hedgehog

My sentiments exactly. The screenshots look fantastic. A minor point of criticism, in case you're interested: the sky texture in the map08 screenshots looks a little weird to me. It seems strange to have these enormous trees towering over everything else, including the significantly smaller player-scale trees that form part of the actual map. Then again, maybe it looks less jarring in-game. In any case, the level geometry looks great (as I've come to expect based on the excellent beta).

While this is a well-argued point, I just want to say that it is also a matter of taste. My view for one is pretty much the diametric opposite. As a player, I like having escape routes and being able to choose how I approach an encounter. The kind of approach described above, where the player is locked in and forced to deal with an encounter "as intended", often feels very artificial to me. All of the things zzzornbringer lists as negatives, namely are things I see as positive. To me, there is a lot to be said for taking a step back and allowing the player to experience your map as they choose, instead of forcing them to play as you "intended" them to.

I thought it was a clever and effective way of letting the player know that you take fall damage in this mod.

Beautiful work -- as expected after DOTB. I'm a big fan of relatively small, interconnected maps like this one. Nice work on the new gibs, too. One of the sides of the crate near the chaingun is misaligned. And I was going to say it would be helpful to know upfront that jumping is required, but I see you've added that to the OP in the mean time. Can't wait for the rest!

Thank you, but unfortunately this turned out not to be as useful as I had hoped. While I have stopped receiving notifications for each new comment posted by the people I follow, I've just noticed that I now no longer receive notifications for new topics/threads they create either. For me, that pretty much defeats the purpose of following them in the first place. Is a middle ground possible (i.e. to receive notifications just for new topics/threads created by followed members)? It would be nice if it were.

That was fairly easy to test.

@Major Arlene I hope it is not too late for feedback. I enjoyed your map; I thought it looked good and played well. Combat was a bit hard for my taste, but in small maps I don't mind that so much. There were two things that bothered me: Like @joshthenesnerd I found ammo to be a little on the stingy side, plus I kind of wished I had a more powerful weapon to deal with some of the larger groups of monsters. If you don't want to water down the challenge, perhaps you could at least include an extra weapon and/or some additional ammo in a secret, thus creating an optionally easier way to play through the map. I personally wouldn't have minded a secret rocket launcher, to make fighting the revenants and hell knights a bit less grindy. I also found the way the exit is opened to be very unintuitive and had to replay/reload the level several times before finally figuring out what I needed to do:

I enjoyed this; played through it a few times, in fact. Quite tough (would be nice if you could implement difficulty levels), but fun. Architecture is maybe a little bit blocky, but everything is very cleanly constructed and has an undeniably Quakey feel. I kind of wish the map didn't require GZDoom, as it always feels rather sluggish and resource-heavy on my machine. With the exception of the outdoor area, it does seem like the map could have been made compatible with e.g. PrBoom+. On the other hand, the outdoor area looks nice -- I see you had some trouble getting it to look the way you wanted, but the end result is very effective, I think. The secrets were fun, although... Are you planning on making more maps like this one? It would be interesting to see other iconic Doom/Doom 2 maps reinterpreted in a similar style -- e1m1, perhaps (for real this time)?

The project you linked to looks like a chainmap, though -- whereas the idea behind this one is that each contributor creates their own separate map, based on the same starting area posted at the beginning of the thread. At the end, in other words, the idea is not to have a single map with several authors, but rather a number of different, completely independent interpretations of the same basic "theme" (for lack of a better term). It's kind of like having the mapping equivalent of a writing prompt, and seeing what different mappers come up with when they each run with it on their own.

Love the title, which made me download and play this. The punishing gameplay is not really my cup of tea, however (although I can see how others would enjoy it). Other than that, the map is charming -- although the first outside area the player sees, with the large slabs of uniform brown and the three grey blocks in the distance, looks unfinished. Here, a bit more detailing/texture variation/some more organic shapes and fewer straight lines (not necessarily anything too fancy; just bringing it at least up to the detail level of the second outside area) could vastly improve the visuals and atmosphere of the map. Two odd things I noticed; not sure if intentional:

In 2017, @Miss Bubbles released two excellent retro/id-inspired Quake maps, which do a fantastic job of emulating the style of the original levels. That is what got me interested in this release. It would be great if you could do that!

Just played this and have to say: Wow, the screenshots do not do this map justice. It pretty much ticks all my boxes: Incredible attention to detail everywhere.* An incredibly well-executed (roughly) medieval theme/setting. An incredibly strong sense of place. As much as I admire well-made abstract maps, for me they are never quite as impressive as a map that manages to create a convincing "realistic" setting -- by which I also mean convincing fantastical elements, such as fleshy dimensional rifts and bleeding architecture. This is one of those maps where it's hard to wrap one's head around how solid and three-dimensional everything feels, despite being created in a 2.5d engine. (Related to the previous two points:) Expansive vistas and a sense of being inside a much larger world, although the playable area is of a manageable size. An interconnected layout and really fun, engaging progression, that keeps leading you back to earlier parts of the map from new angles and vantage points -- without ever feeling arbitrary, making you feel lost or leaving you wandering in circles. This is also tied to the previous three points, as the logical layout and clear visual differentiation between the various parts of the map help you keep/quickly regain a fairly clear grasp of where you are. On HNTR, combat that feels carefully designed (it never feels like monsters were just randomly added in the editor) and adds to the overall experience, without being overwhelming or unmanageable. So many Doom maps feature really punishing combat even on lower difficulty settings. While I understand the appeal of that kind of gameplay to others, it's just not something I tend to enjoy. Here, the encounters lend just the right amount of spice, while allowing the focus to remain on a sense of exploration and adventure. Thank you for not catering only to UV/highly skilled/hardcore players! Wonderful secrets... Great choice of music -- or perhaps I should rather say, fantastic job on the music, @Jimmy. I see the excellent Brigandine being mentioned a few times in this thread. No disrespect meant towards Viggles, but as beautiful and well-made of a map that is, for me Demonastery trumps it in pretty much every respect. _______________________________ * I feel your frustration at those misaligned gargoyle faces and if uploading a fix is possible, that would be great. For what it's worth, though, when I played the map I was far too busy taking in the imposing scenery to notice. Had I not gone back specifically to look after reading the post above, I might never have noticed.

@wolfmcbeard I've played the fixed version of your map. Lots of little improvements, which add up to a better experience overall (more below). And I'm happy to be able to play the map in PrBoom-plus. Some more detailed feedback... ...and some perhaps overly nitpicky feedback -- feel free to ignore: I'm just wondering how necessary it was to create two versions of the map -- in particular, whether it was necessary to create a separate GZDoom version. I mean, it's very admirable that you went to all that trouble, but to the best of my knowledge, if you make your map PrBoom-compatible and don't use any arcane hacks/engine exploits, it should automatically be playable in (G)ZDoom (but not the other way round). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. For what it's worth, I tested CrispySpite in GZDoom and it runs perfectly fine.

My apologies if this is not the right thread for this question, but when I follow someone, is there a way to set things up so I only receive notifications when they actually create new threads, and not for every comment they post? The reason I ask is that there are a few Doomworld members whose work I like, and if they release something new, I don't want to miss it -- so I currently follow them. However, in practice this means that I am sometimes bombarded with notifications when they are simply interacting with other people on the board (often in threads that do not necessarily interest me), which is not what I'm after.

@therektafire Thanks for explaining. Since I'm used to thinking in terms of brush-based editing, it's a distinction that would not have occurred to me -- but it makes sense now. I learned something new today too!