Whymes5

You must play a lot of LA worlds.

By the way, maybe it's just me but that pit looks a little odd. Maybe it's because the texture doesn't tile very well vertically, or the color is a bit off, or maybe it's even just how you took the screenshot. So I don't know.

Pretty sure the topic is just boiling down to what you're aiming to do. Clearly, if you want to cater to the most people, less hazards is better. I doubt anyone would play your map that doesn't mind dying, and say "Hmm, I wish those pits killed me." On the other hand, those who do mind dying will probably say "Hmm, I wish that pit didn't kill me".

I have many of these in the later levels of a wad I'm working on. Same thing - Very deep pits, can't see the bottom even when you look down. Maybe puta thing on the bottom of the floor of type "Actor hits floor" and teleport. So then, to prevent trolling it teleports people who fall with no consequences, but only in coop mode. And then another thing which only appears in singleplayer of the same type. This time let it execute a script which takes a small amount of health but also teleports you back. That's my suggestion. I assume its a ZDoom map since you are talking about instant death pits which is pretty widespread ZDoom feature. But you didn't mention it. But if you ask me, honestly I'd just teleport them back in all cases. It's already somewhat of a penalty to fall down, I mean most people would still avoid the pits. If theyre so deep it takes a few moments to fall and then you lose your bearrings when you are teleported back. Depends on what type of gameplay you're going for.

Sorry , I forgot to reply to this. I'm usually just replying to certain comments because theyre things that I'm having trouble fixing. I may not do anything with this area. Firstly, it already doesn't look proper anyways because the buildings which the hallway connect already dissapear when you go outside, so I would have to fix that too. Furthermore, the level is already in a sort of odd, otherworld? style. Finally, it doesn't affect gameplay in anyway, so I might just leave it like that. I added some fences there and it sort of destroys the look of the area. I place gameplay ahead of aesthetics if I can, but I don't see any gameplay gained by blocking it off, it's pretty easy to see it's invisibly walled off in about one second. To savage: That's fine. In a few days I am going to run it on public zdaemon and zandronum servers for a few days. I'm making lightning fast progress on this last phase of development because I've been working on it a shit load, and I can tell you that the first episode is already a HELL of a lot better than it was even when I posted this thread, and it already was a fairly decent mapset according to feedback. But I'm beginning to see how that 'slot' was a bit useless. I've got enough feedback on IRC and the forums to sort of invalidate it. But feel free to review any sort of gameplay facet that bugs you.

True, but if this is played in cooperative or online, the BFG which is spawned at the start is a onetime pickup since it's scripted in ACS. Therefore only one player will have it. I'm not sure of any way around this. If you do let me know, but this is my first project with scripting in it so my knowledge of ACS isn't so great. Spawning more BFGs just get picked up as ammo. The BFG isn't actually accessible until you unlock the outer walls. Not to mention cells and rockets would be spread out more divided. These maps are OK to use freelook on... Jumping and crouching will be disabled in MAPINFO on the final release, so any other zdoom-only control is OK to use for gameplay testing. I'll just play around with it and see if I can make it a little better. I'd rather not redesign the entire level, especially because I sorta like how each weapon is useful the way it is right now. It's a final battle where you have to use every weapon. I have only played through it on SP once or twice since its a pretty long fight, it didn't seem bad the one time I tried it online (just to make sure it worked online). I'm curious what you will have to say about map 30's rendition of this fight, if you choose to do it. (That one hasn't really been balanced, and seems a little anti climactic or easy in my opinion, though.) I feel like we're missing each other's point just a little maybe, but I never really had much issue. I mean, double tapping the chain gun takes them out very accurately and theres a shit load of ammo boxes in the map for it. It just takes longer. That's why I am talking about taking out some waves, maybe a few lower HP monsters, etc.

Your comments so far have been really helpful. I just finished map28, so I will work on an INTERPIC and then address your comments. As far as your comments about MAP15, I'm not really sure what I can do to make the fight more enjoyable. On one hand, if I take out the revenants and chaingunners, the map becomes a ridiculously easy zergfest since everything else is little threat (Except the archviles...), especially if you bring in a lot of high firepower from previous maps. On the other, as you said it's quite tedious. Would replacing them with another monster fix it, or is it still an issue? Or do you have any other ideas? I'm already considering removing the first redundant wave of monsters (the 2nd), since it's just doing the same thing as last time, and maybe one of the other waves since the map just kinda goes on and on it seems.

Hm.. I could've swore that switch was supposed to do it. They might've got mixed up somehow. I'll try to reduce the switch hunts in both map13 and 11. Probably map 6 a bit too.

Yep, and since I don't want to redesign the levels more than I must, I will add a nojump flag to mapinfo when it's released. I just don't have it in right now for debug purposes.

Are you playing this with jumping? You're supposed to use a lift to get up on the 32-unit high ledge to walk to it. So I'm just curious if you are using jumping. The wad is not meant to be played with jumping, I forgot to mention this.

I must say, you have found issues that I had no idea even existed, especially considering map11-14 have been maps that I've tested quite a lot, as well as online once or twice. You really are pushing these maps to find as many issues as you can, accessing areas I wouldn't think to find, etc., so thanks so much for reviewing these maps. Map13 is made to have different routes, so you can finish the level without having the blue key at all. Should I change it, or leave it? What do you think? I wanted to make a level with multiple options to beat. As far as the teleporter behind that wall, there is a switch which opens a door near the checkerboard room. Passing that linedef which was previously unpassable lowers a lift nearby that you should be able to hear, ride it up to hit a switch. I do agree, this level is quite cryptic. Again, thanks for the help.

How is this possible? There is a switch in a small sort of techbase that raises the water level near the canals by the end of the map. In order to get in, you have to hit a switch to open the first door, and then pass two more doors, one of which requires the blue key and another that requires the yellow key. In the original version of the map, it was infact possible to finish without getting one of the keys, but I changed this. The wad in the download link should require both keys. Thanks for the review.

Maps 1,2,3,4,6,12,and 14 might be PrBoom+ compatible, but you'd have to extract the map lumps to a new temp. wad, no? Doesn't really seem worth it, imo. Most of the maps in episode 2 are hopelessly uncompatible. It's usually small things like horizon lines, or a few particle fountains, but because of this it breaks compatibility. Not to mention a couple maps have quite a decent chunk of ACS scripting. To JudgeDeadd: Holy crap. Huge wall of comments as well as the testing form filled out. Thanks for the super in depth help, it's clear you put a lot of time into testing that one map. I do realize the pits in the map would be a horrible troll-fest online, so in cooperative the pits just teleport you back to the top when you fall in. Seems like I might just tone them down in single-player as well. Noted all your other comments as well. To degree23: Thanks for the review. Some of your comments really made me realize how quirky some of these earlier maps are, with some strange things (Ammo with no weapon present, strange powerup placement, those radiation secrets in MAP02, etc.). I'll work on making the maps a little less strange when I update these maps' aesthetics a bit (Yeah, they are a little barren right now, but as said in OP I will work on them a bit to touch them up a bit).

Right... Don't know how I missed that. I saw it at first and downloaded the demo, I think when I re-read your post I mistook it as a direct link to the demo and didn't bother looking again.

Yeah, something like this is what I was looking for. But anyways, since demo support with zdoom isnt the best due to version differences, dont I need to know what version of zdoom you used? It seems to be out of sync when I play the demo on the version of zdoom I'm running. I've never really used demos in zdoom before, so I'm not really sure. I used both the newest version of zdoom on the website as well as a slightly older version, neither seem to work. By the way, theres a rocket launcher in the map, but it's in a secret. I'll probably move the ammo to the secret then.

I just realized the picture for map09 is wrong, after reading your comment. And I lost the original links ><. So just in case anyone cares, the pictured map for 9 is actually 10, if you want to review what is in the screenshot youll have to play map 10. To those who replied, again, thanks for the help. Yeah, I have released episode 1 of this wad before. It's undergone quite a few changes and 15 new maps, as well as a re-title, so it almost is a new release I'd say. So some of the maps may be familiar, it's been hosted on public servers a couple times for online compatibility testing (Damn you, traps which cause levels to be unfinishable when the person in them dies =/)

Hey, I've been using XWE on the same wad for years and never corrupted it. I use it for side projects too. I still use XWE. I will die with my XWE. Try if this helps, too: rebuild the PNAMES and TEXTURE lump. There might be a slight chance that something got messed up, and so the texture really is set up properly, but another one is not, and maybe the positions got switched so that the messed up texture is being shown when you actually thought you were using the "real" one (sorry if that was a bit confusing). Also, who knows, try making the texture a power of 2. (So like, 64x128, or 32x64, etc). Probably not the problem, but some weird stuff can happen. I'm guessing you tried both of these already though since they are the first thing anyone probably does when they have texture issues.

No hard feelings, I realize it's sort of a strange wad to begin with. I just mapped whatever ideas I had in my mind. I didn't plan anything usually, was quite chaotic.. And as I said, I am going to update some of the maps before release, so if you ever change your mind let me know (the beta is quite unpolished on some levels, as you said)

Hey, as long as you can play doom. I don't care if you can map, lol... Feel free to test it whenever, posted download link now. Thanks for help!

Not sure if you would be interested since over half of the wad is technically new school, but I have almost finished a megawad which is in need of some new tracks for some of the earlier maps which are in the style of doom. I will be updating them a bit, but they should still be in a doom style. Ill mostly just change the sky, music, and add a few more detail sectors. I would be grateful if you could write a track or two for these maps (MAP01-MAP07, and MAP11-MAP14). Anyways, just take a look at the wad for yourself to see if you'd be interested. Am particularly looking for .mid or low filesize .s3m, .mod, etc. for these maps due to the hightening size of the wad, but also because I think they might fit older-looking levels better. The thread's here: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/73047-restoring-deimos-megawad-testers-needed/ Let me know if you're interested. Wouldn't mind holding up the release date if it means a few original midi tracks. Listened to your soundcloud links and it seems like the sort of stuff that might fit MAP01 in particular, for instance.

Will add the current song list to the first post. I've been editing the original post a lot, want to make sure all important info is there today.

Well, silly me forgot tons of information in the original post. So I updated it. I also decided that signing up for reviewing slots is stupid. So just download the wad in the link in the original post, make a demo or fill out the attached form, and post here! Also, post in this thread if you want to be a sort of "overall advisor" - I'm looking for someone with in-depth knowledge of zdoom, high playing skill, and ability to chat with on IRC about some very important things which aren't specific to any particular map. If so, you'll have to contact me specifically on ZDaemon IRC in the evening hours (GMT -6, central time, US). Unfortunately I can't get zandronum IRC to work for some reason, and doing it over the forums or PM would take forever. TO degree23: That's OK to wait to start. Just need this done by a month or so from now. Thanks for helping (: