ZDoom Community 2018 HeXmas Special! [Final Release]

[Rachael]

Aye, can't read your mind mate.

[Marisa Kirisame]

We've already fixed that along with a couple other issues.

Might want to do a RC2.

[Rachael]

This is why we do release candidates, aye?

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Click Here To Play The Second Release Candidate!

[Rachael]

Third release candidate available here!

This will most likely be the final one before release.

[Whoah]

Just finished this with Hexercise, and I gotta say, these maps were fun as shit! Especially that last one. It was super atmospheric, and I absolutely adored it. Although, admittedly, the ending felt pretty abrupt to me, especially considering the events of the final map. Taking away my weapons after every map also kinda bugged me, but that's kinda personal, I guess. Anywho, all in all, I digged this a whole lot, and I'm really happy Hexen is getting more attention.

[Rachael]

Just finished this with Hexercise, and I gotta say, these maps were fun as shit! Especially that last one. It was super atmospheric, and I absolutely adored it. Although, admittedly, the ending felt pretty abrupt to me, especially considering the events of the final map. Taking away my weapons after every map also kinda bugged me, but that's kinda personal, I guess. Anywho, all in all, I digged this a whole lot, and I'm really happy Hexen is getting more attention.

Thank you!

By the way, RC4 is now out. In RC4, Marisa added some interactivity hints to Viridescent. Getting very close to release!

[Rachael]

It's released!

Click here to download v1.0!

Note: The archive is compressed using LZMA, which is unreadable in SLADE3. If you have a big problem with this, you can use the RC4 instead, which has exactly the same content except "deflate" compressed.

[Marisa Kirisame]

Yeah, I'm surprised that after all this time slade still has no support for that (nor for pk7, either).

[StroggVorbis]

Sorry for commenting so late, but the whole mapset was fantastic!
Only complaint I have is that it's so short
I should have reported this earlier, but here goes:

In the first map, Frostbite, the valve you turn to melt the ice is not one linedef, but split into multiple. Meaning you can use it a few more times, overflowing the water beyond the ceiling.
Also, the bishops later on that "drop themselves and combined mana" often fail to spawn the mana, probably because the game thinks there's not enough room to spawn it depending on where they die.
Last thing: The spot which contains every class' green mana weapon has the monster spawn script assigned to each of them. So in theory it's possible to spawn up to three times the amount of monsters if one waits for them to leave their spawnspots (I actually found this out by playing with a selfmade mod that adds Doom weapons to Hexen + argv's use to pickup mod)

Question: Were the additional unused portals in the hub intended for more contributions? It's sad that this had less contributors than the last projects, but I'm no mapper.

In the final map, Viridescent, I love how there are so many possible routes. You can either spare or kill the Cleric (which you even gave the ability to heal himself with quartz flasks, nice detail!), granting you early access to the maulotaurs and each class' ultimate weapon, the Tim Allen easter egg and the optional discovery of D'Sparil's not so dead remains and the appearance of the ominous mirror man. I'm not sure if he's the same character from 20 Heretics or Soundless Mound, but still an interesting fellow. Was he put there as a plot device or are you teasing some possible future project? Can't wait to see what else you guys and gals have in store for us!

Enjoyed every bit of it. Despite my gripes with Hexen's combat/general gameplay, it deserves more love. Strife's next!

Edit: The shader for sanity damage causes view jitter/stutter without mouse smoothing. I think it's because of the interpolation handling again.

[fluffyshambler]

Sorry for commenting so late, but the whole mapset was fantastic!
Only complaint I have is that it's so short
I should have reported this earlier, but here goes:

In the first map, Frostbite, the valve you turn to melt the ice is not one linedef, but split into multiple. Meaning you can use it a few more times, overflowing the water beyond the ceiling.
Also, the bishops later on that "drop themselves and combined mana" often fail to spawn the mana, probably because the game thinks there's not enough room to spawn it depending on where they die.
Last thing: The spot which contains every class' green mana weapon has the monster spawn script assigned to each of them. So in theory it's possible to spawn up to three times the amount of monsters if one waits for them to leave their spawnspots (I actually found this out by playing with a selfmade mod that adds Doom weapons to Hexen + argv's use to pickup mod)

Question: Were the additional unused portals in the hub intended for more contributions? It's sad that this had less contributors than the last projects, but I'm no mapper.

Thank you for the bug reports. The bishops actually arent bugged, theres just an intended random chance for them to not drop mana. And I dont really get what you mean with the weapons. Each weapon only appears for its class, so the others should never be seen/touched.

To answer your question, they're just there for decoration, there were never more contributers.

[StroggVorbis]

About the weapons, if you play coop with 3 players total, they all occupy the same spot. Each time a player picks up their respective weapon, enemies are spawned. So if you move them away from their spawn position, you can let more spawn if another player picks up his weapon. Thus, the enemy ambush should be a walkover trigger or an invisible pickup instead of being assigned to all three weapons. You're right, on solo this doesn't occur, because only one class' spawnfilter is in effect.

As I said above, I didn't actually play coop. But with Doom weapons. My class' SpawnFilter is set to Any, so everything will spawn. The Hammer has been replaced by the SSG, the Firestorm by the Rocket Launcher and the Arc of Death by the Plasma Rifle. SInce Doomguy is able to pickup all weapons at once, this normally also doesn't occur, because the spawnspots are occupied by the first wave of monsters. But with Argv's Use-To-Pickup mod, you can pick them up one after the other, causing more enemies to spawn once the initial wave leaves their spawn position.

Another way to test this is to for example create a playerclass based on either Fighter, Mage or Cleric. Just set SpawnFilter to Any. This will cause all classes' weapons to appear. In Singleplayer, you can in fact pickup other classes' weapons, but you will only get ammo.

Deathking's MAP53: Armory is the only map in the base game where all weapons appear no matter which class you play as. There you'll see that you can pick them up but will only receive Mana.

[fluffyshambler]

About the weapons, if you play coop with 3 players total, they all occupy the same spot. Each time a player picks up their respective weapon, enemies are spawned. So if you move them away from their spawn position, you can let more spawn if another player picks up his weapon. Thus, the enemy ambush should be a walkover trigger or an invisible pickup instead of being assigned to all three weapons. You're right, on solo this doesn't occur, because only one class' spawnfilter is in effect.

As I said above, I didn't actually play coop. But with Doom weapons. My class' SpawnFilter is set to Any, so everything will spawn. The Hammer has been replaced by the SSG, the Firestorm by the Rocket Launcher and the Arc of Death by the Plasma Rifle. SInce Doomguy is able to pickup all weapons at once, this normally also doesn't occur, because the spawnspots are occupied by the first wave of monsters. But with Argv's Use-To-Pickup mod, you can pick them up one after the other, causing more enemies to spawn once the initial wave leaves their spawn position..

Ah, I see. Ill set the script to make the weapons not do anything afterwards.

[Manhs]

I finished it, yeah not long but the quality is here and it was awesome, even the little map was pretty cool with his atmosphere and little stuff!
Castle map is maybe my favorite custom Hexen map, it was such a great castle surrounded by snow with complex exploration loved it! (who made it?)
Other maps are great, last map is very special, good job for this amazing expansion! The start of the map with no item or weapons is a good idea to avoid too much mana or unbalance amount of items with hub.
NIce stuff

[Rachael]

That's what happens when you have people who contribute who really do care about their work and the project as a whole. Kudos goes to everyone else on the team for their excellent craftsmanship.

[Paar]

Castle map is maybe my favorite custom Hexen map, it was such a great castle surrounded by snow with complex exploration loved it! (who made it?)

That was my doing, I'm glad that you have enjoyed it. It was my first Hexen map so I'm happy it turned to be fun. I did a Heretic map last year that's focused on exploration too so you could try it if you want.

I would like to thank everyone who have participated on the project to have the patience to finish it. It was my first collaboration and I hope not the last.