The Dean of Doom series (companion thread)

[Foxstiel]

1 hour ago, Vladguy said:

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Really strange how MtPain dismissed his class right as the Delinquent talked about nobody being at the school... Is he hiding something?

 

 

 

Yeah, its definitely odd, i wonder how will this continue

[Firedust]

1 hour ago, cannonball said:

Actually all of the mappers for Nova 3 were new to mapping (or at least they were when the project was started). It was Nova 2 that had alumni so to speak.

Wait, really? 3 seemed the best of the bunch if memory serves me right - the quality of maps was insane throughout.

 

I do recall 2 be a mainly alumni affair.

[i suck at nicknames]

SPOILERS:

 

1. Love dgb, but Megiddo is a GOAT-tier map 30- both in how enjoyable and striking it is on first playthrough, and in how in influenced so many other maps which came out after it- and IMO it deserved the Valedictorian. Personally, Seventh Circle would be Salutatorian- I love my "diabolical brutality"-type maps. 

 

2. Beta Base is great in how hilariously campy and charming it is- no way in hell is it deserving of a dunce cap :3 

His 2nd map tho, sure go ahead and F it- I didnt like that one at all lmao. 

 

3. 

4 minutes ago, Firedust said:

Wait, really? 3 seemed the best of the bunch if memory serves me right - the quality of maps was insane throughout.

 

I do recall 2 be a mainly alumni affair.

 

Yeah 3 is definitely the best of the trilogy IMO. 2 is close, but 3 is just way more consistent. That said, would it be inappropriate to say that 1 has the highest highs (Megiddo, Iron Exuviae, Seventh Circle) in the entire trilogy? 

[RHhe82]

It's slightly painful to watch a "newbie" mapset and seeing all the marvellous creations. Gets me thinking why would I bother with grade G ^{as in garbage} maps :P (okay, a bit unfair to compare oneself to Mouldy, but still).

Edited September 18, 2022 by RHhe82 : typografical fix

[Dusty_Rhodes]

28 minutes ago, Firedust said:

Wait, really? 3 seemed the best of the bunch if memory serves me right - the quality of maps was insane throughout.

 

I do recall 2 be a mainly alumni affair.

Bad Bob did some maps for Nova 3 and he also has maps from 2002 so I wouldn't say he was a noob mapper heh. He had three in Community Chest. Great wad though, love Nova 3.

[Doomkid]

59 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

It's slightly painful to watch a "newbie" mapset and seeing all the marvellous creations. Gets me thinking why would I bother wit grade G maps :P (okay, a bit unfair to compare oneself to Mouldy, but still.

Don’t let that discourage you. Some of us are still falling short 20something years into the hobby!

[RHhe82]

8 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Don’t let that discourage you. Some of us are still falling short 20something years into the hobby!

 

Haha, I won't! I'm of course slightly exaggerating (that's what I tell myself), at this age one should know better not to compare own stuff to others, goodness of a map is not a linear metric and so on...

 

Besides, mapping things is fun!

[ZethXM]

That point in the intro about mappers in their formative stages being at their least inhibited has me contemplative.  As does the encouragement directed towards Getsu Fune in the same breath as a near-failing grade.  I appreciate that sentiment mightily.

 

 

[xScavengerWolfx]

Yet another great ep of dean of doom. After watching this it got me thinking about my community maps i did for Theme GAWAD #1 by Ofisil.

 

My first map was for map 30 but it got rejected because it didn't fall under what they wanted (please note at that time i was still new to mapping and getting a barring of mapping) but after when someone gave map slot 03 up due to personal reasons i asked for another shot at it and i'm glade he let me give it another shot. My first Map03 was bad, i can say that only because i had to work off of someone else map they started and just gave me after i asked to see it so i could do my own base off of there map.

 

But after it was finished i got to do map 31 since someone else had to drop out due to personal reasons, i started working on a Wolfenstein style map (that i later changed into more of a corrupted cavern], once it was getting close to the first dead line someone said that my map03 was bad, no they didn't bash me or flip me a bunch of shit for it. It was more of "This map is confusing and it looked like it was done by a newbie and it has so many issues with it". So i went back into it and tried to fix the issues....but i did the old fashion "Fuck it! I'm remaking it from the ground up!" Fun fact about my community map03 i did....It took me a week to do all the map layout and summited it right at the second deadline.

 

After that and getting map31 done, people like it and thank god he bumped the deadline again (and for the last time) because i needed to flush the maps out more and get them better for finalizing. Ever since then i've been mapping and getting better at it each day and learning something new about the editor.

 

TL;DC (Stands for Too Long; Don't Care):

 

The moral of my story is this: If your a new mapper or you want to get into mapping remember this....it's ok to take the criticism and it's ok to hear the feed back on your maps, because it will help you get better at mapping and one day if you ever do get involved in a community project as a new mapper take a early map slot not a later one, trust me i learn that the hard way.

 

I give this comment a grade B+ reading C- lol.

 

Please don't send me to summer school, i wouldn't last long.

[Biodegradable]

8 hours ago, RHhe82 said:

It's slightly painful to watch a "newbie" mapset and seeing all the marvellous creations. Gets me thinking why would I bother with grade G ^{as in garbage} maps :P (okay, a bit unfair to compare oneself to Mouldy, but still).

 

Don't be intimidated, be inspired!

[Roofi]

13 hours ago, RHhe82 said:

It's slightly painful to watch a "newbie" mapset and seeing all the marvellous creations. Gets me thinking why would I bother with grade G ^{as in garbage} maps :P (okay, a bit unfair to compare oneself to Mouldy, but still).

 

I think we tend to overestimate the difficulty to make a fun newbie map. Of course, creating good architecture and texturing is hard when you don't know the builder but making fun combats just require to know the game mechanics.

 

After playing several wads, you roughly know what is fun and what is not. Killing armies of imps with the RL is fun , but killing arch-viles with the chaingun isn't for instance.

 

Very few people can make puzzle maps like DGM, but everybody can make a small decent newbie map if he knows how the game works.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Roofi

[RHhe82]

6 hours ago, Roofi said:

Very few people can make puzzle maps like DGM

 

I totally intended to include DGM in my original sob post :-D That secret level, my god.

[Thelokk]

6 hours ago, Roofi said:

After playing several wads, you roughly know what is fun and what is not. Killing armies of imps with the RL is fun , but killing arch-viles with the chaingun isn't for instance.

 

I feel it's always contextual. I personally enjoy facing AVs with a weapon that doesn't simply melt them in seconds. One big gripe I have with a lot of modern mapping is the "get the jump on them or be bust" gameplay. Let threats live for a little bit. 

[Lucius Wooding]

To me killing an archvile with a lighter weapon can be very compelling, but the arena design needs to be good. It's very common to place an archvile with an SSG and a single convenient corner or pillar, it's been done to death. That or giving the player no real cover but forcing them to rush the archie with heavy weapons. But having the ability to tackle them in different ways is a breath of fresh air and can create a dilemma for the player if there are corpses nearby, for example. Infighting, luring them to better ground, and using guerrilla tactics to wear them down can be satisfying. Especially so if they're a multifaceted threat and taking them out turns into a big relief. 

[Roofi]

Everything is contextual. This was just an example to be interpreted as a generalization. I could have done the same on ammunition deprivation. You can create interesting scenarios and some people will enjoy, but many just find it frustrating and would rather have too much than not enough.

 

My point is that while the definition of fun is subjective, some design choices will appeal more to niche audiences, which is not necessarily ideal when you want to get good feedback on your first map. Or you need to be skilled enough to turn shit into gold.

 

I agree with you, killing an arch-vile with a weaker weapon can be an interesting unorthodox idea but you have to be clever enough so that your feature doesn't turn into a flaw.

 

One of my biggest tips if you are a beginner mapper and don't know what to do: be generous with weapons and items, you will have much less risk of screwing up your map.
 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Roofi

[baja blast rd.]

2 hours ago, Roofi said:

...

One of my biggest tips if you are a beginner mapper and don't know what to do: be generous with weapons and items, you will have much less risk of screwing up your map.

 

imo beginners should make the types of maps they want to make instead of overfixating on getting "good feedback" 

 

To the extent that someone cares about learning and is going to make more than one map in their life, they should not overoptimize for good feedback now rather than possible improvement later. Getting better always involves doing things you're "worse" at than the narrow range of things you might be currently best at. It involves screwing up. Screwing up is good for learning. If a bad newbie map gets into a finished project that would ideally not have any, to whatever extent that is a bad thing, that is more the project runners's fault. 

(And if they don't care about learning and getting better, well then, they should also make whatever maps they like, because mapping for "good feedback" is even more a bad idea then.) 

 

Ftr I think advice-giving meta about stuff like ammo deprivation, confusing navigation, hyper-easy/"boring" combat, etc. is often pretty questionable. I say that reading W&M threads regularly. People can be way too quick to take the easy way out, so to speak, and give suggestions that are basically "don't do that" or "do something different" when hit by styles and designs that are divisive (but don't fall into a clear bucket of "this is niche and not for me but some people like it" the way slaughter does for example) rather than showing and giving advice on how to do it well. That's partly because the advice giver thinks of it as a flaw with respect to some limited conception of "what a good map should do" rather than a design approach that just happened to not be executed well, and partly because they don't know how to do it well so can't give advice on that -- but in both cases those are failings of the body of advice. 

[MemeMind]

On 9/18/2022 at 9:11 AM, Vladguy said:

We get to see more of the Dean of Doom school! That's cool.

 

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Really strange how MtPain dismissed his class right as the Delinquent talked about nobody being at the school... Is he hiding something?

 

Mtpain lore???

I think he made a reference to this kind of stuff in the Nirvana review as a joke but possibly he is adding some sort of channel lore?

[Roofi]

2 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

 

Lot of things

 

Yep , I understand your point of view. I myself made numerous gimmicky and "controversial" maps gameplay-wise. People like or dislike , it doesn't matter for me anymore.  The negative feedback allowed me to see that some elements were not well executed for example.

 

If you know what you want to do , go for it ! However, I think that not too confident mappers who don't have a clear idea should start with something moderate in order to avoid getting a wave of criticism that not everyone accepts in the same way.  Personally, I don't think I would have continued mapping if I had received a ton of negative reviews on my first maps. I probably would have stayed with the idea that my maps were crap without wanting to continue.

 

 At least I think , positive feedbacks should at least counterbalance negative ones when you start. I also don't like the "don't do this" kind of advices which are way too drastic, but I prefer "avoid doing *** at this point".

[Redead-ITA]

On 9/18/2022 at 6:42 PM, cannonball said:

Actually all of the mappers for Nova 3 were new to mapping (or at least they were when the project was started). It was Nova 2 that had alumni so to speak.

Oh boy, i remember the way the dev cycle for Nova 3 went actually.

we started on the way the other Nova's went, with new mappers joining in doing maps and stuff (i was reeeaally new back then, with my recent entries being joy of mapping 4 or 5) it went ok untill after a while the project just went... vaporwave, so then @Albertoni (who provided me my map with feedback) eventually relaunch the project(Or at least i think he was him), along with a discord and got to work from there, it went to become the nova 3 we know, kind of a shame my map didn't make it there, even if it's really old, though i'm not mad, i do believe that the result came out great even if it didn't have the begginner mappers part as much as the other 2 nova's did.

also kurashiki's map is fun, if a little challanging.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Redead-ITA : formatting better

[El Jeff]

On 9/18/2022 at 5:11 PM, Vladguy said:

We get to see more of the Dean of Doom school! That's cool.

 

  Hide contents

Really strange how MtPain dismissed his class right as the Delinquent talked about nobody being at the school... Is he hiding something?

 

I always thought about that, maybe it’s because the delinquent failed the class so many times and took so long the rest of the students graduated 

[ZethXM]

1 hour ago, baja blast rd. said:

Ftr I think advice-giving meta about stuff like ammo deprivation, confusing navigation, hyper-easy/"boring" combat, etc. is often pretty questionable. I say that reading W&M threads regularly. People can be way too quick to take the easy way out, so to speak, and give suggestions that are basically "don't do that" or "do something different" when hit by styles and designs that are divisive (but don't fall into a clear bucket of "this is niche and not for me but some people like it" the way slaughter does for example) rather than showing and giving advice on how to do it well. That's partly because the advice giver thinks of it as a flaw with respect to some limited conception of "what a good map should do" rather than a design approach that just happened to not be executed well, and partly because they don't know how to do it well so can't give advice on that -- but in both cases those are failings of the body of advice. 

 

I think about this a lot, but as I've made only one map so far it feels inappropriate to comment on the state of feedback as a whole.  I will say as an inexperienced mapper and as someone who lurks a lot of My First WAD threads that there seems to be a sort of mode of feedback reserved for new levels that comes with some assumptions/expectations of the experience, largely because it usually works and because there is a small, insanely dedicated core of people who playtest damn near all of those first wads with video feedback and so have to spend time strategically.

 

For example, I had a player find a fairly esoteric secret in my map that they assumed was broken (it involved recursive portals) and they loaded a save rather than try to figure it out.  Is it on me to present that secret in a more conventional way, or would they have had more patience had my deliberation been less in question?  Do I take from that a need to adjust going forward, or do I simply continue to try to define myself and things will come around? 

 

If I cannot effectively signal to an agnostic audience my design intentions, they will find it difficult to give specific feedback and so they'll fall back on the rules of design for new people, so to speak.  The calculus of effective signalling changes for more experienced, more recognizable mappers, I feel. 

[Albertoni]

2 hours ago, Redead-ITA said:

Oh boy, i remember the way the dev cycle for Nova 3 went actually.

we started on the way the other Nova's went, with new mappers joining in doing maps and stuff (i was reeeaally new back then, with my recent entries being joy of mapping 4 or 5) it went ok untill after a while the project just went... vaporwave, so then @Albertoni (who provided me my map with feedback) eventually relaunch the project(Or at least i think he was him), along with a discord and got to work from there

 

Definitely not me, no

[Andromeda]

5 hours ago, Redead-ITA said:

we started on the way the other Nova's went, with new mappers joining in doing maps and stuff (i was reeeaally new back then, with my recent entries being joy of mapping 4 or 5) it went ok untill after a while the project just went... vaporwave, so then @Albertoni (who provided me my map with feedback) eventually relaunch the project(Or at least i think he was him), along with a discord and got to work from there, it went to become the nova 3 we know, kind of a shame my map didn't make it there, even if it's really old, though i'm not mad, i do believe that the result came out great even if it didn't have the begginner mappers part as much as the other 2 nova's did.

You might be mistaking Albertoni with @Scotty, IIRC Scotty had a fox as his avatar back then as well so that's probably where the confusion stems from.

[TheSlipgateStudios]

I like Dean of Doom, shows me WAD's I probably won't play myself, unless it's a Doom 1 megawad.

[Redead-ITA]

11 hours ago, Andromeda said:

You might be mistaking Albertoni with @Scotty, IIRC Scotty had a fox as his avatar back then as well so that's probably where the confusion stems from.

yeah that might be the case, especially in the discord related stuff.

[Foxstiel]

 

[Somniac]

2 hours ago, Foxstiel said:

 

 

Oooh I wondered when this one might happen! Such a good wad. 

[xScavengerWolfx]

I watch this one and i liked it but the ending was kinda sad to hear though. I won't spoil it in case people haven't watch it yet but my personal option i felt like this was erik's final stamp of mapping career. 

 

Would've been insane what kind of crazy stuff he could've done in the later half of the wad.

[TakenStew22]

Yeah, kind of a sad episode. Wonder if Erik will ever return to this.

[Shepardus]

Scythe X's custom enemies annoy me greatly, so part of me is glad they only appear in one map. I still would have liked to see what else Erik Alm would do though.

 

Something else I like to mention about Scythe X is the presence of rockets but no rocket launcher on MAP02. The rockets are useless for pistol starting, but if you carry over the rocket launcher from MAP01 then you can use them to save time and get some satisfying gibs on groups of enemies. I've always liked that nod to continuous players/episode speedrunners.