One last thing: if squeezing bonus maps into the three unused slots, when playing them in Crispy Doom or other non-xINFO ports

MAP33 will use D_READ_M
MAP34 will use D_DM2TTL
MAP35 will use D_DM2INT

So it may pay to keep that in mind so you don't accidentally subject people to a 10 second titlescreen loop on a 400 monster bonus map in Map 34, kind of like what happened in 1000 Lines

IWADs? 'Deaths Bells' from TNT. PWADs? 'Darkest Hour' by Er...Tristan

For me, Death's Bells was unlike all the other tracks back when all I had was the four Doom IWADs. All these rock midis, spooky midis, then there was this one midi unlike all the rest that was just plain enchanting and powerful, and also situated on Wormhole, one of the most atmospheric maps. I remember that my PC at the time had a specifc soundcard in it that made that midi really awesome, and source ports and upgraded PCs later on never captured the original feel.

There was also a neat remix of it on OC Remix that was...haunting.

Into the Beast's Belly is notable for being loud and a perfect action map midi, and it fits the final map so damn well, to the point that when I was working on TNT2 with Kyka, I asked Bucket to make a track that used the opening notes of it as a callback, as at that point in time, the first map of TNT2 started in front of the dead broken IoS from Last Call. This was lost in translation in Revilution, when we inherited that midi, but Jaws threw out my plan of also starting at the IoS (We were going to make it start at the blue-eyed IoS seen in the BOSSBACK for Evilution), but ive heard that the opening notes of Beasts Belly energise most players and get them in the mood for TNT, so I definitely did SOMETHING right asking for that!

Since im actually able to voice a negative opinion here, guess ill vent some frustrations of mapping tropes as well as wadcrafting that tick me off.

• Pop-up monsters is a big one. It entirely breaks any immersion the map had that im in some world, and reminds me im just in a game map made to challenge me, the player. This is similar reasoning behind why I dislike slaughter maps
• 300% not available at the end of the map. In the age of much better editors, theres little excuse for broken secrets and items, as well as stuck monsters, or monsters made to be unkillable via ammo starvation or mapping tricks. The latter can be solved with crushers at a critical point, like Plutonia's Twilight, or various maps in Ancient Aliens.
• Not having an internal DEHACKED lump in the last decade. Internal lumps are unobtrusive and extremely easy to write, even in plain text format in SLADE. There is NO excuse not to have one in there to define the level names in today's port world. And dont even give me the 'I only mod for Chocolate Doom' shit, the lump will be used by other ports, very few are only going to adhere to your recommended port if its a vanilla one.
• By that same logic, not using the other xINFO lumps when needed. Im sick to the back teeth of people adding in a Map 33/ExM10 etc, then not giving advanced ports any way to access it outside of outdated methods like command lines or console commands. We live in the future damn it! I keep having to write patches that define a new episode called 'Bonus Map' that you select on the menu to load up these maps, and I have to write the patch in several xINFO languages, because im considerate and acknowledge there are many ports people use.
• The recent years have had a pushback against 'Ultra-Violence' with actual wad sabotage and ridiculous passive aggression against 20+ year old mapping norms. If you pull this rude stunt, I simply wont play your works again. Im sorry, but artistic types plotting to actively screw with UV maxers, in public, it offends me.
• Putting 'no jump/crouch' shit in your wads in an attempt to control the player. Developing a mapset with classic oriented movement is fine, and even preferred, but the moment it leaves your hands and enters the wild, you DO NOT have the right to control HOW I play by hijacking my settings. All you need to do is say in the text file 'please do not jump or crouch, it was not designed with these in mind'. Dont automatically assume the player is going to break rules and persecute them early ffs.
• Making all secrets hidden on the automap, especially if also adding an automap item to the map. Deathless was very guilty of this and it made me so mad. I can blame the speedmapping for that I guess, but still!
  *Messy automaps. It is not hard to test this with IDBEHOLDA and see what lines don't show up and how messy the map looks. I annoyed one mapper by reporting automap bugs while I was still a playtester, so some hate the map in general, but that doesnt change my opinion. A messy automap reflects your work ethic to me.

Im sure theres more, but this stuff has been under my skin for the last few years, and now its vented.

@Cuppykeks said in Stupid things in maps that bother you:

Wait what's the pushback against UV? Do they put an inaccessible monster on UV only or is it something even weirder?

Stuff like the drama over Magnolia, with Ribbiks sabotaging his own wad and making you submit demos of HMP to get the un-cut version, as well as offering bonus maps to the first lucky people, due to his longstanding grudge against 'UV only', then there was the weird conversation on DW where a bunch of elite modders were plotting ways to screw over UV max players, whole thing just really comes across as exceptionally rude to me. Like, why be so weirdly hostile to your userbase? I just dont get it. Maxing out the items, kills and secrets has been part of the game for almost 30 years, and people have been playing on UV for almost as long.

On other subjects; one thing I forgot to mention was widescreen stuff. We live in 2022, in an age where pretty much every TV and monitor you'll ever see is 16:9 minimum. Even Doom and Strife's official rereleases have everything in 16:9 now. It baffles me that 99% of the Doom community hasnt adapted, and that some of the bigger ports like Eternity STILL dont support widescreen, when the 'shitty Unity port' does. It makes me a tad grumpy that even with the widescreen asset thread and the IWADs all being nicely WSed on GZDoom courtesy of Nash, people arent budging in the slightest. Is it really so hard to start your new assets in widescreen THEN reduce them to 4:3 for older ports? You futureproof it that way.

Yes, im picky and cantankerous, I know Its one of many side effects of working in a video game industry firsthand, changes how you look at modding. Theres a level of efficeincy and forward thinking you get used to, at least, where I worked.

They beat Mephisto's Masoleum and The Express Elevator To Hell legit.

Well shit, ive beaten those two 100% legit 10+ times

I dislike the BFG, not only for being over the top and a I Win button in classic gameplay, but also for the slaughtermap trope of 'BFG these hordes or die' which makes me roll my eyes.

Its funny, because when I was young I loved the sheer power of the BFG, and hated the 'pointless' plasma rifle. Now its fully reversed.

@Cuppykeks said in Stupid things in maps that bother you:

Wait what's the pushback against UV? Do they put an inaccessible monster on UV only or is it something even weirder?

Stuff like the drama over Magnolia, with Ribbiks sabotaging his own wad and making you submit demos of HMP to get the un-cut version, as well as offering bonus maps to the first lucky people, due to his longstanding grudge against 'UV only', then there was the weird conversation on DW where a bunch of elite modders were plotting ways to screw over UV max players, whole thing just really comes across as exceptionally rude to me. Like, why be so weirdly hostile to your userbase? I just dont get it. Maxing out the items, kills and secrets has been part of the game for almost 30 years, and people have been playing on UV for almost as long.

On other subjects; one thing I forgot to mention was widescreen stuff. We live in 2022, in an age where pretty much every TV and monitor you'll ever see is 16:9 minimum. Even Doom and Strife's official rereleases have everything in 16:9 now. It baffles me that 99% of the Doom community hasnt adapted, and that some of the bigger ports like Eternity STILL dont support widescreen, when the 'shitty Unity port' does. It makes me a tad grumpy that even with the widescreen asset thread and the IWADs all being nicely WSed on GZDoom courtesy of Nash, people arent budging in the slightest. Is it really so hard to start your new assets in widescreen THEN reduce them to 4:3 for older ports? You futureproof it that way.

Yes, im picky and cantankerous, I know Its one of many side effects of working in a video game industry firsthand, changes how you look at modding. Theres a level of efficeincy and forward thinking you get used to, at least, where I worked.

Since im actually able to voice a negative opinion here, guess ill vent some frustrations of mapping tropes as well as wadcrafting that tick me off.

• Pop-up monsters is a big one. It entirely breaks any immersion the map had that im in some world, and reminds me im just in a game map made to challenge me, the player. This is similar reasoning behind why I dislike slaughter maps
• 300% not available at the end of the map. In the age of much better editors, theres little excuse for broken secrets and items, as well as stuck monsters, or monsters made to be unkillable via ammo starvation or mapping tricks. The latter can be solved with crushers at a critical point, like Plutonia's Twilight, or various maps in Ancient Aliens.
• Not having an internal DEHACKED lump in the last decade. Internal lumps are unobtrusive and extremely easy to write, even in plain text format in SLADE. There is NO excuse not to have one in there to define the level names in today's port world. And dont even give me the 'I only mod for Chocolate Doom' shit, the lump will be used by other ports, very few are only going to adhere to your recommended port if its a vanilla one.
• By that same logic, not using the other xINFO lumps when needed. Im sick to the back teeth of people adding in a Map 33/ExM10 etc, then not giving advanced ports any way to access it outside of outdated methods like command lines or console commands. We live in the future damn it! I keep having to write patches that define a new episode called 'Bonus Map' that you select on the menu to load up these maps, and I have to write the patch in several xINFO languages, because im considerate and acknowledge there are many ports people use.
• The recent years have had a pushback against 'Ultra-Violence' with actual wad sabotage and ridiculous passive aggression against 20+ year old mapping norms. If you pull this rude stunt, I simply wont play your works again. Im sorry, but artistic types plotting to actively screw with UV maxers, in public, it offends me.
• Putting 'no jump/crouch' shit in your wads in an attempt to control the player. Developing a mapset with classic oriented movement is fine, and even preferred, but the moment it leaves your hands and enters the wild, you DO NOT have the right to control HOW I play by hijacking my settings. All you need to do is say in the text file 'please do not jump or crouch, it was not designed with these in mind'. Dont automatically assume the player is going to break rules and persecute them early ffs.
• Making all secrets hidden on the automap, especially if also adding an automap item to the map. Deathless was very guilty of this and it made me so mad. I can blame the speedmapping for that I guess, but still!
  *Messy automaps. It is not hard to test this with IDBEHOLDA and see what lines don't show up and how messy the map looks. I annoyed one mapper by reporting automap bugs while I was still a playtester, so some hate the map in general, but that doesnt change my opinion. A messy automap reflects your work ethic to me.

Im sure theres more, but this stuff has been under my skin for the last few years, and now its vented.

For me, Death's Bells was unlike all the other tracks back when all I had was the four Doom IWADs. All these rock midis, spooky midis, then there was this one midi unlike all the rest that was just plain enchanting and powerful, and also situated on Wormhole, one of the most atmospheric maps. I remember that my PC at the time had a specifc soundcard in it that made that midi really awesome, and source ports and upgraded PCs later on never captured the original feel.

There was also a neat remix of it on OC Remix that was...haunting.

Into the Beast's Belly is notable for being loud and a perfect action map midi, and it fits the final map so damn well, to the point that when I was working on TNT2 with Kyka, I asked Bucket to make a track that used the opening notes of it as a callback, as at that point in time, the first map of TNT2 started in front of the dead broken IoS from Last Call. This was lost in translation in Revilution, when we inherited that midi, but Jaws threw out my plan of also starting at the IoS (We were going to make it start at the blue-eyed IoS seen in the BOSSBACK for Evilution), but ive heard that the opening notes of Beasts Belly energise most players and get them in the mood for TNT, so I definitely did SOMETHING right asking for that!

One last thing: if squeezing bonus maps into the three unused slots, when playing them in Crispy Doom or other non-xINFO ports

MAP33 will use D_READ_M
MAP34 will use D_DM2TTL
MAP35 will use D_DM2INT

So it may pay to keep that in mind so you don't accidentally subject people to a 10 second titlescreen loop on a 400 monster bonus map in Map 34, kind of like what happened in 1000 Lines

Map 33, 34 and 35 to hold overflow maps for all ports, and xINFO to provide access to them in modern day ports

They beat Mephisto's Masoleum and The Express Elevator To Hell legit.

Well shit, ive beaten those two 100% legit 10+ times

Its hard to end a wad properly. A lot of wads have this cool journey and build up, then theres an IOS, it blows up and CAST CALL, done. Usually leaves me feeling hollow. I dont know if a wad has ever truly left me feeling satisfied at the ending.

IWADs? 'Deaths Bells' from TNT. PWADs? 'Darkest Hour' by Er...Tristan