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The DWmegawad Club plays: MAYhem 2012 (only 12 maps, so join!)


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Map11

Solid but not memorable.

Pretty standard fare here. Texturing is fine, architecture is okay. Gameplay is okay, but not very exciting. The set pieces aren't as ambitious or enjoyable as those of the previous map, IMO, and there's not much flow: areas tend to be pretty discrete.

I'm not a fan of monsters rising up out of solid floors (one of my few complaints about map04 would be that it appears in there as well). It seemed surprisingly easy to run away from the yellow key trap and to simply ignore the whole battle after the final door. Just a straight run for the exit.

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I'd say that people who ran past encounters on maps 10 and 11 simply weren't in the mood for slaughter maps.

One more thing, there are these revenants that teleport when you cross some linedef near the exit, but you only have to fight them if you stopped purposively, because they teleport with a pause and simply can miss the fun.

Oh boy, one map left, is it gonna be good? (NO) Will it end this marathon on a high note? (NO) Only time will tell. I'm your host, Harmata "Harmata" Harmata, stay tuned for tomorrow, God bless America.





(NO)

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MAP11: Cannonball's second outing doesn't feel quite up to par with his first, although it's still a nice play. The theme is quite different, opting to use the colorful marble textures to bring the level together, but in doing so, misses the size, scope, and journey of "Infiltration". Personally, nothing really stood out for me here, although it did whoop my ass a few times... I liked the twisting tunnel past the red key door the most. Small and dense level, a good warmup to our climax.

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Map11 - A cold day in hell by me
Well at least it looks different, I don't think using blue marble is a good excuse to call hell cold.
Credit to phml for making this remotely playable. This map is hard and I don't like it much to be honest. As people have pointed out there are probably better ways of using monsters in tight situations and well people learn from their mistakes as one would say.
The end probably needed a timed trigger to allow exit of the level (oh ye to have know voodoo doll effects back in may). It took 2 bites of the cherry to unearth all the monsters in the final section and let them infight each other into oblivion. Though I died several times here. Most proud moment was taking out the close quarters cyber in 2 bfg shots on the first attempt :)
Heh turns out my most evil mapping phase was when I was going out with my girlfriend, so here is a safe promise.
Nuts4 will be released the next time I get laid :P

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It's a cannonball double bill! Double the cannon, twice the balls.... Or something like that anyway.

MAP10: Is one of two big levels in MAYhem 2012 and asserts itself with close-to-sslaughter encounters in places, quite a few Archies elsewhere and a nice variety of environments. I particularly liked the way up to the blue key, what with the multiple-layered encounter and that brief "Ohshi-" moment when three Arch-Viles pop out after you've surmounted the challenge. The individual cyberdemons plopped into the middle of the central arena seem pretty pointless and I've never liked enemies popping directly out of solid ground, but otherwise it's a fun map with solid game play. Visuals could definitely be better (mostly odd texturing, like using the SLAD with the nukage stains in a room with no nukage, for example) but they're far from the worst I've seen and certainly don't ruin the map.

In short, I like it because it's a fun and varied set of battles.


MAP11 is also a bit dodgy on the texture front IMO (less TNT lighting, more mismatched flats and stuff) but I'm more bothered by the game play. In ZDoom it is very easy to be standing on those imps when they pop up out of the ground near the start and as has been noted, the Revenants at the end are essentially an optional battle. It's heavy going, but as I came in almost fully stocked, I managed to get through with only a few deaths and a fair bit of save/load. The chaotic next-to-last battle in the dark isn't really my cup of tea, but it beats the bit afterwards where Arch-Viles pop up behind you, with nowhere for you to really hide and very little warnining.

It's alright, but if I were cherry-picking from this mapset I'd not choose MAP11, is my summary.


MAP12 is a bona-fide epic, so set aside an hour or so for it when you decide to take it on people!

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  Phobus said:

It's a cannonball double bill! Double the cannon, twice the balls.... Or something like that anyway.
MAP11 is also a bit dodgy on the texture front IMO (less TNT lighting, more mismatched flats and stuff) but I'm more bothered by the game play. In ZDoom it is very easy to be standing on those imps when they pop up out of the ground near the start and as has been noted, the Revenants at the end are essentially an optional battle. It's heavy going, but as I came in almost fully stocked, I managed to get through with only a few deaths and a fair bit of save/load. The chaotic next-to-last battle in the dark isn't really my cup of tea, but it beats the bit afterwards where Arch-Viles pop up behind you, with nowhere for you to really hide and very little warnining.

It's alright, but if I were cherry-picking from this mapset I'd not choose MAP11, is my summary.


MAP12 is a bona-fide epic, so set aside an hour or so for it when you decide to take it on people!

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I wanted to be different on the texture front haha :P
Yeah I think this map was rather rushed and well gave up on it a bit. Oh well mapping is a learning process and I had only started mapping a couple of months prior to this.
Moving on, map12 well this is going to be one hell of a ride, think the Ben Hur of doom maps

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I fell behind again. Mouse broke. But I'm back now.

10 - Infiltration By Cannonball

Cannonball braced us for a terrible map with some of his self deprecating comments prior to MAP10's day but I didn't drop my expectations completely as I know he has a decent reputation for aptitude.

This proved to be spot on having played the map. Although some of the texturing choices and trap setups hint at a mapper still learning his craft (aren't we all), it's clear Mr Ball knows his way around an editor.

As the levels have started to cause me trouble I've started saving at convenient spots. With the last couple of maps it was taking too long to finish including deaths/restarts and I want to actually finish the club this time. However, despite coming unstuck once or twice I found this level considerably easier than The Metal and The Grudge. This may partly be due to HMP being measured more for my abilities than the other maps but some of the trap setups certainly contributed. Sometimes, if you crept, you could spot the monsters lying in ambush before they spotted you, other times you were given significant advantages over your foes such as height or cover in safe angles. Infighting was another tactic that could often be employed, specifically in the central cavern area where in the final invasion I simply ran in through one door and back into the base through another then listened to the ruckus through the wall. Maybe I fluked somesort of infighting sweet spot but when it finally died down there remained only 1 revenant and a Cyberdemon with the HP of Hell Knight. Easy pickings. Another comment I would make on the monster choices was that Arch Viles seemed to be thrown at the player with an almost ceremonial regularity. I did make me chuckle some at the end when the three AV's repeat reserructed a former human I had previously slayed that kept getting caught in the cross fire within seconds of being given life. Poor thing, couldn't he just be left to rest in piece :-)

I won't go on anymore because it makes it sound as though I disliked the level, which wasn't the case. There was no sloppiness resulting in unfair situations, which is the main pitfall to avoid.

The layout was expansive and non-linear, which is difficult to pull off so props there. The two major themes entertwined and gave me a sense of exploration and the lowering lift at the start was good for immersion. Mapflow was a case of finding the three keys in any order to unlock the three door key like E2M7 (am I right? You know which one I mean) which does the job but comes accross a little forced. I prefer to see more elegant methods of providing the player with choice but every now and again it's OK this way. I'm sure I'll use it sometime so I won't complain too much. Of the three paths the blue key one seemed hardest so I'm glad I happened to pick this one last so I could plasma by way out of any sticky spots.

The textures were not always best picked, alignment particulary on supports was sometimes off and architecture occasionally on the weedy side but for the most part it does the job of creating an atmosphere and sense of place and it's not what I'd describe as ugly or boring. This should be taken as quite a compliment for a map of this size. There is good contrast of light between the darkened caverns and brighter tech bases but some contrast within these areas would have added more drama to the look.

I've warbled on a bit.

TL;DR: Good map. Cannonball, you can come out from behind the couch now.

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Map12

Well, that was long.

Technically well-made map, with decent texturing and a wide variety of locations. Some good fights in the early stages of the map, with use of the terrain to make enemies challenging.

After you get through the red door, however, the level basically descends into "blizzards of bad guy" territory, as hordes of critters turn up every time you make any progress. It gets pretty wearisome, to be honest. I ran away from a lot of the fights, ending with 79% kills.

Amusingly, the last and biggest blizzard of enemies, right at the end of the level, is largely harmless. It's very easy to run around, flicking the switches needed to escape, while infighting breaks out on all sides.

Like 9, this was a level I was ready to be done with before it was finished. The gameplay was more varied than 9, due to the greater variety of environments, but it was a much longer slog and got pretty tiresome by the end.

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Map08: Man, really? Not surprised this is by the same author as Map05. The traps and gameplay are virtually the same, the only difference is this one is somehow more annoying for me than the first. I don't like those one-and-done crusher. I never have, and the fact that they appear so much is just... blegh. Didn't enjoy.

Map09: Frustrating in a different way. The map was put together decently, with a nice usage of the ol' hexagon shape, but the gameplay was just a chore for me. I don't like how the difficulty was generated, the hallway behind the BK door specifically got on my nerves. It's a mixed bag, and one that I'd most likely skip if I were doing a casual playthrough. Meh.

Map10: Big step up from the last few maps with a big, epic adventure. Not a great looking map, necessarily, but it plays decently enough and with the size you're given, the 400+ monsters suddenly feels like an average-sized opposition. None too shabby, though it isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread... at least it's the greatest thing since Map06, and it has me re-interested in this wad's last two maps. Nice stuff.

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11 - A Cold Day in Hell By Cannonnball

Similar to MAP10 in that it's a key collection pursuit and then ends with an all hell breaks loose slaughter battle. It was convenient coming so close after Cannonball's previous map for comparison purposes. All said and done I favour this one over MAP10. Cannonball seems to have tightened up on a few things gameplay wise. I tried the same infighting trick on the last fight and it wasn't as effective but you could manage the crowd by using the preceding corridor as an air lock to bottleneck the worst of it and then run past the remainder.

It's not really the sort of map I'm into but it's a good example of it's kind.


I'm not sure on MAP12, sounds like it's a huge map, which is not my thing at all...

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MAP12: Thematic Terror

This plays like a big effort by one guy who has made a few small maps and wants to make something impressive. It's quite sloppy texture-wise, with loads of colours making a scene and secrets being hard to tell out due to inconsistent detailing and somewhere near non-existent texture alignment.

It's big in an impressive way, with an escalating challenge that roughly keeps pace with the available weaponary until the end, where the final fight can easily just turn into 4 cybs and 2 spider masterminds doing most of your work for you. Fortunately I carried in a BFG from the previous maps, so I could hand out the majority of the death myself.

Generally the map is pretty fun to play, with big battles, small areas to fight through and more, but the use of clusters of enemies when revisiting areas and the option to do a lot of bottle-necking does rather weaken the impact.

I found 60% of the 10 secrets, killed all but one monster and found most of the items, so I saw most of what there was to see IMO. It also took me over an hour to beat, even with a full loadout on start up, so my warning of it being an epic was a fair one.

Could have been better, but it feels like a reasonable end to our short mapset. Nice to see a map with multiple themes ultimately be our only "descent to hell" map - would have been cooler to integrate the four themes from the challenge into it though, I think.

=============

So, conclusions, etc...

Favourite Map: MAP04 or MAP10, I think. They both are fun to play, don't go on too long and offer up a nice mixture of aesthetics and challenge. Neither are perfect, but, hey, what is? (Obviously I like my own maps too, but I'm not going to toot my own horn any more than this)

Least Favourite Map: It has to be one of MAP05 and MAP08, as neither of them are any good at all, aside from the fact that they show a willingness to experiment that'd go well with some experience on Scypek's behalf (sorry Scypek...)

Overall Impressions: A month of speed mapping came out with 12 maps and they're a mixed bag of themes, sizes, qualities and difficulties. We fell short on presentation, but do have some pretty damn good maps in there, IMO, so it's worth a try if nothing else.


Thanks for the feedback people - I feel good about my maps and I think Cannonball and TMD definitely will too! Hopefully we (the mappers) can all take away some lessons from this thread and apply them to what we make in the future. I'm totally on board for Momento Mori if that is our next one (I'm open to other options though), although a bit of a break from the one-map-a-day deal first would be nice!

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11 - A cold day in Hell By Cannonnball

This one was quite tricky I found, mostly because I was trying to be clever and round up all the monsters to kill each other from the start. After dying a few times I decided to pick them all off one by one which made life easier (although I did find myself runnnig around on 1% health at one point). Some nasty little encounters here and there, but always enough weaponry to deal with it. The ending was a little strange, in that you could run past the final battle and exit the map if you wanted. This gives you the choice of sticking around I guess to prove your manliness, but that easy way out was too tempting for me. I may as well take on the final map while I'm here...

12 - Thematic Terror By Moti and Kongming

That was quite a slog.. 1 hour 26 minutes it took me. I saw at the start that there were over 1000 monsters so I was expecting some big face offs with vast hordes, but other than the finale there were no major skirmishes, so I really felt every one of those monsters. Ironically in the final battle i didn't actually do any killing, other than mopping up the remaining cyber demons. So yeah, this was a big old map. Big and very linear, well it has to be really at that size or you'd be hopelessly lost. I don't like to fault this map too much when there were some others in this wad that were far worse, there were some enjoyable fights in here and it all worked and looked ok, I just felt a bit fatigued by the end. The graphics were a bit spaced out and evenly lit in places, but thats a minor niggle really. Its hard to pin down what it was about this map that made it drag for me, I've played other long maps, maybe not in one sitting though. I think that was probably what it was. I need a cup of tea now.

This was an up and down and up and down collection of maps, definitely worth slugging through the bad ones to get to the gems. It seemed like a place for people to get together and experiment with some ideas without the pressure of conforming to an ideal or stringent quality controls, which is obviously good to get folks working on stuff. Phobus's contributions were definitely the highlight, also TheMionicDonut's and Cannonball's maps were good fun. And Ribbiks's map was certainly a memorable experience...

Good stuff

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MAP12: I felt very mixed on this map. To clarify, it's a very reliable, generally positive experience; it's not a bad level nor is it plagued with any baffling issues. But it still doesn't reach the excellent heights provided by other maps in this set, and does continue on for a while.

There are quite a few things it does well: the color composition is solid and the level has a brilliant sense of pacing, starting off mind-numbingly easy and slowly handing weapons to you as the baddies get tougher, eventually having you go toe-to-toe with revs and AVs like you've been doing it all along. There's a lot of nice inter-connectivity so you never feel like you're just pushing on and on with no result, which helps with the pacing. And there are a couple of superb moments like the arachnatrons hunting you down past the red key door, the one SS soldier who pops out in the secret area, and (my favorite moment of the whole megawad) the eerie, long, isolated descent into hell for the final stretch in the game. Very atmospheric.

But even after that, there's a lot of things that felt... lukewarm. The gameplay for the most part, was very tame. While not necessarily a bad thing, it did make the numerous amount of enemies feel mostly like padding which contributed to the fatigue I felt towards the end. There were also a handful of instances where the baddies just pile up near a door or block monster line and you can safely just mow through the horde (like the top right section of the map). And some trap/monster combinations could've been better, like the silly Plasma Gun battle and the strangely calm final battle. The other big problem was a lot of the detail--while the texture work was nice, there were quite a few rooms that just felt barren or boxy. It's understandable given the huge nature of the map and that the mappers had to finish it in a month (kudos to them, playtesting must've been a bitch), but it still detracted from the journey.

It was pretty fun and had some nice moments, but it'd be hard to advise someone to slog through the same 1:16:53 I went through. If you like big maps though, you should definitely give it a shot.

------

My final opinion on the mapset is very close to mouldy's. Enjoyed Phobus, Mionic and cb's stuff and was mixed on everything else. Kind of felt like a miniature Community Chest, as there was a variety of map styles and a few diamonds in the rough. Still surprised a majority of these maps got out in a month, especially the last one. Jeez.

I'll probably revisit Ribbik's murderfest in a few days now that I know there's an RL and PG in it.

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Thank you all for your feedback on map12. Yeah, the problem with the detail and barren rooms is definitely because of how we were given around a month, and there were some days we both couldn't work on the map so we had to make a lot of finishes quickly.
At first the final battle was planned to be just the four cyberdemons, but I felt like something was missing :P
The map isn't intended to be slaughter-oriented, so the high amount of monsters might be misleading, and it's really just a "long map to end a short megawad" thing, more leaning towards people who enjoy long maps, while not killing the entire theme of the wad itself.

And playtesting was indeed quite a bitch. ;)

This was a fun read, hope to see (and perhaps join, if/when I have free time) another session of the DWMegawad Club!

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Phew, finally finished the last map, at first i thought i'd die from boredom. Then things became more interesting and i've managed to last till the end. The map is very long, there' some visual variety but encounters are very similar, that's the main problem. It's not easy to create entertaining map of such size in brief period of time, but i guess it's good that authors at least tried.

Couple of notes:
The ASHWALL2 area at the beginning is painfully dull.
The soulsphere trap completely cancels the bonus health and then takes some more while being optional.
The two Masterminds encounter was quite dull. I didn't even know that they can infight, which they did. Eh.

Welp, that was it. Thanks topic starter, thanks all fine gentledudes who shared their time with me. Wish you all good things in 2013.

Now, one last thing...

MAP07... I don't cheat in video games, i am the guy who finished Nitro Family without cheating. The key word is "game", something that contains gameplay. MAP07 doesn't. The author created rooms, he placed monsters, but there is no reason to engage them, there's no threat, and it will not appear even if you'll engage them. It's like opening a wad in SLADE, there are monsters, there are levels, just no gameplay. No fighting, only clicking, you don't win, you click required amount of times. And you don't even have to start clicking.

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Map 09:
Difficulty: UV
Kills: 82%
Items: 31%
Secrets: 0%
Fairly decent map with a nice Arch-vile trap near the barriers (the one with two pillars) where you have to be extremely quick to defeat them in order to stop three of them attacking you at once. Could've done with something in the lava that allows a person to escape such as a teleporter as it was incredibly annoying when you got the red key and accidentally fell in the lava and had to start over. Also blue key room shouldn't have had the two arch-viles in it as I found that a bit unfair and infuriating when I was on low ammo.

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Phobus said:
I'm totally on board for Momento Mori if that is our next one (I'm open to other options though), although a bit of a break from the one-map-a-day deal first would be nice!

Expand  


MM would work for me. Be nice to revisit one of the first megawads. Also happy to take a break between WADs.

On another note, I'd like to suggest we change the "we schedule our time to play a level a day" intro to something that reflects a more casual approach. Xmas meant that a lot of people were not playing for a few daysm, and then doing multiple levels in a day, and I think that's fine and should be encouraged. Finding time to play a Doom level every day - but only that one level - can be tough. I think the rule should be more on the lines of "You can play at any pace you like, but don't post about a level ahead of schedule", where the schedule is map01 on the day the thread starts, and an additional map (not counting the secret levels) each day thereafter.

Same basic effect, but more explicit that it's perfectly Ok to not play for a week, then knock over a bunch of levels at once.

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Hmm, I fully agree about the idea of Memento Mori. Are we talking about the first or second though? The first I found to be okay but basic in terms of style when compared to the second.

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As far as I know, we'd been talking the original, not MM2.

I'm happy to play either, but I think it would make more sense to do the first one before tackling the second :)

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  Capellan said:

As far as I know, we'd been talking the original, not MM2.

I'm happy to play either, but I think it would make more sense to do the first one before tackling the second :)

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Certainly, I haven't played either in a very long time would be great to play and review each map as well. Hopefully I can remember the secrets.

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  Capellan said:

I'd like to suggest we change the "we schedule our time to play a level a day" intro to something that reflects a more casual approach.

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Yup, this is a pretty good idea, considering how many people (including myself) do this already, and it's basically how it's many people treat it as is. I'll also throw my vote towards Memento Mori 1. I'll wait a few days for anyone else to finish the last few maps, and throw up a new topic for it soon. Should be a lot of fun, especially since this was the second wad I played through way back when. It'll be interesting to analyze it after doing some mapping myself.

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Played MAP12!
Difficulty: UV
Kills: 101%
Items: 66%
Secrets: 40%
Time: 89:22

Holy hell, that was one hell of a ride!! A very cool, beautiful and LOOOONG level, which I played cautiously and managed to get to the end without dying, YAY!! Map felt great to play, and I really disliked the Plasma secret 2-av trap...it felt very luck based to me, as you have nowhere to hide. A really exciting (not hard) final fight.Looking at the HUD, I noticed I missed two monsters and six secrets. If there is a BFG on this level, I couldn't find it.

Really cool map, I'd rate it 8/10. The good points being the visuals and gameplay, and the bad points that I could point are that the map is too long, and the luck based secret. Don't know about the other six secrets but it was a fun map to play.

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I wonder if, generally speaking, starting a new wad later in the week (Thur/Fri) might work best? It means that come the first weekend, people would have 2-4 maps to play, which is enough to get "into" the project, and means you don't have to stop after only 5-10 minutes, but isn't so many as to become a daunting backlog.

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Im new to the play-through club, but I do happen to be playing the through the original MM currently so I may latch on.

  Capellan said:

I wonder if, generally speaking, starting a new wad later in the week (Thur/Fri) might work best? It means that come the first weekend, people would have 2-4 maps to play, which is enough to get "into" the project, and means you don't have to stop after only 5-10 minutes, but isn't so many as to become a daunting backlog.

Expand  


I like this idea. Perhaps it could be stated that on the first of the month a WAD is selected and the first few maps are fair game for posting, then once it hits the 5th the play-through schedule starts. Really the idea is only post maps that are the same number or smaller than today's date.

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I'll go with whatever people choose, MM sounds good. Missing a few days and catching up is a good way to go, and people seem to naturally fall into that rhythm.

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MAP12: THEMATIC TERROR

Well, a lot better than I expected from the monster count. I kinda figured it would just be another slaughtermap like MAP07, but instead it just turned out to be a huge map, in the vein of "Black Rain" and such.

Not as "thematic" as I thought... I thought we might see something like the "colors" map with each colored door's area being very different. There is definitely variety, with a tech base part, the requisite box area, a green marble area and the hell area... I thought, on their own, a lot of the areas looked nice. Not as good as some of the more thematic maps in the WAD like MAP09, but still good. And I didn't find any of the fights to be unfair or a real slog, though there are definitely some difficult ones and I came in with the BFG, which really helped in spots. Lots of monster variety and chances for monster in-fighting, which I appreciate (even a Mastermind-on-Mastermind set up!) Unfortunately, the big finale was kinda a let down, since it's very easy to just hit the two switches and run into the exit.

Overall, it didn't feel like a map made on a limited timescale like some of the other ones in the WAD. Closer inspection shows that some parts could've used more playtesting or thought; but still, I liked it a lot.

Overall Thoughts:

Favorite Map: MAP09 - The Grudge. Great theme, challenging fights, and some memorable moments (3 Archvile bridge). Honorable mention to MAP06 - The Metal and MAP12 - Thematic Terror. MAP04 - Eerie Canals was fairly good too; I think with a couple changes it'd be one of my favorite maps.

Least Favorite Map: Probably MAP08 - Hell's Ravine or MAP02 - The Golden Age. Map05 wasn't so hot either.

Overall, a fun little pack - lots of different styles and authors, which is more fun to play from a reviewer's perspective.

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I'll throw up the Memento Mori thread in a few hours with the new system, that is the map limit is the day of the month, but you can post any time you want (day by day or chunk posts).

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