RonnieJamesDiner

Sooo... when this thread is done deconstructing the entire notion of talent... can we still refer to a certain minority of mappers in this community as talented?

That made me laugh way harder than it should've lol, thank you

1. Draw Ellipse Mode - If I'm building an arena, or any type of lock-in fight, it's almost always a circle (if not a semi-circle, or a chunk of it). Often times I'll even use Draw Ellipse Mode just to start a map, dividing the circle into layers and different pieces (with the stairbuilder tool), deleting chunks for pillars, raising/lowering different sections, expanding outward from any point; it usually gets me going in the right direction (even if the original circle is nearly gone / unrecognizable by the end). I probably got this penchant from Dragonfly, but, I stick to it mostly because of Doom's AI. An arena made of circles and rounded edges (regardless of how complex it is, to a certain degree) seems to provide better movement / pathfinding for monsters. That said, it's also just become habitual / comfortable. 2. Jimmy MIDIs - When I go looking for a song, 9 times out of 10 I'll dive into his MIDI folder first. I've used a lot of Jimmy's music in my maps and his repository seems to often have just the right thing I need at the time (probably due in part to how prolific he's been). I have used a lot of other composers' work as well, but, I guarantee I probably looked through Jimmy's stuff first, haha. 3. Music, coffee, and cigarettes - The jittery backbone of every map I've made in the past 5 years.

These are really awesome, it feels like I'm listening to the OST from some long last SNES game. "Star Tears" and "The Second Coming" were instant (personal) favorites, for sure. I'd love to hear some of these in a Doom map, thanks for sharing!

Finished the set: what a gem! All-around fun and very well made, thanks for this. The last 2 maps were a hoot. I loved this little nod:

I friggin' love the Gravity Hammer from the Halo: Doom Evolved mod. I loved it so much I ended up ripping it out of the mod for personal use (with a few tweaks, never bothered to get the ammo working though lol). Everything about it is just so satisfying... the mechanics, the SFX, the movement, there really aren't many "melee super weapons". The movement feels very similar to using the BFG, but it's just fun knowing you HAVE to close the distance, with the trade-off that you're dealing massive damage in a full 360 degree radius around you. Not to mention the knock back (even on Cyberdemons) to create space if you're able to. I'd really love to see more super melee weapons.

Up to map07 currently and having a blast! Everything about the layout / combat of each map so far seems energetic and fun, and god bless your barrel usage.

I often see people referring to Cyberdemons as "siege cows", and I just love that.

The amount of times that Hugo has mentioned how id Software "never makes the same game twice" (except for the part where that's not entirely true), I'd be very surprised if the next Doom game actually shared the same tone as the previous ones. Different "feeling" means different style of music, and finding the right composer for that new style would be important. THAT SAID... if they still want the Mick Gordon style... and Hulshult and Levy are busy... I sure wouldn't mind seeing them give Geoffrey Day a chance :P

Yes, but in the "unrelated reason" category. Several years ago I completely shattered one of my wisdom teeth and couldn't see a dental surgeon for 2 days, so I spent that time doing whatever I could to distract myself. I do remember trying to play Doom, and getting very teary eyed from the pain.

I can't stop staring at this, good LORD.

Actually yeah, I also realized how much I loved (and wanted) this theme after playing Captain Toenail's "Dust Devil". Brilliant map and setting.

First of all, pretty much anything in this thread! On top of all that, I sure wouldn't mind seeing: - Slaughter WAD style visuals / architecture featuring relatively easy, run-and-gun gameplay (please... I'd even collab!!) - Demonic / ancient temples on the moon! (Think... Demonastery, Bastion of Chaos, or Remnant... after having sex with Valiant's moon episode) - Legit, bona-fide jungles (and I mean JUNGLE jungles, not vine/forest textures and tree sprites sprinkled around another theme)* - Massive, grungy dystopian cities (inspired by the recent SPRAWL) * Not knee-capped by vanilla limits, I realize 1KL3 had a jungle themed episode (and a pretty good one)

More than likely you were using Slade to insert custom textures into your WADs, it's still the one-stop-shop for adding anything to your projects (textures, music, sprites, etc.). Though, in case you've forgotten, in order to use custom textures in the editor while building your map you'll also need to load them as a resource. Say for instance you download OTEX, you can simply load otex.wad in your map resources through the editor (File > New Map > and in the Map Options window that pops up, go down to "Add resource..." and find the texture wad you've downloaded). If you were using Doombuilder, you'll want Ultimate Doom Builder (UDB). It's the most advanced and up-to-date version of DB, still (very) actively maintained and updated. Another popular fork(?) (or continuation) of DB is an editor called Doom Builder X (DBX), I'm not very educated on the differences between the two but I know the latter has a strong fanbase, as well. Personally, I stick to UDB and it's been fantastic, but someone else can probably explain the pros and cons of each. For all intents and purposes, UDB will probably serve you well. I'm sure there's been plenty of activity in the world of source ports over the past 7 years, but one of the more recent ports I'm aware of is DSDA (a fork of PrBoom+um). A very lovely port if you want to stick closer to the "traditional" game feel. GZDoom is still actively maintained and updated, and probably the most popular (easy to use, runs just about anything, and has a truck load of "modern" features). For a fuller list of source ports you can visit the page on the Doomwiki here. Zandronum and Odamex are popular options for multiplayer that I'm aware of, Eternity is an equally brilliant engine / source port, and I hear good things about Crispy Doom and Woof! as well. Someone more knowledgeable could probably help, in this regard. As far as finding specific tutorials, there's more resources today than ever and a simple Google / Youtube search will yield results. I strongly encourage you to get comfortable searching for things on your own, not necessarily because people don't want to be bothered or that you shouldn't ask questions, but in my experience it's 10x faster (most of the time, anyways). And you'll probably discover a dozen other useful things that you otherwise wouldn't have. Hope this helps!

If it doesn't run Doom, I ain't want no part o' that sheeeiiiit.

Great idea, I felt the same way whenever I've tried finding specific mods (or just went looking to see what was out there in general). Even if this thread just gets used to fill out the wiki page, this'll be lovely to have!

This is one of those things that's solved with familiarity, more than anything -- i.e. playing enough Doom to become super familiar with what works and what feels fun to you, because you're essentially mixing and matching a million different variables. It's hard to give advice on that. Beyond the obvious variables (the weapons, pickups, monsters, verticality / height variation, environmental hazards, teleports, lifts, platforming, objectives, etc.), the big one is your intention behind intermediary fights: it might be designed to catch the player off guard, or an easy "power fantasy" to give players a break. Maybe it's designed to foreshadow an upcoming arena, or maybe it's a sneaky way of replenishing ammo (full of Shotgun Guys and Chaingunners/Zombiemen). The placement of monsters could be designed to simply point the player in the direction they're supposed to go (like living breadcrumbs), or it could be designed to let the player know that "hey, the difficulty of the map is ratcheting up now, pay attention". Maybe it's a nod to a fight you loved in someone else's map. Maybe you have several small "skirmishes" connected to each other in a large single area, where a player can choose to stir it all up at once or chip away at each encounter one at a time. Or maybe there's zero intermediary fights (for example, check out Insane_Gazebo's "The Wheelhouse" from Haste: four arenas in a hub-and-spoke style layout with zero combat between them, and it works beautifully (albeit for specific reasons)). Mostly, the intent will inform the shape of the space you need to make. Although, not even that is set in stone. You might just have a very cool looking area in your mind that you'd love to create, and then it's simply a matter of figuring out what kind of monsters feel fun to fight in that space afterwards (through experimentation / playtesting). Or maybe it's better with no monsters. Your options are practically unlimited, so it boils down to intention. But I absolutely recommend playing more Doom (there's an ocean of custom maps worth exploring), and paying attention to how other mappers piece things together. I promise you'll learn more from playing 3 Cacoward winners than you'll learn from reading 10 pages of replies here, if you pay attention to how things are put together and why they feel fun to you.

Woah woah..... how did I miss Jaded. Not to discount the others (Glaive 3 is a damn good time, can confirm), but that Jaded screenshot had me like:

Random thoughts in no specific order: It's worth remembering that you don't have to meticulously plot out the ""flow"" of your megawad for players who blast through them in a single sitting (or two). The best "breathers" in any set come from the player turning the game off, and literally, physically getting up and doing something else for a while. You can't control this, so it's best to make the maps you want to make because passion does a lot of the legwork (if that means they're all combat-focused, that's okay). Good variety comes as much from your MIDI selection, as well as your theme/texture choices, as it does from your gameplay. We all love shooting Doom's monsters with Doom's weapons, and more often than not it's down to the setting and tone (music/themes/textures/skies) to make something feel fresh. Short, simple (and/or easy) maps are like dessert in a full megawad; they're just delicious and fun, even if they're still pure combat. If you're hesitant about including a small, "gimmicky" map in the middle of your set, remind yourself that Valiant's MAP14: Implosion is a widely celebrated moment in that megawad. 120 Imps and 236 Explosive Barrels because fun. The episodic / death exit format is a tool at your disposal, use it if you need to. Killing the player every 5 or 6 maps to introduce new themes/ideas and reset weapon progression does more for you (as the author) than it does the player (and it does a lot for the player). You can build the megawad in manageable chunks without having to worry about weapon introductions, you can keep yourself motivated by having a variety of themes/textures to work with, and you can take advantage of forced pistol-starts in interesting ways. Look at levels like MAP19: The Popes of Roam from Valiant, or just about any Scythe 2 episode opener for that matter. This format isn't necessary, but it's useful. Players aren't going to hyper-fixate on every individual map, it's more of an aggregated experience. If you treat every level like a single map release you'll end up making variations of the same level over and over, because you're trying to make every map stand on it's own two feet. They don't have to, and in fact they shouldn't. Eviternity's MAP05: Demon would be a weird single release... just an elevator down to a quick, cramped fight with aggressive custom Pinkys. But in the context of the megawad it works brilliantly; it's a solid introduction to the first new enemy, and caps the episode off nicely after the more adventurous MAP04: Regicide. Don't be afraid to include levels that don't "feel like full maps", because you're not creating a collection of "full maps", you're creating a megawad. With a megawad, throw every idea at the wall, because most of them will stick. Some of them might be polarizing (think: Plutonia's MAP11: Hunted), some of them might be extremely polarizing (think: Scythe's MAP28: Run From It), but they're distinct, memorable, and most importantly unpredictable. And if you want variety in your megawad, be unpredictable.

Played this Co-Op in Zandronum with Brutal Doom, it broke. Pls fix.

Just been skimming through these pages having a laugh, but I actually can't believe no one's made a community project with this idea yet. It's such a fun concept! Especially if you threw Doom II and Final Doom levels into the mix.

Starport has Underhalls. Easy peasy.

It's a fair point (and it's crossed my mind haha), it's just always felt like a grey area to me. Obviously the midi rendition of "Compression of Time" doesn't belong to Erik Alm, but, no one would hear it and not think "Scythe 2: MAP20". Then it's like... do I want to start arguing about where it came from? Does it really matter? I dunno, maybe I'm overthinking it :P

This reminds me of the deep, deep sadness I've often felt about wanting to use midis from Scythe 2, and having to remember that the text file says: Authors may NOT use the contents of this file as a base for modification or reuse unless written permission is obtained from the author. ...and Erik Alm seems practically unreachable these days :(

I always thought the Summoner was a fun enemy type, mechanically. It could probably fit into the bestiary well enough as an addition (rather than a substitution), like the Diabolist in Supercharge. I'm not a huge fan of Craneo's "Summoner" on R667 to be honest though, the attack just feels kind of awkward to me (I think I'd prefer a single, bigger projectile similar to the actual D2016 Summoner, doing more damage and fired less often). But, the general concept of a weaker, roaming Icon of Sin unit always seemed interesting to me, if you could strike a good balance around the frequency/likelihood of each unit (which is the really tricky part). Craneo's spawns Imps, Pinkys, and Spectres exclusively which might feel exciting in the early game, but would probably feel boring and ineffective mid-to-late game. Maybe if it spawned Shotgun Guys and Chaingunners regularly? Who knows. I absolutely agree with Gez though, the original Archvile is leaps and bounds better (actually... it's perfect), and much of that is due to the resurrection mechanic. There's zero ambiguity; as long as the player is aware of/remembers which corpses are available to the AV, they can instantly calculate how the fight might play out. Because the player has this information, they can actually use it to make decisions during combat; the player can lead the AV away from or towards certain areas/corpses depending on the context, giving the player more agency. Additionally, they can decide whether or not a free & roaming AV is an immediate threat or not; does it need to be killed quickly to avoid a bigger problem, or is it fine to leave it because the threat of resurrection isn't a priority? Even more player agency, and yet another decision that rewards map awareness. The AV can resurrect bigger/tougher mobs, like the Mancubus, Arachnotron, and Baron for example. This significantly adds to the severity/pressure of a loose Archvile on the battlefield, and that kind of added pressure = fun. Giving the Summoner the ability to spawn heavier units (more inline with the Icon) would be a recipe for disaster because it's 100% purely RNG, and as a mapper you'd be forced to use the Summoner in areas large enough for fatter units to actually spawn and move. The AV can be used anywhere. Where the Summoner acts as a literal RNG generator, the AV acts as a force multiplier; the strength of it's resurrection mechanic is directly proportionate to the corpses available. An AV in a room full of Imp corpses will only ever become an AV + Imp fight; in a room full of Revenant corpses, it only becomes an AV + Revenant fight. The full impact of an Archvile is directly up to the mapper, in more ways than the Summoner could ever be. An Archvile can be a turret monster. Whether the Summoner requires line-of-sight, or to simply be awake in order to summon mobs, you could never really use it as a turret for it's projectile attack unless you specifically made a non-summoning version. Sure, that's doable, but it's just another point to the AV for being useful as all hell.