Doom: Total Chaos - A Chaos Crew project

Greetings to all...

I have decided that the Chaos Crew will continue with a non-profit development division beyond the release of Caverns of Darkness, in addition to our professional division.

I brought up the concept for the next non-profit Doom project some months ago on these boards, and there was some positive feedback. I am therefore announcing the opening of positions in the team that will develop this project, which I am tentatively calling "Doom: Total Chaos".

Unlike "Caverns of Darkness", which is designed for single player action, "Total Chaos" will be geared strictly for multiplayer competition. We will not be doing the typical deathmatch approach, though the nature of my concept will allow for it, and standard deathmatch maps should work normally.

What I want to be able to do is expand the multiplayer dynamic to include the capacity for strategy in a variety of user-designed campaigns.

If any of you have ever played "The Wheel of Time" by Legend, then you are most likely familiar with their Citadel match mode of multiplay. For those of you who don't know what I'm blathering about, I'll explain:

In a Citadel game, you control a fortress, and prior to the start of the action, you are able to set guards and traps to keep the enemy from capturing your seals (small discs that focus the power to keep the Dark One's prison sealed. Read "The Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan for all the wonderful details.). Your opponent will do the same.

Once the teams have finished preparing their citadels, the battle begins.

A citadel map is divided into at least three sections: Team A's fortress, Team B's fortress, and a battlefield area. Some citadel maps support more than two teams, so in those there are fortresses for the other teams as well. I have seen citadel maps designed in some very inventive ways.

I want to see this interesting dynamic added to Doom's multiplayer modes, though in a more free-for-all way. I have a lot of ideas for how this could be accomplished, but I will be interested in reading the community's ideas.

Hear are the available positions and requirements for them:

Programmers (1) - Someone skilled in C++ programming and very familiar with the ZDoom engine. previous Doom mod using ZDoom as a base is a plus, but will not be considered a requirement.

Level Authors (3) - Individuals who are capable of designing good quality deathmatch levels with careful attention to details regarding architecture. No particular theme to follow. Previous Doom level design experience is a plus, but not a requirement.

Music Composers (1) - Someone to write fast-paced action-oriented music to set the mood for a combat situateion. Must be able to present music (no vocals) in MP3 format, as ZDoom supports MP3 playback.

Graphic Artists (2) - Individuals skilled in both 3D and 2D graphics development willing to render new characters/objects in 3D and then develop animation frames from 8 angles to coincide with Doom's sprite rendering.

Interested individuals should send an e-mail to jaxndoom@aol.com with samples of their original work, or links to where it can be found. Any submitted files must be either uncompressed or ZIPped. Self-extracting executables will be deleted for security reasons.

Any questions?

GBJacksonCGDC said:

Must be able to present music (no vocals) in MP3 format, as ZDoom supports MP3 playback.

A megawad of 32 MP3's... now that sounds like a really bad idea!
So far, the only Doom level I've downloaded with an MP3 was Ruins - Fanatic's map for Edge. 3.1MB for one map and one song!

I'm no muso, but .mod (and other formats) seems like a more viable proposition if you don't like midi.

Hello, Sparky...

First of all, I never said that this was going to be a megawad. I plan Total Chaos to consist of about ten to twenty arenas, with detailed guidelines on how to design your own according to Total Chaos design standards. The music will be MIDI by default, but I plan for us to release a pwad of the MP3 music to be either merged with the main wad or simple -FILEd from the shortcut command line.

This way, we get the best of both worlds.