Cammy

If this is my legacy, I will have lived well

Eviternity II map14 has three really good ones, but the sliding puzzle in particular... it's a classic puzzle trope we see all the time in other games, but to actually get something like that working in Doom is a feat I can't even begin to wrap my head around.

With my somewhat-limited understanding of the engine, I'm gonna say multiple sectors are the most taxing of the listed ideas. If you have a lot of sectors, you probably have a lot of different levels of lighting and/or elevation, and if you have a lot of those, you probably have a lot of visplanes, and if you have too many visplanes, vanilla crashes. Vanilla is a little bit better at handling large open areas than you might expect (just look at the final areas of TNT map21 and 27); I understand it does have some issues with really, really wide open areas, but if we're talking vanilla and size issues, they more quickly arise from the overall area of the map being too large, not just any one area. I believe that has something to do with positions in Doom being stored as a 16-bit value, so if it's possible for any point to be more than 65,535 units away from any other point within the playable bounds of the map, it breaks. I think. Complex-shaped, multi-lined sectors quickly cause drawseg overflows, which makes vanilla Doom turn into an ugly smear of HOMs, but since the game doesn't crash outright it's definitely not as bad as a visplane overflow. You still don't want them, though. I'll admit I'm not sure how any of these would affect the game's performance, though, because Chocolate Doom for me has always run smoothly even while the game is HOM-ing apart at the seams, but that probably wouldn't hold true for the computers people were using to play Doom when it was new.

I care about unrealistic guns. I want all of my guns to be unrealistic. All of them. NEVER be realistic. If it looks cool and I remember it, you have succeeded, no matter how wacky or weird it is. The only internal mechanism I understand to be an essential part of firearm design is Pull Trigger = Bullet Go Out and I have absolutely no interest in further educating myself. Melee weapons should also be unrealistic - swords should be detailed, axes should be so huge that no real person could possibly wield them. Hybridize weapons at any cost. Revolver nunchucks? I'll marry you. This is not a joke.

First of all, thank you for your outstanding work. You and the team have made so many amazing wads possible that just wouldn't have existed without you - at least not in the way they do. Cheers to you! As for requests - being able to change certain wad-wide parameters based on UMAPINFO would be awesome. I've seen a lot of people request being able to change PLAYPAL and COLORMAP lumps per UMAPINFO, but I personally think it would be just as cool to be able to have multiple sets of themed sound replacements that could be changed in this way. For instance, in a techbase, the door sound effect could be the Doom standard space sound - but what if in the next map, set in a castle, the sound would instead be replaced with groaning chains and creaking wood, like in GothicDM? Apply that to all different kinds of map geometry and you could add a lot of spice to mapsets with multiple aesthetic themes. I don't think something like this would be possible in MBF21 as it currently exists, but I could be wrong.

Ha, I wouldn't have the energy for it even if I tried! RoC25's soundtrack took a hell of a long time, and a hell of a lot out of me. Like the wad itself, this would need to be a community endeavor. If enough Nova 4-ers are interested in an original soundtrack being made, then of course my choice would be to involve as many beginner musicians as possible. With the surging number of new people on the scene lately (this wad being made by them) and obake's explicit forbidding of copyrighted music, the weather seems right to shoot for a full original soundtrack to get some new names on the scene. Plus, all three of the previous NOVAs had a small handful of new music each, usually made by mappers already participating in the project, so why not go the distance this time?

Last post for now - whipped up a title screen midi before bed, use it if you like it :)

Actually, double-posting real quick to mention that the idea of having two separate "versions" of a single wad is not without precedent. See 100 Lines with its split based on gameplay styles, and MAYhem 2018 with its split based on aesthetic theme and dehacked inclusions. The latter of the two strikes me as more palatable in this case. Edit: More palatable with regards to an aesthetic split, I mean. Would be cool for the different wads, if they were to exist, to have different PLAYPALs and episode themes. I, for one, have no issues with leaving dehacked behind. :)

Fuck it. NOVA 4 full soundtrack? (And with hopefully a lot more people than just us as composers if we end up getting Light / Dark versions of the wad?)

If you're really, really transformative with them, maybe! Avara's engine and gameplay are both wildly different from Doom's, and I'm no Iikka Keranen, so it would be less of an engine-twistingly faithful recreation of another game's experience, and more of a "hey look at these familiar shapes" type of deal. As you can imagine, this tangentiality was another reason the idea didn't make it.

Sick, thank you so much! :D Hell, if @Steve D is able to find it, I'd do it. Might as well, right? I actually planned to give this megawad a map33 on two separate occasions! The first one was going to be just a plain ol' new map from me, snuck in under everyone's noses. I got about as far as drawing a big building shaped like an inverted cross - with the plan that you would make your way through the short end of the cross in the beginning of the map and then be funneled back through the newly-opened long part of the cross in the latter half. I then realized I had no idea how to make a map at the time, and it was promptly scrapped. The second one - which I was hotly contemplating not even a week before RC1's release - was going to be a Go 4 It-style mishmash of all the maps Jason Fowler created for the game Avara, recreated in the Doom engine and twisted together. That one didn't materialize either, mostly because I just wanted to be done with the megawad by that point and making such a complex map would have pushed release back quite a bit.

@Devalaous Thank you so much for this! I'll be sure to include it in the final release. I owe you. :) On that note, now that the DWMC thread on this megawad is complete, I have a lot of new reports to work with, and a lot of ideas to put to paper. I'm not sure exactly when RC2 will be out, but the fixes and adjustments will be fairly substantial. Thank you all so much, and happy new year!

I believe @Lippeth and/or @Doomkid know of a good one - for MSGS, at least!

It was an honor to compose for NERF. Thank you for having me, Peter - you and the team did some ludicrously impressive work! :D

Sorry to everyone for my inactivity. 'Twas the season. Thank you all so, so much for playing (and hopefully enjoying) Realm of Chaos: 25th Anv. Edition. I put a lot of work into it and it paid off if you guys had a good time running through or writing about these maps. But of course, if it wasn't for the work of Steve Duff, Rob Berkowitz, Antoni Chan, Slava Pestov, Jason Fowler, Jim Bagrow, or Clint Sago, none of this would have existed in the first place! I'm glad some of you guys went the extra mile and checked out the original wad, alongside which I'm proud for this rework to exist. I know this project has some rougher patches - some of witch are from the original wad, and many of which are my own doing - but I'm excited to keep mapping for Doom. I don't want to say anything definitive yet, but I have a concept for a solo megawad that I'm really fond of. This thread has been an incredible source of inspiration and advice for future changes. Of course, now that the festivities are over, I won't be flooding this thread with every single update I make, but I at least plan to post in here when I've gotten RC2 up and running, and when I've uploaded the soundtrack to my YouTube channel. :) Ha, yeah that sound actually is a telephone, but it's supposed to be played at a really, really low pitch. Microsoft GS Wavetable (which all my MIDIs are composed with and balanced around) renders a sufficiently low-pitched phone-ring sound as a creepy rolling sequence of bell chimes. That's the MIDI device my computer (and most others) are packaged with by default, and it sounds like that no matter what option I select in DSDA. I'm guessing your computer uses a different MIDI device. The phone instrument is used for the same purpose in BTSX E2's ending map, so if you play it, you'll also be sent to the phonerealm. Last little tidbit for now - Steve will be happy to know that jumping from the ship's control room to get to the invuln secret in map19 is indeed the intended way to reach it. I'm not about the AVJ life. :) Happy new year, everybody - and again, thanks for playing! Have fun with Eviternity 2!

The thread is about Doom confessions, not Doom rites of passage

Sorry for the slow reply on my end! I admit I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed, lots of stuff going on this week. @Rykz It's great to see you back! I was worried you had no intentions of returning, which would be a shame after your awesome map. Again, I'm really sorry to you and all the other E1 mappers for this incident. You're more than free to make (or undo) whatever changes you'd like. Thank you for offering your own fixes to the map - same to you, @Blue Phoenix! We'll implement them ASAP. I also plan to make a more detailed version of the changelog, because I realize stuff like "aligned some textures" only works for some people, and have had a few mappers request in private that I make more clear exactly what Mark and I changed, which I'm happy to oblige.

"Sorry, Cammy, I appreciate your work on this project, but some things are just impossible to salvage." - Celestin "Curious map. I had fun playing it." - Azure_Horror "Yeah this gimmick pretty much results in a pretty awful experience and without basically removing the map entirely and starting again, there isn't many ways of salvaging this." - cannonball "What starts off as a super gimmicky, slow map slowly becomes my favorite endeavor from Berkowitz. Why? It had great gameplay." - dobu gabu maru "I'm conflicted between the weird design decisions, the unnecessary red and blue key that just punishes the player if they don't have any form of proper equipment, but I won't tell i didn't kind of enjoyed the map." - Cutman999 "Map26: Aside from the fact that I don't like the map at all, no issues found." - Michael Jensen "This one is ideally matched to my skillset and, on pistol start, delivers tense, exciting gameplay every time. Great ammo/health balance." - Steve Duff "Fuck my uncle, this one was utter shit." - BaronOfStuff "So overall I'd say this is something that's worth replaying, and to me that's what matters in a megawad, replayability. The best map overall would be MAP26, followed by MAP23." - NuMetalManiak "I've got to differ with some of the positive appraisals this one received...I'm afraid I found it to be rather dire. Apart from being extremely dull to look at and explore, gameplay doesn't pan out very well (or very much), either." - Demon of the Well "Well, I actually gave out some half-assed scores this time. So, divvying it up by author: Rob Berkowitz - Best Map: MAP26 Above and Below" - Magnusblitz Above and Below is the most divisive map I've ever seen in Doom and it's not even close. There isn't even an IWAD map that matches it. Sure, I could have reworked it, made it more palatable to the general audience and ditch the current gimmick, but then where would all this great discussion be? More than any other level in the megawad, Above and Below is boldly, defiantly itself. I love it so, so much for that. :D

You'll be the first to know! I don't recall having encountered or been told of any bugs in your map, but again, if I find anything that needs fixing, I'll contact you about it.

Getting ahead of any future discourse, I had a chat with Pecca in private and we're on amicable terms, so there's no need to stick up for me. I apologize to the E1 mappers for having put out versions of your levels that you didn't necessarily approve of expressly - the wad hasn't been submitted to idgames, so I feel the need to stress that you are all very much encouraged to request alterations or reversions to anything Mark or I have done with your levels! We'll make it so. With this in mind, I intend to contact the E2 and E3 mappers ahead of those wads' releases, and let them test out their maps first. (The ones who are still active on Doomworld, anyway, which is a lot less of them than you'd think.)

Ah, apologies - my understanding was that permission had already been given by all mappers to Doomkid in order to make necessary changes to get stuff prepared for release, and that Doomkid's passing of the torch to Mark and I was sufficient cause for us to make changes. The flat change wasn't intended as a knock against you, but against the flat itself - but I'm really sorry for having worded that so poorly.

Happy to announce that, with Doomkid's permission, @Mark Bloom and I have picked these megawads up and are fixing them up for a final release! We have Episode 1 in a release candidate state, which you can download in this new thread. Episodes 2 and 3 will follow closely after it! Thank you to everyone who's been waiting for these wads, to all the mappers who worked so passionately on them, and to @Doomkid for making this all possible in the first place. Merry Christmas!

Open below for the changelog! It's also included in the download above, if you want to read it in plain text.

It lives! JAMAL JONES is an action-packin', body-stackin', demon-smackin' pack of three 22-map megawads, developed by a grand roster of Doom-loving contestants in honor of the 20 years we've spent with our resident deathmatch aficionado, blue sky lover, community project factory, and Zappa disciple, @Doomkid! After the contest wrapped up and everyone went home, the megawads spent a long while languishing in a semi-finished state. Some people wondered if Jamal would ever see an updated, closer-to-final release - if he would ever take that crucial next step on the path to the idgames promised land. But that was then. And this is now! With express permission from the 'Kid, I've teamed up with a fellow JJ trilogy alum - the testing powerhouse and mapping up-and-comer @Mark Bloom - to clean these megawads up and get them released for real! After just a couple short and wild months, the first episode of the trilogy is just about complete. Mark and I have gathered up all the bug reports we could find, and we went through the episode three whole times with a fine-toothed comb, catching and curing any snags we found along the way. We would have liked to have the whole trilogy ready to post all at once, but it's Christmas, and you guys deserve a gift for your patience. So for now, enjoy Episode 1: In Judgment of Evil, with a mile-long list of adjustments and fixes that make the wad 100% vanilla compatible or your money back! DOWNLOAD PRE-FINAL RELEASE 1 of EPISODE 1: IN JUDGMENT OF EVIL Featuring the following maps: e1m1 - To The Site - by @Rykz e1m2 - Running Down - by @Vladguy e1m3 - Dark Secrets - by @Earnesttrout e1m4 - Initialisation - by @Astronomical e1m5 - Shopping Spree - by @Majipantsu e1m6 - Pollution Plant - by @Glikkzy e1m7 - Packin' Heat - by @evil_scientist e1m8 - Wheel of Misfortune - by @Origamyde e1m9 - Smells Like Cordite - by @Sneezy McGlassFace e1m10 - Base of Consequences - by @Doomkid e1m11 - The Escapist - by @valkiriforce e1m12 - Toxic Factory - by @big smoke e1m13 - Damned Dam - by @Jacek Nowak (jacnowak) e1m14 - Derelict Row - by @Origamyde e1m15 - Sinister Sludge - by @Weird Sandwich e1m16 - Corporate Secret - by @Sectorslayer e1m17 - Sewage City - by @Blue Phoenix e1m18 - Vile Streets - @Anonymous Space Marine e1m19 - Inner City Evil - @Peccatum Mihzamiz e1m20 - Warhevil - @Michael Jensen e1m31 - Forlorn Fantasy - @Goat-Avenger e1m32 - UAC Muffin Research Kitchen - @Big Ol Billy As for episodes 2 and 3, don't fret - they're well on their way! They have already undergone one thorough pass of testing each, and episode 2 is over 75% of the way through its second pass. When they're done, this thread will be updated with downloads for them! If you encounter any issues while playing this wad, please post about them in the thread so we can get them fixed up. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and happy hunting! "It's about damn time!"

Merry Christmas! Enjoy your flesh castle map. Thanks to Steve and @Azure_Horror for the in-depth commentary on the past couple maps. I'm VERY interested to see what people will think of map26. ;) I anticipate nothing will stand a chance against Eviternity 2 (perhaps rightfully), but I'm going to try to make things interesting either way: +++Ultimate Doom in Name Only +++Sepia +++Boomer: Beyond Vanilla / Tetanus / Altar of Madness