New 32 level episode

[milesaway1980]

Hello everyone,
I just recently found this website and wanted to share with everyone my new 32 level Doom 2 megawad. I spent quite a few years working on it (over a decade of off and on work actually) and it's finally done. I tried to make it very reminiscent of the original Doom and Doom 2, so there aren't any sprite conversions or anything like that. Just a few new textures that I put together, and 32 new and original levels all designed by myself.

http://justindoom.angelfire.com

Hopefully people like it. It took me a loooong time to finish so let me know what you think!
Thanks and enjoy.

((It was tested and played on ZDoom while designing it. I haven't tried it with anything else but Doom95, which it doesn't work very well on. Also, it was designed without jumping in mind, so that's considered cheating.))

[Potnop]

Hmm, I looked at the screenshots...

The levels look a too bland... Maybe you should go back in and add some detail. Just a little touching up... Then release it for real...

A decade long project, sounds like a lot of work... I'd hate all that time to go to waste with levels looking that bland...

[milesaway1980]

Hmm, I looked at the screenshots...

The levels look a too bland... Maybe you should go back in and add some detail. Just a little touching up... Then release it for real...

A decade long project, sounds like a lot of work... I'd hate all that time to go to waste with levels looking that bland...



The thought has actually been crossing my mind lately. I wouldn't go as far as to say they're bland, just not overly ornate. I like the simplicity of the original Doom so I tried to style after them in nature. I've played some levels that are just so ornate and over-visualed that it can get frustrating to look at, so I tried to give it a good balance. The pictures might convey a little more blandness than what's actually there, especially the top one, which is the first level. It was the first level I EVER made and I just didn't have the heart to get rid of it. *rolleyes*

Spicing up the look of each level does sound like it could be a fun project, especially as you say, how long it took me to get around to finishing them in the first place. Maybe it'll be a second wad so people can pick between the two. :)

[Illdo]

I like the simplicity of the original Doom so I tried to style after them in nature.

Tha'ts what I thought. Personally, I think that the levels in the original Doom 1 look terrible.

[JohnnyRancid]

With the exception of E1, which is the greatest set of maps in the world.

However, I hate to agree but your maps are pretty boring looking. Some of them look like slige generated them. I like the arch ways though.

[Dutch Devil]

There are some pretty cool maps in this megawad I've been playing it for an few hours the bland look didn't bother me so much I quite like it so far.

You could always do an makeover add detail fix texture misalignments and stuff like that but respect man for pulling an megawad off by yourself.

[milesaway1980]

There are some pretty cool maps in this megawad I've been playing it for an few hours the bland look didn't bother me so much I quite like it so far.

You could always do an makeover add detail fix texture misalignments and stuff like that but respect man for pulling an megawad off by yourself.


Thanks, I really appreciate that. :) I spent a lot of time on level design and making them fun, I didn't think the fact that it wasn't ornately detailed would deter people from playing it. Personally, I like the simplicity of older games. It was level design and game play that made Doom such a mega hit, which is why I originally loved it and is what I tried to capture the look and feel of when I designed my own. Some of the original levels only had 200 - 300 sectors and they were really really fun to play. They weren't there to visually dazzle you.

Either way though, after working off and on on the mega wad for that long, it is hard to get ideas of level design and editing out of your head, so since I'm just really not in the mood to ever start over with a new one, I think I can finally bear to look at these again and maybe I'll go through them and give them a fresher look for those that want it.

Lastly though, hopefully those that say it's bland have played them before making such comments. *rolleyes* (Again, first level aside, as it's more in there for personal reasons.)

[Potnop]

Yea ep 2 I feel lacked a lot in detail... It got kinda cool after deimos labs. The first level was just crap..

Part of the fun I get from playing doom maps is how cool they look. Ep 1 and 4 were really cool, I especially love how creative certain secret areas were in Episode 1.

My favorite of all the stock Doom games is Final Doom 1, which oroginally was just going to be a set of custom levels by team TNT. It had really cool architecture and detail that the other doom games didn't have. The atmosphere that the cool architecture adds is part of the enjoyment for me...

I do agree though that they don't need to be overly detailed like Knee Deep in Zdoom, but at least episode one quality which was definitely awesome would be good.

I'll try the wad though, I love megawads... I feel more reason to play a 32 level megawad than a 7 level wad of... stuff...

[milesaway1980]

I guarantee that they're not a bunch of rectangular rooms strung together with doors. =P I love atmosphere, lighting, and design and tried to put in plenty of it. I'm just not overly ornate.

[Dutch Devil]

I'm on map09 now its getting tougher I didn't had much troubles with beating the maps so far I expected map07 to be an whole lot harder cause it uses the mancubus and arachnotrons.

The area in map05 where you would grab the blue skull key reminded me to the Udoom level E4M3:Sever the Wicked the red skull key area on that map looked quite similar to yours is its probably one of my favourite maps so far I liked the layout nice and open maybe you got inspired by E4M3 when making this map it had alot of wood textures.

I have been playing it with Risen3d and only noticed some missing textures on map04 the BROWNPIP textures where missing for some strange reason when I looked in doom builder it looked fine its probably just R3D which causes problems map04 reminded me to E1M7 especially the part with the raising platform which you need to jump into the nukage pits.

If you decide to revamp all of the maps it might be an good idea to keep one megawad in its original state and copy it and work with that one its always nice to be able to play the originals for good memory.

[milesaway1980]

As for Map05, yeah, I gotta admit that occasionally there are one or two rooms that are vaguely reminiscent of original Doom levels. Some of them I liked the look and design of so I wanted to give my own spin and take on it. We're talking maybe...three to five instances in the whole megawad. But good eye, that platform in level 5 with the blue key is one of them as I really liked E4M3 from Ultimate Doom. :)

Hrm....no idea why those textures would be missing. As you say, they look fine in Doom Builder and when I play it in ZDoom they have never been missing. Never played it with Risen3d. *scratches head*

Glad you're enjoying it so far and yes the difficulty gradually increases as you go along. What difficulty?

And if I revamp it I'll definitely keep an original copy, probably always for download too for those that like a more nostalgic Doom look. ;)

[Dutch Devil]

I played on Ultra Violence and I'm not an really skilled player but so far so good map03 was pretty cool also nice layout.

[hawkwind2]

I have been playing it with Risen3d and only noticed some missing textures on map04 the BROWNPIP textures where missing for some strange reason

The reason is because BROWNPIP is not in the TEXTURE1 lump in Ultimate.wad. The same effect is in DoomsDay as well. Don't even bother playing map 4 in prboom , you will get massive HOM in the areas concerned.

It seems that zdoom looks at , and uses both TEXTURE1 in the pwad and the iwad. So this is technically a bug for most ( all ? ) other ports besides zdoom.

Another known wad that suffers from this is scge.wad.

Also your exittext ( C4TEXT ) at the end of map 30 contains too many characters to fit on screen in R3D , DoomsDay and prboom ( maybe others ).

[milesaway1980]

The reason is because BROWNPIP is not in the TEXTURE1 lump in Ultimate.wad. The same effect is in DoomsDay as well. Don't even bother playing map 4 in prboom , you will get massive HOM in the areas concerned.

It seems that zdoom looks at , and uses both TEXTURE1 in the pwad and the iwad. So this is technically a bug for most ( all ? ) other ports besides zdoom.

Another known wad that suffers from this is scge.wad.

Also your exittext ( C4TEXT ) at the end of map 30 contains too many characters to fit on screen in R3D , DoomsDay and prboom ( maybe others ).


How do I go about fixing these things? I would like it to be playable by everyone and not just those of ZDoom, in which everything works great.

[Illdo]

With the exception of E1, which is the greatest set of maps in the world.

*Especially* E1 looks terrible.

[hawkwind2]

How do I go about fixing these things? I would like it to be playable by everyone and not just those of ZDoom, in which everything works great.

Check your email :D

[Grazza]

milesaway1980 - Just a quick tip regarding your "promotion" of this wad: I was more inclined to spend time trying this out before you started pimping it with off-topic posts in threads that were intended as places for people to give recommendations for wads that they had enjoyed.

Perhaps most people don't mind such things, and maybe you feel that justifies it, but personally, as soon as I see something getting "hyped" like this, I pretty much lose interest - permanently. Indeed, the most obnoxiously "pimped/hyped" wads never even reach my hard-disk.

Having said that, I have enjoyed some of the maps, and feel you shouldn't be too put off by those criticizing the design as "undetailed", especially when (as is often the case) those criticisms come from people who haven't really played the maps at all. But do certainly fix bugs that stop the maps working or looking as intended, or that make it port-specific when there are no intended features that require it to be so.

If you want to test the maps for strict vanilla compatibility (other than rigid limits), then you can use Doom2+ (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=148658&package_id=184356).

[milesaway1980]

Hey Grazza,
As I said in the other post, I wasn't meaning to go self promoting. I had never been to this site before and was just looking for a place to share my work, nothing more. If it came across as bragging or self pimping, it wasn't intended to be. I'm not that kind of person. I just happened to pick the wrong thread to put it in and gave my apologies there.

Even the name: Ultimate Doom 2, it was based off of Ultimate Doom how it added another episode. I figured if Ultimate Doom added another episode to Doom, my Ultimate Doom 2 was just adding another episode to Doom 2. Not, "this is the ultimate wad ever!" =P

As for your other comments, I appreciate them. Hopefully people can enjoy them for what they're worth. If not, eh, oh well, I enjoy playing them. But as for compatibility, yeah, I definitely want it compatible since as you said, there are no special features that require it to be port specific.

Hawkwind, thanks for fixing that for me, I appreciate it!

[Doom_Dude]

Welcome to Newdoom miles and congrats on finishing 32 levels. It sure takes a long time and a lot of effort to put 32 levels together. ;) I haven't gotten around to playing your release yet as I'm kinda busy, but I got it downloaded for later on. I'll post in here again when I've played at least some of it.

I think you've apologized enough for making the mistake of posting in the wrong thread. So I hope everybody from here on will talk about your maps and give you feedback and help you fix anything that needs fixing.

[milesaway1980]

Hello Doom_Dude and thank you for the welcome. Also, thank you for the news post on the front page! I appreciate it. :)

[Giftmacher]

I'll download this later today, and welcome to the forums, too. :D

As for the disscussion about the original Doom maps, I think you guys have been playing a bit too much Gothic99. :p Either way, the originals were clever and served their purpose.

[milesaway1980]

Hey everyone. Just for an update, I have started going through the wad level by level adding new detail and spicing the look of it up a bit. I like how it's going so far. It's going about a level a day or so so it'll be about a month until it's done, unless I get overly enthusiastic on some days.

On another note, those that are playing it, how is it? Just curious.

[C.J.]

Personally, i always liked Inferno the best. It scared the sheit outta me as a wee lad. Yeah, Episode one was good, very detailed but because it was based around the theme of a high-tech base rather than Hell, filled with pentagrams, bloody and satanic images and such it just didn't seem as scary (don't get me wrong though, some dark areas throughout Episode 1 made me jump on more than one occasion).*giddy*

[XaviarCraig]

I only had a chance to play the first 2 levels, but I warped and ran around some of the other aswell. So far I think its pretty good. Its a nice break from the wads I've been playing lately where its like you flip a switch and 10 revanents, 5 hellprinces, and a couple of archviles bust out of no where. It's simplicity is a good and a bad thing to me. It's good because it keeps you focused on the level, but at times it seems alittle too simplistic and it comes off almost empty feeling.

Eitherway its a good set of levels. Very nostalgic feeling of the days when doom/2 was first released which is really hard to do in my opinion. The wad is a keeper for me ^_^

[CrazedImp]

Simplicity in Doom is good. Personally I'm also tired of the "Look, look! I can jam 300 sectors into this room and throw 20 Revenants in it! And I can make a 5 minute long script so you can wait to play my map!". Really if I want all the scripted stuff I'll play a modern FPS, don't need it in Doom all the time.

I haven't gotten around to playing this mapset yet, but I will when I get home next Monday, but I am looking forward to it as I enjoy all the old-school style simplistic maps. Its gotta be better than Community Chest 3 anyway.

[Aliotroph?]

Scripted stuff is cool but the point of it is to do new things with gameplay. Anybody who thinks DOOM should be used for cinematics needs to either grow up or go play Final Fantasy X, the most retarded game ever written for exactly the same reason I just mentioned.

[Grazza]

The mention of "Doom used for cinematics" reminded me of this (http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/531370). :)

(The map linked there is for Zdoom, as you'd expect.)

[Dark~Shadow]

Well I'll be damned...re-upload the zipped folder because it keeps telling me that it's corrupted/invalid. Only then I will put up a review of the wad, I really want to try it though.

[YouGotTheChainsaw]

Ok so i just downloaded this, and i also only played the first few levels.

also, im a doom naab when it comes to level editing, i ve done next to nothing, i just love the games and have played a few of the other top 100 wads.

but i gotta say i like this (what ive played so far). it feels like my original doom experience. i know alot of people have complained about lack of level detail... well... for me level detail isnt the most important thing with doom. its more about innovation and how you make the space count... i mean i dont care if a room has tons of filigree and wall detail if its only purpose is a transition into the next sector.

i like this wad so far, like... really like it. i think you done some good work here dude. i reckon ill enjoy playing the rest of this. nice one.

[Dark~Shadow]

What the hell...how is this zipped file working for everyone else but not me? I've used multiple zip extractors and none of them work, I am quite sure that I am clicking the right link, not the one file with the standalone file with no wad.

[milesaway1980]

Hey DarkShadow, not sure why it's not working. If you send me a personal message with your email address or just post it on here, I'll just email you the wad. Just went to the site and downloaded it from work and it worked fine with Windows zip extractor.

To everyone else, thank you for all of your compliments and I'm really glad everyone's enjoying it. It's great to hear that it was all worthwhile. :)