Claustrophobia 1024 -- Fixed version released!

[Solarn]

gggmork said:

@Solarn-TowerofDesolation-0.9: Looks interesting and unconventional but I was kinda confused. I might just be too unobservant to figure out what to do (shot both eyes and nothing happened, and that was with iddqd to test since it appeared hard. I guess you could infight by opening/closing the door from the opposite side but you get sniped by chaingunners you can't see due to the mesh, and the white door doesn't seem to open from the opposite side. You only have 8 shells. I like hard maps but can't figure this out so far. You might want to test with prboomplus (and edit the prboom cfg file to be 'default compatibility level = 9'), then make sure you can beat it yourself as you are likely your own best gameplay tester.

Ah, yes. I didn't add ammo or health to the map yet because after completing the monster placement and the puzzles, I was totally burnt out and couldn't figure out what to put where. I posted it to know if everything worked as it should or if I missed something. I'm working on a final, fixed version right now. Thanks for the feedback.

[Mik57]

Progress report? Im done. report over :P.

BTW what ever happened to my map "Calypso Station"?

[Mechadon]

Mik57 said:

Progress report? Im done. report over :P.

BTW what ever happened to my map "Calypso Station"?

I just finished going through all of the Claustrophobia alpha maps a few minutes ago and I just amended the first post :D. Calypso Station needs work mainly in the texture department. So for the moment I've placed it in overflow.

I'm trying to get myself caught back up as much as possible today. As I just said above I have finally went through all of the older Claus maps and I've ordered them accordingly in the OP. However I'm a few pages behind and I think some of you have submitted updates to some of those maps. Organization is a bit of a clusterfuck right now but I'm going to be going through all of this stuff very shortly.

[gggmork]

Oh, hi everyone. None of your maps were accepted, sorry. lol.

lesson: never join community projects

[[name_withheld]]

Should I mention that the correct name of "the Dirge" is "End of the Line"? :p

My 3rd map is now in the possession of Kyka. So credit for it should be split between us.

[Mechadon]

Yea I'll have all of this fixed shortly...I just quickly edited the first post and now I'm going through the 8+ pages of stuff that I've pretty much missed :P. It's going to be updated shortly since a lot of the maps that are in the overflow have been updated and I haven't had a chance to play the new versions yet. I still need to go back and reply some questions from weeks ago :(

@gggmork: Those are all of the Claus alpha maps, not the ones that have been submitted recently, so that's why it looks so bad. I'm horribly behind :/

*edit*

@KingKill33: What is the name of that 3rd map?

[esselfortium]

gggmork said:

Oh, hi everyone. None of your maps were accepted, sorry. lol.

lesson: never join community projects

Oh, hi everyone. We've just released our wad after two weeks of people putting together random maps with no quality control whatsoever. Nearly all the maps are unplayable, sorry. lol.

lesson: if you want people to actually play a community project, don't let bad maps into it

[TMD]

1024 Drama: Act 2

[Mik57]

So, Oil Rig is in? If so, is there any last changes that anyone would want me to make to it, or is it fine as-is?

[[name_withheld]]

I didn't really have a name for it when I sent it to Kyka. The file was named complex4.wad, so I guess we can go with that for now. I'll have to ask him what he has in mind.

[Stupid Bunny]

I'm not too surprised my map is in the overflow section. :P So what might you suggest I do to improve it? I have VERY limited time at the moment but if you have suggestions I might be able to work with them.

[Mechadon]

@Mik57: I didn't find any problems with the current version that I can recall. It's an awesome map :D. I like Calypso Station as well, it's just that alot of the texturing in places is kind of sloppy; an hours worth of work would probably be all that's needed to make it look much better.

@jimmy91: The link for version 2 of 'Inmost Con'dens'ed' is dead. I thought I already had it in my incoming folder, but I don't. Any chance your or someone else could send it to me? Really sorry about that :(

@gggmork: Dammit, I totally missed your demo of my map! I'm getting ready to watch it. As for you feedback, I can probably take care of all of that (barring the lift thing, I need to watch the demo first so I know exactly what your trying to describe). I agree with you about the difficulty; it was made to be a 20+ map. Though I don't know if you can really compare it to Joshy's map since the gameplay is quite different. Then again it could be my bias towards my own map's difficulty :P. Thanks for doing that demo and giving feedback though!

@Kyka: I totally missed your post about my Map07 replacement as well :P. Since there's more obstructions at the beginning of the map, it can feel very overwhelming and hectic. I kind of wanted the player to be in a state of panic while working to kill all of the Mancubi. Though the map should loosen up after that since the skin pillars in the blood pools lower and the stair build in the middle of the map. You do have to be careful while in those pits; you should only go into one of them to gather your thoughts for a few seconds and then come out again before hitscanners or lost souls block your patch out. About the item on-top-of items, I'll get rid of those and spread the duplicates out. I can see how that would be really annoying. Thanks for the feedback!

@Lord_Z: Has no one given you feedback on your map yet? That's not good...I'll be PMing you shortly.

@Kyka: Alright, that'll work.

@StupidBunny: I'm sorry to hear that your weren't surprised about it ending up in overflow :(. Your map had a few things going on in it that made it kind of frustrating to play. For most of the map your backtracking constantly to go and grab a new key or to hit a switch, etc. There were also some hidden switches that made me want to pull my hair out before I found them. Though not as bad as some other maps, there were some cramped areas that hindered gameplay. That is to say that not every cramped room did (obviously this is a 1024 project, there's always going to be cramped rooms :P), there were just some that were too cramped for the player to be dealing with whatever monsters were there. Lastly was the texturing. I'm sort of regretting adding all of those Quake-ish textures to the resource wad now. Unless your really crafty or if you just use that set alone, they don't mesh well with the rest of the Doom textures. This is partially my fault, of course. However the rest of the texturing in your map could certainly use some polishing. For instance, after the red key door...there's a set of stairs that goes down into the next room. If you'll notice you've got the tan hexagonal floor tile for the floor and then the gray walls for the inside of the staircase...it's a bit of an eyesore since those two don't match at all. The quickest solution would be to create a lip around the stair case where you can use another flat to transition from the tan hexagons to the gray wall; the grey concrete flat would work great for that.

I'm adding the version numbers of all the non-overflow maps to the first post. The version number next to the respective map will signify what version I currently have in my possession. If the version number does not match up with the latest version of your map, let me know so I can grab that latest version.

I'm still working here so expect mass confusion from me until I'm caught up :P

[The Green Herring]

Progress on Four Rooms is about the same as last time. Finally seeing it in the first post of this thread inspired me to work on it again (heh).

Here is an update to The Warp Facility that fixes a few visual errors that are comparatively minor (very few misaligned textures, a wrong flat, a visual error caused by the down arrow being raised too high,) but were bothering me nevertheless. I thank everyone who played it for their commentary, and if there's anything else that should be noted, feel free to tell me. :D

[Mechadon]

Thanks TGH :D

@Dreadopp: Did you ever update Handful of Dread? I wasn't sure if you did or not...I have version 1 from the original Claustrophobia alpha.

I'm getting ready to playtest all of the maps that I have. If it's good to go, it'll be moved to Finished->Unassigned. If there's a bug or something that needs fixing, it'll stay in In-Progress/Untested Maps/Bugged with a short description of the problem. If it's worse off, it'll go into overflow where you can talk with me to figure out the problem.

Also I'm positive I left out some in-progress maps. I'll go through the thread again and double-check. In the meantime if you don't see your map in the list, let me know. I like to keep the first page as up-to-date as possible (provided school isn't ass-raping me).

[Mik57]

When I first made Calypso Station, I felt a bit rushed, because I thought there was a real deadline, and it took me about 2 days to make :P. So I guess if you want, I could just refine it a bit.

Which textures were sloppy? The midtextures?

EDIT: I just played through my map again, and wow. There were quite a bit of sloppy textures (Especially in the plasma rifle room. Ugh.)

[Mechadon]

Well if you were rushed, that could be the main reason. I thought the midtexture stuff was pretty cool, actually. Most of what looked sloppy to me was some of the COMP stuff next to the Quake stuff. I took some screenshots:



Just my opinion, but I would probably ditch most of the COMP stuff for different textures/decor. For this map COMP stuff would probably look ok in moderation...but for the most part I think it clashes with the Quake textures. Again, that's just my opinion in terms of the texture palette :P. However, aside from the COMP stuff, some of the execution of the texturing could use work. I think my concerns can be summed up in the last screenshot pretty well; the COMP indented into the wall look ok. The upper and lower texturing, however, looks very messy and cut off. In shot one you've got a differing ceiling flat as opposed to the rest of the ceiling. Shot two shows the brown bars cutting into the COMP panel in a way were it looks really awkward; some sort of trim texture there would do wonders. In thost three...well actually the only reason I took a screenshot of it was because that door track was unpegged. Again, the map plays pretty well...it's just that the texturing looks rushed. And it should since you were rushed in making it :P

@alterworldruler: Just played the latest version of 'Twilight of the Demons'. I must say it's quite a bit better than the version I played in the alpha. I noticed a few texturing mishaps that you'll probably want to fix.



For the 3rd shot from the right, there are two ways to keep the midtexture from clipping into the floor. You can either change the floor/ceiling height of one side of the midtexture or you can change the light level of one side of the midtexture. The method I usually use is changing the light level by 1. The difference is so negligible that you can't even tell the different in light level; if you change the floor/ceiling light, you can usually tell.

[Mik57]

Alright, went through and fixed a bunch of areas.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wntpwz

Edit: Ack, apparently some textures don't like to be unpegged, and it screws them all up. re-fixing.

[Mechadon]

@Dreadopp: Just played Trap...awesome map man! It should fill one of the MEDIUM slots nicely (which is good since most of the maps seem to be made for the HARD slots). Just a few things:



In the first screenshot, that wall decor might look a little more slick if you bring the ceiling/floor up 8 px each so you don't cut into the brick textures being used on the upper/lower parts of those lines [nitpicky]. The wooden pillar in shot 2 looks kind of odd since your using a 32 px wide texture on a 48 px wide face. I would probably change this to something else...or you could put some trimming on each corner of the pillar. What might look better is to split each face of the pillar up into 3 sections of 8-32-8. On each 8 px split use the thin vertical metal rivet texture and then for the 32 px split use the wood texture your using now. The 3rd screenshot showcases a common problem in your map (though the area in that screenshot is the only problem area). You should make your window and decor ledges impassible so the player doesn't inadvertently get caught on the corners (does that make sense?). The last screenshot is just showing a misalignment, nothing more :D.

@Mik57: Heh ok, don't rush if you don't have to ;)

[Dreadopp]

Mechadon said:

@Dreadopp: Did you ever update Handful of Dread? I wasn't sure if you did or not...I have version 1 from the original Claustrophobia alpha.

I did update it and sent it to you via PM. If you want, I could go ahead and post it to the public.

Also, I will fix up Trap some more and post it up again. I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

[Mechadon]

Dreadopp said:

I did update it and sent it to you via PM. If you want, I could go ahead and post it to the public.

Sure, your more than welcome to make it available to the public :D

[Mik57]

Alright, new version. Completely fixed to the best of my knowledge.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6leteg

[SYS]

Mech,

I noticed my original submission now made it's way to the overflow list. I kinda made the new map cause the old one was determined to be teh gh3yz0rs. However when I started on the new submission I went a design route that utilized design elements of the old. Feel free to pm some feedback on the old one so I can see what changes should be made. I'm more leaning towards scrapping it. Perhaps you can yield some good design changes to inspire drastic alterations that need be done.

[Jodwin]

I just took a look at the map list...is map31 reserved yet? I could throw a secret exist to Skyscrape IV, it's going to have a slightly peculiar theme anyway so it might work well as the first secret map.

Of course that's not necessary, I'm just throwing the possibility out there. :)

[gggmork]

Mechadon said:

You can talk with esselfortium or I to find out what needs fixing for your map?

So what things in my 'bad map' need to be quality (a subjective term) controlled? My guess is you just died due to lack of skill.

[Kyka]

@Joshy.

Had a play through 'Assault'. And all I have to say is... Thats a damn fine map.

In regards to your question, if you were going for a map that fits into the 'easy' category, then the UV difficulty on this map is fine for UV. If that makes sense.

There was a couple of tiny things that I would look at, but then I thought about it and they are probably more "preference" things than things that are "right/wrong", so nevermind about that.

I found one of the secrets, but that was only because I was scanning the level for misaligned textures, etc, and I noticed this one texture that was misaligned, took a screenie of it so I could post it, and then fell through the wall and picked up some goodies, and I was like "Heeey. A secret. That explains everything."

Heh. In conclusion, sweet sweet map. I enjoyed it a lot.

[Dreadopp]

Here's both maps updated with bug fixes, misalignment fixes and whatever else:

dread-handful-2.wad

dread-trap-4.wad

Enjoy. :)

[[name_withheld]]

Excellent Dread! I very thoroughly enjoyed these two maps, and they both look awesome, too.

The only thing I noticed was that all the things in handful are tagged for multiplayer. :p

[Dreadopp]

KingKill33 said:

The only thing I noticed was that all the things in handful are tagged for multiplayer. :p

Wow, I can't believe I didn't see that. :O

New link: dread-handful-3.wad

Sorry about that. :P Hopefully, there's no other big mistakes like that.

[Mechadon]

@POTGEISSER: Indeed, your new map plays in a similar fashion to the older map, though the execution is a bit more interesting. I kind of found going back and forth to be sorta boring for gameplay. Also the architecture and texturing felt kind of rushed (the texturing more-so). The pentagon on the floor looked really slick though! But anyways, your maps almost feel like that want to be arena-type invasion maps (similar to Map27 of Congestion...that is an amazing map). I'm not entirely sure what direction I would take your newest map if I were working on it though...in that respect I don't think I can offer much advice :/. I think I'm going to send it (along with some other maps) to be tested by a few other guys for second opinions on what to do with it.

@Jodwin: Originally Map31 was occupied by TheMionicDonut's "Somewhere That's Green". It was later put into overflow after playing through all of the alpha version of Claus...and just recently TMD said he was working on it again. Whether or not he's making it for Map31 or not, I'm not sure; I'll assume that he is for the moment. But right now the slots are "first come, first serve, better maps gets the slot". So it would probably be a good idea to discuss it with TheMionicDonut and figure out which one of you would like to use that slot.

@gggmork: Your map wasn't dropped D:

@Dreadopp: Thanks! I'll update the first post now.

*edit*

@gggmork: Oh whoops, maybe it was...accidentally, I think. I need to replay it and make sure I'm not losing my mind here.

[Joshy]

Thanks very much Kyka for the comments. :)
Glad to know that you enjoyed it.

@Mechadon: I was thinking that Assault would be more of an 'easy' level, I think it would suit the mapslots 3-6 after comparing it to Congestion 1024. Well if it's necessary, it should be fine in the early medium slots I guess?