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

[Get Phobo]

 

6 hours ago, kknot5889 said:

 

He's a bit harsher on it than Civvie, but not a jerk about it like Gman. 

 

I totally agree with his opinion. It's the same stuff over and over. Lots of BS too.

 

Then again, I'm a spaceport/techbase guy, so my opinions will always be a bit biased, judging hellish levels far worse than tech maps.

[Clonehunter]

Got the big box namely because the artwork and the Romero head were too good to pass up. 

 

Overall I'd give it a 7/10, I think. I liked the mix between detail and the lack of overt details like the original Doom. John seems to have an eye for making stuff look red and evil in all the right ways. The big light up pentagrams and the lightning cracks in the sky on levels like E5M5 were great atmospheric touches. I actually thought the gameplay (On UV) was pretty interesting. There does seem to be a lack of ammo in some cases, but at the same time I never really ran out of ammo to the point I had to run or improvise. Like, I was always on the edge, but there was just enough given back to get through. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but I liked it. I didn't go for 100% completion stats since for a first run through I really don't think that's important in the slightest. 

 

There were a couple of hiccup spots: Health was sparse, and a lot of things seemed trial and error. E5M6 or 7, I forget, with the two Barons behind the door was fuckin' pitiful. Especially since you get put through the strainer right before that. Killing them was easy enough afterwards, but the afaik inescapable lava pit around those thin as hell stairs was mind-grating. Just awful, really. E5M5 was annoying. After a couple of tries I was able to get to the telefragging part with a pretty good bit of health, but the fact you can't move right away after teleporting onto the Cyberdemons was very annoying, given how you got thrown onto a damage sector. If the Cyberdemons were gonna be confined to small invisible wall rooms so you could telefrag them, I feel like they should have been on small platforms or something. 

 

A lot of Cacodemons. I understand the reasoning of this level set being for Ultimate Doom, being a fifth episode, and why it's set in Hell, and oddly enough...I think the limited Doom 1 bestiary is actually more diverse than I thought. A lot of neat encounters and monster combinations, I didn't feel like the lack of Doom 2 monsters hurt it in anyway, and actually felt refreshing. Some areas were a bit dark (Nowhere near as dark as Gman put it, something must have been up with his monitor or game settings), but I felt like there was a good use of spectres here. Annoying, yes, but satisfying to kill them. 

 

The music...Oh man, the music. Fuckin' knocked it out of the park. No reason to say more. I played with the version that had the non-midi versions of the music, and it was atmospheric as hell, and really fit with the levels. The midi versions, which I listened to later, were good too. Great music. Buckethead is awesome. I also liked the new menu pics, and the artwork for the whole package is phenomal and fitting of the whole "This level pack is fuckin' evil" theme they were all going for. 

 

So, yah, about 7/10 for the level pack in all. Pretty fun, some really grating parts I felt were a bit poorly executed as far as being a challenge is concerned, and great set-pieces throughout. 

 

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. 

[DANZA]

I looove the MIDI version! It fits so much better with the rest of classic Doom than the mp3s. Well done Jimmy!

 

Sigil as a whole, feels just like a follow-up, albeit a slightly more detailed one, of Thy Flesh Consumed. I always play in HMP, so it has obvious challenge, but it's pretty doable.

 

In terms of "unfairness", remember the rest of Doom and Doom II also have gimmicky maps you have to reaconditionate yourself to, like The Chasm. It's not an unstoppable shooting marathon all the time. I did like it a lot, but I can see someone who only likes community mapsets or a more modern gameplay style won't.

 

Also, who opens a door in Doom and stands still in front of it, even for a fraction of a second? I'm talking about the Gmanlives review and the yellow baron door.

 

Waiting for a Doom II expansion announcement here, Romero!

 

[pcorf]

I beat E5M7 (v1.1) on UV but only just, was tough, challenging and evil and when I reached the exit room I blasted those two Barons to oblivion with the BFG, although one survived I switched to my Chaingun and finished him off in about 8 shots and pressed the exit and escaped. Not sure what to think about that cave with the vines though, but it was the first map completed for SIGIL anyway. I also thought the outdoor area (a rarity in SIGIL) was too brightly lit especially for the sky so I switched the sky from SKY5 to SKY4 (changesky sky4)

 

Yes lots of Cacodemons, especially in more cramped indoor areas. While in my own maps I prefer to use Cacodemons and their floating foes (aka Lost Souls) in larger more open areas.

 

SIGIL has been just as tough as Richard Wiles E4 replacement (Spooky / Crusades).

[Vermil]

Skyjake has posted a ded to allow the Episode 5 version of Sigil to be played in Doomsday:

 

https://talk.dengine.net/discussion/2709/sigil-doomsday

[antiriad]

SI6IL on my newly-build MS-DOS PC, in MBF 2.04:

 

 

 

Playing it on that crt LG Flatron (that I got for free) is really a thing! 🤓

[dew]

1 hour ago, Vermil said:

Skyjake has posted a ded to allow the Episode 5 version of Sigil to be played in Doomsday:

 

https://talk.dengine.net/discussion/2709/sigil-doomsday

Cool. Romero wants to do v1.2 to squash a few more bugs and inconsistencies, correcting the error in the old MAPINFO and adding support for Doomsday is on the todo list.

[banjiepixel]

3 hours ago, pcorf said:

I beat E5M7 (v1.1) on UV but only just, was tough, challenging and evil and when I reached the exit room I blasted those two Barons to oblivion with the BFG, although one survived I switched to my Chaingun and finished him off in about 8 shots and pressed the exit and escaped.

 

Lucky you, for my first time with E5M7, I had basically no ammo or health at all when I reached the two Baron door. I had to actually avoid the Barons and run past them to the exit. It did take some tries but eventually that worked and I was able to reach E5M8.

[Varis Alpha]

i had plenty of ammo to deal with the Barons at the end. looking at Icarus' video, it seems like a lot of ammo issues would be solved if he weren't so gung-ho with ammo and instead were a bit smarter with how he fires the BFG there for example (remember that point blank shot kills them, saving you a lot of ammo instead of shooting two or three shots from a distance). i also played continuous and i didn't have anywhere near as much ammo and health problems as he had on UV.

[Xymph]

16 hours ago, Diabolución said:

Interesting, so according to the /idgames maintainers this is not a megawad but an episode replacement, as expected.

Yes, that has long been established as the type of WAD. See the second intro paragraph in the wiki.

 

Quote

By the way, it seems that the greek mirror is dead...

Ah, thanks. It had indeed been quite a long time since I checked them all. They removed the entire archive.

 

Removed from the official lists -- Doomworld admin(s), please remove the Greek mirror from the https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/ browser.

[DooM_RO]

Guys, what do you call it when you finish a WAD almost without trouble the first time but your next playthrough is significantly worse?

[eyelid]

1 minute ago, DooM_RO said:

Guys, what do you call it when you finish a WAD almost without trouble the first time but your next playthrough is significantly worse?

 

I dunno really. My next playthrough will be exactly the same as in Thy Flehs. Learn the UV-MAX route by heart and beat the damn thing without any save games at all. Only Thy Flesh and Sigil is required to do this, all the other official doom's are just "run it through, find easily couple of secrets to make things easier and have a beer"

[xttl]

To anybody who might be interested, attached here's a WIP hacked Ultimate Doom executable for playing Sigil properly in DOS (or Win9x, DOSBox, or whatever). Place it into the same directory with your Ultimate Doom doom.wad and sigil.wad files. Don't use the compat version, use the regular version. Andrey Budko's (entryway's) doomp.exe (Ultimate Doom+) was used as the base as it handily has all the relevant static limits already extended so I did not have to bother with that.

 

features so far:

• automatically tries to load sigil.wad from current directory on startup
• idclev episode cap changed to 5 (-warp/-wart/-episode aren't capped originally and haven't changed)
• automap has correct, full length map names visible
• correct background music will play throughout all the episodes and UI screens
• secret level works properly
• intermissions work. uses SIGILINT instead of INTERPIC when, and only when, playing the 5th episode
• finale text screen works, but no there's no page set after that so it doesn't draw anything after the text goes away
• new text and colors for the textmode startup banner
• episodes 1-4 still run as usual (at least they should)

 

todo:

• add code to set sky texture properly (I think tall skies should at least somewhat work in vanilla?)
• add code to set a fullscreen finale page
• expand menu to include the 5th episode
• starting another episode and idcleving to E5 seems to break some things vs. using -warp or -episode from command line
• idmus behaviour?
• anything else?

 

other things:

• texture wraparound bugs ("tutti-frutti") won't be fixed, feel free to patch a fixed wall column renderer in if it bothers you ;) or fix the damn maps themselves
• premium soundtrack won't be supported, feel free to patch in a MP3 player with output to libDMX if you want it ;)
• commercial gamemode (anything Doom 2) doesn't work anymore with the same executable because I just wanted to be done with this as quick as possible
• D_INTROA will not replace D_INTRO when using OPL music anymore because sigil.wad doesn't include a replacement D_INTROA at all
• modified game warning will always be displayed on startup because sigil.wad has a PWAD (not IWAD) header and will trigger it (possibly just skip it completely?)

 

 

(edit: yeah let's use proper lists)

 

superseded by version in this post:

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by xttl

[seed]

1 hour ago, DooM_RO said:

Guys, what do you call it when you finish a WAD almost without trouble the first time but your next playthrough is significantly worse?

 

Irony.

 

I do that all the time :p .

[Gunstar Green]

Am I the only one who likes the Cacos in cramped spaces? Makes it easier to line them up and chainsaw them.

[sincity2100]

1 hour ago, DooM_RO said:

Guys, what do you call it when you finish a WAD almost without trouble the first time but your next playthrough is significantly worse?

That really happens when you either encounter a whole new experience or getting into some annoying situations, it depends.

[ReaperAA]

Just beaten Sigil on UV (continuous). Here are my thoughts:

 

Spoiler

Sigil felt like a slightly more polished "Thy Flesh Consumed" with more consistent quality and difficulty. These maps obviously don't rival stuff like NRFTL or NEIS (much less stuff like Eviternity, Ancient Aliens, Valiant or BTSX). But the levels are good nonetheless.

 

The difficulty is not really that high. In fact I feel that the difficulty is being exaggerated. The detailing is ok overall although there were some bad texture usage here and there (and my god the sky on Map 7 was terrible). The maps focus on restricting player movement rather than throwing hordes of enemies which I kinda like. There are good maps and there are bad maps.

 

My favourites are M5 and M6. I loved the way cyberdemon is used on map 6 and I liked the overall layout of map 5 (although I didn't like lost soul area). Map 7 would have been among my favourites too if it wasn't for the last 1/3 of map.

 

My least favourites are M4, M8 and M9. M4 is just going through 3 paths one by one (with each path having its own gimmick) and getting the keys to open each switch. M9 is a filler map. M8 is a depressingly easy and half-assed finale.

 

So while the levels are good and I kinda enjoyed it, it kinda felt underwhelming and didn't really feel like something that is a "must play". I would argue that the levels were actually weaker than his previous offerings (E1M8b and E1M4b).

 

Overall I would give it a 7/10.

 

[glyphic]

If you have the red key in E5M9 and try to open the red key door while the lift is lowered it hard crashes Crispy.

The console says something about max drawsegs and sometimes visplanes, so I guess this might be a visplane overflow? It's reproducible but I'm not sure if this is an emulated crash or not since it segfaults, and I assume emulated crashes wouldn't do that. Could be wrong though. Just thought I'd mention it.

[baja blast rd.]

SIGIL was a cool experience. Not a seamless one (m8 and m9 felt a cut below the rest), but there was plenty to enjoy. Romero has a lot to offer in terms of ideas in each map, beyond the overt motifs like the eye switches. The technical wizardry of modern mapping has come quite a long way, but Romero's mindset and experience as a game designer shows -- and purely in those terms, not many works surpass him each given year. I hope he makes more stuff for Doom 1/2 and is not deterred by the more distilled chunks of negativity the internet is sometimes prone to produce. 

 

[Jon]

46 minutes ago, glyphic said:

If you have the red key in E5M9 and try to open the red key door while the lift is lowered it hard crashes Crispy.

The console says something about max drawsegs and sometimes visplanes, so I guess this might be a visplane overflow? It's reproducible but I'm not sure if this is an emulated crash or not since it segfaults, and I assume emulated crashes wouldn't do that. Could be wrong though. Just thought I'd mention it.

It might be both, but a segfault is something we should fix. Any chance you can record a demo?

[Kira]

1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

The difficulty is not really that high. In fact I feel that the difficulty is being exaggerated.

People should mention how they played it when they say that kind of thing. It's going to be all over the place depending on whether you use saves, play continuous, etc.

I suspect one way makes it easier than TFC by a fair margin, and the other makes it way harder.

[OliveTree]

I played SIGIL like maybe 4-5 times now I just marathoned it over the course of like 3 days. I played on HNTR then twice on HMP and finally on UV. I've decided I like it (i actually really like it) but also hear me out the reason its so divisive is because over time people have started developing this idea that UV is the general most correct way to play Doom. Like, if you can handle it and have the fancy reflexes, UV is actually the truest most authentic experience, its the most right, even on a first time playthrough.

 

I myself sort of had this tendency. UV has the most monsters, it tests you the most, its the most expansive version of Doom, the one least likely to wear out.

 

But playing SIGIL kinda broke that perception for me a bit. Playing on UV after having already become familiar with its layout at secrets and figuring out how the encounters were laid out in a general sense gave me insight into how I should be playing and made it a lot easier and importantly, fun, than a lot of people seem to be reporting based on their initial, blind UV playthrough. This sort of gave me this weird cognitive dissonance that was hard to hash out, until I figured it out. At least to me, thats identical to the regular Doom experience. No one played Doom on UV in their initial playthrough, but when I get to that chaingunner trap in The Abandoned Mines or the monsters start spawning in in E1M1, I already know how to deal with those situations because I've played them dozens of times at LEAST (possibly hundreds but I dont marathon doom 2 very much). I'm caught off guard by the particular intensity of some of the ambushes in SIGIL but never by the fact that there is one and by those points in the level I've already been conserving ammo for them.

 

Sure I still have to shotgun a ton of barons and cacodemons but subjectively, I just dont mind that I find it pretty satisfying to widdle away and the painstates make it punchy I guess idk

[glyphic]

59 minutes ago, Jon said:

It might be both, but a segfault is something we should fix. Any chance you can record a demo?

I tried but when it segfaults the demo doesn't get written. I've made a demo that goes to the point where it should crash, but rather than try to open the door I just shoot the chaingun a bit then close the game. This is in Crispy 5.5.2-1 on Linux if it makes a difference.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/o4bjibbhlnphmif/test.lmp/file

 

Edit: Oh and with SIGIL_COMPAT.wad

Edited June 2, 2019 by glyphic

[Epyo]

3 minutes ago, Kira said:

People should mention how they played it when they say that kind of thing. It's going to be all over the place depending on whether you use saves, play continuous, etc.

I suspect one way makes it easier than TFC by a fair margin, and the other makes it way harder.

 

Super agree with this.

 

On the other hand, ya just can't please everyone.  Watching Icarus's reaction video to Sigil, it's really just nonstop complaining about how hard each room was for him.  The thing he complained about most is how each exit room has a Baron in it, but in each case he deliberately makes sure to avoid taking the exit until he kills the Baron...for no apparent reason!  He says he is not playing for 100% kills, 20 minutes into the video, as he talks about skipping a cyberdemon.

 

Which goes to show that you can't really trust anyone in general about difficulty.  It depends on even more than named modes like "pistol start" and "continuous play", it also depends on little aspects of the person's play that they don't even realize they're doing.

 

---

 

Here's a weird thing that can happen in E5M8, not sure if it is intended:

 

Spoiler

If you get lucky, the Cyberdemon boss at the end, will walk the wrong way and will reach a monster teleporting line that will teleport him away!  You'll hear him but never fight him.  This happened the first time I played the wad.

 

It's kinda interesting though.

 

[dew]

11 minutes ago, glyphic said:

I tried but when it segfaults the demo doesn't get written. I've made a demo that goes to the point where it should crash, but rather than try to open the door I just shoot the chaingun a bit then close the game. This is in Crispy 5.5.2-1 on Linux if it makes a difference.

Fwiw, Zero Master brought this up to me, but I figured it wasn't the wad's fault, because m9 survives in chocolate and opens that door just fine.

 

5 minutes ago, Epyo said:

Here's a weird thing that can happen in E5M8, not sure if it is intended:

Haha... okay, that probably warrants a fix.

[Nilex]

Where's the best place to post some minor map improvement suggestions? Should I run it by beta testers by writing in this post? E-mailing Romero directly feels a bit spammy. Maybe a new dedicated topic is in order? My four suggestions involve:

• quality of life improvement in traversing M3 between damaging blood tunnel separated sections. Perhaps a new revealed teleport for 1st->2nd section to avoid the tunnel after the first two times (for which the two rad-suits are for).
• removing freeze time immediately after tele-fragging each Cyberdemon in M5 (until death animation finishes). Forces 2x damage from lava, happens in Crispy, could be related to infinitely tall actors switch? For 100%+no dmg I had to use weapons to pacify them (and still had enuff ammo for everything, you nubs)
• preventing permanently walling-off half of M6 after a certain moment (unknowingly locks away two secrets). Bonus points to anyone who explains how exactly the thousand doors puzzle works.
• removing infinite height of wall pillars around exit building in M7. This change enables 3x100%+UV+no damage taken through the entire episode which, to me at least, is one of important marks of perfectly designed WAD. Last stretch of lava pool to 1st room lift is too long to traverse without taking damage even with SR50.

Another annoying thing is automap regularly misses to draw about 10% of walls on each map. Secrets being most affected. Also Crispy. There are few more minor things but I kinda want to wait a bit for a tactical final v1.666.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Nilex : changed all E# -> M# (old brain-fart finally fixed, tnx for not rubbing it in)

[Clonehunter]

1 hour ago, Epyo said:

 

 

Here's a weird thing that can happen in E5M8, not sure if it is intended:

 

That would probably explain why I never saw him. Killed the Spider, heard the Cyber, and just started running around in the dark. Never saw him (And then accidentally walked into what turned out to be the exit portal). 

 

 

 

[ReaperAA]

1 hour ago, Kira said:

People should mention how they played it when they say that kind of thing. It's going to be all over the place depending on whether you use saves, play continuous, etc.

I suspect one way makes it easier than TFC by a fair margin, and the other makes it way harder.

 

I played UV continuous with saves about every 5 to 10 min. And I managed to reach map 5 on UV my first attempt at Ironman league (saveless run obviously).

My play style is cautious and turtlish.

 

Sigil is easier than TFC at the beginning since there is no ridiculous levels like "Hell Beneath" or "Perfect Hatred" in it. Sigil's difficulty gradually rises and it only gets harder than TFC around map 5.

[Jayextee]

9 minutes ago, Nilex said:

removing freeze time immediately after tele-fragging each Cyberdemon in E5 (until death animation finishes).

 

This would actually involve a fundamental change in the way the engine works and not actually the maps, and not really feasible outside (possibly) a DeHackEd change to the death frame pointers.

[Master O]

12 hours ago, DANZA said:

I looove the MIDI version! It fits so much better with the rest of classic Doom than the mp3s. Well done Jimmy!

 

Sigil as a whole, feels just like a follow-up, albeit a slightly more detailed one, of Thy Flesh Consumed. I always play in HMP, so it has obvious challenge, but it's pretty doable.

 

In terms of "unfairness", remember the rest of Doom and Doom II also have gimmicky maps you have to reaconditionate yourself to, like The Chasm. It's not an unstoppable shooting marathon all the time. I did like it a lot, but I can see someone who only likes community mapsets or a more modern gameplay style won't.

 

Also, who opens a door in Doom and stands still in front of it, even for a fraction of a second? I'm talking about the Gmanlives review and the yellow baron door.

 

Waiting for a Doom II expansion announcement here, Romero!

 

 

Doom 2: Buckethead on Earth!