PANOPHOBIA - Community Project (Let's get this going again shall we! )

BlueFeena said:

Are there any free slots available? It seems all of the fear maps are taken / being finished, but I read that you might need running scared maps. Any room for some fresh blood on this, or is it basically done?

Yes there is free room. Sadly all the main/interesting slots are filled and all we have left are Running Scared segments to make. As long as you follow theses guidelines,

1)The level should not take longer then 5 minutes to beat
3)Outside area must be pitch black (brightness set to 25)
4)Instead of a sky use (flat MFLR8_4)
5)Use ROCKRED1 texture as your primary texture
6)The level should end with the next level's phobia written out for the player to see

feel free to do the Running Scared segment in our current MAP17. The help is appreciated.

Thanks dobu. Very nice update! Your running scared segments in particular are just brimming with creativity. Keep up the good work!

If you feel like working on BLOOD URGE, then please step in. MERCY will probably take me a couple of weeks to finish and fine tune to a presentable level.

Good to hear. Do you have a more recent version of Blood Urge on your computer or is the one in the alpha the newest one?

Nope that's the latest and greatest unfortunately.

I think I'm just about finished now, just got to get the last half of Nightmare In Spiderland into a playable state. I am trying to get new music for Acid Reign. Then it's all over bar the playtesting.

I thought the Muse midi was alright for the map, but if you're looking for a new midi, perhaps there's some kind of Doom mashup out there? I think hearing a variety of old tunes as you explore the "map of the past" could be interesting.

I'm going to be away from my PC for a couple weeks after the 24th of May, so it'd be nice to get an actual beta out by then that's ready for playtesting. I'll not be forlorn if we miss the deadline since the project is hella old as is, but it would be nice to have everything in order and this thing on the way out the door. On my end, Blood Urge is coming along fantastically and I'm really enjoying how it's shaping up to be a brutal, nonlinear map.

Looking forward to seeing your map mate.

The only problem with uploading another version of Acid Reign is how the sector tags and specials seem to change on their own. I've had random untagged sectors reassign themselves to have the same tag as teleporters on distant sides of the map, there have been weird increases or decreases in ceiling height in the E1M8 area and in some cases the functions of switches have changed (eg from switch open door stay to switch blue door open stay!) - however in the case of the blue switch weirdness, I may leave this in.

EDIT: Sad as I am to cast Muse aside, I'm using "The Demons from Adrian's Pen" as it is more pensive and slower paced, and there are no other E2 tributes in the map. It's all Knee Deep, Doom 2, Final Doom and Alien Vendetta. The map is very tough and I'm having difficulty beating it, especially The Focus room, which replaces Chaingunners with Revenants and is extremely hard to survive.

The map and music for Acid Reign, with extensive revisions to ammo balance and health. The E1M8 area has been greatly improved and now features an unintentionally random battle, with monsters spawning wherever they feel like it.

The map is as hard as fuck and I keep getting killed after I reach the E1M5 area. That said, the map should be possible for a skilled player, just remember to save often.

There may be one or two minor snags left to eliminate, other than that I just need to be able to beat the damn thing. Please let me know if The Focus area is too hard, as it's a fething nightmare at present.

THE MAP
http://www.mediafire.com/download/01z029x1s64l77b/rawnacid_b1.wad

THE MUSIC
http://www.mediafire.com/download/1xed9aadydast5i/d_e2m2.mid

The map still has a handful of bugs in it that make it unbeatable (the left door past the red key door is unopenable and the door beyond it can't be opened either... hell, the torch at the start interferes with the player's hitbox so they can't even move). I know you have issues with the map getting buggered when you try and save, but please try to make sure it's finishable before you upload it.

Otherwise, I liked some of the adjustments seen to what I've already played. The "PUNCH" assists the player a bit more and I found myself bare knuckle boxing with the pinkies to save ammo, and it was relatively smooth sailing from there. I didn't have a single problem with The Focus place, as I rocketed the baron from afar and then SSG'd the revenants from the bottom of the pit. I hoping next time I play it I'll be able to see beyond that point, as I've gotten quite adept at the rest of the map so my commentary is scarce.

EDIT: If the majority of the map is done and you're concerned with screwing it up with your Doom Builder, I can go through and fix all the little bugs I see.

Hi, thanks for the input. The torch at the beginning is not due to a bug or anything, I was messing around placing items and there are a couple of things I've found that need sorting.

Those bloody doors... they should work. I'll get straight on it.

EDIT: The door action is call lift, rather than open door. They were DEFINITELY given the correct actions when I worked on that section last week. I've got no idea at all what is going on with this bloody map.

EDIT 2: No matter what I do in the Catwalk area with the crazed path leading to the switch, the switch will not work. I've tried setting it to a regular switch instead of a blue switch but it still does nothing. Is it too close to the linedef in front?

Dobu, I cannot figure out why the switch in the wall of the Catwalk area doesn't open the door it is tagged to. I've tried a few things and nothing makes it work. Can you have a look and find out what's going on?

Latest updates to Acid Reign:

* Completed a playthrough of the map on UV in Zdoom, having to clip through the door whose activating switch won't open.

* Added an exit to the map (whoops!).

* Added a second plasma rifle in the Phobos Anomaly/Tower of Babel area in case the player misses the first one in the Nirvana area (easily doable as the Arachnotron corpse can hide it).

* Added a great deal of extra ammo and health to the final area and there is now quite a chaotic battle.

* Fixed the sidedefs in the final area. Most of these had reverted to type 128 (walk over), but they should have been direct-action repeatable lifts. Again, no idea at all what the hell was going on here. All of the platforms which can be lowered now have bonuses, but they're risky.

* Moved a platform so the player now has one platform at each side of the star-shaped anomaly, which the player can jump off from back onto the anomaly, if they wish to access the earlier parts of the map.

Planned updates:

* Fixing the teleport tag in the Alien Vendetta: Sunset area -- AGAIN, the linedef action has changed to something else.

* Removing walls in Spider arena so the second spider becomes deadly straight away.

* A 100% secrets runthrough.

D1/DR actions have to be applied directly to doors and don't require tags. That's the problem with the blue switch.

S1/SR actions need tags and can be placed anywhere. I saw a small tower with a red door that didn't work because of that.

Thanks mate, it's been driving me round the bend for days. You can tell I don't use switches very often. As for the tower, i know which you mean but it always works for me. I'll investigate it.

MajorRawne said:

As for the tower, i know which you mean but it always works for me.

ZDoom's rules are less strict.

The whole Doom community needs to stop using Boom immediately, to make my life easier. :D

Will give it a proper run through in Boom today.

New beta of Acid Reign.

* The map is now fully Boom and ZDoom compliant - this especially applies to the Nirvana and Phobos Anomaly areas.

* Catwalk room switch should FINALLY open its door.

* I need someone to help me add the music and the E1 sky from Ultimate Doom into the wad file.

I've noticed that when playing in Boom, the monsters seem more aggressive, especially the Arachnotrons, which turned the Threshold of Pain area into the tunnel of terror.

NOTE: Due to monsters either not teleporting in, or beaming in whenever (and wherever) they feel like it, 100% kills may not be possible.

Map:
https://www.mediafire.com/?ftp5qer8r9yp9q3

Music:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/1...st5i/d_e2m2.mid

Alright, played it again. The map is unfinishable because there's no way to get to the pedestal where the cyberdemon is in the Phobos Anomaly section (or none that I could find). Also in the room past the catwalk room, you need to make it a little more obvious that one of the computer blocks is the lift, as I thought not being able to get up to the tele was another bug (until I tested the side, which seems horribly arbitrary)

Ammo is a bit mismatched. There's a surplus for the dual mastermind encounter (when all you need to do is get them to infight), yet it's spotty at best for the final encounter. That fight was manageable but definitely fickle, especially if the AVs choose a bad spot to warp in (that and I started the encounter at 19% health). Speaking of, there should be no reason why a map shouldn't be possible to get 100% kills on, and if you're having trouble with warping I suggest you look towards other maps' layouts for guidance.

Other than that, not many other comments. I've played it enough now that the layout of each area is ingrained into my brain, and I don't feel like going into elaborate detail of which rooms need what ammo reorganized (although I have to note that you shouldn't put ammo in the nukage in the Phobos Anomaly section, as munitions are already scarce enough there that punishing the player for running out of ammo seems unfair). It's a serviceable map so long as it works properly, although I'm not keen on the big "REMEMBER" exit as that's a bit too on the nose. Perhaps a fake death exit a la E1M8 would work better.

I'd like to playtest Welcome to Hell and Temple, but I'm still waiting on them to be reuploaded.

Thank you for the much needed feedback, and thanks for your perseverance with this map.

Very quickly, a few things:

The computer terminal in the Catwalk area behaves like the one in the original map but I can make this more obvious with a light or an arrow or some large hint.

There is a switch in the final area which raises the stairs to the exit. It's behind a column to the top right of the map, right where the Cyber on the pedestal can see you. I thought it would be obvious that the player would need to hunt around for a way to access the pedestal - is it too obscure?

The demons beam in wherever the hell they want in that last fight. I actually felt this made the last battle more intense as your have no idea where the worst of the attack will come from.

As for ammo and health, I can re-distribute this. The other maps will follow in the next few days.

Two mancs and a caco also didn't teleport in after going through the yellow key door. And yeah I think the stair switch is too obscure; perhaps putting it the right room where the barons originally come out of in E1M8 would help, and to block the path you could put a baron in there with block monster lines to keep him trapped (the cyber across the way should adequately hassle the player).

Just dropping in to say that progress is being made on Sin. Its currently about 40% done. I'll try to post some pics up next time I post.

I don't know how to make those monsters teleport in. Sometimes monster traps like that just stop working, especially if I amend the monster closet eg by making it bigger and adding extra monsters. I cannot see what I'm doing wrong compared to other mappers. Often these traps don't work, then after some hassle they do work, then they just stop working again. The monsters stop waking up.

As for the switch, I'm going to mount it on one of those Tower of Babel style pillars. The player lowers the pillar then rides it up to the switch. This is in full view of a Cyberdemon, of course.

I'll add extra ammo to the final arena and put a rad suit in each corner, then the player can utilise all the space to dodge rockets etc.

EDIT: There was one Cacodemon and a monster closet full of Imps who did not wake up during my playthrough in ZDoom. If you find all the secrets, you are quite overstocked, so the final arena is not a problem as long as you're careful with plasma. There is no secret plasma, so players should still be able to beat the arena without 100% secrets. Overall, this map is near to completion.

Here are my maps. The following names are the names I insist on for the project - no more silliness about "Welcome to Fear" or "Drowning", those are not the map names.

-------

WELCOME TO HELL
Map: https://www.mediafire.com/?vd9is32zyzt2fim
Music: http://www.mediafire.com/download/luljgpq1b27wf0o/rawnhell_music.mid

* No known errors, this map should be complete in ZDoom and Boom. 100% kills is possible.

-------

TEMPLE OF FORGOTTEN GODS - latest version:
Map: https://www.mediafire.com/?po137zizwtjtge7
Music: http://www.mediafire.com/download/jn8qkjeei8j3koh/rawnwatr_music.mid

* Giant, unknown HOM after you cross the stone bridge and get the bullets (after fighting the first PE) if you look back where you came from. Not sure why. Map should be doable in ZDoom and Boom.

-------

ACID REIGN - latest version:
Map: https://www.mediafire.com/?tjzf324ttsojuij
Music: http://www.mediafire.com/download/1xed9aadydast5i/d_e2m2.mid

* Should now be doable in ZDoom and Boom, but 100% kills is not possible due to a Cacodemon and a number of Imps not beaming into the map (I may just delete these, it's not like the map needs more monsters).

Thanks for the uploads. Remember that you don't have to post the midi for the files anymore if they're already the correct one in the alpha, since redownloading the midi that's already there is a needless hassle on my end.

Also, I looked in Doom Builder at your teleporting problems and found a bunch of broken sectors. When you're deleting lines from a joined sector, always make sure to use the "Make Sectors Mode" at the top left to ensure that the sectors are closed and working properly. You can download my fix here to see.

Thanks mate. You don't know how much I appreciate your help, you've been just about the only person to offer feedback and help to me during this project.

Can you advise me how to add music and skies onto my maps, as I've never been able to do this.

Download SLADE. You can drag midis over to your maps in it and rename them D_RUNNIN for MAP01. Adding skies is a bit trickier if you're not replacing the standard RSKY# textures (which we've already done for Panophobia), since you have to add patches to the PNAMES lump from my understanding. I haven't done it yet so I can't help you there.

Thanks, I'll try that with the music. As for the sky, are we still using that grey and black one? It seemed to be very poor resolution and I couldn't tell what it actually was.

I'm unsure--fiend handles the graphics so I leave that kind of stuff to his judgement.

I finished playing through Welcome to Hell and enjoyed the small changes I saw. Only thing I'll note is that Things 209 & 592 get stuck on the walls that descend since they're too close to the border, so they need to be moved back. Nice map besides that; I'll have to do your water map a bit later.

Thanks, I have amended the things you mentioned and I have added the music into all of my maps.

I must object to the black and white sky texture, it is quite eye-catchingly ugly. The sky should help to create an atmosphere, not detract from the gameplay. In fact I'm not even sure what it is supposed to be - it doesn't even look like a sky.

Mmm, good stuff so far.

MajorRawne said:

Thanks, I have amended the things you mentioned and I have added the music into all of my maps.

I must object to the black and white sky texture, it is quite eye-catchingly ugly. The sky should help to create an atmosphere, not detract from the gameplay. In fact I'm not even sure what it is supposed to be - it doesn't even look like a sky.

I agree the sky is in need of a touch up. I will work on it at some point.