Condemned: ZDoom Heretic Episode in RC3 !!!!!!!!!!

[TheHambourgeois]

(old thread)

 

 

RC 3 File:  cndmnd.zip 

Changes from RC2:
-25% of the king liches in the final area were missing both tag 664 and the script execute action to control the access to the level end. Oops! This was fixed.
 

Changes from RC1:
-removed the co-op starts I added in the hotfix for e1m5 because I actually did already have them. Oops!!!
-bunch of fixes to e1m8 to make it more co-op friendly: script to access blue key area after first player enters, player blocking lines in blue key area
-finished version of e1m8 song

-fixed some non unpegged door track lines I missed in e1m1 somehow

-re-imported a lot of midis to make sure they were the most current, e1m1 looped properly on my end(? allegedly the problem one)
- added -COUNTKILL or whatever to the wights and shadowclaws
-removed the 5(!?) extra Mystic Urns that showed up in e1m5 for some reason and replaced them with crystal vials.

 

Condemned is a small Heretic episode designed explicitly for ZDoom. There are 6 normal levels, 1 atmospheric interlude level, and 1 secret level. The focus of the design is as follows:

• Emphasis on a retro feel, not a hypermodern map set
• The presence of advanced engine features grows as you progress, but is minimal
• Custom enemies are present, but minimal in number and distinction from stock enemies
• Level design is fairly compact and interconnected
• Trying to avoid every map being a slaughter map
• There is some emphasis on environmental storytelling, as well as a few hopefully unobtrusive text interludes
• This is dependent on Wayfarer's Tome, the version used as the base is included in the zip archive

 

 

Edited April 30 by TheHambourgeois
RC 3 baby !!!!!!!!!!

[plums]

I will definitely give this a go!

[NecrumWarrior]

I keep forgetting to Playtest this! 

[senpaigru]

I really enjoyed playtesting this

Edited February 21 by senpaigru

[Death Bear]

Congrats on the release!!!

[TheHambourgeois]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. This is going to go into RC2 because I need to co-opify the 

Spoiler

blue key trap in e1m8

but beyond that, barring a co-op playtest to see where we could make improvements specifically for co-op I think it's ready (also of course discounting finishing the e1m8 midi, which I still need to do.

[plums]

Fun set. No serious problems found, a few GZDoom warnings that you can probably just ignore. Good texturing and made an interesting contrast with swamp.wad

Some notes I made while playing that I'm just going to slap in here because I'm tired:

 

e1m1
    music doesn't quite loop properly, track ends before the end of the measure
    invalid ACS module warning

e1m2
    can safely plink the iron liches behind the bars with the wand (room with green key) it's fine if you don't care though

e1m3
    tons of warnings about lines having no first sides, or being unconnected.

e1m4
    great open layout

e1m8
    lol start, nice reference.
    shadow sabreclaws are annoying, though near the end i figured you could kill them on the conveyor which made it fun
        100% kills! make them not count as kills anyhow though maybe?
    chaos zone style area when getting blue key:
        iron liches can take you up to the outer area, probably no way to stop this except make impassable
        no way to get back here if you leave?
        this area pretty easy for the amount of supplies given, had tons of ammo left over
    no dragon claw at all?

e1m5
    cool atmosphere, liked the water being cleared

e1m6
    fun map, absolutely loaded with ammo even from wand start though

e1m7
    gz warning: Line 1444 (type 241:Floor_LowerToLowestTxTy), arg 3 is 224 (should be 0)

 

 

Edited February 24 by plums

[TheHambourgeois]

On 2/23/2024 at 11:45 PM, plums said:

e1m1
    music doesn't quite loop properly, track ends before the end of the measured

e1m8
    lol start, nice reference.
    shadow sabreclaws are annoying, though near the end i figured you could kill them on the conveyor which made it fun
        100% kills! make them not count as kills anyhow though maybe?
    chaos zone style area when getting blue key:
        iron liches can take you up to the outer area, probably no way to stop this except make impassable
        no way to get back here if you leave?
        this area pretty easy for the amount of supplies given, had tons of ammo left over

These seem to be the most notable other than cleaning up some of the warnings. Re: e1m8, I thought I had blocked the outer area as described? will go over it again, as I had the sense a tornado could throw you up there. The no way to get back issue is why I am going to make RC2, as this also makes it not co-op compatible. Might tweak the ammo drops as well and will probably make the sabreclaws not count toward the kills as there is no way to permakill them other than the random (~15%) chance (or dumping them in the crusher pit, which will do it eventually)

[plums]

Just checked, and it looks like none of the ledges in that part of E1M8 are blocked off. I forgot ZDoom has a "block player" flag so that's an easy fix.

 

In some ways I thought it was good to not allow the player to go back there just because there was still so much ammo around when I left, cutting the player off from going back to restock there. So if you let people go back I'd really recommend cutting back some of the ammo. OTOH there's a possibility that someone can burn all their ammo trying to kill the sabreclaws if they don't realize they come back to life, so I guess having some degree of extra supplies is probably good. (I was playing from wand start and I restarted the map once I realized what was going on.)

[TheHambourgeois]

On 2/25/2024 at 5:08 PM, plums said:

In some ways I thought it was good to not allow the player to go back there just because there was still so much ammo around when I left, cutting the player off from going back to restock there. So if you let people go back I'd really recommend cutting back some of the ammo. OTOH there's a possibility that someone can burn all their ammo trying to kill the sabreclaws if they don't realize they come back to life, so I guess having some degree of extra supplies is probably good. (I was playing from wand start and I restarted the map once I realized what was going on.)

The fact that heretic monsters drop so little ammo so inconsistently is Mapper's Bane

[TheHambourgeois]

Revisiting this (Plums quote):

Spoiler

On 2/23/2024 at 11:45 PM, plums said:

e1m1
    music doesn't quite loop properly, track ends before the end of the measure

e1m3
    tons of warnings about lines having no first sides, or being unconnected.

e1m8
    lol start, nice reference.
    shadow sabreclaws are annoying, though near the end i figured you could kill them on the conveyor which made it fun
        100% kills! make them not count as kills anyhow though maybe?
    chaos zone style area when getting blue key:
        iron liches can take you up to the outer area, probably no way to stop this except make impassable
        no way to get back here if you leave?
        this area pretty easy for the amount of supplies given, had tons of ammo left over
    no dragon claw at all?

e1m7
    gz warning: Line 1444 (type 241:Floor_LowerToLowestTxTy), arg 3 is 224 (should be 0)

 

 

 

e1m1 music: need to check the midi actually in the wad but the source midi should have a track end event at beat 1 tick 1 of the next measure.
e1m3 warnings: its from this 

e1m8: added the impassable for player flags, edited the decorate to remove countkill from the sabreclaws (probably gonna do this for the dark undead warriors in e1m7 as well), added a script to build a portal to the area after the first player enters, and to re-enter in single player. Will revisit the ammo probably (I am bad at doom so I tend to be a bit conservative on the ammo front, see also e1m6).

e: still need to finish that e1m8 midi, might do that tomorrow if I am productive.

e the 2nd: regarding no dragon claw for e1m8, should be right here?
 

Edited April 10 by TheHambourgeois

[TheHambourgeois]

On 2/21/2024 at 4:16 PM, TheHambourgeois said:

RC 2 File:  cndmnd.zip

RC 2 baby see link in OP ^^^ help me get this albatross off my neck

[FEDEX]

On 4/15/2024 at 1:28 AM, TheHambourgeois said:

RC 2 baby see link in OP ^^^ help me get this albatross off my neck

I've compared with the RC1 and both are the same file (date and time of the .wad file: 21 feb - 18:31pm)

[TheHambourgeois]

1 hour ago, FEDEX said:

I've compared with the RC1 and both are the same file (date and time of the .wad file: 21 feb - 18:31pm)

god dammit I will fix it then one sec

So I just downloaded the file and it has the larger midi for e1m8 and the -COUNTKILL changes made to the DECORATE

e:
So this is the file I just downloaded:

Edited April 16 by TheHambourgeois

[Mad Butcher]

1 hour ago, TheHambourgeois said:

So I just downloaded the file and it has the larger midi for e1m8 and the -COUNTKILL changes made to the DECORATE

When opened with the latest stable version of 7-Zip the RC2 wad is dated 2/21/2024, so it must be a bug with 7-Zip. WinRAR and Windows Explorer show the correct 4/15/2024 date.

[TheHambourgeois]

I'd check the file size then just to confirm for @FEDEX, the RC1 wad on my computer is listed as 6,783 kb while the archive is showing a 6,877 kb file

[FEDEX]

Thanks for the info 👍

[NaliSeed]

Is there a standalone version of this wad that doesn't require TWT and doesn't have custom monsters, just plain vanilla Heretic? 

[TheHambourgeois]

54 minutes ago, NaliSeed said:

Is there a standalone version of this wad that doesn't require TWT and doesn't have custom monsters, just plain vanilla Heretic? 

Negative.

[NaliSeed]

24 minutes ago, TheHambourgeois said:

Negative.

Bummer 😞

[NaliSeed]

7 hours ago, TheHambourgeois said:

Negative.

BTW, I totally stole your King Lich sprites for use in my own project :-P

[hereticfan]

Hello,
trying to start this to no avail.

I get the following:

2 errors while parsing decorate scripts.

Script error, "cndmnd.wad:DECORATE" line 260:
Parent type 'KnightGhost2' not found in KnightWight
Attempt to get invalid state See from actor KnightWight.
Script error, "cndmnd.wad:DECORATE" line 555:
Parent type 'Clink2' not found in ShadowClink
Attempt to get invalid state See from actor ShadowClink.

Edited April 20 by hereticfan

[TheHambourgeois]

What is your load order? Load wtome_sa.pk3 before you load cndmnd.wad, there is inheritance from wtome. Use the bundled version of Wayfarer's Tome too, if NJ updates it then I can't guarantee compatibility.

[TheHambourgeois]

Uploaded RC3 cause there was a non-game breaking but still bad scripting error in the final boss arena (you could kill only 75% of the liches on skill 4/5 and advance, even fewer needed to be kiled on lower difficulties). The relevant tags and death actions were added.

[hereticfan]

Want to play this. Which program do you use to load wc3tome first then your wad second? No instructions are available in the readme. Unless you are simply supposed to put the two files over gzdoom and let it start on his own ? 

[TheHambourgeois]

8 hours ago, hereticfan said:

Want to play this. Which program do you use to load wc3tome first then your wad second? No instructions are available in the readme. Unless you are simply supposed to put the two files over gzdoom and let it start on his own ? 

I would do it in one of the standard ways that lets you define load order (Make a shortcut and put the command line parameters in the file path, make a batch file that does the same, or use some kind of front end launcher).

If your IWAD path is defined or is in your root folder a you can make a batch (.bat) file with the following contents, also assuming that the two files are in the same directory as gzdoom.exe:

gzdoom.exe -iwad heretic.wad -file wtome_sa.pk3 cndmnd.wad

if you have specific directories for your wads it may look something like this, with these file paths being hypothetical, just put the file path you actually use:

gzdoom.exe -iwad "c:/Games/Doom/IWADs/Heretic.exe" -File "c:/Games/Doom/PWADs/Heretic/wtome_sa.pk3" "c:/Games/Doom/PWADs/Heretic/cndmnd.exe"

 

If that looks like gibberish to you, I would recommend https://zdoom.org/wiki/ZDL as that seems to be the most recommended one? Don't use a front end personally I just have a million batch files in my doom directories. e: and if you use ZDL make sure wtome_sa.pk3 is above cndmnd.wad in the launcher window.

Edited May 7 by TheHambourgeois

[Egregor]

9 hours ago, hereticfan said:

Want to play this. Which program do you use to load wc3tome first then your wad second? No instructions are available in the readme. Unless you are simply supposed to put the two files over gzdoom and let it start on his own ? 

 

I use this one:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/87120-rocket-launcher-20-cross-platform-doom-front-end/

 

ZDL looks good too, in fact better because it supports multi-player.

Edited May 7 by Egregor