I'm wanting to map, but I can't do it?

I started on a map several days ago. I drew in a few sectors, but then I just kinda stopped? I don't know. I'm finding it really hard to get back to it. I really want to get back to it, but I just end up not doing it.

Anyone else feel this way? :(

If else fails: Start over. If you can't finish maps, because you're not patient, try smaller maps. If smaller maps don't work either, then maybe mapping isn't your thing.

I have have a map in the making since 2 weeks or so, that map is gonna take at least two more weeks, if not more. I work on it when I feel like it. I don't work on it, if I don't feel like I can come up with ideas.

Don't push it. Take steps at your own pace. Some things are not meant to be forced. You do not want to finish a map for the sake of just finishing it.

You gave up just after a few sectors?

I suggest using an auto-generator instead of a map editor to satisfy your needs.

Happens all the time. I think I'm slowly beginning to understand how to combat this but it's very difficult to explain. Basically you have to look very deep into your own mind and realize that you don't want to have these conflicting feelings because they are unpleasant. Instead you want to feel at peace with yourself and you want to have a good time drawing sectors. So you kind of just tell the negative energy to leave your consciousness, you look around, notice how beautiful the world is, absorb its beauty, become happy and start enjoying yourself.
P.S. No, I don't smoke weed.

I get this problem a lot, and is probably why I'm a fucker for calling it a day on projects early and just releasing what I have.

Ways I've found around it though, include taking inspiration from real life locations (and trying to represent them in the Doom engine), visualising unusual or interesting enemy encounters and then trying to work out a segment of level to match, or just plain fucking around (like, I'd make a mini-slaughter arena just to see how many imps a mere 5 rockets could take out, or whatever).

No pressure on yourself. If you've made a small area and can't think of anything else, at least save it before closing Doom Builder. You never know, you may even end up with a collection of these scraps to paste together and call a level of their own (something I've also done).

I'm all with kuchitsu here.

Play some fine music that makes you feel good. Make yourself comfortable. Make the environment you map in pleasant. Give yourself a chance to get in the mood that makes you look forward. Make everything around the mapping-procedure itself enjoyable, and then try to enjoy taking small steps and see your ideas grow, and become alive, and vibrant, and violent, or frentic, or fun, or laid back. Create a vision of what you want your map to play like, and put it on the screen on a step by step basis. Learn to appreciate what you're doing, and learn to appreciate that you are doing it. You can make the craziest and most out-of-control things become true, if you give them the time, and most importantantly, if you give yourself the time. You can do it man, you got an idea? Then go for it, try it, play it, do it for yourself, and enjoy doing that for yourself.

I have such creative stops too. You know, the moment when you know approximately what do you want to make, and start drawing it on paper, but you only draw the door. Just relax, ideas will come to you. If they don't, then you aren't relaxed and patient enough :]
But when you do get an idea, you'll spend literally hours in the editor, polishing everything that can be polished, and that feeling really rocks. And you won't care that your map is still trash despite it being your 7-th one. You won't care that it'd make any reasonable mapper's eyes bleed. Finally, you know what to do!
Conclusion: don't give up.

Ask yourself this "what's my goal for this map?" Answer it then think about your answer.

Then just drop all of it and put your attention to something else for the day.

The next day, start that map again however you feel like it. You most likely will get a completely fresh mind to work with.

I find populating struggling efforts with monsters help them take shape.

Not with that attitude.

You can be anything.

Just take a look...
it's in a book...
it's Reading Rainbow.

Edit: Just start small. You aren't going to have the whole map in your head. Peck away at it and shape it. A map is a living piece. It is an extension of you and is only what you make it. Free yourself from the shackles of everyone's expectations, preconceived and regurgitated ideas of what makes a good map. Vertices are not set in stone.

I feel like a lot of people say start with just one room, but I find that if I take a box and stretch it out into a larger shape and subdivide it - after I've tested it for flow - it seems to feel nice.

I haven't been mapping for very long and honestly I haven't got as much input/criticism/critique as I would like, so I don't know how people feel about my maps as a whole. Generally it's nit picks, so that seems like a plus. I can't be distracted by what other people think. If you make a map... someone will play it. If you try your hardest and don't let anything (ideas hindered by lack of knowledge) defeat you (no backing away from ideas) your map will be enjoyed by someone. There seems to be a correlation between the amount of love that you make and the love that you take. If you play your map (test it) and it's beatable and it makes sense (application) I don't see how you could go wrong.

Don't make it harder than it needs to be. There are plenty of good maps that mostly consist of square rooms where enemies have been placed from the mindset, "how do I kill the player." There is bound to be one thing that you are particularity good at. Is it enemy encounters, sector porn, fluidity in movement, traps, tricks, puzzles... there are lots. Find one that resonates with you and go with it. Everything comes with time. ...it doesn't hurt to be good at the game.

Half of the wad I just made (Earth On Hell) was made while listening to Slipknot, Rob Zombie, and other metal music. And the other half was Rick Astley.

Which artist(s) inspired which parts (Earth on Hell)? Depending on your answer, I might love to try your .wad.

I usually listen to DooM Radio while mapping.

I have been making a TNT map for nearly a year now but I just absolutely fucking suck at mapping and end up just adding like 5 sectors to it and giving up for the day.

It is like every time I add one room I just realize nobody will like it and I am wasting my time making something that is really just total drek hidden under the lie that I made it "like a good old 90's map" when really I just can't begin to even comprehend the idea of interesting gameplay and progression...

But enough about that, I'd say that making first grade abominations that you don't give a flying fuck about then working your way up from there would be a good start to any mapping career, just hide the worst of the pile from any other living thing on the planet and salvage what you can from the corpses of the "better ones" and you should have a passable first map in no time.

Or you could just make multiple test rooms in a seperate test wad to test how encounters work and what the best way to excecute them is.

mrthejoshmon said:

It is like every time I add one room I just realize nobody will like it and I am wasting my time making something that is really just total drek hidden under the lie that I made it "like a good old 90's map" when really I just can't begin to even comprehend the idea of interesting gameplay and progression...

This attitude will absolutely kill any motivation to map, you gotta get over that crap and just map for your own enjoyment of you'll never get anywhere. Everyone started basic, everyone made crappy maps at one point, but we all know that and most of us, myself included would consider it a bigger disappointment to have never played your maps at all.

everennui said:

Which artist(s) inspired which parts (Earth on Hell)? Depending on your answer, I might love to try your .wad.

I mean I listened to Anthrax for the mosh pit map (MAP05). Slipknot was the majority of it, and Rick Astley was to motivate me tweaking things haha

One of the reasons I lose motivation is because I just can't see anyone playing this. I mean, I look at the little world I've created and think: "Man, I've combined all the elements of a fun DM arena into a map and it looks byortiful and flows great, but what are the chances that people are actually going to play this one WAD on ZDaemon or whatever? That people will share this WAD and have fun with it one night together?"

I just try to imagine I'm DoomKid or something. He surely started out with nobody knowing who he was, but everything about his maps just screams fun and he's really well-known now.

And the answer to making a good, fun, unique DM map, the likes of which nobody has seen before, and which DoomKid has realized is: use exploding barrels. Seriously. They're perfect for DM! And nobody uses them!



Whoops, sorry, got a little off-track there.