40oz

Here's another "ME ME ME" post to throw into the pile. I'm sure someone will read it though.

I go through ups and downs. In a lot of ways I'm very happy. My wife and I are very happy together. I have friends and family that care about me as I do them. I have a job where I do the least amount of work I've ever been hired to do and it pays more than I've ever made before. It seems almost criminal; at times I have more money than I know what to do with (which is a bold thing to say, but I choose to live by low means)

On the other hand, there are some life-sucking circumstances that cut into me and can really get me down. Working in an office was amazing at first but after a year of working there, I really do feel the sense of hopelessness and dread people tend to associate with office work. It's hard to describe without being there, but you start to become more alert to the fact that the work never changes, the system is very broken and too tangled up for any one person to fix, and you have to put on a friendly face towards people you want to roundhouse kick in the throat. It's like that in a lot of jobs, I'm sure, but being in the calm lonely environment of an office really facilitates the mind to dwell on it.

That said, lately I've been fortunate enough to do some real self evaluation and identify some crucial character flaws in myself that I have been ignoring for so long that, having only been aware of them recently, I can't belief the kind of direction these flaws have enabled me to go in. I made it a new years resolution to be better about owning up to my mistakes. Before recently, whenever I did something or allowed something to happen to me that I'm not proud of, I kind of become a recluse and avoid friends and family until I learn to figure out how to cope with it on my own. This has created a distance in a lot of my relationships that made it impossible to develop any real close bonds with anyone. I always want to come off as perfect and people just don't feel comfortable around that. They like being around someone they can help or give advice to, and it really doesn't feel that bad to talk about something stupid that you did.

I've heard that seeing a therapist is really useful, even for totally mindful people. I've heard it highly recommended even by people of whom I'd least suspect of needing it. I've seriously considered it for a while, but after allowing some select people in a little closer to my life and making the first move towards being the kind of friend that I'd want for myself, my mind has been clearer and easier to manage.

Another thing I've been reminding myself a lot lately, is the euphemism that anything you hate is a projection of something you hate about yourself. I always thought this was only partially true, but I've found that the mind builds some pretty crazy barriers to discourage certain ways of thinking. I hate for example, how much noise pollution is on the internet these days. There's so much useless content that consumes all of your time and there's nothing of value to take away from it. But when I really think about it, I think I've allowed the internet to tamper with my attention span. I have a lot to say, and so does everyone else here. And what I have to say is very important to me, and it hurts when I get indication that people don't read it. Still I can't bring myself to read all the posts in this thread. So when I feel compelled to think that Doomworld is full of mindless attention whores I think the real problem is that I'm getting exactly as much attention as I'm putting out there.

It wasn't until I heard about block chain and cryptocurrencies for the first time that I really started thinking about how, outside of paying with straight cash, money is being intercepted by third parties all the time. Credit/debit card transactions, legal fees, ATM fees, bank accounts, interest etc. Its all very seedy when you really take the time to think about it. Still, I get it. But its all really unproductive. Like really, loan officer? You're in the business of having money? That's your specialty?

8 minutes ago, Illasera said:

I am sorry, i have to reply to this and open some eyes, Modding is NOT A JOB!

Somebody get this actual real world life experience wisdom out of our shit parade. What do you think we are? Normal?

I appreciate the time you took to make these gifs just for a silly questionairre.

24 minutes ago, MetroidJunkie said:

Still, Shadelight makes a very good point, Mark seems like he's going to always try to paint himself as being in the right,

People don't usually chastise themselves.

The analogy of this place being an independent society that needs its own government and policing and isn't just a communal gathering of people who have a like interest in Doom is an argument that is so far gone from what I'm talking about that it would take me all day to bring you and anyone who empathizes with your position to a place of sanity. The amount of sarcastic shitpost likebait attention whoring that goes on in a thread like this would intercept the message I'm trying to deliver and it's just too out of control for me to even attempt to divert the attention away from all the noise.

We can talk about it you're serious about it, but no Sgt Mark is not a criminal, and no one who has any sort of known popularity or status has a moral responsibility to do anything other than what they feel like doing, nor should he have any sort of punitive measures applied to him for doing that.

28 minutes ago, MetroidJunkie said:

Either way, is it really a good idea to let him get away with this without some kind of real punishment?

Isn't it obvious that nobody wants to consider his perspective for a moment before posting their angry tirade is punishment enough? I would not want to be in Sgt's shoes right now, and this opinion is completely independent of whether what he did / is currently doing is wrong or not.

If I'm being honest, I think a bit of my successful experience with mapping has something to do with natural talent. From an early age, I've had an ability to look at a picture of something and copy the details I see in a drawing with a pencil to recreate the picture with some pretty close accuracy. It's not perfect of course, but most people I've talked to have seen me do it and ask me how and I do it, and I honestly have no explanation for it. I can just do it. It didn't require any sort of training that I know of. I just look at the details and I can make it. Some of that has translated into my mapping because I can look at a pretty interesting screenshot, then observe the individual sectors that make up the image, then transpose it in the editor to create a similar looking thing. That's a skill I can't even begin to explain in a normal way to anyone other than "do it."

That said, I and a lot of people I know have accomplished some really unbelievable and amazing things with enough practice, grappling with the mind, and patience. But I also believe that everyone has different manners of interpreting and absorbing information. So when it comes to mapping, having talent is a really good and motivating jumping off point to pursue a pretty solid mapping background, but there is certainly a lot of learned skills and practices that you need to develop in order to get anywhere that's pretty good. And you have to like it enough to sit down and do the work to get there.

33 minutes ago, Urthar said:

Rule 4: Knock back a litre of margarita while banging away on a keyboard for four hours.

This looks like a joke on the surface but is actually very useful advice. Just articulate everything that comes to mind with the purpose of simply filling the page. It doesn't matter if the sentences are fragments, or if they don't make sense or work in a cohesive way. Just write in a steady stream of conciousness. Once you have a whole bunch of noise, you can edit out what you don't like and improve what you like.

1 hour ago, rdwpa said:

keeping monsters from falling halfway off turrets;

What do you mean by halfway?

I've noticed that, because of the square non-rotating hitboxes, monsters move pretty fluidly and efficiently in narrow orthogonal corridors. There are some maps in Kama Sutra and in Alien Vendetta that take place in these overdetailed ashwall caves, and they're pretty cool to look at but they're kinda ridiculous to maneuver in, and the monsters can barely figure out how to move. I haven't implemented this into any maps I've made yet, but if you were to cluster a bunch of monsters together in a map like that, they might jam up at the choke points and not be able to move very well, but if I created these orthogonal railways out of monster block lines, they might be able to form single file lines and actually move around in a cluttered natural-rock map like that.

I haven't tried it yet but I'm fairly sure it would work better than to let the monsters free roam on their own.

I suffer from excessive existing

Many of Doom 2's monsters have built in anti-circlestrafe mechanics. Mancubi spray fireballs in different directions, Pain elementals create new monsters when they fire, revenants have tracking missiles, archviles can target you from behind other monsters, arachnatrons have superfast rapid fire projectiles, etc. Just using these monsters isn't always enough, though. Doom's predictable monster AI will only get you so far. 

Most of Doom's weapons are most effective up close, and its convenient that monsters tend to walk in the direction towards the player. You can shake things up by placing monsters where they are suspended on a raised floor, across a gap, or in a cage where they can't endanger themselves and instead, take potshots from a distance When the player can't lure them into a cozy choke point, they're pressed to advance toward them. You can use tricky terrain like pits you can fall into, ledges, bridges, catwalks, platform jumps, damaging floors, and interspersed cover while the player is being fired at to influence how he/she proceeds. 

In my experience, my favorite approach is to think about gameplay in terms of linedef actions. Linedef actions can be used to control when exactly the player alarms as many monsters as you want. If you use them strategically, you can piss off a whole bunch of a cacodemons at once when the player is standing in his most vulnerable location. Or you can teleport imps around from every possible angle. Or you can close a door behind the player so they can't run away. The best mappers don't get too attached to any one strategy and mix it all up to best fit the situation. 

34 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

What do you consider a large space to be?

You're asking me? You made this thread!

18 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Are you disputing that fact that Doom is a corridor shooter and that most if the combat takes place at short to medium ranges?

That's not a fact, but yeah I'd dispute it. I'd be happy to assist you but you're not being specific about what it is you're having trouble with. There are plenty of examples of maps both community made and within the IWADs that use large spaces and still have fun and engaging gameplay. I don't think I've even played one corridor shooter style map (in the way you'd define it) all year. There isn't really much to talk about whether Doom maps that use large spaces can be done well or not, because the answer is yes. 

The way to do it varies into many different extremes, so I can give you some general tips, or I can give you some more direct feedback if you can describe what about it is confusing, but so far this doesn't seem like the direction you want this thread to go in.

17 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Both. The thing is that Doom has always worked best as a corridor shooter. 

Look, I really appreciate it when people challenge the norm. I'm all for alternate perspectives and changing reality, but this thread is starting from a jumping off point that's far ahead of an argument that never actually happened. Who do you talk to about Doom that established this fact? 

Nobody here wants to prod you with questions so you can backpedal until we eventually realize you don't know how to use revenants. Now can you please tell us what you're real question is instead of labeling everything you don't understand as a fundamental problem with Doom?

This is a good question. I've never really thought about this, but I've wasted a lot of ammo because of this before.

riderr3's teleport flats suggestion is good.

You could maybe design the map so that the player teleports to the pedestal once, then completes some tasks, awakening a cyberdemon that teleports to that same pedestal later. 

Do you understand the distinction I'm making? Couldn't it stay the same without being important? Why does it get a little more fucked up with every iteration of the operating system? What's causing it to be tampered with at all?

6 minutes ago, Gez said:

Anyways, this dramatic increase in storage space meant that you could put streamed music (like MP3 files) that takes a lot more space but is often of higher quality and, more importantly, will not sound so drastically differently depending on which soundcard is used. And yes, it also meant that you no longer had to deal with the hassle of having to take into account two or three different kinds of MIDI synths. During the MIDI soundtrack era, several games had a separate files for OPL synth and wavetable synth. (Plus sometimes an additional variant for the MT-32; which doesn't use the same instrument mapping as the General MIDI standard, and had some interesting features not included in General MIDI.)

But why did it decline? (as opposed to staying the same)

Holy christ the cause of death is much worse than I had imagined. BouncyTEM must be horrified. There's nothing you could have done, man. None of this was your fault. You had the best intentions and thats all that mattered.

Necessary? No.

You do forfeit some benefits though, like teleportation noises that happen out of your sight, the drone of crushing ceilings, doors opening in the distance, or alerting monsters that see you before you see them. I personally have developed a skill for predicting fireballs that are fired at me from behind without turning around to look at them purely through the sound cues.

I think you'd do fine in playing familiar maps but I'd advise against trying new wads without excessive saving/loading.

10 hours ago, riderr3 said:

You guys can't do anything with New World Order. You can not imagine which power they have. Very soon, people being forced to plant microchips in their heads, and elites will watch for every citizen. And if elites will suspect something, then they will be able to disconnect any person from life support.

Its important to note to those who see the word "forced" and immediately think of brainwashed zombies with shaved heads and grey jumpsuits standing in line to get their government sanctioned chip implants, it's a short hand way of saying that chip implants exist and it's only a matter of time before people are convinced that they want it. The government already has the capacity to locate our phones and track our internet browsing history if the situation calls for it. But what are you gonna do? Not make all of your purchases by waving your chipped hand over the cash register to finalize your transactions like a LOSERRR??? Go ahead dummy, take out your wallet and pay with cash you fucking caveman.

IMO, these important music tracks really tie a wad together. I put a lot of weight into deciding what music track to apply to these particular slots. Its not easy to find something that fits the entirety of the wad.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas to help with this problem? Are there any musicians here who have made a handful of good non-gameplay music tracks?

Like Doom 1 and 2, I like intros that are short but have a big burst of excitement in the beginning before fading off. I like Doom 2s drum solo thing in the beginning of its intermission. Doom 1s is pretty cool too. Text interlude music is usually quiet and peaceful or ominous and menacing. I don't really like using existing doom music tracks that weren't, by design, meant for these slots.

Does anyone have any tips for making, finding, or what to think about when picking the right track for these slots?

its too hard to be specific. I was a retard when I first started mapping but looking at peoples maps in an editor and staring at screenshots trying to recreate scenes I saw has made me into this huge mashup of a mapper that collected ideas and inspiration from countless sources. I've picked up a little of something from pretty much any mapper I've ever seen.

Dash mechanic looks cool, and the art is pretty, but as an old school shooter fan, It's annoying to me that the worlds still appear to be very cluttered with detritus that makes for better screenshots and trailers, but is a lot of visual noise in action. They're on the right track but it's still pretty far from revolutionary.