The DWmegawad Club plays: No End in Sight

[NecrumWarrior]

Magnusblitz said:

It's a reference to the graphical error.

Okay, that makes sense. Never knew that had a name.

Played E1M4 last night, but I had some really frustrating deaths. My first time through I got a little too obsessed with reaching the rocket launcher and acted recklessly. After that it was all downhill for a while with me just not playing very well. I booted it up again this morning with a fresh mind and after dying a couple more times I managed to finish with 100% kills and 75% secrets. I don't know if I reached the Rocket Launcher the correct way or not, but boy did it feel good when I picked that sucker up. From the nearby secret hall I ran out on to the railing and walked across it to reach the Rocket Launcher. It seems pretty intentional but for all I know there was some other way to reach it. Either way I can move on to the later half of the episode with a bazooka, so I am happy.

The map itself was really well designed with a lot of places to loop back on itself and tons of released enemies to keep backtracking populated. It oozed that classic E1 feel too. I think despite my many deaths this might be my favorite map so far.

[Demtor]

E1M4 - “Abandoned Factory” by Emil "NaturalTvventy" Brundage
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves


I enjoyed finding all of the secrets as they usually opened up a couple of nicely designed rooms, hallways and/or steps. A few lucky guesses on nondescript wall sections but then there is the tricky auto rising and falling sections that hide a few goodies and also some jumping/falling secrets that were fun.

Tons of great lighting throughout this map. Even the end stairway is hiding in blinking darkness. No key necessary, just have to get there and find it. The beautifully contrasting white lighted steps to connect a lost player back to the start stand out. Liked the sort of one-way only hub section with the pulsing lights.

Combat was a lot more filling than the first couple of maps, which is good to see. The use of crowding groups unleashed in packs to apply pressure in the toxic slime area was a nice touch. I kept thinking, where the hell did these guys come from, I was just down those hallways! There was a fun shooting gallery on an island. Fun map with very little to complain about... like this exit switch texture. Love the open air design but looking up confused me. I'm not a mapper so not sure what happened with that or why but it does look funny.





E1M5 - “Warehouse” by Emil "NaturalTvventy" Brundage
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves


Missed a secret here as I couldn't figure out how to get those platforms with the green sludge around it to rise. The secrets I did find were very different than the map before it. These having to do with switches hiding in the open. LOVED the use of the light pillars outside. With the night sky, looks great and gives a welcome breath of fresh air.

Another fun shooting gallery section with the varying elevated steps. Very reminiscent of some good original Doom 1 stuff without being to hackey. The four big warehouse sections were actually quite a challenge with the drip drop of health pick ups. Lots of revealed enemies in every area, I found it hard to stay above 80% health! I like that we haven't seen any Cacs or Nobles yet. It seemed like the perfect time to throw one at a heavily weakened player but sticking true to Doom seems to be working well so far. Really liked the look and feel of the walkways over the toxic dump area.

The double ambush at the end was surprising. Good way to punish a player who wanted to rush into one of those cubbies for cover by pulling the chair out from under them, so to speak. Too bad an overly cautious player could've just backed out of the room entirely. Box me in, I can take it! Another solid map.

[NuclearPotato]

E1M4: Abandoned Factory
100% kills, 12% secrets

The starting room is a pretty big Command Control shoutout, and the branching slime room in the northeast has a slight Central Processing vibe to it, but by and large we seem to have abandoned any of the original level designers styles; this really feels like NaturalTvventy through and through. Still feels pretty E1 in style, though. For whatever reason, I decided to skip figuring out most of the secrets this go around, with the exception of a measly backpack at the end of a radsuit-less slime trail. Then again, there's not as big a point in going secret hunting on continuous; pistol-starters will get more out of finding, say, the pathway to the rocket launcher in the crossroads room than me, the guy who's had it since the secret map (and potentially as early as E1M3).

As far as enemy placement goes, it's pretty clear this far in that NaturalTvventy seems to like throwing massive hoards of the base 5 E1 enemies at the player, which makes up a bit for the lack of Cacos and Barons, much less the Doom 2 additions to the bestiary. Ignoring the secret level, this level makes use of hidden monster closets far more than the first few did, and having previously hidden shotgun guys rip away at my health while pinkies blocked me off meant I had to play a bit more carefully than the first 3 maps. (For the record, I'm only at 2 deaths thus far, and both of those were on E1M9).

For the record, I'll be tackling E1M0 at the end of the E1 missions, since it's warp-based. I've also set Doom (strict) compatibility settings on for the rest of the set, just for shits and giggles.

[NecrumWarrior]

So, this being my first real attempt on a Megawad Club event, I was wondering if I could get a little clarification regarding voting for next month. Do we vote in the game we want to play a Megawad for, or do we vote for a specific Megawad? Thanks in advance!

[NuclearPotato]

A specific megawad; don't worry about it yet, of course; you've got until the 25th. There's also been plain old level sets that don't go the full 32/36 maps or whatever; I've actually got a couple in mind that I'll probably vote for come that time...

[Magnusblitz]

E1M0 has an interesting opening (dead quiet, then doors open and everything floods in) but beyond that it's pretty bad and reaaally ugly. I find it somewhat interesting that this is supposedly the "Tom Hall" level when I don't think it really captures his feel, but the other maps so far in E1 do. It is a bit hard to tell since all of his maps in Doom were finished by someone else, but they usually have interconnection that doesn't feel like a Wolfenstein map (like E1M0 does) and they "fill in the square" (which E1M0 doesn't).

E1M9: Quarantine Silos
100% kills, 0/1 secret

Cool design idea here, with the silos constantly opening and flooding more enemies into the centralized arena. Looks pretty good too with the high vertical design. And hey, actually got some use out of blur spheres.

E1M4: Abandoned Factory
100% kills, 8/8 secrets

First half of this map was clearing it out, then the second half was looking for all the danged secrets, which took me awhile (some even after I found the computer map - that one in the 'peace sign' area is tricky, as is the RL jump). I agree with NuclearPotato that this one really starts getting away from the KDITD style and more into NaturalTvventy style, but have those extra monster swarms helps keep things interesting in this day and age.

[joe-ilya]

E1M5

More intuitive in it's design than anything, the barrels and traps are placed nicely, especially the traps that were opened by wideass walls with hitscanners and the player having to hide behind the crates and lure the monsters to the barrels, the lifts around the red door were creatively placed, I especially liked the chainsaw secret.

5/5

[bioshockfan90]

E1M3: Logistics Center|9:42, 100% kills 80% secrets|

Had to do this level twice in order to get the secret exit, hence explaining the short time, but I like this level. Nonlinearity starts to dominate the WAD, a trend I'm assuming will continue for the rest of the episodes. Overall, I really like the layout of this level. there are some very cool rooms as well, like the "door cube" as I'm coining it. The secrets, however, are very well hidden. It takes a lot of effort to find WHAT it takes to find the secret exit, and even then, you might have to reset the level once you've found out(I think so, anyway, that's what I figured. Anyone do without having to reset?).

4.5/5

E1M9: Quarantine Silos|7:17, 100% kills 0% secrets|

Holy cow, talk about a change of pace! This secret map of E1 plays fast and furious as you run around a huge arena with monolithic missile silos gradually opening up, revealing tons of enemies. The arena contains lots of ammo, blurspheres, and health to help you survive. The main gimmick of the level is surviving in this arena, but there ARE some side sections where you gather keys. I died once to hitscan hell, but after some tense gameplay, I pulled through. Defos my favorite level in the WAD so far.

5/5

[Spectre01]

E1M5 - “Warehouse”

It's what it sounds like: a large warehouse with 4 crate areas seperated by bridges running across the map. I liked the secret leading outside and the fact that you had to run through the nukage to take out a barrel blocking the bridge from rising to that area. The RL is also useful here for taking out large monster closets in the storage rooms. It's quite a bit shorter than the last few maps and also more linear.

[kmxexii]

spoiler alert (full review)

[Steve D]

E1M4 - Abandoned Factory
100% Kills, 5 Secrets, 1 Death

My least-favorite map so far. Once again, we have the kind of "count every shell and bullet" ammo starvation one expects in a survivalist map. Reminds me a bit of Base Ganymede in that sense.

My death came near the exit where you have a Central Processing homage, I had already run out of ammo in the prior room because i had the temerity to shotgun a bunch of monsters in the previous area near the Blue Armor. I ran out of ammo again as I was swamped with hordes front and back. I was not amused.

That wasn't as bad as wandering down the dark, narrow passages loaded with Imps that took you to this area via the secret RL room. I figured out how to make the RL jump but got tired of the attempts, so I clipped to it, but ultimately never used it.

The most bizarre secret in the episode so far is the Backpack that requires running down a nukage tunnel. A Backpack is completely pointless in a map that has hardly any ammo in it. I checked the text file before starting this episode and saw nothing to indicate this is meant for continuous play, but unless continuous is the preferred approach -- as sometimes seems evident because of continuously stringent ammo allocation -- then a Backpack down a nukage tunnel amounts to trolling the player and forcing them to tank damage for nothing. Good thing I savescum, because my first time through I was down to 11% by the end of it. Was there a secret radsuit I missed?

I'm not mentally geared to this kind of gameplay. It takes a long time to search for secrets that usually turn out to be a fizzle because there's little or no extra content -- i.e., fun combat -- and the secret items just don't enhance the gameplay much if at all. It's a different strokes thing, I guess, not sure how much longer I'll stick with it, though I at least want to sample each episode. That's one of the nice things about Ultimate Doom's episodic structure.

[Spectre01]

@SteveD: Xaser replied to me on page 1 saying continuous is fine for this wad. Might want to try that if you aren't enjoying the tight ammo balance.

[Salt-Man Z]

SteveD said:

I figured out how to make the RL jump but got tired of the attempts, so I clipped to it, but ultimately never used it.

As a fellow keyboarder, I thought it was head-smackingly somple, once I figured it out. (It's a nested secret with the blursphere secret, which I banged my head on for a long time before realizing the trick to it.) Unless it was just the jump from the blursphere to the launcher ledge that tripped you up...?

[NaturalTvventy]

kmxexii said:

spoiler alert (full review)

Wow! What a review. Thanks so much, I loved reading it. I'll probably print it out and hang it on my fridge or something.

EDIT: Oh, a quick correction in the review; I noticed that Vile Cross was attributed to Xaser, but that's actually one of mine.

e1m4

I like how a lot of this turned out. The starting area with the troopers and the walls opening up to reveal imps after jumping off the shotgun ledge feels pretty classic I think. I also like the two secrets with the raising/falling stone walkways, though I wish I could have made them faster. The rocket launcher secret becomes second nature with enough playthroughs, but at the very last minute I added a lowering floor to allow for much faster access to the green corridor for retries. I was running out of ideas for the second half of the map though and therefore it degrades into a simple monster-closet fest.

[kmxexii]

NaturalTvventy said:

Wow! What a review. Thanks so much, I loved reading it. I'll probably print it out and hang it on my fridge or something.

EDIT: Oh, a quick correction in the review; I noticed that Vile Cross was attributed to Xaser, but that's actually one of mine.

fixed! thank you for reading!

[NecrumWarrior]

NuclearPotato said:

A specific megawad; don't worry about it yet, of course; you've got until the 25th. There's also been plain old level sets that don't go the full 32/36 maps or whatever; I've actually got a couple in mind that I'll probably vote for come that time...

Thanks. I wasn't planning on voting right away I just wanted to make sure I understood the process. I'll probably wait and see what other people nominate and just vote for what looks neat. I have not played a lot of Megawads.

E1M5 is really ramping up the challenge for me... or maybe it's just that I'm tired from work, who knows? Anyway, the map is really interesting. It uses all of its space effectively by having the later portions of the map located in the sectors surrounding the main crossway that runs through it. That part of it was really cool. Said areas with crates in them were absolute hell for me though. I found myself really struggling to maintain a decent level of health, which made the giant hordes in the last section of that part infuriating. I tried spamming rockets at the horde, but I kept blowing myself up by accident. I am beginning to wonder if UV was a terrible mistake... The fakeout second wave of enemies at the end was delightful though. The first wave being primarily hitscan enemies made them more threatening to me, but the second wave being Imps and Pinkies was both surprising and empowering since I could deal with them a lot more effectively. On the whole a good map.

[NuMetalManiak]

E1M5 Warehouse

Fun level, although there's not much warehouse to go around, there sure is a lot of space. This is more of a warehouse/refinery combination, with the central warehouse being locked by the blue key and the surrounding areas more of a refinery. Secrets were easy to get for once, although interestingly enough I had to shoot a barrel to raise a lift up to one of them. The inner warehouse is divided into some quadrants, each opening monster closets. And the red key is in the far end. One final ambush at the exit too. Very fun.

[NecrumWarrior]

E1M6 and the lack of enemy variety is starting to grate a bit, haha. You can only kill so many hordes of zombies before it gets old. I can't remember the name of the map this reminds me of, but I did get a clear vibe of a certain Knee Deep In The Dead level while playing this one. I believe this is the first map of the set to use all three keys, and it does so really well. There are a lot of extra paths that lead around the locked doors so you can see where you are headed, almost contrary to the title of this wad haha! Very nice map.

[NuclearPotato]

E1M5: Warehouse
93% kills, 25% secrets

The usage of monster closet traps continue to creep upward the deeper we go into this episode. Fortunately, this particular level's barrel placement makes more than a few of these traps a literal blast to get through (specifically the circular areas surrounding the elevated crosswalk that takes up the center of the level). The level design seems to encourage clearing out every corner to avoid getting boxed in by a pinkie, or torn to shreds by the shotgun brigade, which I noticed the most on the eastern slime pit area. (Wasn't able to ever figure out what raised the walkway on the western slime pit; just grabbed the blue key and got out of there). That said, it felt like there were less roaming packs of shotgun guys, and more zombiemen brought into the mix this time around. Might just be me though. Not a huge ton of secret searching; I only found the hidden rocket launcher secret after doubling back to see what the other blue door did after taking on the exit room hoard. Never did figure out how to get outside, let alone the aforementioned western walkway.

[rehelekretep]

e1m1 - fda


holy shit! i found all 6 secrets. i cant remember the last time that happened.
this map is pretty fun, but the combat is fairly unengaging (well its a map1 for doom what do you expect...) so i was a little disappointed at how 'faithful' it is. its 2017, we can have a bit more challenge in our early levels :p
the map lacks an iconic view or design, when compared with e1m1, the sg pedestal/outside area comes closest, but thats in a secret so if you miss it youve basically just navigated what feels like an anonymous utility building.
the secrets were very cool though; engaging/mysterious while hinted at, but solvable enough by someone as dense as myself. hopefully the maps open up a bit more throughout e1.

[bioshockfan90]

E1M4: Abandoned Factory|15:16, 100% kills 50% secrets|

Yeah, I didn't spend that much time actively looking around for secrets on this map. Maybe a second go through would have yielded more fruits, but for now I'm calling it good. This map was not that fun for me. The layout wasn't fun to go through, the rooms weren't anything special, all in all it was just a very generic map. No further comments here.

2/5

[Demtor]

E1M6 - “Power Core” by Emil "NaturalTvventy" Brundage
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves


What I like most about the use of secrets here and in a lot of these maps, is that they are teased visually through some sort of window/hole or incomplete automap section but you're still going to have to figure out how to get there. You know where secrets are, it's just a matter of connecting the dots. Not having all of the secrets completely hidden away, shows a level of respect for a player's time. They don't have to endlessly wall hump the entire level. You usually know where to look. I really like that. The secrets here are anything but inane, obtuse and unrewarding. Exploring with intelligent and thoughtful play results in positive gains and more fun spaces to move around in. Thumbs WAY up!!

One tiny gripe after the lovely looking candles, is that missable soulsphere secret! I hate not being able to rewind the choice to hit that switch behind you before jumping down into that pit. Oh well, not a huge deal. Always like a neat looking soulsphere though. Nicely done.

Fun mob to kill at the start. Lots of pinkie meat to bullet sponge forcing a player to think ahead somewhat when you start running out. No armor and limited health right away with only a single med-kit. So if you slip up early with laziness you'll be begging for health that doesn't come until about halfway through this one. I didn't make it my first sloppy attempt. Those shotguns will find a home, believe it. My favorite part was getting the CG and running down smaller corridors with the trigger held down RATA TAT TAT! and then doubling back to clean up all of the incidental combat everywhere with a shotgun. Good fun. Good looking walkway before the exit. Glad I didn't have to hunt down a silly switch for it to rise. Walked away on top with this one. Like a boss.

[Deadwing]

E1M5 - Finally a level that I was able to find all secrets! Haha This one distinctity relies mostly on its large and narrow corridors. The downside is that each room is more isolated from another, so visually things end looking less interesting. Still a fun level, though it is the easiest I've played for now. 8.5/10.

[Salt-Man Z]

NecrumWarrior said:

You can only kill so many hordes of zombies before it gets old.

Lies!


E1M5: Warehouse
21:22 | 100% Everything

This is definitely on the easier side (maybe E1M1 is easier); playing continuous might have something to do with that, but then I pretty much exclusively used the shotgun until the chaingun room. Secrets were easy enough, too, without being too simple. Just a good, solid, fun map. I only wish the warehouse quadrants would have had monsters come at you from more than one direction for a little more challenge.

[Steve D]

Salt-Man Z said:

Lies!

Well said, Salt-Man, well said. :)

[joe-ilya]

E1M6

Most E1-esque map in the set, all the small gimmicky structures, wide gaps of nukage and mazes are prominently dominating the map and have set the mood.
Fun map.

5/5

[rehelekretep]

e1m2 - fda


my amazing secret-finding run comes to an end. NaturalTvventy has put a 100% secrets run on the Speedrun subforum if you want to take a look at what you couldve won. the close-door linedef secret had me completely stumped; and its actually quite simple so go me! :(
the combat is a lot more engaging in this, and the architecture opens up a bit.
nice map name also :D

[rehelekretep]

e1m3 - fda

the first dangerous map; almost died quite a few times to hitscanners here.
the secrets are just o.O - i tried my hardest for about 10 minutes and still only left with 5/10.
this map was a little bit more claustrophobic and mazey, when i was hoping the m1-m2 trend would continue.

[bioshockfan90]

Finally caught up with the rest of the bunch! This was a good map.

E1M5: Warehouse|10:58, 91% kills 0% secrets|

No secrets for this one, I wasn't really in the mood to dive around and find hidden switches and the whatnot. But I really enjoyed this level! It has a very inter-sectional design, with my favorite part of it being in this crate maze-type section, where you went into 4 quadrants of lower-level "storage areas" and faced against hordes of monsters opening up. Fun stuff! The beginning is a bit rough ammo-wise, but once you get the chaingun and RL, the level is practically trivial. Ending bit was a bit weak, but overall a really fun romp, good level design.

4.5/5

[Magnusblitz]

E1M5: Warehouse
100% kills, 4/4 secrets

I really like this layout, creative design with the player being stuck in the above hallways at the start, then only getting access to the lower warehouse area with the blue key. Only annoyance is getting caught on a life means a fair amount of backtracking back to the blue door, but that's alright. As NuclearPotato points out, the barrel placement helps keep this map fun, lots of opportunities to blow a group of enemies up. More clever secrets here too, no pushwalls here, just hidden switches and a rather clever trick with a barrel that I only figured out by accident when I shot it out of frustration.

Only thing I didn't like was the heavy use of DOORHI for columns and walls, seeing a door texture (it's in the name!!) slathered for walls like that just sets my skin acrawl.

E1M6: Power Core
100% kills, 2/5 secrets

This one was alright, this one is heavier on the spaghetti corridors with some larger chambers in-between. One thing I did really like was the way the tech corridors opened up the beginning... sometimes just having a room or corridor open in a different fashion is a nice way to keep things fresh. Health/ammo balance seems a bit outta whack on this one, I found the secret blue armor by the blue key and that lasted me for the rest of the level, leading me to leave three green armors untouched, but at points I was in the red for health until getting to those two medkits right before the red door.