Ashes 2063 - GZDOOM Total Conversion

Thinking about it, here’s my suggestion: If you choose to pay at the front gate to get in then you are given an option in the car park to say your military mates are happy to pay; this will place you and the national guards you’re escorting into the between-gates space below the car park, where a black water bandit says this is a heist and *then* the fight breaks out. This gives the player a choice of a heavy support option for the inevitable fight.

The mall was truly excellent, I was worried this was going to be a bit of a rehash after malls being featured in the other entries in the series but the surprise enemy was too damn good; absolutely genius.

New bugs / fixes:

Missing text:

These panes can be walked through. And yes, I wasn't going to put down the ball until I could kill something with it. If doom had achievements, this would be one. I had a hard time realising I need to crowbar the door to get in -- nowhere else in the game is this the case and the game already contains too many examples of barred doors you can't beat down so I had no indication that I could do it to this one -- interestingly, you can throw the bowling ball *through* the door, which is how I worked it out!

These mannequins on the left side aren't solid / can't be hit, unlike the ones on the right side.

These elevator doors and the flood door at the bottom of the black-water pit have the wrong kind of sounds. Should sound more like knocking on a metal sheet. A lot of doors in general have incorrect sounds and the game is missing a "shaking a chain-link fence like you're Sarah Conner" sound that would suit a number of textures.

Missing texture in the submerged buildings area:

So there's that bit where you can hide in an RV whilst the mutants swarm you and those really big mutants that move super fast and skittish are way too quick. Either you get mauled to death outside or you hide in the RV and then can't get a shot in because they move side to side impossibly quick. They need a slight nerf in the side-to-side speed even if you don't slow down their forward momentum.

yeah I definitely hid in the RV! The nice thing about the huge guys is they will infight each other so I think that is what got me through, only had to fight a couple beasties when I emerged--pipe bombs helped too. I did notice it was possible to be struck through the side of the RV, not even the window just the side panel, unless I was mistaken

Ashes has been so diligent about subtitling dialogue but there are a lot of strings in the Choka-Cola building that just weren't. I'm hearing impaired (I have some hearing, but auditory processing issues make everyone very difficult to understand) and I had to skip the tour entirely.

Okay finished it, 7:23 for a fairly relaxed playthrough trying to soak in the atmosphere and collect everything.

Last bug, there's a soft-lock here, you can't get past them. Had to noclip through them to continue.

That operatic Ashes theme was magic, fantastic work by Mr. Weekley.

My final thoughts on the game:

The Ashes formula is retained and the same magic combination of atmosphere, set pieces and clever tricks are all there, however I could not shake the feeling that the whole lacked detail and polish. You have these top-notch moments like the school, the fun-house, the mall but you are faced with *a lot* of plainness / emptiness throughout and, at least for me, the immersion is broken. Your best work is in highly thematic enclosed areas that twist around themselves in interesting ways, or at least a strong sense of narrative direction that drives the navigation. I hope one day you do an oil-rig. There are whole open spaces in Hard Reset that have little to say for themselves other than some sectors to pad between this one space and another, for example; the open area between main Corden and the building you go up to find the guy for the doc. It's just a convenient outdoor space but it doesn't say anything about the city, Corden or the history of the space and how it's been repurposed. The rail sidings by the exit to Michonne station where there's a water pit that lead off one way in the other game. Not even a gasbag there (at least on normal difficulty). That whole area just before the tube floods and you have to turn the wheel to lower the water; was there supposed to be a big fight there? Any enemies at all? I kept coming across areas that were spartan but not detailed enough to do any environmental story telling; something Ashes is good at when it focuses.

The sound design is okay, but not amazing, and there was a general rushed / unpolished aspect to the maps. Many sectors had the wrong sounds, no sounds where there probably should be and there needed to be more variety to the sounds available. In those detailed parts, like the school, there was attention to sound where the designer needed to press lightly against the player but the overall 'environmental simulation' lacked the same attention (i.e. the verisimilitude of objects, environment and scenery) although not entirely absent; I noticed different floor sounds when walking and environmental effects likes echo/reverb. Voice work was okay but never bad, probably held back mostly by the volunteers talking into basic microphones without enough enunciation and force where they should be projecting their voice with clarity. The voice work is mumbly and indistinct, but they did very good given this isn't a professional product. The use of an all-caps font and the width of paragraphs on screen remain difficult to read. Subtitling is inconsistent.

The enemy A.I. was a problem. You have at least 3 enemy types that all use the same hyper-skittish A.I. and it gets tripped up on the simplest geometry as well as being frustrating. It is best to not engage and just back off until you kite the AI into a pattern that lets you get straight shots at it. Pacing of fights could be broken easily by noise -- despite going in the side entrance of Choka Cola, one shot and almost the entire building empties itself directly into the one corner. There should have been a deaf sector to separate the atrium from the museum part maybe? Other than the worms -- brilliant by the way, one of the most memorable enemies in any game -- less care was given to careful introduction and narrative build up as there was in the first game.

I liked the hard point switch mechanic, made the pistol more useful. The crossbow was way too slow to be practical given the speed at which the basic pistol could do similar sniping duties, I barely used it, and likewise it relegated the explosive bolts to rare, highly specific use. I was definitely feeling the lack of an adequate rocket launcher equivalent.

The magic is there but I can feel the fast pace in the mapping, of slapping down sectors and moving on. Better it be finished and released in a rushed state than not; finishing and releasing *anything* is a tough mountain to climb and I applaud you for putting out such an enjoyable and riveting game for free.

There were some real issues with the sound balancing. The wind sound especially was overpowering and often played in areas where you wouldn't expect there to be much wind. The music was often too loud, so I'd turn it down, but then the next song would be too quiet.

I love the new tracks, I just think they could be equalized better.

18 hours ago, Kroc said:

Yeah, is there _really_ no way to get through Cordon without a *massive* immediate gun-fight? I wasn't going to leave without my 100% but I had the feeling I was missing a possible option to sneak through unharmed and go back and clean up. Also, the ending of that level was... what's the secret of black water? I didn't get my answer :shrug:

Crossbow and silencer for the 1911 keep everyone quiet if you stay sneaky. It's 100% possible to get through passive for half the level.

Yeah I was able to get all the way to Lukas before the shooting started, but it was weird to me that there didn't seem to be any way past him that didn't involve a gunfight. That whole situation was murky.

One more missing texture in The Mall.

My thoughts on the game:

- The new facial illustrations kind of break the atmosphere. I'm already used to use my imagination while reading texts. And these pictures are too detailed. Some characters have too clean and bright (even glam) look as for a brutal post-apocalyptic setting.

- The voice sound feels really unnecessary. The voice lines from the previous episodes were nearly perfect and placed only in certain spots to indicate the mood and interact with a player, but during the dialogues it mostly hinders from reading.

Though the main quest soldier's narration was immersive and intersting.

I generally agree about the voice acting, also the fact that the lines often didn't completely match the text.

I have an issue with this mod , it crash just after I select difficulty level. I go to advanced options and change display render for software, game crash for me on hardware (looks like my computer is too ancient). Now when first level starts everything outside school got strange blue opacity and when I am indoors colors look normal.

Fallout meets Doom.

Amazing!

Just finished it on apoc, that last fight was a bear at first! I'm sure I'll do a replay end of summer to find secrets etc. Afterglow was a tough act to follow and HR definitely hit some of the same highs.

You understand the value of not stuffing every section with enemies, creating tense situations. I appreciate that some of the decision making wasn't "what do I spend junk on" but choice of supplies provided by others, rifle mods you can do for free depending on what you think you're going to run into, etc.

I liked the bow! Once you get into a peek and pop rhythm it's effective and pleasing gunfeel, particularly against human targets. Always used the explosive against the bow mutants to replenish what I just shot off their drop. Fun that you can pick up fallen regular bolts too, for a good portion of the game I always had ammo for it.

One negative to offset all that positivity--the raiders milling about speech (get around em, wuss wuss etc) while iconic is INSANELY LOUD AND REPETITIVE, especially when there's a large group active in a nearby room. By far my least favorite part about the series thus far. 

14 hours ago, scrubbysniff said:

the raiders milling about speech (get around em, wuss wuss etc) while iconic is INSANELY LOUD

I WILL FIND YOU!

I manage to mess my hardware / software display options to the point it actually starts working as it should.

How many times did You find lady in red dress?

I think I saw her maybe 3 times? God, I loved that whole aspect, though I wish the game had been more clear up front about what was going on. I only even knew about Walker's wife because the motel owner mentioned it, I would have been so confused otherwise.

Ashes Hard Reset is a good episode, but in my opinion Ashes Afterglow is still by far the best episode in the entire series. 

Edit: Having played this a second time to really take it all in properly, I have come realise that this episode is not as good as I originally commented. The first map makes it feel more a Doom version of the TV show The Walking Dead instead of an Ashes episode as this starts in a high school full of zombies at night time whilst looking for chemicals without any reason or explanation for it just begs the question: why? Then after a few maps, the main story gets going and it's like an Ashes version of the film Suicide Squad. You are hired to guide some Army soldiers to the Spire Tower in the city of Atlanta so they can shut down Athena for good, but get this, you're doing all the work while the Army guys who have more powerful weapons just stand there and watch without doing a thing to help! Actually, they only help in one bit in one map. The only good points this episode has is that it does answer a few unexplained things in the previous two episodes as this is set 3 years before the events of 2063 and Afterglow but in all, this isn't all that great to be honest. Also the Apocalypse difficulty doesn't have enough ammo in the levels if you're going for 100% kills and secrets. 

Random suggestion of the moment: none of the MAPINFOs currently specify a lightmode -- it'd be good to set that, so everything looks correct out of the box for folks who are using an existing GZDoom install instead of the standalone release.

Map08 of Hard Reset has 4 secrets, but only 3 can found. To get the fourth secret you have to noclip through the wall as the hidden door to the fourth secret is NOT tagged. I checked it on Ultimate Doom Builder just to be sure. So on Map08, you can get only 75% of the secrets as they forget to tag the door to the last secret of that map.

A big patch is incoming to fix a lot of these issues. Sadly what started as a collaboration kinda evaporated and I had to finish up what was available with the short amount of time given. Sadly it wasn't in the greatest of states on release so there is a lot of context missing. I'll be going over this when I get the time and hopefully clearing up some of the missing B-plot. 
Bear in mind this was more of an expansion than a full episode, so it wasn't hugely going to be pushing the bar higher anyway. But hopefully I can use some of the data I've gathered in this release to put some of my ideas for Episode 3 into a much more interesting state.

will there be another ashes sequel? also one of my favorite things about this series is, all 3 episodes have different arsenals and stuff.

I'd love to see a sequel where there is a huge faction war akin to the great battle of hoover dam from New Vegas. or maybe some prototype energy weapon 

6 hours ago, Vostyok said:

A big patch is incoming to fix a lot of these issues. Sadly what started as a collaboration kinda evaporated and I had to finish up what was available with the short amount of time given. Sadly it wasn't in the greatest of states on release so there is a lot of context missing. I'll be going over this when I get the time and hopefully clearing up some of the missing B-plot. 
Bear in mind this was more of an expansion than a full episode, so it wasn't hugely going to be pushing the bar higher anyway. But hopefully I can use some of the data I've gathered in this release to put some of my ideas for Episode 3 into a much more interesting state.

Please don't take any of this feedback too negatively. Hard Reset, in aggregate, is fantastic, a wonderful reminder of why I love this world you've created. And I still think you should just make one gargantuan mall level, something combining everything from Temple of the Dollar, The Flooded District and The Mall into one sprawling capitalist nightmare. Maybe for a quick Porcelain story?

On 6/13/2024 at 8:09 AM, Kroc said:

Okay finished it, 7:23 for a fairly relaxed playthrough trying to soak in the atmosphere and collect everything.

 

Last bug, there's a soft-lock here, you can't get past them. Had to noclip through them to continue.

 

 

 

I ended up just doing a running-jump over them after being unable to get through the gap.
 

On 6/15/2024 at 5:35 AM, Gzegzolka said:

I manage to mess my hardware / software display options to the point it actually starts working as it should.

How many times did You find lady in red dress?

You guys saw a woman in a red dress?


All in all, I found it enjoyable to play more in the Ashes world although I did end up spending a good majority of the subway levels without light because I ran out of flashlight batteries. I disliked the Mutant Gladiators though. They felt a bit too fast and bullet spongey. And twice I accidentally pulled out my flamethrower meaning to take out the crossbow and wasted some ammo trying to "switch" ammo types but that one's on me hahaha.

6 hours ago, Briggsy said:

I ended up just doing a running-jump over them after being unable to get through the gap.
 

You guys saw a woman in a red dress?


All in all, I found it enjoyable to play more in the Ashes world although I did end up spending a good majority of the subway levels without light because I ran out of flashlight batteries. I disliked the Mutant Gladiators though. They felt a bit too fast and bullet spongey. And twice I accidentally pulled out my flamethrower meaning to take out the crossbow and wasted some ammo trying to "switch" ammo types but that one's on me hahaha.

You can jump over em

Grenade Launcher is available in the cheats, but not anywhere to be found in the episode itself. 

On 6/14/2024 at 9:05 PM, Gzegzolka said:

I manage to mess my hardware / software display options to the point it actually starts working as it should.

How many times did You find lady in red dress?

I'm wondering if the woman in the red dress is Walker hallucinating his dead wife. You hear a woman's voice here and there, and when Walker is talking to Violet and Porcelain (the waitress) in Michonne something weird happens and the pictures go grey. Again, probably Walker's dead wife. Jimmy in Junction also says about Walker's dead wife and you can pick an option that says "Shut the f**k up or I'm putting a bullet in your head!" 

I found her three times: first at start of abandon fun park, she is behind locked gate in distance, second at cater part of stadium arena and last time I spot her on security camera in shopping mall. I do not know if there are more places with her.

As for laucher You can find it if You buy map on first metro station. There is cola drink museum stage and near end of it there is single wild scav, You have to kill him.

12 minutes ago, Gzegzolka said:

I found her three times: first at start of abandon fun park, she is behind locked gate in distance, second at cater part of stadium arena and last time I spot her on security camera in shopping mall. I do not know if there are more places with her.

 

As for laucher You can find it if You buy map on first metro station. There is cola drink museum stage and near end of it there is single wild scav, You have to kill him.

No one at Sommerville Station can be killed

47 minutes ago, Mad Dal 85 said:

Grenade Launcher is available in the cheats, but not anywhere to be found in the episode itself. 

Untrue, I found one during normal play. I believe it was in the room behind the crazy scav in the Choka Cola plant.

I'll wait until someone does a video for the launcher. i can't find what anyone is saying. it will be easier for me then. i have trouble understanding things in writing.