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Darch

Map themes - disconnection x repetition

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I know most players will rather play maps that keep to a single theme before changing to another, otherwise maps feel "disconnected".

Is disconnection that bad? Or are there other things that I'm missing? Because, personally, I rather play disconnected maps than repetitive ones. Sometimes I feel authors take this "theme" thing too seriously, keeping even same textures, colors and etc. Is this just in the name of tradition? Because if you pick Doom2 first three maps as an example, they are all in the "techbase" theme, but with different colors and textures.

Not that I dislike mapsets that keep to a single theme, I just slightly rather play mixed themed ones. What I'm trying to understand is why there are few mixed themed wads out there against so many single (or triple) themed ones. It feels like I'm missing some basic doom concept that everybody knows but me :)

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I'm not sure. I know that the mapping philosophy of Enkeli33 (leader of ZOF.wad) is: The more variety and different styles, the better. Because then every player can find in the wad what fits him the most. The problem remains: There still could be 95% of other content that doesn't. Enkeli doesn't seem to be worried about it that much.

On the other hand, I understand people who like uniformity. I am also more likely to enjoy a mapset as a whole if there's something connecting the maps, being it a visual theme, gameplay idea, amount of detail, interesting mapping restriction etc. In my opinion, an uniformity is a good thing. Sticking to one idea just gives the impression of 'well, this author knows what he wants'. It also gives the possibility to create an actual non-parodical story - stories don't switch themes and settings too rapidly. Somebody can see a 'disconnection' to mean the same as 'random mess', which is often a sign of unprofessionality and poor execution of ideas. Some people would never accept it could actually be a feature.

In my opinion, having a single theme is not just a basic Doom concept, it's the tendency of creators in general. They do it to work easier with their material, as well as to make their work distinct and fancy to the audience. The idea of 'random mess = bad' (if not a parody) seems true to most people, so authors might be trying to effectivize everything, giving every single word/move/linedef an exact purpose in the whole piece, in order to be successful. I notice that tendency in the works of our better wad creators too, I think it's natural and actually working - the output is appealing.

So to sum up, the 'consistency' of any form gives a better aesthetical impression than 'mess'. Might be.

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I like consistent themes better and off the top of my head I can recall only a dozen or so wads who do just that. It feels so rare it might actually make me like a wad more than anything, because come to think of it all the names I'm thinking of are wads I do like and replay occasionally, including one or two with (imho) poor gameplay.

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As anybody who has played more than just one of my maps will be able to confirm, I favour changes of theme and wide variation within a style, usually even room to room. It's more interesting for me as a mapper to produce varied designs and it's more interesting for me as a player to see a range of visuals on display, plus it helps keep non-linear maps easy to navigate around as you remember where you are by what places look like.

We're playing a game, it's not meant to be realistic. More to the point, even reality is quite disjointed - living in a city that has very modern buildings interspersed around considerably older structures, a giant gothic cathedral and a historic dockyard - all surrounded by suburbs and then out into the countryside - you get a lot more variety in reality than you do playing something like BtSX E1 or Knee Deep in the Dead (to pick two well-known examples).

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Bringing up realism as a negative point to support your argument in a conversation where nobody else made any mention of realism beforehand ought to be considered Doomworld's Godwin's law by now. :p

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In terms of visuals I think there needs to be a mix of themes but my preference would be for this mix to be episodicly defined, gradually progressive over the course of multiple levels and/or story based. So there could be an abrupt change of theme mid episode but it would be logical in context to the story (not necessarily text based story, the maps themeselves could set the scene). Consistency in visuals to me would be things like levels of detail where you expect the same style accross the full set.

Gameplay is another story. While it's cool to see repeated motifs I think gameplay should change regularly, even if it's subtle. I can understand projects havig a unifying theme such as slaughter or adventure but this can be varied with sub styles and layout changes

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In my book any sort of theme change is okay if it makes at least some sense within the (supposed) story's context. So something like "modern city->egypt->mars->mordor->jungle" is going to totally suck for me, but if an episode is vaguely modern city-based it still leaves a lot of freedom for varying settings: different districts, a park, basements, roofs, outskirts, demolished areas, condemned areas, etc, different times of day, weather and whatnot (provided individual skies for maps are allowed).

I prefer that any map has some identity, which is easiest if it stands out because of it's theme, color scheme, etc, but I also prefer that there's at least some sense of connectivity, although stuff like having the same area be one map's exit and another one's entrance isn't needed at all, it just needs to make sense that the character could travel between these two locations without requiring much of an explanation as to how.

Personally, I usually have an overall idea for a map, and then when I map it usually gets divided into very distinct areas and I always wish I could make those areas bigger and have fewer of them since I always feel that I don't explore any of these themes enough, but I can't drag them as long as I'd want for the life of me.

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Why exactly keeping the theme equals repetition? Thematic consistency does not mean every map is so similiar you can't tell one from the other. Diversity is absolutely possible without going all over the place.

I very much prefer mapsets with continuity where changes happen because the whole thing is a journey. If the author makes it boring, it's the author's fault, not a problem with the concept of consistency.

With that said, consistency is more than just sticking to the theme. Putting 10 techbase maps next to each other won't magically make an episode a consistent journey.

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Touchdown already said my main point.

I could take two Sci-Fi books from a bookstore, one a collection of short stories and one a novel, each about the same thickness. There will be about a dozen short stories. If there were, say, 32 of them, each would be too short to amount to much. That is what happens with 32 totally unrelated map levels. Some of the maps should relate, otherwise it is only a collection in that all the maps are packaged together.
The novel could have 32 chapters, with as many scene changes, ranging from deep space, to a swamp, to a city. A sequential 32 level wad can do the same, but less obvious. The mind seeks to find a connection even where it is weak, which is good, because we don't often have the segway of the doom1 intermission maps.

Some days I like a short story, but a good novel is like 32 short stories that is all tied together within a larger story.

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Ok, I think I got it:

Keeping themes:

- usually the choice of experienced mappers, so these mapsets have higher quality in general;
- More sense of progression;
- Maps are more connected to each other;
- Generally more consistency and uniformity.

Switching themes:

- More often done by inexperienced mappers, so generally lower quality on these ones;
- more diversity;
- maps can feel disconnected.

From the arguments in this thread, there are more good points on maps that keep themes, that explains what I was curious about. Both styles can be good if done properly, I would mention Deus Vault 2 and Sunder as consistent mixed themed wads and BTSX and Stardate 20x6 as solid single themed wads.

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Darch said:

Ok, I think I got it:

Keeping themes:

- usually the choice of experienced mappers, so these mapsets have higher quality in general;
- More sense of progression;
- Maps are more connected to each other;
- Generally more consistency and uniformity.

Switching themes:

- More often done by inexperienced mappers, so generally lower quality on these ones;
- more diversity;
- maps can feel disconnected.

From the arguments in this thread, there are more good points on maps that keep themes, that explains what I was curious about. Both styles can be good if done properly, I would mention Deus Vault 2 and Sunder as consistent mixed themed wads and BTSX and Stardate 20x6 as solid single themed wads.

That pretty much sums it up.

To use PSX Doom as an example again *everyone groans*, the limited number of textures used creates cohesion within each map that I feel can be lacking on the PC. Playing throguh some of the PC maps for the first time was a bit shocking - it was like the game had vomited.

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When I visit central part of our city, then I see lot of differnt *textures* and it does not feel like if the city would have vomited. I think that stock Doom textures are limited as it is, so the PSX doom offering seems like mapper's hell to me.
I am reading on wikipedia that PSX was a commercial failure and it was never sold outside Japan. Maybe join the PC master race?

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Sokoro said:

I am reading on wikipedia that PSX was a commercial failure and it was never sold outside Japan. Maybe join the PC master race?

"PSX" in this case is a common mis-abbreviation of Playstation 1 (PS1), not the short-lived PSX.

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