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Alfonzo

The DWIronman League dies to: Doom 64 for Doom 2

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Your understanding of cats 1 and 2 is bang on, although I don't think I ever spelled out what category it is you'd fall into if you check the editor beforehand; simply that you're not allowed to do so when you're performing a run. I suppose your distinction is a good one. Looking at the maps in an editor qualifies you for cat 3 straight away because you are commanding insight into the set/level. That is to say, you are unambiguously seeking to gain information and can control how much you get. This, as opposed to simply watching a ton of streams, which doesn't explicitly reveal your intention and is the reason why the runs of, say, an_mutt and Suitepee remain cat 2 after watching Dragonfly perform.

 

Checking out demos before an attempt also makes your run cat 3, by this logic.

 

EDIT: Whoops, nope, I'm wrong on this crossed out bit. You could be watching demos for fun without intent just as well as you might watch streams. Cat 2 status preserved.

 

1 hour ago, Pegleg said:

You have played the levels so much that you know them very well (for example, ZeroMaster and Plutonia).

 

As silly as it may seem, these are also cat 2 runs. See this post for a recent, bad example of my reasoning in action. The gist of it is that we know what cats 1 and 3 tell us about the player — blindness and intention. Even though few people could ever hope to build a run anywhere near as complete as ZeroMaster's in a year, let alone a month, the distinction between having knowledge by circumstance and seeking to gain knowledge in preparation is one we're interested in as viewers and competitors. Cat 2 just exists as a net to separate the fields of blind and prepared and capture everything in between. It is the least informative of the categories, almost by design.

 

1 hour ago, Pegleg said:

Suppose I play the levels on a lower difficulty prior to the run. Does that count as Category 2 or 3?

 

Good question, and I think I answered one like it in a thread some months ago. This is a cat 3 run. The intention is, again, to command insight into the set, even if it could ultimately turn out to be misleading. A -nomonsters run would afford you the same qualification.

 

1 hour ago, Pegleg said:

Suppose I load the levels toward the beginning of the month and just play them for fun a few times and then record a demo/stream towards the end of the month. Does that count as Category 2 or 3?

 

Category 3.

Edited by Alfonzo : Clarification on demos.

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Soo... i decided to just do a run for the hell of it, if you don't mind me

Spoiler

Cat 2 i believe, i barely remember any map from doom 64 and i was aware of the map02 instadeath trap, it was a more or less serious attempt at the beginning, but then i took things seriously before bitting the dust on map04 nearly at the end with a revenant missile. Highlights include me getting nearly killed in map01 by trying to chainsaw pinkies, and wasting precious powerups


Used zdoom on doom strict compatibility, since im really inexperienced with recording stuff and i wanted to get this thing done quickly i messed up the recording and i had to fix it, so the recording has potato quality.

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How about if you read all the forums posts here, does this qualify you as a category 2? ( gaining knowledge about an instant death trap on map 02 and that it has a puzzle element) Not everyone uses spoiler tags so if you just wanted to skim through the posts to see who died etc you might gain valuable information unintentionally.

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Hey if someone could @ or PM me later today that would be great, I want to remember to do this later today.

 

Damn I really need to install PrBoom+ again.

 

Edit: I'll be doing a Cat 3 run... check my post history and you'll see why bwa haha.

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Category 2. When I realized what map I was entering, I thought "this is gonna be it," and it was. Before that, I wasted a lot of time in Outpost Omega just because I remembered what to do for most of the puzzle but not all of it, plus teleporting can often mess up my sense of direction for a moment... and then I wasted even more time trying to get the secrets in that area because I'm just completely incapable of beating a map without trying to 100% it, even if I did permanently lose access to a secret in the map before. Between that attitude and multiple parts where I just got impatient and sloppy, I think I may not be the right kind of player for ironmanning.

sifi642.rar

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Oh, boy, the cats are out of the bag!

 

@Bdubzzz It becomes a cat 2 run if you know anything specific about the design of at least one area. What sorts of things qualify? Well, this is ultimately up to you. As I explain in the Oscillation thread from last year:

 

On 11/5/2017 at 3:51 PM, Alfonzo said:

[...] there is still some wiggle room in the current framing of Cat 1 & 2. Some players are going to detect a level of understanding with an area/level as insufficient to [provide them with an advantage over blind players] whereas others could make that leap. That sort of nebulousness definitely isn't helpful, but I'm hoping that with the strict distinction in citing even a small amount of familiarity, we can at least be confident that the sorts of runs that might be confused on this point [...] are probably not going to be all that separated and will err on the side of blindness.

 

i.e. it doesn't matter all that much, because at this point we are probably dealing with differences small enough that we can just settle on whatever the player feels is right. The fine-ish line of "provides an advantage" is fine enough. You tell me what it is and I'll jot 'er down on the leader board, no worries.

 

If you're looking for guidelines, though, then consider the description of the WAD in the OP; a weak primer on how the set plays that all players can read without fear of regaining their sight. That stuff is all kosher! Filled with ultra-informative phrases like "nightmarish puzzles" and "creative liberties." The obituaries, too, are not revealing — cat 1 approved.

 

Is learning that there's a fatal trap puzzle in MAP02 with nukage and corridors giving you too much info?

 

Shit, man, I dunno. Probably, if you know it when you see it. It's not totally specific. Live large.

Edited by Alfonzo

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9 minutes ago, SiFi270 said:

and then I wasted even more time trying to get the secrets in that area because I'm just completely incapable of beating a map without trying to 100% it, even if I did permanently lose access to a secret in the map before.

 

When I first started participating in this challenge, I had watched various streams and videos and I got to wondering if 100%ing maps was an unwritten requirement of the Ironman Challenge because everybody seemed to be doing it (at least in terms of monster count). It's not, by the way. That being said, a lot of players seem to 100% or nearly 100% maps during the challenge, so don't feel as though this particular predilection of yours somehow disqualifies you, because it doesn't.

 

9 minutes ago, SiFi270 said:

multiple parts where I just got impatient and sloppy

 

There have been a number of players that I would call regulars you have, at times, tried to rush. Sometimes they're successful. Other times, they're not. Whether it's impatient and sloppy, I don't know, but there are definitely players (at least quasi-regulars) who have fallen into that situation.

 

9 minutes ago, SiFi270 said:

I think I may not be the right kind of player for ironmanning.

 

I don't know if there is a "right kind" of player for ironmanning (other than having enough time on your hands). So, don't leave. Stay and enjoy the party.

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Eyyyy you got to map06, that's better than quite a bit of people so far. Not a completely bad result. Heavens know people had worse first showings. 50 monsters april derp

 

Ultimately what matters most is that you survive. If you get to the end, you're good, even if it took you twelve eternities. 100%ing is usually good for this: secrets are always useful, and killing monsters now means they won't mess you up later. Some areas do have too low gain to time and effort cost ratio, and therefore best skipped, but unless you're familiar with the set, eyeballing such things is difficult, so might as well just default to killing everything, aye?

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Category 2. I'm one of beta-testers of this wad, so I finished the wad from start to end before. Good thing that I remembered some nasty traps of this wad, mostly with arch-viles. And I skipped the secret levels, since MAP31 was really difficult to play from my memory. But yeah, I believe that I haven't found that inescapable pit, until now.

 

Died in MAP19, with 144/150 kills.

 

antares_Ironman_D64D2.zip

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And here I come with my run.

 

The most interesting part about this is going to be the fact that I did not end the run by dying this time, but rather because I had to cut it short and vanish, and instead of doing a second/proper attempt I've decided to just use this one as my official run for this month. I know, such sound logic but considering my luck future attempts would've probably been bigger disasters than Gomez's train wrecks :v .

 

So yeah, PrBoom+ 2.5.1.5, made it to the start of Tech Center and after that, I stopped, so that's where the journey ends. Didn't actually touch Doom for almost a whole month btw, you'll notice some rather dumb mistakes and awkward moments here and there because of that. Category 2 since I've played D64D2 from start to finish (including the secret levels) recently.

 

zG21ID.gif

 

agent6d64d2.zip

Edited by Agent6

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4 hours ago, Agent6 said:

instead of doing a second/proper attempt I've decided to just use this one as my official run for this month.

 

In case it wasn't obvious: you can't decide after a run whether it's official or not. If you're not preparing (cat 3), then it's show time the moment you load the game up. If you are, you need to declare the run to yourself before you hit New Game.

 

I'll allow it just this once because I'm such a nice guy and have bored you all to death with legal talk.

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Im gonna probably stream this tomorrow at what time? i have no idea. probably 10:00 mountain time? (No weapon cosmetics / hud cosmetics this time around; for added measure I'll even use software mode)

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9 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

In case it wasn't obvious: you can't decide after a run whether it's official or not. If you're not preparing (cat 3), then it's show time the moment you load the game up. If you are, you need to declare the run to yourself before you hit New Game.

 

I'll allow it just this once because I'm such a nice guy and have bored you all to death with legal talk.

 

I know, just didn't feel the need to mention that in my post, figured it was obvious. You don't participate to something without knowing the rules.

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Ahahac

My triumphant return! Bow to me worms!.... Yea, the demo is actually a death on Map 04 due to a stupid lapse in concentration (cue tedious angst "why oh why i could have played it safe whyyyyy"). But hey, it's completely blind! Never touched D64 or this wad long enough to remember anything (the most vivid memory is the very first area, does that count?). Not what i had in mind when began this, but i'm giving myself brownie points for evading that trap (and being better than @Eris Falling!), also i trolled the mapset a bit before i trolled myself to death, though given my concentration and attention span, i probably got this one coming.

Comments on the wad itself: Sweet identity here, a great blend of devilish 90s traps and wicked quasi-classical detailing. Truly deserve a non-ironmanstress playthrough from me in the near future!

 

youhappynowalfonzo.zip (Purist *cough*) (Double P.S it's recorded in choco Doom) (Triple P.S looking forward to my obituary, and don't rip off the quote, it's quadruple copyrighted)

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10 minutes ago, Eris Falling said:

No one deserves any points for being better than me :p

I do

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1 hour ago, Catpho said:

it's quadruple copyrighted

 

© Catpho Enterprise 199X-2018.

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Oh kay.

 

So here I am, minding my own business, trying to solve the omega outpost puzzle, then, you know what happens? A power outage happens. Seriously. Like. C'mon.

 

I don't really know if this is within the rules, but fortunately I was playing on gzdoom, which makes autosaves. Not content with getting fucked over by a power outage on the outpost, I decided to just load the map06's autosave and keep going from there, because by fuck I was going to survive or be defeated in fair combat!

 

...

 

Well, it was the latter one.

 


Here is my first VOD. This is where I reach map06 in 34:17, then DNF due to power outage.

Here is my second VOD. This is where I load map06's autosave, reach map11 in 76:53(total gametime starting from map01), then get killed. The moral of the story here is that when you start feeling loopy and spacing out, you pop a save and take a break, not be like "yo I can stay for a couple more levels". Garbage, is what my death is. Still, it's my own fault at least.

 

 

Category... well. Initially this was going to be a category 2; I never played D64D2, but I played the actual Doom 64. However, following Eris' death, an argument erupted on one of the servers I was on regarding whether the trap he fell to was fair or not. I've decided to go and check the trap out for myself to decide how different it was from the vanilla D64 trap and compare.

 

I feel like this is still category 2, since I only looked at a small portion of the wad, and the intent was not to gain an advantage but just to settle an argument. Nonetheless, I recognise that this is a significant gray area even before the power outage happened(which effectively granted me pre-knowledge for a good portion of map06, even through no fault of my own). I'm not really willing to debate the issue, and it's not like I'm married to my cats, so I'm just going to call in the referee. I still feel this is cat 2, but if Alfonzo comes and says "no u" and jots me as cat 3, then So Be It. Similarly, if he decides to disqualify my second VOD and just jot me down as a DNF on map06, then also So Be It.

 

Here are my runs. I tried, I finished one way or another. Now I'm tired and done, and if you excuse me, I'm gonna go back to Touhou.

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Category 1 thingy. Playstyle of mine usually works fine for IL FDAs but in case of marathons it's just a ticking time bomb of growing real damn impatient due to all that snail pace progression through levels.

Spoiler

Map22. How many AVs did they put it in here?

 

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The system's being put through the strainer this month and a fair amount of jank is falling out the bottom. This is good.

 

@HexaDoken It struck me that I had a ruling on what happens in this situation and that I couldn't remember what it was, so I consulted the rules list, which I haven't done in almost a year or something. Here's what I had to say circa 2016:

 

On 10/2/2018 at 12:45 PM, Alfonzo said:

If your operating system fails during the run such that the stream/recording becomes irretrievable, you are permitted a second or subsequent attempt. Technical difficulties during streams or recordings that present as merely an impediment (i.e. the run is still observable, in the case of a stream) do not count as system failures. In these instances, you should save the game, if possible, and resume when the issue has been resolved.

 

It also says this:

 

On 10/2/2018 at 12:45 PM, Alfonzo said:

You cannot load a game having progressed past the save point.

 

I like this second bit. It makes sense. The wording in the first sentence above is a hot mess, though. "[...] such that the stream/recording becomes irretrievable"? That's some grade 'A' fine print.

 

After racking my brains I remember watching a Jimmy stream of Crusades that lasted for approximately two minutes before folding because of technical issues, and thinking perhaps of how silly it would be if an audience gathered only for the streamer to be "unfairly" maligned by the OS (or power outages!) and robbed of a run, especially when any offline demo recorder would likely just sneak in a second go. Pandering to audiences in this way seems like a bad exception to me, now — needlessly compromising. Not to mention that it assumes bad faith on the part of demo recorders. Truth is, I don't think there should be any allowance for second runs at all, anymore. I mentioned in this knee-jerk post that viewers are more important than the run. They're definitely important, but I'm more wary of keeping things simple in the OP spoilers, these days.

 

Anyway. I really can't be changing rules to affect existing runs midway through month, so I'll have to apply the standards as they are. Even if I did, though, the result would be the same: a DNF on MAP06. Sorry, Hexa!

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DEAD Map02: noisy_d64d2.zip

 

 

I looked around and didn't know where to go so I went back to the four switch thing.

 

I have no idea what category this is, because I thought I played the first several maps of Doom 64 for Doom 2 but I didn't recognize any of the second map, and the first map looked like it may be familiar but I dunno.  So Cat 2 I guess.

 

edit: lol i played the rest of map2.  hahahahaahaha (reading my spoilers makes your run a Cat3)

 

there's literally another crusher hallway, and then a floor cave that just blows up and damages you for no reason. buahahahahah

 


 

This is the best ironman set yet.

 

 

Edited by NoisyVelvet

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3 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

a DNF on MAP06. Sorry, Hexa!

@HexaDoken

That's unfortunate that your run ended like that, but I guess you could say that rules exist to keep us from anarchy. It's too bad that a power outage (generally, the definition of unexpected) would ruin a run. I suppose all Ironmans could be undertaken with a UPS, but that seems a bit extreme. Oh well. C'est la vie.

 

That being said ... @Steve D This is your time! Carpe diem!

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I'd just like to say that people who watch streams definitely gain more intel than a person looking at just a single trap, so it's bullshit they get away with category 2. Demo users might get away with the fact they mostly speed them up, but stream viewers should definitely be marked as category 3.

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I had a long stretch of time free in the evening so I gave this an attempt.

 

Thought I had a clear path to the exit in map 6.  Denied.

 

Never played Doom 64 and only know about Hectic by reputation, though that doesn't come into play here.  Became aware of danger in map 2 because of reading forum posts and nearly bit it on crushers anyways.  Otherwise blind, the manner of my demise is very much a product of being unaware what was coming.

 

Wished I'd thought to do some angry mouse waggling after blowing my chance at a one-time secret.

 

I'm still calling it a type 1 though the ruling body may overrule this.

 

Nearly 2 hours at the end of map 5 (a good chunk of that time was searching out secrets once the exit was revealed).  Would have cashed in after map 7 had I survived that long.  PrBoom+ -complevel 2

 

 

dwiron_d64d2_cnr.zip

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Dead on map31.

 

BOO. I came into this one with full confidence, having played it before and after it came out. It figures when the camera is rolling, suddenly the hell knight encounter decides to kill me ungracefully. Category 2.

 

d64_iron.zip

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@NaZa Watchers of streams/demos are set to learn more than you did in this instance, probably, yes, so I understand how it looks. But category 3 is a license, and I would argue that if you're aware of what it affords you, you'd want to absolutely commit yourself to building a safe run. You wouldn't want to merely dip your toe into a level or two to exorcise your suspicions only for people to see the [3] attached and assume that you had spent several hours locked in your room, pouring over the WAD like a student cramming for an exam. It's a declaration of intent.

 

I can't label watchers of demos and streams as category 3 because then the flood gates will open; the leader board could be filled to the top with them and we wouldn't have a way of knowing which of those players had actually made the decision to learn about the WAD and its contents by opening it up and not declaring a run — an otherwise direct violation of the rules — and which ones hadn't.

 

Now, with that having been said, I guess what I can do is ask that players not watch non-ironman demos and streams of the WAD unless they'd like to fall under cat 3. That seems reasonable. I could also extend the number of categories to 4... which mightn't be the worst idea ever as it's not stepping onto a slippery slope — there's very little gray area. "I have watched some or all of at least one demo/stream covering plays of this month's Ironman."

 

The idea lays open on the floor. Go hog wild. Rip and tear my ideas!

Edited by Alfonzo : grammar

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6 hours ago, Pegleg said:

@HexaDoken

That's unfortunate that your run ended like that, but I guess you could say that rules exist to keep us from anarchy. It's too bad that a power outage (generally, the definition of unexpected) would ruin a run. I suppose all Ironmans could be undertaken with a UPS, but that seems a bit extreme. Oh well. C'est la vie.

 

That being said ... @Steve D This is your time! Carpe diem!

 

A-ha! Could it be? Btw, first let me congratulate @HexaDoken for winning the Keyboard Kup last month, and it wasn't easy this time. Naza had an excellent run and Beginner, though not officially in the KK, IIRC, came within a few minutes of Hexa's time, and even I was, well, just a couple hundred monsters behind. ;D I watched Hexa's run and was very impressed. I like seeing keyboarders do well, and Hexa's calm performance in the Horrific Floating Ring Double-Cyb Fight is why I now refer to my esteemed opponent as Cool Hand Hexa. Absolutely unflappable.

 

I deeply regret that Hexa's run was ruined by a power outage. In my blind practice run, I've made it to the start of Map04 without dying. IMO, the maps are really cool, very '90s, and with lots of deep darkness for atmosphere. They have been more puzzly than I expected, and combat has been very easy thus far. The main danger is crushers at this point, so unless the combat ramps up soon, I feel pretty good about my chances of surviving Map06. However, Map06 has already taken out at least three players, so I'll treat it with respect. For me, the question is whether what's killing people on Map06 is some kind of trick which, once known, is easily dealt with, or whether it's a tough combat situation that can be misplayed even when it's known, especially if one has a tendency to fail because of flop-sweat. ;D But if I get past Map06 on my real run, and no other keyboarder does, I'd still believe there has to be an asterisk next to my victory, owing to the misfortune which overtook Hexa this time. The only way for me to achieve a clean win is to reach Map12, since Hexa died on Map11 after opening a save. But . . . I'll take a dirty win if i can get it. ;D

Edited by Steve D

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