Beta stage and polishing

[Micky C]

What you see above you is essentially the official Beach CBP. It has all the best bits from what was created that we could fit into a single map, plus some general polish.

Yeah I'd love to hear your feedback

[Maarten]

Playing it, I'm at the big cave section with the alien-ship(?) in the middle of the water. I'm really liking it so far, especially the beach part really made me "WOW" 
The truck-shrink puzzle was a quite hard one... I think a bit more ammo would be better... I had to load the game twice to continue the map, becouse I ran out of Shrinker ammo..
Found a few miss-aligned textures, maybe a bit more wall-shading (so it will feel more 3D) could be used.. but other then that, I'm loving it! The music is good too, I guess it is programmed?

The parts seem to fit in one map, so good job on that. I think we made a good decision to leave out my part, I'm sure my map never would've fitted after all... my map will be ALOT darker Alien-beach themed, but very different.

Screenshot attachment: Oh, and for some reason, when standing here, the restaurants acts a bit buggy... nothing too serious though, but still I'm letting you know.

[underTaker]

Hmm, it looks like ROR problems to me, but there is no ROR as far as i remember.

[Forge]

you can see a little texture blurring on the ceiling too
it's like looking at sprites on the other side of a glass sprite

maybe it's remnants of the forcefield sector causing it, since it goes from floor to ceiling?

[Micky C]

Yeah the soundtrack is by Henri K. James tested it and recommended raising the fridge so you don't need to jump to get shrunk, so I might consider doing that.
When you're done with the map if you could point out the misaligned textures and areas need shading, that'd be a help, or if you feel like it you can correct it yourself.

That issue in the screenshot is a problem with polymost, at certain angles there's this big diagonal tear on the screen, usually leaving a black triangle, but sometimes just shows a slightly offset view like what you see there. And the ceiling is blurred because Maarten isn't using anisotropic filtering, hence what you're seeing is eduke's texture mipmapping.

[underTaker]

So um... as the map is completely playable and relative bug-free, how is the beta-testing going?

[Micky C]

James finished it and gave some useful advice, and it seems Maarten still needs to finish it. I'd also prefer one or two new beta testers also test it out if possible.

Apart from very minor and easy to fix things, feedback has been quite positive; people love the map 

[Drek]

In the start of the map the troopers are changing to pal 5 on the grass and sand. This really bothers me for some reason, if you were to set the pal on all the floors out there to 5 they will at least stay blue and stop changing colors, the floors and Dukes first person view will not change color too much, I've already done it and looked. Too bad that sand texture shades like shit at pal 0.



My 2 cents on the jumping shrinker puzzle would be:
a) a bit more ammo, spawned at the firetruck after getting the shrinker IMO
b) pick the fridge up 1 PGUP, move the truck back a little bit to give some more time to make the jump. That would make it easier, but maybe it shouldn't be easier. I myself had to reload my save at least 3 times to get it. It was nice to see a real challenge that wasn't overly frustrating. Yet it was a little frustrating, maybe a reminder to save is in order, I'd hate to see a puzzle ruin an unsaved run to that point.

added: Megaton sprite glitches look like shit, hurts my eyes, and it crashed again for me. FPS at the beach hit 15, I'm done with it. However, I'm willing to do a co-op run through if anyone else is.

I will play this through to the end today using Eduke32.

[underTaker]

As far as the grass palette can be changed (in fact I got no idea why it has pal 5), the sand would look shitty without the palette.

I actually find it, to has enough ammo, in my opinion maps nowadays are too easy.

I got no idea what's with the Megaton, I didn't encounter any glitches actually.

[Drek]

The swing door by the rpg that allows access back to where the tank is. That door is completely fucked in Megaton, also sprites disappear whenever I am able to see the big beach strip.

As for my comment about ammo, I only suggest a single shrinker ammo respawn at the truck/fridge area to be spawned once the player gets the shrinker. And I may be wrong I could very well have missed a lot of shrinker ammo as I've only played it the once so far.

I was just getting off the beach at the train when dinner was ready, getting back to my playthrough now.

[Micky C]

Yeah I've got sprites constantly disappearing from view in megaton as well. Hopefully they're on the case, otherwise it's not too hard to ignore once you get into the gameplay. I also have the messed up sprite door thing, and I've just made a thread in the bug report section about it.

It's a good idea spawning an extra shrinker ammo, that way it won't off-balance coop (since it can just respawn and people can eventually get to full ammo).

I haven't touched the map since the beta version, so if underTaker or anyone wants to make some changes, that's fine.

[Drek]

I finished, seems I skipped a room with two shrinker ammos in it my first time through, found them today and hit the shrinker puzzle 3rd shot no reloading. Is it easier in eduke32?? Felt easier.

It took me 69 mins 4 secrets found. I got stuck finding the switch to open the door leading to the yellow keycard... It wasn't unfairly hidden but well hidden behind the chair... I found it in mapster.

The boss fight kicked my ass first time, second time I roid ran back across the bridge dropped down to the beach and had better luck against him out in the open.

Nothing major to report, I took 3 or 4 screenshots of misaligned textures I will share if you want. Worst being the big red door in the underground section.

Really good work guys!!! It was a fun unique map to play, I look forward to trying it on DIG in Co-op!

[Micky C]

Glad you like it 

Yeah post up the screens, they'd be useful. Do you think we should spawn less enemies during the boss fight? I also wish there was a way we could force the player to stay on the Dam top 

We should also try playing it in coop before it's released, maybe tomorrow? I have various crack-blastable teleporters to the start that act like checkpoints, loaded with all the weapons you should have had by that point (not including secrets) which means you don't have to run around the map picking everything up again each time you die. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's more convenient, but then again player should be punished a bit for dying.

[Forge]

i stood my ground against the final boss during my play-throughs

used the devastator and hammer the shit out him, swung around and blasted anything else that got to close, finished the boss with the rpg. It never got half way across the bridge. All those spawning aliens were a minor distraction that i pretty much ignored unless they got in my way.

[Drek]

I only played against him twice, died first time then jumping off felt like a cheap win. I have a save game right before going up the dam and plan to play from there again. I don't think you need to spawn less enemies, I just need to play by the rules I still roid rage through the underwater window instead of hitting the button. BECAUSE I CAN. I even did it the time I hit the button first and the door was open

As far as co-op goes, it's 11:30pm here now, anytime between 20 and 24 hrs from now works good for me. The teleporters are a good idea, I think, I really have to see it in game TBH.