Ultimate Doom "In Name Only" - On IDgames

1 hour ago, EffinghamHuffnagel said:

I've been waiting for this one to get released. Working my way through EP1. Lots of fun. Like Solar Struggle, this does not feel like Doom1. Happy to see Doom2 liquids added, but surprised to not see SLIME01-08.

 

Just finished E1M4, and a question:

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How do you get to the secret Soul Sphere? The tag 3 switch which lowers the lift to get you to the platform is only revealed by the tag 1 switch, which is inside that secret. Is there another switch I missed?

 

 

Finished playing episode 2, here are fdas: udino-e2-fdas.zip  (dsda-doom 0.26.2 -complevel 3).

The second episode was somewhat closer to what I like the most in doom in terms of combat, I even started to hope that I'm going to get a map that just starts with RL as the first weapon and I kinda got it in e2m8 (you get shotgun before RL technically, but you only need it to blow up the starting barrels and RL is immediately after). I'm wondering if e3 is going to ramp up even more.

Highlights for me were e2m1 (for atmosphere, also great midi choice), e2m4, e2m5, e2m9 (I guess?) and e2m8.

A few thoughts on individual maps.

e2m4:

e2m9:

e2m6:

E1M1

Found it visually a bit drab. Gameplay okay, if a bit more challenging than expected for the first map. The ending is goofy, and not in a good way, IMO.

I should have the rest of the first episode done in the next week or so; I'll be mixing in some Unholy Realms into my schedule as well, as I push to the end of that megawad after leaving it unfinished for way too long :)

Finished the first ep on UV in GZDoom. Good stuff so far. I wasn't expecting it to be as difficult as it was. It wasn't super difficult - there wasn't anything that got me more than twice, but it was a step up in terms of UD sets I've played. I also appreciate that E1 isn't restricted to using only IWAD E1 tropes and actually included cacos, lost souls, the plasma rifle, etc. Highlights are probably that last 3 maps. E1M6 was just solid overall in all aspects (plus Hupercube as the MIDI), E1M7 was another straight dose of dobu with a great ending twist, and E1M8 had a another great twist that I didn't see coming and that was the hardest part of the ep. In terms of any issues with the episode I had, there was only one in E1M7, and that was I could hit the switch in the opening room when it was still covered by the computer panel. This doesn't seem to be a big deal as all I missed was the small room that leads to the exit, and the switch is revealed when you walk in there. That's it for any oddities so far. 

Just popping in to say that I am playing this and plan on slowly releasing videos of it on my YouTube channel starting Wednesday on a daily/weekly basis (still figuring that out). So far I found the secret exit in E1M3 and am on E1M9. No game-breaking bugs, plays well on -cl3 DSDA-doom, really enjoying what I'm playing so far but it's a bit early to say on if I'll enjoy the whole thing or not.

Regardless, proud of you guys getting this out finally! I remember this project being in development in the last major time I was active on the forums, which was quite a while ago. @cannonball, you're a legend to me and I love playing your maps so a deep, deep kudos to you and everyone involved here for getting this out the gate and into RC1 state. UDoom megaWADs are some of the finest in this community. <3

Just finished E1. Damn! What great work. Outstanding amount of fun. A big step harder than original Doom, but that's okay. Some combats border on slaughter, but not too many. Some secrets that have no or minimal hints, but that's author's prerogative.

E1M7 is insane. I don't remember the last time I played a map that was simultaneously that real and surreal at the same time. Wow.

Only note is something on E1M8. I ran into the tag 18 teleport to the last combat room and didn't trigger tags 10 and 11 to open the walls and Baron doors. Probably running too fast. Maybe a ZDoom issue. Took the teleport back upstairs and it worked the second time. I kept trying to duplicate the issue, and succeeded in opening neither once out of about 30 tries; not opening just the tag 10 walls, several times.

@cannonball Thanks. I remember seeing what you were referring to, but for some reason at the time I thought "What an interesting light texture". Joy of pain meds. I get to sit on my ass and play a lot of Doom, but things don't always make sense.

Just finished E1, what an awesome achievement! This is going to become a benchmark on how to make UD fun. My favorite is E1M7 so far. After all this, which is just the first episode, I'm left with the befuddling feeling that I don't know what awaits next, but I'm very glad to be experiencing it! Thank you guys, amazing work!

Got past E2M4 right now, might have replaced E1M7 as my favorite map yet. That kicked ass. Just one thing, these 2 guys got stuck in my run preventing me from getting 100% kills:

currently playing this right now on stream, and have to say, very good start

I will find a way to archive my stream to potentially upload it to youtube

https://kick.com/meanor

4 hours ago, taviow said:

Got past E2M4 right now, might have replaced E1M7 as my favorite map yet. That kicked ass. Just one thing, these 2 guys got stuck in my run preventing me from getting 100% kills:

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Stxvile also had this happen on his stream. Dobu has already pinged me some fixes for some maps. I will check whether it also includes the resolution for the now dubbed “caco cowards”

Just finished episode 2. As hell approaches the maps are getting a bit more weird and mysterious, with the highlight being the fortress of mystery. Ony problems i found were on e2m4 there's a bit where I thought I got softlocked when I telefraged a baron and couldn't get out of the cubby hole he was in. Apparently I had to turn around and shoot a wall to escape which is kind of wtf. Oh and speaking of wtf there is spawning vats, which seems all-round horrible in a weirdly deliberate way. I guess that is in keeping with the "ino" tradition, heh. Other than that its all good.

Oh, in tower of babel the cacos can be hard to see without using mouselook, but its not exactly a problem that would keep me awake at night.

4 hours ago, mouldy said:

Just finished episode 2. As hell approaches the maps are getting a bit more weird and mysterious, with the highlight being the fortress of mystery. Ony problems i found were on e2m4 there's a bit where I thought I got softlocked when I telefraged a baron and couldn't get out of the cubby hole he was in. Apparently I had to turn around and shoot a wall to escape which is kind of wtf. Oh and speaking of wtf there is spawning vats, which seems all-round horrible in a weirdly deliberate way. I guess that is in keeping with the "ino" tradition, heh. Other than that its all good.

 

Oh, in tower of babel the cacos can be hard to see without using mouselook, but its not exactly a problem that would keep me awake at night.

I guess this is a bit of a digression time given E2M7 was mentioned.

It was a submission that was certainly an oddball and very rough around the edges and I liked what dobu managed to squeeze into this one during its editing phase. But in a way I kind of liked it from the get-go. There is an element of feeling like this tech base is essentially falling apart at the seams, more so than any other map that felt fitting given it is the penultimate map of the episode.
That said I do accept that this does go sort of against the prevailing direction of demonic corruption observed. As one might say though, variety is the spice of life as even the IWad showed that one persons vision of hell can be very different to someone else’s. 
Glad you are having fun with this though. I hope you enjoy the remaining two episodes.

E1M2

It's a @Steve D map, so I was looking forward to saying mean things about it.

Darn that Steve D, making good maps I don't get to make fun of!  (well, except maybe the cute little forklifts.  Totes adorbs)

Reached E3M5 today, but before talking about that map I have to say Scotty brought his A game for E2M8, wonderful finale to E2!

Anyway, E3M5 is a beautiful and grandiose map that I enjoyed a lot now that I've played it twice, but I've got some feedback about my experience with it:

Hello again, I finished Episode 2 off tonight. I think this had higher highs than the first one, but was less "pure fun" and more experimental, as you'd expect from the Shores of Hell episode in a Doom 1 wad! My favourites this time were E2M4 for the spectacle and difficulty of the fights (even if it is a little odd that the hardest map in the episode is less than halfway through :P), E2M9 for puzzle solving that I found so engaging that I actually tried to 100% the map (more on that in the bugs section) and E2M8 for the engaging and fun combat, and absolutely ridiculously huge architecture. I'd be interested to hear more about when multiple authors were involved in a map, what each of them did for it and how much of their influence ended up in the finished level.

I figure some of the errors I'm about to report were discovered already in streams, but just in case I'll mention everything that I noticed:

(Some of these are really minor I'm sorry lmao)

E2M1:

- The secret door leading to the outside has non lower-unpegged DOORTRAK and nowhere else in the map does.

- The doors activated by the gunfire switch (tagged 7) do not open and the monsters do not teleport in from there, making 100% kills impossible as far as I can tell (I found all secrets in this map, and couldn't see any way to get them to teleport in)

E2M3:

- Small texture misalignment on both sides of the yellow key platform

E2M4:

- I managed to softlock myself in the corner of the structure that's behind the red key door, I only managed to get it to happen once so it could be really bloody precise

- The automap for this map has been pretty thoroughly cleaned up, but there's a couple of lines that seem to have been missed

E2M9:

- There's floating stimpacks in the plasma gun area, I'll be honest I kinda assumed these were involved in a puzzle at first lol

E2M6:

- Softlock in this area

E2M7:

- There's a floating stimpack in the yellow key area (next to the bridge that lowers)

- This bit of the ceiling seems to have the wrong texture, I think? I dunno this map has kinda bananas visuals lol

I've been enjoying Episode 3 thus far (got to E3M3, saw 800 monsters and decided to call it a night lmao), will mention any more incredibly minor bugs I find when I'm done :P

Started E2.

I really like the monster placement. There is a constant pressure. I keep thinking "Where did he come from? I thought I cleared that area." Makes it feel like there are a lot more monsters than there actually are. Just finished E2M3. One Shotgunguy, thing#176, didn't teleport in from his closet. He's tagged deaf.

I've played ahead to mid-E2 and this is definitely not my thing.  Probably 75% of the maps are enjoyable, but the other 25% are "I hate this" territory.  I'm not going to upload anything further.

Ok, played episode 3 now and I'm having to adjust the way I look at this wad. The first 2 episodes felt like a typical doom type adventure with a few oddities along the way but now its more like a collection of doom experiments, which is probably how I should have viewed the whole thing from the start. This episode is delving head first into marmite territory. I loved Pandemonium, and house of pain was hilarious with its bullshittery. Then there was Mount Erebus which I had to skip because it has the kind of gameplay I can't stand, and Dis seems to have some kind of puzzle which I couldn't figure out so I skipped that as well. I guess there is something for everyone to love and hate.

Given how individualistic these maps are, it does make me wonder how much these are intended to be played from pistol start. I've been playing continuous so maybe I've not been experiencing the full pain of the previous episodes...

1 hour ago, mouldy said:

Ok, played episode 3 now and I'm having to adjust the way I look at this wad. The first 2 episodes felt like a typical doom type adventure with a few oddities along the way but now its more like a collection of doom experiments, which is probably how I should have viewed the whole thing from the start. This episode is delving head first into marmite territory. I loved Pandemonium, and house of pain was hilarious with its bullshittery. Then there was Mount Erebus which I had to skip because it has the kind of gameplay I can't stand, and Dis seems to have some kind of puzzle which I couldn't figure out so I skipped that as well. I guess there is something for everyone to love and hate.

 

Given how individualistic these maps are, it does make me wonder how much these are intended to be played from pistol start. I've been playing continuous so maybe I've not been experiencing the full pain of the previous episodes...

 

I think for episodes 1/2 I think the experience pistol starting will be on par to the comparison between pistol start/continuous. For Episode 4 I might recommend pistol starting purely because some of the maps do have specific rules of engagement.

Given that the direction of this wad went, I am not surprised by the marmite comparison. I hope that you do enjoy the rest of the wad. 

7 hours ago, mouldy said:

Then there was Mount Erebus which I had to skip because it has the kind of gameplay I can't stand, and Dis seems to have some kind of puzzle which I couldn't figure out so I skipped that as well. I guess there is something for everyone to love and hate

I knew my maps would ruffle some feathers, but to get the pistol start question out the way, both of these maps, as well as all other maps in the WAD that I played prior to the release candidate, are doable from pistol start.

Dis isn't a puzzle, it's a race against the clock. Unless you're proficient at doing invuln-supported rocket jumps, you won't even be able to max the map, you merely get to survive it.

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Dis isn't a puzzle, it's a race against the clock. Unless you're proficient at doing invuln-supported rocket jumps, you won't even be able to max the map, you merely get to survive it.

What are you meant to do?

11 minutes ago, mouldy said:

What are you meant to do?

A little bit o' Dis, a little bit o' dat.

10 minutes ago, mouldy said:

What are you meant to do?

Finished E3 and overall I had a good time with it, even E3M6 where I appreciated the very original sequence with the rising platforms. It took me a bunch of tries to get the hang of it of course, but the process of learning the movement required for success was very fun for me. Nonetheless it does seem to be a rather spicy map, with a mean streak to it, especially that part where you have to precariously grab enough plasma to kill that one Cyber. I did quite enjoy it though, clever map. Currently however there's 4 sectors all clumped together tagged as secret, which makes the map look like it has 4 secrets when it doesn't, plus you can't get them all:

E3M8 however seems to be a bit beyond my comprehension. I don't have anything to say about it because I couldn't beat it. I don't know if you're supposed to

Ended up having to skip it and move straight to E4M1.

Particularly appreciated the grandness and fun fights in E3M7. Perhaps my favorite map of the episode.

1 minute ago, cannonball said:

 

 

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There is a switch by the BFG that lowers a lift that reveals the Mastermind, there is also a linedef you run across prior to this switch that lowers the lift nearest to you that allows a clear shot of the Mastermind when that lift (operated by the switch) lowers. You stand on the lift when lowered and use the BFG to hit the Mastermind, given the distance this will need to be repeated a few times (You get approx two shots per cycle, so you will have to plough through the imps/barons and navigate the cyberdemons a couple of times to win).

UV Max is a different kettle of fish...

 

Lol. No, sorry. Did people honestly playtest this map and say thats fine?

3 minutes ago, mouldy said:

Lol. No, sorry. Did people honestly playtest this map and say thats fine?

Yup, I did :D

Admittedly I wasn't sure how to max e3m8 until @galileo31dos01 told me the method - still learning new tricks after all these years, though in retrospect I feel silly for not getting it.  Still, I liked the map more after understanding how it works.

Regarding the wad as a whole, this was quite a fascinating ride.  I think the tone set by E1 will lead to players being blind-sided by the more experimental ventures later on, but I appreciated the risks being taken with this project and was consistently impressed by the visuals as well.

I'm only half-way through Episode 1 so far but enjoying it so far.  A really comfy palette cleanser after all the junkfoods and shitfuck.wads and hyper-over-produced stuff I've been playing lately.  Back to basics is what I need at the moment.  Can't wait for the weird-ass later maps from what I hear.

May I ask what the method is? I'm up to revisiting it and trying again, but I'm not hugely familiar with a lot of tricks.

29 minutes ago, taviow said:

May I ask what the method is? I'm up to revisiting it and trying again, but I'm not hugely familiar with a lot of tricks.