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Arivia posted:Do you know what supplement, out of curiosity? ETTiNGRiNDER posted:If you look in the credits screens for Witchaven, you will notice a credit for "Story & Original Maps: Mike Pitts". Mike Pitts, along with Jon Emmons, created several tabletop RPG supplements under the name Wyrm Works, the fourth of which was titled, you guessed it: Witchaven. First released in 1992 and reprinted in 1994, Wyrm Works' Witchaven is a set of 20 looseleaf maps for tabletop RPGs such as D&D.
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Apr 2, 2023 04:08
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| # ? May 17, 2024 02:16 |
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And I found a thread on the Acaeum with Allen "grodog" Grohe and others describing the quality of them as a tabletop supplement as dogshit, as well! Doubly-cursed, then.
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Apr 2, 2023 04:18
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Quantum of Phallus posted:someone should make a list alright... A list of nsf casualties
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Apr 2, 2023 04:29
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I wonder how much the rights to Witchaven and the Capstone name are
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Apr 2, 2023 04:33
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Barudak posted:I wonder how much the rights to Witchaven and the Capstone name are 
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Apr 2, 2023 04:42
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The Kins posted:I think a lot of that stuff has been snatched up by SNEG for Steam and GOG releases, so probably not very expensive. I was gonna ask what the hell an appliance manufacturer wants in some game IPs, but then I realized that was SMEG.
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Apr 2, 2023 04:50
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lol smeg
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Apr 2, 2023 08:28
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what would a red dwarf shooter look like anyway
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Apr 2, 2023 08:59
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Polymorph prop hunt
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Apr 2, 2023 10:13
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kirbysuperstar posted:what would a red dwarf shooter look like anyway It'd be Gunmen of the Apocalypse themed, so Outlaws with some sprite and sound changes
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Apr 2, 2023 12:18
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Witchaven 1 has the same number of enemies as Witchaven 2. That sounds pretty normal except, listen, they both have non-erroneous monster counts of 17, but they only share 9 monsters. Somebody sat down and garbage binned perfectly fine monsters and replaced them with nothing. Its like if Doom 2 went, ok, lets add chaingunners, revenants, and arachnotron but we have to dumpster imps, zombie soldiers, and hell knights. Map 13 is also a level in Witchaven I can't tell if its genius, trolling, or lazy as hell but its got an absolutely enormous sprawling maze section which hides the level exit. This exit is blocked by a key door which is also fiendishly deep into the maze. Or you can just, you know, jump in through the open window in the back of the room and use the exit. There are so many keys and pathways in levels you just do not need and I've discovered you can super jump due to collision issues alongside diagonal movement and jumping movements making you faster, especially over slowing terrain makes me ponder what speedrunning this game would look like. Edit: Map 12 requires you to go through an invisible wall (or burn a door open spell) in order to progress. Said invisible wall has 0 clues to its existence, well, unless you count the fact that the auto-map you can pull up at any time clearly shows it. Grondoval is not a warrior wizard, he is a cartogromancer Barudak fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 14:04
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Witchaven 3 seems like it should be a Return of the Triad type deal where all the existing assets are reused in a competent engine to make something like what it should have been in the first place
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Apr 2, 2023 14:48
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The singular design choice that really messes up Witchaven is that every level exit cannot be used if you havent collected the exit item in that level. It means every stage has to place two items to exit which often means you find the exit or the key and have no flippin idea where to go next, or the key is directly on the path to the exit raising the question of why you need it at all. 66% through Witchaven 1 the issue is most levels have at most two keys to find and often they are partially or wholly optional. Whole areas of a level will often serve no purpose and with how slow and bad at pursuing you enemies are minimal risk to just wandering around hallways looking for what you need but being deeply unsatisfying if you go "out of order". Witchaven 2 is often the opposite, with 4+ keys in a stage strictly controlling your path so why even require me to find the teleporter key if I can't get into the teleport room without 3 other keys daisy chained from this area? david_a posted:Witchaven 3 seems like it should be a Return of the Triad type deal where all the existing assets are reused in a competent engine to make something like what it should have been in the first place You can sort of see it, dimly, crudely. The problem is a lot of the fundamentals are messed up so just going "ok all enemies and tilesets in a single game" isn't going to be enough, you've got to do some underlying changes. They knew it themselves because leveling and how attacks work look the same across both games but are massively different. And yes, I did start making a list of what to do. Although thanks to a bug I cant figure out how to trigger on purpose but absolutely can be done via some sort of input/saving+loading issues I have figured out the game is rendering the entire area at all times and the impentrable black void about 5 meters in front of your face in Witchaven 2 and parts of Witchaven 1 is not a coding limitation or some attempt at maintaing framerate, its an aesthetic choice.
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Apr 2, 2023 15:08
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I was loving Amid Evil but the enemies in the Arcane Expanse kind of got on my nerves (the low level enemies have too much health and the high level enemies don't have enough), and The Forges are kind of a slog. Everything manages to damage me, it's too cramped, and after being so relieved there are no floor-is-lava areas or spear trap sections, I'm in a whole level of them. Level design is unbelievable, though. After I'm ready to exit the level I inevitably go back and wander around, every time.
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Apr 2, 2023 17:32
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Twobirds posted:Level design is unbelievable, though. After I'm ready to exit the level I inevitably go back and wander around, every time. For sure. Gameplay aside, "Arcane Expanse" and "The Void" chapters--their aesthetics, their music, their general design, etc.--are just fantastic and compelling levels. I don't remember 90% of the games I play a year after I play them, but I definitely remember those two areas.
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Apr 2, 2023 19:06
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Arcane Expanse was my favourite but The Void was notable to me because it's one of the only times I thought that sort of ethereal, trans-dimensional type of level was actually fun to play.
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Apr 2, 2023 19:10
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I hated the void the first time but when I replayed it I only moderately disliked it. But yeah, the level design was tops although god I was sick of the platforms in the machine world. All the NB games have good level and weapon design I feel. Probably enemy too. I can't wait for fallen aces. I have like 5 hours in the demo alone lol. I can hammer out a playthrough in 10 minutes or probably quicker. I wish there was a shotgun though e: I can understand not wanting to mix it up too much for fans of the base game but as much as I loved the weapons I would love to have seen a brand new arsenal for black labyrinth Milo and POTUS fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 20:07
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Arcane Exapanse was quite good. Im also hoping black library has a completely new weapon set but will buy it regardless. One more Witchaven thing, and its something Im surprised Civvie didn't mention, there are on occasion doors in the game which open or shut based on you approaching or leaving them. They have a horrid track record of moving to the shut position as you approach and opening as you walk away. This is solved by shimmying around the trigger point until it breaks backwards and it opens while you approach and shuts when you leave. The steam version with patch of Witchaven by the way fixes arrows and they will hit and poison you now, but so far there is nothing as absolutely brutal as Witchaven 2's arrow cyclones that instantly kill you that guard required things.
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Apr 3, 2023 01:19
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My favorite part of arcane expanse was the mages who telegraphed their attacks with an eclipse. Just a cool and thematically appropriate way to let you know when to move. Also I just played Cultic for the first time in over four months. Took me 27 minutes for the first level  as I had to relearn absolutely everything. I was averaging under 90 minutes beating the game with full parts last I played  e: wait, no I beat it a little while ago. I haven't played it on steam in four months. Wonder why I suck so much then Milo and POTUS fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 01:28
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Twobirds posted:I was loving Amid Evil but the enemies in the Arcane Expanse kind of got on my nerves (the low level enemies have too much health and the high level enemies don't have enough) Which ones? The wizard guys that like to dodge roll? The insect and snake bois? What are you shooting them with? AE has a bad problem with overloading you with orange and purple mana, and E6 in particular hands out Aeternum ammo like it's candy. Are you landing the Voltride's overkill effect reliably? I think the only enemy in Arcane Expanse I'd call egregiously beefy are the mace guys on horseback, I hate those guys.
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Apr 3, 2023 01:29
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Does e6 really mean anything since you can play them out of order? I assume you still mean the arcane expanse. Also the voltride sucks and I'd rather water staff enemies. The dps is slightly lower but your shots'll all land. The chain lightning is cool but seems temperamental and never procs when I need or want it.
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Apr 3, 2023 01:39
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Yeah, E6 is Arcane Expanse. I still think of them as going in the order they were released during EA. I really shouldn't expect newer players to know what that is. The Voltride is probably my least favourite weapon because of how accurate you need to be with it (in a game where everything is zooming around at a hundred miles an hour), but if you can be that accurate then it'll kill things faster than anything short of the Aeternum. And the chain lightning takes all of that up to eleven. It'll proc 100% of the time if you hold down fire and land every shot during the death animation, but if you gently caress up at all then you've wasted a bunch of ammo to no effect. I bring it up because the insects in Arcane Expanse are basically the perfect use case for it? They come in large groups, have moderately low HP (so you don't need to spend too long trained on any particular one to get the effect), and they're relatively slow moving and don't try to juke about the place.
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Apr 3, 2023 02:05
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Milo and POTUS posted:My favorite part of arcane expanse was the mages who telegraphed their attacks with an eclipse. Just a cool and thematically appropriate way to let you know when to move. i just started a playthrough of cultic on extreme today and i'm excited at how deadly everything is but also how manageable a lot of it feels given the tools at my disposal
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Apr 3, 2023 02:30
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Cultic is very generous with explosives. Chucking some TNT is always a good opening gambit.
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Apr 3, 2023 02:38
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I beat it on extreme for the achievement and honestly after playing ultrakill it probably wouldn't be that hard. However, I think Hard hits the sweet spot in allowing you to get really crazy and have the game retain some level of difficulty. Very hard isn't bad either
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Apr 3, 2023 03:51
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1. Yeah it can be really frustrating to see a million subscriber youtuber make a video claiming something like "Doom + HL = Halo" leading to making a video like this 2. The Apple Extended Keyboard really was the best keyboard ever made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNXcnGHE4Y
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Apr 3, 2023 12:47
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Which ones? The wizard guys that like to dodge roll? The insect and snake bois? What are you shooting them with? AE has a bad problem with overloading you with orange and purple mana, and E6 in particular hands out Aeternum ammo like it's candy. Are you landing the Voltride's overkill effect reliably? You're right, I forgot about the snakes and antlions, which I didn't have many issues with. I was thinking of the non-flying mages, and I usually defaulted to using the Claw since I always had a lot of orange mana. I've gotten good at using Voltride overcharge but those guys tended to escape it before the chain lightning procs (which I used constantly in the Solar Solstice). The flying mages almost always went down quick, fighting them always felt like a letdown, particularly when they spookily rose from pits or descended from the sky. I wish the mounted guys did something other than charge you, my only solution was just to nuke them ASAP. I'd say about a quarter of the time my Aeternum shots don't hit anything. Am I not using it right or something? Should I just fire it more? I keep treating it like a BFG which probably doesn't help.
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Apr 3, 2023 12:53
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If I was being rushed I always just aimed it down at the floor with unobstructed sightlines to as many enemies as possible. If it (or they) round a corner it won't hit. It's a cool weapon though finicky. I also think it has a maximum number of targets
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Apr 3, 2023 13:27
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There's a max number of targets and I'm fairly certain there's a max distance they can be from the ball- that can be a problem sometimes in big open areas. So yeah, floor is good, if the ceiling's low that tends to work wonders, a wall can work, and if there's nothing solid to hit you want to fire it just over their heads and from a fair distance away.
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Apr 3, 2023 14:40
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Finished Witchaven. Level design in Witchaven 1 is consistently better than Witchaven 2, with many levels getting firmly into the "pretty ok" range, but seriously, making you find the pentagram and the exit is absurd and just wrecks both these games. Usually the pentagram is in a place of prominenance, but in level 24 its put behind a staircase that is otherwise unintersting and unadorned, so thanks designer of 24. Its also way more consistent in its difficulty than Witchaven 2 as every single level is chockful of health potions except the final one which is obviously intentional as the exit room of Level 24 has a full heal + armor and a cache of potions to restock in case you were low. No weird multi level stretch of "eh, who needs health packs anyway". I have to say, the final level is actually fairly fun and the only time the game actually throws enough enemies at you to pose an actual issue, and your difficulty controlling yourself and attacking, limited room clearing abilities, and dependency on boost items with a massive horde and final boss who can do things makes it probably the most fun boss stage of any of the Build games. I cannot believe I'm typing this. Random thoughts:
Barudak fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 15:01
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When Civvie said he played TNT Evilution for a month, he meant it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY-me5oGyEM
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Apr 3, 2023 15:36
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I thought TNT Evolution was *fine* and definitely less of a chore than Plutonia. I was also playing it with Final Doomer+ and enjoyed that weaponset. I hope more versions of that mod come out so I can finally play Eviternity...
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Apr 3, 2023 17:57
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tnt is frickin trash top to bottom. just dogshit. can't wait to watch every day of civvie playing it
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Apr 3, 2023 18:04
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I never had that much of a problem with TNT. I think if it had come out as a megawad like it was originally going to, it would go down in history as basically fine.
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Apr 3, 2023 18:09
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Mordja posted:I thought TNT Evolution was *fine* and definitely less of a chore than Plutonia. Same. I don't think it has particularly high highs, but I never thought its lows were too bad.
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Apr 3, 2023 18:16
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I think TNT & Plutonia were probably the first big add-ons I played, and I remember liking them. But I mean, the core gameplay is so good that it's hard to truly mess up, I guess.
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Apr 3, 2023 18:37
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I liked TNT & Plutonia as well, but I'm assuming that is because I played them on Final Doom for the PSX so like half of the total levels had been stripped out for space reasons or something.
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Apr 3, 2023 19:34
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I didn't mind Evilution at first, but if I remember correctly things really fell off the further you got into it. The last level or two where so rudimentary that calling them "phoned-in" could be praise. Also I'm not sure but was there an Egypt/pharaoh themed level? I might be confusing it with a Duke3d level, since that sounds too outlandish to me.
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Apr 3, 2023 22:27
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Serephina posted:I didn't mind Evilution at first, but if I remember correctly things really fell off the further you got into it. The last level or two where so rudimentary that calling them "phoned-in" could be praise. The first secret level, Pharaoh. It's broken and can't be completed without a patch as originally shipped (or using a trick if you know it's broken), just in case that's stuck in your memory. There's a long history of Egypt-themed Doom levels starting with Pharaoh.
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Apr 3, 2023 22:32
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did they patch a bunch of stuff in cultic? You used to be able to crawl over the debris blocking the exit in the crypts and I'll be damned if I can figure out how anymore. Also ammo seems more plentiful, especially for the rifle and I don't remember cultists harassing you when you fought the tank.
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Apr 3, 2023 22:34
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