The /newstuff Chronicles #341

[Graf Zahl]

exp(x) said:

I think you need a new book.

But certainly not yours. I'm sure I won't like it. :D

[esselfortium]

I don't mind seeing vanilla wads' screenshots in 320x200, but it reeeaaaally irks me when some /newstuff reviewers use Doom-plus to take screenshots of limit-removing wads, so you get a detailed, modern-styled map that was almost certainly not played in 320x200 by the author, turned into a mess of pixels.

[Gaeole]

Scet said:

Well I opened your crappy level in Doom Builder for my review, and I didn't see any damn message. Actually considering it took me longer to review than for you to make, I'm pretty the message was "f*ck you!".

NUH-UH

BREED is a post-neo-industrialist statement-slash-protest about the government. You are a person who wants to speak his mind but the government is trying to silence you. You have to get to the border of the country to get to the Free Land (not America), but the government is sending in everyone to try and stop you, by forming an impenetrable line of force.

It's quite obvious, really.

If you honestly want a wad with nothing more than a "pew-pew hahahaha" motive behind it, I'm making a 32-map megawad for this purpose tentively entitled "World Of Wyvern".

It's mid-evil.

[Wills]

it wasn't funny the first time

[Gaeole]

Wills said:

it wasn't funny the first time

YOU'RE the one being funny here, funnyman!

[Alter]

Gaeole said:

YOU'RE the one being funny here, funnyman!

YOU'RE the one being awful here, AWFULMAN! Anyway, Ultimate NMD is goddamn underrated in my opinion.

[Ralphis]

Udderdude said:

Also, I love how the author says, "Jumping is considered CHEATING on these levels", in several places, including the readme and his website. Heaven forbid he use the nojump flag in a MAPINFO lump for ZDoom to read. Or jump-proof his maps. So you'd better not jump in these maps. It's cheating. Yup. No jumping.

Am I the only one that hates this type of suggestion in the reviews as it encourages users to make zdoom specific maps? ZDoom is my port of choice but that doesn't mean every wad should be tailor made for ZDoom. True story.

[myk]

To boot, that shouldn't be used in multi-port WADs because some ports, ZDaemon and earlier versions of ZDoom for certain, will choke on it.

The IWADs don't have it, meaning players may play as "not intended" using ZDoom even in the very stock levels. Same goes with tons of classic WADs. If that is the case, is there really a need to enforce this in new classic or generic WADs?

I think that is a good feature for ZDoom to have, but it should be used on ZDoom-specific WADs, which may well be designed to be played without jumping.

If you play a Doom or Boom WAD, you can assume jumping was not intended for it. In a ZDoom WAD, on the other hand, you cannot make the assumption, and may rely on the setting to immediately know what it was designed for.

[Dutch Doomer]

I'm enjoying The Ultimate NMD, I'm on e2m5 now. Good stuff, maybe we will get to see an E4 someday :p I also played some maps from Ultimate Doom 2, there are some good maps inbetween the buggy ones.

[Gez]

myk said:

To boot, that shouldn't be used in multi-port WADs because some ports, ZDaemon and earlier versions of ZDoom for certain, will choke on it.

Alternate solution: provide a mapinfo.txt not as a lump in the wad but as a file in the zip. For ZDoom, simply load the entire zip instead of extracting the wad first. For ZDaemon, just extract the wad as usual.

[myk]

That might be the case for Plutonia 2 in its second release, though on the other hand ZDoom will be supporting music renaming through DeHackEd, which was the main reason a MAPINFO was needed to make the WAD work as intended in ways the player couldn't otherwise easily adjust to.

[Fletcher`]

Csonicgo said:

NMD is awesome fuck da hataz

I have to say, playing NMD put me back in 1993-4 in a good way. It revived that nostalgic feeling of playing Doom when it was new. It may not be the most challenging of mods, but then again when you get immersed in it you don't really care. You play it because its fun.

Each episode feels like they belonged as a part of the episodes they mimicked, and do it well. I will agree that episodes 2 and 3 could have used a lot more height variation (at least in the ceilings. that alone would have helped), and some maps in e3 vary oddly in difficulty. (e3m3 comes to mind). That doesn't detract too much from the fun I had playing this. Esselfortium coined a phrase 'dynamic space' which this map uses very well. Walls move and rooms change and suddenly you find yourself quickly reorienting yourself to new challenges that open up around you!

The idea behind NMD is pretty refreshing; a back-to-basics in mapmaking and design. These days there are so many maps with uber-detail that just aren't fun. They stand there and look pretty and go 'ooh look, dynamic lights and 20000 sectors!' Granted some are fun but most are not. NMD goes back and looks at why the original doom maps are still fun even today and tries to recreate that. Odd shaped room with hallways that connect at odd angles. Walls that change and many traps are unique. (like the time you grab the blue skullkey in a small nook and suddenly half the walls come down revealing another pathway and some monsters. I really liked that one). As far as designs go, my only two beefs were the height variations (or lack thereof) in parts of e2 and much of e3, was e1m8, but for reasons I'm not entirely sure why; It was fun, but it didn't feel doomy enough.


If we could talk Fiend into doing an e4 not only would the title be accurate, but doubly as awesome. But all in all this is a solid piece of work and udderdude's review didn't do it justice. :P

[Quasar]

DOOM 1.25 is notable in a special way because it is now the earliest known version of DOOM to contain traces of DOOM II development. fraggle found various strings in the executable which indicate the presence of DOOM II code. :)

[LogicDeLuxe]

Quasar said:

DOOM 1.25 is notable in a special way because it is now the earliest known version of DOOM to contain traces of DOOM II development. fraggle found various strings in the executable which indicate the presence of DOOM II code. :)

As I wrote in the other thread, I think it's likely to be a later build than v1.3 (aka. v1.4 bootleg), like the file date, string "doom2.wad" instead of "doomr.wad" etc.. Those versions are indeed very similar.

[Quasar]

Sorry I missed that. That's pretty weird.

[Xenaero]

All the delicious stuff in Mutiny makes me want to create a crazy marine combat wad of my own. Lots of fun!