What tips would you give to a first time WAD maker?

[Cool_Name23]

I have been thinking about a WAD but have wondered if there was any input that people could give me that may be something that can improve the quality of a WAD but may not often be thought about or may not hold as much importance as map design or enemy placement but can make the WAD better or worse.

 

As always thank you for any advice you can give me.

[BunnyWithBeans]

Take it from a person who has never ever finished a wad in their life: Just go 4 it. The first wad you make will quite likely be received poorly, as anything will be that you do for the first time and put out to a public that has had 25+ years to develop standards. You'll develop your style and sense of good mapmaking over time as you keep improving.

[Worriedidiot]

Here are some tips that could help:

1. Don't be afraid to experiment

2. Look at wads you like and examine what makes them good

3. Get ready to take criticism and learn from it.

 

General mapping tips would be:

1. Damaging pits should have a way to escape them

2. Don't make the map too claustrophobic

3. Give the player an appropriate amounts of ammo and weapons

 

I hope this could help. I'm still a beginner so this might not help that much.

[PeterMoro]

1. Make whatever you wanna make

2. NEVER compare your work to some of the wads made some by mappers around here. Some of them are so good that you'll want to find a new hobby. Just keep going and you'll eventually develop a style of your own, which will be worth all the effort.

3. Try to make something simple and short to start off with. Don't be a fool like me. Better to have something simple but good intstead of something complex but crappy. 

4. Learn something new every week. Doomworld + YouTube + Twitch are full of tutorials to improve your mapping game. 

5. Ask someone to play test your wad before you release it. Don't be a fool like me. Playtesters often find issues about your map that you might never have considered.

6. Have fun!! : )

 

Good luck

[PeterMoro]

Also.... watch this:

 

 

[lokbustam257]

1 hour ago, BunnyWithBeans said:

Take it from a person who has never ever finished a wad in their life: Just go 4 it.

pun intended?

[Jacek Bourne]

Learn the strengths of each enemy. Design encounters based around them. Build the types of maps you enjoy.

[The_SloVinator]

- Watch tutorials & learn fundamental mapping aspects. (stairs, lifts, doors, locked doors, thing placement...)

- Make something small to get a hang of it.

- Keep it simple. Make something for the classic Doom. (Doom/Doom2 in Doom format)

- Try to learn some easy shortcuts. (optional but recommended)

- Remember one thing: Trial & error will make you a better mapper, despite being tedious & annoying sometimes.

- Share your finished (playable) map here or join some discord servers & get feedback. (screenshots are mandatory, plus info about what the playtester needs in order to play the custom map pack or single map)

 

- Don't compare yourself to others.

- Don't go for an episode replacement if you are a new mapper.

- Don't expect a lot of publicity (or even feedback) for a first time mapper.

- Don't get discouraged if the criticism is harsh. View it in a positive light.

- Take breaks from time to time but don't give up if you feel burnt out.

- Similar point but don't force yourself if you are not up to it.

- If in a very long time you are trying to get into mapping but it never seems fun to you, then try to contribute to Doom community with something else, like midis, texture artwork, sprite artwork, maybe coding for advanced doom mods...

[Csucskos]

The best advice I recieved is to always make a finished game from the start and just improve on it in ever step and not the other way around, lay out a huge and complex skeleton and never get around to add the meat to it. Make a single room. Then add another and so on. The goal should be that the map is always playable even from the start. (This means you should not start worrying about the texturing and stuff until the very end.)

[Helm]

No tips on what to make. Every mapper knows what excites them and what they want to make and that's very cool. Do what you personally would love to play. 

What I would recommend though is a thorough understanding of the different mapping formats: what can doom2 1.9 do, what is limit removing? What does boom offer? What does UDMF offer instead? This information REALLY matters and it's not as apparent as old hands think for newcomers when they make such a foundational choice when they boot up Doom Builder. 

Of course as mentioned in this thread, play a lot of wads, pick bits in levels that excite you or you go 'hold on, how does this work?' and check in the editor exactly how they work.

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Helm

[JediMB]

53 minutes ago, Csucskos said:

The best advice I recieved is to always make a finished game from the start and just improve on it in ever step and not the other way around, lay out a huge and complex skeleton and never get around to add the meat to it. Make a single room. Then add another and so on. The goal should be that the map is always playable even from the start. (This means you should not start worrying about the texturing and stuff until the very end.)

 

Since this style of mapping doesn't actually work well for everyone, I would rather encourage experimenting to figure out what kind of work flow is best for you.

• For some it's better to work on the overall layout first, and get into detail-oriented work later.
• For some it's better to complete one room at a time and let inspiration for the next room come as you finish the one you're working on.
• For some it's easier to build the rooms progressively from the map's starting point to its exist.
• For some it's easier to come up with cool set piece rooms first and to build the rest of the maps around them.

[Csucskos]

7 minutes ago, JediMB said:

 

Since this style of mapping doesn't actually work well for everyone, I would rather encourage experimenting to figure out what kind of work flow is best for you

Well... yes, but not. I aggree there are different approaches and there is no one approach working for everyone, but I think it's a common mistake to be over ambicious and never getting around finishing a map because it's just too daunting to even load up the editor and work on it. This is what I tried to warn about.

[Alper002]

I've noticed multiple cases of "don't compare yourself to others" but it's not always a bad thing to do that IMO. However, it needs to be done in an analytical way, more "what are they doing differently?" rather than the depressing and demotivating "omg they're so much better than me I should just give up"

 

One thing I'd recommend would be getting familiar with what you have at your disposal. Sprite decorations for example aren't everyone's first thought, but they can really add a lot to an otherwise simple map! Just seeing certain resources and thinking of what you can do with them can give inspiration sometimes!

Also want to say that what you make is ultimately up to you. If you you don't wanna obey a particular "design rule" that someone's made up, feel free to break it!

Edited May 20, 2021 by Alper002

[Somniac]

Accept that you're probably going to make a bunch of not very good or unfinished levels before you make something start to finish that you feel is good enough to be released publically.

 

Also, accept that the first release of your WAD won't be the final one. The community here is great for pointing out ways that you can refine and improve what you've published, and also pointing out any errors you may have overlooked. 

 

As a final point I'd say don't treat the established design rules as doctrine. They're guidelines. I like symmetry, for example, so I see nothing wrong with using it - within reason. You can also have outside set pieces you can see without strictly being able to get to that location, though it makes sense to be able to later in the map. 

Edited May 20, 2021 by VisionThing

[DynamiteKaitorn]

A few tips from me:

- Try to avoid GZDooM early on. It's not that it's a bad engine, more of the fact that pretty much any bug/limitation that appears in older engines and/or non ZDooM derrived engines will be fixed/implemented. My recommendation is either Chocolate (for vanilla), BooM (since it's very popular and is limit removing), or Zandronum (IF you want to make MP maps. :) )

 

- AVOID MAKING A MEGAWAD! Later on when you've gotten used to your preferred editor/editors of choice, then making a big multi level map pack may be fine but early on working on so many maps for 1 project can be tedious and painful (and in my case, too samey in design).

 

- Remember the enemy difficulty tier list. Don't assume that Hell Knights or Revenants are best defeated with the regular shotty.

 

- More of a DWF rule, try to avoid troll-wads or overly offensive wads as this is generally looked down upon.

[MFG38]

One tip I always give to people starting out: Do not - I repeat, DO NOT - make a megawad as your first project.

 

Wish somebody had told me the same back in 2010.

Edited May 20, 2021 by MFG38

[Naarok0fkor]

Keep

It

Simple

Stupid

 

[Pechudin]

It helps me to make a rough outline on paper, avoids the "uhh, how do I connect these two neat ideas" problem. Also speeds up the mapping.

[forgettable pyromaniac]

- Don't make a bunch of your areas use similar-looking textures, so it's easier to navigate.

- If you add Light Sources (especially in stuff like BooM), create another sector or two around it with different lighting levels to signify it's giving light.

- If you wish to make dark caves or passageways, please include light sources so we can see where we're going at least a bit (Only exception is if you give a nigh vision, then give less lights, but still make it possible to stumble in the dark and have a general idea of where you're going).
 

- Don't make your levels inexplicably large, give some reasoning to the hugeness if you really want a huge level (example, a huge courtyard with a bunch of monsters, or a bunch of hills making up the outer perimeter of the play area).

- If you do make hills, please add some decorations up top. You don't need a bunch, but adding some trees can really get things looking much better.

- Try only using the stock doom 2 textures at first. OTEX and stuff like those seem really cool but it's better to know what you're working with first. If you're really adamant on needing more textures, JimmyTex might be alright, it includes some Plutonia Textures, along with most doom 1 textures, new flats, new walls, tons of new gates and fences, all in the style of the original doom iWads. Highly recommend.

- Once you have a theme, stick with it. And I don't mean like "Oh it's a temple so it has to all be marble textures and brick textures", I mean make it a bit more broad. Temple could be widened to "Dark and Musty", or "Scary". Dark and musty, you could have some fights take place in darker arenas, being attacked from every side in the dark, not knowing where to hit first, or if it's scary, you could make more monster closets than normal, along with some pop-up monsters.

- If you don't know how to do something, look it up first! If you can't find what you're looking for on Google, use doomworld's own search tool. Can't find it there? Ask in the Editing Questions part of the forum, someone will undoubtedly help you, even if it takes a while to get a response.

- If you see something cool in a level that you want to try in your own, feel free to open it up in your editor of choice and have a glance around, see what works with what, which voodoo dolls are connected (if it's a BooM map), what scripts are being played (if it's a udmf map), or what linedef action is being used there.

- Experiment! Try different room layouts, try new monster composition, or even try co-op and Deathmatch for a level, see if it's fun to make one of those types of levels!

- Try not to be super ambitious with your first projects, maybe 5-6 levels for a first wad will be good, or if you just want to go all out on one level, that could work as well.

- If there are any avalible, maybe try a Community Project! Make a map, see if they'll like it. If it doesn't get accepted, don't fret! You definetly got some experience from making the map, at the very least.

- Finally, take your time. It's better to have a custom wad with a ton of time and only coming out ok at best than a half baked wad that isn't fun to play in any regard.

[out_of_service]

Even checkout YouTube!

 

 

[Mr.Rocket]

Save your work!

Even though this isn't so much on the side of map design etc, always make sure to save, save again as a new name, and backup your work to another location! Which will help if you make a mistake that can't be easily undone otherwise, also you never know when there might be a power failure or HDD flaking out.

It's good to make backups and place them somewhere else, in the cloud or thumb drive etc.

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Mr.Rocket

[holaareola]

2 hours ago, MFG38 said:

One tip I always give to people starting out: Do not - I repeat, DO NOT - make a megawad as your first project.

 

Wish somebody had told me the same back in 2010.

On the one hand, I'm psychologically averse to absolutes. On the other... I absolutely agree with this.

 

If you do a megawad, players will experience a noticeable quality curve as you improve at mapping, unless you continually go back and refine your earlier maps. And even then, the natural reluctance to throw stuff away is likely to interfere with your decision making.