A quick update. Working full force to meet the deadline. The bug with the Mage's Lightning Spell seems to happen only in the places that are particularly complex, detail and architecture-wise; but there may be other factors involved. I don't know, but can't do anything about it. Maybe it's the computer, maybe it's Doomsday, maybe it's the intricacy of the levels - i don't know. Sorry. Will ignore and keep on working regardless.
Finished the Mage's weapon power balance. Now with the new SFX, - Mage's weapons are really fun to fire. Tested the enormous Darkmere remake on a stronger PC. Unfortunately, it's no go. It can run 70-giga games, but it gives 12 FPS in that level. It's unplayable, once you get to the central section. Fuck Doomsday and its bullshit optimization. So, i spent another day brainstorming what to do, - and arrived at a very reasonable solution: the ultra-complex section of Darkmere will be cut and be used as the main core of the Castle of Grief remake (which needs to happen). As for the Darkmere remake per se - it will be exactly as is, simply without that overgrown castle area, as this will go toward another level. It is extensive enough as it is.
Fire & Ice level is finished and tested with all characters. Underground Ruins (ex-Caves) cleaned up, needs testing. Will stop any sprite-work for now, after i make one more texture. Right now i've got enough, and will leave the rest until the full version. Currently making sure that Castle of Grief works with the different layout. I always considered that level way too boring, and now its time has come. Even though this level is not going to be in this release anyway, but i've got to know whether it's functional or is it a crash in making. It will be also far more streamlined. The original had like 11 switches and a lot of back and forth fetching. That's gonna be cut at least in half. The Clock Tower will still need activating, but without the 11 switches. Gears only.
Stay tuned.
Hello,
have you tried asking for help on doomsworld forum?
I applied for membership in Doomsday Engine Forums, (your registration there has to be approved, believe it or not). My account has been authorized just today. Strangely, it says there in the forum guidelines to post bug reports on a separate bug tracker page...which requires a separate sign-in with a proprietary account (unrelated to the Doomsday engine forums), and there is no option to make one.
I'll try to post a request for help in the regular Hexen related category.
The situation is even worse, as of yesterday: the bug happens with the Elf class as well. What i know, is that fortunately it has no relation to the levels, but to the Doomsday engine and Legend-9 Doomsday script.
If you think that's not enough, then try this: after some research, i've found that one of the Doomsday official testers have found this exact same bug 8 years ago, - and reported it. It was not addressed up to this very day.
It's like fighting some kind of a cursed Hydra: you cut one head off, and two more grow in its place. I did manage to restore the FPS to normal with the level division and switching, and the Castle of Grief in turn, - appears not to crash on startup either. And i finally got the Mage weapons perfected. Sounds like good news, right?
And now we have this, which might derail everything...
I really don't know what to do at this point. On one hand, it would really be wrong - releasing a mod with game-breaking bugs openly present, on the other hand - i don't want to feed people anymore delays and ETA's. I do want the fans of the game to see what Legend-9 can do. But the situation now really sucks...
You mentioned Doomworld forums, - of course i will try, but i doubt that anyone there would even touch Doomsday with a 10-foot pole, and probably would not have heard of it or its issues. Suggestions?!
The only thing i know so far, is that the bug does not happen in the vanilla, even if i load Legend-9's levels. But the Legend-9 script does not modify that damn Lightning Spell in any way,- its action is exactly as vanilla to the letter, only the damage is increased, that's all. Work in progress... :(
I would try anyway on Doomworld forum, because there are a lot of users that are knowledgeable; as for what I would do, I would not compromise my artistic vision starting by switching levels... I would rather leave the mod with his "flaws".
I'm sure that if you released it and actually made a topic or two in the appropriate forum, people would flow and start giving suggestions, or why not, help.
By the way, what's stopping you from moving the project from Doomsday to GZdoom?
As for place where I also would make topic, I've never commented in the two websites I'll be linking now and as such I don't know the community, but I would try anyway:
Forum.zdoom.org
Nzdoom.net
My bet is that people would actually propose you to switch the engine. Let's hope for the best.
I will try everything that you suggested. Though i guess first i have to have some kind a completed build in hand to do so. (an interim "early access build", in this case).
As far as the division of Darkmere, - it actually turned out to be even better than i thought. Not only it gets two birds with one stone, but those concepts look not nearly as impressive in the fog, as they do without it. And the level just plays and feels better in this shorter form. Trust me, it is long enough still.
The thing stopping me from moving the project to GZDoom is KNOWLEDGE. Or in my case - lack there of. Legend9, if to look at it deeper - has only a handful of features, but each one is delved into extensively.
- Levels
- Weapons (graphics, animations and balance)
- Enemies (upgrades for almost every enemy, plus - 4 new enemies)
- Animations
- decorations
- multiple death sequences for enemies
- blood effects, weapon effects
- extended story with proper story presentation
And i have ZERO knowledge as to how to implement any of that (sans levels, obviously) in GZDoom. I have had a taste working with GZDoom
(the Invasion mod demo), and i can tell you that anything that does not concern map making - is not intuitive at all in that engine, and i had to make weeks of research and learning even for the meager peanuts of code that exists in that map. (btw, have you tried it?)
Having that said, moving the project to GZDoom would ultimately not be impossible. Though if i started today - that would have the mod released in 2025. And that, being the SOONEST ETA i can think of, given under the assumption that i would not do any other mods during all of that time, which is rather unlikely to happen.
I would, perhaps, even consider doing so, or at least making an attempt, - but for that i would need a functioning build of the mod available for the public first. Under whatever engine.
Simply throwing to the people a line like "just wait until 2025...or maybe 2026" (LOL) would essentially erase me from the modding board (if to paraphrase Hexen along the way). Making such a move would be an even greater blow to me than to the fans who play my projects, as it would spell in all caps, - that even after what's been close to 10 years of development - i have accomplished nothing.
Bottom line is, i've got to find a solution to this ********. I've started researching, and in the end - all those ID-Tech1 sourceports are based on the same properties, even a lot of notions and technical terms are identical. Someone must know something, even if working on a different engine - cause the original Doom engine lingo is the same: i've already seen that it is. There's got to be a way to circumvent the nonsense. AT least, i hope there is.