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PirateNipple

Never released anything, can I get feedback on this?

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I've been into mapping and level design for as long as I can remember. Doom has always had a special place in my heart and I've fiddled around with mapping on and off for years and years, but I've never really released anything. Here I have a map I've been working on for a few days and I'm at a point where I want to show it off and get feedback on it.

The map replaces MAP01 in Doom 2. Built in Doom Builder and tested in ZDoom but there's no fancy ZDOOm tricks like slopes or anything, so it sohuld run in vanilla doom 2.

Specifically, I'm looking for feedback on:
-Relative diffuculty: Is there enough ammo? Too many enemies? Not enough health?
-Design: Does the map flow well? Are the environments neat? How is the detail?
-Fun: Would you want to play this map in a finished state? Was it just dumb?

I'm ready for any and all advice and feedback I can get. Diffuculty levels are not in yet, but I'd put the diffuculty at somewhere between Hurt Me Plenty and Ultra-Violence.

I tried playing through it several times to get a feel for where people might look for ammo and health powerups and looked at how "well" I was doing as I went along. Ammo is a little tight but there are a couple of secrets that should help out well.

The end of the map is when you get the yellow key and open the yellow door (as in, that's all I've got done so far). I'm pleased with some of the detailing so far, and I know some areas need some work. I tried to keep a main theme but still have some variety.

There's some texture alignment to be done near the end but up until then I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Enough of this bullshit, here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?3b9zmldhybn Old version
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nbxzktymzjt Updated version
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=15318 Final version uploaded

Pictures:



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i just played this. I like what I've seen so far. Its linear, but it gives a good sense of direction. Your textures are well aligned and your choice of color theme is solid. i can only urge you to keep up the good work. It almost reminded me of Plutonia. I'd suggest that you use plutonia textures and skies since you have a good grasp on mapping.

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I like it. The architecture is great, it's very classic but not ID-classic - it reminds me of early AV levels, for instance. The gameplay is also very good. Your ammo/monster/health balance is unusual, but unusual in a good way - at first it seemed to have fairly traditional gameplay as well (ie. easy fights and too much ammo) but then I was surprised by the suddenly challenging fights, and I needed all the extra ammo I had banked. I wouldn't change it, it works very well this way.

I tested this in chocolate doom, so I can comfirm that this level is - almost - vanilla compatible. The largest outdoor area manages to stay about 30 segs under the 256 seg rendering limit. However, the last room with all the imps can't be opened in vanilla - there's some vanilla limit about how close certain special lines can be to each other, so lines 890 and 879 need to be placed further apart. Also, you don't need to give sector tags to door sectors. When using a linedef action that starts with "D", you can leave the sector tag as 0 on both the line and the sector. The linedef action knows that it's supposed to only affect the sector on the back side of the linedef.

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if i hadnt picked up the chainsaw i would have finished the map without even being touched.

but anyways, the map was fun, although short, it also had pretty good use of textures and had a solid amount of detail. the secrets were easy to find, but thats not a bad thing. the only thing i didnt like too much about the map was that it was a little too cramped in some spaces, so maybe if it was just a bit bigger and more open, and some more monsters as well, it would be pretty darn good.

well, good map you have so far, it looks like it could be map01 of a megawad or something.

oh yeah, the imp/rocket laucher part, instead of using a door, make the wall lower into the ground, that way it doesnt disappear into the sky and leave a 4 pixel margin of the wall floating in the air. and instead of using the entire wall the satyr switch texture, just make one in the center of the wall and have it as the switch to lower it.

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PirateNipple, I've played your map and here is what I have to say. I'll start by answering your specific questions. There was both enough health and ammunition and I liked your usage of enemies. I have no suggestions for this. I found the environment to be very interesting as well.

As far as detail goes, and I know I say this a lot, MAPS DO NOT NEED TONS OF DETAIL TO LOOK GOOD; PLAY NMD TO SEE FOR YOURSELF. Sorry. =) But seriously, just make what you think looks good. If you like detailed maps, make lots of details. If you like simple maps, then don't. Either method works fine if executed correctly.

I found the map to flow very well. There were plenty of traps, which is something I find to be fun. Also, while lots of people spew out "Make more non-linear...", I actually prefer linear maps because I get lost so easily. Non-linear maps are cool too if it's always clear where to go.

Other suggestions: I noticed that the doortrakes are not lower unpegged and so move with the door... is that deliberate? I see Butts already mentioned the doors disappearing into the sky. Did you do that on purpose, too?

Why have you never released anything? =( I really like your mapping style. If you were like me and didn't want to take BS bashings from losers about your good maps, you can ignore people like that. People like me would play a megaWAD with similar maps to this one without hesitation. =D

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If I didnt make this clear with my first post, this looks like the beginning of a good map set. keep up the good work. I'd love to see what you could do with anything beyond stock textures.

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Thanks for the feedback, I want to follow up on some of it:

Janitor said:

I'd suggest that you use plutonia textures and skies since you have a good grasp on mapping.

I love Plutonia and I think it looks really damn good but I have no idea how to get textures from one wad into another. I don't get if you have to pick textures and flats to overwrite, or if you can just keep adding as many as you want. I have a very basic understanding of this and how to use Wintex and stuff, just barely enough to take that music track I used out of TNT.wad and put it in my own.

Creaphis said:

However, the last room with all the imps can't be opened in vanilla - there's some vanilla limit about how close certain special lines can be to each other, so lines 890 and 879 need to be placed further apart. Also, you don't need to give sector tags to door sectors. When using a linedef action that starts with "D", you can leave the sector tag as 0 on both the line and the sector. The linedef action knows that it's supposed to only affect the sector on the back side of the linedef.

About how far apart do the lines need to be? I guess I can fiddle with it a little bit, because I'm going to work on those walls a little more (to make them floors that drop down instead of doors that go into nothing). Also with my pointing door linedef actions to their sectors, that's just the way I've always done it. I guess I can try to remember to do it the other way but I guess if it doesn't hurt anything, then it's not a huge problem, just an extra step for me really.

Butts said:

oh yeah, the imp/rocket laucher part, instead of using a door, make the wall lower into the ground, that way it doesnt disappear into the sky and leave a 4 pixel margin of the wall floating in the air. and instead of using the entire wall the satyr switch texture, just make one in the center of the wall and have it as the switch to lower it.

Gonna do something about this.

Death-Destiny said:

Other suggestions: I noticed that the doortrakes are not lower unpegged and so move with the door... is that deliberate? I see Butts already mentioned the doors disappearing into the sky. Did you do that on purpose, too?

This is the way I've always done doors, to make them look more mechanical and stuff. If the line is moving I try to make sure it has the DOORTRAK texture, but I might play around with this and see if I like it better when they don't move.

As for other things, I am going to of course decorate the yellow key door so you know you need the yellow key just by looking at it. Gonna get back to work on this later, making sure to fix the door lifting into nothing. I'm also going to try to spread the ammo around a little bit better

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PirateNipple said:

I love Plutonia and I think it looks really damn good but I have no idea how to get textures from one wad into another.

Nonono you configure your editor to use Plutonia instead of doom2.wad and make the map as normal (you'll get the plutonia textures when you go to choose a texture to use)

Then when you release the map you say "it needs plutonia" so everybody knows to use it instead of doom2.wad as the IWAD.

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Done some more work with it and I hope to have it "finished" for more feedback on the "finished" version tomorrow night. I have a question though: at what point would I want to upload it to /newstuff? I don't even know how to do that so I'll have to look into it I guess.

What I mean is, I guess I would upload it in there when I'm done with it, but what if I make some changes to it, or turn it into a multi-level wad, or something like that? Is it proper to just re-upload it or is that frowned upon? I just don't get it I guess. I suck at the internet sometimes.

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You can upload it to /newstuff when the level is finished - most releases are single-level releases (though this map would suit very well as the beginning of a larger mappack). Making changes to a wad or expanding it after you've already uploaded it is no problem at all - when uploading the new version, on the line "Archive maintainer:" say that this is a new version and the old one should be deleted.

I don't know all the specifics of the vanilla-special-linedef-distance-restriction (as I'm not sure which lines the restriction applies to) but all issues should go away if the lines are over 16 map pixels apart.

There isn't really any problem with using sector tags for door linedefs, but I'll give you a reason not to get into that habit. Because the sector tag isn't necessary for a door to work, the creators of the Boom engine implemented a different use for the door linedef's sector tag. Any sector given that tag will have its light level change to the brightest adjacent sector's light level when the door is all the way open, and the darkest adjacent sector's light level when the door is all the way closed. Since Boom-format mapping projects are very common in the community, and since this is a neat trick, it doesn't hurt to save your door tags for this purpose.

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Here's the "finished" version, complete with an actual ending:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nbxzktymzjt

Fixed the door opening into nothing-ness and 2 special lines being too close together in one easy solution, just making it a floor that lowers.

There's some spots near the end where the ceiling opens up into the sky, but not far away a different ceiling opens up into a higher room, this was intentional to get what I think is a cool look.

What else, what else... don't have difficulty levels in yet, but the enemy-layout here will probably end up being ultra-violence and then I can tone it down from there. Could also remove some ammo and health pickups on higher difficulties, I guess.

I appreciate all the old feedback and am looking forward to seeing what people think about the (nearly) finished product. I'm going to get one last round of feedback here and make any necessary changes, then upload it to /idgames or /newstuff or whatever it is.

Thanks a ton, people!

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Well, I guess I'll add my two cents... I really enjoyed this map Pirate Nipple. Had a cool outdoor theme with some really fun if surprising (wasn't expecting the Imp mob)fights. Keep up the good work! I got the feeling it was going to be really easy until the end where my mediocre doom skills were challenged.

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I enjoyed this. I like the vanilla feel to it. Game play is pretty good. I hope to see more of your work in the future. It does not need a ton of detail to make it a good map. Please do zip your maps and add a text file to it.

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Nice Job, PirateNipple! One thing I really like about your maps is the traps in them... it keeps things interesting. It looks like you know what you're doing in the mapping department. Nice job and I hope to see more from you soon. =D

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I like the organic, non-boxy first part and the gameplay was interesting/fun/creative. Kinda short not that that matters. Not that hard in my opinion. (blue key cacs + spider = just open/close the door repeatedly to infight). Maybe put an enemy right in the yellow door so that first small room seems to have a purpose (though its a trap later).

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I did some final tweaking and did difficulty levels and made a .txt file and zipped it all up and everything, but then I couldn't connect to upload it. I'll be gone all day but I'll try again later.

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It's a bit easy. I actually didn't finish it because I died-but nevertheless it is pretty easy. I like the architecture. Many elements of the map seem fresh and new even though they have been done before (what hasn't?) such as the rising revenants and the seargents' legs being only viewable through the wall. The architecture is very nice. Soul sphere seems a bit generous in that rather easy to find secret.

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http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=15318

Awwwww yeah. Thanks for the help everyone.

Hellbent said:

It's a bit easy. I actually didn't finish it because I died-but nevertheless it is pretty easy. I like the architecture. Many elements of the map seem fresh and new even though they have been done before (what hasn't?) such as the rising revenants and the seargents' legs being only viewable through the wall. The architecture is very nice. Soul sphere seems a bit generous in that rather easy to find secret.


So it's easy but you died and couldn't even beat it. Ok. But thanks for the other stuff.

Yeah, I guess that soul sphere is a bit generous, but I'm leaving it.

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