Ultimate Doom “In Name Only” - [Limit Removing] - Artist for titlepic/M-Doom etc needed

[Steve D]

Thanks, Magnus. My vote goes with limit-removing. The time I spent in CRL trying to find and kill HOMs in my E4M2 map -- and the E1M2 map -- was pretty significant, and it's not like that map is some kind of detail-heavy monster.

When I start a map, I don't think, "I can do all kinds of stuff I couldn't do in vanilla, so I'll put a squillion sectors in here." Nope, I just don't worry about that stuff at all and will simply do what I want to do. Back in the '90s, I had to work in vanilla, but I also was able to view the maps fullscreen at a higher rez than CRL, which is a pixellated mess. So in the PreCambrian days, if an HOM showed-up it was more easily found and dealt with.

Wasn't there supposed to be some port that observed 'nilla limits but let you play in hi-rez? That would be a godsend for this project. ;)

[Steve D]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

OKay, UDoom TWGRBWD. Better?

Yes, perfect! :)

[Steve D]

tourniquet said:

I can fully comprehend you Steve, being restricted to vanilla limits is pretty tricky in context with this project.
Nonetheless i think i would be kinda unfair towards those few who allready managed to create a solid interpretation of the map name.

I see your point, but you never know, some of those mappers might say, "Thank God! Now I can finally make this map what I really wanted it to be." ;)

[mouldy]

heh, the rumblings of a revolution going on here. Personally I don't care whether its vanilla or not, but I reckon its perfectly possible to make these maps within those limits while making them playable and looking like what they are meant to be.

[Jaws In Space]

SteveD said:

My vote goes with limit-removing.

I think the decision ultimately comes down to what cannonball want's to do. I personally will be doing my map in vanilla compatibility whether the limitation is removed of not.

[Capellan]

Magnusblitz said:
I really do think that every map that gets submitted should require the author to post a decently-sized explanation on what they understand the map name to mean ("A 'Warrens' is...") and then explain how their map fits that name.

Regardless of the decision you guys make about compatibility requirements, IMO you should definitely be doing this.

[Walter confetti]

After ages, i finally finished my map for this project!

House of Pain, still in alpha version, no skill implemented for monsters, but here it is. Works for chocorenderlimits, so i think it could works for vanilla doom too (tested now)...

As always, feedback is highly appreciated!

[Steve D]

Yes, mouldy, it's mutiny! ;D

Consider this; on my rejected E1M2 map, because it was "too big" and "too hard" for the slot -- as if! ;D -- my original version of the ginormous secret room, which currently has slots for Tekwal4 inserts across a lake of water and nukage, was originally a bunch of slots showing the sky. The stream of nukage going through the water was also curved and as naturalistic-looking as I could make it.

And it didn't fly in CRL.

Guess how long it took to fix that?

3 days.

And then there was all the problems in the Dynamo Room.

Funny thing, though, I prefer the look of the Tekwal4 inserts to the original sky, mainly because I really don't like the E1 sky since it looks like a few piles of grey dog-poo. :D

So I've managed to spew a lot of words without making any point at all . . . ;)

[Demon of the Well]

Perhaps not my place to say, but Steve's comment about his map (which I've played) being adjudged too large/difficult to be in the E1M2 slot suggests a different but similar issue to the question of engine limits. Following up on the idea that a given map for the project resembling/fulfilling the mapname is supposed to unquestionably be the primary goal of the project, by trying to enforce a 'traditional' or 'classic' trajectory of size/monster density/encounter tropes (and thus indirectly difficulty, perhaps) on these maps, you may well be hamstringing the maps' facility for robust/playable representationalism in design in a whole different way, especially in the earlier episodes where the mapnames tend to be a lot more starkly literal.

[cannonball]

I guess we could switch to limit removing, that said I will give both sides a day or so to come up with further arguments for/against. Democracy at work :)

A little more playtesting
E4M1: Hell Beneath - _bruce_
I actually like this map a lot, but obviously doesn't fit with the title, that said I don't think it would be that hard to fix. A suggestion would be to move the start to some kind of outdoor areas which drops into the current start position and have the rest of the map as a subterranean setting (replace the sky with rocky textures and add some depth to this. Of course seeing the end product would sway whether it works or not, I do think it is possible though.
Gameplay is fine, that said it is hard to judge given the high degree of BS the original E4M1 of thy flesh consumed has.

[tourniquet]

Pro LR: Allows the development of more abstracted stuff which is at least for the E4 maps very helpful.

Contra LR: Folks are able to create way bigger maps which eventually end up as long and sluggish as some of D2INO maps (perhaps some sort of rule to not exaggerate in terms of mapsize could prevent that)

[cannonball]

E3M4: House of Pain - Walter Confalonieri
I think visually this hits the spot for me, it certainly gives the impression of a house so on that front it succeeds.
I do think you need to up the level of pain for this map. I would suggest trying to make more difficult encounters, and maybe some environmental hazards such as more damaging floors and maybe some crushers within the house which can be triggered as booby traps.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to avoid the huge numbers of bloated maps that we had in D2INO anyway so Steve still would have been redoing his E1M2 submission anyway. Also the current E3M5 is too big and bloated too.

I have a good idea for E4M5 btw, it has been done before (in fact it was used in one of the maps from a wad which the DWMC will be playing next month). It fits the name nicely I think.

[elic]

I spent a lot of time making E1M1 vanilla compatible. Won't be very happy if it turns out it was all for naught.

[elic]

Actually, it doesn't really matter because the map isn't very good anyways (especially compared to D2INO Map01, which I consider my most successful map), and probably shouldn't end up in the final project.

[scifista42]

Processingcontrol said:

I spent a lot of time making E1M1 vanilla compatible. Won't be very happy if it turns out it was all for naught.

Omitting the map from the project doesn't erase it from the world, you can do whatever you want with it. I have to agree with others that it's not enough suitable representation of a Hangar for this particular project with its goal as it stands.

[tourniquet]

Jaws In Space said:

This map does not represent Hanger at all & we should really stop putting off with dealing with the issue.

I don't really think that the map that can be turned into a map that represent Hanger without essentially starting over from scratch. So we could ask ProcessingControl to either try again or we could keep the map in & move it to say the E3M6 & have it reworked a bit as it kinda already feels like a mountain.

I'm just quoting something Jaws posted sometime ago, because i actually think it would make sense to rework E1M1 into E3M6.

[Steve D]

cannonball said:

I want to avoid the huge numbers of bloated maps that we had in D2INO anyway so Steve still would have been redoing his E1M2 submission anyway.

And I should state once again that I'm not at all unhappy about the map being bounced. When I mentioned the "too big, too difficult" issue I was thinking mostly about scifista's reaction, where he went into a couple rooms, saw they were large, and seemed to almost bust a gut at the sheer inappropriateness of it. ;D But it's true that I'm on the record as feeling that there's no reason any map in a PWAD has to be small or easy just because it was like that in the IWAD. I'm completely in favor of a PWAD blasting out large maps with gameplay at wide-open-throttle from beginning to end, but I also recognize that I can set the rules any way I want . . . in my mapsets. ;) So I was happy to have ended up doing a nice map for my upcoming E2 project. ;)

I'm also happy that mouldy saved my ass for E1M2. Of course, I have yet to actually demonstrate that my ass has been saved, but I gotta tell ya, I really didn't have the faintest idea what I was going to do. :D

I reckon my E4M2 is next on cannonball's playtest parade. I won't cry if that one is bounced, either, since as scifista noted, just because a map is rejected doesn't mean it disappears from the face of the earth. I was, for example, overjoyed that my Graytall map was bounced because, even though it played well, it really looked like a fuckin' baboon's ass compared to the Dobu and Ribbiks and mouldy maps, so now I get to develop it with cc4-tex as an Amiga Demo Party map. Major win for me.

As to Perfect Hatred, that was in itself yanked out of my own E4 project simply because the original version was 'nilla compatible. I have since made the gameplay perhaps obnoxiously hard, and also pushed the 'nilla limits to the max, but there's things I can do with limits removed and gameplay can always be adjusted if it's deemed too brutal and potentially unfun. But if it's rejected, my E4 project is 1 map closer to completion.

One thing -- I have toxic blood in the map and I personally object to toxic blood. I'd love it if we agreed that blood should be non-toxic in this megawad.

[Walter confetti]

cannonball said:

E3M4: House of Pain - Walter Confalonieri
I think visually this hits the spot for me, it certainly gives the impression of a house so on that front it succeeds.
I do think you need to up the level of pain for this map. I would suggest trying to make more difficult encounters, and maybe some environmental hazards such as more damaging floors and maybe some crushers within the house which can be triggered as booby traps.

Ok, i'll see to do that...

[jmickle66666666]

Magnusblitz said:

(reject almost all the maps, and allow the 2-3 good ones to be resubmitted)

wow

[cannonball]

E4M2: Perfect Hatred - SteveD
I can only blame myself for this :P
Well this was a bastard of a map with many many deaths.
So I like the visuals and for the most part the gameplay.
A couple of suggestions;
I the southern section of the map, I think some more rockets would be nice to have to clear the cacodemons more quickly.
The cyber ambush I think is a little overkill, the telefrag is too risky I think to reliably perform so maybe removing the cyber from that position and leaving the other two might be a good idea, some extra monsters could be used to counter any ease in difficulty though.

I like it

E4M3: Sever the Wicked - sincity
I really didn't like this one, sorry.
For a map with such a large monster counter, the difficulty is actually really easy once you get enough supplies together. The monsters are pretty much front loaded to receive the tonnes of plasma and rockets you collect on this journey.
This feels very much like something I would have made back in 2012, very Concerned like in layout which I can only look back and cringe myself. The visuals whilst packed in detail, I preferred the more basic ones in Steve's map as they seem more natural and realistic, whilst here it feels very forced.
Given the release date for this I guess this is an early effort from a mapper learning their trade. At this point I would suggest that instead of trying to fix this, maybe trying to build a new map using the experience you have gained over the past few months would be a more worthy use of your time.
The last two things of course are that if we were to keep this set as vanilla limited then this would be rejected for breaking the engine, also I am struggling to see relevance to the maps name in this map as well.

[CorSair]

New version of E3M5.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l8zbjj6cbvx84tn/e3m5_B2.wad?dl=0

[Jaws In Space]

Everyone - "hey corsair your map is to big"

Corsair proceeds to make a new map as big as the last one.

[tourniquet]

Oh well here's my attempt for 'Unruly Evil', no skill settings implemented and there still a few more things i need to rework but before i continue i would like to know if it makes sense at all.
The maps Vanilla compatible, i just need to double check for potential MaxSprite overflows.

My interpretation of Unruly is smallish map with high enemy density. A system of auomated lifts allows the enemies to chase you throughout the whole map even up to the exit. Once the map unfolds his whole madness things get pretty crazy (at leat as far as it's possible within the static limits).

Map requires the UDINO liquids resource.

[Jaws In Space]

I liked the map tourniquet, as far as I'm concerned it fits the map name, though you could really have done anything here & I would have said sure that looks like Unruly Evil. The map play well, it was pretty easy at first & I was thinking it doesn't feel right for E4, but then things happened & I died a lot, Good stuff.

[tourniquet]

Cheers for playin Jaws, i hope others will have the same opinion concerning that the map fit's the title, we'll see.

Damn corsair your map is a monster, very beautiful layout and apparently it's vanilla compatible, gonna give it a try now.

Edit: @Corsair FDA Well i guess in your case it actually makes sense to have such a humongous map, a cathedral is in fact a colossal building. Unfortunately is the size of the map simultaneously the biggest flaw since the area is so spacious that you would possibly need to triple the amount of enemies to make it somewhat challenging.
The final fight IMO also needs to be spiced up, atm it's just circle strafing around a bunch of Barons. Not sure what could be done to make gameplay more interesting but to bring some Cyb's into play would be a good start.

[CorSair]

Jaws In Space said:

Everyone - "hey corsair your map is to big"

Corsair proceeds to make a new map as big as the last one.

Oh come on, it's cathedral, shouldn't that evoke sense of greatness? And map is more straightforward than previous one.

;_;

[tourniquet]

^ I agree on that one, a cathedral is a paragon for greatness. ^^ more thoughts above

[General Rainbow Bacon]

^^Agreed. In fact, it might not be big enough.

[Magnusblitz]

E3M5 "Unholy Cathedral" by Corsair: it's very large, not in gameplay sense but in scale sense, which makes sense since... well, cathedrals are huge. I really like the opening room, too, looks great. Unfortunately, I agree with tourniquet in that this makes the gameplay suffer, since it's basically a collection of super-huge rooms in which the monsters don't really pose any threat. I wouldn't want to see it become a slaughtermap, mind, but I'm also not sure how else to improve the gameplay with this layout.

Maybe shrink down the level somewhat... can still keep the sense of space (especially by keeping the vertical space high) without needing to be as spacious horizontal-wise.

E4M4 "Unruly Evil" by tourniquet: I think the idea fits the map name ("Unruly Evil" can fit a lot of ideas, but the concept of having a lot of monsters in a small space, able to follow around the whole level, fits "unruly" to me), and it's refreshing to see an original aesthetic and not something slavishly E4. I'll have to try it without god mode and see if I can beat it. ;)

[mouldy]

CorSair said:

New version of E3M5.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l8zbjj6cbvx84tn/e3m5_B2.wad?dl=0

Thats some epic scale. I think the map might have some gameplay problems. its visually striking, but the enormous space isn't really used much for the fighting, in fact i found it discouraged me from sticking around to kill stuff, whereupon I found it quite easy to just ignore most of the monsters and carve a path to the final room, where its simply a case of dodging the barons until the exit becomes available. I like the idea of the rocket launcher and plasma gun pits, but if you are playing continuously there is no incentive to even go there.

In fact on my second go I recorded a demo in which I pretty much just run to the exit
http://www.mediafire.com/download/f1l32r9jkoql6fk/mega-mouldy.lmp
It definitely looks like an unholy cathedral, but there isn't much going on inside.

Going to have a go at tourniquet's map in a bit