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Phobus

Major Arlene's Doom WAD Reviews

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10 minutes ago, kmxexii said:

I like puzzling out slaughtermaps but I think that the people who suggest Hell Revealed etc whenever someone asks for reccs after finishing Doom II are insane

Which is exactly why I always (as in: never) suggest chillax. That insanity aside, I usually like to recommend things like Valiant or Estranged, maybe even SoD, depending on the situation, not without a fair warning though. (At least I hope I never made that mistake).

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Sometimes it's fun to do slaughter maps. I've found that they're really an excercise in patience more than anything. If you know how to manipulate the monster's movements, fighting 50 Cacodemons isn't really anymore challenging than fighting one. Strafe slow and commit. Once you start going the other way is when you run into stray projectiles. I can fully understand why some people aren't into them. They can be a huge time sink. For a channel like @Major Arlene's it doesn't really seem practical, unless it were done in parts, but it's difficult to say if something like that would be enjoyable to watch in this format. Maybe?

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I'd be more interested in slaughter maps designed with gameplay mods in mind. Having to master some other weapon, or use the environments for large-scale clean up. But watching hundreds of BFG shots wears thin.

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Prolific game reviewers like kmxexii and Major Arlene are faced with a variety of dilemmas. First, and foremost, I would imagine they'd want to play something that they are likely to enjoy. This enjoyment might come from the adrenaline rush of punch and counter-punch, or from solving puzzles, or from admiring the scenery (so to speak). It seems like Major Arlene mostly picks mods to review at random, which means she probably doesn't fully know what to expect. Still, she probably hopes to be able to enjoy the mod. kmxexii seems to pick mods less randomly, so he probably goes in knowing some of what to expect. If a reviewer doesn't enjoy slaughter maps (and I'm not implying that Major Arlene or kmxexii don't), then they will either knowingly not pick one, or will quickly stop playing/reviewing it once they start.

 

The point I'm making is that slaughter maps are not for everyone (as people have correctly pointed out). In other words, they are not what would be considered "mainstream" mods. Most people (particularly those like me, with average game-play skills) would likely not attempt to play such maps. However, I enjoy watching demos (videos) of skilled people playing them. Therefore, if a reviewer recorded a demo of such a map, and played masterfully, I imagine the demo would be a hit among the DooM community.

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Dont make Major Arlene play anything she doesn't want to play. If she doesn't like slaughtermaps, then all that does is create an opening for someone who does want to do a review series for slaughtermaps. There's no harm in that.

 

Keep doing what you love!

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Mostly speaking, I save slaughtermaps and megawads/megamaps for personal play off-camera. I can rage as much as I want and not be judged :P

@Nine Inch Heels Valiant! I meant to finish that one!
@Jon exactly. I'd be more interested in learning a new mechanic to defeat enemies than BFG spam. 
@ReXyou hit the nail on the head. Half the fun of the recording process for me is not really knowing 100% what to expect. If the reviews are mostly bad I will skip the map, but if there's no reviews or average to decent reviews, I'll go for it. 

@40ozabsolutely. I encourage anyone who has the skill and wants to review to go for it- door's wide open. :) 

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Too-hard slaughter maps are why I made OPWeapons. The weapons are over-powered in more interesting ways that simply shooting really fast. It is code-only, so the download is tiny.

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Well, I've never really subscribed to the idea that everyone needs to play/appreciate some of everything in order to become certified as "well-rounded" or something equally silly like that, and it's generally been my experience that whatever the nature of your show/program, you usually get better episodes and better viewing when the player is genuinely enjoying whatever s/he is playing, rather than forcing themselves to muddle through it in the name of completionism or the like. If you don't have any present interest in slaughtermaps--even if you entertain the notion that you might be interested in learning more about them some time in the future , off-cam or however--you don't stand to gain much by forcing yourself to engage with them 'in the interest of fairness' or for any other reason. Best thing for your hobby is to play what you avidly want to play, and not worry overly much about appealing to or massaging the sensibilities of every possible demographic.

 

That being said, if someone takes some flak on occasion for not being interested in slaughtermaps (at least hereabouts), I reckon it's not so much because people object to others not liking the same things they like (the gall!), so much as because they're taking what appears to be a more or less categorically dismissive stance based on some evidently vague/strawman idea of what the genre actually entails. Comments to the effect that the genre is comprised of the same identikit design styles over and over again, or founded primarily or disproportionately on hamfistedly spamming the BFG while twitching around and exercising very little in the way of actual brainpower (which are fairly common I assure you, even if this is not actually how you yourself personally feel) suggest, at the very least, that the speaker has not actually tried to engage with the style in any meaningful way, or an outside chance that they've somehow had the misfortune to only try the dregs of the style. The reality is that the genre as a whole is quite a bit more varied, nuanced and sometimes thoughtful than such broad dismissals give it credit for, and to some extent it's inevitable (and understandable, I think) that folks passionate about it might get a little testy about that on occasion. Doesn't mean it's personal, mind you!

 

Edit: evidently NIH already wrote more or less the same thing on the previous page (and more succinctly too, unsurprisingly), so just consider this a +1 to the general sentiment, I suppose.

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On 7/21/2017 at 8:50 PM, everennui said:

Sometimes it's fun to do slaughter maps. I've found that they're really an excercise in patience more than anything. If you know how to manipulate the monster's movements, fighting 50 Cacodemons isn't really anymore challenging than fighting one.

This perfectly describes poorly-designed slaughter encounters. Anyone can circle-strafe a cacodemon while shooting at it. Likewise, anyone can circle-strafe a mob of 200 cacodemons while shooting at them. Unless, of course, the mapper doesn't give you that option! A well-designed encounter will require the player to think about how he wants the monsters and the projectiles to move en masse, which is a different challenge from manipulating a single monster, or even a small handful of monsters. There are a few fights in oku2v31.wad where the mapper uses horde movement as a timer -- you, the player, have until you get cornered to get to that switch over there (for example).

 

When done right, slaughtermaps can be just as "puzzley" as any other map.

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On mardi 18 juillet 2017 at 8:07 AM, Xaser said:

Hmm, while normally I'd be just fine with the cheating bit (a la "play it your way"), I checked out the Graytall playthrough for the usual egoreasons and there's a bit where she misses a jump and (rather than load a save) decides to noclip onto the platform, skipping an essential trigger in the process. This results in her getting hopelessly stuck in the map, which develops into actual anger once she ceases having fun but continues to plow forward anyway. :/

 

Lemniscate has more than its fair share of issues, and the pain points in the vid (navigational issues and too- tricky jumps) are big lessons in hindsight, but it's disheartening to watch the whole thing shatter when a non-cheaty alternative (savegames) is readily available.

There's also a cheaty alternative that wouldn't have broken the trigger: fly. ;)

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On 13.7.2017 at 10:10 PM, Megalyth said:

She got really pissed at my 50Shades map because I didn't do difficulty settings, which is understandable. She doesn't like "dick wizards" (arch-viles) or fighting two cyberdemons at the same time, apparently. :D

 

Dick wizard. That name.

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On 7/18/2017 at 7:25 AM, Major Arlene said:
  1. Inexperience. I am very much a filthy casual [...]

2. Slaughtermaps- nah. They are a ginormous waste of time to review, not to mention boring.

You don't say...

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I don't think someone who has made almost 500 Doom WAD videos can be considered a "casual."

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On 7/21/2017 at 8:30 PM, kmxexii said:

I like puzzling out slaughtermaps but I think that the people who suggest Hell Revealed etc whenever someone asks for reccs after finishing Doom II are insane 

Depends on the person.  HR2 and AV are the reason I got into Doom in the first place.  Those wads are what changed my perception from "meh, outdated game, you can't even aim up" to "woah, this game does some cool things that other FPSs can't".

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@Major Arlene Well, I have as much ego as any other mapper, perhaps more, so when I heard about your channel, I had to see if any of my maps were in there. With one exception, my new maps are in community projects, so 2 of the 3 maps I actually have on idgames as singles were uploaded in the '90s. And by golly, there it was on your list, my ginormous, obtuse Ultimate Doom map Elfstomp! from '97. Saints preserve us! :D

 

Thanks again for giving it a go. I've already posted on your page about how to solve that rather cruel teleport puzzle. One thing I'd add is that back in the '90s, those of us who played and mapped on the Mac were unable to make or view demos, because Lion Entertainment, the company that ported Doom to the Mac, for some reason chose not to include that extremely vital feature. Thus, we didn't see people playing our maps, so unless one of my 2 playtesters in those days mentioned something as exceptionally annoying, I assumed everything was okay. If I had seen people getting stopped by obtuse progression, I might have realized that changes were needed. So watching people play my maps, and those by other mappers, is both entertaining and educational.

 

I subbed and I'll be watching more of your broadcasts. I especially look forward to watching 50 Shades of Graytall and Going Down. And Shadows of The Nightmare Realm as well, though I want to play that one first before I watch anyone's playthroughs.

 

 

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@Steve D I saw your comment on the video, I will probably attempt it again to see if I can figure it out. Thanks so much for subbing! 

temper your excitement on 50 Shades and Going Down, those are both playthroughs in which I had literally no idea what I was getting into so I raged a LOT in those. Not my best moments :/

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On ‎7‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 6:13 PM, Major Arlene said:

@Steve D I saw your comment on the video, I will probably attempt it again to see if I can figure it out. Thanks so much for subbing! 

Please excuse my late reply. It's not uncommon for me, alas.

 

Anyway, you were doing great on that obtuse oldie, especially when you jumped onto the dead shotgunner's platform and opened up a new path. I wouldn't do anything like that to a player nowadays unless it was for a secret, and after all, those of us who used that trope back then were copying the secret jump for the RL in Entryway. But using it for mandatory progress is generally considered bad design.

 

As for raging, don't worry. I'm a fan of Suitepee's livestreams, where you get plenty of it. It's all part of the Doom experience. ;) I've watched you Ship level video and plenty to catch some more -- and actually comment -- fairly soon.

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