DBPs... with longer development times?

The position that DBP goes too fast is as legit as the opposite. There are also various viewpoints that back "goes too fast" umbrella, and they don't necessary agree with each other. Some beginner mappers need more time to make a map, some people outside this community (such as some DW users) want more polish, not everyone has the time to play a map per day, especially if they are not too experienced or are casual doomers.

There are certainly DBP maps that are too hard, like 40oz's opening map for Morbid Autumn, wtf with revenant(s) appearing so early in a room where it's hard to dodge its missiles by walking out of their sight? This wasn't what I originally tested. In fact, 40oz has a habit of making maps harder sometime before release, so you say to him "it's easy", he adds stuff, and woah, it's suddently total bullshit unless you discover an exploit (like joe's pacifist approach in the "No More Plagues" map from Evil Egypt) - and who would expect that from a casual player? Which means not that many players finish a DBP map per day.

I think people who say we go too fast in the DBP threads over at Doomworld are mostly just being playful and that they don't really want us to slow down our output. People play other stuff besides DBPs and they can rack up a big backlog of stuff to play but at the end of the day, I'm sure they're grateful for the maps.

Also, despite being probably the slowest (or at least one of the slowest) mapper in our stable, I think the DBPs should stick to the once-a-month format for a ton of reasons:

1 - The deadline gives motivation to actually make and finish a map. I "started" learning how to map around the time DBP27 came out but I didn't actually make or release anything because I planned on working on and releasing maps whenever I got around to it, which ended up being never.
2 - The deadline helped teach me how to finish a map and get a better idea of how long it takes me to map.
3 - I think the tight deadlines have somewhat helped me become a faster mapper, which is part of the reason I started contributing to them. It's a good way to build experience quickly.
4 - The tight deadline tends to prevent magnus opus syndrome. We have some long maps here and there but it's rare someone will drop something with 700 enemies or that takes an hour to beat.
5 - The consistent monthly deadline is one of the core tenets of the DBPs and is part of what makes them unique. There are other projects with a month-long timeframe (or less) but there's not many (if any) that do so as consistently and for as long as we have. That's not a diss on any other projects but I think the rapid pace is something people admire about us, so we should keep doing it.
6 - The DBPs are just limit-removing maps, I think one month is plenty of time to make one - especially since the project lead will have longer to work on creating assets for the project.

With that said, I think mappers should have the whole month to create maps. I wasn't a fan of the three-weeks for mapping, one week for bugfixing idea that 40oz proposed for this past DBP. I also think that 40oz is the only person who cares about these projects being released promptly on the 1st of the month. Yeah, we shouldn't release them at the end of the month like what happened with DBP32 but I think it's OK if we release a day or two later to tighten things up a bit. I don't think it's the end of the world if these get unleashed upon the world with some minor bugs here and there but I do think that people expect us to fix them eventually (and I would like for us to do so). The DBPs aren't disposable, people play recent ones and want to go back and play the rest so I think it's worth the effort.

I completely understand 40's reasoning for not wanting to bug fix but I still disagree about it. I don't think it's necessary for 40 to fix the bugs himself but there does need to be someone up top coordinating everything (with DBP23 iirc the bugfixing happened on the secret discord and as a result, VigilantDoomer's fixes for his map didn't get in) and someone will need to update the link on the DBP directory with the fixed version.

As for non-DBP community projects, I think it'd be cool to see some more DBP "sidequests" like Fall of Society that let us play around in a new format.

I'm not changing the project format and here are my reasons.

1. The mappers own the project. I don't have any aspirations for what the project is supposed to be. The projects being any good at all is entirely by accident. I put it in the rules; The project is released on the date, even if no one makes a map for it. If you want the project to be good, you gotta make good maps.

2. The project is a mapping gym, first and foremost. I made it so that people here would have an easy place to practice mapping with low stakes. It's meant to familiarize yourself with the process of making maps, working with other people, responding to feedback, and you can also just watch what happens here so you know what to expect when you eventually make a map here or in any project you work on. It doesn't take a whole lot of work to make something good and we demonstrate it every time.

3. There's no shortage of other open community mapping projects that need mappers. If you want longer development times, you can work on any of those.

4. The promise is that if you make a playable, functional, and fun map in this project, you're guaranteed it's going to land in a finished product in the said time. This is not something most community projects can promise, as many of them get abandoned, have management changes, delay release, get stuck in endless development cycles, etc. I don't like to see people waste their time making a map and then have it held hostage for years. The project demonstrates what you're current level of mapping skill is. We've done this 39 times, it's gonna keep going.

5. When you create your own project, you get full control over the development time and release date. You don't have to work on DBP. You can use the way the project is formatted as a base for your own projects. We do the same thing every time: pick out the textures and music first, then make maps with it after. You can do the same thing with your own standalone releases. DBP is just a gym. You can learn a bunch of useful skills here and then apply it in your own works where you can do everything the right way that you think is always done wrong in the DBP.

6. Its ok to own your failures. Not everything you make is going to be perfect or your best work ever. Just do your best. If people find the bugs, you fix them during the development cycle. If its after release, then do a better job in your next map. Simple as that.

7. If you want things done right, you gotta do them yourself. Every doomer boards member is allowed to help with the project. I posted up the beta in the development thread to simplify testing days before the actual release. Besides the ambient soundfx, a couple lumps, and the credits map, the latest thing was almost totally identical to the release. dmdr I see your posts but I don't see your playtesting feedback in the thread. I don't have a lot of sympathy for your requests when are you waiting until the release thread to comment on the bugs when the maps were already available to you.

8. If you don't think you can finish a map in time for it, then dont. If you still want to make a map for it anyway, then scale down your expectations of yourself by making a smaller map. It's not a competition, just make something. I have tips you can try if you want to improve your mapping speed.

dmdr it's been a mapping gym since the very beginning

doomer.boards.net/thread/654/pseudo-community-project-establishing-details

The current DBP format works and I like it. Constraints are what drive creativity and problem-solving. And yes, they dictate the solution to a degree. But the DBPs are upfront about the constraints and part of what you learn is how to be realistic with your ambitions.

would you like me to post a screenshot of me telling you to knock that passive-aggressive shit off?
Also, one mention of 'mapping gym' prior to 2020 and it's pretty obvious that your conception of 'mapping gym' changed considerably during your absence. Whether or not you uploaded anything to /idgames or not is utterly irrelevant, the fact is that in the DBP01 thread, as linked, you fixed up a few errors... after release. Once again, the 'never fix anything' aspect of the 'mapping gym' is a later accretion, and not a good one.


a) let's talk about bigolbilly for a sec. How many maps did he make for the DBPs? How many did he lead? And what was the impetus for DBP23v2... an error in one of his maps that rendered it non-completeable in GZDoom. Was he 'inexperienced'? Shit slips through, I don't care how 'experienced' you are.
b) yeah no shit testers are necessary. Guess what though, people who play the maps post release are also doing the same shit that testers do... which is to say, playing the maps. And if they report bugs, then the best way to respect their time is... wait for it... not just to ignore them because of some stupid 'rule' that never used to mean what you say it means now. I'm not just talking about me, by the way.


knock the passive-aggressive shit off, and also the disingenuous shit. The problem here is your inflexible attitude, not archi's map or any bugs therein, and you know that. Fixing shit is not 'procrastination', which you also know. You also had my help during the project, and during the last. If you think I didn't do enough, then tough fucking shit, you get what you're given.

Seriously, go back and look at their posts about how I'm stalling community growth. How I'm turning people away and making the project less accessible. How when people use this forum to post 'toxic' shit, it's my fault that I'm putting 'toxic' shit on the forefront of this forum. That despite members here that I've argued with saying im a stupid woke leftist, when doomworld bans people and they come here to use their "freedom of speech" to parrot stupid alt-right bullshit they heard on conservative youtube on this stupid little offshoot doom forum until they get bored and leave, I'm the one that's nurturing the sweeping racism, homophobia, and transphobia in this world.

The doomer boards community is bigger and more active now than it ever has been. People are posting more about Doom than they are about their political hot takes on current events. The doomer boards project is active and has gotten new mappers every month since. I almost never hear from people who have worked on doomer boards project say that they disliked the format of the project. The project and the community failing is not a real problem. You're making this into a problem about me. It's fucking insane the shit people make up about me when they're allowed the full autonomy to fix things themselves.

I don't think this was really about you 40oz.  It is just that it is a lot more convenient for some people to use discord than it is to use forums.  Also, I find that asking people privately to give feedback on my maps is a lot less nerve-wracking than asking for feedback publicly where anyone can see your map.  Sometimes, it is nicer to ask people you know and trust very well to playtest the early versions of your map to ensure it is of a high enough quality for public playtesting.  

I believe that's a different issue. I think the timeline probably goes along something like this:

40oz leaves doomer boards
Glenzinho and Billy (among other people) decide to lead some of the DBP projects in 40's absence. They end up using discord a lot because it's more convenient (but they post the more fine-tuned maps and resources on the boards.)
40oz returns to doomer boards, some people are still using discord because of the reasons mentioned in my previous post.
40oz is unhappy with the apparent lack of activity on the dbp threads because a lot of the maps are being discussed on discord where people feel safer.
This among other things creates a divide between 40oz and the current members of the DBK.
The DBK leave doomer boards (the conflict with 40oz did play a part in this but there were other reasons too which I can't go into)

So in conclusion, people deciding to go on discord for mapping feedback didn't really have anything to do with 40oz. The mass exodus did largely involve 40oz but it isn't the sole reason behind everyone leaving.

Addendum: we used to use a public discord server but due to drama issues involving people on the server who will not be named, a lot of us migrated to a different discord server which is now private to help prevent these kind of things from repeating themselves.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm not following you, zedonk. I understand the part of not wanting to post your maps in public where they can be put on blast by strangers. That sucks when that happens, and believe me if someone does that here I'll squash that shit right away. A community that is encouraged to make new mappers feel like shit is what I consider to be a toxic community and I will definitely stand by creators first before letting lazy condescending commentors grill mappers who putting forth the effort to get good.

But you also made this thread stating that you prefer that every part of the forum should be public. Has your opinion changed since I responded?

I understand Discord has other benefits too, but it also has other severe problems too which have surfaced in Doomer Boards Project and have been discussed, such as the ones you're under some sort of ad hoc non-disclosure-agreement not to talk about.