MAP28: Why did The Spirit World end up shipping like this?

[wrkq]

Hey. So I'm pretty sure it's a bit of a dead horse, but at the same time I didn't quite found a previous topic aside of this decade old rant.

 

I just wonder if there's any consensus / opinions regarding the weirdnesses of this map.

A few of them seem like deliberate attempts at obscurity and making the whole thing feel out of this world.

A few others do actually feel like rushed mapping mistakes though. Or possibly "emergency fix in last minute, screw the logic"...

 

1. The "always open" door to yellow key room (sector 65).

This is kind of the most bizarre part to me.

The yellow key sector has remotely openable door sectors on both sides.

Fully equipped with DOORTRAKs on the sides and stuff.

 

One of them - connected to the throne-room - is fireblu on that end (so totally hidden as a door) and SP_HOT1 on yellow key end.

This is opened by one of the red-eyed-skull nonswitches by the ceiling.

 

The other however - connected to the guts-textured corridor - is much weirder.

It's stuck in the open position (8 below ceiling).

It's textured BIGDOOR5 as lower on both sides (while we'll never see the lower tex), and also as upper on the stairs side.

But missing upper texture completely when looking at it from the yellow key side so we have a small HOM, and would have much larger one with this door closed.

Most importantly, it is linked to be opened by the /other/ red-eyed-skull switch by the throne room ceiling, together with the hellknight and archvile trap!

 

It does feel like the idea was to keep both doors locked and let player choose.

You can either open only the fireblu door to grab the key, or open them both (but also release the HK/AV trap) to use a shortcut via the flesh/guts corridor.

 

As is, you can go through the fake wall and the guts corridor to grab the yellow key... but then you still need to go all the way around to cross the linedef on the stairs from spider room to the throne room to unlock the elevator back to the starting area and the red key.

(That elevator popping up is by itself is also quite unintuitive tbh, with no hint for its existence previously.

But if the player remembers seeing the yellow door behind the start, they'd probably check back there, eventually.)

 

2. The fake wall (linedef 152).

It hides the cave-ish area with spectres, which then leads to the infamous Shoot The Skin Texture room.

 

All of the spectres and pinkies in the area will wake up the moment you make noise in the corridor from starting room or in the big rocky room, but are marked for ambush so the pinkies will rush out towards you only once you get roughly in front of them in this corner of the rocky room.

 

This might be a deliberate hint - if you're looking in the right direction, you'll see 1-2 pinkies emerge from the wall (rest is already in front of it).

But there's a good chance you'll end up there when trying to dodge the archvile, and won't be paying attention to where the pinkies came from.

It might also be just assumed eventually you'll cross it by accident and then notice at least due to getting attacked by the spectres.

 

On the other hand, the two areas behind fake walls inside the guts-textured corridor are both marked as secret sectors, despite being much more obvious (you will be shot from behind them), while the pinky/spectre sector is not.

 

So maybe this was just a texturing accident?

 

On the third hand...

 

3. The elevator in the throne room (sector 54).

So, it is marked secret. That's a bit weird, to put it gently.

And kinda suggests secret flags are just as drunk as other features of this map are.

 

As-is, yes, it's technically not 100% mandatory progression.

You can grab the yellow key via the flesh tunnel, walk into the throne room unlocking the elevator to start area, wander around confused about the dead end, and return to the rocky room via the yellow-locked doors in spider room because you had the key already.

No need to activate either of the red eyed skull triggers.

 

It would make more sense if the yellow key would be in plain view in the throne room (FIREBLU door not being a door).

Then you'd have the option to "discover the secret" of the throne-lowered pillar and open the BIGDOOR5 for a shortcut, or go back the long way via the spider room.

 

4. The "shoot the skin textures" madness (linedefs 564, 573, 576).

Honestly, if we'd assume the rocket launcher and the flesh tunnel are meant to be secrets (but not tagged as such), this would kind of work for those two.

 

But I have absolutely zero justification for hiding the secret room behind the third of these.

 

I've seen the "shoot imp cage to unlock elevator" thing from MAP19 brought as "see, it's something the player should learn by now" in the old thread linked above.

Nope. That's just as unintuitive and illogical.

I actually still remember noclipping to the door in MAP19 circa 1995 because on every attempt I killed the imps with some projectile weapon which didn't trigger the hitscan trigger. Only after I got on the internet and back into Dooming in mid 00s I even learned there's an elevator there. (/tangent)

 

Teal;Deer

Something's just fishy here.

It's like there was some major bug somewhere in this map, and they just hacked in some ugly workarounds to make it completable on the night before sending the gold master to the floppy duplicating company.

[AtticTelephone]

Hmmmmmm, you wanna know what I think? I think levels like these used to be better, but they got corrupted, and Id had to stick with it. Same goes for Habitat, which probably got corrupted and so TNT had to get it out still.

[Diabolución]

I assume that you are already aware that MAP28 is basically pieces of two different levels glued together. This fact may explain, in part, its quirks.

 

If not so, check out MAP22 and MAP27 of d2temp-cleansed.wad.

 

https://www.doomworld.com/linguica/romerofiles/d2temp.zip

[AtticTelephone]

27 minutes ago, Diabolución said:

I assume that you are already aware that MAP28 is basically pieces of two different levels glued together. This fact may explain, in part, its quirks.

 

If not so, check out MAP22 and MAP27 of d2temp-cleansed.wad.

 

https://www.doomworld.com/linguica/romerofiles/d2temp.zip

Wait, really? This is new information for me to be honest. How did they merge them anyways? Back then you couldn't just copy and paste parts of different levels to others.

[wrkq]

1 hour ago, Diabolución said:

I assume that you are already aware that MAP28 is basically pieces of two different levels glued together. This fact may explain, in part, its quirks. 

...

Mind=Blown.

 

I guess we can't make too much of an assumption from MAP27's version of the Rock Room (Ash Room I guess), but the southwest part is there exactly the same (even including the 4 ambush pinkies, though no spectres) and there's no fake wall - just a cave entrance.

 

MAP22's throne room makes a ton more sense - the door to the north is leading to a secret area and SP_HOT1 is a matching texture (who the hell decided to retex the room to FIREBLU?!).

The glitched BIGDOOR5 side isn't there, but considering the tags (18 & 19) in the throne room remain the same, it may be very well that when this BIGDOOR5 side was being added it was accidentally hooked onto the same trigger as the trap.

Or it was meant to be openable as mentioned in my OP but they accidentally didn't set the height to closed.
 

Also crazy that MAP22 already had the Shoot The Skin room as mandatory progression.

Considering everything else was an obvious dead end, I guess player would try shooting random things faster, but still... someone sure have been way more proud of the gimmick than they should have.

 

Thank you for showing me that. If I'd knew, I sure wouldn't make this topic...

Sure looks like whoever slapped this frankenmap from pieces was in a great hurry, though.

Edited December 26, 2020 by wrkq

[Doomkid]

It's good that you did make it though, future people searching for answers on the bizarre elements of Map28 will have a succinct answer! Personally this map never stood out to me (other than being the only "real" Hell map) so I always chocked the oddities up to it being a twisted Hell dimension where nothing makes traditional sense. I never noticed a bunch of the things you've pointed out here though, and I've beaten that map at least 40-50 times in my life!

[ChopBlock223]

58 minutes ago, Diabolución said:

I assume that you are already aware that MAP28 is basically pieces of two different levels glued together. This fact may explain, in part, its quirks.

Looking at the early Map22, it's interesting in a way, though it doesn't look that great to play. The early Map28 basically looks like the very early iteration of The Spirit World that it is. I wonder if the old Map22 was what was intended for its title Catacombs? Consider the long series of tunnels and what could almost be described as burial vaults (filled with powerups and monsters), it would feel more fitting than whatever the final Catacombs was.

 

 

Just like final iteration, this early version is awfully generous with the powerups, particularly with backpacks.

I honestly really like The Spirit World for how weird it is, though the progression is pretty unclear, a lot of what you need to do are things which you'd be expected to do for finding a secret, like shooting those pentagrams.

[ChopBlock223]

44 minutes ago, AtticTelephone said:

How did they merge them anyways? Back then you couldn't just copy and paste parts of different levels to others.

I don't see why that couldn't be done, they did that a million times developing other levels, perhaps early shareware editors like DeepSea couldn't do that or only let you do that in the paid version (I seriously don't know, never used it) but I don't see why the guys at iD couldn't do that with their proprietary tools.

 

Seems obvious that Sandy cut out a bunch of stuff from 22 and then glued it into 28, so to say.

 

13 minutes ago, wrkq said:

Sure looks like whoever slapped this frankenmap from pieces was in a great hurry, though.

Well, Sandy made even more maps for Doom 2 than Doom 1, and in not that long a time.

[wrkq]

2 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

I don't see why that couldn't be done, they did that a million times developing other levels, perhaps early shareware editors like DeepSea couldn't do that or only let you do that in the paid version (I seriously don't know, never used it) but I don't see why the guys at iD couldn't do that with their proprietary tools.

 

Very much so. I started to say that it might even be possible to do with a text editor, but then I remembered that while the DWD format is text, it's literally just two sequential lists, one of linedefs (including side/wall/floor/ceiling data) and one of things, so it'd be pretty hard to just cut out the part you want, especially as there's no guarantee the relevant lines would be close together in the file.

 

EDIT:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/72509-more-goodies-from-romero-doomed-source-maps-graphics/?do=findComment&comment=1366295

On 4/29/2015 at 8:03 PM, Dragonsbrethren said:

DoomEd does support having multiple maps open at the same time, and you can copy and paste between them. I think trying to merge two dwds would make more work for him than just copying the geometry and things he wanted over.

/EDIT

 

 

2 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

Seems obvious that Sandy cut out a bunch of stuff from 22 and then glued it into 28, so to say.

 

Well, Sandy made even more maps for Doom 2 than Doom 1, and in not that long a time. 

 

I guess I was aiming for a "are we sure it was Sandy?" but it doesn't really matter and not like we can find out.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

I wonder if the old Map22 was what was intended for its title Catacombs? Consider the long series of tunnels and what could almost be described as burial vaults (filled with powerups and monsters), it would feel more fitting than whatever the final Catacombs was.

 

That's /super/ probable now that you mention it. It does feel labyrynthine, and all the flesh and skulls, well... fit.

 

Note that what became release MAP22 is MAP04 in d2temp with the layout basically unchanged.

(Now does the name "Focus" fit this old MAP04 more? Well, at least it has this compass thingy in the central room...)

 

 

2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I never noticed a bunch of the things you've pointed out here though, and I've beaten that map at least 40-50 times in my life! 

 

Been there a few times myself, but really it was the combo of that fake wall and this BIGDOOR5 complete with DOORTRAK which made me look closer at the whole thing and well... uh.

 

So, thanks again @Diabolución for revealing the big secret, and @ChopBlock223 for pointing out the Catacombs connection.

It is kinda fascinating stuff. And kinda frustrating.

The way these maps has been franken'd together is not even half assed work, it's quarter assed at best! :)

Edited December 26, 2020 by wrkq

[ChopBlock223]

1 hour ago, wrkq said:

I guess I was aiming for a "are we sure it was Sandy?" but it doesn't really matter and not like we can find out.

Well, Sandy is credited as making The Spirit World, so at the least he must have made one half of those maps, and it's certainly possible he made the other half. He does post videos regularly on YouTube, so he's certainly around online, I figure it could be possible to take some images of the Temp maps and ask him if he made both of them, and if he has anything interesting to say about them, perhaps he could answer if the name for the final Map 22 was intended for the original Map 22.

[Devalaous]

I really enjoyed the prototype Spirit World/Catacombs when I played through the Doom 2 proto stuff. Found it WAY more fun, and the highlight of the entire set of early levels.

[Orchid87]

At least this level has that badass music track. Reminds me of PSX Doom title track.

[Maximum Matt]

Nobody has mentioned that missing upper texture on the ledge to the 'grotto' area with the first arch-vile yet, it's pretty big 

[Gokuma]

I don't think any of that are such big deals.  There are some missing upper and lower textures in lots of maps that irritate me.  What I think is really inexcusable is that in Doom 2 v1.666 it has insufficient player starts.   There's only two DM starts.   Then in map29 there's no Co-op starts!   Imagine you were fortunate enough to play a 4 player LAN game way back in the early days.   You get to map28 or 29, whether you're playing co-op or DM, the game probably kicks to the dos prompt.

 

8 hours ago, Orchid87 said:

At least this level has that badass music track. Reminds me of PSX Doom title track.

 

Always reminded me of Ridley's music in Super Metroid.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Gokuma

[Maximum Matt]

Kinda reminds me of London Calling by The Clash

[Super Mighty G]

The cryptic shootswitch walls definitely feel like a Sandy thing. I remember when I was young I never beat this level legitimately because I didn't know how they worked.

[Uncle 80]

Map28 is among the top 5 maps in the Doom2 iwad.

[Cinnamon]

5 hours ago, Uncle 80 said:

Map28 is among the top 5 maps in the Doom2 iwad.

 

I agree. It's a great map. As with almost anything from vanilla DOOM, however, we as a community can pick it apart in the seams endlessly if we want to... We should never forget that Romero, Hall, Petersen, McGee, et.c., really didn't have any good reference as to how a map "should be." Which can be for better or worse.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

I've tried to like MAP28 several times and each time, I only feel more bitter. I agree with several points the OP has made as I personally think Spirit World just does not flow well at all (in some ways it's a little jarring, like a fair few hell maps) the biggest culprit is the fake wall being poorly implemented. Apart from the secret in MAP11, I can't think of any other location where you deal with a fake wall (and in the case of Spirit world, it's NECESSARY). 

[ZeMystic]

I didn't know there was doom 2 prototype stuff until now, definitely need to try these out.

 

I feel like a few of the maps in doom 2 are just seperate maps just put together, like the blue room in chasm that feels so out of place.

[P41R47]

On 12/26/2020 at 2:39 AM, ChopBlock223 said:

Well, Sandy is credited as making The Spirit World, so at the least he must have made one half of those maps, and it's certainly possible he made the other half. He does post videos regularly on YouTube, so he's certainly around online, I figure it could be possible to take some images of the Temp maps and ask him if he made both of them, and if he has anything interesting to say about them, perhaps he could answer if the name for the final Map 22 was intended for the original Map 22.

Spoiler

 

Shawn Green ghostmapped for Sandy, then he retouch, reskin, reshape the maps to their final form.

But you didn't listen that from me, ok?

 

 

[Maximum Matt]

On 1/1/2021 at 7:17 AM, P41R47 said:

  Hide contents

Shawn Green ghostmapped for Sandy

 

*record scratch*

Yousaywhatnow??

[spineapple tea]

On 12/25/2020 at 9:07 PM, ChopBlock223 said:

 

 

There is something really eerie about this.

[P41R47]

8 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

*record scratch*

Yousaywhatnow??

Spoiler

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2029077

 

[ChopBlock223]

If true, makes one really wonder which maps of Shawn's were finished by Sandy, and then credited just to Sandy?

[Koko Ricky]

The Spirit World is definitely oddly designed and that throne room always stuck out to me as a bit perplexing. But nothing and I mean NOTHING tops The Citadel (Map 19). To this day I still can't find all three keys. The fact that it and Mt. Erebus from Doom 1 still give me trouble is a testament to the importance of designing beyond your bubble.

Edited January 2, 2021 by GoatLord

[Maximum Matt]

On 1/2/2021 at 11:48 AM, ChopBlock223 said:

If true, makes one really wonder which maps of Shawn's were finished by Sandy, and then credited just to Sandy?

Yeah man, is this like a Tom Hall situation where one dude starts a map and the other one finishes it?? Are Shawn Green's fingerprints on D2, beyond Bloodfalls?? Do the official map author credits need updating?!?!?!!?

[P41R47]

On 1/1/2021 at 10:48 PM, ChopBlock223 said:

If true, makes one really wonder which maps of Shawn's were finished by Sandy, and then credited just to Sandy?

 

53 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

Yeah man, is this like a Tom Hall situation where one dude starts a map and the other one finishes it?? Are Shawn Green's fingerprints on D2, beyond Bloodfalls?? Do the official map author credits need updating?!?!?!!?

IT all belong to Sandy.

Thats how they wanted it.

[Maximum Matt]

Now I'm beginning to think that they were unfair to poor Shawn.  Was the water cube THAT offensive?!!?

[ChopBlock223]

8 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Now I'm beginning to think that they were unfair to poor Shawn.  Was the water cube THAT offensive?!!?

I don't find Bloodfalls a fun map, and I also don't find E1M9 be anything special. The maps actually credited to him are not among my favorites.