1.09.4 talk:Silver Cascade Zone

Standards

As Mystic said in an edit summary, "Honestly, most of these articles aren't very helpful, so I'm clearing a lot of it. We need stuff more like our entry for MAP80."

I agree. I think the MAP80 page is a good standard to abide by for multiplayer maps. The "Techniques" section is what I consider the multiplayer map's equivalent to a Single Player map's "Walkthrough" and "Points of Interest" sections. Usually a multiplayer map doesn't require word-for-word walkthroughs through the level, nor does it have specific points of interest like an emblem or a hidden location. However, one could make use of a guide of map-specific techniques (which can apply to all multiplayer maps,) since a netgamer competes against others.

I also applied the Technical Data standard to MAP80, which I feel is essential to a map page. Here, I borrow some ideas from the Doom Wiki's idea of a map page. Under the "Statistics" section of that page, they list map details such as linedefs and vertices, and they also list Thing counts. I apply the same, as well as an examination of the level's map header.

Making the Technical Data Section

One can find the Map Data simply by going into Wadauthor, opening up the map, and then going to the "Statistics" window by "View > Statistics...". The relevant details are in the first section of that window.

The Level Header bit is also easy: just grab the level's level header (usually in srb2.srb) and explain some of the attributes in simpler terms. This is an incomplete standard, so I wouldn't mind some improvisation here.

So this leaves the Things count. I made a Things Sorter program to facilitate making the Things count. Get a map's THINGS lump using a lump editor, save it as a lmp file, and feed that file to the Things Sorter program. It outputs a CSV table which can be opened in Excel. In Excel, you can further sort the list to more easily work with it (the Things Sorter program outputs the Thing entries by their entry number.) The first column outputted lists each Thing # in the map. The second column outputted lists each Thing's respective flags, in decimal form. You may convert it to hex using the Calculator program and interpret it using the information provided in the "bitsetflags.txt" file included in the zip.

Conclusion

This is the standard for maps I've more or less decided upon (for single player maps, it's MAP01; for multiplayer maps, it's MAP80 (SRB2).) It's actually incomplete, so improvisation may be done on making the pages. Honestly, if you're unwilling to do the Technical Data sections, then that's fine. Leave it blank if you'd like.

I think, though, that some important things are to be considered for the standard. What stands out in mind is "what information is useful enough to be put in the 'Technical Data' section?" Furthermore, "what other useful information can be put in the map pages in general?"

Quite simply, I find the Level Header section to be a good quick reference for wadders, and the Things Count helpful for doing speedruns or whatnot, or just for examining the statistics of it all. That's my input on the subject.

I actually was never finished with making the standards of the map pages, so go ahead and improvise a little with them. Any improvements I decide upon for the standard would surely be reflected in the map pages, I'm sure.

And one more thing: I'm going to be gone again for an indeterminate amount of time. I just thought I'd stop by once on the occasion of my birthday. I may not be reliably available to participate in discussing this manner, therefore.

--Digiku 18:01, 7 March 2007 (PST)

Re: Standards

I've actually decided I'll take the task to do the rest of the CTF techniques pages, just because I think it'd be useful for one of the more highly-used gametypes. I was wondering if anyone else would fill out the technical data out for me, but now that I see how to do it, I think I'll just add that after I complete all the technique sections for CTF.

--Blue Warrior 09:01, 8 March 2007 (PST)

Powerups Section

I added a powerups section to this page, and I think it should be standard for the multiplayer maps to describe where the weapon rings and random monitors are. While it's obvious in MAP80, it's not in all the maps, and it's better to have it standardized. -Mystic 01:15, 14 March 2007 (PDT)

Response

I agree wholeheartedly. Random monitor boxes are just as important as weapons in a multiplayer map. DarkWarrior

Completed

There, all the match and CTF maps except Tree Ring, which I'll need to do a more complete exploration of, now have major powerups listed. -Mystic 16:09, 14 March 2007 (PDT)