Doom2.wad is a bit... odd, isn't it?

Both great maps. Still love `em.

Reaper978 said:
Further, I wish someone would do what you just stated. I'm wondering what id is doing with Doom 4. I wasn't terribly thrilled about Doom 3, though it was alright. The underwhelming sound effects really ruffled my feathers.

You think that's bad, you should see an early trailer for GTA3 that drifts around. The engine sounds were proper V8 roars, and the skidding cars sounded awesome. They sort of rectified things by San Andreas, but it was still not as cool as that trailer.

Creaphis said:

That's a good point. I guess the name "Downtown" helps you to imagine a city when playing the level, just as the name "Mars" helps you to envision the cosmic grandeur of that planet when listening to the Holst symphony. I've realized before that I get a bit bothered by the departures from reality that modern games take (How can a health pack instantly heal a bullet wound? Seriously?) while those same tropes when used in Doom don't bother me in the slightest - that's just what Doom is. Doom isn't meant to be taken literally, but is evocative. Doom is music.

I wouldn't actually compare Doom to The Planets but at least it's a catchy tune.

Wonderful and thoughtful post! "Doom is music." Couldn't have said it better myself.

Creaphis said:
I guess the name "Downtown" helps you to imagine a city when playing the level, just as the name "Mars" helps you to envision the cosmic grandeur of that planet when listening to the Holst symphony.

Yet my point was also that Map13 doesn't need the name Downtown as much as others to convey what it is. On the other hand, there's no particular reason to think E1M2 is a Nuclear Plant, unless you call it so.

Reaper978 said:
I just played "The Factory" and "Downtown"... it's not the first time I played them, but I was struck this time by how strange they are. It's rather uncanny how they created these levels on "earth" using weird, gritty "wood" and "building" textures, almost like they were trying to avoid making levels that look like real-world locations. Instead, they just look like horrid nightmare worlds with strange remnants of buildings and streets, populated by demons. The city streets are white rocks. There is a crusher and a plasma rifle at one of the "corners" of the city. No cars or human corpses either. Hmmm. Hell is an oddly decorated place.

What's with this factory, anyway? There is a room with "lifts" that slowly go up and down for no apparent reason, and there are cacodemons riding on them. And here are some strange wooden hallways with mancubi.

There is a sort of explanation in the first text interlude when it says the demons are bringing their own world with them. The levels are cool in their own way, as odd and quirky as they are. What do you think?

I never really understood what that meant, but I think you just clarified it. Yeah... doom2 is odd....

I really liked Doom 2's city levels after i quickly understood that they were not exactly aiming for just abandoned/destroyed cityscapes. I'm not sure it was all that intentional, though, but i love the theme of hell's influence on earth literally changing everything into their own abstract and creepy world. And doom 2's hell being "the bowels of the earth" is the only interpretation i'll ever accept, even though there is some sort of sky sometimes. I love the abyss and the living end's atmosphere because i was always a fan of really big and deep and isolated caves where humans would probably never explore and who knows what could be there.

MasterOfPuppets said:

there is little to no rational in Doom's level design. I map on what ends up looking cool and what makes for good gameplay, I imagine the original iD guys probably did the same.

Explains why many still play the game today, and I - at least - find Doom 3 and so many modern FPSs and other games that shoot for realism, ultimately less inspiring.

Playing through Claustrophobia 1024 and NewDoomCP2... I'm repeatedly stunned by the imagination of Doom fans. One minute I might be running through another blasted tech base, the next, marble platforms suspended above endless red, hellish voids, or plowing through ancient and decrepit castles or abstract valleys.

The Doom engine's lack of visual dexterity (a pretentious way of saying it can't do real 3D or curves or whatever), means a mapper has to use their imagination to craft something from limited tools. It's the same with any art - and I do think I would class this as an ART - inspiration often comes from limitation.

It's the same with any art - and I do think I would class this as an ART

Yes, but who has mastered it?

GhostlyDeath said:

And i'd say The Underhalls is the only level that actually looks like something, sewers!

The Crusher has a crusher in.
The Pit has a pit in.
Tricks and Traps has some tricks and traps in.
Circle of Death has a circular ledge in.
Bloodfalls has lots of bloodfalls in.
Barrels o'Fun has lots of barrels in. (and they're totally out of place in a hell map)
The Chasm is actually two big chasms.
Dead Simple is dead simple.
Wolfenstein is Wolfenstein.
Grosse has everything else but Grosse himself.

Reaper978 said:

Yes, but who has mastered it?

Start another thread? :)

chischis said:

Start another thread? :)

Eh, maybe you should, I made this one... ;)

The Ultimate DooMer said:

Barrels o'Fun has lots of barrels in.

... as well as lots of fun.

Kyka said:

... as well as lots of fun.

I disagree. Barrels are no fun at all.

If I was to describe Doom2.wad in one word it would be: brown. Lots and lots of brown textures. Also the fact that it doesn't really have cohesive theme like Doom and the hell levels just look like underground facilities don’t help matters much.

Doom and Doom II are both ugly in their own ways, as much as I love the graphics. Maybe it's just me, but the texture-work in the last two episodes of Doom is kind of shit, and some rooms just look awful. Satan polished things up a bit when he came to Earth, but the only wallpaper pattern he brought along was fecal.

Plutonia, now there's something beautiful. Still brown, but just better at it.

Don't get me wrong doom1.wad relies on marble tile textures too often for example, but I appreciate it for the fact it’s a far more colourful looking game than doom 2 is, even with all the new textures.

Is it just me, or do the Hell stages actually start at level 20? I consider The Citadel the final City level as opposed to Gotcha, seeing as you, you know, storm a giant castle to gather three keys to unlock a heavily locked portal. Much more fitting in theme. Gotcha just has the portal to hell just...sitting inside a building

bones58 said:

Don't get me wrong doom1.wad relies on marble tile textures too often for example, but I appreciate it for the fact it’s a far more colourful looking game than doom 2 is, even with all the new textures.

The Marble look pretty much makes me think of Episode 4 and the horrors of the first two levels.

I need to actually beat Plutonia someday, as I only got up to level 11 (Damn Archviles) and stopped playing. As such I dont remember much of the level design much. I really liked Evilution though, I found it very appealing visually, thematically and in gameplay too. Am I alone in thinking its easier than Doom 2?

Ragnor said:I need to actually beat Plutonia someday, as I only got up to level 11 (Damn Archviles) and stopped playing. As such I dont remember much of the level design much. I really liked Evilution though, I found it very appealing visually, thematically and in gameplay too. Am I alone in thinking its easier than Doom 2? [/B]

I'd say they're on par, but you probably played through Doom II first. So something that's just as hard is going to seem easier since you're already familiar with it. I always thought Plutonia was only just as hard as Doom II until I went back to actually play Doom II again... even on UV it seemed like a joke.

Well the way I always looked at doom2's city levels were like this: the city was once perhaps more ordinary looking, but when the hellspawn took over, the cities became more abstract due to hell's influence. It is like a world being slowly turned into a second hell. I just settled it for me with that :P.

Of course I think the real reason is that realism doesn't always lend itself to fun and interesting layouts (although in some areas I suppose it could have.)

Just like many people have already said, due to the limitations of the engine, the designers were left only to their own imaginations for mapping out the levels. In a way, the abstract-ness reminds me of early Mario games, where the levels make no sense as an analogy to the real world, but that doesn't mean they are less fun to play.

Duke3D tried bringing the gameplay into the real world right off the bat, with the city and theater as the first level in LA Meltdown. Granted, it was novel and fun at first, but now just feels sort of gimmicky. When a level is trying to be like something in the real world, the limitations just stack up, whereas if the level designer just goes mad and puts in all sorts of corridors and pillars and teleporters and all of the great things we love, no one really cares if it relates to real-world locations.

It's this sort of abstract thought put into any Doom level, that we have things like in Limbo, where a bunch of switches are scattered all over the board behind red doors, and each one raises a portion of the bridge that crosses over to the exit. A little something extra is firing in our mind, trying to remember where all these switches are. You just can't find anything like that in a so-called "realistic" level.