BF_THUD!.wad: Redux! claim some maps!

I would like to start by expressing my motivation for this project. I was very impressed by Christen David Klie's creativity and sense of scale, but was very turned off by his insistence for novelty at every turn. IMHO his clear intention to constantly push the envelope of creativity ultimately sunk his otherwise spiffy ship. So I propose we rebuild the maps preserving his great sense of space and scale while trying to improve on all the envelope-pushing stuff so that the maps flow better.

Perhaps we could look to the original doom 1 maps as a guiding principle for flow and ease of navigation.

A very gracious thank you to Mapslinger for granting permission to modify his BF_THUD! as a separate (but naturally similar) wad file.

Mapslots available to be claimed:

MAP01
MAP02
MAP03 Cosmic Mischief
MAP04
MAP05
MAP06
MAP07
MAP08
MAP09
MAP10
MAP11
MAP12
MAP13
MAP14
MAP15
MAP16
MAP17
MAP18
MAP19
MAP20
MAP21
MAP22
MAP23
MAP24
MAP25
MAP26
MAP27
MAP28
MAP29


How about instead we draw inspiration from Klie's excellent creativity and sense of scale to make some new maps similar to his, focusing on his solid sense of scale and the better parts of his creativity and focusing on maps that flow well? I like puzzles and traps and challenges, but they have to be done in a non-tedious way.

huh? Did you get his permission? I liked BF_THUD already.

Edit: oh, I see in the other thread that this remake will be built from scratch. I don't see a problem with that. But I still like BF_THUD as it is and don't want to participate in a remake that disses the original and takes out the "creativity".

It could simply be an in the spirit of "bf_thud" affair.

_bruce_ said:

It could simply be an in the spirit of "bf_thud" affair.

sure.

TimeOfDeath said:

oh, I see in the other thread that this remake will be built from scratch. I don't see a problem with that. But I still like BF_THUD as it is and don't want to participate in a remake that disses the original and takes out the "creativity".

Agree entirely.
If you take out all the things which made it annoying and concentrated on the architectural side, you would just end up with any other decent late 90's wad, sort of shortened version of memento mori or something. I don't think you could call it a BF_THUD remake if it didn't have the switch hunts etc in it.
One thing you can do is improve the level design which will help with making the annoying areas of the wad more enjoyable.

Honestly guys, there wasn't too much to the architecture at all, and as ToD said BF Thud was good as is. Just my two cents (and as was pointed out somewhere else): you'd be better served getting inspiration from Klie's ideas and concepts and creating levels from scratch following the themes of the iwad level names. Good luck with whatever you choose to do, though.

cannonball said:

Agree entirely.
If you take out all the things which made it annoying and concentrated on the architectural side, you would just end up with any other decent late 90's wad, sort of shortened version of memento mori or something.

Just a minor point, but BF_Thud is actually a mid 90's wad, the original version being released in '94 (it was released so soon after Doom 2 came out because many of the maps are from the even earlier chrisk.wad for the original Doom).

NiGHTMARE said:

Just a minor point, but BF_Thud is actually a mid 90's wad, the original version being released in '94 (it was released so soon after Doom 2 came out because many of the maps are from the even earlier chrisk.wad for the original Doom).

Yes, but I think his point was that a remake would result in a late 90s feeling wad.

I'm amazed there's still interest in BF_THUD after so many years.

EDIT: Hellbent, if you and other community members want to use BF_THUD as a foundation for building an updated version, that's totally okay with me, provided due credit is given, and provided my original versions of the .wad remain unaltered and freely available on the various download sites.

Does this help?

- Chris.

Mapslinger said:

I'm amazed there's still interest in BF_THUD after so many years.

I saw what you did there...

Nice to see you still keeping tabs on the community!

Mapslinger said:

I'm amazed there's still interest in BF_THUD after so many years.

Originally I wanted to edit your maps to remove some of the traps and puzzles and improve the flow, but preserve everything else that's nice about them, but then I revised the project idea to avoid violating "copyright laws" on your wad. But since you're here to ask, would you be okay with various doomers on here modifying your BF_THUD!? I think your text file says you would not be okay with it, but maybe since so many years have gone by your feelings on the matter might be different now?

EDIT: oh, look at that. Wonderful mapslinger. Yes, of course the text file would stress that you are the original author of BF_THUD! and would encourage people to download and play the original (so our modified version would hopefully bring more interest back to your original). Your original wouldn't be touched. We'd give the 'updated version' a new file name.

LOL. I've edited that post about 40 million times over the past several hours. I want to give Hellbent and cohorts permission to use BF_THUD as a foundation for creating a better version, but I wanted to make sure my language protects my original versions.

Not that I should worry. The Doom community has a strong history of being very courteous to wad authors, and respecting their wishes.

I edited my last post as well:

oh, look at that. Wonderful mapslinger. Yes, of course the text file would stress that you are the original author of BF_THUD! and would encourage people to download and play the original (so our modified version would hopefully bring more interest back to your original). Your original wouldn't be touched. We'd give the 'updated version' a new file name.

So are we on the same page, then?

EDIT: we could of course also have you play the updated version and get your approval to share it before uploading it to /idgames or other places.

Sorry I've convoluted this thread by editing my comments about 5,000 times. Hellbent, yes, please feel free to move forward with an updated version of BF_THUD per the conditions/requests I've already outlined. Yes, I want to protect my stuff, but the notion of an updated version is very appealing. Sort of an honor, really.

Hellbent, to reply to you directly, yes I am fine with the update per the conditions you and I have articulated.

Somehow I feel all of my edited posts have created a temporal anomaly.

Heh, okay great. I will edit the first post now.

I want MAP03. Nay, I need it.

ComicMischief said:

I want MAP03. Nay, I need it.

LOL - I presume you're referring to that disgusting switch hunt.

Up until the switch-hunt, it's a good and fast-paced map; presuming the player doesn't cheat and 'switch' the final one as it's still in the ground. What's wrong with the idea of making this cheating not possible (will require a from-scratch map) and teleporting in more monsters for every switch?

Also, a few less of them. Just a few, mind. I'd love to tackle that. :)

ComicMischief said:

Up until the switch-hunt, it's a good and fast-paced map; presuming the player doesn't cheat and 'switch' the final one as it's still in the ground. What's wrong with the idea of making this cheating not possible (will require a from-scratch map) and teleporting in more monsters for every switch?

Also, a few less of them. Just a few, mind. I'd love to tackle that. :)

Whatever you guys decide. I like the idea of spawning more monsters with each switch.

If it's okay with everyone, maybe more of the mid-range monsters. Not going crazy with them, but BF_THUD had a large bias toward cannon fodder, and if the focus here is going to be more about combat, monster choice should reflect this. :)

So how does this work Hellbent, do we modify the existing maps to modern quality while preserving the layout stylizing? I'd be down to do a couple of maps at any rate.

What I envisioned when I first had the idea for modifying the maps was to edit the existing maps to make them play more smoothly--less frustratingly--by removing a lot of the novelty design aspects to the wad, such as the switch hunts and the crusher on map01 and things like that. What I was really impressed by BF_THUD! was the excellent scale and very creative architecture--the design of the maps as far as the maps as structures. In simple terms I'd like to see the levels edited, not built from scratch, so that they have gameplay similar to doom 1 (real smooth navigation--easy to navigate--no novel traps, and not too many novel puzzles).

By novel I mean like. it's a really original thing that MapSlinger did, but not necessarily that fun.

Does that make sense? I have a confession to make--I haven't played most of the maps. I quit after map04: I really liked the starting area of the map--the design-the-scale--but the lifts dropping down to blocked areas was frustrating and the remainder of the map taking place over so much slime was also annoying to me. I later jumped to other maps that had good reviews and wouldn't necessarily tweak them very much. I think there was one map that was dominated by blood passageways and you could only grab one of the two rad suits released by a switch--

I mean, some people expressed that they'd like to see the novel aspects kept in tact. That's fine, then maybe just improve upon them for a more mass-appeal.

EDIT: What I don't want to see is people trying to improve the detailing or architecture, as I think they are top notch as is and are the parts of the maps I really like and should be preserved.

Oh, and improving the item placement to be perhaps more traditional and to match modern difficulties.

There's a lot of novel/creative stuff that isn't annoying and I think should be preserved.

cannonball said:

Agree entirely.
If you take out all the things which made it annoying and concentrated on the architectural side, you would just end up with any other decent late 90's wad, sort of shortened version of memento mori or something. I don't think you could call it a BF_THUD remake if it didn't have the switch hunts etc in it.
One thing you can do is improve the level design which will help with making the annoying areas of the wad more enjoyable.

Okay, after playing through level 5 and part of level 6 I see what you mean. All these maps are puzzle maps. that's the main theme of them. So maybe improving the puzzles should be the goal, and I should scratch everything I've written up to this point on my proposed 'remake'.

You better decide what you want to do! But here is some of my ideas.

#1 - Update the map format to Boom the reason being if you want to improve puzzles Voodoo dolls are definitely an asset and updating to this format won't damage existing configurations.

#2 - Re-align existing architecture

#3 - Still keep within vanilla limits to maintain consistency.

#4 - Modify each map by doubling each map with new areas implemented and re-choreograph each map.

Skimming over these maps some interesting design earmarks.

- Don't use the curve tool, these maps manually create circles with an 8px and 16px grid

- Use of rounded rooms is a pro-dominate style on a lot of maps again use manual rounding!

- A lot of the designs appear to start from small square sectors then are expanded by placing verticies

- A lot of doorways are offset on side with the height set to 96px

- There seems to be fair consideration put in when designing rooms ensuring line lengths matching a multiple of texture widths

- There is considerable copy and paste on some maps

- A lot of brightness levels are on a 5 level gradient scale (140, 145, 150) etc I did notice some other levels 143 for instance

- There is not really a lot in the way of high rooms most rooms are 64, 128, 256 with other heights in between these there are a few maps with greater heights

kmxexii said:

I saw what you did there...

Nice to see you still keeping tabs on the community!

Yeah, I like to check in from time to time. :-)

Pottus said:

Skimming over these maps some interesting design earmarks.

[...]

- A lot of brightness levels are on a 5 level gradient scale (140, 145, 150) etc I did notice some other levels 143 for instance

In vanilla and most other ports, a light level of 140 or 143 is going to be drawn identically to 128, and 145 and 150 are both going to be drawn identically to 144. This is a mistake made in a lot of older maps (it's in a bunch of AV.WAD levels as well), and it's not worth replicating: it wastes segs and visplanes for absolutely no visible effect, and doesn't give the results you'd expect at all.

Should we really not improve the architecture? As long as it's vanilla-compatible and totally recognisable as a remake, I don't suppose it would matter, right?

If not, I don't know how interested I'd be in participating, to be honest.

esselfortium said:

In vanilla and most other ports, a light level of 140 or 143 is going to be drawn identically to 128, and 145 and 150 are both going to be drawn identically to 144. This is a mistake made in a lot of older maps (it's in a bunch of AV.WAD levels as well), and it's not worth replicating: it wastes segs and visplanes for absolutely no visible effect, and doesn't give the results you'd expect at all.

I kind of figured that even though I've really never tested it, I would assume in today's ports however these light levels would show up though? Or would they default to the nearest level?

id used 255 a lot, but 240 would have been 'neat'er.

Well, I'm not sure what should be done with this project. Some of the levels are pretty cheeky, like map07 and the beginning of map08. My only reservation of doing a mapset from scratch in the spirit of BF_THUD! is that it will fall short of the original in spirit, even if it is more playable. I guess we could just stick to the plan of editing each map to make them more playable. I think this will mean some maps will not need very much at all done to them, while other maps could perhaps be redone from scratch (like map07). What say yous? Does Chris Klie / MapSlinger have any preferences?

ComicMischief said:

Should we really not improve the architecture? As long as it's vanilla-compatible and totally recognisable as a remake, I don't suppose it would matter, right?

If not, I don't know how interested I'd be in participating, to be honest.

What is your idea of improving architecture? I like the simple/sparse architecture. I don't see the reason for making it like everything else out there.. If you can improve the architecture while keeping it distinct, I suppose I'd be open to it. But it seems like it might be adding clutter and drawing emphasis away from the unique aspect of the maps that should be at the heart of the project.