The /newstuff Chronicles #104

[deathz0r]

Hey, Mr. Hyde reporting here for another session of me bitching and moaning, and all of you making comments about how harsh I am. This time around I'm a little bit more happier this week, because nine out of the twelve wads that are showcased this week are DM wads. Unfortunately, seven of them are by the same author (why he didn't put them all in the same wad confuses me), and two of them are almost identical. Oh well, nothing is perfect in this world.

• Band of Capturesby Pekka "kulma" Korolainen - (img) (img)- Wow, this is a really nice effort for a first-timer, especially that it's a CTF level for Skulltag, which aren't common sights. A very large map, suited for at least 4 players per team. Nice, simpilistic detailing, and a very promising gameplay, from what the layout looks like. However, I really hated the rooms with the crates in them. I couldn't reach the powerups, plus it was way too dark for my standards. Other than that, it's a very good level that should be added to your growing collection of CTF wads. Skulltag required.
• Catastropheby Magikal - (img) (img) (img) (img)- This map is too hard at the start. I kept getting killed all the time, so I had to put on god mode just so I can take a look at the level. I must say, the detailing is excellent in some areas, but those same areas lagged the living shit out of my 533mhz celeron with 192mb RAM, while playing at 640x400. There's also 669 monsters roaming in the map, most of them being near the start. That can frustate lesser skilled players very easily, and it also did to me. It also has great usage of the 3D floor thing, but it can heavily lag older computers, depending on what resolution you have it set to. Some rooms are cramped and they're also filled with monsters. If you're looking for a hard challenge, download this wad today, but those who are lesser skilled should stay away from this wad, unless curiousity decides otherwise. Enhanced Doom port required.
• Darkmatch Comboby Kristian "Ebola" Käll - (img) (img)- Fellow #zdoom op, Ebola (who made the famous Legacy wads Nimrod and Phobia) has released a 2-level DM wad which "can be run on vanilla Doom 2". I opened it with WinDoom, it crashed. Opened it with doom2.exe, it crashed. Opened it with PRBoom, it crashed. Opened it with ZDoom, it came up with some error about cameras. I loaded Legacy up and it runs fine. Weird...Detailing is superb, definitely something I'd expect from him. But, the gameplay is horrid. Map01 has to be one of the smallest levels that I've ever seen, just slightly smaller than UDM1 Map03, which I made. Map02 is also very small, plus the doors to get inside don't even open, making the switches outside useless. To summorise it, it's a masterpiece in the detailing aspect, but the size of the maps and the lack of exits make the levels feel like rushed jobs. Legacy required, despite what the text file says.
• Hellbent's DM wads by Jason "Hellbent" Root - Since Hellbent decided to upload 7 zips for some unknown reason, I'm gonna be a slack bastard and put them all in the same area and give out simple reviews for each and every level. Also, I don't exactly understand why he decided to make them all as seperate wads, since they all use the same sky texture.[list]
• LA24 .txt - (img)- If you wanted a reason to hate the BROWNGRN texture, here is your excuse. If it didn't look like that there was vomit everywhere, I'd say that this would of been a great Free For All level.
• LA25 .txt - (img)- More BROWNGRN goodness. Like LA24, it's a good Free For All level, but the overuse of BROWNGRN almost makes me want to puke in my toilet.
• LA26 .txt - (img)- Wow, I think this is the only level out of all seven that doesn't have any BROWNGRN textures. I liked the room which had the random blinking sectors, but the level itself was a bit too gray for me.
• LA27 .txt - (img)- I was expecting this level to not have any sightings of BROWNGRN, like la26. I was shocked, but at least it wasn't overloaded with it.
• LA28A .txt - (img)- I don't know why, but it vaguely reminds me of Dwango5 Map01. Maybe it's because of all the BROWNGRN that I'm seeing.
• TIC2 .txt - (img)- Monsters in DM levels is not a good idea at all. Also, the main area seems to resemble the outside area of MAP06. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he copy+pasted it from there.
• TIC2A .txt - It looks like the same as TIC2, but you can get out of the pits by looking for some really hard to notice steps.
• The Adventures of MassMouth Do Over!by Cyb - (img) (img) (img) - If you haven't played The Adventures of Massmouth yet, I strongly recommend you to go download it now. It's a very awesome wad, and it has a great sense of humour as well. You play as Massmouth, an average zeebloid who has been selected to be the seventh member of an elite group of people lead by an infamous intergalatic collector. Anyway, before I start to paste the entire story here, you run around doing very original tasks, including grabbing the Windows Source CD, and luring a Dwarf Baron into a cage. The maps aren't uber-1337 detailed, but you can easily identify what places you're at. His use of scripting is very good, and the weapon and monster replacements fit in great. Overall, this is a wad that you should definitely add to your collection. ZDoom required.
• Out of Phase 3: One Cloudy Afternoonby Karthik Abhiram - (img) (img)- A small map by Karthik, and a damn good one at that. Very nice detailing job, plus the gameplay has a very strong arcadish feel. Even though the level is occuring during the afternoon, I kinda jumped when I saw the mancubus magicly appear in front of my face without any teleport fog. Also, it may be a bit hard to start the level at first for some, as the revenant that is at the megasphere is a bit annoying, but after you grab the megasphere, it's mostly easy from there. The only problem I had with the level was that it was a bit too short for a single-level wad, but I'm sure someone will disagree with me. He wrote in the text file that you can play a DM game in it. I didn't have the time to test it, though. I give this level a thumbs up.

[DOOM Anomaly]

Hmmmmmm...Sounds Pretty Hardy. Me gotta try em'.

[Cacodreams]

I didn´t get it! Is this ´The Adventures of MassMouth Do Over!´ a second episode or what? The screenshots seems to be from ´The Adventures of Massmouth´...

[Vile]

"Do Over" is implying that it's the same wad, but you should play it again to experience the new camera angles, game tweaks, etc.

I did, and I liked it a lot. Good stuff this week. :)

[Kinsie]

I never played the original Massmouth, but this remake rocks.

[Cacodreams]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm... I think now I got it... Thanx for the explanations! I think deathz0r should be clearer about that! (don´t get me wrong, OK, deathz0r?)

[deathz0r]

heh, i forgot to mention that.

[kristus]

Why is my old Darkmatch maps in this weeks newstuff?

Who combined them?

Why doesn't the switches work?

Anyway, to defend my reputation as mapper. These maps weren't suppposed to be any fun. It was more than anything a mockery wad. I was planning to make 32 maps of detailed bad gameplay maps for darkening e2. To poke fun at Gothic DM wads.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

I'm actually surprised there, as for once he wasn't really harsh on the single player wads! Even Massmouth (which is really good IMO) which allows you to run around during the scripts and cut the camera scenes short (something which deathy normally bitches about) didn't get flamed for scripting bugs. Karthik's wad is pretty good as well, haven't played magikal's map yet.

[magikal]

Thanx deathzOr for a very fair review. Yes it's tough on UV but it's extra easy on HNTR with much less powerful monsters. In this map most fighting scenarios have an easy way to be resolved, you just have to suss how, a lot of work went into the gameplay.
Yes you'll get slowdown (in the final area) if your comp is below about 800mhz with a decent video card, sorry. Lowering your resolution helps. It runs slightly faster with ZDoom and Boom.
Sorry, but the screenshots are crap btw.

[Epyo]

Does Massmouth work in zdoom 1.23 yet?

[Wobbo]

Daethz0r, you rey shoudl cover GAMEPLAY in the reviews, especially deathamtch. who gives a fuck what it LOOKS LIKE, its doom- a 10 year old engine. Especially in hellbents maps, you barley said anything about how it PLAYS just how it LOOKs

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Epyo said:

Does Massmouth work in zdoom 1.23 yet?

That's what I played it with.

[Epyo]

Oh Goodie, Ill go download it.

[boris]

Wobbo said:

who gives a fuck what it LOOKS LIKE, its doom- a 10 year old engine.

I do. I don't want to play ugly maps. The looks is what sets the atmospohere. If looks are not important, why are there more than 1 texture? We could then as well play maps with STARTAN2 all over the palce, right?

[999cop]

is there even a ctf server up for skulltag right now?

[boris]

999cop said:

is there even a ctf server up for skulltag right now?

If there was you'd not able to find it, because the master server is down (I think) ;)

[999cop]

yea, i notice

/me pokes carnevil

[Cyb]

Ultimate DooMer said:

Even Massmouth (which is really good IMO) which allows you to run around during the scripts and cut the camera scenes short (something which deathy normally bitches about) didn't get flamed for scripting bugs.

Heh, well the only camera scene I remember that can be cut short is the one on map05 (with the bats) and I did that because it's kinda long and rather than sit through it again if you die, you can just move to start up the map.

As for running around during scripts...I don't recall that being able to happen, but...

[kulma]

hey deathie, i msged you on irc i don't know if you noticed, but there is a .lmp of me getting the powerups from the crate rooms at http://gamma.nic.fi/~kulma/k-ctf1.lmp and a .txt file (read it if you don't have a brain and can't run the .lmp) http://gamma.nic.fi/~kulma/k-ctf1.lmp.txt
i didn't nab the backpacks tho, those are actually harder than the mega-ups. :)

[Hellbent]

TIC2 .txt
-
- "...the main area seems to resemble the outside area of MAP06. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he copy+pasted it from there."

If you read the damn text file you'd see that I used map06 as a base to make the map, which isn't automatically a bad thing as you so automatically imply.

Also, when you review DM maps, you should talk more about the gameplay than how much they resemble someone puking all over them....

[deathz0r]

kristus said:

To poke fun at Gothic DM wads.

hahahaha. man, if i knew that when i reviewed them...

[Hyena]

Cyb!!! You answered my prayers!

I liked your reviews, Deathz0r. The only thing I would change is the "puke in my toilet" bit. Generally, I'd assume any puking to be done would be in a toilet of some sort and it's sort of redundant. If you wanted it to be funny, you'd probably do well to suggest the last place someone would expect to puke (It makes me want to puke gallons of extravegant colours all over my school's computer lab) or to do one better (It would take a very large toilet to hold all the puke I unleash at sight of this wad)
Other than that, perfect. :)

Edit: I just came up with another good one. Try this: "It makes me want to puke vigourously into the nearest toilet-resembling object. P.S. Sorry about your birdbath, Linguica."

[Kid Airbag]

boris said:

I do. I don't want to play ugly maps. The looks is what sets the atmospohere. If looks are not important, why are there more than 1 texture? We could then as well play maps with STARTAN2 all over the palce, right?

It's deathmatch, though. Who cares what the level looks like as long as the DM play is good. Remember Gothic99 and how nice it was to walk around in but how bad it was for DMing in?

[myk]

Why is the point there that it is DM? Why do you think DM maps can get away with being ugly while SP ones can't?

[deathz0r]

if it uses more than 4 textures or if it has carefully checked vertical alignment, i'll play it. anything else just looks too simple.

[Cacodreams]

Wobbo said:

Daethz0r, you rey shoudl cover GAMEPLAY in the reviews, especially deathamtch. who gives a fuck what it LOOKS LIKE, its doom- a 10 year old engine. Especially in hellbents maps, you barley said anything about how it PLAYS just how it LOOKs

Exactly for Doom almost being a 10 years-old engine maps should catch someone by the eyes, because nowadays there are games with better graphics.

[fraggle]

Yay massmouth

[fen boi]

Archvile46 said:

It's deathmatch, though. Who cares what the level looks like as long as the DM play is good. Remember Gothic99 and how nice it was to walk around in but how bad it was for DMing in?

Time spent on texturing/detail is worth it for DM, it aids gameplay if you know exactly where you are in relation to weapons/powerups/teleports etc when you spawn. If the level consists of boxy and mono-textured rooms its a lot more difficult to memorise.

[Kid Airbag]

myk said:

Why is the point there that it is DM? Why do you think DM maps can get away with being ugly while SP ones can't?

Because gameplay is THE MOST important thing in DM. Whereas, in single player, gameplay and aesthetics are about equally important.