Heretic: Treasure Chest - PLEASE FILL IN SLOTS!

[jobro]

My map was temporary made available here, but due to the fact I've done some changes I removed it. >But I'm gonna upload it again today with the changes in place. And let me just say this one is quite hard. Support single player, multi player, coop matches and death matches. Have fun! Note that this level is 90% completed. You need the latest textures. And one friend sold his Heretic cd with 5 episodes for some of my music. :D

[Lord_Z]

Man, you were not kidding about it being hard. It took me a couple of tries to get into the rhythm of circling the cloud of Gargoyles but i was finally able to kill them all (I thank your generosity of ammo). After awhile I was finally able to get down into the second area and thought I would have a nice, easy climb. Then that wind or whatever it was caught, me off guard, nice touch though. Just when I thought it could not get any harder, you put me in a hole with two Maulotuars, which is the main problem I have with this map. The difficulty matches the original E4 nicely but I think that is a bit extreme.

That aside the map looks good and there were only a couple other things that I noticed. There are some textures that could be aligned on the left building facing out from the start, and the lift on the windy hill can only be activated twice. If this is being played in multi-player and the people fall off the top both times it is used, they would have to start over. The same thing with the lowering floors in the lava, there's no way to get the key if you mess up.

Just a couple of things to consider when finishing your map. It is very nice otherwise.

[jobro]

Dude thanks so much for your time testing it out! Yeah I know that the level is quite hard for the unexperienced, but with some practice te level can be played. The name Mount Mortale comes from the amount of enemies and te wind picking you off guard. I like such epic battles where you see where you are going and what you have to face up against. Boosts the adventurous feeling of the entire map. Thanks for your advices. Will put in more health since that is my main obstacle with it. There is a secret strategy with this level. And it has allmost certainly has something serious to do with the exit... The goal with this level is not to fire and forget. The goal is to force you to think.

[Lord_Z]

Hmm...sounds like I'll have to try again. I'll get it yet!

[jobro]

Don't worry, I've got a few cursed tricks & traps deep inside my sleves mwahaha...!

[duvel]

Artillery: I think it's more or less my fault for being stagnant on actual quality control as opposed to compatibility control. Quality control is a bit of a difficult job because you want consistancy but at the same time you don't want to scare away all the mappers.

I am proposing to wait until a completed episode rolls in before I start quality control, and hopefully by concentrating an episode at a time we can get a better product than if we tried to do all the individual levels at once. We can even try and get some coherency between levels gameplay wise if possible.

As a preliminary I would PREFER you be fairly theme consistant (no random lava pits in levels mostly full of water unless it makes sense and such).

It also occurs to me we may need a quality control team that can get all the map revisions done. Would people be bothered by a separate team that modifies their maps for increased consistancy in quality?

[Snarboo]

ler said:

It also occurs to me we may need a quality control team that can get all the map revisions done. Would people be bothered by a separate team that modifies their maps for increased consistancy in quality?

Not at all, as long as there are open discussions and the quality team communicates with the original authors about what needs to be changed.

[duvel]

E4M4 I just sort of took a little bit of time to look at, it looked interesting but I was put off by the field of geodes (not wand crystals but geodes) and the lava pit you couldn't get out of that you had to kill everything before you went into or you would die very quickly. My suggestion is to remove some of the ammo and raise up the lava pit.

As for the new music on E1M9 and E3M6 they're pretty fitting, though E3M6 feels like it needs something faster.

[Artillery]

Lord_Z and dreaopp: I played the maps from both authors and they are absolutely fantastic, I think. The new e1m7 with balanced lighting blem me away, great style and awesome design and detailing.

I actually thought that older e3m6 music was better, but please ignore me. I'd be a hipocrite not to mention that I usually play with music and sometimes even sound switched off.

I can't seem to get my hands on the most recent texture pack, no download works, so I PM-ed ler to send it to me. With my current version, I had missing textures in e4m4.

Setting that aside, though, I must admit I still wasn't terribly happy with that one. I didn't like the starting fight, the map layout was a bit bland and unconvincing, the incescepable lava pit drove me mad, and the windy part with falling off from rocks into a lava which partly hurts and partly doens't hurt also was a no-no. It reminded me heavily on those sloppy Doom 2 levels. The ammo and weapon placement was definitely not up to my alley either.

Anyway, it has some cool ideas, but it will need reworking, putting make-up, detailing, layout changes etc., I think.

[Lord_Z]

I actually like the original E3M6 music as well, but I remember someone saying that if some of the music is going to be changed, all of it should be, and I just thought that's how everyone else felt. It comes back to the problem that I mentioned before though; as far I could tell, if the music on my level is different, if would also play on E1M2 which is probably not what that mapper would want. I know there are ways around it but I don't know about it for the limit-removing aspect.

[Artillery]

Lord_Z, what I think would be the best solution is that we allow some music specialist to put what he thinks would fit. Or else, that we have everyone putting in their levels what they want. I don't know anyhing about changing musics, and frankly, I really don't mind any of the musics put in my levels. Whatever someone thinks would fit, fine.

If I remember correctly, in Doom, there was always a way of going around the music order. Try classic vanilla megawads like requiem, memento mori, alien vendetta, I think the music order was changed. Can't be sure about heretic, though. Well, I guess there should be people responsible for all that, just as there should be the ones to tweak a little the status-bar colours, graphics etc. if possible. But that's just my idea.

[Lord_Z]

The main difference between Heretic and Doom is that Heretic uses the same music track for different levels, while in Doom there are seperate tracks for each level. For example, E2M9 and E3M1, in Doom, are the same track but are different lumps.

I know that we can change the MAPINFO lump at the end to change the music but I'm not sure how Heretic+ (or any Vanilla port) will like it. I intend to look into this however and try a couple things and let you know the results.

EDIT: I tried making a MAPINFO lump on my map with the correct information and music, ran it with the original Heretic DM application and to my surprise it actually ran. Unfortunately it completely ignored the fact that I put a MAPINFO into it and played the original music, but it does work for more advanced ports. I don't think there is a way to have custom music for every single level, or even name them differently because it seems that that stuff is hard coded into Heretic. I'll see if i can get some results by looking at AV but I don't think it will help.

EDIT 2: As far as I can tell it does not seem possible to use new music and names for every level. Doom and Doom 2 have separate lumps for all their level names and Heretic simply does not have that. If someone else knows any way to get past this, it would be good to know. I'd be happy to put the MAPINFO with correct music and names when the project is ready for release but it would only work on newer ports. I am not completely familiar with limit-removing stuff so let me know if I'm going about this all wrong.

[Artillery]

Lord_Z said:
EDIT 2: As far as I can tell it does not seem possible to use new music and names for every level. Doom and Doom 2 have separate lumps for all their level names and Heretic simply does not have that.

That was EXACTLY what I feared, since certain things in the modified Doom engine which heretic uses are hardcoded and not as configurable as in doom.

[Creaphis]

So, for music, our options are these:

1. Use only the music in the Heretic iwad.
2. Replace the music, but accept the fact that new songs will play on multiple maps. Rework the map order very carefully so that the added songs fit the new maps that they play on as well as possible.
3. Have vanilla play the original Heretic music, and newer ports play a different, new track on each map (unless the map author wants the original music track preserved).

Personally, I feel option three is the best one here. I don't think it abandons our principles at all to say that this project is "limit-removing port compatible; requires ZDoom ports for new music." Honestly, so few decent Heretic ports exist that the majority of players will be using ZDoom or Skulltag anyway. Option two could also work, with added effort, but for my own level I want to have a unique music track to make it more epic.

Which Heretic levels share music anyway?

[Vermil]

From Doomsdays Heretic audio ded...

And yeah, I know its makes this post long, but I figure it would be easier to understand if I posted the whole lot rather than just list the levels that share tracks.

Music { ID = "e1m1"; Lump = "MUS_E1M1"; }
Music { ID = "e1m2"; Lump = "MUS_E1M2"; }
Music { ID = "e1m3"; Lump = "MUS_E1M3"; }
Music { ID = "e1m4"; Lump = "MUS_E1M4"; }
Music { ID = "e1m5"; Lump = "MUS_E1M5"; }
Music { ID = "e1m6"; Lump = "MUS_E1M6"; }
Music { ID = "e1m7"; Lump = "MUS_E1M7"; }
Music { ID = "e1m8"; Lump = "MUS_E1M8"; }
Music { ID = "e1m9"; Lump = "MUS_E1M9"; }
Music { ID = "e2m1"; Lump = "MUS_E2M1"; }
Music { ID = "e2m2"; Lump = "MUS_E2M2"; }
Music { ID = "e2m3"; Lump = "MUS_E2M3"; }
Music { ID = "e2m4"; Lump = "MUS_E2M4"; }
Music { ID = "e2m5"; Lump = "MUS_E1M4"; }
Music { ID = "e2m6"; Lump = "MUS_E2M6"; }
Music { ID = "e2m7"; Lump = "MUS_E2M7"; }
Music { ID = "e2m8"; Lump = "MUS_E2M8"; }
Music { ID = "e2m9"; Lump = "MUS_E2M9"; }
Music { ID = "e3m1"; Lump = "MUS_E1M1"; }
Music { ID = "e3m2"; Lump = "MUS_E3M2"; }
Music { ID = "e3m3"; Lump = "MUS_E3M3"; }
Music { ID = "e3m4"; Lump = "MUS_E1M6"; }
Music { ID = "e3m5"; Lump = "MUS_E1M3"; }
Music { ID = "e3m6"; Lump = "MUS_E1M2"; }
Music { ID = "e3m7"; Lump = "MUS_E1M5"; }
Music { ID = "e3m8"; Lump = "MUS_E1M9"; }
Music { ID = "e3m9"; Lump = "MUS_E2M6"; }
Music { ID = "e4m1"; Lump = "MUS_E1M6"; }
Music { ID = "e4m2"; Lump = "MUS_E1M2"; }
Music { ID = "e4m3"; Lump = "MUS_E1M3"; }
Music { ID = "e4m4"; Lump = "MUS_E1M4"; }
Music { ID = "e4m5"; Lump = "MUS_E1M5"; }
Music { ID = "e4m6"; Lump = "MUS_E1M1"; }
Music { ID = "e4m7"; Lump = "MUS_E1M7"; }
Music { ID = "e4m8"; Lump = "MUS_E1M8"; }
Music { ID = "e4m9"; Lump = "MUS_E1M9"; }
Music { ID = "e5m1"; Lump = "MUS_E2M1"; }
Music { ID = "e5m2"; Lump = "MUS_E2M2"; }
Music { ID = "e5m3"; Lump = "MUS_E2M3"; }
Music { ID = "e5m4"; Lump = "MUS_E2M4"; }
Music { ID = "e5m5"; Lump = "MUS_E1M4"; }
Music { ID = "e5m6"; Lump = "MUS_E2M6"; }
Music { ID = "e5m7"; Lump = "MUS_E2M7"; }
Music { ID = "e5m8"; Lump = "MUS_E2M8"; }
Music { ID = "e5m9"; Lump = "MUS_E2M9"; }
Music { ID = "e6m1"; Lump = "MUS_E3M2"; }
Music { ID = "e6m2"; Lump = "MUS_E3M3"; }
Music { ID = "e6m3"; Lump = "MUS_E1M6"; }
Music { ID = "titl"; Lump = "MUS_TITL"; }
Music { ID = "intr"; Lump = "MUS_INTR"; }
Music { ID = "cptd"; Lump = "MUS_CPTD"; }

[Lord_Z]

Option 3 sounds best to me as well. It will still work with old ports but it will be better with new ones. If this is the way ler wants it to be done then I would be happy to piece together the level names, authors and music closer to the end. Here is an example of what I was thinking:

The text color and style can be changed, obviously, but i guess that will be decided later. I am also wondering if we should return to the original 3 episode idea, as we are still short on mappers. We'll have to wait and see what ler thinks though.

[Creaphis]

Hm. Well, there's minimal music reuse in the first two episodes but then it gets pretty bad. Yeah, I would still prefer option three.

[Dreadopp]

I like option 3 as well. I think that a new Heretic megawad should have new music that wont be played on a level that the music is not suited for.

[duvel]

Option 3 sounds great to me. It'd be pretty easy to pack in a music wad with a MAPINFO lump and a music DED with all the desired songs, and while we still are trying for greatest port compatibility this is something that (like the garbled textures) we really can't fix too well. Since there's not really that many modern Heretic ports this works well, unlike in Doom where you'd have too many ports to consider. Hell, there ARE no real standalone ports outside of WinHeretic and wHeretic, both of which are more or less Windows ports without any added features.

That level name format looks great, and should do fine. Anyone figured out what the interpic is going to be or are we just going to leave it be since Heretic has the intermission map?

As for the 3 episode thing I'm going to hold out for a bit, as while there's a lull summer is coming up and people no longer bothered by school can easily provide maps. If need be we'll just have as many episodes as we have maps for them, though I hope we can actually fill up the first 4 at least.

As a reminder, MAPINFO is Hexen and ZDoom specific :P

[Creaphis]

Didn't we already figure out that we can't change the level name graphics? Only the font is stored in the Heretic iwad. This would again need dehacked work (if any util can even handle this - remember, the level names being based on fonts instead of graphics is new code for Heretic which won't be accounted for by Doom utils) or advanced port features.

The garbled textures are fixable for vanilla. Somebody just needs to fix them. Essel explained how to in one of his posts.

I would say stick with original intermission pictures, or we could slightly alter those graphics so that the locations on the interpic match the level better. Though that would look gross unless done really well. Better yet, we could make brand-new maps as interpics - though the objects in the pictures that signify the levels have to be in the original places, or the arrows and blood spots on the interpic won't point to the right places. Unless someone with tremendous artistic ability volunteers, I say original pic.

[Vermil]

Well, if your going for "limit removing, but with "extras" on ports that support MAPINFO or Ded", surely the animated textures/flats and level names could be some of those "extras" as well.

Heretic doesn't use graphics for level names, rather it uses text definitions that are hardcoded in Vanilla Heretic (don't know if HHE files can change them, but no port supports those).

[duvel]

Ah, totally forgot about that. Well, I suppose we can whip up an HHE file. ZDoom supports them, though we might as well throw in a MAPINFO for that, but something else might like HHE too so let's still plan for that.

As for Animated Textures as extras, they'd just look totally goofy without being animated. I'm not against it, I just say it'll look goofy.

[Snarboo]

Does vanilla Heretic support HHE files through a program like DeHacked?

[duvel]

Yes, that was the original intention of it.

[kristus]

Snarboo said:

Does vanilla Heretic support HHE files through a program like DeHacked?

Er, where do you think HHE files come from?

[Snarboo]

True. I'll chalk up my question to a brain fart. :p

[Use]

I still have a partial map for this...

[duvel]

It would be great if you finished it and posted it.

[jobro]

As of music I've got plenty of experience writing music, and I'm willing to write at least some MIDI tracks. If you prefer XM or MP3 then it's fine with me. I'd prefer XM since you can loop it much better than MP3's. And just so no mistake is done. The map I primary will add music to is my E4M4 map. Feel free to explore my music here:

http://freemusic.freeculture.org/media/people/jobromedia

Check specially out my track Dark light since it'll be a similar track I'll use.

[Dreadopp]

My level is coming along nicely. I decided to put up some screen shots for you :). It may look a bit plain, but thats because the level is only about 40% done. I have yet to reach the detailing stage. Don't worry I will get there ;).



@jorbo: There is some pretty cool music on your media page :).