Heretic: Treasure Chest - PLEASE FILL IN SLOTS!

Permanent Host for finished wads: http://ler.belsambar.net/htc/
Update! IRC Channel on OFTC, #htc
Notice: This is not a ZDoom project you fags :(
Notice: Currently going under reorganization. Map slots will be moved around a bit. Also, if you are not completed with your map by the end of February you'll probably lose your slot.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU LIST: Currently cleaned because I'm a nice guy.

Well, I figured it couldn't hurt to make this topic so that people knew some major info and didn't have to look in a huge 500+ post thread.

Here's the deal: We are making a Heretic community megawad similar to the Community Chest. The goal is to have 45 good looking levels spanning episodes 1-5 with excellent gameplay that are limit-removing port and GL port compatible. We would preferably have at most 2 maps per person, but generally only 1 so that as many people as possible can help.

This used to be a paragraph about how we had few mappers but now we're getting very close to completing the project! We still need that final push, however, so please post and join in!

How you can help: MAP! It's very simple, just join the project, make a map for a slot, and submit it for general public review/privately to me (I'd prefer the former just for feedback, but that's just me). When we have more maps we'll also need graphics, and maybe some music.

Texture wad: Here. This will probably be going through various stages of work until we can get it working as well as possible. Pay attention to the thread, there was just another upload as of November 26, '08.

Current Map List (will be periodically updated, along with the level names txt):

Episode 1
E1M1: Torn (he found it! and he's working on it)#
E1M2: magicsofa (finished, compatible)
E1M3: Snarboo (finished, compatible)
E1M4: kaiser_wilhelm / Liberation
E1M5: Kaiser (finished, needs compatibility tweaking)
E1M6: Aldaraia
E1M7: dreadopp (finished, compatible)
E1M8: t.v. (finished, compatible).
E1M9: pcorf (finished, need to remove some extra sound things)

Episode 2
E2M1: kimo xvirus (finished, compatible)
E2M2: Wraith
E2M3: CodenniumRed (finished, haven't checked)
E2M4: Creaphis
E2M5: magicsofa (finished, compatible)
E2M6: Artillery (finished, may need tweaking)
E2M7:
E2M8: lupinx-Kassman (finished, left a doombuilder 3d start in there)
E2M9: OmegaJ4 (finished, compatible)

Episode 3
E3M1: Fisk
E3M2: ler (finished, compatible)
E3M3: Ismaele (finished, compatible) / Patrick Pineda
E3M4: CodenniumRed (finished, compatible)
E3M5: Kirby
E3M6: Lord Z (finished, compatible)
E3M7: ler (finished, has weird stuff in Heretic+ but otherwise runs)
E3M8: dreadopp (finished, compatible)
E3M9: Lord_Z (finished, compatible)

Episode 4
E4M1: Lorenzo (finished, compatible)
E4M2: sp_d00d (finished, compatible)
E4M3: Torn
E4M4: jobro (finished, compatible)
E4M5: The Ultimate Doomer (finished, too many ambient sounds)
E4M6: fenriswolf (finished, will boot up, haven't checked farther than that)
E4M7: Kirby
E4M8: StoneFrog
E4M9: OmegaJ4 (finished, haven't checked)

Episode 5
E5M1: alterworldruler (finished, compatible, up for rehaul?)
E5M2: daimon (finished, weird error that needs to be investigated)
E5M3:
E5M4: Maelstrom
E5M5: Magma_Blaz
E5M6: Lich
E5M7: Mivalekan (finished, haven't checked)
E5M8: rf`
E5M9: daimon (finished, haven't checked)

* New map not part of torn's original list, only for when there's a conflict of interest.
# This means they gave an update that I saw, and are good until the next update call
@ This means they didn't (or I didn't see it) and you should bug them about it because if they don't give me an update after 3 update calls they lose the slot. If you see this on your name and it shouldn't be, let me know right away!

Feel free to sign up for any slot you want; just be aware that depending on how things go you might get moved around a little.

As a final note: near the end we're going to have a quality control pow wow where we'll take what maps we have and improve them to a consistant quality as well as rearrange if needed. This doesn't mean you shouldn't disregard comments or that you shouldn't try to improve your maps beforehand.

Actually, made a bit of progress on E1M1, ALSO REPLACED E1M1 music with hexen 2 music :D

Let's hope Torn's maps come in soon. At the moment, I think this project is relying on that.

Oh wow, I thought there were more maps than that done already D:

I'll jump in on this, provided I get a little more info. Source Port? Additional Textures? I'd want to use some of the HeXen 2 textures if possible, and definitely some of the GothicDm textures (formatted in Heretic Palette of course)

I also make textures and graphics. if that counts for anything.

EDIT: right, put me in for e3m3, I'll stick with the original intended texture pack, i'll just do it in vanilla format for now.

Oops I forgot about this project. I do know my map is gone but it's okay since I never really worked hard on it. I may join again but I just would want to make sure I have the intention of finishing it.

Hopefully if this is ever complete it'll spark more heretic/hexen related projects around the community. ;)

I still think, we should know what's going on with Torn's list. Right now, the effective leader is ler. Torn, if you see this, please let us know whether ler is our leader now, and how much of these maps from the first list are done and of acceptable quality.

Anyway, should the list of mappers be insuficient, or the megawad streched to episodes 4 and 5, I'd be interested in making another map.

Here is the texture pack we are using until ler puts it in the first post. The maps are made in the good old vanilla format as well.

(In first post now)

Artillery said:
...or the megawad streched to episodes 4 and 5, I'd be interested in making another map.

I'd like to make another map too.

If we don't get enough mappers, like Artillery said, I wouldn't mind making another map either.

Heh, even without the Torn's list, we have a good amount of enthusiastic people who are willing to work.

You have eight people on board and eight maps. Neither Kaiser or his map should count, since he often gets lost in temporal singularities somewhere and his map was released seperately anyway which makes it no longer fresh or fun. You have eight people and eight maps and you're limiting your project members to two maps per self in the interests of fairness to the seven other people who have to somehow finish three episodes yet can only make up two maps. What.

In this project's current state, which is best described as "still infantile even after a year and a half", you'd be better off allowing your project members to make as many maps as they want. You'll be justified in limiting people once you, or I, or whoever proves that this project has actually been able to show some serious output and convince enough people that this won't be a waste of time on grounds of signing up for it and having it turn out to be incapable of finishing before the project starts moving so slowly it goes back in time and is never seen again to where the current end result of about seven people going against the 'same idea as the Doom Community Chest' by contributing more than one map moves to its proper position on the list of necessity, to "unnecessary and shoehorning because we have 20-25 people to distribute evenly" from "necessary to finish more than one episode because we have way way less than 20-25 people". Go team!

Still, I'm going to go ahead and take E2M7 for development, even though as previously stated I think your management is very silly, I'm signing on anyway to stumble through this with you because the prospect of a Heretic MegaWAD managed to be that tempting.

Heh, remiel does have a point. The problem is the aforementioned list of Torn's people. As of now we do have some people who are willing to work. If so, the more the merrier, more maps, more people, more quality. But we must finally have it resolved who is really coordinating this, and how many maps we have.

I really like the idea of a heretic megawad and personally, think it's something fresh we can work on. Very little has been done for Heretic, almost nothing in the way of quality works in comparison to doom, and this is an advantage on it's own.

Those of you who are all "I don't mind making maps," the idea is to actively volunteer for a slot. We are LACKING, and if you are willing to help, DO SO, don't say "I'm willing to help what do I do I am clueless," espcially when all the info you need is provided.

Remiel: I can see where you are coming from, but one leader seems to have completely died without dying and has been a nonpresence, so I tried and picked this up half a month ago. For half a month the stuff we have that is active development is preferred over stagnancy. And I would really prefer we wait like 3 or 4 months before we say "okay let's just finish this because we have no one," especially since it's probably been unknown to a lot of people the actual status of the project because all the progress was buried in a giant thread.

tl;dr: Take an open slot those who haven't, and I'm really good at justifying things to myself ;).

And I'm going to update the first post for all news/info. That medivltx.wad I'm in the process of figuring out why some of the textures screw up in Heretic itself but not in some ports, but since my finished product will just be a modified version of that I'm going to go ahead and say map with that texture wad (many thanks to esselfortium for originally allowing the project to use it, btw, as it's a great texture wad).

Edit: magicsofa, good job on improving the visual quality of your maps. That one looked much better. It played better to a degree but there's still too little ammo and practically no health.

I wish e2m6 for the old (done) map.

I wish e2m9 for the new (as of yet undone) map.

ok, I will do E3M3, but I would like to know some details first please.

I'll take E2M8 then. If there gets to be an overflow of people wanting to join then I'll give up this spot for someone else.

I'll take E1M9.

I'm interested in making more maps as well - heretic maps are fun, and I haven't had experience with either heretic or medival DM textures, so basically I'm gonna make levels whether they're included or not...

I didn't think my map was too hard considering the original game's difficulty (and I playtest without getting secrets), but regardless, here is my updated map:

http://www.nowupload.com/:o4B

By the way, I would definitely be interested in testing maps - even for compatibility, although I don't have prboom or vavoom or wheretec or whatever yet...still, they're not hard to download.

Nice map, magicsofa. It has good architecture and a steady stream of enemies to keep you busy. The health and ammo placement is good and plentiful as well. The only problem I noticed is the room where the enemies wait in to be teleported, I think that it should be set so that you cannot see it on the map. Other than that, good work.

Oops! Thanks for the tip - my secrets are all hidden, but I forgot all about them teleport rooms...

Updated: http://www.nowupload.com/:ohP

By the way, when I fire up doombuilder with medivltx.wad, it can't find the lumps for MOSSRCKF and MOSSRCKG patches. It's no matter since I, of course, didn't use them, but it's just curious.

magicsofa said:

By the way, when I fire up doombuilder with medivltx.wad, it can't find the lumps for MOSSRCKF and MOSSRCKG patches. It's no matter since I, of course, didn't use them, but it's just curious.

Yeah, it happens to all of us, since the texture pack lumps are messed up. Forget it, it'll be fixed later.

The good news is, i may be done with E1M1 IN a few days, since first map is always supposed to be small, not too long, easy etc.

The map is done

http://www.speedyshare.com/606367342.html

If someone complains about it, should do details and stuff himself because i have no ideas how to improve it

I've known about this for some time and glad to see it got resurrected, but unfortunately I don't get much time to map now.

Necros20 said:

Hopefully if this is ever complete it'll spark more heretic/hexen related projects around the community. ;)

Or maybe spark a certain mapper making excuses in the above statement into getting his big GZDoom Hexen project finished by the end of the year ;)

I think the map is well done. Has some good architecture and it does have that open canyon feel that you were going for. Only a couple things that I noticed, could be fixed. Right at the beginning, you can run off the side of the cliff and jump over the bars blocking your way without pushing the button. There are also some misaligned textures in a few spots, but are easily fixed. None the less, I think it's a pretty good map.

I just finished testing your map, alterworldruler, and I must that it is a pretty good map. I like the whole canyon feel to it. I noticed a couple of small things as well.

I found there to be just a tad too many Ghouls. I think there should be a few more Gargoyles, or maybe some Undead Warriors. Another minor thing was that the crossbow had a bit too much ammo for the first level.

Those are just my two cents.

Other than that, nice work. :)

alter:
The only way to learn how to add (tasteful) detail is to try. In general, look at places in your level and think about what it's supposed to be. For example, you have plenty of windy caves. These don't normally consist of straight walls in nature. Obviously there are no real curved lines in the doom engine - however, you can break up the monotony using several tricks. There are a few spider-web textures... all you need to do is add a short line in some sector and stick it up there. There are also two 'moss' objects which hang from the ceiling. You can also put in cracks in the floors and cielings, stalagmites and stalactites, maybe some hanging skulls. Another thing you can do is add little "outcroppings" - places where the rock sticks out. This would especially help in the big outside areas - make the rocks hang over the edges so it doesn't look like someone hole-punched the earth.

The lighting could use a lot of work. I actually once had a tiny pain in my eyes from looking at the rock texture in full brightness. Almost any sector whose ceiling texture is not f_sky should be darkened.

That said, the actual -layout- was really cool! Even though it was a pretty linear level, it didn't really feel that way. Props to that.

So, as Dreadopp noted, there were a lot of Golems. Golems are a standard enemy, much like doom's Demons, but they could be placed more effectively rather than being stuck in a small space, ready to be gunned down. More variety is of course good too.

Anyway, it's great to see something being completed.

The link to the texture pack in the first post doesn't work anymore. Can someone reupload?

What are we doing thematically? Do we want to stick to the original episode themes or is it just going to be a mish-mash?

I haven't mapped for Heretic before, so I'm not claiming a spot just yet. But, if I can come up with something I like I'll join this project properly.

Another thing: The original Heretic maps, even on black plague from pistol starts (I mean wand starts) are relatively easy. Can maps in this project be on a higher difficulty curve?

I have uploaded the texture wad to http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1YB208JN.

Hopefully we can get a more permanent upload at some point in time. Can anyone volunteer space for it? I might purchase some cheap small space later but this will be fine for now, I hope.

Creaphis: I don't know about you, but Episode 3 was devilishly difficult. Just make sure we can all play it and have fun, though. Don't worry too much about what map was actually there. Theme can be anything you can map.