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MegaDescent

DarkFlameWolf wrote:I just wouldn't recommend Obsidian to a beginner in fanmade missions. That's all.

You said on the YouTube video comment you wouldn't recommend Phobos Encounter.

What missions from the list on the first post of this thread would you not personally overall recommend playing?

MegaDescent

Yes, basically.

MegaDescent

Because my intent is to see how I can do not only without midlevel saves, but also pretending to be one who is not good at finding secrets unless they are required or have a strong visual clue that they exist (usually in D1, the later case involves being able to see all or a portion of the secret ro...

MegaDescent

Do you find most levels still enjoyable basically in an overall sense?

MegaDescent

Well in this play I'm acting as if I'm a person who knows what secrets are but can't find them unless they're necessary or very obviously hinted at. Anyways played the secret level. Gained a live or two, but my god lots of traps! In fact I had to play the whole level again when I fell for destroying...

MegaDescent

I don't think the cloaks are 'easier to find than the reactor'. The reactor, pick up the extra life and it opens up. The cloaks, you must look on either the left or right side. Also the attempt to imitate 'not good at finding secrets' necessarily excludes anything necessary to finish the level, as w...

MegaDescent

Re message (regarding Obsidian): "No, because mostly the switches open walls not locked doors. If they did open locked doors -- or even walls that were in visible or audible distance from the switches themselves -- I wouldn't have had so much of a problems." >> I'm pretty good at finding w...

MegaDescent

Broke even with lives on Level 10 (and would have been up had it not been for those homing missile guys right by the reactor that you have to fight at close range due to that stupid locked door!)... Cloaking device, cloaking device my furless friend... :P There are two, but they are in secrets. My ...

MegaDescent

Okay I'll ask in the thread instead now. :) I'd appreciate a response to that second Obsidian related message I sent though (but I also will paste it here): Generally I'm good with remembering where stuff is (especially locked doors) and managing switch hunts. I look at walls and such if I can't fin...

MegaDescent

Broke even with lives on Level 10 (and would have been up had it not been for those homing missile guys right by the reactor that you have to fight at close range due to that stupid locked door!). Yellow area actually wasn't a huge problem as the corridors are so long that I was able to fire at homi...

MegaDescent

D1 Levels 8-10, I'm actually playing them right now (see the 'Playing without saves' thread); there's only three maps instead of four and they aren't as big as Brimspark either. I bet Level 11 actually has the most lava in D1...even though it's a Jupiter level. As for comments earlier up about D1 co...

MegaDescent

Is anyone familiar with/played any of these 'series' of levels? None of them are on the more common sites (DMDB and karx's page) but I have all of them in my folder, can't even remember where I got them all from for sure, maybe Valhalla. And from what I know their authors never made too much as far ...

MegaDescent

I don't say the Brimspark levels are 'bad levels', especially in an objective sense. Rather that the system (as a whole) seems to drag when played consecutively (and of course in the game itself it is played consecutively). In fact any one of them could probably be just fine if it was just one level...

MegaDescent

Beat (D1) Level 9 losing only one life, approached homing missile enemy from bad angle just outside reactor area. Got 3 lives based on score, so I have 12 in reserve now. Dreading Level 10 a bit...if I recall, this one is no slouch. And I'm not sure if going to the very easy to find secret level wou...

MegaDescent

It should be just fine for me as long as the levels are somewhat better thought out than say some of the Brimspark stuff, and/or any really big levels are relatively spread out and don't come in 'stretches' of many in a row like they do in CS - so is that the case?

MegaDescent

I'm trying to play some Descent I with this strategy myself, currently on Level 9 with 10 lives to start. Lost no lives from Levels 1 through 5; then lost 5 on Level 6 (drillers!). Then I made it all the way to the red door on Level 7 without losing a life but forgot there were all those drillers an...

MegaDescent

Sounds reasonable. He is playing on Hotshot, and for now the scope is the originals/maybe Vertigo, so Ironstar/Vignettes/TEW/Entropy need not apply (yet).

MegaDescent

Well I've got a friend of mine who is playing Descent for the first time and doesn't want to use saves, except at the start of levels. So for Descent I (but it probably applies to II as well), I gave him this strategy guide: 1) Allow 3-5 deaths in a level 2) If about to die try to retreat to an area...

MegaDescent

Vertigo is better and also plays a bit more well on this regard though right?

MegaDescent

I'd like to know do Vertigo's designs also tend to avoid having super-huge, somewhat randomly laid out maps (ala some CS levels)?

MegaDescent

Just thought I'd start a separate thread for this; what are some of the perhaps lesser known compaigns compared to the classics? (A campaign must have at least two levels plus some type of briefings utilized to distinguish it from a pure collection.) Of course also the quality will presumably vary m...

MegaDescent

As for a rare campaign mission (can't get it on DMDB or karx's pages) I can think of a very small one (2 levels) Tyrsis. I was informed of it while browsing some old archived review page (DCentral I think). It has 4/5 stars there so I was interested and happened to find it on DescentValhalla. But ri...

MegaDescent

Also one thing I find slightly odd (though it's not an issue) is that although Level 3 and Level 5 of Vertigo look to be fire levels, they are presented with the Zeta Aquilae look rather than Brimspark look.

MegaDescent

I think every system other than Brimspark can probably be said to have at least two of the four (main) levels more reasonably sized. :) But I find very few levels in Vertigo that look truly enormous, although I haven't played them yet. (Oh and by the way, the second half of Limefrost Spiral is DEFIN...

MegaDescent

Dead on, Brimspark fatigue is it. Limefrost 1 and Baloris 4 (at the bare minimum) are better. I don't think any Baloris level is quite as giant as Brimspark gets (and the rest of Limefrost as well). They're still pretty big though, but probably more manageable.

MegaDescent

I should have put Descent Maximum in this poll as well since it's been ported to the PC. Looks much shorter/more focused than CS and probably easier to 'pick up and play' overall.

MegaDescent

It wouldn't be correct at all to just simply say 'I don't like big levels'. In fact I played Lost Levels some years back (I only ever got around to it and Vignettes - the D1 version of the later, as D2 Enemy Vignette unfortunately wasn't out yet) at the time) and I remember liking its layouts overal...

MegaDescent

I wish Parallax could have kept their level sizes closer to something like Phobos Encounter. That's overall my favorite set of levels I've played so far (which include First Strike, Counterstrike!, Chasm, and Phobos). These levels just seem a lot more organized and manageable than some of the uber m...

MegaDescent

Couple additional specific specs:

Sound: RealTek (Integrated with computer)
Video: NVidia GEForce GT 440 with 4GB of video RAM
Monitor: Full HD / 1080p (1920x1080 widescreen)

MegaDescent

In case it would help in suggesting setup/config options and the best XL exe to use here are my system specs. If you want an additional spec feel free to ask and I'll try to get it. Any further help is welcome. :) OS: Win7 Professional 64-bit Service Pack 3 (6.1, Build 7601) System Manufacturer: Del...

MegaDescent

What do you have the memory related command parameters set to, and how long are you generally able to play before any crash?

I'd also like to know one miscellaneous thing. What AI aggressiveness level do you play with?

MegaDescent

Okay, omp actually does load a level for me now, but with a plethora of huge issues: 1) It's too dark (darker than d2x-xl.exe). 2) All energy-based shots are invisible on the screen. 3) Explosions (robots and missile explosions) are also invisible. 4) Some doors (example: yellow key door in Level 1 ...

MegaDescent

How do I tell if there is a 64 bit, and what are the memory switches?

As for omp, some ideas as to the most common threading problems would be appreciated.

MegaDescent

Also, I get the program terminating on occasion and I think it's because it is running out of memory (memory leaks?). What command parameters are recommended to maximize available memory/RAM?

MegaDescent

When I start Black Prophecy XL the garbled sound problem makes a comeback. It's fine with any other mission. Any idea as to why this is happening, and a workaround?

MegaDescent

One other tiny kink though: presumably because it's OpenGL, the brightness tends to be lower than in Dos or Rebirth. Any workaround for this?

MegaDescent

My mistake was sdl_mixer being at 0. Music problem fixed.

Also any recommendation for Anthology or Belial System? Those happen to pop in my mind as well almost immediately.

MegaDescent

Okay, will try that. :) Now that I have XL working to at least a playable level, what XL specific missions would you recommend most? I promise this will be my last question of any kind on the 'recommendations' topic. At this point I think I have resolved just about everything except the midi music c...

MegaDescent

Is there a tool I can use to extract it from the hog?

MegaDescent

I sort of do want just the actual midi files, but it's not a huge thing, maybe someone else can help me with 2). Regarding 3), where is the descent.sng file for TEW? I don't recall one in the zip and Rebirth recognizes the 6 (instead of 4) midi soundtrack and the two unique end midis without any des...

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