SIGIL

2 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

That's actually quite scary... :-)

Scary? No way, Romero's adorable.

On 9/1/2020 at 12:46 PM, QuaketallicA said:

 

Very true. I didn't mean to say Sigil is perfect in that nobody will ever do anything new after it. I just meant that it was done phenomenally well in every aspect, in the same way I would consider og Doom or Quake to be FPS perfection. Obviously the push to be better always exists.

Having said that, have you found that list yet? (I assume you missed this.)

6 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

Yeah. Everyone has their own standards of what is acceptable to release to the public. There's no QA, so it stands to reason that most of it will be mediocre. That said, mappers do have the advantage of not being constrained by deadlines.

Except the bolded is not the case. Most of the high profile releases are equally high in quality. Obviously, there is disparity, and there one mapper's style might be another user's boon. But on the down and low, a lot of releases are far from mediocre.

Hence the earlier request. I'd love to know what your canvas of comparison is if you make a statement like this.

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

Scary? No way, Romero's adorable.

Very definition of DoomCute if you ask me.

(Same as below, forgot to quote)

16 hours ago, Doomkid said:

So everyone who can name multiple examples that prove that insulting crap about "most wads being mediocre" wrong is just a loser who plays Doom 24/7... I get it. So in other words just a double cop out 😂

 

I'm just still salty that you called DCG's wad fucking horrible, bottom of the barrel, random crap thrown on a canvas.. You know that's something someone put hours of effort and imagination into right? You're just gonna shit all over it and say that everyone who likes it must be a "hipster".. Why be a douche about it?

 

And yeah, I agree that Sigil is a darn good wad, but don't go throwing the whole art form under the bus as "mostly medicore" when you've obviously played like 5 wads. Then when you get called on it, you're just too cool and "above" knowing the name of the one good wad you played. Come on man, what the hell is that? It's so irritating when people who know diddly squat talk like they know, and while really harshly putting down the work of others while they're at it. Why do that?

Because throwing random shit together and calling it a wad is insulting. Yes, I am well aware of how much time goes into making a Doom wad, and that's why I originally said, "as someone who isn't biased because they've just spent hours making the maps." The creator is going to be biased to like his own work. I wasn't being polite, but at the time I was in a bad mood and didn't really care to be, particularly when people were fawning over it and calling it worthy of receiving a Cacoward.

I don't know what to tell you if you genuinely believe that wad was good. One map, you have no room to move, and anything you do causes 10 different Barons or Archviles or Mancubuses to spawn in and insta-kill the player, on level start. The other map is linear, has the same one grey texture everywhere, and is little more than a corridor shooter. The others aren't even real maps, just a house and an arcade with a few custom textures recreated in Doom.

Now, I may not particularly like Valiant or the Scythe wads, but obviously they are very well made. They don't look like random crap that somebody messing around with the level editor for the first time threw together in an afternoon or two.

And by the way, I did eventually find what wad I was thinking of earlier. It was Shotgun Symphony after all. (Which actually on replay wasn't anywhere as good as I remember it being, but it was still well designed.)

Hey, Mr. Frank Zappa, you want me to upload screenshots of my Doom and Doom II directories showing just how many wads there are? In fact, going through to find it made me realize I'm wasting hard drive space with so many wads I don't use anymore.

12 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Having said that, have you found that list yet? (I assume you missed this.)

Let me ask you a question, if you download a wad, play through the first few levels, and it doesn't appeal to you, are you going to continue coming back to it? 

It's not so much any one mapset as it is a general trend among a lot of what is out there. Not all, by a longshot, but a lot of wads. For example, there was a pretty high profile release a couple of years ago with really impressive graphics (for Doom), but the gameplay was little more than waves of enemies in an arena that would slowly open into a larger arena. That's boring and overrated.

Often I see levels with mostly right angles and rectangular corridors. I do see a lot of nice looking levels too, with interesting architecture and good use of symmetry, etc.. But there's also a ton of crap out there.

Then there's wads like the "Doom the way id Did" series, which aimed to create new maps with the design style of the vanilla levels. Only, they felt more like maps derivative of the original levels, as opposed to something genuinely new and creative, but with the same mapping style as Romero, Petersen, et. al.

Or I may come across a series of levels with interesting maps, but the gameplay isn't all that interesting. It's the same kind of experience you might get just playing the original game. There isn't all that much creativity with regards to enemy placement, and the kind of effect that has on the player. I'm the kind of guy who prefers the Doom 2 boss fight to the Cyberdemon. Something unique and memorable, not just circle strafe and keep shooting till it dies. E4M2 for example intentionally does not give the player enough shells for UV pistol start, forcing the player to use the rad suit and walk in lava to find more shells to win. There is clearly intent there. A giant map where loads of enemies spawn in and the only challenge is to survive can still be fun, but it's less fun than something that had a lot of intent behind enemy/ammo/health placement.

So no, I don't have some long list of every wad I ever disliked. It's more of common attributes I've noticed in playing various different wads over time, and the quality is so inconsistent in enough of them that I developed the opinion that most wads weren't worth my time.

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

It's more of common attributes I've noticed in playing various different wads over time, and the quality is so inconsistent in enough of them that I developed the opinion that most wads weren't worth my time.

May I ask how long you've been playing community-made WADs to come to this conclusion? You don't need to give me an exact timeline or anything, just a rough idea. How long have you been exploring what the community has to offer? If you've been playing them for many years, then I guess there's nothing anyone could do to convince you otherwise. However, if you've only ever played a handful of them, then you might want to consider broadening your horizons. After all, there's over 20 years worth of community-made content to explore with new projects being developed every day, so writing it all off would be awfully presumptuous and you'd potentially miss out on some great stuff that you'd might otherwise find yourself falling in love with.

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

Hey, Mr. Frank Zappa

Quote

you want me to upload screenshots of my Doom and Doom II directories showing just how many wads there are?

I won't say no, if you can't be bothered don't worry about it though. Similarly, I was also in a slightly shitty mood yesterday when I made that post - just putting that out there for some context. I'm not trying to be a prick to you and I apologize that it likely came off that way.

I still feel like how dismissive you are of the overall wad output of the community is pretty harsh, but I guess being a modder for many years myself I'm naturally defensive of Doom mods as a medium. I also find most projects that generate any sort of chatter/name for themselves tend to be at least comparable to the iwads in terms of basic design and aesthetics alone, and honestly I've seen a fair share that simply surpass them.

It's a matter of opinion ultimately, but the Fava Beans wad from 1995 was already up to snuff with Doom 1 and wads certainly haven't gotten worse since then. Maybe "my first wad" type stuff which is always expected shitty has gotten no better.. which is to say, whether it's from 1995 or 2015 or 2025, a newbie doodling around is always gonna be "junk" - But episodes and megawads absolutely have increased drastically in quality since the iwad days. To me, anyway.

The iwads are still some of my favorite and most played maps, but I just find it strange to look at so many of the monster-hit megawads that have come since and say "no, this isn't even up to snuff with the iwads.. most wads are just crap by comparison"... It just seems rose-tinted to the max, and that's coming from me, the king of viewing old shit thru rose-tinted goggles.

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

It's more of common attributes I've noticed in playing various different wads over time, and the quality is so inconsistent in enough of them that I developed the opinion that most wads weren't worth my time.

Just sounds like you haven't been playing any good wads...

If you think Projects like Valiant, Ancient Aliens, Winter's Fury and Eviternity are medicore or not up to par with the mess Sandy Petersen made in Doom 1 and 2, then i think the issue here is not with the actual mods... hmmm.

I sense nostalgia glasses being foggy here.

It's easy to dismiss creativity, when you haven't made one yourself and act smug.

14 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

Let me ask you a question, if you download a wad, play through the first few levels, and it doesn't appeal to you, are you going to continue coming back to it? 

It is poor form to make a rather blanket statement, and when asked for a list of comparison, to respond with a counter-question.

To answer: Actually, yes, i will continue to play a mapset that way. A WAD may become better or worse during the levels, and its not always the modus operandi that a WAD delivers its best in the first few levels. Some mappers grow as level progresses, whilst others deliver a lot of good in the first few levels, but turn less refined later on.

In addition to that, making an episode or Megawad is no easy task. The people who pull these off, usually already have a few single releases underneath their belt (There are obviously exceptions where sudden one man megawads are actually full of quality. Its uncommon, but it has happened. And those are ever the more surprises.)

There is still low quality releases in the community as the year passes by. But every mapper starts out somewhere. A map by a starter may not be high in quality, but can and will show effort and thus potential. Thus i can't call it mediocre relative to the experience. But starters who put in no effort to make a map will get rightful criticism.

The opposite also rings true. If a experienced mapper delivers a dud of a mapset, far below his, her's, or their's usual output, then its a justified criticism to call it mediocre. After all, you have a canvas of comparison: Namely all of the other author's releases. Usually this is packaged in a more nuance way (Saying something like ''The author did a step back with this map set, instead of taking two steps forward.'') or something to that nature.

I don't feel blanket calling most wads mediocre is a proper conversion of comparison. What do you compare with? What have you played? Its the same as calling every source port bad, without being specific - Some ports do things better than others. But you have to explain why that is so.

14 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

It's not so much any one mapset as it is a general trend among a lot of what is out there. Not all, by a longshot, but a lot of wads. For example, there was a pretty high profile release a couple of years ago with really impressive graphics (for Doom), but the gameplay was little more than waves of enemies in an arena that would slowly open into a larger arena. That's boring and overrated.

No, that's called ''Not up your taste'' bud. Just because you do not like this style of gameplay does not mean its mediocre. A similar concept are slaughtermaps (And possibly that's what you are referring to). Slaughtermaps are a distinct class of gameplay. You may call it boring, but someone else can call it challenging, due to the amount of monsters involved and the tactics required to pull through.

And if it had really impressive visuals, what was it called? This is where specifics come in: What is your frame of comparison?

13 hours ago, Doomkid said:

It's a matter of opinion ultimately, but the Fava Beans wad from 1995 was already up to snuff with Doom 1 and wads certainly haven't gotten worse since then. Maybe "my first wad" type stuff which is always expected shitty has gotten no better.. which is to say, whether it's from 1995 or 2015 or 2025, a newbie doodling around is always gonna be "junk" - But episodes and megawads absolutely have increased drastically in quality since the iwad days. To me, anyway.

That's because you are right with the bolded - Though every year has its quality releases, you can obviously compare a high quality release from 1995 and compare to one from 2015. The differences, even disregarding mapping style, are clearly there.

Multiple reasons can be given for the discrepancy:

• New mapping techniques discovered after the publication of older classics
• Less refined level editors (Especially in the pre-DEU days)
• The lack of now-universal standards in source ports and other extensions
• Associated gameplay concepts that grew out of said ports. Slaughterwads, for example. Back then, there was Deathtag.

So there are plenty of reasons to point out why quality has risen since. Does that mean the older releases are mediocre? Well, no. If anything, many of these classics became as such because of balance of both beastiary or weaponry, or because they broke new ground in terms of modding (See: Strain, Cyberdreams, The Darkening, etc). Innovation within Doom was something, imo, easier achieved than today. But compared to those days, tools and mapping was less refined than today equally so.

So i like to think of the older classics of yesterday not as mediocre map sets of today, but rather, mapsets that were top of the game in their prime and are still great introductions to newer players today. If a mapset can do that today, and was innovative and fun yesterday, then it has all the hallmarks of a proper classic.

This is why i'd like Quaketallica to come up with a list of played mapsets. What is his canvas? What is it compared with? How does he arrive at the damning conclusions that he does? I miss that refinement, because what i read is a opinion made with a broad brush.

On 9/2/2020 at 9:50 PM, jazzmaster9 said:

the mess Sandy Petersen made in Doom 1 and 2

Wow. That is surprising to hear that anyone disliked his levels.

2 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

Wow. That is surprising to hear that anyone disliked his levels.

You, must be new here.

We tend to take the piss out of Petersen's maps a lot here. There is respect for his creativity and imagination, as well as taking into account he had to work on a LOT of maps, but his work is a mixed bag: Some of its fun, some of its tedious. All of it is an abstract kind of Hell we all lovingly embrace while also coyly kicking it in the shins now and then.

17 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

To answer: Actually, yes, i will continue to play a mapset that way. A WAD may become better or worse during the levels, and its not always the modus operandi that a WAD delivers its best in the first few levels. Some mappers grow as level progresses, whilst others deliver a lot of good in the first few levels, but turn less refined later on.

 

 

Here's the thing. There are a lot of other games I have to choose from to play. There are a lot of other things besides video games to do with my time. To revisit Doom yet again, which is something I've done to death and then some, whatever is new ought to be really compelling. If I can tell that a certain design style is bad, or at the least unappealing to me, then I am not going to bother finishing another 25 maps of the same. Maybe giving up after one map is not fair, but certainly you get the feel of the style after a few maps.

17 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

No, that's called ''Not up your taste'' bud. Just because you do not like this style of gameplay does not mean its mediocre. A similar concept are slaughtermaps (And possibly that's what you are referring to). Slaughtermaps are a distinct class of gameplay. You may call it boring, but someone else can call it challenging, due to the amount of monsters involved and the tactics required to pull through.

And if it had really impressive visuals, what was it called? This is where specifics come in: What is your frame of comparison?

I'm not referring to maps with a ridiculously high number of enemies. I'm talking about the ones emulating that arena-style of gameplay found in Doom 2016.

- Edit: Arena-style maps can still lend themselves to interesting and unique gameplay scenarios, where it's clear the level designer put a lot of thought into how a player will approach that situation. Serious Sam is a great example of this done well. However, if little design went into an arena-style map other than "here's a map. Here's guns and ammo. Shoot everything." then that's not as good design. I'm not saying it can't be fun; the core Doom mechanics are so strong that you will have some measure of fun in even the weakest levels. However, FPS games where all you do is point and click and maybe circle strafe a bit are less fun and more boring than FPS games that were fine-tuned by the designer to create a more unique and memorable experience. -

Honestly, do you think I haven't tried to find the name myself before posting? I don't remember the name, but there was a pretty big release a couple of years ago. It had a really cool trailer on Youtube, and after it released several well known Doom youtubers did videos on it. I know, not very specific, but I can't say much more than it had really impressive visuals for the Doom engine and the gameplay was one of those endless wave-type arena shooters.

5 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

If I can tell that a certain design style is bad, or at the least unappealing to me, then I am not going to bother finishing another 25 maps of the same.

If i had this mentality i would have given up on Doom 2 and TNT after 5 Level and deleted it to play those Better designed "mediocre" custom maps instead

5 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

Honestly, do you think I haven't tried to find the name myself before posting? I don't remember the name, but there was a pretty big release a couple of years ago. It had a really cool trailer on Youtube, and after it released several well known Doom youtubers did videos on it. I know, not very specific, but I can't say much more than it had really impressive visuals for the Doom engine and the gameplay was one of those endless wave-type arena shooters.

Sounds like you might be thinking about Doom Slayer Chronicles. 

Yes that's exactly it. I went back to IcarusLives' Youtube page to find it, and I was just going to say. I was thinking of Doom Slayer Chronicles.

3 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

If i had this mentality i would have given up on Doom 2 and TNT after 5 Level and deleted it to play those Better designed "mediocre" custom maps instead

Well those are paid, so you have more of an incentive to finish them to get your money's worth, which isn't there with a free mappack. But I find it humorous to think  Doom 2 is a game you had to force yourself to finish.

On 9/2/2020 at 9:50 PM, jazzmaster9 said:

It's easy to dismiss creativity, when you haven't made one yourself and act smug.

Actually, quite the opposite. It's easy to give undue credit when you haven't made one yourself, because you think, "Well what do I know, I can't do what they do." 

By your logic, nobody is ever allowed to criticize bad music or bad movies if they aren't actually musicians or filmmakers themselves.

The irony is, I have no qualms about being critical because I have made several (unreleased) maps myself. I do understand how much time and effort goes into making even small segments of a room. But all that effort doesn't necessarily translate into better gameplay, and I remember having to delete 2-3 days of work on several occasions because I came back to it and realized it just wasn't fun to play through or didn't add anything meaningful to the level. As you get more of a feel for what works and what doesn't over time, it doesn't happen as frequently where you need to delete/re-work sections. 

When I make my levels, aesthetic is important, but a unique or interesting gameplay scenario is the first priority. I don't want to pretend to be any sort of an expert, but this is what I aspire to do when I work on it. How the map looks is not as important as what path the player can (or in the case of linear levels, has to) take in order to proceed. The more options, the more non-linear, generally the better. Have something interesting and different not just to look at, but to do makes for the best design imo. I've been playing MoH: Allied Assault recently, and that game is incredible. It is linear and heavily-scripted, yes, but you're always having something different or interesting to do, that it's still fun. (Among plenty of other reasons MoH rocks).

24 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

 I find it humorous to think  Doom 2 is a game you had to force yourself to finish.

 

The only way you can judge something fairly, and not look like a fool, is to play it in full.

Tho i will say, Map 10 made me quit Doom 2 for a week.

So i can say atleast that there are Custom level sets better than Doom 2 and i love Doom 2.

15 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

The only way you can judge something fairly, and not look like a fool, is to play it in full.

 

Tho i will say, Map 10 made me quit Doom 2 for a week.

So i can say atleast that there are Custom level sets better than Doom 2 and i love Doom 2.

 

Okay. But what if I don't care what other people think of my opinions? What if I play video games just to enjoy myself? As a general principle, I don't force myself to do optional things that I don't like to do.

For example, if I had played Superman 64 when it came out, I don't think I would have forced myself to beat the last level before coming to the realization that it sucks. You can make an educated guess as to whether something will or will not get better over time, and make a judgment as to whether it's worth sticking to find out. In the case of Doom 2, even if you disliked one particular level, you're too much of a Doom fan (I'm guessing) to not want to finish it at least once. There's a good chance that the later levels will be more fun (for you) than Map 10, because enough of the previous levels were in fact enjoyable.

.

19 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

Okay. But what if I don't care what other people think of my opinions? What if I play video games just to enjoy myself? As a general principle, I don't force myself to do optional things that I don't like to do.

If you are ready to call custom mapsets "mediocre" you better be able to back it up.

If you're gonna base all GZDoom projects on Doom Slayer Chronicles. Its best you actually play some Good GZDoom wads first and actually finish them. Not play 5 minutes and call it "not as good as the Chasm"

3 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

Well those are paid, so you have more of an incentive to finish them to get your money's worth, which isn't there with a free mappack. But I find it humorous to think  Doom 2 is a game you had to force yourself to finish.

 

Maybe if you had played something better you will understand why the community consensus is that Doom2 is just fugly.

Besides that, just coming here and call what you like masterpiece and what you not like just crap says much of your experience with the vast community made content.

If you don't like something, it isn't bad or mediocre, it is just something that is not of your taste.

Do yourself a favor and play more wads, play them completely, because most of the times, simplicity is something intended for the first maps.

Don't know where to start?

Here is a list for you taking in account that you don't like heavy hitter mapsets:

-Memento Mori II

-The Darkening: Episode 2

-Suspended in Dusk

-Crimson Canyon

-Whispers of Satan

-UAC Ultra

-Double Impact

-Reverie

-Back to Saturn X

-Japanese Community Project

-No End In Sight

-Legacy of Heroes

-REKKR

Unfortunately, this mapsets get harder as you go down the list.

Have fun!

On 9/2/2020 at 10:58 PM, QuaketallicA said:

... E4M2 for example intentionally does not give the player enough shells for UV pistol start, forcing the player to use the rad suit and walk in lava to find more shells to win. There is clearly intent there. ...

Plenty of modern maps are oozing with intentionality. Let's take Ancient Aliens map01: "The Ancient Navajo Wolf Warp." 

You start in a secluded clearing in front of a temple of some sort. Peer to the right and there is a cave that fades to black, so it clearly took you effort to get here (the significance of which will reveal itself later in the set, all the way in map29). 

Open the door to the temple and there is a pipe. Hard to resist. You take a whiff, and suddenly you are lost in your themed hallucinations. 

Fuck, a cyberdemon. (I'd better not leave out that comma.) 

Run around for a bit and it's clear you have no recourse but to grab that berserk pack and hope you aren't shot in the ass while doing so. 

You dash for it, but a fucking zombieman immediately materializes to troll you. Damn it. Better punch it before it traps you in your death cave. A barrier has lowered and a megasphere teases you forward. You grab it and now pinkies show up to fence you in. A megasphere gives you enough cushion to survive even a big mistake, but you are still going to want most of that health for the rest of the map. 

You run out and into the next area, where after some imps that basically exist to be splatted hilariously, you get to a more standard map01 fight, pitting you against a handful of shotgunners. This fight will not kill you -- unless you squandered your mega entirely -- but it will whittle you down if you are sloppy. 

Move forward, hit a switch, oh no a hell knight on your ass. Run forward, ah a thirsty revvie. A group of zombies presents an easier target. What better way than smiting his brethren to get revenge on that motherfucker from earlier, Bob, who almost got you killed.

At any point while in the cyber's gaze, you might spot the exit door and try it, only to realize it requires a blue key. Skillsaw has placed a pillar so you can take in this information with a bit of peace. The ammo balance is deliberately kept tight enough that you are never tempted to actually shotgun down the central cyberdemon. You do want to kill it at some point, so in the caves there lurks an elegant solution: a telefrag opportunity (with the warp imagery coming full circle). 

A lot of pwad maps have far more intentionality than anything in the original games. Not that this degree is necessary imo -- it's fun to play more unguided stuff too, maps that hide their workings -- but it exists, everywhere.

nice walkthrought @‹rd›

Pretty illumimating!

20 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

Here's the thing. There are a lot of other games I have to choose from to play. There are a lot of other things besides video games to do with my time. To revisit Doom yet again, which is something I've done to death and then some, whatever is new ought to be really compelling. If I can tell that a certain design style is bad, or at the least unappealing to me, then I am not going to bother finishing another 25 maps of the same. Maybe giving up after one map is not fair, but certainly you get the feel of the style after a few maps.

You don't know if its another 25 maps of the same thing because you already tapped out way before that stage.

Quote

 

 

I'm not referring to maps with a ridiculously high number of enemies. I'm talking about the ones emulating that arena-style of gameplay found in Doom 2016.

Well, name them please????????

Quote

- Edit: Arena-style maps can still lend themselves to interesting and unique gameplay scenarios, where it's clear the level designer put a lot of thought into how a player will approach that situation. Serious Sam is a great example of this done well. However, if little design went into an arena-style map other than "here's a map. Here's guns and ammo. Shoot everything." then that's not as good design. I'm not saying it can't be fun; the core Doom mechanics are so strong that you will have some measure of fun in even the weakest levels. However, FPS games where all you do is point and click and maybe circle strafe a bit are less fun and more boring than FPS games that were fine-tuned by the designer to create a more unique and memorable experience. -

Quake 3 is pretty much the definition of giving the player guns and ammo and shoot till it dies. So what are stronghold points then? A good arena map has one pillar that defines the map - Quake 3 has several maps that do this. That's one thing to define a proper arena map. Maybe you know more?

20 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

Yes that's exactly it. I went back to IcarusLives' Youtube page to find it, and I was just going to say. I was thinking of Doom Slayer Chronicles.

Even that's not mediocre, id say. So what's your comparison? What big releases are mediocre in your POV?

20 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

By your logic, nobody is ever allowed to criticize bad music or bad movies if they aren't actually musicians or filmmakers themselves.

By your logic, its fine to criticize a big amount of mapsets without a frame of comparison. You underline your point, but you don't bring examples as to what i your eyes are mediocre mapsets. You simply say that they are, but you don't give out names. And i am not talking about Doom Slayer Chronicles.

Quote

 

 

20 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

Okay. But what if I don't care what other people think of my opinions? What if I play video games just to enjoy myself? As a general principle, I don't force myself to do optional things that I don't like to do.

If you don't care about what other people think, it comes across as especially disingenous to call a lot of mapsets mediocre based on a arbitrary set of rules that you use to grade these. Because by calling it that way, it then seems you want to ignite a response from people.

On 9/1/2020 at 11:57 AM, QuaketallicA said:

So anyway, OP, did you eventually give it a try, and if so, what did you think?

Well first of all.. sorry for the delay... I was away from this site for quite a long time... but who cares anyway....

So... about sigil...

I found it being a good addition in the original doom with some levels being good others being a bit less good but who cares...

Personally I liked a couple of levels here and there but all of them shared (in my opinion) something special and that is that each level has the creativity of John Romero in it (Its his own work so....its natural).

PS: I know i did not helped you with my answer.