Elementalism, an ambitious new GZDoom mapset. Phase 1 out now!

[Bauul]

 

 

Elementalism is an epic new mapset for GZDoom. Phase 1 out now! 

 

Download links for Full Release v1.3 (September 2nd 2022):

• ModDB
• Remmirath's Website

 

At 5 years in the making, this has been a labor of love for everyone involved, and it is amazing (and slightly surreal) to have it finally released!  A celebration of both advanced UDMF mapping and classic Doom gameplay, the aim of the mapset is to bring together the classic Doom experience we love with ambitious, high-concept modern mapping techniques.  I can’t wait for you all the enjoy it! – Bauul

 

Changelog:

Spoiler

Full Release v1.3

 

• Earth 1: Added slightly more ammo at start of level
• Earth 3: Removed excess ammo at start of level
• Earth 4: Slight monster adjustment
• Water 4: Fixed secret not appearing on lower difficulties
• Water 5: Fixed minor graphical issues
• Fire 4: Better view of the vista at start of level
• General: Level title remains on screen for slightly longer to aid readability
• General: Opening text makes it clearer there are currently only three episodes
• General: Fixed damaging floors being ineffective on Mild-Violence and Medium-Violence

 

Full Release v1.2

 

• Hub: Intro text remains on screen for longer
• Hub: Tablet 'welcome' message no longer cuts off subtitles
• Fire 3: Fixed monster becoming stuck between level transitions

 

Full Release v1.1
 

• Removed benign texture start-up errors in the console
• Adjusted position of Hub tablet so 'welcome' message harder to accidentally miss
• Water 3: Fixed odd geometry in outdoor river section
• Water 3: Fixed stuck teleporting revenant which had been preventing 100% kills

 

Full Release v1.0
 

• Fixed typo in subtitles on Temple of Elements
   

RC2 v1.4
 

• Earth 1: Fixed typo in opening Tablet text
• Earth 5: Boss is now briefly invulnerable between phases so the player can't skip a phase by killing multiple heads at the same time
• Earth 5: Earth Wand now explodes correctly when hitting the boss, prevent ricochet cheese

 

RC2 v1.2

 

• Option to skip opening text now appears earlier
• Title screen now tells players if they aren't running Dynamic Lights and Lights Affect Sprites correctly
• Fire 1: Removed a trio of void holes

 

RC2 v1.01

 

• Earth 3: Fixed floor shader in opening area

 

RC2 V1.0

 

• General:
  • Earth Wand has had it's damaged buffed and a small AOE effect added, but re-fire speed has been slowed down
  • Boss health bars have been made shorter, transparent, and can be now moved between the top and bottom of the screen with the Elementalism Options menu. This way they don't interfere with the boss battles as much
  • Opening story-text now stays on screen for longer, but can be skipped with 'Use' button
  • Fire Episode skybox has been optimized, resulting in a ~10% FPS increase in F1 and F4
  • Subtitles added to [REDACTED] dialogue
  • Wand of Elements has a proper name when displayed on the Hud
  • Automap is disabled during intermission screens
  • Shaders have been updated to modern syntax
  • Updated Elementalism Options menu to make it clearer how to display the new Elementalism Hud
  • In-game description of the new difficulty settings updated to make it clearer what level of challenge they represent
  • Numerous minor visual improvements across all the maps
• Earth episode:
  • Earth 2: Switch near plasma rifle made more obvious
  • Earth 3: Fixed shader in opening area (was broken in RC2, re-fixed in RC2 v1.01)
  • Earth 4: First lift can be recalled so it's not a one-way drop anymore
  • Earth 4: Some early fights made slightly easier to help with the difficulty curve
  • Earth 4: Lightmode set correctly so everyone has a consistent visual experience
  • Earth 4: Teleporter redirect means falling off at the end of the map no longer requires extensive backtracking
  • Earth 5: Boss made slightly less resistant to the Earth Wand
• Water episode:
  • Water 2: Fixed potential soft-lock in final fight
  • Water 4: Corrected comp-level setting allows for correct enemy jumping behavior
  • Water 4: Final Cybbie encounter made a little less brutal
  • Water 5: First wave of fight sped up to be a little less tedious
  • Water 5: Boss made more resistant to BFG tracers
• Fire episode:
  • Fire 1: Potential soft-lock near big main door fixed
  • Fire 2: Added message to double doors to confirm they are locked
  • Fire 2: Added heath and cell ammo to Yellow Key fight
  • Fire 4: Fixed decorations incorrectly flagged as secrets
  • Fire 4: Fixed skybox issue when backtracking from end of the level
  • Fire 4: Added escape teleporters to all inescapable lava pits
  • Fire 5: Prevented early access to central arena

 

RC1 v1.01

 

• Water 3: Fixed error with Blue Key

 

RC1 v1.0

 

• Initial release

 

 

 

 

The God of Entropy stirs. Travel to the elemental planes and retrieve the imprisoning runes before it is too late!

 

• 15 extensive, detailed maps split across three episodes: The Realm of Earth, The Realm of Water, and the Realm of Fire
• Heavy focus on advanced UDMF and visual GZDoom features with extensive environmental storytelling
• Classic gameplay at heart: exploration and incidental-combat focused with occasional set-piece encounters
• Extensive lore for those who want to find it
• The vanilla bestiary joined by a handful of episode-specific custom monsters
• A new super-weapon, the Wand of Elements, with episode-specific attacks
• Gigantic new boss encounters
• A wholly original high-fidelity soundtrack (available on YouTube and Spotify)

 

 

Project lead:

@Bauul

 

Maps by:

@Bauul: Hub, E2, E3, E5, W2, W3, W4, W5, F2, F3, F4, F5

@Bridgeburner56: F1, F5

@Clay: F2, W4

@DMPhobos: E1

@Dragonfly: E2, F2

@Dreadopp: W1

@Phade102: W2

@Remmirath: E4, W3, F4

 

Music by:
@HeavenWraith: W1, F2

@HexenMapper: Title, E2, E3, W4, Credits

@PRIMEVAL: E1, E4, W2, F4, F5, FBoss

 

@Speedy: W3, F3

@Tristan: Hub, E5, EBoss, W5, WBoss, F1

 

And a fantastic supporting team of testers, programmers and artists:

 

antares031, boris, Cyano Blugron, Guardsoul, Gutawer, Insane_Gazebo, Jazzmaster9, Jimmy, Kaapeli47, Lazorical, Liberation, LowGcifer, Major Arlene, Pegleg, Rachael, Simpletonium, Stormcatcher.77, Terminus, TheEvilGrin, Velvetic, Wolf McBeard, Xyzzy01, Yugiboy85

 

 

GZDoom 4.7.1.  Other GZDoom versions may work, but mileage will vary.

 

 

 

 

Full Screenshot Gallery: https://imgur.com/gallery/cBrO9fK

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is included in Phase 1?

The Earth, Water and Fire realms, covering 15 levels. Phase 2 will then include Air, Light and Darkness, also 15 levels.

 

How do I play the mapset?
Download and install GZDoom 4.7.1 or newer from www.zdoom.org. You need Doom 2 installed, but GZDoom should find the required files automatically when run. If not, you need to copy Doom2.wad from your Doom 2 directory to the GZDoom directory. Extract the Elementalism Phase1.pk3 from the zip, and click and drag it onto GZDoom.exe to run the mapset.

 

What are the minimum system requirements?

You need an Open GL 3.3 compatible GPU and a CPU with decent single-core speed.  Like many modern GZDoom mapsets this has system requirements on the higher side, but we have worked carefully to optimize it as much as possible so it should run fine even on lower-end hardware. 

 

What visual settings should I use?

Elementalism only works in the Hardware or Vulkan renderer, not the Software renderer. Dynamic lights are strongly recommended, as are shadowmaps if your hardware supports them. 

 

What gameplay settings should I use?

Jump and Crouch are required.  Freelook is optional, but heavily recommended.  All the necessary comp-settings are set in the ZMAPINFO so you shouldn’t have to worry about them.  However, if you find you are encountering odd behavior, please ensure your comp settings are set to Default.

 

Can I run mods with this?

Probably not.  Robustly made mods may work to a degree, but some conflicts are likely inevitable.  If you run into specific problems and would like more information, speak to the mods’ author.

 

How challenging is the mapset?

Not super challenging on the scale of modern mapsets, probably similar to something like Eviternity.  If you want to experience the full UV monster count but are concerned about the difficulty, I strongly recommend trying the two new difficulties: Mild-Violence and Medium-Violence.  They maintain the full UV monster count but improve the survivability of the player.

 

How long are the maps?

First playthroughs will vary between 20-30 minutes for the shorter maps and 45-60 minutes for the longer ones.  The full mapset is around 8-10 hours of gameplay.

 

Can I change the Elementalism Options after starting a game?

Yes! Every option in the Elementalism Options menu can be toggled at any point, even swapping between pistol start and semi-continuous map starts.

 

I like to pistol start maps – how should I do that?

Select “Pistol Start” in the Elementalism Options menu.  Do not use IDCLEV or MAP commands to reset the map, as you will lose your progress through the Hub.

 

I like to play continuous – where did some of my weapons go?

“Semi-continuous” is the only continuous option.  In order not to unbalance the mapset, high-tier weaponry does not transfer between levels.

 

When will Phase 2 come out?

Progress has begun, but it’ll be a long (long) time!

 

 

 

 

Come join the discussion and get regular updates on the #Elementalism channel on the Hellforge Discord Server!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Bauul

[dobu gabu maru]

Neat! Cool to see a GZDoom megawad in development—feel like we don't get much of those (at least on DW). New weapons and bosses sound yummy.

 

3 minutes ago, Bauul said:

we’re working hard and are planning for a pre-summer release in 2019.

 

Glad you guys set a reasonable release data hahahaha

[Walter confetti]

This looks freaking impressive! Can't wait to play!

[Tristan]

fucking gorgeous shots! not that I'd expect anything less looking at that mapper list :)

[Phade102]

None of these pictures are final, so be sure to look back at the main thread now and then to see updated pictures!

[Marlamir]

Badas screenshots and i f*cking like it.

[snapshot]

Holy shit, this looks gorgeous.

[Not Jabba]

Looks awesome! Yet another great project to look forward to.

[tmorrow]

Wow! Those screenshots are beautiful. May the project flourish! Can't wait for it to come out.

[AtroNx]

Day-um man, looks delicious.

[CoronaRadiata]

woh man god job for that team!

[VanaheimRanger]

Ooh, man.  I can't wait to play this.

[Big Ol Billy]

Well this looks cool. Going to have to actually finish the Alfonzone now so that I can move on to a new big ol' set of GZDoom maps!

[Dragonfly]

Feels good to finally announce this! It's been tough keeping quiet about it, heh.

 

Thank you everyone so far for your interest! We'll be keeping you all posted on progress as we work on it in many locations - we'll post 'worthwhile updates' here in this thread, there's likely to be screenshots in the "Post your doom picture" thread, I often drop recent work over on twitter, and Phade & I both stream our mapping sessions, so there's plenty of ways to hook yourself up to the 'news feed' on this project, so to speak.

[Deadwing]

Holy shit, these looks amazing!

 

Can't wait to try the hub thing (it somehow remembered me of spyro lol)

[NieMaMordy]

This one is simmilar to quake's arcane diemensions

[Linguica]

Mapping for GZDoom? On Doomworld?!?

[Rosh Fragger]

That's Fantabulous!!! <3

[ClumsyCryptid]

Looks amazing.

 

Still building my intel/nvidia computer solely for GZDoom.

 

Will play it when I can.

[Denim Destroyer]

Looks pretty good! I'll play on release day that's for sure.

[skillsaw]

Hnnnngggg

 

I love it! Outstanding work... I can't wait! I'm really excited to see more of what GZDoom can do in such talented hands.

[Chris Moyer]

Looking good man! Excited to see more updates.

[xvertigox]

This looks fucking sweet. Sick team too!

[bioshockfan90]

holyyyyy shit this is great, if this doesn't make zdoom mapping un-taboo i dunno what will

[riderr3]

Good luck with that! I know you can do it.

[SuperCupcakeTactics]

Awesome! Always great to see (G)ZDoom map stuffs. Screenshots are super cool and remind me of PS2 games

Edited March 29, 2018 by SuperCupcakeTactics

[Demon of the Well]

Yep, sounds cool. Best of luck!

[Spectre01]

B-But my demo compatibility... :'( Seriously, this is looking great. Hopefully I'll have a better system once it's out, since my current setup does not like GZDoom's new visual features.

[SGS Man]

Heck, this stuff looks great! Can’t wait to play it!

[StormCatcher.77]

@Bauul

Holy God... I would really like to participate, but this year I can hardly find time for mapping. I understand that the bar of quality is very high, but I'll still try. Do not add me to the list of developers yet. I'll let you know when I have the exact time.

 

I will follow the project. I would not want miss a chance to take a part of this ...

 

And where can I get a resource pack?

Edited March 29, 2018 by StormCatcher.77