Heretic Upstart Mapping Project [RELEASED]

I would like to map for this but the deadline is too short for my already filled life of maps to complete.

10 minutes ago, HexenMapper said:

Definitely a good idea and something I will recommend. Is there a better way to run Heretic+ than through dosbox? it would be nice to set it up for testing in GZDoom Builder and to be able to quickly set up demo recording and playback

I wonder if Crispy Heretic is available.

39 minutes ago, printz said:

I wonder if Crispy Heretic is available.

I had a look around, I already have crispy doom and quite like it - crispy heretic would be ideal for testing (and playing) this project, but it seems we need the heretic binaries to do so. I haven't been able to find them so far...

Heretic+ I managed to get running automatically in dosbox as a shortcut (this should be basic knowledge, but new to me), but trying to test a heretic map from GZDoom Builder using this shortcut didn't work - It launched dosbox but not heretic. Also sound doesn't seem to work in heretic+

I know there's a fork of chocolate doom port for heretic, that counts for a good limit removing testing port?

Otherwise better use heretic+ for testing...

Chocolate Doom isn't limit removing. Crispy Doom is, on the other hand. 

There is Crispy Heretic in the 3.2.2 version or something. I don't know is it still available for download. 

I have it, and will link it if anyone needs it and I'm allowed to do so.

Please yes, it could help Blasphemer too.

sorry, i started playing to make sure everything was in order and i just couldn't frickin stop goodness me

anyways here it is i believe, sans any configs or iwads. i dunno what it's supposed to be like when you first download it, but i tried my best ;~;

edit: whoops i left a config in there, but dont worry, it's just the default one it makes if you just start up the game without setting it up, i think. c:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbiqg5h8wxn59ce/crispy-doom_3.2.zip?dl=1

Well I guess that solves the case of testing maps easily.

EDIT: Just tested it on GZDoom Builder (bugfix version), it works perfectly when you start it up from the editor.

Great work bonnie, that's a good find, and works well.

I'll put a link to that in the OP and the discord if you don't mind.

I'm  quite tempted by this. Would it be within the rules if I used WadC to develop my map?

3 minutes ago, Jon said:

I'm  quite tempted by this. Would it be within the rules if I used WadC to develop my map?

I'm not familiar with WadC, but as long as the map uses vanilla heretic format, runs on zdoom and crispy heretic and is a .wad file that I can add into the project, it should be fine.

2 minutes ago, HexenMapper said:

I'm not familiar with WadC, but as long as the map uses vanilla heretic format, runs on zdoom and crispy heretic and is a .wad file that I can add into the project, it should be fine.

Yes all of the above. With WadC you write a text file (normally suffixed .wl) which is translated into a normal WAD file. It can target vanilla heretic no problem. It just means there's an additional, higher-level source that people could look at, if they wanted to. (It gets embedded into the generated WAD as a WADCSRC lump too) 

Yep no problem Jon, that will be fine :)

52 minutes ago, bonnie said:

sorry, i started playing to make sure everything was in order and i just couldn't frickin stop goodness me

anyways here it is i believe, sans any configs or iwads. i dunno what it's supposed to be like when you first download it, but i tried my best ;~;

edit: whoops i left a config in there, but dont worry, it's just the default one it makes if you just start up the game without setting it up, i think. c:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbiqg5h8wxn59ce/crispy-doom_3.2.zip?dl=1

OH my, i was trying to find a limit removing port for heretic FOR AGES, and will help immensely when testing. Thank you very much. 

20 hours ago, fraggle said:

I'm actually vaguely interested in this project, which is weird since (1) I'm not really a fan of Heretic and (2) I suck at mapping. But maybe it would be nice to have a try at mapping again; it's been >15 years since my last single player map, and I'm on holiday next week.

 

So sign me up.

If you are still curious to try WadC, this could be a project to do so! ;)

Looks like in order to have the map names shown I will need to include a MAPINFO lump, but this means the map names wont show up in the more vanilla ports (as MAPINFO is introduced in Hexen). 

Is there a better way to name the maps that would work in vanilla? - how does original Heretic do this? or is it hardcoded in somewhere?

Maybe dehacked for Heretic, but it is an undiscovered country I wouldn't enter without a good preparation.

29 minutes ago, Angry Saint said:

Maybe dehacked for Heretic, but it is an undiscovered country I wouldn't enter without a good preparation.

Yeah I'm not familiar with Dehacked, and I think Heretic has a specific version of Dehacked that is heretic-only and potentially not supported in a lot of places... 

MAPINFO will be fine for zdoom / GZDoom, but it would be nice to be able to change map names in Crispy Heretic and heretic+

Chocolate-heretic (and probably by extension the crispy heretic binaries that were linked earlier) support the Heretic Dehacked-a-like HHE, and it is possible to do string replacement in HHE patches, so you could develop an HHE patch that changed the level titles, but only chocolate or crispy would actually honour it (or vanilla if you use HHE to patch it). But you could use MAPINFO for other ports as well, and include both.

The best way to go would be for someone to generate an HHE patch that contained all the level names so they could just be replaced in the patch (which is a text file) rather than having to actually use HHE all the time. The initial patch could probably be generated in code based on the tables in https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/30f853b65820280931e06e07fd5f624313670305/src/heretic/deh_htext.c#L32 (side-note: whilst researching this I enjoyed some of the source code comments)

Thanks for the info Jon, I've downloaded HHE but I'm not sure if I really know what I'm doing or how much progress I will make :)

Just now, HexenMapper said:

Thanks for the info Jon, I've downloaded HHE but I'm not sure if I really know what I'm doing or how much progress I will make :)

There's a guide in this site on how to properly setup HHE

http://ettingrinder.youfailit.net/heretic-hhe.html

i have 2 questions about the project:
1.Are we supposed to design maps with co-op in mind or is it just going to be single player only?

2.Since shadow of the serpent riders adds 2 episodes to the existing 3 will the project be 5 or 3 episodes long?

Hi SOSU, we're aiming at single player, but people are welcome to add co-op starts and balance for co-op if they like. Each map will be wand-started, so we're not looking to make coherent episodes, just a collection of maps. People will be encouraged to include a text file showing if their map is designed for SP/co op/DM (likely the standard idgames textfile)

The number of maps will depend on how many people join and complete a map :)

Is there a udmf format for heretic? I mean, I know this isn't the project for it, but i'd love to see some really advanced heretic maps.

There is UDMF as well as heretic in hexen format

Short answer: Yes.

In practice i don't know if gzdoom builder support it natively or you need to modify a configuration file first.

There is a rumor of the fabled Hpack, wich would use to the fullest potential the udmf feature set, but alas, it seems it is pretty inactive, unfortunately.

Sillyness besides, there are some "modern" heretic mapsets floating around: the latest i enjoied was Templum Dormiens Dei, it is a single level wad, but is quite good.

I wouldn't have the first idea how to balance a heretic map. Plus, I dont have the wad file avaliable nearby, I'd have to grab it on gog. I really love Heretic, but It'd be difficult to balance a map when I really dont know the enemies much. Good luck with the project though, I cant wait to see teh end result!

I like Heretic and this project is a nice chance to come back for more gameplay of this game. Good luck to all of the mappers involved.

Thanks guys, we have around 15 mappers so far, so should hopefully end up with quite a few new maps to play