VaryDM - a DeathMatch map

[madk]

Well, this is the second WAD I'm releasing to the community; it's a deathmatch map for Skulltag that is meant to bring on the excitement.

It's been (somewhat) thoroughly playtested and there should be few, if any, errors.

It is made to be played with as many people as possible (maximum is 8 players) with monsters and items both respawning. In order to keep gameplay going as intended, jumping should be disabled.

Weapons available:
Fist
Chainsaw (Rare!)
Pistol
Shotgun (Uncommon!)
Super Shotgun (Rare!)
Chaingun (Difficult to obtain!)
Rocket Launcher (Guarded by a monster!)
Plasma Gun (I'd like to see you try to get this one)

As you can see, you'll be duking it out with pistols for the most part. And the only weapon that you don't have to kill a monster for is the Chainsaw, and it's not easy to find unless you know your way around the map remarkably well.

There are enough monsters that the player should never have a dull moment, but are few enough that you're not overwhelmed. Ammunition is plentiful, but you likely won't want to be wasting it. Monsters and items are strategically placed to try to keep the players wandering around 4 main areas. The wad map consists of two main areas, interconnected by teleports which are placed so that the teleports lead to the same relative location. each main area has 2 parts where players are expected to find themselves congregating around often.

I tried to balance out narrow mazelike corridors with large open areas to create a good experience. Of course, when testing with bots one can only figure out so much. EDIT: Ok, I've tested it online and made a few tweaks based on my own experience with the map and others' feedback.

Please tell me what you think of it and look out for a VaryDM server on SkullTag IDE.

And, in case I haven't already hinted toward it enough, SkullTag is the intended port. You'll also need to use the Doom 2 IWAD. And this is a deathmatch map, so you won't get anywhere playing it any other way. It is also very large. And it's very easy to get lost. This is intentional.


EDIT: I found a couple bugs and fixed 'em, and I added a few small things. Also, I made a cool tweak where the monsters should chase you through the teleports (and help improve bot behavior as well)
The map is best played with the monsters on the Nightmare! difficulty setting.


Download the WAD directly from my site here (Beta 2): http://www.freewebs.com/grasshopperinteractive/Doom/VARYDM beta 2.wad


<LUCIFER> said, "It's interesting how you need one strategy to take out zombies and imps, while maintaining another to fight players"

[kristus]

madk said:

It is made to be played with as many people as possible (maximum is 8 players) with monsters and items both respawning.

Skulltag supports way more than 8 players.

[DooMAD]

Deathmatch maps with monsters in them isn't a concept that's been explored very much in the community. I'm not sure why, but it's something that's always been associated with newbie maps. Should be interesting to see if it's well received. Might take a look at it later, if I remember.

[WillWater87]

kristus said:

Skulltag supports way more than 8 players.

Yep just about the maximum of 32

[madk]

DooMAD said:

Deathmatch maps with monsters in them isn't a concept that's been explored very much in the community. I'm not sure why, but it's something that's always been associated with newbie maps. Should be interesting to see if it's well received. Might take a look at it later, if I remember.

<LUCIFER>, a person who played on my map, said, "It's interesting how you need one strategy to take out zombies and imps, while maintaining another to fight players"

I don't believe in randomly placed monsters :P so I tried to place them in a way that you'll never be overpowered or overwhelmed by monsters, but you won't often be totally supreme when dealing with them.

(Also, due the the size of the map, the map would be quite dull without the routine monster encounter.)

Additionally, there's a dark maze in one part of the map where if someone is fleeing from your might, will almost certainly escape, as it has no dead ends and a huge amount of routes. But it has a good number of lost souls so that it's not a walk in the park to get out unscathed, either.

And I'll have to add more deathmatch starts, then, I suppose.

EDIT: there are now enough starts for 16 players to participate.

[bullsquid]

How do i play this with bots?

It dosent show up in the map list for offline skirmish