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Memfis

Why are there so many unmarked doors in 1994 wads?

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I really don't understand this. Surely the mappers didn't expect people to hump every wall so what's the deal? Was it so tedious to change textures in old editors that often they neglected this part? I just refuse to believe that this was intended as some retarded Wolf3D secret style challenge.

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Mostly because mapping was so new. There was a huge learning curve going on, with people sharing info on map editing; so not all of the basics were fully understood. Also the editors at the time didn't have all of the features available. Things were being rushed out as quickly as they were made/discovered.

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My child, back then in the good old days, maps typically only received the prestigious I Know Where Everything Is Because I Made The Map (TM) certification, so there was no need for no stinkin' markers.

And come on, changing textures was among the very first features that editors offered: after all it was just The most obvious property of a linedef, and could be done even without being able to build nodes or set fancy linedef actions or tags.

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Actually, my understanding of games at the time was that either well-hidden or completely invisible methods of progress were fair game and a challenge to be overcome. Even old editors either had a default texture or none at all on newly created two-sided lines. My memories of DEU were that you'd have to choose to hide a door by making it look like a wall.

I think, for secrets, it's fair game still. Especially if the automap is available and the lines behind the door aren't hidden, or the door doesn't use the secret flag.

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Phobus said:

Actually, my understanding of games at the time was that either well-hidden or completely invisible methods of progress were fair game and a challenge to be overcome.

This. All the dungeon crawlers had it, Wolf3D had it. Wallhumping an empty maze was a legit game mechanism, because games were for D&D hardened nerds.

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Because map editors back then were not as user friendly as today's modern Doom editors. People were also new to mapping at the time and had not the slightest clue on what they were doing. If they had Doombuilder back in the day, many of the 1994 wads would have looked WAY better and there would have been less unmarked doors.

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Legit & (strangely) fun

Back then even the simplest levels held a sense of intrigue and alternate reality that afforded a bit of getting lost and just wondering about in another world. At least I found that to be the case.

There was probably greater acceptance of any sort of quality and gameplay in general as well.

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doomguy93 said:

Because map editors back then were not as user friendly as today's modern Doom editors.

Sounds like you never used them :p DEU was actually easier to get started with than DB2, simply because all of the modes were in plain text along the top of the screen and you could insert a sector (either rectangular or polygonal) and specify height and width for rectangles or radius and number of sizes for polygons, all from one menu option, then drag vertices about as you pleased. It had variable grid sizes and inserting things or working with textures was just as easy as DB. The only real gains since then are more RAM, so you could fit a reasonably-sized level into it and not have it crash and lose all when trying to save and build nodes (that problem dogged me until about 2004, I think), the ability to launch Doom from within the editor (rather than drop out to the command line and run Doom with your file) and 3D mode, which helps with aesthetics and means less guesswork in the editor, but still has no impact on whether a door uses the same texture as the surrounding walls or not. Especially as there was an option to specify a default upper texture for new lines. I was using various versions of DEU from when I was about 6 until I was 13 or so and how the editor worked was never the problem (well, other than DEU2 not knowing about the Doom II specific flats). Inexperience definitely played it's part, though :p

As I said above, this is just how games were at the time, so it was considered fair play.

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I've never tried DEU before, but I just recently tried WadAuthor (which if I am correct, it came out before Doombuilder) for the first time and all I can say is that I like Doombuilder 2 a lot more. So, yeah I have tried to use older editors. XWE is another example of a crappy editor for making maps.

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WINDEU524 seems like the most solid of the early level editing crop. I'd recommend that you don't use XWE for anything but lump import and export lol

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Gosh, I tried DEU after I discovered WadAuthor as a child, and I found it even harder to work with. The first Doom Builder took me a while to get into at first, but it wasn't very long at all before using it became like second nature.

One thing I HATED about WadAuthor though was how difficult it was to connect sectors. I think the auto-stitch ability alone makes Doom Builder exponentially more efficient for me to use, that's not even counting 3D mode. As long as you save often (damn double-pressing W crashes!) DB is the way to go.

I can only imagine how high mapping expectations would be these days if they had DB back in the mid 90's.

Though I will say, I actually enjoy the old "search for unmarked secret walls" thing, I understand some people find it boring or monotonous, but it kept me exploring Wolfenstein for so many hours in my younger days. I love maps with lots of really subtle secrets with great rewards, it adds a lot of replay value for me personally.

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