How should a good wad be defined?

Once I read a thread asking how a good doom player be defined.
Well, now I ask how a good wad should be defined.

To me, a good wad is a wad that is:

*Pleasing to look at

*Has something a little fresh (custom MIDIs, monsters, weapons etc.)

*Some cool mapping tricks (slopes, deep water, mirrors etc.)

*But above all, It should be fun to play. This point is what is most important and a map can be a little lenient on the other factors if it is super fun to play.

How do you think a good wad should be defined?

A good wad should be defined by "is it fun, and does it look good".

Also, slopes and mirrors aren't really tricks, they're more ZDoom features.

I prefer vanilla and Boom, with all the tricks/gimmicks they come with.

I'm more an "is it interesting?" player - I'm looking for unusual environments themes and situations, puzzles and a little non-linearity. As much I can appreciate a well-honed arcade level, I'm more impressed by scope

-Impressive looking.
-Well balanced to provide a challenge appropriate for the player.
-Varied and/or inventive enough to catch and keep player's interest.

It is based upon personal preference. What one person likes the other person might hate.

To me a good wad has a clear layout in which the player does not run around for 20 minutes looking for what he needs to do. It has no extreme difficulty, an atmosphere trough texturing and sector lighting, and map sizes ranging from small to medium like in the first half of doom 2.

Also, in limit raising source ports i like to see maps with small or logical additions to the detailing trough extra sectors. If somebody has no fun playing a wad, they stop or play it trough and might develop a form of hate for it.

So it is not easy to create universally appealing wads if thats a goal one has. I just tend to do my thing and think ; "up yours"
But i do follow advice or suggestions when it comes to small or huge improvements.

3.5 stars on /idgames

AD_79 said:
A good wad should be defined by "is it fun, and does it look good".

Yep.

Slopes, deep water, mirrors etc mean pretty much zero to me.
New MIDIs mean even less (-nomusic all the time, every time).
New weapons/monsters are generally an active disincentive to play it.

purist said:

3.5 stars on /idgames

AD_79 said:

A good wad should be defined by "is it fun, and does it look good"

It also must work in the intended engine(s) and ideally should allow 100% kills and secrets.

1.Fun
2.Creative
3.Original
4.Bugless
5.Interesting
6.Medium to small maps
7.A little custom

joe-ilya said:

6.Medium to small maps

A wad with big maps can work, I just dislike when every map takes a long time.

Large maps works like a charm, see Mekwads.

An abstract prototype of a "good wad" class should not be dependent on map size, designer's personal style, genre, or features. The "bugless" trait is an obviously right one, though. :)

This is even harder to objectively define than a good Doom player. I'm seeing a lot of "Looks good, plays good" comments, but what looks good to one player might look like an overabundance of detail to another, what looks clean to one player might look bland and uninspired to another, and so on.

Gameplay is a bit easier to use as a benchmark, and so that's how I think a good wad should be defined. Again, gameplay is subjective, some people like slaughtermaps, some people like exploring, some people like easy maps, but if something is unplayable crap - regardless of looks - players can generally agree on that.

Zdoom features have absolutely zero impact on my rating of a map. If it uses the features well, the map is fun, I like it. If the features are misused - just like vanilla features can be - I won't like it. It has no effect on my opinion of the map's quality.

Anyway, to sum it up, maps should be judged primarily by how fun they are to play. This cuts through visual preference, game mode, etc and just gets to the core of the question - Is it fun?

A good wad makes you happy to be alive.

Memfis said:

A good wad makes you happy to be alive.

That is probably the best definition I heard so far.

A good wad is whatever I like when I'm playing it.

SteveD said:

A good wad is whatever I like when I'm playing it.

There was me thinking that your answer would be "at least 50% of the monsters are cacodemons" :P

On topic, good layout and monster placement are crucial I think, the visuals less so be need to have some kind of appeal to them (either clean/beautiful or abstract/interesting).

purist said:

3.5 stars on /idgames

:(

Anyways, I'd say the key things are interesting combat scenarios, aesthetically pleasing, good flow. In that order.

My favorite maps are the ones with passion. I know how lame that sounds, but it's true. It's when the map ends up looking and playing how the mapper wanted it to look rather than just cutting corners or mapping to be "famous".

cannonball said:

There was me thinking that your answer would be "at least 50% of the monsters are cacodemons" :P

How did I miss this the first time? So, saying I'm predictable, are you? Well, now that I'm using GLBoom and suffering the Infinitely Tall Blues, you might expect that I'd back off a bit on the Cacos.

Yeah, you might expect that.

You'd expect wrong. ;D

Indeed, expect me to throw in more and more Lost Souls, too. :P