Doom 64 for Doom II - v1.4 released, /idgames link is up

[_bruce_]

End of Novmeber is ok with me.

The Void was the kicker for sure - took a look at the version for this pack, because I was curious on how to pull off the look in Vanilla Doom, and it comes across pretty good.

 

[Mechadon]

Thanks for the input regarding the secret maps guys.  I agree that Hectic should probably come before In the Void.  It makes my job just a tiny bit easier because now I don't have to swap the maps around :P

 

Paging @dt_ @Archvile Hunter @Megalyth @DILDOMASTER666

If you guys could let me know what you think about the end of November for the map deadline, I would appreciate it.  The overall goal I'm shooting for is to have the project done before the end of the year (so sometime in December after lots of testing).

[Megalyth]

Sorry it's taking me so long, I've still been busy getting the new house together. I just got a new computer desk yesterday and I'm in the process of getting it set up. I still don't have internet (I've been posting from my phone), but I've been keen to do some mapping. My submission is so close to finished that I really only need a few more hours of work on it to get it to a playable state for testing.

[dt_]

End of November is cool with me, I've still got half a house to decorate and 2 cars to repair but I'm getting there! I've been working on the map slowly and it's almost done.  I'll probably have it ready by the end of this month, with time for testing/tweaking before November deadline

[Mechadon]

Alrighty, thanks for your input guys :).  I'm going to set a tentative final map deadline for November 30th.  I'm curious to see what @Archvile Hunter and @DILDOMASTER666 have to say as well, but I think the end of November is a pretty good date.

 

Also I'm looking to get version 4 of the test build out sometime this week (maybe the weekend).  So if anyone wants to get an updated map in that build, send it to me soon.  I'll also try to have a bug tracker system up at the same time so we can start cataloging everything that needs to be changed/fixed.

[Archvile Hunter]

November 30th sounds good. I'll be on vacation for the next week, but aside from that, I've got plenty of free time to finish up.

[Mechadon]

Alrighty guys, here's build v4 up for your testing pleasure!  This one has a pretty hefty changelog this time.

 

D64D2 Build V4 (changelog)

D64D2 Resource V4

 

Before I go into the highlights for v4, I want to share a link to the bug tracker that I put together.

 

D64D2 Bug Tracker

 

It's a Google Sheet so I'm hoping everyone will be able to access and read it without any issues.  I've already filled it out with some preliminary findings.  The way this will work is that I'll take all bug reports and bits of feedback and then update the tracker accordingly.  It didn't seem like a very good idea to have it open for anyone to edit.  So just leave reports here and I'll make the necessary updates to the tracker as soon as possible.  And mappers, if/when you take care of something that has been reported in your map, be sure to let me know and I'll remove it from the tracker.

 

I sneakily added in some visuals-related comments while I was at it; this is the "visual bar" that I have been promising to do from the start of the project.  I don't want anyone to get discouraged from the comments I made about visuals/details in these maps.  I'm a picky person when it comes to visuals, and I want the project as a whole to look good (without going overboard).  If your not interested in tweaking the visuals of your map, that's ok.  Anything I think that's egregious will need to be taken care of, but I won't sweat the small stuff.  However since I'm taking the time to be picky about this, I'm going to offer doing visual clean-up work on anyone's map if they want me to.  If you'd like me to do that for your map, just let me know and we can discuss the details.

 

Ok so, from the changelog you can see that there's been quite a lot added and changed from the last version.  There are a bunch of map updates as well as a few bug fixes and other things.  One of the bigger additions is the new SKY4 (blue stormy sky).  The version I had before was quickly thrown together from an older sky and I wasn't terribly happy with it.  It took me a while to get it looking how I wanted, but I think it came out better this time.  As a nice bonus, there's a cool little extra in it if you play in ZDoom or Eternity ;)

 

While I was at it, I decided to experiment with a warping effect on the fire skies.  This only works in ZDoom-based ports, but I thought it looked pretty cool.  The changelog erroneously states that there's a tiling problem with these warping skies; that was only when I used warp2 (which I thought looked better, but I couldn't figure out how to get around the problem).  Anyways let me know if you guys like that effect or not.

 

I also added some quick intermission texts taken directly from Doom 64.  However as you'll notice, some of them don't make a whole lot of sense.  Doom 64's intermission texts mostly popped up inbetween secret maps.  I wanted to use the source material where possible, but some of these don't make too much sense.  So for the time being they are placeholders until something better can be written.  If someone wants to take a stab at making some that make more sense, please do so!  Just remember they can't be longer than the vanilla texts.

 

Anyways that should cover the big points.  Please let me know if you guys find any issues with the build or the resource!  Also now is a good time to start heavily testing this stuff; the sooner we find and fix major bugs, the better.

 

 

[CoTeCiO]

A little thing, the music for the texts is broken when using Vanilla. I assume the person who made the MIDI is using Guitar Pro, and that program by default uses full octave pitch bend range. Vanilla doesn't support full octave pitch bends, only one tone, and thus "converts" the full range into just one tone, making the bends sound out of tune. So whoever made it (it's not specified in the OP, but I suspect was DILDOMASTER666), before exporting the MIDIs from Guitar Pro, go to Options, Audio Settings (MIDI/RSE) and check the "Limit pitch variations" option next to the MIDI port you're using. That's assuming you're using GP5, I don't know how to do that in GP6. That will limit the pitch bends to one tone, but they will work properly on Vanilla. Also, just as a suggestion, try to make the music loop instead of just fading it in and out.

 

The "kind of goofy sounding" song in MAP22 mentioned in the bug tracker is actually I'm But a Wave To... by Cynic, but yeah, to be honest, it sounds a little bit weird.

[Mechadon]

Thanks for pointing that bug out CoTeCiO!  I'm probably going to be next to useless when it comes to music-related stuff, so hopefully someone can fix the track.  But in the mean time, I added a report in the bug tracker.

[CoTeCiO]

8 hours ago, Mechadon said:

Thanks for pointing that bug out CoTeCiO!  I'm probably going to be next to useless when it comes to music-related stuff, so hopefully someone can fix the track.  But in the mean time, I added a report in the bug tracker.

I hope whoever did it get it to be fixed, because he would have the original project file of Guitar Pro, which is a lot easier to edit than the resulting exported MIDI file. Actually I like that bit of Empty Words (that's the name of the song), fits well with the purpose, although I would personally add something else to it to make it more unique and interesting, but that's to the original sequencer to decide!

[Mechadon]

I have two more map updates for you guys to check out.  This time its MAP15: Altar of Pain and MAP17: Eye of the Storm.

 

Altar of Pain v4

 

Eye of the Storm v2

 

Altar of Pain has lots of bug fixes + gameplay updates, but I also spent a lot more time than I had intended cleaning up the visuals :P.  Hopefully it should be good to go, but I would really appreciate some VPO testing.  There were a couple of stubborn ones that I had a hard time knocking out.

 

Eye of the Storm is more of a visual update than anything else.  Though I did spot a few bugs, so those were fixed and the gameplay was tweaked in places.  The map is now COOP and DM ready too.  This one had some pretty terrible SEGS overflows, so I had to toss up quite a few solid pillars in the opening area to fix those.  Otherwise I think it came out pretty good :)

 

Let me know what you guys think!

[Dexiaz]

Can't download and play due to connection reasons, but screenshots looks awesome.

[Mechadon]

Thanks DeXiaZ :)

 

I've been going into overdrive lately trying to make sure everything is good to go for the Nov. 31st deadline.  So I've got another map update to share; this time its MAP22: Spawned Fear.

 

Spawned Fear v3

 

This one didn't need too much in the way of visual clean-up, but I did make tweaks to just about every part of the map.  There was also a sneaky VPO near the red key that I had to address, and I also changed up the way a couple of the traps work so they are a bit more interesting.  The music also got changed since the previous track sounded a little out-of-place for this kind of map (that'll show up in the next build).

 

Let me know if any of the encounters in this one are too overbearing.  I felt that maybe some of the Pain Elemental encounters and the Red Key route in particular were either kind of grindy or really hard (any instances of PEs and Lost Souls carried over from the original game are going to be inherently more grindy because of HP differences). 

[Nevander]

After working with the Doom 64 maps so much in their native textures and stuff I can safely say I think the maps look better with classic Doom's texture set. Or maybe I'm just crazy and saying that because of how much Doom 64 I've seen and played in the last year and half.

[Deleted_Account]

Spawned Fear is one of my favorite Doom 64 maps, looking forward to trying out this incarnation!

[Da Werecat]

What's with the people constantly trying to replace SW4S0 and SW4S1? How are the originals bad and, more importantly, how are the new ones not worse?

[Mechadon]

DeXiaZ is too busy to update his maps, so he's letting me do some clean-up work on them.  I just finished up Even Simpler tonight, so here are some quick/terrible screenshots and a download link :)

 

 

Even Simpler v4

 

It should now follow the general progression of the original; instead of dumping a ton of monsters on you after killing the Mancs, the waves are more broken up.  There was also a ton of extra ammo, so I culled a bit (mostly shells) and toss a bit more rocket ammo in the outer ring.  The PEs on the step traps were also replaced with Chaingunners; the PEs felt waaay too overbearing in my opinion.  And visually speaking, apart from cleaning everything up, I tried to make the center arena look a tad bit more like the original, architecturally speaking (it didn't totally work out though since I still had to simplify the center area to get it under the limits).

 

I also claimed "On the Edge" for the music track since it seemed to work well with the map.

 

Lemme know if you guys find any issues!  I'll be cleaning up his Pitfall map next, though I might take a break for a while first :P

 

On 10/22/2017 at 9:33 PM, Da Werecat said:

What's with the people constantly trying to replace SW4S0 and SW4S1? How are the originals bad and, more importantly, how are the new ones not worse?

They were part of the "fixed vanilla" textures I've had lying around and used for a couple of things.  Not entirely sure what's different about it though to be honest.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Mechadon

[dt_]

Hey up

 

Here's a playable version of what I've got so far

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pop8tc1viq41bo8/d6429.wad?dl=1

 

See what you think, there are skill modes and coop starts

[Mechadon]

Good job dt_!  I just gave it a quick playthrough and noted a few bugs.  Visually it looks really nice - I like the usage of the light concrete and the CONC* set, and the map has a good atmosphere :).  There's some misalignments here and there (I noted a few of them in the bug tracker) and maybe some minor tweaks that I would make regarding certain flats and texture usages, but overall its nothing egregious.  So I won't go into detail unless you want me to.

 

Gameplay wise I think you've got a few problems here and there.  There are some serious difficulty spikes, and overall I'd say the map is too hard on UV considering how early it is in the roster.  That's not entirely your fault though because the original map was pretty tough too, and it was a secret map.  Since its going to be a "normal" map here, I'd say some things need to be toned down a bit. 

 

The encounter with the Revs in the first room was pretty tough, though I don't think it would be a problem if the corners of the cages had pillars like in the original (just 16x16 bars to help give the player some cover).  If you take too much damage or use too much ammo in that first encounter, it makes the rest of the map waaay more difficult.  So I think I would suggest adding some bars on the corners of those cages (and maybe toss a bit more health in there).

 

Just beyond that, ammo gets really tight.  I tested with and without the secret chaingun in the beginning to see how big of a difference it made, and it was pretty substantial.  If you could toss a few more single rockets and/or maybe 4-8 more shells, that'd probably be ok.

 

The blue key encounter is also really brutal.  The Rev that pops out behind you just after grabbing the blue key is probably what makes it so difficult, especially since you don't have the SSG yet.  What I'd probably do here is just have the Imps pop out from the sides after grabbing the blue key, and then have the Demons/Revs pop out after pressing the switch which lowers the nearby walls (maybe keep the surprise monster closet behind the blue key, but change the Rev to a Demon or something else).

 

The red key room threw me for a loop because I was expecting the puzzle to flow similar to the original.  Well it does in some ways, but in others it doesn't...this isn't a bad thing by the way, I enjoyed working it out :).  I thought the nukage was a nice touch, though I could see it becoming a big nuisance for players that might have a hard time figuring the puzzle out.  So I'd say maybe consider tossing one more radsuit somewhere nearby (could keep it on the easier difficulties).  One other thing I would suggest here is to change the texture on sector tag 32 to something that resembles a door.  There were multiple occasions where I kept jumping right past it because it wasn't very obvious that the wall had opened up there.  And last thing regarding this area; the area that opens up the Revs/teleporter could be a bit of an issue.  Because you have to jump down to lower areas here, the Revs got really annoying by blocking me from getting down to there level.  You could only have them wake up once they see the player, but it might just be easier in the long run to change them to Cacodemons or anything else that flies so they don't block the player as easily.  And regarding the teleporter, consider changing it to only allow the player to open it up after they have grabbed the red key; I opened that teleporter up before even grabbing the red key (not sure where it was going to send me) and I had to backtrack back to the red key area, which was a pain.

 

Oh, I was also expecting to find a secret where the Unmaker shows up in the original, but was disappointed when that sector didn't lower.  Maybe toss a Plasma Gun secret or something there?

 

Everything up to the red key point in the map is doable, albeit probably harder than it should be.  Beyond that though, I think things go off the rails.  In fact I gave up and started using god mode just to finish testing :P.  The Manc+Archvile encounter is stupidly difficult, again mostly due to the fact that you have zero cover in that room.  Putting up bars on the cages would help, but I think that Archvile is overkill here; its something I'd save only for COOP UV.  You also lose out on the berserk that spawns in the original, so I'd see about having one pop up somewhere during this fight.

 

The exit fight was fine until the 3 Archviles popped up and liquefied me into space marine pulp :P.  Again, I'd say these are overkill for normal UV play; I'd probably go 1 Archvile for UV, 2 Revs for HMP, and maybe 1 Rev for the easier skills (or something along those lines).  3 Archviles might be fine on UV COOP, but that's probably it.  To make the area more exciting without going overboard, maybe toss in the Demons/Nightmare Imps from the original in some way?

 

Some other things:

- Difficultly settings seem pretty sparse.  I think you could remove a few more monsters for medium and easy skills.

- Don't forget to add in COOP monsters and items (I wasn't sure if you were still working on those, but I made note of it in the bug tracker just in case).

- Also don't forget to sprinkle DM starts around your maps.  You don't have to put much effort into making the map DM compatible unless you want to.

- You had quite a few tutti-frutti textures pop up; I think the majority of them were the concrete nukage texture being used as a midtexture (and a couple of switches that didin't like being vertically aligned).  Doom doesn't like it when you use multi-patch textures as midtextures, so you'll have to fit them onto solid walls if you want to keep them around.

 

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, but hopefully its helpful!  Overall you did a nice job reinterpreting the map.  Just tweak the difficulty a bit ;)

[dt_]

Ahh, I wasn't sure where it was going in the roster, I remember the original on the n64 was hard, so hard that I used to cheat to pass it as I disliked it so much, especially the red key puzzle area, I had to buy an n64 magazine and read up on that area to figure it out; I wanted to keep this horrible progression as to me it is what the level is all about.

 

will sort the texture errors, and tone it down a bit, I think I intended to change the main room arch vile to a revenant on uv but forgot.  Like the idea of a plasma gun secret, will work that in.  Still undecided on a midi, I'll sort that aswell.  Cheers for the write up!

[Mechadon]

Yea we had to shuffle the original secret maps (most of them anyways) into the main map listing for obvious reasons.  The original map was definitely hard, I'm not sure if I ever beat it legitimately back in the day.  So I understand why you gave it those difficulty spikes.  But because its an early, main progression map in this project, it'll definitely have to be toned down for normal play.  However you could probably get away with keeping it pretty similar for UV COOP so long as you toss in a bit more ammo and health.

 

Anyways, you did a good job and I'm looking forward to the fixes and changes :)

[Mechadon]

I've got a couple of updates for you guys.  @DILDOMASTER666 got back with me recently and has essentially said that he won't be able to finish up his slots before the deadline.  This is a small setback and I was bummed to hear he can't finish them.  But I'm hoping that he will be able to send me the work he's done (I know he's done work on all three of his claims from screenshots).  However he seems to be difficult to keep in touch with, and I haven't heard back from him on whether or not he can send me his partial maps.  So I'm holding off on opening up the slots fully just yet; if anyone here has a way to consistently communicate with him, can you let him know that I need to talk a bit more with him?

 

In the mean time, if someone here wants to preemptively claim his slots, just let me know.  Worse comes to worse, I'll probably be the one doing the maps :P

 

Speaking of which, I know I've edited a ton of the maps in this so far; honestly I wasn't expecting to do this much mapping when I took the project over.  But I finished up DeXiaZ's Pitfalls submission tonight.  I hope you guys don't mind that I'm doing so many of these!

 

Here are some screenshots:

 

 

Pitfalls v4

 

So same deal here - I cleaned up the visuals and altered the gameplay so its a bit more balanced in places and more like the original.  COOP and DM starts were added, and COOP monsters/items were added as well.  And lots of bugs were fixed too.  I also added some music (Waiting for Romero to Play), so lemme know if you like that track or not DeXiaZ.

 

Something that I'm a bit iffy about is the lighting.  I went pretty dark in areas to give the whole map that dank, underground feeling.  In my multiple play tests it felt fine (there's actually lots of bright and flickering lights that give you visual landmarks), but I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

 

One other somewhat big change I made was the addition of a non-secret Rocket Launcher.  This map has tons of bullet-sponge Barons in it, and ammo felt really tight.  There is a RL in the map early on, but its in a secret; it almost feels like its a required piece of the map to balance it out.  So I tossed the new RL in the blue key room, and that seems to work nicely.

 

Oh I also claimed another one of CoTeCiO's tracks.  I chose "Sanity Decay" for MAP17 since it seemed to fit pretty well.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Mechadon

[Dexiaz]

 

You did a great job, thanks!

 

10 hours ago, Mechadon said:

I also added some music (Waiting for Romero to Play), so lemme know if you like that track or not DeXiaZ.

 

This map is like Hell Revealed 2 map - too many monsters. I think that "Waiting for Romero to Play" is not the right choice for this map. It's better to use something more agressive. Doom 2 "D_TENSE", for example. Or "D_SHAWN" as I've used in uploaded version.

 

[_bruce_]

If you do not get Dildomaster's map skeletons then I can try to at least sketch out a base that maybe you can fill and fine-tune.

But to not get ahead of myself I hope he can send his base.

[Mechadon]

3 hours ago, DeXiaZ said:

 

You did a great job, thanks!

 

This map is like Hell Revealed 2 map - too many monsters. I think that "Waiting for Romero to Play" is not the right choice for this map. It's better to use something more agressive. Doom 2 "D_TENSE", for example. Or "D_SHAWN" as I've used in uploaded version.

 

I'm happy to hear that you approve :D

 

I'll check out those tracks and see how they work.  It felt like something a bit more subdued would work well in it because of the dark, claustrophobic nature of the architecture.  So that's why I chose that track, but I'm sure others would work fine as well.

 

33 minutes ago, _bruce_ said:

If you do not get Dildomaster's map skeletons then I can try to at least sketch out a base that maybe you can fill and fine-tune.

But to not get ahead of myself I hope he can send his base.

I appreciate that _bruce_!  Hopefully he will get back to me sometime soon so we can get a definitive answer.  I'm not sure how long I'll wait before giving up, but we'll see.  No Escape probably wouldn't be too difficult to do since its not a huge map.  But Unholy Temple seems like it will be quite the job to do, especially with the bridges and puzzles in that one.

 

And then of course I'll have to clean up Blood Keep too :P

[_bruce_]

Ok, I'll take a look at UnholyTemple today - a functional skeleton should at least be doable. From what I can remember it has some fancy color-based puzzles... we'll see.

 

[Da Werecat]

holding area

 

I tried to not overdo it, but I don't think I succeeded. I'll go over it later to see if I missed anything. Monster usage is pretty shit. Classic D64 hellknight spam needs to die, but I don't know what to replace it with, since I don't know whether we have monster progression set in stone. Say, which level can introduce revenants?

[Mechadon]

Nice, I'll check it out soon!

 

I say go for replacing some of those HKs with Revenants if you feel like it makes the map more fun to play.  I've done similar changes in other maps for the same reason (and I was very close to cutting back on the tons of Barons in Pitfalls).  Having some Revenants in MAP04 in place of HKs is probably not a big deal.  And if it is, hopefully we'll get some feedback about it from the playtesters.

[Da Werecat]

I just played MAP01 and it's very impressive. Very memorable style and great use of stock textures.

 

It's also borked. "Bonus" zombies can't teleport because their teleporters aren't set up properly. In general, there's something really weird with tags - many sectors have them for no good reason. If I had to guess they weren't cleaned up from the original.

 

Among the less important things I'd fix are:

 

- Lighting effect near the exit. The steps don't glow currently, and it wouldn't be hard to make them. Although it would also require some lighting adjustments around the exit door for the shadow to look right.

 

- The automap is full of holes in the walls due to how texturing works. I prefer such tricks to be hidden by using appropriate flags.

[Mechadon]

Thanks for the reports!  I knew about the screwed up teleporting zombies already, but not the other things.  With DILDOMASTER666 not being able to complete his other slots, I might have to step in soon and do bug fixes for him.

 

I went ahead and marked you down as a tester by the way.  If you find any other bugs, just let me know and I'll mark them down in the bug tracker ;)

 

Anyways, I just did a quick test of your updated map.  I was pretty surprised to see how much you deviated from your previous version!  I really liked the changes for the most part, and I would say that it should be fine to go ahead and replace some of those HKs with Revenants if you really want.

 

First off, I found a bug.  You've got a tutti-frutti step texture near the secret Plasma Gun room.

 

The newly designed hallway segment was pretty cool, though I really missed the darkening of the hallways when you pick up the Soulsphere.  I know the wall lights started blinking, but it didn't really have the same impact for me.  If there was a way to do both the blinking wall lights and have the hallways go darker, that would be perfect in my opinion.

 

The new exit seems a bit hit/miss for me as well.  I thought the fake-out BK door was sort of bleh, maybe just because of how it looks.  The Baron teleporting behind the player was a nice touch though.  I guess I just miss the darker, more imposing exit from the original.  Probably not a huge deal though.

 

That's all I can think of to complain about :P.  Nice job!