About Doom's E1M1: Hangar

Why is the first level in doom called Hangar?

because it is

Because one day when romero was deciding map names he was smoking teh ganja and it gave him teh imagination he needed.

Doom Bible leftover.

Well, if you read the plot it doesn't seem all that complex. Basically you were left waiting outside when everyone else came in, so naturally you landed behind the start door. So all your spacecraft etc. is behind there, making things a lot more convenient to map. The map you actually play is uhh, just your nice friendly normal everyday terminal :P

I've always assumed that that blue pit in the begginging is where a small ship would land and the big window in front where they would come through :P Oh well it's still one of my favorite levels.

You may as well have said, "Why is E1M1 shaped like a BFG?" None of us know the answer, or why there's a fucking huge slimepit in a courtyard, or where all the spacecraft are.

Darkhaven said:

or where all the spacecraft are.

Delivering mail and packages across the universe, of course.

I have assumed that the blue pit in the beginning was water for a LONG time. Although I`ve always known the real water textures, I thought it was ..uh... some other water.

I at one time thought it was blue velvet. Then just thought it was a blue ground.

Just pretend there's some ships outside of the map

The abstractness of E1 is part of what is so endearing about it, IMHO.

The blue stuff is actually carpet, and some of the carpet has the UAC logo on it. At least that's what I've thought. Why the place the ship landed was carpet but where you walked was rusty greasy metal never made any sense to me.

It is carpet, that's why it would make absolutely no sense. Also you obviously didn't land there since the plot says "You were ordered to secure the perimeter of the base while the rest of the team went inside. For several hours, your radio picked up the sounds of combat: guns firing, men yelling orders, screams, bones cracking, then finally, silence. Seems your buddies are dead."

If you had landed right in the middle of the map then I think it would pretty obvious there was problems without a need for radio contact, considering one of your buddies died just around the corner. The map Hangar is "inside", so logically speaking you wouldn't have landed in it, but rather out past the start door, patrolling the base, as the story makes clear. The start of the game occurs after you decide to come inside after them, having no other choice when radio contact dies down.

Why is the first map of Doom/Ultimate Doom called Hangar? Why is the second map called Nuclear Plant, when it doesn't resemble anything near a Nuclear Plant? Why is Toxin Refinery called Toxin Refinery, when it doesn't look like a refinery? It really all comes down to the imagintion of John Romero, because the maps certainly don't look anything at all like what they're supposed to be.
The whole point of E1 is to have fun, and blow away hordes of demons.

It's Doom, it doesn't have to make sense!

First time I played e1m1 I knew what the map was supposed to be, that is, what sargebaldy just said, the ships are outside on a landing pad and you just walked into the building.

Why do you care about a story about crates and stuff? Just shoot the cannon fodder.

sargebaldy said:

...considering one of your buddies died just around the corner.

Has anyone ever botherd counting all the marine bodies in Doom? So we could find out, how many buddies of the Doomguy came to Phobos with him (or were already stationed there).

Deathmatcher said:

Has anyone ever botherd counting all the marine bodies in Doom? So we could find out, how many buddies of the Doomguy came to Phobos with him (or were already stationed there).

AMEN! Ill give a pretend nickle for every dead marine to the person to figure it out!

Clawt said:

AMEN! Ill give a pretend nickle for every dead marine to the person to figure it out!

Maybe I´ll do it some day, when I´m really bored. I´ve done silly stuff like that before. Some years ago, I counted all the monsters in Doom/Doom2 manually, by going through the game on UV with cheat codes. That was way before I got a map editor, where I could have loaded the maps and count the things.

the one thing that really got by me in the first episode is why the hell is there slime on the ceiling in e1m8? that is my favorite level.

DooMBoy said:

Why is Toxin Refinery called Toxin Refinery, when it doesn't look like a refinery?

But there are omnipresent toxin pools in Toxin Refinery so I always found the name fitting. The names of the other maps most time don´t feel totally out of place and can help getting some imagination about the purpose of the locations. And somehow I really liked that slightly otherwordly abstract style of the Doom levels.

Let´s see...

Hangar: feels more like a terminal but I always thought of it to be connected with an actual hangar so it´s a fitting name IMO.

Nuclear Plant: I understood it that way that it´s the antechamber of the nuclear plant and that the entrance to the actual plant is supposed to be straight ahead where the Green Armor resides :)

Toxin Refinery: fits very well IMO...

Command Control: well... it could be everything base-like.

Phobos Lab: I have no clue.

Central Processing: Feels like a facility with all kinds of things going on, so the name fits.

Computer Station: It actually has that large block of computers in the middle area.

Military Base: generic level with no distinct style.

Phobos Anomaly: simply strange.


[edit: green armor in e1m2...]

Heh Ive always liked the names and intermission screens of all the original Doom's maps.

I've always wondered what was up with the level names for episode 4, myself. I used to think that they could be arranged to form a message, but I don't think there was any combination that made much sense.

They were all quotes from The Bible.

Also, check this thread out: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27651

insertwackynamehere said:

They were all quotes from The Bible.

What's your source for this? They certainly look like Biblical phrases, but I'm not totally sure.

Draconio said:

What's your source for this? They certainly look like Biblical phrases, but I'm not totally sure.

I can't remember the original source, but the full passages they're from are given in this thread.

I always wanted to connect these levels together...I did, but I could only fit e1m1 e2m1 e3m1 e4m1, since doom only has 20mb to fiddle with per map:( . it was cool to open that starting door behind you in e1m1 and look striaght across the open land and see e1m3 and the entrance to that building! The problem is that when you copy-paste the maps,all the doors and teleporters and switches have to be "redone".Instead as lazy as i was, i deleted all those things so you could explore everything without approaching a door/switch that wouldn't work.

doom2day said:

the one thing that really got by me in the first episode is why the hell is there slime on the ceiling in e1m8? that is my favorite level.

Not surprisingly, the second half of E1M8 was the only part of E1 done by the obviously colorblind mapper Sandy Petersen.