DWBS

[Linguica]

I've gotten 3 or 4 quite nice entries so far in the 10 Sectors contest, with one in particular standing out that didn't even bother to use all 10 sectors allowed (!). One thing I have noticed is that no one so far appears to be using any of the Boom-specific effects and triggers. Hopefully this will change as the contest goes on, but just be aware that you can use more than just the standard doom2.exe stuff. Deep water? Conveyors? Instant teleports? We'll see, I guess.

[Afterglow]

The dummy sector for deep water cuts your sector count down to 9, tithead.

[Vorpal]

tithead, that's a new one!!

[Linguica]

What, so 9 sectors isn't enough for you? I GUESS YOU'RE JUST STUPID THEN!!!!!!!!!

[Tawney]

Please tell me a convenient way of using instant teleporters with only ten sectors. That's one of the benefits of unlimited sectors and visplanes ya know:P

[stphrz]

Man, I must say I'm sure having trouble with this... I've tried two different types of maps. One with half-assed lighting, one with more height variation. The one with the lighting looks ok, but it's flat :(. The one with more height variation has more potential for playability but looks like utter shite. Bah! I'm just hoping I can make a map that's good enough to be in the megawad :P

[TheProphet]

Yes, it's difficult to make a good, big, nice looking level with only 10 sectors. To solve this problem you could start by FIRST thinking how you do and THEN start editing. I did so and got an interesting idea that basically has to do with the BOOM linedefs.

Hint:
I already have indoor and outdoor areas, lava pits, monster teleporters and other traps, doors (3) and platforms (2). There is a lot of height variation AND detailed lighting. And currently I have still one sector left. This is all I need to make another room with a big staircase and a floor texture I haven't used before, and it doesn't matter which floor/ceiling heights the other 9 sectors have...

Got it?

[NiGHTMARE]

Are we allowed to re-use old levels of ours? I got stuck with the map I was working on and decided to "downgrade" a map I released a while ago.

It takes about 5:15 to complete, and I've now just got to remove two more sectors and it'll be finished... But deciding which two is gonna be difficult :(

[NiGHTMARE]

I just had a brainwave, now I know which two sectors to get rid of. Should finished within a few minutes :)

[Guest Anonymous User]

Hey, I've got a great idea for a contest after this one. The way it works is, a group of people start working on a DOOM project, say a TC or megawad or something, and every so often, one person gets voted out of the project, until one person is left working on the project, and if that person finishes it, he wins. Dang it, my username still won't show up.

[NiGHTMARE]

I just found out something I never knew about Doom. It seems that when you pick up a keycard, monsters behind the corresponding door that are active can open it.

I thought it might be a ZDoom only thing, but no, it happened in both Legacy and the original .exe.

I'm not sure, but it might only be certain monsters. In this case it was Barons. Has anyone else noticed this?

BTW, the level is finished now, I'm just about to send it off...

[fraggle]

3 key doors are useful too. i've used the translucent linedef effect as well. I am also using a form of "deep water effect" but i do it with texture bleeding rather than using the proper boom system because I dont have the sectors to spare

[Guest Anonymous User]

Hmm... I'm no so confident about my level anymore based on what you just said about yours. Um.. no, I don't got it. How are you going to make a staircase? and a big one at that? staircases use lots of sectors...

[Guest Fingers]

I don't really like the idea of allowing special FX that are specific to Boom, while prohibiting all the other ports' added features. I'd much rather limit it to standard Doom2 feature set, for two reasons:

1. Not to give an unfair advantage to people who are familiar with Boom (and editors that support it). After all this isn't a Boom promotion contest, is it?
2. To make it possible to run the contest entries in virtually any other Doom port, Since they all support standard Doom2 features.

There definitely exist certain things in Boom that will give one an advantage when working with limited number of sectors... E.g. teleporter linedefs that don't require extra sectors. That's kind of a cheat in a contest like this :P

[NiGHTMARE]

Yes, but Boom features work in pretty much all ports except EDGE.

Making it work with the standard .exe would suck, I'm sure a lot of us don't have to bother with HOM from too many sidedefs and stuff.

[Guest Fingers]

It IS a contest about making an economical level... If you manage to hit visplane and 2-sided linedef limits with 10 sectors, there's something very wrong with the level or yourself :> The best levels I've seen in Doom2 were made for the standard game.. And they don't suck.

[aurikan]

limiting the contest to doom2.exe rather than boom?

boom's additions are standard and well documented. anybody familiar with doom editing can just read boomref.txt and be up to speed -- as much as someone unfamiliar with doom2 editing could read the unofficial doom specs and be up to speed.

just because it uses boom doesn't necessarily mean it is a promo for it.

using special effects to save sectors isn't necessarily a cheat - in fact, isn't that part of the challenge here? scrimp and save sectors any way you can without sacrificing playability?

[NiGHTMARE]

We're forced to cut out a lot of detail due to sector limits already, being forced to cut out even more detail due to sidedef limits would be even worse.

[Guest Fingers]

So, what's all this about then:

"Ever since 1993, Doom level editing has become more and more of a refined art. As the year passed and as level editors became more sophisticated, suddenly the levels which had once looked good, were woefully underdetailed and sometimes downright ugly. After the release of Doom's source code, and the subsequent removal of all sorts of limits, level editors were free to create giant, complex levels which would never have been possible under the original executable. The times when square rooms and sparse decoration were acceptable have come and gone.

Well, it's time to return to the good old days. The contest is simple:

Make a single-player Doom 2 level using no more than ten sectors.

That's it. Well, there are a few more rules, but I'll list those later. Just make a single-player Doom 2 map with no more than 10 sectors, and send it in (zipped) to Linguica."

When I read this blurb, I thought the contest was about making a Doom2 level with 10 sectors. I find it unbelievable that it could be a contest about pushing the limits and making stuff that you couldn't do in Doom2. I may be wrong, but to me the spirit of this contest seemed very much to be in opposition to using the latest&greatest doom ports in order to make fancy non-doom2 stuff possible. I'm kind of disappointed to find this isn't so.

It seemed so interesting for a while :P

[Linguica]

So now Matt Dixon and Iikka Keränen have expresed their disapproval at using Boom instead of doom2.exe. I was vacillating between doom2.exe and Boom, but I finally decided upon the latter for the following reasons:

* doom2.exe had lots of "undocumented features" which were good, and lots which were bad. People were able to find lots of exploits to create pseudo effects -- things from UAC_DEAD's crystal sectors to Iikka's multiple 3D bridges, etc etc. However, it also has visplane overflows, HOMs, Medusas, slime trails, 64-sprite limits, savegame overflows, etc etc.

* The majority of source ports have Boom compatibility. That includes MBF, SMMU, LxDoom, ZDoom, PRBoom, ZDoomGL, csDoom, xDoom, and Doom Legacy (mostly). Of the popular ports, only EDGE and JDoom don't offer Boom compatibility, and that's something which I am willing to overlook for this contest. There are Boom-compatible ports for use in DOS, Win32, and *nix, which together make up the vast vast majority of Doomworld visitors and Doom players.

* John Carmack has said to me in an email before that Boom is, in his opinion, the worthy and natural succession to doom2.exe. I remember when he was toying with the idea of a WebTV version of Doom, he told me that it would be based off the Boom codebase. He said "no point in using an older and buggier codebase," or something to that effect. That's sort of my philosophy here. We have Boom, which is pseudo-endorsed by id Software, and which preserves all the *good* bugs in the Doom engine, and removes all of the *bad* ones. If there was a doom2.exe version 2.0, it would almost certainly be Boom.

* Boom was released well over two years ago. Anyone with even a passing interest in Doom editing since April 1998 has probably looked at or toyed with Boom and its feature set to some degree, and if not, there are plenty of tutorials and editors (such as DETH) with the Boom feature set fully integrated. Hell, Doomworld has Boom editing tutorials. It's not hard to learn how to do what you want to do.

* There is nothing saying that the winning WAD will use any Boom-specific features. In fact, I seriously doubt that the winning WAD will use many, if any, Boom-specific features. With 10 sectors, what can you do? Has anyone ever found a good use for push/pull points? Do you expect someone to make a level out of conveyor belts and ice/sludge? I expect to see a level or two with some deep water, and some will probably use a conveyor/silent teleport combo, but that will most likely be the extent of it. In fact, all the good levels I have thus far received would probably work perfectly in doom2.exe although I haven't actually tested them to verify it.

* There will be a few people who will be upset that I have chosen Boom compatibility rather than doom2.exe compatibility, but there are probably a lot more who are glad I decided as such. Since this is a contest for the community, that's really the big thing anyway.

[NiGHTMARE]

Just remember that anyone who wants to make their level 100% compatible with the original .exe can.

In fact, after all I've said, my level seems to run okay with doom2.exe anyway :)

[Afterglow]

I'm not making a level either.

[Linguica]

Afterglow, you're not entering because you couldn't make a level in 10 sectors if your life depended on it :P

[Jon]

I think it should be pure doom2, but then again I think that conjoined/'merged' sectors should be illegal too :)

[TheProphet]

Hey, guys, what's happening here? Why do you give up? It's a fair contest: Everybody has the same chances.

I don't use 3D effects or BOOM water or such things. All I was talking about were BOOM's generic linedefs. My map is more old-style then Darkening 2! Use your imagination!

Anonymous user: Of course, a staircase cannot have more than about 8 steps in this contest. The idea is very simple: The player will be in a room where he cannot see the part of the level he came from, so he doesn't care what happens to that part. This gives gives me the freedom to change all sector heights and textures. It's really simple:

To all sectors I want to make part of the staircase, I apply
"W1 Lower Floor to Lowest Neighbouring Floor, Change Texture and Type"
(I will set the direction to "Up" so I get instant motion!)

Then:
W1 Raise staircase

It's as simple as that. That's the whole trick I meant. It's a matter of creativity: If a player can't see some part of the map, he doesn't care what happens to it. I am pretty sure, that using this trick many of you can make a better 10 sectors map than me.

... okay, I lied; nobody can do a better map than me :-)

[TheProphet]

Okay, the thing with the staircase is not that simple. But it is possible, just a bit more tricky.

[Guest Ike654]

I say those who use Boom, go ahead. I'm not going to. I'm not too keen on Boom editing anyways. Took me a year to figure out deep water! And it doesn't work most of the time still!

What I think is that to make up for the detail, you'll have to use lots of things instead of linedefs. Make a teleporter and signify it with tech-columns or torches.

And one question: Do these need to be Co-op/DM compatabel?

[Guest Anonymous User]

I don't know about you, but I'm anxiously awaiting the end of the contest, just so I can play the megawad and see what other people came up with! That's practically the best part. Oh, and I want that voodoo card, of course.

[fen boi]

Boom allows you to create a level without worrying about Doom2.exe's limits, making a complex area in doom can be a nightmare because of hom, this would really limit what you could produce in such a short while.

Boom special effects are nice to have, but theres plenty of great levels that dont use or need them

[Guest Anonymous User]

Ah, I see now. Very creative. I am using the same principle where you can't see the rest of the map so it doesn't matter what you do with the sectors - but I never thought of doing a staircase like that - I guess you'd have to do it at the end of the level? because it would be rather hard to get the sectors back to how they were originally. The chagne txt/type gives me a great idea to essentially make two sectors from one... but I don't have the level of confidence you do to share that little secret and not expect someone else to do something more creative with it than me..., I'm sure you can think of it, though - not much different then what you're doing with it, really, just a different implementation.

-- Hellbent.