Hello

Hi everyone!

Quick question: These days I'm sure Doom isn't the most popular game out there: but is there still a market for regular Doom wads? Are wads still being made and played? I'm asking this because I've rediscovered Doom(for the 956th time) and I'm making a level. It's coming along nicely, it looks good, plays well, and has some nifty tricks I haven't seen anywhere else. It also doesn't use scripting or polyobjects or whatever. I'm totally against those things: Essentially they turn Doom into an inferior Half-Life.

I don't want to submit my wad if nobody's around to play it, though I'm having lots of fun making it. I just wished I'd been around before Boom and ZDoom came along so I could show off these neat tricks that you can do with the normal Doom engine.

Here's a cool one I've yet to see in a wad. I've used it in an earlier, unfinished level I made a few years ago. You're walking along in a room, and all of a sudden a pillar rises from nowhere. It goes straight through the ceiling and stops. Seconds later you hear a teleport, and the pillars comes crashing back down, bringing an Arch-Vile with it!

There was also a self-creating castle that just appeared out of the ground using dummy sectors. It looked awesome to see it form before your eyes.

In fact I think I'll polish up and release that level, but I'll only go through the trouble if I know somebody will play it.

Not to worry. There's plenty of people around who still plays Doom wads. Not only that, every week around Sunday all the wadfiles that have been submitted to 3DArchives gets reviews (whether they be good or bad) in the /Newstuff Chronicles.

I wouldnt mind playing your level, most wads are fun even if it's not on a source port.

Doom is still alive and well. Dont be discouraged by the ports. Many of us around here (myself included) still appreciate Doom.exe compatible wads that use lots of tricks.

Sounds cool. I might like to try that pillar trick myself.

So pillars rise quickly. Then... you cross a line which makes both the pillars and the arch-vile's teleport sector fall... only the arch-vile's teleport is lower to the ground, thus it teleports onto the quickly falling pillar. Something like that, right?

I personally like things which change instantly (or very quickly). So that sounds cool.

I'm BBG, I wrote this little FAQ (with the help from my partners in crime) which I urge all new people to read, study and live by or something. So, yeah, take a peek and ponder the meaning of life while sipping soda.

BBG is also very wierd, please watch out for him.

I always play new levels when I git´em ... u know, testin a fresh level is straight off tha heezy!

Vile1011 said:

There was also a self-creating castle that just appeared out of the ground using dummy sectors. It looked awesome to see it form before your eyes.

There's a cool self-building castle in map12 of Equinox. If you've got any sense of self-preservation though, you jump straight to the exit before it is fully built.

I like wads that don't require a sourceport - that means people can play them with the original exes or with a port, according to their preferences.

Yeah sure, i'll play your new level when it's out. It's always good to see someone out there still making stuff for vanilla doom.

Grazza said:
There's a cool self-building castle in map12 of Equinox. If you've got any sense of self-preservation though, you jump straight to the exit before it is fully built.

Guess I need to take a look at Equinox now ;) BTW, it's easier not to make a rising castle, but to sink the floor the player is standing on and make it -look- like the castle is rising up instead.

The castle is actually quite basic, but the way it builds is nice. It causes quite a slowdown on older computers though.

BTW, this map is insanely difficult, especially from a pistol start, so if you just want to take a quick look, I'd recommend nomonsters or some cheats.

Vile1011 said:

It also doesn't use scripting or polyobjects or whatever. I'm totally against those things: Essentially they turn Doom into an inferior Half-Life.

It would be far more accurate to say they turn Doom into Hexen, seeing as that's where the code for both is taken from. And logically that would make Half-Life an inferior Hexen =P

I just wished I'd been around before Boom and ZDoom came along so I could show off these neat tricks that you can do with the normal Doom engine.

Hey, original .exe tricks are still very welcome. Why only last year, I discovered a way of simulating true 3D in it (ignore the thread title, it works in doom(2).exe as well as Boom, although the example wad does use Boom) :)

There was also a self-creating castle that just appeared out of the ground using dummy sectors. It looked awesome to see it form before your eyes.

Funny you should mention that, I saw the same effect for the first time only a few days ago (and it was amazing!) This one used Boom's conveyor belts and voodoo dolls though, so it'd be interesting to see how you did it.

In fact I think I'll polish up and release that level, but I'll only go through the trouble if I know somebody will play it.

Don't worry, lots of people play new levels. Just check out any edition of The Newstuff Chronicles on the Doomworld frontpage ;)

NiGHTMARE said:

Funny you should mention that

Yeah, heh, I gotta see what this dude's talking about :P

netnomad312 said:

Sounds cool. I might like to try that pillar trick myself.

So pillars rise quickly. Then... you cross a line which makes both the pillars and the arch-vile's teleport sector fall... only the arch-vile's teleport is lower to the ground, thus it teleports onto the quickly falling pillar. Something like that, right?

I personally like things which change instantly (or very quickly). So that sounds cool.

Well it's nice to know that people will play it. I'm working on finishing that old level up(just have to add health + ammo and playtest it).

About the pillar trick, here's what I did. The pillar has it's ceiling higher than the surrounding sector, but there's no upper texture so the pillar seems to go through the ceiling. There's also a dummy sector outside that's the same as the pillar.

A hidden tripwire causes the pillar to rise. The dummy pillar rises too(this also let's the engine know when to stop the pillar). An arch-vile is waiting in a sector attached to the dummy sector, when that rises, the archvile can cross the line and is teleported into the pillar. Within the pillar is an internal tripwire that the archvile runs across. This lowers the pillar down again.

Oh and I must apologize, the wad does need Boom/Zdoom, but only for the complexity of the areas. The tricks I use are still vanilla-Doom compatible though.

Vile1011 said:

About the pillar trick, here's what I did. The pillar has it's ceiling higher than the surrounding sector, but there's no upper texture so the pillar seems to go through the ceiling. There's also a dummy sector outside that's the same as the pillar.

A hidden tripwire causes the pillar to rise. The dummy pillar rises too(this also let's the engine know when to stop the pillar). An arch-vile is waiting in a sector attached to the dummy sector, when that rises, the archvile can cross the line and is teleported into the pillar. Within the pillar is an internal tripwire that the archvile runs across. This lowers the pillar down again.

That sounds like it would work. Only how does the archvile activate the trigger line inside the pillar?

Sounds cool.

The only thing I don't get is why so many people rely on only using vanilla doom. I've got nothing against this, and a lot of the people who I would consider to be the best DooM mappers about always seem to rely on vanilla doom.exe limits. The only thing is, most of the time their levels won't run in vanilla doom because they are architexturally so complex, and doom.exe just crashes out with a VPO. If you're gonna have to run it in Boom anyway, I think you might as well use some of it's features. If not (zdoom) scripting or polyobjects, at least the more manipulatable linedef triggers.

netnomad312 said:

That sounds like it would work. Only how does the archvile activate the trigger line inside the pillar?

He just does. Monsters can activate W-Lift lines by walking over them. There's a tripwire in the middle of the pillar and Archie Bunker will trigger it while he's running about.

Grazza said:

There's a cool self-building castle in map12 of Equinox. If you've got any sense of self-preservation though, you jump straight to the

OO can't wait, I'm not that far into the wad yet but I really like it. It's so different.

Hello Vile1011, I'm The Ultimate DooMer, one of the /newstuff chroniclers on these forums. If you have a wad you want to release, the best place to send it is the DooM archive. The Doomworld FAQ will tell you how to do this, and may also answer any other questions you may have about newstuff. The wad will then be reviewed on Sunday by myself or one of the other reviewers. If you have any questions, my contact details are on the bar at the bottom of this post.


(And don't worry, loads of people will play it when it gets reviewed and there are plenty of vanilla maps still being made)

BTW, there is a self-creating castle in map 32 of Revolution! as well.

The Ultimate DooMer said:
BTW, there is a self-creating castle in map 32 of Revolution! as well. [/B]

That one is a bit different, since the castle (more of a tower) is ready-made, and the whole area raises into view when triggered. A similar effect is used in map08 of the same wad (TVR!).

The one in Equinox starts off as a completely flat area; when triggered, different parts of it rise to various heights.

Hey Ultimate DooMer, is that a tag yet? ;)

Yep, da Doom commuunity still be around. Sounds interesting. Just to let you know, if your WAD doesn't have "detail", it'll be damned to the Ninth Circle of Hell, in the "Traitors to the Advancement of Dooming" section, and it's review will be thusly detrimented. If it's good enough, it should be able to get through this little hangup that everyone seems to have, but you have been warned.

Grimm said:

Hey Ultimate DooMer, is that a tag yet? ;)

Yep, da Doom commuunity still be around. Sounds interesting. Just to let you know, if your WAD doesn't have "detail", it'll be damned to the Ninth Circle of Hell, in the "Traitors to the Advancement of Dooming" section, and it's review will be thusly detrimented. If it's good enough, it should be able to get through this little hangup that everyone seems to have, but you have been warned.

A map don't have to insane detail for be fun. I prefer gameplay for detail.

I like playing doom levels to look at how various things are done. In some maps in AV I would just take time to admire the work done by the mappers. some of thos levels I love :X
for me, a map has to have a somewhat high level of detail for it to be fun. I don't want to be shooting up demons in plain halls. if I wanted to do that, I would walk around my apartment building.

Grimm said:

Hey Ultimate DooMer, is that a tag yet? ;)

Yep, da Doom commuunity still be around. Sounds interesting. Just to let you know, if your WAD doesn't have "detail", it'll be damned to the Ninth Circle of Hell, in the "Traitors to the Advancement of Dooming" section, and it's review will be thusly detrimented. If it's good enough, it should be able to get through this little hangup that everyone seems to have, but you have been warned.

No problem there, I gots tons o' detail. This wad has an almost pretentious amount of detail(I admit I made some things needlessly complex just for the hell of it). It actually looks really good though. And don't think I skimped on the gameplay either. Every room has an interesting trap or two to trick the player. Watch your back is all I can tell you.

Grimm said:

Hey Ultimate DooMer, is that a tag yet? ;)

[tud]Grimm[/tud]

Nope. (and it probably won't either - I doubt I could get another tag created...)

Yep, da Doom commuunity still be around. Sounds interesting. Just to let you know, if your WAD doesn't have "detail", it'll be damned to the Ninth Circle of Hell, in the "Traitors to the Advancement of Dooming" section, and it's review will be thusly detrimented. If it's good enough, it should be able to get through this little hangup that everyone seems to have, but you have been warned.

While detail is important, a map won't be damned to the Ninth Circle of Hell etc. if it doesn't have tons of it. If it's fun to play then it's a good map IMO, and I certainly won't give fun maps a bad review just because they don't have 10,000 sectors and slow down everything below 2GHz.

Of course a hugely-detailed map is still a good map, as long as it has good gameplay to match. (after all, the reason we all still love DooM is because of the speed and gameplay, not because of the graphics and detail level)

OK, I finshed up that wad and uploaded it(I did a ton of playtesting but I'm still paranoid that I overlooked some glaring error...) Have fun! Now back to my current wad.

No matter how many bugs you find and correct, there will always be one more, which will turn up just after the finished project or product is released.

What's the file called? I can't see anything in incoming

Edit: Oh there it is... not vile_dead by any chance?

I see TheArena.zip and vile_dead.zip (the _ will probably be removed before going to /newstuff because it's greater than 8 characters).