help motivate me to finish my goddamn old projects

I've got a bunch of unfinished projects I really want to get done, so I'm
trying to get them out. I need these off my plate so I can focus on other,
newer, more exciting things. I've only recently realised that I have an
attention/focus problem.

The earliest is something called smallfun2 which was for Doom Legacy. I
"released" it in 1999 but it's no longer available and I never put it on
/idgames. I need to make sure it actually works with a modern legacy, then
upload it.



I have a DM level from around 2000 that I did post a pic about in recent years,
and I really want off my plate. It's quite nice and has some custom textures by
me, most of which I never released but a few that made it into Kristus' project
NimRod



I had a concept map from 2004 trying to implement something like the Jailbreak
mod for Quake 2 (or the Dungeon Break mod for Hexen 2) in Doom, I might as well
release it but it might need a bit of polish



I have a half-completed vanilla doom colormap hack from 2008 or earlier that
I've been trying to spin out into a vaguely fun level to play but keep hitting
writer's block


Finally I've been working on a MAP02 tribute since 2004-06 as a proof of
concept for WadC, I think originally it was intended for Freedoom but the need
isn't there any more. I have put a lot of work into trying to finish it in recent
months, and I keep getting side-tracked and adding features to WadC itself when I
find myself limited in some way.



So err yeah. Any encouragement you can offer is much appreciated :D I want to move
on to doing more interesting things with engine hacking and/or WadC, or maybe not
Doom altogether, but these things will always haunt me unless I get them out.

Well, I can't help, since I need motivation to finish my own goddamn projects. I've never released any of my projects publicly, because I just scrapped them all!

What about passing them to somebody else to finish? :)
(Possibly just the parts that you don't want to bother with.)

Just do it! Don't let your dreams be dreams! Yesterday you said tomorrow, so make your dreams come true! Some people dream of success, while you're gonna wake up and work hard at it! Nothing is impossible! If you're tired of starting over stop giving up!

(also really you use WadC)

My first thought is that you should tackle them one-by-one. That way with every finished wad you'll be feeling a significant amount of progress, whereas if you keep working on all of them simultaneously you might feel like nothing is really advancing.

Are you quitting on me? Well, are you? Then quit, you slimy-ass walrus-looking piece of crap! Get the hell off of Mapper's Block! Get the hell down off of your ass! NOW! MOVE IT! Or I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world! I will motivate you, Mapper Jon, IF IT SHORT-HANDS EVERY CANNIBAL ON THE CONGO!-Sergeant Hartman

I agree with kuchitsu, focus on one map at a time, finish one map at a time. It helps a lot.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Indeed one at a time seems like a good idea.

scifista42 said:

What about passing them to somebody else to finish? :)
(Possibly just the parts that you don't want to bother with.)

This is actually a great idea. Some of the things might be interesting for someone else to spend a bit of time on, and maybe pass it back (or pass it on). I'll think about that some more. Jailbreak or the colormap thing could be good places to start.

DoomLover234 said:

(also really you use WadC)

Yeah! I maintain it nowadays. I really like it, and find it quite surprising that so few other people bother. Y'see, for me, there's no point in trying to make a halfway decent map the traditional way. That way has been done many times, and most likely better than I ever could. There's nothing much "new" in that way for me. On the other hand, the potential of WadC largely remains untapped. The challenge of WadC is pretty much an inversion of traditional mapping, in some ways: it suddenly becomes much easier to do highly intricate things, such as elaborate boom conveyor schemes (check out cybermind's "The Last Sanctuary" for an example of that) or very detailed, repeating patterns (or any algorithmic/geometrically-defined pattern). But it becomes hard to make a map that has some organic quality to it in spite of the algorithmic ease.

can you help me too?

When I need motivation for anything, I listen to this:

Finish your goddamn old projects, Jon!

(I really dig the realistic ray of light in that first shot! Doubly impressive back then.)