One Project Is Never Enough!

[Doom_Dude]

So who else has a hard time sticking to the one map / project before starting another? My intentions are to not start new stuff and then without a plan.... BOOM something new appears! I wish I could stick to one and THEN work on something else. Sometimes I can stick to the one project for weeks and then I drift to something else. Even within a set of maps, I'll jump around between levels. It's a mixture of habit and boredom and I don't know what else. Sometimes I get level designer's burn-out real bad and the worst of that lasted a whole year. That was a few years ago. I know I've had very long periods of the editing drought that lasted many months. Sometimes I burn-out and not map for a week or maybe a month or more... it's sporadic. Usually I get the burn-out after editing a lot over the course of months. In the last year or so I haven't had the burn-out for anymore than a few weeks.

 

A few times I tried to stick with the idea to finish the first map, go to the next and go through a set of maps to the end and get it done that way. I'm no good at sticking to that. Is anybody good at that?

 

Not too long ago, I decided to not start anything new, but I ignored my own advice. It's weird, but projects get born just from some tiny thing I make / idea and then I go, hay that should be a set of maps! For the most part I tend to not start new projects but this year I started 2 new ones. In my defense those are made up of small maps that are easier to design.

 

Over the course of some 20 years I ended up with nine main projects comprising of 116 + maps. A small percentage of these projects are going to have more levels. Thankfully a good percentage of the existing maps are complete. If I had not started new stuff over the years, id be more able to complete projects.

 

These are my main projects. I wasn't going to list stuff but I did anyway.

 

Biorepository [1 map] A UAC base designed to showcase a lot of the creatures from Realm 667's decorate creatures. If the UAC had a zoo this would be it.

Constriction Zone [17 maps] A set of small to medium sized levels. This one was born after the congestion 1024 maps. I made a map but kept it for myself and then made some others without the 1024 restrictions.

Dark Bastion [2 maps] It has a Quake 1 theme with Doom monsters along with a couple quake styled monsters from Realm 667. I should be able to get this done this year if I actually work on it. heh.

Lair of the Vile [3 maps]  A set of medium levels all set in crumbled ruins with viles and other hellspawn.

Minihell [7 maps] There was a challenge on Doomworld to make a speed map in an hour. I tried 4 times and failed and that's where this came from. Small maps set in hell.

The Quickening [2 maps] I made a sample map using ZDoom's mapspots and turned it into a more playable map you can beat under 2 minutes. Then I made a 2nd map. Tiny maps you can fly through! All levels beatable in 5 minutes or less. Funny enough, I can make a tiny map in a couple days.

Stalking Evil  [12 maps] Old set of maps. Originally for Legacy. It's gothic with castles, ruins and stuff. It's on the fence between main project and backburner.

Vilecore 1.2 [32 maps] ~ In 2001 I decided to do a remaster. The story of where that went is convoluted but it turned into Vilecore 2 and then a few years back I started to remaster the original again but this time with constraints. lol

Vilecore II [40 maps]~ Born from the remaster of Vilecore. It changed so much, that it's now a UDMF megawad, with 1305 custom textures, decorate monsters, slopes, 3d floors, and a lot of hours....

 

Other stuff I have on the backburner / in mothballs.

 

25in2018 [1 Map] Ugh, I didn't finish it. lol

Darkening Prime [1 map] Love The Darkening II and this map is based on that awesome set of maps. I only have an outside area made for it.

Ravenskar [1 map] This one is for Hexen. Right now it's just small and it's just sitting there...

Shadowcore [3 maps] Originally for Doom Legacy. It's a Heretic project that has been set on the back burner for a long time.

 

For the most part, this is why I don't usually go for making maps for community projects. I had to slap myself a few times when temptation arose. Thankfully I got my Rowdy Rudy II map finished. I have one other map for a project outside my own to work on but that's another story.

 

[andrewj]

It is always much easier to start something than to finish something, not just maps but software projects (looks sheepishly at all the things that are half finished on my harddrive) etc.....  The new thing is fresh and interesting, the old thing becomes "work" and can boring to finish since you did all the fun stuff early on.  One thing I try do is recognize what the interesting things are, and force myself to do some of the boring stuff before doing one of the interesting things.

[Horus]

Damn that's a lot of unfinished projects! I hope you get to finish some of them at least. My current project tally is zero but then I only started mapping 6 months or so ago. 

[Phobus]

@Doom_Dude I can relate here. Like you I've been mapping for a long time and keep trying to make ambitious projects. Unlike you, I tend to cancel and delete mine after a while when they bog down! It's a shame, though, as I feel like I've lost some good work this way.

 

I did recently get into a spate of cannibalising an unfinished megaWAD for other projects, which let me get some DBP contributions in as well as finish my most recent release. I've got one map I'd like to convert for another project at some point and then this well will run dry, though, but I've got three ZDoom projects (all for The Ultimate Doom) of varying ambition still sitting idle and ideas for plenty of other projects still... Plus I keep contributing to community projects and indulging in speed mapping sessions. It's a cycle that's difficult to break, but it does make the occasional project completion almost inevitable, it seems...

[Doom_Dude]

10 hours ago, andrewj said:

It is always much easier to start something than to finish something, not just maps but software projects (looks sheepishly at all the things that are half finished on my harddrive) etc.....  The new thing is fresh and interesting, the old thing becomes "work" and can boring to finish since you did all the fun stuff early on.  One thing I try do is recognize what the interesting things are, and force myself to do some of the boring stuff before doing one of the interesting things.

 

Yes, exactly and what happens sometimes is you get better skilled and you go back to your previous work and start fixing things up again to your new standards. It may even be something like... you notice that the level doesn't have many light sources. lol

 

9 hours ago, Horus said:

Damn that's a lot of unfinished projects! I hope you get to finish some of them at least. My current project tally is zero but then I only started mapping 6 months or so ago. 

 

Yeah, some of them are certainly going to be finished. Sooner than later, I hope! ;)

 

6 hours ago, Phobus said:

I can relate here. Like you I've been mapping for a long time and keep trying to make ambitious projects. Unlike you, I tend to cancel and delete mine after a while when they bog down! It's a shame, though, as I feel like I've lost some good work this way.

 

Oh man, that's hard. I know I deleted stuff too. Mostly really junky and barely started stuff.  I did delete a couple larger maps that were just not working for me anymore. Sometimes stuff just has to go bye bye. Pretty rare for me to do that tho.

 

6 hours ago, Phobus said:

I did recently get into a spate of cannibalising an unfinished megaWAD for other projects

 

Oh yes, I've done the cannibalization thing too recently. I have all my half baked maps, some finished maps, and other odds and ends in a 'Misc Project' folder. I ended up adding some maps to existing projects. There was a real nice NDCP leftover map that I made and never used and that one ended up in Vilecore 2 after I had moved a map to a secret slot.

 

6 hours ago, Phobus said:

Plus I keep contributing to community projects and indulging in speed mapping sessions.

 

 

I have an idea for a community project that I've been really wanting to do for at least a few years now. At least I can keep that one restrained...

 

Thinking about all of this I've decided to try and prioritize my projects and just work on the most important few. I have things in two folders now... main projects and misc. Time to mothball some of the stuff out of my main folder. It'll be good to be more focused.