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Chris Hansen

THT: Threnody - released!

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Fonze said:

Ah nice, I'll have to give this new midi a listen when I can ^^ We actually do have a midi for our map, Chris; we're using KevinHEZ's remix of "Death's Bells" and Kevin did such a great job on it I'm a bit hesitant to give it up, heh. Though I guess I might be willing to swap it with someone if pcorfs new midi is significantly longer, due to the size of the map and that'll make for less repetitions of the song. But I really like Kevin's midi track here, so no offense to Pcorf :)

Right, of course. I think you've actually already told me that. Sorry. Please let me know which midi you want to use so I can find another level for the freed midi. I have an idea where we can place TechFear if you don't want to use it.

As a side-note, Chris, I've been chipping away at WH and all I should have left are coop things for HMP and UV, so that should be done relatively soon. When it is, there are a couple things I'd like to do:

One, I've been playing through many of these maps in coop and it seems at least a few only have coop player starts placed, so I'll put out there that if there is anyone who wouldn't mind me adding coop stuff to their maps just let me know; I'd be more than happy to do it, but some maps understandably feel very underwhelming in coop.

Coop wasn't a requirement and since it's generally very underused in most projects, I think people just left them out on purpose. I know I did :D But I have absolutely no problem with this project being more coop friendly! I don't see any problems with you fiddling with our maps to make them more coop friendly. Let me know when you want to do it and I'll send you my compiled version of all maps.

And lastly I may try to make another map for this project, but I might need to team up with someone just for the sake of speed, as I'm not the fastest mapper, but I have an interesting idea that I think will work out pretty nicely for a medium-length map.

That would be awesome! Fingers crossed that you find a victim :D

WH-Wilou84 said:

Here's another FDA for your latest update : here

Cool map Mr. Corfiatis :)
Props for the interconnected layout and the high number of secrets - even if some of them are really easy to find, such as the Backpack one.

The only change I'd suggest would be to spice up the ending a bit, with maybe the addition of a Pain Elemental or Cacodemons among the Demons and Spectres that teleport in. For now, the ground creatures are completely useless as the player could just dispatch them from above.


Thanks for giving us feedback to Paul's level! I hope I can find the time to check out your demo.

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Chris Hansen said:

Right, of course. I think you've actually already told me that. Sorry. Please let me know which midi you want to use so I can find another level for the freed midi. I have an idea where we can place TechFear if you don't want to use it.


I'm going to go ahead and stick with Kevin's "Death's Bells" midi track for WormHell. As groovy as that song is, it's really short for a map as long as WH. Though I will say that I do really like the song, from the groovy-ness of its rhythm to the always nice-sounding reverb on the snare drum, making the snare-heavy drum turn-arounds sound lovely, and to the loop-transition's nice execution; pcorf, you did a great job with that song :)

Coop wasn't a requirement and since it's generally very underused in most projects, I think people just left them out on purpose. I know I did :D But I have absolutely no problem with this project being more coop friendly! I don't see any problems with you fiddling with our maps to make them more coop friendly. Let me know when you want to do it and I'll send you my compiled version of all maps.


You know what, I think we talked about that before; heh. If I can remember anything my memory's broken. As long as no one objects, I'll go through each map starting with 01 after I finish up with WH, which should be within a week or two, mixed in with playtesting Mutiny for 40, which should also be done within a couple weeks. I'll get back with you when it's closer to the date, but it's good to have somewhat of a plan as soon as we think of it.

That would be awesome! Fingers crossed that you find a victim :D


Lol ^^

If not, I may wind up doing it anyway. I'd love the chance to contribute another map for this project, so that'll push me to try and work faster on the areas I take a little more time.

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Chris Hansen said:

Thanks for giving us feedback to Paul's level!

You'e welcome :)
I actually considered making a map for this project, but I'm way behind on other commitments elsewhere so the least I can do is try and record FDAs on other mappers' submissions... Speaking of which, here's a demo for nukevil3.wad : here

A pretty pathetic performance from me here, eating my own rocket and almost dying in toxic waste, but nevertheless I had good fun with the map, it has solid gameplay and nice combat situations. The Arachnotron at the very beginning can be a real pain for pistol starters, and that's great :)

As for suggestions... I'd put the Chainsaw further away from the easily-obtainable Berserk pack, and remove the 3 Spectres which guard the switch leading to the red key area. They can easily be killed from below without being able to do any harm to the player. Maybe add another Hell Knight instead... ?

Anyway, that's a great map, fit for E1 or early E2 ( and considerably harder than Paul's map ).

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Made an update to my map.

I decided to replace the Demons and Spectres that teleport in below you near the exit with 13 Imps and a single Cacodemon to distract some of the Imps. There is also an additional teleport destination up on the platform above the crates to prevent overcrowding below and to make the player work harder.

And yes I am no skilled player, my maps are usually easy for most good players.

Also a few minor changes to texturing, such as the lights where the switch raises the first bridge.

Note: The updated map replaces the original.

DOWNLOAD: paulcorfiatis.com/septypc1.zip

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Fonze said:

I'm going to go ahead and stick with Kevin's "Death's Bells" midi track for WormHell. As groovy as that song is, it's really short for a map as long as WH. Though I will say that I do really like the song, from the groovy-ness of its rhythm to the always nice-sounding reverb on the snare drum, making the snare-heavy drum turn-arounds sound lovely, and to the loop-transition's nice execution; pcorf, you did a great job with that song :)

Roger roger! I'll match Paul'd TechFear with another level. It's too good to not be included!

You know what, I think we talked about that before; heh. If I can remember anything my memory's broken. As long as no one objects, I'll go through each map starting with 01 after I finish up with WH, which should be within a week or two, mixed in with playtesting Mutiny for 40, which should also be done within a couple weeks. I'll get back with you when it's closer to the date, but it's good to have somewhat of a plan as soon as we think of it.

Your memory isn't broken. Mine is. Too much stuff going on at the moment! :P The only Doom related stuff I've got time for is this project. I simply can't find the time for making levels or even playing other people's work. So, yeah, it's not strange that it's all starting to wear me out a bit with all this RL stuff going on.

If not, I may wind up doing it anyway. I'd love the chance to contribute another map for this project, so that'll push me to try and work faster on the areas I take a little more time.

Sounds good, man! I hope you succeed! :)

WH-Wilou84 said:

You'e welcome :)
I actually considered making a map for this project, but I'm way behind on other commitments elsewhere so the least I can do is try and record FDAs on other mappers' submissions... Speaking of which, here's a demo for nukevil3.wad : here

A pretty pathetic performance from me here, eating my own rocket and almost dying in toxic waste, but nevertheless I had good fun with the map, it has solid gameplay and nice combat situations. The Arachnotron at the very beginning can be a real pain for pistol starters, and that's great :)

As for suggestions... I'd put the Chainsaw further away from the easily-obtainable Berserk pack, and remove the 3 Spectres which guard the switch leading to the red key area. They can easily be killed from below without being able to do any harm to the player. Maybe add another Hell Knight instead... ?

Anyway, that's a great map, fit for E1 or early E2 ( and considerably harder than Paul's map ).

Thanks for the demo! Your suggestions are good and I'll have a look at them once I can free up some time. Too bad you couldn't find the time for making a map. I would have been awesome to have you on board :) But I'm super happy that you're willing to test some of the maps for us! That's a pretty damn important job too! :)

pcorf said:

Made an update to my map.

Cheers, Paul!

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Midi news!

The two tracks "TechFear" and "Mechanical Illuminations" by Paul have been assigned to the levels Cut Throat and Manly Hatred. OP has been updated with this information. "Medi Evil" by Paul is still available if someone wants to use it. Feel free to reserve it if it fits a level that's still in the making. Just be sure to let me know about it.

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@Fonze
if you want to to make a new map, I am pleased to help you out. I would do the detailing and some other stuff... but you should have done the layout, already... - let me know if you are still interested in it...


@all
I am going to check the maps. As for now, I found a relatívely serious prob in one map,... -
It'll take a while, when I am making some notes .... - but it is very good what I have seen so far!!

I will give some impresesions soon...

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didy said:

@Fonze
if you want to to make a new map, I am pleased to help you out. I would do the detailing and some other stuff... but you should have done the layout, already... - let me know if you are still interested in it...


@all
I am going to check the maps. As for now, I found a relatívely serious prob in one map,... -
It'll take a while, when I am making some notes .... - but it is very good what I have seen so far!!

I will give some impresesions soon...


Sweet man; I look forward to your feedback!

As for the map, I'm a bit behind schedule of where I wanted to be; it's been over 2 weeks and I'm just now doing my final playtesting of WormHell before posting its finished version; just haven't had the time I wanted to have. I should be able to start work on the layout of the new map within a week; hopefully I'll have its layout done a week or two after that, though the idea I had would likely be best detailed as its made so I may scrap that for now and make something else. I'll probably do some of the detailing myself because I just can't send off a series of blank areas without feeling like an ass, but I'll focus less on that as I go then and get us a solid layout with theme started, send you the map for detailing, then either I can do the things or we can do 'em together. Might not be a bad idea for us to start talking about ideas through PM's for what we're looking for with this (episode [which will determine texturing and difficulty], looks, gameplay, flow, etc.). Right now I'm leaning towards an E3 map (because we need more and I really like the look for it), hopefully much smaller than the max-lines used in WormHell, heh (so probably a similar length to your TY45_15 map). The rest we can handle in PM's.

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The final, finished version of WormHell is done. I will not be making any further changes to it until right before compilation day for any misc bug fixes that were missed, which at this point should be none. So consider this the final version of this map, reflected in its file name.

The sky bug has been fixed by Z0k. This link is the correct link.

WormHell
by: Z0k and Fonze

Format: Boom
iWad: Doom 2
Resources: SepTytex2d

Screenies:

Spoiler
















-All difficulty levels and coop settings have been implemented and balanced, though UV is a tough beast; we may have to move this to a secret map slot, though I compensated this by being generous on health and ammo. I went with most armors and power-ups in threes to match Mech's Fomalhaut map for coop. UV -solo-net is fun ^^ but not recommended.
-Takes around an hour to 100%; hour and a half is likely for UV, due to the extra dimension.
-Changed the main teleport trap/homage to "Shipping/Respawning" to work in ports that don't do infinite-height explosions by default.
-Added in all skies; WormHell uses 4 skies: SKYMOUN1 (real dimension), SKYSTAR1 (dark dimension), SKYDSKRD (Hell dimension), and SKYBUBL3 (graveyard).
-Uses 12-13 lines under the max number of lines (heh) (8.2 MB). First time I've had the nodebuilder kick it back on me for nodes rather than DB kicking it back for number of lines.
-I use silent teleports when I please.
-Most encounters are designed around pressure being applied to the player in different forms and from multiple angles, with some fights being counterintuitive (like rockets all around, 3 PE's in the middle, 2 mancs on the sides, and a baron thrown in for the Hell of it; gotta take out one of the mancs first to make space), so don't expect this map to be easy; even the easier modes have some tricky spots.
Spoiler



There really shouldn't be any bugs or misaligned textures or anything like that at this point in the map, but if you find any I'd be pleased to hear!

Any feedback is appreciated!

Would also like to see some self-punishing demos!

Great job to all other mappers and contributors here; I hope this map lives up to the quality y'all have put forth :)

Good luck and have fun!

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Fonze said:

I hope this map lives up to the quality y'all have put forth :)


Of course it does! It's a spectacular beast of a level and an awesome tribute to Ty! Thank you - to both of you - for all the hard work :)

I've noticed a sky bug as well in Mithran Denizen's level. I don't know if it's the same problem you're experiencing, but in his level, it looks like some pixels are repeated as if the sky overlaps itself or something. Here's a screenshot of it:

Spoiler


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It's so small it's tough to see, heh, but I believe that is the same thing I'm experiencing. We will have to nail down what the problem is some time before compilation. To my knowledge, this did not start in WormHell until I added the new skies. Some time over the next week or two I'll start tinkering with it and see if I can find a way to either fix it or break it some more; either should be helpful for us, lol.

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Chris Hansen said:

Of course it does! It's a spectacular beast of a level and an awesome tribute to Ty! Thank you - to both of you - for all the hard work :)

I've noticed a sky bug as well in Mithran Denizen's level. I don't know if it's the same problem you're experiencing, but in his level, it looks like some pixels are repeated as if the sky overlaps itself or something. Here's a screenshot of it:


I also had that problem in my map where the elevator is in the northern part of the map. Nothing I can do to fix it.

Hopefully I will start work on my second map for the project and work on it over May and June once I have the twzone2 soundtrack fully uploaded to Youtube. Really have been busy in real life and I am not always at home.

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That sky bug kind of looks like a misaligned sky transfer to me. Check your sky transfer line actions and make sure each of them are aligned 0,0. It could also be a sky sector that has the incorrect tag, though usually that means you can see a chunk of the vanilla sky mixed in with the transferred sky.

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Thank you, Mech! That's the problem all right! I just fixed it in Paul's and MD's levels as there's no need for them to upload new versions of their maps just for a tiny fix like this. I would do the same for WormHell, but if I know Fonze right, I'd bet he'd like to do it himself. Right, Fonze? :) BTW: It's the linedefs in sector 5596 that needs some TLC. Sorry, couldn't help taking a look at it :D

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Nope you're wrong this time, Chris; Z0k was way ahead of me. Speaking of which, I was drinking and forgot to check out his fix last night after work and thank him for hooking it up.

I updated the link in my post with the fixed version.

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pcorf said:

Hopefully I will start work on my second map for the project and work on it over May and June once I have the twzone2 soundtrack fully uploaded to Youtube. Really have been busy in real life and I am not always at home.


Fingers crossed that you'll cook up a cool Eternal styled level for us, Paul! That would be so cool!


Screenshots
I've made a really basic website where I'll post screenshots of all the levels submitted so far. Link here or in the OP.

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I played Wormhell over the course of a few sessions. I died twice:

Spoiler

First was in the skinfloor+blood area, to chaingunners I didn't know existed.

Second was in the graveyard area to an archvile, because I got caught on the fence. (That should be widened, imo. It's pretty awkward.) This one erased quite a lot of progress, but I wouldn't have had it any other way; saving before every fight would have spoiled a lot of the fun.

I somehow managed to survive the disaster area.

There were a lot of cool setups. My favorite was the
Spoiler

conveyer manc room, LOL. That random spiderdemon hiding in the yard was a highlight too.

I like the humor and richness of world-building.

In terms of changes, I think the first ambush in the first crate zone, early on in the map, is more cleanup than anything; there are hell knights and revenants that just pile up near the stairs (where the player immediately rushes back to) and are unable to do any damage.

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rdwpa said:

I played Wormhell over the course of a few sessions. I died twice:

Spoiler

First was in the skinfloor+blood area, to chaingunners I didn't know existed.

Second was in the graveyard area to an archvile, because I got caught on the fence. (That should be widened, imo. It's pretty awkward.) This one erased quite a lot of progress, but I wouldn't have had it any other way; saving before every fight would have spoiled a lot of the fun.

I somehow managed to survive the disaster area.

There were a lot of cool setups. My favorite was the
Spoiler

conveyer manc room, LOL. That random spiderdemon hiding in the yard was a highlight too.

I like the humor and richness of world-building.

In terms of changes, I think the first ambush in the first crate zone, early on in the map, is more cleanup than anything; there are hell knights and revenants that just pile up near the stairs (where the player immediately rushes back to) and are unable to do any damage.


Nice! Thanks for the feedback rdwpa. Truth be told I think you're right about the fights in (both) the box room(s); too easy for it to become a game of cleanup if the player moves up the stairs, which is also a good and obvious position to run to. Though at least the dark dimension punishes the player for that. I'll jot that down and see about reworking either the monster set there or the stairs at a later date. Perhaps I could put a flying monster or three to come in from outside, behind the player. Idk; I'll figure it out. Prolly wind up just changing some HK's to cacos, but hopefully I find something more interesting than that.

I hope the SM wasn't too confusing for a "first run" type of thing, being that's there's no ammo around him and a random blur sphere in the following building (as well as the ammo for him) that a player wouldn't know about on their first run. My goal was for players to see him, say f*ck that and run to the next building, softly cutting off their means of escape from that building.

Also, the richness of the world-building; that's all Z0k. This level never would have turned out as beautifully detailed and laid-out as it is without his touch of gold. We had fun making this map.


As for widening the graveyard, that sounds spooky with 13 lines remaining, but perhaps I can do something there; we'll see.

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Chris, I'd like to request two more flats added to the resource pack. After finishing the starting room it was recommended to me to change the CEIL5_2 flat to something less brown and more grey, but nothing we had really worked well, so I made a new one:



Hopefully the grey in this will contrast enough with the wood (I think it does) while still retaining the metal's brown so it looks right, even after considering its surroundings.


In addition, I felt we needed a good green flat that could be used in tech-y things and as random tiny bits of trim:




The starting room of the new map is done now, pending the additions of the new flats. Doesn't look half bad right now (and much better with a somewhat greyer flat for the metal):

Spoiler


At this point I'm beginning to iron out the layout; hopefully I'll have that done in a week or two.


Here is a zip file with:
- both files ready to put straight into Slade, as well as in .png format, just in case.
- septytex2d1.wad, which already has both files added in at the very bottom of the flats section. Just rename and good-to-go.

Thanks in advance!

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Thank you for this, Fonze! Very nice looking screenshot also! :) I've renamed, uploaded the file and updated the OP.

While I'm here: I've been contacted by a community member and he's working a new map based on old, scrapped Ult. Doom map. We aren't sure if it will be included, so it might be a little early to break this news. But I'm rooting for him and I hope he'll be able to complete it for us.

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Awesome; thanks man.

I'll be rooting for the mystery member, too; you got this!

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I've started work on a new Eternal Doom style map for E3 which I hope to have complete before July. It will be a simple map intended for the start of E3 but of course it is Christian's decision of which map slot it goes into. Will post some screenies later once the map grows.

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Hey Fonze, finally set aside some time to play WormHell. Took me 50 minutes, though I'm sure there's an unaccounted-for 10 minutes worth of me dying at various spots. Have some mixed feelings on it by the end of my play session I'll try my best to extrapolate on.

First, kudos on the visuals—loved how each area had a realistic approach to the architecture, but featured none of the common trappings of realistic architecture that commonly hamper gameplay. Everything was spiffy and nice to look at, and there's plenty of personality to each of the three areas. Not entirely sure which of the three I liked best—I suppose I'm always partial towards the hell sections—but good job overall prettying up the place. My absolute favorite part was the guillotine made out of boxes—utterly brilliant work there!

A cool part about the gameplay is that it's very freeform. While each area has a "linear" progression design, there are a variety of ways to go about collecting your armaments and conquering the map bit by bit, so I applaud you for respecting the player's decision-making skills. It definitely would be a good map to replay since you can go about tackling it from different directions.

Gameplay left me a bit indifferent, though. I really like how the start forces you to scrounge around for ammunition and gather your armaments, and I appreciate the constant monster variety you throw at the player. However, I think where the map wears down a bit is in visiting the other sections, since you're essentially using the same layout three times (albeit with a variety of changes). The central complex at least goes through a significant change in the Hell section, but the other areas feel quite similar, especially the Wormhole building. Because of that it can be a bit fatiguing, but there isn't much you can personally do to change that... probably a subjective issue anyway.

There are a couple of things I can recommend changing, which I've circled here.

- The sergeant in the red circle is really hard to hit and ineffectual, so he's not really necessary. There's a sergeant across from him that's easier to hit, but not too useful either.

- To fix the flooding monster problem in the box room at the yellow circle, I think a better solution is to trigger the warp-in independently on each side. For instance, if you go into the top section you should trigger the top two warp-ins, but the bottom one shouldn't go off until you go down there. That way it keeps you from having to clean them up from the platform near the entrance.

- I take great umbrage with the cyber trap at the green circle. Besides being a big middle finger to the player when they first encounter it, that entire outdoor area feels skippable and not worth going back to clear out. I can see the fun in fighting the cyber there, but I really felt all those other enemies (specifically the archviles) were just asking to be ignored. At first I thought I had to AV jump to survive, but then I found the stairs and subsequently the BFG.

- Speaking of archviles, perhaps the map is a bit too heavy with them. You like to use them as harassers mixed in with the forces of hell, which can make for some really fun improv gameplay, except that a lot of places they appear in don't have adequate cover. The blue circle for the entire graveyard section is the most significant offender of this, since it's so dark that you can't see where they are and the tombstones barely provide cover (when you're lucky enough to find them amongst the darkness). I think one there might be okay, but it definitely doesn't need any more than that.

- The purple circle area was the hardest fight on the map for me. Since there's a lot of revs the player is pushed to look for cover to destroy the homing rockets with, which tends to push them into the AV-infested nest in the next area. I think having two towers or something would make that place a little more manageable. Besides that, fun encounter.

- Silent warps. Why Fonze, why? Not only do they look terrible (at first I thought something was wrong with the map) but it has no conveyance to the player whatsoever. At least with teleports you can hear if the enemies warp nearby or not, but here it feels too sudden. I dislike the insta-floor pop-up stuff, but I hate this kind of thing even more—it really detracts from the gameplay for me.

- Final fight is negligible. Needs a horde or revs/mancs or something accompanying the cyber to even be remotely interesting.

Nevertheless, it's a neat map. The player can tell it's a labor of love, which easily makes it a fantastic addition to the set—I just find myself unenthused with some of the gameplay sections. Great job... definitely worth a replay when the project is closer to completion. I do not envy having to edit and playtest it though!

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Ah, somehow I got unsubscribed to this thread... Wall of text incoming >.< Sorry, you know how I am at this time of night.

dobu gabu maru said:

Hey Fonze, finally set aside some time to play WormHell. Took me 50 minutes, though I'm sure there's an unaccounted-for 10 minutes worth of me dying at various spots. Have some mixed feelings on it by the end of my play session I'll try my best to extrapolate on.

First, kudos on the visuals—loved how each area had a realistic approach to the architecture, but featured none of the common trappings of realistic architecture that commonly hamper gameplay. Everything was spiffy and nice to look at, and there's plenty of personality to each of the three areas. Not entirely sure which of the three I liked best—I suppose I'm always partial towards the hell sections—but good job overall prettying up the place. My absolute favorite part was the guillotine made out of boxes—utterly brilliant work there!


Thank you for the feedback dobu (and ~ an hour is a pretty damn good time)! Glad you liked the look of everything; Z0k did such a fantastic job on 99.9% of the level; it really motivated me to step my game up, too. I think I like the Hell realm best, too, though some of that is due to Mech's awesome sky that was used there. That thing pops. The guillotine was fun to make, thanks ^^

dobu gabu maru said:

A cool part about the gameplay is that it's very freeform. While each area has a "linear" progression design, there are a variety of ways to go about collecting your armaments and conquering the map bit by bit, so I applaud you for respecting the player's decision-making skills. It definitely would be a good map to replay since you can go about tackling it from different directions.


I love replayability in maps so thank you for that compliment :) Z0k did most of the layout; most of my contribution to that was throwing out ideas and basic collaboration once I started work on the "things;" mostly helping to ease his mapper's block. Z0k really worked hard to make this nonlinear so the props for that should go to him. I mostly made sure each path was fun to play and designed a few things here and there. I think the Hell dimension is the only one that's really linear, aside from just heading pretty much straight east in the first dimension. I think it boils down to 5 doors, 2 switches and a lift, then exit to Hell (aside from the switch for the RL). Every gun is given on the main path even if you choose to skip most of the map (except from the BFG, which isn't necessary and used to be a SS until right before I put the newest version out; I felt like the cyber-disaster area fight deserved a better reward).

dobu gabu maru said:

Gameplay left me a bit indifferent, though. I really like how the start forces you to scrounge around for ammunition and gather your armaments, and I appreciate the constant monster variety you throw at the player. However, I think where the map wears down a bit is in visiting the other sections, since you're essentially using the same layout three times (albeit with a variety of changes). The central complex at least goes through a significant change in the Hell section, but the other areas feel quite similar, especially the Wormhole building. Because of that it can be a bit fatiguing, but there isn't much you can personally do to change that... probably a subjective issue anyway.


I can see what you mean, given the hour invested; one thing I liked was that Z0k put some of the opening-monster closets in slightly different locations, made the Hell dimension a tiny bit different, and of course the retexturing, to which I matched with the gameplay throughout, but given the length perhaps there should have been more of a differentiation between the first two dimensions, as well as the Wormhole building. But one of our goals was for each to pretty much have the same layout, especially the "real" and "dark" ones. Tbh it didn't help us retexturing the thing with no really good, "dark" variant for the METALx or BIGBRIK1 textures. I may make some variations for us to use if I can get the time, but I'm not going to hold my breath. If I do, I'm thinking of doing something like the 3RROCK10 flat with the moss growing on the metal. Aside from the retexturing and the minor changes throughout, like the mirroring, our thought was to make the gameplay one of the key factors that made each dimension feel different from one another, as the combination of both gameplay and visuals affects the atmosphere of an area. My original thought was to use the lesser mobs for the real dimension and revs/spectres/etc for the dark one, but that later changed to giving the dark dimension more of an "abandoned" feel to match the look; littering the ground with bodies and teleporting most monsters in. We looked at it kinda like you traveled far forward in time and Hell had already left the area, discovering your presence only after you go a little ways in. That's also where I started using the silent teleports more freely. But part of that was the homage to the feel of the original Wormhole, which we expanded upon with making the wormhole "unstable," affecting parts of the level seemingly randomly. Like the blue armor by the start, reached through the yellow door in the opposite dimension, or the HK and rev that teleport in a way which affects more the player's perceptions than the gameplay. I'm getting off track, my apologies, but the main goal for differentiation between the first two dimensions, gameplay-wise, was meant to be that the first had monsters already present while the second felt abandoned and darker/moodier, more of a reaction to you entering the area and of course that was done to match the look of the base long abandoned.

dobu gabu maru said:

There are a couple of things I can recommend changing, which I've circled here.

- The sergeant in the red circle is really hard to hit and ineffectual, so he's not really necessary. There's a sergeant across from him that's easier to hit, but not too useful either.


Personally, I liked their positions due to their ability to randomly hitscan a player out of cover while having less of a chance as chaingunners to accidentally hit a friendly (as the outside fight can easily devolve into circle-strafing; which in a way makes them higher priority targets). In addition their low health makes them quick to dispatch, which is important given their positions. I like their location for that and I generally go for them sooner than later, assuming the first one you mentioned doesn't hit the nearby caco. I'll think about that some more, but I'm leaning to keep them. Perhaps I'll move them in to stand on the walls, but those are about the only places in the mountains they can stand where you can actually shoot them.

dobu gabu maru said:

- To fix the flooding monster problem in the box room at the yellow circle, I think a better solution is to trigger the warp-in independently on each side. For instance, if you go into the top section you should trigger the top two warp-ins, but the bottom one shouldn't go off until you go down there. That way it keeps you from having to clean them up from the platform near the entrance.


That's really not a bad idea; though if I do that I'll have to close off the monsters that teleport in and section them appropriately. Right now they are all in the same sector with 16 teleporting lines around, making them teleport totally randomly. Right now I am leaning to either widen the stairs or do like I did for the outside stairs and put in a barely noticeable teleporter to get the monsters past the tight spot, but I gotta think about that some more, too.

dobu gabu maru said:

- I take great umbrage with the cyber trap at the green circle. Besides being a big middle finger to the player when they first encounter it, that entire outdoor area feels skippable and not worth going back to clear out. I can see the fun in fighting the cyber there, but I really felt all those other enemies (specifically the archviles) were just asking to be ignored. At first I thought I had to AV jump to survive, but then I found the stairs and subsequently the BFG.


Heh; I hope it's not too much of a middle finger. I find them to be fun to clear out after the fight with the cyber, though it'd prolly be better to get rid of all of them. The only problem with that is if a player runs up, opens the door, then runs back extremely quickly, in which case they could stand atop the sign and cheese the cyber. The AVs were originally added in before the sign to softly pressure the player into the room with the cyber (with the chaingunners and revs meant to supplement the AVs), while also providing enough pressure to make the player feel safer in the room with the cyber than outside with them. However, this was found to be too easy, so I added in the sign for UV mode only. Truth be told, there is still the problem of a player hitting the door and quickly retreating, killing the AVs and co. and cheesing the cyber from atop the sign. But at the same time, in a way that means the AVs are unnecessary anyway. Perhaps I'll remove them and make the top of the sign damage 20% or something. I'm pretty sure I won't even have to change the operating mechanism to do that. But there's a chance that'll piss players off if they legitimately try to run over the sign and in that split second take 20% damage. Idk; if you have a better idea I'll listen. Worst case I can always raise another wall behind the sign so the rocket splash would hit a cheesing player.

dobu gabu maru said:

- Speaking of archviles, perhaps the map is a bit too heavy with them. You like to use them as harassers mixed in with the forces of hell, which can make for some really fun improv gameplay, except that a lot of places they appear in don't have adequate cover. The blue circle for the entire graveyard section is the most significant offender of this, since it's so dark that you can't see where they are and the tombstones barely provide cover (when you're lucky enough to find them amongst the darkness). I think one there might be okay, but it definitely doesn't need any more than that.


You may be right; I love AVs. Though that is one reason I was generous on the pickups; so that as long as you survived you knew that there was plenty of health, armor, and ammo up ahead. But a few places definitely come to my mind; the most serious offender to me would be the trap that locks you in upstairs in the first building of the Hell dimension. If you use all your cells and don't find the switch you may be screwed when that AV comes through. The graveyard didn't strike me as too difficult as long as the turret revs and AV don't get you from behind, though the large room directly west of it is AV-heavy with 7 total. In some instances, I could make them revs or something else to suit their specific use, but it'd make things a bit too easy, I think, and far less interesting. I may go ahead and knock down a few here and there to revs or something.

dobu gabu maru said:

- The purple circle area was the hardest fight on the map for me. Since there's a lot of revs the player is pushed to look for cover to destroy the homing rockets with, which tends to push them into the AV-infested nest in the next area. I think having two towers or something would make that place a little more manageable. Besides that, fun encounter.


I kinda had a feeling that opening the door before heading to that fight would lead to problems as the player would feel tempted to run into the building. I think I'm going to go ahead and change the function of the door-opening switch and make that big door open from some small switch hidden outside, maybe under an AV. That'll at least prevent players from activating what would otherwise be two separate encounters. I find it fairly easy when using the two columns on the building with the big open door, while not running inside. But where would you propose placing these two towers? I might be into that, though I'll also be changing the door functions, too. Prolly go with that switch will open the door and "unlock" the outside-leading door of the first building, then close both when the player gets outside, locking them in the area.

dobu gabu maru said:

- Silent warps. Why Fonze, why? Not only do they look terrible (at first I thought something was wrong with the map) but it has no conveyance to the player whatsoever. At least with teleports you can hear if the enemies warp nearby or not, but here it feels too sudden. I dislike the insta-floor pop-up stuff, but I hate this kind of thing even more—it really detracts from the gameplay for me.


I should start by saying I find the current teleport sound to be extremely quiet anyway, for whatever that's worth, heh. The thing about the silent teleports; as far as conveyance to the player goes: the vast majority give the player a hint that something has happened. Most appear with loud teleports, sometimes just to cut down on the sound and sometimes to get the player to look in a particular direction, giving me as a mapper a chance to establish a "front" and a "flank." Most of the ones that do not go off with a loud teleport happen to monsters that are unaware of the player, which also do not always face in the direction of the player when they appear. Thus their "hello" is the player's warning, which albeit does feel really sudden, but is no more sudden than a monster already aware of you loudly teleporting in, which kinda goes back to the messing with perceptions/expectations thing. There are a very few that fit neither of the two previous categories that occur either during encounters or when I don't want the player to know about them; like the PE in the first outside fight or the spectres that appear first when you enter the dark dimension, respectively. Also the 2 revs that sneak up behind you in the Wormhole building in the dark dimension are a good example, but their clue is an opening door. I tried not to go overboard on it but I can understand that it is jarring. There are a couple insta-pops too, I think, though those might have been only in multiplayer because I have so few lines left and teleports weren't an option, like a tightly packed group of revs in the Hell dimension (MP) that serve no real purpose but to be something different to keep players on their toes (the way they're used they're basically trash; meant to be just something random and fun). As for the HK and the rev that had the silent teleporting effect directly in front of the player; I like that effect, being a very minor, mostly visual thing. The first HK that does it (inside the door of the yellow-circle room) is meant to prepare you for what's to come, mentally, while not really changing anything and the rev in Hell was just a friendly reminder, though by that point I think all of the silent teleports are done; I don't remember very many in the Hell realm.

Now, as for the dark dimension, as I said, it was kinda meant to be that way; no real pretty way to say it. I wanted to give it more of a "horror-ish" vibe to match the look and feel, also feeling very oppressing while not being too difficult; reflected in the first room with the crates. Once again it more came down to the narrative of the map, almost forcing you to find a place to hold up to fight for your life as Hell invades and the wormhole grows more unstable, affecting more things; that made the dark dimension the main location of most of the silent teleports.

But as I said, the level is littered with groups of teleports in which one or two are silent and the rest are loud. Also, many traps have multiple ways for the enemies to teleport in, so some, normally loud teleports might be silent/in a different position and vice versa, depending on what the player does.

dobu gabu maru said:

- Final fight is negligible. Needs a horde or revs/mancs or something accompanying the cyber to even be remotely interesting.


Interesting; I would have thought that would just lead to more cannon fodder. On multiplayer I put in a second cyber and spawner, which I could change over to SP, though at the same time by that point the player has been playing for over an hour. Really the cyber was meant to be more of a distraction while the spawner brings the real enemies in, or trash mobs, you know, whatever; heh. I didn't really want to kill the player there. I wanted most of the tough stuff to be roughly in the middle and up to halfway through the Hell dimension, then kind of let off a bit for the player while not really appearing to do so. Idk; I could certainly do so much more with that final fight; I'll think about it. I suppose if I add the second cyber and spawner I could put in the horde of revs/mancs on multiplayer. Perhaps I could put some enemies right there next to the exit outside of the gate, like an AV trapped behind the exit-line.

dobu gabu maru said:

Nevertheless, it's a neat map. The player can tell it's a labor of love, which easily makes it a fantastic addition to the set—I just find myself unenthused with some of the gameplay sections. Great job... definitely worth a replay when the project is closer to completion. I do not envy having to edit and playtest it though!


Oh no, sir; the testing is the best part ;D

Thanks again for your feedback; I'll think some more on it over the next few days and see about changing some things around for the final, compiled version, along with rdwpa's suggestions.

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Fonze said:

Thank you for the feedback dobu (and ~ an hour is a pretty damn good time)!

No problem—I generally don't look for secrets or get 100% kills, which would explain my speedy time methinks. Also props to Z0k, since it had completely slipped my mind that he worked on the map as well.

Fonze said:

Personally, I liked their positions due to their ability to randomly hitscan a player out of cover

I'm not against the idea of the hitscanners pressuring the player, it's just that they're in hard-to-hit positions that don't let them get good shots off either. Putting them on the wall or in the tower where the imp is would be a good solution to that problem.

Fonze said:

But there's a chance that'll piss players off if they legitimately try to run over the sign and in that split second take 20% damage.

Yeah 20% is a lot of health to lose, and I know most players would be unhappy accidentally suffering it. IMO, with traps like that I always take a "live and let live" mindset towards it, allowing it to be broken if the player tries hard enough. The majority of players will experience the trap as intended, and if there's some that want to skip it, let 'em—if they want to purposely make the gameplay less interesting, that's their prerogative :P

Fonze said:

But where would you propose placing these two towers?

This would work ok I think, though since the combat is loose it doesn't necessarily matter where they are. Also needing a switch to get in the next area is a good idea—remember to make the door a MARBFACE or something just to clearly indicate to the player that's it doesn't have a DR trigger.

Fonze said:

I should start by saying I find the current teleport sound to be extremely quiet anyway [...]

The two areas that stand out in my mind are the central crate area in the normal side and its respective Hell section. The former feels clunky, but the latter one is the one that got my goat, since I was trying to shoot down the revs in the corner of the room when they'd simply vanish before my eyes. I'm fine with using them out of sight, but seeing monsters materialize out of thin air in front of me just seems tawdry. That said though, I do have a fondness for the teleporter maze in my map, so perhaps we all have our own questionable preferences...

Fonze said:

I wanted most of the tough stuff to be roughly in the middle and up to halfway through the Hell dimension, then kind of let off a bit for the player while not really appearing to do so.

This was actually something I had to mull over bringing up, because I definitely see it both ways. I decided to mention it in case you didn't know it was a bit lackluster, but if you intended it to be so then by all means, you don't have to tamper it. I think it's fine to have the difficulty climax be earlier on and have the final challenge be something easily fled from, especially since the map is quite meaty and vicious already.

Lastly, forgot to mention that I caught this misalignment over in the normal side of the central crate room.

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dobu gabu maru said:

No problem—I generally don't look for secrets or get 100% kills, which would explain my speedy time methinks. Also props to Z0k, since it had completely slipped my mind that he worked on the map as well.


Speaking of the 100%, I just noticed that at some point after I did my final testing and before I released this version I somehow changed a flag on a MP enemy (Hey, now it's a MAP31 tribute! >.< )(prolly didn't hit the "c" button when I should've), which makes 100% currently impossible, as 2 enemies and a lost soul are trapped. So that was a fuck up.

dobu gabu maru said:

I'm not against the idea of the hitscanners pressuring the player, it's just that they're in hard-to-hit positions that don't let them get good shots off either. Putting them on the wall or in the tower where the imp is would be a good solution to that problem.


The one on the left is tough to hit; I'll move him down onto the wall, in a cubby hole so the player cannot snipe him from the SSG room. Did the same for medium, but easy has an imp with a barrel, so I left that as-is.

dobu gabu maru said:

Yeah 20% is a lot of health to lose, and I know most players would be unhappy accidentally suffering it. IMO, with traps like that I always take a "live and let live" mindset towards it, allowing it to be broken if the player tries hard enough. The majority of players will experience the trap as intended, and if there's some that want to skip it, let 'em—if they want to purposely make the gameplay less interesting, that's their prerogative :P


Paul McCartney taught me to live and let die; I'm so conflicted ;p
Nah; I think you're right, but at the same time the sign itself isn't in the direct path so I may just do that one and leave the little pillars and rock as they are.

dobu gabu maru said:

This would work ok I think, though since the combat is loose it doesn't necessarily matter where they are. Also needing a switch to get in the next area is a good idea—remember to make the door a MARBFACE or something just to clearly indicate to the player that's it doesn't have a DR trigger.


Yeah I'll prolly make it either a MARBFACE-type of thing or something like the MTNT1 texture used in the room with the table saws. I'll look into some columns.

dobu gabu maru said:

The two areas that stand out in my mind are the central crate area in the normal side and its respective Hell section. The former feels clunky, but the latter one is the one that got my goat, since I was trying to shoot down the revs in the corner of the room when they'd simply vanish before my eyes. I'm fine with using them out of sight, but seeing monsters materialize out of thin air in front of me just seems tawdry. That said though, I do have a fondness for the teleporter maze in my map, so perhaps we all have our own questionable preferences...


Ah, yes; that latter one. I forgot those were silent, but I found the loud teleports to sound a bit annoying when the mobs were constantly teleporting, though when they teleport down it is loud. I'll try it out again, though, and see if it doesn't sound too bad. For the former one; are you referring to the "real" dimension or the "dark" one? The real dimension only has 3; the HK that does nothing, the 2 enemies that come out after the armor, and the trailers from outside. I assume you're talking about the HK; what do you mean by clunky?

dobu gabu maru said:

This was actually something I had to mull over bringing up, because I definitely see it both ways. I decided to mention it in case you didn't know it was a bit lackluster, but if you intended it to be so then by all means, you don't have to tamper it. I think it's fine to have the difficulty climax be earlier on and have the final challenge be something easily fled from, especially since the map is quite meaty and vicious already.


Nah, I think it is a bit too easy and the more I think about it the more anti-climactic I see it. Like I said, I wanted it to let off without appearing to do so, but I think that it could at least be made to appear worse. I'll go ahead and double them up. Tbh, I had a lot of fun playtesting the map in -solo-net and in a way I wish I didn't feel so bad about adding extra monsters to make the SP experience more like the MP.

dobu gabu maru said:

Lastly, forgot to mention that I caught this misalignment over in the normal side of the central crate room.


Huh, I know I've fixed that exact misalignment before... lol. Thank you for noticing it.

Btw, the misalignment was in the dark dimension, so that makes me again question that clunky part. Were you talking about the same dimension that had the misalignment? With the blood all over the crates and the spider webs. Might've been a bit darker, too.



Anyway, thanks again for the additional feedback.

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