How NRFTL or Sigil would be treated without....

[Cynical]

Disclaimer: I still haven't played Sigil, although I've seen enough of it in videos/posts to be vaguely aware of how it toys with normal Doom conventions.  I'm "meh" towards E1M4b, but E1M8b is legitimately amazing.

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 2:56 PM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Daikatana serves as an example that arguments like "it's good because Romero" are nonsense. Romero isn't infallible, and Sigil certainly has moments where that shows, for example the anticlimactic boss fight. Saying "Romero is proven" when it comes to classic Doom is wearing your hero worship on a sleeve.

Daikatana is actually a good game that's unfairly maligned because of circumstances external to the game.

 

But, despite all this, Sigil isn't something that only a John Romero could have come up with simply by virtue of being John Romero. Arguments like "It's good because it's Romero, and Romero knows games" are fucking lost on me, and as far I'm concerned these arguments hold no merit whatsoever. This community has plenty of people going for it who "know games" as good as -if not better than- Romero, in particular classic Doom and its many unique quirks. Matter of fact, Romero was witty enough to be aware of this, and take advantage of it, by getting somebody like dew to playtest his maps.

Knowing games and knowing the minutae of classic Doom are two very different things.  Most in this community are the latter; Romero, by being the former, is able to take the game in new directions that the latter would be unlikely to come up with.

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Knowing games and knowing the minutae of classic Doom are two very different things.  Most in this community are the latter; Romero, by being the former, is able to take the game in new directions that the latter would be unlikely to come up with.

This seems like some assumptious mental gymnastics to me. You're not really trying to frame people around here such that the only game they acually have a clue of -and play regularly- is classic Doom, are you?

[Cynical]

How many Doom modders/mappers have done a significant amount of design on any other single-player game?

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 minute ago, Cynical said:

How many Doom modders/mappers have done a significant amount of design on any other single-player game?

Irrelevant. I don't need to have been working on a Zelda game to take inspiration from how the dungeons in it are made. Same holds true for many other games and people around here.

[Cynical]

Entirely relevant.  There's a huge difference in perspective gained from working entirely with one game for decades vs. working on a variety of games with their own worlds and rules, especially if they're in different genres.

[Nine Inch Heels]

7 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Entirely relevant.  There's a huge difference in perspective gained from working entirely with one game for decades vs. working on a variety of games with their own worlds and rules, especially if they're in different genres.

Shame that this supposedly huge difference in perspective doesn't show much in Sigil then. Past the eye switches and a few other "memorable" quirks it isn't really that unique in the grand scheme of things, especially not when other "hobby mappers" managed to do very similar things in their maps without any "experience in the industry™" to begin with. Making an attempt at selling a few unconventional ideas as something only Romero could have brought to the table is bootlicking, and you know that. Community mappers have done that stuff long before Sigil was in the making, and I'm at most willing to concede that Romero might have done it better than some folks in their first handful of maps, and that's pretty much the full extent of the jam. And sorry, understanding that classic Doom's roster requires cramped terrain to be threatening isn't something only Romero knows, so don't even bother bringing that up.

[Super Mighty G]

To give some perspective, I don't need to have over 2 decades of game design experience to tell you that shotgunning 3 Barons isn't fun. 

[Linguica]

Let's not forget that Romero was not even credited as a designer in the original Doom. He was credited as a programmer; Sandy Petersen was the only person credited as designer.

 

Also worth mentioning the odd Sandy Petersen quote from the Shacknews interview:

 

Quote

A friend put me in touch with id Software; they were looking for a designer. Or, to be more accurate, their artists were looking for a designer. What happened was that the programmers at id Software, John Romero and John Carmack—the Johns—they were pretty unhappy with Tom Hall's work [on Doom]. They decided that designers were bad and made games worse. This was all stuff I learned after the fact. They wanted to [replace game designers] with an artist to design levels.

 

I'm not sure how much credence I put in that, but paired with the original credits screen, it does suggest that the id boys at the time were not high on "game design" as a standalone concept.

[zen4040]

I also really liked the soundtrack of sigil, gameplay wise people seem to be mostly just complaining about the unfair difficulty in uv but it's way more playable in hmp but the lack of originality really turns me off. It isn't really much different than all the other user created vanilla wads, argueably even worse.

[Cynical]

16 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Shame that this supposedly huge difference in perspective doesn't show much in Sigil then. Past the eye switches and a few other "memorable" quirks it isn't really that unique in the grand scheme of things, especially not when other "hobby mappers" managed to do very similar things in their maps without any "experience in the industry™" to begin with. Making an attempt at selling a few unconventional ideas as something only Romero could have brought to the table is bootlicking, and you know that. Community mappers have done that stuff long before Sigil was in the making, and I'm at most willing to concede that Romero might have done it better than some folks in their first handful of maps, and that's pretty much the full extent of the jam. And sorry, understanding that classic Doom's roster requires cramped terrain to be threatening isn't something only Romero knows, so don't even bother bringing that up.

Where is this glut of community-made levels that rely on inhospitable architecture, finding secrets, and crusher traps for their chalenge?  Everything I play these days is either "I'm trying to be Ribbiks but not quite succeeding" or "Entry #45745489385453890807 in the cannon of BTSX-wannabes".  The fact that I religiously avoid maps that can't be played in prboom-plus skews this some, I'll admit, but not that much.

[Super Mighty G]

12 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Where is this glut of community-made levels that rely on inhospitable architecture, finding secrets,

 

and crusher traps for their chalenge? 

Yes? I just played Sinergy which used damage sectors and secrets very liberally. And people generally don't like crusher traps which is why they aren't used. To add to that, I don't think many people enjoyed navigating that cumbersome crusher puzzle in Sigil. I certainly didn't.  

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Where is this glut of community-made levels that rely on inhospitable architecture, finding secrets, and crusher traps for their chalenge?

I never said maps like that were common, so don't try putting that in mouth, also I never denied that there's plenty of "conventional" maps out there that play like "pretty much the same thing but with a different coat of paint". Doesn't change the fact that unique and unconventional maps existed before Sigil was even heard of, and said maps were made by hobbyists, not "professionals".

 

It's also not like "inhospitable architecture" and crusher traps are the only things that make anything unique. But nice try at boxing me in by asking for something exactly like Sigil instead of asking for something that simply has unique merits to it. If I was an idiot it might have worked, too bad luck isn't on your side here.

 

Also I'm not your secretary, if you want "weird" and "unusual" stuff, create a thread and see what people have to offer, in case you totally forgot that for example stuff like "the given" exists.

[Cynical]

10 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I never said maps like that were common, so don't try putting that in mouth, also I never denied that there's plenty of "conventional" maps out there that play like "pretty much the same thing but with a different coat of paint". Doesn't change the fact that unique and unconventional maps existed before Sigil was even heard of, and said maps were made by hobbyists, not "professionals".

 

It's also not like "inhospitable architecture" and crusher traps are the only things that make anything unique. But nice try at boxing me in by asking for something exactly like Sigil instead of asking for something that simply has unique merits to it. If I was an idiot it might have worked, too bad luck isn't on your side here.

 

Also I'm not your secretary, if you want "weird" and "unusual" stuff, create a thread and see what people have to offer, in case you totally forgot that for example stuff like "the given" exists.

Where did I say "professional"?  I said "experience with multiple games".

 

Also, nice job moving the goalposts -- "lol, Romero's experience didn't help him make a wad like Sigil" to "it's not about Sigil, it's about things that are unique in general!"  Excellent work there.

[Ferk]

Being by John Romero gave it much more exposure.

But that doesn't mean better rating. In the same way as some people would be biased towards rating it positively, I'm quite sure there are people as well who would be biased towards rating it negatively or with indifference, just because it was made by John Romero.

 

In their attempt to be unbiased, I wouldn't be surprised if some people unconsciously are harsher on it, rate it with higher standards or compare it with WADs that have entirely different goals.

[[McD] James]

No one is saying that Romero wasn't able to transition some of his experiences from playing Ultima and hosting D&D sessions into what he was able to create for Doom, but it isn't mandatory for someone to be experienced with game-design outside of the first-person shooter microcosm in order to create Doom maps that are varied and innovative. 

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Where did I say "professional"?  I said "experience with multiple games"

Let's see.. Romero worked in the gaming industry, and in fact still does... He is asking money for his work, or at least trying to, for reference, see "blackroom" (By Romero and Adrian Carmack). So yeah... Seems pretty professional to me, even more so when Romero has been working across different genres like you said. 

7 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Also, nice job moving the goalposts -- "lol, Romero's experience didn't help him make a wad like Sigil" to "it's not about Sigil, it's about things that are unique in general!"  Excellent work there.

I never denied that Romero has experience, and I never said Sigil has no merits of its own. Matter of fact, I gave Sigil credit where I think it was due. Conveniently you missed that part because zealots be zealing. I am, however, denying the merit of the following argument you tried to make:

1 hour ago, Cynical said:

Knowing games and knowing the minutae of classic Doom are two very different things.  Most in this community are the latter; Romero, by being the former, is able to take the game in new directions that the latter would be unlikely to come up with.

So, no goalposts have been moved at any point. My argument was that Romero isn't the only person who's able to create something unique while using classic Doom as a "platform", and you have yet to present any evidence that I'm wrong... Which you can't. Better luck next time.

[Cynical]

Romero is a professional, yes, but that isn't the argument I'm making, so I don't know why on earth you're bringing it up.  You might as well compare maps of people who have short hair and come to the conclusion that "Romero isn't special, people who have short hair also make unique maps".  The part that's relevant to my argument is the "worked on many games across multiple genres" part, which is entirely possible for an amateur (for instance, in addition to Doom, I also have experience making single-player maps for Unreal, Duel and CTF maps for Unreal Tournament, and maps for Starcraft).

 

Also, good job on only bolding half of that sentence in that last quote.  There's two parts of it for a reason; that second part is also important.

[Dragonfly]

2 hours ago, Cynical said:

How many Doom modders/mappers have done a significant amount of design on any other single-player game?

 

I have worked on multiple games across a lot of genres, and with that breadth of experience I have to side with NiH, they're pretty damn correct in this case. 

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 minute ago, Cynical said:

Also, good job on only bolding half of that sentence in that last quote.  There's two parts of it for a reason; that second part is also important.

Sorry, I really didn't think I'd need to elaborate anything there. You've been around when the game was taken in new directions, by people you said were unlikely to come up with new stuff, when "slaughter" established itself as a genre. Actual gameplay genres emerged while you were around, entirely without Romero's input, might I add. And Sigil can't exactly claim to be a new genre, for that matter.

7 minutes ago, Cynical said:

The part that's relevant to my argument is the "worked on many games across multiple genres" part, which is entirely possible for an amateur (for instance, in addition to Doom, I also have experience making single-player maps for Unreal, Duel and CTF maps for Unreal Tournament, and maps for Starcraft)

That's fine and all, but as I said earlier, this kind of "work-experience" isn't required to take a game like doom in new directions, it is good enough in present days to have played something that's entirely different in order to create something with a unique feel to it by giving the map(s) a unique direction. Again, I'm not denying that it helps, but I am denying that it is required.

[ketmar]

4 hours ago, Linguica said:

1) People who played SIGIL because John Romero made it

2) People who would have played SIGIL anyway, regardless of who made it

but... now i don't know what to choose! i am usually playing almost every new pwad that was mentioned at DW, especially if it is a multilevel pwad. it doesn't mean that i will finish any maps, of course, but... and i definitely will play any map from Romero.

 

also, i wouldn't prolly think something different about Si6il if it wasn't from Romero. it is enough to play several first maps to see that Si6il is a solid work. the only difference would be a number of maps i actually played, but not my opinion.

 

so, "done by Romero" does matter for me, but didn't really changed my views. what group should i choose then? ;-)

[Cynical]

3 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Sorry, I really didn't think I'd need to elaborate anything there. You've been around when the game was taken in new directions, by people you said were unlikely to come up with new stuff, when "slaughter" established itself as a genre.

Yontan Donner mapped for games other than Doom.  Try again.

 

That's fine and all, but as I said earlier, this kind of "work-experience" isn't required to take a game like doom in new directions, it is good enough in present days to have played something that's entirely different in order to create something with a unique feel to it by giving the map(s) a unique direction. Again, I'm not denying that it helps, but I am denying that it is required.

You're underestimating the difference between "playing" and "designing for" in the amount of experience and insight they grant.  Kind of a surprising error from a mapper TBH.  The kind of abstract knowledge of "this is what makes thing X fun to play" you get from playing it analytically is completely inferior to the knowledge from experience of "this is how to make a good example of X".

[Nine Inch Heels]

Just now, Cynical said:

Yontan Donner mapped for games other than Doom.  Try again.

Hell Revealed also isn't a dedicated slaughter WAD, those happened later. Point still stands, like it or lump it. But sure, HR introduced harder "core gameplay" and more liberal monster use in terms of quantity, I'll give it that.

 

5 minutes ago, Cynical said:

You're underestimating the difference between "playing" and "designing for" in the amount of experience and insight they grant.  Kind of a surprising error from a mapper TBH.  The kind of abstract knowledge of "this is what makes thing X fun to play" you get from playing it analytically is completely inferior to the knowledge from experience of "this is how to make a good example of X".

You're underestimating how subjective "fun to play" and "a good example of X" are, especially because everybody enjoys, understands and analyzes things in different ways. Kind of a surprising error...

 

You'd be gravely mistaken to think that I simply toss stuff in my maps without rhyme or reason all the time. My entire Udino map is centered around introducing tropes like platforming and movement skills as well as limited real estate as players progress. And almost each new obstacle I put in there is an expansion or a variation of something I've shown players earlier under easier to understand circumstances. Sure, the map is above average in difficulty, and I set the "I don't fuck around" kind of tone early, but I still took my time to think how I can introduce players to what the map expects them to deal with. And this simple concept of introducing things piece by piece didn't take me a decade in the industry to come up with, either, never mind that I'm far from a god-tier mapper, whatever that term means and entails. Here's another example: Magnolia by ribbiks. Map 1 introduces the lower HP cybers, map 2 introduces the eyes, map 3 uses the whole gamut. I dunno what ribbiks has been doing aside of doom, but it's almost as if people were willing to walk the extra mile, even if it's just for hobby's sake. Now back full circle to sigil, where Romero introduces the eye-switches and the "marbface exits", as well as setting the overall tone of the set in map 1. So how unique is Romero in this regard actually? Not very, I'd argue, which was my point all along.

[Cynical]

15 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Hell Revealed also isn't a dedicated slaughter WAD, those happened later. Point still stands, like it or lump it. But sure, HR introduced harder "core gameplay" and more liberal monster use in terms of quantity, I'll give it that.

Oh, you mean the wads that happened when an architecture student built the kinds of spaces he had learned to build elsewhere and then had to figure out how to actually fill the resulting area?  Again, the inspiration came from someone's experiences making things outside of Doom.

 

 

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 minute ago, Cynical said:

Oh, you mean the wads that happened when an architecture student built the kinds of spaces he had learned to build elsewhere and then had to figure out how to actually fill the resulting area?

Yup

[Cynical]

23 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Again, the inspiration came from someone's experiences making things outside of Doom.

 

[GarrettChan]

5 hours ago, Linguica said:

Let's not forget that Romero was not even credited as a designer in the original Doom. He was credited as a programmer; Sandy Petersen was the only person credited as designer.

Don't know why. After I read this sentence, the first thing comes into my mind is that, if Sandy Petersen somehow makes a WAD in the present day, I'll be more eager to play it than Sigil.

While Sigil was being delayed, I didn't feel the anxiety or whatsoever that I want to play the game as soon as it releases. Of course, I bought the digital version soon after Sigil was released, and I do think Sigil is a very solid map pack.

[Capellan]

This "new directions" argument appears to be based on an entirely false assumption.  People have been taking Doom in "new directions" since 1994.  There's a whole lot of wild and crazy ideas being tried out in early WADs.  Many of them are bad ideas, of course, but the idea that "what Doom is / should / can be" has been static and unchanging for 25 years is patently false.

 

 

[kb1]

On 7/27/2019 at 6:15 AM, Graf Zahl said:

 

Behold the bias in full effect... :P

 

 

On 7/27/2019 at 3:45 PM, ReaperAA said:

 

 

Pretty sure Graf (and everyone else) is well aware of Romero's achievements and respects him. His reply was a response to kb1 who said "it's also good because Romero made it" as if anything is automatically good when Romero makes it.

 

*cough* Daikatana *cough*

No, you, Graf, and a few others mis-interpretted what I said...because of your bias. ReaperAA: You fell short of quoting the part of my text ("the man knows games") that explains why I expect most of Romero's games to rock.

 

Here's what I keep hearing in these types of threads:

"Dude, you kinda suck...but can we keep playing your video game?"  or:

"How come I didn't get rich and famous making cool games that everyone wants to play?" heh heh.

[DecoyZulu]

I'll finish Sigil. But only for Romero.

 

It's just giving me PTSD flashbacks to the unnecessarily cruel levels that open Thy Flesh Consumed.

[Spectre01]

33 minutes ago, kb1 said:

("the man knows games") that explains why I expect most of Romero's games to rock.

Which games has Romero made in the last 20+ years since Quake 1 that actually "rock"?