Ancient Aliens - final version on idgames

stewboy said:

The midis are fine to use in other doom projects (spread them around!) though credit in the text file would be nice :)

Does this include the midis that were used in BTSX? I think map 03 has a midi from there. Now, I know you made it though :D

The_Trigger said:

Does this include the midis that were used in BTSX? I think map 03 has a midi from there. Now, I know you made it though :D

All midis that are in BTSX E1 and E2 are allowed to be used in other projects. The same will be true for E3's tracks once the set has a release, I would assume.

AD_79 said:

All midis that are in BTSX E1 and E2 are allowed to be used in other projects. The same will be true for E3's tracks once the set has a release, I would assume.

Well considering some BTSX E3 midis are already in other projects...

Tarnsman said:

Well considering some BTSX E3 midis are already in other projects...

shhhhhhh

"yeah, I should replace that" - AD 79, 2015 AD

:P

Cynical said:

I had no problems with the YK side at all, but two attempts at the map yielded 2 deaths from 200 health at the stupid 2-vile trap.

How could you possibly die with 200 health? A Vile blast does what, 70+ damage? You take cover from one and eat a blast from the other while spamming rockets at him. Then it should be trivial to use cover to finish off the one Vile.

That section is fine and doesn't need a change on UV. It's jokes difficulty-wise compared to other stuff in hard wads. You want unfair, look at something like the Sunlust map 20 crypt mutli-vile/baron/cyber trap which will kill you several times, every time.

That's what made BTSX E2 less impressive than E1 in a way. In E1 everything was fresh and new, it felt like a complete "new resources only" project. But in E2 there was an old song already strongly associated with that Interception map by ProcessingControl and maybe some other stuff as well (don't remember), so it had a different feel closer to these wads like Scythe 2 with a bunch of midis ripped from various resources. Dunno why they had to do it like this.

edit: oh yeah, another one was the song from Resurgence Map32.

stewboy said:

The midis are fine to use in other doom projects (spread them around!) though credit in the text file would be nice :)

Thanks for the clarification... although a part of me tells me it just wouldn't feel right to use them anywhere else.

kuchitsu said:

edit: oh yeah, another one was the song from Resurgence Map32.

According to the metadata, that was intended for BTSX. Also didn't Resurgence come out later anyway?

EDIT: The interception track isn't supposed to be there I think, but I'm not sure.

Thanks again all. I've noted more bugs and issues and am working on fixing them. Additionally, I'm working on implementing a cool thing dew suggested.

Also, I (or Joshy) will take a look at that AV trap and see if we can tune it a bit.

Anyways the difficulty settings adjustment will come as soon as I can get it done, but it's probably going to take a while. At the moment what I'm planning is for UV to be the intended experience, HMP to be a slightly easier version (with some problematic monsters removed and slightly more generosity in supplies), and HNTR to be a casual friendly setting that hopefully at least keeps the spirit of each map intact. Since difficulty settings are really subjective and hard for me to tune, feedback from those of you who are interested in playing on HTNR will be extremely useful to me once I get the next RC out.

rdwpa said:

This will probably end up being one of my five favorite megawads ever. If there's anything I can criticize, however, it's the thematic homogeneity so far (up to map09).

Cool, glad you're enjoying it. I did try to include some unique elements here and there: eg, the oasis in MAP05, the garden setting of MAP10, the UFO reveal in MAP08, etc.The thematic homogeneity is hopefully less noticeable in E2 and E3 which both include hard thematic shifts. E3 also has the largest number of guest maps.

rdwpa said:

In map01, map03, and map04 -- there are three "turreted central monster exerting pressure while being uneconomical to kill" maps very close to one another, and map05 followed it up with a similar concept in using a roving cyber! For variety's sake, I'm not a huge fan of map04, which I feel is the most typical of the bunch.

Trivia time: before Ancient Aliens was a megawad, it was a just a small mapset about ammo starvation and turrets you can't deal with. You're playing through the remnants of that :D Based on how people seem to be reacting to those maps, I'm glad I didn't pursue it much further. I enjoy that style of map though.

Sure Bowb said:

At the end of the day, you can't please everybody... and yes, that is why trying to do so is an exercise in futility...

And yes, this is why difficulties are so enormously difficult to get right as a mapper. I just try my best to make UV the experience I want to play. I'll try to accomodate less experience players a little better with HNTR ASAP.

negke said:

Btw. you forgot to credit sock in the readme for some of the Egyptian textures.

My bad! These have been used in so many Doom wads without proper accreditation. I think the assumption has been that they were from Powerslave or Hexen II. I'll make sure to credit Sock.

Eris Falling said:

All the nodes are in extended format (not supported) and the musinfo lump causes a crash for some reason. But by rebuilding nodes and removing the musinfo, zdaemon runs it fine.
We're hoping to have it in Thursday Night Survival on ZDaemon soon, though I think we're going to wait until RC2 is released first,assuming skillsaw has no objections, of course!

Be my guest. You may need to rebuild the nodes again for the final release, though. I'd appreciate it if you could try to make sure servers don't run the outdated RC2 version after a final build comes out.

AD_79 said:

Quick thing: Noticed this on MAP20. No idea how I missed it when I was making the map o_O

Fixed!

Tango said:

Are these resources free to use, by the way? A lot of these textures appear to be new, so I'm not sure what the status is on using those. Would also love to be able to use this PLAYPAL since these colors are so damn great :D

I am planning on releasing the aa-tex resources as soon as I have time. I'm hoping to reorganize them a bit so that there's less fat and they're named better. But yeah, go ahead I guess. I am considering including a 'template' playpal that would allow easy definition of new ranges but am not sure if the logistics of that are as easy as I think. We'll see.

Lastly, Kotaku found aaliens today, which I thought was cool!
http://kotaku.com/mod-turns-doom-into-an-ancient-alien-world-1775706598

Is this a ZDoom thing? (2.8.1)

kuchitsu said:

That's what made BTSX E2 less impressive than E1 in a way. In E1 everything was fresh and new, it felt like a complete "new resources only" project. But in E2 there was an old song already strongly associated with that Interception map by ProcessingControl and maybe some other stuff as well (don't remember), so it had a different feel closer to these wads like Scythe 2 with a bunch of midis ripped from various resources. Dunno why they had to do it like this.

edit: oh yeah, another one was the song from Resurgence Map32.

I wasn't aware of that when it was released. Stewboy handed us a bunch of midis at some point during development that, at the time we received them, hadn't been used elsewhere AFAIK. It's not a big deal IMO -- it's hard for me to comprehend how two original songs also appearing in another wad could somehow make any of the tons of other original content less original by association. Out of all the thousands of new assets, two midis that appear elsewhere change the nature of the entire project?

edit: The Resurgence track was used with permission after it was already released as part of BTSX. Joshy wanted to use it specifically because of the relation to the BTSX map it was used on. The logic here really perplexes me -- eventually all the resources are going to be made public and used elsewhere, not just a couple of midis. Is that going to somehow make BTSX a "ripped resources project" in retrospect, despite its resources having been created specifically for it?

kuchitsu said:

That's what made BTSX E2 less impressive than E1 in a way. In E1 everything was fresh and new, it felt like a complete "new resources only" project. But in E2 there was an old song already strongly associated with that Interception map by ProcessingControl and maybe some other stuff as well (don't remember), so it had a different feel closer to these wads like Scythe 2 with a bunch of midis ripped from various resources. Dunno why they had to do it like this.

edit: oh yeah, another one was the song from Resurgence Map32.

You're being way too picky.

I also found four more bugs :
1)MAP24 - Projectiles move to the building (happens on both sides)

2)MAP09 - Stuck imp on a ledge

3)MAP15 - Stuck Spider MasterMind on a step

4)One of the last five maps forgot to set block monster linedefs around a teleport and a mancubus teleported into a tiny a space it couldn't fit; thus got stuck in a wall.

Another thing that bothers me in every map are the tiny mandatory buttons that you'll likely miss and will roam the map for a few minutes before seeing the switch, it was especially irritating in MAP18 where monsters are of infinite amounts and keep on respawning. These tiny switches should be glowing.

The stuck monsters are a result of Boom letting monsters slide over ledges partially. Perhaps some platform-building accident in the case of the spider. There's no good solution here that wouldn't inflict serious damage to the design in another way. The upside is you probably won't encounter them if you replay the maps, at least not the same way.

I'd like to know what devilry is going on in the first picture though, heh.

IIRC I didn't actually submit that track from interception to btsx e2, I made an original midi for that btsx map but for reasons I don't remember it didn't get used and the interception midi got used instead. Both are present in AA though.
With AA I was never intending to have the whole megawad have original music, even back when it was only half the size it grew to - it's just too much work to write that amount of original songs when I have lots of uni work and orchestra rehearsals/concerts to worry about. I still liked the idea of being the sole musician for a megawad though, especially this one which gave me so much room to experiment, so there's a dozen or so tracks from elsewhere. I hope that doesn't take too much away from the novelty of it. As it is, about two thirds of the music is completely new (depending on your definition of 'completely new'), so I hope that's enough!

Incidentally if anyone gets to Kass's map and notices a brief out of tune section in the midi, that's my fault for trying to 'improve' a section which then broke another section which I didn't notice. It'll be fixed next update.

Havox: A lot of them wouldn't fit your standard doom map atmosphere, but there's plenty of unusual maps out there which they'd be great for!

joe-ilya said:

magic rocket

WHAT

Edit: Understand what's going on now. This is a lesser-known side-effect of using a floor transfer effect on a sector combined with a scrolling floor. That sector may then scroll things on it regardless of their height. Didn't realize it literally applied to all things though. Fixing it may require taking out the Q3 teleport ring thing I was going for, but will do it for the sake of having the player get killed by that mancubus.

...Should it work with Brutal Doom?

Is it even recommended with Brutal Doom?

lupinx-Kassman said:

WHAT

Edit: Understand what's going on now. This is a lesser-known side-effect of using a floor transfer effect on a sector combined with a scrolling floor. That sector may then scroll things on it regardless of their height. Didn't realize it literally applied to all things though. Fixing it may require taking out the Q3 teleport ring thing I was going for, but will do it for the sake of having the player get killed by that mancubus.

Now I want to see a video of a BFG shot going round in a circle forever.

Tuaam said:

...Should it work with Brutal Doom?

Yes

Tuaam said:

Is it even recommended with Brutal Doom?

No

this wad is literaly porn! beautiful beautiful porn

Oh hell and I thought I was going to sleep earlier tonight.

BlackFish said:

Oh hell and I thought I was going to sleep earlier tonight.

same here...

skillsaw said:

Lastly, Kotaku found aaliens today, which I thought was cool!
http://kotaku.com/mod-turns-doom-into-an-ancient-alien-world-1775706598

Oh wow, I didn't think they'd actually post about it. I sen't an email to one of the writers the other day when I posted it all over facebook and such, awsome.(edit)In hind sight I'm sorry I didn't ask first before posting it all over and such, I got a bit excited and I hope I didn't step on anyones toes.

The colours alone warrant a "must play"

Mmmmm, cyan <3

Too bad my computer is dead.

Boom? Please work in Doom Retro. I'm going to try this weekend. Looks ludicrous, yet awesome. If it doesn't play in DR, I will be sorely disappointed. :P

skillsaw said:

I am planning on releasing the aa-tex resources as soon as I have time. I'm hoping to reorganize them a bit so that there's less fat and they're named better. But yeah, go ahead I guess. I am considering including a 'template' playpal that would allow easy definition of new ranges but am not sure if the logistics of that are as easy as I think. We'll see.

You're an angel, thanks man :D

Shadow Hog said:

Try crossing it diagonally - both strafing and moving forward at once. As you probably already know, you move faster when you do that, and that speed is sufficient to clear the gap.

Thanks for the tip. Straferunning isn't something I normally do in Doom but it worked in that case. I'm now stuck trying to get to that large secret area in MAP05 but there's no 100% completion demos on YouTube yet. ;(

Assuming you're talking about in the south-east: just east of where the Plasma Rifle is located, there's a column attached to the south side of the yellow key structure. On the north side of that column, a door will have opened during normal map progression, to let out a Hell Knight. Inside that door, there's a switch; flicking it will raise a platform just north of that big south-eastern area, which has a switch on it that you can repeatedly press to lower it like a lift.

Good god, this looks amazing. I like the mixture of textures used here.
Definitely gonna try this out soon.

Yeah Hoggy. That's the one. Thanks again! :D