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The project has begun! If anyone still wants to sign up, they may. The resources have been set but we are still working on adding the monsters. Here is the list so far as follows:
You can get the project resource pack here(May 19th) from sendspace. If you have problems with sendspace, let me know and I'll add another host for download.
At the moment, the time to build the maps is not set. Assume though, that you will have at least a couple of months to complete your map. I think it's likely that the date will be set up similar to the Community Chests', in that we set a date in the coming months, not too soon, and then see if it agree with everyone.
Last edited by Kirby on Sat May 19, 2007 2:27 am, edited 21 times in total.
I take it there would be one or two people assigned to quality control duites? If everyone in the community (myself included) submitted a map, the likelihood of getting some real crap would be high. Perhaps some guidelines or benchmark to aim for would be a good idea?
I personally vote for a fully CC style approach. We take the crap as it comes. The idea isn't to try and over-represent this community as a whole community built in one or two people's visions of a good map. I personally would want to see everybody make their maps as is, and them be left that way unless they expressly ask for them to be touched up/altered.
Well, I applaud your attitude. And you're right, it's not for anyone to say wether or not a map is 'good' if it's a representation of someone else's vision. I was really more concerned about the actual technical proficiency of the maps - unclosed sectors, HOM, missing textures etc - but with the error-checking facilities on most editors nowadays I guess there isn't really much of an excuse.
I've been considering proposing a ZDoom communty map pack for a while now, though of the Deathmatch variety. I was also thinking of giving it a "twist"; the project would use resources from other ZDoom/GZDoom projects being worked on by members of the ZDoom forum, such as textures, weapons, and music.
There could even be maps built to resemble maps from particular projects, e.g. a KDIZD-esque map, a Demon Eclipse-esque map, an Ultimate TNT-esque map, and so on. These wouldn't neccessarily have to be made by members of those projects, but anyone making such a map would need the permission of the team in question.
I think this is something that should try to have some clearer rules laid out beforehand. For example, while I certainly like the idea of being able to use custom reasources in a map I submit, I could easily drag 5 MB worth of resources in just for my map. Whether or not other people use them then comes down to whether they aren't finished with their map yet or aren't too lazy to go back and modified their finished map to include. That kind of thing in general would prove to be problematic, I think.
Basically, a set of a few constraints that keep things from spiralling out of control, but not so tight as to discourage involvement and choke creativity, would be needed.
@NiGHTMARE - I like the idea, but I think that it isn't quite the goal I'm looking towards here. The idea behind a map pack such as this one is to give the mappers the ability to creat what they want freely, without boundaries (relatively) and not constrained to any sort of mapping style/gameplay.
If you want to, however, you are more than free to contibute by making the maps you wish in the styles of KDiZD, Demon Eclipse, or whatever may be your fancy
@Phobus and Skippy - Sure thing
EDIT: @Zippy - Hence why I suggested we place relative boundaries on the sizable amount of resources that people use. For example, encourage them to use only the textures they will include in their map, suggest OGG over MP3, compress whenever and wherever possible. I'm well aware that this thing can/could get to a tremendous size, which is why Phobus' suggestion of people to monitor resource size would be a good idea
Last edited by Kirby on Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
Zippy: The only resources that normally use up lots of space are sound and music. If the music format is limited to midi, it shouldn't be much of a problem. I mean, I currently have a texture wad with just over 6,000 textures, and that "only" takes up 16 MB .
Kirby: I'm not saying the project would soley consist of maps created in the style of other projects, merely that it would include at least one map in the style of each project it used resources from. Other maps would be free to be any style they want and use any (or indeed none) of the included resources.
Last edited by NiGHTMARE on Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:12 am, edited 2 times in total.
Couple of ideas to make the running of things easy:
Whoever is control of the compiling literally just takes the maps for now, as they are given.
After that, he looks at the maps he has, how many of them, and any trends he notices (difficulty, theme...)
He can then tell people what these themes are, and what they are like. If, for instance, we have 30 maps submitted, and it's split into 10 techbases, 10 miscellaneous maps and 10 hell maps, then the project is split into episodes, with the themes like that, and the maps then arranged in a rough difficulty order.
That's the sort of thing I'd do, even if I'd just put together a collection of maps I'd made. Look for trends, ways to group them and ways to divide them up. Make use of MAPINFO for that, and look for either areas where there *could* be continuity, or just use difficulty of the maps to order them. Maybe evne divide them up into difficulty styles.
Basically, allow people to make what they want (within reason), but make sure resources don't pile up... perhaps reccommend just two or three texture packs as an overall... or put a size limit on wads... like 700Kb or whatever...
And then, once you have the maps, and resources all sorted out (You'll need a lot of patience sorting out duplicates and stuff... though I'd do that, if it meant this project actually happening), you look into ways to organise the maps.
Final suggestion: Instead of using MAP01 or whatever for your level names, use a unique name prefix. MAPINFO allows for that. Just be sure to set the levelnum to 1 in the individual wad, and order it later.
See what I mean? This also allows for those who want to make more than one map for this project to actually do so, and just make it PH2 or XASER2 or DD2 or whatever.
Kirby wrote:EDIT: @Zippy - Hence why I suggested we place relative boundaries on the sizable amount of resources that people use. For example, encourage them to use only the textures they will include in their map, suggest OGG over MP3, compress whenever and wherever possible. I'm well aware that this thing can/could get to a tremendous size, which is why Phobus' suggestion of people to monitor resource size would be a good idea
As a personal thing, I still think it would be better to have clearer laid rules rather than just encouraging tidyness. Something like a size limit (1 MB - 1.5 MB for all of your resources, including map), or other physical limits, e.g. only allowed to have 1 new weapon and 2 new monsters; or even, how I would do it, nobody is allowed to add new weapons or monsters by their own accord. New weapons and monsters would have to be decided upon by the bulk of contributors. This is, in part, to enforce the kind of trend idea that Phobus is talking about. There should be some form of cohesion to the maps, otherwise... well... what on Earth would be the purpose of having them together in the first place?
NiGHTMARE wrote:Zippy: The only resources that normally use up lots of space are sound and music. If the music format is limited to midi, it shouldn't be much of a problem. I mean, I currently have a texture wad with just over 6,000 textures, and that "only" takes up 16 MB Smile.
I disagree. When I say I could easily take up 5 MB of custom resources, I mean with graphics and sounds alone, forgetting about music.
Limiting the music to MOD, midi, and the like makes perfect sense though.
This sounds really interesting and I'd love to participate in a project like this.
I also agree with Zippy, that new monsters, weapons or other resources should first get approved by other people before their implementation, rather than everyone just putting their stuff together as they like.
This also prevents having duplicates of textures, sprites, etc.
