Dragonfly

Fuck that the blockyness looks great

Play on the latest version - This was already fixed.

Thank you for elaborating! Not my intent to change everything at the first mention of someone not liking it, of course, but it's worth asking in case it highlights obvious improvements. :) Sorry about that! I re-read the message and I see the tone of voice I would have spoken with is really not present in the written words - a lot of nuance in conversational tone is lost when there's no voice attached to it; I guess I should use emoji more. 😅

I'm not the first to fuck about with silent teleporter shenanigans, I won't be the last either - go for it, heh. When it's done™ - No sooner, no later. When things like this are found I ask myself: "Does this break the map? Is this the way *everyone* will play? Is that really a problem?". If I answer no to all three, as I am here, it gets the patented Leave It In treatment. Same goes for speedrunner skips and other such discoveries - I don't see a benefit in taking away player agency - if you think cheesing it is boring, then why are you doing that? :) This means nothing to me without further elaboration. Weird how, exactly? I'm open to making changes but need more defined feedback to even begin to interpret what changes, if any, should be made.

It'd take 2 minutes to recolour them via slade.

I wish I could scrub that username out of existence... but eh, I was just a stupid 12-year-old kid at the time and couldn't think of anything better. 😂

I guess it's about time I chimed in with some commentary from the developer side of the coin! First off, thank you very much for choosing Eviternity II to be this month's DWMC discussion, I didn't expect that to happen so soon after release! So, lets start with the map that started it all... --- MAP01: Elysium. @Tristan initially made this map for a now-abandoned solo project (of which I'm still curious about, actually. I should probe for more information heh); but it was obvious once we made the call to start working on Eviternity II that this is an overwhelmingly logical choice of map to start the project. After all, continuous map-to-map transitions are one of the things Eviternity became known for, so it only made sense this would happen wad-to-wad as well! I don't recall too much from this era of the WADs development, in part because I have the memory of a goldfish, and also because progress was slow and sporadic in nature. What I do recall though is there was a lot of back and forth on what the first map should play like - I can say with certainty I'm glad we ultimately went with Tristan's vision for MAP01. Sure, some people dismissively call it a "cutscene" map, but the overwhelming atmosphere and tension it provides plus being a wonderful storyteller to continue from the first WAD are more than worth the few minutes delay players will feel before sinking their teeth into some pointy-shooty action. I recall this map being the map which changed our opinion regarding music - we had originally decided that we'd do an entirely all-new soundtrack, but Tristan's "The Infinite Labyrinth" (LISTEN HERE) was included very early in development (It essentially became the new D_RUNNIN for me for the last 4 years, so I heard it a LOT haha) and after some time I seem to recall us becoming attached to that music in conjunction with the map, so the choice to include past compositions was eventually accepted. I just want to take this opportunity while talking about MAP01 to publically thank Tristan - without them, Eviternity II would have never happened. Seriously! From MAP01 being the springboard to turn Eviternity II into a real concept, to their overwhelmingly consistent support throughout the project in terms of mapping, composing, asset management, project organisation and generally being a wonderful person to hang out with, I can effortlessly say Tristan was a real cornerstone of this project helping to motivate not only myself but the team in its entirety. So again, thank you very much Tristan! --- MAP02: Vestige. @Bauul has already done a write-up of this map and I don't have too much to add to the discussion. I do want to say that I felt some level of irony that the same person who made MAP33, a map which hits the sidedef limit with it's overwhelming amount of detail for what is essentially a 3min 30sec autoscroller was originally fighting to keep this map in a state that wasn't all too far detatched from a monotextured proof of concept / layout test, haha. :P I didn't entirely disagree with Bauul's reasoning though, and we discussed it a few times eventually settling on me joining in and doing a detail pass. I feel I didn't go too overboard with details, focusing on adding appropriate levels of texture variety, some much needed lighting variation and unique one-off architecture pieces throughout the map to bring it's aesthetics more in line with the maps that follow later in the episode. I must say this one's a blast to speedrun; I would frequently play through this map when it was in it's most barebones state, dashing through as fast as I can while praying I don't suffer too much chip damage from the zombies as I'd zoom past them! This love for speedrunning MAP02 was only reinforced further when Tristan's "End of the Line" (LISTEN HERE) was composed, what a banger! Additional heaps of thanks go out to Bauul! Not only was their mapping output absolutely fantastic, but their input on various important discussions throughout the WADs development helped refine Eviternity II into a very polished product. Also, let's not forget all of the awesome DECORATE / DeHackEd work Bauul did alongside Antares! I could get used to working in these conditions. ;) --- MAP03: Sonder. Releasing this map made me feel a little bit vulnerable; and this was primarily because it's the first time the player will hear one of my MIDI compositions for an extended period of time. While I'm very confident in my mapping capabilities, the same cannot be said about my music skills. I knew that riding on the success of its predecessor, Eviternity II will likely gain a relatively large audience for a Doom WAD which subsequently means my MIDI, titled "The Spider's Waltz" (LISTEN HERE), will likely have a large audience too. I've shown later in MAP04's music that I'm happy to experiment and make unusual music (and therefore expect criticisms), but unlike that track, this MIDI is in my personal opinion one of my best pieces to date. So while I normally take unfavourable commentary or harsh feedback on the chin and utilise it as a way to learn / improve, I don't think I was fully prepared to hear people bash on The Spider's Waltz. Luckily that hasn't happened, and a few people have stated how they really enjoyed this piece, so that's a relief! 😅 I feel it's worth noting that this is my first map in the WAD that's entirely my own work; the concept of me appearing as late as MAP03 in a WAD that's considered "a Dragonfly Project" took some getting used to; but with time, that decision also felt just right, reinforcing that despite Eviternity II still having the "Dragonfly Project" label is in fact a product of many people's hard work and talents synergising together into a single concentrated package. So, how was this map made? It all started with the development of those flesh-pod things. I'm not sure we ever gave them an official name so I'm going to call them something different every time I talk about them here, heh. Within the dev team they were often referred to as "testicles" - do with that information what you will. :) I made the sprites, Antares did the code, and eventually ukiro looked at the sprites and said "I can make them better", and so he did. Early on, these tumour-like growths had a considerable amount of health, something that I believe was changed based on fears that the player shooting it might not register that it takes damage and subsequently just leaving. With those juicy meatballs ripe and ready to use, I started this map in a way I don't normally work - I developed all three lock-ins first, having them floating off in their own separate areas, entirely detatched from one another. From here I then developed the final fight in the center, which then gave me my main points of interest allowing me to build the connective tissue until I had a full map surrounding these four encounters. You can see the first iteration of the initial three lock in fights in the video below. Also worth highlighting is the original health pool of the bloody cysts being much higher than they are now, and also the end of the video showing the atroctious temporary logo I made, heh. Here's some more images I dug up from the dev discord channels: --- I'll confess this essay-type content, plus digging through discord chat history to fact-check and snoop for screenshots took me a long time, so I'll probably continue to linger behind the club; but expect more insider commentary soon. :D

OK, this time it actually is my final OST upload - @AD_79's "A Dreamless Eternity", uploaded with their permission of course.

We had to amend Eviternity II MAP06 to use much less flickering. Despite it being a big part of the ma's "mood", locking some players out from fears of having a seisure just isn't right. I've learned from this that generally speaking, if you're gonna use flickering lights it's best to try to have it flicker/pulse a slower speed, lower intensity, or in a smaller space.

I believe this is the last of the OST releases to come from my side. EDIT: I am going to arrange the upload of MAP29. After that, @Tristan's set to release the rest! Speaking of which, MAP32's MIDI, Velocity, is premiering in just under 28 hours from the time of writing.

1: please update to RC5 before continuing. 2: please try HNTR because that map is far from "impossible".

Eviternity's Lore is always left up to the player's interpretation - thanks for sharing yours! :) Regarding that enemy type mentioned - you'll have some more isolated moments with them where you can better learn their attack pattern. Good catch! If you could send your copy I could make them adhere to the palette for you. 👍 I think it was, yeah. :P

Since MS GS Wavetable Synth is the most common way people will hear a MIDI composition, that's what I personally compose for; while I can't speak for the other musicians, I'd be surprised if anyone composed with other soundfonts or MIDI devices in mind without also making that as clear as possible for the listener.

Awesome! Thank you. 😁

Where? I failed to find that option last time I checked 😅

I play the WAD as intended. If I happen to be checking out a gameplay mod I'd likely spin it up in an older, more familiar WAD so I'm more aware of the differences it brings to the table. A good bunch of the WADs I tend to play (and also make, heh) have some tweaks and changes built in. Even if they don't, though, the maps are often tightly balanced around the "out of the box" gameplay it has. I've noticed when playing with gameplay mods that it almost always ruins the balancing, and usually to an extreme extent. It's not uncommon that a gameplay mod makes it so the maps become a walk in the park and are far too easy or, conversely, become comically unplayable piles of garbage.

Sounds like you might be getting hit with the "Slow Key Framing" message which tends to happen if you're not consistently getting a high frame rate? I think? Speaking of which, does anyone know if the tolerance for that be changed?

Not possible when playing with infinite heights, which is the intended way to play (albeit not enforced because I cannot be bothered to deal with the plethora of complaints that would come with that. 😂) Thanks for all of your reports. A few of those have already been dealt with since RC2, but a couple are new/interesting. Please don't put people off of reporting bugs; we might miss things time to time so a secondary reminder of an issue not only serves to remind us, it also lets us know that "hey, more than one person found this issue, consider it more important."

Sure! See below:

Oops, forgot to post this one on the thread! Another OST piece:

Have another OST video!

Due to the above, it is absolutely not a viable option. 😅

No. =============== Anyways, here's two new OST releases from my end today, and when they're put side by side like this it's almost comical how different they are, heh.

RC5 has been uploaded! Sorry for once again letting some relatively serious issues creep in via RC3 that went unchecked in RC4. We, the team, UV-MAXed the entire WAD as a collective today, with any luck that's the end of any serious issues. Either way, this is where Eviternity II will likely rest until we have the coop patch prepared. In the meantime, have yourselves a wonderful xmas break! Download now! --- EVITERNITY II RC5 CHANGELOG:

I've seen this reported a few times - This is a GZDoom bug that is as old as time itself, nothing we, the mappers, can do about it. Thanks for all the feedback by the way. I'm almost concerned for your time and wellbeing with how much time you must have taken to look at every little corner of every map, then double down by reporting the issues by linedef/sidedef/sector index. Very precise, almost too precise! As far as I can tell, port issue. I'd suggest you report a bug with Woof Devs. :) I'll have a look, thanks for the reminder about this. :D You're welcome! Merry Christmas :) ----- RC5 planned for later today, as said before, get your bug reports in asap if you have any you're aware of! Thanks :D