Gothic 99 Released

of course it doesnt look as good as Q3A you idiot =) Q3A has volumetric fog, curved surfaces, true 3d design, and overall can handle more detail with more effects. And something i do look for in a level is it to be a work of art. Sure the level can have great gameplay...but it doesnt help if you see some rather bland texture choices...for me that just screams out 'wow what a bad choice of textures, this guy color blind?' and things like that pull me out of the gameplay DISRUPTING it. and yes its fine to create maps for the sheer joy of creating them. but hey if youre gonna keep the next one quiet...icq me and send it on over. i enjoy some nice art from time to time =) scar3crow

Fuck Doom. Let's look up some pr0n.

just don't get it. dagger, i've understood that concept from the beginning. i'd just like to point out how stupid that concept is. first, if you see level design as a form of artwork... you are a sad, sad man. there are many artistic forms out there, and level design is _not_ one of them. no matter how much you defend it, the practice of level design is always catered towards good gameplay (and recently, special effects and snazzy scripting sequences) much more than architecture. i'd say it's a 70% to 30% imbalance. if architecture is so important, why did most people think Q2 SP sucked? Q2SP had brilliant architecture, but the gameplay sucked. you could say the people who thought it sucked were just thickheaded deathmatchers, and were not openminded towards SP, but i'm sure at least 80% of those people have played Half-Life SP and loved it. why? it's fun. the architecture is nice, but it's nothing to gawk at. the main thing is that it's incredibly fun, incredibly spooky to play, as is its mission pack, opposing force. how many people here shat their pants when they saw their first headcrab?

anyway, back to the point. levels are meant to be played. art is meant to be looked at. there's a difference. if you want to be an artist, paint pictures and shit, not design levels.

don't call me insensitive to art either. i've seen some pretty awesome artwork: michaelangelo's pieta comes to mind immediately, and there is one painting by jack van eik (sp) (name probably is entirely wrong) which i find stunning for its subtle metaphors.

and, finally, there's no mystery in who that "Anonymous User" was in the post after Dagger. Sorry, david, you're not THAT clever.

I don't care...I'm not going to change it in this post. But let me explain some things first: You don't get that some of the world's greatest artists have been architects...look at the Roman cathedrals, for example. Whether the architecture is in a real world or a game world, it doesn't change the fact that it can be art. Hell, anything can be art in the minds of some people. Just because you don't view it as art doesn't mean others don't either. Hell, even if it wasn't art, it was fun to do...to just build something for the sake of building.

Guess you weren't the type of kid to play with legos and build numerous things because it was fun building...I'd bet that if you ever played with legos, you'd build something to be able to play with it later.

Look, there are already plenty of levels designed for playing. There will be many more of that type later too. So what if some mappers got together to build not to give others something to play, but instead to build just for the sake of building. That's how it was, dude, and if you don't like that, that's fine. You're really not supposed to. The people who were supposed to enjoy it already have.

I personally liked Linguica's level in there. I've got a 90 mhz and it was the only level that didn't totally kill the cpu. It was a little overdone on the lighting (OK LING, YOU CAN DO OFFSETS, WE GET THE POINT), and the platforms for the weapons were slightly annoying, but overall, the level wasn't that bad.

you say that there are already plenty of levels designed for playing. that's true. how many of them succeed in being fun to play? very few. and, before gothic99 came out, there were already 66 levels which were intended simply for eye candy: gothicdm, gothic2, and gothic98. i'm thanking God Himself for giving matt dixon the sense to force this incarnation of the gothic series to be the final one.

some of the levels were just excessively detailed - they didnt really look all that. Not that they were *bad*, but I've seen cooler levels with far less lines and sectors ;-) The amount of linedefs isnt necessarily proportional with how great a map looks eh :-) Imho pixels map was the best one.. (the techbase level with the crates and stuff, right?) But anyway, with everything taken into consideration, G99 is imho a fine piece of work.. mustve taken you guys a couple of hours :)

/me cheers Chrozoron. What really gets me mad is that people seem to think too much when they play. I mean, it's almost like sometimes when you guys plays levels, you think "This looks like it was easy for him to do, therefore it must suck," if not consciously, subconscious. It's like everyone uses their brain to determine whether or not they like a level instead of how it "feels" to them. Not good, guys.

Prower, you're a pussy, pal.

Anonymous User - Sunday Dec 26 16:00:52 1999 - The only other worse name... The only other worse name then Millenium is if you tried to make a stupid pun like "Killenium". I would hunt you down with a wiffle bat. >>>>>>>>>>>>> 'Killenium' isn't such a bad name. Atleast it's not overused like M****** is :)

that map04 black metal map by pix was definately the best. forgiving the errors in it (like those door textures under steps and the little lights in the start area which didnt line up right) it looked really cool. the floorwork was pretty innovative and he had some intelligent use of natual line of sight in there as well. i also liked map06 and map08. the others were good but that map04 was the coolest, followed by those other 2. dan twomeys map reminded me of what made the whole gothic thing good in the start. i forget which number that one was. the hugely hugely detailed levels in the end arent really to my taste, i think its right to say you can do much cooler stuff with much less detail. i think it's all about having cool ideas, architecturally. like "if i put this sector over here and raise the floor a bit, then lower the floor on this big sector and add these textures it'll look like...." and so on. not putting in 1000 small sectors. cool ideas like that were what the best gothic maps were all about, imo.

hey, at least i have the balls to say who i am when i flame someone, pal.

daggah, ANYTHING is an art form in the eyes of SOMEBODY. i've seen mercy killing, toilet flushing, masturbation, and cow tipping being classified as artforms. the truth is, the majority of people don't believe that the preceding things are artforms. the same goes for level design: if you took a survey of 100 people on the street of whether designing levels is an art form or not, they'd say "no".

To tell the truth, I have not yet DLed G99 because my computer is elsewhere, so I can't compare anything specific. But I can throw in my 2 cents. I don't see anything wrong with editing DOOM as art. Personally, I think it is. Part of my portfolio which was sent to two colleges contained screenshots from my DOOM work. I was accepted in both places. But there is also the gameplay issue. We know that something won't last long if it isn't enjoyed. Music and art are experiential, the good stuff gets passed on. Well, if you can't enjoy playing a level, it won't last long. Everyone here has good points. What it comes down to is what the authors wanted from this. If they wanted to build, if they wanted gameplay, or a good balance of play and eye candy. It's not up to the player to decide its meaning any more than for a veiwer to look at a painting and decide its purpose. I say build it. Those who can appreciate it for what it is, will. Others may not, but please don't complain about it! If you think you can do better, do it. Otherwise, just hit delete and forget about it.

You just about said it all :)

Hey Prower, you can tell people what you think of something without resorting to name calling. There's a difference between flaming and honest critisism you know

Let's all start playing Quake. They released the source ya know.

OK, from what has/was/will be said... I come to the conclusion, (as I/we) did before. Whenever one decides to to the time and make a highly detailed level 'correctly'... there is always some people that have to gripe about it. No matter what you do, someone always bitches about it... Why, I dunno... maybe cause they can't play it on their systems, maybe they can't edit as good as they can eventhough they 'say' that they are the 'Best'... or maybe they just just like the good ol' original Doom type levels... who know... who cares. All's I know is that the people that make these kinds of levels have fun making them, and want to push themselves even further to see what they can do. So, who cares what people think of your levels, alls that matters is that the 'team' likes the way they look and play, anything else... play at your own risk. Yes, GothicDM2 was made for the Gothic Team, GothicDM was a blast, and we wanted to do it again for us this time... to see how much more we can push ourselves and to give you guys that much more of what you liked about GothicDM. No one has the rights to GothicDM3 as far as I'm concerned, and all that respect the 'Gothic' team... will do so. Gothic98',99', 2000, etc.... are different storys as well with different styles. Think of those as spin-offs off of the Gothic Series. GothicDM3 may be a Quake3 thing, who knows... I started to teach myself Quake3 Editing finally, yes, and as soon as I can get my grips on it and start making a good enough level... then so be it. Hypostimus soon to follow, and as soon as I win the lottery, computers for the rest of the team! = D Even you too, Matt...

GothicDM3 in Quake3? hooboy. here we go. let me introduce you to our friend called 'r_speeds'. it's best kept under 800. if you took the entire detail of any given gothicdm/2 map, stuck it in q3, i bet you'd get over 1500 in most areas. if you can make maps as detailed as the gothic series we know now in the q3a engine with low r_speeds, more power to ya. but i doubt you'd get that kind of detail without making any given computer slow to 10fps.

oh, and while you're reading this, i have to say that your textures kick ass. they're the reason gothic even looks remotely good in the first place.

Um, weren't they all ripped from Quake and Hexen? :P

i think some were mods from other games

Ok, here's my 2 cents. I've got nothing against "realistic" wads, especially when it's done for good reasons. Many of the levels in Goth99 looked great, excellent lighting, superb layout. BUT, when I can't tell where the floor I'm on ends and where the ledge is due to the overwhelming number of texture changes, it's time to tone it down. Some of the levels kicked ass and showed great creativity. Others were blinding in their wash of contrasting textures and flats. I couldn't see where I was going and what I was running into. Overall - Stunning. I look forward to playing it. But we'll be skipping past a few levels.

Hey, If they did Momento Mori 2000 would they call it MMMM?

Special effects and grand architecture can make a good map much better, but they can never save a bad map, just as special effects and a lot of noise can never save a bad movie. Movies such as Inspector Gadget (which I have not seen) and Dune had tons of explosions, noise, etc. But did that make the movies any good? Nope. In fact, using too many gimmicks, like colored lighting normally used for discos and 3D bridges that would bring even a 1 Ghz computer (when they come out) down to 4 seconds per frame, where unnecessary can destroy even a good map. And as for it being an art form, well things like elephant waste smeared on pictures, graffiti, and public demonstations of the most perverted types of sodomy (not happened yet, but unfortunately, it will) is considered an art form to some people, then just about anything can be an art, seeing how art seems to based on everyone's own opinions anyway. What is art to one person may be an abomination to another.

Yes, and if you think the movie will suck then skip it and shut your fucking mouth.

I think level making is an art in itself. Is an architects building considered an art form? Sure. Isn't level building a form of that? I think so.

If a single texture is art, the level that uses them is surely art as well.

Uh...why do you compare level design to that kind of disgusting junk? Level design is nothing like those perverse things you listed. Level design = messing around with the architecture of a game world. Architecture = art. Level design = art. It's quite simple to me...

The point was that art is merely based on opinions, not some absolute standards or facts. Believe it or not, there are people that actually consider that depravity mentioned last time as art, while Daggah here found it disgusting (which is an understatement). I was not comparing the two to say that Doom is somehow funded by the likes of NAMBLA (if you don't know what it means, you don't want to know), but to show that it's all opinion. A 256 X 256 X 128 unit square box room for a map with 20 cyberdemons in it could be considered art to some idiot 18 year old 1st grader. Why else would they make such trash and send it to cdrom.com? And Afterglow, wouldn't you feel ripped off and disappointed if after you waited months to see a movie, only to find it worth less than the film it's been put on, especially after you waste around $5 and three hours to actually watch it?

The type of "art" you mentioned is conceptual art, where it is the idea behind the piece that is the supposed art. Level design however is very much a "physical" type of art like sculpture or obviously architecture. The main stumbling block is the fact that the levels are really just data on the computer, lacking actual form. However, since they are a clear representation of a 3D form, why should they be excluded from artistic merit?

As for your point about crap levels. There are also crap paintings, but that of course doesn't mean that good paintings cannot be considered art.

You people look too much into this shit... simple as this - we made doom maps and we had fun. Understand?