Mapgame update: Progress: holy god its almost done

[Fletcher`]

Well, I finally got it out there. Now I just need it playtested for a while before I can release it to t/ns!

Get it here!

[Lizardcommando]

Ok, I just tested the maps out and I have to say that there were some interesting textures. I didn't really like that blue texture, namely that one in E1M1. I dunno if it's just me but that texture really bugs, especially when it's used alot in a map. I don't really like those custom skull textures. They don't match with the E1 style IMO. They feel more suited for E3 style maps. Also, that slimefall texture is a bit weird.

One more thing, what's up with the Flare Gun? It seems more like an Assault Rifle than a Flare Gun. The maps, overall, were alright. I'd say just use some better textures and maybe make some of the maps (E1M5-E1M8) easier with a pistol start. As of now, I'd rate this map a 3/5.

[BlitZ]

Darkhaven said:

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I am absolutely forced by the laws of fucking nature to say that this WAD looks absolutely amazing by all rights and perspectives.

I concur.

[esselfortium]

I played through e1m1 and half of e1m2 before dying. Didn't feel like restarting e1m2 because I'm a lazy bum, but everything I saw was extremely impressive. I'll have to play through, or at least take a look at, the rest of this later on.

The architecture looks excellent, and the triggers that turn solid-looking floors into stairways to new areas = totally awesome. Some texture choices are a bit odd, and you've got a bit of aligning left to do, but overall this is looking like a great mapset.

Also, many thanks for making it compatible with limit-removing ports. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to check it out. Not that I have anything against sourceport mods, I just can't run most of them. ;P

[Rotting Corpse]

I have gotten through E1M1. Its kick ass so far. I send you a pm when I finish it.

[Belial]

I've noticed some misaligned textures and stuck monsters here and there.

I agree with what Lizardcommando said about the textures. The slimefall texture won't tile vertically, no matter how often you use it.

I hated the shotgun firing sound.

I think there's some problem with getting the red key in E1M4. You might've forgotten to make that switch work :P

PrBoom crashed several (actually lots of) times when I was fighting the turret enemies (W_GetNumForName: dschgun not found). Also some turrets just refused to attack me.

You can end up having -1 bullets when using the chaingun :P

The monsters in the nukage at the end of E1M5 are a pain to kill.

Huge HOM at the invisibility secret in E1M6.

In E1M7 the pitch black room with the yellow keycard looks odd with the blue ceiling textures and monsters fully visible. The monster teleporter at the exit is badly done :P

Didn't have trouble beating the maps from a pistol start, though some maps would play better if ammo distribution was a bit more generous.

Well it's certainly not class_ep, but it's a good wad. A bit too buggy though.

[Fletcher`]

Belial said:

Well it's certainly not class_ep, but it's a good wad. A bit too buggy though.

That's what the playtesting's for.

[Sporku]

Aside from the bugs Belial mentioned, it's a really good WAD. I enjoyed it thoroughly. :D

[deathz0r]

Belial said:

Also some turrets just refused to attack me.

See, I wasn't the only one with this problem!

Bel has mentioned basically everything I said yesterday in IRC, but I haven't finished E1M6, nor have I played E1M7 or E1M8 yet.

[scwiba]

Just finished the last level. Here's a list of things I noticed on the first, fairly quick runthrough.

General:
Texture issues (mostly minor alignment problems -- a lot of doors are misaligned)
I liked most of the new textures and flats, but I have to agree the skulls don't really fit.
The changes to the blues in the palette are fine, thought it seems everyone is doing it these days. The pinks swapped with oranges, on the other hand, makes some things look weird (blood and muzzle flashes)
The flaregun is pretty sweet, but I'm not sure about the name. I think it also would have been better to leave the chaingun in and replace the plasma gun, but that's just me.

M1
Sector 277 has the wrong ceiling flat.

M2
The lights in the ceiling of one hallway don't line up (this was mentioned when you posted early screens)
I don't like the door textures in two rooms that are used on sidedefs near the ceiling (also mentioned after you posted some screenshots)
The doortrak on the door at sector 192 isn't lower unpegged.
The sector 160 door only seems to open once, so if you miss it, you're stuck.
I'm a sucker for tekwall stuff, but those last few rooms were great.

M3
The fire effect doesn't look great.
Misaligned UAC door.

M4
Another alignment problem with a door

M5
Misaligned door again.
The difficulty skyrockets here. It would be better if the previous few maps weaned players into the more difficult levels.

M6
No glaring errors that I noticed.

M7
I like the walkways that seem to hang over bottomless pits, but it's annoying that the transparent BRNSMAL walls obscure your view at times.
Cool idea for the teleporter at the end, though it could use some work.

M8
Same problem with transparent walls here.
The final battle isn't really effective and not very climactic. That room should probably be sealed once you enter, and you need to do something about the transparent walls, which REALLY cause problems here, since you can't see the barons' attacks coming. I also don't like the cramped walkways for a final showdown.

I'll probably run through again to look for less noticeable things and post anything I see.

Fun WAD. I really look forward to seeing the final product.

[Rotting Corpse]

Well, all the problems I found have been post so there is no sence in posting them
twice. Great wad. I'm playing through it a second time to see if I can find any problems that have not been posted.

[Th0r]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Sammydawg/DOOM0110.png
Light stuck in corner

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Sammydawg/DOOM0113.png
these guys are stuck and dont fire

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Sammydawg/DOOM0114.png
The turrents need alot of work. Aside form the first two animated shots they continue to shoot like a spider mastermind and the obituary is that of a SM also the height and width on them is still messed up i think.

[Fletcher`]

To all the people having problems with the Turrets.. Tell me what port you're using. I have no problems using zdoom.

[TheDarkArchon]

I have 2 non-firers at the end of E1M8 in GZDoom in software (See Th0rs second screen)

[RjY]

Okay I played each map from a pistol start, in PrBoom. This wad is in general extremely good, use of height changes, well-lit, complex architecture, attention to detail, areas whose walls aren't aligned to the grid axes (that's hard to do in yadex, I don't know if Doom Builder makes it easier...) and some complex mechanisms (downward building stairs, large areas that flood with slime, etc.)

Here's a list of some problems, some which I think are outright bugs, others just my own opinion. Apologies if some of these have already been mentioned in the thread.

E1M1
demon (thing #236) stuck in the wall behind it

E1M2
line #1221 eats keypresses intended for the door behind it (line #1224), preventing level completion
several things in void space (#287, stimpack; #338, medikit)

E1M3
sergeant (thing #233) stuck inside lamp (thing #280)

E1M9
player can get stuck in pits (sectors #621/3/4/6/7/9)
needs a shade more health/ammo at the start maybe?

E1M4
armour fragments in void space (things #238, 243, 248)
red key can't be collected; pillar doesn't have a tag number or linedef action?! (sector #243) prevents level completion

E1M5
lift doesn't lower; linedef #285 needs tag #10

E1M6
staircase to partial invisibility (starting at sector #116) has no lower textures, causes HOM, etc.

E1M7
cacodemons in (sector #229) have trouble teleporting; can get stuck at front of sector due to linedef #1445 being too close to the front of the chamber (linedefs #1429,1434)
too many green armour vests, not enough health maybe, suggest you turn the one at the bottom of the lift (sector #195) into a medikit or two.

E1M8
could do with more health/ammo? seems hard to avoid taking massive damage from crossfire when fighting the 5 barons.

Finally some general comments

The new palette needs to define colour 247 back to black. This is the default automap background colour, and is meant to be black, and indeed other parts of Prboom's map code assume it is black, so when it turned out to be bright cyan I couldn't see a thing. Also I believe the point of bright cyan is that it's not a colour in the default Doom palette, which is why everything uses it as a transparency colour.

The slimefall replacement you've edited out of SLADRIP is ugly especially when allowed to tile upwards. Cf. end of E1M5 in particular.

The corpse slop replacements (gibs, exploding death, whatever you want to call it) make no sense. Why do the monsters catch fire when you berserk punch them? Plus the fire is dark grey, it just looks odd.

The chaingun replacement can leave you with -1 bullets, it sounds wrong (the bullet shooting sound is wiped by the bullet "exploding" sound when used up close) and more importantly its "bullets" fly really slowly, preventing one of the main uses of the chaingun (shooting monsters out of range of the shotgun) I don't know, it just "feels" wrong.

EDIT: I didn't get much trouble with the gun turrets, in PrBoom 23x or 241

[Belial]

I was using PrBoom+ 2.2.6.27, when the crash annoyed me I switched to ZDoom 2.0.63.

[myk]

Belial said:
I hated the shotgun firing sound.

Yeah, I didn't like that. And I'm not sure the Flaregun makes any sense either; isn't it too much like the Plasma gun? Plus it doesn't look like a flare gun, and why would a flare gun have such a rapid fire rate?

Didn't have trouble beating the maps from a pistol start, though some maps would play better if ammo distribution was a bit more generous.

I've only played E1M1 to E1M3 yet, and E1M2 seemed harder than the other two.

The Turrets (saw them trying E1M5, which I haven't finished) are supposed to make the Spiderdemon's sound? If so, that sounds wrong. They should perhaps be silent, making that digital wake-up sound you added once in a while.

RjY said:
E1M1
demon (thing #236) stuck in the wall behind it

Yeah, that one's very evident.

The new palette needs to define colour 247 back to black. This is the default automap background colour, and is meant to be black,

Heh, Boom uses the palette on the automap? Pretty strange. At least that explains why the automap looks fine in Doom2+.

Also I believe the point of bright cyan is that it's not a colour in the default Doom palette, which is why everything uses it as a transparency colour.

Well, it can certainly be used in a custom palette. Strange hacks like Boom's automap get in the way, though (because people not using Boom engines don't see the issue and might not expect it). Cyan was chosen for editing tools simply because it stands out clearly (but DOOM itself has nothing to do with it.) Occasionally a graphic extracted will show one or two cyan pixels (I think the Zombieman does this in one frame); had the early tool-coders been more knowledgeable or forward-thinking they would have used a color not used by the game, but they chose one of the blacks because there were more than one.

The corpse slop replacements (gibs, exploding death, whatever you want to call it) make no sense. Why do the monsters catch fire when you berserk punch them? Plus the fire is dark grey, it just looks odd.

Heh, I hadn't noticed it was a replacement to the slop thing. Indeed, something else should be used for that new thing, not the final gib frame. Any other decoration that was not used. I don't think that's a gray flame, though, more like smoke.

As I said I've been using Doom2+, and to make it easier to use it I'd suggest the following: use FF_START and F_END (so the flats work out of the box), and use this DEHACKED lump. It allows Doom2+ to read the Flaregun pick-up text and gives the Dead lost soul the ID of Doom builder's cam thing (32000). You left the cam in there in at least one map. The map names don't show in Doom2+, but most are too long for standard DeHackEd anyway. If there are any Boom-only lines in any maps I'd suggest replacing them for similar Doom-compatible ones, uless the Boom ones really make a functional difference nothing could replace. Thus not only could people use Doom2+ but also record proper v1.9 demos in the PrBoom engines.

As shown below, in E1M1 you can get stuck in the grove by the Shotgun. A couple of switches are badly aligned, and a step near the end has some tutti frutti.



In E1M2 there's a medusa effect over where you cross some multipatch textures to get some bunuses. You can fix this by using another texture, or by making a single patch texture based on the original texture. There's something strange by the red door, where a step seems to lower too much, causing tutti frutti and making going up impossible (though you can take the other route). Then there's that door that doesn't open, which RjY seems to have explained above (I had to IDSPISPOPD through it to continue). Finally, in the final room there are two Demons that seem stuck in those lit flat areas. Not only that, but I initially ignored them (as they are harmless) but when I walked back from the exit room (I thought about killing them to get full kills) they had been covered bt HOMs (though I could still shoot them).



In E1M3 at the start two doors have steps with tutti frutti, and there's some severe tutti frutti by the yellow key. Plus the misalignment of the window things in the red key room stands out. I also took a shot of another misalignment, because it caught my eye for some reason (there were others in the maps, but not really relevant ones).



Ill continue with the other maps when I get more time.

[Belial]

I liked the Flare Gun, because I had no idea it was supposed to be a Flare Gun :P I thought it was a chaingun, hacked to shoot projectiles instead of hitscans, which seemed interesting.

[Th0r]

rf` said:

To all the people having problems with the Turrets.. Tell me what port you're using. I have no problems using zdoom.

Skulltag