[Jblade]

If you download it, you will see I've done that!

EDIT: new page, here's the patch agian:
https://www.dropbox....ch%201.zip?dl=0

[Steambull]

Need help getting into gameplay (into the first red grid location, basically). Struggled with this exactly the same way last time, wandering around the main base and New LA. The pad just tells me to select a mission, and there aren't any available.

Edit: Map screen already says Showdown in Hong Kong as the mission.

[Jblade]

did you start in episode one or two? Both first maps of the first 2 episodes are in the USA; if you click on that you'll zoom in and you can see the mission there.

[Steambull]

Thanks, I hadn't realized you can highlight and click on areas like that.

[Doom64hunter]

Yeah I actually wanted to mention that there should be some kind of highlight so people know what's clickable and what isn't. The same problem applies to the solar system view.

[Jblade]

I should do that, yeah - I'm also working on making plot progression maps take you back to the base map you're on IF you're not playing on the same episode. I've been getting a lot of reports of people playing older maps and getting confused when it takes them to specific base maps rather than returning them to the current one.

[Danukem]

As we look at missions on the map, how do we know which are story (plot progression) missions and which are not? I'm assuming there's an icon or something.

[Jblade]

Mandatory missions are squares, optional missions are diamonds.

[Solais]

Hello there! I'm new here, though I've been lurking for a while throughout the years. However, this... piece of design art made me finally register. For, uh. I guess so I can share my impressions of my first playthrough of AMC TC, and to more closely follow future developments.

While I already shared a long comment on moddb about this mod, written with my experience still fresh in mind, I still felt that I should share my experience with this TC in a more broad manner. Just to start of, in my impressions, I'll try to focus on mostly on my journey and the feel of the work and my own feelings while playing it. I don't want to talk too much about the difficulty, because to be honest, I really suck at this game, so while I dabbled in Normal mode, even Easy can be very challenging to me - which is ironic, as I was a Serious Sam modder/mapper, and yet, going against 100 Kleer Skeletons with a sledgehammer on Normal doesn't even compare to going against a single Pigcop in this TC (or really, any hitscan enemy in any Build engine game; somehow, my brain just cannot wrap itself around the feel of the engine, despite playing Duke3D since its release).
Another aspect I won't touch on is performance as I have a pretty beefy PC and the game never had performance problems whatsoever.

To start off my story, I have learned of this project from the Rock Paper Shotgun article that someone posted one day on one of the Serious Sam community discords (it was probably the official Croteam one). It instantly got my attention for two reasons: One, is that it's a very long-in-development Duke3D TC that I somehow didn't know about, despite me checking out Duke3D mods on moddb at least once yearly (in hindsight, I probably seen it before, but I gave it a pass due to the lack of a trailer and the screenshots being somewhat confusing). I already had two love affairs with fan-made projects that were developed for 10+ years, and following their development for at least as much (those projects being the Another Metroid 2 Remake, and the Mental Omega mod for Red Alert 2), so I had good feelings about this one; so far, fan works with such a passion put into them never made me disappointed.
The other reason is that the music in the Ep3 trailer was AWESOME, and what I was seeing in it was really intriguing. (Good music with fitting visuals is the no-1 way for a trailer to get to me; enough that I often rewatch such trailers even after the games came out.) It also came at a most opportune time, as recently I've been on a sort of personal research project into the evolution of the FPS genre, the apparent abandonment of the "complex design" of older games, and chasing the idea of a "true evolution of the old-school shooter", insisting that modern interpretations very often miss the point (in a way, the Serious Sam series "corrupting" the idea of the old-school shooter both in the minds of developers and many of gamers too). Yes, it sounds very pretentious, I know.

And so my journey began...

Episode 1

Spoiler

As I'm guessing happening with everyone else who started this mod, I was pretty overwhelmed by the apparent complexity of it all. First there being a cool intro; though feeling a bit "jumpy", it was pretty hype for everything to happen (I later watched a 2.0 footage of the intro, and it had much longer scenes, not as "jumpy" as the current one; to be honest, that was better). As it goes, I of course chose the first character from the list and got promptly lost on the base. After stumbling on the tutorial and binding my keys, I finally got into the main area of the base, and to the world map. Hoo boy, this is where most of the confusion of this TC came from, because I had little idea, even with the help, what all these factories and whatever were really for. I'll talk about this separately, so first, I started the first mission... after taking a walk in New LA, unlokcing EDF missions, that somehow didn't unlock at all, but whatever.

Megabase was definitely a first level; simple, and yet, showing all the things to come. I first infiltrated a base, then uncovered a mystery, then in the middle, the game changed into a bit of survival horror without weapons, being chased by Protector Drones (which I always had a bit of a fear of since I was a kid, due to their resemlance to xenomorphs), then again changing to a different atmosphere back down in the precog lab. Not to mention my mission briefing scrambling up when touching the brains. I rarely ever seen a level changing tone so many times in a Duke3D map, I was astonished.

And then, it just became weirder. Second level, I'm suddenly in Doom 64? All dark and scary, completely new enemies, new ways to fight, and playing with Zaxtor this time. It's like if I was playing a completely different game suddenly. And then, I go to Hell, and it's Heretic/Hexen now. What. And I'm only on the third level, what? Then I'm some cyborg shooting up a base of mercenaries, in the middle of the level then I drive a mech. Then I'm some Russian commander driving tanks around a city. Then I'm a psychic gunslinger in some abandoned town. AND THE LEVEL STARTED WITH A FREAKING COMICBOOK. WHAT?? I remember trying to explain this to my friends, I could barely contain my excitement. Every level completely different, with different enemies, characters, weapons, and yet, built on the same basic gameplay loop, it's still essentially Duke3D, but I would have never imagined a "mere" mod offering such a diverse experience. Only a few times I seen games doing this, usually older ones, which is a very welcome aspect in today's gaming world, where it seems I'm doing the same thing over and over in many games. By the end of this episode, I was certain that I found something special. Multiple characters changing during a level, a warlock with a weapon that turns enemies into CHAIRS (and other objects, but still, CHAIRS), an epic boss fight that includes a choice in the story. And I heard, the other two episodes were even bigger.

The first episode really have shown me what is on my table here with AMC TC, with its incredible diversity of gameplay design, an actually gripping story with many mysteries, an interestingly toned down soundtrack that almost gives a weird calming feeling, and of course, very high quality level design, which of course were designed with the "complex design" standard of Duke3D. It can only get better, right?

Most Favorite Level: Hard to choose, but I did like the Abyss level and Millhaven.
Least Favorite Level: Revolution, as I was lost on this level so much because I mistaken the yellow key for a desk lamp and I'm so stupid that I just don't like it.

Episode 2

Spoiler

It started out really good. First some mysterious dream of sorts (where I wondered if I had the brightness up too much due to the overblown textures), setting up the story of the Beyonders even more so than the first, which was already interesting enough. For the duo levels, that I feel are perfect homages to Duke3D, especially on the musical front, I chose the newcomer Micky, who quickly became my second main, more so than James. I actually rather liked the Mothership level. It set up the mystery of the Beyonders being this powerful, unstoppable force that took on the Cycloids in force, killing their queen. It actually made me feel tense, actually seeing the arguably "main bad guys" being defeated that easily. However, after this intro mission, that still displayed the diversity of the game I liked so much, came the Hong Kong levels. And boy, I wasn't ready for them. Now, on some replays, I'd say, they are actually quite well made and atmospheric. But on my first playthrough, this non-stop, unchanging experience with the Shadow Warrior setting soured my opinion of this episode a bit. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that they are a sub-par experience at all, no no. It's because the first episode was so diverse and great, it set me up expecting that the same diversity, of a single map feeling like me playing 3 other maps/games at the same time. But then, I played 5 levels, of the same game. I was suddenly feeling like "Did they run out of ideas? I mean, keeping up all the diversity for 5 whole episodes seemed insane to begin with, but..." So it made me doubt the mod a bit.

And then, I have to go and play the Zaxtor mission. Let's just say, I was actually close to quitting the whole thing after that, and it was also the first time I had to use cheats; even though I already reverted to Easy difficulty for Episode 2, as after playing Ep1 on Normal, I didn't feel it fit my enjoyment.

Fortunately, everything was suddenly saved by Zeta Base. (*imagine heavenly music playing in the background as white feathers fall from the sky and godray breaks through the clouds*). I cannot praise Zeta Base enough, seriously. It probably took me 2 to 3 hours. During those hours, I couldn't stand up from it (and I had a pretty filled bladder by the end of it). It took me in. When I finished with it, in my half-crazy bafflement that I haven't felt since I played Gal*Gun, I went on my work-related chat and told my friends: "I found it. I found the closest thing to the true evolution of the old-school shooter." The size. The sheer detail. The tense atmosphere. The toned down, yet calming music. How the flying fuck in a hellbasket can there be so many rooms with so many details? The level design, taking the Duke3D complex design to new levels. Corridors and larger yards naturally opening and merging from each other. The feeling of scale, but also, the feeling of familiarity with areas designed like actual realistic living spaces, AND that realistic take not actually hindering, but actually enhancing the old-school gameplay. And the joke of it, that in a way, this level was also missing that Episode 1 diversity. However, what made me realize, that with the increase of scope of episode 2, I must take the multi-part levels as one experience. It's not as condensed like the first episode, it's spread out more evenly, and should be enjoyed with more "care". It's like a series settling itself into a more relaxed pace after the bombastic start.

After Zeta Base, I had a renewed appreciation with AMC TC, and as so, I started browsing the forums, looking up things in the wiki, trying to learn it better. I have discovered that I completely forgot about the EDF Missions, so I unlocked them again (ALL OF THEM), and I went on a spree on replaying them all. I finally started playing the other characters, getting used to them, discovering more favorites (Geoffrey quick became my third main), cursing that Aliens level and the Red series, like ffs, I hate Protector Drone-based horror, dammit. I started collecting research with the MIA Gun, now that I knew what it did. Then the Black Gate mission made the data reset all my NPC unlocks and choices I did in Ep1 and Ep2 while subsequently granting me access to Snowfall and spoiling the Ep3 looks for Sang and James (and here I thought that James having a blue hand was a palette error). I familiarized myself with the world map now and the whole factory mechanic (later on that), learned that I can actually zoom out from the Sol system (that should have been hinted.) All in all, after this tour, I felt I was finally ready to properly "appreciate" AMC TC. (Oh yeah, the Ghost Ship level was also really awesome, though definitely confusing, as the map was useless. I didn't really like Mikko's level though, felt a bit obtuse.)

To be honest, despite all this preparation, I felt the finale set of mission weren't -that- special. They were really damn good, and I had a bombastic time with them, but in a way, the magic of episode 1 and Zeta Base was gone. I did enjoy the newfound diversity across the many acts, the always changing perspectives, and the growing story. Also, I loved that the enemies actually shouted the names of the characters, that was such a cool attention to detail. By the end of the episode, I was actually really satisfied. I was now ready, full of knowledge and excitement to play the levels from that trailer that introduced me to AMC TC.

Most Favorite Level: Zeta Base. Praise be our Lord and Savior.
Least Favorite Level: That Jungle level. Holy shit.

Episode 3

Spoiler

I think I'll be actually short with this one. This episode is damn great. On all fronts I feel it have been better than Episode 2. For the first time, I felt that this Episode was tailor made as if directly for me to be pleased.

The intro levels to the Cycloids' home planet, woah. I think the most that I got out of this mission was that tense feeling of dread I was feeling in the Mothership level of Ep2. Seeing the destruction the Beyonders did. Most queens dead. A fierce race on the verge of defeat, and maybe even extinction. I actually started to pity them. I almost didn't want to be here, they suffered enough. It's weird, but powerful.

Then, randomly, let's go the Egypt! Yay! Unlike the Hong Kong levels, I actually really damn enjoyed these! I'm a fan of Metroidvanias, and I'm a fan of of Powerslave as well, so this set of levels definitely were made for me. Not to mention the visual homeage to Serious Sam as well, especially with the Sanctuary levels (they are even named SS.map, lol) that made me expect Beheaded Kamikazes to pop up any minute, and the final level which was of course modeleted after the Great Pyramid level of SS: The First Encounter. At this point I realized the pattern: The episode name is based on the first set of "homage" levels, with ep2 being a homage to Shadow Warrior, and ep3 being a homage to Powerslave. (And a personal prediction: Heretic/Hexen for Ep4.)
The Egypt levels also structurally worked better than the Hong Kong levels, due to their interconnectedness, and the different artifacts made these levels being feeling a lot more diverse as well. I had great fun, I have to say. I also chosen to try out Snowfall for Egypt (because that's funny), and I think he was a cool addition to the game (my only problem was that his shield indicator overlaps the spirit and fire armor indicators). Now if there's one MAJOR PROBLEM with the Egypt mission.... WHY ARE THERE CACTI IN EGYPT??? THERE ARE NO CACTUS IN AFRICA! IT'S A POPULAR MISINFORMATION SPREAD BY AMERICA! WHY NOBODY NOTICES THIS! WAKE UP SHEEPLE! WAKE UPdslgkjdsgldfygkjxfgy- <technical difficulties, please wait>

After Egypt, the team splits up again. I knew shit will hit the fan, so I decided to start with Zaxtor's level to just get done with it early. I won't mince words, it was awful, buggy, and it took me hours even with noclip. But I understand that it's a special kind of work made for people different from me. So I won't even take it as a negative point.

Now to Micky Begins! I have to say, while I was lost most of the time, and I never actually seen the final boss because it was killed by NPCs, I would say it was probably one of my favorite set of missions in this episode. It did remind me of the absolute diversity of Ep1 (more on that later, actually), but the most that got to me, was the first level. The actual first level. Remember, dear reader, who probably forgot what I wrote at the start due to my insane ramblings I've been writing at 2am without any sort of break or sense of thought? Well, for a flashback: "Good music with fitting visuals is the no-1 way for a trailer to get to me". Going through the base with just a pistol, actually hiding from the aliens, with that toned-down tense music. Going through a set of test labs inspired by Portal (WHAT), and then getting the SMART Suit. And a room of weapons. AND THAT MUSIC FROM THE TRAILER STARTS PLAYING. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
During work, I often talk about the psychological effect of music on players during gameplay, something I feel have been slowly getting lost in modern AAA games as they all go for a generic cinematic-like soundtrack that sounds so similar to each other. Me and my colleagues/friends often talk about some of the best musical moments in games, where the music fits perfectly a moment, or when the music dynamcally shifts during a changing scene, causing the player to feel a variety of changing emotions, sometimes going from tense to empoweringNOW WHO'S RUNNING FROM THE ALIENS NOW, MWAAHAHAAA, OH GOD I LOVE THIS MUSIC! Too bad it didn't play on the other levels of Micky Begins, but the 80s inspired soundtrack through it all was really pleasing.

With that done, I decided to quickly do Geoffrey's level, as it was time for him to finally get a level. Well...

[10:40 PM] Solais: I jacked in into a VR panel in an ancient alien supercomputer that looks like a pyramid hidden in the deep jungles of Africa, guarded by sentient gorillas that use guns, using two pieces of a magical tablet, which one of them was on an old river boat in the past. And now I'm playing a virtual tank game. While being a cyborg web developer from Mars.
[10:41 PM] Solais: Damn I love this mod.

And then I go to Mesopotamia and I'm suddenly in a never released sequel to Command and Conquer: Renegade, now set in the Tiberian Sun time period.
Well. This is what I meant that this episode was almost like tailor-made for me to love it. It's the same size of Episode 2, but somehow, with the insane diversity of Episode 1. It's almost perfect.

AND THEN... levels made by Snowfall. Not as... beautiful on a design scale as Zeta Base, but damn. Also suddenly playing as a Cultist, WHAT?? And the finale was really neat as well. Really feels like that the shit indeed have hit all those fans, all together, and it's time to do something. The stage is set. The actors took their place. It's time for the show to begin.

Spoiler

I have since played Imagination World, while the first 3 episodes were definitely something with a hint of Sonic 3 music, ep4 was definitely more AMC TC-like. I think the final boss of Ep3 was the James that chose to join MJ12 at the end of IW.

Remember when I said I'll be short with this one? Me neither.

Most Favorite Level: Woah, very difficult question, because all of them are great. Maybe Geoffrey's level.
Least Favorite Level: None, really. Besides the obvious, but that's disqualified.
Best Missed Opportunity: The Lost Tomb level ending with an insane chase sequence as you are a medieval knight, riding on a bike, with battle axe in hand. That would have been metal.

Conclusion

Spoiler

This has been such an inredible ride. I cannot thank you enough for this work. I think the best effect this had on me was a sort of paradigm shift when it comes to my game design methodology. Up until now, I would always dismiss outlanding ideas as "bad design", working like as if I was following a book of game design written 10 years ago, and every developer and their respective mothers all following this same book. I was conflicted with my work, as I attempted to somehow create a diversity out of the mundane, struggling to make my levels not just well made and designed, but interesting as well. Sometimes, we just have to throw the rules away and ride that shopping cart down the slope.

It's such a shame that this TC is not better known. I tried my best to annoy the discord communities I'm part of almost every week during the month I spent with it, but I don't think I managed to make it better known. Oh well.
In the end, this now became the second best mod I ever played in my life. Truly, the Mental Omega of FPS mods. (Obviously, Mental Omega is now the AMC TC of RTS mods. )

Can't wait for Episode 4.

Addendum: On the world map

Spoiler

While the idea is sound, I feel the world map mechanics should be a little more complex, as currently, they are obtuse for a new player, but might be too simple for a more experienced one, not to mention, they were pretty much "done" before I even hit Ep3.
I could imagine this going a bit further. The factories could still produce supplies, but maybe they could also passively generate funds (or maybe they already do, I never got that part). Maybe there could be other "factions" and "buildings" on the map, to spend supplies on, like buying weapons from the EAF that would enable an agent to have reduced loadout cost, or maybe using those bought weapons to sell them on the black market for more money than originally acquired, but with the random potential for those weapons being used against the player; resulting in more difficult enemies the next mission. There's a lot of potential in this system, it's just, really not there yet.
Also, what's that building in Asia that produces green boxes?? It's like a currency type that's not actually in use?
Also also, I wish the game would remember my episode/edf mission visibility settings between missions.

This ended up longer than I thought, so I put the post into sections, under spoiler tags.

[Jblade]

heh heh, thank you for the lengthy write up You raise good points about the diversity of the TC, and also how it is gradually shaping up as each episode is released (My main goal is to make everything feel connected rather than isolated - which is why EP1 is kind of a shotgun blast of themes whereas subsequent episodes are a bit more focused) It's also nice to see somebody who enjoyed this episode more than than episode 2. You're of course right on the money with ep4's theme, but of course it wouldn't be AMC if it wasn't also a very epic take on the genre.

By Black Gate I'm assuming you mean Dark Gate - did the spoilery bug happen before or after the patch? I'll look into it regardless.

[Solais]

Ah yeah, it was Dark Gate; the bug indeed happened before even 3.1, so since the level transition bug have been fixed, it's probably a moot point.

I'm really happy about Ep4's theme, as I often mused about the lack of Fantasy-themed shooters made in modern times (fortunately, we did get Amid Evil, though still waiting for it to leave Early Access).

[Jblade]

check out this new awesome image by sebabdukeboss20 showing off the AMC team's re-designs; more pics will also be forthcoming but if you haven't already, join up to our Discord to see it first there

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[Solais]

Wow, that is awesome!

Also, that 3D render of the Beyonders... I seen that in a dream yesterday....

[KillerBudgie]

This is now my new wallpaper!

[TheDragonLiner]

It's ass kicking indeed, at the height of the TC's excellence =)
A bit too Holywoodian to my taste though ^^

[Jblade]

A picture of the team with their new art, courtesy of sebabdukeboss20 (I'll post a comparison pic when I can)

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[Radar]

It's just amazing work.

[Jblade]

And here's a comparison pic!

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[Forge]

C-Bob does nice work

[KillerBudgie]

I can't wait to see this in the next patch!

[Jblade]

Updated backdrop, with Rusty's model and the AMC flyer model - once again thanks to sebabdukeboss20!

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[Jblade]

Icarus has taken a look at AMC TC episode one!

https://youtu.be/uZDtipqEnZA

[Danukem]

Does AMC stand for Alejandro's Mapping Center within the AMC TC universe, or does it stand for something else?

[Jblade]

It stands for Allied Military Complex inside the mod.

[John Brown]

 Jblade, on 25 May 2019 - 01:07 AM, said:

It stands for Allied Military Complex inside the mod.

There is also the... "revised" definition in Ep 3. Wink.

[Lt.Havoc]

soo, finally got around to start playing EP3 and so far I like it a lot, but I seem to have some odd graphic issues, nothing major, but the skyboxes are all funky and sometimes walls and stuff become transparent. I also still have the odd research issue that I already picked up the mind level shield six but cant research it because I dont have mind shield level 2.

[Avenger]

Have the majority of the bugs been fixed for this now?

I attempted to pllay this roughly 4 months ago but it was stuck in software render (despite manually selecting OpenGL several times) which made the game run like trash and was virtually unplayable...

[Micky C]

That has nothing to do with us per se. Software mode is the only supported renderer. On my computer, OpenGL tends to be slower than software in many areas. On top of that, there are numerous TROR glitches for the supported eduke32 builds, and newer builds tend to crash.

There is a big update in the works though, which focuses on improving some of the art, so perhaps it would be worth waiting for that.

[Avenger]

 Micky C, on 01 June 2019 - 11:36 PM, said:

That has nothing to do with us per se. Software mode is the only supported renderer. On my computer, OpenGL tends to be slower than software in many areas. On top of that, there are numerous TROR glitches for the supported eduke32 builds, and newer builds tend to crash.

There is a big update in the works though, which focuses on improving some of the art, so perhaps it would be worth waiting for that.

OpenGL is hardware accelerated so unless you are literally running a potato I can't see any reason why software would perform better under normal circumstances...

For example the latest eduke32 build running Duke Nukem 3D, NAM or WWII GI utilizing OpenGL easily pushes 250+ FPS on my machine because the GPU is being utilized while the only compatible version running AMC TC in software render struggles to make 30 FPS often dropping into the 10-12 range.

So my question is: Why have you decided to set the game up in such a way?

How would an artwork change fix this issue?

[Micky C]

I didn’t say it would fix the issue. I said it because if you were going to give the TC another try, having improved art would be a benefit.

The maps in the AMC TC are far larger and more complex than those released in the 90’s. Polymost is still fairly CPU-bound because of how dynamic the engine is, meaning the GPU sits around waiting while the CPU is processing things. The net result of this and other factors means that polymost is slower in several maps.

There is talk of the eduke devs doing some under-the-hood improvements to move a lot more of the polymost processing. TROR is also relatively glitch-free in polymost now, however the builds where it is fixed seem to cause crashes. So down the line, hopefully, the TC will be glitch-free and running on polymost with a high frame rate. When this will happen is hard to say.