Blanket Doom: Updated 1.1

[Drake Raider]

Okay. This is probably stupid. And if it shouldn't be up, I apologize, and please take it down. While there are a couple different seamless maps containing entire episodes or doom games, none of them are arranged in the way I would like, in a more open sandboxy style. Rather, they are usually end to end and linear. So I decided to make my own. I wasn't going to upload it, but I figured, meh. It's not much work, just some minor mapping touches tying it together, but I bring you "Blanket Doom" as in the phrase "Blanket Statement", covering everything. (Stupid pun) There's not enough new content to make screenshots worth it, in my opinion. It's Knee Deep in the Dead, verbatim, only arranged in a hub structure on a single map. Only three keys across the whole thing. If anyone completes this 100% on UV, I'll admit I'm a bit impressed. It requires a Zdoom based sourceport, and replaces E1M1. Maybe if I do something else with this project I'll write up an actual readme.

Old News

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I did some patching for lolz. I'd recommend the new version, it has some fixes based on the critique I was given.

New: I finished Inferno earlier today, and am henceforth uploading my wad. All three episodes in the original game are fully updated. All bugs should be gone. Give it a run, with your favorite weapons mod or vanilla. Anything should work. Find any bugs, give me a yell. I'm debating doing more, eg Thy Flesh Consumed or Doom 2. No idea if I will though. Should be compatible with pretty much everything. From Brutal to Demonsteele.

Ramble over.

UPDATE:
Lesson learned. Don't say "Finished" until you've playtested exhaustively. This is version 1.1. All the principle stuff has been finished, any bugs I have found, fixed. And, last but not least, I took some advice from earlier posters. And some influence from Beed28's Heretic Unabridged http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=51718. The areas will now have area names when entering. This is also used to refer to specific subareas in Shores, so that the E2M6 hub makes more sense. The game will autosave when collecting keys, or opening final area doors. The secret levels are now marked as hidden. And a boss script has been written for the final level. Unfortunately, and against my desires, this means that I've used up around scripts 1-30, so compatibility for mods that use those will be gone. They are probably few and far between. Any commentary will be welcome. Also. I kinda wanna use this for 64 player deathmatch sometime. That'd be sweet.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/36ab6 ... Doom11.rar

Also. Finally. Screenshots. I tried to mostly aim them for stuff I changed. All credit to id where I failed.

Using Brutal Doom 2.0, the GZDoom Lights and Brightmaps, and the HighRes pack https://github.com/KuriKai/DHTP. Also. The newest, 2.1.1 64bit version of GZDooM. You can't see it, but I was also using the PSX music pack for atmosphere. And some mild Reshade bloom.

http://imgur.com/a/fm5JU

Some examples.

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THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT!
Newest, Updated , version:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/36ab6 ... Doom11.rar

Old versions:
YOU PROBABLY DON'T WANT
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ip9y2 ... mFinal.wad
http://www.mediafire.com/download/26hax ... Doom03.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/t8xia ... etDoom.wad
http://www.mediafire.com/download/xvz0g ... etDoom.wad

[Accensus]

While this is a little offtopic, I feel like suggesting not to worry about what you post or how you post it. There is no need to "excuse" yourself because hardly anyone would notice until you tell them yourself. I'm telling you this because I used to do the same until after years later when I realised how cringy it sounded and how unnecessary it was. Just post what you want to post and equip the "deal with it" glasses. Well, as long as it is okay with the forum rules, of course.

If you've done bad, the mods here are quite nice, so don't expect them to gun you down. They might even lend a hand instead.

[Drake Raider]

Eh, I made a really bungled mod once a few years back that might have left a bad taste. That said. Thanks. It's a thing. Give the map a shot!

[Arctangent]

I thought this was a neat concept at first, albeit a bit odd in progression given that a lot of the areas seemed tacked on.

Then I got to one of the switches that did "nothing."

I had absolutely no idea where I was supposed to go an suddenly that took a big toll on my enjoyment. Eventually, after feeling pretty drained at the directionless and objectiveless wandering, I found somewhere I hadn't been and discovered the computer area map, and realized where E1M8 was. Heading over there, I found another switch that did "nothing" and managed to find the wall to E1M8.

Which was closed.

And there were two things that were obviously bars that had been raised and would've blocked my path.

And then I realized I was probably going to have to comb through the rest of E1 for a switch I could potentially overlook or end up on the opposite side of the map of.

So I quit.

I dunno. The first areas were neat and all, but after a certain point it just feels like you're in the normal levels except you have to backtrack through them. And running through the keys so early leads to a lack of objectives you can actually count, which leads to a lack of a sense of progress, and long-distance switches really aren't a good replacement for them unless there's some early indication of how many switches you'll need to press along with some way to differentiate those switches from the rest. And honestly, this thing just sort of drags on. You have no idea if an area or entire map is even worth looking over because the progression is really weird, nor do you even have any idea what objective you have past "collect all three keys" besides "stumble into E1M8" so it just wears you down.

I'm aware there's only so much you can do while relying on other people's maps, but this quickly became a bit of a chore to play through and a lot of a chore in comparison to just playing Knee-Deep in the Dead.

[Accensus]

Will try it later and post some feedback when I have the time.

[Drake Raider]

Thanks for the feedback, Arctangent. It was kinda blah near the end. As far as the bleary directionless feel, It's just something that I enjoy. Though if I decide to turn this into an actual mod I'll try to improve it. I do wanna figure out how to tie in E1M5 more comfortably. It's always been my least favorite KDitD level on it's own, mostly because of the spectre hallway at the end. My general idea was "Get keys in the first three maps with them, then solve the second three." You need to activate switches at the ends of each of E1M5, E1M6, and E1M7 to open up E1M8. It's not very fluidly designed though. I ran outta space to add hallways, and motivation to test them. It's a really big map to play from the start each time.

[twinkieman93]

I didn't find it too hard to find my way around. I ran into a similar situation to Arct's, except my first thought was "I should probably check the exits of all the maps that I haven't seen already, those are the most likely places to put switches that open the way to the anomaly". It made sense to me, you know? Those switches are just sitting there to be exits, usually, so provided they were still there, there's only one thing they could really do. Maybe it's just me, though.

I enjoyed myself, with that spark of insight I cleared the thing without too much of a hitch... except for the part where I ended up accessing the secret with the shotgunners and a soulsphere in E1M6 without the yellow key, and I couldn't get out of there without no-clipping. Oops. Should probably yellow-key lock the door at the end of the winding nukage path leading to said door.

Other than that, there were no problems, and the twist on the traditional E1M8 battle was pretty cool. Of note, though, is that the walls started lowering early, I'd only killed one of the barons that was in there. My guess is that it's because I'd killed the bonus barons in the exit of E1M4 and at the end of E1M9. Dunno if that was intentional or not, although I'm banking on not.

Would love to see you give E2, 3, and 4 the same treatment, in due time.

EDIT: Yeah, E1M9, whoops.

[Drake Raider]

Heh. E1M9 you mean? And actually, I figured it'd be more fun to have the walls lower early, and the bigger party start if you aren't careful and don't control the situation. I like the concept of a controllable situation escalating out of hand because of a poor choice. The bonus barons actually have no effect on the level, to be honest. They're just filler. I needed something to put in the E1M4 exit room. I may move on to the other levels, again, it's not a sure thing though. Depends if I wanna make this an actual project or not.

EDIT:
There is a new version, here.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/t8xia ... etDoom.wad

There's a fast travel system implemented.

[Accensus]

I tested the map and I can say that I like it. I like the idea of combining the maps into one single level, but it didn't bring me much joy due to the fact that I've played Doom 1 so many times that I am literally bored to death playing it any further.

I am, however, quite impressed with the smooth transition (at least it looked smooth to me) between different levels. You did a nice job with that. Can't really think of anything else at the moment, though, but I wanna wish you good luck with any future projects you may have.

[Zhs2]

I played this, and I thought it was pretty cool. If this requires a ZDoom-based source port anyway, I might suggest adding ZDoom features like map markers, a "Sequence Complete"-style set of messages to offer at least a semblance of "hooray, you hit the correct switches", and anything else that might assist with mitigating the amount of backtracking you kind of need to do with the way the level is arranged... And on that note, I am disappointed that this isn't an actual hub but instead a single level. Maybe it's a bit more effort to ensure all of the level connections and such, but I would personally love seeing Doom spun HeXen-style somehow. Looking forward to conversions of future hubs though!

[Beed28]

Since the map is Hexen format, why not use a few ACS scripts to change the music when you transition to a different "level", while flashing the level name at the top?

Also, for the end of the map, you can use MAPINFO to make it give the proper episode end text instead of taking you to the vanilla E1M2.

[Drake Raider]

Hmmmm. A new version, likely to be the last for awhile, as I am knee deep in Dark Souls 3. However, this should have a fully playable Episode 2 as well. And a Mapinfo. To answer most of your comments, the mapinfo should do the episode thing if I did it right. I haven't done any acs for it because I'd rather it be compatible with any mods I decide to use on it. Though as I'm using the game itself as a base, I'm not gonna stop anyone else from doing so. I don't think this would flow well in a hub. While I do like hubs, it would get really repetitive searching for all the things in various hub maps. The whole point was to be seamless anyway. Anyway. I do have the download link here, if anyone's up for it.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/a156u ... Doom02.wad

[-Ghost-]

I've always enjoyed these kind of maps. It's cool running through the entirety of Ultimate Doom when mappers actually make them connected in a way that makes sense.

[Zhs2]

Couple issues with the E2 map:

- Is the secret level even reachable? I don't think the switch that is supposed to make the secret level accessible does its job. (Or anything, really.)
- Picking up all of the skullkeys is kind of unrewarding due to the often nonsensical and pretty unhelpful way you can teleport all over the place using E2M6 as a hub. (Nice idea, though.)
- The soulsphere in the sector tagged 54 is unattainable due to the linedef facing the wrong way. (And, for some reason, the whole sector has those linedefs.)

Otherwise, pretty cool deal. Nice surprise Mastermind, and I like how the Tower of Babel is actually really a tower... Can I suggest using Boom silent teleport lines with stairs to complete the effect, though?

[Drake Raider]

Alrighty. New version. Polished the second episode.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/26hax ... Doom03.rar

Okay, addressing each point.
Secret level accessible? It is now. I forgot to give the linedef an action, but there was a system in place. It's not as straightforward as all that though. Thanks for the heads up.
Picking up all the skullkeys? Now has a full function. There is a reason to get all three now. Thanks again.
Not planning on changing the E2M6, I rather enjoy the flow of it. However. The teleports all follow a consistent layout. Both e2m6 and the main region have the same patterns of teleports, and they correspond to each other.
Soulsphere? Fixed. Thank you, again. I misread the map.
Silent teleport stairs? Kinda eh in execution, but they work now, for E2M8.

Also added a shortcut for coop, so as not to require a full navigation of E2M1 for every death.

Feedback, etc?

EDIT: Ignore Episode 3 entirely. You can screw around in the current version of the map, but it's very unfinished. In fact, unfinished is an overstatement. It's a half-worked trainwreck.