[Remaster WIP] Newdoom Community Project

[Doom_Dude]

The Newdoom Community Project was started on November 11th, 2002 when Xtife (Sparky)... now known as @ChaoticReverie posted the idea on the Newdoom Forums. I took over as project lead within a month or so of us starting on it (memory might be foggy). The project was released in 2006 and went on to win a Cacoward! It took 4 years to complete and we went through a lot of mappers in the process ending up with 15 that weren't able to contribute for various reasons and in the end it took 24 people to make 32 maps. This time around it won't take 4 years!

 

Fast forward to 2018 and I'm getting the itch to do an update to the megawad. So I fiddled with my map (map01) for a bit and then proceeded to map02 that was designed by Mystic. I gave him a shout on Facebook and got permission to do what is needed to fix up his two maps. I did some work to them but then drifted away from it. During that time @Aliotroph? did some work on his map10. Then @galileo31dos01 sent me a message in 2020 concerning bug fixes and Crispy compatibility. So that got me back to it for awhile, but I drifted away from it again while galileo sent a version with numerous bug fixes. This year I bit the bullet and started contacting other members.

 

The following people I could not contact [edit] --> as of Oct 2022 the only member left to find / contact is DoomedAce.

 

As many of us know, Espi passed away in 2009. He was a great mapper and a cool guy. I was so happy to have him design a map for the project way back when. I went over his map and fixed a few minor things and made some modified door textures to help snazz up a few things and I hope he would approve...

 

The three maps that need the most work are 02, 15 and 23. Clearly 02 and 15 are deathmatch levels with monsters. 23 is a 500 monster switch hunt. I have permission from Mystic to work on 02 and 15. I worked on map23 and have it in a much better state for playing but I have no contact with Grunt, so I'm hoping to be able to track him down.

 

Thankfully the other members are either working on maps or gave permission. It's understandable at this point that many people are busy with real life and don't have time to be working on Doom maps and in some cases haven't touched editing tools in years. I don't mind taking up the tools and working on the maps myself and being as respectful as one can be with the original work....

 

So what's in the Remaster?

 

• Many bug fixes for sure. There will be a full list when project is done.
• Revised some of the existing textures.
• Made new textures.
• Added author names to intermission level graphics.
• Made some new item graphics (mainly health pickups so far).
• Tweaks to combat / lighting / architecture.
• Added new music thanks to galileo31dos01. Have yet to go through and really listen to all tracks.

 

Basically we're doing the usual fix-it up kinda stuff. The olde version will always be available to those who want to play it or load up those old speed running demos. Here are a some screens! Some are still work in progress of course.

 

 

 

 

Here is a poster I made from a graphic Exl sent me.

 

Found this old banner from when I had a hosted site on Newdoom.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Doom_Dude

[FEDEX]

Hi there, a little fix: Espi (RIP) passed away in 2009, not in 2006.

Btw your idea to rebuild this classic is great.

[Doom_Dude]

Ah thank you for the date correction Fedex. 

[LadyMistDragon]

Oh yes, Map 23, or the one with the intermission midi playing as you tromped across a ridiculously overscaled design that'd be straight out of the late 90s if it weren't for competent detailing and shapes suitable to the combat

[FrancisT218]

@LadyMistDragonYes, map23 is that map.

 

To be honest, I like the idea that each switch in map23 was textured

based on where you needed to go next, which gave you incentive to learn things rather than keep guessing. But actually getting it all done and the sheer scale of the thing...

[LadyMistDragon]

The tedious backtracking is rather Skyward Sword-esque, though that latter game is probably much easier unless you were really terrible swinging the Wii mote around.

[FrancisT218]

@LadyMistDragon I agree. The backtracking in the level is the 'red tape' that needs to go, per se. And the size of some of the areas. On the other hand, the idea that you can figure out where a switch did something by its texture rather than either just seeing straight up what it did, or having to make a random guess (not cool!), is the part that I liked.

 

In fewer words, idea is fine, execution (and the map itself) not so much.

 

For the whole wad, map15 would have to be my least favorite, as I find it to have almost nonexistent gameplay despite some good outdoor visuals. Map02 was actually challenging enough it managed to kill me. Map31 (the community map, the Meggido of the NDCP per se) was quite good and one of my favorites. Hardest: Map27 (by Lutrov). Best visuals: Map19 (by danimetal).

Edited July 23, 2021 by FrancisT218

[Lila Feuer]

I forgot all about this megawad, it completely slipped under the radar for me. I should play it!

[Scuba Steve]

Interesting. Might be a fun trip down memory lane to play this remaster.

[Biodegradable]

I love those screenshots. I can tell a lot of love and care went into what we can peek at already, adding and refining details and layout adjustments while respecting the original designs. Beautiful work so far.

[TheV1perK1ller]

I will definitely be keeping my eye on this. Great work. Any plans to incorporate the much needed fixes for the second instalment? Or is it too early to say at this stage.

 

Edit: I have the occasional contact with Danimetal (author of Map 19), I will see if I can get in contact with him regarding making tweaks to his map.

 

Edit 2: Also close contacts with Blackfyre.

Edited July 23, 2021 by TheV1perK1ller

[Doomkid]

Oh man, really looking forward to the remaster here.

[Sam Ellis]

@Doom dude This is BlackFyre. I had not used the email you tried for a number of years which is the most likely reason I did not get it. I am on Facebook, however, and can be reached there under My full name (Dr. Sam Kendrick Ellis III).

[Doom_Dude]

10 hours ago, FrancisT218 said:

@LadyMistDragonYes, map23 is that map.

 

To be honest, I like the idea that each switch in map23 was textured

based on where you needed to go next, which gave you incentive to learn things rather than keep guessing. But actually getting it all done and the sheer scale of the thing...

 

Yes, there was at least that with the switches. I expanded on that idea and then added some teleports to take you out to where it makes more sense as to where to go. I think it flows more nicely now and even with that, it take me over an hour to play through it. The weakest part of the map is the maze and going back to the entry to it, you're sometimes not remembering which door is the newly opened one. haha.

 

10 hours ago, FrancisT218 said:

For the whole wad, map15 would have to be my least favorite, as I find it to have almost nonexistent gameplay despite some good outdoor visuals. Map02 was actually challenging enough it managed to kill me.

 

Map02 is very copy pasta as the four colored areas are exactly the same, just turned 90 degrees with diff colored lights. It's also full bright... even has lights instead of door tracks. lol. It also has some odd design, including a monster closet opening in the sewers when your walking through the exit

 

Quote

 

Map31 (the community map, the Meggido of the NDCP per se) was quite good and one of my favorites.

 

I never expected that map to go together so well and it was really interesting to put together. That reminds me, I dug up the olde graphic of who did what section.

 

4 hours ago, TheV1perK1ller said:

I will definitely be keeping my eye on this. Great work. Any plans to incorporate the much needed fixes for the second instalment? Or is it too early to say at this stage.

 

Edit: I have the occasional contact with Danimetal (author of Map 19), I will see if I can get in contact with him regarding making tweaks to his map.

 

Edit 2: Also close contacts with Blackfyre.

 

Not sure about the 2nd installment at this point. That one was a lead by Pumpkinsmasher.

 

Thanks for the help, now I can yap at Sam on Facebook. :D

 

1 hour ago, Sam Ellis said:

@Doom dude This is BlackFyre. I had not used the email you tried for a number of years which is the most likely reason I did not get it. I am on Facebook, however, and can be reached there under My full name (Dr. Sam Kendrick Ellis III).

 

Ok, very good! I'll contact you on Facebook. Thanks BlackFyre!

Edited July 23, 2021 by Doom_Dude

[TheGreenZap]

This is really cool Doom_Dude, great idea!

I'm sorry to say I never played the original, but I will now.

But I love that you want to do a remaster, the screenshots look awesome.

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

9 hours ago, Doom_Dude said:

 

=

 

 

Looks like I was shockingly accurately guessing who did what, other than all the bits not in the east that you did(and Nuxius' bit on the northwest as well).

Edited July 23, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[FrancisT218]

I knew Fatal did the Northeast yellow part (puzzle is a smoking gun!) and could recognize the Southeast ending area as Doom_Dude's style. Rest (including other Doom_Dude parts) I had not placed with any amount of certainty.

 

Trivia, this is one of only three megawads my late mom (who passed away in January 2019) actually played. The other two are Kama Sutra and Scythe 2. So, all three were (initially) released within a year of each other actually.

[Philnemba]

I recall playing this around 2009/2010(?) on ether a Skulltag or Zdaemon coop server years ago so playing this remastered should be a breath of fresh air since its been so long since I've played this megawad :)

[Lutrov71]

@Doom_Dude you're welcome to do whatever is necessary to remaster Map 27 my man :)

[Doom_Dude]

6 hours ago, Lutrov71 said:

@Doom_Dude you're welcome to do whatever is necessary to remaster Map 27 my man :)

 

 

Lutrov! Thanks man, appreciate it!

[Doom_Dude]

On 7/23/2021 at 5:32 PM, FrancisT218 said:

Trivia, this is one of only three megawads my late mom (who passed away in January 2019) actually played. The other two are Kama Sutra and Scythe 2. So, all three were (initially) released within a year of each other actually.

 

Oh so sorry you lost your mom. It's cool she played the NDCP and KS and Scythe 2. I lost my dad several years ago, he watched me play a few games but he wasn't interested in computers much.

 

-how the heck do you add a quote to an existing post... I could never get that to work. Unless you do a multi-quote from the start you're screwed. hah.

[Doom_Dude]

Decided to do some work to Lutrov71's map. No Brakes..... and now no more blindfolds on marble faces. ;)

Edited July 27, 2021 by Doom_Dude

[galileo31dos01]

On 7/25/2021 at 7:58 AM, Doom_Dude said:

how the heck do you add a quote to an existing post

 

You could open a quote "window" in your reply, then go highlight the text you want to quote and copy/paste to said window, and then @ the user somewhere so they get the message.

[Lutrov71]

11 hours ago, Doom_Dude said:

Decided to do some work to Lutrov71's map. No Brakes..... and now no more blindfolds on marble faces. ;)

Hell yeah man!

[DooMAD]

Progress:  

[Doom_Dude]

On 7/27/2021 at 12:31 AM, galileo31dos01 said:

 

You could open a quote "window" in your reply, then go highlight the text you want to quote and copy/paste to said window, and then @ the user somewhere so they get the message.

 

Yeah, that's true.

 

Looking good @DooMAD. :D

 

On 7/27/2021 at 9:19 AM, Lutrov71 said:

Hell yeah man!

 

Here's another one @Lutrov71! :D

 

 

[Lupinzar]

Hi there, this is DarkWolf. I think back when this was made I still had a Yahoo/Geocities e-mail which is long gone (thus I can't recover my old forum account here either). Fortunately, DooMAD contacted me via my website.

What a blast from the past! I was still in high school when we started this. Unfortunately my free time is a bit unpredictable these days. What's the time line? Back in 2016 I revisited a couple of maps, so I'm only a few years out of practice instead of over a decade. If I can't find the time to do it myself, then I would definitely be ok with someone involved in the project making tweaks.

[Doom_Dude]

Heyyyy DarkWolf, good to see you show up on here.

 

There's no time line set, so were not in a hurry or anything but I'm thinking early 2022 in January or Feb or somethin like that. Maybe earlier if everything comes together and keeps going as well as it is.

 

If you can find the time, that'll be great. If not, then that's fine as well. I don't mind doing it myself if nobody else takes it up.

 

So that leaves 5 people to try and track down.

[Lupinzar]

That sounds good. I'll give it a shot myself and let you know.

[Doom_Dude]

Ok cool Lupinzar. I'll send you a PM on here with the resource wad.