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Memfis

Spain and city maps

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Is it just me or Spanish mappers are obsessed with the city theme?

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/v-z/vanilsky
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/g-i/hello
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/garrulo
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/d-f/europe
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/a-c/arush
http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Planisphere_2
etc

All these wads feature maps with realistic and highly detailed cities and houses. I wonder if it says something about Spanish mentality or what.

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Can't say about the mappers, but a bit about mentality... Hopefully the thread doesn't get helled or moved to EE.

I've been living in Spain for 5 years, Costa Blanca (southeast). There are so many things I can't get used to.
- Parking cars on roundabouts and generally in places which increase odds of accidents dramatically.
- Taking a break from work has priority over providing good service. Let's say a bus from the airport to the city has to depart at 2:00 pm. It arrives at 1:59 (already late as the disembarking and boarding takes more than 5 minutes, everyone pays cash and not having exact change). What does the driver do? Lets the people get off, leaves the bus and goes away. Returns at 2:11 as he "had to" have a break. No passenger is protesting.
- A commercial center at peak hours is as loud as a stadium. They speak so loud compared to central/easter/northern europeans. They don't shout, it's the way they speak.
- You may be the only customer in a shop, yet the employees will most often ignore you unless you ask them to attend you. Don't they understand they will sell less due to their attitude?
- Every city is in debt, but keeps putting new pavements which don't need repair at all. And close off key streets because of the works.
- They say let's meet at 8:00 pm at a bar just don't arrive before 8:40 if you don't want to wait.

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Idk what exactly it can say about the spanish mentality, but I think that the culture and the environment where one lives can certainly have some repercussions even on making doom maps. For example I think that the russian wads have a really quirk style which I really like it, but I only find it in russian wads.

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Memfis said:

Is it just me or Spanish mappers are obsessed with the city theme?


Dude don't you know stereotypes are harmful? Stop perpetuating them, even positive ones! How would you feel if you were Spanish and someone approached you and asked "Hey dude, could you make a city themed Doom map for me?" and you didn't even know what Doom was. It sets up unfair expectations!

Serioustalk though,

gaspe said:

Idk what exactly it can say about the spanish mentality, but I think that the culture and the environment where one lives can certainly have some repercussions even on making doom maps.

I definitely agree. Doom maps are very much a form of self-expression, even if you make them REALLY "by the book". Cultural context shapes such things. Although we Russians seem to like the city theme too. At least in the wads I played - stuff like the endless Hellfire wads, or Lainos' wads. And I myself really enjoy city maps. Would love to see a megawad by the doomworld community centered around a city, maybe gradually corrupted by hell to keep it interesting. Imagine what the btsx team's take on such a theme would be like! Episode 4 c'mon!

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Maybe the beautiful cities, locations, and traditional architecture in Spain has anything to do with it?

gaspe said:

Idk what exactly it can say about the spanish mentality, but I think that the culture and the environment where one lives can certainly have some repercussions even on making doom maps. For example I think that the russian wads have a really quirk style which I really like it, but I only find it in russian wads.

Agree, and don't rule out French mapsets, they also have a certain charm to them, except they're more straight forward (in a good way) and classic orientated. :P

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vdgg said:

Can't say about the mappers, but a bit about mentality... Hopefully the thread doesn't get helled or moved to EE.

I've been living in Spain for 5 years, Costa Blanca (southeast). There are so many things I can't get used to.
- Parking cars on roundabouts and generally in places which increase odds of accidents dramatically.
- Taking a break from work has priority over providing good service. Let's say a bus from the airport to the city has to depart at 2:00 pm. It arrives at 1:59 (already late as the disembarking and boarding takes more than 5 minutes, everyone pays cash and not having exact change). What does the driver do? Lets the people get off, leaves the bus and goes away. Returns at 2:11 as he "had to" have a break. No passenger is protesting.
- A commercial center at peak hours is as loud as a stadium. They speak so loud compared to central/easter/northern europeans. They don't shout, it's the way they speak.
- You may be the only customer in a shop, yet the employees will most often ignore you unless you ask them to attend you. Don't they understand they will sell less due to their attitude?
- Every city is in debt, but keeps putting new pavements which don't need repair at all. And close off key streets because of the works.
- They say let's meet at 8:00 pm at a bar just don't arrive before 8:40 if you don't want to wait.


Try living for a period in south Italy... Spain is a wonderful place in comparison.

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Not being on time where you should be would be the hardest thing for me to understand I think, that's just so against everything I was taught as a kid. And yet at the same time you're not sure if you're even allowed to complain when it happens...

It's interesting to think about the mapping traits that diffirent nationalities possess. I agree with Deathevo that French mappers seem to be very classic-oriented, and most Russian mapsets definitely put a lot of emphasis on the atmosphere. I wonder what other stereotypes we have here.

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I'd be surprised if the were any discernable trends between different nations in the Anglosphere, as we're a significant proportion of mappers. I'd agree that there is something that stands out about Russian mapping in particular, having played a few of their community projects. One being presented anonymously would stand out as Russian still, I think.

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DeathevokatioN said:

Agree, and don't rule out French mapsets, they also have a certain charm to them, except they're more straight forward (in a good way) and classic orientated. :P


Yes, I still have to finish 3 Heures d'Agonie 2 but I think that there's that kind of style you described (like in the first 3 Heures d'Agonie).

Angry Saint said:


That's quite interesting, I played the first 3 levels. Honestly I never searched for specifically italian wads, but it's cool to know that there's something, and hopefully something else to check.

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heh I'm pretty curious about nationality mapping stereotypes too. I don't know if Swift Death has anything to do with it, but I always imagined french players to be pretty interested in over-the-top difficult maps.

Most Russian Doom maps I've seen are often scaled much larger than most doom maps.

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Czech mappers like reiterating stereotypes. The only existing map themes for them are Techbase, City, Hell or Wolfenstein, and all aesthetic/detailing tends to be strongly theme-focused. Gameplay never features unusually exciting monster placement or major surprises, only straightforward slaughter or semi-slaughter is the way to go. Czech mappers don't take into account that a community of "hardcore" players (and level designers) exists and evolves towards higher standards, they make maps how they personally see good-looking and fairly balanced. At least this is how I see it.

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scifista42 said:

Czech mappers like reiterating stereotypes. The only existing map themes for them are Techbase, City, Hell or Wolfenstein, and all aesthetic/detailing tends to be strongly theme-focused. Gameplay never features unusually exciting monster placement or major surprises, only straightforward slaughter or semi-slaughter is the way to go. Czech mappers don't take into account that a community of "hardcore" players (and level designers) exists and evolves towards higher standards, they make maps how they personally see good-looking and fairly balanced. At least this is how I see it.


what's this based off? almost half of the stuff in Zones of Fear is Heretic/Hexen/castle themed

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yakfak said:

what's this based off? almost half of the stuff in Zones of Fear is Heretic/Hexen/castle themed

Okay, then you have a Heretic/Hexen theme added to the roster. Still an imitation. There is also a Quake themed community wad by Czech mappers. Same principle. (which turned out to be a techbase-fest anyway)

I've based my claim off all maps I've ever seen/played by Damned, Enkeli33, Jaeden, Method and Pipicz.

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scifista42 said:

I've based my claim off all maps I've ever seen/played by Damned, Enkeli33, Jaeden, Method and Pipicz.

So basically you've built your theory around a hand-picked selection that hypocritically omits the best and most prolific Czech mapper.

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I was of course trying to describe characteristics of the majority of Czech mappers. I didn't mention Gusta because I don't consider him to be a part of this majority, precisely for the fact that his mapping style differs. That's not the same like omitting him out of my bias. Also my "hand-picked selection" includes mappers who created / released the absolute majority of Czech maps during last 5 years, at least those that I'm aware of.

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So after Spanish, Russian, Italian and Czech mappers... what about Far East, like China or Japan?

Do we have example of mappers from those countries?

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I wouldn't exactly say that Spanish mappers are the only ones with good city maps, I'm willing to say it's a Latin-American thing.

There's a single-player, invasion-like city map for ZDoom called Urban Slaughter made by Deimos Anomaly and Aluqah (Spain and Argentina, I believe). Many will also recognize Aluqah for Mandrill Ass Project too, but I don't remember said WAD having any city levels. Also we have Sgt. Mark (Brazil; yes, it counts) and his city maps whose names I can't remember at this moment; all of them made for ZDoom.

There might be a few other Latin American mappers who might've done city-themed maps too, who knows.

I might add: as a mexican myself, I've been tempted from time to time to do a city map. I mean, I think there's a good bunch of cities that could serve as source of inspiration such as the actual capital of the state where I live, which was designated as a Cultural World Heritage Site by the UNESCO back in 1988.

(Don't expect a lot of verticality, though!)

Angry Saint said:

So after Spanish, Russian, Italian and Czech mappers... what about Far East, like China or Japan?

Do we have example of mappers from those countries?


From Japan: Tatsurd-cacocaco, an insanely good speedrunner (PRCP map 9 and 20, and 1994tu map20, 23 and 29), and nankakurashiki, which is pretty well known for her Doom art (Kusok.wad and a few maps for Push, I believe)

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IMX said:

the actual capital of the state where I live


Holy shit some of those roofs seem like they WERE made as parts of a doom map. That one at the bottom, middle-left, with the red floor and pale yellow walls.

Even without roofs, I would play the hell out of a map set in a city like that. It seems pretty recreatable in the doom engine.

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IMX said:

I wouldn't exactly say that Spanish mappers are the only ones with good city maps, I'm willing to say it's a Latin-American thing.

Spain and Portugal are not in Latin America. :p

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IMX said:

There might be a few other Latin American mappers who might've done city-themed maps too, who knows.


Daniel has done quite a few, in NeoDoom and Final NeoDoom. (impressive ones too, especially in the latter)

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