It's pretty sad - OBLIGE makes better maps than most people

[purist]

I know you're kidding, but it would be a very pointless thread to announce that an automated map generator can make better maps than people who have never used a level editor. Reading his OP it's clear he's talking about the community of mappers here as he refers to contributors to /idgames or DWS.

I, like seemingly everyone else, my own experience means I disagree. I do like Oblige and, as I said before, it does occasionally throw up some hair brained scenario that unexpectedly works, which is a nice surprise - but most human mappers are better.

That said, I don't play everything in the recent files section of the archive or anything submitted on DWS. I follow threads on WADs and Mods and play the ones that interest me most. Maybe that does not equate to most mappers, but I would not describe the situation as sad since you will never run dry of stuff to play from just acclaimed releases alone. Plus new people drop into DW already better than Oblige like Breezep, Z0k and SFoZ911 who seem to come from nowhere already better than Oblige. Gives me a lot of faith in the argument against the OP.

It's been said before, you need to provide /idgames links and the OBLIGE seeds that you have based your point on so people can compare for themselves.

[yakfak]

^ here's a thing similar to what I think you're describing: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/freak5.zip

"The idea of competition was that the map, created by the random map generator, is being improved and modified by each participant of competition under the port chosen by participant himself. Surprises and unusual decisions were welcomed as well. Thus the participant can map game zones only within a rectangle outlined around of an initial map. Behind its limits, it was allowed to do decorative landscapes and technical sectors. Also all initial map's vertexes should have been invariable."

I'd drop the initial vertex permanence rule personally but it's a cool idea

[printz]

The amount of butthurt on this thread is silly. Sorry but I've played a few one- or two-author megawads, and they really looked like products of random generators, even if they weren't. See for example some of pcorf's works such as Twilight Zone, Death Tormention (not sure if Whispers is bad though) or other stuff like the classic episode infinity.zip. The author(s) kept repeating the same texture and clue patterns over and over, making things quite predictable and unevolving.

If brad_tilf is referring to this kind of megawads, I agree with him.

[Brad_tilf]

mrthejoshmon said:

The statement that "OBLIGE makes better maps than most people" is a very bold statement. I have played a few of the new wads off of the archive and, excluding the typical trollwad crap, they were actually much better than OBLIGE generated maps that I had messed around with.

Examples:
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/resurge.zip
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom/Ports/m-o/maruta.zip
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/incence3.zip

(and those are just the ones off of the archive that I can remember, I have played some other decent wads not on the archive and were posted in threads)

The human element of wads is what makes them so much better then anything OBLIGE will ever make. Every mapper has their own little quirks and styles that will forever be more interesting, engaging and better than anything a program could ever make...

But what am I saying, after all I am clearly worse than OBLIGE.

I would definitely say you are not. I would also say that none of those are recent (recent being in the last few weeks. In fact in the last TWID Chronicles I posted, there was exactly ONE map and it was garbage. The week before wasn't any better. More maps but still alot of garbage. I saw last night when I was looking at the stuff that came in this last week that there were seven new maps on the archives. I'm hoping this week is better than the past couple have been.

[Brad_tilf]

purist said:

It's been said before, you need to provide /idgames links and the OBLIGE seeds that you have based your point on so people can compare for themselves.

Look at the last 2 weeks of incoming at the archives. HORRIBLE. I don't actually make a point of just keeping "Oblige seeds" laying around. In fact, I just played with it on a whim. And, compared to the old Slige, I was quite impressed. And, compared to the stuff that I ran across the last 2 weeks on the archives, I was also impressed. And, of course, those uploads don't represent the majority of the mappers - at least I don't really believe they do - but they represent almost the totality of what was uploaded over a two week period and it was extremely disappointing that in order to get a playable map, I had to look at a random generator to get one. I also have a map sitting on the incoming section of my site which I wanted to get a look at last week but didn't have an opportunity to. The author seems genuinely interested in having it looked at. Maybe this week's Archives and that submission will restore my faith....

[Tristan]

Actual quality WADs take time to make. They're not going to appear in continuous swarms for this reason alone. If you're focussing on high quality work, I suggest you drop the weekly write-ups back to monthly.

P.S. Resurgence was uploaded six days ago.

[Brad_tilf]

Eris Falling said:

Actual quality WADs take time to make. They're not going to appear in continuous swarms for this reason alone. If you're focussing on high quality work, I suggest you drop the weekly write-ups back to monthly.

P.S. Resurgence was uploaded six days ago.

Once a month would be too much work. It takes several hours, if not longer, just to keep up with weekly updates. The Archives aren't the only place I look for updates and it takes time to do the research, get it all together, etc...

And, you are quite right. QUALITY wads take time. And I never meant to say there are no quality authors - there most definitely are. I don't think the people who KNOW they are quality map makers should take any offense at all and those who know they aren't, but would like to be, well maybe they can look at it as a hint to improve. As for all the joke wads, terry wads, etc... - The community would be better off if they went away.
And, if an author can't at least make sure that his textures actually show up in the map (missing textures is a disgrace) then he hasn't playtested it enough, or doesn't care.

[Tuxlar]

I wonder how a discussion like this would pan out if Slige/Oblige (or else any template-based map generator in general) were just but one practical option for map generation...

[Szymanski]

printz said:

but I've played a few one- or two-author megawads, and they really looked like products of random generators, even if they weren't..... stuff like the classic episode

I'd pay good money for a map generator half as good as Jan Van der Veken

[Tuxlar]

Szymanski said:

I'd pay good money for a map generator half as good as Jan Van der Veken

For what use? Why would the world need such a thing with all the decent maps already out there?

Only sane reason I can think of is for a cheap source of tailored filler maps for custom game modes that require mod accommodations within the map designs themselves, and where making such maps by hand would be overly time consuming/expensive.

[The_MártonJános]

No Oblige can replace the fun of creating something yourself outta scratch. Period.

[234233424]

I made and played through a entire episode generated by Oblige.

Honestly it looks nice at times but the level layout goes from 'hey that's decent' to 'This isn't really what I wanted'