"Alter Your Wad"

[Tormentor667]

I build up an idea about a nice project we could start for the community.

"Alter Your Wad"
- The Resource World for everything WAD

The reason why I thought about this is the fact, that you can't find somehwere on the Doom community a place where you can find all the things you need to have for a new project. The Rsource World is going to have:

- Textures (single ones, packs, skys)
- Flats (single ones, packs)
- Sprites (enemies, decorations, etc.)
- Sounds (ambient, thingsounds, enemysounds)
- Music (mods, midis)
- GFX (status bar, fonts, titlepics, etc.)

The plan is to create THE center for wadbuilders which aren't skilled in creating sprites, textures, sounds and music.

What we are going to need for the project:

- Webspace with a lot of traffic
- The possibility to add a new ftp upload slot for user submissions
- 3 admins (including myself) which maintain the site with me and have a lot of time and have brains.
- Also someone who knows a bit php, so we can make the page more user friendly (for example files listing by letter, date or size and other things like that)

I will on myself do the homepage design and the basic layout of the page with basic php. Think about it and tell me if you can contribute :)

**EDIT** above!

[myk]

Resource making is as much a part of editing and creating as mapping. This you propose is like saying "lets make a page where we upload unfinished or finished maps for people to finish or edit slightly, mix with this and that, bundle, and stuff in the idgames Archive." The latter which already has resources in all the categories mentioned (and the ones that didn't make it there didn't do so for a reason (illegal rips, etc.) If you want to make a page that points out and links usable resources, fine, otherwise it seems like you're doing what's already been done and making things even more complex by making another place for people to have too look in. That's what /idgames is for.

It's rather more interesting to encourage people to make things themselves anyway. Why not make a page that gives tips on how to make resourcers, instead of a place with assorted materials for people to stick together to produce mismatched and amateurish WADs with?

[NiGHTMARE]

I definitely don't agree with Myk's first paragraph. If wad makers are intelligent enough to use existing resources together well, why wouldn't they be intelligent enough to use new resources together well?

IMHO this site is a wonderful idea, although I think you should either state that submitted resources should "look as Doomish as possible" or have a seperate section for non-Doomish stuff.

I partially agree with Myk's second paragraph though. Tutorials would indeed be very useful.

[Tormentor667]

Well, for the tutorials thing: Good idea, this might be great ;) But about the rest, I also don't agree. Why?

Well, as everyone knows, the ftp.cdrom and also the gamers.org archiv is full of shit (about 80% indeed) and I think not everybody wants to invest the most time in browsing and downloading through shitty maps to get some useful stuff for his map.

It isn't like you said "a place where you can download partially finished maps", it is supposed to be a place where map creators can get the best resources for their work. Not everybody is able to create smooth sprite animations, good looking gfx's and moody textures and flats (same goes to sounds and music).

Also, it is going to be a place, where sprite, texture and music/sound creators can upload their doom stuff if they want the things to see in a map but are not skilled enough to create good maps on their own.

You cannot compare this site with any other I think, not with Doomworld, not with Newdoom and else.

[myk]

Well, yes, it can be argued that using other new resources made by others can work out. I guess this has to do with a personal preference of mine... but sometimes this does work, especially when the sets used match well with each other and with the base materials, and when they aren't ripped. This, after all, could actually encourage using resources designed specifically to be reused, as an alternative to ripping and such, so it might not be a bad idea.

Note that there's already Afterglow's textures resource... and what he offers is on the Archive. You may argue that a lot of things in the Archive are crap... fine, but I think that it would be better to try to centralize things for simplicity's sake, and not have multiple places where to look for resources.

You don't even need to host the stuff yourself. You just send it to the Archive and the link it on your page, along with all the other quality resources found there (you can ignore the crap.) You can even link to files on other places. All you need to do is a page describing all the resources available, not a hosting server. I'd also suggest leaving textures to Afterglow, and in any case linking to his page "for textures, go here."

Plus, if you send the stuff to the Archive, even if your site dies young the stuff will still persist. But it's up to you of course... but I've always liked the idea of having a central Archive where people store things, not bunches of separate sites to have to browse through.

[Fredrik]

Sounds like a great idea to me. Go for it.

[Kinsie]

This is an interesting idea. I say go for it!

[Epyo]

Tormentor667 said:

Webspace with a lot of traffic

Uhh yeah...Go for it...

[Enjay]

myk said:

This you propose is like saying "lets make a page where we upload unfinished or finished maps for people to finish or edit slightly, mix with this and that, bundle, and stuff in the idgames Archive."

Well, such sites already exist for other games - where people can download "prefab" objects to place in their maps to spice up the detail or whatever. In fact IIRC, there was an attempt a couple of years ago to get something similar off the ground for Doom. Nothing too fancy, just a cool looking pillar stucture or a pool or whatever to copy and paste into your level.

A few experienced mappers have released "scraps" wads of unfinshed levels that may, or may not inspire others to use either ideas or the level itself as a basis for their own work.

I see no harm in it. Pleny of people ask for replacement textures/sprites/sounds all the time and are often directed to the same places (eg epidermis emporium). People are always using "second hand" resources anyway, so why not a consolidated central reserve of doom resources. Sounds good to me.

[Tormentor667]

The archiv idea is not that bad but it is really insecure (think about ftp.cdrom.com and also the files at frag.com (which have been lost forever).

I like it to see, that everyone wants me to "go for it" but without help, I can't do this. Look at the first post and see what I need!

[myk]

Well, it'll be much easier if you do use the Archive for hosting than if you expect someone to pop up with hosting for an idea that may work but still has to be tried. Hosting stuff isn't easy, and potential hosters usually like to see some work done before volunteering. You said you'd do the site... you can start from there, linking to (or hosting, if you wish, but that's probably counterproductive unless you have space and bandwidth to start with) existing resources and preparing the basic structure and details.

[Tormentor667]

Fine, you are right. So I'm going to start off with the basic structures. But one more thing to do: Where to host the site itself?!

[Spike]

A reasonable idea. For our megawad we've spent far too many manhours scouring the web for midis, textures and wavs. Having the lot heaped on one, easy-to-find site would be a wonderful resource for people like me.

[Bloodshedder]

Four letters: D E A D

[Tormentor667]

Four words: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

[Bloodshedder]

All will be revealed in due time. Let's just say someone else, some big Doom site, came up with the same idea you have.

[Brad_tilf]

I can offer the space on my server but I can't offer upload capability. If people wanted to send stuff for me to upload or to you Tormentor which you could then forward to me with any necessary page changes to upload then I could do that. I have unlimited space and bandwidth to offer but it has to go through me. Also - I have the time.

[Tormentor667]

This means I also had to send everything from the page to you and you would upload it?!