How far can one go before it's considered plagiarism?

[SavageCorona]

Probably belongs in blogs but it's WAD related so whatever I guess

After a very very long time in a depression fueled cage with not a single drop of creativity in my bones, I've decided to come back to mapping after the rather travestic release in the ASS project in November.

I'd had this map in a backlog for even longer since before then, and I came back to find that in my lack of creativity, I'd ended up roughly copying the basic layout of Mirage from Counter Strike in a section of the map, albeit with my own additions and adding in Doom functionality. Since I've come back to it looking at it from an objective point of view of someone who hasn't worked on this map in so long it's just become "a map", I don't feel comfortable working on this map any more because a segment of it is just copied.

I get that there's the whole "fair use" argument in that it's transformative but at the same time it's roughly the same layout so it's not really releasable in my opinion. Whether or not people will notice it's from a different game is a different argument and not really related. In the same breath, there are people who deliberately copy other maps from other games as a form of porting the game into the Doom engine with no malicious plagiaristic intentions.

On one hand it's disappointing because I spent hours building this map but on the other hand, it'd probably be considered plagiarism by the majority of people who know where it's from.

Maybe it's just anxiety kicking off and nobody would really care that it's a similar layout but it feels lazy and crooked carrying on this map even if Valve say you can do what you want with their content.

[Fuzzball]

Nothing wrong with a remake really so long as it's not just an exact "rip" par say- like taking the data and plopping it in without change. If you've been inspired and it's helped to kick-start then I say for go it...~

[SavageCorona]

I wouldn't say it's a direct rip, but the layout is along the same lines. I do like Counter Strike's map layouts where they're built in a 4 leaf clover style where there are 4 main segments joined up in between in certain ways. It's somewhat similar to how good Doom maps are built in an interconnected spiral.

[AnonimVio]

As long as you say it's "inspired", "a reference" or "a joke", it's fine.

[SavageCorona]

Having played a ton of CS, the map designs have inspired me so I guess that counts?

[TheNerdTurtle2]

I'm not gonna pretend that some of my maps aren't inspired from other games like quake and quake 2

[Fonze]

Ah I miss CS... in a way, I'm surprised nobody ever made the famous maps for Doom. I wouldn't mind getting a few frags on militia, aztec, dust, rat, office, and the other good ones. Matter of fact, I had a dream of playing Doom in the one with the big warehouse building with the outside area looking like concrete buildings, and you could get on top of the warehouse and into the vents. Totally forget the name, though, but it seemed fun with Doom in my dream, heh. Might have to be specifically for LMS games, but CS did have a few really good layouts for its MP gameplay.

[kuchitsu]

SavageCorona said:

Maybe it's just anxiety kicking off and nobody would really care

this

Have fun and be proud of what you're doing. You gotta love yourself, not worry about silly things.

Also many mappers already did such remakes (TimeOfDeath, burabojunior, Nathan Lineback, BeeWen, etc) and noone complained.

[SavageCorona]

That's put my nerves at rest I think. I'll carry on with the map even if it's not the most fantastical one ever.

Fonze said:

Ah I miss CS... in a way, I'm surprised nobody ever made the famous maps for Doom.

There was a CS mod for Skulltag many many years ago but it's probably lost to the decay of time. I remember it had Assault on it and some weird player scaling and that's all. Speaking of which, Assault is the map with the warehouse and the vents.

[Fonze]

Nice, ty. I'd love to see that wad if anyone randomly has it on their hard drive.

I'll be looking forward to playing this whenever you put it out. (Bonus points if it's a DM map)

[dobu gabu maru]

SavageCorona said:

I'd ended up roughly copying the basic layout of Mirage from Counter Strike in a section of the map, albeit with my own additions and adding in Doom functionality.

Doesn't sound bad. Plagiarism is usually stuff that's copied wholesale, and even then if you're just replicating the layout in the Doom engine it's more of an homage than something that's "stolen". As long as you're not copy & pasting other Doom authors' works you can make whatever you want.

[MSPaintR0cks]

Being inspired and kind of copying other peoples stuff is pretty much part of creating something new.
Just think of artists and musicans who are inspired by other artists and implement their styles in their own work, which in the end leads to something completely new, artistically.

Copying stuff is not bad at all, as long as you add your own stuff. :D

[purist]

Be honest in the release text file about what is inspired, straight copied and your own work and I don't think anyone can reasonably complain.

[SavageCorona]

Fonze said:

I'll be looking forward to playing this whenever you put it out. (Bonus points if it's a DM map)

Nah it's just a single player map for funsies. I teased screenshots last year in the Doom pictures thread with those Quake looking pictures.

[Splatter]

There's a degree of subjectivity. One of the only universal standards is that you've gone too far when American McGee tells you to go make some of your own geometry.