The /newstuff Chronicles #156

My view of Mock 2 : Some of it is funny, some of it is just the tired old LOL BIG ROOM WITH 10,000 MONSTERS stuff. The best levels were the ones that liberally abused Zdoom features. I feel it could have done without a few of the levels - cut it down a bit, keep only the good stuff :P

Ok, here's a rather pathetic demo of me playing V.O.L. I get up to the Cyberdemon then die miserably :P I stood too close to the altar and got killed by splash damage. Woops! It shows most of the level though, and shows you can take some pretty heavy damage and still live. I recorded it with Zdoom 2.0.55.

Edit : The damn thing gets out of synch .. argh x_X sorry guys

41 levels of crap...
There were some funny and some brilliant parts, but mostly it was crap, so I ask what is the point of spending so much time making bad levels? What's the most fun part of Mock2? The idea of making it. Actually going out and starting a 41 level wad that's meant to be crap is beyond me! Why waste your time and talent so badly?

What was funny in Mock2?

The Zdoom stuff like "catch the switch".

What was NOT funny in Mock2?

Everything else, basically. Unaligned textures, HOMs, bad design is not funny. Do you expect me to laugh when seeing how a talented author has made a crappy level? It's sad, really. You could take all the good stuff in Mock2, cut all the crap and you'll have 1 or 2 cool, memorable and original levels.

The fact that Mock2 got the "Wad of the week" award is making a mockery (no pun intended) out of the people who actually TRY to create something good. I highly object to this "decision". Why? Mock2 is meant to be crap, treat it like crap and not some big achievement.

GREAT JOB YOU HAVE CREATED SOMETHING BAD! WOW! CONGRATULATIONS

This is not to be taken as an insult towards the authors, but rather an eyeopener. It's obvious that you all have talent, I just hope you won't waste your time and talent so badly another time.

Verdict: 0 out of 5 stars. Horrible and unfunny. The wad was crappy all the way through. Congratulations guys and gals, mission accomplished.

I dunno if I'd be that harsh. That sounds like a pretty Danish reaction to me, and you guys are infamous for being found wanting in the sense of humour department =P

I don't mind the fact that mock2 is a joke wad. In fact I like joke wads. I don't even mind if someone makes a wad that is purposefully fucking awful.

But if you're going to go out on a limb and make teh funney, you have to succeed. Mock2 does in parts but a lot of the time I just found myself bored and annoyed. I got the arse with it. And that's no good to anyone because that's when I usually hit Alt-F4.

It's possible mock2 just isn't that funny. Mind you it's also possible I don't have a sense of humour either, or have one not tuned to deal with things as absurd as a joke project for a ten-year-old game. Or that I've just grown bored with it all.

Hmm.

pritch said:

I dunno if I'd be that harsh. That sounds like a pretty Danish reaction to me, and you guys are infamous for being found wanting in the sense of humour department =P

I don't mind the fact that mock2 is a joke wad. In fact I like joke wads. I don't even mind if someone makes a wad that is purposefully fucking awful.

Danish people like good humor, quality. I don't see the point in making crap. The idea is funny, that's why I made the Broom Challenge page sometime ago. Making a wad like that is incredibly unfunny.

In my opinion 1337.wad was the last silly wad allowable; it came out pretty much by surprise and even fooled a bunch of people for a little while into thinking it had been made seriously by real (albeit weird or stupid) people. This project, on the other hand, came long after and with a lot of publicity, when joke wads had already become predictable and scornful.

It seemed to me people were OK with jokewads UNTIL mock2 got announced, after that people started putting up new ones every week and by the time mock2 was released people had gotten absolutely sick of them.

I will have my revenge! Next week's /newstuff inbox will be spammed to the hilt with dm megawad madness! You WILL notice my wads-- and play them-- and enjoy them!


hmmph.

Grazza said:

So what hideous monstrosity turned you against Egyptian-themed wads

Map 9.

As for the rest of it, I don't consider misaligned textures, 50 monsters stuck in a 64x64 area inside a room that could contain 50 times that, bad music, and an ammo to monster ratio of 1000:1 my idea of comedy for more than five minutes. This is true with any of this type joke map. What I found amusing were the jokes. For instance, I walk into a nice looking room and the game freezes me for a second and says something like, "Hold on, there's too much detail". Then the room shifts and changes into a basic empty cube room. Or map 29 (Or was it 28? Whichever one 'Bambi's mom is dead' is). Or that odd music in Enough of These Could Clog an Emu and Hybrid.

Hellbent said:

I don't make DM wads for my own health. Please, people, use them!

Sadly that's not very likely; the vast majority of DMers never play anything besides the original levels and Dwango 5 :(

If you want players to actually play your DM levels as they're intended, wait for Skulltag to get bots back and then design your levels for that. Otherwise I'm afraid you'll have to accept that they'll only ever be played by people in single player who're admiring the architecture.

So for Mock2, is a bad review better than a good review? :)

Anyway, got some more of Helly's Dm maps to play through. Pretty damn good so far.

Dwango wads suck so much it makes me seriously wonder about the mental capacity of the people who play them. There are so many levels out there that are a 1000 times better... it's sad really. :p

Enter is a nice map. I especially like the lava bit in the blue key room. Definately a great first wad.

I wasn't sure what I would think of mock2, I generally think 'joke' wads are a pile of shit. Mock2 certainly hasn't made me change my mind. There were a few slightly funny bits, but they normally used zdoom features and made explicit jokes onscreen. I wouldn't really call this mockery, just humour, and that can take a bit of skill.

However, the 'jokes' in these mockery maps are meant to come from intended bad design. And here mock2 most definately fails it. Oooo, waiting 10 minutes for a lift to lower and then another 10 for it to rise up... Not my idea of fun or funny. And map 15, Mining Fecality, the intended 'joke' is so obvious but it just isn't funny. Maybe if the designer had gone to some effort to make it look like a real level, with good detailing and more interesting gameplay, only to 'forget' to tag that 2-sided linedef as impassible... Or you could have just made the switches shootable.

Edit: Damn, look at me. 3 lines on something I liked and 2 paragraphs on shit... That's not right :|

I dunno.. I'll bet you guys who are whining about Mock2 are the same kind of guys who complain about April Fools day jokes.

I loved Mock2 Taking all the stupid things that people do wrong when making a level and focusing on them in one wad is great. It's like the entire community pointing and laughing at the morons who make errors like that. Beeea-utiful.

On that note, I think there needs to be a joke wad about people who hate joke wads now.

well i played pretty much all of mock2, albeit in god mode and making sure i had plenty of ammo at all times. hurrah for cheat codes. my favourite map by far was the cacodemon one ("the crotch") it was actually quite a sight to see a thousand cacos swarming around obstacles and launching a gerzillion fireballs at once. probably one of the best 3d steups i've ever witnessed, really! it was cool. once i realised the gravity was well low i spent a lot of time caco hopping, seeing how high i could get! i think i celared 937 of them before i left the map after 40 mins! the very first fake 3d bridge on the first map was one of the funniest parts, as was the disco in the credits map, i actually played all the way through that lon stupid mine map for some reason. heh

i liked "go!" but only got to the red key switch once in about fifty goes. at which point i was expecting to exit. dohhh. didnt know at that point i had to run through the central skin bit! im determined to beat it on UV though

Rellik said:

So for Mock2, is a bad review better than a good review? :)

Yeah. I think it's funny because the more people say it sucked the more it makes me think we succeeded. It's a joke wad, so it's supposed to have poor design and crazy gameplay.

Everyone who has posted has mentioned (even if they hated it) that they found something funny. So we've achieved our goal.

True, not all of it is funny. I don't like MAP02 or "SoM Did It" or UD's fog level, and I think the doors with a speed of 1 were way overused, but I find Mock2 good as a whole.

I enjoyed every Mock 2 map except map18 (had to use IDDT) and map20 (had to summon ammo). While map07 was a "bit" annoying, at least it was also rewarding to finish. :P

I think the future of joke wads now lies in taking a retarded concept seriously and making as good a wad as the concept allows for:

For example a TC retelling of the New Testament.

Little Faith said:

I think the future of joke wads now lies in taking a retarded concept seriously and making as good a wad as the concept allows for:

Already done several times

If those who say it sucks (especially those who didn't play it through) actually played the maps without cheating, they might enjoy it (if they like a challenge) and see the difference between this and the other joke wads (ie. the jokes come from ZDoom features and weird concepts rather than just rooms full of 1000 cybers all the time). In fact I found it quite refreshing too see something different like this, and I for one would rather replay this than some of the 'classic' megawads. (some of which seemed rather average to me when I played them)

And it doesn't mock the serious mappers who put lots of effort into their wads because most of the people who worked on Mock 2 are those serious mappers, who are just taking time out to create something different (a bit of light relief from the honest toil of normal mapping). Besides, some of the stuff did take effort to create (my fog map took 4 days for example, and Hyena made nearly all of the music which surely took some effort)

You can't judge wads by their covers all the time.

Espi said:

I enjoyed every Mock 2 map except map18 (had to use IDDT) and map20 (had to summon ammo).

You can jump over the barons in map 20 (low gravity), hit one on the head, jump again and reach the exit that way.

I'm surprised you didn't use the General Scampi music in one of your maps, heheh.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

(if they like a challenge)

That reminds me. Espi managed to do a UV no cheats demo of MAP22, one of the few levels that were marked as "impossible without cheats."

sargebaldy said:

It seemed to me people were OK with jokewads UNTIL mock2 got announced, after that people started putting up new ones every week and by the time mock2 was released people had gotten absolutely sick of them.

True, and that's probably the reason I enjoyed it much more than most of the people who replied here. Mock2 was the first joke wad that I actually bothered to play.

I warped around Mock2 and checked out the different angles thrown into the whole joke wad scheme. Some of the scripting was funny, such as the exploding crate(almost) and little-brother edited room, but now it's time to go back to thinking about some of the projects that deserve to be released and hoping it will happen someday...

boris said:

Mock2 is a waste of time and bandwidth (that I'd say that one time...). It's unfunny, welcome to 2003 ("WOW LOOK ANOTHER SQUARE MAP ROOM WITH A LOLZILLION CYBERDEMONS". Not innovative at all). Map43 is cool though.

fucking thank you

dorks

Ichor said:

I'm surprised you didn't use the General Scampi music in one of your maps, heheh.

Or the badger music...(both would rock)

(btw, were you talking to me there? If so, I didn't know about those tunes when I made the maps, and in any case Hyena picked the tunes)

"dorks


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NiGHTMARE said:

Sadly that's not very likely; the vast majority of DMers never play anything besides the original levels and Dwango 5 :(

That makes very little sense. And is very rather stoopid.

If you want players to actually play your DM levels as they're intended, wait for Skulltag to get bots back and then design your levels for that. Otherwise I'm afraid you'll have to accept that they'll only ever be played by people in single player who're admiring the architecture.

So people will play custom maps with bots on skulltag, but not against live opponents? And what's the resoning behind this mandess?

Hellbent said:

That makes very little sense. And is very rather stoopid.

I think the main reason why is because people don't like having to look around for new DM wads to download, especially since most aren't in the archives. ZDaemon recently added a way to automatically download levels though, so maybe that'll help things. I suggested the same thing to Carn a month ago and he said he might add that in eventually. So maybe the Dwango 5 thing will die down here in a bit.

sargebaldy said:

I think the main reason why is because people don't like having to look around for new DM wads to download, especially since most aren't in the archives. ZDaemon recently added a way to automatically download levels though, so maybe that'll help things. I suggested the same thing to Carn a month ago and he said he might add that in eventually. So maybe the Dwango 5 thing will die down here in a bit.

I do think it's a good idea. When I do the internal browser, I'll probably put that in.

As for a model of how it should be done, I like the way Kilgore's getwad.dll works for IDE, where it basically scans a bunch of well-known archives for the wad that the server is using. Also, since servers can specify a WAD URL, I'll have it check that location first before scanning other places.

It's also important to note that for automatic WAD downloading, it's downloaded from a location OTHER than the server. If people were to download giant wads from the server directly, chances are people already playing on the server will experience a shitload of lag. We definitely don't want THAT to happen, now do we? :)

Yeah, I like how ZDaemon handles it, downloading right from teh intarweb. Quake did it straight through the server which probably caused a lot of lag (especially when someone is downloading half of Team Fortress through there). Not to mention it's a lot faster this way for two reasons:

a) the download source is a lot faster than most game servers
b) it downloads it compressed, thus making it a much smaller download

Although I would like it to do it automatically when you try to join a server instead of manually.