Vile Flesh [demopack thread]

After dying stupidly rather too many times, I finally recorded a UV Max on map25 of Vile Flesh.

It's a bit lengthy (18:43), but there's a fair amount of action. The last few minutes are poor though - I was pretty nervous by then.

The first cyber is dealt with in "Gotcha" style (actually the spider normally wins the fight - this demo was an exception). The second and third are far less of a problem than it appears at first sight. Not completely trivial though, since there are some angles that they can blast you from.

It's a Boom 2.02-compatible demo. Plays back fine with prboom/glboom.

Sweet! The start of a demopack, maybe?

Keep 'em coming, everyone. :)

I haven't watched Grazza's demo yet.. but I think a demoset is certainly possible.
to be realistic though, we have several still in the works, (not that I've helped at all) so you may have to be patient and rekindle some interest when some others are released.

A Vile Flesh demoset is a nice idea, and I toyed with the idea of suggesting it, but decided not to do so just yet. If other people are enthusiastic, then OK, let's go for it.

A few reasons why I held off for the time being:
1) I didn't want to distract attention from the Fragport demopack, just as it seems to have acquired some momentum.
2) Most of these maps are big - you need to be quite committed to the task to record demos on maps this big. And it is difficult to make demos that are good to watch (e.g. my handling of that last cyber in map25 is a disgrace).
3) Boom is needed (though some maps work with Doom2.exe), which might put off some of the compet-n experts.
4) I notice that Gwyn Williams mentions that a demopack is planned - it would be nice to know how he plans this to work, and if we could help in some way. No point reinventing the wheel.

BTW, I've done map30 too, but it sucks (0:44). There's an S50 jump that would speed things up a lot.

Anyway, if people are interested in making a Vile Flesh demopack, I'd suggest a "best time gets in" approach (i.e. no reserving of maps), and that demos should be Boom-compatible to ensure a level playing field.

Opulent said:

to be realistic though, we have several still in the works

I can only think of one (Fragport). HTP and LOH2 are both finished (LOH2 hasn't been assembled into a demopack as yet, but there are demos for each map).

BTW, I've done map30 too, but it sucks (0:44). There's an S50 jump that would speed things up a lot.

Do you have that one up for download somewhere?

Anyway, if people are interested in making a Vile Flesh demopack, I'd suggest a "best time gets in" approach (i.e. no reserving of maps), and that demos should be Boom-compatible to ensure a level playing field.

Sounds good to me!

Schneelocke said:

Do you have that one up for download somewhere?

Uh, OK, if you want. I've uploaded it to my own web space. It is very sloppy though. I've also uploaded a narrow failure at a map02 Tyson (c. 15 minutes). I might give up on that one, but this demo shows it is perfectly feasible.

Grazza said:

Uh, OK, if you want. I've uploaded it to my own web space. It is very sloppy though. I've also uploaded a narrow failure at a map02 Tyson (c. 15 minutes). I might give up on that one, but this demo shows it is perfectly feasible.

*nods* It's a pity you died on that one. As far as the run of MAP30 is concerned, I updated the list to include that - two done, 30 more to go. :)

A couple more first exits (both UV Max):
Map03 in 3:22
Map04 in 2:54

Schneelocke: Your enthusiasm is great, but I think you're jumping the gun a bit. I don't think it makes much sense to maintain a table for these until and unless there's actually a demopack in progress. And that won't be the case until at least one or two other people have shown interest in recording something, and there's some consensus about a modus operandi. Currently, this is just me recording a few random demos.

Grazza said:

Schneelocke: Your enthusiasm is great, but I think you're jumping the gun a bit. I don't think it makes much sense to maintain a table for these until and unless there's actually a demopack in progress. And that won't be the case until at least one or two other people have shown interest in recording something, and there's some consensus about a modus operandi. Currently, this is just me recording a few random demos.

*nods* You're right, of course... I do tend to get a bit overexcited at times. *s*

Maybe I'll give it a try myself some time, too - but don't expect me to actually manage to complete any level. I suck as a player. :)

I am for finishing fragport 1st :)
AND THEN go on anything ...

oh, btw, if the theme of this one is "fastest gets place", we then should limit the amount of maps done by one player ? like 6 or 7 no more ?

Depends on how many people are interested I suppose. I don't expect there would be a need for such a rule unless 6 or more people show an interest. If someone is prepared to crank out 15 compet-n quality demos on this wad, so much the better IMO. If someone does 15 mediocre table-fillers (like mine so far!), then other people are free to beat them.

Schneelocke: Sorry, but I felt it necessary to delete your table, so as to avoid giving anyone the false impression that a demopack is already under way.

VinceDSS said:

oh, btw, if the theme of this one is "fastest gets place", we then should limit the amount of maps done by one player ? like 6 or 7 no more ?

Limmiting number of maps by each player? Sounds like a weird demopack feature to me :) The more competition over a map, the better I always thought. I think quality of the demos should be put before "how many people can we get to contribute", but then again I personally put the entertainment level of the final product over the process of making it.

Grazza said:

Schneelocke: Sorry, but I felt it necessary to delete your table, so as to avoid giving anyone the false impression that a demopack is already under way.

That's OK. I thought about doing that myself, actually (but then didn't do it after all).

Andy Johnsen said:

Limiting number of maps by each player? Sounds like a weird demopack feature to me :) The more competition over a map, the better I always thought. I think quality of the demos should be put before "how many people can we get to contribute", but then again I personally put the entertainment level of the final product over the process of making it.

then again, I would not mind the competitive way for legendary wads such as HR, HR2, AV or the coming plutonia2. Because these are going to be watched by a lot of people.

For less popular wads, I would see the non-competitive demopacks as a good thing to encourage some people to record demos w/o being completely humiliated by a doomgod.
The Doom demo community is very small, why trying to disgust non-doomgods from recording demos ? Even though the demos are not of Radek or Anders quality, I still have fun watching them, whoever records them.

Can we at least maintain a list of demos that have been done for this WAD (even with a "This is not a demopack" disclaimer)? I'd like to be able to see which demos haven't been done, and the times of the ones that have been done, so I can record some myself without too much trouble.

I dont think it's a problem to start a demopack for Vile Flesh.
But I'll not do any demos for it as long as Fragport is uncompleted.

Come and help us on Fragport, still quite some maps are undone :)

VinceDSS said:

The Doom demo community is very small, why trying to disgust non-doomgods from recording demos ? Even though the demos are not of Radek or Anders quality, I still have fun watching them, whoever records them.

Well, my opinion is that demopacks should be of some quality. If anyone can just pick up the map and play through it themselves and equal the performance of the demo, I don't see the point of bothering to put it in a zip file, add a txt and waste space on it.

Btw, whats a doomgod anyway..someone who play a map 10.000 times instead of 10? :)

well, any demo is a lot better than no demo.
Casual demos by player's like Grazza (while they're not usually Johnsen-style quality) they are good right out of the box... like Vincent said.
hopefully, some of the player's annotations in the textfile would communicate such quality, or lack thereof. :)

Andy Johnsen said:

Well, my opinion is that demopacks should be of some quality. If anyone can just pick up the map and play through it themselves and equal the performance of the demo, I don't see the point of bothering to put it in a zip file, add a txt and waste space on it.

A demo by a casual player is much better than no demo, though.

Schneelocke said:

A demo by a casual player is much better than no demo, though.

Sure, but I don't think a casual demo should be kept in a pack just to raise the number of participants. What initially had me posting was vince idea on having a max number of entries by each player in a demoset. The more quality demos the better?

I pretty much agree with Andy here.* I'd like to see the best demopack possible - best time gets in, no limits on the number by any particular player. I'd only think such a limit would make sense if a large majority of the people expressing a strong interest in recording actually want there to be a limit.

Of course, it makes sense for people to be considerate in these matters, e.g. to keep the other people informed on what they're working on, and which maps they are planning to tackle. But isn't that what normally happens?


* Well, except that I do see a point in having a pack of "merely competent" demos, especially on a wad where there are no other demos. It gives other people a chance to experience the wad (without the hard work of actually playing it, if they so wish), and also shows how to get the secrets, ideas for strategies, etc. There are too many great wads without demos (P:AR springs to mind, but it's certainly not the only one).


PS: I did a map05 demo too. Second exit. At least I didn't keep falling off the narrow ledge on the way to the soulsphere this time.

After about a million tries,

kwic.com/~junior/VI01-103.ZIP]Map 01, 1:03 (recorded with Eternity, plays fine in Doom2.exe)

The next fastest one I could get was 1:11 and the occasional 1:07.

Nice demo.

Please note that we ask that a text-file be included:

We should stress how important it is to include a text file in the zip, as this makes it far easier for everyone else to know how to watch the demo. As a minimum, this text file should include: your name, the filenames of any wads needed (e.g. hr.wad), and the executable used (e.g. Doom2.exe, Legacy 1.40a, Prboom 2.2.4, etc.). It is also desirable to include some basic details about the demo, such as the category (e.g. UV Speed) and the time.

Hmmm... thought I included one. Apparantly I have no idea how to use PKZIP.EXE (which was at hand while I was in my doom directory in the command prompt). :) Best stick with Winzip.

Anyway, it's fixed now.

OT, but winzip sucks ass because you can only unzip one archive at a time. stupid windows file IO.
I still use pkzip much more than winzip(or any variation thereof).
I look forward to these demos. :)

I recorded a Map02 maxdemo in 3:31 and sent it to Opulent.

I'm a bit rusty after this long pause, but it's better than nothing :)

edit:
http://competn.doom2.net/incoming/sda/dwdemo/vi02-331.zip

DEMOn said:

OT, but winzip sucks ass because you can only unzip one archive at a time. stupid windows file IO.
I still use pkzip much more than winzip(or any variation thereof).

For those fed up with WinZip, there's a free alternative called 7-Zip - I think it's worth checking out.

Outside of that, nice demos, everyone! I updated the table further up in the thread accordingly.

Argh. I can quite safely say that the archvile room in MAP08 is the most annoying room in any level ever.

OK, time to open a forum demopack? Yes/No?

Rules? Boom-compatible and Doom2.exe-compatible demos OK? (Doom2.exe compatible demos may not be possible on all maps.) Best time gets in? No limits on number by any particular player?

Aim to have it finished within, say, two months?

Of course, people are urged to consider recording Fragport demos too, since it would be nice to get that one finished pretty soon.

Grazza said:

OK, time to open a forum demopack? Yes/No?

Rules? Boom-compatible and Doom2.exe-compatible demos OK? (Doom2.exe compatible demos may not be possible on all maps.) Best time gets in? No limits on number by any particular player?

Aim to have it finished within, say, two months?

Sounds all fine to me, but why should there be a set time frame of two months?