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kildeth

NOVA: The Birth - v1.1 release now on idGames!

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Hello folks! I'm glad to hear this project is about to come to a wrap. So far I've played up to map06 and I'm impressed by the level of balance and polish I've seen so far. Its definitly an improvement since the last time I gave these maps a whirl about a year or so ago.

As for MAP29 ExtortaMontra's midi, I don't remember where I ripped from as I never recorded it anywhere. I think someone is gonna have to go ahead and replace it. I noticed from the early maps that the tunes are heavy metalish...perhaps the new song could keep closer in line to this?

Anywho, below is my txt file info...

Author : fiend-o-hell
MAP29 : ExtortaNOVA
Webpage : -
Other Maps :
Blurb : 'ExtortaNOVA' is a map inspired by my other map 'ExtortaMontra' which is in turn from my Standalone project. The former borrows its namesake and many of its elements from the ladder. Since this was meant to be an end map, be prepared for extreme difficulty...

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fiend-o-hell said:

As for MAP29 ExtortaMontra's midi, I don't remember where I ripped from as I never recorded it anywhere. I think someone is gonna have to go ahead and replace it. I noticed from the early maps that the tunes are heavy metalish...perhaps the new song could keep closer in line to this?


Luckily for you, I've found out where that midi was from myself. It's the same midi as MAP15 and MAP29 in SURGE DM.

And now, a link to the updated textfiles.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1zzwx88p389h1b6/

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^ Good find! I too was curious regarding where it was from as I was sure I heard it used before. I think it's a good fit for MAP29 as it brings things down a bit before the jam-session we have in MAP30.

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Although this has all already been said, just to keep us on track;

Things we still need to have

- Final sky fix by EvilNed
- Map updates from Hurricyclone and Stygian (Riptide and Ring of Gyges respectively)
- Completed textfile info from Paul D, PRIMEVAL, sgt dopey and fuzzyfireball - although I'll probably have to write out a map blurb for the last author myself, as they're unlikely to come back. Also haven't heard back from PRIMEVAL or sgt dopey unfortunately.

Things we may consider

- Story in textfile - Hurricyclone if you want to include something like this, you're free to make it up yourself with help from the story screens included in-game as I'm not fussed about this aspect really. I'll check over it once the textfile's finished and might add my own stuff if I see fit but otherwise, I don't think NOVA really warrants a strong story element. We never worked from one in the first place and I tend to find gameplay focus more important in Doom-style games.
- The bugs marinecontroller mentioned. Some of these are getting fixed and none sound too dire so I'm not too fussed about these either. Anything game-breaking seems to have been smoothed over by now.

Hoping to get this .wad on /idgames by the end of this month as I'll be returning to uni in a few weeks and will have other priorities. Anything that is not finished by then will just have to be left as is.

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TBH that update I announced for Riptide was simply to fix the minor bugs that marinecontroller had said. I'm pretty sure that the bugs I have aren't too gamebreaking either so really I guess I'm game, set, and match for MAP32.

kildeth, if you're not fussed about the aspect of it, then I'm probably not going to include the story text. I'll just delete the section altogether if that's okay with you. Seeing as though the template was from a different megawad I wondered if there's a story I could write to fill in some space.

But if you're not into the whole story ordeal then I can remove the blank spaces there and hopefully all that'll be left are the blurbs from the others.

EDIT: Also, I'm removing the Tester Notes section, as it too is blank and unnecessary.

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http://www.mediafire.com/download/zo6zv75hjiyky6i/

All right here it is. I'm really hoping we can finally finish NOVA before February ends too. At this moment the tester's note section and the story section are gone, and whatever isn't in the text will likely remain blank as the remainder of people haven't posted info yet. But as it is now, here's (hopefully) the final textfiles for everyone to enjoy before release.

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The suspense of waiting for this to be released is horrible. I hope it's out by the end of February as well, but I wont hold my breath.

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I'm waiting on EvilNed to post the fixed sky patch with my graphical enhancements included before the /idgames upload. Dunno if I'll even bother waiting for map patches/text infos as it seems everyone has had more than enough time to submit everything by now.

Actually, I might set a hard deadline for February 21st, hopefully uploading to /idgames the next day. Anything that's not done by then is disregarded as I too want to move on with other things in life.

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Ok, it's decided then, Feb 21st it is.

Now that this project is finally reaching its conclusion, what do we all think about a potential Nova II in the future? I've decided that I will not be leading such a project, although I might donate a map and help out whoever does.

That being said, is there anyone who would be willing to lead Nova II, if there is enough interest for it to go ahead? I was just wondering as some of you seemed keen for a sequel earlier on.

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kildeth said:

Ok, it's decided then, Feb 21st it is.

Now that this project is finally reaching its conclusion, what do we all think about a potential Nova II in the future? I've decided that I will not be leading such a project, although I might donate a map and help out whoever does.

That being said, is there anyone who would be willing to lead Nova II, if there is enough interest for it to go ahead? I was just wondering as some of you seemed keen for a sequel earlier on.

I would love to contribute, but I couldn't lead it (because we all remember what happened with WOOO.wad... my fuckery even got mentioned in the cacowards)

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If I could guarantee the free time I've had over the past few years, I could lead a Nova sequel with less derp-out than this time around, but unfortunately I can't as I may be both working and finishing uni at the same time, which may leave me too tired to properly organise a mapping collaboration, especially if I'm making at least one map myself, so we're going to need a new leader even if I'm actively contributing.

As for the sequel itself, I would like to see something that allows mappers from this Nova to keep contributing whilst at the same time being open to new mappers, so we have a mix of experienced and less experienced mappers working together, with progress from older mappers being evident and totally new stuff from newbies adding unique styles not included in the first wad.

I was also thinking about involving some custom textures whilst keeping the wad limit-removing in format, just to spice things up. My idea was to allow Ultimate Doom, Plutonia and TNT textures to be used as well as the Doom II textures from this time around so we get the full original id Doom series worth of textures to play around with, whilst keeping things relatively simple and easy to comprehend for newbies.

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Honestly, with how protracted the development for this project has been, I'd hang fire on any plans for a sequel for a while. We've done well to get a megawad out, we should see how it fares and go away to work on other things to develop our skills. Other community projects will crop up in time.

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The problem in the Jan24 wad with the skies is that there's no texture entries for the other textures, probably the wrong option was chosen in SLADE. I don't know if there were other fixes to the skies but if that's all you're waiting on for them, it's super easy to correct and I can send an updated one.

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I would definitely be on board for working on Nova 2 when the time comes. I've been coming up with map ideas as well as ways to improve my mapping style. I might even contribute some MIDIs next time around.

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plums said:

The problem in the Jan24 wad with the skies is that there's no texture entries for the other textures, probably the wrong option was chosen in SLADE. I don't know if there were other fixes to the skies but if that's all you're waiting on for them, it's super easy to correct and I can send an updated one.


Could you please? :D

That's the big thing we're waiting on and I'm not sure if EvilNed is going to come back soon enough for the deadline so it'd be great if you could fix it. In other news, PRIMEVAL got back to me and says he will give me his text info hopefully as soon as possible, and Paul D finally has a writeup for his maps done:

Teleportarium: This map really didn't start out as much, and since I am so new to mapmaking I didn't go into it with an overall thematic concept or much sense of cohesion. I had the idea for entering a fortified bunker-looking base, but didn't think much as to what would happen next. The rest of the map ended up being a patchwork of rooms that I would add over the next few months, and the original version of this map was much shorter. Looking back on it, I would like to have made it a bit more open and interconnected, and the room-door-room design of it seems like it kind of stifled gameplay a bit. My favorite Doom 2 map was actually Tricks and Traps, so I guess that's where I got that from. I think the best thing I did was add the teleportation gimmick if you decide to grab the blue key and try to make a run for it instead of fighting in that room. It was my first complete original map.

Immaterium: I originally had many more plans for this map, but I got bogged down in actually making it, and I actually lost a few drafts of it with hard drive reformats and stuff. The concept was actually fairly hard to get to work properly in complevel 2, and although it was interesting to learn the limits of roughly vanilla, I think I'll stick to boom compatible and zdoom in the future. I think the map is conceptually strong and has an interesting theme- I don't actually like the whole "stone and wood" hell theme, preferring the more psychedelic "distorted version of reality" type of hell, where the lines between the material and immaterial world are jumbled. I don't think I managed to accomplish particularly compelling gameplay, but oh well. It was during making this map that I regretfully got kind of burnt out on the whole Doom scene, but I am looking to get back into the thick of things soon.

The only contributions to NOVA that I am really proud of are my soundtracks, and over the course of NOVA I learned a lot about midi composition, pushing me to pursue it even more.

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Here you go: https://www.mediafire.com/?hxxnqt3cq3xm94m (see below for working link)

The TEXTURE1/PNAMES entries were made incorrectly (should have been "Imported from base archive"), and the graphics were still in png format. I've tested it in PrBoom+ but someone should double-check it. Sorry I didn't catch this earlier!

Skies look quite nice, especially 2 & 3.

BTW the formatting in NOVAinfo.txt is quite weird, a lot of lines are padded with blank space at the end instead of making a new line, doesn't wrap properly if you don't have the right line width. Also you should use spaces and not tabs for ASCII art IMHO.

kildeth said:

As for the sequel itself, I would like to see something that allows mappers from this Nova to keep contributing whilst at the same time being open to new mappers, so we have a mix of experienced and less experienced mappers working together, with progress from older mappers being evident and totally new stuff from newbies adding unique styles not included in the first wad.

If there is going to be a NOVA 2 I'd like to contribute a map. I think a break is in order though, there's no need to rush things.

e: Also you kinda have to call it SUPERNOVA.

I was also thinking about involving some custom textures whilst keeping the wad limit-removing in format, just to spice things up. My idea was to allow Ultimate Doom, Plutonia and TNT textures to be used as well as the Doom II textures from this time around so we get the full original id Doom series worth of textures to play around with, whilst keeping things relatively simple and easy to comprehend for newbies.

I think that sounds like a good idea, though you'll probably have to omit some of the animated textures & switches from Plutonia/TNT. Also now that there's an actual bare-bones limit-raising port for modern systems it might be a good target. Lots of the maps from NOVA seem to work in it OK, but a number of them don't for one reason or another (not that I'm suggesting you change them at this point).

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Good to see this bastard finally putting its wheels down ready to land. Dunno if i would be getting involved in the eventual sequel, but I will keep an eye on it for sure.

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@plums - Thank you so much for that. Now I only have to implement my graphics and we should be finished unless Stygian decides to come back and patch 'Ring of Gyges' one last time (I've PMed him about the Feb 21st date).

Novainfo.txt is likely to be fixed up by me before release unless Hurricyclone wants to make adjustments. As of now we only have two map blurbs unaccounted for; Fuzzyfireball's 'Suspend', which I shall write a blurb for, and 'Warehouse District' by sgtdopey, who I have PMed about the matter. If he doesn't reply before the 21st, I shall write a blurb about 'Warehouse District' too.

As of everyone's consensus thus far, Nova 2 - if such a project does indeed go ahead, shall be put off until June at least, when I might be able to guarantee whether or not I'll have the time to undertake such a project. This means if Nova 2 does commence, I shall be the project leader after all.

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kildeth said:

Bad news. Plum's sky fix is not working for me on GzDoom or Zandronum. :(


That's weird, it works for me in GZDoom (recent dev build) and ZDoom (2.7.1) . What or how is it not working, exactly?

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plums, I apologize for using tabs instead of spaces earlier in the textfile and have corrected them as I went on. If you still have oddities when reading the textfile then try resizing the window or turn on word wrap.

kildeth, I'm leaving the remainder of the textfile to you at the moment, as I've been rather busy this whole month and am no longer having any more time to work on it. And as for me in a sequel, nope, I've moved on as well.

EDIT: That was the latest version of the textfile. Haven't modified it at all; looks like the Paul D stuff is what you'll have to copy/paste, kildeth.

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plums said:

That's weird, it works for me in GZDoom (recent dev build) and ZDoom (2.7.1) . What or how is it not working, exactly?


The default Doom II sky comes up instead of the Nova ones. Weird since the unfixed Jan 24 sky worked on mine, while it didn't work on others.

Hurricyclone I'll be fine with the textfile. Could you give me the latest version?

EDIT: Oh ok then, I thought you were updating the formatting or something so that's why I asked.

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Works for me! Hopefully it'll work for everyone else.

Here it is again with my graphical enhancements included:

https://www.mediafire.com/?f9d02uhz4126di6

Unless Stygian goes through with updating his map again, this should be the final iteration of Nova: The Birth, and the file that will be included on /idgames. Now all we need to do is get the textfiles in order, which I shall do next.

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