Preacher - final version on idgames

[Darch]

Thank you Keyboard Doomer!!

Keyboard_Doomer said:

Seems like rhinoduck maybe forgot to mention it so I'm just going to link it myself: https://rhinoduck.net/wiki/tnswutil

Downloaded.

Keyboard_Doomer said:

Your wad seems to be a good fit and we would gladly help you coop-test it once it reaches the final number of maps.

That will be very much appreciated!

Keyboard_Doomer said:

Seems like you accidently posted a broken link to your site so here is one that works:
http://www.confrariadacosta.com.br/doom/preacherv07.zip

Fixed, thank you again.

Keyboard_Doomer said:

Lastly, for future version of the wad please name it with the version number in the filename the same way you do for the zip file.

Will do!

[DAZZER]

I take my hat off for you, sir !

I nearly always enjoy gothic themed maps and from playing through the first level I can already tell that i really really love it :) The Design, Weapons and Sounds are very impressive ! I just can wish you the best with this project :D !

btw In my playthrough the Cyberdemon got stuck on that altar thing ^^

[Darch]

Thank you sir! Hope you enjoy the other maps.

DAZZER said:

btw In my playthrough the Cyberdemon got stuck on that altar thing ^^

Hahah I wonder how did even it got up there, which port were you running? I will do some tests with block monster lines to see if it doesn't get too much in the way of flying monsters.

[Darch]

Reuploaded this, since I found a major mistake in mapinfo: maps 02 and on would lead to themselves instead of next map, at every port other then PRBoom. I forgot to update the nextmap entries when adding MAP02.

Here's the new link:
http://www.confrariadacosta.com.br/doom/preacherv07b.zip

[rhinoduck]

Sorry for the late reply, lol. Fortunately, Keyboard_Doomer already took it upon himself to explain what TNS is. I will just add that there are Thursday Night Survival posts in the Doom Multiplayer forum here on Doomworld as well, and that they see more activity than those in the ZDaemon forums.

Also, I started a survival server (running 24/7) on ZDaemon with beta 0.7b for anyone interested in a random casual playthrough; here is the name and the address...

Ducks play w/ rhinoduck - Preacher (beta 0.7b)
89.221.208.147:10074

[Darch]

Great, rhino! We played it yesterday. Found some things to adjust in coop and Zdaemon, this helps a lot.

[doomero-21]

I played yesterday on zdaemon, nice level design. This mod need to be a megawad.

[Aquanet]

This is really fun, I played through the last version (I believe) before you removed the death exits. I had some light ammo difficulty, perhaps greatest on the last map (large fortress), but it never became a serious buzz kill. (For pistol starting, I would have liked some more ammo near the beginning of said fortress map.) I like how you squeeze cinematic-looking effects out of basic doom/boom triggers and functions, such as the gracefully lowering weapons and powerups.

The character shouting out whatever he says gets old, but I think you trimmed that back. I did like the overall architecture, which some have complained about. It's a bit surreal while still feeling tangible, and some of the more ornate structures are cool.

The 4-slot gun works OK, I wonder if it could pack more punch (feeling wise, not damage).

Gorgeous visuals overall, even if the custom textures can get a bit murky.

[rhinoduck]

Darch said:

Great, rhino! We played it yesterday. Found some things to adjust in coop and Zdaemon, this helps a lot.

I am happy you found it useful :) If you wanted different settings, let me know; or I can give you RCON so that you can change them yourself (PM me on ZRC or here for that). If I saw right, you are from Brazil, which means your ping was probably quite high given the server is located in the heart of Europe; that I can't help, unfortunately. Starting a server on your machine (or using whatever Doom port's MP capability) is an option to remedy that; though, I've seen people with very high pings play so well it was almost escaping my comprehension how they can do that (I am a pingwhore who's used to his low ping, you see :), so maybe it is not a problem.

[Darch]

rhinoduck said:

I am happy you found it useful :) If you wanted different settings, let me know; or I can give you RCON so that you can change them yourself

Thank you! I think current settings are ok, we could just update it when a new version is out.

doomero-21 said:

I played yesterday on zdaemon, nice level design. This mod need to be a megawad.

Heh nice Doomero, we were playing together. My nick is Arrrrch in ZDaemon. GG!!

Aquanet said:

I had some light ammo difficulty, perhaps greatest on the last map (large fortress), but it never became a serious buzz kill. (For pistol starting, I would have liked some more ammo near the beginning of said fortress map.)
...
The 4-slot gun works OK, I wonder if it could pack more punch (feeling wise, not damage).

Added some more ammo at the begging of said map. I wanted players to keep moving instead of cleaning a "room" before moving to next (that's why there's few ammo around), but it can be pretty hard with that monster count and when you don't know exactly were ammo is.

About the Tommy Gun, this (and all other weapons and enemies) are just sprite replacements, everything works with standard behavior. Thanks for the feedback!!

[rhinoduck]

I noticed the server went down, it's up again. There is nothing wrong with the WAD, a larger heapsize just needed to be set so that all of MAP07 would fit into the pre-allocated chunk of memory.

[Darch]

Thanks for that, rhinoduck!! We played this map when the server was back. Unfortunately, this map lags a bit in ZDoom related ports, even offline, don't know if there's something that can be done about it without drastically changing its open layout :P

Aquanet said:

The 4-slot gun works OK, I wonder if it could pack more punch (feeling wise, not damage).

Now that I read your post again, I see that you weren't talking about weapon behavior at all. Well, I moved one firing sprite down a bit, so it will simulate some recoil. It feels better now IMO, thanks for the input.

[Demonologist]

I'm terribly late for the mass, and alas, the links are dead. Praise the lord and reupload, pretty please!

[Darch]

Hey Demonologist! Nice to see you back here, your input and demos have always been helpful.

 

Although the link at the first page still works for me, a new version will be ready in few days, which I believe to be more balanced, and with one extra map (this one):

 

So if you want to wait a bit, I think you'll have better material to play. In case you want to download the current version, the maps you didn't play are  slots 2 and 7 :)

 

(spoiler: map 07 is unfair. It's currently being rebalanced.)

[Demonologist]

Still 404 for me. I'll wait, no problem, though chances are that even then I'll be forced to ask for an alternative link.

[Darch]

New map is ready!

 

Version 0.8 BETA DOWNLOAD: 
http://confrariadacosta.com.br/doom/preacherv08.zip

 

@Demonologist Alternative download link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v87lm26l23hfw3x/preacherv08.zip?dl=0

 

current maplist:

map01 - Pagan Temple

map02 - Babel

map03 - Sacrificial Altar

map04 - Dark Tower

map05 - 40 Days in the Desert

map06 - Noir

map07 - Sanctuary

map08 - Crown of Thorns

 

And this is the new map (slot 03):

[Demonologist]

Thanks for the link, no idea why the default one keeps showing 404.

 

Okay... to the maps.

Wasn't really sold on 02, not only infinite tallness is a major nuisance in such layouts, but the verticality overdose in general makes me feel uncomfortably dizzy, navigating maps like these is fairly confusing, especially under crossfire. Well, more like not my cup of tea, really.

 

Can't say anything bad about 03, polished map that definitely meets modern standards in terms of layout design, nature of fast-paced yet relatively easygoing gameplay and overall appearance, pretty much a piece of BTSX or any of skillsaw's wads of your own choice, heh. Nice.

 

Regarding 08... there will be no demo for you since I don't think you'll have fun watching me doing nonsense and eventually turning the recording off. First of all, to start on the right note - this map is as enormous as it is beautiful and moody, the amount of time and effort that went into making it must've been really significant, and it shows.

But, but... I'm afraid I wasn't able to feel the rhythm and follow its guidelines. First of all - I don't think that the location of the starting teleporter is a good idea, as the player can simply skip the plasma gun and dive into the fray without the proper equipment (and seeing that PG is a primary weapon on this map - his life is going to be full of pain).

Then it's the overall nature of gameplay, I was simply running around having a very vague understanding of what should be done and fending off wave after wave of attackers, mostly with plasma because other ammunition was much more scarce than cells, and after a while it started feeling a bit tiresome, more and more as I progressed (at least kill ratio-wise, as I still had no sense of direction even after ~15 minutes of gameplay). I can see what you were trying to achieve, the closest analogy I can think of is Nocturnus' maps with their sandboxy nature and "messy" opposition, with mixed hordes that keep chasing the player all the way along without any strict system and careful arrangement, but in this map the initially threatening action slowly devolves into PG snoozefest and thoughts like "will they ever stop coming?..". The enemies are everywhere, it's a rare occasion when there are no things firing at the player from all distances, and it is required to lay them to rest with plasma, pretty much all the time.

So uh, this is it. I'm really sorry, but so far I wasn't able to force myself to persist on this one. Perhaps all the text above can't be considered an adequate explanation, but I tried to describe my experiences as closely as I can. Not sure if any of it helps in the end.

 

FDAs for 02 and 03 below, both pretty careless. Thanks for making these in any case!

PreacherV08-02-03_dem_FDAs.zip

[Demonologist]

To prevent the previous post's overgrowth as well as to provide something more substantial than formless rants - I'll try to come up with some generalized suggestions/thoughts separately.

To continue drawing parallels and form some kind of basis for said suggestions - it's been quite a while since I last played Nocturnus' maps, but as long as my recollections are correct - he kept combining more open spaces with gameplay approach schematically described above with more constrained interior areas where tighter ambushes and more stressful scenarios were taking place, more carefully planned and at times rather cruel. And man, Nocturnus surely knows what cruelty means.

To apply this to 08 - first of all I'd say that the focus on a single weapon in a big map is probably not the best idea. Ideally I'd like to see some cells replaced with rockets and maybe an ssg not too far from the start, but without the latter it should work already, as making the map PG and RL-centric is going to make things more diverse, simply because blowing things up with rockets is faster and generally more fun than spraying them with plasma, and PG still provides enough firepower to be used in close quarters, as well as for stunning enemies, so switching between the two should make the firefights more engaging and dynamic.
Then I think that sequence breaking is never a bad thing if used right. I'm of course not encouraging you to drastically rework the architecture, but some secluded fights and ambushes - not only in key areas but also somewhere along the way - should compensate the messy nature of a giant sandbox full of unevenly distributed cannon fodder. Different paths to take and a definite amount of freedom are nice, but at the same time too many options, too much space to maneuver etc. are very likely to lead to the situation I described in my previous post, especially when the map is big and milestones aren't that obvious. Sometimes, a healthy punch in the face in a form of some "now stand and fight!" scenario in some corner of such an open map is essential when in comes to preventing things from getting stale. Maybe there are ways of implementing some of those that'd require only minor geometry adjustments and mild rebalancing? Some timed lock-ins (not necessarily by bars or blocks, even lowering the floor level would suffice as long as there are no archviles to kindly help the player escape), a bunch of sudden teleports and some other ways of rapidly upping the adrenaline level and keeping the player on a short leash for the sake of variety.
Also, I can't really see much use in a second SM, while a single one can provoke some more or less useful infights and eventually go down without too much hassle - its twin is only going to soak a huge amount of ammunition for nothing.

[Darch]

@Demonologist thanks for playing and sharing your experience! As already said, your detailed feedback is always welcome and useful. 

I'm gonna share the reasons why some of these design choices were made, not trying to justify anything or stick to my point of view, but maybe to bring a little more sense to some things that were weird/awkward to you. 

MAP08 is going to be the last map, no matter how many more maps are added to the mapset, it will be the latest slot (unless there is some custom boss mini map). So, it made sense to me to bring the concept of the whole mapset, which is non linear layouts with monster freedom of movement, to a bigger, almost gigantic, scale. So yes, it is a 50 minute map. First thing is to stay alive until you clear things enough to start searching for objectives (key cards). The primary weapon is Plasma Gun (Prayer Book) because it could take monsters down faster. I see that's not your case, but lots of players (like myself) will kill themselves like fools trying to use Rocket Launcher in a map with this monster density. There is a RL and lots of ammo, but it's guarded by those two Spider Masterminds, so you have to clear a fair share of opposition before putting your hands on those rockets. But it is still a PL oriented map, also for the sake of variety, as we already have some rocketcentric maps (MAPs 02 and 03). Still, there is not enough plasma to kill everything, so players will have to switch weapons sooner or later. I'm kind of satisfied that even a player with your skills couldn't finish it at first attempt, it's the last map, so it's supposed to be hard. Although I would certainly have fun watching your demo, I understand if you don't want to share it.

 

About MAP02, yeah, I don't know why I made a horizontal map for a port with infinite tall monsters, it wasn't planned, but turned out that way. I tried to minimize this problem by putting just a few cacos at the end and everything else is stuck on the floor, but it can be a problem if you fall down. Not one of my favorite maps, either. Maybe I could switch those cacos for something else.

And MAP03, well thank you, it's probably my favorite so far. Cheers!

 

 

 

[Darch]

@rhinoduck I noticed Preacher server is still running (thanks for that!), could we update to this new version? I think I was able to fix some things in the multiplayer department.

[rhinoduck]

Ah, I half-prepared it, then moved to something else, and never finished the update; I've finished it now. I see bars now prevent freelook "cheating" in the IOS map, nice :)

A few nitpicks after I checked the new version:

1) I could not find this causing any harm (at least in ZDaemon), but it is kind of strange that one of the Player #1 starts in MAP08 is marked MP-only (especially the one which actually is the intended SP start as well).

2) I am not sure you want to have 'activateowndeathspecials' in MAPINFO. As the comment in the Ducks MAPINFO states, it is there only for rhinolib which needs it for some scripts to work correctly, and which is something that only we use in our little corner of the Doom universe; I don't know if and how its presence could possibly affect other mods.

3) This is purely cosmetic; I don't think you need 'nojump' in every map entry in the MAPINFO anymore if you've already specified it in the default map entry.

Also feel free to remove the header comments from the MAPINFO, I don't think there is any need to credit me there; their original purpose was to somewhat explain the origin of and reasons for the (unofficial) stand-alone MAPINFO wad.

[Darch]

Thanks @rhinoduck, today I was able to fix these things you pointed out and played it online with ZDaemon. One weird thing, though: in this version I added one extra frame to the pistol shooting animation, with one unused player death sprite (PLAYU0). Is this sprite already taken for something else in Zdaemon? Because the extra animation didn't work, and this sprite seemed to appear randomly at crazy spots, maybe when there were hitscanners around, but I'm not sure. When I ran Zdaemon offline, the pistol animation worked as intended. No clue on what's happening.

[rhinoduck]

I load a WAD with custom TNS monsters on all servers by default because we have scripts which allow us to spawn them at will or turn on automatic monster randomisation on the fly. The WAD of monsters contains DEHACKED which can sometimes conflict with the map WAD DEHACKED (unfortunately, it is not always obvious how); I removed it from the server config. Try playing on the server now and see if that helped.

 

If it didn't help, you are probably hitting some kind of online vs. offline ZDaemon duckery which you may or may not want to deal with (we'd appreciate it, but we are just a specific part of the target audience; whether the benefit-cost ratio makes trying to resolve this worthwhile, or whether cutting the problematic bits out is acceptable is ultimately up to your judgement only).

[Zaratul]

@Darch Do You intent to replace all remaining Doom content with custom skins? I mean all enemies and weapons.

[Darch]

@Zaratulnot all monsters, I just replaced the zombiemen faces because their human / military appearance weren't fitting the theme. Same thing for the high tech weapons, but if there are some good sprites out there, maybe more things can be replaced, why not.

 

@rhinoduck seems like removing the server dehacked solved the issue; revolver animation works fine now and I didn't spot random sprites anymore, either. Thank you!

[Medis]

On 24. 4. 2017 at 4:16 AM, Darch said:

 

@rhinoduck seems like removing the server dehacked solved the issue; revolver animation works fine now and I didn't spot random sprites anymore, either. Thank you!

@Darch As long the TNS-deh library is not loaded nothing should ever interfere. In ZDaemon you can use as many frames, sprites you wan't. But you must avoid a DeHackEd known as MBF, it is possible to access those frames ranges but will cause chaos since ZD doesn't know/respect MBF. You can create new enemies/actors/weapons/custom sounds etc., if u will feel to using dehsupp.

 

From what I've checked the dehacked inside, the uncommented stuff doesn't add any frame, it just uses different sprite. I am unsure if it is correct.

There's sum analysis

# THIS IS THE DEHACKED FROM PREARCHER 0.8
# I think that comments should be written as # instead of /

#Now this changes plasma fire to a TLP2, but this sprite is a lamp and not replaced in prearcher
//Frame 77
//Sprite number = 138
#%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

# This alters blood and again changes sprite to TLP2 which is a lamp and is not replaced.
// blood

Frame 92
Duration = -1

Frame 77
Sprite number = 138 #Here

Thing 39 
Bits = 0 #This doesn't cause any harm

#%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

# Dimensions altered
// Romero
Thing 26 
Width = 65536
//Height = 65536
//Hit points = 1000

# DemonSpawner, no harm here
Thing 27 
Bits = 0

# I have no idea what this is supposed to be *at all*
# It changes sprite which is not visible anyway in kinda special frame.
// MOnster Spawner
Frame 1
Sprite number = 98 #POL5 aka crushed body
Sprite subnumber = 0

Frame 784 #This is used by BossBrain, its beign changed to crushed body?
Sprite number = 98 #POL5 aka crushed body

Frame 785 #And again here?
Sprite number = 98

Frame 786 #Third time?
Sprite number = 98

//Frame 171 #No real alter, 
//Duration = -1
Frame 171
Duration = 0

Frame 172 #Same here, causes skip in death animation of player
Duration = 0

# Now this is interesting, it changes pistol frame to a player sprite (gib one). This is completly not how it should be, and makes no sense so far
// pistol animation
//Frame 15
//Sprite number = 28
//Sprite subnumber = 20

Frame 16 #Here again, on refire .... what it does ... its not correct for sure
Sprite number = 28
Sprite subnumber = 20

Interesting WAD tho.

Edited May 20, 2017 by Medis

[HDG]

Hello ! I wanted to thank you for this charming map pack, I am playing it with the Gunslinger 2.0 mod (https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=51132 ), so the gameplay is probably not exactly as you intended, but it works very well with the tone of your maps !

I loved discovering after I died once that the first teleporter would send me to a different place every time (Altough some seemed a bit harder than other)

Do you plan to do other maps in that style ?

[galileo31dos01]

So since this mapset is not on idgames, I'll share my opinion here. First of all, your wad is amazing in every single way, the visuals are very polished and the atmosphere is really awesome. I liked how the character could spell a few words, that obviously I didn't understand, what language is that? anyway, music is also fitting.

 

Very cool monster placement, they are mostly roamers, specially in map 08 where there were always a few monsters walking around. I think I only died in map 03 and 07, so the gameplay is challenging but not hard, there's plentiful of health/armor. It really gives what it promises, the main teleport pad takes you to a different spot every time you step on it. In every map, you are provided a weapon and some resources to be prepared, then you must find more weapons to fight big guys. Really cool, although I played on continuous but it's notorious that the wad is well balanced for pistol starters. Talking about weapons, the sprites replacements are very neat. Weapon 6 was my favourite, which is the plasma rifle replacement. Map 06 features two exits, one is secret but both take you to the level 7, I guess it was just a feature. And secrets are easy to find them all, if you make use of the automap of course.

 

I liked all maps, there were a few nasty traps in map 07 that worked out different each time I had to replay it, for example the cyber in the blue skull room may or may not teleport outside, but the cacos can play against oneself due to infinite height if the cyber is still there, unless you have the ultrapowered stick (BFG). 

 

A couple things of map 07, part of the last text in the intermission text screen cannot be seen. Also, I didn't find the last secret, not even using IDDT :(

 

So no bugs as far as I'm concerned. Overall a beautiful mini mapset I totally recommend, I'll give this a solid 10/10, as I have a lot of fun and I didn't see anything that bother me.   

[Darch]

Hey, long time no see! Thanks for the feedback guys, sorry for taking so long to reply. 

 

I've finished this mapset, there is a new map that runs on slot 08. Don't play it if you don't love lifts. Or Cyberdemons. Or Cyberdemons on lifts.

 

DOWNLOAD FINAL VERSION:

Preacher.zip

 

So now it's officially released, this is it, unless someone report me a bug or any unaligned texture :P

But there won't be any more maps.

 

There are little changes on every map, and ammo has been totally rebalanced so continuous play is not too different from pistol starting.

 

Any feedback is much appreciated :)

 

MAP 08 - Witch Hunt

 

[galileo31dos01]

Ok, this took me by surprise, I'm happy to know Preacher was still in development and now it's finished, congrats!. I played the map and it was fun fast-paced stuff in general, my only gripe was the lift in the middle, I didn't like that it lowered at random times, or however it worked, since everytime I tried to reach another surface it went down again and again, which also casually trapped monsters in the blood pits. The mechanic is similar in other maps, but here this lift is basically a hub so the player is going to ride it many times and even stay to kill the majority of enemies. So, what triggers the lift, besides the switches?

 

Also, I seriously hope you upload this on idgames for everyone to see it (:

 

Another also, what map is the second picture from?