[Radar]

Hendricks266, on 03 April 2019 - 02:37 PM, said:

Are you sure it's the level designers, or the lack of any of the original game's direction and production oversight? See also: the new voices.

I'm open to this theory if there's reason to believe so. What are "the new voices"?

Nancsi, on 04 April 2019 - 03:36 AM, said:

Are you kidding? World Tour (episode 5) is much better than the trainwreck that is NW. I had been critical with some of the levels, especially for having too modern and too overdetailed aesthetics, but other than boss level, all of them hold a pretty high quality, and as said so many times, two levels are already all time classics. Just compare that to NW and it's dreary leveldesign, recycled areas from episode 1 and Doom, nonsense puzzles, badly designed enemies, they aren't comparable. The WT port is indeed terrible, but the episode was more than just fine.

Post #3194

As for Plug N Pray, my opinion is that it is a completely directionless episode. Level design just a step above Duke Zone II. It might be just as good as NW, but not better imo.

Nancsi, on 04 April 2019 - 03:39 AM, said:

Allen Blum clearly has it, what the hell are you talking about?

Post #3201, 2nd paragraph

If you disagree, that's fine. This is all subjective opinion. But that's my answer.

P.s. my downvote quota is up right now, but every downvote you give me will be equally matched. I don't know why you had to start that. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean you have to downvote everything they write. You should check to see if they put true substance and thought in their post, which I did.

[MusicallyInspired]

"The new voices" as in the popular opinion is that Jon St John didn't do too stellar of a job recording new and old lines for WT.

[Radar]

Mhm, so like how the new voice work didn't turn out so well because he wasn't given the same direction as in the past (for example, not being required to clench his teeth for all his lines), it is possible to conclude the poor level design was due to poor project direction and management, not lack of skill on the part of the level designers. Makes sense.

[necroslut]

The whole World Tour project clearly lacked direction, coherence and polish; not just the level designs. Blum and 'lord are level designers, not really game designers or producers, and there was seemingly noone at the helm. I guess that's what happens when you remove George.

I agree with Radar to an extent that NW is underrated and P'n'P is overrated. I'd still say P'n'P is better than NW by a fair but, but he's right about its directionlessness and I honestly found the DZ!II comparison fitting.

[NNC]

Radar, on 04 April 2019 - 04:36 AM, said:

I'm open to this theory if there's reason to believe so. What are "the new voices"?



Post #3194

As for Plug N Pray, my opinion is that it is a completely directionless episode. Level design just a step above Duke Zone II. It might be just as good as NW, but not better imo.



Post #3201, 2nd paragraph

If you disagree, that's fine. This is all subjective opinion. But that's my answer.

P.s. my downvote quota is up right now, but every downvote you give me will be equally matched. I don't know why you had to start that. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean you have to downvote everything they write. You should check to see if they put true substance and thought in their post, which I did.

It's not a simple disagreement, something like "the golden gate bridge level is filled with problems. It's supposed to be 1.7 miles long but Duke can run across it in like 4 seconds" simply qualifies in the objectively bad post category.

Do you actually realize how unrealistic the original levels were? Look at Hollywood Holocaust: There is a short part of a street, both ends are blocked with metallic walls, the cinema has 3 rows of chairs and used some questionable texturing (the curtain texture was used at the walls), the restroom has carpet and a badly placed mirror, the bridge to the end is out place and so on.

Yet, it's a great level, even in 2019 it's fun to play and pleasant to look at. It had limited technology, obviously you can't recreate realistic places. Also Golden Gate has to be shorter in the game for playability. You created maps, you should know this. It still has a scale that is quite rare in userlevel territories. I don't even understand you other laments too, for example the maze in Egypt looked pretty fantastic after you completed it and entered the higher ground.

Your only sensible statement was the blue key in London, yes, the whole level was quite subpar, and things like this shouldn't have happened under George's quality control, but Levelord has never been on Blum's level anyway, just compare episode 3 to Allen's city maps, like night and day. This didn't change for episode 5.

But you didn't got my downvotes for this. You got it for epitomizing the terrible mentality what hindered this community. That extreme hostile responses towards people who reunited themselves just to give some present to you. No, I'm not talking about Randy, I dislike him on the same level as many of you here, I also agree that the WT port shouldn't have been created, and the price was too steep with removing the 3 bonus episodes. EDuke should have been used instead for the new levels (well, Mapster WAS used by the devs), I think we all can agree with that. But attacking the original designers of the game who created new levels (and whose leveldesign ideas are still followed) is a terrible message, even if they had created something awful, which is clearly not the case. Terrible message as you show no respect for them, simply state something like "they don't have it anymore" as proven facts. Do you really expect a new Duke game with this mentality? I mean, really?

[NNC]

Also not sure why the SOS is considered something godsend. Yes, Lunatic Fringe was cool back in those days, when 3D technology wasn't really present, but it aged very poorly, the level looks total nonsense now, and SOS is not something awesome these days. Yes, it still can look good, actually it was used in the Amsterdam level (the LF 720 degree room had been recreated in a more believable location), but if Blum and LL decide to not use them extensively just to show us a technology it doesn't mean they lost it.

[Radar]

Fair argument with the comparison to E1L1. While personally I think you have to take into account the time period the original game was made in, and also the subtle design details you can discover further as you play the original game more, I get your point.

And regarding "attacking" the original game designers, keep in mind my thoughts on World Tour come from a place of grave disappointment. I grew up with Duke3D and I don't want to believe the original game designers released an episode of this quality, but it's true. I see your point though, and I don't mean to insult Blum or Levelord.

And regarding your last sentence, I'm not sure what my mentality or complaints have to do with getting a new Duke game. I'm just one person with plenty of folks who disagree with me. Whether or not someone develops a new Duke game has everything to do with how well it can sell. The couple dozen folks who visit this site regularly don't make up anything remotely close to the audience a developer would need to make a new Duke game worthwhile. And for the record, I actually bought World Tour months late. So I heard about all the terrible things and still gave them my money.

Edit:

Regarding your SoS comments, it is not just Lunatic Fringe that uses SoS. Check out Holly, Hotel Hell, Freeway, and Tier Drops to name the best examples. Hotel Hell is especially unique. You can literally destroy the walls on the second floor and still not get any visual glitches with the first floor. Obviously it's isolated at the right spots to prevent bugs, but it's still some of the best level design ever. Considering that Duke in-concept originated as a simple city-noir style video game, it's so cool that they injected geometric illusions that you don't even notice unless you know how the engine works.

[MusicallyInspired]

Actually, I was really glad to see SOS used in such a way again. It wasn't a groundbreaking awesome use of the feature, but after so long of not seeing anyone use it interestingly (although, I haven't played very many user maps to be totally honest), it was really cool to see it get some attention in WT.

[The Battlelord]

World Tour maps and musics are ok (imo), i expected better voices, but i was quite disappointed about they didn't a revision and/or any kind of fix and improvement, expecially for a 2016 re-release.
I mean, there are the exactly same old bugs, the player still get freaking squished in so many EL3 places even in 2016, no menu improvements, poor settings customization, like the total lack of "hitscan only" (autoaim feature).
Also the price, a bit too expensive for just 7+1 new maps, a new monster, a "new" boss and a "new" weapon... ok let's add new musics too but, sorry for being harshy but you can get so much better and high quality stuff made by very few persons, right here on this forum and other forums based on Duke, and guess a bit... for free!!!

[Steve 64]

I don't know if anyone asked this What if 3DRealms made an eps 5 for Duke 3D the old team.

[NightFright]

Maybe it's time for a "Duke3D The Way 3DR Did" over here, similar to "Doom The Way id Did" over at the Doomworld forums. May take long since there are not so many active mappers around these days, but it could be a chance to revive the game a bit, better than World Tour did.

Fernando Marquez' first and second episode from his FM3X project were actually a lot like that already, even though I guess he didn't quite follow the design guidelines to mimic the style of the original creators of each vanilla map.

[----]

I never seen "Doom the way id Did", so I have a question.

Would that mean not only the level design would be the same or similar but also the level of detail from the original and only the art from the original?

EDIT:
I would like to see higher detail and especially new art/textures. I honestly get really bored with every map looking exactly the same.

[NightFright]

DTWiD used 100% stock textures and sprites, nothing new added. The idea behind it was to pretend Romero, Petersen and Hall had made alternate versions for each of their map slots, with different layouts but same mechanics (monsters, item placements, traps, level complexity etc). No level was supposed to look like any of the original maps regarding structures, but design. They also maintained vanilla compatibility, so you could play the levels in Chocolate Doom which imitates vanilla Doom as closely as possible. Maps had to stick to all the technical limitations from the original game.

A project like this certainly wouldn't be a demonstration of EDuke32's advanced features, but rather a throwback to 1996, pretending to be a lost 3DR expansion or rather even alternate Duke3D that had never been published.

[NNC]

Marquez levels looked like 3DR maps on the surface, but as you said, so many things were different (worse), including confusing layouts, too many button puzzles, scatter brained monster placement, and overall the look of the maps were.... I don't know how to say it.... just square. I mean they don't look as organic as the original levels.

IMHO "The Way 3D Realms Did" should be like completely new locations like parking tower, shopping plaza, hospital, underwater base, oil rig, airport whatever, but with the original design philosophy. I mean no coloured monsters/items, sprite and door sizes are also like the original game (not like trashcan with 25:42 repeat value, if you know what I mean), monsters gradual appearance with levels don't use all of them, some new textures that blend well with the originals, layouts using extensive SOS, keys and buttons are used to separate significantly different locations, and are not used to open random doors in sandbox level etc etc.

Condrad Coldwood's levels actually look like 3DRealms levels, the new textures in the hospital can be used in any 3DR level IMHO, too bad, the combat and the layouts are not so good in those. Boucher did a very interesting job with Traffic Jam. I think that looks pretty close to what we could expect from a 3DR level.

[MetHy]

I don't believe a new true-classic style user made community episode is possible. First, very few mappers would be interested in that, the vast majority being more interested in developing their own style, which is not a bad thing, just a different thing.

Secondly, the set of rules and mapping guidelines for such a thing would be huge, more so than you think. It would be more complicated than DTWIDD simply because, as Build allows more liberty than Doom, the number of things to respect is exponential.
A few examples would be the way Duke ep1-3 handled wall shading, visibility, alt-pal, SoS, spritework, slopes, ambient sounds, and effects; none of which are a worry, or if they are not to such an extent, in Doom. Even the simplest thing as a door, in Doom you just tag the sector and it's done the exact same way ID did, in Duke to truly replicate 3DR you'd need to worry about the door type, speed, sound, autoclosing, etc in Doom texturing doesn't give me as much freedom, in Duke to make it look 3DR; mappers would need to forget every single usermap texturing rule and re-learn from the start to use each texture in their intended context, make sure the X-Y panning are correct and not an extreme that 3DR wouldn't have used, etc

Classic style is what I attempted when I started Metropolitan Mayhem though 2 things prevented me from succeeding at the time: lack of hindsight on everything that makes classic Duke classic; and the fact that the project was also a speedmapping project.

Conrad Coldwood did an amazing job with Insurance Overload especially yes, I love this map, it's one of my favourite ever, but even this map is still lacking some classic tropes, like the layout and architecture being a little too down to earth and lacking the "crazy touch" that made ep1/2/3 what they were; the absence of outdoor areas which is an essential dynamic in the majority of 3DR "city" maps, or the way the secret places are handled. Coldwood probably never intended it to be fully "3DR style" in which case what I just said isn't fair; but the point is to show how complicated such a feat would be.

[ck3D]

MetHy, on 07 April 2019 - 04:18 AM, said:

[...] mappers would need to forget every single usermap texturing rule and re-learn from the start to use each texture in their intended context, make sure the X-Y panning are correct and not an extreme that 3DR wouldn't have used, etc

Classic style is what I attempted when I started Metropolitan Mayhem though 2 things prevented me from succeeding at the time: lack of hindsight on everything that makes classic Duke classic; and the fact that the project was also a speedmapping project. [...]

That's funny, that first sentence is completely what I meant in that other thread a while back, addressing the same subject, coincidentally also with Nancsi:

ck3D, on 28 February 2019 - 03:54 PM, said:

[...]that's the hardest type of mapping to achieve (especially if you come from a background of detailed mapping I'd say because then you have to learn to strip your own, naturally established style down to its fundamentals, which takes practice in itself and then you have to work on picking up a whole new dimension of mapping habits working from scratch again from said fundamentals, [...]

It's always reassuring to hear I'm not the only one who's wired like that and would need to 'unlearn' which in reality, purely by definition would actually be to 'learn properly'.

I still stand by my thought that a mapper's style will always be a giveaway whether or not the person has spent more time creating for the game than playing the original material. Pure creatives will just disregard 3DR tradition a lot more (occasionally including some useful teachings), to focus on nothing but the expression of their vision. On the other hand, avid players will have taken better notice of what the original maps did right, and how. Of course nothing is all black and white and as such, I'd say all mappers kind of float there somewhere in the spectrum, some further away than others.

I'm also with you with how enthusiastic, but naive we were pretending to tackle the 'original style' with Metropolitan Mayhem. I know I definitely failed on my end, but the experience was a pretty cute attempt in retrospect, helped expand the scope of my mapping and still I'm glad people enjoyed that episode.

[NightFright]

As much as I appreciated getting new levels from the original designers in WT, ultimately it felt a bit like they were added just to push undecided fans over the edge to buy Duke3D again. Ignoring that the addons were missing and will most likely never be added.

I guess for a "The Way X Did" project, you would first and foremost need one thing: Demand. There is a fan base for vanilla mapping in the Doom community, while there is no such thing here, probably also since we don't have a "purist port" focussed on vanilla game reproduction alone. It's not easy to willingly ignore all the extra features EDuke32 has to offer.

[NNC]

As much as I criticize some userlevel tropes (like some I pointed out in CK's latest map thread), I'm happy with EVERY Duke level these days. Mapping for the game became alarmingly scarce, most Dukers moved on, sometimes people return for one more, but it's getting rarer and rarer like prime numbers. So guys, do what you want first, if you do something 3DR compatible is just a nice bonus.

[Steve 64]

I have a question did anyone mention a bug with the sharks on world tour?, If not I ran into a problem with them seems if you freeze them and let the unfreeze they are unkillable, it really reminds me of Nuclear Winter from Megaton Edition.

[necroslut]

Duke Legacy, on 07 April 2019 - 10:45 AM, said:

I have a question did anyone mention a bug with the sharks on world tour?, If not I ran into a problem with them seems if you freeze them and let the unfreeze they are unkillable, it really reminds me of Nuclear Winter from Megaton Edition.

Yep, it's a known bug (one of the many...)

[LeoD]

Maybe I'm using the wrong search strings, but: who are the authors of the respective Ep.5 maps? I can't find that info so far.

[NightFright]

Allen H Blum III:
E5L1 High Times
E5L4 Mirage Barrage
E5L6 Golden Carnage
E5L7 Hollywood Inferno

Richard "Levelord" Gray:
E5L2 Red Ruckus
E5L3 Bloody Hell
E5L5 Tour de Nukem
E5L8 Prima Arena

[Phredreeke]

Randy Pitchford was co-author on Bloody Hell IIRC

[TerminX]

Phredreeke, on 15 April 2019 - 10:55 AM, said:

Randy Pitchford was co-author on Bloody Hell IIRC

If he was, he didn't do any of the actual mapping on it as far as I know.

[Lunick]

TerminX, on 15 April 2019 - 01:24 PM, said:

If he was, he didn't do any of the actual mapping on it as far as I know.

He was supposed to though, right? Or at least, I think I heard that in one of the dev commentaries

[necroslut]

Lunick, on 15 April 2019 - 03:05 PM, said:

He was supposed to though, right? Or at least, I think I heard that in one of the dev commentaries

From what I recall he started it and Levelord finished it? Though maybe it was just some on-paper planning and no actual Building, even though the initial plan was supposedly for him to do the whole thing.

[Jimmy]

My problem with WT is that they were too ambitious. Look how much clamor a simple project like Sigil for Doom gets. They tried to do too much. And honestly, the fact that they shoe-horned in dynamic lighting, and that the new maps were specifically designed with it in mind, is very offputting to me and I still haven't completed the episode. It just has too many problems, and I really honestly would rather play Nuclear Winter.

[NightFright]

Not to forget adjusting all the classic maps for the new lighting system. Even if the changes were often rather cosmetic. Lights look ok in Polymer, but I guess it's not the same look as with the WT renderer. Sadly, lighting is an important part of these maps and without it they often don't look even half as good.

Since I can't fully enjoy the new maps in EDuke32 (also due to the stopgap being incomplete), I have my problems accepting these entries as part of the Duke3D canon.

They are still nice, though, even if they are lacking transitions for better coherence. And they should have just properly resampled the old Duke speech instead of recording new takes. But that's optional and has nothing to do with the levels.

[KaijuTurtle]

Some pretty hilarious jabs at Randy and World Tour made in this video
https://youtu.be/6sJ1f20R10I

[MusicallyInspired]

Here it is with media tags: