The /newstuff Chronicles #267

[deathz0r]

Yo yo, dis iz da ghetto editz of /newstuff! Pimpmasta death dawg iz 'ere ta holla ya up wit sum hot licks 'n' sum really wack sheet, yo. Dis week we gots sum foteen zips ta fool round wit, so lets get down widdit!

• 2x Weapon Damage WAD - Julz_D
  Enhanced Port - N/A - 1kb
  I don't typically trust WAD files that are smaller than the text file itself, and this is no exception. Not only that, but the title name is misleading; Hitscan weapons require twice as much ammo to achieve the "double damage" effect, and the SG attack has been replaced by the SSG, effectively making it three times as powerful.
  
  
• British Doom Localisation Path - Simon Howard
  N/A - N/A - 6kb - (img)
  Caw blimey govnah, the capn is speakin some gibberish American language! We gots to fix him up hastely, gov.
  
  Crappy British accents aside, this patch fixes the decade-and-a-couple-years-long plague with that damn American language that Doom prefers to use. Fortunately, there was one Brit crazy enough to resolve that damn problem for us Brit (derived) players who like to play Doom and not go insane over the fact that "armour" is spelt "armor" in-game, and that "arse" should not be bastardised to the likes of "ass" or even "butt". Hooray for fraggle!
  
  
• Chemical Engineering Department - Lorenzo Davia
  Enhanced Port - SP - 95kb - (img) (img) (img)
  This was uploaded last year but strangely not reviewed, but it was uploaded again this week with some minor updates! Normally I wouldn't do this, but since it was never originally reviewed, I might as well do it this time round:
  
  Actually you know what, this map annoyed me. Long hallways with hundreds of doors that open and have small rooms on the other side, with nothing particularly interesting out of what I played. Detail was meh, gameplay was bleh, fun factor was eww.
  
  
• Day of the Acolyte - Samuel Villarreal
  SvStrife/GZDoom - SP - 489kb - (img) (img) (img)
  Once again, Kaiser proves why he is such a kickass mapper in general: The gameplay is fantastic and challenging, and the detail is never filled with unneccessary sectors and linedefs. Day of the Acolyte sets the player in a an area called Acolyte City, in which he needs to escape from the city plagued by evil for reasons unknown. The storyline is a slightly unprofessional compared to the original game, with an excessive (to me) use of exclamation marks, but it's still interesting regardless. It's definitely not a walk in the park however. This level makes brilliant use of certain Strife items. I won't say much more, just download it already, screw everything other map this week!
  
  
• Fight by the Docks - fezzador
  doom2.exe - SP - 21kb - (img)
  A small arena map with lots of monsters considering the size. The kind of thing you'd expect from 1994 or 1995, not 2006.
  
  
• Haloguns2-GL: Pistol Teaser - Caligari_87
  GZDoom - N/A - 2.9mb

  * Copyright / Permissions *
  Authors may NOT use the contents of this file as a base for
  modification.  Permissions have been obtained from original
  authors for any of their resources modified or included in this file.

  Seriously, what is the point of claiming ownership to a ripped weapon from another game that you get to the point of not allowing others to use it? Not only that, but I find "Permissions have been obtained from original authors" extremely pathetic. I seriously doubt that Caligari_87 had actually received permission from Bungie/Microsoft to rip a weapon from Halo and place it in a Doom WAD. Still, that's basically the same as making a MP3 rip of say... Enter Sandman, claiming that I made it and nobody is allowed to make a cover version of it. HELLO, COPYRIGHT ACT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE PURPOSE OF THAT ACT IS, CALIGARI_87? Of course, it might be called something else over there in the You-knighted States of Uh-merry-car, but I'm sure the general point is being sent across.
  
  Also, the really annoying thing is that I had to browse through several subdirs until I could find it. Just for that, this WAD gets further negative points.
  
  Because of that first paragraph of my review, I refuse to actually look at this WAD or even support something like this, therefore I'm not linking it. Seriously, I hope Ty deletes this from /idgames (note: it's called hg2-pist.zip).
  
  
• The Infected Tower Level 2 - Team IDGP
  ZDoom - SP - 104kb - (img) (img) (img)
  Ugh. Horribly dull detail and texturing, single-use teleport lines, and the filename is "The Infected Tower lvl2 .wad". Can it really get any worse?
  
  
• Possessed Marine - Chain Mail
  N/A - N/A - 46kb - (img)
  A nicely created sprite that uses the Marine, Sargeant and Former Human as a base. Has a decent amount of health too, and I really like the broken helmet effect that Chain Mail created. Thumbs up.
  
  
• PSX Doom Tribute. - john cartwright
  Boom - SP - 748kb
  Four maps that make use of the PSX Doom resources. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to obtain such resources, so I can't really give a fair review on this WAD. The maps did appear to be interesting from what I gathered, but I don't think you want to see screenshots of ZDoom displaying almost every wall with that UNKNOWN TEXTURE texture.
  
  
• The shadow War2 - Bryan Garza
  Skulltag - DM - 10kb - (img) (img)
  If this is a "Asome what of an inprovement" over his previous map, then I don't want to know what that map was. Honestly, you're not ready to upload to /idgames. Come back when you spend more than three hours working on a map.
  
  
• WinDOOM Build 001 - Microsoft
  Doom95 - N/A - 316kb - (img) (img) (img)
  Wow, this is a really interesting beta to fiddle around with. From my initial observations, I've noticed the following:
  
  * The title graphic only displays for a second, then immediately warps to E1M1
  * The skill level is set to Hurt Me Plenty
  * There is no status bar
  * There is no intermission, but you do see a small glitch at the start of E1M2 (possibly over levels too)
  * Messages are not displayed
  * Unlike Doom95, this build can actually render 640x400 instead of stretching to 640x400
  * Cheats do not appear to be implemented
  * No save game abilities
  * You cannot redefine the keys
  
  Judging from the date of this build, I'm presuming that it's either based on Doom v1.2 or a v1.3/1.4 beta. What's interesting to note is that there's no sound pitch that is featured in v1.2, so it seems less likely to be based on v1.2. I've only played up to E1M2 though, so I'm not sure if it's possible to reach E1M9, or what happens after E1M8.
  
  Yet another interesting thing is that WINDOOM-.exe appears to be a debug build. However, not much can be figured out from it other than the FPS counter is not included.
  
  
• WinDOOM April 13 Build - Microsoft
  Doom95 - N/A - 369kb
  This April 13th, 1995 build of WinDOOM appears to be based on Doom II v1.8. I can't figure out anything different from this and the final Doom95, other than the sound being really buggy and not buffering properly. However, there appears to be an .exe that might have been a proposed TCP/IP-based lobby service for Doom95, but it does not actually start windoom.exe, as the "Run" command has been greyed out.
  
  

There's also an update to QDOOM, which includes minor fixes and OGG music instead of MP3, and an open beta of Heretic, which isn't much different than the first shareware release, other than the fact you need to set the system date to 20th December 1994.

[Dr. Zin]

FP!


Nice intro.

[Scuba Steve]

Day of the Acolyte is one of the best levels I've played in years. I was talking to Kaiser last night and it turned out I broke the game sequence by sneaking into some place I wasn't supposed to, and getting the mauler early and beating the end guy without ever having done a single mission.

Intentional or not I haven't had that much fun in a long time, felt like a Super Metroid run. Today i'm going to try and complete the level with the intended direction.

[Sporku]

Day of the Acolyte is an awesome map. Definitely one of the best maps I've played in a while.

[kristus]

STRIFE AHOY!

[TheOx]

Youre mean!!! *cries*

how come my wad always get horribly bashed in newstuff but its gets ok reviews on its download page.

BTW, you suck at taking screenshots

[Kaiser]

kristus said:

Where the fork do I find the latest version of SVstrife? The latest I have is Beta3, and that's the latest I can find.

rawr

[Bucket]

deathz0r said:

Crappy British accents aside, this patch fixes the decade-and-a-couple-years-long plague with that damn American language that Doom prefers to use. Fortunately, there was one Brit crazy enough to resolve that damn problem for us Brit (derived) players who like to play Doom and not go insane over the fact that "armour" is spelt "armor" in-game, and that "arse" should not be bastardised to the likes of "ass" or even "butt". Hooray for fraggle!

Why in the hell would you want to do that? You TOTALLY sacrifice inflection and tone, which as we all know is the only thing Id wants us to remeber about Doom.

[kristus]

Kaiser said:

rawr

Sex!

[Kristian Ronge]

Hey! I remember WinDOOM... *shudders*

[myk]

Kristian Ronge said:
Hey! I remember WinDOOM... *shudders*

You sure that's the one? There's also one based on the released source; a port of DOSDoom v0.47.

[fraggle]

I win!

[bejiitas_wrath]

The PSX Doom Tribute uses resources from this wad.

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/wads/consoledoom.zip

I thought I would make that clear, I found it with a Google search in about 5 min.

Also linked to here:

http://www.geocities.com/hungry_mancubus/index.htm

[spank]

This might come in handy if you want to try the Heretic beta.

[funduke]

deathz0r said:

WinDOOM Build 001

Grazza gave me this link:
http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/wdfaq/
to the:
WinDoomFAQ version 1.2
By Tys von Gaza a.k.a. The (von)Gazanator!
The download link to windoom in it is dead.
It's interesting to check it out, but there is also some wrong information in it.

WinDOOM April 13 Build

The 'WinDOOM April 13 Build' plays also the demos from the 1.8 shareware, that you can get here:
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=1205

Greetings
Funduke

[SyntherAugustus]

Rofl deathz0r you're such a jerk to caligari. :)

If anybody who wants to look at it, it's a highres rip of a gun being used in Gzdoom. It's basically a test wad saying that Gzdoom supports highres weapon hand sprites along with alphas. YAY! or something.

[leileilol]

i swear i was gonna upload windoom the other day here

[Caligari87]

So I used the template TXT file that was provided. Try and tell me that this isn't the case with every other weapon rip out there. And the subdirs problem is the fault of my zipping utility. I tried to fix it, but couldn't. Get off your high-horse and STFU, moron.

[Bloodshedder]

So...you admit to your ignorance and carelessness, and he's the moron?

[Udderdude]

That open beta of Heretic was pretty dissapointing. No wierd/different stuff in the .wad, no level changes. Pretty much the shareware version with only 3 levels and a buggier .exe.

Kaiser's map was pretty cool, though. Yay strife!

[Grazza]

Caligari_87 said:

So I used the template TXT file that was provided.

Note the word "template". The idea is to fill in the information specific to your upload, and to delete or modify any statements that are not true (or relevant) as they stand.

[Tormentor667]

This once again shows that Kaiser is one of the most influencing and important persons in the whole DooM Community... just think about the developement of Sourceports for Strife, that he has lead forward. :) Great map beyond, very good work!

[Caligari87]

Bloodshedder said:

So...you admit to your ignorance and carelessness, and he's the moron?

As a matter of fact, yes.

My point being that nearly every other WAD in existence, including many with copyrighted content, still contain this notice, in exactly the same form. Most of us simply look at that and think it means whether or not we want people to be using the items in question for their own stuff, after we've done work on them.

In my case, I worked extremely hard on ripping, organizing, editing, fintuning, and programming this pistol, and I didn't want it to be used in any other WADs until the entire project was properly done. And, like 90% of the Dooming community, I simply took that paragraph to mean "I don't want you using this".

Yes, I was careless. However, deathz0r's the moron because he refused to see it as the simple mistake, and review the actual content for what it was. That's why he's a prick, in my eyes. I will gladly edit the TXT file in a heartbeat. I have no problems there. I DO have problems with people who make a mountain out of a molehill, though.

And not only that, he's a complete jerk about it. Had deathz0r said "You might want to think about fixing this because of (blah blah blah). I'm not going to review it now because it violates the copyright act," that would have been fine. I'm not disputing my mistake. I'm angry about not getting my WAD reviewed because deathz0r happened to be in the rotation this week.

Thank you very much for your time.

[myk]

Caligari_87 said:
My point being that nearly every other WAD in existence, including many with copyrighted content, still contain this notice, in exactly the same form. Most of us simply look at that and think it means whether or not we want people to be using the items in question for their own stuff, after we've done work on them.

Heh, if I had that point to make I'd denounce people practicing it, instead of repeating the abuse. Some wad texts do that, many don't. It doesn't matter what "most seem to think" in instances like this. One could be very wrong in drawing such conclusions. I hope most people don't do the same in regard to most laws, regulations, or public statutes. If it says "NO SMOKING", let's not smoke. Ty put that there and is willing to trust that each of us will go at length and make sure we're not using copyrighted material without permission; the archive could get in trouble from hosting material from commercial games, especially from active companies that enforce their copyrights.

In this case I'd suggest stating that the material you used is copyrighted by Bungie and/or Microsoft, letting Ty decide if it can go in (unlikely.)

[Bloodshedder]

myk essentially said what I was going to. Instead of repeating the same thing so many others have done, why not admit who the proper copyright owners are, state you don't exactly have permission to use their resources, and place a note saying that you wouldn't like it if someone else used your work (and I use "your work" somewhat loosely here)?

[Kristian Ronge]

myk said:
You sure that's the one? There's also one based on the released source; a port of DOSDoom v0.47.

I'm not completely sure... this was all so long ago (1997), but those screenshots looked awfully familiar. I distinctly remember using DOSDoom (and possibly also ports of it), now that you mention it.

[Hobbs]

Caligari_87 said:

So I used the template TXT file that was provided. Try and tell me that this isn't the case with every other weapon rip out there. And the subdirs problem is the fault of my zipping utility. I tried to fix it, but couldn't. Get off your high-horse and STFU, moron.

Mmmmhmmm. So I suppose text files that say you can use resources from the wad have that line written by a lawyer?

Caligari_87 also said:

And not only that, he's a complete jerk about it.

That seems to be a problem affilcting most people who dont agree with you.

[Caligari87]

Bloodshedder said:

myk essentially said what I was going to. Instead of repeating the same thing so many others have done, why not admit who the proper copyright owners are, state you don't exactly have permission to use their resources, and place a note saying that you wouldn't like it if someone else used your work (and I use "your work" somewhat loosely here)?

Caligari_87 said:

Yes, I was careless ... I'm not disputing my mistake. ... I will gladly edit the TXT file in a heartbeat.

I'm going to do it right now, as a matter of fact.

EDIT: Done and done, waiting for update from archive maintainer. Happy?

[deathz0r]

Caligari_87 said:

I'm angry about not getting my WAD reviewed because deathz0r happened to be in the rotation this week.

What?

I apologise for the late response (further electrical problems at home, turns out one of my fridges' had gone faulty and was causing the constant fuse shortages that happened after the initial one), but that is just stupid. If you want to avoid a particular reviewer, then it shows that you're afraid to let them voice their opinion, whether they are right (as I was) or wrong. I've grown a reputation of being an asshole reviewer: Is it because I'm harsh or because I'm pointing out the facts about the WAD without sweetening it?

[wildweasel]

Whether you reviewed it or not isn't the issue to me - but the fact that you refused to link it is downright childish.