Ultimate Doom "In Name Only" - On IDgames

Congrats on the release! I created a small page for it on the DoomWiki and in the process discovered that in the MAPINFO lump the name of E2M5 was misspelled as "Command Centre" (the WILV14 is okay though).

Congrats cannonball, dobu, and everyone else involved on the well-deserved Cacoward! Too bad you got sniped for the Mordeth award; I didn't realize TNT2, who's start predates the forum accounts of most people here, got an official release this year!

So given the news, I guess I want to reiterate my gratitude to everyone who worked on this project. It took a long time to reach the end game but it looks like it was worth it. Every single person put their best foot forward for this and created some really special experiences. You should all be proud of yourselves and I am delighted that this got a Cacoward. Also special thanks again to @dobu gabu maru who was literally the proverbial yin to my yang in terms of mapping style and I think that helped lay the foundations for the entire wad. Also again thanks for picking up the slack when I was distracted by real life stuff during the development process.

This is some great news! I'm really happy of taking part of this project, great accomplishment by the team, and great job from the project's managers. Congrats on this release for everyone. And thanks to Cannonball for letting me take part of this mapset.

Hey! So in celebration of our final release (as well as that nifty award we picked up), here's something a little weird, a little unnecessary, and (possibly?) a little fun!

>>> DOWNLOAD UNFINISHED DOOM IN NAME ONLY <<<

What is this?

UnDINO is a compilation of early alpha maps from UDINO, showing what each of the maps played like in their relative infancy. I've also included some maps in the fifth episode slot that I've dubbed Thy Cut Content, which includes maps that were cut from the project. Note that I didn't include everything submitted—mainly stuff I had lying around from the post-cannonball takeover. Missing are some scraps from Jaws in Space, Impie, and stonedbaroness.

Why do this?

UnDINO serves as a fully-playable snapshot into our development history. It gives folks a glimpse into pre-edited versions of a lot of these maps, as well as showcasing how rough a pre-playtested map setcan feel. Unfortunately not every map here is in its pre-playtested state—I think most of these have already received feedback from at least cb & magnusblitz—but there are a few rough cuts here and there.

Will this be uploaded to /idgames?

No. This is mainly an historical curio and I doubt our authors would like partially-finished maps attached to their names. I'm cool with an external link from doomwiki to UnDINO but folks should really play the actual UDINO before diving into this mess.

What are the cut maps?

There are eight in total I was able to scrounge together.

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E5M1: "Hangar" for E1M1, by joe-ilya — cut because we already had "Hangar" by Eli C

E5M2: "Nuclear Plant" for E1M2, by Steve D — cut for being too damn large for an early E1 map ^{(500 monsters Steve? Really?)}

E5M3: "Computer Station" for E1M7, by Quantum Dranger — cut due to having Zdoomisms and lackluster texturing

E5M4: "Unholy Cathedral" for E3M5, by Corsair — this was Corsair's original attempt at the map, cut because it was too sprawling and dull

E5M5: "Mt. Erebus" for E3M6, by joe-ilya — cut due to congested gameplay, general ugliness

E5M6: "Dis" for E3M8, by Quantum Dranger — cut for being too crude and lacking a satisfying mastermind battle

E5M7: "Sever the Wicked" for E4M3, by SinCity2100 — cut because it didn't fit the map's title

E5M8: "And Hell Followed" for E4M7, by Mosshopper — cut due to mediocre gameplay and not fitting the map's title

Which maps have changed the most?

Hoo boy where to begin? Lemme give a rundown:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Anyhoo, enjoy! There's probably some things busted in this mapset (the e & umapinfo are stolen from other wads) but oh well—it is a scrappy set after all.

5 minutes ago, dobu gabu maru said:

UnDINO

Hah, this is a fun surprise! Should be interesting to check out some of the spicier maps in their original state. joe-ilya's E1M1 finally gets a Pyrrhic release.

The cut maps is a great touch, always liked when maps that don't make a final cut still get included or released elsewhere, as there will always be people who will enjoy them

In other news, I liked the soundtrack so much, I ripped it out of the wad for use in other Doom megawads, as the original doesn't have that many midipacks available for it. Nothing like playing 1994 megawads to this release's music :p

In order to celebrate the Cacowards entry: Widescreen statusbar!

udino_wide.zip

On 12/11/2023 at 10:59 AM, dobu gabu maru said:

E5M2: "Nuclear Plant" for E1M2, by Steve D — cut for being too damn large for an early E1 map ^{(500 monsters Steve? Really?)}

Oh right, this got a release in Deadly Standards 2. @Steve D did the map change much at all for DS2?

I guess it only feels right to add some tidbits of my own to this discussion. For the record I think Sincity2100 made a map for "Sever the Wicked" and whilst I could see the intentions, the map layout made for a pretty grindy experience that wasn't fun. There was a significant element f wanting to have as many mappers in the project as possible so as you can see in the credits, there were quite a few maps that went through drastic changes.

One of those was E1M5, which whilst the original was a little sluggish (Too many demons), there was potential there. From my recollection I think Jaws did a significant proportion of the modifications as such I think I may have moved a few things around, but mostly what I did was make the map more interconnected and improved the flow of what was already there. I also tidied up the combat in places.

Whilst Joe Ilya did have a map "rejected", he does still have a legacy in this wad, this comes in the form of the red key section of E3M7 that was inspired by a piece he submitted during the the earlier stages of development where the future of this slot was a lot more uncertain.

Somehow I still have this from the email Joe sent me

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sfj15cn2m39fo2hokaugn/e3m7bfgsec.wad?rlkey=mb7a7gu819aqn7cjbbumk032f&amp;dl=0

So I essentially rebuilt the earlier section and built a different arena at the end, but you can see the similarities between the two and in the end this was one of my favourite sections of this map, good job Joe :)

Continuing with E3M7 there is another section that was the ownership of someone else, the pentagram island, this was created by Magnusblitz and the general theme of Limbo in the end when I constructed the layout was to incorporate several ideas into one void themed map. Another idea that was mentioned (I can't recall who though), was to have bits of earlier maps in the wad scattered around to give the impression of areas you previously explored have been lost into the abyss, as such I chose the slime room fight of E1M6 and the fireblu fight of E1M5 to represent this idea and connected them with a void platform section that broke on near enough every version prior to the final release, why? Probably cursed.....

Just for the record: E1M7 is intentionally ending in a clusterfuck of weirdly aligned sectors and HOMs all over the place, right? However, even in that case: It got so confusing I wasn't able to find the exit. In fact, I kinda threw the towel already with the switch puzzle before. That was the only issue I've had with the first two episodes so far.

@cannonball, congrats on your Cacowards 2023 win.

So, @dobu gabu maru's UnDINO presented a problem for me; while I have no interest in playing the old versions of the maps, I have ALL of the interest in the fifth episode.

So I've made an add-on patch for UDINO that adds Thy Content Cut for all 44 maps in one. It takes the graphics and music for it from UnDINO, and adds the hilarious TITLEPIC as an end of episode graphic, and ive generated some WILV graphics for the levels (I do not know how people add things like authour names in different fonts and sizes, so my WILVs do not match the rest of UDINO. If whoever made UDINO's makes a set for E5, I'll swap mine out with theirs)

As a bonus, since I'd already made it, I included the udino midi wad in the download, and added the four music tracks from E5 to it

I have only just learnt from looking over the Cacowards this evening that this megawad was FINALLY released. I will definitely have to play this sometime next year, since I've only been looking forward to playing this for nearly a decade.

On 12/13/2023 at 1:21 PM, plums said:

Oh right, this got a release in Deadly Standards 2. @Steve D did the map change much at all for DS2?

It changed a bit. The DS2 version has more sectors, 1,125 vs 929. It also has more monsters, 579 vs 537 as counted by GZDoom on UV. Most of the extra sectors were devoted to visual improvements in the giant secret area dominating the southern quadrant. This mainly involved adding water sectors inside the nukage leak for a more natural appearance, and on the far west end of this section, changing the water column into a pair of Stone columns with lights, plus adding crates and more monsters on the veranda overlooking this area. Without doubt, the DS2 version is better, though I may revise it again for one of my own mapsets.

2 hours ago, Suitepee said:

I have only just learnt from looking over the Cacowards this evening that this megawad was FINALLY released. I will definitely have to play this sometime next year, since I've only been looking forward to playing this for nearly a decade.

@Suitepee I think you'll have fun with this one, John. There are some really sweet maps and a lot of variety.

And importantly for me, we'll see how many pelts I collect from you in E4M2 and E4M6. ;)

On 12/13/2023 at 4:49 PM, NightFright said:

Just for the record: E1M7 is intentionally ending in a clusterfuck of weirdly aligned sectors and HOMs all over the place, right?

Yuppers. Always wanted to do something fun with intentional HOMs.

6 hours ago, Suitepee said:

I will definitely have to play this sometime next year, since I've only been looking forward to playing this for nearly a decade.

Just as a heads up, the gameplay can be rough in the last two episodes from pistol start on skill 4. Heels' maps in E3 are very demanding and my maps in E4 are purposely low on ammo. I think a few people have burst blood vessels over them.

I found a little bug in E4M2 that is likely a nodebuilder error, where there's one part of a sector in the secret exit area that's possible for the teleporting imps to get stuck in, meaning sometimes you can't get 100% kills. If this happens you'll need mouselook to see the stuck imps, in a software renderer, and then you can only shoot them with vertical aiming. (The player can also get stuck, but you have to be incredibly deliberate about it -- it's hard to do even if you're trying because of momentum when you move, and without godmode you're taking damage from the lava, so nothing to worry about here.)

This probably isn't too hard to work around if you're trying a UV-max speedrun, so it's definitely not worth another idgames upload. But if you end up making one for another reason, you might want to fix this as well, probably by just making a new sector in that area. Also good to document just in case someone else comes across it I guess.

Sorry I keep finding bugs post-release! :p

Holy cats, @plums! I gotta say that those little stuck Imps look hilarious. I'll have to inspect this area for the sheer joy of figuring out how I did this, and make a fix, natch, in case @cannonball wants one on file. ;D

9 hours ago, plums said:

Sorry I keep finding bugs post-release! :p

I saw someone encounter this bug during playtesting but I looked at the map of the release version and figured we had fixed it since everything "should" work as-is, but alas! Nodebuilder errors are nasty little bed bugs. And good on you for finding more bugs plums, it's annoying to have to deal with more of them but your keen eye is invaluable.

Ah I have had this happen before (I think my Jamal Jones map also had monstered submerged into the floor). Unfortunately this will probably be a case of trial and error to remove this issue, from what I recall I had to in the end move some linedefs around until the problem went away. I guess this does need fixing, especially as this issue might behave differently depending on the port too.

Quote

 And good on you for finding more bugs plums, it's annoying to have to deal with more of them but your keen eye is invaluable.

Ditto. Always appreciate folks like you and hawkwind.

Oh good, my pedantry and officiousness is appreciated! ;)
 

12 hours ago, cannonball said:

Ah I have had this happen before (I think my Jamal Jones map also had monstered submerged into the floor). Unfortunately this will probably be a case of trial and error to remove this issue, from what I recall I had to in the end move some linedefs around until the problem went away. I guess this does need fixing, especially as this issue might behave differently depending on the port too.

It's actually consistent across all ports (even GZDoom), except those that build their own nodes like EDGE. Looking at the automap overlayed with UDB's nodes viewer, it looks like the boundary between a few subsectors is where a thing can fall? You can move along that not-quite-vertical line if you can get yourself to fall down, and move slowly, like with low-sensitivity vertical mouse movement. I don't know enough about nodes to know why or even how that can happen.

It looks like this one is actually indirectly my fault though -- I think this is the switch-fix I posted to Steve's E4M2 changes, and it seems I used bsp-w32 as opposed to zdbsp. (You can tell because there's a non-zeroed reject table.) Just forcing a rebuild with zdbsp is probably enough to fix it, though for added safety you could subdivide that larger lava sector across that subsector boundary.

3 hours ago, plums said:

I think this is the switch-fix I posted to Steve's E4M2 changes, and it seems I used bsp-w32 as opposed to zdbsp.

lol of course saving in the wrong nodebuilder is the culprit. It'd be funny how often this was the issue, if it wasn't equal parts frustrating due to how hard it is to "spot".

Also if you're doing a re-upload cannonball, could you delete lines 173-175 in the text file? It's the stuff in parenthesis directly below the MAPS 'N MUSIC header. As the final release doesn't include the E4_MUS wad, it doesn't make sense to keep that blurb.

Howdy all, having a blast with this so far.

However, I have to admit I'm stumped on E3M8 (which has an excellent MIDI choice!). 

(I'm asking for a friend) Does anyone have a Demo of a UV-Max for this Map? 

Would like to see how it's done :)

Edit: Have read back through the thread, carry on :)

Ok, I'm back - managed to finish E3M8 on UV.

Had fun getting this once I understood the concept and what I could and couldn't do!

I don't think I'd ever be able to max this one but surviving was enough :)

Just finished playing this, and I wanted to say: Terrific job! 

I played this with Xim's Star Wars Doom at a casual HMP difficulty. I know some had issue with the darker lighting of these maps, but I brought along DarkDoomZ's flashlight for the ride, so I felt prepared.

I found E2M9's switch-hunts and puzzles a bit on the frustrating side, and E3M7 & E3M8 were a little too much of a slaughter-fest for my tastes, but other than that, I had a lot of fun. I loved a lot of the fights in Episode 4 especially, and thought E4M9 was very clever and imaginative. The style was impeccable as well. These are some hecka good looking maps. 

Kudos to the team--this is a very strong megawad!

I'm playing udino right now, and for whatever reason I started with episode 4, then discovered that there were episode 1-3 :facepalm:

Anyway, something weird happened to me on E2M9: I died near the crates, but I could still move with no weapon (and be killed after regaining some health and getting shot). I know it can happen with a voodoo doll if IIRC, but I'm not sure it was intended here. Apparently, there's a puzzle (but I wish there were some hint that you're facing a puzzle) but I suppose that if I do it wrong, I should die, not survive as a ghost...
I'm playing on dsda-doom-0.27.5 in complevel 3.

(I forgot: it's a great wad, but I miss the SSG and the doom2 monsters)

1 hour ago, Ankha said:

E2M9: I died near the crates, but I could still move with no weapon

It's an unintentional bug that happens in that complevel due to how the kill-sectors work. I'm not sure whether there's some way around it or not, but as long as the player knows to restart when it happens, then it has the same effect as one that works properly.

Hey folks, 

hope all is well - still making my way through the WAD and have finally reached E4M8 - this map is utterly phenomenal. I absolutely love everything about it!

However, I'm having serious issues with the Secret Red Key area (you have to go through a Crusher hallway to it) - I just can't seem to find a viable strategy for it and nearly always end up trapped (I'd say I have a 10% success rate)! Any tips you could provide? Would love to UV-Max this absolute behemoth but that area is a big obstacle for me!