DTWID: Project is done, check the release thread

[40oz]

Xaser said:

I've seen (not specifically here, mind you) too many negative comments about intended E1-style maps because the author used a texture or two that didn't appear in E1, regardless of whether the textures even fit well (more often than not, they did).

I know its nitpicky. It's supposed to be nitpicky. I wouldn't want to be a part of this project if it's intent was to welcome people's maps because of the effort and enthusiasm instead of its quality. Ideally I want this to "feel" like an official id-software product, not just a collection of peoples interpretations of Doom's maps as Hellbent said. I know there were no set in stone rules when idsoftware made the game, but we are following the unwritten rules that came about after the game was made. Were trying to layout the game with the same perfection that it established in the first place when the game came out.

In response to some of the things you said, I don't find the use of alpha textures too off-putting either. I just think that if they are available, people will feel obligated to use them, and they often get phoned in places that otherwise would have just been a normal doom texture. It encourages unnecessary texture variation.

There's nothing wrong with slime. The problem I was encountering was that I was a bit lost in NT's map, so I was often having to backtrack over the slime looking for places I might have missed. In many of the E1 maps, there's slime, but there's almost always ways to avoid it. And the places where it is unavoidable, its out of the way of the general layout of the map. The slime in NT's map was used in areas that had many corridors and branched hallways which left a lot for me to explore, and I got damaged a lot because there was no way for me to find out what was around it without getting hurt. I know there are radiation suits, but I was lost for a longer time than the time duration of the suit. In all honesty, in any map for any project a setting like that would be acceptable, but id software was not making maps for seasoned doomers. We have to assume no one has played Doom before playing this wad.

I can just as easily create my own interpretations of Doom 1 but I can do that at my own will. (I encourage everyone to release these maps on their own seperate from this project) and I've read many responses to my maps that often were very nitpicky. Especially Icytux's responses which were much more negative than positive. However I found his posts to be much more helpful than anyone elses because he was not afraid to call it exactly how he sees it. I don't want players to be afraid to share their exact impressions of the maps they play and compare them to their impressions of Doom. But at the same time, mappers should not hold too dearly the maps they make, especially not enough to defend them or get offended of people's responses to them. Take into account everything everyone says and do your best to avoid those comments in the next map you make.

[Walter confetti]

more from my e2 map... also, i using the NT'S alpha textures pack...



layout



level itself...

for the title i think "Petersen station" could be a ok title...

[C30N9]

Looks good! Keep it up.

[Reisal]

@walter: The screenshots give off a heavy E2M2 vibe.

[Marcaek]

Walter, I'm with 40oz when it comes to having another crate maze level for E2. It looks okay though, but I hate the TEKWALL pillars in the big empty room.

I found and hopefully fixed the crash in my map. XWE likes to screw up TEXTURE lumps, and had renamed GSTLION to REDWALL1 for some reason, so that E2M4 wouldn't load. Fixed the Tutti stairs too, apparently it happens when you unpeg them.

http://www.speedyshare.com/files/26062612/dtwide2m3new.wad

I think I'll take a short break until my new comp shows up. This comp is just too stressful to use and I'm starting to get impatient. Choco doom lags when the music changes, the mouse is broken, web pages freeze and break, opening screenshots and uploading maps takes forever, etc. I'll tweak this map though, shouldn't require too much effort.

Please be thorough in your critique, I want my work to be refined and enjoyable.

[Dragonsbrethren]

walter confalonieri said:

more from my e2 map...

I could easily mistake your first three shots for E2M7, E2M2, and E2M6. That's not exactly a good thing for this project, remember we're not supposed to be doing homages. Your fourth shot has a E2M3 vibe, but unlike the others it doesn't feel like it was pulled directly from the original map, so it's fine.

[Lorenzo]

I've realised a map, e1m2/e1m3 style (but with inspirations from all other e1 maps).

It is still in progress, lights and objects are missing and a few areas too.

Here the map layout:




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

And here some screenshot:

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/2814/ss01d.png
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7194/ss03g.png
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1301/ss04.png
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2793/ss05.png
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9892/ss06.png
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/38/ss07.png

[Hellbent]

John Romero is online on Facebook right now. I sent him a message about 10 minutes ago, but no reply yet. And yay for 666 replies to this thread. :)

[ellmo]

Mr. Chris said:

@Hellbent: here , I did look for it on the previous page as I do remember linking you to it in a quoted reply of yours.

Kinda feels like E2M4, I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I'm a bastards so I'll give one anyway :)

[1] Far too little texture variations, your METAL1 walls go for miles, I think you could use some more comp- textures in hallways, not only in small rooms.
[2] In few places the fights are too intense, the number of monsters feels more like a typical Doom2 carnage, apart from this, it's nice, quiet, atmospheric.
[3] Your adaptation of the famous E2M4 big-circle-room has far too many linedefs on it, the shape is too smooth, that's something id would never do in '93/'94 since it would most probably kill every 486 Dx2 back then.
[4] You have a couple of doors that "share" the same line with the wall around it (they are not pushed in)
[5] The DOORYEL textures you used above that DOORHI are just wrong. I'm also not sure about the DOORBLU 'dangling' from the ceiling near the doors.
[8] Yery nice shortcuts to get back to where you've been before atfer clearing another section or grabbing a key.
[7] The secret room near exit seems far too obvious since it's a direct copy of original E2M4 Soulsphere secret.

[Hellbent]

Mr. Chris, I can't find the exit to your level! I wander aimlessly the halls and corridors like a lost soul new to Doom. :D Oh where oh where shall I go?

EDIT: I finally found it.

[Reisal]

@Ellmo: The exit area will be changing to something that isn't a direct ripoff/homage to E2M4. Mr. Freeze did the modifications that ended up making the doors to the center teleporter room blue keyed. Originally they weren't but with the changes, it made the player track back a bit to do things that seemed smoother.

Also, the majority of the architecture was done by me and I could tell you which areas are mine since they generally seem a bit more polished (center teleporter room, starting area, blue key room, yellow key area, circular room, nukage tunnel, etc).

@Hellbent: See if you can alter the soulsphere secret a bit but keep the pulsing light/LITE# texture usage as well.

[Hellbent]

Mr. Chris said:

@Ellmo: The exit area will be changing to something that isn't a direct ripoff/homage to E2M4

@Hellbent: See if you can alter the soulsphere secret a bit but keep the pulsing light/LITE# texture usage as well.

oh, I was gonna delete the whole area and make it from scratch. Not sure how I would edit it and make it non-homagey. You would prefer I not create the exit area from scratch?

[Reisal]

Hellbent said:

oh, I was gonna delete the whole area and make it from scratch. Not sure how I would edit it and make it non-homagey. You would prefer I not create the exit area from scratch?

I would prefer if you remove the blood floor/rising floors section/secret room and leave the dual traps and remainder of room intact. Where the former sergeant is standing looking SW towards the platform leading to the STONGARG scrolling section.

[Hellbent]

I deleted the blood room with the rising floors and the soul sphere secret (I take it that's what you mean?). I just plum deleted that whole section, but I left the traps and I left the switch that raises the floor (I will be changing its action). I didn't touch any of that part of your map. Actually, that's not true. I changed the isolated metal light structure with marbfaces and I removed some vertices from the rounded room. If you disapprove the changes, you can always copypasta the exit area to your version sans your exit area. I am working on it now. :)

EDIT: Yes, that's exactly what I did. It was the obvious thing to do (same wavelength = happy doomers :)

[Walter confetti]

no problem, i'll see to fix them...
also nice map lorenzo
EDIT: Please change the tlite ceilings in the 3rd shots...

[ellmo]

Bigger, better, meaner:

[Hellbent]

That is a sick layout! I love the way the light gray passageway scissors through the level.

[Hellbent]

Incoming transmission with Romero... stand by...

EDIT: get in yer questions while the striking is hot!

[Mechadon]

Impressive looking shots ellmo. There's some great atmosphere in those shots :D

[Romero]

Hey everyone,

If we were going to have some additional LOST levels in DOOM, this is what I would have named them:

E1: Biosphere. This is where all the food is grown on Phobos for the research effort.

E2: UAC Receiving. This is where all the new troops are brought after they arrive on Deimos.

E3: Sheol's Spiraling Descent: Just a pure hellish experience.

I think this project is a neat, interesting take on why anyone should make a new level for DOOM.

[flubbernugget]

http://www.filefront.com/17751141/vanillahell.wad

I took into consideration Marcaek's and NT's suggestions to improve my map, but it still doesn't feel like doom to me. I'm not exactly sure though. So should I try to improve this map or trash it and attempt another?

[ellmo]

Romero said:

E2: UAC Receiving. This is where all the new troops are brought after they arrive on Deimos.

Since most of us working on E2 have been mapping under the influence of Sandy Petersen's original "The Shores of Hell" (or at least we should be) it may be an interesting challenge to try to mix it with John's idea. Adding locations that resemble large hangars, cargo halls, barracks... Still it's Deimos - it's almost completely consumed by the infernal influence.

EDIT:
btw, I love this idea

Romero said:

E1: Biosphere. This is where all the food is grown on Phobos for the research effort.

The word of John almost forces you to have well developed outdoor areas. When I'm ready with my E2E6-ish map I'm going to have a go at E1 map.

[Xaser]

The map I'm working on could possibly fit UAC Receiving well, though I'll wait until I get a beta out to see what others think about it before trying to claim the name. Got to see if it even fits, first. :P

At any rate, it's great to have your input on this, Mr. Romero! Will you be around to offer a few tips or at least keep up with the project, by chance?

[Bank]

John Romero just made this thread his bitch.

[Hellbent]

Does anyone know if DB2 or another editor has a comparable feature to the following found in DoomEd?

Romero said:

the original DoomEd that i wrote had an awesome feature that no editor has replicated (AFAIK)
to set all the sectordefs in a room, you could just click somewhere in the room and a floodfill algorithm would set all the sectordefs in an area to the current sector data (light, floor height, floor texture, ceiling height, ceiling texture, tag)

in DoomEd there was a sector properties panel. you would set all the info for a sector in there. then, you could just click inside a room and all the sectordefs in the room would be set to the properties in the sector panel.
likewise, you could right-click in a room and pick up for properties of the sector there.
when i say 'room', i mean 'sector'

[/b]

Some other interesting tidbits that might be helpful:

Romero said:

There would need to be locations created that we could have made levels for, so they'd need to be named appropriately. For episode 1, it might be cool to have a Biosphere level where food was grown. Lots of great plant life can be in there.

Hellbent said:You guys used actual locations and then twisted them into an abstract reality, right?

Romero
No, we just imagined what locations might exist in a military-run science project and then came up with the levels organically, not from any pictures or books.
totally abstract on purpose.
Episode 2 could have a level named UAC Receiving where new troops arrive and are integrated into the facility.

Wikipedia has some interesting stuff on Sheol:
Sheol (pronounced "Sheh-ol"), in Hebrew שְׁאוֹל (She'ol), is the "grave", or "pit" or "abyss".
In Judaism She'ol is the earliest conception of the afterlife in the Jewish Scriptures. It is a place of darkness to which all dead go regardless of the moral choices made in life and where they are "removed from the light of God" (see the Book of Job). She'ol is a concept that predates the Christian and Muslim ideas of judgement after death and also predates, and is different from, Heaven and Hell. It is unclear whether Sheol was to be considered a real place or a way of describing the unknown status of a person's conscious being.

[esselfortium]

If I'm understanding correctly, a lot of that can already be done in any modern editor just by editing sector properties in Sectors Mode. I believe in DoomEd you had to edit sector properties on a per-line basis instead, and that's where the need for the floodfill selection came in.

It's not a match for the actual interface used in DoomEd, but the functionality is nearly equivalent. There's a plugin for DB2 to copy and paste sector properties, that you can get from the Doom Builder site, and should more or less replicate the remaining functionality of what John described.

..I think.

[NaturalTvventy]

Hey Mr. Romero, thanks for the post.

40 -

40oz said:

The problem I was encountering was that I was a bit lost in NT's map, so I was often having to backtrack over the slime looking for places I might have missed. In many of the E1 maps, there's slime, but there's almost always ways to avoid it. And the places where it is unavoidable, its out of the way of the general layout of the map. The slime in NT's map was used in areas that had many corridors and branched hallways which left a lot for me to explore, and I got damaged a lot because there was no way for me to find out what was around it without getting hurt. I know there are radiation suits, but I was lost for a longer time than the time duration of the suit. In all honesty, in any map for any project a setting like that would be acceptable, but id software was not making maps for seasoned doomers. We have to assume no one has played Doom before playing this wad.

A couple points. First, the slime probably seemed unavoidable to you because you were playing a broken version of the level, with the lifts nonfunctional. The slime is actually quite contained to the southwest and midsections of the layout. Very easy to avoid if the map's working right. I've also added a third rad suit to the slime trails section, which is plenty given the size of the area. Second, you're talking like it was decided that we are making difficulty level the same as the original game. I haven't seen a solid decision on this. I don't see any post proclaiming maps should have original difficulty, but a few where the subject is being discussed.

Ellmo -

Levels are looking better and better! Great texture use, and ceiling/floor variation is just right. From the shots my only suggestion would be to add more contrasting light levels. A few very bright and a few very dark areas give a map a real authentic feel, IMO.

NT

[Melon]

esselfortium said:

It's not a match for the actual interface used in DoomEd, but the functionality is nearly equivalent. There's a plugin for DB2 to copy and paste sector properties, that you can get from the Doom Builder site, and should more or less replicate the remaining functionality of what John described.

..I think.

I'm confused. Isn't what John is saying basically the same as copy/paste properties that is a basic DB2 feature? You just select the sector you want to copy, choose copy properties, then select all the sectors you want to paste the properties onto and just click paste properties? No need for a plugin. Should copy the light level, tags, actions etc. for the sector just fine.

Maybe the confusion comes about because Doom Builder 2 doesn't really use "sectordefs" that are placed on the linedefs, at least not as far as the user cares about. Now I think I'm even more confused.

[Marnetmar]

Wow, we got John's attention! This is awesome.

[ellmo]

I've decided to end this day with an alpha release.
http://www.filefront.com/17751703/dtwid26.wad/

MAP: E2M6
NAME: Demon Cradle
STATUS: Layout completed in ~90%. No monsters placed; pickup and decoration placement limited to "critical", "important" and "I'll put it here so I don't forget later" - otherwise should be completely playable, with 5 secrets and a nice trap.

Enjoy.