Shotgun Symphony -- E1 -- Public Beta

Demon of the Well said:The most important thing, of course, is that the mapset is generally very bloody; while for the most part I was not feeling particularly intimidated, the action was consistently heavy enough that I felt like I was getting a good workout throughout, and as you've seen I occasionally found myself slipping into some rather tense situations....which is good! This is what a 'traditional' E1's overall combat feel should be, to me--a scenario where the player can generally feel powerful and in control of the situation, but one that will promptly put him in his place if he doesn't stay on his toes/maintain a high level of situational awareness. The concept of secret/optional bloodbaths is also fascinating to me; I think that special vistas/scenery and hidden fights are the most satisfying of all rewards for a player that likes to take the time to explore thoroughly and uncover installation secrets, far moreso than actual material gains like ammo or artifacts.

From early play, this is a pretty good summation of how I feel about the wad.

Here's a terrible FDA of the first two and a half maps. I died halfway through E1M3 in the fight with cacodemons and after a second death due to stupidity decided to wrap up for the night. I used your latest version of the wad.

I enjoyed it. A lot more action than something like Fava Beans and I like your use of secrets. I've been playing through Bob Evans' Odessa series, and all your optional areas / switch hunting type secrets remind me a lot of that, albeit a much brighter and somewhat more actiony take on the style. I'm looking forward to playing through the rest of the episode.

Thanks for the FDA, 7hm! I'll admit, I was very thrilled to watch you die in E1M3's yellow key trap. It seems the additional monsters made a difference there, as I think you would have beaten the old version.

I was puzzled by the behavior of the towered Sergeants in one of the big watery areas of E1M3. They didn't move until you shot them. This doesn't happen in Risen3D and I've never played through this map on GLBoom. I used DB2's Make Sector function on the towers in the new revision in the faint hope that it might have an effect.

You also caught some new errors I made in E1M2 and E1M3, which occurred during the process of fixing previous flaws. Hah, can't win sometimes. I'll post the revised edition shortly, along with an FDA of E1M1 showing how to access all the secrets.

I hope you keep going, since I'm especially interested in seeing how the new end-fight in E1M5 works. Warning, it's not FDA-friendly, and it comes at the end of a long map. I've never beaten it on the first try, even on HMP, but then again I suck, as my FDA will prove, so that has to be taken into consideration. ;)

Here's the latest revision; http://www.mediafire.com/download/ybyn35temyztooa/SGNSYM168.wad

This fixes errors in E1M2 and E1M3, uncovered in 7hm's FDA. In E1M2, I had forgotten to label the blue door with Doorblu textures, after watching Suitepee's playthrough made me realize this was necessary. I had used blue lights before. I had also forgotten to hide a bunch of lines in one of the traps. I probably have to hide more, or maybe I'll move the secret Computer Map to its old place.

E1M3 had a visual glitch in one of the outside areas, which happened when I fixed a texture offset on a wall and forgot to change the horizon trick sector.

And now, for something I've been threatening for a long time, my first FDA! http://www.mediafire.com/download/v9dvknba36qezny/SGN101_FDA.lmp

This FDA is for E1M1 of the new version, SGNSYM168, and is in -complevel 3, though I have Extended Demo Recording checked, so it should be clickable. Now, freely admitting that I suck, this FDA makes me look even worse than I really am, because instead of my beloved, smooth-as-silk Risen3D, I was using GLBoom-plus, which hates my PC. It runs like shit on my system, and comparing the experience to Risen3D is like comparing a Prius to a Ferrari. The controls felt very coarse and it was really slow, in spite of having the Caps Lock key energized for Always Run. But it wasn't only that, this port runs choppy and jerky on my system. It's the only port that does that. Maybe there's some change in settings I could make?

Bottom line is that I got killed early in several attempts before I was able to achieve slightly manageable control of my direction. I also made this FDA in the morning, and with sunlight glaring off the snow-pack here in the frozen tundra, and crappy white mini-blinds, I was nearly blind in any dark space. You'll see me crashing into walls, missing items, and even missing doorways. ;D But I suffered through all of this -- and trust me, I suffered -- to show all of the secret paths.

I may do more FDAs to show the secrets in other maps, like the super-tricky path to the Computer Map in E1M5, but in the nastier levels -- M4 and above -- I'll probably do them in HNTR. I could never handle the UV and HMP fights in those maps in GLBoom unless there's a way to speed things up.

Enough for now. The OP will be updated with the new link.

Might as well bump this thread to talk about DHE patches instead of doing it in your other one :p

Most of the level names aren't too bad actually. I truncated the E1Mx text to just one number, and then they mostly all fit apart from E1M1.

1: A Lazy Day I    (15 characters max)
2: Guts In A Blender
3: Bureau Of Bad Ideas
4: Have Some Fava Beans
5: Urban Sprawl
6: Pumping Station Hoedown
7: This Is My Shotgun
8: Big Boss Blood Salad
9: Miley Cyrus Concert

So if you had an idea for what to do about the first map, then a vanilla-compatible DHE file is possible.

Thanks for the bump, plums. Yes, it's better to discuss it in here. :)

You're a lifesaver again. First, figuring out the rising floor bug in E1M8, and now the automap names. I owe you not one, but several.

I'm guessing this mapset is probably, for the most part, vanilla compatible, but no one has tested it in vanilla or Chocolate Doom. I have a feeling that the pumping room in E1M6 will experience major VPO in vanilla. That room is not only gigantic enough to swallow entire large maps, but there's a shit-ton of 2s lines and active sectors. I'd be surprised if I was wrong on this score, though if anyone wants to check that I'd be grateful. I can't run Chocolate Doom on my PC, it locks up, so I have no way of checking it myself.

Anyway, I'd go for -cl 9 compatibility based on the near certainty that E1M6 would grenade vanilla. ;D

Your music suggestion is a good one and something I've considered before. I'm not half bad at editing MP3s, and with converted MODs I'd be able to remove jarring noises or crappy sections, allowing me to choose from a wider group of MODs which have perfect sections mixed with crap sections, especially music that sounds like something from a cheap Casio keyboard from the '70s. Always a deal-killer for me. :D

Theoretically, I could work with the MODs themselves. I have MODPlug's OpenMPT, which can edit the files. And while I no longer have a real Amiga, I have two outstanding Amiga emulators, AmiKit and Amiga Forever. These can run tracker programs, and I have OctaMED Studio and ProTracker, but these are not easy apps and I seriously doubt that I'll ever figure them out. But if I did, I might be able to remove any real shitty instruments and clean up tracks way better than I could with converted MP3s. Ah, maybe someday. ;D

Thanks again for all your help, and I look forward to your comments. :)

SteveD said:

Thanks for the bump, plums. Yes, it's better to discuss it in here. :)

You're a lifesaver again. First, figuring out the rising floor bug in E1M8, and now the automap names. I owe you not one, but several.

Happy to help. I'm much better at helping other people out and riding on their coattails than I am making my own things :p

I have a feeling that the pumping room in E1M6 will experience major VPO in vanilla. That room is not only gigantic enough to swallow entire large maps, but there's a shit-ton of 2s lines and active sectors.

Oh yeah, VPOs quickly. BUT, Crispy Doom, which is like Chocolate Doom with increased limits, runs it fine. So, I've made two versions of the text patch, and you can choose which you want.

sgnsym.deh uses the names in my previous post. E1M1 is now 1: A Lazy Day
sgnsym.bex uses proper E1Mx titles and full map names. I think I forgot to add the word 'The' on The Miley Cyrus Concert, you should be able to open it up as a text file and correct it though. If not I'll reupload.

https://www.mediafire.com/?9yat5kmjv7630za

Ultimately it's not a big deal which you prefer since it doesn't affect gameplay at all. Either way rename the lump to DEHACKED if you embed it in your wad.

Your music suggestion is a good one and something I've considered before. I'm not half bad at editing MP3s, and with converted MODs I'd be able to remove jarring noises or crappy sections, allowing me to choose from a wider group of MODs which have perfect sections mixed with crap sections, especially music that sounds like something from a cheap Casio keyboard from the '70s. Always a deal-killer for me. :D

Theoretically, I could work with the MODs themselves. I have MODPlug's OpenMPT, which can edit the files. And while I no longer have a real Amiga, I have two outstanding Amiga emulators, AmiKit and Amiga Forever. These can run tracker programs, and I have OctaMED Studio and ProTracker, but these are not easy apps and I seriously doubt that I'll ever figure them out. But if I did, I might be able to remove any real shitty instruments and clean up tracks way better than I could with converted MP3s. Ah, maybe someday. ;D

OpenMPT should be able to work with Amiga mods, you might have to save as XM but there shouldn't be much lost in the conversion I think. ProTracker isn't too hard if you force yourself to play with it a bit and see past the spreadsheet look, but then again you probably don't need to use it. MilkyTracker is another program to possibly check out, I'm not sure if it saves Amiga MODs but I know it will load them.

Also in case you missed my edit, you might want to check out MUSINFO which seems to let you play different music tracks at different points in your level. Boss music from some old Amiga game for a Cyberdemon party would be great :)

plums said:

Happy to help. I'm much better at helping other people out and riding on their coattails than I am making my own things :p

Then may we long keep you away from doing your own things. ;D

Sorry for the slow reply, things got out of hand on my end as usual, and I wanted to wait until I had actually added the lump and tested it, but I was a little hesitant in going to XWE because I was embarrassed in advance that I might screw it up. Especially because I opened up the Boom version and edited The Miley Cyrus Concert, saving it as a new file, natch, and worried that I might grenade the whole thing. But no! Everything went smooth as silk, so 18 tons of thanks to you, plums. You saved my ass again!

Once the file exists, it seems easy to work with. My problem is that I have no idea how to get the party started. If I knew, it would save you some trouble, because the same exact thing will be needed for Abcess, Realm of Intensified Chaos, and The Amiga Demo Party. I also have questions about titles that can go on 2 or more lines, for both the automap and the in-game display.

I'll look into OpenMPT. I also have Milky Tracker and Hively Tracker, IOW, a growing list of tracker apps whose operation completely eludes me. :D

The MUSINFO thing is very interesting. I watched a video of someone who made a Far Cry/Serious Sam sorta map in ZDoom with exceptional graphics, and he used the MUSINFO -- I assume he did, anyhow -- to get the Serious Sam effect where the music starts pounding as masses of enemies pour in. I really liked it, but wonder if that only works in Z/GZDoom?

More later. It's almost crash time. Thanks again, plums.

E1M8 was probably the most challenging map out of the 8:

The good news is I didn't use BD for this because I am branching to semi-vanilla playthroughs.

Hey, FDAs for E1M1-E1M4 (no secret level), on HMP using SGNSYM168.wad
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1256171

So I played these maps but I didn't want to be too boring in secret-hunting, by the end of E1M4 I wondered what I was missing and how different it would be on UV, so I went and played them again on UV continuous, including E1M9 this time.

In general I found them much easier maps than what I'm used to from you. I wonder how much of that is intentional and how much was due to not having the enemies from Doom 2, especially chaingunners. I was also drowning in ammo when I played continuously, especially when getting most or all of the secrets. I had enough ammo to kill the cyberdemon on E1M1 and still start E1M2 with a handful of shells and rockets. I think you said these were meant to be played continuously but I think they hold up better from pistol start, for me at least.

Anyhow if more FDAs are useful or entertaining for you I'll make some for the remaining levels. I'm also curious to play E1M9 from pistol start, it wasn't too bad at all coming in with a bunch of ordinance but I suspect it'll be a different story with only 50 bullets.

I played in Crispy Doom which was mostly fine, a number of tutti-frutti texture errors though. If you're interested I'll point them out, I took some screenshots but they're kind of unsorted and it's not too hard to go back and find them all again, probably.

I did really like the level layouts, they have a real feel of continuity that I always appreciate.

SteveD said:

Once the file exists, it seems easy to work with. My problem is that I have no idea how to get the party started. If I knew, it would save you some trouble, because the same exact thing will be needed for Abcess, Realm of Intensified Chaos, and The Amiga Demo Party.

WhackEd 4 is quite easy to work with, for strings at least. Have you tried it at all? I can give you some pointers for it but I suspect you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly if you play with it for a few minutes. One issue I've found recently is that for Vanilla-compatible patches, the number of characters it allows you is actually too high in some cases, so if you make a vanilla deh patch it needs testing in Chocolate Doom.

I also have questions about titles that can go on 2 or more lines, for both the automap and the in-game display.

Automap is one line only. Winscreen titles, I don't know the requirements exactly but I know the size can be more than one line. If you've never played 1994tu, they've got entire 320x180 screenshots as the map title graphics and it works fine. Never mind, this doesn't work in Chocolate Doom. I don't know what the limits are, then.

The MUSINFO thing is very interesting. I watched a video of someone who made a Far Cry/Serious Sam sorta map in ZDoom with exceptional graphics, and he used the MUSINFO -- I assume he did, anyhow -- to get the Serious Sam effect where the music starts pounding as masses of enemies pour in. I really liked it, but wonder if that only works in Z/GZDoom?

MUSINFO only changes music when you enter a new sector, as far as I can tell, so it's possible that it was another ZDoom feature there. ZDoom has lots of ways to change music dynamically. In any case MUSINFO still looks versatile enough to be useful, maybe.

Speaking of which, it's interesting that you intentionally didn't replace the music for Shotgun Symphony. I agree though, the E1 tunes are some of the best.

Mr. Chris said:

E1M8 was probably the most challenging map out of the 8:

The good news is I didn't use BD for this because I am branching to semi-vanilla playthroughs.

Thanks, Mr. Chris! I watched this and then all the others. Probably my favorite was your E1M6 video because that turned into a real shitstorm in the pumping room. That was fun as hell to watch! And yes, it was nice to see it in more normal Doom. With all the hitscanners in these maps, that would've been a lot of death screams. ;D

I liked the music tracks you used. Is that from one of your music WADs?

Thanks again, and tomorrow I'll leave comments on your YT channel.

BTW, the toughest map is E1M9 from a pistol start. ;)

plums said:

In general I found them much easier maps than what I'm used to from you. I wonder how much of that is intentional and how much was due to not having the enemies from Doom 2, especially chaingunners. I was also drowning in ammo when I played continuously, especially when getting most or all of the secrets. I had enough ammo to kill the cyberdemon on E1M1 and still start E1M2 with a handful of shells and rockets. I think you said these were meant to be played continuously but I think they hold up better from pistol start, for me at least.

Part of it might be styles make fights, but for certain, I gave up trying to balance for continuous. The way to play these maps if you want fun is UV pistol-start. If you do that, you may find them every bit as hard, if not harder, than most of my Doom 2 maps, for example the Abcess maps. TBH, I'd rather play Map01 of Amiga Demo Party than The Miley Cyrus Concert (E1M9) from a pistol-start. There's a BIG difference between continuous and pistol on that map. M5 thru M8 should offer decent challenge even on UV-continuous. If you make a mistake or two in E1M6, it can go hard on you. And E1M4 is pretty nasty from a UV pistol start. You did a great job surviving the path to the secret Soulsphere in that map. I thought you were a goner a couple times there, so congrats on fighting your way through, but that is a perfect example of what this particular mapset is about. Yeah, you got that Soulsphere, but you had to fight a bunch of Pinkies, Cacos and hitscanners within the secret area to get it. So that is all bonus gameplay content, optional combat. And those are sometimes the riskiest fights in the map. I've gained a few pelts in that area. ;)

So if players go for continuous, they should set their mental filters for exploration and secret finding, mixed with a lot of shooting. Monster counts are high. One of the reasons for so much ammo, of course, is all the hitscanners dumping their clips when you kill 'em. The BTSX team had the same problem, so I guess I'm in good company. :D Also, my fight design tends towards more chaotic, free-for-all encounters rather than a series of scripted traps. The latter approach can snag more kills, but I'm not as into it.

But I gotta say, watching your FDAs, I was happy. I had a good player walking around at 50% health or less for big chunks of the maps, and on HMP. I had you down below 20% a few times, so I call that a win. If you'd done the FDAs on UV, I'm thinkin' I'd have a few pelts. ;D

Remember, too, that E1M1 thru E1M6 date from 1997 - 2000. The first 3 were all complete by '98, while the latter 3 have had significant new areas added, like the pumping room in E1M6. I've been ratcheting up the violence a bit and reducing the health a bit, but it's still harder to modify an old map's fights than it is to design entirely new stuff the way I like it, but overall, I'm happy. After all, back in the day, the goal was to make E1 maps in the Fava style, but much more violent. That, plus having each map lead directly into the other to create the impression of a vast installation. I do think many players run through the maps a little too quickly to catch all that stuff, though. :D

I can save you a little time on the secrets. I do things the old-fashioned way, so there's no need to press computer consoles or panels, and no need for random wall-humping. Nor is there a need to leap into nukage looking for secrets, unless you can see a tunnel down there from above. I won't do anything that dickish to a player, I do other dickish things instead. ;)

So look for things like vertical texture offsets. The alignment in these maps is very good, so if you see a vertical misalignment on a wall, press it. Also, look for slightly different textures in the same family, for example, like the one you found in E1M3, when you pressed a Starg1 texture on a Starg3 wall and found a secret, but you missed the texture offset on the Stone wall inside there. In E1M1, maybe you watched my E1M1 demo before replaying it? It sort of has a course on what to look for, so if you say you had enough ammo to kill the Cyb -- who you'll see again in E1M8 anyway ;D -- then you have a good idea what to look for.

On the MUSINFO, I'm guessing maybe walking into a sector triggered both the music change and the monster teleports in that video I watched. That would create the effect of pumping up the tension while the monsters attacked.

I can assure you that your FDAs, and Mr. Chris's playthrough, were indeed helpful. I saw more things I could change to make items and paths stand out a bit, and more places to add a bit of detail. It never seems to end with this stuff. :D

Did the other maps on UV pistol start. Unfortunately my FDAs are plagued with recording problems, only one of which is your fault.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1257640

E1M9 wasn't really an FDA since I played it continuous on UV before. But apart from a very early death, I did extremely well, handling most of the hordes with ease. Unfortunately you have to take my word, because I overwrote the demo when I recorded E1M5. I did remember the map a bit, which certainly helped, though the only thing that really stuck in my mind was to avoid the berserk until I was ready. All in all it's a great map, although I think it's a bit less chaotic than you intended, if the player makes the right choices by knowing the map or just by luck. The chaos comes not from having a huge horde of monsters, but by having a moderate one that is far too much to deal with when you have only 50 bullets. But it's not too hard to stay ahead of the pack while you get loaded up on shells, and once the initial madness dies down, the rest of the level is fairly easily dealt with.

E1M5 you don't get to see either! It's got a very early desync. I may have opened a menu or something early, I don't know. I'm mad about this one because I felt really on-point playing it*. I liked the sense of scale a lot, it felt large and intimidating and lead up to a great end fight, one which wasn't too bad with infinitely-tall things though I almost got stuck between some cacos I couldn't see at one point. Having even a basic vertical mouselook helped a lot. This map feels much more aggressive than the previous ones apart from E1M9, not just in combat but also the way the map works. I recall a lot of times where I just had to blindly charge across slime, hoping I wouldn't get caught without a ledge to climb back up on, especially for secrets.

(* I don't really consider myself that good of a player, at least compared to some of the insanely skilled people around here. I'm pretty inconsistent though, some days I'm really slow to react and easily overwhelmed, other times it feels like I can handle all but the worst revenant-spam hordes. E1M5 was done on a good day.)

E1M6 I played about 2/3rds of the way through before I had to quit. I saved and went back to finish it from where I left off, but you don't get that in the demo. I have mixed feelings about this map; the start is good, then there's kind of a lull in combat with a lot of sparsely populated areas. The slime vat structure is cool and combat there is interesting - again it's obvious you don't map with infinite-height things in mind, but I scraped by - but also kind of repetitive after a while. Many of the nukage floors aren't damaging, which I appreciated while trying to explore past all the gates but which probably wasn't intentional. (You can select by flat/texture in DB which helps to mark all nukage as the same damaging floor, etc.)

E1M7 is on you, at least partly. I had a good start but then crawled out a window that I don't think I was supposed to go out of, to get a soulsphere and then a BFG. Oh well, that's what beta testing is all about. I debated dying and starting over, but for now I just saved and moved on to E1M8. I liked what I saw of it. If I am missing the way out, please tell me!

E1M8... man. Not quite an FDA because I'd played with that raising sector area with the barons a little. Anyhow I have an early death when my boxing skills aren't up to snuff, no biggie. Then I die in the first cyber encounter; my plan was to release the cyber and have the cacos hit him. Having a parial memory of that part didn't work so well for me though, as I entirely forgot that more enemies poured in through the sides. My third time I did pretty well, until the area with two cybers, and I just don't know what happened there. I think I moved my hand or something so it wasn't aligned with the keys, I don't know, but I take several rockets to the face while fumbling with weapon selection and then crumple in defeat. A disappointing ending. I'll have to go back and claim victory another time. In any case this level does feel like a good end to the wad, and really drives the hell-infested base narrative home. I also appreciated the KDITD E1M3 homage with the soulsphere, heh.

One thing about E1M8 that was weird was the teleporting cyberdemons, because you can hear them stomping off in the base area (and getting crushed?) when I assume they're meant to scare the player. You have an area later with two cybers, why not save them for there? Or at least send them far enough away that the player can't hear them. BTW if you crush them with multiple crushers at the same time, they die faster, though I'm not sure it matters here.

Overall a fun wad, I really enjoy mapsets with a sense of continuity (I did notice it!) and there was plenty to shoot. They also feel "classic" without feeling especially dated to me. I do like the number of areas to explore and the optional fights, many of which are no walk in the park.

You didn't answer me before about tutti-frutti, so I'll bring it up again. In general you have it on a lot of your steps, where either you're using an 8px high texture (some are 8px, some are 16px, unlike in Doom 2 where they're all 16) or have the linedef set as lower unpegged.

Also I did get the secrets much more this time, I'm not sure what the problem was on my first try but I just wasn't seeing them.

BTW, about map names, did you try WhackEd yet? it looks like you've got all the proper WILVxx graphics in this wad. I did some tests and found out that for vanilla, the max size for those graphics is 320 pixels wide, and about 27 high before you get in the way of the scoring tallies a bit, but 149 px high before a crash.

edit: I just noticed the wad still has some Hellmaker PWADINFO lumps in it! Nice, leave them in!

Oh man, so conflicted... there are some serious speedrun potential exploits in E1M8 (don't know about other maps), I got a time of 1:36 and I know people could do better than me. I'm sure most of this is unintentional, and as a beta tester I want to report it, but as a fan of demos I kind of want you to leave it in!

I guess I'll post it...
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1257670

plums said:

Oh man, so conflicted... there are some serious speedrun potential exploits in E1M8 (don't know about other maps), I got a time of 1:36 and I know people could do better than me. I'm sure most of this is unintentional, and as a beta tester I want to report it, but as a fan of demos I kind of want you to leave it in!

I guess I'll post it...
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1257670

No need to be conflicted, plums. I'm glad you posted this, because it's awesome! Yeah, you tore my map to pieces, but did it with gusto. That was entertaining as hell. I'm going to leave SGNSYM168 on my Mediafire for a good long while so people can view it.

I knew about the first hidden switch exploitability, but not the last. Damn that Doom engine! ;D This shouldn't happen.

Since the mapset hasn't been released yet, I have to thank you for discovering these problems in time for me to correct them. As you say, "That's why we beta." ;) The only thing I can think of to fix this is to make small "air" sectors between the switches and the lowering walls. This will be done.

Otherwise, I was happy that this map gave you some problems. And well played with the Cyb reveal. I think I'm happy with the fights in this one overall, so I'll concentrate on fixing those switches.

Glad you enjoyed it Steve! I feel like that speedrun makes up for the terrible showing I had in my FDA of E1M8.

One thing you could do is put a switch action on the outside walls and tie it to a control sector that does nothing, so pressing use on that wall gets blocked by that switch. It'll work for complevel 2 at least. Other than that, I think the only solution is just to add more space between the wall and the switch, so that Doomguy's magical gorilla arms can't reach far enough.

BTW I'm assuming I did go where I wasn't supposed to in E1M7? Being able to open whatever door leads there from the other side is the ideal solution IMHO, rather than blocking off that window. But it's your map of course.

plums said:

E1M9 wasn't really an FDA since I played it continuous on UV before. But apart from a very early death, I did extremely well, handling most of the hordes with ease. Unfortunately you have to take my word, because I overwrote the demo when I recorded E1M5. I did remember the map a bit, which certainly helped, though the only thing that really stuck in my mind was to avoid the berserk until I was ready. All in all it's a great map, although I think it's a bit less chaotic than you intended, if the player makes the right choices by knowing the map or just by luck. The chaos comes not from having a huge horde of monsters, but by having a moderate one that is far too much to deal with when you have only 50 bullets. But it's not too hard to stay ahead of the pack while you get loaded up on shells, and once the initial madness dies down, the rest of the level is fairly easily dealt with.

Excellent points. This is one of those maps that's meant to get you on the first run. I'm not worried about the second run, because aside from speedrunners and playtesters, I reckon few players will play it twice given all the excellent maps vying for our time and attention. That said, I found that for me, the best strategy was to race for the Chaingun, and then race for the Soulsphere, and start picking off everything that came at me from the Soulsphere platform. Taking out the hitscanners and getting the Barons to infight with Cacos worked wonders. After that, it's time to get the RL and from there, you can really take the map apart. But the main goal for me is to get the player in a state of initial panic, and when they start to run, they discover they can be followed everywhere, and everywhere they go just increases the forces arrayed against them, so they keep running and as a result, they're liable to run into something they can't handle. I really enjoyed watching players die in this map, I must admit. ;D

plums said:

E1M5 you don't get to see either! It's got a very early desync. I may have opened a menu or something early, I don't know. I'm mad about this one because I felt really on-point playing it*. I liked the sense of scale a lot, it felt large and intimidating and lead up to a great end fight, one which wasn't too bad with infinitely-tall things though I almost got stuck between some cacos I couldn't see at one point. Having even a basic vertical mouselook helped a lot. This map feels much more aggressive than the previous ones apart from E1M9, not just in combat but also the way the map works. I recall a lot of times where I just had to blindly charge across slime, hoping I wouldn't get caught without a ledge to climb back up on, especially for secrets.

I'm sorry I missed your FDA on this one. Historically, this was always my favorite map in the set, and it's the one I most like to replay when I feel like some relaxing action. If you ran across slime, that means you may have found the secret path to the Computer Map. If so, I believe you're the only one who pulled that off. This map, more than most of the others, was really all about the exploration and the tricky secrets, but even so, it had a few nasty battles. The end fight was beefed-up after I watched Suitepee's playthrough. The original had 6 Cacos on UV and no Lost Souls. Now it has 36 Cacos and 24 Lost Souls, plus 4 extra Sergeants. That seemed to do the trick even though it's not a massive killer. My biggest worry is that it would get sloggy after the point where players begin to get the best of it, but there's still a lot of meat to kill.

plums said:

E1M6 I played about 2/3rds of the way through before I had to quit. I saved and went back to finish it from where I left off, but you don't get that in the demo. I have mixed feelings about this map; the start is good, then there's kind of a lull in combat with a lot of sparsely populated areas. The slime vat structure is cool and combat there is interesting - again it's obvious you don't map with infinite-height things in mind, but I scraped by - but also kind of repetitive after a while. Many of the nukage floors aren't damaging, which I appreciated while trying to explore past all the gates but which probably wasn't intentional. (You can select by flat/texture in DB which helps to mark all nukage as the same damaging floor, etc.)

I have mixed feelings myself, although from time to time this is my favorite map in the set. ;D It has some really sneaky secrets, with the first Soulsphere/Blue Armor you see being rather hard to find, although DoTW found them. The harmless nukage sectors actually are intentional, because I wanted to avoid forcing players into radsuits and putting a green film over that room I worked so hard on. :D The bullshit explanation I offered earlier in the thread is that this is brand new, freshly-pumped nukage, which is completely harmless at the pumping hubs and gradually builds strength as it moves through the causeways. Makes no sense at all, but it works for me. ;D

The pumping room was a real problem for fight design, but in the end, what I like is that so many different things can happen in there. For example, you immediately turned right as you entered, as did many other players, and this is the wrong thing to do. You're supposed to go for that Soulsphere guarded by the Barons, and then go into the big generator room so the hitscanners can remove that bonus for you, but you'll find the massive rocket pile and maybe the secret cell charge packs. But the most exciting thing that can happen is, before even going into the pumping station, you run past the Barons that rise from the water. They'll follow you and turn into snipers on the stairs, as will anything else you run past up there. Then, go to the right after shooting something to wake up the Cacos and Lost Souls so they start teleporting in on the "lightning rods," and then go to the generator room. This will lead to the most frantic possible fight as you duel the hitscanners while the Cacos and Lost Souls pour in through every opening and mob you from all directions. That will be one helluva fight. ;D Admittedly, this won't usually happen, but IIRC Veinen fought it much like that. But your progress, I thought, looked pretty good. Repetitive, yes, but still with surprises as Cacos and Lost Souls teleport next to you, or you teleport up from below next to a Pinky, etc. So in the end I decided not to change anything. ;D

I'm sorry your FDA ended, because you were on a good run and had fought back from low health a few times. You were also at the point where you were very likely to reach the exit without being killed.

SteveD said:

I'm sorry your FDA ended, because you were on a good run and had fought back from low health a few times. You were also at the point where you were very likely to reach the exit without being killed.

Yeah I did pick up from my savegame after and I don't think I died at all.

Did a 2nd try FDA for E1M7. Kind of long so maybe watch it on 200% speed if at all.
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1258610

This one makes it most of the way, though I die to some spectres on my first attempt. I get stuck again though, this time on the door that leads to the hallway->room in which the end fight happens. Guarded by 3 barons, you're supposed to open the door and then cross a W1 linedef to raise the floor. Unfortunately on cl2 that linedef blocks the player from being able to use the door, it's too close to the door linedef. So after running around a bit looking for other options, I had to save and quit again :c

Will read through the rest of your reply shortly...

plums said:

E1M7 is on you, at least partly. I had a good start but then crawled out a window that I don't think I was supposed to go out of, to get a soulsphere and then a BFG. Oh well, that's what beta testing is all about. I debated dying and starting over, but for now I just saved and moved on to E1M8. I liked what I saw of it. If I am missing the way out, please tell me!

Now I can finally answer your E1M7 questions. I wish I could righteously say, "Mister plums, I thought we already had the conversation about jumping into nukage unless you see a tunnel from above." Alas, even as I wrote that, I knew I was a liar, because in Map02 of Realm of Intensified Chaos, you must in fact leap blindly into nukage to get a Blue Armor, Zerk, SSG and, if you can find it, a Plasma Gun! ;D You are given clear indicators, however, such as a radsuit in a window and a Blue Armor visible as soon as you reach said window, but you can't see the tunnel below without mouselook. Anyway, realizing I was completely full of shit, I decided to stay quiet until at least the RoIC beta, and hope you'd forget what I just said. ;D But no! You go leaping into nukage mere days later. At first I wondered why you did that, but then I realized you must have seen the teleporter in there and said to yourself, "A-ha! There's my clue!" That teleporter was a late addition after another player got stuck going through the proper way, but leaped into the nukage to escape the teleporting monsters after grabbing the Soulsphere. Further, there are two places on this very map where a teleporter in the nukage is, in fact, your clue to jump in for two different secret chains. So there's no way I can win on this one. ;D

Although I regret that this jump ruined a good run you were on, I'm grateful that you discovered yet another flaw in this map. Funny thing, this is the first map in the set that was started anew, in 2012, and I was full of confidence that in this new map, I'd never make all the dumbass mistakes that plagued my old maps. But no! This turned out to be perhaps the biggest problem child of them all. What a humbling experience. :D

I decided that the simplest solution was to do something I don't really like, and make some impassable lines. I removed the teleporter in order to retain the clue value of the others. So now you know, and if you wish to continue this map, you may do so. Try to find that Plasma Gun secret. It's the hardest thing to find on the map, and it's at the end of a chain of secrets, and probably has the map's best fight.

plums said:

This one makes it most of the way, though I die to some spectres on my first attempt. I get stuck again though, this time on the door that leads to the hallway->room in which the end fight happens. Guarded by 3 barons, you're supposed to open the door and then cross a W1 linedef to raise the floor. Unfortunately on cl2 that linedef blocks the player from being able to use the door, it's too close to the door linedef. So after running around a bit looking for other options, I had to save and quit again :c

Aargh! And you had such a great run going. You found the Plasma Gun secret. IIRC, you are the second person to find it. I'm of course thrilled that you died the first time. ;D Yeah, those Spectres at the end of the big fight that drained you. Great play on the second go, especially the close-quarters Baron combat on the path to the RL secret, after you had been chewed-up real bad by the little guys. Wish I could fight a Baron like that! I was overall well pleased with the damage you took. Getting a quality player down in the 20s on a Doom 1 map is good enough for me.

And now for the unfortunate part. In earlier versions of the map, the walking trigger line was actually inside the door sector. This works fine on most source ports, but on Boom, using cl 2 or, IIRC, isn't Ultimate Doom supposed to be cl 3? Either way, with the trigger line inside the door, the door wouldn't open, and that issue was in several maps, all of which were fixed, but I'm guessing that no one, including me, went through on cl 2 after the changes. You are probably the first. So once again, you've helped me a lot, even though it had an annoying result for you. I'll make the change and have a fixed version up within a few hours. Eventually, I'll go through every map on cl 3, probably within a week, to see if there's any more problems. For example, the tuttu-frutti you've mentioned is something I never see because I play GL ports, so I'll have to do a software mode check, maybe in ZDoom, to find them.

Wow, thanks for all the replies Steve. I hope you did enjoy those FDAs, I know they can be boring sometimes and I never expect people to watch them thoroughly. I'm going to reply to things a bit out of order here.

First, let's talk complevels and ports. Complevels won't have an effect on HOMs, or VPOs, or tutti-frutti for that matter, those are all engine bugs. Nor are those things that get recorded in demos. Complevel is really a PrBoom specific term anyhow, though other ports have similar options usually. You're right that Ultimate Doom should be complevel 3, in practice it doesn't matter too much unless you try to play back with the original vanilla exes.

Here's a short and informative thread on complevels, if you're interested: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/source-ports/54491-what-is-complevel/

My port of choice for complevel 2/3/4 maps is Crispy Doom which is based on Chocolate Doom but has raised limits. It sets a gameversion (complevel equivalent) based on the IWAD type automatically. It's what I used to record all these demos except the speedrun of E1M8 (which I did accidentally use complevel 2 for, but doesn't matter much in this map). E1M6 (and maybe some other maps?) definitely crash vanilla or Chocolate Doom, but work fine in Crispy.

Crispy Doom is basically the only port* that can play all of these maps that still has the tutti-frutti bug - ZDoom and PrBoom+ both don't display TFs even in software - and it's got a very small userbase right now (mainly me!) so you're not going to get a lot of people that will see the tuttis, and so I wouldn't be too concerned about fixing them. That said, at least some of these maps work in vanilla/chocolate Doom, which also displays tuttis of course.

(* There's also Doom2+ but I don't know that it gets used much outside of speedruns, and even then not very much these days I think.)

Now speaking of HOMs and ports and whatever, there are some HOMs in the windows of E1M7 in the room with the chainsaw. This one should show up in software-mode ZDoom. I think if you lower the floors of the sky sectors and give them a floor texture that isn't F_SKY1 you will fix it.

BTW I saw before you have problems running both Chocolate Doom and GLBoom+? Maybe make a post in the Source Ports forum if you want some help fixing that. If you can run Risen3D with a good framerate, you should be able to run GLBoom+, and pretty much anything should run Chocolate Doom.

OK lets talk about the maps themselves a bit!

I do stand by my earlier assessment that these maps are a bit easier than your previous offerings, though the later levels certainly have some bite to them. You do manage to make some good fights using cacos and barons with minimal grindy periods, which is always a danger with a lot of high-HP monsters and no SSG.

E1M9: you're right that going into it fresh there are lots of opportunities to get yourself into more trouble by running from what you've already got. I think it's a good map either way, so if you're happy with it, then it's just fine as is :D. I've played it a few times now, my route is to get the soulsphere first, then a box of shells in one of the hallways, then go to the chaingun. You take a decent amount of damage, but with the soulsphere it's fairly safe.

E1M5: I think I did find the computer secret, I tried to get to most places in these maps not just for gameplay's sake but to look for errors as well. I did feel in the last battle like my exploration paid off, because if I didn't have that plasma gun or a lot of ammo it would have been much harder. I don't think this is too sloggy at all.

E1M6: Oh yeah, I remember that bit about "fresh" nukage, haha. I don't know what constitutes nukage but might the freshest stuff be worse? :P ick! Anyhow I don't know if you felt inclined to borrow the SLIME flats from Doom 2 but having some visual indicator as to what's damaging and what's not might be nice. Unless it's meant to be a surprise. But the damaging vs. non-damaging sectors felt kind of inconsistent to me. A more subtle visual indicator would be to have the non-damaging sectors use NUKAGE2, so that an observant player could at least see a divide between damaging and non-damaging areas.

E1M7: Really liked this map, which I don't think I said before. Probably my favourite of the lot, which is why I didn't mind going through it a few times despite dying/getting stuck ;) It's got lots to explore, and lots to fight. I did kind of ignore your advice about not looking for secrets in slime, but I went ahead anyways, because (a) I like exploring maps, and (b) my "job" as a beta-tester is not just to have fun but to look for problems. And I found some! Anyhow it's not a big deal for gameplay, just means I have to save and then noclip + continue without a demo for the rest of the map.

It's funny just how hard spectres are to see when playing in a software renderer with a sane gamma setting, especially in a low-light area. Didn't help that my cat was bugging me for attention at the time (the pause in the demo was to feed her), but really I died legitimately in there.

Oh yeah, one more thing: You should replace the "Knee-Deep in the Dead" episode name title graphic, since you've got a full episode here.

Last thing: Since you're replacing the sky with the E4 sky anyhow (interesting choice! It's a nice texture though), if you want a vertically-tiling version, here you are. The window in E1M7 was the only place I noticed tiling, but maybe it appears elsewhere.