Nova III - now on /idgames

Well we got there in the end! Thanks for seeing this through @Scotty & co.

Maybe I forgot to send the update version of my map through but you've included an older version with a few bugs - there's quite a likely softlock early in the current version.

I played through the first few maps in coop too and noticed similar issues:

map02 - the door that locks at the crushers won't open if the player inside dies before the red key pickup

map03 - a lot of monsters can be skipped if shared keys are on after someone gets the red key

map05 - same as map02, the door doesn't open if someone dies in the crusher room before hitting the switch

map06 - during the pit trap, the people who wait at the top can attack the archviles before they are revealed to the person below

map10 - one player spawned in the voodoo closet

Nova3-amok-DS9mm.rar

Thanks all. I will look to update to RC2 in around 2 weeks as i am not going to be home for a bit over the new year. I figure i probably should add MAPINFO so this will be included in RC2 as well as fixes to any bugs mentioned in time.

All reviews are on UV continuous, tagging people whose maps have bugs:

MAP01 is fine, I guess. Good opening map, nothing remarkable.

@Tactical Stiffy MAP02 has a secret on the red key room that's reachable with infinitely tall actors off, just jump from the altar to the pillar things and then jump off the window. Also, the lava in the room with the yellow key doesn't hurt you. A touch more of HP in the final arena couldn't hurt.

MAP03 went from a generic beginner map to something that I didn't even recognize until going to the outside part. No complaints.

MAP04: Blood music? Unusual, not very doomy, but sure. A bit nostalgic for some.

5 and 6 lost to playing while drunk, sorry

MAP07: lots of arenas, who are you, ribbiks?
jokes aside, not bad, not bad, the first map that I really stopped and went "whoa, this is good." If I had to complain about something, it's that it lacks a Something. Not a certain something, but a Something in the sense of one memorable thing, some epic vista, or a building, or some sector art. Play the start of MAP10 and look through the window straight ahead from the beginning for a good example.

MAP08: Still maybe too short on HP. Or did I complain it was short on shells the last time I playtested it? Because shells are fine now. Good map, maybe a bit too hard but eh. Can't judge too hard because my maps also were hard as hell.

MAP09: Short, sweet, hard. Definitely need to poke at this with pistol start. Love pretty much everything of the detailing, but specially the exit room.

MAP10: Good to see a less gimmicky map after your JPCP maps. Not that they weren't good, they were excellent. But making a good serious map is quite harder than a silly and good map. Things like the window at the start, letting you see a further part of the map, the darkened stalagmites and trees. Great arenas, great everything.

@P1NKAC1D MAP11: Oh hey I played this one before. It's still good; Great, great start for the second section of maps.
A bug to report though, you can trigger the fight against 4 arachnotrons behind the yellow door and escape back through it to cheese the fight.

MAP12: The start might be a bit too much for a pistol start. Or not. I guess it's okay, I'm just not a big fan of it. The yellow key part has very pretty architecture, love it.

Also, found a bug on MAP15. You can trigger the teleport in the hole just in front of the screenshot and get to the secret way more easily than supposed. And before you complain it's impossible to find it intentionally, I found it by accident, because some players love to mash action when walking around.

The images reveal some rather groovy stuff awaiting. I've seen this a while ago but it didn't catch my attention at the time. Now it does, lol.

One question though - what is this supposed to be? Boom, MBF, ZDoom I mean, what ports are supported? The OP provides no play information.

16 minutes ago, seed said:

The OP provides no play information.

The text file accompanying the wad, however, does :D

1 minute ago, Scotty said:

The text file accompanying the wad, however, does :D

Ah, oops, didn't expect that :p .

On 12/20/2019 at 2:16 AM, Albertoni said:

 

@P1NKAC1D MAP11: Oh hey I played this one before. It's still good; Great, great start for the second section of maps.
A bug to report though, you can trigger the fight against 4 arachnotrons behind the yellow door and escape back through it to cheese the fight.

With or without getting the key that you get in that arena? Because without, escaping the fight would be useless, you would need to get back and get the red key anyway

On 12/22/2019 at 7:39 PM, P1NKAC1D said:

With or without getting the key that you get in that arena? Because without, escaping the fight would be useless, you would need to get back and get the red key anyway

Without, but my point is that you can kill all the enemies using the door as a chokepoint instead of everyone firing at you from all directions.

Hello hello, NOVA II is likely going to be the club winner for DWMC next month, so if an RC2 is in the works, it'd be nice to have :)

But NOVA II was already played in the DWMC

I will try to figure something out... Am not at home for the next few weeks. 

Here is RC2. Please use RC2b, available in this post.

MAPINFO added (prevents jumping and crouching, adds "intro" storyboard after map01)

List of fixes:

map02 - MP softlock

map03 - unclosed sector

map05 - switch and MP softlock

map06 - teleporter destination now present on all difficulties

map07 - misc fixes by paul

map10 - MP starts fixed

map15 - texture fixes

map19 - misc fixes by paul

map22 - misc fixes by paul

map29 - added amok's new version

There appears to be a bug with the Earth sky in GZDoom (with some gray lines appearing), both while using the palette tonemap for the Software look in OpenGL as well as in the traditional Software renderer. This does not happen in PRBoom+, so I'm not sure what the deal is with those textures.

OpenGL:

Software:

The same does not happen with the similar looking Valiant sky.

OpenGL:

Software:

It's all the more peculiar that the SW renderers in both ports display it differently too.

10 minutes ago, seed said:

It's all the more peculiar that the SW renderers in both ports display it differently too.

There was something similar with Eviternity, though not related to any colour artifacts. The Software sky in GZDoom looked wrong, while the OpenGL one displayed correctly. Inversely, the PRBoom+ sky looked correct, while the GLBoom+ sky tiled all wrong. :S

Wow, weird. It looks just fine in ZDoom as well.

m10 of RC2: the player start is in the death exit. 

m03 of RC2 also evidently still has problems with a nest of HOMs/etc. surrounding the vat with the rocket launcher, which becomes stranger and stranger to look at as changes in geometry happen in that area over the course of progression.

(reporting from a playthrough using PrB+, -cl 9)

Gonna hotfix maps 3 and 10, bear with me.

Ok, here is RC2b which hotfixes those two maps. A preliminary idclev through the wad shows me no other problems with player starts. Want to try to wait until at least the end of the month now for any more bug fixes, otherwise things are gonna get really damn confusing with megawadclub demos and such! If that sky problem is GZDoom only then it might be out of my control to fix it.

RC2b DOWNLOAD Use RC2c *Please get RC3 now!*

n.b. any previous RC versions will still be linked in the OP for the time being, for demo playback as necessary.

For the sky, this can be fixed at least in the software renderer on the user's end with Display options -> Software renderer, change sky render mode from capped to normal. Can't test OpenGL.

MAP03's still not quite behaving as it should, details in the DWMC thread here: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2062133

Map18, you can bump the rocket launcher in the final fight, which will make the fight a little bit easier because you don't need to switch to the rocket launcher, but probably there's a rocket launcher in secret areas or something. I didn't actually check.

All reviews, again, on UV continuous.

MAP13: Good start, very moody. Great use of darkness. The way the level intertwines on itself is nothing short of top quality as well. Love the easter egg. Seriously, congratulations. Best map so far, strong contender for best overall.

MAP14: Good level, 10/10, would recommend :P

MAP15: Jeez, what can I say other than good level? The puzzle for the secret exit is a bit hard, I guess.
Also, I already posted about a relatively big bug with a teleporter.

MAP31: Bit of a hard puzzle. I had to resort to a map editor to figure out how to get to IV. The secret exit was relatively easy to find in comparison.

MAP32: I'd like to declare I am in a love / hate relationship with you now. Very hard level honestly but I cannot complain too much considering its slot.

MAP16: Is that song an actual MIDI and not an MP3? Jeez. Excellent level overall, though the ending fell a bit short after the yellow key.

MAP17: A start like that, after you shoot the button, is hard on the ticker, you made me think I was in a slaughtermap lol
Anyway, it's great. Love the red-blue skull texture near the red and blue switches, that was a cool touch. I'd almost complain about two megaspheres in the secrets, but eh. Too much health in secrets isn't ever bad.

MAP18: That start ain't cool. I don't quite know why, but nobody ever starts a level in a fight. Might be a remnant of when you were playing in a 386 and levels took half a minute to load, so a big fight out of the bat could've catched someone unaware. Do consider adding a small area where the players start and then go through a teleporter.
Also, throwing monsters in the player's face all the time gets old after the fifth or so time.

MAP19: Not a fan of it. Way too hard, and the traps got a bit repetitive. I guess I partially asked for it when I played on UV, but still.

MAP20: Oh boy. Love the ending, love the secret within a secret, love the battles (except for the one with the horde of chaingunners and the two arch-viles). Great level.

MAP21: Jerry died in one shotgun blast. I'm sorry.
Also, great sector art. The first area is a bit bland (in gameplay, visually it's excellent), the following fight through the rooms a bit slow, but I guess that's okay for a first level in an episode. This might also be just hyper-detail-everything-me speaking, but all the rooms felt quite same-y.
The last battle is a bit out of place. All other battles were pretty trivial, then suddenly an arena with little solid cover and two cyberdemons.
All in all, 9/10 for an amateur map, 7/10 otherwise, lots of room for improvement.

21 hours ago, Albertoni said:

MAP21: Jerry died in one shotgun blast. I'm sorry.

Also, great sector art. The first area is a bit bland (in gameplay, visually it's excellent), the following fight through the rooms a bit slow, but I guess that's okay for a first level in an episode. This might also be just hyper-detail-everything-me speaking, but all the rooms felt quite same-y.
The last battle is a bit out of place. All other battles were pretty trivial, then suddenly an arena with little solid cover and two cyberdemons.
All in all, 9/10 for an amateur map, 7/10 otherwise, lots of room for improvement.

He never did when I was testing, and I thought I removed that stupid little joke immediately after I added it. Oh well.

Thanks for the input. I tend to start with a concept and expand it in random directions when I map, with little to no planning. That's probably where the 'out of placeleness' you experienced came from. I definitely need to work on map flow more, and make things a little more open-ended (which I originally planned to do with this map, but I was pressed for time when I did the bulk of the work for it).

The "HOUSING" section was largely inspired by the university dorms I was living in at the time, complete with cramped hallways and small samey bedrooms.

RC2c

Fixes a large sector bug in map03. No other changes vs. RC2b

I am worried i might be releasing patches too quickly so will try to leave this alone for a bit. It was just bugging me that i had created a problem with a map and i didn't want that to reflect badly on NeedHealth.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

I am worried i might be releasing patches too quickly so will try to leave this alone for a bit. It was just bugging me that i had created a problem with a map and i didn't want that to reflect badly on NeedHealth.

You're patching breaking bugs. It's not like you're making the maps more enjoyable, you're making them playable. No-one is going to blame you for it.

On 1/7/2020 at 12:54 AM, Skeletonpatch said:

He never did when I was testing, and I thought I removed that stupid little joke immediately after I added it. Oh well.

 

Thanks for the input. I tend to start with a concept and expand it in random directions when I map, with little to no planning. That's probably where the 'out of placeleness' you experienced came from. I definitely need to work on map flow more, and make things a little more open-ended (which I originally planned to do with this map, but I was pressed for time when I did the bulk of the work for it).

Please never remove those jokes. They humanize the map, remind the player that an actual person worked on this; They tell a story as big as the story the map wants to tell. Of course, work more on the map than on the jokes, jokewads are a bit passé by now, but still.

Your method is good though, unless you're aiming for structural realism. Stops you from getting too bored with making this or that part of the level. As for map flow, it comes half with experience, half with knowing the monsters and where to use them.

Hi, dunno if this has been addressed already but just in case. Map21 RC2b, screenshot taken in PrBoom 2.5.1.5

Map 22 Near the exit / HK/Baron stuck

So I did a thing:

I'm loving it so far. I was initially underwhelmed by some of the early maps, but it seems the wad is only getting better and better now. Groovy stuff.

Now why Part 2, you might ask? Simple: I don't consider Part 1 good enough to post it here (from... all points of view) :v . Have fun.