How important are complex room shapes?

[snapshot]

It's a box, just not rectangular anymore lol.

[pcorf]

I think they are very important as stated here.

[leodoom85]

Talking about Doom 3's layout, I didn't paid attention to the shape of room...I just wanted to finish those levels and continue with the game...Yeah...not sooooooooo important in that topic when I played it before.

And in terms of general layout, you all should do whatever you want with the map shaping. If the map is good regardless of shape, then good. No complains so far.

Time to sleep....

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

Cool room geometry is worth nothing if the rooms are not smartly interconnected, or if the monster encounters are poorly presented.
SEWER.wad (the map that got added as a bonus map for the Xbox version of Doom) is a perfect example of how you can make the most non-euclidian map possible with the most stupidly drawn rooms ever, and still make it play like Wolfenstein.
When mapping, I tend to favor rooms that resemble real places, and interconnect them with the least amount of corridors possible.

[Marcaek]

I think a good example of boring box rooms with a lot of detailing can be found in Legacy of Suffering. It hasn't aged well.

[elend]

I was recently thinking about this as well. I think the actual connectivity of rooms is more important than their shape. Sometimes I play a map I really enjoy, only to be quite surprised how „boxy“ the layout actually is. I did not notice this while playing. If you have interesting visuals and memorable set pieces or architecture in those rooms, then rectangular layouts are not a huge problem.