Lost maps 2 : More!

[Breezeep]

Du Mhan Yhu said:

Lol I've actually begun tuning up the map mentioned in my previous post (Map12: Toxic refinery). Maybe he will give me permission to release it when it's finished.

Spoiler

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Looks good so far, Now I'm thinking about taking a Joe-Ilya map and improving it.

[Pure Hellspawn]

Breezeep said:

The Joe Ilya tune up project needs to happen.

if this were to happen then we'll see lots of new levels. i'm all for it, provided joe-ilya gets to work on the project.

[scifista42]

Pure Hellspawn said:

i'm all for it, provided joe-ilya gets to work on the project.

As a technical consultant?

[Doomkid]

RightField said:

No, no and no. Worst advice ever to give anyone. Don't ever limit yourself. Just get better, and then get great. practice is all you need.

This should be treated as gospel. Excellent advice.

scifista42 said:

Joe-Ilya Tune-up Community Project

Man, that would be a shitload of fun. I hope Joe would agree to it, I had loads of fun retexturing/tweaking one of his older DM maps.

[joe-ilya]

I could be the project manager.

[dew]

Breezeep said:

scifista42 said:

Or there would be "Joe-Ilya Tune-up Community Project", where people will take joe-ilya's maps as a base and attempt to improve them, in the same spirit as 1994 Tune-up did.

Really good idea of yours.

I know I said there was no need to credit me, but come one!

[ASD]

kraflab said:

There should also be a reverse project where non joe-ilya maps get converted to joe-ilya style.

I'd play that. iwads, famous wads like av, btsx, etc.

[AD_79]

joe-ilya said:

I could be the project manager.

Go ahead :P

[Tristan]

dew said:

I know I said there was no need to credit me, but come one!

I think mouldy beat you to the punch ages ago :P
sadly that was the first thing that came to mind when people started talking about this.

[Suitepee]

I've actually been asked to play this at some point. I am somewhat tempted to do so, if only for the infamy of this sequel's existence. (even though I previously said I wouldn't touch it)

[Breezeep]

Who here thinks we should write an article on Joe Ilya on the Doom wiki?

[Du Mhan Yhu]

Breezeep said:

Who here thinks "I" should write an article on Joe Ilya on the Doom wiki?

[Breezeep]

I've never written any articles on a wiki before, so I'm no expert.

[Jaxxoon R]

Joe's back.

[Toxie Rocks]

So played some more of this. I like how each level ends with the floating "exit" texture and begins with the grey tiles at the end of the texture. Don't know if this is a trademark you now use in all maps or a detail you retrofitted to all in this set to tie them together.

There are some texture alignment issues that can be easily fixed. Here's one:

Spoiler

Unpeg some upper and lower textures and press Shift + A while highlighting the brick texture with your cursor in 3D mode and that should do the trick.

Then there's this one:

Spoiler

The texture above the entrance isn't the same as those of the adjoining walls, but you can easily move the texture down so the horizontal lines match up.

Here's another:

Spoiler

The texture isn't misaligned, but putting the wall sconce right on the corner looks awkward.

Another flaw that jumps to mind is seen here:

Spoiler

An invisible ceiling sector blocks the player from the shotgun guys. It seems awkward to me. I say, just jump to ZDoom so you can make transparent linedefs so it's clear there's a window between the player and the enemies. If I remember there's a similar part in the level you submitted to the DWMP 2014.

I really like Ruins! It was a fun riff on Blood Falls. There was some nice architecture like this:

Spoiler

Strangely, I like how the portal texture in the third screen is flush with the water.

Not all is perfect, though. Take the ugly clash of textures seen here:

Spoiler

I noticed this light motif in two levels:

Spoiler

And this very Joe Ilya staircase made up of 1 unit tall and 1 unit long:

Spoiler

Lastly, here's some more interesting screens:

Spoiler

By the way, I don't know what ASDFGHJKL6.wad is, but that MIDI is definitely "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's. ;)

[Toxie Rocks]

scifista42 said:

Thanks, Toxie Rocks, I find your praise encouraging. I wasn't even aware that I have a recognizable detailing style.

To be fair, I don't think I'd have known it was your map specifically had I not read so, but the quality of detailing was consistent with the maps of yours that I've seen.

[mrthejoshmon]

I got to MAP05 and got disgusted.

Not my taste, not my taste at all.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

I went through these and I can see that you are improving. You're monster placement still seems haphazard and you really need to work on how you light areas. Way too many needlessly dark areas still.

Your keepers to hold on to and work on more are 03, 05, 13, 15, 21, and 31. Take those and try to study map design more and spruce those up.

Also, stop using so many squares.

[joe-ilya]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

Also, stop using so many squares.

People complained about triangles and shapes that don't make sense, and now this?! Do you want me to use circles only?

@mrthejoshmon You only like stuff made by professionals, understandable.

[AD_79]

joe-ilya said:

People complained about triangles and shapes that don't make sense, and now this?! Do you want me to use circles only?

What he means is to make your shapes more interesting. For example, say you have a rocky area in your map. Making it out of square or very orthogonal shapes doesn't look good. Making them look more organic/natural is a better idea.

[scifista42]

joe-ilya said:

People complained about triangles and shapes that don't make sense, and now this?! Do you want me to use circles only?

GRB means that a lot of your rooms are orthogonal and blocky, which is obviously a bad thing if overdone.

[Ponqo]

RightField said:

No, no and no. Worst advice ever to give anyone. Don't ever limit yourself. Just get better, and then get great. practice is all you need.

What I meant by that is that he should limit the amount of submissions to show to the world until people start actually liking your maps. Actually no, if these weren't maps that he actually submitted to other projects and were just solo projects, I wouldn't care to much. I didn't mean to come off as rude but is seems obnoxious of him to keep sending in maps to so much community projects and only mapping them for a couple hours at most just to get his name on the credits screen.

This is important because he usually takes up MAP01 and when the first map is bad or stale, it makes me not want to play the rest.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/6335623 = part 1 of my playthrough, covering maps 01-15. (UV, pistol starts)

Well so far it seems that joe-ilya has taken a step forward in his mapping, with one good map (15) already in the mix. Still a lot of improvement to be had mind you, but it seems joe-ilya is PERHAPS beginning to get at least a little better.

There's still some things to work on, like having less awkward elevators and making basic maps into more interesting ones, but one noticeable absence thus far is the extensive hyperactive texturing/geometry all over the place from last time, which is good to see.

Map 05 would have been a second good map, but alas I feel that scifista42 deserves 95% of the credit for that one. It sure was a sudden surge of difficulty for sure!

Map 11 I feel deserves to be added for the tune-up project, such the hilariously basic misfire of UDINO representation it was meant to be of "Mt.Erebus"....

I hope that the second half of Lost Maps 2 delivers another good map or two, and I'm half expecting some kind of "plasma gun rush" map as well.

[joe-ilya]

Suitepee said:

I hope that the second half of Lost Maps 2 delivers another good map or two, and I'm half expecting some kind of "plasma gun rush" map as well.

You bet.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/6363302 = part 2 of my playthrough, covering both secret maps and maps 16-30. (UV, pistol start)
-I also attempted map 33 but it crashed after attempting a quickload and wouldn't reload the map again.

2.5 out of 5 from me in total, as joe-ilya shows some improvement over his first "Lost Maps" and in general as a mapper in my opinion.

In total Lost Maps 2 had three good maps; maps 15, 21 and 24. There were a few others that came close.
Overall I feel that joe-ilya has improved as a mapper since a year or so ago, with less hyper-texturing nonsense and more fun/hard/creative encounters popping up. While there's still some progress to be done, I feel that next time I see a joe-ilya map in a project I won't automatically be going "oh boy, what crap are we in for this time?"

That being said I'm still looking forward to the joe-ilya tune up project, and also thanks to joe-ilya for being present on both livestreams!

[joe-ilya]

I'm still wierded out that MAP24 is better than MAP20, because it's claimed to be worse by others.

[AD_79]

joe-ilya said:

I'm still wierded out that MAP24 is better than MAP20, because it's claimed to be worse by others.

It's called an opinion.

[Memfis]

Hey joe, are you going to upload this to /idgames?

[joe-ilya]

I'll make the megawad somewhat better and replace MAP32.