Qommander Ceen Kwestion (and bonus question!!)

[Maximum Matt]

Okay, was just watching a playthrough of this level (shoutout to MeatySpag and his shovelware playthroughs), and I was reminded of the tag connected to the Commander Keen 'enemies' - as we all know, when all the Keens in a level are killed, any sector with the 666 tag will open up.  This was all created specifically for a one-note joke in the super-secret level of Doom II, but of course can be used in any D2 PWAD.  And not just on map 32 either, like the other monster-specific tags, ANY level.

 

Which leads me to think, why didn't the ID guys implement that for all the monsters, in any level, then?  Wouldn't it be cool to have the ability to have a door open or a wall fall down at the end of a fight with a certain type of enemy?  Why do the mancubus and aracnotron tags ONLY have to be on map 7? Why do the boss tags only have to work on the eighth map in Doom I?  Am I missing something basic here?  It seems like the type of mechanic that would open up a whole new dimension of level design and enemy encounters.  Or were they anticipating the Pacifist speedrun category and didn't want to mess that up? If this is a dumb question, tell me, but it's been on my mind for a while now.

 

*******************BONUS QUESTION!!!!!!1!!!**********************

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand this one's been on my mind for ages as well, it's kinda random but I still cannot work it out, so I may as well ask it here - on map31 of TNT (the Egypt one).... where do they keep the cyberdemon??  I've noclipped around that bastard a zillion times, I have no idea where they store that thing, or if/how it's connected to the self-referencing invisible floor thingy its on.  It's one of the last level quirks I still don't understand.  Again, I'm sure the answer is probably obvious, but I'm still a caveman in many ways. 

 

Thanks for putting up with my cringey crap

Edited October 24, 2023 by Maximum Matt

[DavidN]

It’s odd that they made the boss specials only apply to certain levels, now you mention it - checking the level number is an extra step in the code, so it isn’t like it was quicker only to implement the specials on a couple of maps. They might have restricted them to prevent unexpected clashes happening in other level slots, but that doesn’t make much sense to me either - tags numbered 666 and 667 are memorable enough to remember something happens when you use them, and wouldn’t clash with the natural numerical order of tags until a level’s size was well beyond the original Doom engine’s capabilities.

 

I’d probably put it down to just that the levels for Doom and Doom 2 were mostly made in an enormous rush, and that it seemed easier to hard-code some specifics like when special actions are available and where secret level exits point to, instead of thinking ahead about how they might be made more generally useful.

[Stupid Bunny]

Aw man I hoped you had an actual question about the Commander Keen games :....(  I guess I'm the Commander Clown now

 

The Commander Keens are great.  I've used them in several maps now, mostly off-camera either to make timed doors (can even control door timing with difficulty switches this way!) or to make doors that require multiple switches to open.  It's nice to have at least one enemy that will trigger an action on any map, even if it's the most useless enemy in the game...

 

I think fellow rabbit @DavidN is probably right that, much as with the other weird idiosyncrasies that don't make logical sense, it was something they just did that felt convenient at the time, that just worked at least well enough for the initial round of testing, without being like "but hey is this generalized enough to support a future modding scene that Doom could have one day?"  Though given that the cyberdemon has the A_BossDeath codepointer already I still think they could've easily made it mandatory to kill the one at the end of MAP29.

 

I've always thought about making a mapset where one enemy is given the KeenDeath codepointer so that each map can either require or offer a bonus for killing all of them.  Cybers or imps maybe.  

 

TNT MAP31 has a weird hidden alcove thing in that big outdoor area with that obvious lone zombieman trap, where the cyber gets awakened and then just steps over a teleport line to the magic floating floor.  At least that's what UDB is telling me

[baja blast rd.]

5 hours ago, DavidN said:

It’s odd that they made the boss specials only apply to certain levels, now you mention it - checking the level number is an extra step in the code, so it isn’t like it was quicker only to implement the specials on a couple of maps.

...

Riffing off of this, an extra conditional sounds like a lot less effort than the extra mental work of making sure it doesn't clash with anything else elsewhere or have unintended consequences. Like, it's easy to say now that tags 666/667 wouldn't be used elsewhere, but verifying that or instituting a house rule to enforce it sounds like a lot more mental/organizational overhead.

 

Keens would be known at the time to be a map32 exclusive, which might have precluded the level check safeguard entering thoughts. Because of that, the implementations feel conceptually similar if anything; you're still "making sure this only happens on that level," just there's a different way of doing it. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by baja blast rd.
forgot a word

[Murdoch]

5 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

why didn't the ID guys implement that for all the monsters, in any level, then

 

Why did id not do any number of things they could have easily done with Doom? Simple. They never thought to do it because the precise use case never arose. All those actions were hard coded. Keen = 666 etc. So each use case would have needed specific hard code. This would be very messy. They could have expanded things to make it work in a more elegant way (similar to UDMF), but obviously never found the need to justify the effort.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Murdoch

[Individualised]

PlayStation Doom doesn't have the arbitrary "death specials only work on certain level IDs" limitation - they work on all levels and they even have separate tags for each monster that has a death special.

 

Why did they do it this way? No one really knows, maybe they had different plans for the functionality at one point. It was probably first implemented for E1M8 and maybe at one point it was considered experimental behaviour so they made it only work for that level, and when it came round to implementing the specials for the other levels and eventually Doom 2 they never got around to removing the check and instead continued the tradition. While id Software anticipated that Doom would be a popular game for modders they did not really make it modder friendly apart from how the data is stored, so a lot of stuff that should be editable is hardcoded instead. By Quake they realised that having the game executable only be the engine and making all of the actual game behaviour stuff editable is a much better idea so there's a lot less examples of this there. Things like level exits are customisable so you can make them point to any level (Doom 64 is the same, I think PlayStation Doom also has this but not sure) rather than having to mess around with different exit types for normal exits and secret exits, and things that seem hardcoded (like low gravity being forced on for E1M8) are actually just part of the QuakeC which can be edited.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Individualised

[Lila Feuer]

My favorite use of Keen is MAP32: Self-Destruct from Hell To Pay, but that's just half of the magic as voodoo dolls are followed up if you don't meet the goal in time. It's a standout set piece in an otherwise below average (very) partial conversion megawad.

[Not Jabba]

5 hours ago, Stupid Bunny said:

Though given that the cyberdemon has the A_BossDeath codepointer already I still think they could've easily made it mandatory to kill the one at the end of MAP29.

 

They could have, but every boss monster in Doom 2 (all five Cyberdemons and all five Masterminds) can either be avoided, cheesed with secret powerups, tricked into infighting with another boss or group of monsters that will kill it for you, or some combination of those. Every one of them is optional to fight, and it always seemed like an intentional trend to me, and an interesting design choice.

[Stupid Bunny]

I never noticed that.  It's actually quite a clever and vaguely hilarious approach now that you mention it

[Maximum Matt]

On 10/24/2023 at 6:46 PM, Stupid Bunny said:

TNT MAP31 has a weird hidden alcove thing in that big outdoor area with that obvious lone zombieman trap, where the cyber gets awakened and then just steps over a teleport line to the magic floating floor.  At least that's what UDB is telling me

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH THERE HE IS!!!! I thought he was tucked away somewhere inside a pillar or something in that main hall, thankyou!!

Those sneaky Casalis, putting a damn monster closet on the other side of the map (shakes fist)

[Individualised]

On 10/24/2023 at 3:39 PM, Not Jabba said:

 

They could have, but every boss monster in Doom 2 (all five Cyberdemons and all five Masterminds) can either be avoided, cheesed with secret powerups, tricked into infighting with another boss or group of monsters that will kill it for you, or some combination of those. Every one of them is optional to fight, and it always seemed like an intentional trend to me, and an interesting design choice.

If you're counting MAP07 then this isn't true