Rook

Map 02 This map is fairly enjoyable. There are some very nice looking rooms in which Eternal displays his knowledge of how best to make his texture choices work, which I like a lot. The main problem I have with this map is the extremely scarce ammo and health, which tend to make me feel that I need to save after every small success. I really think this is a problem which brings down the first several maps of this WAD, which is a real shame.

Well, if it isn't Epic 2. I've started this WAD more times than any other, by quite a long margin - I actually started it again about a week ago and gave up (again). The WAD has some really clever ideas and a great sense of atmosphere, but I find the difficulty gets silly pretty early and the number of items is comically low at times. With that said, screw it - let's try this again. I'll be playing in Eternity on HMP due to bad experiences with UV in the past. Continuous, with saves. Map 01: Entrance A nice atmospheric map, as others have said. I think a lot of key design elements are introduced here which will persist throughout the set - interesting and often very small doors, sparse items, and a willingness to include mid- to high-tier enemies early on. The custom textures work very well so far, and it's notable how sparing the detail is (another WAD trademark, I think). Eternal uses smart texture choices, as opposed to lots of lines, to make his point. A good first map, albeit one I'm rather tired of playing after all this playthrough attempts.

I've just played the first couple of maps so far and I've not played any previous versions of the project, but I'm pretty impressed - the extra detail isn't quite as much as I'd expected, but what is there is a nice improvement and the teleporters that you have to activate before you can use are excellent. Nice work!

Erk, I'm way behind in posting, if not too badly in playing. E1M4: Command Control (GZDoom, UV, -fast) What I find interesting about this map are a few elements which feel a bit ahead of their time – at least one corridor has inset sector details in the walls, something which has become incredibly common in modern PWADs but which is not (as far as I remember) seen much in other UD maps. Also, the small “building” which contains the chaingun also feels oddly newschool to me, for some reason. In a few cases there are examples of arguably inappropriate textures being used because a better alternative wasn't available until community-made textures arrived – the most glaring one being marble ceilings which look pretty awkward. Gameplay is reasonable even on UV -fast, although the cramped maze is still for me one of the worst things in Episode 1. E1M5: Phobos Lab (GZDoom, UV, -fast) This map can be reasonably tough, I think – I mentioned about a part in E1M2 which is one of the few which makes me hesitant in the original Doom, and the section beyond the yellow key door in this map is another one of those few. I'd never really noticed how high the number of secrets in this map was, but still found only around four this time around. I do quite like the dark maze at the end; I think it's probably the best use of the light amp goggles that I know of, and they seem quite essential on this difficulty. E1M6: Central Processing (GZDoom, UV, -fast) For some reason I don't remember this map well despite having played a lot of times, and yet this time I still found all of the secrets and it consequently felt even more unfamiliar, opening up in all sorts of surprising ways that feel quite dynamic. I like the ending area a lot, although you have to be very much on your toes and to have secured a decent number of rockets in order to face off against the spectres before they encircle and rip you apart. E1M7: Computer Station (GZDoom, UV, -fast) Again, I don't remember this level too well and this time around I don't think I found any secrets at all. The level layout is quite confusing, but has some nice ideas such as the small balconies jutting out over the nukage and the lowering column on which four shotgun guys stand. There are a lot of windows in this map, which I have mixed feelings about given how frequently this causes texture misalignment (which is obviously an endemic and understandable problem in the original Doom). E1M8: Phobos Anomaly (GZDoom, UV) The big reveal is what this map is all about for me, as even on UV it doesn't pose much threat at all (I imagine it'd be easy to get encircled by spectres with fast monsters on, but then I tired of that and turned it off). Personally I can't think of any IWAD or PWAD maps that have so dramatic an “environmental” change in the map, which really makes this one stand out and (as others have said) provide a great conclusion to the episode I feel is the best in the original Doom.

Rock Paper Shotgun posted this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/10/doom-retrospectiv/

E1M4: Command Control (GZDoom, UV, -fast) What I find interesting about this map are a few elements which feel a bit ahead of their time – at least one corridor has inset sector details in the walls, something which has become incredibly common in modern PWADs but which is not (as far as I remember) seen much in other UD maps. Also, the small “building” which contains the chaingun also feels oddly newschool to me, for some reason. In a few cases there are examples of arguably inappropriate textures being used because a better alternative wasn't available until community-made textures arrived – the most glaring one being marble ceilings which look pretty awkward. Gameplay is reasonable even on UV -fast, although the cramped maze is still for me one of the worst things in Episode 1. E1M5: Phobos Lab (GZDoom, UV, -fast) This map can be reasonably tough, I think – I mentioned about a part in E1M2 which is one of the few which makes me hesitant in the original Doom, and the section beyond the yellow key door in this map is another one of those few. I'd never really noticed how high the number of secrets in this map was, but still found only around four this time around. I do quite like the dark maze at the end; I think it's probably the best use of the light amp goggles that I know of, and they seem quite essential on this difficulty.

E1M3: Toxin Refinery (GZDoom, UV, -fast) Honestly, I haven't got anything particularly insightful to say about this map except an observation that it has probably “inspired” a huge number of PWAD maps set in toxin or nukage factories, processing plants, refineries, and so on. It always makes me laugh to see yet another WAD include an early map with a similar theme and/or title, and yet the WAD I'm working on includes one itself. They're so hard to resist! The only other thing is that to my shame, this is the first time I've ever actually found the secret exit to this map, which brings me to... E1M9: Military Base I actually don't feel at all bad to have never played this map before, as I really hadn't missed out on anything (a BFG Edition Steam achievement aside). It really feels like something thrown off very quickly, or failing that like one of my first map-making efforts. Obviously it was early days when Romero made this, but there's still nothing to be recommended about it to a present-day player. As an aside, I'm really not at all fond of fast monsters after four maps and I doubt very much I'll keep the parameter on when I get to Episode 2. It encourages play so conservative that I don't feel I'm enjoying myself.

I'm also very tired of standard textures, so I am quite drawn to maps with custom ones. The first thing that springs to mind is Back to Saturn X, which is very well-known now but has probably some of the most professionally made textures out there. It's very much dominated by techbase themes, but I think they are approached in a very different way to the IWADs. It's not a megawad, but UAC Ultra is also very impressive and makes impressive use of a dark, gritty custom texture set.

I've been looking forward to this. I last played through the whole of Ultimate Doom through the BFG Edition a few months back (mainly for the purposes of achievement hunting) but I'm only too happy to revisit it for Doom's big twentieth. I was going to play through using Parkour, but that doesn't quite look right in the absence of Doom II resources, so in the end I settled for a more standard UV playthrough with fast monsters on to bump up the difficulty. E1M1: Hangar (GZDoom, UV, -fast) While I've played it a lot of times, this map doesn't have quite the iconic feel for me that it does for a lot of other Doomers, because it was really Half-Life rather than Doom that has that status as my foundational shooter. That's probably why I don't know where the third secret is – in fact, I'm generally poor at finding secrets perhaps especially in Ultimate Doom so I'll have to try to work on that. I've actually never played any WAD with fast monsters enabled but I felt I ought to in this case, as I've found Ultimate Doom very easy on my last few playthroughs. The first four shotgun guys tore me to shreds on my first couple of attempts! E1M2: Nuclear Plant Nuclear Plant has always seemed like an odd title for E1M2, especially because of how the large computer bank area dominates so much of the map. In any case, the other thing that stands out for me is the lift descending into the room with imps on the high ledges – this is one of the few places in any original Doom map (at least excluding episode 4) that has often given me reason to be a little hesitant. Naturally, it's particularly savage with fast-moving imp fireballs coming at you. I only managed two of the six secrets, although I'm sure I've found at least one more on previous playthroughs. I actually didn't know that there was a chaingun in this map, which may have made things a bit harder on me.

What a great trailer. I'll try to tune in for a bit of this.

A lot of my thoughts on these will be coloured by the fact that I didn't really play the games properly until around 2003; I'd already very much digested the likes of Quake II, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and others before I played Doom and Doom II. I think for A, the gameplay still stands up incredibly well - better, in some ways, than those other later shooters I mentioned. The sheer speed of player movement and the number of enemies keep the game feeling fresh when compared with more meditative, conservative modern games. As for B, I don't really think that for me personally there is much to like about the level design in either Doom or Doom II from a contemporary context. I think id did the best they could with the time available and the tools they had, but the levels are so lacking in detail and often look very crude. I'm consistently amazed by how bad the start of E3M1 looks, for example. With that said, all FPS level design that I know of from that era is similarly bad; I think it was the Build engine games like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood and Shadow Warrior which made other developers raise the bar post-1996/97 (obviously the advances in technology helped that). On C, I really like all of the sprite work in the Doom games. Most of the enemies look fantastic and it's fascinating to see how they progressed from clay models to finished sprites. A lot of the animation is really fun too. By contrast I think most Doom textures are very poor and have not stood the test of time at all - I much prefer mapsets with custom textures for that reason, particularly excellent ones as in the likes of BTSX. My overall thoughts for D are that to me, Doom and Doom II are not so much games that I would recommend to anyone in and of themselves - I don't think that as a game, Doom II stands up in any way against Duke 3D, for example. Where Doom excels is as a formula and a template for additional mapsets, mods, and so on. It's all the great WADs and megaWADs that the community have made that have allowed the Doom formula to live on and entertain in a way that the original maps, for me, just don't. I think in a historical context, Doom was a bit of a mixed blessing for id. It made them a lot of money and made them successful, obviously, but I think it also made them very cocky, overly self-assured, and over-reliant on technology over design and plot. With the games they went on to make, they arguably repeatedly made Doom clones of their own with diminishing creative returns. Supposedly id mocked Valve internally, but Half-Life left Quake II and id looking very behind the curve in a lot of ways and id have never succeeded in getting out of Valve's shadow since then. I think in a lot of ways Doom 3 was id's grudging, belated response to the success of Half-Life (itself obviously influenced by Doom), ironically released in the same year Valve raised the bar again with Half-Life 2. Although I like Doom 3, id in general don't earn much respect from me these days (the technical disaster that was Rage did not help) but Doom will always be a grand legacy.

Back when my main gaming experiences were the shareware version of Monster Bash and the demo of C&C Red Alert an incomplete set of Doom II floppies were gathering dust in my house (they belonged to my brother - I've no idea what happened to the missing one). It sounded good to me, but it was a few years and many other games later when I finally briefly played the game at a friend's house - it was OK, but I got caught up in the likes of Half-Life and didn't really look back. Realising that Doom and Doom II were huge gaps in my gaming knowledge I finally bought them as part of the 2003 re-release of the Collector's Edition. Again, Half-Life 2 dimmed my interest when it was released in 2004. I also only played Doom 3 for the first time this year - it's amazing how late to the party I generally am, on thinking about it!

I think that's a nice idea. I'd been planning a playthrough anyway, and it would be great to discuss the iconic original maps together.

Played MAP24 - can't say that I really get it. More of the same in an urban setting.

I'd heard rumblings of similarities, but I can't say I've seen in any the first several maps - I'm sure I'll persist at some point, or play MAP27 at the very least.

I love Vanguard, it's still my favourite WAD. I particularly love MAP10 - I actually spent a significant amount of time flying around it and marvelling at it in Doom Builder after I finished it. I think one of the things that Vanguard does really well is coaxing players like me into slaughtermaps, which I wouldn't otherwise play. The fact that it manages to do that when it was originally meant to be a megawad amazes me even more. As I've just given up on Vile Flesh for the megawad club I'll have to have a think about what to get onto next. I did tentatively start Unholy Realms but I'm not sure it's really for me - I'm slightly tempted to plough through Plutonia again with the midi pack Jimmy organised.

MAP19: The Pillars (UV, NecroDoom) It's a Vile Flesh map. It's big and ugly and empty as hell - besides that I remember nothing of it except for a room towards the end which had the kernel of a decent aesthetic (the interestingly-shaped ceiling) - and I literally just played it. I've had it with this WAD. It pains me to say it as I had meant to play the whole thing, but it's just too boring, ugly and there's almost no threat at any point. The environments are often large, and the monster count is relatively high, but each encounter is just a dull trickle of enemies and life's just too short for that. Instead I'm watching Suitepee's playthrough, which is a lot more entertaining. Hoping for something better for next month, as I'm really keen to see something all the way through.

MAP17: Guard Towers (UV, NecroDoom) This map is absolutely defined by the guard towers of the title – they loom over the start of the map, and then almost all the action takes place inside them. In a lot of ways this feels similar to the previous map due to the sense of scale for the sake of it, resulting in a large but empty, under-detailed map. The circular shape of the towers prompts Williams to create some samey, oddly-shaped rooms which doesn't help. MAP18: Boneyard In fairness, there are actually some elements of the aesthetic which work for me in this map, which is almost a first. I like the use of skull floor texture, which makes a change and fits in with the map title. There are also one or two mildly challenging traps – this makes quite a contrast with the usual Vile Flesh style, which derives almost all of its challenge from the fact that the weapons are almost always hidden (which again is a particular problem after the death exit at the end of MAP16). The ending falls flat for me because the enemies that spawn aren't in the way of the exit. With ammo often so scarce – at least for the weapons I have – there's no way I'll hang around wasting it when I can just walk out of the level.

MAP16: Cathedral (UV, NecroDoom) I can see what Williams is doing here – and there's nothing wrong with making big, epic castle/fortress style maps and using them to show off a couple of mapping tricks. The problems come in when this castle (it doesn't look much like a cathedral to me) is – for all its scale – largely empty. 200+ monsters feel like a very measly sprinkling against a backdrop of this size, especially when so many “encounters” consist of two imps in a corridor or a single demon defending a connecting room... and this is MAP16, on UV. The environment itself is just inexcusably plain, especially the almost utterly empty exterior areas. The mapping tricks work on a technical level, but being treated to a death exit at this apparently random juncture after such a struggle to build up a half-decent arsenal feels very cruel and the teleport trick only serves to set up not one, not two, but a full three boring cyberdemon appearances. The layout could be worse, but again there is an over-abundance of both switches and backtracking to slog through. In addition, the overuse of hell knights and barons maybe even steps up a level here, with seemingly every other door featuring another one of the miserable bags of hitpoints lurking on the other side, neglected and alone. I really feel that Vile Flesh in general and possibly this map in particular show why it's a bad idea for mappers to pick up a few tricks, get a decent understanding of how maps work technically, and then say “hey, I'm ready to make a full megawad!” The gameplay balance is consistently poor, the secrets are just too obtuse in my view (and sometimes too necessary), and there's just no sense of flow for me at all. I don't mean any of this as an attack on Williams, nor a denial of how much work a megawad involves – but I do think Vile Flesh should stand as a monument to what happens when such projects focus on scale and tricks and fail on flow, layouts and balance. With all that being said, I feel that this map for all its faults is still one of the best in the WAD so far. It does have that scale, and there's no maddening darkness or cramped areas, at least. Incidentally, I didn't bother to look for the secret exit in MAP15 - it doesn't sound as though I missed much.

MAP15: Village For a while, I was actually having fun (!) with this map – some of the buildings look vaguely cool, I had a good laugh at the Doom furniture, and there were a reasonable amount of enemies to shoot using a reasonable amount of ammo. The marble section felt very out of place but actually worked very well, feeling quite slick when the stairs raise up after you've secured the yellow key. Then, the attempt at what should be a fairly straightforward series of key/switch-activated barriers becomes a real problem due to the rather illogical nature of the design. It took me a while to realise that one of the switches in the central hub didn't require a key, and then I was able to exploit the Z-axis trick to hit said switch without having raised the bridge you're meant to use (I later did that accidentally while stumbling around looking for the next damn thing). The end of the map is a very ugly “ambush” of arachnatrons rising out of the floor for no apparent reason. Beside all that, the nicest thing I can say about MAP15 is that it isn't MAP14.

MAP13: Subterrainia (UV, NecroDoom) I must admit the level title of MAP13 worried me, but it's actually not too bad. I think this map (like the last) provides an example of why relying really heavily on switches instead of keys probably isn't a great idea. On the most obvious level, keys are just something a player needs to get hold of in order to progress – but there's another advantage to them, which is to do with navigation. If I see a door marked as requiring a red key, I know that I should return there when I've found said key. In a map like this one, there are very few cues about where you are and where you should be going because switches often don't provide that. Similarly to MAP11, this one allows you to battle from the spawn point through a whole bunch of enemies in order to get to a door you can't open – you then have to return to the spawn point and go a totally different route to find the key. To me, this approach is just inelegant and confusing, but seems to happen a lot in Vile Flesh. MAP14: The Pits Good grief, was there ever a map so aptly named?

Recently I've been working on a mapset for Doom II, having spent a good few months tentatively teaching myself some basic mapping. To give myself a bit of a break, I've been working on a short Heretic map over the last few days and as I've recently (finally) signed up here I thought I'd share it. This is the first map I've ever released so I'm anxious to get all the right information in this post! It's called Viridian Vault as it is based on blue-green textures and set underground (inspired, I know). The map is primarily intended for single-play but there are co-op starts - difficulty settings are also implemented. The ending and alliterative title can both be seen as an omen of sorts as to what to expect from my Doom II maps. I have only tested the map in GZDoom at present, but it should also work fine in ZDoom and Skulltag, I believe. It'd be great to get some feedback about this so I can keep learning. Two screens below: // Download v2 // You can download the map, which replaces E1M1 of Heretic, HERE. UPDATE 15/06/14: Link fixed. Important: To play the map you'll also need the Baker's Legacy texture pack which can be download from Realm667 here. A big thanks to everyone involved in making this excellent set which made this map great fun to make.

I seem to remember that the only reason I wasn't mapping in vanilla in the first place was that the PNG textures didn't show up! So because the map doesn't make use of any clever ZDoom features I think it does make sense to go in that direction - that's how I am working on my Doom II mapset, just standard linedef actions.

Walter - glad you liked the map! Thanks so much for the conversion job plums - I wouldn't have known where to begin with that. Regarding the remaining issues you mentioned, I've had a bit of a think about them and have already made some changes. I think the linedef actions are fine - I did decrease the height of one or two trap sectors so that enemies are released a little more quickly. I also haven't noticed anything wrong with the textures. I've toyed with moving the linedef which closes the bars in the final area to make getting stuck outside at least a bit more difficult - as you say I think to fix it fully could be tricky. As for the multiplayer issue, I think it's easiest if I just reinforce when I upload that the map is really only designed for solo play. The visplane overflow is a bit unfortunate - again, I think you're right in saying that recommending limit-removing ports is the way to go. I'll keep playing around with that final area a little, and will then upload to /idgames when I can. I'll be sure to credit yourself and Dragonsbrethren for all the help you guys have given me. This has been a great way for me to learn - I'll be bearing everything about this map in mind as I carry on making my Doom II mapset. That will consist of probably about ten broadly-defined arena-style maps. Due to the style they will be quick to play, but it will be a significant step in terms of project size nonetheless.

Well vdgg, I certainly hadn't noticed that - looking at the map in an editor, I think it's because the presence of two near-identical switches (one for the lights, one for the lift) confused me. The lamps I meant still don't cast light though, from what I can see. MAP12: Cliff Face (UV, NecroDoom) Not so much a cliff face as a group of buildings inside a canyon of some kind, this is a map which appears quite open but is actually very full of fences which keep you fairly strictly penned in quite a lot of the time. Even then I did manage to get slightly confused, which has a lot to do with Williams' increasing focus on switch hunts. Ammo also became a problem around the time of the pretty dull spider mastermind fight (dull because it can barely move, and the arena area is both barely detailed at all and easy to leave), but I suspect it would have been worse had I not started playing with Xaser's excellent NecroDoom mod. I really enjoyed Suitepee's streamed playthrough last night - he seemed to enjoy some maps I hated and was very much rewarded for his reasonably conservative play style and secret-finding skills.