The /newstuff Chronicles #14

Five new WAD files in our weekly splurge of the new files found on CDROM.COM.

• Close Kill by Russell Pearson - A single deathmatch level for Doom 2. Deathmatch being its primary purpose, although there are a few monsters scattered throughout. Although rather small, good detail, good design. A nice looking deathmatch level.
  
• Tunnel Run by Russell Pearson - This is a fine, fine level. A single-player level for Doom 2, with extremely well-done detail. Superb light detail, and great ammo and health balance! It's a very large level, too. You should enjoy this map!
  
• ArenaLX by aMoEba - A single deathmatch map for Doom 2. Rather small, in a simply-designed area. Some colorful textures, although not too much detail. The entire level is rather dark, which can be an exciting twist! Try it out, see what you think of it.
  
• Nowhere by Andrew Gate - Nine deathmatch levels for Ultimate DOOM, sitting on episode three. These levels are from 1994, so detail is missing. There are some monsters in some of these levels, which could be a fun thing if people would start to consider playing deathmatch with monsters! There are some music changes, but overall, it's nothing special.
  
• The Final Geometry by Rick Lipsey - A single map for Doom 2. Again, not much detail to this map, although it is complex. Lots of areas, and a moderate number of monsters. Not overwhelming, but not underwhelming. Standard Doom 2 textures, seemingly randomly used. If you're starved for a new Doom 2 level, this just might satisfy some sort of craving.

Where's the fun in that?

Whoa... Tunnel Run has a cool ending. At first I was like "Oh, I get it. This shouldn't be hard," ... next thing I know I'm almost wetting my pants :)

When me and my friends first started playing we nearly always left the monsters in, but when we started playing "serious" Deathmatch and levels we always took them out. I guess it depends on what you want, but let me just say this much: 4 Player Free for all with monsters is an adrenalin pumping experience, some of the most fun I ever had! So I say let´s build more levels with monsters.

Do you guys remmber that one DM wad where you started in an enclosed room and chose your weapon combination? You would then enter a sort of Arena and fight your opponents as well as the monsters. You sort of had challenges where if you got past all the Viles and Cybers you would get a Soulspehre or Blur orb or something. Does anyone remember that level? I think it was called Firestorm or something.

Tunnel Run is a very impressive level, you should really give it a try. I liked especially the ending.

Yeah tunnel run is fun. When I play a level like that I realise how much potential the doom engine still has.

This would be a very slick DM level, just needs to add some sectors with blocking lines by all those damn pillars (so you slide by them instead of getting stuck all the time).

I suppose sticking monsters on DM maps won't do any harm since there's always the -nomonsters option ;-)

I only put the monsters in 'Close Kill' so that gives you something to shoot in 1 player mode. It's a dm match but it only took a minute to add the monsters, so what the heck! I always play dm with the nomonsters option.

With reguards to Frantics comments....I was unsure of whether to place pertruding coloums in the level for the very reason you mention. I'll do another version of the map with flush columns and post it in a few days...that'll keep you happy :-)

cool level - but unless you know where to go - the ammo and health situation becomes extremely annoying. So I added some health and ammo where I thought they were needed.

An odd thing I noticed about this map. The author seems to not understand that everything in DOOM is based on increments of 8 or 16. Textures are either 8, 16, 24, 32, 56, 64, 72, 96, 104, 112, 128, 256 - but he's got some whacked out floor/ceiling values and heights. The lighting also is not on the increment system doom is, which is 16. The light value should be divisible by 16.

I might link to my modification of the level here if anyone is like me and can't stand not being able to mess up and having to make every shot count.

I understand perfectly that doom's standard textures are based on increments of 8. But why should I be limited by that? Some of the effects i wanted to achieve needed new textures that didn't conform to this 'standard'. To a certain extent i was trying to disguise Doom's 'legoland' architecture, this required non-standard texture sizes.

As far as lighting goes, guilty as charged. I just play around with values until i get the effect i'm looking for. But is this really such a big no-no?

As far as posting modifications of my levels go..please don't. By all means, modify it for your personal use, but please don't go distributing modified versions of my work.

I understand that some of the light levels, and floor and ceiling heights have non-divisible-by-8 attributes.. But how does that really affect gameplay? That's being very picky.

Tunnel Run was a Good level..I did not much wrong with it at all...


Good Job Russell!

AndrewB: you should change your link to http://andrewb.net/ <-- trailing slash to be correct :)

It does have a slash on the end.

Picking on what Number the light levels are divisible is really very picky. I mean as long as the desired effect is achieved it´s ok. To be honest I used to work with 15 from 255, you know 240 225 210 and all those. It was hard getting used to those 16 numbers for lights. I agree with Hellbent on UV ammo and health really becomes a problem fast if you play it casually.

The think with the Light is that DooM actually only knows 16 light levels or so. So there are only like 0, 16, 32, 48...224, 240, 256 light values. All numbers between them will be rounded.

it makes sense to use 16 point increments when setting light levels (it gives you more exacting results.. at least being aware of the fact). textures tho can be placed on walls or sections of any size, all they need is to be aligned a bit in some cases.

hellbent, why modify the level? play on hmp.

Hey--
Little known fact: While Doom only recognizes 16 distinct light levels, in ports that feature colored lighting, Doom DOES recognize many, many shades of grey. Try comparing a gradient of light levels from 0 to 255 to a gradient of changing shades of grey as sector colors (from 000000 to FFFFFF). Keep the light level at 255. Looks a lot smoother.
Course, the downside is that it takes ZDoom forever to load up different colors...<sigh>...

actually, i'm glad Hellbent raised the topic of light values because i had no idea that they worked in specified increments. It's certainly something i shall keep in mind in future.....unless i forget (which i probably will)

Adding ammo? Playing casually? Well, maybe some levels are just designed to change your style of play! Try using some strategy, instead of blowing everything away. Monsters infight!

i hope all those people complaining about the ammo levels arn't trying to kill all the imps on the ledges in the large cavern area. They're there to launch fireballs for a bit of dodging 'practice'. Just run past em...and if you're doing that and still running out of ammo then you must be a worse player than i am! and i'm pretty bad :-)

okay, so the sector heights are 'non-standard' (but i'm not gonna change this style) the lighting should go in increments, and some people need more health and ammo available!

Having played 'Tunnel Run', are there any other suggestions ppl can make to help me improve my future levels?

I agree this is a superb level. You just knew the ending was going to be tough when you started opening cupboards full of health and ammo. I like that "I've got a bad feeling about this" kind of approach that so many doom levels have done well. And when I actually went into the final corridor - woa -superb.

About the light levels etc. Lets face it, you have to be looking at the level inside an editor rather than playing to really spot this, and the levels plays just fine. it certainly is worth mentioning the 16 point increments in light, however, as I had been editing for a number of years before I found out how the light imcrements work.

For my own preference, I like key requiring doors to be visually marked as such. It just helps me navigate, but its a personal preference thing.

On key doors, however, I found a minor problem with the level that because no one else has mentioned it may only exist in ZDOOM - the only port I have used to play it. The Yellow key door that gives access to the final corridor from the central tunnel area has a linedef tag of 1 so when you try and open it you hear a door opening sound from the other doors tagged 1 (which you have already been through) but the yellow door doesn't open as its sector has no tag. I think I am right in saying this door type doesn't normally need a tag so perhaps it works in other ports by just ignoring the tag.

Oops, to be clear. The lindef that should activate the yellow door has a SECTOR tag of 1. The sector that is the door has a tag of 0.

the door does have a tag of 1. I have no idea how it got it! Bizzarre. Anyway, i tested it in nomal doom2 (1.9) and gldoom2 and it worked fine (which is probably why i never spotted it)

....i'm now thinking i should re-release this level with the 'door tag' problem eliminated and a bit more health and ammo available in skill levels 1,2 and 3. Give me a couple of days to sort this out.....

I didn't mean to make the pillars flush, I meant to add triangular sectors to make them shaped more like a trapezoid, so there are angled unpassable lines and you don't get caught in the corners. Small detail.

BTW, don't take all this critism personally, those two levels are awesome and well done. If they really sucked, no one would say anything about them!

Keep up the good work!

i don't take it personally. I'm just very interested to know what ppl agree makes a good doom level. I design the sort of levels that i like, but this doesn't mean that they're going to be to everyones taste. Any feedback (good or bad) is appreciated and can only help me make better levels in the long run.

The reason i mentioned the posibility of re-releasing tunnel-run was due to the tag bug mentioned below. very irritating ....arrgghh...and if i'm gonna re-release it, i might as well make the lower skill levels a bit easier (but i would never alter the UV sttings!)