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quakis

32 Level Wads Too Long?

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Idea for a small discussion, but might already have been. Won't hurt for fresh opinions otherwise though. Ofcourse the question really depends on how the wad is put together, map lengths, themes and so on, but I'll leave that to you.

Do you find that 32 level wads are too long to play through or do you find it a nice length? I see a lot of (dedicated?) projects that gather community members to work on these "new awesome 32 level wad idea" or maybe even a single mapper wanting to do this. In my opinion as a player however, I do find them too long since they tend to drag on and get repeatitive most of the time. I could save part way and play later but I'm not really that type to go back to a wad or so I got bored of because it got tiresome.

Well it also depends on what it actually is. If the maps are detailed and gameplay is up to par and continues with new ideas throughout then it'll be a great play through. When I played the first Simplicity wad which was around 24 levels? (correct me if Im wrong) it was entertaining throughout. The new one is 32 right? But since I enjoyed it the longer and better version will ofcourse be great as well.

Lengths of each map is also something to consider as a mapper when working on a 32 level wad. Short and sweet missions, with balanced gameplay and something interesting in each. Well, ofcourse you can have the odd long maps here and there but it should mix well with the flow and keep the player entertained.

Themes! If I play a long wad I don't want to see the same theme in all the maps, add some variety in there and mix each map together well. Having the same theme all the way through makes them boring, but luckily some community wads don't do this. Different mapper styles and structures also help achieve this. And ofcourse ideas! The 1024 Con.. something was a nice idea to play but I got bored halfway through due to the length and the mood died down.

Another concern to me is why does a mapper really NEED 32 maps in their wad? Well sure it's technically their projects and good luck with it, but do you have the plans, ideas and themes to keep your player interested? Is their a certain reason you make a wad this length? Length doesn't make a good project which is ofcourse obvious to many people. I've played several HL1 / HL2 / Quake / Duke3D and other Doom maps that are short and sweet and of high quality. But ofcourse some long stuff as well which kept me entertained.

Well ofcourse like I said somewhere above this isn't the case with ALL long wads, just something I felt like posting I guess. Ofcourse this is entirely my opinion so be free to disagree. I'd like to hear your thoughts (well, read...)

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I am like you in many ways. I get a Megawad (all 32 levels replaced), play about 10 levels, save, and then never come back to it. I did this with Vile Flesh, Kama Sutra, and Hell Revealed, etc. I get bored because nothing new ever shows up.

My preference in a wad is tech levels, but all to often most wads start out tech and end up hellish (which I don't mind, but most of them get boring fast). My least favorite levels are levels in Caves or in Sewers. That's the main reason why I could not play Phocas Island 2, because it had TOO MANY GOD DAMN CAVES to make it playable for me. I like levels that are tech and then have a hellish theme (that one that AgentSpork did, it was a PWAD, but it's my best example. The one where it interchanges between tech and hellish themes).

I'm ranting again, to stay on topic, I don't mind if the levels replace all 32 maps, but only if it presents something new with each level. Believe it or not, Simplicity got boring after a while too... The only Megawad that I recall EVER playing all the way through (this excludes TC's) has to be Alien Vendetta, only because I played it on Skulltag coop all the time.

By the way, I think the new Simplicity is going to have more than 32 levels, not sure though.

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Antidote said:

(that one that AgentSpork did, it was a PWAD, but it's my best example. The one where it interchanges between tech and hellish theme


Temple of Chaos 2: Warped Reality? As you can tell, I also loved it. Tech is nice but I also like temples and crypts as a major theme. I agree about sewers and caves though, however I stuck to Phocus Island 2.

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I don't really think it matters if there are 32 maps. I think it matters if the levels are interesting enough to keep me occupied. I was able to play through all 32 maps for Herian2 and I was barely able to play through all 32 maps for Fragport (only because I've played it a hundred times already), but I just couldn't get myself to complete all the maps for Hell Revealed 2 or Kama Sutra.

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Quakis said:

Temple of Chaos 2: Warped Reality? As you can tell, I also loved it. Tech is nice but I also like temples and crypts as a major theme. I agree about sewers and caves though, however I stuck to Phocus Island 2.


Yes that is it. I was think of Temple of Chaos, but I wasn't sure, so I type it in. I can't deal with Temple and Crypt levels either. It took me forever to get through that Pyramid level in Alien Vendetta.

Lizardcommando said:

I don't really think it matters if there are 32 maps. I think it matters if the levels are interesting enough to keep me occupied. I was able to play through all 32 maps for Herian2 and I was barely able to play through all 32 maps for Fragport (only because I've played it a hundred times already), but I just couldn't get myself to complete all the maps for Hell Revealed 2 or Kama Sutra.


I cannot play Herian, it doesn't appeal to me at all. I do not find it fun.

For Fragport, I really just don't like the author's map-making style. It begins to get boring and repetitive.

I agree though with your statement about keeping yourself occupied.

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Personally, I think that Megawads are best done by either a community of mappers. Having many different styles keeps the levels fresh and doesn't let them fall into patterns. Occasionally an extremely talented single mapper can pull it off, but that is a very rare feat.

Most megawads would be better synthesized as episodes. The original Doom standard of eight regular maps and one secret map is about perfect for the execution of a particular concept or style. There is alot less repetition this way, and the player doesn't fall as easily into "I'm a third of the way through, have had my fill of the first theme, but it isn't going to change for another five maps so I lose interest" quagmire.

Also, the big megawads might be more interesting if they didn't always follow the Doom 2 progression! I am sick of "Technology - Subverted Technology - Hell" path that all of the big megawads seem to take. Show some imagination people!

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Quakis said:
Do you find that 32 level wads are too long to play through or do you find it a nice length?

It depends on the size of the maps.

You can see the size factor in the COMPET-N movies; DOOM's episodes have many runs, there are a good deal of runs going through DOOM II, though a max movie tends towards 2 hours or more for a good player, and Plutonia has been done in about 3 hours, while Hell Revealed hasn't been completed this way.

I've played quite many megawads (either in SP or Coop) and don't really see a problem in playing more 32 level wads if the levels in them are worthwhile. The theming can help keep me focused or by acting as an attracting point, but of course layout and challenge structuring is much more important than whether the wad offers a variety of environments, if the set has a slew of tech base maps in a row or whatever, or if it follows the standard DOOM or DOOM II theme or something else. Still, even ones that are too large, because they are made up of particularly complex or difficult levels, can well be played level by level separately, perhaps concentrating more on some maps than others, while the fact that it all comes in one set gives you focus to play through all or many or the maps in the set. In any case a wad spanning many levels should be designed so that each level can be played separately, so that from there the player can easily choose to play sections (usually episodes; in DOOM II's case these are defined by the skies and intermission texts). DOOM is, after all, a game that allows you to mark out each level separately very easily (unlike other games where progression form one map to the next has a greater effect).

The Scythe series uses a good measure for wad sections, helping the player concentrate on sections by splitting the first release into groups of 10 levels, and the second one, with generally larger levels, into groups of 5.

It's mostly people that tend to have a "look around" attitude towards playing that get bored more easily (and their input is likewise less useful for design in general, though sometimes it can help from an aesthetic or bug fixing perspective), though it can happen for other reasons, such as the levels being too easy or too hard; in the latter case it's better to lower the difficulty setting instead of playing on UV (at least initially), in the former, you can always try NM if the wad is otherwise decent.

From a design perspective large wads can also be fruitful, either in granting a large group of people the possibility to interact and encourage each other as they make the maps (requires more people), or in allowing one or two designers to work out a consistent design for a good sized project (requires more time).

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Lizardcommando said:

I was able to play through all 32 maps for Herian2 and I was barely able to play through all 32 maps for Fragport (only because I've played it a hundred times already), but I just couldn't get myself to complete all the maps for Hell Revealed 2 or Kama Sutra.



Same here (except for Fragport which I didn't like that much.)

Herian 2 is still one of the best and most consistent 32 level WADs out there and it motivates enough to play through it in its entirety.
Another one where it is easy is TVR. The maps are mostly short and fun - consistent in style but different enough so that it doesn't get boring.
The Scythe series is somewhat different. Since it is split up into episodes I made a MAPINFO for it that really allows to play it as episodes so the typical problems don't arise (but I normally skip the insane parts. ;))
However, there's 2 types of 32 level WADs that don't work for me: random level collections (like Memento Mori, Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed or Community Chest.) It's just too random and inconsistent to hold my motivation throughout the entire thing. The other one is the typical Doom 2 clone: First some techbase stuff, then some city stuff and finally some hell stuff. For this type of WAD or its variations (change the style of the first 2 parts but still end up in hell) it's mostly over once I reach hell. It was like this for me in Rebirth, Kama Sutra and NeoDoom. I ended up cutting them all down to 20-24 maps to keep them in a state that would still motivate to play through all of what I have kept.

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Zbloodpack was the one of the very few 32 level WAD's that i actually played all the way through, probably because it had alot of new stuff in it. Herian 2 was another one because the level's were designed well and just having background sounds rather than music made it really good aswell.

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Graf Zahl said:

It was like this for me in Rebirth, Kama Sutra and NeoDoom. I ended up cutting them all down to 20-24 maps to keep them in a state that would still motivate to play through all of what I have kept.


How dare you... sinner!
Nah, I'm just kidding and I also kind of agree with Rebirth. It was just another retelling of plain Doom2 Tech->City->Hell. I could also easily find some maps that I could cut out without problems ;)

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I don't really like 32-map WADs very much. I'm much like Antidote in that I'll play a few levels and then forget about it forever (or just turn on god/clipping and take a quick look at the remaining levels). I greatly prefer the smaller projects (Darkening 2, P:AR, Action Doom, etc).

Something like Batman Doom would be an exception, although that was a TC and it did have those intermission levels that cut down the number of "real" maps.

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I like 32 maps WADs. I like playing them in the distance, like every other game. I like playing about a map a day during a month.

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Use3D said:

Note to self, don't publicly release megawad.


At least I am one of the ones that has seen your levels. Release it when it is done! :)

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Lol look at everyone perk up when Use mentions a megawad. Anyway like it was said a thousand times before: I only play a 32 level long wad if it manages to stay interesting each level through.

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32 map megawads eh? I love them. The sheer size and effort involved in the good ones is reason enough to keep going through the end.

For me, I think the challenge of actually making it through the really hard (AV, KS, HR) or big (NeoDoom) megawads is what makes them interesting. Admittedly I do end up playing a map or two, saving and leaving ot for later, but I do this with HeXen, Heretic, Doom, Doom 2 and anything else you may mention. If it's really big, I'll play through it once, and probably never again, but I WILL play through it.

On a slightly unrelated note, I don't think I'd ever get round to making one. The closest I got was with Scourge, and 23 is still 9 maps short. Those 9 maps would have just gotten bigger and bigger, I'm sure. As much as like mapping variety (and playing it too), the amount of variety required for me to make a 32 map wad, and keep it interesting for myself, would be amazing, and very difficult to obtain.

I'm all for the CC style mish-mash wads, as they provide a lot of variety and fun, even though there's always a few dud maps.

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For scimitar i used the hardcoded intermission screens to break up my episodes and finished the wad at map20, after which i show my "the end" intermission screen and then an empty "the end" map to stop the player landing in a badly incompatible dehackedup doom2 map21. so there's plenty of scope for people to concentrate on making 20 good maps instead of thinning it out to 32 OK maps

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The megawads that have bored me to the point of putting them off are the ones that stick too closely to a theme and don't allow for variety. I had no trouble playing through AV, HR, Neodoom, or even Eternal Doom. One that I have put off is Congestion 1024 for the reason that with the small map size, eventually every map shares an eerie (well, not eerie but expected) similarity. The expectancy of surprise decreases. When I play a megawad, I need something fresh in each map, and when the whole wad follows a certain pattern so rigidly, it's hard to gather that sense of freshness.

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Count me in the "I get bored half way through" crowd. Of course there have been some notable exceptions, MM, MM2, HR, AV and Scythe. I really enjoyed Scythe actually, probably cause the levels were as sweet as they were short.

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Dr. Zin said:

Personally, I think that Megawads are best done by either a community of mappers. Having many different styles keeps the levels fresh and doesn't let them fall into patterns. Occasionally an extremely talented single mapper can pull it off, but that is a very rare feat.


Very true. The mega wads I have played that where made by one person kind of fell flat in the middle of the wad. The maps felt like fillers. Some of the end maps would be a lot better but for the most part the later half felt like it was made up of filler maps. The wads could have been cut down to 12 or 15 maps and would have been great.

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Most people need a carrot to make them play that many maps. A solid reason to why the maps are in a consecutive order is pretty important IMO.

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kristus said:

Most people need a carrot to make them play that many maps. A solid reason to why the maps are in a consecutive order is pretty important IMO.


Yes I like maps that show connectivity. Such as Phobos: Anomaly Reborn (I believe that's the one) where you end the map looking at the next map's start. I love that.

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I personally prefer to play Megawads with custom weapons when there are no new monsters, weapons, etc.
Playing a 32 level megawad like Scythe gets kind of old after fighting the same monsters you fought in several other wads...
Even great megawads like HR and MM bore me after playing them for a while. This is one of the things I liked about Phocas Island so much. It wasn't just the same damn Doom formula I had seen countless times. It actually felt new and even after you had seen every single enemy, there was still something new and exciting to see.

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Belial said:

The best megawads that I've ever played were made by one or two people.



:D

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I don't see how you can get bored of a megawad as I don't see how it's any different from downloading 32 individual maps and playing each of them (unless you are just bored of Doom generally, in which case, why are you even here?)

This is especially true of community megawads which are like 32 single maps huddling together for warmth. You people have played more than 32 single-map wads, right? Furthermore almost every map ever made can be played from a pistol start so there's no interdependence to worry about.

I'm not saying I'd play all of a megawad at the same time though. Just stop and come back to it after a while. I've been slowly working my way through Requiem for about 5 years now. Final Doom, too. I don't think it's made a difference. I think some of you simply don't have an attention span :)

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