Post your demos!

[DooMer 4ever]

Grazza said:

Groovy!

Well, now that the tables are there, I suppose we'd better fill them...

I can't wait to start :)

[Nanami]

Site's been updated with Rich's information. I also added the folders for the PWADs, but the page isn't up yet.

Oh, I was wondering. Would anyone mind if I "rated" the demos? Like, give them a star rating? 1-5 asteriks. For example, I'd love to give five stars to Magikal's run of Refueling Base, or Rich's pacifist run of E1M8, or Grazza's nightmare run of The Spirit World. What's everyone think?

http://xfury.net/doom

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention. Check out the review, download the wad, and do a demo or two. =)

[Grazza]

Nanami said:

Oh, I was wondering. Would anyone mind if I "rated" the demos? Like, give them a star rating? 1-5 asteriks. For example, I'd love to give five stars to Magikal's run of Refueling Base, or Rich's pacifist run of E1M8, or Grazza's nightmare run of The Spirit World. What's everyone think?

Rating the demos seems like a fine idea, and adds interest to the site. Just make it clear it is purely for fun, and state your criteria. BTW, I think my map28 run is less deserving of praise than most of the other demos I've sent; with some effort I could knock 30 seconds off the time (and still be nearly 20 seconds away from the compet-n record!).

In any case, I'd suggest only giving out the top rating for truly sensational runs (the other two you mention might well be, of course; I haven't watched them). Unless you plan on devaluing the asterisk at some point :)

[Nanami]

I could perhaps do 1-10 star ratings and give the really good ones 8 or 9. 10 would be for something really impressive. Most of mine would probably be a 5. =D

I was pretty impressed by the run, Grazza, because it was Nightmare and there were so many badguys (Arch-Viles, Pain Elementals, Revenants, Spider Masterminds!). Now if you could do better than that, it would be very impressive indeed.

Rich's pacifist run was something I thought was impossible before watching it. And when I saw the file, I said "What? That's impossible. He must mean a different level or something."

Magikal's demo made me go "Woah!" because he did it so fast and furious, and still got 100% kills. Very nice. Loved it.

[Grazza]

OK, if your criterion is "How impressed I was when I watched it for the first time", then that's fine. In fact, it's probably a very good way of rating the demos, since no one can ever be in a position to quibble.

Map28 can go a lot faster thanks to a little trick; I decided not to use it in a "just playing normally" demo, since I only know about it because I have watched a lot of demos that use it. The best I've done is a 1:08; if I get it under a minute, I'll send it in!

[DEMOn]

ratings are a double-edged sword.
I have ratings on the DSDA so people can get an idea of what I thought of the demo initially, and its appeal to the average doomer.
for example: XitVono's Tyson E2m8 demos are amazing, but they don't get a high rating from me because they are somewhat less than flashy. they are exciting, but a little long.
the DSDA ratings are my perspective solely. just how I feel after watching the demo...
some of the factors that go into the rating are:
can I do that?
would Sedlo be impressed?
would the average doomer be impressed?
how does it rate versus the other runs on that map?
my first impression.
the "wow" factor of the demo -- flashy bfg kills, etc...
the difficulty of the demo -- could anyone record that?

ratings leads to competition/competitiveness/I'm better than you-type atmosphere.
ratings do let casual site watchers know what demos are worth watching.
perhaps placing the Compet-n record on the page, would be enough to communicate how good the demo is?
I'm just warning that ratings leads into a mess... it is good from some points of view, but terrible from others.
I'm not opposed to it, but I'd think most players for your site would be.
just my 10 cents...

[magikal]

It's a very dangerous area to rate demos (considering the 'spirit' of this site) and should be avoided at all costs imo.
I would even consider not showing the times, one person already asked me to remove their demos as they felt things were getting too competitive.

[Grazza]

I would have thought that rating them for "artistic impression" would be a good way to make it clear that this is a site where times are not all that counts. Times should still be displayed though.

[Nanami]

I'll think about the ratings. I'll have to consider deeply about if I should do it or not.

As for the times, I think I'll keep them. Most demos are going under "style" anyway, so time isn't really all that important. The ones under time are only competing for a personal best. Besides, without the time, which part would I link to the file? =P And without the times, I'd have to come up with a new filenaming system and rename all 70 files or so. It's also a good way to distinguish the files if someone has more than one for a level on the same skill.

[Nanami]

Site updated again... again. This time Espi's stuff was added. We now have a Plutonia demo.

Everyone else who hasn't mailed me yet about their demos, please do so we can get on to the good stuff. =)

Oh. We may have a message board soon if I can manage to put one up there.

[DEMOn]

THAT is the coolest thing about the Pdang site.
It's not that I'm only 5 seconds slower than Arno(although that is always a cool place to be!) it is that it is my personal best.
the whole time I played for that site, it was always about ME. my demos, how much better I can do now than when I started.
the top players really start from the "let's see how low this RUN can go" not "let's see if I can beat Dashiva" -- as a group they optimize the runs, not beating each other.
we can take a good lesson from that -- or more to the point, don't be hurt if Rich beats Grazza who beats D.Anomaly who beats Nanami... they are just playing the game -- their goal is not to best someone else.
but back OT, please keep the times. :)

[Grazza]

Yes, that's how I've always viewed this - the only competition involved is that we are each trying to do the best runs we can on these maps in whatever manner most interests each of us. And if we can exchange ideas, tips, etc., so that we each make better demos that we could have done working on our own, then that's just perfect.

[FirebrandX]

I'm a little more competitive in that I'd always want to be the best in world at whatever I can accomplish. Take the SSX snowboarding game series on the home console systems for example: I spent over a year of my life painfully shaving tenths of a second off on each speed record for all of the race mode tracks. I had several challengers from all over the world, who would pick one track to try and beat my time on it. I'd have to concentrate for several hours a day just to keep my time as the world record. Eventually the challenger would beg off after 2 months of this, but then I'd have to start all over again on another track with a new challenger out for blood. The intense pressure nearly made me crack, but sticking with it paid off and I am now widely known as the world's best SSX racer. Even the programmers were blown away by my race times, stating I knew more about the game then they did!

After all was said and done, my challengers and I became good friends. There was only one person who got really angry with me because I wouldn't allow anyone to hold a 1st place score on race mode. This person started to cheer for me to lose, but eventually left the SSX community when others started accusing him of being a troll.

[Rich]

Nanami!

Finally remembered my password, after a week. :)

The demo site looks good!

Check your mail for my E3M8 Pacifist.

[Grazza]

FirebrandX: It sounds to me like you engaged in an extensive search for the truth, and were largely battling against the game itself. Was it really all just "to beat the other guy"? I think it is pretty rare for someone to become the best in the world at something without having a genuine love for the activity itself.

[FirebrandX]

Grazza


You're right in that it wasn't so much to beat the other guy, but to simply find the ultimate truth of each track. Later on it became competitive because an expert from London started talking trash about how he was the top racer and that London would "own" me. It got on my nerves and I made it my mission in life to prove him wrong. Then I realized he was just having fun getting to me, so we both started trash-talking (creatively) back and forth. For one track "Aloha Ice Jam", I wrote a news report about archaeologists discovering an ancient wine bottle dated "42.59" on the coast of Hawaii. This was my new speed record time for the track. He got the joke and we started doing elaborate trash-talk like that back and forth.

After that, I then had to defend against an Australian racer, who only played race mode SSX and absolutely no other video games. He turned out to be VERY difficult to defend against, mostly because he had the same determination I did to be the best. In nearly all of my records over him, I only have him by 1 or 2 seconds. Despite this small ammount, our runs are so well executed that 1 or 2 seconds ends up being a lifetime.

So basically, it didn't become competitive until other racers decided they wanted to de-thrown me. It become like a quest for many racers, so I very much wanted to set unbeatable times to avoid the victory taunts I had received in the past. It was an extremely proud accomplishment for racers to beat me, so whenever it happened, I'd get an earful.

[Rich]

Nanami!

Please check your mail for my Map 21 Pacifist demo.


Thanks!

[Nanami]

Rich, you're really good at those pacifist demos. I'm going to watch the MAP21 later when I get the chance. I watched E3M8. That was neat. Now you should do a pacifist of E2M8. =P

The site's coming along great. Soon I'll have everyone's demos up and we can start recording more demos to post. And I might have that message board up soon. ^_^

By the way, if anyone is interested, I was thinking last night about a project we could get into. I remember reading a quote about how hard Doom 2 would be in Nightmare! mode. I was thinking perhaps we, as a group, could eventually beat all of Doom 2 in Nightmare!, one level at a time. We already have MAP02, MAP08, and MAP28. I think we may have more, but those are the only ones on the site.

What would be a really cool project would be to have beaten every level (1-32) in Nightmare!, regardless of how it was beaten, as long as it is beaten. Anyone could beat a level and it count because this is a group project. Say, Grazza could beat MAP12 and Anomaly could beat MAP22 and I could beat MAP04.

There are some levels that would be definate hangups because of the difficulty. Dead Simple comes to mind. I'm sure we could devise a plan of some kind to finish this level though. Also, since this would be a difficult project to finish, we should consider taking whatever shortcuts available. But, we should make sure not to cheat for any of the levels. For example, no jumping and no mlook for MAP30.

There would be no competition in this. It would be a group effort to accomplish a goal and might even make us more of a team in the end. If two people finished a Nightmare! level at the same time and uploaded it, both would be accepted, of course. It doesn't matter if we have 36 Nightmare! demos for each level. Although it might be wise to "claim" a level so nobody spends many hours on a level and is disappointed when someone else finishes it. It's also fine if you upload a demo that you know already has a Nightmare! demo. And you can always still do normal demos that aren't for the project.

There's no time limit. We don't need to finish this anytime this week, this month, or even this year. I just thought it would be a bit of friendly sport for everyone out there who's stuck for a demo idea.

You could play any level any way you wanted. If just getting through the level is too easy for you, try to do it your favorite way. Try for max or try for pacifist or tyson or speed if you like.

I'm not sure if I can help much with the Nightmare! demos, but perhaps I could do a few of the first levels to get them out of the way so we could concentrate on harder levels. I admit, some are going to be very difficult, and some might even be impossible. But there's no harm in trying, is there? So what does everyone think?

[DooMer 4ever]

Hey, that's a great idea! I suck at Doom in nm but I can always learn. Now if I could only find a good map to start on... They are all so damn hard! Well, I could always do map01 ;)

[DEMOn]

4, 7, 9, 12, 17, and 29 are not easy.
the others, I could do all of them for you today. ;)

[DooMer 4ever]

DEMOn said:

4, 7, 9, 12, 17, and 29 are not easy.
the others, I could do all of them for you today. ;)

So you would leave the hard levels to those of us who suck? ;) Maybe we should concentrate on levels that are hard for us so that the good players would take the hard levels and so.

[DEMOn]

You know me, I always take the easy way out. :)

[Nanami]

Agreed. Leave the hard levels for the uber l33t players. =P But I'd be happy to do a few if I can. Anyone out there have any "favorite" levels they'd like to do? It'd be great to have everyone do at least one or two. I have little experience in Nightmare!, but I thought this might be a fun project.

After this, we could do each Doom episode and then maybe move on to Final Doom. Oh boy, but Final Doom is hard enough.

[Rich]

Nanami said:

There would be no competition in this. It would be a group effort to accomplish a goal and might even make us more of a team in the end. If two people finished a Nightmare! level at the same time and uploaded it, both would be accepted, of course. It doesn't matter if we have 36 Nightmare! demos for each level. Although it might be wise to "claim" a level so nobody spends many hours on a level and is disappointed when someone else finishes it. It's also fine if you upload a demo that you know already has a Nightmare! demo. And you can always still do normal demos that aren't for the project.

I would be willing to try maps 14, 19 and 23 in Doom II and E3M4, E4M7 and E4M8 in Ultimate Doom. It's been awhile but none of these were easy back when I did them in nitemare for the first time.

[Nanami]

I'll try some demos when I get home. I'll do the first couple. =P I'll try to do Dead Simple if I can, but I seriously doubt I'll be able to make it. But I'll definately do a demo or two.

[Grazza]

I think demopacks are one of the most positive things this site/thread can aim to produce. Personally, I'm more interested in demopacks on less well explored pwads, but have nothing against the idea of iwad packs.

Obviously, it would make sense for anyone wishing to try one of these maps on NM to check out the compet-n demos for route/trick ideas. Perhaps the 30nm movie runs (and not necessarily the most recent ones) would give the best idea of how these maps can be most safely completed on NM, given that there the player needs to take a route that gives a high percentage of success.

Well, I already seem to have contributed two demos (8 and 28; Espi did a much better one on map02). I can try map29, I guess... I'm not stuck for demo ideas though (in fact, I have a huge backlog of maps where I'm meaning to do demos - the H2H-XMAS pack will have to wait until Xmas 2003, for instance), so I'm not desperate to claim any spots.

Regarding DEMOn's list of difficult Doom2 maps for NM, aren't 15 (with normal exit - come on, we can't leave that out!), 22 and 23 pretty tricky too? Or does 22 just need a slice of luck? I recall that was one of the biggest sticking points in the early days of 30nm runs.

[Rich]

[QUOTE]Grazza said:
[B]I think demopacks are one of the most positive things this site/thread can aim to produce. Personally, I'm more interested in demopacks on less well explored pwads, but have nothing against the idea of iwad packs.


I'm sorry the site direction doesn't seem to be following your wishes. You complained about people being familiar with routes once before and suggested we use the Iditarod pwad. I took the time to complete all ten levels but, to the best of my knowledge, you completed the first four and I haven't heard anything since. Regardless, in my experience whatever skill a person has will reflect itself in familiar iwad levels or in unfamiliar pwad levels.


Grazza said:

Obviously, it would make sense for anyone wishing to try one of these maps on NM to check out the compet-n demos for route/trick ideas. Perhaps the 30nm movie runs (and not necessarily the most recent ones) would give the best idea of how these maps can be most safely completed on NM, given that there the player needs to take a route that gives a high percentage of success.


I think this is to be expected. I doubt anyone wants to make a complete fool of themself.


Grazza said:

Well, I already seem to have contributed two demos (8 and 28; Espi did a much better one on map02). I can try map29, I guess... I'm not stuck for demo ideas though (in fact, I have a huge backlog of maps where I'm meaning to do demos - the H2H-XMAS pack will have to wait until Xmas 2003, for instance), so I'm not desperate to claim any spots.


Nanami suggested we identify levels we would like to try. I too am not desperate to claim any spots so anyone else is welcome to choose the same levels I picked. In fact, I'll gladly do other levels. I really couldn't care less.

[Grazza]

I detect some hostility, and don't really understand why. I try to make helpful suggestions, and state where my preferences and interests lie. Can that really be so bad?

Also, my spare time is limited, and I don't have time to do all the recording that I would like to - that's just an unfortunate fact.

I thought it was worth making some comments about the 30nm runs, since if people only look at the single-map NM runs at compet-n (which may involve difficult tricks that, for instance, only work one time in fifty), they might be somewhat discouraged from trying.

[Opulent]

yes, map15 regular exit is very hard... actually, maybe the hardest.
I don't think 22 and 23 are all that hard... but only because 22 is so short.
I wish Rich wasn't mad at Graham. =/

[DooMer 4ever]

Grazza said:

I detect some hostility

So do I. I wonder what went to Rich, maybe he's mad because you didn't make demos of all the iditarod.wad maps?

I can understand your point that pwad records are more interesting. It's a bit frustrating to do a demo of iwads when you know you can never reach the record time. The only problem in pwad recordings is that if the levels are completely strange to you it takes so much time to survive the level in decent time. You have to complete the maps many times just to remember which way to take. And if you do a maxdemo you must find all the secrets and so on...

And also:

Rich said:

I doubt anyone wants to make a complete fool of themself.

I don't see how that is possible. I'm impressed to see any level completed with nm, no matter how it's done.