Vader

Cool thread! One thing I recently tried is to split SKINCUT into smaller pieces and fiddle with the alignement to create new variations:

I think I found the culprit for the secret exit not working for me... I was using the german version of the Doom2 IWad wich censores the secret Wolfenstein maps and thus directly goes to map 16. However, I never had problems with other mapsets so far using it and I alway assumed this version just didn't have a map31 and 32 and that's it. Normally I don't use Eternity much, so I wonder if it is an engine specific thing? Does it have a check for this particular version of the Iwad and prohibits the secret exit in map15 to work altogether? Trying it on another megawad seems to confirm this, as it didn't work there either. Either way, I'm using the BFG edition Iwad now and it takes me to z1m9 as intended :D

That's weird... could it possibly have something to do with the fact that I entered the tram with the regular exit (without pressing the switch of course) and then went for the secret exit? I'll look into this further later... I'm not at my pc atm

Is it only me or does the secret exit in z1m3 take you to command control instead of military base? I'm playing in the latest official version of Eternity Engine. I love the new soundtrack btw!

Yay finally! Congrats on the release Essel. Can't wait to try out the full version later today.

Your sky transfer only targets sectors with tag 0, but the wood barrier sector has a tag of 1, so the transfer doesn't work on it. Simply adding another sky transfer line wich targets sector tag 1 should do the trick I guess

Hello everbody, has been some time since I last posted here. For a long, long time I wanted to get back into midi creation, but never had the time and/or motivation to actually do so until recently. I had a bit of free time and decided to download Sekaiju and give it a try... it felt a little overwhelming at first, but I got used to it and it's really a neat little tool I think (btw, thanks to Dragonfly for his video on how to fix the awkward default settings). So yeah, here's my first try at creating Doom music after almost 20 years not touching any midi editor: https://www.mediafire.com/file/m78c4g1jk8f06h9/Harlequin.mid/file It's definitely not perfect and still needs some fine-tuning, nonetheless I'm quite happy how it turned out and feel comfortable enough to share it. Any kind of feedback is welcome :)

Thanks for the kind words Hisymak, I appreciate it :) @Jimmy: Fair enough :) The track swap was merely a suggestion and I certainly won't complain if the current setup is kept... was just mentioning the map30 thing because I didn't expect it I guess.

Stumbled upon this thread by accident a week ago... didn't know this project exists until then! I'm really grateful to see all those talented composers dedicating their time and creativeness to an old-ass megawad like this, a big thanks to all of you :D I took my time to listen to all of the contributions during the last week and the overall quality of this new soundtrack is just outstanding. It kinda makes me fear the few original tracks I did for this horribly pale in comparison and will stick out like a sore thumb. Although I'm kinda proud of at least some bits and pieces of those tracks, I know that they are far from professionaly crafted :P Anyway, I'd like to share a few thoughts on each track... I took notes while listening to them, but some of those are kinda cryptic and/or short and I don't have the time to listen to all of them again ATM, so forgive me that my comments on those are all a bit sketchy. Intro - pretty nice Map01 - awesome track, it's a shame the map is so short that anyone playing propably won't hear it all Inter - nice metal-like track, although for me it gives the impression that the mapset is going to be slaughterish... but it isn't :P Map02 - kinda feels unsettling and a bit happy at the same time... really unique approach, I love it Map04 - my notes read "awesomenessss!" And it is... love the mix between guitar and more calm parts (don't know what instrument that is) plus the change of pace about half-way through. Nice drums too! Map05 - not my cup of tea TBH. The track is definitely well done, but I get a bit of a MegaMan vibe from it and IMO a more moody track would have been more appropiate for this map Map06 - perfect match for this map, but the same what I said about Map01 applies here... of course that is definitely not the composers fault Especially love the parts about 2/3 into the song... reminds me of the spaceship levels in Turrican2 on the C64... one of my favorite games ever Read - Eargasm :D Map07 - good metal-ish stuff here, great bass line and the guitar solo rocks Map08 - great, don't know what else to say Map09 - nice one, fits the map pretty well... could also work very well for an egypt or temple like map Map11 - kinda relaxing but fits Map13 - suits a city map really well, good stuff Map14 - another track that would fit an egypt/temple map, but doesn't work that well in this case IMO. The song is really nice, however the map would be better off with a more dark and moody track I think Map31 - Epic! Definitely one of my favorite tracks from this project :D Map16 - Good but same as Map14... a more dark/moody track would be more fitting for this map. Might be just me though, because this one is actually build around a nightmare I had back then :P Also does have a Duke3d vibe to it IMO, wich is a good thing, but yeah doesn't really fit with what I had in mind :P Map17 - Like it a lot! Reminds me of Geometry wich Jimmy made for "Theory of broken circles" (BTSX E2M15):D Map18 - Nice moody track Map19 - Kinda feels a bit Jazz-like wich isn't a music style I'm into, but still good Map20 - I love this one, matches the map quite perfectly. My only complaint is that the silence at the end of the track is a bit too long, so the looping doesn't work that well. Or is there something I'm missing? I'm usually using Microsoft GS Wavetable synth as midi device, so maybe it sounds different with another setup (I don't know shit about this stuff TBH :P) Map21 - as the Map06 track this one gives me kind of a MegaMan vibe, but it fits better this time... maybe it gives the impression the map is harder than it actually is, but anyway nice stuff! Map22 - like in the Map04 track there is a very nice mix of more calm sections and heavier guitar dominated parts. Good one! Map23 - heh in the notes I took down it just reads; "Headbanging :)". That's a good thing I guess :D Map24 - has a Heretic flair to it and feels kinda otherworldly to me. I really like that and it even greatly enhances the atmosphere of the whole map Map25 - great one, I love it! Don't know if it fits the map that well, but honestly I don't care because the track is awesome XD Map26 - metal-ish one here and also very nice and atmospheric. I really like the intro with just drums and the bass kicking in a bit afterwards Map27 - another nice metal-ish one... don't know if this was done on purpose, but at the time when the track gets calmer for the first time, there're some higher pitched sounds in the background that remind me a lot of my own track for Map15 :) I also adore your talent for making e-guitars not sound shabby in midi format (that goes for all of the tracks using guitars, not just this one!), that's something I never quite got right in my short period of midi composing I guess :P Map28 - lovely! Really atmospheric and a perfect match. I love the build-up in this one... could also work really well in a Heretic map Map29 - like in Map14 and 16, I do have the feeling it doesn't fit this map all that well TBH. The track is really nice, no doubt about that, but for the penultimate map I propably would have wished for something more dark/sinister. It sounds even a little bit happy and would work better for an 'exploration-in-overrun-grassy-fields' like map or something like that IMHO :P Map30 - Well, very nice and atmospheric track and fits nicely for a last map, however I wonder why the original track I made for this one was replaced TBH. My stuff is definitely inferior to all of this, but the one I made for this map is actually the one I'm most proud of. Sure it does have its flaws, but I still like it! I'd suggest to keep this song, but put it in the Map29 slot and replace the Map15 music (wich is propably my worst creation) with the Map29 track instead ;) Once again, I'm more than happy to see this has been done! Thank you all for your time and dedication, I definitely appreciate it :)

If you take a closer look at the individual sprites, you'll notice that it actually uses its hands to pull little triggers on the sides to activate the chaingun. It's really subtle and hard to see in the low resolution of the sprites, but it's there!!! Ok... I stop being a smartass now :P

No, this is not meant to be a religious discussion :P I'm pretty sure most of you already heard about the infamous "swingshot-theory", and I've got to admit that although it has been proven to be wrong (I think one of the threads discussing this issue even showed that in a direct comparison between killing demons with two "normal" shotgun blasts versus two swing-shots didn't show a significant difference in terms of damage being dealt), I still believe that "swing-shots" do have an effect! Likewise, there're three other "doom-theories" that I believe in, but are propably equally unfounded (not sure if any of those have been discussed before though): -increasing pain-chance; I've been playing Doom(2) for 20 years now and after all this time I think I noticed that monsters are more likely to enter their pain-state the closer to death they are. Most notably the Cyberdemon. When fighting a Cybie with a SSG (wich I rarely do because it's boring), I seem to be able to interrupt its attack-sequence more frequently the closer to death it is. The last couple of shots (3 or 4) always seem to take it into pain-state. -lazy monsters; When playing, I always try to inflict as much infighting as possible (sometimes I try so hard that I die as a result :P), but I just can't get past trying when a setup theoretically allows for it. However, it seems to me that everytime I try to make enemies fight each other, the monsters behind another enemy just refuse to shoot most of the time, as if they are aware that they would hit a friend. For example; I lure a bunch of HK's in front of a Mancubus, but once the nobles are in front of the Manc, it has a hard time attacking me as it seems. But when I eventually die trying to cause infighting and restart the scenario with the intention to just shoot the crap out of the monsters without caring about infights, the Manc would fire at me like there's no tomorrow! This happens way too frequently to me to call it just a coincidence. -evading projectiles; This one is propably the most weird of the three, but I believe that trying to evade projectiles (even though they hit you) reduces the damage taken. I've noticed it numerous times while playing that an enemy projectile seems to deal much more damage if you run straight into it (because you try to evade some other attack for example), than a missile that barely hits you because you're trying to get away from it. I know about the random damage calculator and it might just be bad luck on my side, but on the other hand I've played way too much Doom to ignore this, as it seems to happen quite frequently (same goes for the other points I made). So yeah, I'm pretty sure none of those points are really true and there's propably nothing in the code that would confirm those theories, but still, I believe in those things and even my style of playing is influenced by those things to a certain degree. I know it's mostly my weird brain, but do any of you have similar theories that you believe in, even though they appear to be nonsense?

Even though not everyone got through BTSXE2 just now, I' d like to thank all of you for their feedback and dedication involved here. For me it has been a good source to gather ideas (especially from the FDA's provided) how to improve my maps and I'll make sure to work on them accordingly! Concerning map14; It seems that lot of people like this map and I just feel the need to clarify that most of the credit belongs to Mechadon! Dew pretty much summed it up already, but anyway: When I got the map from Mek, layout and gameplay was already done mostly but the map was pretty much mono-textured. My job was to settle on a texture theme and to add more details. After I've been done, mek did even more texture and especially lighting improvements. He did all the bug-fixing, a lot more layout optimizing and other stuff that makes the map what it is now too! Especially the various textures with windows in them were a late (but very effective) addition to the map by him. So yeah, my contribution on this map is pretty small and as I said above; Mechadon deserves 99% of the praise it got!

Propably old news for most of you, but I just learned that deaf/ambush flagged monsters still need to be woke up by a sound to actually ambush the player. That means that any deaf monster will remain dormant even if you break all hell lose right behind them, as long as two sound blocking lines are between it and the player. I always assumed that ambush monsters will immediately react to the player no matter what. I also recently noticed two things about Doom2's Map12: -in the room with the lowering bridge behind the blue door, there's a switch that raises the sector you get teleported to when going through the small warehouse south of the map. It actually makes the soulsphere secret much more rewarding because you can take out the imps before getting there and avoid getting scratched by them. Heh the switch isn't really hidden and I always actiavted it without knowing what it is for, mainly because I'm used to get to the soulsphere before entering the blue door. -This one is strange and propably a bug; the yellow door leading to the final Caco-elevator-room requires a red key if you try to open it from the inside. Funny thing is that there's no red key in the map, so you're locked in that room and forced to exit.

Well, you're wrong! In fact the map has been finished quite a long time before the first E1 beta was released to the public. I'm well aware (already when making the map), that the cratemaze theme is kind of controversial and would generate a lot of varied feedback and I won't deny that the map could be improved for the next beta in some areas. I'm perfectly fine with that, but stupid assumptions like yours just make me sad.