Mapping regrets?

[Doomkid]

We need a mapping regrets thread or things the mapper has learned after the map was released finished to the public. You made a cool map but there's one or few parts that make it suck in the context of the map.

It would be educational and fun if they decide to chip in.

I think this is a great idea.

 

People who started mapping within the last 10 years or less may find this hard to believe, but in the distant year of 2001, WadAuthor was one of the most powerful map editors for Windows operating systems. It was much more user friendly than the older tools out there.

 

I first transitioned from using WadAuthor to Doom Builder 1 in 2005ish. It was overall a huge step up, but it took me ages to get used to the scale, for whatever reason. In my brain as I was laying down lines, I just kept thinking of 96x96 as if it were 128x128, give or take. Even several years after the switch, I was still making a bunch of cramped hallways and maps that looked and played okay, but the overly-tight nature really put a dampener on the experience. This is most easily seen in Sabbat Martyr from 2006 and in UAC Rebellion which I made from 2007 - 2008. My oldest surviving wads are MiniDM from 2004 and Doomkid Planet from 2004-2006, and what's funny is they for the most part lack the cramped halls, as they were made in WadAuthor.

 

To counteract the mistake of cramped hallways of UAC Rebellion, the next wad I worked on from 2010 to 2012 was called Revenge of the 90's. It was SO wide open and huge with some of layouts that combat became a bit messy. I think the wad is still pretty fun overall (and is actually great in co-op) but I should have paid a bit more attention to enemy placement and thing placement in general, as well as scaling back some of the wide open areas just a tad.

 

I finally hit my 'comfort zone' with SP mapping when I released The Devilz Work in 2014. Only took 13 years of mapping to hit my stride. Such speed, such progress!

 

Due to the fact that I was 'scarred' from the difficult transition from WadAuthor to Doom Builder 1, I was reluctant to ever change. I felt that Doom Builder 1 could achieve all I needed, and it wasn't all that hard to force Windows 7 to run it. I finally bit the bullet one day in early 2017 and switched to GZDoom Builder. What an excellent decision that was. It took a while to get used to the updated interface and to get all my controls set back to their DB1 defaults (why the heck were they ever changed) but I was sailing smooth. GZDB does so much stuff for you like creating new sectors when you simply draw a line between them. Sounds simple, but old editors did not do that kind of stuff for you, or anything close to that honestly. I'm wondering if that behavior came from DB2, but I missed the entire lifespan of DB2. By the time I felt like switching, it had already been usurped.

 

I probably wasted hours of my life re-tracing sectors and shit in DB1 just to get them to function correctly. But, much like the original switch away from WadAuthor, it was totally worth it and I wished I'd done it sooner.. DB1 was out for like 2 years before I started using it, I feared changed even in my early teens I guess.

 

So anyway, that's my ramble about some mapping regrets I've had. What are some of yours?

Calling them regrets seems a bit extreme I know, it's not like I'm sitting here losing sleep over some shitty mapping decision I made 10 years ago, but I think you get the drift

:P

[SOSU]

I regret starting this hobby in the first place :D

[MFG38]

Making a full 32-level megawad as my first project.

 

It did get finished and released - for better or worse - but looking at the end product, you wouldn't think I made it over the course of a 9-month period. It looks and plays closer to something that I threw together in a week. The thing I'm talking about, of course, is the one with the initials P, O and A.

 

I can't say I'm completely proud of absolutely everything I made afterwards, though - I can name at least one glaring flaw in even Deliverance 2600, which I consider my greatest effort up until now - but at least I can tolerate them despite their overall average quality being subpar in comparison to the greats. With POA, that isn't so much the case. I simply loathe it and myself for being an overambitious idiot back then.

[pcorf]

WOS

 

Was so bored when making some of the maps.

 

If I could make it again today I would.

Edited December 4, 2019 by pcorf

[yakfak]

every level I've ever put out has had an absurd gimmick I added ten minutes before uploading without testing lol
i really need time to talk myself out of this stubborn practise

[Phobus]

I feel like I've written on this topic before. Whether that was in a dedicated thread or not I couldn't say! Anyway, I've made a lot of maps, so obviously I've done some fuck ups...

 

First thing that leaps out to me is Warpzone, to be honest. It's a big map that I spent ages on, and something of a technical achievement, but it was born mostly out of excitement to be using DoomBuilder on an actual "ZDoom" (Doom format, still) map. It's also like T667's detail guide incarnate and suffers mightily from having been built as artwork and architecture first, rather than as a level. I then stuffed it with over a thousand monsters and made progression difficult to work out. Even with revisions, alterations and a very minor touch up for Persephone Volume 3 (it's far from my best work, but it is impressive in it's way), it's more a case of ambition than success.

 

The projects that never made it are a bit of a mixed feeling, for me. I've cancelled a lot of stuff, but I bogged down or didn't get started on the right foot, so there was probably a good reason I didn't make it. Would've been cool to see the ideas when they were realised, though.

 

 

On a more general note, I genuinely regret not dedicating more time to ZDoom and GZDoom mapping, over the course of my "career" in this hobby. I got caught up in the love this place had for limit-removing and Boom-compatible community projects, which let me hone my craft a bit (alright... A lot), but took me away from what excited me about joining the community in the first place. I did my first release at 15, warming up to ZDoom with a 23-map megaWAD of variable quality. I'm now 30 and within a few weeks of putting out a 32-map megaWAD that is somewhere between complevel-2 and complevel-9. Feels like I could have done something more advanced in all that time.

[joepallai]

similar to @Doomkid with the regret of not changing from WadAuthor to Doombuilder sooner.   I think I made the switch finally in 2014...but am still using it for a couple of things (print outs mostly these days and the error checker for a final test).    

 

lately I'm wondering if I make shit secrets...     Are they too hard?  Not enough reward for the effort?   etc.

 

 

[reflex17]

I regret not making/publishing more maps, just in general. I've also lost tons of stuff from the old days due to HD crashes and things like that, I wish I had've been more diligent about backing up my work. I've been mapping for games since Wolf3d and I've made dozens of levels that were never released across many different titles. I've lost a full 60 map Wolf3d campaign that I made, as well as multiple Age of Empires, Doom, Duke3d and Starcraft levels.  I've also made maps for Quake, Quake 2, Left 4 Dead and CS:GO. My pride and joy was a set of Duke Nukem3d levels I was working on, I released a map in 2007 and another in 2014. When I was updating the 2014 map I had a PC crash that resulted in the loss of 2 weeks of labor intensive mapping that consisted mainly of aligning hundreds of sprites for in-game text screens, so when that happened I quit mapping entirely for a few years because I was so frustrated. 

 

Over the years I kept most of my work to myself or shared it with close friends, to this day I've only ever released the 2 Duke maps and a 6 level Spear of Destiny campaign. Here on doomworld I've released a map for Heretic and a few single levels for Doom2. I feel like I'm relatively unknown in the Doom community and while I think I do quality work I just wish there was more of it out there. I'm no speedmapper, my building style could be described as 'slow and steady', I agonize over every line and vertex and re-iterate through hours of playtesting. If an area isn't working I'll completely delete it instead of just pushing forward. This process turns out maps that I am proud of and personally enjoy, but in retrospect this is probably what caused me to have fewer maps published over the years. I mostly map for my own enjoyment but of course there's nothing better than to hear someone else had a good time with it, so my mapping style probably won't change too much... after this post though, maybe I'll go and back up the things I'm currently working on lol.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by reflex17 : typo

[Roofi]

 I don't have any particular regrets. Actually, I'm proud of all the maps I've made, even the less serious ones. When I started mapping, I had made a Chex Quest map that took me 2-3 months.  It was a total failure and I received rather negative opinions. I was disappointed at the time but in the end I'm proud of it because it's always a good thing to finish projects.

 

Obviously, there are many maps that I have abandoned or ideas that I don't really dare to implement, but it is an obstacle for many mappers so I Don't think I should regret about that. I think a mapper should accept mapping blocks.

 

Actually, I think my main "regret" is that I started mapping only in 2016 knowing that I have been on the doom community since 2012. :) 

[Juza]

2 hours ago, MFG38 said:

Making a full 32-level megawad as my first project.

 

My own first project is a megawad, I hope I don't have any regrets :) It's coming along nicely.

 

For regrets, I wish I had expanded on the toxic caverns theme for MAP13 of Akeldama. The first area where the green/toxic theme is introduced is quite small... and I feel like it was a waste (pun non intended). If I made it nowadays, I'd have made it a lot bigger than it is currently, more overwhelming. I can even imagine it. Well, maybe I can rework that map a bit to add to my own project.

For the same project, I don't regret handing MAP20 (old MAP19) to valkiriforce to finish. I made the first half and a basic idea of the outdoors arena, but his latter half is faaar better than anything I could've came up with for that map. He made it better than I could've hoped to make it myself :)

[Doom_Dude]

 

2 hours ago, MFG38 said:

Making a full 32-level megawad as my first project.

 

It did get finished and released - for better or worse - but looking at the end product, you wouldn't think I made it over the course of a 9-month period. It looks and plays closer to something that I threw together in a week. The thing I'm talking about, of course, is the one with the initials P, O and A.

 

Pretty much this. In 2000 I released my first project, a megawad called Vilecore made entirely with DoomCad that took me between 7-9 months to complete. Didn't have internet access when I first started it. It was a rush job especially near the end. So many things was not right with it (cramped halls, same texture everywhere syndrome, inescapable pits, ceilings plastered with light textures, etc.....  Anyways, it still bugs me enough that I'm working on a redesigned version. Not sure if calling it 1.2 is appropriate at this point since it's probably beyond that, but I'm not all there with the whole version naming convention thing.

 

Also what reflex17 said about not making/publishing more maps. Thing is, I get burn out and that is with everything I do. I end up doing a lot, then I stop for a long time, sometimes as long as a year can go by before I start again. Usually I'll pause for a few weeks or maybe a month. It's weird. Hard to get stuff done that way.

 

Other than that I'm good. :D

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Doom_Dude

[[Vitz!]]

- Making a fairly big level as my first ever map made from scratch (my other first maps were modified Oblige maps just so I could get the hang of DoomBuilder2).
- Even bothering with compatibility stuff... (Why doesn't PrBoom/GlBoom recognize EndGameC as a "valid map"?!)
- Actually going back to that map made from scratch and revising it entirely (did it because I couldn't think of something to start a new one...)

I barely started doing this and I already have regrets! XD

[pavera]

Probably the fact that my first ever officially released map is called Demonic Libido.

 

There's nothing sexy about it. It's just a straight forward Doom 2 map. I was just a dumb teen who thought it was funny, and never in a million years thought anybody would take me seriously as a mapper.

[Liberation]

Sticking with WadAuthor till 2007/8 I think was very dumb of me really... who needs visual mode bah!! 

[Lorenz0]

I've been mapping for about 5 years now. My biggest regret is probably not publishing the first maps I made. Receiving a lot of feedback early on could have helped me improve faster, but it took me about 2 years until I published a map on doomworld https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/struggle and only then my actual career as a mapper started taking off.

 

Besides that I only have minor regrets, like not planning ahead enough in my maps, which results in some unexpected imperfections like boring layouts or areas doomed to have lackluster gameplay.

[HAK3180]

My biggest regret is not starting sooner. In any game I ever played, I was always drawn toward the "Create Mode," if there was one. Doom mapping is a bit more complicated than creating my own vehicle in Twisted Metal 4, granted, but I never even tried it until a couple years ago. There was a nice window in about 04 where I got back into Doom and had the time and probably the tools to take the plunge. Instead I waited another 13 years.

 

Other than that I don't have too many regrets. I somewhat lament that I didn't spend more time very early on learning about different formats. Another I would say is using the iwads for inspiration in the wrong ways.

[CBM]

22 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

My biggest regret is not starting sooner. In any game I ever played, I was always drawn toward the "Create Mode," if there was one. Doom mapping is a bit more complicated than creating my own vehicle in Twisted Metal 4, granted, but I never even tried it until a couple years ago. There was a nice window in about 04 where I got back into Doom and had the time and probably the tools to take the plunge. Instead I waited another 13 years.

 

Other than that I don't have too many regrets. I somewhat lament that I didn't spend more time very early on learning about different formats. Another I would say is using the iwads for inspiration in the wrong ways.

Same here except I only just started recently getting Into doom mapping after around 20 years

 

Had I found out About doom builder and all the modern tools when they came out then I would have started again Much sooner

 

Luckily I still have Many interesting map layout ideers kicking around in my head

[mrthejoshmon]

WOOO

 

I will never host a gimmicky or legitimate wad without it just degenerating into WOOO, it had some brilliant jokes and amazing abstract moments (especially thanks to the incredible abstract minds of@Scypek2 and @RaphaelMode in particular, whilst everyone had their nice own slice of quirky fun those two were legends at it, just wanted to say that) but I never wanted to wash my hands of anything as much as this.

 

I was a terrible manager, a terrible host and a terrible spokesperson, my actions (and lack thereof) have tainted me forever and I cannot live it down, everything I do (Doom wise) will forever be seen as a failure by me.

 

Special thanks to @Jaxxoon R for putting that dropped jigsaw together and essentially becoming project lead too, I am literally the worst.

[Octillion]

    I regret rushing my first wad. It had the potential to be overall "decent" instead of "meh". So, the first lesson I learned is: Patience. Take it slow, it's not like there's a dog chasing you while mapping. 

 

    Second lesson is monster placements. It had a lot of random encounters and almost botched the entire game play experience.

 

    Third lesson is execution. A lot of good ideas, but executed poorly and the conclusion was forgettable.

 

    This resulted in 12 out of the 15 maps I made being of poor quality. Hopefully, the next project would be an improvement.

[Decay]

Caring what other people thought about my maps.

 

Putting too much thought into map making resulting in maps taking forever to make.

 

Mapping with certain people that turned it into a contest.

 

Overall I think engaging in Doom mapping is one of my life's biggest regrets. Yet here I go opening up Doom builder right now...

[RichardDS90]

I regret never finishing projects. Mainly due to wanting to start over so it feels somehow fresh. Or just plain running out of ideas. The sting is especially bad if I've made a playable alpha or given a rough release date. I've only ever gotten 2 Doom projects released, both of which half counts as it was a community project. And another because it was an addon to a released project from someone else.

[Liberation]

If Doomkid will be kind enough to accommodate a second regret post, I would like to add,

 

I regret sticking to the Edge engine for a massively long period of time, starting roughly when the Covert ops demo was released, up until andrewj left the project. Good crowd and a good laugh, but I spent years making stuff that never saw the light of day.

[ENEMY!!!]

I have a lot of regrets relating to perfectionism, doing half-finished projects that get trapped in Duke Nukem Forever-esque development hell and never releasing them, sharing them only with friends, and only publishing 3 maps in total.  I have mapped for Doom, Quake 1, Half-Life 1, Doom 3, DOOM 2016, and have then gone back to Doom 1/2. 

[DMPhobos]

There was this big period of time early into this decade where i got super ambitious with everything i worked on. I started a lot of projects, did some work on them and then forgot about them or lost interest, only to start working another one after a few months, or resuming work on the previous one... And i worked on all those ambitious projects by myself, i worked on to a certain degree of time (some barely started while other saw more significant progress). I had fun working on those and i learned a lot from that period, but i regret not having a focus during that time, and also being super ambitious, despite all the work i did i barely have anything to show the community, except maybe a few screenshots or videos.

[Bauul]

I regret not working on more smaller scale maps before launching into something a wee bit ambitious.  Releasing small and often and not worrying about whether every release is "perfect" is definitely a trap many people fall into, myself included, and everyone realizes it's a mistake sooner or later.

 

The reality is that no-one remembers your simple early maps, they only remember your good ones.  We rightly respect and admire the great mappers because of their best maps, not the ones they made early in their career that we don't remember. 

 

Also, the whole idea of the "perfect first map" is over-stated.  It's much better to have your first map be basic and learn a lot from the process of releasing it than attempt to make your first map your 'masterpiece' and accidentally make simple mistakes.  Save your masterpiece for the future.  And if somehow your first map is a masterpiece, in reality that doesn't really give it any more credence than if it was your 10th map.

 

So yeah, TLDR: stop worrying and just make stuff.

[Dubbag]

11 hours ago, Doomkid said:

 

 

I think this is a great idea.

 

People who started mapping within the last 10 years or less may find this hard to believe, but in the distant year of 2001, WadAuthor was one of the most powerful map editors for Windows operating systems. It was much more user friendly than the older tools out there.

 

I first transitioned from using WadAuthor to Doom Builder 1 in 2005ish. It was overall a huge step up, but it took me ages to get used to the scale, for whatever reason. In my brain as I was laying down lines, I just kept thinking of 96x96 as if it were 128x128, give or take. Even several years after the switch, I was still making a bunch of cramped hallways and maps that looked and played okay, but the overly-tight nature really put a dampener on the experience. This is most easily seen in Sabbat Martyr from 2006 and in UAC Rebellion which I made from 2007 - 2008. My oldest surviving wads are MiniDM from 2004 and Doomkid Planet from 2004-2006, and what's funny is they for the most part lack the cramped halls, as they were made in WadAuthor.

 

To counteract the mistake of cramped hallways of UAC Rebellion, the next wad I worked on from 2010 to 2012 was called Revenge of the 90's. It was SO wide open and huge with some of layouts that combat became a bit messy. I think the wad is still pretty fun overall (and is actually great in co-op) but I should have paid a bit more attention to enemy placement and thing placement in general, as well as scaling back some of the wide open areas just a tad.

 

I finally hit my 'comfort zone' with SP mapping when I released The Devilz Work in 2014. Only took 13 years of mapping to hit my stride. Such speed, such progress!

 

Due to the fact that I was 'scarred' from the difficult transition from WadAuthor to Doom Builder 1, I was reluctant to ever change. I felt that Doom Builder 1 could achieve all I needed, and it wasn't all that hard to force Windows 7 to run it. I finally bit the bullet one day in early 2017 and switched to GZDoom Builder. What an excellent decision that was. It took a while to get used to the updated interface and to get all my controls set back to their DB1 defaults (why the heck were they ever changed) but I was sailing smooth. GZDB does so much stuff for you like creating new sectors when you simply draw a line between them. Sounds simple, but old editors did not do that kind of stuff for you, or anything close to that honestly. I'm wondering if that behavior came from DB2, but I missed the entire lifespan of DB2. By the time I felt like switching, it had already been usurped.

 

I probably wasted hours of my life re-tracing sectors and shit in DB1 just to get them to function correctly. But, much like the original switch away from WadAuthor, it was totally worth it and I wished I'd done it sooner.. DB1 was out for like 2 years before I started using it, I feared changed even in my early teens I guess.

 

So anyway, that's my ramble about some mapping regrets I've had. What are some of yours?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Calling them regrets seems a bit extreme I know, it's not like I'm sitting here losing sleep over some shitty mapping decision I made 10 years ago, but I think you get the drift

:P

 

that I didn't take out that annoying "ACTIVE" sound for the final boss in my newest WAD "Shiver Hollow". IDK who thought it was a good idea to constantly make the monster's voice be heard though out the entire map but I didn't realize that till I uploaded it, probably because I turn off the sounds and listen to music or the "Opie and Anthony" radio show when I map and test.  sorry about that folks. lol

BTW nothings worse than uploading to idgames archive then finding a mistake in your WAD that you didn't see before hand. I wish you could take files down before they're accepted.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Dubbagdarrel

[Summer Deep]

^ LOL, at least it's not as bad as that repetitive 'Groovy' voiceover from some mid-1990s maps.

[xvertigox]

Not starting earlier. I made a really shitty map ages ago (In DB before DB2 was a thing) and didn't really do much mapping after that until about 6 months ago.

[The_SloVinator]

I regret deleting my first few maps from late 2014/ early 2015. It could've been interesting seeing the progress & skill improvements during the 5 year period.

At least I still do remember their layouts.

[elend]

48 minutes ago, xvertigox said:

Not starting earlier. I made a really shitty map ages ago (In DB before DB2 was a thing) and didn't really do much mapping after that until about 6 months ago.

This, absolutely. Seeing how incredibly fun mapping is, I am a bit sad, that I didn't start earlier. I am a bit older now and realistically speaking don't have so much time on this planet anymore. :(