Would this bug you?

I'm designing some vanilla maps that will have three source port features: limit removing, jumping (only one of the maps), and .ogg music files. This means that you'll have to play them in Zdoom or a source port that supports these three features, despite the fact that no other features would be used (such as slopes or colored lighting). Is this something that would bother you, or does it not matter? I'm worried about having these "needless" features, but I really want to use high quality music, and the map with the jumping utilizes it in a fun way, although I can remove the feature and just have stairs.

I gotta say from a pure gut-reaction perspective, I'm usually turned off by wads that require jumping. I just play around (as in circumlocute) that section, and if a jump is absolutely required I'll either stop playing or skip to the next level.

I don't think you should compromise your vision if you really want to make use of jumping. And I think it's great that you're warning people ahead of time. The worst is when a player is surprised by the feature's inclusion, or even worse, unsure if it's what's required to progress. That all said, a quality mapper like yourself can probably get away with it while retaining a fairly large audience.

Personally, I can never shake the feeling that jumping = cheating. Even if it's part of the wad.

I think a majority of doomers nowadays use zdoom, so you're probably fine.


I'm kind of a dick and only play boom-compat things, but I'm undoubtedly a minority, so pay no attention to me.

Now that I think about it, I can't name many maps where jumping is used in some interesting ways. Usually you just need it to climb to a building or something but it doesn't really affect the gameplay that much. So if you say you have something fun, I'd like to see it.

If someone refuses to play a map just because of a minor level thing like jumping, then fuck 'em.

But for Christ's sake, make it clear that you have to do these things, be it in the text file or whatever. There's nothing worse than fucking around and needlessly looking for the way forward when it requires something 'unconventional' like jumping, especially if the map is vanilla-compatible in architecture and content.

BaronOfStuff said:

If someone refuses to play a map just because of a minor level thing like jumping, then fuck 'em.

But for Christ's sake, make it clear that you have to do these things, be it in the text file or whatever. There's nothing worse than fucking around and needlessly looking for the way forward when it requires something 'unconventional' like jumping, especially if the map is vanilla-compatible in architecture and content.

This.
It's not worth making drastic changes to your map layout and your original idea just because it should be played by Chocolate Doom fanatic purists. "Don't like it, don't play it" can be applied here. Just make clear on the txt how the map is intended to be played.

I agree with what BaronOfStuff and Sergeant_Mark_IV said.

My advice is : have fun making what you're doing.
Just explain how your wad is supposed to be played.

Would your map suffer from visplane overflow if it was run in DOS? If not, I'd say 2 alternate versions - One with .OGG's and Jumping for Zdoom, and one with stairs and MIDIs for vanilla, would be a nice idea. If it's a lot of trouble though, just go with zDoom specific. There are a lot more zDoom (or Zdoom-based port) players than us old DOS assholes. ;)

Just use the features you need, as long as you tell people what sourceport and settings are required for your WAD.

Okay, thanks for the advice, guys! My main concern was that someone loading up a zdoom wad would expect to find slopes and other goodies, then wonder why it feels like a vanilla wad.

esselfortium said:

Just use the features you need, as long as you tell people what sourceport and settings are required for your WAD.

This. 100 times this. So long as everything's clearly stated in the text file, I don't care if your wad require crouching, jumping, or X-ray vision... well, that last one might be tricky, but otherwise we're all good.

I hate using mouselook myself, on account of never using a mouse to play Doom. I can dig jumping and crouching though. :)

Only keep in mind: If your level require jumping, people will play it with ZDoom, and ZDoom also supports crouching! So if you are taking jumping into account, you should take into account crouching as well. (for example, there was a map in KDiZD, I think Z1M6, which let me to crouch out of the window to a locked-yet location)

To your question, it wouldn't bother me, just do what essel said.

crouching can be disabled in MAPINFO

GoatLord said:

Okay, thanks for the advice, guys! My main concern was that someone loading up a zdoom wad would expect to find slopes and other goodies, then wonder why it feels like a vanilla wad.

I was under the assumption that this is how most people felt. The opinion that the inclusion of just a few port features "doesn't justify having to suffer playing the wad in zdoom" and that if the wad could be "primitified" with minor alterations but isn't and requires a more "advanced" port than it feels like it should require then the wad is worse for it honestly seemed very widespread. I'm pleasantly surprised by the response of this thread!

Funnily enough, I admit that I think I'd be bothered if a wad required jumping only at one certain spot, because it would feel pointless, like if you make jumping mandatory you'd better make more use of it, or if you can't then just remove it outright. But hey, that probably wouldn't actually impede my enjoyment of a wad so go ahead and really just do what you want to.

One thing to bare in mind though is that jumping is different in many ports. In ZDoom you can jump further than say Doomsday and massively further than say Doom Legacy.

You can jump in Eternity too.

Indeed, you can jump in more ports than those three. I was just offering those three as examples (hence why I said 'say'; I was using the word in place of 'for instance').

You can jump in vanilla, too. You just have to type in 'idclip' first, hehe. :P

Anyway, yeah, ZDoom is cool. Although I always found the gravity a little too high in most wads. But I am an unabashed bunny-hopper.

Memfis said:

Now that I think about it, I can't name many maps where jumping is used in some interesting ways. Usually you just need it to climb to a building or something but it doesn't really affect the gameplay that much. So if you say you have something fun, I'd like to see it.

I missed this post before, but out of curiosity, did you ever play the "Surf's Up" map from Mandrill Ass Project? I only ask because it kind of had a FPS/Platform element to it that was just silly enough to make me smile... I don't know, did you ever play Shadows of the Empire? It has a lot of the same elements as the level that you fought IG88 on.

What essel said.

Personally I loathe jumping in Doom, but .ogg files dont bother me, as I use prboom+ anyway (I assume its supported?)

Sure, if you need to require "jump-key" jumping to achieve the style of gameplay you want, then you should do so. You're limiting your audience (and greatly reducing the chance of demos being recorded on your map), but that's preferable to limiting your creative desires.

If you are keen to have the map remain playable without the jump key, then you could include alternative routes that don't require it (but which perhaps require different skills and/or tricks).

I wouldn't go so far as to say it would bug me, but unless it was obvious that jumping was required in your wad, it may raise questions as to why you didn't make it for a more universal source port like boom or limit removing.

I'm not trying to make a contention here, I don't really have any evidence off-hand, but from my observations in the community, I think that's something you could expect.

Does Boom support .ogg? Any others besides Zdoom? I could make a MAP02 that is the exact same thing but with no jumping required.

GoatLord said:

I could make a MAP02 that is the exact same thing but with no jumping required.

Your call, but it is sounding like the above is the way to go. Unless jumping is a common requirement for navigating all the maps it'll definitely present a barrier for players to work out/understand.

If you think of how much jumping was used to access different areas etc in Duke3D I'd say that is a fair watermark for it's implementation.

GoatLord said:

Does Boom support .ogg? Any others besides Zdoom?

I believe Doomsday, PRBoom+, Risen3D, Vavoom, EDGE, Odamex, GZDoom, Zandronum do.

Not sure about other ports. But it's a pretty common feature. Obviously, Doomsday is off the list if you also want Boom support.

I've been thinking about the jump mechanics of the map and am realizing how similarly gameplay would be without it. I may just remove it, I'm not sure. The way it's set up, there aren't alt routes, so you necessarily HAVE to jump.