What was the lowest point in your mapping career?

I'm currently at it since I keep deleting and redoing large portions of my wad, making progress needlessly slow. Don't be like me.

20 Days in Hell. I was really still trying to learn mapping, and working on a shareware version of DeeP that had a linedef limit of 800 per map. So working with these limited conditions without proper access to tutorials, without the internet at the time in 1996. I never meant to release it in public but thanks @pcorf :D 

It sucks and has sections that have been copied from Plutonia and original games, me trying to understand how everything was done and redoing some of it from memory. Also, 32 hours in Pain started almost right after when 20 Days was finished when I though had figured out something about how to use the editor, and was still done with the 800 linedef limit shareware DeeP.

2 hours ago, MacGuffin said:

I'm currently at it since I keep deleting and redoing large portions of my wad, making progress needlessly slow. Don't be like me.

I am trying to make a map since 2012. My friend assemled almost full megawad out of my unfinished/barely started creations once. For about 8 years of mapping I still have 5 finished maps in my "portfolio". Don't be like me.  

My lowest point was probably making this crappy wad!

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/d2mzd

The lowest point of my mapping career was a HUGE burnout, caused by IRL issues weighing down on me unbearably. A bout with depression, unemployment, a failing relationship, that kind of thing.

At the time I was making a follow-up to Murderous Intent -- itself my first official WAD release (although I'd made a couple of handfuls of maps before it, experiments really) from which I'd learned enough to make what I thought was going to be my mapping magnum opus. Alas, any work I have of Murderous Intent 2 is lost to the aether, having not made the jump from the computer I was initially creating it on; although screenshots exist from the three maps I had completed, featuring my first (and thus far only) foray into custom DOOM texturing.

The closest to a sequel I got was making Sinister Intention, more than ten years later. A DECADE! Now that's burnout! ;)

3 hours ago, Kristian Nebula said:

20 Days in Hell. I was really still trying to learn mapping, and working on a shareware version of DeeP that had a linedef limit of 800 per map. So working with these limited conditions without proper access to tutorials, without the internet at the time in 1996. I never meant to release it in public but thanks @pcorf :D 

It sucks and has sections that have been copied from Plutonia and original games, me trying to understand how everything was done and redoing some of it from memory. Also, 32 hours in Pain started almost right after when 20 Days was finished when I though had figured out something about how to use the editor, and was still done with the 800 linedef limit shareware DeeP.

Zone 800 was better than my first efforts! :D

1024

My Freedoom maps  and complexe16 ^{(well any wad i have ever made)}

1 hour ago, Szymanski said:

1024

A fairly high low point if you ask me.

This asshole of a map.

This is "Ghosts of Mars".  It's a a Capture the Flag map that was originally supposed to be a part of ZDaemon CTF Map Pack 3, but landed with such a "thud" that it was nearly single-handedly responsible for me handing the reigns of that project to a more capable curator.  The map eventually found its way into ZDCTF B-Sides, which is why you can gawk at it today.

Just from outward appearances it looks like a neat-looking map.  And that was the intention.  My ambition at the time was through the roof, and I wanted to make the most memorable and coolest-looking CTF map ever.  Multiple routes into the base that all criss-crossed each other.  Amazing (for 2004-2005 I suppose) views onto the lunar martian surface.  Even a section where you could grab a radiation suit and run out onto the surface of the planet.

But then the first....and only...play-test hit and I realized that I had made an incredibly grave mistake.  The map was way too big for a game of CTF.  Seriously, the grid in the first screenshot is at 64 128 units and you could go a minute without seeing another player in a 4v4.  It was too dark, too confusing to navigate, and what's more, the outdoor section turned out to be 100% useless as it didn't actually save much time at all.  You'll notice that my screenshots aren't the best and that's because the scale of the map is so damn big and it's so dark that I had a hard time finding good angles that weren't too dark or was mostly empty in the foreground of the frame.  And it actually took me literal minutes to find where mid was to get to the red base.

I had spent a ton of time on the thing, and I had no clue how to even begin fixing it.  Earthquake, bless him, added some detail and put it in B-Sides.  Moral of the story, maps are meant to be played.  A map can be a combination of GRAYTALL and CEIL5_1 and still be a good map, but you can cram all the ambition and detail into a map you like and it won't make it good.

15 minutes ago, AlexMax said:

 

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But then the first....and only...play-test hit and I realized that I had made an incredibly grave mistake.  The map was way too big for a game of CTF.  Seriously, the grid in the first screenshot is at 64 128 units and you could go a minute without seeing another player in a 4v4. 

Holy shit

Probably one of the numerous sex scandals. Thankfully we've all agreed to move on from those.

But for real, my submission to Vargskelethor's Doom mapping contest. It was one of my first maps ever. The level design was decent, but there wasn't enough ammo and it ended with an overpowered Realm667 enemy for a boss. He seemed to have a pretty bad time playing it, and thousands of people watched the stream.

4 hours ago, Andromeda said:

A fairly high low point if you ask me.

Three shit maps, removed opportunity from other mappers

19 minutes ago, Szymanski said:

Three shit maps, removed opportunity from other mappers

Fair. I wasn't around back then, but I enjoyed your maps for that project when I played it recently.

Does learning mapping then never doing anything with it count? Always got distracted by making mods or playing instead. 

30 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Does learning mapping then never doing anything with it count? Always got distracted by making mods or playing instead. 

Yes I think it does :)

Haven't spent too long mapping so I'm still a beginner, but so far my lowest point was spending an hour trying to get a door to function properly. then realizing that I did not check the "repeatable action" function.

Gomorrah.

Just kidding, it's still (and likely always will be) Prayers of Armageddon.

The lowest point is the starting point (my first ever megawad is based directly on plutonia.wad, however it is not an IWAD itself and it requires Plutonia.wad to play, like it was stated in gameinfo, but you can manage to run it with Doom2 and TNT)

AFAIR back in the days I played it thru Gzdoom 1.8.6 and Zdoom 2.8.1. I even had Coop with my friends (up to 4 players at once) and they really liked the minecraft painted maps. Later it had been turned into vanilla wad with segfaults and texture errors but it was still playable if not in Vanilla but in Chocolate and Zdoom.

Here's somewhat censored version of the wad what it looked like in 2016 before being vanillified and the wad contains my the first ever map which is named "the first swamp" lol and it's not map01 and I can't remember why. Runs with Gzdoom or Zdoom with plutonia.wad, contains some stolen music and assets

Warning: contains blue ss guards, grey marines with weapons and two types of rocket zombies lol. The only unfinishable map is "Marshes" iirc

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8c6yvlqawkkbj7t/MYFIRSTWAD.WAD?dl=1

Before I started. Since discovering WadAuthor back in the day, it's been a constant source of fulfillment. There have been worries that my work wasn't up to par - but I wouldn't call those worries a "low point" exactly, just a realization that I should step it up a bit. Which I never did, but who cares, it's still been fun!

EDIT: I guess losing all my childhood MSpaint automap doodles from 1999-2001, and then my actual first maps from 2001-2003 could be considered a low point. Nothing of value was really lost, but I'd just prefer to have them. Oh well, they were still useful on my road to making actual playable wads.

On samedi 14 novembre 2020 at 11:24 AM, Jayextee said:

Alas, any work I have of Murderous Intent 2 is lost to the aether, having not made the jump from the computer I was initially creating it on; although screenshots exist from the three maps I had completed, featuring my first (and thus far only) foray into custom DOOM texturing.

Too bad it's lost, some of these textures looked cute. I especially like the UAC banner on the first screenshot.

I really hope @Mikolah sees this thread because there is a prime opportunity for a Mikoportals joke here.

There was that one time Sandy Petersen said I could do better.

8 minutes ago, AinuTheTaken said:

There was that one time Sandy Petersen said I could do better.

Sandy Petersen could have done better too.

This.

Probably from last year in through this past summer.  I nearly stopped mapping.

On the more humorous side, probably when I used a Barbie Girl MIDI for a level's music.

Not having one in the first place, due to work.

delete this

On 11/17/2020 at 12:53 PM, Major Arlene said:

This.

I didn't knew it was a map from you!

Back on topic:

Every time i tried to do jokewads, with the only expection of this thing. Oh, and probably one map from WOOO 3.

I don't have a really great sense of humor, unluckily. So i've filled the archives with pretty much a series of unfunny jokewads with horrible inside jokes that nobody's get it...