* Similar to non-linear layouts, you could design puzzles or actions that the players need to complete, but ones that go faster with 2+ players. (e.g. killing Cthon in E1M7.)

Come on. I know you guys have more insights than what you've said so far. 

has spoken very fondly of the ps2 "half-life something" game with levels designed for co-op.. maybe there are some good ideas to be found there? 

But thanks for commenting. 

something like a crusher that gets activated by a button in a different room. one player goes in, lures out some monsters into position under the crusher, and the other player hits the switch to turn it on...

little scenarios like that could be fun, but would sort of depending on prior knowledge of the map to know what to do on short notice like that. 

you could make a message appear for "the bait" that says "RUN AWAY LIKE A LITTLE GIRL!" at least then there's a better chance they'll make monsters chase them. 

well, maybe a monster that attacked you and arrested your movement and required another player to rescue them.

that would add an interesting twist to coop gameplay...

or maybe intentionally spliting the players up -- teleporting them each to seperate areas, where they are still fighting together, but must try to join up again... like they are teleported into a big arena at opposite ends of it and each have to fend off their own set of monsters, and work towards the center so they can combine firepower more effectively... 

pm_walkspeed 320 in doom3 feels like quake! ^_^

would it be innappropriate to design a map requiring the use of a specific walkspeed? 

Hmmm. I would be more inclined just to make a small mod whereby running does not require stamina; therefore you can set "always run" and still maintain the normal Doom3 physics. (Just put in the story that your marine is uber-fit and can sprint indefinately ;) 

sounds good. is there an 'always run' setting d3? didn't know about it; that's why i was thinking of just changing the default walk speed.

also, why bother with a story. O_o just justify it by saying you want a little faster paced gameplay. :) 

I never saw an option for Always Run in singleplayer, but I did notice it in deathmatch. 

Shouldn't always run without stamina be like a map setting, not even requiring a mod? It's been quite a few months since I played doom 3, and I did it just the once, but couldn't you always run in the levels in hell? Your stamina bar had all those flames instead. 

well, yeah, you can run yes, but i mean, run as a default... hence why i suggested changing the default walk speed.

also though, that speed of 320 is faster than the normal d3 sprint speed too. 

My main point is that I think a run speed of 320 might be a little off-kilter with the rest of the game. Doom3's sprint speed is 220, I believe, and the walk speed is 140. Preach raised a good point with Hell; i'd be inclined to do that instead :) 

Coming up with scenarios for a coop map is a good exercise but it's limiting. I think putting in two man monster traps and little button-door setups that make the map impossible to play with one person isn't approaching the idea from the right direction. Sure the map might have some of that, but they're gimmicks. The meat of a coop map would be no different on the surface than a single player map - the combats and the progression through space would have to be engineered so that two people cooperating leads to less getting hurt and less dying (which there should be plenty of if the two players are 'going it alone').

I guess my point is in a coop map you should need the other player to survive the map, not to navigate it. 

I really think gameplay doesn't change a lot between SP and Coop even if the mapper add "team-play goodies" like you described (buttons and stuff...)

Just try Halo 2 in SP and compared it with Coop, and you can easily noticed there are just many more monsters, and the gamplay didn't change in anyway !! The game just become more interesting: each player need the other one to survive... (like you said), and you have to act like real "commando-team" to survive..

In anyway, it's rather interesting to fight with the help of somebody else... even if I personnally prefer a great fight alone again a horde of monsters... it's a kind of personnal challenge and my humble opinion ;P 

it'd be nice if there was a flag 'not in coop' and 'coop only' so you can make extra monsters appear, or more ammo and weapons and such appear. heck, you could even make more doors and such appear and alternate routes in coop. that'd be cool, no? 

"Coop: Yes, 4 starts (skill level 3 recommended)" 

You could use easy mode for coop, flag non coop stuff as not in normal or hard and you're off. Nobody plays easy these days, surely? 

actually, I'm being a dumbass, since the monster ai is different on easy. 

Cyber Slam (who I work for) ran a promotional event for ABIT, and we use czg's dm_overflow for the final. The gameplay was outputted to 2 plasma screens at the event.

Videos (DEM, DivX and WMV) of the final can be founnd here:
http://cyberslam.com.au/toolbox.asp?g=14 

I really think gameplay doesn't change a lot between SP and Coop even if the mapper add "team-play goodies" like you described (buttons and stuff...)

That's not what I meant. A map made for coop should be more than just a single player map with more shit in it - the various fights the players get in should be geared towards challenging a team of two. Fighting two shamblers and a vore, for example - really hard by yourself, but with someone to lure the voreballs away while you polish the shamblers off, suddenly things are different. 

As I tried to explain with the Halo2 example, it's rather difficult to see differences between SP and Coop gameplay, just the amount of monsters you have to fight. This in order to say I really think SP and Coop dedicated maps have to be developped with rather different spirit, and so on, it's really difficult to reach SP and Coop players' expectations with a unique map gameplay in fact... 

if it's number of monsters and ammo...

what about a mod that simply makes monsters respawn one more time when they die the first time, and ammo respawns one more time after it's picked up?

i could throw something like that together fairly quickly -- i already did continuous monster respawning as a mod anyway... it wouldn't be much different except there'd be a counter to keep track of how many times a monster or item had respawned... 

It seems it already exist in "old Doom series" when you play it in Nightmare skill... Killed monsters respawn after a certain time... but I don't know if it's really the case, or just many much more teleported monsters than in lower skills... 

In Doom the monsters respawn indefinately on Nightmare skill.