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

Ok, just tossing around some ideas. I'll wait for dobugabumaru to say something on the matter and he seems to like your map as Nova I's super secret level so that's probably where it will stay. Good luck with Slaughterfest 2013!

As for Confluence's map position, dobugabumaru has said that maps 21-29 aren't really ordered properly yet so Confluence will probably be placed earlier in the sequence by idgames release. Map order really isn't set in stone yet at all, except for perhaps the first half of the maps.

Already made a few updates to Sensorium as I playtest through it, so here's another download

Sensorium v1.1, in MAP21's slot (just for the hell sky effect)
http://www.mediafire.com/?anh4b5v7qnjat0u

kildeth said:

Ok, I've finished my work for today on Sensorium's gameplay. I think it's nearly there now but it will require further testing, I myself am still testing it but I'll upload it to give you guys a look. It has difficulty settings and deathmatch implemented.

Sensorium v1.0 [on MAP21 - Nirvana's slot]
http://www.mediafire.com/?qzsbdri8fsn5qof

Tell me what you think and what needs to be improved.

I really enjoyed that, completely hectic and chaotic. I was playing it in the style of running madly about without killing stuff trying to find a safe spot, thankfully the way it all links up means you get the hang of the layout fairly quickly (after a few deaths!). I used up my rockets on the mastermind so had the cyber hassling me throughout the rest, which made things interesting. Amazingly I also never noticed the SSG which made things even more interesting.

Noticed a large visual glitch here:

I'm glad you liked it! I couldn't find the visual glitch in skulltag but I will say that after I made sizing adjustments to the whole map, a lot of the linedefs went off the grid and I didn't get around to correcting that particular room properly so that may be causing slime trails. I'll have to fix it up in the next update (tomorrow maybe?) and see if anyone catches more of them.

Newer version of power core
http://speedy.sh/BfzVx/Power-Core.wad
"the awkward moment when you realise your usage of metal 2 is complete garbage"
Cleaned the map up a bit so it should at least look better and I guess will do for the first beta.

Played Sensorium. Really cool, fluid layout that promotes experimentation since it is extremely nonlinear. I too left the cyb alive but it was because I used up my shells on the mastermind and didn't feel like pumping 50 rockets into the mechanical behemoth—keeping him around definitely spices up gameplay. I'll have to give it another whirl soon, but I really enjoyed the amount of secrets and goodies you've carved into this thing. Only thing I'll note for now is that the SSG should be on a platform or something a little more illuminated so the player can notice it (I luckily saw it). Also if you wanted to, at the exit you could have the player walk past the open gates and revs rise up out of the blood, which may make for an entertaining finale. But I'm not sure how the deep pool of blood works in -complevel2 as I recall someone saying enemies won't fire/can't hit you back when we played Memento Mori (maybe it was vanilla compat?)

I agree with Hurricyclone on Riptide's slot. I've stated before that I think Immaterium is interesting enough that it shouldn't be relegated to the MAP32 slot, and Riptide really works well there.

As per Confluence's placement, if Hurricyclone wants it earlier we'll place it earlier. Hell's Playground can serve the role of a lighter hell map, so it could go as follows:

MAP21 - Confluence
MAP22 - Bad Blood
MAP23 - Power Core
MAP24 - Immaterium
MAP25 - River of Blood
MAP26 - Hell's Playground
MAP27 - Sensorium

Again, this is all speculation as it leaves out Beta Base. It looks like E3 is shaping up to be a more open, choose-your-path affair which is interesting (23, 25, 27, 28, 30). And it'd be great to have you onboard for Megiddo kildeth, I really enjoy the open approach to your maps.

I forgot to mention about sensorium, jumping out of the window of the secret room with arachnotron into the deep blood pool gave me a brief view of HOMs when I hit the bottom. Guess my head went under for a moment.

Works for me!

I change my mind about not participating for NOVA II, I might actually be a playtester, but not a mapper this time around. That is, if I have the time.

Thanks for everyone's commentary on Sensorium. I'll make the necessary adjustments to the SSG and attempt to iron out the visual glitches.

There is plenty of time to decide about NOVA II participation. This current project has been going on since November 2011 and has had heaps of mappers/playtesters come and go throughout its development and NOVA II might be similar if it takes a long time to complete.

EDIT: First post cleaned up and updated with most recent downloads + maplist.

Sensorium v1.2 [moved to MAP27]
http://www.mediafire.com/?ae2kd7jv5s820or

Addressing concerns:
- SSG now illuminated
- Pool less deep so there should be no HOM when jumping into it
- Architecture snapped to grid in room mouldy was having visual errors with, hopefully fixing the issue

Compiled this just for the sake of educating myself in map compilation. It contains some requested map reshuffling, Hell's Playgrounds, Power Core and Sensorium updates, as well as Iron Exuviae with the linedefs fixed (I just went in Doom Builder 2 and did it myself to save time). Still not ready for playtesting by the general Dooming public but anyone can take a look and critique if they so wish, some stuff is still unfinished that's all.

Nova: The Birth, pre-beta 2
http://www.mediafire.com/?zn391q4zwv148u9

Including:
MAP01 - “Outpost” by PRIMEVAL
MAP02 - “Administration Center” by Jaws In Space
MAP03 - “Water Treatment Plant” by mrthejoshmon
MAP04 - “Factory Factor” by EvilNed
MAP05 - “Hazard Facility” by kildeth
MAP06 - “Sewage Processing” by Arjak
MAP07 - “Service Station Sick” by EvilNed
MAP08 - “Compound” by mrthejoshmon
MAP09 - “Suspend” by Fuzzyfireball
MAP10 - “Hell's Furnace” by EvilNed
MAP11 - “Phobus Anomaly” by Phobus
MAP12 - “Incubator” by mrthejoshmon
MAP13 - “Warehouse District” by sgt Dopey
MAP14 - “Ring of Gyges” by Stygian
MAP15 - “The Prisoner” by cannonball [no secret exit]
MAP16 - “Man Cub Up” by EvilNed
MAP17 - “Teleportarium” by Paul D
MAP18 - “Castle Bloodletting” by Arjak
MAP19 - “Sewer City” by EvilNed
MAP20 - “Beta Base” by joe-ilya
MAP21 - “Confluence” by Hurricyclone
MAP22 - “Bad Blood” by mouldy
MAP23 - “Power Core” by cannonball
MAP24 - “Immaterium” by Paul D [unfinished]
MAP25 - “River of Blood” by mouldy and Death Egg [unpolished, no intermission title, using Immundum's]
MAP26 - “Hell's Playgrounds” by joe-ilya [no intermission title]
MAP27 - “Sensorium” by kildeth and Alwaysdoomed
MAP28 - “The Seventh Circle” by mouldy
MAP29 - “Extorta Nova” by fiend-o-hell
MAP30 - “Megiddo” by dobugabumaru, mouldy, cannonball and others [unfinished, using Immundum's midi]
MAP31 - “Iron Exuviae” by dobugabumaru
MAP32 - “Riptide” by Hurricyclone

Not Including:
“Immundum” by dobugabumaru [pending map]

Oh, thank God! I thought Dobugabumaru had cut Castle Bloodletting from the wad. I was starting to get worried. "What do you MEAN my best map got cut!?" All that stuff.

Seriously, if it comes down to making such decisions, I'd much rather have Castle Bloodletting in there than Sewage Processing. I personally feel that Castle is a much better map and more indicative of my abilities as a mapper.

Oh no, sorry to worry you, if you saw Bad Blood was accidentally listed twice since I forgot to list that your map took its original slot. And don't worry about cutting maps, we're primarily looking at Immaterium or one of joe's maps getting moved to NOVA 2 right now, everyone else is safe.

EDIT: Since you're back to compiling kildeth I'll leave everything in your hands. Here are the two missing intermission titles. I gave some thought to "River of Blood" and if no one minds I've renamed it "Stygian Bile". If mouldy wants another name I'd be happy to oblige.

Hehe, not keen on Stygian Bile myself, sounds like something you have to mop up from a hospital floor. Seeing as the map has blood flowing and thin interconnected tunnels it reminds me of veins and arteries in a body, how about something along those lines... "Arterium" perhaps, I'll have a think and see if anything comes to mind.

Vile Arterium? Rotten Arterium? Godless Arterium? A whole bunch of adjectives could easily fit before it, just throwing random darts at the board.

Vile Arterium sounds good, lets go with that

Ok. Updated the intermission titles for kildeth

just been idclev/idclipping through the wad but it looks nice and solid great job guys, will play them properly at my own pace and let you guys know if i stumble upon something
a bit of a secret breaking bug in immaterium I think either the sphere could be closer to the edge or the ledge a bit wider
http://i.imgur.com/1jrVLAT.png
pretty sure it was prboom+ complevel 2

Updated map15 with secret exit plus a lot of other tweaks
http://speedy.sh/7HVFt/Theprisoner.wad

^ Thanks for making the secret exit a bloodfall, I always appreciate when unassociated maps feel tied together.

Ran through the prebeta today looking for (completed) maps without difficulties. They are as follows:

MAP04 - “Factory Factor”
MAP07 - “Service Station Sick”
MAP10 - “Hell's Furnace”
MAP13 - “Warehouse District”
MAP16 - “Man Cub Up”
*MAP19 - “Sewer City” has difficulties, but only removes 20 out of the 300 enemies between skills 2 and 4 so it'll have to be looked at.
MAP26 - “Hell's Playgrounds”
*MAP29 - “Extorta Nova” only removes five negligible enemies

We'll wait a little while before tinkering around with EvilNed's maps, hoping he'll show up sometime. Any mappers willing to cover for these would be greatly appreciated.

no problem, it was worth the effort instead of just making a generic exit. I think it turned out ok in the end :)
Still I might change the computer maze section a little, it's too flat and corridor like at the moment, but pretty happy with the rest now.

While we're discussing EvilNed's maps, I was having a playthrough of Nova the other day, and noticed that the bars blocking the exit in Service Station Sick could be bypassed - without one removing them with the switch first, if they just scooted around them to the right. There might need to be a pillar in place where the platform with the bars intersects the nukage pool to stop this from happening.

I checked that level out and while they can be scooted by it's a relatively small area to maneuver around. If necessary we could just add lines and make a small impassible sector next to the bars, but I don't see it as wildly problematic. Plus it could make for an interesting UV Max.

True. On second thought I say leave it, it's not an issue and some gamers like things they can exploit like that.

I'm up to Hell's Furnace now. One thing I've noticed about the wad so far is that the music sounds really good. Nubhat + Paul D have done a really good job at the soundtrack. MAP09 'Suspend' seems to be where the challenge kicks in, which is good as I recall Doom II got more challenging at this point in its own sequence.

I'll finish my playthrough of Nova pre-beta 2 and maybe make a few textural changes to Sensorium and therefore finalise it before I begin work on my portion of Megiddo. If there is still time after that and if no-one has claimed it yet I might have a shot at completing Immaterium. By then we should be ready to finalise the project and open it up to proper beta testing.

I've started playing through the pre-beta as well, and I've completed the first ten maps on a straight-through run. I'm playing many of these maps for the first time and I've got to say, you guys are very talented.

Here are my thoughts so far:

The overall difficulty is quite good. It's probably just because I suck and play with the keyboard, but I'm playing on ITYTD and I'm still having trouble. I haven't died yet, but there have been a lot of close calls. Still, I'm being quite careful with save games, and I did restart Service Station Sick after I fell in the sewage river and the monsters wouldn't let me back up until I had killed them all, losing a LOT of health in the process. Then when I played to that point again, I noticed the Soul Sphere secret. Doh!

I agree with Kildeth. The music is excellent. My favorites so far are the tracks for Hazard Facility and Hell's Furnace. Now that I think about it, there needs to be a Cacoward for the wad with the best music!

The maps are all very well designed and quite fun. I haven't played one here yet that has left me feeling unsatisfied. I can't wait to play more!


Favorite map so far: Hell's Furnace - Not only does it have an epic music track, but the idea was unique and the flow was excellent. I've been trying to practice switching weapons on the fly, and when I got to that big ambush at the end, not only was I startled and freaked out (I wasn't really thinking about the consequences of my actions at that moment.), I was pissed! The moment I found cover, I broke out the Rocket Launcher and went wild! Actually, there were a lot of good surprises in this map. By the time I finished it, I was completely jazzed up. Good job, EvilNed. Well done.

Ha, you're probably enjoying it so much because you're essentially playing on UV as EvilNed doesn't have difficulties for his map :P Also I definitely agree that the music is superb for this megawad; it's always good to hear new and interesting tracks rather than playing a level and hearing one of the Doom 2 or TNT tracks for the nth time.

Immundum should be ready tomorrow. I've started my section of Megiddo and I got a pretty twisted idea...



Might take a while, but I think it'd be cool if I somehow incorporated every map into this. Biggest problem is that I don't want to drag out the length...

Here's a very slightly updated version of Ring of Gyges.

I used find-and-replace mode to make the texture scheme a little less monochrome and changed a few things around to make the gameplay less linear.

EDIT: Oops. I linked the wrong file. This is the correct version.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fe11ea1s9bhx1cu/gyges4(2).wad

dobugabumaru said:

Ha, you're probably enjoying it so much because you're essentially playing on UV as EvilNed doesn't have difficulties for his map :P Also I definitely agree that the music is superb for this megawad; it's always good to hear new and interesting tracks rather than playing a level and hearing one of the Doom 2 or TNT tracks for the nth time.

Immundum should be ready tomorrow. I've started my section of Megiddo and I got a pretty twisted idea...

Might take a while, but I think it'd be cool if I somehow incorporated every map into this. Biggest problem is that I don't want to drag out the length...

That sounds like a GREAT idea for Megiddo! And yep, I'm actually playing all maps at Ultra-Violence skill level just for the challenge of it. I'm up to Warehouse District and got stumped because there is a red key marked door that opens normally and no red key on the map, so I just avoided it until I forgot and clicked on it, causing it to open. Should we change this or keep it just to confuse people? Would it be annoying?

Was cruising through Iron Exuviae and I found this visual bug:


Might I just add that dobugabumaru is a god and I want to be his apprentice in all things Doom. Heh.

EDIT: You can also get stuck in a certain point on The Seventh Circle just after the bit with the Revenant and the 2 Chaingunners. Hopefully this picture helps.

Obsidian said:

EDIT: You can also get stuck in a certain point on The Seventh Circle just after the bit with the Revenant and the 2 Chaingunners. Hopefully this picture helps.

Cheers, I'm a bloody idiot for missing that, also the floor isn't damaging

Also noticed no multiplayer starts on my maps. I'll sort out some updates today

Immundum is mostly done, sans difficulties. Download here. MAP20.

I’ll state right off the bat that I have a lot of mixed feelings on this, but I’ll wait to hear criticism before I express my concerns. I’ll only note that if people play it and aren't keen on it, we can remove it from the mapset as I'm sure its sheer length will be a point of criticism for many players.

Oh, and godspeed anyone attempting to max this as there’s a completely optional final area I included just to test your resolve. If you’ve played my 100 lines maps you know what to expect. I've also only played in PRboom a handful of times so there's bound to be errors I missed.

dobugabumaru said:

Immundum is mostly done, sans difficulties. Download here.

The link is broken.