Unfortunate design coincidences

[PeterMoro]

So recently I'm building a DoomII map and I've got this design concept where there's an area and walls created by huge hexagonal pillars at different heights. I've used this design a little before in a hellscape map from early 2020. (pictured)

Anyway, so this weekend I've started playing Halo Infinite and guess what????....it's the same exact design! grrr....now I'll hve to change the concept and a lot of my map. Don't want to be labelled a plagiarst. I'm frustrated though.

I'm not saying that 343studios ripped off my ideas (LOL) but it's an unfortunate coincidence.

 

Has this ever happened to you? Share your similar experiences in this thread. Ever made a map / area / game mechanic/ etc,  only to discover later that someone else has released something similar?

I hope it never happens to you.

[Not Jabba]

You're in luck -- try as they might, Microsoft has not patented the concept of a hexagon. You can put as many of them in your map as you want!

[Tristan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant's_Causeway

[baja blast rd.]

28 minutes ago, PeterMoro said:

So recently I'm building a DoomII map and I've got this design concept where there's an area and walls created by huge hexagonal pillars at different heights. I've used this design a little before in a hellscape map from early 2020. (pictured)

 

 

 

Would absolutely not worry about this -- and the idea far precedes Halo Infinite lol. They are just shapes. But only Xaser is allowed to use triplets of bridges spaced apart 120-degrees from a central point. 

[PeterMoro]

Everyone's used Hexagons in Doom design but my point was: what i was building turned out to be pretty much exactly what was done in Halo Infinte - rooms / walls / floors / areas created with huge, muilti-heightened black hexagonal pillars. Looked quite similar to @rd.'s map (above).

[baja blast rd.]

Those Doom maps are doing the same very broad thing. Here's the top one. I don't think that concept is something that can be "plagiarized." 

 

 

[SuyaSSS]

I don't see this as a problem. If the map is fun nobody will care if it slightly looks like Halo Infinite.

[Murdoch]

Likely the Halo Design was inspired by the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.

[CBM]

1 hour ago, Not Jabba said:

You're in luck -- try as they might, Microsoft has not patented the concept of a hexagon. You can put as many of them in your map as you want!

Give them time. The American Patent office lets big companies patent anything it seems. Sometimes I suspect that bribes are involved.

[Misty]

Even in nature there are lots of hexagons - honey combs, rock formations and so on. I wouldn't worry about it. Here few examples from the net:

 

Spoiler

So use them much as you want, because they would need arrest nature for such formations, lol. 

[Doomkid]

I can’t think of what the specific coincidences were, but there have been times where people drew connections between my maps and maps I’ve never played/heard of, sometimes going as far as to use pretty definitive language like “Doomkid was clearly inspired by wad X/author X”. It always makes me giggle, but more broadly it just reinforces the old adage that there’s nothing new under the sun and that you shouldn’t worry if your map is superficially similar to another in some way!

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I thought this thread was going to be about maps that "coincidentally" look like genitalia.

[Redneckerz]

27 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I thought this thread was going to be about maps that "coincidentally" look like genitalia.

How could anyone forget the phallic accelerator?

Spoiler

 

[Gibbon]

It isn't new.  If you've played Halo:CE (damn 2001 seems only yesterday) a lot of the forerunner architecture has not changed, it has only been updated.  So I would say in all, your design was about 20 years late to the party ;)

[Bridgeburner56]

Doom Eternal stole the hammer from Age of Hell :/
We took the dash as recompense

But this does happen quite a lot. Wrath has a lore book that you fill up that's very similar to an idea we have for AoH. And people keep saying episode 1 looks like Halo (despite me never having played it lol).

And I sure hope hexagons haven't been copyrighted by Microsoft otherwise I might be in trouble

[Roofi]

My map for Mayhem 2018

 

 

Nina Dobrev 1 by TimeOfDeath (2010)

 

[Joshy]

2 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I thought this thread was going to be about maps that "coincidentally" look like genitalia.

Spoiler

I definitely didn't do these on purpose, though a Freudian psychoanalyst would probably disagree.

[RjY]

8 hours ago, PeterMoro said:

So recently I'm building a DoomII map and I've got this design concept where there's an area and walls created by huge hexagonal pillars at different heights. I've used this design a little before in a hellscape map from early 2020. (pictured)

Anyway, so this weekend I've started playing Halo Infinite and guess what????....it's the same exact design! grrr....now I'll hve to change the concept and a lot of my map. Don't want to be labelled a plagiarst. I'm frustrated though.

I'm not saying that 343studios ripped off my ideas (LOL) but it's an unfortunate coincidence.

 

Claim ignorance. You have never played Halo in your life. [Additional benefit: plausible deniability of having played Halo :).]
BTW, on the left of your first picture, did you actually make a specially rotated FLAT5_2 for the top of the WOOD4 block?
 

8 hours ago, PeterMoro said:

Has this ever happened to you? Share your similar experiences in this thread. Ever made a map / area / game mechanic/ etc,  only to discover later that someone else has released something similar?

 

Both DuckReconMajor and I independently had the brilliant idea of making a giant circle of BLOOD1 floor and BFALL1 walls and sky. [1]

In one of the old "post your picture" threads SFoZ911 inadvertently recreated the opening of the 1994 map OCTAGON.WAD. (Sadly the pictures are gone.) [2]

 

2 hours ago, Roofi said:

My map for Mayhem 2018 [...] Nina Dobrev 1 by TimeOfDeath (2010)

 

FWIW my first thought was "Degrassi?" :)

[Gez]

8 hours ago, PeterMoro said:

it's the same exact design!

Not at all.

 

Yes, there are hexagonal prisms. But they're not comparable. In your shot, we see a scene of abstract hellish chaos. The prisms are made of wood, marble, lava, blood, or gravel with apparent randomness. While in Halo Infinite, it's a natural scene involving basalt organs. You can also see this kind of landscape in Skyrim:

Except Bethesda weirdly used pentagonal prisms here. Silly BGS, a pentagon does not tile! So it's less "the rock fractured along geometric lines" and more "a bunch of rock columns with awkward gaps between them were jammed in there".

 

The layout is also very different. In Halo we have an upward slope leading to a plateau with some scifi at the top, with the basalt organs providing natural walls around the slope and the plateau. I don't see anything like this in your map screenshot.

[mrthejoshmon]

Man it's a shame 343 Industries created things like natural rock formations, wonder how long we got till our old friend volcanic activity gets sued.

 

But nah, hexagons are a pleasant and appealing shape to the eye and lend themselves well to modular construction, I ought to really do something with them, your map looks very neat and I actually really like it.

[Faceman2000]

I’ve heard Tormentor667 had a lot of these “unfortunate coincidences” in his maps. . . 

[magicsofa]

Just change them all to heptagons, problem solved

[Deadwing]

No problem at all, I think it's a neat idea to create a map based on another existent, as an inspirations and a creative restriction challenge

[QuaketallicA]

Since everyone else has stated the obvious, let me ask, how's Halo Infinite? Enjoying it?

[QuaketallicA]

Also yes, I get the feeling. When I was writing a song the other day, I came up with this riff from the blues scale. Part of it kind of reminded me of Motley Crue's Kickstart My Heart, so I modified it till I was satisfied that it felt wholly original and any semblance was gone. Or a part that kind of sounded Guns'N'Roses-y so I dropped it. 

[MFG38]

I accidentally recreated E1M1 from scratch once.

 

This may or may not be a joke.

[CBM]

2 minutes ago, MFG38 said:

I accidentally recreated E1M1 from scratch once.

 

This may or may not be a joke.

that may or may not be funny

 

we should ask james

 

james may know the answer

[Astronomical]

9 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I can’t think of what the specific coincidences were, but there have been times where people drew connections between my maps and maps I’ve never played/heard of, sometimes going as far as to use pretty definitive language like “Doomkid was clearly inspired by wad X/author X”. It always makes me giggle, but more broadly it just reinforces the old adage that there’s nothing new under the sun and that you shouldn’t worry if your map is superficially similar to another in some way!

My first map I released was compared to the mucus flow multiple times, despite the actual inspiration being toxic touch and scythe 2 map 11. I had played the map so maybe subconsciously I borrowed some of the design choices but definitely not intentional referencing. 
 

I think this just happens sometimes

[Nefelibeta]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:40 AM, Astronomical said:

My first map I released was compared to the mucus flow multiple times, despite the actual inspiration being toxic touch and scythe 2 map 11. I had played the map so maybe subconsciously I borrowed some of the design choices but definitely not intentional referencing. 
 

I think this just happens sometimes

 

Welp, I suppose everyone subconsciously remember something when they play other people's wad, then subconsciously place that thing in their own maps without noticing them. This happened to me lots of time. Everytime when I watch doom vids on youtube, there's a chance that I will spot something that I take inspiration from.

[The BMFG]

On 12/14/2021 at 2:03 AM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I thought this thread was going to be about maps that "coincidentally" look like genitalia.

theres this in map 01 of doom 2