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skillsaw

Heartland - final version available on idgames

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1 hour ago, Yugiboy85 said:

You can actually get a snippit of what esselfortium is capable of doing with the eternity engine. She released a map a few years ago called "vaporware". It showcases what the eternity engine is capable of doing and it's a pretty fun map overall. 

 

You know, in some ways, Heartless kind of fills the void of what I wanted to see from Vaporware.

 

Also I like that Essel wrote this reply to Skillsaw in the Vaporware thread a full decade ago:

Quote

Anyway, glad you (mostly) enjoyed it, and EE maps from you would be killer to see someday! I look forward to that :D

 

Wish finally granted I would say.

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Oh ho, it's all connected then. I think we can thank essel too for this wonderful mapset :) 

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Just finished the thing. Astounding job, this will be hard to top... In fact, it'll be impossible to top without setting CPUs (at least 1 of its cores) on fire. My R5 3600 suffered at many spots.


I've been browsing the thread a bit and I couldn't see anyone reporting this...

Spoiler

 

MAP05, on top of the furnaces, these textures are bleeding over its floor portal

etrn07.png.5f994d10a371cfd75d9d763e39323eb6.png


 

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Found another softlock on map05 - if you do some platforming and go over the wall here (using the crates) before you hit the nearby switch, there's a corner where you can get stuck in invisible geometry and not be able to use the ladder to get out. This is just after the catwalks around the smokestacks. For whatever reason, if you do this after you unleash all the gross off-brand octobrains, you don't get stuck.

etrn00.png

etrn02.png

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Thanks for the continued bug reports. I'm working on them and hopefully will have them fixed.

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On 3/8/2021 at 3:49 PM, be2lam said:

Hello everyone! Please tell me how run this game? Is there an instruction? After running the eternity, IWAD asks me, but in the archive there is only a pke file. Sorry for asking questions like this, but I've never run such games before. :) Thank you in advance!

 

@be2lam For whatever reason the .pke wouldn't open for me until I renamed it to a .pk3 file.

 

I've only gone through the first two maps so far so I will spare the opportunity to comment in-depth until later, but I'm very impressed so far.

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17 hours ago, Edward850 said:

If you want to have mouse look instead of mouse movement, Options->Mouse Options->Page 2->Enable Mouselook and Always Mouselook on.
If you want no vertical movement at all, Options->Mouse Options->Novert Emulation (or No Vertical Mouse Movement in devbuilds) on. 

 

Turning on Novert Emulation doesn't seem to do anything for me. I can still freely look up and down.

 

I've played through the first level though, and so far it seems fantastic. 

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Are there plans for a weapons mod spin-off? I reckon it could be fun playing other mapsets with Heartland's reworked arsenal.

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51 minutes ago, jmac said:

 

Turning on Novert Emulation doesn't seem to do anything for me. I can still freely look up and down.

That's because you want to turn off mouselook. Novert Emulation refers to the forwards/backwards movement when you move your mouse up and down.

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14 minutes ago, Turbine2k5 said:

That's because you want to turn off mouselook. Novert Emulation refers to the forwards/backwards movement when you move your mouse up and down.

So how do I turn off freelook, and have just right/left mouselook without forwards/backwards mouse movement? I've already set the vertical sensitivity to 0, but that didn't make any difference.

 

Edit: never mind, I've got it sorted out. Now I can properly enjoy the wad.

Edited by jmac

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7 minutes ago, jmac said:

So how do I turn off freelook, and have just right/left mouselook without forwards/backwards mouse movement? I've already set the vertical sensitivity to 0, but that didn't make any difference.

It's on the second page under Mouse/Gamepad options. Press PageDn and turn off "Enable Mouselook".

Screenshot (1).png

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2 minutes ago, Turbine2k5 said:

It's on the second page under Mouse/Gamepad options. Press PageDn and turn off "Enable Mouselook".

Screenshot (1).png

Yeah, it's good now, thanks. I thought having mouselook off and 0 vertical sensitivity was the first thing I tried, but I guess that was a false memory.

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Ok I have completed maps 6 and 7. I have to say that I had a great time with this mapset. So I am now going to briefly review all the wad.

 

Map01:

Spoiler

Skillsaw gives us a memorable opener by putting us in the train cab at the start of the level and allowing us to shoot enemies in a neighbouring cab and then opening the cab door to allow us to grab another pistol and go akimbo on the enemies. Once we are out of the subway, we are greeted by the Heartland, the decaying industrial wasteland where we fight through the standard doom enemies and also come across the Catharsi, the imp-like enemies that drop a bomb after they die.

 

After progressing our way through the wasteland, we arrive at another subway station where we are greeted by demons (including the infamous Suicide Bombers from Valiant make a return here) from trains before finally allowing us to leave the place.

 

The combat starts easy enough but gradually ramps up (something pretty common in all of the maps in Heartland) with a couple of slightly tricky (though not really hard) fights like the cramped room with imps+baron+archvile and the secret gas station fight.

 

Map02:

Spoiler

The shortest and arguably the easiest map in the set (with only the 2 Archvile fight being challenging). I really like construction site and love how we gradually climb on top of the building by walking on girders. Great verticality. The rocket zombies and the cybruisers are introduced here, both of which are pretty fun enemies.

 

Map03:

Spoiler

Another memorable map with great verticality. The map has an open layout with a variety of paths to go to. The fight where enemies teleport after the sludge is drained is the first real tough fight in the wad (and where I had my first death of the wad). This map also introduces the grells, which are kind of like cacodemons in their behavior, except they have less health but smaller and more versatile.

 

Map04:

Spoiler

Arguably the least memorable map in this wad for me, but still a solid map. I really liked the Archvile+chaingunners fight and the final fight of this level. Also introduces the flamethrower, which replaces the plasma gun as a more powerful, but also more risky weapon (can damage yourself at close range) and having limited range. 

 

Map05:

Spoiler

Solid level with plenty of memorable fights and great atmosphere. The fight involving the catwalk moving towards the stationed rocket zombies might arguably be the most memorable fight of the wad for me. Full usage of EE's feature to create this setpiece. Also I liked the fight where we get a megaarmor+soulsphere to fight a large group of grells and being blocked by the cybruisers on one side.

 

Map06:

Spoiler

Arguably the hardest map, but also the most fun map in wad with plenty of tough fights. From the very first cyberdemon fight, the tram fight, the 2nd cyberdemon+cacoswarm fight, the last two fights using the cluster bomb launcher and everything in between, this map is jammed with action.

 

I do think that the fight where we first get the cluster bomb launcher should be toned down a bit (especially since this fight is the first time we get to use the new weapon and the last fight of this map was actually easier than it). That fight was, in my opinion, easily the hardest fight in the wad for me.

 

Map07:

Spoiler

Taking away the weapons (basically putting us in a pistol start sort of situation, but in a cool way instead of a death exit) and then giving us axe+berserk to fight in the gladiator arena was pretty cool. After that we go through some parts to regain some weaponry before reaching the place with 3 switches, each requiring a skull key. Of course, we have to fight different traps to get each key. The blue key fight with tons of grells, hell knights and cybruisers was arguably the hardest fight in my opinion.

 

The last room (heart fight) however was a lot easier than what I excepted from a finale. Patience, good circle strafing and monster infighting made short work of the enemy waves. Not that I mind it. I am actually okay with allowing the player to relax and mow down the final opposition after what the player has endured up till this point.

 

Edited by ReaperAA

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I disabled autoaim and enabled mouselook, also added crosshair.

Is it possible to reduce the cross size and change its color to white?

Spoiler

793173576_eternity2021-03-1013-29-48-31.jpg.00e8fa75929fd6965dd9986fc6073ce9.jpg

 

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I don't want to sound rude, but the room with arch-vile and chaingunners on map 4 can frick right off.

 

Just to clarify: It's a great map pack so far, but that room is ridiculous. I can't imagine a reliable tactic to beat it.

Edited by ViolentBeetle

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I'm stopped at the start of map 6 this morning, and only encountered one bug in map 5. Only bug I've encountered so far in the set. The bug I found was the megapack conveyor belt section where it locked crushers upon reloading a save, and I couldn't get the megapacks, and had to idclip through. Other than that, everything is absolutely fantastic. I'm glad you brought cybruisers and kamikazes back. Makes the wad feel kinda like Valiant in a way, which, might I add, is my all time fav mapset.

Paul, please keep em coming. I'm glad of your return to form.

Cheers.

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Just now, Mr. Meanor said:

I'm stopped at the start of map 6 this morning, and only encounter one bug in map 5. Only bug I've encountered so far in the set. The bug I found was the megapack conveyor belt section where it locked crushers upon reloading a save, and I couldn't get the megapacks, and had to idclip through. Other than that, everything is absolutely fantastic. I'm glad you brought cybruisers and kamikazes back. Makes the wad feel kinda like Valiant in a way, which, might I add, is my all time fav mapset.

Paul, please keep em coming. I'm glad of your return to form.

Cheers.

That bug can be fixed by getting an Eternity devbuild.

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On 3/9/2021 at 1:23 AM, jmac said:

Before now, I somehow didn't even know eternity engine existed. I'm trying to play it now, but I'm getting frustrated with navigating the options. Am I an idiot, or is there really no way to disable mouse movement without entirely disabling the mouse?

I think there is an option under the mouse and gamepad options menu, called "no vertical mouse movement". Switch that to on, and mouse movement will be off.

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8 hours ago, 86232and said:

Is it possible to reduce the cross size and change its color to white?

Changing cross size is a thing in devbuilds. There's no ability to change its colour right now.

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To add some feedback, I got myself lost on a couple of points:

- On map01 I didn't realize the second subway entrance is not the first one. I entered i as a last resort and then was surprised to find a different station. Perhaps making the entrances more different will prevent others not realizing it.

- On map05 I had a hard time finding the red door after getting the red key. It was pretty near but seems not so obvious to find on such a complicated map.

 

 

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Man, oh man. Sorry I don't have the same level of depth others do here, but gosh this is great. Everything feels so thematically cohesive so far. Really loving this.

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I just finished the wad. It's very impressive both gameplay-wise and from a technical standpoint. I enjoyed all the new monsters and weapons in most cases, though I was irritated a few times at how hard to use the new weapons can be. A plasma rifle with shorter range that also hurts you is a huge downgrade from the default one and it's basically unusable in tight encounters. Same with the bfg replacement. The final fight of map07 was the peak of my annoyance in that aspect. Fortunately though, 95% of my time with the wad was greatly enjoyable. (The new weapons seem a bit inspired by the ones from Struggle by Antares btw. Was that your inspiration?)

 

My favorite maps in the set were probably map03, 06, and 07 excluding the final fight. My least favorite is map01. I feel like it had a pretty confusing layout and it felt a bit too long and overwhelming for the first map, though maybe I just wasn't used to the wad's pacing yet. (Ironically map01 contains my favorite midi of the wad, stewboy knocked it out of the park with that one)

 

This was my first time using the Eternity engine and I got used to it, but I'm still not a huge fan. Mostly because of how stuff looks in software rendering. I vastly prefer the modern look of GZDoom, but it's whatever. When a wad is this good I can play it with any settings needed.

 

Overall I loved the project, despite my nitpicks. That's one cacoward winner added to the list ;)

 

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Congratulations you made a masterpiece.

P.S: Eternity now is my favorite source port.

Edited by Valboom

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Thanks all :)

 

6 hours ago, Lorenz0 said:

 

The new weapons seem a bit inspired by the ones from Struggle by Antares btw. Was that your inspiration?

 

Xaser made the weapons, so he could speak to that, but I haven't gotten around to playing Struggle yet. It's towards the top of my to-play list though...

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This is so incredible. Intricate and detailed maps with brutal slaughter to match. I've never really played with the Eternity Engine but this mapset makes such a good case for it being the future of Doom due to how it revolutionizes how maps look and play. The music is also really nice too (shoutout to Subway Sandwich though that one is so good). Love this mapset.

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