[Aleks]

What's this thing?
We play through a set of maps/mods during the month, and use this thread to discuss it as we're still all fresh with our comments/opinions/feelings about the maps.

What's the purpose?
Basically, there are 4 purposes:

• Showcasing some of the older mods/maps to wider public - they definitely deserve the attention!
• Getting more people to actually enjoy and appreciate the user content - because let's be honest, over the past 25 years this was really what kept Duke alive after all.
• ...and while we're at it - keeping Duke alive by still enjoying it, as there's no new games in the franchise on the horizon (and let's be honest, they wouldn't be as good as some of this stuff!).
• Having a more structurized discussion on maps than what's going in "Last map you played" thread - which is great, but it's basically a monologue most of the time.

Can I join?
Sure, as long as you find some spare time during the month to play the stuff that's on the table!

Why a month?
Because people have lives, jobs or other stuff to do (like mapping). For smaller maps, this could be shorter time - it's all up to debate in the future!

What port should I use? Are mods allowed? Where to get the maps?
It's entirely up to you how you play the game, so you can use whatever port or mod allowed - it would be cool to state in your posts what you're using too, as there might be some slight differences between the ports! As for the maps, they should be always linked within the first post.

How should I play the maps or post about them?
Again, it's up to you. You can finish them all in one go or play them one by one whenever you feel like. On Doom forums, there's a rule that you should keep the pace by not posting about a map that has a higher number than the day of the month, so e.g. on 6th you shouldn't post about map 7 etc. I think that might be a good practice if there's a large interest in this, but first let's see how active the thread is for a start - so if there's nothing going on, feel free to post about whatever map you want to.

Previous edition:
June 2021: Roch series by Pascal Rouaud


For this month, all the maps by Maarten Pinxten have been chosen!

Synopsis:
Maarten Pinxten was a very prolific mapper around 1999-2001, having released a total of 12 maps (although one of them can be found under 2 different names). His style seems to have been very influential for further generations of mappers, especially his take on industrian and hi-tech environments - with careful texture picks and combinations, a lot of structural details and generally strong shadows. His opus magnum is probably the final 3 level "episode", Crucial Conflict. It was a bit difficult for me to trace all his maps, as they're not all on MSDN - but I've made a collection with what seems to be the chronological order of releases (with MP Hydro having the date set at 1980 for some weird reason...). I have added all the maps in a single archive with suggested order, but you are basically free to play them in whatever order you want to, although I suppose Crucial Conflict maps should come last for better impact. MP Rocket and Operation Kolpowitz are exactly the same map, although the latter has a more elaborated story in the txt file.

Here's some assorted screenshots from his maps:



Suggested playing order:
This is by no means a rule, also I might be wrong in few cases where the dates on files are basically the same, but here's a proposition:

• MP Hydro
• MP Research Facility
• MP Power
• MP Rocket/Operation Kolpowitz
• MP Orbit
• ACME Weapon Factory
• Hazardous Chemicals
• The Railway Station
• The Restless Resort
• Crucial Conflict 1: Suspicious Storage
• Crucial Conflict 2: Waterworld
• Crucial Conflict 3: Acupa Dylana

Please note that the last 2 maps come with their own additional .art file.

Where to get these maps:
I've made a convenient archive of all the maps together with suggested "chronological" order:
 Maarten Pinxten.rar (1.27MB)
Number of downloads: 247


His maps (not sure if all) can be also played within the EDuke32 Addon Compilation

If someone is willing to also link the reviews from MSDN and CGS along with the ratings, similarly to how I did with Roch, I would appreciate it.

[Seb Luca]

Excellent work ! Each place is astonishing

[DNSkill]

Quote

#1 - MP Hydro -by Maarten Pinxten (1999):

• Port Used: Rednukem*
• Difficulty: Damn I'm Good
• Time: 10:14:39
• Enemies Killed: 70
• Enemies Left: (N/A)
• Secrets Found: 1
• Secrets Missed: 0
• CGS
• Steam (from Duke4's Ness)

I am familiar with Maarten Pinxten by name, but I am not sure if I've played any of his older maps like this one before. I know I had never heard of MPHYDRO before now, at least. This level starts you off in a city where you can see a hotel that has the yellow access card area and the hydroponics sub station to your left, guilty sign ahead of you, with another unmarked building to your right that has the red access card door area. Where this building on the right and the hydroponics sub station meet, you will find an awesome looking car parked in a broken part of the building. It is unclear if this is another one of Duke's rides or not, but if it is, he's made sure there's no chance anyone can shoot it up while he's away. There's quite a few wooden crates scattered about here as well, and you'll find a shotgun and an assault trooper in this area. So, there's very little combat in the start area, and while you will have to backtrack here later, there are no tricks or traps here. Shame, as the openness of this area deserved some more aliens.

You'll soon realize you're locked in, there's nowhere else to go but into the hydroponics sub station. This is where a vast majority of your time will be spent in this level, and this building also contains the one, very obvious to find, but easy to screw yourself from acquiring it, secret area. Don't make the mistake of shooting the vent UNTIL you get across to the end of the ventilation shaft for your reward, because you'll want this for later. The combat here can be tense, as there's a lot of tight areas, but it's fairly manageable. You'll also find the yellow key within the station, underwater, but getting it may be tricky (see spoiler).

If you manage to wiggle yourself in to get the yellow key and out to leave the sub station, then you will now venture back to the hotel you saw outside. This is the other major chunk of the level, where you will have more eye-candy and baddies to fry. When you enter reception, take a book off the shelf, and you'll open a secret passage way up to the balcony. This isn't marked as a secret area, but it will give you more shotgun ammo. You'll see that there are two elevators. The one to your left goes down, the one to your right goes up. The one that goes down will lead you to a bar, and what appears to be a DJ booth. Use caution in the DJ booth room, as you will find a laser tripwire trap there. The bar has quite a few aliens, and a pig cop bartender. There's an atomic health in the bar, and a bathroom. That's about it. The elevator that goes up will lead to an arcade room, which leads to what appears to be a book store, which leads you to a football stadium where you'll encounter the toughest enemies this map has to throw at you. You'll also find the red key here. I'd say, this whole area is great, except the football stadium. 2 fat commanders? C'mon.. could've put a battlelord sentry or two here for a bigger battle, but I digress. Now you'll want to go back to reception, leave the hotel behind, and move across the guilty billboard to the red key door.

Once you get in the red key door, you'll find an elevator. This will lead you out of this building, and to another building. In here you'll see the blue key, but there's a trap, so watch out! The blue key door is right ahead of where you pick it up. Use it to open the door and you'll find the exit, but still, watch out for the trap because it will keep attacking!


So that's the gist of MPHYDRO. I enjoyed it, but it really felt a tad bit too easy for my tastes. Where's all the alien bastards? Feels like there could've been more tough big aliens and weapons in this map, and it would've made it a lot more fun. The water areas that look like tubes were pretty neat, as was the ending area with how dark and creepy it looks.
*

Spoiler

I initially attempted to play this on the most current EDuke32 release, but there is an area that was inaccessible playing through EDuke32. With that said... it wasn't really all that more accessible in Rednukem. I managed to get in this tight spot seen at the 3:00 minute mark in my video and then had trouble getting back out seen at 3:30 in my video, and in EDuke32 I couldn't get in at all without noclip (which can't use on DIG). This was honestly luck I was able to get through quickly in the video but I still got stuck trying to get out, because right before recording this run, it took a lot longer to get through, and then on the way back I got "stuck killed" for whatever reason. I am not sure if this is something that occurs in this map through DOS, did not check. Most people will be playing on CGS or lower, so just use the noclip to get through if you can't get through, I really don't know the method, it just sort of happens or it doesn't, and it's this way for going in there and getting out.

[Aleks]

Good to see you joining in, Gerolf, with the DIG movies! I hope to see more of them in the future!

Since it's already 2nd July and the maps seem pretty short so far, here's a short resume on 2 first ones from me.

MP Hydro

Using EDuke32 version r-7395 (before the clipping changes) on this one. Playing on Come Get Some. Played "Taking Names" as a soundtrack here. The map took me 12 minutes, found the single secret.

I'm not sure if this is Maarten's first map, but it certainly feels a bit disconnected. We start in a small town block with a pretty nifty designed, flooded car then proceed into the industrial hydro processing plant. Seems the most care was put into designing this building, we get some pretty interesting puzzles going around here, although some locations (especially elevators) feel super narrow and cramped. There's especially one underwater area that Gerolf mentioned where I got stuck in a corner, but emerging from the water and submerging back seemed to get rid of this bug. No idea why it happens and I thought it's specific to my EDuke version, but seems it's just some sloppy geometry really.

The puzzles in this building award us a blue key and we're good to go into another building from the hub city area - which is a strip club and a stadium for some reason... We get a red keycard and proceed into the final location, which takes us into a weird Abyss-inspired place, where the map ends.

It seems a bit like a patchwork map that should really focus only on the industrial part, which was the best. Other areas felt completely incoherent and due to the use of elevators, I don't think they would even be physically feasible to stuck in this place The design is pretty clean and the combat is super conservative, with just the basic enemies and a couple of commanders towards the end, also the weapon selection we're given isn't too spectacular.

I guess you can skip this one without much regret. Not much to show either - the broken car was already shown in my first post and it's probably the coolest design this map has to offer.



MP Research Facility (MpResFac)

Same settings as before - the map took me 17 minutes this time, there's no secrets (at least no marked ones - there's actually a couple of areas that do feel like secrets places). Played "Stalag3D" for some weird reason, which proved to be a fitting choice.

The map takes place on some remote planet where the EDF guys have been mining shit, until they came across alien presence. I suppose this is another one that can go into Ninety-Six' collection of alien planet maps, also the design here is quite interesting with your typical canyon/rocks and starry sky combined with some alien structures, space base/hi-tech and lots of lava.

The map feels a lot more coherent than the previous one, also the design is much better with some genuine eye-candy (at least for 1999). The overall use of theme is pretty original. I particularly liked the space-subway thing which strongly reminded me of these 1990 Lego sets with weird railways on space stations

The progress is a bit... non-linear? I've reached the nukebutton after like 12 minutes once again, but then felt I didn't explore a lot of different paths throughout the map, so wandered back to check them out. Turned out there's been a lot of optional areas, especially around the railway thing, with some nice combinations between space and canyon textures. I liked how low parallaxed sky was utilised for some details like the large barrels in the optional area with pig cops or the small cabinet where we get protective boots. Also the final area with nukebutton and commanders was particularly nicely designed, something that felt a bit in a WG style, but done in a much smaller scale

Combat wasn't anything special really, this time also with some cheap encounters in narrow pathways. The selection of enemies was a bit boring, but the use of respawns spiced things up a bit. Overall, I think this one can be recommended to play and might be better for a start than MP Hydro.

[DNSkill]

Quote

#5 - MP Orbit -by Maarten Pinxten (1999):

• Port Used: Rednukem
• Difficulty: Damn I'm Good
• Time: 07:53:36
• Enemies Killed: 52
• Enemies Left: (N/A)
• Secrets Found: 3
• Secrets Missed: 0

I really enjoyed this map, the space setting is great. I enjoyed the tunnel systems here far better than the ones in MP Hydro. It feels like there are less enemies on this map than that one, though, but the use of tougher enemies seems a bit better here. I also appreciate the use of Pig Cops in space. I tend to enjoy it when user maps do that in space themed levels, even if the original game didn't have them in space. The secrets felt fairly easy to find, but there were more of them this time compared to MP Hydro, which felt like it was meant to have several more secrets that just aren't set up to be secret places.

The progression is less linear than the previous maps, but still everything feels quite small and compact, with a lot of interconnecting areas. While this map states it isn't marked for DM, I think it would make a decent DM level with a good amount of players. Probably a lot of camping would ensue though.

In my opinion, this level is well designed, but feels quite easy on harder difficulties.

[Aleks]

Since it's 5th July already, I'll get on with a short recaps of 3 more maps:


MP Power

Played "Space Storm" in this one, which is a tune I like but seems a lot of people find it too intrusive. Took me 19 minutes, found all 4 secrets, although the final one took me a while to find - the others are kind of hard to miss.

This is slightly better designed than previous map, but a bit boring/monotone in it's all grey theme. Mikko described its design as "pure" and I have to agree this might be the best word for it. This is your typical hi-tech/industrial environment with some large scale pits in the nuclear plant and a random bunkers followed by an air strip at the end.

The enemy placement/combat is very conservative, but some really narrow corridors can be a bit hard to navigate. There's a bunch of dickish sentry drones, especially when you first approach the reactor core pits.

I'm also not really a fan of how the theme starts to diverge from it's starting theme, as if the author tried to just push random ideas in here, despite making quite a strong statement with the initial theme choice. What really bothers me in these maps so far, especially prevalent here with larger open areas though - is how the non-player areas are just lazy. It might seem like nitpicking for some, but letting the player actually see the rectangular ends of a terrain sector disappearing into the parallaxed skies is not something people should allow in their maps, especially when they still have plenty of resources left.

The texturing and structuring, however, is a strong aspect here. The rooms have this "more modern", almost BobSP kind of look, just with less details and a lot less spritework, in fact a bit similar to Mikko's MSSP maps - just with more conservative colouring.




MP Rocket/Operation Kolpowitz

For some reason, these two maps are exactly the same, just have different names and Operation Kolpowitz includes a small "storyline" in the txt file. This one is a military base with nuclear missiles, so the obvious music choice was "Restricted Area". Took me 18 minutes (well, would take me about 15, but then I went to check some optional area on the way), got all 3 secrets (although there's been also some unmarked secrets like a transluscent crack hiding an atomic health).

So far this was my favourite one of the bunch, especially the rocket launching sequence is impressive with some nifty SE7 tricks to make the rocket seem hovering in the air. This is also put to a good use later on with some sewer pipes. The design in this one is more detailed and varied than the previous maps, starting out in a natural environment and soon going into a typical base. I particularly like the use of some texture combination inside the base, with grey metal, tan industrial stuff and green slime composing quite well.

The combat is very much the same as in previous maps - nothing too overwhelming or particularly challenging. There's again a few dick moves with troopers respawning directly behind you at the beginning or player being caught in an explosion followed by a fight with 2 commanders in quite a tight area. There's also 2 Battlelords towards the end, but they're mostly a nuissance with quite terrible placements - like sitting ducks.

The problems I mentioned with MP Power are even more prevalent here, down to the possibility of actually visiting a parallaxed floor area after emerging from the sewer pipes (requires jetpack, which we are given right before). Another thing I found I really kinda dislike about his maps so far is how many elevators there are, which sometimes of course are justified (i.e. a tall vertical area), but sometimes serve basically the same purpose as regular doors, just with a delay and no way to back up if you encounter a bunch of bad guys right after your arrival. I like the minefield area at the end, although with how small the mines are, it's quite easy to pass it without blowing yourself up.

My favourite one so far and probably the first map I'd consider essential so far from Maarten Pinxten's work.




MP Orbit

This is a short space themed map that took me 12 minutes to pass (including some backtracking towards the end to find the remaining enemies, which turned to be some slimers in a remote vent shaft). Used "Future Military Conquests" as the appropriate soundtrack, found 3/3 secrets.

The layous of this map is pretty neat with how it loops back on itself multiple times and despite it's very compact size, seems to provide a bunch of paths for the player. The design is BobSP'd Lunar Apocalypse style with lots of windows presenting us with nice outer space views - although due to the small size of the map, it also triggers the monsters all across the map, which might not be that good gameplay-wise. The corridors are even more narrow than ever before, but with the conservative enemy placement here and combat again based almost solely on shotgun and chaingun vs. lower tier enemies, this doesn't seem annoying here.

This is kind of a map where it's a bit difficult to get stuck really, as most of the time you are presented with more than one way of progression, despite coming to the same ending usually. I especially enjoyed how clean the space environment where presented through the windows, although the "flatness" of the map can be a little visual drawback. In general, agree with what Gerolf said about this one.

[High Treason]

Playing the first couple of maps in the list:


I can do more or less maps per video, but I think aiming for around 15 minutes on each video is about right and just fit as many as can be fit into that.


Overall quite fun. There's definitely a step up in competency between the first and second level, so here's hoping that continues.

[Aleks]

Good to see you're still making these videos, High Treason, but now my childhood is ruined with your in-depth analysis of the hooker sprite!


ACME Weapon Factory

This is apparently a direct successor of MP Rocket, at least plot-wise. Duke is sent into a remote weapon factory operated by aliens. The map is a bit longer this time, it took me 18 minutes. Found both secrets. For a little more variety, I used Lee's "Marsch" as the soundtrack for this map.

Can't say it's one of my favourites so far. This map seems to suffer terribly from how dark it is, also again some areas feel quite cramped, despite not using many spriteworks or details at all. The problem is also how generic it feels, despite kinda promising start with the truck and factory entrance. The super fast conveyor belts required to get one of the keycards and throwing you into a room with enemies was kinda annoying.

The gameplay gets a bit more dynamic than before with more respawns, although it's still strong shotgun/chaingun switching most of the time. We'll also be spending quite some time navigating the lava, so make sure you find these boots. The ending is the funniest part combat-wise, with more monsters and clever respawns - nothing too challenging, but still OK - although the fast auto-closing gates are a bitch.

Design-wise, I especially liked the red and blue water pipes which seem to run throughout the whole facility, appearing in some of the rooms. There's also some really weird design and layout choices, like the texture used for elevators or how a few staircases lead us down only into a technical ventilation area with extremely low ceiling. Again, the low ceilings feel quite weird, especially in the initial outside areas here. One more complaint which basically can be applied to all the maps so far, there's "not much happening" in them really, very little sequencing and memorable stuff, which might be one of the reasons the gameplay seems very static.

After the last 2 really good maps, this one was a bit of a disappointment.




Hazardous Chemicals

This one is apparently based on Doom E1M7, but looks quite more complex and the texture picks are definitely refreshing from its inspiration. The combat is more fast paced - the map is short, but packs just enough heat with about 80 enemies on CGS. It took me 12 minutes and I've found all the 4 secrets, which again wasn't too difficult. Today's soundtrack pick was "Black Beans" by Lee Jackson.

Combat-wise, it was probably my favourite one so far. The Doom level design motives are very apparent even for someone who knows Doom pretty much only from YouTube. I like how there's a lot of this good old school play with geometries to create seemingly 3D environments with as little complexity as possible.

The map offers plenty of interconnections, although with quite monotone choice of textures, it isn't as clear to navigate as let's say MP Orbit. Also not sure, but I think it's possible to cheapskate your way right to the exit pretty early on. The final encounter was finally a nicely placed Battlelord that did pose some threat for a change.

All in all, it was probably one of the better "Doom inspired" levels I have played so far.




The Railway Station

This time we're moving into a city, a level that is seemingly loosely based on Amsterdam railway station. It took me 15 minutes and all the 3 secrets can be found rather easily. Used Lee's "Underground Train" in this one - for quite obvious reasons

It seems the author had similar thoughts about his earlier maps as me, as he specifically mentions adding more explosions and effects to his map in the txt file. Indeed, there's much more happening and even the combat is more buffed (although I ended up with one of the last respawning troopers stuck in a wall or something, could only hear the jetpack sound).

The beginning of the map can be a bitch - we start in a sewer and the first water we have to dive in sometimes can kill Duke. Then we land into a red room with super hard to spot switch, which took me a bit to figure out. The architecture of the station is very clean and I could see Alejandro being inspired by it in his further maps, also I like how simple is the train structure here. Another high point of the map is how well interconnected it is with the vents, a very classic styled thing.

Towards the end, we leave the station into a small part of city, but after being given a jetpack, the map concludes in a rather anticlimatic ending. All the explosions are indeed well placed within the map and the station can get significantly destroyed (along with a neighbouring collapsing building). It's also worth mentioning that this map seems to have relied a bit less on shotgun/chaingun and cramped areas - at least in my case I had to use freezer quite a lot, also being handed the RPG early on made some fights significantly easier.

This does feel like something that could have been a proto-Alejandro/Kuffi map, and that alone makes it worth playing. Also the combat feels remarkably more open and better.




Next one for me is "The Restless Resort" and I'll try to record a video for it as well, at least if I can get OBS working.

[High Treason]

Glad to know I wasn't the only one who got caught by that explosion in MPKOLAPOP. Anyway;




Seems that unlike the previous month, my views somewhat line up with others here. Certainly there's still nothing groundbreaking going on in these, but there are little bits of creativity and things are mostly done well enough to work. Definitely a few missteps, like the noted explosion and a couple of things that don't make sense, but nothing too huge, the water being the worst offender I can think of and it won't be the last time we see that.
Not sure what's going on with Rocket and Kolapop.

[Nukem1994x]

Ahhh, the Roch series. One of the best experiences I had playing through these from 1-8. Whatever happened to the creator, Pascal Rouaud? Anyone still hear from him or know if the Roch series is finished?

[High Treason]

The next three maps:



MPORBIT was really fun, some parts of it looked really nice too. Might be my favorite up to this point. Maybe could have been a little larger and challenged me a little more, but ah well.
MPWEAP didn't play quite as well, but it was still decent for the most part. One of the weaker maps here, though, I feel.
MPCHEMIC is probably the weakest entry so far. It's kinda ugly to look at and I found myself a bit starved of ammo and health throughout, or else I just missed it. Parts of it almost felt like Doom more than Duke3D.

[Merlijn]

A bit late to the party, I simply didn't have much time to play Duke this week. I'll probably won't be able to play all the MP maps this month but we'll see.

Played MP Hydro.

Funnily enough I don't remember ever playing this one. It's clearly some of his early work, as design and texturing can still be crude at times.
As Aleks said, the map feels a bit like a patchwork of different ideas. It's like the author had a couple of neat ideas, but hadn't quite figured out how to get them to work together.
The sudden teleport to a stadium and the ending (which really feels like it belongs in a completely different map) are the most obvious examples of this.

Still not a bad map, the Hydro station itself has an interesting layout and shows early on that Maartens strenght lies in industrial areas.
In terms of gameplay there's not much to say, you only get a small selection of weapons (even the chaingun doesn't pop up until the 2nd half of the map) and not too many enemies.
The stadium and the ending both felt pretty anti-climactic, the first one only throws 2 commanders at you and the latter doesn't even have any enemy opposition at all.

Overall still had fun, it's not bad at all and the somewhat random location switches at least keep things engaging even if it doesn't always makes sense.

[Morpheus Kitami]

MPHDYRO
There's something about this level that's distinctly amateurish. This feels very simple graphically in places; And from my experience with Doom-engine WADs, the moving inner doorframe texture is driving me nuts. The thing is I don't know if that's the Build Engine or if its just the level. I don't remember any of the few straight up/down doors having the wall texture move up and down, but then again, I generally don't pay attention to that if I don't have a reason to. Its just something I think of as a beginner's mistake in Doom engine games. Had to cheat to win this one, since one vital pathway is too small for the player to traverse in the version of Eduke I used.
The hydro station that takes up most of the level is surprisingly empty. I kept expecting to find some kind of interesting secret, only to, nope, there really wasn't any. There was a secret somewhere, that I got, I guess it was the rocket launcher at the end of one vent. Like, I had some trouble with a trio of pig cops past the turbine, and the only thing I got for my troubles was a portable medikit and a jump into the same river I'd been confused at for some time. I didn't really care for the game's central gimmick...
...but I also didn't really care for the rest of it. I reach a gaming room, I look around. There's a room full of books, what's this? Aha, there's a secret in here! I felt so clever finding that secret. A teleporter...to a football field...and it was necessary and it wasn't a secret at all. By the time at the end with the mystic temple I'm just rolling with whatever weird path this level wants to take. My final time was 13 minutes, but it took a few tries to get there.

MPRESFAC
A definite improvement. There's still the issues with the inner doorframe, but I don't know what to chalk that up to yet. That said, I was disappointed that there weren't any secrets in the airvent near the beginning, just an unopenable door for some reason that has a teleporter from a later part of the level for some reason. The two space scenes were cool, and I thought it a nice touch that you could jump out into space from the opening section and get killed. There were two sections that frustrated me, the tram part and the door you unlock with a switch. For the tram part, the electrical floor discourages exploration, yet the pillar full of pig cops looks so enticing, but the tram doesn't stop there. Of course I went there and didn't find the stuff the cops were guarding very useful. The door you unlock by switch is probably my fault. I don't recall that ever happening in any of the Build engine titles and my usual thought when pressing a switch is that it opened a door automatically, not unlocked it. Despite these complaints it was a fun map. Also took 13 minutes, but I died once.

[ck3D]

 Morpheus Kitami, on 12 July 2021 - 04:17 PM, said:

MPHDYRO
There's something about this level that's distinctly amateurish. This feels very simple graphically in places; And from my experience with Doom-engine WADs, the moving inner doorframe texture is driving me nuts. The thing is I don't know if that's the Build Engine or if its just the level. I don't remember any of the few straight up/down doors having the wall texture move up and down, but then again, I generally don't pay attention to that if I don't have a reason to. Its just something I think of as a beginner's mistake in Doom engine games.

It's similar in Build/Duke: as a mapper, the 'right' move is to press a single key (O) on the texture to make it floor-relative as opposed to the default ceiling-relative, and so when mappers choose not to do that then as players we're naturally tempted to read it as unsophisticated, but in a way that's funny because while it makes perfect sense for certain textures to look static in such a context, it also makes perfect sense for a few to look like they are moving (as part of the actual mechanism, instead of something akin to a track). When in the case of the latter, spontaneously I tend to give the mapper a pass and assume they knew what they were doing and just intended the door to look like that. But it's really intriguing how easy this detail is to read as just an oversight.

There's also this case with split doors where both the ceilings and floors are moving (by definition) and so no matter which alignment you choose, the texture will move with the door in one way or the other unless you make the door sector an island sector that's detached from the neighboring walls (I personally do that, but I also have the habit of designing all my ceiling and floor doors like that so for me and I'm sure a lot of mappers, that's not exactly exceptional). The only door texture stretches that really are unavoidable are the ones on Star Trek and Split Star Trek doors (unless you design them alternatively with an ensemble of sliding and split doors, but then they stop technically qualifying as Star Trek doors).

[Aleks]

Quote

There's also this case with split doors where both the ceilings and floors are moving (by definition) and so no matter which alignment you choose, the texture will move with the door in one way or the other unless you make the door sector an island sector that's detached from the neighboring walls (I personally do that, but I also have the habit of designing all my ceiling and floor doors like that so for me and I'm sure a lot of mappers, that's not exactly exceptional).

Do you mean the side walls of split doors in this case? Personally, I've always considered them a "part of mechanism", especially when they use one of the conveyor/chain kind of textures, so that never bothered me in this case.

The Restless Resort

This map is very short - took me 11 minutes and had only 40 enemies on CGS, also no secrets at all. However, this is by far the best one of the pack so far and it really makes my expectations for Crucial Conflict very high! Decided to follow the theme with soundtrack I used, which in this case was exotic "Jungle Vein" from Duke Caribbean.

The level has apparently been done for some contest and has won it - which is no surprise, as it's design is some of the best and most original of the time. We start in a remote and demolished EDF base, to get our briefing and get teleported to Indonesia, where apparently some scientists have been missing. While the initial location does use some neat effects, this is really where the fun starts.

We'll be exploring a jungle/island theme, which at the time must have been something quite new in Duke 3D. I think that besides Legends series by Mike Beaulieu, not many mappers have tried to tackle that style with all the plants and sector trees. This is quite an interesting section which leads us to an EDF waste facility, where we have to use a tank to blow out the door!

Inside the facility, there's a rather interesting Battlelord encounter, as we can kill him just with environmental damage through "burning waste", but first we have to sneak past him to supply oxygen and fuel, in a neat BobSP kind of machinery. To be honest, in retrospect my Submachine looks like it might have been inspired by this map a lot, if it wasn't for the fact I haven't ever played it before...

There is also quite elaborate story, which we follow through scientist logs and EDF messages in a Half-Life-esque way. This story nicely builds up to the ending and doesn't make us read too long messages, being quite naturally composed into the map's narrative.

The combat might be a little humble, but also we're given quite a limited arsenal, so the enemy encounters can be interesting - especially with how the environments can be used to our advantage and how well the enemies are placed. I've managed to get some "infighting" going on in this one, with enforcers killing troopers 2 times, also lured one enforcer into tripmines guarding the gate to the facility.

Finally, I gotta commence all the little details in this one - like the ladders or even ivies you can climb up on, the little wooden boat, steam cleverly used at the base of waterfall or small monuments of the local gods.

With the refreshing theme and very good design, this is definitely something worth playing!



And finally, the Crucial Conflict. These maps follow the same storyline and can be played as an episode, but I chose to play each one separately. MPCC 2 and MPCC 3 use some custom art, which seems to be mostly Half Life textures (in case of MPCC 2) and modified stock textures in MPCC 3.

MPCC 1: Suspicious Storage

This one starts with the premise of having scarce ammo and potentially requiring the player to avoid some enemies rather than attack them, but in the end I found it quite easy to kill all the enemies (especially the commanders in the watchtowers were probably meant as a constant threat). Used "It's Impossible" as the soundtrack. The map took me 10 minutes, there were no secrets.

The map takes place in, well, a large warehouse in the Rotterdam docks, full of large cargo containers. The design looks very clean, but despite using different palettes and configurations for these containers, it's quite repetitive all in all. Once again we have the minefield similar to the one in MP Rocket, but this time it's more difficult to avoid the explosions.

The level is apparently "objective oriented", but considering it's very linear and full of direct sequencing, it seems more like typical button hunt (despite the logs which can be seen on some computers). The ending is a bit more interesting, with boarding a ship and launching torpedeos (even though we can't see the explosions). Gameplay is the typical and conservative one as in previous maps, with mostly low tier enemies and about 40-45 of them during about 10-15 minutes of gameplay. There might be one little progression slowdown, as you open a door then have to backtrack all the way to the beginning of the map, with barely any shortcuts opening.

By this time, it seems Pinxten got quite a distinct style with certain types of textures and their combinations he keeps using. Combinations of hi-tech/industrial tiles, Atomic greenish/Derelict set and canyon/desert textures, red sunset sky - this is very MP.

The map is short and certainly worth to play - even for having a "full experience" with its 2 sequels, which are much better levels.



MPCC 2: Waterworld

This one doesn't pick up exactly where the last one left off, for some reason - even though it would make perfect sense for it not to have any story pushed in between the two maps. The Half-Life inspiration is even more clear here, with the map going as far as borrowing some of the textures from the game. Despite this, the textures doesn't clash visually with Duke's set, as they're used carefully and the re-palettisation seemed smooth. In fact, I once caught myself wondering where the barbed wire texture/sprite is in Duke, before realising it's a custom piece! Once again, there were no secrets and I took 12 minutes to complete. Played "Waterworld" as a soundtrack, obviously!

The mission-oriented gameplay is definitely more emphasised in this one, with even more screens with logs and the first part of the map having quite a few tasks to complete, even if they're very simple. It takes a while before we get our hands on any gun at all, so in this case we pretty much have to rely on "stealth" in the first part of the map, which was done really well! Even if the combat is basically the same kind as in previous map, it feels much more fun to play.

After clearing the first part of this map, we have to take a boat to a remote island - having noticed it before, I was sure it's just a landmarking piece in the distant, so actually getting there was pretty cool. Here, especially the use of custom textures for the cave sections is done very well. It turns out the island is an abandoned EDF facility, now used by alcohol smugglers...

The design, especially of the first part with EDF base, is very reminiscent of a more "modern" FPS, at least for the early 2000s. This map and the next one also really reminded me some of Alejandro's work, especially his EDF Secret Base level (which is something even Mikko mentions in his level of EDF Secret Base), of course this one being the earlier work. I suppose this might be were Maarten was mad at Alejandro for too distinct inspiration?

This is one of the better and funnier MP levels, definitely one worth playing!



MPCC 3: Acupa Dylana

Final piece of the trilogy is the best of Pinxten maps, although not perfect. The story involves an alien-made genocide in Rotterdam, alien boss with some funny name and having to attack his ship in a small spacecraft. The level took me 19 minutes, found 4/4 secrets, although I had to backtrack quite a bit for the last 2 (hint: if you want to get all secrets, don't board the ship before you find them!). Used "Aliens, say your prayers!" as a soundtrack.

Use of new textures is much more discrete here than previously. Like Pascal did in Roch 8, Maarten here tries his skills in making an alien ship, which ends up looking quite cool, especially with all the sloped arches and doorways. The initial part of the map includes a lot of "BobSP" kind of details, including an oil meter filling, "pickable" chip and the distance meter while travelling in the spacecraft.

The map plays well and keeps better dynamics than previous levels, despite still summing up at around 50 enemies total. The space travel sequence is pretty cool, even if it's been done before and later. Everything is pretty linear once again, but this does work quite fine in this case.

Final battle with Battlelords is pretty challenging, as the area where we face them is pretty confined, so they might run in our face - but then there's teleporters allowing us an easy way to back out (which I only found out about after dealing with the Battlelords face-on and taking all the heat on me ). Too bad it only leads to a rather anticlimatic ending, which is

Spoiler

the alien overlord escaping back to his planet to launch another invasion.

We then watch Star Wars-like rolling end story and the map finishes. Not sure if there was a final level planned, but it certainly feels like there should be one more.

Despite some drawbacks, this is a peak of Maarten Pinxten's style in mapping and his best map.



And once again, my personal rating of the maps:
12) MP Hydro
11) MP Weapon
10) MP Power
9) Hazardous Chemicals
8) MP Research Facility
7) MPCC 1: Suspicious Storage
6) The Railway Station
5) MP Orbit
4) MP Rocket
3) MPCC 2: Waterworld
2) The Restless Resort
1) MPCC 3: Acupa Dylana


I'm still planning to do a video with commentary on one of the maps, preferably The Restless Resort, since it was short and sweet, with lots of cool ideas. Unfortunately, can't get my mic to work properly with OBS for now.

[NNC]

I always felt that Maarten's maps are very similar to each other, and very hard to tell the differences between them. Especially in Resfac/Power/Kolp/Weapon/Chemic/Hydro. At least the Railway station one and the MPCC levels had some sense of place.

I also felt that Alejandro Glavic maps are heavily inspired by the Pinxten levels. The EDF Base level went a tad bit too far, there was even a controversy of it back then.

[Merlijn]

I fondly remember The restless resort as one of the best maps of that time, to be honest MP's other maps kinda faded in my memories. I do remember enjoying the Crucial conflict episode, especially the 3rd map.
I'm glad to see that Aleks, as someone who never played The restless resort before, was just as impressed by it as I was back in the day. It really is a cool map.

Unfortunately I don't think I can find the time to play all his maps this month, so I'll just cherry pick a few of them and replay the crucial conflict episode.

Railway Station

This one caught my attention because it was supposed to be loosely based on the Amsterdam train station. To be honest it looks nothing like it.
The actual station is MUCH larger, with large arched structures. Somewhat similar to Kings Cross. The one on this map looks more like a random Amsterdam subway station (some of those are above ground, crazy I know).

I don't think I've played this before either, overall it's actually quite solid! The style doesn't feel that far removed from the DN3D city maps, with strong shadows, clean texturing and a good sense of location.
The gameplay is mostly conservative, the beginning is the most difficult because it takes a while before you gather some significant fire power. There's several little scenes of destruction, which is always a plus.
The station itself looks solid, and the final city area was nicely done as well.

Not much else to say. There was a funny occasion though where one of the respawning liztroops got stuck in the mirror dimension! (read: it warped into the mirror sector). As a result I could hear it flying around all the time but couldn't kill it.
I checked in mapster and found out that the mirror sector is gigantic, overlapping a good part of the map. No wonder the liztroop glitched out.

Found all secrets, obviously missed one kill.

EDIT: and yeah Alejandro's EDF base was controversial for the reasons The Watchtower cited, in fact I think it was even temporarily removed from MSDN.
For some reason it didn't become as infamous as Dogville though.

[Aleks]

 Merlijn, on 14 July 2021 - 09:29 AM, said:

Not much else to say. There was a funny occasion though where one of the respawning liztroops got stuck in the mirror dimension! (read: it warped into the mirror sector). As a result I could hear it flying around all the time but couldn't kill it.
I checked in mapster and found out that the mirror sector is gigantic, overlapping a good part of the map. No wonder the liztroop glitched out.

This happened to me as well, so seems the respawn for that trooper is just badly placed - and yeah, I also spent a while trying to find the bastard, then typed DNDEBUG and just checked in Mapster to see him inside the mirror sector FistMarine told me there's a 2nd version of this map, so this might have been fixed (although I would rather bet he would fix the initial killing water sector, which seems like a more serious bug).

[FistMarine]

Sorry for being late but I had a couple problems and how I set up the MP maps and folders.

First, it took me a while to realize that most of the maps (except MPResort and the MPCC series) are actually made for 1.3D in mind, as there are no Atomic resources being used. If you think it's not that big of a deal, well the original 1.3D release has quite a number of differences between it and Atomic 1.4/1.5, the most important being you can kick with both feet at same time, you get 6 pipebombs per box, slimers are more dangerous (they can't be kicked off face, so you must use pistol to get rid of them or just press the fire button while switching weapons or during reloading and it will still kill a slimer off face) and their acid still hurts you even with boots in inventory, etc. It makes for a bit of an interesting experiment after years of playing the Atomic Edition (though I personally first started with 1.3D and years later I got Atomic). I do admit sometimes I get enjoyment from playing maps in DOS 1.3D as well (the ones that were made for it, if a map was made for Atomic, then obviously I'm playing in Atomic).

So I first played/finished two weeks ago, the OLD version of MPRail and MPRocket, in Atomic 1.5 in DOSBox and was going to play the rest that way until I noticed my mistake and had the folders set up a bit messy as well. Then I got frustrated and I deleted the folders and set them up again in 4 different folders (MP00, MP01, MP02 and MPCC), this time the two outdated maps in MP00 (Duke3D 1.3D), most rest maps in MP01 (Duke3D 1.3D), MPResort and MPCC individual maps in MP02 (Duke3D 1.5) and the MPCC as an episode in MPCC folder (Duke3D 1.5). All set up nicely, right? Unfortunately somehow I didn't realize MPHydro was missing, so I am going to skip over this map for now because I simply didn't notice that was missing and I'm too lazy to download it right now. And besides that, it turns out Aleks also uploaded the OLD version of MPRail (with the glitchy sector at start that can squish you) which is the one that is found on most review sites (MSDN, CGS, etc) as I've been telling him in a PM lately. Luckily I have both versions separately installed but I still ended up playing through the glitchy one twice (due to versions mentioned above), with soon to play through the fixed version (that hopefully also fixes the mirror area and missing kill). And the various problems that happened, which made me lose interest in this month's entries. Thankfully I recently picked up playing and ended up finally playing the other entries after redoing MPRail (old) and MPRocket once again. I will get through later maps shortly.

I will start with MPRocket, MPRail (old version) and MP Research Facility (which I played yesterday). I will not go into details because most people already talked about the levels in depth analysis, so I'm only going through the essentials.

MP Rocket
Some interesting parts about this map. The secrets are easy to find (even though I also looked in mapster before I played), though the hand switch found inside secret is difficult to activate, it unlocks way back to the beginning of level. Navigation is pretty annoying as I found myself going in circles sometimes and the second time I played the map I ended up forgetting about using the blue card, so I tried activating the hand switch and finally succeeded so I could backtrack, otherwise you get stuck down there. Also it took a while to find a hidden crack that opens the way underwater (the bars). There is also a yellow card that can be easily missed (basically it's optional) involving some teleporters and a bunch of slimers in inescapable acid pit that can also make you miss kills at end of the level, they are best dealt with pipebombs. And various other optional areas that are also missable. At the end of the level, there is a mine field. I simply used the jetpack to fly over the dangerous part. After I finished the level and backtracked throughout the whole level, I actually tried to trigger the mine field and see what's this about and yeah I was able to trigger most mines and try to heal up and activate all of them. I may have succeeded with low health but I gave up after that because I was pretty much done with the level. Note that this I tried before I replayed the map in 1.3D executable. Overall the level was ok but nothing too interesting. Also that part almost killed me with explosions and commanders on my replay but I used medkit to save my life. Thankfully earlier I got used armor from a pig cop, since armor pickups are a bit scarce in MP series. I find that annoying because the armor is an essential item and Duke is so fragile when he has no armor!

MP Railway Station
Funnily enough, I only got squished by sector AFTER I had already finished the map in 1.5 and went to backtrack to see for missing kills. But when I replayed in 1.3D, I got squished as soon as I started the map, after that I haven't died again. And yes I positioned myself in MIDDLE of sector but it still squashed me in latter case. I'm aware of the sectors being misaligned but thought that middle was the safe spot. Oh well...
So yeah I can't say what it hasn't been said other than there is a hidden portable medkit in a non-secret area in the bathroom. Press on the hand dryer and it opens a small compartiment with the medkit inside. I also had initially a bunch of enemies missed but this was caused because of monsters spawning all over place in the map, often at parts you have already visited earlier but unlikely to visit again, so I had to backtrack after finishing the level (thankfully you can backtrack, just be careful with not breaking those vents). The secrets are again easy to find, though there is another important hidden item, a Shrinker and some ammo! There is also a hidden room at start of the level that contains some much needed goodies.
And finally, you can finish the map with a bunch of missing kills, then upon backtracking and killing everyone, you will find 2 missing kills. Funnily enough, just yesterday when loading my saved game and exploring again, I had found a PIG COP underwater at beginning of level, it had felt down in the pipe and then I still ended up with a missing kill overall (though better than in case of first time I played map when I had TWO missing kills). I'm afraid that there is a trooper stuck inside mirror. I don't think I heard it but there is no way to get rid of it. EVEN when I managed to glitch myself inside mirror somehow or throwing pipebombs in the problematic area with the RPG secret, the pipebombs sometimes disappear and warp inside mirror sector but even when I tried to detonate them that way, I still ended up with a missing kill at end of level. I tried everything and I just couldn't get all kills. It's too bad it ended up that way as the map was otherwise decent and I especially liked the train area. I'm hopeful that the fixed version has fixed the mirror glitch with monsters stuck inside but we will see about that soon when I get to play MPKolp and MPRail (new version). Until then let's talk about something else.

MP Research Facility
I will say that there are NO secrets to find and that the map was a bit annoying at times but like with rest entries, I didn't die so far (besides the squishing sector in MPrail). Though I found strange how one of enforcers jumped through forcefield, that was weird. There is also no Freezethrower to be found on the map and yes I searched in Mapster to find it after I finished the map but there was nowhere to be found. If it's supposed to spawn somewhere, then it must be a 1.3D bug because if I'm not mistaken, Freezethrower cannot be spawned in that version if it is supposed to be spawned from a trash can or something. It can only be gotten if it's placed directly in the map. Yeah I remember that when I was a kid and I made experiment with dying with different weapons and looking at Duke's corpse in View Mode with weapon sometimes dropped, no matter how many times I tried with Freezethrower in hand, it never got dropped. But I know for sure in Atomic this is fixed because I also remember a difference in Stadium with the Blimp sometimes spawning Freezethrower pickups as well but in 1.3D this didn't happen. Sorry for getting off-topic...
Now back to the map, there are functional trains (which can squish monsters) and you have to traverse through lava. Find the boots and go through lava! Also I realized after I made the second screenshot that there is an armor pickup right on those conveyor belts, it is hidden in a corner. And after I got it, pig cops started dropping used armors too. Well at least the mapper is generous with health supplies and even atomic health can be often found.
Overall the map was interesting but I am still annoyed by how monsters spawn randomly throughout the map, as if the respawns weren't properly tagged, they spawn at places you aren't gonna visit again. I killed 7 more troopers after I backtracked when I reached the ending. It initially took me 30 minutes to finish but then after backtracking, you will see it took me 40 minutes as I took another picture of the ending picture.

Anyway sorry if I sounded a bit pissed off, I enjoyed far more the Roch series but the MP series have been pretty good so far, just it didn't meet my expectations that I had. And I don't have pictures of MPRocket and MPRail as I deleted them and will take new screenshots of MPKolp and MPRail (new version) when I get to play them. Until then enjoy MpResFac screenshots!

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[NNC]

 Merlijn, on 14 July 2021 - 09:29 AM, said:

EDIT: and yeah Alejandro's EDF base was controversial for the reasons The Watchtower cited, in fact I think it was even temporarily removed from MSDN.
For some reason it didn't become as infamous as Dogville though.

I still don't understand why Maarten and Pascal seethed so heavily. Neither maps copied directly, just used the same theme/art style. They should have been proud, instead of going into full retard mode. Also, none of these user maps are trademarked/copyrighted anyway, it's just an unwritten law not to hack them.

[ck3D]

 The Watchtower, on 14 July 2021 - 11:15 PM, said:

I still don't understand why Maarten and Pascal seethed so heavily. Neither maps copied directly, just used the same theme/art style. They should have been proud, instead of going into full retard mode. Also, none of these user maps are trademarked/copyrighted anyway, it's just an unwritten law not to hack them.

I agree with you but just as a reminder (and playing devil's advocate), the original version of Dogville - the one that only stayed up for a few hours before Taivo went and remodeled a lot of stuff - was kind of pushing it in terms of borrowing 'inspiration'; I remember on AMC, Pascal (via MetHy, IIRC, since he never directly made an account) even shared comparative screenshots of some rooms that originally were designed the exact same as some of his in Roch 6-8, not in terms of layout but of texture picks, palettes and associations to form the same 'unique' objects that originally were little trademarks in Pascal's maps, (e.g.. that one suitcase using window sprites).

That version didn't stay up for long and it only took a few hours, maybe a day for Taivo to switch things up in every area Pascal had explicitly shown in the comparative screenshots, and it's that updated version that stuck and spread. Ironically, the improvised redesigned areas actually looked better than in the 'Roch' version.

None of this justifies Pascal's behavior in the slightest, but his reason for being triggered was a bit more justified than people seem to remember now, originally (because they've gotten used to the revised version, and then the revised revised version of Dogville).

I also agree on Ale's and Pinxten's levels having a similar vibe, I think it's because they mostly use grey tones and Half Life-inspired gimmicks to craft pseudo-cinematic experiences but you also lose a lot of the potential conceptual grandness since they're mostly linear successions of machinery, rooms and corridors with the occasional cool little effect thrown in. All within the old Build limits, that's commendable but that type of level was never a personal favorite (which may explain why at the end of the day, to me Ale's most memorable piece is Welcome Home; I also liked his city maps). In fact I'm especially looking forward to ADG07 because it's looking like it may have the potential to break out of those chains of a model.

[Merlijn]

It's also a sort of gentleman's agreement to not directly copy each other, and if you use an obvious source of inspiration you should at least add that source in the credits.
For example if you used the clear water trick from Bob Averill, you would mention him in the credits. It's a matter of courtesy.

[High Treason]

Not sure about anyone else, but I personally encourage reverse-engineering. Things like texture combinations and stuff are a bit of a gray area, but I'd not think twice about doing it if I'd seen something I liked, as I can't really see how anyone could lay claim to it as solely their intellectual property. Imagine if 3D Realms got mad every time someone built something the way they did.
Straight up copy/paste of things is bad though.

Anyway, two more levels;


MPRAIL:
As I said, it's Duke Nukem 3D, but in a train station. Had fun and it's at least decently memorable for its location alone. Everything but the start was generally well constructed.

MPRESORT:
A setting that the engine doesn't generally lend itself well to, so points for trying and a few nice gimmicks. Might be the most memorable of the bunch thus far and it really, really shows that Maarten's mapping has matured by this point, that he was confident enough to take on such concepts and more so, could execute them sufficiently where some would have fallen far short.


Sure hope Aleks gets his mic working as I'd definitely like to see what he comes up with in a video. Not that well versed in the workings of OBS, but may be able to help to some extend, not sure. Honestly the entire Windows NT audio stack baffles me, if only as to how the hell it ever shipped in such a state to begin with.

[FistMarine]

MP Power

This map was a bit more straightforward at times until the part with those large circular rooms where I wasn't sure where to go and didn't think of jumping into that pit because I thought it would kill you. Instead you land safely inside water! Some good fights every now and then (and got surprised by first commander in the warehouse, took a few rockets to the face, ouch!) and especially the outside area when you get near end and those commanders that get summoned when you first access the building. However it seems the end of level is easily accessible by crossing into the hole (that contains a box with an atomic health) and once you kill the pig cops, you can finish the level in the ending sector (the nuke button is inaccessible). Though I did this after I cleared the whole level.

And as with the case of every map ending in this type of sector, you get sent to Hollywood Holocaust! Yeah I initially missed one of the newly spawned pig cops (I only killed those that spawned close to nuke button, not the one that spawned nearby) which made me worry a bit that there was no backtracking but after reloading my save from the end of level, I found that pig cop was actually nearby and was glad I ended up with all kills and secrets! Yeah there's 4 secrets to find, though looking earlier with mapster, I did see where they were and did a good choice so I wouldn't try to find them later, though I'm sure you can backtrack to the whole map before the ending part.

MP Operation Kolpowitz

I have already talked about MPRocket before, so there is no need to repeat myself, except that this time I didn't get any early used armor from first few pig cops, so it was a bit more painful in beginning (and thankfully used the portable medkit before I triggered those explosions and before I got the atomic health). That part with explosions is just mean if it's your first time playing the map, don't know how I survived first time. Anyway, I initially missed a slimer but I backtracked from the end of the level (since you are given a jetpack near at end) and was able to find it. I still find this a bit strange even if it makes perfect sense (usually slimers are found in vents or hatched from eggs, rarely you see them directly placed on top of slime, heh). It is just not common you see slimers placed directly in acid.

MP Orbit

I will admit this map was a bit confusing and frustrating at first, although thankfully I didn't die but it was a very bad idea to take on an enforcer with just the pistol! I chose the wrong door first and ended up surviving with 25 health, though thankfully there was a large medkit nearby, so at least I could recover some of my health. After getting chaingun and killing those pig cops without taking any damage (even got an used armor as reward, even if only 50 points), things went a bit smoother. Also getting an early shrinker secret and then blowing up a hole to reach a small vent that you had to progress or was it an optional area? I think that's the second secret and it gives you a much needed jetpack and atomic health, with the jetpack required to escape.

So yeah about getting stuck for a while, I had no idea that switch was timed that opens nearby door because whenever I would press it and go to check the door, it would close before I even see it. Then later I find a vent and the much needed shotgun, I reach a room full of crates and aliens (troopers and octabrains), realize that I need a blue card to unlock one of the doors and kept asking myself where do I go until I consult mapster.

After realizing that door near beginning opens with the timed switch, the progression went smooth until later in level where I easily found the red card but didn't see the red card switch, so I kept wandering for about 5 or so more minutes until I barely notice it at the locked door in the darkness. Probably my bad I'm playing on the default settings and not adjusted brightness but hey, I want some extra challenge when I play the maps in DOSBox so I end up with the default controls and settings and such.

Eventually I reach the end (and find another secret which is timed, I think it's in a corridor before you get the red card) and notice two enforcers floating in space (one of which I have seen floating earlier when looking at window from that vent secret, before I got the jetpack). I found this a bit amusing but I don't really understand why they got outside the map, it reminds me of the earlier MP Research Facility where one of the enforcers clipped through the forcefield and got to my back. So I'm assuming the same happened here. At least I was able to shrink them through forcefield (after noticing me, since they were far away and frozen in air, so I had to wait for them to get closer) and step on them somehow through windows.

Then I find out there's 5 enemies left! It turns out there was a hidden vent with 5 slimers in a non-secret area, it requires jetpack to reach it and at first I didn't understand how to get inside because it seemed to be no way to reach it (Duke can't fit through the vent while flying, if the vent is on top of ceiling) but then somehow after turning off jetpack, I was standing on an invisible ledge or a sign or something and allowed me to get inside, kill the slimers, grab the hidden RPG and ammo and then exit the level with every enemy killed and almost every weapon found (except Devastator). There is also an armor pickup right at end of level (just like in case of MPPower) which is a bit strange, sometimes I wish the armor pickups were given at beginning instead of at the end. So I grabbed it (and health) when I was done with the level because there was no reason to grab health/armor when nearly full.

Overall, frustrations and confusing parts aside, this was a pretty solid space level. I liked it, even though I found a bit strange that there's pig cops in space, though I played before space maps with pig cops in them (this one may have been one of those maps). Another strange thing is that there seemed to be too few enemies killed at end of MP Orbit, I'm very sure I must have killed at least 50 or more enemies, yet I only have 38 kills. Were some enemies eaten by slimers or what?

Later today I will tackle on MPWeapon, MPChemic and MPRail (new version). After that, MPHydro and the rest (MPResort and MPCC series) will be done in the next two weeks when I get around them.

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[FistMarine]

I have played the maps last Friday but didn't get to write about the maps until now, so enjoy:

ACME Weapon Factory

This was quite an interesting map at times but also a bit annoying. At beginning it seems really dark and you are given quite a couple of supplies before you end up in the factory. You are given weapons, ammo, armor and a portable medkit. I was wondering where are the enemies until I took a bit of damage from some turrets and went back to grab that medkit placed near beginning. After that I carefully progressed. I almost ran into the trip mines on the stairs but I ended up stopping at the last second, if I didn't stop in time I would have ended up dead.

There are some interesting fights happening at times and I especially found interesting that part with conveyor belts that left me a bit wondering what's with these until I tried both of them so I could progress, as initially I kept trying the one that pushed me back!
There is also a Mini Battlelord that spawns later in map when you return to factory entrance. It's also a good thing I noticed those commanders spawning in time before they ambushed me from behind, probably around the part where you had to throw a pipebomb to blow up a crack. There are also some ambushes at end of map in form of a couple of troopers and pig cops spawning when approaching the exit and once you get locked inside that last room, there is no way back, so make sure you grab everything first. There are 2 secrets to find in this map and they are easy to find, though the second one with the atomic health can be easily missed if you don't explore more carefully. Overall, an interesting but nothing special map.

Hazardous Chemicals

This map indeed resembles Doom E1M7 at times. There isn't much to talk about it, I found it a bit generic at times. The last part with those tubes and the Mini Battlelord encounter were the highlight to me. Once you get past the last door (and drop down in the acid), there is no way back, so again make sure you get all the secrets (4 this time) first. Not a bad map, just a bit generic, as if took Doom E1M7 and expanded it.

The Railway Station

I already played through the old version earlier, so I will only talk about the differences with the new version. First, the faulty sector at start of the map has finally been fixed! I tried submerging and surfacing about 3 times and it worked every time, no more random deaths! Second, the troopers disappearing into mirror glitch did NOT get fixed, sadly. I ended up this time with THREE missing monsters at end of level! I think I realized some of the troopers earlier disappeared because one time when I made troopers spawn around that area, I quickly checked with saving/loading and sometimes they were only 2 present, other times they were 3. I guess you are supposed first to clean the bathroom area (and kill that trooper in corner quickly) before visiting the place where those pig cops reside (where you are supposed to blow up a fire extinguisher and shoot a switch to unlock a door) because when you enter that room, troopers spawn and they seem to also wake up that trooper in corner. And since I play in the original DOS version, I don't have any in-game stats so I can't tell when monsters spawn because sometimes they spawned while I was in a completely different room or in vents and I have no way to know and quickly react to prevent the mirror glitch. It MIGHT be possible to place a pipebomb in exact location where troopers are spawning and have it detonate the moment you cross the sector where they spawn but this is almost impossible to successfully do in the original DOS version (even if successful, we still don't know how many we killed until the end of level stats), at least in 1.3D because for example if they spawn while you are inside vents full of slimers, you can't kick the slimer off face and end up being forced to switch weapons anyway. And if it happens in a place while you are already fighting monsters, you risk dying from monster fire if you don't fight back and keep holding that detonator in hand. So if someone knows a better solution how to handle these glitchy trooper spawns (and show the exact locations/sectors that spawn those troopers inside bathroom/mirror), let me know!

I will do MPHydro, MPResort and MPCC series soon! Hopefully I will do them before the end of month. Then we will vote for next month's entry/entries.

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[Ninety-Six]

MPHydro -
Difficulty: Come Get Some
Time: Forgot to pay attention
Enemies: 100%
Secrets: 100%
Music: Water World
Port: eDuke32 current revision
Other: Darkus' GAME.CON fixes used


So this was a map that I played. First impressions were definitely amateur with the very blocky buildings huddled around in a grassy courtyard...? And for some reason there's a flooded cavern with a car in it? It's also just plain strange that the actual hydro station is so small and just casually near a hotel and...whatever the hell that end section was.

That said, the actual hydro station itself looked the part well enough. Gameplay was in very tight corridors but usually not too much of a problem. He didn't throw any heavy hitters at you so it was fine. Rooms were kinda blocky but at least had a distinctiveness to them. I guess there are two ways to the key card, but you go in such vastly different directions it felt like I had missed something when I backtracked and took the other route, only to end up back at the teleporter.

I see it's already been noted but yeah that one water section is too small for Duke to fit through with the current state of the clipping physics. Had to use noclip to get in and back out again. Of course there's a reason I keep those on hand.


I guess Pinxton got bored or something since we then leave the area the level is named after, rather anticlimactically at that, and then we go to a hotel. Slash bar. Slash recording booth. Slash football stadium. ...??? With the way the layout is done, and the big letters, and the placement of the cheerleaders, I can't help but wonder if Pinxton meant for this to be the stadium. It certainly got my paranoia going, expecting the Emperor to spawn once I picked up the keycard. But then nothing happened.

And then it was off to... to.... what even was that final area supposed to be?


Despite it being a fairly easy level, I almost died twice. The first was a cheapbomb trap in the recording booth for some reason and then again at the end when surprise the walls shoot rockets at you.

Overall, MPHydro definitely suffers a lot from Early Map Syndrome. I've only played a few of this guy's maps before, and the rest are new experiences. This one is of the latter type.



MPResFac -
Difficulty: Come Get Some
Time: 14:46
Enemies: 80/81
Secrets: 0/0
Music: Pissed!
Port: eDuke32 current revision
Other: Darkus' GAME.CON fixes used

Another new one to me. I'd say I'm not the biggest fan of this one. The cramped spaces did start to become a problem this time; the enforcer ambush after grabbing the blue key was particularly mean. I'm also pretty sure another trooper got lost somewhere; when they spawn in after reaching the alien base they randomly spawn...away from the alien base. Traversing the map is a bit of a pain, and backtracking is tedious. I can also confirm I couldn't find the freezethrower either.

Aesthetically, I guess we're on some sort of asteroid? I know it said "planet" but... I don't know. This was overall a very surreal map. The geometry was borderline escher-like in my opinion, with a lot of views where you should be seeing way more than you actually are. Hard to get a sense of place when reality is breaking down. Which, to be fair, can be perfectly fine, but I don't think that's what he was aiming for, here. There were a few things I liked visually, though. The biodome area was neat, but in fairness I always like that sort of thing. I also liked the lava containers, where you could see the dry parts and the wet parts simultaneously. I don't think I've ever seen that done before.


Also did anyone notice the switch that Duke could apparently toggle through a grate with the Force? Either that or he turns into Mr. Fantastic for a moment, there.



MPPower -
Difficulty: Come Get Some
Time: 23:21
Enemies: 83/83
Secrets: 3?/4
Music: Taking the Death Toll
Port: eDuke32 current revision
Other: Darkus' GAME.CON fixes used

This is one I did play before, and I actually enjoy it a fair bit. I think the theming is strong, the loud noise of the generators is fitting and makes sense, and I especially like how the sky texture goes from dark and dim to brightly lit, echoing the terrain. Almost like you turned the power back on after reclaiming it from the aliens (and I guess it just takes a while for the generators to fully power up or something, I dunno).

Combat was simple and basic, nothing invigorating but at least there wasn't any cheapness to it this time. I tried really hard to find the fourth and final secret but I just couldn't, even with DNSHOWMAP. I found an area that looked like a secret but wasn't tagged as such, and I started wondering if it didn't glitch out or something. Though reading everyone else's experiences, I guess that's not the case, huh?

[Sanek]

 The Watchtower, on 14 July 2021 - 12:21 AM, said:

I always felt that Maarten's maps are very similar to each other, and very hard to tell the differences between them. Especially in Resfac/Power/Kolp/Weapon/Chemic/Hydro. At least the Railway station one and the MPCC levels had some sense of place.

Ditto. It's a not Maarten's fault really (the maps themselves is great), but looking at the map's name, I had a hard time remembering which ones I played.




The Restless Resort is obviously his best map, design-wise. Golden oldie, I remember this map very well. Back then I thought there's a cool intro, in the base without monsters.

Crucial Conflict series all blend into one map for me, but I must say that each map is progressively better, Acupa Dylana being my favorite.

MP Power is a nice little map. Looks a bit rusty compared to Crucial Conflinct series, but a pretty good map anyway.

MP Orbit is a refreshing map. I like that he stepped out of his comfort zone and came with a space map, which actually turned out as a good one.

I don't believe/remember if I played other maps in this list. I must play some of them at some point.

[Ninety-Six]

Went for a redemption run of both MPpower and MPResFac. Got all kills on the latter (Pretty sure it was indeed a lizard that got stuck in teleport limbo) and found the last secret in Power.


Now, onto the new stuff -

MPkolp:
Difficulty - Come Get Some
Time - 14:56
Enemies - 77/77
Secrets - 3/3
Music - Future Military Conquests
Port - eDuke32 current revision
Other - Darkus' GAME.CON fixes used

I decided to pick the version with more story, because I'm weird like that. The first few areas reminded me a lot of Hydro, with narrow geometry that doesn't quite seem to make sense. Also Pinxton seemed to severely doubt the ability of the player to jump. You can skip right up to the blue key without needing to take the long way at all. I mean I did anyway because I'm a completionist, but when the jump looked more than possible of course I had to try it myself. The elevator later on down the longer route could also be bypassed without trying. Those weren't the only rather strange design choices, either. For instance, there was this one vent near the red card that went exactly nowhere. It had some slimers in it but nothing else, and didn't go anywhere. Not even a backtrack route. It just stopped. And then there was one of the most pointless keycards I think I've ever seen. I found it while backtracking to look for three missing kills, and stumbled into that room with two lizards, the yellow key, and the door virtually right next to it that just lets you backtrack further. Why even bother?

You can tell Pinxton had played some Half-Life. There was a room (the big circular one with the elevator) that made me go "huh, this reminds me of Blast Pit." Specifically both the giant fan room and then the shaft with the power generator. And then very shortly after that room was another that made me go "okay but this is 100% Blast Pit, though?". The one with the two battlelords in the toxic room is literally the first major room of that chapter proper. It even has the brown pipes you traverse the beginning of that chapter with. And then to round it all off was a mined area (which I thought was referring to mining mines, not land mines. Found that out the hard way) that was very clearly paying some respect to the same section of Surface Tension. Too bad Gordon didn't have a jetpack.

Combat was mostly well rounded. Once again nothing stellar, but I found myself more invested than I did the other ones until now. Though there was one annoying section. The tip of the rocket when the commanders spawn in. By itself it's not a problem, but the commanders have a tendency to get stuck in the launch shaft, especially when shrunk. Speaking of said rocket, I noticed a bug where one of the engines didn't leave with the rest of the missile.


MPorbit:
Difficulty - Come Get Some
Time - 9:42
Enemies - 41/41
Secrets - 3/3
Music - Stalag 3-D
Port - eDuke32 current revision
Other - Darkus' GAME.CON fixes used

This was another one I'd played before, and while I didn't hate it I wasn't the biggest fan of it. And that opinion still holds. Once again the narrow constraints are actually a problem again. My favorite part was the enforcer at the top of the elevator right next to where you spawn. If you decide to go that way first (like I did), you'll get shredded with no means to defend yourself or take cover, and if you survive you'll just find a locked door at the end for your troubles. In fact doors in general were a consistent annoyance with this map. They all closed way too fast, which interfered with the combat on many occasions. Especially when the level asks you to charge headfirst into a narrow corridor filled with enemies with again no means to avoid damage because the door only gives you just enough time to reach it at a full sprint before closing again.

[Aleks]

 Ninety-Six, on 21 July 2021 - 03:38 PM, said:

This was another one I'd played before, and while I didn't hate it I wasn't the biggest fan of it. And that opinion still holds. Once again the narrow constraints are actually a problem again. My favorite part was the enforcer at the top of the elevator right next to where you spawn. If you decide to go that way first (like I did), you'll get shredded with no means to defend yourself or take cover, and if you survive you'll just find a locked door at the end for your troubles. In fact doors in general were a consistent annoyance with this map. They all closed way too fast, which interfered with the combat on many occasions. Especially when the level asks you to charge headfirst into a narrow corridor filled with enemies with again no means to avoid damage because the door only gives you just enough time to reach it at a full sprint before closing again.

While the doors that are timed for the sole purpose of making a run from the switch and getting locked inside - like the one in MPOrbit I think - are actually a decent gameplay feature that make you decide on more robust fight strategy instead of picking out everything, I will once again emphasize how much SE10 (door auto-close) is overused in so many maps, usually making no sense at all. I can understand this being a thing in a hi-tech base or space station, with certain door types, but adding it to every door in a level, sometimes with ridiculously short open times and unsignalised (like yeah, I'm sure this swing door in a random house auto-closing after 10 seconds makes perfect sense, so useful when carrying in something larger for the inhabitants!...), is just plain bad design and one of the most annoying thing you can imagine.

Now while we're at it, wait till you get to MPWeapon with its final switch-operated door with fast autoclose and commanders placed a bit far behind it

[Ninety-Six]

 Aleks, on 21 July 2021 - 03:51 PM, said:

While the doors that are timed for the sole purpose of making a run from the switch and getting locked inside - like the one in MPOrbit I think - are actually a decent gameplay feature that make you decide on more robust fight strategy instead of picking out everything

I would agree with you as I normally don't like resorting to such tactics, but when the other side of the door is yet another narrow corridor in which you can't avoid damage in (compounded by the door closing so fast it's difficult to even see what the opposition is before the door closes) then yes I will absolutely resort to trying to draw the enemy out so I can be spared taking hits that I would literally otherwise be unable to avoid.