Doom 2 in name only (tentative title)

[glenzinho]

@ella guro: A few maps are being linked to here now, so can you make it easier for us to find them by linking them in the first post?

[Bashe]

I'm definitely keeping my eye on this project. The concept is really interesting to me, and I'm eager to see what kind of stuff will come of it when it's done. Not to mention I haven't been playing a lot of Doom lately, and a mod like this would be a great way to start again.

Good luck everyone!

[Doomguy 2000]

Interesting concept you got here, also I'm interested in how the maps look and plays when it comes out and I will keep an eye out for this one.

[ella guro]

glenzinho said:

@ella guro: A few maps are being linked to here now, so can you make it easier for us to find them by linking them in the first post?

i put the ones i've found in the first post (except Eris's, because he's apparently redoing his again).

[Antroid]

You certainly linked the correct last version of map04 :) By the way, i didn't include coop starts in it. Is it actually required that we have coop starts? Some things happening in the open area would look dumb in coop (some monsters on the opposite side pop out of the ground instantly while you traverse it).

[cannonball]

I played some of the maps here are my thoughts
Map01 - Grab chaingun then an easy run and gun through the level. Very brief but longer than the original. You could say that the enemies are a little on the dense side but mowing them down sure is satisfying.
Map04 - Very different to the original with a canyon at the start and some volcanic overtones near the end. It looks nice though I'm a little unsure about texture alignment in places though the effect looks deliberate. Only found one secret. Gameplay is pretty much spot on, with the low tier enemies and the sparing amount of health and ammo.
Map05 - Quite cramped but nice looking, I mean very nice looking for a vanilla map. The flow of the map is ok. One point though. The spectre ambush after the red key is pointless due to the monsters not getting beyond a certain point meaning you can just safely mow them down. Perhaps some projectile monsters or hitscanners would be preferable here if you don't want them advancing beyond a certain point. Found 2 of the secrets.
Map02 - Looks ok, I'm not entirely sure what is going on here with keycards and skulls of the same colour, with the skulls in front of the very door required to open them. It just seems a bit pointless as you can skip through the level in under 15 seconds this way.

[Antroid]

cannonball said:

... I'm a little unsure about texture alignment in places though the effect looks deliberate. ...

Which places are you talking about? The only areas i can recall where the textures aren't aligned in a pretty much standard way is in the green base, where i had to use the famous splitting trick (which, as i recall, was demonstrated by some guy originally on the very same green metal textures) to make the textures look good on linedefs of unusual length.

Also which secret did you find? :)

[cannonball]

Yeah that's what I was talking about, it's fine in all honesty and hey it's a little different. It's not a bad thing, just a curiosity.
The secret I found was the ssg secret.

[Antroid]

Yeah, although that kind of linedef splitting may look bad under opengl. But who cares about the sort of freaks that prefer opengl? :D
Also i'm glad that apparently even with the SSG the gameplay is still "spot-on", because i didn't bother testing the map that way %) Thanks for your feedback :)

[cannonball]

No problem, it's probably the best way to test for a mapset like these, we don't really want to have to find secrets to simply beat the level by the skin of our teeth. :)
Anyway has anyone got any thoughts on the map I've submitted so far?

[Cacatou]

Just played it. Wow, it was really fun. I had a few shock moments (the 1st mastermind and the 2nd cyberdemon). The map is large but fun to navigate through and never dull. Loved the secrets but I feel that the secret exit room is kind of annoying. Loved the reference to the original and overall it's a really good map with a good city vibe. Also it reminded me a lot of CC2 MAP15. Also I want to ask whether this was intentional?

Spoiler

(The archvile encounter in the last building on the right side has no cover so I ran behind the pillar and found the secret switch by accident).

[Hellbent]

Also, very nice level Cannonball. My only nitpick is that the beginning drops down like map15, but this is a minor nitpick. The start teleport is rather reminiscent of plutonia start/exits as well... *shrug*, which may be fine.... Other than that I really liked it. The ceiling could be spaced better going up to the blue key door (instead of mirroring the stairs). I recorded an LP with comments Cannonball but QuickTime crashed so I don't have the video.

Eris: very nicely done. Here is my FDA LP:

[Tristan]

Asshole mancubi...4:49

Unfortunately, the gameplay has been wrecked by the vanilla compatible version. But I will be able to reinstate the lighting in the central room to cover up...Well it's not a slime trail, but a rectangular strip which appear brighter..

[Antroid]

I have got a question for everybody. In my map29 i'm trying to have a moment where you can see a large scenic structure out of some "windows", then you go somewhere else and then you arrive at that structure. But! It turns out to be really hard to make something big look good both from afar and up close in Doom. Will the immersion, atmosphere, mood or anything be ruined if we reach an indistinguishable copy of this structure instead of the real one? This would be apparent on the automap and also for people who got great sense of direction (although the copy that's built for the scenic view from afar will be "hidden" on the automap).

[Tristan]

Map05 is very nicely done

Eris Falling thought
The waste tunnels now has waste...AND tunnels

[cannonball]

cheers for the response guys. Haha I thought that too cacatou, I tried to give a more realistic vibe with roads etc. Maybe it doesn't contain enough metal2 textures though. As the spoiler, all I can say is that the answer is yes, it is intentional. Like HR's map15 sometimes the secret switches are easy to find :P
I might change the start/exits to regular teleport pads. Not sure yet. I just like the plutonia style ones.
Also it seems like everyone is fine with the difficulty. Hence I shall at some point update the map with difficulty settings, co op starts and maybe a few aesthetic tweaks.

[_bruce_]

@Cannon - oh boy, I really forgot my skullkeys from the testing phase -> unfinished maps have keycards in front of skull textured door frames and vice versa.

@Eris - added the pass again(underhalls) and link to same file in .zip

@olympus - thx + will keep an eye on the start area.

[Olympus]

Hey Bruce, I dont know why but 7zip says I need a password to extract the wad. Am I doing something wrong?

[cannonball]

Olympus said:

Hey Bruce, I dont know why but 7zip says I need a password to extract the wad. Am I doing something wrong?

Password is "underhalls" I found that odd too, but found the password with the post where the wad was placed.

[Tristan]

bruce did you have to upload as .rar?

Can't say I've ever come across them (I have heard of them though)

[Olympus]

Thanks cannonball. Played through Map 02, it seemed pretty cool. Some areas, such as the start area, could use some more texture variation, though.

EDIT: Layouts done! Heres a doombuilder shot:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Obsidian]

I just played cannonball's map, and I've come to the conclusion that my map isn't hard enough. Heh.

[Eregore]

Right now my map is Vanilla visplane compatible. I couldn't find the stat limits for the other stuff. Help finding that information would be appreciated (I haven't seen it posted yet in this thread, maybe I've missed it?) I leave for a month on Saturday so I will try to post a version of the map Friday night with everything done except for Items/Monsters so anyone curious about it can poke around.

Days: 8
Hours: 52
Structure: 90%
Actions: 75%
Texture/Lighting: 70%
Items/Monsters: 5%
Total: 60%

[ella guro]

Eregore: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Static_limits

[Kongming]

The map is 'done', map18 Courtyard to be precise:
http://www.mediafire.com/?u9lvfzy8vc3a8cu
It works in vanilla as far as I've tested it.
The midi is made by friend that I need to ask permission to use, if I don't get a chance to ask him, I'm gonna have to change it to a different tune.
Feel free to add any thoughts and complains.

[cannonball]

Just played courtyard.
First thing to say is that the map looks really good, lots of little bits and bobs which really add feel to the level. I thought the level was a little quiet at times, but on the other had I did not expect the battle at the red key. That was quite intense but manageable. Even the final fight (after red key switch) was ok.
I believe you have missed a teleport line at linedef 2506 (there is a teleporter which does nothing. So there is no way out. Luckily I found the secret located in that room which got me out.
Overall a very good map.

[Tristan]

Fantastic work with Map18. Played up to that broken teleporter. I think your difficulty is fine (but wtf do i know, i played on ITYTD), and the layout is very detailed.

Also that area with the broken paths...vanilla compatible you say? I'm jealous :P

[Kongming]

cannonball said:

I believe you have missed a teleport line at linedef 2506 (there is a teleporter which does nothing. So there is no way out. Luckily I found the secret located in that room which got me out.

Yeah, I thought I forgot something when I uploaded it, but I'll fix that till the next version :P

[Olympus]

First version of Map 26:

http://www.mediafire.com/?agq73tjnub3lrjd

Please let me know what you think!

[ella guro]

Kongming: i have no complaints about the layout. very cool stuff. the length was good too. there were a few misaligned textures i noticed, but that's an easy thing to fix. it felt a little light on monsters at times (and i don't think it would suffer if there was a bit more action here and there) but there was a good crescendo with the cyberdemon and then a couple archviles at the end. actually i felt like the cyberdemon was maybe a little unnecessary and could have been replaced with a bunch of smaller monsters, but that's just my preference.

i do think it would have been nice to not dangle the red key that you can't get in the cyberdemon area in front of the player. i spent awhile running around, thinking i'd missed something. it's not a major annoyance, though, because i know that you'll eventually return to the courtyard area and see the key there.

Olympus: it was maybe a little weird to see a Cyberdemon and a Spider Mastermind running around in a small map, but it is definitely an appropriate difficulty for a map 26. i'll have to make my map 25 feel more big and open as a contrast. even though it's relatively short, it fits the theme works well and is definitely hard enough to be in that spot. i wish the part with the railroad tracks were longer though, cause they were cool. i'll have to actually legitimately make it through the level to make sure everything is doable, but i think it is.

these are both nice maps!