What's the consensus on The Master Levels?

My recently revived "Deluxe Edition" project attempts to put the levels in a more complete context:

A lot of these maps do feel old and weird to play by modern standards, but that's what makes them interesting to me, and an interesting reflection on what sorts of things are now considered "conventional wisdom" for level designers. I recently 100%d all these levels on UV and it was fun learning the nuances of each mapper's style and how they liked to hide secrets and communicate things overall. 1995 was an interesting time for Doom.

The master levels are like slave masters. Some are good, some are bad. Thus, the name Master Levels.

Over all I would have to say they are pretty meh.

To be honest, I can only remember like 3 or 4 of the levels off the top of my head so guess the rest must have been pretty forgettable :-P

Still worth the download in my mind though as just because I didn’t like a lot of the levels doesn’t mean you won’t love them and, worst case, at least you can say you’ve played them :-)

There is some good maps in the lot but the rest are pretty much garbage.

Attack, Minos, Subspace, Paradox, Vesperas, Black Tower and Bloodsea Keep were my favorites.

I haven't actually finished all of them yet. Might do that today if I feel like it.

They're terrible, don't play them.

3 minutes ago, Ranger Qwerty said:

They're terrible, don't play them.

Bro joined the forums just to have his first post commit necromancy of the highest degree.

I look at Master Levels like a fun DLC Challenge.  Not all levels are great but all of them can be a great challenge to get through.  Especially UV-Max.  Feels like the extra exclamation point to end out the Doom II origin saga.

Since the thread has been revived by someone else I might as well.

I love them, since I don't play too many PWADs or too many hard or incredibly beautiful ones, at least.

I find some comfort thinking about these incredible creators, who made these awesome levels back in good ol' '95, no less.

The release itself is butchered, sure, the lack of musical variety is broken, not enough of them have a custom sky.

All the criticisms I've heard are valid, some of the levels really _do_ suck, but none of them in the structure or episode flow any of the authors intended or planned or foresaw.

The only correct way to play these levels is not the DOS way, or the PSX way, or the PSN masterlevels.wad way, or any other that isn't the work pioneered by @JPL, really.

I think he basically perfected the episode format for these maps and gave them a better chance at being appreciated by the fans.

But since I stopped caring about GZDoom, at all, I recently decided to port this work, separate from WadSmoosh to modern UMAPINFO source ports.

I translated the entire ZMAPINFO defnition to UMAPINFO, then EMAPINFO, then ZMAPINFO again.

I got the Boom ANIMATED and SWITCHES lump to save the maps with custom switch textures.

Introduced all missing patches from Ultimate Doom, and the relevant PWADs.

Got the community MIDI Packs for Doom 1 and Doom 2.

Custom CWILVXYs and M_EPIXs.

Amongst various minor details.

And a whole README to explain me sorrows and woes over liking the Master Levels.

All I need, now, is to make a proper python script to build this wad locally, too, then I'll be satisfied.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, opinions time:

John W. "Dr. Sleep" Anderson's Inferno is a nicely crafted, workman-like, incredibly authored piece of mapping history, and everyone should account for it as the great map set it is. There's an indescribable emotion, playing these levels of a man long passed away, specially "Waters of Lethe", here, the homage by the incredible @Xaser.

James "Jim" Flynn's Titan is a veritable work of frustrating large map puzzle design and I love it. After being done, I felt like a better, different player. A transformative experience, you could say. I felt so many various emotions through, I can say for certain I recommend to most players.

Sverre"@Soundblock" Kvernmo's Cabal was the ball breaker I needed to give me the desire to get good at Doom. I genuinely love his visual language and motifs through out it, every map had _some_ memorable or at least striking element inside, it definitely is my personal favorite.

Christen "BF_THUD!" Klie's unnamed episode is the only I can only appreciate, but not personally invest much in. These are mostly shorter, nicely textured quick bite-sized-fun maps. Personally I prefer most levels to have a little more meat on their bone in an episode, like Cabal but after recently having my opinion changed by @Devalaous and @june gloom, I can see why some people like them, now.

Thomas "@tmustaine" Mustaine's nameless episode of 4 beautifully simple maps is lovely, a nice meal of straight forward fun there's a reason he's one of the greatest Doom creators ever, his maps are just good classic fun.

Tim Willits and Theresa "The Uncredited" Chasar's assortment of maps are... fine, all other maps considered. I don't hate Canyon as much as other people do, I find it almost as good as Attack in general, but adding Boot Assault (Kick Attack) does finish off the lost Levels episode finely enough.

I could _never_ anymore play the Master Levels in any other way. These are as definitive as they can get. And I would not have them any other way. I like these maps a lot, and it's a damn shame to me, that these are not played this way anymore often, a tragedy, I say. I could maybe ask @JPL's help in making this build script come to life, just so more Vanilla and Vanilla-like players could enjoy these Master Levels the way he and I did, but I don't think he'd be interested in doing most of the work, again, just to repeat what he did on WadSmoosh.

Anyway, thanks for reading my absurd comment on a dead post that very few will care about.

@elf-alchemist I believe you should add The Interdiction Zone to Jim Flynn's episode, its a Titan map in all but name (Remember to set the Map07Special tag though!). In my own Master Levels patch, I added it to the set to bring it to 32 maps, since it was already on the Master Levels disc.

1 hour ago, Devalaous said:

I believe you should add The Interdiction Zone to Jim Flynn's episode, its a Titan map in all but name.

I'll try, once I'm done playing Klie's maps, to finish TIZ and I'll see what I'm thinking about it. Although, ostensibly yes, it does lack that direct association with the Titan series. We'll see.

Here be some screenshots from the Master Levels Masterpack, as I call it. Since I've just done the automap label update, using "Canto X:" or "Cabal X:" instead of "Level X:".

Title screen and episode select:

From Inferno, the entire episode uses SKY4 from UDTWiD.wad:

Onto thee I give, Saturn's Titan.

Quite possibly the most frustrating piece of work I've ever loved deeply. There are very few authors capable of infuriating the player to the point of self-improvement, quite like James Flynn did. His work has a certain timelessness to it.
 

Cabal, my beloved.

Now, I'm not a mapper myself, just someone who knows how to open up SLADE and move lumps around. However if the time came that I were to be one, @Soundblock's work would be some of my biggest influences, at least I say that right now. A shame he doesn't map anymore, it seems.

7 hours ago, elf-alchemist said:

Cabal, my beloved.

 

Now, I'm not a mapper myself, just someone who knows how to open up SLADE and move lumps around. However if the time came that I were to be one, @Cranium's work would be some of my biggest influences, at least I say that right now. A shame he doesn't map anymore, it seems.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Sverre now goes by Soundblock and has released several new maps; Plasmaplant is basically a modern Cabal map; its origins are indeed rooted in ideas for the original Cabal megawad project. I was lucky enough to help beta test it actually, and its where I first heard Mark Klem's Organic Gods track. The map isnt complete without it. He also released Echelon, a 30 map megawad that evolved out of a project to build maps around Doom 2's par times. Map 29 of it feels like it was ripped out of an alt-universe where Cabal was completed and is a must-play for fans of his work. In addition there are two maps he made for Revilution that didn't get accepted. I have yet to play them. If your looking to play all his content, he also has a single Hexen level out there called Deadlock

On 4/27/2024 at 4:59 AM, elf-alchemist said:

Here be some screenshots from the Master Levels Masterpack, as I call it. Since I've just done the automap label update, using "Canto X:" or "Cabal X:" instead of "Level X:".

 

Title screen and episode select:

  Hide contents

 

 

i remember finding this one for when i did my own thing with the master levels months ago, what about using this?

On 4/26/2024 at 8:31 PM, elf-alchemist said:

 

Got the community MIDI Packs for Doom 1 and Doom 2.

 

There's also a community MIDI pack made for the 25th anniversary of the Master Levels. I think that would be more fitting to use so i'll link it here just in case 

On 4/29/2024 at 2:49 PM, ethel5691 said:

i remember finding this one for when i did my own thing with the master levels months ago, what about using this?

On 4/29/2024 at 2:53 PM, ethel5691 said:

There's also a community MIDI pack made for the 25th anniversary of the Master Levels. I think that would be more fitting to use so i'll link it here just in case

I have considered both at one point, actually.

But there some issues for me to consider. Since the 25th Anniversary Midi Pack only has 21 MIDIs, instead of the 46 total needed, and I didn't want to have duplicate songs if I was gonna use a MIDI pack built _for_ the Master Levels, specifically. That, and @Peter's work sounded way too goofy for what I wanted to try and do here, to give the Master Levels a chance of being taken more seriously as a proper megawad, on their own. But for the graphics, I just didn't like the look of @Scuba Steve's widescreen pics, I forget, now, where I got the current TITLEPIC from (I will though, to give proper credit), but I prefer the simpler, closer-to-vanilla style, look of the current one, and the INTERPIC and BOSSBACK I chose are just from the INTERPICs from Ultimate Doom and Doom 2.

9 minutes ago, elf-alchemist said:

But there some issues for me to consider. Since the 25th Anniversary Midi Pack only has 25 MIDIs, instead of the 46 total needed, and I didn't want to have duplicate songs if I was gonna use a MIDI pack built for the Master Levels, specifically. That, and @Peter's work sounded way too goofy for what I wanted.

Well, you can use a combo of the Midi pack and another community one to make sure every map has a unique midi. Also while i get that some stuff in there are kind of goofy sounding, there's some good ones in there you might want to consider?
 

12 minutes ago, elf-alchemist said:

But for the graphics, I just didn't like the look of @Scuba Steve's widescreen pics, I forget, now, where I got the current TITLEPIC from (I will though, to give proper credit), but I prefer the simpler, closer-to-vanilla style, look of the current one, and the INTERPIC and BOSSBACK I chose are just from the INTERPICs from Ultimate Doom and Doom 2.

That's fair honestly, are you considering finding (or making) widescreen versions of the ones you used?

OwO it's cool btw

 :3

I have officially launched the Masterpack project, now you can play the best version of the Master Levels on any non-zdoom-only modern source port.

It is primarily derived of, and inspired by the Works of the Masters, but now runs _also_ on any source port with UMAPINFO support, Eternity, or on (G)ZDoom as well.

You can now play the 5 episodes from the post where in I went and rambled about my favorite WAD. In their glorious 46 map iteration.

On 4/26/2024 at 2:31 PM, elf-alchemist said:

Since the thread has been revived by someone else I might as well.

Also, real deep thanks to @Ranger Qwerty, for committing necromancy, here. Without it, I wouldn't have had the courage to talk about the ML Masterpack in this forum, let alone start the build script project this early, it was really motivating and enabling of them to do so.

I have never really been a big fan of the Master levels...personally they didn't seem so masterfully to me.  I played through them one time and that was it, totally lost interest in those maps.  Some are better than others granted, but they really didn't trip my trigger.  I do admit I miss the levels done by Dr. Sleep...

Cadman - Member TeamTNT / Doom2 Grandmaster DHT5 Standards

I've played them a couple times but haven't revisited them as much as the iwads. They're just a collection of maps from the 90s that were maybe a cut above most for the time. What's more to say about them?

Never hated them that much. It's just... eh. Not great, not terrible. Just boring and mediocre.

Unironically enjoy Trapped on Titan though. Really fun level. I love those kinds of Doom 2-esque abstract texture fests. Like the Pit. Then again, I like the Pit from Doom 2 over many maps, so my opinion might be invalid.

I haven't played it in a while but I only really remember liking only like 2 or 3 of the maps, all the other maps I thought were kinda dog shit

Mixed bag, but Fistula can fuck right off. It's one of the few maps I have ever played that made me actively angry.

18 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Mixed bag, but Fistula can fuck right off. It's one of the few maps I have ever played that made me actively angry.

Really? I think that's one of the best of the bunch.

18 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

Really? I think that's one of the best of the bunch.

Yep. Hated it with a passion. Just watched a playthrough to refresh my memory and make sure I was right. That first room after the main entrance is absolute dickishness given form. You have to awkwardly maneuver around to get out the next doors due to the drops in front of them. There's absolutely no reason to do something like that. So many other aspects of the design seem to have been made with the express intention of actively impeding the player in inorganic and unnatural ways.

I loved them in PSX Final Doom. Vesperas, Subterra, Minos and Geryon are amazing. Great maps.