I have probably been somewhat inactive the past week or two. For one, there has been a lot of family-related drama going on (which I will not bore you with). So that’s been kind of draining on me. But more importantly/excitedly, I have come into possession of a brand-new computer! It’s actually somewhat related to the silly drama…but long story short is this: my Aunt bought this person a brand-new computer. We don’t really even know this person at all and my Aunt is just too nice. So it turns out that this person is a complete alcoholic and a general retard. She started making various threats (including burning down the house where she was allowed to stay temporarily), so the computer was taken away, among other things. At any rate, it was too late to take the computer back to Best Buy or wherever she purchased it, so she was stuck with a $1600 piece of hardware that she knows little to nothing about. That’s the extremely short version of the story.

Rewind to about a week ago. My Aunt offered to give the computer to me, which I was somewhat hesitant to agree to. Instead, I offered to try and sell my laptop to help pay it off (and then pay off the rest of the balance gradually). She was eager to offload it to me as soon as possible though, so she went ahead and gave it to me. I’m looking into a way to sell my laptop…but for now, here’s a picture of this beast:

My future plans for a new machine were going to be me building my own until this turn of events…but I’m not gonna complain. It’s a pretty slick looking machine. I don’t know anything about the Asus brand; I’ve heard of it, I just haven’t researched it or heard much about it from word-of-mouth. My impressions of it are pretty good so far though. This thing is incredibly fast. The monitor (that either came with it or was purchased separately…although it is an Asus monitor) is friggin’ massive! As far as desktop computers go, my last one was a Win98 machine from 1998. So I’m use to those old, boxy CRT monitors . It came with Windows 7, which up until now, I’ve never even seen, much less used. I did use Vista for a short time though and my opinion of it was pretty much “I can take it or leave it…so I’ll just go back to XP”. Windows 7 is similar to Vista in many ways, but so far I have found it to be much less annoying and more usable (with a few tweaks here and there). I was surprised to find that some of the wad editing utilities I had trouble with in Vista were no problem at all in Windows 7. Getting everything transferred and setup has been pretty uneventful save for a few niggles here and there. I did have to reformat/reinstall everything when I first got the computer since I was locked out because of the previous owner’s password, but that wasn’t a big deal. Really the only thing I don’t like about it thus far is the terrible flat-keyed keyboard, although I am getting use to it now. I’ll probably end up buying a new keyboard anyways though . There may be a potential issue in the future regarding the video card; I’m pretty sure it’s one of those integrated Intel cards. I did run Team Fortress 2 with it’s default graphic settings and it seemed to do ok. Although I don’t really own or play any games that would really require a beastly card…but I’d like to have the option available to me if I decide I want to in the future. I looked briefly at some graphics cards at Best Buy the other day but I’m really hesitant to purchase one until I can get some advice from someone more knowledgeable about those things. Ideally I’d like to get something that is going to do everything the Intel card is doing so far and thensome. Here are some shots of the computers specs taken with Speccy:

Incidentally, I am still looking into selling my laptop. If anyone reading this is interested, drop me a post or an email. It’s an Alienware Aurora M9700. It’s not quite 3 years old, still has a few months left on it’s warranty, and is in excellent (but used) condition. Not to mention I’ve kept every single accessory, piece of paperwork, etc for it. I’m not sure what medium would be best for selling it…maybe ebay or craigslist? But anyways, I’ll be happy to go into more depth on it’s specs and condition if someone is interested . Also I’d be very appreciative if someone could help me out on figuring out what kind of graphics card I could get for this Asus computer (if I can get one at all, that is). By the way, now that I’m pretty much settled into this new machine, I should be starting back up on my various projects again very soon.

TL;DR – Yay, I got a new computer!

Well not a whole lot has been going on in my little Doom world. Atleast not anything worth noting in the ole Mekablog. Since I finished Vela Pax MAP03, I’ve been working on a few things here and there; Jimmy91′s CC4 map, some textures for Supplice, and some other small things. Other than that, though, things have felt pretty slow and uneventful. I’m guessing that will all pass once I start back up on Vela Pax.

So in the meantime, here’s a new list of games I’m looking forward to getting

- Golden Sun DS [DS]
- Pokemon Black/White [DS]
- Nanostray 2 [DS]
- Halo 3 ODST (hoping to get this one pretty cheap)
- Halo: Reach (this one looks pretty cool actually…one of the very few console games I somewhat enjoy)
- Crackdown 2

Also I really wish Nintendo would port Cave Story to the DS. It’s the perfect little platformer to play on the go…in fact it’s a perfect little game period. I keep waiting for the day they make it available as DSi-ware. Well one can dream anyways

A few days ago, I finished up this map I have been working on for my latest side project, Vela Pax. And lemme tell ya, it is a beast of a map. Once I got the layout done and started working on gameplay and thing placements, I had to fight with the 65536 SEGS limit the whole time. It was somewhat of a pain, but in the end it didn’t hurt the detailing or gameplay of the map. This map took me just over a month to finish (breaks and laziness included, of course).

The name of the map is Substruct. It’s the third map out of six in the Vela Pax episode and it’s detailed and themed in a techbase/industrial setting. It will be the final techbase-style map before you start to delve into more gothic and hell themed maps in the latter part of the episode. The map is somewhere between medium and hard in difficulty and it will probably take the average player over an hour to finish in it’s entirety. The gameplay is about as non-linear as you can get; you can run around 95% of the entire map without having to open up areas and do things in any order you wish. Although because of this, certain routes may be easier or harder depending on where you wonder to and what weapons and items are available to you.

As promised, here are the final screenshots for Substruct:

From this point I will be working on Jimmy91′s CC4 map and some Supplice-related stuff (namely some graphic and DEHACKED related things). I want to finish up the CC4 map before I move onto anything else with Vela Pax. I’m hoping it won’t take me very long to do.

As far as what’s planned for the future construction of Vela Pax, I’m planning on doing my update and expansion of my recently released speedmap Dominion of Madness next (I’m going to rename it for this, but I’m not sure to what at the moment). It will be the 5th map in the episode and will get a face lift, probably a hefty number of new areas, and maybe some gameplay flow changes. If you’ve played the original map before, or if you want to give it a spin now, I’m really looking for some more feedback on it’s gameplay as a whole so I can reflect it on the updated version. I will eventually be looking for some dedicated testers, so let me know if your interested.

I am somewhat pleased with how my non-linear approach to Substruct came out. For the remaining maps, I’m thinking I will inject some more of this non-linear, open-ended style of mapping, although maybe not to the same extreme extent. I’d also like to keep the playtime to an average of 30-45 minutes long, although longer wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing in my book as long as the map is interesting enough to keep the player engaged for that length of time. I’d also like to try and not get so blasted close to that SEGS limit again, but knowing me I will probably go nuts with those other maps just like I did with this one . Theme-wise, it’s basically being split up into two mini-episodes; techbase for the first 3 and hell for the latter 3. Although I’m planning on having them varied; for instance, MAP01 will be very techbase while MAP02 will start to get into more heavy industrial. MAP04 is planned to be a sort of city-scape slowing being taken over by hell while MAP06 will be your garden variety Hell with lots and lots of red, lava, flesh, and copious amounts of demonic hordes. This is the plan right now anyways

Lastly, I got my Wads in Progress page up for Vela Pax, so check that out if your interested. Thanks to everyone who has commented and helped me out so far! I’m enjoying myself working on this project and I hope that will be a reflection of things to come for Supplice

Been doing it almost all week. Yup

Also, MAP03 of Vela Pax is almost done. Screenshots will come sometime soon.

Sorry guys, just isn’t gonna work out