Favourite Master Levels Wad?

[Nasesrtyhcfhk]

I've noticed very little discussion about the Doom 2 Expansion wads; "The Master Levels" which contains 20 wads made by members of the doom community at the time.
So, What's your opinion on the pack? Which is your favourite .Wad, and Why?

My favourite is Virgil.wad because I love challenging levels that use marble+blood textures.

[Horus]

TTRAP (Trapped on Titan) edges it for me. I like the architecture and difficulty of Jim Flynn's maps, and this happens to be one of his maps not so bad on the puzzle front (Mines of Titan for example is an awesome map ruined by switches hidden in such obscure places it is so difficult to find them). The difficulty is just right I'd say and not too difficult unlike Black Tower.

VIRGIL is easily my favourite of Sleep's levels on the Master Levels, though MINOS is also a good level.
On the other hand Klie's levels I found distinctly average, they seemed half-assed.

[valkiriforce]

Between Jim Flynn and Sverre Kvernmo's maps, Trapped On Titan, Mephisto's Maosoleum, Black Tower and The Express Elevator To Hell. I enjoyed all of them, though, except Bad Dream seems like something that was found randomly on idgames. I actually put all the levels together so I didn't have to put up with all those pistol starts and random map slot replacements.

[Nasesrtyhcfhk]

spartacusuvw said:
On the other hand Klie's levels I found distinctly average, they seemed half-assed.

I thought ATTACK.Wad was pretty good, not great, but pretty good.

[Nasesrtyhcfhk]

valkiriforce said:

I actually put all the levels together so I didn't have to put up with all those pistol starts and random map slot replacements.

Did you put the maps into any particular order?

[kmxexii]

So far (not having played Kvernmo's works) it's probably Trapped on Titan, though I like Vesperas as well. They're all good stuff. Klie usually gets a bum rap because his maps are tiny and kind of easy but he was mapping for his busted-ass computer (he mentioned that he got into WAD editing by retexturing maps with less variation so that they would run better). They're not unplayable, though, and the small size lends itself to a different playstyle that would piss most players off in the middle of a longer map (like MAP08 of his BF_THUD!).

ATTACK is actually a Willits/Chasar composition, not Klie.

[Nasesrtyhcfhk]

Whoops, my mistake

[Horus]

SeanWJF said:

I thought ATTACK.Wad was pretty good, not great, but pretty good.

I liked Attack, but that was by Tim Willits, not Klie.

EDIT: Someone beat me to it, lol

[kmxexii]

As an aside, I was looking at Dr. Sleep's guide to the original Doombuilder he wrote back in, what, '04? He uses a screenshot of his WAD directory which, funnily enough, includes LETHE.WAD. To which I can only say, HURRY UP ALREADY

[betabox]

Dr Sleep? Oh, you mean the wanted man.

I like Bloodsea Keep because it made (and still makes) people think it has black imps.

[Xaser]

It's hard to choose. I like them all except MEPHISTO.WAD (I found it more cryptic than MANOR.WAD, even), but if I have to choose it'd probably be... Garrison? Maybe? But then TTrap is awesome too, and then...

I could go on and on. >_>

[valkiriforce]

SeanWJF said:

Did you put the maps into any particular order?

MAP01: Attack
MAP02: Canyon
MAP03: The Catwalk
MAP04: Subspace
MAP05: The Fistula
MAP06: The Garrison
MAP07: Mephisto's Maosoleum
MAP08: Paradox
MAP09: Subterra
MAP10: Bloodsea Keep
MAP11: Black Tower
MAP12: The Combine
MAP13: Titan Manor
MAP14: Trapped On Titan
MAP15: The Express Elevator To Hell
MAP16: Virgil's Lead
MAP17: Mino's Judgement
MAP18: Nessus
MAP19: Geryon
MAP20: Vesperas
MAP31: Bad Dream

This was the best order I could do for vanilla compatibility. I also threw in the title screen someone made in some other thread some time ago.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Been a while since I played any of the Master Levels, but I remember liking Bloodsea Keep the most out of all of them.

[T-Rex]

I honestly thought Chris Klie's maps were ok. Sure they may be short and may not show anything special like most of the other maps in Master Levels, but I found them to be fun and they tend to be clever at times.

[DoomGater]

It's been a while since I played them all and as far as I can remember,
TEETH was my favourite level. BLACK TOWER was great, too but maybe a little bit ehhh challenging...;-)

BTW: some years ago I made a small frontend to start the single wads in the right order. It's windows only and not such a great bit software, but maybe it's useful for one or the other.
http://doomgate.de/content/files/malese/index.html

[lupinx-Kassman]

I always sort-of took Playstation Final Doom's masterlevels order as the most official order for the wads, even though Final Doom did not include all of the maps.

Since I don't remember all of them too well, I will choose the one that sticks in my mind with the most clarity: Attack. I remember enjoying all of the ones I played for the most part though.

[_bruce_]

Attack by far.

[hardcore_gamer]

To be honest I think the Master levels are easily the by the far worst official Doom release of them all. I found almost all of them to be just boring as hell and not very well designed.

Though to be fair I have only really played the levels that came with the PSX version of Final Doom.

Paradox, Subspace and attack were pretty fun. Almost everything else however was either really mediocre or boring.

[Lila Feuer]

Attack is a pretty cool little map.

[yuri04]

well i have to choose attack, because it is the very first level i played on psx doom after years and years i hadn't seen doom. and as i didn't use to play it on pc because i was too young (my dad and uncle used to9 it is also the first map i completed :)

[Brewtal_Legend]

valkiriforce said:

MAP01: Attack
MAP02: Canyon
MAP03: The Catwalk
MAP04: Subspace
MAP05: The Fistula
MAP06: The Garrison
MAP07: Mephisto's Maosoleum
MAP08: Paradox
MAP09: Subterra
MAP10: Bloodsea Keep
MAP11: Black Tower
MAP12: The Combine
MAP13: Titan Manor
MAP14: Trapped On Titan
MAP15: The Express Elevator To Hell
MAP16: Virgil's Lead
MAP17: Mino's Judgement
MAP18: Nessus
MAP19: Geryon
MAP20: Vesperas
MAP31: Bad Dream

This was the best order I could do for vanilla compatibility. I also threw in the title screen someone made in some other thread some time ago.

Do you have a link to the title screen you used? I'm curious to see what it looks like and what kind of quality it is.

[Nasesrtyhcfhk]

I think I seen it on this forum before, not sure where though.

EDIT: Found the thread http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/55423-master-levels-and-no-rest-for-the-living-titlepics/

[valkiriforce]

Brewtal_Legend said:

Do you have a link to the title screen you used? I'm curious to see what it looks like and what kind of quality it is.

It's the one Scalliano put together on that thread SeanWJF posted.

[Brewtal_Legend]

SeanWJF said:

I think I seen it on this forum before, not sure where though.

EDIT: Found the thread http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/55423-master-levels-and-no-rest-for-the-living-titlepics/

lol. That's the thread I started.

The one Scalliano posted is definitely crisper and clearer than the one I posted in the first post of that thread.

It would be cool if there was some way to make zdoom randomly cycle through a few different title pics when starting it up. I have a few different custom title pics I've made but ended up making the master levels a selectable episode instead of a separate wad to be loaded so I took off the master level title pic.

I like the way the No Rest For the Living title pic I made came out though.

@Valkiriforce: Did you use the custom intermission screen I posted for the master levels too by chance? Just curious if anyone got any use from it.

[valkiriforce]

Brewtal_Legend said:

Did you use the custom intermission screen I posted for the master levels too by chance? Just curious if anyone got any use from it.

No, I didn't get that far in the thread at that time (or it just wasn't posted yet) so I didn't know there was one.