DescentBB

Hello fellow D2 level designers,

Feel free to use this thread for presentation of new D2 levels you make.

Diedel

Fire And Steel is a larger level with both space for dogfighting and tunnels for ratting.

Download here.

I've built a new D2 anarchy level. It's rather large, well suited for 4 and more players.

Download here.

Feedback welcome.

(C'mon ppl, there's more than Neptune, Vamped, Minerva and Keg Party ... )

I've been tinkering with my level editor again, and this is the result (basically, it's TombZ Of DeZtruKtion pruned to a small level suited for 2 - 5 players. It has only one "floor", that should make for fast gameplay.):

Download here.

I have revamped my recently built CTF level "With Flying Colors" for D2: It has new flag rooms and some minor improvements and fixes.

The level is symmetrical, big enough for 8 players and has numerous accesses to the flag rooms. There are only two choke points though, so while there are enough ways to sneak into the enemy's flag room, there is still a good chance to stop the thief.

It's a bit heavy on the architectural side, but that should be none of a problem with today's hardware and one of the D2X program versions.

Download here.

Circus Maximus built for up to 8 players. Lasers, Plasmas, Fusions, Mercury, Flash, Concussion Missiles, 1 Prox Bomb (the red one).

It's meant for ratting, stalking, camping, so it has a lot of pillars and tunnels, but a big dogfighting area to duke it out isn't missing either. Custom textures by Midgard.


Download here.

The level mainly consists of two large halls with pillars giving a lot of space for maneuvering. They are connected with pretty wide tunnels. It's spacious enough for 8 players.

The weapon loadout is Super Lasers, Plasmas, Fusions, 2 Gauss, 2 Phoenix, Mercury, Flash, Concussion Missiles, 1 Smart Mine (the golden ones), 1 Cloaking device (for hanging out in that dark corner ), 1 Mega, 1 Earth Shaker (the last two locked away and somewhat hard to access).

Unreal and Midgard custom textures.

Download here.

Is Midgard still making textures... or do they just come off a public gallery of sorts?

When looking for a quick way to get a playable Entropy level, I found that my recently released CTF level With Flying Colors should lend itself pretty well to that game mode. So I have slightly reworked it and created an Entropy version named "Bio Hazard". Download it here.

D2X-W32 1.3.2 or above required, as this level contains more than 900 segments.

Glass House is a medium sized anarchy level featuring advanced D2X-W32 properties. As the name already suggests, Glass House is an attempt to build a very "transparent" level: Many rooms are simply separated by colored windows, so you will always see where the action is. It is another story to get there though: Lots of interconnections are by teleports with multiple destinations, and you will never know where they will get you: Into safety, or in the middle of a firefight ... You will need some maneuvering skills in those lit corridors though.

I think it looks really cool, but see for yourselves (more images on my Descent Site):

Unreal and Descent 1 textures.


Download here.

Wow. Really shows off D2x.

I have revised the level, adding a lot more D2X-W32 features, like speed boost areas, camera views, repair centers and true color textures.

Wow, Diedel; D2X-W32 is starting to look almost as good as D3.

This image shows colored windows, camera views and 32 bit TGA textures (floor and ceiling taken from D3, heh):

Nice! Reminds me a lot of the first Unreal game...

I always loved the Unreal texturing ... they have extremely good texture artists and level authors. Actually, I cannot think of any game excelling as much in these areas as Unreal.

Here's another one: Speed!

I made it after some game play experience with Glass House, where I found that the only two areas of the level that really got used where the big energy tube and the large hall that is crossed by two hallways.

So speed is attempt to put teleports and speed bosts to such a use that every corner of the level is a good place to be.

The level uses almost (:P @ Sirius) exclusively D3 textures, which makes for a pretty big file size (255 KB zipped). Look neat though.

I would love to receive some feedback and improvement ideas for this level.

Download here.

Well, except for the secret exit thing.

After exams... I will have to have a look at this... have to...

Diedel wrote:Here's another one: Speed!

Dude.. you imported D3 textures? Cool

Very nice!

Diedel wrote:Here's another one: Speed!

You are violating the implied understanding of "Old Skool" - this is seriously heady stuff for us ol' D1/D2 geezers - more eyecandy than is legal, what with all the D3 textures, colorized transparent walls, camera views - my pacemaker needs a new battery!

No LAN buddies to whoop on at the moment, but even a solo tour of all the teleport stations, uni-directional speed tunnels, and energy/repair bi-directional speed tunnels, was surprisingly disorienting.

Nice balance of weapons for the level size, with emphasis on precision (gauss, mercury) and surprise (flash), rather than spray (no megas or homers).

A big cavern (connected via teleport, or energy/repair tunnels) would be great for pyro's like me = happiest when moving in all 6-axis! As it is, corkscrewing 'round the outside of the energy/repair tunnels is the only place for skilled use of banking/sliding - and they're on the short side for much of that ... just a personal preference from this cave bat ...

A very good looking level, with the full range of technology - far beyond what would be expected of the legacy D2 engine - well done!

As a side note, since it isn't clear to me if it is level specific, level editor / transparent wall "feature", or d2x engine glitch, but I was able to snuggle up against the transparent walls with quad lasers firing, and at some specific angles, able to get a single canon firing _through_ the wall! _That_ would certainly surprise those on the other side!

jehu,

thanks for the feedback. I will check the laser-through-wall issue.

Ways were kept intentionally short in this level - you should be able to reach every spot of it in a short time to make for intense action.

The weapon loadout in this level is my usual one, with the addition of phoenix cannons, which I have gotten to appreciate recently: They're pretty powerful, yet to be handled with care, so imo a weapon for a precise rather than a frantic use.

If you're seriously into 6dof maneuvering, take look at my levels "Fire and Steel" and "Dogfight!" (see my Descent site, multiplayer section). You might also like "TombZ of DeZtruKtion".

Diedel

Edit: The "shoot through wall" problem is a general one. I have worked around it in my levels Speed! and Glass House.

Speed! is now enhanced CTF enabled.

I will agree that the transporters are probably being used in excess.

Jeff,

if you fly around in the level a while and learn where the teleporters lead to, you will probably start to think differently. All routes are well thought out, and I wonder how this level plays in enhanced CTF.

...wow. This looks better than half the D3 levels played today. I don't normally come around here... but if this keeps up I'm seriously going to consider pulling out D2 again.

Kewl, I like Pillars you know.

Brambo,

if you like pillars, take a look at my level TombZ of DeZtruKtion.

Wow, it looks like D3.

I wish the difference was more obvious... people don't HAVE to waste the time they spend in D3Edit on hack jobs.

Sirius,

what do you mean with that?

Diedel.
Today I d/l the SPEED lvl you made. Started up a lan game with a friend of mine. We found 2 things needing to be fixed in this version.

1) The portal in the green glass tunel. The texture is not right.

2) These 2 portals make you respawn in the same room, facing down.

Great lvl BTW!!

Fixed and online. Thx for the hints.

What I mean is that, good as these levels might be, they are D2 levels, and Descent 2 has fundamental engine handicaps that Descent 3 overcame.

But nearly no-one takes advantage of that. I don't need to name names, everyone knows what the garbage levels are...

What engine handicaps? What do you miss in D2, compared to D3? Overpowered weapons like the MD? Or the Napalm missile? Bloody homing weapons in almost every level? Extremely high speed, forcing the levels and structures therein to be unrealistically large compared to the ships (everytime I see a D3 Pyro against a wall, I feel a strange urge to reach for my fly swat ... )

Well, whatever, I am building D2 levels, and all I want is them to look good and play good. Imo D2 gameplay > D3 gameplay. D3 somehow sucks.

D3 automap is _unusable_! They should have just stuck w/wire frame.

I'm referring to the geometry engine, and only the geometry engine.

If they're given polygons, why do they make cubes?

jehu wrote:D3 automap is _unusable_! They should have just stuck w/wire frame.

Are you joking? I despised that wireframe map! D3's is infinitely more natural, considering the fact that you're actually able to fly through the level as you would normally. I still prefer D3 to D2 personally; I find D2 to be too sluggish, and I can never pick out the ships amongst the massive amounts of weapon fire. That's not to say that the D2 Revivals aren't a blast, though.

Sirius wrote:I'm referring to the geometry engine, and only the geometry engine.

If they're given polygons, why do they make cubes?

Does that matter gameplay wise? Imo it doesn't. Cubes are just a way to easily determine adjacent polys, walls, etc.

This thread has gone way OT though.

Circus Maximus is cool, thanks Diedel. I've been looking for a good anarchy map to play.

... anyone want to play?

edit: Glass house crashes my machine.

Invalid station type in fuelcen 12

Same error for speed.