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Steve D

New Hellish Tech Map -- public beta

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Plays in Map07 slot. Get it here; http://www.mediafire.com/download/t4bkp2brltzt14v/DWTMor.wad

Dark, creepy tech base that is falling apart thanks to -- of course! -- an invasion from hell. This map was done last February/March by myself and PhantomTMac for The Doomworld Team Map Making Project. Alas, that project ended up stillborn, so we're releasing our maps now. This is the first to go up, since our hell map is intended for a small mapset by ex-TMMP members. I may put it up tomorrow for preliminary testing, however.

The intended compatibility of the TMMP is -complevel 17, so no consideration has been given to -complevel 2 or vanilla compatibility. However, no special Boom features are used, so if anyone wishes to test/FDA in -cl 2, or test vanilla compatibility, they are free to do so and we'd be interested in hearing your results. I typically play this on Risen3D with default settings, and -complevel 9 will be fine if you use PRBoom.

A couple pics below. Rest assured, there's no Icon of Sin in this map. And credit to Antoni Chan for the Baphomet from Map25 of Realm of Chaos. I'm still a Chan Fan after all these years.



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I think I'm just going to wait for the next gameplay update to Shotgun Symphony before giving that a go. In the meantime, here's an FDA in GZDoom 1.8.02 for this one:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1238925

If you put it in the same folder as the wad, you should be able to ctrl-click them both and then drag them onto gzdoom.exe and it will hopefully work. I'm sure ZDL supports demo playback too but I've never used it so I can't help you there...

I use freelook so there's a bit of semi-cheating long-distance sniping going on. Also I was playing really jittery tonight, hope you don't get motion sickness :p

Level is good, lots of traps to keep you on your toes. The Baphomet room looks great but sadly I didn't last long in there... I wouldn't normally play a level as large as this without saving at all.

I feel like there could be just a little more ammo at the start? Unless I missed some. Had to punch out some spectres, but once I got going ammo wasn't too much of a problem.

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Those screenshots look pretty impressive, I like abstract Doom art - downloading this one now :)

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Pretty fun, got to about the area in the second screenshot before dying on my first attempt; stopped there. Only complaint is that some of the gradient lighting looks a little obtuse, especially the big ones coming from some of the computer panels. That and the sparseness of ammo - felt like I was forced to using nothing but shells for most of it, then ran out and was given nothing but bullets. But those are small complaints.

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plums said:

Level is good, lots of traps to keep you on your toes. The Baphomet room looks great but sadly I didn't last long in there... I wouldn't normally play a level as large as this without saving at all.

I feel like there could be just a little more ammo at the start? Unless I missed some. Had to punch out some spectres, but once I got going ammo wasn't too much of a problem.


Thanks, plums! Ammo is indeed a little tight. Difficulty is pitched towards stressing the player a bit by the standards of a traditional map. Usually, ammo starvation will be felt in the western spoke off the hub, where the blue and red keys are located. The monster count is lower there, but so is the shell count. ;)

I usually die trying to get the rocket launcher or when teleporting back from the Baphomet room.

Your demo instructions worked, but unfortunately, the demo goes out of sync, and instead of walking out on the platform over nukage in the hub room, you leap into the nukage and die. I downloaded a new copy of GZDoom 1.8.02 and put it in a new folder, but the same thing happened. Bummer, because the demo was going good until then. I tried putting a -playdemo command line entry in ZDL, too, but that didn't work at all.

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Magnusblitz said:

Pretty fun, got to about the area in the second screenshot before dying on my first attempt; stopped there. Only complaint is that some of the gradient lighting looks a little obtuse, especially the big ones coming from some of the computer panels. That and the sparseness of ammo - felt like I was forced to using nothing but shells for most of it, then ran out and was given nothing but bullets. But those are small complaints.


We went with a lot of cast gradient lighting to get away with some deeper darkness here and there. My partner was more consistent with that than I was. On the ammo front, did you get the rocket launcher? There's no way I'd survive all the Revvies/Chaingunners in the area you mentioned without it, to say nothing of that Archie.

Hmmm, just noticed that there's no difficulty settings in this map. Oops! Looks like I have a project for tomorrow. ;D

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I played this in Zandronum, using saves, which eventually showed to be a good choice over demo-recording in PrBoom, as I died many times along the way, mostly due to mistakes of me unconcentrated.

I really enjoyed the map. I was pleased by the space-y and extensive layout, thematic setting, orthogonality used as a feature, height variation and well done light work, as well as the not-intense yet not-slow gameplay. Actually, I once (months ago) attempted to create a map in nearly exactly this kind of style, described above. My "vision" was something similar as what you've created, I was only doing it with supposed inspiration by Wrack. In fact, I can see Wrack-like elements all throughout your map, although not as strong as I planned them for my map. I haven't got far with my map and abandoned it after designing just a few areas. Now I see I couldn't ever done it as good as your result is. Congratulations, the map is great!

I haven't run into problems which I didn't cause myself by uncareful playing. At times I was low at health (and in the first secret with blue armor, I would have appreciated a health powerup more), but it just made for a tight-survival excitement, which I enjoyed too (in the forthcoming metal maze). I didn't have any problems with ammo though. Found 3/6 secrets. I liked the optional areas like the huge landing courtyard (was it optional, wasn't it?). I also appreciate the weapon progression. The map actually forced me to strategically use the rocket launcher in certain places, good job on this!

As I said, orthogonality (and also linearity) are actually employed in a good way in this map, creating a coherent style, easy navigation and a nice look. Even after I reached the exit, I could backtrack through the map and kill some remaining monsters here and there, without getting lost at all.

Overally I like the map a lot. Thanks for releasing it, I am glad for the experience I had with it! :)


EDIT: The only problem you may take into consideration is the alignment of the exit door's front side.

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SteveD said:

Your demo instructions worked, but unfortunately, the demo goes out of sync, and instead of walking out on the platform over nukage in the hub room, you leap into the nukage and die.


Too bad. I guess I'll use PrB+ for Shotgun Symphony. Anyhow I didn't really come across any major bugs or serious gameplay issues, apart from maybe the two revenants outside guarding the rocket launcher: you can easily and safely chaingun-tap them to death while standing behind the tree, which blocks their missiles. And the aforementioned ammo issues: it doesn't really make the game harder in the start, it just makes it longer as punching a bunch of spectres to death saves ammo and is easy but boring. Oh well!

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FDA. Warning: it's long (30:01) and not very exciting. No deaths, 5/6 secrets and I think two missed enemies.

Yeah, this is definitely a cool map. I guess there is a slight hint of ammo starvation at the start but I really didn't think it was that much and certainly didn't effect my gameplay much if at all. I was VERY comfortable with my health most of time as well but there didn't seem to be that much health pickups around so I guess I just had a good day.

Looks good as always and plays fine overall. I guess it could be a bit more difficult towards the end but if this was supposed to be a map07 on a 32 map megawad(?), then the difficulty is probably around what it should be. The optional helipad area definitely needed a Cyberdemon or a Mastermind (or both) though ;) Especially since the PG was given in the same area. BFG at the end seemed a bit redundant and looking back I'd rather just stick with the PG and rockets in that last fight than even attempt to do anything with the BFG. The environment is not very suitable for effective BFGing. Overall though I did like how the better weapons were introduced. That and the difficulty curve meant that there was a strong sense of progression in the map, which I found quite appealing.

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Noticed this little glitch by the switch in Veinen's demo, on GLBoom+. Didn't show up in GZDoom at all.



A quick peek in DB shows that there's a linedef not connected to the rest of the sector, somehow.

BTW when I talk about wanting more ammo in the start, I mean like, 8 shells or something. Or a chainsaw if you want to be generous. Just a little more.

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Played this a bit last night. Wasn't able to finish it, but I did want to echo the sentiments about ammo sparseness. The part that kept hanging me up was the two chaingunners in the towers by the BFG. I'd either waste a lot of ammo trying to kill them, or I'd lose a lot of health trying to ignore them. I think the ammo count is probably fine, but if you're playing for the first time and just start firing, you'll definitely find yourself struggling. Once I get home from class I'm gonna give it another go. This time with saves!

And yeah, the architecture of the map is gorgeous. The textures you chose fit the layout perfectly, while also being appealing to look at. That can be a hard balance to find, but I think you nailed it. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the map.

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scifista42 said:

As I said, orthogonality (and also linearity) are actually employed in a good way in this map, creating a coherent style, easy navigation and a nice look. Even after I reached the exit, I could backtrack through the map and kill some remaining monsters here and there, without getting lost at all.

Overally I like the map a lot. Thanks for releasing it, I am glad for the experience I had with it! :)

EDIT: The only problem you may take into consideration is the alignment of the exit door's front side.


Glad you liked it, scifista! Door alignment has been fixed. Not even sure how that happened. ;D

Yes, the map is linear and has its share of orthogonal rooms. That's partly a function the process where the map was passed back and forth between me and Phantom. With the hub format, each spoke became self-contained and we never made interconnections. Like you say, it turned out fine, and orthogonal rooms are easy to accessorize and light.

Even though the map isn't interconnected, it was possible to make certain fights nonlinear and give the player options for attack, for example, the Baphomet room. I play it kamikaze by jumping into the middle of it and taking out the hitscanners while the heavies infight, afterwhich I deal with the survivors. Veinen jumped onto a Revvie platform first and did a lot of fighting from there, and it sounds like you went for the switch that opens the way out of there. The room wasn't intended to be optional, but you have to give the player a way out, so it became optional, and I'm fine with that.

BTW, I opened a saved game I made for the end of Space Base 2 and played around with it in God Mode. It seems there's a bit more room in there than I thought, so I'm going to try the ending again -- several times, probably ;D -- because I might be able to beat it after all. I'm also surprised to learn that you're a keyboarder and designed a room like that, which is not keyboarder-friendly, at least, if you play as badly as I do. There are much better keyboarders than me. But Space Base 2 is a cool map and I want to finish it after all the dying I did to reach the end. ;D

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Veinen said:

FDA. Warning: it's long (30:01) and not very exciting. No deaths, 5/6 secrets and I think two missed enemies.


Actually, I thought it was fun as hell to watch, not to mention educational. Yeah, you were having a good day, quick as a cat. I throw a shit-ton of heavies at you and you handle it easier than E1M1 of Shotgun Symphony. ;D I'm better with hitscanners, I guess.

Probably the most depressing part for me is how easily you handled what I call "the 4-layer trap," where I open closets with Chaingunners and an Archie in front of you, while Revvies in the second layer descend on columns behind you, and behind them, in layer 3, are more Revvies and Chaingunners in a closet, and in the 4th layer behind them, Sergeants teleport in upstairs. The idea was that most players would run at sight of the Archie and Chaingunners in front of them, and then get tangled up in the layers behind them, and either get killed or significantly damaged. The only significant damage you took was from a couple nastily-placed Chaingunners.

I was really surprised by how long you left the rocket launcher out there. I'm guessing you suspected a trap.

Then there was the return from the Baphomet room, which has inspired me to re-analyze that trap, because you were supposed to have a bunch of monsters on the platform with you to prevent you from doing what you did, which was to torch the surprise Archie with your Plasma Gun. I guess the problem here is that I design maps to defeat my kamikaze style, so if someone plays like a brainless idiot the way I do, and follows the "right" path all the time, they will end up with the high death counts I experience. But it's good for me to watch a quality player like yourself, because that will allow fine-tuning.

My biggest impression on your playthrough was, "Too much health." There are plenty of monsters, but the map is still too easy, so I'm thinking of making the difficulty you played HMP, and for UV I'll add just a few more monsters, but I'll reduce a lot of Medikits to Stimpacks, and Stimpacks to health bonuses. Maybe that'll help. ;D

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plums said:

Noticed this little glitch by the switch in Veinen's demo, on GLBoom+. Didn't show up in GZDoom at all.

A quick peek in DB shows that there's a linedef not connected to the rest of the sector, somehow.

BTW when I talk about wanting more ammo in the start, I mean like, 8 shells or something. Or a chainsaw if you want to be generous. Just a little more.


Thanks for the catch, plums! I'll check that sucker out. Also, if you demo Shotgun Symphony in PRBoom+, I'll be very appreciative, knowing it means you sacrifice freelook. I'm planning the next update, this time incorporating marineController's suggested fixes, plus gameplay and architecture modifications, by Sunday.

As for the ammo in this map, are you running out after getting into the western spoke off the hub, which is where Spectres are first encountered? I can toss a few shells in there for sure, or even a Zerk, which is otherwise stupidly placed outside after you get the PG. When Phantom and I made this map, it was before I got in the habit of punching Pinkies. OTOH, that is Phantom's spoke, and he tends to a more survivalist approach, so maybe instead of the Zerk I should just add more shells to keep the player a bit nervous.

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SteveD said:

Even though the map isn't interconnected, it was possible to make certain fights nonlinear and give the player options for attack, for example, the Baphomet room. I play it kamikaze by jumping into the middle of it and taking out the hitscanners while the heavies infight, afterwhich I deal with the survivors. Veinen jumped onto a Revvie platform first and did a lot of fighting from there, and it sounds like you went for the switch that opens the way out of there. The room wasn't intended to be optional, but you have to give the player a way out, so it became optional, and I'm fine with that.

BTW, I opened a saved game I made for the end of Space Base 2 and played around with it in God Mode. It seems there's a bit more room in there than I thought, so I'm going to try the ending again -- several times, probably ;D -- because I might be able to beat it after all. I'm also surprised to learn that you're a keyboarder and designed a room like that, which is not keyboarder-friendly, at least, if you play as badly as I do. There are much better keyboarders than me. But Space Base 2 is a cool map and I want to finish it after all the dying I did to reach the end. ;D

I was actually talking about the outdoor area with helipads to be optional, and not the Baphomet room. In the Baphomet room, I stayed in the peripheral corridors and occasionally rushed in the central area from lower level, killing the monsters with rockets and SSG. It was a less challenging part of the map, as the monsters just cluttered down there somewhere instead of having strategically effective positions. But it was good and cool looking area anyway.

And hehe, I think there are much harder and (I'm worried) unfair fights in the Space Base 2 than the ending is. I was able to win in a few attempts. I am actually very bad player. I playtested this my map mostly by parts, and not much as a whole, though. :)

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paymentplan said:

Played this a bit last night. Wasn't able to finish it, but I did want to echo the sentiments about ammo sparseness. The part that kept hanging me up was the two chaingunners in the towers by the BFG. I'd either waste a lot of ammo trying to kill them, or I'd lose a lot of health trying to ignore them. I think the ammo count is probably fine, but if you're playing for the first time and just start firing, you'll definitely find yourself struggling. Once I get home from class I'm gonna give it another go. This time with saves!


You know, those tower Chaingunners were even more of a PITA before I eliminated some dwarf walls that had the effect of blocking your bullets while they potshotted you, sometimes to death. They're a lot easier to take out now, but still a PITA. There's enough ammo for the job, but you can't miss many shots. Let me know how it goes on your next try. And thanks for playing!

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Ugh, that was annoying.

FDA (too many tries, no exits): http://www.mediafire.com/download/p5xp0fppfecrksk/DWTMOR.lmp

The first parts of this map are the biggest RNG luck-fest I've ever seen this side of... well... that other hitscanner RNG luck-fest I played by you, heh. Not only are there hitscanners everywhere, but the ammo is tight and there's auto-aim fuckery. Which results in you either having a fairly comfortable amount of ammo, having only shells when you need bullets or vice-versa (mix your ammo stores up more so this stops happening, please), or running out entirely. Which means that whether you take 50 damage from a random chaingunner or not isn't just based on his RNG but also the ammo RNG. Annoying.

Also, that one imp trap is given away by the presence of those 4-shells inaccessible behind the pillars.

The parts after the red door might be OK, but I've only seen them twice, and I'm not about to play through the first spoke again to find out. The health balance is pretty much going to be impossible, though; you'll either constantly be at "one hit from a projectile is death" because of RNG hate from the first spoke, or you'll have a laughable glut of health. Made worse by armor being so much easier to acquire than health.

Basically, what I'm saying is "completely redo everything until the point where you get the red key".

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scifista42 said:

And hehe, I think there are much harder and (I'm worried) unfair fights in the Space Base 2 than the ending is. I was able to win in a few attempts. I am actually very bad player. I playtested this my map mostly by parts, and not much as a whole, though. :)


I enjoyed all the fights in Space Base 2. I died a lot, but it was fun dying. I thought the fights were very difficult for my face-first playstyle, but they were not unfair. I forget if you have difficulty settings fully implemented. It might be wise for me to try a more casual play in HMP or HNTR. There will certainly be enough action. ;D

That's an interesting playtest protocol you have. I guess it aims to make each individual conflict as hard as you can stand, but not to play them all in a row? My historic method is similar in that I usually mapped room-by-room, so as I made each room, I'd fight the room until I was satisfied, and then move to the next. I do not do that so much anymore, because it is so much easier to quickly make a layout and structure in DB2 than it was with Hellmaker, which crashed so often.

I just downloaded your Crossing Pipes map. Do you have any more?

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Cynical said:

Ugh, that was annoying.

The first parts of this map are the biggest RNG luck-fest I've ever seen this side of... well... that other hitscanner RNG luck-fest I played by you, heh.


That would be Map01 of Abcess. Funny, I saw another poster in a different thread say, "I barely beat Map01 of Abcess," but I got the impression he also meant, "And fuck that map." ;D

Cynical said:

Not only are there hitscanners everywhere, but the ammo is tight and there's auto-aim fuckery. Which results in you either having a fairly comfortable amount of ammo, having only shells when you need bullets or vice-versa (mix your ammo stores up more so this stops happening, please), or running out entirely. Which means that whether you take 50 damage from a random chaingunner or not isn't just based on his RNG but also the ammo RNG. Annoying.


Ammo's only tight in the early sections, it gets more generous as you encounter higher-tier monsters. But natch, we want the player to feel a bit vulnerable since a horror mood is a big part of this map. But once you've reached the first Archie, there should be no ammo problems, unless you want more rockets, but you'll have a bunch of them by the time you reach the Baphomet room, which is really just a shoot-fest for the player, though you still have to be careful. The other issue here is that the Western spoke is Phantom's, and I thought it came out great. He goes for a more survivalist gameplay than I do, but I thought it was well-balanced. I could maybe put a few more bullets on the hub's central platform, as opposed to fiddling with ammo in his section.

Cynical said:

The parts after the red door might be OK, but I've only seen them twice, and I'm not about to play through the first spoke again to find out. The health balance is pretty much going to be impossible, though; you'll either constantly be at "one hit from a projectile is death" because of RNG hate from the first spoke, or you'll have a laughable glut of health. Made worse by armor being so much easier to acquire than health.


Watching FDAs, I did get the impression that the red door spoke had too much health. My primary idea was to reduce most of the Medikits to Stimpacks after the 4-layer Archie trap. Some of the health is also Medikits in secret areas, so players who don't find that might be disadvantaged a bit. I'll know better once I give it a zero-secret playthrough.

Cynical said:

Basically, what I'm saying is "completely redo everything until the point where you get the red key".


Heh, no chance of that!

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darkreaver said:

My only "complaint" would be that some textures were cut off really ugly because of windows and stuff.


Glad you liked it!

And you're right about those textures. I'm usually a lot better about sticking to what I call "The Essel Rule." I saw a very good post he made about that. My habit is to vertically center windows and wall inserts, and then fix them later. I'll make sure to do that in this map, so thanks for pointing that out.

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A lot of other folks have already got this one covered, but here is one more FDA for you, anyway, complevel 9. Though it's played fairly carelessly for the most part, it's 20-some minutes in length, no deaths, and I can't figure out how to get one of the secrets and waste at least a couple of minutes trying.

To be honest, this is probably the least engaging SteveD map I've played recently (so, that includes things like Shotgun Symphony, Abscess, and the one map from RoIC you've made public, all of them WADs I found much more interesting than this), largely a function of layout and architecture. While it has some of the SteveD trademarks--large-scale rooms, homages to KDiTD, the obvious/advertised Antoni Chan homage with the Baphomet face, etc.--one really gets the sense here that it's mainly a bunch of boxes connected by other, smaller boxes, all visited in a very linear sequence. It also feels somewhat disjointed in the way it flows, basically a collection of arena setpieces with little in the way of a unifying thread, either aesthetically or gameplay-wise. There's a very noticeable degree of symmetry in design (including the dreaded thing-placement-symmetry in some cases) and a sort of Legoland squareishness to a lot of the detailing, although I found some of the lighting in later areas fairly pleasant. Now, I realize you worked with another mapper on this, but since I have no familiarity with PhantomTMac's work or style, it's difficult for me to theorize about what might not have gelled here, but in overall effect the whole thing looks/feels quite a bit more 'amateur' (albeit in a modern sense, as opposed to a 90s sense, like 'Venom' from RoC) than most of your other recent work. I can't say I really felt the 'horror' vibe at all, sorry.....maybe it's that orange sky (yes, yes, DoTW, Rich Wiles "Crusades" begs to differ).

Combat is kind of up-and-down. The corridor-box-corridor layout betokens a lot of fights where the player is liable to just end up fighting from entry points a lot...even I end up doing some of this, though I generally make it a point not to rely too heavily on that tactic in my playing (since it gets old quickly). On a more general level, a lot of it feels kind of simplistic and routine (e.g. most of the stuff that happens in and around the Baphomet area, although ironically the back half of that is probably where I take the most damage, due simply to sloppiness on my part), but there are some good moments: I do think that what you've referred to as the "4-layer" trap works fairly well, and I think that little bit with the pain elementals and imp closet in the interstitial area is an effective deployment of the former. I also commend the last arch-vile in the map, I was legitimately startled there--although it occurs to me that I might've been more nonplussed by where the mouth-teleporter took me than by the vile himself--and so fumbled around stupidly and ended up taking a hit from him that could've very easily been avoided (which is effective monster deployment in my book). The room with the BFG is kind of an interesting case in that it essentially uses the same fight twice (with the second using much more powerful monsters); I think the first fight works pretty well since the hitscanners + teleporting foes force the player to react quickly, with the chaingunners in the towers liable to punish a player for trying to handle the encounter in a cowardly camp-based way, but the second fight is expected by the time it happens and easily handled, both because it's easier ans safer in the absence of hitscanners to find a camping spot to take care of it and because the many radsuits in the nukage greatly alleviate the aspect of movement restriction that the thin walkway/birthday cake setup would otherwise represent. The BFG here is overkill vs. the current enemy presence, frankly, perhaps you need some arch-viles or something.

Well, that's that. I don't think it's a terrible map, but it certainly doesn't play as well or looks as interesting as many of your other efforts....I suspect it's probably a victim of the challenges inherent to tag-team mapping; if you continue to work on other maps with TMac, I would imagine the two of you would start to 'click' more as time goes on.

And just how does one get that blasted blue armor?

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I liked it. I think the large areas would have been great for cybers. I think two monsters don't teleport because sector 1215 and 1216 have zero tag.

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TimeOfDeath said:

I liked it. I think the large areas would have been great for cybers. I think two monsters don't teleport because sector 1215 and 1216 have zero tag.


Glad you liked it, ToD! And thanks for the catch on those sectors. I'll fix that.

I've also added a Spider Mastermind and 2 Cybs to the outside helipad area for UV, as a preliminary step in toughening the difficulty. The map as it stands now has no difficulty settings at all, and by the standard set in Realm of Intensified Chaos, would fall somewhere between HNTR and HMP. So I think in the end it will be converted into HNTR and HMP will be a little tougher.

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Demon of the Well said:

And just how does one get that blasted blue armor?


You were looking right at the texture offset, too. After you kill the first Archie and raise the bars giving access, ultimately, to the Baphomet room, the very first stairs you climb take you right to the secret door. Indeed, the very first Imp that throws a fireball at you is practically right in front of it. Watching your FDA, I saw you right there, and figured you'd get it, but I'm glad I can still get you with that move every now and then. ;)

Thanks as always for your FDA and comments, they are enormously helpful, even if, as on this occasion, I'm taken out behind the woodshed and given a good caning. ;D At least I'm not alone this time. I will say that I agree with some of your comments but disagree with others.

First, the disagreement; I'm very, very happy with how this map looks, and also how well the look flowed between my parts and Phantom's. I am responsible for most of the map; specifically, I did everything except the western spoke that Cynical hated so much. I think you know me well enough to know that I never do mazes or use crushers -- except as decorations ala Pumping Station Hoedown -- but I really enjoyed what Phantom brought to the map precisely because I never do those things. I also really love his lighting. Every time I play that section, and every time I watch an FDA, I marvel at it. Some might view his lighting as excessive, especially the glow he pushes out from indented panels, but in real life, such a thing would happen. As a result, I copied that protocol behind the red door . . . a few times, anyway. ;D

Not surprisingly, I'm very pleased with the looks of my Baphomet Room, especially the ruined ceiling, complete with rusty ribbed structure, some of which has fallen into the nukage. It was all planned to go with the E4 sky, and I may be living in a fool's paradise, but I like it. ;) I've also seen a lot of cool skylights in my day, but never one quite like this, nor a Baphomet -- thanks, Antoni! -- with open jaws and a Hell Knight inside flinging largely harmless slimeballs. Another innovative detail, so far as I know, are the power cabinets I made from Tekgren3 with thick Tekwal4 cables up to the ceiling. I called upon my experience in the Navy aboard the battleship Wisconsin -- a WW2 dreadnought! -- and the aircraft carrier Enterprise, where I saw plenty of electrical cabinets and switchboards and cable runs, such as the red & blue cable run in one of the hallways, although in real life, they are always black. I retrofitted some of these details into Map05 of Abcess and E1m6/7 of Shotgun Symphony, but this is where I developed them. I suppose the power cabinets might have been what you referred to as Legoland detailing.

The way the team thing worked was that various people signed up for the project, and sgt dopey made the teams. I'll admit that I hoped I'd work with purist or cannonball, but Phantom turned out to be a very good partner, with expertise in certain areas of mapping that I don't have, and some protocols superior to my own. For example, instead of using annoying doors that don't open, he uses bars, which among other things allow a tantalizing view into the blocked sector, and also scream, "I am activated elsewhere," as opposed to pissing off the player when a door fails to open for no apparent reason. I picked up quite a few things from Phantom, and as it turned out, I eventually stepped in to help purist when his partner dropped out. That map was the only one ever actually uploaded to the Team thread, and I think it turned out pretty good. Not sure if you've ever seen it. I warn that it is also linear, because purist conceived it as a steeplechase where the player has to flee from a Cyberdemon owing to lack of the necessary ammo. Alas, Memfis and Hitherto both killed the Cyb before its time, so this version reduced the ammo a bit. It was tricky to make the map maxable and still a steeplechase. By comparison to my maps with Phantom, purist had a clear idea what he wanted to accomplish, whereas we just traded the maps back and forth and did our thing. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to check out this map of purist's and mine, which plays on Map01 and requires the cc4-tex.wad; http://www.mediafire.com/download/scr4lkziinitcrh/dwprojectAGX.wad

I agree with you more on gameplay. Of course, it's linear, though I sought to create "location-optional combat" where I could. For example, when you reached the platform with concrete columns in the red door area, you had 2 stairways on one side, an open area leading to the rocket launcher on the other, a side area with 2 Revvies, and the columns themselves for cover. Thus, you can fight that area by going towards the RL, going down one of the stairways to the lower corridor, or by dancing around on the platform itself. But also, you have to deal with HKs, Spectres and maybe Mancs coming up the stairs, and so on, so a lot of different things can happen. When you and Cynical played it, things worked mostly the way I wanted, with a lot of fast-paced action. This was the first of the 2 "Windy Corner" areas -- referring to a harrowing action in The Battle of Jutland -- the other being the PE fight. I thought these actions were effective, as was the 4-layer trap, the latter less effective than I wanted it to be.

As an aside, sometimes, watching your FDAs, it's like you have a special deal with the Doom Gods, because when you set off the 4-layer trap, you stayed right there as Revvies converged on you from behind. If I do that, I get rockets in the back, but instead, at least one Revvie, rather than rocketing you, walked all the way around in front of you to deliver a punch. I was screaming, "Hey, no fair! Rocket him just like you rocket me!" ;D If I watch that FDA again, I'll probably realize that you backed close to the wall to prevent getting rocketed from behind. A ballsy move to stay there, in any case.

So, to summarize my views, I was happy with all the initial action at the start, in the western spoke, and the two "Windy Corners" and the 4-layer trap. After that, the Baphomet room, the PG area, and the final BFG teleport trap were way too easy. Not enough monsters, way too much health, and a flawed trap design with the 2nd Archie. You and Veinen both got off easy on that one, because you only faced the Archie, instead of also having 2 Revvies and 2 Chaingunners behind you when you teleport in. That's the trap I face every time, because I always clear out the entire PG and outdoor area before grabbing the Soulsphere in the Baphomet's mouth, and immediately teleporting to face the Archie. So part of the flaws you noticed are due to my kamikaze playstyle. I always attack my maps very aggressively, strategy be damned, so certain issues never occur to me. For example, when Capellan said my maps encourage door-camping, I had no idea what he was talking about because I never door-camp beyond, possibly, waiting a couple seconds before charging out. ;D The final BFG trap, the last time I played it, was easily cheesed when I ran back to the red door entrance and slaughtered almost everything from there. Talk about anticlimactic!

A few more issues, such as the overabundance of radsuits, are some pre-beta issues. I had planned on accessing secret areas from the hub room nukage, but in the event, never built those areas, and didn't remove the extra radsuits. This map actually never should have been done, we should have done a hell map -- the other one you played -- but because we only had 9 teams, and the progression was reverse-Doom 2 -- Hell, City, Starbase -- I assumed that being, originally, in the Map08 slot meant doing a starbase. Little did I know a full megawad was planned. Phantom was supposed to do the exit of this one, until we discovered our mistake and stopped working in order to make the hell map. ;D As it turns out, I'm happy we did the 2 maps. The problems in this one, apart from the blockiness and linearity that won't change, can be easily fixed with more monsters. I can put waves of teleporting enemies into the Baphomet room. I have 2 completely empty, large teleport closets to work with and can easily add more. I can add Archies as you suggested, or Cybs -- already added 2 in the helipad area -- or maybe 4 PEs. And of course, the BFG trap will now be much more severe, including hitscanners guarding the doorways, at a minimum. And so on and so forth.

I'm also a bit better of a player than when I designed the map, so I want something more than this, which to me is more an HNTR-level challenge these days. This was also a pre-Zerk era map, so Pinky-punching is not provided for. By contrast, I put my very first Zerk/Pinky trap in purist's map. I mainly have the DWMC to thank, along with playtesting Concerned, for sharpening my still-meager skills.

Anyway, sorry for all the babble. The next version of this map will be more savage, I promise you.

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Ah, a texture offset. I think I was reading too much into what the automap seemed to be showing, looking for doors where the winding staircase seemed to connect with the part of the little combat armor area the map was able to draw from my having looked at it from the floor. Not the first secret I've been guilty of overthinking....

To clarify about the looks, it's not really the texturing (or the texturing theme) or the lighting or any of the 'surface' aesthetic that I feel holds the map back, but rather mainly its structure, which is very boxy, symmetrical, and orthogonal throughout, without much use of architectural overlap. The most fluid aspect of map traversal seen is a side-effect of the symmetry, where several larger rooms have two identical/equidistant entrances that the player can run in and out of while fighting (which is something I remember doing at least a couple of times). Some areas compensate for this to some extent with their sheer bigness--I have always been a sucker for oversized scaling in DooM, although this doesn't apply to everyone, of course--but in several of the others, particularly the ones by PhantomTMac, the overall impression is decidedly Wolf3D-esque. Well, scratch that, more Astrostein-esque, in fairness. And the whole reported 'horror' angle is something that's still flying completely over my head even after going back and looking at it again, don't know what to tell you, there (not that it's anything to worry about since impressions like that are particularly subjective).....when I think of a 'horror' mood I guess I tend to think of something more like the oddball map 01 from Slayer.wad or things like that.

Incidentally, I take no credit for the revenant maneuver in the 4-layer trap, it was sheer dumb luck I didn't blow myself up in that one particular instant. I knew they were behind me--I heard them emerge, and had been hearing them scream from behind the walls for some time beforehand--but because that one guy didn't fire at me initially (which I also would have heard and hopefully evaded, even with my back turned), I nearly hit him point-blank with that rocket when he photobombed my arch-vile shot. Doom Gods, indeed!

Now, on a different note, as per request, here's an FDA (complevel 9, again) for your map with Purist. I suspect I also killed the cyberdemon before you intended me to, but it's important to note here that I had pre-expectations about the map before playing it simply from your comments, which likely effected the approach I began taking from the outset; I admit I was curious to see if I could score an early victory as others had, even with the reportedly reduced ammo count--a little personal challenge, if you will. That said, if I had gone into the map with absolutely no foreknowledge, I highly suspect I would've had to run from him for at least a little longer than I did. As it is, I finish the map with no ammo left and 99% kills (some asshole was presumably hiding in the one secret I didn't find), so the balance is definitely tight, any way you slice it. If that one secret I didn't find isn't a rocket launcher and maybe 6-7 rockets, I suggest that it should be--that would make cleanup of the overlook snipers or the final revenant cluster a bit more efficient. Oh, yes, sorry for the two little 'Paused' periods, hopefully they aren't too annoying. To answer your question from the other thread, when PrBoom-Plus is making a recording, most of the main cheats are disabled (as is Save/Load functionality), although IDMUS and IDDT at least still work.

I liked this more than either of the other team-maps, incidentally. It's still fairly easy to see here where the Purist parts end and the SteveD parts begin (again, the change in scale is a dead giveaway), but the two styles gel quite a bit better here, presumably because there is an underlying concept tying the map together throughout, that being the 'steeplechase', although I think the more coherent and persistent red masonry/dirt/ash theme that dominates throughout also helps. This contrasts with the maps with TMac, which seem much more hodge-podge and grab-baggy in comparison, ala Splattered in Hell's directionless area-bloat.

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Demon of the Well said:

I suspect I also killed the cyberdemon before you intended me to, but it's important to note here that I had pre-expectations about the map before playing it simply from your comments, which likely effected the approach I began taking from the outset; I admit I was curious to see if I could score an early victory as others had, even with the reportedly reduced ammo count--a little personal challenge, if you will. That said, if I had gone into the map with absolutely no foreknowledge, I highly suspect I would've had to run from him for at least a little longer than I did. As it is, I finish the map with no ammo left and 99% kills (some asshole was presumably hiding in the one secret I didn't find), so the balance is definitely tight, any way you slice it. If that one secret I didn't find isn't a rocket launcher and maybe 6-7 rockets, I suggest that it should be--that would make cleanup of the overlook snipers or the final revenant cluster a bit more efficient. Oh, yes, sorry for the two little 'Paused' periods, hopefully they aren't too annoying. To answer your question from the other thread, when PrBoom-Plus is making a recording, most of the main cheats are disabled (as is Save/Load functionality), although IDMUS and IDDT at least still work.


Thanks for the FDA, DoTW! Forewarned is definitely forearmed in this case. Maybe I should at least have shut up about the reduced ammo, since my yapping may have inspired all your Chainsaw abuse early so you could hoard the shells. ;D As a result, congratulations, you achieved the earliest Cyb kill, in the very first antechamber of the caverns. Hitherto killed it in the second antechamber, and Memfis killed it near the Revvie room. Memfis played the map closest to its intended design, because if the Cyb is allowed to live, it pursues you through a couple areas meant to slow down the player, such as that little switch-series near the bars to the third antechamber. The ideal event here is that as you hit the final switch that raises your exit door, you see the Cyb closing in on you and maybe even eat a rocket, as happened to me once in playtesting. Memfis saw the Cyb but was quick enough to avoid death, and the Cyb then teleports away to that platform in the third antechamber in front of the Revvie room, and incidentally sends rockets your way as you enter that chamber. The player's goal is to climb the giant stone steps -- under rocket fire -- and dodge past the Cyb and the Revvies so as to allow the Cyb to kill them for you, which is why there's no rocket launcher. Break the design and face the Revvies on your own -- no soup for you! ;D

Happily, purist admits to part of the issues making it possible to kill the Cyb early, such as that chainsaw. I compounded the problem massively by giving both a Zerk and the SSG. I added the SSG -- against purist's wishes, I might add -- because it was so tempting to make a secret path in that area, and I had to put something that wasn't a super-weapon there. I guess I'll have to take that sucker out and replace it with a Medikit or something, which is really not worth the risk of facing the Revvie, for many players, anyway. Then again, a rocket launcher, with only its 2 rockets, is likely less valuable than an SSG when it comes to an early Cyb kill. BTW, the monster you missed is a Spectre guarding a Green armor in an early secret close to the Soulsphere. You know, purist is a trickier guy than me, and I think he deliberately made it possible for some players to leap to the Soulsphere path instead of going into the lava to find the path, in order to misdirect you from seeking a secret door in the opposite lava pit. And given that I attack maps with all the subtlty of a torpedo, I was only able to appreciate the depth of his fight design with the second batch of Cacos and Lost Souls by watching you play it. Purist gave some thought to what might happen if players do things differently, whereas my maps suffer from being designed only to account for my mindless, blunt-force assaults. ;D

I think you would have had more fun playing the map as intended, but given that you achieved the fastest Cyb kill in the lowest-ammo version of the map, I have to imagine that is very satisfying in itself. However, I did not fail to notice that I came within a whisker of snagging your pelt, when you were facing Pinkies in the Zerk room with your back to the Cyb, and you turned around just in time to avoid a rocket. All but Divine Intervention, it seemed to me. That one was really close. Ah, but not close enough. Well, there'll be more maps. ;D

As for the HellTech map, yes, it didn't have the usual SteveD loopy Knee Deepish layout. No overlooks into other areas, no spaghetti-like interconnection, etc. I'm not as allergic to orthogonal rooms and such as some players, but I admit this linearity results in less organic fight design, just a series of setpiece encounters. Now I just need to put in enough monsters in the right places to make those setpieces more risky.

The mention of Astrostein, of course, reminds me of the great Laz Rojas, who has 2 unimpeachable credentials -- he is by far the most prolific Hellmaker mapper of all time, with 141 to his credit, IIRC. He is also one of the great characters in Doom history, a legend in his own mind, a genius of the entertainment industry. I give you, the one and only, Laz Rojas! http://www.youtube.com/user/lazfilm2

Now lest my meaning be misunderstood, aside from a certain smartassiness in my comments, the reality is that I have tremendous respect for Laz and would have a beer with him any time. And yes, this is indeed the Laz Rojas of WolfenDoom and Astrostein fame, as proven by the Game Mods link on his home page; http://lazrojas.com/

I'm sure he'd approve of my fascination with Wolfies. ;D

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Excellent Tech Map. I love maps like this. They are fun, nicely designed, challenging, and well balanced with enemies/health kits/weapons/ammo. You should look to submit this to the Doomworld Mega Project 2014. It would make a nice addition to the pack.

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