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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Tangerine Nightmare & UAC Ultra & Realm of Shades

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On 2/25/2018 at 5:30 AM, Magnusblitz said:

Considering voting for ESP just to get the month off.

 

3 hours ago, Magnusblitz said:

+++ ESP

 

 

I am disappoint.

 

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It will be very cool to watch FDA demos on ESP. :)

 

I hope you will not be sick of cybies and Straff50-platforming.

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25 minutes ago, Capellan said:

I am disappoint.

 

 

I intend to give the levels a whirl, but being realistic I think it's very likely I won't be able to actually complete most (any?) of them. But I am looking forward to seeing what others write and demo here for it, so it's not a complete "I'm outta here, see you in a month" vote from me in the end, which is at least how I came to justify it. I agree with you that it is counter to the concept of the DWMC to vote for something with the intent to not play it, but there seem to be enough people who want to play it (and not just the usual "show up, vote for ESP, never play anything else when it doesn't win" suspects) that I don't think the Club will be a ghost town for a month.

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I will definitely play ESP. Even if I don't get the write ups done quickly I will try to play it all.

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On 26/2/2018 at 9:14 PM, Memfis said:

They'll probably spam TimeOfMaps next. :U (which is actually more approachable I think)

This is actually a great idea.

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Something more accessible like Slaughterfest 2012 or the recent SlaughterMAX would probably be a better fit than an "all ToD, all the time" set.

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slaughtermax is a good shout, but i wanted myself and the club to try ESP because ToD is - as far as i can tell - an extremely singular mapper so it will be cool to see reactions/discussion.

an actual mapset with 'slaughter' in the title would probably cause an apocalypse of whine (sorry couldnt resist :p )

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1 minute ago, rehelekretep said:

an actual mapset with 'slaughter' in the title would probably cause an apocalypse of whine (sorry couldnt resist :p )

Okay, let's do that next... It's been a while since I last could bathe in tears., let alone drink any. ;-)

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it is apparently very hard - TimeOfDeath likes maps with tons of AVs & has a fascination with 2-shotting cyberdemons, so id suggest trying it on ITYTD if youre a bit concerned by that!

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3 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

see now youre being a troll ;) but i like it

Oh, I am not. I am simply a sadistic and utterly cruel person, except for when I'm not.

 

2 minutes ago, Snikle said:

Should I play ESP on ITYTD? Is it a "Doom Gods" WAD?

It's more like a "learn the map's progression before doing a full run" sort of set. If you save regularly you should be fine though.

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Just now, Nine Inch Heels said:

It's more like a "learn the map's progression before doing a full run" sort of set. If you save regularly you should be fine though.

I save more than regularly, so HNTR it is, if we play ESP.

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Yeah, there are no difficulty settings according to the text file (which is standard for ToD), so effectively your only options are ITYTD, UV, or Nightmare.

 

Some other things to note too:

                          -complevel 9 for MAP01-17, 31-33
                          -complevel 2 for MAP18-30

                          Turn off intercepts overflow emulation, leave the
                          others alone.

                          MAP30 requires Nightmare difficulty or -fast
                          MAP31 requires ESP31.bex

 

Oh, and it has 33 maps, apparently :)

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Played more of Tangerine Nightmare

 

Map 6:

 

  Enjoyable map overall.  On HMP difficulty, appears quite approachable for a casual, no saves play even.  On the easy side if playing for survival, a big step up in difficulty when trying to go fast make for a great difficulty level.  I had my fun getting 70% of the monsters killed via infighting and there's enough resources for a more conventional, trigger-happy approach as well.  Felt particularly sneaky luring imp fireballs into some unsuspecting zombie at the start, among other moments.  Some of the traps felt a little too predictable (trapped item, yawn) but the bigger setpieces were fun to play out.  There's also a few opportunities to let various groups bleed into each other, such as leaving mancubi when going for the red key and using them to help fight off revenants.  Those ledge imps blend in quite well with their surroundings making it easier to blindside with fireballs.

 

  Most memorable encounters were the caverns where the blue key is located and the ending outdoor racetrack.  I recall being unable to get a clear shot at that archvile with its meatshield escorts in the way.  The cyber down there doesn't have AV support on HMP so I had fun getting it to kill everything else down there.  The ending area is visually distinctive.  I approached it anticipating Sunlust levels of opposition (despite what the monster counter was displaying) so keeping the circle clear of rabble was my approach.

 

  Only found one secret and didn't spot it until after I'd cleaned out the big brawls down in the caverns.  Still a good feeling to not need the invulnerability though nice that it's there.  I did watch a maxdemo which revealed the other two.  The one with a window to an outdoor view appeals to me; hiding mappers' initials in out of the way locations makes for a nifty easter egg.  They do show up on the automap but being able to view them in the field was a fun twist.

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As Memfis mentioned, MAP01 of ESP does have difficulty settings (the map has 333 enemies on HNTR and HMP, 2000+ on UV) but I think that's it.

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9 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

it is apparently very hard - TimeOfDeath likes maps with tons of AVs & has a fascination with 2-shotting cyberdemons, so id suggest trying it on ITYTD if youre a bit concerned by that!

 

He built his own amusement park here, if that's what he considers amusing. No time is wasted with shotgunning imps, the very first map is a humongous slaughter. And one has to be proficient at 2-shotting cybs when playing his maps, as he seems to hand out cells based on this metric. See his 50 shades map, or esp  m02, the conversion of quake e1m2 with cows as ogres, not the kindergarten conversions with zombies and imps. And he kills almost all of them in 2 shots in his demo. So, big point to him, as he beats his own maps.  I improved my cow fighting technique by watching his demos, this made 2-shots more consistent and safer. This fascination with 2-shotting seems to be contagious. 

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ESP is one of my favourite Megawad despite its difficult and gimmicky gameplay. There is plenty to say in  each level. My favourite maps of TOD were those ones inspired of Silent Hill games. A lot of maps have a great architecture which uses only stock textures : Map 03 , Map 05... Some levels are insane but fun slaughterfests.

 

Also , TOD uses music mostly from Alundra and other rpg games. It gives a very dreamy and surreal atmosphere that I really enjoy.

 

I think it's a shame that we only have a month to talk about this wad. But hey, it's the rules of the game!

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52 minutes ago, Roofi said:

ESP is one of my favourite Megawad despite its difficult and gimmicky gameplay. There is plenty to say in  each level. My favourite maps of TOD were those ones inspired of Silent Hill games. A lot of maps have a great architecture which uses only stock textures : Map 03 , Map 05... Some levels are insane but fun slaughterfests.

 

Also , TOD uses music mostly from Alundra and other rpg games. It gives a very dreamy and surreal atmosphere that I really enjoy.

 

I think it's a shame that we only have a month to talk about this wad. But hey, it's the rules of the game!

lol if you can survive the month and talk about it ;)

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MAP05

38:35 | 96% Kills | 53% Items | 60% Secrets

A big sprawling mess, this one. But fun. I missed the point of the red key pickup, where a switch lowers the red key, and you can ride a lift up above and drop down onto it, but why bother with that when you can just grab the red key from the ground? I missed the computer/blue armor secret combo on account of it being entirely unmarked and not even hinted at in any fashion (I only found out about via IDDT.) And that one room with the red-bordered "forcefield" (?) window killed me a couple times when hitscanners kept sniping me through the midtex fencing (they were just too low for me to see.) Lots of good stuff here, though. I'm glad I stuck with this WAD.

 

MAP06

26:59 | 98% Kills | 98% Items | 83% Secrets

Only two keys are required to exit, but all 3 of them are hidden in what are essentially secret areas. Fortunately, they're all obvious enough on the map. This one was a lot of fun except (A) I had a lot of difficulty with the red key door: all those chaingunners backed by viles were constantly whittling me down to nothing inbetween BFG blasts, and (B) (and this is true of a lot of the maps so far) the author is very bad about breaking the illusion of 3-D space almost every time he deals with the sky. The most egregious in this level is the long hallway with the windows giving a wide look at sky, and then you turn that corner and now you're walking through space that should have been empty.

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I haven't played Tangerine Nightmare nor Realm of Shades yet, but if anybody's interested, here's my playthrough of UAC Ultra

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MAP07

Rather unexpected shift of game play to here to a high-lethality enemy composition, opposed by massive oversupply on your behalf. The map is pretty simple, although having to revisit some areas just to kill a few arachnotrons after fighting off a couple of cyberdemons in the central area is an odd break in both flow and pace. A lot of areas being optional is a nice touch to let the player not accidently gobble up all of the supplies for no good reason, although I can't imagine a scenario where you don't fully patch up after surviving the fight... It's just surviving that can prove a little tricky if you're not too hot with dodging, or get stuck on that silly tall flight of raising stairs with all the enemies round the bottom of it. Still, this sort of thing is alright with me, as you just save at a few sensible points and work it out, knowing that doing badly on one fight isn't screwing you over for the rest of the map; a lesson I feel a lot of today's mappers might benefit from, as they're so keen on trying to kill the player.

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Tangerine Nightmare map 7:

 

  My long overdue retrospective of the map:  This is one that takes a large time commitment to really digest but has a large payoff in enjoyment when the time is put in.  So I wanted to give it more than a cursory "good map, is fun" writeup.

 

  I felt the author nailed the mix of abstract and realism.  Almost like this could be a real place but just off balance enough to keep one guessing.  There's a real sense of mystery and lots of optional content to find.  Just what took place in its history prior to the player's arrival; it's a credit to this map that it gets my imagination working  I'm still not entirely sure how I lowered the very visible invulnerability.  Had fun seeking out those optional paths and secrets; the hidden chamber with cultists pouring out of the walls was an especially memorable bit of presentation.  Rewards are nice for doing so, the main one being the BFG for clearing the optional spider area.  Which in turn required finding the hidden mancubi to open the path.  In the end, completed with 10 out of 11 secrets found..  Watched a maxdemo after the fact which revealed the one I was missing, no big loss on that one.  Got the biggest optional quests done so felt like a successful outing.

 

  Combat on HMP is mostly on the easygoing side though there's intense moments even on this setting.  Also a real sense of escalation is present.  Quite a number of temporary lockins give it a vibe similar to DV2's Unholy Cathedral in the progression.  Mostly smaller scale skirmishes that increase in number as one progresses but the available space (usually) increases as well so didn't feel cramped.  Green skull is more difficult than anything prior to it though totally fair, just gotta work fast.  That last brawl did make me work for my victory though.  Again, pain elementals and cacodemons combine to make a rather effective attack force.  It can be mostly cheesed but opted not to.  This map marks the conclusion of my journey in Tangerine Nightmare and what a high note to go out on.  Did preview the last maps; found they're not to my personal tastes more than anything else.

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