[ck3D]

I can see what he aims for though, making each map feel like an actual adventure, and I can appreciate that even though that approach has its limits on the player too. I am just becoming more and more of a fan of that style of levels - those who look minimalistic in terms of technical features, but hold another sort of inherent strength that eventually makes them unmistakable, and unforgettable. For instance when I was younger I couldn't stand playing a Billy Boy map because I thought the design was wack because of the bad texturing and non-existant little sprite-based details. Whereas nowadays, in my opinion, they blow most other people's work out of the water, and I would rather wander around in such a map than in a Bobsp map (it is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, but you get the idea)

[ck3D]

anyone else played this ?

[Jblade]

ck3D, on 24 October 2012 - 02:10 AM, said:

anyone else played this ?

I did, and greatly enjoyed it! I thought it was a bit too dark at first but then I found NVG almost straight away. I know this is a weird thing to comment on, but it was nice that you supplied pretty much all of the inventory items. Things like the jetpack just seemed to of been swept under the rug for AGES in usermaps, or only added right at the end. Having it at the start was cool, I hope more future maps end up using the inventory items much more. Also giving us more weapons! There was also a habit where the only guns that seemed to be put into maps was the first 5, and the Shrinker + Freezer got ignored. The Tripmine's still not that useful in singleplayer, but it's nice to have.

Quote

On a side note, I was watching youtube videos of Zaxtor's Oblivion TC the other day on youtube. How come that dude never got any recognition whatsoever outside a certain minority in the Duke Nukem 3D community ? the amount of work and thought he seems to have put in his creation is unbelievable. Probably ten times worth what any company puts into a modern game nowadays, or what most modern artists put into their work in general.

Heh, sometimes I thought I was the sole fan of Zaxtor's work. I don't have the patience for the levels now, but he is capable of amazing things and I feel sad when I see him post here and have people ridicule his language or his eccentricities. I'm definitly looking forward to his next project, even if the gameplay does frustrate me at times. Some of the effects he achieves are just jaw-dropping, not to mention the size and layout.

I think one of my fondest gaming memores was playing one of his illusion maps in AMC TC co-op with me, Sang and Highwire. It took us 2 hours to finish it, and it was epic in every sense of the word.

[LeoD]

ck3D, on 24 October 2012 - 02:10 AM, said:

anyone else played this ?

Check your download count ...

[ck3D]

James, on 24 October 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

I did, and greatly enjoyed it! I thought it was a bit too dark at first but then I found NVG almost straight away. I know this is a weird thing to comment on, but it was nice that you supplied pretty much all of the inventory items. Things like the jetpack just seemed to of been swept under the rug for AGES in usermaps, or only added right at the end. Having it at the start was cool, I hope more future maps end up using the inventory items much more. Also giving us more weapons! There was also a habit where the only guns that seemed to be put into maps was the first 5, and the Shrinker + Freezer got ignored. The Tripmine's still not that useful in singleplayer, but it's nice to have.

Heh, sometimes I thought I was the sole fan of Zaxtor's work. I don't have the patience for the levels now, but he is capable of amazing things and I feel sad when I see him post here and have people ridicule his language or his eccentricities. I'm definitly looking forward to his next project, even if the gameplay does frustrate me at times. Some of the effects he achieves are just jaw-dropping, not to mention the size and layout.

I think one of my fondest gaming memores was playing one of his illusion maps in AMC TC co-op with me, Sang and Highwire. It took us 2 hours to finish it, and it was epic in every sense of the word.

Thank you for your time and comment. I think that the inventory items and the weapons you mentioned are amongst the underrated features of the game I was talking about in one of my earlier posts. They offer so many different possibilities, yet most maps still follow the same basic shotgun / chaingun / RPG-in-front-of-the-miniboss guideline... To me it has become redundant. For a while I was considering providing the player only with tripmines at first, no pipebombs, and keep it going like that for a little while before the first pistol... But given the openness of the main street, and how the action also takes place on a more vertical plan with the flying enemies and the jetpack, it was not really working. I still like to imagine a map during which the player would not be provided with anything but tripmines though, or maybe even nothing at all...

Also this is a random idea, but has anyone ever coded a flying overlord ? (as if its rocket launchers also worked as a jetpack). Or even a flying miniboss in general... I have been catching myself thinking about the idea a few times while making this map, trying to picture how well it would have worked.

LeoD, on 24 October 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

Check your download count ...

I know ! I was feeling as if, out of the 30-something downloads, only maybe a third of the people replied... But now that I think about it I guess it's about right. I find that feedback is rather important in the community of a game as old as Duke Nukem 3D... Be it as far as maps go, or mods, or anything. It keeps it all tight-knit and even though many people would be working on their stuff regardless of the feedback they got, it is still good to know that people are playing your work and that you are not releasing it publicly for nothing.

[Micky C]

I was in the same boat as Paul B, I became frustrated at dying all the time in the beginning and resorted to cheating. Unfortunately I've also had to do this for some of your other maps. I like my maps nice an easy. With lots o' health an ammo, an lots o' bad guys to blow up (but not excessive).

I think 95% of the time the amount of detail seemed ok, but there was the odd room here or there that could have used an extra light or something in the middle to not have a completely blank ceiling or floor. Texturing of course was solid as expected.

I love the idea of having trip bombs as a main weapon for a period, and to some extent the pipe bombs, however IMO the implementation could be a bit smarter. For example, like you said there are a lot of enemies on the street, and the street is very wide, making them kinda useless there. IMO the most fun can be had with tripbombs when there is foreknowledge of where the enemies are going to be, so that they can be used effectively. This can be done using blocked windows, togglable forcefields, and security cameras. Then you can plan out your attack which is a cool idea.

[MetHy]

That's a nice idea. One could make a map based entirely on tripmines with forcefields to activate, doors to open/close etc to plan your attack.
one could even add those sprites that spawn shrinker ray or battlelords grenades that you activate inside your traps but you have to attrack the enemies in there first. Those are hardly ever used in usermaps either.

Edit: this makes me think of Geoffrey's Virtual Reality mod inspired by Metal Gear Solid. It's got no design (it uses 1 textures) but it's based around orignal gameplay only ideas.

[ck3D]

about people dying all the time at the beginning, i don't really know how i should feel about it. i feel like there are enough obvious hints and health packs scattered around for even the less-skilled players to make it through the first wave of enemies, not to mention the instant access to pipebombs (which are located right next to the starting point and can be seen on a security viewscreen) which are really powerful weapons. you might get killed once or maybe twice the first time you play it if you need a few tries to understand what's going on, but that's about it. once again, exploration is rewarded, there are like six or seven 30+ health packs and an atomic health in plain sight that become available as soon as you get the jetpack (should be within the first three minutes of anyone's playthrough), not to mention the semi-hidden first pistol, the not-so-secret places and i think i even put a few 10+ packs somewhere (and a fire hydrant, for the most despaired). a lot of people were saying that my maps were too hard before, which was interesting to know, but for this one i really can't see how i could have made it easier without making the player respawn in front of 30 shotgun shells and a RPG. of course the weaponry you get supplied with slightly differs from the norm, and you have to blow up monsters instead of shooting them for the first five minutes, is it that challenging to deal with for a change ?

also the tripmine-based map idea is smart but practically i don't see it working. after all tripmines have the tendency to explode somewhat inconsistently and have a bad damage range, and let's face it, activating a bunch of forcefields and doors in order to get rid off of a few monsters would be so tedious it would be boring, one might as well use the mighty foot. it might work well for one quick puzzle or two maybe, but that's pretty much it. now shrinker ray and mortar spawns i like a lot better already... that effect is so powerful yet so underrated. noone ever really thought of crushing monsters under sectors either (besides the notorious doom-type door instant kill)... i have been willing to experiment with killing bosses with that type of method, and other alternative bullet-free methods for a really long time now.

[Micky C]

I just don't like the idea of being on the run with several hitscan enemies shooting at you. It's also very frustrating when you use a pipebomb and it doesn't end up killing the enemy, because your supply of those are fairly limited. About the range of the trip bombs, that's why it's important to have some relatively tight corridors.

I think a map with several trip bomb traps/puzzles could be a neat idea. It would need some other gameplay for variety, but for example it would be cool to have a bunch of enemies in a room, then you go into the room below, set up several trip bombs, collapse the ceiling and watch the enemies fall down and blow up.

Somebody already tried working on a shrinker based puzzle map with a portal inspired aesthetic, but I don't think it was ever released. I remember it featured shrink rays bouncing off walls for something, and the bug of how you fall through floor alligned sprites if you're shrunk.
Omg does anybody remember that VR duke mod which had several episodes of trip bomb based puzzles? Now that was some creative thinking!

[Forge]

ck3D, on 25 October 2012 - 11:33 PM, said:

about people dying all the time at the beginning, i don't really know how i should feel about it.

i wouldn't feel anything about it. the problem is most likely the weaponry you supplied the players to start off with. Pipebombs and tripmines are not autoaim weapons, they can't just look in the general direction of the enemy, pull the trigger, and kill them from a distance. i don't use autoaim so i'm used to cowardly tactics of hiding around corners while drawing the enemy in close for the kill, so the style of this map fit my tactics nicely.

[Paul B]

For the record I don't use auto aim either. It was just bad weapon placement. The concept was sound just not implemented well.

**Edit** You know I'm probably just looking at it the wrong way. The start was very non linear and the author gave the player the freedom to roam off the bat making for a lot of replay value at the start to figure out where to run to for cover. =)

[t800]

Micky C, on 25 October 2012 - 11:48 PM, said:

Somebody already tried working on a shrinker based puzzle map with a portal inspired aesthetic, but I don't think it was ever released. I remember it featured shrink rays bouncing off walls for something, and the bug of how you fall through floor alligned sprites if you're shrunk.

Did you miss it? It was discussed project here 2 years ago. Nevermind, I see now that you posted in that topic.
Check this topic: [WIP] Narbacular Shrink (demo included) "What if you added a pinch of Portal to Duke Nukem?"
In fact there are 2 maps inspired by shrinking puzzles and atmosphere of Portal. One is from NerdKoopa and second is from BrOiler1985. Sadly download link to BrOiler's map is defunct now.
EDIT: I found it on my harddisc! I am so glad that I dont delete old folders with obsolete versions of eduke32. But I have only map, not README, sorry.

Paul B, on 26 October 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

For the record I don't use auto aim either. It was just bad weapon placement. The concept was sound just not implemented well.

Oh come on, guys! Lets admit it alltogether - we are used too much to classic shottie+chaingun+rpg combo. For me it was fresh change to use weapons that usually fit secondary usage as primary. And I admit that I died few times before I got accustomissed to this new style of gameplay (and I dont use auto aim too).
Little tip: dont try to kill battlelords at any cost.

Attached File(s)

•  Portalmap.zip (18.09K)
  Number of downloads: 215

[MetHy]

I wasn't aware that there were so many people not using auto-aim. I just don't get it, the game is meant to be played with auto-aim, and the vast majority of maps build their gameplay around that.

I'm not going to put more ammo&health in my maps for those that don't use auto-aim that's for sure, because then for those who do they'll have way too much.

[MetHy]

t800, on 26 October 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

[WIP] Narbacular Shrink (demo included) "What if you added a pinch of Portal to Duke Nukem?"

That was really fun! Should make more of those

Also the map you uploaded to your post : I'm stuck at #02 : there is a round elevator and a tube above it but nothing happens.

[t800]

MetHy, on 26 October 2012 - 09:20 AM, said:

Also the map you uploaded to your post : I'm stuck at #02 : there is a round elevator and a tube above it but nothing happens.

Well, that map was never finished by its author, so you just got to dead end. I assume that room was supposed to have shrinker on elevator platform which would automatically lift you after picking it up. Just for fun try to type cheat DNSHOWMAP, you will see that only few rooms from beginning were ever built, nothing more. BTW maybe we should revive this project, I see a lot of potentional in this theme.

[Forge]

Paul B, on 26 October 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

For the record I don't use auto aim either. It was just bad weapon placement.

I had no problems with this level. Blaming it on auto-aim was a poor generalization in my part. Maybe people aren't used to not having projectile firing weapons and it took a bit to adapt their tactics to match the gameplay in the map. Normally when I get pipebombs and tripmines I use them up right away (except maybe holding on to a couple for cracks or whatnot), because it saves on ammo for the other weapons.

MetHy, on 26 October 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

I'm not going to put more ammo&health in my maps for those that don't use auto-aim that's for sure, because then for those who do they'll have way too much.

??? I'm very conservative with my rounds and make every bullet count. I don't need "extra" ammo.

I don't like auto-aim. I like to select my targets. I've seen instances of mini-battlelords or other stay-put enemies placed on the other side of a field of slimers & eggs. Auto-aim seems to always pick the closest target to hit, so RPG rounds or other precious ammo gets wasted. Having auto-aim off actually saves me bullets.

[ck3D]

Necro bump after 10 (!) years, but Leosin 92 just made a video on this map which caught me by surprise since it's one of my most obscure levels - in fact so obscure even I keep forgetting about it. I guess it's so memorable it took watching the video to remember what I as the author had in fact made. Turns out I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw though, level has its weaknesses but looks OK and quality-wise isn't much of a stretch from my more recent speed map release Salvage Title. Thought I would post the video in case it would encourage players who might have missed this map the first time around to maybe give it a spin, it's one of my own levels people bring up to me the least. IIRC you may have to turn the visibility up (looks OK in Leosin's video, though).