[MrFlibble]

The Watchtower, on 25 May 2019 - 07:08 AM, said:

Fernando's maps are unnecessarily complicated, they have confusing layouts, and not very organic gameplay/design. It's pretty much the DTWID for Duke, except worse as DTWID had some nice levels. Honestly I've never seen any usermappers who nailed the concept what was created by Allen Blum back in 1996. The closest one was George W Bernard with his amazing LRWB TC, but even that one couldn't make through the filter that separates an okay commercial levelpack from a great user levelpack. For example some levels reused areas from other levels (others reused concepts from the original game, like Stadium or Dark Side), it was often too dark or oversized, and the difficulty is too high which was indicated with the 125 HP start.

I just played a bit of Fernando Marquez episodes, mostly the first one, and while they are quite playable I'm not really enjoying them so far. The first episode seems to actively use themes objects and references to the original Duke3D urban levels but is completely different. Many areas are much larger than similar areas in Duke3D (e.g. the adult bookshop or the arcade in E1L3) but feel empty, linear and frankly uninteresting compared to the portions of the original E1L1 and E1L2 they try to imitate or pay homage to.
LR&WB seems to have more interesting level design but man it's hard.

I also tried a bit of ZeroHour. I cannot tell whether the version I got is the final release (the readme calls it a demo) or they intended to make more levels still, but it does feel like a genuine attempt to create a new, original campaign for Duke, with new enemies and stuff. But again, the difficulty seems cranked up, for example the very first and most common enemy you encounter is a flying drone thing that rapid-fires a spread of laser projectiles, explodes when destroyed (which will damage you if you happen to be close), then careens in a random direction and crashes with another explosion that leaves a flame for a while. And you get lots of those. It's manageable (so far) but way less fun than the default enemy set in the original game. I got to the second level and ran into a flying saucer type enemy that rapid-fires hitscan projectiles that tears Duke into shreds no matter what I do. Maybe I should try it on lower difficulty for now.

[Sanek]

MrFlibble, on 16 September 2019 - 02:41 AM, said:

I just played a bit of Fernando Marquez episodes, mostly the first one, and while they are quite playable I'm not really enjoying them so far. The first episode seems to actively use themes objects and references to the original Duke3D urban levels but is completely different. Many areas are much larger than similar areas in Duke3D (e.g. the adult bookshop or the arcade in E1L3) but feel empty, linear and frankly uninteresting compared to the portions of the original E1L1 and E1L2 they try to imitate or pay homage to.
LR&WB seems to have more interesting level design but man it's hard.

You should play E2 and E3 episodes too. I agree that E1 is not very good, but Fernando really nailed it in Episode 2, and perfected the style in Episode 3, which is really original, as there's no areas that will remind you of the vanilla levels.

[MrFlibble]

TBH I'm not a huge fan of space themed levels. I played two levels from Fernando's and it seems like "E2 the way 3DR did", playable and no obvious flaws as far as I can tell. I started episode 3 and got stuck and somewhat bored. There is a style to the episode for sure, but I haven't found it very captivating for some reason.

What impression I do get from the custom levels I have played so far (which is not many I have to confess) is that there's a great deal of fluctuation between to polar opposites, namely simplicity of level design on the one extreme end and excessive detail and complexity on the other. The original levels mostly tend to find a balance somewhere in between (still leaning towards less detail though, presumably for reasons of hardware limitations) so that map design and architecture are conductive to the flow of gameplay and not obstruct it.

[Jimmy]

Give God of War a shot. It's a really underrated campaign that tries not to deviate too far from 3DR style but adds it's own flair here and there. Some of the weapon graphics leave a little to be desired but it's a great little set of maps in my opinion.

[MrFlibble]

Yeah, I already started GoW, and the impression is mostly positive so far. Did I mention I liked what I've played of DaikariN?

[MrFlibble]

Sanek, on 16 September 2019 - 02:49 AM, said:

You should play E2 and E3 episodes too. I agree that E1 is not very good, but Fernando really nailed it in Episode 2, and perfected the style in Episode 3, which is really original, as there's no areas that will remind you of the vanilla levels.

I just played some FMX E3 on CGS and frankly the first level is frustrating and rather confusing. There's scarce ammo and plenty of enemies, and exploration felt like bouncing between absolutely empty areas with nothing interesting at all and rooms chock full of monsters, and gameplay flow didn't feel smooth to me. I got to the end of the level just to check if it gets any better in the next one but nope, as soon as you get on the road you get sniped at from all directions. I know some people like this kind of gameplay but this is not how the original Duke3D levels play.

NightFright, on 12 May 2019 - 10:38 AM, said:

Metropolitan Mayhem already went pretty much in the right direction.

I tried this a little bit too (got to the LAPD level) and I'm not liking it overall to be honest. First off, the maps are pretty short and rather minimalistic in design, and secondly they seem to force the player to do the same things over and over again: for example, in the first level there's a lot of jumping on ledges, clearly a reference to parts of E1L1 but there it was s couple of secrets and here, the whole level is pretty much built around it; the second level involves quite some backtracking over large open areas, which are nicely designed by themselves but there isn't much going on in the buildings. Overall I had a feeling that the levels present kind of like a brief tour of landmarks, rater than each level reinforces a certain theme.

By contrast, somehow this made me think of Wanton Destruction and Twin Dragon for Shadow Warrior which both have some pretty solid levels. Many are rather compact and not always look very realistic but each area conveys the idea of the place it is intended to represent.

I also tried Operation Blitzkrieg which actually felt to me like rather strongly following the design concepts of the original game; but the first level at least, for all its merits, is rather obviously flat and lacks verticality while also being overly symmetrical. I liked how you have to use the shrinker at the start of level 2 though.

[NightFright]

Water Bases from the Last Reaction & Water Bases dual episode is also often named when it comes to addons coming close to official expansion quality. I am sure not everybody will see it that way, though.

[formerlyTodd]

Due to Phred's & TD's comments about it, I gave Alien Armageddon a shot recently. Three thumbs up!

It's like a new game.

[NNC]

When I started Metropolitan Mayhem, the first few levels gave me an impression the whole mapset is just a parody of the original 3D Realms style. It was the later levels like Meatball Sub Makin' which actually felt like a legit mapset on its own. On the other hand those levels are very different to the classic style both in terms of design and gameplay.

Water Bases indeed feels like something official at first glance, although it has two flaws: 1. It's too difficult (sometimes even unfair) even with the increased HP, 2. The levels often repeat themselves, there were quite many copypasted sectors in the episode, which is not really acceptable for an official expansion (yeah, I'm looking at you, Nuclear Winter). Also the first 6 levels feel and play the same, which is also a flaw of many usermade content. I think an official expansion should be like Sigil or NRFTL for Doom. Every level has to has its own separate identity, that's what gives the player the impression the whole thing moves, and he progresses from A to B. Duke's episode 2 and 3 got some criticism for the exact same problem, despite both having levels with a separate identities. Episode 2 should have been a few levels shorter (ie. Incubator and Tiberius Station didn't add much extra value to the game), while episode 3 should have been polished more, and the framerate chops clearly hurt the quality of many maps there. They still feel commercial, and even if they are released today, they would feel commercial.

[MrFlibble]

Playing all the user maps so far has given me a new perspective on the original levels, especially E1.

The entire episode is densely packed with what I for now call "unique moments". Far from being just interconnected rooms with monsters, traps and goodies, each level not only follows a certain theme but also has a lot of stuff going on apart from the core gameplay elements.

The unique elements set the theme of each level: the cinema and the projector room, the arcade, the strip club, the electric chair and the sub, the conveyor belt area, the shrinker and the flooded rooms with underwater mines. And if you take each level as a whole, there are no two similar or identical rooms or areas, each has enough novelty or difference from the rest as to pique the player's interest and serve as reward for exploration.

What's more each area is built so that there is a lot of interactivity and several ways of progressing further. The areas are not just decorated, you can break or activate things, sometimes leading to the discovery of new secrets. And every area and room has just enough of these interactive elements to keep things interesting.

Even transitions from one room to another are not bland. There's that small earthquake when you go from the cinema hall to the lobby (or vice versa), and you can blow up a part of the vent that leads from the restroom to the projector room for a hidden secret; the explosion in the red key storage area behind the arcade etc. All of this saturates the gameplay flow with action and makes the levels interesting and exploration worthwhile.

Indeed I've been mostly taking all this stuff for granted but now I realise that making such levels is nothing short of a form of art. The trick is to find user maps that approach this level of mastery. Roch maps are good because they're bristling with novelty in the carefully detailed urban environments. The Eyewitness map, too, has a street not like anything seen in the official levels, etc.

[NNC]

MrFlibble, on 02 October 2019 - 02:20 AM, said:

Playing all the user maps so far has given me a new perspective on the original levels, especially E1.

The entire episode is densely packed with what I for now call "unique moments". Far from being just interconnected rooms with monsters, traps and goodies, each level not only follows a certain theme but also has a lot of stuff going on apart from the core gameplay elements.

The unique elements set the theme of each level: the cinema and the projector room, the arcade, the strip club, the electric chair and the sub, the conveyor belt area, the shrinker and the flooded rooms with underwater mines. And if you take each level as a whole, there are no two similar or identical rooms or areas, each has enough novelty or difference from the rest as to pique the player's interest and serve as reward for exploration.

What's more each area is built so that there is a lot of interactivity and several ways of progressing further. The areas are not just decorated, you can break or activate things, sometimes leading to the discovery of new secrets. And every area and room has just enough of these interactive elements to keep things interesting.

Even transitions from one room to another are not bland. There's that small earthquake when you go from the cinema hall to the lobby (or vice versa), and you can blow up a part of the vent that leads from the restroom to the projector room for a hidden secret; the explosion in the red key storage area behind the arcade etc. All of this saturates the gameplay flow with action and makes the levels interesting and exploration worthwhile.

Indeed I've been mostly taking all this stuff for granted but now I realise that making such levels is nothing short of a form of art. The trick is to find user maps that approach this level of mastery. Roch maps are good because they're bristling with novelty in the carefully detailed urban environments. The Eyewitness map, too, has a street not like anything seen in the official levels, etc.

If Traffic Jam by Olivier Boucher was polished more, it would feel like a commercial level. Of course such things as out of shape sprites or unnecessary colours on monsters (or even ripped art from Shadow Warrior) shouldn't be there, but Boucher captured the spirit pretty well, even before the remade LameDuke sewer area. George W. Bernard (LRWB TC) also had a sense for commercial style, but said flaws still appeared in his levels. The way the last 2 levels were designed (especially Back to LA) was pretty epic though.

Merlijn van Oostrum did a majestic job with Red 3 (for some reasons, Red 4 and Red 5 didn't age as well as Red 3, because they copied Merlijn's original ideas and added lots of unneeded fat in the maps). Red 3 is also a map that needs massive cleanup, but that atmosphere was outstanding it generated.

Duke Forever TC by Gambini and Mikko was also mostly a good (in fact: great) attempt to make a commercial style journey, their playstyle is a bit different though, and the artifical remake of every trailer scene wasn't always helpful, sometimes those felt out of context in the leveldesign.