Nightmare megawad

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Let's make a megawad of maps meant to be played with the -fast and/or -respawn parameters on. That way NM will actually be fun and possible and the other skills will be made more interesting. Here's the breakdown. This is the signup thread.

-Boom Compatible
-New music ok
-New textures ok
-balanced for Nightmare play

Mappers:

Me (GRB)
St. alfonzo
purist (tentatively)
fiend-o-hell

Let's use the recolored doom texture pack. I like the edits in it.
http://www.realm667.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=632:recolored-doom-texture-pack&catid=55:doom-style&Itemid=189

Of course the stock textures are good too and will blend nicely with these.

[Alfonzo]

Well clearly I'm in ;)

There are still a few mapping commitments that have to be seen too first, but this concept is pretty damn fascinating. I won't be leaving it too long on the back burner, that's for sure!

[purist]

This is a good idea. I'll keep my eye on this over the next couple of months while I work on PFCP and D2TWID. If it gets off the ground I might join in.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Actually, I think an official texture resource for this project would be a good idea. What do you guys think? I'd say cc4-tex.wad just because it has so much.

[purist]

I'd be happy with stock textures or a conservative dedicated texture set. Community projects with a texture free for all can sometimes look inconsistent and I prefer level sets to appear cohesive.

[Guest]

GRB, that is really odd that you started this thread, because, I was just thinking this week about a megawad that was designed to be played on nightmare, so that the average UV player could play on NM and it be a fun experience, rather than always leaving NM runs to the pros."

Would love to see something come of this.

Also, if I sort out that glitch with that texture pack, you could possibly use that for this.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Nice to see you on board Kyka. It is weird that we both have the same idea at the same time.

Let's try to come up with an actual name for this thing too.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Here's a little test map I made.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b5k8id1ss3psd25

Try NM.

[Alfonzo]

Just a little clarification:

When we say that the maps are "meant to be played with the -fast and/or -respawn parameters on," is that not to say that both parameters have to be enabled for all maps? The way that it is phrased currently makes it seem as though the author is able to decide weather he wants respawning to be a gameplay factor in his map or not, which would clearly create an inconsistency in playthrough.

Also, it may be a good idea to somehow indicate in the difficulty selection menu that NM is in fact an easier difficulty selection that UV due to double ammo, perhaps by having UV dripping with the trademark gore and NM, well... not! Either that, or players could be encouraged only to have the -respawn paramater turned on so as to leave NM available as the hardest difficulty selection. The step up in difficulty there would thus be equal to Heretic, Hexen, and Strife's.

General Rainbow Bacon said:

Here's a little test map I made.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b5k8id1ss3psd25

Try NM.

Nice! I thought this was a good attempt, employing the almost necessary revisiting of areas to make use of respawning. I'm guessing the slow lowering platform leading to the blue key teleporter was also meant ot stall the player, but it was a little tedious.

I managed to get flanked by a PE and some second-life sergeants in the cage maze, but it was more due to my inept skills than anything else. Well, that and the fact that the mid textures didn't have back sides: I was navigating an optical illusion :(

[Xaser]

Alfonzo echoed my thoughts exactly: If we're going to do this, we should straight-up dedicate it to Nightmare mode play. Otherwise, we will hit some sort of gameplay inconsistency because we have to not only factor in whether or not people are playing with -respawn/-fast but also the double-ammo issue.

That's not to say we can't also add "skill levels" so less skilled players aren't shut out, though. The best way, IMO, would be to recommend one of two possible settings: "Easy" (ITYTD with -respawn and -fast) and "Hard" (traditional Nightmare mode) so that the ammo counts are never skewed.

Having said that, I love this idea and will consider whipping up a map if the difficulty issue is squared away.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Okay, I think we should aim for it being on Nightmare. I've edited the first post with the new rule.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Anyone working on maps for this yet?

[Marcaek]

How about utilizing the difficulty levels to account for each parameter?

As an example, HNTR could be for -fast, and HMP for -respawn. UV could be balanced for people who want a traditional UV experience. The mappers would take the altered difficulty setting usage into account to make their maps play appropriately in each mode. The graphics for the difficulty levels can be replaced accordingly.

Of course, players should be notified in the readme to use the appropriate command line settings for each difficulty.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Well, we want Nightmare to be the default because inconsistencies will arise if we allow all types of play and people build the maps with one gameplay type in mind. What we could do is split it up into episodes: ep 1 being for -fast levels, ep 2 being for -respawn maps, and the 3rd episode being for traditional Nightmare. And 31 and 32 being surprise curveballs thrown in for shiggles.

[Marcaek]

Why not just consider the differences in difficulty when making the maps? Place Hard-only items and monsters for -fast, Med-only items for -respawn and Easy-only for a normal UV run? You can even block off specific passageways with obstacles on certain difficulties for each style of play if the mapper decides to have multiple paths.

I completely believe that it's possible to have a map utilize multiple gameplay styles using the difficulty levels in this manner.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

It won't work. Too many inconsistencies in the levels will happen if we try to do that. If a level is designed for -respawn and someone plays it -fast it'll be too easy. If someone makes a level for UV and plays it NM, it might be too hard. If someone designs a level for -fast and plays it -respawn or NM it might not be possible. We want each level to be completable and the only way to do that is to restrict the type of level. No way around it.

[Xaser]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

What we could do is split it up into episodes: ep 1 being for -fast levels, ep 2 being for -respawn maps, and the 3rd episode being for traditional Nightmare.

That's even worse. You'd be unable to play through the whole wad in a single playthrough.

Marcaek's suggestion would only work if the Hard filter is dedicated solely to Nightmare, since double-ammo would be implicit. At that point, you'd have a "dead" skill (UV) which you'd need to instruct players not to use.

It's best not to overcomplicate things, which seems to be happening here.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Yeah, I agree with you Xaser. That's why the OP still has NM as the default skill to map for.

[fiend-o-hell]

I think I'd like to make a map for this. Count me in!

[Guest]

I have only skimread all the posts for this, but the general consensus seems to be we are designing this for NM only, and UV will have to suffer as a result. You cannot design a map for NM and hope to have it especially difficult on UV, unless you were to define new difficulty settings, which I assume we will not do.

So HNTR could always be the 'new' UV, UV will be a watered-down NM, and NM will be the main focus of the level and gameplay design.

Which is pretty much what xaser has said anyway.

[Walter confetti]

another megawad idea? Oh my, looks like there's a megawad almost everday lol