Long Road, No Turns. a 21K monster map. [released]

[Benjogami]

 

"Long Road, No Turns" is a complevel 9 map with 21,340 monsters on UV. Tested in PrBoom+, but it seems to run fine in GZDoom without mods and with dynamic lights off. Difficulty settings are implemented. MAP03 to MAP15 contain the individual sections of MAP01; I suggest using those if you want to play without saving or if you want to skip around and check out different sections. Expect that a casually-paced playthrough will take over 8 hours in-game time. Midi is by me.

 

download: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/longroad

Changelog:

Spoiler

final: turned cybers around to prevent pacifist cheese, fixed false contrast issue in MAP02/MAP16 (thanks Krull!)

RC2: nerfs to vile and cyber sections on UV, added coop TPs and a TP back to start at the end, fixed some texture alignments

RC1: original RC

 

 

Dehacked credits (don't check if you want to be surprised):

Spoiler

Thanks scifista42 for resur.wad, the entirety of which is incorporated into this wad.

Thanks TimeOfDeath for infinite ammo Dehacked from nostril.wad.

 

Here's a screenshot:

Spoiler

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Benjogami

[baja blast rd.]

Good Timothy Brown bait.

[Kepehn]

The title of the thread got my attention! I really like slaughter maps, and those 21K are so atempting. This will be so fun!

[Nirvana]

2 hours ago, rdwpa said:

Good Timothy Brown bait.

Lol this was discussed. 

[Grain of Salt]

I like it. Not for everyone, but who cares. Very TODish. Good combination of monsters from what I could see. I died 900 monsters in when an av got behind me without me realizing. Great midi also.

[Beezle]

"MAP03 to MAP15 contain the individual sections of MAP01" Does that mean if you're playing on ZDoom it will autosave since you are technically going into the next map? By the way this looks great man, over 21k monsters hehe.

[Nirvana]

I might have to stream this at some point...

[Benjogami]

11 hours ago, Beezle said:

"MAP03 to MAP15 contain the individual sections of MAP01" Does that mean if you're playing on ZDoom it will autosave since you are technically going into the next map? By the way this looks great man, over 21k monsters hehe.

Yeah, I believe ZDoom autosaves at the start of those maps, if you have that feature on. However, since all the weapons and a bunch of health are at the start of the maps, and since ammo is infinite, having an autosave isn't much different from pistol starting. :D

[Dark Pulse]

Now run it along with The Blessed Engine.

[Krull]

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Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[Dark Pulse]

1 minute ago, Krull said:

I got about 3 hours in before I realised the midi wasn't supposed to be silent....Other songs including the outro on map02 work fine, I've tried different soundfonts and synthesizers, but so far I can only play this wad's D_RUNNIN in Windows Media Player, not ingame. This is a PRBoom issue, mind you, not GZDoom - not that the map is playable in GZdoom, of course. Is this some Boom config issue or something weird with your midi? I can't think what else it could be.

I ran it in GZDoom just fine - and with the full GL stuff and Russian Overkill, to boot.

 

About all I had to do was enable Infinite Ammo once I realized you were supposed to have that (since the DeHackEd patch will make regular ammo infinite, but of course, can't account for mods).

 

Music played fine there, too. I used the SC-55 soundfont.

[Krull]

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Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[Benjogami]

10 hours ago, Krull said:

I got about 3 hours in before I realised the midi wasn't supposed to be silent....Other songs including the outro on map02 work fine, I've tried different soundfonts and synthesizers, but so far I can only play this wad's D_RUNNIN in Windows Media Player, not ingame. This is a PRBoom issue, mind you, not GZDoom - not that the map is playable in GZdoom, of course. Is this some Boom config issue or something weird with your midi? I can't think what else it could be.

Hmmm, weird. I tried using all of the midi players that are available in PrBoom+'s options, and they all played the midi. Could you tell me which midi player you're using in your settings?

[Krull]

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Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[ReaperAA]

I gave up after I killed 2000-ish monster. Not because I died but because it was pretty much the same thing. Just slowly slowly advancing and hordes of zombies/demons (+waking and killing viles one at a time) using RL.

[Bdubzzz]

I would just skip around the map Slots if you want to see each section but yeah its a Long Road...

[Benjogami]

Link and changelog for RC2 are up in the OP. Thank you all for your comments and feedback!

[Krull]

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Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull
spoiler

[Benjogami]

8 hours ago, Krull said:

Phew, that was something. Not too hard or grindy by my standards - certainly nothing comparable nostril.wad - but I did play very cautiously through the archvile and cyber sections. I'm not sure they needed nerfing though (I played RC1), when a better player could no doubt pull them off "incautiously"; indeed, it is possible to complete the cyber section pacifist-style, if you're very lucky. A charity speedrun of this map at GDQ would be fun to watch.

[...]

In the continuing saga of my MIDI troubles with this wad, I've attached a recording of how the outro music on map02 sounded to me using OPL2. When I first tried playing this I just skipped around the different sections to see how ridiculous it was, and warped to the ending, and at the time I assumed it was supposed to sound like this. Well, I guess it was unintentional, but it's a pretty cool and fitting end-of-map soundtrack to my ears, nontheless. I have no idea what could have caused this bug.

[...]

Nice! Well done. I nerfed the vile section after successfully recording a saveless HMP Max of that section but then hitting a brick wall on UV. It started to feel like being very cautious and slowly managing LoS was the only viable strat, but I wanted speedier strats to at least feel like they're in reach for me. :D I think that section is fun to try to do quickly; I had a lot of fun doing the HMP attempts. The cyber section is one that I died and loaded a lot on when I played through, so I thought it could use some nerfing as well. I want the prospect of UV Maxing the whole thing without dying to be absurd, but not too absurd. :D But I also don't want pacifist to be a strong strat in any of the sections, so that'll need looking into.

 

The end map actually should be all white, and is all white in software rendering, but I'm seeing what you're seeing in glBoom+. Good catch!

 

That's pretty wild about the MAP02 midi. OPL2 really does seem to have a hard time with the midi. I tried it out for the MAP01 midi, and PrBoom+ froze for what seemed like a minute while the map was loading. I killed the process a couple of times before waiting it out. :D When it finally played the midi, it couldn't keep time and lagged in some parts. Good stuff. I didn't hear anything like your recording though!

[amackert]

I'm going to have to pace myself on this one. Streamed most of the first section today and people were like, "Does this ever end?" Haha. I think I'll go through the rest of it in bits and pieces. I did play on HMP though knowing how brutal your UV stuff is. I might have to try UV quick just to see what the differences are.

[Benjogami]

17 hours ago, amackert said:

I'm going to have to pace myself on this one. Streamed most of the first section today and people were like, "Does this ever end?" Haha. I think I'll go through the rest of it in bits and pieces. I did play on HMP though knowing how brutal your UV stuff is. I might have to try UV quick just to see what the differences are.

Glad you checked it out! It's definitely a map for strange moods. :D Only 2 of the hardest sections have fewer monsters on lower difficulties, otherwise it's just more health down the roads.

 

I'll take the opportunity to plug The Egg of Human Endeavors, another new-ish map by me that I think might be more to your liking. :D

 

 

[rehelekretep]

On 3/25/2019 at 10:30 PM, Krull said:

OK, I got it working in SDL, but none of the others (fluidsynth, portmidi, OPL2) work. I use CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth, which might have something to do with it. I'm not going to rigorously investigate further now it's working (and sounds good!), but I guess composers of ambitious midis should take note....

can confirm im using VirtualMIDISynth and only SDL works also

[amackert]

On ‎4‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 4:37 PM, Benjogami said:

I'll take the opportunity to plug The Egg of Human Endeavors, another new-ish map by me that I think might be more to your liking. :D

 

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I grabbed it, played through it on stream earlier and enjoyed it.

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

I tested the WAD and the music in the levels does not work in Boom. I know that someone may have already mentioned it in this forum.

[Benjogami]

5 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I tested the WAD and the music in the levels does not work in Boom. I know that someone may have already mentioned it in this forum.

Krull and rehelekretep report that they hear the midi when setting the midi player to SDL, so maybe give that a try.

 

Are you also using CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth? If so, the issue might be in that software.

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

I think it is better for me to do the individual sections before doing level 1. If something happens like I end up with a 12-hour video of this level on YouTube, I would fear that it would get denied because the length of the video is too long (limit = 11 hours for users who have longer uploads enabled). For some reason, YouTube doesn't seem to enforce that rule because I see people uploading videos that are 600 hours long.

Edited April 6, 2019 by mArt1And00m3r11339

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

I think this WAD would be better if the arch-viles weren't able to resurrect other arch-viles (because that is flat out dirty and it ruins the game for everyone). My question is: did you beat level 1 on UV saveless? I would love to see someone upload a full playthrough of the level to YouTube.

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

On 3/31/2019 at 5:23 PM, Krull said:

 

Phew, that was something. Not too hard or grindy by my standards - certainly nothing comparable nostril.wad - but I did play very cautiously through the archvile and cyber sections. I'm not sure they needed nerfing though (I played RC1), when a better player could no doubt pull them off "incautiously"; indeed, it is possible to complete the cyber section pacifist-style, if you're very lucky. A charity speedrun of this map at GDQ would be fun to watch.

 

In the continuing saga of my MIDI troubles with this wad, I've attached a recording of how the outro music on map02 sounded to me using OPL2. When I first tried playing this I just skipped around the different sections to see how ridiculous it was, and warped to the ending, and at the time I assumed it was supposed to sound like this. Well, I guess it was unintentional, but it's a pretty cool and fitting end-of-map soundtrack to my ears, nontheless. I have no idea what could have caused this bug.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I might as well add that I thought map02 would look better as a completely white void, as opposed to this:

 

music.zip

Did you play this on UV saveless?

[Krull]

.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[Ancalagon]

What have we done to deserve this punishment!?