Tutorial Doom

[Fonze]

Time-line for development:

Phase 1: get a feel of the thoughts of others as to what this wad should aim to achieve. Also find out if/to What degree stuff like this has been done before.

Phase 2: discuss training concepts. Put together a list of 32 concepts that players could train with.

Phase 3: discuss themes and general level design.

Phase 4: claim maps (claims can be reversed if deadlines not met) and design them.

Phase 5: critique individual maps, rework stuff, make it Id quality.

Phase 6: make sure maps fit together as a whole.

Phase 7: sweet release.


The Rules:

- Texture alignment 100% is a must. No visual errors left unfixed by the deadline or your map will be disqualified.

- Maps must follow their concept to the letter and display everything that a player needs to know about that lesson. This means about 3 encounters, different on all difficulties. If something requires a different map for one or each of the difficulties, make that map. You can easily use teleporter magic to separate players based on difficulty. Also, take away players' guns at map start. You don't want an entire tutorial on, say, dodging to go awry because players have a bfg.

- Similar to the last one, but I can't stress it enough, make sure that each difficulty correctly corresponds to where a player will be at that time, skill-wise. Make HNTR like Doom 1-easy. HMP like TNT UV-hard. And make UV damn near impossible. Don't throw the player into traps or situations that are difficult to get started unless that's the lesson.
For example, good fisting match-ups:
HNTR: couple bulls, then a couple imps, then one HK/caco (HK easier imo)
HMP: baron, revenant (in a room with some tall obsticles for cover), then mancubus (wide open area)
UV: revenant (wide open area), baron/HK in a 64-wide, straight passage, then maybe a room with a few barons/HK's.

- Encounters are top priority, under the stuff physically above this. Make sure the encounters are well thought-out, with each teaching a particular facet of the overall lesson (like with my above example [the last encounter was left at maybe because idk where others are on fisting, so I wouldn't want to say something *too* hard]).

- Atmosphere is one of the lower priorities (though make stuff look cool) for two reasons:
First, texture allignment is a 100% must. Don't make crazy drawings that form a complete circle (or other shape that starts and ends in the same spot) that don't measure out. If you do this, just make sure and put something in to break the line so the textures don't look screwed up at one intersection, or many.
Second, I don't want to ask too much time of the community for this, only put in how much you want. But I would rather you put more thought into all of the gameplay aspects than aesthetics.

Thanks for reading this, here's the OP:

So I was thinking, since I sometimes show my maps to people in real life who have either never played Doom or not played it since vanilla was new, it would be an interesting concept to have a Doom 2 megawad devoted to "training," so to speak. With Doom's multiple difficulties it could be something that could be used by players at any level to test certain things in an environment built to test those very things. It could be something to take players from the Doomguy's pet bunny all the way up to to severed heads of Romero.

Having said that, there are many things that would be great concepts for map design. It would start with simple things, like mouse look, general movement, using, and firing. Then advance to things like avoiding projectiles, and specific weapons training (one map for each instrument of punishment). Towards the end there could be levels based around monster in-fighting, strafe-running, sneaking in and picking the right place and time to attack, sniping, ammo conservation, speedrunning, and (even though I won't vote for this last one, it is a tactic and if many want it we can include it) telefragging.

This would be something done by anyone who would want to submit a map, but first I would like to get a feel of what others think.

[ArmouredBlood]

TimeofDeath has you covered: Expired License. His maps can be a little far on the slaughter/extreme scale though. I haven't actually played this one.

[scifista42]

All normal megawads already act as a fine training of sorts, for the kind of gameplay each of them offers as the main experience, plus lower difficulty levels for less skilled players who need to "get into it". If there was a special wad with gameplay dumbed down to basics, focusing on training player's basic skills above letting him have maximum fun from normal playing, I don't think such a wad would be needed at all. It would just come off as yet another mediocre wad.

A wad that takes simple ideas and executes them competently, with main goal to appeal to every player as well as possible (possibly via varied gameplay on different difficulty settings), that's another thing. That should work.

[Fuzzball]

I think the fun of Doom is just...learning by doing it.

[Cupboard]

E1M1 is the best tutorial map one could imagine. esselfortium wrote a thesis on it a few years ago.

[Fonze]

Now see, I'm gonna have to disagree with y'all on this one.
Hmmm... I'd like to read that thesis, I completely disagree (having taught people to play Doom before). E1M1 has got to be one of the worst maps to train on, not to mention that it will never make you a Doom God. I would even go so far as to say that all the commercial maps (Ult. Doom, Doom 2, and Final Doom) are horrible for training purposes, except for the very basics. But not for: certain weapons training (never need the pistol or fist, even though TNT starts you off with berserk pack in its MAP01), not for strafe-running, not for sneaking, not for ammo conservation, and even monster in-fighting is never needed.

Now don't get me wrong, I love all the iWads. I've been playing them for the past 20 years, but aside from basic to intermediate level, and speed-running, they aren't built for much else (aside from shear awesomeness, fun to play, and great atmosphere, not to mention educational purposes for mappers).

What I'm talking about would be maps built specifically for practicing one concept at a time. They don't have to be long, say 3 encounters per "lesson." With the three differing difficulties it would be possible for this to appeal to almost literally all skill levels, as even Doom Gods need to hone their skills every now and again.

The reasons I pose this idea are:

It would be a great boone to those of us who introduce Doom to others who have either never tried it or been out of touch with it, or for kids, assuming Doom is still ok for them (it was for me, lol).

It would teach things in specific ways that the iWads never could, because, for example, no map was built to be so difficult as to require stuff like: extreme ammo conservation (for clarity, I'm not refering to forcing players to learn to kill everything in The fewest shots possible, I'm refering to forcing players to be at least somewhat accurate with their shots, even if, say, 10% still miss or go to waste), monster in-fighting (yes it's displayed, but never required, best example is E3M8 [when I was young I always thought that part of the point of E3M8 was to get the lesser monsters to fight the boss, but of course I always knew it wasn't necessary]), sniping (there's some big maps, but you'd be suprised at the amount of people that have no idea that the first shot out of the pistol and the chaingun are 100% accurate, even those who normally beat the iWads on UV [imagine that])

This would be because each map would be built, and scrutinized, very specifically to allow the player to work on one and only one thing at a time, maybe 2 in the last levels, like a put it all together type of thing.

And last, because I know that I would enjoy to play it, so hopefully others will as well. Playing under specific limitations can be fun sometimes. Though I wouldn't consider myself a Doom God, I'm better than average, so stuff like the iWads won't take me much further. But with something like this, well, I'm sure that even this dog can learn a new trick or two.

To scifista: if you think it MIGHT be good, only if implemented corectly, then that's all the more reason to get involved.

To everyone: if this sounds like something you could ever see yourself either playing, or showing to a friend/family member to get them up to snuff, then that's all the more reason that YOU should get involved.

[scifista42]

Fonze said:

I'd like to read that thesis,

I know about this thread by fraggle. Maybe that's actually what TheCupboard referred to, or not.

[Fonze]

I like what fragile said about E1M1. I agree 100% with him and don't think he's looking to much into it haha. It is a great level and truely better than anything I'll ever put out, but it's for 100% beginners (and people back in the 90's lol [what's this... "internet" you speak of?]).

But my points still stand on everything else, the original wads just don't teach you the more advanced tactics that either were unknown at the time (real sneaking [no, I'm not referring to Brutal Dooms silent punch, just going in to grab stuff, get your bearings, or pick a place to assault from]), unavailable/undoable with the controls (like real, 100% of the time, mouse-look and therefore sniping on-the-go), could not be fixed with the tech of the time (like strafe-running), or were too difficult for the time (ammo conservation, encounters where monster in-fighting is a must, etc.).

That's what this intends to address: a tutorial for Doom players of every caliber. And to be done right, it needs the help of everyone in the Doom community. Make sure it's done right; give me a hand :)

[gaspe]

Imo this doesn't have so much sense. If someone never played Doom the best thing for him it's to start with the iwads. Doom 1 & 2 in their progression introduce their enemies and weapons; and also the game machanics (teleports, traps, secrets, switches) that are extensively used in pwads to achieve particular effects.
And most of all you have to see if new people will actually like the game, and I don't really see how this can happen by making them play somekind of tutorial instead of the originals games. Pwads are already fine for training and discover things.
You get better only by playing, and the difficult settings are there for a reason.

Edit: typos.

[jmickle66666666]

i've been running a local doom deathmatch event at a local bar and 90% of the players have never played doom before, but they all pick it up very very quickly and have a lot of fun. no tutorial necessary

[AkiraZXE]

I'm not sure it's necessary, though there are a few mechanics that might be worth having tutorial maps for. However, it sounds like what you're describing is less of a tutorial WAD and more of a challenge WAD. Sets of maps that require you beat specific challenges that would mostly be relevant to Doom. Straferun time attacks, "hopping" across platforms, low/no ammo, dodging projectile spam, that sort of thing. I'm not sure it'd make anyone much better at Doom, but it'd at least be interesting.

Hell, why not just go all the way and make it nearly about minigames. Finding x number of secrets in a time limit, or collecting items. Maybe a level where you fail if you "waste" an ammo or health pickup by not making full use of it.

[Xegethra]

I'm also not sure of the usefulness of this, however if you want I can give you a test room I made for when I test out my custom enemies I make. It's just a basic room to see if the creatures work really...but if you can/want to utilise it for your own needs then go ahead.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4chhgenvm2gsaap/Enemy_Test_Room.rar

[Fonze]

Well, I hate to be such a contrarian, but I simply must disagree with y'all.

To Gaspe: yes, Doom 1 does a great job introducing the game to first time beginners and yes, Doom 2 does a great job of introducing the new stuff. But there is SO much left out that many will never know about.

This isn't to replace E1M1, but there are simply too many things the iWads never teach you. Also, as I said in an earlier post, the iWads only take you to intermediate level. With SO many pWads out there (many that should never have been released, like the Terry wads), many newcomers don't know where to go for stuff that was built for them. Not to mention that while Doom 1 does great with weapon progression, and therefore weapons "training", once you have a weapon, you have it for life. Just because you picked up a bfg doesn't mean you need to use it... Ever. Same with the fist (an example of this is myself, I've always had the habit of saving ammo, so I barely use the plasma gun too). This causes the "training" value of the iWads to plummet. Yeah, you can get experience killing tame monsters in an environment built for a clunky robot, but it ain't gonna make you good. Oh, and here's a fun fact: I've punched out a cyberdemon before, but I still cant get the hang of 1-shotting one with a bfg without failing 50% of the time (though the 2 Plutonia wads have decent training on their super-secret levels). I just simply never use the thing, but I know exactly how it works. Give me a shotgun and a pistol and promise me there's a rocket launcher somewhere and I'm good to go. That's just about all I use, aside from the fact that once you get the chaingun the pistol is effectively taken out of the game.

This is one reason why I make wads the way I do, I love working under constraints because otherwise the game is too damned easy, what with 10,000 different ways to skin this cat.


To jmickle: I would be interested to know the age of the people you show Doom to. Keep in mind that this would include lessons to cover all the way to Doom God, or at least master level. The beginning tutorial aspects that I am thinking about representing are for 3 things:

1: older folk that have either never played or haven't played since vanilla was new. Who would play like those clunky robots I mentioned earlier. Seriously, I've shown E1M1 to people that have had trouble getting through it because one shotgun guy caught them from behind, and then they mentally "freak out" just enough to completely lose their bearings and step into the green acid/into another monster, and then death. Followed by a, "it's just too hard to look around with this mouse and not turn with the keys." Not everybody is fast enough to learn the controls that fast, a slower introduction to mouse-look specifically would be helpful to people like that.

2: younger kids just starting to play Doom, or who have just finished some of the iWads and want to get better/have time on their hands. That's how I was, I would've loved, and still would love, to see something like this come to fruition.

3: comprehensiveness. What's the point in having a tutorial without the basics. Now I'm not saying that the basics should take an hour to go through, but they should be represented to make this as official-esk as possible.


To akira: it would be a sort of challenge/minigame wad, but I think wording is important so people know what to expect going into it. This is to make players (of it) better, not just some mindless challenges (could you imagine UV on some mindless challenge map? It could be anything from extremely and pointlessly difficult to a Terry trap).

As for the ideas you lose, those could be good ways to implement the mechanics of it. But for right now I'm just looking for a comprehensive list of everything that needs to be represented, as well as people to help either create/critique maps based around the final concepts.


To Xegethra: thanks for the map! I'll take a look at it. Though unless it's intricate in the ways I'm looking for, I don't see how it will help right now.


Sorry for the long post, lotta replies that need to be addressed. Thanks for the insights so far guys, keep 'em comin!

[Xegethra]

It's not really anything intricate, it's just a room with a red key door stocked with ammo and weapons and I place the enemy behind the door so I can safely collect stuff and open it up to an enemy facing away from me.

But yeah, just do what you want with it if you can find anything it anything to do. Just a small room really, I was thinking maybe it could showcase some of the games smaller things I dunno.

[Fonze]

What kind of smaller things are we talking about here?

I'm sure I could find a use, my point was just that if it was the most basic of basic rooms that it would be faster for me to just create a new one.

I do like that you submitted something, though. I will look at it, and if it's basic, I could tweak it a bit to fit the purposes of whatever map it winds up in.
But if I do that, then you only get credit for two rooms, which may have my work out on top of them. It may be better for you to tweak it once we get the concepts set in stone, so it will match what it is used for.

[gaspe]

Fonze said:

there are simply too many things the iWads never teach you.

gaspe said:

Pwads are already fine for training and discover things.

[Xegethra]

Yeah it's a as basic as they come, thought it could be a neat little room that starts off each level's tutorial, sort of like a briefing room or something, even if the rest of the levels beyond the door differ from one another.

But yeah, I don't mind if you don't end up using it. If you do just change it as you like.

[Fonze]

Lol gaspe, I wish I was smarter about using this forum to quote, but I'll do it old-school style:

Gaspe said:
"Pwads are already fine for training and discover things."

Fonze said:
"With SO many pWads out there (many that should never have been released, like the Terry wads), many newcomers don't know where to go for stuff that was built for them. Not to mention that while Doom 1 does great with weapon progression, and therefore weapons "training", once you have a weapon, you have it for life. Just because you picked up a bfg doesn't mean you need to use it... Ever. Same with the fist (an example of this is myself, I've always had the habit of saving ammo, so I barely use the plasma gun too). This causes the "training" value of the iWads to plummet. Yeah, you can get experience killing tame monsters in an environment built for a clunky robot, but it ain't gonna make you good. Oh, and here's a fun fact: I've punched out a cyberdemon before, but I still cant get the hang of 1-shotting one with a bfg without failing 50% of the time (though the 2 Plutonia wads have decent training on their super-secret levels). I just simply never use the thing, but I know exactly how it works. Give me a shotgun and a pistol and promise me there's a rocket launcher somewhere and I'm good to go. That's just about all I use, aside from the fact that once you get the chaingun the pistol is effectively taken out of the game."

I hope that clears that up, lol ^^


To Xegethra: sounds cool man, I'll take a look when I finish my other community projects. A briefing room is a good idea, but idk at this time if I want it to be the same room every map, though that could add an interesting feel to the was as a whole, to make it feel more tutorial-like.


Oh, I'm updating the OP to post a time-line for this, so we can all stay on the same page and this thread won't have replies all over the place.

*Edit*
OP updated

[scifista42]

Fonze, before you start asking for help on your new mega-cool-and-whatnot project, make sure you have something to show first (screenshots, map downloads, etc). Keep in mind we've already seen thousands of upcoming projects that actually never got done.

The above phrase was a standard /newproject tag, for your info. Take into consideration that if you want people to be interested to dedicate their time and effort to do any work for your project, and specially if you're completely new and unknown here, you should prove yourself more than by mere words.

[Fonze]

I agree bro, I'm not demanding anything. I'm asking only words from people right now anyway. Plus, something like this wouldn't take long to complete, and is on the back burner for me. You see the phases at the top of the screen? This is phase 1. Map creation and any real work wouldn't be til much later, in phase 4. This is only for people who ARE interested and want to see it become something good. If you don't want to help, then don't. I'm not gonna be upset at anyone for not helping.

And I know I'm new here, that's why I put my megawad on hold to do community projects and try to support this great community. I'm sorry if I'm not the fastest person around, but I have stuff in the works for the community already that is only waiting on me to make time to sit at the computer. I also have promised a couple people to play through their maps, which I will do completely, because I finish what I start. Especially when I tell someone I'm gonna do something; that may not mean much to some, but it does to me. So don't think I'm coming here like a 10-year-old: selfish, with no intent to help the community; I'm here to stay, and you don't disrespect people at a place you want to go back to.

Give me time and you'll see that my words are true. If you want to wait til I've proven myself to give me more substantial help, that's fine. No arguments here. But if I'm here I can have a voice, can't I?

[scifista42]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to discredit you. Only to let you know how does motivation around community projects usually work - so that you will understand / won't be surprised when you find out that most people are less likely to cooperate than you might have expected. Of course that you're free to speak out anything you want, all of us are.

[Fonze]

Ok man, I understand. Being a hermit I suppose my manners may be off.

I try to answer questions when I can, of course not being a real programmer I can only help so much, and of course words are not much. I'll make sure and do plenty of work for others around here before continuing any real work on this or my megawad. As I said, I have a map and a small few playthroughs to do, but as more requests come in I will help with those, although I'm hesitant to get involved with the megawad clubs for now as I just don't have the time.

Having said that, words are cheap, and I would like to keep the ideas flowing for this and my megawad, even though the real work won't be for a couple weeks. At least a month on this as I'd like to give each phase at least a week (longer for the later phases) for discussion, so stuff isn't left out. We're all imperfect, especially me, and forget things, so this will (hopefully) be something that will contribute to the community. And the community could help to ensure that I don't mess it up (because I forget things too), any way they want.

One other thing that I should prolly say so we're all on the same page:
I don't care about my name being attached to this wad; it's not for me, though I will enjoy to play it. I just noticed that there isn't one (that I can find, at least) and one should be made. So why not the DoomWorld Community as authors of the Doom Tutorial Wad. This is a respected community with enough Doom experience fuel a Hummer driving across the Sahara and back. It's just fits. Now, if I'm too new here to be respected enough to head this operation, then I suppose the reins could be passed, but as this is my idea I was hoping to have a respectable amount of say as to how the levels teach you things, it's gotta be done just right. And also, with my goal for this to be as official-esk as possible, I REALLY want texturing to be perfect, 100%. If those two things are honored and I'm not respected enough when mapping begins to head the operation, then I would be willing to pass the reins to someone who is well respected, and will be sure to credit the entire DoomWorld Community, if that's what happens.

Thank you for the advice scifista, discussion is always a good thing.