The DWmegawad Club plays: Back to Saturn X E2

[Woolie Wool]

MAP05: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks I (10/10 for visuals, 8/10 overall)
A quiet, empty, but architecturally beautiful interlude with some haunting music. The map is gorgeous and sets a somber, pensive atmosphere as you wander among the ruins, but you don't actually do anything there, just schlep from map04 to map06. At least the E1 map hubs had an associated map (map01) that you played for real. The area with the three barred off paths blocked by Quake-like rune barriers makes me think of the Quake intro map and the possibility of choosing one of three series of levels to embark on (and making the "hub" a real hub), but this is a vanilla megawad so of course there is only one option.

It kind of feels like wasted potential to me, this map could have been made into a proper map with monsters and a goal and the other repetitions of the hub cut, and the result would be more of a benefit to the megawad than a loss.

[kmxexii]

MAP04 A TALL, COOL GLASS OF DIRTY WATER

taking a sharp turn into eternal country, here. well really it feels more like one of those hugeass adventure-style levels from alien vendetta than something from the eternal crew but its big and has some cool set pieces and lots of monsters to slay. honestly once you get past the big opening (which it helps if you know about that plasma rifle) the combat feels largely incidental. like there are plenty of threatening monsters stuffed throughout these alien ruins but once you start hosing stuff with plasma the tight confines dont mean much unless an archvile is bearing down on you and even then you pretty much always have somewhere to run. now i did run around like a little chicken when starting out and snagged the shotgun and chaingun before realizing that oh wow there was a plasma rifle down on that ledge the whole time! and then i grabbed it and killed a bunch of stuff.

i guess dirty water lulls you into a false sense of security because when you know you arent getting pressured that much you slip up and take a rocket to the bakc of the head or some bullshit in those outdoor areas or dont have eyes out for the small but potent ambushes that are lurking everywhere. one of my faves is the inner leg of the southwestern area, the one that leads back to the white throne. the lurking skeletons are a nice claustrophobic sting but when i dropped down the deadfall and hit the switch that opened the doors when nothing bad happened i wasnt expecting the baddies on the other side (well really the archvile) and promptly died due to idiot panic. theres also an imp invasion that snuck up on me for a cheap shot, not that it hurt too bad. the only real pitched fights i felt were the key battles but they dont get a cool area or anything beyond the key shrines, though they do put you in some real projectile pressure with the mancubuses here and the arachnotrons / revenants there and then one of those has oh gosh a spiderdemon but its really easy to kill especially since the little temple makes for great cover.

i like the layout and architecture. the big wide open areas are understandably simple but indoors you get cool stuff like the two thrones, which work as fantastic set pieces that give the level a lot of character through their implied story and positions as "puzzle" solutions. the layout is the real star with that mess of little rooms in the center, the outdoor sections to the west, and the eastern blood tunnels with those lowering catwalk divides. idk if i even needed to explore the tunnesl to any depth but they were there so wander them i did finding some nice shortcuts in the process and its always fun to watch how authors decide to open up their maps to make getting around more interesting. teleports are one way to do it but stuff like the shootable switch in that chaingunner alcove work pretty good (if you are the sort of person that likes sniffing them ouT)

rating: all of my eternal dooms for exploration-heavy adventure maps

[esselfortium]

Just FYI in case anyone playing has missed it, beta 2 is out, which fixes a couple of critical issues.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1302311

[Memfis]

Are we going to "skip" the hub maps, like it was done in the E1 thread I think? I mean there isn't much to say about them (at least for me). In that case there will be 22 days for BTSX2 and a possibility to discuss another short episode (I recommend Serenity).

[Salt-Man Z]

Memfis said:

Are we going to "skip" the hub maps, like it was done in the E1 thread I think? I mean there isn't much to say about them (at least for me). In that case there will be 22 days for BTSX2 and a possibility to discuss another short episode (I recommend Serenity).

I wouldn't mind leaving the hub maps in; they'd give some breathing room and allow people who've fallen behind an easy way to catch up. (Of course, I'll always happily replay Serenity.)

MAP04: Dirty Water
Okay, so I actually "played" this two times. The first time was after beating MAP03; I decided to just book it through as far and as fast I could just to get a taste. Bad guys everywhere! Just swarming. I was able to run around for a few minutes before being killed. The next day I gave it a proper playthrough, taking a more conservative approach, and it wasn't nearly as hectic (well, duh.) Anyway, this is an absolute beast of a map. Took me about an hour to beat, and that's not counting time lost to reloading saves. I got a very Eternal Doom vibe out of it, with the switch hunts and all. The only one that gave me much trouble was raising the bridge to the blue key (I had overlooked the southwest tower that held the second switch.) Gorgeous, gorgeous visuals—for both halves. The black-and-white latter half was insanely striking, even if the gameplay for that section was slightly lacking. Which is fine, the first half made up for it. For the record, I had no problem finding the plasma gun; in fact, I didn't really use the PG until the second half (I'm a cell hoarder) until my bullets and shells started running low. Let's see, what else? 11 monsters remained stuck in their teleporter closets at the end. I too was irked when I had to noclip from the exit room back to the rest of them; though in retrospect, the penultimate teleporter is clearly marked "EXIT". The damage-before-exiting lava in the final room is weird, though. Overall, I really liked this one, even though it seems like an early slot for such a long map.

Also, all the BTSX music is amazing; I don't know what the naysayers are smoking.

[Demonologist]

I've ran out of enthusiasm I'm afraid, so I'll leave Memfis to poison the common praise in my place. Good luck with your playthroughs, everyone. In case someone wants to laugh - my FDAs are in BTSX E2 thread.

[Steve D]

Map04 – Dirty Water by Used3D/Tarnsman – Kills – 96, Items – 99, Secret – 100. Death Count – 10

UV pistol-start, GZDoom, frequent saves, keyboard-only


I decided I wouldn't let this fucking map defeat me, even if defeat by being too bored to continue, largely because I love that '60s garage-punk classic by The Standells. "I love that dirty water, oh, Boston, you're my home." That song was about The Boston Strangler, who I sorta wished would come and kill me to at least make this map end. Sorry, couldn't resist. ;D

So, from where I left off, it was mostly a lot of aimless wandering, killing 2 more Archies IIRC, more dickish sniper positioning, endless confusion, hating the dark switch textures, and so on. Moar map. Just moar and moar and moar.

So no, I didn't like it. I guess I'm not cut out for these longass adventure maps. I didn't finish Epic 2, after all, and my memories of Eternal Doom, which I played some of back in the Pleistocene, are not fond. I guess I'm easily satisfied with simple, mindless brutality, rather than using my noggin to figure things out. ;D

But now, it's done. For those who enjoy this sort of thing, it's probably pretty cool.

[dobu gabu maru]

Memfis said:

Are we going to "skip" the hub maps, like it was done in the E1 thread I think?

Oh good catch, I forgot we did this last time. I'd say yes but seeing as there's nothing lined up after BtSX this month, you guys can take all the time you want. If there's a huge push for me to fill that slot with, oh say Serenity, just voice your opinion.

[NuMetalManiak]

i dunno how we're doing hub maps either; it's just somewhat of an interlude map. but I found this to be interesting so I'll post it.

MAP05C Tower In The Fountain of Sparks

What? MAP05C? Okay. Well this is a big hub which took me awhile to get to MAP06, but like the previous, there's no opposition. So just run to the exit when I find it. I decided to warp to MAP05 to see what it has and it's basically the same thing as MAP05C.

My guess is that MAP05C has something to do with those playing on sourceports?

[DeathevokatioN]

Before anyone gets to Map09, I just want to say I pretty much disown the map (in it's current state atleast).. it was my second map for Doom I ever completed, it was when I was still experimenting and playing around with gameplay like a mad scientist hehe. When I look back on the map, the gameplay feels a little too linear and scripted for my current taste, but I'm still happy with my Spider Mastermind gimmick, and am still happy with the visuals of the blue key area... the only other saving grace which was a dangerous and chaotic secret route that made the map a little less linear and more frantic and replayable which got taken out during the quality control phase in which it underwent an overhaul, although I respect the teams decision to take it out, I'm still a little sad that no one will experience it for themselves, as it was the part I was most proud of in an otherwise unremarkable map.

Either way it was still a great experience and I learned a lot working with everyone and the feedback I got helped me a lot to improve and sharpen my style for my works that are still in progress. :)

[esselfortium]

The *C versions of the hub maps are loaded in MAPINFO-supporting ports, and exist to fix some issues that would come up when the hub maps were played in coop. They're dependent on Boom features and limit-removing to accomplish that, but in single player should be basically indistinguishable from the vanilla-compatible standard versions.

[Steve D]

Salt-Man Z said:

Also, all the BTSX music is amazing; I don't know what the naysayers are smoking.

Ah, but that's always a debatable point. I didn't find all the music in E1 amazing, either, though some of it was, and most of it was pretty good.

In this case, I think Jimmy's Twilit Jungle is the only one to get some complaints thus far. I stated mine -- I don't like anything squealy when I'm playing Doom. Anything too high-pitched irritates me, especially, as in this case, when I'm playing with headphones on. There are some things that don't sound very good in MIDI -- or MODs, for that matter. Probably the number one thing that kills MODs as potential tracks in my maps is that very Casio-sounding stuff I mentioned from Twilit Jungle. But someday I'll be able to edit those out, heh.

I really like a lot of Jimmy music, like Frozen Over, which Mechadon is using for Vela Pax. This one just didn't do it for me.

[Salt-Man Z]

SteveD said:

Ah, but that's always a debatable point. I didn't find all the music in E1 amazing, either, though some of it was, and most of it was pretty good.

Then again, I'm the guy who enjoys the 80s MIDIs in the Serenity trilogy... :D

[Steve D]

Salt-Man Z said:

Then again, I'm the guy who enjoys the 80s MIDIs in the Serenity trilogy... :D

You know, I've completely forgotten that music, which is not a criticism because I haven't played Serenity since '96 or '97. Might be worth voting for Serenity as a gap-filler just to check it out. And also -- no Revvies or Archies! ;D

[esselfortium]

Out of curiosity, SteveD, what configuration are you using for MIDI playback?

[Steve D]

esselfortium said:

Out of curiosity, SteveD, what configuration are you using for MIDI playback?

Default FMOD in GZDoom. OPL Synth sounded okay, too, though it changes things a fair bit. In both, I like the song itself. I like the power from the kettle drums and the pace. It's only when you get to the high-pitched Casio stuff that I get irritated. ;D If that was gone, or if there's a better MIDI config which somehow changes that, I'd give the song a thumbs-up.

I just listened to it in Risen3D which uses Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth, and it sounds pretty much the same. Unlike some of the other commenters, I had no problem with the brass, because it sounds nice and clean. My problem was the squealy keyboard, especially the long tension notes, because the quality of these sounds is significantly below the rest of the track. There's also a blatting sound in there that I find objectionable. If this was a MOD, I'd say that somebody used a bad sample from their collection in the midst of a clean orchestration. You're a musician, so I'm sure you're familiar with MODs. A track is only as good as its sample quality, in many cases, and IMO it doesn't pay to mix samples of varying quality. I'm not sure how MIDI works in this regard. Is Jimmy using samples or generating his own stuff?

[Steve D]

Map05 - Episode Hub by Xaser

I'm not skipping the hub. ;)

Xaser has created a beautiful map here with a really flowy layout. I'm with Getsu in wishing this map had at least token monsters, though if properly populated, in this layout, it could be a rip-snorter.

I like the return of more Quake2ish textures, which I reckon is still my fave BTSX look. A nice ruined temple is in here, too. In every way, it carries on the BTSX tradition of looking good.

Essel's Mystproj track is yet another winner. Nice and moody. I'm tending more towards wanting prettier music in PWADs, and this is a fine example of that.

Well done.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP04: Dirty Water
85% kills, 2/2 secrets

This is one of those maps that I think is a failure for those who intend to only play it once, as most of its good point seem to exist for those who like to replay maps or attempt speedrunning challenges.

As Woolie Wool says, this map can basically be divided into two halves - the black/blue/green/brownish vaguely Meso-American key hunt, and then the white/black/lava maze section. The first part is... okay. Some areas are much bigger than they need to be, which really makes combat easy. Not to say that combat is really difficult at any point... even in the more cramped hallways, monsters are usually in front of the player with few snipers or side/back ambushes or anything.

The weapons provided are the shotgun and plasma rifle, which also makes things a bit boring. Long ago I thought it would be cool to do a map where the only weapon provided was the plasma gun. The reason people don't do this? The plasma gun is crazy strong due to the way Doom's hit chance system works, and its only real drawback is ammo consumption. Of course, if it's the only weapon provided, ammo needs to be doled out accordingly... like it is in this map, where there's quite a lot of cell packs. There's a 'secret' chaingun (the player or mancubus will likely reveal it accidently) but no real bullets to use with it. Whichever ammo is provided in the rooms (shells or cells) will likely dictate which weapon the player uses at any given point in time. I was glad I was playing continuous, since I didn't find the SSG until relatively late in the proceedings, though it is obtainable right away (bit of that 'choose your hallway carefully' problem - a first-time player might choose the 'wrong' path and get stuck without a good weapon for a long time).

The switch hunt to get the keys is somewhat interesting, somewhat frustrating. I didn't have any problems reaching the yellow key, but the blue key puzzled me for a bit as I missed one of the doors. Lots of the switches are difficult to see and easily missable. There's lot of yellow and blue skull-type textures used as hints (i.e., lots of blue textures in the blue path) but they aren't used consistently enough to work - for example, there's a large yellow skull texture along a 'blue' path. In any event, neither of the keys are even truly required, as the player can just jump down from the blue key path to the white-walled lava section, skipping the key switches entirely.

The white-walled lava section is the second part of the map, and it's really quite a disappointment. It's a bit of a maze, but with lots of dead ends that serve no real purpose. Aside from that, it's plinking away at revenants at long range, which is straight drudgery with a shotgun and plasma rifle. The exit is somewhat hidden (I would've missed it completely had the Arch-Vile inside it not noticed me and attacked me), and compounding the error, it's a one-way exit with no return that I can figure out. Apparently there's a spiderdemon? Well I wasn't able to find out because the exit doesn't let me return to the rest of the map.

2/5

[7hm]

I definitely agree with Woolie Wool - the hub map would be more fun if there was some combat in it. It seems like a bit of a waste, because the area looks really cool.

[darkreaver]

7hm said:

I definitely agree with Woolie Wool - the hub map would be more fun if there was some combat in it. It seems like a bit of a waste, because the area looks really cool.

Just wanna say that empty and atmospheric hub maps is awesome in my opinion.

[Steve D]

darkreaver said:

Just wanna say that empty and atmospheric hub maps is awesome in my opinion.

You know, I can't disagree with you, and I really liked the hubs in E1, but this layout looks like it would be so much fun to fight in. I guess I'm saying Xaser didn't have to layout such a cool fucking map for the hub. ;D

[7hm]

It's cool as an atmospheric hub map, but I think it would work just as well with popcorn enemies along the way.

[Velvetic]

MAP04 - "Dirty Water" by Use3d/Tarnsman

One word, epic. And that would be spoiling this masterpiece. It starts off with a arachnotron staring at your soul, and the rest of the map its a mancubus infested puzzle that reminds me a lot of Quake 2. I had sooo much trouble with this one, but man it was fun as hell. Also, props to Esselfortium for making the song "Lost City" used, it's as epic as the map is.

MAP05 - "Tower in the Fountain of Sparks I" by Xaser

Why do i always get lost in hubs?

[punnyone]

Map 4 - Dirty Water - 91% Kills, 100% Secrets.

I'm a bit baffled by some of the dislike this map is getting. While I do have some complaints about it, I'd hardly call it a misfire.

My main issue with Dirty Water is its monster and thing placement. There are numerous ambushes and far too many revenants that, coupled with an overall lack of health and ammo, caused the first half of the map to be a bit unenjoyable. I ended up using all of my bullets and shells with no extra caches in sight. At least by the time the player reaches the lower levels of the map, things even out.

While the map needs some improvement on its gameplay, visually, this is a highlight. Maybe I'm just a sucker for ancient/eternal doom/hexen type maps but I loved every minute of the visuals. I almost sense a theme (probably unintentional), with two isolated thrones, in an ancient Mayan-esque kingdom.

There is a wonderful sense of progression as well: The transition from above ground and open courtyards, to ancient crypts reminded me heavily of Tomb Raider. Add to this the excellent and fitting music track and I'm fully engrossed in the experience.

Some have also mentioned the map being lengthy. I thought it was just the right length. Besides, there are several points where one can exit the map earlier if they wish. After two reasonably small maps, it's nice to break it up with something a bit more epic.

Overall, This map is a bit of a grind in terms of enemies, but it is visually the best I've seen so far.


Map 5 - Tower In The Fountain Of Sparks I

This is quite a departure from the simple yet effective train hub from E1. Instead, we have a series of ruins, devoid of enemies, but oozing atmosphere. The music track is rather haunting, and adds a sense of forlornness. Overall, a neat breather and a great place to get lost in. Onto hub 2!

[dobu gabu maru]

Alright, jumping on the bandwagon a bit late because I had to finish up BtSXE1 before sinking my teeth into this. Just wanted to say that whoever did the epilogue map for BtSXE1 is brilliant and it was my favorite part of the whole wad. Anyway, going from the techbase to the ruins; pistol start, UV, keyboard, saves.

MAP01: A bit of a gamble with this opener here—a berserk start is always a good idea, but coupled with large spaces and chaingunners? I found this surprisingly brutal for a MAP01 (probably the hardest MAP01 I've played all year), and every time I made some progress there was some trap or hidden chaingunner that rent my health to shreds. Didn't particularly enjoy the gameplay here, although I think the rustic setting is a nice continuation of where the end of E1 was going.

MAP02: Oh this wasn't a gimmick I was expecting. Pretty neat overall, it definitely keeps you on your feet and your eyes peeled for when to shoot, although some poor accuracy on my part made some of these encounters more complicated (ie deadly). Still doesn't quite... feel like a Back to Saturn X map, but then again I suppose I don't know what to expect from E2 yet.

MAP03: Really enjoyed this one. It was short but fierce, keeping you active for the first few minutes in order to get a good footing. It's a touch too confusing for its own good (took me a while to find the red key), but it was still great overall. Superb visuals in the final area too, really love the crimson chapel look—hopefully we'll see more of that later.

MAP04: Peculiar map. I enjoyed it in the end—it felt like a wacky journey through some ancient ruins—but it's perhaps the most unorthodox map yet, with some strange progression and harsh limits on ammo & health. Working my through the submerged complex was both tricky and entertaining, requiring a bit of infighting at spots, but I can definitely see how people don't prefer it. Found it better than MAP01 at least.

[Demon of the Well]

Since it's something people have been talking about a lot, I'll say that I don't have any particular issue with the brass in 'Twilit Jungle', or brass in Doom midi in general (Mark Klem, anyone?), though of course some ways of implementing it are more tasteful than others. Favorite track so far is 'Alien Jungle', not surprising, as I usually find stewboy's stuff to my taste. Essel's 'Lost City' was also quite appealing.

Map 05 -- Tower in the Fountain of Sparks
....as is the track here, actually, 'Mystproj.' The persistent tone of melancholy that defines so much of the BTSX soundtrack quite appeals to me, personally.

Anyway, this is the episode hub, or part of it, anyway. The idea of hub/intermission maps (especially in non-ZDoom/Hexen format mapsets), while not something innovated by BTSX, is very rarely seen brought to fruition, sadly. The technique is an excellent tool for establishing mood and a sense of place, and is a natural companion to BTSX's dedicated partial conversion approach.

I don't think that this hub is introduced anywhere near as cleverly as the rail station from the first episode was--in E1, the hub was introduced as an extension of the fairly expansive map 01, essentially framed in the narrative as Doomguy clearing out a 'base of operations' that he used through the rest of the episode, an excellent bit of immersion. The hub in E2, by contrast, is a place we just end up at after clearing the first few combat zones--that silky-smooth segue isn't really there.

That being said, in all other respects I reckon I find this hub more intriguing than the one from E1. It's clearly a much larger place, without the realistic symmetry of the rail station, meaning that it seems more like a place one can legitimately explore, as opposed to just poke about in for curiosity's sake. As an extension of this, this first look at the hub leaves one with a more acute impression that what we actually see here only scratches the surface of what the game has to offer--there are different discrete ruins that we can see but not access (yet), and the sense that even these currently unreachable areas only represent a fraction of the depths waiting to be plumbed; apparently there's a hidden tower hereabouts, after all, and not a hint of its location or nature is yet in evidence. Intriguing, like I said.

As to the notion of some kind of action or optional/hidden gameplay event taking place in the hub, well, I can only hope. E1 never did this, but perhaps Xaser & co. will surprise us sooner or later this time around.

I did in fact record an FDA for this (note: uses beta 1), but there's naturally very little reason to watch it unless you're the completist sort. I did see one very minor visual inconsistency--a tiny strip of texture near the pointy bush in the southeast alcove of the first little cave appears to have a different light level (or maybe it's actually part of a different but similar texture) than everything else around it.

[Xaser]

Allrighty -- I'm a slight bit behind, but we've reached the point where the dev commentary now comes from the actual dev. Monologues abound!

- - -
MAP03 - "Wings of Thorn" by Brad Spencer/Xaser
- - -

Retrospective time! Gotta say, I had a helluva lot of fun with this one, and I'm super-pleased with how it turned out, especially given the oddball challenge of the map. I had basically no real experience with working with others' layouts at the time (well, except Lost Episode, and we all know how authentic that turned out :P), so the task of "hey make this pretty and fun" was quite the Xaser-departure.

As Essel mentioned, Spence was working on a map but petered out a bit, so he passed along a (really cool) barebones-y layout. I can't remember why offhand I volunteered to finish it up, but I jumped right in and apparently got in way over my head. The first iteration of the map (which I think only one or two folks ever saw) ended up being ugly as sin and almost scrap-worthy, but somehow I managed to crack my knuckles and shadowport my own map. See, there's that word again.

Speaking of words, enough of those. Here's some before-and-afters of some notable scenes since images are cooler:


Overhead map screenshot, with Spence's original on the left (a pattern I'll stick to for all the below). As you can see, the original layout is pretty much all his design, though a couple of room shape and flow changes did get Xasered in before the work was done.




Start room, front and back, above n' below. This one got its shape changed drastically since I had a cool idea for the start: the idea is that the aqueducty thing is where you arrive in the map after exiting in MAP02's waterfall. That and I think it looks cool. :P

The original start room was one of the few spots in the map that was textured by Spence, and it had a couple of architectural motifs (those big bricks and some lighting effects) that ended up not making it into the final map anywhere. Ah well...



The spiral stairs had some prototype Spence texturing, which I'm super-grateful for since it got the creative juices flowing and set a texture theme for the map. He later remarked in the thread that the final map ended up turning out a lot like how he'd imagined it in his head, which makes me a super-happy Xaser. Though really it's because he left enough textural and architectural "hints" here and there -- I'm just glad I was able to follow 'em, somehow.



As hinted at before, the original Spence map had a lot of little prototype detail bits that I kept with (or rather, built around) for the final layout. The lights and wooden bits on the top of that edge, are great examples.

I did take the liberty of adding a bunch of sky, though, because sky is awesome.


[Looks like I'm running out of images, so I'm gonna have to stripe this across a couple of posts. I really wish the forum error message would actually tell me WHAT the max image number is. I'm having to guess awkwardly here. D: ]

[Xaser]

[Oh no! It continues!]


Another example of "Spence suggests some cool architectural bits that Xaser manages to not trash (though he did add sky)." Quotable phrase, that.

Those custom-trimmed windows on the left are an Essel enhancement, though -- he and Seele did some much-needed polishing toward the end, and that new texture was snuck right in. Much obliged, ;)



The dock-y bit is another part that had just the right amount of suggestion from Sir Spence to make an accurate translation. More the merrier, I suppose. ;)



The red key room, in contrast, was much more primitive in the earlier version, missing the zig-zaggies, the lifts for the chaingunners, and interestingly enough, the key itself. The original map had just the one key (a red, located where the yellow key currently sits in the final map) that locked the chapel, making this 'wing' of the map (no pun intended) a bit too optional. That plus you had to have some incentive to get the pillar guys to shoot at you... ;)

This site in particular was quite a head-basher for me since I had nodebuilder-induced HOMs lining those columns for ages until I was able to vertex-jiggle them out. That damned bug was there for over a year and a half... yeah. D:



This spot got some room-reshaping, since I liked the idea but found the hall a bit cramped as-is (er... as-was?). That and angles are cool.



Same area, note the lack of the window in the former. I figured some exterior views of the "chapel" ought to exist somewhere, so there they went.

[Xaser]

[Last one, promise. ;) ]


This spot is a shining example of the BTSX philosophy of "if something doesn't look quite right, throw a custom texture at it." It's astounding how many custom composites we ended up doing for maps (like those aforementioned window trims, which are literally only used in this one map :P ), although IIRC these particular arches were actually made with another map in mind first. Ah well -- they work, hopefully, and they're not too far off from Spence's concept, so it'll do.



The yellow key (formerly red key) spot got closed in + trapped up since I felt obliged to give in to the usual "evil altars do evil things" cliche. Some folks have complained about the slow lifts here, but I felt it necessary to avoid the player being able to insta-escape from the manco+rev trap.

As an aside, the prevailing use of wood in this area is a carry-over from Spence's original detailing of that spiral stair near the start, so it's another example of sneaky subconscious influence in action. O:



The interior of the "chapel" got a similar makeover to the start, and is the first introduction of EVIL RED BLOOG LIQUID to the set. Bit obligatory, but there you go.

[EDIT] Uh oh, made a boo-boo: looks like the blood flat actually first appears in E2M02's end room... which I've literally never noticed before. @_@ -- Thanks there Seele!



Finally, yet another thumbs-up to Spence for putting these windows here and painting a super-clear picture in my head of what this area ought to look like from both the inside and outside. Fun working with you, sir, albeit out of sync a bit. ;)


Sadly, I don't have a copy of the interim "bad version" I did anywhere handy for screenshot comparisons, but let's just say that the screens weren't much different than Spence's... ;D

That's it for now. I'll get to bathing in the dirty waters soon... once I'm brave enough to compile what's gonna be a MASSIVE report. Talk about a map with quite the history. ;)

[Random aside for @mouldy when he jumps back in the thread: I was listening to a compilation of your music stuffs while typing this up. Why? "because." :D ]

[kmxexii]

MAP05 BEHOLD THE TOWER IN THE FOUNTAIN OF SPARKS I

i love the ambient hub maps in btsx e1. they told this story of the blowed up uac bases you rarely see because killing demons in realistic military installations would be boring as fuck (not that some people dont try). so there were these fairly realistic railway stations that were spacious enough to not drag like hell exploring offices or hotel rooms or barracks but they lasted long enough in between the abstract techbase stuff that surrounded them to just slightly ground them in reality. it was cool looking around seeing to see what details got stuffed in them like the facility maps or the structures in the far off distance.

xaser brings it back in full force and slam dunks it with the tower. the wilderness walk was kind of bleh but once i hit the bridge with that natural arch on the right and that tantalizing view of the southwestern exit i was hooked. then i walked on and saw the bigass tower (which for some reason is giving me vibes off his TNT2 map). very cool. plus you can see other stuff you just know youre going back to experience, like that orange installation to the east, the colonnades beyond the alien fence, and that furnace area to the southwest. mix it in with the wonderful atmosphere provided by the music track and you have quite a heady concoction.

rating: high-voltage