The City of the Damned | Remaster | v2.0 released

I played a lot of old GZDoom WADs, but I've never heard of The City of the Damned. Let's try it =)

If you have enough time, try the original release and compare it to the 2020's variant, would be happy to know what you think about the improvements :)

what about the project continuation to TCOTD: Apocalipse?
that surely looked pretty good.

Unfortunately, i can't give you much feedback, i can't run the recent gzdoom builds at all.
But if you didn't change much of the original, it will be as good as the original but a lot better looking.

10 hours ago, P41R47 said:

what about the project continuation to TCOTD: Apocalipse?
that surely looked pretty good.

You most propably mean that - well, it's cancelled and the chances that I continue that is at 0%. Too high ambitions, too little time.

11 hours ago, Tormentor667 said:

If you have enough time, try the original release and compare it to the 2020's variant, would be happy to know what you think about the improvements :)

According to the following description,

Quote

In the past 2 days I took the time to improve various things, add some new features (truecolor lights, glows, new palette, polyobjects, scene effects, camera textures, dynamic lights, and many more cosmetic additions) and also make the whole mod widescreen compatible. Gameplay hasn't changed much so if you didn't like it back then, you will most propably hate it today. No surprises, no new content, just cleaned and heavily improved material.

I don't see much sense in trying the original release. I would be of a different mind if there were some gameplay changes (different weapons, monsters, routes, thing placements etc.), but all we have for now are some graphical improvements, so the new version isn't worse than the old one in any case.

7 hours ago, Tormentor667 said:

 

You most propably mean that - well, it's cancelled and the chances that I continue that is at 0%. Too high ambitions, too little time.

Oh, what a shame! That project was something i really was expecting to happend some day.
With the advanced made in gzdoom engine you could surely made something in the vein of Cry of Fear, and that would be certainly awesome.
But well, at least we still have Blades of Agony.
One question, Torm: what is the oldest release build of gzdoom i could use to play BOA without lag? As any build of gzdoom over 3.3.2 runs like a snail to me. Being 2.2 the most stable of all in performance and quality for my old potato(amd a10 quadcore, no graphic card, 4gb ram).
 

2 hours ago, P41R47 said:

One question, Torm: what is the oldest release build of gzdoom i could use to play BOA without lag? As any build of gzdoom over 3.3.2 runs like a snail to me. Being 2.2 the most stable of all in performance and quality for my old potato(amd a10 quadcore, no graphic card, 4gb ram).
 

It depends on the version you wanrt to play. The current in development Chapters 1-3 need the latest dev build 4.4+, with older versions (C1 and C2 releases) you need at least the version that is packaged with the standalone build.

I just played the original, quite liked it, a couple of times I couldn't tell where to go so I think I had 7 minutes of just walking around looking for something.

However, loved the atmosphere and the surprise encounters didn't seem cheap. I will try the remaster on the weekend or tomorrow, what sector light mode should I use for it? Even if there are no gameplay changes, I'd like to see how much the atmosphere changes with it.

Very nice !

RC2 has just been released and should be pretty much finished. Looking forward to your tests and let me know if you find something awkward, otherwise this will end up as the final release of 2.0 - and I hope you guys like it :)

This will be the easiest 2.0 release of all time =) Here is my nanofeedback about RC2.

The titile screen is narrowed for some reason. 

It the the first time that I had been forced to choose ITYTD, though I don't see any differences in monster placements. It only makes you more resistant and gives extra ammo.
The map isn't that big, but it's difficult rather unusual. It's designed to be played for several times. You should plan your route carefully and get all the weapons as soon as they become available. 

I spent a lot of time devastating the streets with my shotgun before I finally discovered the cemetery. It's placed on the other side of the map, but its loot helps out to kill monsters. Then I discovered a place with chaingunners which isn't far away from the starting point. Why didn't I go there earlier? I'm surprised I've found a plasma gun so quickly, but I've run out of ammo when I reached a room where it would be so helpful. In short, I didn't find a rocket launcher and a BFG, so the map was really hard for me.

Berserk isn't useful since most monsters have long-range attacks. Its purpose is to restore your health. 

Don't see much sense in making Arachnotrons invincible. Nice effect, but they are dangerous even without it since at most cases you can face them at the beginning of the map when you're not armed well.

I don't know if it's designed like that, but I couldn't leave the room with the golden archvile after the door is closed, and after I finally killed it, I still had problems with opening the door like the linedef is small.

Today I did some searches using IDCLIP and discovered a big portion of the map: the Gates of Hell and beyond. It turns out that sometimes curiosity is a bad habit. I don't know how would I fight all those monsters without a BFG. And there is a chainsaw in that hidden place. What's the point of having it? 

After I found a rocket launcher and activated a switch in the room with 2 Barons, a camera shows a door and a gibbed corpse in front of it. Where is it? I think I had found that door earlier, but a better angle would guide me better. The lava pit next to that switch, is the achvile supposed to blast me across it?

Similar to @Senor500 feedback, I faced a moment where I was messing around trying to figure out "Where the hell I'm supposed to go?". That small ventilation is inconspicuous and it's like the only place where you need to jump in order to advance with the game.

Here are some other suggestions:

1. Remove some monsters on Easy skills and add a green armor somewhere at the beginning (maybe on Medium skill too).

2. Add some in-game tip that would help to get a BFG.

3. The room with 3 invincible archviles is really difficult if your best weapon is an SSG. Add some medkits or what?

4. Decrease the camera shaking a little during the final boss fight.

Thanks kindly for all the feedback, I just added a lot of improvements and changes according to your suggestions - that helped a lot! :) Regarding the titlepic, what GZDoom version did you use to play the mod?

11 minutes ago, Tormentor667 said:

Regarding the titlepic, what GZDoom version did you use to play the mod?

The latest one, 4.3.3

You need 4.4 at least, check this thread and the titlepic should work: https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdoom/

Can't it be adapted for a stable version? Well, nevermind if it's the only bug of the wad

Unfortunately not as the new feature regarding the titlepic has just been added recently.

I could do the 3 invisible Archviles, with a ton of effort. But the one with the single Archvile that seems to have 3-4 times more health is impossible, he resurrects barons, chainguners and shotgunners constantly, and the location is too small.

Overall, I noticed a lack of ammo, but maybe it was because I couldn't find the rocket launcher. In the end I got stuck after cleaning up the big cathedral with the red key, I couldn't see what was the next thing I should do or go.

Is this slaughter?

12 minutes ago, Korozive said:

Is this slaughter?

No, but there are (at least) 2 sections with a high strong monster rate and possibly a lack of good weapon to fight back (if you didn't look for secrets)

7 hours ago, Turin Turambar said:

I could do the 3 invisible Archviles, with a ton of effort. But the one with the single Archvile that seems to have 3-4 times more health is impossible, he resurrects barons, chainguners and shotgunners constantly, and the location is too small.

 

Overall, I noticed a lack of ammo, but maybe it was because I couldn't find the rocket launcher. In the end I got stuck after cleaning up the big cathedral with the red key, I couldn't see what was the next thing I should do or go.

Thanks for your opinion and hints, I kinda agree with that. For RC3 the golden arch-vile will be replaced with a custom enemy, same goes to the final battle with the two Cyberdemons, I found that kinda lame. I will also place more ammo and try to find a way to hint where to go next, but that would totally kill the non-linearity of the map. It's worth being played twice I guess to find a better route :)

*EDIT*

RC3 has been uploaded.

RC4 has been uploaded, new monsters, new effects, numerous bugfixes

I'm satisfied with RC3. Now ITYTD feels easier. 

My only small complaint is about the final boss. It would be nice to give a player some health before the battle. I got there being at 20 HP and a flying mancubus shoots me as soon as I teleport and I haven't enough time to unfreeze to run away.

Still, I don't find any usage for the chainsaw. Why don't you replace it with a rocket launcher? It would be just in time to fight the second horde guarding the door with the needed RL on the other side

I agree with that, I will replace the Chainsaw with a Rocket Launcher and the RL with a Plasma Gun. You can get the latter earlier if you find the secret but that way you get it guaranteed.

I've been playing the original version, and was enjoying it considerably until all progress ceased because I could find no way of picking up the purple key inside the chapel, despite an hour or so of trying all sorts of options. Looks to me like a classic 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory' situation, the point at which all momentum is lost and the player's sense of immersion and goodwill towards the map dissipates into one of intense frustration and alienation. 

The customized Archviles and other situations were fine, and I don't mind being killed a couple of dozen times in an ambush or whatever, but this sort of obscure puzzle just drives me to despair.

Grrrr.....

16 hours ago, Summer Deep said:

I've been playing the original version, and was enjoying it considerably until all progress ceased because I could find no way of picking up the purple key inside the chapel, despite an hour or so of trying all sorts of options.

Was the problem the battle that was too hard or something else?

No, the combat's not been a big problem, in fact I'm surprised at the complaints here about the semi-invisible and golden Archviles, as I thought they were perfectly fair opponents (maybe they're tougher in the remastered version?).

The problem is simply how to get the purple key from the altar. I pressed 'use' on every square millimetre of the chapel walls, expecting to find a hidden switch to lower it or maybe a teleporter, then tried doing unlikely strafe runs over the rows of candles on the floor, then scoured the rest of the map for another possible solution, but all in vain.

It's now dawned on me that because this is a ZDoom map, maybe I'm just supposed to jump? Not something that would normally occur to me, being largely a Doom purist, but I've looked briefly at KDiZD with which you were involved, and the player is definitely expected to jump there, it seems. Problem solved?

13 hours ago, Summer Deep said:

It's now dawned on me that because this is a ZDoom map, maybe I'm just supposed to jump?

Yes, you are. There are 2 other places where the jump feature is useful.

Exactly, it's a map that needs modern features and movement mechanics, so jump is indeed necessary (also for example to collect the BFG)

*EDIT*

Release Candidate 5 online, that should be all now :)

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6dkm3z6zzoew4kg/tcotd_v2_rc5.zip/file

You should add a note in the readme file that jumping is allowed (and required). Lots of other maps, even done for GZDoom specifically, aren't designed for jumping, so people isn't accustomed to it.