if E1M1 sucked

a kind of mapping experiment. I took E1M1 and stripped it of a lot of things I felt made it so unique and interesting: height variation, non-orthogonal angles, windows.

by that I don't mean that E1M1 is unique because of its (somewhat minor) height variation, its angles, or its windows. what I do think, though, is that a lot of mappers/players don't realize how much of an impact some of these seemingly subtle things can have.

or, possibly, I just think everybody is retarded, when in truth they are more conscious of these things than I think. so maybe this will encourage you to be more liberal and creative with your mapping; perhaps not. regardless:

download

Hey, this is an awesome idea! Really shows how things like orthogonality and lack of height variation really take away from a map.

Oh dear. It's terrible, yet I can't avert my eyes! D:

It's indeed a nice showcase of how subtleties like this really add to a map. The level of detail in terms of line+sector count is near-identical, yet the difference is quite sharp.

Fun. The slime room lift HOMs (both floor and ceiling flats), not sure if it was intended or an oversight.

The first room is much better now. I always hated that stupid stairway on the left, it really looks out of place IMO.

Still looks good to me. It would take a whole heck of a lot to make an ID map suck.

Does it look like made in Wolfenstein 3d now (I haven't downloaded it yet)?

The changes are impressive. Now it really looks and plays badly. It`s good that E1M1 is the way it is.

For a while I was thinking about remaking the first doom episode in a way it would have looked like if the guys at id ran out of time creating a new engine and instead used a modified wolfenstein engine. It would have been kind of similiar, but without any height variation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yIxUOWrtw

Im pretty sure the concept was done before.

I guess I must be one of those people on whom the subtleties are lost because it didn't seem all that bad to me. A bit too angular perhaps, but otherwise more or less the same.

Perhaps E1M1 is so burnt into my brain that it blurs over the subtleties by itself already. The map *plays* more or less the same—the parts removed didn't really affect how I went about fighting the monsters, which is all I really pay attention to any more.

You'd have to remove a lot more than you did before it really began to suck, I think. Like, every outdoor part (including around the green armour), all the ceiling height variation in the first room, all the secret areas, ...

In summary, it's still way more fun than Call of Dooty ;-) ¹

—
¹ incidentally one of the funniest features from CoD, that this wad perhaps unintentionally replicates, is straightening the zig-zag bridge. Because you can't expect people to have to negotiate a bridge that they might fall off...



edit: haha MionicDonut's post was not there when I started writing this...

RjY said:

The map *plays* more or less the same

I think it plays better because now every room is accessible from the street. That's very convenient.

I only thought the E1M1 edit that's called "Call of Dooty" is the one that sucked.

I'll be honest,I really don't like it cause it makes feel like a Wolf 3d level.

Personally to me E1M1 with height variation, angles and windows shows off how technically superior of how it differs from Wolf 3d. Downgrading the map like that to me is just too silly.

I just ran through it, uv-maxing along the way, like i'd normally do in a regular e1m1. It almost didn't feel any different gameplay-wise and fun-wise. Certain aspects looked dull, of course, but it didn't hurt the gameplay for me.
It's interesting because one year ago i would've said this map sucks hard, and now after playing countless hours of slaughter-ish maps online i started to appreciate monster/thing placement & clever traps much more than design.
How the map plays is the first thing for me. Bad looks can create a negative impression at first, but if gameplay is good, i'd play it. Good examples of this are gggmork's maps, like map22 from sf2011v8.wad.
Even though i check out catchy-looking maps in a wad first, the uglier ones usually grow on me with time and often (not always) surpass the better-looking ones. I don't know why that happens, but i noticed it recently and wondered why is that so.
Also what is more important for me is atmosphere, which is affected by a general theme of a map rather than by subtle details (i.e. epic open areas / closed claustrophobic dark halls with creepy music). Fighting in an interesting tactical battle makes me feel in-the-game, and atmosphere enhances this experience by a big margin. Taking out little details wouldn't change much. Example map for this is Phml's map26 from the very same sf2011 wad. One would argue that this map is quite detailed, but imo it's too huge and blocky to notice the aforementioned details. It just feels like a set of huge square-shaped halls for me. The only things that are noticable are monsters and texturing. And it's fine that way.
Also in small non-challenging maps (like e1m1) details matter less imho, but i'm not going to delve into it now as this post is getting unnecessarily lenghty already. Basically, if e1m1 had looked bad, it probably wouldn't have become so legendary, but it's the same for almost every first level in most games. Suppose doom was released with e1m1 replaced with some shorter version of e1m2. My theory is that it would become THE level in everyones' minds instead, with time, just as it happened with e1m1, and would get analysed and praised often... even if it was less detailed (but not to the point when it starts look utterly crappy and amateurish).

In short: i dont care about small details enough to rate the detailed version of the map substantially higher than undetailed. I would probably give your t_e1m1 3.5/5 rating, while the original one would get 4/5 just to show appreciation to the designer for taking his time to work on aesthetical aspects.

Still, if the map is already atmospheric, fun to play, interesting to explore, then better details could be added to enhance emotional attachment of a player to the map. Best examples are probably sunder maps and phml's map25 from sf2011 (sorry, this wad again! I've just finished all maps yesterday at it's still sitting in my mind).

Ok, i don't know what i wrote here, but i don't feel like erasing everything now, so let's just post it. Boom. Wonder if anyone feels the same way i do.

Still had fun but it definitely feel different.
I'm tempted so see how it looks in other maps.

I'd be more interested in seeing how some overdetailed map would start to look and play after such overhaul.

I think the biggest impact comes from the removal of the windows. Those, more than anything else, gave the map some 'wow' effect back in the day.

Graf Zahl said:

I think the biggest impact comes from the removal of the windows. Those, more than anything else, gave the map some 'wow' effect back in the day.

True. "Wow, am I going way over there?", "Look at this huge base!", "How do I get out there?".

jongo said:

I'd be more interested in seeing how some overdetailed map would start to look and play after such overhaul.

Most of them are already pretty much like this, if we're being honest.

This makes a good point.

pretty troll map, i'd made a run on the level, recorded it and now is uploading on my youtube channel... when is ready, i'll post it here or on the Doom Videos thread...

Well, the changes are rather minor. The green armor room got damaged the most... It also made finding the secret switch easier.

Quite frankly your use of varying ceiling heights, floor heights, and light levels is disgusting.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2uakc1qjq2rvd91

Some stuff is broken but oh well says id.

Funny how perfectly this captures why a lot of E1-style tribute maps fall short.

well, in my opinion it is still a big improvement to wolfensteind 3d ...

features like heigth differences and floor differences are still in the map

and doom textures and monsters... good luck for your next try to ruin da id map :D

So I tried out the this map and I also did DuckReconMajor's version. I thought the first one was OK but I still think the original is better. As for DuckReconMajor's version, it's much worse than the first.

I also made this picture using map images made with Slade3 comparing the original E1M1 with Tango and/or DuckReconMajor's version:



Also, both Tango and DuckReconMajor's maps looked the same while looking at them in Slade3.

Anyways where did you get the idea to do this Tango?

NitroactiveStudios said:

Anyways where did you get the idea to do this Tango?

a bit of a bump, but nonetheless:

i think honestly i thought about it after looking at some of Torm's maps or something like that. the point i suppose is to show that a little height variation and non-orthogonal angles can go a long way. obviously not everyone will subscribe to this, but imo visuals are a big part of the experience too and should be treated as such, even if minimally.

Philnemba said:

Downgrading the map like that to me is just too silly.

just trying to make a point, my man

Tango said:

the point i suppose is to show that a little height variation and non-orthogonal angles can go a long way. obviously not everyone will subscribe to this, but imo visuals are a big part of the experience too and should be treated as such, even if minimally.

Angles and height variation affect layout flow and gameplay progression directly, too :)

If the first level of episode 1 sucked this bad then we wouldn't have a community today.

Doomguy 2000 said:

If the first level of episode 1 sucked this bad then we wouldn't have a community today.

Yeah, you hear that, Tango? You suck!