[TCoTD : Apocalypse] Tchernoborg Replacement for Thamuz?

Scuba Steve · Post by **Scuba Steve** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 3:40 pm

I agree with a previous poster, this wad needs serious tuning... don't rush this. The Shades need to be honed, and I agree that onscreen messages are tacky... that's why I suggested a "freebee" shade death... where you wake up in a moon shelter an an npc tells you he saved you this one time... this way the player isn't confused, people who find the hint will live, people who don't... won't die... but maybe there's a health penalty or something. It certainly needs fine tuning to balance what to do if you're out of town... how to actually FIND the moon shelters (very blatant map markers or something... arrows in the map, glowing and pointing you in the direction?)... also very distinct markers for door keys since I get lost very easily.

There is potential in this wad... don't rush it for the sake of meeting an arbitrary date.

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 4:44 pm

Tormentor667 wrote:Concerning the Church Puzzle, take a closer look at the surroundings of the train station. You will get a clear clue how to solve this puzzle. There is never a need for you to die

I still see this particular puzzle as a major design flaw. Unless I've managed to perform some kind of sequence break without realising, the Fire Key is the first key I recover in the map (having previously encountered the corresponding door on route to the town). It's natural that I would then go back to the door and access the church. I will have not yet obtained the Spider Key required to access the puzzle solution in the train station; indeed, I won't even be aware of the train station's existence, so it will be inexplicable when I am randomly gibbed when trying to fight the high-powered Apprentice in what certainly looks like the boss arena-like surroundings of the Church. I think something should be put in place so that the player can't access the church until they also have the Spider Key... either that or make the potential ramifications of triggering the trap MUCH more obvious.

Even if I somehow choose not to use my brand new Fire Key before obtaining the Spider Key and reaching the train station to discover the puzzle solution, I would still find myself hard-pressed to battle the Apprentice with only the entrance area of the Church (before the instakill floor) to move around in. Dodging the triple-missile attack of the Apprentice in such a small space is nigh on impossible. I'm amazed no-one else has mentioned this; either I fail hard at playing the mod or I'm missing something serious.

My suggestion would be to not have the Apprentice spawn in the church immediately; have it deserted first so that the player can concentrate on negotiating the floor. When they succeed, the door to the tomb can be blocked, the floorspace becomes 'safe' (change in texture/tile colour and removal of line specials) and the Apprentice is spawned. Defeating the Apprentice removes the block from the door to the tomb, allowing the player to progress.

Also, about the red exploding thing that spawns in the Church - on my first visit to the Church I walked around the outside to the back and peered into the window, and the red thing spawned, moved to the window and exploded, nearly killing me. Might want to have a look at that one too. Indeed, I'm not quite sure what purpose it serves at all.

DBThanatos · Post by **DBThanatos** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:56 pm

Scuba Steve wrote:I agree with a previous poster, this wad needs serious tuning... don't rush this. The Shades need to be honed, and I agree that onscreen messages are tacky... that's why I suggested a "freebee" shade death... where you wake up in a moon shelter an an npc tells you he saved you this one time... this way the player isn't confused, people who find the hint will live, people who don't... won't die... but maybe there's a health penalty or something. It certainly needs fine tuning to balance what to do if you're out of town... how to actually FIND the moon shelters (very blatant map markers or something... arrows in the map, glowing and pointing you in the direction?)... also very distinct markers for door keys since I get lost very easily.

There is potential in this wad... don't rush it for the sake of meeting an arbitrary date.

The problem I see with this "killed and awake in the mooshelter" is that in the whole city there is only 4 things: Demons, Spiders, Cultist and you. I dont see how a NPC would fit here... I mean, the atmosphere is about you being alone in a totally hostile town. However, the idea was good.

DBT

Post by **Mechadon** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 1:49 am

Torm, I will try to remember and get those new candles to you sometime tomorrow

Tormentor667 · Post by **Tormentor667** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:36 am

Concerning the ACC Problem - Thx Nash, solved

Concerning the AUTOPAGE - I added my own graphic now but the problem now is that the colors for the lines in the automap do not fit anymore. Is there a way to customize this as well?

Concerning the battle in the church - After testing that once again, I totally had to agree with Skippy and I changed it the way he suggested.

Concerning the Freebee Scuba suggested - I like the idea as well, and I don't see a problem if the NPC is alive between all those demons, cultists and spiders as SKippy said because I would just kill him by some zombies after he/she rescued you

The problem for me is first I do not have any fitting NPC graphics (Blake Stone scientiest? Strife NPCs?) and the second thing is that I have no idea right now how I can make the NPC communicate with you (rpg style textbox with foto?) and how I can script the first attack of the Nightmares that if you get killed that you will wake up in the Hospital and make this even coop compatible if possible. But if everyone can help me with all this I will implement this, as it is a good idea really!

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:54 am

@Torm: thanks for your private feedback on the first revision of the notes, I'll have the rest for you tonight. Can't wait to see them all in their full glory.

The only way I can think of to customise the automap colours is to enclose a custom config file in the .pk3 that manipulates the corresponding [wiki]console commands[/wiki]. I'm not sure if ZDoom automatically parses any config files enclosed in this way though, so you might need to distribute the finished product with a batch file that runs the WAD with the config (the Wolf 3D TC is a great example of this in action).

Thanks for taking my feedback about the church on board. Does that mean you've made it so that the player knows to visit the train station before the Church? What way does it work now?

Post by **Nash** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:55 am

Map colours is a user option and you can't force it on for your mod, but you can do it via Display Options -> Automap Options -> Set Custom Colors.

Tormentor667 · Post by **Tormentor667** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:12 am

Skippy wrote:Thanks for taking my feedback about the church on board. Does that mean you've made it so that the player knows to visit the train station before the Church? What way does it work now?

Right now the only thing that I have changed is the battle against the Apprentice. If you get yourself through the puzzle, the floor gets normal, some effects, the line specials were removed and then the battle against the Apprentice starts, nothing less.
I want to keep the puzzle and the clue both as they are to make sure that this is not going to get too linear. If you can't progress here, you are forced to go somewhere else until you found the next clue.

Conc. the CFG, that's a pretty bad solution, so I just will change the background to something that fits the original colors better.

Risen · Post by **Risen** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:22 am

DBThanatos wrote:The problem I see with this "killed and awake in the mooshelter" is that in the whole city there is only 4 things: Demons, Spiders, Cultist and you. I dont see how a NPC would fit here... I mean, the atmosphere is about you being alone in a totally hostile town. However, the idea was good.

I haven't played the beta, but doesn't it have writing on pages or something? Spawn a page in the shelter that says 'You're lucky I found you in time. It's dangerous when XXX happens.' Then you don't have to actually show an NPC.

Also Scuba's last line wins.

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:35 am

Tormentor667 wrote:I want to keep the puzzle and the clue both as they are to make sure that this is not going to get too linear. If you can't progress here, you are forced to go somewhere else until you found the next clue.

I totally respect your desire to keep the experience non-linear. My only concern is that in the case I described earlier (i.e. the one I personally experienced playing the WAD), the player will be forced to learn by dying, which is a cardinal sin in any kind of game design as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps a suitable compromise would be to leave a new note inside the church by the floor puzzle, giving a warning that there is a puzzle to be solved and the penalty for failure is death. We could take it directly from one of your other notes, the line about straying from the path. I'm sure I can come up with something suitably Biblical, like the book of Proverbs ('Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men... For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.').

About the automap - I agree that a batch file/config solution is far from ideal. Have you tried simply dropping a .cfg text file with some console commands in it directly into the .pk3 and seeing if that works? I can't test it here, I'm at work

EDIT: Risen's idea about the note for the 'freebie' wins.

Post by **.+:icytux:+.** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:02 am

i acctually dont like the idea of "when you die by a uber nightmare you wake up in the moonshelter... bla bla bla" coz what would be the idea of it all then??? i acctually think it could be the way it is... but like a arrow with a moon on it that would shine on the walls when the alarm sounds that would show you the way to the shelter...??? (at least the first time... no need to the other times...)

Tormentor667 · Post by **Tormentor667** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:48 am

Phew... that's a really hard one now

Concerning the Church Puzzle - Skippy, the idea about this biblical letter in the church makes sense, so just feel free to come up with the text and I will add the graphic/script as soon as I have it to the map,

Concerning the Shelter problem - I like Risen's idea as well, but I also think that Icytux isn't so wrong with what he said. You - the player - are supposed to be lost, in a city without hope, and if there is actually someone who has survived that chaos and staid alive for a while and who actually helps you, you would start to feel a bit comfortable in some places. And I really don't want that to happen. The decision what to do here is a real hard one and the problem isn't that easy to solve

Risen · Post by **Risen** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:59 am

'Saving you has cost me my own life. Do not make the same mistake again.'

Post by **.+:icytux:+.** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:03 am

the thing with the npc what i didnt like was that... you run to the shelter and you are safe OR you let a nightmare kill you and you are safe... i mean... that sux XD

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:07 am

@Torm: thinking about it, getting 'one free' with regard to the uber-Nightmares is definitely not good for the sense of fear they are supposed to engender (as you said). The problem, then, is how to sufficiently inform the player of the threat they pose without having them learn the hard way (as with the original Church puzzle).

You could always do it the Half-Life way by letting the player see a bunch of cultists getting destroyed by an uber-Nightmare at some point in the game (perhaps early on, before reaching the city itself). Not sure how you would work that into the story, though, at least not without the uber-Nightmare turning on the player instantly.

Another possibility is to ensure that the player is actually IN a Moon Shelter the first time the siren is triggered. Maybe have a key item stored in one of the shelters that requires the Spider Key to open, for example... then when they open the box and retrieve the key item, the siren goes off. If the player closes the shelter door with the Moon Key you could play a soundscape of some Cultists outside screaming and trying to get in, followed by the sound of an uber-Nightmare obliterating them, then lurking outside the door for a while before retreating again. When the player reopens the door there's bodies strewn about the place. That way they'll know damn sure what they're up against and what they have to do to avoid a similar fate in the future (they'll already have read the 'retreat to a shelter when the siren sounds' notice by this point).

I'd need some heavy audio and scripting work, but it would be amazing if you pulled it off.