Doom Turns Sixteen

I missed Killing Adventure when it came out due to time constrains and now my curiosity is piqued again by the mockaward...

esselfortium said:
I think the reason Scythe X wasn't included was because Erik stated he planned to continue developing it with more episodes in the future, and Scuba as a general rule doesn't want to award the same wad multiple times.

There was similar internal debate over whether the Eternal Doom 4 demo should have been awarded last year, but it was given the award after considering how long it'd take for the rest of the mapslots to be filled.

Well, Erik could take longer then Eternal Doom 4 regardless of effort required, if he works on an off, or he might simply never manage to complete the megawad. One thing that could have been done is to judge Scythe X for the two episodes and, if more come later, judge only new episodes. Still, hopefully Erik will have the inspiration to finish the whole thing, anyway. We know he can do it.

[WH]-Wilou84 said:
About Dwango5 not being played anymore, well, there are other ports than Skulltag out there :o

Yeah, I thought "this guy only connects to the Skulltag master" when I saw that. I'd say judas23_ is more popular now and D5M1 is played less than back when Badfish and other people were all over it, but it still gets played rather regularly.

I agree with torm's detail guide being this year's worst wad. As many have said here, it's spread around almost like "The Bible to Good Mapping" just because Tormentor can make some pretty good maps. I've never referred anyone to reading that guide. Ever. In fact, I never even read the whole thing myself. I always thought it was outrageous that there could even be a guide to making detail. In fact, (I don't think) the guide doesn't even make it clear on making a map to start out with. A couple of oddly shaped rooms with irregular lengthed lines is NOT a good start.

Focusing on details detracts from the more important things like a conventional layout, consistent texture theme, gameplay, and bug fixing. As a mapper I know how to make extremely detailed maps. Sometimes I look at my maps and think "I could jam million sectors in here if I wanted to" but the process of aligning all the textures (which should be adhered to religiously in mapping) and changing all the floor and ceiling heights is too time consuming. I don't even like to play maps that are far too detailed.

My best example of which, is this year's Mapper of the Year: Mechadon. I definitely commend him on his achievement and his fine (FIIINNEE) maps and detail work are certainly worth appreciating, which I do because they make fabulous screenshots! I was playing some of his maps in GreenWar2, and a lot of his maps were heavily detailed. On top of that, the details are blocked off with impassible lines to prevent them interfering with gameplay. The thing is, the detail is so fierce and intricate to the point that it is distracting in deathmatches. I can't even pay attention to my targets, I just want to look at the maps. I guess Mechadon is riding in the same boat as the guys who did Gothic99 - one of the top ten most infamous wads.

Patrick said:

How the hell did Tribute make it?

No kidding. It didn't even look that good and the gameplay was bog standard for a ZDoom wad, not to mention a crappy story with crappy jokes (and, yeah, it originally had copyrighted mp3s too :P). It wasn't a bad wad, but it definitely wasn't good either. I'm a bit indifferent about NDCP 2 as well, but Tribute is really a wtf.

Congratulations to Mechadon on winning Mapper of the Year :) He's done a great job on a bunch of projects/maps this year, and is well-deserving of it IMHO.

BTW, here's some shots of what he can do in a next-gen engine :P

Dang, Doom is as old as I am now!

Happy late b-day Doom!

Carnevil said:

BTW, here's some shots of what he can do in a next-gen engine :P

Need moar detail. Perhaps he should check out Torms detail guide.




I kid!

SuperSlammer2 said:

Dang, Doom is as old as I am now!

Then it always has been.

Phobus said:

Yes, go on then. I've seen this criticism levelled at ZPack far too often now to not want to see a justification. I'll even start you off, as I know what the first three answers will be:

-Thunder Peak Power Plant
-Termination
-Black Rock

I'll admit that my statement there was at least partially facetious. ;)

Purely from a visual/detailing perspective, since that's the subject here, in addition to the Vader maps you listed, I also think...uhh, let me skim through the entire wad to comment on each map, since you asked.

Cpt. Toenail's "Vestibule"...well, more than feeling just arbitrary, the detailing is just rather...flat. In particular, I noticed a lot of 8px slopes used in lots of places where a step would convey a better idea of depth (i.e. a ceiling slopes up 8 units around some pipes, thus making the fact that the pipes are a totally flat texture with no depth extremely obvious to the eye). The layout itself is also rather flat, with some crates to jump on and some ramps that go up and down, but very little in the way of differently-heighted surfaces that actually interact and connect with each other, and this doesn't help matters. Nor does the extensive usage of 5th Episode (N5) textures, many of which are very useful when combined with other textures, but which often lead to extremely flat, plain-looking designs when used too extensively.

Your own "Blast" is by and large a good-looking map. There's some unique and creative design elements, and the overall theme is attractive. I'd go easier on the flat20 and there are some other texture choices here and there that seem odd to me, and some detail/architecture does look a bit repetitive/copypasta in nature. Regardless, though, it doesn't look anything like you went through and arbitrarily added stuff based on a guide, and it definitely bears your own unique (the word "quirky" comes to mind, but not in a bad way IMO!) design style.

Vader's and Tormentor's "KDiZD Launch Site" is, for the most part, detailed extremely tastefully with careful attention paid to balance and usage of detail and architecture that contributes to the scene as a whole. The sloped floor pipes in the outdoor area near the start cause maneuverability issues due to oddities in ZDoom's player movement on slopes (i.e. you slide around like a bowling ball when you walk on top of them), but that's not really an issue with the visual design itself. The final room before the rocket exit area feels rather rushed and arbitrary in a lot of its detailing choices, in contrast to the rest of the map.

hnsolo77's "UAC Waste and Storage Facility" feels extremely arbitrary and random in its detailing style, with thin strips of lights or metal bars pasted in long rows literally no more than 8 units away from each other, complex copy-pasted ceiling lights in otherwise completely bare rooms, random demonic wall terminals, and lots of surprisingly thick missing tiles adorning its room-hallway-room arrangement of small, flat, squarish areas. The very plain, gray (sometimes just using completely plain light-gray-noise flats as walls) texturing doesn't particularly help.

Cpt. Toenail's "Site X"....well, my main issue with this one is really just that it's horrendously cramped. Most of the walkways in this level seem to have been built at about one-half or one-third of a comfortable size. The crates, big computer terminals, bumpy floor borders, and sloped skinsnake death pits all over the place don't really help the crampedness. It's got way-cool midtexture light gradients, though, so any other issues can be completely overlooked.

Icytux's "Glacierbase" is a snowing magical wonderland of low-friction slippery floors, missing upper/lower textures, weird arbitrary-looking details, and general theme-confusion (i.e. random GothicDM stuff in the middle of a N5-overload techbase). The indoor areas are mostly flat and hallwayish with random lights and supports copied and pasted all over the place and sticking out everywhere, while the more interestingly laid out (compared to the flat hallways of the techbase) outdoor areas are almost entirely barren of interesting rock detail or believable building-exterior designs.

Tormentor667's "Nuclear Sky" is one of the better-looking maps of the set. A coherent theme is carried throughout the entire level, and...okay, I'm finding as I go around this map that I'm literally having to open another door every 5 seconds. What's with all the doors? I don't know. In addition, the floors are extremely bumpy, which makes maneuvering unnecessarily difficult, and there are some computer terminals that either jut out of walls or can be walked up inside of in narrow corridors, which doesn't help from a playability perspective. Some areas are a bit uninspired visually, succumbing to the "well, let's just add a bunch of lights here and some computers there and call it a day" design strategy, but there are some genuinely impressive scenes as well.

Vader's "Thunderpeak Powerplant" and "Termination"...what more can I say that hasn't been said already? While I have to admit, in the interest of fairness, that the floors are a bit bumpy in some areas, from a purely visual-design perspective these are expertly-crafted maps. None of the detailing or architectural choices feel like they were made as an attempt to satisfy some arbitrary requirement. Nearly any room in these two levels could be picked out by itself as an example of how to creatively handle detailing a Doom map and setting an atmosphere.

Vader's "Colossus Reloaded", the episode 1 secret map, features a somewhat simpler design style than Thunderpeak, but it makes it count. Various interesting detail structures are used to carry the theme throughout (an example of this would be the floor7_1/nfcl52gr/ceil5_1 support-braces around the outer floor tiles of the exit area corresponding to the usage of the same textures and similar design as borders around tekwall panels in the floor nearby), and even in rather basic-looking areas of the map such as the switch/teleporter hallways, the detail is tasteful and appealing. The unique architecture (particularly outdoors) as well as the realistically-designed rocks and cliffs all contribute to making the map look stylish and unique, even in spite of what could have easily turned into N5 Overload.

Aaaaand okay, I've gone through one episode, I can't do anymore. I was going to discuss every map in the entire wad, but that's enough, right? <_<

In the other episodes, I'd refer to e2m2, e2m4, e2m8, at least some aspects of e3m1, e3m2, e3m3, parts of e3m4, and a few parts of e3m8 (which seem oddly lazy in comparison to the rest of the map) for all your detail-guide needs. e3m3 is a particularly good example of a map that consists just about entirely of bland corridors with random bordery detail added all around every room.

Of course all this is just my own thoughts on it from skimming through each map again (I've looked at them all numerous times in the past, but IIRC I haven't written forum posts about them all :P ), and for the most part this is focused on the visual design of the maps, since that's the topic at hand.

I can't qualify every sentence with "in my opinion" and "this is just what I think" without my descriptions all becoming rather bloated and repetitive, but I'm not trying to speak as an objective or infallible source here.

40oz said:

My best example of which, is this year's Mapper of the Year: Mechadon. I definitely commend him on his achievement and his fine (FIIINNEE) maps and detail work are certainly worth appreciating, which I do because they make fabulous screenshots! I was playing some of his maps in GreenWar2, and a lot of his maps were heavily detailed. On top of that, the details are blocked off with impassible lines to prevent them interfering with gameplay. The thing is, the detail is so fierce and intricate to the point that it is distracting in deathmatches. I can't even pay attention to my targets, I just want to look at the maps. I guess Mechadon is riding in the same boat as the guys who did Gothic99 - one of the top ten most infamous wads.

Thanks! I like to think that my mapping is, at the very least, screenshot worthy :P. I know there were some concerns with some of the detailing in GW2 being really thick (mine included, obviously). And I would say that just about any of my other works can be described in a similar fashion. In the past few years, I've tried to refine my mapping methods where I focus on larger, more architecturally driven visuals along with the layout first and then sort of paint the more intricate stuff afterwards. Before that, I tended to do a lot of god awful super-intricate detailing and the detailing phase and gameplay phase were usually one in the same. Case in point, this abomination. I started reworking it a while back and was pretty much disgusted at how I put the map together originally.

However, and I'm glad you sorta brought this up, there seems to be a difference in opinion of detail between deathmatch maps and other things like singleplayer. From a casual player's perspective, I can say that such detailing in deathmatch maps like GW2 never really bothers me at all as long as everything is out of the player's way. There were some comments made while GW2 was being made along the lines of "this would be awesome if it were singleplayer, but it's too much for dm". I think a portion of that was directed towards the moody lighting (which was changed) but I know it was also directed towards the general detailing. In the end I still believe the end product was well detailed without destroying the layout/gameplay and very fun. For me, part of the fun of mapping is making something that is fun to play but also something aesthetically pleasing to look at. I guess it really all falls on what your tastes are and whether or not your easily distracted by such details. To each his own :). Although, is my detailing in DM maps really as infamous as the Gothic99 stuff? I guess it's a good thing I'm looking forward to more singleplayer stuff then! Heh :p

Incidentally, pcorf sorta foresaw something; I do have something in the works. Well, sorta. Time is going to be a particularly huge factor given I'm working on Vega :p

Carnevil said:

BTW, here's some shots of what he can do in a next-gen engine :P

Thanks Carn! I still got lots of grinding to do on that supar fancy 3D mapping. So far so good though :D

EDIT: I'M A HUGE DICK THAT MAKES SHITTY POSTS IN ORDER TO BETTER HIS RIDICULOUS, BORING LIFE

SuperSlammer2 said:

Dang, Doom is as old as I am now!

Happy late b-day Doom!

I know the perfect celebratory song too. Craaaawwling in my SKIN.....

Also Doom is the bestest.

Funny, I'm twice as old as doom is. Happy birthday Doom.

Csonicgo said:

your engine is not next gen, Carnevil. it will never be next gen. Sauerbraten is superior to your engine in every way, and even it is not next-gen. Next-gen is a marketing buzzword created in the same vein as "Web 2.0", with just as much substance.

You can stop acting all macho now.

Csonicgo said:
your engine is not next gen, Carnevil.

I'm not too familiar with it but it does seem to be of a tech generation after that of the DOOM engine...

esselfortium said:

A lot more than I expected

Well, thanks for the detailed feedback there, I appreciate that you actually were willing to defend your point. I largely agree with what you said, although I didn't enjoy Nuclear Sky due to how same-y it all was (although the gameplay made it worse). E3M3 was Stereotomy I believe, and that was the map I was a strong critic of back when we were developing it.

Csonicgo said:

your engine is not next gen, Carnevil. it will never be next gen. Sauerbraten is superior to your engine in every way, and even it is not next-gen. Next-gen is a marketing buzzword created in the same vein as "Web 2.0", with just as much substance.

That takes away from Mechadon's award/achievements, and was actually really rude/uncalled for.

Anyway, hazzah for 16 years of Doom! This Guinness is for you. Great cacowards.

Ed said:

That takes away from Mechadon's award/achievements,

how?

Well it did seem like Carn was using Mech just to hype his little game, which is pretty sad actually.

Doom Marine said:

I am offended by your stereotyping of my culture, you must aporogize at once.

I'm more concerned that nobody can be bothered to explain why the image (I assume this means the six frags image) might be stereotyping anything in the first place. Being neither American nor Asian, this makes no sense to me at all. Please can somebody explain the "joke" here, or at least point me to the original it is presumably pastiching?

zap610 said:

Well it did seem like Carn was using Mech just to hype his little game, which is pretty sad actually.

But Ed didn't say that to Carney. He said it to Csonicgo

MartinHowe said:

I'm more concerned that nobody can be bothered to explain why the image (I assume this means the six frags image) might be stereotyping anything in the first place. Being neither American nor Asian, this makes no sense to me at all. Please can somebody explain the "joke" here, or at least point me to the original it is presumably pastiching?

There's a massive theme park in America called Six Flags.
In Cacoward's context, it's renamed to Six Frags. Basically this sort of insinuates racism considering Asians can't say the letter 'l' and say 'r' instead. By sort of, I mean unintended.

And I'm Australian, heh.

kristus said:

But Ed didn't say that to Carney. He said it to Csonicgo

Oops. Oh well, it needed to be said anyway.

zap610 said:

Well it did seem like Carn was using Mech just to hype his little game, which is pretty sad actually.

You know that Mechadon is also part of that "little game", right?

I wrote that blog article because I'm really proud that he won that given how many talented mappers there out there. It makes me happy to have him on the team. I wrote up that blog article and thought I'd just post a link to it here because I thought people might actually care about it, because I think some people might get a kick out of seeing what he can do outside of Doom. I don't think there's anything "sad" about that.

EDIT: Meant "outside of Doom".

Yo Carnevil, I'm really happy for ya, and ima let you finish,
but Crytek is one of the best game engines ever,
the best ever!!

Doom Marine said:

Yo Carnevil, I'm really happy for ya, and ima let you finish,
but Crytek is one of the best game engines ever,
the best ever!!

OF ALL TIME NEWFAG.

Craigs said:

OF ALL TIME NEWFAG.

Give him credit for being valid.

MartinHowe said:

I'm more concerned that nobody can be bothered to explain why the image (I assume this means the six frags image) might be stereotyping anything in the first place. Being neither American nor Asian, this makes no sense to me at all. Please can somebody explain the "joke" here, or at least point me to the original it is presumably pastiching?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Flags

Took me a whire to get as werr.

Joshy said:

Basically this sort of insinuates racism considering Asians can't say the letter 'l' and say 'r' instead.

OK, makes sense now!

And there's an example of cultural bias in the original quote (not Joshy's reply). To a UK citizen, "Asian" would mean something else entirely.

In 1976 Idi Amin kicked all the Indian and Pakistani people out of Uganda and many of them settled in the UK, particularly in the midlands. Indeed, according to the far-right politicians of the UK, white people will become an ethnic minority in Bradford by the year 2020.

Thus given the racial harmony issues in our country, most UK folks would interpret "Asian" as Indian or Pakistani and I assumed the Six Frags poster was a pastice of some Bollywood cliche, but of course didn't know the name of the original in order to google it.

We in the UK would prefix the word Asian with the words "far eastern" if we meant Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc; or else use the words "Asiatic" or "Oriental" instead of "Asian".

Doom Marine said:

but Crytek is one of the best game engines ever,
the best ever!!

Lies! Id Software is the best engine ever.

It's like the guy that gets wasted at your graduation party and decides it's the right time to pick a fight with your second cousin.

http://images.cafepress.com/image/10911657_400x400.jpg