Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch | Forum - 🏨 Community Hotel Reborn🏨

Due to how weird this ComHotel update can be to many peoples, i think that this particular thread should start with me, Past Legionary, explaining how and why it happened in the first place.

As everyone may or may not know, i am the one responsible for the big "mm8bdm_all_map_packs.pk3" file circulating around the MM8BDM community, while a huge debate about memory leaks was happening at the time because of it, talking to the prominent MM8BDM modder "Binary" through Discord, in order to compile the biggest amount of map packs into it, we came accross the ComHotel project which apparently wasn't made with the new ZDoom file structure in mind. Therefore, causing memory leaks and many other problems both for servers and clients.

Considering the disappearance of the original creator of the ComHotel project which was Geekie for around two (2) whole years and the fact that literally every piece of media about it was pretty much destroyed by her on her disappearance, including its official Discord community, i've had the idea to talk to other peoples involved within the ComHotel project's creation to try and get permission to not only polish the project for MM8BDM V6B and future versions, but also continue its development. Why? Because it would be a shame in my opinion as a MM8BDM modder and player to simply let such a big, well known and nostalgic project die just because of an unfortunate choice that may or may not have been caused by varied means.

Unfortunately, while trying to talk or managing to talk to some rather important members of the ComHotel project, what came clear to me is that apparently no one has interest on continuing its development anymore and they also wouldn't care if the project got modified because apparently, Geekie, who is the original creator of the project was the unique person on the team holding powers to allow or disallow such thing. So, as you can see, it falls in a very complicated void.

However, HilMan who was probably the most important member other than Geekie on the original ComHotel development team has given me permissions to keep this project under TNTPT's portfolio and allow us to edit the project as we see fit, as long as it respects the previous owner Geekie's visions for the project.

Knowing that, i had to plan an update to it that would fix all of its issues, respect what the original creator Geekie would want for the project and that would also do what the community and the players would want for the project. With that in mind, i had to study both "ch8.87.pk3" and "ch8.88.pk3", after doing that, i noticed that while "ch8.88.pk3" was what the original creator Geekie wanted for the project, "ch8.87.pk3" is what the community wanted for the project, so in order to make all that work, i had to merge the decisions on both versions to achieve what i wanted.

Well, first i had to organize the project, both "ch8.87.pk3" and "ch8.88.pk3" had extremely unorganized lumps, folders, etc. Its impossible to work with something like that so it had to be done first. Then, after stuff got organized and correctly categorized on the right place, i started investing on making the file respect the new ZDoom file structure to prevent memory leaks, performance issues and many other problems. After that was made, a huge increase in performance was noticed on the map, textures and many other things would load faster and prevent major hiccups on the engine. But of course, not only because of that, but also because all textures and sprites within the project got through Slade 3's PNG optimizer program to reduce their size.

Things were going pretty well until i noticed how DECORATE was messed up, none
of the actors within the project were following MM8BDM V6B's methods in both
"ch8.87.pk3" and "ch8.88.pk3" so obviously i had to fix that and optimize the
actors, now all of them uses the correct Spawn function which is NoDelay. PickUp
items while respawning have MM8BDM V6B's item shadow and respawn delay counters
working correctly and all actors inherits from the right base ones at MM8BDM
V6B.

Most of ComHotel's global ACS codes were cut out on this version, all of them were unused, wouldn't be used by me and had tons of issues, so there was no reasons to tinker with them at all, the ACS codes that were kept, were necessary for certain things that are only found in ComHotel, the map itself, to work, i am talking about stuff that could be added in other maps such as items, power-ups, weapons, etc.

All issues within Ultimate Doom Builder's issue tracker were fixed, the ones that lasted are pretty much structural errors, why calling them that? Because if you fix them, a lot of things will break and it would take a lot of updates in order to address all of them which isn't worth it. Yeah... This is the part where you're supposed to laugh...

The scripts on the map itself are pretty much the same the original ComHotel team did for it, specifically for "ch8.87.pk3" which is the version this is based on. However, i've polished and organized the scripts on the map meaning they are easier to read, understand and develop while staying pretty much the same the original team did, some of them were removed for being unused, so if you find any skips in them, lets say, from script 11 to 13, that means 12 became unused and was removed, i actually wanted to make these numbered scripts named scripts to prevent conflicts, but considering no project nowadays uses numbered scripts anymore, and the fact that doing it will break the entire map, i find it very unnecessary at the moment, if whatever project you load with this uses numbered scripts, its their fault.

Now, while dealing with the codes, i had the idea to work on ComHotel's day and night cycles, dawn and dusk were added as there were already coding snippets of it on the original source, it was done to enhance the atmosphere of the map, upgrades also had to be done on the skybox to allow for that.

There were lots of bug fixes and upgrades around the map, mainly fixes on texture issues, the addition of posters around the hotel, etc. The coolest of them all is that old rooms and old secrets that got deleted from ComHotel long ago are now added back, following the new development logic of preservation.

While testing the map and everything i've done to it, i realized that the musics, while doing its job on the project, weren't really capturing the feeling of it, so i changed all of them, not only because of that reason, but because most of the musics the original creator Geekie added to the project were so heavily edited that many of them lost its quality over the years because of compression, and even after being compressed so much, they were still heavy in MBs making the project unnecessarily heavier while having bad sound quality. Just so everyone can understand, some of the tracks were in ComHotel since its first versions, i am talking about something that has more than a decade here. Now, i know that those musics are very nostalgic for a lot of people, but i hope that everyone understands that these two factors did not contribute for them to stay as they were. The new musics that were added and their names are described below:

ComHotel's day time musics:
CHDMUS1 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Nearly There.
CHDMUS2 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Nes-Tea Peach.
CHDMUS3 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Out Of Silence V2.
CHDMUS4 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Too Far Away.
CHDMUS5 = Jogeir Lildejahl - In The Mood.

ComHotel's night time musics:
CHNMUS1 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Signia.
CHNMUS2 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Keys To Imagination.
CHNMUS3 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Overture.
CHNMUS4 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Crystal Rain.
CHNMUS5 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Runes Of Virtue.

ComHotel's sewer musics:
CHSMUS01 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Physical Presence.
CHSMUS02 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Attributed Horror.
CHSMUS03 = Jogeir Lildejahl - Mystified.

Secret musics:
PALACE = Fumie Kumatani - Fakery Way ...for Twinkle Park.

After the map was done for, it was time to remove content that may cause me trouble which is user submitted content. Yeah, a lot of them had direct mentions to past contributors of ComHotel, something that "ch8.88.pk3" which is the latest version and the one that pretty much defines what the original creator Geekie wanted for the project got rid off, so i had to get rid of them too and literally everything that had these mentions to them such as room door names, textures, sprites, NPCs and many other things. There were also a lot of unused stuff on the project that would fit in this category, all of them got completely erased in this version, the unique thing that was kept from these past contributors are textures, actors and sprites that does not have a direct connection with them.

Yes, i know that many of these modifications removes the "community" aspect of the project. However, i think its important to mention that a lot of community work is still in this project in form of extremely awesome rooms, textures and actors made for them and the rest of ComHotel, every single one of these contents are now organized on their own lumps containing the nicknames of the users who contributed with them so we know who made what, so all the credits of these go towards them past contributors of ComHotel that are currently mentioned within the project's files.

User submitted content that makes direct connection with them will not be added into ComHotel anymore, stuff such as room doors with names and avatars, NPCs that are in reality a self insert of their own OCs, this won't be a thing anymore, ComHotel is not your average slop social media ok? What? You think that ComHotel is currently small and doesn't have enough rooms to explore? Then make a cool room for it so we have something like a mapping contest within this one map. What? Now you're feeling lonely on the map? Well, then make NPCs that are actual OCs from other games so you and others can talk to them. The new design philosophy for this topic on this project is to be some kind of FPS Super Smash Bros, not add in a random user that will probably never appear on the game anymore and thinks this is his "facebook" page or something.

MAP01, i bet most ComHotel players didn't know about that one in "ch8.87.pk3". Apparently, this map was about trying to create lore for ComHotel, trying to explain everything that the mod has and why things were the way they are. Thing is, it had to be removed in this version and the reason is quite simple: Because it looks like an unfinished product and patching MAP01 in Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch is not a good idea, Geekie probably wanted to work more on that as the map currently has some signs of it, such as randomly spread codes, etc. I didn't bother on figuring these out, so feel free to try that yourself if you want to. The secret on the normal ComHotel map for MAP01 which is named Palace is still in the game though good luck trying to find it!

Fishing is not compatible with this version of ComHotel because for some reason Fishing relied heavily in ComHotel's content, many of which had to be removed, the position of certain areas on the map also got changed to be better spread around the editor as many of the secrets and interior areas were extremely cramped into a single part of the editor table, which would cause players in an area to hear others in another area, this is bad so they had to be moved. Why does that matter? Because Fishing uses fixed point values to determine where certain stuff should happen or spawn in the map. Knowing all that, if you want Fishing to be compatible with this version of ComHotel you'll have to ask CutManMike who's the original creator of that project to adapt it to this newer version or for him to allow you to adapt it yourself.

This is, pretty much, your chance to be the hero! Bring Fishing back to life, adapt it to the new version of ComHotel and allow future generations to experience the mod. I would do this, but unfortunately, i am too busy with my own projects, including this one. Other members in TNTPT are currently all busy with their own things too, reducing the chances of the entirety of TNTPT to adapt this to 0%, literally.

This project is now currently under the protection of TNTPT and every topic about it should be talked about through the official contacting methods, for every content within this version and beyond, TNTPT's DISCLAIMER section is applied, that is, if you've previously contributed to any version of ComHotel and this contribution finds itself on this final version, the content you've made towards this project and its updates are now property of TNTPT and its owner (TNTPT) Past Legionary, the unique person who was involved with this update and the unique person who decided to invest on an abandonware project, the contents that are at the project right now are pretty much what is necessary for ComHotel to be what it is, its entangled in it so it cannot be removed, hope every past contributor understands that. This project will be fully returned to its original creator Geekie, and all of the content created by TNTPT members towards the ComHotel project will be given to the original creator Geekie's possession after the same comes back. TNTPT has currently too much projects to attend to and this was done merely because of the decision of a single member who is Past Legionary. With that out of the way, don't expect constant updates to it.

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