In search (eternity engine map) (demo)

[Misty]

Hello, everyone! Today is my birthday or was on November 7th, so I'm releasing my map for Eternity Engine I worked entire month. I plan include second map for it before year ends or next year in January. As for now, please enjoy this and report all things worthy for improvement.
 

Main information:

Iwad: Doom2
Map: 01(other one will be included later)
Ports used: Eternity Engine 4.01.00 (do not attempt load this map in other ports as they won't display portals and props I used here)
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/117429-eternity-engine-40100-tyrfing/ for quick download if you don't own eternity engine.

Music: 
Moros(Dark Presence) by Basehead from Unreal Beta ost
Isotoxin by Necros / FM ( in map02 which is not done yet)

Download:  here
You must load greenwar2-tex.wad and in_search.wad to display everything properly, once I'm done with second map, I'll merge texture pack with main set.
 

 

Special thanks to:

My playtesters for giving valuable feedback and suggestions - Aquila Chrysaetos, DMPhobos, leodoom85, Lüt, NokturnuS, Wolf McBeard.
Eternity Engine developers for making this port.
Id software for creating this game we love and like.
And everyone who supported me through these few years :)

Texture and sprite credits are in credits.txt file, if I missed something, please let me know.
 

Known bugs: Here's one location where one sprite is placed and gives bad sprite number, I didn't fixed this yet.  Fixed it, finally :)
Eternity Engine dislikes if linked portals aren't aligned to the grid, but seems it still works as intended.
 

Screenshots:



 

Story:

You have been sent by UAC to investigate weird anomaly in Mars location, but they messed up with teleport coordinates, so you ended up in a different planet 10.000 lights away from the Earth. Once you open your eyes, you see an old abandoned civilization remains and familiar demon faces... Seems even so many light years away they never leave you alone. You take your trustworthy pistol and proceed to investigate this unfamiliar place and location.

 

Please let me know how it plays and tell me everything what's worthy for improvement. 
 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Misty

[taufan99]

Another Eternity Engine map! I'll have a blast on this for sure.

[P41R47]

Happy birthday, Misty!
Hope you had a nice and happy day!

:D

I wil tellyou how exactly i felt when i saw those screenies.

You are not Misty, now i know, you are @Mordeth realising a demo for the upcoming Mordeth EP.2

 

Just joking :P
But seriously, awesome pic, pal!

Getting heavy Mordeth vibes from them.

 

Hope you complete the mapset, as i searched a lot for a good Eternity mapset.

 

EDIT: a link for the EE needed would be helpful :)

Edited November 7, 2020 by P41R47

[Misty]

I included link, thanks for mentioning it. 

[Fairweather]

This looks awesome visually, but I have some major problems with the gameplay. It seems like every room is just spammed with a random assortment of monsters and your only course of action upon entering a room is to walk back and take them out from the doorway, so combat always feels a bit one-dimensional like holding M1 is your only recourse. This wouldn't be so bad if there were difficulty settings, but HNTR having you spawn surrounded by 4 hitscanners, a shotgunner and countless imps armed only with a pistol seems a bit silly. I guess there's no skill level adjustments to speak of, which is a big oversight imo even for a first release/beta.

[Misty]

I like some heated starts, because they make people move... Well, I'll take look later and see what I can do with difficulty settings. There are some adjustments for difficulty like cutting some meat from really mean encounters, but seems I need look more into it. 

[Loud Silence]

Happy Birthday, Misty. Thank You for amazing map. I'm sure i will enjoy it very much (i still play your "It goes away in the end" often).

[stewboy]

I had a play through just now, on ITYTD. I think that was a good difficulty setting for me - I only needed to reload a save once, near the end. I enjoyed the map - it was fairly cramped, but I got used to it by the end and didn't mind too much. I only once got lost, but not for long. I also never found the plasma rifle - I'm assuming there is one, considering there's cell packs everywhere. I was able to rely on rockets though - there were loads available on ITYTD. I also liked the map visually, it felt quite consistent.

[SilverMiner]

Wow, 3d architecture

[Misty]

1 hour ago, stewboy said:

I had a play through just now, on ITYTD. I think that was a good difficulty setting for me - I only needed to reload a save once, near the end. I enjoyed the map - it was fairly cramped, but I got used to it by the end and didn't mind too much. I only once got lost, but not for long. I also never found the plasma rifle - I'm assuming there is one, considering there's cell packs everywhere. I was able to rely on rockets though - there were loads available on ITYTD. I also liked the map visually, it felt quite consistent.

Here's plasma in optional route where you need press switch at red key places:

(it's old screenshot since here's no light differences yet)

 

I plan to do update today, mostly for difficulty settings and some other things. Thanks for playing. 

[SiFi270]

Are jumping and/or freelook allowed?

[Misty]

Well, I built map without jumping or freelook around. Of course, you can use freelook much as software mode allows.

[Misty]

I updated set, mostly on difficulty settings, HNTR should be much easier and more forgiving than first version I shared yesterday. Still investigating why I get "bad sprite number A -1". Link is the same as I shared yesterday. 

[Redneckerz]

@Misty happy birthday to you, and what a great gift you are presenting to the community! This looks like a fantastic Eternity showcase and visually jawdropping.

 

Well done Misty!

[Misty]

Thank you, it was fun to figure out plenty of things. I'll start second map soon, I hope it will be worthy as first map here. 

[Misty]

Okay, I updated map once more and fixed bad sprite errors finally. Link is the same linked in op. 

[Sapfiar]

I'm upset that this set doesn't work in GZDoom:(

[Misty]

One can hope that one day cross-compatibility will be bridged up and eternity engine maps will be supported by more ports. I'd still suggest to check out and not miss this map, if here's some problems with binds or mouse I could help you :)

[leodoom85]

Ok. I played the map without dying, which I feared a bit to not make the video longer than usual.

Good theme for ruins, that I missed quite a lot. The addition of plasma gun plus the lonely soulsphere can make things a bit easier. Still, don't get careless. The ambushes can still kill you if you aren't prepared.

 

 

[Aurelius]

Really liked this map. Nice and tight encounters (that red skull trap was pretty evil) and cool looking architecture. Good use of Eternity portals. Maybe a bit too much cell ammo on UV? I had plenty to spare when I got out, but I suppose that's not necessarily a downside :P Found a HOM (you can see it in the video) down the toxic sludge area, and was also able to bump the blue skull off the pedestal without lowering it (which ultimately breaks nothing, heh). Difficulty was pretty good for UV, got through without dying even while sucking some big revenant rockets, so definitely not too hard. Uh, the map.

 

If I had to gripe about something, it'd be that the stairs block monster movement in a few places, which makes them practically harmless and easy pickings. Also, that AV / revenant trap from the closet that gives you blue armor, I backed all the way to the elevator and the revs got stuck in that non-euclidean geometry corner, and they couldn't fit through so I could shoot the AV easily and then just thin the revs as they bottlenecked themselves.

 

Overall a really cool map, definitely looking forward for more! Software renderer + portal action is A+ stuff.

 

 

[Misty]

@Aurelius Thank you for playing this map! I plan to do few more adjustments once I get around them and take feedback for new map, which hopefully will feel less cramped and more streamlined that this one. 

[Smite of Disrespect]

This map is really good.

I recently discovered Mothership.wad, an Eternity Engine map, and in my quest to play more Eternity maps, I found this map, In Search.

I was surprised by how good it is! I thought this map was still in its playtesting phase, and instead this map is finished, as far as I'm concerned. The only thing I would change is make the final mega armor a combat armor. You get the mega armor at the very end of the stage, after the archvile ambushes, so it feels out of place.

There is some switchhunting involved, but the map is called In Search and the theme is a jungle temple, so that's not gonna change. As you can see in the video, it's not bad, even for someone who hates switchhunting like myself.

I would love to see this theme fleshed out into an episode, but I imagine it takes much more effort to make an Eternity map with portals than a normal 2-D map.

I don't know where all the secrets are, so I just tried to beat the map without dying rather than try to 100% it. Someone should do a UV-Max run to show off all the secrets ;) This map deserves it