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deathz0r

The /newstuff Chronicles #285

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Welcome to /newstuff #285, where I'd usually say SOMETHING WITTY but I can't be bothered this week. Why? It's Tuesday and Bloodshedder and various other #zdoom mongs are bothering the crap out of me to finish this, so let's bang a gong and get it on!

  • 2sector - Adereth (ed.) et al.
    ZDaemon - DM - 1,872kb - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
    First on the chopping block is a ZDaemon community project. Although I'm no longer part of said community, they can pull off some wonderful results if they actually co-operate (hint: not zdctfmp3) and this is certainly one of them. The challenge in this WAD was to create DM maps with only using two sectors, and some of the results absolutely amaze me. Granted, there are a few misses in this pack, but if you want to see how far one can stretch some technical limits, look no further this week. WAD of the week.

  • Doomed Apartment Building - Vile1011
    ZDoom - SP - 391kb - (img) (img)
    Whoa. This atmospheric map made me react in ways I never thought I would. I won't say anything more about it unless there was some sort of spoiler tag, but it certainly wins for being unique and interesting. Also, I suggest playing this at nighttime: I did and it just amplified the greatness of this WAD.

  • Esselmap I: Testing Facility - esselfortium
    Enhanced Port - SP - 491kb - (img) (img) (img)
    Because essel keeps bothering me in IRC to finish /newstuff, I'm going to say that this map SUCKS and it's a WASTE OF TIME so DON'T DOWNLOAD IT.

    Just kidding, essel! For a first effort, this is pretty damn good overall. It's quite easy to beat, but I really like the detail level in this for being a first map and I definitely look forward to playing more maps from him. There is some untapped potentional in this fella, I can sense it.

  • Extreme Monsters Modification - Julz_D
    ZDoom - N/A - 1kb
    This is a DEHACKED modification that significantly increases the strength of monsters for co-op use. I wonder what it'd be like if i tried to play HR2 with this...

  • Glucose - Chronoteeth
    EDGE - N/A - 2.6mb
    Note by deathz0r: EDGE refuses to run on my computer so I asked a potentional hacker of Doomworld, Tom_D to cover this one for me:

    I've never really liked playing EDGE weapon mods. The engine is slow and very buggy and I don't like the feel of it. This one is pretty much your run of the mill weapon mod with a few.. original weapons. There's also a few monster replacements, though to be honest, I don't see the point of them as only about three monsters are replaced.

    The weapons themselves all seem to be coded well, all seem to be reasonably balanced. Though some weapons like the grenade launcher don't seem to fit. (The Q2 model, it doesn't work with the rest of the weapons.) There are some strange weapons abound, such as the trashcan thrower (what the hell?), and the infinite ammo WW2 rifle. (This should have been removed and replaced with a pistol, if you ask me.) The bullet weapons and rocket weapons are pretty unoriginal, though I do like the style and mechanism of the rocket launcher, plus there's a plasma rifle weapon that reminds me of one of TDA's BFG replacement, which I liked! However, there's nothing really special here that makes me want to play Doom and Doom 2 again. Plus, I don't like using EDGE when playing Doom, heh.

    However, this is down to personal opinion, the weapons are coded well and detail has been put to the way they are used. So if you like EDGE weapon wads, this is a good one to use. However, I think Chronoteeth should try making more than just weapon wads for EDGE. But overall, CT has improved at making these weapon wads, so check it out if you're a fan of that kind of wad.

    (Also hidden away is the stupidest weapon in the whole of weapon history. YTMND haters be warned!)

  • gOggIe - Ruba
    doom2.exe - SP - 111kb - (img) (img)
    I've never played a map this year that would bore me so much that I'd quit out of it before dying or exiting the level. Congratulations Ruba, I was hoping for a perfect run this year. Contrary to the text file, the detail sucks ass.

  • kAk0kA - Ruba
    doom2.exe - SP - 14kb - (img) (img)
    My head hurts after playing this and reading the text file.

  • Littel Infernoe - Ruba
    doom2.exe - SP - 36kb - (img) (img)
    The last map of the "oh god please kill me now" series is actually a lot more promising than the other two. The second map is kind of boring when you fight barons and cacodemons with a shotgun and the third map is largely unfinished, but the first map is a nice starting map for this WAD. What a shame it wasn't finished, I'd probably give this more praise.

  • Power Station - Vile1011
    ZDoom - SP - 1,608kb - (img) (img) (img)
    I left this map till last because I actually forgot about it until this morning, but I'm glad that I did: This is by far the best single player WAD for this week. It's very challenging, the map is an interesting concept which I like a lot, and the intro is simply awesome and reminds me of 80s action movies for some reason. Do I need to say anything more? Play it now!

  • Quake1 Base Deathmatch - The Solution
    ZDoom - DM - 1,417kb - (img) (img)
    Ugh. I played this directly after kAk0kA, and my patience was really running thin at that point. Using Quake textures and HUD, the layout for this map is confusing and not remotely fun at all. Avoid, unless you like gimmick themed maps.

  • Valhalla.wad - Th0r
    Skulltag - DM - 296kb - (img) (img) (img) (img)
    To end this week's fun-filled /newstuff is a rather frantic DM level set that is guaranteed to be anti-camper friendly. However, most of the maps are very, very boring symmetrical layouts that I wouldn't play more than once.
There's also updates to Deadly Alliance, Holy Hell and OGRE Labs! There's also a whole bunch of WADs by Caligari_87, but I have a very strict "no WADs older than 6 months" rule and one of the two WADs that was eligible for reviewing required some texture set I couldn't find, the other WAD being a water splash thing ala Heretic for ZDoom.

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I'm probably pointing out the obvious, but the Valhalla screenshot links are all broken. If you want them to work, you have to remove the first "l" from "Valhalla" and change it to "Vahalla".

One other thing, when I was looking through the #285 screenshot directory I found these 2 unused screenshots.

http://www.doomworld.com/images/newstuff/285/da_12-1b.png
http://www.doomworld.com/images/newstuff/285/da_12-2b.png

Is there a link to the wad these screenshots are from?

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Testing Facility is certainly one of the wads of the year at least for "classic" doom engines. So thanks to Essel for making it - and beta testing it properly :)

Schneelocke said:

The link for the "Extreme Monsters Modification" points to the wrong file. :)

Suggestion to whoever has access to the /idgames code: add a parameter 'file' or something so people can make links like this (using Hell Revealed as an example)

http://doomworld.com/idgames/?file=themes/hr/hr.zip
or even use the PATH_INFO cgi variable to make links like this
http://doomworld.com/idgames/themes/hr/hr.zip
and use these instead of meaningless ID numbers. Then it's obvious if you've linked to the wrong file, and indeed it's possible to guess the link to a file in advance without looking it up. This would be incredibly helpful! I would patch it myself but I don't have the code :(

PS since I bothered to look it up here is the real link to extrmons which incidentally seemed to work in PrBoom (but I only tested it on Doom2 MAP01)

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Um, so how do you get stairs with only two sectors again?

</blatantlackofmappingknowledge>

Like, I know you can have sectors which aren't entirely contiguous, but I was certain that multiple floor heights required multiple sectors.

</notquitesoblatantlackofmappingknowledge>

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grumble grumble, why no review of ogre labs? It is a NEW upload to the archive (not an update that replaces a previous upload) and has never been reviewed in /newstuff. Oh well, I guess in this case it's not third week lucky :(

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Russell_P said:
grumble grumble, why no review of ogre labs?

You gotta tell us why it's called thus first, we are quite confused; it's not for Quake, so it can't have Ogres, and it sure doesn't seem to be for OGRE either!

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I liked that Apartment level, it was really cool. The atmosphere was damn good too. Now why couldn't all other levels based on realistic places be that kick ass :)?

I have one question though. After the fight in that central courtyard, what else are you supposed to do?

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Because essel keeps bothering me in IRC to finish /newstuff, I'm going to say that this map SUCKS and it's a WASTE OF TIME so DON'T DOWNLOAD IT.


Thanks deathz0r. People will believe you and ignore the real review because you used big capital letters :(

EDIT: Bothering you? More like inspiring you. I mean srsly 9_9

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esselfortium said:

Thanks deathz0r. People will believe you and ignore the real review because you used big capital letters :(


Oh, come on, give DW users a bit more credit. :)

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RjY: It's easy enough to just copy the link from the address bar. Checking the url is not hard either.

rrwoods: They use things to create the stairs instead of sectors.

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Nothing like a good whine about EDGE in the newstuff chronicles.

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deathz0r had some class and said:

they can pull off some wonderful results if they actually co-operate (hint: not zdctfmp3)


Just wanted to point out this burn, in case it wasn't obvious enough.

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deathz0r, Nice job on the reviews this week.

Russell_P said:

grumble grumble, why no review of ogre labs? It is a NEW upload to the archive (not an update that replaces a previous upload) and has never been reviewed in /newstuff. Oh well, I guess in this case it's not third week lucky :(


Russell I have been playing it for weeks. I just love it. I must have played it over 50 times. Very nice job on it. It is sure a tough one however. Maybe that is why I am addicted to it right now. My average runs are around 40 minutes for max.

The sounds down in the archie pit are very very un-nerving. The map Works fine with Zdoom but I have trouble with the teleport in the archie pit lowering with boom. Unless you have fixed that in a new update?

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So after all this time I find out that I uploaded the wrong file for the apartments wad.

Well, the level is supposed to end after the courtyard anyway and I think all I did was just fill in some missing textures.

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Searcher said:
The map Works fine with Zdoom but I have trouble with the teleport in the archie pit lowering with boom. Unless you have fixed that in a new update?

Are you using Boom with orig_doom_compatibility set to 1? The column should apparently lower if it's set to 0.

It would be great if Russell_P could change that, though, as it would allow v1.9 demos, but he said he was through with the map.

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myk, I'll check my compat. mode.

It also does not work in PRBoom, at least the way I have mine set up right now.

I ran the error checker over the map and there are a few issues. Maybe Russell would let some one fix it so it is playable in all engines and all the bugs are gone.

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myk said:

You gotta tell us why it's called thus first, we are quite confused; it's not for Quake, so it can't have Ogres, and it sure doesn't seem to be for OGRE either!


OGRE was an acronym, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was supposed to stand for. Gimmie a break, I came up with the name YEARS ago when I first started the map. I'm pretty sure the R was for Research. You'll have to use your imagination for the rest :)

Searcher said:

Maybe Russell would let some one fix it so it is playable in all engines and all the bugs are gone.


Sure, why not! If someone wants to fix it then PM me.

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Searcher said:

myk, I'll check my compat. mode.

It also does not work in PRBoom, at least the way I have mine set up right now.

From what myk was saying, the equivalent complevel for current Prboom(-plus) is 9. Or if you want to use -1, then make sure the "Use exactly Doom's..." comp options are set to "No".

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Why is it that I always end up playing only whatever newstuff reviewers tell me not to? But yeah.. "gOggIe" is a terrific map if you absolutely love shooting hordes of imps with a shotgun and never going below 100 health, no matter how hard you try. If that's not your thing, then, well..

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