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I'm kinda crossposting this over from Doomworld, but here is Episode 1 of 5 of UAC Ultra 2.

UAC Ultra 2 - Episode 1: Breed of Decay

The episode features all six levels of the first episode plus a bonus preview of the first level of Episode 2 - Sudden Death!

UAC Ultra 2 is a boom compatible levelset designed for Single player on all skill levels (including Nightmare!) It is also designed for Cooperative, Nightmare Coop, and Deathmatch!

I'm not sure how credible this would serve as a deathmatch wad, but I designed each level based around a basic deathmatch layout and branched out from there. The rest of the level is designed so that it blends in with the deathmatch layout seamlessly throughout the single player experience. And the layout cannot be escaped from the inside, so that the single player exclusive parts of the map cant be traversed in deathmatch (like in TNT.WAD MAP03: Power Station) So Deathmatch is a playable feature in UAC Ultra 2

I designed all the levels with wide open hallways so that players wouldn't shoot or bump into each other much by mistake in Cooperative. The detail is minimalistic to keep players from getting clipped when running fast, and there are multiple routes to the exit in each map, so that players can attack groups of monsters from different angles, or lone wolf it at their discretion.

You can play UAC Ultra 2 with extra monsters by playing multiplayer on skills 1-3. Skill 1 doubles the ammo and halves the damage dealt by monsters, but also removes all armor items, which should be good for Survival Cooperative, assuming that Odamex pursues that game mode in the future. Skill 2 and 3 are appropriate for standard Cooperative. Skill 4 does not change the number of monsters in order to preserve the gameplay of playing Nightmare mode in Cooperative. Extra monsters are isolated in teleport ambush closets instead of on the gameplay floor. When a player reaches an important key or throws an important switch, monsters begin to teleport all over the map, (not just in the location of the key or switch) so that no matter where the players are in the map, they can be involved in the fight. It's kinda similar to Skulltag/Zandronum's Invasion game mode, except not quite as scripted.

UAC Ultra 2 Episode 1 uses only Doom 1 weapons/monster/items. The later episodes (when I finish them) will make usage of Doom 2 monsters and stuff.

I'm posting this here only because I created these levels to be as dynamic as possible, with a lot of attention to multiplayer. These maps didn't go over as well to the single player community and I wanted to get some outside perspective. I'd be honored to see if a server would host these levels, and maybe change up the game modes from time to time to show how differently these levels play on deathmatch, coop, and nightmare coop. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

I think it would make more sense to make a list of wads that don't work in Odamex. I have a pretty huge range of vanilla wads, plus many boom compatible ones, and I haven't had much trouble running anything. So far the only wads I've had any trouble with are ArmouredBlood's Newgothic Movement MAP21, and Sunder.

well its better than opengl :)

whoa whoa whoa, where is the original demo format going? Odamex isn't losing compatibility with that is it?

Odamex is a terrific source port and is quite obviously one of the "Top Three" for the online Doom Community. However, the immediate drawback od Odamex is how it is popularly inferior to ZDaemon and Skulltag.

This is not to say that there aren't enough people who like Odamex. Odamex Nitro's have shown that a whole lot of people have the latest version of Odamex installed on their computers. But while my enthusiasm for Odamex is high, one of my biggest turnoffs is how few people are actively playing it on a daily basis. There's no way that a lack various ZDoomisms are the one thing that's killing Odamex.

Almost every single time I open up my internet Doom browser, I'm presented with the same humdrum results. Nearly 100 servers; 0 people playing.

Odamex Nitro has done a pretty excellent job at stirring up some much desired public attention. (not from me though, I'm never home on saturday nights) I'm not sure how it's been doing lately, but I remember some early odamex nitros having a boatload of players, which is awesome! But still yet, when browsing the servers any day of the week, there's the occasional FFA that lasts about a half hour before the players get bored and do something else.

So the big question is what is seperating Odamex from the other two source ports? Why is it that ZDaemon and Skulltag have people playing daily over a 24-hour basis and Odamex does not? I'm sure there's some kind of snowballing effect going on there. Players congregate at one server, players who get bored disperse to other servers which eventually get populated with the other people who were initially just browsing.

I'm convinced there are plenty people browsing Odamex Servers, but none of them settle anywhere and start playing. I've been told many times, that if you pop up on IRC and say "hey lets play some CTF," many people awake from the dead and offer to join, which is cool but not as inviting as the other source ports have it.

So I'm thinking that we need some sort of course of action that will allow Odamex to take flight and soar with the popularity it deserves. Keeping the fire burning is one obstacle we'll have to tackle at a later point, but as of now we're having enough trouble just igniting the flame.

From my observations of Skulltag, which seems to have the most players on a regular basis, there appears to be a lot of wad and server variety. Many players are playing various gameplay mods, weapon mods, megawads, and gameplay modes I've never heard of. I don't advise that Odamex do this, but I do think the large scale of variety is inviting curious players to try something new.

In Odamex's case, things are much more traditional. Coop servers are just regular doom, deathmatches have the standard rules, etc. I'm not saying that this sort of tradition is hurting Odamex, but it could be keeping players from starting some random full-house games out of nowhere. Which leads to my next observations.

Playing by yourself is boring. Browsing the servers and seeing 0 people playing basically means you'll be having just as much fun on a server as you would be playing basketball with no net. But another point to address is that not everyone plays Odamex for a duel. Showing up on an empty deathmatch or a CTF server may indicate that you want to play an FFA or some team-based capture the flag, but an FFA doesn't become an FFA until there are 3 or more people playing. Seeing a server with one other person in it basically means you'll be stuck fighting that one person for a while. One-on-One games can be very sensitive, meaning the losing player may get bored or ragequit easily, isolating the other player by him/herself, which will also make that person want to quit. Server becomes empty again.

So from what I've gathered, I think the things that are really setting Odamex back are that there aren't many servers available that would be entertaining for one player to play by him/herself. Cooperative servers are hosted but they can be boring when the player can respawn as many times as they wish, giving them no incentive to stay alive or even try for that matter unlike playing single player.

While Skulltag and ZDaemon have a Survival Cooperative gamemode, where players who die are penalized with having to wait until the remaining players die or complete the level, Odamex could do something different. Now this is a bit of a personal preference, but in staying true to "Oldschool" themes of Odamex, maybe Odamex could promote playing Cooperative in Nightmare mode.

I've been playing a lot of Perdition's Gate in Nightmare mode. You might think that's a little ridiculous, but with infinite ammunition, it can be a real blast. There's enough resistance from the monsters to keep players entertained by themselves for a while, and with extra players, the fun multiplies as support from extra marines can make levels possible to complete even on the hardest (not even remotely fair) difficulty, which can be really rewarding. Especially with just one other player, plans and tactics can be exchanged to defeat an overpowered, nigh-unstoppable force. This could help players get together and congregate at a fast-paced server to hold their attention long enough until they decide to do something different.

Also Odamex seems to lack in a bit of gameplay variety in some of its servers. Maybe some servers could have a wad rotation (with the wads listed here on these forums as a reference), and change the wad being played on that server every week or so, and maybe skip to a random map daily. Also, If you join any deathmatch or CTF server you can expect the same things. Standard shotguns and super shotguns everywhere, plasmaguns, and bfgs hidden, same types of gameplay. Maybe some servers could run with dehacked patches that turn all the weapons into rocket launchers, or make all the players have 1% health or something nutty like that, to throw a few examples out there.

I think these things may help boost Odamex's popularity a lot hopefully these things will be considered and help make Odamex get the popularity and recognitiion it deserves. Odamex is my preferred source port and I'd love nothing more than to see it grow and prosper.

is this a call for mappers?

I'm at work.

When you're not killing real players, what do you do to keep your reflexes sharp, your aim precise, and your dodging as tactical as possible? Or is the correct course of action killing real players as often as possible?