The Iron Forge: a Xaser/Not Jabba collab map (/idgames!)

[Not Jabba]

The Iron Forge is a single map for Heretic, created by Xaser (architecture/layout) and me (thing placement). It plays in the E2M1 slot and requires ZDoom/GZDoom.

 

This map includes a variety of tweaks to Heretic's monsters and weapons to improve the pacing and balance of the game (especially to address that feeling you get when all the monsters are super weak but take forever to kill). If you've played a beta of The Wayfarer, you'll recognize most of these changes.

 

Download the wad here (/idgames).

Screenshots:

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by Not Jabba

[SOSU]

This looks amazing!!!Gonna download right now :D

[Xaser]

Some quick history: This was originally intended for Realm of Parthoris, but distractions happened and I wasn't able to get it done in any reasonable timeframe. It kinda sat homeless for a while until Not Jabba kindly offered to finish it (and donate those delicious Wayfarer gameplay tweaks), which is absolutely superheroic. Thanks again for bringing this to life!

 

For when someone inevitably notices and asks: yes, the map layout is based on a certain something. Props to whomever first notices. :P

 

[...did I just use "whom" correctly? For shame! This is the internet; who gives a sock about grammar?]

[Arghonn]

A remake of Iron Keep eh? Neat!

[bioshockfan90]

This map looks really cool, reminds me I need to get into Heretic more. I guess not to take over the thread, but if someone can just quickly list off some of the 'must-plays' as far as Heretic WADs go, that'd be really cool, because this map has me inspired to jump in headfirst.

[Xaser]

11 minutes ago, Arghonn said:

A remake of Iron Keep eh? Neat!

There it is! :P -- My favorite area in the game for whatever reason. It was fun translating it to 2.5D; there's some artistic liberties that result (the phoenix instead of the bull being the most obvious), but it's mostly all there.

 

I'll post some comparison screenshots at some point for funsies.

[Arghonn]

Iron Keep is burned into my brain for a lot of reasons, some good, some bad, but you've really done an excellent job translating it into the doom engine!

The area is immediately recognizable from moment one, which is pretty impressive.

[SOSU]

Well this was awesome!Had a lot of fun beating it and The Wayfarer tweaks made it even better than if it was a normal Heretic map :D
Here are some of the bugs i found:

You seem to be able to get stuck here after you raise the bridge

Does this count as cheesing?

[Catpho]

Are you tryin to convince me to play Heretic?

Its tempting now :P

[Not Jabba]

Just now, Catpho said:

Are you tryin to convince me to play Heretic?

Yes.

[Fonze]

Had an absolute blast playing this awesome map. Feedback has already been discussed with creators, but I'd highly recommend this wad to everyone. 

[Adahn]

It was fun, and I must say it's a good recreation of the original map! I think heretic's textures worked pretty good here. I pretty much instantly recognized the area, lol. There's no mistaking that starting bridge and lava. The only bug that I noticed, is this elevator looks like it could be fixed:

 

https://i.imgur.com/p74nqkQ.gifv

 

Unless that's how it is supposed to be. That said, it felt pretty cool playing through a dark souls map in the doom engine. I liked how I knew the whole area like the back of my hand haha. Awesome map!

[Skeletonpatch]

4 hours ago, Xaser said:

[...did I just use "whom" correctly? For shame! This is the internet; who gives a sock about grammar?]

 

*READS STATEMENT*

 

*BODY TENSES*

 

*PURE ANGER AWAKENING*

 

*RESISTING VIOLENT URGES*

 

*DOWNLOADING MAP*

*ENACTING RAGE ON D'SPARIL'S MINIONS*

 

*CALMING DOWN*

 

I'm going to forgive that statement since your map is absolutely awesome.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Skeletonpatch

[Cacowad]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

How long has it been since ROP? Great to see this one finally out!

[SiFi270]

So when you lower part of the stairway leading into the room with the crushers, does that become a point of no return? I'm just missing a secret and two items, and I'm hoping they're not before that point if that's the case.

[Not Jabba]

1 hour ago, SiFi270 said:

So when you lower part of the stairway leading into the room with the crushers, does that become a point of no return? I'm just missing a secret and two items, and I'm hoping they're not before that point if that's the case.

No, I added a way back -- iirc, that portion of the stairway raises again later, and then you can lower it as a lift from the eastern side.

[SOSU]

This was so good i'm gonna play it again :D

[Xaser]

Posting a bugreport so we don't lose track of it; this switch is use-once, meaning when you take the teleport back, you get stuck:

 

 

Someone also suggested swapping the Tome after the yellow-door area with the Ring of Invincibility, which may not be a bad idea, really. Makes the yellow bit an extended gauntlet to get an artifact that will save your bacon during the final fight.

[Not Jabba]

1 minute ago, Xaser said:

this switch is use-once, meaning when you take the teleport back, you get stuck:

Not stuck per se, because you can go back through the crusher room. I can change that to be repeatable if you'd like easier access, though. It's probably cleaner than the way things work currently.

 

I also thought the Tome would be a more useful thing to have for the final battle than a second Ring, but maybe that depends on playstyle? Perhaps it could change places with the non-secret Ring that's currently available, though then any players who don't get the yellow key will be in a much worse position. Or they could both be Rings, but a Tome would certainly be nice to have somewhere. I'll look over the various artifacts and consider some juggling.

[Xaser]

Darn, I'd forgotten about the other ring -- so yeah, that'd be two, which may be a bit much. That's what I get for echoing stuff off the top of my head without checking. Curse my chronic attention-splitting! :P

 

 

[leodoom85]

@Not JabbaBtw. Did you modified the drop chance of the wizards/disciples by any chance? Because in some of my Heretic gameplays, they usually drops a tome of power....maybe I'm just lucky....

Also, I liked the modified crossbow and the hellstaff helped me a lot.

[SOSU]

21 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

@Not JabbaBtw. Did you modified the drop chance of the wizards/disciples by any chance? Because in some of my Heretic gameplays, they usually drops a tome of power....maybe I'm just lucky....

Read the text file :V disciples don't drop Tomes anymore just Dragon claw orbs

[Not Jabba]

In The Wayfarer, the Disciples drop a new artifact called the Sigil of Power, which is like a weaker variant of the Tome that doesn't throw off the balance of the game as much. For Iron Forge I wanted to just use vanilla monsters, artis, and weapons, so I removed the Disciple's Tome drop altogether.

[leodoom85]

12 hours ago, SOSU said:

Read the text file :V disciples don't drop Tomes anymore just Dragon claw orbs

I went to action instead of reading boring texts, you heretic!!!

 

[SOSU]

:3

[Fonze]

Nice video SOSU! I like that it showcases the first half of the wad as a trailer would, without spoiling too much; also, nice, smooth movement :)

 

I actually had recorded a video as well for my FDA when I tested the map, I suppose I should post it at some point for people who can't play it to still be able to experience it to some degree. The map killed me a few times in the beginning from stupid mistakes, tight health balancing in the beginning, and that nasty surprise teleport, but after that it was smooth sailing. 

 

Do not watch this video if you don't want the entire map spoiled:

[Fonze]

Biiiit of a bump to this thread but I figured I'd post a quick playthrough of the RC_1 on BPPT that I did last week:

Spoiler

Was a lot of fun to play through, though I don't see myself doing a saveless run any time soon for the high pressure/stakes encounters mid-way and late in the map, following the more tedious sections of the beginning and middle, though that's not to discount the fun of playing casually and/or with saves through it all.

 

If any Heretic fans missed this map, I'd recommend giving it a shot as I had a ton of fun with it, as well as with Xaser's zany level design thingies. I'm sure there is a better way to phrase that but that's what I got for now, heh, though some of what I'm referring to is the generally mildly-oppressive nature of Xaser's map designs, and how they influence the gameplay even just from the line-placement side of things. Not Jabba's gameplay decisions on the thing-placement side, as well as "The Wayfarer" modifications to this wad, meshes well with the rest of the map and it all creates an interesting experience that plays very well. Some aspects of the gameplay even seemed (at least to me) reminiscent of the Dark Souls style of design; (but I generally don't like DS's gameplay so I won't get into that ;D ) still given the way it was all pulled off here I see it as a good flavoring to the map design. 

 

Anyway, good job with this map again fellas and to anyone who hasn't played it yet I'd recommend giving it a goo :)

Edited September 19, 2018 by Fonze

[Not Jabba]

2 hours ago, Fonze said:

Some aspects of the gameplay even seemed (at least to me) reminiscent of the Dark Souls style of design

That's really interesting, because I had no idea it was a Dark Souls remake until we released it. Xaser's architecture gave me some challenges with thing placement that were really fun to try to puzzle out, and all the combat is of course inspired by the architecture, so maybe it's just that oppressive feel you mentioned that leads to the similarities with Dark Souls. Being pushed out of my comfort zone by someone else's creative/zany layout was a really cool experience, and I'd love to do it again sometime. Thanks for the video!

 

 

[Not Jabba]

Here's RC2! Sorry it took so long, and many thanks to Xaser for lending a hand to do most of the final polishing.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xqu9xiqmx1tmatt/xa-iforg-rc2.zip?dl=0

 

This is expected to be the final beta and will be uploaded to /idgames in a week or two if nothing else comes up. Thanks for testing!

[Not Jabba]

Hey everyone! The Iron Forge is now on /idgames! This is the same as RC2, except apparently there were some duplicated iwad textures in the resources that we were using and we deleted them.