[Malgon]

^He mentioned that in one of the replies to a comment. I meant to post that here.

Edit: Here was the reply:

Quote

RlndGM.sf2 was the soundfont (found on Musical Artifacts website), I used ShadowHog's "MIDIflipper" for get the midis inverted

[FistMarine]

There hasn't been a new post since a month ago, so I figured I'd bump the topic considering the Doom's 27th birthday is approaching!

With that said, I finally finished Double Impact, which I started 4-5 months ago and have been dragging stuff for so long due to having a lot of stuff to play (I haven't forgotten either about other Doom wads I have in progress, Akeldama, DTWID, KDIZD and Herian 2, some of which I continued a level once in a while but sadly Akeldama has been left in the dust since August or so). I have finished E1M4 & E1M5 last month (and even had a screenshot saved since then, along with some recent ones I took) and this week I did an effort to finish last 3 maps! What a ride it was! I enjoyed Double Impact very much for being a modernized Knee Deep in the Dead style episode, rather challenging at times but also a lot of fun. I admit I really had to look on YouTube for UV Max videos before I played (there were few times where few parts became inaccessible later, so I may have had to replay small sections when I forgot to access an area that became inaccessible later) just to plan my routes in the map and look for the secrets, so I know exactly where I'm going. Died once more on E1M6 on the nasty trap down there as I killed myself with the Rocket Launcher (no idea what got close to me because it seemed like an enemy somewhere close to me absorbed the rocket and made me take massive damage from my own rockets and blind me, even if I had like 140-150 health and blue armor but on second attempt I survived, also no I don't think there was a spectre in that room that got in my face, though it is possible I may have somehow hit an enemy's hitbox, it was weird and I was at loss of words) but I did fine so far, including E1M7 which was really long and took me more than an hour to finish (hence the TIME SUCKS) but I handled it surprisingly fine. I also had the Plasma ammo saved (there is no BFG to be found in this episode) and ended up exactly with max 600 ammo in the final level, had 200 health and 167 armor and was fully prepared for what was coming. Everything was going fine, right?

Unfortunately the final map kinda ruined the experience and definitely not in a way you'd expect. You see, I played using Eternity 4.00.00 (yes I know Eternity 4.01.00 came a while ago and have it installed and ready to play but I still have my Eternity 4.00.00 folder because the update came a while ago after I had already played through Double Impact and I didn't want to make my save game invalid, so I continued like that) and Eternity doesn't have the vanilla compatibility enabled by default, I have no idea what is enabled by default but things didn't work correctly. I have managed to kill those Cyberdemons by hiding in a spot and kill them from that room here, considering I had all that plasma ammo, I did kill all 4 of them and without dying, which made me feel satisfied that I managed to do it on my first try! But after this? Spiders didn't appear (there is one at beginning that teleports away but later two are supposed to teleport) and two doors didn't open (as you can see in the screenshot with those unexplored areas) and I thought that I got stuck because I killed the cyberdemons earlier which isn't intended but even after replaying the map from that backup save from beginning of level and doing it by running around and avoiding the rockets to press the switches (which costed me a few deaths this time), same thing happened. I realized the port is at fault here. I couldn't believe that Eternity screwed me this time, thinking that Eternity has better compatibility than ZDoom based source ports, unfortunately that wasn't the case here. Maybe I should have used PrBoom+ because of the various compatibility levels...

I was forced to cheat with IDCLIP and I might as well use IDDQD (as I was cheating anyway) to finish the map, quit in disappointment and think what the hell did I do wrong?

After checking more YouTube videos of same map (including on the Switch port, BTW noticed the official addon version of wad has slightly different item/enemy placements in some maps such as E1M7), I realized that it was definitely Eternity's fault and I can probably still complete the map without cheating in Eternity port. And well, it worked! I started with command line parameters:
"D:\Eternity Engine\Eternity.exe" -iwad DOOM.WAD -file dbimpact.wad -warp 1 8 -skill 4 -vanilla

Turns out Eternity had a -vanilla parameter that made Eternity act like Vanilla Doom (instead of Boom or whatever defaults were), though there are no similar parameters for Boom and MBF compatibility. Unfortunately this meant that I must start the final level from a pistol start (also forgot to mention there are 4 secrets inside each other at start of E1M8 but I knew about that when I watched the video, so thankfully I didn't end with missing secrets, also a similar case where at end of E1M7 you drop down and can't go back earlier, so I came prepared with everything collected at that point) and that meant all that stuff I collected earlier was gone, so it was really hard this time around and try to run like crazy and ignore enemies (and kill only few that stand in the way) but it wasn't as bad as I thought, I was calm the entire time, even after dying like 20-30 times from cyber rockets (because I knew I would eventually finish, plus I saved on multiple slots, just in case I save in a bad spot which happened once), I still did in the end and yes this time the spiders appeared and map worked as intended, I was no longer getting stuck after pressing the 4 switches. I have finally finished Double Impact on UV and 100% in each category, as also seen on last screenshot where I had to enable the rather ugly BOOM HUD just to show the stats, because Eternity has no automap stats for some stupid reason, even in version 4.01.00 (though I heard there is a new HUD at least, which should replace this BOOM HUD).

As for the other wads in progress, all I remember is still being on MAP12 of Akeldama, while reaching E1M9 (secret level on KDIZD), E2M4 on DTWID and MAP11 on Herian 2 (and died once here on MAP09 I think) because I accidentally stepped in the teleporting sector in water and got trapped in inescapable "underwater". I hope to finish these as soon as I can, so I can start other megawads as well.

Oh and last week I also played a bunch of limit-removing wads (in PrBoom+) and ZDoom/GZDoom wads at random but I won't go into details right now, I may talk about that another time since those wads weren't anything special as far as I remember. I don't like having to give so many details, so I will end the message with 18 Double Impact screenshots (last three are after pistol starting). Looking forward to see what Cacowards will be this year even if some choices will be terrible (as has been the case in most years, there's always some dumb wad that gets chosen just to fill the missing spot, while underrated gems or actually good wads get ignored in favor of gimmicky wads or slaughterfest bullshit) and I'm also looking forward to see what more addons get added to the Doom Unity ports this Thursday. I know there hasn't been a new addon since like 3 months but let's hope they will add 2-3 new addons this time to compensate for the missing addon, considering they had some technical issues with some of their choices and that's why they couldn't add a new addon in past month.

[jkas789]

Have you tried Evil Egypt Running Duke? I personally like it very much. Then again I'm a sucker for Egyptian/any ancient civ themed stuff.

[NNC]

I remember Double Impact, it was much like DTWID, never felt modernized Knee Deep in the Dead to me, more like "mapper tries his best to copy the style". The modernized KDITD should look like E1M4b or E1M8b.

[FistMarine]

jkas789, on 08 December 2020 - 07:13 PM, said:

Have you tried Evil Egypt Running Duke? I personally like it very much. Then again I'm a sucker for Egyptian/any ancient civ themed stuff.

Not yet. Evil Egypt (along with the rest of DBP series) are on my to play list. I have been thinking to start the first couple of DBP series since a while ago but never got around. I guess I will use Crispy Doom for these, since they are all limit-removing mapsets. I know there's a few other Egyptian themed mapsets like Osiris TC and Epic 2, with the latter being a full 32-map megawad that I heard it becomes slaughterfest in last couple of levels. I intend to play these as well, I only remember playing Epic 2 in GZDoom many years ago and reaching MAP10 or so but I will restart the wad in PrBoom+ with the proper compatibility settings and give it another shot.

The Watchtower, on 08 December 2020 - 11:15 PM, said:

I remember Double Impact, it was much like DTWID, never felt modernized Knee Deep in the Dead to me, more like "mapper tries his best to copy the style". The modernized KDITD should look like E1M4b or E1M8b.

I think you're right, though to me it was still an enjoyable experience, sort of a modern E1 replacement (yes I know there's many E1 replacements and I will try them all eventually), I felt every map was good (even the last one, though I can agree the latest was also the weakest) and even if some levels were dragging out a bit longer than they should have, it was still an amazing limit-removing wad and a Cacoward (and official addon) well deserved.

I haven't played E1M4b and E1M8b just yet (they are also on the to play list, sitting inside a Crispy Doom folder) but I will surely play them tomorrow, probably after I start playing Romero's SIGIL episode, because it's one that I really want to play after 1.5 years since it was released and missed the initial hype (though I still read people's comments at that time). Tomorrow actually marks two years since it was announced, so I might as well play it. Not sure if I should do on HMP or UV difficulty but either way I will play the latest 1.21 version of the wad and after I finish it, I will try to see the older versions and see exactly what was changed between them. I know the initial 1.0 version had some balance problems and some unreachable items, so I will go with the latest for the initial experience, much like my first entire Doom experience (after playing the shareware versions 1.2, 1.666, 1.9 countless times as kid) was playing the Ultimate Doom, which not only meant experiencing E4 but also experiencing E2 and E3 for first time as well.

I wouldn't mind if Romero went back and made an entire E1 remake much like his E1M4b and E1M8b, that way the episode will also become official addon, because it seems like they don't add single level wads, only episode replacements at least. Maybe he is still working on something special (a mapset for Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen or Quake) and he might reveal tomorrow, who knows? I mean I'm not his biggest fan (I really hated his E4M2 and E4M6 of Ultimate Doom due to how hard they were, though last time I played I didn't have too much trouble with E4M6 because I learned the path and where to go but E4M2 was still fucking annoying and hard with all the cacodemon and baron spam, especially when playing the original Ultimate Doom in DOSBox keyboard only with arrow keys for movement and was very difficult to dodge attacks on cramped spaces) but I really liked E1 (being my favorite Doom episode and also the only episode I had as kid, not counting a pirated version of Doom 2 that was only other complete Doom experience) and I think Romero can do some really great maps, based on his recent outputs E1M8b, E1M4b and SIGIL, which I can't wait to play soon. It's a shame that Thy Flesh Consumed was so half-assed and poorly put together, with some great looking levels but having a really strange difficulty curve that made the first two levels unfairly difficult. I'd like to think SIGIL is the true episode 4 of Ultimate Doom.

Speaking of DTWID, I played a bit more and reached E2M5. I will save the rest for tomorrow.

[Ninety-Six]

DTWiD definitely took a downturn in quality mid-E2, in my opinion. Especially the secret level.

[FistMarine]

Ninety-Six, on 09 December 2020 - 04:14 AM, said:

DTWiD definitely took a downturn in quality mid-E2, in my opinion. Especially the secret level.

I understand. I had a lot of fun with E1 (I even think DTWID E1 secret level was better than actual secret level from original E1) and E2 so far has been okay but I will see later when I play the other half of E2 and entire E3. I only played through DTWID once or twice around time it came out, so I don't remember much anyway and this time I'm getting 100% in each level as well. I also remember playing through D2TWID once (again when it came out) but other than that, haven't played the other DTWID series/spinoffs just yet. After I will finish DTWID, I will probably do them this way: UDTWID (E4), D2TWID, DTWID: LE and NEIS.

Anyway, the Cacowards 2020 are up:
https://www.doomworl...cacowards/2020/

I will say there are some interesting choices this year. I will also say to prepare for later today when they (hopefully) release more official addons. I'm going to bet the following will become official content:

Spoiler

Back to Saturn X E3. This wasn't released yet but I won't be surprised if they release it first as addon and shortly they also release the wad for public, a bit like in case of BTSX E2 when they released as addon and at same time the final version of the wad finally got released as well, though unlike this case, BTSX E2 was already released in beta phase since years ago, they may do differently with E3 to keep it as a surprise and nice gift for Doom's birthday. If this doesn't get released, then my only guess will be:
Syringe.

[NNC]

RunningDuke, on 09 December 2020 - 12:22 AM, said:

Not yet. Evil Egypt (along with the rest of DBP series) are on my to play list. I have been thinking to start the first couple of DBP series since a while ago but never got around. I guess I will use Crispy Doom for these, since they are all limit-removing mapsets. I know there's a few other Egyptian themed mapsets like Osiris TC and Epic 2, with the latter being a full 32-map megawad that I heard it becomes slaughterfest in last couple of levels. I intend to play these as well, I only remember playing Epic 2 in GZDoom many years ago and reaching MAP10 or so but I will restart the wad in PrBoom+ with the proper compatibility settings and give it another shot.


I think you're right, though to me it was still an enjoyable experience, sort of a modern E1 replacement (yes I know there's many E1 replacements and I will try them all eventually), I felt every map was good (even the last one, though I can agree the latest was also the weakest) and even if some levels were dragging out a bit longer than they should have, it was still an amazing limit-removing wad and a Cacoward (and official addon) well deserved.

I haven't played E1M4b and E1M8b just yet (they are also on the to play list, sitting inside a Crispy Doom folder) but I will surely play them tomorrow, probably after I start playing Romero's SIGIL episode, because it's one that I really want to play after 1.5 years since it was released and missed the initial hype (though I still read people's comments at that time). Tomorrow actually marks two years since it was announced, so I might as well play it. Not sure if I should do on HMP or UV difficulty but either way I will play the latest 1.21 version of the wad and after I finish it, I will try to see the older versions and see exactly what was changed between them. I know the initial 1.0 version had some balance problems and some unreachable items, so I will go with the latest for the initial experience, much like my first entire Doom experience (after playing the shareware versions 1.2, 1.666, 1.9 countless times as kid) was playing the Ultimate Doom, which not only meant experiencing E4 but also experiencing E2 and E3 for first time as well.

I wouldn't mind if Romero went back and made an entire E1 remake much like his E1M4b and E1M8b, that way the episode will also become official addon, because it seems like they don't add single level wads, only episode replacements at least. Maybe he is still working on something special (a mapset for Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen or Quake) and he might reveal tomorrow, who knows? I mean I'm not his biggest fan (I really hated his E4M2 and E4M6 of Ultimate Doom due to how hard they were, though last time I played I didn't have too much trouble with E4M6 because I learned the path and where to go but E4M2 was still fucking annoying and hard with all the cacodemon and baron spam, especially when playing the original Ultimate Doom in DOSBox keyboard only with arrow keys for movement and was very difficult to dodge attacks on cramped spaces) but I really liked E1 (being my favorite Doom episode and also the only episode I had as kid, not counting a pirated version of Doom 2 that was only other complete Doom experience) and I think Romero can do some really great maps, based on his recent outputs E1M8b, E1M4b and SIGIL, which I can't wait to play soon. It's a shame that Thy Flesh Consumed was so half-assed and poorly put together, with some great looking levels but having a really strange difficulty curve that made the first two levels unfairly difficult. I'd like to think SIGIL is the true episode 4 of Ultimate Doom.

Speaking of DTWID, I played a bit more and reached E2M5. I will save the rest for tomorrow.

Yes, Sigil is the Thy Flesh Consumed episode done right. The only map I enjoy from TFC was E4M6, a hard one with some trial and error and also some mandatory damage, but it has a clever layout and attractive design (for its time). With some scaling updates and a few extra details here and there (like the zigzags from modern Romero maps), also an eye switch somewhere, and Sigil's Baphomet ending, and it would fit like a glove to Sigil's facade. Other than that, the levels in TFC are boring, and the first two maps are very annoying to play. I don't like E4M1 even on the HMP setting, there are way too many hitscanner ambush in the level, it's very frustrating.

IIRC if Romero wants completion, he should make an alternate episode 1 with 9 levels as the first 3-4 are classic KDITD style maps (E1M4b, E1M8b included) and the others are SOH style. It can be done with 7 new levels IMHO. With that the new episode and Sigil would make the ultimate 18 level experience of classic Doom reimagination.

[FistMarine]

The Watchtower, on 10 December 2020 - 01:58 AM, said:

Yes, Sigil is the Thy Flesh Consumed episode done right. The only map I enjoy from TFC was E4M6, a hard one with some trial and error and also some mandatory damage, but it has a clever layout and attractive design (for its time). With some scaling updates and a few extra details here and there (like the zigzags from modern Romero maps), also an eye switch somewhere, and Sigil's Baphomet ending, and it would fit like a glove to Sigil's facade. Other than that, the levels in TFC are boring, and the first two maps are very annoying to play. I don't like E4M1 even on the HMP setting, there are way too many hitscanner ambush in the level, it's very frustrating.

IIRC if Romero wants completion, he should make an alternate episode 1 with 9 levels as the first 3-4 are classic KDITD style maps (E1M4b, E1M8b included) and the others are SOH style. It can be done with 7 new levels IMHO. With that the new episode and Sigil would make the ultimate 18 level experience of classic Doom reimagination.

I understand and I agree with your points, I can imagine E4M6 being remade and put as a 10th level in SIGIL or something. IMO E4M6 would have been really good if it weren't for the lack of armor on UV skill (then again Sigil E5M1 didn't have armor either), at least if you want to pistol start it. On continuous it's not too bad if you still have some armor from previous levels and it is recommended to get the green armor in E4M5 (even if you still got around 100 or less blue armor) because the green armor should last until the entire level, assuming you don't get hit often. As far as I remember from two years ago, the green armor lasted until the start of E4M7. I should seriously try to pistol start each level in Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 and see if I can do them, because in continuous they aren't that hard!

I have only played E2, E3 and E4 on UV skill to this day, so I'm not familiar with how they play on easier skill levels, I mean the differences in terms of enemy and item placement, the only familiarity comes from some YouTube videos and Doomwiki.org pages. As far as I know, E4M1 has 6 medkits available on all skills up to HMP but this comes at the cost with there not being too much ammo, since on UV skill the main source of ammo is from shotgun guys. What's funny is in Ultimate Doom (and especially the very first episode), playing on UV means a lot of shotgun guys and that means you can easily get a lot of shotgun shells by killing all of them (in E1 means you will never run out of shotgun ammo), in E4M1 on UV this means ammo may not be such a problem if you know to spend it wisely but this also means a major lack of health (except for the 9 health bonuses that are in the second room), the annoying teleporting enemies, the stupid red key trap with teleporting enemies (one being a baron that is difficult to handle and depends where he will teleport) and those enemies behind fake walls that can shoot you while you can't even see them and if that wasn't enough, that pointless NIN secret with those 4-5 bullshit barons. And to make it worse, the next level is the hardest in the entire game. I wonder WTF they were thinking when they designed such shitty levels? And to add insult to injury, none of the id produced expansions (TFC, Master Levels, Final Doom) added anything new to the game, new levels that could be described as just more of the same and it's nothing that the community couldn't create already.

Would have loved at the very least to add some Doom 2 enemies and the Super Shotgun into TFC, that would have made E4M1 and E4M2 much more playable if you had access to the SSG in those maps. Since I usually play original levels in DOSBox, I don't bother with modifying the map order (like some people do with E4) or adding the Super Shotgun into Ultimate Doom (both of which are very easily done in ZDoom based ports), so I'm forced to endure these maps as intended and with the default controls, which is not a bad thing as I like to have a challenge sometimes but I get frustrated easily and I don't have patience either to redo same thing over and over, to me it's just save/load spam on first 2 levels of E4 until doing it right, then occasional saving on others (just in case I die or finish the level and missed a secret/item/kill and have to backtrack, unless it's E4M3 and E4M7 which I just leave with the secrets that can be collected without cheating) and the episode is easily done in the end.

Now back to the wads I played, let's see. I reached MAP13 on Herian 2 and was ok but I hated how I had to backtrack for two health bonuses (disguised as rain droplets) that were very difficult to spot since I had 99% items (and there is no item stat on ZDoom 1.22), DTWID I reached E2M9 and I finally started SIGIL and I'm on E5M2.

I can definitely see that DTWID has started going a bit downhill, E2M5 which seemed a bit ugly, had a secret area that became inaccessible (as I checked doomwiki.org and an YouTube video prior just to be prepared) and as I noticed when I couldn't access that room anymore, I reloaded my last save (before I accessed the blue door that closed that secret, I suppose that caused it to close, not sure exactly) and then I went to the secret and could access it fine. The last part with the radiation suit and that acid area with imps and spectre and trying to get 100%, took me a few tries with reloading (though thankfully I didn't die) because my radiation suit ran out and I had to be fast with shotgun/chaingun/RL and then I realized I missed a few enemies (as I only had 93% kills), then realized I missed a switch somewhere for the last bunch of imps and shotgun guys. There was also a surprise baron that almost caught me in that small room since I thought I had killed everyone but then as I entered room I noticed him, I managed to run out of room before he blocked me, all I took was only minimal damage from all that, was glad I escaped in time. Went back to end of level (where you get the radiation suit) and saved. After carefully redoing those last rooms as fast as I can, I managed to reach the secret exit with 100% everything (note that since I play in Chocolate Doom, I can't tell when I find a secret and those exit rooms were identical in different areas, so I had a few backup saves just in case, plus the stats can only be seen at end of level) and stopped at E2M9.

As for SIGIL, I started it in Eternity (yeah I know still using Eternity, as it supports main SIGIL wad as E5, hope I won't get stuck anymore due to compatibility breaking) on UV skill and I'm actually impressed, I finished the first level 100% (though I did watch an UV max video before, considering I already watched SIGIL speedruns in past year and was familiar with levels a bit and wanted a startup boost) and I gotta say the level was quite challenging and well designed. I nearly got screwed at beginning by the spectre (even if I knew he was there) as it was almost completely invisible to me, I could only feel its presence when I bumped into it after I killed the imps. He bite me twice (the second time happened to do max damage, what a bastard!) and he left me with kinda low health and made me feel a bit unprepared for the rest of the level. Good thing I got the soul sphere secret (and rest secrets). I was almost certain I'd screw it somewhere but I handled the map better than I expected, the final room that I expected to damage me, somehow I did without any problem. I still ended up with exactly 100% health at end of level (and backtracked to get those 4 shells in the room earlier). But then again E5M2 has a berserk and soulsphere secret at start just in case, so I might wait until I kill the first couple of enemies and then collect them for an easy 200% health. Of course I will continue SIGIL sometime later, as I'm busy with other stuff. It was great from what I played and I wish it won a Cacoward last year, it's really good and well deserved to be an official addon! But I hope the later levels won't give me trouble. I don't want another E4M2.

Some screenshots of DTWID and SIGIL. Guess I should stop posting screenshots to not make it look like spamming the topic. I should also wait until I finish the episode and THEN give my impressions instead of each level. Then again I'm kinda slow because I like to take my time and get 100% in each level instead of finishing it quickly.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Demade Doom

[NNC]

RunningDuke, on 11 December 2020 - 04:33 AM, said:

I understand and I agree with your points, I can imagine E4M6 being remade and put as a 10th level in SIGIL or something. IMO E4M6 would have been really good if it weren't for the lack of armor on UV skill (then again Sigil E5M1 didn't have armor either), at least if you want to pistol start it. On continuous it's not too bad if you still have some armor from previous levels and it is recommended to get the green armor in E4M5 (even if you still got around 100 or less blue armor) because the green armor should last until the entire level, assuming you don't get hit often. As far as I remember from two years ago, the green armor lasted until the start of E4M7. I should seriously try to pistol start each level in Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 and see if I can do them, because in continuous they aren't that hard!

I have only played E2, E3 and E4 on UV skill to this day, so I'm not familiar with how they play on easier skill levels, I mean the differences in terms of enemy and item placement, the only familiarity comes from some YouTube videos and Doomwiki.org pages. As far as I know, E4M1 has 6 medkits available on all skills up to HMP but this comes at the cost with there not being too much ammo, since on UV skill the main source of ammo is from shotgun guys. What's funny is in Ultimate Doom (and especially the very first episode), playing on UV means a lot of shotgun guys and that means you can easily get a lot of shotgun shells by killing all of them (in E1 means you will never run out of shotgun ammo), in E4M1 on UV this means ammo may not be such a problem if you know to spend it wisely but this also means a major lack of health (except for the 9 health bonuses that are in the second room), the annoying teleporting enemies, the stupid red key trap with teleporting enemies (one being a baron that is difficult to handle and depends where he will teleport) and those enemies behind fake walls that can shoot you while you can't even see them and if that wasn't enough, that pointless NIN secret with those 4-5 bullshit barons. And to make it worse, the next level is the hardest in the entire game. I wonder WTF they were thinking when they designed such shitty levels? And to add insult to injury, none of the id produced expansions (TFC, Master Levels, Final Doom) added anything new to the game, new levels that could be described as just more of the same and it's nothing that the community couldn't create already.

Would have loved at the very least to add some Doom 2 enemies and the Super Shotgun into TFC, that would have made E4M1 and E4M2 much more playable if you had access to the SSG in those maps. Since I usually play original levels in DOSBox, I don't bother with modifying the map order (like some people do with E4) or adding the Super Shotgun into Ultimate Doom (both of which are very easily done in ZDoom based ports), so I'm forced to endure these maps as intended and with the default controls, which is not a bad thing as I like to have a challenge sometimes but I get frustrated easily and I don't have patience either to redo same thing over and over, to me it's just save/load spam on first 2 levels of E4 until doing it right, then occasional saving on others (just in case I die or finish the level and missed a secret/item/kill and have to backtrack, unless it's E4M3 and E4M7 which I just leave with the secrets that can be collected without cheating) and the episode is easily done in the end.

Now back to the wads I played, let's see. I reached MAP13 on Herian 2 and was ok but I hated how I had to backtrack for two health bonuses (disguised as rain droplets) that were very difficult to spot since I had 99% items (and there is no item stat on ZDoom 1.22), DTWID I reached E2M9 and I finally started SIGIL and I'm on E5M2.

I can definitely see that DTWID has started going a bit downhill, E2M5 which seemed a bit ugly, had a secret area that became inaccessible (as I checked doomwiki.org and an YouTube video prior just to be prepared) and as I noticed when I couldn't access that room anymore, I reloaded my last save (before I accessed the blue door that closed that secret, I suppose that caused it to close, not sure exactly) and then I went to the secret and could access it fine. The last part with the radiation suit and that acid area with imps and spectre and trying to get 100%, took me a few tries with reloading (though thankfully I didn't die) because my radiation suit ran out and I had to be fast with shotgun/chaingun/RL and then I realized I missed a few enemies (as I only had 93% kills), then realized I missed a switch somewhere for the last bunch of imps and shotgun guys. There was also a surprise baron that almost caught me in that small room since I thought I had killed everyone but then as I entered room I noticed him, I managed to run out of room before he blocked me, all I took was only minimal damage from all that, was glad I escaped in time. Went back to end of level (where you get the radiation suit) and saved. After carefully redoing those last rooms as fast as I can, I managed to reach the secret exit with 100% everything (note that since I play in Chocolate Doom, I can't tell when I find a secret and those exit rooms were identical in different areas, so I had a few backup saves just in case, plus the stats can only be seen at end of level) and stopped at E2M9.

As for SIGIL, I started it in Eternity (yeah I know still using Eternity, as it supports main SIGIL wad as E5, hope I won't get stuck anymore due to compatibility breaking) on UV skill and I'm actually impressed, I finished the first level 100% (though I did watch an UV max video before, considering I already watched SIGIL speedruns in past year and was familiar with levels a bit and wanted a startup boost) and I gotta say the level was quite challenging and well designed. I nearly got screwed at beginning by the spectre (even if I knew he was there) as it was almost completely invisible to me, I could only feel its presence when I bumped into it after I killed the imps. He bite me twice (the second time happened to do max damage, what a bastard!) and he left me with kinda low health and made me feel a bit unprepared for the rest of the level. Good thing I got the soul sphere secret (and rest secrets). I was almost certain I'd screw it somewhere but I handled the map better than I expected, the final room that I expected to damage me, somehow I did without any problem. I still ended up with exactly 100% health at end of level (and backtracked to get those 4 shells in the room earlier). But then again E5M2 has a berserk and soulsphere secret at start just in case, so I might wait until I kill the first couple of enemies and then collect them for an easy 200% health. Of course I will continue SIGIL sometime later, as I'm busy with other stuff. It was great from what I played and I wish it won a Cacoward last year, it's really good and well deserved to be an official addon! But I hope the later levels won't give me trouble. I don't want another E4M2.

Some screenshots of DTWID and SIGIL. Guess I should stop posting screenshots to not make it look like spamming the topic. I should also wait until I finish the episode and THEN give my impressions instead of each level. Then again I'm kinda slow because I like to take my time and get 100% in each level instead of finishing it quickly.

I actually think E5M1 is the second worst level in Sigil after E5M9, the secret level. It's pretty simple, and its only point is to teach you how the eye switches work. The scenery in the secret areas might show you the boss level, while the boss level somewhat shows you E5M1 at its boundaries. That's an interesting concept, but I still don't like E5M1 too much. The game seriously picks up quality around E5M4 or especiall E5M5.

[Ninety-Six]

Honestly my opinion is almost the complete opposite. I prefer the beginning parts and find M5, M6, and especially M7 to be the weakest parts of the episode. I find their central level design gimmicks to be more on the annoying side than anything. I prefer M1-M4 for being a bit more straightforward, and likewise for M8 (though it is an absolute bitch on pistol start).

M9... honestly I don't think I can possibly have a valid opinion on this, because I am so heavily biased towards its song. I can be led astray by music alone in some cases, and I just absolutely love Adrenaline in the Blood because of its second half being absolutely gorgeous. That rubs off on the level and I really can't help it. I'm at least aware of it.

[jkas789]

Null, on 13 December 2020 - 10:03 PM, said:

Demade Doom

In theory I like it, however playing it is a little bit too demake-y for me.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

jkas789, on 14 December 2020 - 01:11 AM, said:

In theory I like it, however playing it is a little bit too demake-y for me.

I think it was more of a technical feat, as it was done with pico-8.

[jkas789]

it is indeed impressive that they managed to build the game in Pico-8 and it ending up being so loyal to the original. But honestly although it plays better than it has any right to be, it feels to me kinda janky.

Still gotta give it to the phenomenon that is Doom. At the pase it is going will there anything left that cannot run Doom?

[NNC]

Ninety-Six, on 14 December 2020 - 12:20 AM, said:

Honestly my opinion is almost the complete opposite. I prefer the beginning parts and find M5, M6, and especially M7 to be the weakest parts of the episode. I find their central level design gimmicks to be more on the annoying side than anything. I prefer M1-M4 for being a bit more straightforward, and likewise for M8 (though it is an absolute bitch on pistol start).

M9... honestly I don't think I can possibly have a valid opinion on this, because I am so heavily biased towards its song. I can be led astray by music alone in some cases, and I just absolutely love Adrenaline in the Blood because of its second half being absolutely gorgeous. That rubs off on the level and I really can't help it. I'm at least aware of it.

Yeah, Adrenaline in the Blood is a masterpiece from Paddock, it's my favourite piece of soundtrack only rivaled by Staker/City Streets in Duke. But that alone doesn't make levels. The Cybie is extremely annoying, and the map lacks a good central theme.

[Ninety-Six]

I know, but at least I'm aware my judgement was being affected, which is why I didn't offer a full opinion. That said, I do agree at least about the cybie being in kind of an asshole spot. As for theming, I'll confess that they all kinda look the same to me. The only thing that stands out between them to me is tone, which is set up by the music choice (both versions follow a similar progression), general light level, and sky visibility. I think the only one that has a distinct appearance to me otherwise is M1, and that's solely because it uses the red rock walls instead of the gray rock walls the rest of the episode uses.

[ReaperAA]

@PlaySelaco/status/1338496375923875840

A new cyberpunk-ish theme retro FPS on GZDoom. One one screenshot so far, but damn it looks gorgeous

[NNC]

Well, we disagree on this one. I think all levels have a good, original theme and character, and this should be the way Doom levels should be designed.

As for the cybie, I'm pretty sure it was designed to sleep until the eye switch part, and to do that, you have to instigate a fight between shotgunner and pinky inside the maze. Unfortunately the switch don't add much value, it opens a secret with a soulsphere, and leads you back to the main entrance and you have to beat the cybie on your own. It should have been invulnerability inside, that would make most sense in this level. Originally it was a totally meaningless lightamp, I don't even know what Romero was thinking with that, it made the whole level uglier (it's a pretty shit powerup anyway). Usually Romero's Cybie-puzzles are fun and well thought out, and rarely need F2F fight, but this wasn't finished properly.

[The Battlelord]

The Battlelord, on 13 June 2020 - 12:56 AM, said:

Does someone had the chance to play the exact same version of Hollywood Holocaust in this video? With all those posters and light effects? It looks so cool. (before someone think is OT, it is a Doom mod )

I know that it is the 31st map of "Hell on Earth starter pack" but it does not contain the exact same things.
In first place i tried the "Extermination Day" (even some older versions), as the title suggest, but no luck, looks like the map is no more there. (i gave a quick look by warping through each level)
Any hint about please?

Found it! EdayTest001

Just type "map eday40" in the console and there you go. (useless to say that it needs BD to run as intended, even if it work without it too)

[ReaperAA]

ReaperAA, on 14 December 2020 - 11:54 AM, said:

@PlaySelaco/status/1338496375923875840

A new cyberpunk-ish theme retro FPS on GZDoom. One one screenshot so far, but damn it looks gorgeous

You guys disappointed me

[FistMarine]

Doom Zero has been added as an official addon yesterday! 32 new levels containing new enemies, bosses, sprites and more!

The mod can be downloaded here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/doom-zero

As for my Doom progress, well there's not much to tell this time since I have been mostly trying older wads (some 2000s cacoward winners in fact) and there isn't much to write about these wads. Some older ZDoom maps, some limit-removing maps, etc. I will try to find an episode replacement that can be finished quickly and then post about it.

[Ninety-Six]

WOW. Literally the last thing I expected. After they picked the pick-a-switch nightmare hell of No End in Sight I lost faith in ever seeing a mod I didn't hate be added (REKKR exempt since I haven't played it yet and have still haven't had my hopes shattered when it comes to TCs). Zero was legit one of the only mods in a very long time I didn't hate and actually liked quite a bit for a a variety reasons, some of those reasons even being more than not facing bullshit trap after bullshit trap! Excellent secret design, a general game feel and aesthetic that actually does feel like it belongs with Final Doom (which it tried to position itself as), and the actually really nice DEHACKED patch that I managed to figure out how to extract and cut out the altered graphics from, leaving just the retimed animations for the pistol and shotguns which feel so much more amazing as a result.


Good on you, Dash. You earned this, even if I never thought it would happen.

[MetHy]

I just played a few levels of Doom Zero, and it's probably the best user made megawad i've ever played. This guy gets it.

Released June 4th, he should have released one day earlier on my birthday because it's like this shit was made for me. I'll just pretend it was released on the 3rd somewhere in the world due to timezones pulling their shenanigans as usual.

[Ninety-Six]

I would also call it the best but let's all face it that's not a high bar, at least coming from me. To be fair there are a few kinks here and there, but maybe they've been ironed out since I played. I played it damn near release, probably 1.1 or something? Maybe even 1.0; that was over a year ago so I don't remember. I can tell you it was way before the cacoballs were added to the souldroids; when I played they were hitscanners.

Still, even the few kinks I remember never brought down the whole experience for me. It earned itself a lot of good credit along the road so what problems there were I was much more willing to forgive. I think there was only one, maybe two levels out of all 32 I didn't care for. One I know for sure I wasn't a super big fan of. I don't remember its placement but it was really lategame. Somewhere near the end of episode 3, I want to say. And then I'm not certain about the second one at all even existing or if I'm getting confused.

Nonetheless I found it a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Every level had a unique sort of gameplay going for it, so they never felt the same even if they could look the same at times. And the secrets were almost all structured like puzzles where he would usually tell you a secret was around by showing you it, and then leaving it up to you to figure out how to open it. It's not the first time it's been done but it's the first I've seen to really go all out for it. Not just in number but in complexity. Yet I found them to straddle a perfect balance between not being so obtuse that you don't have any hope, but not being so easy that it robs you of that "aha!" moment of satisfaction. It managed to keep that up all the way to the end of the ride.


Honestly my biggest complaint, which is really more of a nitpick, would be the music choice. It's all stock Doom 1 and 2 music, which is all fine, but with only really a couple of exceptions (and even then mostly towards the beginning of the mod), the soundtrack is mostly of the darker or moodier songs.

I realize that's a weird thing to bring up on a Duke forum, considering its own soundtrack, but 1.) Yeah I'm totally biased, 2.) I do genuinely prefer Duke 3D's moodier songs to Doom's; I just think they have a lot more mastery in their subtlety vs. Doom's and a lot more meat on their bones even when there's barely a melody (Gotham), and 3.) Even Duke 3D spiced up its episodes with relatively lighter songs a bit more often.

Taken on the whole, it does create a somewhat drab atmosphere in the unfun way, with some points feeling discordant between the song and what's actually happening. The levels aren't usually atmospheric enough to warrant them. I mean normally I wouldn't even mention it (and as I already said this is more of a nitpick), but DZ definitely could have benefited from a more varied soundtrack in tone.



That aside, I still think it's a high-quality level pack that I could legitimately believe was sold on store shelves in the 90s. Favorite level is probably Map11 for being just a really well done city level with some great fights.

[MetHy]

Yeah, a couple of the finer detailing are a give away that it was made later, like the decorative doors and some of the finer details in the city level. But it's not that bad and it's not such a huge bother, especially compared to other "classic style" wads in which the authors generally really can never help themselves on that aspect.

BTW I thought the same thing about the musics, but then again I love some of these tracks.

[Ninety-Six]

There is a "High Quality Music Pack" for Doom Zero out there on ModDB. I recommend it; all it does is run the midis (including the two remixes) through one of the soundcards. It's not an SC-55 it's a different one. It gives the music a bit of a twangy aspect which I know can turn some people off. Still I recommend at least trying it. I think the different soundcard use helps gives DZ the musical identity it doesn't have otherwise.


because of course the one mod I genuinely love out of what's come from Doom modding is the one that doesn't have a soundtrack of its own life is so unfair

[NNC]

I haven't played Doom Zero, but if you two say it's great I will try it for sure. In my opinion, No Rest for the Living was the best mapset I have ever played, it really nailed the professional look, it has great, easy to play (but challenging) levels with good thematic progression, and spot on layouts (just learn how Russell Meakim used keycards in his layouts, it was a schoolbook example). My only problem was that the hardest level was in the middle of the episode, Vivisection should have been placed after Baron's Banquet, which was quite an easy ride for that matter. I also missed the backpacks from the mapset, but there were no big ammo issues, so I was OK with that. I also liked Meakim's Redemption of the Slain level, a beautiful map for GZDoom, and the fixes for vanilla weapons made it even better.

As for the Doom community stuff, I don't like the output. Ancient Aliens is one good example why I don't like the way most people build their levels. It uses a palette with heavily saturated colours like magenta, purple, blue and cyan, that looks completely different to what's in Doom's DNA, the classic enemies somehow feel out of place in those maps for the same reason. And while the colours are vibrating, the scale is huge, the gameplay is very shallow in comparison with unimaginative keycard hunting, predictable (but at the same time, annoying and often unfair) monster placement, no variety in the levels, so around half point I just stopped caring. I also don't why they are building megawads, when the interesting ideas can be cramped in 5 levels at best?

The other side of the spectrum, their own "id style" is nothing else with just random remakes of the original levels without any thought behind those maps. Sometimes I feel they use a map generator to create those rooms.

[MrFlibble]

I never have the time to play many WADs but I check the Doomworld/ZDoom forums every so often, and I get the impression that the range of community mapping styles is very wide. Yes, there are certain common points or maybe even strands in level design so if you skim through threads with map editor screenshots you can get the impression of repetitive-ness, but there's still enough unique works out there. Whether they play well or appeal to someone's tastes is a whole different matter of course.

As for Doom Zero I followed this project on and off since the demo release. A while ago the author came to the DOS Games forum and told that the mod was specifically created to be DOS vanilla compatible, which apparently was underappreciated by the Doom community. Anyway, it's rather obvious that a lot of thought and creative effort went into this megawad, and the extra mile for making it DOS compatible is the true testament to the author's skill and understanding of the game's internal workings.

[MetHy]

Ha, well I'm not surprised by the things he said in his post, although frankly nobody cares about vanilla compatibility here either and yet you can probably mod more things with DOS Duke than with DOS Doom; but it's funny how it sounds like he was just discovering this stuff. He really didn't seem to know what goes on in the Doom community and that's probably why none of usual modern Doom mapping tropes are present in his maps.

This being said modularity and being able to combine mods is a prime thing for Doom. I understand not caring about fixing things for every single mod and port out there, especially if there are compatibility issues due to the way Zero is built, and especially if Zero is vanilla compatible, but I understood some years ago players should be able to play however they want and the designers shoudln't feel bad about that for "balancing issues" or other reasons. Doom is a game with cheat codes, saving whenever one wants, tons of mods, etc it's designed so people can play however they want.