[slow WIP] Shadows of Apocalypse - BETA public DEMO

[ramon.dexter]

I was testing the public build. Really nice so far but there are some weird errors with the current GZDoom 3.5.x versions in that some of the ambient lights show up as explosion sprites with black borders. I can see it in the first underground part at the beginner. It would show up in the corners of the tight hall ways.

Also, can the controls be updated? For example, when we talk to the NPC, we press the USE key.

But when we navigate the talk menus, we use the arrow keys. Can we also use the WASD keys as well to select the conversation since those are already mapped to up, down, left and right? I hate to take my hands off and move it to arrows keys then back.

CAn we also use the USE key to select choice of the conversation in addition to using the ENTER key? Same as above, keeps our hand in the same place for movement and dialog.

Lastly, I love the open maps but my performance tanks hard when I look out to the open towns. It drops from 200 FPS down to less than 50 FPS on a 1060 GTX 3GB. I don't know if this is because of my GPU or CPU.

If you need more bug tracking, I can help since I have spare time now.

What public build you mean? You didnt write me a PM, so I didnt sent you the present build.

That build that was here like a year back is old and dead build. So any bugs there, I dont care. It will not be used and was completely rebuilt from ground.

Yeah, the open towns are a problem. But hey, in 50FPS, it's still fluid, so is that really a problem? Also, since I have revisited this, there will not be that big towns.

The conversation controls are supposed to be controlled by mouse, so...I cannot change that. Its how strife conversations are being built. I cannot change that without completely rewriting it - I really dont intent that, and even if I want to, my skill are too low to rewrite the whole conversation system. So, you have one hand on you keyboard, the other on your mouse, so use the mouse. And if you are not using a mouse to control this...well, its little bit your problem. This mod has freelook allowed, so you have to play it with a mouse. And I'm fine with that.

As I stated before, this is NOT a classic doom mod. Rather that, it's completely different game, just using sprites and gzdoom engine. So don't treat it like "some other doom mod", but rather a "some other game". So dont take your doom habits to the world of SoA, it will not work. Sorry to sound rude, but I designed SoA to be a different game, so don't treat it like other doom mod.

[Valken]

Thanks for the quick reply. All fair. Its your mod, so understand your position on the dialog system.

For your info, I am using the link from the first post as that is where my feed back is coming from.

For your towns, I would prefer if you keep big towns as I like to walk around it. Feels more like Fallout. The underground spiders lair was fantastic.

50 FPS is good enough for me but if optimizations were done, then it would be best of course.

[John Stalvern]

This looks really great. I'd love to help with the playtesting, but unfortunately do not yet have access to PMs on the forums. If you need another set of eyes, I could post a temporary email address to the forum for you to send the mod to. Let me know if that works.

Edit: Nevermind, PMs are working now, so I have sent one

[ramon.dexter]

Hi all, I have to announce that I have received many requests for playstesting.
Now, I have to wait for the feedback, so please dont send new requests for testing. I just have to process the feedback and then I will publish this publically.

So, many thanks for these supporting me, but I n eed to take my time on this.

[ramon.dexter]

So, m8f released some pretty nice gameplay mods (the targetSpy and the HellScape Navigator), so I'll integrate these into SoA and replace the old ACS mechanics with brand new zscript ones. This will take some time, so the release of the demo will be delayed a bit. No big delay, I just need to polish and tune it.

[ramon.dexter]

Hello everyone, here I am with BETA public DEMO.

I fixed the conversation bugs with missing strings and some polyobject bugs. Still, I want some feedback from those who will test it. So, if you download it, send me some feedback, if you encounter any bugs.

The DEMO is finished and ready to play. I have to take a break for a time. The download link is in the first post and also here.

Just some notes:
- Turn off the Hellscape navigator area names and map names. This feature is still not implemented and therefore not working porperly. It will not crash the game or something, it will just display undesired information. The complete implementation means lots of work, so I had to sack it. It is prepared in not-public build, but I have to test it before release. I was quite busy last month, so this has to wait.
- The ACS compass and enemy HP display are replaced my m8f's zscript variantions - the TargetSpy and Hellscape Navigator. It has it's own options in Options Menu, so you got to tune it to your desires. Or should I pre-set it and remove the options? What could be better?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hiAYF ... R0LrQuW5K9

[John Stalvern]

There seems to be an issue with the download at present. I am unable to extract the rar on two different computers

Seems the problem was on my end. Looking forward to playing this!

[Korell]

Well, I downloaded the file just under two hours ago and it extracted fine for me. I've played through some of it again and there is a definite improvement as doors that wouldn't open before now do, and that area in the basement at the start is indeed now locked away behind those hand scanners as it should be. I picked up three quests in the tutorial part and have completed two of them. The missing hunter and the antidote. Now to find some spare parts.

I still noticed some oddities with the dialog from various NPCs. The doctor in that tutorial area first spoke to me in two languages, for instance.

Now for a couple of things I noticed.

Using the alternative HUD seems to fit better with the compass and enemy health bar indicators, but it doesn't appear to show the ammo count (so far the only weapon I have that uses ammo is the blaster staff thing). The main HUD does show the ammo count but it doesn't fit the compass and enemy health bar as well. I currently have a 16:10 monitor, though, and the HUDs appear to be designed for 16:9 so it might be just off the screen.

I'm sure the inventory used to output some text to tell you what was selected but I'm not seeing that now. And on the note of inventory, it doesn't seem clear as to what the items are necessarily for. For instance, I ran out of ammo for the blaster staff and just happened to use (I think it was) a fusion cell that then allowed me to reload it. There's also a fusion kit but I don't know what that did.

EDIT: Just completed a third quest in the tutorial area, finding the spare parts. The tutorial mission hasn't disappeared on the PDA but the main mission is now showing up. Is there more to do in the tutorial?

[ramon.dexter]

Well, I downloaded the file just under two hours ago and it extracted fine for me. I've played through some of it again and there is a definite improvement as doors that wouldn't open before now do, and that area in the basement at the start is indeed now locked away behind those hand scanners as it should be. I picked up three quests in the tutorial part and have completed two of them. The missing hunter and the antidote. Now to find some spare parts.

I still noticed some oddities with the dialog from various NPCs. The doctor in that tutorial area first spoke to me in two languages, for instance.

Now for a couple of things I noticed.

Using the alternative HUD seems to fit better with the compass and enemy health bar indicators, but it doesn't appear to show the ammo count (so far the only weapon I have that uses ammo is the blaster staff thing). The main HUD does show the ammo count but it doesn't fit the compass and enemy health bar as well. I currently have a 16:10 monitor, though, and the HUDs appear to be designed for 16:9 so it might be just off the screen.

I'm sure the inventory used to output some text to tell you what was selected but I'm not seeing that now. And on the note of inventory, it doesn't seem clear as to what the items are necessarily for. For instance, I ran out of ammo for the blaster staff and just happened to use (I think it was) a fusion cell that then allowed me to reload it. There's also a fusion kit but I don't know what that did.

EDIT: Just completed a third quest in the tutorial area, finding the spare parts. The tutorial mission hasn't disappeared on the PDA but the main mission is now showing up. Is there more to do in the tutorial?

Thanks for the quick reply!

The dcotor speaks in two languages - I need a screenshot of this. Becuase on my side it works correctly. Try inserting "language enu" in console and see of the issue is gone - looks like your gzdoom picks language wrong. I cannot fix that, because this is engine side. The string are defined in language lump and picked by engine based on language setting.

As I stated before, the compass (hellscape navigator) is fully customisable. You can position it as you want. Also, as I have stated, it is not fully implemented, cause the implementation is little bit hard. I just wanted to know how it looks.

The display of inventory tags is fully on your gzdoom copy. Options >>HUD options >> Display nametags "both".

The fusion ammunition are all used for reloading the blaster staff. The fusion battery has a bug, thanks for reporting.

For the HUD problems - I'm designign and drawing it for 16:9 screens. So yes, it may be off on other ratios.

and the last: Yes, when you finish the three quests, the tutorial is finished. Just try to return to base

[Vostyok]

Just played demo. Would love for there to be more, as this is something I could really get into. Does the difficulty change much? I put it on 'Survival' straight away (reasons) and still found most of the enemies to be quite weak and unthreatening. Nice to see my old cannibals again though, heheheh. They really match the setting. Melee attacks felt very unresponsive and weak, although that might be what you were going for? Not sure.

Atmosphere was spot on. Love how overgrown and untidy everything is. Big thumbs up!

[ramon.dexter]

Hello fellow wastelander, long time no see you!

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the weapons and enemies need more balacing, as well as the difficulty types. This will be balanced in the full release of the DEMO.This is still beta, I just wanted to know how the things fixed from alpha are behaving for others.

[John Stalvern]

I'm having some trouble getting this mod to work, and I wonder if anyone here could point me in the right direction...

I extracted the files from the .rar and loaded them in the latest gzdoom, and this is what happens:

---

https://imgur.com/P8nWIMO

https://imgur.com/397Kwj7

Any ideas what I am doing wrong here? Missing textures and objects everywhere, and I cannot open many doors

[Korell]

Thanks for the quick reply!

The dcotor speaks in two languages - I need a screenshot of this. Becuase on my side it works correctly. Try inserting "language enu" in console and see of the issue is gone - looks like your gzdoom picks language wrong. I cannot fix that, because this is engine side. The string are defined in language lump and picked by engine based on language setting.

As I stated before, the compass (hellscape navigator) is fully customisable. You can position it as you want. Also, as I have stated, it is not fully implemented, cause the implementation is little bit hard. I just wanted to know how it looks.

The display of inventory tags is fully on your gzdoom copy. Options >>HUD options >> Display nametags "both".

The fusion ammunition are all used for reloading the blaster staff. The fusion battery has a bug, thanks for reporting.

For the HUD problems - I'm designign and drawing it for 16:9 screens. So yes, it may be off on other ratios.

and the last: Yes, when you finish the three quests, the tutorial is finished. Just try to return to base

Ah, thanks for this, it helps. Now I can see the item names in the inventory (I noticed that the shotgun shells don't show a nice display name, but instead some internal actor name). Also, I set my GZDoom to force a 16:9 screen ratio (letterboxing the display) so that I can see the full HUD and there's the ammo counter on the right edge.

I left the town and on my way back to the Ranger Base it came up saying tutorial ended and then I got some static screenshots and nothing else, as if it was end of game screens. Is there no way to continue with the main quest after the tutorial? Do you have to start a new game instead?

I'll see if I can get a screenshot of the doctor's first dialog. I checked my language variable and it is set to ENG for British English. Could this be the cause and that it needs to be set to ENU for US English?

EDIT: I started a new game and chose the main quest rather than the tutorial. If I try to go to the tutorial town the game just ends, so is there really no way of doing both the tutorial missions (which are good to get some starting credits) as well as the main quest or is it just a limitation in the beta? Also, this time the shotgun shells show up in the inventory with a normal display name, but there is a T_KOMBOPACK item.

EDIT 2: I started another game and went straight to the doctor in Khlumetz, the tutorial town. I got a screenshot of the text with two languages. It is the dialog he gives when you ask for work. I tried switching the language variable between ENG, ENU and AUTO but it made no difference. Also, selecting the main quest means that I cannot progress at all as it just ends as I travel south. This might be intentional, though, as this is just a demo. I do remember travelling east in the alpha but that way seems blocked off now by a concrete wall (again possibly intentional as this is just a demo).

[Vostyok]

I'm having some trouble getting this mod to work, and I wonder if anyone here could point me in the right direction...

I extracted the files from the .rar and loaded them in the latest gzdoom, and this is what happens:

---

https://imgur.com/P8nWIMO

https://imgur.com/397Kwj7

Any ideas what I am doing wrong here? Missing textures and objects everywhere, and I cannot open many doors

Are you running this with any iwads? I think it is based off the strife wad.

edit: Confirmed. Strife wad autoloads whens I load the files together.

[John Stalvern]

Are you running this with any iwads? I think it is based off the strife wad.

edit: Confirmed. Strife wad autoloads whens I load the files together.

Thanks! That fixed it.