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Tristan

Doom 2 In Name Only - Now (supsiciously) on a load of gaming articles

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Da Werecat said:

Here's what I think. ~~

Unless there's a better alternative, I'm with this. The original INTERPIC works for pretty much everything, and I would personally prefer D2INO to have the original rather than the paper sheet thing, because the original is universal but the paper sheet doesn't fit that well IMO.

Although the credits screen gets switched to from the TITLEPIC so I would actually vote for taking that credits image. The original would probably clash a bit with the new TITLEPIC, but these work as a pair.

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Yeah, and there's also nothing actually wrong with the credits picture.
Thanks a lot for your graphics, Werecat :)

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Uhh, shouldnt that credits screen have the proper usernames on it? I was wondering where Eris was on the list >_>

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Maybe, but then it's the same as what's in the OP.
It doesn't really bother me personally, but then I wrote it like that in the first place.

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I took all the info from the OP. You should probably check the picture for errors, just in case.

Eris Falling said:

Thanks a lot for your graphics, Werecat :)

Well, anytime, I guess. :)

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MAP27
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"What I did for Love" - A Chorus Line
"Women. Can't live with 'em. Can't shoot 'em" - Steven Wright

Some days a man's life is not his own. Sorry.

This one also took a lot longer than I thought. Where to start?

Little things. A lot of little things. A lot of little things didn't get follow through. What some textures looked like in game. Some missed linedef tags. Some inexact item placement. They add up to giving the level an unfinished, unpolished feel. I like the level. The name 'Monster Condo' has nothing to do with this level. To be fair, that title has nothing to do with the original Doom2 level either. But this level could have improved on the original use of the title. I thought there'd be an elevator somewhere. Every condo building has at least one to let you off on different floors. Upscale condo buildings have a gym and a pool, too. And an underground garage. But that's a completely different direction. Taking this level as it is, it's a good level. It fits its slot. Generally, I had fun here. I liked the homage to Doom2 MAP20 - the Cyber vs Spiderboss. Rinse and then... repeat! I hated the hall where you're attacked by three AVs you can't see. There's a lot of MARBFACx and GSTLION textures with fire eyes or blood running out of their eyes. Meh. I think the effect achieved is not enough to justify the amount of work required to do it. But it's an author's choice.

I'll try not to repeat plums's notes. But so many little things...
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Sector tag 7. I'd pick a different texture. Or instead of the current x+48 offset, just use x+8 and get two faces on there.

http://i.imgur.com/dFYfQY2.png
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Sector tag 78. Rocket Box should not overlap into the alcoves. When you lower it, you get this.

http://i.imgur.com/oqTfq2T.png
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Sector tag 10. Trying to line up a tiny GSTONE1 lower texture and forgetting there's a big BIGDOOR7 above it.

http://i.imgur.com/Fy2ksRr.png
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The left METAL texture on this corner is offset x-236 and the right one is offset x-172.

http://i.imgur.com/rowInfC.png

Whereas one hall to the right they are both at x+0 and they center perfectly.

http://imgur.com/UENg5jO
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Just north of sector tag 91. Three problems in one picture. The right-hand wall ends with a METAL texture which is not centered. The left-hand wall ends with a mis-aligned GSTONE1 instead of a METAL texture. The SUPPORT3 at the end is not balanced/centered (I don't think any of them are). The WOODGARG looks a little low, but that seems a choice.

http://i.imgur.com/XClDamD.png
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Sector tag 11. GSTLION almost centered. Not quite.

http://i.imgur.com/vNgpBjs.png
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Linedef tag 11. Mis-aligned GSTONE1 and unbalanced SUPPORT3.

http://i.imgur.com/WwEmTnZ.png
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Sector tag 28. Shells too close to the lift.

http://i.imgur.com/Qwtl8G2.png
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You can cross the bridge without dropping the barrier (sector tag 19) by getting up on the rail and just running. You land on the FLAT10 border.

http://i.imgur.com/OH2HYG5.png

You don't gain much since the barrier-lowering switch (linedef tag 19) is so close by. You just avoid the fight with the Hell Knights. But you can avoid that anyway, since they can't leave their building.

http://i.imgur.com/TRinROl.png

The steps are 16 units high and they aren't wide enough for the Knights to completely enter the sector before moving down to the next one.
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Okay, I don't know if this counts as an exploit, or just goofy fun. If you lower the entrance wall to the building (sector tag 21) and immediately back up across the bridge, then wait a few seconds for the imps to come to the bridge, you can run across the bridge and use it as a ramp to lift you on top of the imps and run across their heads into the building. That's where this picture was taken.

http://i.imgur.com/e0MWQVW.png

Then if you're lucky, REALLY lucky (meaning it took a lot of restores), you can end up with only the two AVs inside and all the imps outside or stuck on the rising wall.

http://i.imgur.com/t94JBMD.png

I think this is just goofy fun. Since the imps can't cross the bridge (16-unit high steps are too narrow again), you can just rocket them and the AVs from the other side.
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Sector tag 13. GSTSATYR not quite lined up.

http://i.imgur.com/oVzfQA6.png
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Okay, so there's this teleport maze outside the Red Key door. And successfully navigating it to the end lets you teleport to get the Red Key. Failing teleports you into a lava canyon outside the building with some Demons (an area you can get to legally from the outside BTW, by exact strafe-running from the exit steps out of the lava. I think about SR since MAP19). An existential question: Is a maze still a maze when the automap shows you the exact path?

http://i.imgur.com/rDBIV90.png

Actually, you don't even need the automap. Linedef tag 44 turns the lights on full, so there's not even the challenge of doing it in the dark. The correct path has all floor flats as GATE3. All wrong squares are GATE2 and the teleport to the secret is GATE1. So it's not a maze? It's a way to hide a teleport to a secret? That's valid, I guess.

Oh, the secret, sector tag 42. That's one spot where the floor drop edges are NOT tagged impassable, so maybe a teleport at the bottom in the lava? And since they're not impassable, you can SR to get here.

http://i.imgur.com/QOASb7A.png

No reason, there's nothing here. Not sure you should get here.
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Now this IS an exploit. When you get up to the Red Key, you don't need to cross linedef tag 14, which releases the Mancubi, to get the key. You can just step on top of the torches and walk along them to grab the key from the side, so you can avoid the Mancubi fight. Edges of the platform should probably be tagged impassable. There's actually a second exploit here. You can cross tag 14 half-way which releases the Mancubi and still stay on the platform above the Red Key to rocket the ones that don't teleport to the bottom, then replace all your ammo. Maybe that's just smart gameplay. Don't know.

http://i.imgur.com/6VmDwS3.png
http://i.imgur.com/r5THI08.png
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Here's an easy kill. He should probably be facing the other way.

http://i.imgur.com/2LivEXJ.png

And I mentioned the missing bars texture from inside the Soul Sphere area and the two windows areas next to it way back when.
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I really hated the hallway past the Red Key door with three AVs attacking you from behind see-through walls. I get the intent. You're supposed to run and end up with Revenants chasing you and all of them teleporting into the room with the Cyber. Both the AV's teleport linedefs tags 50 and 51 are W1, not WR, as is the teleport linedef tag 47 in the E-W hall. The tag 47 in the N-S hall is WR.
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East of that hall is the precipice area that plums mentioned - another place with invisible impassable linedefs. Maybe they should be tagged monster block instead and a teleport should be added at the bottom in the lava.

http://i.imgur.com/FZ08ERu.png
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In the final room everything is tagged as damaging except the bottom two steps leading out of the lava. I can't think that was intentional.

http://i.imgur.com/aUmC0t7.png
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The last AV doesn't seem to do much. He teleports in so far away. He never attacked me and I just kept firing rockets until he died.

http://i.imgur.com/0QfLTWQ.png

I did notice that all the steps leading up to him had sector tag 87, which is missing. I'm wondering whether those steps were supposed to build and he wasn't supposed to teleport in until you got to those steps (one step is missing and would have to be added along with a switch to build the steps).

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heh, map27 is so all over the place I feel like any exploits people find are fair game. No one really mentioned the monster condo thing before, I think by that point we were all just glad to have a map in that slot.

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Also vanilla Doom didn't allow things-over-things, so some of those are more of a ZDoom exploit. That said there's no reason that things like torches can't also be used with impassable lines.


Good work on that map. I think that it's pretty full of (generally minor) faults, but still fun enough overall.

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Man, I missed so much in there! To be fair, I was looking mostly for misalignments between the same texture on different linedefs, and sky cutoffs also. Some of the weirdly aligned textures I opted to leave in case they were part of the author's style... But it's clear now that some of those things, like that door+brik thing for example, were a mistake.

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Eris Falling said:

Maybe, but then it's the same as what's in the OP.
It doesn't really bother me personally, but then I wrote it like that in the first place.


True, but I think you'd want to immortalise yourself as your actual forum name so theres no possible confusion :p

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MAP28
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Start running. Keep running. Don't stop running or you die. You can call it Run-N-Gun, Slaughterfest, Invasion. Monsters keep coming at you, not leaving you time to think or anywhere to hide. You think you clear a room, you pick up a weapon and the room fills again. You leave a cleared room and AVs pop in behind you. Save early, save often. You'd think this level was called "No Rest For The Living". There were times I just had to hit 'Pause' and walk away to breathe.

Great 'negative' lighting. Makes the monsters look like 'shadow' versions of themselves.

Good map. I have no bugs, just one annoyance. The cross in the western room is very well done. But Cacos shooting at me through the two-sided textures that make up the arms of the cross when I couldn't even see them was pissing me off.

It's funny how maps 27 and 28 both use the MARBFACx with added eye sockets and blood running down the face. It works a little better here. First, because it's only used twice; it stands out as different. Less is more. Second, the eye switch textures make it look a little creepier. And of course I assumed that one of the eyes had to be a switch leading to a secret, so I used/shot all of them trying to get the face to wink or blink. Don't know if there's a vanilla way to do that without 'using' the switch. I'm thinking of the blinking eye sprite in Blood. A wall texture randomly blinking would be REALLY creepy.

One more thing. I ran through the outside area, just looking for the switches so I could stop and breathe before entering the lower area. I knew I'd have to come back outside to the exit; I'd leave them in-fighting and clean up later. When I teleported back, all the monsters were gone. All of them. Except the ones on the elevated bluffs around the edges of the map. Did they all kill each other? Did they all work their way to the teleports and end up downstairs? The emptiness was disturbing. Well done.

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EffinghamHuffnagel said:

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MAP28
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Good map. I have no bugs, just one annoyance. The cross in the western room is very well done. But Cacos shooting at me through the two-sided textures that make up the arms of the cross when I couldn't even see them was pissing me off.


I think I can fix that with invisible sectors inside the cross arms coming down from the ceiling. I'll sort that out.

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

One more thing. I ran through the outside area, just looking for the switches so I could stop and breathe before entering the lower area. I knew I'd have to come back outside to the exit; I'd leave them in-fighting and clean up later. When I teleported back, all the monsters were gone. All of them. Except the ones on the elevated bluffs around the edges of the map. Did they all kill each other? Did they all work their way to the teleports and end up downstairs? The emptiness was disturbing. Well done.


I didn't even consider this happening but its fantastic if it does. I just tried it out and its fairly easy for the monsters to get clogged in the corridors before they get to the teleports so it might not happen every time.

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mouldy,

You could actually force it to happen every time. The two teleports open on a W1 LowerFloorToLowestAdjacentFloor tagged to linedef tag 6 which you cross when you get to the bottom at the start of the north area. All you need are more walls like that hiding WR monster teleport linedefs at the north end of every outside area. You can even close all the teleports up again when the player teleports into the exit building. There's a couple of unused lines just inside the exit room door.

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MAP29
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Good level. Enjoyable. Challenging at times, but I never felt overwhelmed. I was able to breathe and think and strategize. Only one minor issue: line 591, just east of teleport linedef tag 17; not tagged as impassable. Found it by accident and when I landed I thought - and I have no idea why - that it might have been intentional. I ran around the back of the exit structure and half-expected to see a "What are you doing here?" message, or "Congratulations. You found the Special, Hidden, Super-Duper, Double-Secret, only an OCD Doomer would look back here Secret." in front of a picture of some pretty girl's butt (The Living End. Get it?). Or maybe just Dopefish. Then I remembered this was vanilla. Never mind. My brain is getting Doomed out.

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EffinghamHuffnagel said:

Only one minor issue: line 591, just east of teleport linedef tag 17; not tagged as impassable.

Ohsnap! There was one oversight like this before that I also noticed very very late and then fixed, but I never noticed that. Eris, I shall trust you again! But don't leave any extra player starts in there.

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EffinghamHuffnagel said:

A wall texture randomly blinking would be REALLY creepy.


Doom 64 has them. They are indeed quite unsettling. "Wait, did that wall BLINK?"

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Eris Falling said:

I haven't modified any gameplay on any of the maps, but this is an exception. I've toughened this puzzle up a bit. Linedef/sector tag 44 is no longer a thing, so it's always 0 bright, but the path to the non-secret teleporter is marked by candles at each corner. So basically follow the candles and you'll be fine. All linedefs are now hidden so you can't see the path. The secret teleporter has been raised like the normal one, judge for yourself if that makes it easier to find, I'm not sure.
But there's a catch


All candles appear on ITYTD and HNTR
Only 1, 2, 5, 8 and 10 appear on HMP
Only 1, 6 and 10 appear on UV and NM

Personally, I prefer something like that, as different textured teleporters seems a bit easy to me.


umm.. this is a joke isn't it?

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phew! The only redeeming feature of that bullshit teleport puzzle is that its easy to work out :)

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MAP30
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So the first few times I died like a dog ("A Caco. And I have a pistol. Lovely."). Then I figured out the mechanics and it became easier. Still couldn't get past the monsters to get the BFG (you really need an almost completely empty room for that), but okay. Got the Chainsaw, the Plasma Gun and the Rocket Launcher. And then I see a Red Key. A different one than the one I had picked up in a previous attempt. Oh, there's lots of Red Keys. I eventually finished without finding any issues, so I checked back in the thread to see what others had to say about the map. And I realized I had been playing the original B7B version, not the latest update. Start again.

Oh, THAT'S where the Chaingun is. And FINALLY got the BFG. A lot easier getting past all the Cacos and PEs that congregate by a Red Key door. The center walls don't stop flying things. More AVs at the end, less other monsters. Right. The faster you get the red key, the more AVs at the end. Interesting balance. The last time through I drained the BFG and Plasma Gun and killed the last AV with my last rocket but for a moment, the central room was cleared. Climbed the stairs and SSG'd Romero (Tried a rocket the first time out of habit. The splash killed me). Curtain Call rolled and I thought, "That was fun." It took a lot of tries, but eventually, it was fun. I also like being able to stop the monsters from spawning. It makes you feel like you're DOING something to shut the Final Boss down, rather than just surviving; it gives a sense of accomplishment. That's a really good mechanical improvement over the original Doom2 MAP30.

So one more time through, closing off spawn spots as quickly as possible, then taking my time to check things. Wait, there's Secrets? I never had time to notice them before. So, until you open a Red Key door, you're pretty safe with spawn points barred. The odd Imp fireball, an occasional Lost Soul spawning outside the bars when a PE dies, that's about it. Opened a Red Key door, BFG'd all the Cacos and PEs, then dropped the walls and re-supplied. I had no AVs, and about the same number of other monsters as when I got to the tower as quickly as possible. I'm guessing spawn telefrags and in-fighting keeps the numbers down. Cleared, climbed, killed. Still fun.

Also, for giggles, checked to see if anything happened if you grabbed all seven Red Keys. Do you find an additional secret? A statue of Mario? A picture of Eris? Dopefish? Nope.

Very good level. Worthy of its name and slot.

One 'bonus' map to go.

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Cool, glad you enjoyed map 30. I've made a slight change to it whereby the monsters that spawn in the 7 outer areas switch to spawning in the centre (once you get there), so there is a bit more opposition at the end.

I've also updated map 28 to fix monsters shooting you through the big cross, here are the updates to maps 28 and 30:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/348av8z5pv8pa3m/d2ino-mouldy-updates13may.zip

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EffinghamHuffnagel said:

Also, for giggles, checked to see if anything happened if you grabbed all seven Red Keys. Do you find an additional secret? A statue of Mario? A picture of Eris? Dopefish? Nope.


Hmm, too late for an easter egg in there? You could even have an "extra-secret" room that gives you > 100% secrets through clever use of linedef type 37.

Good luck with Map34 Effingham. I made a slight update to it somewhere back on behalf of Joseph Lord, I don't think it's integrated into the B7b version. I'm sure there are still problems in that version though.

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plums said:

Hmm, too late for an easter egg in there? You could even have an "extra-secret" room that gives you > 100% secrets through clever use of linedef type 37.


heh, i feel like I could keep tinkering with that map forever. I considered making a super secret for finding all 7 normal secrets, but maybe I should leave it and move on now..

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Are there going to be any more updates aside from those in to do list?

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EDIT: plums, yes this is your updated version.

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MAP34
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I like this map. A nice alternate take on 'The Chasm'. Since playing it forces a pistol start, I really like that the two Cybers you have to avoid at the start come back in the middle and at the end. A few minor issues, nothing fatal. Fun, with a few exceptions. Oh, and if the author's name is Tiberius Lessom, he misspelled it.

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One minor visual glitch here.

http://i.imgur.com/ppPpUMB.png

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When you drop the wall to access the Blue Key (sector tag 15) you also teleport in 20 Hell Knights. They are ALL tagged Easy-Medium-Hard. You have to get past them to get the Blue Key. Maybe some difficulty-balancing on them. And their teleport spot sectors (4, 5, 6, 7) are nukage and not tagged as damaging. Actually, neither is the rest of the room.

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Linedef tag 38 - when you open the door, 84 Shotgunners teleport in. They are ALL tagged Easy-Medium-Hard. Maybe some difficulty-balancing on them. If you're meant to blast through them and run, then never mind. Otherwise, thank God for Chaingun bullets. Also, the sectors they teleport into (34, 35, 36, 37) are water sectors, yet tagged as damaging.

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Automap (after Computer Map) shows sector 106 (just NE of linedef tag 33), but it's closed and you can't get to it. I assumed it was a secret, but afterwards in an editor, I saw it wasn't. It's just a sector with floor and ceiling at the same height, but with a hanging body in the sector. If that was intentional, I don't understand it.

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The lava cliff area around linedef tag 56 - some of the cliff edges are tagged impassable, others are not, and there's a long impassable linedef in the middle of the room. Is that to 'funnel' the Lost Souls towards you? And to keep them from going around that northern corner of the room? I was going to say that having some invisible barriers and not others doesn't seem logical, but then I realized applying logic to an area featuring flying, flaming skulls seems silly. If I was being absolutely logical, I'd say that there's no origin for the lava on that cliff so how does it fall off the edge to the room below? There's also two missing ASHWALL2 textures in the ceiling around the NW Fireblu structure. You can't really see them, I just noticed while I was looking around in an editor.

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Sector 472, the three alcoves in the teleport spot room (sector tag 61) - all three are pulsating but only two have torches in them. I assumed that meant the third one was a hint to a secret. It's not.

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One monster short of 100%. Finally found him. One of the Lost Soul 'decorations' around the Fireblu tower just NE of sector tag 42. The furthest one to the east is behind the tower. You can barely see the edge of him and the edge of his pillar. Just enough for bullets (or rocket splash off the wall) to target. Was he meant to be that hidden? Also you can see line 5488 is not scrolling. And it seems kind of random that one of the Fireblu towers is scrolling and has Lost Skulls around it and the other doesn't have or do either.

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The exit room - I know the intent is for you to run off the cliff and cross the exit linedef in mid-air (always liked that). But if you don't, then why is the blood in the exit room damaging when none of the other blood in the level is? Since the exit linedef shows up on the automap because of the Computer Map, you can walk around the linedef and exit from the back. That's a little odd.

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La Commedia è finita!

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Thanks for all the testing man, you've beeen a great help.

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mouldy said:

Thanks for all the testing man, you've beeen a great help.

Second this, bring on the final release :)

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Thirded, the number of things that you and plums have identified to be fixed is rather colossal, and bonus marks for, in nearly all cases, making it a simple "find" function in GZDB for me to get to the appropriate areas. Amazing. Thank you very much.

I'm still yet to integrate 34, so I'll do it with these fixes.
B8 tomorrow.

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