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Title : Earth
Filename : EarthZD.wad
Author : Roger Ritenour
Emale Address :
[email protected]
Description : Ten level episode for the game engine,
ZDOOM. This episode fully accomodates
ZDoom's enhancements of free-look, jumping
and the Boom/ZDoom enhanced set of line
specials. It also has areas of complexity
and grandeur of archetecture and settings
not previously possible under DoomII.
EarthZD also has a custom sky specifically
designed for ZDoom. It is based upon the
Earth.wad episode for DoomII by the same
author.
Story Line : You arrive home in Earth's planetary
system exhausted from enduring vicious
combat that started on Phobos and led to the
Gates of Hell. You are on your way to sun,
surf, and fishing for a spell of well
earned vacation. However, upon arrival in
low Earth orbit, you learn the terrible
truth--Earth is not free. You study your
options and decide to insert upon a remote
and rocky coastline.
Levels:
The Ruins (MAP01): You stand at your point
of arrival, facing out to sea with
rolling breakers splasing on the rocks.
This looks like it should have been
your vacation site. But behind you
are the ruins of civilization,
haunted with alien hellspawn...
The Tomb (MAP02): To have hope of
freeing the world, you must take
back the one place the enemy
considers special. It is located
under the great pyramid...
Mines of Moria (MAP03): Like its
Lord of the Rings namesake, it
is crawling with evil things...
The Chasm (MAP04): The enemy is
bivouacked in rugged coastal
terrain. You mission is to clear
them out...
Strategic Defense Command (MAP05): A
deep underground command and
control center, one of the last
great hopes for mankind in
repelling the alien invasion.
However, it seems to be off line,
You need to find out why...
Observation Station (MAP06): This place
has seen some action before it
fell to the enemy. Beware!...
The Emerald Tower (MAP07): The Enemy
has established a command post in
a giant ornate emerald green tower.
Your mission is to disrupt their
communications by taking it back...
Ammo Pit (MAP08): This is the domain of
the arch-vile. Trick him
into helping you...
Islands (MAP09): You arrive on an rocky
island in a rugged fjord. Out to
sea and somewhat up the coast is
another, larger island that you
must somehow reach...
The Hill (MAP10): You must capture a
heavily defended fortress on a hill...
Combat : These levels contain a wide variety of
combat situations requiring different
strategies. To win these levels,
especially at the more difficult skill
settings, requires thinking in terms of
fields of fire, planning your cover,
looking out for your flanks and
backside, and keeping open your lines
of retreat. Most of the monster
placement is randomized so that their
location and response are different each
time these levels are played. Hence, you
will be unable to count on finding
specific monsters at specific locations.
(And there will not be many opportunities
for blasting monsters in their sleep.)
The monsters occasionally show sneaky
behavior due to features in the level
designs.
Setting: This episode is set on a rocky coastline.
with spectacular outdoor views. These
include high vistas and overlooks, live
surf crashing onto the rocks, scenic
elevator rides on the outside of tall
buildings, spectacular bridges and a
spectacular hilltop fortress new to
EarthZD.
General: Secrets generally have some clue that
the thoughtful and observant player can
spot. These levels are designed to be
winnable at the easier skill settings
without finding the secrets, but to win
the more difficult settings requires
locating most of the secrets. There are
no totally hidden hazards or traps;
there will always be some visual
or audio cue to warn of there presence.
Some of the pools and slime pits have
depth, ie, you will sink into them,
sometimes up to your eyeballs.
Remember, though, this is ZDoom with
free-look and jumping that plays more
like Quake than the original Doom.
Objects like trees, barrels, etc., are
not infinitely tall and the player can
jump up onto objects as tall as 56 units;
this will be an important factor in
navigating some places and finding some
secrets. One final note; cliff edges at
most of the high vistas are lethal to fall
off of (one cannot expect to survive a fall
of several hundred feet in real life).
Directions for running : EarthZD is a patch wad and is run with
ZDoom using an IWAD file. The IWAD file
can be DoomII, Plutonia, or TNT. Unzip
EarthZD.zip and place EarthZD.wad into
a directory of your choice. To start
ZDoom (from the directory you have ZDoom
in), enter on the command line of the
MS-DOS prompt something like:
zdoom -iwad c:\doom2\doom2.wad -width 800 -height 600 -file <path>earthzd.wad
If you run this with Plutonia or TNT,
the -iwad part of the command would be
appropriately modified with the iwad's
filename and path. The <path> in the -file
parameter is the location where you placed
EarthZD.wad. The -width and -height
parameters set your screen resolution.
In the example given, the resolution is
800 x 600, which produces a relatively
crisp level of detail. On a Pentium 200
MHz MMX CPU, this produced a satisfactory
frame rate. Newer, faster CPUs may use
even higher resolutions. On a 133 MHz
Pentium, 640 x 400 is recommended. Older
machines should use the standard Doom
320 x 200. Note on delays in loading:
wads with tall sky textures sometimes
require extra time for loading. If
the startup screen for ZDoom appears to
lock up, give it at least 30 seconds for
the loading process to complete.
Additional Credits : Olivier Montanuy, author of WINTEX.
I borrowed his grandfather clock and
television, though they have been
enhanced. Stephen's DOOM
Music v. 1.5 for some of the music
selections. Doom version 1.2 for some
additional music selections. Anton
Baranov (AN_MUSIC.WAD) for other music
selections.
* Play Information *
Episode and Level # : Map01-Map10 for ZDoom,
(tested under v1.17b)
Single Player : Yes
Cooperative Player : Yes (untested)
Deathmatch : Yes (untested)
Difficulty Settings : Yes, full range, all settings are
somewhat more difficult than standard
Doom settings.
New Sounds : No
New Graphics : Yes, a new non-repeating, vertically
retilable sky to support some spectacular
vistas plus a lot of new wall textures.
Special graphics to implement special
effects such as the animated surf.
The graphics in this pwad are designed
to complement and enhance rather than to
replace the standard Doom graphics.
New Music : Yes, a mixture of new music, existing,
and a few pieces from doom1 as judged
appropriate for the mood of the level.
*Construction *
Base : Much enhanced version of the episode,
Earth.wad by the same author.
Editors/Tools used:
WAD Builders: Wintex/Deutex, O. Montanuy
Patcher, Jim Flynn
(Wintex used in original Earth.wad,
Patcher used in ZDOOM upgrades)
Level Editors: WinDEU32 5.23, R. Paquay, R Quinet, B. Wyber
DETH 4.16b, J. Burden, S. Oke plus
other contributors
Waded, M. Ayres
(Multiple level editors used throughout
history of development)
Node Builders: BSP 1.2, Colin Reed
Nbld 1.0, Jim Flynn
WARM11, Robert Fenske
RMB, Jens Hykkelbjerg (reject map builder)
(Multiple node builders used in development,
In the final version, 9 maps are compiled
under Nbld, with one under BSP (that would
not compile correctly under Nbld.))
Graphics Tools Corel Photopaint 6 and 8
CorelDraw 6
Known Bugs : Monsters sticking together, an occasional
ZDOOM problem when a floating monster
descends on top of a another monster,
typically occuring at locations where
floating monsters must descent to pass
through doorway to pursue the player.
Monsters remain stuck until the player
kills one of them. The remaining monster
goes free.
* Copyright / Permissions *
You MAY use these levels as a base to build additional levels
You MAY modify these levels provided that you give proper credit
to the originator, whether it is me or someone I borrowed from.
If you do, please drop me a line, I would like to see what you
come up with. You MAY distribute this WAD in any electronic
format provided you include this information file unmodified.
