DM-Dead Simple 2.0 [BETA v0.9]

[Thugdraft]

Name: Dead Simple 2.0

Version: BETA 0.9

Description:

• A modern take on a deathmatch classic.
  
• Includes the original layout of Doom 2's Dead Simple with its original pick-up locations, but with several twists.
  
• The now antiquated demon stronghold has been occupied by Liandri Corp. Originally a research project to study the demonic powers there, labs were quickly replaced by military equipment and a heavily armed LRC stronghold has been established in the mountains around the original demon base.
  
• The source of the demonic powers has been discovered in a cavern underneath the main arena. Dark secrets lay hidden within.
  
• Chaotic classic game play mixed with modern deathmatch elements. Take to the skies and bring death from above, clear the skies with AA turrets and Longbow missiles, launch an artillery assault, slip from base to base via the Liandri evacuation portals, utilize superior strategy and tactics to dominate the opposing team in TDM by controlling one base or the other and/or key vehicles and pick-ups... or simply annihilate your opponents in the timeless Dead Simple arena.
  
• ...Remember, invincibility even protects against lava. Never know what you might find down there...

Known Issues (BETA 0.9):

• Additional blocking volumes needed in various areas around the main arena to prevent players from being caught on specific detail meshes.
  
• Bots will not land on the LRC base from a flying vehicle and will occasionally try to enter a LRC base vehicle while still in another vehicle.
  
• Bots occasionally try to get the Raptor before the hanger opens.
  
• Bots occasionally don't go after the U-Damage immediately after its available.
  
• On lower skill level settings, bots may have difficulty navigating the custom portals (Liandri Evac Portals).

Credits:

Special thanks to...

• American McGee and Sandy Petersen, the creators of one of the most classic deathmatch arena maps of all time: Doom 2's "MAP07" (Dead Simple).
• NickG for rigorously testing some of the early AI problems I had with my map. You, sir, are the man.
• Zak Parrish, Jason Busby, Jeff Wilson, everyone else over at 3dbuzz.com, and Hourences for the tips and tutorial videos.
• All the other folks on these forums who've helped with with various n00bish questions. With any luck, that list of folks will get longer now that the beta's posted!

Download Here


Important: Any and all commentary and criticism is more than welcome and strongly encouraged. I've got thick skin so feel free to open fire.

Many thanks to all. Definitely hope you enjoy it.

Screenshots:

Additional screenshots can be found here.

[Thugdraft]

Anybody get a chance to check it out yet? Looks like it's been downloaded a dozen times or so in the last week.

[TKBS]

No i did not have "chance"...

Since you are so persistent i am D/L'ing now:

* remember; you wanted feedback: now your gonna get get it .

P.S.
- I see lots of "feedback requests" but very little involvement with you downloading and commenting on other people's maps.
- give a little get a little

* D/L other maps, Look at them, Learn from them, comment on them.

- Most importantly have fun,..... i will evaluate this later on today


[Looking @ photos] for now i would say:
* Fog needs work
* Shiny rocks always look nasty [not my opinion; but i have received numerous whining comments about "the overuse of these rocks since 2008"]
* Take every stock material, and Improve them.- It makes it "your own work" and is visually rewarding
* change DM to something else, CTF, war, etc - either that or decide on what you want.
a) good looking map?
b) good gameplay?
- i rarely see both in one map
c) an exact replication of Doom?

d)Combination of all 3?



EDIT:
* I read your read me..
* It mentions vehicles... OH joy .... im sure this will be ummmm lets be polite and say "misplaced" or "Misused"
- sorry but i do not see the point in Vehicles in DM, i feel that it either unnecessary & never well thought out.


- Also it has been long time since i saw "Doom" i cannot remember the specific layout of levels. But i will try my best to offer you "useful"comments

[Thugdraft]

Hey man... I just got some initial interest when I first posted screens a while back and so I was curious if those people had checked out the beta yet... that's all.

Anyway, as far as tough criticism, I really appreciate that, so thanks for taking the time.

You're right - I have given some commentary on some the more recent maps that have been posted but not many. I plan to do so much more often now that I've got a little more time on my hands. I'll check out your maps as well tonight.

EDIT:

Fog: Thanks, I'll see what I can do to improve it. Does it just not look realistic, too light, too heavy... anything specific about what it needs?

Modifying stock materials - The lava material is a modified version of one of the stock materials. Other materials have been modified as well but not all of them. The materials for the custom portals were created from screenshots of the destinations plus some additional effects, etc.

DM/CTF/WAR - This map was designed for DM and TDM specifically. My hope was that the addition of vehicles and the two-mountain layout would result in somewhat of a twist on the overall gameplay experience as opposed to it just being a vanilla DM map.

Vehicles - I realize that adding vehicles to DM maps seems like a taboo thing to do. For what it's worth, each vehicle that I added to this map was done so with a careful eye on exactly how it effected the flow of the level, how balanced it was as far as whether or not player in certain vehicles dominated the map, where they were placed exactly, etc. Now, that's not to say that I got it perfectly right... but I took all those things into consideration throughout.

Replication of a Doom Map - The only part of the map that is "an exact replication of Doom" is the scale of the main arena area at the top of the first mountain and the item placement within that area. Doom fanatics would get what I'm saying but my original idea for the map was to bring a classic map into a modern shooter world and then to get creative with it... not to create an exact replica of the original map.

Thank you very much for the feedback. I'll take a look at removing the "shine" from some of the rocks and see how it looks... It sounds like you actually don't dislike that look but others do if I read your comment correctly.

[Gameslaya]

Alrighty, I had a look at the map. So far, I love it. The vehicles are a fun addition, and the concepts of the three distinct areas are nicely put together. Also, the Lost Souls nearly made me piss my pants, I actually thought they would attack me! Good job on those!

Several things I would like to mention:

Lighting. I know that the level is supped to be dark, but there needs to be some brighter areas to make more interesting contrast. Or, adding some dim lights to the darker corners would help.

Vehicles. Although fun, there are way too many to deal with. Focus on keeping one or two raptors. The Cicadas need to go, since they are no good against infantry (or anything besides nodes and large targets.) The Fury is cool, but compared to raptors, not as powerful. (Yet the fury is placed in a prominent place). I recommend cutting out all the land vehicles and focus on using a raptor or two, along with the fury, perhaps. This map has a better focus towards the flying vehicles rather than the land ones.

Powerups. All the powerups are placed in the original Doom area. (except for maybe shield belt in the Hell area). Yes, that area is designed to be constantly under fire and dangerous, but you do not need four different powerups in that same area.

Eradicator and the turrets. The Eradicator is in a perfect place, but there are too many turrets in that second area. Supposedly they are there only to counter the cicadas and eradicator... which isn't saying much, since players would simply switch to RL or have the raptors deal with the eradicator. I do like the idea of an eradicator out there keeping the place under fire, however.

The Hell area's spawn needs to match up better with some of the islands. In some cases I simply jump to my death because I can't quite reach some of the platforms immediately. Also, the portals are nice, but there are too many. Also, the Hell area does not seem very prominent. I recommend reducing the portals down to one, and having the Fury inside the Hell area with a more involved arena focused around it. There also needs to be one more way to enter the hell area, and both routes should be open to vehicles. I could not drive a cicada through the tunnels: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38203857/2011-09-19_00001.jpg. Also the tunnel is way too dark. There is also this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38203857/2011-09-19_00002.jpg which looks like a lift but is not, which confuses me. The fury room http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38203857/2011-09-19_00003.jpg has a major FPS drop when I enter it...

Don't feel discouraged about my critique of the Hell area! It's actually my favorite area, and I just want more attention focused to it. (Even if this means that you have to cut out the Eradicator area entirely!) Come to think of it, it might be cooler to have just two flying vehicles: the raptor on top, and the fury below. We can still keep the eradicator in a place way out there, but you'd have to cut down that area to just a small platform. If you intend to keep that eradicator area intact, there needs to be one more portal linking over there from the far corner of the original Doom area.

tl;dr: If I had to choose one thing for you to take a look at, it would be Hell! It has so much potential, and should be expanded to an entire arena with more excuses to go there and battle, rather than simply spawning there. (The badass Lost Souls are the ones that actually make me want this area to have higher focus!) If you have to cut out the eradicator area to expand Hell, so be it. Make the Doom area on top and the Hell area down below the main focus, with more paths leading between the two. (Maybe even elevators going down, idk). If you still want the eradicator, you can make a small area off in the distance like in DM-Deimos.


EDIT: Here is a very rough sketch I made up of what I'm thinking about: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38203857/Untitled.jpg

[Thugdraft]

Wow - Thank you very much for the detailed review! That made my day - Really glad you liked it. Sorry in advance for the length of the reply... I wanted to respond to all of your great points.

...the Lost Souls nearly made me piss my pants, I actually thought they would attack me!

That's awesome!!! I actually tried to set them up in Kismet to "attack players" instead of just run on fixed matinee paths. I didn't want them to do any actual damage but just to randomly target players and fly at their heads. I never was able to get it to work right though... my guess is that I'd need to use actual u-script to make that happen, but if I can figure it out I'll do just that.

Powerups. Yes, that area is designed to be constantly under fire and dangerous, but you do not need four different powerups in that same area.

Agreed. I'm thinking about either replacing the U-Damage with the Berserk (whatever that the Doom Berserker Pack was where the Berserk is now...) and putting the U-Damage down in the "Hell Cave" or just moving the Berserk down there instead. There's already an Invincibility power up down there now though... Did you jump into the lava and explore the bottom with the Invincibility?

The fury room has a major FPS drop when I enter it...

Yeah, I went a little crazy with the pulsing dynamic lighting. I'll play around with it and see if I can fix it.

...Hell! It has so much potential...

Heh. No but seriously this feedback is really helpful. I actually kicked myself a little bit after I finished that area because I originally designed it to lead players back to the main arena as quickly as possible and now I want them to spend more time down there. I completely agree that I could probably modify it quite a bit and make it sort of its own arena. I was thinking something more vertical as opposed to another arena though... sort of like the main area of DM-Deck. The main arena is really flat so it might vary it up a bit.

As far as the thing that looks like a lift... It actually is a lift! If you go to the wall where the BFG originally was in D2, the original hidden door is there and leads to a ONE WAY ELELVATOR TO HELL! Honestly... I wanted to have it set up so you could take it back up too but I wasn't sure how to do that without making it confusing as Hell (pun intended). Maybe when I modify it I can fix that... But with the elevator that makes 3 entrances since you can fly INTO the Fury exit as well (a bit of a stretch, I know). Think that's enough, or does it still need more entrances? It probably still does...

Lighting... there needs to be some brighter areas to make more interesting contrast...

Yeah... the challenge was that I wasn't able to use exclusion volumes in the cave areas because the volumes always included the terrain layer (the whole damn mountain), since technically the cave is inside (or under) the terrain. When I cranked up the main directional light it screwed up the sunset effect and the skylight obviously effects everything without inclusion/exclusion volumes... Anyway, I think you're right, I'll play around with some accent lights in the darker places and see if I can brighten it up a bit.

Vehicles. Although fun, there are way too many to deal with.

I struggled a little with the balance for the flying vehicles. The original thought was that the Raptor is one of the strongest flying vehicles and so it shouldn't be available to players unless someone has taken the Fury (hence the kismet triggered hanger around the Raptor). So originally it was like you said, just those two vehicles. Then I added the Cicadas to the other mountain after playing around with TDM. If you've got two people in each of them on the same team, you can do quite a bit of damage. Especially if you've got team mates on the shock turrets shooting down any enemy Furies or Raptors. But otherwise they're not much of a threat, which I thought helped with the balance. Ultimately though, it may be too much... like you said.

I recommend cutting out all the land vehicles ... This map has a better focus towards the flying vehicles rather than the land ones.

The Scorpion was sort of an accident. I threw one in there one night just for fun and realized that you can open the blades and fit perfectly through the outer "hallways" of the arena and go all out GTA on people. In the meantime, players can use the tight corners to get away from you or jump up to the top layer and fire down on you. The Scorpion grenades do a pretty good job of downing aircraft too. So that's why I kept that one. The Viper, on the other hand, is pretty useless unless you drive it through the middle portal on the far side. Then you can blaze through the arena bouncing hot plasma all over the place but can still get blown up easily since the Viper's so fragile.

Anyway, that was my reasoning, but I'm probably going to take the Viper out. I still really like the Scorpion aspect of it but that might just be me.

Eradicator and the turrets. The Eradicator is in a perfect place, but there are too many turrets in that second area.

Agreed. I'm definitely getting rid of both of the Rocket Turrets in the next version. The Stinger Turret is actually meant for infantry that come through the portals, forcing them to take cover instead of bee lining for the vehicles and pick-ups. Did that seem to work OK on your end?

I'm shooting to have another version out by the end of this weekend and I will definitely be incorporating this stuff into that update. Can't thank you enough for your feedback. Very much appreciated.

[Gameslaya]

I actually tried to set them up in Kismet to "attack players" instead of just run on fixed matinee paths. I didn't want them to do any actual damage but just to randomly target players and fly at their heads. I never was able to get it to work right though... my guess is that I'd need to use actual u-script to make that happen, but if I can figure it out I'll do just that.

They actually did do that at first, which is why I started shooting at them. xD After awhile they just went back to their swarming patterns.

Did you jump into the lava and explore the bottom with the Invincibility?

I did explore without the aid of the invulnerability a few times. xD Didn't see very much because I didn't see the invuln the first time around (I assume the bots stole it from me so I never had the chance to find it).

I struggled a little with the balance for the flying vehicles. The original thought was that the Raptor is one of the strongest flying vehicles and so it shouldn't be available to players unless someone has taken the Fury (hence the kismet triggered hanger around the Raptor). So originally it was like you said, just those two vehicles. Then I added the Cicadas to the other mountain after playing around with TDM. If you've got two people in each of them on the same team, you can do quite a bit of damage. Especially if you've got team mates on the shock turrets shooting down any enemy Furies or Raptors. But otherwise they're not much of a threat, which I thought helped with the balance. Ultimately though, it may be too much... like you said.

I actually did not think to even play this in TDM, it was plain ol deathmatch all the way for me. With TDM, I can see the secondary base being much much more important. (I now have the urge to go back and try it out in TDM!)

But, as I said, cicadas won't do much, especially against the raptors on the other side. The eradicator and turrets may even that out a bit, but then again I'd rather see one raptor than two cicadas.

The Scorpion was sort of an accident. I threw one in there one night just for fun and realized that you can open the blades and fit perfectly through the outer "hallways" of the arena and go all out GTA on people. In the meantime, players can use the tight corners to get away from you or jump up to the top layer and fire down on you. The Scorpion grenades do a pretty good job of downing aircraft too. So that's why I kept that one. The Viper, on the other hand, is pretty useless unless you drive it through the middle portal on the far side. Then you can blaze through the arena bouncing hot plasma all over the place but can still get blown up easily since the Viper's so fragile.

My worry with the scorpion was that it could potentially be too much of a hard counter against the flying vehicles, which were the main focus of the map. During my play, the scorp worked out fine, but then again I need to test it on Godlike to see if the bots abuse the scorpion to keep the fliers down too much. (My general rule of thumb is that whatever the Godlike bots would do, real players online would do it that much better).

Road rage with the scorp is just as good as ever, though.

The Stinger Turret is actually meant for infantry that come through the portals, forcing them to take cover instead of bee lining for the vehicles and pick-ups. Did that seem to work OK on your end?

I actually thought that the stinger was meant for taking out the cicadas. As I prefer a more active play-style, I avoided the turrets and thus did not think about the portals. Having a turret to counter the portals and the cicadas (or raptor if you change it) is a great idea for some playstyles different than mine. xD

[Net Lizzard]

Wow! I like Doom remakes! Any chances for DM-Entryway?

[Private Tux]

Very nice atmosphere and visuals; I'd also liked the view of the island, great skybox, jumppads, portals and nice custom choice. Getting know how the vehicles are appeared in this map (as the author described). Good gameplay, z-axis and the bots are cleared out odyssey (I dunno what they are being stucked sometimes in any paths or what). Except for the fact that the underground (on the first screenie of the first post) with gloomy red lights of hell filled with Greed skulls flying and fire particle effects seems fine to me but never going to been here once when I fall over the edge.

Mirror to UTzone.de in 7z file format:
http://www.utzone.de/forum/downloads...o=file&id=3989