User talk:Eris Falling

Screenshot names
Please try to give relevant names to the files you upload. E.g., "CC4_MAP01_Slime_trail.png" is a relevant name, whereas "Screenshot_Doom_Timestamp" isn't. The form to upload pics lets you rename them on the fly (destination filename), so use that. Thanks. --Gez 19:58, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Map data
Hello, Eris. Hope you never felt too bad because of the few changes I made for the DTWID level articles a while ago. Don't forget now that the map data you uploaded was mainly all right - the way you expressed vertex counts was just flawy, for which I don't blame you. The point is that you can freely upload the thing, linedef, sidedef and sector information for the new Knee-Deep in ZDoom level articles. And if you like to have help on how to get the total amount of vertices for a level, I can give it. --Jartapran 19:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah no it's cool, I saw the same problem appeared on some Plutonia pages anyway. The method I used for getting the numbers shown in my tables was done via DB2 Statistics mode, which I assume is where the differences came in. Another problem is that I can only run SLADE 3 (for extracting individual KDIZD levels) on another computer, which I'm never at. I will do them eventually, though. However, I think SLADE 3 also displays the number of linedefs, vertices, etc. Maybe these are more accurate. --Eris Falling 19:53, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * OK. A moment ago, I tested SLADE 3 and immediately found an easy way to find out the total amount of vertices. Just open the target WAD, select the VERTEXES lump under the level in question and see the reading of Entry Size (accompanying Entry Type). Once you divide the number by four, you get the amount that needs to be used in the map data slot. :) For instance, E1M8's lump is 1,312 bytes so: 1,312 / 4 = 328. When it comes to the remaining attributes of map data, you may go on using DB2's accessory. But, do add the stats when you see it fit. --Jartapran 20:32, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * What I've decided to do is leave all vertex counts for now, and then find out all for all my current and future articles, and record them in User:Eris Falling/Vertex counts, so I can refer back to them later. This seems like the easiest solution, given that I can not run SLADE 3 on my main computer. --Eris Falling 20:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Map names
Like I said to Unmaker, the template takes care of putting levels in the proper categories automatically. The only thing it doesn't handle is level authors. There is no need to explicitly add "Category:Levels by name" to each map. --Gez 16:22, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Noted, thanks. This doesn't apply for placing mapper categories (such as "Category:Michael Mancuso levels") into "Category:Levels by author" though, right? --Eris Falling 16:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't handle authors; just the map slot and levels by name. --Gez 18:04, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Sectors
You mentioned that I should put "sectors" on the secrets I find and edit them on their related level pages. How can I do that? I have ZDoom and GZDoom by the way.

--Strogglet 16:22, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As you might have noticed, a lot of the secrets you added had numbers in the format of (sector number). As you might also have noticed, some of the secrets were missing these numbers. I found the numbers that existed by opening up the maps in Doom Builder 2 and using the search tool to find sectors that were tagged as secret. By studying the location of the sectors that showed up, I managed to infer which secret the sector number was referring to. Unfortunately, it only accounts for those that are tagged as secret only, and as such there are other secrets with different effects (such as friction for example), that will not show up in the list. --Eris Falling 16:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * After extracting individual levels from the PK3 - you may be able to avoid this in GZDoombuilder, but don't quote me on it.


 * Frankly I do not see any reason why these numbers must be on the map pages, but I do write them anyway for the sake of completeness. Markers on level map views would be immensely more useful for the reader, but hardly anybody ever going to mess with those. Never dealt with generalized sectors and such, and I wouldn't bother myself in such cases. IIRC it was User:Ducon who made the Template:Map skel where these sector numbers supposedly originate from, maybe he had something in mind about them initially.


 * By the way Eris, KDIZD map pics that you uploaded are a total incomprehensible mess, don't you find? From my inquiries, SLADE makes mapviews in 800x600 and there seems to be no way to make them any bigger, while omgifol script just borks out with zdoom maps, and alas I don't know a thing in Python in order to tweak it. I wonder if something can be done about this, Unmaker 19:11, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Partial answer: sector numbers are included for disambiguation. Most maps (including some id maps) arrange secret sectors in an inconsistent way, not always matching the room's architecture or placement of loot, and it would be cumbersome to specify verbally in each case.  The precision can be useful, e.g., when speedrunning and you want to know if you can pick up the secret without traversing the whole chamber.  As a general principle over the years, we have tried to be comprehensive with technical content in order to be a useful reference work for programmers and mappers, not just for players.    Ryan W 20:49, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Secret list of Z1M3
As an attempt to shorten the QA backlog, I had a look at the pending contribution to Z1M3: Toxin Refinery (Knee-Deep in ZDoom). I already reworded the content but couldn't publish it because of a few issues.

Considering the size of the contribution, I believe the factual accuracy is mainly acceptable. Secrets #5 and #6, however, have something odd in them: The hidden ledge in the computer is still present. and The other hidden ledge returns as well.

Has something important been left out from those two? "Still", does it refer to some in-game event or to the fact it hasn't yet been mentioned in the secret list? "Ledge returns", what does this mean? Is there only a single computer in the level, which would explain that there aren't more details about the locations of these two secrets?

I've never played the level, but I assume you're familiar with it. That's why I'd like to ask, if you could check the secret list, modify it if you see it fit and review/publish the changes. --Jartapran 12:48, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sadly, while I know some of the secrets and can quite easily find my way through that behemoth of a map, I'm yet to find all of them. I left the ones I didn't find listed as TBA, and added sector numbers where I could using Doom Builder. I'll double check those two quotes, but it doesn't look like something I'd write.
 * Also, if at some point you do play KDiZD, feel free to check Z1M10, and add to the list of maps that appear in said level :) --Eris Falling 17:37, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Speedrunning Records
Compet-N says that "To beat an existing record, you'll have to do at least one second better (taken by the intermission screen)." DSDA don't reject any demos even if the demo is slower than a record or the same time as a record, but speedrunners compete under compet-N's record rule.


 * Hi, thanks for your help with the pacifist/speed records.
 * Regarding the rule you've stated, it seems to me to be even more reason to list both records. Listing a second record of the same time doesn't say that one is faster than the other, otherwise I'd just replace it completely.


 * Additionally, the rule that disallows using a different EXE other than DOOM.EXE v1.9 or DOOM2.EXE v1.9 kinda invalidates the competing under Compet-N's record rule. The vast majority of demos on DSDA are recorded with PrBoom+ --Eris Falling 18:54, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * DSDA only archives demos, so DSDA itself never decide any competition rules and any official DSDA records. A definition of record is just a tacit understanding between speedrunners. Although You said that it seemed to be unfair, how value is a tie record? For example, it is definitely easy to get a tie record of Kama Sutra map 25 on NM (Other examples are scythe map 07 or 23 on UV or NM speed). If speedrunners feel a tie record to be worth, the most of them submit it to DSDA, don't they? However, they usually don't do it. It is their perception. Recently, the number of players who submit demos without competition increased and they post not the fastest record for fun, including a tied one, though they never are contrary to DSDA's policy. Although the port's limit is relaxed, the rule still is comparatively close to compet-N.


 * And if they don't submit their tie demo, then it never appears on DSDA, and hence it doesn't show up on the tables here. But tie demos are submitted, and here is a perfect example. Scroll to MAP25.


 * On the flip side, tie demos can actually be worth a fair bit, an example being found at MAP05: Installation Decrepit (Community Chest 4). I really don't see what the issue is with listing tied records. If it got out of hand and about 10 people tied for a record, that would make the table messy, and I'd just take the oldest demo. However that's unlikely to ever be the case. It's veryunlikely I'll ever come across a record where more than 3 people are tied. I figure that 3 is a good maximum for tied records, and I see no reason not to list them. --Eris Falling 18:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Yellow keycard of Z1M4
Hi, I see that you disagree with my choice of not including the yellow keycard in the thing table, as you put it back there. I think that if it is kept, there should be a footnote telling the reader that it's not present in single player but only in cooperative (multiplayer) mode. I wouldn't be worried otherwise, but as far as I know, the information on thing tables is based on appearances in single player. In addition, it's contradictory that the description of secret #6 says there is not a yellow keycard in the level, but according to the thing table below, there is one. Do you agree?

The yellow keycard is thing #227 and it has the flags easy, medium, hard and co-op. --Jartapran (talk) 13:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Whoops! Before I determine numbers, I do a scan of the whole map to see what things are used, and then list them, multiplayer or not. This is so I don't miss any types when I add the filters. Obviously the yellow card came up and I assumed it was there in single player. Fortunately it was only an assumption and I didn't set the filters up incorrectly. --Eris Falling (talk) 15:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Thing_Spawn
I've seen you mention Thing_Spawn in KDIZD/ZDCMP articles, but you should keep in mind that there are other ways of spawning things, from Spawn to SpawnSpotFacingForced. --Gez (talk) 14:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Thought the ACS function was also called Thing_Spawn. Noted, thanks. --Eris Falling (talk) 14:30, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm not sure it's necessarily a good idea to list monsters scripted to spawn directly in the monster list, because scripts can be conditional, and scripted spawning can fail (that's why ZDoom has the SpawnForced variants if it is really critical that something does spawn). There's also sometimes the issue of potentially infinite spawns, as in Hexen. If spawned things are counted, maybe they should be in a separate table. --Gez (talk) 20:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, I buggered up on the KDiZD ones, so this can still be worked out. I believe that the watchtower in ZDCMP2 is such a case of infinite spawning, and my intention was to count the first 4 chaingunners there, but ignore subsequent spawns, and then leave a note explaining that. Well, since I've added dormant monsters and the rest of the things, they do contain all the initial conditions of their respective map. They could be considered complete if that disclaimer is left in place. I'm not so sure now it's worth the bother. --Eris Falling (talk) 22:45, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Secret sectors and DoomBuilder
Hi Eris. Sorry to bring bad news, but per this thread I would recommend not using the DB programs to look up secret sector numbers. No need to drop everything and revisit what you've done (I'll do so if you want), but I thought you should know. Ryan W (talk) 17:17, 17 February 2016 (CST)

Transparant map views
Your newly uploaded map views use a transparent background, which is against image policy and causes a gray background when thumbnailed into pages. It's the default in Slade3, but can be changed: see "the following GUI steps" in this section of my map views analysis. Besides opacity (255), using the standard line thickness (3) and scale (-4) is also strongly recommended. However, if maps are small (as DM ones tend to be) then you could try -3 or even -2 to end up with reasonably dimensioned images. --Xymph (talk) 11:42, 6 April 2017 (CDT)


 * Thanks, I reuploaded File:32in24.wad MAP01.png for checking, is it ok? --Eris Falling (talk) 12:01, 6 April 2017 (CDT)
 * Transparency is gone, but it appears you're still using the fixed default width of 999/1000px. Try setting map_image_height and ..._width to -4, then all images more clearly show the relative scale of each map compared to the others, including the large(r) ones like MAP06 and MAP17 in that WAD. If you find the images for the tiny maps too small, try -3 just for those. --Xymph (talk) 12:23, 6 April 2017 (CDT)
 * One more thing (sorry, it's hard to spot in MAP01 but clear in the others): you appear to be using a version of Slade3 older than v3.1.1.2, which introduced "a minor improvement to the 'Save Map Image' feature". Specifically, one sided linedefs (black lines) are now drawn after two-sided (gray) and action (orange) ones, resulting in cleaner images. Previously, the latter line endings were imposed over the black lines, making those look more jagged. Could you upgrade (which Slade should prompt for at start-up)? --Xymph (talk) 13:11, 6 April 2017 (CDT)

Category:Mephisto levels
Hi Eris. Mephisto has asked us to avoid using the real name. Please undo your changes before there is another mess. Thanks. Ryan W (usually gone) 14:10, 8 April 2017 (CDT)
 * Apologies, there were still instances of the real name present on the wiki, so I thought it was an oversight. All removed. --Eris Falling (talk) 14:20, 8 April 2017 (CDT)

D2INO
In response to "in" shouldn't even be capitalised: in the page you created and last worked on before my move, capitalized "In" was used both in the intro and in the maplinkgen templates, and so does the. That's why I opted to rename the page instead of lowercasing that word everywhere. --Xymph (talk) 17:24, 24 April 2017 (CDT)

DSDA table updates
I have been reliably informed that a successor to the current DSDA is nearing completion, and includes an API so maybe this task can be made a lot quicker and easier in future. Of course this will require template rewrites - and there's something other things with the speedrunning sections as a whole that I think could be changed/improved in the interests of consistency. Nearer the time I'll put something about this in central processing, but for now it makes sense to leave the mass updating for now. No more RecentChanges spam!

Eris Falling (talk) 08:47, 23 January 2018 (CST)


 * I was reluctant to interrupt the good flow you had going with something that's pretty far off, but scripting XymphBot updates to the speedrunning sections is (somewhat low) on my to-do list. As mentioned nearly a year ago (penultimate post in that topic, bullet 1), I aim to obtain data from Compet-N and DSDA to generate the Current records tables for all WADs covered by .ini files, and a DSDA API should certainly help with that. As noted it may still be challenging in other aspects, but if completed then it would also relegate the update spam to the bots-enabled area of RecentChanges.
 * Meanwhile if you're looking for something different to get busy with, there's always this. ;) --Xymph (talk) 11:04, 24 January 2018 (CST)
 * Heh, yes I noticed a few introductory paragraphs that needed filling out, and I was already doing some of those before starting on this, so I'll probably shift my focus there :) I'm a technical noob so unfortunately I can't help with scripting and stuff but this all sounds promising. The only thing I'd mention then about DSDA tables is what I was going to bring up on Central Processing but I also played around with it here was additions to the speedrunning section and setting some kind of standard for these because if there ever was one it's fallen apart a bit (I take some of the blame here because I was messing with the tables a few years ago). Stuff like standardising how we include -nomonsters demos, TAS runs and stuff, and when not to include categories in the table because the demos for them can never exist. A bot pass could sort most of this out provided we're all agreed on a standard. Eris Falling (talk) 11:25, 24 January 2018 (CST)


 * I agree standardization would be an improvement, just like for stuff like the statistics tables, map view images and more, and is indeed something the bot script(s) can do better than humans. I like your sandbox proposal, but am a demos layman so input from others would help to sort that out more than I can. What I need for scripting are the full and complete rules then written out somewhere. And as far as my to-do list goes, I'm pretty flexible and may feel inspired to work on this before some other entries. :) --Xymph (talk) 11:43, 24 January 2018 (CST)

Thank you
Just... thank you. I have been waiting 12 years for someone to do this. For a long time, our entire DM content consisted of this (I stopped checking because it was too frustrating, knowing it would go arse about face if I tried it myself). I hope the wiki wins the Mordeth award for finally having advice that improves people's gameplay. Ryan W (living fossil) 21:41, 15 February 2018 (CST)


 * Glad to be of use, though FWIW I don't really know much about deathmatch, the main aim has been to just provide as much neutral/objective information about the map as possible. Stuff like spawn locations would be good enough to expand the content in the IWAD articles beyond what they have already (which is nothing, for most of them :P). At least there's now some kind of standard for deathmatch articles, and I think CTF and Duel will probably end up being simple derivations of these too. --Eris Falling (talk) 05:58, 16 February 2018 (CST)

Release year
As far as I know, the rule for the release year in the wad template is the year when the WAD/mod appears on /idgames, or otherwise gets its first non-beta release. Why would the DMP series get an exception from that? I don't see the need. Can you explain (or revert)? --Xymph (talk) 01:06, 30 June 2018 (CDT)


 * That understanding's right, but my rule of thumb has always been to have annual mapping events as an exception to this rule - the MAYhem WADs, the 32in24 series, and DMP are all instances of this. My main justification is that I think that when something is tied to a year like this, it should appear in the category for that year. If, say, Doomworld Mega Project 2013 is placed into Category:2014 WADs, that makes less sense to me. --Eris Falling (talk) 05:08, 30 June 2018 (CDT)


 * I'm still no fan of exceptions to the year rule, but in these cases... alright. --Xymph (talk) 07:12, 1 July 2018 (CDT)

Name link removals
Hi Eris. When you make edits like this, please consider updating the request log to reduce the probability of another user restoring the links later. (I admit I sometimes find it counterintuitive, because it draws attention to the change, but Quasar seems to do it every time and this request was quite public anyway). Thanks, Ryan W (living fossil) 09:25, 24 August 2018 (CDT)


 * Ok, I wasn't sure if I should touch the log since I can't do the full process involved with these things (with the other recent case, the admin action and log were already updated before I removed links) but thinking about it now there would have been a way of wording the initial part of the log. Ah well, now I know, thanks! --Eris Falling (talk) 12:53, 24 August 2018 (CDT)


 * I know what you mean, but in those cases, someone had come along months/years later to make the request. A "full process" is, indeed, almost always a good idea.  But the people I saw were speaking up in advance, when only links existed.  (Am I forgetting a step? :P    Ryan W (living fossil) 13:51, 24 August 2018 (CDT)


 * This was the other recent case I was referring to, and here the important part, protecting the page from creation, was already done when the log entry was added, I just removed the links after that. In this case I would have been adding to log whilst the important thing wasn't actually done, "User request no page ever be created." I dunno, the log seemed more formal to me than to just have something that simplistic, but I know I was massively overthinking this entire thing :P --Eris Falling (talk) 16:01, 24 August 2018 (CDT)


 * Overthinking privacy topics is not necessarily a problem &mdash; it's better to do too much than too little. :7    Ryan W (living fossil) 00:19, 25 August 2018 (CDT)

Red links from user space
On a more content-related note, do you still have opinions about this? I realize it hasn't really grown into anything, partly due to RL commitments, but also because it's either too small (DW isn't the alpha and omega of community output) or too large (I should focus on one topic at a time so maybe I really learn about it). If you have some motivation to work with it further, which would be astonishing, I'll happily move it under your name so you can make whatever updates you want. Or, if those red links are the most visible issue right now, I could just delete it. :D Am I making sense? Ryan W (living fossil) 01:33, 25 August 2018 (CDT)


 * OK, that post deserves a thorough reply. I will have time for that after my trip.  Thank you, again.    Ryan W (living fossil) 12:30, 25 August 2018 (CDT)

Hi Eris &mdash; just wanted to let you know about this. I am grateful for your many questions, which helped me organize my thoughts better. Ryan W (living fossil) 01:26, 15 December 2019 (CST)