Elitism & Purism

[40oz]

This is the thread where we will outlet our frustrations or commendations about purists and whether elitism has or doesn't have validity in the subject of Doom Editing. I'll post my opinions later. I don't want to give the impression that I'm forwarding the argument. You might wanna start with defining your perception of purism and/or elitism before calling anyone out or telling people off or making suggestions of what the general public should or shouldn't do in any given doom related scenario.

I don't want this shit in NaturalTvventy's thread, he hasn't even done anything that deserves it.

[dew]

i say, such a topic is beneath me and any contribution to this discussion is an outrage tainting the immortal legacy of doom as it was meant to be. i shall think up a snide remark for my irc club peers.

[myk]

40oz said:
whether elitism has or doesn't have validity in the subject of Doom Editing.

Validity or not, it's impossible to avoid it in a community that is so specialized, and it shows up in various different ways depending on what's being highlighted.

your perception of purism

Generally speaking the term is used to refer to vanilla-oriented purism, and perhaps it's the most obvious place to apply it, as it relates to the (relatively) untouched game, but other activities often have their own blend of purism. A guy who likes certain types of maps or sticks to certain engine is also a purist of those things.

Here we have two key aspects in DOOM level design, biased toward players or map designers, respectively:

• Playing: If you take DOOM as a game in the traditional sense, aiming for a challenge or rules of play, mapping is heavily tied to get that going as economically as possible, in a way that can be experimented with. This leads toward simpler constructions with a focus on action over novelty. That tends to be defined as "purism".
  
• Design: People draw enjoyment out of the act of mapping itself, or the appreciation of created maps. This orientation tends toward larger and elaborate maps that don't necessarily have a focus on practical play or replayability. I call it the "LEGO school".

In different degrees depending on their "advanced" level, source ports add editing possibilities that make more things possible and options that make play less uniform, pushing mods related to them toward the LEGO school and away from the purist school, in more than just the strictly technical sense (that the port is not vanilla.)

These two aspects are present in almost any map, yet many maps show a balance in one direction or the other, and while it's possible to apply both in a progressively improved way, this may be irrelevant to people who prefer one thing over the other. Some guy makes a map with 9/9 playability and craftsman's merit by carefully working on each aspect and blending them, yet he may feel dismay at seeing people go for what could be seen as 10/3 or 3/10 WADs instead.

I think that the capacity of the game to cater to extremes is a good thing. Taking the two extremes I described above, one sustains the game's character so that it doesn't dissolve into an unrecognizable alteration most people wouldn't relate to, and the other allows it to mesh with people who bring other influences to the game. Arguing about this topic is understandable and shouldn't stop, although people should keep in mind, in the meantime, that the health of one side depends on the other, so shooting them down means an eventual shot at one's own foot.

[40oz]

I've been affiliated with purists as of the last year or so. I wasn't always like this. I used to play a lot of ZDoom because it was the only reliable source port created within the Doom Community that I was aware of. I also enjoyed Skulltag thoroughly for a large fraction of my time in the Doom Community. I was always under the impression that purists were of the most reactionary of the Doom community, who refused to play anything that was not vanilla compatible in any source port other than DOSBox or Chocolate Doom. I admit I certainly like to occasionally play in Chocolate Doom, although my preferred source port is PrBoom.

The part of me that is purist so to speak, is the part of me that gets dissapointed when I see screenshots of upcoming projects, or youtube videos of people playing doom who are so accustomed to the luxuries of modern games that advanced source ports provide with things like crosshairs and mouselooking and three dimensional architecture. But it isn't just that. It's more so when I see people that cringe at the thought of creating doom levels with vanilla limitations, or playing Doom without jumping, with infinitely tall actors, or in software rendering. There was a point in my experience with Doom, where I got tons of replay value off the IWADs alone using Doom95 as my source port because it was all I knew was available. And while Doom95 isn't a very stable source port, it didn't subtract from the entertainment I received from the game. I think it's plenty fair to use advanced source ports to the best of their ability but I'm ashamed to know that many people think it is required in order to make something that is good. Or when people say they can appreciate Doom without ditching modernized amentities so that they don't have to adjust to the qualities of an older game. I choose to stay true to Doom because it is my favorite video game of all time and I don't wish to lose sight of what is great about it. It wasn't always the community's contributions that made the game great so much as it was the game itself.

I'm not sure what to say about elitism. I've been called out for having an elitist state of mind. I'd prefer to put it past myself that what I do is what is now considered "elite". I've seen plenty people who can create way better Doom wads than I can and I take heavy inspiration from them. I'm always seeking to create Doom wads that are more fun for myself as well as those who enjoy Doom as much as I do. I have a hypothetical goal to become the best asset of the Doom Community. I don't know how plausible that actually is and in retrospect I'd be really ashamed if I had created something that were to dominate every Doom related creation that ever existed and monopolize the Doom editing community. (speaking rhetorically of course, I'm pretty damn sure such a thing is impossible to conceptualize) But the desire to be the best and have the most fun with what I make is what keeps me motivated to work hard.

[_bruce_]

Many interesting things out there.
The old Doom/II look is what I like my Doom to be.

Chose your poison.

[kristus]

It's just preferences like any other. Some people are more particular and others are not. Though imagining that you're belonging to a particular clique or similar is a way to feel justified and special.

Just like brushing of criticism by strawmanning the critiquer's motivations and position on matters.

[Graf Zahl]

The community needs both, except those ultra-purists that try to make others do it their way and no other.

A purist only community would never be able to sustain itself. All the qualities of the game nonwithstanding, the scope of such a community would just be too narrow to attract newcomers and keep them.

On the other hand, if the entire community consisted out of these overambitious types that flood the ZDoom 'projects' forum it wouldn't be good either. Most of these projects never get finished and this type of people move on sooner or later because they get bored with the game.

So as with everything else some middle ground is needed - people who do have some purist attitudes but also ambition to push the envelope.

This attitude has driven the entire source port community since the source release 13 years ago and also created the best mods.

Plain vanilla mods can be nice but a steady diet of them would certainly bore me sooner or later. I want to experience something new once in a while. I also want the classics on occasion.

(However the one thing I do not want ever again is to suffer through this game in 320x200 poststamp resolution. :D)

[Dutch Doomer]

I use modding for doom as an outlet for my creativity, it could have been something else. I enjoy making something from scratch and see it evolve into a functionable doom map. I guess I'm more a classic doomer that doesn't go further than boom if it comes to mapping.

[Stupid Bunny]

I think I tend to be a bit of a purist in practice, at least when making my own maps. I can't remember the last time I really attempted at making a non-vanilla map or mapset, and I suspect the reason for this (apart from my lazy unwillingness to learn ACS and the like) is simply that I've always marveled at how much balance there is within the original Doom engine and bestiary, without all the cool features of ZDoom.

But this is with my own maps. There are certainly people who can make a balanced map using all kinds of ZDoom features, and in that case I admire their creativity and vision every bit as much as I'd admire somebody who could make an equally excellent map within Doom's limits. I certainly feel disappointed when I see somebody saying that vanilla Doom is crap and only ZDoom maps with ZDoom's gameplay features can be good, but it's the same sort of annoyance I experience when I hear somebody say that ZDoom maps are shit and anything beyond vanilla isn't even Doom anymore or whatever. As it generally is with me, I don't get annoyed with any particular group of Doomers for their preferences so much as with any who are too narrow-minded to even try to see the quality of anything else.

[Mechadon]

From a perspective of a mapper, I see both limitations of ports like Vanilla and Boom as well as the feature-rich ZDoom and Eternity (and all of the other ports out and in between) to be both be great creative mediums. I realize that some people prefer one or the other, and I'll admit that I prefer at least Boom features most of the time. It really just depends on your mapping philosophy...and I think the exact same applies to the player as well. I respect that a person may not like a newschool-style project because of X reason, and vice-versa; that's not a thing wrong with that as it just boils down to personal preference. What I don't like to see is bashing of projects because they are either oldschool or newschool or extremes of either, at least not just on those aspects alone. If a project's goals and overall presentation of it's gameplay style isn't something that appeals to you from the get-go, then just move on. And there's a difference between not liking something for what it is and not liking it because of some sort of bad implementation or bugs or whatever.

Anyways, I started off pretty much the same was that you did 40oz. My first real "port" was Doom 95 (although I played Doom 64 quite a lot too) and I must have played it for countless hours without really thinking that the experience was sub-par in any way. And then I found Skulltag/ZDoom and feel in love with all of the features, etc. That was sort of a transitional period for me as well since most of my mapping was dependent on many of the features and limit removals, so moving back to Vanilla wasn't a very appealing option for me at the time. I think as my mapping matured, my school of thought changed and I found that a feature-rich environment isn't the only place where creatively can thrive within a mapping environment. And so I started doing Boom mapping. Now I see both ends of the spectrum as being essential to the community in terms of creativity. I enjoy classic map sets and I appreciate the creativity that's presented within those set limits. And I also appreciate those projects which take advantage of new ports and new features to their fullest potential. The variety ensures that my playing and mapping experience wont stagnate, and as such it means that I'll probably be sticking around for quite a while doing both.

[MTrop]

I think most of the conservatism regarding Doom these days revolves around a combination of Sturgeon's Law and a never-ending supply of untalented, overambitious "artists."

Sturgeon's Law states thus: "90% of everything is crud." The influx of terrible weapon replacement mods or "kitchen sink" mods that seek to include the entirety of the Realm667 Bestiary that seem to worm their way into NEWSTUFF that are not given any feedback by outside sources or are not subject to criticism or peer review are what cause the backlash. Of course, not all of these modifications are bad. Unfortunately, a lot of them are (90%).

Source ports that allow this sort of deviation from ordinary "aim-on-a-single-axis, refuse-to-give-authors-inches-when-most-of-them-take-miles" are what receive the brunt of such outrage (ZDoom, Vavoom, etc.). This is completely unjust in my eyes. Even though there are authors out there that are not smart with what they create using such tools and probably don't know their intended audience, blaming the port and its potential resource pool is never the answer. Blaming the author is closer to the real answer. If I had a knife, I could cut up an apple with it, or stab some people with it, but a lot more people would be outraged at the stabbing of people rather than how I choose to consume fruit. It's all in how you use it.

Not everybody is as creative or talented as they think, myself included as an author of maps. In fact, I believe that EVERYTHING I make is crap compared to what some other mappers can do, and I've been doing this shit for at least 10 years. But there was a thread on here of some members praising some of my work at one time, and I for the life of me can't imagine why. I think it has something to do with my perfectionism. Maybe if more took my approach, they'll be better at what they do.

The worst an author can do is lie to themselves about their own skill in whatever goal they set out to achieve. You aren't going to complete that Megawad if you haven't made a single, playable, enjoyable map. You aren't going to be a good artist if you haven't created a consistent style, refine your technique, or draw something that doesn't make somebody pull out their own eyeballs or go blind. You'll never be a talented musician if you don't know what a melody is, what patterns are, or haven't written a song that won't make anybody wish they were deaf. And if you can't do any of those things, ABANDON HOPE OF CREATING THAT TOTAL CONVERSION or at least round up a group of people that can that you can direct and will listen to you.

The Doom Engine, no matter its feature set, is merely a tool. It's all in how you use it.

[Use]

If you don't like it, don't play it. Why is this so complicated? Oooh is it Making a Big Deal Out of Nothing day? I can be on board with that.

Mista_T, can you please post more? Kthnx

[Csonicgo]

Use3D said:

If you don't like it, don't play it. Why is this so complicated? Oooh is it Making a Big Deal Out of Nothing day? I can be on board with that.

THIS.


Jesus christ this community can have such bleeding vaginas over this sophistry. Play it and shut up is my mantra.

[MTrop]

Use3D said:

Mista_T, can you please post more? Kthnx

The less declarative statements a person makes, the less foolish they will seem in retrospect.

[Maes]

Use3D said:

If you don't like it, don't play it. Why is this so complicated? Oooh is it Making a Big Deal Out of Nothing day? I can be on board with that.

(crudely adapted from the Ewige Jude)

What he (the average DWer) calls "civil discussion" must titillate his degenerate nerves. A smell of foulness and disease must pervade it.
It must be unnatural, grotesque, perverted or pathological.
These fevered fantasies of incurably sick minds are extolled by DoomWorld goons as the pinnacle of forum discussion.
Under the cloak of ingenious or even learned discussion they mean to turn mankind's healthier instincts down degenerate paths.

So NO, you CAN'T have a civil discussion here, without somebody throwing a fit, getting butthurt or worse, pretending to be so just to complain about something ;-)

[40oz]

Use3D said:

If you don't like it, don't play it. Why is this so complicated? Oooh is it Making a Big Deal Out of Nothing day? I can be on board with that.

Mista_T, can you please post more? Kthnx

This philosiphy doesn't really work.

The reason it is complicated is that mappers and any other editors of Doom's other attributes probably won't be able to make any improvement without feedback unless of course they can analyze their own work and criticize themselves. I'm certain I wouldn't have been able to improve the gameplay of my maps without reading people's reviews of them. Screenshots alone can't always determine whether a map is fun to play, and our refusal to look at maps critically and remain silent infers that we were satisfied with the playthrough enough to have no qualms with it. If people really wanted each other to be silent about each other's wads, we wouldn't use forums, a definite method of communication among community members to link to our wads through. We'd use some file database that doesn't offer any bit of ratings or feedback, and would feature people needlessly uploading what they want with no intention of doing better.

[Alfonzo]

Graf Zahl said:

The community needs both, except those ultra-purists that try to make others do it their way and no other.

Very much this. Good cannot exist without evil just as evil cannot exist without good, and while neither elitism, purism, or any permissive or otherwise indifferent sort of opinion toward source ports, design philosophy or gameplay can truly synonymise with either one of these shoulder dwelling paradigms of virtue, we can rest assured in knowing that the Doom community is a community all the better for having both of them on board.

Still, I'd have to say that I'm very much in with the "permissive" crowd. Though a fairly avid fan of vanilla map sets and the like, I'm all for any number of fresh additions or gameplay alterations so long as it sticks at least somewhat loosely to the blurry edged fundamentals of Doom (unless, of course, it seeks to detract from it completely, such as with turning it into a platformer or into a game of dodgeball, both of which are flat out awesome in my book).

[Use]

40oz said:

herpa derp

What are you talking about? Honest reviews now? I thought this thread about about Elitists and Purists, like people who play a zdoom mod and break it by forcing their purist playstyle on the game, or some idiot who sees vanilla wad and bashes it for not having 3d floors. I'm not talking about reviews by people actually interested in preserving the wad as it was intended by the author, I'm talking about people who actively play something they're not interested in just to shit on someone's day.

[Sigvatr]

For me my interest in Doom stems from my very initial experiences with it as a kid, which was limited to the buggy vanilla releases back in the day. I stopped playing after a few years and then came back in more recent years where tons of source ports with new features were widely available. I tried them based on people's recommendations but it just wasn't the same for me.

I think one of my primary inspirations in modifying Doom is imagining what would have happened if id continued to produce Doom sequels instead of moving on to Quake and such not. I've always felt that id was too quick to jump on the chance to pioneer new technolgy and left behind a game that simply demanded more polished expansions.

Final Doom was a little disappointing for me because it used all of the original assets and not very much new content aside from maps and perhaps music, although I am a fan of Plutonia's gameplay. In the end though, none of the official releases beat Doom II for me.

One aspect of Doom II that still retains its charm is the more open areas and non-linear layouts. Even though I've beaten it in nightmare mode and played it countless other times, I still feel compelled to wander around Doom II maps from time to time simply because wandering around in Doom II feels good.

No wad, official or not, has retain this feeling in its maps. I'm a bit disappointed that id did not produce more maps after Doom II and Ultimate Doom because they were on to something that nobody ever picked up.

I think my tendency towards purism and elitism (I will admit them) is that I am most likely one of the rare forum members that develops games professionally and has worked on a few well known games/mods on top of that. I'm not trying to say that I am "above" anyone because of what I do (the game industry/development community is really quite disgusting, which is why I work as an independent now), but because my experiences in the aforementioned have skewed my perspective of games towards a more systematic approach and appreciation. I look at games as both a player and a developer.

To put it roughly, my standpoint is that Doom is one of the rare perfect games I have ever played and still remains my favorite game of all time. This isn't necessarilly from the point of view of a game player, but from a game designer. I don't even need to speak about the direct experience of playing Doom to be able to appreciate and have a lot to talk about Doom as a masterfully designed system.

To this end, I feel as though modifying the original Doom experience is akin to heresy. I simply can't understand why people would want to deviate from something that is perfect. I've always felt that people who want to extend Doom to something else are probably more interested in the enjoyment of modifying a game rather than experiencing it directly. But I am probably wrong.

All of the wads I make for Doom are vanilla compatible as a result of my points of view. I don't even like changing monster or weapon sprites and sounds.

I even sampled every single midi instrument available within Doom to see what it sounds like in Doom's adlibby sounding audio. That way I know what instruments sound like the original music (kosher).

[Graf Zahl]

Sigvatr said:

To this end, I feel as though modifying the original Doom experience is akin to heresy. I simply can't understand why people would want to deviate from something that is perfect.

There is no such thing as perfection. Anything can be improved and the moment you think you reached the peak things can only stagnate - or go downward. If everybody thought like you there would be no Doom community anymore.

[Sigvatr]

Perfection is subjective.

[40oz]

Use3D said:

What are you talking about? Honest reviews now? I thought this thread about about Elitists and Purists, like people who play a zdoom mod and break it by forcing their purist playstyle on the game, or some idiot who sees vanilla wad and bashes it for not having 3d floors. I'm not talking about reviews by people actually interested in preserving the wad as it was intended by the author, I'm talking about people who actively play something they're not interested in just to shit on someone's day.

What were you talking about then? You made a pretty broad generalization about nothing and I responded to it. I looked at CSonicGo's post to be an extension of it being as though you two appear to be in agreement. I've never played a wad just to shit on it. Even though that's the impression people have gotten from criticism I've delivered, it was never my intention. I don't think there really are as many people who play wads just to discredit their value as you infer there are. I'm certain that anyone that speaks negatively about a wad has a deliberate reason to do so as a result of not enjoying it.

EDIT: also very interesting read Sigvatr. I'm not sure I'm in total agreement with your passion, but I do agree on many accounts. Especially on the point that I tend to base the things I do around Doom's initial "perfection" and that sometimes newer features tend to negate that.

[Use]

Wow, you are naive. Hang onto that, its kinda adorable.

[Graf Zahl]

Sigvatr said:

Perfection is subjective.

No, perfection is the end of innovation, hence bad! :P

[scalliano]

As someone who started out with Doom on various consoles, I had become accustomed to aspects such as scripting/thingcount triggers/etc before I had the pleasure of actually sitting down with the original PC version and yet I still lapped the game up. I do think that it does come down to a matter of opinion. Personally I can't stand the approach that some take in regards to how a Doom mod "should" be made - in the grand scheme of things the only question in regards to port choice is; which one is best for the project?

Like Graf said, the purist and the progressive NEED to coexist, otherwise mod development would become either stagnant or completely wayward. 40oz, you said yourself a while ago that you had been unsure about including voodoo scripts in Ultra. I'm sure that there would have been some who said, "why not just use ZDoom instead?" on that score, but in fairness what impressed me most was that it had been done entirely in Boom (I'm a massive ZDoom advocate). The simple fact is that there is no pleasing everyone and a modder should always keep in mind what they want to achieve. I have had my work bashed for having too many right angles. Well, shit, pardon me for using a grid to try and keep my maps tidy...

Granted, when it comes to ZDoom, I can understand people's issues in regards to cramming shitloads of advanced features, into a substandard WAD, but what gets me is the assumption that a WAD is shit by default because it uses ZDoom features (I've also been hit with this, and TBH ToP doesn't use that many). I am very much a fan of the "classic Doom with some extra stuff" type of WAD which are few and far between on advanced ports (I'm including the likes of EDGE in this, too) and the mentality that everything on an advanced port needs to be an over-ambitious TC of another game doesn't help matters, frankly.

Basically, IMO purism always has its place and the progressively minded should always keep that in mind, but the diktat of the elitists should be ignored at all costs, otherwise we'd still be playing 1994 quality WADs. Or bullshit MW2 ripfests. Or worse.

[Spleen]

myk said:

Here we have two key aspects in DOOM level design, biased toward players or map designers, respectively:

• Playing: If you take DOOM as a game in the traditional sense, aiming for a challenge or rules of play, mapping is heavily tied to get that going as economically as possible, in a way that can be experimented with. This leads toward simpler constructions with a focus on action over novelty. That tends to be defined as "purism".
  
• Design: People draw enjoyment out of the act of mapping itself, or the appreciation of created maps. This orientation tends toward larger and elaborate maps that don't necessarily have a focus on practical play or replayability. I call it the "LEGO school".

In different degrees depending on their "advanced" level, source ports add editing possibilities that make more things possible and options that make play less uniform, pushing mods related to them toward the LEGO school and away from the purist school...

It seems like you're saying the first category of individuals is interested in gameplay while the second is interested in graphics - I'd argue that the first category can also move away from the purist school, because there are many people who are interested in experimenting with gameplay beyond what Vanilla Doom can offer.

Unfortunately the desire for new gameplay combined with a disinterest in making graphics often leads to massive ripping of graphics, giving purists even more reason to hate them. ;) One example is probably NeoDoom. Graphically it is nothing special and has a lot of ripped resources, but it uses a lot of ZDoom features to make the gameplay different from the original Doom's.



Personally, I like Doom because it is full of action. It is way above average in terms of its action-filled-ness, so trying to change the formula usually makes it worse. Most WADs I enjoy are Vanilla or Boom compatible for this reason, but I don't mind a good WAD for ZDoom like Zen Dynamics.

[Graf Zahl]

Spleen said:

It seems like you're saying the first category of individuals is interested in gameplay while the second is interested in graphics - I'd argue that the first category can also move away from the purist school, because there are many people who are interested in experimenting with gameplay beyond what Vanilla Doom can offer.

Heh, Myk again is just using nice sounding words again to sell an ideology. I'll be blunt here: It's this kind of attitude among purists that most irritates me: Wrapping everything in stereotypes and making the one one does not support sound bad by mere choice of words. Here the 'elitism' comes into play...

Spleen said:

Unfortunately the desire for new gameplay combined with a disinterest in making graphics often leads to massive ripping of graphics, giving purists even more reason to hate them. ;) One example is probably NeoDoom. Graphically it is nothing special and has a lot of ripped resources, but it uses a lot of ZDoom features to make the gameplay different from the original Doom's.

Ripfests have existed in vanilla times as well. Take classics like Eternal Doom or Herian for example. Many of the graphics they use were taken from Heretic and Hexen. I agree that it's more widespread among mappers that use advanced engines, but it's neither related to purism or the need for advanced features.

Spleen said:

Personally, I like Doom because it is full of action. It is way above average in terms of its action-filled-ness, so trying to change the formula usually makes it worse. Most WADs I enjoy are Vanilla or Boom compatible for this reason, but I don't mind a good WAD for ZDoom like Zen Dynamics.

Same here, too. What I miss is the kind of ZDoom WAD that takes the formula and enhances it. Unfortunately there's far too many n00b mappers out there who don't care about what makes Doom good. They change what can be changed and the end result often is a disappointing mess.

I miss stuff like Dark7 though - simple classic styled maps with some added features to enhance them. They don't seem to be made anymore for ZDoom.

[Csonicgo]

40oz said:

Do you not remember the review you gave RTC-3057?

[myk]

Spleen said:
It seems like you're saying the first category of individuals is interested in gameplay while the second is interested in graphics

Not necessarily graphics. The main divide is between enjoying the action of playing, in a somewhat to full sport-like fashion, versus enjoying the practice of making a level, in the way an artist works. Both may create aesthetically pleasing maps, but one tends to more repetitive and simpler designs and the other more elaborate and varied ones, because the former is needed for long term play and the latter is the natural result of tinkering with features and new possibilities.

Essentially it's whether either playing or modding is highlighted (more) by an author or user.

I'd argue that the first category can also move away from the purist school, because there are many people who are interested in experimenting with gameplay beyond what Vanilla Doom can offer.

My distinction aimed to explain the general dichotomy between the two groups, and where they come from. Exceptions exist and like I mentioned, both "schools" exist in most levels or sets to varying degrees. Note that I added the comment about ports below and outside the bullet descriptions because while they are a factor pushing toward LEGO design, increasing with how advanced their feature set is, they aren't the only thing affecting an author's work.

One aspect that's attractive to the "game play" department in vanilla or Boom is that they don't change and present very consistent features; publicly speaking there's little way to share and elaborate on "advanced" game play if each engine has 100 settings that alter what playing is and demos are going to change with each version, and don't maintain a long term consistency. On the other hand, the "LEGO" department functions more freely with advanced ports because they allow more innovation and mapping options.

Graf Zahl said:
Heh, Myk again is just using nice sounding words again to sell an ideology.

Yeah, because you're really, really neutral here. Your response means to do little more than deride my perspective in order to bash my position from your own bias. You resent that I can elaborate an opinion or theory to validate my position, even when it implies validating yours. If you like generating dissent and deepening rivalries, keep it up.

Wrapping everything in stereotypes and making the one one does not support sound bad by mere choice of words. Here the 'elitism' comes into play...

What exactly was made to sound bad in my post? If you are implying that purism has no justification because advanced ports are just as usable for "game play oriented" activity as Boom and Doom, you are the one saying that what you don't support is bad. Is "LEGO" mapping worse than "purist" mapping? I may have my preferences just like anybody else, that extend principally to personal choices, but from a tolerant and "objective" stance, neither "school" is better than the other and both are valid and necessary to the community.

scalliano said:
otherwise we'd still be playing 1994 quality WADs.

Wait... we aren't?!

But I'm guessing most early purists, if such a thing was possible, would have derided the lower quality PWADs and just stuck to the IWADs till stuff of a similar quality came out. The crappy early WADs are more part of modding development than playing purism, as they took the steps necessary to make more quality designs.

[lupinx-Kassman]

40oz said:

I don't want this shit in NaturalTvventy's thread, he hasn't even done anything that deserves it.

You are completely right on this point, but I will have to extend it to say that this shit shouldn't be in any thread period. In other words, I don't really think this thread needed to be made. By the end of this discussion, I sincerely doubt anyone is going to walk away thinking any differently about their personal preferences then when they walked in. This will probably really come down to just being an excuse for people tossing shit at each other based on personal preference on how they enjoy their game.