Is Requiem That Good?

I think every single user on this site knows about Requiem. Undoubtedly one of the most famous fan-made wads of all time. It is even one of the only ones allowed for Compet-N speedrunning, for goodness sake! But you see, I recently saw some people in a random thread quicly talk about how many of its maps are not that great... I have recently been playng MM1, and although it is was a very good experience, the fact that it was meant to be played in co-op was quite an obstacle... And so, I wanted to play something similar, like Requiem, but then I remembered what I heard. So, just to clarify, is Requiem really mediocre at all? And what about some other famous wads from that time, like Hell Revealed or Alien Vendetta? Are most of them filler or killer?

It is, as with most things, a subjective matter of taste. I would recommend playing it for yourself and forming your own opinions, keeping in mind, of course, that this is a mapset from 1997, and can't be judged in the same way as a mapset from, say, the last 3-5 years. Personally, while I haven't gone back to finish it, I generally enjoyed what I played.

14 minutes ago, NuclearPotato said:

It is, as with most things, a subjective matter of taste. I would recommend playing it for yourself and forming your own opinions, keeping in mind, of course, that this is a mapset from 1997, and can't be judged in the same way as a mapset from, say, the last 3-5 years. Personally, while I haven't gone back to finish it, I generally enjoyed what I played.

Alright, them. It is just that I wanted to know what was the general consensus, because I do not want to go completely blind. I do know that Requiem is very old, and that it had a very difficult development cycle, with the last few maps that were made being "borrowed" from Demonfear, but, like I said before, I enjoyed MM1, and if the levels in Requiem are just as good, then I won't mind the time they were made... Just want to have a good time! But yes, you are right, perhaps simply playing the wad is the best option.

On a side note, as you can see, I mentioned HR and AV in my original comment, and, out of my curiosity, if you don't mind, can you just tell me how generally their levels are designed? I know both are quite difficult, but I just want a few details, if you played them.

I played Requiem for the first time a month or two ago. As far as doom megawads go, mediocre is a fair characterisation. There are some highlights (L5-L8 were all pretty good in my view, and most of the first half was at worst decent) but the wheels fell off a bit in the last 10 maps with some filler maps (hello Forsaken Hall), overly long drawn-out maps (hello Cursed Kingdom) and very frustrating maps (hello Den of the Skull)

As for HR, if you like slaughter then it’s worth playing. If you don’t probably best to give it a miss. The first 8 maps are pretty benign but after that the transition to slaughter begins. Ammo is scarce at times, particularly in map 9. The focus is generally more on massed enemies than use of traps. Some of the last few maps, especially map 24, are really difficult.

Only played the first 6 levels of AV so far, but what I noticed so far is that the difficulty ramps up a lot faster

dew's writeup for the Espi Award this year:

Quote

While one could split the 90s into finer elements, the era is undeniably considered our golden age as a whole. Everyone knew Doom and almost everyone played Doom. When 1997's Requiem was mockingly called the last megawad before everyone's inevitable migration to Quake… the mass desertion didn't really happen. Half-Life, Unreal, Halo all took a bite from the remaining faithful, but it wasn't until the next "last classical megawad," 2001's glorious Alien Vendetta, that the words actually started to ring true.

Requiem / HR / Alien Vendetta are known / beloved because they were created in the period of time when "natural" interest in Doom had waned, but it had not yet been around long enough to seem unkillable. Imagine living in 1999, when Quake 3 is brand new, and sitting down to make 32 big complex Doom 2 maps - why? What is the audience? Is it worth your time? Playing them today, they're no longer entirely up to snuff, but at the time they were possibly the difference between continuing to have new megawads, and Doom mapping fading away.

11 minutes ago, Linguica said:

dew's writeup for the Espi Award this year:

 

 

Requiem / HR / Alien Vendetta are known / beloved because they were created in the period of time when "natural" interest in Doom had waned, but it had not yet been around long enough to seem unkillable. Playing them today, they're no longer entirely up to snuff, but at the time they were possibly the difference between continuing to have new megawads, and Doom mapping fading away.

So they were a product of their time, explaining why people remeber and like them so much even if a few things about them are perhaps slightly outdated.

Oh, and by the way, AV is from 2001? I could swear it was from a few years earlier...

EDIT: Yes, it actually is from 2001. I guess the fact that it had so many editions is what got me confused...

Yeah Requiem, it's not too bad at all. Great maps and an excellent original soundtrack.

It has arguably as many highs as lows, and quite a lot of surprises and disappointments. “Mixed bag” describes Requiem succinctly. When mappers point to these older community grab-bag sets as influences/inspiration, they often mean a few maps in particular. Feel free to skip around or view map descriptions on ONEMANDOOM to get an idea of what you’re in for.

I definitely love the soundtrack, though. Klem, Shaw, Doyle, and all the other “classic” MIDI authors put their all into even troubled projects like Requiem. If anything deserves to remain from this era, it’s the well-developed, thematic and memorable music composition/arrangement style.

But there is still something I do not completely understand... What exactly are the differences between old and modern mapping? I have mostly played old wads, and so do not know exactly how it evolved... So, can any of you guys recommend me any recent wad to play or tell me more about the level design progression?

Personally, I really like Requiem. But when it comes to Doom maps, I'm relatively easy to please. But the overall general consensus would be that Requiem is a classic, and has inspired many fantastic wads, but some parts of it are quite dated, just like most 90's wads.

Probably you can try Back to Saturn X series to see since it's also vanilla compatible. I guess the easy way to say is usually old maps don't have as much detail as new maps. At least this is my feeling.

1 minute ago, GarrettChan said:

Probably you can try Back to Saturn X series to see since it's also vanilla compatible. I guess the easy way to say is usually old maps don't have as much detail as new maps. At least this is my feeling.

Thanks for the sugestion! I do know about Back To Saturn X and its hub world feature, a very interesting mechanic! And by the way, is the third episode still in development? Or is it canceled?

6 minutes ago, DSC said:

But there is still something I do not completely understand... What exactly are the differences between old and modern mapping? I have mostly played old wads, and so do not know exactly how it evolved... So, can any of you guys recommend me any recent wad to play or tell me exactly how the level design evolved?

I'd say the level design in recent years has gotten more of a focus on architecture, while gameplay has just kinda gotten generally harder. Most new wads are for more experienced players, (but there are many options out there to make these wads more accessible to newer players) which makes sense, because many of us have been playing Doom for quite some time. Most new mapsets rely heavily on high enemy counts and specific monster combinations to craft difficult situations for the player, while older mapsets created more of a steady difficulty in their levels. New mapsets are moreso focused on difficult scenarios within a level, while old mapsets tend to be focused on wholesale difficult/easy levels, with a steadier flow of challenge. Of course, there are many exceptions, but this is my general experience. (Apologies for the big ass wall of text)

I never finished Requiem or HR in a proper single-player playthrough, but thanks to casual multiplayer I'm pretty familiar with them anyway. Req, HR and AV (which I have beaten because it kept me engaged) are all absolutely worth trying, even if you end up decided they're not your thing 10 maps in or so.

If you have enjoyed other pwad campaigns that go on for many hours/32 full maps, then you shouldn't have any problems with these in particular - People often apply criticisms of length/fatigue to these old megawads, but as far as I'm concerned they're no worse about it than any of the popular 30+ map releases in more modern times. Too much of a good thing will still wear me out no matter how well decorated it is, but if 32 map campaigns are your bag, the wads you've mentioned should all please you.

3 minutes ago, DSC said:

Thanks for the sugestion! I do know about Back To Saturn X and its hub world feature, a very interesting mechanic! And by the way, is the third episode still in development? Or is it canceled?

I actually don't know because even Episode 2 is not finished.

I think Necron 99's post summed up some points pretty well. I would say many things, you need to judge them according to the time. One thing to notice is that, right now mappers usually don't like to use Barons just to waste your time since you can pretty much replace them with Hell Knights and nothing is changed. However, if a place where Barons can use their high health to corner you, this is a good use. Even Plutonia likes to throw Barons at you when you are in an open area so that the Baron posts no actual threat. Then, if you look back at E1M8, you'll feel like this map is so lame using today's standard to judge (I know it's not that fair to say this because there's no Hell Knight in Doom 1). However, back then, we didn't know what's a big monster, so we would feel surprised that one thing could take so many hits.

27 minutes ago, DSC said:

But there is still something I do not completely understand... What exactly are the differences between old and modern mapping?

It’s like the difference between the silent film where the rocket hits the moon man in the eye, and Citizen Kane. As a medium matures people get better at it, they have more inspiration to draw from, the tools and technology improved, etc. 

I always felt that Requiem is okay.  Okay level design, music, theming.  But to me, it's only been just that - okay.  It's not bad, but I never saw it as spectacular, either.  I was particularly new to playing pwads at the time it came out, so it's one of those things that slipped under the radar for me (though I did play the crap out of Alien Vendetta).

That comically small chaingun on the titlepic always gives me a chuckle whenever I do end up booting it up, though.

Seeing as how (in my headcanon) it's memento mori 3, yes

Requiem is worth checking out - chances are you'll know right away from the first few maps if it's something you're willing to commit to playing through or not. There are some moments I felt were lower in places - particularly some filler maps, but most of it is enjoyable, and the soundtrack is still great and adds a lot of personality to the mapset. It really comes down to what kind of Doom player you are. If you're not the type to find 90's design tropes off-putting I'd give it a shot.

I think it's good to be able to appreciate the classics, though it's certainly not a requirement.

I really like all of those megawads, Hell Revealed, Requiem and Alien Vendetta - the last one being one of the best wads ever I think.

Requiem is uneven but if you enjoyed MM1 you'll probably find some stuff to like. You need to make sure you've got strict vanilla Doom compatibility turned on though - it relies on a lot of tricks that will break if you don't.

12 hours ago, Doomkid said:

People often apply criticisms of length/fatigue to these old megawads, but as far as I'm concerned they're no worse about it than any of the popular 30+ map releases in more modern times. Too much of a good thing will still wear me out no matter how well decorated it is, but if 32 map campaigns are your bag, the wads you've mentioned should all please you.

I would say that old megawads are actually better than many newer ones in this regard. The maps in MM, Requiem, AV, etc are all quite unique in terms of texturing and architecture while Scythe, BTSX, Ancient Aliens, Eviternity, and others are built around episodes which utilise specific sets of textures and detailing styles. While that creates a great sense of atmosphere and consistency, it can cause fatigue to kick in a bit sooner.

A lot of this is explained by the fact the earlier megawads tended to be community projects while these days we get a lot more one person or small team megawads, but I personally think even the more modern community projects like Community Chest, Nova, etc don't have the level of uniqueness of the older ones.

I think part of that is due to the fact that as time has gone on we've seen what makes a good looking Doom map and what doesn't and contemporary mappers are going to lean towards the design idioms that are well proven. Like nowadays we know that it's good to break the grid and not make everything out of rectangles, to avoid a repetitive room-hallway-room level flow, to match "materials" on surfaces, to not have inescapable death traps, etc. Like in film once they figured out the 180-degree rule where characters shouldn't swap positions onscreen, almost all directors studiously followed it thereafter - not because they were all discarding their creative spirit but because they thought "oh that's the right way to do it, I should do that too."

Anyways, going all the way back to my first post, I mentioned how I had problems with the fact that MM1 was made with co-op in mind, which made getting 100% in some maps impossible. I know it happens in MAP01, The Teleporter, and MAP11, Halls Of Insanity. Would anyone mind to tell me, since I have not finished the wad yet, in what other levels this too happens?

You can check the doomwiki pages on these wads to see which ones have the item bugs, I remember adding item bugs for the Requiem map pages while others had did the item bugs on MM and MM2.

Requiem is still fun to me, but as Capellan said, very uneven. MAP21 for instance is easy to get completely stuck on and actually is impossible to 100% on every category along with other problems.

3 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

You can check the doomwiki pages on these wads to see which ones have the item bugs, I remember adding item bugs for the Requiem map pages while others had did the item bugs on MM and MM2.

Thanks, but I wasn't talking about item bugs, I was talking about secrets, items and kills you cannot get in single player, only in co-op.

I suspect that those of us who were around at the time will regard Requiem more fondly than newer players. It is very much a product of it's time, but at the time it was pretty amazing. It was the first megawad I ever played not long after I first got on the Internet in 1997. While I was aware of the proliferation of new Doom levels thanks to magazine coverdiscs, the idea of an entirely new set of the 32 levels, effectively an entirely new Doom game, was pretty special to me at the time. The 3D effects blew my mind, and the soundtrack was superb. The Hunter's Lair track sticks in my mind to this day.

So is Requiem good by today's standards? Strictly speaking no. Average maybe. But it is regarded as classic with good reason, and any newer player wanting to gain insight into the Doom modding community's history and evolution should absolutely play it.

21 hours ago, Inf3cted said:

I recommend playing 4, 6, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28 and 29, and giving the rest of the megawad a skip.

Whereas I strongly dislike 23 and 29, and like map05 :)  The OP will probably have a different list of hits and misses from either of us, so I figure "try 'em all" :)

On 9/28/2019 at 3:07 PM, DSC said:

Thanks, but I wasn't talking about item bugs, I was talking about secrets, items and kills you cannot get in single player, only in co-op.

Requiem: 

MAP07 - no secrets

MAP12 - Max secrets = 20/23 = 86%

MAP21 - Max secrets = 8/9 = 88%. I always play it with req21fix.wad (AKA req21_competn.wad), is you use it, you can get 100% kills, if not, you cannot.

MAP23 - One unkillable arch-vile. Max secrets = 1/2 = 50%

MAP29 - Max secrets = 1/2 = 50%

MAP30 - no secrets

In summary, these were not because of co-op optimization, but just oversights.