DTWiD - a forerunner to a new trend in wad making?

I hope it could be that way. Ultra-hard wads have already been done to death, after all. Atmosphere and nostalgia-based level making with adventure-oriented gameplay seems to be the new black after the release of DTWiD. Will the wave last?

The wave? Classic-style nostalgia projects are a pretty big hallmark of the Doom community. It's possible that slaughtermaps are less frequent, though Combat Shock 2 did just win a cacoward. Can't say I've kept too close a track to such trends previously. I'm aiming to change that this year.

I'd rather say that we have currently quite some "remakes" in the works. There are several projects for Doom II alone right now (D2TWiD, Doom 2 meets ZDoom, Doom 2 In Name Only etc.), and they all look quite promising.
There are also some interesting Doom 1-themed level packs btw (DTWiD: The Lost Episodes or No End In Sight maybe).

They (not sure who exactly) even want to release an updated version of doom2.wad for Doom's 20th anniversary (according to this post at least). So we should get a lot of Doom II-style wads to play with in the near future.

In general, I am also a fan of standard difficulty, Plutonia-style maps are nothing for me. Focussing too much on sweating/surviving rather than exploring the levels. :)

NightFright said:

an updated version of doom2.wad

nooooooooooooo

NightFright said:

I'd rather say that we have currently quite some remakes in the works. There are several projects for Doom II alone right now (D2TWiD, Doom 2 meets ZDoom, Doom 2 In Name Only etc.), and they all look quite promising.
There are also some interesting Doom 1 remakes btw (DTWiD: The Lost Episodes or No End In Sight maybe).

I think you don't quite understand what a remake is.

I think DTWiD was a huge learning experience for mappers more so than anything. It allowed mappers to put aside their own mapping traits and try to reason with the IWADs and associate all their design decisions to the mappers who made Doom fun for us in the first place.

It was a great opportunity to look at the game through the eyes of a different person.

I suppose if nothing else, DTWID has sorta sparked a trend of mappers intentionally shooting for simpler-styled (often vanilla-compatible) maps focusing more on architecture/texturing instead of massive detail on the visual front. I at least say this because that's exactly the mapping philosophy I've used for No End in Sight. No idea what goes on in NaturalTvventy's head, though. :P

Yeah, the tendency to recreate id-styled levels has its history. It may have become a bit more pronounced because the game is older, giving more reasons to revive memories of older stuff.

Fava Beans and Dawn of the Dead are arguably stepping stones in that trend, which was reinforced by the Doom Center E1 contest in 2001 (you can ge the contest levels here), which was judged by Romero, who also interacted with the DTWiD team.

And this isn't even talking about all the maps, forbidden on the archive, that are minor edits of the original maps. The DWANGO wads are the most noteworthy surviving example of that trend.

Xfing said:

Ultra-hard wads have already been done to death, after all.

Those wads have always been the minority.

TimeOfDeath said:

Those wads have always been the minority.

Maybe I'm too ignorant, but the HR series, the CC series, Memento Mori, AV seem like the most famous and cherished user made megawads ever, and they're all rather on the difficult side.

Memento Mori certainly isn't on the "difficult side".

If you think most wads are too hard you can just play on a lower difficulty. If you prefer to play on UV, that's fine (I do too), but you should at least realize that wads harder than Doom II aren't just a trend. The id levels (even E4) are considered easy by today's standards, and most doomers want to play levels that actually challenge them. Sure, an easy wad like DTWiD is nice once in while, but playing them exclusively can become boring.

To be honest, it seems like you have naive view of doom community. I'm not trying to insult you are anything: I did too when I joined it; my views just changed as I learned more and became a better player.

NightFright said:

In general, I am also a fan of standard difficulty, Plutonia-style maps are nothing for me. Focussing too much on sweating/surviving rather than exploring the levels. :)

Just for reference:

Plutonia-style != ultra-hard != slaughter

Plutonia-style maps are completely different in style from slaughter maps, and neither necessarily has to be very difficult. Sure, Plutonia-style maps and slaughter maps are often ultra-hard, but the don't have to be. Hell, even The Plutonia Experiment isn't that difficult by today's standards.

Xfing said:

Will the wave last?

Somehow it's ironical that my "classic" DooM project Doomep47 is due in this year.

Processingcontrol said:
Memento Mori certainly isn't on the "difficult side".

Yeah, having just played through it for the Megawad club, it's notably easier than the modern-day standard. Not surprising, really. In 1996, a lot of people still played keyboard-only.

Processingcontrol said:
slaughter maps are often ultra-hard, but they don't have to be

See Mayhem12 map07 for an example of a slaughter map with minimal challenge to it.