MAPINFO for Master Levels?

If I were to make a MAPINFO lump to arrange the Master Levels in a certain order like an episode, would it cause all the Map07 maps to not work properly?

Not if you do it right -- add 'map07special' to the relevant maps. Like so.

This is the part where everyone posts about their preferred ordering and some nut (me) makes the argument that the XBox version was ordered wrong.

Thanks! That looks really cool. I'm only just learning to do MAPINFOs.

I would put them in order according to the difficulties listed in this article, except I'd probably make it so that you keep all your stuff from one level to the next. (I know, I know... people endlessly debate over that issue as well...)

http://www.cultmovies.dk/mlfaq102.htm

Hope it helps a bit. The way I have it set up now is actually as an alternate episode -- all the maps are actually named MASxx instead of MAPxx and a "Master Levels" episode shows up next to "Hell on Earth" when you start a new game. For silly Xaserian autoloading purposes, of course.

For the curious, my order is just a "whatever I felt like at the time" decision, with a few obvious lineup sequences (i.e. putting Sleep's maps in order). "Black Tower" is the most oddly-placed one, but I like having it as a strong 'mid-boss' level. Some of the music lumps referenced are "custom", too, and are various Prince tunes from UDoom or Demonstar that seemed to fit the maps. I guess I could post up a wad with them if anyone's interested in such tripe.

The text screens were written by me, probably at 3am at some point. Ignore them if you want.

It's taking the opposite approach in a way, but I like this mod.

Yeah, I've been using Zippy's mod for a while now. I was just starting to get into learning the MAPINFO thing and wanted to see if it could be done without affecting those MAP07 specials.

My ultimate goal I suppose is to put together an entire megawad that contains not only the Master Levels, but other released maps by the same authors as well. The CABAL series, the other TITAN maps, Dante's Gate and Crossing Acheron, to name a few.

Of course I would never be able to upload the maps as they are not mine and the Master Levels of course are copyrighted, but I could upload the MAPINFO lump for other players to use, especially ones who don't know how to create one.

I notice in most MAPINFO texts there are always a lot of lines left empty. Are those necessary if the curly brackets are used?

Okay, this is becoming really frustrating. I've copied everything EXACTLY as shown in the examples, re-named all maps, music files, etc. to match all entries, and yet ZDoom keeps saying everything is an unknown top-level keyword. It even says "=" is an unknown top-level keyword. It says SKY1 = "RSKY1" is an unknown top-level keyword. How is that possible when it works in every other mapinfo lump I've looked at?

I play the Master Levels in alphabetical order, except for the Inferno saga, which I decide to play in its established order, after I finish every other unrelated map.

Herculine said:

Okay, this is becoming really frustrating. I've copied everything EXACTLY as shown in the examples, re-named all maps, music files, etc. to match all entries, and yet ZDoom keeps saying everything is an unknown top-level keyword. It even says "=" is an unknown top-level keyword. It says SKY1 = "RSKY1" is an unknown top-level keyword. How is that possible when it works in every other mapinfo lump I've looked at?

There are several MAPINFO formats. ZDoom does not allow to mix the old and the new in the same lump, because then the parser would not have any easy way to know what to expect. This is what I suspect is happening here.

But please post your whole MAPINFO code (to pastebin for example, you don't have to register to do so) and let us see it so we can tell for sure.

I've continued to screw around with it until I've finally come up with something that works, which looks like this:

map MAP01 "ATTACK"
sky1
rsky1
music
M1
par 75
sucktime 1
next MAP02
map MAP02 "CANYON"
sky1
rsky2
music
M4
par 90
sucktime 1

That's the old syntax, so I guess this confirms my hypothesis.

I wonder why I couldn't get the new syntax to work properly? I copied exactly from the example Xaser gave. I'm using the newest ZDoom. Perhaps I've overlooked something somehow. But using the old syntax is okay if it's working properly, right?

Okay, using the old syntax, I've managed to create a MAPINFO file that successfully strings together 62 maps all created by the authors of the Master Levels. The only thing I can't get to work properly now is the text message and music to play at the end of the game. Does anyone have an example of this using the old syntax?

Okay... maybe this question will be easier...

I'm playing the Master Levels with the newest version of GZDoom. On the map THE GARRISON, when I teleport to the platform with the red key, I get stuck inside the platform and the only way I can get out is to jump. I'm pretty sure this map was made before jumping in Doom was around, so I'm thinking this is some kind of incompatibility bug. Anybody got any info on this or how to remedy the situation, hopefully without having to edit the original map?

I'm guessing you had to straferun on top of a higher area to get out of that section?

No, jumping off the platform (or I should say OUT OF the platform) did the trick. But since the Master Levels are from the pre-jumping era I wondered if this is a bug I could or should somehow fix.

Tried in PrBoom+, works correctly (even without vanilla complevel). Tried in GZDoom 1.4.8, stuck in floor. Tried with compatibility set to Doom (strict), still stuck.

A glance in DB2 doesn't show anything weird about this sector or the teleport, at least as far as I can see. No clue what's happening, sorry.

Must be a GZ bug then.