The DWmegawad Club plays: Realm of Chaos 25th Anniversary Edition

[cannonball]

MAP11 - “Mars Starport” by Antoni Chan

 

Before

Quote

MAP11 - “Mars StarPort” by Antoni Chan
This was pretty short, fun and violent. Died a couple of times due to bad luck with hitscanners or architecture. Short compact layout aimed with heavy ssg abuse which is always fun. I found the super secret rocket launcher too, but could only use it on the exit baron.
Very good map, second best in the set so far.

 

 

Now

 

There is definitely a charm to this one, which makes it head and shoulders better than Map02. There is still this old skool sense of place and quirkiness to it and the gameplay is much quicker due to the fact that you actually have room to move. There isn't too much in the way of challenge and the red key ambush with the cacodemons could use a little polish (In fact the usage of cacos could be improved by altering some blocking lines here and there. But overall this is a solid map.

[LadyMistDragon]

 

Map 11: Mars Starport

by Antoni Chai

 

I've got to say, I did NOT expect to find two short maps in a row! I don't think that's why the music failed to stand out in my mind admittedly, but no matter, Antoni Chai took a serious step up here! Cammy probably smoothed out some bits and made the layout more intuitive but the luggage check out is a nice location, and so is the little security room that has...a rocket launcher. Seems a little bit like overkill if there weren't a couple little groups of Cacos floating around just waiting for us deliver our explosive payload into their scaly and red-skinned hides! Two secrets are both quite easy to find as it happens. The hot start isn't really too bad if one focuses their reponse on the hitscanners here. We leave in what the story text tells us is an "abandoned" spaceship but isn't this an actual spaceport. I do have to laugh at the silliness of the pseudo-Loecraftian name of the main villain like something I'd expect to say in Cthluhu saves the World or something ridiculous like that :D)

 

 

 

 

[Cilian]

Map11-------------------
Chill map, it's trying to feel like a real place and I think it has some success. It reminds me of TNT somehow. Navigating the map is quick and intuitive enough though I got myself softlocked once... On the combat side, it's not good and not bad. The worst thing you'll see here is mowing down rooms overstuffed with zombie men which is getting a bit old from how many times this wad does it IMO, but the rest of the gameplay is okay, the best thing about the map is the navigation. Judging by other reviews secrets have some more interesting fights but I haven't seen them.

The softlock btw: in the rooftop where you get the red key you can jump off using the stairs and get into the secret with a soulsphere and boxes of rockets. It seems to be an unintended way to get there, while I was exploring this secret I fell into an untriggered popup closet and couldn't get out.

Spoiler

Blind saveless, one softlock

Map12-------------------------------
This map is nothing that you'd expect after playing 11 previous maps. You start in a dark outdoor area that has no enemies, you hear an atmospheric midi, walk around and still see no enemies until you open the first door, you already know it's nothing like the previous maps. The whole map is a lot more atmospheric than previous maps (and, sorry, similar to TNT). Another huge difference from previous maps is the combat: it's a little cruel. This map has by far the most dangerous archviles in the wad so far. Some ambushes really want to kill you. This map has a bit of tedious shotgunning of big enemies but the surprise factor of the map really overshadows the tedious and you forget it, which is I suppose how good maps work because having 0 tedium in a map is nearly impossible.
 

Spoiler

Not saveless

 

[Steve D]

Just chiming in with a couple of things.

 

First, the super-short Map10 by Jason Fowler. As it happens, this was an unfinished map. It was never intended to be so short, but Jason was -- get ready -- a professional level designer. That's right, one of the RoC team members was a pro. Specifically, I was told he made levels for the Mac 3D polygon-based FPS Avara, released by Ambrosia Software in 1996. The game was weird and a huge commercial flop. Here's a longplay I found on YouTube;

 

 

As @Cilian has already seen, Map12 shows what Jason Fowler could do. It's unfortunate for us that he had to leave RoC after making the wonderful skies, one killer map, and the start of what could have been another killer map, but his job with Avara came first. Now the next question is, why didn't someone finish Map10? I honestly don't know. It might have been the time crunch. Again, I want to stress that basically, it was me, Rob Berkowitz, Antoni Chan, Jim Bagrow, and Slava Pestov who did an entire megawad in 6 months, in 1996. I'm not gonna bleat about how it was so hard to make maps "with the primitive tools" available in '96, because we had a wonderful tool with Hellmaker. It was easy to make maps as long as you were mindful of its crashy nature. I saved a new copy of each map every 10 sectors or so, rather than try to build nodes over an existing copy of a map. If you built nodes over an existing copy, sooner or later everything would go haywire and your map could become an unfixable mess. But that aside, we did pretty well.

 

Continuing with Map12, the wonderfully atmospheric start is all Cammy. I like it a lot.

 

After playing Map09, @cannonball asked Cammy about how far one can go before altering the soul of the original map. I can say that Cammy has been very respectful of the original visions of all the RoC mappers, but in any case, the originals still exist. So what we have here is Cammy's vision of how RoC could have been -- in 1996 -- if the mappers had been a bit more experienced and had possibly received external commentary. It's worth remembering that the only playtesters for RoC were the mappers of RoC, and mostly me and Rob, and we were noobs. Probably the main reason so many '90s maps sucked is that thousands of people made one map and then left the scene, and those maps had no external testing, so no one could suggest changes. It took years and years for the community to build up the knowledge base of what works and what doesn't, and for cadres of mappers to stick with it and seek to improve their designs. Cammy provides that and mostly the maps are better for it. I'm personally very satisfied with the result.

[Cammy]

2 hours ago, Cilian said:

Map11-------------------
The softlock btw: in the rooftop where you get the red key you can jump off using the stairs and get into the secret with a soulsphere and boxes of rockets. It seems to be an unintended way to get there, while I was exploring this secret I fell into an untriggered popup closet and couldn't get out.

 

Actually, this is the intended way to access this secret. I'm not sure how you managed to fall in one of the caco pits, because they raise when you jump off the red key balcony. I wonder if you accidentally performed a linedef skip. I'll try and make this softlock less likely to occur - sorry about it!

[Cilian]

2 hours ago, Cammy said:

 

Actually, this is the intended way to access this secret. I'm not sure how you managed to fall in one of the caco pits, because they raise when you jump off the red key balcony. I wonder if you accidentally performed a linedef skip. I'll try and make this softlock less likely to occur - sorry about it!

Completely forgot that linedef skips exist, that's probably what happened considering I used strafe run.

[Celestin]

MAP12: Home Sweet Home by Jason Fowler

 

There's something cosy about the opening of this map. A dark blue sky, blocky spaceship and a view of a nearby base, it gives of a pleasently retro vibe. The new midi has this mysterious and unnerving undertone, a good fit for exploring an abandoned place.

 

Combat-wise, it's a major departure from Fowler's previous level. Home Sweet Home is a mid-size, linear map that blends incidental corridor clearing, setpiece fights (like a multi-stage fight somewhere in the middle, in, around and below a courtyard with a central structure) and helpful secrets. The ending takes the cake, though. You are given a ton of rockets to defend against being squeezed by archvile triplets and a teleporting mass of imps and zombies. While it's not that hard (just focus on the viles), it's an exciting and memorable fight, a good way to end a solid map.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 12: Home Sweet Home

by Jason Fowler

 

This midi is incredibly different from what came before. The wave sample is like something out of the Who's "Let Love Reign O'er Me" and the midi itself is quite solemn and tense. There is a sort of "we're leaving" at the end, but I have no idea what those xylophones are about. 

 

The map...well, I should've been saving but I was doing so well and at a certain point, things started going to hell. But this is a very solid structure and I can totally believe that Jason Fowler was a professional level designer. I dunno if this resembles anyone home in any way though. The little apartment building of sorts with the Gauntlet-esque pool in the middle is narrow enough to require door camping though, and with the Imps on one side proving a serious thorn that will damage most players greatly.

 

The last conflict in this courtyard's quite annoying though since hitscanners and Imps up the wazoo furiously attack us, necessitating some sort of run to safety. Not long after this, we enter...the same central building? The approximately 597 spectres (I'm exaggerating people!) were really not appreciated and especially after having had to reload a stupidly early save.

 

After passing a porch or two and entering a forked narrow hallway though, we end up in a room I've got no imagination for right now but there's quite a few Imps here waiting for something, I assume. Push a switch here, than a nasty teleport trap involving hitscanners is unleashed, killing us once or twice.

 

Thankfully, we get to unload at the end with a metric ton of rockets and masses of trash enemies which teleport behind us. Though we do have to contend with three Arch-viles. A thrilling end to a seriously tense map.

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Cammy]

Alright, time to start catching up with map talk.

 

map05: Mission Control has always been one of the first maps I think of when I think of Realm of Chaos, which is kind of weird because admittedly there's not a lot about it that's memorable or novel. I guess it's hard to forget a map that opens with that many shotgunners, huh? This map and map22 were the first two where I experimented with changing outdoor geometry to look a little more flashy while not impacting gameplay, and it ended up becoming an essential part of my process.

 

I'm currently working on a new version of the blue key area, which smushes the nukage pit area and the storage crate hall into one large room that combines elements of both.

 

map06: Splatterhouse . This map makes prominent use of one of the Plutonia brick textures. I added a handful of Plutonia textures to this wad because I love the gritty edge they have - they strengthen the environment while maintaining the classic feel. They're great replacements for Doom 2's big brick textures, most of which I absolutely hate, hence the near-nonexistence of STONE2, STONE3, and the BIGBRIKs in this megawad.

 

As for the map itself, it's another one where I cut down the number of locked doors throughout the map in favor of a single point that requires multiple keys, which I think is a good fit for this map - even in the original (or I guess not quite the original, since it was added afterward), its wide hallways and tall ceilings make Splatterhouse feel like it wants to be thoroughly interconnected.

 

In hindsight, I completely agree that this map should have had a more quiet and tense midi rather than the explosive aggression I poured into the one that ended up going to it. I'm considering writing a new one, which I doubt Steve would object to. He's told me in the past that his favorite kinds of midis, especially for maps of this nature, are what he calls "perpetual fugues" - to use IWAD comparisons, these are songs like Sinister, Demons on the Prey, and Agony Rhapsody, which are in a constant state of suspense and buildup, never really exploding into anything grand but constantly keeping you on edge. I suck at writing music like that because I have no self restraint and every song needs to have a solo or I'll die.

 

map07: Deathstay is one of the most aesthetically touched-up maps in the megawad while not being especially different in terms of layout or gameplay. Inevitably the map will end by going to the red key hall and then the blue key pit area, so I figured it would be fun to allow the player to approach the red key itself from two different angles this time, rather than just the one. It's a very bottleneck-heavy map at the moment so I might need to do some reworking.

 

Deathstay also contains a new easter egg that reveals the TMT logo in the northwest courtyard if you return to it after having visited the exit hallway area. It felt like a suitably '90s thing to do. :)

[cannonball]

MAP12 - “Home Sweet Home” by Jason Fowler

 

Before

 

Quote

Can only reiterate what Memfis said here, this is an excellent map and the best one so far. Thematically solid, looks decent enough, filled with excellent traps and visual trickery. My favourite moment was the baron trap where you think you can kill the zombiemen, excellent stuff. Add to that the ammo is very well balanced, health is a little more generous.
My only little niggle is near the end where you have to hit a switch in a slime pit, not the most obvious thing in the world but literally that is it.
Well done Jason Fowler :)

 

 

Well I certainly enjoyed this the first time around;

 

Now

 

*Groans* Yep I missed the SSG secret, which pretty much straps you in for a far worse experience of this rather technically impressive adventure map. Several sections of the map transform as you hit switches, kind of in a Jens Nielsen kind of way, however ammo for the rocket launcher is very tight and unfortunately despite getting the berserk there are far too few areas to really use your fists because of lots of hitscanners or hard to hit mid-tiers. Unfortunately this was a rather slow crawl until nearly the end of the map, where suddenly the rug is pulled from you with a triple threat archvile wave plus a load of fodder that is revealed in the previous room. This was very fun to push through and clearly the highlight of the map.

This map was technically impressive, but my enjoyment was much lower this time around and I had to return to clean up a couple of barons I skipped due to ammo issues. This is still one of the better maps so far but this lacked something to really push the player forwards. 

[VoanHead]

MAP 12: HOME SWEET HOME (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Yo this was a major tonal whiplash of a map. After going from 11 back to back maps w/ funky music and absolute slaughter of cannon fodder enemies, this map suddenly comes out of nowhere to fucking spook the player. This goes to show how much power music has in creating tone and how the sudden atmosphere turned into something much more chilling. The one fight w/ the blue chaos key w/ the 4 archviles came as a jolt to me. I’m so damn lucky, and none of you will probably believe me when I say this, but when I encountered them I ran back to the room I came from and just dealt w/ the en mass of monsters teleporting in, while the archviles just hanged back and didn’t even set foot into the room itself. Again, either I am just really lucky or the way the monster behavior worked saved me in this instance.

Cammy was not lying that the difficulty is ramping up.

 

MAP 13: BLOODLANDS (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Already I’m starting to love how the difficulty is picking up here in this new chapter of RoC25, felt like that what was lacking in the beginning maps. The thing is, what’s being traded off for higher difficulty is things going from upbeat to more sinister and like shit has hit the fan here back on earth. This map has some notable design choices, from the winding angular passageways when you get the super shotgun, and the setting that looks like a canyon w/ a demon outpost set up in there. The exit made me say “what the fuck” when I first gazed my eyes on it. It’s a bunch of voodoo dolls surrounding the area w/ two chaingunners there just so they could be able to open fire on you and make you hurt yourself. This area should be no problem if you are stocked to 100% on health here. The archvile felt like it was just there for padding, just hug him ASAP when you open the door and plasma em down till they die and you’re free to exit. I missed out on like roughly 28% of the kills here tho b/c of the monsters being hidden behind a secret. Wish I had Doom wiki to consult on this, but sadly no page up yet. Regardless, some good stuff this map has.

 

Enjoy this image of the death message that displays in Woof should you blow up a voodoo doll or the cause was b/c of a voodoo doll. I found it funny.

Spoiler

 

MAP 14:DIE HARD (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Here we have another canyon outpost in this map, this time with what seems to be one w/ a storage room the demons have set up. Loved the lil doomcute meeting table room that the demons almost looked like they were in the middle of one before I rudely came in to interrupt. The standout fight here for this map was the big fucking water fall room where you gotta hit switches to later stage dive into the big fucking mosh pit of demons while 2 masterminds open fired on you from afar. Luckily, if you have an eye for secrets you should find a big fucking gun somewhere and a megasphere to patch yourself up ready for the big fight. The midi this time I felt like was reminiscent of Castlevania, and I mean post NES-era Castlevania music.

 

Off topic, but I’m going to admit something: I have never seen Die Hard and I don’t know why I haven’t bothered to go ahead and watch it for so damn long. Since we’re nearing the holidays, might as well watch it now since I heard it’s considered a Christmas movie.

[Celestin]

MAP13: Bloodlands by Rob Berkowitz

 

I was curious how this map changed between the original release and the remaster, because I seriously doubted the slaughter gameplay was Berkowitz's work. I was right - the layout stays more or less the same, but the wall to wall hordes of zombies, canals filled with imps and numerous archvile healers are all Cammy's addition. This makes me wonder how much of the previous maps' combat was improved from the original.

 

Anyway, while this isn't a pretty map (even with the improved lighting brought by the Anniversary Edition), it's highly entertaining. You are given plenty of rockets and cells to mass-murder demons, while the archviles keep things challenging. Upon reaching the exit, I realise I had a hundred monsters alive. I couldn't find the rest without IDDT, though in the hindsight, it was rather obvious - I overlooked a tiny step in the early SSG secret, which allows you to jump out of a window, down into a crowd of zombies and a mastermind with company. One thing I won't defend is the exit, with several chaingunners mixed in with a ring of voodoo dolls. I get it was carried over from the original release, but it doesn't make it less stupid.

 

Bloodlands, despite this flaw, is a good map and probably the one I had the most fun playing.

[Roofi]

Map 11 - Mars Starport

 

Quote

 

 

The layout and visuals don't change that much in the anniversary edition but the urban theme is now more visible thanks to the road drawn at the spawn's area. The upbeat new midi is really satisfying to hear This reinforces the idea that the Doomguy is going on vacation and preparing to discover new lands on his way to the airport. It effectively conveys the soul of the map, which represents both a short break between adventure maps and a final farewell before episode 2, which will be much more nocturnal and gloomier. The music really improves this map.

 

Grade : B-  (12/20) - old version

Grade : B   (14/20) - new version

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Map 12 - Home Sweet Home

 

Quote

 

I'm really amazed by the way this map has been revisited. Cammy has succeeded in transforming this distorted factory into a haunted house, and this fits in well with the original version, as the traps are both dangerous and unpredictable. The last trio of arch-viles proves particularly violent!

 

The oppressive atmosphere is perfectly matched by the new deep blue skies, and I also love the scenery at the beginning, which makes the transition from the previous map. What a change of atmosphere!

 

To say that this map turns shit into gold would be an exaggeration, because I find the original map interesting in its design, but this change of tone makes this map sublimely diabolical.

Definitely one of the highlights ofthe anniversary edition

 

Grade : B  (14/20) - old version

Grade : A  (17/20) - new version

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Map 13 : "Bloodlands"

 

Quote

 

 

The original map had great potential, but suffered from over-simplistic architecture and overlighting. Cammy rectifies the situation, and now "Bloodlands" really ressemble to mountains and exploration now becomes much more mystical. I also appreciate the tendency to add more monsters so as to be able to pulverize more enemies. 

 

Grade : B- (12/20) - old version

Grade : B+ (15/20) - new version

 

Quote

 

 

[Cutman 999]

MAP11 - “Mars Starport” by Antoni Chan

 

This is... Ok? Thematically is one of RoC's most consistent offerings, sticking towards the whole map to that building theme. The combat is bland, with the same filler like compositions i saw in the previous maps, at least it was short and painless. Secret number 2 with the soulsphere outside the starting area was good, though. Just forgettable and ends as quickly as it starts.

 

Btw i laughed at the pseudo conveyor belt, maybe if for some miracle this was made when boom existed, this could be a proper one.

 

5/10 

[Cutman 999]

MAP12 - “Home Sweet Home” by Jason Fowler

 

One word: Boring. I like this map in concept, being a direct continuation of the story text, the midi is really good and atmospheric, good job cammy; but in gameplay just drags and reminds me of late tnt, with way better navigation compared to mill or baron's den. That final triplet archvile ambush was a fucking jumpscare, apparently easy to cheese since the Viles got stuck in the weird cavern geometry. 

 

4/10

[Cutman 999]

MAP13 - “Bloodlands” by Rob Berkowitz

 

Proto slaughter omg. Hot start and decent fights, I enjoyed many of the archvile setpieces in the map, and that wood arena was a good centerpiece for most of the encounters. Some parts dragged like that switch secuence with barons, mancubi and archviles. It pales compared to many other proto slaughter kind of maps, like the casali maps from memento mori or go2it, but is a decent map nonetheless.

 

This midi i dig, finally i found the david wise resemblance many people talked about here, you can even say is from him and people would probably believe you.

 

6/10

Edited December 13, 2023 by Cutman 999

[Cutman 999]

MAP14 - “Die Hard” by Jim Bagrow

 

It should be clarified i'm playing all of this blind, I tried to have my expectations neutral after seeing people here talking that this map was garbage, so i just played trough it and i can say, I can of get what people are talking about. Compared to map 4, this feels a lot rougher and not fast paced by any metric, most of the map is waiting for infighting to happen or to decipher what should you do to not get your ass kicked monumentally. That nukage room with the rev snipers and explosive barrels everywhere, is just plain bad, and the solution is simple as camp in place to not get your ass beaten. Fake difficulty in my book.

 

Other than that, the midi delivered like always, this feeling like a fusion of david wise with lee jackson's style, it has the same issues as map 4 but with none of the substance. Although, i don't think this map is bad at everything, those things just stick up like a sore thumb, and make it bullshit in some parts and aspects. 

 

5/10

[UUN4]

Played on Nugget Doom 2.2.1 | -complevel 2/vanilla.

 

MAP10: Hollow Oblivion

Spoiler

UV | Pistol start | No saves

K: 100% | I: 50% | S: 0%

This was an unexpectedly short level (although I saw people in here saying it was short, I didn't expect it to be that short); I was expecting the switch atop a cliff to open another quick area and not straight up end the level (nothing really wrong with it though). Besides only having a regular shotgun and chaingun to deal with the baron of hell, the berserk fight against the slowly descending horde of pinkies, and the raised arachnotron ambush within the little hut; I don't know if there's much else I can note about the map. The music is neat; starts of kind of like a marching drum kind of deal, and going into the triplets section was cool.

 

MAP11: Mars Starport

Spoiler

UV | Pistol start | No saves

K: 94% | I: 0% | S: 0%

I don't know if it's me being fatigued from MAP09 and being weirded out by maps of relatively normal length, but this map also felt pretty short and a tiny bit forgettable to me (not as short as the previous one though). I know there's probably a secret rocket launcher in the map somewhere (maybe related to the supercharge behind the gate at the start or something) due to the scattering of rocket ammo throughout the map, but I didn't end up finding it; luckily the map was very easily manageable with the chaingun and super shotgun (the former helping with a pretty packed second floor of fodder). In regards to the music, the use of (what I assume to be are) helicopter noises is cool and fits the (expected) starport aesthetic of the map.

 

MAP12: Home Sweet Home

Spoiler

UV | Pistol start | Saves used

K: 100% | I: 100% | S: 60%

I think the map boasts some strong atmosphere helped by its relatively dark lighting and tense music. The map is also relatively long and challenging, although I'm tempted to let it slide more than MAP09 since I feel like it complements the aforementioned atmosphere and its elements kinda well (although it was still long enough to get me to use saves on this level). Speaking of, I instinctively used a save right before triggering the final fight (before the blue chaos key, which I wasn't expecting to be a chaos key but it's a nice visual thing) that gives you a stash of rockets, and I got jumpscared by the arch-vile party and the peanut gallery. I rocketed myself on my first attempt at the fight due to panic, but I managed to mow them down and make quick work of the fodder on my second go. Before that, the big outside courtyard definitely gave me some trouble for a few attempts (especially with the chaingunners peppered throughout), but I managed to get through without saves. And all of this is without an SSG (or I might've missed it in a secret somewhere), although you can find a secret plasma rifle that definitely helps with some fights (the first archvile in my case). Like VoanHead said, this is definitely a major tonal whiplash.

 

[cannonball]

MAP13 - “Bloodlands” by Rob Berkowitz

Previously

 

Quote

First thoughts were
Where's the blood?
This mapper is too hipster to use door textures :P
This map is rather crude in terms of looks and layout. Slight element of non linearity as you can go for the red and blue keys in any order. There were some oddities in the map including the wolfenstein textured rooms and the exit room with the voodoo dolls. The map is rather simple and boxy, at times pretty ugly. The gameplay is solid if a little unbalanced with a lot of heavy firepower. The hardest section was getting a foothold at the start as monsters close in on you with only the basic weaponry to fight with.
It's an ok map, it's at least fun to play when you don't think about the visuals.

 

 

Now

 

Still no blood

This map has a case of the good, the bad and the goddamn odd. First the good, the start looks nice with much more natural looking visuals, the combat is pretty decent and fun too. The bad, the following room isn't particularly inspiring and those nice vistas kind of get replaced by some random rooms with various textures plastered all over the place, the highlight being the wolf3d textures in the pipe maze. Lastly the odd, the exit trap remains and exhibits something we have only really seen in maps from CChest by a certain author. Between there you do have some other fin fights, the area beyond the yellow door is decent, some of the sharp lighting contrast pops nicely and the midi whilst chill provides enough momentum to get you through this. 

Overall this isn't bad, the more liberal archvile usage adds a bit of spice and thereare some genuinely nice moments embedded in this one.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 13: Bloodlands

by Rob Berkowitz (and Cammy)

 

Another midi which starts in a very similar key to the last one but quickly transforms into a tension-building jazzy number before eventually becoming a more tradtional  rock rhythmn. Really nice quasi-mellotron about halfway through, but that's only a lead-in to something a bit more lonely, but later majestic and this song bounces effortlessly back and forth between the two moods. There's not really too much to say about the map, other than these are some nice narrow canyons. The turrets add nothing here, but apparently, the monster numbers were all the work of Cammy. I guess that before, combat was quite stuttery and not enough to fill out the space contained herein. I dunno if there are less Arch-viles on UV though. The last pair especially seems like something that doesn't really need to appear on lower difficulty levels.

 

The dark sewer bit toward the end is where the secret fight can be found, according to an above poster. The Wolfenstein rooms are certainly mysterious but rooms themselves are too devoid of any detail to surmise their function. The ending was quite funny though. At least my health was high enough, I'm just guessing the folks here were a little too mentally drained to do much of anything. A firing squad worthy of Stephen Clark!

 

 

 

[Cilian]

Map13---------------------------
I liked the midi on this map. This map gives you pretty big guns (rocket launcher and plasma gun) and a lot of ammo to use them on big hordes of enemies and it's pretty satisfying as it's the first time the wad lets you do this (or one of the first), but other than that I didn't like much about this map, whenever it's not about mowing down hordes of enemies it's a bit boring (except for the hot start but everything else yeah).

Map14---------------------------
My initial experience with the map was bad so I needed to replay it to really learn the map and for proof (maybe to myself) that I wasn't just rage-posting because the map was a difficulty spike. So I did, recorded a casual uv max demo. The map is not bad, not great, but has good moments. Visuals-wise it's one of the worse maps of the wad, most areas are very empty and basic, although the doomcute area where you get the plasma gun is good and got more attention than the rest of the map. Combat is a bit inconsistent, at worst it's the baffling crate maze room where a horde of enemies is trying to go through the door to get you but get stuck, the fight turns into a rather tedious process of picking off every one of them peeking from a corner and then sniping every monster sitting on a crate. At best it's the ending room which is honestly pretty fun. On average it's fine.

On my first playthrough of the map I was confused by the progression twice. The first time it was just trying to find the way out of the red key room because the door was the texture of the wall, usually implying that the door was one-way (and I forgot about the door so that's more on me). The second time was a lot worse, I pressed the red key switch and didn't notice what it opened and spent several minutes walking around the map trying to find what changed and when I finally found how to progress I got a bit angry at it, it was an elevator that looks like a decorative pillar. To be fair at first it is surrounded by red bars and had I noticed that they raised I wouldn't have an issue, so I don't know what to say about this.

This map also gives you a lot of rockets and I don't know why. So many rockets that I thought I had missed a rocket launcher on my first playthrough. I even checked in UDB and there is no rocket launcher, even on lower difficulty settings, so I think these rockets are there just to make the map a lot easier for continuous players??

Spoiler

roc2514m.zip
@Cutman 999 I thought you may be interested in how I did the barrels room. The hitscanners there are a bit annoying but other than that it's okay.

 

[Cammy]

map08: Research Lab has been through a few major revisions at this point, and let me just say I'm glad nobody seemed to have triggered the extremely easy yellow key fight skip that exists in RC1.5. Phew.

 

I remember having an awful day when I first edited this map and I removed the red key puzzle section entirely, but I have since added it back in and touched it up, because it's one of the few times RoC really goes ham with switches and puzzles, and a research lab seems like just the right place to do so. This section's only real sin in my eyes was that it came at the ending of the map; I think moving it to the middle helped this level feel better-paced.

 

The fireblu shootable switches were an extreme last-minute addition to RC1.5, mostly added so you only alert teleporter-closet monsters right before they warp in. I didn't know this until Michael Jensen told me, but vanilla Doom 2 sound effects behave very strangely in map08, which is apparently a leftover from Doom 1's boss levels. Monster sounds get louder the further away you are from them, instead of the opposite, and they're impossible to mute even if you turn the sound effect volume slider all the way down. In RC1, all the teleporter closet monsters were alerted the first time you fired a shot, and it was really unpleasant to hear two arachnotrons stomping around and a whole army of imps and zombies mumbling to themselves for half the map's entire run time.

 

The elevator fight was actually inspired by a comment made by this very club! In Research Lab '96, Cybie and the Hell Knight crew are stuck in a shallow pit in a much larger room that you teleport into. If you fall in the pit, you can simply get out by hitting use on the edges to trigger an unmarked lift. @dobu gabu maru played the map in July of 2013, accidentally fell into the pit, and had to contend with the infighting party in very close quarters because he didn't realize he could have left, which made the fight much more interesting. I figured it wouldn't hurt to rebuild the fight around dobu's experience. :)

 

map09: Machine Gun Etiquette is a funky one. Those of you familiar with Steve Duff's other work may see his design philosophies loosely taking shape here, what with the affinity for tall ceilings and multi-height fights, but this map lacks focus to put it mildly. Every room looks completely different from the one before it - it uses 96 unique textures, which has got to be in the top 3 of the whole wad. Its visual identity suffers due to this.

 

I'm actually always excited to see maps like this, because I think it's an essential stage of the learning process. Once you get a grasp of how your editor works, it's hard not to get hit by an overzealous wave of "holy shit, I can do ANYTHING!!!" and so then you make a level that does everything. It reminds me of map24: Probably Maybe Certainly from the Japanese Community Project. For passionate mappers, the logical next step after that is to dial it back a notch and begin to create maps with a much tighter focus. These maps may not be palatable to most people, but they're a stepping stone to greater things.

 

As I said before, I didn't do much work on the layout of Machine Gun Etiquette, but I kind of wanted to. It's a pet peeve of mine when different essential areas of a map are connected to each other solely by teleporters, with no tangible route that joins them. Of course, sometimes the map is built around it as a defining feature (as we'll see in map20), and sometimes there's just no other way to make stuff work (especially considering vanilla limits), but I think it's generally a virtue for maps to intuitively make sense as a real-world space, no matter how abstract or unusual that space looks; that sense is harmed when areas are connected together only by teleporter.

 

Other maps in this wad (a rather high proportion of which are Steve's maps, now that I think about it) physically connect together areas that were previously only accessible via teleporter, and I think the maps are better for it.

 

map10: Hollow Oblivion is teeny, as we've established. Steve has already given you guys the skinny on how this map came to be - and how it could have came to be larger - so I'll just say that I'm glad people seemed to enjoy the descending pinky sequence, because that was an addition of mine. The '96 version of this map has the same gunpowder-rich start, but after that you descend into a few underground 64-wide tunnels and fight one or two pinkies before reemerging for an even more abrupt end to the map.

 

As I've said before, there was a time that I was much more conservative with my changes to action setpieces in this wad, and this map was a gateway towards fixing that, because I couldn't not add a fight in this area. There needed to be something. The only standout part of the dark tunnels in Hollow Oblivion '96 is a small circular clearing midway through them that's hemmed by glowing scrolling tech texture and has one pinky in it. I made it a lot bigger and put a whole bunch of pinkies in it, and cut out the dark hallway section completely. As much as I wanted to add some more stuff after that, it just didn't feel right - and still doesn't - to use one of these maps as an outright springboard for something completely original. Not even Sewers really does that.

 

That being said, I did get an idea for a fun ending ambush I could add, so it doesn't feel quite so much like the map just stops on a dime. I'll give it a whirl.

 

map11: Mars Starport was a challenge as far as vanilla limits are concerned, which you might not expect for such a small and enclosed map. There's a very good reason the far south part of the map is blocked off. I wanted to reinforce the airport starport theme, hence the extension of the runway, and the towers now being topped with glowing fireblu lights, but I can't take credit for the adorable baggage carousel. That was all Antoni. The spaceships definitely could have looked a bit more advanced, but even if I didn't want to keep their cute 90s-ness around, making them much more detailed than they are right now would be asking for drawseg overflows. I only barely managed to prevent them as it is; I even ended up needing to employ the old "walkover trigger that closes a distant door to shorten sightlines" trick. I don't think that was necessary in any other map.

[Celestin]

MAP14: Die Hard by Jim Bagrow

 

The start reminds me of Bloodlands a lot, it's a similiar canyon with a river at the bottom, full of foes that want you dead. I prefer the opening of MAP13, sure, there were more enemies, but so was health. Broadly speaking, there are fights in Die Hard that can make your hitpoints disappear quickly - the large room near the end where you have to walk over nukage, while getting shot by turrets, chaingunners and cacodemons is the most blatant example of this. I entered with a megasphere and left with 30% each. The crate storage, aside from being loaded with all manners of enemies, has some truly annoying hitscanners above your eye level.

 

The map ends on a high note though, with a massive infight in a square blue arena. It was entertaining since I've found a secret BFG in a ductwork and decided to trigger all three waves at once, creating a huge clusterfuck (in a positive sense) of various projectiles, spawning lost souls, monsters blocking your route and peripherial masterminds. I really recommend going all in, it's much more fun than being cautious.

[Cutman 999]

MAP15 - “Infestation” by Rob Berkowitz

 

Idk anything about how the original was, but in this case, map15 is easily one of RoC's highlights. There're some flaws like that weird start before the monolith that feels like it doesn't belong at all in the map, the mountain fight with the arachnos drags, the secret bfg makes some of these fights easier than they look, but it compensates by having cammy's atmospheric midi, the monolithic architecture that feels distinctly 90's but has the scale of a 2000's map, making it very memorable. The fights like i said, sometimes are underscalled and crowd control beats them although this is not necessarily an issue considering the sheer spectacle it brings, and even if you are slept, some of this fights can catch you by surprise and become nasty at some points, mostly because the map just gives you enough resources to endure if you don't fuck up big time.

 

Btw I got that secret exit, thank god it's extremely easy to find even without the AutoMap, btw the automap was overkill if it was a remaster inclusion.

 

7/10

Edited December 14, 2023 by Cutman 999

[cannonball]

MAP14 - “Die Hard” by Jim Bagrow

 

Last time
 

Quote

Yes Jim, die hard.
Urgh this map was awful, split between my laptop overheating, dying and having to reinstall half my programme (good times)
I didn't kill everything as I accidentally fell into a hole, which luckily contained the exit switch. The end. Levels like this don't deserve objective criticism :P

 

This time

 

Well I don't think the experience was as bad, that said the room with the checkerboard floor can go the the seventh circle of hell, absolutely diabolical.

The rest, well the start feels similar to the previous map, except this looks worse and the use of lifts to progress makes the ordeal slower. The map features a lot of areas where the only mode of dealing with it is to camp and the door and SSG everything to death, this isn't particularly fun.

On the other hand we have the Pestov platform party bonanza, which when approached with the secret BFG is probably the most fun I have had in this wad so far, yep I literally ran in, hit every switch and nuked the entire army, good times. 

The exit is pretty well guarded, you can still goad the Masterminds into fighting each other, but you have to make the effort here and in the end this whole exit section rescues the map from having a very low grade. 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 14: Die Hard

by Jim Bagrow

 

Steve made a Hell Revealed comparison and it's not too dissimilar really. Although this ammo paucity in the open area is perhaps a bit too much because believe it or not, chainsawing lots of pinkies actually really, really sucks. The music here is some nice progression from the previous two maps, incorporating something more akin to a progressive rock (that crazy synth heard at times like something out of Alberto Jose Gonzales was sick!) feel but after having to restart after a bad save, I wasn't paying close attention to little details like that. Although there was that blue-carpeted room with chairs that made us wonder if we had really arrived at Nakatomi Plaza and Hans Gruber was waiting to taunt us with the fallability of Western society. Either way, we are really going to need that plasma rifle to survive the next couple of rooms if we don't want to have too bad of a time. There's plenty of cells too, maybe it wasn't quite like that originally? We actually survived the checkerboard room quite handily, found the subsequent hall tedious and the BFG secret amusing but possibly close to mandatory as well. Because there are two far Spider Masterminds and loads of other enemies closer like Imps, hitscanners, and naturally, Arachnotrons. Push one of the switch, rocket some Imps who're fairly effective at boxing players in, then cross the bridge and prepare to deal with a baker's dozen of Pain Elementals float in from behind. Or it might be half that number but it becomes more necessary to prioritize rockets. Sparking infighting between the Masterminds seems possible, but it's also possible to die in the process too!

 

 

 

[Cilian]

Map15-------------------------------
Very slaughtery, so many enemies that I wonder if it even stays within vanilla's sprite limit. The map gives you all the big maps and tons of ammo, goes for crazy monster counts and takes you on relatively long journey around the map. The map sacrificed quite a bit of detailing to be big. While playing I also couldn't help but feel like this map doesn't know how to challenge you with the guns you got, as if it's a slaughter map made by someone who doesn't play slaughter, though it's fine because it's still kind of satisfying honestly, and there are still some small surprises that may kill you if unprepared (I died and loaded a few times). I really liked the BFG secret which isn't all that hidden but the switch sequence is very fun to do. The secret exit is really easy to find with the computer map that is inside the BFG secret, and it's just a door hidden in a random wall. I think it could be more creative considering it's a secret exit, like, one of a kind secret that each wad has only one of, but I don't mind it too much. The best part of the map for me is the new midi it got, it's my favorite out of all maps so far. The main bass line is really fun, in some parts the midi reminds me of TNT map02. The vibe matches the map well too, it has a tense and dramatic feel, massive increase in scale, approaching the end of something, something like that.
 

Spoiler

I'm still trying to figure out how to write what I think in a way that makes me feel less dumb when I reread what I wrote the next day.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 15: Infestation

by Rob Berkowitz

 

I guess that's a poetic way to put it :P) This midi starts very quietly, until eventually it becomes something that might just be the best in the set!

 

The map itself......I guess it could be said Cammy boosted the numbers and certainly increased ammo availability some but I'm sure many of these random stores already existed. No matter though, this map has a fairly modest beginning, despite the presence of the stone fort where enemies basically fire at us from basically all around  and it's not until you get into the Mill-esque series of chemical-filled central rooms with tanks in the middle that we realize we're in for something special! It's easy enough to rocket everything into oblivion but maybe it's expected that we'll dart into one of the side hallways before that. Of this, the one that teleports us into a central tank somewhere easily stands out the most! Ok, it's overkill to place barrels in the middle of a crowd of former humans and why the hell are they tromping around in chemicals without any suits even but we know this is hilarious! It doesn't matter and it actually looks kind of nice, though I'm sure this probably received a slight touch-up.

 

Once we receive both keys (and waste a rad suit) we take some stairs leading outside to a vast pyramid, extremely open but it turns out there doesn't need to be lots of Mancubi to create problems, especially as Cacodemons will make their way from the outer section of the crater. It's probably best to get health down below at this point. Before we reach the ledge with the BFG, a couple of Arachnotrons attack. I think they can best be hit from on top of the pyramid but meh, who cares? The Cacodemons are much harder to avoid, but go ahead, waste BFG ammo. It's not like you won't be facing down a pair of Cyberdemons and a murder of Revenants in a tiny exit room. Though honestly, that can be skipped entirely by spotting a long indented wall to the left of where we enter and opening it to reveal a Revenant in a narrow corridor of wood walls and a blood floor where the secret exit can be found!

 

 

Map 31: The Mansion

by Slava Pestov

 

Not a re-creation of a PSX level but an actual solid map, with some killer Dooomcute, bookcases which refuse to lower from anything remotely obvious and a quiet midi giving some clue to this being a historical place! We shouldn't expect to have things our own way though since ammo is quite tight and in one bedroom, enemies teleport out after crossing a certain linedef in quite an unpredictable fashion! Opening a secret after stepping onto a table of food was amusing, and the secret exit was not really hard to find, despite my bumbling around and failure to figure out anything from the bathtubs. At least there was some instinct for finding hidden walls because otherwise, said secret exit won't open without a key! Probably best not to attempt it if one's health is below 15 or so since we've got to wade through a lake of blood to reach it.

 

Map 32: Nowhere to Hide

by Rob Berkowitz

 

The first map that is indisputably slaughter! We won't spend too much time on this because it wasn't finished, playing time only long enough to hear the entirety of the awesome midi, definitely sounding far more like something from Tohhou but with typical Doom-esque guitars. It doesn't seem too terribly difficult, despite that this circle has an outer ring but that's all I can be bothered to say on it right now.

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Celestin]

MAP15: Infestation by Rob Berkowitz

 

Hot damn, that's one hell of a map. Infestetion is the biggest level of ROC so far, both in terms of enemy count (724 on UV) and its sheer size. The map cues you in with the first place you see after emerging from an elevator - a large arena that, despite holding a number of hitscanners, feels somewhat empty. It also contains an important secret with a BFG and computer area map, accessible after catching a series of switches. I don't like calling secrets "mandatory", as I'm sure someone in this very thread will prove me wrong, but really, grit your teeth through this one, having BFG early on makes Infestation easier and much more enjoyable.

 

This is because, after blasting a corridor-blocking zombie horde, you drop down to the main setpiece of the map, where Infestation leans towards slaughter. You land in an underground tank of sorts, partially filled with lava and loaded with various monsters. BFG works great as a "get out of jail" card, but a rocket launcher is going to be your main weapon here. After clearing this out, you need to grab a pair of keys, but the fights here are either forgettable, or not good (I'm talking about the cross-shaped room, where you have to complete four cycles of killing two hell knights or arachnotrons, followed by a lowering lava-fall with imps and zombies camping by explosive barrels). The main attraction is the lava cistern, because it gets reused twice - first by a cyberdemon pair reinforced by revenant mobs, then by a cacodemon cloud. With a BFG, the fights here were the highlight of the map.

 

The ending is a mixed bag. The stream of projectiles flying towards you from the other side of rocky cliffs is fine, but this part is way too underpopulated, so killing the enemies here feels a bit like a drag. On the other hand, the fight by the exit is another cyberdemon duo with their revenants pals, which are easy to made infight and finish off with a BFG that you should be having by now. The secret exit was obvious with an automap.

 

Despite somewhat uneven nature, Infestation contains the best fights in the wad so far. Again, they must have been added to the Anniversary Edition, as a map this entertaining would have stuck with me.

 

MAP31: The Mansion by Slava Pestov

 

The Mansion is a cosy breather after MAP15: it poses little threat, instead being focused more on exploring this place. There is some charm in a lo-fi bathrooms or a simple library with a chair and a desk. The combat takes a back seat, sure, there are hitscanner crowds (like in almost every other map) and an archvile or two, but I don't find it a threat.

 

If you want to reach MAP32, you need to find the yellow key in one of the toilets and turn left by the regular exit.

 

MAP32: Nowhere to Hide by Rob Berkowitz

 

The start sure looks intimidating, with several cyberdemons and slaughter-style horde, but Nowhere to Hide turned out to be a rather easy level. All you need to do is to open the outside walls, avoid monsters and kill all Keens. This opens a huge cache with ammo, megasphere and invuln, with more appearing all around the map - by now most of the enemies should kill each other, so it's just clean-up with a god mode. It's an entertaining level and fun subversion of expectations.

[cannonball]

MAP15 - “Infestation” by Rob Berkowitz

Last time;

 

Quote

Wow this is big, too big for these puny little monsters.
Very bland and the size is absolutely hilarious. The blue and red key traps did not impress me and I simply left those areas. On the other hand I did return later with bfg to clear up shop.
There is a point to the relative ease of finding the secret exit, whilst the normal exit takes much more effort in climbing the massive pyramid in the massive room of massiveness to retrieve the yellow key. The spider mastermind is a fair threat whilst the cyber is hilariously easy to take down.
Somehow I enjoyed this map even if it is pretty bad :P

Now;

 

To be honest despite the dramatic jump in monster count, this one isn't difficult to clear. I want to be excited by the fact that you can tear through hordes of enemies, but here I just kind of felt very neutral about the whole central hub. The red key wing fight is certainly something but again there whole thing can dismantle itself and it appears to be designed this way, the blue key's most hair-raising moment isn't the mastermind but the sneaky archvile that lurks by the door out of the area. The ending didn't leave much apart from "Wow this is huge", again the secret exit seems to be begging to be taken so you don't have to plunder through that exit area. Overall I am not sure how much has changed, but I get the feeling that the map plays very similar to before, ultimately too oversized for its own good and ultimate as a result too easy to the point where slaughter actually becomes a little dull.

 

MAP31 - “The Mansion” by Slava Pestov

Last time

 

Quote

Fatal bug in this one, if you go to the exit first without the three keys there is no return.
Too block and too many doors, I guess to try and make it realistic, still it's disrupts flow which is a shame as there are some quite violent moments which are fun to take care of. Ammo seems nicely balance, just enough to blast the hordes way.
obligatory pestov platform, east to find secret exit.
Highlight is definitely the fact you can lock the toilet and bathroom. That made me laugh :)

Now

No keys to reach the exit now, just two switches to hit on either side of the exit area, there isn't much to say about this one, it has some clean visuals and plays okay. There really isn't much to say about this one, a rather inoffensive secret map.

MAP32 - “Nowhere to Hide” by Rob Berkowitz

Last time;

Quote

Very primitive, but you can have fun with this level, just a little too easy to just leave the map that's all.

 

This time;

 

This was more fun than Map15 was, okay it is pretty straight to the point and the visuals are still silly, but this doesn't play too badly and if you can get through the intiail masses swiftly then you can pretty much have the map beaten in a couple of minutes.