dead.air - v2

[Xaser]

Thanks again for the kind words, folks! Joel finally got 'round to playing it (reception seemed positive :P) and ICARUSLIV3S did a cool review, so that's quite something. O_O

Cidem Tabmoc said:

Yo, I loved the soundtrack in this. Is there a download link for the music?

I'll probably upload it at some point for easy downloading, though not just yet since one of the segments is primed for replacement (the Grafter "boss" music; i rushed it and the second half sounds like poop).

Mechadon said:

I would really love to see more maps like this :D

Brace yourselves.

[Solarn]

I saw this map on Joel's stream and I had to try it. It's really fun, both the atmospheric horror-ish first part, and the gradual escalation into a full-blown slaughtermap. If there's one complaint I have, it would be about the last part of the final area with the Grafters, but you're already working on making it more interesting, so really, I have nothing negative to say.

The weapons were really cool. I like the idea of an upgradable basic weapon. The fully upgraded Blaster is actually one of the best weapons in my opinion, with its fast rate of fire and accuracy. The rest were interesting too, definitely a step above the vanilla selection in power, but not overwhelmingly so, and it's balanced out a bit in some ways (only the weakest weapon is a hitscan, the shotgun and plasma replacements don't work at long range, no easy explosives, etc.). I really liked that the ultimate weapon used shells, most of the time people don't think about changing things up like that.

The monsters were a mixed bag. They all worked very well from a gameplay perspective, but the Grafter looked kind of cheap compared to the rest of the replaced enemies and the unmodified Revenant just felt out of place. One thing I noticed was that the new monsters all did a ton of damage, which, alongside the weapons, gave the map a high risk, high reward feel that was definitely welcome.

All in all, I love it, please make more.

[nrofl]

On ‎12‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 3:08 AM, Xaser said:

It's a ZDoom map. I should probably specify that in the OP.

It works fine w/ GZDoom also.

 

[Rathori]

So are more updates to the map coming, or is current version final? I loved dead.wire, and I've been waiting for the final version of this to come out since the original post, but it still says beta.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Rathori

[Phobus]

I've given this and dead.wire a go now, as the new GZDoom caught my interest and I wanted some cutting edge stuff to try it out with. Very cool! I probably should have dropped the difficulty for both, as the altered enemies and new weapons wanted some getting used to (particularly in wire) and I'm probably out of practice (or not as good as I think). I love the way 3D floors are used here as just another feature, with the real gimmick being the static/horror theme. Between this and Enjay's Waterlabs, I feel as though GZDoom now is at that same exciting place ZDoom was with 2.0.63a - the feature set feels very complete and full of possibility, which people are taking advantage of to create fantastic levels.

 

I shall do my level best to not get too carried away in my enthusiasm here and try to make something myself. I know I won't finish it! Once again, fantastic work. I'll keep my eye out for more dead stuff.

[Harvey]

This was scary and exhilarating. Thank you, Xaser!

[killer2]

    The first part was amazing...great atmosphere right at the starting section, followed by really good combat+atmosphere and design on the city area. However, everything after that just doesn't feel right to me. Every area feels like the level is building up to something even bigger and more awesome...and then we get three gimmicky arenas made only to showcase a bunch of weapons (one of which feels particularly annoying to use, the rest are cool). The last arena is much better (and for one I didn't hate the homing rocket fight), but it could have been much better. The fact I never felt like using any other weapon than 7 there says it IMO. In stark contrast to your other mods, where careful consideration must be used regarding which weapon you use when, this is just a glorified "press mouse1 and dodge" lazy slaughtermap situation. I am sorry, but after the amazing dead.wire and the great starting section, this felt a lot like a letdown.

    Regarding the looks of the level, it doesn't get much better. We are gratified with amazing atmosphere at the start, great cityscapes in the middle and extremely boring monochrome arenas that feel copy-pasted almost at random at the end. The area before the last arena and the last arena itself somewhat redeem this, but not much.

    The weapons are all-right for the general purpose of this mod(i.e. as stand-alones), but if this was a proper weapons mod, the disproportionate power level difference of the weapons would probably feel jarring. The 7 weapon felt INCREDIBLY satisfying to use though, so if you make another mod in the future maybe consider adding it :P

    Now for some actually constructive feedback:

• Make the grenade launcher never be automatically given to you when you run out of ammo. If I was ruthlessly nailgunning demons close-quarters and run out of ammo, the LAST thing I want to do is KILL MYSELF, thank you game. Even the blaster is a lot better in this situation, even with no upgrades.
• The grenade launcher itself feels like a huge gimmick...the grenades don't travel very far, take forever to explode and it just feels awkward to use. I could see the weapon being good where you shoot it down stairs/from an elevated position, but it feels forced into this wad and I hated having to use the damn thing.
• If you want to make replayability a feature, maybe springle the arenas with all ammo types rather than just going overkill on the one ammo type for the weapon you get. That way you get a much more realistic option of using the other weapons. I didn't even have any cells left when I entered the green arena (actually ran out during the red arena, but that's my fault).
• This might be personal, but I would suggest avoiding doing "hold mouse1, dodge and never switch weapon" gameplay in the future, as it is incredibly boring and uninspired. Other things to avoid is clashing too many themes into a level, as you make noone pleased. People who like atmosphere will feel cheated, people who like regular levels will feel downright disappointed, and people who like arenas and slaughter, while getting most of the cake, still have to go through the rather tame starting areas which don't really provide much challenge or slaughter/arena gameplay.

    Overall, I don't think this level was bad in any way, and were it made by someone else I would just think they did a decent job. However, after playing Zen Dynamics, Dead.wire and your various vanilla levels in community projects, I know you can do so much better.

Edited December 21, 2017 by killer2

[Lorenz0]

This has to be one of my favorite maps of all time.  It's visually astounding, has a lot of great textures that are used in very cool ways. In terms of difficulty it's a perfect amount of challenge for me. The key trials were amazingly done and I loved all the new weapons (grenade launcher the least tho). The final battle with Cyberdemons was a huge pain in the ass and that's my least favorite part of the whole map.

Overall it's one of the best levels I ever played, challenging, but really fun, much better than Dead.wire.

[Xaser]

@killer2 I've always been a bit worried about "theme whiplash" with this mod, as it indeed starts out all spooky like dead.wire but veers left into its own territory midway through. The focus of the wad has always been "good times with new weapons", and I sprinkled a little bit of spook on top for flavor, but it's indeed not quite what the initial bit promises. It's understandable that it didn't meet your expectations as such -- frankly I was expecting a lot more folks to have the same misgivings, so no worries.

 

Having said that though, I'm not quite sure which areas qualify as "hold mouse1 and dodge forever" except for the end arena, which definitely plays that trope on the nose to give the player some quality time with the Antimatter Driver. It's an exceptionally derpy fight (and I still need to revamp the durn boss segment), and IMO you can tell that I was running out of time for the contest when I threw it together, but weirdly a lot of people seem to be fine with it sans the Grafters' (cyberdemons') homing missiles. It's really meant to be "The Antimatter Arena" in the same sense that green is "The Grenade Arena" and so forth, and there's really not much that can be done to make the other weapons (sans Fusion Mortar) more useful in big-arena-land.

 

Finally, the grenade launcher has been a thorn in my side for some time now -- it's everyone's least favorite weapon, generally speaking, and it's not of much use outside the green arena. I still haven't really come up with a good way to improve it, though at the very least I should certainly change the weapon priority so you don't blow yourself up when running out of ammo for other things (I hadn't thought of that). Welp. :P

 

Lots of words. Just musing a bit.

[Gez]

More importantly, when can we expect dead.signal?

[Count651]

Gave this a try and I can't agree more with how killer2 put it. The first third of the map is great. Its creepy and plays well in the beginning, but as the map progresses the whole thing just sorta devolves into a brainless slaughtermap with very repetitive arena fights. My biggest issue was that the weapons quickly become obsolete as you progress through the arenas. Once I picked up a new weapon I found myself never going back to any of the previous ones.

 

The custom enemies for the most part were pretty cool, I liked them when used appropriately and in smaller numbers but at times they could be pretty irritating, which brings me to the cacodemon. I really liked this guy, when he started showing up at the start of the map in groups of 1 to 3 he was pretty shocking and unsettling, but once he started appearing in massive groups of 20 or more he was just beyond obnoxious. It wasn't anything gameplay-wise that made him annoying. It was his audio. Hearing dozens of these guys yelling and moaning into my ear for minutes on end was nearly unbearble.

[killer2]

2 hours ago, Xaser said:

@killer2 I've always been a bit worried about "theme whiplash" with this mod, as it indeed starts out all spooky like dead.wire but veers left into its own territory midway through. The focus of the wad has always been "good times with new weapons", and I sprinkled a little bit of spook on top for flavor, but it's indeed not quite what the initial bit promises.

    The new weapons aren't really the problem in my opinion. It's just that arena-styled slaughter fights and wacky colours all clash very badly with atmosphere-driven gameplay. Dead.wire also showcased new weapons but it kept the main aesthetic and style throughout and it never really went into slaughter territory, aside from the final bit where it's somewhat more justified. I think it's just about finding the themes that go well with each other rather than clash.

 

3 hours ago, Xaser said:

@killer2 

Having said that though, I'm not quite sure which areas qualify as "hold mouse1 and dodge forever" except for the end arena[...]

    The red and green arena feel a lot like this too, although in the green one you might have to stop shooting to reposition so that you don't blow yourself up. I mean sure, it's not as dumb and simple as I put it, but the arenas are pretty small and the gameplay in all of them feels very basic and simple. Like...I never had to ask myself where to approach form, what weapon to use or how to play the situation better. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it just didn't "flow" well. If anything, the arenas (aside from the last one) felt more like a chore than fun or exciting gameplay, at least to me.

 

3 hours ago, Xaser said:

@killer2 

 

[...]and IMO you can tell that I was running out of time for the contest when I threw it together[...]

 

    Wait, are you telling me you were ON A CLOCK? Holy guacamole, I thought this was a regular WAD. I mean...I gotta say this is pretty darn impressive if there was some sort of time limit involved, although I feel it's a shame. I think the whole mod would be a lot better (and maybe a lot longer) if you didn't have to rush it.

   

    In the end I really don't know. I saw "dead." in the title, the opening area immediately caught my attention, I opened the map to see a ton of monsters and I got excited for a really long, atmospheric level with a ton of detail, nice architecture and grandiose design, and in the end all I really got was a bit of a tease which quickly devolved into a style of gameplay I really don't enjoy very much, and the monstercount proved to have a lot more to do with slaughter gameplay than the length of the level. So basically, I'm probably more than a bit biased, so take what I say with a grain (hell, a whole pack) of salt.

[Xaser]

The version you've played had a ton of post-polish to it (the ending scene and a few fixes), but the original dead.air was produced in two weeks for Vinesauce's mapping contest. [Placed second, too -- a fact I keep forgetting to "advertise", heh -- i'm flattered, one way or another].

 

The wad was intended as a spiritual sequel to dead.wire, hence the name, but it definitely had a different set of circumstances driving its design. FWIW, dead.wire was produced on a time-budget too, but the contest it was for (Torm's Doomed Deja Vu) stipulated that we follow a particular map layout, which influenced its gameplay style quite a bit. This time around, the rules were pretty much "go hog wild", so I did. Had I had more time to plan, I probably would've tried something a bit less on-the-nose than the three arenas, but at this point what's done is done, for better or worse.

 

I'll keep the feedback in mind for future things (Doom or otherwise) -- to be frank, gameplay crafting (in the map-design thingplacement-sense) has never really been my strong suit, so it's good to get feedback on what works and what doesn't. Mapping is hard(tm).

[Da Werecat]

I remember liking the grenade launcher. Maybe I'm misremembering. I'll need to replay this.

[dew]

I know you mentioned it was a physics or momentum bug or whatever, but seriously... how is it possible that EonWeapons/ProgDM2 for Zandronum can feature a cool and useful nade launcher that's fun to use even against nimble live opponents, yet new GZdoom struggles with even a semblance of proper bouncing and hitting bunches of slow-moving imps?

[Xaser]

Uh, why are we trying to turn this into a dig against a source port? The grenades are different because different people coded them. o_O

 

The useful part of that post though is that I should look at EonWeapons for an example on how to make it better, so that's handy at least.

[Arctangent]

4 hours ago, dew said:

I know you mentioned it was a physics or momentum bug or whatever, but seriously... how is it possible that EonWeapons/ProgDM2 for Zandronum can feature a cool and useful nade launcher that's fun to use even against nimble live opponents, yet new GZdoom struggles with even a semblance of proper bouncing and hitting bunches of slow-moving imps?

I would assume that has to do with EonWeap's grenades being faster, less float, and keeping more far momentum upon bouncing off a surface, and likely also having a much larger hitbox - aka, absolutely nothing to do with sources ports and everything to do with the properties of the individual grenades.

[dew]

1 hour ago, Xaser said:

Uh, why are we trying to turn this into a dig against a source port? The grenades are different because different people coded them. o_O

Because from our previous conversation I assumed you already did check Eon out and found it unfeasible, lol. Seriously, I'm reiterating a talk we had in... roughly March this year.

[Terrcraft]

Deeply sorry to bump this old thread but the download link is broken. Does anyone know a mirror?

 

[Shepardus]

1 hour ago, Terrcraft said:

Deeply sorry to bump this old thread but the download link is broken. Does anyone know a mirror?

 

The link works for me; the site's certificates are expired, but that warning can be bypassed by clicking "Advanced" -> "Accept the Risk and Continue" (in Firefox, which is the browser I'm using).

[Terrcraft]

figured out you need to copy the link and cut off the end and then you can get it from the site.

 http://static.angryscience.net/pub/doom/maps

[bowserknight]

I've always wondered if it was possible to beat this map by only using the pistol. There's a few fights that can be really tough but all in all it's very possible, don't know if anyone has ever tried it. But I made a video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha9UpikDaq0

 

I ended up dying literally at the VERY end when there was only 1 monster left alive... but let's just ignore that.

[UltraPro89]

Looks good.

[sino]

Saw this wad in a YouTube video recently and would love to try it but the download link seems dead.
Any chance you could fix it, please?

^{(literally created an account here just so I could ask you this lmao)}

[Mad Butcher]

9 hours ago, sino said:

Saw this wad in a YouTube video recently and would love to try it but the download link seems dead.
Any chance you could fix it, please?

^{(literally created an account here just so I could ask you this lmao)}

dead-air_v2.zip