6 maps for Doom 2, Would like some feedback. [Fixed for prboom]

[Hoodie]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/2rn2a1d3ih6xh3h/Episode+1+-+Starport.wad

So this is episode 1 of a megawad I want to make and I was hoping some of you would play it and tell me if my maps are on the right path or not. The maps are completely finished and work with prboom+, doomretro, and GZDoom. The maps are meant to be played with Doom Retro however. All maps are possible to be beaten from pistol start, without secrets, and with original controls so they shouldn't be that hard. MAP01 and MAP02 are pretty straight forward and were made a little more for multiplayer. Speaking of that, if anyone wants a multiplayer version I can release one.

Here's some screenshots...












So these are pretty plutonia / quake inspired. I really like that theme but if anyone doesn't think it's working let me know. Like I said this the first episode of a megawad so it's supposed to be played in order. MAP07 is just a placeholder map. Anyways yeah, please play them and tell me what you think! Thank you if you do download.

EDIT : I have fixed some problems and the maps should all work now, please still report bugs if I missed anything.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/2rn2a1d3ih6xh3h/Episode+1+-+Starport.wad

[Hoodie]

Forgot to say, please report any bugs or broken map stuff.

[Walter confetti]

From screenshots looks nice

[Tango]

yeah those shots look pretty nifty :) the colors look really nice; is that just a doomretro thing or did you modify the colormap?

[Crunchynut44]

Hi there

So I have played through your maps and have taken a few notes, praises, criticisms etc. Overall they're not too bad and I had a lot of fun blasting through them. However I would say that there is a lot of room for improvement.

Gameplay wise, each an every level was comprised of shooting galleries. The layouts were very 'hallway, room, hallway, room' and sadly this paralleled with the enemy progression. The first level was perfectly ammo balanced, but this did not continue into a trend as the following levels provided far too much ammo that was necessary. Some of the traps were pretty good, but usually it was easy to retreat and bottleneck the enemy in the hallways. As a whole the maps were extremely easy (I rarely went under 100% health AND armor, and if I did there were plenty of pickups to replenish that immediately), however if this is on episode 1 of a full megawad then that is understandable. My favorite thing about this were the secrets, these levels were just loaded to the brink with them and some of them were really well thought out. They must of been well hidden too because I only found about 30% of them overall.

Architecturally I wasn't too fussed, there was next to no dynamic lighting and height variation only extended to some short stars and lifts to traverse. At first I liked the extensive use of wall and roof trims and recesses, but this became overly abundant and it started to feel as though I was playing the same level over and over again. Mainly because of the incredibly similar detailing in each room as well as how erratic the texturing was. What I really did like is how I felt as though I was in a Quake level a lot of the time, this was a really unique experience for Doom and I really enjoyed that.

Also i'm playing with Zandronum and map06 didn't work, sorry I have no idea how to fix this.

I think the most important things would be to add a lot more height variation (far above 64/128 units high) and more open spaces to allow for better enemy placement and player mobility. However I did have fun and I look forward to the results of this project. Good luck man!

[Hoodie]

Tango said:

yeah those shots look pretty nifty :) the colors look really nice; is that just a doomretro thing or did you modify the colormap?

It's a Doom Retro thing, I really like how lighting is done in that source port so I just worked around with that.

[Ribbiks]

I got stuck in the BK trap in map02. not too sure what happened but here's a demo: https://www.mediafire.com/?ldn3wi7u4g023wh

[Hoodie]

Ribbiks said:

I got stuck in the BK trap in map02. not too sure what happened but here's a demo: https://www.mediafire.com/?ldn3wi7u4g023wh

It was MAP03, and yeah the 2nd switch is a "raise to next higher floor" so since your floor was still going down the logic messed up...I'll see what I can do about that. Thanks.

EDIT: fixed, the green switch is repeatable now so you can just click it again. The new link is in the OP.

[Hoodie]

Crunchynut44 said:

Gameplay wise, each an every level was comprised of shooting galleries. The layouts were very 'hallway, room, hallway, room' and sadly this paralleled with the enemy progression.

I was afraid of that, I got some ideas for more dangerous traps/firefights but I didn't want to put those in too early in the wad.

Crunchynut44 said:

The first level was perfectly ammo balanced, but this did not continue into a trend as the following levels provided far too much ammo that was necessary. Some of the traps were pretty good, but usually it was easy to retreat and bottleneck the enemy in the hallways. As a whole the maps were extremely easy (I rarely went under 100% health AND armor, and if I did there were plenty of pickups to replenish that immediately), however if this is on episode 1 of a full megawad then that is understandable.

Yeah I setup the levels so the ammo worked out from pistol start, so I guess that's why MAP01 had perfect ammo, lol. Again I didn't too hard maps early on and I had a "teaching" mindset for these. Meaning I taught the player what the enemies did and shit like that, I guess I didn't have to do that for this community but still...

Crunchynut44 said:

My favorite thing about this were the secrets, these levels were just loaded to the brink with them and some of them were really well thought out. They must of been well hidden too because I only found about 30% of them overall.

Thanks, I tried hard on making the secrets feel secret. Every level has a secret gun!

Crunchynut44 said:

Architecturally I wasn't too fussed, there was next to no dynamic lighting and height variation only extended to some short stars and lifts to traverse. At first I liked the extensive use of wall and roof trims and recesses, but this became overly abundant and it started to feel as though I was playing the same level over and over again. Mainly because of the incredibly similar detailing in each room as well as how erratic the texturing was. What I really did like is how I felt as though I was in a Quake level a lot of the time, this was a really unique experience for Doom and I really enjoyed that.

I'd like to say the maps were similar cause I was getting into a quake mindset, I plan on doing a different style for every "episode" in doom 2, and I'm messing around with platforming and large height differences in the city levels. Nothing too serious yet though...

Crunchynut44 said:

Also i'm playing with Zandronum and map06 didn't work, sorry I have no idea how to fix this.

Bummer :s

Crunchynut44 said:

I think the most important things would be to add a lot more height variation (far above 64/128 units high) and more open spaces to allow for better enemy placement and player mobility. However I did have fun and I look forward to the results of this project. Good luck man!

Thank you for your time and input!

[Nevander]

Haven't played them yet but those screenshots look great. Really good usage of the stock Doom 2 texture set. It can be difficult to make good use of them sometimes but you've done a great job with them from what I can tell.

Also, what HUD graphic is that from? It's the vanilla STBAR but it looks high-res while the rest looks normal. Maybe it's the port you're using that's doing it.

[Hoodie]

Nevander said:

Also, what HUD graphic is that from? It's the vanilla STBAR but it looks high-res while the rest looks normal. Maybe it's the port you're using that's doing it.

Must be a DoomRetro thing.

[joe-ilya]

Looks like a master level rather than a quake and plutonia mixture, but that's fine since I love the master levels.

[nxGangrel]

I finished playing maps 01 through 05 (I got stuck on map 06) on UV. These are nice, the architecture and layout are great, and the detailing is good as well. I've also took note of the styling of each level and I find it a little reminiscent of my own.

The difficulty isn't to hard and a bit easy for UV, though it did have some tight moments. I like how monsters weren't overly abundant, but it did need to be more difficult and challenging.

Over all I enjoyed it. I would definitely like to see more.

[Dylan Jarvis]

I will check these out tomorrow possibly. Those screen shots... hnnnng

[NinjaLiquidator]

I appreciate the difficulty and it doesnt look bad. But last map is broken. I dont know what to do in Map06 after all blue switches (and finding 2 secrets). Must be broken in Zdoom. Bars should open?

[Hoodie]

I'm just gonna fix MAP06 so it doesn't use KEEN, it worked in my ports but whatever. Expect a fix soon guys.

EDIT : I changed it now so it should work, if you guys want to you can play through it again or just warp to MAP06.

[Uncle 80]

From personal experience, the "raise floor crushing to LIC-8"-types are a little unreliable - sometimes (and especially across different ports) they seem to cause insufficient damage to kill a trapped creature. I tend to put some barrels with the creature I want the trigger to kill, to make sure it dies. It may have something to do with keen hanging from the ceiling, but I'm just guessing here.

[Hoodie]

@Uncle 80
Thanks but it's fine, I changed it.

[Suitepee]

I'll also consider this for an upcoming playtesting stream.

[Lycaon]

I gave it a run and got to map 3, where i died in the trap after the red door ( i was playing it with a monster mod). I really like the style in this maps, the vast amount of secrets give it a replay value and the way everything is detailed, you find yourself looking for secrets everywhere, so this gives an expansive space effect, the world feels bigger than it really is. Overall this is very fun, have you done any map packs before? I'd sure like to check them out

[cortlong50]

just so you know, im playtesting this right now and having a good time, havent run into anything game breaking, and havent noticed any texture issues and thats kinda my thing. wrong offsets or anything.

its super fun. no bs. nothing incredibly different. but for me and this type of pack thats a good thing. just a solid map pack, and thats what im in the mood for. ill let you know if i find anything.



if i had anything to say i would probably just spice up the alst battle with the cyber demon, maybe the room he is in or whatever. i felt like the rest of the pack was perfectly detailed and that one felt a little bland.


other than thati had fun!

[Hoodie]

Lycaon said:

Overall this is very fun, have you done any map packs before? I'd sure like to check them out

this is my first serious map pack, you don't want to check out my other maps :P

cortlong50 said:

if i had anything to say i would probably just spice up the alst battle with the cyber demon, maybe the room he is in or whatever. i felt like the rest of the pack was perfectly detailed and that one felt a little bland.

Yeah I was thinking about putting in some chaingunners or revs when you first teleport into the room.