IT'S RELEASED!

[Guest Xenocide]

well said Anders

[Guest Anonymous User]

I really like the dm maps. They have a bright, clean tech look, which is a nice change of pace. The detail is good. The maps seem to flow pretty well. The textures are very cool. Kniggit's music is better in this than in the other recently released pack (the name of which eludes me). I especially like the thrashing type tune in tight fight.

[Afterglow]

prower you complain about gothic maps and finally an industrial base type set is released and you complain. I'M BANNING YOUR ASS FROM #DOOMROOM! YEAH MOTHAFUCKA! :D

[AndrewB]

It was okay.. Nothing special. Requiem was WAAAYYY better!! :-b

[Guest Levendis]

The E2 crew gets mad props. This is the best levelset I have ever seen. This kind of work could have undoubtedly been a commercial product when the Doom engine was current (in the same way as Heretic/Hexen).
The only thing I can complain about is the music--the PWAD I'm working on right now has six levels, and all the music is jungle, dub, dnb, and breakbeat in .XM, .S3M, and .IT format. When you get used to kickass tracked music, going back to MIDI is kind of bleh. But anyway, kickass job guys.

[Guest Levendis]

What's the word on using the E2 resources?

[Capellan]

Has anyone who raves about Requiem so much actually _played_ it recently? It's good, but it's not as good as some people seem to remember it being. For level design and textures, Darkening E2 is a superior product. Especially Ola's textures and his and Anthony's level design. As for the resources - AFAIK they can be used in other people's levels, and I for one would be pleased to see them getting the widespread use they deserve!

[X-Blade]

That was awesome! It's a shame to see such an outstanding series stop with that. One can only wish for another like it, but perhaps it's just a temporary stop to the series? Thank you for ending the series with this outstanding product. Every megawad team should aim to produce a product like this. Once again, great work guys!

[AndrewB]

Why yes, I most certainally have played Requiem recently. I think both the level design AND the textures in Requiem were superior to those in DE2. Requiem has kind of "Whheeeeeee!!!" gameplay, while DE2 is kind of more like "Tsk, ohhhh!! What, oh what do I do?" That's just me, though! :D

[Guest Anonymous User]

How can people even begin to say that Darkening E2 isn't all that great? Are we playing the same levels? This is the best texture set I've seen since Gothic2, and some of the best level designs that I've seen in a really really long time... better than Requiem in any case. Plus, these levels have a sense of place and continuity that I've not seen since, oh, E1Mx. Mad props to the Darkening E2 team, these levels rock seriously hard. I did notice, however, that I could easily tell the differences between levels made by Afterglow/Ola Bjorling and those made by Richard Wiles/Adam Windsor... the former have a fetish with all sorts of curves and protrusions in their levels, while the latter seem to have nothing against just having a flat, straight, plain wall once in a while.

[X-Blade]

...Why are you so critical of this project? It's just like on the original scheduled release date you said that there was no way this was the most awaited project and that QDoom was! What do you have against these guys?

[Guest Anonymous User]

And by the way don't bother to reply , i'm to busy ... PLAYING DARKENING 2 !!!!

[prower]

i like req better than de2, but i think memento mori (both original and 2) tops off the best-doom-wads-ever list.

[Guest PennyWise]

Well, finally the project that I was most eagerly awaiting was released. I immediately downloaded it with nitro, and played the levels. In overall, the set is really good. The level architecture is great, and shows how much properly used (in terms of size) good quality textures can improve the looks of a level. So the architecture and the textures are superb, but I've got to complain, too (sorry, Ola & guys :). The levels are done to work with Doom2.exe, which is good in terms of compability, but it also doesn't offer nothing new. Running just around in these levels shooting monsters and searching keys just didn't appeal to me after 30 minutes or so. The levels are greatly designed, and the gameplay is good, but it's the same old stuff...frankly, I've got enough of it, and I just got bored after a while. I'm not saying all new level sets should be like Doom2000 (absolutely NO! I hate it), it's just that something new should be brought into Doom with these new sets, maintaining however the old gameplay, too. But as maps and textures this level set is really the best of the moment.

[Guest mystican]

yeah prower, keep that mouth shut. you don't even know what a constitution is so what would you know about anything.

:P

[Swedish Fish]

Regarding what AndrewB said about Requiem being better then Darkening E2: Well, I'm not going to even decide which is better then the other. I think both are excellent, regardless. Obviously requiem had one step over us: it had more levels, so definately more of a chance to find what you like. The music was better...but I'll stop at the textures...since alot of them were hacks or seen before. As for prower and pennywise they are obviously looking for something different then the typical solid doom2 gameplay. MASMM by Cyb was something different + funny and innovative. But I think if your really looking for something different in terms of gameplay then you shouldn't be playing doom2 and instead maybeye half-life or? Pennywise: I don't think that any doom2 port currently signifigantly changes doom2 gameplay like you want it. Instead it more or less enhances it. Finally, for all those just waiting to flame AndrewB and Prower just remember they've always been fighting mainstream opinions. They just want to be different and controversial. I think I would of had a bigger problem with what they said if they weren't like this normally and that they had an opinion that something else was better, not necessarily that the darkening was bad. Or atleast that's how I read it. Oh well, can't please everyone...learned that with gothic2.

[Guest Daggah]

...that I've gotta wait until the weekend to download this bad boy. Waaah!

This has easily been the level set I've been looking forward to most.

Requiem kicked some mad butt, but it wasn't the best...

[Guest Adam Hegyi]

Oh yeah I just checked it out yesterday. I must say it looks pretty damn impressive. The textures look amazing, Quake looks a piece of crap compared (yeah you already figured it out, but anyway). I have to say I dislike techno style in general and I think it's a little overused in DE2, personally I'd have loved to see more of those amazing rock textures. But that's just taste anyway. Gameplay, I dunno, gotta play it more. Hope it's hard enough heheh.

[Guest Slipgate]

This pack rocks. I love it. Way to go Anthony. Way to go, Darkening E2 team. Question: Is Darkening E1 still gettable, or is the E2 download E1 and E2 together or something?

[Julian]

Some of you seem to want more maps with these incredible textures the Darkening offers... I'll just remind them the Darkening pwad will be the official resource PWAD for the rorDoom contest. Thanks goes to Ola... So enjoy Darkening which is fucking impressive and make ror maps with its textures ;)

[Guest Anonymous User]

The level music sounds like it was stolen from Commander Keen.

[AdamW]

about requiem vs. dark e2: well, requiem was a much more varied project than dark e2, i think, was. from the time i was involved in dark e2 (which ceased when i realised i had no motivation at all to actually do any editing and therefore left before i was kicked out for being a freeloading bastard, heh) it seemed a much more organised and controlled project than requiem. for those whom i haven't already mentioned this to, heh, requiem was a completely chaotic project...it was about 90% done a year and a half before release, at which point the project leader just disappeared, and everything went quiet. _dead_ quiet. after a long, long, long time, adelusion, myself and iikka keranen decided we'd had just about enough, and proceeded to dredge our hard drives and write repeated whining letters to team members until we eventually screwed about 28 maps out of them. the other 4 maps are fill-in levels which adam windsor (iirc, am i right adam?) had lying around unreleased. you can spot 'em from the way you finish them in 1 minute flat, heh. a lot of the levels released were described by their authors as 85 or 90% finished, and this explains why the quality is sometimes uneven - monster placement, bugs, lack of detail etc. it's also why i'm amazed the wad is even as good as it is. even before the huge break, it was a rather badly-organised (imho) project, there was little communication between team members, many were seemingly completely idle before suddenly delivering a finished level and promptly disappearing completely...the original plan for the project (i'd be interested to know if anyone still has a copy...adam?) was basically completely ignored, and overall requiem is more or less a set of 28 pretty much unrelated levels by some very good authors (and me, heh), plus 4 fill-in levels, all slapped together in a somewhat hurried fashion :). darkening e2, by contrast, is a shorter (and therefore easier to control), better run project, with a consistent theme and setting. this is why i think comparisions are somewhat futile...one can't really be better than the other, requiem has (imo) some high points that dark e2 can't match, and also (imo) some buggy and just plain bad sections which dark e2 does not.

[AdamW]

in my mega-requiem post i forgot to mention the thing msot people will actually be _interested_ in, hehe :). those of you that can't find Darkening ep1, it's here: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/darken.zip (of course, replace ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames with your favourite mirror if necessary). it kicks goddamn ass, so go get it now!

[prower]

if you just toss out any criticism as some guys wanted to not go with "mainstream opinions", then you need to rethink your ways. i didn't say darkening e2 was BAD, just not good as it was hyped to be. after tons of hype, even a replacement ".soon." thingy, i would've expected more. darkening was by no means an effortless project put together by talentless hacks (which is what i thought gothic99 was heh). once again, i think it's just that i've been spoiled by counter-strike... maybe if darkening were released last year i would've been happier.

and myst, how could you not pick up on the fact that i was fucking around with you? the thought that america has the only constitution is absurd.

[Capellan]

That's about how I remember Requiem as a project :). Certainly Iikka and Adel had to put in an inordinate amount of work in order to get the project released (numerous levels, plus texture work). As for the maps I put in, only maps 11 and 30 were a meant-for-Requiem undertaking. Map32 I knocked together in a weekend in order to fill an empty spot on the level list; the other maps I did were remnants of the never released 1996 version of dfear6. You can tell them by the fact that there are are only about 3 instances of Requiem textures being used in them :). So it is quite possible that my less-than-stellar memories of Requiem as a project contribute to my comparatively muted opinion of the WAD (though for the record, Requiem Map05 is a long time favourite of mine). As for the 'original plan' for Requiem, I don't know if I ever even saw it referred to after my initial introduction to the project.

[AdamW]

prower, i don't think ola was sidelining your criticism...he was saying it was valid, and telling others to lay off criticising you just because your view wasn't the majority opinion. capellan, yeah, the stuff iikka and adel did was incredible...i just bitched at people until they sent me their levels, and bitched and iikka and adel when they slowed down, heh :). the original plan i was referring to was that long document chris thornton wrote up, about what levels were about, what weapons went where etc etc etc...you keep a copy?

[prower]

i was referring to this quote:
"Finally, for all those just waiting to flame AndrewB and Prower just remember they've always been fighting mainstream opinions. They just want to be different and controversial."
also, afaik, Swedish Fish isn't ola

[AndrewB]

I've got nothing against the DE2 team! I did say that I thought QDoom was a more awaited project. I think it is! And with the DE2 thing, I just found Requiem much more enjoyable, that's all! And yes, I admit that I do often like to go against the mainstream, but that doesn't change the fact that I found Requiem more enjoyable!! :-b

[locust]

This kicks ass soooo hard... takes me back to the Doom E1Mx days :) Only reason I'm late with the comment is I've been too budy playing it...

[Guest mystican]

check dis is actually an Ali G phrase. if you're culturally deprived enough not to have heard of him, he's a white guy who wants to be black - like you say - and interviews various politicians and public figures in his own street vanacular with hilarious results. unfortunately he's being killed off at the end of his current series. apart from that, werd.