Time to trim the fat.

Though my week off from work is almost at its end now, I haven't had much time to enjoy actually playing any games.

The week began with me ready to once again immerse myself in Oblivion, only to discover that one of the mods I was playing with (which still remains unidentified, by the way) was making the game instantly crash to desktop whenever I attempted to remove a specific vanilla item from defeated enemies. I could systematically open each active plugin with one of the editing tools and look for anything modifying that item, but instead I first chose to try the process of elimination method and in the process somehow borked the game so that now I can't even start a new campaign.

So I decided to turn my attention to one of my old favorites, classic Doom -- more specifically, Doom run with the source port GZDoom. With the latest version of my favorite source port I had only been running the game for about 45 minutes when suddenly the framerate deteriorated so drastically that I could progress no further. So what's the first thing I do in this situation? I go make a fool of myself in their bug report forum, of course. After a bit of posting and simultaneous testing, I came to the conclusion that there wasn't anything wrong with the source port but instead that the problem was somehow being caused by the mapset I was trying to play. So I switched to another megawad and, by the third map of the set, the framerate again went to crap -- worse, whatever is causing the problem is apparently preserved in the saves so restarting the executable in hopes that the issue will clear out of the RAM and GPU is ineffective.

I've read that the openGL support of AMD/ATI/Radeon video cards is becoming increasingly atrocious with each new series of GPUs they release, so I began to investigate further along that avenue. I tried several different versions of the drivers for my current video card, to no avail, then I went so far as to actually pull the hardware out of the tower and stick my older Radeon GPU back in. Still the problem persisted. In the end I decided that if I was going to get to play the game at all this week I'd have to switch to ZDoom, which is of course the source port that the openGL version is based upon.

But that wasn't the end; when things on the computer go good for me they go great, but when they go bad they go straight to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

I was playing Armadosia with ZDoom and by the time I was halfway through the second map the framerate again went straight to crap. WTF? It's not even openGL! I've been playing games like Oblivion at 1600x900 resolution with the details maxed! This should run like a racehorse! WTF?

I was only running the game with one other mod. The mod had never given me any trouble before so I had by default ruled it out as a possible cause of the issue... but just for the sake of being thorough I decided to disable the mod and launch the game one more time. Without that remaining mod the game ran without the slightest stutter, even in the openGL version; with the mod enabled again the stuttering returned and soon the game was unplayable. Anyone care to guess which mod was causing the problem?

Herculine's Doom Upgrade.

Now my critics can rejoice; my randomizer mod actually does make the game unplayable.

This of course has me very frustrated. I've been developing the mod and playing with it for over two years now and have never had such issues until now, though during that time the mod has steadily grown in its size and scope. Apparently it has finally reached a size where the source port engine can no longer handle the amount of information that needs to be processed, even if I enable the executable to take advantage of all my system's RAM. Again my critics can rejoice; all along they've said that the mod has too much stuff in it and now it seems that they're finally correct.

Readers familiar with ZDoom modding might ask: "Herc, what if it's just one item that you've recently added that's causing the problem?" While there's always a slim chance of that I suppose, I doubt that it's likely because the coding for all these things is basically the same. When something goes wrong in said code usually the worst that can happen is a sprite won't show up when it's supposed to or a monster won't do something when or how exactly it was intended. I really don't see how one could code a single monster or item to produce such a drastic impact on the graphics processing unless it simply had a ton of visual effects crammed into it, and even then the problem would have been abated by adjusting or even totally disabling the openGL options as I did while I was trying to locate the problem. Also, I think it would be safe to assume that the bug would only manifest itself when said object was actually spawned in a map, while this bug is persistent as long as the mod is active in any case. The only conclusion I can reach at this point is that the issue is the result of the sum of all the parts; too much data is being loaded at one time to be processed.

Thus the title of this post. The only option I see left to me at the moment is to create a version of the mod in which the content is at least halved. The easiest way I can think of to do so is to start a new mod from scratch and systematically add to it only the content that I refuse to omit and then work from there. That's not as bad as it sounds, though; in a way my critics are right in that the mod does contain some things that aren't really necessary. For example, of the array of weapons that are in the current version I only actually ever use about half of them, so logic dictates that I should only keep about half of them. Perhaps there really isn't any need for four different kinds of shotguns, after all. The list of monsters and power-ups that won't make the cut will likely be long in the end; things like the Time Imp and the Time Freeze Sphere, for example, are really cool but they depart from the original gameplay style drastically enough that they can be cut without really detracting anything from the ultimate purpose of the mod. Time to trim the fat.

However, fans of the mod up until this point need not despair; I'm not throwing it away. It will remain here in my DropBox folder, patiently awaiting the day that a version of the source port will be developed capable of handling it smoothly. But in the meantime, I'll be diligently working on a "lite" version of the mod and when it's ready for release you'll hear it here first. Until then I'll either have to play "vanilla" Doom or just go back to another game; hopefully the game I pick next won't be a crash-happy mess as well.

Development and Testing

Until now I've kept revisions of my infamous Doom Upgrade mod to myself until I've felt they were worthy of an official release but today the fancy struck me to try something different this time. I'm still working on what tentatively will be called the second edition of the mod and, while I don't feel that I've accomplished everything that I want to do before calling it a final release, the current version is very much playable and I have already made enough changes to it that in many ways it is quite different from previous versions. Thus I'm going to post a link to the current version of the mod here and, if you few readers of the blog feel inclined to do so, you can download it, do some beta testing of your own and give me feedback here. This time instead of suddenly getting a new version thrown at you from out of the blue you can let me know what you think of the development thus far and even make suggestions as to what you'd like to see in the mod in the future. So, without any lengthy descriptions of what you'll be getting yourselves into, here's the link:

HERCULINE'S DOOM UPGRADE: SECOND EDITION

This is a direct link to my DropBox file, which gets updated whenever I feel I've done enough editing worthy of saving. It's a work in progress, but at this point I think the only new additions will be monsters, brightmaps and such so the file found here should always be totally playable. Enjoy (I hope)!

EDIT:

Oh, I forgot...

For any newcomers, this mod requires either ZDoom or (preferably) GZDoom and of course a licensed Doom IWAD. I also recommend a launcher and a custom music WAD.

ANNIVERSARIES

The month of May has marked the one-year anniversaries of not only KMX E XII's Doomed blog and my own little blog here, but also the first anniversary of my Doom Upgrade mod's induction into the hallowed halls of DoomWorld infamy on May 18, 2011. What better way could there be to celebrate this auspicious occasion than to release an Anniversary Edition?

I know someone in the crowd is doing a facepalm and groaning: "Oh jeez, another new version?" Rest assured that I kinda feel the same way, but I've made some much-needed tweaks this time so it was necessary even without the new content. More about that new content after the lengthy official trailer video...

MONSTERS

What Anniversary Edition could be complete without at least a few new monsters? Besides, I couldn't resist when I saw that new content is still being added to the Realm667 Repository despite the whining opposition spewing forth from the Doom community. I hope to see Realm667 continue to prosper.

The Weakener

This guy is a Cacodemon variant that has a very unique attack. Unlike other projectiles in the game his do not dissipate after impact, instead remaining wherever they struck until some unfortunate Marine comes into contact with them. I'd hesitate to call them mines, however, since they don't actually explode; instead they work exactly like the power-up orbs in the game except that they are power-downs that temporarily weaken the attack damage the player inflicts. Not so much deadly as he is an annoyance, the Weakener is still one monster that you don't want to let hang around for too long or you could find yourself surrounded by Weakener Orbs.

Augmented Arachnotron

Also known as the Arachnotron MK2, this guy is only special because he has a double-barreled plasma canon instead of a single like his little brother. He also seems to have thicker armor plating. Just a tougher variant to help keep things interesting.

The Time Imp

Now here's a nasty little bugger. Not quite as nasty as the Cheshire Cacodemon's, his time distortion is more like an annoying stutter rather than a full stop and you might think you're having GPU framerate issues when he's doing his thing. His manipulation of time also lets him run around pretty darn fast and gives him another special ability that I'll just let be a surprise. Like the Cheshire Cacodemon, I've set his spawn rate ratio rather low (1%) to hopefully keep any random room full of Imps from becoming a total nightmare.

The Satyr

Hell really isn't complete without some goat-hoofed Satyrs, now is it? This guy has actually been around for a while but I never used him in the mod because he doesn't have anything flashy or exciting, just a simple melee attack. Then I realized that, even though he doesn't look like them, he'd fit in perfectly balance-wise with the Pinkie Demons. He does a little more damage, though, so I've set him to only appear amongst the more difficult Spectres.

Azazel

Fitting in style-wise with the Satyr and the Obsidian Statue, Azazel has a number of dangerous attacks, some of which are of the "seeker" variety. He's actually kinda tough, so he'll only appear amongst the Mancubi. Some players might think that Azazel and the BruiserDemon are too tough to be thrown in with the Mancubi or that their 10% spawn rates are too high, but there's a method to my madness. When I first played "vanilla" Doom II one of the monsters that frightened and challenged me the most was the Mancubus, but they've since become a bit boring to me. Thus I simply wanted to have some scary monsters in their ranks again. If no one's figured it out yet, this mod is designed primarily to present not only variety but also new challenges to experienced players.

I've also made a few tweaks to other monsters that were already in the mod, perhaps most notably the boss monsters. The general consensus seems to be that they are too difficult, so now when each one dies it will leave behind a randomly-spawned power-up sphere of the megacharge variety. Previously I had done this with only a select few bosses, but now I've added the item drop to all of them. This might not seem like much of a boon if you're playing a single level with a boss at the very end, but in custom maps where authors have placed multiple bosses throughout the level it should be rather helpful.

For a long while now I've observed that the Shadow Beast often gets "stucked" in alcoves where a map author has placed Revenants. He wasn't rendered totally useless since he could still throw his green projectiles and spawn his little Shadow buddies, but still he was just kinda stuck there doing the Running Man. To hopefully eliminate this issue, I've set his height and radius values to be the same as the Revenant's. This doesn't change how large he appears in the game, just how large the game engine perceives him as being so that he should be able to move around more freely now. Just for GP, I made the same adjustments to the Archons as well.

I've reduced the spawn rates of the Cheshire Cacodemon, Time Imp, Dark Arch-Vile, Death Incarnate, Cybruiser, Golem and the Malevonant to hopefully make things feel more balanced. I've found that the Cybruiser's Seeker Bazooka can be a bit oppressive and the Death Incarnate's constantly resurrecting himself can be quite bothersome if I haven't found the Seeker Bazooka yet. The Malevonant isn't so bad by himself, but once he starts spawning those invisible Nightmares a room can get crowded rather quickly. The Dark Arch-Vile can seem like he's invincible when he's throwing his black hole attack around, but rather than give away the secret of the uber-easy way I've found to defeat him I simply reduced his spawn rate as well. I've also slightly reduced the damage dealt by the Railgun Sentries because those suckers turned out to be a lot more dangerous than I had originally intended them to be. Now they can also be looted for a plasma cell.

For a long while now the attack of the Beam Zombie has not matched the attack of the Channeler gun that you get from him. This was largely due to laziness on my part, but now I've rectified the issue. This makes the Beam Zombie a bit more dangerous perhaps, but you may note that it takes him a few seconds before he can "lock on" and that delay will hopefully provide enough reaction time for more casual players.

I've re-sorted the spawn lists for the Hell Knights and the Barons of Hell; previously there were a few creatures that were in one list but belonged in the other and vice-versa. Hopefully this will help maintain the gameplay difficulty balance that my critics say I've never attempted to achieve.

No longer to be seen are the Hell Warrior and the Imp Warlord. Not entirely due to some gentle persuading, I've decided that they really aren't Doom-style monsters and I've got plenty of monsters as it is. I kinda like them though, so I simply removed them from their respective spawn lists rather than totally deleting them from the WAD (just in case I change my mind about them later). Maybe they'll appear in Herculine's Hexen Upgrade...

There's at least one more new enemy this time around, as well as more changes to a few that we already know and love, but mention of those will have to wait until I cover the new weapons farther down the page.

POWER-UP ARTIFACTS

Only two new ones this time around. I've dumped most of the various bouncing spheres into the spawn slot that randomly replaces the Partial Invisibility Orb, so adding too many more could make it almost impossible to ever get some of them. Despite what my critics might say, I prefer variety rather than overkill.

Oh, and I actually remembered to copy those Megasphere sprites so it's not invisible in Ultimate Doom now.

Guard Sphere

This handy power-up temporarily reduces the damage the player takes to 25% of the norm. I thought this would be a good companion addition to the Weakener monster.

Haste Sphere

If you can't tell by its name what this one does, there are a few D&D games I'd like to recommend to you. With things like the Cheshire Cacodemon, Time Imp and a TimeStop Sphere already in the WAD, this one seemed like a logical addition.

WEAPONS

Well, we can't have an Anniversary Edition without at least a couple of new weapons, now can we?

Fusion Canon

I came up with this one while pondering how to give our favorite Marine an attack that was in some way similar to the spread of pink projectiles launched by the Fusion Canon Arachnotron and that we should be able to loot just such a weapon from his corpse. Rather than a single projectile the Fusion Canon launches a burst of five projectiles, making it a useful weapon for anyone who has less-than-perfect aim. It also seems to be pretty good for clearing soldiers out of corridors.

Ice Canon

The rare few among you who have been following this project from the beginning may recall that in the original version I had included an Ice Rifle, an Electro Gun and a plasma Repeater. In subsequent versions these weapons were removed because I either didn't like the way they looked or the way they performed (or both). As the year has passed the mod has acquired a few monsters who have the ability to freeze the player solid, so it seemed only fair to reintroduce some sort of freeze weapon with which the player could return the favor. Unlike the relationship of the Fusion Canon to the Fusion Canon Arachnotron, it did not make sense to me to have the weapon dropped by any of the monsters currently possessing such freezing attacks; thus it was also necessary to bring back the Freezer Gun Zombie. Now you can once again fight fi-- er, ice with ice.

Flamethrower

Speaking of fighting fire with fire, I have decided to in a way cater to the masses a bit with this one. Now the Pyrotron (my custom Arachnotron variation) can be looted for a flamethrower. Originally I did not include a flamethrower in the mod because my goal has always been to make the mod as versatile as possible in its compatibility with other PWADs. As any weapon aficionado could tell you, as a rule flamethrowers are fueled by some form of combustible liquid; the flamethrowers in the Realm667 Armory for the most part adhere to this rule. This means that for them to be of any use in any given map, that custom ammo type would need to be added to each map the flamethrower would be used in. Thus having such a weapon in the mod would be totally contrary to my goal of making the Upgrade as widely compatible as possible. However, I know there are players who would enjoy using a flamethrower in the game, so this time I've included one that somehow converts plasma cell energy into conventional flame. The same weapon aficionados I mentioned earlier will surely complain that it's not at all realistic to have the flamethrower use plasma cells for ammo; I'd just like to remind those fans of "realism" that Doom also contains a chainsaw that has not run out of gas once in almost twenty years. (Or I could be really cruel and modify the chainsaw to run on plasma cells as well. Nah... the chainsaw has always been there for when we run out of ammo; such a modification would indeed affect the gameplay balance and my critics would cry like babies.)

(Just one word of caution: be careful with the flamethrower in confined spaces. Its fire can hurt us as well.)

Other weapon tweaks worthy of note include the return of the two-fisted sub-machine guns, if for no other reason than they look cool and this makes them feel less like a redundancy. I've also removed a few frames of animation from the Skulltag Minigun; I almost never used it because the painfully long pause before it could re-fire made me feel crippled and I longed for the old vanilla Chaingun. Now the Minigun feels less like a burden and more like the classic weapon it's meant to replace.

Things I didn't/couldn't do:

I still can't figure out how to keep the player from picking up the Armor Shards and MegaSpheres when they are not yet needed. But that's the way those items behave in the vanilla game so it's not a big deal I suppose.

Something that would serve no practical purpose yet in my opinion would have been really cool to see would have been including all the custom creatures in the monster roll-call at the end of the games. I've learned that such a feat can indeed be accomplished using MAPINFO to create a custom intermission, but as far as I can tell to do so would not be practical since in the end I would need to make a separate MAPINFO lump and thus a separate copy of the mod for each IWAD. Also, such MAPINFO lumps likely would interfere with any sets of custom maps also using MAPINFO. So, in the interest of maintaining the mod's flexible compatibility, such a superficial feature will not be included unless I can devise a better or at least alternative way to do it.

DISCLAIMER

I'm pretty sure that's everything I've screwed up this time around. Enough stuff has been altered in this version that I think it's safe to say saved games using previous versions will be incompatible. If you've got a game to finish you might want to do so before unzipping this file as it will of course overwrite any older versions of the mod.

And just a note to the naysayers who claim that the mod has never been tested at all: I'm currently using it to play through Nicolas Monti's EVILTECH and so far have found no bugs... just demons.

DOWNLOAD LOCATIONS

The current version, Herculine's Doom Upgrade: Anniversary Edition, can be downloaded HERE. Alternatively, it can also be downloaded from the DoomWorld/id Games Archives.

ENJOY!

EDIT: 05/21/2012

A Neko's Work Is Never Done...

While playing this morning I encountered a CyberDemon variant who upon dying dropped something like half a dozen SoulSphere/LifeSphere power-ups. Obviously that was not what I had intended to happen, so it was time to once again open the WAD in an editor. I won't bore you with all the technical details of what caused the bug or exactly how I fixed it, but suffice it to say that the bug resulted in some proactive tweaking of all the boss monster that has remedied the situation. It was in a way a fortuitous bug because the code command I discovered to fix it also enabled me to now add plasma cells that can be looted from my RailGun Sentries after they explode. That same bit of code (I think) could be used to create monsters that spawn other monsters when they die or even monsters that infinitely respawn even though the game is not set on the NIGHTMARE difficulty... but that's a particular bit of nastiness that I think I'll save for the Second Anniversary Edition or maybe a special Hardcore Edition...

EDIT: 05/24/2012

I didn't notice this post on Realm667 until after I had put what I thought was the finishing touches on all of this, but apparently many (if not all) of the monsters in the Beastiary are getting brightmaps added to their files. This includes many (but not all) of the monsters in my little Upgrade here, which means of course that you still haven't seen the final version of the mod yet. But don't do another facepalm just yet; it'll likely take some time for them to get all those brightmaps done and for me to in turn add them to my mod, so you won't be seeing another post about a new version being uploaded until I feel I've added enough new content to warrant it. As a result of this news I'm also in the process of converting the WAD to a PK3 file, which has the potential of giving me the chance to experiment with some new ideas I'm not going to reveal just yet...

Guilty by association?

This is the latest work of art that my Doom Randomizer is being compared to:

Like the comment says, you be the judge.

But I've been told that I don't do anything here but whine and cry about my terrible mods that nobody likes, so now I'll just go back to watching Rosario + Vampire...

EDIT: 05/05/2012

And why is it that as soon as I post in a thread about this in the DoomWorld forums the thread gets locked? And they say I'm afraid of the truth...

...should I even mention about how more comments and votes have yet again been deleted randomly from my uploaded file? Maybe Ty has a comment and vote deleting randomizer...

Knee-Deep in the Randomizer

Anonymous critics have said multiple times that my Upgrade randomizer mod makes Doom an unbalanced, unplayable mess. It has also been said that I didn't test it with anything, that I just threw some crap together and then uploaded it to the Archives without any thought. I realize that even after these critics see evidence to the contrary with their own eyes that they will likely still have some senseless, cowardly anonymous insults to post, but I wasted my time making this FRAPS video anyway.

This is me playing the entire first chapter of Ultimate Doom with my Doom Upgrade mod on Ultra-Violence without saving, reloading, cheating, dying or stopping to piss. If RL permits I might make videos of the other chapters as well, but to be perfectly honest I think it's ridiculous that it should be necessary to make any videos at all.

I apologize somewhat ("somewhat" because it's not entirely my fault) for the poor quality of the flash video. The original AVI file was over 60GB and if it didn't make YouTube shit itself then it definitely would have taken a month to upload and eventually would be deleted. I did my best with the resources available.

If anyone actually watches this, you may notice that the MegaSphere I picked up in the Phobos Anomaly map was invisible. That's because, after all this time, I forgot to copy to my WAD the sprites for this power-up which does not exist in Ultimate Doom. Just a small oversight which I will need to correct in a future update.

EDIT: A dozen DoomWorld comments later...

If you view this video you might also note that "My Little Pony" does not appear anywhere in the game. I'm still not sure where they came up with that one...

Well, I suppose it's better than being called a "stinky bitch"..

Doom Upgrade Update #?

I have other games and mods that I'd like to blog about here (no, I really do) but lately my infamous Doom Upgrade has been the recipient of much attention (a few new gems have appeared in the file's "reviews" section since I last mentioned it here) and I've received some constructive feedback, all of which inspired me to open up the WAD with an editor once again.

Before I type any further I should mention that my initial attempt to submit the updated version to the DoomWorld/id Games Archives was unsuccessful. I won't bore you with the minor details, but suffice it to say that the whole FTP thing is something else I think the Archive needs to abandon and join the rest of us here in the  new millennium. As a result, the updated version of the WAD is currently only available for downloading from GameFront.

So, what did I change this time around? Well, many of my critics will be disappointed to learn that I haven't scrapped half the mod as they have so eloquently advised, but I did implement one or two suggestions that I've received. Here are the latest changes in a nutshell:

-The Hell Squire has been completely removed. Aside from making a squishy sound when he died, he really didn't do much so he got the axe.

-The Soul Harvester has been completely removed. In the company of the Spirit Imp he was simply redundant and the Spirit Imp to me is clearly the better of the pair.

-I made a few minor increases to the Afrit's speed and to the speed of his projectiles; in the company of some of the other Hell Knight and Hell Baron variants he just felt to me to be a bit inadequate.

-I reduced the spawn rate of the Cheshire Cacodemon to a 5-in-100 chance. I can't do much better than that. If the Cheshire Cacodemon continues to appear in every map or multiple times in a single map, we'll have to take it up with Randy Heit and Graf Zahl; it's their code and I can only work with what they give me.

-I reduced (but did not completely remove) the Specter Shadow lighting effect I had attached to the Blot. On my rig with its triple-core processor, 8GB RAM and Radeon 3300 GPU the effect was causing framerate stutter, so I decided something needed to be done about it.

-The plasma used by the Devastator has been increased to 100. I know, I know... that means that even if your backpack is full you'll only get 9 shots with it, but it really is a weapon that's on the borderline of cheating and this way we'll be forced to save it for very special occasions as I feel it should be. Besides, the rapid-fire BFG eats up the plasma pretty darn quick, so it seemed odd that the Devastator did not.

-I slightly reduced the knockback effect of the Hunter Shotgun, but it still packs quite a punch. In the same vein, I multiplied the mass of all the Mancubi x10 so they should all hold their ground much better now. I also multiplied the mass of the monsters that aren't intended to move at all: the Evil Eyes and the RailGun Sentries. I've noticed several times that they were getting knocked back in certain situations, but I didn't want to fire up the editor just for that so it didn't get fixed until now. (EDIT, The Next Day: While I was in there fixing the mistake I made with the Maxibus, I also adjusted the health scores of the other Mancubi; some had 1500 HP while the original Mancubus had just 600 HP -- now they're all around 1000 HP.)

For the few of you who have actually used the mod and are interested in the updated version, I need to mention that two "actors" were removed in this update so it may or may not be compatible with saved games that were recorded with the previous version. Since only two monsters were removed, there's actually a good chance that it will work with a game you have in progress, but if one of those two monsters were spawned in the map where you saved your progress it'll be a definite no-go. All I can say is give it a try; I got lucky and didn't need to restart the MegaWAD I've been playing.

Well, that's pretty much it. I'll let you know whenever I'm able to get this (and my last music WAD) accepted by the Archives. Until then, thanks again for your support and feedback!

EDIT: 9 Sailor Moon episodes later...

Tried the FTP client upload again and failed again. If you're reading this Ty, I'm in full favor of modifying the Archives to use technology from this century...

More Doomfoolery

Here's the latest anonymous accusation posted on my infamous file upload:

So with that I issue this challenge to anyone, friend or foe: find anywhere in this blog (or anything else I've ever typed anywhere on the internet, for that matter) where I have boasted that I am "the best" or that any mod I have ever made for any game is "the best" and point us to it. I'd love to read it.

SNAPSHOTS

I know it's only a matter of time before people start popping in here to tell me to stop my crying about this (likely would have already happened in spades if I didn't have the cowardly anonymous commenting blocked) so I decided I'll start keeping a visual record so there's at least some form of proof that comments on my uploaded files did in fact exist before they get redacted.

Let's see how many days or even hours it takes for those to disappear, shall we?

Futility

Glancing today at my aforementioned file entry over at the DoomWorld/id Games Archives I noticed something quite odd. The voting stats have dropped from almost 80 votes back down to 30 votes and from 3.5 stars back down to 2.5 stars. So not only has the "Archive Maintainer" deleted over half of the votes for the file but he has also deleted the majority of the positive votes and left the majority of the negative votes.

Now, the folks over there love to tell me that I'm overly sensitive and should stop crying about this, but I can't possibly be the only one who can see that this is wrong, can I?

PROVE IT

Rather than let this evolve into a full-page rant, I'm going to keep it brief...

I was just glancing at the continuing stream of "reviews" for My Doom Upgrade WAD when I noticed this concise accusatory comment:

"This is just a ripoff of Mobius (id=16360). Great going, Herculine."

To that my only reply is this: show us some PROOF that I've stolen anything at all here. Otherwise, go fuck yourself.

Something I've never seen before...

Yesterday I sent out an e-mail or two to friends regarding the most recent inflammatory comment on the file upload for my Doom randomizer mod on the DoomWorld / id Games Archives. I'm not going to reprint said comment here, but suffice it to say that it was yet another of those comments that repeats a single derogatory term like a dozen times (albeit apparently somewhat in defense of the mod this time). Yet upon looking at the Archives this morning, I find that the comment and all subsequent comments have been removed while the previous comments remain for viewing.

So now I REALLY find myself questioning how the "archive maintainer" runs things over there. Exactly what kind of censorship is he practicing? If a comment uses a derogatory term a dozen times to criticize a mod it's allowed to remain for all eternity, but if a comment uses a derogatory term to defend a mod it gets deleted within 24 hours? This doesn't bode well for their defense that DoomWorld doesn't exercise personal biases. It really makes me wonder what other comments have been deleted before I was able to see them, this being the one time that I was actually paying attention.

I used the "report review abuse" button at the bottom of the page to submit a query on this. Only time will tell if anything comes of that query, but if it does you all will be the first to know.

Archive Updated

I'm not really sure why I bother to keep my works up-to-date in the DoomWorld / id Games Archives (the latest anonymously-posted "review" of my randomizer mod was simply the word "GACK"), but I suppose to someone it's worth mentioning that the FTP transfer was successful and the most recent version of my Doom Upgrade mod is now available for download there. Whether it be famous or infamous, it remains a part of Doom history...

Again With The "Final Version"?

While taking a break from recently-released games that require insta-patches before they can even be played, I discovered a few little things that I needed to fix in my infamous Doom Upgrade randomizer mod (you remember, the one that turns everything into an "unplayable mess"). The first thing that was nagging at me was that many of my PSX sound effects were not working properly, most noticeably the sound that I intended to have play when the player attempts to open a locked door without the proper key. While fixing that issue I finally noticed after countless hours of playing with the mod that one of the custom imps wasn't behaving properly, to the point that he was somehow committing suicide with his own attacks. So while I had the hood up I remedied that issue as well. Since I was editing the DECORATE scripts I also decided that I needed to finally change the spawn frequency of the Cheshire Cacodemon because he was appearing far too often considering how much more difficult he is in comparison to the other Cacodemon replacements. Then, while pondering other possible changes while I was at work this evening, I decided to add just one or two new monsters, including a rocket-launching Arachnotron of my own original creation (despite the assertions of my critics that I'm incapable of coming up with anything original on my own). Finally, just for fun, I added the nice warping effect (a la Quake) to all the liquid floor textures. Now I think the mod is ready for it's umpteenth "final release" (perhaps I should follow the examples of Bethesda Softworks and call this file update version 1.95673482195300347285). I'm updating the link on the blog downloads page, but whether or not I share the update on the Archives will likely depend upon my mood in the days to come.

Oh, and one special note to those of you (or perhaps just the one of you) who actually downloaded and played previous versions of the mod: I've removed, added and renamed a thing or two, so saved games made with previous versions might not work with this one. If you're in the middle of a set of maps that you were playing with a previous version and you don't feel like starting over, you might want to wait before overwriting your old file with this one. If you find any bugs, please let me know and I'll be sure to fix them in version 1.96673482195300347285.

That's pretty much all I have from the land of Doom delusions for today. Until next time, happy Dooming!

Persistently Consistent

Here's the latest review for my randomizer on the id Games Archives :

The monsters are ass, thus the realm667 bestiary is ass which is not surprising considering almost everything else on there that's community-driven like the armory is ameteurish ass. Seriously, this is such complete and utter ass that my ass would cringe upon the thought of shitting upon it because doing that would be like encasing this in gold. Yes, this is worse than AEoD because it's not even trying either with all its 5-minute copying and pasting, AEoD had some sort of effort put into it.

Like I said, at least they're consistent...

DISCLAIMER

Recently my most recent addition to the id Games Archives has undergone quite a bit of scrutiny and criticism by the community, to the point that I've been labeled as a delusional liar (though I'm told DoomWorld members never personally attack each other because they have far better things to do). At first I took great offense to this, but I now apologize for a large portion of my indignant rantings because, with a bit of guidance from a friend and fellow game modder, I've experienced a bit of an epiphany. You see, as I created the monster and item randomizer and playtested it I did so with the goal of making the game more challenging and unpredictable and yet balanced, but the fundamental flaw in that creative process was that I was the sole tester thus the elements of difficulty and balance were based solely on my playing abilities. I never took into account the fact that most other players may not be as skilled as myself. As I continued to receive complaints that the randomizer turns everything into an unplayable mess and yet here at my desk continued to successfully complete some of the most challenging maps to date on Ultra-Violence with the randomizer, I realized that most of the negative comments the mod has received require a bit of "reading between the lines" and are actually criticisms that the randomizer simply makes the game too difficult for the average player. That was the epiphany that has now prompted this public disclaimer.

If any of the following statements apply to you, then Herculine's Doom Upgrade may be the mod you're looking for:

1.) I like to be challenged by the games I play.


2.) I like variety in the challenges presented by the games I play.


3.) I like unpredictability in the challenges and rewards presented by the games I play.

If any of the following statements apply to you, then Herculine's Doom Upgrade definitely is not for you:

1.) I like the games I play to be easy and present no real challenges.


2.) I prefer to have the advantage of knowing exactly what to expect when playing a game.


3.) I play my best in games that are the same every time and I've memorized all the challenges.

Hopefully this disclaimer will help prevent any future confusion by helping players decide whether or not my monster and item randomizer is suited to their individual skill levels. For those of you who have not found the mod to your liking, I hope you find something else that is better suited to your tastes and continue to enjoy the great classic game that we've come to love. For those of you who have enjoyed using my mod, I hope you continue to do so and I thank you for your support and constructive feedback.

Fiction Versus Fact

HERCULINE'S DOOM UPGRADE

FICTION:


"It pretty much turns anything it touches into an unplayable mess."


"Want to make every map an unplayable mess of random custom monsters? This is the mod for you!"

FACT:

The following videos of me playing through three different maps on Ultra-Violence prove that the above statements were made by people who didn't even try the mod before they started typing:

HANGAR

ENTRYWAY

SYSTEM CONTROL

Now, I already predict that somebody is going to pop in here and say something like: "Well sure, they're the first easiest maps of all the MegaWADs!" Perhaps, but please note the following:

During the course of each map I let plenty of creatures do damage to me, I only use like one or two weapons the entire time and do not switch to the bigger weapons when I find them, I waste plenty of ammo and I don't even bother to pick up all the power-ups. And yet somehow I successfully complete each map with plenty of resources to spare. Unplayable messes? Not by any means.

I actually played through all the original id releases, including the Master Levels, with this mod to test it before uploading the final release. While I found some of the maps quite challenging, none were impossible and in fact were quite fun. I could record videos of myself playing all those maps, but frankly I have other things to do besides upload several gigabytes of Fraps videos for people who will still post ludicrous anonymous comments even after watching them with their own eyes.

FICTION:

"This required no effort at all."

"...creativity, originality and longevity. Your mod features none of these qualities..."

FACT:

Again, obviously statements that were typed by people who never actually played with the mod.

The mod contains over a dozen custom creatures and power-ups created solely by me. Inspired by others? Definitely. Do they appear in anything else on DoomWorld? No. Why? Because I made them myself. Let me just list a few: Railgun Sentries, Pyro Evil Eye, Poison Evil Eye, Pyrotron, Drone Elemental, Guardian Elemental, UltraSphere... you get the idea.

Furthermore, I keep reading comments to the effect that all I've done here is copy-pasted a bunch of old stuff everyone has seen a thousand times before. Well, if those anonymous commenters knew all that old stuff as well as they claim then they'd know that half that crap wouldn't even work until I fixed it and that they definitely would not all work together in the same game until I rewrote most of the scripts and corrected all the conflicts.

FICTION:

"What are you, 9 years old?"

FACT:

I'm a couple of years older than that.

Re-read the above post. No whining or crying. Just replies to cowardly anonymous comments with facts accompanied by evidence proving that they are facts, behind which I will proudly put my name and reputation every time.

The Newstuff Chronicles #392

Somebody with the alias of "udderdude" has published a review of my ZDoom randomizer and it has been included in the latest Newstuff Chronicles on the DoomWorld Forums.

I've included the above link simply for the sake of verification and for anyone who might want to post anything over there. You can also follow the procession of personal insults here on their forum thread. Here's exactly what was said in the review:

This is a mod for ZDoom/GZDoom. It's basically all of the crazy shit from Realm667 packed into one mod, that replaces the regular Doom 2 enemies/weapons with custom enemies/weapons. It also uses the monsters/weapons randomly. Since most custom monsters are significantly more powerful than their standard Doom counterparts, the difficulty in most maps will be substantially increased. Unfortunately, there is very little done to compensate for this. From what I've found, almost every map I've tried is unplayable using this mod.

The randomness factor really ruins things. There's absolutely no guarantee what it comes up with will actually be playable, or even completable without cheats. One game you may have a decent weapon and enemies that don't kill you in one shot, and then the next you have a crappy weapon and enemies that will destroy you with whatever lame, cheap-ass custom monster bullshit they're packing. Imps can be replaced with slightly more powerful imps, or some super god-mode imp that takes a zillion hits and shoots lazors out of it's eyes or some shit. Shotgunners can be replaced with railgunners. Demons can be replaced by demons that shoot projectiles. Yay.

If you want to play every map in Doom like it was suddenly infused with "ZDoom Syndrome Extreme Edition", this mod is for you. Everyone else will likely want to pass. It turns pretty much anything it touches into an unplayable mess.

Player Reviews

While there's been no official review of Herculine's Doom Upgrade in DoomWorld's NewStuff Chronicles, here's what's being said by players who have (supposedly) actually downloaded and played the mod:

"A great addition to the game that adds tons of new challenging monsters while keeping with the original feel of the game (i.e. no wizards from Hexen or Heretic and no characters from Redneck Rampage, The Simpsons or South Park). I highly recommend this one!"


"Just another realm667 collection that can be done yourself in 5 minutes with no effort at all. This required no effort at all. I don't give out stars for effort, but I will take them away if there is none to be found. You don't need to play this and nobody will hold it against you if you avoid it."


"Want to make every map an unplayable mess of random custom monsters? This is the mod for you!"


"A well-balanced collection of custom creatures and items that adds freshness and unpredictability to any map. I recommend it at least be given a try."


"Monsters are from the realm667 bestiary which half have been created there since a few years ago, and half have first appeared in the monster resource wad (id=12748) which has been around for at least 6 years, all of which have been relentlessly and spammed in nearly every unbalanced zdoom project since. You can play nearly anything else and see these monsters in them. We've all seen these monsters and crap before in other wads just like this one (id=15770 and AEoD). Fresh my ass."


So there you have it, folks! Don't waste your time with it cuz it's crap. For that matter, why are you still reading this crap?

No Change; No Respect

Well, a new batch of "latest files" is now visible on the DoomWorld Archives front page. Still no mention of mine of course. Looks like most of the files are by the same author. Must be one of Ty Halderman's friends. Oh, and probably not a girl; that apparently makes a big difference as well.

Reassuring

For folks who have followed the evolution of my Doom Upgrade Mod and furthermore actually downloaded it and tried it (I know there's at least one of you) and are likely waiting for me to flake out and release yet another version of it, I'd just like to offer this bit of reassurance: I've just finished playing through the 50+ maps of the TAB series (reviewed in a previous post) with the mod and have found no further issues with it. It has performed rather well and I'm still quite satisfied with it. As those of you who do any modding surely know, there's really no substitute for actual in-game testing; so far I feel that the mod is passing the test.

Just for the record, all the download links in the blog sidebar, including (somewhat to my surprise) the DoomWorld link, are for the current finished version of the mod. If during the course of this project you've lost track of which of my many versions of the thing you actually have, I recommend downloading from one of those links just to be sure. The mod has yet to appear in the "Latest Files" category on the Archives Front Page so nobody over there has really noticed the mod yet, thus feedback on the project has been rather limited. I'm eager to find out what others will think of the thing, given my past experiences with the DoomWorld community.

In the meantime, I think it's time to tackle my collection of the Master Levels with my little randomizer mod. Thus far it has made the average map on the Ultra-Violence difficulty setting more challenging but by no means impossible (my version of the Devastator is rather handy at times), so it will be interesting to see what the mod does to the difficulty of maps created by these famous authors.

Also perhaps worthy of note would be the fact that over the last few days I've actually had DoomBuilder running and drawn up a room or two from scratch, just to see if I remembered how. (That's right, DoomWorld: FROM SCRATCH. Believe it!) Playing the game and putting together the mod for some reason got my creative energies running in that direction. Will I draw up an entire playable map? I really can't say at the moment. But, though so far the untitled map only consists of two rooms, two secrets and about six monsters, for some reason I like the way the thing is looking and just might continue to draw up a new room here and there when I'm bored or need a break from other pursuits.

So anyway, that's what I've been up to. Stay tuned to the blog for more Doom info and reviews; I've still got nearly 20 years of Doom to cover!