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cacomonkey

Did the original Doom I and II have rooms/areas with no exits?

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I can't remember.  I was playing an old Doom (1) four (three?) episode replacement called Vengence and by the time I was into the 2nd or 3rd map of Ep2, I had already found myself in small rooms, no monsters, perhaps with a gun or ammo you could collect, where the door closed behind me and there was no exit.  I don't know if its bugged, bad lvl design or something the author intended as just another trap that forces you to reload.  It annoyed the fuck out of me.  I don't remember if Id ever did this.  I think there should always be a way out even you have to search for it.  Here it just seemed pointless.  I stopped playing the wad right after the second time it happened.

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This never happened in the original games IIRC. The only places you could get stuck where slime/lava pits, and obviously they were there to kill you.

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Not that I remember. Have you checked if you are using the correct complevel or source port? Perhaps if you see a video of those maps you'll see what's the deal with them. 

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When you download custom levels for Doom, there's a risk that there may be a few errors here and there. What you're describing is often called a broken map. Although most people are very careful not to render the map unwinnable, the level designer cant always predict every possible thing the player might do. If you are stuck in a place with seemingly no way out, this is a pretty major level design flaw and I doubt anyone conciously designs these events to happen on purpose.

 

For your second question I'm sure there has to be at least some places in Doom 1 or 2 that you can get stuck, but they're probably pretty obscure and require some freak circumstances to happen. Its obvious the level designers took their work pretty seriously and eliminated nearly all of these scenarios from happening.

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The only place I've ever gotten stuck in an IWAD was in E2M4. I can't recall the exact coordinates offhand, but there's a secret tunnel with health bonuses or something where the floor rises behind you. If you happen to backpedal into the rising floor, it will push you against the ceiling. When this happened to me, I had enough health that I didn't die from the crushing damage and I was stuck.

 

Not the same thing as an intentional trap room, but it still got on my nerves. I can't recall getting stuck anywhere else, but I also never went out of my way to try either.

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16 minutes ago, 40oz said:

If you are stuck in a place with seemingly no way out, this is a pretty major level design flaw and I doubt anyone conciously designs these events to happen on purpose.

Newbie designers often don't understand this yet. They might think it's an acceptable way to make a trap.

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The only situation something like that I can think of from the id-made stuff is the 'reverse crusher' in the northeast corner of E2M4, "Deimos Lab." If you get caught by it but have enough health/armor, it will fail to actually kill you while still essentially ending your game, since you'll be jammed between the floor and ceiling and unable to move or escape (except by rocket suicide). This is a matter of oversight rather than one of design, of course, and I can't think of any point in any of the IWADs where you can find yourself in a 'dead game' situation as a result of actual, intentional level design (though I suppose "Icon of Sin" technically becomes unwinnable if you run out of rockets before killing the boss brain, I suppose, barring certain miracles).

 

Permanent dead-ends or unwinnable (read: un-exitable) levels or scenarios are very much an intentional thing (to say nothing of the many levels which are simply broken/bugged) in the wacky and woolly world of PWADs, however, particularly in the wild wild west of the 90s era.

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1 minute ago, Da Werecat said:

Newbie designers often don't understand this yet. They might think it's an acceptable way to make a trap.

I think even newbie mappers know that simply locking the player in an empty room isn't a fun gameplay mechanic!

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3 minutes ago, Bauul said:

I think even newbie mappers know that simply locking the player in an empty room isn't a fun gameplay mechanic!

Unfortunately, I've seen a few examples of the opposite.

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Yeah, same. Leaving aside the manifold possibilities of modern ports and such, it's pretty much a case of "you name it, somebody somewhere has tried it" at this point.

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I remember a map where you entered a hallway, an alarm started ringing and a door at the end of it closed after some time, and it never opened up again, and you didn't die or anything. The level author stated this was intentional, so yeah I would believe people doing it intentionally.

 

This did get changed when the map was officially released I believe though. I can't remember what it was in.

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Another one (though it might not qualify as "original" here) is TNT map 31. There is no yellow key, so it's impossible to finish normally. However, I have seen it done without any keys used.

 

Also, in map 12, there is a yellow key and a blue key. However, when you make your way through the yellow key door and the last area, the same door is a red key door going out. This means that once you go in, there's no way out. Fortunately, the map exit is in there, but still...if you wanted to go back and pick up some ammo or stuff right before you leave the map, you're out of luck.

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I think they all had ways out. That's what separates the professionals from the armatures even in a genre they pioneered if not invented.

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There is a sequence in E3M2 you can screw up by accident so you cannot get back outside without noclipping (the area with the shotgun guys and floor related triggers).

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1 hour ago, cyan0s1s said:

There is a sequence in E3M2 you can screw up by accident so you cannot get back outside without noclipping (the area with the shotgun guys and floor related triggers).

 

Yes, if you press the switch at the end of the index finger room before the door at the entrance of the finger closes completely, the door will remain closed and cannot be reopened.

 

Also, in E3M9, if you press the switch to close the door at the beginning of the map and run through the door while it's closing, the door cannot be opened from the other side and you will not be able to finish the level, as you eventually need to return to the level's starting room to get the Red Key and exit the level.

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6 hours ago, 40oz said:

Its obvious the level designers took their work pretty seriously and eliminated nearly all of these scenarios from happening.

Indeed. Several dead ends where removed in all those updates. Also initially locked off deathmatch starts were patched.

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34 minutes ago, roadworx said:

isn't there a trap in map08 that makes you get stuck or something?

There's an inescapable slime pit at the end, but it kills you if you fall into it. I can't recall getting stuck anywhere though.

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The Chasm (MAP24) has one, though it needs a lot of deliberate force to trigger, so it's mostly the player's stupidity that causes their undignified end.

Both the hole with the Megasphere pillar and the pillar itself are designed to repeatedly raise by 24 every time one presses use against their inner edges. However, this will continue after they reach the level of the outer catwalk and all the way up to the ceiling, once they "bump their heads" and the platform will slowly retreat to its original height (or at least it is how it works in certain versions).

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