Preferred Megawad implementation... map count/map size

Hey all,

So I'm curious to know what the general consensus is among the community as to map count/map sizing in Megawads. What do you prefer as a player - 32 maps that begin small and easy and progress to larger and harder maps or fewer maps that are larger in size?

The reason I ask is I'm currently replaying Scythe for the 5474th time and I feel that a few of the early maps are very short and could have been combined into larger maps, which would obviously reduce the overall map count but would probably make those maps more engaging and more "epic" per se. (not knocking them, I love the Scythe series). The megawad I'm currently working on is 15 maps but they're all very large, even MAP01 dwarfs the largest maps found in the official Doom and Doom II wads.

Basically... bigger maps and less of them? smaller maps and more of them? or you don't care as long as you're engaged the whole way?

Cheers :)

Your last option kinda nullifies the other options, it's too easy to vote for the option that guarantees that we are "engaged and enjoying" it. Hypothetically any kind of level can be great. I recently played through UAC Invasion: The Supply Depot, an astonishingly massive and detailed map, and was completely smitten. I would say of the two primary options, however, I'd pick the smaller/more. I find that the brevity of smaller maps can allow for encounters that don't overstay their welcome, and ultimately getting to that intermission screen aids in the sense of progression throughout the wad. Little map snacks. 

For me, the tipping point is 20 minutes. And I generally like maps to be shorter. For some reason, I can't enjoy these sprawling epic masterpieces (there's a Latin word for it I can't remember now), they feel like a slog to me, even if they play well. Like you said about the early maps of Scythe that could be combined into something more substantial - I often feel like some behemoths could easily be broken down into individual, better digestible pieces, and lose nothing.

I feel like there's a "mix of both" option missing there. Shorter maps are generally easier to enjoy and and better for the pacing, but the long ones will most likely be what you remember most about the wad and are more "moving", for lack of a better term.

1 hour ago, HrnekBezucha said:

For me, the tipping point is 20 minutes. And I generally like maps to be shorter. For some reason, I can't enjoy these sprawling epic masterpieces (there's a Latin word for it I can't remember now), they feel like a slog to me, even if they play well. Like you said about the early maps of Scythe that could be combined into something more substantial - I often feel like some behemoths could easily be broken down into individual, better digestible pieces, and lose nothing.

Magnum opus is what you're looking for.

Personally, the more maps there are the shorter they should be - I loved Jade Earth, but a 32 map megawad of that? hard nope. I usually tolerate a slightly longer MAP29 because it's just kind of a Doom tradition.

Definitely feels like the last option in the pool invalidates the other two. Full immersion entails not thinking too hard about "oh, this set's maps are too long and too few" and vice versa. If it's really that fun and engaging, to the point of becoming a priority, you'll schedule whatever amount of time/space feels right for your enjoyment.

What the poll assumes as a norm—32 maps, 30 normal and 2 secret—increasingly isn't a norm because mappers are releasing more variably sized megawads to fit their goals and themes. If I had to make a megawad in the next 31 days, for instance, I'd likely just go for a solid 15 maps with varying length and player commitment (any maps less would make it an episode, though, so 15's the minimum here). Just enough to qualify for the megawad distinction, basically. There's a time for having very distinct maps form an episode, more coherent but undistinctive maps forming a megawad, so on and so forth. At this point I care less about how impressively big an episode or megawad is, more so how much the creator achieves within that format. And I'd expect the same from myself, at least when I'm not just goofing off and releasing the results without big expectations.