The DWmegawad Club plays: Sunder & Countdown to Extinction

[NuMetalManiak]

looks like MAP18 is the poster child of "worst map in the set". d:

MAP19 Detonator

Shells, shells, and shells. Pretty easy, especially with the invulnerability taking care of the inner cage monsters later on. Another one of those "press the right switch" things, except if you're invulnerable, you can press the wrong switch if you want.

MAP20 Darksteel

The BFG makes its appearance, guarded by many nasties. Crowd control and congestion are the games here. The forced invisibility pickup just HAD to be before the cyber didn't it? I hid in a corner for the full minute :). And another Scythe-like exit huh?

The map does have a bug that prevents you from beating it if you trigger some linedefs early though.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP19: Detonator
100% kills | 1/1 secret | 2:45

Return of the bomb map, and like MAP06, doesn't really grab me. Another unnecessary 3D bridge, and another "hit the right switch" - at least I read the map this time. Lots of normal shotgun blasting with the SSG at the end. The fights aren't too tough. I found the secret after everything else was dead, so I grabbed the invuln and purposely pushed the wrong buttons cuz fuck the police!

MAP20: Darksteel
100% kills | 1/1 secret | 2:23

Things kick up a notch here, with the BFG provided right away and a decent collection of baddies in tight corners. Didn't find it too tough, though I ate my revvie rockets than I should've. The "corridor closes behind you" is an interesting idea that doesn't really do much for this level, though. There's a forced invisibility pickup for the Cyberdemon fight, but the player can just wait it out if they choose before unleashing the Cyberdemon. I just fought him anyways, doesn't make it too much tougher, just gotta fight usual reaction to sidestep.

Why do people dislike the forced-death exits? I think they're a good way to reset the player's inventory and provide some episode-style nature that Doom II was lacking.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP17: Cave-in
I liked this one. Fun little cave romp. I don't think the crushers had an impact at all during my run (despite my hopes that the baron might get caught under one.) I'm pretty much over the archvile-at-exit traps, but this one was actually enjoyable, with only the horde of imps to worry about, and plenty of obstacles to dodge around.

MAP18: Steel Trap
I liked this one so much I played it twice! Well, okay, I played once and killed the archvile, then remembered, "Oh yeah, one of these maps had a mandatory vile jump." Played again and beat it. Not a fan of AV jumps in general, but in a map this short I can forgive it.

MAP19: Detonator
Another bomb, but this time I didn't get the automap clue until after I had beaten the map. I used the invul early because I was low on health after Steel Trap, so I took a lot of damage fighting the revvies at the end.

MAP20: Darksteel
A brutal but fun pitched battle. The hardest part was the beginning, rushing around dodging rockets and AVs while already low on health. I did most of my fighting from an alcove once the wall closed behind me. Ironically, the cyber was the easiest fight, especially once he got stuck on one of the rising pillars. Not a fan of one-time-only areas in general; I noticed at the very end where the secret must be, and clipped my way through the door to find it. Of course, the joke was on me as I got to enjoy my megasphere for a grand total of 5 seconds. :p

[NuMetalManiak]

Magnus, I don't generally hate death exits, especially not here. in fact, I like them a lot too because as you said, episode-like progression. however, if the next map is a doozy on pistol start I'm generally uncomfortable about it. while I'm here I might as well post MAP21 & 22.

MAP21 Immolate

A wild dance with just one archie, now that's something. At least, it is quite interesting, until you wonder where's he's attacking from in the center room, when he teleports to behind the fire curtain or something. Once I get the shotgun, it's just "peek out and fire." Neat.

MAP22 Writemare

Not a stab at Whitemare? Anyways, berserk punches on the beginning foes, and it took me awhile to realize that I have to press an eye switch flush against one of the bookshelves. Seriously, those types of hard-to-see switches should be reserved for secrets, not for beating the map. More punches on the rest of the foes, including a two-punch pain-elemental kill, and we have an exquisite "four-baron" trap. I decided not to chance my punching skills, plus there's a monster blocking line behind where the pain elementals originally were AND a forced invisibility pickup. So I SSG'd them. Oh, also, there's a one-shot BFG there too.

[plums]

Sunder MAP09: You know what makes this map a whole lot more enjoyable? A very Big Fucking Gun, that's what. Yes, I cheated, and I have no shame about it. I've been doing pistol starts the whole way through so far, but by the time I got to the cyberdemon + caco swarm fight, I really wasn't feeling this level. And I remembered from reading this thread previously that I wasn't alone So I typed TNTWEAP7 and things got a whole lot simpler from there. Of course this doesn't help you if you've got a low tolerance for falling off of ledges, but I don't mind those so much, especially with mouselook and tons of save-spamming.

Like Demonologist said, the gameplay seems like an afterthought to the architecture, and the two don't really have much to do with each other. It's a shame too because this map looks extremely interesting, a foreboding, looming structure, even if it does rely on copy & pasted towers a little much. But apart from the fight with the multiple teleporters with a few barons each, and the switches with invulns in a lava cross, the fights just don't feel that well thought out.

But with the addition of a BFG it really wasn't so bad. Certainly not brilliant, but tolerable and maybe even fun at times. And quite pretty to look at.

It would be interesting to see this map redone with a third of the monster count, and little to no teleporting monsters. I'm almost tempted to see how it would work as the base for a Hexen map, giving the player freedom to jump around and hunt for switches while fighting off a mild swarm of enemies.

[plums]

j4rio said:

I'll just post some casual walkthroughs because I owe sunder for forcing me to learn how to actually play doom. I love all maps as they are although I'd really wish some mild bugfixing would have happenned before Gazebo vanished.

Map 1 - https://www.mediafire.com/?7ut1xv6d8bhcn1l
Map 2 - https://www.mediafire.com/?7ut1xv6d8bhcn1l
Map 3 - https://www.mediafire.com/?7ut1xv6d8bhcn1l

Guess no one else tried to get these, but those 3 links are in fact all the same.

[Marcaek]

Figure I'd pop in to do my suggestion thing. I haven't been playing any of the picks lately but it's been interesting to read everyone's opinions regardless(Demon do you write professionally or something)

How about Requiem or Strain? They're both pretty unique and historically notable mapsets with a lot interesting little elements to discuss IMO.

also shamelessly plugging d2twid some more

[plums]

That time already?

* Something old: Psyren's maps (Azagthoth / Crimson Canyon / Rylayeh)

* Something new: Doom 2 In Name Only

I've played both of those, and don't really have any ideas for something I haven't, but I'm willing to go for something if there's a good suggestions.

[Demon of the Well]

No, Marcaek, I don't write professionally, but suffice to say I was one of those slovenly 'soft major' types in college.

Concerning death exits, I've got nothing against them, myself, and not just because I like to pistol-start everything by default. Death exits are a fine way to enforce an 'episodic' game structure in a DooM II mapset as aforesaid, and can also be a convenient narrative tool. The highly involved/choreographed ones can even be an entertaining spectacle purely for the sake of spectacle. I've never really seen an adequate explanation of why some find it to be wrong--just repeated assertions that it's "cheap" or "unfair" or the even more nebulous/dubious "not in the spirit of the original game."

Map 19 -- Detonator
I really don't understand what's going on in this level, but I was able to muddle through it on the first attempt regardless....whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is hard to say. The combat is very straightforward and honestly feels like it's been phoned in; the real point of the map is obviously the return of that three-switch killer-MacGuffin. There's a V-sphere in an easy-to-find secret cubby; thinking that maybe I was supposed to use it to avoid death upon poking the bomb (which would be no more obscure than the vile-jump from the previous map, certainly), I grabbed it and then quickly tried to hit all three switches; two of them told me "You need a red key to open this door" and the third triggered an explosion somewhere that I assume would've killed me if I hadn't been invulnerable. Nothing else seemed to have happened, so I stumbled around the map in confusion looking for and failing to locate a red key, eventually tried the switches again in desperation, and found that somehow one of them no longer required the red key, and thus was opened the exit gate. Weird. Never did find a red key, either. While I am somewhat curious as to what the hell was going on in this map on a technical level, the thought of repeating the boring combat in order to try again from the beginning didn't appeal to me, and so I just moved on.

Map 20 -- Darksteel
Had to watch the demo here, too. Kind of wish I hadn't, since it's painful to behold--I completely whiff my first BFG shot, and then stumble around off-balance (no doubt in sheer embarrassment) catching various bits of enemy ordinance with various bits of my face. There's so much health and ammo scattered around the tiny little play space I still win without getting anywhere close to death, though. The map progression here seems very 90s (and more like the more obtuse parts of Hexen than anything in Doom, really) in that it seems to work on a rather arbitrary concept even by the generally abstract standards of this game, but because the map's so small I doubt it's going to trip many players up. The second gimmick is that old chestnut that sees the player forced to pick up a blur sphere right before facing a battle where it's more a liability than an asset, except here you're not really forced since the scenario is heavily telegraphed; looks like I considered just sitting there and waiting for it to wear off before jumping down to fight Cybie, but I apparently decided not to be a wuss (read: that I'd rather my tombstone say "Moron" instead) and played along.

Map 21 -- Immolate
I'm of two minds about this map. On the one hand I wish it had more to it--it's only remotely threatening if you panic in the presence of every arch-vile or, worse, don't actually understand how that particular enemy moves and attacks. On the other, I appreciate it for making an effort to create a novel 'boss' encounter with one of the upper-tier demons (something it's very hard to do in Doom using stock resources/default behavior). It's also easily one of the most aesthetically attractive maps in the set, and is one of the few that doesn't feel too small to actually realize its concept.

Map 22 -- Writemare
Another library, quite reminiscent in function and form to the similar settings that dominated in the early/middle portion of the second episode, although here the blood-red masonry peeking out from behind the stacks suggests that whatever domicile we're in now is of a somewhat less earthly caste than the dusty old mansion from earlier. The action here is a bit more pronounced than it's been since way back in the subterranean episode, but for the most part doesn't feel as tight or well-developed as that from the earlier mansion/library levels, perhaps because its main encounter involving the four Barons is really just a slight variation on the cyberdemon fight from map 20--just be brave and use that one BFG shot, things will go smoother (nevermind that I got smacked in the face as a result, I made it out didn't I?). The sneaky little eye switch revealed by a missing book doesn't actually bother me at all--progression devices like that somehow seem a natural fit in library settings, and so I'm usually on the lookout for them in these situations by default.

[Magnusblitz]

Demon of the Well said:

two of them told me "You need a red key to open this door" and the third triggered an explosion somewhere that I assume would've killed me if I hadn't been invulnerable. Nothing else seemed to have happened, so I stumbled around the map in confusion looking for and failing to locate a red key, eventually tried the switches again in desperation, and found that somehow one of them no longer required the red key, and thus was opened the exit gate. Weird. Never did find a red key, either. While I am somewhat curious as to what the hell was going on in this map on a technical level, the thought of repeating the boring combat in order to try again from the beginning didn't appeal to me, and so I just moved on.

Ah yeah, forgot to mention this in my post. Same thing happened to me - I think the problem is that the invisible wall, for some reason, got tagged as a red door, and if you stand just outside the invisible wall area you'll still target the red door instead of the switch. Gotta move up nice and tight to the switch face...

MAP21: Immolate
100% kills | 2:26

I like maps like this which force the player to avoid combat for awhile before getting the artillery to handle the threat, and this one does a decent job of that. Probably would've had more of an impact had we not had an AV at the end of every level, but...

As an aside, it's possible to make the map unbeatable by hitting the skull switches near the red key too quickly (since they're set to lower to the nearest floor, I assume).

MAP22: Writemare
100% kills | 1/1 secret | 3:04

Hmm, I see a Whitemare pun name, but no snow... :P

Back to the library here. This is probably one of the dullest maps in CtE, not gonna lie. Most of the others have at least some sort of concept or theme, whereas this one doesn't really seem to have one. Unlike Darksteel, the invisibility "trap" can't be waited out, but it's still really easy to just duck back into the start room and abuse the corner (since the barons are stuck behind a block monster line).

I'm not really sure how to make the BFG lower; seems I somehow activated it without realizing.

[Magnusblitz]

(Accidently double-posted, and the forum isn't letting me delete this post for some reason)

[Obsidian]

MAP19: Honestly, this isn't one of my favourite maps: it gave me a decent bit of trouble and I couldn't think of something worthwhile to do with it. A bit sad, but there you go. :/

MAP20: Aah, much better. The idea behind this was quite simple: I wanted to make a ruddy great free-for-all with the BFG! Sometimes simplicity is best. :) The PI trick is one I saw in Scythe MAP27 and pretty much nowhere else: it's a decent idea and I quite dig it. Also, on the subject of suicide exits: as you may have noticed, I kind of like to control the player a bit. >:-D Suicide exits help a lot with this, as it eliminates random factors like secrets and ammo count.

MAP21: One of these days I'll definitely build on this: I really like this idea an awful lot. Also props to Jimmy for the excellent music: the Malevolent Magus of MIDI himself! :P

MAP22: This map I quite like the aesthetics of: I'd given the Seventh Circle by Mouldy a look beforehand and it heavily inspired the theme of this map. Also libraries: just can't get enough. Also the return of the PI trick: seriously, the Partial Invisibility needs more love.

[j4rio]

plums said:

Guess no one else tried to get these, but those 3 links are in fact all the same.

Whoops. Fixed.

[plums]

Thanks. I do actually really like watching demos of hard maps by people much better than I am, even casual ones, particularly after I've given the map a try and am more familiar with it.

[ella guro]

blargh, too busy with other stuff for the rest of the week to have time to finish Countdown to Extinction. i suck. i'll at least try and play through more of the maps later. regardless, i love looking back through these threads to see people's impressions when i know the maps better.

i'd suggest A.L.T. since that's my favorite mapset ever and it's a proper megawad with no shortage of things to discuss about it, but it looks like Sacrament & 2 of the Whitemare ones were done fairly recently so maybe save that for later. also i'd probably wait till D2: INO has a proper release before playing it here (so maybe a month or two later). i'm down with Requiem and the other things suggested so far, provided i actually will put time aside to do them this next month.

[Obsidian]

I don't think MAYhem 2013 ever got a playthrough, so there's always that. This decision may be in part because I contributed to it. :P

[TMD]

Obsidian said:

I don't think MAYhem 2013 ever got a playthrough, so there's always that. This decision may be in part because I contributed to it. :P

To be fair it only got on idgames in March. MAYhem12 was on idgames by November, and then it got a playthrough.

MAYhem14 will be more reasonable with its schedule, so you will have that soon enough. There is also a chance it may make 32 maps!

But in the meantime, what about Doom2twid? It allows for a good play and discussion on the concept, yo.

[ella guro]

TheMionicDonut said:

But in the meantime, what about Doom2twid? It allows for a good play and discussion on the concept, yo.

i'd be down for this one. i've been meaning to play it for awhile.

[plums]

CtE MAP19: The bomb, take two. That "red key" door that's puzzling everyone is the outside of the cage, done so that players can't press the bomb buttons before the cage opens. It does cause some problems if you're not pressed right up to the buttons though. It's an OK map, some frantic moments at the start especially.

MAP20: But speaking of frantic, this takes the cake for CtE so far. A BFG sits in the middle of the room, and there are plenty of things to use it on. The "sectors closing behind you" mechanic is kind of cool, and works well to clue you in to the somewhat abstract goal of just falling off of each ledge. (Bugfixer trivia: originally there were switches, but going off of the ledge without hitting the switch meant you were stuck.) The blur sphere against the cyberdemon can be waited out if you want, but you can also take it and just rush him with the BFG and have a good shot of killing him without taking any damage.

MAP21: Obsidian loves archviles, I think everyone should have figured that out by now. A neat little miniboss/puzzle map that isn't too hard but is still quite fun.

MAP22: Back to the bookstore! This one looks different enough from Black Books though. I like the eye switch, I think things like that are fine and in fact underused, and they're especially OK in a small map with limited options to explore. Also what's a library in a video game without secret passages somewhere? The BFG is obtained by shooting a wall past the pain elementals, but you're likely to do it unintentionally, which is fine. Can't wait out the blur sphere quite as easily this time, but you can slip by the barons easily enough, or just BFG them if you have one.


As for Sunder... I'm taking a break for now. It's been fun but maps with 1000+ monsters are not always things I'm in the mood for. I really liked the first 5 maps, and MAP08 was very good too. I do agree with those that said Sunder's visuals are more memorable than it's gameplay. Also I'm a little disappointed with how linear and lacking in exploration these maps are. Such epic settings strike me as being great places to let a player wander, but instead you're largely directed from one self-contained encounter to another. Ah well. IG wrote that he set out to make hard maps that looked nice, and I think he certainly accomplished that.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP23 Mortal Processing

Mmm, okay, that looks too detailed. I concentrated most on the painelemental while imps and cacos fought, and then they all bit it. Decided to run around cybie Cyberdreams style, except I couldn't kill him.

MAP24 Rabishu

Silly zombiemen everywhere. I jinxed another trap and let a mancubi kill two hellknights before killing him and another archie. What's this? I'm shooting into a mouth that's shooting revenant rockets at me? Truth be told, there's four revenants back there and a Romero head. Weird stuff.

next month, we could always go for one of those, but I'm leaning towards a ZDoom mapset. maybe ZPack?

[Memfis]

I vote for the tab series of course.

[plums]

Haha, sure Memfis, I'll vote for tab if no one else wants to do Psyren's stuff this month.

I'm sure D2TWID would give people lots to discuss but I'm just not interested in replaying it again right now. I think it was extremely successful conceptually, but for the most part the maps didn't grab me that much.

[Salt-Man Z]

plums said:* Something old: Psyren's maps (Azagthoth / Crimson Canyon / Rylayeh)[/B]

I'd be up for this. I just played through the first map (or two?) of Crimson Canyon the other day. Good stuff. I loved D2TWID, but replaying a recent megawad isn't worth the time for me at the moment.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP23: Mortal Processing
100% kills | 2:07

Back to the visual themes rather than gameplay ones. Nice bit of flesh and wood design here, though the gameplay is some rather ho-hum circle-strafing. I actually didn't even notice the cyberdemon the first time, just the blue key. Unfortunately, the flesh chandelier sometimes does odd things to the cyberdemon sprite.

MAP24: Rabishu
100% kills | 4:41*

WTF is a rabishu? I suppose it's supposed to be the mouth creature in the wall... kill a bunch of zombiemen, then drop down to get the red key. The AV is pretty easy to beat in this level between the teleporter and the hordes of zombiemen distracting it. Really didn't like the design of the "boss" here... the revenant rockets were odd, and I had to actually open up the map in DB2 to figure out that there was a Romero head back there. Then I had to plink at it with the pistol... there's a reason they gave you a rocket launcher to kill it in the first game.

[ella guro]

plums said:

Haha, sure Memfis, I'll vote for tab if no one else wants to do Psyren's stuff this month.

I'm sure D2TWID would give people lots to discuss but I'm just not interested in replaying it again right now. I think it was extremely successful conceptually, but for the most part the maps didn't grab me that much.

understandable. i'm possibly inclined to agree from what little i've seen (aside from those awesome secret levels) though i haven't seen enough. i also played Crimson Canyon back in 2006 and would be interested in trying it and more of the guy's maps again.

[plums]

I mean, if everyone else wants to do D2TWID that's fine. I can go back and play Whitemare 2 finally, or take a month to finish Sunder. Just wanted to chime in with why I'm not voting for it.

I do hope Psyren gets some attention sometime, though.

[Demon of the Well]

I personally would like to play D2TWiD, it's been on the docket for a while now (or it's been on mine, anyway), and I am hankering for something new to me. That said, if we want to play some older maps, I can get behind playing Psyren's WADs. I'd kind of suggest substituting Azagthoth for something else, though, as it's some of his earliest stuff and is really rather dry. Crimson Canyon and especially Rylayeh are a pretty good time, though.

Oh, and I keep hearing it said that apparently E2 of BTSX is "99.99% done." Since they let us play a beta version of E1, maybe they'd let us give that a try month after next or something if we ask enough in advance?

Map 23 -- Mortal Processing
Hmm, meatfan. Pretty sleazy. Reminds me of a certain old dorm room....

This is a one-room, two-fight map that I'm struggling to say much of anything that sounds remotely intelligent about. Neither fight is difficult or very involved, and if I were to replay the map I'd probably try my hand at letting the cyberdemon out while all of the other shit is still alive, just for the entertainment value. I guess it's vaguely unusual that the wraparound stairway/platform combo around half of the room's circumference makes the interminable circlestrafing feel vaguely like Doomguy is riding a skateboard or something while he fights, but I'm kind of grasping at straws here, like I said.

Map 24 -- Rabishu
I don't know what you guys are so confused about, clearly a 'Rabishu' is a giant, sentient demonic rectal opening with metal teeth and a nasty case of acid-belly. Duh. Actually, when I first saw the name all I could think of was that it was one of those crass Japanese cognates, like 'Guinea Piggu' or whathaveyou. Rabish? Rabisher? Ravager? Shit, I don't know.

Again, the combat feels very phoned-in here, with all of the focus on fighting the cantankerous....thing...that eventually takes up its position behind the red skull-portal (Hell as some kind of extra-dimensional port-a-potty, now there's a novel E3 concept). The execution here seems very half-baked, to be frank, as the play area is too small/enclosed for whatever-it-is (or the revenants inside of it, if you prefer) to ever put much fire on you. Also, Romero's head must be at the end of a very tight tunnel or something, as it seems one is able to damage it more consistently by firing the pistol at it than by using the SSG. Suffice to say it takes too long to kill the creature once it has already lost the ability to defend itself.

[TMD]

Demon of the Well said:

Oh, and I keep hearing it said that apparently E2 of BTSX is "99.99% done." Since they let us play a beta version of E1, maybe they'd let us give that a try month after next or something if we ask enough in advance?

http://i.imgur.com/atAMMxR.jpg

mod edit: dear lord in heaven

[DeathevokatioN]

wtf, I really didn't need to see that picture, but it's okay, it's not like I was planning on sleeping tonight anyway...

[Obsidian]

Magnusblitz said:

... there's a reason they gave you a rocket launcher to kill it in the first game.

Actually it was because the Romero Head was nudged below the player's firing range and you could only hit it with splash damage, but I digress.

MAP23: Another map I wasn't that happy with: I wanted to do so much more with this map and I just fell flat. I might build on the theme some other time though, it's a fairly decent one.

MAP24: Info time! This map was originally called Maskim Xul, but I had to pick a shorter name due to vanilla DeHackEd limitations. Maskim Xul and Rabishu are words taken from the Necronomicon and they both mean "concealed fiend", or something to that effect. The monster at the end was an idea I came up with for a Boom map I made last year that never got finished and it was just too good to waste: you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be using that idea again. :P I will admit though that this was another map that I spent too much time decorating as opposed to focusing on gameplay, so sorry about that.