The DWmegawad Club plays: Speed of Doom

[Spectre01]

1 hour ago, NecrumWarrior said:

It probably is. So far no one has posted a video or demo for this one so I think I'll just hold off on it for now and see if anything turn up that I can try to learn from.

I posted a max run with my non-existent writeup on the previous page. It's far from well played but I just wanted a max and exit.

[baja blast rd.]

How is it so long though. :D

 

Also strong write-up imo.

 

[Spectre01]

I believe I was trying to maximize infighting and the Cyber wasn't cooperating for around 5 minutes. :P

 

MAP24 - “Devil's Beehive” by Darkwave0000

 

Similar to what Gazebo did in Sunder 14, Darkwave goes crazy here spamming hexagons in a mostly red cave map. For some reason I remember enjoying this one more the first time I played it. Can't say I'm a huge fan of it now. It's a long map and a large part is spent popping 1-2 Viles with the SSG or RL which are scattered all over the hexagon platforms. They also make for some annoying navigation. There's a BFG which is unlocked by the "any key" near the start but the blue one is what I grabbed first. This combination seemed to have triggered over 100 Imps and a few Hell Knights to warp in. At least you get plenty of rockets and a decent amount of cells, but half the map's monster count seems to be Imps deployed for shits and giggles. The combat lacks any real teeth with the BFG in hand and all the traps, save the triple Cyber surprise, are neither dangerous nor intimidating. It's a cute visual gimmick but I wasn't particularly engaged by the actual combat here.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Spectre01 : map24

[NuMetalManiak]

Because people tend to take a long time when playing...especially for the first time. One of the reasons I actually don't like to watch FDAs at all.

 

MAP24 Hell's Honeycomb

 

Oh yeah, was totally looking forward to this one [/sarcasm]

 

So yes, hexagons. And arch-viles. If you really like arch-viles this is a map for you, except it's much less Hunted-style and just romping through the hexafields. I actually wonder if this inspired D2INO's triangle fields in MAP07 too.

 

The best thing to do in the honeycomb fields is to take these guys one at a time, watching your footing consistently so that you don't attract any more unwanted attention. With the way it's all layed out, that's gonna be a problem in a number of ways. And then there's a matter of what secrets are existent in this one map, which makes it a bit more problematic as well, as there are some interesting ways of getting these secrets. Better yet, this whole map is practically another hub map, with an entrance area that provides the initial weapons and combat, through a pincer attack that is, and then the main honeycomb event with branching points.

 

I found the blue key ambush the most fun. No not the one immediately after grabbing the key, the imp tirade that followed. Then the arch-viles would ruin the fun there. Meanwhile, the yellow key area is a sort of mini-honeycomb, which is just a small version of what we saw earlier. It's alright. I did like the red key area most, as it played out like a magic show with the metal/wooden monster reveals. Also the fact you can get the BFG as long as you have any key. An interesting map that warrants an interesting playstyle.

[gaspe]

MAP24: This map reminds me of MAP27 of Alien Vendetta. Here the rocks are red instead, and that usage of archviles and the secrets in the main area have a similar taste to the blue cave of Stench of Evil. The quest for the keys is rather forgettable though, this map stands out more for its setting and atmosphere.

Edited April 24, 2017 by gaspe

[Demtor]

 

MAP24 - “Hell’s Honeycomb” by Darkwave0000

gzDoom - UV – pistol start

 

The Vegas casino lobby carpet threw me off at that start, followed by, oh my God what is that, it looks gorgeo… AH! AV’s… shit.

 

So many damned AV’s! It really forces you to take things slow and if you’re super careful, you can actually sneak up on a few of them. Oh well though, going slow through this map is a joy because it really does look incredible. What a unique looking map with visual treats in almost every direction. The auto map reminded me of my Battletech days. Ahhh, good times. There's a slight visual change up in the middle of the map with one of the harder ambushes following the RK pick up with arachnatrons, PE's, imps, pinkies and Hk's. Fighting that Cyberdemon point blank inside a small box room was always crazy. Ended up a little ammo starved and diving head first into those ambush nooks to get more was troubling to say the least.

 

I too really liked the imp swarm following the BK grab. They kind of sneak up on you and just keep coming. The idea of this massive horde swarming through every crack and crevice of this weirdly beautiful cavern system works really well. It was fun carving a path with rockets to nail those few AV’s that come running in behind them.

 

I found a lot of secrets but still missed a few. Eye see what you did there! The megasphere one was frightening. Stuck between Cyberdemons is never fun. Managed to squeeze past and hit the teleport out of there. The final three bigun’s where a little tricky. One teleports behind, one roams in front while the last stays stationary in front of the exit. Tons of plasma ammo thankfully. Speed of Doom seems to love setting up these big battles that require BFG spam fire. It’s kind of nuts.

[NecrumWarrior]

MAP23: Poison Ivy II

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fk6rc4zq3lu2lf/SoD_M23_Necrum_GZ24.lmp?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vehfv3mig4xrml1/SoD_M23_Necrum_GZ24_p2.lmp?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gluxytxsn24xj1j/SoD_M23_Necrum_GZ24_p3.lmp?dl=0

Kills: 99% (Damn, I was so close...)

Items: 100%

Secrets: 100%

 

Okay so it's broken up into three demos because I played through the map in three sessions. I needed breaks and I knew it was going to be massively long (that's what she said) if I let it go continuously. But, I managed to finish the damned thing. Once I had my foothold, thanks to Nine Inch Heels for the demonstration, it wasn't all that hard to make progress. I mean, it was still pretty freaking hard, but I was at least able to keep my cool and handle each group individually instead of running around like a chicken with its head chopped off.

 

I managed to pull off two really sweet tricks in this one: The first is that I strafe ran across to grab the BFG. Not sure if that was the intended way to get it or if I grabbed it early but it was 100% necessary for me to beat the map. The other is that I baited one of the Arch-Viles that hang out by the Mancubi into a Vile Jump so I could grab the Megasphere. Another necessary item for me that I'm not sure if I collected right or not.

 

Third demo will probably drag. I did a lot of infight baiting, particularly with the Mancubodes and Arch-Viles, and then with the Cyberdemon and the Mastermind.

[galileo31dos01]

@NecrumWarrior that Megasphere can also be grabbed after passing the yellow bar, you have to run or strafe-run 

 

MAP24: Time: 1:14:41

This was really fun!! I only died 3 times and it was fine. It was basically hexagons, archviles and red, red everywhere. At the beginning I was presented with the two shotguns and only two imps, and also the rocket launcher, which grabbing it instantly released ambushes by my sides. I found the barons a little too much, they take a lot of shots to be killed and in this case there was not too much space to use the RL safely. So, they took a lot of my health, but luckily survived. After that, I checked the automap and it was all hexagons, like some kind of puzzle, pretty neat in my opinion. I was aware that there were going to be archies wandering around, and for that reason I was always checking for cover so I could be prepared to hide rapidly. So I successfully offed one by one, this is how I like to combat archies. My next step was the BK, and that costed me a life. I handled it very bad at first, and the imps killed me (yes, imps, I need a paper bag for my head right now...). The second time went better. Moved on to the tunnel to the RK, very nervous I might say. But it was easy, until the lovely cyberdemon appeared and murdered me with so much love and care. Why a cyberdemon in a claustrophobic room?! Ugh, at least the second the time my BFG went crazy and shot like 5 plasma balls in one second and killed him. That was cool, and weird.

After 5 seconds or so, the doors opened and massive amounts of enemies came to me, more BFG work! The following PE ambush was fun too, although they consumed a lot of my ammo. The YK trap got me very anxious, the cacodemons came very close to me. Still, I succeeded. The final step, the three doors. I found it hilarious that I was really nervous to open the blue bars, only to see a zombieman. I laughed. Then the red bars, an imp. Finally, the yellow bars, 3 cybers of which one teleported behind me, I saw that coming. So I tried my best to pass next to him and practically get the fuck out of there. Yeah I run a lot to be honest. Here is where I placed myself to kill them safely:

Spoiler

(near the starting point)

 

Once they were dead, proceeded to kill the last one aaaaaand find the other secrets. So I found 7/7 secrets, very clever placement, but some were more like "oh you like what you see? come on go grab that megasphere, I have something else for you that you won't like". Yeah, my third fucking death, isn't a bit too much a cyberdemon in a dark narrow corridor? Ugh!!! 10 BFG shots while dodging almost invisible rockets, not my kind of secret.

Anyway, I loved this level, and the midi tune suited perfectly.

 

To conclude, a "Where's Wally?" picture for the club 👀 

Spoiler

 

[Paul977]

Map 23 Poison Ivy II

 

Some patience is needed to overcome the beginning of this level.. The tactitc I used is to use the cyber to kill all the revenants (included the pop-up ones) in the meantime I go to grab the ssg, then move to the west building, kill the manc, kill the arch-vile and the then kill the cyberdemon which is highly injured. At this point the weapons on the east building are available and I can do the rest of the map somewhat 'safe'. After that there is a let down in the action probably due to a 'little' too pushed start. Visuals are very good, I liked the contrast of redrock and vine stone. 

The sequel, Poison Ivy III from PRCP is, imo, better then this one due to a more consistent gameplay from the beginning to the end (harsh start but not like this one, cool encounters in all "stages" of the level); thinking about it I hope Plutonia Revisited will be picked at some point cause there are a lot of cool maps :)

[baja blast rd.]

MAP24: Hell’s Honeycomb

 

I watched a max demo of this one a while ago, before I had ever played it, so I hadn't looked at the automap, and I actually was pretty surprised that the layout is as simple as it is: small groups of rooms around a cave network that is literally just . . . hexagons. In some sense the automap ruins the immersion, because I don't for a second believe anyone who says they'd notice the simple structure that easily otherwise. Liar liar pants on (archvile) fire. Darkwave does a really good job with colors, heights, and lines of sight, to create a cave that looks way more organic than it actually is. I'm reminded of map32 from 10sectors.wad, which uses a similar idea to create a similarly attractive setting. 

 

As interesting as the looks are, I don't think it plays well. About those viles. There are a few fun traps in this map, and I liked the cyber/BFG secret and the clever cyb reveal at the red key, but just as the caves are dominated by hexagons, they are full of repetitive combat against relatively low-threat imps and archviles. The viles are never really dangerous unless you advance brashly, and they eat up a lot of time. The fun parts aren't good enough to make up for all of that. Fighting the cave monsters can be surprisingly awkward -- you are given the SSG/RL early but no shotgun or chaingun, and the ammo looks like it's going to be tight (even though it really isn't), so there is inevitably some pistol plinking unless you stumble across an ammo cache early. 

 

By the way I always get a kick out of monsters that are assuming some kind of 'work role', like sitting behind a sector-detail desk in an office, and these revenants are no exception. Yeah so what I IDDQD+IDKFA'd to take this screenshot, want to fight over it? :P

 

[Grain of Salt]

+++ The Darkening 2

[Nine Inch Heels]

+++ urania

 

Actually, a couple hundred "+"s... That set deserves waaaaay more attention than it has gotten so far.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Nine Inch Heels

[Memfis]

+++ Marswar

[baja blast rd.]

+++ New Gothic Movement 2 and Deus Vult 2 

 

Let's do this! At only seventeen maps long, it should be paired with another thing, so I'll vote for a pairing with Legacy of Heroes (ten maps, not including the cinematic outro). Also, NIH I hope you do write-ups for every map this time. :)

 

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by rdwpa

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

Also, NIH I hope you do write-ups for every map this time.

You bet that pink hair of yours that I'll do that ;-)

 

EDIT how about we add some deus vult 2?

[Spectre01]

I'll keep voting +++ Urania as per usual. 

[NecrumWarrior]

+++ Urania

[Deadwing]

I would like to see +++Urania

[Capellan]

+++ SUDTIC / TEUTIC / OBTIC

 

[galileo31dos01]

+++ Urania 

 

for president of the DWMC

[Nine Inch Heels]

@Archi and @ArmouredBlood, guys, we need your votes here real quick. ;-)

[NecrumWarrior]

MAP24: Hell's Honeycomb; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Vile

I forgot to include the word "record" in my command line, oops!

Kills: 95%

Items: 94%

Secrets: 14%

Time: 21:36

 

This map may as well have been called A Cave Filled With Arch-Viles. Thankfully, most of them had nothing to resurrect and there was plenty of cover to work with. This map was very subdued compared to the previous one; a nice respite from the chaos that surely awaits in the last few levels of the WAD. I didn't really care much for the hexagonal structure. It felt very gimmicky and didn't really do much in terms of gameplay. At most you sometimes had to track a path among the platforms to get where you needed. Not exactly thrilling. I think this is the first time I've ever seen the Any Key trigger. The most interesting part of the map though was the in-between of the Red Key and Yellow Key, which takes you into some pretty interesting settings. The dark burning areas with silhouettes of impaled corpses and the like were a treat for the eye. This map looks pretty cool with the Brightmaps on, as the Mancubi will be released in total darkness and you can only make out their glowing eyes. Very creepy. My major issue with this map is with the Cyberdemon Deathmatch at the end. Mostly with one of them teleporting behind you. It's fucking evil and it took me so many god damned tries to not get killed by stray rockets that I couldn't see.

[dobu gabu maru]

... would it be wrong to vote for Urania just so I can take next month off? Because I'll do it :P

[Spectre01]

To be fair dobu, I don't remember when you last did a 32 map writeup. ;)

[Demon of the Well]

27 minutes ago, dobu gabu maru said:

... would it be wrong to vote for Urania just so I can take next month off? Because I'll do it :P

Full disclosure: I'm seriously considering doing this as well....

 

(sorry Adam, I promise to help you vote for The Innocent Crew Suite one of these days!)

[dobu gabu maru]

18 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

To be fair dobu, I don't remember when you last did a 32 map writeup. ;)

I still intend to finish Speed of Doom! I'm currently on uhhhhhhh MAP07. Shouldn't be too hard to catch up I hope...?

[Crusader No Regret]

Recollections of SoD

 

Quick drive-by commentary

 

Map 32: The start was quite the killer even coming in fully powered from the last map.  Took a lot of reloads before I felt in control enough to plop down a save.  When I played through way back when, i actually cleaned out the moat meat before progressing so there was a path open for the gasbag swarm.

 

I find there's more fun to be had turning on god mode and using an infighting heavy approach.  Also may play better (god mode optional) rushing through not spending resources to clean out cages and moat meat and instead persuading boss monsters to do the janitorial duty.

 

Map 16: Liked the concept and presentation enough that the gameplay didn't feel as repetitive as it is.  I vaguely recall it's possible to get trapped in an inescapable acid pit but (if my memory is correct, it frequently isn't) takes going quite out of the way to do so.

 

Map 20: Ending fight is quite memorable for me, though that's because I made things more difficult on myself by wanting the cybers to die to infighting so I was reluctant to kill many barons.

 

Map 23: Yeah, this was quite the rough start even coming in with 200/200 and all the weapons and ammo i could scrounge from the last two maps.

 

Map 24; Another memorable experience in that i ran low on cells even coming in with 600.  Using the BFG on every archvile in the hexagons is a dumb idea.  Thankfully, only one cyber in the one secret on HMP, one was hard enough to survive in that uncomfortable hallway.

[Spectre01]

MAP25 - “Death’s Nocturne” by Joshy

 

This map's rather unremarkable/filler-ish and everything you'd expect from a Joshy map with a low monster count at this point. Obligatory dickish start after which the map mellows out once you grab the PR/RL and enough ammo to shoot those for days. The visuals are your usual red hell outside + wood and green marble inside, borrowing heavily from both AV and Scythe. I do like the library room and how you get to run across the bookshelves to reach a couple locations. The Cyber reveal in an awkward position is something I remembered from a previous playthrough and you can either do the whole "shoot wall + hit with BFG tracers" or blast him with plasma from one of the cliffs. I also got this on the first try after getting past the starting room so I was right when I guessed it being a breather compared to 23, 27 and 29. Next up is probably the best map in the wad, if memory serves right.

 

[Archi]

I'd like to see NG2 of course, but I'm not going to insist, since I don't participate in discussion. :)

[rehelekretep]

id like to play NG & DV, but i also really need a month off to catch up with other things

what to do!!!! D: