eharper256

Ze weekly update: This week I have been laying the coding foundation for the optional levelling up system, and proofing various ACS scripts for that purpose, whilst brainstorming the various ideas about how to handle the XP drop and what generic levels actually give you besides the already sort of decided passive skill bonuses you choose from. Notably, I realised GZDoom has a generic score system I can hook into to serve as an innate XP counter and which I can track and control easily with ACS. I can also gradually alter Max HP, Mana Capacity, Speed, and Armour (to an extent) with some of this code, so basically your levelups will always give a tiny buff in that regard. This was the summary I wrote: General Levelling up bonus: Myrm: +1 Base Armour (15=>25), +0.01 Speed (1.1 => 1.2), +5 MAX HP (150 => 200) Crus: +1 Base Armour (20=>30), +2 MAX MANA (200 => 220), +5 MAX HP (110 => 160) Magi: +0.005 Speed (1.0 => 1.05), +10 MAX MANA (300 => 400), +2 MAX HP (75 => 95) Drui: +0.01 Speed (1.2 => 1.3), +5 MAX MANA (200 => 250), +2 MAX HP (90 => 110)

Le Weekly Thingy Something, something, first not-cringy Warhammer design. Although its also very simple, I guess. That said, a Triskele fits it quite nicely and I'm sort of fond of the blueish-brass metal. (Also, no, a Warhammer is not definitely certain right now, that is in the air still). Obviously, this is a prototype as well, perspectives are always fixed closer to the time if we go ahead with a design. Besides image work, it's been a bit slow, as I'm still training young'uns at work and I'm continuing to do that for the next 4 weeks or so. However, I did make a few more fixes and balance tweaks that are still being tested.

Yup, a ) when it's a comma means it's not expecting more arguments, which means old version of GZDoom. Glad you got it fixed though.

It's ye weekly update: Bit of a slow one this week since I was training new recruits at work, which is always extra work for me, and then playing too much XPiratez for XCOM when I get back rather than working on Walp. However, I've been trialing various sprite concepts as I often do when I create new things (drawing random shit in photoshop, looking at various online sources, etc) to see what inspires me for the Crux replacer. This is how I also came onto the Bardiche, Heavensever, the coral head of Dagons Cane, etc. and its pretty successful most of the time. Nothing I'd want to show off yet, but some ideas to persue are there so that's good. I've also been looking over the list of skills for the RPG mode a bit and screening them with comments as to whether I like or hate the original concepts after pondering them for a while. Some have been making me wonder. EDIT: Also, New Hexen Wad by Matthias:

Thanks for the brainstorm; interestingly I do a similar thing to this myself (just on my phone usually haha). The only difference being, I'll often type something and go "nope, that's a sheer bitch to program/requires a billion new sprites" and delete it lol. This would defo be the case with the no. 1 gimmick here lol. With no. 2, keep in mind the spear already has the holy lightning covered. No. 6 is on the Heavensever Secondary Mutation/Upgrade. All of the others could be usable though. For primary, 1 is already one of the options I mentioned though I didn't describe it as well as you did. It's a pretty viable one though. We have to be careful with railgun related shenanigans though as for whatever reason they're very horrific performance-wise on people playing on potato systems (people already tell me Fulgur's lightning can occasionally lag for them, for example, even though I did a chunk of optimisations for 0.97). 2/3 is actually a fun idea; semi-targeted sky smiting is plausible using an offshoot of the Magisters' Meteor Drop or Storm-Cloud coding; though both of those have funny quirks when you're in super low ceiling areas. For secondary, 1 again we have to watch those low ceiling areas. 2 is already basically what the vortex does, just with exploding rather than imploding. 3 is viable though sort of overlaps partly with Magisters Vis Secondary (forcing enemies away in a wave). 4 is all about finding or creating the sprites though there's a greatsword armour chap if I recall over on R667 who could be modified for the duty. 5 is the same, unless I politely steal from Angelic Aviary (lol). The only thing with summons is that I prefer them as Tertiary in the rare case they get included; we don't want only 1 "proper" fire mode.

Weekly update Time! As the reaction to revising Crux has been positive here and elsewhere, we look to be going ahead with some revision for that. Interestingly, the star-wall/shield was touted as the most useful part, so I will be keeping that as the tertiary in some form or another. I did some prototype spriting and brainstorming for it. Conceptually, it must stay cosmic/starlight/solar related as it was always supposed to be a relic of the Crusader's god, so I've been considering numerous options for that, like you drop a point of light that, after delay, blasts out a huge single laser, or a tri-coloured prism blast, or just firing slow moving but devastating blazing sun projectiles. Obviously, we want to have a distinct feeling and use from the Lightbringer (and to an extent, from the Ichival bow) rather just being a more expensive version, so I was considering stuff like a large brass warhammer, a shaft that blazes into a lightspear, a greatshield you pull out the original Mace for and it gets giga-powered (lol), or a sceptre with an orrery/giant crystal. I would probably like to use it with the shield if possible.

Yep, back when it was first created, we didn't have the updated bestiary, elites, monster behaviours etc. so Crux was insanely good, but all these things have made it drop behind a bit. The Vortex was me going "heehee negative repulsion values work and cause gibbing in Hexen" back when I first started so it was a programming curiosity turned into an attack. I'm interested to see lots of people like the starlight barrier (not just here), so I will keep it in most likely. Bardiche got one super nice QoL change; the Blood Spikes (Secondary) inherited an alternate version of the Druid's Geyser code, allowing them to find a nearby target to impale rather than always just appearing point-blank in front. The range is still limited as they're much stronger than the Geyser, its about 7 player lengths. The upgrade, however, now removes the range restriction as well as being stronger, so you can make spikes appear across the room. The Mutation gets a buff of damage and bouncing a bit further to still ensure it remains competitive. Basically, I found myself needing to pick the mutation all the time for the spiky ball in a fair few maps due to the lack of any ranged support on the bardiche (or cussing and having to switch to Gladius/Hammer) since like you I do enjoy using it lol. I would like it to remain a tactical choice you have to make, having that 1 second of downtime to do a switch (yep, it's already only 20-30 tics or so for most weapons!). It's a little longer on Druid transforms and Aestus I suppose due to cool animations but eh. I guess it is a bit of a pain if fishing for the lower priority 2/3 weapon, remembering to double-tap the number key like you would for Shotgun in Doom 2 (I often forget myself lol). This reminds me, I wonder if the SelectionOrder variable can be linked to a CVAR, will have to see if that's a player QoL I can implement. That said, one of the Myrmidon's RPG skills is due to be instant switch, so I guess you'll enjoy taking that one if you play that mode lol. :D

Greetings all! I'm back with small weekly updates to prove I'm not dead and Walp is still chugging along slowly. Done a fair bit of theorycrafting over programming level-up effects for the upcoming RPG mode; and I've done several Bardiche and Heavensever fixes. I'm highly considering adding in a new replacer for the Crux Calicus since the Crusader is the only character still with their original early beta 0.8 Walpurgis Ultimate. It did have a couple of changes over time graphically, but whilst the Primary Fire is cool, the shields are quite niche, and the vortex looks badass (if having unpredictable results), it has been kind of powercreeped by the others and feels a little bit behind. What do you all think of this? Finally, after a gazillion delays, Jimmy's MIDI pack for Deathkings is out: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2836301

I'm just getting back into Walpurgis for making 1.0. Only just noticed this and I'm glad it used to work specifically well with Walp. Any tech details why our spawners conflict? I might be able to do something (obviously Walp is made to work in any of the iwads, and indeed Wadsmoosh, so you can use it with Doom and stuff).

New video: playing 30MC2 by Deathbear et. al. It's my favourite type of map-pack, short and snappy levels! Great use of the Ancient Aliens texture set, and generally pretty cool. Keep in mind it had DeHacked, so load Walpurgis after it in the load order. Go get it here:

Here's a video of me playing the first five levels in Walpurgis. It's my favourite type of map-pack, short and snappy levels! Great use of the Ancient Aliens texture set, and generally pretty cool. Thanks for the upload! As usual with DeHacked, it does have problems with the Nazi's and GZDoom mods like my own (you might notice the Nazi's are invisible here lol). Unfortunately I had to overload the mod second as there was also a curious issue where it would make a blackboard screechy scratch noises (presumably something too highly pitched) when I moved around otherwise. No idea what could be causing that but oh well. Of course, you're not to blame as DeHacked and ZScript don't get along generally. Also, "Cerebrawl", the music on on the Black and White level (map 4), is apparently copyrighted on youtube, but fortunately it's allowed to be used.

It has been a challenging few months but yes, you'll be glad to know I have recently resumed planning and some sprite work for 1.0

Due to cascading real-life failures, 1.0 is still on hiatus right now, but I hope to resume progress soon (TM). Good to hear. Like I mentioned, this will probably cause something odd to happen to the Doom II secret levels but if you don't care about those you can leave the duct-tape fix in place I suppose.

Yup, I'm aware. Vases to Nazi's also happens in some PUSS wads; that bloody vase always causes issues, but it pops up to be used in lots of things. Sadly, not much I can do about that, DEHACKED is a very "Hammer to the face" kind of coding that destroys everything around it very destructively, and how it often does extra things is by replacing the Nazi and Keen related stuff. Unfortunately, it's not like I can avoid including these in Walp, since the Doom II secrets would break or work very oddly if I didn't. Rock and a hard place I guess. If you feel like SLADE'ing, you can backup Walp, and try going to actors/monstersdoom.txt, search for "Gustoffel" (Line 4683), and just comment out the "replaces" part with a // , so that it looks like this: ACTOR Gustoffel : WalpSpawnerBase //replaces WolfensteinSS This will prevent the Nazi spawner from working properly, which may allow the Dehacked of the vases to work better. Maybe. No guarantees.

At this stage, it's incredibly heavily intertwined into the main code. I actually did a survey a couple years back asking which would be the preferred direction going forwards of... I think it was 0.81? There was the choice between more interesting weapon effects and a fully implemented custom bestiary vs. less cool effects but universal compatibility with loads of monster mods and DEHACKED immunity. It was pretty overwhelmingly in favor of the first option at the time (around 35 votes to 7, something like that). This is because lots of fun parts of weapons actually get processed on the monster side of things since GZDoom Code is like that. Stuff like exploding corpses, bleeding effects, effects where corpses go flying off, etc. Happily, several monster mods do still work, just with some caveats, but yes, as you've noticed, it can cause DEHACKED problems. Not much I can do about that, DEHACKED is a very "Hammer to the face" kind of coding that destroys everything around it very destructively.