Some questions on Congestion 1024 WAD

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Stephen Howe - 21 Nov 2007 15:10 GMT

Hi

I have some questions on Congestion 1024 WAD.

Background Info if important:
========================
Running PRBoom 2.4.7 out-of-the-box, no additional options set (so if
important, let me know) on WinXP Professional, SP2. The Congestion 1024 WAD
is the latest (as far as I know):

1024.WAD Details:
===============
File details: 14/12/2005 20:32 11,469,954 1024.WAD
CRC32 string: EE639A58
MD5 string: 61293AA5CCE1C8B679467CC280FA7B74

The questions I have are these:
===========================
Question 1: MAP10 (Gothika 1024)
In the extreme North West (Top Left) are 7 monsters pens (shown with IDDT
twice)
There are 6 sargents, 2 chaingunners off map in 2 monster pens that never
teleport in.
What causes them to teleport in? Cant get 100% kills otherwise

Question 2: MAP 13 (The Focus II)
In the extreme North East (Top Right) are 4 monsters pens (shown with IDDT
twice)
The extreme top right 1 pen contains a trooper, shotgut dude,chaingunner +
hellknight
What causes them to teleport in? Cant get 100% kills otherwise

Question 3: MAP 20 (Claustrophobic Sting)
Set of monster pens offscreen, to North East (Top Right)
Leftmost pen holds a 1 spectre
What causes it to teleport in? Cant get 100% kills otherwise

Question 4: MAP23 (Close Quarters)
How do I get the Berserk pack underneath Hitler portrait at the start?
It counts as a secret and it seems impossible to get.

/rant mode on

All these new WADs - why cant someone test them and make sure you can always
get 100% kills, 100% secrets? Pointless otherwise. No point releasing it if
you cant - as far as I am concerned it is unfinished otherwise.

I wish there was a Doom, Doom2, Heretic, Hexen etc project that cleaned up
the classic Megawads, made sure they pass all the Node compilers, no bad
linedefs, sidedefs, sectors, inaccessable secrets mistakes tolerated
(possible exception Memento Mori where it was designed cooperative -
therefore cooperative secrets possible). And create patch files that patch
you to the cleaned up version.

/rant mode off

Thanks

Stephen Howe

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Stephen Howe - 22 Nov 2007 23:23 GMT

> The questions I have are these:
> ===========================
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> teleport in.
> What causes them to teleport in? Cant get 100% kills otherwise

Aa far as I can work out, these entries are connected to a missing sector
tag and therefore can never teleport in.

Stephen Howe

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Stephen Howe - 23 Nov 2007 11:48 GMT

Also I have found an imp embedded a wall for MAP23 (Close Quarters)
Not impressive.

Stephen Howe

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myk - 25 Nov 2007 11:10 GMT

On Nov 21, 12:10 pm, "Stephen Howe" <sjhoweATdialDOTpipexDOTcom>
wrote:

> Hi
>
[quoted text clipped - 55 lines]
>
> Stephen Howe

In some cases it may be due to lazy testing and not much playing
before release, but in other cases (especially in compilations where
one level may work, but another may not) this happens because people
use different engines to test their levels, and the different engines
may have slight differences that may allow linedefs to work while they
would fail in other engines, or for monsters not to get stuck while
they do so in others, items to appear suspended over a thin ledge (as
opposed to on the floor right beside it), the level to crash or break
in some and not others, and so on.

I think that in any community project all the levels should be tested
with a "base" engine (such as Doom or Chocolate Doom for a Doom wad,
and Boom or PrBoom at compatibility level 9 for a Boom wad), apart
from any other engine the specific author might be fond of (ZDoom,
JDoom, PrBoom using other settings, and such). Whatever base is chosen
should then be noted as "tested with" in the text file, guaranteeing
to a good degree proper functionality through all the levels.

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Stephen Howe - 28 Nov 2007 12:40 GMT

> I think that in any community project all the levels should be tested
> with a "base" engine (such as Doom or Chocolate Doom for a Doom wad,
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> should then be noted as "tested with" in the text file, guaranteeing
> to a good degree proper functionality through all the levels.

Thanks for the thoughts.
I think you are right.
I think if at all possible, unless a WAD is designed with a particular
engine in mind (e.g. ZDoom), it should be tested with a variety of engines
to make sure the WAD works with all.
And as you say, might be an idea if the author noted which engine and
version was used.

And I still think that even if a particular engine is forgiving with regard
to some WAD bugs, that does not excuse the bugs particularly if the bugs
cause other engines to stumble.

Stephen Howe

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