[NNC]

Congratulations Forge for shitting up the thread with your white knighting nobody asked for.

PS: It's hilarious how you give a reactionary downvote to me every time I give one to you for your outhouse material here.

[Danukem]

Some posts have not been great, but the thread is alive and well. I'll openly defend Forge's posts in this thread with some observations since I think I know Forge pretty well. And I'm staying on topic by specifically addressing reactions to the map that this thread is about.

Forge strongly disagrees with the assessment that the episode should be closer to the classics in style if it is a "reimagining". I think it's fair to say that the implication by NNC was the style should be nearly exactly the same, as evidenced by this question: "Can you make new levels that can be pasted in the middle of the classic episodes without noticing the stylistic differences?" We know that ck3d takes feedback very seriously, and I think Forge wanted everyone to know that this view [that the style should be an exact or near exact match] isn't shared by everyone. He wanted everyone to know that ck3d does a great job and that ck3d's style doesn't have to match the originals for this project to be successful. For what it is worth I agree with that assessment, although I have not played all the maps (and neither has NNC as of the time they posted).

Of course there is nothing wrong with these opposing opinions being expressed, as long as we can do so in a civil manner. Giving negative reputation to posts disagreed with sometimes irritates the recipient, but it's not in-itself an act of uncivility (if it were, then that would be a good case against having the reputation system at all).

imo it's very unlikely that Forge saw himself as coming to ck3d's defense (or "white knighting"), at least not in the sense that he thought that ck3d was being hurt by the criticism. He surely knew that ck3d would accept the criticism graciously as he always does and wasn't hurt by it. What's far more likely is that Forge thought the opinion expressed by NNC was wrong and because Forge is a mapper himself he cares a lot about the topic and so he cares about the opinion expressed. That is sufficient reason to post about the disagreement irrespective of whether he is coming to anyone's defense. Now, after the fact, if we get bent out shape and upset, can this potentially escalate into something else? Yes, it could. But it doesn't need to.

[NNC]

If Forge disagrees with something he should go straight to the point instead of taking "funny" digs. He showed once again he is just an asshole.

[ck3D]

It's a non-problem (although those too have been known to escalate). Forge saw 'should nots' where I saw (and I know The Watchtower meant) 'shoulds' and expressed his disagreement towards that. It is something I can easily understand since I probably would have reacted the same twenty plus years ago on AMC, but these days a lot of my exercise is stylistic in addition to technical and so as far as I'm concerned, this type of discussion is completely fair game (and this is a general statement). To me, the exchanges have less to do with crippling one's potential and way more with recognizing it and thus suggesting possible directions and ideas, I'm all for that. I really can see both hypersensitive angles and think they're adorable, sometimes I wish more people realized their sensibility actually is their strongest forte (as long as they cultivate rudimentary respect), instead of being embarrassed by it. It's only a weakness if you can't defend it.

One thing I can't really side with is pigeonholing The Watchtower as the guy who talks but doesn't play the stuff. That person went out of their way to get immersed in Duke 3D again for weeks during Blast Radius beta testing, contributed with a lot of fantastic ideas and as such is an intrinsic part of that episode and of my recent output in general, and of their reception. They already are in the DNA and have been for a good while, regardless of how I choose to react to the input (whether I align or diverge). The same stands for everyone who ever gave me feedback on their respective level (including Forge). Of course creative freedom is important but I don't think it's really being threatened here in the moment.

If anything, it's just the recent name change that confuses me because now I no longer know which alias to keep using in the credits throughout Blast Radius updates.

I hadn't felt this much AMC energy in a long time indeed, honestly thanks. Love to sense that kind of passion in an era where so much creative fields including level design are being relegated to the procedural.

[Merlijn]

I'm indeed feeling some old AMC vibes here.

Anyway I've played the map, it's a lot to take in so I'll try to write down my thoughts in a somewhat organized manner. Bottom line is that I had a good time with it and it was interesting to see the whole episode condensed into 1 map. Just so you know, I played the map in multiple sittings so my experience will be different from someone who plays the whole thing in 1 go. Moreso than your other reinterpretations this one felt like a collection of smaller maps that were combined into 1 mega map. I guess that comes with the nature of the layout, since every OG level has its own chunk of map and is represented by its own spaceship. I also felt like each spaceship contained its own mini game and a 'gimmick' which needed to be conquered in order to move to the next stage. This is especially true for the first half. Once we get past Fusion Station, things start bleeding together more (for instance I didn't really recognize Lunar Reactor in the final part, seems like it was mostly inspired by Dark Side).

I think this approach made the most sense and it also made it easy to keep track of progress. Like I said I played this in multiple sittings. Finishing a 'stage' often felt like a logical point to save the game and continue another time. My first break was after Warp Factor, 2nd break after Tiberius station.

Gameplay: I see where Mikko is coming from but overall I enjoyed the combat here. The babes being close to explosives was pretty devious, but I thought it was nice mechanic. It forces players to be more attentive instead of just blowing everything up. Of course sometimes things blew up anyway. The armory in Tiberius station was especially evil, I managed to go through the room without setting off any explosives but then it got blown up by a stray commander rocket anyway. The number of sentry drones does get annoying at times, I'm glad I read your comments because I never thought of using the expander on them myself. When it comes to the battlelords, I just took them out with the shrinker. I usually don't like doing this as it feels like cheesing in a way. But given the sheer number of these bastards I thought it was justified here.

To be honest the level never got that hard, it gets hectic for sure but you're also very generous when it comes to health and ammo pickups. Especially towards the end I was almost constantly at 200% health because there was atomic health everywhere. Almost feels like your health distribution is still based on the Blast Radius enemy roster. Speaking of which, I think the expanded roster would work very well with this map. Especially the battlelord variants would spice up the gameplay a lot.

As for atmosphere/scenery, I liked it a lot. As I said on discord, the traversal through the rings was a highlight for me. I actually ended up riding the tram multiple times just to soak in the atmosphere. There's something oddly soothing about it, especially combined with the music. This actually does take me back to the feeling of the OG episode, first time I played it I would often just stare at the skybox and the scenery haha. The Enterprise was another highlight, I also liked your interpretation of the pig cop labs in Dark Side. The Fusion Station is actually fusing lava and water, which was another cool detail. Spacesport has a neat usage of slopes and SOS, just like the original.

I only found it a disappointing that the boss didn't have its own arena, instead it just spawns into the map. Not a big issue, there's not much that you can do with this boss anyway.
As a final note, I found the secret Lunatic Fringe part after your directions in discord but I only took a quick glance. It looks absolutely insane haha. How many overlapping circles are there?

Conclusion: I had a lot of fun with it. This may actually be my favorite of the 3.

[ck3D]

Thanks for all the feedback, am especially glad you could feel a resurgence of the classic E2 vibes since I think some of the attempt here (for all three remakes) consists in inspiring a similar sense of discovery and fascination to when playing the originals for the first time, but with a more integral style and not relying on just the exact same tried and true, rehashed tricks over and over in an effort at ever replicating a comparable effect again with no change to the recipe. In general I tried filtering the most memorable tricks and sceneries from the originals and really highlighting them, since now they're contextualized as part of a greater whole they become major dictating elements and landmarks and to be honest, by that point you're already low on resources more often than not and so have to make do taking some absolute liberties with the rest. So long as the vibe can be felt is a success.

Lunatic Fringe is just a 720 degree circle like the original except each circle has two opposite side connections to the center as well as one window each with a view out into space (so when seen from outside do not match the reality of inside and is disorienting), the above water sector and underwater sector with the key are two of the circle's opposites, and the ship has only one exit but two ways in, the first one being from the actual secret path, the second one from the one-way warp you unlock after completing it (takes you to the 'space bar').

Am glad you caught all the stuff you mentioned, especially things like Fusion Station actually 'functioning' (and then you escape via an actual Ford Fusion station), and I have to admit I shook a victory fist at the sky when reading the armory trap got you, I know exactly which Commander and it felt like a complete coin toss when throwing that one in whether or not the set-up would ever work as intended (Commander sometimes doesn't shoot), it's amazing it had to happen to you. I feel like Mikko typically misses a lot of that stuff due to a fast, aggressive play style.

Lunar Reactor got kind of screwed, the map was only going to let me make just one cool reactor pretty much and so I sort of sandwiched the concept into a transition between Occupied Territory and Tiberius Station since now Tiberius Station isn't on the moon anymore, but is the portal to it, and then the moon itself that you reach really is now more akin to a loose asteroid (I was inspired by Méliès: https://en.wikipedia...rip_to_the_Moon). If something important had to have been overtaken, I thought might as well stick it there and move on to the more ambitious Dark Side since I already knew I wanted something a bit grand for the ending and should save resources. So Lunar Reactor in a way got the shortest stick (but still got a stick).

Item ratio comes with the territory with the stupid scale maps, I did figure out when implementing gameplay into Blast Radius at the time ammo/health pickups really played a prominent role in player orientation and navigation, so when the level is full of hazards in addition to being big it's helpful to scatter elements just about everywhere the player needs to check, pretty much. Might as well think of them as practical, functional nodes at this point. I tend to look at gameplay as balance, originally is neutral but then every element you introduce upsets that balance in this or that way you then have to compensate with opposite weight, but now that might be a bit too much on that side, ultimately every encounter and item builds up to the map's final equilibrum that is either fair or not. I like my maps fair hence how I can instantly know whoever complains about Blast Radius gameplay balance is committing the mistake of only running with the base three guns (a lot of players seem to do that still, so keeping introducing alternatives is precious). I try and consider every possibility, so when a level can go many lateral ways I'd rather overcompensate, at least in the case of the remakes since I want them to feel more cosy and casual. Whereas Blast Radius is designed to be a challenge, so there the enemies hit harder but the balance also is a bit tighter. It's almost too easy through Duke's current perspective now, strange isn't it?

[ck3D]

Nacho/TLOD has a blind stream of the level scheduled for 30 minutes from now (but might open with a short mapping session/demonstration of theirs, so the actual level might start later than that):

[JacketAU]

I can't wait to see more of your maps man, I'm so glad we met! This is truly inspirational work!