Phase 1 Ch 2 > Dev Thread (Bonus Map11)

[Xindage]

So I finished adding the dm spawn rooms, they contain the necessary weapons to make deathmatch playable whitout ruining the coop gameplay and here's the locations. (10 Dm spots and 1 Exclusive Dm Shortcut.)

Spoiler

None of these areas appear on automap so it's safe to say that's not going to bother you in finding the all 100% secrets.

I'll not release the wad right now due to a necessary thing that I have to fix before releasing it here, anyway I wanted to show you guys the progress of the map so far, there's not much new things to come aside from some thematic edits.

[Xindage]

Ok from now on there's nothing that I want to change on main coop layout. Some examples of the main layout edits:

Spoiler

This place is aways open by default, no more switch hunt.

Want a rad suit?
Just to fit the theme.

So I'll focus on the difficult setting and probable balance the easy skill and make hard skill a little more easy, but in other side multiplayer is going to increase difficult in all skills, if you want a real challenge just go in hard skill with solo-net or multiplayer emulation.
Final version is really close now.

The dificult progression is can be considered in this order:

Spoiler

Easy
Easy + Multiplayer
Normal
Normal + Multiplayer
Hard
Hard + Multiplayer

 

[doomfighter667112349]

cool looking map is awesome good work

[doomfighter667112349]

i am waiting for the new map to be finished and added to freedoom good work

Edited August 17, 2019 by doomfighter667112349

[Xindage]

I'm very lazy slow to work in same map for long periods of time, so I just go there, change 2 or 3 "areas" them leave and do another work later, that's the reason behind the map taking too long, it's a big map too.

But I'm proud of it, it's one of my biggest map that I did from scratch, most of my work is based in editing something else, so this one is very original.

Gadly that you like it.

[doomfighter667112349]

yes the new map has very cool deathmatch areas 

[doomfighter667112349]

and i love the layout

[doomfighter667112349]

and question is the new map11 finished

[Xindage]

22 hours ago, doomfighter667112349 said:

and question is the new map11 finished

Nope :]

There's edited stuffs in there but i'm still not satisfied, also i'm not so motivated in finishing that... maybe is lack of creativity.

[doomfighter667112349]

ahh

[Xindage]

Hey guys, I know i havent finished the new e2m4 but i'm working on a new e2m1/8 and yes that's what you heard, 2 maps at once, or i can tell just one?

ok here goes the new surprise, i've planned a new map for both e2m1 and 8 at once, well they're exactly the same map, but with a small "twist" on them, I'M NOT COPYING DOOM E3M1 AND E3M9 IDEA!

But i'll just shot what it's the idea behind map 2 and 8, basically you start exactly at the same location of the map but the diference is... well in e2m1 it's normal, but in e2m8 the map turn completely upside down keeping the same ayout and focused directly on boss fight, you'll fell the dejavu but for certain some places are unreachable depending of side of the map that you're on the moment.
Is that a good idea?

And too more news about the roadplan for episode 2, i'm throwing away the idea of corrupted techbase mapsets, intead it'll be a very random themed, turning every map unique themed except e2m1 and 8 since now they share the same layout, this is to make it less like doom and being more original, we have teleports exits right? so why not be aways on a diferent location?

Also I'll try to talk with the devs here to implement the whole textures stock from freedoom2 inside freedoom1 at once, I want to use them, expecialy the egypt themed ones for e2m9 for more unique gamplay experience. These textures is not even used in freedoom2 at all... yet.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Xindage

[doomfighter667112349]

but where episode 2 could be set ?      small question

[P41R47]

I really like the look of the map, Xindage. But i think that, if you choose to give every map a random theme, the cohesive underlined narrative (if it ever finally exist), will be a little broken. As by now, chapter 2 name is ''Military Labs'', a name that says nothing :/.

To implement your idea of random themes for the levels, we have to change the chapter name. As of now, by your decision, every level have an entering teleport and an exit teleport. So i suggest that the underlying narrative of the chapter is the searching for clues about what AGM is doing. And the conclusion, after teleporting all the chapter long around a lot of different places where AGM were doing experiments, is that they are breaking the boundaries of reality, that way you could explain why e2m1/8 are the same place but upside-down/inverted. So we need a really cool e2m1 with an outstanding upside-down/inverted architecture where to fight the massive Tripod in e2m8.

 

That way ''Event Horizon'', meaning ''point of no return'', can have a little different look, also. Less hellish, more interdimensional place, something like what Xaser made in Doom: Lost Episode's e5m1, ''Logos Anomaly''. That level seems, using the hell and tech base themed textures combined, a lot like a dimenssion colapsing into itself.

In the ''Event Horizon'' , we, the players, found the truth after battling the technospider, that AGM is trying to set sail into another plane of existence in a massive world-like space ship, called Double Impact, built in the Event Horizon, to migrate with AGM's selected people there.

 

And, to deviate more from Ultimate Doom, we can have a proper new boss at the end of Double Impact. Whatever it will be, we can use the idea of a lower rank AGM executive who, throgh experiment unto himself, mutated into an alien monstrocity and tries to stop your progress. 

Maybe, if you decide to use this underlying narrative, you could progress further with your levels.

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by P41R47

[doomfighter667112349]

On 4/4/2017 at 12:22 AM, Xindage said:

 

awesome idea for chapter 2 p41r47

Edited August 29, 2019 by doomfighter667112349

[P41R47]

On 8/26/2019 at 9:25 AM, doomfighter667112349 said:

awesome idea for episode 2 p41r47

Thanks, Doomfighter! I really want to see Freedoom become its own entity, so i'm trying to play a lot of mods to see if they are fully compatible, and also see how they developed their narrative through the levels. By now i played a bunch of wads that have a really good story that unfolds contextually through the level. Revolution! is one of the most interesting. And also Xaser's lost episode has an implicit narrative, even though the levels are console only adapted for PC or alpha levels, they are placed as a cohesive story, and the inclusion of a properly episode intermission screen really adds to the narrative.

 

Something like that can be made because everyone, consciously or not, knows the little story begin Doom after playing the vanilla game:

 

As a simple soldier, we are punished to go to one of the mars moons because we refused to follow a direct order from a superior, and in the moon, we discover the plans of the UAC to set an invasion aided with some kind of alien entities. We all struggle to reach the phobos anomaly and felt totally surprised with that strange ending. But then we are teleported to the next moon, and found how the UAC was building a new Babel, with the menacing cyber-demon atop the tower, just to realice that we are floating above hell itself; it wasn't an alien invasion, the UAC didn't open a portal to another world, they open it to hell itself and we need to descend to it deeper reaches to eliminate the mastermind of the invasion and stop it once and for all.

 

That is an epic story! A simple but epic story. And following that story, everybody made their own Doom.

And that apply to every mod out there, also. If you take a look to the .TXT that comes with every wads, there are little details of the story that the mapper followed for that particular mapset.

I'm trying to write a back story and to adapt it to the levels that already made, and for the ones to come. When its finished i will submit it. I really wish that the back story helps with the development of the maps. 

[doomfighter667112349]

cool idea for a freedoom levels story

 

 

[Xindage]

Well i'm bored to actually fix the hard skill, and the map is already done and fully playable... Ok, this version is not final but now it's a candidate, I'm looking for skills feedbacks now:

Based to used on slot e2m4 is this map:
-> On skill X too hard/good/easy?

Monsters count: S -> Singleplayer | M -> Multiplayer

Spoiler

S Easy -> 131
M Easy -> 149

S Mode -> 192

M Mode -> 224
S Hard -> 256

M Hard -> 294

Version 6 -> e2m1_p6.7z
No demos provided this time. use e2m1 to play.

[P41R47]

i will do a list of the things i spoted. Please understand that i'm trying to give a constructive feedback, so forgive me if i say something that sounds a little harsh.

 

-The layout is okay. For a DM is perfect, but in solo play, every area looks the same making difficult to recognise one area from another. As i tried it in easy medium and hard i knew the layout from the previous plays and it was a little more easy to navigate, but still, i had to rely a lot in the automap to remember in wich area i was.

 

-as this is a demo for now, the areas looks a lot cold and uninteresting, maybe more details will spicy it a little more.

 

-I found 3 of the 4 secrets in all the runs, the berserk, the mega armor and the survey map. The berserk is easy to spot, hard to find, in easy i had to look around a little, but in hard i just hit the switch by accident. The mega armor switch is easyly misseable being in a corner of an s corridor and fighting all the way through it. The survey map, is definetively misseable. I find it by IDDT. I IDDT the map to try to find the one that i was missing but i find a lot of DM inaccesible areas. No luck finding the remaining secret.

 

-the difficult is as follow in term of gameplay.

Easy = boring

medium = still a little boring.

hard = a lot of monsters and boring.

don't take it as a failure on mappmaking, i will detail why i feel that way. Most of the uneappealing things is on the aesthetic side for now, so if you add more variety and details to the different areas it will look a lot better.

The most difficult area is where the yellow key is. In medium and hard i only died there once. The problem is that theare are a lot of monsters in the same place with hitscanners in hard to spot places and then the trilobites teleporting with the pain lord and fleshworms. The serpentipedes in the balconies make it challenging but there are also a few zombies in there. Thats the only really difficult place in all the map. Also this is one of the few ambushes on the map.

A lot of monsters doesn't means more difficult. I read that your favorite mapset are Alien vendetta and other like that. Well, that kind of mapsets learn to do it from the Plutonia experiment. Plutonia had little monster count, even in hard, what make it difficult is the carfully designed monsters ambushes and how to place them on the map.

 

-The other point of interest is the very very big open areas, i know that you said that it would be awesome to use and upside-down/inverted layout of the map as the e2m8. But there are a lot of open areas with uninteresting fights, just monsters around the place. The map progression is a little convulted and added to the difficulty to differentiate one area for another its make the map drags a lot.

Maybe just left the starting area a little more big than the other for the future e2m8 and giving the open areas a different height, some kind of obstacles so its look like the interior and exterior of a training camp?

 

Now the things that need to be revised:

- there is a radioactive suit in the south of the map, where the sludge river ends. I think that it needs to be tagged as a multiplayer only, because there is no need to go into the sludge river as it is closed in solo play.

-the caged pain lord, is somewhat ineffective, also, that place is somewhat optional, so it needs t be rearranged somehow. If the pain lord was in guard of an important map progression point it would be different, or a secret at least, but no. You can skip that area entirely.

- the area where the blue key is is too big and empty. Maybe making all the floor damaging and adding a time switch to a door and making that area smaller could fix it.

-There are a lot of backtracking. First is the red key, and the need to hunt down the switch to be able to grab it it, there is an ambush there, but with the vast openess of the starting area, that ambush don't hit like and ambush, just like a teleporting attacks. After that, you got to hunt down other switches for the other keys. Its good for the map to be non-linear, but when it make the progression a hassle is better to try a different angle. This topic might help a little; the topic named inside by Wraith777 is also pretty good. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by P41R47