Ossuary of Agony

You don't know what this place is for or why the sands of Egypt held it in secrecy for so long, you only know that this place raised out from the sands around you and has nothing but ill intentions after the skies darkened to a deep blood red. Whatever this place is, you have no choice to go through it, hopefully there is enough firepower left over from your freshly crumpled military base...

You know you will need it.[/story]

This is an old failed NOVA 2 contribution that I just couldn't finish (Which probably explains the half arsed ending). The map is in MAP25's slot for the TNT IWAD and has an Egyptian theme to it. Before I release this thing to /idgames I want to know how awful it came out and anything I can do to kind of try and make it somewhat less awful.

Download that fixed shit

IWAD: TNT.wad
MAP: MAP25
Engine: Limit removing
Co-op/DM: Not yet.



- Thanks for your time.

I recorded an FDA but I relatively briefly ended after 2 deaths. Please don't include the instant death trap, it was outraging. My 2nd death was fully deserved, though. From what I've seen of the rest (mostly with cheating), the map followed classic TNT style with a little too much symmetry but more-or-less good looks, and as I've got a grasp of what the atmosphere/playability would be like, I think it'd be OK at least, I just don't feel any excitement to plough through such a big setpiece-based map now.

scifista42 said:

I recorded an FDA but I relatively briefly ended after 2 deaths. Please don't include the instant death trap, it was outraging. My 2nd death was fully deserved, though. From what I've seen of the rest (mostly with cheating), the map followed classic TNT style with a little too much symmetry but more-or-less good looks, and as I've got a grasp of what the atmosphere/playability would be like, I think it'd be OK at least, I just don't feel any excitement to plough through such a big setpiece-based map now.

Alright, I will replace the insta-kill trap with a door close function so you still don't get a BFG (to be fair, I did mark it with a bright red skull, but I doubt that players care about floor detail) so maybe a non-lethal slamming wall instead?

Ehy, what end did that TNT community megawad you did some months ago... anyway cool title and shots, i'll download this when i get to my pc

In the room with revenants on pillars they cannot lower in prboom-plus with vanilla compatibility because they are stuck in the ceiling.

walter confalonieri said:

Ehy, what end did that TNT community megawad you did some months ago... anyway cool title and shots, i'll download this when i get to my pc

The project died because only a few people were willing to take part.

Memfis said:

In the room with revenants on pillars they cannot lower in prboom-plus with vanilla compatibility because they are stuck in the ceiling.

Oh god, the room with the Archvile?

I'll look into that.

OP DL = fixed

mrthejoshmon said:

The project died because only a few people were willing to take part.

Ok, so even the map i've send to you isn't used anymore?
I kinda remembered that you was working on that...

Cool, I was looking forward to playing this.

So the biggest thing that sticks out to me is that the difficulty is pretty lopsided. The first half is a pretty standard map crawl with some heavy HK usage, and then once you get into the southern section the difficulty spikes there. I actually really enjoyed the fight with the AV in the center and the revs/hitscanners following you around as you weave in and out of the side rooms, but there is not enough health there. It was the only room I died in (other than that silly BFG trap, that I agree should just be replaced with a door closing) mainly because the hitscanners would whittle me down so low that any error on my part would get me killed. There definitely needs to be stimpacks in the side room, and I'd argue maybe a green armor or soulsphere before it.

The next section with all the nukage... I couldn't figure out how players are supposed to kill everything there. It's simple enough to just run circles around the monsters, hit a switch and get the hell out, but I didn't have nearly enough rockets to blast through the baddies before that radsuit would run out, so I'm at a lost there. More rockets & 1 more rad suit would do wonders for there... I'd also argue that a cyber should be a part of that big battle down there, since the room is spacious enough to fit him in (or a Mastermind, either/or).

A very important thing you should change is to make that door that opens the southern section down there a red or yellow key door. After exploring the eastern area I got lost looking for where to go next; picking up a key and realizing "oh, I need to go to that one door" is soooo much more convenient than drawing an arrow on the floor and hoping players notice it as they amble by.

Other than that, most everything else is just minor gameplay adjustments. Having nobles guard the exit switch is suuuuch a boring idea—I'd probably place a couple sergeants and chaingunners there, with an AV behind them. Near the southernmost teleporter, the cacodemons in the window can't scale the wall to harass the player—the floor needs to be raised there. Fighting in the northernmost arena is real awkward since the player has to fire downstairs at the enemies below... it'd be better just to raise them up out of the floor at the end of the area as soon as the player steps onto the red carpet IMO. Other than those things I just a few enemy placement discrepancies (places where HKs would be more suited than barons), but that stuff is minor.

Overall, good work! I like the theming and the general flow of the level... shame there aren't more secrets as a level this expansive just calls for more exploration.

It seems pretty good. Overall I think that some more rockets would be a nice thing. It was fun entering and running in the big nukage tunnel at the end, but the big area afterwards and having to kill all those monsters with the SSG was underwhelming and I just ran straight to reach the exit.

Edit: also, personally I would remove the arrow that points to the marbface door :P

Thank you all for the feedback, I hope this makes it a lot better: http://www.mediafire.com/download/d438ze53wbocqx8/AGONY_2.wad

(The OP has been replaced with this updated version too).

-

walter confalonieri said:

Ok, so even the map i've send to you isn't used anymore?
I kinda remembered that you was working on that...

Yeah, I probably should have told everyone who participated that their maps were no longer being used (many of the maps authors migrated to NOVA 2 with their works). I could dig it up and continue work on it if you want or you can just do as you please with it.

Sorry bout that.

Pretty decent map, not entirely easy, but also not ridiculously hard. The large acid area near the end could use one more radsuit, I had only few cells and rockets by then and had to leave some monsters alive. Oh, and in Zdoom, it was impossible to kill 3 cacodemos (things 504 to 506) near large teleporter to the acid area - they were stuck near the ground.

mrthejoshmon said:

Yeah, I probably should have told everyone who participated that their maps were no longer being used (many of the maps authors migrated to NOVA 2 with their works). I could dig it up and continue work on it if you want or you can just do as you please with it.

Sorry bout that.

Sure, no problem...