[Never Forgotten]

This is the BETA release of Atomic Crisis, which is still early in development. PsychoGoatee and my brother both suggested that I release the first two maps, in order to gauge feedback. So here they are. Keep in mind these are not the final outcomes of these levels, depending on feedback they are subject to change. Also keep in mind these two levels are the only levels in the entire game that won't be set in New York, so don't freak out, please. Just unzip it, and add the Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition GRP into the file, as well as a current version of Eduke32, and it should work. If there are any problems please tell me, because I didn't have any problems getting it to run.

Please give honest feedback about:

Level design
Detail
Enemy placement
Custom textures
Custom sounds
And anything you feel the need to mention.

I'm trying to give this my all, so please bear with me as I go forward. With your help I hope to make this a very fun and enjoyable game.

 BETA.zip (6.59MB)
Number of downloads: 279


P.S. I'm going to delay progress on Atomic Crisis while I finish my upcoming standalone map, which is supposed to be a sequel to Penthouse Paradise, in a way at least... I'm hoping for a Christmas Eve release for this map.

[darkcaleb]

Hey the mod looks promising. There are a few textures missing from certain places but overall keep it going!

[Never Forgotten]

darkcaleb, on 02 August 2017 - 12:07 PM, said:

Hey the mod looks promising. There are a few textures missing from certain places but overall keep it going!

Thanks for the feedback. As for the missing textures, that's from switching from a .DEF file, to actually editing the .ART files. I went through the levels, but I guess I missed a few spots.

[darkcaleb]

You know just a feedback, if you want, try using textures from the DNF 2013 for The Lady Killer Hotel! Give it credit to the team behind it but that's all on you. There are certain things like the machinegun you can get it from the doom community: http://imgur.com/TBdwBv8, http://imgur.com/80zS9hA

[Micky C]

darkcaleb, on 03 August 2017 - 03:56 AM, said:

You know just a feedback, if you want, try using textures from the DNF 2013 for The Lady Killer Hotel!

Whoa, if you were to do that you'd ABSOLUTELY need to ask permission from the mod's authors first. They made a great deal of the assets themselves and put a lot of care into making the art consistent with the standard Duke art, which is easier said than done. It's not ok to just steal assets like that, credit given or not.

And knowing the authors, plus considering the DNF mod is still in development, I'd say it's unlikely permission would be given.

[Never Forgotten]

Micky C, on 03 August 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

Whoa, if you were to do that you'd ABSOLUTELY need to ask permission from the mod's authors first. They made a great deal of the assets themselves and put a lot of care into making the art consistent with the standard Duke art, which is easier said than done. It's not ok to just steal assets like that, credit given or not.

And knowing the authors, plus considering the DNF mod is still in development, I'd say it's unlikely permission would be given.

I'm just going to clear some air, I don't plan on using assets from the DNF mod. I will be borrowing certain things from the internet, because I'm not quite skilled enough to just whip up some custom textures, but I give credit if I can find who created said textures. I have made some of my own textures, so not everything new will be borrowed. But I am not going to use anything from the DNF mod. I have a Graves, but I'm not exactly sure where he came from, if someone could clarify, that'd be great. He's at the end of the second level.

[LkMax]

Micky C, on 03 August 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

Whoa, if you were to do that you'd ABSOLUTELY need to ask permission from the mod's authors first. They made a great deal of the assets themselves and put a lot of care into making the art consistent with the standard Duke art, which is easier said than done. It's not ok to just steal assets like that, credit given or not.

And knowing the authors, plus considering the DNF mod is still in development, I'd say it's unlikely permission would be given.

I find that kind of thinking funny. I doubt they asked Ubisoft to rip the Far Cry 3 shotgun, or 3D Realms to rip the one-liners and audio from the trailers, nor use the music from the real DNF released in 2011, nor the "photos" taken directly from promotional footage (duke in everest, holding a shark, etc).
Yet you say it's likely they would not allow him borrowing a few textures even giving credit? The ego of some people...

[brullov]

LkMax, on 04 August 2017 - 09:51 AM, said:

I find that kind of thinking funny. I doubt they asked Ubisoft to rip the Far Cry 3 shotgun, or 3D Realms to rip the one-liners and audio from the trailers, nor use the music from the real DNF released in 2011, nor the "photos" taken directly from promotional footage (duke in everest, holding a shark, etc).
Yet you say it's likely they would not allow him borrowing a few textures even giving credit? The ego of some people...

IIRC shotgun is a DLC stuff. I understand your point, but here the situation is a bit different. Using Duke Nukem Forever stuff for DNF mod is okay, I think it doesn't need any explanation. It's not about EGO, it's about original look. And we talk about new art painted for the mod, which gives originality. Using those textures everywhere will kill it.

[LkMax]

The mod is literally about recreating the old builds of DNF. Sure, a lot of work went into it, but it doesn't feel that original to justify worrying so much about "originality".
Just saying...

[Micky C]

LkMax, on 04 August 2017 - 09:51 AM, said:

I find that kind of thinking funny. I doubt they asked Ubisoft to rip the Far Cry 3 shotgun, or 3D Realms to rip the one-liners and audio from the trailers, nor use the music from the real DNF released in 2011, nor the "photos" taken directly from promotional footage (duke in everest, holding a shark, etc).
Yet you say it's likely they would not allow him borrowing a few textures even giving credit? The ego of some people...

As brullov said, DNF 2013 has a distinct look, and it'll lose this distinctiveness if everyone started using the assets.

Yes, Gambini and Mikko did base some of their work on assets from the trailers, however they put a lot of effort into cleaning it up, polishing them, and making them look good in the classic renderer. They even used fullbrights; top quality work. They didn't simply take the assets and plug them in, which is what other mods would be doing with the DNF 2013 assets.

Besides, while some of the assets were based on the trailers (or in the case of those new pigbeast enemies for example, other games), a lot of the art is either original, or cleverly reworked art from Duke 3D itself.

[CruX]

okay i don't wanna backseat moderate but as soon as OP said he wasn't planning to use anything from DNF '13 you guys should've dropped it, if not sooner. I get the temptation to soapbox, reuse of another project's material is a hot button issue in any modding niche, but it's sorta rude to derail this thread over a one-off suggestion that was made by another person.

Anywho, i gave this a whirl this morning. I can appreciate the effort you put, not sure how much i can praise it though. It's okay in some places and pretty messy in others. I'll spoiler what's next and try to respond to what was bulleted in the OP for the sake of convenience.

Spoiler

Never Forgotten, on 01 August 2017 - 01:59 PM, said:

Level design
Detail
Enemy placement

I'm actually kinda curious about the time frames the two maps were made in because the design and detail really run the gamut from fairly decent to pretty messy with a lot of distinct beginner's mistakes at seemingly random stages of progression. Like, the first map starts relatively strong but slinks considerably once you're towards the end of the strip club (under-detailed, overstretched and misaligned textures, etc) only to pick back up in the secret base, then start dropping again once you're in that bank area that constitutes the end of the map with the same problems as before. There's also a few areas that I'm pretty sure were supposed to be blocked off but weren't (the office area with the dead chick in the first map can be accessed but there's nothing there and once you're in you can't get out, also a window in the second map towards the end). The flow works for the most part but in the first level a vent shaft takes you to what i can only assume was intended as a secret area but wasn't actually completed because there's a weird choice of floor texture and once you're down there you can't get back out. What was the deal with that?

The enemy placement and overall balancing was okay, not what i'd call exceptional but certainly not bad either. Ammo was a bit stingy in the beginning of the first level (played on CGS) and i had to kick my way through a lot of troopers, but that doesn't really bother me. It gave it some tensity where there otherwise might not have been any and for the most part the firefights were what made this actually enjoyable, so good job with that.

Never Forgotten, on 01 August 2017 - 01:59 PM, said:

Custom textures

eh, suffice it to say, i can tell what tiles you took time to personally edit/adjust and what tiles got put into the art files as-is. Feelings are a bit mixed about it because some of it is pretty good but the bad definitely outweighs it. Fullbrights and otherwise improperly used colors really kill the ability to enjoy the new stuff for me. You mentioned using EDITART and I can tell there's some stuff you or someone else specifically did for tiles in that program, but there are a lot of other tiles that didn't get that same treatment that needed it the most. The pistol, for example. I get that you'd want to preserve the whole golden eagle thing, but DN3D's palette really isn't suitable for the colors needed. There's a lot of yellows and bright oranges on the tile but they don't have much of a shade table so when you're
in a regularly lit room, the tile looks fine



but as soon as you step into a darker sector this happens



Maybe i'm being nitpicky but stuff like that is a bit of an eyesore and there's a lot of it to go around in this mod. There's not too much work to fixing it though, believe it or not. I went ahead and did a black and white adjustment on the pistol tile, pasted it back in and then jumped on editart. After darkening it a few shades and doing some cut and pasting, i came out with this



which imo looks a lot nicer but more importantly has a enough colors to handle the different shade values without the overall scheme getting borked.




Still though, credit where it's due, there are a lot of tiles and textures that are pretty well done. I love the edits that were done to some of the babes and hooker sprites, it's just that the other tiles need that same tlc.

All in all i'd say this is a decent effort largely for the fact this that's clearly what was put into it; effort. I feel like the problems i've pointed out were more oversights than deliberate corner cutting. IDK what your vetting process was or where you plan to go from here, but my suggestion is to hit up somebody for some sorta closed beta testing before releasing it. You've got the bedrock of something good, just not the polish.

[Never Forgotten]

Thank you! This is what I need. A lot of times I just get people that say "You need to fix things." But they don't specify what exactly. I can promise you that, moving forward, I will take a lot of what you've said and work it in. A good chunk of the first and second maps were made before I was at the level I am now. For example, the parking Garage in the second map, was actually the first thing I made for this... I actually made most of that in 2014, which was supposed to be the entirety of the first map. As for the Golden Desert Eagle, I'm probably going to just do the black & white thing, because you're right, it looks much better. I'll go back through and make a lot of edits to the textures' alignments. As for the other textures that don't transfer well, I will do what I can, but it's hard when Duke 3D has a very specific palette, and I'm using Paint.net to make my textures. But rest easy, I will go back and edit the first two maps before release... which is currently 'When it's done'. But thanks again, this is really going to help going forward.

[Never Forgotten]

CruX, on 05 August 2017 - 11:07 AM, said:

The flow works for the most part but in the first level a vent shaft takes you to what i can only assume was intended as a secret area but wasn't actually completed because there's a weird choice of floor texture and once you're down there you can't get back out. What was the deal with that?

That area, if I'm thinking of the right one, is complete. There is a secret in the room which helps you get out, it's not too obvious, so I'll work on that. As for the flooring, how is it a weird choice? I'm just curious because I want to make sure everything seems fine.

[necroslut]

I like it. I like that the maps generally are not over-detailed, although there certainly are some areas that look better than others. But mostly it IMO both plays and looks good, and the levels have a decent sense-of-location. I also enjoyed the plentiful secrets and destructibility.
As CruX mentioned there are a few places where you can get into an area but not out, and a secret in the second level that I don't think can be reached (the freezer near the start, can't make the jump due to hitting the ceiling).

I hope you'll keep working on it, I'd definitely play the full version. Generally it reminds me of "classic" mods, which some would take as an insult but not me. But for the love of god, make the new babe sprites killable --

[Never Forgotten]

necroslut, on 10 August 2017 - 12:27 PM, said:

I like it. I like that the maps generally are not over-detailed, although there certainly are some areas that look better than others. But mostly it IMO both plays and looks good, and the levels have a decent sense-of-location. I also enjoyed the plentiful secrets and destructibility.
As CruX mentioned there are a few places where you can get into an area but not out, and a secret in the second level that I don't think can be reached (the freezer near the start, can't make the jump due to hitting the ceiling).

I hope you'll keep working on it, I'd definitely play the full version. Generally it reminds me of "classic" mods, which some would take as an insult but not me. But for the love of god, make the new babe sprites killable --

I'm so happy it reminds you of a classic mod. I'm trying to go for the classic Duke feel. Also, how would one go about making the new sprites killable? :3