The /newstuff Chronicles #9

[AndrewB]

Fourteen new WAD files in our weekly edition of the goodies found in Newstuff.

• Hell Ball, Explode, Ruin, Warped by Jason Free - These Doom 2 levels play on Map03, Map04, Map06, and Map08, respectively. The level design on these levels are pretty low-quality. Monsters are plentiful, but the ammo balance seems good. Overall, these levels are so-so.
  
• Cory's Clay Pidgeon Target Practice by Cory Whittle - A neat little clay-shooting game! Launch an orange clay disk with alternate fire, and blast it down with whatever weapon you happen to be carrying! See how creative you can get. Requires EDGE.
  
• Mars Base: 1 by Rick Clark - Although incomplete, another amazing WAD by Wildman. The adventure starts in a Mars Base, where something goes horribly wrong... To play this game, you'll need to download TeamTNT's Phouse: The Great Arena by Wim Vanrie[/b] - The sequel to the recently released "House Of Portals", by the same author. This 32-level megawad is much less imaginative. Every level is exactly the same, with the only exception being the monsters on each level. Overall, very rather pointless.
  
• James Bond Skin by Chris Pisarczyk - From the creators of the Goldeneye Doom 2 Total Conversion, a new skin for the marine! Load it up in a skin-supporting port such as Legacy or ZDoom, and play however you wish. In multiplayer or Chasecam. Oh yes, it's a decent skin.
  
• New Flats by Chris Pisarczyk - Just a few new textures, but these ones are useful. Load them up in ZDoom to have your favorite animated liquid flats turn into a healthy Quake swirl. Very nice.
  
• City Of DooM by Paul Maurone - Just as the title implies, this 11-level WAD for Doom 2 is mainly city-themed. A few semi-new textures, a few semi-new music tracks, and a boss monster in almost every level. For those of you in the mood to paint the town red, here you go.
  
• Kpcussin by Chris Pisarczyk - How sweet! A WAD dedicated to swear words. That's all it is, really. Sounds replaced with those of very bad words. On the bright side, the WAD requires EDGE to use. Download at your own risk.
  
• Cjp by Chris Pisarczyk - Here's something a little more sane. A sound collection for Doom/Doom 2, which is basically just laughing. Heckling, cackling monsters. And a few other DDF effects. Requires EDGE.
  
• Go Get 'Em by Javier Fernando Almenara Otoya - This WAD replaces most of the sprites in Doom 2 with those of the enemies and bosses in Wolfenstien 3D. Some of the sounds are mixed up, and the weapons are wrong, but overall, a pretty good enemy conversion.
  
• Helldoom by Javier Fernando Almenara Otoya - When starting out this WAD, I find that it looks very much similar to a recently released Heretic WAD by the same author. That's what it mostly is. Five multi-purpose Doom 2 levels. Nothing looks very special in it, although there are some tricky puzzles in some of the maps. It's so-so.

[Guest Wim Vanrie]

I do need to tell you guys the wad's created especially for an lmp competition on my site:
users.pandora.be/wimdoom
Please go take a look if there's a small chance you could still be interested :-)

[Opulent]

AndrewB -- Phouse isn't pointless; it is just very focused. Has only 1 point, if you will...
http://users.pandora.be/wimdoom/
I agree that it is not overly original or anything, but it does hold the same interest as Map07 or E2M8 does...

[Guest Fanatic]

Cory's Clay Pidgeon Target Practice -this is a very neat idea! Although I had a hard time hitting them. :)

[Ty Halderman]

Due to conflicts with the 10-sector contest, this one was removed from cdrom.com shortly after I merged it in. Doomworld has rights to the 10-sector entries, on 4 of which this was based.

Talk to Ling if you don't like the way that worked out :)

[Guest Fanatic]

Wait, does that mean I can never release my level for the contest on my own homepage as a single level download?

[Linguica]

All the levels which make it into the megawad, I am going to want to keep exclusive to the megawad, so if yours makes it in instead of offering it for download you would have to say "yeah, it's Map12 in the 10 sectors megawad." This is like if you made a level for, say, Requiem, the Requiem team wouldn't want you offering that WAD up as a single level. WADs that don't make it in to the megawad I will be more lenient, and while I will offer all of them for download at Doomworld, I probably won't mind if their authors upload them to CDROM.COM or put them on their homepages.

[prower]

Ling, that's just being a big bastard there. Even if an author has allowed you to put their level in the megawad, I don't see why you should have exclusive rights over it. It's still the author's property (unless you've worked out a contract and they've sold the rights to you), and they can do whatever the fuck they want with the wad. If you don't like that, the only thing you can do is disqualify them from the contest and/or remove them from the megawad.

So, Ty, deleting that wad from /newstuff was probably an unnecessary move.

[Linguica]

prower says:

Even if an author has allowed you to put their level in the megawad, I don't see why you should have exclusive rights over it. It's still the author's property (unless you've worked out a contract and they've sold the rights to you), and they can do whatever the fuck they want with the wad.

The contest page says:

All entries become the property of Doomworld.

Hrm.

[prower]

There's a bit more to obtaining the rights of something than saying "if you send it to me it becomes mine". :P

[Guest q.pixel[rex]]

Prow: I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my map in a megawad with many other maps by talented people then releasing them single...as long as ling doesn't go "ALL MAPS BY ANDREW STINE"...I'm happy ;-)

[Ty Halderman]

is that of a librarian, if you will. I'm not getting in the middle of controversies, but if one appears, and I get a letter from someone saying there's a problem, then the file goes away until I get a letter from both parties acknowledging that they've settled it.

In this case, someone (anyone) sending in levels that they've entered into an ongoing contest (modified from the submission or not) is really over some line or other anyway. After all, people got upset when Linguica put screenshots of work in progress up--how would you have felt if your submitted levels could actually be downloaded and examined?

Personally, I think the submissions in question should just be disqualified for being released elsewhere before the contest was over, but it's not my contest :)

I'll bet that's in the rules for the next contest though...

[Guest skatepunk]

heh...cusswords rule.

[Opulent]

I'm sure PC didn't mean any harm by releasing it early.
If the contest was to make the world's largest candle, and someone exposed theirs early; there is no harm done. No big secret revealed.
Once uploaded to doomworld, they are dw's property. It will always have your name on it... besides, don't you want a lot of people to play and admire your work.

[Guest Slipgate]

Hey Prower,

Actually, if you submit to a contest, you
abide by the rules that contest sets down.
Including such rules as "All entries become
the property of us". Commercial contests
have that. If you don't agree to all the
terms, then don't submit to the contest,
because those clauses are legally enforcable
since the idea is you read through them
before you submitted.

Slipgate