The /newstuff Chronicles #303

[deathz0r]

Hello, it's everybody's favourite /newstuff reviewer! All of these rumours I've been hearing of me quitting /newstuff are false, I've just been the victim of poor management of scheduling! That said, my "comeback" /newstuff week is very damn boring. The only items of interest are a single level WAD and a decent jokewad. I'm not kidding, this week sucks in general. Come back next week and hope there's something more interesting that surfaces.

And if you're wondering why I'm late, well... would you rather have a hungover deathz0r whining or a sober deathz0r whining?

• Gamarra's soul story: Mission 1 "Wills must die!" - Giulio Galassi aka Glassyman
  ZDoom - SP - 508kb - (img) (img) (img)
  I think I'm meant to be laughing at this jokewad, but none of the punchlines are hitting notes with me. The map itself is ok, but the jokes feel flat and I only feel like playing through this once.
  
  
• Knee Deep in yor fears - Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri
  Boom - SP - 155kb - (img)
  The second of Daimon's releases, this is a rather decent level with balanced gameplay, but nothing stands out as being breathtaking. It seems suitable as a filler level in a megawad than a standalone level.
  
  
• Corruption - Doomaniac
  Doomsday - SP - 180kb - (img) (img) (img)
  There's a good reason why I keep away from the Doomsday engine, and unfortunately I was reminded again why that is the case. Everything about Doomsday feels awkward and very un-Doom like, from the player's movement to the animation of the monsters. This map is another good reason why I don't keep Doomsday installed any longer than I have to. The detail is horrible, the gameplay is rather dull and it handles dynamic lighting horribly.
  
  
• Mario Fort Invasion - Kuchikitaichou
  Skulltag - Invasion - 66kb - (img)
  Ugh. This is utter crap and it doesn't even fare well in the novelty value, which is how it resembles a Mario Kart 64 battle map in layout, but it still looks horrible, it plays horrible, and I would not play this on a Skulltag server.
  
  
• Bleah II: Tower of Stupidity - Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri
  ZDoom - SP - 2.8mb - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  The only multi-level WAD this week, and it's a joke episode for Ultimate Doom! Yay!
  
  Admittedly I wasn't looking forward to it when I first started playing, but I eventually saw the charm in the sheer absurdity of the dialogue that I couldn't help but love the inane usage of breaking the fourth wall which made an otherwise dull WAD more enjoyable. Mind you, Daimon also shows some strokes of brilliance with detail in certain areas of the map, so don't expect something that looks like ass through the entire WAD. I really loved the E1M8 parody and thought the entire level was the highlight of Bleah II.
  
  The bonus levels are very weird though. I don't know what the hell is going on with those. I'm usually a leninent dude with jokewads, but I can't figure out why the hell they were included. The inability to skip cutscenes might also piss people off, as some of them go for very long. There's also a rather interesting message in the secret level, which you can go find yourself because I'm an asshole I forgot to take a screenshot.
  
  
• monlth05.wad. - Richard Wiles
  Enhanced Port - SP - 111kb - (img) (img) (img)
  The last WAD reviewed is by far the best as far as gameplay and detail is concerned. I reviewed monlth03 way back in my last /newstuff and I gave it a positive review, and I still stand by my decision on how good this series has progressed. It would be excellent if it was all released in a single WAD, but each individual level can stand on their own ground and still be immensly fun. The gameplay is very solid, with a rather nice balance of health, ammo and monsters. There are a few surprises that caught me off-guard, which I personally loved. The texturing is very conventional but at least it doesn't try to attempt a unique environment that could turn into a disaster. It's a perfect ending to a shitty /newstuff and it totally deserves my coveted WAD of the Week award.
  
  

There's also updates to Marine Express and Marine StarCraft. Cool!

[Searcher]

How did we manage another new stuff so fast? Sweet!

[Glassyman]

Good reviews this time even if some of them are a bit too short. But a screenshot of the pimp mod in my map lacks.

[Tango]

This /newstuff sucks. :\

[Krivanka]

how do I send in an original WAD to be reviewed via newstuff

[Searcher]

Krivanka said:

how do I send in an original WAD to be reviewed via newstuff

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31922

Item # 2.

[DaniJ]

Do please explain what it as about Doomsday which you find awkward. How is player movement awkward, it is the same as original DOOM. How is the monster movement awkward, if you mean you don't like the smoothing; then turn it off.

Also, by the looks of those screenshots your videocard/computer sucks :P

[Mechadon]

Crap...I forgot to upload SMDM again :/

[Craigs]

Glassyman said:

Good reviews this time even if some of them are a bit too short. But a screenshot of the pimp mod in my map lacks.

We've seen that "Impsex" picture thousands of times in thousands of maps. It wasn't funny the 300th time it was used, and it wasn't funny this time either.

[MikeyScoots]

Where the hell are my levels? I sent in two last friday and still haven't gotten reviewed o.0

[Bloodshedder]

Bloodskull said:

Where the hell are my levels? I sent in two last friday and still haven't gotten reviewed o.0

um...were they rejected? Can I see the idgames links if they weren't?

[MikeyScoots]

Bloodshedder said:

um...were they rejected? Can I see the idgames links if they weren't?

Edit:Exceeded 8 max characther name. Fixing it now.

[Bloodshedder]

And this, kids, is why you should check the REJECTS report!

[june gloom]

DaniJ said:

Do please explain what it as about Doomsday which you find awkward. How is player movement awkward, it is the same as original DOOM. How is the monster movement awkward, if you mean you don't like the smoothing; then turn it off.

Also, by the looks of those screenshots your videocard/computer sucks :P

seconded. i've been doing a runthrough of the doom games with doomsday and i haven't noticed anything different.

[Craigs]

dethtoll said:

seconded. i've been doing a runthrough of the doom games with doomsday and i haven't noticed anything different.

He probably got upset because he couldn't figure out how to activate the 3D models. :P

[Belial]

The latest Monolith map could use a wee bit less health. It felt as if the skill flags weren't set on the health items :P

I know I'd make the archies come last and add a BFG to make the slaughter feel more prominent.

The layout felt a lot like a DM map, very sexy, nice architecture and texturing too.

[deathz0r]

DaniJ said:

Do please explain what it as about Doomsday which you find awkward. How is player movement awkward, it is the same as original DOOM. How is the monster movement awkward, if you mean you don't like the smoothing; then turn it off.

Oh, you can turn it off? Sweet! The player movement definitely feels slower than Chocolate-Doom/PrBoom/Odamex though.

Also, by the looks of those screenshots your videocard/computer sucks :P

My main computer has been dead since late-February, can't be assed to fix it =P

[Craigs]

deathz0r said:

My main computer has been dead since late-February, can't be assed to fix it =P

My disk drive is messed up. It sounds like a Chainsaw musical...
Seriously.

[sirjuddington]

The main thing that annoys me about doomsday is you can't fully turn off texture filtering. Changing the texture filter to 'no filter, no mip' doesn't do it, at least. And that's the only related option I can find.

[Grazza]

Have you tried turning off Anisotropic filtering in the Textures Options (Graphics) in the Snowberry launcher?

[GGG]

At least it wasn't a total waste. But I can't applaud a small army of bad jokewads.

[DaniJ]

RE: "Awkward monster movement"

deathz0r said:

Oh, you can turn it off?

Doomsday Control Panel->Objects->"Smooth actor rotation" "Smooth actor movement"

The player movement definitely feels slower than Chocolate-Doom/PrBoom/Odamex though.

I'm going to need some hard evidence on that (e.g. a comparison timed run across a large open area in jDoom and DOOM.exe). The logic of the player movement code is exactly the same as original DOOM but I guess its possible the speed is slightly out. I've not noticed myself and you ARE the first to report that...

SlayeR said:

The main thing that annoys me about doomsday is you can't fully turn off texture filtering. Changing the texture filter to 'no filter, no mip' doesn't do it, at least. And that's the only related option I can find.

Doomsday Control Panel->Textures->"Bilinear filtering"
You'll find separate controls for sprites, world textures and raw screens.

Or, simply enter the following in the console:
"lowres; texreset"

Another approach would have been to do a "listcmds rend-tex" in the console for a list of all the options pertaining to the rendering of textures ("rend-sprites" for... you guessed it!). If you need further explanation of a console variable/command you can do a "help <varname/ccmdname>" in the console.

[Grazza]

DaniJ said:

I'm going to need some hard evidence on that (e.g. a comparison timed run across a large open area in jDoom and DOOM.exe). The logic of the player movement code is exactly the same as original DOOM but I guess its possible the speed is slightly out. I've not noticed myself and you ARE the first to report that...

I have just done the E1M4 strafe-50 jump in Doomsday without much trouble. That is very near the limit of what is possible (a 192-unit gap, as compared to a maximum of 194), so if the physics are wrong, then I wouldn't say it is in terms of the player moving too slowly (at least, if it is, then there is some other effect compensating for it in this case). Actually, if anything, the jump seemed a bit easier than normal.

[sirjuddington]

DaniJ said:

Doomsday Control Panel->Textures->"Bilinear filtering"
You'll find separate controls for sprites, world textures and raw screens.

Or, simply enter the following in the console:
"lowres; texreset"

Another approach would have been to do a "listcmds rend-tex" in the console for a list of all the options pertaining to the rendering of textures ("rend-sprites" for... you guessed it!). If you need further explanation of a console variable/command you can do a "help <varname/ccmdname>" in the console.

Those options have no effect whatsoever, the filtering is still active no matter what I do. This is with the latest 1.9 beta btw.

Edit: rend-tex-mag set to 0 works, this really should be in the options somewhere. Although all the 2d (menu etc) gfx look weird and stretched.

[DaniJ]

Those options have no effect whatsoever, the filtering is still active no matter what I do. This is with the latest 1.9 beta btw.

I can't explain that, they work exactly as expected on my system. At the very least they should do SOMETHING.

Edit: rend-tex-mag set to 0 works, this really should be in the options somewhere. Although all the 2d (menu etc) gfx look weird and stretched.

Are you running some weird hackneyed linux video drivers or something? A screenshot would help a lot here.

Oh well, I'll add the texture magnification filtering option to the control panel.

EDIT: It would appear I've already added it to the control panel for beta6.

[Graf Zahl]

SlayeR said:

Those options have no effect whatsoever, the filtering is still active no matter what I do. This is with the latest 1.9 beta btw.

I'd say check your driver settings. Maybe you have activated a profile that forces filtering and is intended to be used with games that don't have sufficient options for it.

[sirjuddington]

http://mancubus.net/~slayer/crap/dday.png

Happens with the latest nvidia drivers for vista (101.41) and xp (93.71). Anyway the ingame textures and sprites are fine so it's no huge deal.

[Craigs]

SlayeR said:

http://mancubus.net/~slayer/crap/dday.png

Happens with the latest nvidia drivers for vista (101.41) and xp (93.71). Anyway the ingame textures and sprites are fine so it's no huge deal.

What exactly is wrong with that screenshot? It looks fine to me.

[Cacodemon]

Aww, newstuff at Easter holiday. And I'm going to play DooM board game with friends this evening. Well, I guess monday will still be fine to check the wads.

[june gloom]

SlayeR said:

http://mancubus.net/~slayer/crap/dday.png

Happens with the latest nvidia drivers for vista (101.41) and xp (93.71). Anyway the ingame textures and sprites are fine so it's no huge deal.

uh, you do know that blue shimmering thing is supposed to be there, right?