The Dean of Doom series (companion thread)

[Sunnyfruit]

So this is a Youtube show from a "nerd with too much time on its hands", initially recommended by decino and that I enjoy quite a lot. Basically, it's a wad review map by map with pistol start on ZDoom, with one note for quality and one note for difficulty. It's still a pretty obscure channel so I wanted to make some publicity for it and ask for a general opinion about the show itself.

(no I'm not the guy, I can't even play anything but GZDoom for more than 5 minutes before emptying my meal on the floor)

 

The lastest video, Halloween-related:

 

The classic iwads reviews:

 

DOOM 93

 

THY FLESH CONSUMED:

 

 

DOOM 2:

 

 

[Cacodoomonic]

Yeah this guy is awesome. He's the one that sounds like Francis York Morgan.

[VoanHead]

I love this man's videos. He's essentially the DW Megawad Club, but better and much more compact and direct in his reviews. He clears out a megawad twice in a week, so his upload schedule is pretty consistent.

[DOEL]

Love this video series. It's up there in the amount of anticipation I have for new videos along with Coincident's UV-Max runs and Decino's analysis videos.

 

Though I'll be forever mad he didn't give Alien Vendetta's 25th map the praise it deserves. It's perhaps my favorite map of all time.

 

I hope to see reviews for Scythe 2, Community Chest 4, Nova III, Bloodstain, Epic 2, Lunatic, and Japanese Community Project.

Edited November 5, 2020 by DOEL

[Doomkid]

I found MtPain27’s channel as soon as it started - I don’t even know how or why, but I got a notification from YT recommending him when he had just 2 uploads. Really thankful because it’s a super enjoyable series so far!

[Egg Boy]

Yeah this is quickly becoming one of my favorite YouTube channels, I actually had an idea for a series like this a year or two ago, so it's exactly the sort of thing I like.

[GraphicBleeder]

Hm, I've never actually heard of this guy, gonna give a few of his "Dean of Doom" vids a watch. He looks pretty cool.



Update: Just got done watching his "Going Down" video. He's a very interesting youtuber, gonna subscribe to him, I'm interested in this "Dean of Doom" series he has going.

Edited November 5, 2020 by GraphicBleeder

[SOSU]

DoD has become one of my favorite Youtubers ever since i first got his Ancient Aliens review recommended to me!
I always wanted a Youtuber that reviewed WADs and, to be honest, he's better that what i wished for :D <3

[MemeMind]

I fuckin love his vids.
I dont really have the patience to play through megawads, so his videos really give me a sense of different wads. 

[Denim Destroyer]

I will have to check this out later thanks for the recommendation!

[VonHeer]

Love these videos. I find he is like a video companion to the One Man Doom blog. https://onemandoom.blogspot.com/

Sadly One Man Doom has been cancelled for the time being. MtPain27 is gonna fill the void.

[Omniarch]

Same as Doomkid, the YT algorithm just recommended one of his videos to me a few weeks back. I found the video (his Alien Vendetta one, I think) to be well written and edited, and since there is so little Doom content focused on anything other than mods, filled a noticeable hole in my weekly dose of content. Plus, he sounds like Rayecevik, or maybe Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Naturally, I binged watched his whole back catalog in one day.

[DooM Bear]

God damn it YouTube! Why can’t you recommend me stuff like this rather all the shitty life hacks and win/fail compilations!!!

 

Thanks so much for posting @Sunnyfruit! Looks like I’ve got an awesome series to watch through now :-D

[elend]

I enjoyed these as well, although I find his rating system more confusing than anything else. :p

[Biodegradable]

Watched a couple of vids and thoroughly enjoyed 'em. This guy's pretty good. Nice to see someone making videos about community WADs. I swear we need more Doom channels that put out regular videos like this.

[baja blast rd.]

While watching Mt. Pain's Dean of Doom series I often have thoughts about stuff, but commenting on YT itself isn't my thing, so I'm starting a "companion" thread. This is more of a public journal than a serious event, but if you also watch the series, feel free to join in if you want!

 

Personally, I'm not going to fuss much about grades. Grades are just opinion, and stuff like "you gave this map a C-? I think it's an A+" isn't especially interesting to haggle about in isolation. 

 

Also, I generally care more about whatever tangents and digressions the commentary leads me on than disagreeing about matters of taste -- I respect that people feel the way they do about things.

 

There's also no real rhyme or reason between which maps I picked here beyond "I had a thing to say that was at least loosely related to it." 

 

This one is for the Speed of Doom episode. 

 

map02: Mysterious Cove

 

"This eerie Darkwave debut is almost immediately reminiscent of the Mucus Flow, with its uncanny textural similarity and foreboding atmosphere. In fact, the Mucus Flow seems like the most pervasive aesthetic reference for most of the first episode, and it's odd that [the authors] never acknowledge it in the text file." 

 

I'm guessing it's that the Mucus Flow and some of its offshoots are so fundamentally foundational in Darkwave's style that his remixing of it isn't new to him. As an author, it's really, at that point, "him" as a mapper. 

 

The Mucus Flow's design motifs are kind of a palette that Darkwave000 uses, in some fashion or another, in... pretty much all his released output -- from Speed of Doom to his 3 heures d'agonie maps to some of the (more serious) efforts in his standalone darkwave__.wad series. Even when he's not borrowing the distinctive craggy landscape and liquid flows and giant blocky macrotecture and stuff like that, you might catch the underlying logic surfacing now and then in single notes.

 

I've long thought of that as a neat possibility that Doom, more than just about any media I can think of, allows for: a single great work being clearly recognizable as a codex to someone's artistry. 

 

Of course Darkwave *really* made the whole Mucus Flow look his own thing, which I feel compelled to say in case it looks like I'm accidentally painting him as a ripoff artist. Those are big shoes to fill, and darkwave0000 definitely mustered enough mucus to accomplish that task. <- note to editor, remove sentence before this gets posted somewhere

 

Something that I'm also going to think about at some point: "what *other* maps might be really well suited to that sort of thing, if someone was inclined." I've noticed that maps that surface in that way are often distinctive in their general look and vibe, but flexible in the exact specifics. They aren't too wed to a specific setting or mood for their identity. (But that could of course just be the conditions required for that emulation to be *recognizable* rather than the ones that truly make it work, so gotta think a bit more. :P) 

 

map12: The Meat Grinder

 

"This beautifully framed plasma rifle behind the bloodfall is a treat ..." 

 

Another thing that stands out in Darkwave's maps is that his secrets are sometimes these self-contained remote areas you warp to, like satellite regions.

In maps that are defined by one rich and thematically tight setting like Darkwave's often are, these little realms are sort of a "have your cake and eat it too" deal, allowing the map's theme to triangulate between additional vibes and moods without diffusing the cohesion of the core parts. It's a neat little device. (The effect of that is more noticeable elsewhere, like for example in map14. :P) 

 

I dig the pseudo-3D effects in this one too.

 

map14: Sledge and map26: Blessed Hellscape

 

"infighting" (yeah that was the only word I needed for association to start taking off...)

 

Infighting *sometimes* gets a bad rep when people talk about mapping. I think a lot of that owes to its very noticeable failure mode -- which I've seen a few people call "infighting simulators," or fights that are essentially all about standing around (or circling around) and watching stuff duke it out, without really being exciting. (So 20 barons and a cyb that freely move about a huge arena might represent an infighting simulator -- but in a well proportioned space that occasionally asks you to dance around the barons or take some out to clear space, it might not.) 

 

To someone who has inculcated that "on principle" distaste for infighting, I'd point to maps like "Sledge" and "Blessed Hellscape" as showing its powerful upside: you get all the bombast and spectacle of big, high-bodycount maps, without having to grind your way through just about every monster on your own. Since monsters are getting into it on their own, you can also take breaks from holding down the trigger. It's super fun to run around the opening of "Blessed Hellscape" and watch the count plummet. 

 

 

 

Dunno how many of the first 200 monsters I actually killed here, but it clearly wasn't a lot. 

 

From personal experience, it's not as easy as it looks to pull off this sort of thing in a map. What might look like a big messy stew can require a lot of fine-tuning in monster composition and placement to make sure that everything is exciting and satisfying -- and engagingly chaotic rather than annoying chaotic -- and the fun doesn't deflate like a balloon the second you reach some clear win condition, that new threats can always emerge to keep you off balance. These are cases of emergent behavior, because sometimes monsters exist, or are placed, not for their first-order effects (like hurling their projectiles at you) but to influence how other monsters move and shoot and interact, how the crowd flows in a space. 

 

And as darkwave does, it can help to sprinkle in some pain elementals and archviles and highly "efficient" projectile turrets to make sure there are clear threats worth pursing at any moment. 

 

Dean's Digression

 

the sentence that said "I think it's unfair that slaughter tends to imply mindlessness ..." 

 

There is also a potentially unfair thing going on with natural human perception: In slaughter, the looks of an encounter can often belie the amount of sophistication baked into encounter design. 

 

For example, a big messy brawl might look like someone haphazardly slapped it together, even if has a great deal of sophistication embedded less visibly -- every monster being just right, to play off each other and make fun/exciting things happen very often. By contrast, sparser, more pointillist monster use tends to *look* smarter more easily; it's easier to process it all and attribute roles to every monster in a fight and view it all as this tapestry of smart strategic monster use.

 

I'm not choosing favorites between those approaches -- both can be great and smart (and both can be not-so-great and not-so-smart) -- but looks can deceive. And since looks can deceive, the "rule of fun" is what we have to trust the most. (I also consistently like how much the reviews in this series tend to prioritize enjoyment over more abstract assessments removed from direct experience.) 

 

map28: Twilight Massacre 

 

"... Twilight Massacre is an illustration of the limit that slaughtermapping asymptotically approaches -- at a certain point the BFG becomes the only relevant weapon in your arsenal, and it's only so powerful ..." 

 

This is very true, and the main way to soften the negative impact, or even avoid them, is to place the onus of variety somewhere else: like, in the "threat profile" of encounters, what they demand in terms of movement and tactics and such from the player; in the sensory feelings encounters center around (cf. the glee of zooming through a bunch of zombies while holding fire in one encounter, the tension of being pinned down behind tight pillars against archviles; the surgical precision of navigating against cybs in a tight space; etc. etc. etc.; in having highly distinctive choreography; in... other things too. Despite the rep BFG spam maps can get, there are many ways to deviate from "samey M1-BFG romp that lasts too long."

 

And so part of why Twilight Mascara* is the one darkwave map I don't especially like in Speed of Doom is that it doesn't really do any of those. I still think it's okay-decent though, for other reasons.

 

*(...I clicked the wrong thing when correcting my spelling, but I'm happy I did because this is a good map name) 

 

map29: The Ruins of Kalnik

 

No direct "hook" here but I noticed I was speaking about mostly Darkwave maps so I wanted to add this one, which -- though visually and structurally straightforward, and lacking the atmosphere and spectacle of some of Speed of Doom's grander outings -- is my favorite map in all of Speed of Doom. It just vibes really well with me on a "game feel" level and I find it electric to play. 

 

For such a compact map, it sure uses its real estate well, and by the end it's quite varied in setups and choreography. Also, looking at the layout, this is *not* the map I would have expected to find a spider mastermind in.

 

^{Obligatory picture to break up wall of text.}

 

A lot of Joshy's gameplay ethos in Speed of Doom is "weaponized awkwardness" -- that includes ultra cramped spaces, slippery footing (in oldschool ports), dickish reveals (those archviles that port into the central temple the first time around :o), and inconvenient interactions (see, the likely accumulating mass of big corpses in the temple, making it *really* likely that the eventual final cyberdemon's rockets are really hard to spot when you're fighting it!). In this one and also map25: Death's Nocturne, Joshy's escalating body counts and bigger threats add, as a counterpart to that, more of a straightforward dopamine rush element. So the end result, in my experience, was "a lot of fun gated behind some work" and it had just the right balance of work and reward to make me really enjoy and savor all the good bits. It's a rare sort of map. I probably wouldn't like them quite as much if they were more consistently player-friendly, even if player-empowerment *might* (strictly in a sense of pure averages) lean towards being more my jam. Hmm.   

 

Behind map29, my joint salutatorian is some big mix of Darkwave maps. I'll leave it to the reader's imagination -- because distinguishing between lots of "A's" is hard. 

 

Overall Thoughts

 

I'm tired of writing now. Thank you for reading. 

[Biodegradable]

Man, I was considering making a general thread for MtPain27's videos so we could post about our thoughts on them as they come out, but I wasn't entirely sure. Nice to see I wasn't the only one with the idea. Cheers for making it rd, and also curse you for beating me to the punch! ;^P

[Jimmy]

Good thread. MtPain's content is a fave of mine right now.

 

Also the "spider masterchef" is the best thing ever.

 

 

Speaking of the SoD episode, did anyone notice the Dean neglect to censor a couple cuss words while talking about Poison Ivy II, his most hated map in the set? An editing oversight, or an expression of genuine, unfiltered ire? Either way it kinda makes me chuckle. :P

Edited March 25, 2021 by Jimmy

[Doomkid]

MtPain's videos are some of the best in the realm of DoomTube.. The man is a natural reviewer. I know this isn't adding much to the conversation but him reviewing some of my content on his channel would make me ecstatic even if he thought it was shitty overall. Reading his thoughts about the Rowdy Rudy wads for the DWMC was a treat!
 

On 3/25/2021 at 11:55 PM, Jimmy said:

did anyone notice the Dean neglect to censor a couple cuss words while talking about Poison Ivy II, his most hated map in the set? An editing oversight, or an expression of genuine, unfiltered ire?

Honestly, not knowing whether to expect a "beeep" or an actual "FUCK / SHIT" makes it even funnier for some damn reason!

 

 

EDIT 1 year later: There's an older thread on Dean of Doom, just gonna link it for posterity:

 

 

[omx32x]

his content is great and really reminds me of onemandoom but in video format

i think he was a bit too harsh on doom 2 but i can understand why

honestely his stuff is great

[Final Verdict]

 

Well, I can't pass judgement on any of this because somehow I was unaware of this mans existence. I thought I knew of most of the best Doomtubers (including our resident Doomkid. You need to make more content hint-hint) but I have honestly never heard of Mt. Pain27. Then again maybe I have, I'm barely lucid at the moment.

 

Also, thanks RD for putting me onto this. I'm currently doped up on strong painkillers and recovering from the fact I just had my left eyeball plucked out of my skull. I'm still not really sure what's going on around me, besides a dim awareness that my left-eye is missing.

 

But at least I can now zone out and watch some Doom stuff. It will serve as a relaxing (i.e minimal effort) exercise for my currently struggling and befuddled brain. It's resisting all attempts of higher/logical thinking. 

 

Well I have some Doomtube binging to do, so if you don't mind I'll bid thee farewell.

 

Edit: Gah, now I'm know why the name rang a bell (outside maps). He's part of the Doom World community. I remember -I think- talking to him a few times in threads last year, nice guy. I wasn't aware he had a youtube channel though. I thought my memory would remain safe and unmolested from these meds. Apparently that was wishful thinking.  

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Final Verdict

[forgettable pyromaniac]

I've been considering trying to make one of these ""Dean of Doom" but not cuz i dont wanna copy pain man" videos as video editing practice but I never got around to it.

 

been watching the series since about S1E9 and it's really damn good, though.

[omx32x]

1 minute ago, Final Verdict said:

 

Well, I can't pass judgement on any of this because somehow I was unaware of this mans existence. I thought I knew of most of the best Doomtubers (including our resident Doomkid. You need to make more content hint-hint) but I have honestly never heard of Mt. Pain27. Then again maybe I have, I'm barely lucid at the moment.

 

Also, thanks RD for putting me onto this. I'm currently doped up on strong painkillers and recovering from the fact I just had my left eyeball plucked out of my skull. I'm still not really sure what's going on around me, besides a dim awareness that my left-eye is missing.

 

But at least I can now zone out and watch some Doom stuff. It will serve as a relaxing (i.e minimal effort) exercise for my currently struggling and befuddled brain. It's resisting all attempts of higher/logical thinking. 

 

Well I have some Doomtube binging to do, so if you don't mind I'll bid thee farewell.

 

damn dude that doesnt sound too good

did you get into an accident and had to remove your eye?

[omx32x]

Just now, forgettablepyromaniac said:

I've been considering trying to make one of these ""Dean of Doom" but not cuz i dont wanna copy pain man" videos as video editing practice but I never got around to it.

 

been watching the series since about S1E9 and it's really damn good, though.

me too but im just lazy

[Doomkid]

4 minutes ago, Final Verdict said:

Also, thanks RD for putting me onto this. I'm currently doped up on strong painkillers and recovering from the fact I just had my left eyeball plucked out of my skull. I'm still not really sure what's going on around me, besides a dim awareness that my left-eye is missing.

Not to derail the thread, but that is fucking gnarly and sounds like hell.. :( Hope you recover well and that getting used to it proves easier than it sounds..

[Omniarch]

What a cool idea for a thread, @rd.! It pleases me greatly to see an established user open a 'dialog' of sorts with one of Doomtube's finest. In general, there seems to be a lack of high-level discussion about individual maps or sets thereof here on DW, which is understandable since there aren't exactly a wealth of opportunities for such discussion. The DWMC is more of a group writing exercise than a place for in-depth discussion, and there aren't really any other threads dedicated to specific sets.

 

I look forward to learning from this experiment, in terms of design and just general analysis.

[DooM Bear]

Awesome thread @rd. :-D

 

I too steer clear of YouTube comments but have been dying to discuss this series!

 

I actually find the rating system pretty useful personally!

 

For instance if I see a “F” with difficulty “X” I know it is probably a bullshit map. But if I see an “A” with a difficulty of “X”, you know I’m downloading that puppy the moment the video is over :-P

 

Also, gotta say I love the asshole pain elemental that sits down the back of the class :-P Mtpain’s style of humour has really come out more in his more recent episodes and I frigging love it!

[roadworx]

ooh! this is a great idea for a thread, i absolutely love his videos and having somewhere to have in-depth reflections on them would be great, because the youtube comment section is absolutely not the place for that

 

also, i gotta say - every single episode that comes out seems to be better than the previous one. it's great seeing him improve over time :)

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

Yeah I love the Dean of Doom series. I thought for a long time that the Doomtube community could use a channel in his style and it was good fortune that it landed in his hands. He's an extremely good writer. 

[Bauul]

I've also been enjoying his videos a lot.  This might sound kind of heretical, but there's a decent whack of older megawads that it's unlikely I'll ever find the time to play through myself, so from a "history of Doom content" point of view having a thorough summary of each megawad is a really nice way of learning about it in detail without needing to actually spend the time playing through it.