Putrefier

[Ed_C]

Don't worry too much about game-play - I put it together on Saturday so beta-testing would be more than walking around a vacant tech-base. I'm interested in finding various bugs on different rigs (especially lighting/textures/performance issues) so I can get deep into tightening up the gunplay. If there's any areas that need brightening up other than the upper level, please let me know. That's the most helpful info right now as I'm working with a laptop monitor. It's a bit up in the air

Thanks for the kind comments - It's been a hell of a long time and a lot of work.

[Nash]

Hi Ed, I have a small suggestion, if you're going to tackle the lighting problem... if you select all of the dark sectors in Doom Builder 2, then input - for example - ++32 as the lighting, it will increase the lighting level by 32, relative to the previous lighting setting, so your previous lighting work won't be fully destroyed.

(Be sure to make backups in case you don't like the change).

I can tell a lot of work went into this mod, pretty sure the architecture is amazing but it's just too dark, IMO... like, black dark.

Either the above, or add more light constructs combined with dynamic lights to illuminate the scene better. You can leave a sector at 0 brightness and place a very large but somewhat-dim dynamic light to fake global illumination/ambient occlusion...

[NeuralStunner]

If you do need to assign a particular GL light mode for the map, there's [wiki=MAPINFO_options_for_GZDoom's_GL_renderer]MapInfo[/wiki] for that. No need for users to touch a thing.

As for fog, if you mean the radial fog, I believe that's specific to the Doom light mode.

Also, I'd recommend Standard light mode. It provides a very good span between light levels.

Your map is still purty though.

[Ed_C]

If you do need to assign a particular GL light mode for the map, there's [wiki=MAPINFO_options_for_GZDoom's_GL_renderer]MapInfo[/wiki] for that. No need for users to touch a thing.

As for fog, if you mean the radial fog, I believe that's specific to the Doom light mode.

Also, I'd recommend Standard light mode. It provides a very good span between light levels.

Your map is still purty though.

Ahh, thank you! This is very helpful!

[Armaetus]

that first screenshot gave some Morrowind vibes for some reason..

[Xaser]

Neural nailed it regarding the MAPINFO. Rather than change my settings, I edited the .pk3 to add Ed's recommended options:

Code: Select all

map map01 "Putrefier"
{
	sky1 = "SKY1", 0.0
	lightmode = 1
	fogdensity = 0
	music = "D_RUNNIN"	
	next = "MAP02"
}

That should do it, I believe. Looked great on my end, anyhow.

Speaking of, this was an excellently atmospheric map, with easily the best architecture I've seen in the Doom engine since ALL OF TIME. Gameplay was straightforward but works fine, though I'm a bit less keen on the progression -- a bit too much back-and-forth for my liking, especially considering that each switch had me asking "oh great, now what did THAT do?" -- some sort of camera lookahead thing might be nice, or you could cheat and stick automap markers where you need to go next.

Otherwise, I definitely enjoyed this. The fleshy bits were the most awesome (especially the one with the flashing light... @_@ ), and the boss-ish scene was done super-well. Tells all the story you need to know, and it's original to boot. Kudos.

(Also, if I'm reading the "mission history" screen correct, Doom 2 was in Dallas in the Edverse? That makes me feel somewhat less safe than usual. D: )

[zrrion the insect]

---

This is how I feel about the demo, excluding the fact that the switches and doors were a little difficult to locate (they kinda blend in with the walls)

[Ed_C]

Speaking of, this was an excellently atmospheric map, with easily the best architecture I've seen in the Doom engine since ALL OF TIME. Gameplay was straightforward but works fine, though I'm a bit less keen on the progression -- a bit too much back-and-forth for my liking, especially considering that each switch had me asking "oh great, now what did THAT do?" -- some sort of camera lookahead thing might be nice, or you could cheat and stick automap markers where you need to go next.

Otherwise, I definitely enjoyed this. The fleshy bits were the most awesome (especially the one with the flashing light... @_@ ), and the boss-ish scene was done super-well. Tells all the story you need to know, and it's original to boot. Kudos.

(Also, if I'm reading the "mission history" screen correct, Doom 2 was in Dallas in the Edverse? That makes me feel somewhat less safe than usual. D: )

Thanks man, I appreciate it. Sorry, Dallas just seemed.. right

I raised the entire global map lighting by 32, minus areas where 100% dark are required. I sacrificed a minor bit of contrast, but it should be a huge improvement for anyone that had issues with the map being too dark. Also, there's a shortcut installed right smack dab in the center of the map that completely re-structured the flow into a more circular styled progression. Really makes the map. Game-play is completely eviscerated as well - The new action sequences are a theatrical experience. Should be 100% soon.

[Nightfall]

So I get a shotgun and must face at least two arachnotrons, a mancubus and pinkies? I'm not pleased.

though it still looks nice.

[Gez]

So I get a shotgun and must face at least two arachnotrons, a mancubus and pinkies? I'm not pleased.

With good footwork, you can get to safety in the stairway. Then come out in front of the arachnotron, let the mancubus start their attacks, back away before the spider opens fire. You might need a few tries since you pretty much have to abort if the arachno starts to attack before the fatso.

Anyway, you can still get the big monsters to do the dirty work for you through infighting.

[Ed_C]

So I get a shotgun and must face at least two arachnotrons, a mancubus and pinkies? I'm not pleased.

though it still looks nice.

Game-play was thrown together quickly for the beta. Right now, it's almost completely different. When the final version is released, it will feel like an entirely new experience.

[Nightfall]

Don't get me wrong, the architechture and texturing is superb.
I'm just not a fan of taking out big monsters with just a shotgun.

[Ed_C]

Alrighty - This is the finalized version of Putrefier - Lighting has been brightened quite a bit. Besides the game-play, I added a pretty big short-cut in the center of the map that cuts travel time down significantly, as well as some little hints to help you along the way. There are some difficult parts, but when you know the fights, an experienced player should be able to get through on UV without bashing his/her keyboard too much.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3161bnui5or1b62

So long as there aren't any outright bugs to be found, I'm calling it a wrap.
Big thanks to Nash & Xaser for the lighting info and especially Essel for a truck-load of input / beta testing along the way.

[Matt]

Okay, the map looks amazing but the gameplay is atrocious. Maybe I just need to play in a darker room with the sound on or something, but...

Constant reliance of having monsters arbitrarily teleport behind you that you can't plan for without having previously played the map. After the sixth or seventh time I just sighed, IDFA'd and cleared the room with the BFG.

Completely unclear what any given switch does and any descriptions given are completely useless. There are points where you have to search the entire map seen thus far before eventually running into monsters and inferring that whatever thing that needs to be done next must be somewhere not unreasonably far away.

I've probably missed two or three switches just because I couldn't see them amidst all the visual noise.

WHERE ARE THE KEYS. I noclipped through what I think was the entire map and haven't found them.

That said, the atmosphere was great, esp. early in the map with that red corridor - best use of stealth monsters I've seen in a long time.

[Enjay]

Wow! Just Wow! This has to be one of the best looking maps I have played. It's amazing. If it wan't for the Doom monsters running around, I'd swear that it was a Quake2 map but not one of the originals, it would have to be a newer map with more detail and better looks that those in the original game. It's definitely not for a weak computer. Mine is pretty respectable and I could feel some slow-down in the out doors area (nothing problematic though).

I didn't have a problem with any of the fights and supplies were fine. I do hate archviles though and they were over used in this map for my tastes. I did eventually find all the keys and was able to complete the map without cheating.

Any complaints? Well, yes, and it's quite a big one. Much as Vaecrius was saying, it suffers horribly from the "WTF did that switch do" syndrome and huge periods of backtracking back and forth across the map.

In retrospect, I can see the repeated logic of how the switch hunting panned out and I was starting to get the hang of what I was likely to need to be able to do by the end but at least half of my time must have been spent wandering around an empty map trying to figure out what to do and where to go. Given that I was there to kill demons (no Enjay, you are the Demons) spending around half my time wandering empty corridors with no real threat spoiled the atmosphere and generally detracted from the experience.

There is a lot of back tracking to previously explored areas to find a newly opened door that, other than maybe having seen it at some point earlier, there was no real clue that you were going to have to go back through the corridors to find that particular (now open) door. Even when rooms opened quite nearby, they didn't necessarily seem to be logically and obviously nearby so it was possible to miss a newly opened area and wander around half the map looking for it (something that experience taught the player might be necessary) only to find that it was actually much nearer than your travels had taken you. Even on finding the areas, they were often just a small room with a switch that was opening something miles away in the map that you then had to wander to find yet again.

The pattern seemed to be:

• go into new area
• flick a switch
• find the near-ish small room that has now opened (with little ceremony to identify it for you)
• flick the switch therein
• realise that this has probably opened a room waaaay back in the map somewhere
• wander around until you find that room
• flick the switch therein
• realise that you now have to go back to where you were two switches ago to where you will now be able to open a door that you were standing beside almost 5 minutes real-time earlier.

I know that you did try to make things easier. Once the player got to new areas, convenient ways to help the back-tracking did open up but, IMO, the backtracking is excessive, doesn't give you enough hints and has such a diffuse logic that the player may well forget what their goal was by the time that they eventually find the critical switch. Perhaps camera textures by the switches or colour-coded textures or something like that would help but a significant revision of the map logic would help even more.

Vaecrius also makes the reasonable point that the switch textures themselves are not particularly obvious - I did miss a couple initially but I did learn what to look out for by the end. I would also add to that the fact that some of the door/openable areas blended with the scenery too. This was not so much the case with the ones that the player has to activate right there in front of him but, rather, the ones that open remotely. So, on flicking a switch and not seeing anything immediately nearby opening, I would be left with the problem of figuring out what had just opened but I may not have even spotted that there was something that might be openeable in the first place. So, once again, it came down to wandering the map looking for that newly opened switch room that was *somewhere* in the map.

I know that I have gone on about it quite a bit but the reason is that the architecture of the map is superb and the fights are, for the most part, perfectly fine. However, if this had been just any old map, the gameplay would have been enough for me to give up half way through, maybe god-mode-noclip around the map just to see if there was anything interesting and then quit, delete the map and never play it again. This map deserves better treatment than that.

WHERE ARE THE KEYS. I noclipped through what I think was the entire map and haven't found them.

They are there but once you find something that needs one, you will basically have to work back through the map almost to the other side of the key requiring barrier (flicking switches, backtracking again, and finding rooms as you go) before you can get into the area that has the key.