RAMP - A community+ project [DOWNLOAD!]

[DavidN]

http://ramp.teamouse.net - The RAMP site

DIRECT DOWNLOAD

It's here! Over June and July 2021, we built a community of Doom mappers of all ages, tastes and levels of experience. The goal was simply to try new ideas - making a map for the first time, experimenting with a new map format, or anything that the author wanted - and to finish with a combined showcase of our efforts. That showcase ended up containing exactly two hundred maps.

Enter the strange hastily-assembled environment of RAMP Central and choose the challenges you want - from tiny arena maps to epic journeys, from easy beginner maps to megaslaughter insanity. Then head down to the patch of wasteland outside and build your own trophy garden to show off your achievements.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this unexpectedly massive project, and especially to those who spent time giving feedback, advice and guidance to others. As long as the influx of new mappers continues, Doom will never die It was amazing to see people's efforts, and I'm very happy that some of these maps have already been turned into the basis for episodes or larger projects because their authors didn't want to stop.

I experimented with a continuous integration-like system for Doom for this project, and due to the size it ended up being, making this would not have been sanely possible without it. I'll be doing some writeups on it and making the code available to the Doom community as soon as I've got it into an understandable state!

[CBM]

cool, will the maps need to be for gzdoom, boom or some other port?

I prefer to make maps in GZDoom UDMF format and it seems that is also what you are using

I have a few UDMF GZDoom maps that never got released and I am tempted to upload them to this community project

[DavidN]

That’s right, any map format is welcome! If you already have something you’d like to include, I would be curious to know if the uploaded on http://ramp.teamouse.net/upload.php works...

[Fishytza]

Tempting. I'll keep my eyes on this.

[CraftyMouse]

A part of me wants to take part... but every map I've ever attempted to make has been, well... trash to be blunt about it. I wouldn't want to hurt the quality of the project.

[Endless]

Tempted! This looks like a cool thing to do. I've always liked WADs that are opnely designed for all types of players to join, especially those that promote the work of newcomers.

[DavidN]

Well, this has took off a bit more than I expected for a new community project - my plan was to get it up and running in May, then for maps to start coming in in later June. It hasn't quite gone to plan - currently I have 59 maps. I'm wrapping them up in a game about completing levels for points and coins and other trinkets like that, and I've really been enjoying working what this game is about as I go along with getting to play people's submissions. It's truly amazing to see how people people are coming to try Doom for the first time, as well as getting new ideas from people I've seen maps from in the past.

Here's a flythrough of the hub level as it exists today, having rapidly been expanded to accommodate the increasing size of the project! https://youtu.be/80NbTTyVLqU

The automatic PK3 compiler has just been incredible to have - I have no idea how people organize community projects without it! It's very satisfying to be able to adjust things on my end (or for others to submit their own updates) and to see them reflected in the project immediately. Nobody has yet found any loopholes that crash my server, but I did have to change the way I served the PK3 file recently because its size drifted over 64MB

[DavidN]

We're now up to 60 submissions! I took a small break from video feedback because I spent the last weekend working on the game around the maps - I had had this idea of a trophy room gradually getting decorated throughout the WAD, like the Tony Stark-like space station in Doom Eternal. The trouble was I didn't really know how to lay it out, so I decided to let the player do it themselves, went completely insane and implemented an entire garden building simulator. I thought it would be a good way to show just how far ZDoom scripting can take you - and this is all with ACS and tags and levers and pulleys, no ZScript is involved! (Although it would probably have made things a lot easier) As you complete levels, gather points and tokens and so on, you'll unlock more decorations and trophies to display as you like.

[ChrisSell]

The legend himself. You're the reason I even started modding doom. If you're still taking submissions I'll defiantly start making one for this.

[DavidN]

Thanks, I'm really glad that I could introduce anyone to this great community RAMP is still open with FIVE DAYS to go before July 6th, so there's still time to join the 153(!!!) maps in the project so far! (What's the accepted hierarchy of WADs above a megawad? UltraWAD? GigaWAD? QuadramegaWAD for 4x32 maps?) It's been an intense month - I started a project, kept up with its rapid expansion, went to the hospital (unrelated), got out of the hospital, kept playing Doom, moderated an unexpectedly active and helpful community and now the end is in sight. Please get all maps in and basically finished by July the 6th - after that we'll move to playtesting and making minor updates as needed.

Here is a small sample of the great stuff that people have been submitting recently - from the very traditional to the new environments, and something in between

[DavidN]

Update! Oh dear god we closed with exactly 200 maps. I will update this thread again once I've even slightly worked out how to playtest them. https://ramp.teamouse.net/download.php

[Void Warrior]

Higher Powers! DavidN, I believe that this project should receive a Cacoward as the LARGEST WAD in terms of the number of maps in history!

I can't wait for the RAMP to come out! 38^)

[Rachael]

Higher Powers! DavidN, I believe that this project should receive a Cacoward as the LARGEST WAD in terms of the number of maps in history!

I can't wait for the RAMP to come out! 38^)

There is a thread for that.

Also 60 maps? Very interesting. I'll want to try this out when it becomes available.

[Voltcom9]

I quite enjoy the idealogy behind this mapset and appreciate the parallels with the DUMP series.
Although I did not submit a map, I'm quite excited to see a project geared more towards enabling novice mappers. I'm honestly impressed by the sheer volume of maps that have been submitted! Looks great so far!

[DavidN]

It's out! Thanks to everyone who participated - and have fun exploring the titanic result