RetributioN Trilogy (Now in the Downloads section)

[DooM_RO]

Hello, last year I posed the first part of my RetributioN series, which some of you played. That was my very first WAD and modding project and while it turned out quite well, there were some kinks that slipped through the cracks. The first map was also Doom 1 exclusive but has since been converted to Doom 2.

The essential philosophy behind it was to make it Boom compatible, using only vanilla resources because I really wanted that classic Doom feel but a lot more polished. The WAD contains two HUGE 40+ minute maps with a large emphasis on visual storytelling and a boss IOS map.

The maps are:

MAP 28: Argent Refinery
MAP 29: REGNVM DAMNATORVM
MAP 30: Iconoclasm

At the moment, the WAD is in BETA and I intend to release it this week. If you would like to beta test it, here is the link.

The map is now in the Downloads section. Please rate and review if you play the WAD.

 

Here are some screenshots with a bit of backstory behind them.

http://imgur.com/gallery/uZndR

Something stirs deep within the labyrinthine bowels of the UAC Argent Refinery...



You arrive at the Top Secret UAC base, guided by an ominous, robotic voice. You wonder if it is human or if it ever was human. Immediately, you feel a knot in your stomach. The sinister halls are deathly quiet and something is seriously wrong here. Where is everyone?



The UAC is the most powerful conglomerate in the Solar System and has a monopoly on energy production. You wonder what they are hiding.



They are effectively responsible for ending resource wars on Earth and reestablishing peace and order through force and "free" energy for "all".



...But at what cost? What deals have been made? Who will pay the price?



...What manner of dark secrets do they hide? Could the rumors be true?



What in God’s name am I doing here? But is His name not welcome in these lands?



...Becoming the catalyst of indignation...



...March towards wicked transformations...



...Announcing the true fruits of the fall...



"And cry out at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her, saying, 'What city was ever like this great city?'"



"And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever."



"There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image"

Edited March 22, 2017 by DooM_RO
typos

[Jimmy]

I played an early version of the first map onstream, and playtested the second map recently. They're monstrous, fun and highly challenging (I only hope I find the second map easier to handle with its new ammo balancing!) on top of being gigantohuge but not overbearing, and are well worth a look. :)

[DooM_RO]

Jimmy said:

I played an early version of the first map onstream, and playtested the second map recently. They're monstrous, fun and highly challenging (I only hope I find the second map easier to handle with its new ammo balancing!) on top of being gigantohuge but not overbearing, and are well worth a look. :)

Thank you very much for your patience and for your time! Playtesting such large maps is no easy task!

[saski]

dude PLEASE make your maps coop friendly! huge and beautiful(!) maps like that are begging to be challenged togehter with a coop friend! :D

[DooM_RO]

saski said:

dude PLEASE make your maps coop friendly! huge and beautiful(!) maps like that are begging to be challenged togehter with a coop friend! :D

Noted!

EDIT:

All maps have COOP support now.

[saski]

nice job! :) will give it a spin ASAP and see if there are any coop traps ;)

DooM_RO said:

Noted!

EDIT:

All maps have COOP support now.

[DooM_RO]

Come on guys, I worked really hard on this and I deserve more than 5 replies.

[obake]

I'll give this a whirl for sure. The screenshots look very impressive!

[Tango]

This looks really lovely. Really impressed by the marble shots in particular :D

[DooM_RO]

Has anyone managed to play it? I would really appreciate some feedback, especially video.

[dt_]

I remember playing this a while back when you only had half a map, and it was great.  I'll record a boom FDA for you this week (later today if I get chance)

[DooM_RO]

8 minutes ago, dt_ said:

I remember playing this a while back when you only had half a map, and it was great.  I'll record a boom FDA for you this week (later today if I get chance)

Thanks! Two large areas from the first map have also been redone because I wasn't very satisfied with them. I used an unusual and unique kind of detailing for one of the new areas.

[DooM_RO]

Has anyone managed to play it yet? I would really like some impressions.

[MarketAnarchy]

I can stream a playthrough of it tomorrow on twitch if nobody else is streaming.

 

Robert

[DooM_RO]

50 minutes ago, MarketAnarchy said:

I can stream a playthrough of it tomorrow on twitch if nobody else is streaming.

 

Robert

I would really appreciate it! When does it start?

[MarketAnarchy]

@DooM_RO I'm not sure, I'm in the Mountain time zone and I'll probably be up late drinking, so figure noon or later my time.

 

Robert

[MarketAnarchy]

@DooM_RO I'm going to go buy some food and then come back to see if you're around for me to stream your map. If not, I'll wait for a better time so you can catch it. Let me know.

 

Robert

[dt_]

Completed the first one, going to demo the second 2 when I get chance

[Nine Inch Heels]

OK, I played the first level a few times now, and despite me being a genius when it comes to getting lost, I found it to be rather enjoyable. The secrets are nicely executed, I like that drop on the soulsphere secret a lot, for example. One thing that sort of messes with my personal preference is the abundancy of demons in particular in one of the crate areas. I don't know if it's just me missing pickups, or if the idea is to use the BFG there, but me personally, I'd really like for there to be more rockets available, to make that area feel less grindy. These are the few things I can say from the top of my head. One thing I almost forgot, that yellow key's pillar I think it would look a lot better if there was only one switch and the other 3 sides could be some steel support texture or whatever that was called. But yeah, that's it from me so far. Really appreciating the set so far.

[DooM_RO]

First off, thanks for everyone who played it. I appreciate it.

 

9 hours ago, MarketAnarchy said:

@DooM_RO I'm going to go buy some food and then come back to see if you're around for me to stream your map. If not, I'll wait for a better time so you can catch it. Let me know.

 

Robert

I am not sure I will be able to watch the stream. The maps are really long and I am quite busy with university. Plus, we live in quite different time zones (GMT +2) The stream will still be quite useful for me to watch after and for other people looking to play it.

Edited March 20, 2017 by DooM_RO

[Nine Inch Heels]

On 10.3.2017 at 11:49 AM, DooM_RO said:

Two things I noticed about that green "pentagram box", by the way. First you can see from this picture, that there's a faulty texture alignment underneath it, and what you may actually notice when you play the map, is that on top of the box, there's lava texture. I forgot to mention this when I posted here earlier. But now that I look at it I suddenly remembered.

[MarketAnarchy]

19 hours ago, DooM_RO said:

First off, thanks for everyone who played it. I appreciate it.

 

I am not sure I will be able to watch the stream. The maps are really long and I am quite busy with university. Plus, we live in quite different time zones (GMT +2) The stream will still be quite useful for me to watch after and for other people looking to play it.

I don't know how to "save" a stream in my twitch. I'll try to figure it out and give it a try.

[Da Werecat]

Ear-rape death exit. How quaint.

 

I generally liked the first level's D1-like ambience. The construction, however, felt pretty sloppy at times. I made a lot of shots, but I'll post them later (probably when the wad is finalized and there's no point anymore).

[DooM_RO]

43 minutes ago, Da Werecat said:

Ear-rape death exit. How quaint.

 

I generally liked the first level's D1-like ambience. The construction, however, felt pretty sloppy at times. I made a lot of shots, but I'll post them later (probably when the wad is finalized and there's no point anymore).

It is quite final. I am just waiting for it to appear in the Downloads section but I would like to hear your criticism.

[baja blast rd.]

I tried map29 again and it turns out that, as I suspected, the caves and the area with the Quake-icon are very conducive to aggressive play with the right plan. Unfortunately, though, I got kind of tired with it ~250 monsters in, specifically in this area: 

 

 

The gameplay itself is a real chore, I think. I was able to ignore the mancs and revs in the square room, along with the monsters in the red cave -- to me it's not a good sign when I'm already looking for ways to avoid monsters -- but then in this area it looked like I'd have to actually deal with all of these monsters, I called it quits. The problem is that there are so many turrets. In this area alone there are scads of perched mancs and arachnotrons, along with lots of hitscanners, and three archviles to prevent you from running through. So I had to hang back and clear all these monsters out, and fighting turrets this way (no actual pressure because they are encountered from one direction and you can retreat at will) is not fun to me at all. There are also very few true 'encounters', it seems. Gameplay is largely about clearing out mostly static infestations of monsters, against mostly from one direction. I'd be able to tolerate that over a map half this long, especially if there were fun encounters to spice it up, but this is kind of tedious to me. By the way I don't play with free aim, and it seems like you might. I can see this making a big difference in this type of map, especially because there are lots of distant chaingunners. (But even with free aim, I'm not the type who enjoys lots of sniping at perched monsters.) 

 

I also think that maybe you are a bit too obsessed with size and such. It's clear that you have (or might have in the future) the potential to create high-quality design, up there with Cacoward winners, but a lot of areas in this map are unremarkable from a visual standpoint. There's definitely little that is offensive about them, but there is little that is truly impressive. In fact, it's the overall scale of the map that is the main attraction. I'm looking at all the areas in GZDB now, and I see a few very creative and nice-looking areas (for example the stuff at the northeast that accounts for half of the map's sector count), but what I saw in-game was mostly competently detailed rooms with very rudimentary structure, and lots of forgettable cave areas. It sort of reminds me of a very large map from 2008 or so. Once again, it's not BAD, but it's clearly underachieving, I think, probably because lots of time ends up being invested in creating new areas to add to the evergrowing map instead of working even more on existing areas or thinking up creative visual schemes. 

 

Anyway, it would be nice to see smaller maps from you where you put a lot more effort into crafting interesting structures, instead of relying so much on this type of basic, symmetrical, or boxy design: 
 

Spoiler

 

 

(These are some areas I actually visited in-game.) 

 

I played the map in prBoom+, and it strikes me that one of the reasons you might tolerate this sort of design, at least from your screenshots, is that you play in GZDoom with its suite of features that can help spice up a scene, such as dynamic lights and ambient occlusion. Freelook certainly can help a bit too. Those screenshots in the OP look pretty good. But without those features, I think these areas don't look quite as good.

 

Anyway, this sounds harsh, but I do hope many people end up enjoying this map anyway. I can certainly recognize the amount of effort that was put into it.

 

 

Map28 was originally a Doom I map, which I already played in full and commented on in a previous thread. That one was much more to my tastes, in terms of both visuals and gameplay. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2017 by rdwpa

[dt_]

Sorry mate I accidentally recorded over a 45 min demo I made for map28 with a 2 minute demo for map29 (wherein I promptly die) before I had uploaded it.  I enjoyed the map though, looks good apart from the outdoor area with the 3 key doors, that area is very plain for it's size in comparison with some of the other areas.  I will agree with some of the comments rdwpa shared- there's quite a few monsters perched high up out of auto aim range (when playing in prboom) even in some cases out of sight, yet they can still shoot (and claw!) you with impunity.  I love the exploratory nature of the first half, and the action of the second

[DooM_RO]

@rdwpa

 

Yes, getting rid of the "boxy area" kind of design is one of the places I am struggling with. It's really hard for me to come up with interesting basic shapes or blockouts. Most of the times when I make a new room I just make a box and stare at it. Then I make another box and put a simple hallway in the middle and say "now what am I supposed to do with this?!"  I can be stuck for a really long time on a single room. I am just really slow.

 

As for why some areas looked a bit sparse, I hit the Sidedef limit and had to switch the nodebuilder. After I switched to ZDBSP the problems went away but I didn't want to go over the limit because I was afraid the unpredictable collision bugs would return. Although I think I am pretty good with detailing, I had trouble with some areas.

 

So why did I do this in the first place? Well I really wanted to make a set of maps that had a sense of "place" and told a story through the environment. Overall I think I succeeded more in the first map but one thing I noticed in new mapsets is that while they are very technically competent and use lots of interesting shapes, it doesn't feel like I am in any place in particular. After I played BTSX I was very impressed with the detailing and the gameplay but the maps started to blend together visually and it wasn't the only mapset that made feel that way. I also get that feeling with some of the music for these maps. I also really wanted to get that vanilla feel but a bit more modern. I recently played Lutz's Hellscape and it really reminded me of what I want to accomplish in my maps but unfortunately, I am not nearly as skilled as Lutz yet (or any of the BTSX team). Also, while the vanilla textures are very versatile (particularly the Doom 2 ones) I found it to be quite hard working with just them. A lot of the brick textures are pretty bad, especially when compared to Heretic/Hexen.

 

I also think it would be time to make smaller maps. I actually made my first small map for JOM3, check it out if you want. After I finish my dissertation I have an idea for a 9 map WAD for which I make a map every week. I will definitely use custom textures from now on. I am sick of using just vanilla stuff. Really sick.

 

Either way, I gave my best when I made this and I hope it shows.

 

6 hours ago, dt_ said:

Sorry mate I accidentally recorded over a 45 min demo I made for map28 with a 2 minute demo for map29 (wherein I promptly die) before I had uploaded it.  I enjoyed the map though, looks good apart from the outdoor area with the 3 key doors, that area is very plain for it's size in comparison with some of the other areas.  I will agree with some of the comments rdwpa shared- there's quite a few monsters perched high up out of auto aim range (when playing in prboom) even in some cases out of sight, yet they can still shoot (and claw!) you with impunity.  I love the exploratory nature of the first half, and the action of the second

 

I had quite a bit of trouble with that area. I wasn't quite sure how to make it more interesting looking due to all the windows and doors. I wanted it to be more uniform but I just didn't know what to do. As for the gameplay style, the first map was originally a Doom 1 map, meaning no SSG. So when I ported the first map to Doom 2, I wanted to keep that Doom 1 E1M3, E1M5, E1M7 and E2M7 flavor (particularly in the blue key area), which is my favorite so I only introduced harder enemies and the SSG later.

Edited March 22, 2017 by DooM_RO

[Da Werecat]

On 21.03.2017 at 8:54 AM, DooM_RO said:

It is quite final. I am just waiting for it to appear in the Downloads section but I would like to hear your criticism.

Looks like I lost before the start. Well then, I don't think there's any point in listing every single nitpick. I'll just try and summarize the main points.

 

First, you seem to have a habit of making walls out of 0-height sectors instead of "void". This leads to at least 3 problems:

 

1. Lots of walls look like there's something behind them. The automap becomes messy.

2. It might interfere with doors and elevators.

3. I forgot.

 

The problem number 2 is what I thought when one of the elevators descended much lower than it should've, and also when one of the less important doors failed to open. To be fair, after looking in the editor, the latter seems to be intentional, but it looks like a glitch because the door sinks into the floor. Different height for the sector "breaking" the door would've made it more natural. As for the former, I can see some weird unclosed shit spanning several openings near the lift, so it's not exactly that, but it leads to a similar symptom.

 

Second, the legacy of DB2 is clearly visible with stuck monsters. Objects in Doom aren't round, they're square, but DB2 displays them round by default.

 

Less important things: it's possible to walk into various wall consoles. Personally, I don't like this. Then there's stuff like moving door tracks, misalignments, and so on.

[DooM_RO]

Hey guys, I'd appreciate it if you left a review in the Downloads section.

 

Edited April 2, 2017 by DooM_RO

[grrfield]

I get "bad texture directory" when launching a server with zandronum...... too bad, really want to play this