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valkiriforce

Where do you draw the line in Idgames uploads?

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I'm rather curious to hear what your thoughts are on this: at what point do you consider something worthy of uploading to Idgames?

For example say you have some levels that are either unfinished, small or just plain unreleased/rejected maps you were having second thoughts about: are you the kind of person that chooses to keep those things to yourself, or would you rather upload them in some form, either by sharing them here on Doomworld or uploading over at Idgames just so they're not lost to the sands of time? Some people are choosy about the quality of work they want to release; others just like uploading levels just because it's fun to do and to share regardless whether it's anything of a serious effort or not. What are your thoughts on this?

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I have a folder with like 30+ levels for Half Life 2 that will never see the day of light.

But that's because I never did anything that hasn't been done yet, so it's no value to others. And most of them aren't more than a rough idea, think of like a starting area in a doom level, nothing more than that.

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LogicDeLuxe said:

Especially "REQUIREMENTS" paragraph 4 might answer your question:


The problem with blindly following that policy is that some really old stuff that never got finished could end up lost if the hosting website goes down. Here's one example:
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1111836
Allegedly they got much farther than just 6 maps, but they haven't released anything new because one dude in the project is inactive. So maybe we'll never see the full version, but I really enjoyed the demo from 2003.

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It's subjective whether a set of maps is a partially completed megawad. The uploader may just say that it's completed.

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If it is in a releasable state, which I would interpret is playable and likely enjoyable, then just call it finished if you don't intend to work on it anymore, even if there were different plans at some point. I don't think, there is a problem when you change your mind. Also, it's not like that you cannot upload updates to your wads.

And there sure were exceptions made to the rules when the file in question is of historical value.

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There are some people who have made "good bye" threads and uploaded a zip of all their unfinished work to mediafire or dropbox and posted a link to it. I've combed through a few of these and intend on finishing them to donate to a community project or two if I ever get around to it.

I personally would not use /idgames for anything other than finished work. I think a "post your dead projects" thread could be very cool, though. There should be some kinda conflict-avoiding disclaimer to remind posters that once they post it, it's likely that someone can pick it up and finish it differently than you would have realized yourself. If people can keep an open mind, I'm sure a lot of cool project ideas could see the light of day. Working with another person's maps is a pretty powerful mapping exercise.

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valkiriforce said:

For example say you have some levels that are either unfinished, small or just plain unreleased/rejected maps you were having second thoughts about : are you the kind of person that chooses to keep those things to yourself, or would you rather upload them in some form, either by sharing them here on Doomworld or uploading over at Idgames just so they're not lost to the sands of time?

I'd rather upload them and I'd rather you and everyone else upload them too. If you're too embarrassed because they're unfinished or you made them some time ago and they aren't up to your current artistic quality, then make up a pseudonym and upload them anonymously.

The fact is that most people aren't good at keeping reliable backups and you'll only ever regret losing this stuff. I'd really prefer people share stuff - it can only ever make the world a better place. Chances are your old unfinished map that you're ashamed to put a name to is actually a lot better than you think, and perhaps it has some interesting ideas that might inspire others.

The archive does have a policy about not uploading unfinished stuff and I imagine that can probably be offputting; however, ask yourself: am I ever really going to finish this? If the answer is "probably not", chances are that it's probably not too hard to nominally finish it: for example, if your map is half done it's probably not hard to find somewhere to just add in an exit room. If there's a key door and you haven't added the matching key, it's really trivial to just add one. Most of this stuff probably only takes 5 minutes.

I wonder if there's some way we can encourage people to share this stuff more. For example I think it would be really interesting to see an "unfinished maps megawad", a kind of patchwork quilt of random maps people never finished. Beautiful half-maps ending in bare STARTAN rooms with a lonely exit door indicating that the work was never completed. Pretty sure the "no unfinished projects" rule doesn't apply if the project is to release a collection of unfinished maps.

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a completed serious effort, I suppose. Not exactly that it's "worthy" of being on the archive, but that I guess I'm fine with it showing up as a showcased item in the mapper-demo-reel that is an /idgames author search.

I actually like the idea of download links that die after awhile. for meh maps/demos/whatever that I have no attachment to I'll even intentionally upload it to a site that I know will kill it after a year or whatever. twas a time and a place and that time has passed.

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Something you worked on (SLIGE), isn't blatantly trolling in the worst way (Terry), has some kind of effort placed into it (WOW), and isn't too explicit in certain aspects.

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Personally I have some projects of my own I've been feeling uncertain about :

Pulse - a collection of some of my earliest maps and some other bulk stuff I've made. I've been uncertain of this one for some time due to the mixed nature of it and feeling as though it really doesn't measure up to the rest of what I've done. Part of me thinks about that while another part also thinks it would be fun to upload anyway just because.

Scarlet Echoes - an idea I think may have been too ambitious to start with - large maps that are interconnected and open for exploration. Inspired in part by artifact.wad but mostly inspired by Jet Force Gemini and Super Metroid. I would never release this as unfinished over at Idgames, but I have thought about the possibility of going back to this at some point and trying to finish it. I even thought about trying like Fraggle said and just finishing it in as simple a way as possible, but it's a bit challenging for something of this scale. This is a vanilla project that I have in maps, but I also have a limit-removing version where it's all supposed to be one big map. Anyway, it's a lot I still have to figure out at some point. I think in the end I've been overthinking things and in turn I just end up not feeling as motivated to do anything about this. It's been sitting around since 2013 or so.

tnttest1 - a short test map I sent to Whoo in early 2011 so I could join the TNT2 team. I actually still think it's fun to play...I just felt it was too small to bother to warrant an upload; so I thought about possibly making more maps to go along with it which sounds fun to me.

Wolf O'Donnell Doom mod - something I put together just for fun over the course of some days; I still need to work on and polish the sprites/movements a bit as I'm not as familiar with the Doom color palette as I should have been when working on this. Haven't been feeling too motivated to go back and rework some of those things - plus I should have made this a player skin as that would probably make more sense.

Cookie Crisp Doom - a silly mod I made as a joke between a friend of mine, but also inspired a little from the simplistic art style of Shadow of the Wool Ball. Yet another project that should have been made a player skin (I've never made player skins so I don't know how exactly that stuff works) and part of me wonders who would ever bother to play it. Not to mention both this and the other mod use sound effects that are otherwise questionable in regard to copyright stuff, so yeah...I've had some uncertainty concerning that as well.

That's about all I can think of in regard to stuff I've been feeling mixed about lately.

[edit] Also, I wouldn't mind hearing if anyone else has any maps or projects they've been feeling uncertain about. I'd like to see them, if anything.

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