why all the kdizd hate?

[Vegeta]

I think Vader's monsters were just perfect, they really match the quality of the original. For these who say "they don't fit with the rest of the classic monsters as they are too smooth", I'm sure you thought the same for the Archvile and Mancubus the first time you met them.

My gripe with the monsters where that some of them used more than a style of attack (but I liked that in the Bruisers and end boss). There were no quality balance between the monsters, while Nmn and Vader's creatures were great (I love the Satyr in particular), there was the Rocket Zombie we all know, that baron with alpha skull as head, two monster from Demon Eclipse. And the final boss, while was a good idea (and it's behavior was kinda like what the Guardian from DOOM 3 would be on classic DOOM), the sprites didn't fit much.

I think it could become better with a polish (removing the stuff that didn't match the quality of the high quality staff). I loved the maps, same the new tracks. About the keys and switchs, yeah they were kinda tedious, but didn't affect my enjoyment, I had a good time and made the maps last longer.

I think the Rifle also deserved at least a modified sprite.

About the hate, I'm not saying this was the only reason, not even that's the central, but just the name of one of the authors cause this kind of reaction on every wad he works. I guess you know who I'm talking about.

[esselfortium]

exp(x) said:

kdizd sucks almost as much as dre

[YMB]

esselfortium said:

http://www.imgred.com/http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005B1KA.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I kept thinking about the Doc every time i saw "DRE," too.

[myk]

Vegeta said:
I'm sure you thought the same for the Archvile and Mancubus the first time you met them.

Not me; they fit the two categories I named (tech and infernal) perfectly.

[stphrz]

My take on kdizd is this: Almost every component of the project on it's own was brilliant or near brilliant. No one single thing "sucked."

But....

The designers did so much. Too much. If I had been privy to the development process and asked my opinion I would have told the team to settle down. Do a few things well and take the time to implement them well.

Just looking at the credits text file I think to myself: How on earth could they possibly have been focused and organized with such a division of labor? How on earth could consistency be maintained in the maps with three or four designers mucking about in any one particular map? How on earth could the level designers use the monsters to best effect in their maps when there were so many new ones? I also notice there is no one credited in the file as the team leader. Who was the team leader?

Feature creep can bog down and lead even the most talented team astray. And it's pretty clear this team is very talented.

My advice should this team decide to do a second episode:

1. Have a leader. The leader's job is to well, lead. That's it. No mapping, making textures, sprites or scripting/programming for the leader. Maybe the leader could keep up the website or something but his main job is to decide who does what and what gets done when. It's also his job to make sure everyone does what they are supposed to do and to bring everything everyone does together. Make no mistake this is the hardest job.

2. One level, one designer. A designer can do more than one map but forget about three or four mappers working on the same level.

3. A texture guy or team. All they do is textures, flats, skys, intermission screens whatever.

4. A sprite guy or team. That's all they do.

5. A quality control and playtesting team. That's all they do.

5. Decide what is going to be included early and stick to it. Have a very clear vision.

Well you get the idea.

[Ralphis]

stphrz said:

advice

Touching on a key component to a massive project like sticking to one thing like my man stphrz said here, write out a design document.

If you're going to have a massive project, the design document is your bible and your road map to completion. And once it's written don't make any huge or major changes, or any if possible.

[the iron hitman]

yomoneyboat said:

I kept thinking about the Doc every time i saw "DRE," too.

HA! Thats weird, I did the same thing! =D

Anyway, KDIZD was an epic wad to play. It's architecture was 10/10 and gameplay was fun, but it surely wasnt linear, it was a more...complex style. That was fun but sometimes gave boring periods of play too. nonetheless KDIZD deserves at the very least a 10/10

EDIT: This post was edited because of the fact that some similies are disabled and with stars the post looked silly

[YMB]

the iron hitman said:

HA! Thats weird, I did the same thing! =D

Dat's cause we be da only real gangsta pimps up on dis forum, homie.

[SYS]

Vegeta said:

For these who say "they don't fit with the rest of the classic monsters as they are too smooth", I'm sure you thought the same for the Archvile and Mancubus the first time you met them.

No.

[SyntherAugustus]

yomoneyboat said:

How can you compare anything to that 65 meg shitfest?

90mb *cough*

Anyway KDIZD was good, but granted it had a few bumps (like the overabuse of the new monsters) but it was good overall.

I think it was overhyped, however.

[Ralphis]

I think a lot more hype came from people anti-hyping it to be entirely honest.

[kristus]

Vegeta said:

For these who say "they don't fit with the rest of the classic monsters as they are too smooth", I'm sure you thought the same for the Archvile and Mancubus the first time you met them.

No.

[BoldEnglishman]

Well as for what stphrz said about the leader: "Doing no mapping etc." hey I could do that. I could probably be a good leader only problem is my tastes are at odds with the Doom mainstream, and The Shores of ZDoom is definetly targeted at a mainstream audience.

Anyway I loved KDiZD. I see KDiZD (and alot of T667's work) in the same way I love Dream Theater (prog-metal band). You do get the feeling of "why the hell is this room so packed full of eye-candy?"... I thought that during Doom 3 alot as well (like when you press a button to make a bridge come out and your waiting for 5 minutes while lots of things twirl around in front of you).

I guess because you can. Once again my tastes are at odds with the mainstream here, and KDiZD is as such one of my all-time favourite WADs.

Features:
10-new levels = Great even just one level woulda been nice
New Monsters = EXCELLENT. New monsters makes me play your WAD instantly, and there's lots of them and there not just re-colorings of the original! (I thought the Hell Warrior in particular looked ALOT better)
New Weapons = Equally as good. Bit dissapointed with the Secret Weapon but at least I found it funny :P
ZDoom = My favourite port. If I hear a WAD requires ZDoom, it's got 10x the chance of me playing it over just a vanilla WAD
T667 involved = Awesome. I'll play anything this guy releases
...and probably some other stuff.

Also, I thank whatever God there is for giving me such a great photographic memory (that's probably wrong word to use, doesn't sound right). I NEVER got lost. I just went on a cruise on a ship thats far bigger than the Titanic was and I didn't ever get lost. I just memorize the layouts of everything. Ships, cities, buildings, Doom WADs, I just have it all mapped out in my head. So I NEVER, EVER had a problem with keys/doors because if I found A Item first (key or door), then I'd continue exploring (which never got tiresome) and when I found B Item (the key or door needed for A Item)... then I knew exactly where to go.

All of this combined to make KDiZD well-worth the download in my opinion.

On a final side note: I thought the Satyr fitted well in KDiZD. It too looked much much better than the simple re-coloring of the Hell Knight. I mean hello the Baron of Hell and the Hell Knight ARE SATYRS ANYWAY. Yes they were easy, but any melee-monster is... if anything the Chainsaw Zombie was the most pathetic.

The Black Baron of Hell with the Alpha Lost Soul as its head is the "Hell's Fury" and it has been around for YEARS so its nothing new.

[OmegaJ4]

For me, KZIZD was an enjoyable experience, i have my few good and bad points about it.

The Good For Me

- The Introduction cutscene, that just made me smile.
- New Enemies, my favourite had to be the Shadow or the newly desgined Soul Haravester.
- The Re-design for the levels (except E1M6) really worked for me.
- The Rifle and the Grenade Launcher, they were cool for me.
- The Secret Tormenter667. ;)

The Bad for Me

- Ammo was limited, i always found myself running out of shotgun ammo... just as i had to fight i hoarde of imps.
- This is just my opinion, but for me, the new Hell Warrior didn't quite look right.
- Again, IMO E1M6 looked nothing like the orginal
- The whole Good Points about you/ Bad points about you didn't work for me.
- A Case of, too many "Secret" Secrets.


The Question

- "The Peach Baron" as i call him... was he supposed to be a Hell knight?

So overall, KDIZD was good fun. Wasn't there talk of "Shores of Zdoom" or is that just a rumour?

[GGG]

OmegaJ4 said:

The Peach Baron" as i call him... was he supposed to be a Hell knight?

Yes.

[Aabra]

On a bit of an aside as to whether or not KDIZD is good or not, I just thought I'd mention that the latest internal Skulltag builds now fully support KDIZD. :) You can use the original .pk3 - there's no need for a skulltag version.

Good or bad aside - it was an excellent wad for testing purposes as it really uses many advanced Zdoom features which are now fully functional online.

[The Lag]

good:

-the first encounter with the shadows. that whole area is just great and made me think back to the first time i picked up that blue key in e1m3.

-secrets that were actually "secret." i had a LOT of fun looking for each and every one of these...it was probably my favorite part of KDIZD.

-good atmosphere/ambience.

-for the most part, great looks.

-nice outdoor areas.

bad/not for me:

-the satyrs and those other lion-headed ones with the shields...i just don't like these guys. they have too much of a heretic/hexen feel.

-the final boss fight. this one let me down. the guardian itself was also just too shiny and 3 dimensional, making him clash enormously with everything else in-game.

-no new music included. i was seriously let down when i heard the normal m1 music upon starting up a game.

-multi-angled pick-ups. while i appreciate the effort, the outcome was just annoying. i like to be able to see what the pick-up is, and some, especially health packs, looked very unfamiliar from the side. in the heat of battle, i didn't want to have to stop and circle over to the front of an item just to see what it was.
eventually, i just started picking everything up without knowing what it was.

-health/ammo balance could have been a lot better. there were some very thoughtful fights, but for the most part it just felt as if all the monsters, ammo, and powerups were just randomly placed.

-the chaos of development shining through. it was very obvious that this was worked on by a large number of different individuals.


anyway, it felt a LOT like Doom3. which may be a reason for why a lot of people dislike it: it feels a hell of a lot more like Doom3 than it does episode 1.
i liked it for the most part.

[Icarus]

Listing stuff now, eh?

The Good
-The Rifle. Essentially a Long-range SSG? Fuck yeah.
-All the Easter Eggs I found, Secret T667, the hidden music switch, etc.
-E1M7 was FUN!
-The little effects from E1M9, like the Pulsing rooms that changed from Tech to Vines. That was awesome.
-Fighting a load of shadows in one of the later maps. I think it was M6, but that was an experience, weaving between fireballs, shooting at impossible targets.
-The Black Baron thing. It looked a bit dodgy, but the first encounter with it startled me. I expected it to be a normal Baron, until BAM, the triple-soul attack rushed me.
-Nice Detail, especially outside areas
-Sprite Rotations. I liked them.
-The New monsters, on the whole.
-The Multi-leveled facility effects.

The Bad
-Too many sprites outside made it hard to move.
-Nice Detail made it hard to maneuver
-Some secrets seemed damn near impossible to get
-The guardian that kept spawning Lost souls. GODDAMNIT,I hated that.
-You fucked E1M6 :(
-E1M1. Mainly because the music drove me insane after a while.
-The only creepy new monster being the Demon Cubes that only appeared, what, once? Friggin' shame.
-Key and Switch Quests.
-No Computer Maps, despite having the new sprite credited. (Or I couldn't find it)
-Lots of little bits and pieces that niggled me as I was playing through it.
-The Steep ammo on your first play through. I'm going through again, trying for 100% secrets, and its not too bad now, but first time, its madness.

[rambling]

[Patrick]

I liked

-Some of the new monsters
-The Detail
-The E1-Like maps

I disliked

-Some of the new montsers
-The Detail
-The E1-Like Maps

overall, "too much of a good thing ... "

[Naan]

Yay, someone mentionned DRE, as I bet when I opened the topic.

I liked KZiZD because it plays mainly like Eternal Doom levels, my ever favorite megawad, "secret" secrets, huge levels and door/switch hunts. Oh, and the easter eggs.

[Xaechireon]

I got lost too easily in the maps, even at Z1M1, but otherwise it was an awesome wad.

[Ry74]

My only real problem with KDIZD was that the game assumed that you found the secret weapon, as far as ammo distribution was concerned. The Ammo placement was all right up intil about 1M6-7.

[Lorenzo]

KDIZD makes the same error of almost all Episode 1 re-makes. Think a moment: you have just landed on Phobos, the first level is a Hangar, all your comrades are inside the installatios: i suppose that you should start inside a starship...

Lorenzo

[BoldEnglishman]

Well not really. The story in the manual states you were told to wait outside and secure the perimeter of the base while the rest of the team went inside. I can't really see the Doom Guy securing the rest of the base if he's still in the ship.
Well you find lots of possessed humans / dead and gibbed marines so you find the team. As far as KDiZD's Hangar goes, it doesn't look remotely like a hangar. But then again, neither did the original level, and whenever playing any of the original id maps I never felt I was truly in the building described. Yet at some points, with KDiZD I did.

Anyway KDiZD has your mode of transport to the base anyway, a rather *cough* unusual looking caterpillar tracked vehicle.

[Vegeta]

The manual points that you enter the base after the massacre and hear animal like growls, then the game starts.

[BoldEnglishman]

Okay I was trying to remember the story from memory so let's quote it...

"You were ordered to secure the perimeter of the base while the rest
of the team went inside."

Well there you go. Even the perimeter of the base is not inside your starship.

[Lorenzo]

Ok, I was wrong about the start, but, if i am in a hangar, i suppose to see some starships...

In E1M1 there is only one outdoor area (the one with the poison), perhaps it is where the ships land. However, "hangar" should be a covered structure, and in E1M1 (and Z1M1) there are no structures that could contain a ship

Lorenzo

[Enjay]

Well, at least in this hangar there was a departure board and the intermap looked like it had a place for starships to land/take off. But, I'll concede, the insides don't look much like a hangar.

However, in my experience, hangars are pretty much big empty sheds - big enough to hold aircraft - and that's about it. That wouldn't necessarily make the most exciting of levels. ;)

[Craigs]

I enjoyed kdizd and all, but it brought a shit load of trouble with it, such as one of the most retarded flame wars I have ever seen in the history of Doomworld.

[TawmDee]

Didn't deserve the hype. at all.