Excalibur 1.1 - Doomworld /idgames database frontend

Title:	Excalibur 1.1
Filename:	levels/doom/v-z/xcalib11.zip
Size:	119.86 KB
Date:	04/11/95
Author:	Stefan Maes
Description:	I confess! I'm not a true DOOMer. I like the game the most at the HMP (He Must Practice ?!) level. I want to have some time to take a closer look at the enviroment. Besides, I'm into X-rays, not UV :) Therefore I spend much time aligning textures and I hope I haven't missed a spot (If you find an error, please flame my beta-testers!). On the other hand, this could mean that I exaggerated UV a little... Before you go out and hopefully play this WAD, I must tell you that there's a CyberDemon Surprise at the end (I know it's a cheap trick, flame me!), but you're given 3 options to bypass this CDS: a) Run like hell; b) Nuke him (a BFG might come in handy); and c) ... Nah! It's a secret.
Credits:	id Sofware for creating DOOM; Brendon Wyber and Raphaël Quinet for the Doom Editing Utilities; Per Allansson and Per Kofod for the GCC port of DEU; Colin Reed for his Binary Space Partitioner 1.2x - the only node-builder that could handle this WAD correctly; L. Witek (lee@trousers.demon.co.uk) for his Reject utility; Jin Kim (xjinkim@fullerton.edu) for discussion about the different nodebuilders out there, beta-testing and many hints to improve playability of this WAD; My collegues Gerd Thys (thys@sch2.uia.ac.be), Carl Peten (peten@sch2.uia.ac.be) and Johan Van der Looy (vdlooy@sch2.uia.ac.be) for DeathMatches and beta-testing; Olivier Montanuy (montanuy@dmi.ens.fr) for his DeuTex utility. Sometimes things can be so imple if you have the right program; Billy D'Augustine (azog@world.std.com), Ken McDowell (kmcdowel@freenet.columbus.oh.us), Mauro 'from Bologna' (linguagg@sidasun1.cineca.it) and Brett (BrettH33014@aol.com): the few people that took the time to comment on my creation and which made this WAD a (hopefully) better WAD.
Base:	Update from my own EXCALIBR.WAD;
Build time:	Roughly 10 hours for the paper design; Six (6!) months for the DOS-port. I had a Windows-like hate-love relationship with DEU: More off that on the job.
Editor(s) used:	DEU 5.1 and DEUGCC 5.2.1, BSP 1.2X, REJECT 1.0 and DEUTEX 2.1
Bugs:	- It's more a feature than a bug: Because of the complexity of this WAD, don't play it with anything less than the Doom 1.4 engine. Unless of course you really like HOMs :) - Lack of speed on 'lower end' Doom machines on UV. Send enough comments/complaints and I might try again. For now I'm a little tired fooling around with Block Sound LineDefs and Deaf/Ambush Flags. - The one my beta-testers never told me about.
Rating:	(9 votes) Log in at the Doomworld forums to comment.

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Reviews:

Getsu Fune	seen this in the Army of Darkness TC. still a cool map.	x
Anonymous	A true classic. Despite the map being large, it's possible to beat the level quickly if you know where the blue key is. 4/5	x
Anonymous	A good castle WAD from the classic era. - N_A	x
Anonymous	I remember this - it's part of the "maximum doom" CD collection that I have knocking about somewhere. It's a castle level, excellent for the time, not quite so good now. As one of the other reviews points out, there are a lot of pokey little rooms. And there's a design decision/bug whereby the monsters don't react to you until you shoot 'em. It's nostalgic, though.	x
Anonymous	pros: wonderful gameplay Great monster placement looks pretty good good traps cons: out of place textures themes here and there] too many small rooms (youll see what i mean) overall really good. so what are you waiting for, download it!	x
Anonymous	This was one of the first good Doom wads I played in my life; innovative for the epoch it was made, very great map. You brought me a lot of inspiration for every work of mine, so you deserve ***** - Daniel	x

View xcalib11.txt

Title                   : Excalibur 1.1
Filename                : XCALIB11.WAD = EXCALIBR.WAD Version 1.1
Author                  : Stefan Maes
Email Address           : maes@uia.uia.ac.be
WWW Homepage            : http://www.uia.ac.be/u/maes/index.html
Snail Mail              : Verbiststraat 8
                          2920 Kalmthout
                          Belgium
Misc. Author Info       :

Ph.D. student at the University of Antwerp (Chemical Crystallography)
        and addicted to first persons games. I rate Doom/Doom ][ a close third
        after Ultima Underworld. System Shock is my absolute number 1.

Still some more info    :

When DEU 5.1 came out, my collegue Carl started constructing his own
        WAD. Gerd and I followed in his tracks. Somehow, I lost both along the
        road. Maybe they should have planned things a little more, just as I
        did. Although I didn't plan to spend so much time on this level...

I've always been fascinated by the Middle Ages, so building a castle
        WAD was the only thing for me. I tried to give each room a meaning and
        succeeded for the majority of them. There are still a few 'space
        fillers', but I'm sure you'll recognize the throne room, the main
        quarters, the torture room with prison, a bathing house, kitchen,
        stables and of course a conference room (NO not one with a round
        table in it :) ). A castle is supposed to have some secret passages,
        so there are a few; Not as many as I wanted though.

I intended to name this level something boring like CASTL_SM, but then
        the BBC played that great movie Excalibur again. A name change was the
        result...

Description             :

I confess! I'm not a *true* DOOMer. I like the game the most at the
        HMP (He Must Practice ?!) level. I want to have some time to take a
        closer look at the enviroment. Besides, I'm into X-rays, not UV :)
        Therefore I spend much time aligning textures and I hope I haven't
        missed a spot (If you find an error, please flame my beta-testers!).
        On the other hand, this could mean that I exaggerated UV a little...
                          
        Before you go out and hopefully play this WAD, I must tell you that
        there's a CyberDemon Surprise at the end (I know it's a cheap trick,
        flame me!), but you're given 3 options to bypass this CDS:
        a) Run like hell; b) Nuke him (a BFG might come in handy); and c) ... 
        Nah! It's a secret.

The evil S-word         :

Right. Let's not forget to mention the story of this WAD. Some warlord
        dared to revolt from your Doom King Romero. You and 3 more of his best
        Doom Masters were send to his castle to talk this matter over.
        Negotiations failed and you and your compagnons are about to be put
        away in some dark cell. This is when plan B took over. Waste the son
        of a B&%$* ! Question is: 'Where are your buddies?' and moreover 'Can
        you still trust them?' There's only one way to find out!

System requirements     :

To fully enjoy Ultra Violent Excalibur a just above average (?) Doom
        machine (486DX, 8Mb RAM, VLB) is required. You REALLY need 8Mb RAM!
        On my 486DX2/66 with 8Mb RAM and a ISA ET4000 video card I got about
        20 FPS indoors and around 14 FPS during heavy outdoors combat. For me
        it was just tolerable. Since the initial release of EXCALIBR.WAD my
        PC got a VLB boost. With my newly ET4000/W32i video card, I hardly
        drop below 23 FPS.

Status of the Ferraris  :

You asked for it, so here it is :) I have three (3!) one GTO, one
        512BB and one F40. All are red and on scale 1/24. (Just WHAT else did
        you expect from a 'poor' student ?!). In real life I settle for a
        red 1985 Ford Escort XR3i.

Additional Credits to   :

id Sofware for creating DOOM;
        Brendon Wyber and Raphaï¿½l Quinet for the Doom Editing Utilities;
        Per Allansson and Per Kofod for the GCC port of DEU;
        Colin Reed for his Binary Space Partitioner 1.2x - the only
        node-builder that could handle this WAD correctly;
        L. Witek (lee@trousers.demon.co.uk) for his Reject utility;
        Jin Kim (xjinkim@fullerton.edu) for discussion about the different
        nodebuilders out there, beta-testing and many hints to improve
        playability of this WAD;
        My collegues Gerd Thys (thys@sch2.uia.ac.be), Carl Peten
        (peten@sch2.uia.ac.be) and Johan Van der Looy (vdlooy@sch2.uia.ac.be)
        for DeathMatches and beta-testing;
        Olivier Montanuy (montanuy@dmi.ens.fr) for his DeuTex utility. 
        Sometimes things can be so imple if you have the right program;
        Billy D'Augustine (azog@world.std.com), Ken McDowell
        (kmcdowel@freenet.columbus.oh.us), Mauro 'from Bologna'
        (linguagg@sidasun1.cineca.it) and Brett (BrettH33014@aol.com): the 
        few people that took the time to comment on my creation and which
        made this WAD a (hopefully) better WAD.

==============================================================================

* Play Information *

Episode and Level #     : E2M1
Single Player           : Yes
Cooperative 2-4 Player  : Yes   
Deathmatch 2-4 Player   : Yes
Difficulty Settings     : Yes
New Sounds              : No    There are many good sound WADs out there.
New Graphics            : Yes   Although id did a pretty good job.
New Music               : No    Get SWMUSIC.WAD !
Demos Replaced          : Nope  There's absolutely no(DOOM)thing you can learn
                                from me!

* Construction *

Base                    : Update from my own EXCALIBR.WAD;
Construction time       : Roughly 10 hours for the paper design;
                          Six (6!) months for the DOS-port. I had a
                          Windows-like hate-love relationship with DEU:
                          More off that on the job.
Editor(s) used          : DEU 5.1 and DEUGCC 5.2.1, BSP 1.2X, REJECT 1.0 and
                          DEUTEX 2.1
Statistics              : You thought you've seen really BIG levels? Take a
                          look at a few stats: 2018 Vertices to construct
                          2716 LineDefs with all together 4038 SideDefs. I
                          needed those to build 643 sectors. Oh yeah, don't
                          forget about the 618 Things.

Changes in Version 1.1  : - Made it more obvious how to get the vital blue
                            skull key by creating an ICKWALL3 swith.
                          - Some cosmetic changes which should make the
                            secrets a little more obvious. Just a little...
                          - Added some more rocketlaunchers for Deathmatch.

Known (?) Bugs          : - It's more a feature than a bug: Because of the
                            complexity of this WAD, don't play it with
                            anything less than the Doom 1.4 engine. Unless of
                            course you really like HOMs :)
                          - Lack of speed on 'lower end' Doom machines on UV.
                            Send enough comments/complaints and I might try
                            again. For now I'm a little tired fooling around
                            with Block Sound LineDefs and Deaf/Ambush Flags.
                          - The one my beta-testers never told me about.

* Copyright / Permissions *

Authors MAY use this level as a base to build additional levels. Please let
me know where to find the results!

You MAY distribute this WAD, provided you include this file, with no 
modifications.  You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS,
Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact. I sure would like
to know about that CD-stuff!

Finally I would love to see a full castle episode, with or without this level.

* Where to get this WAD *

FTP sites:      ftp.cdrom.com, ftp.idsoftware.com and mirrors.

World Wide Web: My homepage at http://www.uia.ac.be/u/maes/index.html

Other:          Sams Publishing's book: Tricks of the DOOM Programming Gurus.

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