Playtest

[Dutch Doomer]

I'm in the final stage of editing this updated version of an old E1M3 remake of mine, and I can use an few people who are willing to playtest the hell out of it.I do think that its still an bit early to ask for playtesters, but some feedback would be appreciated to hopefully make this map even more fun.From my playtesting experience I would say this is an avarage difficulty type of map, I didn't had much problems finishing it.

The map layout has been undergoing alot of changes, new paths to take, new areas to explore, more secrets, different ways to acces some well known secrets.I've spend loads of time getting texture alignment near to perfect, believe me it was pretty tedious and sometimes frustrating work.The star textures are definitly not the easiest textures to work with, especially on angled walls and around windows.I'm quite happy with the results, I tried my best to get the
most out of the stock doom textures.

There is alot less pointless detail I've removed about 700+ sectors, and the detail that I've added looks alot better and imo really adds to the atmosphere.Not to mention that all the detail it once had was making the map feel cramped and too distracting, the new clean look it has now is just the way I like it.I can imagine that there is an group of people who are no fan of remakes, so to hopefully make them enjoy this map an little I've not turned it in an 100% the same as the original type thing.Not all the areas from the original map were added to this version, so new areas to explore with all new traps and stuff.

Well I think I've just about said everything about this map, so downgrab it and enjoy I hope you like it.

Screens these are an bit outdated, but are enough to give you an impression on what you are about to play.





Download:
http://www.speedyshare.com/374338201.html

[Ismaele]

Uhm... I could playtest it in this week, if I find enough free time! I've downloaded it, but I can't promise anything.

[esselfortium]

Nice map! A few things I noticed were that some sections seemed way too dark, and that the nukage river near the exit looks like it should lead somewhere, instead of just ending with a solid wall and leaving you in an inescapable pit....I also died a lot, but that might just be me sucking.

[Deeforce]

I played on a low skill and had my fun, but I cannot give you any hints. It looks very good and the gameplay is great too... Maybe one thing: why are you using E1M3 and not E1M1? Of course, it is the remake of E1M3, but so everyone has to use “idclev“.

Can you please give a link to your old wad? I would like to compare :-P !

[SyntherAugustus]

I'll give it a whirl.

[Clusterone]

I will playtest it tomorrow and let you know what i think :)

[40oz]

Actually, contrary to what both Essel and DeeForce said, I played E1M1 and E1M2 to get an early start to the shotgun, chaingun, and soulsphere which kept me alive for the most part.

I understand JDoom is your ideal source port, but when I played it with Zdoom on software mode, It seemed like some of the visuals were hidden due the limited freelook. You have a lot of light fixtures and crazy ceiling designs that were cool but kinda ended up unnoticed unless I looked for them.

I sort of lost sight of the E1M3 inspiration toward the middle of the map, but it doesn't matter much because the map still looked good.

I would also reccomend throwing a medikit here and there toward the ending, especially because of that teleport ambush. I had to throw in some "Give Medikit" commands to keep myself alive at that point.

I love your maps though, and I wait anxiously for that Megawad you had in plan. How is that going by the way?

[Ismaele]

I've just finished testing it and here is my feedback!

Gameplay: The level keeps the almost the same old-fashioned gameplay as the original E1M3, based mainly on action and search for keys, but with some new nice additions, which make the map even more interesting. I liked how you enlarged the map and made the game longer. I also liked the secret with the Yellow Key: it is not bad at all! I would modify the dark part after the acid pool (where is the Blue Key): I would make it lit at the beginning and then lights turn off, when the player takes the Blue Key... like in the original map.

Difficulty: I found this map a bit too hard even in HMP: I can't imagine how it gets in UV! Monster placement is very good, maybe too good: it made me swear against those damned Shotgunners coming from corners or darkness or behind walls! I think a bit more health would be welcomed, especially if the player can't find the secret area with the Soul Sphere. Ammo balance is perfect. Back to secrets, most of them are quite easy to find, if the player remembers how they worked in the original E1M3... that's quite good. Of course if he/she can't get the Yellow Key Card, he/she loses few secrets. I liked the traps with teleporting monsters, though the first one at the beginning is quite annoying, especially because it's physically impossible to take the Shotgun because of Imps protecting it: so the player must get rid of all these enemies with the pistol... that's quite annoying and, in addition to it, it can hurt the player seriously (since the beginning! Too bad!). The traps with opening walls and Imps and Shotgunners behind them were a bit annoying too.

Graphics: I could identify every area from the original map, though much more detailed: it is a very nice re-interpretation of E1M3! I liked how you made the base look infested. It features: good-looking architecture with a high level of detail; nice combinations of texture and flats; painstaking lighting... and no flaw!

The only bug I noticed was a linedef probably set as "Never map": look at the screenshots below:




@ Deeforce: you can use the -warp parameter in the command line! =P Just type: doom -file toxin666 -warp 1 3

[Dutch Doomer]

@Essel I didn't had problems with the brightness, but I only playtested it with Risen3D.Its the only port which I have installed atm, I will brighten up the map some more.The slime pit near the exit needs some work I agree, bzzwwzzz ah ideas allready :p

@Deeforce sure here it is.
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=13745
Does the secret exit switch work on E1M1 as well? if it does work like it should I will change it.

@JohnnyRancid I agree without freelook you miss some detail, I didn't thought of that when making it.But its no big problem, I don't really want to lower everything just for the sake of making the detail visible.But yeah good point here.My megawad is doing fine, slow progress though I got too many other projects going atm.

@Ismaele thanks for the review, it always nice reading those.I'll take an look to that bug you mentioned, I haven't noticed it up until now.The shotgun at the start should be quite easy to grab, don't fire and lure those imps into the starting room.

I am surprised that people find this map hard, I like its gameplay in fact its still an bit too easy.I will add some more health, and the are still an few missing traps.Anyway thanks for the feedback I'll put everything to good use.

[Ismaele]

dutch devil said:

@Ismaele thanks for the review, it always nice reading those.I'll take an look to that bug you mentioned, I haven't noticed it up until now.The shotgun at the start should be quite easy to grab, don't fire and lure those imps into the starting room.

I tried to run immediately towards the Shotgun without firing, but Imps cover it before I can take it: it's PHYSICALLY impossible!

I am surprised that people find this map hard, I like its gameplay in fact its still an bit too easy.I will add some more health, and the are still an few missing traps.Anyway thanks for the feedback I'll put everything to good use.

Actually author's opinion about difficulty level counts less than betatesters', since the author knows his/her map much better than others!

[Dutch Doomer]

Ismaele said:

I tried to run immediately towards the Shotgun without firing, but Imps cover it before I can take it: it's PHYSICALLY impossible

I said lure them in the starting room then run past them *sigh*, running towards the shotgun isn't the best option.And why is pistol fighting annoying all of an sudden.I pistol fight alot its quite fun, its an weapon use it.

I'm sure you would change your mind about its difficulty as soon as you playtested it an few times more.

I do get the feeling that some people get annoyed because they can't beat the map on UV on their first try, and they seem to blaim the map for that.

[esselfortium]

dutch devil said:

@Essel I didn't had problems with the brightness, but I only playtested it with Risen3D.Its the only port which I have installed atm, I will brighten up the map some more.The slime pit near the exit needs some work I agree, bzzwwzzz ah ideas allready :p

One problem with only testing a map in ports that use a different renderer (i.e. Risen3D) is that the new renderer often doesn't accurately represent the map's lighting. :P

[Deeforce]

Thx for the link, I will play the old wad very soon too.

To your question:
in DeePsea it is possible to create the secret switch in E1M1, just look here: ...(ooops, Imageshack is down :-P) ... but I don’t know what is going on in Doombuilder :-/ . And: if you change your level to E1M1 don’t forget to implement the right midi data file (from E1M3).

[Alter]

Attention, it's important... you know secret switch will only make you go to the same map if it's not the E1M3? fools

[Deeforce]

The secret switch will teleport you to E1M9... it doesn't matter in which level the switch is.

[Alter]

Deeforce said:

The secret switch will teleport you to E1M9... it doesn't matter in which level the switch is.

I guess we can blame Zdoom/ST devs for fucking up MAPINFO (which does the behaviour i described lol)

[Hitherto]

It's not hard map for remake. I'm quite easy walk through 2/3 of the map until get stuck between wall and crate near sector#10.
http://e1m2.net/hth/1stdemos/tx6-hth.zip

Also I'm noticed many (here and there) vanilla-wrong texture aligments and flying medkit#57.

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

I thought the map was interesting. Had some nice battles in it here and there, and the architecture kept me hooked into the map. Great job, but a little more color couldn't hurt :P

[Ismaele]

dutch devil said:

I'm sure you would change your mind about its difficulty as soon as you playtested it an few times more.

I do get the feeling that some people get annoyed because they can't beat the map on UV on their first try, and they seem to blaim the map for that.

I always play maps on HMP. I rarely play on UV in my first try.

[Dutch Doomer]

Hitherto said:

It's not hard map for remake. I'm quite easy walk through 2/3 of the map until get stuck between wall and crate near sector#10.
http://e1m2.net/hth/1stdemos/tx6-hth.zip

Also I'm noticed many (here and there) vanilla-wrong texture aligments and flying medkit#57.

Thanks for the demo I didn't watched it all the way through, I watched it up until you got stuck behind the crate.It was somewhat funny too see you struggle in the darkest areas of the map :p The light level is going to get fixed, and I will fix the floating medkit and move the crate near the exit further away from the wall.

Thanks fixing these things will keep me busy for an while.

[Mechadon]

Awesome map dutch, there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. After I finished the map, I was wishing to see remakes of the other maps as well :P

[Dutch Doomer]

Maybe :p but not in the near future, I'm far too busy with other projects.

I'm glad you like it.

[CodenniumRed]

Really nice level!!!! Basically my only 'gripes' we some dark areas and that missing 'noshow' line, lol. It was pretty difficult but than regular DooM levels by todays' standards are way too easy.

[esselfortium]

Mechadon said:

Awesome map dutch, there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. After I finished the map, I was wishing to see remakes of the other maps as well :P

KDiDD?

[[name_withheld]]

Superb! Can't wait to see more maps. :D

[Mechadon]

esselfortium said:

KDiDD?

Hell yea I'd play it.

[Kyka]

The only thing that I noticed that hasn't already been mentioned was the floor texture on sector 182, which has an inset silver switch and surrounds, but a brown textured floor.

Great level btw. Yeah sure it was both dark and hard, but I didn't think either was excessive. Made it through to the exit without dying, but then died three times in the final area, where the two barons and everything else teleports in. That was a great little fight.

I did get the soulsphere secret, would have been hard going without it.

Nice work. As always, beautiful design, and really creative use of textures. :)

[Dutch Doomer]

Kyka said:

The only thing that I noticed that hasn't already been mentioned was the floor texture on sector 182, which has an inset silver switch and surrounds, but a brown textured floor.

I know about that and its not an bug, if I used an silver flat instead of an brown flat the floor that would raise would also be silver.

And that looks ugly :p brown looks better, thanks for the feedback.

[40oz]

Kyka said:

The only thing that I noticed that hasn't already been mentioned was the floor texture on sector 182, which has an inset silver switch and surrounds, but a brown textured floor.

Oh yeah I noticed that too, I forgot to mention that. But I was sure it had something to do with the surrounding floor textures.

[esselfortium]

dutch devil said:

I know about that and its not an bug, if I used an silver flat instead of an brown flat the floor that would raise would also be silver.

And that looks ugly :p brown looks better, thanks for the feedback.

One tricky way around that is to make a 1-unit-thick triangle sector right in front of the switch, lower its floor to where you can't see it at all, and put the brown flat on that sector. :P