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Russell_P

Decade is done (and it's only 6 months late).

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It seems the DW news staff have gone to sleep (heh) so I guess I'll annouce the release of my latest ZDoom level here. It was supposed to be a tribute to 10 years of doom, but it takes me sooo long to finish a map that it's ended up being 6 months late. It's entitled 'Decade' and is basically a collection of re-interpretations of sections of maps from Doom and Doom2. Grab it from my website at duellist.net

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Spectacular. The challenge is excellent without resorting to being "just plain hard" (millions of monsters). Not to mention that it's damn pretty looking.

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Damn you, I wanted to do this. But thanks for the hard work. The screenshots look fantastic as usual. I'll be sure to play it asap.

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WOW.

Mappers take note: This map is the perfect example of how to be an absolute BASTARD without having to use zillions of high-level monsters. Russell_P just made Imps threatening again: when you have six of them teleport right on top of you in the middle of a small room, or a dozen of them perched on ledges sniping at you while you're trying to wipe up a mess of Cacodemons, they can actually be pretty dangerous. And the traps in this level are top-notch: one of the most memorable moments is in the map01 tribute room, when the lights suddenly go dark... and suddenly three Hell Knights drop in on you with a roar in the pitch-black room. Even the more open-air or room-based fights are complex and challenging, often becoming some of the most intense I've played, all without using monsters stronger than the Baron. It's especially harrowing in the last areas, where shelter is virtually nonexistent and you have to carve out little nooks of safety one piece at a time. In that situation, even one Revenant or Imp on a ledge can make all the difference. The best of these by far are the map11 tribute (the square rooms with numerous spaces in the walls, each occupied by monsters) and the yellow/red key central area.

The use of zDoom features is integrated really well too, and Russell_P has used it in some extremely sadistic ways. The most memorable of these is DEFINETELY the "immortal" Revenants in the two chambers, who respawn infinitely unless you hit two switches in the room above. Problem is, you have to slink past them, hiding behind strategically placed boxes from time to time to avoid their rockets. All this in a little sequence of rooms honoring e2m1. Runner-up: the "Super-Mancubi," in the time-honored map07 tribute.

The architecture and texturing are very clean and worthy of such a tribute, and it's almost a shame that the absolutely fantastic gameplay continually distracts you from it. The balance on everything - ammunition, monster number and placement, traps - is tight as a drum, and is exemplary of how to use monsters to their best effect.

This map almost feels like a counterpart to Deus Vult: While DV is intense on an incredibly epic, grandiose scale, Decade puts all that intensity into a more traditionally-scaled map, showing that even smaller numbers of non-boss monsters can be extremely deadly and challenging.

This is an extremely clever, well-built, sadistic and fun map, and I think it's now one of my favorite individual maps ever.

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Just downloaded it, and gave it 5 minutes of testing: the gameplay ROCKS, I love maneuvering around the imps, cacos, and sargeants and making them fight one another, I didn't like wasting pistol bullets =) More words when I find time to sit down and beat this.

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DAMN!!! Now this is a good map! Tons and tons of high points in this level, it is without a doubt one of those maps that will be remembered for a very, very long time.

GREAT gameplay and GREAT looking. What more could you want!

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It's good stuff. I was stuck on that first room for a while because I kept running out of pistol ammo (and I couldn't get infighting to work at all). I eventually loaded up Xaser's P0wer Weapons to get through it.

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Thanks for the very generous comments guys. It's a relief actually, I was feeling kinda negative about this map. I really 'talked it down' when I contacted Enjay about playtesting, but as he said, I was possibly 'too close' to the map to view it objectively.

Use3D said:

Damn you, I wanted to do this

Don't let that you stop you from doing something similar. I don't hold the copyright on tribute maps. There's actually a surprisingly small number of orignal IWAD maps from which inspiration was taken for this level. There were loads more areas I wanted to include, but the map is large enough as it, so I had to leave loads of potential areas out.

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Ok, just finished beating this on UV, and I gotta hand it to ya, this is a very well-designed map with clear [excellent] gameplay.

The monsters are placed perfectly, the ammo is generous but well-given. The flow is very smooth and progressive. This map is easy and enjoyable; at no time was I pressured on the verge of death, altho I did die a few times because of those devious sargeant traps =). Anyways, the slow, escalating weapon gains was quite rewarding; I fought knights with SG, revs and mancubis with SSG, and so forth. With this in mind, I found at no point in the game was I compelled to use cells and relied on the SSG most of the way through. The cells did make things go by faster though.

There were quite a few spots that I found very, very entertaining. The dark coridor full of alcoves with the BFG is extremely dynamic and fun to fight, and the "lighting of explosives" to get to the soulsphere secret sold me out. I knew then that I had to finish the rest of the map.

Architecture-wise, this map is pretty easy on the eyes, I never liked the brown-theme very much, but it was appropriate and the map's infrastructures and connections more than compensated for the brownness. The upside-down lava cross penetrating through tech is awesome and IMO the best looking part of the map. I would have greatly preferred that the map be done in all silver tech like that section mentioned above, but as things stands, it's one of the most well-designed map out there.

Overall, asides from the nitpicking [if any], Decade is a very enjoyable map with excellent architecture and flow. I'd go for a second helping if I could =)

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awesome as always Russell :)

reminds me a lot of nullspace in terms of the layout, and the tribute areas are certainly awesome as well. Overall, great stuff, recommended, would play again A++++

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Russell_P said:

Thanks for the very generous comments guys. It's a relief actually, I was feeling kinda negative about this map. I really 'talked it down' when I contacted Enjay about playtesting, but as he said, I was possibly 'too close' to the map to view it objectively.


Well you have nothing to worry about, the map is excellent and everyone should play it. It contains all the gameplay elements that make Doom legendary. Thanks for releasing it!

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Damn this map kicks ass. I especially liked the part before the map03 tribute with a barrel trapped between a bunch of crates and rockets, that was cool. Heh, let's list all the map tributes we can find :p

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ravage said:

You should make an entire episode replacement.


I did actually consider this at one point. But it's a matter of time. I have many (many, many, many) unfinished maps, some of which I MUST finish or I'll never forgive myself. I don't have a vast ammount of time to spend on mapping so I'm trying to resist starting anything new at the moment. Still, it's something to possibly consider in the future, and if I did a complete replacement it would definately be episode one (that has the most scope for interesting re-interpretations imho).

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I just finished playing. Man, that map rules. :D I couldn't stop playing. :D I especially loved that big end area (That resembles Doom II map03), I adore big things like that. :D Awesome work, just simply awesome. :D Well worth the 6 months wait. :D

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Fantastic. Just completed it on ultra-violence with 99% kills. Could have been a bit more challenging though. ;) Although i nearly cried with 20% of health when those arachnotrons appeared around me in the yellow key room and i was almost out of rockets. :)
Would have liked to see more Archies, those two didn't give much challenge. ;)

Very nice design, and ammo/health balance was nearly perfect. It was also interesting to see those tribute areas. Make a list someone, i don't think i recognised them all.

Thanks, definitely the best wad i have played this year, so far. :)

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stoned said:

Although i nearly cried with 20% of health when those arachnotrons appeared around me in the yellow key room and i was almost out of rockets. :)

I will have dreams about that room, it was so much fun. :D

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Heh, I completed it yesterday and I was almost sad. I wanted the map to keep going.

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stoned said:

Would have liked to see more Archies, those two didn't give much challenge. ;)....... It was also interesting to see those tribute areas. Make a list someone, i don't think i recognised them all.

Yeah, I did intend to put more archviles in, but there didn't seem to be any areas that they would be appropriate to without it becoming a bit tired. Those two were 'token' viles because I felt I had to include some somewhere. Besides, archviles can be a pain in the arse sometimes. There's nothing more likely to screw up your carefully measured ammo/health balance in a map than a couple of archviles on the loose.:)

Did you notice the complete absence of Pain Elementals? That was deliberate. Besides, they got more than their fair share of useage in Doomraider, so they can't really complain ;)

Here's a page (with screenshots) listing all the areas found in decade http://www.duellist.net/decade.htm . There's probably not as many as you would think.

Thanks again to everyone for the very positive feedback. It makes the many late nights seem worthwhile (now, if you could just explain that to my girlfriend..)

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What's scary is that you already have three maps rolled into one in decade. I thought it was fucking cool. One of the best maps I've ever played.

I made a blood weapon pack and played it with this. Wow.

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heh, i made a shadow warrior weapon pack. Kinda hard to fit stuff like shurikens into doom though. But I didn't make it for this, just to tell you.

Anyway, i'm downloading it now, all I'm hearing is good things!

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I just finished beating this. And wow....

You've finally got me into doom. Not modded or edited doom, but regular doom... something I haven't found very fun for a while, something you've now RENEWED. That makes it the best tribute to doom possible.

The map is awesome, and has my favorite feature(no, not blowing up a hallway, but that did ROCK!!!)- the flow! I hate levels where you get stuck, where you start with one enemies and suddenly there's two thousand, and where the middle of the map is hell and the end is suddenly a tech base. You've hit gameplay right on with this map. That's why I now find orginal doom more fun.

Great Job. Can't wait to play more of your maps in the future. Officially now my favorite map.

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I got spooked a few times. When the lights went out and all the barons came in I had to pause it because some huge shiver went through my body.
Extremely good architecture and monster placement. Bit too much ammo if anything.

Who here beat it with 100% kills? I managed to get 90%. Stupid imps are everywhere. :p

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Lutrov71 said:

Who here beat it with 100% kills? I managed to get 90%. Stupid imps are everywhere. :p

I got 99% on Ultra-violence. Didn't bother to fight with a couple of revenants at some point.

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