ByRntStarOEI

Well I finally had some time to play through these maps again, and figured I'll give my thoughts on each. - I believe all the maps played rather well considering how they where just pieced together from different sources. All mappers on a each map set seemed to be on point as I never came across any sections that felt out of place. Interactivity between each section was rather low, but I reckon that's expected and allows for more non linearity, which is a plus. - For all the maps, I liked the first include songs the best. - I realize texture misalignments can be rather subjective (especially when it comes to rocky surfaces) so I didn't really go looking for them, but noted the ones I came across that stood out. Here are some breakdowns of each map with pictures to make it easier to explain: MAP01 MAP02 MAP03 MAP04

I was using dsda doom. I couldn't replicate the yellow key area problem again, though, so it was more than likely a dumb mistake on my part. Perhaps I never hit the switch or didn't pick up the key since I was rushing through it the first time, so I won't worry about it much if I were you.

Nice map! I really liked the visuals and the combat was good for the most part. Was a bit easy at first (UV btw) since I got the bfg secret, but I ended up playing through it again without out it and it was a bit more challenging the second go around. My only complaint would be that the damaging blood floors in the red key area felt a bit overkill for how that fight plays out. But otherwise, great map! Actually, the main reason I restarted was because I got trapped in the garden maze area. For some reason the barricades in front of the cyber didn't go down after hitting the switches on the first playthrough. Not sure why, since it worked fine on the second attempt. Could have been from something on my end I reckon. Oh, and I found another spot that the player can get trapped (Not sure if this is the same as stated above). It's in the blue key area and I took a screenshot to make it easier for me to explain: The middle archway/window wall lowers too far down, making it possible for the player to get trapped by falling in.

Oof, missed this somehow, but I have been rather busy lately so that'll be my excuse. I also didn't realize the name I provided was for the map as a whole. Otherwise, I would have tried coming up with something less bland... That said, I agree with Timilyo80 about the aesthetics and that the Iron Price seems the most fitting out of the names. Same goes for the music. I like the first one the best, as well. As far as the difficulty, it's a bit rough in the beginning, but settles down once that hurdle is figured out. I actually found myself swimming in ammo, health, and armor once settled, but it was put to good use, however. I did include some difficulty settings in my piece, but it probably still needs some adjustments, especially for the initial wave when the main doors open. I'll give some more input on the map (and the others) once I get some more playtime in though. I wasn't a fan of all the cacos at first either, but after awhile it did start to become rather fun trying to figure out the approach for clearing them out. (Seems the best approach is rushing into the northern room, grab as many rockets as possible, blast your way back out and into the east room, and use the l shape hall section to take whatever comes in, out. There's even rushing into the north west room so the cybers can do all the dirty work, but this route is a bit harder to pull off.) The biggest hurdles are the big waves of enemies rushing in from all sides and the low ammo of ammo to handle it all in the initial area. I believe the caco invasion could still work though with a little tuning. Perhaps rather than all of them being released at once they could rather come in timed waves or slowly fed into the area? Would make it to where the player would always have to watch there back until it ends or is dealt with. It's funny you state that the west room was the most diabolical. I was worried it was going to be too easy, so I may have went a bit overboard with the enemy placement (Actually come to think of it, I initially had 5 pain elements spawn in but decided that was a bit much lol). My intent there was for UV challenge and since the player starts with pretty much a full arsenal. As for the beginning part, I actually don't remember having chaingunners stationed in the room until the key is grabbed, but I did implement some basic difficulty settings for the section, so it could have been something I did only for UV. For me, the southern room was the biggest headache in the beginning. Rush in to far and you have to deal with barons, archvilles, chaingunners, revenants, and two bolted side doors while a wave of other nasties start trickling in the main entrance. Nice! I really liked this tune when playing through the map. Fits the mansion theme quite well.

Another option, if you're strictly working with only Doom2 textures, would be the COMPBLUE texture. It's the closest you are going to get to water for a linedef texture. Doesn't look half bad either, if you apply wall scrolling (In boom) to it. Just takes a bit to setup depending on how crazy you get with waterfalls.

Seems rather fitting, I would say. You started off the project with the first piece and now finished it off with the last.

This suggestion basically comes from a response to a post I had with some questions about UMAPINFO. The general idea from a reply: "The ability to skip intertext and go straight to endcast/endpic after an endgame exit" That also got me thinking of another idea that may be a useful option for some: Death Exit- the player is sent to this map upon death (can be different for each map if desired) Could also even have a death intertext, as well. Of course this one may not be possible due to Doom's inner workings.

I figured that would be the case. It's actually not to big of a deal, I just wanted to see what different options I had, in case I would go the super mod compatible route with my wad (Actually it originally was, until I started playing around with dehacked to do a simple keen change, but then ended up getting carried away messing around with some other actors) Could go the zscript route too, but I was avoiding tinkering around with it for the time being because I know what will happen if I start messing around with it and prefer to keep thing simple at the moment. But this is always something I can look into down the road. Now when it comes to textures,sprites,etc. does wad load order determine which is actually loaded? Say you're replacing the original keen with a new graphic in your wad, but then also another mod/wad is loaded that replaces the graphic with a new one. Is the outcome determined by which is loaded first/last or can the use of zscript also come into play? Thanks everyone for the info\help. Much appreciated.

Yeah, turns out that was the problem. I just downloaded what I figured was the main version of the github. Looks like it's working now, with it following what dsdadoom does. Thanks for the link to the latest dev build, though. Understandable, figured it had to do with a limitation of the old code. These aren't really a problem for me, it's just something I noticed when testing my wad out in different ports and wanted to make sure it wasn't something I was doing wrong on my end. I was using the two exits to display different intertext messages depending on the exit at first, which is how I first encountered the problem, but ended up doing something different anyway. That makes sense with the secret exits now that I think about it, though, and can easily be worked around if needed. Thanks for the help.

While I was planning on asking this in my other doom editing topic, I figured it may be better to ask this separately since it's focus is in another area. My question is about mods and how they interact with dehacked patches. So basically playing original or boom compatible maps with dehacked in gzdoom with mods. -Do mods completely overwrite dehacked patches no matter what or does it depend on load order? -Is there a way to prevent custom content from being overwritten by a mod? (For example, using voxel doom works fine with dehacked, but overwrites any custom sprites added to the wad as a replacement. Like a Keen graphic being replaced with a target graphic, but it gets reverted to the voxel Keen as an example) -Is it possible to prevent dehacked patches from being overwritten by mods? (For example, changing the health on a enemy or the function of a thing in your wad by dehacked patches gets change to whatever function the mod has for these. Like running brutal doom reverts the increased health on a dehacked icon of sin back to the normal health as an example.) That's all I have for now. Let me know if any of my questions are not clear or don't make any sense. Thanks for any help into this matter.

Hello, I've been using UMAPINFO in a couple of my recent wads and I'm noticing some inconsistencies between ports and functions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that UMAPINFO was the universal standard that worked between multiple source ports? From some test I have ran, some functions don't work or perform differently on a different source port. Of course this could just be me not doing something correct... The wad that I've included has 5 maps with 1 normal exit and 1 secret exit on each. Pressing the normal exit takes you to the next level, while pressing the secret exit takes you to the last map (5). After map05 the game is suppose to end. Map03 and 04 have no intermission, which doesn't seem to work except on gzdoom. Here's what I ran into during my test: DsdaDoom, PRboom+, Woof - Reaching the end normally ends game/shows cast, but has intertext screen pop up that states "The End" (Using no intertext option doesn't work" - Using the secret exit takes one to the correct map, but doesn't end the game if used as a end game exit. It just continues on to the next level (6) GzDoom - Reaching the end normally ends game straight to the menu screen, no intertext/intermission/endcast is shown even is the option to is in the umapinfo - Using the secret exit takes one to the correct map, but doesn't end the game if used as a end game exit. It just continues on to the next level (6) In Eternity: - Reaching the end normally does not end game or go to endcast, just continues on to next level (6) - Using secret exit just takes one back to the current map that was just exited So what exactly is going on here? Improper usage? Bug? Working as intended? Any help is appreciated. Thanks UMAPITEST.zip

Well, when it comes to source ports or comp levels, I haven't had much experience with them until recently (for years used gzdoom only), so I'm in the same boat as you are in that regards. The reason I used dsda over prboom is, from what I read at the time, dsda is just an updated version of prboom? Someone else will have a better answer than I when it comes to the specifics. But with the errors you have given me, I believe I know what the problem is and it has something to do with the node builder I switched to recently. Basically I did some testing with different node builders to try and get rid of some graphical glitches appearing in my wad and picked the one that gave the best results. Plus it reduced the file size of the wad. However, it appears this node builder is only compatible with certain source ports unfortunately, so it looks like I'm going to have to do some more thorough research, into the different node builders I could potentially use, as well as, test out more sourceports when I test maps. At least all this is based on what I gathered since I started this venture. I am by no means an expert when it comes to any of the sourceport and nodebuilder stuff, so I could be mistaken though. I'll do some more experimenting/looking into this later today, when I'm back home.

Made a small update to my wad that fixes a couple of minor bugs/issues/balance. It's now available for download. Let me know If anymore are found. Thanks!

Hey Napeyear, thanks for the feedback and support. Good find on the teleporter error. Not sure what happened there as I didn't catch it when I was running test. Actually this made me realize I never link the teleports back to their proper pads, rather than just to the central area, so I fixed that too. Also thanks for pointing out the misalignments. Ended up finding quite a few in there as a matter of fact. As for the eyes, they do have a little spark in the dark if one looks close, but I may have gotten a bit carried away the locations of a few, so I made some adjustments. The reason MAP02 was not used was because at one point it was used as a transition to one of the endings, but I ended up not needing it so I scrapped it (This was mostly due to my confusion and figuring out which of the mapinfo/umapinfo/zmapinfo to use). Since the other maps were already in place when I scrapped it, I never bothered to move them. I reckon it also keeps the endings somewhat hidden, since if the main map is curiously skipped, it goes to a basic doom map instead. Great to hear you enjoyed the IoS fight, I was a bit worried about that one. Like you pointed out, my concern was getting the player to realize the ghost is not the main goal of the fight, which kinda hard to do with doom's limited assets, so I'm glad you figured it out. Heck I found myself still shooting at it from time to time during testing when I knew better. Hard to break the "shoot everything that moves" doom habit lol. But like you said, it's a secret fight and I actually never intended for the player to find it in their first play through of the map. I guess I didn't do a very good job of hiding it haha. Once again, thanks for the help and giving my map another play through! Hey Apichatpong, I thanks for your input and kind words. I glad to here it's one of your favorites of the year, as it makes it worthwhile for the time and effort I put into it. I do agree, however, that I do have a tendency to get carried away with things, so I'm sure feature creep is starting to set in with this wad. Hence, there shouldn't be anymore major added features/changes from this point forward. Just bug and balance fixes. I feel it's time for me to move on from it and perhaps start something new. But yeah, this all started as a testing/learning map with DB and I can definitely say it help with that. Now to answers some of you questions: - Yeah, I does make the map have more of a use now. Actually I put the eyes as part of the monster count too, to help with the keeping track somewhat. - Freelook is not necessarily. That being said, the eye east of the entrance was very finicky with auto aim, so I made some adjustments in the update to make it easier to hit (Flooding the area is the key to this one). I made some slight adjustments to a few others too, but otherwise be on the lookout for a small "sparkle" to find them. - The red key secret is still there, but has a little change (It was a bit to easy for such a big reward which made the red skull kinda redundant). My hint: - I'm a bit worried that you stated this wad is not working for you in boom related ports? What problems are you experiencing? I actually do all of my testing in dsdadoom at comp level 9 and I never ran into any issues with boom, but I reckon that doesn't mean other may not have. I've only used dehacked related changes, so it should be fine with boom. Nothing zdoom related as far as I know, but I'm still learning the ropes so there could be mistakes. - The music changing throughout was because... well it's a feature I found out about and decided to implement in my map, lol. Actually I only really change it for the major boss battles, as I felt the main tune sounded somewhat out of place in these, but also it sort of sets a mood of impending doom the further you get along. It also helps with the problem of the main music getting rather repetitive after awhile. As for the not so smooth change when they are switch is due to limitations with the feature itself. Now if there are some better song than what I have currently have, I'm open to recommendations. - I figure the IoS fight would not be everyone's cup of tea. I tried my best to give the player hints of how to go about the battle, but in the end I was limited to what the basic doom engine is capable of, so it is pretty much a trail and error fight. It can also be a bit RNG depending on what kind of spawns you get. My tips for the fight are: - I change the part of the bridge to collapse if the player walks over it (This was originally my intention, but I could figure out how to teleport explosions at the time). Going around the bridge causes the same to happen as well once you reach a certain point. The explosion heard is just intended to be a sfx (collapsing under your weight into the water or a bomb perhaps..) and indicator to the player, but otherwise serves no important purpose. The effect of this changes somewhat depending on which sourceport is used (much louder is dsda compared to gzdoom) so it's kinda hard to setup accordingly, but I'll have another look at it. - As for the endings, I tried to make them somewhat ambiguous so that it's up to the player to make their own conclusion or story. I took a comment from previous replies about how the map does the story telling and decided to do that rather than just slap a wall of text in the intermission screen for the player to read (which is how I first had the endings and made each rather uninspired) Once again, I appreciate your feedback and support of testing out my map.

Really liked the look from the screenshots, so I gave your wad a go. Impressive work, especially liked the portals that lets on "look" into. Loved the eerie sci-fi atmosphere. I've only managed to play one map for the the time being due to time restraints, which turned out to be map03 (I was drawn to the damaged tech hole because I always liked that kind of style. I played on UV and I actually didn't find it all that difficult. As a matter of fact, I beat it on my first attempt. There seemed to be plenty of ammo, health, and armor around to the point I was almost always full. The only few threatening situations were the traps that surrounded the player with chaingunners in close proximity, which I'm not a fan of, but managed. Everything other encounter was fairly easy to neutralize with circle strafing, infighting, or just retreating back to a better position, since there was usually plenty of room to maneuver. Don't take these as complaints though, as everyone has different taste when it comes to difficulty in Doom. I actually enjoyed the combat as I feel it fits this style of wad. I always preferred a more relax gameplay in wads with a lot of detail and eye candy so I actually have the opportunity to admire it without being constantly harassed by some threat haha! Of course I haven't fully completed the wad yet and still have a couple more maps to go, so I may be completely wrong. I'll give an update once I finish it though, but great job on what I've seen so far.