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

[ReaperAA]

@dew Can I ask u a few questions regarding SIGIL if u don't mind (I am not gonna ask about spoiler info. Just general info).

[dew]

Well, you won't know if you don't ask, right?

[ReaperAA]

1 minute ago, dew said:

Well, you won't know if you don't ask, right?

 

Well then:

 

1) Did u get to test the "sigil_compat" wad. If so, how well does it work on other ports (like PrBoom+ for example). Also is it in Episode 3 slot because of the secret level issue?

2) How do the levels feel in terms of difficulty(compared to E4) and flow. Are levels more focused on combat or more on exploration and atmosphere.

[Diabolución]

It seems there will be actually three wads:

The Sigil WAD itself, which adds a fifth episode.

A version for ports which lack of MAPINFO support, which replaces the third episode.

A WAD with the Buckethead’s soundtrack (MP3 format).

 

Also, it seems that the Buckethead’s soundtrack will be in the free release.

 

Quote

Romero is working to ensure compatibility by prepping multiple versions of Sigil. “It's kind of like I'm making three WAD [packs],” he explained. “The Sigil WAD, the music WAD, and another called sigil_compat, for compatibility. That one will, instead of introducing a fifth episode, it'll replace the third episode. Older source ports don't understand anything beyond Episode 3 or 4. I can't add one, I have to replace one, so I figured I'd replace 3 since Episode 4 is really cool.”

 

Quote

The maps and Buckethead’s soundtrack will be available as free downloads.

[NightFright]

I hope it's not like ep.4. Monster placement and level design was dickish most of the time. No objection against increased difficulty, but no fights in tight spaces or monster hoardes a la Plutonia. However, I am sure Romero knows what he is doing.

 

If he says ep.4 is "really cool", that makes me a bit concerned, though...

 

Also: If the soundtrack is actually included in the free version, it seems like the advantages of the limited editions are quite... well, limited.

[ketmar]

@kb1 usually, when you are near completion of your V2 rewrite, you already know that you did everything wrong, and the only way to do it right is throw that stupid "V2" that gone wrong out of the window, and start V3. then, when you are near completion of your V3... ;-)

[CyberDreams]

13 minutes ago, NightFright said:

I hope it's not like ep.4. Monster placement and level design was dickish most of the time. No objection against increased difficulty, but no fights in tight spaces or monster hoardes a la Plutonia. However, I am sure Romero knows what he is doing.

 

If he says ep.4 is "really cool", that makes me a bit concerned, though...

 

Also: If the soundtrack is actually included in the free version, it seems like the advantages of the limited editions are quite... well, limited.

 

Well it is more of a "collector's item" i suppose. But who knows how many were made exactly. Not to mention that the soundtrack will be lossless instead of MP3 since it comes with a physical copy of it on CD, that is if people even listen to CD's anymore. I know i do but i didn't order any version of it unfortunately. 

 

Also replacing Inferno...that's just...odd. I like Inferno tbh. It's probably just because i suck at EP 4 though ;)

[Varis Alpha]

i'm a bit surprised about the Buckethead soundtrack also being available for free, but the Beast Box has other things of interest to me as well (everything minus the coin, i don't know why coins and pins gets put into limited editions, as they're not really that fun to display). and lossless quality audio is also a bonus to me.

[NightFright]

My guess is Romero didn't want the Bitbucket music to be the big difference between free and limited versions. Realistically it would have surfaced online the first day after release, anyway.

[Nevander]

I'm pretty sure there is some confusion going on. I would be VERY surprised if the Buckethead music was released free. I think somewhere they confused Jimmy's free music with Buckethead's paid music.

[CyberDreams]

26 minutes ago, Nevander said:

I'm pretty sure there is some confusion going on. I would be VERY surprised if the Buckethead music was released free. I think somewhere they confused Jimmy's free music with Buckethead's paid music.

Oh yeah, you're right. Duh...what was i thinking!? I hope Jimmy's music is still in the free version or at least there's a way to play the episode with it.

[Nevander]

Or the article is just wrong and misinterpreted. I've seen some things in it while reading that are inaccurate (like how they mentioned loading MP3 music in Chocolate Doom lol).

[Jon]

40 minutes ago, Nevander said:

Or the article is just wrong and misinterpreted. I've seen some things in it while reading that are inaccurate (like how they mentioned loading MP3 music in Chocolate Doom lol).

 I noticed problems too. But I’m pretty sure choco does have mp3 support. It at least has vorbis and flac support. 

[unerxai]

I think it should've replaced E1. Replacing one of the episodes in the middle feels kinda wrong but I guess that's just me.

[ReaperAA]

2 hours ago, CyberDreams said:

Also replacing Inferno...that's just...odd. I like Inferno tbh. It's probably just because i suck at EP 4 though ;)

 

22 minutes ago, UNERXAi said:

I think it should've replaced E1. Replacing one of the episodes in the middle feels kinda wrong but I guess that's just me.

 

My guess is because of the secret level issue. PrBoom+ and some other ports don't support MAPINFO lump. For such ports, it is necessary to have secret level exits in same levels as they are in the IWADs.

 

For example if you have the secret level exit in E1M5, the player will enter E1M9 just fine, but upon exiting that level they will get thrown back to E1M4, just like in vanilla Doom. This means that E1's secret level entrance SHOULD be in E1M3. Similarly for E2, E3 and E4, the secret level entrances should be in E2M5, E3M6 and E4M2 respectively.

 

Maybe Sigil's secret level entrance is in the 6th level. In such a case, putting Sigil in the Episode 3 slot makes sense.

This is just my guess. In reality, the reason can can differ.

Edited April 13, 2019 by ReaperAA

[Noiser]

Quote

Sigil’s soundtrack will be available as a WAD of MP3 files that will need to be loaded through the player’s Doom source port of choice, such as GZDoom or Chocolate Doom.

Wait a minute, so "sigil_compat" really will work on Chocolate Doom? Without crashes and all?
Or the article is only talking about the music?

Edited April 13, 2019 by Noiser

[Gez]

How many MAPINFO formats are supported? ZDoom is basically confirmed, but what about Eternity or Doomsday, for example?

[dew]

5 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

1) Did u get to test the "sigil_compat" wad. If so, how well does it work on other ports (like PrBoom+ for example). Also is it in Episode 3 slot because of the secret level issue? 

The compat wad was made so that people could play Sigil on as many ports as possible. Secret map works fine. The wad(s) mirror the setup of dtwid-le and all of the meta work including various mapinfos was actually supervised by @Xaser, sorry for hard spoils! I was more involved with the ingame stuff itself and when Romero talks about fixing spechit overflows, yeah that's making sure recording demos in pr+ works as smooth as possible on standard complevel3.

 

5 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

2) How do the levels feel in terms of difficulty(compared to E4) and flow. Are levels more focused on combat or more on exploration and atmosphere.

I mention that in the interview, the maps are very much about combat/getting busy and their approach to diificulty makes you think of No End in Sight e2/e3 or previous Nat20 mapsets. Romero does not want to look like a wimp.

 

20 minutes ago, Noiser said:

Wait a minute, so "sigil_compat" will work on Chocolate Doom? Without crashes and all?

Not choco, no chance. It's a lim-rem mapset full of VPOs and drawseg overflows, looks very PURPLE in chocorenderlimits. Crispy is the "lowest" port that should be fully supported (including the Buckethead music).

[Noiser]

10 minutes ago, dew said:

Not choco, no chance. It's a lim-rem mapset full of VPOs and drawseg overflows, looks very PURPLE in chocorenderlimits. Crispy is the "lowest" port that should be fully supported (including the Buckethead music).

All right, it makes sense. Really strange that the article cited choco as compatible.

[dew]

3 minutes ago, Noiser said:

All right, it makes sense. Really strange that the article cited choco as compatible.

Here's how I think that sneaked in: The textfile was assembled from some templates and at one point claimed choco was the base. I believe this was corrected eventually, but given the timeline David Craddock probably got a WIP version with the wrong info and then he shamefully neglected his duty to install all of the existing doom ports and test compat across the spectrum. I must stress, it would be preposterous to blame this oversight on me or Xaser, but maybe blaming Xaser is fine if the other option is me.

[NaturalTvventy]

32 minutes ago, dew said:

I mention that in the interview, the maps are very much about combat/getting busy and their approach to diificulty makes you think of No End in Sight e2/e3 or previous Nat20 mapsets. Romero does not want to look like a wimp.

I'm not worthy!

 

Did you mention NEIS to @Romero ever by chance? Knowing he played a bit of my work would be such an honor.

 

Let's just pretend this isn't there @Romero.

 

[dew]

6 minutes ago, NaturalTvventy said:

Did you mention NEIS to @Romero ever by chance? Knowing he played a bit of my work would be such an honor. 

I believe I did, but I don't think Romero did much community wad researching, if any. You might have to take solace in knowing Romero independently came to a similar increased difficulty formula to yours!

[Xaser]

Welp, dew's de-bagged the cat, so here we go I guess. :P

 

The free release will have two wads:

• SIGIL.WAD -- adds the new maps as a menu-selectable 5th episode (i.e. E5M1, E5M2, et.al) for GZDoom, Zandronum, and Eternity
• SIGIL_COMPAT.WAD -- replaces Episode 3, compatible with all* limit-removing ports

[*I only tested PRBoom-Plus, ZDaemon, GZD, Zandro, and Eternity, but with dew in charge of the map QA I don't think we'll have any compatibility issues with the rest, e.g. Crispy and Doomsday and whatnot. I guess Doomsday also coulda been supported in SIGIL.WAD, but I didn't think about it at the time.]

 

The two wads are independent -- i.e. you just load one or the other -- and the maps & progression are identical between both so the difference is largely cosmetic (i.e. the 5th-episode version is "why the hell not?" more than anything else). For demo recording purposes, SIGIL_COMPAT probably ought to be be the 'canon' one listed on DSDA and whatnot since it's the one PRBoom-Plus likes.

 

Both wads include Jimmy's MIDI soundtrack by default; Buckethead's soundtrack (which is only part of the boxed version -- this is confirmed on Romero's site; the interview is incorrect) is packaged as a pair of additional wads -- SIGIL_SHREDS.wad and SIGIL_SHREDS_COMPAT.wad -- which are meant to be loaded on top of SIGIL.WAD/SIGIL_COMPAT.WAD respectively (the former replaces the D_E5Mx lumps, the latter replaces D_E3Mx). Yeah, that means the data exists twice, but it's a physical distribution so there's plenty of space. :P

 

I think that's all the relevant bits, really, aside from confirming that the maps are real friggin' good -- John indeed arrived at the same answer as NT regarding how to make UDoom maps hard with its limited bestiary: "the environment is the enemy".

 

And yeah, there's at least one goofy part of the textfile that's entirely my fault, but we left it in because it's funny. I think. Maybe. :P

[Diabolución]

I am glad Romero just did the sensible thing. Having to either implement crude workarounds (such as renaming the map markers) or wait that your favourite conservative source ports get updated in order to add support for another (semi-)official PWAD, à la nerve.wad, is just annoying. And this assuming they are actively maintained.

 

One quick question... Does Sigil use only stock flats, patches and textures?

Edited May 20, 2019 by Diabolución : Silly errata

[Linguica]

Just for accuracy's sake, the practice of including a separate deathmatch arena dates back as far as both halves of Final Doom.  More: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Category:Levels_with_deathmatch_arenas

[NightFright]

As a buyer of the boxed version I prefer the Buckethead soundtrack to stay out of the free version, ofc. Nevertheless there will be enough ways to obtain it illegally soon, anyway.

 

Provided Sigil REALLY gets out in a few weeks at the latest, that is...

[OleBumma]

great read, it does answer some questions. and yeah, being the Bucketead music the profitable aspect of the beast box, I knew there had to be a mistake on the reporter's side when they said it came with the free wad. in another part of the interview Romero cleary refers to the soundtrack being what you're buying the box for.

 

speaking of the new episode btw, I'm sure it'll kick ass! so far I love what I'm getting from these sneak peak drops and the live streams.

[Master O]

2 hours ago, Xaser said:

Welp, dew's de-bagged the cat, so here we go I guess. :P

 

The free release will have two wads:

• SIGIL.WAD -- adds the new maps as a menu-selectable 5th episode (i.e. E5M1, E5M2, et.al) for GZDoom, Zandronum, and Eternity
• SIGIL_COMPAT.WAD -- replaces Episode 3, compatible with all* limit-removing ports

[*I only tested PRBoom-Plus, ZDaemon, GZD, Zandro, and Eternity, but with dew in charge of the map QA I don't think we'll have any compatibility issues with the rest, e.g. Crispy and Doomsday and whatnot. I guess Doomsday also coulda been supported in SIGIL.WAD, but I didn't think about it at the time.]

 

The two wads are independent -- i.e. you just load one or the other -- and the maps & progression are identical between both so the difference is largely cosmetic (i.e. the 5th-episode version is "why the hell not?" more than anything else). For demo recording purposes, SIGIL_COMPAT probably ought to be be the 'canon' one listed on DSDA and whatnot since it's the one PRBoom-Plus likes.

 

Both wads include Jimmy's MIDI soundtrack by default; Buckethead's soundtrack (which is only part of the boxed version -- this is confirmed on Romero's site; the interview is incorrect) is packaged as a pair of additional wads -- SIGIL_SHREDS.wad and SIGIL_SHREDS_COMPAT.wad -- which are meant to be loaded on top of SIGIL.WAD/SIGIL_COMPAT.WAD respectively (the former replaces the D_E5Mx lumps, the latter replaces D_E3Mx). Yeah, that means the data exists twice, but it's a physical distribution so there's plenty of space. :P

 

I think that's all the relevant bits, really, aside from confirming that the maps are real friggin' good -- John indeed arrived at the same answer as NT regarding how to make UDoom maps hard with its limited bestiary: "the environment is the enemy".

 

And yeah, there's at least one goofy part of the textfile that's entirely my fault, but we left it in because it's funny. I think. Maybe. :P

 

Will SIGIL.WAD be labelled as an IWAD for GZdoom?  GZDoom allows for a wad file to be labelled this way so it will appear in the IWAD Selection menu when GZdoom is run.

 

https://zdoom.org/wiki/IWADINFO

[Gez]

4 minutes ago, Master O said:

Will SIGIL.WAD be labelled as an IWAD for GZdoom?

What reason would there be to consider it an IWAD?

[TheMightyHeracross]

On 12/13/2018 at 1:20 PM, TheMightyHeracross said:

 

I have plenty of faith that once John realizes that the numbering scheme is the only thing preventing it from running in Crispy or PrBoom, he will change it to replace an existing episode. He has stated many times that the mapset should work in any limit removing port, he merely hasn't tested it outside of ZDoom yet, so what probably happened is that he is just unaware that simpler ports lack MAPINFO support. He is well aware of and has directly addressed the demand for compatibility with other ports, particularly Crispy Doom, and he even asked the comments for suggestions for ports to test in, so he's clearly listening.

 

So much for all of that doomsaying about port compatibility. I knew Romero wouldn't alienate the majority of the Doomworld community after labeling his project as "limit-removing."