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Linguica

John Romero makes first new Doom map in 21 years

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Obsidian said:

Some high profile Doom 1 wads? Hmm, let's see:

-Monument by Chris Hansen


This. So much this. Masterful in every way. I only wish I will be this good one day.

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Romero said:

Regarding modern mapping style with high detail, could someone link me some maps that do this? I'd like to see what you're talking about. Also, are there any that use only DOOM1.WAD?

My favorite Doom aesthetics are in the Back to Saturn X series for Doom 2:



And that runs under the vanilla engine limits! The detailing in those wads is so good.

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Have a few more screenshots of Back to Saturn X in case you're still not convinced. Remember, this all runs in vanilla Doom.

Episode 1:

E1M11:



E1M19:



Episode 2:

E2M14:



E2M19:

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I downloaded and playtested Romero's new Doom map. The gameplay was pretty fun. However, I wasn't so amazed by the map layout / design.

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I finally got around to playing through this. This was a really good level. Tough, but great. I made it out of the final battle with 2% health left. Some devious traps and great design with interconnected areas.

It felt like a final level more than Sandy's original in my opinion.

The only thing I disliked was the placement of the invincibility sphere. It seemed like there was no real good way to utilize it.

The boss levels were always the ones that I felt were lacking the most in the original episodes and especially doom 2. If John somehow decided to remake just the boss levels, that would be just awesome.

As far as Doom 1 modern levels, I think Strange Aeons has some fantastic level design and good use of tricks. http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=49369

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Back To Saturn X looks great and is very streamlined, but it got a little samey, dare I say sterile, after a while. It draws up such strict rules for itself (texture alignment) as to become a little predictable, layout-wise. Perhaps I'm too harsh on it. Preferred the more surprising and less oversight-enabled layout in E1M8b. Its not all about the aesthetics...

I'd say Romero well on his way to define his own brand of new.

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the_miano said:

I downloaded and playtested Romero's new Doom map. The gameplay was pretty fun. However, I wasn't so amazed by the map layout / design.


What? This makes literally no sense.

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Soundblock said:

Its not all about the aesthetics...

Of course not, but I will say the aesthetics are the most offputting part of E1M8b for me. That's coming from someone who thinks E1 still holds up well aesthetically, and is a great example of doing more with less using Doom's stock textures. (Though I feel McGee's maps in Doom 2 are even better examples.)

The gameplay is great. The more I play it, the more I like it.

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Marnetmar said:

What? This makes literally no sense.


Gameplay meaning the action between the player and demons. Layout meaning the architecture (texture usage and detailing) of the map. What's not to understand?

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rdwpa said:

Architecture isn't exactly "texture use and detailing" either.


Ok perhaps I should have said "not a fan of the texture usage / detailing" instead of architecture.

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Apparently I decided to hop back into the world of Doom at the right time. Very nice to see this, now to get myself back into the mapping spirit after 9 years.

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Cynical said:

Out of curiosity, what was the "intended" strategy? I found two ways that work consistently -- one is to quickly grab the shotgun and hop down into the slime trench; the other is to grab the shotgun, run back over the trench, sprint to the green armor ASAP, clear the imps on the outside ledge, and then fight the trickle of hitscanners from a position where they can only approach you from the one side.


You need to go for the shotgun and do the strafe-circle safety dance while avoiding the lava cracks.

I found can backpedal a little and stay in the starting doorway, and get the drop on the teleporting baddies. The order they enter is slightly random, so if you get a pinky before you get a shotgun guy, you will get boxed in.

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I feel I echo many peoples sentiments in that Romero should get together as many of the original mappers as he can and make a whole new Doom megawad. American McGee already expressed interest in teaming up for a mapset, just gotta get Sandy Peterson, Shawn Green and, if he'd even want to return, Tom Hall. Perhaps Dr. Sleep and Tim Willits too, if possible. Maybe even get Adrian Carmack or Kevin Cloud to design an all new final boss.

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SavageCorona said:

It's like when you've been doing it wrong all along but then you see someone do it right and it makes sense.

Just in case you didn't notice, it was a tool-assisted speedrun, basically a bot playing.

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LkMax said:

Just in case you didn't notice, it was a tool-assisted speedrun, basically a bot playing.

Nah, it's more like being able to slow things down, rewind or peek at memory with general or custom-made tools, giving "superhuman" capabilities to the player making the TAS. The people playing those are very much human.

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Macblain said:

Regarding boss fights, this points to one of the fundamental flaws in Doom engine games: the mappers are designing for a player starting with no resources, but the player has the option to start with a tremendous amount of resources. Tower of Babel is a pretty good level from pistol start. Cyberdemons take a while to kill with the rocket launcher, and the presence of lost souls is problematic. This is the thing that breaks my heart about Hexen -- it's explicitly built around resource continuity, but this turns all the boss fights into non-challenges.


Odd. I have pistol-started Dis, but I'd call it more "really annoying" - and of course if you arrive after the difficulties of E3M7 and obliterate the spiderdemon with the BFG (or even the plasma rifle) it's a complete letdown. An E3M8b would bring me joy.

However, I'd really miss E2M8, and I don't think it makes a lot of difference what you start with. There's 200/200 health/armour on the level, and I'm going to shoot Simon the Cyberdemon with rockets anyway - plasma hides when he's shooting back, and obviously I'm not going to tickle him to death with the hitscan weapons. Sure, it's easier to mop up the Lost Souls with something else, but not a lot.

I guess I feel the cyberdemon is the exception here. Given a huge supply of ammo, spiderdemons are easy to deal with and barons are basically big imps; but a couple of mistakes against Simon can smear you all over the landscape no matter how many bullets you have. He's just a much better boss, and he's good enough to justify a level being an arena fight with him.

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By "really annoying" are you referring to the danger of splash damaging yourself by rocketing the lost souls? I agree. I think cybie+ls is a great combo.

Dis is just too easy for a savvy modern doomer. It's too easy to distract the mastermind with infighting. He gets caught up with that baron and you can really clobber him. It would probably be better to have enemies pressuring the player from spots that won't get them fighting the boss as easily. Just putting that baron on the outer ledge instead of having him start in the lower arena would help things, I think.

I'd really like new boss maps in Romero's current style! The opening chaos is a great technique to knock down carryover players, and a longer level would have the player sufficiently softened up for the boss.

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Death Egg said:

I feel I echo many peoples sentiments in that Romero should get together as many of the original mappers as he can and make a whole new Doom megawad. American McGee already expressed interest in teaming up for a mapset, just gotta get Sandy Peterson, Shawn Green and, if he'd even want to return, Tom Hall. Perhaps Dr. Sleep and Tim Willits too, if possible. Maybe even get Adrian Carmack or Kevin Cloud to design an all new final boss.

It would also be awesome if he Romero gets some of the mappers of Master Levels and Final Doom back into mapping. Imagine if Sverre Kvernmo, Jim Flynn, Tom Mustaine, Chris Klie, and the Casali brothers teamed up with the former id Software crew to make an all-new megawad.

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