Why are you so good, Doom level designers???

Y?

So, basically, if I want to play a game with nice gameplay and great level design (and these are two things that I want to see in pretty much any game I play), my options are mostly limited to:

a) Doom, for the lifetime provision of great level design to marvel at.

b) Quake to a lesser degree (not because of the lesser quality, but because of the lesser quantity).

c) Half-Life to a lesser degree (again because of a much lesser quantity).

d) Thief 1/2 when I want some stealth gameplay mixed with a great level design.

Surely, some games come out with nice (or at least "ok") level design from time to time, but they are far and between, too short, too simple, with too short lifespan, no fan community, etc. So in the end it still comes down to a) b) c) and d)... On top of that it's all free. And it's been like that for decades now.

Do you guys have some secret clan or something where you have rules to make good level design for only ~5 games, never create good level design for commercial games, and so on or somethin?

There are a lot of good fanmade levels for the Descent games.

4 minutes ago, Captain POLAND said:

There are a lot of good fanmade levels for the Descent games.

 

 

Good to know. So, it's ~6 games that have fans that create great levels for games. :)

On a more serious note I really wonder why is it that great level designers mostly stick to very old games like Doom? Is it because it's harder to create levels for more modern games? Or is it something to do with modern graphics that significantly decrease the abilities of level designers to think "outside the box"?

If you create levels for Doom, what is your take on the question?

26 minutes ago, Captain POLAND said:

There are a lot of good fanmade levels for the Descent games.

Not to forget Build engine game. Duke3D and Blood have plenty of good fanmade levels as well

4 minutes ago, PKr said:

On a more serious note I really wonder why is it that great level designers mostly stick to very old games like Doom? Is it because it's harder to create levels for more modern games? Or is it something to do with modern graphics that significantly decrease the abilities of level designers to think "outside the box"?

It is harder to make maps for more modern fps games mainly because either the official dev tools are not provided or even if the devs release the SDK and level editors, they are more complex compared to Doom's (or older 90's fps level editors). Designing maps for more modern games is magnitudes more time consuming because of the more demanding tools and the fact that detailing modern fps maps (that can compare with the official maps of that game) require more effort.

Doom 3 also has some great fanmade maps and campaigns, as well as Left 4 Dead 2.

Doom fans have spent years to make Doom mapping (and modding) as intuitive as possible, so it's one of the easiest games to jump into and mess around with editors. And because there's usually less technical fuss, a good mapper/modder can spend more time where it counts and less time with mundane details in the editor. It's also one of the most well documented games to find help for, so virtually any technical snag is only a search bar away.

I played around with Doom 3's editor for a while, and can say the learning curve is much higher to make anything worth playing.

59 minutes ago, PKr said:

On a more serious note I really wonder why is it that great level designers mostly stick to very old games like Doom? Is it because it's harder to create levels for more modern games? Or is it something to do with modern graphics that significantly decrease the abilities of level designers to think "outside the box"?

It is harder to create levels for more modern games, take Orange_X for an example, it's a popular, but very simple map, there's a quite small amount of great and complex maps in TF2 that are popular. Different example is Super Mario Maker, it's a modern game, but it can give you a simpler learning curve, because it's a level editor of itself. Imagine the number of great normal map designers who would map if a lot of AAA companies gave them their mapping tools, I think most of them will struggle to find their way to map using those tools, but I also think nowdays a lot of companies would rely on existing engines to design levels (e.g. Unreal Engine, look at the list of AAA games who use it).

45 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

It is harder to make maps for more modern fps games mainly because either the official dev tools are not provided or even if the devs release the SDK and level editors, they are more complex compared to Doom's (or older 90's fps level editors). Designing maps for more modern games is magnitudes more time consuming because of the more demanding tools and the fact that detailing modern fps maps (that can compare with the official maps of that game) require more effort.

It's basically impossible to compete with a high-tech 200-employee sized company when it comes to visual and model design.

But since modding is easy to start and fiddle around with in Doom, and since Doom's graphics allow for some abstract locations and scenery (try imagining Sunlust in a modern Unreal engine game... yeah, no), there's a lot more room for pure creativity to shine, and every single person has unlimited creativity, meaning more people does not mean necessarily more quality and better design.

Since Doom mappers do mapping for fun and for the love of the game it's easy to see why they always bring their A-game in every single aspect of modding.

32 minutes ago, Luka Bozovic said:

and since Doom's graphics allow for some abstract locations and scenery (try imagining Sunlust in a modern Unreal engine game... yeah, no), there's a lot more room for pure creativity to shine

That's what I wonder... What if some modern game offered some fantastic, easy to use mapping tools that did some work automatically that mappers don't like to spend their time on, like adding some procedurally generated details to textures/models/etc, optimize levels on fly without any need for the mapper to even think about such things? Would level design in such imaginary game be on par with/surpass Doom? Or is it actually something else that allows level designers to be so good in old games?

I wonder if more realistic graphics somehow prevent the abstract thinking, and if you are such a good mappers because you don't have any limitations in your mind. 🤔

Well, I don't claim to be a good Doom level designer, but usually the phrase 'practise makes perfect' usually has something to do with it.

Also, Doom's floor plan map format, while limited, is simple enough for a lot of people to get into making maps for Doom. It's certainly nothing like having to make brushes and paint a whole level in 3 dimensions with them.

Also, the official, free release of Doom's source code meant that the game would be seeing plenty of ports to various platforms, as well as various ports that add new customisation that can help mod makers design items, decoration, and enemies, as well as new features for level designers and removal of some limits.

Doom has also been around for almost 30 years, and its use of PWADs for custom asset support as well as extensive reverse engineering before the source release has allowed a modding community to exist as far back as early 1994.

Doom 2016's level editor is very easy to use, and is mostly prefab sections. You can actually do quite a bit more with it than you'd first think and folks have made some really creative maps but as far as I know it never really took off, I guess partly because the classic Doom mapping scene is already so established. I really got into it the first year or so the game was out, but then slowly lost interest.

I think part of what makes a lot of good classic Doom maps really shine, is that Doom's gameplay is already fantastic and a great mapper knows the game mechanics well enough to make fun encounters, creative gimmicks and cool set pieces. I'm almost sure that some of Doom's best mappers can make a great map for any game, but they just like Doom because it's Doom which is awesome and there's already a huge audience.

There are also lots of other games with active modding communities if you look outside of the FPS genre.

41 minutes ago, Captain POLAND said:

There are also lots of other games with active modding communities if you look outside of the FPS genre.

Well, sure, but I am not really talking about modding in general, but about level designers in particular. It just so happens that they are mostly modders (not everyone of course) and expand on already existing games (like Doom).

like @Lippeth said, it's because we not only have nearly 30 years of experience making wads, but also cuz it's just so much easier to accomplish what you want with such a simple engine. combine that with the absolutely fantastic gameplay loop, the movement, as well as doom's versatility, and...yeah.

also, something that nobody's mentioned yet: even from the beginning, we actually had quite a bit to go off from. not only were there the 68 maps from the first two doom games, but there was also the 64 that came out of final doom. we've had a good idea of what does and doesn't work for quite some time now, and have been improving on that ever since

5 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Not to forget Build engine game. Duke3D and Blood have plenty of good fanmade levels as well

 

The Death Wish mod for Blood is better than sex

Do you guys have some secret clan or something where you have rules to make good level design for only ~5 games, never create good level design for commercial games, and so on or somethin?

Dunno why everyone else is fibbing, you had us pegged from square 1!

Only the best of the best are allowed in, they're currently hunting me down for knowing this information

7 hours ago, PKr said:

I wonder if more realistic graphics somehow prevent the abstract thinking, and if you are such a good mappers because you don't have any limitations in your mind. 🤔

Something - and I'm not sure what - prevents me from saying that it inherently restricts it, but aiming for "realism" definitely means directing your efforts towards both graphical fidelity and some kind of "established conceptual fidelity". If asked to imagine a "techbase", I think most people - designer or otherwise - would draw inspiration from present-day or near-future construction techniques for actual space stations and the associated materials... but very few of us would come up with Ancient Aliens' colour scheme ;)

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Dunno why everyone else is fibbing, you had us pegged from square 1!

Shhush! We don't want him to find our secret clan.

different Genre, Command and conquer community is still live, though they are in hiding thanks to recent EA shenanigans. Just check tgsacred for the most recent activity. or moddb. 

Same for Need for speed community. 

Btw both communities can be found on reddit, but finding them is another story

Doom has struck a great balance of flexibility and restrictions of the engine. All doom maps are very lofi, compared to anything you can achieve in modern games, so you can focus more on flow and combats. If your making engine allows for full 3d environments with prefabs and models and stuff, that's great for visuals but you also have to spend a ton of time and effort to make the level look at least halfway decent. 

You can make a map for wolf3d or rott in matter of minutes, it'll be crude but fun. You can make a doom map in matter is few hours and it'll be just fine. But anything above quake will take days or more likely weeks. 

Then there's the route the newfangled doom went, which is gluing room modules together. Don't know how many games have that or how flexible it is.