Doom 1 or 2?

[printz]

I think Doom 2 was a real compromise for id to cash in a lot -- and to enhance the modability to a big extent, thanks to the monsters. I'm really thinking about making a vanilla Doom 2 megawad with a more realistic city (like many have tried), and new, cool textures to back it -- but I'd have to know what "Entryway" means. Enter where exactly? In fact, generally what the first 6 or 11 levels try to represent. Earth, or another planet?

[Gez]

printz said:

I'd have to know what "Entryway" means. Enter where exactly?

In the UAC starport. In Doom, after killing the "loathsome spiderdemon that masterminded the invasion of the moon bases", you have a portal that appears and take Doomguy back to Earth. There he sees he still has some work to do.

There is in the starport some sort of switch that somehow prevents humanity from fleeing aboard starships, presumably some sort of forcefield or AA cannon system or whatever else. Doomguy's mission is to infiltrate the starport and reach that switch. That's the story that's told by the intermission text after MAP06 and MAP11:

	YOU HAVE ENTERED DEEPLY INTO THE INFESTED
	STARPORT. BUT SOMETHING IS WRONG. THE
	MONSTERS HAVE BROUGHT THEIR OWN REALITY
	WITH THEM, AND THE STARPORT'S TECHNOLOGY
	IS BEING SUBVERTED BY THEIR PRESENCE.

	AHEAD, YOU SEE AN OUTPOST OF HELL, A
	FORTIFIED ZONE. IF YOU CAN GET PAST IT,
	YOU CAN PENETRATE INTO THE HAUNTED HEART
	OF THE STARBASE AND FIND THE CONTROLLING
	SWITCH WHICH HOLDS EARTH'S POPULATION
	HOSTAGE.


	YOU HAVE WON! YOUR VICTORY HAS ENABLED
	HUMANKIND TO EVACUATE EARTH AND ESCAPE
	THE NIGHTMARE.  NOW YOU ARE THE ONLY
	HUMAN LEFT ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.
	CANNIBAL MUTATIONS, CARNIVOROUS ALIENS,
	AND EVIL SPIRITS ARE YOUR ONLY NEIGHBORS.
	YOU SIT BACK AND WAIT FOR DEATH, CONTENT
	THAT YOU HAVE SAVED YOUR SPECIES.

But then the intermission text between MAP11 and MAP12 continues and give you a new mission. You have to leave the starport and go to the city. First you had to let humans out, now you have to stop letting demons in.

	BUT THEN, EARTH CONTROL BEAMS DOWN A
	MESSAGE FROM SPACE: "SENSORS HAVE LOCATED
	THE SOURCE OF THE ALIEN INVASION. IF YOU
	GO THERE, YOU MAY BE ABLE TO BLOCK THEIR
	ENTRY.  THE ALIEN BASE IS IN THE HEART OF
	YOUR OWN HOME CITY, NOT FAR FROM THE
	STARPORT." SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY YOU GET
	UP AND RETURN TO THE FRAY.

You arrive there at MAP20.

	YOU ARE AT THE CORRUPT HEART OF THE CITY,
	SURROUNDED BY THE CORPSES OF YOUR ENEMIES.
	YOU SEE NO WAY TO DESTROY THE CREATURES'
	ENTRYWAY ON THIS SIDE, SO YOU CLENCH YOUR
	TEETH AND PLUNGE THROUGH IT.
	
	THERE MUST BE A WAY TO CLOSE IT ON THE
	OTHER SIDE. WHAT DO YOU CARE IF YOU'VE
	GOT TO GO THROUGH HELL TO GET TO IT?

But you never find a way to close that portal. Instead, you find a way to destroy Hell. It involve raising up Hell's Most Useless Elevator, ride on it, and instead of recording the ride to put it on Youtube like some people here would certainly want to do, you have to shoot your rocket launcher at just the right time to send rockets into a hole in the head of the largest goat ever. Doomguy knows how to program Hell computers to sprout elevators where they don't make sense, but he doesn't know how to hold his rocket launcher at an angle that deviates from horizontal.

	THE HORRENDOUS VISAGE OF THE BIGGEST
	DEMON YOU'VE EVER SEEN CRUMBLES BEFORE
	YOU, AFTER YOU PUMP YOUR ROCKETS INTO
	HIS EXPOSED BRAIN. THE MONSTER SHRIVELS
	UP AND DIES, ITS THRASHING LIMBS
	DEVASTATING UNTOLD MILES OF HELL'S
	SURFACE.

	YOU'VE DONE IT. THE INVASION IS OVER.
	EARTH IS SAVED. HELL IS A WRECK. YOU
	WONDER WHERE BAD FOLKS WILL GO WHEN THEY
	DIE, NOW. WIPING THE SWEAT FROM YOUR
	FOREHEAD YOU BEGIN THE LONG TREK BACK
	HOME. REBUILDING EARTH OUGHT TO BE A
	LOT MORE FUN THAN RUINING IT WAS.

As you can see, after doing that, Doomguy goes back to Earth, meaning that the portal is still open.

That was the story of Doom II. In short: base -> city -> hell.

[printz]

Thanks for the info :) so the first third would very likely be a knee-deep techbase or Plutonia stonebase for me.

[Splatter]

Gez said:

There is in the starport some sort of switch that somehow prevents humanity from fleeing aboard starships, presumably some sort of forcefield or AA cannon system or whatever else.

According to the Doom 2 manual, it's "a sort of force field -- a flame barrier." The manual has plenty of contradictions, though. According to the end of E3, you go through a portal to Earth after killing the Spider Mastermind, but...

Doom 2 manual said:

Back at last. After days of hard fighting in space, you've returned home on well-earned leave. You're one of Earth's crack soldiers, hard-bitten, tough, and heavily-armed. When the alien invasion struck Mars, you were the first on the scene. By killing, killing, and killing, you won. You stopped the invasion, saved Mars base, and became a war hero. What they don't talk about so much is that you were the only survivor.

But that's all behind you now. You've quit the military, and are heading home. Your drop pod lands with a crunch. You open 'er up, and look out. Damn! The city ahead is on fire. What the devil is going on? You stagger forward, clutching at your sidearm. Packs of refugees are fleeing the flaming metropolis. A band of them shriek in terror. You squint. What's that? Someone is attacking the refugees. You rush up and blast away, killing the troublemaker. It looks like a human, but something's wrong. His mouth is filled with half-chewed flesh, and he's all messed up, like a zombie from a bad horror movie. Hell, not again!

Huh? Also, Doom II is one of the few times where they ascribe the horror movie flesh eating-ness to the former humans. I guess they like to exercise before chow time, since if they wax Doomguy they start a little calisthenics routine.

Doom 2 manual said:

You can feel it. It's all starting again, just like on Mars.

He sees a city in flames, with the screaming survivors being picked-off by the living dead, but what tells the Doomguy things are fubar is that he can feel it.

Then again, things remind him of Mars, not Phobos and Deimos, so maybe the guys there burned cities in between watching restricted flicks. Or tried to, anyway. The lack of oxygen must've been a real downer, exceeded only by the lack of cities.

Doom 2 manual said:

The wise men of humanity have evolved a plan to save what's left of the human race. They have built enormous ships to carry the remaining people into space, safely away from the ruined world.

The master plan: run away. These guys are geniuses.

Doom 2 manual said:

Unfortunately, Earth's only ground spaceport has just been taken over by the demons.

Wait, the demons captured the same spaceport where the ships were being built? "Erect giant wall of fire" seems to be a less pragmatic way of keeping people from blasting-off than "smash the ships up." Maybe it's like public funding, with the flame barrier being make-work so they don't get less cash next fiscal year. We're not so different after all.

Doom 2 manual said:

You gotta go back into action. The pathetic remnants of Earth's soldiers are making an assault on the invaders at the spaceport. If you win, you might be able to turn off the barrier, so that the ships can leave, and Homo sapiens may not go extinct just yet.

The only remaining armed forces on the planet were stationed at a location other than the one they must protect to ensure the survival of humanity? Was this the wise men's idea too?

Doom 2 manual said:

They have no pity, no mercy, take no quarter, and crave none.

Well, they held Earth's remaining population hostage instead of killing them outright, so that's something. Perhaps the writer wanted us to see man's need to demonize the enemy, even when they're literal demons.

Or not.

[sonic_13]

Gez said:

But you never find a way to close that portal. Instead, you find a way to destroy Hell. It involve raising up Hell's Most Useless Elevator, ride on it, and instead of recording the ride to put it on Youtube like some people here would certainly want to do, you have to shoot your rocket launcher at just the right time to send rockets into a hole in the head of the largest goat ever. Doomguy knows how to program Hell computers to sprout elevators where they don't make sense, but he doesn't know how to hold his rocket launcher at an angle that deviates from horizontal.

That made me laugh pretty hard. Referring to my earlier post, when I try to rationalize this game in any shape or form, it makes the game a humongous joke. That is pretty hilarious though (:

[DuckReconMajor]

Gez said:

Hell's Most Useless Elevator

How else do you talk to the master of the demons? Yell?

[hardcore_gamer]

DuckReconMajor said:

How else do you talk to the master of the demons? Yell?

The demons don't talk. In fact they demons don't appear to do anything at all besides eating/killing and farting there projectiles of doom at whenever they spot something none-demonic.

[DuckReconMajor]

I meant ambassadors silly.

[myk]

Splatter said:
the Doom 2 manual,

Probably written by some vaguely supervised employee or by the publishers. In any case, the game works well enough by itself to make anything the manual says irrelevant.

[ReFracture]

I'm not going to bother reading all of this crap, so I'll just put my two cents in.

The Doom II levels feel rushed. There are some really good levels, and some really shitty levels.

The same could be said for Ultimate Doom (Inferno in particular), however, I feel the 'good' levels in Doom II aren't nearly as good as most of Ultimate Doom's levels.

That said, I think Doom II overall is kind of shitty compared to Plutonia, and maybe even Evilution.

[Cjwright79]

hardcore_gamer said:

The Ultimate Doom has awesome level design with allot of unexpected fights and ambushes. The levels resemble stuff. But Doom 2 just has large empty areas, uninspired bland maps

I've found that 'bland' usually means 'subtle', coming from unsubtle people.

[ReFracture]

Cjwright79 said:

I've found that 'bland' usually means 'subtle', coming from unsubtle people.

Thanks for bumping this thread with your fantastic insight.

[Mr. T]

Doom 2 is a much better game overall than the original Doom.

Most people seem to remember the original Doom fondly because of Episode 1 - which completely kicks ass.

They seem to forget things like Inferno, which has some cool stuff like Mt. Erebus and the secret level, but E3M7 is probably the worst map in any version of Doom...a boring, long switch hunt that feels and looks like a Wolfenstein map.

Doom 2 just has better fights and more memorable maps. Map01 with the chainsaw right behind you... the massive fights in Map10 and Map11... the Cyberdemon - Spider mastermind fight in Map20...

The whole game is made of win! SUPER SHOTGUN

[Cjwright79]

Mike.Reiner said:

Thanks for bumping this thread with your fantastic insight.

How old are you? 12?

[eargosedown]

Cjwright79 said:

How old are you? 12?

Wow, you really burned him! Nice comeback dude!

[Viewtiful-Chris]

eargosedown said:

Wow, you really burned him! Nice comeback dude!

Damn, that's the most necessary post in this thread! Way to show him what's what!

[Cjwright79]

You guys are idiots. I'm out.

[PRIMEVAL]

To contribute to the topic of this thread:

I find Doom II levels to be quite fun. Nothing of familiarity, but fun nonetheless. Episode 1 of Ultimate Doom was, indeed, amazing (though E1M6 and E1M7 are my least favorite), the rest of UD was mediocre. Doom II had an equal amount of fun levels, maybe even more. I find DII more challenging than UD, the music to be better, and just overall more enjoyable.

[DuckReconMajor]

Cjwright79 said:

You guys are idiots. I'm out.

Odie Iron E

[ReFracture]

Cjwright79 said:

How old are you? 12?

Cause I totally registered back in 2005 when I was 7 years old.

[Mr. T]

OMG GTFO

[WH-Wilou84]

Cjwright79 said:

I've found that 'bland' usually means 'subtle', coming from unsubtle people.

"Bland" means "tasteless", "uninspired", "empty". Like when you're making a corridor, you put one texture on the walls, one texture on the floor and ceiling, and you go build the next corridor / room that way.

Sadly many Doom II maps feel bland compared to Doom, imho.
Doom II map 29 is great, though !

Then again, with the limitations they had at this time, I guess it was pretty hard to make something big and detailed.

@ Cjwright79 : Here's a hint from a 25yo guy, since you seem to judge people's ideas regarding of their age : Relax man. Take a deep breathe. You have to understand that making 1-texture rooms and corridors was already not that good in 1994, let alone in 2010.

"1994-ish maps" doesn't always mean "maps that were made in 1994". It means maps with doors as high as walls, random texturing, clashing themes ( you're in a UAC base, you open a door and then you're in a marble hellish place ), misaligned textures, ammo and monsters placed randomly, giant lifts...

Just play classic stuff ( Plutonia, Requiem, Alien Vendetta... ) and compare with Doom II, you'll understand by yourself for sure. Then compare all this with your own work, and remember we're in 2010. Standards have evolved. Can't say it's for good, but it's a fact you must deal with as a map-maker.

[BrokeAndDrive]

dutch devil said:

Sequels suck, end of story.

Bioshock II. Refuted.


On the Doom vs Doom 2 subject, not sure what I can say that hasn't already been said, level-wise. But I will throw out that I just could never get into Doom 2, and 2's the one I actually played first! Doom 2 was so weak that I mistook it for the one made by some other schmucks, not Final Doom.

It wasn't until I got my hands on the original was when I began to love Doom -- that and remembering watching big brother play it from when I was too young to play it myself. I didn't play then because it looked much harder than my then staples of Commander Keen and Cosmo's Cosmic Adventures. Nostalgic sigh... Anyway, by the time I started playing, I was too spoiled by the SSG and killing fatties and flamers to get into it.

Anyway, Doom 2's levels are largely forgettable, and much of the music just SUCKS. I mean, listen to M1. What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that!? It's like Prince's dog shit all over his equipment, then he just shrugged and used it as lube, and the result is M1!

The next four are: snoozefest, freaking star wars (you kidding me? and don't tell me it isn't really star wars, every time I hear that tripe, threepio wearing a pimp hat and his army of ewok whores try to have rough sex with my mind, which is not cool), dunno what the hell to call this next gunk, and another uninspiring snoozefest. It wasn't until I got to M6 that I stopped muting music altogether, and M7 is my favorite Doom 2 music ever. M8 is decent, makes me think "Oh shit, what ingenious method of murder are they gonna throw at me next?" M9 I've decided I want playing at my funeral, M10 is more overtly gloomy and not as good but it's better than the first four levels.

On to more of my half-assed musical critiques. M11 is where they began to reuse the MIDIs. It isn't until 18 where we get to something new: a nice doom-and-gloom soundtrack. 20 up until they play the "louder" stuff is excellent for tension. 23 is alarming, perfectly capturing my initial forays of "barrels o' fun? what's this all about? wait, they weren't kidding... whuh oh mancubus attacking, and he just SHOT THE BARRELS! BARRELS EXPLODE!! SSSHHHIIIII- *BANGBANGBOOMDEADBOOMBANGBANGBOOM* ...fuuuck..." 25 is yet another boring snoozefest, 28 is good and what I'd call very "heroic", and 30 is their best "creep-out" tune. 31-32 are their wolfenstein levels and IMO don't really count, though 31 is what I'd want to hear when marching with my fellows to stamp out the necks of the lesser races. SIEG HEIL!

I'm thinking since they already hit the jackpot with the first Doom they probably were too distracted by their ascension into the gods of game-making to crank out another true masterpiece. But once again I ended up writing a lot more than I wanted to -- level music really is that big a deal to me -- so I'll just thank all those megawad-creators for slaking my Doom hunger with prime rib instead of a preservatives-loaded burger.

[zap610]

Cjwright79 said:

You guys are idiots. I'm out.

As in I'm leaving and never coming back? Or as in I got insulted on the internet and I need to eat lots of food and cry about it to feel better?

[printz]

He's just out of the house.

[Bastet Furry]

BrokeAndDrive said:

[...] though 31 is what I'd want to hear when marching with my fellows to stamp out the necks of the lesser races. SIEG HEIL!

Stirb in einem Feuer, Hurenkind! Und deine Popo fickenden Freunde gleich mit du widerlicher Bastard!
Der Flachwichser aus Braunau, der Deutschland diese Suppe erst eingebrockt hat, ist tot. Also geh sterben, am besten leise, du kleiner Naziwichser!

(Sorry to the others, that had to be said. ;) )

@Topic:
As said before, the demons brought their own reality with them, warping ours. It can be seen as an excuse for bad level design, but in the end it all worked for me. I like Doom 2 maps.

[Abyssalstudios1]

Frankly, I don't care much for many of Doom II's maps. I'm incredibly grateful for the new monsters, the SSG, and new textures. However, whenever I fire up a game of Doom, I don't play Doom 2. I haven't in almost a year. I play something that looks and feels good, or I just go deathmatch in Skulltag.

Ultimately, Doom 2 was God's gift to us. Without it, we would not have had Plutonia, Evilution, or any of the inspired megwads built on the ideas pioneered in those two IWADS. But when I play Doom, I play to have fun, not to get all nostalgic. I suppose that's why I play in GL mode, too.

[DuckReconMajor]

Abyssalstudios1 said:

I play something that looks and feels good, or ... Skulltag.

lol

Abyssalstudios1 said:

But when I play Doom, I play to have fun, not to get all nostalgic. I suppose that's why I play in GL mode, too.

People don't always play software just to feel nostalgic.

[Abyssalstudios1]

DuckReconMajor said:

People don't always play software just to feel nostalgic.

Precisely.

[Cjwright79]

When people make it their business to be pests, the best you can do is take your leave.