Matthias Worch's Level Design Retrospective

[jmickle66666666]

Matthias Worch (one of the level designers behind Memento Mori 2 and Requiem), now an accomplished level and game designer, has recently started streaming a series of level design retrospective videos. These videos are a look back over his beginnings of level design, starting with the Doom levels he made, through Quake and many more. If you missed the first stream, he was kind enough to upload it to YouTube, and his future videos can be found on his channel as he uploads them. I'm sure some of our more seasoned veterans of the Doom community can tell you more than I can about Matthias, but he has written a good roundup of his Doom experience on his website.

[Memfis]

Sounds intriguing! I'm not sure if I'll be able to sit through all 2 hours of it but it will be worth a shot.

[Dave The Daring]

I watched this stream as well. Well worth it if you're interested in game play and level design.

[Badboy]

this was entertaining, had fun to watch it. i like if people talk about doom/quake games today.

downside. bad video quality. as a doom player today i didnt learn much - but it wasnt meant as a teaching lesson i guess.

[scifista42]

I'm having problems installing and running THE TROOPERS' PLAYGROUND (the wad featured in the video) in a sourceport. I've ran the .bat installer and got the maps, but the DEHACKED didn't take effect, not even after I had manually added it inside the wad and rewritten patch format (though I'm not sure if correctly). What's the right way?

[Badboy]

written here

http://onemandoom.blogspot.de/2011/07/troopers-playground-ttpwad.html

[joepallai]

about an hour into this so far and it's fascinating.

[scifista42]

Badboy said:

written here

http://onemandoom.blogspot.de/2011/07/troopers-playground-ttpwad.html

Kmxexii's guide didn't help me, as I wanted to make the wad normally playable in source ports. But I've eventually figured how to do it on my own. Pay attention:

1. Unpack the contents of ttp103.zip into a folder.
2. Place Doom2.wad in the same folder.
3. Run TTP.bat.
4. Open TTP.wad in SLADE3.
5. Import TTP.deh as a new lump, name it "DEHACKED".
6. View this DEHACKED in text mode.
7. Rewrite the first line to "Patch File for DeHackEd v3.0"
8. Rewrite "Patch Format = 5" to "Patch Format = 6"
9. Place an empty SS_START lump before SSWVA1 (before the first sprite lump). Yes, SS_START with 2 S.
10. Place an empty S_END lump after SPIDO0 (after the last sprite lump). Yes, S_END with 1 S.
11. Similarly, place FF_START and F_END markers around the graphics with (Flat) attribute. Then you can delete the F_END and S_END markers at the end of the wad. This entire step (11.) doesn't seem to be mandatory, though, it only seems cleaner to me.
12. Run TTP.wad and have fun, it should be working in source ports that support custom sprites.

[Vermil]

It was a Dehacked patch made using 2.3, which as is my understanding, no Doom port supports; all ports only support version 3.

Luckily, the syntax for the stuff that particular Dehacked patch changed, doesn't appear to have changed between 2.3 and 3.0 (obviously I haven't looked through it in great detail, so don't quote me).

[vdgg]

Confession time.

My oh-so-original (I thought so) "door which opens everything but the door itself" motif from xplanada.wad was used in TTP MAP03. The broken-and-repaired staircase was used in TTP MAP08. I had played TTP years ago, but does it mean these motifs stayed unconsciously in my mind?

I always had Matthias in high regard, though I slightly preferred Denis Moeller's maps. Some of his thoughts in the videos were cool to hear, in a sense "it's controversial, but you're probably right". I'll also nitpick and mention one thing in which he must have always been wrong: that notion of putting Barons on skill 4 and Hell Knights in the same place on lower skill levels.