Switcheroom! Or, what if E1M1 was E3M1? (Release Candidate 3, aiming for whenever)

[Fernito]

Whoa, that was fast **

This time I deleted the old version and then uploaded the new one, instead of just overwriting it. Seems like that did the trick.

[EvilNed01]

Question,

when a map is replaced for another map, I'll use a hypothetical example lets say E4M6 becomes E3M6, (that is, its E4M6 done in the style of E3M6) do you guys take a cue from the actual E3M6, or just E3 as a whole?

Why I'm asking is because I'm doing Military Base for E4, (e1m9>e4m9) and I'm taking more inspiration from E4M3 and E4M7, rather than E4M9.

What do you guys say?

[Death Egg]

I'd say it honestly depends on if you want to take cues or not, since both ways have been done for maps so far.

[schwerpunk]

I'd also add that it depends on whether the M# provides enough variety for everything you want to do. Personally, E2M2 has so far provided more than enough variety for my remake of E1M2.

[C30N9]

Here is somewhat finished map layout. Please tell me what you think:
http://speedy.sh/RU3NU/e3-2m2.wad

[scifista42]

@EvilNed01: I would say, generally, that the optimal way is to imitate the style of the whole episode. In the case of episodes 1 and 4 it's easy, so it'd be better to use that technique. However, episodes 2 and 3 are another case, since they don't have a consistent style. Then would be maybe better to imitate the particular map you're replacing. But all of this is just my opinion (which I tried to apply when mapping for this project). Anyway, you're doing it right.

@C30N9: Definitely interesting reinterpretation of E2M2. To be honest, I was expecting larger maze ;). But I like how you had made everything smaller, it helps to the hellish feel, as well as all those different angles. I just hope that what you've posted is actually unbeatable, since I've found all ten secrets, but no way to reach the exit, maybe I'm just inattentive. On a side note, just to notify it (nobody minds it), you put the map in the wrong slot, it should have been in E3M2 slot, replacing Slough of Despair. Looking forward for the finished version!


AND NOW...

E4M3 in E2M3 style EDIT: E2M3 in E4 style, you're right, Archy, thanks.

(on the right there's corresponding place in original E2M3 for comparison)





Download: http://speedy.sh/jEBuE/e2-4m3.zip

Enjoy! ;)


By the way, I just realised I forgot to add difficulty settings to my previous map, E4-2M7. I'll reupload it soon.

[Archy]

scifista42 said:

E4M3 in E2M3 style.

Don't you mean "E2M3 in E4M3 style?"

[Fernito]

Wow, those shots look YUMMY!!! :D

[Death Egg]

Another fantastic Episode 4 map!

[scifista42]

(to you both) Heh, thanks, glad you like it :)

Here is the promised update of E4-2M7, now with difficulty settings. Took me about half an hour, including just a little testing.
http://speedy.sh/q2422/e4-2m7.zip

[EvilNed01]

E1M9 in E4 style WIP:



http://filmklubben.eu/E4M9.wad

Monster placement isn't final yet, and I haven't decided on how much detailing to do. I've studied some of the E4 maps, as well as the E1M9 map (which is essentially just a bunch of boxes connected by corridors and stairs) and tried to keep the detailing fairly low. Still not finished tho, am gonna rework some areas.

I'm new to mapping so any suggestions are welcome!

But there´s a reason I'm uploading this...

The Block Sound effect/tag, i cant get it to work. I've tagged two, or more, linedefs on a row but for whatever reason, the entire damn map gets alerted at the shot of the very first pistol. Even though there are doors, block sound tags and walls separating the monsters from the player.

Any ideas?

[Death Egg]

Try tagging most of the monsters as deaf.

EDIT: Actually went around a bit of the map now, and for a newbie to mapping this is really quite good, especially the height variation and detailing! Found two tutti-frutti effects though:

http://i.imgur.com/AXEzpWv.png
http://i.imgur.com/8vsjU2A.png

[scifista42]

@EvilNed01: It isn't at all bad map. I really like the design and the gameplay is well balanced too. I just found a few glitches:

1. This room is inescapable if you don't have any key when jumping there. I looked at it in an editor and you've accidentaly put WR special on the lift instead of SR, so it cannot be activated from down.

2. The teleporter doesn't work. I checked it in an editor too and found that the sector with the teleport destination isn't tagged, which is the same like if there was no destination.

3. When looking on your map in an editor, I also found the cause of the sound-spreading problems. It's due to the way you're creating doors. Look at this:
800x600 big image
In Doom Builder 2 I selected only the part on the left from the door sector, but the part on the right highlighted too. That means the sectors are joined. Joined sectors have, hm, one of their greatest advantages and greatest disadvantages too in their sound behaviour. They act as a single sector, so the door between those two parts won't block sound. I've found joined sectors all over your map, always surrounding doors. The simplest way to get rid of the effect is to simply redraw one of the two parts (you don't need to delete it, just draw the sector "over" the old one). The best prevention is to never draw sectors in the middle of another sector so it won't split it in multiple parts ;) And also, just to give you inspiration, you can take advantage from joined sectors in your map. Here. The thin corridor is unnecessary if you join the monster sector with another sector in your map - Doom Builder 2 has a function Join Sectors ;)

Except these things, your map is pretty good. I think the amount of detail is just right, at least for the architecture. If anything, then maybe add some more light variation, shadows etc., but be careful about drawsegs, they raise pretty quickly, which often makes me sick when mapping :)

[Fernito]

Hey guys, a question: will E2M9 be the Warrens-like level of this mod?

[C30N9]

Slough of Despair in Containment Area.
Hope you like it.
http://speedy.sh/4f5Pf/e3-2m2.wad

[scifista42]

@C30N9: Yeah, punching fun, like the original E2M2, yet in different interpretation. You had chosen the way to combine gameplay elements as well as visuals and particular structures. It wasn't a bad choice, only in a few places it hadn't resulted well and spoils the gameplay a bit. For example the secret red-blue-flashing corridor. In E2M2, you can backtrack after the door opens again, so only attentive players will notice the different wall texture, press it and reach the secret - and even more attentive (and stubborn) players will do the same two more times :) But in your map, the player has no choice - he cannot go back, so he's forced to go through all the rooms marked secret, and the monsters open even the side room for him, so its no secret again. And there are more places that are marked secret but aren't actually. I know, I know, they're too in E2M2, so this is no big problem. Ammo balance is OK, and if you run out of bullets or shells, you can always punch. I find good also that you didn't overpopulate the map, the monster count is adequate to E3. Visual style, unhappily, reminds E2M2 only very distantly, it just feel like a differently composed E3M2, but it IS possible to recognize areas, which is enough. The map looks quite nice and plays well with that berserk, and this is important. Good job, only if we got more Containment Area...

[C30N9]

scifista42 said:

@C30N9: Yeah, punching fun, like the original E2M2, yet in different interpretation. You had chosen the way to combine gameplay elements as well as visuals and particular structures. It wasn't a bad choice, only in a few places it hadn't resulted well and spoils the gameplay a bit. For example the secret red-blue-flashing corridor. In E2M2, you can backtrack after the door opens again, so only attentive players will notice the different wall texture, press it and reach the secret - and even more attentive (and stubborn) players will do the same two more times :) But in your map, the player has no choice - he cannot go back, so he's forced to go through all the rooms marked secret, and the monsters open even the side room for him, so its no secret again. And there are more places that are marked secret but aren't actually. I know, I know, they're too in E2M2, so this is no big problem. Ammo balance is OK, and if you run out of bullets or shells, you can always punch. I find good also that you didn't overpopulate the map, the monster count is adequate to E3. Visual style, unhappily, reminds E2M2 only very distantly, it just feel like a differently composed E3M2, but it IS possible to recognize areas, which is enough. The map looks quite nice and plays well with that berserk, and this is important. Good job, only if we got more Containment Area...

Thank you for playing the map.

I pretty much agree with you about the Red-Blue secret room. This is where I got lazy and didn't think of anything about putting this room in the right place since I changed the crusher route a little bit than the original. Any thoughts about it?

About the "more Containment Area", I don't think a huge maze made of rocks would be great to include IMO. Again, suggestions are welcome.

[scifista42]

C30N9 said:

Any thoughts about it?

You may for example build there a teleporter that brings you back, and put monster-blocking lines (or use SR special with a tag) on the doors so monsters won't reveal the secret. Or just unmark the redundant sectors as secret. You may also make the pushable wall harder to find - somehow, I don't know, for example change the mechanism of activation, make it shootable or passable wall etc. Similarly with other secrets, particularly those yellow locked.

And by "more Containment Area" I didn't mean only the maze, it's generally that I expect that there will be areas screaming "E2M2!", that the knowledge of the original map will at least a bit help me to navigate through the yours and the most importantly, that I won't need a big deal of imagination and abstraction to recognize areas. But as I said, your map meets these conditions (crushers and the glowing pillar are pretty recognizable landmarks), only it might have more.

The marble hall, poisonous corridor, follow-the-ceiling puzzle, at least roughly projected boxy maze, the machinery that drops down, these are landmarks of E2M2 and it would be cool if the player comes in your map, looks at a structure, immediately recognizes it although he was lost till this time, then he smiles and says for himself: "Heh, this used to be marble hall and now it's... cool!" Many maps in this project evoked such feelings in me, and I felt it's just the right. And yours did so too on the two places I've mentioned. That's just my nature - I always want more. Your conception is good and interesting and I like it and have no substantial complaints.

Now sorry, I assumed in my post that your question was aimed on me, so I wrote everything.

[Magnusblitz]

Nice little map, feels a lot like E3M2 (which I had just played through a few times trying to decide if I wanted to take another remaining mapslot or not). I agree that it feels much more like a mashup of E2M2 and E3M2 instead of E2M2-in-E3M2 style - there's a couple places that I recognized as E2M2 (the shotgun lowering at the start, the marble area with the stairs, the blue light trenches, etc) but not much other than that.

My only complaint gameplay-wise is that the crushers are possibly a bit too wide and short, I was getting caught on them a lot, and only managed to make it through running at fullspeed with my face on the crusher wall as it lifted. The ones in E2M2 are either 64-wide, 72-tall, or 128-wide, 96-tall. Yours are in the 140-170-wide range and some are as low as 72-88 tall. I can understand if you think they should be tougher to get past as an E3 trap instead of E2, but they do seem a bit tough.

[Doomkid]

Fernito said:

Hey guys, a question: will E2M9 be the Warrens-like level of this mod?

If I'm correct, this is still undecided :P

Death Egg, once again I've run into troubles. on my E1M1-E3M1 fusion, trying to get the E2 theme in there is like that annoying friend who nobody wants to come over.. I keep feeling like its E1, E2 and E3 all rolled into one, which will just sorta stick out from the rest.. I've changed a lot of the BROWNGRN/whatnot textures to be STONE, but it just all feels out of place. I added an upside down cross in one part and the whole level just feels like a mismash, I'll definitely need to remove it.

Any advice? lol, my Go # It map had to be retextured as well.. I have trouble re-choosing a decent texture when I've already got one in place for some odd reason.

[Death Egg]

Well, I might just scrap you porting it to Episode 2 after all, since at least two people have expressed that your level makes a perfect E1M1... So if it doesn't fit, than you don't have to continue trying to force it to.

Oh, and E2M9 is Warrens, yeah.

[Archy]

DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING Doomkid92!

[zinkai]

Quick question, do we have to keep the texture set for the level we are replicating? As I have e2m5 - e4m5 and e4m5 has just got gstone and some blood, should I expand on gstone with marble demon faces or keep to the original aspect of the map using gstone only? If so it don't give me many options in breaking thing up visually wise

[Death Egg]

Yeah, I'd say that'd be fine.

[zinkai]

hmm is there no blood fall texture in doom?

[Death Egg]

No, there isn't. Episode 4 instead used FIRELAV2 as a substitute texture.

[traversd]

I'm cool with just submitting an e2 remake of e4m1. Heh, and I sympathise with doomkid92. E2m1 really only has 3 texture motifs - stone2, gstone and sladwall - and the kicker is they are all used in isolation. I'm combining them so hopefully it still feels true to the map slot.

[zinkai]

oh well there goes a few awesome ideas i had

[Jaws In Space]

Hey guys here is a second update to by E3M3 to episode 1 conversion http://www.solidfiles.com/d/9fa02149ea/ Monsters, health & ammo is all in there, & difficulty settings are set. I still need to do a few minor things like put in things for deathmatch. I looked at this map in vanilla doom for the first time & I will have lots of tutti-fruttis to fix, so once I get some feedback on this version I will fix those issues & any gameplay issues that people may have.

Also once I'm finished with this map I would like to make E4M9 in episode 3 style.

[scifista42]

@Jaws In Space: Nice map. Last time I was talking about visuals, so now about gameplay: It was fun to play. I like the ambush when lights go out, great tribute to E1M3, it's really hard and actually made me run away in panic and with low health (I eventually died anyway). I think you can cut down on ammo, since the chainsaw is the best against pinkies anyway and I was stepping into the exit room with full shells and bullets. I've found a bug with the Computer Map pillar - it sunks into floor so if you fall there, you cannot jump out and you can see HOM. Would be nice if you fixed that, as well as the heavy-damaging nukage I mentioned in my previous post. In other aspects I really like your map, you included some interesting ideas.