Doom 1 or 2?

[hardcore_gamer]

Creaphis said:

How about "DOOM level design is awesome" and "Doom II level design is awesome"?

Like i said, there are some levels in Doom 2 that i really like but there are also a good number of levels i really hated. I don't hate the whole of Doom 2.

[Mr. Freeze]

Realism =/= Good gameplay.

I commend DooM II for being unrealistic, as realism is essentially the cancer killing videogames.

And theres also the small fact that no building in DooM/DooM II CAN be realistic, due to the limitations of the 2.5D engine.

[hardcore_gamer]

Mr. Freeze said:

Realism =/= Good gameplay.

I commend DooM II for being unrealistic, as realism is essentially the cancer killing videogames.

And theres also the small fact that no building in DooM/DooM II CAN be realistic, due to the limitations of the 2.5D engine.

Indeed. But the difference between the level design in Doom 1 and 2 is that in Doom 1 a tech base actually resembled a tech base while most of the levels in Doom 2 resembled nothing at all. They were still fun to play, but that's not my point.

[DuckReconMajor]

Mr. Freeze said:

as realism is essentially the cancer killing videogames.

I don't see why people say this then complain that Doomguy can't hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time in Doom 3.

Realism doesn't kill video games. Putting realism in front of fun does.

[Shaviro]

I love Doom1, but I adore Doom2.
I can't believe how bad an imagination you'd have to be to not see what a lot of the Doom2 maps are supposed to be. The names of the levels even help you along the way. Sure, it's somewhat abstract, but it's not that hard to fill in the gaps with your imagination. Sandy Petersen made some of the best levels, in my opinion.

DuckReconMajor
I don't see why people say this then complain that Doomguy can't hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time in Doom 3.

Realism doesn't kill video games. Putting realism in front of fun does.

I agree. That was no-doubt a game decision. On topic, I think Doom3 came *kinda* close to Doom1 E1. It surely has more in common with E1's suspense than Doom2's raw action and atmosphere. What everybody seemed to want out of Doom3 was a Doom2 clone, but what they got was a E1 interpretation.

[DoomKn1ght]

I think the level design in the first part of DooMII is boring because of innapropriate design and texturing for something earth-city like levels also some music are really boring which doesn't help. But there is some good ideas.

Everything done by Romero is good and some by Sandy Peterson
are good too.

[Maes]

For the lack of a better word, I'd call Doom II's levels theme "out of place": it surely isn't realistic (which doesn't really matter, it's no less "realistic" than the first part), but it's not the kind of eerie, "outwordly" bizarre setting you'd expect from a haunted and infested planet or place.

They are...well....just an abstract something. Not even an abstract exaggeration or a symbolic, warped representation of earth. They look like...well....nothing in particular.

Once again, I wonder wtf are all these wood decorations needed for. They make the parts of the levels that use them look like ships or wooden shacks, without however having a recognizable, identifiable theme, nor any particular atmosphere. Same goes for all those stone textures, which look like they'd belong better in a castle (and in fact, there are many castle-themed PWADs for DOOM II, more than for DOOM I).

I guess some background on the development of DOOM II would be needed though, as the setting is mixed and varied. It surely looks much less daemonic than Doom I, and more "earthly", but at what time? What place? Is it really earth, or something more subtle? A dream world perhaps, where every sign of sanity and rationality is cancelled? Is it earth + hell together canceling each other? (after a certain point, it would seem so).

[Gez]

Maes said:

For the lack of a better word, I'd call Doom II's levels theme "out of place": it surely isn't realistic (which doesn't really matter, it's no less "realistic" than the first part), but it's not the kind of eerie, "outwordly" bizarre setting you'd expect from a haunted and infested planet or place.

It's very gimmicky. There are levels that could correspond to places (like the Inmost Dens, stylistically one of my favorites from Doom 2), but there are many levels that are not places -- they are Doom levels. Stuff like Tricks & Traps. Okay, it's not too bad as far as the gameplay is concerned, but there's nothing else. No continuity, no atmosphere, no sense of progression in a story...

[Enjay]

Shaviro said:

I can't believe how bad an imagination you'd have to be to not see what a lot of the Doom2 maps are supposed to be. The names of the levels even help you along the way.

Some, of course, are not meant to be anything at all any way. Take, for example, "Tricks and Traps". What is it? You're right, the name does help. It tells us that it's nothing really. It's just a collection of rooms intended to provide interesting fights. It does that and I have always enjoyed the map but it isn't actually anything and, perhaps, I'd have prefered those "tricks and traps" to have been part of a "place" that fitted with the theme and story of "Hell on Earth".

I think maybe that's it: Doom has a story, a narrative, a progression with levels that believably represent what they are meant to show (note, I do not say that they are "realistic", I say that they "believably represent"). Sure, Doom2 has a story and you could argue that it is just as strong (or weak) as Doom's one. However, Doom's story does seem to be properly shown and represented in the levels whereas Doom2's is far more loosely attached to the levels and whilst very broad themes can be identified, for the most part, the levels don't really tell the story of the game. In some ways, IMO, id would have been better throwing the story out of the window entirely and not claiming that Doom2 was anything other than a collection of level-by-level pure gaming challenges like lemmings or a platformer or something.

[Maes]

I fully agree with Enjay here.

In comparison, Evilution and Plutonia did IMO a much better job of sticking to a storyline, and representing non-hellish environments for a "hell on earth" theme,.

Either could have worked as well in place of Doom 2, or even better, a 32-map compilation of the three.

[Sporku]

Personally I think it's hilarious that you're looking at a game that has very little story at all and trying to tie its haphazard level design to story "continuity" and "progression". That's not what Doom or Doom 2 were about. It was about having a bunch of levels to run around and blast the shit out of everything in. There is a certain degree of progression and continuity, but beyond they're just a collection of levels.

I'm sure quite a few levels were made for the sake of extending the game's playtime, which seemed to be their mentality at the time. For example, Wolfenstein 3D had an unnecessary amount of levels, with a prequel that had even more. "More levels!" was a nice way of enticing people to buy the full product, even if a lot of the levels in the registered versions were just filler.

[printz]

Maes said:

Once again, I wonder wtf are all these wood decorations needed for. They make the parts of the levels that use them look like ships or wooden shacks, without however having a recognizable, identifiable theme, nor any particular atmosphere. Same goes for all those stone textures, which look like they'd belong better in a castle (and in fact, there are many castle-themed PWADs for DOOM II, more than for DOOM I).

I guess some background on the development of DOOM II would be needed though, as the setting is mixed and varied. It surely looks much less daemonic than Doom I, and more "earthly", but at what time? What place? Is it really earth, or something more subtle? A dream world perhaps, where every sign of sanity and rationality is cancelled? Is it earth + hell together canceling each other? (after a certain point, it would seem so).

Judging by the presence of all those vertical banners and palace textures, I assume they tried to mimic the atmosphere of Wolfenstein, going for a fictional NWO cult, with a bit more demonism in it (there are even a few edited--or direct--Wolf and Spear textures used in Doom 2 regularly...). Actually in result I like placing Hell Knights in mansions with circlestar banners. Those really fit in there (try HR level 10).

[Gez]

AgentSpork said:

That's not what Doom or Doom 2 were about.

It's a bit reductive. Sure, Doom was not graced with a deep and compelling story, and sure the Hall's Doom Bible was almost entirely ditched in the end; but Doom has a cohesive theme which can be seen in its art direction if nothing else.

It'd be more accurate to say that it's not what Doom 2 was about, which is exactly why so many people say its level design is shitty. Running around in generic levels blasting the shit out of generic enemies is generically bland. Even if the levels are well-designed on the raw gameplay front, they have no personality.

Doom, on the other hand, as these little maps that let you see your progress as you go through the levels. In short, the story in Doom was for id seriouser business, while it was tossed out the window in Doom 2.

[myk]

Maes said:
In comparison, Evilution and Plutonia did IMO a much better job of sticking to a storyline, and representing non-hellish environments for a "hell on earth" theme,.

TNT tried to stick more to a "place-plot" to a point, but Plutonia is much like DOOM II, or I'd say more so. And "hell on earth" is a pretty subjective thing to depict. DOOM II manages to have a more mechanic or industrial theme (with Lovecraftian touches in the Earth-like but antiquated architecture) than DOOM's space-tech and "Dante-based" environment.

Besides, DOOM II has a mocking and twisted tone that neither Final DOOM WADs manages, and DOOM hadn't fully exploited (the final screen of E3 sets that tone in DOOM II, though.) It kind of reminds me of the undead in the Evil Dead series. The resources help a lot, but so does the level design (especially stuff like 07, 08, 11, 23, 30). Plutonia has its own character visually, although it still follows the DOOM II idea, while TNT tries to apply DOOM's less facetious and more place-oriented character to DOOM II, which I think doesn't fit the game elements, and had already been done better in DOOM.

[hardcore_gamer]

AgentSpork said:

Personally I think it's hilarious that you're looking at a game that has very little story at all and trying to tie its haphazard level design to story "continuity" and "progression". That's not what Doom or Doom 2 were about. It was about having a bunch of levels to run around and blast the shit out of everything in. There is a certain degree of progression and continuity, but beyond they're just a collection of levels.

I'm sure quite a few levels were made for the sake of extending the game's playtime, which seemed to be their mentality at the time. For example, Wolfenstein 3D had an unnecessary amount of levels, with a prequel that had even more. "More levels!" was a nice way of enticing people to buy the full product, even if a lot of the levels in the registered versions were just filler.

Perhaps, but i would still like being able to look at something without thinking to myself: What the fuck? Is that suppose to resemble or look like something or......

[Devalaous]

Kyka said:

At the moment, I am helping to finish up the Claustrophobia Overflow project. Once that is done (which hopefully wont be too far away,) then I will post a thread about this and see what sort of response we get.

'Course whether I personally head up the project remains to be seen. Tbh, I think there are people far more experienced and better qualified to manage a project like this than I am. You need someone like an Esselfortium or a Mechadon or a Green Herring for this.

Things like fonts/color pallettes/titlepics etc etc I simply don't know how to do. And you really need someone who is pretty familiar with modding these things I think.

But regardless, once the Claus overflow is done, I will post a thread and see what response we get. If all the right people jump in, we will see it through.

Thanks for the interest tho. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about it, just had to postpone it till the Overflow is done. I also have to speak to Torn, coz he had a similar idea that he mentioned in that ideas thread.

Ah, cool. Ive been wanting a Doom 2 tribute for years now, and with Plutonia's recent one, the upcoming TNT one, and the 9000 E1 ones, seems like a great idea to me.

[kristus]

printz said:

Judging by the presence of all those vertical banners and palace textures, I assume they tried to mimic the atmosphere of Wolfenstein, going for a fictional NWO cult, with a bit more demonism in it (there are even a few edited--or direct--Wolf and Spear textures used in Doom 2 regularly...). Actually in result I like placing Hell Knights in mansions with circlestar banners. Those really fit in there (try HR level 10).

Id has reused textures in pretty much every game they made.

[Vegeta]

I agree with Enjay, both DOOM and DOOM 2 have a plot, it may be weak, but the fact there's a plot there. Just read the manual and intermission texts.

A big difference is that DOOM's episodes follow a certain theme, and they look like what they're supposed to be. A tech base, a tech base in hell that is being corrupted, hell. E4 is other topic.
DOOM 2 also follow a progression, tech base, city, hell. But with the exception of a couple of levels, the maps seem to be generic and could fit on whatever episode. Even some of the hell maps could work for the other episodes (for example take map21, with a different sky it could be called "the underground mines" or whatever and nobody would note anything strange). While in DOOM perhaps you could use maps from E1 in E2 (or the opposite), or E2 in E3, that's only because there's a gradient between non hellish to full hellish. In DOOM 2, you could put a map like map05 whetever you want, and with the exception of the difficult, it would fit with the other maps of the episode.

I don't know others, but as I had DOOM before DOOM 2, I was expecting more realistic location in the city maps. Don't tell me that realistic Earth places can't be done in doom/2.exe, with the proper textures you can do wonders, look at doomcity.wad as a sample, or some parts of Galaxia. Also I think DOOM 2 owes players a fight with a cyberdemon in a ruined city (what could have been done if they didn't make multiplayer only some cyberdemons that are in the city maps, specially the one of map13).

The lack of bosses at the end of each part in DOOM 2 is other let down. Yeah fights like the spider in the crusher, dead simple, the Archvile on map11, Gotcha!, could be taken as boss fights with some effort, but it's never the as satisfactory as the real boss fights of DOOM. And the end boss, while original it's still a wall. If only it was animated.
To make DOOM 2 better a simple thing id could have used would be to make decoration objects to fit in the second and third parts (I know that there's a nice collection of corpses for the last part, but you don't see other hellish objects like you can see in DOOM, and nothing for second part with the exception of the flaming barrels which sprites were already in DOOM).

[leileilol]

The real difference is that Doom2 uses AASHITTY and Doom uses AASTINKY. There you have it!

[Super Jamie]

leileilol said:

The real difference is that Doom2 uses AASHITTY and Doom uses AASTINKY. There you have it!

*drumfill*

[hex11]

Doom's "story" is just a flimsy excuse to kick ass and take names. Or, to put it another way, it's the RPG equivalent of a paragraph or three of flavor text that differentiates this week's dungeon from the one you just ransacked last week. Oh, and the insides of each episode/game have different architecture, monsters and decor, just to keep things interesting. But let's not fool ourselves, this isn't LOTR, or Dragonlance. Hell, this so-called story is less developed than a typical Fighting Fantasy gamebook (pick any one at random). You know the story is superfluous when you can ignore it, then start playing and eventually go on to win the game anyay.

I think Doom II's level design perfectly complements the amount of story that's built-into the game. For that matter, I don't find its architecture significantly more abstract than the original Doom. A lot of areas in Doom are either strange or undescribably abstract. Take the Tower of Babel, for example. Does that look like a tower to you? Well, not me. But it's a cool level nonetheless, and so are most of Doom II's.

[DuckReconMajor]

I don't care that it has no theme.

I don't care that it has no story.

Doom 2 is just ugly.

[hardcore_gamer]

DuckReconMajor said:

I don't care that it has no theme.

I don't care that it has no story.

Doom 2 is just ugly.

Plus it has "Barrels o fun!" :

[40oz]

I'm not too bummed about the level design, but the maps aren't even fun to play as a whole. My memory maybe failing me because I haven't played it in a while, but I remember playing from a pistol start on any of the maps was not fun.

[Dutch Doomer]

Doom 2 felt uninspired and rushed, some maps are just downright ugly. Barrols O fun was one of the ugly ones. But I probably did not care about how it looked back when it was first released. I didn't knew an damn thing about level desgn back then anyway. I was just too exited to have that ssg and to kill all those new monsters with it.

Of all Iwads Doom 2 is my least favourite.

[Khorus]

I love Barrels of Fun. It's full of stand out moments that have stuck with me for a long time, and I'd say that about many of the other maps too.

[Antroid]

myk said:

DOOM II has a mocking and twisted tone that neither Final DOOM WADs manages, and DOOM hadn't fully exploited (the final screen of E3 sets that tone in DOOM II, though.)
...
Plutonia has its own character visually, although it still follows the DOOM II idea, while TNT tries to apply DOOM's less facetious and more place-oriented character to DOOM II, which I think doesn't fit the game elements, and had already been done better in DOOM.

This is the post i personally agree with the most in the entire thread. Or at least entire page 3.

[Nes]

leileilol said:

The real difference is that Doom2 uses AASHITTY and Doom uses AASTINKY. There you have it!

Why is The Ultimate Doom's level design so stinky compared to Doom2?

[Woolie Wool]

Mr. Freeze said:

Realism =/= Good gameplay.

I commend DooM II for being unrealistic, as realism is essentially the cancer killing videogames.

And theres also the small fact that no building in DooM/DooM II CAN be realistic, due to the limitations of the 2.5D engine.

Since when is "gritty" bullshit like Gears of War realistic? Do you live on a bizarro world with brown grass, brown skies, brown trees, brown clothes, and brown blood? Not to mention most "HDR" effects look less like real lighting than real lighting as seen through my glasses when I haven't cleaned them in six months. Light doesn't turn into huge eye-searing blobs like that.

As for realistic Doom-engine maps, it is certainly possible with a little imagination. Hellcore 2.0 was pretty good at it, although the monster placement was godawful. The Cold as Hell remake was also very realistic. Batman Doom made a pretty good effort although the scale was totally off. FreeDoom map10 (I think it was map10, but I do remember it was HUGE) and map16 gave a convincing earthly feel. With some ZDoom texture scaling (or making the player taller) and creative texturing choices you could use the Duke Nukem texture set in Doom to great effect (I'm surprised no one seems to have tried yet). You can also hide the limits of the 2.5D engine by using silent teleports and rendering certain complex objects with sprites a la Wolfenstein rather than geometry. I'm surprised more map sets don't have dozens of sprite-based doodads to add flavor to a map. The result often looks much better than trying to make a coffee maker or a toilet out of linedefs.

And most people aren't talking about straight realism either, they're talking about a sense of place. Think about really visually memorable Doom-engine levels--Misri Halek from AV, Darkmere from Hexen, Darkdome from Eternal Doom, everything in Urban Brawl and Deus Vult II, Suspended in Dusk--these maintained a powerful and consistent theme and sense of place even if you couldn't point to a given room and say exactly what it's for. Imagine if Doom II had a map as spectacular as Darkdome or Misri Halek (both of which are vanilla maps).

One thing I think was missing from Doom II's level design was good use of color. Many of the maps were just an endless parade of mud browns and not-quite-greens with nothing to relieve the monotony. In general, I'm a real stickler for convincing (not necessarily literally realistic) environments and visual identity (and, on an only partially related note, it REALLY bothers me when a "sequel" to something is made that doesn't resemble the original. Quake IV and Wing Commander III are major offenders here.).

[sonic_13]

In order for me to enjoy Doom (2 specifically) to the fullest, I have to either completely disregard things as a whole and focus on the immediate situations (find the damn key, kill all these friggen monsters...), or release the inner geek inside me and start narrating a storyline to myself as I play, giving explanation to all the strange environments doomguy finds himself in.

Spending my time interpreting whatever it is level 12 (The Factory) or level 21 (Nirvana) or whatever half the levels in Doom 2 are supposed to be, it really, to me, makes things far less enjoyable.

The gameplay itself, IMO, is what makes Doom. Certainly not the storyline or rationality of the situation. Admit it, even though monster condo is a horribly messy level, its got some pretty cool monster encounters in there (: