Doom 2 In Name Only - Now (supsiciously) on a load of gaming articles

Wow map08 is totally different since I last played it. Cool map, I think the old version was more stylistically fitting for "tricks and traps" as it felt like being a rat in a laboratory maze before, where the new one is more like a crazy unpredictable techbase. But the new one plays better I have to say.

I had to cheat the bit where you press 2 switches to raise the bars, by opening one set, then standing under them so they bounced off my head when they lowered before opening the others. Its the only way I could do both in time.

Eris Falling said:

edit: What HUD is that plums?

Crispy Doom! A Chocolate Doom fork. My favourite port for vanilla and moderately limit-removing maps. Also one of the few ports that still has tutti frutti and monsters-sleep-on-reloading-your-save bugs, for better or worse.
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/source-ports/67168-crispy-doom-1-2-update-10apr14-fixed-mouse-look/


MAP29: Another great map by Antroid. I don't think I've played any of your maps outside of D2INO, I'll have to check some out. Any recommendations?

I found one problem in this map that should be fixed. I also found several things that bothered me slightly, but are purely subjective, and at this point probably shouldn't be changed.

The bug is that this hidden (near the rooftop fight) door doesn't work. I'm not sure why, the linedef type suggests that it should, but it doesn't.




Now for the other stuff. I think it was awesome the way the map shifted around obviously in front of the player, I would have made even more moving sectors and things just for the visual effect. It really gave the map an otherworldly feel.

It looks a little funny to have the rivets of these textures right on a corner.




A personal pet peeve of mine is artificially restricting the player, especially with no visual indication. This comes up a few times in this map, most notably in the rooftop cyberdemon fight. Honestly I'd have preferred being able to fall to my death, though I know many people would disagree.




The end fight with a single cyberdemon was utterly non-threatening. There are 3 cybers in this map and the last one is by far the easiest. In general this is a pretty easy map too, which doesn't feel quite right considering the somewhat grandiose concept and map slot. The lead up to that area looked really nice, especially being able to see that spot earlier in the map and wondering if I'd have to fight there, and having such a pushover encounter there was a bit of a let down.

Actually if I had one complaint overall about D2INO, it's that the difficulty curve is less a curve and more a random squiggle. Some of the most challenging maps were in the first episode. Oh well, it's still been quite fun. With that said, on to MAP30!

plums said:

MAP29: Another great map by Antroid. I don't think I've played any of your maps outside of D2INO, I'll have to check some out. Any recommendations?

Not really, I haven't released maps before joining this project. Well, I do have e3m3 in "Bedlam" but that one's a typical doom 1 size and style (probably even smaller) so it's not impressive or interesting, although it was well-received.

plums said:

The bug is that this hidden (near the rooftop fight) door doesn't work. I'm not sure why, the linedef type suggests that it should, but it doesn't.

Thanks for spotting this! I think it's the bullshit "floor is lower than -512 WAH WAH" problem again. It gave me quite a bit of trouble on this map before. This is linedef 3988, and if you change the action from 71 to 23 (S1 lower to lowest floor) it starts working properly. Eris? I trust you, do this and plz don't leave in a player start afterwards.

plums said:

It looks a little funny to have the rivets of these textures right on a corner.

Can't be helped I'm afraid, same with how when a column of these boxes shifts the rivets that previously looked whole get cut in half. I had to ignore this if I had any chance to stay sane through all the texture and linedef alignment in the map.

plums said:

A personal pet peeve of mine is artificially restricting the player, especially with no visual indication. This comes up a few times in this map, most notably in the rooftop cyberdemon fight. Honestly I'd have preferred being able to fall to my death, though I know many people would disagree.

Oh, believe you me, if this was possible to do in any sort of adequate fashion in this area I would absolutely do it. I didn't want there to be any ground in here however, and doom can't do insta fall death like hexen. At least I tried to have the inviso-walls as far as possible so it doesn't feel quite as restricting as it would if I just made the building ledges impassible.

On difficulty, well, it just so happens that I'm rather rubbish at Doom, so when I was making this map it definitely felt like penultimate level material. People also said it was tough enough back then. But then I saw some other maps we have and learned that my maps are fuckin' nothing in terms of being harsh and a challenge. Oh well! Let it be a climactic map purely atmospherically.
The final cyber fight is supposed to be totally optional by the way, this was discussed in the thread before but I always intended it as a nod to the original map with the same issue.

Antroid said:

The final cyber fight is supposed to be totally optional by the way, this was discussed in the thread before but I always intended it as a nod to the original map with the same issue.

Hah, didn't even think of that but that's quite an appropriate reference. OK!

I totally understand about the texture alignment issue and the trade-off between 'making it look perfect' and 'not going crazy'. Especially when the threat of VPOs is always looming overhead.

MAP30: And so, we reach the conclusion of D2INO. A funny map; I'd actually played it before, and initially it seems quite overwhelming but once you figure out how it works and what the objective is, it's almost easy. Also, starting at the BFG area and heading in the direction of the plasma rifle makes the whole map much easier. Which is a bit unfortunate, since initially there's an appearance of being able to start at any point. Oh well, it's still a nice map and has an epic feel, much more so than the original Icon of Sin.

No bugs that I found, and the only nitpicks are that the actual icon head texture looks a bit odd without the DBRAIN texture behind it, and this fireplace where you can move right into the grate texture. Very negligible.



Excellent wad guys. Congrats on sticking with it!

The trouble with map30 i guess is that its difficulty rises in proportion to how long you take playing it. I wonder if I could somehow adjust it to add more challenge the quicker you play...

Yeah, the first time I played it I dallied around a bit trying to figure out where to go, and by the time I got to some of the later sections it was basically impossible given the supplies I had. I think it works OK overall though.

I guess if you released a wave of enemies each time you got a weapon, it might make faster play harder? Or at least slow the player down a bit. Not sure.


edit: LOL at the link to the 'picture' of MAP29 in the first post.

Here's an experiment with map30 to make it harder if you beat it too quickly:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/z9efcridh3fhxco/ios7-apr27.wad

basically each section has an archvile who will teleport at the end if you closed off the monster spawner in under 25 seconds or didn't pick up the weapon. So the better you do the more archviles will appear at the end (up to 7).

I'm not suggesting putting this in the megawad unless people test it and say its ok, but i'd be interested to know what kind of difference it makes.

mouldy said:

I'm not suggesting putting this in the megawad unless people test it and say its ok, but i'd be interested to know what kind of difference it makes.

In fact, it's been a while since I last played your map, and you had managed to alter the gameplay and difficulty to be more comfortable. Even though I hear the spawn sound announcing that some annoying monsters are constantly being spawned, I can kind of "relax" in the map anyway. The ending archviles definitely make a difference that you need to stay in the map a bit longer to find and destroy the archviles in the final crowd, before you can safely climb to the peak.

I find it a proper and managable challenge. Put it there. Consider making those 48-units fences around the central area either a bit lower, or taller, because archviles can hit me over them while I almost cannot see them now.

scifista42 said:

Consider making those 48-units fences around the central area either a bit lower, or taller, because archviles can hit me over them while I almost cannot see them now.

Do you mean these fences?


There shouldn't be any archviles behind them until you have the red key, and by then they should have lowered to the ground.. Did something go wrong?

edit: actually I realised there is one bit of that wall which doesn't lower, I'll sort that out.

Yes, these. I recall at least one of them stayed up even in the end. Didn't pay attention to it, as I thought it was normal.

mouldy said:

I'm not suggesting putting this in the megawad unless people test it and say its ok, but i'd be interested to know what kind of difference it makes.

Works for me, gives the end a bit more challenge over just 'BFG everything to death', and didn't seem to impact the rest of the map at all.

I'd guess it makes the end even harder if you don't know what you're doing though, but given the nature of the map I don't see that as a huge problem.

edit: I didn't even realize until now that you don't need to get all the weapons though! I'd just assumed that getting the weapon is what lowers the part of the key gate. I'll give both versions a try skipping most weapons entirely.

plums said:

Works for me, gives the end a bit more challenge over just 'BFG everything to death', and didn't seem to impact the rest of the map at all.

I'd guess it makes the end even harder if you don't know what you're doing though, but given the nature of the map I don't see that as a huge problem.

edit: I didn't even realize until now that you don't need to get all the weapons though! I'd just assumed that getting the weapon is what lowers the part of the key gate. I'll give both versions a try skipping most weapons entirely.

I'm assuming people who don't know the map will be exploring it more which should hopefully mean they will have less archviles to deal with at the end (apart from the ones from monster spawners), but if there's one thing i've learned you can never tell what players will do. The red key is accessed simply by visiting all 7 areas, I wanted to make that as simple as possible because with such a convoluted map and infinite monsters flying around its not really the best environment for puzzle solving.

I figure that people playing consecutively might not go for the weapons, so the extra archviles will be a nice surprise for them. Picking up the weapons closes off the monster spawners in each area so it could be worth doing even if you are tooled up.

mouldy said:

I figure that people playing consecutively might not go for the weapons, so the extra archviles will be a nice surprise for them. Picking up the weapons closes off the monster spawners in each area so it could be worth doing even if you are tooled up.

I think there's a death exit on 29 though, currently?

Anyhow that really is easy trying to just go for each room, ignoring all the other weapons besides the BFG (and the SSG, which seems easier to get than to avoid). The viles do make it a bit harder, but if you know the map well enough to just go from one room to another you probably also know about the invulnerability in the BFG section, and that helps deal with that final area considerably.

I think it's fine though, like you said a convoluted map with monster spawners isn't great for solving hard puzzles. The way I see this map working is that people make a few attempts trying to figure out what to do while fighting off hordes, realize the solution, then start over and beat it without too much trouble. A bit of a nonstandard map in that regard, but interesting and effective anyhow.

Ah right, forgot about the death exit, I couldn't remember if that went in or not.

Here's a new version of map 30 with a few tweaks:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/i6ooq3g38e1348j/ios7-apr28.wad

I've added a cyberdemon to the central area, the idea being that if you blast through it fast you'll still have to deal with him, and if you trudge through it slow then he can help you thin out the hordes (maybe).

Cyberdemon was entirely negligible on a fast run, but I don't see him hurting anything either. Actually he did help distract some of the viles. And yes, he might even help on a slower attempt.

cyberdemon

In my opinion, it used to be interesting, challenging and balanced enough to strategically BFG out the central group while hiding from the viles. Cyberdemon just adds an unnecessary portion of randomness and chaos to the already big enough chaos. He'd just increase the probability of random death of a less skilled player. I advise to remove him.

I confess, I haven't actually played this new version yet. :)

In case you want it, here's a run of MAP30 with the apr28 version in 2:03. Could be under 2 minutes if I really tried for it. You can see what little difference the Cyberdemon makes here.

I loaded both D2INOB7b.wad and ios7-apr28.wad (in that order) when recording but you should only need the ios7 wad.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1262808

Fair enough, here it is without the cyberdemon:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/b46be8hg65hu1ye/ios7-apr28.wad

I wanted to avoid having a cyber in it anyway. I think given the concept was to have the map populated only by spawners then it will always be possible to run through quickly if you know where to go. Unless I physically slow people down by hampering the navigation, which I don't want to do. So I think its ok as it is.

To be honest, after 30 maps I never want to hang around in the last one myself :)

Map 17, its possible to get stuck in this little room facing the courtyard:

if you archvile jump through the window. I gather there is another way to get in there so maybe some blocking midbars over the window would do the trick.

By the way, good to see the lighting in the courtyard has been toned down, looks loads better now.

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MAP10
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Long hidden hallway with health potions - sectors 866 and 872 - both sectors tagged as secret - "two for the price of one" redundancy. I don't think this one is an homage.

------
MAP12
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Near the exit, line 2550, the edge of the wall between the Cyberdemon spot and the water, is not tagged as impassable. The AV could jump you up on the wall and you could end up in the water, stuck with no way out.

Lines 2651 and 2692, just north of the helicopter, are tagged as W End Level. No idea why. There's no way to get there. Was that the original exit?

I've been following the travails of Switcheroom not getting approved by Ty because of some maps that are too exactly like the originals. The last secret area - that's not an homage, that's a direct copy and paste from the original Doom2 MAP12. Will that pass muster with Ty?

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

Will that pass muster with Ty?

Who says he has to know about it ;)

Huh. Those extra secrets are probably few brainfarts when I decided to do some sectors and then made some adjustments/more details. Thought I weeded them out.

Copypasting from other wads(especially the IWADs) is like the height of mapping laziness. Just make a new area to replace it, don't be uncreative.

Ah I just found it..
That's definitely going to need some editing. Rather get it out the way now than end up in Switcheroom's position.

EDIT: Actually before this post I checked the original project thread to see the guidelines on what was expected of homages. And I couldn't find any, so not sure where that came in. Can't really be bothered to scan through the entire thread, but by judgement, I have to say I agree with Effingham.

It was me who had suggested to put homages in secrets. I remember saying so on one of the first pages in the original thread. Ella guro was in agreement with me. Copypaste / copyright issues didn't strike my mind at all at that time. Still, you know how I've approached the homage in MAP19 - safely. :)

Marcaek said:

Copypasting from other wads(especially the IWADs) is like the height of mapping laziness. Just make a new area to replace it, don't be uncreative.

It was a feature which came from the inception of this project where we put little snippets of the original maps into a secret as an easter egg of sorts. So no laziness on my part are these can be found in a few of the maps in this wad as well as this one.
On another note considering the issues with Switcheroom then I will alter the areas effected in my maps at least.

Kinda of a weird thing to do for something called "Doom 2 In name only" IMO, but if you're going to do a homage it's best to do it on a conceptual level rather than outright lift the area you're replicating.

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to pee in the pool. If it had been textured differently with different item placement and monster choice or if the monsters sectors had lowered instead of rising or the central floor had dropped to the monster's level as you walked over it, I would have smiled and thought "nice change-up" and referred to the homage. But in Switcheroom, Ty cited specific sections of specific maps which were similar and then quoted the mapmaker's design comments from the thread. So yeah, Ty would have known about it.

I don't remember any talk of that idea at all, weird :/ Although map19's homage secret is brilliant, and it is certainly safe in terms of copyright and whatnot.

I couldn't resist doing homages myself - map04's indoors have the two texture themes I remember from the original (green metal and cement basement), map29 has that totally useless cyberdemon, slow rising floor at the start instead of slow lowering from the original, and a big faraway structure where the exit is that is visible very early on.
Map24 has that slimefall tunnel secret right at the end that was also inspired by the original chasm's slimefall "maze" area.

Good thing there was no rule against homages that I missed somehow!