Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

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Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Fergus Mac Roich posted:

Is there a technical distinction between making a TC and making a video game?

No, not really. Holdover slang from the 90's is right on.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 20:07

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# ? May 17, 2024 19:31

Jblade: Sep 5, 2006

Fergus Mac Roich posted:

Can I ask why this is called a total conversion? Is it just a holdover from 90s lingo? If I were to look at a project with these qualities in a vacuum, I would just call it an indie fan game. Is there a technical distinction between making a TC and making a video game?

Yeah, it's holdover slang - I've been modding Duke since about 2000 and we called huge projects like this 'TCs' back then, but now everything these days is called mods. Part of the mod is dedicated to the golden days of Duke mods and stuff as well as classic shooters (although there's also plenty of stuff and lessons learned from newer games as well, plus a tiny bit of X-com thrown in)

It is a standalone game, but only in the sense you don't need Duke 3D to run it. I'll always call it a 'TC' in my head.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 20:11

Capilarean: Apr 10, 2009

I thought a "Total conversion" was when you replaced all the assets in the game,using only the mechanics. A fan game suggests a game made from scratch with assets and/or mechanics referencing the original one.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 20:48

Kazvall: Mar 20, 2009

victrix posted:

There were two versions of DK mp released somewhat early in beta, one was incredibly fun and fast paced, it actually felt like Q3 before Q3 was even a thing.

The later version was horrible and retarded. I can only assume they fired whoever was making it fun and replaced all their ideas (or they quit in despair, more likely I suppose)

We are using a user released Deathmatch build, that has the option to use the original DM demo.

It's hot. I just can't change my resolution. God damnit!

# ? Jan 4, 2012 23:02

Fergus Mac Roich: Nov 5, 2008; Soiled Meat

Capilarean posted:

I thought a "Total conversion" was when you replaced all the assets in the game,using only the mechanics. A fan game suggests a game made from scratch with assets and/or mechanics referencing the original one.

I know my question was answered but: not necessarily. New games are sometimes made that include very few or no new systems and are produced on the same or very similar tech. The Assassin's Creed games are a modern example of this, but you can see it going back through history. Fallout 2 is a game separate from Fallout. Doom 2 is a game separate from Doom. Wizardry 2 is a game separate from Wizardry.

It's all academic, though, Jblade can call his thing whatever he wants. I suppose this is just a community that has had its vocabulary for quite a long time. I just don't want anyone to sell themselves short on what they made

# ? Jan 4, 2012 23:12

victrix: Oct 30, 2007

Fishing for some more Doom 2 wad suggestions - specifically to play with Brutal Doom. A lot of the bigger megawads feel like they were tuned to be rear end hard in normal Doom 2, so they're loving ridiculous in Brutal Doom.

Any favorites?

# ? Jan 5, 2012 00:18

Kazvall: Mar 20, 2009

victrix posted:

Fishing for some more Doom 2 wad suggestions - specifically to play with Brutal Doom. A lot of the bigger megawads feel like they were tuned to be rear end hard in normal Doom 2, so they're loving ridiculous in Brutal Doom.

Any favorites?

The problem is finding wads that don't already have their own weapons that don't gently caress up with brutal doom. Just look for some awesome map packs, is what I would suggest. I will look for some wads in a bit, myself, too.

E: I take that back, I love NeoDoom with Brutal Doom. There is a server right now hosting it on Skulltag(doomseeker):

66.177.82.245:10675

Kazvall fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jan 5, 2012

# ? Jan 5, 2012 00:21

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

In my experience, most Brutal Doom + WADs are usually pretty fun on HMP or UV. The problem is that it feels like every map maker eventually puts you in a situation that is more or less impossible with the changes Brutal Doom makes. For Scythe, it's Anger (Map 23). For EPIC 2, it's Orion's Belt (Map 14) when it decides to lock you in a small arena with four cyberdemons and an arch-vile. Even if you do somehow survive the irregular 24-missile volleys (you won't), it rewards you with 20 homing-missile-machinegunning Revenants. Community Chest 2's Elixir (Map 5) can be an exercise in frustration, since it has hundreds of zombies. Regardless of how clever you are in disposing of the 40 and 50 man waves, their improved hitscan weapons will wither away more of your health than the map provides.

I really don't like save scumming--usually I try to power through a whole map without reloading--and I really don't like using cheat codes to get through impossible situations. But I have yet to find a 32-level WAD that doesn't have at least one scenario where you're pretty much hosed.

That being said, what I played of both "The Ultimate Torment and Torture" and "ZPack" was thoroughly difficult, but manageable. They might be worth looking into if you haven't already. Also, I've gone through about half of "Threshold of Pain" on UV and while I'm consistently hurting, I haven't quit in frustration (yet.)

# ? Jan 5, 2012 00:53

SALT CURES HAM: Jan 4, 2011

Thompsons posted:

Does anyone besides me really wish there was a Duke Nukem mod that didn't have any protozoid slimers in it?

They scare me shitless in vanilla Duke (even if they aren't very threatening) and scare me even more shitless in mods.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 00:59

see you tomorrow: Jun 27, 2009

I guess it's weird to say but if you can find No Rest for the Living, the new episode that was made by Nerve for the 360 port of Doom 2, it's pretty great by itself and even better with Brutal Doom

# ? Jan 5, 2012 01:01

That Ignorant Sap: Nov 20, 2010; YOU AIN'T LOOKIN' AT A
BUNCH OF RHINOS, HERE.

One interesting wad for use with Brutal Doom is the 1 Monster Megawad. I just started playing it today after it sat in my wads folder for God knows how long.
It's 24 levels (+1 secret level). Each level has only 1 monster type. Map 1 has troopers only, map 2 imps, map 3 shotgun guys, etc etc. Brutal Doom is a blessing and a curse. Troopers are no pushovers in large numbers. Imps have a chance of dropping berserk packs. The BD regeneration add on helps ALOT (your health replenishes if you fall under 20%).
Going thru on Ultra Violence, I can only imagine the nightmare the Pain Elemental or Spider Mastermind levels are going to be with BD...

# ? Jan 5, 2012 05:40

Thompsons: Aug 28, 2008; Ask me about onklunk extraction.

WickedIcon posted:

They scare me shitless in vanilla Duke (even if they aren't very threatening) and scare me even more shitless in mods.

They really are the most harmless enemy in the entire game, but the noises they make combined with them just creeping onto the screen always makes me jump

Note to the AMC creator that I'm not making GBS threads on your mod because you have them in one level plus one of the other bonus maps, I just always hate protozoids wherever they appear :v:

# ? Jan 5, 2012 05:45

ChickenHeart: Nov 28, 2007; Take me at your own risk.; Kiss From a Hog

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

In my experience, most Brutal Doom + WADs are usually pretty fun on HMP or UV. The problem is that it feels like every map maker eventually puts you in a situation that is more or less impossible with the changes Brutal Doom makes. For Scythe, it's Anger (Map 23). For EPIC 2, it's Orion's Belt (Map 14) when it decides to lock you in a small arena with four cyberdemons and an arch-vile. Even if you do somehow survive the irregular 24-missile volleys (you won't), it rewards you with 20 homing-missile-machinegunning Revenants. Community Chest 2's Elixir (Map 5) can be an exercise in frustration, since it has hundreds of zombies. Regardless of how clever you are in disposing of the 40 and 50 man waves, their improved hitscan weapons will wither away more of your health than the map provides.

I really don't like save scumming--usually I try to power through a whole map without reloading--and I really don't like using cheat codes to get through impossible situations. But I have yet to find a 32-level WAD that doesn't have at least one scenario where you're pretty much hosed.

That being said, what I played of both "The Ultimate Torment and Torture" and "ZPack" was thoroughly difficult, but manageable. They might be worth looking into if you haven't already. Also, I've gone through about half of "Threshold of Pain" on UV and while I'm consistently hurting, I haven't quit in frustration (yet.)

I just managed to polish-off Scythe 2 with Brutal Doom on Ultraviolent, myself. Holy poo poo did those last few maps become horrible death-traps. I managed to clear all of them without cheats, but everything after the Gardens had more than a few instances where I had to exploit my ability to jump and duck to survive those gangs of Revenants. God help you if you started Forgotten City with less than 200 health and armor.

So that's Scythe, NeoDoom, NewDoom, Hell Revealed, and Reloaded under my belt; I might give Threshold a try. _{(gently caress Revenants)}

# ? Jan 5, 2012 06:22

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

ChickenHeart posted:

I just managed to polish-off Scythe 2 with Brutal Doom on Ultraviolent, myself. Holy poo poo did those last few maps become horrible death-traps. I managed to clear all of them without cheats, but everything after the Gardens had more than a few instances where I had to exploit my ability to jump and duck to survive those gangs of Revenants. God help you if you started Forgotten City with less than 200 health and armor.

So that's Scythe, NeoDoom, NewDoom, Hell Revealed, and Reloaded under my belt; I might give Threshold a try. _{(gently caress Revenants)}

Shortly after I posted that, I finally got through Epic's four Cyberdemons. It took another 8 or 9 tries, but somehow I did it. I think it mostly has to do with the BFG's random damage finally smiling on me and enabling me to kill two of them...so, random luck, but it's finally done.

You're right, though. It's extremely important to end levels as healthy as you can, because you never know what's going to be jumping on you the minute the next level loads.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 06:57

Jblade: Sep 5, 2006

Thompsons posted:

They really are the most harmless enemy in the entire game, but the noises they make combined with them just creeping onto the screen always makes me jump

Note to the AMC creator that I'm not making GBS threads on your mod because you have them in one level plus one of the other bonus maps, I just always hate protozoids wherever they appear

That's cool, I was thinking about actually adding a config line that kills them off from the map completely (plus one for spiders when I get around to adding them in) but I didn't think the need for it would be huge. guess I was mistaken! (as much as I love Doom, it's nice to see the mod get even a little bit of notice here since I felt it fulfilled everything this thread was about)

# ? Jan 5, 2012 19:28

Chinook: Apr 11, 2006; SHODAI

I'm looking for an "Early FPS" buddy (or two) on Steam. I'm in the group, but never seem to join up with the events. Maybe just some 1v1 deathmatch or co-op stuff in any old game... I'll have questions on how to get it all set up.

If you're up for that, add me!

I used to play Duke3d, Doom, Doom 2, Blood, RoTT, etc. I'm not terribly good. I lurk this thread all the time, and love all the mods you guys make/discuss.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/cirruspaxton

# ? Jan 5, 2012 19:42

Luigi Thirty: Apr 30, 2006; Emergency confection port.

Thompsons posted:

Does anyone besides me really wish there was a Duke Nukem mod that didn't have any protozoid slimers in it?

I tried editing game.con a while back to disable them but I could never figure out how to because the Build engine is a hacky pile of garbage.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 19:55

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

I'm not getting Reelism. I'm using IDE to start a single player game with Doom 2 and reelism 1.3 as an additional PWAD. I just get regular doom 2 with the slots and half of them don't seem to do anything like I collect gas canisters from dead guys but can't do anything with them.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 20:18

Chinese Tony Danza: Oct 30, 2007; Crappy Cat Connoisseur

nexus6 posted:

I'm not getting Reelism. I'm using IDE to start a single player game with Doom 2 and reelism 1.3 as an additional PWAD. I just get regular doom 2 with the slots and half of them don't seem to do anything like I collect gas canisters from dead guys but can't do anything with them.

Do you have any autoloads? Those might be messing things up if you do.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 20:29

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

I got it just by dragging reelism onto gzdoom.exe. Holy poo poo this is awesome, wish I could find a server running it though.

Is is just me, or do I hear Happy Tree Friends sound effects?

nexus6 fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jan 5, 2012

# ? Jan 5, 2012 20:35

Jblade: Sep 5, 2006

Luigi Thirty posted:

I tried editing game.con a while back to disable them but I could never figure out how to because the Build engine is a hacky pile of garbage.

If you're using Eduke32, just stick this:

code:

onevent EVENT_GAME

ifactor EGG killit
ifactor GREENSLIME killit

endevent

underneath the defines for USER and DEF, and it'll remove both the eggs and the greenslimes from the game. This works for ANY mod as well, you just have to stick that little bit of code in it's main con file.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 20:50

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Luigi Thirty posted:

I tried editing game.con a while back to disable them but I could never figure out how to because the Build engine is a hacky pile of garbage.

Slimers are hardcoded into the engine because Todd Replogue hates nice things. They aren't in the con files.

nexus6 posted:

I got it just by dragging reelism onto gzdoom.exe. Holy poo poo this is awesome, wish I could find a server running it though.

Is is just me, or do I hear Happy Tree Friends sound effects?

There's no multiplayer support for Reelism, sadly. And no, no Happy Tree Friends sounds. Not intentionally, anyway.

Jblade posted:

If you're using Eduke32, just stick this:
code:
onevent EVENT_GAME

ifactor EGG killit
ifactor GREENSLIME killit

endevent
underneath the defines for USER and DEF, and it'll remove both the eggs and the greenslimes from the game. This works for ANY mod as well, you just have to stick that little bit of code in it's main con file.

This is my new favorite post.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 03:44

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

nexus6 posted:

I'm not getting Reelism. I'm using IDE to start a single player game with Doom 2 and reelism 1.3 as an additional PWAD. I just get regular doom 2 with the slots and half of them don't seem to do anything like I collect gas canisters from dead guys but can't do anything with them.

I know you found a solution for this, but thanks for the heads up. I've added a silly fix for this. :v:

# ? Jan 6, 2012 09:50

Jblade: Sep 5, 2006

I recorded a partial playthrough of one of the AMC TC maps as the melee character, incase anybody here's curious as to what the mod's like. The Duke enemies are only featured in one level, then there's several other themes and enemy sets you can fight against (including a Doom style level set on Ganymede and in 'Hell') I'll have to record more videos since there's like 7 more characters who all have different weapons and voices and poo poo.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 10:20

Thompsons: Aug 28, 2008; Ask me about onklunk extraction.

I don't know if anybody's given a complete review so I'll just post what I thought.

-Worst thing about it (or the best thing, I think it's funny as hell) is the voice-acting and story. That aside, I haven't had this much fun with Duke Nukem since I finished War of Attrition.

-The characters are all goofy as hell but I love how distinct their arsenals are (like Znort's guns don't require reloading, Merlijn is melee, Nikko's armor-piercing gats, etc); they even get different powerups, which made me smile.

-Levels themselves seem great so far after about four stages in. The biggest worry I had was everything being a giant circuitous keycard hunt like War of Attrition's community maps were, but it looks like you managed to skirt that. I think the Hell map could've been shorter but it was far from the worst thing I've ever played. --Edit: playing the Abyss level again, getting the red key is kind of obtuse because as far as I can tell, you end up going through a teleporter and arrive at this boney meat-tower thing, and to get up to the balcony you have to use the jump pad in front of it. The problem is that I have no idea how you're supposed to activate it and just got through it by chance after kicking the tower's base and then backing up over the jump pad. If I were you I'd look over that part again and give the player some kind of scanner hint or something because I basically found the answer through dumb luck.

-Research and topics carrying over from one game to the next is great since I don't have to search through every level on multiple playthroughs, though I'm kinda curious as to how I get these weapons and ammo types I researched. Do I pick them up in the armory before heading to the briefing room? Also, are there ways to switch between characters at the base?

-Streamed it, one friend thought it was completely absurd and dumb. Then again, he didn't like Brutal Doom either so there's no accounting for taste :v:

Thompsons fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Jan 6, 2012

# ? Jan 6, 2012 12:34

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

Man, all this hate for the slimes! I never found them particularly creepy, my biggest complaint about them is that they're worth almost no points in War of Attrition.

Definitely checking out AMC once I finish my current Attrition playthrough, though.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 17:25

Kazvall: Mar 20, 2009

Alright, I am putting together a 4gb flashdrive with skulltag and all the wads I can manage. This way at my next lan party everyone can experience the doom glory.

Throw out all your favorite skulltag compatible wads so I can rejoice! Big props for including the download links! (I just had to reformat my HD and I lost EVERYTHING)

# ? Jan 6, 2012 18:18

victrix: Oct 30, 2007

I just tested out the Hard Reset demo - I love the weapons and the ui, but...

the movement speed is glacial and the run is limited.

Anyone who's played the full version, is it a worthy doomesque game? SS3 was a huge disappointment to me, what's with the fear of speed?

# ? Jan 6, 2012 18:22

Zero Star: Jan 22, 2006; Robit the paranoid blogger.

Kazvall posted:

Alright, I am putting together a 4gb flashdrive with skulltag and all the wads I can manage. This way at my next lan party everyone can experience the doom glory.

Throw out all your favorite skulltag compatible wads so I can rejoice! Big props for including the download links! (I just had to reformat my HD and I lost EVERYTHING)

Just off the top of my head (and Doomworld megawads folder)

Alien Vendetta
Doom 2 Reloaded
Epic 2
Fragport
Kama Sutra
Plutonia 2 (requires you to run Plutonia.wad instead of Doom2.wad to load textures properly)
Reverie
Revolution! (filename is TVR.wad)

# ? Jan 6, 2012 18:52

Pheener: Jun 7, 2003; Extraordinary!

In the stats menu in the computer at the AMC base, it mentions something about "Coop Points". Does it support co-op?

Secondly, in the Megabase level, I found a sort of easter egg(?) on some ducts near the suspended crate that you can jump on to get to one of the roofs. It said something like "SLEEP SLEEP REST". Any info on what that's about? I like to imagine the mapper was up really loving late that night.

Thompsons posted:

The problem is that I have no idea how you're supposed to activate it and just got through it by chance after kicking the tower's base and then backing up over the jump pad. If I were you I'd look over that part again and give the player some kind of scanner hint or something because I basically found the answer through dumb luck.

You're just supposed to run over the jump-pad while moving towards the tower, took me a few tries. The area you can see from the other side was a clever red-herring though.

Pheener fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jan 6, 2012

# ? Jan 6, 2012 19:29

Fergus Mac Roich: Nov 5, 2008; Soiled Meat

victrix posted:

I just tested out the Hard Reset demo - I love the weapons and the ui, but...

the movement speed is glacial and the run is limited.

Anyone who's played the full version, is it a worthy doomesque game? SS3 was a huge disappointment to me, what's with the fear of speed?

I really liked it but it's not like Doom. You can spend a lot of the game sprinting, though.

edit: The ballistic guns definitely do not feel weak.

Fergus Mac Roich fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jan 6, 2012

# ? Jan 6, 2012 19:47

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

victrix posted:

I just tested out the Hard Reset demo - I love the weapons and the ui, but...

the movement speed is glacial and the run is limited.

Anyone who's played the full version, is it a worthy doomesque game? SS3 was a huge disappointment to me, what's with the fear of speed?

It's pretty bad. Movement is far too slow, most of the guns feel weak, several of the recurring enemy types are total bullet sponges with instant-kill melee attacks, and the levels are completely linear.

The closest I've been able to come to a modern Doomish game is Painkiller, and that came out eight years ago; how sad is that?

Recently when I want an old-school FPS fix I've just been playing actual old-school FPSes - D3D War of Attrition and Descent, mostly.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 20:19

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

Kazvall posted:

Throw out all your favorite skulltag compatible wads so I can rejoice! Big props for including the download links! (I just had to reformat my HD and I lost EVERYTHING)

The Ultimate Torment and Torture
ZPack
Speed of Doom

# ? Jan 6, 2012 20:22

QwertySanchez: Jun 19, 2009; a wacky guy

The Kins posted:

Slimers are hardcoded into the engine because Todd Replogue hates nice things. They aren't in the con files.

--

This is my new favorite post.

so I take it there won't be a Protozoid! Protozoid! (textbook case for Sigmund Freud) rule for Reelism then? :v:

Also, you've neglected Reelism on your list of mods at the start of the thread.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 22:24

Stunt_enby: Feb 6, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

victrix posted:

I just tested out the Hard Reset demo - I love the weapons and the ui, but...

the movement speed is glacial and the run is limited.

Anyone who's played the full version, is it a worthy doomesque game? SS3 was a huge disappointment to me, what's with the fear of speed?

...
You're seriously calling Serious Sam 3 a slow-paced game just because of the fact that it has sprinting? I've been playing through the entire thing, never sprinted once, and I've only felt like I've been moving slowly during dark, underground parts, because the game limits your speed during those for some dumb reason. The sprinting is only there to take you from breaking the sound barrier to breaking the speed of light.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 23:51

victrix: Oct 30, 2007

I'm calling it a slow paced game because compared to Doom or Serious Sam, it's a slow paced game - not rocket science!

# ? Jan 7, 2012 01:38

Stunt_enby: Feb 6, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

victrix posted:

I'm calling it a slow paced game because compared to Doom or Serious Sam, it's a slow paced game - not rocket science!

You move just as fast as you do in Serious Sam TFE/TSE, which you would realize if you'd actually played them.
But this has the potential to turn into a lovely-rear end derail, so let's stop before it does.

# ? Jan 7, 2012 02:02

bleedbackwards: Jan 13, 2008; weapon finesse: my dong

I'm playing Ultimate Torment and Torture with Brutal Doom and this message appeared on my screen when I started the second area, making it basically impossible to play the game. I suspected UTNT might not play nice with Brutal Doom when it didn't ask me to pick a class at the beginning of the game but is there a way to get rid of this message? I don't even know what the hell it's referring to.

# ? Jan 7, 2012 05:11

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

bleedbackwards posted:

I'm playing Ultimate Torment and Torture with Brutal Doom and this message appeared on my screen when I started the second area, making it basically impossible to play the game. I suspected UTNT might not play nice with Brutal Doom when it didn't ask me to pick a class at the beginning of the game but is there a way to get rid of this message? I don't even know what the hell it's referring to.

Something's not right here. I'm using Brutal Doom v0.14 with UTNT and the latest version of Skulltag and I'm getting the class selection menu. I just loaded it up and selected the second episode and didn't have any issues with prompts. This makes me think it's not necessarily a conflict between UTNT and Brutal Doom but something else.

# ? Jan 7, 2012 05:16

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# ? May 17, 2024 19:31

victrix: Oct 30, 2007

I had that exact same problem with brutal doom v13, so I stopped playing it (which kinda sucks, it was a drat nice looking wad)

... it has classes? :stare:

# ? Jan 7, 2012 05:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

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