SIGIL v1.21 - New Romero megawad [released!]

[durian]

This thread is ridiculous.

 

Romero creating a new mapset is amazing news, wonderfully timed. I can't wait to play it.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Cynical said:

Except most people don't go into Time of Death (or whoever) map threads and say "oh lame it's just a contest to see how many Cyberdemons you can two-shot in an oddly shaped room" (or at least they don't do it until it's featured in DWMC or similar).  That's the difference.

I'm not shitting up a thread for the sport of it, I had an opinion about a rather poorly made trailer that shows nothing besides a cyberdemon and lots of fluff such as fighting a sole caco or shotgunning an imp while face-tanking two fireballs for example, that's the difference. Never mind that you don't even know my stance on E4 in and of itself, and to help you out real quick: I found most of it enjoyable, but I think the end was a bit anti-climactic; that being said, I've no reservations on the basis that it's an E4 successor, at all.

1 hour ago, Cynical said:

No one says you have to be interested in this, but shitting on something that's explicitly pitched as a follow-up to E4 for being similarly difficult to E4 is shitting on it for the sake of shitting on it

Again, just to make sure: I'm not saying it's gonna suck, I'm saying I'm not hyped based on what I have seen so far. Deal with it, and keep your strawmanning to yourself. If you want some "quality time" with me, use the PM feature, because nobody needs to watch us going for each other's throats while we derail this thread.

[eharper256]

THREAD= Such salt. Much wow.

 

Dated doge memes aside, I'm also waiting in anticipation. Doom was important in my childhood.

 

And I'll be happy if that is UV footage; and happy if its GZDoom or Limit Removing only. Because my unpopular opinions are unpopular.

[Cynical]

37 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I'm not shitting up a thread for the sport of it, I had an opinion about a rather poorly made trailer that shows nothing besides a cyberdemon and lots of fluff such as fighting a sole caco or shotgunning an imp while face-tanking two fireballs for example, that's the difference. Never mind that you don't even know my stance on E4 in and of itself, and to help you out real quick: I found most of it enjoyable, but I think the end was a bit anti-climactic; that being said, I've no reservations on the basis that it's an E4 successor, at all.

Again, just to make sure: I'm not saying it's gonna suck, I'm saying I'm not hyped based on what I have seen so far. Deal with it, and keep your strawmanning to yourself. If you want some "quality time" with me, use the PM feature, because nobody needs to watch us going for each other's throats while we derail this thread.

It's relevant here because we're talking about the wad.

 

Anyways, if you're actually watching the trailer, it shows a lot about the direction the wad is going to take.  Heavily restricted movement adding teeth to restrained monster counts, E4M2/E4M6/Map29 style is in, possibly even moreso, mixed with a pinch of resource austerity (again, E4...) -- very "later Romero".  The "evade a cyberdemon in a maze" thing indicates just a hint of modern setpiece sensibilities thrown in, much like the E1M8b finale, indicates a possible lack of caring about infinite height restrictions (since we see platforming over that segment) which would explain the GZDoom recommendation, and also hints that they could be going in the E4 slots to have tag 666 boss shenanigans on multiple maps.

[Bridgeburner56]

Play the wad or don't. 

Pay money for it or don't. 

Enjoy it or don't.

Espouse a considered opinion on the quality of the product after it has been released. 

 

 

[Antnee]

Hollllly fuck

 

I go to work and came back to... this?  My dudes, the Doom community is way better than this. 

[Philnemba]

33 minutes ago, Antnee said:

Hollllly fuck

 

I go to work and came back to... this?  My dudes, the Doom community is way better than this. 

 

100% This.

 

I'm personally excited & looking forward to a new Doom episode from one of the original level designers :)

[Steve D]

I am totally psyched for this.

 

I am definitely Romero's Bitch. Always have been. Let's face it, the only IWAD maps I replay on a regular basis are KDiTD. Toxin Refinery has probably the biggest influence on my mapping style, at least for traditional maps, of anything I've played, especially when it comes to devious secrets.

 

This is not to say I deify Romero. I like Romero's maps because they are fun to me and they look cool. His recent M4 and M8 were outstanding, IMO, even though M4 had some kind of node error or texture bleed problem. Shoulda put a little more QC work into that one, John! :D 

 

The trailer showed a variety of mapping looks. The first one reminded me of a cannonball map, a good thing since cannonball is among my favorite mappers. One of the later maps reminded me of Romero's own Against Thee Wickedly, a good thing since that is my favorite E4 map. But if @Cynical is right, and the gameplay is going to be based around challenging fights in squinchy spaces, complete with resource starvation, I may not be jumping for joy in the end. There did seem to be a lot of sector clutter in the first map of the Twitch stream, so that's worrisome. I like open spaces, lots of resources, and high monster density. Throw 200 monsters at me, but give me dodging room and a pile of ammo, and I'm happy. Stick me in a phone booth with a Cyb and not only will I say bad things about you, I'll even make fun of your dog.

 

So we'll see what we'll see. I'm not buying the fan boxes, even though they look cool, I'll just play the maps. I'll either like them or I won't. I haven't liked all of Romero's maps -- I'm looking at you, Tenements and Industrial Zone -- but I like most of them. Which reminds me that it's been awhile since I played The Living End. Gotta do something about that . . . 

[Cynical]

Eh, Romero did a lot of "squinchy" in the IWADs, just not in E1.  Map 20, Map 29, E4M2, E4M6 to a lesser extent, etc.  E4M2 and Map 29 are pretty ammo-starvey too, at least at the start.

[Steve D]

Good points. And I really love E4M2. It's one thing to be ammo-starvey in the beginning, but for me, Industrial Zone was ammo-starvey at the end, when you had to be up close and personal with some heavy meat, including PEs. I'm just hoping I won't be under extreme ammo and health stress for entire maps in his new E5. ;D

[Master O]

So will GZdoom run this as a PWAD or it will be classified as an IWAD?  

[Nine Inch Heels]

9 minutes ago, Steve D said:

you had to be up close and personal with some heavy meat, including PEs

A good place to be. :P

 

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

Doom maps are fun

[TheMightyHeracross]

8 minutes ago, Master O said:

So will GZdoom run this as a PWAD or it will be classified as an IWAD?  

 

It requires Doom.wad, therefore it is a PWAD.

[Master O]

Just now, TheMightyHeracross said:

 

It requires Doom.wad, therefore it is a PWAD.

 

Makes sense.  Interestingly, Hexdd.wad for Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel is an IWAD in GZdoom, despite requiring the Hexen.wad to run.  

[Spectre01]

10 minutes ago, Master O said:

So will GZdoom run this as a PWAD or it will be classified as an IWAD?  

Since you need to load it with doom.wad, it's safe to say it will be a PWAD and not a stand-alone game/IWAD.

[TheMightyHeracross]

3 minutes ago, Master O said:

 

Makes sense.  Interestingly, Hexdd.wad for Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel is an IWAD in GZdoom, despite requiring the Hexen.wad to run.  

 

I've never liked how Deathkings is referred to as an IWAD. An IWAD, by definition, contains the data needed to run a complete game, and Deathkings is the only commercial expansion treated as an exception, which seems arbitrary to me. The Master Levels, for example, are not referred to as IWADs.

 

I'd assume hexdd.wad appears in the launcher menu for GZDoom out of convenience. It still loads hexen.wad automatically when selected.

[Nine Inch Heels]

6 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

Since you need to load it with doom.wad, it's safe to say it will be a PWAD and not a stand-alone game/IWAD.

I propose an unnecessary exception to the rule that gives the "honorary iWAD" (hiWAD, in short, if you will) status to any and all WADs made by any person who participated in creating classic doom.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

6 hours ago, Touchdown said:

There's obviously something special about an episode made by the original creator 25 years later but that curiosity is where it ends for me. People who apparently think we should all bow down before Romero just because he made a couple of maps are silly. It doesn't matter who made them, if they're good then they're good, if they're weak then they're weak - they don't get extra points for being made by the original author in my book. But who am I to say that? The highly questionable E1M8b won a physical Cacoward just because Romero made it. I'm sure another one is already being 3d-printed for Sigil.

Out of curiosity, what would be your issue with E1M8b? I thought it was a fantastic improvement over the original E1M8 as well as a fitting climax.

 

E1M4b is the one I ended up not liking at all.

[Nancsi]

What was the problem with E1M4b? I thought it was quite badass with those shotgunners, and it has a memorable layout with some cool sequences in the computer room, also the numbered paths and the opened up sewery area looked very well done. Its only problems were those minor (hard to notice) texture glitches and maybe its difficulty didn't really correspond to the map's slot as it was much harder than the original E1M4, but also the entire episode.

 

With that said I hope he didn't abandon the idea of remaking the entire episode. A 9 level techbase episode plus the 9 level hellish episode (Sigil) together would be a great way to reimagine the game after 25 years.

[TheMightyHeracross]

7 minutes ago, Nancsi said:

With that said I hope he didn't abandon the idea of remaking the entire episode. A 9 level techbase episode plus the 9 level hellish episode (Sigil) together would be a great way to reimagine the game after 25 years.

 

I thought he specifically remade those two maps because they were the only two KDitD maps not made by him?

[Nancsi]

22 minutes ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

 

I thought he specifically remade those two maps because they were the only two KDitD maps not made by him?

 

True, but they were limit removing maps with much higher enemy count. When I played them mixed with other E1 maps, I felt they look out of place, especially E1M4b, since it's a map between the others. Maybe if we treat them as E1M7 and E1M8 with moving the rest a slot down they should work in the episode.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

1 hour ago, Nancsi said:

What was the problem with E1M4b? I thought it was quite badass with those shotgunners, and it has a memorable layout with some cool sequences in the computer room, also the numbered paths and the opened up sewery area looked very well done. Its only problems were those minor (hard to notice) texture glitches and maybe its difficulty didn't really correspond to the map's slot as it was much harder than the original E1M4, but also the entire episode.

Oh, it is not a bad map per se, but it just failed to impress me, mainly because I do not feel the original E1M4 needed an upgrade to begin with. Also, as you said, it is not as polished as E1M8b and it feels out of place in the episode. If anything, I wish Romero had remade E2M9 or E4M4 instead.

[Marcaek]

I'd like to see John take a stab at something like Deimos Labs or Mt Erebus sometime.

 

[ella guro]

from what little i know of John, i think he's just as much of a huge fan of the original game as any of us and is really happy that the community around this game is still booming. i'm sure he also probably likes how easy it is to make a map in Doom and use it as a kind of creative canvas compared to the far more laborious process of making levels in more modern engine, hence all the detailing in the maps. the game industry has changed a lot since 1993 and the game dev process in higher level companies can often feel like pulling teeth because of all the pieces and parts involved with development. often there's far less of the joyous spontaneity of a totally cutting edge new game being made by a handful of people in less than a year (like Doom was). i'm sure there's an element of this to build up good will for Blackroom or whatever other commercial project his company is working on as well. but he certainly didn't have to be doing any of this stuff at all. the fact that it's a free wad i think shows how much of an appreciation he has for all of the stuff that comes out of this community. that's far above and beyond compared to what a lot of other people in the game industry will do.

 

i can be pretty cynical/skeptical about this stuff sometimes... but i personally thought the new E1M4 and E1M8 were both great and i think these maps will be as well. i think the JR hero worship can go overboard at times, but it's totally indisputable (even if Tom Hall & Sandy & Adrian Carmack, etc deserve more credit than they sometimes get) how large of a hand he had in the making of Doom 1&2.

[Quasar]

My Beast Box is pre-ordered.

[Epyo]

Just wanted to drop in and say that this is possibly the best video game news I have ever heard, and I'm very hyped for this!  I'm a huge fan of all of Romero's doom maps, and the idea of making it a hellish episode is just perfect--I've seriously always felt a weird void in my heart, because of how great his work in episode 1 is, and how much better the rest of doom 1 and 2 could have been if he contributed more to 'em.  I loathe episode 2 and I like episode 3 a lot, but still believe it could have been much better... 

 

And it was clear he was good enough to make awesome non-techbase stuff but we rarely got to see it--like he made doom 2 abandoned mines, and doom 1 e4m2 right?  Those come to mind immediately and those are kinda masterpieces IMO.  But they're just scattered and tainted by being mixed in with much worse stuff (I might never play through the second half of doom 2 again honestly).

 

Also, I was mostly blown away by how great e1m8b and e1m4b were.  Yeah, from many perspectives, other modern doom mappers are doing better stuff, but I feel a certain unified magic from these--they look good without being extravagant, capturing the classic architecture--and they play excellently IMO, they're not extravagant with difficulty, just, every battle felt laid out in a way to capture the exact gameplay that makes doom work, the exact gameplay I don't quite get anywhere else.  And then, many shockingly creative tricks that really impressived me, in both maps!  Which is remarkable to see, in a game so old and with so many maps already, and with so many limitations. 

 

A lot of times I see what famous designers do years later, and I think, ehh, this looks bad, did they just get lucky with their big hits??  But those two maps really proved to me that Romero deserves his success.  (Another example of this was seeing IGA's mario maker maps, the designer of most of the post-sotn castlevania games.  Those were great!)

 

So yeah, just my take.  Super pumped!!

[Nancsi]

During the wait I made a personal 1-10 grade system for Romero's maps.

 

E1M1 - 7

E1M2 - 8

E1M3 - 10

E1M9 - 7

E1M5 - 8

E1M6 - 7

E1M7 - 9

E4M2 - 6 (it's way too difficult and cramped to my liking)

E4M6 - 8

 

Map11 - 9

Map15 - 8

Map17 - 8

Map20 - 4 (the only Romero map I hate)

Map26 - 6 (a rather cramped and weak rehearsal of Tenements)

Map29 - 10

 

E1M4b - 9

E1M8b - 10

 

[GarrettChan]

E4M6 doesn't even give you an Armor though...

 

Sadly, the way E4M6 constructed is extremely difficult not to take damage on the Pain Sector (It's possible, but very precise). Otherwise I'll try to no damage Max it. Hmm, found a way and try to do it.

Edited December 12, 2018 by GarrettChan

[jazzmaster9]

On 12/11/2018 at 1:39 AM, Touchdown said:

Disappointment. And Romero is trying make money off of it? What a joke.

Yeah How dare he try to make money from a game he worked on?

He should be giving us free stuff instead because... LOL.

On 12/11/2018 at 1:39 AM, Touchdown said:

And to think that this will get so much more attention than all those amazing mapsets made by the community.

Yeah because John Romero releasing a mapset means that those "amazing mapsets made by the community" will no longer exist or be played.