================================================================ Title : ARTIFACT.WAD Author : Paul Schmitz Email Address : 71776,337 Description : You've been to hell and back, now it's MILLER time! Unfortunately the officer you pounded earlier is now your new CO. Guess who gets the next S**T detail? While boarding the drop ship, you find out some strange goings-on are happening at a UAC facility in the ANDES mountains. It appears that what recently happened on Mars is happening here. People rising from the dead, demons and monsters gnawing the living. Not good! You are to meet some undercover investigators at the facility who will lead you to a secret base nearby. Something about having to climb a waterfall. You here a rumor about the discovery of an alien artifact that started this whole mess. You also hear a story about a UAC backed raid by a company of storm troopers that failed miserably. The one lone survivor kept babbling about "blowing up a mountain", though not the way they intended. The drop ship doors open, and you hit the ground running. Great! An entire company of veteran spacers gets wiped out, and they send you in alone with a pistol, just because you did it before. Fortunately, a reception party is waiting for you. Unfortunately, THIS reception party is not the undercover operatives you were to meet! AMBUSH! Misc Info : This PWAD is actually half of a much larger PWAD I constructed that passed 300K. I soon discovered the problems with building huge PWADS (can't save without bombing out, PC crashed when existing Doom, etc). Solved the problem by splitting the level in two, but I think I did it in an interesting way. I don't want to give anything away right now so read the last section HINTS/COMMENTS after you finish this PWAD. The second PWAD is nearly complete, but won't be ready until September. I need a BREAK, and my family needs me. Additional Credits to : id Software for making THE BEST GAME IN THE COSMOS: DOOM. Raphael Quinet and Brendon Wyber, the developers of the BEST Doom editor, DEU 5.21. Collin Reed for the indispensable program BSP 1.2X. L.W. Witek for REJECT 1.0.0. Hank Leukart for the ever informative THE "OFFICIAL" DOOM FAQ, and Matt Fell for THE "UNOFFICIAL" DOOM SPECS. Last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank my lovely wife Lynn, who allowed me to pursue my DOOMing pleasure. By the way, she IS interested in forming a DOOM Widows Club for significant others who have "lost" loved ones to the addiction called DOOM that is sweeping the nation (although she talks about doing things to DOOMers that DOOMers do to demons, imps, and the other nasties. I have begun to sleep with one eye open :). And, of course, Jonathan and Matthew (my two boys and future DOOM hall of famers), who I stupidly ignored for two weeks while learning to build Doom WADs. I hope (but doubt) that it was worth it. HEY, does anyone know where I can get the 5.21 GCC version? (I like my levels BIG!!!). Compuserve offers DEU 5.21 and DEU 5.2 GCC. I have used the DEU 5.21 regular version, and its texture alignment program is far superior to the DEU 5.2 GCC version - which I currently use. ================================================================ * Play Information * Episode and Level # : E2M1 (for now) Single Player : Yes Cooperative 2-4 Player : Why Not? (haven't played in Coop mode) Deathmatch 2-4 Player : Perhaps (limited, not tested) Difficulty Settings : Sort of (easy has no monsters, medium and hard do) New Sounds : No New Graphics : No Demos Replaced : None * Construction * Base : New level from scratch Build Time : Two months (among earning a living, loving my wife and playing with my boys, I squeezed in as much time as I could working on this PWAD. I figure a good 200 hours worth of work went into both PWADS). Editor(s) used : DEU 5.2 GCC version, BSP 1.2X, REJECT 1.0.0 Known Bugs : None found - YET! Even with its large size, you can save games and exit Doom without crashing your PC. There is a spatial anomaly that does not effect game play, but it couldn't exist in the "real" world. Some textures not aligned properly (need DEU 5.21 GCC). * Copyright / Permissions * Authors MAY NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels. You MAY distribute this WAD, provided you include this file , with no modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact. * Where to get this WAD * BBS numbers: Software Creations, 508-368-7036 Other: CompuServe, GO GAMERS, Action Games Aids Library (Lib 8) TO PLAY: ============================================ To play this WAD, put the WAD file in your DOOM directory. At the command prompt type: doom -file artifact.wad. Pick episode 2. ============================================ HINTS/COMMENTS (Don't read until you finish the level). ============================================ Any and all comments are welcome, especially bug discoveries. Let me say up-front that I love DOOMing. Blowing up hordes of evil is my way of relaxing. I always picture myself as the hero Ash, battling and destroying the Evil Dead. Nothing pleases me more than whipping out my BFG9000 and saying "Yo She-Bitch, swallow this!!" However, I took a different approach in designing this PWAD. I wanted something that was visually appealing, as opposed to a monster slay feast. That's why you will see more detail paid to the visual aspects than the carnal ones. I developed these PWADS on a 486 DX2-66MHZ, 16MB RAM, with a Diamond VIPER Graphics Accelerator card. I pushed my PC to the limit. As you can guess, this level is probably not going to work well for those of the computer-impaired (non-486 or pentium systems with low memory and slow graphics cards). I also designed this PWAD to permit some voyeuristic enjoyment for those who like to see the big boys tangle. After all, slaying is hard work. Why not sit back and let the baddies do all the dirty work while you watch and cheer on the sidelines (Come One! Come All! Watch CyberDemon pound the living daylights out of Spider Demon (or visa versa). Yes, that's right! There is a Spider Demon, TWO Cyberdemons, and a handful of Barons scattered throughout the two PWADS. But nobody said you have to fight them! :). And as for the BFG9000 (there is one in this PWAD), sorry, drool all you want but you'll have to wait for the second PWAD before you can have a crack at it (and you will PAY for any attempt to take it, I guarantee it!!!). And yes, that is a preview of the second PWAD you see through the grates. As far as the baddies go in that area - Sure blow them away if you have the ammo to waste. They can't hurt you. In fact, you can punch them continuously and not take any damage (well, at least I never did). I built this so you can have a bit o' fun without getting hurt. I liked laying waste with the chaingun. It brought me much satisfaction after battling the Beltway home (but they will be back in the second PWAD - so conserve that ammo!). One thing I tried to do was to preserve the essence of the original complete level (which grew to about 500K). I divided this PWAD into two; both coming in at around 270K each. By having pieces of both PWADs in each, I tried to retain that feel of one big level. ============================================