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TheDoomGuy wrote:Would it kill you to go all one way or the other? I fail to see why there's a mix of 2D and 3D scientists..... I'm just puzzled as to why the mixing exists.
Indeed, when the idea was first introduced to have a mix of (static) scientist models and animated scientist sprites, there was some concern among Team members about how it would appear. But given that the sprites are reasonably high-res rips of the models, we figured there would not be too much of a disparity. [For the record, I was the one who pushed for having both, while Enjay & DBThanatos expressed some reservations.]
So, no, it would not have killed us to go one way (there's no "other", as animating the .mdl format models would have taken impossibly long, which is why we could not use models all the way). Let's call it a creative disagreement. You think having both models and sprites looks shitty; I don't. If, however, you're going to judge the entire game on that basis [which, apparently, is what you've done:
I just had to quit
]
then all I can say is that you're probably missing out on a few hours of fun.
I'm sure Enjay was not overly offended by your critique, but I'm with him when he says that the weapon sprites are definitely not "stiff" and are no more grainy that similar rips in high-end DooM mods. If that is your criterion for choosing which DooM mods to play, then I'd say you have mighty slim pickings.
My only complaint about this mod is how the shotgun grunts fire their own shotgun faster than the player's. Their shotgun speed is the about the same in the original Half-Life. But, I like the smoke effects you put on the guns to make up for the lack of muzzle flashes.
ReX wrote:I'm sure Enjay was not overly offended by your critique
Indeed, I wasn't offended at all.
However...
TheDoomGuy wrote:I'm sorry if my critique of the inconsistency of model sprite-rips/actual models offends you. Would it kill you to go all one way or the other? I fail to see why there's a mix of 2D and 3D scientists.
Rex has now explained why that mix is there and your point is a fair one. Indeed, as Rex said, it was one that we raised during development. We even anticipated the criticism and decided just to accept that it might happen. Rex was of the opinion that having some hi res or model actors lifted the overall average appearance of the mod to a higher position than sticking 100% with sprites. ie, the disparity of appearance was preferable to a more consistent approach at a lower standard.
As Rex said, I did express some reserve about this when it was first suggested but, when the models were put into the game, the lack of constancy didn't bother me in the way I thought it would and, frankly, I really don't mind one way or the other. There is a lack of constancy but the models do look good and they allow things like the sitting, despairing scientists which wouldn't really work as sprites. Anyway that wasn't my problem with what you said at all.
Because, even though you said...
TheDoomGuy wrote:I said the mod was good. I was just trying to offer some constructive criticism.
You also said..
TheDoomGuy wrote:I was able to get past the mix of idle 3D Scientists and Security Guards with 2D walking Scientists,
That's a fair point and I have no beef with it at all - as discussed above. I'd say it was more of just a comment than an actual constructive criticism but, either way, - as I said - fair enough.
However
TheDoomGuy wrote:but as soon as I picked up the pistol and saw the grotesqueness of the grainy, stiff ripped model, I just had to quit.
It was that bit that made me . Why? well, certainly not because I was offended but certainly not because it was "constructive" criticism either. I actually thought that you were, plain and simple, wrong in describing the pistol as grotesque, grainy and stiff. To a certain extent though, that's a matter of taste too (my point about it being better than the weapons in many mods still stands IMO).
The bit that really, really made me though was that the pistol sprite was enough to make you quit. If one weapon sprite that you consider to be ugly genuinely was the thing that was enough to make you quit a whole game, then, yes, it does seem that your decision to play or not was down to graphics. It wasn't gameplay, it wasn't that you didn't like the theme, it wasn't that you hated the levels, it wasn't that you found it too easy or too tough or too confusing, it wasn't that Half-Life or Paranoid isn't your thing, it was that the pistol was "grotesque".
As an aside, during the last couple of weeks of development, I did muse to myself a few times that perhaps getting high-res grabs of all the weapons might be possible. Then I considered the time involved to do it (especially as we had set ourselves a deadline of 31st March), the number of frames involved, the time to prepare the graphics, to write and test a textures lump and the unreasonable extra load that doing so would put upon DBT (who was the person responsible for all our sprite rips - and a damn fine job he did IMO) at a time when he was very busy with other things too. So, I didn't even raise the question.
To put the sprites into context, the weapon sprites have existed for a very long time in the project's life and during that time, the mod has gotten higher and higher resolution, so to speak. Initially the weapons were utterly consistent with what we were working with (perhaps even in advance of much of the stuff) and very few hi-res weapons had ever been seen at all in Zdoom mods at the time. So the idea of hi-res weapons simply wasn't even considered I guess. I suppose that the weapons just got overtaken a little.
So, no, I'm not offended and I agree that you made a valid point about the disparity of appearance, one that I accept and am happy to live with. I just thought it was a bit sad that you said your reason for quitting was that you didn't like the look of the pistol.
doomhunter_175 wrote:I can't find the place where you have to shut down the auxilary power, so you then can press the switch to open that gate you need to go into.
Go to the western-most part of the map. There's a room clearly marked Turbine Control. There are 3 non-functioning main turbines, and one single operating turbine in its own room. Press the Power switch to turn off the auxiliary power. [Also, I think the hint message mentions "Western-most quadrant of this sector". You get this hint from the radio at the gate control switch.]
Incidentally, the zip file includes a text file with a complete walkthrough (as well as a text file telling you how to get all secrets. Note that Map06 is a secret level that many people may just miss, because in order to get into it you need to do something else on another map. The secrets.txt file outlines what you need to do, just in case you think you may have missed it. @doomhunter_175, you're still not at a point where you have to do anything to find Map06 - you have a little way to go.)
TheDoomGuy wrote:but as soon as I picked up the pistol and saw the grotesqueness of the grainy, stiff ripped model, I just had to quit.
It was that bit that made me . Why? well, certainly not because I was offended but certainly not because it was "constructive" criticism either. I actually thought that you were, plain and simple, wrong in describing the pistol as grotesque, grainy and stiff. To a certain extent though, that's a matter of taste too (my point about it being better than the weapons in many mods still stands IMO).
The bit that really, really made me though was that the pistol sprite was enough to make you quit. If one weapon sprite that you consider to be ugly genuinely was the thing that was enough to make you quit a whole game, then, yes, it does seem that your decision to play or not was down to graphics. It wasn't gameplay, it wasn't that you didn't like the theme, it wasn't that you hated the levels, it wasn't that you found it too easy or too tough or too confusing, it wasn't that Half-Life or Paranoid isn't your thing, it was that the pistol was "grotesque".
As an aside, during the last couple of weeks of development, I did muse to myself a few times that perhaps getting high-res grabs of all the weapons might be possible. Then I considered the time involved to do it (especially as we had set ourselves a deadline of 31st March), the number of frames involved, the time to prepare the graphics, to write and test a textures lump and the unreasonable extra load that doing so would put upon DBT (who was the person responsible for all our sprite rips - and a damn fine job he did IMO) at a time when he was very busy with other things too. So, I didn't even raise the question.
To put the sprites into context, the weapon sprites have existed for a very long time in the project's life and during that time, the mod has gotten higher and higher resolution, so to speak. Initially the weapons were utterly consistent with what we were working with (perhaps even in advance of much of the stuff) and very few hi-res weapons had ever been seen at all in Zdoom mods at the time. So the idea of hi-res weapons simply wasn't even considered I guess. I suppose that the weapons just got overtaken a little.
So, no, I'm not offended and I agree that you made a valid point about the disparity of appearance, one that I accept and am happy to live with. I just thought it was a bit sad that you said your reason for quitting was that you didn't like the look of the pistol.
Interesting. It made you sad?
I was just saying, I've actually played dozens of mods with 2D rips. It just gets old... the models weren't meant to be viewed statically. They were meant to flow. When you use weapon model rips, when you walk, it just looks like moving a flat picture around.
I just felt that, after all the illogicality in other mods using a mixture of actual models and 2D model sprite rips, I actually thought, for once, someone had gone above and beyond all the others.
Please don't be so offended by my comment... I may have used somewhat harsh words, but don't read into them--I've actually been playing Paranoid for the past few days quite a bit, and it's loads of fun. The level design is brilliant, and is actually, in my opinion, on par with the original Half-Life's.
TheDoomGuy wrote:I was just saying, I've actually played dozens of mods with 2D rips. It just gets old... the models weren't meant to be viewed statically. They were meant to flow. When you use weapon model rips, when you walk, it just looks like moving a flat picture around.
Your point is well taken. However, perhaps a little background will help you understand why we did things this way. The project actually started about 3 years ago, at which time it was intended for ZDooM only. About a year later, after quite a bit of work had already been undertaken, Enjay recommended we consider using GZDooM as the game platform, mainly because it would allow true 3D architecture. Models followed soon after that decision, but by then we were already committed to the path of using sprites for enemies & weapons. In fact, a long time back I had asked a question on either ZDooM or GZDooM forums (or both) about using models for all actors, but as GZDooM does not support .mdl format, we could not go with models for enemies, weapons, or NPCs without an inordinate amount of extra work. At that stage, no one on the Team had the level of modeling experience required to restructure and re-animate all the original H-L models. Moreover, DBT had put in a lot of work into ripping high-res sprite versions of all the weapons, enemies, and NPC, and coding their behavior, (and, in our opinion, had done a superior job of it) that we never even considered switching to models, even after the game kept adding models as decoration.
So, in answer to your point, there was too much invested into the game to consider switching from sprite-based visuals to models (even if we had the time, patience, and know-how to do it).
I just felt that, after all the illogicality in other mods using a mixture of actual models and 2D model sprite rips, I actually thought, for once, someone had gone above and beyond all the others.
If we could have created the game with just models, there'd be no one more happy than me. But, as I explained above, it was beyond our capabilities & resources at the time.
..... I've actually been playing Paranoid for the past few days quite a bit, and it's loads of fun. The level design is brilliant, and is actually, in my opinion, on par with the original Half-Life's.
Well, I for one am thrilled that you didn't let your dislike for the model-sprite mix get in the way of experiencing the rest of the game. The Team beleives it has created a somewhat unique gaming experience within the DooM universe. As Enjay put it: It's not DooM; it's not Half-Life; its Paranoid.
Please continue to give us feedback, whether complimentary or othwerise. We have more planned, and we'd like to improve wherever it's feasible.
There is an up/down switch (much like in elevators) that raises/lowers a box. If it is quickly pressed again before the action is complete, it is possible to get the box to lower into the floor, and cannot be reversed (only glitching downwards)
Another bug?:
I found one of those brown spitting creatures attack one of those big pink slapper-tentacle-arms. Probably infighting, I'm not sure if this is intentional. Also saw a zombie and a zapper (big-red-eyed guy) battle it out.
And another one?
I saw a security guard repeatedly shoot at a barnacle (I think thats what they are called? The ceiling fags with long "tongues") but not actually hitting the poor thing.
Spoiler:
I triggered this.. nice music after speaking with Dr. Zimmerman (i think), is this intentional, or the fact that I triggered something "using" him again and goofing around the toilet next to him randomly pressing use?
<3 rocketlauncher. I love how it one shot kills those big nasty "fly shooters"
I played on medium, and there were plenty of ammo at all times.. in fact I couldn't switch fast enough between the shotgun and machinegun to keep both from maximum ammo. I found the pistol ammo lying around pretty useless. I managed to gib two soldiers with the magnum btw, great fun.
I found the boss battle rather poor. Had to grab all those supplies from the top of those boxes (and the secret one, even harder to reach) but I got fried by the floorhugger attack of the boss nearly every time. (I also think those big projectiles the boss and the flying monkeys can shoot are too damaging) It costed me more in health and armor to get the health/armor pickups from on the crates, so I only gone up there once each to grab the rockets/backpacks/grenades before the lot of minions spawned in.
I was so frustrated that I eventually godmoded the fight, even though I got close to beating it several times (about to 2K/10K health viewed through linetarget command) before I ran out of rockets and grenades totally (as I jumped down to the area, i only had 10 grenades and no rockets at all because I used up my last ones on those fly shooting beasts before.)
By the end of the game I also got used to always looking behind me whenever there were teleporting-in monsters ahead.
I really loved the architecture and it was fun clearing out the area of enemies. I probably missed several areas and some secrets (I had only 62% of them in the end) But I killed 91% of the enemies.
I also missed quite a few radios and at first was confused on how to use it, but it was fine. (For those of you wondering how to use them: They're inventory items, their icon looks like a button of a keyboard, to switch between them just browse through your inventory)
I think automated radio message recieving might have been slightly better though.
For the size of the maps, I only got lost a very few times and most of it was pretty straightforward. Only one time did I have no idea where to go next, but I got back on track in minutes.
The playthrough took me 4 hours and 23 minutes.
A few gripes:
- Architecture is impressive, but repetitive, end up getting lost quite a bit
- Weapon reloading
- Maps take forever and a half to load, even the titlemap...
- Extremely resource-intensive, frequent freezings, etc. I think a Doom engine, even a hardware-accelerated one, is basically not what should be used as a base for this kind of aesthetics. I can play Half-Life with ten times the FPS, so what's the point... (other than not having to go through Steam, of course )
There is an up/down switch (much like in elevators) that raises/lowers a box. If it is quickly pressed again before the action is complete, it is possible to get the box to lower into the floor, and cannot be reversed (only glitching downwards)
Oops. That probably needs a TagWait command instead of the Terminate instruction.
Another bug?:
I found one of those brown spitting creatures attack one of those big pink slapper-tentacle-arms. Probably infighting, I'm not sure if this is intentional. Also saw a zombie and a zapper (big-red-eyed guy) battle it out.
We had hoped that we could incorporate "team" behavior, so that all aliens would be one one side, human soldiers on another, and scientists & security guards would be friendly. Unfortunately, at the time of initial development this did not appear to be possible. And turning off infighting meant it had to be done for all enemies - it could not be done selectively. Which would mean that the human soldiers would not attack the aliens, and vice versa. In the end we decided to keep infighting. So, no, what you observed was not a bug or oversight.
And another one?
I saw a security guard repeatedly shoot at a barnacle (I think thats what they are called? The ceiling fags with long "tongues") but not actually hitting the poor thing.
Yes, I too have noticed that (it's most noticeable on Map01 after the player returns to it). The only thing I could figure is that there is a limit on the z-aiming of that actor. DBT would be in a better position to address this.
I triggered this.. nice music after speaking with Dr. Zimmerman (i think), is this intentional, or the fact that I triggered something "using" him again and goofing around the toilet next to him randomly pressing use?
Intentional. It's meant to create a slightly depressing mood - what with you leaving a wheel-chair bound old man to what will almost certainly be his death.
<3 rocketlauncher. I love how it one shot kills those
Spoiler:
big nasty "fly shooters"
Heh. Heh. Btw, this is specifically stated as a tip in the file named ReadThis.txt.
I played on medium, and there were plenty of ammo at all times.. in fact I couldn't switch fast enough between the shotgun and machinegun to keep both from maximum ammo. I found the pistol ammo lying around pretty useless.
Are you suggesting we cut back on ammo at Medium skill? The reason we left extra ammo in there is to allow players who generally play recklessly to continue doing so.
I managed to gib two soldiers with the magnum btw, great fun.
The Magnum is very effective against soldiers at a distance. Possibly the only other weapon that is more devastating at a distance is the RPG Launcher.
I found the boss battle rather poor. Had to grab all those supplies from the top of those boxes (and the secret one, even harder to reach) but I got fried by the floorhugger attack of the boss nearly every time. (I also think those big projectiles the boss and the flying monkeys can shoot are too damaging) It costed me more in health and armor to get the health/armor pickups from on the crates, so I only gone up there once each to grab the rockets/backpacks/grenades before the lot of minions spawned in.
The Team debated this end-boss fight. Originally, I thought it might have been too easy, so we toughened it up. If a player goes in
Spoiler:
loaded with RPGs and M16 grenades, doesn't waste time collecting additional goodies, and immediately proceeds to pound at the Gargantua, s/he can weaken it sufficiently that by the time the other enemies start teleporting in, it becomes a matter of dodging the projectiles and pounding away at the Gargantua with the Magnum. It's still a challenging fight, but it's not frustrating. If, however, you go in low on RPG & M16 grenades, you're forced to waste time collecting them and can get overwhelmed.
So you can see that there was definitely a strategy built into the fight, and it was not done to make it ridiculously difficult.
i only had 10 grenades and no rockets at all because I used up my last ones on those fly shooting beasts before.)
The trick is to
Spoiler:
ignore the other enemies and focus on the Gargantua.
I really loved the architecture and it was fun clearing out the area of enemies. I probably missed several areas and some secrets (I had only 62% of them in the end) But I killed 91% of the enemies.
Paranoid is as much a game of exploration as it is of action. Indeed, many would argue that it could have been more action-packed. However, underlying the creation of each map, and the hub as a whole, was the theme of realism and the sense of being in a real place. That's why you'll see, for example, doors that lead nowhere. [Case in point is the bottom floor of the prison, where a ramp leads down to a door that does not open. One may ask why have that door there at all, if it can never be used. But consider that the bottom floor is a storage space with large crates. How did they get in there?] But I'm sure you've figured all this out. My point is that I hope players will stop to take in how things make sense wherever they go (teleporting aliens aside ). Or if they've played it completely and done so primarily for the action, they will go back and just walk around the space.
By the way, did you find the secret map? It's in the Map06 slot.
I think automated radio message recieving might have been slightly better though.
We did consider that during our discussions on how to deliver hints to the player. We decided that they should be delivered as "voice mail messages" instead of "live" - imagine unintentionaly picking up a radio while in the middle of a fight and being distracted by an audio and on-screen message. This was one of the reasons we decided to include a text file with instructions. By the way, most players will not even realize this, but using F1 on your keyboard brings up a nifty, customized Help Screen that tells you the basics of what you need to know.
I did not notice that; I wonder what's up. We'll check into it.
And now, a request. Would you please post your thoughts and suggestions on The Persecution Complex forums too? It will allow us to keep all comments in one place, and help us manage our responses better. You can simply copy and paste from your comments above. Thanks.
TheDoomGuy wrote:Please don't be so offended by my comment... I may have used somewhat harsh words, but don't read into them--I've actually been playing Paranoid for the past few days quite a bit, and it's loads of fun. The level design is brilliant, and is actually, in my opinion, on par with the original Half-Life's.
But, but, I thought you quit?
Seriously though, I'm glad that you are enjoying it and, no, I wasn't at all offended. I was just dissappointed, I guess, that someone on a forum dedicated to an old game seemed to be giving up on a project simply because the weapons were sprite based model rips. You've made your points clearly now and I don't really have any issue with anything you said.
Dancso wrote:There is an up/down switch (much like in elevators) that raises/lowers a box. If it is quickly pressed again before the action is complete, it is possible to get the box to lower into the floor, and cannot be reversed (only glitching downwards)
Good catch. It'll probably just need something like a delay or a tagwait put into the script so that the switch doesn't become available before it should do.
On infighting generally, we did spend a bit of time making sure that the soldiers would not attack each other but we figured that infighting between a bunch of aliens, especially when some are supposed to be an oppressed slave race, was fair game. However, we've been given the offer of a more sophisticated "team" system to add to the game so that may get incorporated.
Dancso wrote:
Spoiler:
I triggered this.. nice music after speaking with Dr. Zimmerman (i think), is this intentional, or the fact that I triggered something "using" him again and goofing around the toilet next to him randomly pressing use?
Spoiler:
That music is meant to be there. It's "mood music" that is supposed to set a melancholy tone. Basically you are leaving an old, disabled guy to die in a dark, dank alien and soldier infested prison block and the music is supposed to support the poignancy of that.
Dancso wrote:
Spoiler:
I found the boss battle rather poor. Had to grab all those supplies from the top of those boxes (and the secret one, even harder to reach) but I got fried by the floorhugger attack of the boss nearly every time. (I also think those big projectiles the boss and the flying monkeys can shoot are too damaging) It costed me more in health and armor to get the health/armor pickups from on the crates, so I only gone up there once each to grab the rockets/backpacks/grenades before the lot of minions spawned in.
I was so frustrated that I eventually godmoded the fight, even though I got close to beating it several times (about to 2K/10K health viewed through linetarget command) before I ran out of rockets and grenades totally (as I jumped down to the area, i only had 10 grenades and no rockets at all because I used up my last ones on those fly shooting beasts before.)
Spoiler:
The boss battle did undergo a lot of tweaking and changing. Part of it does depend how well equipped you are when you arrive and a bit of foreknowledge about the fight obviously helps too. Basically, if I can, I arrived as well loaded up with explosives as possible and pretty much ignore the secondary spawning monsters, concentrating entirely on the boss. The boxes and corners of the arena provide essential cover, particularly from the homing attacks. Anyway, if I adopt that policy, I can regularly drop the boss in around about 40 seconds from my arrival in the arena. In fact, because I could drop the boss that quickly, Rex was concerned for a while that the fight may not be tough enough. Just as well we didn't make it even harder eh?
Dancso wrote:I also missed quite a few radios and at first was confused on how to use it, but it was fine. (For those of you wondering how to use them: They're inventory items, their icon looks like a button of a keyboard, to switch between them just browse through your inventory)
I think automated radio message recieving might have been slightly better though.
We talked and talked about the help system and the best way to do it. The main reasons that it is the way it is now are:
1) It should only ever be regarded as optional. If you don't find a single radio, the game is still completable.
2) Some players won't want a hint system and can, therefore, just ignore the messages.
3) It's very easy to miss a message that gets printed to the screen if you receive it when you are busy. So, we thought that sticking it in the inventory was a good idea so the player can review it at his or her leisure.
I take your points but, although the message system isn't perfect, I quite like the way it works. BTW, how to use the messages is on the F1 help screen and in one of the text files.
Dancso wrote:The playthrough took me 4 hours and 23 minutes.
A pretty respectable time, especially for a first play through. I'd be interested to know where it was that you got stuck/lost if you can remember.
Dancso wrote:Some additional nitpicks:
Ahhh, STARTAN, gotta love it. That good old WadAuthor default texture. No idea why those tanks look like that for you though. I've never seen them looking like that. I wonder what happened there. If you load up the map and noclip directly to the tanks, do they look like that? The reason I ask is that I wonder if it is something to do with a hardware/rendering thing or is it because something has moved during the game somethow (I suspect the first option). This is how they look for me.
Spoiler:
Dancso wrote:Yeah so, awesome job. BTW, did this have to do anything with the usergroup "Vaporware"? I could swear I saw that usergroup a while ago.
Nope. The group has always just been "the Persecution Complex" on DRD.
Anyway, thanks very much for the feedback and nitpicks. I'm glad that you enjoyed playing.
Oh, I forgot that you mentioned the pistol ammo as "almost useless". However, the Beretta pistol is actually a very effective way of dealing with head crabs at a distance. It's pretty accurate and a shot or two from the pistol can kill them. That's what I mainly use the pistol for. Unlike you, however, I have never found ammo available in what I would describe as excessive quantities when playing on medium. It's not tight, but not overly generous for my playing style anyway.
[edit] Heh, it looks like Rex beat me to it. At least we said much the same thing. [/edit]
Last edited by Enjay on Fri Apr 02, 2010 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
Gez wrote:- Architecture is impressive, but repetitive, end up getting lost quite a bit
Yes, getting lost can be quite easy because of the size of the areas as well as non-linearity. We've tried to help out as much as possible by being specific in the hints regarding where to go next (e.g., "Western quadrant of this sector"), but we realize that players will still spend some time wandering around.
- Weapon reloading
It is indeed a departure from DooM. But for me, it changed my style of gameplay (in a positive manner) by forcing me to adopt another level of strategy while battling enemies. However, I agree that it's not everyone's cup of tea. But then, Paranoid is not meant to be DooM.
- Maps take forever and a half to load, even the titlemap...
They ought not to take forever to load, as all the node-building has already been done and GZDooM does not have to do that task. On the other hand, I've had major problems with frame rates and slow-downs on my (admittedly out-of-date) computer.
- Extremely resource-intensive, frequent freezings, etc. I think a Doom engine, even a hardware-accelerated one, is basically not what should be used as a base for this kind of aesthetics. I can play Half-Life with ten times the FPS, so what's the point... (other than not having to go through Steam, of course )
See my note above. I know this defeats the purpose of playing this particular game, but have you tried playing it at a lower video resolution?
In fact, in the past 3 months I've had such problems running Paranoid on my computer that I've often been forced to switch to god mode so that I won't get toasted by enemies while I'm moving in slo-mo.
[edit] and I see that Rex beat me to the punch here too. [/edit]
Gez wrote:- Weapon reloading
Normally I'd be tempted to agree but I thought that, in this mod with it's HL feel, weapon loading was exactly what was needed.
Gez wrote:- Maps take forever and a half to load, even the titlemap...
You should have seen them before we got the nodes built properly. Seriously though, map loading time for me hasn't been noticeably longer than any other big-sized maps that I have played. Without actually timing, I'd say it was well under a second for even the bigger maps.
Gez wrote:- Extremely resource-intensive, frequent freezings, etc. I think a Doom engine, even a hardware-accelerated one, is basically not what should be used as a base for this kind of aesthetics. I can play Half-Life with ten times the FPS, so what's the point... (other than not having to go through Steam, of course )
I have noticed that one of the resources that tends to give me a momentary stutter (and which, I assume, would be more pronounced on a slower machine) are the large composite textures. As you will be aware, there are a number of 3D buildings and some of these have a number of floors with (apparently) different textures on the walls. However, because these are really just 1 wall with some 3D floors dividing them up, there is only a single texture on them. So, the textures are sometimes very big multi-patch textures with the themes for the different floors on them and when you see those for the first time, there can be a loading stutter. Other than changing the resource, I'm not sure what can be done about that. Does caching GL textures help with that type of thing or is that just for external hi-res textures?
My machine has not had any problems playing Paranoid, but it is a pretty decent machine. In saying that, I ran through the entire game on my old machine too, just to see how it would work (2.8Ghz XP machine with 1GB RAM and a Geforce 6200) and although it was slower, at no point would I have described it as slow enough to cause me any problems. Rex, on the other hand, did have difficulty with his relatively low-spec machine. There does seem to be a bit of variation in how severely affected people are by the slowdowns. What are your system specs as a matter of interest?
As for the point of making the mod, I can't answer for anyone else but, for me, the point is fun. I'm not a Half-Life modder and have no intention of being one. But something like this interests me and I enjoy doing it. That's reason enough as far as I'm concerned. The challenge of making Doom look like Half-Life is part of it but, really, it is primarily the fun of editing a Doom TC (which I generally prefer these days than just editing Doom). Also, doing this mod means that people in this community will play it. I'm not in the HL-Community.
And then there's the Steam thing. (Even though all my HL discs (Half-Life, Opposing force, Blue Shift) are Pre-Steam ones.)
@Gez:
I didn't find the architecture any more repetetive than the original HL (which was... pretty tiny at best)
The only performance issues I've had were a few areas with slightly choppy FPS, but still very playable. I have an ATI card.
The maps loaded fine for me. Autosaves do take a bit of time (especially the first time after the game is started) but moving between maps in average didn't take more than three seconds.
There's this wonderous feeling of achieving amazing stuff in the old doom engine. It might not make sense to make a TC or something similar, but it does have a "value" to it.
@ReX & Enjay:
I triggered this.. nice music after speaking with Dr. Zimmerman (i think), is this intentional, or the fact that I triggered something "using" him again and goofing around the toilet next to him randomly pressing use?
Intentional. It's meant to create a slightly depressing mood - what with you leaving a wheel-chair bound old man to what will almost certainly be his death.
That music is meant to be there. It's "mood music" that is supposed to set a melancholy tone. Basically you are leaving an old, disabled guy to die in a dark, dank alien and soldier infested prison block and the music is supposed to support the poignancy of that.
Haha, i feel like a jerk now
It was the first ever music to have played during gameplay (i think?) and i wrote my post as i was playing (to not forget anything).
About the radio stuff. I meant that the player would get the inventory item when entering a sector or crossing a line, and have a simple one line "New message recieved" appear on screen like from a pickup, so the player would know its there but not necessarily have to listen to it straight away.
I've gone and tried to noclip straight to that area with the water tanks. It's still the same, indeed seems like it's a rendering issue. I have an ATI HD 4730 card, have pretty much all graphical settings maxed (except for that hires scale filter thingy, i don't like it.) and have all shaders turned off since they don't seem to work anyway. I also have no idea what the vertex buffer does but i have it off. Changing these settings doesn't seem to make any difference.
Also. Up to now I thought I was imagining things but now I managed to get a screenshot of a scientist in a rather comic point of view. http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3589 ... 004021.png
This is probably due to a fake floor/translucent 3D floor and the sprite facing the camera (not being totally vertical) I noticed this effect previously in a test map I made with several translucent 3D floors up to the hip of the player to make a floor-fog kind of effect. It splits sprites up and each one gets aligned to the camera view seperately.
During the boss fight i only concentrated on killing the boss. I used up all explosives on it and still it had like 2-3 thousand health left. By then I was also being chased by dozens of those huge projectiles aswell. If I hid behind a crate to relax a bit, the boss would fry my ass with the floorhugger projectile
I'll probably give it another go soon (but might uh.. "give myself" a few rockets first.)
I did use the pistol on headcrabs until about the latter half of gameplay, at which it was no problem to just waste a whole shot from the shotgun on them. It's possible that medium has too much ammo for my skill level.. but i would dare not to play this on difficult skill, I had a few nasty situations ("sniping" soldiers during early gameplay comes to my mind.. charging them would lead to death, so i had to shoot them to death with the pistol from a distance )
I think the point at which i forgot where i was supposed to go was when i obtained the first card, but I could be wrong.
EDIT: I think I did find the secret map... it was named something like "dirty... something?" was accessible
Spoiler:
from going in the dirty "water"
But i could not advance there at all so i headed back to the regulard maps, i didn't seem to get back there ever.
EDIT 2: Looks like there's a moderator approval system for new threads on the DRD forums. I might have accidently submitted the thread two times, sorry.
Yeah, no worries. I've approved your posts and deleted the first one as the second one had slightly more info in it. Thanks for posting. (It's only your first post that needs approval BTW, you're free to carry on posting without approval now.)
[edit] Oh, you did get to the scret level, but not the whole thing. The bit that you saw is kind of like a teaser for the level. You can't get any further if you go in that way. You need to look elsewhere entirely. Blame Rex, he loves making secrets that are hard to find.
[edit2] The tank and the scientist head do both look like rendering problems then. Seeing as how you are registered at DRD now, you could report it in the GZdoom bugs thread telling Graf when and where you experienced the bug and what your hardware is (+ driver version etc).
. Why? well, certainly not because I was offended but certainly not because it was "constructive" criticism either. I actually thought that you were, plain and simple, wrong in describing the pistol as grotesque, grainy and stiff. To a certain extent though, that's a matter of taste too (my point about it being better than the weapons in many mods still stands IMO). 
The level design is brilliant, and is actually, in my opinion, on par with the original Half-Life's.
)
(It's only your first post that needs approval BTW, you're free to carry on posting without approval now.)
