[Paul B]

FistMarine, on 27 September 2021 - 07:18 AM, said:

Showcase
in this one the shrinking returns and is required to access that room with two pig cops inside.

This statement is incorrect.

FistMarine, on 27 September 2021 - 07:18 AM, said:

(though the navigation can be a bit annoying/confusing)

This statement is incorrect.

FistMarine, on 27 September 2021 - 07:18 AM, said:

Also the Devastator isn't present in the map, despite getting ammo for it.

This statement is incorrect.

There is a devastator in the security room that disables the motion sensors. It's located in the closet. Sounds like you had a terrible time with the map and it's a really small map. The map also plays well in Death Match too.

There are three ways to play the level in single play or in co-op mode:

1.) The way you did, which was to head directly for the end of the level by using the shrinker secret at the start.
2.) Play the level by tripping the motion sensors. (A challenge)
3.) Play the level bypassing the motion sensors. (sneak your way around the motion sensors using vents then disable them for your return trip).

My recommendation should you dare to play it again would be to not take the secret start, which obviously confused you greatly. (Hence why its the less obvious way to complete the map). I understand most Duke maps are enjoyed in a linear fashion where some prefer to be handheld through a level, most of my maps I tried to give the illusion that you're not being handheld by providing options on how to complete the level.

Thanks for the review, but before you review any map you should spend more than 5 minutes playing it. A review is not intended to be a speed run of a map. Forge had a passion for reviewing maps and a knack for thorough and thoughtful reviews. Sure miss his appearances and reviews.

[Paul B]

Aleks, on 14 September 2021 - 01:58 PM, said:

Showcase

Another awesome level, my favourite one of the pack by now. It balances brilliantly between top-notch design, challenging gameplay and the aspect of innovation/originality, that last one being probably the best executed and affecting the gameplay to a great extent. In fact I have found the stealth way right at the beginning, but decided to first finish the level berserker style, then replay it again and take the stealth route. The comparison between the two methods is probably where the level shines the most, it's pretty much perfectly balanced. Going through the movement sensors and triggering all the alien respawns is actually really challenging, especially with the limited ammo, but then the art gallery also provides plenty of cover for the firefights. On the other hand, there's still plenty of action when you disable the sensors, but it is notably easier and also a lot faster. This is something I've rarely seen that well balanced even in the games that would base their gameplay on a stealth/ninja approach. I liked the seeming scarcity of ammo that required looking around for it, also the secrets location was quite nicely indicated without being too obvious (i.e. you could basically see the secrets first, then just needed to figure out the way to reach them, also their location makes them actually useful for the gameplay. The design is a nice mix between neat, classic and clean stuff, Roch and even some Bob Averill details here and there. The art gallery itself shines the most, with lots of paintings (some of which unfortunately look weird in Polymost due to sprite clipping) and sculptures, but I also really loved the way how the large windows were fit into the layout/architecture of the whole building. Also all the ventilation shafts, technical rooms and small details like that make the floor look both very lively and add that bit of realistic feeling to it. Even the sounds for locked doors etc. are placed everywhere and work very well.

Thanks Aleks, happy to hear you had a better experience than others with this map. I enjoyed the entire episode from start to finish. What this episode demonstrated to me was when all members were faced with the same default map template the creativity shown by each individual is nothing short of astonishing to deliver such vast environments, ideas, gameplay and design. What most people might not know is during the creation of this episode there was no cooperative collaboration to ensure mappers weren't accidentally creating something that was being created by someone else. It all just worked out and everyone who contributed to this episode did a fantastic job and personally I think this episode is a great representation of the creativity that lives here in the Duke community.

Methy should be proud of his hard work, as he was the glue that brought us all together and brought the vision to a reality.

[FistMarine]

Paul B, on 27 September 2021 - 10:22 AM, said:

This statement is incorrect.

There is a devastator in the security room that disables the motion sensors. It's located in the closet. Sounds like you had a terrible time with the map and it's a really small map. The map also plays well in Death Match too.

There are three ways to play the level in single play or in co-op mode:

1.) The way you did, which was to head directly for the end of the level by using the shrinker secret at the start.
2.) Play the level by tripping the motion sensors. (A challenge)
3.) Play the level bypassing the motion sensors. (sneak your way around the motion sensors using vents then disable them for your return trip).

My recommendation should you dare to play it again would be to not take the secret start, which obviously confused you greatly. (Hence why its the less obvious way to complete the map). I understand most Duke maps are enjoyed in a linear fashion where some prefer to be handheld through a level, most of my maps I tried to give the illusion that you're not being handheld by providing options on how to complete the level.

Thanks for the review, but before you review any map you should spend more than 5 minutes playing it. A review is not intended to be a speed run of a map. Forge had a passion for reviewing maps and a knack for thorough and thoughtful reviews. Sure miss his appearances and reviews.

I didn't have a terrible time with the map (considering I never died in first place), I said I just found it slightly annoying/confusing to navigate at times but the map itself was excellent and this is the video I used as walkthrough to find the secrets:

Unlike the guy who recorded the video, I didn't play with the classic HUD, since in EDuke32 I prefer to use its own HUD (only in original DOS versions I use classic HUD, also in JFDuke3D since JFDuke doesn't have its own HUD), plus I managed to kill those fallen pig cops with pipebombs, something that the uploader did not know or think about it. I also couldn't immediately tell which weapon I had at times (again due to using EDuke32's own HUD) but if I might have pressed 8 to select Devastator, at that time it might have been missing from the inventory, as I don't think I actually found it, at least not in 1.1. Not sure how did I manage to miss it but as you said, it wasn't a secret area and the non-secret areas tend to be easily missed in general (though I did pick up that armor from the closet since it was much needed). Original Duke3D has a few non-secret areas easily missable too.

Also the 5 minutes part is false, if you had seen the screenshot I took, I play with level stats enabled and this level took me around 30 minutes to complete. I never had a problem to complete it or find the secrets (with a bit of help from the video) or even get all the kills, it's just I had to backtrack a lot at times to get a bit of health from bathroom (if I felt like taking a piss or drinking water to get a couple health points instead of wasting a medkit, if my health was around 80 or higher) or to get all the ammo I could at times, even though weapons and inventory get taken away at beginning of each level, I usually prefer to grab everything before exiting each level (especially the atomic health which transfers between maps), though I may have missed an ammo box somewhere or something like that and in this case I might have indeed missed the Devastator pickup (like the guy in video) which had no effect with how the map played, even though I wish I had the devastator when the mini battlelord appeared but he didn't come over where I was standing, so he could be killed with just the shotgun for example. And yes I have played numerous maps (mostly older ones) before where a weapon pickup wasn't placed in the map at all (although if it was a chaingun, it could also be dropped by enforcers if you were lucky), yet ammo for it was randomly given, so I found this a bit odd and didn't know I missed the devastator somewhere even though I KNEW I was missing something. I just wasn't sure whether the devastator was actually placed somewhere and was too lazy to look into Mapster to find it, considering those YouTube videos by the guy SSGmaster were enough to help me getting 100% in each level and in this level case, I improvised myself with killing those pig cops fallen from buildings, I believe Aleks did something similar too to get the missing kills. I still don't know what's the solution to get all the kills for Poormann's Library, maybe High Treason will explain us at some point.

I haven't tried to see what happens if you cross the laser sensors (one of reasons being I preferred to not risk death), even though I did indeed notice one time I went into main room, a trooper managed to get through blue lasers just fine, I was just assuming it may have hurt/killed only Duke and again, I didn't want to risk death. This path sounds interesting and so does the other stealthy path with reaching the pig cop room from the other vent (which was harder to reach by jumping since there is that thing that blocks you), so I will gladly replay the map (when replaying Duke Hard, versions 1.2 and 1.2.1 this time) using the other paths available and see how the map plays. I don't remember what path I used back in 2014 when I first played DH but like I said, I will gladly replay with the different paths, because as Aleks mentioned (and I failed to point out), there were indeed other ways but I just followed what that guy did in the video. Unlike him, I didn't complete the map in less than 10 minutes since I DON'T play like a speedrunner, the only map I might have been fast is CEO Bathhouse because the map is so easy and short that it works for speedruns too, so I finished it in about 5 minutes. Your map was a lot more complex and I couldn't have speedrunned through it, at least not without risking dying at times, since it's easy for things to go wrong when you least expect it.

As for my reviews, I am not a great reviewer and I honestly had enough with writing long walls of texts (especially in a short period of time), which is why it took me a while to write my "review" for the whole Duke Hard (and in past months in previous monthly club), not only I had to write something about each level but also for the recent DW megawad club as I have participated in the Doom community as well (in last couple of months) and been playing a long and difficult megawad (which I'm close to finish, I have 6 maps left to do and until tomorrow I will most likely finish) and all this takes me about an hour or more to write, time that I could better spend to play more levels instead, however I try to help people with my reviews and also show where are the secret areas, to help other completionists out there, if they don't feel like watching a video to see the solution to the map. I have reviewed wads before and English is not my first language I admit, so there may be misunderstandings being made because it is very easy to misunderstand people through internet, especially these days.

I feel sorry that my review wasn't enough and had "incorrect statements", like I said I will gladly replay Duke Hard later today and in 3 days I should have a statement about newer versions if they work fine, now that I have the old versions from 2014 finished and work fine (besides the menu having misplaced User Map option), it will be time to see the versions from 2016 and 2018 if they work just fine.

If you want me, I can add a suggestion for the upcoming months as "Paul Bolduc's maps" and have us play through all the maps you made so far, probably for November or so, considering next month we will play through Taivo's maps. And maybe this will make up for the failed review earlier. I am not as experienced as Aleks or others, many people in the Duke community are older and wiser than me and they know better to write reviews but for my review I try my best to understand the situation and write something to have the readers enjoy, it is never my intention to criticize a good map, considering I can barely create maps at this point and I enjoy playing most of the maps that the Duke community releases, even though I have to do a lot of catching up at this point. If I missed or mistaken something (like I apparently did in this map's case), then feel free to point out, which you did. Now that I realized my mistakes, I will gladly play through the map again when I reach it and try something different.

Cheers! And hope this message didn't turn out too long or boring to read.

[Paul B]

FistMarine, on 27 September 2021 - 10:03 PM, said:

I feel sorry that my review wasn't enough and had "incorrect statements

The review was fine, but what bothered me was you made it seem as though items were not provided in the level and the direction was confusing when you chose to play through the level backwards. I would have expected someone to find that path after the 2nd or 3rd play through which explains why you found it. By following someone else's play through video which wasn't their first play through. The path you chose was a secret start which was why the shrinker was located in a secret area and was required to take the shortcut as you did. I didn't label the vent to the security room as a secret because I felt it wasn't fair to force a player into that vent to play a certain way to get all secrets.

FistMarine, on 27 September 2021 - 10:03 PM, said:

If you want me, I can add a suggestion for the upcoming months as "Paul Bolduc's maps" and have us play through all the maps you made so far.

Most of my maps are TROR centric and best played in Polymer, taking its toll on the frame rate and CPU/Video card. The majority of my maps were built using Windows XP which at the time had superior EDuke performance for TROR framerate. Also, I was using an old Viewsonic CRT monitor which made these maps much brighter where as newer LED screens made them appear so much darker and harder to navigate. Hence, the majority of my levels are overly dark and I couldn't understand when previously reviewed why people would say they are so dark and gloomy. I've since upgraded my hardware and looking back I can now see what they were referring to. My last level was called The Division and it was actually made using an LCD screen in Windows 10. Therefore, the shading reflects what all my old maps should have looked like but don't.

Looking back on the brightness and darkness of my levels, I use to always wonder why I had to brighten my screenshot images of my maps when I posted them online. That should have been a subtle indicator something was wrong with the shading of my maps and my CRT Monitor was showing dark areas much lighter. I never caught on.

Thanks for your reply, nice to hear your perspective.

[Forge]

FistMarine, on 27 September 2021 - 10:03 PM, said:

it is never my intention to criticize a good map, considering I can barely create maps at this point

this is doo-doo

you do not need to know how to create a map in order to be able to review a map.
if you've played enough, you know what's good, what isn't, and why

as for Paul's excellent map the player is given options. Sometimes they chose too hard or too easy and have an odd experience. But that also adds to the replay value.

[Aleks]

Agree with Forge - no need to be a mapper to be able to review the maps, in fact the casual player's perspective is also very valuable for gameplay stuff. Glad to see how this discussion evolved and nice to see you around this topic, Paul.

Anyway, it's October already and seems Taivo's maps finally won, boldly getting 100% votes (2) I will make the topic for October soon, I'll try today.

[FistMarine]

Quote

The review was fine, but what bothered me was you made it seem as though items were not provided in the level and the direction was confusing when you chose to play through the level backwards. I would have expected someone to find that path after the 2nd or 3rd play through which explains why you found it. By following someone else's play through video which wasn't their first play through. The path you chose was a secret start which was why the shrinker was located in a secret area and was required to take the shortcut as you did. I didn't label the vent to the security room as a secret because I felt it wasn't fair to force a player into that vent to play a certain way to get all secrets.

Now I understand! I wish I could remember what path I used back in 2014 since at that time it was pretty much a blind playthrough but since I had to look for secrets and stuff this time around (just to get 100% everything), I thought this path I chose was the main path, which confused me a little bit and made me think it was a puzzle map.

Anyway I have done the map in different ways this time around. Was pretty interesting and I should have chosen the stealthy way first time. I still made use of that hidden shrinker.

Quote

Most of my maps are TROR centric and best played in Polymer, taking its toll on the frame rate and CPU/Video card. The majority of my maps were built using Windows XP which at the time had superior EDuke performance for TROR framerate. Also, I was using an old Viewsonic CRT monitor which made these maps much brighter where as newer LED screens made them appear so much darker and harder to navigate. Hence, the majority of my levels are overly dark and I couldn't understand when previously reviewed why people would say they are so dark and gloomy. I've since upgraded my hardware and looking back I can now see what they were referring to. My last level was called The Division and it was actually made using an LCD screen in Windows 10. Therefore, the shading reflects what all my old maps should have looked like but don't.

I see. Though I would still like to have RCPD (the old map you released in 2011 or so, which is even vanilla compatible to be played in Atomic v1.5, as I only realized recently when I downloaded your maps a while back) and few other maps being played for the Club because I always found your maps interesting, even if most required Polymer, something that wasn't optimized and makes even my PC/laptop struggling with framerate but besides that, I think I still had to use Polymer to play Parkade for example (which I played few months ago) even if lagged my PC at times, the map was still completable, though I had to look in Mapster for half of the secrets. Years ago polymer was running even worse for me, so I remember back when it released, I played either in software or polymost, which had a lot of visual glitches but this time I played it in Polymer to get intended experience, just wish it didn't lag my PC, though at least it wasn't to the point of being unplayable.

A bit off-topic but do you know exactly what happened to The Division you released a while back? The topic disappeared before I was able to grab it, though I think it's still available to download on MSDN. I know Aleks explained me a while ago something in regards to the map but it's a shame I didn't get to play it from the original download link. Feel free to PM me with more details and if you still have the map uploaded.

Quote

this is doo-doo

you do not need to know how to create a map in order to be able to review a map.
if you've played enough, you know what's good, what isn't, and why

as for Paul's excellent map the player is given options. Sometimes they chose too hard or too easy and have an odd experience. But that also adds to the replay value.

Quote

Agree with Forge - no need to be a mapper to be able to review the maps, in fact the casual player's perspective is also very valuable for gameplay stuff. Glad to see how this discussion evolved and nice to see you around this topic, Paul.

Forge, you are right. But the problem is in past, on a forum (don't remember which forum was), I remember being criticized for criticizing other people's maps without making a map myself, as if I wasn't allowed to criticize that map without making a map myself. So I feared Paul B thought the same about my review and that's why I had to explain all that. Plus, years ago when I started reviewing, I didn't know to review maps in detail as I do these days, even if my reviewing skills and English have greatly improved over time, I still write short reviews sometimes but at least I will always point out what I liked and what I didn't like about map/mod reviewed. I don't go into extra detail to talk about texture choices or other various little things that more experienced reviewers usually point out, I always talk about the gameplay, issues (if they exist), bugs/glitches (if they exist or found) and if the map was good or not. In most cases, I have fun playing most maps released by the community.

And yeah, I also like the fact Paul B's map adds a replay value with the multiple paths, something that I didn't notice initially and failed to point out in the review from the previous page.

Now that reminds me, I wonder if I should also suggest Forge's maps to be chosen for the club, I meant those Duke Hours series (Duke 3:16, Duke 23:4, Duke 6:8, Duke 12:12) because I always found them interesting and the map titles funny and catching my attention. Maybe as a part of a mini-series month. I will wait for Aleks' response to see what he says about that. Oh wait I forgot Taivo's maps won, maybe the suggestion still stands for next month's choice.

Anyway, I have played through Duke Hard 1.2 and 1.2.1 last week, here are the results:

They work just fine, can be 100%'ed (except for High Treason's map, which again had different results, in 1.2 I had two missing enemies again and in 1.2.1 I had one missing enemy again, I also noticed a newly added part at end of the map which didn't exist previously) but I found a bunch more issues in Duke Hard 1.2.1 when played under the latest 2018 EDuke32 build (r7299).

In EDuke32 r7299, I had multiple FREEZES (had to simply shut down my laptop as not even Task Manager could kill the frozen eduke32.exe in background) during the secret level (parking), no idea what was but it was randomly happening and I suspect it may be due to that green truck, at least looking at it and it didn't help playing with music/sound off during this level as it still happened sometimes. I had to save-scum on multiple slots to be able to pass due to random freezes happening, the map itself is also slightly difficult but the difficulty wasn't really why I had to save a lot. It was annoying and I just wanted to be done with Duke Hard already!
Oh and I didn't get the message saying I unlocked RANDOMIZER and USER MAP options in 1.2.1 (I assume they were those glitched white screens) but they still unlocked just fine (they unlocked in all versions anyway, since I played on CGS and never cheated).

Besides that, I decided to do the alternate paths in Paul's map in the last two versions and also found the Devastator hidden in that closet (look at screenshot). I took the vent sneaking in 1.2 (the easiest and best path in my opinion), while in 1.2.1 I triggered the sensors on purpose to see what happens, it randomly spawned monsters after a while. No idea if they were infinite spawns (they eventually stopped spawning from pressing the switch in time) or were limited spawns, they were quite challenging and I was close to death at one point (and used my medkit too), though I had to reload due to 1-2 enemies disappeared since I had to run away with low health and drink from toilet, then when I came back, those sentry drones were gone, so I had to ignore those vent areas for now. Because more often than not, flying enemies in general would descent/hide and become unreachable later, so you won't be able to get all kills. It also happened on my first playthrough with Construction Destruction (one enemy was missing) and last playthrough with one of octabrains in Taivo's map, so in both cases I had to replay the level from beginning from the save at end of previous level and in general it was painful to get those commanders/sentries in Mr. Sinister's map to get through window and not descent from the building. It can happen randomly in many maps and lock you out of getting all kills, since jetpack isn't available in the whole episode (though in this case I understand the reason). I just wish the AI was a bit smarter.

I also died once at the last fight (in 1.2.1) against the Cycloid, the lucky SOB killed me, although at that point I had taken a lot more damage than in earlier playthroughs because I only had 100 health left when I got to press the last 3 switches to summon the Cycloid, maybe the fight was made slightly harder or had a bit bad luck earlier from constantly getting hit by those enemies (like years ago when I had to reload to prevent dying)? Probably the latter.

Overall, it was fun to revisit Duke Hard (FOUR times in fact!) and for the smoothest experience, I highly recommend playing Duke Hard 1.2 in latest EDuke32 2016 build (r5974). I don't know what version is included in the Addon Compilation but I wouldn't count on that one due to the compilation still being updated/tested and the last released version included is outdated from 2016 (though there was a maintenance patch in 2020 to only add compatibility for World Tour DUKE3D.GRP file). I would only like to know if an upcoming Duke Hard 1.2.2/1.3 patch will happen some day to make it working with the latest EDuke32 build, since there were reports of some maps being broken on newer EDuke32 builds, which thankfully wasn't the case for me.

I will soon join the October 2021 topic and play through Taivo's maps. See you over there!

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