[Never Forgotten]

I was planning on uploading a walkthrough of the maps I have so far, but they aren't done yet, so maybe thanksgiving. Here are some images, as well as the story behind Atomic Crisis.

Story: Duke is having a nice vacation in Los Angeles, having plenty of time on his hands after wasting those alien bastards in Las Vegas. Now he's in his Lady Killer Club in New York, partying and living the life... but the aliens return, and this time, they're attacking the Big Apple.

The game's release date is... When it's Done. So far I have 2 maps made, still detailing, and I plan on having four complete missions; secret levels, new weapons, new boss and all. I've been working on this for a year so far, and I thought I'd atleast announce it. Happy Halloween! Post any questions below.

[brullov]

So will we have new cons? It seems that some walls leak of shading. And is it a bug with a shotgun?

[Never Forgotten]

Artem Nevinchany, on 31 October 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

So will we have new cons? It seems that some walls leak of shading. And is it a bug with a shotgun?

I'm not much of a con editor, I edit user.con, mostly for sounds and names, but that's about it. I mostly use DEF files. As for the shading, I'm still detailing the maps, so I'll try to work on the shading a bit more. And yeah, not sure why it does that, I edited it to make the gloves, and it turned out weird... not very noticeable in gameplay, but once you take a still it pops out.

[brullov]

I thought that " new weapons, new boss" means you gonna make them from zero. Actually it's hard to change only arts and sounds of original ones and get good new weapons/monsters. And that bug must be removed. I remeber how my projects failed when I was in a hurry and I skiped my mistakes. I would even work one more or two years, as I do with my Begins, to make my game brilliant. Although I can put my project today, I want to make it as cool as I can. (but please, don't confuse "remake everything after you got new skills" with "make a good game with nice maps/ideas/gameplay etc.")

[Sixty Four]

The main photo looks pretty bad ass there, good luck with this

[Never Forgotten]

Duke64Nukem, on 31 October 2014 - 10:36 AM, said:

The main photo looks pretty bad ass there, good luck with this

Thanks, I made that early last year.

"I thought that " new weapons, new boss" means you gonna make them from zero. Actually it's hard to change only arts and sounds of original ones and get good new weapons/monsters. And that bug must be removed. I remeber how my projects failed when I was in a hurry and I skiped my mistakes. I would even work one more or two years, as I do with my Begins, to make my game brilliant. Although I can put my project today, I want to make it as cool as I can. (but please, don't confuse "remake everything after you got new skills" with "make a good game with nice maps/ideas/gameplay etc.") "

I don't know how to modify the con to make the weapons brand new, I have new sprites and new sounds. As for the new boss, I made him to go over one of the existing bosses in a proper manner, so it doesn't seem to weird. And I'm still trying to figure out how to fix the shotgun, I think it may have something to do with using a DEF file to replace the art... dunno, still looking into it.

[Sixty Four]

Kind of seems this topic would better fit for eduke32 mods thread though. It looks like a mod more then a user map

[Never Forgotten]

Duke64Nukem, on 31 October 2014 - 11:55 AM, said:

Kind of seems this topic would better fit for eduke32 mods thread though. It looks like a mod more then a user map

Yeah, it's a mod... but technically it's a lot of user maps. :3

[Forge]

Never Forgotten, on 31 October 2014 - 08:09 AM, said:

I've been working on this for a year so far, and I thought I'd at least announce it.

why?

Never Forgotten, on 31 October 2014 - 08:09 AM, said:

-I plan on having four complete missions, new weapons, new boss

-So far I have 2 maps made
-I'm still detailing the maps

[Never Forgotten]

Forge, on 31 October 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

why?

It's Halloween, I felt like it should be shared that I'm making a mod. I'm going to take time to finish it, and felt that it'd be cool to let people know somewhat of what I'm working on.

[Micky C]

IMO it would be a very bad idea to release a big 4-level mod without having released some decent individual maps first (and those quickies you released a while ago don't count). It's great to see you're finally willing to invest some time in making the maps, however all of that could potentially go to waste if you don't avoid several design problems that you can only become aware of with public feedback.

For example, pretty much all of those screenshots look completely unshaded and have no trimming, some have a few texture issues, (are probably oversized but it's hard to tell from still pictures), some of them look downright empty. As a result all of them look unfinished. A few of them look mildly interesting, but unfinished nontheless.

Like I say, make some individual maps and release them to the public first, so you can see what people do and don't like about your maps (both in terms of gameplay and visuals). Plus by the time you do get to making a mod, you'll have had even more mapping experience, so that your mod is more likely to have a higher profile and be something that people download years from now, rather than being a modding footnote. In the end you can spend as many years as you want on a map, but if it's not moving in the right direction and isn't the type of map that people want to play, then people aren't going to play it. (Generally speaking).

The question you should be asking yourself, is what do the levels actually gain from being a mod? If you're not actually creating new weapons and enemies with new functionality, then it's basically the same game with a few things reskinned. TBH people won't care much if their shotgun looks a bit different if at the end of the day it's the same old shotgun. In fact, some might actually be annoyed since they went through extra installation effort for nothing new that's relevant. That applies to other graphical or audio tweaks. So if your levels don't actually rely on the mod at all, then I'd consider polishing them up and releasing them as vanilla maps. Also consider that despite being set in New York, absolutely nothing about those screenshots even hints the player is actually in New York, which is another reason why you shouldn't not release these as individual vanilla maps.
In fact that's another tip for the final mod; there's no point setting your levels in a famous location if none of the maps remotely resemble that location.

[Forge]

that was all pretty and positive. now what everyone else is really thinking:

you have nothing. you're announcing your fancy cover art.

do you know how many threads there are that look just like this one, and then those projects are never heard of again?

four new episodes, new enemies, new weapons, yada, yada....

it'd be a teaser announcement if you had most of the coding and art work done and a couple episodes made already

Pardon my skepticism, but people are always biting off more than they can chew when you hear them announce these big plans that never amount to anything.

You could be different, but from what i can ascertain from your op, you have a looong way to go, so i won't be waiting with bated breath.

[Never Forgotten]

Micky C, on 31 October 2014 - 03:58 PM, said:

IMO it would be a very bad idea to release a big 4-level mod without having released some decent individual maps first (and those quickies you released a while ago don't count). It's great to see you're finally willing to invest some time in making the maps, however all of that could potentially go to waste if you don't avoid several design problems that you can only become aware of with public feedback.

For example, pretty much all of those screenshots look completely unshaded and have no trimming, some have a few texture issues, (are probably oversized but it's hard to tell from still pictures), some of them look downright empty. As a result all of them look unfinished. A few of them look mildly interesting, but unfinished nontheless.

Like I say, make some individual maps and release them to the public first, so you can see what people do and don't like about your maps (both in terms of gameplay and visuals). Plus by the time you do get to making a mod, you'll have had even more mapping experience, so that your mod is more likely to have a higher profile and be something that people download years from now, rather than being a modding footnote. In the end you can spend as many years as you want on a map, but if it's not moving in the right direction and isn't the type of map that people want to play, then people aren't going to play it. (Generally speaking).

The question you should be asking yourself, is what do the levels actually gain from being a mod? If you're not actually creating new weapons and enemies with new functionality, then it's basically the same game with a few things reskinned. TBH people won't care much if their shotgun looks a bit different if at the end of the day it's the same old shotgun. In fact, some might actually be annoyed since they went through extra installation effort for nothing new that's relevant. That applies to other graphical or audio tweaks. So if your levels don't actually rely on the mod at all, then I'd consider polishing them up and releasing them as vanilla maps. Also consider that despite being set in New York, absolutely nothing about those screenshots even hints the player is actually in New York, which is another reason why you shouldn't not release these as individual vanilla maps.
In fact that's another tip for the final mod; there's no point setting your levels in a famous location if none of the maps remotely resemble that location.

Thanks for the feedback, first thing first, those maps are the only two NOT set in New York. :3 Actually Duke's Lady Killer Club in L.A. And the maps are still being detailed, I'm not finished with them,and I only have two maps so far. The game itself is supposed to be like Duke 3D, I want players to feel like they're playing Duke 3D with a different story, levels. And as for the new things, I mostly added gloves, which I'm going to have to remove as it for some reason glitches the shotgun. :/ And I am planning on taking the designs of the New York levels off of real New York places. And my old maps do count, because they were my first, sure they sucked, but I learned a hell of a lot from them. And I am currently working on a user maps that will be released hopefully this Christmas.

[Never Forgotten]

Forge, on 31 October 2014 - 06:37 PM, said:

that was all pretty and positive. now what everyone else is really thinking:

you have nothing. you're announcing your fancy cover art.

do you know how many threads there are that look just like this one, and then those projects are never heard of again?

four new episodes, new enemies, new weapons, yada, yada....

it'd be a teaser announcement if you had most of the coding and art work done and a couple episodes made already

Pardon my skepticism, but people are always biting off more than they can chew when you hear them announce these big plans that never amount to anything.

You could be different, but from what i can ascertain from your op, you have a looong way to go, so i won't be waiting with bated breath.

Now now now... I was nice to Micky, 'cause he was nice to me. This... this is just rude, you have no respect. Sure I made some crummy maps, and sure I can understand some skepticism, but don't shoot it down before I even get in to it. I don't give up, well I gave up on my old maps... but you don't need me to remind everyone of those... These I'm taking m time with, making sure everything works right. And as for the new things, I am also adding in some new one liners. I don't care if you don't like the idea, I don't care if you don't like me... But don't hate on it, just because some other people have short attention spans.

[Forge]

[Forge]

i don't have anything at all against you as a person and don't be offended (well maybe a little). What you call rude, i call being honest. Big ANNOUNCEMENT + almost nothing to show = nothing.

protip: halloween isn't the same as april fools

[Micky C]

I interpreted "missions" to mean maps. If that really does mean 4 episodes then it is indeed a HUGE mistake. A few dozen really short, poorly detailed maps is by no means a substitute for a smaller number of high quality maps.

If you're going ahead with this, I cannot recommend highly enough that you focus on a very small number of well-made maps.

Read through this thread, this guy was exactly like you a few years ago. He started off inexperienced, and wanted to make his own mod with replaced weapons and stuff. Notice how the first pictures he posted were absolute crap (IIRC his original pictures which he removed are worse than the current ones, which are still pretty bad), and how over the course of time his maps improved somewhat. Now the project is abandoned, and he has moved onto other things and is now a fantastic mapper. I want you to read until the 2nd to last post on the second page and tell me what is says: http://forums.duke4.net/topic/5500-duke-nukem-3d-rush-hour/

Basically you're aiming too high right now.

[Never Forgotten]

Micky C, on 31 October 2014 - 08:26 PM, said:

I interpreted "missions" to mean maps. If that really does mean 4 episodes then it is indeed a HUGE mistake. A few dozen really short, poorly detailed maps is by no means a substitute for a smaller number of high quality maps.

If you're going ahead with this, I cannot recommend highly enough that you focus on a very small number of well-made maps.

Read through this thread, this guy was exactly like you a few years ago. He started off inexperienced, and wanted to make his own mod with replaced weapons and stuff. Notice how the first pictures he posted were absolute crap (IIRC his original pictures which he removed are worse than the current ones, which are still pretty bad), and how over the course of time his maps improved somewhat. Now the project is abandoned, and he has moved onto other things and is now a fantastic mapper. I want you to read until the 2nd to last post on the second page and tell me what is says: http://forums.duke4.net/topic/5500-duke-nukem-3d-rush-hour/

Basically you're aiming too high right now.

I'm not aiming too high, I'm aiming exactly where I am. If I can't do something, I work on it until I can make it work. The first two maps will be smaller scaled, but the rest will be medium to large, with as much detail that is realistically possible. And that guy really screwed up, he had over stretched textures, oddly offset weapons... mine is going to use old mechanics, with new levels. I don't want it to differ much from Duke 3D. All that modifying the original to make it more "Up to date" seems to take away from the classic gameplay. And yes, I am replacing every single map from the original Duke Nukem 3D with my own maps. 4 complete missions, every level changed.

[Never Forgotten]

Forge, on 31 October 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

i don't have anything at all against you as a person and don't be offended (well maybe a little). What you call rude, i call being honest. Big ANNOUNCEMENT + almost nothing to show = nothing.

protip: halloween isn't the same as april fools

Ha fucking ha, pardon my language, but it seemed like the appropriate reply. Halloween isn't April fools... no shit, and here I thought they were the same... note the sarcasm. I never said Big announcement, I put Announcement in caps so everyone would know I'm announcing something, like how people put [RELEASE] when they release a map. And I'm not offended, how can I be offended by ignorance? And dude, your grammar is bad... not rude, just honest.

[ck3D]

if you don't mind me interfering with the currently ongoing discussion - i don't think you should take Forge's comments as harshly as you are. he has been around in the community for ages, so have i - and i see what he means, we have seen many projects start out like yours, and being announced in a similar fashion, only to always (and i do mean always !) follow the same pattern, and either get abandoned in the following months (95% of the time), or eventually drop under the mere form of a pack of rushed maps and modifications noone ends up really playing. this past history obviously isn't your direct fault, and you probably wholeheartedly believe in your project, which is a good thing and noone is trying to discourage you really. i, and i am pretty sure we all, hope that you end up spending the appropriate time and effort on it in order to not just finish it, but also make sure that the final product is as refined as it gets and i am sure you envision it yourself. it just so happens to be that, as far as such ambitious projects are concerned, we have never seen it happen before (which might or might not say something).

now onto more constructive criticism in order to ensure that it's going to be on the right track in order to reach that objective : in all honesty, pretty much all the screenshots you just posted still seem to require a shit ton of extra work. some of the structures you built look decent or even quite good, but it's all very basic. no wall shading whatsoever, very minimal or overly subtle shading in general (proper, strong shading really is what most beginnerish user maps need in order to be taken to the next level, really). make more shadows and give different shade values to all those adjacent walls and ceilings so that they don't blend into one another and actually stand out individually, even from distance, in order to enhance a more three-dimensional look. also tons of those textures (especially on the floors and ceilings) look misaligned, or mismatched, ie. the tiles on the floors and ceilings do not fit their respective sectors' dimensions, another example would be that texturing for that door frame on the third screenshot which is really bogus and looks out of place. you would most likely be better off retexturing that entire parking lot, too. give those walls a texture that's different from the ceiling's, and make sure you don't stretch them so much and align them properly... fine-tune that stuff. also that car frankly just looks plain wrong and square-ish. download user maps like roch 7 and 8 (the most notorious examples in this instance, even though plenty of other maps come with excellently-designed cars) to get a better picture of how it can be, and should be done.

now, the strong point of your screenshots has to be how you seem to take ceiling and floor height into account, and design rooms with different heights for them... i wish more mappers did that (even though a lot of the good ones already do), it adds a lot to the three-dimensional feel of a level. fourth screenshot is the best out of all of them, the texturing is pretty nice and comes with some variety in one same room which is always good to see (although it would once again benefit from stronger shading). but even that one would be regarded to as average in quality in comparison to how most user maps that are released nowadays look. so yeah, please take some time to work and refine those skills on your levels individually in order to fine-tune them and make sure they could all stand out as quality maps even as singular user map releases, which i know takes time and is probably why people are saying you should lower your ambitions (4 episodes of quality user maps really is a lot of work... i have been mapping for 15+ years myself and haven't released as many individual levels... my maps take about one year to make on average). of course telling someone they should aim lower never really makes for good advice... but you get the picture. we are all trying to give you pointers if anything. good luck with your project !

[brullov]

I know that feel when you did something and you want to share with community. Few years ago I thought that I map quite good (but I did a really piece of shit), so I wondered to hear good feedback. Thanks user art I had, but you don't have any new art. You even don't know how to fix that bug. And it would take 2 minutes to fix, I suppose. And you story is kinda boring. I am sorry, but " Duke was having a rest and aliens came back" is fucking annoying now. For example I had the same story and its one of the reasons I didn't finish Rush Hour. However I reimagined my modification. 2 years ago I restarted Rush Hour and I took only code from it. I did new character, story and new atmosphere. It gave me so many possibilites so I can make Proton as a sister of Duke Nukem. I worked hard and shared with few screenshots and idea. So I found my friends and we began our work! At the moment we have big results and we are still keeping our project! Also, I earned some reputation in this community (quite little, but its better then nothing). I only did 2 mods (Xmas 2013 and 2014) and released 2 maps. I want to say that its a quarter of work which I did for Begins. So don't stop working, improve yourself and share with us when you think it's time for. And be ready for critics. Don't make any excuses, it won't make your modification better. Analyse why people don't like something and think how you can solve all problems. Good luck!

[Micky C]

Never Forgotten, on 31 October 2014 - 09:22 PM, said:

I'm not aiming too high, I'm aiming exactly where I am.

Don't you see? You're saying the exact same thing that those hundreds (or more) of other guys said when they started out on their projects; which as already stated, were either abandoned or just turned out crap.

Never Forgotten, on 31 October 2014 - 09:22 PM, said:

The first two maps will be smaller scaled, but the rest will be medium to large, with as much detail that is realistically possible.

So you're going to create a very large number of highly detailed maps? Uhuh. I'm not going to stop you wasting your time making lots of maps, none of which people will want to play because you're refusing to listen. You do not know better than your target audience.

Also, why don't you go and make a room. Just one room; that's (for you) as detailed as realistically possible. Make the room and post a screenshot of it here. We'll tell you how it rates. If we think it's not that good (and we'll be honest, we have no grudge against you), we'll let you know, and you'll then be forced to consider the fact that
1. If you can't make a single room look good, no matter how much time you spend on it, then how are you going to make a whole map look good? Or
2. The room does look ok, but you spent so much time on that one room, that applying that same level of detail to an entire map let alone an entire episode (or more) would be way too long to be practical

Also, I don't know why you're making a big deal about replacing the original levels, it's kind of standard procedure for new content to be entirely new...

[Forge]

I say go for it. By the time you reach your twentieth level five or six years from now you'll probably be a pretty good mapper.

[Mark]

You guys don't need to hover over him like a mother hen. He has received enough advice on the scope of his project and the need for details. I suggest that he needs to find out for himself if he can succeed in a large undertaking or not. I am one of the many that made the choice of a large first project and it ended up being released in the " unfinished projects " thread. Hopefully he defies the odds and succeeds or part way thru the project he realises the need to cut back. Its for him to decide. I suggest that he walks away from this thread, do some thinking and mapping and come back with a progress report of good stuff a few months from now.

[Jblade]

All I can say is I wish you luck dude, but I'd recommend making them episodic releases - that way there's more to play, if you can't carry on with the project people at least can see your stuff out there, and it also gives you a chance to re-iterate and improve things as you go along and improve at modding.

[The Commander]

I love how Forge has beat me to everything I would have said, but he didn't add in the swearing.
Fuck...

[Never Forgotten]

Thanks for the feedback, good or bad... I will listen to it, and try to make my maps as detailed as they should, which was my vision from the start. I like that you're trying to help, but please, don't treat me like I'm some kind of kid who doesn't know anything... And dude, that whole thing about Proton being Duke's sister... that's messed up.

[zykov eddy]

Micky C, on 31 October 2014 - 03:58 PM, said:

IMO it would be a very bad idea to release a big 4-level mod without having released some decent individual maps first (and those quickies you released a while ago don't count).

Funny thing btw, my first project ever released was moonbase Accident episode, and it had 7 maps

[The Commander]

But you are just a crazy Russian, so you are exused.

[Forge]

minor difference between 7 maps and almost 40.