One for Wills ;)

[Enjay]

The ammo placement at the end seemed a little weird

In what way? I've got the final version sitting here just waiting for me to get around to running it through a couple of "other" source ports. I didn't notice anything hugely odd about the ammo placement near the end, but if you've any suggestions to "unweird" it, I can tweak it before I upload it.

[bagheadspidey]

It seemed like there was a bunch of ammo behind the mastermind that I never really needed. I finished him off with the shotty while the barons were distracting him, picked up a ton of rockets, hit switch, one more baron, blam blam blam, end of level. Never got to use the crate of rockets =(

Maybe I was supposed to run behind the mastermind and use those rockets to kill him? Anyway if there was a map02 a crate of rockets at the end of map01 wouldn't bother me at all ;)

(played on UV)

[Enjay]

OK, I guess the rockets are really there for choice - so the player can decide wither to rocket the spider or to use some other method. Somewhat conversely to your preference, I don't mind the player getting a bit too much ammo at the end of a level if there isn't another map to follow - because then the start of the next level won't be unbalanced.

The rockets are easier to get on easier levels because the spider is only there on UV. I agree that it is maybe a little tough to get them on UV. Perhaps I could make the rockets only in that location on easier settings and put a box only on UV somewhere in front of the spider chamber. On HMP, I usually duck behind the barons, pick up the rockets then use them on the barons, mopping up with whatever other weapon I have plenty of ammo for (usually the plasma gun). So, usually I finish the level when playing on HMP with 0 rockets. However, in UV, the size of the spider and the nature of its attack means it is pretty difficult to get the rockets on UV. I'll have a think about the best way to address that.

[edit] Hmmm, looking at the map again... I think I have an idea. But it's late so it will have to wait until tomorrow. [/edit]

[bagheadspidey]

Another idea might be putting a harder enemy (vile, maybe?) in that elevator at the end instead of a baron on UV... then the ammo placement might make more sense. Fighting a single baron by himself after fighting three barons and a mastermind felt a little anticlimactic.

edit - in after edit.

[Enjay]

Yes, an Archie in ther might make sense. However, I was trying to keep it fairly Doom (1) ish feeling. I know that I used Hell Knights and a few Chaingunners too, but I thought that their similarity to Doom-only monsters was acceptable. In most areas, I tried to keep the texturing quite Doom-ish too. An archvile is quintessentially Doom2 to me. However, it may well be a solution, although having it run around and ressurecting the fallen barons may make it too tough? So... I guess I'm not sure. Personally, I hate archviles.

The last baron wasn't so much supposed to be the end boss, but more join in the fight with the spider before it had ended as a sort of mini-trap to try and catch the player out. I've since altered it to make sure that the baron appears a bit sooner than he used to and can get out of the exit alcove more easily. Again, however, this tends to work better on HMP where he just reinforces the squad of barons in the room rather than appearing behind the spider and finding it difficult to get past it.

I suppose another solution might be to use a cyberdemon instead of a spiderdemon. That would be smaller, making it easiet to run past, and it's attack is easier to avoid whilst running in an open area too. However, the original map used a spiderdemon and I was trying to stick with the feel of the original battles where I could.

The thought I had last night (and I still haven't looked at it properly - at work ATM) was to make the two pillars that are in the earlier room (and which you can use for cover from the spider) have alcoves in them which open when the main door opens. I thought about putting the rockets in the alcoves with, possibly, another monster or two (probably low hit point annoyances like a demon rather than a big monster). That way the rockets would not be immediately apparent, but would be accessible in front of the spider and the fight could be made a little tougher as a result too.

[Enjay]

OK, I just uploaded the final version of this to /incoming. It won't be perfect (what is?) but I don't want to spend any more time on it as it was only ever supposed to be an afternoon's distraction and I've already spent longer on it than I intended. If I don't get it off my desktop, I'll probably just tweak and tweak it pointlessly and never release it.

In light of BHS's comments, I modified what happens when the baron comes down on the lift near the end to give you something to do with the rockets, and I also moved the ammo for the final fight in the way that I suggested. I shied away from using an archvile though.

I've tested it in a variety of ports and not had any problems (other than a couple of minor graphical glitches which seem to be bugs in Vavoom). It is possible to complete on any difficulty level and kill all the monsters that are not in secret areas without finding any secrets but, obviously, finding secrets makes things easier.

Tested in the following ports:

Zdoom
GZdoom
Risen3D
PRBOOM
EDGE
Legacy
PRBoom+
Doomsday
Skulltag
Chocolate
Vanilla
Vavoom

Given that it takes about 15 minutes to play, and in some ports I tried all 3 main difficulty levels too, that took a long time, almost longer than the editing took. However, I was enjoying comparing the merits of different ports - not something I do very often - so that was fun in itself.

[wolfman]

http://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/level ... chllnj.zip

Looks nice, and it was fun to play.

[Enjay]

Thanks, and thanks for the link. When I went to bed last night it hadn't been moved out of incoming yet.

Here is another mirror that has updated to the newer version (Greece).

ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/vendors/idgames/l ... chllnj.zip

Unfortunately, some mirrors don't have it yet and one (New York, I'm looking at you ) still has the older version.

Berlin as well now:

ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pc/msdos/games/i ... chllnj.zip

[Enjay]

One of the interesting things for me with this little project was trying all those different ports with it. As I said, it gave me an opportunity to try a number of different ports and compare them side by side. Not that anyone is interested, but here's my summary (not in any particular order):

Zdoom, GZdoom, Skulltag
Not too surprisingly, given how much time I spend here, the Zdoom based ports stood well above the others as my favourites. They play how I like, are solid, look good, have good features etc etc. Some of that will be due to my familiarity with the port(s) but, yeah, Zdoom ports were the best for me.

Risen3D
I know that Risen 3D isn't the most popular port, but I like it. I think it has a good solid feeling and it plays well. I quite often use it to play older, simple levels but with hi-res textures and models. So, playing this little WAD in it was ideal IMO. Of course, Sitters' maps, IMO, are worth installing Risen3D for alone (especially Genetic Disaster and Doom Dragon).

PRBOOM (and PRBOOM+)
Worked well enough but, IMO, was showing its age and didn't seem to have the sophistication of more recent ports. PRBOOM(+) just felt a little "rough around the edges" like it had been made at a time when the best way to alter and compile the released source to feel "right" hadn't quite been figured out. Perhaps, to a certain extent, that's true.

EDGE
I played with 1.31. I didn't used to be very keen on EDGE. To me, it felt clumsy, had awkward editing features and didn't seem to work very well. Increasingly, however, I like EDGE. The current version works well, plays well and feels very solid. Also, although I'm still not convinced by it, I like to sometimes load up a file and see how it looks with the HQ filters on. It almost gives the level a cartoony cell-shaded kind of feel, in quite a good way IMO. I wouldn't want to always play like that, but it's nice for a change. So, yeah, EDGE, I like it.

Doomsday
Despite the obvious similarity and family relationship between Risen3D and Doomsday, I personally prefer Risen3D. I prefer Risen's features and the way it looks. I don't like the default graphics options in Doomsday very much and, generally, I just find Risen3D better. What's more, with Risen3D, even though I still had to through a launcher to get the map loaded, the current Risen launcher is pretty straight forward. This is in marked contrast to Doomsday and Snowberry which took me a full 5 minutes to simply work out how to get the file running. It still beggars belief that something that should be one of the simplest operations in Dooming, loading a file - one of the most common things a user wants to do, and which is simple in most ports: even doom.exe was about as simple as you could get in 1993 - can be turned into the convoluted mess that is required to play files in Doomsday. Doomsday is, though, still a very reliable, solid port and, aside from the launcher issue, my preference for Risen3D is purely based on personal taste.

Chocolate
OK, time to confess. I have often been quite dismissive of Chocolate Doom (personally rather than publicly). I didn't really see the point. I didn't really get it. I have to confess, that I was very pleasantly surprised with it. It served as a brilliant reminder of why Doom is so good. It really is little more than doom.exe made to work reliably on a modern OS and that is the key to its success. OK, so for my day to day gaming, I don't want the blockier graphics, the often very restrictive engine limits, the fact that the Doomguy's neck has been welded stiff etc etc, but Chocolate Doom gives a very good, authentic reminder of just why Doom is so much fun. A surprise thumbs up for Chocolate from me.

Vanilla
Well, what can I say. It's the original. I can't play it properly without going through DOSBox, I can't configure a mouse with it the way I want, it runs at an appallingly low resolution etc etc. But it's Doom dammit.

Vavoom
I want to like Vavoom. I really do. But, IMO, it just doesn't work as well as it should. It was the only port that gave me any problems with this WAD (they were minor graphical glitches that didn't affect gameplay but they should not have existed, yet Vavoom managed to mess them up). Also, the sound is just... odd. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's not right. Same with how it feels to me. It's just not "right" IMO. Like I said, I want to like it. It has some very cool features. It introduced some stuff long before other ports adopted them and still has some powerful features that other ports do not have. It is an excellent editing environment and it genuinely brings some of the more modern game features into Doom. I want to like it, but it isn't making things easy for me.

Legacy
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. This was awful. It looked bad, sounded bad (very), played bad, had obtrusive "features" that altered the way the game played in a not-good way and simply didn't work as well as it should have. The only reason I have Legacy on my machine is to play the very occasional WAD that comes out specifically for it. Usually, when playing such a WAD, I give up at some point because Legacy likes to crash - a lot. This didn't happen on two play throughs of the map but boy was it painful. At least not crashing actually allowed me the "pleasure" of playing with Legacy for a full 30 minutes or so. I guess my summary is that if there was a joke or Mock category for ports, then Legacy would win the award hands down. It couldn't do much more to convince me that it was a Mock port unless it had a built in "randomize textures, create HOMs and put a Cybie in every level" feature. In fact, given that such complete awfulness has to be intentional, I'm pretty convinced that if I looked through the docs, I would find such an option. And I used to like Legacy way back in the dim, distant past when it was a DOS port.

[bagheadspidey]

whoo, that elevator went fast this time. Seems a little tougher, haven't made it through in one shot yet on UV.

Enjay, I'd be curious to hear your review of Eternity alongside those other engines...

[Enjay]

Enjay, I'd be curious to hear your review of Eternity alongside those other engines...

I wonder how I missed out Eternity. I had it installed, but DLd a new SVN version to make sure that I was as up to date as possible.

Eternity
Eternity is an engine that I have tried a number of times in the past but it's not one that I have particularly kept up to date with. To me, it always used to simply feel like another version of PRBoom and, as I have already said, PRBoom feels a little rough around the edges to me. However, I just played the map in Eternity and it felt pretty good. It's quite a nice mix-and-match of features that I like to have these days and an oldschool feel. However, at least "out of the box" there seemed to be a few minor customisation options that I would have liked, but which weren't there (or maybe I missed them). I also had difficulty with the music volume as Eternity's own volume slider seemed to have no impact on music volume, and it just seemed to be using the system volume instead (which was too loud at that point). Also, I personally have never found the Boom HUD particularly attractive. In particular, the font graphics look very flat and the whole thing looks quite "bitty" to me. However, it is optional and within that, there are a number of alternatives too. For some reason, the angle of the MLook seemed to be more restricted than it is in some other ports - however on comparing it with Zdoom, it wasn't. Not sure why it felt less to me. I also found myself getting slightly stuck on straight walls for some reason. Not a big issue, but it was sometimes just enough to hinder my progress slightly. Again though, that could be down to my lack of familiarity to the port and me simply not using the controls as adeptly as I might in a port that I am more familiar with.

From an aesthetic POV purely from the "admin" of the port, I find ports that use a menu system like Eternity's to look a bit messy. Pages and pages of options (sometimes with a hint of "I wonder what that description means - what does the option really do") may give high levels of customisability but, IMO also make setup a bit confusing and, again quite scrappy and bitty looking. Also, I believe that it is being addressed but having to press Ctrl as well as the arrow keys to change menu pages is a little too cryptic. Also, a lot of the options are pretty irrelevant to me so having pages of compat options also kind of irks me, somewhat illogically, but I would like it if ports could have some sort of customisability in their menu system to maybe hide all those additional optional menus. Aside from anything else, building a TC for a port where the finished product is not meant to be like Doom at all, but which has all sorts of Doom specific menu options is untidy. However, this is something of an illogical opinion because I also like options and don't believe that a mod should restrict an end user's ability to set them.

Bottom line, Eternity played a good solid game of Doom. It felt and looked pretty good. It clearly has some nice features and I am aware that it has a number of powerful additional editing features that are still being added to. It still comes low-ish down my list of ports that I like, but that is less to do with Eternity specifically and more to do with what I like about the others or the fact that they have more of what I like or use in comparison to Eternity.

[edit]Oh yeah, and something else: sometimes when I quit eternity, it messes up my icons so that files associated with various programs show an icon for the wrong program. Running eternity and quitting again tends to fix this when it happens, but (obviously) it shouldn't happen in the first place.[/edit]

[Viscra Maelstrom]

[quote="Enjay"]One of the interesting things for me with this little project was trying all those different ports with it. As I said, it gave me an opportunity to try a number of different ports and compare them side by side. Not that anyone is interested, but here's my summary (not in any particular order):




Doomsday
Despite the obvious similarity and family relationship between Risen3D and Doomsday, I personally prefer Risen3D. I prefer Risen's features and the way it looks. I don't like the default graphics options in Doomsday very much and, generally, I just find Risen3D better. What's more, with Risen3D, even though I still had to through a launcher to get the map loaded, the current Risen launcher is pretty straight forward. This is in marked contrast to Doomsday and Snowberry which took me a full 5 minutes to simply work out how to get the file running. It still beggars belief that something that should be one of the simplest operations in Dooming, loading a file - one of the most common things a user wants to do, and which is simple in most ports: even doom.exe was about as simple as you could get in 1993 - can be turned into the convoluted mess that is required to play files in Doomsday. Doomsday is, though, still a very reliable, solid port and, aside from the launcher issue, my preference for Risen3D is purely based on personal taste.

That's a shame, i like Doomsday, but since it is so hard to understand completely i might change to Risen 3D till Beta6 of Doomsday is released. What do you think, shall i switch?

[Enjay]

Well, personally, I really like Risen 3D so you'd be pushing against an open door there.

There has actually just been a new release of Risen 3D in the last few days and there have been some enhanced model packs to go with it too. You might argue that the new Zombies are not truly Doom like but in this case that's a good thing IMO because other models are still available if you want them, but Sitter's new Zombies are far more "natural" looking in their proportions and the way they move. So you have a choice. In fact, there are at least 3 different Zombie options IIRC, depending on which pack you install. Sitters, has also done some really nice models for other Doom items (the new tech lamps look really good IMO) and Risen3D now has proper skybox support too. Sitter's has also updated a few of his maps to take account of the new features.

[Snarboo]

That shotgun model actually looks pretty true to the original, but that's probably because it uses the original sprite for the texture. :)

[Viscra Maelstrom]

That shotgun model is Dreadus one, right? I have got an very gnawing feeling inside me that wants me to switch, but i'm not to sure. Have you encountered any problems in Risen 3D Enjay? I.e stupid amounts of lag, crashing, the game runs slow .etc .etc? Coz i don't want to switch to a modern port that has the same problems Doomsday have....


And lastly, is the installation so easy so even I can do it myself? I don't want to fiddle around with the installation so i have to do it over and over again.