Ultimate Doom "In Name Only" - On IDgames

[Nockson]

Congrats on the release! I created a small page for it on the DoomWiki and in the process discovered that in the MAPINFO lump the name of E2M5 was misspelled as "Command Centre" (the WILV14 is okay though).

[plums]

Congrats cannonball, dobu, and everyone else involved on the well-deserved Cacoward! Too bad you got sniped for the Mordeth award; I didn't realize TNT2, who's start predates the forum accounts of most people here, got an official release this year!

[cannonball]

So given the news, I guess I want to reiterate my gratitude to everyone who worked on this project. It took a long time to reach the end game but it looks like it was worth it. Every single person put their best foot forward for this and created some really special experiences. You should all be proud of yourselves and I am delighted that this got a Cacoward. Also special thanks again to @dobu gabu maru who was literally the proverbial yin to my yang in terms of mapping style and I think that helped lay the foundations for the entire wad. Also again thanks for picking up the slack when I was distracted by real life stuff during the development process.

[DJVCardMaster]

This is some great news! I'm really happy of taking part of this project, great accomplishment by the team, and great job from the project's managers. Congrats on this release for everyone. And thanks to Cannonball for letting me take part of this mapset.

[dobu gabu maru]

Hey! So in celebration of our final release (as well as that nifty award we picked up), here's something a little weird, a little unnecessary, and (possibly?) a little fun!

 

 

>>> DOWNLOAD UNFINISHED DOOM IN NAME ONLY <<<

 

What is this?

UnDINO is a compilation of early alpha maps from UDINO, showing what each of the maps played like in their relative infancy. I've also included some maps in the fifth episode slot that I've dubbed Thy Cut Content, which includes maps that were cut from the project. Note that I didn't include everything submitted—mainly stuff I had lying around from the post-cannonball takeover. Missing are some scraps from Jaws in Space, Impie, and stonedbaroness.

 

Why do this?

UnDINO serves as a fully-playable snapshot into our development history. It gives folks a glimpse into pre-edited versions of a lot of these maps, as well as showcasing how rough a pre-playtested map setcan feel. Unfortunately not every map here is in its pre-playtested state—I think most of these have already received feedback from at least cb & magnusblitz—but there are a few rough cuts here and there.

 

Will this be uploaded to /idgames?

No. This is mainly an historical curio and I doubt our authors would like partially-finished maps attached to their names. I'm cool with an external link from doomwiki to UnDINO but folks should really play the actual UDINO before diving into this mess.

 

What are the cut maps?

There are eight in total I was able to scrounge together.

 

Quote

E5M1: "Hangar" for E1M1, by joe-ilya — cut because we already had "Hangar" by Eli C

E5M2: "Nuclear Plant" for E1M2, by Steve D — cut for being too damn large for an early E1 map ^{(500 monsters Steve? Really?)}

E5M3: "Computer Station" for E1M7, by Quantum Dranger — cut due to having Zdoomisms and lackluster texturing

E5M4: "Unholy Cathedral" for E3M5, by Corsair — this was Corsair's original attempt at the map, cut because it was too sprawling and dull

E5M5: "Mt. Erebus" for E3M6, by joe-ilya — cut due to congested gameplay, general ugliness

E5M6: "Dis" for E3M8, by Quantum Dranger — cut for being too crude and lacking a satisfying mastermind battle

E5M7: "Sever the Wicked" for E4M3, by SinCity2100 — cut because it didn't fit the map's title

E5M8: "And Hell Followed" for E4M7, by Mosshopper — cut due to mediocre gameplay and not fitting the map's title

 

Which maps have changed the most?

Hoo boy where to begin? Lemme give a rundown:

 

Episode 1

Spoiler

E1M1 - Mostly unchanged (there is a random meme secret off to the side).

E1M2 - Mostly unchanged.

E1M3 - Pre-coauthor edits. Progression is largely the same but rooms are noticeably more boxy and combat is far more straightforward.

E1M4 - Pre-coauthor edits. Similar to E1M3, this map looks a lot more bare bones and has more rudimentary encounters.

E1M5 - This is the E1 map that's seen the most change. Cannonball Jaws in Space took a knife to this map and shuffled around the rooms, arranging it so the player no longer had to hit those barrier switches up above. The only revision I made was to add the teleport-flavor to the YK room up top, as I felt the random warping really put the experimental-factor back into the "lab" title.

E1M6 - Mostly unchanged.

E1M7 - Mostly unchanged, although I'm pretty sure this map is in its pre-playtest state. Down below you can see how large I intended the original reactor room to be. Due to its size the map needed extended nodes, which is why I had to cut it down for the official release. I still prefer this room's look more.

E1M8 - Pre-coauthor edits. Cannonball had the idea to split this up into its own light/dark halves, and I think the map greatly benefits from that little twist. The original version has a big warp-in that can be easily camped and the finale is good, but not great.

E1M9 - This almost feels like a rough draft of its final version, similar to how ConC.E.R.Ned feels compared to Return to Hadron. The map is technically "finished" but has spartan texturing, low enemy count, and a worse layout; all the elements are here, but not yet fully realized.

 

Episode 2

Spoiler

E2M1 - Pre-coauthor edits. This is probably the map I edited with the most deft touch, as all it really needed were more staggered enemy spawns to help it shine. That, and a bit more bite at the exit.

E2M2 - Mostly unchanged.

E2M3 - Pre-coauthor edits. Out of all the maps in UDINO, none have seen more active revisions than Refinery. There were like... 5? Maybe 6? different versions of this map floating out there. You can see how DJV's original version is verrry corridor focused, which Jaws helped pump up the gameplay for, and then cb knocked down a bunch of the walls. I think this was the only map we kept that was perpetually on the chopping block.

E2M4 - Pre-coauthor edits. Scifista's original vision was straight and to the point: grab key, fight off barons, exit level. I wanted to expand on it a little bit when edits came around, but you can see how "a little" can easily spill over into "a lot" :P

E2M5 - Mostly unchanged. Folks may have been surprised about mouldy coming back to drop Overboard onto the forums but I was more surprised he came back to edit this map!

E2M6 - Pre-coauthor edits. Unlike E2M1 I more rigorously edited the enemy and ammo placement on this map, as one of the things I felt it was lacking was the "damned" quality of the title (hence the numerous lost souls in the final version). Notice that despite my penchant for detailing, the visuals are all a Pedro original!

E2M7 - Pre-coauthor edits. lol this map. Take a peek at the original spawning vat room.

E2M8 - Like almost all of our authors, Scotty has grown a lot over the course of the past few years, and you can see just how much when you play this map. It's not bad by any means, but the newer version is undeniably superior.

E2M9 - Pre-coauthor edits. The original Fortress of Mystery... how much of it is different? I'll leave that a mystery for you to uncover...

 

Episode 3

Spoiler

E3M1 - Pre-coauthor edits. jmickle originally intended for the cyber to be unkillable, forcing the player to zerk punch it to max the map.

E3M2 - Almost entirely unchanged. Couldn't find an earlier version of this map, and I'm not entirely sure one even existed—probably just spawned out of Benjo's computer fully-formed.

E3M3 - Mostly unchanged. The lava cavern doesn't cool at the end so have fun hunting enemies/secrets in damaging sectors! Also this version had a lovely testing error where a 2nd cyber spawns into the BK fight, so good luck to anyone trying to max the map.

E3M4 - Pre-coauthor edits. You'll notice that walter's original version is noticeably less painful. I mean it has what, like 3 crushers and 3 damaging sectors? Come on walter, you should be squeezing the blood from my PORES.

E3M5 - Corsair's second attempt at Unholy Cathedral, pre-coauthor edits. The bones of the cathedral are here but fights can be easily skipped and the chapel itself lacks proper grandeur for being hell's sole place of worship. You'll notice that for the final version, I mixed in some sections from Corsair's original Unholy Cathedral (found in slot E5M4).

E3M6 - Mostly unchanged & probably harder due to not having been watered down by playtester whining criticisms.

E3M7 - This map has seen a surprising number of revisions, all coming from cb himself within about a year's time frame. This original version makes the BK/RK paths optional rather than secret, and most noticeably has a completely different final fight and pentagram fight. Seriously, you should check them out as they're pretty wild. Preserving this map's original design was one of the main reasons I wanted to put UnDINO together.

E3M8 - Mostly unchanged. The switch to lower the mastermind-shooting platform is smaller and thus harder to activate, which is the way Heels wanted it.

E3M9 - Almost entirely unchanged.

 

Episode 4

Spoiler

E4M1 - Mostly unchanged. The biggest alteration bruce made was to bury the entire map underground, which helped give it a better "Hell Beneath" feel.

E4M2 - Mostly unchanged.

E4M3 - Almost entirely unchanged.

E4M4 - Almost entirely unchanged.

E4M5 - Mostly unchanged. This map received quite a few layout tweaks and visual bumps since its debut, but the pathways and encounters are by and large similar.

E4M6 - Mostly unchanged. Notice that Steve was merciful in this version, offering the player a much-needed BFG!

E4M7 - Pre-coauthor edits. Progression is a bit mixed-up from its final version, and you'll notice that every fight is considerably tamer. I like Peanut's layout here, but it really lacked the "oomph" that the map's title implies.

E4M8 - Almost entirely unchanged.

E4M9 - Almost entirely unchanged. The one thing I added for the final version were easier platforming sections for the lower difficulties.

 

Anyhoo, enjoy! There's probably some things busted in this mapset (the e & umapinfo are stolen from other wads) but oh well—it is a scrappy set after all.

Edited December 18, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

[plums]

5 minutes ago, dobu gabu maru said:

UnDINO

Hah, this is a fun surprise! Should be interesting to check out some of the spicier maps in their original state. joe-ilya's E1M1 finally gets a Pyrrhic release.

[Devalaous]

The cut maps is a great touch, always liked when maps that don't make a final cut still get included or released elsewhere, as there will always be people who will enjoy them

 

In other news, I liked the soundtrack so much, I ripped it out of the wad for use in other Doom megawads, as the original doesn't have that many midipacks available for it. Nothing like playing 1994 megawads to this release's music :p

[NightFright]

In order to celebrate the Cacowards entry: Widescreen statusbar!

 

udino_wide.zip

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by NightFright

[plums]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:59 AM, dobu gabu maru said:

E5M2: "Nuclear Plant" for E1M2, by Steve D — cut for being too damn large for an early E1 map ^{(500 monsters Steve? Really?)}

Oh right, this got a release in Deadly Standards 2. @Steve D did the map change much at all for DS2?

[cannonball]

I guess it only feels right to add some tidbits of my own to this discussion. For the record I think Sincity2100 made a map for "Sever the Wicked" and whilst I could see the intentions, the map layout made for a pretty grindy experience that wasn't fun. There was a significant element f wanting to have as many mappers in the project as possible so as you can see in the credits, there were quite a few maps that went through drastic changes.

 

One of those was E1M5, which whilst the original was a little sluggish (Too many demons), there was potential there. From my recollection I think Jaws did a significant proportion of the modifications as such I think I may have moved a few things around, but mostly what I did was make the map more interconnected and improved the flow of what was already there. I also tidied up the combat in places.

 

Whilst Joe Ilya did have a map "rejected", he does still have a legacy in this wad, this comes in the form of the red key section of E3M7 that was inspired by a piece he submitted during the the earlier stages of development where the future of this slot was a lot more uncertain.

 

Somehow I still have this from the email Joe sent me

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sfj15cn2m39fo2hokaugn/e3m7bfgsec.wad?rlkey=mb7a7gu819aqn7cjbbumk032f&amp;dl=0

 

So I essentially rebuilt the earlier section and built a different arena at the end, but you can see the similarities between the two and in the end this was one of my favourite sections of this map, good job Joe :)

Continuing with E3M7 there is another section that was the ownership of someone else, the pentagram island, this was created by Magnusblitz and the general theme of Limbo in the end when I constructed the layout was to incorporate several ideas into one void themed map. Another idea that was mentioned (I can't recall who though), was to have bits of earlier maps in the wad scattered around to give the impression of areas you previously explored have been lost into the abyss, as such I chose the slime room fight of E1M6 and the fireblu fight of E1M5 to represent this idea and connected them with a void platform section that broke on near enough every version prior to the final release, why? Probably cursed.....

[NightFright]

Just for the record: E1M7 is intentionally ending in a clusterfuck of weirdly aligned sectors and HOMs all over the place, right? However, even in that case: It got so confusing I wasn't able to find the exit. In fact, I kinda threw the towel already with the switch puzzle before. That was the only issue I've had with the first two episodes so far.

[Master O]

@cannonball, congrats on your Cacowards 2023 win.

[Devalaous]

So, @dobu gabu maru's UnDINO presented a problem for me; while I have no interest in playing the old versions of the maps, I have ALL of the interest in the fifth episode.

 

So I've made an add-on patch for UDINO that adds Thy Content Cut for all 44 maps in one. It takes the graphics and music for it from UnDINO, and adds the hilarious TITLEPIC as an end of episode graphic, and ive generated some WILV graphics for the levels (I do not know how people add things like authour names in different fonts and sizes, so my WILVs do not match the rest of UDINO. If whoever made UDINO's makes a set for E5, I'll swap mine out with theirs)

 

As a bonus, since I'd already made it, I included the udino midi wad in the download, and added the four music tracks from E5 to it

Edited December 18, 2023 by Devalaous

[Suitepee]

I have only just learnt from looking over the Cacowards this evening that this megawad was FINALLY released. I will definitely have to play this sometime next year, since I've only been looking forward to playing this for nearly a decade.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Suitepee

[Steve D]

On 12/13/2023 at 1:21 PM, plums said:

Oh right, this got a release in Deadly Standards 2. @Steve D did the map change much at all for DS2?

 

It changed a bit. The DS2 version has more sectors, 1,125 vs 929. It also has more monsters, 579 vs 537 as counted by GZDoom on UV. Most of the extra sectors were devoted to visual improvements in the giant secret area dominating the southern quadrant. This mainly involved adding water sectors inside the nukage leak for a more natural appearance, and on the far west end of this section, changing the water column into a pair of Stone columns with lights, plus adding crates and more monsters on the veranda overlooking this area. Without doubt, the DS2 version is better, though I may revise it again for one of my own mapsets.

[Steve D]

2 hours ago, Suitepee said:

I have only just learnt from looking over the Cacowards this evening that this megawad was FINALLY released. I will definitely have to play this sometime next year, since I've only been looking forward to playing this for nearly a decade.

 

@Suitepee I think you'll have fun with this one, John. There are some really sweet maps and a lot of variety.

 

And importantly for me, we'll see how many pelts I collect from you in E4M2 and E4M6. ;)

[dobu gabu maru]

On 12/13/2023 at 4:49 PM, NightFright said:

Just for the record: E1M7 is intentionally ending in a clusterfuck of weirdly aligned sectors and HOMs all over the place, right?

 

Yuppers. Always wanted to do something fun with intentional HOMs.

 

6 hours ago, Suitepee said:

I will definitely have to play this sometime next year, since I've only been looking forward to playing this for nearly a decade.

 

Just as a heads up, the gameplay can be rough in the last two episodes from pistol start on skill 4. Heels' maps in E3 are very demanding and my maps in E4 are purposely low on ammo. I think a few people have burst blood vessels over them.

[plums]

I found a little bug in E4M2 that is likely a nodebuilder error, where there's one part of a sector in the secret exit area that's possible for the teleporting imps to get stuck in, meaning sometimes you can't get 100% kills. If this happens you'll need mouselook to see the stuck imps, in a software renderer, and then you can only shoot them with vertical aiming. (The player can also get stuck, but you have to be incredibly deliberate about it -- it's hard to do even if you're trying because of momentum when you move, and without godmode you're taking damage from the lava, so nothing to worry about here.)

 

This probably isn't too hard to work around if you're trying a UV-max speedrun, so it's definitely not worth another idgames upload. But if you end up making one for another reason, you might want to fix this as well, probably by just making a new sector in that area. Also good to document just in case someone else comes across it I guess.

 

Sorry I keep finding bugs post-release! :p

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by plums

[Steve D]

Holy cats, @plums! I gotta say that those little stuck Imps look hilarious. I'll have to inspect this area for the sheer joy of figuring out how I did this, and make a fix, natch, in case @cannonball wants one on file. ;D

[dobu gabu maru]

9 hours ago, plums said:

Sorry I keep finding bugs post-release! :p

 

I saw someone encounter this bug during playtesting but I looked at the map of the release version and figured we had fixed it since everything "should" work as-is, but alas! Nodebuilder errors are nasty little bed bugs. And good on you for finding more bugs plums, it's annoying to have to deal with more of them but your keen eye is invaluable.

[cannonball]

Ah I have had this happen before (I think my Jamal Jones map also had monstered submerged into the floor). Unfortunately this will probably be a case of trial and error to remove this issue, from what I recall I had to in the end move some linedefs around until the problem went away. I guess this does need fixing, especially as this issue might behave differently depending on the port too.

[Catpho]

Quote

 And good on you for finding more bugs plums, it's annoying to have to deal with more of them but your keen eye is invaluable.

Ditto. Always appreciate folks like you and hawkwind.

[plums]

Oh good, my pedantry and officiousness is appreciated! ;)
 

12 hours ago, cannonball said:

Ah I have had this happen before (I think my Jamal Jones map also had monstered submerged into the floor). Unfortunately this will probably be a case of trial and error to remove this issue, from what I recall I had to in the end move some linedefs around until the problem went away. I guess this does need fixing, especially as this issue might behave differently depending on the port too.

 

It's actually consistent across all ports (even GZDoom), except those that build their own nodes like EDGE. Looking at the automap overlayed with UDB's nodes viewer, it looks like the boundary between a few subsectors is where a thing can fall? You can move along that not-quite-vertical line if you can get yourself to fall down, and move slowly, like with low-sensitivity vertical mouse movement. I don't know enough about nodes to know why or even how that can happen.

 

Spoiler

 

It looks like this one is actually indirectly my fault though -- I think this is the switch-fix I posted to Steve's E4M2 changes, and it seems I used bsp-w32 as opposed to zdbsp. (You can tell because there's a non-zeroed reject table.) Just forcing a rebuild with zdbsp is probably enough to fix it, though for added safety you could subdivide that larger lava sector across that subsector boundary.

[dobu gabu maru]

3 hours ago, plums said:

I think this is the switch-fix I posted to Steve's E4M2 changes, and it seems I used bsp-w32 as opposed to zdbsp.

 

lol of course saving in the wrong nodebuilder is the culprit. It'd be funny how often this was the issue, if it wasn't equal parts frustrating due to how hard it is to "spot".

 

Also if you're doing a re-upload cannonball, could you delete lines 173-175 in the text file? It's the stuff in parenthesis directly below the MAPS 'N MUSIC header. As the final release doesn't include the E4_MUS wad, it doesn't make sense to keep that blurb.

[mancubian_candidate]

Howdy all, having a blast with this so far.

 

However, I have to admit I'm stumped on E3M8 (which has an excellent MIDI choice!). 

(I'm asking for a friend) Does anyone have a Demo of a UV-Max for this Map? 

Would like to see how it's done :)

 

Edit: Have read back through the thread, carry on :)

Edited February 10 by mancubian_candidate

[mancubian_candidate]

Ok, I'm back - managed to finish E3M8 on UV.

Had fun getting this once I understood the concept and what I could and couldn't do!

I don't think I'd ever be able to max this one but surviving was enough :)

[Darman Macray]

Just finished playing this, and I wanted to say: Terrific job! 

 

I played this with Xim's Star Wars Doom at a casual HMP difficulty. I know some had issue with the darker lighting of these maps, but I brought along DarkDoomZ's flashlight for the ride, so I felt prepared.

 

I found E2M9's switch-hunts and puzzles a bit on the frustrating side, and E3M7 & E3M8 were a little too much of a slaughter-fest for my tastes, but other than that, I had a lot of fun. I loved a lot of the fights in Episode 4 especially, and thought E4M9 was very clever and imaginative. The style was impeccable as well. These are some hecka good looking maps. 

 

Kudos to the team--this is a very strong megawad!

Edited March 14 by Darman Macray
Details and Grammer