So why is Alien Vendetta in particular so well liked?

[CasualScrub]

This is something I've never personally understood. It seems that AV always tops lists for map WAD's, yet I've never myself gotten the appeal of it. I don't find it that fun a mapset, and I also find it kinda ugly overall, IMO.

 

I guess I'm just wondering, why this megawad of all things?

[seed]

Probably because it's a classic that's still fun to play, coming from a time when slaughter wasn't yet a thing, along with HR and the Scythes (or certain maps from them at least).

 

Ugly? Yes, some levels have aged poorly visually, but it's still good overall.

[bemused]

Bear in mind it was released 17 years ago now, so not only is there a large dose of nostalgia for many players, (many would name it as their first pwad experience) it was nothing short of mindblowing at the time of its release. I can totally understand the viewpoint of people who look at it nowadays and think its nothing special though, it hasnt aged as well as it could have imo

[Edward850]

29 minutes ago, CasualScrub said:

I guess I'm just wondering, why this megawad of all things?

Because it's a good mapset.

 

You are asking a question about why your subjective opinion doesn't line up with other subjective opinions, and people can only give you subjective answers. This isn't exactly a great premises for a thread and doesn't exactly lead to thrilling conversation.

At best we can only answer it's because you didn't play it 17 years ago when it came out, and you weren't playing what else was available then too. This stuff can be easily culturally specific, and that culture can change with time. Sorta like how KDiZD was considered a masterpiece when it came out and yet nowadays suffers great scrutiny (granted for much more serious problems in hindsight than what AV has). AV can be easily seen as much lesser accomplishment now if you don't have or choose to ignore context and the passage of time.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Edward850

[Csonicgo]

AV was the first real collab megawad from the scandinavian doom scene in a long while since HR,  in the style of HR with new mapping techniques from the Gothic DM series. It was also one of Anders Johnsen's last projects.

I guess you'd just have to be there in the community at the time to understand why it was such a big deal?

 

But it was a big deal. I played it for hours and hours...

 

Edit:  I did mention that it was nordic, but not everyone who contributed was, but it was mostly the "scandinavian style" or what is now "Compet-N Style"... does anyone map for speedrunning anymore? or is that just "every map" now?

Edited November 26, 2018 by Csonicgo
explaining myself :V

[Grazza]

15 minutes ago, Csonicgo said:

AV was the first real collab megawad from the scandinavian doom scene in a long while since HR

Not quite sure what you're getting at here, but HR was made by two Israeli guys.

[Csonicgo]

1 minute ago, Grazza said:

Not quite sure what you're getting at here, but HR was made by two Israeli guys.

Well the four people that I know did the first real speedruns of HR and HR2 (that I downloaded anyway) called themselves "the nordic connection" or something along those lines, and Anders was definitely in that group.

 

[wintertowns]

Played all of AV in the beginning of 2018 and will again. It's an objectively interesting wad. I had my formative gaming years during that era when it came out though, so for me it captures some of that middleground between rawness and polish the scene had in general, before le epic World of Corporate came along and sterilized everything. Some kind of proxy nostalgia.

[Philnemba]

The reason why Alien Vendetta is popular in this community is because it was considered to be the last 90s made megawad that started around 96/97 and wasn't completed til 2001/2002. Not only its been very popular with demo speedrunning but its also been popular in cooping on various multiplayer source ports such as Zdaemon & Zandronum with weapon mods. Hell even recently a few years back there was a neat 2 map expansion from one of the mappers of the megawad.

[ReaperAA]

I too am not a huge fan of Alien Vendetta but I can understand why people like it. It came at a time when Plutonia, Memento Moris, Requiem and Hell Revealed were considered the "Golden Standard" and AV was a leap ahead of all of them. AV came out 1-2 year(s) before Scythe and was pretty much unrivaled at that time.

[Deadwing]

Mostly because of when it got released and which features brought to the community. Honestly, I don't like it either, a big chunk of the levels are really uninteresting for me, with lots of tropes that people avoid nowadays.  Plutonia is miles away better, IMO.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Deadwing

[Misty]

It was a big release at its time. It influenced lots of mappers, even this mapset influences mappers for today on small extend. Well, it's full of interesting themes and choices. Too bad that some maps didn't age well, like egyptian themed map - too big, maze like design, which kills interest after hour and half or even less. 

[Doomkid]

To only have 4 or 5 duds in a 32 map set is pretty damn impressive even today if you ask me. 

 

There are spots of ugliness throughout AV but to just call it ugly and leave it at that seems super unfair - AV actually looks pretty good on the whole and some areas are really atmospheric. Maps are challenging but fair. I’ll admit that sometimes the progression is a bit too tough to work out but I find this to be just about as prevalent in modernish popular releases as well.

 

It seems to hold it’s own even today by just about any standard of critique you could use. Certainly aged better than HR and due to having a bit more balls probably aged a bit better than Memento Mori too, though that’s still more my speed overall.

[NeedHealth]

Probably AV is well regarded because of the timing of its release more than quality. It happends -also nostalgica.

 

Not really a huge fan no. What I've seen on youtube shows squarish levels which reminds me of 96 think of the first Memento Mori. Funny,I used to have a preconcived notion that scandinavian map creators tended to be good at their craft, but that is probably an anomaly.

Edited November 26, 2018 by NeedHealth

[gaspe]

It was the first wad, well after Eternal Doom, to have some epic and truly immersive adventure maps, mixed with some shorter affairs one the way. This coupled with a classic gameplay went to a harder direction, and AV it's probably also one of the first wads to features big and spectacular battles. Visually it's plenty of stuff that look awesome even today and for the times things like the lighting were pushed a step forward.

Like it or not it's one of the iconic wads of the community and still an influential work. Imo it's a must play, even only to have a greater perspective on how the mapping scene evolved, same for HR.

 

22 minutes ago, NeedHealth said:

Probably AV is well regard because of the timing of its release more than quality.

Lol no.

[amackert]

I wasn't playing custom wads when this released so I lack the nostalgia factor. However, had I been, I could see myself having been impressed. Surely that would have stuck with me.

 

I actually didn't care for the wad when I first played it earlier this year. It had inconsistent pacing, such as short maps to long, maze-like maps, to slaughter maps, then back to normal maps. There were some questionable design choices as well (the Icon of Sin fight that basically requires strafe running or wall running always sticks out in my mind). However, I played it a second time a couple of months later and warmed up to it. Then right after that, I went through it a third time and I ended up enjoying it fairly well (being familiar with a wad goes a long way).

 

Looking at it now, I can see why it's well regarded. It's still not my favorite, but it's a solid three or four-star in my book. The big thing is that it has aged rather well compared to earlier highly rated wads like Hell Revealed. Whereas I can't recommend folks try the later in this day and age outside the sake of curiosity, I can definitely recommend AV and not feel dirty about it.

[printz]

I loved Alien Vendetta because of the familiar Doom 1 theming (I loved the use of Thy Flesh Consumed sky and architecture) and great music choice (from Doom 1 and other sources, really fitting). Also the difficulty curve was both challenging and fair.

 

Its cons are the overreliance on monster teleport traps and overuse of revenants, contrasting with really weak usage of pain elementals and arachnotrons. Interesting how nearly all the mappers converged on this. But it still flows better than wads such as Requiem which dry up near the middle.

Edited November 26, 2018 by printz

[Spectre01]

18 hours ago, Grazza said:

Not quite sure what you're getting at here, but HR was made by two Israeli guys.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Donner make everything except one map for HR? I remember Niv's contribution being quite minuscule. Like calling Scythe a two-man wad because Torn did a secret map. [I have been corrected. Disregard this.]

 

Also, AV has some nice detailing and ambitiously large maps considering vanilla limitations. It's also lightyears ahead of previous wads as far as pistol start balance goes. You can actually play the maps blind from scratch and have proper weapon/item progression to have a good time.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Spectre01

[Capellan]

4 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Donner make everything except one map for HR? 

 

Doomwiki lists Niv as lead designer for 6 or 7 levels and providing input on 3 or 4 others.

 

[Grain of Salt]

Yeah, Haggay Niv made a fair number of HR maps according to its txt. I think you're mixing it up with a different wad tbh.

[vdgg]

1 hour ago, Spectre01 said:

It's also lightyears ahead of previous wads as far as pistol start balance goes. You can actually play the maps blind from scratch and have proper weapon/item progression to have a good time.

All fine except I got stuck on MAP01, I had no idea how the exit was supposed to open

[TheMightyHeracross]

That green torch exit is one of the most confusing mapping design choices I've ever seen. What were they thinking? 

 

Besides that, though, I like AV's large maps like Beast Island, Nemesis, and Misri Halek, which is probably my favorite map ever (although opinions seem to be very divided on that one).

[Grain of Salt]

Isn't the green torch a reference to an iwad secret

[TheMightyHeracross]

Probably the Catacombs, at the very start where it lowers the lift behind the torches. But making necessary map progression hidden like a secret would be is not smart map design.

[Grain of Salt]

5 minutes ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

making necessary map progression hidden like a secret would be is not smart map design.

 

Debateable!

[Andy Johnsen]

It's hard to narrow down why some stuff linger, while another quality release may fade into oblivion quickly. Timing seems pivotal, you have to fill a gap, help push certain aspects forward, introduce something that make some kind of an impact. We didn't have a huge catalog of quality megawads to compete against at the time, and the late 90's offerings were already starting to show signs of age, and from a players perspective many of them had issues from an obvious lack of polish and testing.
 

AV is generally quite polished for what it is. It was made to be fun upon repeated playthroughs, and even the simplistic maps in it received a fairly high dose of scrutiny. Most of the team members were experienced players first, and mappers secondly. Some of the gameplay quirks in Alien Vendetta came as a result of wanting to keep monster crowds from scattering throughout the maps, thinking such would make maxkill 100% runs more frustrating. This came at the expense of how dynamic the gameplay ended up being in some maps though, and I would not have opted for it today (also, nowadays we have about 20 years more of material to look at, there's that :)

In my subjective opinion, AV's greatest achievement was a minimum level of quality and polish for all maps, and nothing so insulting it's prone to trigger mass rage quitting half way through.

In today's age with Doombuilder and primarily port based mapping it's also hard to realize how much more testing and scrutiny that went into rooting out bugs, and how limiting it was on your design to have to test ingame for every minuscule architectural addition. In that sense, something like AV20 is easily underestimated when approached with today's toolbox, especially if you're not considering vanilla limitations and crummy editors. 

Pistol start assurance, fairly balanced gameplay, coop shortcuts, and a rather simple but generally quite fun gameplay makes it edible for repeated playthroughs. It's borderline crummy in a few maps, but never downright ugly to look at.
 

AV has plenty of issues one could improve upon in hindsight. Less linear progression, a more dynamic gameplay in some of the stockpiled maps, a few borderline exhausting slaughter maps should have been trimmed and a few maps should have been replaced all together. Also; stacking ammo on top of ammo should be a cause for swift physical punishment. Map30 is a bit of a letdown, too. I was feeling the depletion at that point, there were grand ideas for yet another entry by Kim Malde instead, but it fizzled out before we got to it.

As for the green torch in Map01 - nobody really knows what kind of vile spirit possessed Mr. Hunsager when he lit that thing. I usually just noclip and go play Eternal Doom Map30 instead.

[SOSU]

Because it's good and people like good things >:V

[printz]

15 hours ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

Probably the Catacombs, at the very start where it lowers the lift behind the torches. But making necessary map progression hidden like a secret would be is not smart map design.

Doomguy isn't just brawn, he also has brains. Even the Doom manual said that the game also requires some thinking to progress. I want more maps to require fair secrets to move ahead.

[Martin]

It would probably never happen, but it would be great fun if Anders some day could cope with his embarrassment and release the first version of AV from the juvenile years of 1996/97 when it was called Alien Vindicta. About 20 of these maps were scrapped, and they manifest how the quality bar was raised.
So, why is AV in particular so well liked? I don't have the answer , but I'll argue for both timing and quality. Undoubtedly, AV seems to have had an impact on several of the larger upcoming megawads, in fact there has been a steady stream of tributing maps during all of these 17 years: Kama Sutra (2005), Deus Vult II (2008), Speed of Doom (2010), Epic 2 (2010), Resurgence (2014), Bloodstain (2016), Struggle (2018), and one can also ask if it was not for AV 20, we would probably never had any of the red hell maps in Scythe (2003) or the whole Egyptian episode in Scythe 2 (2005).

Here is a list of the most obvious derivations, map by map (I'll just leave out DV II, since it's probably quicker to name the few maps in that wad which is not taking any inspiration from AV):

　

AV 6/24 --> Ksutra 18, 20

AV 11 --> Ksutra 5

AV 6 --> SoD 5

AV 20 --> Epic2 31, Strg 11, 29

AV 5 --> Resurge 23, Bstain 12, 14

AV 3 --> Bstain 2

　

Regarding the green torch in AV 01, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned E4M1, since it is the same mechanic - action 23 in both maps (Catacombs is a SR lift!) and both maps have that orange sky. AV 01 was made in 1996 and I didn't know then that it would be the fist map in a megawad. However, this was up to debate in summer 2001 when the project was coming to its last stage. If I recall it correctly, I think we calculated with a danger that some people might think there was a bug in the first map and they would just lose interest and quit playing without seeing anything more of Alien Vendetta than map 01. I think Andy said something like, "if you can't find this green torch, you're not entitled to play AV, hell, you're not entitled to play Doom in the first place". We also thought it would be better to have people complaining over a green torching in map 1, and feel embarrassed over it later, than having people complaining over the green shootable torch in map 23 being to hard. None of the testers had any objections about the green torch, but one team meamber had. He had for some months misbehaved and during summer 2001 he also started leaking screenshots of map 20 on his own site (he had also demanded to see map 11, but this was kept a secret from him on purpose). The leaked screenshots had the consequence that he was kicked out, and keeping the green torch seemed like a good idea, internally it symbolized that these last maps were meant to be secret until deadline

Edited November 27, 2018 by Martin

[TheMightyHeracross]

5 hours ago, printz said:

Doomguy isn't just brawn, he also has brains. Even the Doom manual said that the game also requires some thinking to progress. I want more maps to require fair secrets to move ahead.

 

Yeah but hiding the exit switch behind a green lamp on the first map is just a random move that makes no sense, is the only moment of its type in the wad, and doesn't contribute anything interesting to the map.

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by TheMightyHeracross