PSX Doom map bug + PSX Doom Beta stuff

I'm not sure if this was posted before.

Go to map 19 (House of Pain). Go through the teleporter at the far end of the starting hallway. You'll be at the section where there are 2 alcoves, left and right, just ahead (they have enemies and I think some items). Walk through the doorway after the alcoves, turn around and press use. The ceiling in front of you will close down like a door and it can't be reopened. The formed wall is not textured and kind of trippy when you move around while facing it. AFAIK, you can't go back at this point.

Perhaps this issue was addressed in the PSX TC since I can't replicate this bug in the mod.

Known about this one for a while, it's a leftover trigger from V1.2 or whenever for E3M4, originally put in for DM purposes* (so that the whole map can open up regardless of which side of the 'door' players spawn). Quite why it was set as a DR OpenWaitClose instead of D1 DoorOpenStay in the first place (which it is replaced by in later versions), I don't know.

And yes, it's fixed in the TC. The lineaction is removed entirely.

*In V1.2, this line can still potentially break the map in co-op, as the switch used to open the tagged sector from the other side is S1. Activate it via the switch in the crusher room, run through, then close the sector. Die, respawn, and then suddenly realise you have to quit the game.

This was kind of surprising. I mean, of course the game had quite a few crash glitches that are already known. Since PSX Doom uses the Jag Doom's maps, does that port (and all ports that use its maps, except 32x of course) have this same issue?

After a google search, it seems this guy found this problem a long time ago too: http://forums.newdoom.com/showthread.php?t=22588

Yes, JagDoom has the same map issue. I assume that it carries across to any mapset based on JagDoom too, although I'd have to test them all to be sure.

On a loosely related note: Is it just me or is the caged cacodemon transparent like the spectre, in Tenements?

buttspit said:

On a loosely related note: Is it just me or is the caged cacodemon transparent like the spectre, in Tenements?

More transparent than the spectres, in fact.
http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Sony_PlayStation#Technical_details

buttspit said:

On a loosely related note: Is it just me or is the caged cacodemon transparent like the spectre, in Tenements?

Yep. PSX Doom has a few extra flag options which can be applied to any Thing on the map:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1239463#post1239463

Bloody Williams, they could have given us Spectral Revenants and Nightmare Knights but they don't bother. Several years later we get Doom 64. They must employ the same decision makers as Microsoft.

Eh, they made the right choice. They already used Doom II monsters in Ultimate Doom maps which mixes up the gameplay enough, and applying flags to the existing Demons to make a 'new' monster was more system-efficient than creating an entirely new entity with new sprites.

In other words, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. Effectively doubling the enemy variation may seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice such use of the Nightmare flag on anything tougher than a Demon would just create an army of boring meatshields and slow the gameplay down.

Shit, that's actually pretty neat. I need to go back and play this game again in the future after this run.

Fun fact: I have no recollection of asking the question above because I was more than half asleep when making the post. I came here just now to ask, but see that I already did :D And it's coherent, no less.

The press release beta version of the game had the Nightmare imp as well. No known reason why they were all removed before release. The shot from the unidentified game mag (bounty on identification of mag name, volume/issue #, and date on this BTW :P ) shows it in an area along with Nightmare Spectres - one is dead on the ground in the foreground, and another is roaming in the background.

That level kind of looks like Halls of the Damned.

Nice. How did you come across that magazine page scan? I'm currently putting together a list of possible mags it could be from. It might be the same pal preview build that was sold on assemblergames a few years ago. If you've already checked any mags, that would help eliminate some and narrow down the list. Its caption is in English and we're looking at 1994-1995.

Wow, that's amazing. So they did originally do this with another monster and dropped it for reasons unknown.

Baronofstuff is most likely correct. Imagine chewing through a battalion of Imps who did increased damage (presuming the Nightmare flag also boosts their stats) and took 3-4 shotgun hits to kill. Now imagine facing even a couple of Nightmare Barons. You wouldn't be leaving each map with full ammo.

Just using the odd Nightmare Imp wouldn't make much impact on gameplay either way, so there probably wasn't any point including them. It's not like Nightmare Spectres are a game changer. I can barely remember seeing any when playing on UV.

Unless the dev history of PSX Doom is already well known, it seems that they were going in a different direction with the game. Seems more focused on horror, even compared to the final product.

MajorRawne said:

Baronofstuff is most likely correct. Imagine chewing through a battalion of Imps who did increased damage (presuming the Nightmare flag also boosts their stats) and took 3-4 shotgun hits to kill. Now imagine facing even a couple of Nightmare Barons. You wouldn't be leaving each map with full ammo.

The nightmare property only changes the monster to subtractive blending and doubles its spawnhealth. There's no increase to attack power, so general threat level is the same - it just takes twice as much fire power to put it down.

Interestingly the Doom 64 NM imp takes a totally different direction. It has the same health but moves and attacks faster, like a monster in Nightmare skill. As a result its threat level is significantly higher because its attack is really hard to dodge even with plenty of advance warning (open the window on Blood Keep and watch the hell out for those purple fireballs!). I think this was a better idea than the original, personally.

buttspit: Original source, maybe the uncropped graphic will help identify it via visual style? -> http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=89286769&postcount=13714

Here you go:

Maximum (UK)
Issue 2
December 1995
Page 56

It's apparently a Doom 2 map.

Now for that bounty of YOUR ENTIRE DOOM COLLECTION THAT GROWS you promised :)

buttspit said:

It's apparently a Doom 2 map.

Nope. That's MAP14: Halls of the Damned:


Edit:
Another possible reason for nothing else receiving the Nightmare flag would be the lack of such a flag being applied to projectiles. Sure, from a gameplay perspective that's no big deal, but it would look horribly lazy and sloppy. Try it in a UDMF map. It genuinely looks more than a bit shit to see a visually fearsome variant of a monster just lob some regular ol' fireball.

BaronOfStuff said:

It genuinely looks more than a bit shit to see a visually fearsome variant of a monster just lob some regular ol' fireball.

Dunno why they couldn't have tried recoloring it. Even if they were inefficient about it (new graphic instead of engine-side translation) I doubt it would've sent them over the edge in memory usage.

A new projectile would have required an entirely new entity to throw it too, instead of just applying a flag to existing stuff. There probably was/is a way around the limitation (somehow forcing the projectile to inherit the flag, etc.), but they didn't have the time or inclination to do so.

BaronOfStuff said:

There probably was/is a way around the limitation (somehow forcing the projectile to inherit the flag, etc.)

That or hacking the attack function to behave differently depending on flag presence. There's a precedent for hackery of this type, kind of, in the Heretic code, where the undead knight attack function is the same for both variants, but has a built-in check to always shoot a bloody axe when called by the ghost knight.

Nightmare monsters could have been coded to fire projectiles that also had the nightmare flag, but I don't know what the imp fireball would look like with that flag. Probably not good - MOST graphics don't look very good with the flag. That demons look as good as they do, and imps passible, is coincidental with respect to their original coloration.

Barons also look pretty wicked with it, or at least their upper torso does (same color as demons). Of course a Nightmare Baron would have a fearsome 2000 HP :P

In Doom RPG there's supposed to be a weaker HK with a green upperbody.

What's interesting is how the PAL beta (actually more of a review copy, which makes it a closer build to the final version) has an early feature like the nightmare imp, even though the final PAL release was just 1 month later from the North American release. And it doesn't follow the general trend of PAL protos, especially for a disc game.

I wonder how the North American and PAL final games differ in terms of the data on the CD. And I need to track down that PAL review disc.

Quasar said:

Thanks a ton for identifying that issue...

Do you mind providing a link, please? (I had trouble trying to find it). Thanks.

kb1 said:

Do you mind providing a link, please? (I had trouble trying to find it). Thanks.

I'm a bit reserved about posting "mag warez" links on the forums but I have printed a more reasonable resolution version of just the Doom article to PDF which I don't think should be a problem:
http://eternity.mancubus.net/stuff/psxdoomarticle2.pdf

Yeah, that's why I didn't post a link to the entire mag scan so soon. Besides the excerpt provided by Quasar, I'll just leave here that the mag is not hard to find; at all. And it has a few-page spread on Hexen as well if you're interested.

Quasar said:

I'm a bit reserved about posting "mag warez" links on the forums but I have printed a more reasonable resolution version of just the Doom article to PDF which I don't think should be a problem:
http://eternity.mancubus.net/stuff/psxdoomarticle2.pdf

Didn't think about it that way. Thanks for the .pdf

That article contains knee-slapping levels of camp. Good thing the Doom HUD includes such marvels as the DOOR OPERATION DEVICE INDICATOR and PERSONAL FACIAL REFLECTION GENERATOR.

buttspit said:

...Besides the excerpt provided by Quasar, I'll just leave here that the mag is not hard to find; at all.

Ah, it helps to be able to type and spell...