DOOM 87: The Lost World (Beta Release) for DOOM II - Vanilla-compatible maps.

On 8/24/2020 at 3:41 PM, DCG Retrowave said:

My gaming PC is a partially custom-built MS-DOS gaming PC with a Pentium II 350 MHz, 128 MB of RAM, 3.2 GB HDD, ESS AudioDrive ISA sound card, and ATI 3D RAGE 2MB PCI connected to an LG Studioworks E700B CRT and Roland Sound Canvas SC-88 :D

 

Nobody Told Me About DOSBox

Hey, you know how a lot of the others on this thread are describing the maps as "early 90s"? 

That's a polite way of saying they're fucking horrible. Which is just fine; nobody expects your first attempts at mapping to be any good. But seriously, as something to actually play through, for someone who isn't biased because they've just spent hours making it, it's pretty bottom of the barrel as far as wads go. If you're serious about getting into map design, I'm pretty sure ChubzDoomer has a good video on Youtube about John Romero's 10 or so most important hallmarks of good level design. Basic things like putting a different texture on steps, for example.

2 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

Hey, you know how a lot of the others on this thread are describing the maps as "early 90s"? 

 

That's a polite way of saying they're fucking horrible. Which is just fine; nobody expects your first attempts at mapping to be any good. But seriously, as something to actually play through, for someone who isn't biased because they've just spent hours making it, it's pretty bottom of the barrel as far as wads go. If you're serious about getting into map design, I'm pretty sure ChubzDoomer has a good video on Youtube about John Romero's 10 or so most important hallmarks of good level design. Basic things like putting a different texture on steps, for example.

 

 

Alright, little Timmy, tell us who pissed in your oatmeal this morning.

2 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

That's a polite way of saying they're fucking horrible. it's pretty bottom of the barrel as far as wads go.

The video you linked to is valuable, but this statement is a load of bullshit. You've never come anywhere near the bottom of the barrel if you think this is it, in fact this is on the higher end. Play wow.wad if you want to see the bottom of the barrel.

4 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

The video you linked to is valuable, but this statement is a load of bullshit. You've never come anywhere near the bottom of the barrel if you think this is it, in fact this is on the higher end. Play wow.wad if you want to see the bottom of the barrel.

Lmao, try Terry wads and then we'll talk.

Seriously, while 90s style maps are not my usual cup of tea, they're nowhere near as awful as you're (quaketallica) making them out to be. Don't be a dick.

13 hours ago, DCG Retrowave said:

but I still think the sliding doortracks look cool.  What do you guys think?  Should I let them slide or not? :D

Up to you, really. The fact that you prefer the sliding doortracks makes me inclined to say keep them that way, just bear in mind that non-sliding doortracks is a community convention (for example, the door builder function in Ultimate Doom Builder lower unpegs doors by default) which is why playtesters tend to point out sliding doortracks when they occur.

3 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

Hey, you know how a lot of the others on this thread are describing the maps as "early 90s"? 

 

That's a polite way of saying they're fucking horrible. Which is just fine; nobody expects your first attempts at mapping to be any good. But seriously, as something to actually play through, for someone who isn't biased because they've just spent hours making it, it's pretty bottom of the barrel as far as wads go. If you're serious about getting into map design, I'm pretty sure ChubzDoomer has a good video on Youtube about John Romero's 10 or so most important hallmarks of good level design. Basic things like putting a different texture on steps, for example.

 

 

Seems like Romero already made you his bitch...

Speak for youself, pal!

Some people like me and my fellow Doomers above, really love the quirkiness and oddeness the 90's maps had.

I will always prefer something bold and unexpected like this mapset than another good looking kinda more of the same but good gameplay-wise mapset that wins a cacoward.

Doom is an art scene, and as such, diversity is always better. One megawad like this might become the the epicenter of the new vanguard that will make the modern standar tremble.

On 8/24/2020 at 7:35 PM, DCG Retrowave said:

The Archviles fell off?  I've never encountered that before! :O  Are you using a source port that changes how monsters can drop from heights or something like that?  I can definitely add the block monster tag just in case though.

Since I don't think anyone answered this, the default behavior of ZDoom derived ports (such as GZDoom, which is what most people use) is that with sufficient fire-power it's possible to knock enemies off high ledges.

Even though you are developing for vanilla, given that most casual players will play this in GZDoom, closer to release it's a decent idea to familiarize yourself with GZDoom's compatibility options. You can set up a MAPINFO lump in the wad that will force the necessary compatibility options on for the map so anyone who plays it in GZDoom has the proper experience, without them having to remember to manually set things up.

Compatmode = 1 in your MAPINFO should do the trick.

2 hours ago, ‹rd› said:

Plus, not only did John Romero commonly deviate from those rules in his own maps, these maps also happen to use many of them to strong effect.

Romero's rules are a good place to start, and he generally does follow his own rules. I actually can't recall a map where you can see the outside, but can't get outside somewhere on the map. In fact, I'm struggling to figure out a place where he strongly violates his own rules. Regardless, one of the things about rules is that they can be broken, but you have to have a strong enough base of knowledge to know when to break them.

2 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

Hey, you know how a lot of the others on this thread are describing the maps as "early 90s"? 

 

That's a polite way of saying they're fucking horrible. Which is just fine; nobody expects your first attempts at mapping to be any good. But seriously, as something to actually play through, for someone who isn't biased because they've just spent hours making it, it's pretty bottom of the barrel as far as wads go.

There are parts of the demo that make me think that the eventual megawad might suffer from the standard "levels made early aren't as good as levels made later" syndrome of megawads made when a person first starts mapping, but from what I see there are some nice setups. I'm personally not a big fan of putting a dozen archviles in a room to have to fight, but depending on what you do with it, that approach can be memorable.

Yes, some of the maps have the vanilla 90's aesthetic. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yes, some of the textures are bright, as opposed to being gritty and dark. No one seems to complain about the bright colors in Ancient Aliens, Eviternity, and Refracted Reality.

Yes, there is a bathroom with a pain elemental on a toilet.

Yes, there are attempts at humor (such as the pain elemental in the chair fixated on the big screen TV), instead of being 100% serious and grim.

No, none of these statements make this "bottom of the barrel." These maps are not horrible. Not by a long shot.

Could the mapper shift the textures on his steps, so the same pattern doesn't repeat? Sure. Are there monster placement choices I might do differently? Perhaps. Does it have platforming? Yes, but there are much worse examples of narrow platforming that I can think of.

You are absolutely entitled to your opinions. You can think these maps are terrible, and you can certainly share that opinion all day. At the end of that day, however, you will get a lot more distance out of providing more examples of the things that you think could use improvement, as well as any things that you think were done well. You're more likely to gain traction with the mapper using feedback like that, instead of feedback that comes off as rude.

19 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

Romero's rules are a good place to start, and he generally does follow his own rules. I actually can't recall a map where you can see the outside, but can't get outside somewhere on the map.

E1M1, when you go upstairs to get the green armor, there are windows looking on the outside. In fact, some early patch WADs which just altered the original E1M1, always added some secret door/teleport that got you outside to that area and extended that place beyond.

No really, the Romero rule shouldn't be that you always must give access to outside areas (some of them might be cosmetic anyway). But that it's cool if you give the access to some of the outside areas and highlight with a special item you can observe from inside. It's obviously not true at various other places through episode 1 (for example, the exit room at E1M2, there are windows looking at some outside area there but obviously you can't reach).

3 hours ago, ‹rd› said:

 

[snip]

 

If you have criticism, maybe speak for yourself; don't twist others' words. 

people had less advanced tools and less experience back then. there were no ports with advanced features. pcs had much less computing power. and so on. given what they had to work with, some people made amazing maps. imagine what they could have made with programs like gzdoom + db2 + slade. and photoshop instead of mspaint and so on. it's unfair to criticize them because mapping has evolved over 20 years since then and today's mappers stand on the shoulders of giants.

4 hours ago, Optimus said:

E1M1, when you go upstairs to get the green armor, there are windows looking on the outside.

But you can go outside somewhere in E1M1, so that still satisfies Pegleg's criteria.

5 hours ago, Bauul said:

 

Since I don't think anyone answered this, the default behavior of ZDoom derived ports (such as GZDoom, which is what most people use) is that with sufficient fire-power it's possible to knock enemies off high ledges.

This is also a thing in Boom ports such as pr-Boom+

Hello!

I just started playing the demo of your wad and finished the first level! (Now map08 I am having trouble with lol).

I want to say what I have played so far is really charming. Not sure how I feel about the purple walls in the living room lol. But I really enjoyed the house design! It was both a fun and challenging map. I liked how even though you could see the exit outside, you had to really search through the house to find a lot of keys until you can finally get out. What I have seen of MAP08 is really clever, I love the arcade idea and the food court (haha "Caco Bell" I love lame puns haha). BUT WHY SO MANY ARCHVILES?! (I detest them the most lol).

Overall, an excellent concept for a megawad! I look forward to the full thing, and will hopefully finish what you have so far soon, I just wanted to tell you that I really liked it! The map designs are fun, it's pretty difficult (maybe I'll play it at a lower difficulty until I know my way around), and I also really like the midi that plays at the menu and level completes. Keep up the good work!

10 hours ago, Zolgia108 said:

 

youube said some countries block this video because of the music, don't know why, let me know if you can see it @DCG Retrowave

Yeah, my own video with that MIDI was blocked in Denmark.  Apparently my MIDI cover was so accurate, the auto-copyright claiming system was fooled XD.  Aside from Denmark, the rest of the world should be able to see it.  I'll watch it in a few minutes once I'm done catching up with all the replies to this thread :)

9 hours ago, ‹rd› said:

 

Well...

 

No, when people are describing the maps as "early '90s" they do not mean they are horrible. It's literally a style of design, wild MSPaint custom textures and "Doomcute" representational design and all, that is strongly associated with the '90s. 

 

They are also not "bottom of the barrel" -- I played map01 and map08, and they are cute and charming and made me smile numerous times. They both play pretty well and have lots of cool ideas. Not that I care about ratings much, but in order to quantify it: I would struggle to give them lower than 4* on idgames, if not 5*, if released standalone. Not everyone is interested in doing the modern high-detail thing or the polished lower-detail Scythe-like thing or any number of those archetypes. It might not be your preference, but OP already shows good promise in this approach. 

Thank you for your kind words :)

One of my main goals is vanilla compatibility.  I play on a real DOS PC and even though patched executables exist to alter the static limits, I find true DOOM II 1.9 compatibility very appealing.  If I was mapping for Crispy or GZDoom, then more detail would make sense.  Many of the maps I've designed have been very challenging to optimize for the maxseg and visplane limit, but I usually find a way around this without sacrificing any significant details.  I'm not trying to outdo any other map designers or make the best looking DOOM maps of all time.  I'm just trying to make the best vanilla maps I can and hopefully make some people smile :)

This looks awesome and I look forward to playing it. Simply sublime, m'wah.

6 hours ago, Pegleg said:

There are parts of the demo that make me think that the eventual megawad might suffer from the standard "levels made early aren't as good as levels made later" syndrome of megawads made when a person first starts mapping, but from what I see there are some nice setups. I'm personally not a big fan of putting a dozen archviles in a room to have to fight, but depending on what you do with it, that approach can be memorable.

 

Yes, some of the maps have the vanilla 90's aesthetic. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yes, some of the textures are bright, as opposed to being gritty and dark. No one seems to complain about the bright colors in Ancient Aliens, Eviternity, and Refracted Reality.

Yes, there is a bathroom with a pain elemental on a toilet.

Yes, there are attempts at humor (such as the pain elemental in the chair fixated on the big screen TV), instead of being 100% serious and grim.

I like making fun maps with a sense of humor.  I'm usually not a fan of most FPS games because I usually don't like the more realistic violence and darker tone of the environments.  Retro FPS's have a unique feel that lets me take them seriously, but not too seriously.  I can have fun with them and DOOM is a perfect example of this.  As for those Arch-Viles, they can make a player's first run of the map more difficult and frightening since they'll be caught off guard.  After that, they aren't much trouble, but I think this teleporter trap is pretty fun and it wasn't intended to be very difficult :).  Thanks for the feedback!

Also, the vanilla aesthetic description makes sense because I'm designing these to run in vanilla on real DOS :D

7 hours ago, Bauul said:

 

Since I don't think anyone answered this, the default behavior of ZDoom derived ports (such as GZDoom, which is what most people use) is that with sufficient fire-power it's possible to knock enemies off high ledges.

 

Even though you are developing for vanilla, given that most casual players will play this in GZDoom, closer to release it's a decent idea to familiarize yourself with GZDoom's compatibility options. You can set up a MAPINFO lump in the wad that will force the necessary compatibility options on for the map so anyone who plays it in GZDoom has the proper experience, without them having to remember to manually set things up.

 

Compatmode = 1 in your MAPINFO should do the trick.

 

Would you be able to assist me with that?  I tried making a MAPINFO and I kept getting errors.  The info on zdoom.org confused me because the examples on there didn't work for me.  I'm sure this is something very simple, but I can't seem to get it working.

1 hour ago, Kokoro Hane said:

Hello!

 

I just started playing the demo of your wad and finished the first level! (Now map08 I am having trouble with lol).

 

I want to say what I have played so far is really charming. Not sure how I feel about the purple walls in the living room lol. But I really enjoyed the house design! It was both a fun and challenging map. I liked how even though you could see the exit outside, you had to really search through the house to find a lot of keys until you can finally get out. What I have seen of MAP08 is really clever, I love the arcade idea and the food court (haha "Caco Bell" I love lame puns haha). BUT WHY SO MANY ARCHVILES?! (I detest them the most lol).

 

Overall, an excellent concept for a megawad! I look forward to the full thing, and will hopefully finish what you have so far soon, I just wanted to tell you that I really liked it! The map designs are fun, it's pretty difficult (maybe I'll play it at a lower difficulty until I know my way around), and I also really like the midi that plays at the menu and level completes. Keep up the good work!

Hello! :D

My living room in real life has purple walls and since this map is a replica of my own house (which is supposed to be Doomguy's house in DOOM 87), I made the walls purple.  DOOM's color palette doesn't have many shades of pink or purple so these walls do look a little strange compared to the blue walls in the bedroom (the starting room).  I'm glad you like the design! Out of the five maps in the demo, I spent the most time with MAP01 so it's great to hear that players are enjoying it :)

MAP08 was so much fun to design.  There are so many areas to explore and things to see :D.  Also, there are so many Arch-Viles because it is very scary for the unsuspecting player on their first run :D.  If you found them too difficult, check out the walkthrough on my YouTube channel which demonstrates the easiest/safest way to kill all of them.

Thanks for playing the first two maps!  Your feedback is greatly appreciated.  As for the difficulty settings, I haven't finished making proper adjustments for easy and medium settings, so I recommend sticking with Ultra-Violence anyway (MAP19 and MAP27 have almost no changes and I can't remember what the few changes were).  I'm glad you like the title screen and intermission MIDIs!  They are short clips of two of my DCG Retrowave songs, "Continue?" and "Sunset Drive".  The full songs can be found on most online music platforms if you're interested in hearing them :D

8 hours ago, Horus said:

 

Up to you, really. The fact that you prefer the sliding doortracks makes me inclined to say keep them that way, just bear in mind that non-sliding doortracks is a community convention (for example, the door builder function in Ultimate Doom Builder lower unpegs doors by default) which is why playtesters tend to point out sliding doortracks when they occur.

I'll keep this in mind when I finalize all of my maps for the full release.  Since this is happening due to unnecessary sectors, the lower unpegged tag they already have will start functioning properly anyway :D

15 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Just played through the demo version from about a week ago, spent 10 minutes all up just wandering around and adoring all the details in Map01. I have to say, this is one of the best myhouse.wad-style maps I've ever seen, especially for vanilla. The texturing is all really nice and it just generally has me looking forward to the final product!

 

With your permission of course, once this is 100% finalized and you're all done with it, I'd love to assimilate it into my collective vanilla wad pack:

 

I like that idea :D.  Assuming there's no rush for your vanilla wad, the final maps will likely be ready sometime in October or November.  Thanks for the feedback!  I'm really glad that so many players are enjoying these maps :)

Multiplayer update for the DOOM 87 demo has been released!  The only changes made were for multiplayer support so all five maps now support co-op and deathmatch!  If you downloaded DOOM 87 before August 30th (WAD file's date modified is August 24th), then I recommend downloading this update even if you aren't worried about multiplayer support.  The previous update (WAD file's date modified is August 30th) featured some minor changes for some maps so if you missed that update, I suggest downloading this one!  The attached file in the original post has been replaced with this updated version as well.

16 hours ago, Zolgia108 said:

 

 

 

 i just played map 27 and 31, i liked them, video is uploading (this time for real) so you will see some gameplay. In general i pretty much enjoyed the maps and their creativity, i didn't enjoy some of the archviles and the middle elevator in map 28, but still i had a lot of fun as you will hear in the video itself. I've also expressed my "opinion" in the lower unpegged doortraks, that i can summarize in a "i don't really give a shit".

 

Love the vibe, please go on with this :)

The Arch-Viles below the lift are safer to kill if you trigger the lift without going down, make noise to wake them up, and keep lowering it until an Arch-Vile comes up.  Be careful so you don't move too far when triggering the linedef!  Also, I suggest running past the Spider Mastermind immediately and head for one of the two alcoves and kill an Arachnotron.  Once you've reached a safe place, try getting the monsters to kill the Spider.  I've seen a single Revenant kill her by getting her stuck next to the bridge :D.  Finally, that switch in the alcove you were wondering about lowers the floor for the lift so you can use it.  If you don't press the switch, the linedef can't be crossed so that's why the switch is important :)

I'm about halfway through your video at the moment.  I just wanted to reply to a few things before I forget :D

Gave MAP01 a go in DOSBox! I really love the retro aesthetic of this wad, it's fun and bright and it's just the sort of thing I need at a time like this. Pretty good house map as well. It's not too cumbersome to move around the tiny house space, and the layout is easy to remember and quick to finish. I only found 2/3 secrets, but I still had fun exploring the little Doom house.

1 hour ago, Moustachio said:

Gave MAP01 a go in DOSBox! I really love the retro aesthetic of this wad, it's fun and bright and it's just the sort of thing I need at a time like this. Pretty good house map as well. It's not too cumbersome to move around the tiny house space, and the layout is easy to remember and quick to finish. I only found 2/3 secrets, but I still had fun exploring the little Doom house.

 

 

That's strange.  You technically found all of the secrets, but one of them wasn't tagged.  The secrets were the bookshelf with the berserk, the kitchen counter with the health and armor bonuses, and the shed outside (yes, that one is very obvious for a secret :D).  My guess is that you didn't fully step on the bookshelf when grabbing the berserk (it looked like you did, but it's a small sector so I suggest backing up against the wall to guarantee that it gets tagged).

Edit: I just realized that you only stepped on the bookshelf the first time.  After you restarted the map, you touched the berserk without stepping on it.  Now it makes sense to me :D

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it!  I'm also very glad that you PATCHED YOUR DOOM2.EXE WITH DEHACKED TO CREATE 87DOOM.EXE AND PLAYED IT ON DOS AAAAAAAAAA THAT IS SO COOL!!!!! :D :D :D

I was hoping that someone would actually try that out so thank you very much for using vanilla!  I play on a real DOS PC most of the time, but I also use DOSBox for recording gameplay and quickly testing maps before burning them to a rewritable CD for my DOS PC.

I like designing a mix of traditional DOOM maps (UAC bases and Hell) and fun, bright maps (often based on something in real life that I like).  The house is literally my real life house in DOOM with the starting room being my bedroom so I was definitely aiming for a bright and cheerful tone in that map :D

I love 90s style wads so I'll be sure to give this one a go once it gets a full release

17 hours ago, Zolgia108 said:

 

 

 

 i just played map 27 and 31, i liked them, video is uploading (this time for real) so you will see some gameplay. In general i pretty much enjoyed the maps and their creativity, i didn't enjoy some of the archviles and the middle elevator in map 28, but still i had a lot of fun as you will hear in the video itself. I've also expressed my "opinion" in the lower unpegged doortraks, that i can summarize in a "i don't really give a shit".

 

Love the vibe, please go on with this :)

I finished watching it.  The Arch-Viles that appear at the end teleported out of the temple as soon as they heard you and began resurrecting some enemies.  You should be able to run up there safely if you have enough health left.  In my opinion, my use of Arch-Viles seems more brutal than it really is, but it throws off the unsuspecting player.  If you want to see a no-saves run on Ultra-Violence, check this video out.

Hopefully this will help you understand the monster placement a little better.  Your opinion about the Arch-Viles is definitely valid, but I believe it makes more sense after a few tries.  I got completely wrecked by this map over 100 times before I released it so it's a very hard map that can be consistently beaten once you've mastered it :D.  I actually used a save before entering the outside area with the temple when testing the map because I just needed to know if it was possible to beat this nightmare XD.  Truth is, this video was the first time I beat it without saves and i did it on my first attempt so I think my practice paid off :D.  I actually added an extra green armor and two medikits before releasing the demo so my practice runs were using a harder version of the map.  Of course, you don't have to play the map again if you don't want to, but I assure you that this map can be beaten with strategy and not just good RNG :)

As for the final map, I'm glad you liked it!  The plasma cell pack is there for players who still have a plasma rifle from MAP15 or BFG from MAP11 (the plasma will be useful once the other maps are released :D).  You missed a super shotgun that is hidden like a secret, but not tagged as one because you never actually move into that sector.  You tried activating everything like a switch EXCEPT for the MIDI keyboard which gives a voodoo doll the SSG (I was cheering for you to find it while watching the video :D).  The MIDI in that map is my song, "New Start", and the map is basically just a fun reference to my music.  The large number of enemies are my fans who are angry that DCG Retrowave isn't showing up and instead some Doomguy marine takes the stage XD.  It's weird, but I think it works well as a secret map :D

Thanks for playing DOOM 87!  MAP19 and MAP27 are two of my hardest maps and the full release will consist of mostly easier maps than these.  Think of DOOM 87's overall difficulty as something like DOOM II: Hell on Earth.  The maps can be difficult, but with a little practice, they are easily mastered.  Most maps are also very fast-paced so a first-time full playthrough could possibly be done in a single day.

Again, thanks for playing and for recording that video!

24 minutes ago, JBerg said:

I love 90s style wads so I'll be sure to give this one a go once it gets a full release

Thanks!  I think you'll really like it, especially if vanilla DOOM is your thing :)