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Vader

[WIP] The Shores of Zdoom (Oct 13: new pictures on page 6)

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Marnetmar said:

Will E2M4 have the same haunting and surreal atmosphere the original had?


This.

Seriously, just scrap this whole thing if E2M4 isn't terrifying. Not even worth it. Doesn't have to live up to my old "interpretation" of the original, but it really, really should be scary, or at least very unnerving.

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Just being honest with you, here. I know it's your project, but we kind of have expectations, too.

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Marnetmar said:

Will E2M4 have the same haunting and surreal atmosphere the original had?

Megamur said:

Seriously, just scrap this whole thing if E2M4 isn't terrifying. Not even worth it. Doesn't have to live up to my old "interpretation" of the original, but it really, really should be scary, or at least very unnerving.

Wow, E2M4 is actually my least favorite map in the original three episodes. I must be missing whichever 'haunting' atmosphere you guys are referring to.

I just think of it as a lot of STONGARG surrounding a bunch of ugly rooms, like a garish afghan flung over a rotted-out sofa. So from my perspective it'd be hard to treat that map in a way that makes it worse than the original.

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I have a suggestion for an enemy sound. Record T667 having an egotistical hissy fit while he doesn't notice and then lower the pitch to have it sound demonic.

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Looks pretty damn cool. Hope DM support is included, I know the levels are lage and complex and will probably make use of a lot of the UDMF stuff, but DM would still be neat.

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Graf Zahl said:

I guess you just missed the point of KDiZD then.


So lets have a dialogue. What exactly was the point of KDiZD, according to the person with the definitive answers (which as a complete and total shock, is you apparently)? Was it a lot of pointless backtracking because the map author didn't feel like building in circular routes? Was it scavenger hunts for keys that were obscure enough to make Wolf3D mappers proud? I mean I really don't know what it is I guess since the start of this thread. I personally thought it was about recreating E1 of Doom with the features of ZDoom used to make things more interesting, but I'm sure you clearly know more about this than I or, you know, anyone else that might think the same as me.

But please, enlighten us all, what was the point of KDiZD, so we don't miss it the next time we have the joy to give it another playthrough. And more relevantly, what is the point of TSoZD? Is it like KDiZD or not and is that good/bad or what. Inquiring minds want to know.

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And I guess you have to figure that there'd be lots of power outages in a base ruined by demons.

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I think... I agree with Dutch Devil, just about that one shot. The rest show such complexity in design, but that one seems to adhere to the simple add-borders-to-everything formula. Not that it doesn't look nice, as it's actually really a nice looking shot and something I myself would be plenty happy to have made, but it just seems to lack the detail and complexities that the other shots exhibit.

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John Smith said:

So lets have a dialogue. What exactly was the point of KDiZD, according to the person with the definitive answers (which as a complete and total shock, is you apparently)? Was it a lot of pointless backtracking because the map author didn't feel like building in circular routes? Was it scavenger hunts for keys that were obscure enough to make Wolf3D mappers proud? I mean I really don't know what it is I guess since the start of this thread. I personally thought it was about recreating E1 of Doom with the features of ZDoom used to make things more interesting, but I'm sure you clearly know more about this than I or, you know, anyone else that might think the same as me.

But please, enlighten us all, what was the point of KDiZD, so we don't miss it the next time we have the joy to give it another playthrough. And more relevantly, what is the point of TSoZD? Is it like KDiZD or not and is that good/bad or what. Inquiring minds want to know.



To make it short, the point was not to make maps that can be run through in a few minutes - and that's what some person here expected. There have been enough E1 clones been made over the years so if that's your preference play one of those.

And yes, Z1M3 does have some obscure places - but on the other hand you only need to find them in order to open the secret exit. And the biggest obstacle to getting there was not the key hunt but the switch to reveal the 6-key door which was too well hidden.

As for the other maps, yes, you have to run around to find some keys. Great! Welcome to Doom! That's classic E1 gameplay. Just check out E1M3, E1M9, E1M4, E1M5, E1M6 and E1M7 for other maps that did that.

But in the end it all boils down to one simple question: How much time are you willing to spend exploring a large map? If your answer is 'less than 5 minutes' then KDiZD is certainly not for you.

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Concerning the hellish screenshot DD and Tango are referring to:

I agree that it seems a little sub-par compared to the other shots posted and I propably shouldn't have included it in the announcement.
However, as essel already pointed out, a single screenshot doesn't do this area justice at all, as quite some dynamic stuff is going on in this scene!
There's also a nice sloped ceiling not visible in the screenshot.
Anyway, I guess I could work on better lighting a bit more though...

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John Smith said:

But please, enlighten us all, what was the point of KDiZD, so we don't miss it the next time we have the joy to give it another playthrough. And more relevantly, what is the point of TSoZD? Is it like KDiZD or not and is that good/bad or what. Inquiring minds want to know.

I already wrote about this and to make things short: KDiZD was planned and executed in a totally different way. TSoZD still has the same concept, but with different priorities in mind.

KDiZD was still a great result and an entertaining project (it is still for many of us, also for me) even though it might have its flaws. We always had these in mind when working on TSoZD and you can expect things to turn out differently in TSoZD - but we won't be able to please everyone, that's not our goal.

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Vader said:

Concerning the hellish screenshot DD and Tango are referring to:


To me, that screenshot looks alot more hell-ish than anything in the original E2 (E2M9 aside). It looks more E3 to me.

I guess because it lacks any clearly tech-base elements mixed in.

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To me, that screenshot looks alot more hell-ish than anything in the original E2 (E2M9 aside).


Hmm I disagree, E2 has its good share of hellish areas that mostly lack any tech influence as well.
The marble area with the candleabres in M2, the wooden maze in M6 and the yellow key room in M4 are just a few examples I can think of from the top of my head!
Anyway, I don't think it's a bad idea to extend the hellish theme a bit either, especially in later maps of the episode (M6 in this case).

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Vader said:

Hmm I disagree, E2 has its good share of hellish areas that mostly lack any tech influence as well.
The marble area with the candleabres in M2, the wooden maze in M6 and the yellow key room in M4 are just a few examples I can think of from the top of my head!
Anyway, I don't think it's a bad idea to extend the hellish theme a bit either, especially in later maps of the episode (M6 in this case).

Well... The marble area in M2 is made of marble but doesn't look too hot. The wooden maze in M6 looks more like an old techbase to me. The yellow key room in M4 doesn't really look hellish, looks like a large lab room of sorts. Really hellish areas in E2 for me are the first cacodemon chamber in M6 or the rOCKrED corridor in M7...

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printz said:

The wooden maze in M6 looks more like an old techbase to me.



I wouldn't call it 'techbase' but it's certainly not hellish. I found it rather neutral but certainly human-built. It's still one of the ugliest places in the map though...

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I used to love Episode 1 the most. But I think I played it too much, so I like the fresh "air" is Episode 2. Not too tech, not too hell. Maybe a perfect mixture. (And the music was great in that Episode) So I'm really excited to see what are you going to do. Pictures are awesome, i hope gameplay will be better!

Will you add new music? To me E2M4 was scary, and one of my favourite map, because the music, and the "blue part".

Good luck!

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Vader said:

Hmm I disagree, E2 has its good share of hellish areas that mostly lack any tech influence as well.
The marble area with the candleabres in M2, the wooden maze in M6 and the yellow key room in M4 are just a few examples I can think of from the top of my head!
Anyway, I don't think it's a bad idea to extend the hellish theme a bit either, especially in later maps of the episode (M6 in this case).


Well, the marble area in M2 and wood area in M6 still have a somewhat tech base shape (notable the wood area on M6 is shaped almost exactly like the tech area below it) and don't feature much. The Hell like stuff on E2 is all fairly plain (there’s little to no prominent Hell symbolism (MARBFACE textures, Evil Eyes, lava etc). What that screenshot shows, to me, is a hall in the middle of Hell.

That said, what I personally would like to see from The Shores of ZDoom is Hell looking like it is spreading across the base, like the Zerg creep in Starcraft or the red weed in War of the Worlds.

It would be cool if an area of a map the player travels through more than once starts off looking like the Deimos tech base, but by their last run through the area, Hell has began to creep over it. To represent that the base is warping in front of the player, so to speak.

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Just make sure you can fake all this stuff with vanilla when you do The Shores of TSoZ.

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Vermil said:

That said, what I personally would like to see from The Shores of ZDoom is Hell looking like it is spreading across the base, like the Zerg creep in Starcraft or the red weed in War of the Worlds.

Well, when I saw that red weed in the WotW movie, I immediately thought of the Doom vines.

It would be cool if an area of a map the player travels through more than once starts off looking like the Deimos tech base, but by their last run through the area, Hell has began to creep over it. To represent that the base is warping in front of the player, so to speak.

Spoiler

This is exactly how Z1M8 from KDiZD works.

All this thread makes me want to replay KDiZD, but I'm gonna try to change some DECORATE parameters so it won't be the same experience as before. Any suggestions?

What I found wrong about KDiZD's monsters is that they're not adjusted for -fast difficulty. If I tried to play on -fast, the vanilla monsters would be hasted (by being Demons or their fireballs) but the new ones not (such as blood demons or dark imp fireballs). It looked inconsistent and not as exciting as it could be. I even told Tormentor667 about this when the time was for v1.1 and he shunned it. I hope the monsters in TSoZD are adjusted for -fast compatibility, thank you.

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I could agree on the shape of the wood maze to be more or less techy (to me it alwas felt like random shapes thrown together anyway), but come on;
if skulls with red glowing eyes, scrolling skull walls, gargoyle and satyr faces plus gloomy light torches isn't part of hells symbolism, what else is?

I could propably add more techy stuff to the area in question, but TBH to me it feels just right in the context of the map... of course my opinion is biased, since I made it, but still...

Anyway, I don't want to seem overly defensive about this issue.
I'm actually happy about the feedback and will reconsider if I want to keep the area as it is!

It would be cool if an area of a map the player travels through more than once starts off looking like the Deimos tech base, but by their last run through the area, Hell has began to creep over it. To represent that the base is warping in front of the player, so to speak.


We're actually trying to do that to a certain extend!
There's some of that stuff in Z1M8 already and we plan to use something similar in the TSoZD maps.

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Suggestion for Z2M8: if the boss is some variation on the Cyberdemon, have the player hear it stomping around or bellowing in inaccessible areas for a while before actually meeting it to raise the tension.

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Solarn said:

Suggestion for Z2M8: if the boss is some variation on the Cyberdemon, have the player hear it stomping around or bellowing in inaccessible areas for a while before actually meeting it to raise the tension.

Yeah, like in vanilla Doom. It's too bad that nearly all ports removed this effect.

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How about a cyberdemon 2x the size of the normal one with two heads and 4 launchers/arms. That would scare the crap out of anyone. At least 4x hp as well. Have a few normal cybers as minions.

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I'm curious [don't answer]: Will the expanded Tower of Babel be actually a tower? Ahhh, too bad it won't be as easy without 3d structures [don't get angry by this statement].

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