Benjogami

Abandon is a Boom-compatible wad composed of large, difficult slaughter maps. Maps by: Bemused Benjogami Scotty with custom menu graphics by Insane_Gazebo, and status bar by galileo31dos01. Thanks to Ribbiks for technical and nodebuilding expertise, and to our many playtesters over these years. We won a Cacoward in 2020, and the final version is here! Bugs have been fixed (including co-op issues), small and sparse UV balance changes have been made, and skill settings have been added. The final version has just a couple of fixes beyond RC2. Thank you for your playthroughs and feedback everyone! Final: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/abandon Tested mostly in prboom+ and dsda-doom. Map List MAP01: "The Gatekeepers" by Scotty MAP02: "The Cauldron" by Scotty MAP03: "Claustrophobic Sting" by Bemused MAP04: "Abyssal Artifact" by Benjogami MAP05: "7th Gate" by Bemused MAP06: "Rathcroghan" by Bemused MAP07: "Seething Gloom" by Scotty MAP08: "Pestilence" by Bemused MAP09: "Celestial Petrichor" by Scotty MAP10: "The Gripping Hand" by Benjogami MAP11: "Decayed Valhalla" by Bemused MAP12: "Iron Colossus" by Bemused MAP13: "Gehenna" by Bemused MAP14: "Descent to Madness" by Bemused MAP15: "Switchblade" by Scotty MAP16: "Thrice-Razed Capitol" by Benjogami and Bemused MAP17: "New Life from Old" by Benjogami

I think ZDBSP is still the way to go, but over 100k sidedefs is definitely approaching the limits of what compression can fix. The hard linedef limit is looming too. I think the final 1/3 of the map will have to make some compromises if it's to remain Boom compatible!

The rules for how the maps are played need to be rigid for the grades to make sense. It's the only way to compare apples to apples. That's just the format of the show, and it wouldn't make sense to change it just because some wads don't shine their best within the rules. I think this "trend" of pistol starting and UV-Maxing that you're seeing is mostly happening among content creators because people see the content working for some people and want to use the same format. It's also so you can compare apples to apples, even if you aren't grading things. You still want to see it all and showcase it all. Pistol starting and 100%ing is a simple way that everyone understands to demonstrate that you saw it all, even if it doesn't work equally well for all maps. And yeah maybe content creators will get more people pistol starting and trying to 100% stuff, but there will always be people playing continuously, using mods, jumping when they shouldn't be, doing everything wrong, etc etc. It's fine, it's gonna be okay. People will still like 90s wads. I like 90s wads. RE: The Dean of Mean, I could write a whole essay about it, but meh. I'll just say that people shat all over joe-ilya's maps for years when he was a literal child just being passionate and trying to learn and create stuff. Yeah sure maybe he was (and is) annoying, but the way he was the constant butt of the joke always bothered me. I think these literal gen Xers that are legends of the community can handle hearing that a part of their 90s map was "idiotic."

I accept that continuous play was the predominant way to play, maybe the way that authors expected you to play, and probably the most fun way to play, but I dunno, I just don't accept that the wad shouldn't be pistol started or that bad pistol starts shouldn't be called out. If it's expected that players will pistol start when they die (although I sure didn't play that way---I loaded a save instead), then what, are they just supposed to not die on most levels? Is a miserable pistol start the intended punishment for dying? And they surely didn't test any given map by playing every map before it. That would be absurd. No testing until the wad is compiled?? Gotta play through the whole thing to retest changes in a later map??? Of course not. Did they give themselves piles of weapons and ammo to approximate what they might have when playing continuously, or use idfa? Surely not. They knew how the pistol starts played and they chose to ship it that way, and I think it's valid to criticize that choice.

Here're some updates for e3m2: UDINOrc2-e3m2edit.zip (not playable by itself, doesn't include the resources, etc) - Fixed the damage sectors noted by @Caleb13 (the rest of the stuff is intended, for the "despair") - Slightly enhanced some texturing and lighting - Made the 2 hard-to-find secrets a bit easier to find, hopefully

Delightful :) I had a fun (and meditative) time. I couldn't kill all the PEs, but I mostly blame GZDoom and its weird flyer and autoaim behaviors for that (maybe my settings aren't quite right). I would've played in dsda-doom but the resource pack said nuh-uh.

"Long Road, No Turns" is a complevel 9 map with 21,340 monsters on UV. Tested in PrBoom+, but it seems to run fine in GZDoom without mods and with dynamic lights off. Difficulty settings are implemented. MAP03 to MAP15 contain the individual sections of MAP01; I suggest using those if you want to play without saving or if you want to skip around and check out different sections. Expect that a casually-paced playthrough will take over 8 hours in-game time. Midi is by me. download: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/longroad Changelog: Dehacked credits (don't check if you want to be surprised): Here's a screenshot:

Hey look, here it is https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/john

Looks like it's not a GZDoom thing: there's one cyber in the closet that won't wake up because it's set to ambush. I can only assume that bemused did this intentionally as a reference to the Sunder MAP10 imps that couldn't be awakened, until someone found a way to awaken them. I doubt this guy will ever wake up though. ;(

Congrats! I honestly didn't need to add those... they weren't there in the beta... don't remember why I added them. ;) Thank you all for your videos and feedback! The final version has been uploaded to idgames which is still pending, but in the meantime you can get it from dropbox in the original post. It has just a couple fixes beyond RC2. That's a wrap, finally!

It's hard but I tried: Autechre - Confield Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want Radiohead - OK Computer Wolves in the Throne Room - Primordial Arcana PinocchioP - Best Album 2009-2020 I used to be big into album listening, but streaming services have severely disrupted that, so a lot of the new music I like isn't really album-attached. That's why I had to cheat and pick PinocchioP's enormous greatest hits album with over 2 hours of bangers. ;) MORE!!! Cattle Decapitation - The Anthropocene Extinction Dredg - El Cielo Bola - Fyuti Plaid - Double Figure Autechre - Every other album that isn't Confield, especially Exai and Draft 7.30 and Chiastic Slide and ...

I've not actually played Arcane Dimensions, but I think I understand the descriptions of it and Brutal Doom seems to be the most correct answer :D 1. Omnipresent in the community 2. Adds content that people feel is missing from original Doom 3. Lots of mapsets and other mods built on it 4. Has maps that people like (but this is perhaps its weakest comparison point)

I can't believe they altered R.L. Stine's beautiful prose like that. Also, removing "African American" and "roly-poly" characters from these important cultural documents is a serious blow to diverse representation in media. Just imagine all the piles of extra money this publisher is raking in now because of these changes. smfh

There were plenty of people in the thread that expressed distaste for slaughter and didn't get the sort of pushback that you're getting. Why do you think that is?

Yep, the latest version should hopefully be free of any coop softlocks.

Doing a watch party for Ancalagon's UV Max of World Orifice! https://www.twitch.tv/benjogami

Playing Doom1 episode 3 for some reason! Oh right it's cause I've never pistol started it before. Maybe episode 4 after. https://www.twitch.tv/benjogami

Ah I see. I was able to reproduce the bug in GZDoom on Boom compatibility but not Boom (strict), so I'm gonna say it's a GZDoom issue and not something that I'll try to fix. Strict seems to be the way to go, not sure what the non-strict version is good for, lol.

Hmm, I wasn't able to reproduce. What port are you using? And do you mean the cybers in these cages? They're actually killable from below, though it's quite time-consuming. I've heard that crushing barrels can be flakey, but seems unlikey it would affect all 4 barrels/cybers at the same time?! I have a potential solution for it, but I don't know if it's the culprit.

Alright RC2 is here! https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqydsd3zkghid7q/Abandon_RC2.zip?dl=1 Thank you for the reports everyone. MAP05 is back in action! And most of the other reports are resolved as well. I didn't add the block lines to MAP04 cause that's just the Boom life, don't want to bother the flyers with them. And I couldn't figure out that MAP01 trick rd posted, so it's not fixed either. ;)

This rendition of "I'm Not the Only One" by Filter that I ran into is... well... I don't want to say it's bad, but... the song doesn't sound much like this. ;) I like it. ImNotTheOnlyOne.zip

I'm seeing this error in dsda-doom:

Yeah, went into it with a mostly empty head, just started drawing lines. There are a lot of other maps like that, but 17 turned out pretty different, so I suppose I did have some kind of plan, or maybe it was just that I started with the big strokes. That's a common way for me to map, where I'll draw the whole map or the biggest features first, in a low resolution chunky kind of way, and then chisel it down to add the smaller layout features. I find that when I have no ideas to go on, just slapping something down will usually get the gears turning. For this one, I remember stalling out after doing most of the lines, but when I came back to it on another day the gameplay happened pretty easily. I didn't have any ideas for gameplay on that first day other than "open map with wandering monsters." I'm pretty sure the long vile cage was drawn and even populated with viles before I conceived the puzzle. If the little hallway that opens up to pass you through to the red key looks haphazard, well... it was :D Some of the best ideas occur while testing! I don't think I even considered the gameplay for the post red/blue door area until the first area was done.

Thanks again to everyone for playing and for your words and videos! It’s been interesting to see the diverse interpretations and differing tastes, some that I expected and some quite surprising! I’m glad that some people who expected pain and misery based on my reputation found stuff to like in the wad. I wanted Down the Drain to be accessible, something for every classic Doom fan that still enjoys relatively unambitious vanilla content, from any era. I don’t think I quite got there, don’t think I quite achieved shovelware or even 90s aesthetics like I planned, and ultimately surrendered to whims and experiments and gimmicks that ended up feeling modern and… difficult. Ah well, the wad is what it is, might even be better for it, and it leaves the opportunity to chase the original vision again someday. Let’s see if I have any more fun facts… I mentioned Choke earlier with regard to castles. It was the first map I made for Down the Drain, and pretty much the whole idea is derived from the midi. “Exit music (for a film)” by Radiohead is on their album OK Computer, which I listened to a whole lot in the 90s, but also on the Romeo + Juliet (1996 film) soundtrack, which I believe it was written for, and that last line, “we hope that you choke,” I interpret to be a curse at the warring families for the shit they’ve done (much like Mercutio’s “a pox on both your houses!” which I remember from high school somehow). So the revs and HKs war, and it’s doomguy’s job to help them destroy each other, with some extra help from the invuln by Romeo and Juliet’s secret grave. I wanted a mostly 90s midi soundtrack, I looooved Radiohead in the 90s, and there are a lot of good Radiohead midi transcriptions, so that’s why most of the soundtrack is Radiohead, lol. There are some 00s songs in there too, but hey, close enough! Midis drove the gameplay or theme ideas for several of the maps. E2 as a whole was inspired by the bunker and catastrophe themes in “Idioteque” (but also just from paying attention to the modern world). Everyone Loves the Beach started with the simple idea of “running to the water” like in the song. “Shit Towne” by Live, one of my nostalgic favs of theirs (and a great midi rendition), begged for a small-town-America map (which necessitated the very American spelling of baloney). Etc etc, but a lot of the maps also just got assigned midis that I really wanted to use, after they were complete. Radiohead's melancholic bitterness had a big influence on me as a teen, and I wanted to harness that in the story and atmosphere of Down the Drain, sort of wanted to make a wad that would have fascinated me back in the 90s. :D Perhaps misguided, but I really wanted to inject some obtuse and confusing progression into the wad, even some rude and mean things, not just for the shovelware vibe, but to push back on common ideas about “good design” and pacing lol. I think especially for a 32-map wad, you have to throw out best practices at times just to avoid sameyness. I’m sure it’s possible to make 32 maps with varied and interesting ideas, all of which are fun and satisfying and empowering to the maximum number of people, but that vibe is just not for me even if I could do it :D I don’t like getting stuck for long periods of time in Doom maps (but maybe I like getting stuck briefly and then figuring it out?) or suddenly losing a bunch of progress, but, when I take a step back, I think the occasional roadblock or heartache is important for pacing and contextualizing, and it also might trick the player into forgetting that this is a designed experience for them to have fun with, rather a place that is actively hostile to them and maybe they’re stuck there, an ordeal to persevere through or succumb to. As for pacing, I originally wanted the maps to get harder within each episode, and then reset for the next, but I backed away from that pretty early. I ended up embracing the sort of uneven, unpredictable pacing between maps, where maybe MAP17 is the hardest even though it’s not even at the end of the episode. It’s a lot easier to just think about a blob of 3 or 4 maps and how they work together, and seems to me that pacing considerations with more reach than that can get lost on players, especially since they’ll all have different experiences. I also think it can be tiring to have the tough maps piled at the end of an episode/wad. E3 was always meant to be the breeziest and most conventional episode (smelly map 23 excepted), and it seems on average people really liked it except for a feeling of anticlimax (although perhaps that was mostly 29 and 30's fault), so you gotta take the bad with the good I suppose! I truly appreciate all the time and thought that went into everyone’s posts. I refrained from clicking Like on posts, but in my heart I liked them all. Thanks for playing, hope you had a time. :D

Very cool :) Oh okay! This ran very poorly for me in GZDoom, so I made some edits to make it work in dsda-doom: Centered the map around 0,0 (approximately) Randomized thing angles to multiples of 45 degrees Rebuilt nodes with ZDBSP And now it seems to work from my ~10 seconds of testing. crazyMaze_edit.zip