Word Salads, Walls of Texts; Not another E1M1 guess

[B-Dawg]

WIP chapter of upcoming write-up. Don't ask about what its going into officially because I'm pretty sure don't know yet. I just was thinking about industry year 2000 and the 'Quake 2 Killers'. I saw this video for research, and after 5 mins it hit me: So cue that X-Files theme!

 

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Suck it Down
    The Original version of Doom even on the mysterious MS-DOS 386 IBM computers, back then even pentium processing was a luxury, let alone CD-ROM drives. Doom one is genius- here's why. Lets focus on the start, middle, and end of the game, namely the "disappointing bossfight" that is the first appearance of the Spider Mastermind Demon. Its a big brain on stilts that in a later IWAD, Plutonia, would be placed in difficult ways, such as in some bottleneck corridor trap or surrounded by other "hitscan" enemys that have bullets faster than light pretty much. Sandy Peterson created the map E3M8: Dis in probably a small matter of hours. Sandy was known for his "ugly but fun" level design style so players often questioned his competence compared to Tom Hall, the original creative director, and Romero, the "Best Mapper".
    Level Design like songs are subjective but people like the start of Doom better than the end of doom for good reasons. Sandy Peterson also did the boss level E2M8: Tower of Babel. A famous moment of the series, known for its atmospheric "map opener" and great music. The MIDI track starts spooky then gets funky as the player sees the hardest monsters in the game mangled as fuck hanging off the walls just like humans were the entire time. You open a wall thing to your dismay. Lost Souls. The most irritating monster in games and influenced a fps trope of really annoying small enemy that charge at you like honey badgers. Some games they even explode you, its fucked up. So as you slowly chip away at the big flying skull monsters, you see tons and tons of rockets. You hear loud stomping noises that sounds like some pissed off 'ultimate life form' of sorts that is really big and made of metal. Dear God! You are on Deimos, a real life moon orbiting mars, and you slowly watched the structure you started in (or missed the slow build entirely) on the seemingly pointless map screen. Peterson just did a power move that wouldn't be different from a Romero, even a Tom Hall idea. You 'circle-strafe' around the Tower of Babel and you notice 2 things. First off, damn this tower inst very tall is it? I think you are supposed to on top of a black tower the size of a skyscraper. The Second thing you see is an irate monster the size of a skyscraper. So what do you do? Your shotgun doesn't seem to work if only you had a second barrel or second gun on the gun. Your obvious choice is the rocket launcher because of the abundant ammo lying around. Its like the Cyberdemon was expecting you, Getting bored, killing his minions, watching the skull things fight like seagulls or pigeons and he just says fuck it and drops guns and ammo in the building and the sand around it. He challenges you to a rocket duel! HE HAS A ROCKET LAUNCHER TOO ITS HIS HAND! He can kill you in one hit if you aren't careful and swift. After like 30 fucking rocket blasts the bionic abomination gibs before your very eyes.
    After that fight, you can kill a boss monster in mere seconds and you can choose how to do it in E3M8: Dis because Sandy clearly knew it was a short map. Its MIDI track is rather repetitive and it shows. He purposely picked a weak track for the map because he was taking the piss right out of you. In later maps, boss monsters have access to teleporters only they can use on the map. Sandy was crafty enough to know it would be a much harder fight if the Spiderdemon would teleport around the comically oversized stadium fucking Romans would watch for fun. You know its not the end of the game, its a light hearted joke. The 'real last level' of Doom was included as an expansion pack for a retail market rerelease. Originally slated for "Doom Special Edition" (Same exact year their publicist announced 'Doom 3') and featured a brand new fourth chapter that was hard as fucking shit and American MyGee starts it off with a middle finger and later makes 'the most boring map in Doom'. He gets it. 
    Now we can talk about Dooms famous first chapter released for free thats right free in 1993. This was John Romero's "Thriller". Let that sink in for a bit before I tell you Doom's most famous song, "At Doom's Gate" an infamous video game composition made by a music lawyer that knew enough about sampling to get away with it. John Romero famously given him various Rock CDs as a reference and he accidentally made a song that sounds like another. A title track from a Metallica album to be precise. John Romero worked on the first map last but kept that exact MIDI track for that map because he knows Bobby Prince accidentally sampled "Master of Puppets" a thrash metal song about cocaine and its effects on the world. Most doomers don't realize this but Romero is a bonafide Miyamoto tier genius because he picked the right song for the job. It was the very first level. This ain't Mushroom Kingdom World One, Level One thats for damn sure. Whats the twist you ask as you pull your short grey hairs out. Before Doomguy opened the front door to the first level he popped in an ancient thrash cassette and snorted a huge line of coke before kicking some zombie ass. If you put that at the start of the game with any sort of cutscene or hint, America would have tried to arrest Romero at that point. Bet they didn't think of that playing Doom on fucking Super Nintendo of all things. He might not have been that much of an egomaniac at all. I don't care what anyone says about Romero anymore because at the end of the day, he was an everyman like you, the reader, and me, crazy uncle BDawg.  '
    I think Romero might have done that as a hint by using the song that way. OR that was the hint originally and he did not think anyone would search under the hanger. What do you guys think? I know its a dumbass matpat tier idea probably done before I just wonder about some of the cut quit messages idk. To think like a Romero, you gotta think like a Romero. To be a Romero you gotta bleed like a Romero.

 

Sources and videos and such for better understanding of this mess:

https://www.wired.com/1996/08/id/

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Quit_messages

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Daikatana

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Bible

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Category:Doom_pre-release

 

 

I know the links aren't very helpful I just don't know where else to put them. Call it BDawgs theory, call it crackpot, or crazy idk I just thought it was fascinating nonetheless

 

 

 

[Gokuma]

Heh, guy in the video definitely isn't used to metal, even though Metallica isn't really worth anyone's time when there's better, deeper, less corporate stuff.  But towards the end he talks about how the song is about drugs and he's seen so many people destroyed by them.

 

Got a kick out of your writing.  Great stuff!    Yeah, E3M8 is way, way too easy.  I like how Romero worked E5M8 in his Sigil episode.

 

I think the biggest problem with the Spider Mastermind is its pain chance.   It's not really high but it's high enough it's too easy to interrupt.  40 is too high for it(her?).   Should be either 30, 20 like the Cyberdemon, or 10 like the Arch-Vile.   It's understandable that it's more fragile than a cyberdemon with 3000 HP compared to the cyber's 4000.   Its/her weapon is really nasty as it's actually like a rapid fire shotgun I think.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Gokuma