[Now on /idgames!!!] TWANGO1 - Vanilla DM for the Modern Age

[OpenRift]

In 1994, DWANGO forever changed the way people play video games together. Tournaments were held, frags were scored, and iconic maps would serve a lasting influence on competitive multiplayer games that came after....

 

It's 2021, 27 years later. The time has come for a return to form for Doom II deathmatch. We've learned a lot since the days of DWANGO5, DECA, and TNT Bloodlands. Now we come full circle as we return to the format where this titanic phenomenon that is online pvp.

 

This is....

(Episode 1)

 

 

TWANGO1 is a 100% vanilla-compatible deathmatch WAD, filling all 32 map slots. Our levels range from all-new maps, to homages to cornerstones of classic Doom deathmatch.

 

Featuring Maps from

@Doomkid

@Gokuma

@joe-ilya

@DCG Retrowave

@Redead-ITA

@IggySqiggles

@Mr.Rocket

@Captain Toenail

@Arrowhead

@Hellbent

@Dexiaz & @Mechadon

@NieMaMordy

@cyberemperor

And yours truly ;)

 

DOWNLOAD HERE!

/idgames

 

Here's just a taste of what's in store for you with TWANGO:

 

If these images don't give you a deathmatch boner, then nothing will. Or you're just boring. Or both.

 

(Original In-Progress Post)

Spoiler

 

So some of you may recall the announcement of Project TWANGO a while back, which is well under way, and it'll be ready when it's done™. As a companion to this project, I want to introduce our own set of TWANGO Doom WADs as well.

 

And Like the iconic DWANGO WAD series that came before, these WADs will be taken from you, the community.

So, do you feel that you have good map sense when it comes to deathmatching and have a DM map or two you'd like to submit? Link it in the replies and you could get picked!

 

I'll try to mention every author who get's included when it's finished. Even if you don't get in, don't sweat it. Your map could still be in the next WAD!

 

! IMPORTANT: MAP REQUIREMENTS !

• Must be 100% vanilla compatible
  • no VPOs or HOMs
• Not required, but preferably optimized for both deathmatch 1 and deathmatch 2 modes
• Must use the stock Doom palette
• Stock textures are not required, but encouraged
  • Feel free to add your own "signature texture" to the map if you'd like! (map name, author name, TWANGO logo texture (linked below))
• Give your map a good (not too long) name!
• ADD A LEVEL EXIT!

 

OTHER NOTES

• Custom assets are also appreciated, which includes
  • This includes intermission screens, title screens, MIDIs, status bars, and whatever else you'd like to contribute!
• Pre-existing MIDI suggestions are also welcome

 

TWANGO TEXTURES (UPDATED 3/20/2021)

TWANGOTEX.zip

 

 

 

EXAMPLE MAPS

REFINERY.zip

SHIPMENT.zip

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by OpenRift
Removed Release Candidate versions

[Tango]

is this the long-awaited prequel to TWANGO5 MAP01?

[Decay]

Nice! Looking forward to seeing some new DM content. What is the difference between deathmatch 1 and 2?

 

Obligatory pic because fuck dwango's lasting influence on maps that absolutely don't deserve such a taint.

 

[Doomkid]

Decay literally just said "wang doesn't deserve a taint" jajaja xd

 

I was working on a "Dwango22" wad about half a year ago and just had to drop it (temporarily) to make room for Bourgeois DM, Rowdy Rudy's Release, the MIDI pack (that's nearly done) and a bunch of YT content.. I might salvage the remains and post it here. Since it already had 10+ maps (that have been essentially unplayed), maybe it could be used as a basis to fuse into TWANGO.

[OpenRift]

13 hours ago, Decay said:

Nice! Looking forward to seeing some new DM content. What is the difference between deathmatch 1 and 2?

Deathmatch 1 is weapon stay, no item respawn

Deathmatch 2 is weapons and items respawn

[Decay]

Oh okay, I remember playing deathmatch 2 on odamex 10 years ago. That would be difficult to balance well for.

[OpenRift]

2 hours ago, Decay said:

Oh okay, I remember playing deathmatch 2 on odamex 10 years ago. That would be difficult to balance well for.

My advice would be to not be too sparse or spread out with weapons. 

[Doomkid]

I never realised deathmatch 3 (items respawn but weapons also stay) was a source ports only thing til years later, and it suddenly made sense that duels and DM maps had for the most part been balanced around DM 1. DM 2 (alt death) is just so hard to be fun with more than 2 people since you’ll be spawning with a pistol only the majority of the time. My advice would be to just treat your mapping the same as you always would, since hardly anyone uses alt death anyway.

 

I might even make a pure vanilla mod that makes it so you spawn with a CG and the normal CG is replaced with Skulltag’s minigun. That would actually allow alt death to feel more fun and fair, imo

[Walter confetti]

9 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I might even make a pure vanilla mod that makes it so you spawn with a CG and the normal CG is replaced with Skulltag’s minigun. That would actually allow alt death to feel more fun and fair, imo

 

That's a really good idea, but I don't know if multiplayer allows hacked exe (the doomhack one that comes out when you compile the DEH files with Dehacked) can be played, not even with the various OpenRift patches of DM.exe

[Doomkid]

So long as everyone has the same hacked EXE it will work! (I worried about this too in the past but have tested it since)

[OpenRift]

18 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I never realised deathmatch 3 (items respawn but weapons also stay) was a source ports only thing til years later, and it suddenly made sense that duels and DM maps had for the most part been balanced around DM 1. DM 2 (alt death) is just so hard to be fun with more than 2 people since you’ll be spawning with a pistol only the majority of the time. My advice would be to just treat your mapping the same as you always would, since hardly anyone uses alt death anyway.

  

I might even make a pure vanilla mod that makes it so you spawn with a CG and the normal CG is replaced with Skulltag’s minigun. That would actually allow alt death to feel more fun and fair, imo

I know there's a EXE hack that replaces one of the the deathmatch modes with Deathmatch 3 rules. I personally never tried it but it sounds cool.

[Doomkid]

That’s awesome, I never knew such a hack existed! I’ll have to try it some time.

[OpenRift]

Bumping this and adding some sample maps that I made which I'll include.

 

REFINERY.zip

 

SHIPMENT.zip

[Decay]

Nice, I was wondering why you were asking for people to donate maps without having presented any work yourself or any proof of quality. You should always prepare to do the vast majority of work of a project yourself rather than hoping other people will do that work for you, especially for a now niche game mode, for a niche port.

 

Anyway, taking a quick peek at these maps

Refineries has way too many spawns. There is no reason to have so many spawns when the majority of play will be 4-6 players. Lower spawn counts helps streamline player pathing and understanding of where opponents will be. The spawn with the chaingun in a closet is a complete death trap and a poor spawn at that, as it faces an open window you can't walk out of, inside a 64 unit wide closet. Not a good idea. The plasma and BFG secrets are not well implemented, and in such a limited game mode as vanilla dm, making such things obscure is not good for general game play. The overall flow of the map is quite linear for PVP, and the overly large areas mean projectiles are useless in situations where you are facing only 1 or 2 opponents (aka the most likely scenarios). The outdoor section being so limited to get out to is quite silly, and giving only melee weapons with a ton of ammo and a green armour is a complete joke, not to mention whoever spawns out there is at the complete mercy of opponents getting better weapons and losing a lot of frag time. To improve this map you would certainly want to tie more areas together in a way that makes sense for freer flow and a better dispersion of weapons as right now it makes absolutely no sense.

 

Shipment has a much superior layout that is immediately noticeable, far more conducive to actual realistic pvp game play. Again we could see some streamlining of the spawns to be more purposeful, and a better balancing of the weapon placement. This map has a lot more potential to be quite fun, and adjusting the positions of the SSGs relative to SG and CG spawns (currently there are no CG spawns) would be good. Having a room with 4 spawns adjacent to an "armoury" style room with a plasma gun and a BA is literally just giving someone frags for free and creating frustrating experiences for players condemned to spawn in that room.

 

Edit for quick cavaet: inb4 "but Dwango!" even Dwango's "better" maps seemed to realize the importance of spawn streamlining, placement, and weapon dispersion.

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Decay

[OpenRift]

6 minutes ago, Decay said:

Nice, I was wondering why you were asking for people to donate maps without having presented any work yourself or any proof of quality. You should always prepare to do the vast majority of work of a project yourself rather than hoping other people will do that work for you, especially for a now niche game mode, for a niche port.



Niche gamemode...? Deathmatch is Doom's primary multiplayer mode what are you talking about??? Also, this is going to be a vanilla-compatible WAD, which means it's compatible with all source ports, including modern ones like ZDaemon and Zandronum.

[Decay]

DM is virtually dead in comparison to forms of SP (play across ports, speed running, streaming etc) or Coop forms (survival, mod play) and to think otherwise is self delusional, and I say that as someone who has primarily mapped for PVP for more than 10 years. Making the maps vanilla compatible is niche whether you like it or not simply because of the dominance of ports like odamex, zandronum or zdaemon. There is very little incentive for a mapper to make a map truly vanilla compatible when the most relevant baseline is odamex/zdaemon compatible because that's where the players are.

[Mr.Rocket]

I'd like to make a map for this, when I get time.. time depending and other current projects.

Also I suggest wad names not be anymore than 8 characters long, otherwise they may need to be renamed.

[OpenRift]

53 minutes ago, Decay said:

DM is virtually dead in comparison to forms of SP (play across ports, speed running, streaming etc) or Coop forms (survival, mod play) and to think otherwise is self delusional, and I say that as someone who has primarily mapped for PVP for more than 10 years. Making the maps vanilla compatible is niche whether you like it or not simply because of the dominance of ports like odamex, zandronum or zdaemon. There is very little incentive for a mapper to make a map truly vanilla compatible when the most relevant baseline is odamex/zdaemon compatible because that's where the players are.

Well of course it's not going to be as popular as singleplayer, that's not even a fair comparison because you only need one person for that. Of course singleplayer's gonna be more active for a 28 year old game than multiplayer. Coop is just an inherently popular concept in most video games which is why so many coop-oriented games have such a lasting appeal (i.e. Left4Dead, Portal 2, etc.).

 

Allow me to specify: Deathmatch is Doom's primary PvP mode. 

[Decay]

Dance around with your semantics all you'd like but it does not change the fact DM is a dwindling game mode (especially if we consider DM as 3+ player FFA, in which case Duel (1v1) which is a relevant distinguishing value because map design is quite different, and probably even CTF supersedes DM). This is an odd piece of my post to focus on when you should probably look more at addressing the actual map critiques in addition to thinking more about how many maps you want for this wad and how many of them you should be planning on doing.

[Mr.Rocket]

The way I remember it, Deathmatch was the main reason to play Doom over the BBS or LAN back in the day.

Very seldom would Co-op enter the picture at the time, if at all.

But I agree that the map pack should be as professional as the project is, and what it's set out to do as a whole. ;)

 

I don't think source ports or deathmatch modes that Doom/Doom2.exe doesn't support should enter the discussion.

After all, the project is strictly vanilla based anyway.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Mr.Rocket

[Decay]

2 hours ago, Mr.Rocket said:

The way I remember it, Deathmatch was the main reason to play Doom over the BBS or LAN back in the day.

Very seldom would Co-op enter the picture at the time, if at all.

But I agree that the map pack should be as professional as the project is, and what it's set out to do as a whole. ;)

 

I don't think source ports or deathmatch modes that Doom/Doom2.exe doesn't support should enter the discussion.

After all, the project is strictly vanilla based anyway.

Nobody cares about back in the day anymore. Only what's relevant today is what matters. To anyone who has actually been an active player over the past 10 years your post reads like an out of touch old man who has no idea what he's talking about, the ancient uncle at family gathering whom everyone just nods to their stories and says "that sure is true"

[OpenRift]

3 hours ago, Decay said:

Nobody cares about back in the day anymore. Only what's relevant today is what matters. To anyone who has actually been an active player over the past 10 years your post reads like an out of touch old man who has no idea what he's talking about, the ancient uncle at family gathering whom everyone just nods to their stories and says "that sure is true"

Okay, you're clearly not contributing anything to this thread right now aside from just being kind of a dickhead. Like, yeah, I'm gonna be making some more maps myself, I was planning on it anyway, and yes, I probably should've provided some examples in my initial post (I'll probably revise it to include them), but the rest of this doesn't come across as very helpful criticism. Like, don't be a Salty Member dude.

[Decay]

I contributed by giving you some valid feedback on your maps, and you are electing to ignore it and then say I've done nothing but be a dickhead. If you don't want any, that's fine, just say so from the outset, and stop turning the topic away from what matters and then getting mad that I respond to people responding to what I've said.

[OpenRift]

12 minutes ago, Decay said:

I contributed by giving you some valid feedback on your maps, and you are electing to ignore it and then say I've done nothing but be a dickhead. If you don't want any, that's fine, just say so from the outset, and stop turning the topic away from what matters and then getting mad that I respond to people responding to what I've said.

Talking about how deathmatch is a dead mode and how nobody plays vanilla mapsets isn't a valid criticism. Nor is the stuff you were saying to Rocket.

 

The criticisms of the maps themselves are fine I guess, I don't really have a problem with those. I'm not trying to make perfect competitive-style maps, just something that would be fun for casual play. The spawns on Refinery are kind of meant to be sort of a roulette. The spawns with only melee weapons are made specifically because they're stupid, cruel, and it's just made to troll players. The map appears linear initially but as you continue to play, you find a secret that opens up the loop. This aspect is designed as kind of a learning experiment, because the more you play on it, the more you learn about it and you're rewarded for it. 

[Decay]

1 minute ago, OpenRift said:

The spawns with only melee weapons are made specifically because they're stupid, cruel, and it's just made to troll players.

There's "competitive" and then there's shitty maps. With everything that's out there, there is absolutely zero incentive to play deliberately bad maps, so that's all I have left to say about this project.

[Mr.Rocket]

On 3/12/2021 at 11:24 AM, Decay said:

Nobody cares about back in the day anymore. Only what's relevant today is what matters. To anyone who has actually been an active player over the past 10 years your post reads like an out of touch old man who has no idea what he's talking about, the ancient uncle at family gathering whom everyone just nods to their stories and says "that sure is true"

I wasn't responding to Decay in my previous post btw.. I have no idea what made him think anything was directed to him.

That fact is, I am that old man at your little family gathering, but the difference is, I really don't give a fuck what you've got to say. ;)

I mean, really, if you're going to be like that, see ya!

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Mr.Rocket

[NieMaMordy]

So I modified my recent single player map into the deathmatch one. I am not familiar with how dm maps should be made to be fun, so please tell me if I could do something better. I heard that corridors shouldn't be too narrow, so I worry that it might be too filled with them. I suspect that the cross area with the blue armor might be redundant. I am also not familiar with correct item placement in deathmatch maps, so it might be unbalanced.
Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

NMDEATH.zip

Edited March 13, 2021 by NieMaMordy

[Doomkid]

I honestly don’t care about the quality all that much since DM is so niche these days, I’m just happy to see new turf being made. That in itself is a rarity. I will say though that when it comes to map critiques, listening to what Decay suggests has always helped my DM maps to flow better and just be generally more enjoyable.

 

Do whatever you guys want though - the fact that anything new is being made at all is great in this era where DM doesn’t get the love it deserves. Whenever there’s more to show I can go through and  give some feedback as well - spent plenty of time the arena over the years learning what does and does not keep players in a server.

[ignatiOS]

I'm totally down to make a map!

I've been wanting to use some new tips I've gotten to make a new map.

I'll keep you guys updated! :)

Edited March 14, 2021 by IggySqiggles

[OpenRift]

18 hours ago, NieMaMordy said:

So I modified my recent single player map into the deathmatch one. I am not familiar with how dm maps should be made to be fun, so please tell me if I could do something better. I heard that corridors shouldn't be too narrow, so I worry that it might be too filled with them. I suspect that the cross area with the blue armor might be redundant. I am also not familiar with correct item placement in deathmatch maps, so it might be unbalanced.
Screenshots:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

NMDEATH.zip

This is some great stuff! My only problem is that there is a visplane overflow about where the rocket launcher is, so I would recommend taking a look at that. That and perhaps a little bit more variety to the weapons across the map (chainguns and plasma are always nice to have), but only if you want. Other than that, keep up the great, work, love the title screen :D