ZDaemon Thursday Night Survival #7 - Vanguard

[Evolution]

Twelve maps in total: Vanguard has impressive designs, nice texture usage and a few tough fights. The same dmflags as last week for Speed of Doom but it should be a little more relaxed (no more hordes of those damn revenants). Check the Vanguard release thread for the full description.

• PWADs: Vanguard, bluecaco, tskins1e
  
• Skill: Ultra Violence
  
• Maps: 01-13 ;)
  
• Lives: 1
  
• Players: 25 / 50
  
• Servers: [L@P] Euro / [DUI] New Jersey

The Euro session starts at 8pm GMT+1; the US session starts at 8pm EDT. So be there this Thursday! Original thread here.

[Tango]

neat. out of curiousity, how many people did you have playing sod together last week?

[esselfortium]

Tango said:

neat. out of curiousity, how many people did you have playing sod together last week?

A whole lot. You could say they were a real bunch of sod-aholics.

[Evolution]

Yeah, I think the server saw just over the old 16 player limitation (as it has done for previous sessions) but it's been populated pretty much daily since I got it running for part one, which is just over 2 weeks - pretty cool to see! :)

Also I was in the server yesterday when a bunch of random players clocked map26 from pistol start, that was fun to watch.

[dew]

when i participated in the original session for part 2 (maps 17+), the server kept at circa 10-12 players of which 6 to 8 played, the rest watched or took breaks. it was fun when the last cyber on map24 killed 3 players and we had to restart from scratch.

esselfortium said:

A whole lot. You could say they were a real bunch of sod-aholics.

ouch, that punchline's barbs have barbs.

[skillsaw]

This sounds like a fun time. Although, I hope there aren't any co-op issues (I never tested multiplayer).

I'll try to show up!

[DeathevokatioN]

Looks really cool, I'd love to join but my internet connection is quite terrible. I'm pretty sure Skillsaw is chuft with this.

[dew]

ok... this session is out of control, haha. random players finished the rotation at least four times before the event even started, because the server was already there. i joined about half way through the official session, but we were done quite soon, so we completed another rotation with -fast monsters. right now they go through yet another rotation, contemplating how to make it a step harder. there were over 12 players in the server all the time, which makes map13 rather hilarious.

[Evolution]

Whoa this went down far better than I could have ever imagined, I'm totally shocked and only hope the USA session has the same awesome vibes! 20 people in the server: cool to see. The USA session starts right now by the way... 8)

Check it out: http://imgur.com/a/f4OiS#dpPDH

[skillsaw]

I had a lot of fun playing tonight! It got a little too chaotic for me when there were 10+ players running around, but it was all in good fun.

My only question is: what are we playing next week?

[EarthQuake]

Heh, this was pretty fun. I had a great time and I would have stuck around for longer, but I've work to do on my own project. I hope to sit down and play this through as soon as things settle down on my end.

The level design is gorgeous. Smooth and streamline, but easy to navigate and move around. Gameplay was extremely challenging, but intriguing with nice subtle use of Boom features for bring the wad to life. This wad was perfect for ZDaemon, even with the high amount of players. I know you probably didn't design the maps for such a huge group at once, but survival mode thinned out the crowd quickly enough to make it more comfortable, while also getting past the rough level starts.

I'd have to say this is the first time lost souls have ever felt so threatening to me, but maybe that was because of the fast monsters setting. There was a great emphasis on survival, making this a great selection for tonight's session. :)

[Joshy]

If I had a reason for moving over to Europe (from Australia, a land with no servers), it'd be for better pings in survival sessions like these!

[Evolution]

skillsaw: Awesome! As soon as I know it'll be up here!

Joshy: Have you tried ZDaemon 1.09? It's very smooth for pingers. :)


Phenex2 took some screens from the US side - we saw just as big a turnout there; just as fun too.