[IT'S FINISHED!] First new map in 23 years in the works :)

[Cheesebone]

EDIT: Map is finished, here's a link to the .zip

 

https://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/v-z/welcback.zip

 

https://doomshack.org/uploads/WelcBack.zip

 

=-=-=-=

 

Holla! Been a very long time since I ever really participated much in the Doom community, but for whatever reason I decided to make another map again. This will be my 2nd official map, ever, and the first one I've done in 23 years. (Yes, I'm old now. I was like 16 or something when I released my first one back in '99 or something, lol)

 

It's still a work in progress, and it's probably going to be an average-at-best experience simply because I don't really play a ton of Doom anyway these days and I'm so out-of-the-loop regarding what's cool and what isn't that I have no clue what actually makes a good map anymore. 

 

I'm trying to avoid all the new tricks like polyobjects and portals and even slopes, just sticking to the old-school approach but taking advantage of the source ports and the "no limits" concept. Much like my first (and only) wad from over two decades before, it's a large single map that will probably take over an hour to complete, and the idea is to make it difficult on UV but not impossible. I'm trying to mesh together everything from standard duck & cover battles, to more technical rocket fights, to a full out slaughter-esque spots as well, with the whole map coming in around maybe 2,000 monsters total and probably around 3,000 sectors when completed. I'm no Decino or godlike Doomer so if I can beat the map without cheats, I'm sure plenty of you will crush it too.

I'm also going to be doing the music for the map too, but I'm curious to know if you all would prefer an embedded audio file of whatever I write for it, or if I should stick to the old midi format and just do it all on midi instead (I actually ended up with a career in music as the years went on, so this is kind of a no-brainer for me to do the soundtrack).

I can say that using UDB is a whole lot different than working with DETH was, for all you old farts out there who remember that program. But after all this time, I'm not even sure I remember much about DETH either. 

Either way, here are a few screenshots of what I've got assembled so far. Enjoy! With any luck, it should be finished sometime in early spring of this year. Take it easy, and feel free to throw in any suggestions - especially regarding the real music VS midi bit.

 

-Dave

Edited April 7, 2022 by Cheesebone

[ScrappyMcDoogerton]

19 minutes ago, Cheesebone said:

feel free to throw in any suggestions

 

I suggest you apologize for spending the last 23 years not making Doom maps because this looks incredible :D

 

Where can I find your first map?

Edited March 15, 2022 by ScrappyMcDoogerton

[Lawrence]

:) Screenshots look very good and quite intriguing.  I like the stalagmites in the 4th screenshot.

 

2,000 monsters is a LOT!  Sounds like this will be a huuuuuuge quest.  Will give it a spin once you finish it.

Music: My vote is embedded audio file (it's what I do in my WADs) just so the music can have effects and be more atmospheric.  I bet you can do both MIDI and e.g. MP3 with some MAPINFO trickery somehow.

[Cheesebone]

52 minutes ago, ScrappyMcDoogerton said:

 

I suggest you apologize for spending the last 23 years not making Doom maps because this looks incredible :D

 

Where can I find your first map?

Lol - thanks :) My first map is probably available on all the usual spots like the /idgames section. It's called FizzB1.wad . When it came out it got decent reviews, a lot of 4/5 and so on, but by today's standards I think it's probably not up to snuff. I saw one guy on YouTube review it on Hurt Me Plenty and he didn't really like it much, although he did really appreciate some of the tricks and ideas I'd come up with. He also had the gamma cranked up so it was way "brighter" than it should have been.  I really focused more on aesthetics than gameplay for that map and I think it probably shows. By today's standards it doesn't look amazing, but at the time it was pretty impressive. 

Thanks for asking! This map is hopefully a big improvement over the last one :)

 

-Dave

Edited March 15, 2022 by Cheesebone

[Cheesebone]

7 minutes ago, Lawrence said:

:) Screenshots look very good and quite intriguing.  I like the stalagmites in the 4th screenshot.

 

2,000 monsters is a LOT!  Sounds like this will be a huuuuuuge quest.  Will give it a spin once you finish it.

Music: My vote is embedded audio file (it's what I do in my WADs) just so the music can have effects and be more atmospheric.  I bet you can do both MIDI and e.g. MP3 with some MAPINFO trickery somehow.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm a metal guy, so I'd imagine whatever I write will go well with the map.

Because it's going to be such a large map, part of me wants to just do midi for the whole thing because I don't want some 3 minute thing repeating a hundred times while people are playing it, and I can do midi music 10x faster than doing everything with real instruments, so there's that hurdle for me. I'd like to compose a 10 or 15 minute long track for it but that's probably going to take a while if I go the "real music" route.

 

-Dave

[Murdoch]

Judging by those screenshots, 23 years has not made you rusty. I look forward to seeing the final result.

[Cheesebone]

Just now, Murdoch said:

Judging by those screenshots, 23 years has not made you rusty. I look forward to seeing the final result.

Hopefully it's just made me more grumpy.

[Solmyr]

Planning on releasing a second map 23 years after? That's a very long break from mapping but well worth it given how gorgeous this map looks in those screenshots.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Solmyr

[Cheesebone]

For anyone who asked, my old-ass .wad is over at /levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/fizzb1.zip

[FEDEX]

Direct link for lazy people :)

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/fizzb1

[Dubium]

Wow, the map looks gigantic and detailed. Nice stuff, Dave

[Biodegradable]

Very sexy screenshots over here. I'll be very curious to play this map when it's available. :^)

[CoolerDoomeR]

Screenshots are great!

We are waiting for the release!

Good luck.

[Cheesebone]

Obviously the goal is to make it fun too - do you all prefer just having tons of ammo at your disposal or do you think the "just enough to get it done" approach makes for a better experience? Somewhere in between?

 

-Dave

[Thelokk]

2 minutes ago, Cheesebone said:

Obviously the goal is to make it fun too - do you all prefer just having tons of ammo at your disposal or do you think the "just enough to get it done" approach makes for a better experience? Somewhere in between?

 

-Dave

 

With 2000+ enemies, I'd err on the side of abundance, especially if there are going to be AVs or pains.

[Cheesebone]

1 hour ago, Thelokk said:

 

With 2000+ enemies, I'd err on the side of abundance, especially if there are going to be AVs or pains.

Yeah I'm trying to be careful with those two monsters in particular. There will be more AVs than Pains but the Pains are generally being limited to areas with a lot of space, so one single Pain can turn the area into a real mess if it isn't taken out quickly and ends up infighting (which *will* happen). I think there will probably only be about 10 of them in the whole map.

 

The AVs will probably stay pretty contained, I only will have a handful of them capable of really running around and only one of them is going to be a real serious resurrection threat. The others are going to be used as more of a way to prevent you from camping in certain fights. They generally won't be able to resurrect anything but they also won't be easy to remove from the equation early on, either.

 

I'm having a hard time avoiding the RNG-fest scenario in a couple spots but that's just because I haven't spent any time building a map in forever, so I don't know if I'm just making it too hard or if I'm just not that great of a player, lol.

 

This is definitely not the type of map where I'd expect anyone to have a successful blind UV run, there are a lot of spots that will require some trial-and-error savestates.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Cheesebone

[grrfield]

Will it be coop friendly?

 

[Cheesebone]

1 hour ago, grrfield said:

Will it be coop friendly?

 

I've never actually made a co-op map before, but this one would actually probably have a lot of fun spots for that. I've never played co-op before so I'm not sure what to look for when it comes to what sucks and what doesn't, but if all it means is adding additional player starts and more health & ammo, that shouldn't be difficult.

[Thelokk]

53 minutes ago, Cheesebone said:

I've never actually made a co-op map before, but this one would actually probably have a lot of fun spots for that. I've never played co-op before so I'm not sure what to look for when it comes to what sucks and what doesn't, but if all it means is adding additional player starts and more health & ammo, that shouldn't be difficult.

 

It usually also requires to avoid excessively narrow areas, and additional monster spawns. 

[Cheesebone]

1 hour ago, Thelokk said:

 

It usually also requires to avoid excessively narrow areas, and additional monster spawns. 

OK - the "narrow" thing shouldn't really be a problem. I don't really plan on spawning any monsters in this map, though, although some areas are chaotic enough that you probably wouldn't want additional monsters even with additional players. A significant portion of the largest fight is literally just encouraging tons of infighting and watching the show as you dodge and defend, and by the time half the enemies have killed each other there are still at least a few hundred you have to mow down yourself, which kinda sounds fun for co-op too. 

Question - how does the engine determine which player the monsters target, exactly? Is it just a distance/damage thing?? Also - what about teleports - do players just have to kind of "single file" it? I don't know if they'll telefrag each other if multiple players converge on separate linedefs of the same teleport.

[Thelokk]

47 minutes ago, Cheesebone said:

OK - the "narrow" thing shouldn't really be a problem. I don't really plan on spawning any monsters in this map, though, although some areas are chaotic enough that you probably wouldn't want additional monsters even with additional players. A significant portion of the largest fight is literally just encouraging tons of infighting and watching the show as you dodge and defend, and by the time half the enemies have killed each other there are still at least a few hundred you have to mow down yourself, which kinda sounds fun for co-op too. 

Question - how does the engine determine which player the monsters target, exactly? Is it just a distance/damage thing?? Also - what about teleports - do players just have to kind of "single file" it? I don't know if they'll telefrag each other if multiple players converge on separate linedefs of the same teleport.

By 'spawn' I meant 'put on the map'. 2am XD

[Cheesebone]

Oh. Shows what I know, lol.

I ran a complete run-thru using saves and it took me just over an hour in-game-time to complete, but I know that could be shaved way down. Speedrunners who don't care about 100% kills could absolutely get this map down to under 10 minutes if they work everything out and run like hell.

 

So far I'm at 1,806 monsters (although it's likely to be over 2,000 by the time the Pains and Archies are finished messing things up, I finished with 2,116) and 2,956 sectors, but now I'm going to be adding more details here and there and cleaning up some areas. I've got WAY too many shells and not enough cells in some spots. Rockets are never really too low-supply but the problem is the danger of using them, lol, so that makes for some fun spots. Bullets are kind of hit-or-miss depending on how much you like using the chaingun but it really isn't a great weapon for most of this map. 

 

I am using GZDoom to test everything and so far there's no weirdeness at all except sometimes the BFG just doesn't seem like it's really hitting on all cylinders. Is that a GZDoom thing? There's one spot where an Archie pops out and I blasted it dead-on with a BFG ball and he didn't die, which seems odd for a close-range smack with the BFG considering it was the only monster on-screen at the time.

 

[Cheesebone]

I'm probably over-spoiling the map, but it should be just as fun either way. Here are some more shots with monsters at the UV level this time. The giant outdoor melee contains around half the monsters in the whole map, so the large monster count is definitely weighted towards that area.

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Cheesebone

[roadworx]

oh, shit, this looks fantastic. i can't wait to play this once it's done; it looks beautiful, and based on the way you're describing the gameplay as well as the pics, it looks like it's gonna be really fun. it sounds like you know what you're doing based on what you said about the pain elementals and arch-viles, so unless you're having the player shotgun loads of barons then i wouldn't worry about it being outdated or anything :p

 

however, with that being said, if you're worried about it not being up to modern standards, then i do suggest that you have some people playtest it so you can work out all the kinks and make some adjustments prior to the final release. i'd be happy to give pre-release criticism if you feel that it's needed, and i know many others would be too!!

[knifeworld]

Looks great!! Looking forward to seeing a download link on this one, can't wait to play it.
Keep making more maps too because these shots suggest a real good time

[Cheesebone]

8 hours ago, roadworx said:

oh, shit, this looks fantastic. i can't wait to play this once it's done; it looks beautiful, and based on the way you're describing the gameplay as well as the pics, it looks like it's gonna be really fun. it sounds like you know what you're doing based on what you said about the pain elementals and arch-viles, so unless you're having the player shotgun loads of barons then i wouldn't worry about it being outdated or anything :p

 

however, with that being said, if you're worried about it not being up to modern standards, then i do suggest that you have some people playtest it so you can work out all the kinks and make some adjustments prior to the final release. i'd be happy to give pre-release criticism if you feel that it's needed, and i know many others would be too!!

I'll be glad to take you up on the offer :) Thanks!

[Cheesebone]

OK - I'm at the point now where I'm looking to ask for a few playtesters. Currently I only have the map set up for UV, and it isn't easy - at least for me, but I'm no Doom God either. I *can* beat the level in one pass as it is because I already know kind of what to do and when to do it. Even then, it's pretty hit-or-miss, and I die a lot more than I succeed. This isn't supposed to be a breeze by any means, but I think players that are a lot better than me would still find it fun and challenging. 

I've tried to keep the most RNG-heavy fights closer to the start of the map, out of frustration's sake. But overall, I would really appreciate some input from members here who consider themselves "pretty damn good" at the game and are willing to spend some time checking out what I have so far on the UV level. Playtesting probably won't be available for the easier skill levels beneath UV. 

All I plan to add from here are additional details, cleaning up any ugly/bland areas, and adjusting for the easier difficulties ( as well as making it co-op friendly ) but I'm happy to make changes if anyone feels they need to be made. Also, I'm gonna start working on the music for the map, and I have decided I'll go with the embedded MP3 instead of a midi variant. (I'm a metal guy, so it's gonna be heavy, but my audio production is good enough to be sold on shelves and played on the radio/TV.) Most of the time between now and when I release it will be spent writing and recording the music for it. I'm trying to come up with 8-10 minutes of music so you don't have to hear the same short thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again 30 times because this isn't exactly a short map. 

I see that @roadworx volunteered already, so they get a definite swing at it, but anyone else that's interested - please let me know. I would like to gather a handful of opinions before I dump this one on the rest of the intertoobs. 

 

Thanks again everyone!!

 

-Dave

[Degree23]

On 3/15/2022 at 11:24 PM, Cheesebone said:

I've never played co-op before so I'm not sure what to look for when it comes to what sucks and what doesn't, but if all it means is adding additional player starts and more health & ammo, that shouldn't be difficult.

 

In terms of making things "co-op friendly", should there be any traps that lock a player in, there needs to be a way to access the locked area from the outside. Often this is done via a teleporter appearing outside the area once the trap has triggered. (As this has no impact on single player mode) One time teleporters can also break a map in co-op if it's vital for progression. Essentially, if there's a place where someone can die and a vital part of the map can no longer be accessed, then that needs addressing if the map is to be co-op friendly.

[Cheesebone]

6 minutes ago, Degree23 said:

 

In terms of making things "co-op friendly", should there be any traps that lock a player in, there needs to be a way to access the locked area from the outside. Often this is done via a teleporter appearing outside the area once the trap has triggered. (As this has no impact on single player mode) One time teleporters can also break a map in co-op if it's vital for progression. Essentially, if there's a place where someone can die and a vital part of the map can no longer be accessed, then that needs addressing if the map is to be co-op friendly.

 

This is great info, as there are a few spots in this map where the "lock in" would have been a game-breaker for sure. Thanks for the tip!!

[Cheesebone]

Just an update - I'm basically like 99% done with the map at this point, working on the music now and still need to make it Co-op friendly (as I think this could be a fun map to co-op). Skill Levels are also 100% complete now, with ITYTD being an absolute breeze. HNTR is much more difficult but still not hard even for me. HMP is a pretty big step up from there, and UV is probably where most of you will enjoy playing it. This isn't the kind of map only some legend can beat, but there are a few spots that should be fun and challenging for just about everyone for a bit. I still have some more details to add, some texture changes and just cleaning a few things up here and there. 

 

Huge thanks to @ScrappyMcDoogerton for giving an early run of the map a UV playtest - he's a much better player than I am, it was super helpful to watch him take the time to run the map and he offered some REALLY good criticism. The map is absolutely a lot more fun and less tedious now in a few spots and I can't thank him enough for the time he spent helping out with a few really valuable pointers. I'm still waiting on feedback from one or two other people but I think it's likely to see this finished and released sometime in Early-mid April.

 

Thanks for following!

 

-Dave

Edited March 24, 2022 by Cheesebone