The DWmegawad Club plays: Going Down

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?
Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it's the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

----------

>>>DOWNLOAD GOING DOWN HERE<<<

Going Down is a one-madman Boom compatible megawad by mouldy, placing Doomguy into a suspicious UAC office building as he explores it one chaotic floor at a time. The maps are small but contain a lush amount of variety and carnage. As we are playing a beta you may stumble upon some bugs here and there, so please make a note of them if you do.

Maplist for Going Down:

Quote

MAP01 - "Going Up"
MAP02 - "Evil Admin"
MAP03 - "Crawl Space"
MAP04 - "Blood and Rockets"
MAP05 - "Time Warp"
MAP06 - "Painframe"
MAP07 - "Bad Reception"
MAP08 - "Hide and Seek"
MAP09 - "Broken Records
MAP10 - "Trip Switch"
MAP11 - "Vivisection"
MAP12 - "Dead End"
MAP13 - "Deep Trouble"
MAP14 - "Secrets and Lies"
MAP15 - "Gladiator"

MAP31 - "Stair Crazy"
MAP32 - "Roof Rage"

MAP16 - "Black Mass"
MAP17 - "Rest in Pieces"
MAP18 - "Buried Alive"
MAP19 - "200 Mega Hurts"
MAP20 - "The Mouth of Madness"
MAP21 - "Indigestion"
MAP22 - "Constipation Station"
MAP23 - "Demonology"
MAP24 - "Bridge of Blood"
MAP25 - "Forbidden Fruit"
MAP26 - "Insanity"
MAP27 - "Hard Cover"
MAP28 - "Necropolis"
MAP29 - "Demolition"
MAP30 - "Game Over"

BONUS CONTENT
Suitepee plays Going Down: 1 2 3
Katamori plays Going Down: playlist
----------
OLD THREADS
BF_THUD!
Community Chest 4
Jenesis
MAYhem 2012
Memento Mori
Interception
2002: A Doom Odyssey
Hadephobia
Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
HYMN
Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
Realm of Chaos
Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
Kama Sutra
Unholy Realms & Zone 300
Vile Flesh
Ultimate Doom
Whitemare & Sacrament
Scythe
Epic 2
Whitemare 2
Sunder & Countdown to Extinction
Doom 2 the Way id Did
MAYhem2048
Stomper
Back to Saturn X E2

Hooray! I've played through all of this wad in various betas, but either continuous or on HMP. I'm going to try UV pistol starts on all maps this time, and see just how badly I get massacred.

I may tag along, but around map 19 or 20 the transfer to slaughter-y play gets a bit over my skill (even on HNTR).

MAP01: A fairly gentle intro, populated largely by zombiemen, though you can get caught in the crossfire if you're not careful. It gives you a good indication of what to expect later on - small and densely populated areas, mass teleporting monsters, a strong sense of visual design using (almost) all stock textures, and weird & wonderful music are all here, and all of which will be seen more intensely as the wad progresses. And of course, our dear friend the elevator.

woohoo! I think a few mwclubbers might have already played through this wad, I know demon of the well has and dobu helped with the testing, so hopefully there are still a few people who haven't.

I might try to join in anyway with some demos, I still haven't tried doing all the later maps without saves. And yeah, things get a bit slaughtery later on, so be warned (though nowhere near sunder levels of difficulty).

I don't like writing reviews at all, that's why I've never actually joined The DWmegawad Club yet.

Even now I do so wih my videos I made about each maps.

MAP01 & MAP02:

Another beta? I'll wait for the /idgames release or at this rate nobody will be left to play the final version :-p

purist said:

Another beta? I'll wait for the /idgames release or at this rate nobody will be left to play the final version :-p

To be honest, I was going to upload to idgames at the end of this week anyway, so this is pretty much the final version. I may as well delay the upload til the end of the month though in case there are any minor bugs people find (they always manage to somehow, no matter how finished you think something is)

Good oportunity to start my second playthrough, so i'm in.
Excellent wad with a lot of stock texture eye-candy and an awesome soundtrack.

1: "Going Up"

One of the rare occasions in this wad where your supposed to go upwards.
A lot of zombiemen up there, no big threat rather a bit tedious if you want to take out all of them with pistol only. Nonetheless pretty cool opener.
The surrounding buildings look very nice, great usage of modwall textures.

I made a vid of me playing too. :) Map01-03 so far.

If it is the stereotypical Russian accent, then I actually have the same, despite I speak a completely different language.

No offense BTW, 'cause the video is cool. I expected for a similar sound :P

So glad to see this mapset getting some of the attention it deserves.

Have only played the first 12(?) maps in the original release, and really enjoyed them.

Love these threads too, please keep doing these.

Looking forward to this. This WAD really hits the notes on what I like in megaWADs - consistent overarching setting/story, variety in gameplay/level designs, and generally smaller/tighter level designs. I'll start out playing UV, but I might end up dialing it down since I remember the difficulty curve rising sharply at some point (though it might also have been me playing lazy, have to see).

Are these maps designed with pistol starts or continuous play in mind primarily?

MAP01: Going Up
100% kills, 0/0 secrets

Goddamnit Mouldy, the name of the WAD is 'Going Down', and yet we immediately start off with the opposite. Too soon for subversion!

Anyways, this is a nice little opener, setting the stage for the descent into the corrupt UAC tower. Very nice use of stock textures to create the city/skyscraper/apartment complex look, though scaled to the Doom size. Gameplay-wise it's a bunch of zombiemen and a few imps/shotgunners, but at least gives a glimpse of what's to come.

Little disappointed there's no secrets, but, minor complaint.

Magnusblitz said:

Are these maps designed with pistol starts or continuous play in mind primarily?

Pistol start is designed as an extra challenge for people who are familiar with the maps, so I'd recommend first timers to play continuous, but if you are used to stuff like AV and scythe then pistol start shouldn't give you too much trouble. Continuous is more fun if you just want to rip through the maps like rambo though.

^ Pistol start—since most of the maps are small, some of the later ones can be absolutely wrecked if you're walking in with a fully-primed BFG. Also if you guys put your youtube videos into a playlist, I can add it to the Bonus Content section.

I'm probably going to continue my HNTR playtesting once we reach the 15th, but I suppose I can give thoughts on each of the maps.

MAP01: I think this is a really smart pistol heavy opener. It sets the cheeky tone by having the player work his way to the roof and clear out a daunting amount of loitering janitors that are all somehow armed with the same pistol. I really like the light gradient on all of the surrounding buildings too—it's a good introduction to how clever mouldy gets with the visuals coming up in the megawad.

MAP01 - "Going Up"

Fair to say, the zombiemen can do serious damage in large groups, the number of deaths on the blue key trap says it all. A fine opener with some decent visuals.

I decided to go into a playthrough shizzle, even though I'm not that kind of a Doomer - it's been a time I last played with IDDQD off, and only because I didn't know cheats before.
I decided to do my playthrough on HMP, in order not to flap onto face that hard.

MAP01: Going Up
The serene idyll of this cul-de-sac, dominantly inhabited by the major building, breaks suddenly and violently once one arrives atop. Just like they waited for you so long, hordes of zombiemen and a few imps appear. I suggest not to commit the fault I've made, which was to run down along the building's edge, awakening even more troopers. They can become vicious killers if many and from various directions.

Back to the point: I barely managed to clear all these shitbags with life over 70 per cent because of my stupid playing style*. Then came the switch release of teleporting douches, the killing of whose was implemented better - via the Shotgun - and only with about 10 per cent health loss by me. The last part was just a cakewalk, since grabbing the blue keycard itself didn't bring any more teleporting hazard aboard.

Well-balanced, yet a bit fast-paced style of gameplay, which gets your adrenaline pumped again just the time you want to rest for a second, till the very end. It's just freakin' easy to get one or two wandering zombie lost in the small labyrinth of the - say it, truly - well-designed rooftop equipment, so if you're a "100% tally fanatist", be aware to search for them at least thrice thoroughly.

The overall visual implementation is nicer than over-average, the measurement of "realistic" on the 10 scale pends between 8 and 9. I've played through the whole mapset at least twice, but I'm still eagerly waiting for Going Down again, which is a clear reference to the unmeasurable greatness this levelset bears.

*Speaking of which:

MAP30: Game Over

MAJOR SPOILERS!

Katamori said:

If it is the stereotypical Russian accent, then I actually have the same, despite I speak a completely different language.

No offense BTW, 'cause the video is cool. I expected for a similar sound :P

yeah your accents sound quite similar, I think. I like em haha

I've already played Going Down on a continuous playthrough, but each episode separately as soon as it was released. I'll try UV pistol starts now. Playing with Zandronum.

MAP01 - "Going Up" is a good opener for this megawad in particular, kind of a glimpse of what's going to come - that means compact nonlinear layouts, impressive semirealistic design which might even make you smile at times, "charismatic" music and finally, monster hordes. At the same time, it provides a good variation on a MAP01-style gameplay (zombiemen!!) that can potentially be threatening anyway. I like the map. It's motivating.

Pure Hellspawn said:

MAP30: Game Over

Umm? A bit early in the DWMC to be posting this here no?

plums said:

Umm? A bit early in the DWMC to be posting this here no?

i just skipped to map 30 since I love icon maps.

That's fine and all, but

dobu gabu maru said:

What levels am I allowed to post about?[/b]
Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it's the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

Pure Hellspawn said:

i just skipped to map 30 since I love icon maps.

I was tempted to make a post similar to your one in the BTSX E2 club thread to poke fun at all the idiots playing far ahead of the actual date, and you've actually went ahead and made that joke come true. Bravo! *claps* Bravo! Bravo!!

cannonball said:

MAP01 - "Going Up"

Fair to say, the zombiemen can do serious damage in large groups, the number of deaths on the blue key trap says it all.

And how many deaths would that be, Mr. cannonball?

Umm, hi.

MAP01: "Going Up"

I remember the opening view from the pictures thread, and it's very nice. One of the best city streets in Doom I've seen. Hard to say something about the map itself, because it's very short and easy. Which is not bad at all, considering it's an opener. An important thing is that it has left me wanting to progress further and see what's next.

HNTR -complevel 17 FDA (because HNTR is usually undertested, and because I hate playing with short tics)

Oh, and I wanted to jump from the roof, but has learned that life is full of disappointments.

Well since I was planning on playing this anyway I figured I'd join.

Starting off with ZDoom (DOOM strict), keyboard, UV, no saves; the last three things may well change as the set progresses.

Map01: Going Up

Neat opener. Nice to have some forced pistol action, and good to see zombiemen used in a challenging way. I died once on the BK trap, which applies a nice amount of gentle pressure. The visuals are very nice - best cityscape I've seen in DOOM, and even more impressive for using only stock textures. The main building reminds me of Senate House in London.

Okay, maybe I can play these maps after all if I play them right after breakfast. So . . .

UV, continuous, GZDoom, frequent saves, keyboard only, with end-health and ammo counts because this is technically playtesting a beta

Map01– Going Up – Kills – 100, Items – 87, Secret – 100. End Health – 100, Armor 145. Death Count – Zero. Shells – 15, Bullets – 197

I'm sure most of you know that there's one word in Doom guaranteed to get my blood pumping and fill my heart with joy . . .

Hitscanners!!!!!!

After the Meat Lover's Pizza known as Back To Saturn X Episode 2, I all but shed tears of happiness because, as Commander McBragg might say, “There I was, surrounded by zombies!” Yeah, I just ripped right through these little fuckers and had a wonderful time putting all those jagoffs to sleep. Yay! I played aggressively but not impetuously, taking advantage of corners and cover. I also loved the clever ledge layout that led to various points of interest. Too bad there was an impassable line preventing some tightrope walking on the coping, but I reckon it was necessary since if you fell down, there was no way back up.

So apparently mouldy is another Doom Renaissance Man who can map and produce his own music. I found the BGM delightfully goofy and unique, and this, along with riding a window-washer's cart to the roof, demonstrates that humor will be part of the package.

It has to be said that mouldy succeeded admirably at the difficult task of making a nice Doom cityscape, so it looked good, played good and had a fine BGM. Looking forward to the rest.

SteveD said:

And how many deaths would that be, Mr. cannonball?

I died to the final monster in my first attempt and then proceeded to take every single zombie bullet from then onwards. Somehow they learnt how to aim properly.
Probably around 5 deaths.

SteveD said:

UV, continuous, GZDoom, frequent saves, keyboard only, with end-health and ammo counts because this is technically playtesting a beta

A word of warning Steve, this map starts off fairly gentle but the difficulty ramps up steadily, and by MAP09 gets rather chaotic on UV. I might recommend dialing it down a notch... then again you can always pistol start, or even just restart the wad if you're not too far in -- the maps are all relatively small.