Mid-late 2000's Doom vs Post-2012 Doom

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

I've noticed that there's a night-and-day difference in quality between these two eras of Doom mapping. What was the transition point?

[Not Jabba]

I don't necessarily agree that the difference is night and day or even that it's necessarily a matter of quality in a lot of cases, but I think that the modern mapping era began in 2010 with Speed of Doom.

[beast]

Although Doom is classified as a FPS, the earlier maps put a lot of focus on puzzle solving when it came to completing a level. Perhaps the advent of newer gaming styles influenced mappers in such a way as to draw focus to other areas (like pure slaughter fests), changing the landscape of inspiration which mappers draw from.

 

That is my theory.

[Albatross]

12 hours ago, Marn said:

What was the transition point?

Sunder, Speed of Doom and Vanguard.

[yakfak]

here are some fun factors you can imagine colliding over and over: gzdoombuilder, new authors lovingly jacking old authors' styles, streamed gaming changing the desired fluency of a level to avoid pseudo-feel-bad moments that are often desirable in terms of a mixed game experience, cantankerous mappers doing something crazy/lazy and presenting it to their various forums in a way that makes it catch on instead of get ripped to shreds, the need to meme/go viral and the need to present your work as a front against going viral, tasteful palette editing hiding in a cave for an entire decade as a reaction to claustrophobia 2 and then re-emerging as a need for pastel, mappers thinking they're streamlining the form by paying too much attention to threads full of people trying to determine the middle ground of doom by infecting each other with their pet hates, indie games journalism making people call a game that isn't an arena shooter an arena shooter, the old classic "favourite megawad" selections being entirely composed of maps that their authors could not beat on UV influencing the next era of players who mastered them to create new megawads entirely composed of maps that they can't beat on UV

 

there is no tangible divide except through misremembering what was already accomplished

[Vorpal]

esselfortium can be a lightning rod due to being behind so many beloved projects (in a similar way to how Romero was so highly praised for so long that it became passé to like his design), but all the praise is deserved and it's no accident those projects were successful. Also do not underestimate the impact of endless treatises on mapping she has had in private discussions / playtesting with other mappers.

[94's the best style]

1 hour ago, yakfak said:

...the old classic "favourite megawad" selections being entirely composed of maps that their authors could not beat on UV influencing the next era of players who mastered them to create new megawads entirely composed of maps that they can't beat on UV...

 

Speaking of pet hates. Man, I can't stand this, it's the equivalent of not testing your maps,  or serving food that you didn't like the taste of.

 

Back on topic, I think that one of the factors could be hardware, these days it's nigh impossible to slow down doom without being extremely excessive, or running with an inheriently taxing sourceport like GZdoom. We also have to remember that tools have improved for mapping, and that some of the old guard have left and changed to newer old guard, who of course have their own views of what Doom is, it's a varied game after all.

[Doomkid]

We still see an influx of average stuff as well, it just gets less attention. I barely see the difference other than visuals, in terms of actually enjoyable gameplay every year ever is a mixed bag. Some new features have been added over the years by ports such as GZDoom and we're occasionally seeing that taken advantage of for interesting/beautiful effects, but in terms of "fun factor" I haven't noticed any drastic spikes or downturns. There is and consistently has been too much content for broad strokes and statements to be applicable.

[Paul977]

3 hours ago, yakfak said:

the old classic "favourite megawad" selections being entirely composed of maps that their authors could not beat on UV influencing the next era of players who mastered them to create new megawads entirely composed of maps that they can't beat on UV

 

I'm curious about this point :p. What specifics wads are you referring ?