The DWmegawad Club plays: NOVA II

[Andrea Rovenski]

http://www.twitch.tv/cyberdemon531/c/6955926
Goes through the first episode.
Review:
MAP01 - good
MAP02 - good
MAP03 - good
MAP04 - meh
MAP05 - beautiful and fabulous
MAP06 - great
MAP07 - wheres the health
MAP08 - wheres the ammo
MAP09 - fuck
MAP10 - where do i go

[ArmouredBlood]

Streaming maps 8-14 in a little bit. http://www.twitch.tv/armouredblood

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP14: Purification Plant

Pleasantly chunky industrial map which deviates from the usual techbase aesthetic in its use of scale and open space. There's not a lot of "corridor crawling" here; instead, the rooms tend to be big, open, and spacious, with enough ledges, stairs, and other floor height variations that monsters generally can't be coaxed into simply wandering into choke points. The sense of threat comes from a sense of exposure rather than of claustrophobia. On the other hand, the map also has enough of a navigable 'spine' that with its various teleporter shortcuts, returning the player from distant sections of the map to its start, you can occasionally find freshly-released hellspawn staggering into your space from unexpected directions.

Most encounters, at least on Hurt Me Plenty, are modest in size, with the threat emerging from how the monsters control the space rather than from sheer numbers - I found myself waiting for a real onslaught of a battle in one of the map's bigger spaces that just never came. Progression is something of a sandbox; the yellow and red keys unlock access to the blue key, which in turn unlocks the exit, but you can collect either the yellow or the red key first and you enjoy access to most of the map's real estate without having to unlock much of anything. It doesn't feel obnoxiously gated, certainly.

So... yeah, good strong map in general, enjoyed, would play more by the same author.

[scifista42]

MAP14 - “Purification Plant” by Dave The Daring

Yet another great map in a row, I like this, NOVA II Episode 2 is shaping very well so far. Dave The Daring has a specific mapping style. It's not as fast paced and challenging as it could be, and certain factors (color/texture usage, thing placement...) feel very slightly repetitive, but in fact, it didn't bother me at all. The architecture was abstract, varied in multiple aspects, fun to explore, and inspirative. Challenge was present, mostly varied, and reasonably balanced too. Good music choice as well. Simple ideas, decent execution. I've noticed misaligned steps in the blue armor secret, and windows in the map's northern area were too high to allow projectile monsters behind them to shoot at me. Otherwise, superb!

[tourniquet]

dobu gabu maru said:

Just a heads up that MAP15 and (especially) MAP32 are long maps,

Furthermore Map32 has quite a lot of hard/eventually frustrating encounters hence i really recommend slaughter-shy folks to play this on a lower skill level.

[obake]

Map14 : Purification Plant by DavetheDaring
Played on HNTR, HMP, and UV. Obtained 100% kills, items, and secrets on UV. Average time was around 30 minutes, 16 deaths.

Feels somewhat similar to map 13, only much more difficult. This is quite an entertaining level, and although it can be confusing at times, ultimately I found my way through.

I actually didn't find getting the secret near the blue key too difficult, at least once I knew where to start running from.

There were some annoying moments, but those were mostly due to me not noticing a Chaingunners being released from closets, etc. Most of the encounters were quite fun, and I was able to run through a few of them in order to take out monsters later. When I ran past the Baron behind the RK door, I wasn't expecting the Cacodemons to follow me inside. :p

I really like the aesthetics of this map. It is a lot darker than most of the maps encountered so far in Nova II, and I believe that goes along with the increase in difficulty.

[cannonball]

MAP13 - “Monster Dash” by Eradrop
Decent visuals and plays pretty well too, the secret seems to have been included for the sake of it (it's not very secret), a few ambushes feel a little weak too in places, especially as the start feels like the hardest part. That said a solid effort overall.

MAP14 - “Purification Plant” by Dave The Daring
A fairly large and sprawling base map this is with a large amount of height variation in places. It feels visually quite raw in the detail but I think it is somewhat pleasing on the eye. You can sometimes feel a little lost in this one with multiple objectives in parts of the level progression, mainly to grab the blue key. The gameplay is a little one directional with the majority of traps being monster closets, that said it isn't too bad.
Overall a decent map.

[dobu gabu maru]

SoundofDoomDoors said:

Seeing this thread finally made me register here so I could post, and maybe hold myself to finishing more megawads.

Glad to see a new face. And yeah, the club is pretty good at promoting people to actually finish the megawads they play, though we get a few stragglers now and then (Eriiiiiiiis!)

MAP14: Dave’s foray into mapping is a damn good one, I feel. The textures remain pretty muted but it gives a sense of place to the map, really accentuating how dismal this base has become. The combat is fierce at the start and despite it slowly letting up, there’s still plenty of monster closets that open as you rummage around for switching, keeping the action constant. I don’t think my health ever went above 60% which was a plus for me, as I always had to be on the lookout for both stimpacks and hitscanners around every corner. Perhaps my only gripe is that the exit area (which has unnecessary block monster lines for the AV FYI) needs some better shadow casting from the beams above, as it looks quite bland at a uniform light level. Overall I think it’s my favorite E2 map.

(And don’t listen to an_mutt Dave, the RL archvile is in the perfect spot, as he rewards speedy players by allowing them to backpedal down the hall for cover and punishes slower players by forcing them into the next room if they don’t wish to take the blast)

tourniquet said:

Furthermore Map32 has quite a lot of hard/eventually frustrating encounters hence i really recommend slaughter-shy folks to play this on a lower skill level.

To be entirely fair, MAP32 is a good indicator of the difficulty for a lot of maps in E3, so if people are struggling there they have quite a hill to climb ahead of them.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP08: Lots of different themes. I don't know if noticing it would indicate the changes are too abrupt. Maybe. I also thought this map was notably easier than some of the ones that preceded it. 90% kills 50% secrets.


MAP09: Lots of running around in the big area. I had a lot of fun there. Killed by hell knights in the tech base. Also, the first 50 or so monsters before the mancubus area felt like a waste of time. Maybe the mapper could just give the player some ammo and dump in there instead to cut to the good part?

After completing it and seeing all that was optional...yeah. I would've made the player fight all the bad guys before the tech base portal opened, or if that can't be scripted put switches around the big area, and make the player flip a certain number of them (or all) to continue.


MAP10 felt like a vacation after the multiple deaths on the last level. The vile ambush after you get the red key could use teeth. MAP03's was harder.


MAP11 surprised me by how quickly it ended. The bridge section was fun. 62% Kills 4/7 Secrets (forgot the percentage)

MAP12 has the best start of the WAD so far. Too bad the other 3 minutes couldn't hold up compared to the first one. The second ambush was really easy compared to the opening.
83% Kills 66% Secrets

MAP13: One thing I noticed was the skybox. I think it was in the last level too, but I was too busy running for my life to notice there. Funny how I hate invisibility, except against the spider mastermind, so it was actually useful instead of harmful for a change.
Kills: 98% Secrets: 100%

MAP14 reminds me of Eternal Doom. It's really good looking, but sparsely populated for its size. I echo Gabu's comments on the vile. Leave him. I was able to get to cover and use the RL on him easily. 99% Kills 100% Secrets
(The beginning was the hardest part for me, too. I just had my guns from the last map.)

Final note: In the tech base on MAP09, I saw some texture glitches, where parts of the wall would rapidly alternate textures. After I finished MAP14, I closed down GZDoom and ran through 09 in PRBoom+ software mode with the monsters off. The glitches were gone. Just a heads-up about what I think is a GZDoom-specific (minor) problem.

[mouldy]

MAP14 - “Purification Plant” by Dave The Daring

Impressive architecture in this one. The large scale dwarfs the monsters a bit in places. Still its nice to have some elbow room, and while the space makes some fights easy, it also allows snipers and rev rockets to be a nuisance here and there. Also i found that monsters would keep appearing from somewhere and sneaking up on me, which is cool. The teleporter to the red key is a great addition, in fact I don't know if other changes were made since I last played it but it seemed more fun this time. Maybe its the pistol start. That rocket launcher archvile got me, very sneaky. Yeah this is a decent map, looks good and plays well, if a little convoluted in its switchery.

[Demon of the Well]

Time to catch up a bit again.

Map 12 -- Hop 2 It - 85% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA (uses beta D3)
Really tiny map, over in the blink of an eye if you want it to be. Other than the general physical scale it's pretty stylistically different than the last Breezeep map I played, which was in turn quite different from the one before it, and so it seems that this is an author still in search of his baseline style, perfectly natural for a 'newbie' mapper, I suppose.

Anyway, the tininess is really the defining characteristic of the map. There's only around 40 enemies (a chunk of which don't teleport in on -cl 2 in the current beta, further shortening playtime) of several different types, so unless you insist on proceeding slowly it's likely that they'll thin their own ranks a fair bit, given the compact layout. Oddly, small as it is to begin with, a part of the map is involved in an optional sidequest--if you get the red keycard, you can open an additional room (including an additional fight) and get a combat armor vest and some other trinkets. I'm all for optional content, but including it in something this small seems sort of unintentionally comical to me, for better or worse. The other little defining gimmick of the map is the short jog/leap for the blue card, presumably the sequence from which the map takes its name. It lends the proceedings a little more character, I suppose, but as with everything else it's so small/short that it barely registers unless/until you stop to think about what you did to reach the key.

Aesthetically it's serviceably well-appointed, I'd say. Between the clipped runtime, grey cement, starry blue sky, and SNES-y background music it certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to the speedmapped techbase stuff that comprised the first episode of Skillsaw's Valiant, as others have observed, but the green composite blockhouse in the center and the presence of miscellaneous dirt/withered vine elements lends it a little more of an air of dilapidation. Not much stands out architecturally, perhaps the cement canopy over a bit of the upper walkway at one point, and the anomalous cement guardwall that exists simply to prevent the player from getting the blue key in an unintended way...much more functional than expressive, not uncommon in maps of this style. Lighting is simple but matches the sky/general texture scheme quite well.

All in all, the map entertained me for the 4 or so minutes it lasted, and then promptly erased itself from my memory, such that I had to watch my FDA a couple of times to put together this short writeup. As per usual, I can understand on an intellectual level why this sort of thing is in vogue at current, but it's really too short/small to easily win big with me.

Map 13 -- Monster Dash - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA (uses beta D3)
Again, I'm unfamiliar with this author's other work. Eradrop seems to have a decidedly modern style, blending Alm-esque orthogonal 'modules' accented by ornate cut-through sector detailing (e.g. the stepped elliptical 'arches' on the large windows overlooking the central blood pool), with more organic shapes evinced via the outlying rocky terrain and some other detailing here and there, ala the half-moon cement patio at the edge of the western chamber. The mixture of textures/assets used to make all this is rather eclectic, but for the most part it gels fairly well, owing to the author's (presumably instinctive) use of a 'textures as materials' approach. The large Plutonian skull plates didn't look like they really belonged, to me, but I suppose I don't particularly like that particular texture to begin with, and I didn't bat an eyelash at the glowing marble demonface mural set in a tech-bronze socket that glares out over the red skull key, and so that's probably just an eccentricity on my part. Overall, a rather polished-looking map that reminded me foremost of Waverider's style (his preference for Final Doom textures probably having a lot to do with it), albeit a bit more disciplined in its use of color and a bit less adventurous in varying physical scale between different parts of the map.

This is also a fairly short and simple affair with a straightforward 'cardinal points' layout based around the symmetrical central blood pool, but it feels a lot more substantial than what map 12 offered, probably partially a function of the larger scale (more distance to cover even if the path itself is exceedingly simple), but mostly because it's something like three times as bloody, with the lion's share of the battles occurring at different times in and around that main blood pool. I quite appreciated the way a lot of combat mileage was wrung out of this fairly simple area; more than simply having you engage in a number of similar battles in the area at obvious checkpoints in the progression (e.g. getting the red key, using the red key on the switch at the north end, etc.), each time an encounter unfolds there there is a different spin on it, not only in terms of which monsters are deployed but also in terms of the angles of fire and positioning. For example, when you hit the switch at the west end, a cloud of gasbags emerges from the east end and approaches you directly through the windows over the central pool, so combat is taking place across the map in the form of an exchange of fire over open airspace. Later, after teleporting into the pool itself to take the red key, you find that you are surrounded on all sides by enemies firing down at you through the windows, while demons charge you from the shadows and more monsters begin to slowly trickle down the stairs. Broadly speaking this general sort of reuse/repurposing of important or striking map areas for repeated/varied combat is one of my single favorite progression tropes, most encouraging to see it from a new mapper.

By contrast, however, the setpiece encounters in the side areas tend to feel a mite undercooked by comparison. The heavily-telegraphed western teleportation attack is just fine for the early point at which it occurs, but the eastern marble/blood area feels like it doesn't levy enough pressure to actually create the scenario that it seems to be aiming for (e.g. the player stuck in the larger pool overlooked by the two mancubi while other monsters approach from the drainage tunnels); the handful of specters on one side and the odd revenant or two on the other are simply not strong enough to keep a player from quickly occupying those tunnels, and the mancubi don't actually have a very good overview of most of the larger chamber (easy to avoid them by sticking to the walls). Likewise, I felt like the final jab with the mastermind and commando squads didn't quite work, again because it's so easy to just blast through one of the squads and then funnel/camp everything else in safety; I feel like adding yet more chaingunner squads porting into the indoors at different places would improve this, making for quite the bulletstorm, at least for a few moments.

Solid map overall, certainly a lot of potential to build on.

[gaspe]

MAP15 - Crumbling Necropolis

Kills: 98% | Items: 98% | Secrets: 60%

A big map that takes place in a complex of buildings. For the most we stick to a grey-color theme that isn't dull at all thanks to the alternance of different textures and shades. Every area has something own that keeps the level always interesting and even easy to remember each part and to navigate it. All of the tech and ruin touches that detail the maps are really nice. The work on the shadows is impressive.
The surrounding hills make a really cool scenery, that it's also exporable in some parts.
I was able to find the earlier Plasma Gun which it helped me a lot, difficulty of the encounters may vary on which path you choose. The monsters are used well. I was expecting to meet more Cyberdemons, but the AVs are the protagonists here.
I gave up on finding all the secrets as I didn't find any clue or more probably missed something, but since I find the secret exit I'm satisfied.
This is a really beautiful map, with a solid gameplay and lots to explore. Masterpiece.



How are the secret maps treated in the day limit?

[dobu gabu maru]

gaspe said:

How are the secret maps treated in the day limit?

Both secret maps are also done on the 15th—godspeed players!

[Demon of the Well]

My general advice to most players is to try to play a little ways ahead in respect to the actual posting schedule to give yourself some slack, especially during the middle of the month where the secret maps pop up.

Dobu, will there be any more beta versions during the month, or will the NOVA team wait until the Club has finished before releasing the next one?

[NuMetalManiak]

Demon of the Well said:

My general advice to most players is to try to play a little ways ahead in respect to the actual posting schedule to give yourself some slack, especially during the middle of the month where the secret maps pop up.

^that definitely.

IMO, the best way to handle secret maps, other than not doing them, is to do 15 and 31 in one day, and then do 32 and 16 on the 16th.

For this MAP32, should we also talk about each individual section (by author I mean)?

[AD_79]

Getsu Fune said:

For this MAP32, should we also talk about each individual section (by author I mean)?

If you want to, go ahead!

[Urthar]

ZDOOM - HMP - Pistol Starts

MAP14 - Purification Plant



This is way too dark for an opening shot, the key is good, but this scene desperately needs some visual contrast. In fact the majority of the map suffers from some pretty poor lighting in general, and a very narrow colour palette.



I assumed at first it might just be a gamma issue, but these lights are lit correctly with a nice bright contrast that makes them pop, and there are a few additional areas that are well lit, so it's hard to judge what went wrong.

The architecture of the map is rather excellent, and reminded me a little of BTSX. However it's not a intuitive map to navigate with a lack of strong landmarks and direction, which hinders the map's progression.

Game-play wise, it was quite irritating to play. The openness of the map encourages fairly aggressive play, but the encounters punish that with quite a lot of snipers and monsters that have a tactical superiority in the open. I did appreciate the early green armour, but I'd be tempted to give the SSG to the player upfront, as it's possible to scramble around quite a lot of the map before finding it. Given the amount of mid to high tier monsters, I'd also consider tossing a plasma gun in somewhere.

---

MAP15 Crumbling Necropolis



Think this is the first map in which I've punched an Archvile to death.

This is a huge rambling map, and beautifully lit. Like the the previous map, there's no shortage of snipers and so on, and I must have spent the first twenty minutes scrambling around with just a shotgun and chaingun, but by constast this map was a pleasure to play, even when I was at a loss as to where I should go next.

Perhaps it's to do with the sheer amount of resources. I could take the occassional beating on this map, escape by the skin of teeth, then recover and carry on. So I was always rewarded for rushing forward into new areas, rather than punished.

Visually there were a few nitpicks, some occassionally rough geometry, a few texture choices I wasn't sold on, but when a map plays this well it really doesn't matter.

[dobu gabu maru]

Demon of the Well said:

Dobu, will there be any more beta versions during the month, or will the NOVA team wait until the Club has finished before releasing the next one?

If you need to do some demos for MAP32 I suppose it wouldn't hurt for tourniquet to link the newest version (assuming he has those fixes done). For those that are curious, no map past MAP32 should be different so there's no need to switch over to the newest beta IIRC.

And yeah, it doesn't hurt too much to stay a couple days ahead, especially since we're getting into the meatier maps now.

[Jaws In Space]

Fun map from an_mutt, it's huge & completely open which is exactly what I want from my doom maps. Lots of fun stuff to explore & find. I did get lost a few times as I made my way throughout the map looking for keys & their doors, but in the end I still made it through in less than 20 minutes. I'll be sure to revisit this one in the future to find all the stuff I missed on my first playthrough.

I don't plan on playing the secret maps until after I beat map 30 at which point I will just idclev to them. More often than not I find that secret maps just kill my enjoyment of a wad, so a long time back I decided to not play them until after I've beaten a wad normally.

[Demon of the Well]

Dobu: Ah, I already made a recording for 32 on the D3 version. I'm about ready to get into E3, actually, just didn't want to rush headlong into it if the maps are still changing for compatibility reasons discovered ahead of time or the like.

Map 14 -- Purification Plant - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA (uses beta D3)
And again, another author whose other work (if any) I am unfamiliar with. Visually understated without being boring to look at, it gains much from its sense of scale, with its long, broad corridors and tall, airy machinery rooms aptly communicating a sense of heavy industry. On the subject of just how tall many of the rooms are, as this feature persisted throughout the map, I found myself thinking about the topic of ceiling detail, something it feels like we've not touched on much in the past several DWMC threads--not unlike earlier maps by KevinHEZ, the overall theme as communicated through textures and colors is somewhat nondescript, but many of the areas manage to please the eye by dint of shape alone, and tasteful structural detailing (like the many different beams, girders, stylized skylights, and light batteries found on/near the ceilings) plays an important role in this. It's a good example of how scale can impact a map's aesthetic, and thus its mood/feel, and thus (indirectly) its gameplay; while there is no real gameplay reason for most of the rooms to be as wide/tall as they are, if they were more 'realistically' scaled I suspect the aesthetic would fall apart, with the panoply of ceiling details and detail structures (e.g. the purification machinery in the large room with the yellow bars) cluttering up the visual space and adding a stuffy, unappealing feeling to the fairly stark texture scheme, whereas the broader scale invites one to romp around more freely through the various rooms, livening them up with muzzle flashes and spilled blood.

Incidentally, as far as 'realism' is concerned, I must again disagree with Urthar that the low light levels in some areas and the vaguely inconsistent application of realistic lighting principles (e.g. sometimes the sky casts a great deal of light, as in the large room near the exit, and sometimes it seems to cast far less, ala through the window near the starting area) detract from the map's aesthetic; on the contrary, I think that the relatively dim lighting in some of the interior/roofed areas complements the grungy industrial texture scheme far better than a more neutral/bright default would. The sources of the textures used here are fairly polyglot, but the overall theme is a lot like one of the grimy metal techbases from later parts of the The Darkening; precisely because the theme is so naturally drab in terms of color range (fortunately here we have deep blues and light greys to break it up now and again), it benefits heavily from having some starker lighting contrasts between areas, something more difficult to manage where things are well-lit as a generality.

I suppose the aforementioned sense of scale does mean that sometimes the areas feel somewhat underpopulated, though....the 180 or so monsters only occasionally really seem to assert themselves as a notable force (most prominently early on, when the player has to move into hostile territory under some duress in order to gather weapons and ammo), with some of the larger rooms feeling borderline empty. In point of fact, I think this effect is largely psychological rather than practical; for the most part the map plays well enough despite this feeling, perhaps because its open scale and relatively unhindered flow (e.g. very few doors, lifts, or one-way dropoffs) invite the player to make most encounters his/her own. Surprises are few, but those that are present are appreciated, e.g. the ambushing arch-vile near the rocket launcher (yeah, he got an attack off on me when I played, bastard was really quick on the draw that time). That being said, there are some issues with placement here and there: the recessed room at the northern extreme, for example, truly is underpopulated given its size, an issue compounded by a misjudgement of the height of the dividing wall between the main chamber and peripheral hallway--any projectile-using monsters on the opposite side of the wall cannot attack the player through the windows, while the player can freely fire at their heads through them. The strange one-revenant pillbox here is also an example of the map's slight affectation for highly ineffective caged sniper-monsters which only very rarely get a chance to attack the player, while they themselves are an unsatisfying chore to clean out. The large antechamber to the exit room is the worst offender in this case, with its high/distant imps in oversized rooms to the east (they're harder to hit because they can move more freely, but don't have enough overview to benefit from this in terms of actually launching their attacks), and its utterly useless caged Barons in an odd little nook to the west.

In all, it's a perfectly reasonable chunk of Doom, although as was the case with several of the earlier techbase-themed maps it could arguably benefit from some retooling in the thing placement department, shouldn't need a whole lot in this case, just some monster injections in a couple of places (north room, maybe the yellow key pit, etc.) and some tweaks to minor things like the over-high windows in the north room and such. Come to think of it, the reward for the final secret is a mite nonsensical given that it can only be gotten very late in the map...but these are all fairly minor concerns, I suppose. Fundamentally, the map works.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP14: Purification Plant
100% kills, 3/4 secrets

Likewise, another author I'm not familiar with (either maps by, or even posting on the forums). It's got that standard 'industrial base' look, with lots of various browns broken up with blue water, sky, or computer detailings. Combined with the low light level, it works, feeling much like a Quake 2-era map transplanted into Doom. I do have one problem with the aesthetics, and that's the light level of the blue door "outside" area - it's just far too bright. Other areas have skylights, and there's a bit of light, and by comparison the outside is far too bright (with no shadows under the bits that do have ceilings, in addition). Compared to the rest of the map, which has very nice lighting (except for maybe the spot behind the red door), it almost feels unfinished.

I'm much less of a fan on the gameplay front, I'm afraid. The initial part of the map is pretty boring, consisting of just normal shotgunning enemies... a few imps at first, then a couple revenants, then a demon horde, then a mancubus. I thought at first that the problem was the weaponry (single shotgunning a mancubus is never exciting) but, I think the true problem is monster placement. A lot of monsters in this map are placed on ledges or spots they have trouble reading the player from, and as such, the encounters lack any dynamism. Taking care of the revenants at the start, for example, requires no real action, it's just popping around the corner, firing a shot, ducking back, then repeating. I don't like the first Arch-Vile either (the one by the RL) as it's placed in the most boring spot imaginable - no corpses for it to play with, no cover to worry about, just a hallway to retreat from and then abuse the corner. The AV in the next room is much better, as there's actually other enemies and cover to interact with. Overall, the map feels very underpopulated and empty, especially since a large amount of the enemies can't reach the player. The blue door room is another example, with most of the threats in that room (two revenants and two barons (!) trapped in cages. There's also a lot of problems with windows being too high for either the player to see through or the monsters to attack through, neither of which are fun.

While the sense of scale may give the map some identity, I think it also hurts as much as helps, since it contributes to a lot of the 'empty' feeling when it comes to monster encounters. There's also the problem of the lack of any real progression, as there's a lot of spots for the player to hit a switch and have no idea what it does. Thankfully one of the teleporters placing me back at the start helped me figure out that the COMPBLUE switch = unlock the bars to the blue key, though it took me awhile to notice that the red key had lowered. The map also never really got any more interesting; it kept seeming like it was building to something but never got there. All in all, there's a lot of good design points here, but a couple of fatal flaws keep it from being more than mediocre on the whole.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP15 Crumbling Necropolis 2/5

here we go, the incredibly large halfway point filled with snipers. the music is very enjoyable and keeps me from hating this map. there's too many snipers and sorcery going on though. lots of ground to cover, places to explore, and secrets to grab. it seems the secret exit ambush has been made harder, but there's this one wall that is untagged that has a teleporter behind it. now if I wanted to kill all the monsters here and then go to the normal exit, well...I'm not gonna be able to leave the area at all. I think it should be tagged 127 (like the secret exit teleporter), so that enemies can attack while that also lowers, in case I wish to go back. I also see the "sector smiley" still exists, no idea if it will be used anymore. would have been a rather okay long map if it weren't for a few minor bits that should have gotten fixed (some weren't actually fixed in the previous release either).

MAP31 Fever Blues 4/5

wee zombie slaughter for the first part. getting to fight the rest of the demons was also quite fun. the crate part was more platforming but it wasn't hard. the secret exit requires the yellow key. an okay map that has its fun moments.

[tourniquet]

dobu gabu maru said:

If you need to do some demos for MAP32 I suppose it wouldn't hurt for tourniquet to link the newest version (assuming he has those fixes done).

Not done yet, got a new pc two days ago and i still need to setup DB, etc. I'll probably do it within the next few days though.

[gaspe]

MAP31 - Fever Blues

Kills: 100% | Items: 92% | Secrets: 80%

This one screams "TNT" everywhere. And overall there's a nice 90's feel here. It's really fun to play, and the start is quite frenetic. I didn't like so much to fight in the storage, but the AV + Cacodemons made it a little more interesting. There's still that comp bugged texture, it fits better in MAP09 but also here for some weirdness I think it could stay. I found the secret exit here too.
Great job, I think it fits well as secret map.

[scifista42]

MAP15 - "Crumbling Necropolis" by an_mutt

Probably the best map so far. Sprawling and exploratory, atmospheric and stylish all along, with polished visuals and gameplay in every aspect from rough concept up to details. An_mutt is no beginner anymore, and he mastered a style very similar to Travers Dunne's and (vaguely) BTSX-esque ones, with all their fanci-ness and gameplay-related positives as well. The map seemed underpopulated at first, but it turned out to be the best way how the map could have played, because while moving around, I constantly had to pay attention all around myself, which was slightly tenseful but mostly enjoyable. The shapes and lighting of both "artificial" and "natural" structures were impressive a lot. I've only discovered 3 secrets, but the secret exit was among them, so I was satisfied to find it. Very well done, this map!

[Urthar]

Just to clarify, I edited MAP14 to create an example of what I mean.



Here's a fairly gloomy corridor from the map. The forground lights aren't too bad even thought they're only at 160 because we're quite close to them, but the ceiling lights at 144 look really flat and lifeless.



Here I added lighting sectors to gradiate the ceiling lights through 208-176-144, and now they really pop and help lead the eye down the corridor. Additionally, should monsters move through here, they're going to transistion through light and shadow which can create a nice effect.



This is probably a more important example. At the end of this corridor there's a lift that serves as a major navigation point, but with this lighting it's practically invisible. The player could easily walk past this again and again without noticing it.



So this is a quick and nasty edit, but now the player is naturally drawn to investigate the bright lights, and they'll be able to navigate the map more easily.

I don't have anything against dark or gloomy areas. I think they can be used to good effect, but at the moment I think MAP14 is hindering itself, which is a shame because structurally it's excellent.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP15: Crumbling Necropolis

This is a big, ambitious, and devious map that I think took me somewhere in the region of an hour to crawl my way through. A lot of effort has gone into avoiding the tendency for large maps to feel like two or three smaller maps 'glued together' around obvious joins; the player's path cuts back and forth across the level's central areas, new threats are constantly introduced into (or overlooking) areas previously cleared, and at the start it's very easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale and openness of it all. Even as you progress you're frequently exposed to long-distance fire from unexpected angles; it keeps you moving, but ultimately I think it's a bit overdone as by about the halfway mark I found myself regarding these long-range threats as a chore rather than a challenge.

The biggest change in the map's flow comes with the acquisition of the blue key, which causes arch-viles to start showing up in force all throughout the map, undoing your hard work and keeping you on your toes.

Visually the map's more distinctive feature is its use of stark, high-contrast lighting differences; there's very little diffusion of light in the outside areas, with bright light giving way to the gloomiest of shadows along knife-sharp divisions in a fashion that reminds me of the Lunar landscapes in the second episode of Duke Nukem 3D. I'd stand around to admire the beauty of it all, but that would open me up to a pasting from a distant revenant or arachnotron.

Overall I think this is a beautiful, complex, and challenging map that doesn't necessarily benefit from being quite as large and arcanely interconnected as it is. Visually differentiating the various teleporter pairs might go a long way towards making the map more navigable without reducing its challenge significantly.

[Dave The Daring]

Thanks for all your reviews. I'll go back through them all and correct any glaring annoyances/errors in the map. I may make a few minor adjustments to the lighting, but nothing too drastic, as I just seem to like gloomy tech bases.

One thing to consider regarding the lighting is the sky texture. When I was making and testing the map, I used the CC4 texture pack. The episode 1 sky in that pack is VERY bright, and may have affected the way I lit the map, especially the outdoor areas. It also doesn't help that the Nova 2 sky in episode 2 is now a night sky. The sky literally went from day to night.

But excuses aside, I'm pretty happy overall with this map. I'll take your opinions on board though and maybe apply them to future maps. Thanks again.

[dobu gabu maru]

tourniquet said:

Not done yet, got a new pc two days ago and i still need to setup DB, etc. I'll probably do it within the next few days though.

Actually, since Veinen and Demon don't need it for demos, it's not required—we'll just follow along with the original plan to compile everything once the club is over and everyone has updated their maps.

MAP15: An_mutt’s magnum opus. As a fellow long-map maker, mutt did a fabulous job here, making sure to make it massive, nonlinear, and a sniper’s paradise. None of it ever feels unfair—there’s plenty of munitions to go around if you suffer a scratch somewhere, and despite it’s looping, asymmetrical, and confusing nature, you can still deduce where to go and what to do (hopefully for most people anyway). Plenty of cool fights with AVs, plenty of smart PE use, always glad to see arachs pressuring the player from many angles… all around it’s one of the most refined and coolest maps of the set, especially for how open and wild it is. Special props to the two big secret fights on the map, both of which I did without the BFG which made them a ton of fun. Also super special props to the faaaabulous shadows on the map, which really aid help aid with the lunar atmosphere—fantastic work mutt.

MAP31: Honestly, I felt bad relegating this off to the “secret map” slot since it plays just as well as the normal maps. I planned it for slot 31 since NoisyVelvet had this cool optional section (aka BOXMAZE) wedged towards the back which makes for a good secret exit (and an_mutt had claimed MAP15 waaay back when). This is a map that the revs definitely dominate, being perhaps the most dangerous thing in the wad thus far (from pistol start at least). Decent visuals, frenetic fights, and some silly platforming await you before the big climax to come...

[obake]

Crumbling Necropolis by An_Mutt
Played on HMP and UV. On UV, got 98% kills/95% items/60% secrets, obtained the secret exit.
Total deaths: 18
Average time: around an hour!

Holy moly macerole. This map is truly epic and all, but it takes a fair bit of time to get through. Having played through it multiple times before, it actually wasn't as hard as it used to be, at least gameplay wise. I still suffered my fair share of deaths, of course, mainly from Archviles.

Figuring out the places I needed to go was still difficult, as I'm sure was intended. I eventually found the path towards obtaining the secret exit, which was quite satisfying (those who know of my playthroughs of previous versions of this map know that I searched for over an hour trying to find the secret switch, but never found it.)

The battles are fun. I like how there are enough health pickups to keep you in a good place, while not feeling smothered. Despite the generous health, the map is still very difficult.

For whatever reason, I've always had a hard time making it to the Rocket Launcher secret. It seems to be the weapon I get last, well, that or the Chainsaw.

This really is an awesome map, and I'm so glad some of the secrets have been changed to be just a little bit easier. Not only is the secret switch improved, but also the BFG secret, among others. And despite these secrets being easier to figure out, I still did not find all 10.

Perhaps I will in my HNTR playthrough, though. That will be for a later time.