This is a DooM .LMP "Competition" Entry - Please forward it...

NM13-PAR.TXT

 NM13-PAR.ZIP

  NM13-228.LMP - NightMare! ( CAN handle it! :-)
  &
  NM13-218.LMP -   "    "

  Recorded using Doom2 Version 1.9
  Doom2 -PlayDemo with Version 1.9

  DooM II - Level 13 - "DownTown"

  Kills     30%
  (Items    22)
  Secrets   12%  and Time  02:28
                           -----

  Kills     34% [ More ! ]
  (Items    21)
  Secrets    0%  and Time  02:18 [ Less ! ]
                           -----

  Introduction...

  I recorded this collection of NM13-??? .LMP's over the past two
  months in preparation for an attempt at a DHT D2I title...

  Anyway, after waiting for *OVER* two months [ ! 8-( ] for this
  exam, I figured that continuing to secretly hold onto these - so
  that no-one would get the chance of copying the methods used and
  "steal" this Out-of-Base D2I level which I had considered to be
  "mine" - was getting to the point of being a joke...

  I wrote to Mr. DHT and asked him if this is what he "intended":

  ie. Potential candidates practicing the required Out-of-Base D2I
  levels to the point of getting SOoo... good at them that we would
  soon become TOO good at them, eg. On NightMare! AND Under the Par
  Time, such that to re-record a lesser achievement for a DHT D2I
  title would become just too easy; fairly boring to both -Record
  and -PlayDemo; and overall a pretty pointless(?) exercise... AND
  All this time feeling that we needed to keep these achievements
  to ourselves so as to prevent candidates that HAD received their
  exams from using any of this knowledge to complete the title for
  themselves... ALSO The l---o---n---g delay between requesting an
  exam and receiving it was IMHO getting rather ridiculous and had
  the effect of introducing yet another "race condition" of needing
  to complete our exams as soon as possible (any which way) after
  receiving them because it was quite likely that other candidates
  would be working on the same Out-of-Base levels and whether or
  not they would be successful would depend almost entirely on the
  time it would take Mr. LMPS to "pass" previous uploads... would
  we have a day, a week, a month... [ two !?! ] to complete these
  before the then uploaded Out-of-Base levels would be GONE ?!?

  Mr. DHT has asked me if he could publish the e-mail, with these
  concerns, that I sent him ( and I have agreed ;-) and so maybe
  they are justified... [ ? ]

  Anyway, I had decided to release these NM13-??? .LMP's without
  any further delay and on that VERY day [ The CTN-APR1.ZIP update
  was almost complete though I had got side-tracked doing yet more
  D1I analysis (See CTN-APR2.ZIP for those details...) ] and guess
  what ? ... Yes, I got my exam !!!

  I knew that, due to the above "race conditions", I just had to
  complete this exam ASAP - ie. make it quick and not necessarily
  great - as I already knew that another D2I candidate [ George I.
  Bell... although we had already e-mailed each other and "traded"
  our intentions :-) ] was going to use the SAME Out-of-Base maps
  and there may well have been others [ ? ] that also intended to
  do similarly...

  I completed (and uploaded) my D2I exam in two (or rather three)
  days - a record in itself perhaps for an advanced title [ ? ] -
  but since [ I believed that ] I needed to do this as soon as I
  possibly could, I felt "forced" to use the substitution rule to
  replace my assigned (unpracticed) "hard" level with a second (!)
  (practiced) Out-of-Base level. This has the effect of denying a
  future D2I qualifier and since the levels were all "just done"
  none of them are particularly great... Almost ALL of the .LMP's
  in this NM13-??? collection are better, but I did have *thirty*
  times the amount of time to think about, practice plus actually
  record them...

  Finally, I may have done the DHT system a dis-service by rating
  NM13 and NM20 as medium and easy levels respectively... NM20 may
  actually be the more difficult level for the average player to
  complete. It's just that [ you can see that ] I had had SOoo...
  much practice at NM13 that it was TOO easy for Me but I remember
  that it took quite a while to first complete it - I'd had some
  assistance with NM20 [ it had already been done by others ] and
  solved it within a day. I have now re-played NM20 several more
  times and have had a rate of failure of perhaps over 80% whereas
  with NM13 - although I really can't see this level anymore - the
  only place where I might fail is at the "tele-jump" to the blue
  door and that rate of failure is, I believe, less than this 80%

  If I were asked to reconsider rating NM13 and NM20 as medium and
  easy - with other mediums such as 04(!), 05, 07, 10, 30 and 31 -
  I would say that the levels NM13 and NM20 are BOTH "Easy" ! ;-)

  Now, it wouldn't make sense to release ALL of my .LMP's of "Me"
  completing this level, [ I have over 50 of these ! :-) ] but it
  does make sense to release *some* of these - showing my progress
  over the lengthy period of practice ;-)

  Back to the actual .LMP's...


  Description :-)

  Soon after completing my NM13-242 and NM13-245 [ actually, that
  very same day ! ] I began trying to get an UNDER PAR -Record'ing
  of this level on this NightMare! difficulty using the very same
  route - with some "minor" improvements... After a number of low
  NM13-23? .LMP's I soon made it ! :-)


  [ Copied from NM13-1ST.DOC :-) ]

  The trick to completing (M)ANY of the DooM (II) missions on the
  NightMare! difficulty is, first of all, to know a fairly "safe"
  lightning route... If you can simply "fly" by the monsters on
  UltraViolence you can often do the same on NightMare!. You just
  need to keep moving... AND, secondly, you need to know what you
  must do - like get the keys, weapons and power-ups - and also
  what you must NOT try to do... re-visiting areas is often NOT a
  very good idea because the goodies are gone and those monsters
  will probably have returned... Sometimes it may be necessary to
  just "chance it" - Sometimes whatever the trick used works and
  sometimes it just does not !?! It becomes a case of just trying
  it over and over until you "pull it off"... though if there are
  more than three places where you need to "chance it", each with
  a 25% chance of success - .25 to the power of 4 which equals =
  1 potential success in 256 attempts, I'd suggest that you should
  [ do these kinds of calculations and ] forget it :-(

  The difficult parts of this level are quite simply getting each
  of the keys and avoiding taking a fatal amount of damage during
  meeting your objectives... And this also includes getting your
  fragging weapons... Finally, of all of the monsters that might
  get in your way, and thus require the most attention, are those
  damn Ravenants that surround the room with the blue door which
  contains the "second" invulnerability sphere plus the only (?)
  teleport to the yellow yey.

  Now, level 13 has two VERY useful invulnerability spheres it it.
  You don't have any choice about when to take the "second" one of
  these but there is a scope for some choice about the first one.


  [ Copied from NM13-2ND.DOC :-) ]

  Soon after completing my NM13-334 and NM13-325 I descided that I
  would try to improve on these times and make a .LMP in less than
  3:00 minutes... First of all picking up the initial Armour-Hats
  is a complete waste of time - Just RUN straight for the "easy to
  get" (though secret) Mega-Armour and, while I'm waiting for the
  wall to open, grab a convenient "blur-ball" and Plasma-Gun [ The
  three blur-balls seemed to help all through the level... One to
  get around the Cacodemon, one for the "tele-hop" and one for the
  yellow key room ] and then get the Armour. Now for a change in my
  game-plan... [ I'd found that it's worth taking the chance at the
  "tele-hop" (to the blue door and the second "life-ball" :-) You
  make it more often than you would think (or just get killed by a
  waiting Ravenant, or Cacodemon) and it's worth it for time saved
  by not having to clear this ledge AND this has the advantage of
  making the first "life-ball" available for the first part of the
  run - though it is not really needed... Back to the .LMP's ] ...
  I take the first invulnerability sphere - Rockets plus Launcher
  are next [ Remember that I haven't fired a shot so far - that's
  why the pinkoes don't come and get me ;-) ] then go for the blue
  key. The invulnerability should last until after the Cacodemon
  gets fragged - two or three rockets is more efficient :-) This
  looks like a good place to do your silly DHT dancing. Now switch
  back to Shotgun, not for the imps because spareing their lives
  saves yet more time, but for that pinkoe in a tight spot after.
  Open the door and fly by the Fatso - Cross your fingers that the
  blue key will come away with you as it's quiet easy to miss it.
  Back at the start point... Run for another "blur ball" - the far
  one [ This is actually a waste of time and health but I thought
  it helped at the time ] and prepare for the "tele-hop"... I like
  to go in backwards and just hope ! :-) If you make it (?), open
  the blue door, get the life-ball and teleport out... After that,
  with shells, rockets and plasma plus the final blur-ball on the
  way, it's pretty easy - As long as you do get the red key - It's
  not so easy to see when everthing is white ! ;-)


  Where I made up time :-)

  As indicated in my NM13-2ND.TXT, the main time-saving change in
  my game-plan is to only take TWO of the invisibility spheres...
  One at the beginning and the central one after getting the blue
  key before teleporting to the "tele-hop" - This in itself saves
  those vital 15 seconds... Otherwise, I gain a second or two in
  some places and lose the odd second at others. At this point I
  thought it was just a case of fine tuning my movement so as to
  gain as many of those single seconds as I could, using diagonal
  running etc. and not make any "big" errors [ though missing the
  keys and (or) getting killed trying was acceptable ;-) ] on the
  way - so I knew I had to find even more time from somewhere...

  The solution to this was simple - I had managed to carry all of
  the armour to the yellow key room before now so... I don't get
  the armour - Just RUN straight (well, diagnoally ;-) out around
  the blur-ball [ saving that one for later ] and get the Plasma
  Gun, the nearby blur-ball then the life-ball and take it from
  there... If I'm quick enough I can hit the lift before killing
  the Cacodemon and using plasma rather than shells would be that
  bit faster so why bother getting the Shotgun - and that saves a
  weapon change. My only (?) problem would be fighting against the
  final monsters with depleted health and NO armour... So would I
  make it ? ;-) After a few more 2:2? times I made it in 2:18 :-)
  Twice ! This is one where I didn't make m/any little mistakes -
  just one, sorry make that, two BIG mistakes towards the end.


  [ In LV13-200.TXT I wrote ]

   "D2L-JRH" said that LV13 was "a tough one, even done singly"

  And from that I think that I can imply that JRH, Jonathan Hoof,
  didn't expect that LV13 could be done Under Par, on NightMare !

  It was also an Out-of-Base level when "Hoofy" completed his DHT
  D2I-JRH exam and remained so until *I* put it in, as a Medium !

  So I think I can ( again ! ;-) copy...

   Well, it isn't ! Hi Hoof... You're wrong, again ! <GRIN> :-)

  ... for yet another C.H.W.P (*) .LMP entry :-)

  And you may remember that I also wrote...

   And now methinks that a DHT: D2I-SYW might be possible...

  D2I-SYW.ZIP - DONE !!!  B-I-G-G-E-S-T  8-)  So far !!! ;-)

  So I hereby lay claim to this level (BACK again to) being MINE
  - NOT for Compet-N but instead - as MY D2I Out-of-Base level !
  Now and FOREVER - It's now in the base so it can't be beaten !

[ Actually, THAT .LMP is rather lame, though this is because the
  advanced DHT titles had already degenerated into a Stupid Race
  to get our exams completed as soon as possible after receiving
  them so as to get our, all important valid, Out-of-Base levels
  before they are GONE ! ie. I HAD to make it QUICK, rather than
  GREAT - If you had planned (for a couple of days or MONTHS) to
  take 13 or 20, I'm sorry I took these away from you - But this
  is not MY fault... Send your complaints to the DHT... guy. :-( ]


  Anyway, if / when / now that it has been  beaten </Me sniffs>,
  at least I can claim that I was The First to complete this one
  on NightMare! And Also on NightMare! AND Under Par ! BIG :-)


 S.;-)  D1I and D2I

 S. Widlake

 s.widlake@rl.ac.uk


 (*) C.H.W.P - Club of Hoof/y Wrong Provers...

 Prove Jonathan "DHTexams/D??[?]-JRH.TXT" Hoof wrong, via a .LMP
 -Record'ing, and then you're a member :-) It's that simple. ;-)

