Nova III - now on /idgames

More action:

Here’s a hotfix + minor tweaks on my MAP31. Some poorly thought out voodoo doll setups were causing the map to break in certain ports (EE specifically in my testing, but probably some other non-PrB+ ports would be affected). It should behave better now!!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yuu0hvti5zbvlht/n3Rrc2b-MAP32_v2.wad?dl=1

(Apologies if this makes things more confusing @Scotty, thanks for all your hard work! Given the map-breaking nature of the issue I thought it’d be worth putting the update out.)

About MAP31, playing with gzdoom I saw that both exits take you to MAP32 (this is done in the mapinfo). At least it doesn't look like it was intended to act that way since the level has a normal exit and a secret exit that is rather hard to find.

Hmmm sounds like a hot-hotfix may be in order, I donno if that was Scotty's decision or my own oversight, though. 

Totally not more action :v :

Still good, but noticed some issues this time around. One of the teleporters in Skeletonpatch's first lunar level is bleeding through the floor, and for some reason, on MAP23 if you "kill" the voodoo doll at the very end of the map, you still live... with 0 health lol. It turns the player in some zombie state.

Heh, things didn't go quite as planned as some maps took longer than expected, and I lost my concentration at the end but that's ok. Still good, but as it stands my opinion only solidifies: The difficulty curve could certainly be improved, it's pretty inconsistent, so a rebalancing pass after the bugs are ironed out would be excellent.

The map I left on also suffers from some crazy HOMs in certain places.

Feels like forever ago when I made that map.  Totally forgot to texture those lifts, that's really slack of me.  The other hom on the bridge, well, I spent hours ironing them out and I think that was the best I could do at the time, if it's not too game breaking, maybe best to leave that one in, thanks for playing

Aight, we're done bois.

So, all around this is definitely good stuff and I'll actually mentionate it if possible, quality stuff. But there are some aspects (and issues) which I think could be improved, or fixed, sooner or later:

- The technical issues, notably the HOMs.

- Music volume is all over the place. This probably varies with each source port, but in Eternity some MIDIs are too loud, while others are too quiet, there's no middle ground at all.

- The difficulty curve is kind of all over the place, some maps are way too easy so if playing continuous some maps get completely trivialized, that one map before Zzul's level is probably the best example of this. It literally gives the player every single weapon and the secrets are too OP. The final map isn't too difficult either and is fairly short. What I would honestly do here is switch slots with @antares031's MAP24, which was the most difficult map of the last episode and also the longest. It's a fitting candidate for a MAP30 IMO.

- Essentially an extension of my previous point, once the technical issues are ironed out, I believe a re-balancing pass could be done as well to make the difficulty curve a bit more consistent, it has quite a few ups and downs at the moment, too many of them, that is. I don't know how things work on UV, however, note that I played this on HMP. Or maybe both re-balancing pass and switching some map slots around? I don't know, whatever works best, within reason and time constrains, these are just my 0.02$ :p.

All in all, good job everyone, you've delivered a fun wad that also looks good.

^^ beyond those bars is the start area.  I originally had them blaze open as you approached, but that led people back through the start area and was ultra confusing as you did not have to go back past the 'hom lift' area to leave that room

3 hours ago, seed said:

- The technical issues, notably the HOMs

Do you have any clips or timestamps so i can see where these are exactly, please? I can't really spare 10-12 hours to trawl through vods :D

Regarding balance, i spent no effort trying to balance this wad for continuous play, it is too much effort to try and co-ordinate every mapper involved in updating their maps to account for this and either way i figure people who are usually concerned with balanced combat over simply playing through the maps will pistol start anyway.

Either way, i am glad you had fun with the wad overall.

10 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Do you have any clips or timestamps so i can see where these are exactly, please? I can't really spare 10-12 hours to trawl through vods :D

 

Regarding balance, i spent no effort trying to balance this wad for continuous play, it is too much effort to try and co-ordinate every mapper involved in updating their maps to account for this and either way i figure people who are usually concerned with balanced combat over simply playing through the maps will pistol start anyway.

 

Either way, i am glad you had fun with the wad overall.

- Ah shit, no, I do not, it didn't cross my mind at all. You should watch them tho, when you get the chance, it's not salty content, I promise :v .

- Understandable. Still, it seemed to follow a narrative and each episode pursued a very specific theme, so I thought playing continuous will generally not be a problem - and honestly it wasn't 80-90% of the time, but even so, I still believe changes could be made, I even offered some suggestions. Some maps (again, the level that came before Zzul's is the worst offender here), are simply too easy and resources are overabundant.

- No problemo. any time :D .

If you haven't already, I suggest re-playing MAP11 with infinitely tall things ON.  It has (or had) a lot of issues on this front, with blocking bodies high above you that will suddenly stop your movement, and one ledge you must jump off that is likely to be thoroughly clogged by monsters if you delay even a few seconds in doing so (the one where you drop down from the conveyer, IIRC).

RC3 available here

Fixes based on things posted here and in the megawadclub thread, thank you for all bug reports.

Changelog:

- fixed story typos

- fixed mapinfo issue regarding map31 secret exit

- map02 minor change to crusher area

- map04 misalignment fixed

- map05 tried to make the zerk more obvious

- map08 added earlier rocket launcher plus some extra ammo for it

- map11 various fixes

- map15 update provided by Paul, various fixes within

- map31 update provided by Big ol Billy, fixes EE/cl-1 problem with a switch

Still unresolved - homs in map27? I could not see these myself but have only got time to glance at maps right now. If anyone in future finds a bug, hom whatever please do make a note of where it is so i can actually find and resolve it :)  (also i missed tourni's maps21/23 reports on the previous page, will get em next time...)

What is the advantage of "infinite tall things ON"? Sound like it will also break a lot of other maps... Never heard of that option and don't know why I should turn this on, so I'm just curious...

Phew, and I'm still surprised by all that negative feedback on my map 11... Basically it's the same formula I used for Chainworm Kommando, and I got like 95% positive feedback on that WAD... I don't know if this is a completely different audience that is playing megawads like this? This really got my by surprise...

Infinitely tall things represent the default behaviour of (non-source port) Doom; some source ports may not give the player the option of handling things as not infinitely tall.  I'm not all that knowledgeable about specific source ports and how they handle certain things, so I don't want to authoritatively declare "things passing over or under other things is specific to the ZDoom family of ports," but @Scotty is to the best of my knowledge the project co-ordinator of NOVA III and should be able to point you to the intended compatibility level and how that complevel/source port handles things and their height.

Can you point me to a download of Chainworm Kommando?  Maybe it's a matter of a different audience and maybe there are things that you did in that project that you didn't do here (or vice-versa) that are responsible for the different reception that Terraforming Mines is getting.

1 hour ago, P1NKAC1D said:

What is the advantage of "infinite tall things ON"? Sound like it will also break a lot of other maps... Never heard of that option and don't know why I should turn this on, so I'm just curious...

Things being infinitely tall is the default behaviour in Boom wads, like Nova 3. And considering a lot of people use PRBoom+ for playing maps in that format, they don't have the option to turn that off. Whether you personally like infinite height or not, Boom maps should at least be tested with it on to make sure there are no glaring playability issues.

At last, with the RC3 release I can get to playing this myself!

9 hours ago, Spectre01 said:

Things being infinitely tall is the default behaviour in Boom wads, like Nova 3. And considering a lot of people use PRBoom+ for playing maps in that format, they don't have the option to turn that off. Whether you personally like infinite height or not, Boom maps should at least be tested with it on to make sure there are no glaring playability issues.

OK, didn't know that, I was used to G/ZDoom before this

I just played through the entire thing in one sitting, it took me 6 hours to finish from start to end excluding secret maps.

Overall not bad, not great but definitely an alright map pack. Good job to all those who worked on this!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/539710719 = part 1 (maps 1-10)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/541250524 = part 2 (maps 11-17, 31 & 32)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/541791590 = part 3 (maps 18-25)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/542336976 = part 4 (maps 26-30)

Overall, was worth waiting 4 years to finally play this. Good job everyone!

Got through the first episode. GZDoom, RC3. Loved MAP10. Epic. Minor things.

Looking forward to E2. I love jungles and temples.

Hey @Scotty, i can help with much, but how about this subtitle for Nova III

Nova III: 'Till the New Morning Star/Light

The subtitle is a bit of a reference to the future ''new standar'' the community is seeking since BTSX appeared and Eviternity cemented.
 

I just think about it because i really liked the subtitles of the first two entries in the serie.
Also, someday, when i learn how to map, i woul really like to join this awesome communities projects.

@seed You were saying in your playthrough that MAP14's song reminds you of a Moonspell song. Well, it is lol

Thanks for spotting the misaligned textures. I'm leaving them there though. What's done is done, let the failure of a man be a testament for the failure of men.

@Suitepee You were asking yourself how the keys in MAP14 disappeared, you know, the one courtyard with two teleporters, each leading to a different version of the same courtyard? Well, there are triggers around each key that lower the other keys of the same color in the same map out of view.

Hello, here is RC4. Download

Map30 has had the telefragging addressed (primarily in the final area), some other maps got minor fixes, and an issue with MAPINFO was resolved.

I am shipping this to idgames next week barring any last minute dramas.

@P41R47 i appreciate your comment and enthusiasm, a subtitle was mulled over for quite some time but i couldn't think of anything i liked, and by this point i just want this project away to the archive rather than making more changes to graphics and what have you.

Greetings! Up to map 10 so far and this feels like the best Nova installment to date. Great job, guys! I've got a question about map 10. After you grab the blue key and soulsphere, a lot of mobs teleport in but the closet with the archie and two mancubi never opens. What gives? Playing on uv in zdoom 2.8.1, no mods.

EDIT: Never mind, figured it out. Bit of a weird trigger if you ask me, because not every player's going to walk over that teleporter pad from the hellknight/imp room.

EDIT2: Couldn't figure out how to get to the fireblu secret area. Also, when I death-exit, the next level isn't starting for some weird reason. Might be a problem on my end.

Hmm, i am not sure about that death exit problem because i cannot recreate it myself in zDoom 2.8.1 trying both default and boom strict compat settings, sorry.

Whoever designed the area with the mastermind and two cybs in map 15, you are a horrible human being and you should reevaluate your whole existence. It took me 30 frigging minutes to find the red keycard switch. Great level though - although drawing from my past experiences, I expected a megiddo map to be at least twice as large as this one.

EDIT: Map 31 - great map but it kind of sucks you can't exit with full kills even if you find the secret exit.

You actually can get all kills on MAP31, but it’s tricky! Maybe I went too far with it, but I sorta thought it would be cool to make maxing a bit of a puzzle in itself.

33 minutes ago, Big Ol Billy said:

You actually can get all kills on MAP31, but it’s tricky! Maybe I went too far with it, but I sorta thought it would be cool to make maxing a bit of a puzzle in itself.

Wait, really? Damn, I couldn't figure it out!

Yep.