[Aleks]

Started MERC: Fatal Reality and so far I'm not very impressed. I appreciate the new guns (especially the electricity gun instead of shrinker which seems to be able to stun enemies), though their graphics could have been polished a lot (I think the re-palletization took its toll on the quality in particular). Minigun rotates when firing though, which is nice (I liked the graphics better in Murder). The new enemies are a mixed bag. The robot guys are easy to deal with, bazooka grunt is probably my favourite one with how nicely the firing is signalised with animation, the tank is a natural stretch of this enemy... Then there's the suit guy which is kinda like the sheriffs from Redneck Rampage, as it drains the health with hitscan pretty quickly and without any proper signalling. The new graphics are overused IMO and clash a bit with the original ones, once again largely due to bad palette conversion.

Your Apartment

I like the idea of these levels and how detailed the apartment is, even if the light is a bit bland (consequence of using lightswitches, so kinda forgivable). The "mission briefing" on the computer screen appearing after inserting the access disk is nice detail.

Suburban Slaughter

The combat is OK in this level (although the health seemed a bit stingy) and while the city layout itself is fine with some less obvious locations (like the church/pilgrim house), it suffers from all the 1996ish level design issues: pretty much every swing door creates a minor HOM glitch, there seem to be a lot of SOS overlapping issues (but it's nice to see such techniques, as well as spriteworks for e.g. the balconies at the church or sewer water, used) and there's a lot of seemingly random sprite detail or overlapping lines resulting in weird flickering (e.g. arcade). It took me a while to figure out where to go at some places, the sewers are a bit mazey. Texture use is quite generic. Worth mentioning are the "sky bridges" connecting some of the buildings, even if they're not accessible, they provide a nice little detail. Not the best start of the TC...

Rating: 51/100

Compound of Death

The level uses pretty jarring mix of grey and brown textures which look terrible in most places, but other than that, I think it's slightly a step up from the previous one. It took me a while to find the first switch that disables the forcefield in the compound building. The lava maze was seemingly more accessible than I'd imagine and pretty easy to solve, also I'm glad a lot of protective boots were provided (though it seems the level designer forgot about one of the secret places hidden there...). The combat is a step up from the previous map, but there's plenty of atomic healths to refill your health and more weapons to make the combat funnier - so far, the weapons are probably my favourite part of this TC. Apparently, killing enemies with the disintegrator gun (expander replacement that is quite powerful) doesn't add the kills to the statistics. The finish with the travelling "thing" and enemies on platforms was pretty enjoyable, even if the area looked terrible. Overall, the map definitely plays better than it looks. At least the apparent glitches were less present than in the previous map.

Rating: 53/100

[Aleks]

Continuing through this absolutely mediocre experience...

Drug Bust

This level is quite terrible, both when it comes to looks and gameplay. The layout looks like it was blindly sketched in the editor, with a lot of tight or sharp corners, especially over the outside areas. For some reason, I didn't have trouble finding the blue keycard, but I imagine it could have been painful if you didn't stumble on it like I did. Then there's the 7-button combo, a perfect length-padder, which surprisingly wasn't the worst progression experience in this map, but kinda acted like a cherry on top. The texturing looks random and haphazard, and let's be honest, most areas look just ugly, not in an "industrial dystopia" or "Beksiński painting" kind of ugly, but plain ugly. The combat is surprisingly fine in the outside area, but inside we get surprises like bazooka guys waiting behind tight corners. The use of verticality might be one thing to praise this map for I guess. Other than that, it's still the worst one in the pack so far.

Rating: 35/100

The ROCK

Duke got captured once again, by now I think he should recognise the pattern with greenish sewer bricks and nukebutton always leading to this sad conclusion. The prison break map is surprisingly good, at least related to the rest of this episode. I like how it mostly uses tougher enemies, but also gives you enough ammo for powerful guns like the flamethrower to make it a breeze. The progression is nice - even if the design is rudimentary as hell, I liked the "puzzles" on escaping your cell and then obtaining the blue keycard which required memorising a certain detail from earlier on in the map. The combat is also quite engaging, especially with the last area with bazooka guys ambushing you under the prison showers. There are some clever areas like the workshop where the prisoners can carve their knives and Taj Mahals, I think it's the first out of dozens of prison maps where I've seen this despite how obvious the trope could be. Overall, a much nicer conclusion to an otherwise pretty bad episode.

Rating: 65/100

In the Gutter

A bowling alley map?! Well, there's more to it, including a secret base hidden in the cinema. The first thing I like about this map is how absurd the mission objective is - kill the terrorists who meet in a bowling alley then infiltrate their secret base in a cinema. Anyway, the bowling alley is pretty detailed and the pattern follows - there's a room where someone quite painfully meticulously drew super detailed shadows behind various objects, even a sector-based mug with pens and pencils! On one hand, this crashes a bit with the overall 1996ish design and detailing of the map, but I'd call this a step up. There are plenty of areas to visit, although finding the way to the secret base (which is required progression) might not be super obvious (hence why it's secret I guess...). The map is pretty tough and there are a couple of areas which seem a bit unbalanced, especially the room right after entering the base through vents which is quite cramped and full of tough monsters. The crampedness continues also in the server room, but I somehow liked the challenge there. The map seems to have been majorly reworked either by a different person than the original author or by the original author, but after quite some time in which he forgot the intended progression - there's a "bonus" blue key entrance in the warehouse which you not only don't have to visit, but also if you waste your blue key there, you won't be able to finish the level - apparently there are some "extra" areas that I've seen in Mapster, but they seem to be completely inaccessible for some reason, like someone just forgot that part of the map was there. Still, I think the level is a step-up from the first episode.

Rating: 67/100

[Aleks]

Don't like to triple-post and I was kinda hoping to finish more levels before posting, but played this a couple of days ago already and no idea when I'll have another sitting, so...

Matinee Maul

This was my favourite level so far. Sure, it's not "good", but at least on par with some more thought-through maps from the good old early days of user mapping. The cinema is quite large and I do hope the author knew how to copy-paste, because it's also fairly repetitive - which might be good from the point of view of "realistic" settings, but not from the level design point of view if the player has to traverse 4 or so samey looking large rooms with only different "movies" playing on the screens and not changing even as much as the wall colours. There's also post office, some underwater fun, fire station and some potential for destruction, including E1L2-esque demolition of the central building which reveals the nukebutton. The gameplay is quite busy, with many suit guys that are quite challenging. Also, sometimes the baddies showed up as regular monsters (assault troopers and enforcers) and just after seeing the player turned into TC-specific ones - I wonder whether this was one of the early levels or if it was also released as a user map, as I haven't noticed this behaviour earlier. Most of the secrets in this map also can be found by blowing stuff up. I like the sewers where you can get the jetpack - they're simple and easy to get in and out of, without overwhelming darkness and crap. Decent level.

Rating: 68/100

[Aleks]

Finished MERC, started MERC 2...

Big Guns
I'm not a big fan of this level - it's mostly a maze across samey looking crates, with occassional elevators. This pretty much sums up the design. Combat, on the other hand, can be quite fun - we're inside a weapons storage, so there are some secret places (relatively easy to find) full of RPGs and devastators or other heavy guns, with enough ammo that you can pretty much just go wild and keep using these guns on regular enemies. This and rather straightforward progression saves this map.

Rating: 59/100

Final Confrontation
This map is just 10 seconds of spamming devastator to a static boss that shoots Cycloid missiles, but has way less health. And somehow, the arena we're fighting him is even less inspired than Stadium. At least the robot boss looks decent, like a crash test dummy, but still...

Rating: 40/100

MERC 2
Apartment levels seem to have a few more secret rooms and apparently Duke has wallpapered his home...

Slum Dynasty
Chris Abdo, author of the infamous Drug Bust is back with another city level... Which is as mediocre as it gets. The enemy placement is plainly dickish (there are some new enemies - apparently the laughing guys were changed into flamethrower-wielding ones which posses much more threat, also there are Enforcers which look a bit like Doom marine and pack quite a heat with their machine guns). The map looks very amateurish, the progression is similar, the most remarkable things are hallways full of decorative doors - and still the author somehow managed to screw this up a bit with missaligned textures. There are some civilians which you may or may not kill, including Beavis and Butthead in a secret room (and apparently you have to kill Butthead to reach all the secrets, as every sector in their room is marked as a new secret place). The ammo and health is quite stingy, which makes it a bit challenging, and not always in the most fun way.

Rating: 46/100

Air Raid
This is definitely a step up from the weak starter, but it's at about the same level as the initial levels of first MERC. There are some issues with length padding the progression, but the design is, in general, much better - despite some obvious bits of sloppiness here and there. Combat is also way more balanced, we get more heavy guns and there's a remarkable battle with lots of tanks and bazooka guys when we get outside to the courtyard at the entrance of the building, which I liked a lot. The underwater part is also pretty creative, even if I have no idea what's its sense in this context. Same can be said about the weird porn room we get to visit. The last keycard can be a bit confusing, as it isn't indicated what was opened at all...

Rating: 55/100

[quakis]

Aleks, on 22 June 2024 - 11:38 AM, said:

Final Confrontation

At least MERC has something over Murder TC at least!

[Aleks]

quakis, on 22 June 2024 - 12:58 PM, said:

At least MERC has something over Murder TC at least!

Had the same thought!

Anyway, I powered through the rest of MERC 2 and it felt a lot less inspired than the original. The story and animations at the end of each episode were a nice touch, I also liked the new weapons (more powerful pipebombs in particular were a lot fun!) and more enemy variations, but the levels were mediocre at best and sometimes absolutely terrible.

High Stakes

This one was pretty good for a change - although the progression at some points was a nightmare (first, getting inside the building through the window and then obtaining the yellow card - why would they add another "secret" with the keycard?!). I liked the idea of turning the power on and the overall design was much better than in any level of MERC 2 I think. Even the new art worked well here. The combat was pretty challenging with tight corridors filled to the brim with powerful hitscanners, but at least didn't feel overly stingy with guns.

Rating: 64/100

Lab Rats

Another good level - I liked how the progression in here was a bit more original than what we usually saw in either MERC and once again, Bill Gallop did quite a decent job with the design, at least relatively. There's no boss at the end of the level (at least not one that we fight), but the cutscene is pretty neat and I like how it is also put visually into the map itself. Combat is pretty tense, but nothing too difficult or unfair.

Rating: 68/100

And now, to the second episode... Oh, there's a hitman in Your Apartment!

Cavern of Despair

The level throws you right into a tricky fight with barely any guns, but its managable. The level is pretty monotonic and repetitive, the supplies are quite stingy (and for the secrets, you just have to go through random walls most of the time) and enemies are plentiful. The new doom marine-like guy has bizarrely strong hitscan and apparently doesn't stop firing after he's started, but it's possible to stun him with the minigun. There seems to be plenty of extra loops around this level, including a bonus red key in one of the secret places. The final nicely matches with the beginning of the next map. The design is kinda convoluted, but after playing what we're about to play soon enough, it doesn't feel so bad...

Rating: 52/100

Zero Tolerance

This level really tries with some more ambitious design here and there, but it's really pretty basic. The combat has some interesting bits and at least is more open - I liked the part with bazooka guys at the canyon and then diving into the sewer thing. The ending was pretty good as well.

Rating: 61/100

Another Drug Bust

If you liked Drug Bust, you'll love this one! Chris Abdo overdoes himself here, really - this might be one of the worst user maps I have ever played, and I really did dig through a lot of 1996 catalogue... It's dark, has an absolutely terrible and convoluted layout with weird slopes and a really deep chasm (I tried falling down there jusst to see how deep it was and gave up after a couple of minutes of falling) and throws incredibly dickish enemy placement at you (some of which fall down the chasm). The design is sloppy and messy and the 2D map looks like a 2 year old doodled it. It looks and plays absolutely terribly. Moreover, the supply/enemy ratio doesn't seem balanced at all. At the end, there's a progression stopper with a switch that opens something you'd never expect it to open... Did I mention some silly traps and dark mazes full of invisible hitscanners?

Rating: 5/100

Takin 'Em Down

I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with the title of this level. Anyway, this is just a straightforward walk with some enemies and decorations around... And doors that auto-close way too soon. The robot minibosses can be a bit tricky to deal with due to that and narrow corridors, but nothing too difficult. This level feels like it really could have been joined with the final one.

Rating: 48/100

Final Sanction

This is pretty much just the arena where we fight the boss, although we gotta clear it from some enemies first. The boss is much more challenging than the one from the first episode, although he tends to get stuck behind the pillars. There's also an elaborate secret place behind him which can be a bit tricky to open while watching not to get killed by his hitscan and barrage - there are no extra supplies there, but apparently every member of the design team made their "office" room, which is kinda cute/cool. After we kill the boss, we get another nice cutscene - plot twist, it turns out that Dr. Adler whom we were supposed to save was behind this all along!

Rating: 55/100

[FistMarine]

Thanks guys for keeping the topic alive! I'm sorry for my long absence, been busy as of lately that I couldn't catch up with Duke related stuff. I will reply to a few comments/observations and get a short review of the DM episode in Murder: The EDF Conspiracy, as well as the choice between voting for next month or extending the current topic for July as well. See below for more details.

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and thanks Fistmarine for making the final call on dailing these back, they'll be less overwhelming to join in going forward.

No problem. I enjoyed reading the posts and viewing the screenshots (haven't watched the video yet though), hopefully not too much has been spoiled as I never played the TC before.

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Then there's the suit guy which is kinda like the sheriffs from Redneck Rampage, as it drains the health with hitscan pretty quickly and without any proper signalling.

Well actually there is feedback from these hitscanners when they hit you, as the screen turns red like normal. The problem was how half of the enemies in RR (including most enemies added in RA) had no feedback when their melee/projectile attacks hit you, you just suddenly lost large amounts of health. Or if you meant the damage output, the suit guy was more annoying in the sequel if I remember correctly. Let's just be thankful none of these enemies deal as much damage as most of the hitscanners in Redneck Rampage (Rides Again), those are the worst IMO.

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Apparently, killing enemies with the disintegrator gun (expander replacement that is quite powerful) doesn't add the kills to the statistics.

This is exactly why I didn't bother using the Shrinker/Expander replacements during my playthroughs of MERC & MERC2. I had no way to know the result due to lack of in-game stats in DOS Duke3D but I had a feeling that this will happen, as certain weapon replacements in some TCs tend to fuck up the kill count such as these weapons, so I'm glad I refrained myself from using these.

Also I laughed at the very low rating you gave to Another Drug Bust. That map was the worst in those TCs and fully deserved that rating.

Anyway, a couple observations of MURDER TC while playing the DM maps:
-Armor comes in two types, original armor gives 50 points (like used armor did in vanilla game) but the "new" armor gives full 100 points. Luckily, the armor stacks like in the original game, so you can pick up another regular armor vest in order to have full 100 points, like with the Used Armor in the original game. Oh yeah and SWAT Guys (shotgun guys who look like the main character in Quake) will still very rarely drop used armor but it seems like it only gives 20 points, maybe could also give 40 points I think? Haven't fully checked.
-Armor/Health shards exist, each give both 5 health/armor points up until 100. However, the shards cannot be picked up if you have full armor, so be careful if you are low on health but have full armor that won't be much help in that case.
-Demos are not replaced, so what you get is the three Atomic demos desyncing with Duke bumping into walls and firing at random, eventually getting killed by SWAT Guys (Pig Cop replacement).
-Explosions caused by canisters seem to deal very little damage.
-If Duke was fighting Strife Guys in MERC2, it is logical that he gets to fight Doom Guys (aka Marines) and Quake Guys (aka Rangers) in MURDER.
-MURDER TC may be made by the same people who made MERC & MERC2 TCs, at least some of the same authors worked previously on those two TCs, as the style is quite similar.
-New backpack item (inspired by Doom backpack) which gives ammo for various weapons, has a glitch that refills your Minigun ammo for free until full 300 ammo, requires you to have full pistol/shotgun (or both?) ammo before attempting to pick up, you get free ammo but the backpack still remains on ground. I only got this glitch in the first DM map where I encountered the backpacks. This glitch is similar to the Pipebomb bug in Duke3D v1.3D, where having 49 pipebombs and coming across a box of pipebombs, you get a free pipebomb while the box stays on ground!
-New enemies mostly consist of human enemies that are hitscanners, as well as a reskinned Octabrain, which is a rocket drone that often kills itself with rockets.
-New soundtrack by the legendary Mark Hadley is very nice.
-New weapons look pretty cool, though most of them have reduced ammo capacity (Minigun is one of the exceptions with increased ammo to 300), while Shrinker is no longer available to pickup (hence the 0/0 ammo on HUD) but Expander is available as a Machinegun (press 7 to select it).
-Shotgun, Pipebombs and Tripbombs are the same as in original Duke3d but with lower ammo capacity (Tripbombs still have 10 maximum).

Difficulty settings aren't implemented for the DM maps (first and fourth map which are the ones that contain enemies in them), while exits are present in third and fourth map.

First DM map can be accessed from the main menu but to access the second, third and fourth map in the DOS version of Duke3D Atomic, you need to use command line parameters:

DUKE3D.EXE /XMGAME.CON /GMURDER.GRP /V2 /L1 /S3

Replace the number near /L with 1, 2, 3 and 4 to warp to the specific level. Oh and fourth map can also be reached from finishing the third one.

DUKEMATCH LEVELS

Squad

A bit of a miserable DM map filled with lots of Doom Marines (Enforcer replacement) and not too much health available (a few medkits and one Portable Medkit you can find in whole map, as well as two armor pickups and various shards). Oh and a bunch of Protector Drones are also found in some areas, which have deadlier melee attacks but also retain their shrink rays. Luckily, I didn't get shrunk.

You start with two Doom Guys in front of you and many more waiting in the next couple rooms. I believe you have multiple paths you can choose to get around this map, though I recommend sticking to the safer path where you get the Shotgun as soon as possible.

I died a shitload of times that I had to savescum my way into victory and was getting frustrated at times because I was stuck with 8 HP and getting one shot by these goddamn marines who deal exactly 8 dmg per shot and who retaliated as soon as I shot them, which makes it impossible to avoid their attacks and relies on luck to defeat them.

Yes, I am playing on CGS skill which is supposed to be hard but since this map has no difficulty settings implemented, it wouldn't have mattered if I picked anything easier, the outcome would have been exactly the same.

Ammo is only a bit of a problem early on but later once you get your hands on the Shotgun and Minigun, the ammo is no longer a problem. You also get access to the stronger weapons but I mostly used the first three guns, with the Minigun dominating upon finding the "infinite ammo" glitch I mentioned above. It was fun to mow down hordes of protector drones with the Minigun, until my minigun ammo ran out.

There are a few Scuba Gears in this map but no places to swim. Not sure why these are even present, could have instead placed additional health pickups.

There are no secrets to find and also no exit. You have to warp to the next map if you wish to further explore.

Overall, this map was meh and felt like it would have been better suited as a SP map with some changes like better enemy variety, better item placement and an exit added of course.


Moon City

Short DM map. Not much to say.


EDF Combat Arena

Another short DM map with slime surrounding the arena, as well as various teleporters. Oh and there is an exit that will let you warp to the next level. In fact, this is a good idea to carry over the arsenal to the next map in case you find it too difficult from scratch.


Mines

Kills: 91
Secrets: 2

The last DM map features some more of the custom enemies (including sharks and one assault commander) and is quite long, can easily take at least 30 or so minutes to complete if you plan to fully explore.

Unfortunately, the map is not that great and difficulty settings are still not implemented, so those rooms filled with hitscanners (Rangers & Terrorists) can kill Duke quite quickly, even if he has a lot of health/armor. Some rooms killed me plenty of times (such as that hidden room with the stripper, which is accessed by blowing up a crack in that room with the train) and found quite bullshit how fast Duke dies. You have to get lucky to kill them before they kill you, as their attacks are hitscan that cannot be dodged. Because of that, I recommend saving often and using multiple slots, especially since there are game breaking bugs to be found.

The map is not too generous with armor (only one pickup found at beginning) but there are plenty of Atomic Healths scattered around the map, so health shouldn't be too much of an issue unless you found yourself low on health during heated battles. Plus you can find stacks of weapons at various parts of map, so ammo and health should be fine most of the time.

There are some interesting parts of the map, such as that room with the crane and barrels (made me laugh at the absurdity of how many barrels are crammed into the conveyor), as well as long underwater trips to do (luckily the map is pretty generous with Scuba Gears) but overall the map is a mess, filled with weird things like a wall in front of elevator at beginning that you can press which causes the tile to move or some weird shit like that. And there are even game breaking bugs, such as when you insert the Red Card at the end in the sewers (BTW that card slot is green due to sector palette), the red door opens only once and for a short time, so if you don't go inside the exit room, you get softlocked without a way to finish the level. Oh and there was a place where if you jumped on those water currents (if you decided to go the opposite way), Duke either died instantly or got warped to a different room.

When you manage to finish the level, you get sent to E2L5: Occupied Territory, so there is no reason to continue playing the original Duke3D levels with Murder assets loaded. I just recommend quitting the game at this point because you have finished exploring the DM maps.

And finally, this map doesn't make any sense as a DM map, it is clearly a SP map repurposed for DM for whatever reason, maybe they weren't happy with how it plays as a SP map but it doesn't work as a DM map either.

Oh and there are two secrets to find:
1) At the very beginning in the starting area, there is a corner you can go to and open the wall to access RPG + ammo.
2) At the beginning, in the room with the train, go behind the waterfall to find a Jetpack.


So far, I'm not having too much fun with the Murder TC. I feel that the actual SP episode will turn out pretty good but from those two DM maps that had enemies in them and felt more like SP maps, I wasn't too much impressed and found the experience quite miserable sometimes with the custom enemies (mostly talking about the hitscanners) that can dish out tons of damage, just like many other Duke3d TCs out there have a tendency to increase the weapon damage but also cause enemies to deal more damage as well.

Oh and I'm not sure why there are still Shrinker ammo pickups in some of the maps. I think this change was a late addition to the TC, which explains why there are still pickups to be found in the maps and they forgot to cleanup the maps that have these pickups. Would have been cool to still have that weapon usable, even if it got replaced with a different weapon in terms of behavior. Though at least the new weapon sprites look quite nice, better than most weapon sprites in Merc 1 & 2.

I will attempt to check out the demo version (three levels) of Pray Your Prayers TC soon and give it a short review before the month ends, as I doubt I will have time to properly play & review MURDER and PYP2000 until the end of the month.

For now, I will bring in the possible nominations for next month, as well as an advice for the reviews of MURDER & PYP2000. I will start with the latter first: should I leave these two TCs to be fully played & reviewed sometime in early to mid July? If yes, should this topic stay for another month to give other players more time to play/review PYP at least?

Here are also the possible nominations for July:

Age of Evil + Borg Nukem
Maps by Various Authors

First nomination consists of two TCs that don't involve Duke in the story, they might have been nominated a year or two ago and now I got reminded of this nomination, giving it another try. Second nomination consists of the 20 or so maps that have been suggested in the past year or so. I will copy-paste my earlier message from the topic to remind who are the mappers nominated:

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Maps by various authors consist of maps by Alan Page (3 maps), C3PO (5 maps), Daniel Aashage (5 maps), James Duncan (4 maps), Mike Beaulieu (3 maps). 20 maps in total so far. If people want, we can add Forge's maps (4 maps) into the mix as well, since they were proposed previously, so this means 24 maps in total.

Not voting yet but I'd like an answer until the end of the month, so I know what to do on 1st July, on the anniversary of first Duke Nukem game in fact.

And finally, this month marked the 3rd anniversary of the Duke Map/Mod of the Month Club! Many thanks to Aleks for hosting the initial 2021 events, as well as all the participants so far! Without you guys, we wouldn't be here in first place. At the same time, I am not sure how long the Map/Mod of the Month Club event will last, as the activity has slowed down a lot as of lately. I will continue hosting the event until the end of the year at the very least, then I might pass the torch to anyone who is interested to pick up and host the 2025 events and later, if there will be such interest to keep the event lively in the future.

Thanks everyone for understanding and have a nice day.

[Aleks]

I think Gabriel Crown (IIRC) was credited for doing some art for MERC 2 and was one of the main authors of Murder.

FistMarine, on 26 June 2024 - 05:16 AM, said:

For now, I will bring in the possible nominations for next month, as well as an advice for the reviews of MURDER & PYP2000. I will start with the latter first: should I leave these two TCs to be fully played & reviewed sometime in early to mid July? If yes, should this topic stay for another month to give other players more time to play/review PYP at least?

Here are also the possible nominations for July:

Age of Evil + Borg Nukem
Maps by Various Authors

First nomination consists of two TCs that don't involve Duke in the story, they might have been nominated a year or two ago and now I got reminded of this nomination, giving it another try. Second nomination consists of the 20 or so maps that have been suggested in the past year or so. I will copy-paste my earlier message from the topic to remind who are the mappers nominated:

I think we could go for the various maps this time, as it's more relaxed/accessible like this and we've mostly had rather large TCs over the past few months. Not sure if 20-24 maps is a good idea either, perhaps we could relax this to like 2-3 authors and about 10-15 maps tops, depending on the size. Maybe either of these combinations:
Loke (7 maps) + Forge (4 map) - both are more modern authors and so could fit together, also might be a good time for this to highlight Loke's new map SIKHL, which is pretty fucking great.
C3P0 (5 maps) + Daniel Aashage (5 maps) - both more "classic" authors who had a bit similar style and 10 maps is a better compromise (from what I remember, C3P0's maps are shorter like 15-20 minutes, while Daniel's maps - at least the ones I remember playing - were about 30-40 minutes).

Don't think it's good to mix two TCs considering how overburdened this topic ended up. And PYP should probably just get it's own month in the future, it's not long, but was kinda discarded this time around and is far better than these 2 TCs (could be paired up with Layre, which is only 2 longer levels and IIRC the two were somehow linked through the authors).

[juvenite]

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Not voting yet but I'd like an answer until the end of the month, so I know what to do on 1st July, on the anniversary of first Duke Nukem game in fact. <br style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(22, 22, 22);"><br style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(22, 22, 22);">And finally, this month marked the 3rd anniversary of the Duke Map/Mod of the Month Club! Many thanks to Aleks for hosting the initial 2021 events, as well as all the participants so far! Without you guys, we wouldn't be here in first place. At the same time, I am not sure how long the Map/Mod of the Month Club event will last, as the activity has slowed down a lot as of lately. I will continue hosting the event until the end of the year at the very least, then I might pass the torch to anyone who is interested to pick up and host the 2025 events and later, if there will be such interest to keep the event lively in the future.<br style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(22, 22, 22);"><br style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(22, 22, 22);">Thanks everyone for understanding and have a nice day.

I know that this kinda thing works better in forums, but to be honest, it could be good idea to migrate this to Duke4's discord if you're worried about the lack of engagement. As much as I like visiting here, I really don't bother posting that often. It's easier to be more active there, I feel like. I'm sure we could work out the formatting and all so it's as similar there as it is to here.




Nevertheless, I'd participate this month but, I'm already in 2 different Duke projects on top of other things in life, so there's no point joining this late. Following Aleks' idea would make it easier for me to hop on. It's been a while since I've participated in this anyway.

[quakis]

 Aleks, on 26 June 2024 - 10:24 AM, said:

Loke (7 maps) + Forge (4 map) - both are more modern authors and so could fit together, also might be a good time for this to highlight Loke's new map SIKHL, which is pretty fucking great.
C3P0 (5 maps) + Daniel Aashage (5 maps) - both more "classic" authors who had a bit similar style and 10 maps is a better compromise (from what I remember, C3P0's maps are shorter like 15-20 minutes, while Daniel's maps - at least the ones I remember playing - were about 30-40 minutes).

Not certain what to vote on next month, but focusing on a couple of authors like Alex suggested above would be wise, I'd be up for any combination of Loke, Forge, C3PO or Aashage. Tons of stuff there I've been meaning to play and/or write up a review for.

 Aleks, on 26 June 2024 - 10:24 AM, said:

And PYP should probably just get it's own month in the future, it's not long

As for PYP, saving it for another time might be for the best, I considered squeezing it in the remaining time, even had everything setup for playing both the DOS 1.3D and the Eduke32 versions, but other things have been taking up that time including working on finishing my Murder TC review.

 juvenite, on 26 June 2024 - 08:02 PM, said:

I know that this kinda thing works better in forums, but to be honest, it could be good idea to migrate this to Duke4's discord if you're worried about the lack of engagement. As much as I like visiting here, I really don't bother posting that often. It's easier to be more active there, I feel like. I'm sure we could work out the formatting and all so it's as similar there as it is to here.

I see where you're coming from though personally I'm not sure how I would feel if this event were entirely moved over to discord. Minor rant but I think too much in general has moved onto discord, out of sight and my major fear with that platform is the posts/info tucked away in there are inevitably going to be lost for good when people find an excuse to abandon ship for the next shiney new platform that shows up to replace it down the road. That's why I've liked forums as long as they're being hosted, it's easier to archive and look up prior topics. Like this very event I could just hop on over into LR&WB's month to read up on thoughts after I finished my own session with it. Shame about the activity but I'd rather chalk that down to everyone having other priorities rather than a lack of interest. A hybrid of the two forms might work, neither replacing the other.

[juvenite]

Nah I actually agree with you. As I said, this format/type of thing really works better on forums than discord channels, but I think that's where we actually could dive into a certain topic: actually integrating discord and forum into one another rather than they just existing separately as they mostly do now. Like say, for example, there could be a discord channel for this event where FistMarine (or whoever'll be responsible for hosting this in the future) could make announcements and introduce that month's theme there, and link to a post here so people contribute here directly. It could have more eyes, and even people who are interested could be notified of new events and all. So making them co-exist as you said would be actually a cool way to bring a little bit more traffic, possibly.

[Forge]

I don't participate. I don't log in about 95% of the time. I do enjoy sitting down in the morning with my coffee and reading these 'reviews', though.

[Quacken]

Hi! You ever get that feeling where you get stuck on something and then decide you don't want to do it ever again? That happened to me in April for FM1X. And then I tried to play Merc and its companion sets in May but had issues downloading them, so I took these two months off. I'll try to be back next month. I'm mainly just here to put in my two cents about the forum vs. Discord debate - I would personally prefer if we stuck to forums. Discord is great and all but long-winded reviews and paragraphs are not one of its strong suits. On the Duke4 forums the text boxes are bigger in size, it's easy to tell who is posting what, and upvotes can be easily added to posts to prove that engagement is there (like FistMarine always does, as do I usually do whenever I'm present). You can also easily add images to posts in the right spots (again, something FistMarine does). Also, I've always likened this to Doomworld's own WAD club, which last I checked used their own forum to communicate. I don't think that still exists though, or if it does they might have just moved to Discord themselves.

That being said though, one of the things Discord is great for is making big annoying announcements. juvenite said it pretty much as perfectly as possible - Use Discord to make announcements about this club to bring in some more traffic. I don't know how popular the Duke4 Discord is because I'm not on it, but it's definitely bigger than the four to seven of us that gather to do this every month. It would have to do something, right?

[Forge]

People don't use the Duke4 forum because it's full of toxic people, like that Forge guy, or so I heard.

[juvenite]

 Quacken, on 30 June 2024 - 08:07 PM, said:

I don't know how popular the Duke4 Discord is because I'm not on it, but it's definitely bigger than the four to seven of us that gather to do this every month. It would have to do something, right?

Duke4 currently has around 3.4k members (if I'm not mistaken). Not a huge amount by any means for a discord server, but still, that is 3k accounts in theory. Keeping things realistic here, I wouldn't expect a big influx of people by doing this anytime soon (if ever), people don't really like leaving the platforms they're browsing on, specially to browse forums nowadays. BUT, even just having like 3 more people would be a much needed boost for the engagement of these events. I'm unsure if the average Duke4 discord user would find the themes and proposals here interesting, but only in practice we'd be able to find that out.
Now as to how to actually make this concrete, would the mods/admins of Duke4 discord even bother setting up a channel like that in the server? It'd be rather simple to implement tbh.

[ck3D]

Forcing an audience never works. I'd assume most people on the Discord know Duke4 is a website with forums to begin with as that's pretty apparent, and those threads already are brought up regularly there, so the selection of who's genuinely interested in playing vs. who's more casual about it is already happening. That server is a lot of noise anyway - most any serious mention of Duke 3D content instantly is drowned in ten times the memes. Which makes sense in that the 'retro shooter' trend is over and without that superficial hype, to a lot of the current Duke fanbase, Duke 3D now just looks dated to those who never quite understood the interest of Build. Every member you can have interesting Duke 3D discussion with there already posts on here. Your idea is in fact in place, just by design it's mostly a one-way portal as it looks like effort from the other way in.

I don't get pursuing attention as an abstraction sometimes disregarding obvious larger picture factors too. Like, right now literally is peak summer, of course less people are going to be playing Duke. It doesn't even take being busy with one's own projects to require a mental backlog of all the maps and mods that come out at this point, which is a good thing as that means the pace of new releases is hard to keep up with and so there's a lot of activity. I wouldn't expect the average Discord user to have a fraction of the focus or most of them would be playing/mapping/modding Duke 3D and posting on here already.

[juvenite]

Idk, I just don't see a reason why not to do it. If the server is noisy, then having a dedicated channel for event notifications like this would be useful for the average joe there (who's interested in modding and maps) to keep up with what's happening here. I browse the forums more than I read Duke4's discord channels despite being more of a discord user, and I can't be the only one. As such, I would barely know about the club if it wasn't for me browsing the forum myself.
Now it's important to say that this shouldn't be a general ping, because yes, that's annoying af. It'd be a role ping at most, so only interested people would be notified.

EDIT: it could also be a channel for more general announcement things like new mod and map releases *from* the forums. This way it can have a more generalized approach. I know some people already do that technically in other channels, but having a dedicated channel for it would be a lot more organized and also declutter a bit the other channels. Again, I don't see why not do it personally.

[ck3D]

Ah so what you really mean is you'd like to see a duke-nukem-3D channel on the server really; currently it only has duke-nukem and duke-nukem-forever, but duke-nukem isn't used to discuss 3D in particular anymore (to the current generation of Duke fans it no longer seems to be the main game or element of the series that particularly matters). I don't know what that would achieve though besides centralizing the interest and personally I kind of enjoy that concrete discussion about existing playable material can spontaneously manifest in the middle of all the delirium of fan projections, in that it dents the victimization every time a little bit. Maybe a dedicated 3D channel would dilute that and maybe it would also have a more positive federative side effect, but I tend to doubt it. The discussions that would happen there already do for the most part now in modding-general or level-design. All that would change is more people would be able to ignore them.

What I wasn't getting is that you were implying no one knows about these threads on the Duke4 Discord. Everyone supposedly does since they're brought up regularly, it's just a lot of the current Duke fanbase chooses to ignore them because it's not into Duke 3D all that much and views it as a distant curiosity or relic if anything.

[juvenite]

Actually no, not necessarily a Duke 3D channel. We already have duke-nukem and forever as you said, I feel like a new channel for duke3d discussion would be redundant, but for announcements of user content releases like mods, maps and specially events from the forums, that'd be cool. The idea is to bring the forums and user content more of a spotlight rather just passing mentions in discord chats that a lot of people do not keep up with. If people so wanna discuss a particular fan project there though, I wouldn't see an issue I guess.
Also, I personally would feel a little embarrassed to just make my own announcements of projects in channels that are not dedicated for that. Think of it like a "What are you working on right now?" thread but for discord, if anything.

[FistMarine]

Hi, sorry for taking forever. Last week I decided to quickly play through MURDER TC. I will review Murder: The EDF Conspiracy after all this time!

In regards to Discord, I appreciate the suggestion but as others have said, I am not sure if it will work that well and I am much more comfortable with using the forum. I especially like that the posts get archived, so like Quakis said, reading older editions of the Map/Mod event (e.g. the very old 2021-2022 editions) is still possible after all these years. If everything was on Discord, posts would be lost over time and they also wouldn't be available to read for public.

Also welcome back Quacken! Great to see you back.

Anyway, a few more notes about the TC:
1) Ammo for Assault Rifle is quite common and often dropped by some weaker enemies.
2) Backpack refills both weapons 2 & 4 ammo for free if you have at least a full supply of Pipebombs, then the backpack isn't picked up from ground and regenerates ammo for those two weapons up until maximum in a very short time.
3) First couple of levels are filled with toilets that help with health recovery in desperate times, afterwards in later levels it's just medkits.
4) Likewise, Armor is very common early on until towards the end where armor becomes scarcer with less pickups (stronger variant) or no more pickups.
5) New enemies resize themselves upon seeing Duke, a bug that also happened with Protector Drone and Pig Tank in the original game.
6) There are NO secrets to find in any of the SP maps, so all you have to do is kill all the enemies present in the level for 100% completion.
7) Tripmine lasers are now invisible, so be careful when coming across them.
8) Unlike the DM maps, the SP episode (except the final level) has support for the difficulty settings, so feel free to choose an easier skill if having trouble with harder skills.
9) Used Armor (dropped by SWAT Guys) now gives either 20 or 35 armor points.

As usual, I played Duke3D v1.5 in DOSBox on CGS difficulty. Let's begin!

Scene of the Crime

Kills: 59

First level can be challenging. Duke is ambushed by the SWAT guys in his apartment. The ammo is quite tight early on and relies on drops to get a Shotgun with decent ammo but luckily the health can be refilled by using the toilet. After getting past the beginning parts and getting enough shotgun ammo, the rest of the map will be mostly a breeze. As long as you don't run out of ammo and have to kick enemies.

Funnily enough, there is one Protector Drone who appears only once in the entire episode (and two more Sentry Drones in one later level), rest are the various custom enemies encountered.

Hint: There is a picture that when pressed, reveals an Atomic Health and Shotgun ammo. Unofficial secrets like these exist in the mod, so be sure to explore for hidden goodies that can make your life easier.

Not a bad intro map!


Into the Sewer

Kills: 62

And now time for the obligatory sewer map (although not the whole map is sewer themed, thankfully). Duke has to navigate through some sewers while dealing with Tripmine traps. Be careful, as the trip mines have invisible lasers, though NVGs should be able to reveal them. Oh and there was one nasty explosion trap that left me with around 25 HP. I'm actually surprised Duke survived that one, it seemed like it detonated at a couple meters away.

Other locations include a mall and some headquarters. Be sure to explore to find more goodies, although health and armor are plentiful, it doesn't hurt to explore further, like finding various goodies inside those lockers. Outside of that weaker sewer section, rest of the map is pretty okay.


EDF Headquarters

Kills: 92

Duke is ambushed by THREE SWAT Guys (or less if playing on easier skills). He eventually escapes and makes his way to some experimental labs, solving puzzles and much more.

At the end of the level, don't press the Nuke Button yet and deal with all those marines waiting to ambush Duke. Then backtrack and grab supplies to be fully prepared for the next map.

If having trouble with the health, remember there is one toilet available inside the earlier building. And of course THREE Atomic Healths you can find in this whole map.


RUN!

Kills: 8

Very short level where you have to escape. You don't have to worry because there is no time limit and explosions don't always trigger immediately and their damage was heavily reduced, instead of 20 or so, you just lose about 2 HP.

There's only like 5 enemies in the whole map, though at the end of level it read 8 kills, probably because some corpses got squished by the collapsing walls. The enemies present will not pose much threat, though you should watch out for those LameDuke Troopers who fire Octabrain blasts at you, their attacks quite hurt. I still had 149 health by the time I finished the level, so I was ready for the next one.


Comm Station

Kills: 80

Desert themed map with a military base you have to visit to progress. There are some good fights but the health can be a bit scarce at times, you have to rely on some enemies dropping Small Medkits for you. Ammo isn't much of an issue because there is the Backpack glitch that helps you refill ammo for Assault Rifle and Minigun for free, meaning you are free to spam these guns if you are having trouble with some parts.

I died twice in the room filled with crates, where you get Blue Card. One of those guys were immune to hitscan attacks and didn't understand why the shots weren't hurting him, thought it was a weird glitch. I managed to get rid of him with two Pipebombs, it seems they still take splash damage, so I recommend using explosives on that guy.

Outside of that bullshit glitch with that guy who turned into a "ghost" for whatever reason (I guess his sprite wasn't made solid or something), the rest of the level was alright.


Orbital Defense Network

Kills: 49

Duke is now in space, though only for this level. It's somewhat challenging and it culminates with a DRONE BOSS! It's not quite the Final Boss, that one comes later but serves as a mini boss for this map and can be challenging to take out. I recommend standing further away and firing a couple rockets, then finishing him off with a hitscan weapon. Afterwards, take care of other enemies that spawned.

The only weird thing is that there is a vent that Duke doesn't fit at first until he eventually fits in. It's not required for progression but it contains ammo and health that you may need, since health is slightly scarce in this map.

Oh and I got greedy with the Shotgun in this map, since I ended up using it more often than I should. As a result, I finished with 20 shells instead of the maximum of 30 shells, after grabbing all the ammo in the level. Didn't help I sometimes missed some shots due to the wonky collision on some enemies.


Cliffs

Kills: 77

Back to the earth. Duke is attacked by some rocket turrets situated inside helicopters and many other enemies waiting to ambush Duke around this whole place.

It can be challenging at first but it's not that difficult, just check both corners before advancing into a new room. And also watch out for the obligatory ambush at the end of the map.

I advice to grab all the health, armor and ammo you can find in this map because the next level is the hardest in the mod. Make sure to have full health, (almost) full armor and whatever dropped ammo you can find. You will need all the help you can get.


Robotics Facility

Kills: 80

First actual difficult map in the TC. There is no armor, while health and ammo are very scarce. The rifle ammo is often dropped by enemies and health is occasionally dropped too but not too much. Don't get hit too often or it will be nearly impossible to recover!

Despite the map name, there aren't any robots you fight. Instead, the opposition consists of mostly human enemies: hitscanners, laser guys and rocket guys. Some rocket guys in the middle decided to kill themselves with rockets, which saved resources.

There is a crane room that I found impressive but then I got disappointed that one side of the conveyor is bugged, thus the items don't get carried into a loop as they should. When the crane drops a barrel or whatever else gets picked/dropped, there seems to be a tiny sector that goes in opposite direction, so that dropped object just stands still. This small mapping error just went neglected, I guess. It doesn't prevent progression but I am still not sure how they screwed up this basic feature. There seem to be two overlapping sectors or something. Oh and when I killed one of the enemies (the guy who fires Octa blasts) on conveyor, his corpse wasn't getting picked by crane. But the terrorist (modified LameDuke player sprite, who replaces assault trooper) could be picked up by crane.

I died a few times from those rocket guys when I opened the yellow door, which turned out to be an ambush or optional room or whatever, didn't seem to contain anything. And another death at the end because I had 11 health left and wasn't ready to deal with last few enemies in the exit room. I saved the Portable Medkit to use it at the end of the level, so I don't end up using earlier and running into unwinnable situations, although there is another Portable Medkit at beginning of final level but my point still stands, as I tried to be as resourceful as possible.


Final Confrontion (Final Confrontation)

Kills: 1

Boss Time! Grab the Portable Medkit, other supplies and get ready to fight the DRONE BOSS! He shoots rockets and minigun at you, the latter can shred Duke in a few seconds, especially since all you have is 100 HP at this point.

I died twice, then defeated the boss with 30 HP left on my third attempt. Not bad! The Devastators took care of him rather quickly and didn't have to run around the arena to look for stuff, I had enough stuff to deal with him quickly.

Once done, watch a new ending cutscene before cutting to the original Duke3D ending. A worthy conclusion to a nice TC!

Note: I didn't actually notice there was a typo in this map's title until Aleks mentioned it.


Overall Thoughts: Well, that was quite a surprise! Murder: The EDF Conspiracy is a pretty good TC. It is much better than both Merc & Merc 2 combined: it allows backtracking, it has straightforward progression, it is more fun to play, it is better balanced and more interesting overall. Don't let the DM maps disappoint you, the SP maps are pretty solid for the most part.

The only annoying thing is that ammo and sometimes health/armor can be really scarce. But if you are playing continuously and grabbing as much stuff as possible before leaving a level, you will have a much better time, mostly having full health, armor and plenty of ammo for many weapons when starting the next mission, so Duke is fully prepared for dealing with whatever awaits him next.

I am glad to have finally played this TC, since it was definitely worth playing it. Oh and before I played MURDER, I have also done the three-level demo version of Pray Your Prayers but that one will get reviewed another time, maybe when PYP will get chosen in the future in a separate topic.

Thanks everyone for your comments and see you on the July 2024 topic!