The /newstuff Chronicles #124

I was just kidding. :p

Anyway...

You know what I think would be cool? An E1 themed, Eternity size level :)

Yeah, TeamTNT's Eternal Doom comes to mind. I hate maps like that. And I love Erik's maps.

Maybe, certainly not every level surely. That megawad has a great atmosphere and consistant/unique style (helped by the nice textures) which has been matched by few since. Depends what you do, cooperatively the scale of the level equates to more fun.

NiGHTMARE said:

Considering that boris has been both playing and making SP maps for several years, I think not.

For example?

Tormentor667 said:

For example?

See many, many Speedmapping wads and Freedoom maps 2 and 7.

Or look here.

Anyway, boris just expressed a personal dislike for that type of map; he didn't claim that they were crap, or that no one should like them. Nothing to get excited about or offended by.

I have to agree with everyone praising Scythe; I've done the first two episodes, the small size of the maps, detail level, and being fun but not too difficult, combined to remind me of TVR. Episode 3 is proving to be a lot harder, though... Give me a few more days...

NiGHTMARE said:

You know what I think would be cool? An E1 themed, Eternity size level :)

UAC Experiment is the biggest E1-style map I could think of off the top of my head.

There is a good list of E1-themed maps here. Map20 of Cleim20.wad ("Hip Deep") fits the bill too - it had areas that were reminiscent of each of the original E1 maps.

Brad_tilf said:

I'll try and make the next map less obscure as far as how things are found. I haven't even come up with a concept for that one yet, tho I do have some ideas of what I want the map to look like.
Well, enjoy, or not. I'm sure those who haven't played now have a decent idea of what the map holds.
lol

I wouldn't be put off so easily, there are many who like this style of map and find it a good stimulating challenge. As for difficulty of finding what the first switch did it was so obvious, indeed you couldn't really go anywhere else. Remember there are game-players and there are gameplayers and I think you know which is which.;)
However there is an incredible amount of bad texture alignment.

NiGHTMARE said:

See many, many Speedmapping wads and Freedoom maps 2 and 7.

Not to forget my 10sector.wad map, which apparently was good enough to make it in the top 32 (of what, like 140 maps?).

Hmm...

http://boris.slipgate.org/?a=doom

-> 3 Singleplayer maps, one 10 Sector contest entry and FreeDoom Map02 and Map07 of which I think actually that they are not that good at all... so... I will continue playing boris' ST maps ;)

magikal said:

I wouldn't be put off so easily, there are many who like this style of map and find it a good stimulating challenge. As for difficulty of finding what the first switch did it was so obvious, indeed you couldn't really go anywhere else. Remember there are game-players and there are gameplayers and I think you know which is which.;)
However there is an incredible amount of bad texture alignment.

really? I was only aware of a couple of spots and I didn't feel that it was noticeable enough to go to the trouble of fixing.
Damn. lol

I'm glad there are people who liked this level.
I've already started my next map - a power plant based on the alien power plant in Total Recall. So far, it looks pretty good. I was thinking with that type of design that it might make a pretty cool DM map if I keep it small. Not likely to happen but perhaps I'll save the main portion for that purpose. Maybe I'll throw up a screenie or two when I get a little more done.

Torment and Torture 3 was great! Graphically, it's stunning. The mix of Doom, Quake and Heretic works really well. The music, the fog, the texturing and the environmental sounds all add up to a great mood.
It's too bad that even in the lowest difficulty setting I had to use cheat codes. I managed to clean up the first big rooms with barons, revenants and heavy machinegunners. But facing the horde of barons and arachnotrons in the other rooms with only 20% health left was a bit too much for me. The framerate also dropped quite low there. I still wonder if it wasn't possible to split the first map into two or three parts. The map is quite lineair, so I don't think it would have hurt gameplay too much.

All in all I have to say TnT3 is great! Thumbs up!

Thx for your comment ;)

Well, you are right, I could have split TNT3 Map01 in several small maps but this time, I really tried to get ZDooms frontier concerning sectors, monsters, scripted stuff and else.

My next project will have several small maps ;)

I'm on level 16 of Scythe. So far, so good. Just... I checked out level 26. I'll be skipping over that one. Call me crazy, but running around a 7000 square unit area (roughly) while avoiding 14 cyberdemons, over a hundred Hell Knights, over 30 Barons, 80 Cacodemons and 312 (!) Revenants on HMP, while trying to get them all to fight each other, is not my idea of a good time.

netnomad312 said:

Scythe ... level 26. I'll be skipping over that one.

Don't be put off by its intimidating appearance - it's a pussycat really. There is an invulnerability right behind where you start, you get a BFG and hundreds of cells immediately, and there are megaspheres dotted all over the place. If you want to avoid the main battles, note that there are little ledges leading to the exit, so you don't even need to collect any keys.

Arno said:

. . . The framerate also dropped quite low there. I still wonder if it wasn't possible to split the first map into two or three parts. . . .

Fantastic idea. Tormentor, I suggest you glance into making levels as a hub instead of one massive level. It would play the same, essentially. It would help keep the speed up (I didn't have framerate problems but it took 10 seconds to save or load). A hub would allow you to spread out a single level over as many levels as you wanted.

By the way, TNT3 was the end right? That's a shame, it would've been cool as a whole megawad.

woo I beat map26 in scythe starting with pistol on UV! am I godly?

TnT 3 was great - the snow, the fog, the whole wad created a real atmosphere. I liked the new monsters, very cleverly done, and they made a change from the usual suspects. There was even enough ammo and health this time round. 2 major problems though: the framerate was waaaaaaay too slow - so slow in fact it was unplayable without cheating in some areas, even on 640x480 (this is on a duron 700). The second problem was the new weapon - you can't reselect it once you pick it up. Eventually (when I'd fired everything else at the spiders) I worked out what the console command was, and all it needs is a cfg file with the following:

bind 9 "weapon 26"

I also think that the wad would have been better off in a hub, given the layout of the first map would probably have permitted it.

I've played Scythe for 50 minutes so far and have reached map 11 (pretty good so far), so it's looking odds on to be the smallest megawad of all time...

I've had no problems reselecting the new weapon. However, I couldn't select it if I ran out of ammo.

I can't reselect any out of ammo weaps ever.

TNT3 is not the end ;) so I will keep all your suggestions in mind!

BTW, you can reselect the firebomb by clicking 6 (if all weapons, two times).

netnomad312 said:

I'm on level 16 of Scythe. So far, so good. Just... I checked out level 26. I'll be skipping over that one. Call me crazy, but running around a 7000 square unit area (roughly) while avoiding 14 cyberdemons, over a hundred Hell Knights, over 30 Barons, 80 Cacodemons and 312 (!) Revenants on HMP, while trying to get them all to fight each other, is not my idea of a good time.

Are you kidding me? No, obviously not :p. But those maps own all other SP maps!!! I enjoyed it very well. What does HMP mean? Anyhow, I got all the monsters too fight...lol.

(Possible spoilers in here, I guess)
***


Holy crap... I'm on MAP24 of Scythe on UV (just BARELY scraping past 23!) and
it looks .... really really really hard.

MAP23 was the first insanely hard map I've encountered yet. It wasn't hard
in that there were so many monsters, but I spent all of my ammo in the
earlier part of the map, and then when everything was dead and I had
the blue key, I had 7 rockets. What was behind the blue door? 2 Cyberdemons
and a very necessary switch. I had to lure them out and get them into
another area to grab the switch and make a run for it (exited with 1%
health and an Arch-Vile about to hit me). Also, I think it may be possible
to use the Arch-Viles to exit pre-maturely, which could help a bit.

I thought MAP11 was quite hard as well, but I realized that you didn't
need to go into that big area with all the monsters (Arch-Vile etc), so
that didn't hurt much. MAP20 was a bit tough (I ignored the Cyberdemon
and room full of imps and just exited. Monster infighting still resulted
in about 98% kills).

This is the first megawad with a difficulty akin to that of Hell Revealed
that I have actually really liked, and played successfully on Ultra Violence.


Also, my comments on the secret levels:

MAP32 was a very tense fight, but it went on forever and ever. I entered
the level with just over 100% health, and within seconds was down to 11%
where I stayed for most of the level. I had to get through the entire
first bit of the level (all three phases of monster attacks) with between
1% and 30%. Not easy. I thought the level could do with more health, and
more ammo. The last room was really nothing but a health-grab for me,
since I left immediately.

MAP31 was a good run-then-fight map. I ran through the first part until
I got to the seemingly abandoned room with the red key. It took awhile to
take out the imps with a rocket launcher without toasting myself, but I
managed. At that point it was easy to go back and kill the remaining enemies
and find the super-secret exit (which was no special find -- just a simple
secret door).



Also, I'm playing this with ZDoom beta, and the sky is just random tutti-fruti
kind of coloring most of the time. It looks all distorted. Anyone else
experience this?

TNT3:

The weapon uses like 3 or 4 ammo per shot, I can't recall, so if you had less than that it won't let you select it of course. I use the mousewheel for "next" and "previous" weapon and it never moves to a weapon that's out of ammo, but I never had trouble changing to it.

NiGHTMARE

we are waiting for u... maybe u can do a better version of WinTex... hope u can!... or... maybe not?

heh heh ;)

...there is a lot of interesting stuff in this 5.0 version.

It's 4, as much green mana as the Firestorm in Hexen uses.

LionHeart said:

NiGHTMARE

we are waiting for u... maybe u can do a better version of WinTex... hope u can!... or... maybe not?

heh heh ;)

...there is a lot of interesting stuff in this 5.0 version.

What you say?

Ultimate DooMer said:...so it's looking odds on to be the smallest megawad of all time...

Oh, really? Remember what you said about my demo? Although I have been making some bigger levels lately, there are still plenty of small ones... I guess about the size of Scythe maps. I'm trying to include some tricks and puzzles instead of big fights & even bigger maps. For instance, I'm going to check out the bridge technique used in level 18 of Scythe...

LionHeart said:

NiGHTMARE

we are waiting for u... maybe u can do a better version of WinTex... hope u can!... or... maybe not?

heh heh ;)

...there is a lot of interesting stuff in this 5.0 version.

*Blank stare* Must... download... new Wintex...

netnomad312 said:

Oh, really? Remember what you said about my demo? Although I have been making some bigger levels lately, there are still plenty of small ones... I guess about the size of Scythe maps. I'm trying to include some tricks and puzzles instead of big fights & even bigger maps. For instance, I'm going to check out the bridge technique used in level 18 of Scythe...

Yes, but yours isn't finished yet, so it can't really be classed as such yet.