/vr/ - Retro Games

First post: Nightmare Zone (Duke Nukem 3d PSX episode 4 level 1) is awesome on the PC. Love the complex leveldesign and Tomb Raider atmosphere.

Hoo, sparito personarity!

previous thread is still there and not even at the bottom of the catalog

>>4617585

>>4657361

Nice bait.

Well, some people just hate the complexity and unconvetiality in level-design, I guess. Be it Petersen's levels, HeXen 1 and its Seven Portals in particular, Plug'N'Prey or Redneck Rampage 1. I guess, in level-design, like in anything else, there is some stuff to have mindless stuff with, and then there is some stuff to actually use your brains and adapt to. They simply want to be pandered to.

Now, that's what you call a bait.

>>4657542
Actually, if there are any other 90s titles that would also fit the list, with level-designs being outright weird and seemingly needlessly complex, I'd love to hear about them.

>>4657547
I'd say POED fits the criteria...

>>4657547
unreal has a mix

>>4657542
Derelict is another example of a complex level which is hated by many, despite being one of the most ambitious and realistic design of its game.

Petersen's Doom levels are shit though. They look really ugly.

>>4657542
Redneck rampage levels are mostly really good though especially the rides again expansion

is there a ion maiden sprite sheet available?

I predict Ion Maiden won't have any long term legacy. It's fine, but totally lacks character and spirit.

>E1M2, Blood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3kVTUHRbWM

>>4658696
>negative opinion based on an early access
No matter what happens in the future, oldschool gamers like it so far, and it seems devs constantly check feedbacks, and update bugfixes, unlike a certain Bitchford who abandoned his game after sales weren't as expected.

>>4659142
Battleborn wasn't worth saving, better to just cut loses and go back to Borderlands 3.

>>4659162

He's also talking about World Tour.

>>4659093
I've got time to play with you

>>4659142
>negative opinion based on an early access
Not him, but negative opinion based on a shareware episode, actually.
Compare Ion Maiden to Shadow Warrior's shareware episode, with its Master Leep's Temple and Dark Woods of the Serpent, then tell me, which one is more memorable.

New Blood and Duke E2 longplays fampies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qjzN49MaXI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnDwEpd3WFI

>>4659214
Except that's not true for World Tour. They listened to the complains and all the main issues were fixed a WEEK after release (sound quality, being able to turn off auto aiming, etc)

>>4659429
>all the main issues were fixed a WEEK after release
>tfw I played through it all before this
Oh well, it's not like I won't replay it dozens of more times in the future.

>>4659459
Also Caribbean when? I want to hear Jon St. John do the Caribbean one liners.

>>4659429
And of course fixing the glitched new enemies. Wait, not.

>>4659459
I hate the brainlet meme so much. I will never save one of those pictures. You should feel bad.

How could Hexen have looked in the Build engine? Would it have been a better game?

>>4660447
maybe but who cares. hexen is pure shit regardless.

>>4657542
Plug N Prey is such a genius deconstruction of Duke level design. Never before have I played Build levels so... Kafkaesque

>>4660480
Fuck off, Hexen is amazing.

>>4660480
>>4660447
>>4660662
Fuck after making that post I didn't realize it could be interpreted that I was shitting on Hexen. I didn't mean to, I absolutely loved Hexen. I was just trying to say could it have been even better on the Build engine.

>>4660447
Depends on the timeframe. If it was more or less the same timeframe as it was actually released in, you can assume having a very similar game but with the same kind of thing Witchaven and Powerslave have : more Y axis based level design using combination of Sector over Sector and spritework; more sector effectors and more use of them: for instance effects making the walls, ceiling and floors move; also water you can dive and swin in.

I don't think it would have had that much different puzzles or better clues on what switches do for instance, that is unless you think of a different timeframe and have it released in 1997.

>>4660610
Nightmare zone is amazing if you learn those tricks. Great interconnected design with adventurous feel, good shading and an intuitive entry to the dressed up pigs. Fuck those who hate this masterpiece.

>>4659462
Never ever because all rights to all the duke expansions were lost during the whole legal shindig and nobody has them now.

>>4660662
nah, total shit desu

>>4661093

I would never trust Randy Pitchfuck on anything involving legal disputes, but if it's true that the expansion packs are in legal imbo and Megaton Edition distributed them illegally, I'm glad they did. I'm fucking over the moon that I can play Life's a Beach without having to fiddle with eduke32 and download the CD image.

>>4661205
Right, Pitchford manages to be the bad guy even when he's the one doing the right thing.

>>4661213
Agreed. Duke Nukem World Tour™ is a far better all-in-one compilation than Megaton Edition anyways. You've got epic features like dynamic lighting, a new episode, and remastered voice acting from the man himself, Jon "Duke Nukem" St. John! Who cares about some lame expansion packs from the '90s, am I right fellas?

>>4661237
In all honesty WT is roughly on par with Megaton. DC and NW aren't really worth it but Caribbean > Alien World Order, not that AWO isn't pretty good but Caribbean is just in a league of its own.

>b-but BloodGDX is shit and is not accurate
It now can play demos from the original game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhkvN49UA-Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lHtccA7JHo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a68mTDL79l0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2iM926rHgY

>>4661258
>shooting sentry drones with a lame water pistol > Golden Carnage
poor taste confirmed.

>>4661343
Golden Carnage and Mirage Barrage are top tier maps but Caribbean is just perfect.

Here's my ready-to-play installs of some build games that aren't available for purchase.

Powerslave/Exhumed (CD music, Dehacker patch, Beta, Return to Ruins included)
https://mega.nz/#!0QAhBKIQ!1twvioFj0ylimftkcbQIOlJIxgNSOrA5PW_uvLsm8-w

Witchaven 1-2 (egwhaven patches included)
https://mega.nz/#!FYRgkLQR!HcZtlKqP4-9dkZ9sbC3vRK1zx6Jz5rZRLf9P1RR9CTc

Tekwar (with SMK video)
https://mega.nz/#!RRxVCSQI!Ey0x9gMpQAL8bZmTWTkq3HVGZDmWsDbgRTtckDoYguU

>>4661383
cheers anon, I've been wanting to check out Return to Ruins but couldn't be arsed to run around finding all the shit I needed to make Exhumed work nice

we really could do with a infodump for a first post, might encourage people to keep coming back to the thread

>>4661358
>and Mirage Barrage are top tier maps
WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
Just
WHY?!

>>4661358
It's far from perfect. Leveldesign is uneven, and the new enemies and the weapons are poorly drawn.

>>4661289
Anybody that actually knows shit about Blood knows BloodGDX is legit. It's only wannabe "elitist" idiot kids on 4chan that feel they have something to prove (god knows what) that talk shit, fully demonstrating they know fuck all about the game, especially that one retarded memer that told us to wait for Kaiser's upcoming abomination instead.

>>4661289
If you can play it in DOSbox why do we need a sourceport?

>>4661383
Thanks

>>4661645
Because DOSBox runs like shit in an Indian toilet.

>>4661645
>widescreen, 21:9, 4K
>144+ fps
>easy as fuck modding support
>perfect mouse look
>original bugs fixes

>The first concepts of Shelly were drawn in 1997, and had a heavy emphasis on sexualization, which was not uncomon the mid-nineties, although a bit embarrasing looking back with 2018 glasses;

>>4661673
that's not even THAT sexualized, come on

dook might as well be sexualized since he's a muscular man and all

>>4661676
Duke is sexualized as fuck.

>In 1998 Bombshell was re-drawn again, this time by Dan Panosian. The design was slightly more stylized, but still with a heavy emphasis on sexualization.

>>4661676
It was a different time

Do any of you still play these retro FPS games keyboard only? This guy plays Blood keyboard only, it's quite impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM4Bq7hZ0LY

>>4661673
>although a bit embarrasing looking back with 2018 glasses

^
Sickly loser ashamed of getting a boner

>>4661673
IMO this is the best design of the three. The only embarrassing thing is making these dumb excuses for brownie points. And I like the Ion Maiden design very much.

>>4662169
Best design coming through.

>>4661662
>easy as fuck modding support

What did he mean by this?

>>4662169
Theres a lot more designs for her.
Bombshell (2016) is the worst

>>4662282
Forgot link
http://steamcommunity.com/games/562860/announcements/detail/1676902239539040353

What's the correct way to play Blood? Should I save at the beginning of each level and carry the weapons over or should I restart each level and play only with the weapons available on that level?

>>4662370
Carrying weapons over

>>4662404
Then why when you die and restart the level they take away all your weapons?

>>4662409
Because you restarted the level instead of loading a save. The game cant magically remember what you had on you at first unless you save

>>4662201
not him but I'm pretty sure he means you don't have to jump through all sorts of stupid hoops to get the fan expansions working. first time getting death wish or french meat to work properly on dosbox was a pain in the ass for me, pulp fiction didn't even work. With BloodGDX all you gotta do is select them from the in-game menu after you've moved them into the Blood folder. every time I tried a new Blood fan expansion with dosbox I groaned because I knew I'd have to fuck around with the conf files, shortcuts, etc.

Even if you download the Blood launcher with all the fan expansions that thing is annoying as shit and doesn't even run that great. I remember trying it out and not being able to get rid of CD music and putting on midi instead, having control configuration problems, resolution problems, HUD flicker, maps not even working, intro videos not working, crashes etc. BloodGDX is no bullshit, far more user friendly.

Btw here's a tip: download the Blood Launcher just because it has a fucktonne of fan expansions/maps and move those to your Blood folder, run them with GDX which will easily detect them. There's a lot of crap but there's some interesting shit here and there. It's a weird feeling playing through ancient, forgotten random maps in 2018 that god knows who made a century ago. feels like being lost in a time void and only you're there. you come across some quite neat ideas/maps here and there too.

>I just discovered that Take Two owns Duke Nukem.
Just end me, I had enough with the hacks at Gearbox, but Take Two are just even worse. This people despise modders and anyone trying to touch their IPs, even if they are free fan projects. You may heard the drama around GTA V modding half a year ago, it was beceause of these guys trying to close everything that isn't made by them and their associated companies.

>>4662524
Wasnt that all over FiveM? In the end it still came out.

>>4661753
Yes, this is the way these games are meant to be played. At least the classic maps, not the shitty usermaps.

>>4662860
>>>>>"meant to be"
>as if Doom and most BUILD games didn't support basic horizontal mouse look to begin with

>>4662929
BUILD games had y axis, too. just press U to toggle it on.

>>4662370
In DN3D/Blood/SW, all the maps are supposed to be possible 'pistol start'.

In Blood, the first episode has the worst 'pistol start' balance but it's still possible. It's just a couple of maps are especially difficult in terms of supplies especially on the harder difficulties; E1M5: Hallowed Grounds is the hardest 'pistol start' of the entire game.

Starting ep2 onwards all the maps feel properly balanced for pistol start; but it takes prior knowlege of the game: which weapons work against which enemies, and knowing at least a few secrets per map, which sounds fair to me.

As for "the intended way", all 3 of these are intended:
>save all the time and always load your save
>pitchfork start each map
Or the really arcade way to play:
>don't use saves, keep your weapons from the previous map(s) when you reach the next map, but whenever you die you lose them and restart the current map over

Now though in ANY of these games, if you use the first solution, you'll always end up 'overpowered' after a few maps. In some of these games' episodes you'll end up with full supplies on all weapons half way through the episodes... if you think that's balanced and fair because 'you saved those supplies' by saving all the time, all the better for you.

>>4657452
you half the man you used to be

Too bad that Doom doesn't support pistol starts, even at HMP.

>>4662284
>spend whole article whining about sexualization
Do they not realize Bombshell was a complete commercial failure? Shelly was ugly and had almost no personality in that game, at least if she was sexy and fun people might have purchased it out of curiosity. Why does he think so many games in the 90s had sexy women on the covers? Because it sold. Completely misjudged the audience, people wanted female Duke, not some super serious, melodramatic character.

>>4662284
BITCH would be a rad name for a game.

>>4663098
Learn to read between the lines.
Some of these art pieces posted are nudes with gigantic tits and ass.
If he didn't say anything this would be another internet scandal.

>>4661689 >>4661692 >>4661673
Who made these? Reminds me concept art of Half-Life.

>>4663058
>don't use saves, keep your weapons from the previous map(s) when you reach the next map, but whenever you die you lose them and restart the current map over

This is the kino way to experience old fps games. Savescummers and pistol start purists be damned.

>official concept art
Noice.

>>4663098
>Duke is allowed to be hyper-masculine herculean bodybuilder action hero
>Bombshell isn't allowed to be hyper-feminine sex goddess bimbo action hero, it's [current year] people!!! She needs a side cut and zero personality!
The newspost is cringy as fuck. You're totally right that they're misjudging their audience. When will people figure out that SJWs don't buy games.
>>4663115
If they said it once to cover their asses then whatever, but they say it over and over multiple times. It would have been far better to just post the image timeline and let it speak for itself without all the preaching about muh sexualization, how far we've come! The new Bombshell is great and here's why you're sexist if you don't think the old one is literally misogyny! The 3DR guy is even in the comments section saying that they've left behind the original 90's double-meaning of the name Bombshell (meaning sexy woman + she blows shit up).

>>4663158
Dan Panosian, his name is in one of the pics.

>>4661673
hot af. wish they had stuck with this.

anyway I really like Shelly's character. her voice is fucking cool and I don't get annoyed at her quips at all. I was expecting something cringe, but I liked what I played (but I only played for like 15 minutes because Ion Maiden demo ran so bad on my system).

it's shaping up to be a really fucking good game though if they manage to fix the performance issues.

>>4657353
WOOPS LO WANG DROPPED SOAP! YOU BEND OVER GEDDIT HAHAHA

EEEHH STINK RIKE DEAD BABOON IN HERE

EAT DISH PENCIR DICK!!!!!!!

I LIKE NUKLEAR WEAPON

>>4663439
If your PC is from 2002 then I doubt it's ever going to run well for you. In the last patch they did they already made it run a ton better than it was. You could try running it in like 800x600 in Software rendering mode to see if that makes it run better for you.

>>4663445
Just rike Nagasaki

>>4663545
lol honestly... they kinda went a bit too far there. what the fuck man lmao. imagine if they did that in a video game today.

What the fuck were they thinking with this level?

>>4664673
D.C. and Nuclear Winter are both all around subpar.

>>4664673
Mapmaker forgot how to scale his map correctly for the game and didn't test it is my theory.
>>4664698
I remember liking DC a lot aside from Smithsonian, desu. It's not as memorable or consistent as Life's a Beach but it's definitely better than Nuclear Winter.

>>4664787
NW is undeniably the worst.

Life's a Beach > Plug and Prey > Duke in out in DC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nuclear Winter

>>4664673
It's a great map in terms of ambition, scale and layout. The only problem is the way they handled progression: hiding keycards in vents and hiding switches in underwater tanks isn't something you want to do in a map so huge the player can just run around for 20+mins if he misses the thing.

>>4664787
DC is memorable and great for its locations, scale and layouts, but it leaves to be desired in terms of 'small details'. It lacks fine tuning.

Anyway I feel like a live in an alternate universe with all those people praising Plug and Prey.

>>4665319
Plug and Pray suffers from inferior PSX graphics and sounds, also many bugs like the Battlelords, but the maps themselves are very interesting, the racetrack level for example could have been put in the Birth episode and you wouldn't notice it's from a 3rd party.

>>4665343
Look at this shit and say that again

>>4665347
>trying to find the worst looking part to have a point

>>4665370
The difference is that pretty much the entirety of the episode is on the same level of that screenshot I posted.

And even then in your screenshot it's already a lot better: not everything in on the same height level as in there is a slope to make it more interesting and the current room isn't on the same height levels as all the adjacent rooms;
The architecture isn't just 'rectangle corridor leading to square rooms that are all on the same level', there are variations, places for cover.
In terms of layout those toilets serve the purpose of 'side B path' to enter a room with lots of enemies from a more advantageous position. In PnP that entire area is just random succession of rectangle rooms.
The lights are actually interesting: you have actual light spots with strong shade lines, not 'entire ceiling is a light texture', and the main light can be turned on/off
+ small things to make it more interesting like the mirror, the interactive toilets, or hell an actual functional swing door.

In that corridor in PnP he literaly put on fire extinguisher on top of a crack in the wall because he couldn't figure out how to make the wall explode with the fire extinguisher alone.

The entire thing is randomly and quickly done rooms put next to each other. Not only there is no coherence, no bigger vision, but each room has shit design. Only a few areas and ideas, if taken as is out of their context, are interesting in PnP, like yeah, the racetrack, but as soon as you think of it as a whole, besides 'the race track look', nothing works or is remotely professional.

I do not see what people see in PnP.

>>4665380
Who cares if there is a fucking slope in a toilet? It looks as bad and out of place as those oversized doors and sprites. Also It's Impossible is full of those WTF moments starting with the blocky, dark outdoors to that shit door corridor at the end. And every door and sprite is oversized in between. And there are worse levels than It's Impossible in the game.

>The entire thing is randomly and quickly done rooms put next to each other. Not only there is no coherence, no bigger vision

The exact same thing can be said about most of The Birth episode, except maybe for Blum's maps. All of them are scraps from various authors and they put them together to not let those works to be dumped. XXX Stacy is like two totally different maps glued just for the WTF.

At least PnP is a one man's vision and has a clear theme with most levels are inside other game worlds. And disagree with the layouts, they are very clever, not only in the racetrack level, but the others too with lots of different paths to reach a place, revisit older locations, and some nice height difference too.

Some areas look indeed noobish, like that screen you posted, mostly the corridors, but still more interesting to look at than those repetitive levels in Duke it out in DC. It's much closer to the classic Duke experience, while DC is more like massive architectures without any gameplay in the author's mind.

>>4661673
>>4662284

>>4665319
Yeah I loved PnP when I was younger and played it on the PSX, but giving it another try now it is complete garbage basically. I think the anon who likes it is the same one who shits on usermaps constantly.

>>4663452
I downloaded the demo from some random link, it's not the steam version early access so I didn't get the upgrade.

I ain't paying £20 or whatever for an early demo fuck that shit nigga.

>>4665370
That map was made by Randy Pitchford and even Allen Blum and the Level Lord laughed at how fucked up the bathroom was in Duke 3D World Tour's developer commentary mode.

>>4665620
Hey, is /vr/ supporting piracy? Fuck you!

When's Deadly Kiss?

>>4665982
lol

>>4665963
meh, I'm gonna buy the full game guaranteed (if it doesn't run like shit on my system when it comes out -- if it does run like shit I'm not even gonna bother pirating it, just like I didn't bother playing the demo for more than 15 minutes before saying fuck this).

I wouldn't have paid for this form of early access regardless, it's really half-assed, which I saw from somebody streaming it and learning how long the demo actually is. I didn't even go out of my way to pirate the demo, somebody just happened to post a link here so I checked it out, post related: >>/vr/thread/S4617585#p4619487

>>4657530
It's not bait. A complete, and accurate TC (including the exclusive enemies) of Duke 3d psx was released march 1st. bretty gud.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dntm

>>4665380
You guys should your autism checked. Really arguing about room shapes??

>>4665380
>The entire thing is randomly and quickly done rooms put next to each other. Not only there is no coherence, no bigger vision, but each room has shit design.
Problem with your theory is: the guy who made the thing absolutely does NOT consider it a hackjob. I quoted his posts from duke4 earlier.

Moreover, just where did you get the idea, that his aim was to make his levels "visually interesting". Just because you were interested at LOOKING at something "visually interesting", when you were playing this episode, doesn't have anything to do with whether author ever intended to SHOW you anything "visually interesting" to begin with. And, at least, he does no false promises on that part. His level DO look like ass through and through. I think the episode makes it quite readily apparent, that demonstrating author's finesse at creating pretty pictures, OR to copycat Blum in any capacity, for that matter, was NOT any part of his intent whatsoever.

>>4666218
Also, the funny thing is: when it's Blum we are talking about, suddenly, stuff like Mirage Barrage, a sizeable portion of which looks suspiciously like complete ass itself, magically gets a free pass. Because "Uuuuh, my scale, uuuuh, eye opening, uuuuuh, nobody ever spliced 4 different levels back to back before (yeah right)". Not to mention that the part that is situated inside the pyramid, sucks gigantic dick in relation to any part of Nightmare Zone gameplay-wise, now that we are at it.

>>4665982
ded

Gates Motel is a visually interesting level though, except those rooms which used that blocky brown texture for some reason.

>>4657353
Is witchaven any good ? I only played one level of it when bored and thought it was a mess

>implying Blood 'Infuscomus' is not the single most kino FPS song ever made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L928CmhAPQY&t=9m11s
^only version of the midi I could found with decent audio

The CD version is also great (but I do prefer the midi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqrZaYR8kwo

Honestly what a great fucking piece of work.

>>4666947
*4chan time linking for youtube vids doesn't work anymore unfortunately so go to the 9:11 mark of the first video posted.

>>4666947
Blood is just an inferior version of Doom's hell maps.

>>4667185

>>4667185
Blood is best video game ever made, pleb.

>>4662284
>Your refund request has been received

>>4666719
It's the original "artificial difficulty" of video games. People think Dark Souls is "artificially difficult" and could not be more wrong. In Witchaven you run around and there are traps in the floor that you literally can't see (looks exactly like a normal floor, you can't see the holes in the floor) that instakill you (they have instakill spike floors in them) when you fall in them, these are scattered everywhere throughout the game.

If you're gonna play Witchaven get used to savescumming, the game practically necessitates it.

>>4657353
Am I retarded for liking Shadow Warrior the most?
Dook just doesn't cut it for me and Blood is too short to be enjoyable.

>>4667317
Shadow Warrior definitely needed more competent leveldesigners, what it got. I felt it had a lot of wasted potential. Keith Schuler was OK, but the rest (including Pitchford and Broussard) didn't make the cut.

>>4667418
Competency is overrated.

>>4667418
SW's levels were always the most polarizing for me. Half of the levels are incredible and on par with Douk's best. The other half are pure garbage.

>>4666218
>the guy who made the thing absolutely does NOT consider it a hackjob.

You're understanding what you want ot understand. iirc he only said something like "A lot of effort went into it", and I don't doubt that. Like I already said if he had to make an episode on short notice by himself and having to learn how the entire game and editor work from scratch in 1996, when there was less help for it, then yeah, a lot of effort was put regardless of the quality of the product.

"A lot of effort" is relative anyway; one could have spent a week doing it and still call it that.

Besides I wouldn't trust an "artist"'s opinion on his own work. From my experience a lot of hacks love their own shits and think they're genuises.

> whether author ever intended to SHOW you anything "visually interesting" to begin with.

Yeah, this again. "it's shit on purpose", all I heard.

>>4666243
>Not to mention that the part that is situated inside the pyramid, sucks gigantic dick in relation to any part of Nightmare Zone gameplay-wise, now that we are at it.

There is only two real problems in the pyramid: 1) both times the Newbeasts are used, they're not used in fitting ways and 2) health supply ratio is way off, too much is given

Otherwise the inside of the pyramid is a true lesson of dynamic and very intuitive interconnected level design and puzzles.

>>4667785
Here you can find what I wrote about the inside of the pyramid when WT came out:

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/8973-world-tour-reviews/page__p__263468#entry263468

the particular passage is under "Mirrage Barrage", starts with
>Once inside, the player finds his way up the pyramid's main chamber, fighting Newbeasts along the way.

I have finished Duke and Shadow Warrior on hard difficulty, and while they aren't easy by any means, i got through without much problem. But When it comes to Blood, i seem to suck really bad on even lower difficulty. Is it supposed to be much harder or i'm doing something wrong?

>>4667870
first episode is horribly unbalanced, especially when it throws lots of weak enemies who also happen to be hitscaners worse than chaingunners

try to find as many secrets as you can and crouch a lot

>>4667785
Nightmare Zone has some intuitive interconnected level design and puzzles too just for your information.

>>4667870
If you're playing the original version with DOSBox there's a bug where if you load a save it changes the difficulty (or rather the amount of damage you receive associated with the difficulty). Can't remember the specifics but it's something like if you're on Skill 1 and reload a save it will be Skill 1 enemy placement with Skill 5 enemy damage or something. The easiest way to fix this is to only play on Skill 3 because Skill 3 doesn't switch with anything.

Or use BloodGDX I think that has it fixed.

>>4667938
There is nothing intuitive about Nightmare Zone. It's switch hunting mess, there is a thousand of them, some hidden, half of which it's hard to figure out what they even do like the one near the start that activates a time based autoclosing door in another area of the map, door which doesn't even look like a door.

In Mirrage Barrage the interconnection of areas are laid out in such a way that if you take the first path on your way, then use the alt-exit (through destructible walls, for instance) you'll end up right where the next key room is.
The interconnection in NZ is nothing like that, it's just a confusing mess and where the key areas are hidden.

>>4667952
I mean seriously, everyone gets stuck in Nightmare Zone at some point. That map is like the perfect example of the 'wrong' design cues of retro FPS, except tenfold; I mean the kind of thing like Redneck Rampage does at times: confusing layouts coupled with 'fuck you' hidden switches which trigger something on the other side of the map. Except in NZ it's tenfold the mess.
Even Hexen is more intuitive.

>>4667382
Wat. If you count the original games Blood has the most levels by far with 34 total. Duke has 28. Shadow Warrior only has 22.

Blood has 2 expansion episodes, Duke has 4 expansion episodes (one of which is pretty much hot garbage) and Shadow Warrior has 2 expansion episodes.

With (main, not dZone shovelware map collection) expansions counted (regardless of quality). Blood's level count goes up to 53. Duke's goes up to 72 (if you arbitrarily decide to not count Nuclear Winter, which a lot of people probably do it's 65). Shadow Warrior still comes out on bottom with 47.

>>4667982
>Duke has 4 expansion episodes
Woops, meant to write 5. Atomic Edition (The Birth), Alien World Order, Caribbean, DC, Nuclear Winter. Pretty sure I counted them all up correctly in that post though.

>>4667952
That autoclosing door button is the only one that gave me some troubles at my first playthrough back on the PSX. There was one rather tricky, but fairly placed underwater button that opens a nearby underwater door with other two obvious ones. That came from Tomb Raider. If you played the game you should know it.

These two aside, the rest of the puzzles weren't hard to me even on the PSX. The only fuck you tripbomb puzzle is at that said autoclosing door too, the rest were obvious and easy to note including the ones on the invisible bridge.

Probably that door shouldn't have been autoclosing so fast (or at all), it seems to be the most problematic part for people.

However Nightmare Zone is one of those levels that are well remembered by anybody, even after 20+ years despite being an obscure release. Just like Smithsonian Terror it gave an interesting challenge to player that is not forgotten easily. And like Smithsonian Terror, it's a map that become much easier with subsequent playthroughs. For me, this is a sign of good leveldesign.

This is one typical map that is very well known

>>4667785
You know what? I don't wanna do it. You like products and being pandered to, I like trash and "anything goes"/"this gonna b teh BEST MAP EVAR" mentality. In other words, you like self-censorship, I like self-expression. You prefer the maps that are the result of meticulous polishing and rehearsal, I prefer the maps that feel like improvisation. You consider a hackjob something that doesn't adhere to your oh so sophisticated standards, I consider a hackjob an exercise at sticking to previously established guidelines of whatever kind.

Mirage's Barrage pyramid is, in my view, insultingly simplistic and tried. Every of its 4 mini-dungeons is literally a simplified copypasta from some previous Blum layouts. It's a fucking hackjob if I ever saw one - and there is NOTHING WHATSOEVER interconnected about it. There are just 4 separately existing minidungeons of the kind you stick in the first level of your game so that not to scare people away, and all of them are prime examples of "been there, done that, and better implemented too". It's so """"""polished"""""" there is simply no substance left.

You know what? I don't have all that much experience playing user content. But I'll tell you this. Petersen's Mt.Erebus is one of the best and one of the most fun of his maps. I remember hearing it was the very first, test map he made. I played through Willits' Empire1-4.wad and raven.wad, almost all the levels he made were utter trash. One level did stick out, Empire1.wad. It was the ugliest level I've ever seen, but I thought it was just fucking awesome on the gameplay standpoint. It was remade for Doom2 in raven.wad with the same layout, retextured for pretty and with completely different monster placements. The second time around I barely managed to complete it, it was blatantly casualized, it killed the whole point of that level. Willits' sister, Theresa Chasar, made three maps in raven.wad. The one I remember the most? Map7, the first one. Fucking amazing.
(cont)

>>4668634
Then Map9 was bretty good as well, it had an awesome take on Petersen's Downtown. Map10? The biggest, the most """"""polished""""""" and the blandest of three. Then there were some Willits/Chasar collaboration, and they were even more downhill.
You know, what else? Plug'n'Prey definitely became progressively less experimental and more """"""""professional""""""""" along the way. I didn't appreciate that at all. I would've vastly prefer it going full "Fuck you!"/arthouse/underground-style, but who the fuck asked my opinion.

Anyway, I am done trying to divine sense in """"le professional""""" """"polished"""" """"pinnacles"""" of """""""true"""""""" leveldesign, that were changed and modified for 100500 times over, so that there barely anything left from mentality author had at the time he conceived the idea of the level.

I wanna play fucking graydoom, I wanna play castevil (beta, then the final one), I wanna play early Xaser maps. Instead of arguing about some half-assed tried schlock the likes of Mirage Barrage. I SIMPLY DON'T PERSONALLY NEED YOUR FUCKING POLISH. I DON'T CARE ABOUT FUCKING SLOPES AND TEXTURE ALIGNMENTS. I WANT. TO BE. GENUINELY. SURPRISED.

And this conversation is fucking over.

>>4668634
For the curiousity, which Douk maps do you find the best?

>>4668670
Last third of Dark Side.

>>4668634
>>4668663
Wrong.

>>4668701
That's not much.

>>4668712
And yet it's the reason I kept coming back to Blum's maps.

>>4668721
Okay, I think I got the crucial thing about Blum's maps and style or more like what said style can be all about.

"As if I've been hypnotized"/"As if I'm being influenced"/"As if I'm unaware about being led by someone".

That concerns Blum as an engineer ("just doing my job") and an artist (flashes/episodes of inspiration - "as if it wasn't created by me"). That concerns Blum's relation to the player as that of behaviorist (engineering player's behavior through level geometry). That concerns Dark Side as pretty much the "as if it was a dream" level with the last third being as if the level itself leads the player in the unknown. That also concerns Derelict as "it is alive (and also dreaming)"/"it happened by itself" level (I've written some time ago, that I've interpreted the engine room as the metaphor for REM sleep). That concerns that thing about walking I mentioned above (the point isn't in not running, the point is in walking without ever stopping, steadily and monotonously). That concerns the symbolism of satellite dishes (influence) and ever-working mechanisms Blum likes to include in his levels. That includes the characteristic cleanliness and serenity of lighting in his levels.

Took me long enough.

Mirage Barrage is great until you play Powerslave and see what you can really do with an Egyptian setting.

>>4669238
True dat.

This Mirage Barrage guy is so funny, he is reaching NESfag level of autism in his posts.

>>4661673
>>4661689
>>4661692
Nice drawings of trans women

>>4668104
>>4668634
I get what you mean, that feeling certain true great maps can have which at the same time is awe, surprise but also immersion in a weird world with its own rules. Maps like The Abyss or Dark Side.

But with and without what you call "polish", I just don't see that anywhere in PnP. All I see is a quickly put together mess with a couple of cool ideas here and there.

Also it's more than just "polish" that is missing in PnP. Polishing would be making sure your textures are all well aligned, checking each surface shading and changing some values by 1 so it becomes "perfect", and adding some detailing which have no purpose other than slightly making the world look a bit better and immersive.

PnP doesn't just lack "polish", even basic layout and architecture are not on point.

Your vision sounds like you'd rather have modern abstact paintings on your wall rather than ultra realistic paintings of a landscapes.
However you need to realize that all the true GOOD modern abstract painters, in order to get right the *throws a bucket of painting on a white canva and call it art*, first they learn true techniques and should be able to draw realistic landscapes.

The guy who did PnP shows in his work he didn't grasp quite a lot of basic and necessary FPS level design cues.

Yes, Mirrage Barrage isn't The Abyss or Dark Side, but it showcases a level of mastery on some key Build-era level design cues, on top of an immersive exotic mini universe.

What if I like both Mirage Barrage AND Plug and Pray levels?

Duke 64 is better than Duke Total Meltdown.

New weapons (grenade launcher, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, etc.), new ammo types (Dum Dum pistol rounds, explosive shotgun shells, heatseeking rockets, etc.), expanded areas of the old maps (the changes to Freeway for example are a huge upgrade and make the map much more interesting), being able to save the babes. Couch co-op and 4 player dukematch, some decent N64-exclusive Dukematch maps.

Sure, it's censored. Duke says alien scum instead of alien bastards, there isn't a church in Death Row, there are no titty strippers everywhere. The thing is though, because of the other stuff I listed above Duke 64 has a lot more going for it as a separate experience than Total Meltdown does. TM is just a D3D port fisted into the Playstation with an extra episode of shitty chink knockoff dukeZone-quality maps.

I'm not a /vr/ regular but how do you guys feel about Ken's Build 2 engine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qtmkkdND6M

>>4665593
>>4669710
Poor attempt of samefagging.

>>4669886
The only unique thing about it is that it's still a sector based engine and that it (apparently) can read actual Build maps.

Otherwise, it's just a cool little tech demo that was already outdated when it was concieved. It's cool, but there is nothing to see and it's too primitive for anyone.

Soyber fucked up so bad, he had to remove that line from the Bombshell history article.

>>4669967
that's still retarded though, its barely sexual

>>4669970

When you're a flaming homosexual like the head of nu-3DR, anything involving tits is gross and sexual.

>>4669995
I mean, fucking look at him.

>>4669970
>>4669995
Maybe you should look at the other drawings rather than abiding by a 4chan image post appriorately cut to 'prove' his point >>4669967

>>4670021

That doesn't ignore the fact he's a gayer than a double rainbow.

>>4670021
i thought the french weren't prudes

>>4662524
Take Two owns only the distribution rights for Duke Nukem Forever.

>>4670021
Even though he removed that "embarrassing" line, he still whines about sexualization every time he can. Steam and duke4 forums are a shitshow now, and we probably will never have any normal discussion about this game thank to the soyboy who can't keep his opinions to himself.

>>4669886
I hope the next Duke game will be built with this engine. Then we can finally forget the poorly optimized mess of EDuke32.

>>4670148
>I hope the next Duke game will be built with this engine.
>Let's make a game on a gimmick engine that doesn't have even the simpliest things like transparency and is rendered exclusively on CPU. Wouldn't it be great?
I hope retards would shut up about Build 2 already. It won't be used anywhere.

http://msdn.duke4.net/hotduketroid.php

eDuke32 map based around Super Metroid style gameplay.

>>4670148
>>4670198
it's not even free software either

>>4670021

I've been wanting to show you this and get your feedback on the concept: >>4670225

I think it's a promising way to breathe new life into BUILD mapping, given how timeless the metroidvania gameplay formula is

>>4670225
That's interesting, I'll check it out tomorrow.
Several people have thought about using Duke inventory items to make something like that, but nobody ever really did it.
At best people used one inventory item as a progression mean and nothing more: like having to retrieve the jetpack to reach the next gameplay areas (iirc it was the case in Seibenpolis), or using the boots to cross an electrified area (like I did in the Parking map of Duke Hard)

Props for doing something different and not trying to be the next Pascal Rouaud.

>>4670338

:3

>>4670294
Yeah, this map was pretty cool. Really simple, but really cool. I think this type of puzzle centered maps can be developed further. Is there anything like it out there?

>>4670356

No, it was made in the first place to demonstrate the concept and inspire other mappers to use the idea

>>4670356

Imagine a map of this style made in Blood, based on the aesthetic of Castlevania: SOTN

>>4669919
Not even close, m8.

>>4670451
Calling PnP garbage or something like DukeZone quality indicates the same retardation. But oh well, lots of people have shitty tastes.

>>4670225
>Liztroops wake up shitloads of newbeasts
The entire concept ruined

>>4670635

( ಠಠ)

>>4670635

Mappers are natural sadists

After playing the Total Meltdown TC, I think TM's music fits Duke better overall than the original music does. It made me feel more like I was THE Duke Nukem and ready to kick ass than the PC music did most of the time.

>>4666116
It's brilliant isn't it. You gotta love the sheer autism always on display at 4chan /vr/. <3

>>4671445

What do you expect in a thread about mapping for 20 year old games

>>4671445
>>4671561
>>4666116
I don't get this. Actual architecture and layout is probably the most important thing that differientates Build era FPS games to the likes of Serious Sam and Painkiller; but also to the previous era of Wolf3D clones.

If you don't think it's pretty damn important, then you probably think the shadow warrior reboot is retro

>>4669638
It's more like I enjoy watching the author slowly figuring out just what the hell it is he is even doing with the level editor, along with gradual establishment of his own rules where previously there were none (yeah yeah, order emerges from chaos, much pretentious). I just enjoy figuring out chaos. And the maps that are all over the place stimulate my imagination much more, than more constrained ones.

>>4670225
The part with the ceiling crusher that is intended for Steroids use: It's possible to go through without using steroids: have the ceiling come down, press reset so it goes back up and crouch to go through as soon as you can, and then strafe+run through.

>>4671831

Damnit. Well, what's a metroidvania without sequence breaking?

You can also prematurely blow up the glass tunnel by luring an enemy into it and using the expander on them. The jetpack can also be used to safely traverse the pitch black area without the nv goggles.

>>4671835
You can also crouch jump through the hole to get the pipebombs

o_o

>>4671906
A DEAL'S A DEAL, NUKEM! NOW YOU HAVE TO SUCK MY NIPPLES!

>>4671771
And what about Doom/Heretic/Hexen? Or Quake?

Is the expander an optional thing in this new level? I reached the shrinker, but the spawned liztroops started a chain reaction on sleeping newbeasts and I couldn't go back but died. Is the expander important to finish this part?

>>4671771
2bh I didn't even read the arguments m8 (tldr for me). I just read anon's comment about the room shape autism and kek'd.

>>4671953
It's optional. You can either just run and jump like a madman to escape when that happens or just the jetpack, it will let you fly around all of it.

What the fuck is up with this door on the second to last level of Blood Chapter 3? How was anyone supposed to know what sequence to flip the switches in without a guide?

>>4672701
it's a puzzle. you work it out. I worked it out when I was 11 dude.

It's too bad that Ion Maiden is borrowing most heavily from the Duke design philosophy. All of the bullet wielding enemies and complex spots for cover could lead to some really heart pounding fights if the enemies were as aggressive as Blood Cultists in shooting and tossing bombs to flush the player out of cover. It'd be like a 2.5D F.E.A.R.

>>4672864
>It's too bad that Ion Maiden is borrowing most heavily from the Duke design philosophy
But that's a good thing.

>>4672880
Not when Blood's the best Build shooter.

>>4672917
Stylistically maybe but in general room to room gameplay Duke is a lot more consistent and enjoyable in my opinion. Blood has a huge over reliance on hitscanner enemies, like if Doom 2 had every room filled with 3 chaingunners.

The fact that the assault troopers aren't hitscan and the pigcops and enforcers are pretty inaccurate outside of close range is a huge plus in Duke's favor. Especially since your weapons in Duke encourage you to close the gap to get more consistent damage in, so it's balanced and not too hard or too easy. Higher difficulties offer realistic challenge instead of throwing instagib hitscan down your throat.

The only enemies that really betray this golden design philosophy are the Mini Battlelords having surprisingly long range and high damage, and they are usually placed in much tighter spaces than the original Battlelord fight.

On the other hand, the hitscanners on higher difficulties in Blood and especially Redneck Rampage can be absolute fucking aids to deal with.

t. Something like 5 years ago I held the opinion that Blood was the best build game, also. My opinion has "matured" over the years and settled on Duke as the best game on the engine.

>>4672880
Ion Maiden borrows most heavily from Duke Nukem 3D (and that's a good thing)

>>4673084
Duke enemies are tanks compared to the cultists. The cultists die very quickly (remember you can rush them down with the pitchfork) and drop in accuracy when you're moving or crouching, so fights are fast and furious bouts of diving, taking cover, and returning fire - the exact sort of gameplay that Ion Maiden seems to want with environmental design full of chest high barriers and extraneous details.

>>4673110

The Duke enemies are flimsy as shit. The Shrinker is basically a one-hit kill for the Assault Commander and the Mini-Battlelord, one RPG rocket can instantly delete anything up to an Enforcer, including groups of them, the Pipebomb can eliminate Pigcops around corners, and the Devastator is perfect for quick crowd control because of how fast it carves through enemies.

If you're trying to shotgun everything to death like you're playing Doom, then they can be pretty tough, but there's plenty of guns in the game that can trivialize enemies.

>>4672917
And Eradicator is still better than Blood. Does that mean that Eradicator is better than all the other Build shooters as well?

>>4673187
>that one eradicator memer

>>4673160
Sure, but flicking around between a bunch of gimmicky weapons to pick the right one to trivialize that particular in one hit isn't as interesting to me as having a solid set of weapons that all feel good and are varying levels of "effective," which is what Blood has. Blood has its OHKO rocket launcher and pipe bomb analogue (along with the flare gun secondary), but its bread and butter guns are also responsive and satisfying, making combat feel more expressive than just "big guy, whip out the shrinker, group of enemies, whip out the RPG." And again, the speed is king.

>>4661673
Does sexualization just mean the character isn't ugly?

>>4673219
>flicking around between a bunch of gimmicky weapons to pick the right one to trivialize that particular in one hit isn't as interesting
This has got to be the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. For starters Douk's guns aren't gimmicky, outside of the Laser Tripmines beause let's be honest, those were made for multiplayer; everything else is perfectly viable. Secondly, Douk has a solid set of standard weapons at his disposal, namely the shotgun, ripper, and RPG. FPS' are at their worst when you're stuck using the same few guns the entire game.

>>4673234
it means that cis white males could lust over her, witch is unacceptable for eunuchs

>>4673238
Freezethrower is gimmicky, Shrinker is gimmicky, Expander is gimmicky. Both the Freezer and the Shrinker serve the same purpose of temporarily immobilizing an enemy until you can go over and finish them off, and the Expander just turns an enemy into a pipe bomb. I only ever used the Freezethrower if I was low on ammo for anything else, Shrinker is for particular use on higher-tier enemies, and I never used the Expander. Meanwhile, every weapon in Blood is useful, even the flare gun (as opposed to Duke's pistol that gets outmoded by everything else).

>>4673259
Every weapons in Douk is useful except maybe the Tripmines. Just because you don't use them doesn't mean shit. Shrinker practically one-shot every enemy in the game, if you can't see the usefulness in that then you're beyond hope. Freezethrower may not be the best gun but it's viable and it deals good damage. The Expander is great for blowing up one enemy so he explodes and kills multiple enemies near him, a safer alternative to pipe bombs / RPG.

>>4673259
>Blood doesn't have gimmicky, useless weapons
Life leech, voodoo doll, aerosol can

>>4673268
>Shrinker practically one-shot every enemy in the game
Yes, and it's slow to fire and has little ammo, so why would you do anything except save it for Mini Battlelords and the Commander?
>Freezethrower may not be the best gun but it's viable and it deals good damage
So do the normal guns. Why does the Freezethrower need to exist?
>The Expander is great for blowing up one enemy so he explodes and kills multiple enemies near him, a safer alternative to pipe bombs / RPG
The enemy slowly swells up before he explodes, and you'll still take damage from the explosion like you would from the explosive weapons. Why would you use it instead of the explosives?
>>4673281
>Life leech
Can be set up as a turret, high damage high ROF weapon like the Devastator
>Voodoo doll
Sniper
>Aerosol can
The secondary fire has a larger blast radius than the TNT, the primary fire easily deals with spiders, and setting enemies on fire is its own reward.

>>4673287
>Yes, and it's slow to fire and has little ammo
The game throws Shrinker ammo at you because the devs knew it was a fun as fuck weapon to use.
>So do the normal guns. Why does the Freezethrower need to exist?
Variety. It also has the added benefit of ricocheting projectiles.
>The enemy slowly swells up before he explodes, and you'll still take damage from the explosion like you would from the explosive weapons. Why would you use it instead of the explosives?
Gives you time to move out of the way if you're too close to safely use the RPG and is faster than throwing a pipe bomb and then detonating it.

I think you're having a hard time understanding the difference between 'viable' and 'optimal.'

>>4673287
>Sniper
You had to think hard for that one, huh? 99% of the time you're using the thompson, the other 1% is because you ran out of thompson ammo. Same with the lifeleech and the aerosol.

>>4673287
I can't believe someone is actually calling guns like the shrink ray gimmicky while defending the leech life and aerosol can.

>>4673305
>The game throws Shrinker ammo at you because the devs knew it was a fun as fuck weapon to use.
I'll have to replay it. I played through Duke pistol starting, so I don't remember having huge amounts of Shrinker ammo.
>Variety. It also has the added benefit of ricocheting projectiles.
I guess. Ricocheting meant nothing to me, but this is now just purely a matter of "what guns seem more interesting", which is subjective.
>Gives you time to move out of the way if you're too close to safely use the RPG and is faster than throwing a pipe bomb and then detonating it.
I'll have to take your word on it.

>>4673307
>You had to think hard for that one, huh? 99% of the time you're using the thompson, the other 1% is because you ran out of thompson ammo.
I can only swear to you that I used it all the time for long distances. I fully admit that I never used the secondary fire. Tommy was for medium range fights. Life Leech is the same as the Devastator. Aerosol secondary was real good, and it lights enemies on fire faster than the Flare gun.

>>4673315
Sorry.

>>4673329

So basically you're the type of guy that gets mad at a game if you can't use a single weapon to easily win. No wonder you can't comprehend how to use Duke's weapons beyond the the Shotgun/Chaingun/RPG combo.

>>4673334
You're not reading what I'm saying. Every weapon in Blood is useful and cool. Not every weapon in Duke is useful or cool.

>>4673335
>Not every weapon in Duke is useful or cool
But that's wrong.

>>4673341
It seems we're at an impasse, then, because we're back to where we started. I still think Duke is a really good game. I just like Blood more, and the fact that the enemies of Ion Maiden function closer to cultists of Blood than the aliens of Duke makes me wish that they borrowed the intensity of Blood's combat.

>>4673350
All I can add to this is just experiment more with the weapons you don't generally find yourself using when playing Duke.

>>4673329
>I can only swear to you that I used it all the time for long distances
>Tommy was for medium range fights
I always found the thompson good for long range as well. Shotgun for close combat, thompson for everything else, tesla cannon for tougher enemies, dynamite for corner checks. Anything else I pretty much only used when ammo was low on my main weapons.

this is pretty neat

>>4673367
Oh yeah, and napalm launcher is like tesla cannon; for tougher enemies

>>4673368
>"pre-order our game on steam to play the demo!"
>pre-order it
>"COLLECTOR'S EDITION coming soon! Pre-order it on our website!"
Fuck these guys. I wouldn't have bought the steam version if I knew they were making physical goodies.

>>4673238
>For starters Douk's guns aren't gimmicky
They're pretty gimmicky desu. Trip mines suck, freezethrower is another chaingun cannon (I'd never use this gun at all if I didn't play on DIG difficulty, and even then it's just ammo management for better weapons), and while shrinker is a very useful weapon (albeit boring and OP) how it disposes of enemies is as gimmicky as it gets. The gun is slow to shoot, the shrinking thing is dumb and then squashing enemies with your foot is boring, too. It really slows down the gameplay in a shitty way.

>>4673259
>as opposed to Duke's pistol that gets outmoded by everything else
Not entirely. Duke's pistol is a lot more accurate than chaingun and is always good to use on turrets.

>>4673281
>Life leech, voodoo doll, aerosol can
Voodoo doll is one of the best weapons in the game. Like anon said, it's a sniper, 100% accurate, you don't even have to aim. Aerosol has good secondary fire and is always useful against butchers. Life Leech is the only weapon along with proximity mines that I don't use in Blood (however on new levels you don't know the turret function it has can be very useful, so even then it's not a redundant weapon by any means).

>>4673432
>Aerosol has good secondary fire and is always useful against butchers.
*It's also really good against groups of zombies in tight hallways as it goes through them and sets them all on fire.

>>4673307
>You had to think hard for that one, huh? 99% of the time you're using the thompson, the other 1% is because you ran out of thompson ammo
Tommy is not a sub for voodoo doll at all. If you don't use voodoo doll for ranged cultists you're playing the game wrong. And you should never be running out of ammo either.

>>4673437
I can't imagine ever using it that way instead of either using TNT or blasting through with the shotgun.

>>4673442
Were you the same guy talking about running out of ammo?

>>4673190
At least, I did play and complete both games on max difficulty, so that I can compare. And Eradicator wins over Blood hands down. Two of its most severe downsides: ridiculous visual monotony and questionable blocky level layouts (which Eradicator lives up with occasional non-standard mission objectives) - are more than prevalent in Blood itself. The only thing it lacks in comparison with Build games is SVGA support. It also has God-tier combat without a single hitscanner anywhere ever, and it has probably the best mouselook implementation of any 2.5D shooter I've seen.

>>4673451
I'm the guy who said you'd switch to other weapons the 1% of the time you're out of thompson ammo. Do you think the aerosol can is more effect than TNT or shotgun in a hallway?

>>4673465
it can be. if you're in a hallway with a horde of zombies in front you might be too close to blow them up with dynamite. shotgun will only be able to kill one at a time and you'd have to reload it (and you'd also needessly waste its ammo). aerosol can would eliminate a large group of them far more efficiently as you move backwards, while also saving you your shotgun ammo and dynamite for more useful encounters. in every way it would be the more efficient thing to do than shotgun or dynamite. A particularly good example for where aersol is useful is that secret level in E3. I also used it a lot in Blood Death Wish, and of course I use it frequently against bloated butchers.

>>4673482
>I also used it a lot in Blood Death Wish
*for that group zombie thing as described

>>4673460
>without a single hitscanner anywhere ever
Oh jeez, not one of you guys.

>>4673523
I enjoy learning to play flawlessly, sue me.

>>4672917
Lol, wrong.

Douk's arsenal is amazing. Pistol is much better than Doom's pistol, with autoaim on, it's the best weapon beyond the RPG for long range targets, especially turrets or stayput enemies.

Shrinker is the best weapon against commanders, but works well against octabrains too.

Freezer is like the Plasma gun, and works best against protector drones, due to the habit of slowing them down, and have better firepower than chaingun.

Expander is great at blowing up nests or shooting inside of low HP enemy hordes.

The only weapon without function is the tripmine, I would replace it with Shadow Warrior's grenade launcher or railgun

>>4673849
>not using the tripmines in dukematch

>>4673287
I do agree that Blood's weapons are overall better balanced than Duke's, however I think some of Blood's weapon can have the same affect as what you said with Duke's shrinker/rpg;
>see commander, use shrinker
>mini B-Lord, use RPG/Dev

>see Hellhound
>use Plasma gun
>Gargoyle
>Plasma or voodoo Doll

As for the aerosol, there is nothing it can do that others weapons can't.
Life Leech I barely use twice per entire playthrough. Usually I don't want to waste it for a turret, doesn't seem worh it, and it's main attack seems way too slow and not as powerful as it should be.
Its main pro is that if you have it, you can use it even if you run out of ammo and sacrifice HP; but usually it's given in maps where it's unlikely to run out of other ammo types, even on pistol start; and against Tchernobog.
The only time I really use it is pistol start E4M2.

As for Duke's freezethrower you under-estimate its main use: using it in doors, behind corners, and make the shots bounce so you can hit enemies while being safe out of sight.
Also for frozen enemies, a quick swap to the pistol to fire a single bullet seals the deal. I never use it to "immobalize" enemies.

>>4673307
Dude what, the voodoo doll is fucking amazing as sniper. Also, in any case, and not just as sniper, it makes cultists stop shooting for a couple of seconds, you can crowd control small groups of cultists with it safely.

>>4673913
The difference is that the Plasma Gun is still very useful outside of just killing Hellhounds, or Voodoo for the Gargoyle. The Shrinker is so situational - slow firing of single shots, low ammo pool, have to actually go over to the enemy to kill them, doesn't work on a sizable number of enemies - that there's not much reason to use it on anything other than the Commander or Mini Battlelord.

Maybe I am underestimating the reflective shots of the Freezethrower. It's just silly, especially because the bounced shots can hurt you too, and you still have to finish off the frozen enemies. Adding more steps to the process of killing an enemy doesn't make the gun more interesting to me, including needing to walk over to a shrunken enemy to actually kill them.

>>4673849
Using a Shrinker on an Octabrain is like using a BFG on a Cacodemon.

This is the first I've heard a comparison between the Freezer and the Plasma Gun. I guess I never thought of it much as a damage dealer because I'd shoot an enemy for a bit, see they didn't freeze, and say "fuck this" and change to something else.

>>4673110
Except the enemies in Ion Maiden arent hitscan, they use fast projectiles that are dodgeable without cover.

>>4673941
>Using a Shrinker on an Octabrain is like using a BFG on a Cacodemon.
If the BFG could shoot 50 times before running out of ammo, maybe.

>>4673956
Yes, which makes it even better. You still have a fighting chance at enemies magdumping at you, so upping their aggression behavior could lead to a lot of exciting running and gunning in a way that could feel less fair if they were hitacanners.

>>4673941
Shrinker is not nearly as specific as you're suggesting 2bh. I use that weapon loads. I don't even like using it because I don't find it satisfying to kill enemies with but it's too OP not to use, especially if you're playing on DIG (it gets the added advantage of not respawning enemies). Here's using it on the dreaded "unfair" hitscanner enforcers that apparently you have to tank through in order to kill (or so anon once claimed within these BUILD threads). I probably use shrinker about the same or even more than I use the shotgun on DIG difficulty. It's easily the most broken weapon in Duke and it gets stupid amounts of ammo, too.

>>4673989

>>4673984
All Blood and Duke hitscanners are dodgeable apart from pig tanks and battlelords.

So, about Levelord, which makes it kind of related to this thread? Kind of?

I've just played through GrayDOOM wad of his. His 4 earliest levels. Well, the first one, with the swamp, shitload of tress and stuff, was the most interesting one, but I digress.

Some observations.

His levels are very, very clean, very nice looking, very meticulous. Everything is very self-evident, there are very few monster closets and even those are heavily hinted upon. I think, every of the four maps contained the map item (in one of the maps the map item right in the beginning of the level - and that level required you to access the only secret in the level in order to get the keys necessary in order to get to the exit). He always gives you, like, 1.5 the amount of ammunition you would need for the next encounter, I mean, as a general rule with no exceptions. At every point, it's self-evident what's required of you. His levels very much approve of taking it slow. The first levels has main route passageways tucked into some corners just so you would have a chance of missing them if you are running around blasting shit. The second requires you to access """"secret"""" midlevel in order to collect the keys, and the third has exit tucked away - not in a secret, but in what seems slightly outside of the main progression route. The fourth has you spawned in front of the door, but actually, when pistolstarting, you need to first sweep around the building to collect ammunition (there is also key tucked away) in order to have enough to blast through that door. He always gives you Just enough space to tackle pinkies with what you have while they are running at you, JUST enough corridor length to manage to shotgun the Baron. Just, I'll repeat, somewhat more ammo than you'll NEED for the next fight. Nothing too tight, JUST SO that you would know, that it's under control. It's always sufficient. You always have what to do.
(cont)

>>4674053
Encounters feel completely disconnected (due to botched resource management when everything you need for a fight you get just before said fight). There is no sense of flow at all. They are individual rooms, they just don't add up to any kind of a level. Whatsoever. Everything feels static. You just feel like you are painting the map.

You just feel like the level-designer was just painting the map too. Like all of this is just... ornamentation. Like, the second level has a shape of the skull with the bones. You're given the full map immediately, so that you learn that immediately too. And then you just are going through the area, room by room, obligatory secret (the bones) included, and you just clean it out, room by room, engaging in whatever tasks the level-designer had in mind for you - AND THOSE TASKS DON'T ADD UP TO ANY THEME WHATSOEVER. They are there because, it seems, WITH them the level seems "prettier" than it would without them. They are like this very sophisticated, baroque-ish, filler stuffed around this very simplistic idea "man, let's have this skull and bones level" (well, to be fair, the encounters in bones are pretty cool), and are, like, there, so that you would, sort of, appreciate the level, and all the effort that went into it, a bit longer (while you are looking for those passages tucked away _slightly_ to the side of what seemed to be the main progression route). It just feels somewhat enamored in itself, somewhat _mannered_. And the majority of the stuff on each level IS a glorified filler to the main point of said each level, however you look at it.

Come to think of it, when I last played Abyss, it DID give me a faint feeling of just wasting my time on something that didn't have any constructive point whatsoever. Well, these levels gave me this feeling as well.

>>4674053
>>4674075
However, all of that being said, based on GrayDoom and raven.wad, Levelord was a MUCH better leveldesigner, than Willits was.

>>4674075
Also, the side stuff in the levels is so thoroughly... ornate, and polished for JUST SO effect, that, for some levels, I'm just not sure, what the initial idea even was. Well, for swamp, it's apparent (and admittedly very cool - although it lasts for only half of the level - and I'm just not sure, what the entirety of the second half has to do with it), for skull and bones level - also, but as for the third and the fourth levels it's just. In fact, I have a really hard time telling third and fourth levels (well, what stuff belonged to which level, that is) apart in my memories despite having literally JUST completed them.

>>4674089
In fact, it almost feels like "fucking swamp, who's shooting at me and from where" and "skull and bones" are NOT the points of their respective levels either. They are more, like, occasions to show you all that OTHER stuff, that's there to """"support"""" them.

Anyway, graydoom starts thematic, gradually progresses (or more like dissolves) into being themeless bunch of barely connected rooms made in perfectionist manner. End of story.

>>4674109
If anything, the point seems to be authenticity, "That's what I felt like doing at the moment when I was actually doing it". In other words, it's all whimsy, and it being whimsy is the whole point.

>>4674083
Then why his Duke maps sucked so bad?

>>4674114
That's not what whimsy means

>>4674114
Whimsical*

>>4674223
Capricious then, maybe?

>>4660662

Nah it sucks mostly. There's only like what? 8 monster types in all?

Only 4 weapons per character -- 5, if you count the flechettes.

Last boss was easy as shit.

Level design and traps were excellent.

Realistically a game character can carry a pistol, a shotgun and cca 10 pipebombs/dynamties at most.

>>4674901
Blow it out your ass.

>>4674961

Excuse me who the heck is this?

>>4674631
>8 monster types in all?
More than Doom 1, Heretic, etc.
>Only 4 weapons per character
Personally I never found this to be an issue, though an extra 1 or 2 I wouldn't be against. So long as they fit the game, so many fan made ones are awful.
>Last boss was easy as shit
True but that's really the case for almost every single 90s fps boss.

>>4675026
Get off vent or I'll have you bent

>>4671052
i prefer its version of the strip club music

>It ain't me starts playing

The more I play Rides Again, the more I love it

Even the 'bad' map types, as in "flat town level in which you only go from building to building" are good and have tons of cool things in them

But how did they make refinery map so good, I wish I knew

>>4675898
>confusing layout
>dreary atmosphere
>little action
Yea, "so good".

>>4676205
>confusing layout

What. The layout is pretty damn classic but simple at the same time. You just go from area to area, unlocking stuff on the way. Each area has its purpose and it's always pretty clear what you have to do and where you have to go, the only real issue is how dark the ladders are in the first outdoor area.
On top of this, each area has a distinct look, and the interconnection of areas + things like windows always make it clear where you are in relation to the rest.

Also "amount of action" is spot on, not too little, not too much; at the start you get to mow down stuff with the bike, and you even get to fight a sheriff, a big alien and a titty lady along the way, in areas where those kind of enemies are fun to fight, which isn't always the case.

The dreary atmosphere fit the map (and the game) well

>>4675898
it's a shit game and I shouldn't have listened to you memeing it for the last for four years by buying it desu

>>4675517
I was excited to play this but it turned out to be shit. Is WWII GI any better?

>>4676418
It's similar but better in every way. First map is actually the worst.

>>4676216
I'd always respected your opinion until now

>>4673914
Great for those damn stone gargoyles

>>4665982
It's still WIP, not abandoned.

>>4676418
WW2GI is much, much worse. It's a hitscan hell where any stray bullet can drain 70% of your health, plus you have CoD style healing where you have to stop behind cover to heal for 10 or so seconds.

>>4673305
>The game throws Shrinker ammo at you because the devs knew it was a fun as fuck weapon to use.
IMO, this throws off the balance of some levels in the original single-player campaign. Makes assault commanders too easy to fight, unless you deliberately make yourself not use the shrinker.

>>4661383
Questions about Powerslave. What's the best version to play? Exhumed is newer, right? Does it have any notable differences? Should I be using dehacker with EX.exe or does it not matter? What are the optimal dehacker settings for smoother gameplay?

>>4678696
The main difference between Exhumed and Powerslave is that Exhumed fixes some of music tracks not looping properly.

If you use modern WASD, be careful not to strafe+run during jumps. Strafe+run gives you a speedboost, which in consequence makes for longer leaps, and the level design was made with the original jump distance mind.
If you're not careful you'll be sequence breaking everywhere.
Please note that it was possible to do this and worse (using the mouse) in the original too; just that you should avoid if you want to play the levels regularly.

>>4678724
Ok, what's the deal with strafing giving you like no speed whatsoever (seems literally useless for dodging) even with DeHacker.

>Revert [Strafe] logic (always strafe; faster than strafe left / strafe right)
>The game has a fairly curved code for handling the buttons Strafe_Left and Strafe_Right, it's slower than Strafe + Turn_Left / Turn_Right. So I decided to use the 2nd method - the player will move faster in Strafe than standard Strafe. Also you no longer need to hold down Strafe Key, and you can turn with mouselook while Strafing.
What does this even mean?

>>4678724
There are some differences, but no one knows for sure which ones. Che@ter says that Set doesn't drop souls in Powerslave.
I'd recommend playing PS. EX crashes for me pretty often.
All the options in Dehacker are useful, so you can enable them all.

>>4678746
The original game strafing could be done in two ways:
1)strafeleft / straferight keys
2)strafekey (aka strafe modifier) + turn left / turn right keys

The 2nd solution gives faster strafing.
What the dehacker does is set the 2nd behaviour by default, so you get the faster strafing without having to hold down the strafe key.
This can however be achieved without the dehacker if you set the strafe key to capslock, numlock or scroll-lock.
You can also get permant running and permant vertical mouselook that way (without having to hold down a key, which you have to with the original controls)

The only real advantage of the dehacker is that you don't have to manually go through those weird key configs yourself; + being able to play in 800*600 (anything more gives lag) however the higher resolutions can part of the world disappear in really big areas, it only happens in 2 maps in the entire game

>>4678767
>All the options in Dehacker are useful, so you can enable them all.

DESU the grenade thing is a cheat.

>There are some differences, but no one knows for sure which ones.

A couple of friends and myself studied the game a while back. We wrote documentation, made maps for the game, etc we also compared both versions and the only differences we could find were the fixed music, and graphical changes related to the name change (so logos, main menu, etc)

However the beta and demo versions have more differences and broken things. IIRC Set doesn't drop souls in the beta, but does in the final PS.

>>4673376
They've already said they would ages ago.
Seems to me you're just a retard incapable of reading

>>4678884
Does this look retarded to you? *pulls out dick*
Best start sucking if you don't want another chromosome

>>4678508
Commanders are better placed in distance to not look awkward against the shrinker. In Derelict for example they are just decorations between the liztroop and newbeast hell, as they always appear in close range and usually alone.

>>4678894
Your completely irrelevant answer doesn't diminish the fact that one of the developers over on the steam forums already said they were gonna have a physical release with extra goodies quite some time ago.
Please keep your extra chromosomes to yourself, kiddo.

Anyone bought Lee Jackson’s new album? It costs half the prize of World for the same music.

>>4678967
World Tour I wanted to say.

>>4678967
So? Why do you think anyone buys VG soundtracks?

also there is an exclusive track

I started playing Shadow Warrior for the first time, anf realised how awesome this game is. Much better than Duke in every aspect. What went wrong?

>>4680256
>What went wrong?

Nothing? I guess marketing was the problem. I feel like the only people who bought it were DN3D fans, but not all DN3D fans bought it.

It also couldn't run on a 486 while Duke did, I know it's pretty normal for 1997 but specs requirements advance faster than most people changed computer at the time.
Meanwhile, people with better computers were too busy wanking over "TRUE 3D" to care about a "DN3D clone".

It also doesn't have much of a legacy because:
>like I said pretty much the same fan base as Duke and Duke's modding scene had a headstart
>modding capabilities are lesser than in Duke
>mapping offers more possibilities, but is more complicated to learn as a result

>>4680263

I got ahold of the beta for Powerslave EX and mouselook doesn't work. It keeps forcibly auto centering, I can't even turn. What gives?

>>4680256
1. Western theme is more accessible than eastern theme
2. Lack of those attractive colors and variety what made Duke famous
3. No Allen Blum and Levelord at the leveldesign department.
4. True 3D made it obsolete
5. Enemies are hard to fight, inferior weapons like the sticky bomb

>>4678746
>>4678792

1) strafeleft and straferight keys not affected by the run key and because of that these keys are useless

2) strafe key modifier strafing player to left and right with the mouse instead of turning and with the insane speed (see below)
you can't change it with the num/caps/scroll locks and only dehacker can fix this

3) you can sequence break the game like this one at level 8:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSl5alRtV8U
even without using dehacker: just hold strafe+run, then jump and move mouse to the right or left and you gain some really insane speed, not even possible with the dehacker
you may need to up mouse sensitivity in the game though

4) there more to it:
http://forums.r-t-c-m.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=37
you can also report any bug or features here

and i think dehacker fixes original game behaviour making it more fun to play

>>4680616
>only dehacker can fix this

There was another patch before that could do this, called EXPSDEHK.
I didn't remember that you couldn't disable mouse movement originally, been using that aformentionned patch for a while now.

Tekwar has the same mouse movement insane speed strafing issue as well, there is even a speedrun using that, so chances are that's an issue on the Build side of the code those devs didn't have access to.

Also that's my video :P

>>4680275
Sorry I don't use Powerslave EX

>>4680391
3. Keith Schuler, while no Blum, is easily, at least, Levelord's equal?

>>4661258
>DC isnt worth it.

Your opinion is shit. Smithsonian level was cool as fuck for when it came out.

>>4680778

as I understand
EXPSDEHK = (ex)humed / (p)ower(s)lave (deh)ac(k)er
or "dehacker" for short
old version of the dehacker has a very robust interface so yeah it's a bit confused
but i'm not sure if there are any other patches for the DOS version of the game

>>4680889
What are his maps?

>>4681209
Not him but I knew making this would come in handy one day. Asterisk = multiple people worked on the map.

>>4681274
Thanks. Bath House is my favourite level, although it's still far from the likes of Hollywood Holocaust or Hotel Hell.

I actually really like all the levels from Shadow Warrior. Ain't that some shit?

>played a lot of doom wads
>played a few quake campaigns
>played a couple blood campaigns (blood doesn't have as much quality content which is a shame because its my favorite build fps)
>have only played vanilla duke and its expansions
what are some good duke campaigns? Individual maps are good too but I prefer an episode over a single map.

>>4681301
>Hotel Hell
Overrated shit.

what is this april fools crap

am i always team peep or does this faggotry change

refreshed the thread, lets see if i'm still team peep lmao

yo, we're number 4. step it up brahs.

>>4682426
I don't know if you'll ever find a package, but look for the Red and Roch series (they're separate). Also, download DNF 2013. It's pure bliss.

>>4678906
Now that I think of it, it would be pretty cool to have to face a whole armada of commanders out in the far distance - maybe 15 or 20 of them, like a bunch of attack helicopters. Are there any levels that have something like this?

>>4682479
Eat shit.

>>4682954
Never understood the popularity of that particular map. Ugly outdoors and no proper hotel rooms.

Fuck yeah

Ningens

>Blum vs Levelord wars start
>Think they're both equally good and their styles compliment each other very well, preventing the game's level design from feeling stale or repetitive

What's that on the right? Is that a secret level that is accessed from El Kab? I just beat El Kab and the map progressed up ahead of that.

Anyone know where to find the entrance to the secret level if it is one? This game is impossible to find proper guides/walkthroughs for because everyone sucks the PSX/Saturn/EX versions' cocks and doesn't give a shit about the DOS version.

Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini Mini

>>4683504
There is no secret level in the game. IIRC you'll go to that map just afterwards.

>>4680256
>fps platforming
>better than Duke IN EVERY ASPECT

>>4683516
Oh ok, thanks. Just seemed a bit weird that the map would progress upwards for the entire game and then I guess loop back around there at level 10.

Out of 15 Powerslave levels I've seen (I've gotten burnt on that spider bossfight - I did win it, but I didn't want to continue after that, I still have the save and I intend to complete the game eventually; it's just that by that point the combat felt like such a dogshit, an addition of a deadly hitscanner really felt like an insult in addition to injury - as felt the final secret of map15, unreacheable without invulnerability (which I had) and full mana gauge (which, naturally, I didn't have after the bossfight)) the one that impressed me the most was West Bank, level 14.

You know, now that I think back about it, PC-Powerslave strikes the same chord with me as Heretic did (well, Heretic had an infinitely better combat, including probably the single best 2.5D FPS bossfight, but that's beside the point). I mean, it's really nice looking game, and through smart texturing it manages to look way less flat, I guess, lighting-wise, than the other Build games. However, it's just evident, that the texture set they were working with, wasn't particularly, you know, large. Like they were desperately shuffling things up in terms of environmental design, and like, tried different combinations of this and that, but, at the end of the day, this game's visual variety, and its actual longevity just don't really mesh all that well. It's pretty, it's comfy and charming, but it's definitely
noticeably
visually
monotonous
however you look at it.

Heretic felt the same way, HeXen didn't. HeXen got it just right, actually.

>>4683697
>HeXen got it just right, actually.
On a second thought, it did not. Hub4 was filler.

>>4683703
Castle of Grief picks up once you enter Gibbet.

>hub within a hub

>>4683697
Yes, it's true, the texture set is limited. It must have about 3 times less textures than DN3D for instance.

This being said some levels do manage to look different and come with their own atmospheres.
I love lev07, Philae, which is centered around waterfall and alien.
Lev18, Mitrrahn, looks very unique too

West Bank is also one of my favourites. It has a great sense of 3D and height, does some nice things with Sector over Sector in the main area.

>>4681034
>Smithsonian
Worst map ever.

>>4661383
Thanks anon.
I have a problem with DOSbox and expsdehk - WASD scheme and circlestrafe are working, but only with left strafe - it is impossible to strafe right and use mouselook at the same time. Do you know what it may be?

>>4683815
anon >>4661383 messed up controls
do not use strafe left and strafe right because it's broken
reconfigure A and D to turn left and turn right to work with the dehacker always strafe fix

>>4680391
>2. Lack of those attractive colors and variety what made Duke famous
>5. Enemies are hard to fight, inferior weapons like the sticky bomb

>>4680391
>2. Lack of those attractive colors and variety what made Duke famous
You mean, like those colors?

>>4681274
>Master Leep’s Temple
>Bath House
>Auto Maul
>Water Torture

These are the most memorable maps of the game, and coincidentally all were done by Schuler alone. Add Dark Woods of the Serpent and Floating Fortress were he co-worked with someone else, and you get all the good levels from this game.

>>4684282
Harakiri Harbor was awesome. Raiders of the Lost Wang was breddy good.

>>4684310
I don’t even remember the second one. Harakiri was nice, but it’s still not a match to the likes of Bath House or awater Torture.

>>4684359
>shooting the door lock through the window in order to enter the house
>DAT usage of a boat as a platform
Those two moments are already more, than I can remember about Water Torture.

Just got my 17" CRT,so out is Ion Maiden any good?
I saw developer their interview for DF and I really don't like their attitude.

nvm had a stroke

>>4684368
It's, let's say, somewhat bland. At least, in my personal opinion. Ironically, it's more similar to Eradicator, than to any of Build games. Although Eradicator often gets confused for a Build game itself, so that's not all that notable of a difference.

>>4684374
Alright,thanks dude.

>>4684084
OOOOOOHHH now we are cooking with gas!
Much obliged, Anon,

>>4684367
>vacuum cleaner as a platform
> shooting window to flood the entire place with water
>Duke Nukem style tech base atmosphere
>submarine with a babe inside
Probably you failed in the rocket launcher room in Sumo Sky Palace, so didn’t find the better levels anon.

>>4684456
I think the best (read: most polished, ambitious) maps are the first 4 shareware levels and the last 3 with the ship, water torture and the boss.

Everything inbetween is like a lacklustre testlevel in comparison. Bath House is ok, but short.

I MUSTUH SEEK OUT MASTUH LEEP'S ADVICE

>>4684282
>An unfinished secret level is one of the most memorable in the game
You're talking shit. There's no way that anybody really believes this.

Does anyone remember a mod for DN3D that was fantasy-themed?

The only thing I remember about is that they gave the main character some one-liners too, which sounded hilariously out of place in addition to being delivered devoid of almost any emotion whatsoever.

>>4684565
Auto Maul is awesome, grow standards creamy.

>>4661383
Fixed strafing in Powerslave
https://mega.nz/#!dcoljSbA!7Dw2-BO_zNE63QVbEJ5IDlfI2kyGp0XXFCnYtx6lMqk

>>4685442
virus detected, dont download

>>4685445

>>4685451
prob cp in there too m8

>>4684492
How would I manage to take this screen then?

>vacuum cleaner as a platform
That's fairly standard. The same as, say, moving a trashcan to an intended spot via shooting/hitting it in order to access the secret. Using a vehicle in order to boost you up as the intended method of progression is not "fairly standard". It's elegant and beautiful puzzle. The only one in the game that rivals it in my opinion is that secret in Floating Fortress, that is accessed through the Big Gun.
>shooting window to flood the entire place with water
Muh scripting, very awesome. And it's not like, say, Duke's E3M2 (or half the other Levelord's levels) had a shitload of explosions and level layout transformations to it.
>Duke Nukem style tech base atmosphere
Wow. It's almost like I'm forbidden to play Duke in order to get some of that Duke Nukem style tech base atmosphere.
>submarine with a babe inside
It's almost like Duke didn't have either submarines (E1M3, E1M4) OR babes.

Water Torture is pretty much a Duke level, well, outside Duke. As is Bath House, to be perfectly honest (although Bath House IS awesome - and the tightness of its geometry actually makes it quite unlike Duke's city levels). Harakiri Harbor, in comparison, offers something Duke simply didn't have.

>Sumo Sky Palace
That was this game's counterpart of RR1's Sewers.

Also, if I failed at Sky Palace, then how would I be able to take this screenshot?

>>4684565
Actually, WTF's with that? I am fairly certain, I found this level very lackluster in comparison with two previous city ones (Bath House and Unfriendly Skies). I don't really even remember all that much about it, there were some exhibit rooms, I guess? What's oh that awesome about it?

>>4685553
>>4684456

Funny thing, according to wiki, Stephen Cole has more solo levels (non-collaborations) in Shadow Warrior, than Keith Schuler. Cole has 6 solo ones, Schuler has 5 (including Auto Maul).

You know what? I might just replay all the solo ones from """"pistolstart"""" in the near future. First, all the Schuler's, then all the Cole's.

Do Build map files feature some sort of (hardwired in the file format itself) dedicated signature or tag fields, so that it would be possible to learn who the author of the level was, basically, at glance (IF the author bothered to fill out the corresponding field)? If so, how can this "credit/authorship tag" be accessed?

>>4685553
I found Duke to be the superior game and levels like Bath House, Auto Maul, Floating Fortress and Water Torture are my favourites because they are Duke style levels that would look great in The Birth episode.

In fact, Floating Fortress is Shadow Warrior's answer to Derelict. While Derelict is superior, FF has its own unique stuff like the turret or the fight in the warehouse.

I dislike all the generic stuff in the first half of the registered episode with Hara Kiri Harbor being the best of them. I also hated Unfriendly Skies, it didn't look like an airport but some random amateurish shit glued together.

>>4685615
I think, more than enough effort went into this game for it not to be regarded as yet another Duke's TC. That would simply be unwarranted disrespect, I think.

>>4685607
>dedicated signature or tag field

Nah. You just draw some signature sectors and that's it.

>>4685623
In fact, I really liked the ambiance of both Zilla'sVilla-Monastery-Raiders patch of levels (before Sumo palace) and of CrudeOil-CoolieMines-Subpen7 patch of levels before the Floating Fortress. It was quite quite atmospheric and cohesive, I thought, although the individual levels didn't stand out all that much, more like flowed one into another. They felt continuous.

I also find Levels3&4 (which I personally regard as hands down the best ones in the game) as extremely unlike Duke's. Again, either level3 or level4 is like 4 separate levels stiched together, flowing one into another seamlessly. The only difference with CrudeOil-CoolieMines-Subpen7 there is that the latter takes the form of separate levels, while, say, level3 is one single map file. Conceptually, however, those are very similar things, just expressed differently. What I mean to say, is, that, ultimately, either of Zilla'sVilla-Monastery-Raiders and CrudeOil-CoolieMines-Subpen7 level sets is One Big Continuous Level very much akin to Master Leep's Temple. It's even possible, that those WERE Big Continuous Level at some point, it's just that they grew so big, they couldn't be conveniently handled with Build editor anymore, so that they ended up cut into several pieces.

Anyway, the only place Duke really had that sort of transition is E1L3-E1L4, and even there it's nowhere near SW's level of seamlessness. Well, it could also be argued, that some of the levels preceding Dark Side, along with the Dark Side, form some sort of conceptual whole (at the very least, Lunar Reactor, dunno about the ones before it). Otherwise, each Duke's level is, like, a separate theme, and it exists separately from other levels, there are no smooth transitions there, and even when there are, they are more like afterthough, not as a conscious attempt to paint a continuous environment.

>>4685648
In other words, I am basically saying, that Shadow Warrior heavily dabbled with what later became one of HL1's trademarks. Continuity.

Moreover, I'd argue, that a much more pronounced, than in Duke, puzzle element is there specifically in order to make you pay attention to the environments around you just enough for you to notice that continuity.

Come to think of it, when DNF was released, I wasn't really surprised to learn it took after HL2. Because, I've already played SW by that time, and, basically, after it, it just made sense that they had taken that road, for better or for worth.

>>4685642
Well, that sucks. I was thinking about taking a look at all those official Build addons and making some sort of mini-database as to who exactly did what exactly in terms of maps. However, I don't think it would be worth my time to look for those sector God knows where (well, naturally, each author would probably place them differently).

>>4685653
P.S. If anything, "Deus Ex: Duke's Edition" (you know, the 2002 DNF build Frederic Schreiber talked about) is the one, that doesn't really make sense to me.

>>4685648
There are lots of continuity in Duke:
Hollywood Holocaust-Red Light District was even one level in Lameduke.
Also:
Incubator and Warp Factor
Fusion Station and Occupied Territory
Tiberius Station to Overlord
Raw Meat to LA Rumble
Movie Set to Hotel Hell
Even XXX Stacy and Critical Mass on a lesser extent.

>>4685680
I would need to reformulate that somehow then, because it is still my opinion, that Shadow Warrior uses its continuity in a markedly different, when compared to Duke, manner. It's just that what constitutes this difference is apparently somewhat harder to put into words, than I originally thought.

>>4684625
Yeah you're thinking of Mystique ages in time; it was a real mixed bag but I especially remember the VA as well

>>4685570
What I'm thinking is this.
First, all solo Stephen Cole's levels: L2, L6->L7->L8->L9->L10.
Then, all solo Keith Schuler's levels: L3, L5, L12, L22, L19
And then, finally, Eric Reuter's patch of levels:
L14(ER+SC)->L15(ER+KS)->L16(ER+SC)->L17(ER+KS).

>>4685658
This is what it looks like, you have to look at the maps in the editor.

However it's not 100% reliable. For instance in The Birth there is no Levelord sig. It's also possible that other mappers and/or directors made edits that are not worth putting a sig in.

>>4685694
SW's maps are more generic thematically, that's why you feel this way.

>>4661645
Even with the special blood doslauncher it really fucking struggles to play the game at modern standards even if you spend extra time configuring said launcher just right. Shit you could probably just put it in an actual DOS computer and have it run bitchin' fast compared to dosbox

>>4661383
Powerslave is gone, was it normal or EX version?

>>4661383
How many people made layouts for Return to Ruins?

>>4685785
We were 3, credits should be in the readme file. 2nd map is mine and we made the boss map together.

>>4685757 -> >>4685442

I've been playing a lot of DOS PowerSlave since I saw the first link in this thread. I'm up to West Bank now and I'm really fucking enjoying it, the game is a lot more fun with fixed strafing with DeHacker than it was when I tried it years ago and you could basically only play while doing finger gymnastics to hit all of the toggle keys at once, while having either slow as shit strafing or retarded glitchy high speed strafing which meant you basically had to hold W everywhere. I didn't get very far in it like that.

Also no, I haven't been using the straferunning to accidentally sequence break, but I have seen tons of prime opportunities for it, it does make me second guess just about every required platforming segment that looks a little too far, though, meaning I have to run up and jump at it only using W to test it out.

The combat is way more fun like this and it honestly feels like a better game than Redneck Rampage does, to me, but still doesn't reach the heights of Duke, Blood or Shadow Warrior. The M60 has got to be the most satisfying weapon I've ever used in a Build engine game, and that's high praise. It feels really fucking heavy and the sound effects are great. The grenades are also really powerful. The revolver remains useful throughout the game so far because of how you're forced to conserve ammo, you can't just M60 everything even though you'd like to - sometimes it's better to switch to the Revolver for the Anubis Zombies (and especially the spiders). The magical weapons aside from the transient Mummy Staff on the other hand feel pretty anemic.

Shadow Warrior Classic Redux bugs me
There should be a skybox mod for SW

Who has the best quotes from the build trio? For me I think Lo Wang has the best lines.

Shadow Warrior Twin Dragon is like Tikka Masala without curry. They are levels, they play fine, they just don't have that extra what made (most of) the original maps special.

>>4686138
(cont) Fishing Village seems to be the best of the bunch.

>>4686142
Exactly this. Fishing Village is fucking great and the biggest reason I prefer Twin Dragon to Wanton.

I'm with the anon who said Dark Woods of the Serpent is a two map in one. The Ripper Valley part is like an entire new thing. The level itself is bigger than Nightmare Zone or Smithsonian Terror from Duke.

>>4686116
None. The best way to play these games is to silent the character. Particularly Duke3D and Blood feel a more atmospheric game without that bullshit talk.

>>4687562
but i love hearing "holy cow" after blowing shit up

>>4687562
SNATCH PEBBLE FROM HAND

>>4687562
Jesus, how pleb can you be? I bet you're one of those absolute faggots that turn the soundtrack off in System Shock 1 & 2.

How can I learn mapster32

>>4687562
kys

>>4687981
http://infosuite.duke4.net/index.php

I kinda learned on my own (wasn't even using mapster32 but the regular build, which is way less user friendly), but it took very long. This on the other hand will propel you at the right speed.

>>4687981
In addition to the anon's link above I recommend you to analyse the original maps how those effects work there, hitags, lotags, sector tags, sector effector numbers, palettes, sizes etc. Toying with them is fun.

>>4687981
http://wiki.eduke32.com/wiki/Build/Mapster32_Keyboard_Commands

One of my comfiest memories is a friend bringing home a copy of Duke 64 to play at his house over the weekend. I'd played 3D on my PC but there was something about the atmosphere in 64, think it was the lack of soundtrack so explosions would just fade out to emptiness. The new sky boxes with bright sun casting a melancholic hue over the post apocalyptic scenery. Like washed out 70s movies, the sunbaked LA motif would give me flashes of places that feel real but I only remember from fever dreams. Absolute comfy and I want to go back.

>>4688383
Duke 64 was my first Duke aside from PC Duke 3D shareware with the parental lock on. I used to play co-op on that shit all of the damn time with my younger brother or with one of my friends. The new weapons, new skybox and level changes are extremely nostalgic for me even though I can recognize Duke 3D as the more complete and better game.

While kids were playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark with their friends I was always playing Duke, and then moved on to TimeSplitters 2 and Future Perfect instead of shit like Halo.

Nowadays I have two separate sets of nostalgia for Duke 64 and 3D, one for empty daylight skyboxes and the other for the busy nighttime skyline skybox.

I just realized something about Fahrenheit; except for the end nuke button, which was most likely added last, the map barely has any slopes. Just 4 sloped sectors in the main street.
Everything that should have slopes, doesn't, from the explosion in the apartment to the ceilings of staircases; and of course the shining absence of any slope in any building architecture (indoor most notably)

If that isn't a tell that this was an old map quickly made playable, nothing is.

>>4688589
http://legacy.3drealms.com/duke3d/walkthrough/e3m8.html

This shows plenty of slopes, but even if it was an old map (pretty much everything is chunks from old maps), what would be wrong with it? It's still fun.

>>4688785
I think it's ugly like many others from episode 3 and Levelord in general.

>>4688785
There really aren't that many outside of the end area. The entire map feels squarish, and places that just beg for slopes, and that would have had slopes had it be any other map, just remain bare and squarish.

I got some Duke-related questions.
Sometimes while roaming around, an enemy will randomly play the beginning of its attack frame, and then quickly go back to walking. Is this intentional?
Sometimes the enforcer and brown drone will randomly sit down during combat. Why?
The shrinker does not always work against an enemy. I thought it was supposed to be a one shot, but do the enemies need to be weak enough?

>>4689706

The Enforcing sitting down is a part of it's spit projectile attack. Protector Drones (the brown things) will crouch when they start the sequence to fire a Shrinker projectile. I believe both of these attacks can be interrupted by putting them in a pain state (such as by constantly hitting them with the Chaingun).

The Shrinker's projectile only works when it hits close to the center of the actual enemy entity. To increase the odds of it working, hit the target's feet or legs.

>>4689720
That makes sense for the enforcer, but I don't see the alternate attacks enough. When I shoot the protector drone, it will sit down and stare at me before getting back up to melee attack.

>>4689193
NESfag becomes slopefag... who cares about fucking slopes if a map is fun??

Have you ever played Doom?

>>4689706
>The shrinker does not always work against an enemy. I thought it was supposed to be a one shot, but do the enemies need to be weak enough?
It is supposed to be a one-shot but BUILD can have hit detection issues. Also for mini-battlelords the shrinker only works when you shoot them below the waist.

>>4690748
BUILD is not DOOM. Therefore you should be able to critique the engine's games by their own merits or lack thereof.

>>4690748
Slopes were the shit at the time and are a big part of DN3D's architecture.
I was just saying: slopes were only added to Build a few months before DN3D's release, if you can believe that.
Not long ago it was shown that Farenheit was an old map, apparently a DM map; I think the absence of slopes only shows how rushed that map was in the end.

>>4689706
>>4689720
>>4690821
For the shrinker, it's the feet that matters. If your shrinker shot doesn't touch the enemy's feet, it won't register. I think the Mini-Battlelord is an exception however; and no-one seems to agree whether shrinking mini-BLord was intended or not, even by looking at the code.

>>4690889
I'm not shooting the feet in these webms nesbrah
>>4673989
>>4673990

>>4690907
In the 2nd video, the first shot fails, the 3rd one registers. Notice how that one is lower.
It's not the initial shot that counts, I think it's the enlarged one I'm showing in the pic.

>>4691051
alright my dude.

>>4689193
Fahrenheit is one of those levels where I really question the famous quality sense of Broussard. The map looks bad even for an usermap. Incubator, Bank Roll, Movie Set, Rabid Transit and XXX Stacy are other pityful maps that should have been left in the vault.

>>4691439
Rabid Transit and Movie Set I agree, but Bank Roll and Incubator are amazing man. XXX Stacy is also good despite being "2 maps in one" and having a secret only accessible with the jetpack while there is no jetpack in the map.

>>4691443
>Bank Roll and Incubator are amazing man
yea, they have sloaps = they are gud. [/nesfag]

>>4691443
>and having a secret only accessible with the jetpack while there is no jetpack in the map.
Jesus does it really? That is just awful.

Raw Meat also seems to be something glued from pieces, not a planned and polished level like Hollywood Holocaust or Duke Burger.

I love this map so much.

>>4691850
>HOW DO YOU LIKE MY TAN LINES?
>THESE DON'T COME CHEAP

Does the SWTREK cheat suppose to work in Shadow Warrior Classic Redux? That is necessary to play the game on any map with pistol start.