Shadow Warrior corner "This thread has alotta Wangs! Discussions on Shadow Warrior only."
#572 Posted 30 June 2018 - 06:24 PM
#573 Posted 22 July 2018 - 10:37 PM
RunReneeRun, on 30 June 2018 - 02:30 PM, said:
I love this guy's videos! His one on Blood 2 is absolutely legendary.
#574 Posted 08 August 2018 - 03:17 PM
#575 Posted 08 August 2018 - 03:41 PM
#576 Posted 09 August 2018 - 06:54 AM
Mr. Tibbs, on 08 August 2018 - 03:17 PM, said:
I love how he mocks Randy Pitchfork even the level isn't Randy's.
Sumo Sky Palace is really hard. Who designed that shit?
..........
Oh, shit...I knew it.
This post has been edited by Player Lin: 09 August 2018 - 06:56 AM
#577 Posted 10 August 2018 - 01:01 AM
Mr. Tibbs, on 08 August 2018 - 03:17 PM, said:
That's twice the guy punches everything the hard way while a smoke bomb is showing on the hud!
Yet he did say he read the manual, I don't even know.
Anyway NPNG with no auto aiming sounds cool but someone tell him the real Ninja way is: NPNG, Katana start every stage, no saving during a stage
This post has been edited by MetHy: 10 August 2018 - 01:02 AM
#578 Posted 10 August 2018 - 02:03 AM
#579 Posted 11 August 2018 - 05:08 AM
In first and second levels, I died only ONCE and in both cases to the very last shadow ninja of the level, which is a shame since I handled the previous ones quite nicely, only to be killed by the last one of the level. Yes, they are annoying with their insta kill flame carpet attack (which was the cause of my deaths from the shadow ninjas, the other spreading fire attack isn't usually that bad since you can avoid it easier and also survive it if you have decent health, only the flame carpet attack is bad which is hard to avoid and always an instant kill, no matter how much health and armor you have) but sometimes you may be lucky and kill them quickly before they have a chance to screw you badly. Other enemies (especially the other powerful ninjas) can also be annoying because can do high damage but not as bad as the shadow ninjas.
In third level I died a couple of times, in this case to a rocket ninja, a ripper (they cornered me at one point in that red room with the moving acid sector), by falling into lava and by a lava rock. I did fine the platforming part with all those bees and ninjas but otherwise this level wasn't as bad as I expected to be. Interestingly, in this level, after killing all monsters, I somehow got 2 kills more than the kill counter showed initially, something along the lines of 153/151 (forgot the exact number of kills, might have been around this value). I didn't know the counter can get glitched like that and I don't know what caused this to happen.
The fourth level, however was a LOT harder. With over 250 enemies in total, this level surely was quite difficult, especially when you get into the second half of the level after you step into the portal. I must have died about 10 times and most deaths came from that room while flying the red carpet (where you face dozens of ninjas at SAME TIME!). But yeah the answer was to use a nuke in those two areas filled with enemies, one in that area you get teleported and have to face swarms of bees and rippers (don't forget to quickly dive into the water after firing) and the other nuke (which you get in the area mentioned previously) in the room full of ninjas, while you are riding the carpet. In second case, you will take a lot of damage in process because of the nuke radius but hopefully you should survive with some health remaining (assuming you had 200 health and 50 armor before hoping onto the carpet and fired quickly when you entered that exact room) and maybe 2-3 more ninjas remaining, kill them carefully and proceed. The only remaining bad part are those giant brown rippers because they are difficult to kill from up here and need to step down and it's risky to use explosives, I recommend getting distance and using the Missile Launcher (using the Grenade Launcher is a bad idea due to the high radius) and if they get close, switch to the shotgun (the fast firing mode) and carry on the level.
Anyway, speaking of kills in fourth level, I got the maximum possible which is 256/257. Yes I explored the woods carefully and killed every single enemy, before proceeding to the last areas where there is no return. While during the boss battle I had to be careful when to do the finishing move, although in this case the battle ends earlier when the snake's health reaches half and had to wait until all skulls were thrown and do the finishing move while the last skull is thrown, otherwise if finished early, then you can't get all kills as remaining skulls disappear but don't count towards kills, or if finished a bit later, he has spawned a new set of skulls (and believe me, he seems to spawn them IMMEDIATELY after the last one thrown), so it's quite difficult to time right. But in this case, since the snake CANNOT be killed, you will have a kill missing anyway. And speaking of missing kills, I also avoided entirely using the Ripper Heart (had 3 hearts gotten from those rippers) because I am aware when you use it, it creates a clone of Lo Wang that also counts as an enemy but when disappears, you are left with an additional kill and you can't get all kills anymore.
Overall, I think SW is a much more difficult game than Duke3D is, because in Duke3D I'm more familiar with the environment, the mechanics, the weapons, the enemies attacks' and so on, though this is also because I played so much Duke3D when I was a kid, while I never played SW (never owned it as kid and my only experience with SW was seeing it advertised in some gaming magazines we had, such as the French magazine PC Jeux, it was advertised here and I immediately compared those pictures with Duke3D seeing as it looked similar) until a couple of years ago and it took a while to get used to it and yes the enemies are more aggressive too and do more damage. But I'm curious if Duke3D on Damn I'm Good is as hard or even harder, because I only finished it on CGS but never on DIG. I know the enemies respawn on DIG and the number of enemies present is also SLIGHTLY higher in certain maps but I don't think it should be that difficult for someone who is very familiar with the maps. I will eventually do it one day.
This post has been edited by RunningDuke: 11 August 2018 - 05:10 AM
#580 Posted 11 August 2018 - 08:32 AM
Other enemies are even worse. Coolies can ambush you badly, and you can't leave them alone due to ghost spawns. Considering how dreaded sentry drones are in Duke, they are easily worse, often used in corridors, and their damage is lot bigger. Ghosts are annoying too and their shots are dangerous too.
Rippers have extreme strength, especially brown ones, and despite this, they are fast as hell, and can rip you before you can react.
The others like the Guardians and Females are as bad. Females with their sticky bombs can even crash the game, the fastest you kill them is the best.
Overall, this game is really difficult, especially considering how tricky the game can be with booby traps in many levels. The first half of Code of Honor is particularly offensive, these maps are easily my least favourites in the game. It became a lot better in Bath House though.
This post has been edited by Nancsi: 11 August 2018 - 08:34 AM
#581 Posted 11 August 2018 - 12:26 PM
Yeah, I forgot to mention earlier that the ninjas are extremely accurate with their uzis, unlike the Enforcer in Duke3D where he isn't that accurate.
I never had a problem with coolies before because I always detect them in time before they blow up to my face, so I don't find them that bad, although I agree its explosion can be devastating. It also helps to use rocket launcher against them if they aren't too close, so that you gib its corpse and the ghost won't spawn or if it does by killing them normally, get close to the corpse and use sword to cut the ghost while it's rising, which works most of the time. The ghosts are annoying when they wander around and become invisible but can be dispatched quickly by waiting for them to become visible, while dodging their projectiles.
Yeah, the rippers are incredibly fast and I remember they become even faster if they are set on fire. They aren't that bad, only in groups and if they surround you. The riot gun and the uzis work best against them.
The guardians can be annoying too with their fire attacks that do high damage. The female ninjas aren't that bad in my opinion and they never caused the game to crash before. Their main crossbow attack does little damage (about same damage as if you get hit by a brown ninja's shuriken) but I agree that their sticky bomb attack is a bit nasty, especially if they manage to stick the bomb to you.
I understand and I also admit the game does get a bit boring at times. And yeah Bath House is when the game starts picking up again and becomes more fun thanks to the better designed city levels.
BTW I've been thinking about it for a while and haven't seen it mentioned before, so I will say it here but wasn't SW supposed to have 3 episodes? I mean I know that in the 1996 betas, there are 3 episodes shown in the menu but the released game features only 2 episodes: shareware episode Enter the Wang and registered episode Code of Honor. I came with the conclusion that there were indeed supposed to be 3 episodes, just like the previously released games where there were usually 3 episodes, with the first being shareware. Some of you may wonder what I'm talking about but it's easy to figure out how to split the registered episode into two episodes:
If there were 3 episodes, then the second would have started normally at Rising Son and ended with Sumo Sky Palace. Then the third episode would have started at Bath House and ended with Stone Rain. I think this makes a lot more sense, especially to the fact that you face the Sumo boss in the Sumo Sky Palace and ends the level and shows the cutscene upon killing him, so it would highlight the end of the episode instead of continuing further. But then the downside of that would have been that you lost your inventory between the episodes and started Bath House with only the sword and 30 shurikens. I don't know, that's just my opinion as I never seen anyone mention that before and thought I'd bring this up. Maybe I should have posted this to the Miscellaneous Knowledge topic but I think it can also be mentioned here since this topic is about SW.
#582 Posted 14 August 2018 - 11:14 AM
RunningDuke, on 11 August 2018 - 12:26 PM, said:
From what I gather, it appears that SW came out at the time when the traditional Apogee model shareware distribution had all but faded away. Remember that with the early games like Duke Nukem and Commander Keen: Vorticons Trilogy, each episode came as a separate executable and was basically a stand-alone game, whereas later on the three or six-episode split was changed into a menu option in a single executable. While separating the shareware episode made sense throughout the model, already by the time of Doom the split of the registered part of the game into two separate episodes seems more like a tribute to an established tradition: unlike Wolf3D or Blake Stone where you could at least order either three or six episodes in the registered version, there's no option to only buy episode two of Doom for example.
Wolfenstein 3-D, Blake Stone and Doom all had "commercial versions" (Spear of Destiny, Planet Strike and Doom II, respectively). These were "not shareware" both because they were sold in stores and not ordered from vendors/shareware publishers, and also lack the selectable episode structure, although technically there are several "chapters" in each game, some of which conclude with what may be considered mid-game boss encounters (not sure about Planet Strike in this respect though).
As the distinction between shareware and commercial games became more and more blurred, the need for the Apogee model type of episode structure became less prominent, especially with big developers like id Software or 3D Realms. I remember reading somewhere that John Carmack said they "half-heartedly" released the shareware version of Quake, and this game doesn't even have the typical menu style episode selection, instead incorporating it into level progression itself. At the same time mid-game boss fights still made sense from the perspective of how game progression was structured in first-person action games.
My guess is that during the development of SW it probably became clear to the 3DR people that the three episode shareware model had no real purpose anymore. In fact, the earlier shareware versions simply call the episodes, Shareware Episode and Registered Episode, with the proper titles coming up only in v1.2.
On a side note, also let's not forget that Duke3D is one of the first FPS games to use the NoGearLevel trope (the other one I remember is Star Wars: Dark Forces), right in the first episode. Losing all our arsenal due to episode change made little sense in a context where the same can happen as a part of the plot.
Also of note is that an earlier Apogee game, Rise of the Triad, does not have selectable episodes at all, although technically the game is split into episodes, each ending with a boss fight, and an intermission screen is shown at the beginning of each new episode.
#583 Posted 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM
As for Wolf3D and Blake Stone, I thought they used a similar system where episodes were all shown in the menu, with first episode being shareware and the rest you had to buy, mostly in case of Wolf3D which originally had 3 episodes and then was expanded to 6 episodes with the added Nocturnal Missions trilogy. However I don't think Blake Stone was ever sold with only 3 episodes, I think it had 6 episodes from start (all 6 episodes can be seen in menu even on Blake stone shareware 1.0) since it was based directly off Wolf3D engine and at that time Wolf3D had already 6 episodes when Blake Stone was in development. While I think Wolf3D originally had 3 episodes but later they decided to make the Nocturnal Missions expansion as I said above. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as I only owned the shareware version of all these 3 games (Wolf3D, BS and Doom) as kid, it wasn't until a couple years ago when I played the full/expanded version of these games for first time.
Yes the sequels to these games (in case of Wolf3D, Spear of Destiny was a prequel) were eventually sold in stores and they weren't offered a demo/shareware version option, ALTHOUGH I know Spear of Destiny had a 2-level demo version, so you could still get a taste of that game. As you said, they lacked episode selection but they were still somewhat structured by chapters, with a mini boss at end of each "chapter" (mostly in case of SOD and PS) or a different theme going throughout the "episode" (Doom 2). You answer to your question about planet strike, Planet Strike also had some sort of mini boss at every couple of levels, similar to Spear of Destiny.
Yes, in case of Quake, the 4 episodes were selected right from the start map (only the first episode available in shareware version). The same applies to the difficulty settings which you can select by going through the Easy/Normal/Hard/Nightmare portals.
Yeah, I now understand your reason for not making much sense to lose your gear between the episodes, although I never played Dark Forces before, so I don't know how is that game. In case of Duke3D, it only made sense to lose the inventory when Duke was captured by Pig Cops at end of E1L2 but not when he went to space or when he went back to Earth. Or when he had to interrupt his vacation to fight those new aliens. You get the idea!
Exactly. Although as a kid I only played the shareware version of ROTT, a couple of years ago I was surprised to find out that the shareware version of the game has its own levels instead of just having the first episode of the registered version, while the full version not even having an episode selection screen, although it has the bosses and intermission screens at end of each episode, like you said. It's quite an interesting example too. I guess that's what made ROTT a bit more unique than other games at that time.
Also to add more on what you said, eventually the Apogee shareware model got replaced by a demo model where developers released only a smaller portion of the game which in some cases didn't even include the first chapter/episode. Take for example Hexen. The demo version of the game doesn't even include the whole first hub, it includes just the first 4 levels with not being able to access one of the mandatory levels to complete the hub. On the other hand the demo version of Quake 2 included the whole first unit, with exception of the secret level I believe. The demo version of Quake 3 included just 4 of levels from full version. And so on...
Now to go back to the topic, while you provided a very good and informative argument about the shareware system, it seems like you misunderstood me a bit in regards to SW as I was mostly referring to the fact that SW was probably meant with 3 episodes structured while it was in development, before being changed with just 2 episodes shown on menu. I mostly meant that it was going to be more like Doom, Heretic and Duke3D, this is what I actually meant with 3 episodes. And sadly, I was never able to play the early shareware versions of SW (1.0 and 1.1) due to DOSBox crashing/freezing when loading them, so I don't know their differences but I know they had demos playing in background (another cool feature that was unfortunately cut from released version) and that's pretty much all I know about them.
Sorry for not being a bit more clear about what I actually meant and for going off-topic, I hope it's not that big of a deal that I talked too much about other games.
This post has been edited by RunningDuke: 15 August 2018 - 05:36 AM
#584 Posted 15 August 2018 - 05:56 AM
#585 Posted 15 August 2018 - 08:24 AM
As for the name of the third episode, I honestly didn't think yet at a name for it. Maybe someone could come with an interesting name for it.
#586 Posted 15 August 2018 - 08:56 AM
RunningDuke, on 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM, said:
The shareware version 1.0 of Blake Stone mentions the three-episode option for "budget-minded heroes":
It's gone by v3.0 tough.
RunningDuke, on 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM, said:
Kyle Katarn (the player character) gets captured by Jabba and stripped of all his gear, has to fight a giant lizard monster ("Kell Dragon") with bare hands. You get all your gear back afterwards. I even made a mockup with Duke instead of Kyle in that scene a while ago:
RunningDuke, on 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM, said:
RunningDuke, on 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM, said:
It is worth noting that the Hexen demo explicitly mentions that "this is not shareware", implying that the distinction was still pretty relevant back then.
RunningDuke, on 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM, said:
DOSBox SVN Daum plays the early SW versions without problems. This is how I played them.
RunningDuke, on 15 August 2018 - 05:26 AM, said:
I never assumed that. I only brought this up because this was the stage of development of the Apogee model where having three episodes actually made sense. I can only guess what could be the reasons other than tradition to keep the registered part of a shareware game into several episodes by the time when they were all accessible from a single menu, perhaps developers thought that it would be a nice idea to give the players the option to jump into a later episode right from the start. That, or keeping the same episode structure was justified code-wise. Whatever the case, it is clear that by the time Shadow Warrior had been completed in 1997 this was no longer relevant.
This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 15 August 2018 - 08:56 AM
#587 Posted 15 August 2018 - 09:45 AM
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Ah, I see now. I missed reading that part that mentions the 3-episode option.
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Interesting. I think I saw this picture around the forums a while ago.
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Right. But I still find weird they didn't bother to include the entire first hub (at least without the secret level), considering the fact that the full version of Hexen has 5 hubs in total and this demo is even less than a fifth of the game. Well I suppose it's better than just including the first level of the game.
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I have only used the latest official DOSBox 0.74 so far because the DOSBox team didn't bother to release a new version since back in 2010, so the early shareware versions 1.0 and 1.1 didn't work for me, though most of the alphas and betas worked for me. So I am not sure what alternative to use but I know some people recommended me to use a SVN version of DOSBox, others have said to use DOSBox-lfn and others have said to use DOSBox SVN Daum (which is what you are using). Does anyone know which is the best option of these?
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Sorry, I think I misread that phrase with the shareware model at beginning as I had to read it a few times to understand what you actually meant. I know you didn't assume that but I found a bit confusing when you compared to the old shareware system from the platformers era instead of the shareware system used when games like Doom, Heretic and Duke3D came out, which originally had 3 episodes and then later re-released with an additional episode included (in case of Heretic, 2 episodes added).
If you want, let's continue the discussion to the PM. I don't want to go off-topic anymore.
This post has been edited by RunningDuke: 15 August 2018 - 09:49 AM
#588 Posted 16 August 2018 - 12:51 AM
Levels like Seppuku Station and Unfriendly Skies are clear examples of missed opportunities as leveldesign goes. One level is supposed to be a train station of sorts, the other is a friggin' airport. I bet anyone here have some knowledge how a train station or an airport looks like in reality. They are not looking like small scaled houses with generic brown walls, not even in Asia (in facts, train station and airports in Asia are more badass than anywhere else in the world!). Adding some pachinko machines or a baggage claim won't change that. The Build is capable of doing great things, although very few people managed to extract the maximum of it, and it's extremely hard and time consuming to do it anyway. These levels are objectively not very good, while they should have been.
Stephen Cole's maps in general (particularly in the de facto shrine oriented episode 2, but also sometimes in the de facto episode 3) felt very cheap. All played the same: find the first key somewhere in the map, kill 3/4 of the monsters, then find the first key slot, get the next key, some monsters spawn to avoid complete tedium, go to the next key slot, etc... the end. It's the clear case of lacking the imagination needed to make great levels.
Keith Schuler is definitely better, but he is still no Allen Blum (or Gambini/Mikko/many community members) quality. Sometimes I felt he wasn't certain what looks good and what doesn't. Floating Fortress is one ambitious and well designed level, but even that one had flaws, like the storage area with the forklifts look meh (despite the epic teleportation of the monsters in concluding the area). Honestly, I can't think of a single level without flaws. Bath House, which is clearly the most asian level of the game (and probably the most famous one) have a pretty lukewarm ending for example. Dark Woods felt like a journey, but it's really just two levels merged into one, and some parts, like the village could have been a little better.
This post has been edited by Nancsi: 16 August 2018 - 12:52 AM
#589 Posted 16 August 2018 - 03:25 AM
#590 Posted 16 August 2018 - 03:59 AM
Mark., on 16 August 2018 - 03:25 AM, said:
Mapping needs vast more time and determination I'm clearly lacking. Also with my tries so far I noticed my own self-restriction policy which could hurt the map too much. But maybe one day, or maybe for Ion Maiden. That's a game without mapping history for obvious reasons, so a fresh start is better than jumping on to the wagon late.
#591 Posted 16 August 2018 - 05:25 AM
Mark., on 16 August 2018 - 03:25 AM, said:
He makes his maps under the name of Fernando Márquez. Didn't you know?
#592 Posted 16 August 2018 - 05:36 AM
Phredreeke, on 08 August 2018 - 03:41 PM, said:
Why do you phrase it like that's the only thing people are working on for Duke?
#593 Posted 16 August 2018 - 07:06 AM
Micky C, on 16 August 2018 - 05:36 AM, said:
don't get your panties bunched up.
he mentioned more as if - people are working on Duke projects, people are working on Blood projects, but is anybody working on SW projects?
This post has been edited by Forge: 16 August 2018 - 07:07 AM
#594 Posted 16 August 2018 - 08:54 AM
#595 Posted 16 August 2018 - 09:01 AM
Phredreeke, on 16 August 2018 - 08:54 AM, said:
*please stand by*
.......incoming shameless plug..........
#596 Posted 16 August 2018 - 09:51 AM
Phredreeke, on 08 August 2018 - 03:41 PM, said:
I suppose I've recently been involved with something, on-and-off.
#597 Posted 16 August 2018 - 12:30 PM
Nancsi, on 16 August 2018 - 03:59 AM, said:
Start up Mapster now and get your IM map going. Or is there some protection in the early release that prevents it? If there is you can still get the outlines of your map started while you wait for the rest of the IM assets.
This post has been edited by Mark.: 16 August 2018 - 12:31 PM
#598 Posted 16 August 2018 - 02:50 PM
Forge, on 16 August 2018 - 07:06 AM, said:
he mentioned more as if - people are working on Duke projects, people are working on Blood projects, but is anybody working on SW projects?
He mentioned a lot more Blood stuff than Duke.... on a Duke forum
I wouldn't be surprised if Robman from Shadow Warrior Central is working on something.
#599 Posted 16 August 2018 - 04:30 PM
Eduke32 is actively being worked on and so is Blood (as in GDX). The SW editor is, well, is sort of maybe, perhaps, secretly being upgraded - looking at this positively.
Keep in mind, boys will play with there fav toys, until they break or they grew out of it.
This post has been edited by Hank: 16 August 2018 - 04:31 PM
#600 Posted 16 August 2018 - 04:35 PM
Hank, on 16 August 2018 - 04:30 PM, said:
Drek's fork of an old Duke 3D Mapster32 hacked to resemble the SW editor.