The DWmegawad Club plays: Whitemare & Sacrament

[dobu gabu maru]

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of vodka (the cheaper the better!) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?
We're going to be playing Whitemare until the 16th and then we start Sacrament on the 17th. A map per day as usual (excluding secret maps).

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

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The megawad we are playing through currently is Sacrament

>>>DOWNLOAD WHITEMARE HERE<<<

>>>DOWNLOAD SACRAMENT HERE<<<

Though the holidays have come and gone, hell lives on! Whitemare and Sacrament are two 2011 Russian collaborations done by different groups. The former is a batch of 12 speedmaps by the Russian Doom Community that underwent some reworking to bulk it up to 19 maps, themed around the winter season. The latter is by [B0S] Clan and draws similarities to Eternal Doom in size and scope, promising an atmospheric adventure. So button up that parka—we're in for a harsh winter.

Author & maplist for Whitemare:

Quote

Map01 - "Ice Canyon" by Dragon Hunter
Map02 - "North Base" by Bed.intruder
Map03 - "Sacrifice" by Archi
Map04 - "LDFXGESA" by Memfis
Map05 - "The Ancient Mysteries" by Cybermind
Map06 - "Frozen Point" by NRM
Map07 - "Ledges of Pain" by Archi
Map08 - "Ice Cavern" by Nil
Map09 - "Coldblood" by Ameba
Map10 - "Sweet House" by Slavius
Map11 - "Nord Keep" by Shadowman
Map12 - "Kleptomania" by BeeWen
Map13 - "The Abandoned Base" by Cybermind
Map14 - "Hopeless Joy" by BeeWen
Map15 - "Arctic Heart" by Dragon Hunter

Map31 - "Ice Riff" by Archi
Map32 - "Mogor's House" by Shadowman

Map16 - "Depraved Feast" by Arsenikum
Map17 - "The End" by Archi

Author & maplist for Sacrament:

Quote

Map01 - "Reposa In Pace" by Slavius
Map02 - "Doxylamine Moon" by Lainos
Map03 - "Dirtyllery" by Wraith
Map04 - "Phobia" by Dr. Max
Map05 - Lavatraz by Wraith
Map06 - "Pandora's Box" by Archi
Map07 - "Arena" by Dragon Hunter
Map08 - "Zone X" by Archi
Map09 - "Vancouver" by Archi
Map10 - "Wood Prison" by Azamael
Map11 - "Seaport" by Azamael
Map12 - "Industrial Processing" by Dragon Hunter
Map13 - "Controlled System" by BeeWen (Lestat)
Map14 - LOGOEND by "Lainos"

BONUS CONTENT
kmxexii's reviews of Whitemare & Sacrament
purist & his son play Whitemare
----------
OLD THREADS
BF_THUD!
Community Chest 4
Jenesis
MAYhem 2012
Memento Mori
Interception
2002: A Doom Odyssey
Hadephobia
Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
HYMN
Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
Realm of Chaos
Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
Kama Sutra
Unholy Realms & Zone 300
Vile Flesh
Ultimate Doom
Whitemare & Sacrament
Scythe
Epic 2
Whitemare 2

Edited May 9, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

[NuMetalManiak]

God damn it took ya long enough ;P... glad to see it's here. I've already started Whitemare again. Sacrament is gonna be a first timer, except for that Doxylamine Moon level or whatever since I played the Overdose version. Gonna try a few new things myself this time around too.

HMP, continuous, double ammo, GZDoom 1.4.8. Hope no one minds me getting the ball rolling since I finished the first map already.

MAP01 Ice Canyon

Well now, this music is an interesting greeting. Will I slaughter lotsa enemies? Sure, but only in due time. I really think this first level is too tough to contend with though (for a first map anyways), especially the bout with some spectres in the beginning (had to punch one, then allow infighting to occur with the hellknight and contemporaries. But then I'd get all my weapons soon with the SSG, chaingun, and RL in rather short order! The teleporting revenants were indeed a pain but having played this before I saw them coming. BK part wasn't too bad, but after that the spiderdemon nearly killed me before I became conscious of where the supercharge secret is. Then, the main slaughter, all those revenants, and it's actually difficult to utilize infighting seeing as how the enemies are up on the ledges, and that revenants who do get hit tend to get too close to their aggressors to even attack them. So bottleneck the crowd and use rockets as promised. I tried to kill them close to the red door, away from where the archvile teleports in after I get the key so that no revenants would get resurrected. Sound as it is, it works out great, and didn't have too much in terms of actual trouble.

Hitscanner count: 4

One zombieman at the end, two chaingunners, and a spiderdemon. Wow! Zero sargeants too! This map is generally devoid of any majorly nasty hitscanner filled nonsense! No wonder I like this map so much. Of course the spiderdemon is a real troublemaker in an open field, but that's better than ambushes by several shotgun guys or chaingunners.

Start to Crate: 0:15

As much as it begs me to say there aren't any crates or barrels at all, when you see the canyon itself, you can squint and see burning barrels in the distance. Supposedly supposed to resemble fired-up ice structures (WTF?) but I can tell they're burning barrels.

[Memfis]

Figured that since I was involved in the development of Whitemare, I might as well comment on the wad, giving some maybe interesting info. The most important thing you should know about it is that it was based on the 11 maps (01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09,10,14,16) made during a 4 hour speedmapping event.

Yes 11, not 12. The twelfth one, map11 was included in the original 12 map compilation as some sort of a joke but actually Shadowman made it before during the course of 2 days. I'm not really sure why Archi and Shadowman decided to do this. I was a bit pissed when the truth was revealed because his map made many of ours look crappy in comparison but then we found out that we shouldn't have compared it to our works to begin with. Oh well, 2 years have passed so I shouldn't be bitter about this.

Anyway, a few days after the speedmapping event someone thought that the results were kinda cool and an idea to expand it to something bigger was born. Everyone was asked to improve their levels where possible and a few mappers made some new ones. And so a winter-themed megawad with 19 levels was done.

Interesting fact: a big part of the maplist was decided pretty much randomly. When Archi was compiling the 12 map wad, I believe he didn't give any thought to the map order since the whole compilation was done just for convenience, not for people to play the maps continuosly. Here is what the order was IIRC: 01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09,11,10,16,14. (I'm not 100% sure about it but I know that it's pretty close.) As you can see, it didn't really change much because we thought it worked quite well as it was.


map01 - Dragon Hunter is (well?) known for gigantic maps with kinda epic arena battles and this one is no exception. I really like the "skybox" he made with these huge mountains in the background. Most after-speedmapping changes were done to the final fight: DH made it a bit harder and longer, with more stuff to do.

[NuMetalManiak]

Oops I hit Post Reply instead of editing my post, my bad.

[kmxexii]

Memfis said:

Figured that since I was involved in the development of Whitemare, I might as well comment on the wad, giving some maybe interesting info. The most important thing you should know about it is that it was based on the 11 maps (01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09,10,14,16) made during a 4 hour speedmapping event.

Yes 11, not 12. The twelfth one, map11 was included in the original 12 map compilation as some sort of a joke but actually Shadowman made it before during the course of 2 days. I'm not really sure why Archi and Shadowman decided to do this. I was a bit pissed when the truth was revealed because his map made many of ours look crappy in comparison but then we found out that we shouldn't have compared it to our works to begin with. Oh well, 2 years have passed so I shouldn't be bitter about this.

Anyway, a few days after the speedmapping event someone thought that the results were kinda cool and an idea to expand it to something bigger was born. Everyone was asked to improve their levels where possible and a few mappers made some new ones. And so a winter-themed megawad with 19 levels was done.

Interesting fact: a big part of the maplist was decided pretty much randomly. When Archi was compiling the 12 map wad, I believe he didn't give any thought to the map order since the whole compilation was done just for convenience, not for people to play the maps continuosly. Here is what the order was IIRC: 01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09,11,10,16,14. (I'm not 100% sure about it but I know that it's pretty close.) As you can see, it didn't really change much because we thought it worked quite well as it was.


map01 - Dragon Hunter is (well?) known for gigantic maps with kinda epic arena battles and this one is no exception. I really like the "skybox" he made with these huge mountains in the background. Most after-speedmapping changes were done to the final fight: DH made it a bit harder and longer, with more stuff to do.

Nice read, keep it up. I know hardly anything about the RDC besides what I see over here so I appreciate the info.

[Dragonsbrethren]

MAP01 of Whitemare has me wondering if I even want to participate. It just rolls so many things I dislike about certain mapping styles into one. You have your obnoxious bumpy detailing, "can't see shit" caves with no light sourcing, ugly vistas with repetitive texture tiling, and a "circle strafe while holding down M1" revenant hoard. The Mastermind seemed pretty ridiculous too, but I got lucky and she barely fired. Hated teleporting into two arch-viles - I'm not ashamed to admit I resurrected there, no way I was going through the beginning of the map again.

[Suitepee]

I might consider covering this via livestream, but no promises since I'm eagerly anticipating NOVA: The Birth, Switcheroom and the Doomworld Mega Project 2013!

If I somehow have enough free time though, I will happily take a crack at one (or both) of these for my first DWMegawad Club coverage of 2014!

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP01: Didn't really care for this one at all. The winter theme looks great in Doom, possibly because of its rare use, but the gameplay had me scratching my head a bit. Specters in dark hallways, overly massive rooms, mastermind with no cover around... the map has a strong sense of scope but it just felt painful to run through.

[Demon of the Well]

Dragonsbrethren: Not all of the maps are like Dragon Hunter's (although if you didn't like this one you probably won't like his map 15, either); some are much smaller and tighter, a handful are much brighter, and many have a different combat style. That aside, I think that sometimes it's a worthwhile intellectual exercise to give a chance to/play through something that's evidently not really up one's alley. I got almost no direct enjoyment from playing through Zone 300 when the club did that one, but I consider it to have been an experience worth having anyway, because it gave me an opportunity to think about gameplay/design decisions that I feel do/don't work from a novel/different angle.

Anyway, on with the show...

Whitemare Map 01 -- Ice Canyon - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
While perhaps a bit unorthodox for a map 01 from a gameplay perspective, this is a fitting introduction to Whitemare's aesthetic angle--rather than starting in a frostbitten techbase or the like (that will come later in the WAD, incidentally), you're in a dark icy tunnel system with glimpses of a snowy mountain range visible through apertures in the roof, and soon enough you find yourself stumbling out into vast wintry valleys and riverbeds with severe foothills and crags (some ominously capped by strange signal fires) beetling up around you. While there are a number of distinct sub-themes in Whitemare, the ones that most dominate are open arctic landscape and mysterious frozen caverns, and both are introduced effectively here. For the most part I think it's a very solid visual presentation--macro-tiling over huge swaths of natural landscape doesn't bother me so much in DooM, and the sector-based bump/terracing effects (chunks of ice in the river, different ground levels in the blue key valley, etc.) coupled with the generally wide open spaces and panoramic mountain scenes (which really constitutes the bulk of the detailing in the level) give the proceedings a very clean look and a distinctly fresh-air feel. There are a couple of visual errors to be seen if you really look for them--for instance, some of the ice shelves around the waterfalls in the blue key valley have water flats on their top surfaces despite not being part of the falls/not having fall textures on their sides--but these are generally subtle and don't detract much from the overall impression.

As to the gameplay, well, vast open spaces, lots of mid/upper-tier monsters, and a sequence of arena-style battles is probably not what most people think of when they think of 'map 01 gameplay', for sure. This is presumably a natural consequence of the fact that the maps were, as Memfis says, originally designed to be standalone offerings, rather than as parts of a measured progression in a larger set. I don't think there's anything wrong with deviating from the norm in matters like these, though, and despite the nature of the choreography, overall I'd say the map is still certainly easy enough not to seem like the mapset is throwing you into the deep end from the outset. Sure, there are lots of revenants and mancubi and whatnot, but you get ample weaponry, several timely soulspheres, and tons of excess space to run around in to fight them, and so the sum effect is more like it's a nice jog rather than running a marathon or whatnot...if anything, some of the fights seem somewhat understaffed by monsters, particularly the blue key valley. I do like the chainsaw-centric start (used it on everything up to and including the pain elemental, with some buckshot on the side for the hell knight), as well, gives the opening moments a different feel than what we're used to. I will agree that spider mastermind doesn't make much of a contribution, though--essentially all you end up doing is leading it back to the blue door chokepoint and methodically SSGing it to death, at minimal risk. Incidentally, I think I only took three hits or so in this level, and one of them was that poor zombieman's final act of defiance.

[Magnusblitz]

Gonna go back to my old trusty usual, UV/continuous, save/reload as I feel like.

Whitemare MAP01: Ice Canyon
80% kills, 0/2 secrets

Very uneven map. Not sure how they chose the map slots for this WAD, but I think it's a bad choice for a MAP01. The winter theme looks nice and isn't something I'm used to, which is why I wanted to try these maps out. The author makes good use of far-away mountains and other details to create a sense of scale, which is nice.

Unfortunately, the level itself is pretty subpar. Most of it is long hallways - yes, they're big giant hallways, but they're still hallways. A few small hallways at the start to the switch, then a giant hallway to a drop down, then a hallway to the blue key, then a hallway past the spider, then the final "arena". The beef count also rises dramatically throughout the level, as the start is a few spectres, imps and hell knights to be fought with only a shotgun/chainsaw, before devolving into a shitload of revenants, a spider mastermind, and dual archviles in an area with no cover. The spider mastermind was an especially poor choice as it also has no cover (being another long hallway), I ended up abusing the blue door as cover. I'm gonna be honest, if I see an easy way to skip enemies, I'll usually take it, and there were plenty of opportunities to do so on this map (I'm actually a bit surprised I got as high as 80% kills). So, a throughly bland and uninspiring start so far.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP02 North Base

Hmph, a little more natural. We see a base for the first time, with populations. Then another snowy mix-up with enemies, and a switch that I swear I always overlook. There's certainly more than enough trees in that big outdoor area past the teleporter that it was quite an annoyance, especially since you must find two keys there! I ignored those enemies and continued into the next area, where shit with hitscanners causing problems was nullified by a nice blur artifact, while I attack a few more monsters including an archie before coming back to where I was. It's a nice experience, easier than the last, but I took my time still.

Hitscanner count: 24

A bigger hitscanner count than previous. Only really annoying ones were at the part before the houses you can jump on (mixed with other monsters) and the blue key area. For the latter, the blur artifact helps dealing with them. Still, a better demon-to-hitscanner ratio makes this okay.

Start to Crate: 0:00

Can you say disappointment? A burning barrel right in front of me :}. There's some kind of sick irony going on with the burning barrels in this snowy mapset.

[Memfis]

Random fact: the intermission pic was taken from here - http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=15209300 - and recolored a bit to suit the Doom palette. Admittedly I could do a better job with that. Oh, and you might find the artist's other works a bit disturbing haha, so proceed with caution.


map02 - I think this is the only map by Bed.intruder I've ever played (even though he made more) so I can't say much about his style. The level is pretty basic but there are some cute ideas. That forest looks like something from MOCK 2 at first but hey, it works for me as a decent attention test. The sinking castle is fun too and I love the classic Dune 2 midi.

The after-speedmapping changes were done to the cave area (in the first version it had lava and red rock walls instead of water and snowy walls, the damaging effect is still there though which could be explained by water's coldness perhaps? o,o). And I think the original map didn't have that sinking castle effect: only the arch-vile barrier was affected by the trigger.

[Marcaek]

crossposting from the what are you playing thread:

I get the impression that the Russian Doom community loves their Eternal Doom and TNT, from the emphasis on puzzles and quasi-realistic locations.

Anyone else agree or am I crazy?

Map01: The opener is wonderfully moody IMO, and the scenery is decently crafted enough(which is something to expect from the rest of the WAD). Gameplay is up and down, but never bad enough to be outright offensive. Lots of heavy crossfire in several areas, and a spider mastermind that is either super effective or completely useless and tedious depending on how you approach it.

Map02: Nice shock from that dropoff at the start followed by an honestly crappy looking base area, heh. I love hopping across the buildings despite the simple setup and I guess paltry reward. Not long after you have a large area full of trees in which 2 keys are hidden, with pressuring fire coming through the foliage. Pain in the ass staggered monster teleport in the next area, but another shocker at the top of the stairs makes up for it.

[Magnusblitz]

Switching to pistol starts as its become clear to me that each map was intended to be played separately.

Whitemare MAP02: North Base

Still rough around the edges, but more charming than the last map. Cozy little base design in-between some icy caverns. The tree forest is one of those things I actually kinda like gameplay-wise, but just don't quite work in Doom (seeing the same tree sprite repeated over and over and over...). The sinking castle's kinda cool. Interesting how the monsters from the forest will get teleported into the castle area if the player tries to leave them behind. Texture work is very shoddy.

Also, does this WAD hard-code infinite monster tallness? I play ZDoom with it off, and it's still off in my settings, but I keep getting held up by aerial monsters above me or monsters on ledges below me. Very annoying.

[Memfis]

Oh, I didn't even know about this. Yes, the wad forces some compatibility settings in ZDoom:

defaultmap
{
   nojump
   nocrouch
   lightmode = 2
   compat_light = 1
   compat_limitpain = 1
   compat_nopassover = 1
   compat_wallrun = 1
   compat_notossdrops = 1
   compat_soundtarget = 1
   compat_trace = 1
   compat_invisibility = 1
   compat_hitscan = 1
   compat_dropoff = 1
   compat_crossdropoff = 1
}

You can delete these lines from MAPINFO with a lump editor if you dislike that I guess.

[cannonball]

Map01 - "Ice Canyon" by Dragon Hunter
Urgh the gameplay isn't great here. The mastermind and archviles at the end are simply awful. The rest if too easy due to the huge amount of space. This needed a middle ground to work in my opinion. Still the visuals are pretty sweet so at least there is some good here.

Map02 - "North Base" by Bed.intruder
Rather bland and bare at times, but some of the fights are quite interesting. The Arch vile reveal was pretty nice. An ok map.

[Dragonsbrethren]

MAP02's visuals are closer to what I like to see in Doom, although the tiling on that snow wall is still way too obvious for my tastes. Gameplay wasn't bad, nothing really stood out (outside of some surprise when the arch-vile was revealed, since I wasn't expecting an encounter like that from this map) other than the huge area with all the trees. That was absolutely hideous looking and I didn't think it made for compelling gameplay. It was an interesting idea, but I could still see the projectiles coming through the trees, it didn't really work for me.

[Magnusblitz]

Memfis said:

You can delete these lines from MAPINFO with a lump editor if you dislike that I guess.

Thanks. Were they included because there's a spot that requires infinite tallness? (Such as using torches to block the player or something)

[SyntherAugustus]

MAP01

First off, Holy revenant balls, batman. The fights were fun but I felt that the archvile appearing after that intense revenant dance was a bit silly.

MAP02: TREEEEEEEEEEES! Note the key locations.

[Memfis]

Magnusblitz said:

Thanks. Were they included because there's a spot that requires infinite tallness? (Such as using torches to block the player or something)

Hmm, I don't really remember anyone talking about this. Probably it was just Archi's or Shadowman's (they did all the compiling stuff) attempt to make the ZDoom gameplay a bit closer to the intended one (most testing was done in prboom-plus). A controversial decision for sure: not everyone will be happy with such forced settings. Well, at least you can edit them out if you know a thing or two about MAPINFO...

edit: hehe, this caused a little quarrel before - http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/941722

[Demon of the Well]

Nah, nothing in the WAD breaks if you turn infinite-tallness off, don't worry (ditto Sacrament). I prefer not to use that setting either when just playing for leisure, I just put up with it sometimes in the interest of recording demos. You can probably screw up mapflow in a couple of them by jumping, though.

Whitemare Map 02 -- North Base - 106% Kills / No secrets
It's a little more evident that this was a speedmap than was the case with map 01--the layout is pretty basic, mapflow is a bit more disjointed (especially the way the map ends after getting the blue key), and overall visual fidelity is lower. Most of it isn't an eyesore or anything, it just looks a lot plainer (especially in terms of articulation in topography) than the previous map--probably what some (somewhat questionably) describe as 'more classic'--as evidenced by the outdoor areas or the barebones facade of the base. Only one part looks bad to me, that being the base-hub itself, probably the unattractive juxtaposition of the sector-detailed power/heat-thingy in the center of the room with the bare walls and flat lighting. The 'forest' section is kind of silly-looking, too, but it doesn't really offend me. Incidentally, the Russian mappers seem to love their tree-based setpieces, the entire first map of Grid32 is based on the idea.

Gameplay for the most part is very straightforward, basic room-clearing with a somewhat crudely-designed teleporter assault at one point, although you can't really take it entirely lightly--the battles are easy, but there's absolutely no armor in the map, and so what hits you do take will surely be felt. There are some more memorable ideas in there, as well....there's the 'forest', again, not an original idea anymore by the time this came out, but so rarely seen anyway that it hardly matters. Probably would've worked better if there had been a lot more imps instead of those three Barons. The battle for the blue keycard is definitely the highlight of the map, surprisingly dangerous (or at least it is if you play it Rambo-style, like me) even with the very useful blur sphere, since the revenants and the off-time arch-vile make a pretty good team.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP03 Sacrifice

Oddball map this one. Bit nonlinear unless getting the RK. Shouldn't really be hard otherwise, other than some smartass shotgun guys and chaingunners in some places, but hopefully not too unpredictable. BK and YK weren't hard, although YK is in a hedge maze. I got the BK first so I can grab the berserk for the enemies in that hedge maze. That RK part was atrocious, lotsa imps, narrow corridors, and a plasmagun, but I found it safer to SSG them instead. Then, three-key switch reveals the final bastion of enemies, including two archies and some rather preemptive striking revenants. Pretty darn neat overall.

Start to Crate: 0:06

Going through to get the BK, the only crate in MAP03 and the first real crate I find in Whitemare is open and holds the radsuit in it.

[Memfis]

Random fact: Whitemare 2 is happening and this time it should be a full 32 map megawad, based on three 4 hour speedmapping events. It is almost done actually, only one map and some touch ups are left to do. We aren't completely sure about the name though because not all maps are winter themed this time. But hey, we could explain in the plot that the monsters stole the winter or something... Actually there is still no snow in Moscow which is very rare, I think I've never seen New Year without snow before. So maybe something evil really happened.


map03 - Archi is a very important figure in the community. He was a forum moderator for some time, he organised tons of mapping and speedrunning events and helped many people with testing their maps.

Quite solid work for a speedmap, nothing really seems rushed and it isn't too short. Not sure if anything was changed after the speedmapping event, maybe some rebalancing happened?

[cannonball]

Map03 - "Sacrifice" by Archi
I ran out of ammo at the end here. I guess I should have used my fists more :P
Quite tricky, rather cramped in places with detailing getting rather irritating in places. Looks reasonable though.

[Jimothy]

Note: Whenever I die, I will use the resurrect console command. That's the only time I will use the console.

Also, now, whenever I review a map, I'll do a little list of things I'll name Some things that I noticed. It lets me show you a more in-depth look of some things that caught my eye in a map, and may entertain you a little.

WHITEMARE

Map01: Ice Canyon

Death Count: 8

I tried it on Ultra-Violence at first. After I got wrecked by the initial wave of Revenants in the first canyon section where I got the RL, I gave it one (1) dose of Fuck That!; and then I promptly lowered the difficulty to ITYTD because I'm a wuss. :}

First things first: The architecture is pretty good for a speedmap. I remember looking up from the first canyon section and gaping at the building-esque architecture above the canyon, and the walled sections had me struck, too. There's no way this could've been a speedmap was the thought that crossed my mind.

While it was some rough going even on ITYTD (Here's looking at you, you damn Spider Mastermind), I still enjoyed playing through this first map.

Some things that I noticed:

1) Holy shit, it's a sea of Revenants! I had a fireball probably as big as Jupiter chasing me around after I killed all the Revenants. That same fireball killed me. :(

2) The plasma rifle made things so much more fun. Once the AV and his two Revenant buddies popped out, I laid waste to them with the PR.

3) lolwut? I noticed a former human just standing around at the level's end. A SSG blast to the face put him right where he belonged.

Map02: North Base

Death Count: 0

To my surprise, I didn't get my ass kicked on this map, but maybe that's because it's 100% Revenant-free. Awesome! (That, and it was a whole lot less intense than the last go round.)

I never did figure out what the great big red blob-holding pillar in the middle of the base room was. Maybe a reactor of some sorts? I was pretty impressed by this map!

Some things that I noticed:

1) What is this, some Ghoul's Forest bullshit? The tree section, man. I wandered through it for a good five minutes before I got the red key after I got the yellow key. The misery, man!

2) Anybody home? I noticed some houses at one point in the map, and my dumb ass kept trying to find a way inside. That's completely intelligent...

3) lolwut? (again?) I saw a single Lost Soul behind a door, just facing the wall. It's safe to say it ate a skull full of buckshot.

Map03: Sacrifice

That doesn't sound too good...

Death Count: 1

At first thought, I was worried about what this map would hold. The name itself already had me wondering what sort of rapefest the map would contain, and as I went through, I found out it wasn't so bad.

At least, that is until I got to the last two rooms.

Some things that I noticed:

1) Positively a-maze-ing! Archi really seems to love their mazes. I counted a grand total of 2, one of which was pretty cramped and provided me with a constant face-full of Imp.

2) God dammit, Exxon! I found out that the water was damaging whenever I stood on it. Granted, it only took away 1 health and 1 armor point each second, but it was still enough to make me run for the nearest rad-suit.

3) SWEET JESUS, WHERE DID IT GO?! I saw a Baron, and it teleported away. I immediately went through an OH SHIT phase, wondering where it went. When I went with all three keys in hand to finish the map, I found him wandering around the beginning.

4) Ambuuush! I got to the penultimate room of the map, and I was quite satisfied at seeing it was empty as I had cleared it out earlier. I activated the switches that needed the three keys and I flipped the switch to get me the supercharge sphere. At once, I was besieged by Revenants, Archviles, and the like. That's where my only death in this map came from. After I cleared it out, I ran towards the exit faster than Road Runner with Wile E. Coyote hot on his ass.

[Memfis]

Hehe, mazes are pretty much the crates of speedmapping. When the time is ticking out and you're desperately trying to come up with something, just make a simple maze. They are easy and quick to draw and can considerably prolong the level. Needless to say, you'll see more of them along the way (and in Whitemare 2 too).

[Jimothy]

Memfis said:

Hehe, mazes are pretty much the crates of speedmapping. When the time is ticking out and you're desperately trying to come up with something, just make a simple maze. They are easy and quick to draw and can considerably prolong the level. Needless to say, you'll see more of them along the way (and in Whitemare 2 too).

I may as well start doing a Start to Maze segment just for laughs.

[Magnusblitz]

Whitemare MAP03: Sacrifice
95% kills, no secrets

I kinda want to give this map bonus points just for using Amon Amarth music because Amon Amarth is awesome, but the MIDI is a bit grating/repetitive in places and it's a pretty unfitting music selection for the map...

Anyways, this map is basically a hub map, but dressed up well enough that it won't become clear until late. The best section is by far the blue key one, though the ending area looks nice too. Both the yellow and red keys are stuck in literal mazes, which is kinda bland (but unsurprising for a speed map). The texture work here is really nice, and this map probably features the best "realistic" parts so far - those benches with snow on the edges are pretty nice looking.

My main complaint is that ammo is too tough to come by on this map, even with the cells given to me at the end I ran out of ammo completely halfway through the final fight and had to resort to punching the last few enemies (got the final AV with plasma, then punched a few revenants, a hell knight, the arachnatron, and some chaingunners, leaving the cacos behind). I suspect if you go down the path with the berserk first and use it as much as possible you can avoid the ammo problem, but it's kinda lame.

[Demon of the Well]

Whitemare Map 03 -- Sacrifice - 102% Kills / No secrets
I agree the music track doesn't really fit this map, which takes place almost entirely in mazey corridors--seems like something more suitable for a spacious outdoor romp (although two of the mazes and the sort of sinewy hub nexus are open to the sky, I suppose). The setup here is very straightforward: you need all three keys, each key is found in its own setpiece separate from the others, and you can try the setpieces more or less in any order you want, although strangely you have to go and hit a switch in the exit area before you can access the imp-maze where the red key is found.

While it's visually more refined than map 02 was (though still pretty simple outside of the sector-detailed tunnels in the blue key segment), the encounters themselves mostly don't hold up very well. While I kind of like spazzing out with the plasma rifle on the clots of imps in the red key maze (try to play that area conservatively and you're a bit more likely to get hurt, and far more likely not to have any fun with it), for the most part the combat is rudimentary, as exemplified by the yellow key hedge-maze, where all of the monsters are deaf and just lounge around waiting for you to turn the corner so they can scream at you for a couple of seconds before getting their teeth kicked in. Mazes are generally considered a risky move in modern Doom design; some hate traversing/navigating them, but that doesn't bother me much at all....the real problem is that it's hard to make a decent battle take place in a maze short of a few specific old-hat nasty tricks, at least ones as simple as those seen in this map.

To the map's credit, it does save its best act for last. The final battle's arch-viles are legitimately dangerous, especially for a first-time player, since they are unlikely to realize that the best way to tackle it is to clear out the opposition in stages (which can be accomplished in a few different ways, e.g. camping in the soulsphere alcove, running into the opposite hallway, etc.); if all three arch-viles are active at once, the lack of a rocket launcher makes it very difficult to gain ground against the army they will be rapidly resurrecting in the small room, a situation that naturally sees many players cornered and rapidly running out of ammo. In truth, you don't need to make heavy use of the berserk pack (read: you don't need to do the blue key leg first, this time I started with yellow, myself) in order to clear the last fight, but it does really help if you know about the positioning of the final enemies beforehand, and kill the monsters that appear in the room earlier on in such a way that their corpses are inconvenient for the viles to access (the slowest but most foolproof way to do this is to lead the monsters through the switch-activated door into the small antechamber and kill them there). Of course, that's knowledge you only gain in hindsight, but alas, sometimes you've got to get your ass kicked a bit in the process of working out how to conquer a level.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP04 LDFXGESA

That's gotta mean something...

A sort of typical map you'd expect from Memfis, especially if you've played the easy-going Kuchitsu. I really didn't have trouble here, not even the one cyber could hold me off. Not much else to say so a short and sweet affair overall. Oh, and nice key tree you got there too.

Start to Crate: 0:00

No belated Christmas presents for you for that solitary crate that's in my face at the start :).