1994 tune-up challenge (*updated /idgames link*)

[vdgg]

I found MAP21 brilliant. Thanks Walter! (the original was rather uninspiring, OTOH).

For me the map may stay unchanged. I played it quite a lot - but then, using only PBoom+. No critical bugs, just some annoyances:

1) When going to the outside area, the player crosses one of various (close wait open) linedefs. If they cross one, teleport to the castle area, they may cross another one after returning with the RK... Kind of non-intuitive (why the door closed again? What to do to open it?). I would consider making linedefs 585 and all adjacent ones just to shut the door (no "wait-open") and make them open with some extra linedefs near the red key, as the player normally goes there anyway. What do you think? Edit:On second thought this method will not work either

2) The plasma rifle secret. Two times I flew past the teleporter without activating the linedef (a common engine error) and was smashed by an instant-death-voodoo-doll trick. Don't know how to solve it, as I see already TWO teleporting linedefs (3044, 3038). Maybe make a third one to the left of the portal and not make it North-South? gggmork claims this makes skipping linedefs less likely.

Both points are really minor ones, so as I said, the map may stay unchanged for me.

I posted a Max demo in the Miscellaneous demo thread here.

[traversd]

vdgg said:

I found MAP21 brilliant. Thanks Walter! (the original was rather uninspiring, OTOH).

For me the map may stay unchanged. I played it quite a lot - but then, using only PBoom+. No critical bugs, just some annoyances:

1) When going to the outside area, the player crosses one of various (close wait open) linedefs. If they cross one, teleport to the castle area, they may cross another one after returning with the RK... Kind of non-intuitive (why the door closed again? What to do to open it?). I would consider making linedefs 585 and all adjacent ones just to shut the door (no "wait-open") and make them open with some extra linedefs near the red key, as the player normally goes there anyway. What do you think?

2) The plasma rifle secret. Two times I flew past the teleporter without activating the linedef (a common engine error) and was smashed by an instant-death-voodoo-doll trick. Don't know how to solve it, as I see already TWO teleporting linedefs (3044, 3038). Maybe make a third one to the left of the portal and not make it North-South? gggmork claims this makes skipping linedefs less likely.

Both points are really minor ones, so as I said, the map may stay unchanged for me.

I posted a Max demo in the Miscellaneous demo thread here.

Thanks for the feedback vdgg. I've made the door close using a voodoo doll activated off the same floor lower tags as linedefs before the original door close so it will only occur once. I've also made the two teleport linedefs in the plasma secret angled (which I believe also helps prevent missing the linedef action in SR50 circumstances?). You can't see any visible changes in either case.

Thanks again,

-t

[Walter confetti]

Thanks for the kind words, dude...
i've downloaded your demo right now...

[Snarboo]

New version of Helipad finished:
heli2_fin3.zip

Changes:

• General difficulty changes. A few more monsters were added along with items to balance this out. Difficulty seems pretty tight.
  
• Moved the UAC sign at the beginning further from the wall and put a few items behind it.
  
• Swapped the lost souls in the main room for imps.
  
• Swapped the demon for a shotgun guy in the rocket launcher secret.
  
• Removed the bars from the blue key platform, allowing the player to drop down freely.
  
• Added a switch to raise the platform on the blue key side of the pit.
  
• Removed all the block monster lines in the yellow key room to improve combat flow.
  
• A few more chaingunners teleport in at the end of the map.
  
• Added four DM starts.

@traversd: I tried to follow most of your advice when improving the map but somethings I left up to personal taste. I also did not generate a REJECTS lump since I assume this will be done for all the maps before release.

Let me know what you guys think, whether I introduced any new bugs, and other general criticisms. Hopefully this is the final version of the map. :)

[Phobus]

I managed to playing through the first version of the .wad (with the MAPINFO and interpic first versions too). Overall I'd say I enjoyed it... found it harder to make closer observations than that though, as I have no experience with the majority of the base .WAD files and couldn't say what the changes were, etc. It seemed to just keep getting better as the maps went on, but the final map proved a bit too tough. I imagine dropping the number of spawners by 1 may well have fixed it though.

Still not managed any progress on my map, but I'll have one less deadline to worry about in a couple of days, so there's hope for time then.

[traversd]

Snarboo said:

New version of Helipad finished:
heli2_fin3.zip

Changes:

• General difficulty changes. A few more monsters were added along with items to balance this out. Difficulty seems pretty tight.
  
• Moved the UAC sign at the beginning further from the wall and put a few items behind it.
  
• Swapped the lost souls in the main room for imps.
  
• Swapped the demon for a shotgun guy in the rocket launcher secret.
  
• Removed the bars from the blue key platform, allowing the player to drop down freely.
  
• Added a switch to raise the platform on the blue key side of the pit.
  
• Removed all the block monster lines in the yellow key room to improve combat flow.
  
• A few more chaingunners teleport in at the end of the map.
  
• Added four DM starts.

@traversd: I tried to follow most of your advice when improving the map but somethings I left up to personal taste. I also did not generate a REJECTS lump since I assume this will be done for all the maps before release.

Let me know what you guys think, whether I introduced any new bugs, and other general criticisms. Hopefully this is the final version of the map. :)

Gave the update a run Snarboo and it's all good. Nothing broken from what I could see.

I'm hopeful that changes to XENO11 will be completed within the week. I just have to rework the exterior areas and update thing placement to suit the changes I have made.

-t

[traversd]

http://t.underworldgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/xeno11-tune_up.zip

here is a 'structurally' complete update to XENO11 (pretty close at least). I haven't changed the item and monster placement much except in the exit room area and keys so it plays a bit 'wonky' skill-wise. Hoping to get a couple of play thrus from people to see if the exit area 'makes sense' as i'm thinking it's not going to be 100% clear :o/

You may need to load the tune-up alpha/beta for textures.

sing out if you see something broken.

-t

[Phobus]

I've found out exactly when I won't be too busy to do work on mapping. It's the 20th of May. Sorry for making everybody wait another month, I had no idea how heavy my uni work-load would be.

[Memfis]

Amazing work with XENO11, travers. You are very good at detailing large rooms and open areas. I like how there is no tight places, I can move so freely. And it was fun to explore area around the main building.

There were some bugs with the sky though, dunno how you missed them. Maybe they appear only in software mode:
http://img233.imageshack.us/i/doom156.png/
http://img808.imageshack.us/i/doom155.png/

/me adds this map to "to-do uv-max demos when this project is finished" list

btw, where is the music from?

Oh, and you can watch my FDA - http://www.sendspace.com/file/imtxb0
I died one time near the beginning.

[traversd]

Memfis said:

Amazing work with XENO11, travers. You are very good at detailing large rooms and open areas. I like how there is no tight places, I can move so freely. And it was fun to explore area around the main building.

There were some bugs with the sky though, dunno how you missed them. Maybe they appear only in software mode:
http://img233.imageshack.us/i/doom156.png/
http://img808.imageshack.us/i/doom155.png/

/me adds this map to "to-do uv-max demos when this project is finished" list

btw, where is the music from?

Oh, and you can watch my FDA - http://www.sendspace.com/file/imtxb0
I died one time near the beginning.

Thanks Memfis. Yeah I hadn't loaded in software yet so missed those sky xfrs. I had a chance tonight to fix those and also go over most of the maps things, monsters, ammo, health etc.

http://t.underworldgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/xeno11-tune_up.zip

not sure where the music is from.. Doomhero85 added it to the wad I believe.

-t

[Job]

Sweet, this is still going on? Is there a map slot left?

[GreyGhost]

Maybe. Have a word with Phobus, real life is leaving him little time to work on Vampire.

[Phobus]

Job said:

Sweet, this is still going on? Is there a map slot left?

Much as I don't like failing in a commitment, if you can do the Vampire5 remake in less than a month and a half you'd be speeding the project along and I'd happily give over the slot to anybody who'd deliver the goods quicker than I currently can.

[Job]

GreyGhost said:

Maybe. Have a word with Phobus, real life is leaving him little time to work on Vampire.

Phobus said:

Much as I don't like failing in a commitment, if you can do the Vampire5 remake in less than a month and a half you'd be speeding the project along and I'd happily give over the slot to anybody who'd deliver the goods quicker than I currently can.

I don't mind having a look at it. Is there something wrong with the map itself, that it's generally huge or shitty? Also, do I need any specific resources to run this map beyond the original Doom 1/Doom 2 wads, etc? However, let me say that I won't be in a position to do fake bridges, room over room or whatever wacky tricks are commonplace nowadays.

[Phobus]

Nothing wrong with the map, aside from how '94 it is. It's just that I don't have the time right now tyo do much with it.

Download the resources for the project (think they're on the front page) and you've got all you need. All that's really going on here is you're making the map more comprehensible, look better and be a bit more challenging.

[Job]

Phobus said:

Nothing wrong with the map, aside from how '94 it is. It's just that I don't have the time right now tyo do much with it.

Download the resources for the project (think they're on the front page) and you've got all you need. All that's really going on here is you're making the map more comprehensible, look better and be a bit more challenging.

Oh, well that's not too bad. Is it okay if I check out the map and resources before I give you a definite yes or no? I'm leaning toward yes, but I just don't want to get over my head is all.

[Phobus]

Yeah, certainly - like I say, I don't mind doing the job, I just have to wait until the 20th before I have the time, which feels like I'm making everybody wait too long.

[traversd]

Snarboo isn't stressed about waiting a bit longer for VAMPIR5 to be finished.

We have 31 completed maps at present so need 1 more map to fill the last map slot (somewhere in the map10-17 ranges, but not map15). If you guys are keen to tune something up then go for it but bear in mind we need them done with a touch of haste ;o) They don't have to be VAMPIR5 either, that was simply picked by Phobus as it had already been started on by another contributor. If you pick another map to do, make sure it's original author allows its use as a base to build on.

If all 3 of you submit maps then we can put the last 2 maps in an "extras" wad perhaps, but if not the tune-up concept is pretty neat and can certainly see the release of single map tune-ups in the future so the extra maps could be released separately.

for resources it might pay to get the current alpha compilation to use as it has all the textures skies/music and you can look at what other authors have done for their tune-ups too.

I'll be posting a new compilation soon with updated maps XENO11, RAWNWOOD and a CREDITS lump.

-t

[Phobus]

Should somebody else get a map in before me, I'll gladly finish up VAMPIR5 as an individual release and get it out when I've got the time. No point delaying the project for additional maps or anything!

[traversd]

Phobus said:

Should somebody else get a map in before me, I'll gladly finish up VAMPIR5 as an individual release and get it out when I've got the time. No point delaying the project for additional maps or anything!

If I had the time up my sleeve I'd love to go and tune-up up a few more early maps. I still had a few on the shortlist from when this project started that I've given some thought to.

BTW here is a new compilation --> http://www.mediafire.com/?a9a6v4oygoh2kcr

Changes:
-MAP08 updates by Snarboo
-MAP09 updates by Traversd
-MAP12 updates by Greyghost
-MAP14, new music
-MAP22, sector fixes and additional teleport out of blood pit in redkey room.
-MAP30, reduced the boss spawners on skill 3 + 4 by 1 each. *** I am keen to know from those that had found this map too hard re:rate of spawning if this has helped any***
-CREDITS LUMP by Greyghost
-MAPINFO updated by Greyghost (now has mapnames and intermission fixes).
-a few CWILV## gfx updated by Greyghost as well.

I ran the whole thing through zennode (RMB doesn't want to co-operate on my win7 install and runs hideously slow in dosbox. Plus reading some older threads indicate there is not much difference between it and Zennode's reject processing.)

-t

[Scet]

In MAP04 some doors are either tagged incorrectly(red key door near sector 36) or not tagged at all(check around sector 24).

[traversd]

Scet said:

In MAP04 some doors are either tagged incorrectly(red key door near sector 36) or not tagged at all(check around sector 24).

Thanks Scet. I think that red key door snuck by as it is a DR type so would still open in boom. I've removed the tags anyhow - besides the linedefs were tagged 14 and the sector 13 ;o)

All the other linedefs around sector 24 appear OK to me unless I'm overlooking something. They are all DR types so no tags are needed just like the red-key door.

Also - I found an error in MAP07 that possibly only appears in GL ports. some stacked vertices in the main hall caused a sector to show as sky (both floor and ceiling). I've corrected that in my master copy now as well as the above for MAP04.

-t

[Scet]

My mistake then, was probably pressing the wrong damn key.

I would suggest though changing the height at sector 34. It causes the monsters in sector 35 to become "stuck". Not a big issue, but they aren't very threatening in that state. This was with PrBoom 2.4.0.

[Megamur]

Would it be "legal" to compile a MegaWAD of all the original versions of these levels as a companion set, perhaps included in the ZIP with the tuned-up levelset? I'm going to have to play the originals at some point, just to see how they were upgraded, so it'd at least be nice to have them all in one place instead of having to wander all over idgames looking for them. But that might be in poor taste. I'm not sure.

[kmxexii]

Megamur said:

Would it be "legal" to compile a MegaWAD of all the original versions of these levels as a companion set, perhaps included in the ZIP with the tuned-up levelset? I'm going to have to play the originals at some point, just to see how they were upgraded, so it'd at least be nice to have them all in one place instead of having to wander all over idgames looking for them. But that might be in poor taste. I'm not sure.

I should think so, considering that the WADs of this project were chosen because they explicitly allowed editing in their release notes.

[traversd]

All the original maps are included already but in their original archives. This is actually a requirement of most of the original maps copyrights. We looked at putting them into a single compilation but decided that it's not worth the headache due to texture clashes. In the end I appended MAPxx_ to each archive so you can see where the line up with the tune-up compilation.

-t

[Megamur]

Of course, I hadn't considered texture conflicts. Well, that's fair enough. As long as the originals are easily accessible.

[Snarboo]

Bumping the thread to let everyone know that the DRD Team file host is now operational again! This means the links on the front page now work again and we have a (hopefully) permanent file host for the betas.

In other news, I've been considering what comes next for the tune-up challenge project. There are enough maps for a second project, and it seems people are interested, so it's definitely feasible. I'm thinking that if there was going to be another one, it would slightly different from the first. For starters, I've considered a 24 hour tune-up challenge with a custom texture set.

What do you guys think?

[printz]

Snarboo said:

In other news, I've been considering what comes next for the tune-up challenge project. There are enough maps for a second project, and it seems people are interested, so it's definitely feasible.

What about the first project? When will this one be released?

For starters, I've considered a 24 hour tune-up challenge with a custom texture set.

What do you guys think?

That should at least solve the dragging-too-long problem, and help train people to be more productive with mapping. Speaking for myself, I won't be able to join such a project soon enough, because I can't find any fully free day. Maybe from summer onwards, and only on weekends (I probably still wouldn't want to waste them at the computer, considering it will be fricking SUMMER). Finally, making single player/coop maps ought to be much more difficult than deathmatch ones, which seem to have been the more popular sets for 32in24 contests lately.

[Snarboo]

printz said:

What about the first project? When will this one be released?

The project is currently waiting on Phobus' entry. He should have some free time soon.

Finally, making single player/coop maps ought to be much more difficult than deathmatch ones, which seem to have been the more popular sets for 32in24 contests lately.

This is true, but one advantage a tune-up in 24 project would have is that the base architecture is complete, allowing mappers to spend time detailing their map.