Doom 64 for Doom II - v1.4 released, /idgames link is up

6 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

No, the level design in Doom (with Doom 2 it's much more debatable) is definitely better than in Doom 64.

I don't think I said anything on the matter.

I've got a big ole chunk of updated maps to share with you guys.  Since the next build is going to come out soon, I wanted to get these fixed up and smoothed out a bit so I'll have less to do on them when the feedback comes in.  Don't worry too much about downloading and playing these unless you really want to since they'll all show up in the next build.

The Terraformer v3

Even Simpler v5

Cat and Mouse v5

Altar of Pain v5

Dark Citadel v5

Blood Keep v3

Burnt Offerings v4

Terror Core v9

Eye of the Storm v3

Spawned Fear v4

Unholy Temple v2

No Escape v2

Pitfalls v5

The Absolution v2

On 12/1/2017 at 9:55 PM, Da Werecat said:

Just a heads-up (hopefully not a belated one): don't add multiplayer improvements into Research Lab just yet. It's undergoing renovations.

Thanks for the heads-up.  Believe it or not, I was actually minutes away from adding in COOP stuff to that map before I read your post :P.  I can wait for your update before releasing the next build if you'd like.  If you can give me an estimate on how long it will take you, that would be very helpful.  If you think it will take you a while, I can just chuck in some COOP starts for now and we can worry about the rest in the next build.

I don't think it's gonna be soon. If I'm being very optimistic - maybe 3-4 days.

Ok that's no problem.  I'll just make sure the maps have the starts for now.  Build releases will probably come more quickly now so we'll get your updated maps in the next one.

Alright guys, here's build version 5!  I decided to get it out sooner rather than later because I was driving myself crazy with testing.

D64D2 Build V5 (Changelog)

D64D2 Resource V5

As usual, check the changelog for the details.  As you guys probably know by now, the big update this time is the completed map list.  All of the maps should be playable from start to finish.  And they also should have COOP starts (if not, let me know and I'll get that fixed asap).  Some of the maps are still a bit rough around the edges, so we really need some good testing and feedback to get them balanced out and fun to play.  We need feedback on anything and everything - bugs, balancing, visuals, music selections, dehacked monsters, and so on.  Limit testing is also a paramount concern.  If you spot a VPO or any other busted limit, please give detailed feedback (idmypos and screenshots are very handy here).  And finally COOP testing along with testing the other difficulties is something that is needed.  Please let us know of any areas that turn out to be COOP unfriendly (ie. an area that locks the player in without a way for other players to get in after the fact).

If your interested in testing, just leave some feedback and you'll get added to the list of testing credits.  Any feedback you can provide will be greatly appreciated!

Mappers - I just want to reiterate that you should keep an eye on the bug tracker when you can.  I try to keep it updated as much as possible, and I'll be reporting everything there as feedback comes in.  Also if you haven't picked a music track, try to do that soon.  If you don't know what music you'd like, or if you don't care, let me know and I can pick something for you.

One last thing to note.  I updated a few of the maps for this release, so here are links to them just in case someone is interested.

Tech Center v2

Hectic v3

The Absolution v3

If you guys run into any problems with the build or the resource, please let me know and I'll take care of it as soon as I can.

Happy testing!

Bug-tracker is dandy. Issues regarding Map21 have been fixed.

I would like to see the Nightmare Cacodemon in action. What is its actor name?

Anyway, I have to say, I really like what you did with The Absolution. I was frankly underwhelmed by its D64 counterpart, so I am glad someone used this project as an opportunity to revise the level and improve it. I would even go as far as to say this is easily the best boss fight I have experienced in a Doom mapset as of yet; it is neither as ridiculously easy as a straightforward duel with a Cyberdemon or a Spider Mastermind nor as annoying as fighting the Icon of Sin. You took the best elements of both encounters and use them to make something actually enjoyable. Congrats!

My only real gripe is that I just could not figure out how to get the secret Soulsphere in the Blue Skull Key area. Any hint?

On 30/11/2017 at 11:45 PM, Mechadon said:

By the way, for some reason, all of the 1-sided walls in your map weren't marked as impassible.

That's... really odd? What sorts of bugs could this potentially cause? It seemed to run fine in Chocolate Doom regardless, which is surprising to me.

Anyway, thanks for noticing that; I played through the fixed version and noticed a couple door tracks missing their textures, but everything else seems intact.

The instant lifts are a neat compromise, although the two in the north-western area are just barely visible at certain angles. I might want to change the map geometry slightly to obscure it.

I thought about maybe once the 4-lift "puzzle" has been solved lowering the platforms back down and opening a teleporter or something to get back up. Or I could just keep it as it is now. I don't know.

I'll have a look at some coop stuff as well for the next build.

5 minutes ago, Archvile Hunter said:

That's... really odd? What sorts of bugs could this potentially cause?

It's what happens when you paste geometry from Doom Builder 64.

That's interesting, but I didn't use Doom Builder 64. I was more interested in what sorts of problems a map without one-sided lines marked as 'impassable' could bring.

5 hours ago, JohnnyTheWolf said:

I would like to see the Nightmare Cacodemon in action. What is its actor name?

 

Anyway, I have to say, I really like what you did with The Absolution. I was frankly underwhelmed by its D64 counterpart, so I am glad someone used this project as an opportunity to revise the level and improve it. I would even go as far as to say this is easily the best boss fight I have experienced in a Doom mapset as of yet; it is neither as ridiculously easy as a straightforward duel with a Cyberdemon or a Spider Mastermind nor as annoying as fighting the Icon of Sin. You took the best elements of both encounters and use them to make something actually enjoyable. Congrats!

 

My only real gripe is that I just could not figure out how to get the secret Soulsphere in the Blue Skull Key area. Any hint?

The Nightmare Caco replaces the Bloody Mess 2 object.  I'm not sure what the actor name is if you want to summon it in ZDoom though.  At some point before the project is released, I'll be replicating the dehacked work in DECORATE.  So it will have a proper name by that point.

And for the Soulsphere secret in the BK area of MAP30:

I'm glad to hear you liked my take on The Absolution!  It's pretty difficult to come up with new boss monster behaviors in dehacked, so I wasn't sure if it would be fun or not.  Hopefully everyone else can enjoy it as well :)

3 hours ago, Archvile Hunter said:

That's... really odd? What sorts of bugs could this potentially cause? It seemed to run fine in Chocolate Doom regardless, which is surprising to me.

 

Anyway, thanks for noticing that; I played through the fixed version and noticed a couple door tracks missing their textures, but everything else seems intact.

 

The instant lifts are a neat compromise, although the two in the north-western area are just barely visible at certain angles. I might want to change the map geometry slightly to obscure it.

 

I thought about maybe once the 4-lift "puzzle" has been solved lowering the platforms back down and opening a teleporter or something to get back up. Or I could just keep it as it is now. I don't know.

 

I'll have a look at some coop stuff as well for the next build.

The first thing I did when I opened up your map and saw those lines was check to see if it would run in Chocolate Doom.  And yea, it loaded up and seemed to play just fine!  I don't know what would cause that other than loading the map data from the D64 original, but it wasn't too hard to fix (basically just draw a sector around the entire map, delete it, fix textures, and manually flag all of the inner 1-sided areas).  Anyways, as far as what problems it might cause...that's a good question.  It may not cause any issues.  But my experience told me that it was better to make it 'legit', because there's almost always hidden caveats that pop up later on with oddities like that.

About the instant lifts, it might still be possible to toss in those faux ceilings from that guide you liked to.  From what I could tell, the instant raise/lower floors is just one-half of that effect (with the other being the ceiling that you can view from the lower elevation).  It was pretty difficult to decipher what was going on with that faux ceiling effect though, so I just went the quick/lazy route of using the instant floors.

Tossing up a teleporter after the multi-lift puzzle is solved probably wouldn't be a bad idea actually.  It would probably be nice for COOP players, and it would also open the starting area back up so its not crammed with raised lift sectors.  I'd say go for it if you want :)

We will run this through on Zdaemon coop now. @Mechadon let us know if you can join.

9 minutes ago, Mechadon said:

(basically just draw a sector around the entire map, delete it, fix textures, and manually flag all of the inner 1-sided areas)

Wouldn't it be easier to highlight all linedefs, tell the editor to exclude the 2-sided ones from the selection, and then add the flag? There should be a feature for this somewhere in the Linedefs menu.

Yes actually, that would probably be the preferable way to do it.  That situation rarely comes up so I forgot that DB2 has an option to filter out linedef flags.

Earlier in the thread I posted how to fix that from pasting from Doom Builder 64.

Quote

Select all lines in the copied map and set them to be double sided (even if not) and clear the action on them. Select all sectors and set the sector special to 0. This clears all the incompatible Doom 64 action specials and makes the map able to be visually traversed in-game, since all lines now are double sided.

 

Go into error checking mode and right-click one of the "Line is set as double sided but only has one side" errors and select all of that type, then fix them. All lines are now correct.

My friend tested the new build from Map01 to Map16. Chocolate Doom. Well, some bugs:

I've had a of of trouble getting the switches to align properly, every port I've played it on the switches have aligned differently; in DB it looks fine.  I think my problem is that I'm using the 64x64 shawn/silver switch that does not like being manipulated too much.  I'll change to a 128x64 switch texture that may sort this

9 hours ago, DeXiaZ said:

Even if you'll shoot - nothing happens.

I'll look into it.

9 hours ago, DeXiaZ said:

So this map can't be finished.

You mean maxed?

4 hours ago, dt_ said:

I've had a of of trouble getting the switches to align properly, every port I've played it on the switches have aligned differently; in DB it looks fine.  I think my problem is that I'm using the 64x64 shawn/silver switch that does not like being manipulated too much.

Have you tried aligning it in the other direction? This doesn't look much like tutti-frutti, but who knows.

26 minutes ago, Da Werecat said:

You mean maxed?

Oh, right. My mistake.

Build v5:
Port: ZDaemon
Mode: Coop

map01: There is coop issue if someone dies in the lock in area where the pinkies are, other players cannot get in. (I had a screenshot, but cannot find it, but hopefully you know the part I’m talking about).

Map01; Someones corpse is blocking the exit. (see screenshot)

map02: Cannot progress. Switch in the dark room with red pattern oh the floor seems to do nothing.

map06: Some bugs found. Deetee observed them from our play through and is aware of them.

map08: Voodoo dolls visible at start. (see screenshot)

map08: Its seems not possible to get the yellow key. Don’t see a way to get to it. After we enabled jump to get yellow key, map still wasn’t progress-able. 

map10: Player can get stuck in the key area when both parts are up, possibly due to many payers hitting both switches. (see screenshot)

map19: Map seems not completable near the end, possible voodoo doll issue. May have to test again as cannot exactly remember what the issue was. 

map24: Cant pass door at start after 1 player goes through. Hall of mirrors also. (see screenshot)

map28: Visual glitch with the lift. (see screenshot)

map27: Players can get trapped in the pit at the blue key/rocket launcher area. (see screenshot).

map27: Weird things happening players? (See screenshot). 

map27: Think we recall seeing weird issue in v4 around the red key where the player can get stuck also, or the map isn’t progress-able. We weren’t able to get this far in v5, so didn’t test it.

map29: Don’t seem to be able to get to exit at the end of the map. Floor is too high to go to left or right passages. And too low to straight ahead.

map30: Monsters seem to be tele-fragging each other at the boss fight area. 

map30; Final Boss doesn’t come out/walls don’t lower. One of the guys with experience of wads says “Issue with voodoo doll apparently. In Doom builder, their sector looks badly built.”

Other than that, we had a blast. Accidentally had set a 15 player max limit on the server, and it filled up pretty quickly, and stayed full for the duration of the wad play-through!

Thanks, I'll look into this.

34 minutes ago, damo2k said:

map08: Voodoo dolls visible at start.

Silly me, Coop starts don't work like DM starts. Thanks!

Awesome, thanks for the testing and reports damo2k!  It seems like you guys had a good time :)

I have just a few things to bring up.

Quote

Map01; Someones corpse is blocking the exit. (see screenshot)

Do those hanging bodies show up in COOP?  They aren't in single player so that's odd.

Quote

map30: Monsters seem to be tele-fragging each other at the boss fight area. 

This is probably not something I can fix unfortunately due to the way MAP30 is set up.  Maybe it can be circumvented for ZDoom based ports though?

Quote

map02: Cannot progress. Switch in the dark room with red pattern oh the floor seems to do nothing.

...

map08: Its seems not possible to get the yellow key. Don’t see a way to get to it. After we enabled jump to get yellow key, map still wasn’t progress-able. 

...

map19: Map seems not completable near the end, possible voodoo doll issue. May have to test again as cannot exactly remember what the issue was. 

...

map27: Players can get trapped in the pit at the blue key/rocket launcher area. (see screenshot).

...

map27: Think we recall seeing weird issue in v4 around the red key where the player can get stuck also, or the map isn’t progress-able. We weren’t able to get this far in v5, so didn’t test it.

...

map30; Final Boss doesn’t come out/walls don’t lower. One of the guys with experience of wads says “Issue with voodoo doll apparently. In Doom builder, their sector looks badly built.”

All of these things you reported use voodoo dolls to make them work, so I'm wondering if there's some sort of compatibility issue causing problems here.  I haven't fired up ZDaemon in years so I'll have to do some testing.  Does it have any strict vanilla compatibility options like ZDoom does?

I very much appreciate all of the help and feedback, thanks again!  Hopefully we can figure out why those voodoo dolls aren't working properly for the next build.

Maybe damo2k didn't use this dmflag:

49 minutes ago, Memfis said:

Maybe damo2k didn't use this dmflag:

 

Hmm actually it was set. These are the flags set: http://www.zdaemon.org/?CMD=info&NAME=dmflags&SET=4,1174487140,806496320,0

59 minutes ago, Mechadon said:

Do those hanging bodies show up in COOP?  They aren't in single player so that's odd.

 

Yes in coop!

I have a feeling the author wanted to seal the exit for DM.

6 hours ago, damo2k said:

Map01; Someones corpse is blocking the exit. (see screenshot)

55 minutes ago, damo2k said:

Do those hanging bodies show up in COOP?  They aren't in single player so that's odd.

31 minutes ago, Da Werecat said:

I have a feeling the author wanted to seal the exit for DM.

Indeed, that's what it looks like. The problem here is that Vanilla only has a single 'thing is in multiplayer' flag (unlike Boom which has two additional flags 'not in dm' and 'not in coop') so the desired effect cannot be achieved this way; the things will always appear in both dm and coop (I assume you're aiming for Vanilla/limit-removing compatibility).

6 hours ago, damo2k said:

map30: Monsters seem to be tele-fragging each other at the boss fight area. 

I think this may be the desired behvaiour for Icon of Sin maps; you'd get monsters stuck within each other at the target spots otherwise; but i guess whether that will happen often or whether it is a problem depends on the overall design of the map and author's intentions. Anyway, this is why it behaves the way it behaves for D64 in ZDaemon now...

Here's an excerpt from ZDaemon's changelog:

4. 1.10b03 release (2015-01-01)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

...

22. A "monsters telefrag each other" option was always forced on
    on any map called "map30"; it's useful for the "Icon of Sin"
    map in doom2.wad, but not for other WADs. We changed it so
    that this flag is turned on for map30 only when doom2.wad is
    loaded and it's the only wad. In this way it will work for
    normal DOOM coop, but it will not conflict with other WADs
    (one can turn on that flag from mapinfo for any map on newer
    WADs).

And here's the MAP30 block from D64's MAPINFO lump:

map MAP30 "The Absolution"
levelnum 30
sky1 SKY3ATAL
forcenoskystretch
next EndGameC
secretnext EndGameC
titlepatch CWILV29
music D_OPENIN
cluster 8
allowmonstertelefrags

The MAPINFO flag responsible is AllowMonsterTelefrags. It may be possible for the server host to override this (without editing the original PWAD) by loading another PWAD with a MAPINFO lump with a new definition for MAP30 (omitting the flag) to get rid off this behaviour on a particular server; mind that I think this should work, but I did not test it.

2 hours ago, Mechadon said:

All of these things you reported use voodoo dolls to make them work, so I'm wondering if there's some sort of compatibility issue causing problems here.  I haven't fired up ZDaemon in years so I'll have to do some testing.  Does it have any strict vanilla compatibility options like ZDoom does?

I think ZDaemon has an issue with them being placed directly on top of the linedef they are supposed to activate; IIRC I've seen the the same issue when aaliens was in development. The solution is simple: Move the dolls or the linedefs so that the doll's centre does not sit directly on top of the linedefs (i.e. the distance between the centre of the voodoo doll and the point it should cross the line at must not be zero), ZDaemon will then detect the line activation.

Writing this from memory again, so someone best test it. If the above won't help, another possibility is to move the lines outside of the doll's bounding box (i.e. to not have them overlap at all); but I think the first approach I mentioned should be enough.

I also noticed a couple of issues with coop starts in tnswutil's output when checking which maps make use of voodoo dolls... MAP08 has three player 2 starts and none of the higher ones; MAP14 is missing coop starts.

$ tnswutil -w d64d2_build_v5.wad -c coopstarts
---MAP01 1 1 1 1
---MAP02 10 1 1 1
---MAP03 1 1 1 1
---MAP04 1 1 1 1
---MAP05 1 1 1 1
---MAP06 1 1 1 1
---MAP07 1 1 1 1
---MAP08 4 3 0 0
---MAP09 1 1 1 1
---MAP10 1 1 1 1
---MAP11 1 1 1 1
---MAP12 1 1 1 1
---MAP13 1 1 1 1
---MAP14 1 0 0 0
---MAP15 1 1 1 1
---MAP16 1 1 1 1
---MAP17 1 1 1 1
---MAP18 1 1 1 1
---MAP19 2 1 1 1
---MAP20 1 1 1 1
---MAP21 1 1 1 1
---MAP22 1 1 1 1
---MAP23 1 1 1 1
---MAP24 1 1 1 1
---MAP25 1 1 1 1
---MAP26 1 1 1 1
---MAP27 4 1 1 1
---MAP28 1 1 1 1
---MAP29 1 1 1 1
---MAP30 6 1 1 1
---MAP31 1 1 1 1
---MAP32 2 1 1 1
---MAP33 1 1 1 1

I appreciate all of the help with trying to figure out the voodoo doll problem guys.  Also thanks a ton for the bug reports!  I've added you guys to the list of testing credits, let me know if I should add anyone else from the playing group.

@rhinoduck, I will try moving the action lines 1px forward to see if that fixes the issue without breaking it in Chocolate Doom.  Hopefully that works out ok (this is the first time I've used vanilla voodoo dolls before, so I figured some issue would eventually pop up :P).  Thanks for the information!

Also I've updated the bug tracker with the new reports (along with links to the screenshots).