Something Gothic -map31 and wrapping it up for now

[Jodwin]

Fine, fine... I die a few times in the beginning part, but eventually beat it.

To be honest, I wasn't too impressed. It's one of those maps that (almost) require pre-knowledge for telefragging the masterminds. You'll need to be inhuman or a cheater to figure out that there ARE those two shootable switches and that you can telefrag the masterminds using them during all that chaos. Because I'm neither (:P) I ended up trying and finally managing to (with just a couple bullets left) kill everything with the chaingun. Yeah, great. :P And since I didn't die on the second part, the knowledge of being able to telefrag the spiders was wasted on me.

In addition, there's WAY too much detail to get stuck on. And the steps from the mastermind corners to the middle of the room should go around the whole corner, not just a few parts. The reason I almost got killed on the cybers was because there was just too much shit poking out of the walls. Either make bigger areas where you won't be humping walls even by accident, or have no obstructing detail at all.

[ArmouredBlood]

Mhm. Guess I've been playing speed of doom more than anything else lately, inspiration from what you play and all that. I was thinking I could thin out those blocking lifts and put some lights around the switch, would probably help. Can't think of any textures that just say 'shoot me' though. Obstructing detail is valid, though you did hump the wall every chance you got ;) the floor is relatively free of steep changes beside the edges of the conveyer belts, let my aesthetics get in the way of good gameplay there.

EDIT: changes- made switches much more visible and spent half an hour filling out and cleaning up the edge platforms. Also added some impassible linedefs to certain UACMETAL edges jodwin was prone to wallhumping ;p
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gaiev38hwdnxve

[Phml]

No fdas? Anybody?

Dude, european here. You gotta wait for me to wake up. ;)

Going to give it a go now.

Edit : FDA, dies a few times, maxes in 2:33 on final attempt.

I liked it. First, aesthetics were great, it looked really polished, with a distinctive style. The start is fitting for map31, the whole map feels like a puzzle to resolve. And... I guess that's it, I really have nothing to add. Great fun little map.

[ArmouredBlood]

Phml said:

Dude, european here. You gotta wait for me to wake up. ;)

Going to give it a go now.

Armouredblood said:

No fdas? Anybody? Bueller? Must not be late enough to release it.

I know my audience ;)

Also, hope you're using the jodwin-factored version. Though you posted riiiiight as I edited it in my post, so probably not.

[Phml]

I'm an egodriven narcissist so I always re-read my posts right after posting (could also be because I often make spelling/grammatical mistakes, who knows). Glancing up I saw you edited yours, so downloaded the latest version.

[ArmouredBlood]

Cool. I noticed that you noticed the red grid texture likes to go crazy at long distances. Kinda cool but looks a bit weird I guess. Glad you liked it, put in a lot fewer hours than the last few for this map so it's good to hear it's good from at least one person ;) though it is basically the shortest map, need less time. Now to create a titlepic idea ...

[Phml]

I noticed that you noticed the red grid texture likes to go crazy at long distances.

I... actually didn't. It might be something that shows up in software mode but not in GL ? I always play in GL.

Anyway, I had a go at a proper max (don't know if you're going to make further changes, but I don't care if the demo breaks anyway, all the fun is in recording). Here it is, in 1:37.

Edit: aah, I see why you thought I was looking at the texture. At that time, I was actually checking the automap for the secret, so my final exit could be a "real" max.

[RjY]

When I saw today that you said you were going to release this wad (I thought it was still alpha and being worked on) I figured I should run through it again and bring some things to your attention.

Disclaimer: I am only a tester, offering advice. Feel free to heed or ignore it as you see fit. You can't please everyone.



map01:

- On my most recent test run, two chaingunners didn't teleport in. This is a general problem with monster teleporters which try to throw a sleeping monster over a teleport linedef by using conveyor floors. If the destination point is occupied, the monster won't teleport, and as it's not awake it won't ever try again. I wish people wouldn't use conveyor belt teleporters. They invariably break, maybe not the first or second time you do a test run of the map, but eventually, they will break.

- If you pick up the blue key too quickly before killing all the monsters released behind you the doors slam shut again and can lock them out from the rest of the level. I suggest making linedef 2053 repeatable.

- Linedefs 810, 811, 812, 813, 826, 827, 828, 829, 830, 831, 832, and 833 all have the two-sided flag set, but no second sidedef.



map03:

- This one is a joke, right? Are you meant to be able to max it?

- Linedefs 24, 526, 538, 539, and 544 all have the two-sided flag set, but no second sidedef.



map05:

- The monster teleporter that feeds the oval section in the south-east of the map could be improved. I usually get one or two hellknights who somehow manage to bypass all the teleporter lines and wander up and down the front section of the holding area, with the result that they take ages to teleport out.



map06:

- The imp teleporter that goes off when you pick up the plasma gun takes absolutely ages to fully empty itself. You can have cleared out the rest of the level and the wretched things are still slowly teleporting in. It's a very poor design for a holding area.



map10:

- The linedef in the cage that starts lowering sector 230 seems very easy to miss

- Looking out of the bottom of the waterfall results in HOM. To be specific, when looking from sectors 541, 545, and 556, into sector 566, and looking from sectors 540, 550, and 551, into sector 528. I have no idea why. The linedefs' sector references aren't obviously broken. It might be an infelicity of Boom's deep water rendering.

- There is a bit of flat bleeding visible as you ascend the stairs northward from sector 855. This is a nodebuilding error - it went away when I rebuilt the map with bsp5.1.



map11:

- This map needs a node rebuild. There is an infinitely thin "hole" in sector 321 that some of the imps up there fall into.



map13:

- The exit only needs three keys - is this intended? It looks like it needs six.

- A lot of the monsters in the northern holding area kind of wander off it and basically will never teleport out. It seems broken. You'd be waiting forever if you were going for 100% kills.



map14:

- As with map01 there are some archviles in a conveyor belt teleporter that didn't teleport on my last test run. There might be more of this kind of bug, everywhere where a conveyor belt teleporter has been used. I recommend against them.



map15:

- Not sure if this is a bug, but the archvile guarding the blue key can immediately run off its platform, but those guarding the other two keys stay in place - is this intentional?

- 72 cyberdemons all released at once into the central area seems a bit excessive frankly. Killing them all was very repetitive. Has anyone managed to 100% this map?

- Also, cleaning up remaining monsters is tedious, a lot of the ones on the central pyramid are incredibly annoying to shoot due to range and height. It seems like you need mouselook.

[ArmouredBlood]

RjY said:

When I saw today that you said you were going to release this wad (I thought it was still alpha and being worked on) I figured I should run through it again and bring some things to your attention.

Disclaimer: I am only a tester, offering advice. Feel free to heed or ignore it as you see fit. You can't please everyone.

Thanks for looking at it, all of your suggestions sound good, especially fixing the conveyer belt teleports. I've stopped using them recently except in situations where nothing can interfere because of their tendency to break. And on map3 - somewhat yes and yes. Sometimes people just like killing cybers with bfg, and the challenge of getting to another invulnerability before it runs out and you get exploded adds some tension. But mostly I just wanted to use that midi, heh.

Welp, time for some editin ;)

[Phml]

The problem with maxing map03 (at least for me) is the 6 cybies on tiny ledges. It's hard to get to them without being pushed away by rockets or sliding too far.

[Phml]

Here's my attempt at maxing 15. 200 monsters are missing, because I never cross the line that triggers their teleport (and didn't knew what would trigger it before I looked up in DB2 afterwards). I also tried to get the secret exit but didn't understand how (pushed the 8 buttons near teleporters or so I think). It's slow as I handled the archviles poorly and should have saved one or two invul spheres for the fight on top (not to mention I kept walking on cell packs with 560/600, wasting them, making me having to look around for ammo near the end).

[ArmouredBlood]

Fixed many things RjY pointed out. Unfortunately I'm not sure exactly how to fix the stuff in map10 with the transfer height and waterfalls, or rather it's 4 am and I don't want to look at it right now -.- Some things like the double-sided linedefs in map3 were fine when I looked at them in DB2, not sure what's up with that. Anyway, check to see what's up with that stuff. Still don't know what to use as a titlepic or titlemus, ideas? Could get my sister to draw something simple for me and scan it, but it'd be difficult to get anything good to scale to 320x200 well ...
http://www.mediafire.com/?msm14rxad16cm28

P.S. sorry phml, I bet most of the UV-not-maxes on dsda are no longer compatible. Looks like you're going to have to get a third exit on map06 ;P

[printz]

ArmouredBlood said:

Thanks for looking at it, all of your suggestions sound good, especially fixing the conveyer belt teleports. I've stopped using them recently except in situations where [/B]nothing[B] can interfere because of their tendency to break.

You can easily make conveyor teleporters foolproof by making the things go back to their origins if they go past the line.

[RjY]

ArmouredBlood said:
Unfortunately I'm not sure exactly how to fix the stuff in map10 with the transfer height and waterfalls, or rather it's 4 am and I don't want to look at it right now -.-

The problem in a sentence is that the deepest part also needs to be underwater, that is, under a fake floor. It seems Boom doesn't draw into the part of an adjacent sector under a fake floor when the player's sector is *not* under a fake floor, even though the floor heights should allow it. So the deepest part of the water also needs to go under a fake floor, even though intuitively you'd think it wouldn't.

I can give you the example map I made to investigate the problem if that explanation made no sense.

Some things like the double-sided linedefs in map3 were fine when I looked at them in DB2, not sure what's up with that. Anyway, check to see what's up with that stuff.

I am terribly sorry for wasting your time - the linedefs with the bad flags were actually on maps 2 and 4, not 1 and 3. I really need to improve my engine's diagnostics.

On the other hand it is a fairly harmless error in PrBoom which autocorrects bad linedef flags that might cause crashes, but it does produce a bunch of warnings. If you don't care about warnings then you can leave it :)

Still don't know what to use as a titlepic or titlemus, ideas? Could get my sister to draw something simple for me and scan it, but it'd be difficult to get anything good to scale to 320x200 well ...

Haha well if it were me I would just make a screenshot and slap some text on it, I mean, how many people bother to look at titlepics instead of just -warping to whatever level? :)

printz said:
You can easily make conveyor teleporters foolproof by making the things go back to their origins if they go past the line.

Right up until some stupid monster manages to skip all the failsafes as well. You may disagree since it's obviously a rarer event but I assure you it does happen. For example I once ended up locked out of the exit of CChest2 map07 with three monsters alive after nearly an hour's careful play, because one of the wretched mancubi in sector 918 skipped all eight of the teleporter lines in front of it. Conveyor teleporters are just too fragile to be worth it. No matter what you do, they will break eventually.

[Phml]

I mean, how many people bother to look at titlepics instead of just -warping to whatever level?

*raises hand*

Unless I'm recording, drag-and-drop the wad onto GlBoom.exe, start a game on UV then IDCLEVxx. Editing a shortcut, even just to change "-warp xx", takes me longer so I just do it the above way.

[Ribo Zurai]

This WAD is looking fantastic every new update. But I am having a little problem to watch everyone's demos. Well, they DIE. In every demo, it always ends in death, seconds after the beginning. How can I solve that? I am using prBoom.-plus-2.5.0.6.

[ArmouredBlood]

Likely you're using a newer version of the wad where I've rebuilt nodes, causing desyncs. Try to find the version of the wad I uploaded right before someone posted their demo. Every version should still be up.

[ArmouredBlood]

Just finished an event for one of my classes I've been working to/stressing on for the last week, so I thought I'd post what I've got as a titlepic for now, and my intent to use the 'evil hero' intro midi for the titlemus, if jimmy91 allows it (bottom of this page). Otherwise, just have to type up a .txt for the archives and a midi list and it's about ready to go. Minus that last map10 underwater bug I still haven't dealt with. Might go through and redo some architecture and change the midi for 11 too.

[Phml]

That titlepic looks great, and is reminescent of the entry area in the final map. I like it.

[ArmouredBlood]

This is it - Final version to be uploaded to /idgames. Now people can actually be happy that a demo is not going to desync when I make a new version, heheh.
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/NGmvmt1.zip

P.S. It's now in /incoming. YAY!