Distribution Center (GZDoom - Single Level) - Update 4/20

[Rayziik]

This map was originally created between 8/30/16 and 9/8/16 for the "Vinesauce Mapping Contest" (and subsequently took 1st place in that contest). Now that it has been played on stream by Joel, I've decided to release it publicly here on the forums.

Distribution Center is a large single map wad for GZDoom (will also work in QZDoom), featuring new monsters and new weapons alongside the stock bestiary and armory.

Gratuitous use of advanced features to tailor the experience while leaving it tasting like classic Doom.

Game Rules:
- Jumping and Crouching are disabled
- Free-look and Cross-hair are allowed (but not required)
- Bind "Swim Up" and "Swim Down" keys (deep liquids used)
- Dynamic Lights recommended; used to illuminate dark places
- Difficulty Settings implemented for your pleasure

- Tested in GZDoom 2.3.2, can't guarantee older versions working

- Will play in QZDoom, however many visual cues and such will be inactive

Required Resources:
- Doom2.wad as IWAD

Download:
- Distribution Center - RC 1 (1/23/17)
- Distribution Center - RC 2 (3/17/17)

- Distribution Center - RC 3 (4/20/17)

RC 2 Changelog:

 

 

- Fixed a few visual errors that only appear in software mode

- Removed as many as 2500 translucent lighting effects in an attempt to help performance

- Adjusted monster placement by the blue key and the yellow key.

- The sludge sewers trench was raised 8 units, the demons and specters should be more of a threat

- Adjusted monster placement within the sludge sewers

- Removed some rouge monster block lines in the sludge sewers

- The railbot turrets have a red blinking light when they are active and tracking a target, hopefully this makes them more discernible from the lights

- The Lord of Heresy's spawning attack blasts obstructions away with much less force

- The final fight has received some extensive changes, the boss has new behavior, and there's more ammo types available

   - REMINDER: The Bruiserdemon is immune to splash damage!

- Various things had strange combinations of skill settings, hopefully resolved all these issues
 

 

RC 3 Changelog:

 

 

Changelog:

-Fixed a spot where the player could get stuck

-Fixed a typo

-Fixed even more places where item difficulty settings were incorrect

-Fixed a few ambush monsters

-Fun with Portals

-Removed the small Shell Kit and replaced them with Boxes of Shells

-Removed the SMG and replaced the spawn with a shotgun. SMG Guys no longer shred as hard but are slightly more accurate

-Added a few bits of ammo here and there

-Added some separation walls near the Red Key

-The SSG is now locked behind a Blue Door. This makes the Sewers more dangerous, and increases the usefulness of the Berserk

-The Spider Mastermind battle will have reinforcements, stay on your toes

-The Bruiserdemon's attack patterns were slightly adjusted again

-The final arena is larger, and features some cover

-The broken Red Door has a new texture

-Various other doors have a new texture, hopefully easier to recognize progression

-Adjusted a bunch of opacity settings in order to make light details more apparent

-A few small change were made to the Sewers geometry

 

Enjoy~

Edited April 20, 2017 by Rayziik : Update for RC 3

[baja blast rd.]

FDA recorded in GZDoom 2.2. Slow-paced (exit in 34:xx) because I was never sure what to expect.

Gameplay was fun. The new monsters were reasonably easy to grok. Probably a few too many pindown hitscanner scenarios. Those tank zombies are hilarious. The AV monsters in the SMM fight look way too cool to be as weak as they are. I liked the surgery kit, although it not being able to raise HP past 125 or whatever it was is strange. Final boss could probably benefit from firing the ground shocks more often and at random/wide angles to punish wild circle-strafing, because it became apparent (after I took a bunch of damage first) that would be the best approach.

Aesthetically this never really stood out, despite the lighting and some of the GZDoom effects, mostly due to the persistence of 90-degree-based architecture coupled with stock textures.

[Rayziik]

rdwpa said:

FDA recorded in GZDoom 2.2. Slow-paced (exit in 34:xx) because I was never sure what to expect.

I can't find a place to download 2.2, but I can find every other version though... Must have not been archived yet or was forgotten about.

Anyways, I'm glad you enjoyed the gameplay, as it was my primary focus. The whole of this foray into unknown territory was quite a doozy. I spent probably 3 days on the decorate and related code, 3 on actual layout, and the second week doing all the detail and fancy stuff. Given the time restraint I was working with the architecture of the level is simpler than I usually do, I am pleased with how it turned out anyways. Tech bases are a practical structure in my mind, so simple and efficient buildings make sense. You probably noticed there's a fair bit of 'cut-and-paste' detailing; namely the lights and such. I deliberately chose to keep texture count to a minimum in hopes of keeping up pace (which seemed to have helped).

Regarding the monsters: I suppose I could up the HP for the Hellions (the 'mini archviles') and provide some extra rockets in the area to ease in dispatching them after the fact. Probably speed up the SMM reveal so she presents more of a threat in the meantime. Not sure what to do wrt the fusion arachnotrons.

The Bruiser Demon (final boss) originally had much more damage on the floor wave attack, it proved to be quite crippling if you caught the brunt of it. I had nerfed that and then added more projectiles to his spray attack. I might go back and add a variant floor wave attack to change the threat dynamics wrt to circling the beast.

Thanks for your feedback~

[Graf Zahl]

Rayzik said:

I can't find a place to download 2.2, but I can find every other version though... Must have not been archived yet or was forgotten about.

Right here, on the forum:

http://forum.drdteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7165


BTW, something strange: While checking out the map in a map viewer I once wrote, I got a few grAb: CRC errors. What did you make the graphics with?

[Rayziik]

Graf Zahl said:

Right here, on the forum:

...*facepalms*

Although it wasn't on the archive at drdteam website: http://gzdoom.drdteam.org/archive/bin/

Unless 2.2 is still current? I thought 2.3 had been released already. Maybe I am just daft.

Graf Zahl said:

BTW, something strange: While checking out the map in a map viewer I once wrote, I got a few grAb: CRC errors. What did you make the graphics with?

Hmmm, every graphic in the wad is either a PNG converted from Doom Format with Slade3, or directly imported from resource packs available on Realm667. I didn't make any of the graphics, so I can't help ya there. (although this reminds me I need to make a credits list eventually)

[Jimmy]

I played this in QZDoom's software renderer. Seemed to work and look fine - the dark areas were still navigable and there wasn't a terrible amount of visual noise caused by the palettisation. The gradient lights looked bad in general but that's my fault. :P

The architecture is overall pretty impressive - it feels like a place, enough to establish a good narrative for the gameplay, which is aided partly by the dialogue and setpieces - although the boxy style is perhaps not one of my favorites, I'm trying to lean away from this approach myself in favor of less orthogonal architecture.

Can I say the detail level felt slightly, er... Tormy...? Without causing offense? In most places it looked nice and well thought-out, no excessive microdetail or problematic trim impairing maneuvrability, but there were occasional spots where excessive use of horizontal or vertical banding textures made it look like detail for the sake of detail. I can give examples from the map if you wanna call me out on that. :P

The layout flowed pretty well although I got lost maybe a couple of times just because I missed a crucial door or something, purely my fault. That said, it's probably a good move to use as few doors as possible, or if you need to, make them stand out. Irresistible to open. :P

Now, uh, hmm. Got a potential wall of gripes here, even though I really enjoyed the map as a whole.

- The ceiling turrets are kinda hard to spot, especially with fullbright ceiling lamps littering the area.

- BARRELS YOU CAN'T BLOW UP ARRRRRRGHH

- The slime area was a bit hard to navigate - too much deep water which slowed me down and not really enough solid ground - this was especially evident around the big cacodemon pit. (Speaking of, why were block-monster lines used on that pit? The cacos aren't that threatening as a result.) Taking care of the spectres swimming around in the drink seemed almost pointless.

- The custom monsters felt well-placed, there weren't any instances where I felt like there were any monsters placed there for the sake of it. Squires felt pretty useless though in pretty much every spot they were used, heh. Maybe they were just set too weak?

- I got quite a bit of slowdown in the south-west area with the big ambush. You might have too much translucent stuff here or the 3D floors might be too intense together. Then again, QZDoom I think still has yet to be fully optimised to match with the last ZDoom version's level of performance.

- The Lord of Heresy felt hard to fight due to the thrusting on his spawning attack. I'm sure it's doable to spawn the squires without needing a huge projectile, or one that "thrusts" stuff away to make room for the new monster. Hell, making them telefrag would solve 50% of the issue, I think (but players would probably hate it, heh).

- The final boss was boring to fight, I'd suggest cutting his health in half, or at least furnishing the player with some ammo aside from shells just before that area. A very thin trickle of extra spawning monsters might be appropriate here, too.

- Player dialogue didn't do much for me (particularly the last one going into the boss fight), although of course the messages for map-related actions were appreciated and assisted nicely with navigation without handholding the player.

- Saw some odd bleeding here:


- And this door just... looks weird, heh. I'm sure a damaged bigdoor texture exists somewhere that you could use instead.


Maybe I should've streamed this live and honestly given my thoughts, instead of making a terribly erratic feedback post, heh. Very nice map overall.

[baja blast rd.]

Haha I forgot to mention the barrels. Those irked me a lot. :D

[Rayziik]

Sorry for the piecemeal response~

Jimmy said:

I played this in QZDoom's software renderer. Seemed to work and look fine - the dark areas were still navigable and there wasn't a terrible amount of visual noise caused by the palettisation. The gradient lights looked bad in general but that's my fault. :P

Hmmm that's interesting enough. I hadn't figured QZDoom would provide a playable experience, but it must not be as bad as I had thought. The lack of dynamic lighting hurts a lot of visual clues though. I'll mention it in the OP.

Jimmy said:

The architecture is overall pretty impressive - it feels like a place

Entirely my aim in regards to the layout design! A believable sense of place is something I always aim for. Curvy techbases look awesome though, don't get me wrong.

Jimmy said:

Can I say the detail level felt slightly, er... Tormy...? Without causing offense? In most places it looked nice and well thought-out, no excessive microdetail or problematic trim impairing maneuvrability, but there were occasional spots where excessive use of horizontal or vertical banding textures made it look like detail for the sake of detail. I can give examples from the map if you wanna call me out on that. :P

Hmmm I suppose I can see where you'd draw that comparison from, but I would say Torm667's style is much more garish than what I was going for here. Definitely glad to hear nothing impacted movement though. (aside from what's listed below!)

Jimmy said:

The layout flowed pretty well although I got lost maybe a couple of times just because I missed a crucial door or something, purely my fault. That said, it's probably a good move to use as few doors as possible, or if you need to, make them stand out. Irresistible to open. :P

I feel the dynamic lighting might have assisted in recognizing the doorways, but I can probably adjust some things to make the doors more apparent at a glance.

Jimmy said:

Now, uh, hmm. Got a potential wall of gripes here, even though I really enjoyed the map as a whole.

- The ceiling turrets are kinda hard to spot, especially with fullbright ceiling lamps littering the area.

I have an idea to add a blinking red dynamic light while they're alive/active, but that doesn't solve the issue in QZDoom.

Jimmy said:

- BARRELS YOU CAN'T BLOW UP ARRRRRRGHH

Heh. I could potentially make them destructible, but not explosive? Doesn't seem too intrusive to me though :P

Jimmy said:

- The slime area was a bit hard to navigate - too much deep water which slowed me down and not really enough solid ground... (Why were block-monster lines used on that pit? The cacos aren't that threatening as a result.)...

I'll probably take a look at lowering friction and potentially raising the nukage pools floor level so the specters can traverse the walkways as well. Those block-monster lines... I don't remember adding them, I'll nix em.

Jimmy said:

- ...Squires felt pretty useless though in pretty much every spot they were used, heh. Maybe they were just set too weak?

Truthfully they're supposed to only be a part of the Lord of Heresy, but I felt introducing them might be a good idea as well. I'm wary of upping the HP, but I might look at that along with adjusting placement.

Jimmy said:

- I got quite a bit of slowdown in the south-west area with the big ambush. You might have too much translucent stuff here or the 3D floors might be too intense together. Then again, QZDoom I think still has yet to be fully optimised to match with the last ZDoom version's level of performance.

GZDoom doesn't slow nearly as much in my experience, but I might be able to reduce down some of the lighting detail textures and try to improve the performance.

Jimmy said:

- The Lord of Heresy felt hard to fight due to the thrusting on his spawning attack...

Telefrags are a no go in my mind, that would be obnoxious for the player. I might look into a change to how the squires are spawned though.

Jimmy said:

- The final boss was boring to fight, I'd suggest cutting his health in half, or at least furnishing the player with some ammo aside from shells just before that area. A very thin trickle of extra spawning monsters might be appropriate here, too.

Half HP seems a bit extreme to me, maybe 1000 or so; but I do like the idea of more monsters. There ARE two more teleporter pads in the area after all :D

More ammo types might be appropriate too. (Bruiser Demon is splash immune though, so rockets would fill a gap against other monsters in the fight)

Jimmy said:

- Player dialogue didn't do much for me (particularly the last one going into the boss fight), although of course the messages for map-related actions were appreciated and assisted nicely with navigation without handholding the player.

Heh. More puns next time then? :P

Jimmy said:

- Saw some odd bleeding here:
http://i.imgur.com/oIwlUBP.png

Easy fix; mid tex bleeding bug.

Jimmy said:

- And this door just... looks weird, heh. I'm sure a damaged bigdoor texture exists somewhere that you could use instead.
http://i.imgur.com/WnVg3Fq.png

Might be able to edit something up myself for this.

Jimmy said:

Maybe I should've streamed this live and honestly given my thoughts, instead of making a terribly erratic feedback post, heh. Very nice map overall.

It's no bother, I appreciate the detailed feedback! Glad you had a good time :D

[Rayziik]

Heh, almost two months later, I found the time to give this some updates!

Here's Release Candidate #2: Distribution Center - RC 2

Changelog:

-Fixed a few visual errors that only appear in software mode

-Removed as many as 2500 translucent lighting effects in an attempt to help performance

-Adjusted monster placement by the blue key and the yellow key.

-The sludge sewers trench was raised 8 units, the demons and specters should be more of a threat

-Adjusted monster placement within the sludge sewers

-Removed some rouge monster block lines in the sludge sewers

-The railbot turrets have a red blinking light when they are active and tracking a target, hopefully this makes them more discernible from the lights

-The Lord of Heresy's spawning attack blasts obstructions away with much less force

-The final fight has received some extensive changes, the boss has new behavior, and there's more ammo types available

   -REMINDER: The Bruiserdemon is immune to splash damage!

-Various things had strange combinations of skill settings, hopefully resolved all these issues

 

Enjoy.

[Gez]

I just played through this. Overall pretty good; I'm glad to see more *ZDoom maps.

 

Found a couple of minor bugs:

 

1. You can fall here and get completely stuck. No exit (other than going to gameplay options and enabling jumping by force).

 

2. Typo:

 

Besides these minor things, I have a few gripes. Ammo, at least on UV, is very tight. The SMG is completely useless, it's just a way to waste your bullets all around the monsters. For the early game you're better off using the pistol and shotgun, and later you find the chaingun which, in comparison, is godlike. Finally, the last boss is used quite cheaply, what with being in a small, cramped room with no cover; which makes one of its three attack modes undodgeable.

 

(And yeah that damaged big door should probably be reworked with a custom texture.)

 

 

 

Oh, and one last thing:the sewer elevator silent teleporters should be replaced with static portals. The illusion would be a lot more convincing; especially for the one on the yellow key area, where you can get monsters in the corridors.

[Rayziik]

On 3/25/2017 at 7:52 PM, Gez said:

1. You can fall here and get completely stuck. No exit (other than going to gameplay options and enabling jumping by force).

 

2. Typo:

 

 

Good catches! I could've sworn I proofread everything, but it even took me a second to notice with your zoomed in screenshot.

 

On 3/25/2017 at 7:52 PM, Gez said:

Ammo, at least on UV, is very tight. The SMG is completely useless, it's just a way to waste your bullets all around the monsters. For the early game you're better off using the pistol and shotgun, and later you find the chaingun which, in comparison, is godlike.

 

Hmmm, I guess I'll have to playthrough and find where the ammo runs dry at. I did change monsters around so I could have upset the balance somewhere. I do agree pretty much on the SMG though, I just was hoping someone would say something earlier. At the time it seemed like a good idea, but after I added the shotgun at the start it became quickly outclassed in usefulness.

 

On 3/25/2017 at 7:52 PM, Gez said:

Finally, the last boss is used quite cheaply, what with being in a small, cramped room with no cover; which makes one of its three attack modes undodgeable.

 

I'm curious which attack mode you find difficult to dodge, I felt the attack patterns were decently balanced given the space. I'm really reluctant to give any cover, as that would just trivialize the fight.

 

On 3/25/2017 at 7:52 PM, Gez said:

(And yeah that damaged big door should probably be reworked with a custom texture.)

 

I knew I forgot something!!

 

On 3/25/2017 at 7:52 PM, Gez said:

Oh, and one last thing:the sewer elevator silent teleporters should be replaced with static portals. The illusion would be a lot more convincing; especially for the one on the yellow key area, where you can get monsters in the corridors.

 

Oh yea, portals are a thing now. I'll see about figuring those out and utilizing them.

 

Thanks for the feedback though, I wasn't expecting anymore of it and was ready to archive this!

[Gez]

13 minutes ago, Rayziik said:

I'm curious which attack mode you find difficult to dodge

The exploding fan.

 

Getting out of the blast radius is extremely hard, since the room is small, and this attack mode propagates through monsters without stopping.

[Rayziik]

Fresh off the back burner, here is Release Candidate #3: Distribution Center - RC 3

 

Changelog:

-Fixed a spot where the player could get stuck

-Fixed a typo

-Fixed even more places where item difficulty settings were incorrect

-Fixed a few ambush monsters

-Fun with Portals

-Removed the small Shell Kit and replaced them with Boxes of Shells

-Removed the SMG and replaced the spawn with a shotgun. SMG Guys no longer shred as hard but are slightly more accurate

-Added a few bits of ammo here and there

-Added some separation walls near the Red Key

-The SSG is now locked behind a Blue Door. This makes the Sewers more dangerous, and increases the usefulness of the Berserk

-The Spider Mastermind battle will have reinforcements, stay on your toes

-The Bruiserdemon's attack patterns were slightly adjusted again

-The final arena is larger, and features some cover

-The broken Red Door has a new texture

-Various other doors have a new texture, hopefully easier to recognize progression

-Adjusted a bunch of opacity settings in order to make light details more apparent

-A few small change were made to the Sewers geometry

 

Hopefully that's everything.

[Ed_Deth]

Thank you for a 4/20.  Downloading now, edit later.

[Ed_Deth]

On 3/25/2017 at 7:52 PM, Gez said:

1. You can fall here and get completely stuck. No exit (other than going to gameplay options and enabling jumping by force).

Or noclip worked for me. Same here.  Played earlier version of this I found it confusing.  This time was much better but still didn't find all the secrets.  I'll have to try again.  Thank you for the 420.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Ed_Deth

[Ed_Deth]

Spoiler

stuck in same place.

 

[Rayziik]

Your images aren't showing up on my end, but if you did get stuck in the same place as Gez did that has already been fixed in the latest version.