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Arioch

Secret Of The Anomaly Reborn

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Assuming that the previous statements are praise -- thanks. If they are not, then...well, thanks anyway, 'cause they made me laugh.

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Guest Nowotny

You rule!! That crane on level 3 with the shadows on the groud is still the best DooM visual effect to date for me. (Thanks for making it, it was a true pleasure for me as well as to see what CAN be done with this "antiquated" DooM engine.)

I've done some PWADing myself, nothing great by today's standards, but I think you might agree that I'm no ameture either. (I've done "City of DooM": CoD1-11.zip) I'm currently working on making City of DooM for ZDoom + more levels for it. Your work is inspiration for me. (It gets my ass moving when I get lazy about it.)

Keep up the great work!

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To think I had the cheek to slag off his 4 level 'demo' back in the summer. I was going through a 'wavelength' type bad patch for a while there. Sorry about that Chris.

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Guest (Unknown)

Don't flatter yourself.....

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Er...no problem. I've sort of come to the conclusion that while I'm not too much of a slouch when it comes to visual flair, the gameplay of my levels could use a little work (one beta-tester for Caverns of Darkness wrote, "Dammit, Lutz -- this plays like crap! Fix it!"). Still, it's nice to get a little praise.

Also, if anyone has any *constructive* criticism for how to make P:AR 1-4 a little more player-friendly, please let me know. Hell, feel free to add or remove items/monsters and send me the overhauled level -- I'll certainly take a look.

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Guest (Unknown)

It looks hella' nice, but is, in fact, hella' boring. I remember when I first played this, wandering around that first level, lost and without aim or cause, unable even to spot a key. I asked for help but when I heard something along the lines of "hit this button and you should run for this teleport because a secret door opens on the far side of the level with the yellow key", I backed away quickly. Try to concentrate your ideas, people. The original Doom2 levels were more fun than this; honest to god, Doom2 levels.

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Yes, I know...I've tried to clue in the player with computer screens and other messages in the later levels. Hopefully, this will cut down on aimless wanderings. (And yes, getting the (non-essential) yellow key on level 1 is complicated and difficult to find even with full automap -- that's what you are referring to.)

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I remember the sheer size and amount of detail of the first level overwhelmed me, when I looked at it in my editor I thought it could easily have been broken up into 3 decent sized levels. I wont complain about the speed because its not your fault I have a slow computer, besides some of my own wads run slow on my PC. These are only minor complaints, the actual design was as impressive as anything I have seen in any wad

I dont mind the wandering about aspect of the gameplay, on levels this well designed I like to have the time to just wander around admiring all the editing tricks.

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The 1-level demo was tough -- someone mentioned the level had a difficultly rating (from some program or another) of over 0.96 (with 1.0 being the limit). Based on comments from those folks who played the demo as well as the official beta-testers, I have toned it down a bit and added some more ammo; it should be a much more enjoyable at this point.

I don't know...I've always found it difficult to gauge how people are going to respond to the gameplay. I, personally, am a creeper and quick-save fanatic -- perhaps I lose some credibility for that (although I don't re-load that often). Also, I don't mind replaying (fun) sections over to see if I can get through it using 3 less shotgun shells. Finally, I have this inate drive to explore *all* of a level; as a result, I usually pick up every piece of ammo/health available. My point: I tend to create levels that reward thorough exploration and ammo conservation -- the way I normally play. For example, to survive most of my levels, it is imperative that you get monsters to fight each other, and perhaps hold off on killing something just so an "in-fighting" situation can arise.

So I guess this is (a) an apology, and (b) an explanation of the mindset I had when I create my levels. Perhaps people might have more fun if they approach the experience the same way.

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Guest Nowotny

No offense taken. I know there's another wad out there called "cod". Mine is 11 levels for DooM2. Bear in mind though that these levels were done back around 1995-96.

It took me a while to upload it on the net because at that time most PWADs were on BBS's. There were none close to me (Local phone #) and I wasn't going to do a 5+ hour upload to a BBS via long distance over a 14400 modem.

I'm changing the play & appearance of it for ZDoom. All for the better I hope. :-)

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To which "COD" are you referring? I assumed it was to the 1-level Caverns of Darkness demo (which didn't play all that well); I haven't tried City of Doom, so I can't comment. I will though, Nowotny, to see what's up...

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Guest (Unknown)

I am all for linearity. Not complete linearity, but enough so that I don't need to really explore or choose a path. I hate stuff with different outcomes. Most of Id's games have had a perfect level and linearity and exploration, to make the levels feel very realistic but gamelike. Most games do. But then there are those user-made levels, which have such a big hype but are booorrriiiing and require dozens of minutes of exploration and no real feeling of a final objective or reason. Example are COD and Phobos: AR.

No offense because everything else was superb, like the architecture and stuff. But it just kind of ruined it for me. Power to Linearity!

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"Most of Id's games have had a perfect level and linearity and exploration"

I'm sure if they had ZDoom, Boom or any other port, they would have gone all out with 3d effects and stuff. I think they (id) took full advantage of the Quake and Quake 2 engine, though.

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w@velength -- I hear you. I generally perfer being "nudged" in the right direction; most level authors go through the level their own ways, and balance monsters & ammo so that it works for that particular path, but maybe not others. With P:AR, I was more focused on trying to create a "real" place, not a linear progression. Of course, that opens the door for this exact criticism -- if you don't play the level exactly like I normally do, you might get screwed. In my personal opinion, the P:AR levels are at least "segmented" (meaning there are only certain areas you can visit before you need to find a key, or hit a switch, etc.); one can explore each segment fully without too much unnecessary pain. The downside of *that*, of course, is that it can be dull.

inferno_45: Any specific things you can point out to help CoD get better? I have added more ammo and toned down the monsters (a bit) -- anything beyond that? If it comes down to "the detail causes it to run slowly," I'll apologize now -- it ain't gonna be fixed. I *like* detail, dammit, and it runs fine on *my* machine. But beyond that, please -- I'm all ears.

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Hold down on detail? heck no!
Gameplay boy, gameplay is what we're here to talk about. I wouldn't take any monsters out, Just add a box of ammo and some shells here and there. A bit of health would be nice too. I found nothing wrong with P:AR btw. I just played each level for about an hour until there was nothing left to do. heh.

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Consider it done. Ammo is a touch more plentiful -- unless you are a terrible shot, you should never have to face a Mancubus with only a pistol...

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I love a HUGE completely NONlinear map.. Me myself made 1. my largest map ever is also my mosty nonlinear map ever..

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