My new WAD is ready!

[PeterMoro]

Hey, one of my bucket-list challenges is finally over : I made a half-decent DOOM II map! Being a PC noob it took a long time but it ended up being one of the largest and most detailed (and hopefully immersive) vanilla DOOM II maps I've ever seen. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Hope you enjoy playing it as much as i enjoyed building it. Would love to hear what you think if you play it. Cheers!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lfm4smwe1n0ccr8/Deimos abandoned base %2379.rar?dl=0

 

 

[Bauul]

Looks impressive! You might need to add a bit more info though: Is it truely vanilla, or is it limit-removing? If you're not sure, easiest way to check is to try playing it with Chocolate Doom and see what happens.

 

It's also good to confirm which source ports you've tested it in (I'd suggest Chocolate Doom, Crispy, PRBoom+ complvl 2 and 9, and GZDoom at a minimum) and if there are any bugs or technical things we should know about.

 

I'm looking forward to testing it!

 

 

[riderr3]

How much time did you spend on this map?

[axdoomer]

The map is so big, it will crash on vanilla Doom because it can't allocate enough memory. 

 

It won't run in Chocolate-Doom because some textures that are used are not in the Doom II IWAD, I also quickly checked the map with Doom Builder and some flats use wall texture names. 

[Dutch Doomer]

Judging from the screens he must have worked on it for quite some time. Looks really good.

[PeterMoro]

Hey everyone, its's truly vanilla in the sense that it only uses DOOM + DOOM II textures, and game mechanics from these games as well, no fancy mods or bells and whistles are included and this level can be played straight up as if it were DOOM II. Its not vanilla in the way that it's extremely lengthy and detailed LOL It does have a vanilla DOOM II vibe though. (i hope). No mods are necessary but my personal choice is Project Brutality.

It's only been tested with GZDoom so not sure how it works with other software. I'm quite nooby with Doom technical details / wad making / PCs in general and this is probably my first and last level. I didn't find any bugs when i play tested it (a lot!) with GZdoom. This map took about 4 (!) years to make. I know, i know that's crazy but it was about a few hours a week in my spare time and the first year was slow because i was learning all the in's and out's of Doombuilder. I had a lot of specific ideas that I'm glad to say, most of them made it in to the map. It's my best crack at making the 'perfect' DOOM II map. Hope you have fun playing it. It was a fun ride building it. 

[PeterMoro]

Someone spotted bug so i had to go fix it : (  Here's the new link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w38nsztoge858q6/Deimos abandoned base %2379.zip?dl=0

[Deadwing]

Usually when someone says vanilla then it is specific vanilla compatibility mode, which has several limitations that ensure an experience closer to the original Doom. You'll want to test it in Chocolate Doom to make sure it is truly compatible, though.

 

In your case, it seems it is GZDoom only, although it could've been limit-removing (Boom). There's nothing wrong being GZDoom though, but this is normally more used for more advanced mods (such as Brutal Doom or NeoDoom), which uses completely different weapons, monsters and more advanced resources (such as 3D floors, swimming, etc). So normally when a person wants to focus on more classic Doom experience, he will probably choose Boom to ensure that experience will be achieved (true vanilla can be a lot more complicated, I guess), though, again, this is not necessarily a rule.

 

Anyway, I'll take a look on the level later today, screenshots looks great :D

[Misty]

So,I tested your map with Qzdoom. It's very impressive in my opinion,lots of space and exploration. Well,you should make switch more visible in starter area,maybe give a small hint where it should be,because I ran 10 minutes in one area. Well,I should play more to get deeper review of your map. 

Anyway,if I were you,I would make copy of wad and convert it boom format. Some fixes with line specials,tags and textures and you would reach larger audience. 

P.s If you use MAPINFO lump,clip midtextures,so it won't look weird in software mode. For example:

 

Edited April 17, 2017 by MysteriousHaruko

[Bauul]

2 hours ago, MysteriousHaruko said:

Anyway,if I were you,I would make copy of wad and convert it boom format. Some fixes with line specials,tags and textures and you would reach larger audience. 

If he's made it in UDMF then converting to Boom can be a real headache, especially with a map this big.

 

@Ke-Sula When you created the map, what format did you choose? Did you (for example) pick "GZDoom: Doom 2 (UDMF)" or words to that effect?

 

It wasn't just a throw away comment when I said you need to test it with a bunch of source ports, or at least learn enough about the various mapping formats to know which ones it will or won't work with. If you've used flats as wall textures, it sounds like this is a ZDoom (and QZ and GZ) only map.

[Suitepee]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/136313204 = my playthrough. (had to noclip the exit door switch, since I couldn't figure it out)

 

In summary; nice detailing, nice sense of scale....mostly dull gameplay and confusing progression (not to mention a lot of awkward backtracking throughout my playthrough) over that exit door opening. The final fight had an interesting idea, but the rest of this was "large area with little enemy presence in it" times a lot. A somewhat (sadly) typical case of somebody making a huge scale map and then forgetting to add some good gameplay encounters in said map.

Still, not a bad first map, especially for somebody who isn't "PC savvy" and spent 4 years on it.

 

May I suggest playing through Hellbound if you haven't already; that megawad did detailing & incidental gameplay correctly with some huge scale maps involved.

 

May I also suggest that should you decide to make another map, make a small one for a change.

 

 

[PeterMoro]

Hi Suitepee, thanx for playing and streaming my map, i really appreciate it! Wish you'd given me a heads up and I could have sat in. You picked the wrong map to play when you were tired LOL You seemed a little narky before the map even began. Well i'm glad that you made it to the end, a few times there i thought you were gunna quit. Sorry 4 the headache & thanks for sticking it out. I'm surprised that so many people were watching the stream. 

 Wow you guys are a tough crowd, harsh critics. Love it. Truthfully i really appreciate the commentary and feedback, you guys pointed out things that i had't considered. Please cut me a little slack though, I've never made a Doom map before. I tried to chock everything i love about DOOM into one map. That was the best i had. I'm just glad to make a DOOM map. 

 Let me clear something up: I like this kind of map! Huge and non-linear and lots of exploration and checking the map from time to time. I think it's Dark Souls inspired; or maybe I've been listening to too much Dream Theater LOL I was going for a kinda cinematic vibe . I wanted the player to cruise around and explore a massive base full of traps and secrets and not-so-obvious progression. I'm 95% satisfied with how it turned and was only upset that i screwed up a texture in the crate room + screwed up the textures in the BFG puzzle room + the yellow key progression to open the exit was too complicated (especially after playing for 90mins) Really sorry about that. I've learnt my lesson and I'm going to fix these three things. (BTW the BFG puzzle combination is scattered all over the map - those two textures are constantly repeated. There's another secret where you get the BFG earlier in the map also).

One key point that i noticed (which is different to my playstyle) is that you don't look closely at your map but just have quick glances and the map is quite zoomed out. I think you would have caught a lot more and progression would have been easier if you'd looked more closely at the map. Not saying you're playing wrong but I'm used to studying the map more and with it zoomed in more. You missed quite a lot in general but that's more likely to be my bad. I was trying to make a map where you have to stop look around at your surroundings more and add 1+1 here and there. Like with picking up the blue key. You DID look at the map but you also walked past a lot of stuff that i thought was obvious. My fault for trying to make a super-map. You were very close to getting the Computer Area Map and if you had you probably wouldn't have needed to no-clip the exit. BTW rad suits were all over the map, mostly behind poison signs. All poison signs had areas secrets / behind them. My bad for not making it more obvious. I was glad when you finally found the plasma rifle, possible to be fund earlier in the game, as is the super shotty.

The 'mandatory secret' in hell was on purpose and designed to make the player go WTF and feel like a spin-off area. Guess I'll change it after all the negative backlash. LOL I was trying to be original and cinematic and creative with stuff. (I like the red door with no side wall!)

Looking at my notes I started making it in 2013 and I put in a few hours a week, most of it was made this year though. Of course i didn't take four straight years, I just took my own sweet time and did bits and pieces here and there. There were times where i had a breaks for a while. Making this map was fun and part of my chill-time after work. I shouldn't have mentioned the 4-year thing, it constantly got brought up in the stream. I wasn't bragging about how long it took. Its more embarrassing than anything else. 

Truthfully i don't know much about DOOM map creation, ports, etc. All that i know I watched from watching youtube vids and reading a few forums and messing about. Don't laugh but i couldn't even change the sky texture, i had to ask a friend to do it. Even after reading forums and trying to do it, i couldn't understand it. Ok, go ahead and laugh. Honestly i don't understand about lumps or changing formats or anything like that. Some people seemed to not like GZDoom, i don't know, i thought it was popular. What should i have used? That's what I've been playing Doom with. 

I guess i didn't know what 'vanilla' Doom meant. I just meant that it doesn't have any new textures or sprites or stuff and it could be played straight in GZDoom.

 

Well i guess this isn't the kind of map you're used to but if you enjoyed just a few parts of it then I'm happy. Personally I'm very happy with it apart from my obvious mistakes (above). I think i got down most of what i was going for. Sorry if you guys weren't into it. 

Am i redeemed if i make a new map that's a polar opposite to this one? A map that's small and run-and-gun style, obvious progression and no need to check your map? Simple and action-packed? What do you think? See you in four years? LOL Maybe i should quit.

 

Thanks for your feedback folks. Hope you got some fun out of this map. I'll fix the mistakes and repost a new link soon. Probably not worth it but why not?

 

BTW, I'll check out Hellbound too, thanks for the tip.

[PeterMoro]

ok, i fixed all my mistakes mentioned (above). Probably shouldn't have bothered reposting a new link, but just in case.  I even put in some rockets for after your journey back from hell. Don't know why you ran out of ammo there, when i tested it i a few times i was good there but anyway. Some extra rockets can't hurt.

Cheers.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/toa7vn2s9uiv00e/Deimos abandoned base %2379.zip?dl=0

Edited April 18, 2017 by Ke-Sula