ICARUS: ALIEN VANGUARD text file 22 March 1996 Contents: 1. Announcement 2. Installation 3. Troubleshooting 4. System requirements 5. Where to find files 6. How to get help 7. Some legalities --------------- 1. ANNOUNCEMENT --------------- TeamTNT proudly announces the release of +------------------------+ | Icarus: Alien Vanguard | +------------------------+ Icarus is a whole new set of 32 DOOM II levels from TeamTNT. It is now available on ftp.cdrom.com and its mirrors. See below for the exact path. Icarus has 32 levels that are excellent for single and cooperative play, but we didn't forget the Deathmatchers of the world, either! We've taken extra steps to make sure that every level is an exceptional Deathmatch level so that after you're done playing it alone, you can go through Icarus again and waste your buddies. Some maps have special features, and others reduce the level size for Deathmatch. In all cases, though, you'll know we had Deathmatch in mind when we made Icarus. And no more days of filtering through all the junky DM levels on the 'net. You'll wonder what happened to the weekend when you play Icarus. Features: - 32 never before seen levels - All new music (not CD and movie rips--the word is _new_) - Over 200 completely new textures - Cohesive theme and storyline - Deathmatch designed in - All difficulty levels - All in one WAD -- no complicated startup - Designed for DOOM version 1.9 - Demos available for versions 1.666 and 1.7 - It's by 25 TeamTNT members, so you know it's good - Startup batch file included --------------- 2. INSTALLATION --------------- Icarus comes in one WAD file, zipped into one ZIP file. You'll need PKUNZIP.EXE or an equivalent unzipping utility to unpack ICARUS.ZIP. This will produce ICARUS.WAD and ICARUS.BAT (and another copy of this file). Just unzip it into your DOOM2 directory and run ICARUS.BAT. Press Enter at the prompt in DOOM, and crank the music up. Floppy download: If you had to download the floppy-sized parts of the ICARUS.ZIP file, you'll end up with ICARZIP.1, ICARZIP.2 and ICARZIP.BAT. Just copy all that to your DOOM2 directory, run ICARZIP.BAT, and then you'll have ICARUS.ZIP and can follow the instructions above. Note that once you're sure ICARUS.ZIP has been correctly created, you can delete the three ICARZIP files. ------------------ 3. TROUBLESHOOTING ------------------ Not much can go wrong, since this is just one WAD file. However, since not much can go wrong, something might, and maybe a few steps here will help. a. First, verify that ICARUS.BAT and ICARUS.WAD are in your DOOM2 directory, and that you are in that directory when you type ICARUS. b. Spell ICARUS right. c. If it starts up and crashes with a message similar to "Demo is from a different version" then you're not running DOOM2 version 1.9. Preferably, upgrade your DOOM2, but if you can't or won't, we're also providing a replacement for the demos for versions 1.666 and 1.7. Look where you got ICARUS for the appropriate ZIP file named ICDEMOnn.ZIP where nn is 16 or 17 for version 1.666 or 1.7, whichever you have. If your DOOM version is earlier than 1.666, you'll need to upgrade or ICARUS likely will not work anyway. Your DOOM2 version number will appear at the top of the screen while DOOM2 is initializing. You'll also get ICARUSnn.BAT with the demo file (nn=same number as in ICDEMOnn.ZIP) and that'll run DOOM2 with all the main ICARUS.WAD and the demos loaded. d. If you notice that the full-screen intermission texts (like between MAP06 and MAP07) don't make sense any more, or that the automap names don't match the level names, that's because we chose to honor id Software's wish that we not alter their DOOM2.EXE file, and that's where that stuff is stored. ---------------------- 4. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ---------------------- A computer that will play DOOM2 well. Some of the levels are pretty large, and we've found that the bigger the better (but you knew that). We did do (painful) testing on a 486/33 with 4MB of RAM, so we know that it will run, but it's going to be excruciatingly slow in spots (kind of like DOOM2 is). You'll like it better if you have a good sound card, and you will probably find that there's no way to get all the secrets without some sort of sound card. The WAD file is a bit under 10MB, and you'll need about 15MB free available during unzipping. Any other requirements (modem, network stuff) are no different than if you were running DOOM2 without ICARUS. --------------------- 5. WHERE TO GET FILES --------------------- Icarus: Alien Vanguard was uploaded to ftp.cdrom.com at 12:01 AM on Friday, March 22, 1996. It will be moved to its own directory: and will be propagated to the cdrom.com mirrors after that. We expect to also upload it over the few days following that date, to Compuserve, AOL, Fidonet and possibly some others. As of this writing, only ftp.cdrom.com has it, and that's the place you can be guaranteed to find the most recent version. So, FTP to ftp.cdrom.com and look in directory (mixed case) /pub/doom2/themes/TeamTNT There will be one single .ZIP file for those who can download that. There will be a 2-part .ZIP file and a batch file to assemble the parts for people who need to fit it on floppies. Check the file ICFILES.TXT in the TeamTNT directory for details about each of the files. ------------------ 6. HOW TO GET HELP ------------------ If it's about DOOM2 itself, contact id Software. If it's about ICARUS, don't contact id Software. Icarus questions can be handled by other players on the usenet newsgroups, various forums on Compuserve and other services, and by TeamTNT by email. Either write to us at info@teamtnt.com or go to our web page at We'll be putting a FAQ out too, and that'll answer some of the more common questions, and we'll also be setting up a set of hints on our web page that will allow you to "drill" to only the information you want, and not accidentally see more than you intended to. The hint pages should be up in a week or so after the initial release. ------------------ 7. SOME LEGALITIES ------------------ Icarus: Alien Vanguard is a copyrighted work and though free is not public property ("public domain"). Don't take stuff out of our levels, and don't take our levels out of Icarus. Icarus should have been free to you (connection times and stuff notwithstanding) and shouldn't have shown up on someone's DM collection or CD. If it does, let us know right away. We thank you for trying Icarus. Let us know what you think about it. When the Final DOOM product gets released by id Software, grab a copy and tell us what you think of our other 32-level work called Evilution. Meanwhile, we're done with Icarus, and are off to work on another project. Let's see....Hexen...Quake... Icarus: Alien Vanguard and associated files are (C) Copyright 1996 TeamTNT ///End of file