An idea for a MAP compilation

[C.J.]

Greetings everybody. I just had an idea the other day when i was browsing through a bunch of OLD WADs (between 1994 and 1996). What if one was to pick out the 32 best Old-school levels ever released and put them into a WAD compilation complete with new music and maybe some other stuff? I even got so far as to write a list of "rules" (no T.C.'s, no P.C.'s, only single-level WADs, must have a Doom or similar theme, etc.).

I think this could be a good idea and i can obliviously do it BUT, i would need help to browse through the thousands and thousands of WADs to grade them.*wave*

[Raptor Jesus]

Any made by me would suffice... But I've never released mine xP

[Illdo]

I thought about that at least two years before :P

[owna]

I doubt you could cheak through every wad no matter how many people you got doing it. Although the one's you aren't able to find probably wouldn't be all that good anyway.

[ThomasJ]

Here's a similar but more challenging idea: gather up 32 lower quality single-level wads (or just pull 32 levels at random from an FTP server) and then rework them into something good, rules being that they have to at least retain the "footprint" of the original work. In some cases it may just mean aligning some textures and improving architecture a bit, but some of them could be a hell of a challenge.

[CrazedImp]

It would be more impossible than a challenge. There are some maps that can be fixed, but some are just so awful to the point the only way to make them better is to just make something new and completely different.

[Danimetal]

I disagree with that CrazedImp... Gameplay can be broken and stuff but surely something can be done to fix it... It could be tried, at least with one map :).

[ThomasJ]

It would be more impossible than a challenge. There are some maps that can be fixed, but some are just so awful to the point the only way to make them better is to just make something new and completely different.

Well, yeah, the hardest part would be finding suitable WADs to use. After posting that idea, I actually tried looking around for some - I thought maybe I could try doing a 6-level pack or something. Most WADs are either pretty good so there's really not much to fix or they're so bad that you'd have to basically redo the whole thing, which would defeat the purpose. Also, I guess you'd probably want to pick WADs that give permission to modify the level in their text file (though I doubt anyone would notice these days). Still, I'm sure there are enough WADs out there that do give permission to modify, and that have good gameplay potential and just lack polish.

Another thing you could do is gather up some good WADs from the 90s and update them to take advantage of new features in modern ports.

[MR_ROCKET]

I did this for a DM compilation, it's called Mega4.wad ;)