1994 tune-up challenge (*updated /idgames link*)

[traversd]

Super Jamie said:

Cool :)

The three-Baron battle is pretty much perfect. Their timed door could open 5 or 10 seconds later if you can be bothered voodoo-scripting it.

It is scripted. Can't remember how much time it ended up being, I have a sector that slowly lowers in front of a conveyor. Sometimes it feels like it takes too long *L*.

Super Jamie said:

I must be a dumbass but I still couldn't get the combination puzzle :P Maybe change the switches themselves to red and green (instead of just all red or all green) to match the combination handset?

I doubt it mate. It's not a common thing I would imagine (the combo switch) so could be bit confusing. Maybe I can make the little dots on the key pad all red and light up the combination dots as needed? I'm not sure I'm happier with the larger red switches. I might go back to the smaller ones, they at least alternate between red and green too. Other options are to a: get rid of it ;o) (I put it in because the original door was hidden and so still wanted to put some form of challenge in to find/open it) or b: drop it down to 4 or 3 switches so it's a lot easier to brute force the answer (I think I'll do this)

Super Jamie said:
The downstairs battle is great, your lighting is spot on and the red floor indicators look rad. Nice placement of Plasma Gun and good idea opening up that teleport closet early and keeping the dudes behind bars.[/B]

Thanks SJ. I'm pretty happy how it's turned out. Yeh, I thought f*k it, open them all up at once. And make the player run through them to get the gun.

Super Jamie said:
The Yellow Key battle's ok. I like the new location alot, just the four Mancs with such weak weapons is a bit tedious, then the Chaingunners annihilate everything else once you grab the key. Those Imps are a nice threat to keep you moving while dealing with a tougher enemy. Maybe for the first part, an Arch Vile (or double Arch Vile) battle could work, or Revenants would also be fun. Maybe chuck a pillar or two in for cover if so.
[/B]

I'm glad I re-did the area (yet again) and tied it better to the main area as it now feels like it's not so "tacked on". What weapons did you generally have when down there? I've chucked a bit of everything in terms of ammo because I figure the player should have at least a RL or CG. I might put a chaingun down there just in case. I'm being a bit funny with this project I think because of the maps I've done I've really tried to limit the monster set to doom1. The CG's got in due to ammo and I think manc's fit a doom1 style pretty easily.

Super Jamie said:
I was going to mention this before but wanted to think about it; the two Barons that are released when you open the Yellow Key switch, that's a kinda slow-paced battle for such a large open area which the player has likely cleared by that time. Perhaps something like a few Hell Knights would go better there?
[/B]

I originally had about 8 or 10 spectres come out which made the player fight to get there. I think I'll go back to this.

Super Jamie said:

This bloke skipped his teleporter, preventing max kills. I didn't look at the Type 252 Linedef you're using for scrolling, but this happens to me when I don't space monsters out initially, and use a 252 Linedef longer than 256 units, the monsters move too fast to the foolproof teleport line before the last Thing has cleared the destination line. Check the Imp teleports down the bottom of UAC Ultra MAP10 to see how I fix it.
[/B]

Thanks :o)

Super Jamie said:
The first MIDGRATE I found in the previous post still bleeds into the floor.
[/B]

Will check it out.

Super Jamie said:
And one little visual thing, I'm kinda sad you changed the lifts from the oddly-aligned PLAT1 to the METAL/TEKLITE design. I thought how they were before was one of the coolest uses of PLAT1 that I'd ever seen ;)
[/B]

:o) I changed it to match the other lifts in the level. I'll look at swapping it back.

Super Jamie said:
This is almost perfect now. I wish I had your mapping skills. Epic job! [/B]

Thanks for the feedback SJ. much much appreciated.

Travers

[Super Jamie]

traversd said:

drop it down to 4 or 3 switches so it's a lot easier to brute force the answer (I think I'll do this)

Yeah, I think a three-switch puzzle would be good. Duke3D had ones like this, though Build's switch handling was a little different iirc.

I'm glad I re-did the area (yet again) and tied it better to the main area as it now feels like it's not so "tacked on". What weapons did you generally have when down there? I've chucked a bit of everything in terms of ammo because I figure the player should have at least a RL or CG. I might put a chaingun down there just in case.

I did a speedrun down there first just to check it out, so all I had was the shotgun and RL I picked up along the way (I left the Mastermind and the Baron to fight it out, amusingly the Baron won :P). The RL was pretty useless down there as the Mancs ended up holing me up in that dark alcove where the Imps are. A Chaingun down there somewhere that's an easy grab would be very helpful.

And of course, I'm happy to help. Maps like this are an honour to playtest and have input into. Thanks are reciprocal :)

[ArmouredBlood]

Think superjamie missed majorrawne's rawnwood so I'll point out a bunch of things.

First I thought there was way too little ammo for the opposition you put in, especially all the pain elementals and lost souls - I don't remember quite that many when I last played the original (which was like 4 months+ ago so meh). You should start re-balancing around the area after the blue key door, all those lost souls really drained whatever ammo and then health I had left. Not to mention I never found a RL without looking at the map with DB2. The main room secret I can understand, but don't give all that ammo without having the weapon in the open. The map almost requires the RL as is, so I'd suggest moving thing 25 somewhere below, or make it obvious the bookshelf nearby lowers.

I like the direction you're going with the detailing, but there's quite a bit of obstructive detail that you could just inset (look up the support post in essel's tricks and tips, linked to in the first post of this thread) and would look about as nice and still be playable, such as the stuff in the teleport destination room after getting the blue key. The blue key door itself also needs a lower unpegged, with maybe some doortraks.

Also behind the blue door, in the room with the 3 skull switches behind the marbface, the edging could use some impassable lines, or just make it 25 units tall. I didn't really notice the hints in that room until seeing what all the switches did in an editor, not sure how to make it more visible. And it'd be a good idea to do some alignment work/fixing up on the wall by the switch off the left manc balcony. And then thing 224 is blocking.

The area with the blue floor is really weird and could use some work imo. Can't really say much there beyond work on ammo and health. The final lift fight's balance is a little hard to say, as it could be fair with a plasma gun or less fair with plenty of shells. Some health and armor to go with that could work.

Sorry for ripping your effort to shreds, but it does need a bit of work =/

[Super Jamie]

Not missed, I've just been doing some CC4 testing and other stuff lately :) I still have a post from Dragonsbrethren to reply to above too!

[ArmouredBlood]

Ah, wow that's rather far back in the posts, heh. I had just played MR's map when he posted it then randomly remembered I had some comments. So uh, how's CC4 going? Quite a few maps seem to have gotten done ...

[GreyGhost]

ArmouredBlood said:

Think superjamie missed majorrawne's rawnwood so I'll point out a bunch of things.

And I'll point out a few more.

The tag in sector 84 causes a HOM when it's door opens.

Some monster closets need WR teleport lines, otherwise they won't empty.

Wrong linedef action on door at sector 163.

Sector 541 won't lower since it's already at floor level.

I counted about 30 sectors that could be merged with the void - mostly supports and decorative features built against walls.

<tested with PrBoom-plus>

all the pain elementals and lost souls - I don't remember quite that many when I last played the original

I don't recall seeing any. ;-)

[MajorRawne]

Thanks for the feedback lads, it's hard to see that there are so many problems with the map but it is entirely my fault for making the bloody thing so complicated for my first "finished" project.

Pain Elementals
There were no Pain Ellies in the original map; I decided to replace one Pain Ellie with Lost Souls but keep the second Ellie since Pain Elementals are quite under-used in maps (and now I know why!). The logistical problems caused by shielding a Pain Elemental with so many Lost Souls did not occur to me.

Ammo and Armour balance
I wanted to make this map notable for the utter absence of shotgun zombies, armour suits and the single shotgun. The Super Shotty is given right at the beginning of the map since there are a large number of powerful demons roaming the map. On the other hand this creates an issue when fighting weaker monsters like Imps and Chaingunners since a Super Shotty at close quarters is a waste of ammo against these chaps.

I'll make the rocket launcher in the Great Library more obvious; I haven't done this already because I felt the player would naturally have a look around when going on the lowering bookcase which is deliberately easy to spot, and the rocket launcher is on a platform right next to this. Also this area hides a shootable secret and I wanted to reward the player for looking around.

Finally, as I can barely survive the first encounter on UV, I have not actually been able to accurately playtest ammo balance, so I was hoping more skilled players could feed back on that aspect of the map.

Linedef Actions
This is something I keep mucking up -- I keep selecting single use instead of repeatable and I keep using direct instead of switch (and vice versa) -- sometimes though, linedef actions seem to default back to zero or switch to something I don't recall selecting. This may be my fault cos I have put a huge number of hours into the map and I started getting sloppy towards the end.

The skull switch room was a particular favourite of mine but you're the second playtester to recommend a revision, so I am thinking of simply having one switch which lowers all the required sectors rather than pointlessly having 3 separate switches which each lower 1-3 sectors.

There are probably too many sectors, linedef actions, tags and other trickery in this map for my current mapping ability -- if I can get this map right, it's going into my memoirs as a great victory :P

Oh, PS - What is "weird" about the blue area - does it jar with the rest of the map, suddenly having colours and a plush carpet? I was getting fed up of relentless wood by this point but I could easily change the textures.

[ArmouredBlood]

The carpet doesn't exactly fit, but that's okay. The problem is the cramped 64-wide-ish hallways and random crushers that suddenly squish the player. Combine this with the ammo shortage of the earlier parts and I'd consider it waaaaay too hard/frustrating to try. The actual decorations are kinda meh, they're ok but could be better. I'll give the map another go with an RL this time, see if I get much farther.

[MajorRawne]

You insult the upholstery, you insult every map I ever made! Which totals... one. :P

I was thinking of simply binning the whole blue area off cos the original was a serious atrocity. Even thinking of it brought me out in a cold, cold sweat. Unfortunately, deleting one third of the map would have broken the rules of the competition.

I have just downloaded your revised version of the map for testing and evaluation. Hopefully I'll learn a few tricks. I appreciate it :)

GreyGhost - The "merging 30 sectors" thing is too much for my poor, sacra-addled brain to cope with - would you be able to provide a screenie of the map to show me what you mean?

Again everyone, your input really is appreciated.

[ArmouredBlood]

Heheh, if the upholstery applies to carpets then doomguy walked all over your upholstery with his blood-stained shoes ;P There are plenty of ways you could've changed that area, like making the alcove that leads to it a staircase and convert it all into a stony basement, or a twisted Metal, pipes, and wood sub-area (can't think of the word, like the in-between spaces in skyscraper levels). Of course it takes a stretch of imagination to think of that, heh.

I missed a few things in my attempt to help (like the blue key door unpegging -.-), but hopefully you get something out of it. I removed a few of those sectors greyghost was talking about, mostly around the teleport exit and the bloody marble room with the 3 hks. Should be obvious if you compare maps.

[GreyGhost]

MajorRawne said:

GreyGhost - The "merging 30 sectors" thing is too much for my poor, sacra-addled brain to cope with - would you be able to provide a screenie of the map to show me what you mean?

I can do better than that, like ArmouredBlood I've been tinkering with the map. Check your PM's.

[MajorRawne]

Cheers lads, I didn't get chance to properly look through these yesterday so I'm going to spend the time between now and England's 2-0 demolition of the USA checking them out. ;P

Your assistance was really appreciated. :D

PS If I'd stretched my mind any more during the editing of this map it would have snapped like a footballer's underpant elastic in a whore-house!

[Super Jamie]

MajorRawne said:

PS If I'd stretched my mind any more during the editing of this map it would have snapped like a footballer's underpant elastic in a whore-house!

Hahahaha, I love the way you talk :D Where are you from? You have to be either Aussie, English or Irish.

[MajorRawne]

I'm English :P

More Rawne-isms await in my (hopefully) long and distinguished Doomworld career :D

[traversd]

http://t.underworldgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/td-techbase.zip

Update to TECHBASE. Mainly tweaks from previous comments above by Super Jamie.

Have also reworked a few actions to not use voodoo scripts so map is not nerfed in DM - that and in the end the same result seemed achievable without voodoo scripts.

Also upped encounters and ammo for co-op.

Plats have had makeover.

When Caco trap is actioned I now lock the player in the main area for a period of time. (you can still exit the area via the yellow key secret though).

Still slowly tagging linedefs for not on map etc.

EDIT: Re-uploaded to fix a stuff with red key trap. Why do I always realise these things after I shutdown the PC and go to bed?

EDIT2: Bah, I split a sector and nuked the sound channel to the cacodemons etc. fixed.

plus some image spam of the map as it is now.










Travers

[Walter confetti]

just a pair of screen shots of my pure evil remake:

http://img532.imageshack.us/i/pureevil0.png/ (before)

http://img708.imageshack.us/i/pureevilrmx0.png/ (after)

http://img64.imageshack.us/i/pureevil2.png/ (before)

http://img8.imageshack.us/i/pureevilrmx2.png/ (after)

mostly my work is re-texturing in hellish theme...

recently i added few detailing stuff...

[Guest]

I am really looking forward to this project. Some of these maps look amazing.

Great work Snarboo and mappers and testers for seeing this thing through to completion. (almost there).

[maggot202]

So August 1st is coming. Must remember to upload soon the final version of comcon (read: just bumping this thread so it won't be forgotten)

[Malinku]

slowly working on my map should have a new test version soon

[pavera]

Holy hell August 1st is really close and I haven't properly finalized my map! I'll get on it I promise!

[Dragonsbrethren]

Yeah, I've got to get back to work on mine too.

[Snarboo]

I've been watching this silently for a while so I'm glad to see people are working on finishing their maps. Hopefully I can get my crap together and have this wad compiled soon heh.

[tatsurd-cacocaco]

I'll also check my map again and fix something while considering Super Jamie's and traversd's review.

[Dragonsbrethren]

My map is pretty much done, but I forget what parameter(s) I used before to test coop/DM in single player. I tried adding -deathmatch to the testing parameters but none of the multiplayer-flagged things showed up. I want to give multi a quick go-over just to make sure everything's working right.

[pavera]

Well I promised I would do something, so I did. I gotta admit this version of the map isn't really all that different from the one that's already up, though I did rework the yellow key battle to some extent, and added a couple extra things.

It certainly isn't perfect and could probably use more tweaking, but I'm tired of looking at this map so here it is: Fortified Castle.

Glad I was at least somewhat a part of this project and I look forward to seeing it compiled.

[maggot202]

Well, as i promised, here is the final version of comcon. Not much has changed since my last update, only the blue key, red key and exit areas, so i'm most interested in opinions about those areas.
I'm looking forward the final megawad, as we've all put a lot of effort into this :)

[printz]

Time's up. Whew.

[tatsurd-cacocaco]

Final update of Castle to Hell, here. Probably, my map would be set to episode 3.

By the way, should each of authors write their own map's information for the project's text? Also, you should name your own map and choose custom music if you haven't done yet.

[Malinku]

I couldn't get a good version of my map finished as I ran out of idea for how to retexture most of the map (mostly the areas hat are covered in tek textures). Unless this get extended a few days you can take my map off the list.

but even if my map doesn't make it in here I will release a finished copy sometime.

[Snarboo]

Alright fellas, maps are due! I'll give everyone enough time to submit their map, and once all have been turned in, I will start the compiling process. I would like to add a custom title pic and maps names for this project as well as a dehacked patch, so I may need help once the maps are properly arranged.