Putrefier

[cacomonkey]

Okay, I just played this in one sitting and it's incredible, easily one of my favorite pwads of all time. Seems like an episode from a commercial quality game. Final boss was amazing and seemed pretty damn unique. Ed might have a future as a professional game developer, it's that good. Now I think I'll track down the prequel Valhalla because this was so good, and, to be frank, help me understand what the hell was going on. All I knew is I had to kill that baddie & his blobs. A very satisfying pwad that seemed to come out of nowhere.

[Paul]

As others have said, the doors/switches blend in too much, and the backtracking is confusing and frustrating.

[.+:icytux:+.]

Very very good looking map. Definitely up the top and probably the most visually pleasing map I've played, ever.

But as already mentioned, the layout of the map is terrible. First reading the comments about it in the topic I thought it couldn't possibly be so bad that visuals couldn't cover up the minor flaws. But after playing it, I must say the layout was really really very bad. After a while it just became so tedious, to run around in the same rooms searching and searching for the next switch to flick. You couldn't admire the good looking areas anymore after seeing them so many times while trying to find where to go. And it was almost provocative how after running around for so long, you find the way to progress forward, only to see a small little room with another switch, leading to another long switch hunt. I know this has probably been acknowledged by now seeing quite a lot of people have mentioned this. But I just want to further clarify how big of a problem it is. What also made it worse was that the small switch rooms to another lead to fighting in the same areas all the time with monsters teleporting in, which works in small amounts, but this kind of mechanic through the whole map was kind of booring.

What I suggest is really redesigning the progression in the map, and I don't mean just color coding switches or using camera textures, the whole back and forth thing isn't really fun. Instead have the switches open stuff that is much closer to the switch itself, use teleporters or ditch many of the switches and instead of having areas sealed off, let the player enter them at once, making it a bit more non-linear at the same time. This might make the map a little less lengthy time-wise. But honestly it is worth it and it kind of needs to be shortened down, you spend way too long in the same small areas atm. It is a visual masterpiece ruined by bad layout, it deserves better.

Oh and the boss room was completely pitch black for me, I didn't see anything in it except for some computer terminals and the fullbright boss "cell". I had to cheat and use the infrared powerup to see what a beautiful boss it actually was. (Final version)

[Matt]

I like Icy's suggestions. Perhaps even better, scrap most of the complicated sequences, make the exit location known early on (even if you may have to kill the boss first), then have lots of side routes and secrets open and accessible at any reasonable time so the player is free rather than forced to explore.

[Paul]

Oh and the boss room was completely pitch black for me, I didn't see anything in it except for some computer terminals and the fullbright boss "cell". I had to cheat and use the infrared powerup to see what a beautiful boss it actually was. (Final version)

Oh my gosh, you're right.

I thought the final boss was a lamp...

It was so dark, it just looked like snow or dust or some gray stuff to me...

This is how it looked for me:
Large picture (1440x900)

---

[Matt]

...why don't you have any textures?

[wildweasel]

...why don't you have any textures?

I wonder if he's using the Additive dynamic lighting. If the textures aren't lit by sector-based lighting, dynamic lights in additive mode will give them a "milky" appearance.

[cacomonkey]

Oh and the boss room was completely pitch black for me, I didn't see anything in it except for some computer terminals and the fullbright boss "cell". I had to cheat and use the infrared powerup to see what a beautiful boss it actually was. (Final version)

Oh my gosh, you're right.

I thought the final boss was a lamp...

It was so dark, it just looked like snow or dust or some gray stuff to me...

This is how it looked for me:
Large picture (1440x900)

---

Wow. Yeah, something got totally fubared there. It's even missing the panel that shot the plasma ammo at you. I tend to use only one enhancement mod (Particle Fire Enhancer) for fear that too many are going to f**k up my visuals or break something. I thought this was a quite impressive boss for a usermade mod.

[Enjay]

The boss certainly didn't look like that for me.

I found the boss to be a really interesting addition to the game BTW. It was something nice and different and definitely not a typical Doom boss fight.

[Paul]

. It's even missing the panel that shot the plasma ammo at you.

To be fair, i typed notarget in the console and noclipped over to there just to demonstrate, so that's why it isn't there.


Anyway, yeah, it was the additive lighting. Dang.

[.+:icytux:+.]

Ah I see, out of some reason I was playing without dynamic lights on, oh well. That explains why finding some things was extra hard without the dyn-light highlightinging. However that doesn't make the layout any better. The boss battle was actually really enjoyable this time around though

[Clonehunter]

Geez, I haven't played a *ton* of more recent Doom mods and maps, but as of now, this is the most gorgeous thing I've seen in Doom so far in terms of design and the use of ZDoom. Those doors that slid open actually made me jump a bit. Sound and music choices were great, and the thing actually lagged for me (I have a shit computer lol), and I'm guessing because of all the effects. Not unplayable though. Though, as a lot of people have been saying, some switches blend a bit to well.

Otherwise this was fun to shoot around in and just great to look at at a whole. From what I've seen in Doom so far, which hasn't been a lot truthfully, this was awesome.