The Slaughter Spectrum - RC1 Release

[Bridgeburner56]

                                                            

So after releasing a 13 hour speed map (JOM 6) and making a 1k line limited vanilla map (1K lines CP) I am finally releasing some maps of my own. As you may or may not have heard my maps for Refracted Reality are no longer wanted in the project so I have bundled them up and am releasing them under the name The Slaughter Spectrum. Four playable maps along with what was designed to be the hub map for RR.
Map playstyle is generally light to moderate level slaughter (it has been compared to Rush by some of the testers) with one map being an ... experiment in portal gameplay. Thanks to Nirvana, Major Arlene, Nevanos, Liberation, Killer 5, Galileo31dos01, Terminus, Kyle2959, Cyano Blugron, Simpletonium, No Reason, General Roasterock and Elend for helping me test these maps. They would be ... less good without all your input. If I've missed anyone many apologies, let me know and will amend the list.

Thanks to the Refracted Reality team for letting the resources be used for this mapset. These maps were made for that project and the aesthetic concepts are inspired by that project and wouldn't exist without it. Everyone should give that Refracted Reality a play through when it released.

 

Special thanks to:

Cyano Blugron for helping with Where Dragons Dwell, extensive testing, ideas sounding board, and being a generally awesome human. These maps wouldn't be what they are today with out you.
Clay for sexy af models and decals (the saviour of fps) and generally letting me chew your ear off.

Major Arlene for support, encouragement and keeping me going through some tough spots.

 

These maps are pretty resource intensive. If you can only run the vintage GZDoom it is unlikely that you will be able to run these maps very well. I get a minimum of 60 fps and the dedicated test team generally came back with no issues performance wise. If there is enough demand I may do a version for people with lower end rigs but these are designed to push the limits of the port to a degree. GZDoom 4.1.1 or higher is recommended although a lot of early testing was done on 3.7.2. If you are having issues make sure you check your version (one of the testers was unknowingly using 3.3.2. Funnily enough they struggled at first).

 

Download Link

*** Hotfix update: New Title screen and MDoom by Insane Gazebo added. Gzdoom startup now correctly says The Slaughter Spectrum ***
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fYch1zOxEy-VdnBB0qN2P7rt-Wyk-uCy

 

Map 01: The Palace of the Black Singularity
Relatively easy and free flowing map that goes out with a bang. Some trickery included. This was the first map I made for this and was originally almost twice the size (130k linedefs at it's fattest). However GZdoom loading times were abysmal even on powerful rigs so a chunk was removed and stowed away for a rainy day (Some of you will remember the infamous jellyfish room). This map has some of my favourite light sequences to date.

Spoiler

 

Map 02: Crimson Chaos
This map was heavily planned on paper before a line was drawn on GZDB and is largely the same as what the original layout was. However you could hold the entire map within your steely gaze when the first map draft was completed (not good for fps). The map was then chopped up into 3 pieces and linked with line portals to create the effect of a winding journey while being actually playable (credit to Cyano for that idea). This map uses more portal trickery during combat with a fair degree of success. Portals have inbuilt issues (sound clipping, dumb AI) but I'm calling it a success

Spoiler

 

Map 03: Where Dragons Dwell

This map was originally meant to be made by someone else who could no longer participate and at the time there was a looming deadline. So Cyano and I decided to collab on a map and the idea was a shortish, but heavy slaughter map (I used Sunlust map 18 as a reference). Cyano started the ball rolling and I took it across the finish line. The result is a very punchy map that I believe is the best of the set. Lessons learned from POTBS and CC made for a better initial design and having Cyano's input made for a different perspective leading to a higher quality map. The final area was heavily inspired by Amid Evil and yes it's named after a Gojira Song \m/

Spoiler

Map 04: Void Noir

So this is where things get a bit different. A seed of an idea from Cyano that I then went a bit crazy with. This was also a map meant to be made by someone else with even less time to make a replacement so I went with a very short but highly experimental concept map that deeply explores how line portals can be used to build non euclidean geometry and be specifically built around in combat situations, not just as another monster dispenser. By far and away the most polarising map in the set. People either think it is a fantastic idea and want to see more or they absolutely hate it. Fortunately for those who hate it, it is really short. Oozing atmosphere and genuinely eerie I really enjoyed making this one and listening to people test it in voice chat was greatly satisfying ;p

Spoiler

 

Map 05: The Infinite Void
This was designed to be the hub map for RR. I can't really do anything with it so I'm chucking it here as a 'bonus' map. No combat, nothing to do, not finished (optimisation in particular). It is a rather striking map and contains one hell of a floor flat changing script (probably easier done with shaders but ACS for the win). Jokingly referred to as "The Spirograph Map" I did things here that would never be practical in a combat map but being a hub various artistic ideas could be explored. The centre of the map was to be the boss arena for the end of RR.
 

Spoiler

 

To do list/known bugs:

- The pk3 has been hastily put together from the original RR pk3. Unused textures/assets need to be cleaned out and some startup errors appear (but don't appear to affect the maps), change log needs to be updated to reflect these maps etc. Shouldn't be anything that has an effect on playing the maps but this will be done for the final release to idgames.

- MDOOM screen is most likely a placeholder and will be sharpened up. Startup screen needed.
- Potentially change the invuln palette to something less retina scorching

- Various minor portal glitches (sprite flicker etc) but as far as I know these are unavoidable. If anyone sees something and they know a fix hit me up ;p
- Void noir gets very performance heavy in the last are due to hall of mirror effects created by multiple portals in the same area. I'm considering lowering the amount of portals in the area to improve performance but the dedicated test team didn't flag it as an issue. If it gets pinged as an issue during RC1 I will alter the layout for RC2.

- Possibly too much health in some areas. I'm usually pretty generous with resources

- Change scripts triggered by weapon pick ups to line triggers for mod/continuous play compatibility 

 

Hopefully no major fuckups! I've done some very minor bug fixes today and triple checked the pk3 runs properly. Always a chance I've done something stupid and messed something up. If I have please let me know as soon as possible and I'll fix and update the link.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Bridgeburner56

[elend]

Congratulations on the release and pray to god, that I don't find any bugs. Ah well, I probably won't, because I can barely finish Map01. Gorgeous stuff so far, gotta cheat my way through the rest asap.

[Phade102]

I watched you making a few of these maps, and they are impressive and show just how talented you are.

 

EDIT: I see my previous comment was poorly worded and taken the wrong way, so I've removed it.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Phade102

[Catpho]

Congrats on the release! The thing lags like hell on my comp tho. It's most likely just my end badly needing a replacement, but if anyone has any tips on raising the fps it will be appreciated! Gotta try at least :P

[Dragonfly]

Grats on the release Bridge! I'll be sure to check 'em out some time. :)

 

@Catpho - Lower your resolution, play fullscreen, try disabling as many extra features as you can such as bloom, shadowmps etc. Dynamic lights if you're that desperate, but these maps do heavily rely on them. :p

Edited May 15, 2019 by Dragonfly

[Clay]

It's about fucking time man! Thanks for the shout. Hope all is bug free and I am still here to do everything I can to increase those precious frames!! CONGRATZ!!!

 

[Gothic]

That is some gooooood shit you got there. Talking from a visual perspective, because I doubt I could run this at full speed on my computer.

However, try to use a different image hoster (like imgur) because half of your screenshots are already down.

 

EDIT: posting from my PC, all images can be seen, not sure what happened on mobile.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Gothic

[Decay]

44 minutes ago, Phade102 said:

I watched you making a few of these maps, and they are impressive and show just how talented you are. Its a pity your skills weren't appreciated by the right type of people, but these maps will definitely make an impact here.

This is a very ignorant comment and is trying to drum up drama for no reason. Anyway, I don't typically play single-player stuff, but I tested these maps when they were part of Refracted Reality. Visually striking, they were reminiscent of Gothic99, with borderline unplayable frame-rates and extremely boring game play (set piece after set piece battles), to the point where I don't think I'd ever be able to get through these in a single life and they have been majorly toned down from older versions.

 

Some very interesting mechanics have been demonstrated here, from a structural and aesthetic stand point these maps are great but too often the game play leaves something to be desired IMHO. Nevertheless, good job on the maps and congrats on finishing.

[leodoom85]

1 hour ago, Phade102 said:

Its a pity your skills weren't appreciated by the right type of people

Wrong assumption. Don't say things that you don't know. His maps are visually awesome and fun to play. As Decay said, people with low PC specs, myself included when I tested them, can take a massive toll. So, I totally recommend playing his maps regardless of those technical issues...they will make you sweat for sure.

[galileo31dos01]

Effing congrats on the release!

 

Pleasure to be a tester and provide as much help as needed (even if I made the mistake of using a year-old version of GZD first, but you know me, I'm dumb :p). This is honestly very good shit in every existing sense, one if not the main reason I personally decided to open up to GZDoom specific stuff. Highly recommended. This man knows what he does. 

[how to delete account]

1 hour ago, Phade102 said:

Its a pity your skills weren't appreciated by the right type of people

 

Phade you are better than that, we had to exclude them for performance reasons, cos half of the testers, kyle, leo, others and meg herself could not or had dufficultues running them, which isn't that nice.

[Clay]

I feel Like that is enough RR discussion. Phade, try not not make any assumptions and lets leave some room for feedback on the actual WAD this topic is about.

[StormCatcher.77]

Congratulations on the release!!

I did not expect to be able to try these maps so soon. Judging by the screenshots, this mapset will be one of the key this year. I hope to get acquainted with the project in the near future.

[Major Arlene]

Thank you for the shout, I'm so very proud of you!! These maps definitely deserve to see the light of day, so I'm quite glad you've been able to do this. Thank you for these maps, they are amazing <3

[seed]

Woa there. I'm definitely going to check them out soon enough. My framerate is anxiously waiting to get tanked xd.

 

4 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

As you may or may not have heard my maps for Refracted Reality are no longer wanted in the project

 

That sounds pretty depressing though.

[VanaheimRanger]

I haven't played any Doom for a bit and wasn't planning to for a while, but I'll make the time for this asap!

[Liberation]

Congratulations on the release BridgeBurner! 

[Bauul]

Congrats on the release! Your impact on the popularity of the curve tool has been immeasurable, so it's awesome to finally have some fully released maps from the OG curve-boi himself!

[CyberDreams]

GZ on the release! This looks spectacular! Even though i typically don't play slaughter style maps, i may just have to give this a go.

[prodeus_dev]

Droools, nice work Bridge :D

[snapshot]

I played the first level, ran out of ammo before killing the Archvile but managed to trick him and got the SSG before getting burned then killed him, then reached the Rocket Launcher section and the level started throwing lots of monsters at me, it was scary and I died.

 

I like the visuals tho, there's a noticeable FPS drop (on GTX1060TI at least) but not to the point of being unplayable. I may give it another shot next time. GG.

[Phade102]

Apologies to all who thought my comment was an attack on RR or anything in general. It was a poor choice of words on my part and that is the last I will say on it.

[z_bill]

Looks flipping awesome! 

 

I'm new to this scene (believe it or not, just really getting into Doom 25 yrs late!) and never played a slaughter map. Is this gonna be impossible for me?

[Terminus]

Congrats on the release mate! Glad to have been able to playtest (some of) these maps.

Still gotta put my hands on Void Noir and POTBS so I'll definitely make sure to try them out.

 

Time to get my ass handed to me :BillyReady:

[Bridgeburner56]

Thanks everyone for the kind words, it was nice to wake up to. And a pleasing lack of "ugh your pk3 doesn't work". One thing that has popped up is that the levels will break with weapon replacement mods due to some weapon pick ups being linked to actions. I will go through and add in line actions to fix this for rc2 because this can potentially cause an issue for people who play continuous. If you do play continuous please make sure you pick up every gun. This should ensure you don't get stuck anywhere. 

 

Also big thanks to insane gazebo for taking the time to make me this sexy mdoom screen which will be added post haste

 

@tempdecal.wad there is a berserk in the first area and enough ammo to kill everything if you are careful. Difficulty settings have also been implemented and tested so if its a bit tough you can try hmp. Hope you enjoy it though. 

Edited May 15, 2019 by Bridgeburner56

[Payload4367]

Congrats on the release. Beautiful stuff. Adding to my list.

[SamuelNMEvander]

Enjoying the level pack so far! I was hopeful that my GTX 1050 Ti could handle Bridge's Slaughter Spectrum and while I am able to play it, I do get unsteady 25 FPS that slips beneath every now and then. Nevertheless, it's been a journey seeing Bridge post his screenshots and finally being able to experience some of his creations! Keep up the good work! 

Edited May 15, 2019 by SamuelNMEvander
grammar corrections?

[Salt-Man Z]

Holy shit those screenshots!!! :O

 

Do you have difficulty levels implemented?

[galileo31dos01]

Skill levels have been implemented for sure. The first map for example features over 1k monsters on UV, whereas on HMP approximately 750 and even less on HNTR. Careful balance around items and health too. We are still testing them though I'm sure Bridge did a good job already (the first map being an example). 

 

Also that M_DOOM is awesome! 

[Immorpher]

I am glad to hear that you have added a lot of health, I'll need it! It looks like it will be fun!