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Hellbent

DTWID: Project is done, check the release thread

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Marnetmar said:

Didn't the original E2M2 occasionally get the savegame problem?


I can't recall getting overflow in E2M2, but can't prove it NEVER happened either. Someone else may know for sure - as I can't prove either way.

If it can be proven that at least one map in Doom I (E4 may not be considered at this point, as it is separate from E1-E3) can get the savegame buffer error, then that restriction can be dropped.

I am also starting to get in two minds about the map size issue. You do have a point that if a map looks and feels perfectly as if it was from ID, then it is probably not fair to consider raw size a reason for immediate disqualification. So I think the point about map size alone can be cautiously dropped, but also note that the larger a level is, the more likely it is to stray at one point or another from the strict ID mentality.

However I feel the restrictions related to crashes (included but not necessarily limited to savegame buffer overflows) should remain unless it can be proven that Doom I has at least one map that can cause the crash in question. Also, I feel the restriction that the map has to be able to run on computers that were around at that point is fully legitimate, since ID obviously would never have released Doom with a map that can't run in it.

Anyways, it's very, very late here. I need to pull out for now, but those are my final thoughts for the evening.

EDIT: Just to clarify, when I say prove, I don't mean that a demo or even a screenshot of the bug is necessary, I just mean that at least a few different users citing that they recall the error occuring would be preferred.

So as it stands, given the map looks, feels, and plays like something from ID, the only grounds for immediate disqualification (and subsequent entry into Category 3) at this point are either bugs it can cause that never occured in the original Doom, or a map that would not function on a 1993-level computer.

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I don't think it's a reason to drop the size restriction if it did cause savegame overflows, my idea was moreso to make maps the same size as E2M2 at max.

Why would Doom have become so popular if every single map caused a savegame error? By dropping the size restriction you're pretty much enabling that.

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MegaDoomer said:

I feel the restriction that the map has to be able to run on computers that were around at that point is fully legitimate, since ID obviously would never have released Doom with a map that can't run in it.

Just to look at this point from another angle, part of the DTWiD project is about interpreting what id-designed maps which never made it into the original game, for whatever reason, would look like.

If Romero, Hall, or Petersen had made some larger maps which didn't quite run gracefully on the target 386 machines, they would've likely been ditched (if not stripped down) to potentially become 'lost levels' of the sort that DTWiD is focused upon.

Of course, I think full vanilla compatibility and appropriate level size are very important considerations, though, so don't take this as any kind of serious argument from me. Simply something that crossed my mind as I've been skimming the thread.

[I finally had some spare time to check out the alpha build, and I really enjoyed what I've played so far. Nice work putting it together, Xaser. :) ]

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Marnetmar said:

I don't think it's a reason to drop the size restriction if it did cause savegame overflows, my idea was moreso to make maps the same size as E2M2 at max.

Why would Doom have become so popular if every single map caused a savegame error? By dropping the size restriction you're pretty much enabling that.


I agree with you. A very moderate, in between and balanced approach. :) Though I'm pretty sure E2M7 is bigger than E2M2, among some other maps. But I think it's a good compromise solution - an exception or two can be made on size restrictions, or even crash restrictions if the crash can occur with the original game, but only a few maps can use these exceptions (ideally, no more maps than the orignal 3 episodes had these issues on). Like I said, I think your idea is a very balanced, allowable approach. :)

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EDIT: When I came up with the concept of 'lost' levels, I wasn't thinking alpha levels or levels that were scratched by id for any reasons, but levels that might have "hypothetically" become inexplicably lost to id--erased from their disks with no back ups if you will--so that the episodes went from being 10 levels to 9. The point wasn't to mimic some kind of plausible scenario where levels might have actually become scratched from the project and thus later became known as 'lost' levels, it was purely conjured up to illustrate the kind of maps I had in mind for the project. But that's just my two cents. There are probably pros to keeping the maps' complexity down beyond authenticity issues.

Unrelated to the size topic at hand.. I'm noticing sector tag 999 on some sectors in E1 maps. I can't believe I've never noticed them before. As I was starting to put an alpha together a few days ago I noticed someone's e1 map (I don't remember whose off hand) had some stair sectors tagged with '99' but I'm not sure these tags are related to stair behavior (presumably tagging the sectors would make the stairs raise properly--some of the rising stairs at the end of e1m3 are tagged with the number 999. Deepsea has a note about these tags that simply reads "stairs?", so apparently the DeepSea designers aren't 100% sure about this either. The reason I bring in its function for stairs into question is because I found two sectors in the big blinking computer maze secret on E1M2. Sectors 146 and 148. I think that they might instead have something to do with lighting? Although the rising stairs on E2M2 also have these 999 tags on them and E1M8 rising stairs have tag numbers 99 on them as well. Sort of a mystery. We'll have to ask the Romero about that one. Speaking of Romero, I've been thinking about asking him to pop in on the thread again to maybe try out the alpha and hopefully get some feedback. Apparently he is uber busy right now getting out his latest title "Cloudforest Expedition" so now would not be a good time. I was thinking with the next beta perhaps.

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I wasn't aware of that Hellbent, interesting stuff! Did you make your modifications to that E1M1 map I posted?

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The weird tagging on stair-build sectors was explained by Romero or one of the other mappers at some point. It was just a meaningless dummy tag to differentiate the sectors from one another so that DoomEd wouldn't automatically merge them into one. It evidently didn't have quite the same sort of concept of what a sector was or how it was created that user-made Doom editors do.

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esselfortium said:

The weird tagging on stair-build sectors was explained by Romero or one of the other mappers at some point. It was just a meaningless dummy tag to differentiate the sectors from one another so that DoomEd wouldn't automatically merge them into one. It evidently didn't have quite the same sort of concept of what a sector was or how it was created that user-made Doom editors do.

Interesting, thanks essel. That explains why it showed up in one of the maps from this project. :)

@Marnetmar: I did a little revision of the secret but didn't quite get it how I wanted it. i woul dlike to finish making changes to your map, but lately I've been trying to figure out a beginning area for my current e1 map.

An interesting point related to Romero's style and his outdoor motif that I had mentioned last night: E1M4 is the only map in the episode to not have an outdoor area. If I am not mistaken, it's also the only map (outside the boss level) that he did not make?

BTW, E1M6 is the biggest map in episode 1, by a somewhat sizable margin.

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Ah, I see. Also, John Romero finished E1M4. A lot of people think it was Sandy Petersen (In fact if you see the Sandy Petersen part on the Doom wiki...It was actually me that wrote that).

Turns out it was false as Romero says things that pretty much prove that he did, in fact, finish E1M4.

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Marnetmar said:

Ah, I see. Also, John Romero finished E1M4. A lot of people think it was Sandy Petersen (In fact if you see the Sandy Petersen part on the Doom wiki...It was actually me that wrote that).

Turns out it was false as Romero says things that pretty much prove that he did, in fact, finish E1M4.

I was wondering about that. But did he do the bulk of the design of the layout of the map?

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Hellbent said:

I was wondering about that. But did he do the bulk of the design of the layout of the map?


You have a point there, I guess not.

And yeah Mithran Tom Hall designed the initial layout.

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This wad smells like Plutonia Revisited.

The music for E3M8 sounds very bad with OPL emulation. Keep in mind that you need to test the music with both that and Windows Midi because there seems to be a roughly 50/50 skew in terms of who likes what.

I made an Excel file that goes over all 128 midi instruments and details how they compare in OPL emulation, especially in terms of how "Doomy" they sound. I can upload it if you want, it might help you make the music sound more "authentic".

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Sigvatr said:

This wad smells like Plutonia Revisited.

Are strictly referring to the music ..? or the maps themselves?

I thought the music sounded a bit like something from Final Doom when I heard it... but maybe it's not coming through my speakers as the Freeze-meister intended.

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Hellbent said:

Are strictly referring to the music ..? or the maps themselves?


The maps. They are all familiar, but different to the originals at the same time.

Some of them are anyway.

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Very cool, and mighty accurate with just what is said, so remniscient of the first action virtual reality shooter that changed revolution of gaming technology, i'll never forget the indulged three nights of firing positions, intitiative attacks, and soldiering i first played the shareware Doom Knee Deep in The Fred.......Dead? Ha, gotcha! LOL! Godd job Doomgods keep making breathtaking passions! Later!

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The end of E2M3 with the cacodemons is a tiny bit silly because you can hide behind all of those green pillars and avoid their projectiles. Or you could just run around them and hit the exit switch.

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Sigvatr said:

I made an Excel file that goes over all 128 midi instruments and details how they compare in OPL emulation, especially in terms of how "Doomy" they sound. I can upload it if you want, it might help you make the music sound more "authentic".


Please do! I'm very interested in seeing that.

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E2M3 should be at E2M1 with a few minutes longer.

I think Xaser pulled his E2M1 (did you?), so it can be moved to there and find a replacement if fits E2M3, or push Cooling Towers and put the new one at E2M2.

This is just my -bad/good- suggestion.

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Mr. Freeze said:

Please do! I'm very interested in seeing that.


http://www.braindamage.vg/doom/instruments.rar

Basically what I did was test every midi instrument at every octave and variable lengths to see which ones sound Doomy and how. By Doomy, I mean the sound of the original sound track from Doom and Doom 2. I never really liked the soundtrack for TNT because they used different instruments which didn't really capture the same Doom feeling. That's why I made this spreadsheet: to help me make the most Doom sounding music possible.

It's fairly loosely organized and I can't even remember what some of it means anymore, but if you restrict your choice of instruments based on what the graph tells you, you should be able to make the best sounding Doom music.

If it hasn't been made obvious before, this is explicitly for the sound of OPL emulation. It should enable you to write General Midis and then have Doom play it as OPL suitably.

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One note on finalizing the project. We should make an authenticity checklist when we get to the stage of the project where we know which maps will be in it. Only then should we go over things which we haven't been focusing on that much up to this point-- such as thing and item placement and skill settings.

EDIT: This thread just hit 80,000 views. O_O

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Hellbent said:

EDIT: This thread just hit 80,000 views. O_O


Remember when you were celebrating the 666 posts?

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Yep :) because I searched for the post and found it. I messaged Grazza couple days ago asking if he could export this thread. He did better by giving me the code to make the thread display as one page for easy searching. The link to open the entire thread in one page is in the first post of the thread.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?postid=995226&perpage=5000

Just add &perpage=5000 at the end of the thread url (right after the postid number).

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I'll try my hand at an E2M1 since Xaser seems to be drawing his map from the project.

In fact I had an E2M1 concept a while back based on an early Alpha level by Tom Hall, but I wasn't happy with it so I scrapped it. If anyone wants to have a look at it out of curiosity, you can find it here. Feel free to do whatever you want with it.

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Been following this thread for months. Dtwid has amazing potential, this could go down as one of the greatest projects in the annals of doom history. I feel the project has lost some momentum, though. Maybe everyone should push to get their maps really primo and maybe get the attention of Romero again. Maybe everyone should now focus on completing one map at a time and post tewwific screenies.

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Very impressed with all 3 episodes. Made me feel like I was playing DOOM all over again and it almost perfectly recaptures the original 3 episodes.

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Thanks Pcorf! Any specific criticisms you can offer? What we did particularly well? Any specific issues we need to address?

Marnetmar said:

I like the skype idea except I don't have a microphone. Perhaps a steam group chat?

Sorry to follow this up so long after you asked about it. What is steam group chat? I think some live chat discussing the project would be a good idea at this juncture. Specifically (or at least as a suggestion) this topic.

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This has actually inspired me to try my had at an id-Style E2 map.

Don't know if it'll be done in time to contribute it, though.

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