Strange Aeons 5.7

[Impie]

^ What scifista said. I don't know why it's a member's only download, but I can't find an option to make the download public. It should be available to everyone.

EDIT: It also appears the download for my other mod simply isn't available despite my updating it the other day. Maybe using ModDB was a mistake.

[Impie]

Another update, partly based on new feedback, partly based on me revisiting old feedback.

- Intermission graphics changed for episodes 1 and 4.

- Death Incarnates have a projectile attack instead of hitscan.

- New status bar!

- Actual title menu graphic that says "Strange Aeons"!

- Map fixes such as slimetrails in the new E4M7, areas where player could get trapped, missing weapons, etc.

[kmxexii]

Impie said:

Another update, partly based on new feedback, partly based on me revisiting old feedback.

- Intermission graphics changed for episodes 1 and 4.

- Death Incarnates have a projectile attack instead of hitscan.

- New status bar!

- Actual title menu graphic that says "Strange Aeons"!

- Map fixes such as slimetrails in the new E4M7, areas where player could get trapped, missing weapons, etc.

the interpic edit is a sneaky change, but i like it. using the old interpics was a bit of an immersion buster.

i appreciate the change from hitscan to projectile. but uh it looks like it is coming out a foot over his head. i dunno if that's intentional, but though I'd mention it.

new status bar is cool, title graphic is neat to have. i already made a fake one for my review, lol, but the official one is appreciated.

haven't played e4m7 yet, but i'll get around to it pretty soon.

[Impie]

kmxexii said:

the interpic edit is a sneaky change, but i like it. using the old interpics was a bit of an immersion buster.

I think the E2 and E3 itnerpics still kinda match the locales, so i left them, but the E1 pic was bugging the hell out of me.

kmxexii said:

i appreciate the change from hitscan to projectile. but uh it looks like it is coming out a foot over his head. i dunno if that's intentional, but though I'd mention it.

I thought it'd look cooler if he summoned it over his head and then it chased after you.

[kmxexii]

Impie said:

I thought it'd look cooler if he summoned it over his head and then it chased after you.

clool, yeah it's a neat aesthetic

edit: E4M7 feels like a really solid level, imo the best out of E4 (not to knock maniac mansion, which works as a concept map). blind pistol start players will have to wrestle with finding the rocket launcher, especially once the death incarnates come out, but they are so much less of a pain with their new attack. it feels good to just rush the hulk powerup and then clear out the immediate top and the trench. the nastiest surprise for me was the baby spinner. the architecture is a big improvement; lithic structures like the arch and that gazebo-ish thing add a lot of character to the barren plateau wilderness. it is much more fun to play than your "current" iteration of Crypt of the Elder Things. i didn't run into any bugs besides the spiders, but I did find a slime trail, if that helps.

[Impie]

Ah yeah, there's still a slime trail or two creeping around that map I guess...

I'm glad you think it's an improvement though, because I was curious which was better, and I sorta preferred the compactness of Devil Canyon to the sprawling misadventure Crypt was.

[Impie]

Version 3.8 is out!

- Many level tweaks, such as the number of Dholes on E4M4 reduced to 1.
- Spiderbabies fire once instead of thrice
- Ghouls are a bit more accurate with their shooting.
- Airport map has the air traffic control tower effect restored.
- Other stuff.

[Impie]

Can someone explain to me what this youtube commenter is talking about? I'm not quite sure I understand.

"make it so that all things on all maps are flagged to appear on Ultra-Violence & Nightmare! in the final release. Anything already flagged as either singleplayer-only or multi-player only stays such as appropriate, except in the event that such a flag gets in the way of 100% completion. Likewise, if a multiplayer-only sector (or group thereof) had monsters/artifact items/secret areas that aren't flagged to be multiplayer-only, flag the monsters, artifact items, & secret areas in that sector (or group thereof) to be multiplayer-only, to avoid a repeat of Plutonia MAP30's item singleplayer item score bug."

"those bugs should be easy to fix. Just point out the error on the forum so the good folks can help by telling you how to fix it. The "all things on all maps are flagged to spawn on skills 4 & 5" thing is so players will get the definitive experience if either playing skill 4 with fast monsters & double-value ammo pickup turned on or playing true Nightmare! Also, maybe remove all the singleplayer-only flags so playing on a server (or in single-player with server mode on) will give you an even more definitive experience combined with all of the above."

[Pedro VC]

I think he's suggesting that you shouldn't forget to set the appropriate skill levels for singleplayer things (if you don't set any Easy, Normal or Hard tags, the thing in question won't appear on the map). Weird thing to comment.

[kmxexii]

Impie said:

Can someone explain to me what this youtube commenter is talking about? I'm not quite sure I understand.

"make it so that all things on all maps are flagged to appear on Ultra-Violence & Nightmare! in the final release. Anything already flagged as either singleplayer-only or multi-player only stays such as appropriate, except in the event that such a flag gets in the way of 100% completion. Likewise, if a multiplayer-only sector (or group thereof) had monsters/artifact items/secret areas that aren't flagged to be multiplayer-only, flag the monsters, artifact items, & secret areas in that sector (or group thereof) to be multiplayer-only, to avoid a repeat of Plutonia MAP30's item singleplayer item score bug."

"those bugs should be easy to fix. Just point out the error on the forum so the good folks can help by telling you how to fix it. The "all things on all maps are flagged to spawn on skills 4 & 5" thing is so players will get the definitive experience if either playing skill 4 with fast monsters & double-value ammo pickup turned on or playing true Nightmare! Also, maybe remove all the singleplayer-only flags so playing on a server (or in single-player with server mode on) will give you an even more definitive experience combined with all of the above."

it is a really weird commentary on skill flags and shit. the first statement seems ignorant to me because an author may have say imps or revenants in the same position dependant upon skill selection. given that the dude failed to offer one single specific example, i am inclined to think that he is trying to head off a "bugs" that may not even apply. part of it, i believe, is the commentor talking about areas that are designed solely for multiplayer, which people have done in the past and still do to this day. like, say, deathmatch arenas for levels that weren't particularly catered to DM play. it seems like a nonissue to me, considering that the .txt basically says that this wad does not support multiplayer in any way shape or form. but maybe the multiplayer comment in the second paragraph is more about playing this online, in a server, alone, a situation i would have never anticipated. but like i said this seems like a boilerplate thing this person posted that isn't helpful at all.

[Impie]

Thanks for helping clarify. I was beginning to think my noobishness was causing problems again.

[Impie]

Version 3.9 is up. I tweaked some E3 and E4 maps, and removed a projectile sound effect I found annoying and off-putting. Of note are the changes to E4M5, since I had the wrong ambient sound for the exit teleporter: between that and the lack of an exit sign, the exit wasn't as obvious as I'd have liked. Now it is (hopefully).

[kmxexii]

review is up. thank you for this journey. it's still largely based on the 3.5 edition but I tweaked a few things based on the changes you've made.

[Impie]

Thanks again for taking the time and effort, kmx! I'm looking forward to your thoughts on Nerves of Steel next!

[Impie]

EDIT: issue moved to its own thread.

[Impie]

Version 4.0 is out, with a ton of fixes, courtesy of Skepticist being nice enough to playtest and give lots of feedback in email form.

- E1M5's starting island wasn't high enough to keep the devils from walking on the void. Fixed.

- E1M7's shootable switch is lower for people who prefer not to use mouselook.

- Shadow Beast wraiths used to inflate the monster count at the intermission screen, as did the unkillable skeletons, and the fake spiders in the E1M9 secret area. Fixed.

- E2M1 had a bookshelf in a secret sector that was also tagged as a secret sector, making 100% secrets impossible. Fixed.

- E2M2's final devil ambush doesn't work due to my own stupid oversight, resulting in either an underwhelming monster count, or none at all. Fixed.

- Misaligned texture fixed in E2M6.

- Hidden sectors in E3M2 tagged as hidden so they don't show on the map.

- E4M8 boss battle breaks sometimes, making the boss unkillable. Hopefully fixed.


Known Bugs That Still Exist

- Mutant Sphere makes 100% items impossible on the intermission, though the (g)zdoom hud still counts it. This is actually a zdoom issue that should be fixed in the latest devbuild.

- A couple sectors in E4M1 and E4M7 have transparent sections for some reason. Skep said he fixed it by redrawing the sector, but I haven't been able to reproduce this one either way. Might be a bug in the current gzdoom build; definitely haven't seen it in zdoom.

[Impie]

I'm still an idiot apparently. Forgot to add one of the fixes on the To Do list: an HOM on the exit stairs of E4M5. Version 4.1 is up already, only a couple hours after 4.0! Such professionalism!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Cool project, despite the weird premise.

It would be cool if you could make a proper widescreen HUD bar.

[Impie]

I might at some point.

4.1 issues I'm gonna fix later:

- Exit teleporter of E4M6 is flagged as a normal Doom secret sector (not the udmf tag, hence why I couldn't find it); as a result, there is an unattainable secret on that map.
- Secret area of E2M9 has two modes of access due to a slight oversight on my part. Gonna fix that, too.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

How do you kill Death Incarnates? I tried using the Rocket Launcher and even the Lightning Gun against them, but they keep getting back up.

[kmxexii]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

How do you kill Death Incarnates? I tried using the Rocket Launcher and even the Lightning Gun against them, but they keep getting back up.

you have to use the rocket launcher, but since you have to do enough damage to cross the "gib" threshold - I think - your chances of doing it at full health are less than stellar. try softening them up with some small arms fire before using the RL; that seemed to work for me.

[Impie]

kmxexii said:

you have to use the rocket launcher, but since you have to do enough damage to cross the "gib" threshold - I think - your chances of doing it at full health are less than stellar. try softening them up with some small arms fire before using the RL; that seemed to work for me.

Or you can stick to the rocket launcher, but try to nick them with the blast radius of the first shot, then nail them directly with the second. Sometimes a single rocket lucks out and splatters 'em in one.

EDIT: So fun times. I posted the 4.1 update article on ModDB, and after posting said article I found that it suddenly had a gameplay video dominating the page that I didn't put there. It was the sixth article I'd posted on the site, but the first time this had happened, and since it was a badly arranged eyesore I removed it from the article.

Shortly thereafter I get a message from an admin saying the following: "because you removed the obligatory video embedded by the site staff, from now on your articles will not be frontpaged. The empty articles are not allowed on the front page and you made your article look bad on purpose."

So basically, because I fixed what I thought was some kind of glitch (again, it had never happened before in any of the other articles), I was instantly accused of sabotage and penalized with perma-frontpage-ban. So basically I'm not hosting my work on ModDB anymore: if they're only giving me one strike before permanently punishing me, I'll give them one strike before I drop them like a bad habit. Even if this is a new policy in their TOS, it's still bullshit, and so is the accusatory treatment.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

So does that mean it is next to impossible to get 100% kills in E1M9 on UV? Unless there is a hidden cache of rockets somewhere on that level, it does not seem possible to have enough ammo to deal with all Death Incarnates.

On a sidenote, is it normal that E1M9's secrets only open once?

[Impie]

It might be possible, although there are some hidden rocket cashes throughout the episode if I remember right. Still, I may remove their monster count flag in the next build to make it a non-issue.

And yeah, the E1M9 secret only opens once. That Yithgun really tips the balance of the game, so it's very tough to get.

EDIT: Well, except in E3M9, where it's super easy to get. Just as it's super easy to die.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

So you are saying I am better off not trying to kill Death Incarnates?

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

So you are saying I am better off not trying to kill Death Incarnates?

Unless they're posing a real problem, I'd suggest knocking them down and running away. I'll make 'em not count towards the kill count in 4.2.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I see. So much for being completionist, then... :S

Anyway, it seems the Medkit in the room with the three Soulspheres is unreachable. I had to use Noclip to get it.

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

I see. So much for being completionist, then... :S

Anyway, it seems the Medkit in the room with the three Soulspheres is unreachable. I had to use Noclip to get it.

Well crap, I better fix that, too. Dunno why I even have a medkit in that room. Musta forgotten about it.

[kmxexii]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

So does that mean it is next to impossible to get 100% kills in E1M9 on UV? Unless there is a hidden cache of rockets somewhere on that level, it does not seem possible to have enough ammo to deal with all Death Incarnates.

On a sidenote, is it normal that E1M9's secrets only open once?

You can do it with berserk punches, though with a level as tightly balanced as e1m9 it is a task for masochists

[Impie]

Version 4.2 is out, with still more map fixes. Unless another major issue comes up, this will be the final release: play to your heart's content.