ZDoom

Hello everyone, just wanted to inform all of you that Temple of the Lizard Men 3 has been recently uploaded. Earlier in the week, I did have some issues with uploading. My second attempt appeared to work. I will be checking on it to make sure it wasn't rejected. Hopefully, it will be up on idgames so everyone can play it.

When it is available for download, I hope all of you enjoy it.

Just wanted to thank my beta testers for helping me with this project. Couldn't have done it without them.

-Alando1

Some screenshots would be great. Good luck

Oh awesome! I'm gonna play it surely. But would be nice if you put the link here as well.

albiongeck wrote:Some screenshots would be great. Good luck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU4TvnDJgJ8

Just started playing it and enjoying it already.

I just found a minor problem in the dark and creepy zone at the beginning. There's a little wood bars supposed to block you but I can pass through it.
Screenshot of which little wood bars I mean (Sorry if screenshot really big):

Spoiler:

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And showing the place of the map:

Spoiler:

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No idea if it was really a linedef you forgot to make it impassable or it was an intended secret that I haven't figured it out yet.

Very beautiful as usual!Will enjoy playing VERY much!

I liked TotLM2. This sequel caught me by surprise! I'll play it when I get the chance, but I'm expecting good things!

EDIT: These production values (cutscenes with voice acting) give me a lot of confidence. Very nicely done. However, I'm a little bothered with how huge the HUD is. The lower-right panel entirely covers up my gun... I also see this project retained the problem from TotLM2 where holding altfire with a full magazine makes the player slide around like Gumby. I also feel it's a bit odd that I can't reload by pressing 'Reload'. Also seeing some misspellings, such as "faught", and "vile" instead of "vial".

Oh, and this PDA that simply says (Audio Recording)... it took me a second to figure out to hit the Fire button. In retrospect, that makes sense, but it might not be a bad idea to flash a quick hint to the player, just in case. Having to hold Fire to go from Page 1 to Page 2 of this note I found, and holding AltFire to go from Page 1 to Page 3 is very awkward. Why not just have Fire cycle to the next page? Also, having these logs play on the VOICE channel means they'll stop if the player grunts from getting hit or using a wall. Is that intentional?

I've made it to the Shadow Serpent boss, and it is WAY too powerful. It takes far too much damage, and dishes out the same. Even entering with the secret Mega Potion, there isn't enough health to fight this thing. Plus, its ability to spontaneously throw the player around and into the death-pit is kinda bullshit. Speaking of BS, why on earth is there a random A_SkullPop command in the player's death sequence if there isn't even a skull graphic to go with it? All this does is make resurrecting one's self impossible, and with the lack of autosaves, this further enforces that a player may have to restart an entire mission in the event of unexpected death.

Spoiler: A bit of a rant

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Finally! Something for (G)ZDoom that isn't a weapons, enhancement, TC or gore mod. And at the same time is not a very highly ambitious, work-in-progress mapping project that probably will not be finished not even after 500 years. Not to mention a one that I can play without my machine committing suicide on me, due to an excessive amount of unnecessary detail and what not that only acts as a distraction! In other words, something I have the interest in loading it up and playing it.

Rant aside, I'm enjoying this so far (I'm currently in the sixth level). The visuals, the atmosphere, the music are all great. And the gameplay is decent. However, to add to what Ed has mentioned of issues, the recoil from weapons (and I think from taking damage, too) doesn't reset properly all the time after the recoil "event" had happened, rendering me to restore it myself every time it happens by pressing a key to "center my view". It's not an issue for most people, as I'm sure they use freelook + manual aim. But I don't. I use keyboard only and rely on autoaim, so this is inconvenient to me.

Another thing, is the crampiness of the levels that I played so far, which I hope it changes in the upcoming levels. Also, for some secrets, there doesn't seem to be any indications - you know, like clues or hints - of their existence, which isn't fair, to say the least (well, at least I didn't find any).

Anyways, I'm going back to play some more...

Interesting to see how fast a link popped up.

@Ed the Bat - Your issue with the PDA can be answered in the Manual provided within the zip file. Also hearing your issue with the boss battle. I assure you that there is plenty of health in the final arena. The only way to beat that boss is keep your distance and don't fight aggressively. The more aggressive you are, the higher the chance of getting killed. Also if you are playing on anything harder than the "hard" difficulty, there is even a greater chance of getting killed.

@Blue Shadow - Good to hear you like it so far. Your issue regarding the secrets; some do have indications that it is a secret (i.e.: misaligned texture) but others you have to look really hard. Observation is key to finding the secrets in the levels that have secrets - ex: Some structures protruding from the walls may be a secret wall or door. Example in spoiler:

Spoiler:

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On level 7, in the well-lit burial chamber where you enter via stairway leading down (area has many spiders and lizard men), look around and examine the structures on the walls. Hint: Look for the cloked angels.

-Alando1

The manual was in .pdf format. Trying to read it made Adobe Reader crash. Not saying this is your fault, but this is why I was less eager to read the manual (I did think to try, when I was getting confused about things). As for the Shadow Serpent fight, I only found a handful of potions scattered around that arena, but these seem to be the type that only work at less than 100HP, and that health range is very high-risk, considering how much damage the boss can inflict. I tried keeping my distance, but that made my shots miss because the boss would teleport before the projectiles got there; coming in close was the only way I could find to land hits.

I'm also seeing that the player's viewheight does not match the attack height, meaning the sniper rifle lands a good deal below the crosshair, and thus the zoom is largely useless.

I finally managed to beat the Shadow Serpent, but I feel a lot of luck was involved. It took several tries, many of which ending with it simply teleporting behind me and earthquaking me into the fire pit for instant death.

I'm more disinclined to read the manual because of the double-whammy of "clip" for mag and cloying "girl power" descriptions in the character profiles, but it was a nice preview of what to expect otherwise.

Except it's missing the one thing that ought to be in there: press altfire to reload. Took me a while to figure that out!

Looking forward to playing more of this when I'm not busy with like 5 other things at once.

I only thought to try altfire because I remembered that was how it was in TotLM 2. I also let out a disappointed chuckle when it, once again, presented the 'Gumby' issue I mentioned. And on the subject of girls, I have to say that the female player voices for the intermission monologues are just awful. She sounds like she's clumsily reading a document, of which she doesn't understand the meaning. The rest of the voices I've heard so far sound fine, though. Also, unless I'm missing something, what exactly is the purpose of Beka's existence? From what I saw in the DECORATE file, she's just a slower, more vulnerable, brunette version of Dana. I picked Beka because she was the first female on the list, but now I wonder if I made a mistake.

Also, I just now defeated the Hell Taur, and it was a MUCH easier and more balanced boss fight than the Shadow Serpent.

But still, please don't take these remarks as a sign of distaste. The only reason I bother pointing things out is because I like this project.

Yeah, I agree about the voice acting, they don't seem to have... "emotion" or [insert suitable word here].

A couple of things to report:

• GZDoom logs these errors in the console, which you may want to address:

  Spoiler:

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  Code: Select all

  Unknown patch H2TX_467 in texture H2TX_467
  Texture H2TX_467 is left without any patches
  Unknown patch SWDMN1 in texture SW1GARG
  Unknown patch SWDMN2 in texture SW2GARG
  Invalid data encountered for texture lmtmple3.pk3:totlm3res_1.wad:TX_ANIMS
  Invalid data encountered for texture lmtmple3.pk3:totlm3res_1.wad:TX_SKIES
  Tried to register class 'RedCrystalKey' more than once.
  Tried to register class 'BlueCrystalKey' more than once.
  Tried to register class 'Moss1' more than once.
  Tried to register class 'Moss2' more than once.
  Warning: ShotgunShellBox and ShellBox both have doomednum 2049.
  Warning: AmmoBox1 and ClipBox both have doomednum 2048.
  Warning: FlakBox and RocketBox both have doomednum 2046.
  Warning: RocketBox1 and CellPack both have doomednum 17.
  Warning: AVRL_LM3 and BFG9000 both have doomednum 2006.
  Warning: Clip2 and Clip both have doomednum 2007.
  Warning: Drummle_LM3 and Shotgun both have doomednum 2001.
  Warning: Shell2 and Shell both have doomednum 2008.
  Warning: FlakLauncher_LM3 and RocketLauncher both have doomednum 2003.
  Warning: FlakAmmo and RocketAmmo both have doomednum 2010.
  Warning: KnifePickup and Chainsaw both have doomednum 2005.
  Warning: DoubleBarrelPickup and SuperShotgun both have doomednum 82.
  Warning: Potion_1 and HealthBonus both have doomednum 2014.
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  Warning: Stimpack_10 and Stimpack both have doomednum 2011.
  Warning: SoulPotion and Soulsphere both have doomednum 2013.
  Warning: ArmorHelmet_1 and ArmorBonus both have doomednum 2015.
  Warning: MegaPotion and Megasphere both have doomednum 83.
  Warning: InvulnerabilityOrb and InvulnerabilitySphere both have doomednum 2022.
  Warning: InvisibilityRune and BlurSphere both have doomednum 2024.
  Warning: RebreatherPickup and RadSuit both have doomednum 2025.
  Warning: Class1Armor_50 and GreenArmor both have doomednum 2018.
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  Warning: SmallBlueTorch_ and ShortBlueTorch both have doomednum 55.
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  Warning: RedSkullKey and RedSkull both have doomednum 38.
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  Warning: YellowSkullKey and YellowSkull both have doomednum 39.
  Warning: Candle_LM3 and Candlestick both have doomednum 34.

• This is probably too late, but WADs within PK3s is not an efficient way of organizing your project's files - especially for a project that has nearly 100 MB worth of resources. All of these WADs get loaded into memory at once, which is costly (okay, just for me ), while with a well organized project using the [wiki=Using_ZIPs_as_WAD_replacement]PK3 structure[/wiki], the resources are loaded into memory when needed.

I've just finished. The final boss was even easier than the other two. Still, I thought it was an excellent battle, so I have to say that two out of three bosses qualify as what I consider excellent and well-balanced fights.

There are still a couple of tiny here-and-there issues that popped up along the way (one I can think of right now is that lowering the searchlight while it's on will mean having to click it twice next time to turn it on), but on the whole, this was an excellent project, and you should be very proud. Well done!