copypaste king

So I tried to make like a "clean" looking map, with nicely angled walls, alignments and stuff. Not really my style so the result is pretty average. Here is a link, it's for prboom-plus -complevel 9. The story is that some hell knight captured you, you thought he'd just kill you, but instead he made you fight demons in his colosseum and even started selling tickets for this show. Of course that was a big mistake on his part.

Looks good and some interesting editing tricks like dropping at the start. How can I suck so much ass in FDA. I do slightly OK on the first run then something cheap kills me always, I mean an angled ass mancubus fireball followed me around the corner, the game constantly invents new ways to cheat. After that, I do a fail attempt at going fast using the crutch of preknowledge to slightly help my crippled ass. Then after that I just give up, just like I do in real life. And of course I died on the obvious hard part, but I die on the easy parts too. What kind of retard would die at all in this map let alone 5 million times like I did, and didn't even finish? I suck at this game.
http://speedy.sh/a9HCG/sentinel-ggg.lmp

Psychology of FDAs is interesting, it seems like for most people the first attempt is always the most relaxed one and thus one of the most successful. After one death you're starting to get more and more annoyed/nervous and soon you realize how much you suck.

The best part for me was one minute of silence before the final fight. :) Just looking at all the monsters that are going to completely destroy you once you press that switch, so tense, heh. I think I got the idea from Doom Zodiac, it had a bunch of moments with "monster statues" where you can observe their positions, plan your strategy and only then press the switch to begin the fight. Cool concept.

Well I had to imperfectly uvmax it real quick to get even:
http://speedy.sh/bfAZM/sentinel-uvmax-cl9-231-ggg.lmp

This map deserved to be made at least because of the awesome gggmork's post, ehehe. Really liked the visuals and overall theme, would be cooler if it was a little bit larger though. It feels like the map wants to be 1.5-2x the size, but i have no idea where the feeling comes from. More in this style perhaps pls?

Here's aFDA. I ragekill myself on the first attempt, finish on the 2nd one, doing everything in wrong order and getting lost (duh) for more than a minute in the end. Features elastic collisions and nice luck in the main trap.


EDIT:

Memfis said:

it had a bunch of moments with "monster statues" where you can observe their positions, plan your strategy and only then press the switch to begin the fight. Cool concept.

Saw an extension of this concept in dark tartarus (tartaru4.wad) map38 - after jumping into a trap you see a lot of revs throughout the room. Pressing the switch activates the trap, and slowly revs wake up one by one. Things can get really hairy quick if you miss a shot. Probably been done many times in other wads, can't remember off the top of my head now though, and figured i'd mention that as imo it's a cool idea to play around with.

got a few demos already, so I'll just sneak this in here.

Fun map, interesting to see you mix up your usual style like this. Cool texture theme, very cohesive. Interesting gimmicks, the "see the monsters before the fight begins" thing is something I'm very much fond of :) That last fight is pretty gnarly, I'm a fan. Overall good stuff.

Interesting map, funny I made a colosseum map only recently. I died plenty of times trying to survive the start, those damn hitscanners.. then i died a couple of times in the dungeon ambush thanks to being on low health and having a damaging floor. Its not so bad once you know how to escape though. Short and sweet.

So, I'm going to do a review for this map not too terribly unlike the ones I do for the Doomworld Megawad Club playthroughs. This was done on HMP: short, sweet, no mods, the same amount of monsters, and most definitely to the point.

Map01: Sentinel

Oh look, an arena! And now everyone wants to kill me, too...

Death Count: 2

This map's done pretty well, with a drop-in start that throws you a Megasphere and a Berserk pack as you drop down. To think this map starts with just you, your fists, and eight Pinky demons...

Some Things I Noticed:

1) They were watching, and now they're coming to kill me, oh my gooooo- This happens twice, really. First, it happens in the beginning area after you punch out a few demons. The result is not-so-fun. It happens again towards the end, when you get ambushed on all sides after pressing a switch.

2) I hate Revenants. And I hate Mondays. Unless they're lasagna Mondays. Memfis, you used Revenants pretty well, to the point that both of my deaths came from a combination of splash damage from my rockets and their damn homing fireballs. Good stuff.

3) Take a look around. Looks great, doesn't it? The architecture here is great! I'd honestly love to see more maps in this style, and play them as well. 10/10 map.

Loved it. Even the story was cool. Battles were hard but fair, the floor being one of my toughest enemies. I liked how you didn't provide weapons 6 and 7, as futuristic stuff wouldn't fit here. I made a Colosseum map myself some years ago, and oh well, it doesn't get even close.

By the way, after my first play, for some reason I made a test by replacing the song by this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Za0rZs0Qk
Not that the music is bad or unfitting, I just had a feeling it would be nice to fight through it with some kind of a military tune. It worked well, too.

I had a couple of initial deaths whilst I worked out the first arena and got my bearings, but after that I scraped by. It's tough and demands a trial-and-error approach, particularly with the cruel addition of the damaging floor, but it's a good challenge and a reasonable length for something you'll have to repeat. Good work as usual and a nice, sickly green/brown colour scheme you've introduced to go with it.

I heard you don't like FDAs anymore so here's another one: https://www.mediafire.com/?po674v6j5iakpoc

First attempt is crap, second one is an exit.

I liked it and I'll echo Ribbiks in that it was interesting to see something slightly different from you. Not that I haven't liked the other stuff you've posted recently but still. The damaging floors are a really nice touch to make interesting combat situatons even more so. Good job :)

failed FDAs. This wad make me really pissed off, however it's a cool and tricky as Memfis canon, only not so easy and straightforward as usual...

Sweet map, Memfis! No FDAs from me, I'm a save/reload player. I tended to do best when I was most aggressive, for example, running out to attack the first Pinkies instead of waiting for them to surround me. I also had the good fortune to save a game before pressing the blue skull button on the chair, after getting attacked by those 3 Revvies the first time. I left them for the end, when I was more well-armed. Also, I was very lucky on my second attempt at the Archie fight, because I ran back up the stairs and he followed me, so I was able to SSG him and save rockets.

The map is very attractive, with nice shades of brown and good round shapes. Action is fast and furious but manageable, with well-chosen monsters. Drop-in opening, as others have observed, is pretty damned cool. Excellent all the way around.

I've also read that you're not really into FDAs anymore, but here's one anyway, around five minutes in length. No deaths, but I do have a lot of favorable RNG outcomes, particularly with hitscans and the arch-vile not paying me much attention. Don't feel any obligation to watch, not like typing "-record xxxxx" required a vast investment of time/effort on my part.

Anyway, I think this is the most fun map you've come out with in a while (at least that I've seen), for the simple reason that its action has some teeth. A lot of your stuff from last year--Silent Halls, Rainwash, Kuchitsu, etc.--is pleasant enough from a layout/aesthetic standpoint (particularly your use of color), but lacking in terms of engaging combat and encounter design, a lot of it being very elementary 'map 01 kindergarten' stuff. In this colosseum, the player is subjected to a lot more crossfire and multi-pronged attacks, forcing him to actually make use of the marine's incredible facility for movement. The harmful liquid covering large parts of the ground in the main battle areas was a very good idea, adding an extra layer to the battles where the player can choose between easy dodging at the price of gradual health loss (probably the better option unless you're nearly dead) or a more stable condition at the price of limited movement space. Being able to see so many of the monster groupings before they become active is apart from being an interesting quirk of the map also a great boon--it's certainly what saved my skin in the main trap. I'm not so sure about the dormant zombies behind the translucent marble portrait....but, eh, it gives the map character, like I said.

I enjoyed the brief five minutes it took to play the map, thanks for making it.

dunno, to me such forced dangerous situations look lame, like anyone can block the player's way back or sometihng, open 100 monsters and scream oh look at me, that was so clever. I cringe every time I make traditional predictable cheap trap.

edit: uh, messy post. Basically what I'm saying is that I guess I often refrain from putting the player in dangerous situations since I usually can't think of any really interesting ways to do that, only of typical predictable crap.

This was pretty sweet. Tough but sweet. And it felt really different from the usual Memfis map. Good stuff.

Also, damaging floors are damaging.

Memfis said:

dunno, to me such forced dangerous situations look lame, like anyone can block the player's way back or sometihng, open 100 monsters and scream oh look at me, that was so clever. I cringe every time I make traditional predictable cheap trap.

edit: uh, messy post. Basically what I'm saying is that I guess I often refrain from putting the player in dangerous situations since I usually can't think of any really interesting ways to do that, only of typical predictable crap.

Ah, well, there's 'dangerous' and then there's dangerous. There are many maps (in many different overall gameplay styles) that really aren't particularly dangerous (e.g. deadly, e.g. difficult) that still have enjoyable combat that engages one's skills and keeps one on one's toes, and I certainly wouldn't argue that every situation in every map needs to be sadistically tuned for maximum difficulty/minimum exploitability; As with pretty much everything else, if you keep hitting the same note over and over again eventually it's going to start sounding sour, no matter how dulcet its tone. The same goes for the opposite end of the 'danger' spectrum, however; just shotgunning small, directly-placed groups of zombies and imps (with maybe an occasional wandering caco or something) gets pretty damned old pretty damned fast, and it's certainly no less predictable or 'old hat' than monster-spam dick-traps.

Anyway, the whole reason I mentioned it in the first place is that I have played a lot (though not all) of your maps, and so I know that you know how to make decent fights (of varying styles and degrees of difficulty), as this map demonstrates, and it's good to see you move a bit in that direction again. Speaking purely for myself of course, I reckon I'd generally rather see you try to make a good fight--even if you fail--than to not try at all, which is the impression I get from the combat in some of those maps I mentioned earlier.

Memfis said:

edit: uh, messy post. Basically what I'm saying is that I guess I often refrain from putting the player in dangerous situations since I usually can't think of any really interesting ways to do that, only of typical predictable crap.

It's a funny thing with you, Memfis. People are almost always very unanimously pleased your levels and give high praise to your work. Which is, without a doubt, very well deserved! Yet, more often than not, you seem to downrate or punk yourself for being mediocre or downright bad to the point where it gets almost unbelievable or oddly fake. Which is a damn shame because you have tons of creativity and commitment! And the worst thing: I have a feeling you don't need me to tell you this :) Hold your head up high and stand tall and accept your god damn gift of being good at designing levels!

Well, I just don't understand how it's possible to enjoy your own works much. I mean, I'll play some 1994 wad with not so interesting rooms, bland texturing, poor gameplay, etc... And yet playing it will feel more entertaining than playing most of my stuff, maybe just because it will be a NEW experience to me. Levels made by others can surprise me, show me something I don't know, something I can't think of. But when I make a new map and then play it, I know every nook and cranny of it, I remember the development process... There is just absolutely nothing new in it and thus no interest in playing I guess. Somehow I just can't think of it as a level in the same sense I think of levels made by others. I know it 100% and because of that it is almost empty for me. I don't know how to enjoy my own levels. Replaying old stuff from 2-3 years ago is a bit closer to the experience of playing a map made by somebody else but still not close enough. (also watching demos of other people playing)

I have the same problem with the levels I make for Elma Online. For some reason I can't just play them normally like any other level.

edit: this is exaggerating a bit I guess, it's not like I feel nothing at all when playing my maps, there might be some enjoyment... but just about any map not made by me will be more enjoyable.

Ohh, so that's where "the problem" is :) Well, I can totally relate to that as I feel largely the same way. I make maps because I find the development process interesting and, I guess, because I just feel happy when people are entertained by my creations. I too never really find it that pleasing to play my own wads. After the 100th run through to find errors etc. it sorta gets a little old fast :)

Anyway, I guess I've just misunderstood you a bit and for that I am sorry. I was just under the impression that your overall feeling for making maps was a bit underrated and that it wasn't just isolated to playing your own stuff.

Nice to hear that someone can relate to that. It's interesting that with speedruns I feel vice-versa: I find a lot of demos made by others a bit boring and hard to sit through, but I just love rewatching my own demos, for some reason they are always the most entertaining ones...