Ever Shrine (3 maps) - Released! (/idgames!)

[Alter]

Hello, you may have recalled I was making a megawad called Flooding Hatred but unfortunately the more maps I made for it the worse overall quality got, I think I lost my touch because i'm focusing all my efforts on game development.

Well I decided to take the 3 best maps which have a common theme and connect them up. Theme being, they were based off Jimmy's midis and they had a cave/sea/temple theme going on. This is probably my final release (bugfixes aside) for a long time to come, as i'm 100% focused on game development.

THIS IS A BOOM WAD :D

IDGAMES: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/evshrine

MAPS (Midis by Jimmy):

Map01 - Shipwrecked - Ever Shrine Part 1
Map02 - Path of the Ancients - Cyanide Downpour
Map03 - Ever Shrine - Ever Shrine Part 2


Screenshots:




As for the rest of the maps, well, it's likely that when I come back to mapping, i'll make a seperate aquatex industrial mapset out of the industrial maps and a seperate mapset out of cyber/VR maps.

[Jimmy]

Grats on the release, Alter.

Having played all three of these a few times, they're pretty damn solid maps - lots to explore, a greatly atmospheric environment, plenty to kill, and doesn't feel too slaughtery even though the gameplay tends to revolve around swarming monsters, especially the Ever Shrine map. Glad my midis inspired you to make these. :)

[Pinchy]

Spent about an hour maxing these out, ';,,;'

Uses large architecture well and the only annoyance was map 3 having a lot of homing rockets chasing me for a while.

In map 2, the switch to section A could use some light.

[Alter]

Pinchy said:

Spent about an hour maxing these out, ';,,;'

Uses large architecture well and the only annoyance was map 3 having a lot of homing rockets chasing me for a while.

In map 2, the switch to section A could use some light.

That's fixed and thank you for playing!

[dobu gabu maru]

alterworldruler said:

That's fixed and thank you for playing!

I get a "bad texture directory" error when I fire it up in Zdoom.

[Alter]

dobu gabu maru said:

I get a "bad texture directory" error when I fire it up in Zdoom.

Obsidian had the same problem, I didn't have it on zdoom 2.8.0 BUT I will look into it. The console spits out some stuff.

EDIT: Uploaded an update removing the screwed up textures and some entries in SWITCHES, try again dobu!

[Memfis]

I should probably examine these in more detail before criticizing, but from what I've seen so far I feel like you're putting yourself in a very difficult situation as a mapper by creating all these spacious areas. It is quite tricky to place monsters well when there is so much free space, and I'm not sure if you're succeeding at that. In a lot of situations it seems like the player can easily just keep running forward without paying attention to most of the monsters, and that makes the gameplay kinda silly in my eyes. If you're looking for suggestions, I would recommend experimenting with smaller locations here and there. Being able to move freely is very nice but sometimes it gives the player too much advantage over the monsters...

[baja blast rd.]

A lot of your turrets lack monster block lines, so a monster can get pushed off halfway and stuck.

I'd probably like map02 and map03 a lot more if they had a BFG. As is, killing monsters feels like janitorial work, given the low threat level in such spacious areas, and more pressingly, there are a lot of awkwardly positioned monsters (things like revenants on high turrets or ledges that roam freely and thus are hard to hit with rockets) that would make a speedy casual maxrun kind of annoying.

[Alter]

rdwpa said:

A lot of your turrets lack monster block lines, so a monster can get pushed off halfway and stuck.

I'd probably like map02 and map03 a lot more if they had a BFG. As is, killing monsters feels like janitorial work, given the low threat level in such spacious areas, and more pressingly, there are a lot of awkwardly positioned monsters (things like revenants on high turrets or ledges that roam freely and thus are hard to hit with rockets) that would make a speedy casual maxrun kind of annoying.

Would'nt make BFG everything way too easy though? I think it would, just running and spamming.

[baja blast rd.]

Hmm, actually map03 is pretty fun when you know enough about where everything is to play quickly and combine encounters.

I meant with fewer plasma cells, too, to offset the much higher DPS of the BFG, in which case it wouldn't be a mindless BFG spam map. The only encounter that would be noticeably easier with the BFG is the one with the viles and revenants in the water in map02. In fact, a BFG can make maps like these more dangerous for a player going for efficient weapon use, because it is more powerful at very close range, whereas with the PR, the player can keep their distance and it won't really make a difference. In map02 a BFG would be especially nice -- there are a lot of satisfying setups for it, like with semi-spaced-out mid-tiers where you can try to use tracers very effectively.

[Alter]

rdwpa said:

Hmm, actually map03 is pretty fun when you know enough about where everything is to play quickly and combine encounters.

I meant with fewer plasma cells, too, to offset the much higher DPS of the BFG, in which case it wouldn't be a mindless BFG spam map. The only encounter that would be noticeably easier with the BFG is the one with the viles and revenants in the water in map02. In fact, a BFG can make maps like these more dangerous for a player going for efficient weapon use, because it is more powerful at very close range, whereas with the PR, the player can keep their distance and it won't really make a difference. In map02 a BFG would be especially nice -- there are a lot of satisfying setups for it, like with semi-spaced-out mid-tiers where you can try to use tracers very effectively.

In this case I am considering replacing the plasma rifle with the BFG where the plasma rifle/AV trap is.

[Alter]

V2's up!

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4koj6eno9wrko3s/Evshrine.wad?dl=1

- Replaced Plasma Rifle with BFG in map02 in the east side of the map
- Placed a new plasma rifle in front of the "A" Temple
- Replaced all big cells with small cells

If nothing goes particularly wrong, i'll be uploading this soon to /idgames, as for making more maps or making huge overhauls, nah that's still out for a while.

[Alter]

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/evshrine

And it appeared on /idgames, well that's it folks for me! At least, until the next time I release something standalone, which I should do more often actually.