Enjay
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Creaphis said:
I think we have a slight philosophical difference here.
Probably. :D
Creaphis said:
A distinction can be drawn between "mapping that the mapper most enjoys" and "mapping that leads to quality content," and unfortunately, these do not always overlap. I tend to be more supportive of the second variety.
No arguments there.
Creaphis said:
You're right, it doesn't matter whether a simple trap is made with ZDoom or with vanilla techniques. It doesn't really matter whether monsters appear from a room full of monsters and teleport lines or from a scripted command. But what does matter, if the person is planning to release their work, is whether the resulting fight is fun and interesting for a third-party.
Agreed.
Creaphis said:
New mappers can learn to produce better content if they begin with Doom or Boom-format mapping, and attempt to produce interesting visuals and compelling gameplay within that environment.
Nope, can't agree with that statement though. Or rather, it is presented almost as if starting with Doom format necessarily leads to better maps and, conversely, implies that starting with an "advanced" port necessarily means worse maps and I can't see that as a proven link at all.
So, perhaps they might learn to produce better content if they start with Doom format but I would suggest that they might learn to produce better content if they don't start with Doom format. I don't think the format necessarily means better content one way or another.
If the argument holds true, then surely we'd all be better off learning to map with Wolfenstein even if our goal is to produce a map for Doom3. Hey, maybe that isn't such a bad idea after all. ;)
Creaphis said:
In the nooby ZDoom mapping that I previously complained about, I imagine that the mapper's mind is being carried away from those ideals by thoughts like Oh! I could totally make some imps spawn all at once in this square room, and the ceiling could be a slope, and I could add new weapons that are super powerful, and monsters with like a bajillion hits, and etc. The glut of options in advanced ports encourages new mappers to get overzealous in their use of them, distracting them from what's necessary to make a map that's actually good. This is why I feel that mappers should begin by getting down in the dirt and mapping for the basic engines.
I'd say that now we are getting down to matters of taste. Is a nooby map with some poorly executed Doom features any better than a nooby map with some poorly executed Zdoom features? How is the noob mapping you mention any different to the "my furst map" with 500 Nazis and a Cyberdemon in a room "because it's kewl"? You seem to be saying that the format not having as many possibilities is almost like a safety valve to prevent mappers making over zealous errors of judgement with what they produce. I'd suggest that new mappers are going to make those mistakes anyway and the mistakes being either Doom format ones, or pointless Zdoom ones both detract from the map in equal measure and the first few maps are likely to have some pretty big errors. If the mapper makes both Doom errors and Zdoom errors in the same map - well so what? The map was pretty awful anyway but with any chance lessons may have been learned about both types of error. I don't see that keeping the mapper in the kindergarten of Doom format mapping and not allowing them to play with the big boys toys would be particularly helpful. In fact, it might make things worse. Imagine the noob who makes all the vanilla mistakes and then moves on to an advanced engine only to go through a second phase of "wow, I can do kewl stuff". Perhaps it would be better to get that out of the way in one go?
Creaphis said:
Also, to extend what Essel stated earlier, a problem with mapping for ZDoom is that it's "forgiving." I'd like to use a personal example here; in a mapset that I recently playtested, I noticed that many switches were accessible before they were supposed to be, because they were only blocked by thin raised floors. On one occasion, pressing a switch too soon made a level completely impassable. The author declared this as a Boom compatible wad, but did all his testing with advanced ports that limit the vertical reach of the player. So, when I pointed out this issue, the mapper's response was an accusation that the port I was testing with was buggy. No, new mappers need to map AND test within older engines (or at least new engines set to behave as old engines) so that they can get a grasp of how the game actually works.
Clearly, in that case, the mistake was declaring the map was Boom compatible. It wasn't. It was Zdoom compatible. Yes, the mapper should have tested in other ports (or at least believed your bug report) and fixed any issues if they were going to say it was a Boom compat map. If they only tested it in one port, then they can only make claims about it running with that port. New mappers, no - any mappers, need to test their maps in the ports they say the map is compatible with. The mistake was not making a Zdoom map. The mistake was assuming the map would run equally well in all ports that support Boom line types and then declaring that it did without checking. It's not just Zdoom that has differences in how certain situations are handled and a blanket "Boom compat" statement should only be made if the map has been checked and verified with most, if not all, the accepted Boom compat ports. With so many slight and subtle variations as to how the different Boom compat maps do things, Boom compatibility is almost like an "average" of how the different ports handle the various situations - and a map needs to be checked thoroughly and either made to work with all the appropriate ports, or simply declared as compatible with the ones where it behaves as intended.
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06-05-08 21:41 
