DUMP Episode 3: BFG Edition [map + weapons released]

[Wivicer]

I understand where you're coming from, but it's in the rules that mappers have to use MIDI or module format music, because to do otherwise would inflate the filesize by at least one order of magnitude.

[Patriot1776]

I understand where you're coming from, but it's in the rules that mappers have to use MIDI or module format music, because to do otherwise would inflate the filesize by at least one order of magnitude.

Using PSX music or Hell's Ambience tracks are my personal choice. I wasn't advocating for putting OGG or MP3 music tracks in. I don't like huge download sizes either. MIDI tracks that can sound nearly just as atmospheric would fit the bill too. Still, my point was that inappropriate music choices can utterly ruin the mood of a map, and 'Ruins & Lava' here is one example.

I'm mainly wondering if the music tracks in this are set using custom strings in MAPINFO or not, as custom stringnames mean that most music replacement packs probably won't work, so really you gotta have an external music player like VLC ready to go if you come across a map that's got an inappropriate, mood-killing choice of music for it, IMO.

BTW, loaded up the PSX DooM track for 'Deimos Lab' in VLC, reloaded my save on 'Ruins & Lava' with music turned off so the PSX Doom music from VLC would be heard instead, and played it through the end as normal. Good map, and the much better music added a bunch to atmosphere. Just wish I'd found the 'shortcut' teleporter in the final area a whole lot sooner. But that's what I get for being a slow & methodical player, not somebody who dashes right into the heart of a mob of monsters hoping something's there to save my skin. XD

[Neonspider]

I might be up for making a MIDI pack! Have you heard Killing Floor? (MIDI for MAP12: Crater)

[mutator]

Can this be played with trailblazer? if you can, will you loose the progress you made with the mod? such as junks you collected, ammo you collected, weapons you collected and the items suchs as blueprint upgrades, jetpack, powerups

[Beed28]

Can this be played with trailblazer? if you can, will you loose the progress you made with the mod? such as junks you collected, ammo you collected, weapons you collected and the items suchs as blueprint upgrades, jetpack, powerups

Pistol starts are enforced, so yes, you will lose all of your stuff.

[Patriot1776]

Can this be played with trailblazer? if you can, will you loose the progress you made with the mod? such as junks you collected, ammo you collected, weapons you collected and the items suchs as blueprint upgrades, jetpack, powerups

Pistol starts are enforced, so yes, you will lose all of your stuff.

Weapons of Saturn is what I usually play the DUMP series with if you want to use a weapons mod. Generally, you want to use mods that stick very close to the loadout and behavior of the vanilla weapons. I DO NOT recommend playing this with mods like TrailBlazer, GunCaster, and esepcially NOT with Doom RL Arsenal!

[Gez]

Russian Overkill IMO

[Patriot1776]

Russian Overkill IMO

Meanwhile, an example of the MIDI music REALLY fitting the level just now: 'The Darkness Beyond'. MIDI track suited it well, I didn't even bother loading up a DooM 64 level track to use in its place! Level is how I like my DooM playing to be a lot now: Dark, atmospheric, not a lot of weapons and ammo to go around, just what should be adequate if your skills are decent, and the music sets the tone good!

[Combinebobnt]

If u need to downscale dump 4 here are good ideas that mostly work:

-Have the more experienced mappers start working on maps together. The new ppl can still make their own map. Passing maps back and forth is hard if communication isn't sharp, so you can look into compartmentalizing as well.
-Switch mappers to detailers. People often like to only detail and need to learn so win win. Provide some sort of texture resource, don't have to limit to that though.

Testing-120-maps-wise:
-Encourage good habits like double-linedefing doors (one broke in dump2 mp) and discouraging a lot of 1-time only effects (Teleporters!).
-Split testing duty from just the compiler to several people. 120 maps goes alot faster that way.
-Fix stuff yourself (very fast)

[Patriot1776]

Dropping in again to give my kudos the maker of 'Bloodsport Canyon'. Most action packed into a 512x512 map I've ever seen, and having the ambiance track from DooM 64's 'Even Simpler' playing through an external player with the stock music turned off made it all the more tense!

EDIT: The level 'The Crater' was very good too. Good use of ZDoom-exclusive features, but the scripts need a bit of work to remove the debugging messages that printed to the console and showed up at the top of the screen on the door message scripts. Also, the first part of the battle after grabbing the red key was nice, but then, having no warning that an Archvile had teleported in and was raising tough enemies back to life made me feel a bit like I'd been subjected to a 'cheapshot' by the level author and was forced to use the 'resurrect' cheat several times so I didn't need to start over again. Maybe having that Archvile deaf so he emits his alert sound when he teleports in might be a good idea, so the player is alerted that Mr. Archie has teleported in and he's started raising the tough guys you just killed back to life.

[Neonspider]

We're already working on the changes and we've already removed the messages in our working build, we just need to upload the changes. (I'm talking about The Crater.)

[DavidN]

Regarding the future of DUMP, would it be useful to separate it into categories and spread the work over multiple people - a WAD each for beginners, intermediates, advanced mappers, and maybe engines (like DUMP TD in this one)? What criteria do you currently use to accept/reject maps?

Back from a convention and I've updated http://teamouse.net/games/doom/dump3.txt with reviews for the next ten maps!

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MAP31 - Not Another Tech Base by ArchXeno
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"I don't like this map, but at least it exists". That's the spirit And this has been good so far - I definitely love techbase maps and this one has been nonstop shooting so far.

Teleporting in a bunch of enemies was pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted that conspicuous switch to do!

You have a HOM on the lower texture of the step down to the door between the silver corridor and the lower tan room... and I think if in the outside area beyond the red door, you had the trim above the door go all the way around, it would look a lot less cut off.

GREAT scare with the green armour! As you intended, I approached cautiously knowing that that big demon door would open as soon as I grabbed it, only for the floor to drop away

I think you're being too hard with yourself on that comment on the map, everything's pretty solid here. One standout thing that didn't make sense was the switch that dropped the platform in the room miles away near the start of the map, I only realized that that was what it did after retracing my steps and trying everywhere else. You had another good surprise with the room closing off and becoming an arena suddenly! I think that there were generally too many tough enemies for the arsenal that you were provided to deal with them (especially the abundance of Archviles), but it's possible that I'm just wimpier than you at Doom.

Woo-hoo, a Cyberdemon end. The Revenants on the ledges make it a little more interesting, though - I had thought I'd get the BFG prize after I downed all of those, but the reward never came!

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MAP32 - Hydraulic Plant by SpiritOfDecay
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Always check for the chainsaw at the start!

I didn't take notes as I went through this one because it's pretty short, but it's a nice small map that's had some care put into it - I liked the secrets within secrets. Detailing is good, the large room could probably have done with a bit more. And I fell foul of the invisible wall while trying to jump over the edge of the water pit to avoid the Revenants' fireballs - I'd say just let the player fall in and provide a teleport back up!

Design-wise, the map is pretty obviously a straight shot from start to finish (with just one bend preventing it from being entirely a straight line) - not necessarily a bad thing for an E1M1 if you're going for that, but adding a few more non-secret side areas would improve the feel of it a lot.

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MAP33 - Janus by SoundOfDoomDoors
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Super power metal music - I don't know the exact song but it sounds very Helloweeny I love that already! (Being faced with a Manacubus with a pistol, less so). I got the idea that you had to run instead of fight until you got the weapons you needed, though, which was a nice change.

There's a very weird-looking mispegged texture on the wall with the window in the crusher room where you get the chaingun!

I don't have anywhere near the firepower (or skill) to deal with these double Archviles!

The hexagonal cutouts in the tech room with the blood waterfall look great, but it looks weird that the same pattern wasn't applied to the moving platform next to it as well.

There is absolutely no way that's the exit.

Oh, it was. So... where were the rest of the 666 enemies?

Interesting map that I thought was going to be longer (in the end I think it was just about right), with a lot of imaginative secrets. Some of the balance felt a little off, namely running out of ammo in the large arena room and then introducing a couple of Archviles. But I would have had a better time if I'd picked up that Berserk at the start instead of saving it for later and then no longer being able to get back to it!

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MAP34 - Gamma Station Entrance by SMG_Marine
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Very inspiring message at the start

The detailing is interesting here - the inner part of the first room is really good but the outer wall of it is really plain! There feels like there's something missing there. It keeps on improving as you go through the map.

I'm not sure why I'm noticing this in particular here, but there's good use of diagonals here, breaking up the 90-degree routes that even some very advanced mappers tend to stick to.

This was another map that seemed to end too early, when there was more left to explore! But perhaps that's good, having some optional areas and reason to go back to it. The design of the rooms kept on improving throughout, and it felt like the first episode of something, especially as you stuck with the humanoid enemies. I would definitely play an episode of this!

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MAP35 - Realm of the Sempiternal Archvile
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Let me look up "sempiternal" in the dictionary.

Great reveal of a strange and amazing place! What a sky. And there he is... you know, maybe I just won't move from here.

Oh, okay then. The unusual design of the map continues and I'm impressed with how it transforms around you all the time!

I'm really not sure I have the firepower to deal with what you're throwing at me, here.

PISS OFF WITH YOUR ARCHVILE

In the red room with all the water, you can jump from the Mancubus's platform on to the blue platform at the opposite side of the square. I'm not sure if this was intentional but I was honestly stuck otherwise.

I love the way that you use the sky as walls and doors and lifts - it's so wrong but it fits in really well with the theme of the map.

Another Archvile?! Yes, why not, I'll just deal with that with my wood-cutting tools and this pencil.

I've gone on a lot longer than I usually do for maps made by experts, but this map did so many things that were unexpected I couldn't help but note them. The way you use everything is really clever, with the map offset by the absurd level of difficulty... either there's nowhere near enough firepower to deal with everything that comes your way, or I'm just terrible at Doom (and despite my frustration, I wouldn't dismiss the latter option). I resorted to IDKFA at the end because I was facing three Arch-Viles and a spiderdemon with a chainsaw, having wasted all my ammo on the boss (who misleadingly flinches in pain even though he says he can't be hurt at the start - I thought I'd done something to let me hurt him, but it seems he was still invulnerable).

Great map for expert players or those looking for a punishment

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MAP36 - Judgement Day by Stale_Meat
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Straight into the action! And my god, 1370?!

Well. That was absolutely nuts (dot wad) from start to finish. Definitely not a map for my personal tastes, but expansive and keeps the onslaught coming through multiple environments And some very creative scenery like the hellish mouth flesh door (which has a HOM under one of the eyes on the left hand side that I think is also preventing the Cacodemon in the window from escaping).

You can also fall down the side of the fortress near the end of the Hell section and get stuck between the wall and the jagged cracks.

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MAP37 - Complex Alive by Roxas
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Small and (dead) simple, but I needed that after the above two maps which were like the Doom equivalent of 70-minute black metal songs. The aesthetic reminds me of somewhere between Pac-Man, Tron and the Metal Gear Solid VR Missions, and it was nice to have it transform slightly throughout the arena's runtime.

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MAP38 - DUMP TD by Arctangent
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An absolutely spectacular piece of ZDoom ACS/Decorate/etc programming! Having the spider mastermind as the "core" works really well despite it not being your first intention, due to its ability to defend itself and the way that the AI targets it.

A note to Sgt Shivers/Terminus - I wasn't a fan of the preview picture on the portal for this one, including the interface looked tacky to me but I'm not sure how else I could get across how unique this map is.

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MAP39 - Dumping Ground by TotalInjury
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The very start is a bit default-y - the wood ceiling is out of place!

You need to align your textures horizontally and vertically to make them look like a coherent wall and not a series of slabs - hit A while pointing at a wall in Doombuilder's 3D mode to do it horizontally, and the arrow keys to adjust them up and down. It's good to have sections of a room at different heights, though.

Once you get away from the default walls and pass through the tall grey door into the dark corridors it looks better - and nice trap opening up on the left!

Watch your texture alignment, the switch up on the top bit is split down the middle.

The "poison" sign secret needs a blue card - was that intentional?

Outdoor area, nice! The "poison" wall leading to it should possibly have just been a standard door.

Going the other way, the big green room is a bit plain and could really have done with something in the middle (computer banks, a recessed area, some columns like in E1M1 Hangar, etc) The computery bit afterwards is good, having more detail and interaction. (Though I can't work out what to do with that giant pillar I can move down a bit.)

Good use of monster closets on the way back! I didn't expect that, it's good and prevents the return journey being just walking.

Oh - that poison door is actually a way forward! Don't do that That should be a clearly indicated blue door.

I'm not sure how you did it, but your lines are a bit weird on the outside area with the blue key - I can see the sky through a gap next to the rocket launcher. Good, appropriately placed secret in the corner of this room!

Something's wrong in the arena (but great use of dropping the floor to make a room different). The revealed monsters seem reluctant to fight, the barons couldn't see me at all when I dropped in and I had to shoot to get their attention. Once you've hit the switch and raised the floor again, you can drop through the ground right next to the pillar and end up trapped. The manacubi platform also didn't activate and I had to noclip through the likeliest-looking wall to continue.

I've got to praise your use of an Archvile - in an arena with columns where you can get appropriate cover from it! One idea is that you could have added some demons to the equation to make the player have to deal with them blocking the route.

(Shortly afterwards) Please do not add any more monsters to this equation

The mancubus here is stuck in the wall and there are minor HOMs around the chamber that opened to reveal him.

Okay, noclipping to get out of there again and we're at the red door. In general, knights are preferred to barons because the latter were balanced as a boss and act as too much of a meat shield.

That map was okay! It was strangely buggy in a way that I haven't really seen from other maps But perhaps it was a result of you experimenting with new things. In general they worked well - there are some odd design decisions and the layout is a little square at times, but there are definitely the seeds of good maps here

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MAP40 - Mercury Rain by Jimmy
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Great map! Obviously another expert one - the layout and design reminded me of Quake, and you have multiple areas with different scenery that flow smoothly into each other. I think that the level of challenge was exactly right, apart from a couple of moments like dumping the player into a room with six Revenants and no cover. And nice poison mechanic!

By the way, for anyone who might care or find this useful - I'm finding the maps in sequence by text-searching the TEXTMAP.TXT from hubmap.wad in dump3.pk3 for things of type 9998 with arg2 = (first figure of map number), arg3 = (second figure of map number) - bear in mind that figures that are zero will not appear in the file - and then looking at their X and Y coordinates and using IDMYPOS to find my way there. It's cumbersome but it works!

[Thyrork]

Update. 50 / 80, We're more then halfway home.

MAP 37 - COMPLEX ALIVE - Roxas
MAP 36 - JUDGEMENT DAY - Stale_Meat
MAP 35 - REALM OF THE SEMPITERNAL ARCHVILE - Darsycho
MAP 34 - GAMMA STATION ENTRANCE - SMG_Marine
MAP 33 - JANUS - SoundOfDoomDoors

Updates slowed, mostly because slaughter maps can be enthusiasm killers and alittle bit of illness and other things grabbing my attention on the side.

E: Aw fuck it, lets do a bonus level to make it an even 50.

MAP SECRET6 - REAL IS SHIT - Deviluke Roy

[DavidN]

And after a bit of effort tonight, I've reached 50 levels as well! I love comparing our thoughts, and find myself unjustifiably pleased whenever I've noticed the same thing that Thyrork has. The maps in slots 41-50 had several expert maps, an expert map from someone coming back after 9 years, and an expert map made by a beginner.

http://teamouse.net/games/doom/dump3.txt

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MAP41 - Masterpiece by IdiotBitz
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The start's nice - like you've just entered a base and been faced with an imp finishing a meal!

I like the look of the cave - a couple of improvements I could suggest are to leave the door open when the switch is pulled, and to make the pillars you have to jump across about twice as big as they are to prevent frustratedly looping around after you miss a jump. There's also something a bit weird with the big teleported, that you have to be in the middle of it for it to activate instead of just stepping on. A knight would probably have been better than a baron here, to stop it being such a damage sink.

The Megasphere is too much of a health boost all at once - I would spread that out among more health bonuses elsewhere.

Hmm, and now I see why that health boost was there. I don't feel I have anywhere near enough firepower for this - the Pain Elemental overran the place with lost souls before I could deal with it.

Are you really meant to strafejump from the top of the lava fountain to the chaingunners? I couldn't find a more intuitive way.

The Cyberdemon arena looks good, but the fight is just unloading everything you have at it and ducking back to avoid the rockets - it's boring!

This map started off well but it looked like you might have been running out of ideas by the end... some more creative environments like that cave would have been good

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MAP42 - Tunnel Crates Rule! by Stale_Meat
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Nonlinearity is a great and interesting thing for maps to have, but this one could actually do with reining the player in a bit. In my playthrough, I found myself hopelessly short of ammo very early on because I chose the left path instead of the one in front of me because I missed the big cache of ammunition. There are also a few nooks and crannies with switches that are vital but easy to miss - it would help to have a better indication of what these switches are doing, because by using switches instead of keys you lose the guidance of the map telling you where your next objective is.

The detailing and personality of the rooms towards the start (and the south and the east of the map) are noticeably better than most of the corridors surrounding the main area, which are a bit plain and boxy - it's an impressively sprawling map, but it feels a bit like that sprawling was at the expense of putting ideas into the space.

I couldn't work out how to open the door to the final area at all, even after exploring the entire map with the IDBEHOLDA cheat... by that point I had too much map to go back and explore to have a hope of finding what I had missed!

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MAP43 - Cloverhouse by Icept
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Nice start! I can see where you began carving out a default room with Doombuilder but then you got inspired and made a decent outdoor arena with some good detailing and out-of-bounds scenery. I think you got a bit copy-and-paste happy in terms of architecture, but the contents of the rooms are varied enough and it's good to have a leaf of the clover that's entirely different with the broken-off platforms.

I like the scripted bit after you come back and get the red key This is short but solidly put together.

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MAP44 - Generic UAC Outpost by Anonymous
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Classic chainsaw secret But it took a while for it to register as one for me. Relatedly, the automap powerup is fantastically hidden.

I liked this map, it seemed to have the right balance of being a real place rendered in a Doom style. You can recognize places like the front entrance and the kitchen without it having to go into too much detail about them. The rooms each have their own personality to them and a unique style.

Nice preview of the Archvile when the blue key comes down

Oh, I knew damn well you were going to do that at the exit. Now go and get your eggs, you earned them.

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MAP45 - Felt by Floatrand
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Ominous start! Then the music changes tone Really nice aesthetics, the water combined with the wood - this looks unlike any other map I've yet seen here!

This is a really great, different map with a lot of detail and challenges packed in - being able to choose either the blue or yellow key routes after the red key is a nice touch. I would have liked more health to balance the vast number of monsters leaping out of cupboards and bookcases, but as I've mentioned before, I'm far from the best Doom player in the world.

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MAP46 - Panic Room by Comet1338
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Nice music choice! And a generous starting secret - the drop into a suddenly more detailed room after the vents is great.

This is an interesting combination between an arena and a more traditional exploration map... there are bits and pieces of exploration through the keyed doors, but everything eventually turns you back to the main room to face more enemies. I think that the hordes suffer a bit from "big pile of identical monsters" syndrome and can feel plain for that - the plasma gun seems generous and overpowered at the start but once you start unleashing the monsters you become very grateful for it very quickly. I'm not sure about the inclusion of two Cyberdemons in such a small map, either, although it's more interesting to have had them here than in a larger arena.

The decoration is great throughout, with a large variety of tech textures that work coherently together! The secrets are good as well and provide a good helping hand for sharp-eyed players. Also, thanks a bunch for the super shotgun right at the end when we can't use it!

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MAP47 - Simple Chaos by Willyku0123
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Welcome back to Doom mapping! The first couple of rooms look great, though the nature of the enemy placement in the main room meant that they tended to form a single line charging towards me and were very easy to pick off.

Super shotgun is given out early! Though I found myself hurting for ammunition for all weapons quickly as well. This eased off as the map progressed, though. Overall it's really well made and great to look at - just a couple of oddities, such as using red key trim for the switch that gives you the red key (not a huge problem as I switched it by experiment anyway because it looked like it was intended to remove the red bars, but the visual prompting goes against everything else in Doom) and the odd square of water at the end which could have been better done with some more scenery or a horizon line. Other than that, the detailing and scenery were fantastic throughout - the nine year gap hasn't slowed you down!

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MAP48 - Eviscerated by Nag
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Oh... piss off, how is this your first map? Thanks for showing us all up Great arena map with varied enough scenery not to really feel like one, with creative use of textures throughout (like the digestive tract side area and the creepy eyes watching you from the walls). I'll repeat my refrain of wanting more health, apparently due to my not being all that amazing at Doom.

I said that I would comment and give more guidance to beginner maps, but honestly I don't even know what to say to this. Go away, make more maps and become the best mapper in the world very quickly.

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MAP49 - The Mine to Hell by InsanityBringer
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As others have noted, the teleported to this level doesn't work! That's unfortunate because this deserves just as much attention as the others.

The mine looks pretty good, making good use of the rocky outdoor textures to vary the rooms and not make it look the same throughout. You could have used slopes to give a more natural feel to the rocky landscape, but if you're going for a classic Doom flat look then that's OK too.

Some of the monster piles feel just a little too big (cacodemons in particular, where you can pick them off in narrow corridors and never be in danger). Some of them could have been saved for monster closets/teleporting in on the return trip from some of the limbs of the mine, to prevent a lot of uninterrupted walking.

Suspicious generosity behind the red door... and oh blimey, here's the Cyberdemon. I know you haven't read me saying any of this to the maps before, but - not every map has to end with a Cyberdemon! This arena is... okay for it, with pillars to hide behind and not a massive amount of room to circle-strafe, but there are much more creative ways for a map to climax. Nice effect when it finally goes down, though.

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MAP50 - Sandcastley Sandcastling Sandcastles by PinchySkree
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Great aesthetic! American desert - not an environment that I've seen in Doom before. Exploration throughout the vast outside landscape pays off.

This is a weird thing, but... the bars on the south side of the castle look like HOMs from a distance even though they aren't. I think it's to do with the angle at which you can see the rest of the level peeking through, not constant as you pass in front of them.

This has a nice semi-open-worldish feel. Once you get to the castle with the long pool of water, if you go back to the ground level it would be nice if there were a shortcut back as it's a bit of a slog to retrace your steps, but to be fair it's my own damn fault for falling off.

Inside the castle the difficulty ramps up a bit, which is nice! A bit of a shock being absolutely surrounded by enemies after the water, but then it gets reasonable again. You use several textures that look like switches on things that aren't... (or are they activated by being next to them and don't change texture?)

This whole thing reminds me of the first Tomb Raider games, especially that path to the soulsphere!

Ran out of ammo for the spiderdemon outside, punched it and ran to the boat! Great and uniquely styled map

[President People]

Can this be played with trailblazer? if you can, will you loose the progress you made with the mod? such as junks you collected, ammo you collected, weapons you collected and the items suchs as blueprint upgrades, jetpack, powerups

Pistol starts are enforced, so yes, you will lose all of your stuff.

Your equipment is only removed by taking the warp gates on the hub map. Skipping the gates and using changemap from the console will allow you to keep your inventory.

Unfortunately, the map completion countdown is also triggered by taking the warp gates, so you'll likely need to noclip to reach the boss stage by using this method.