[Arzca]

After reading some of the latest posts, it is refreshing to have a discussion about the original levels for instance over User maps.

This post comes from Dukematch point of view. Me, @Aleks and a few others got to play some Megaton Edition online Dukematches yesterday. As one would expect, most, if not all games were plagued by technical problems of some sort (Timed out, I'm looking at you). Even so, all of the matches were fun as long as they lasted. We played a variety of the originals, but statistically, E1L1 was the most played map of all. Regardless, I'll share some details / highlights from the games we had. The amount of players varied from 3 to 5 (or even 6?) between sessions, but I'd say the best matches were 3-4 player games imo.




E1L1: Hollywood Holocaust As mentioned, this was the most played level of all. At first glance, I wasn't too pleased to see this map being the map selected, mostly because my past E1L1 Dukematches (from Duke Nukem 64 splitscreen days) have been mostly boring and often most of the key items people go for, weren't available very often. This time, it was different, because I went in without thinking too much, and despite having 4-5 players at max, the key items were available quite often. In my case, the essentials would be Shotgun, Portable Medkit and some Pipebombs. Too bad those Pipebombs near the arcade became eventually inaccessible because all of us were crazy and having some insane RPG duels around the bar area, which would often destroy the trashcan that allows you to make a jump for the secret. Of course, you could still use a Jetpack, but it's not really worth it at the end of the day. I don't remember all of the individual matches we had on E1L1, so the following is more or less a summary put together from all the matches and some indivual highlights of mine.

- I chose to spend most of my time fighting around the bar / bathroom area, where most people fight anyway. I always made sure I had an extra weapon and a Portable Medkit.

- I tried to avoid the street areas, mostly because the fights were quite unpredictable and there was no way to escape from a hotspot, unless you had Steroids, or a Portable Medkit. More than 50% of my deaths too place around the street area.

- Early on, before the previously mentioned trashcan was destroyed, I tried using Pipebombs as much as I could. Pipebomb is my favourite weapon in Duke 3d, and I got some juicy kills with them early on.

- After the trashcan was gone, I tried to focus on using Shotgun / RPG. I got most of my kills with Shotgun, but I can't help playing back an epic long-range-direct-hit RPG kill in my mind that I got when I fired a predicted rocket from the ticket booth area toward someone who was jumping on those leadges that take you inside the Steroid secret near the Innocent sign. A satisfying distant explosion and a message indicating a kill was printed on my screen .

- Also, I had ridiculous RPG duel with someone at the bar area, we were trading rockets like hell, but we couldn't land a single hit on each other and both of us ran out of rockets and ended up retreating.

All in all, E1L1 is a pretty good DM level, because there is room for different strategies, gathering weapons, or even a Jetpack. I saw someone using a Jetpack, but since I was mostly in the thick of it, I missed 90% of the fights around the street area.






E3L1: Raw Meat A pretty well interconnected map, and thanks to underwater areas, there are also a plenty of routes and places to hide and gather weapons from.

- I was mostly fighting around the bar entrance / Sushi-place area, due to a good supply of both, weapons and Health. I don't remember too much about this match, but I remember accidentally stealing someone's Freezethrower kill by throwing a random Pipebomb around the corner near the bar area .

- I didn't bother going underwater too much, but probably in hindsight I should have, given how well the map is connected. A very underrated DM level.

- Most of my deaths took place around the outdoor area, which I soon started to avoid, and I tried to look for more favourable and manageable indoor fights instead.




E3L2: Bank Roll The best Dukematches I've ever had in my life have taken place on this level, and this online session was no exception. Why? This map just nails it. It is not too large, none of the outdoor areas are excessively large / overscaled and there are weapons everywhere. And some highlights again.

- Some of the fights around the street / alley area were just so hilariously absurd, unpredictable, and people brought literally anything they could get their hands on into these fights, ranging from crazy RPG spamming, Freezethrowers, point blank RPG double kills, Pipebombs, Steroids, Devastator, Shrinker and even Tripbombs which are very underrated. This is what Duke Nukem 3d Multiplayer is. Crazy, chaotic, but yet somehow in amidst of all the craziness, everyone's playing well, and most importantly, everyone's having fun while they're at it. Some individial highlights again:

- As usual, Pipebombs were my lifeline here and I ended up getting a few juicy kills here and there, including a classic perfectly timed toss into the dumpster when someone was heading for the Portable Medkit.

- Another funny one was an accidental RPG "bump" with @Aleks. He ran in from of me just as I fired a rocket out of the bank area. It didn't go so well, because we both died .

- I hardly used a Shrinker, and I was hardly getting any kills with RPG, so I relied on Pipebombs, Shotgun and some occasional pistol spamming.

- @Aleks got me with a random Tripbomb.


There was a brief match on E3L5 as well, but that lasted literally less than two minutes before getting timed out, so we didn't really get to play it legit. These were some of my observations from yesterday's Megaton Edition Dukematches.




The other observation that also stood out to me was that either I won all of the games or I was tied for the lead (not sure about E3L5 though) every time when a match ended...

[Ninety-Six]

God I wish I ever had the chance to play some good dukematches. I'm so envious.

[Aleks]

Yeah the dukematches yesterday were crazy, but they lasted max like 10-15 minutes before lagging out and crashing. Bank Roll was probably the longest one, this one actually ended in a proper manner, i.e. Arzca getting 20 kills I think.

My main observation was that E3 levels played much better than Hollywood Holocaust really. Raw Meat is a fantastic DM level, especially when all the interconnected teleporters are open, there's both some areas to gather stuff and for intense fights. Most action took place around the first corridor of the sushi place. My main problem with all the games was that I tended to suck at the beginning and getting killed a couple of times before I got a good grip of the game, then improved gradually - and usually getting most of my kills during some rampages with like 5-7 kill without dying myself.

Bank Roll was exceptional, never played it with so many people, but that was the coolest DM I played in a long while. Funny thing is, despite how short these games lasted, I think in Bank Roll I managed to get a kill with each and every weapon at least once. Including that trip mine kill @Arzca Funny thing is, I probably put only that single tripbomb in the whole game and I got the idea to put it right in that spot right from Arzca, who was also putting tripmines there - as a lot of people would be going backwards through there while having a fight near the dumpster area. The tripmines were quite sparse in this one too, as they're kinda troublesome to get really in this map. Also kicked the shit out of someone in the elevator leading to blue key/devastator room, after we both respawned in the room upstairs, emptied the pistols into eachother and still (barely) survived, I kinda pushed the other guy into elevator with me and we got into a cool melee fight there Also used the shrinker quite extensively, especially inside the bank itself, as it was the best weapon to quickly get a hold of when spawning there (hence the name ShrinkDuke... ). And I can confirm it was my freezer kill, Arzca! But it's actually hilarious how using freezer can provide easy kills for other people and something I've also been abusing when others were using it. And still managed to get some legit freeze kills, even with atomic spawning - but I mostly just used it to spam around the corners and weaken any potential opponents lurking in there.

Hopefully we'll get to play some more today - if anyone would like to join, feel free to message me (perhaps on Discord would be the easiest way).

[Arzca]

Another Megaton Edition DM recap (ft. @Aleks) from yesterday. This time, there were 2 "new" levels to look into vs 3 from the previous post. We had 15 minute time limit on all of our matches. I think we had 5 players on all of our games, although the roster changed a bit after each game.

E3L3 Flood Zone: This turned out to be the best of the day, at least for me. I didn't have high hopes when going into this match, but it turned out be quite a fun game after all. The start of the game was very slow, and hardly anyone was scoring kills, partially because (assuming) most of the guys were just getting to know the map, opening up areas etc. The real "game" started around the halfway mark, when people were starting to figure out things. At first, I didn't believe those underwater fights would be any good due to slower projectile speeds etc. but it turned out there was definately some "sea life" out there. The most dangerous fights for me took place inside the flooded elevator area (Yellow door area). Shotgun and Chaingun were probably the best weapons of choice for underwater fights.

- My start was quite slow, and I spent most of the early game ignoring fights and looking for weapons. I went for the kill only when I could see others fighting among themselves. I died a few times for sticking my nose into dangerous 1v1 and other hotspots, like the underwater area with the flooded elevator.

- Before the real game started, I got a few lucky RPG kills, including 2 almost back-to-back spawn kills.

- Shortly after, I started to gather some weaponry and a Jetpack. This basically lead to an insane rampage that lasted from its beginning to the very end of the game. I didn't notice how many kills I got during this period, but it was an excellent run. I was mostly fighting on rooftops, but I had a few successful underwater adventures as well when looking for weapons and ammo. I often got an extra kill or two from those underwater areas before looking for the next rooftop encounter.

- Another funny detail was that people were using Shrinker quite a lot. I got shrunk 3-5 times during the game, but managed to bailed out every time because I had a Jetpack. This makes me think of a hilarious stalling fight I had against someone at E3L2 (a match prior to this game) where I got shrunk at the Freezethrower area, but I kept closing the door constantly so he couldn't stomp on me. Sadly, I got stomped on (or Squished, because there was no killed by message?) eventually, but it was pretty funny anyway .

- I got only a single Pipebomb kill during the game.

In any case, E3L3 was good. Although, the fun factor here is tied to the amount of players, but we were fortunate to have 5 people on board. I don't think this would fare as well on 1v1. The more, the merrier, I suppose. A great, and a very underrated DM map. I'll be playing this again.





E3L11 Freeway: The contrast between E3L3 vs the next match couldn't be any more dramatic (for me, that is). E3L11 was up next, and man did have a hard time playing this. The minute I saw E3L11, I knew it wasn't going to be my ball game. There were many reasons for this.

- The early game was without a doubt very hard, and I could hardly get any weapons so I ended up pistol spamming, but even that didn't work as I always seemed to run into fight with players who were already armed with better weapons or they had full HP / Portable Medkit and in most of the cases, I either died, or ran out of ammo and I was forced to retreat because I had no weapons.

- Around 7 minutes, I was still doing terribly and had gotten around 5 or 6 kills or so, but out of nowhere, I got 2 consecutive kills with a Shrinker, plus a Pipebomb kill shortly after. After this, I somehow managed to claw my way back into the game by getting kills here and there over time.

- Ironically, it was the later half of the game where I started getting kills, and ended up getting tied with @Aleks less than 30 seconds before the end of the time limit. All in all, it was a pretty even match, as there were many guys within a kill or two away from the winner(s).

In hindsight, I could have played very differently, but I just "insisted" on staying on those streets and kept banging my head against the wall instead of going for areas like the Blue Door area, and look of some better weapons. I did this once near the end of the match and remember getting a random RPG kill shortly after. Even it was more or less of an uphill struggle, I think there was potential, I just didn't use it. Even I wasn't too pleased with my game after the match was over, I think this map has potential as long as you can elude those deadly street fights and jump in again later with better weaponry.

That is all for now.

[Aleks]

On the contrary, I was very positively surprised with Freeway game

In Flood Zone, the game was super interesting mostly for it's verticality and how pretty much each weapon was useful one way or another. I still consider this one to be my favourite level of the base game, and it was great in Dukematch as well. Getting the jetpack was crucial, and most of the time I spent patrolling the rooftops, although did have a few underwater encounters as well, which are cool. I especially liked the design of the rocky cliff overhand near the rooftop accessible from yellow keycard area, had some interesting strategic fights in there. Also it was more slow-paced than your usual street dukematches, so it was possible to stack up on more stuff and running out of ammo mid-fight was not an option this time. I usually had jetpack, medkit, armor, 200 HP and lots of RPG, chaingun and devastator ammo, the main problem for me was really hunting down people and killing them proficiently enough to keep up with Arzca

Loved the Freeway though, even if I struggled at the very beginning. The first street area was a bit crappy, mostly due to limited ammo and a lot of respawn-kills (once I spawned right in front of someone's RPG rocket that exploded right behind me, leaving me instantly with 25 HP and amidst 2-3 people fighting). I started to excel more when I got a hang of the 2nd street area, making sure I keep collecting medkit, armor, steroids, pipebombs and stacking on shotgun ammo, then pretty much killing anyone coming there to visit - got like 10 consecutive kills there I think (although sometimes was super lucky, once I barely survived with exactly 1 HP and no more medkit ). Also tripbombs around the sewer area were a nice strategy, putting them right behind the entrance hole leading to 1st street and behing the bars where people would come out of water. Also had a funny underwater fight with someone (maybe Arzca even?), I just spawned and was facing a guy with RPG there, managed to escape him a couple of times, and collected the goodies (shotgun and atomic in the blown hole) two times, before ultimately succumbing and getting killed.

Also one thing I noticed was a bit buggy kill counter (which is why Arzca caught up with me, seriously! ), I'm pretty sure on two occasions when I got "double kills", it only awarded me with 1 more point - at first I thought I might have looked wrong at it, but the 2nd one was right before the end of the match and I was closely observing the scores as Arzca just tied with me - but again, might have just been the emotions Tried getting a screenshot during the end-game stats screen, but of course there's "press any button to continue", so all that was captured was a black screen

We also played Bank Roll again and a funny thing that happened was, I trapped someone in the vault/gears chamber, after entering the bank with little HP and noticing someone went there exploring. There's of course a way out through the crack, but a few minutes later they asked for someone to open the door for them Also played Red Light District with 2 other guys after Arzca left, but it was a short game. Most action took place around the street, it played better than Hollywood for me (easier weapon availability and more verticality due to easy jetpack access). Also managed to get a teleport kill (i.e. teleporting right after your opponent and squishing him awards you a point), after respawning in front of someone better armed and running around the teleport connecting final area to the bathroom. Another funny thing was, someone actually was camping with a pipebomb ready at the yellow key door, I opened the door and just took the bomb before they detonated it

[Arzca]

Megaton Edition Sunday DM recap continued:

Yesterday, we learned that someone was streaming the game. I took a liberty to take a few screenshots from the guy's stream, providing only the results of each game described in my previous post. The screenshots are cropped because the guy was using a facecam, and I doubt he'd be pleased if his face was shown here. Here are the final results of each game from Sunday.

E3L2: Bank Roll



E3L3: Flood Zone



E3L11: Freeway



Since my / some other players' color was gray or green on some matches, names that use those colours can be a bit hard to see on the scoreboard, so don't be afraid to take a closer look if needed.

[slacker1]

The Watchtower, on 29 December 2020 - 01:11 AM, said:

Fahrenheit was a last minute map glued from Levelord's multiplayer testlevels. Just like Movie Set, Tier Drops, Raw Meat, Incubator, Spin Cycle, Lunatic Fringe.

Never know that. Fahrenheit was always my favorite duke match level from the ones that came in the first three episodes. I guess originally coming from a duke match level makes sense then!

Aleks, on 01 January 2021 - 11:44 AM, said:

Speaking of bad level design, I've just finished Plug and Pray (of course the PC remake) for the first time and can't believe this thing was actually commercial. The level design is your typical 1996 user map stuff with blocky looks, misaligned textures, all the details thrown-in in form of random wall-ornamented sprites and complete texture/scale incoherence, even some bugged doors. The new enemies we're jokes (pig in a dress, seriously? Other variations of pig cops had such bad graphics that I could barely tell what they are anyway), some of the puzzles were so obscure like noone even beta-tested the levels in the first place (especially in Nightmare Zone, the first level which was so off-putting that I can't understand why'd they make it the first level at all). Combat and enemy placement was tedious and annoying as well, mostly rooms full of enforcers, cheap ambushes and too many sentry drones for anyone's good. Also the health was super-sparse - there was almost no medkits throughout most of the levels. New art barely fit in, besides some rather rare occassions.

Now some things I did like: Trackside Tragedy had quite nicely designed track (one of these rare good uses of new textures) and the outside part of this level played quite well. I liked all the locations from Tarantino's movies in Duke Royale, especially Mia Wallace's house, despite their poor design (oh, the bar from "From Dusk Till Dawn" had probably some of the most annoying combat I've ever encountered here). Gates Motel had some cool ideas and the movie references were quite clear, although again the layout was super-confusing in a bad way (not the good horroresque way). Tentacles hanging from ceilings were quite cool in this one. Alien Rendezvous had a very nice alien ship landing sequence (even if it did have a parallaxed sky covering part of the building), although the Battlelords spawning in this one were pretty unfair. And the final boss fight and the arena for it was very nice and challenging, even if the boss himself was a lazy copy of Battlelord. I also liked mid-level and final cinematic, and that's pretty much it.

Oh, and one more thing, the secrets. If the puzzles within the levels were sometimes confusing and illogical, then secret hunting was an outright joke. Again, Nightmare Zone is the most obvious offender here - some of the secrets required opening an unmarked wall in one part of the map to unblock something in another secret in a completely different part, others required activating 2 very short-lived timed doors, of course also completely unmarked, and running through them - right into a bunch of enemies. Duke Royale was probably my favourite level of the bunch.

Completely agree. On console, I had (still have too) the Saturn version and N64 version but didn't own a Playstation so I never got to play the Plug and Pray episode until recently. I played the whole thing but it definitely was more for curiosity than it was anything else. The bad level design caught me off guard a little. I was surprised at how bad some of those levels were.

I recently had the pleasure of playing Fallout Freeze (https://msdn.duke4.n...lloutfreeze.php). What a great looking level. I really enjoyed exploring everywhere in that map. Everything was just done top notch. The only thing that I would "ding" it for is the lack of monsters. Maybe I should have tried on a difficulty harder than Let's Rock but I found the mall to be surprisingly devoid of enemies at times. Still, I'd definitely recommend checking it out in case anyone's missed it.

[ck3D]

slacker1, on 09 January 2021 - 08:47 PM, said:

Fahrenheit was always my favorite duke match level from the ones that came in the first three episodes.

Damn you just hit me hard with two-decade-old memories of Fahrenheit also being a favorite in Dukematch as a teenager in Duke 64. I could never play multiplayer properly on PC due to always being behind technology-wise at the time, but an old friend and I used to regularly Duke it out on that platform and as we developed our preferences Fahrenheit was at the top - it just seemed like where the action was the fastest, as tempting as it was to use the KTIT radio station and the fire station as opposite 'trenches', staying inside also meant danger if your opponent rushed in and since the level is so small, you were essentially never safe anywhere. Crossing the 'pit' between both buildings meant bullet hell and if you were unlucky enough to spawn or have to retreat back to the starting area you were done in two seconds. I really hadn't thought about those games in what feels like forever.

I remember Freeway was also at the top of our list (well I know it was of mine, at least), and since the Nintendo 64 version had 'exclusive' multiplayer levels (some of them bits from cut levels from the PC version) we would also play those quite a bit, I remember the one called Shaft was great; I couldn't even remember its layout nowadays but what I can recall is non-stop surprise action and a lot of fun luring each other with Holodukes (which actually worked really well there due to the pace).

There also was this obscure new map set on Mars called Noctis Labyrinthus; I remember it used to fascinate me as back when I first discovered it, I was in Single Player mode using warp-to-level cheats, and just wanted to warp to the lass boss but since this map is the last one in the whole set on the Nintendo 64 version I ended up there instead. The concept of a DM map was foreign to me at the time and I actually spent quite a while looking for a boss somewhere, but all that could meet me in the end was absolute desolation - no monsters, no music, just the strange dim red tint from that port, an unknown planet with a creepy atmosphere and out of all things, a fucking pyramid. Never even really gave a shit about its potential in DM but I used to trip out on that one.

[NNC]

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2020 - 09:26 AM, said:

I gave LRWB one last chance to redeem itself. I forced myself to suffer through the agonizingly long, dark, and directionless level 4. I managed to find the ammo dump secret, and shocker the combat went from unfair to a curbstomp. That's not a good thing.

I made it to level 5. This was the TC's last chance to save itself. And the result was a long winding level with no direction, capped up with an instant death pit in darkness so thick the nightvision didn't help.


Yep, done for real. I don't care if it gets good at level 7. It is absolutely not worth the suffering until that point. And frankly despite the middle levels here being not as hated, honestly I don't see a difference. Sure, they look a little better and have more texture variety, but that's the only improvement. The aesthetics. I care way more about how the levels play and...these are bad. These are really bad. In fact I will go so far as to say these are some of the worst Duke 3D levels I have ever played. Very few maps or mapsets managed to elicit such pure unpleasantness, but this is one of those "elite" few.


I legitimately hate this mod. Fully and completely. There's no way around it. This mod has given me no reason to suspect that it will get any better. While the aesthetics have improved, the level design itself has remained a consistently flat level of abject misery that I haven't felt for a very long time (at least for Duke). I'm tired of running around not knowing what the hell I'm supposed to do. I'm tired of fighting enemies that seemed to have been placed with very little thought or care. I'm tired of running dry on ammo because there is barely anything on the critical path. And I'm tired of having to search for essential supplies that the mod author decided to hide.

Maybe the later levels will eventually get over the more glaring issues. But there is such a fundamental misunderstanding of level design being demonstrated that I think it will just end up being band-aids on a severed arm. There are so many problems that fixing the biggest ones still won't make these good. These legitimately feel like someone's first mapping attempts wrapped up in a fancy con file, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were all built in the play order.



I apologize for dumping all over what is considered one of the greatest Duke TCs of the pre-source port days, but I simply cannot force myself to play through this anymore. These levels are just so awful that I honestly couldn't care less if I was completely wrong about what's in store. For all I know as soon as the level counter hits 7 it'll go from amateur trash to commercial grade expansion pack. But honestly at this point I don't care anymore. It's not worth it. I have given this mod far more chances than it ever deserved, hanging onto hope that it gets better. Wanting to like it and to see why it's so praised.


But I just can't do it anymore. I'm sorry.

Your approach is quite terrible here, 96. It's OK to play a TC from start to finish, but when people say the first 6 levels are bad (well, even level 7, Old LA on Ice is somwhat questionable, despite its merits), and then it becomes fantastic, why do you give it a last chance at the middle of the bad? Honestly, I think you have given up the worst possible time. I disagree with RD, level 4-5 are as bad as the first 3, in fact, worse, because they are just empty hall maps that never want to end.

Just warp yourself onto level 8 (Launch Base), and play the relevant stuff from there. If you think the final four levels are bad, then there is some legit reasons to miss the rest, but it's still highly recommended to play the last 4 levels of WB. That is amazing, believe me. I don't have low standards, you know, perhaps it's too high sometimes according to some here.

[Ninety-Six]

The Watchtower, on 11 January 2021 - 01:46 AM, said:

Your approach is quite terrible here, 96. It's OK to play a TC from start to finish, but when people say the first 6 levels are bad (well, even level 7, Old LA on Ice is somwhat questionable, despite its merits), and then it becomes fantastic, why do you give it a last chance at the middle of the bad? Honestly, I think you have given up the worst possible time. I disagree with RD, level 4-5 are as bad as the first 3, in fact, worse, because they are just empty hall maps that never want to end.

Just warp yourself onto level 8 (Launch Base), and play the relevant stuff from there. If you think the final four levels are bad, then there is some legit reasons to miss the rest, but it's still highly recommended to play the last 4 levels of WB. That is amazing, believe me. I don't have low standards, you know, perhaps it's too high sometimes according to some here.

I actually gave it even one further chance:

Ninety-Six, on 01 January 2021 - 09:40 AM, said:

Before I uninstalled it, I DNSCOTTY'd to level 7, wherein it was said to get good. And what I found was a dark prison level with no ammo (since you start with no guns it's the same as getting there normally. So the even more poor ammo balance than usual can't even argue it was balanced for continuous, much less prison start.) So yeah I have no regrets about being rid of it. I'm still sad there aren't more classic-styled mapsets that include more custom enemies like that, new art or not. That was the one thing I really did like about my experience were the new enemy variants. They added something to the otherwise mediocre combat and was looking forward to seeing if there was any more.

I actually did see a little bit of level 8 (which is the On Ice level) as well, where it looked to be more darkness, more lack of ammo, and more stupid long dives with probably more hidden scuba gear. I can't verify the last point as I just couldn't be assed to play any more, but I do know the water depth is insane again.


I appreciate your optimism here and I am aware of your standards; that's one of the reasons I pushed so hard. But with the way things are, I just hated my time playing this thing so much. As a breakdown:


Last Reaction - HATE. Hiding the scuba gear, abysmal ammo balancing unless you find the required stockpile secret that then turns the rest of the level into a joke, and abuse of darkness with enforcers because why not.

Cloning Facility (can't remember its name) - Dislike. Too dark, forces you through a ridiculous lava maze, and once more has a stockpile secret that's pretty much required.

Jungle level - HATE. Softlock city! Abysmal direction! Progression that makes no sense! Painfully long dive that kills you without the scuba gear and puts you to sleep with it!

Khaki Space - HATE. Far too long, half the level is too dark, requires stockpile secret, unclear progression and direction, lazy enemy placement, and that stupid switch puzzle (which actually does have a "solution", it's just located in a place where it's a question of "why would you think anyone would look here")

Moon level - HATE. Even more winding and labyrinthine, the secrets become completely unmarked at this point, ammo balance is still awful, was never able to find the stockpile, fatal beginner's trap in the dark that you can't possibly see coming, battlelords and overlords everywhere with nothing to fight them with

??? (I presume this is the Moon city level) - Never seen besides screenshots. Looks nice I guess, but considering the gameplay both preceding and suceeding this I don't exactly have hopes.

Prison level - Hate. Yet another insanely dark level, the ammo balancing is even worse due to not being able to start with any guns, probably has a stockpile secret too, I couldn't be assed and more just blasted to the end without bothering to kill anything.

Old L.A. on Ice - Didn't finish but it looked to be more of the same. Still had a ridiculous water depth, still really didn't have anything to fight off the aliens on the surface, and I was just done by this point.



Considering I even skipped ahead and still found trash, can you blame me for giving up when this is my entire experience?

[Aleks]

After reading your discussion, guys, I'm really tempted to refresh LR&WB myself, mostly just for the sake of understanding what's going on I played it only once some 10 years ago, but don't remember having such a strong feelings in either direction, the ending of Water Bases was very memorable and in general I think I liked the mod, but never saw it as something great (i.e. way below the level and impact of The Gates for example).

[NNC]

Ninety-Six, on 11 January 2021 - 08:23 AM, said:

I actually gave it even one further chance:




I actually did see a little bit of level 8 (which is the On Ice level) as well, where it looked to be more darkness, more lack of ammo, and more stupid long dives with probably more hidden scuba gear. I can't verify the last point as I just couldn't be assed to play any more, but I do know the water depth is insane again.


I appreciate your optimism here and I am aware of your standards; that's one of the reasons I pushed so hard. But with the way things are, I just hated my time playing this thing so much. As a breakdown:


Last Reaction - HATE. Hiding the scuba gear, abysmal ammo balancing unless you find the required stockpile secret that then turns the rest of the level into a joke, and abuse of darkness with enforcers because why not.

Cloning Facility (can't remember its name) - Dislike. Too dark, forces you through a ridiculous lava maze, and once more has a stockpile secret that's pretty much required.

Jungle level - HATE. Softlock city! Abysmal direction! Progression that makes no sense! Painfully long dive that kills you without the scuba gear and puts you to sleep with it!

Khaki Space - HATE. Far too long, half the level is too dark, requires stockpile secret, unclear progression and direction, lazy enemy placement, and that stupid switch puzzle (which actually does have a "solution", it's just located in a place where it's a question of "why would you think anyone would look here")

Moon level - HATE. Even more winding and labyrinthine, the secrets become completely unmarked at this point, ammo balance is still awful, was never able to find the stockpile, fatal beginner's trap in the dark that you can't possibly see coming, battlelords and overlords everywhere with nothing to fight them with

??? (I presume this is the Moon city level) - Never seen besides screenshots. Looks nice I guess, but considering the gameplay both preceding and suceeding this I don't exactly have hopes.

Prison level - Hate. Yet another insanely dark level, the ammo balancing is even worse due to not being able to start with any guns, probably has a stockpile secret too, I couldn't be assed and more just blasted to the end without bothering to kill anything.

Old L.A. on Ice - Didn't finish but it looked to be more of the same. Still had a ridiculous water depth, still really didn't have anything to fight off the aliens on the surface, and I was just done by this point.



Considering I even skipped ahead and still found trash, can you blame me for giving up when this is my entire experience?

Please, try the second episode. Please. Promise.

[NNC]

Btw. Old LA on Ice is the prison level. It starts in Death Row style, you escape outside where the insanely dark areas are found, and the frozen place is nearby. I actually like this level, but it still belongs to group A, more of a transitional level. Launch Base is the one, where the new era really starts. That's level 8, it starts in a sub, and it rains outside. It's a level heavily reminiscent to Randy's levels in The Birth. Then comes a pretty solid secret level, then a beautiful LA city level with an invading spaceship, and a large stadium map with nearby cinemas. The boss fight is very interesting. Episode 2 is basically an underwater Lunar Apocalypse, levels are beautiful, although around the Atlantis levels in the middle, it can drag a little. Alienation and the last 4 maps are the most memorable levels in the entire TC. The bossfight was amazing. Try.

[FistMarine]

Quote

I disagree with RD, level 4-5 are as bad as the first 3, in fact, worse, because they are just empty hall maps that never want to end.

Sorry, I haven't played the mod in years and thought the first 3 are worse because of those long underwater tunnels. I thought that the quality of maps starts improving as you progress throughout the mod.
I'm going to start playing LR&WB in next couple of days/weeks, after I finish some stuff I still have in progress. Then I will be able to judge all the levels while they are fresh in memory. Also thanks again to 96, I was able to locate that scuba gear easily just looking in Mapster32, it is located inside a cracked wall, next to that lake. I blame poor visibility/shading for why that crack is easy to miss during normal gameplay. To help everyone out there (and also because there is no proper full playthrough of the mod), I hope to record my own LR&WB playthrough and upload it on YouTube. I will also try to get all kills and all secrets. Since some levels are large, I think the kill counter will glitch if there's more than 255 enemies in the map, so that will be a problem if I happen to miss an enemy because I won't even tell (and Duke3D's kill counter has always been buggy). Finding secrets (and conserving resources in general) may be problematic as well. Hopefully everything will go as planned.

Anyway, to talk about what I have been playing these last 3 weeks:

First off, I finished the first two episodes of WGRealms 2: Siege Breaker (2011) and currently I'm on third level of the third episode, which is the first WGR episode ported into WGR2.

From what I remember in first episode, I managed to finish it and got almost everything 100% in each level, I got all secrets (some thanks to searching in Mapster32), all the golden apples that increase max health (some of them also found with help of mapster) and most gold found and rescued most of those knights (that look like Cleric from Hexen). Not sure why in the boss level (before the hub level where you celebrate victory) I had only 3/4 rescued because I'm sure I've been everywhere, was one of them killed during one of the battles? The counter was also off in second episode which said 7/3 or something like that, probably caused by the ones summoned in last room that glitched the counter. In some levels I was missing few kills, in others I exceeded the kill count because I also killed stuff like bats and wasps, sometimes to make up for any missing kills, if there were any.

As far as I remember, in first episode I only did the second level without dying (the one with that rotating tomb that made me a bit dizzy, cool effect though, happened halfway through map when transitioning from normal to hell) and that Awakening level in third episode (first level of first WGR), though that latter one had no enemies to fight so it was already easy, just find some buttons and collect stuff. Oh and if we include that Awakening level, I will also include that Hub level at end of E1, I guess.

In the rest I had some deaths every now and then (maybe 20 or more in total), some a bit unfair IMO and I will admit that Wizard boss at end of icy level did piss me off a bit because I died a couple of times even with all those health/armor supplies I had (I regret not using that Maulotaur doll, completely forgot I had it in inventory) and I didn't have enough POW to get rid of it quickly, only about 20 or so (due to previous battles as there were bosses often encountered and I wouldn't know when's the next encounter) and I learned late in that level that POW also decreases if you take damage, so I had situations where I had like 29-32 or 39-42 POW and had to decide when to use or kill more monsters (if any were around) or use it and hope for the best.

Usually I hold for POW around 50 or higher to activate all 5 attacks (which are set to their default, on top of my head I have the abilities for stronger shots, slower enemy attacks, drain enemy health, friendly maulotaurs and lightning attacks) and only if there are actual threats around instead of wasting it when no enemies are in sight. I don't know if it is always a good idea to play like that, sometimes I activated too early/late when there weren't many enemies around and other times I wish I had more POW to deal with a problematic enemy. I noticed you not only get a POW point for killing an enemy but also stronger ones you get one for just injuring them and get multiple plots upon killing them. So I think it's all balanced out to how it works at the moment (not sure if in Demon Throne works differently). I would like to know which is the best POW combination you can have. I know there's like 15 or so (about 3 per each category) but I haven't tried yet other options to form an opinion over which ones are the best. It's worth maybe replaying the mod, though I already plan to replay WGR2 (2011) as Jedrik (see below).

I liked the feature where the pads regenerate jump boots energy, you can use these as many times as you want. It's very fun to jump high and not take any falling damage. Enjoyed jumping my way and reaching the other secrets and stuff. I don't know if those pads can regenerate boots that you don't have, I didn't try that, I always went to regenerate when my boots energy went low. There are a few jump boots pickups in that level as well, just in case.

As for the second episode, which consists a single map, Castle Demonhorn, was quite devilish at times due to causing me a fair amount of deaths (also got a bit stuck at beginning for a while until I noticed I had to shoot a button) but other times I have been enjoying my time and kicking ass! Oh yeah and that arena fight was epic! Too bad I couldn't backtrack for earlier supplies, spent quite a bit of ammo on those bosses, though they weren't difficult thankfully.

After that, when you get outside, past that bridge and kill those enemies, I got scared at first when I accidentally ran into the Shrink Shroom and got shrunk because at first I didn't understand what shrunk me and I got stuck for a while like that waiting to grow, until I jumped off bridge to commit suicide. Reloading the save and noticed the mushroom, I realized what happened. Thought it got destroyed close to me but then realized it's an item pickup that respawns after a while. I first went to left path and after completing it, I figured out the other path requires you to shrink to crawl through that tiny space and then get to the Grow Shroom to return to normal size and continue fighting. Cool stuff!

After a big epic battle, I finally unlocked the second playable character, Jedrik! I will be playing as him after I finish my Duke Nukem playthrough, just have left the remaining of third episode and the fourth episode which consists of a single level, I think it's called Utter Chaos. Before I will tackle Demon Throne, I need to play through other WGR2 addons that were released years ago, such as Knee Deep and another one that escapes the name right now. Was it called Chaos Realms? Either way I got a long way to catch up with all these releases, I feel sad I still haven't played stuff like AMC TC and even Alien Armageddon, which I actually beta tested in past few years.

Also finally finished the first episode of Oblivion TC (in JFDuke3D), the first release that only had E1. I have a lot of things to say about this TC. First, an advice to always save and use multiple save slots, I made use of all 10 save slots, with last 2-3 levels I completed as backups, one backup save at beginning of current level, a backup save after an important part of a level and at least 3 or so saves I rotated after successfully cleaning a room of enemies or during platforming, etc.

Some levels I enjoyed and weren't too difficult, nor too long. Others were so fucking frustrating and pissed me off at times, some of which were also far longer than I expected. Others were so-so.
As far as I remember, in first level after you flip some switches, insert cards and fight some troopers, you must escape quickly before ship blows (if it does, the whole screen is covered in white), second level starts on top of a mountain and eventually you arrive in a forest, then there are 3 or so rainforest maps which are among the most confusing maps in the TC and taking me more than an hour to finish. I found a secret jetpack in first/second rainforest map, it's near the end of level and it requires a lot of platforming on those trees, very annoying to say the least. I recommend saving on multiple slots (I think one of the trees can only be reached with steroids and strafe jumping) and absolutely trying to get the jetpack because it is the only jetpack you get until the end of episode before final boss, so make sure you get it and make use of it for some secrets later in episode and to skip some annoying jumps in some maps, mostly in rainforest maps at times when I got stuck and had no idea how to reach some parts. I still had at least 50% fuel before the jetpack given before final boss, so I conserved as much as I could and it worked. Also in case I used too much fuel than I wanted to, I reloaded the save.

There is a secret Rainforest level, forgot where you find it, probably on the second Rainforest map (should be labeled Level 3 in save menu), look for a green nuke button, don't go for the part where you get trapped inside normal exit. Continue searching. If you found secret level, you should be in Level 11 (on the save menu). The map order is different because of Duke3D limitation about E1 only having 6-7 levels in a normal progression and since this mod has all 11 levels in first episode, Zaxtor got around with adding "secret" nuke buttons and putting some maps in random slots, otherwise it would be impossible to progress if it followed the progression in later episodes. So one time you go from level 2 to level 7, then to 3, then to 11, then to 4, then to 8 and so on.

There is a Military Base map (I think that was called?) that was probably the longest in the mod. There is a small (semi-hidden or transparent?) switch located by jumping on something (it's above an area with acid), that opens a secret later in level. If you don't find it, that secret won't be open and you will not be able to access that secret room again, so I was lucky I randomly found that switch earlier. There were two secrets I couldn't access normally inside two of vents in same level, so I used jetpack and could reach them fine. I am not sure if that was intended or not (I won't be surprised if there are secrets that require jetpack from the previous levels) but I'm totally fine with that. As long as I don't need to cheat, I'm fine with occasionally making an exception with jetpack. After that why it was put in first place? Not to help the player with some difficult to make jumps?

There was a short map where you ended up inside a ship at one point and had to prevent enemies from destroying your ship, I succeeded in first try. Though I still died to those highly damaging purple floors at beginning of level, one of the most annoying hazards in the mod along with those difficult to spot landmines (see below).

There was a Sea Temple map which was so frustrating with traps everywhere halfway through map, including bullshit land mines, that do heavy damage if you step on them, rarely there seems no damage taken, they are present in lots of levels and sometimes if I had enough health, I triggered them on purpose just so I wouldn't step on them later or if they were in way. And that Sea Temple level had an absolutely bullshit boss fight (a yellow sphere) that was difficult to hit and I hated it, especially when 20 or so black spheres get unleashed and they do heavy damage and kill you in like 2 or so hits. Complete trash, I hated it a lot.

Penultimate level I kinda struggled with health at one point due to starting without a medkit and sometimes stepping in mines, more insulting was when finding secret while I had already gotten through most of level and had almost maxed health, armor and medkit by the end of level. At least the end level boss was easy, it's another one of those stationary shoot the weak point kind of boss, though you get locked inside, so if you needed to get that missing secret, stop and reload the save (like I did).

Final level wasn't as bad, not only I started with like 477 HP but it was also shorter than previous and final boss was also fairly easy (similar to boss of previous level), done in first try. Again deaths were caused by those radioactive purple floors, if you barely touch one once or mistime your jump, you will lose 100-200 health already. Even with upgraded health (255 base health, armor, medkit, 510 atomic max health) you will still die instantly upon touching it.

Overall, Oblivion is a mixed bag as have been said before by many people and despite all of that, I still managed to get all kills and secrets and no cheats were used at all! Just mapster32 for finding the secrets whenever I entered a map because I knew there's be some well hidden secrets, though some of them I also found myself.

I installed the second version and I'm ready to play the second episode, though I'm also playing again through the first to see if there are any changes, now I know where to go at least. Since I'm a completionist, I want to complete every available version and after I do that, I will never play the mod again. For everyone else, just play the latest version: oblivionfinal.zip or the one included in NightFright's Addon Compilation, the latter has even received some updates and is probably based off a newer version that is no longer available.

Now for EDuke32 user maps, I downloaded a bunch of random user maps and episodes that have been released in past decade and played two so far: Ethanol Fever (1.0) and Narbacular Shrink (Demo) both by NerdKoopa, I played on CGS skill in latest EDuke32 build from 2015 (r5498) since the maps were released in 2010-2011 and I'm not going to look for EDuke32 builds older than that 2015 one. I feel that the 28th December 2015 build will be enough for all the EDuke32 maps and mods released until the end of 2015.

Both maps are short and easy and finished them twice each. You will see shortly why.

In Ethanol Fever, I had initially collected two secrets (RPG and Freezethrower) which are easy to find. The other secrets were much harder to find, even after seeing their location in Mapster32. The third secret requires taking a hidden elevator up the vent and get the Trip Mines. The fourth secret requires blowing up a door (in the room with troopers and boxes of pipebomb) to reveal Shrinker and finally, the fifth/last secret requires you to insert the three keycards (that unlock the exit) in a specific order. The order is: Yellow - Blue - Red

If you don't insert the cards in the correct order, then the secret becomes inaccessible. I learned this the hard way as I accidentally overwrote the backup saves after reaching the exit and when I went back to figure the other 2 secrets I managed to find. I didn't realize this at first and after looking in Mapster32 and still not figured out what unlocks that secret, I had to check the only YouTube video of the map, that person also found the first two secrets I found. Then after thinking, I finally realized how that secret functioned, so I had to replay the map from beginning, thankfully it's short, although the pig cop tank gave me a bit of trouble the second time around and this time I didn't get an early used armor from a pig cop but thankfully survived, I haven't dropped below 50 health I believe.

The biggest insult is that fifth secret doesn't even contain anything useful, all it contains is a Teddy Bear. Even if there was a Devastator or an Atomic Health secret, how would that help you when you already reached the exit beforehand? Thus implying that you didn't even need them in first place? I never understood the point of these secrets that are found in the exit room or near the exit, they would have been useful in a continuous playthrough if this map was part of an episode but since it's just an user map, it was a slap to the face and a pain in ass for completionists. No one would figure that secret on their first try anyway. Years ago when I played the map few times (like when the map came out), at most I found one or two secrets and I was fine with just reaching the exit. Since I became a completionist in last 5 or so years, I try to absolutely finish a map 100%. Though funnily enough, back when I was still playing User Maps before I took a long break due to being busy with college/university, I still wasn't fully into 100% completion, only wanting to get 100% for the original levels and that was it.

Back to Ethanol Fever, what's weird is I tried inserting the cards in a specific order what felt like 20 times, the differences being sometimes I only inserted one or two slots at the time in different orders and went to check the door across the street each time. This time I had a backup save so I could try all combinations in case anyone is wondering. Still, I find weird because there could have been a much better way to work your way for this stupid secret and make it give you something too. Other than that, nice short map.

In Narbacular Shrink, you are supposed to advance through rooms involving shrinking yourself. It is a nice puzzle map and not too difficult, can take you like 5 minutes to finish and there are no enemies to fight. There are some tricky parts but I'm sure most people would get through this map fairly easily. In first play I died once in second last room because I got shrunk and felt down off platforms and there was no way back and when I reached exit, I didn't find the single secret in the map, so I backtracked as there seemed to be possible to backtrack through most of the map and then after finding it and exiting, I redid the map on DIG skill with secret found and without dying (there are no differences in skill levels in this map since there are 5 inactive enemies that are "watching" you through windows), so if you want to say you beat it on highest difficulty, you can just play it on DIG directly. That way you also have N/A enemies missed at end of level.

I have a lot more stuff to play and I'm not fully decided what to play next, so if anyone has any suggestions, I will gladly listen! And yes I still plan to continue playing stuff like DNF 2013 DLC on DIG skill (I had only the main episode done on DIG), DukePlus and whatever else I have in progress, as well as start Back in Business episode by Aleks.

Some EDuke32 screens of the two maps, the bullshit secret (before and after) and my best time in shrink map.

[Ninety-Six]

You seemed to have picked a lot of frustrating ones.


Regarding WGR, the enemy placement gets a bit more fair in DT (minus Castle Demonhorn and Utter Chaos which have identical enemy placements, but I never had a problem with either). But DT is also much harder than its previous incarnation as tradeoff. A tradeoff I appreciate because it can be as hard as it wants as long as it's fair. The only time I got frustrated in DT was when I was just starting out because I was playing it like I played Siege Breaker, which as I said before is suicidal.

You're determined to see it through so go ahead. Just when you do get to DT, be ready. It will kick your ass, especially if you don't treat it like a new game. Even if it technically isn't, the way it plays has so many small changes that add up in a huge way.

[Aleks]

From what I can see on that screenshot of teddy bear secret, it's probably not even intentional that the keycards require to be placed in correct order to open the secret - it seems there's 3 up-open door placed right next to eachother and each one is activated by a different keycard (and by activator sprite, not activator locked). The door would travel up to the height of next sector (touching its first wall I believe), but if that sector is another up-open door that has not been opened yet, the door would simply stay closed without possibility to open it. Kinda bugged, I had similar problem in 2nd Back in Business map actually and only noticed it during the end of beta-testing stage, had to change the ST20 doors for SE32 ceiling rise IIRC to avoid that thing happening.

Anyway, yesterday I played an old classic 1998 map, which was recently brought to my attention: Damned Dam by Jawon Lee. I distinctly remember the map, as it was very characteristic with probably one of the very first instances/tries at "conceptual grandness" in Duke 3D, namely, well... the Dam. Besides the cool name, I remembered the map used to crash a lot for me back in the day due to having extremely high slopes, also not sure if I ever finished it before.

The structure of the outside part of the map was quite remarkable, with dam and a road bridge being the highlight of the map. Funnily enough, the dam sectors were set to insane negative shadow values to stay fullbright (which could have been better done with getting rid of visibility fog I suppose), but other parts of the map were quite dark. I really liked the design of that outside part of the map and fights there were quite cool.

The puzzles/progression of the level are another thing. Finding the blue keycard located on a small ledge, which required falling a couple of times to press swithes in proper order was quite bullshit really, while searching for it I managed to actually "break" the map twice and appearing in parts I wasn't supposed to enter at that stage with doors locked on both sides or pressing some switches required for progression later on and then searching what they activated.

Also the interiors looked like completely different map. The author mentioned it's his first map ever, so I'd guess he first created the interiors, some of which look like just experimenting and doodling random stuff in build with your typical 90's textures out of place or unnecessary mazy geometry with barely any logic behind it and random effects thrown in for testing. Either he got a lot better when he started designing the outside part, or he just really preferred to make outside areas than inside ones. What I liked on the inside were interconnections and ventilation shafts which saved a lot of time on backtracking (which on the other hand was quite an issue on the outside part, as you had to walk a long distance to get back to the top of the dam from the water level). Enemy placement wasn't that good in the interior parts either, with some bullshit ambushes like sentry drone place in a toilet cabin or two enforcers randomly respawning in front and behind you while walking through super-narrow corridor. Oh yeah, the scale of the corridors made them really cramped, most of the time there was no place to duck and of course a line of hitscanners waiting for you. I enjoyed a larger fight in the mess hall I think, with stairs collapsing behind you and having you face a couple of pig cops, enforcers and octabrains.

The map was also much longer than I expected, which in this case wasn't really a welcome surprise, as it got a bit tedious while wandering through narrow, empty corridors and rooms. It also pretty much completely lacked any shadows whatsoever. The final boss was a bit weird, as he would aggresively charge on you right when opening a door next to him, but then I easily just sniped him from the water surface where his attacks couldn't reach me. There was also a pointless 1-hit Overlord respawning in the water at one point. To conclude, the map was a bit disappointing after the potential I could see in it at the start.

[ck3D]

About the door problem, I never really get it myself because of the way I build my ST20 doors (or 21, or 22), as child sectors inside the doorway sector that aren't actually attached to any wall and just floating in the middle, just large enough to only leave a gap of one Build unit on each side. Saves resources I feel like as well as the hassle of checking in on any potential texture alignment issue, especially with split doors. I've been making them like that for years and in practice, that way the gap between the door sector and the wall is small enough that neither the player nor the enemies or actors can see each other and trigger stuff from the sector in the back by accident. Also gives you some flexibility when you're working with tagged sectors, for instance if you want the next sector just after the one with the door to hold a secret place yet no consecutive sector tags that would interfere (which from my experience can happen sometimes, explaining some exceptionally difficult triggers here and there in some user maps), anyhow just for this type of stuff I'll always recommend getting used to working with grid lock off to new mappers. That being said I kind of like the idea of only needing 2 out of 3 keycards to pass a certain segment of a level, sort or reminds me of things I've seen in Doom (except speedrunners usually just pixel-perfect glide through those obstacles anyway).

I really like Damned Dam and think you described it quite well, that outdoor section looks amazing for 1998 and those indoor locations not so much, although from what I remember the gameplay does flow quite well. Reminds me of the user map Slick which IIRC had believable settings on the outside and then surreal places on the inside, making for another weird mix (but why not). Still a big fan of Mikko's dam map in the DNF 3D mod, by the way.

[Aleks]

Played some older maps again. Replayed some early 2000s stuff by Alejandro: Blackened, HydroStation and Eye-Witness (made with Kuffi). Each one of them is a short, 10 minute map with brilliant design and details (I really dig the style of both of these guys!) where most of the time you'll be relying on your good old shotgun. Some resource allocation was a bit crazy (especially the elaborate layered shadows all around Eye-Witness, made with semi-circular red lines that eat up a lot of walls, without them the map could probably be twice as long). Can't complain though, the eye-candy was quite remarkable.

Also played 2 classics which I missed before:
Boba Fett by Mike Beaulieu (author of the awesome Legends series, which used to be my favourite maps back in the day). This one's a space/snowy map with lots of Star Wars references (duh) and a very classic style/vibe, despite being made in 1997, it's the style that many people would aim for today I believe. It has some creative use of textures and assets (the design of Slave I ship at the end looks great, there's also a nicely done AT-ST battle droid and carbonite-freezing chamber with nice surprise) and brilliant sector work (especially around the pipes/underwater section around the middle of the map). I did struggle a bit with progression and some button hunting towards the end, but other than that, I really loved the flow of the map. Would definitely recommend this one for anyone out there looking for classic style inspirations.

Warz by Andras Piroska was mentioned earlier in this thread I think by ck3D and it's indeed a great map. Probably one of the first maps for Duke with really open gameplay (almost sandbox comparing to how linear some of the recent FPS games are). The destruction sequences of the city are well timed and very suggestive with brilliant architecture (despite a lot of misaligned textures, a sign of its times I guess). The progression was a bit confusing, as I didn't find the blue keycard at first and after wandering around the empty town a bit, I took a tricky jump to access the red key door (which I suppose would be normally accessible from blue key building). The platforming involved in the map was probably the best part, the map took all the potential of its verticality, awarding player with jetpack only at the very end. Most jumps weren't difficult to perform, just required observation and standard jumping skills rather than tedious strafe-jumping and then balancing on a tiny sprite. Combat was great fun, but a bit on the easy side with lots of ammo for powerful weapons and atomic healths scattered everywhere. This map would probably function very well in Dukematch too, being just the right size and having balanced resources distribution around the gameplay area.

[ck3D]

Haven't played it yet, but CGS just posted this 1998 map by a Japanese author (those are always so hard to find) that looks interesting: http://www.scent-88....J/jaba/jaba.php

[Tekedon]

ck3D, on 02 March 2021 - 10:57 PM, said:

Haven't played it yet, but CGS just posted this 1998 map by a Japanese author (those are always so hard to find) that looks interesting: http://www.scent-88....J/jaba/jaba.php

I would say it is VERY good for a 1998 map. Haven't played it all, got killed by a water-sector and ragequit xD. But what I played was pretty good.

[NNC]

I decided to play Scott McNutt's Proxyon Military Base and Control Station, because I had some decent memories of them back in 1996, when most maps were poor.

I actually think these maps are not bad at all. Design is very limited, most hallways are empty, and both maps have a texture and colour narrative from start to end (Proxyon is a light grey map with blue paletted hallways, Control is a dark grey map with red paletted light sources around), but what's the disadvantage from a viewpoint, it's certainly the advantage from another. Unlike many maps with random textures and random areas, the highly focused texturing/layouts, and the consistent build-up in gameplay is something that don't age badly with time. No wonder these maps have their Doom and Quake variants, since they have a Doom vibe in them, and McNutt became a pro level designer too later on with Quake 4, SW Jedi Knight etc.

Proxyon is certainly better level of the two, because it has a better layout and progression, Control looks somewhat better at first with its red and dark grey combination, but it didn't have the same conclusion, and the keycard hunt was a bit tedious there, also it's more mazey. However I like in both maps that they start with easy liztroop actions, then continue with enforcer, and later, the harder enemies too. The amount of enforcers, despite the abundance of ammo and health can be tricky, but the maps aren't hard at all.

https://www.arrovfnu...3d-scott-mcnutt
https://www.arrovfnu...3d-scott-mcnutt

[Aleks]

Came across this map at CGS: http://www.scent-88....M/mic2/mic2.php and the design shown on the screens immediately struck me as that nostalgic, silly and naive early user mappy style, which I must say I've always been a bit drawn too, after playing these in hundreds as a kid. It turned out it's a 2nd level of 3 (or more - could only find the 3 levels) "episode" by Michel Dorange, so decided to give them all a go. Below are dukeworld links to each of the maps - the only new asset, besides the maps, is a modified sound for pressing a switch, which is a bit misleading to be honest...

Now about the maps - they were exactly what I was looking for. A perfect example of the early user mappy style, full of creative experimentation and some really cool design ideas with kinda "basic" design style. In case of these, however, it looked like the author was apparently quite capable of using the editor, as there's some pretty complex and innovative (even to this day!) effects which work perfectly and didn't get broken with EDuke updates. These are all levels made clearly for 1.3D version of the game, and they're apparently quite lengthy (the last one took me about 50 minutes and had about 250 enemies on Come Get Some).

First level is called La Sante (MIC-E1L1) and is set in a prison - which also serves as a meeting point for the worst criminals in the history of mankind, namely Adole H., Grancisco F., Roseph S. and Benico M (yeah seriously - check the 1st screen). There are all the cute traits of these early user maps - lack of trimming, weird and colorful combinations of textures (I get this vibe particularly from the yellow/grey tiles floors and bright red bricks on walls, which are used in all 3 maps heavily, as can be seen on the screens below), often the same texture being used happily on all walls of a room, little detail, repetitives style of rooms and a tad too bit scale (wasn't much of a problem here - still some corridors felt a bit cramped due to being too narrow). There's a lot of random text written on the walls with ugly red menu font (again, it wouldn't look that bad if played in 1.3D, as the menu font isn't that fat and unnatural). Did I mention excessive button hunt and some annoyingly unintuitional progression, to the point of thinking you've found a secret, but then realising it's something actually required for further progression? But yeah, that's just the stuff I expected and I was quite happy to find them. But! Ceiling doors with swing door texture? Misaligned textures all over the place? Lack of shadows or completely random/bad shading? Chaotic level structure and textures that actually look completely random and out of place? Stupid enemy or weapon placements? Nothing of that shit here. The level was cleanly structured, there's even some tiny spriteworks you wouldn't expect from a 1997 map. All the effects work smooth, there's some clever secret places and the whole place is interconnected and gets more and more open as you progress. The combat is fun, with quite limited monster variety that fits the theme. Even the shadows are very decent (lack of wall shadows or some details, but still), aligned against the same angle and all (see 2nd screen). Here's some screenshots which hopefully capture the vibe of the map:



Now for the 2nd level: Training Center (MIC-E1L2). It picks up straight from where the 1st one ended and takes us into, well, aliens training center, which includes some barracks, classes and a "simulation" of a town. The general design style is very similar to La Sante, but this time the author structures his map even better, with a lot more clear progression (despite a few more difficult puzzles). There's some pretty neat effects you wouldn't expect to see here, like transparent, maskwalled slide doors, and heavy use of SOS (which does glitch with HOM at the outside part for certain perspectives, but isn't too obvious). The outside city part looks the best, especially the nicely done building shown in 3rd screenshot. Also the ending inside the "train for the best" is pretty neat. The combat itself is a bit more difficult, but nothing on the hard side, making this an enjoyable experience. There's even stuff like layered, gradient shadows cast from some lamps, still with the same naive colorful texture aesthetics. Some screens from this one:


(BTW, this is the level I mentioned at the beginning of the post that initially brought my attention to the episode - and it seems I've found a completely different type of progression there than how Puritan explains it in his review, or I'm missing something in it. The hard part in this one was actually making a jump at a correct spot there.)

Finally, we move Back in Town in the 3rd and - as far as I know - the last level by this author (MIC-E1L3). This is by far the biggest and the best of the bunch, with proper texturing and some additional trimming/detailing (plus maybe some hint for one of the super-hidden buttons), I could easily see this one released today and scoring in the 90s. The best thing about this one are the super-creative and fun puzzles all around the level. This can be mostly encountered inside the bank (screen 3) - especially the vault puzzles leading us to (properly displayed) yellow card through a maze of moving boxes/things made with slide doors, which you have to move in correct order to clear your way. It was kind of something like what I've done in Piggish Prison with moving furniture room, but done in a bigger scale here. There's also some effects which are very rarely used like that in Duke maps, like a combination of slide doors with split doors for grate door (which apparently doesn't look awkward) or a functioning water pressure hatch/vault, which was done quite brilliantly (screens 1 and 6) and I was really surprised to see it executed like that in a 1998 map. There's lots of clever underwater action, plenty of verticality (both as platforming/jumping puzzles and some nicely done combat at different heights) and even some spriteworks! To be honest, the design (besides the "old school" texture choices) is so good that I'd think the weird texturing was done on purpose (or the author had a Zaxtor approach to making levels). This one's definitely worth checking out (perhaps first as a playthrough, to see the progression, as checking it only with Mapster can be a bit chaotic) for all the creative ideas and genuine fun it offers. I'd personally easily rank it as one of the best 1996-1998 levels out there. Here's the screens:



For some reason, I've never heard of these maps before, despite their obvious quality (up to the point of being inspirational even today, especially the last one!).

[ck3D]

That's funny, I was looking at La Santé (in review form) just the other day, I think from researching an old 'Paris' user map I had found on YouTube which is apparently an early classic even though nowadays it looks dated to shit (and nothing like Paris, too; could have been a LA map for all I know if it weren't for the title). I had failed to notice the other two maps, though.

I think La Santé is based on: https://en.wikipedia...La_Santé_Prison

Conceptually, of course, or maybe the author has actually served time there and thus has had more time they would have wished for to completely mesmerize the layout. I usually encourage dedication to one's craft but in this particular case, maybe not.

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 13 March 2021 - 08:43 AM, said:

That's funny, I was looking at La Santé (in review form) just the other day, I think from researching an old 'Paris' user map I had found on YouTube which is apparently an early classic even though nowadays it looks dated to shit (and nothing like Paris, too; could have been a LA map for all I know if it weren't for the title). I had failed to notice the other two maps, though.

I think La Santé is based on: https://en.wikipedia...La_Santé_Prison

Conceptually, of course, or maybe the author has actually served time there and thus has had more time they would have wished for to completely mesmerize the layout. I usually encourage dedication to one's craft but in this particular case, maybe not.

Yeah, the name range a bell to me - perhaps from 1960 movie "The Hole" about the escape from that prison. You should check out the maps (especially the last one), I'm pretty sure you'd find them interesting and inspirational

[Aleks]

Played some more maps from different time periods:

• Done and Dusted by Quakis and Mikko (2012) - it looked like BobSP or Alejandro's early hi-tech map, but in a much bigger scale. Must say I loved the designed (as with basically anything Quakis makes), especially the strong, "classic" shadows grabbed my attention, as well as all the awesome trimwork on the wall textures. Gameplay was also very enjoyable, with some neat effects and nice balance of outdoor and indoor locations.
• Shocking Twist by C3PO (2019) - very classic styled city map (which made me wanna do one like this as well now!) based around a solid premise. I just loved how the story behind the title was sold very precisely on no more than 2 viewscreens with very little text, but was just enough to create a grotesque and kamp kind of absurd B-movie plot
• Googolplex Communications Facility by Andrew Orman (1998) - this one was quite large and lengthy, with design definitely above average for the time it was made (even some nice spriteworks), but suffering a lot from long, empty monotone corridors, especially in the 2nd part, with completely no action and plenty of backtracking.
• JABA by Masahiro Asakura (1998) - this map was recently discussed on CGS forums. It is apparently based on a real-life aquapark. The design suffers from all the bugs from the 90s maps (from too large scale to underwater sections that would squish you upon submerging, although this might be caused by EDuke). The geometry and layout is nice, but the progression a bit weird, also it feels like I skipped quite a large part of the map, as I finished with 40 or so enemies left.
• West Was Won by Alan Page (2000) - long and full of enemies, thrown everywhere in bunches - which made for a funny wild west rampage map. The design was pretty good, but definitely not as good as Alan's 2 earlier maps I've played, Jailbird 2 and especially Sewage.

[slacker1]

Aleks, your post of the "MIC" levels convinced me to give them a try. I haven't heard of them either and I'm also sometimes a sucker for early user map styling. As a kid back in the day I had the 1500 levels on the Duke Assault CD (still own it)... which is filled with some pretty terrible levels but I managed to play probably all of them. The 90s was also the last time I really made an effort at mapping myself so I'm excited to give these maps a try for nostalgia sake.

Also in the in the vein of nostalgia, I recently played through the whole Duke 3d for Sega Saturn again. It's been almost 20 years since I did that and it was a fun trip down memory lane. The "slave driver" engine (modified from Powerslave... originally based off an earlier version of Build than Duke3d used for the PC.. so I guess it could be considered a forked version of the original engine if it were in a git repo.) makes it a unique experience. The controls are super floaty but playable. It's also interesting to see the changes here and there they did with what was possible on the engine. There's dynamic lighting which is cool but there's also no toilet drinking and some levels are simplified for FPS or split into two levels. It also has online play which I almost played back in the day (found a Netlink for $5) but my friend didn't have one and as you had to dial the other person, I wasn't about to try and find someone with a long distance number. Still a really cool feature to have.

All in all, the N64 version, even with it's censorship, is the best console port in my opinion. The local 4 player duke match will always be a fond memory for me. For single player, Saturn isn't bad at all. It's actually quite good once you get a handle of the controls. I can't really tell if I like the 3d controller or the regular controller better but it's nice to have the option.

One thing I will say is that the Saturn exclusive level "Urea 51" is terrible. It's easy to unlock from Fahrenheit but honestly isn't worth it. I'd rank it easily lower than 95% of the Duke Assault levels. It feels like a middle finger to the player. The level is about toilets and pee and it's fitting because it's crap.

Lobotomy Software did some amazing ports for the Saturn (Powerslave and Quake are both good if you can adjust to the floaty controls). I guess I'll probably revisit this one in another 20 years when I'm pushing 60. (oof. that hurts to say)

[MC84]

I've been doing some playtesting for Dan's AA mod, and had the opportunity to play through a whole bunch of user maps. There was one in particular that took me by surprise; Ruin.map. This map doesn't even make the 'hot maps' section on MSDN, although I stopped giving much credence to the ranking system there a long time ago. Here's the link on the duke4 respository;

http://dnr.duke4.net/maps/Ruin.html

Anyway I was impressed that a map that is really quite monotonous visually provided such engrossing gameplay. I remember someone here posted about level design and stressed the word 'restraint' and this map is a perfect example. Another factor was that on my playthrough the midi track was LEMCHIL.mid, which fit perfectly with the mood of the level. Anyway it really gave me terminator skynet/ruined wasteland vibes, and the use of sentry drones was a great design choice. Recommended for anyone who enjoys more atmospheric gameplay. I guess the only critique I have is that the ending was a bit flat.

[NightFright]

I am currently replaying some classics and will occasionally drop a few lines about them here. Focus is on how well the addons are holding up after several years.

ADG Episode:
Only played through the first three maps. There is a lot of shotgun ammo, but too few health items. I don't like when the game dictates which items and weapons to use. Maps are nicely designed in general, but gameplay isn't my cup of tea TBH. Used to like it more back in the days. 3.5/5

JJ Duke Nukem 3D:
Only playing Bredhauer's "L.A. Carnage" since the first two episodes are amateurish trash (not kidding - can't believe ep.2 is from the same author). And I gotta say this one's quite good! For an early mapset, this has surprisingly good lighting and shading, some nice references to the original Duke3D levels without feeling too familiar. There's XXX art as well, mostly used in the secret level. In general, it's a very decent episode and I can recommend it to anybody who likes classic maps. 5/5

The Lost Highway:
Nice locations, but tough as balls. Ammo is definitely an issue, especially early on. There are also a few places where I couldn't figure out how to continue, e.g. a duct grill placed too high to jump into. Having to use noclip as a last resort is always a bad sign. I really wanted to like this since it has interesting locations and deviates from what you see in most other addons of that time (highlight: a wall switch that only appears if you turn on the headlights of a nearby car), but it's kicking you into the nuts a bit too often. Not as good as I remembered. 2.5/5

Metropolitan Mayhem:
Loved it. Map sizes are spot-on, most of them can be finished in under 10mins, just one of the later ones is longer. You can't get stuck anywhere here, it's always easy to see where to go next. That's how it's done, folks! No stupid puzzle crap or locks with 5+ buttons. A great tribute to highlights of the classic Duke3D episodes. The train map felt weird since it seemed as if the landscape outside wasn't moving, but OK. Being able to choose which boss to fight is still a cool feature, even though the "High Altitude" map remains the best option. One of my favorites. 5/5

Taking Boise:
Still not finished, but impression after the first five levels is good. Kinda feels semi-official due to some "new" Duke speech borrowed from other games. The Quake sounds wouldn't have been needed IMO. Also, there are some sloppy levels like the very linear one in the woods and that piss-poor E1M1 conversion from Quake as the secret level. Other than that, it's quite OK. 4/5

[Ninety-Six]

My favorite Taking Boise level is the rental store with the silent hill gimmick. I love that kind of thing.

[NightFright]

The Final Confrontation:

I had high expectations with the replay of this one. It's known as one of the early good episodes, especially famous for its moving train level which was unusual for Duke3D around '97/'98. However, there were a few design flaws that threw me off. In detail:

1) Category "Tough battles":
The first level tries to break your balls right away since it forces you to use your pistol pretty much all the time - even on Assault Commanders. There's pistol ammo scattered everywhere, but for all your other weapons the game pulls an Ebenezer Scrooge on you. It's clear how they want you to play this. Problem: It's absolutely not enjoyable, but a hectic struggle for survival right in the beginning. I ran into unexplored areas in hopes to find a new weapon or at least some more shotty shells, that's how desperate I was. Needless to say, it didn't help.
The final battle in "The Pyramid" was also tough. A group of 5-6 Assault Commanders in a narrow chamber with little space to maneuver around. Took me a bit and lots of luck to beat it.
The last level is bascially a linear hitscanner festival with lots of Battlelord Sentries and Assault Commanders. Quicksave spamming is policy here. The final "full" Battlelord is surrounded by an army of Enforcers and other friends. Go figure.

2) Category "Where's the !@%?*$: keycard?"
The second and fourth level had me wondering where some keycards are. In "The Compound", you need to go down the OTHER elevator after using the one with yellow access, which is counter-intuitive and not obvious, while in "Wonderland Hell" it's even more obscure since the blue keycard hides under a ceiling panel in the shooting gallery which you can only reveal when blowing up the place with explosives, which I didn't do, ofc. I only found this one with the help of Youtube, which is not a good sign.

3) Misc:
It was kinda hard to jump through the window with broken glass in the building with the keycard behind a forcefield in "The Naval Complex", and I didn't understand why you don't leave the level through the hole you blow into the wall with the mini-sub, but instead you have to leave and enter the sub outside which wasn't accessible before. No indicator for you to do this here, either.

I admit, the levels are quite well designed for their age, and the train level is cool, you gotta give it that. However, with all these annoyances and hard-to-find keycards, gameflow suffers a lot. Sadly, I had not included many clues about these obstacles in my guide for the addon compilation, so I had to figure it out in other ways, which took longer. In general, any level that requires you to use a guide isn't designed well enough. Again, yeah, cool designs here and there, it has a well-designed amusement park with nice ideas, even a bowling alley is there and all that, nice. But if you get stuck, all of it is for nothing. With a lot of good will, 3.5/5.