A whole year of 4800 Hell Knights! This time, it'll be finished!

[Big Ol Billy]

No worries rekta, I think it's cool that you're trying to do something creative and unusual for the hub. Given that we're doing a GZDoom set there are still plenty of options for something memorable. FWIW, there are a few good examples of maps that clearly force the player to run from a monster or horde—Barrels 'o' Fun, Deus Vult II MAP22. So there maaaaayyy be something there. Yet another option, though this is still risky re:ragequitting, is to put the player quickly into an unwinnable fight vs. a horde of Hellknights, but transport the player away or otherwise stop the fight just before the player actually dies. (You could think of Megaman X's first unwinnable boss fight, which occurs just minutes into the game, as model.)

[DFF]

@therektafire

If i were to throw my hand in, it might be difficult but you could have the hell knights overwhelm the player if you did actually make it a cutscene, still conveys the same message but might feel a bit blander than being interactive, however I do believe if done incorrectly a poor hub start could turn some players off.

 

You could make a doom run animation (moving hands and make it a forced weapon), and explicitly tell the player to "RUN" or "RETREAT".

What would also be cool given the time is to have one of the maps be the player purging the surrounding forrest of hell knights, unless the idea is a "jump back in time to stop the invasion early" sort of thing.

 

[Pegleg]

1 hour ago, Empyre said:

I don't like that idea. Players will try to kill all of the hell knights and they will get angry when it turns out that there is not enough ammo. Many will rage quit and the rest of the maps will rarely get played. As you can tell by the abundance of ammo in my map, I as a player do not think that it is fun to run out of ammo.

I don't think ammo starvation is terribly fun, as I said in a post for the DMP2017, so I had more than enough ammo. As a consequence, there were those who felt my map was not too difficult. We'll see how my map for this project goes, but I would expect it to be similar.

 

That being said, @therektafire, could you do something similar to the end of E1M8? Such a solution would essentially require a pre-hub map and then a hub map, but this could be one option that comes to mind (without an exact idea of how to implement it with UDMF):

 

1. You start off within sight of the bunker, with the surrounding forest infested with hell knights.
2. The bunker should be flashing or something to draw your attention to it so you know to go there. Perhaps you start off right in front of the door (exit door texture to signal that it's where you want to go).
3. You can go fight the hell knights in the forest if you want (there would have to be some amount of weapons/ammo around for this to work) or just go straight to the bunker. You make the bunker door the exit switch, so the level just ends if you go in the bunker.
4. As you're fighting in the woods, more hell knights teleport in, far enough out so you can see them arrive, but not close enough so that you're immediately overwhelmed.
5. At some point, you turn and head for the bunker. As you approach the bunker, more hell knights teleport in near you.
6. Obviously, if you reach the bunker, the level ends, but you also set all the sectors in the map to end the level when your health drops low enough.
7. Then you have some sort of text explaining what happened as you managed to escape the encroaching horde of hell knights and make it into the bunker. Ideally, there would be a different text depending on how you made it out (opened the door or overwhelmed by hell knights), but I don't know if that's possible.
8. The next map is the hub.

[Frades]

Hello everyone. I am sorry i haven't been able to be in touch with the project.
I love you all: every oldies like me and new people here on the forums, i love you all.
Unfortunately, i must take back my application for the spot at map 04 that i so much wanted, but i must do so due to very unfortunate issues in real life.

I do understand that there are 8 days left for me to send the map in, but given my current situation, i believe that the best thing to do is to let you all know what's going on:

If someone has a map for the place of map 04, please submit it.. unfortunately i can't do it in time.

I would love to do it, but i must delay, and if the delay is too long then i don't want to hold you guys back.

Family tragedy hits hard.

 

I know i have never been here commenting much, but i have always been here.

And i always will be. 

 

Frades.

[therektafire]

8 hours ago, Pegleg said:

I don't think ammo starvation is terribly fun, as I said in a post for the DMP2017, so I had more than enough ammo. As a consequence, there were those who felt my map was not too difficult. We'll see how my map for this project goes, but I would expect it to be similar.

 

That being said, @therektafire, could you do something similar to the end of E1M8? Such a solution would essentially require a pre-hub map and then a hub map, but this could be one option that comes to mind (without an exact idea of how to implement it with UDMF):

 

1. You start off within sight of the bunker, with the surrounding forest infested with hell knights.
2. The bunker should be flashing or something to draw your attention to it so you know to go there. Perhaps you start off right in front of the door (exit door texture to signal that it's where you want to go).
3. You can go fight the hell knights in the forest if you want (there would have to be some amount of weapons/ammo around for this to work) or just go straight to the bunker. You make the bunker door the exit switch, so the level just ends if you go in the bunker.
4. As you're fighting in the woods, more hell knights teleport in, far enough out so you can see them arrive, but not close enough so that you're immediately overwhelmed.
5. At some point, you turn and head for the bunker. As you approach the bunker, more hell knights teleport in near you.
6. Obviously, if you reach the bunker, the level ends, but you also set all the sectors in the map to end the level when your health drops low enough.
7. Then you have some sort of text explaining what happened as you managed to escape the encroaching horde of hell knights and make it into the bunker. Ideally, there would be a different text depending on how you made it out (opened the door or overwhelmed by hell knights), but I don't know if that's possible.
8. The next map is the hub.

Actually this is very similar to the setup I had in mind. I was going to make the outer area and hub the same map at first but then i remembered that people might want to view intermission screens after completing the levels to see how they did instead of just being teleported back immediately so I figured that it would be best to separate them because obviously when you enter a level from an intermission screen you enter it at your corresponding player start (unless there is a way to change that in e.g. mapinfo?) And it would suck for people to be out back at the very beginning outside again.

 

As for the ambush setup you got pretty close to what I was going to do with that as well. The way I had it going down in my head is, you are on patrol/guard duty and your shift is up and you are walking back to the bunker but you notice that the hell knights are starting to invade the area (like in that one screenshot with the burning trees and fireblu portal) then as you continue walking down the path suddenly they teleport in from behind you forcing you to run forward while a dramatic midi starts playing :D You then would find that some of them are in front of you and you need to find a way to get past them without dying (since at this point you would still only have your pistol) like using environmental objects for cover or maybe there are some barrels dotted around the place you can use (I haven't gotten that far on the map yet unfortunately) Of course you would eventually get to the bunker and escape by closing the door on them. Then you walk down into the bunker itself and get TPed to the real hub.

 

At least that's how I had it set up in my head originally when I thought it was a super cool idea though obviously I had some well placed doubts which is why I came here to ask about it. I guess putting some stockpiled ammo outside to let the player kill the HKs wouldn't really be that bad of an idea, maybe you can get some kind of secret if you do it, idk

[94's the best style]

I mean, you could simply have a message appear that says "RUN!" once the hell knights appear. I'm one of the few doomers who actually likes running from monsters, picking your battles is such an underappreciated thing in this community.

[DFF]

1 hour ago, 94's the best style said:

I mean, you could simply have a message appear that says "RUN!" once the hell knights appear. I'm one of the few doomers who actually likes running from monsters, picking your battles is such an underappreciated thing in this community.

 

My sentiments exactly, i've always thought of making several "deathrun maps" with this concept, long path like levels where sometimes the player would have to fight but most of the time they would have to stay on the run (not sure how to enforce well other than a death timer, but that's lame).

 

If you wanted something, the beginning could actually start the player off with some weapons so they could fight some hell knights at a forward checkfount, then after like a minute or so, just spawn a huge wave and tell the player to hoof it.

[Misty]

Just reminder that I didn't run away and still working on this project. I really love deadlines, so don't mind me ;)

 

 

[therektafire]

6 hours ago, Myst.Haruko said:

Just reminder that I didn't run away and still working on this project. I really love deadlines, so don't mind me ;)

 

 

Those are some nice a e s t h e t i c s

[Dexiaz]

*Looked at screen...looked at own map*

I succ D:

 

To be serious - very nice, Myst.Haruko. Looking forward for it!

[Pegleg]

19 hours ago, DerFurer'sFace said:

My sentiments exactly, i've always thought of making several "deathrun maps" with this concept, long path like levels where sometimes the player would have to fight but most of the time they would have to stay on the run (not sure how to enforce well other than a death timer, but that's lame).

As long as you were upfront about the expectations for the player (i.e., the player knows the purpose is to try to run most of the time), then I would ammo starvation would be the way to accomplish this objective. If they just downloaded a level where they were supposed to run without knowing that's what they were getting into, or being told to "Run!" or something similar (as @94's the best style suggested), then it just comes across as unfair because you're in an unwinnable situation.

 

Although the end of E1M8 never struck me as unfair. But, perhaps that's because there was a text screen immediately thereafter.

[94's the best style]

A small reminder that April 1st is on the upcoming Sunday. 

[therektafire]

So a slight change of plans, I am going to make the actual hub area today since I don't have time to finish the exterior section sadly :( But with only 2 days left I obviously don't have much of a choice, I was just sooo eager to participate in other projects and spread my limited time I have too thin on other things :/. But that's ok I guess, maybe I will have it ready for the final version

[Pegleg]

I finally finished my level. Screenshots will follow later; it's late at the moment (2:30 AM).

 

Here's the brief backstory: This is the charnel house for the Hell nobles, where the Hell knights take the bodies of their slain conquests. Made from the flesh and blood of those vanquished by the forces of Hell, only the Knights, their Baron liege lords, and the occasional Imp servants are allowed entry.

 

It's rather straightforward (being essentially one extended "room," but with the possibility for some doubling back, if necessary). Get the megasphere, get the keys, get out. Feel free to kill as many of Hell's forces as you want to along the way.

 

Title: Charnel House of the Nobles

Theme: Flesh, Blood, and Bone (as it turns out, there's metal, too, because of the skin panel textures)

Format: Boom

Tested with: Chocolate Doom 3.0 (obviously, it crashes), PrBoom+ 2.5.1.2, ZDoom 2.8.1, GZDoom 3.2.5

Textures: Stock Doom 2 only

Monsters: Stock Doom 2 only (I ended not adding any of the new enemies)

Weapons: Stock Doom 2 only (I ended up not adding the new weapons)

Crouching, jumping, freelook: All OK, but none required, shouldn't break the map, but won't enhance it too much, I don't think

Difficulty settings: Yes

Co-op starts: Yes (well, there's 4 player starts, but the co-op play is untested)

Known bugs: None, they should all have been fixed. (There is a slim chance that some monsters don't teleport in, but I spent a lot of time getting that working, so it should be right. Also, during testing, it hung on me a few times, but I think that had more to do with other things running, not the level. In general, it was never laggy.)

 

All difficulty levels meet the 150 hell knight and 1 megasphere requirement.

 

ITYTD and HNTR: 150 hell knights, 1 lost soul, 1 megasphere, 2 soulspheres

HMP: 217 hell knights, 5 barons of hell, 3 lost souls, 1 megasphere, 2 soulspheres

UV and NM: 285 hell knights, 9 barons of hell, 20 imps, 5 souls, 1 megasphere, 1 soulsphere

 

OK. Time to be honest. I managed to make the level too hard for my skill level as a player (which is not exactly a high bar, I'm pretty terrible). I wasn't able to finish the level on ITYTD. So, I tested UV by putting on god mode and playing the level that way. Given that, I'm reasonably sure there should be enough ammo on UV to kill all 319 monsters. And if there's enough ammo on UV, then there should be more than enough for the rest of the difficulty levels, because I took some of the ammo out for high difficulty levels. Anyway, hopefully people more skilled than me (which is probably almost everyone on this forum) will have more success than I did. Let me know what you think.

 

Download link: Charnel House of the Nobles

 

 

Link to latest revision of the map (as of June 12):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5v841sqlm9at86/hkbones_v2.wad?dl=1

 

Yes, I realize that I never actually posted screenshots.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Pegleg : Added updated download link for latest revision of map.

[Misty]

I still didn't give up on this ;)

 

[Dexiaz]

Metal Hangar Solid. I believe in you!

[therektafire]

Just now, DeXiaZ said:

Metal Hangar Solid. I believe in you!

I swear if @Myst.Haruko doesn't use the MGS VR mission theme... :v

[94's the best style]

I would like to ask from all of those who contributed a map to check trough the name list in the first post and check that:

 

1. You have *c* as a mark of completed map

 

2. That the link next to your name links to the latest version of your map, which means that I have it as well.

 

If your name lacks one of these two, please tell me. I might have glanced over a map, so its best that every Doomer holds out for themselves. And thank you :) Even those that are still putting down the last minute additions to your maps.

[Misty]

I'm on test phase now. If you give me one more hour, I'll put map here. I want get rid of some cheese in map. 

[94's the best style]

2 minutes ago, Myst.Haruko said:

I'm on test phase now. If you give me one more hour, I'll put map here. I want get rid of some cheese in map. 

 

Take 10 if you want, I'm going sleeping right now.

[Misty]

Alright, thank you. 

[Misty]

So,here we go with very last submission(?)

Author: Mysterious Haruko
Map name: Cyberspace of hell knight realm
Engine needed: gzdoom 3.2.5 and above
Build time: Few months with procrastination
Music: "Space Debris" by Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen, I've got it from mod archive
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=57925
Credits: Dragonfly for his wireframe textures, skillsaw for ancient aliens resource pack( I took sky from here), leodoom85 for support and help. 

Hell knight count is a bit above 150
No skill settings.
 

Textures, Mapinfo, Coop support and music are included in map. 

Testing and criticism are appreciated. 

 

Cyberspace of hell knight realm Mysterious Haruko.zip

Cyberspace_of_hell_knight_realm. v 1.2.zip

Edited April 2, 2018 by Myst.Haruko

[Big Ol Billy]

6 hours ago, 94's the best style said:

I would like to ask from all of those who contributed a map to check trough the name list in the first post and check that:

 

This is very very minor, but..... I ended up doing a different theme than the one I originally pitched. My completed map is in a "masonic temple" style rather than "mayan temple" style (as currently listed). Not a big deal, but just mentioning in case people get confused. You know how it goes--the map ended up evolving, and I decided to go with it. 

[DFF]

@94's the best style

Glad i went back to double check, did some slight tweaks and added the textures i forgot to include in the final version, should be fine now https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mlhPfKQZp7sfr9rfhH-LbZJL1RP7NxPm/view?usp=sharing

[therektafire]

I wasn't able to get through with the hub yesterday and I can't work on it today ;_;. I will 100% be able to get through with it on Monday though since I only need to add the rooms where the map entrances are which will be pretty easy, then I will add the maps and hopefully have a working alpha put together :) And if it turns out that I don't have enough time to both finish the hub and add the maps at the same time then it will probably be on Tuesday or Wednesday  at most.

 

Oh and I also wasn't able to get my own map done unfortunately, which does suck indeed :( i am pretty slow at mapping still, I definitely need to practice more speedmapping or something to get better at making stuff quickly

[Misty]

@therektafire maybe you need some helping hand? I already speedmapped my own map and I could help you if you wish. 

[94's the best style]

3 minutes ago, therektafire said:

I wasn't able to get through with the hub yesterday and I can't work on it today ;_;. I will 100% be able to get through with it on Monday though since I only need to add the rooms where the map entrances are which will be pretty easy, then I will add the maps and hopefully have a working alpha put together :) And if it turns out that I don't have enough time to both finish the hub and add the maps at the same time then it will probably be on Tuesday or Wednesday  at most.

 

Oh and I also wasn't able to get my own map done unfortunately, which does suck indeed :( i am pretty slow at mapping still, I definitely need to practice more speedmapping or something to get better at making stuff quickly

Well, the good news is that you will at least know how many map entraces to have. Btw, couldn't you cannibalize your map into the Hub? Just an idea.

[therektafire]

4 minutes ago, Myst.Haruko said:

@therektafire maybe you need some helping hand? I already speedmapped my own map and I could help you if you wish. 

Well it's not that i need "help", at least not with the actual mapping part, I know how to do *that*, it's mostly coming up with ideas and transfering those ideas to the real world- and fitting them together cohesively- that I seem to have trouble with. In short I know *how* to do, just not *what* to do

 

5 minutes ago, 94's the best style said:

Well, the good news is that you will at least know how many map entraces to have. Btw, couldn't you cannibalize your map into the Hub? Just an idea.

I guess I could do that. I just figured that people would want a pretty snappy turnaround between the time the deadline hit and the wad release. While I haven't been a part of many CPs myself i do know that some just wind up in development hell never to be updated or released (nova 3 was like that for a while from what I can tell for example), and I didn't want to have this to wind up like one of those projects where it gets forgotten about and never completed. Which is why I was trying to rush to get everything done in time

[Misty]

There it comes updates for my wireframe wad. I'll update my entry too shortly.

Bugfixes:
- Fixed the orange texture in blue key area
- Added the properties to the trifecta (30x speed and 5x damage)
- Changed the height of the 2 secret HKs for keys

Cyberspace_of_hell_knight_realm. v 1.2.zip

[Major Arlene]

Here's an updated link to my map because I'm not 100% sure the link listed is correct (plus a lot of people are wary of dropbox, as I've found out)

http://www.moddb.com/games/doom-ii/downloads/harkonnen