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.

Still Around, Still Doin' Stuff

It's been kinda quiet here at the blog lately for two main reasons:

1.) Lately I've found myself spending quite a bit of time playing BORDERLANDS and looking forward to playing BORDERLANDS 2. I've had more fun with the game than I'd anticipated and I find myself easily losing track of the time when I'm playing. I like the game enough that at one point I considered doing a bit of a review of it here, complete with screenshots and maybe even a video, much as I have done with other games here in the past. Then I remembered that the corporations producing these video games are not paying me to endorse their products and suddenly the motivation to blog about them left me quicker than you can say "claptrap". Thus a simple statement that I'd recommend the games to others will have to suffice.

2.) My Doom Upgrade project has not died; when not playing other games newer than Doom, I'm still working on improving the mod and I plan to release a Second Edition version at some undetermined point in the future. My efforts to further improve the thing include the additions of several new monsters of my own creation (since one of the major accusations about the mod has been that I just stole a bunch of stuff from other modders). In the hopes of insuring that said creatures will be accepted by my peers, in the process I have submitted each for approval to Realm667. This has proven to be a time-consuming process; creatures that I've submitted months ago are still waiting to be either accepted or rejected while creatures submitted by other modders just over a week ago have already been approved. (I'm told that this is simply due to the fact that the site admins just have a lot to do and I should just be patient.) Anyone interested in looking at what I've submitted thus far (and how it's been dealt with) can look up the monsters here in their respective Realm667 forum submission threads (I've also submitted some brightmaps).

So that, in a "nutshell", is what I've been up to lately. If the motivation and inspiration strike me, maybe next time there will be a blog post here that's more interesting to read.

ZDoom: New And Improved!

Two years since the last new ZDoom release (SVN builds don't count), ZDoom 2.6.0 has been released. (More info can be found on the official site and forums.) At the time of this posting it is unclear whether or not this will provoke a new official release of GZDoom, but even if it does not I'd wager that the DRD Team will continue the fine work they've been doing for us for years. Thus I'll likely be checking their SVN Builds lists periodically and would recommend frequent Doomers who use these sourceports to do likewise.

Thank you Randy Heit! ZDoom (and its derivatives) are a major part of what keeps me playing this game. My gaming world would likely be Doomless without them.

EDIT:

There is in fact a resulting new version of GZDoom as well. As I'm typing this the word is that some technical difficulties are preventing it from being offered on the official site, but in the meantime it can be downloaded HERE.

Special thanks to Graf Zahl as well. Damn, that was quick!