Doom 2 In Name Only - Now (supsiciously) on a load of gaming articles

[Capellan]

Cell said:

trying to make diagonal sidedefs the length of which in mappixels is able to be divided by 32

3/4/5 is your friend. If a line goes 3 squares in the X or Y axis, and 4 squares in the other axis (3x, 4y or 4x, 3y), then the length will be 5 squares of the same size square.

Make the squares be 32 x 32, and you get lines 160 long :)

5/12/13 also works the same way.

[The_MártonJános]

Yes, I know about Pithagoras, but there is another solution to keep them be able. For example, at the stretch of a 32x56 rectangle, there will be a ~64px wall, whilst at 64x72, a ~96 appears.

[Jayextee]

All these lines are 64-long.

I love using these angles, a lot. Not just for circles (although since circles can be used for a variety of things you'd expect to see like nukage vats and storage tanks etc, it's great) but to make winding, snaking hallways that still don't break up the STAR* or any other 64/32-aligning textures (like my favoured METAL2-7 series). Very possible with an 8*8 grid (as shown).

Also, diagonal 192-lines are a recent find; again from an 8*8 grid. Lovely stuff.

[Capellan]

Cell said:

Yes, I know about Pithagoras, but there is another solution to keep them be able. For example, at the stretch of a 32x56 rectangle, there will be a ~64px wall, whilst at 64x72, a ~96 appears.

Well yeah, that's Pythagorus too :)

I like 3/4/5 because (a) it's pretty close to 45 degrees and (b) easy to use at a 32-grid, rather than coming down to an 8-grid. It also tends to be useful at a 16-grid, since many textures tile OK at that level too. Not startan though!

[scifista42]

You are discussing an interesting topic here. I already discovered many of those angles/lengths you've mentioned myself :) Let me just add that I also found out that you can experiment with any angles and grid sizes and you don't have to achieve an exact multiple of 32 (or 64), because leeways of +-2 pixels, sometimes 3 or more, are usually OK to use with most tiling textures.

[Capellan]

Yeah the iD guys did a good job of creating some leeway in tiling many textures (which makes the ones that don't tile well even at their actual width even more annoying). More than once I've had a 62 long line with a 1x offset or a 66 long one with a -1x offset, and it looks functionally the same as a true 64 long line.

[Jayextee]

Yeah, I find that the 'trap' that keeps people within 90-degree box-rooms is ususally the threat of texture alignment going awry; side of windows or doors 'cutting' part of a texture detail in an obvious way, or not being able to join a room well enough to feasibly contain a grid-aligned teleporter.

There are always tricks around this, and each mapper learns them as they progress; I can remember the joygasm I had way back, when I found I could use 8/16-long lines with SUPPORT3 and a horizontal alignment/offset of 4 to 'connect' seemingly disconnected rooms. Magic.

DIAGONAL 23-LONG LINES WITH NON-ALIGNED SUPPORT 2 OR 3? Witchcraft! Especially since you can mix these with horizontal/vertical 24-long lines, pretty seamlessly.

It's part of the challenge and joy of it all, to me at least.

[Antroid]

Jayextee said:

Yeah, I find that the 'trap' that keeps people within 90-degree box-rooms is ususally the threat of texture alignment going awry

Or, in my case, over-reliance on the fake contrast to make things look better :D That, and I can't completely abandon my vague sense of realism which tells me that most styles of architecture aren't quite shy about their orthogonality.

[cannonball]

The Factory version 4
http://speedy.sh/znVxF/cbfactoryv.4.wad
Played around with the latter section of the map, making the area before the final fight a little more open and less corridor like. I moved the exit to to add a little extra interconnectivity between the indoor and outdoor areas. The final fight is a little harder with the archies behind the cyber which will make killing cybie a little tougher.
Co-op starts added and a few extra monsters here and there.
Edit - At some point I will need to replace the Jimmy placeholder midi with something else. Thinking time

[Tristan]

It was probably very apparent in MAP22, but I love the curve linedef tool. Therefore there were a lot of values I needed to remember for making perfect circles out of standard length lines.

I would set up circular rooms as a diamond first, making sure each diagonal line was the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle of whatever length I was using.

Where H = Hypotenuse, A = Adjacent sides

A = 16, H = 23
A = 32, H = 45
A = 64, H = 91
A = 128, H = 181
A = 256, H = 362 (or something like this)
A = 512, H = 700andsomething
A = 1024, H = 1440 probably

I used to use whatever number of linedefs looked good for each area. The problem with the method opposed to Jayextee's is that there's no way to align the textures perfectly in this circle, unless you break it up into sections.

joe-ilya said:

my map's now "highly substandard" :D

Erm..

[The_MártonJános]

Jayextee said:

DIAGONAL 23-LONG LINES WITH NON-ALIGNED SUPPORT 2 OR 3? Witchcraft!

I usually align them by 1, looks a bit better.

[CorSair]

Map09 Beta 1, please.

I think I am visually ok and limitations seems to be all right so far.

But gameplay is really, really problematic on my part. I think it needs some serious tuning, or better touch by someone else.

Oh yeah, Map10 Beta 4. Just some fine-tuning with limitations. And few decorative things. Nothing big.

[mouldy]

CorSair said:

Map09 Beta 1, please.

I think I am visually ok and limitations seems to be all right so far.

But gameplay is really, really problematic on my part. I think it needs some serious tuning, or better touch by someone else.

Here's a FDA in which I play like a lunatic and die several times before eventually bumbling my way to the exit.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/5dcq6044qob5xag/map09-beta-mouldy.lmp

I like how there is a lot of map to explore and its all pretty much open for business, although I probably shouldn't have left so many things alive... I find that I tend to do that if I am running out of ammo a lot, or I find myself up against big enemies with only the shotgun and chaingun. I did miss a lot of stuff, I had another go afterwards with saves and found the going was a lot more fun when I found a rocket launcher. Still couldn't find SSG though, could have done with that.

The spectres in dark places bugged me, I guess thats the whole point of them. It did feel a bit sparsely populated in places, not sure what you could do about that without filling it with too many monsters though. Maybe having more little stuff to kill, more humans to get ammo from.

The design is great, I like having that circle to run around the whole place. I found the outdoors a bit uniformly bright - I had a little play in doombuilder making the pit a bit darker, here's a before/after where i knocked it down from 192 to 160

Its such a large area that toning the brightness down washes out the colours and seems to help give a sense of distance. It also adds a bit of contrast with the outer walkway and helps hide large featureless areas, but I'm not entirely sure if it makes it better though (and it turns the lava brown which is a shame).

[Antroid]

Sorry I haven't said anything about my progress with map24 lately, I've been sort of busy and will be for a couple of days, but I'm gonna resume working on it during the next week and I hope to finish it, in some fashion, before July 10th. Not sure I'll have a thoroughly tested (balance-wise) version by then, but at least the geography and thing placement and some testing will hopefully be done.

Eris, I wanna ask though (I think I already did, but I don't remember you answering), since we already have a map24, can I afford to actually release mine after the first demo-beta-whatever deadline? Will maps have a chance of inclusion in place of others after it (if they're deemed better, of course), or will all the time between it and the final release be spent on cleaning things up and polishing the existing maps or something?

[CorSair]

mouldy said:

FDA and stuff

I don't know what to say, but that was rather painful to watch, yet entertaining. Don't ask.

About Super Shotgun:
The thing with SSG is, that it is only in Easy difficulty. I think I am gonna open that for all difficulties... Since the pitch favors rather heavy enemies, now as an afterthought.

About those spectres:
I got few times my face bit off by them when I forgot they were there. So I left them there, just for being prick. :P
Although, the eastern part (Armor Hall) spectres needs rethinking.

About low enemy quantity in general area:
I guess I should try teleporting enemies time to time. Just needs careful thinking when they should be brought in.
And those Pain Elementals seem really wreck your day, if left unattended. What I think that I delete cacodemons and maybe add one pain elemental into play for compensation. (Only applies to UV, since PEs are not in easier difficulties.)

About the brightness in central area:
That actually looks quite good. Lava can look bit odd, but what else there is to do? I could do some tricks, but that needs those precious visplanes/drawsegs. I need to bounce brightness levels to see.

Those passage entries, they are rather nasty when cacodemons keeps floating near that edge. I think I need to stretch those walls a bit. Did bit more testing, and I got always some unknown greeting by someone sitting on me. I could do more thought on this...

Anyways, your feedback is more than appreciated.

[Tristan]

Antroid: Hmm. I feel it would be a bit dickish to JL if his map was in the beta and then cut-out of the main WAD afterwards. His map as it is is of a high-enough quality to be in Extra levels, and I'm sure yours will be too.

Actually, I need to post something about that..

Since there will only be a maximum of 3 extra levels, they can simply take up the slots MAP33, MAP34, and MAP35, without causing Vanilla to have a technological breakdown. So..

MAP33: I'd like to see ProcessingControl's MAP06 soon, then we can put the current MAP06 in this. I'm not sure if the current MAP06 should be included in the Beta because it's just too substandard. I feel like a bit of a hardass saying this, but as I learned from Capellan's interview with TTV, that's how things were done in the early days.

MAP34: Spare MAP08 here, either or. Personally I prefer an_mutt's. The current MAP08 isn't terrible though.

MAP35: Spare Chasm, guaranteed to be Antroid's if his attempt is posted after July 10. Don't get me wrong, if MAP04 and 29 are anything to go by, it will be a very good level, but it doesn't seem right to me to change mapspaces about. See CC4 MAP35.

[Antroid]

Oooh alright then I'll hurry up, I don't wanna end up making a good map (if I manage that) only for it to get stuck in the extras. Hopefully I can bring it up to good enough quality to be included in the beta even if I don't totally finalize the thing placement by then.

Although if I remember correctly, DTWiD had a beta with a radically different assortment of maps than the final release, and with custom music that got removed from it too. Hmmm!

Of course, this is all operating on the assumption that my map ends up being better than the one we currently have, which coming from me is totally baseless since I haven't seen that one - I only started map24 initially because someone way back then said that the version of map24 that we had at that time wasn't as good as other maps, and it has been improved since then if I understand correctly...

[Tristan]

Antroid said:

it has been improved since then if I understand correctly...

Very much so. I remember being kinda shocked by the first version, because to me, it was an absolute mess, which, from the same person who had made a pretty decent MAP23 struck me as very odd. Nevertheless, it's been worked on, and it's just as up to scratch as the other maps in the set.

[Babel]

Eris Falling said:
MAP34: Spare MAP08 here, either or. Personally I prefer an_mutt's. The current MAP08 isn't terrible though.

. [/B]

I think the same thing, my vote for an_mutt´s map.
And respect for map09: I think that the map is to hard and confused, i got the yellow and red key with a speed running only.
The map is mostly good, just need an indication for the weapons in the beginning i think

[mouldy]

CorSair said:

I don't know what to say, but that was rather painful to watch

hehe, this was your punishment for using those spectres

[AtTheGates]

mouldy said:

Yeah that left hand route is definitely harder, you think it would have been ok if there was more ammo available? Its possible to go straight to that cyber room without picking up anything on the way, but I wouldn't recommend taking it on without finding more rockets or one of the plasma weapons first, otherwise you can take the invulnerability and press the switch without killing the cyber so you have the ammo to take out the archviles. It's definitely not a friendly map for first timers though..

so, i finally got around to finishing playing through the new version of the map:

maybe i've gotten used to it, but i managed it better this time, i really like the map now. i still had to save a lot though, which is something i usually don't like to do. the more i think about it, i guess it's fine to have a map this hard very late in the megawad. the layout is still complicated though, especially with all the teleporting enemies.

some stuff:

- i never picked up the plasma gun, just the ammo around it - once i had the bfg, i didn't feel like i would need it (why bother walking into the trap with all the cacos) - i guess that's one of the disadvantages that's hard to avoid when designing a non-linear map.

- the ammo is still very tight, but it feels better than before - it might just be for the fact that i know the map a bit better now. can you reliably UV-max it? especially the 3 cybs at the end seemed like they would put a heavy strain on the ammo reserves. i just ignored them and dashed through to the exit.

more people should playtest each other's maps in this thread imo, especially this one - just my single opinion is certainly not enough.

[AtTheGates]

CorSair said:

Map09 Beta 1, please.

I think I am visually ok and limitations seems to be all right so far.

But gameplay is really, really problematic on my part. I think it needs some serious tuning, or better touch by someone else.

Oh yeah, Map10 Beta 4. Just some fine-tuning with limitations. And few decorative things. Nothing big.

yeah, i don't think this is what you had in mind for the map:
[edit: tested on UV with zdoom]


...the player needs some incentive to actually fight. i just ran through with no problems, especially the caco room didn't work out at all - i just grabbed the supercharge and ran.

- another example of pointless rooms is the one with the chainsaw. why bother invest so much ammo to get just the chainsaw? as long as running through and ignoring stuff is encouraged, it's somewhat
pointless.

- never found the rocket launcher or a single one of the 12 (!) secrets (granted, i didn't look very hard since i could run through).

- why is there ammo and health in the final room? i was expecting a fight actually.

- what's this room with the cacos with the "teleporter" for that doesn't work? couldn't figure it out and ignored it.



i guess the fake tunnel could be done in a nicer way - when you play there's just an invisible wall blocking you, and i had to wonder if it was too narrow (buggy) or intended. just raise floor or something so that it looks natural (think e3m2 beginning).


edit: i liked the general layout though - i guess it's a matter of making the player fight / giving the player an incentive to actually explore stuff. various ways to achieve that i guess - make parts of the map blocked off by enemies (so the player needs to look for a weapon / ammo), trap the player, make sure the traps with enemies are close enough to exit areas / the player that he can't just run through, and so on.
also, on the ssg: i don't think it's a lot of fun to fight anything tougher than hell knights with a regular shotgun. it takes too damn long, especially barons.

[Tristan]

MAP09 HOM, near the start


Nice work with the visuals, but I agree with AtTheGates, it's too easy to just run past enemies and forget about them.

[mouldy]

AtTheGates said:

some stuff:

- i never picked up the plasma gun, just the ammo around it - once i had the bfg, i didn't feel like i would need it (why bother walking into the trap with all the cacos) - i guess that's one of the disadvantages that's hard to avoid when designing a non-linear map.

- the ammo is still very tight, but it feels better than before - it might just be for the fact that i know the map a bit better now. can you reliably UV-max it? especially the 3 cybs at the end seemed like they would put a heavy strain on the ammo reserves. i just ignored them and dashed through to the exit.

more people should playtest each other's maps in this thread imo, especially this one - just my single opinion is certainly not enough.

Yeah the plasma gun will be more of a bonus for people taking the right hand route, entirely optional either way around though.

Seems to be enough ammo for everything so long as the archviles don't ressurect too much stuff. Originally it was a lot easier to get the cybers to kill everything, that was part of the plan to help with the ammo, what I might do is replace one with a spider mastermind to see what happens (it will probably get stuck somewhere). I'm not too bothered about people leaving them and rushing to the exit, (I think it might actually possible to run through the whole thing without firing a shot, have to try that out..)

You are right about all the maps needing more playtesting, I'm planning on going through them all again at some point. I play with saves myself, espeically on an unfamiliar map, and a lot of these maps I would find impossible without saves on a first run (and some of them even if I knew them well) so I'm assuming people here just like hard maps and saving...

[CorSair]

Eris Falling said:

MAP09 HOM, near the start

... That was supposed to be mudfall texture. If you see more of HOMs, connected with brown slime in upper portion, consider that mudfall texture.

@AtTheGates

By in order of your post:

- Room with blue key; I originally thought some arena fight with cacos/PEs/souls, but then it struct the thought "What if the pistol starting player doesn't have good weapons?", so I decided to easy that bit. It seems it became too easy, now when you chimed in + mouldy's FDA.
I don't want feed players too much BS, but I guess I should try what I had in mind first time...

- Hmm. Greater risk, greater reward... I think item swap could do wonders. Would SSG sound better reward? (The one is currently only in easy.)

- 12 secrets; that was supposed to be 4, I did another check earlier in the morning, it seems I designated that one building earlier, forgot it was a secret, and then decided to do minimal detailing. You know how that adds the secret count. :P

Also, one rocket launcher is secret, second is free for grabs. It was in southwestern portion, behind grated section (dubbed as Armory.)

- That is for those who are not going through pistol start. I decided to be bit kind on that matter.

- Excuse me? Those look mancubi for me... ;)
Anyways, what you see is small gimmick of the level. It is related on yellow key and the difficulties. If none minds this kind of randomization...

Spoiler

There is supposed to be yellow key on Easy difficulty. On northwest part, supposed to be in Medium, in the office part.

- Once I saw mouldy trying into that passage too, I instantly blocked that bit more creatively.

I thought of doing that bit more free for monsters to roam about the map and maybe do some nasty surprises, but doesn't seem to pay off well.

At least I am happy to know that visual part is somewhat all right. Only thing I need to figure out is to do decent gameplay...

Anyway, thanks for the input.

[mouldy]

Here's an update of map 28:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/syl8cevs32o9m9g/spirit3-map28.zip

Made some bits slightly less harsh (hopefully) removed slime trails (hopefully), added multiplayer starts, cleaned up automap. May as well call this done, though I'm still open to any feedback of course.

[Babel]

Jesus! only 8 days left and i feel like i have a lot of work to do, maybe i must resume the map. But first, i have a question
After the beta is possible change something of the map?

[Tristan]

Joseph Lord said:

After the beta is possible change something of the map?

Of course :)
The reason for the "finish your map" deadline is so there's less work to do between the Beta and the final release, and also it would be cool if we could get as many finished maps as possible in. 28 certainly isn't bad going.

Really, I'm just waiting on MAP27 and ProcessingControl's MAP06. I'm assuming an_mutt made the favoured MAP08, so that's more likely to take the slot.

[CorSair]

Map 09 Beta 2

Changes:
Monster count increased
New traps and slight improvements
Still found slime trails (or bleeding)
Few issues mentioned/shown by AtTheGates and mouldy.


Still not perfect, in my opinion. But I don't have time at the moment.

[mouldy]

CorSair said:

Map 09 Beta 2

Changes:
Monster count increased
New traps and slight improvements
Still found slime trails (or bleeding)
Few issues mentioned/shown by AtTheGates and mouldy.


Still not perfect, in my opinion. But I don't have time at the moment.

Just had a go, I think its a good improvement myself. Definitely better with the SSG, I think its also one of those maps which improves as you get to know it. Interesting monster blocking going on outside the tunnels, I thought it was a bit weird at first but guess it stops people just running in and out. I have to say though, this map made me pretty sick of pain elementals. I started with 268 monsters and by the final room it was 385, all those extra being lost souls. See what other people think about that.

I'm not a fan of the damaging floor in the blue key room, it kind of punishes you for staying in there to fight - I found myself going back out the door and just holding off cacos with chaingun until the walls lowered. The fight in that room is quite interesting with a rocket launcher, so would be nice to reward people for sticking it out somehow (or force them to! though I would find it a bit too much without rocket launcher or plasma rifle).

The final skirmish made me chuckle, very chaotic - though I didn't stay to kill stuff as I was running low on ammo by then. I like the extra ammo you have dotted around (could maybe have dead players nearby for decoration).

Good stuff