The DWmegawad Club plays: Back to Saturn X E2

[kmxexii]

so ummmmm some final thoughts~

i liked e2 more than e1. stations has all these pretty techbases and caverns but there isnt a lot of mystery to it until you hit tango's finale, which teases you with e2. e2 is just this big ol adventure and the way things tie together with the hub really nailed a sense of place for me. nothing against those wonderful abstract base levels from e1. the combat in e2 is also more challenging, not just because the btsx team stuffed fireking in there. anyway i hope you guys didnt mind me stopping by for some more informal commentary and here is the current review, where i gush about btsx e2 like a horny fanboi.

[obake]

MAP18 - "Optional Bases Opposed" by Skillsaw
Completed on HMP in Pacifist style.

I don't know what urged me to do it, but I played through this entire map without attacking once. It took a lot of save states and frustration, but I eventually pulled through. Because I had to rely on infighting, the kill count at the end was somewhere around 60%.

The hardest parts of the level were getting through the small, railed area with two arachnotrons on it, and then the hallway of imps, sergeants, and one demon afterwards. Surprisingly enough, the archies did not cause too many problems, though the one right before the BFG area was a bit of a pest. I did my darnedest to have the Revenants and imps hit him enough so that he would die, but I eventually gave up.

The room with the three small key doors that leads to the exit was very easy to deal with compared to the nightmare of the rest of the stage.

After I successfully exited the level, I loaded my last save from it, and played through it a bit using my weapons. I was surprised by the sudden appearance of the Mastermind and Hellknights, realizing I had not alerted them of my presence beforehand.

As always, the stage looks great. I can't say too much about the fighting since I didn't actually fight until after finishing it, but it seems fairly balanced.

[punnyone]

Final Thoughts -

I enjoyed E1, and found its levels to be nicely designed, but there was always the feeling like it was building to something bigger. That something being made prominent in Tough Skin River, where viney walls and gothic halls set the tone for E2. Every single level of E2 stood out in some way, from Joshy's rustic shipyard, to Khorus' abstract hell, to Skillsaw's research base on the edge of ancient ruins.

The Hub was significantly more impressive than E1. Whereas E1's hub was a nice mellow train station, Xaser's hub takes us across this mysterious set of buildings and valleys. Even without the use of intermission text or dialog, there is a story that is told in the visuals alone every time we return to this hub.

In addition to the visuals, this was quite a tough set of levels. When you die numerous times on Map 1, you know you're in for a rough ride, but I enjoyed this challenge, and used this defeat as motivation to go all the way through the end.

Negatives -

- No backpack until map 15. One issue I had with E1 was its monster/weapon/ammo progression. By map 3, we had the plasma gun, a full backpack, and by map 2, just about every non-boss enemy had been introduced. With E2, the rapid monster progression isn't a problem as to me personally, E2 is supposed to be the middle levels of a gigantic 90-something level ultramegawad, so there would be no reason to ramp up the monsters introduced. In E2, Already on map 4, there was plenty of ammo and lots of enemies, but with only the bare miniumum to hold this ammo and constant combat, I found myself often starved for ammo. By the time I got to map 10, this ammo issue was making the game very taxing. I would've at the latest put a backpack in Map 10, as to go all the way until the middle of the game without one is a bit of a drag.

- The other issue I had was too many revenants. After playing E1, it's clear that much of the level designers love using these guys as a common enemy. However, there are times when facing too much of them becomes a bit of a chore, or im some cases, like map 13, repetitive.

- Regardless, I hope that the team take much of the criticism here with a grain of salt. Everyone playing this megawad has their own ideas as to what length each level should be, or where a monster should be placed. If every bit of advice was followed, then the final version of E2 would end up taking years to get finished. In the end, I hope that the team takes the “This wad was made for us, how we like it” approach and don't radically change what, for the most part, is perfect.

Favorite Maps – 4, 14, 20, 22, 25, 26. I felt that these levels all conveyed a great sense of atmosphere and place. Maps 4 and 20 really nailed the “Epic Journey” aesthetic, while Maps 14, 22, and 26 contained fantastic architecture and were among the best designed. I'd still rank Unstable Journey as my favorite. It's the best large-sized Doom map Team Eternal never made, and seeing how Eternal Doom is my favorite megawad, that's a bold statement! I'm personally hoping for a map in E3 that absolutely dwarfs Unstable Journey!

Overall – BTSX is shaping up to be the next major classic megawad (or in this case, ultramegawad). There were so many great levels in E2 that even me trying to make a 9 level “E2” level selection proved to be impossible. Some part of me hopes that this and E1 will eventually be fleshed out into full 32 level wads (with map 30 for each being the “To be continued” maps). I do find it a bit odd that E1 and E3 are going to have 2 secret maps while E2 only has one...hmm...

Beneath A Festering Moon and the ending map seemed to tease at the warped reality that E3 will bring, yet none of the shots revealed so far really scratch the surface as to what we will expect Hopefully, we won't have to wait a year and a half to find out, but either way, I'll be eagerly anticipating its release!

[Tarnsman]

E2 has 2 secret maps. TGH was just unable to finish his map before the deadline.

[esselfortium]

Tarnsman said:

E2 has 2 secret maps. TGH was just unable to finish his map before the deadline.

Well, not exactly. It was always planned to be a later-release bonus, and the possibility of including it in the first version was a last-minute flight of fancy that didn't pan out.

[Suitepee]

esselfortium said:

Well, not exactly. It was always planned to be a later-release bonus, and the possibility of including it in the first version was a last-minute flight of fancy that didn't pan out.

A second secret map eh? Will it be as good and slaughter-esque as the first one? Can't wait to play it whatever it is, you tease!

Also I'm going to be covering the final part of this tonight via livestream. I'm expecting good things from Rottking and Mechadon's maps in particular from the 5 I have left to conquer.

[kmxexii]

esselfortium said:

Well, not exactly. It was always planned to be a later-release bonus, and the possibility of including it in the first version was a last-minute flight of fancy that didn't pan out.

!!!!!

bonus maps are always grood

[Dragonsbrethren]

MAP24

Whether I lived or died after the blue key felt entirely up to the RNG gods, otherwise an ok gimmick map. Kind of underwhelming to me.

[dew]

Playtester's War Journal, day 418: Bite (RottKing)

Rott's only e2 contribution was always meant to be one of the hardest maps. Not by monster count or sheer fierceness of encounters, it's about devious traps and uncomfortable surprises. Also space denial. Rott set out to make a "kind of a mix of Doom64 and Quake 1" map, so a damp, dark and stinky dungeon crawl it is. If some e2 maps give a strong Heretic vibe, I'd say this map's more like... Ultima Underworld, I guess? Anyways, it's a bit funny when people called this map "mostly easy" and then mentioned how they died horribly in a dicktrap or two, heh. That's the point! Slow, meandering, ponderful pace where you need to mind your step because of sneaky monsters lurking behind corners, suddenly interrupted by a claustrophobic brutal setpiece battles for your life, because monsters appear right by your butt and there's no PG/BFG to protect you.

Take even the simplest piece - the YK "funnel" where you need to dispatch a baron quickly with the SSG before he pins you to a wall. It's not even hard when you know what's going on, but there's a bit of panic and a possible "lame" death the first time. Also hell yeah, proper use of barons, how rare is that. The pair below under the elevator is fantastic, I think, totally a moment of utter panic. Same, if a bit less cramped, in the barons & co. swamp scenario.

The double archvile trap after the lava jump may not look entirely deadly, but it used to be the most dickish fight. It had a PE that spammed lost souls in your way and the lava pool had no emergency teleport, so you just died pathetically. That was seriously uncomfortable and scary, but I don't think we'd survive the bitching about inescapable death pits, heh. Still, the hallmark scenario of the map, imo, is the sewer where the archvile pair forces you down the way, waking up more and more monsters.

Rott started working on it mid-2011 and he took a few months before he completed a proper testable version, but since then it stayed more or less the same, sans tweaking. Like, adding the cyberdemon to the final arena and removing and reimplementing the Dreaded Bog Imp, the unofficial mascot of BtSX. A bit of a Hitchcock moment there, shame if you missed it. To think I was so skeptical about him at first... :) It's all about mood and localized scenarios, which gets a nice help from essel and his creepy, slightly dissonant track. We're all proud.


Playtester's War Journal, day 420: Perhaps Now the Vultures (Tarnsman)

This is one of the later maps, like late 2012 map with most of the feedback done throughout 2013, yet Tarnsman's oldest solo contribution to BtSX. It's also a map where Tarns feeds his vile fetish, but you could probably tell that. I have to say I was a little bit afraid people would think it goes on for too long focusing on the same gimmick borrowed from iori, but I guess it wasn't properly exploited in that one short segment of e1map06, because no one (except Suitepee right now as I write this) complained, haha.

Tarnsman can really milk a concept he likes. iori's battlefield was striking and creative and surprising, but actually not very effective threat-wise. Here, Tarns bends everything to make the viles/rezzed minions kick your ass. Reading the dev thread, there was a version where the first blue fight was supposed to be super hard and he toned it down before I got to try it, so I guess be glad it's this easy? Haha. It actually is a bit overdone in MP/solonet though, I forgot to check that and the amount of viles there is just obnoxious, heh. Still, we made the BFG just easter-egg supersecret at one point, because green megaballs just cramped the necromancers' style a lot. Get it if you think it's too frustrating with just SSG/PG/RL... you just have to find out how.

Oh yeah, I have to mention how technically problematic this map is. Tarnsman chose a very hacky setup to begin with and making it 100% reliable seems to take a lot of fine tinkering. Someone reported that the mancos up top still survive sometimes, this was a bug report for years. Those teleporting exploding barrels just refuse to cooperate every time or something. Well, if someone can make a terrible hack work, it'll be Tarns. Or essel. Or Xaser, heh.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/5189107 = part 4 (final) of my playthrough, maps 21-26 covered.

Well I expected Rottking's map to have a bit more "bite" to it (it had some difficult parts but I was expecting a bit more tbh), and Mechadon's penultimate map slowly grew on me despite hating it for a good while. Tarnsman's 'archvile friendly' map was also interesting, if not annoying to deal with. The ending was decent and I really liked the 'stargate' reveal, especially when I found the Godsphere secret!

Overall I found that BTSX E2's increased difficulty (and questionable Revenant usage) led me to be more frustrated than enjoying the wad at times, although I will concur the overall quality (both visually and gameplay wise) of the maps was just as good as in E1. I think E1 was better, but E2 was definitely no slouch and I will eagerly await episode 3 by asking Tarnsman about it a tonne in the New Year!

Keep up the good work BTSX mappers, see you for the trilogy finale!

[Tarnsman]

Suitepee said:

(and questionable Revenant usage)

You're right. We didn't use enough.

[kmxexii]

Tarnsman said:

You're right. We didn't use enough.

[Steve D]

It's the 27th of a 30-day month, so time to start thinking of October's megawad.

I can think of 3 to nominate.

1. Going Down -- I've never played anything by mouldy because I missed the Nova month, so I'd like to give this a whirl. Plus, I gather the maps are small, always a plus when I have so much to do.

2. Switcheroom -- It's Ultimate Doom, so no Revvies, Archies or PEs. That alone recommends it.

3. ConC.E.R.Ned -- Ultimate Doom again, and it's by Mr. "Action Jackson" himself, cannonball. Nuff said, right? Unless he plans to re-release it when he finishes his E4 project. Speak up, cannonball!

[NuMetalManiak]

so what did I think of E2 overall:

it's immersive and fun with some frustrating maps. levels are longer but that does not make them bad as long as they have something exciting to show and flow well. most of the long ones do. there's more revenants than cacodemons around, and ammo is a bit more balanced than I remember. quite a diverse set. out of all the mappers though, skillsaw and esselfortium were the guys who knocked it out of the park in terms of best maps in the project (shoutout to Xaser too, because he's Xaser and he makes Xasermaps).

SteveD said:

It's the 27th of a 30-day month, so time to start thinking of October's megawad.

I really don't want the club to play another brand-spanking new mega-cool-and-what-not project that's just been released this year that most likely needs more testing. otherwise this place'll be called the Doomworld BETA-TESTING club if it keeps up. how long has it been since we played something NOT released in 2013-14?

[mouldy]

If you want an older megawad to play, I don't think the club has done AV or scythe 2 has it? Even though everyone and his mum has probably played those wads to death by now.. I'm pretty sure there must be other old megawads that I've missed out on though.

[Marcaek]

I thought the plan was to run Psyren's wads? I'll toss in my usual Requiem and STRAIN, but looking through strain again recently it is pretty weak in actual execution imo.

AV or Speed of Doom perhaps. Or maybe even an older community chest wad?

[Steve D]

Getsu makes a good point about not beta-testing another new megawad.

To mouldy -- believe it or not, even though I started Dooming in '95, I've never played AV or Scythe2, or Memento Mori 2 except for a few maps, so all of them can be added. I just don't play megawads on my own, is why.

@Marcaek -- I do seem to remember something about Psyren's maps. So . . .

Alien Vendetta
Scythe2
Memento Mori 2
Psyren's maps
Speed of Doom
ConC.E.R.Ned

I personally would most want something Ultimate Doom tbh. I've seen enough Revvies and Archies to last me another month or 2. ;D

[mouldy]

ConC.E.R.Ned is a great wad, I'd recommend that. In fact there are quite a few wads on this list I never played http://doomwiki.org/wiki/List_of_notable_WADs

[NuMetalManiak]

btw I'm voting for Doom 2 Reloaded still. it's old enough.

[Cynical]

Resurgence had its final idgames version released recently, and is the obvious choice IMO.

[cannonball]

SteveD said:

It's the 27th of a 30-day month, so time to start thinking of October's megawad.

I can think of 3 to nominate.

1. Going Down -- I've never played anything by mouldy because I missed the Nova month, so I'd like to give this a whirl. Plus, I gather the maps are small, always a plus when I have so much to do.

2. Switcheroom -- It's Ultimate Doom, so no Revvies, Archies or PEs. That alone recommends it, plus me and Magnus have maps in it. Heh. ;D

3. ConC.E.R.Ned -- Ultimate Doom again, and it's by Mr. "Action Jackson" himself, cannonball. Nuff said, right? Unless he plans to re-release it when he finishes his E4 project. Speak up, cannonball!

Going down would be a good one, especially as many Steve D pelts will be collected, fair to say the maps are pretty violent. :)

As for BTSX E2, well it certainly seems a little more edgy compared to E1, which can be a positive or a negative depending on how you look at it. It's nice to see the likes of Brad Spencer appearing in the mappers list. Very solid episode from what I have played of it.

[Steve D]

cannonball said:

Going down would be a good one, especially as many Steve D pelts will be collected, fair to say the maps are pretty violent. :)

Thanks for your kind thoughts, cb. :P So are you saying mouldy is an axe-murderer? He seems like such a pleasant fellow here in the Club . . .

[Demonologist]

@ SteveD: The Eye is fixed on you!

[Steve D]

^^^Thanks for the tip, Demonologist! Downloaded, and I will play it in October.

So, at last I can see what this mouldy guy is all about. Well, I could play his maps in Nova, too . . . ;D

[Demon of the Well]

Finally got a chance to finish up.

Map 26 -- Beneath a Festering Moon - 104% Kills / 80% Secrets - FDA, 0 deaths. Uses beta 2.
This is an ugly demo, in more ways than one. Pretty slow, too, sorry. I take forever and a day waffling around in the hidden battle, and I spend a fruitless several minutes at the end trying to figure out how to get the second V-sphere from the cave.....I must be pretty dense, sounds like everyone else got it, but I couldn't. Oh well, wouldn't really have done me any good at that point, anyway.

Anyway, this is pretty much Xaser: The Map. Very thematically conceptual, ooze and blood and not-quite-al-dente alien spaghetti all around the joint, tall neon-red striplights galore, crop-circle-lookin' automap, arch-viles as the star opposition, you name it. Oh, and let us not fail to mention that half of the map takes place in a giant, multifarious tower, which, incidentally, is indeed situated picture-perfect beneath a festering moon (you can tell how much I like that view by how long I stand there looking at it in the demo). The overall presentation of this map is lovingly-wrought, from the painstaking simulation of the tower as a 3D space (e.g. view outside of the windows in the 4-teleport nexus, suggesting that that part of the tower is actually below the surface of the blood lake, or the complex welter of collapsing/building staircases on the 'entry' floor) to the high-gloss custom spritework used to portray the dimensional gate at the end of the adventure. This degree of well-orchestrated articulatory detail is phenomenal for establishing a sense of place, though it does come at a price in the sense that actually physically moving around in this map is fairly awkward, even borderline unpleasant at times on account of the nigh airtight scale to some of the passages. I suppose one could justify this via an argument from 'realism' (e.g. it kinda makes sense that some of the maintenance tunnels in a high-tech tower would be rather claustrophobic), but what really excuses a lot of it is simply that most of the more memorable bits of the action take place in somewhat more accommodating surroundings, although truly open spaces are very rare here.

On that point, while 230-some monsters may make it sound like a rather violent map, a lot of that monster count is a natural function of its deceptive length (and it's worth considering that a big chunk of those monsters are lurking in a hidden/optional area); for the most part, battles here are rather small and concise, with the true adversary in many of the scenarios being the actual environment rather than the demons themselves. While this is true of several of the scenarios here, it's perhaps best epitomized by the three-vile fight that ensues not long after entering the tower proper--the actual diameter of the circular enclosure is small to begin with (this segment takes place in a cross-section of one post of the tower's characteristic three-post construction) and there's a great degree of pronounced height variation within that limited space, so the fight basically takes the shape of flitting back and forth from tiny piece of cover to the safe spot at the entrance to some other tiny piece of cover in between taking potshots at the trio, who themselves can barely move in this environment (not just the guy in stuck on the lift in the center). This element of space constriction is not limited to the confines of the tower, however: the fight in the transforming chapel that others have mentioned also uses a lack of a movement space as its true threat, or attempts to, anyway. Seeing the setup, I predicted the major threat would come from the rear (like that trapped ammo box in the tower, which I also completely misinterpreted)...and I was wrong, the primary threat came from the sides, yet I still got off pretty much scot-free because the arachnatron that appears at the entrance to the room couldn't stand up to my new plasma rifle, and thus did a very poor job of making me stay in the room. I reckon he needs some pals, maybe some knights or even a couple of Barons to close in from the chapel's vestibule (the part with the chaingunner/green armor secret in the wall) in order to pressure the industrious player back out into the killbox.

That style of constricted action is not particularly to my taste, so I was glad that a few of the highlight fights took place in/around some somewhat more open spaces. Of these, my favorite is the completely optional spiders' nest fight at the lowest level of the tower, beneath the planet's crust. While the central cluster of chambers is patterned/scaled in accordance with the tower's above-ground layout, the surrounding open area and the fact that the revenants on what is effectively its periphery are placed so that they can unexpectedly sneak rockets into the 'safe' area from a considerable distance away gives the fight a more kinetic flavor despite the fact that the player once again spends much of the fight in a fairly tight space--you can't initially spend a lot of time running around in the open because the masterminds will hurt you even if nothing else is able to, and yet you can't be comfortable simply weathering the entire siege in the central space either, because mounting an offense involves exposure to some of that deceptive revenant crossfire (unless you know about that secret V-sphere ahead of time :( ). Very neat, I think, if somewhat deceptively cerebral/methodical in pace. Ironically, in practical terms there's no real reason for most players to even come here--for once, my being a wiseass and 'saving stuff for later' saw me leave with 200/200, but many players will probably use the armor/sphere in the course of fighting the battle, leaving them little better off when they leave than when they came in, sure to raise a few eyebrows. I, however, have no issue with this--it's the fight itself, and the scenic venue it takes place in, that are the real reward. While theoretically more dangerous, the last rush of viles and others near the warpgate at the end feels less cinematic than the spiders' nest, and apparently is likely to be organically nerfed by cautious players choosing to explore the nearby cave first (thus netting a BFG and possibly that cocktease of a V-sphere), so I would advise everyone to try to visit the nest, if for no other reason than that it is the episode's true finale from a battle standpoint.

Edit: Oh yes, there's also what I assume is a sneak-peak at E3's hub as an (exitless) endmap in slot 27 (architecturally it looks like another Xaserthing). Looks intriguing, to say the least, but gets me down because now I know I've got a long wait ahead of me before I can see the capstone to the trilogy.

[Demon of the Well]

Overall, I felt this to be a quality (pre)-release, much like E1 before it. In terms of the sensationalized talking-points that have been brought up regarding the BTSX project as a whole, I think it will be more difficult to credibly hold the position that E2 is as "samey" as E1--it is more obviously thematically varied in terms of both its selection of texture assets and the varying scales/shapes of its setting, and its larger selection of levels that are unabashedly conceptual from a gameplay standpoint makes for a more overtly eclectic experience, as well. More abstractly/subjectively, I felt like the individual moods/ambiences of different levels were more differentiated/pronounced in these levels than in E1, which would also seem to underscore the idea that variety is one of the project's hallmarks. My only real criticism in this regard is that, while I think the assets are fantastic (much more to my aesthetic taste than the techbase assets of E1), a lot of their evocative potential is left largely unexplored in this particular crop of maps--I'm thinking largely of RottKing's 'Bite' here, which demonstrates that the assets are good at depicting a really sinister/creepy setting, but the majority of these maps are airier and more wistful in tone...nothing wrong with that in and of itself mind you, but if there's going to be more maps in the final version I think this particular angle warrants further exploration. On the upside, the music here is just as good if not better than what was in E1, I again implore the team to throw together something like a BTSXE2MUS.wad or something when the episode hits final release.

As regards the notion that some magical difficult-to-define 'something' is missing from the episode that got its own thread (which I saw no real reason to post in), I'd postulate that there is one subtle (but significant) thing E2 has very much in common with E1 that might account for some of the lukewarm reception, that being that it too has what I'd call a very slight/shallow difficulty curve. Note that I'm not saying here that the maps are wholesale 'too easy' or 'light' or anything like that (the general level of combat is more to my taste than what was in E1); what I mean is that the overall level of challenge/intensity hits a plateau pretty early in the mapset, and other than a couple of notable spikes ('Fireking', naturally, and also some brief stuff by Tarnsman here and there, equally naturally) never really deviates far from that plateau, even if the actual shape of the different encounters comprising the game is constantly varying. I've been a habitual pistol-starter given to savoring individual maps in microcosm for years and years now, and so this aspect of the presentation doesn't personally affect me or my view of the project very much, but those players who pray at the altar of the long-view continuous progression could find the overall experience somewhat unsatisfying as a result, and those who are butting their heads against their pride conflicting with their chosen difficulty setting might feel the sting more strongly than in some other mapsets precisely because the overall pitch here varies so little (e.g. sightseeing 'breathers' are fewer and less pronounced). I don't really know what you could do about this.....basically you can optimize a mapset for pistol-start OR for continuous play, it's almost impossible to do both. And I'd be a filthy liar if I tried to pretend I wasn't glad that the game seems to favor my personal preference, so....

Moving on, in a 'big picture' sense, I'm presently undecided as to whether or not I actually liked E2 more than E1....there is something to be said for E1's very steady/consistent internal thematic identity, and I feel like its more subtle, soft-touch handling of varying its theme might give the episode as a whole a slightly stronger sense of location than what E2 as a whole offers, even if E2 has more maps that individually paint a stronger picture than any individual map in E1. I guess you could say that E1 might 'hang together' just a little bit better than E2--I suspect this has a lot to do with the way the map 'clusters' in E1 seemed to have their own subtle unifying threads/themes, while in E2 this is either less pronounced or, perhaps, just lost on me personally. And yet, if you asked me to pick my top 10 BTSX maps or something like that, I reckon 7 or 8 or so of the 10 would probably come from E2. So, yeah, undecided. Hopefully E3 comes along sometime this century and decisively settles the matter. ;)

As per my custom, top 5 maps from the set, in no particular order, were:

Map 01 -- Shadow Port
Map 14 -- Shocker in Gloomtown
Map 22 -- Bite
Map 19 -- Unbaited Vicar of Scorched Earth
Map 25 -- Unstable Journey

I suspect that if I spent more time with/started feeling more at home with 'Fireking' it might bump one of those others off, but I guess I'll have to wait for the final release (or the next major RC, anyway) to see how that pans out.

*******

Regarding next month's WAD, well, I'd play any of the suggestions made thus far except for Switcheroom (the concept there just doesn't float my boat at all, no offense to its team/creators intended). Pretty much every WAD worth its salt you can name has things against it--Requiem, for example, is kinda backloaded with filler, Alien Vendetta has the odd map that's jarringly out of place in the set, etc.--but experiencing/thinking about these foibles is part of the enjoyment, I think. That said, I guess I'll vote for Psyren's maps, since I kept promsing plums I would vote with him on that. I think you'll like 'Rylayeh' at least, Steve, it's defined largely by surprisingly bloody incidental massacres of big hearty portions of zombies and smaller monsters as opposed to the 'meat game' (although it has some of that, too), and it has some 'unusual' map progression choices in places that you as the Ancient Doomer should feel oddly at home with. ;

[Crusader No Regret]

Still catching up with posting...

map 14: Shocker in Gloomtown
Had a lot of fun with this one. Rather rough pistol start and died a lot figuring out a path to gain a foothold. Once I located a SSG, I made it to the exit on that attempt. I finished with yellow and red keys and 4/8 secrets. Enjoy the nonlinear progression and how having the optional keys opens up optional paths. Also, the difficulty balance lends itself well to a casual pick up and play map. Still mising 9 monsters when I decided to just exit. Highlights from my playthrough and about the map itself.

- There's one secret where the trick to making a jump is to walk.
- I inadvertantly trivialized one fight because I missed some switches necessary to progress so there were still blocking bars that kept a pack of revenants and imps from reaching me. This path requires red and yellow keys by the way.
- That end cyber is perfectly placed to be uncomfortably close yet still fair. And interesting battle where the greatest danger is getting stuck on a hitsanner.
- On a replay, found the yellow key is optional.

Update: Managed to spot and track down the blue key. I'd caught the sound cue on an earlier run but hadn't discovered the significance back then. Used some engine exploitation to reach it. BFG, yes.

map 20: Speedtraps for the Bee Kingdom (cheats used)
It is the testimonials of other that got me to want to check out the map since my initial playthrough had me getting boxed in by spiders (pretty dumb of me in hindsight). Even with the plasma rifle as a primary weapon, there's still the deviously placed archviles too keep things from being too easy. The scenery lived up to the buzz. Digging the beach, rope bridges, and the tiki huts. Found 2/4 secrets. Got a laugh at the BFG, was expecting waves of attackers.

Memorable encounters:
- Crusher room in underground city. Didn't notice until it nearly got me.
- Ambush right before the lift to the beach area. Felt good about sniffing it out and successfully hightailed it to a more advantageous position. Granted, I used Zdoom so I could just -resurrect whenever but feels better to pass an area with skills rather than cheats.
- Tiki hut ambush. Plenty of forewarning on this one so points for the setup. Successfully herded the monsters to where I could take them out easily on first attempt. No cheats needed.

[Cynical]

Demon of the Well said:

and it has some 'unusual' map progression choices in places that you as the Ancient Doomer should feel oddly at home with. ;

As much as I like Rylayeh, that map with the big central shaft and the weird music drives me nuts!

[Memfis]

Serenity + Eternity + Infinity for the next month would be cool. Or maybe even heroes.wad for the brave ones. :D

[dew]

Playtester's War Journal, day 421: Unstable Journey (Mechadon)

Mek already talked about some aspects of his map. Yes, it's the oldest of Mek entries - thread goes back as far as July '11. Mek says this map was a big learning experience for him, but I have to say his modus operandi seems unchanged, heh. He fiddled with a growing layout for a few weeks, by which time he created a hulking colossus that started hitting its head on the blockmap ceiling, after which Mek focused inwards and started tweaking, prettifying, adding detail to architecture and gameplay... for years to come. Mek was already working on Vela Pax by the time he joined BtSX so, I assume he carried his then-current mood and it got out of hand a little. :)

When compared to his other BtSX maps (even the e3 ones), this one is the most sprawling, largest and also the flattest one. It takes you places instead of layered heights a la map14 or a certain e3 map and the key sections of the map are much more defined than e1map15. That's quite fitting for the "Journey" monicker, because it's quite an epic undertaking. The trekking gameplay also directly cues into the gameplay style - they're rather incidentally oriented with some teletraps after every other switch. However it doesn't feel light like certain essel e1 maps did - Mek uses long distances and perches to create deadly valleys and trenches in which you fight at a great disadvantage. Sniper chainers and mancos, if you will. Some called it sloggish and there's certainly cleaving through a lot of meat, but it always felt kind of right to me. It was meant to be the e2 finale, after all. Still, I can agree that certain not-particularly-threatening baron squads can be cut down... and Mek already spammed like 5 revisions after beta2, so he's definitely not deaf to criticism.

I've already talked about that in the map14 rant, Mek loves his revisions, haha. Give him feedback, he will fix it and find ten issues he has to improve on his own. Versioning his maps feels like updating Firefox, except he gave up on counting the version numbers himself. :P In this map's case, the playtesting nightmare wasn't just limited to tracking down Mek's changes in a massive layout and checking on them, but also finding issues at all - you realize you focus on entirely different things each playthrough, one feedback post will look like it's talking about a different map than the other, because at this size it becomes impossible to "encompass" the map in your mind in its entirety. That means there's always a nagging feeling that the map is not entirely controlled. Unstable, you could say (shoot me now). Btw, mek's e3 maps aren't this huge, but they might be just as exhausting and fearsome via different means.


Playtester's War Journal, day 422: Beneath a Festering Moon (Xaser)

This is Xaser: The Map. I feel it truly catches everything characteristic of the man's style. The dev cycle became as far back as July '11, but Xaser only teased us with unbelievable screenshots and we got to see a working version more than a year later, so in my mind it's one of the "younger" maps despite its real origin. Actually, thanks to that I still keep thinking Xaser based the concept around the episode's name, but it's more like the other way around - the "story" was retrofitted onto existing maps. No high concept, just Xaser's love towards towers. :)

Anyone who played a couple of Xaser's maps will notice they tend to be cramped and this one features that in spades. Xaser definitely went the Wicked Garden (PRCP map25) way, making every encounter fairly deadly despite very low monster counts in the individual skirmishes, because there's a constant threat of tripping yourself over a corner or a step or a thing. Funny how revenant rockets still manage to steer their way through. Such gameplay is not exactly my cup of tea, but after PRCP and NEIS, it became something of an acquired taste and I can appreciate the different approach to difficulty. Speaking of NEIS, I think we should all blame N20 for this style, given Xaser's infatuation with end1 and generally everything Brundage ever made!

Actually, I'd say the easiest parts are when Xaser starts operating with spaceous fights - the final fight could use more teeth (read: viles and revs), imo, to properly chase away people not wielding the BFG. Although it should still be completable with just the RL, because I really like the optionality of the underground techbase. And then there's the spiderslaughter arena, which is way too easy, I'd say. I'm kind of surprised how many people found the secret with ease, because I definitely didn't, heh. It might have to do something with the fact that it was an addon in later revisions, though. The map was slightly shorter and more compact - the Wicked Gardenesque split into several parts probably has somethign to do with vanilla limits as well. Despite Xaser's year-long toiling, the map was VPO hell in v1 and he probably had to employ a lot of sight-blocking measures that further increase crampedness in the player's mind. Oh and the constant steps everywhere also meant hover-items everywhere. I think there's still a floating bullet clip somewhere around the first vile fight, heh.

I bet Xaser will want to talk more about this beauty, so I'll stop ranting now.


Oh and the map27 outro... I think it will undergo some changes, because Tarns rushed it and while the music and the environments are nicely creepy and foreboding, the white void itself isn't introduced with enough bang. Now just Fireking left to rant about.