WIP - 5 DM levels. MancerXX.wad

Hello all. I recently discovered ZDaemon and thus re-discovered the joys of Doom 2 deathmatch. I decided to make good on one of the oldest ideas in my book. Over the last 3 weeks or so I have been working on and off revamping some of my old Doom 2 maps, and I do mean OLD. In fact, they are over a decade old. I saw there are still a few ZDaemon servers running them as well as various compilation wads that have some of the levels. Soooo some of you may have played them before, the Mancer series. Better known under the names MancerX, MancerX2, and MancerX3. They enjoyed some popularity in their time. They're not too pretty now but they, more importantly, still play well.

Originally I was going to revamp just one map. But the work went so fast I decided I wanted to do something a little more grand. In the MancerX theme, there needed to be 5 levels. So 5 levels it was and I picked my old favorites that would be updated. MancerXX.wad is born! No gimmicks, no ultra fancy architecture showcasing, no source port tricks, just 5 maps intended for fast paced 1-on-1 deathmatch (but should still work well with a few more players). They will require a limit removing port such as ZDoom, but I suppose thats not a big deal since they are DM maps.. Currently, I'm hoping to be able to finish this up within the next few weeks unless life gets in the way. MAP01, 04, and 05 in particular still have quite a bit of work left on them. In fact I just started MAP04 tonight. :P (can't decide if I like that wack texture theme or not, but its staying!)

But I don't want to ramble on. The real reason I am posting this is because I'm hoping to hold a public beta as well as get a little input. If anyone here can, or knows someone who can, host a zdaemon server with excellent bandwidth please send me a message.

Few questions as well:
1) Is there anything special I'll have to do to make these maps Skulltag compatible? Better, should I bother with Skulltag compatibility?
2) Do I need to worry about configuring skill settings for items/weapons like back in The Day (tm) or are server admins able to work that all out to their liking?
3) If I do need to configure skill settings for items is there a common set that people prefer these days?

Will post here again if I can think of any more. Suggestions welcome. Danke.

MAP01 - Mancer01 (aka MancerX MAP01) revamped

MAP02 - Mancer02 (aka MancerX MAP02) revamped

MAP03 - Mancer13 (aka MancerX3 MAP13) revamped

MAP04 - Mancer11 (aka MancerX3 MAP11) revamped

MAP05 - A previously unreleased level I was working on for a short time for a now famous DM wad but ditched in favor of doing a ton of Quake 1 work. Which, of course, was far more important. Not to mention time consuming.

this can only be described with two words: f***ing awesome! I'd love to play some matches on those maps,especially the first one looks very interesting.

Those be some fine looking DM maps! Hope they play out as well as they look.

As long as the maps are still limit removing, you'll have nothing to worry about in terms of it working with Skulltag.

Thanks for the kind replies. The maps are small but those screenshots don't really do them justice. Problem is I can only take shots at certain angles because there is so many unfinished sections laying around. I spent a few more hours cleaning up all 5 maps last night though and invested some more time today. So perhaps I'll be putting up some additional shots later..

For now I am trying to finish MAP05. To say this is a 'previously unreleased' map probably isn't right the way to put it. It was about half done when I picked it up, and then I cut off half of that because I didn't like it. I guess that makes it 75% new? heh I also flip flopped around quite a lot with the new stuff. This map has been far more of a pain than the others.



It's the largest of the 5 and has a quasi gothic theme (hint).

Darkfyre:
If theres any concerns about how they will play well.. You could always play the old mancer maps. But those comparisons wont go that far. These new 'revamped' versions have new areas, modified weapon layouts, are not quite as cramped in most cases, and other such improvements. :)

Me again. Here are some shots of MAP05 that I took while screwing about with Skulltag. I figure this map is 90% done. The bots don't use the map to its fullest though. I guess there isn't a lot that can be done about that?

That looks really nice. The moss (or whatever that green stuff is) looks cool. :P

Thanks. Yeah it's supposed to be moss and thats about the extent of my texture editing skillz. ;P

I'll give 'em a whirl Manzer!

(also, manzer did some doom3 maps!)

Great progress.

Wow man. I loved your levels back in the day. I'd spend hours upon hours deathmatchin in them, and you were really one of the best level designers of all time imo. Glad to see you're still a hardcore doom fan for life. If you need any help beta testing or whatever, i'd be more than happy to help

Cheers Bro

Well I haven't got around to playing the originals, but I will say that this looks pretty nice and fun.

Are you ever going to release your two Requiem levels?

Fusion said:

Wow man. I loved your levels back in the day. I'd spend hours upon hours deathmatchin in them, and you were really one of the best level designers of all time imo. Glad to see you're still a hardcore doom fan for life. If you need any help beta testing or whatever, i'd be more than happy to help

Cheers Bro

Well, I'm glad someone here actually remembers them. :) There will definitely be some kind of beta version that I will link here and probably at my doomworld.com/manzer address as well and it will be in the near future so keep an eye out for that. Still no word from anyone who can host a server though.

Afterglow said:

Are you ever going to release your two Requiem levels?

Hey Afterglow, your name seems really familiar to me. I know I hammered your site for all its texture wads but I feel like I know you from somewhere else. Did you used to use an irc channel called leveldesign? Maybe you just share the same name as someone from there.

Any ways, about those Requiem maps. I was looking at them some weeks ago along with all my other unreleased stuff. It's kind of funny that you asked because I was considering releasing them considering how popular Requiem has been over the years. Maybe people would want to see those 'Requiem maps that never were'.

But honestly I'm not sure.

Few reasons:
1) I think they really aren't that great.
2) I could swear one of them was intended for Strain, and I can't remember the story behind that. Maybe it was originally for Strain then I was going toss it in Requiem.. Can't remember.
3) I also can't remember why they were not in Requiem any ways. As far as I can remember they were as finished as I was going to get them at the time since I was more than focused on moving to Quake.

Over the years I would occasionally receive an email about these levels. I never did figure out how people actually know about them. It kind of seems like anyone who really wants them already has them and how they never ended up on cdrom.com (or like archives), even without my permission, is amazing.

Well, if you have any of the answers to my reasons listed above shoot me a message. I could use some refreshing there, been awhile. :) I think if I had all the info to properly tell the story behind them then I'd have no problem releasing them unmodified or perhaps with the minor mod of removing the requiem textures that are only used in one small area.

Back to work for now!

More shots. This time of map02 in action. Everything is on track, I estimate MAP02 and MAP05 are now 95% done with only minor texture/detail work left to be done.

The underground+brown isn't a theme I enjoy much, but you're obviously doing a fine job at it nontheless. :P

manzer said:

Hey Afterglow, your name seems really familiar to me. I know I hammered your site for all its texture wads but I feel like I know you from somewhere else. Did you used to use an irc channel called leveldesign? Maybe you just share the same name as someone from there.

Yeah, I used to idle in #level_design on efnet and later on enterthegame, I think. I really don't know why since I never did any serious Quake design. I think I was just fawning over fingers_.

manzer said:

Anyway, about those Requiem maps. I was looking at them some weeks ago along with all my other unreleased stuff. It's kind of funny that you asked because I was considering releasing them considering how popular Requiem has been over the years. Maybe people would want to see those 'Requiem maps that never were'.

But honestly I'm not sure.

Few reasons:
1) I think they really aren't that great.
2) I could swear one of them was intended for Strain, and I can't remember the story behind that. Maybe it was originally for Strain then I was going toss it in Requiem.. Can't remember.
3) I also can't remember why they were not in Requiem any ways. As far as I can remember they were as finished as I was going to get them at the time since I was more than focused on moving to Quake.

Over the years I would occasionally receive an email about these levels. I never did figure out how people actually know about them. It kind of seems like anyone who really wants them already has them and how they never ended up on cdrom.com (or like archives), even without my permission, is amazing.

Well, if you have any of the answers to my reasons listed above shoot me a message. I could use some refreshing there, been awhile. :) I think if I had all the info to properly tell the story behind them then I'd have no problem releasing them unmodified or perhaps with the minor mod of removing the requiem textures that are only used in one small area.

From what I was aware, the moderator/leader Chris Thornton went AWOL as the project was closing up, after you had sent your levels. Once the rest of the team took it back up a year later, your work got lost in the shuffle and Adam Windsor submitted some small filler maps to make it a full megawad. As far as the back story on STRAIN, goes, I really don't know since Adelusion and Ricrob were really the only people from that project I talked to and they've been long gone from the interweb community for years.

I got the Requiem levels either from you or Matt Dixon back in 2001 and I was going to include them in a small multi-level WAD that was going to be released around 2002 but that was disbanded and I didn't think the effort to improve your levels before release would be worth it. I think the people that have the files are respectful that it isn't your best work so they weren't made public. Of course, if you put them out now, they'll be far better than the drivel released in /newstuff bi-weekly, KDiZD included.

Afterglow said:

Yeah, I used to idle in #level_design on efnet and later on enterthegame, I think. I really don't know why since I never did any serious Quake design. I think I was just fawning over fingers_.

Ah, I thought so. Haven't used that channel in forever but I knew your nickname rung a bell. I haven't talked to fingers in a looong time. In fact I think the last time I talked to him he was over at Ion Storm, not sure whats happening with him now.

Afterglow said:

From what I was aware, the moderator/leader Chris Thornton went AWOL as the project was closing up, after you had sent your levels. Once the rest of the team took it back up a year later, your work got lost in the shuffle and Adam Windsor submitted some small filler maps to make it a full megawad. As far as the back story on STRAIN, goes, I really don't know since Adelusion and Ricrob were really the only people from that project I talked to and they've been long gone from the interweb community for years.

That does make sense. That kind of un-fogs my memory a bit. What I recall was that there was some kind of massive delay with Requiem. I seem to recall being contacted to finish up the maps and not really wanting to because I was soooo tied up in Quake projects like Zerstorer and some others. I know for sure one of the maps was intended for Strain and then turned to Requiem because I remember some Strain specific textures being there that aren't present in the version I have.

Any ways I'll send you a PM later and we can continue jabbing about the olden days matey.

Tango said:

The underground+brown isn't a theme I enjoy much, but you're obviously doing a fine job at it nontheless. :P

Rest assured I'm trying my best to use textures in unique ways (well I think they are unique, I haven't really played user made doom maps since quake came out). I'm considering ditching that rock texture from MAP02 in favor of something else. We'll see, I'm always changing my mind lately...

In mind changing other news, MAP01 is receiving a major overhaul. I didn't feel it was up to par, too many caves and such. After deleting/modifying ~150 sectors, I think this will be the right decision. I might toss the original version in as a 'secret' map. :P

Here is an early shot of the new version:

Your other maps, if you don't think you will release them on your own, might be a very welcome addition to the community chest project. I would love to play them, and I am sure there are others that would love to play them too.

You should release them in some form, at least for the historical significance, not to mention the fact that they might be lost in a hard drive failure.

I could host a server on an irregular basis, but I'm not sure I could leave it running all the time.

Searcher said:

Your other maps, if you don't think you will release them on your own, might be a very welcome addition to the community chest project. I would love to play them, and I am sure there are others that would love to play them too.

You should release them in some form, at least for the historical significance, not to mention the fact that they might be lost in a hard drive failure.

I will more than likely release them along side MancerXX. I know most of the people left playing Doom now are big on single player, so I figure if I release those and tell them to check out MancerXX maybe there will be a few more hits. ;P

Crusader said:

I could host a server on an irregular basis, but I'm not sure I could leave it running all the time.

Any server would definitely be better than no server. I'm awaiting my wad to be approved over at wadsinprogress.info, more people will probably see it there. So we'll see what comes up. ;)

Any ways, daily screenshot time! It's MAP04 and its almost starting to look decent now that the custom textures are in place but there is much work left to be done. Obviously this map is quite different from the others.

Hey! This looks great. Keep up the swell work.

Time for another screen! Today it's the new version of MAP01 again. Bit further along now but still plenty of work left to be done. Until later..

Lookin' awesome.

Hey Manzer, I don't have to tell you that these shots are looking sweet. It's funny that you did all that mapping for Quake, because the influence carries over very clearly, even in colour themes.

All I might suggest is to lower a few of the metal ridges by a few seen in some of the shots. They could become annoying, especially with pings above 200.

But these look really, really good; better than anything I could come up with.

Looking at those screenshots, I'm reminded of Might and Magic VI.

Oooh, these look really nice. Are you stil considering to have this thing be Skulltag compatible? I don't think there's anything really specific you need to do to make it ST compatible aside from adding in ST-specific weapons and powerups. In my opinion, I think you shouldn't bother with that. Just leave it ZDoom compatible, that way you can still play this in Zdaemon and in Skulltag.

Nick Perrin said:

Hey Manzer, I don't have to tell you that these shots are looking sweet. It's funny that you did all that mapping for Quake, because the influence carries over very clearly, even in colour themes.

Is that a clever way of saying MAP01 is very very brown? ;)

EANB said:

All I might suggest is to lower a few of the metal ridges by a few seen in some of the shots. They could become annoying, especially with pings above 200.

You're probably referring to the ones on MAP04, the flesh themed map. They've already been dealt with. These metal support ridges are littered throughout all of the maps and I'm making sure most of them aren't going to get in the player's way.

Lizardcommando said:

Oooh, these look really nice. Are you stil considering to have this thing be Skulltag compatible? I don't think there's anything really specific you need to do to make it ST compatible aside from adding in ST-specific weapons and powerups. In my opinion, I think you shouldn't bother with that. Just leave it ZDoom compatible, that way you can still play this in Zdaemon and in Skulltag.

Yes it is Skulltag compatible. When I originally asked that question I was thinking you needed to add Skulltag specific items but you don't. Well, not if you don't want the Skulltag weapons like you said. The only requirement should be ANY limit removing port. I've been using Skulltag bots to test item balance and while the bots are a bit on the dumb side and wont use the maps to their fullest they still work fairly well.

Today's shot is MAP04. As of now it's the least finished map of the bunch. Shouldn't be long now!



BTW, does anyone know how long it takes a map to get approved over at wadsinprogress.info? I put in a submission on the 7th and still nothing. At this rate this will be finished before it gets approved. :P

The mods that WIP has (there are only a few of them I think) obviously don't check it often, which is probably why it hasn't been approved. Boris should get a few more mods. :|