Odamex "Team" wad help

[Marcaek]

I struggle to think of a WAD where 255 players would work, even once you get past the technical problems. It would just be a clusterfuck or a massive arena but past a certain threshold playercounts don't actually add to the enjoyment of DM (unless you got russain overkill style superweapons working somehow lol)

[KevvyLava]

Wowza. I guess I should add more deathmatch spawn points then, huh? ha.

[Fonze]

Read the article I linked from Decay, he mentions spawn points in it. I want to say for the average DM map, up to 8 players, it's around 6-7 player starts per map. Of course that number will also be affected by the size of the map, among other things.

255 players sounds like it'd be a lot of fun. Of course then you'd have to consider general lag to the power of 255, as well as additional lag from the shear map size that would be necessary for 255 players to coexist. I mean, if somebody could make a Doom map like the islands in the Planetside MMOFPS game, that would be nuts, but technical problems would prolly destroy the fun. Likely would need several servers connected together just to host with a decent ping for all.

[Decay]

KevvyLava said:

Wowza. I guess I should add more deathmatch spawn points then, huh? ha.

Realistically, unless the map is enormous and you are planning on actually GETTING heaps of players, you should have 5-7 spawns. 8-10 spawns for heavier numbers (12-20 players) 12 spawns for anything more. Other than high peak events, I wouldn't count on more than 12 players at best. If your map incorporates team spawns (red/blue teams) 5-7 is more than sufficient on each side.

What ports can support how many players is largely irrelevant as those numbers will almost never be hit. 64 players in a single server has been done 3 times I think over the years and it took considerable effort to get that in the port with the most players. Not to mention it wasn't fun, it was a horrible cluster fuck. Usually anything past 24 gets pretty uncomfortable in most maps.

[KevvyLava]

Most of mine have 9-12 spawns, just for variance. And usually a weapon within running distance of a spawn, etc. And yeah, too many players is dumb. Might be fun for LMS or something, but I figure that most of my maps are good for 3-6 players on average. They're smaller/condensed versions of classic levels, so it works. Maybe I'll just go full bore and make a 32-map megawad eventually, ha.

Really I'll just be excited to get people's feedback. If, in the end, I get the occasional moderate group to DM with, that'd more than justify the effort. I'm just more of an "editor" than a "creator".

[Decay]

KevvyLava said:

Most of mine have 9-12 spawns, just for variance. And usually a weapon within running distance of a spawn, etc.

Less spawns = concentrated action.

I hope you have weapons on the spawns too. Nobody wants to play maps with pistol starts and you have to run to get a weapon first. The only weapons you should have to run to get are SSG (but not all the time), rocket launcher/plasma (the occasional RL/PR spawn is ok), and of course the BFG (rarely deserves it's own spawn, very hard to balance right). Most people will appreciate a shotgun/chaingun on spawn. A lot of players love maps with only SSG spawns but this is very boring for others and I advise against all SSG spawns, but 1 or 2 SSG spawns in a map with 5-7 spawns is good.

[KevvyLava]

Roger that, I played with bots to test every level, so I have a general feel for how the level plays (even though the bots are dumb and get stuck on barrels).

Here is a quick preview of 3 of the levels. My best work is being refined for dramatic effect!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f7dex76nidchbr0/dm_preview.zip?dl=0

MAP03 - originally MAP18 "The Courtyard"
-- This one is basically just a big arena, so it's not that special. This map is an example of me just eliminating the unnecessary stuff from the original, so it's not that sexy; I just always loved the mood of this map. I'm including this one just to give you an idea of where this project started...in my head, it's just "decent" but still seems fun to me.

MAP15 - originally MAP02 "Underhalls"
-- I expanded this one a bit and I think it makes it a solid deathmatch level. It's much more interesting and easier to navigate now. A good close-combat level. This is one that I needed to manipulate more to get what I wanted, and the quality is better since it was wad #15 versus #3...I got better as I went.

MAP19 - originally E2M2 "Containment Area" & E4M8 "Unto The Cruel"
One of the most recent ones I made. Even with bots, it's a blast. Getting the BFG is a risk and it's a bit of a maze, so it's pretty frenetic darting in and out of the boxes/warehouse part. The E4M8 part I tacked on gives it an aesthetic balance and mixes it up well.

There will be a few surprises in the final version, especially MAP20, which combines some E1 maps into a big map. And I'm proud to say that I somehow turned MAP24 "The Chasm" into a proper deathmatch level. There's also a nice style overhaul of MAP07 with some extra areas to keep it from being so vanilla.

When I release it tomorrow night, I expect that some levels will be more highly-regarded than others by those who decide to check it out, I'm open to feedback but really I just want a few people to enjoy it. The initial wad (finished tomorrow probably) will be all 20 maps...then maybe it makes sense to refine it if anyone has ideas. All the levels will have new music, too.

-Kevin

[KevvyLava]

OK, here's the beta of the 20-level map. MAP01-20.

Problems I'm aware of:
- I can't get all the Plutonia textures to work...driving me crazy. So you have to load KevinDM.wad first and KevinDM13.wad second, and it works fine.

- I don't know how to make it so the intro to a song is only played once, so a song or two have abrupt restarts, but not bad.

- Would appreciate any feedback anyone has. I've practice mostly with bots, which are idiots on some levels, but decent on others.

- Some of the songs have louder music, but I can edit the MIDI's to lower the volume on a final release. Hopefully the music adds to it.

- Maybe it will make sense for me to narrow it down to less than 20 once you guys look at them.

- My favorites: MAP05, MAP10, MAP11, MAP15, MAP16, MAP17, MAP19, MAP20

If anyone knows how to program MIDI's to loop at a different spot, I'd appreciate any good reference for XWE or Doom Builder 2 (or Slade, if that does that?).

Also, if anyone can figure out to get those textures working for MAP13 (originally Plutonia MAP14), I'm all ears.

Thanks guys...hope you like some of these. Fun to make them!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p1wvbwfetitii0g/KevinDMbeta.zip?dl=0