Lost Civilization - 22-map fun and nonlinear megawad - now with download link!

[baja blast rd.]

I agree with Demon of the Well. Variety is the way to go here. 

 

Also, not every player has a pure-survivalist approach. I'm talking about the sort of approach where, unless you floodfill all of those giant spaces with hundreds of monsters; and/or segment the playspace as best as possible into cordoned-off arenas for lock-in fights; and go really heavy with traps that are dangerous even if you have all the space in the world (like, a lot of hitscans/viles); they will play the map super cautiously, under not much pressure, while feeling bored. 

 

I mean, you can mix in stuff like that, but you don't have to do so exclusively. 

 

Some players will try to engage with spot-placed encounters 'bravely' even if, yeah, technically, they can at any time retreat to the other 95% of the huge area; or try to set multiple encounters loose at once; or try to get more enjoyment by playing at a faster pace. Personally, as a player, I have a mindset of 'very slow strats don't exist' most all the time, the exceptions being where they are really fun. 

 

So that gives you more options. 

 

Good use of silence and ambient, low-density monster placement -- yet another option, and a powerful one to mix in where the mood suits it. 

 

Again, variety is one of the rare things that is almost always a good idea.

[FearTheReaper]

You could make these in between  open areas as rewarding exploration, hidden secrets or optional rooms with enemies that are harder or more puzzle/focused way than normal for ex. there was peace at the end but you decided to go around that buiding near the sea and in the attic megasphere was found behind yellow key bars that you needed find in order to progress to exit. When you managed to grab it, 8 arch-viles spawned around the fountain, then nearby fight alerted cyberdemon who wanted pick a fight but if you were quickly enough you could telefrag him from inside the fountain teleport hole.

Edited September 24, 2019 by FearTheReaper

[Jaska]

Finally! You can find the download link in the first post!

Also edited 2nd post.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

Damn, now let's hope that my PC will not explode.

[lirui1001]

Download page says "Not a safe link".

[TheNoob_Gamer]

2 minutes ago, lirui1001 said:

Download page says "Not a safe link".

Nah, I downloaded the wad, and no viruses encountered so far. (It is a cool one, by the way, having a great time with it :) )
OP should have uploaded the wad on a safer/ more legit file hosting site, though.

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

I remember playing an early version of this. I was waiting for a full release.

 

Your Mapinfo has some issues. You commented out all the music and skies. If a Mapinfo doesn't have music specified, GZDoom doesn't play any default music. It doesn't play any music at all (unless there's some setting I'm missing). All the maps are silent except for MAP31, because MAP31 is not listed in the Mapinfo. But there is a MAP30 listed as "Secret shit". The wad also has an unnecessary CWILV00 (defined as 'Oceanside') since you didn't specify titlepatches in the Mapinfo. I assume that's just a leftover from a previous release.

 

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Yeah, this needs to be uploaded to a more reputable site.  I am using Edge and windows won't even let you download it.  I switched to firefox just for this download and it still flags it as "unsafe".  Dropbox or mediafire always people.  

[Jaska]

Changed download to the mediafire. Changed the mapinfo.

[Dynamo]

Congratulations on the release! This was the project I was looking forward to the most as far as upcoming releases go, so I'm going to start playing it right away. Cheers!

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Looked quickly through these maps and they look fantastic.  When I get a chance to play a few later I'll post some thoughts.

[baja blast rd.]

'Grats on the release. 

 

The bullet sound has a very distracting artifact at the tail-end. It's BOOM ...a second later... [pop]. That could use some tidying up in an audio editor. 

 

On a much more minor note, the shotgun sound could afford to be slightly quieter. It is far louder than any other weapon. 

[grrfield]

hi, this is some crafty wad and we already had loads of fun with it.

 

I hosted it with Zandronum and someone managed it to get stuck behind the chair near the red skull in map thirteen. That felt bad :)

 

[punnyone]

Congrats on the release. This looks amazing! I can’t wait to download it once I get out of work today!

Edited October 14, 2019 by perfectpitchrob

[Lizardcommando]

Holy crap this looks amazing and it runs smoothly too! Congratulations on getting this released.

 

You know, if it weren't for those pesky demons, I bet it would be really nice living in these places seen in this mapset.

 

So I got around to playing some more maps, and man, I'm amazed at how these maps look. They are very large and it does get pretty confusing trying to navigate, but other than that, hot damn, these maps are simply awe-inspiring.

Edited October 14, 2019 by Lizardcommando

[Tango]

these maps are unbelievable. I played through the first 5 maps and absolutely loved the exploration. did some idclev-ing and idclip-ing through the rest of the maps just to take a peek, and I cannot believe the scale and beauty of what you've built Jaska, holy shit man

[Terminus]

I've been waiting on the full release for a while!

Congrats man! Will definitely play this soon. :)

[Arbys550]

I'm on map04 right now and I'm just gonna echo what everyone else has said. These maps are really darn good. They're actually way better than I thought they would be. I expected adventure and man these maps definitely delivered! The combat surprised me though. I was expecting it to be stale with sparse monster population, but the combat is actually really good too with some nice traps and little skirmishes. So I was surprised by that. Also the texturing might just be the best I've ever seen, in my opinion. The rock textures look incredibly smooth and natural, and the tree-covered hills and mountains in the background of some maps look very realistic. Can't wait to play the rest of the wad!

[OniriA]

Well, this came out rather unexpected. I had been enchanted by the screenshots of this project for a while now and had an eye for it since..

 

Looking forward to immerse myself in these maps at last.

Edited October 15, 2019 by OniriA

[Jaska]

13 hours ago, rdwpa said:

'Grats on the release. 

 

The bullet sound has a very distracting artifact at the tail-end. It's BOOM ...a second later... [pop]. That could use some tidying up in an audio editor. 

 

On a much more minor note, the shotgun sound could afford to be slightly quieter. It is far louder than any other weapon. 

 

Thanks. Couldn't get the audio format correct on Audacity after editing so they did sound even worse. There has been negative feedback on those sound replacements so I'm wondering to remove them. Or replacing with better ones. At least bullet & plasma sounds needs to be replaced as I think.

[Jaska]

11 hours ago, grrfield said:

hi, this is some crafty wad and we already had loads of fun with it.

 

I hosted it with Zandronum and someone managed it to get stuck behind the chair near the red skull in map thirteen. That felt bad :)

 

Changing that, updating that to downloadable version sometime.

[Arbys550]

5 hours ago, Jaska said:

Thanks. Couldn't get the audio format correct on Audacity after editing so they did sound even worse. There has been negative feedback on those sound replacements so I'm wondering to remove them. Or replacing with better ones. At least bullet & plasma sounds needs to be replaced as I think.

 

No, don't remove the new sounds! I like them. They add an identity to the wad. Just remove the pop from the chaingun and it'll be good.

[Turin Turambar]

I played the first five levels, and I'm liking it a lot. It has an easygoing flow with the open ended levels and wide corridors, I never got stuck because the exploration is well planned and combat is quick paced thanks to being mostly focused on weaker enemies. Some people will complain of not being hard enough, but I think not every wad has to be a big challenge. I also cheated a bit yesterday to see how they were the next levels and they are promising.

[Jaska]

5 hours ago, Turin Turambar said:

I played the first five levels, and I'm liking it a lot. It has an easygoing flow with the open ended levels and wide corridors, I never got stuck because the exploration is well planned and combat is quick paced thanks to being mostly focused on weaker enemies. Some people will complain of not being hard enough, but I think not every wad has to be a big challenge. I also cheated a bit yesterday to see how they were the next levels and they are promising.

 

Thanks! There will be difficulty spikes here and there. I see it also like that, there are a lot of other wads if someone wants to challenge theirselves. I'm now struggling myself when playtesting some areas. So if I can't play something as its so difficult maybe I'm not the right person to try that kind of gameplay/difficulty.  As I've watched some playstreams on earlier versions the difficulty have seemed to be quite ok, I think.

[bemused]

This has to be one of the most impressive wads i think ive ever seen.. absolutely mindblowing work!

[Lizardcommando]

The beginning of MAP10 (Nightmare) is fucking trippy. Although,I am currently stuck at the part where you fight 3 Barons of Hell in front of that large castle wall and the large pool of lava. I have no idea where to go from there.

[punnyone]

I just finished map 5. Really enjoying what I’ve played so far. Some of these levels remind me of some of Espi’s larger maps: Grand sprawling terrain, multiple paths, and many hidden areas to explore. 

[Jaska]

6 hours ago, Lizardcommando said:

The beginning of MAP10 (Nightmare) is fucking trippy. Although,I am currently stuck at the part where you fight 3 Barons of Hell in front of that large castle wall and the large pool of lava. I have no idea where to go from there.

 

Start was a success then :)

Spoiler

There is shootable switch behind vines nearby, which opens the door.

 

[Arbys550]

I'm at map13 right now and things are going pretty well but I'm finding it really tough on ammo. If that's your intention then it's fine, but if ammo starvation isn't intended then I would suggest adding more ammo.

 

For map11 I found the gameplay a little aggravating. I hated the distant cyber snipers and It seemed like for the first half of the map I was powerless to do anything and just had to avoid the monsters the whole time. It kind of made progression a chore. I would much rather have wanted a hands-on way to deal with the monsters. I was able to kill them eventually but gosh darn the ammo situation was a little brutal.

I liked the part with the two archviles though. It was probably the only part I enjoyed in the whole map.

 

Sorry if I come across as harsh

[Jaska]

5 hours ago, Arbys550 said:

I'm at map13 right now and things are going pretty well but I'm finding it really tough on ammo. If that's your intention then it's fine, but if ammo starvation isn't intended then I would suggest adding more ammo.

 

For map11 I found the gameplay a little aggravating. I hated the distant cyber snipers and It seemed like for the first half of the map I was powerless to do anything and just had to avoid the monsters the whole time. It kind of made progression a chore. I would much rather have wanted a hands-on way to deal with the monsters. I was able to kill them eventually but gosh darn the ammo situation was a little brutal.

I liked the part with the two archviles though. It was probably the only part I enjoyed in the whole map.

 

Sorry if I come across as harsh

 

Ammo starvation was sure intented on map11. Tried to do a different experience on that. You just should avoid monsters to get from the 1st area. Then monsters would teleport off that area and most would just be crushed or would follow you. I've noticed I didn't activate crushers so I have to fix that.

 

So do you think map13 has too little ammo too? Have to look it more closely.