge and definitely it's possible, especially if you have weapons from previous levels. But it took me about ten attempts before I finally survived all the chaingunners."

You're right - in the final wad, this part will be easier because the player will be armed with most of the weapons. Also, to be honest, I was able to do it. I want the player to be challenged, because I know how sophisticated some current Doom players are. This goes also for the Mancubus part - I developed a strategy that seemed to work every time. My standard is, if I can do it, then I should leave it in the map, because I am definitely not the best Doomer in the world (I can't even use the mouse).

"Secrets. I really liked the one with pushing switches and running from door to door. On the other hand, I didn't find the way to the secret behind the start. The secret looks like it could be accessed by a teleporter, but none of the teleporters I've found (with cheats) took me there. Maybe I'm just not attentive enough, in that case I would say it's good. I also still cannot find out what are the shootable switches for."

I agree that some of the secrets are maybe a bit too difficult. I plan to amend this for the final release.

Most of your suggestions about 'traditions' are gratefully received and will be incorporated into the final map. However,

"Chaingun guys don't belong to large open spaces."

I think they work quite effectively as annoying snipers in open spaces.

"Pain elementals are generally considered to be annoying bastards. Player's won't be happy if they encounter more than three at once, although I liked that particular fight."

I plan to keep them, precisely because they're a pain in the ass.

"Absolute symmetry is in many cases a sign of a non-quality map from a beginner. Not in yours, symmetry in your map isn't absolute, but still I would recommend to use it less."

I accept this - maybe I'm lazy.

"You proved a lot of patience when making those lots of spectre closets in the severs. But unfortunately, you can't expect the players to have the patience to chainsaw all of them and then explore all of the closets to eat ammo from them."

I agree with that too - it is kind of formulaic. It might be better if the enemies in question were sergeants.

Again, it may be easier to judge the difficulty of the map once the full set is released (which should be in May). But a lot of your suggestions will be incorporated and I am, again, extremely grateful to you for making them.