Several (often useless) secret sectors next to each other

[KVELLER]

I've noticed that it's a very common thing in old maps to find several sectors next to each other that are flagged as secret. Now, this wouldn't be bad if it wasn't completely unncessary! A good example of this is the secret with the long stairs in The Ultimate Doom's E4M3.

 

Why did this happen? Was it because of some feature that old map editors had? The only thing I can think of is that if you flagged a sector as secret, the following sectors would also be flagged as secret if you didn't deactivate the option or something.

[Empyre]

Another scenario would be that a sector was flagged secret and then divided into smaller sectors that inherited the secret flag from their parent sector. I've made that mistake before.

[Nevander]

That's probably what happened. Map makers might forget when they want to expand the map geometry that a sector was secret and thus end up duplicating the sector special.

 

Another accident I see happening a lot is finding inanimate actors (armor, health, ammo, props) set to Ambush Players even though they can't do such a thing. What does this flag even do in the case of these actors? Nothing? Usually I will remove the flag from actors that don't need it since it's not needed when I stumble upon it during map conversion.

[Lila Feuer]

3 hours ago, Nevander said:

Another accident I see happening a lot is finding inanimate actors (armor, health, ammo, props) set to Ambush Players even though they can't do such a thing.

%o was ambushed by a Candelabra.

[TootsyBowl]

7 hours ago, Nevander said:

Another accident I see happening a lot is finding inanimate actors (armor, health, ammo, props) set to Ambush Players even though they can't do such a thing. What does this flag even do in the case of these actors? Nothing? Usually I will remove the flag from actors that don't need it since it's not needed when I stumble upon it during map conversion.

It's laziness, pure and simple. When I make maps I can't be arsed to select the monsters only, so I select every single thing within an area and set them to Ambush Players. 

[Spectre01]

Alien Vendetta map01 has an infamous multi-secret due to gradient lighting around a torch. It's happened to me a few time while testing. Usually when I add extra stuff to a sector with the secret effect. As far as items go, I set them all to Ambush.

[scifista42]

8 hours ago, KVELLER said:

Why did this happen? Was it because of some feature that old map editors had?

It happens even in modern map editors. If you draw a new sector inside another sector, the new sector will inherit the other sector's properties, including the special. Same if you draw a new sector in the void adjancent to another sector, the new sector will inherit the adjancent sector's properties. This way, the new sector can become secret and you can easily fail to notice it.

[Maes]

1 hour ago, TootsyBowl said:

It's laziness, pure and simple. When I make maps I can't be arsed to select the monsters only, so I select every single thing within an area and set them to Ambush Players. 

Either that, or they used an old editor which sets the Ambush flag by default on everything.

[scifista42]

When you create a new thing in Doom Builder 2, the thing's properties and flags are initialized to the same values as properties and flags of the last thing you had edited before it. So, if you edit a monster and then make a new item pickup and just change the thing type, the monster's flags will remain on the item. Then again, a deaf/ambush flag on non-monsters is completely harmless. Accidentally copying non-standard difficulty flags, which prevent the thing from getting spawned in the game, can be bad, though.

[Doomkid]

10 hours ago, KVELLER said:

A good example of this is the secret with the long stairs in The Ultimate Doom's E4M3.

I sure am glad that many source ports add that loud, unnecessary, obnoxious "BONG, BONG, BONG!!" sound effect when you find a secret area. I remember a few years ago doing a UDoom playthrough with my sub turned up fairly loud, I ran full speed through that hall and the sudden EXPLOSION of sound scared the everloving shit out of me.. It was a good jumpscare, I'll concede that much!

 

I actually often run a wad clientside that mutes that annoying gong sound for secret areas, as well as muting the sound for players connecting to a server. Zandronum has this loud as fuck WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHH sound effect that plays when someone connects that is 110% guaranteed to blow out your bass end. Odamex and ZDaemon also have sounds but they're nice and quiet, although I don't see why a sound is necessary in the first place, really. The text at the top is enough!

 

Sorry for the offtopic ramble lol but this is the first time I've seen someone mention that giant hall of secret sectors and it instantly reminded me of all this crap. Empyre is right on the money, many of my older/unreleased maps have this issue as well and it's the direct result of expanding a secret area that you forgot was marked as a secret in the first place.

[Memfis]

I like the idea of some secrets having more "weight" than other. Finding a simple one increases your count just by one, but solving a more elaborate puzzle is worth more points.

[scifista42]

^ Interesting idea. Alternatively, the hard-to-reach secret itself would only count as 1 secret upon entering it, but there would be several easier-to-reach secrets hidden in it, so a little additional effort would be required to find those and make them count as well. The harder-to-reach the original secret was, the more additional secrets it would contain.

[TootsyBowl]

Since you folks hate it so much, someday I'll make a secret in which you have to run across 400 1px wide secret sectors in order to get to a megasphere. One bit of pain for every health/armor point gained.

[scifista42]

^

 

[Da Werecat]

I remember there was a very old wad that had sectors marked as secret, like, everywhere. Go into an optional corridor - get a secret. I figured it wasn't even an error, but rather the author(s) thought it would be cool to reward exploration by tying it to the secret count. In the time when Doom wasn't aping Quake with its "A secret is revealed!" message, it was a harmless idea.