================================================================ Title : Halls of Fairness Filename : FAIR.WAD Version of DOOM : DOOM v1.666 - Hell on Earth Version of level : 5.0 Author : Harry S. Email Address : mcb@kem.ac.at Description : These are eight brand-new levels for the hell on earth! Refer to the descriptions below. Additional Credits to : ID software (makers of DOOM II) Herby (incredible assistance at recording some of the demos, constructive grumbling and beta testing) all makers of DOOM utilities all beta testers of FAIR.WAD Alias section : Harry ... Lord MCB Herby ... Lord Mc Siedler (e9425008@stud1.tuwien.ac.at) ================================================================ * Play Information * Map numbers : MAP01, MAP02, MAP03, MAP04, MAP05, MAP06, MAP07, MAP08 Single Player : Yes Cooperative 2-4 Player : Yes Deathmatch 2-4 Player : YESSSSSSSS!!! (For example: MAP08 - its INCREDIBLE!) Difficulty Settings : Yes (but who needs "Hurt me plenty" or lower?) New Sounds : No (just take my sounds: HOE.WAD) New Graphics : Yes (Level names and title picture) New Music : Yes (for all the eight levels and the title screen) Demos Replaced : All * Construction * Base : New levels from scratch Editor(s) used : DEU II (I know it's a hack but DEU 5.3 has not yet been released finally and is still full of bugs! Guys, what are you waiting for???!!!!!) BSP 1.2x (Fantastic, I like it so!!!!) RMB (for the REJECT map) MIDI2MUS 2.04 (nice tool for people who treasure MIDI as I do ;-) Painbrush (Title screen and level names) DeuTex 3.6 (Graphics import) Norton DiskEdit 6.0 (Demo patches) Known Bugs : none (I would like to know if somebody finds one) * Copyright / Permissions * Authors MAY use this levels as a base to build additional levels. You may do whatever you want with this file. =========================== Release information =========================== This is the seventh release of this PWAD. There are eight (!) levels now. Slightly, my episode will grow and multiply... =========================== Preface =========================== I always wanted a collection of levels that are completely fair. Since it is usual (but should not be) that plenty of maps all over the world come with a bare text file containing only general information and require the player to know every little secret in order to survive. But how should one know them all? Obviously this did not bother the maker of the WAD! Another feature of bad levels is the existence of bombing slaughters the innocent player is put through. By "bombing" I mean suprising and not notified. The only way to solve the problem is to fire fast and brainlessly on everything that moves. These are situations where strafing is impossible while thirty blood-sucking creatures try to bump you off. Hopefully, you will agree that this is neither fair nor is it fun to play! The file name and title of this PWAD let you suppose that it is what I call FAIR. =========================== Philosophy specification =========================== FAIR.WAD meets the following requirements that make it a fair collection of levels: 1. The lack of knowledge about a secret of any kind may never be deadly. 2. Every action has to be repeatable with similar results. This means, life or death shall depend on the player's skills. Coincidence is to be disabled whenever it is feasible. 3. If a secret is not visible at all, it must not be neccessary to complete the level. 4. Knowledge of a level should not be vital to survive. 5. Whenever one of these conventions is violated, at least all the other ones should be satisfied. Beside that, it should be avoided at all, if possible. =========================== List of Levels =========================== Level 1: Anterior Square Level 2: Crackle City Level 3: Encounter Level 4: Maze of Secrets Level 5: Fountains of Vile Level 6: Temple of Escape Level 7: Fortress of Cremation Level 8: House of Lucifer =========================== General notes =========================== If you are playing my levels there are ten golden rules that you should obey in order to be successful: #1) Look at everything carefully! There are no design errors. Everything is like I want it to be! So if two textures do not match exactly, they are intended to. If a wall has a small spot that looks slightly different than the remaining part, probably there is some secret behind it. Thus, look carefully at everything that distinguishes certain walls from the ones surrounding them. A dead monster, that you did not kill, can also be a positive proof for a secret waiting to be discovered. #2) Sometimes it is important to wake monsters in a certain order. Save often and try out different methods to conquer the area. #3) Level 4 is FULL of secrets and darkness. This is for you to learn how to survive in unknown areas without seeing too much. #4) Everything can be completed more or less easily. If you have big problems then you simply don't know the trick! #5) You need to develop some "skills" while you advance through my episode. At the first glance some situations may seem to be extremely unhealthy but if you take a closer look at the scene, there is always a safe way out. After a few times of playing you will exactly know where everything is and how to survive the various traps, thus, there will be no more problems that could prevent you from succeeding! Provided you do not play like a blockhead... #6) Level 8 has a small room where you are left alone with rockets, a ditch and nowhere to run. Looks bad. Too bad? No, as you can apply some recoil to complete this funky trick! #7) Do not jump into poisonous liquids, unless you know a way out again. #8) In level 6 there are some acid-looking floors that just serve as a nice decoration. It is completely secure to enter these areas! #9) I did NOT say that you will always retain your full health! Sacrifice is a powerful instrument of war! #10) Sometimes there are two ways to succeed. The crude one will also be very draining to your health. So you should choose the logical one, thus, minimizing the loss of health and ammo. Even if it all seems to be clear, try to find a strategy as hard as you try to find health and armor! It is always better to be intelligent... =========================== Demo description =========================== To make clearer how to play FAIR.WAD properly, I have included some demos which I have recorded together with a friend. We hope you like them as much as we do. We are both quite efficient players and tried to give our best. A few parts of the demos are really clumsy but we decided to keep them, because it would be boring to watch a perfect player. They were all recorded on a 486/DX4 machine on two consecutive days. And now the exact descriptions follow: No. ³ Type ³ Levels covered ³ Comments / Description ÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ 1 ³ internal ³ MAP01 ³ You are shown a GOOD player slaughtering his ³ ³ ³ way through the first level. ³ ³ ³ (Herby) 2 ³ internal ³ MAP08 ³ House of Lucifer. This was Herby playing and ³ ³ ³ succeeding powerfully! Exactly when the ugly ³ ³ ³ Cyberdemon took his last breath, DOOM's demo ³ ³ ³ buffer ran out of memory and, thus, stopping ³ ³ ³ the demo. It had to be more than only luck! ³ ³ ³ (Herby) 3 ³ internal ³ MAP07 ³ Nothing special: An easy level was played ³ ³ ³ easily... (Harry, then Herby) 4 ³ external ³ MAP06 ³ Temple of Escape played by Herby 5 ³ external ³ MAP08 ³ Angry player sucking his way through the ³ ³ ³ House of Lucifer and finally bumped off by ³ ³ ³ some of the nice pets around there. Indeed, ³ ³ ³ sloppy defence in the end! (Herby) 6 ³ external ³ MAP08 ³ Complete demonstration of level #8. There ³ ³ ³ is a GEM in this demo: I bet, no one has ³ ³ ³ done a Cyberdemon that showy! (Herby) ÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Generally, if you have any questions how to play a level, take a closer look at the respective demo. The first internal demo initially covered also the second level, but the Revenants often caused problems during replay. So, I decided to rip the demo right in two and include only the first part into FAIR.WAD. =========================== How to run the new levels? =========================== Well, it is easier than you think! Just type: doom2 -file fair.wad In this case I suppose that you have copied FAIR.WAD into your DOOM II directory. If you would like to watch one of the demos which are contained in extra files, simply execute the following: doom2 -file fair.wad -playdemo ### '###' is the name of the demo file (without .LMP)