The DWmegawad Club plays: Urania

[riderr3]

Thanks to all who played the wad and posting the reviews. It is really appreciated.

[Demtor]

2 hours ago, CapnClever said:

These levels used the same song. Granted, "perfectly fitting" and "terrible" aren't contradictory to each other, but there's a definite mood-swing between these talking points. I'll chalk it up to Urania giving you a hard time.

Good catch. I stand by each statement though. That song works well for map 1 as it's an in your face, fast, smaller sprinting map from start to finish while map 22 is a longer, drawn out, wide open, exploratory building to building romp with lots of switch finding and subsequent change hunting. That makes it good for 1 but bad for 22. 

 

Hopefully I didn't make other seemingly contradictory criticisms musically or otherwise. By all means call me out on my B.S. if found. 

 

I like what you have to say about the "default" settings not working for some but do for others. I definitely noticed and switched around between different soundfonts until I settled on ones I liked. Haven't had to do that before this wad.

[Demtor]

28 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

Thanks to all who played the wad and posting the reviews. It is really appreciated.

No, thank you for commenting from time to time with insights and giving us a heads up from the get go on the differing choices in difficulty. Not to mention all the hard work you put in to this bad boy. Even if I disagreed with some of it's design, I can still appreciate how difficult this must have been to do solo with zero beta. The fact that this is playable and quite good at times from the get go without a fine tuning process, says a lot.

[Memfis]

+++ No Sleep for the Dead, UAC Ultra, Scythe X

[galileo31dos01]

 

51 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

Thanks to all who played the wad and posting the reviews. It is really appreciated.

Whenever you release your next upcoming wad I'm totally voting for it to be played here 🙋

 

On another side, I'm wondering what happened to the user NecrumWarrior, he suddenly dissapeared and he was one of the most excited users to play the pwad... 

[Demtor]

 

MAP29 - “Ghostwalker”

gzDoom/BDoom - HMP – continuous/saves

 

Children of the DAAAAAAMMMNNNED... props for the first wad I’ve come across to use Iron Maiden songs. Children of the Damned is so good, it even works as a shitty midi. Love it.

 

The map? It’s a mixed bag. Lots of interesting rooms and hellish detailing with a few switch puzzles that felt good surrounded by lots of close encounters consisting mostly of nobles and fatties. I appreciated the visual hints with a few of the switches. I remember that color somewhere...

 

The dark room with the lighted platform landings to hop on was a cool effect. Having to return again and again was annoying but at least there were teleporters to take you quickly back to the start.

 

Speaking of the start, another unique one. Stuck in the dark with red torches next to damage floors with no cover. It’s a very minimalist start to a visually crazy map later on. Lots of reds with fire, lava, blood and gore in textures and themes.

 

Favorite section was getting an EV suit and exploring the depths of the fire to find a cave system below which hides the YK. Good stuff and fun fights. I seem to have failed the secret finding aspect of Doom in these later maps.

[Deadwing]

1 hour ago, riderr3 said:

Thanks to all who played the wad and posting the reviews. It is really appreciated.

I second @Demtor, thank you for giving the insights and helping us out. Creating a megawad is a really hard accomplishment, especially when your mapset is composed of lots of huge and very complex levels. The one I finished (moonblood) was only small/medium levels and it took one year and a half haha So definetly congratz for the work, and sorry if some of the criticism looked too harsh

Edited May 31, 2017 by Deadwing

[Demtor]

18 hours ago, CapnClever said:

EDIT: Full review's up! Find it in the Downloads section.

Holy cow. I feel like all of the short reviews I've written before are now completely inadequate and lacking, lol. Nice work.

[CapnClever]

24 minutes ago, Demtor said:

I feel like all of the short reviews I've written before are now completely inadequate and lacking, lol.

Your individual-level reviews, on average, are more detailed than my own (nevermind the time taken for screenshots) so I wouldn't sell yourself short. In fact, I have no idea if my reviews are particularly useful for the intended audience: namely, people who haven't played the WAD and are deciding whether or not they ought to. It's quite possible that most downloaders would rather skim through a number of pithy and terse recommendations, and when they see a wall of text it's a tl;dr. If you do plan on adding a review for Urania, if nothing else I suggest doing what I did at the bottom and adding a compilation of your posts from here for easy access: with your numerous visual samplings it might help some people decide quicker.

 

The main reason I'm writing up long reviews is because is new format allows for it. Previously, /idgames was extremely limited in its ability to comment on files, so that's what people stuck to writing: very rarely will you see anything on there that deserves a paragraph break. Now, however, we're free to use the same formatting editor that the forum itself provides. I can throw down lists, embedded links, and even the occasional picture to construct a compelling yet fluid review. Not every review is quite this long, but then again not every mapset do I spend time thinking about each individual map so closely. You can scroll down this page to get a better idea of average length.

 

Anyway we'll see where it leads: maybe others will decide to try their hand, maybe not. I hope to keep myself relatively concise as I continue: Urania's review is especially long because I was able to critically examine it moreso than usual.

 

 

[Demtor]

 

MAP30 - “The Tyrant”

gzDoom/BDoom - HMP – continuous/saves

 

What the…? Either I failed or the map did. Guessing it was me, but I killed 2 cyberdemons a SMM, flipped every switch there is, including the lone one you have to teleport to, and when I was able to reach the last one at the top of the raised steps to open the missile window… there’s nothing to shoot.

 

There are doors where the two cyberdemons where standing but how do you open them? I noclipped and found that by shooting the keen/barrels with a rocket (like I was supposed to be able to) that that’s what would open the doors below allowing me to continue on with the next switch to reveal the actual IoS on the other side.

 

Huh. Not a bad idea but why all of the switches?? Especially the ones at the top of slow elevators? I guess it burns the timer off your EV suit pick ups but there were so many the challenge was kind of lost. I suppose it could add up over time so at the very end you’ll be scrambling to make a few good rocket shots ASAP before time runs out and you’re running with no suits left.

 

It’s too bad that the whole sequence didn’t work for me though. Not sure what happened but there was never any opening to fire a rocket in to the dead IoS’s brain. Blah. Unfortunate. Go figure this wad would end with a bunch of switches to lead me to nowhere. I’ll make sure it doesn’t taint my overall review. I’m sure I missed something anyway as others have completed it without issue but it’s an IoS level so I’ll happily skip it. -_-

 

Time to celebrate! Hahaha. Hilariously awesome. URANIA

 

 

Favorite Maps

MAP04 - “Guerilla”

MAP06 - “Death Mask”

MAP13 - “Journey of Voices”

MAP32 - “After-Effect”

MAP16 - “Rehab”

MAP23 - “Grossfalls”

MAP27 - “Creeping Horror”

 

Honorable Mentions

MAP03 - “Subcataract”

MAP19 - “Seedling Consortium”

MAP11 - “Ejection of Energy”

MAP20 - “Lost Pendulum”

 

Hated Maps

MAP05 - “Terracotta”

MAP07 - “Castellan’s Feast”

MAP14 - “AVC Zone”

MAP17 - “Damned Parlours”

MAP21 - “Plutosaurus”

MAP28 - “Disaster Area”

 

Final Thoughts

Whew, it’s over. I did it! @Deadwing and @CapnClever have made a lot of salient points that I couldn’t have said better myself so I’ll try not to retread. Besides I’ve ranted plenty if you’ve been following along with us. Suffice to say I agree with a lot from both of them while at the same time raising a confused eyebrow at @Spectre01’s 5/5 rating. To each his own! Which is why it’s fun to get everyone’s take on this kind of stuff.

 

This has been a harrowing experience and a real eye opener with lots of lessons learned. Some involving patience and others requiring thoughtful consideration.

 

One of the bigger ones is to remember that people have their own approach and views regarding difficulty and that not all wads are in agreement. Even if there seems to be a standard that most follow.

 

There are very little rules in Doom 2. So when something this different and creative is thrown at me like a curving fastball that smacks me square in the face (map 1) when I wasn’t ready for it, try not to throw the bat too far. Take time to stop and honestly re-evaluate your choice in difficulty level and get over it. UV/HMP, saves/nosaves, pistol/continuous… it can be hard to decide on what to choose but try not to take it out on the maps and/or mapper.

 

That being said, I will heckle from home plate. The key/switch progression and enemy placement are both irksome sticking points that are hard to get over sometimes. I feel like neither would have been that big of an issue if the maps weren’t as long and grueling as most of them tended to be. It’s very easy to get frustrated with Urania after hours of applying a standard Doom2 approach. If you pulled back and played with more of a Hexen styled approach, things got better. Problem with that is I’m not always in the mood for Hexen so sometimes things get forced and it’s time to know when to take a break. Again… lessons learned. If you’re going to get through something that isn’t your cup of tea, know your limits.

 

It's too bad some of the music really missed the mark but for the most part they were harmless enough and muting a map will never in my mind detract from an overall review/score/thought summary. 

 

I was surprised to find I could only really, truly and honestly, say I hated 6 of the 32 maps. I thought there would be more! After going back and looking again, honestly assessing each individually, I ended up finding myself being “okay” with most of this wad and actually feeling more positive to some I didn’t outright love.

 

There is a weird love/hate kind of extremity with Urania that I haven’t come across before. The 6 maps I liked, I REALLY liked. While the 6 I hated, I REALLY hated. The contrast between the two is striking and everything else was passable to okay. 3/5 

[Pirx]

3 hours ago, CapnClever said:

Your individual-level reviews, on average, are more detailed than my own (nevermind the time taken for screenshots) so I wouldn't sell yourself short. In fact, I have no idea if my reviews are particularly useful for the intended audience: namely, people who haven't played the WAD and are deciding whether or not they ought to. It's quite possible that most downloaders would rather skim through a number of pithy and terse recommendations, and when they see a wall of text it's a tl;dr. If you do plan on adding a review for Urania, if nothing else I suggest doing what I did at the bottom and adding a compilation of your posts from here for easy access: with your numerous visual samplings it might help some people decide quicker.

 

The main reason I'm writing up long reviews is because is new format allows for it. Previously, /idgames was extremely limited in its ability to comment on files, so that's what people stuck to writing: very rarely will you see anything on there that deserves a paragraph break. Now, however, we're free to use the same formatting editor that the forum itself provides. I can throw down lists, embedded links, and even the occasional picture to construct a compelling yet fluid review. Not every review is quite this long, but then again not every mapset do I spend time thinking about each individual map so closely. You can scroll down this page to get a better idea of average length.

 

Anyway we'll see where it leads: maybe others will decide to try their hand, maybe not. I hope to keep myself relatively concise as I continue: Urania's review is especially long because I was able to critically examine it moreso than usual.

 

 

thanks for your review. i didn't find much time to play this month, and while the plutonia styled wads appeal to me, i found many of urania's maps long, intricate, and requiring careful play. haven't finished it yet, but i went on with continuous play, although i usually pistol-start, because i got tired with how long it took me.

[sincity2100]

+++ Good Morning Phobos

[Spectre01]

@sincity2100 A little l8 there m8.

[leodoom85]

I wonder how much in-game time took you guys to finish Urania...

Right now I'm playing that mapset with Complex Doom+LCA, currently at map 16, 8 hours and a half for current in-game time...

[galileo31dos01]

1 hour ago, leodoom85 said:

I wonder how much in-game time took you guys to finish Urania...

Right now I'm playing that mapset with Complex Doom+LCA, currently at map 16, 8 hours and a half for current in-game time...

Around 57 hours in-game, 3 weeks or so in real-life 

[Deadwing]

I probably took around 25 hours

[Salt-Man Z]

It took me about 6½ game-hours to get through the first eight maps...