Shotgun Symphony -- Ultimate Doom episode -- Working on v1.1

35 minutes ago, Steve D said:

I hope you enjoyed that early teleport trap on Map06. It was always there, but I turbocharged it for the new version. 

The pelts are being packed and dispatched presently. You should receive them in the mail soon.

25 minutes ago, Capellan said:

Now you just have to explain why it took three years to get around to uploading it :)

Uhmm . . . uhmm . . . well, uhmmm . . .

All I can say is people shouldn't leave Dumbass Pills lying around where I can clearly see them. They're so delicious I can't resist. ;)

BTW, I'll be back to commenting on Spectrum very soon. M5 was outstanding!

15 minutes ago, Alfonzo said:

 

The pelts are being packed and dispatched presently. You should receive them in the mail soon.

Cue a deep, satisfied Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.  Thank you, Alfonzo. Thank you very much.

Finally i'm done with first level (UV of course). Yesterday i barely survived it on first attempt and found 5 of 7 secrets. On second attempt i had no luck to find more. Today i made third attempt and found all secrets. I loved everything in this map except very few things:

I found few unreachable areas. In one of them automap shows short yellow line on wall, but i can see only edge of it through window and it looks like button's texture.

No way to kill Cyberdemon. I know you said it's not required, but still Cyberdemon must die! :) Hidden teleporter for telefraging would be awesome.

I think I played some of these maps many, many years ago when we were working on the now abandoned Millennium. Were pretty darn impressive for sure.

I don't exactly why I've put myself up for this daunting task, but nevertheless I've decided to try and record my playthrough of SS and upload it to Youtube. Yikes!

Long time ago since I play ult doom levels of such great quality. When can we expect E2?  :)

Can't wait to play this, Steve! (I think I played MAP01 once upon a time and enjoyed it.) Congrats on the final release!

7 hours ago, Loud Silence said:

Finally i'm done with first level (UV of course).

No way to kill Cyberdemon. I know you said it's not required, but still Cyberdemon must die! :) Hidden teleporter for telefraging would be awesome.

It's possible to kill the Cyberdemon, you just have to conserve ammo well, like here:

E1M1 UV-Max in 15:35 (-complevel 9)

s1g1-1535.zip

9 hours ago, Loud Silence said:

Finally i'm done with first level (UV of course). Yesterday i barely survived it on first attempt and found 5 of 7 secrets. On second attempt i had no luck to find more. Today i made third attempt and found all secrets. I loved everything in this map except very few things:

I found few unreachable areas. In one of them automap shows short yellow line on wall, but i can see only edge of it through window and it looks like button's texture.

No way to kill Cyberdemon. I know you said it's not required, but still Cyberdemon must die! :) Hidden teleporter for telefraging would be awesome.

Thanks for the playthrough, Loud Silence, and congrats on maxing it. Those secrets are hard.

"Cyberdemon must die!" LOL, okay, okay, I give up. ;) It's possible to kill him but it takes a long time. Timothy Brown killed him with 67 shotgun blasts. Starts at 19:38. But even if you kill him in M1, he's still waiting for you in M8. ;) I just wanted to make sure that players, especially speedrunners, knew that you can officially UV Max the map even if you leave the Cyb alive. For story reasons, I cannot officially endorse killing the Cyb, nor will I make it possible to telefrag him, but Doomers gotta do what they gotta do. ;)

I'll look into that short yellow line you talked about. Might be something worth fixing for the megawad version.

Cheers! 

10 hours ago, pcorf said:

I think I played some of these maps many, many years ago when we were working on the now abandoned Millennium. Were pretty darn impressive for sure.

I hate to say it, but I never worked on Millenium. Indeed, I'm not sure I ever worked on a project with you except for Mayhem 2048, which is not to say I wouldn't like to! :) In fact, I have a backchannel oldschool Doom 2 megawad in progress. Smallish team. 22 map candidates so far. Would love to have you aboard. No worries if you're not interested, but if you are, drop me a PM and I can send you the guidelines and some sample maps.

The first mention these maps ever had was in 1998, when Rob Berkowitz put a bunch of screenshots on his old, long-gone website. The working title was Phobia, but then Ebola made his Phobia map/mod so I dropped the name. If I had made an announcement on DW back then, I'd be a shoe-in for the Mordeth Award. :D  The first time these maps appeared on DW was in 2013, so unless you played them then or in 2016, you probably haven't played them yet. ;) 

7 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

I don't exactly why I've put myself up for this daunting task, but nevertheless I've decided to try and record my playthrough of SS and upload it to Youtube. Yikes!

Thanks a ton, Chris! You had some serious darkness going on, even darker than when I use Dark Mode in GZDoom. Was that your settings or the way YouTube rendered it?

You were really close a few times to getting that secret Chaingun. You actually lowered it but you didn't find the secret door to its location. That was a crazily complex sequence, I must admit, as were some of the others, like the chain that leads to the Backpack and Rocket Launcher.

I was happy to take a lot of health from you at the M2 Yellow Key trap. You can blame @Magnusblitz for that trap being harder than it originally was. I like to give credit where it's due, and when Magnus called the trap "rote," I just had to do what I eventually did. ;) You should see what I did with the secret exit in E4M2 of UDINO after Magnus called my original one uninspired, which it was. Quite a bit different now. :) Magnus is a good guy to have on your playtesting team.

You were totally ready for the Blue Key trap on M2. Well played! You had the rising floor stuck on one side because there was a monster on it. That's why it never finished rising, and because of that, it didn't go down when you hit the switch that lowers it. You're lucky it was a Pinky and not a Sergeant, or he'd have filled you with buckshot. :D

It's up to you, but I'd advise against going the FDA route in M5, 6 and 7. These are bigass maps and you might get killed three quarters of the way through and have to slog through tons of monsters all over again. Consider the occasional save, but of course, if you'd rather FDA, I'll cheer you on! 

10 hours ago, grrfield said:

Long time ago since I play ult doom levels of such great quality. When can we expect E2?  :)

Thanks, grrfield!

I have a clear idea of what I want to do for E2. It will still have hectic fights, but overall the emphasis will be more on creepy, menacing atmosphere, with plenty of darkness and, if possible, disturbing ambient music. Not sure when I'll start since I have a lot on my plate, but maybe towards the end of this year or early next year.

9 hours ago, Salt-Man Z said:

Can't wait to play this, Steve! (I think I played MAP01 once upon a time and enjoyed it.) Congrats on the final release!

Thanks, Salt-Man Z! I hope you enjoy it, but feel free to let me know how you feel even if you don't.

9 hours ago, Andromeda said:

It's possible to kill the Cyberdemon, you just have to conserve ammo well, like here:

 

E1M1 UV-Max in 15:35 (-complevel 9)

Wow, thanks for this beautiful UV Max, Andromeda. Very aggressive play, very fun to watch. At first I thought it was an FDA but I soon realized this was a demo because of the way you went for the secrets. I like the way you dealt with the hectic computer room fight by doing a circle around the equipment pillars. That's kind of a dangerous tactic because Sergeants can sneak in there and blast you, but you did great.

As I was watching, I was surprised by how you left health and ammo behind you, and also when you didn't immediately go after the Rocket Launcher, but when you doubled back, I realized you deliberately left these items so you could return and get them after being depleted in the next battle. I tend to suck at resource management, so it was fun to see someone plan things better.

Another surprise was that you never used the RL on those Cacos. And then again when you killed the Cyb with the Chaingun. Most people save up their shells for the job, so this was unusual. I've killed poor little Cybie myself while testing ammo balance, and believe it or not, he got me once by slipping a rocket between the bars. Shocked the fuck outta me. :D

Looking forward to more demos!

Do the Chaingun and RL stay as secrets the whole episode...?

3 hours ago, FrancisT18 said:

Do the Chaingun and RL stay as secrets the whole episode...?

Luckily, no. Your first free Chaingun is in M2, and the first free Rocket Launcher is in M3. You get what you need for the hordes. :)

@Steve DAh, okay. :) I was thinking maybe 'Shotgun Symphony' might means 'all non-Shotguns are hidden'.

Do you have any more recent solo work besides Amiga?

9 hours ago, Steve D said:

Wow, thanks for this beautiful UV Max, Andromeda. Very aggressive play, very fun to watch. At first I thought it was an FDA but I soon realized this was a demo because of the way you went for the secrets. I like the way you dealt with the hectic computer room fight by doing a circle around the equipment pillars. That's kind of a dangerous tactic because Sergeants can sneak in there and blast you, but you did great.

 

As I was watching, I was surprised by how you left health and ammo behind you, and also when you didn't immediately go after the Rocket Launcher, but when you doubled back, I realized you deliberately left these items so you could return and get them after being depleted in the next battle. I tend to suck at resource management, so it was fun to see someone plan things better.

 

Another surprise was that you never used the RL on those Cacos. And then again when you killed the Cyb with the Chaingun. Most people save up their shells for the job, so this was unusual. I've killed poor little Cybie myself while testing ammo balance, and believe it or not, he got me once by slipping a rocket between the bars. Shocked the fuck outta me. :D

Thanks for the kind comments Steve, I very much enjoyed this first level and look forward to playing the rest!

9 hours ago, Steve D said:

Looking forward to more demos!

I'll see what I can cook up ;) I'll probably record some in the next few days and post them here in batches of three, along with a few comments about the levels from my perspective. I'll also probably record another one for E1M1 without killing the Cyberdemon, as this was just to check if it was actually killable - funny I killed it with the very last bullet :D

17 hours ago, Steve D said:

I just wanted to make sure that players, especially speedrunners, knew that you can officially UV Max the map even if you leave the Cyb alive. For story reasons, I cannot officially endorse killing the Cyb, nor will I make it possible to telefrag him, but Doomers gotta do what they gotta do. ;)

Unfortunately this isn't how this works. If the cybie counts towards the kill-tally, then it is required to kill it for a legitimate UVmax run. If the cybie wouldn't count towards the kill-tally, fine, nobody would bother killing it in a UVmax scenario. But as long as it counts the kill will be relevant for UVmax runs according to DSDA rules.

22 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Unfortunately this isn't how this works. If the cybie counts towards the kill-tally, then it is required to kill it for a legitimate UVmax run. If the cybie wouldn't count towards the kill-tally, fine, nobody would bother killing it in a UVmax scenario. But as long as it counts the kill will be relevant for UVmax runs according to DSDA rules.

Bummer! And that's not the only thing. There's the BFG you can see in M4 that's unobtainable until M5.

I guess the Cyb is different from monsters that are in malfunctioning closets, since you can kill him through the bars, whereas in the other case, it's an uncorrected mistake which renders the monsters inaccessible. Too bad a note from the mapper won't help in  this case. ;)  I was hoping to spare players, especially speedrunners, the misery of taking him out. But I won't yield. The Cyb is part of the story. I will not make it easier to kill him because you're supposed to let him live. 

I suppose the other alternative is to make him impossible to kill, perhaps by turning the bars that cage him in into a wall with a slit somewhere so he can hear you shoot and make his roar. You'll know he's there somewhere but you won't be able to shoot him through the tiny slit. It takes away from the visual impact of a caged Cyb, though, and seems like a kludgy solution. I dunno, what do you think? IIRC, very few -- if any -- of my maps get speedrunner support, apart from the ones Heretic, Hitherto and SAV88 did for the old Realm of Chaos megawad, so should I worry about it? I'm not saying that to be snarky, but maybe it's just as well that I leave things as they are. I'm just thinking that if speedrunners did take on this set, they'd hate having to kill that Cyb, though I imagine they've encountered time-consuming and unpleasant scenarios before.

In any case, thanks for the info. I'll keep it in mind for future maps. 

2 minutes ago, Steve D said:

Bummer! And that's not the only thing. There's the BFG you can see in M4 that's unobtainable until M5.

That shouldn't matter for max run purposes.  AIUI, the rule is you have to get all the kills and secrets that are accessible without cheating.  Item % doesn't matter (not that the BFG counts for that) and inaccessible secrets or monsters don't either (e.g. if the map has a broken teleporter, and some monsters never enter the play zone, killing everything except them still counts as maxing it).

7 minutes ago, Capellan said:

 

That shouldn't matter for max run purposes.  AIUI, the rule is you have to get all the kills and secrets that are accessible without cheating.  Item % doesn't matter (not that the BFG counts for that) and inaccessible secrets or monsters don't either (e.g. if the map has a broken teleporter, and some monsters never enter the play zone, killing everything except them still counts as maxing it).

Thanks, Adam. That sounds familiar now that you mention it. I'm obviously no speedrunner. ;)

And now I'm thinking I might need to do a 1.1 version of SS because I made the Baron fight in M8 too cheeseable by putting 4 radsuits in the nukage for co-op, but forgot to mark them multiplayer only. D'oh! It's turned a potentially spirit-killing fight into a very doable one for people willing to run across the nukage. There's also a trap in M2 that needs tuning because people are successfully running away from it. The alternative is to leave things as they are since I'm collecting plenty of pelts anyway, and fix all that stuff for the megawad version. What say you?

25 minutes ago, Steve D said:

Bummer! And that's not the only thing. There's the BFG you can see in M4 that's unobtainable until M5

Nobody said a map needs to be pleasant to max. This is a conflict of interest between mapper and established DSDA rules, for lack of a better term. If I were you, I really wouldn't worry. Sure, the max won't be very entertaining to watch during the time players chip away at the cybie, but as long as that's the only "problem", why bother? All I meant to say in the first place was quintessentially that the DSDA is a different "instance" with its own doctrine, and one does not simply decide what the DSDA should or shouldn't "count".

As for items: The item% tally is irrelevant. All that matters for a max is, in layman's terms, getting all the kills and all the secrets. There are some "nuances" to "all kills", but those are irrelevant for the map in question.

2 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Nobody said a map needs to pleasant to max. This is a conflict of interest between mapper and established DSDA rules, for lack of a better term. If I were you, I really wouldn't worry. 

Thanks, NIH, I'll leave it as is then. I'd honestly love to see some speedruns of these maps, at least once the question of a 1.1 version is answered. There shouldn't be any problems with the other maps once people figure out the sometimes obtuse progression. Then again, who knows? There might be something broken lurking somewhere. With my luck . . . :D

Cybie is actually killable if you manage your ammo well.

Also lol @Steve D for uploading the wad to the archives a million moons ago and posting an update the day before yesterday

18 minutes ago, Firedust said:

Also lol @Steve D for uploading the wad to the archives a million moons ago and posting an update the day before yesterday

That's what I get for wanting to do that gameplay trailer so everything can be perfect. Still hasn't happened. If you can't punk yourself, who can you punk? :D

5 hours ago, FrancisT18 said:

Do you have any more recent solo work besides Amiga?

No, just maps in CPs. I have 2 in Ultimate Doom in Name Only -- E4M2 and E4M6 -- with E1M2 left to finish, and 2 in TNT:Revilution -- Map04 & Map14. I also have E2M6 in Deadly Standards 2, which is in testing right now. Other than that, there's the 6-map Abcess episode I released in 2017, though like Shotgun Symphony, these are maps from the late '90s that weren't released at the time, and which I modernized and made nastier. If you want blood, you've got it. ;) Speaking of old maps revised, I hope to put Realm of Intensified Chaos into testing later this year. These are the 6 maps I originally did for the Realm of Chaos megawad in 1996. A 7th was added in 1997 but as it came from the Abcess project, I decided to put it back in there. I did a much more substantial revision on the RoC maps and made them, uhm, extremely violent, much nastier than Abcess or SS. I only have 1 map to go, but it's the hardest one because it's the most primitive and screwed up. IIRC, it was the 2nd or 3rd map I ever worked on. Overall, I'm happy with how things are turning out. 

Not sure when I'll be testing another Amiga Demo Party map. That's the kind of thing I most enjoy doing these days and I plan to make a megawad of them. Wish me luck!

Too many annoying hitscanners for my taste.

32 minutes ago, Sir Hattington said:

Too many annoying hitscanners for my taste.

Surprising as it may seem, I can understand why you feel that way. No worries. You might prefer my Doom 2 material, especially the newer stuff.