What do YOU think makes the perfect map?

That's funny because immersion isn't really that attractive to me as much as playing with the implication that you're "just playing Doom"

I'm having trouble expanding on it, but similar to how older deathmatch wads are just fun designs with custom textures with wordart decals on them, I'm actually much more attracted to the idea of a mapper doing what he feels complements his map design, even if it's silly. The mapper shouldn't have to create an atmosphere or tell a story or make the player feel like he's a protagonist in a growing plot for his map to contend with other wad releases. I feel its much better to just give the player something that's fun and inventive to play.

Many people told me they didn't feel immersed in UAC Ultra 2 and I can't honestly say that bothered me one bit, because my focus was creating levels that would effectively work in as many different gameplay styles as possible and remain fun no matter how many times or different ways you choose to play it. I'm inclined to believe that a story driven plot wouldn't give player much reason to play something more than once as much as a fun map would.

40oz said:

I'm inclined to believe that a story driven plot wouldn't give player much reason to play something more than once as much as a fun map would.

Can't say for doom maps, but I've replayed many linear games with great atmosphere quite a lot, even ones that aren't all that good (at all, like Crusaders of might and magic). Sometimes I just want to reexperience the feelings a game's atmosphere gives me. Can't say I can see myself replaying a game solely for it's gameplay though, but then again apart from, like, tetris, almost all of the games I ever enjoyed had at least some atmosphere worth playing them for, so I can't really imagine that situation. But I'm pretty confident that I'm never going to even finish, much less replay a Doom wad in which I feel no immersion. I've tried many wads that people recommend, old classics and newer celebrated releases alike, and many a time I just abandon them after the first couple of maps because there's nothing that holds my interest, I don't find it fun at all to just run around fighting the familiar monsters if there's nothing else to it.

Double post, but for a reason. Beat that wad that essel recommended and while it wasn't quite what I was looking for (or expecting, really), it was still quite awesome. Even though they went a bit overboard with the length of the logbooks and by the end I stopped reading those (mainly because as far as I understand this will never be continued so the story is kinda pointless, even though I genuinely loved the logs that I did read. Maybe someday I'll load the save and read all the logs that I skipped), it's a great example of how to make a Doom mapset that's captivating because of pretty much everything but the combat setups. I love doing all this running around solving problems kind of stuff, even if it wasn't quite what I had in mind and not something I'd wish to make for doom, it was still really fun and engaging. Too bad I found this huge stash of ammo pretty quick because I really liked being near-starved for it (and totally out right before finding the stash - there was a shitton of imps and I didn't have nearly enough shells for them), that's one of the aspects I wish to see more - having the player run around randomly in panic, waking up all sorts of monsters, in search for some ammo to kill some of them and be able to get through some area.

I don't want to say however that zdoom and it's scripting is absolutely required to make levels that are interesting despite the combat being pretty basic. The messages and all that you can just write on textures, or just label the switches and the places that they might affect in some fashion. Or just don't have all this adventure game stuff at all. I'm really thinking (even more than before) of making a sort of experimental map, also set on a spaceship or a space station, which would just be one big very nonlinear map with a ton of opportunity for exploration, ammo and supplies not being scattered everywhere so that you may have to search for them, monsters sometimes totally above the player's weapon power, and areas tight enough so that a couple of imps can be dangerous, let alone a hellknight. Basically to test whether or not this style of gameplay that I'm describing could really work well or if it's wishful thinking on my part. I've been throwing this idea around for a while now, and made some textures, maybe after I finish several other things I'll try to work on it. Are there other maps in this kind of style?

That last paragraph actually reminds me of System Shock 2 somewhat. Not exactly but...

Have you ever played it? If you like low ammo creating tense situations the harder difficulties might be up your alley. The guns can even wear out and end up breaking on you at exactly the wrong time.


As for the perfect map this whole thread practically screams that mapping is an art and that there's few absolute goods or bads.

If something keeps me wanting to play it the whole way through (many maps don't) and especially if it leaves me wanting to play again, that's probably about as close to perfect as you can get.

Antroid said:

I'm really thinking (even more than before) of making a sort of experimental map, also set on a spaceship or a space station, which would just be one big very nonlinear map with a ton of opportunity for exploration, ammo and supplies not being scattered everywhere so that you may have to search for them, monsters sometimes totally above the player's weapon power, and areas tight enough so that a couple of imps can be dangerous, let alone a hellknight.

Scarce ammo/health maps have been done before, and they work pretty well. I think verada.wad is a good example. It doesn't have that many monsters, but there are some tight spots but very little health and no ammo to waste blasting carelessly. You have to conserve, and use infighting to stand a chance.

It uses "big" monsters, but it might even be possible to achieve similar results with even the low-tier stuff (zombies, sergeants, imps, pinkies, lost souls). To some extent that was achieved in this demo:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/63924-doom-3-levels-meets-d1-pace-unusual-community-project/
I don't think it was his design goal, maybe just a nice coincidence. I did miss like, every single secret though, so maybe it can play out differently. But in my case, I was often faced with having no shells and having the lights go out and hearing some imps sound off in several directions. :-)

Oh, and cadaver.wad that's in the current /newstuff chronicles. That one's even more tight on ammo than the above! And the design is pretty unusual too.

Another possibility is to give the player ALL the ammo up front, and that's it, (almost) nothing else to find in the level. The old Wasteland Series was setup like that.

hex11 said:

Oh, and cadaver.wad that's in the current /newstuff chronicles. That one's even more tight on ammo than the above! And the design is pretty unusual too.

Tee hee. I had a few people thinking that was a ZDoom map. :P

sector666 said:

That last paragraph actually reminds me of System Shock 2 somewhat. Not exactly but...

Have you ever played it? If you like low ammo creating tense situations the harder difficulties might be up your alley. The guns can even wear out and end up breaking on you at exactly the wrong time.

Sorry, meant to answer much earlier but forgot.

I have it installed currently but I've never made it too far into it for some reason. I was scared by some people into thinking that it's waaaay too easy to screw yourself over by investing points into wrong things in that game, and also before I even considered playing it myself I had it all completely spoiled by watching an LP. I suppose when I forget most of that I'll try it. Also need to get back to Marathons that someone suggested someplace before, even though they aren't like that, and the texturing is pretty offensive, I still enjoyed the atmosphere of the first couple levels of the first game when I played it way back in spring.

And I'm going to check out the stuff hex11 mentioned too, when I have time. :D