I want to play and record videos of your WADs!

13 hours ago, Orcsbreath said:

Oh man, this is more submissions than I was expecting!  Unfortunately it's likely that not every map can make the cut - at one WAD per week, it'd take ages to play them all!  I get the feeling that choosing which ones to play is gonna be the hardest part of this whole endeavor (although it's probably gonna be mostly "first come, first serve").

I'll record the first video tonight, and post it on Wednesday!

These type of threads tend to get an initial bombard of requests, before settling down to a more manageable number over time.

3 hours ago, Horus said:

These type of threads tend to get an initial bombard of requests, before settling down to a more manageable number over time.

Horus is right about this, so there is hope of catching up in that regard.

However, I, for one, assumed you meant that "one video [per Wednesday]" would include multiple requests. If you intend to do one map, or even one wad, per week, then one (or more) of several things is going to happen:

1. you will be perpetually buried with no prospect of catching up
2. you will decline a lot more requests than you accept
3. you won't get many requests (and the pace might eventually work itself out well - who knows?)

If you're okay with any/all of those, carry right on!

^{Just for reference, when I was doing this, I averaged about 1.4 videos per day (And the average video was probably ~1.05 maps). At that pace my average turnaround from request to public video was probably about 4 days, though it varied greatly.} 

perhaps a bit late to this, but I have a few for you to have a crack at:

Here is a selection of some of my releases:

A Heretic map:

And a very twisted one:

6 hours ago, HAK3180 said:

However, I, for one, assumed you meant that "one video [per Wednesday]" would include multiple requests. 

^{Just for reference, when I was doing this, I averaged about 1.4 videos per day (And the average video was probably ~1.05 maps). At that pace my average turnaround from request to public video was probably about 4 days, though it varied greatly.} 

I'll be doing potentially multiple requests, but it very much depends on the levels I'm playing.  Longer maps means I'll do fewer of them.  And I'll likely adjust my format slightly over time as I find what works best for me.

@Gwarl First video is here!  Dread Moon; both maps.  Unfortunately I was unable to do a full playthrough of MAP02, due to technical difficulties (which I assume were mostly the result of me not knowing how GZDoom works).  Sorry about that.  I enjoyed what I played, though, and I'd love to revisit it in the future and get it to work correctly.

Hi thanks for playing!

Very first thing, these maps are not solely my work, @Hawns Braks is my mapping partner for this set. This means we both work on each map rather than having map slots and there's hardly a single area which has not been modified in some way by both of us.

I appreciated the comments, we are very much going for a 'Doom but better because it's 2021' vibe for this; aiming to fulfil the lost promise of a shores of hell that's a major upgrade over KDiTD. Using vanilla doom/doom2 textures (and a couple of small edits) probably goes a long way here. The plasma guy went through several versions to find the right threat level and distinctive look, and the other custom monsters you didn't see blend in well with the stock monsters in our opinion. The difficulty seemed correct for ultraviolence; we did implements difficulties and HMP still gives you 'plenty' to shoot at, whereas UV gives you all that and then some.

As to your comment at the end of the first map about the 'limits' of what still feels like doom; the second map is another leap forward in terms of features, but it should still feel like doom; after all the original ep2 had tech that didn't appear in ep1 like crushing ceilings and perpetually moving floors. As for why it didn't work for you...
 

Your game seemed to slow down when one of the portals in the level was about to become visible - I suspect this is because you were using GZDoom's software renderer, and that the software renderer becomes confused by portals. Seems like the set requires use of the OpenGL renderer if played in GZDoom.

However

This is not a GZDoom exclusive mapset! Like you, I prefer paletted software rendering; the pk3 can also be loaded in the Eternity Engine, which uses an 8 bit software renderer and is demo compatible with Vanilla (so you can be certain your engine is capable of behaving exactly like doom). There are independent display resolution and renderer resolution settings for comfortably playing in 320x200 resolution too. This is more like an Eternity mapset which takes care to retain GZDoom compatibility (it has not been easy).

I would recommend NOT turning on vanilla compatibility in either engine if you do come back to this map, as it is not a vanilla mapset; I believe this was the cause of your troubles moving across the bridge in MAP01 (infinitely tall actors). I had the opposite problem in hells keep where I assumed infinitely tall actors would be on and I watched a player walk over a crowd of monsters heads to skip the final arena. I appreciate that it could take many months with all the submissions you had, but we will have more maps released by then.

Spoilery comments on your run:

 

MAP01 has a par time of 2:30 and MAP02 has has a par of 22:00 which will soon be updated to 12:30 - I have actually beaten the levels saveless on UV in these times, but 100% runs with complete prior knowledge of the level usually take 12 mins for MAP01 and 30 mins for MAP02. We are trying to pattern our maps after the originals, as you noticed, so MAP02 is a big open ended affair and other maps may be somewhat shorter but still bigger than MAP01. We kind of thought E2M1 wasn't very good so there are just a few references to things that we thought were cool like the one you spotted (surprises me how everyone is surprised that the REDWALL1 inverted cross is a painfloor - of course it is!) and a lot of improvisation, but we like E2M2 and found a lot of elements we wanted to repeat in our version. This is going to continue throughout the mapset - don't expect straight copies of level geometry as in KDiZD, but each level should evoke the original in some way.

Thanks again for playing, I hope you have time to revisit the set in the future (probably using Eternity!).

4 hours ago, Gwarl said:

Your game seemed to slow down when one of the portals in the level was about to become visible - I suspect this is because you were using GZDoom's software renderer, and that the software renderer becomes confused by portals. Seems like the set requires use of the OpenGL renderer if played in GZDoom.

However

 

This is not a GZDoom exclusive mapset! Like you, I prefer paletted software rendering; the pk3 can also be loaded in the Eternity Engine, which uses an 8 bit software renderer and is demo compatible with Vanilla (so you can be certain your engine is capable of behaving exactly like doom). There are independent display resolution and renderer resolution settings for comfortably playing in 320x200 resolution too. This is more like an Eternity mapset which takes care to retain GZDoom compatibility (it has not been easy).

Good to know, thanks!  I have very little experience with the more advanced source ports and their features (I've never even used Eternity Engine before), so I wasn't even really sure where to look for what might be causing the problems I encountered.  I'd also completely forgotten that "vanilla compatibility" was a setting - I turned it on for testing one of my own maps, which was supposed to be vanilla, ages ago and never changed it back.  This is the first map I've had any problems with because, as I said, I rarely play maps with the more advanced features, so it slipped my mind.

It'll be a while before I can revisit this, but I do intend to, eventually.  It's good stuff, what I played, and I certainly would like to see more.

Thanks for the video :) Pretty unfortunate that map 2 acted up so badly, there's a lot going on with portals like Gwarl mentioned, so seeing it break this bad doesn't surprise me really but it's still a bit sad :')

This is my most recent standalone map (actually been a little while since I published one) - have a go!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9pnpb5h25bayhl6/OvergrownOutpost.wad?dl=0

@VisionThing As per the "guidelines" section of my opening post, please provide screenshots and compatibility info (source port, IWAD, &c.) if you want me to consider your WAD, thank you!

8 hours ago, Orcsbreath said:

@VisionThing As per the "guidelines" section of my opening post, please provide screenshots and compatibility info (source port, IWAD, &c.) if you want me to consider your WAD, thank you!

My bad, the original thread w/ all the necessary details is here:

@Nootsy-Nootsy I had a fun time with this map, for the most part.  I decided to run it vanilla just for the hell of it, and because I wasn't 100% sure from reading the forum thread how vanilla-compatible it actually was and I wanted to find out.

(just a heads-up: idk if my tone in the video sounds particularly unenthusiastic but if it does that's less because of the map and more because I've just been feeling a bit off all week).

Here you go: 

@Lippeth Both maps of Super Slug; these were of fun.  While they weren't anything groundbreaking, it's a well-executed classic techbase, and I respect that.  The visual theming and details are definitely the WAD's strong suit; good stuff here.

Great play through! I appreciate the low resolution and "vanilla" compat options. My goal with these was to learn UDMF, and there was a time my naive ass thought "universal" meant "will play on anything". Had I known the reality when I started, these maps would've been vanilla, and other than the few 3D floor tricks and scripts, it could have been and probably should have been.

Still, a lot of the ideas presented easily translate to vanilla design, and I hope it gave you some good ideas for your own maps, even what not to do!

After watching your play through, I'll most likely make one final update for better signposting and then stick to vanilla maps for a while, though I don't map nearly as much as I'd like.

4 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

Great play through! I appreciate the low resolution and "vanilla" compat options. My goal with these was to learn UDMF, and there was a time my naive ass thought "universal" meant "will play on anything". Had I known the reality when I started, these maps would've been vanilla, and other than the few 3D floor tricks and scripts, it could have been and probably should have been.

 

Still, a lot of the ideas presented easily translate to vanilla design, and I hope it gave you some good ideas for your own maps, even what not to do!

 

After watching your play through, I'll most likely make one final update for better signposting and then stick to vanilla maps for a while, though I don't map nearly as much as I'd like.

Awesome designs, @Lippeth! Lets keep it vanilla for greater good!

I can propose E1M3. It apparently requires a limit removing port with node building. Tested on (G)ZDoom.

^^^ GREAT map I played it a bunch and I never do that

Here's a Boom Compatible Doom 2 map I made that has a lot of cool features (i.e. a breakable computer screen and a drinkable coffee cup) that I think you'd like

IdGames link:

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/m-o/otb

(also I would give screenshots but doomworld only allows to upload a total of 0.21MB) 

I'd like to see someone do a gameplay of it lol

I would throw my map of Underground Toxicity in to have you play/record. but sadly i can't because I'm remaking it again from scratch. If you like i can toss in the second installment of my map trilogy i'm doing. It's just the map only though there's no monsters in it because of two community projects i'm apart of as we speak. 

Let me know if you wanna check it out, i'll be more then happy to hear your feedback on it.  

40 minutes ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

I would throw my map of Underground Toxicity in to have you play/record. but sadly i can't because I'm remaking it again from scratch.

I'm not going to play unfinished maps here, but it'll take me a while to get through all the WADs that have already been posted in this thread anyway, and I'd be happy to check out any completed (i.e. playable with monsters) maps you want me to if and when they're ready.  I intend to keep making these videos for a while yet, so there's no hurry.

If you want, I did a 15 map megawad   this year, most of them are pretty short. 

18 minutes ago, Orcsbreath said:

I'm not going to play unfinished maps here, but it'll take me a while to get through all the WADs that have already been posted in this thread anyway, and I'd be happy to check out any completed (i.e. playable with monsters) maps you want me to if and when they're ready.  I intend to keep making these videos for a while yet, so there's no hurry.

Ok when i finish it i'll post it here.

@Fiendish Cool maps for sure - I'm liking the E4 aesthetic (although, this is a lot more polished than E4 was).  I wasn't able to play much of it, unfortunately.  I wasn't able to keep up with the WAD's difficulty, and if I'd had more time, I'd probably have tried harder or maybe restarted on a lower difficulty setting, but since I ended up recording this super late (several hours after the video was supposed to be published, in fact), I had to cut it short.  I definitely want to come back to it at some point, though.  This is good stuff here.

21 minutes ago, Orcsbreath said:

I wasn't able to keep up with the WAD's difficulty

Yea, I see you, buddy. But if I'm allowed to say, during my also recent playthrough of map 01, after dying 20 times I discovered one strategy that enables you to beat the map very consistently.

59 minutes ago, Orcsbreath said:

@Fiendish Cool maps for sure - I'm liking the E4 aesthetic (although, this is a lot more polished than E4 was).  I wasn't able to play much of it, unfortunately.  I wasn't able to keep up with the WAD's difficulty, and if I'd had more time, I'd probably have tried harder or maybe restarted on a lower difficulty setting, but since I ended up recording this super late (several hours after the video was supposed to be published, in fact), I had to cut it short.  I definitely want to come back to it at some point, though.  This is good stuff here.

Thanks for playing it and for the feedback! :-) I wasn't sure if I was a bit too evil with some of the encounters. Based on the video, I think you're skilled enough to do it on UV -- in map02, there were some ammo, armor, and health pickups around the beginning that you missed (and I think how well map01 goes depends a lot on how much health one is left with after the initial hitscanner attack). There's also a plasma gun where the archviles are initially penned in, which I think you didn't notice. If you come back to it again down the road, it's totally up to you if you want to stay on UV or switch to HMP, though. HMP is less mean, but the combat encounters are pretty similar. So I think it really comes down to how challenging a time you're feeling in the mood for. It was good to know that you found the second map to be too dark. I will definitely brighten it up a notch or two, since the darkness is really just there for the atmosphere rather than to add to the difficulty. I think I should also elevate the plasma gun so that it's harder not to notice before releasing the archviles. 

Thanks again! I really appreciate your taking the time to play through some of the maps and record your thoughts.

1 hour ago, Fiendish said:

in map02, there were some ammo, armor, and health pickups around the beginning that you missed (and I think how well map01 goes depends a lot on how much health one is left with after the initial hitscanner attack). There's also a plasma gun where the archviles are initially penned in, which I think you didn't notice.

Yeah, I figured there was probably some ammo/pickups I had missed, and I probably would've tried to find them if I weren't pressed for time, or hadn't saved while backed into a corner by the two Archies.

I completely didn't see the Plasma Gun - in fact, I'm not sure it's possible to see it until the archies are set loose.  If I'd known it was there, I'd definitely have tried to push past the Archies and grab it, so elevating it to make it visible strikes me as a good idea.  Maybe even make the sector it's on bright/glowing, since the player (or, at least, I) will be trying to run out of the Archies' line of sight and might not be super observant in that moment.

On 8/4/2021 at 10:59 PM, Orcsbreath said:

 

Yeah, I figured there was probably some ammo/pickups I had missed, and I probably would've tried to find them if I weren't pressed for time, or hadn't saved while backed into a corner by the two Archies.

I completely didn't see the Plasma Gun - in fact, I'm not sure it's possible to see it until the archies are set loose.  If I'd known it was there, I'd definitely have tried to push past the Archies and grab it, so elevating it to make it visible strikes me as a good idea.  Maybe even make the sector it's on bright/glowing, since the player (or, at least, I) will be trying to run out of the Archies' line of sight and might not be super observant in that moment.

You're right -- I think after altering some floor heights, I inadvertently obscured the plasma gun. Definitely a helpful catch. No expectation here, but just in case you decide to give the maps another go at some point in the future, I have included an updated version of the WAD here and will update the file in this post every now and again. Thanks again!

Ruination.zip