Tom Hall's involvement in E3M5 and MAP28?

[Plerb]

According to the Doom Wiki, Sandy Petersen has claimed that Unholy Cathedral was partially designed by Tom Hall. And COMM1, the map that became part of The Spirit World and was made during Doom 1's development, looks like it could be a Tom Hall map but I haven't found any evidence for this.
I'm going to contact Tom Hall and ask him if he remembers working on either of these maps, but I want to make sure I have my facts straight first.

[Xymph]

That edit was unsourced and has been reverted.

[Individualised]

18 minutes ago, Xymph said:

That edit was unsourced and has been reverted.

Yes, I was incorrect. The Spirit World was made for Doom 1 but it seems more likely that it was one of Sandy Petersen's earliest levels working for id.

 

EDIT: Thought that was about an edit to the Spirit World page I made a while back, sorry - I didn't make any edits to the E3M5 page. I could have sworn Sandy mentioned something about Unholy Cathedral starting as a Tom Hall map though (something about him not knowing what to do with all of the teleporters?) Classic case of Sandy Petersen misremembering something maybe, or I could be thinking of him talking about another map.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Individualised

[Xymph]

Your July edit was reverted at the time. The E3M5 edit/revert happened last week.

 

[Plerb]

On 12/12/2023 at 11:42 PM, Individualised said:

I could have sworn Sandy mentioned something about Unholy Cathedral starting as a Tom Hall map though (something about him not knowing what to do with all of the teleporters?) Classic case of Sandy Petersen misremembering something maybe, or I could be thinking of him talking about another map. 

It does mention it here (which was what I was refering to in my original post when I said "According to the Doom Wiki"--I probably should've linked to that). I'm well aware of Sandy misremembering stuff, however this in particular is just plausible enough that I want to find out for certain whether it's true or not.

 

I just sent Tom Hall a private message on Reddit, asking him about E3M5 and that very early MAP28. Let's see what he says.

 

Edit: I just got a response from Tom Hall. He says his notes are in storage and he can give an answer once he finds them.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Plerb

[Faceman2000]

18 hours ago, Xymph said:

That edit was unsourced and has been reverted.

Lol the source for that edit is literally cited elsewhere on that page.

[Maximum Matt]

What about how ol' Sandman said he had a hand in ALL the maps of E1??

[Xymph]

You can lol all you want, but contributors cannot expect that a reviewer knows or rescans entire articles when an edit is made in the intro. Perhaps in a perfect world, but not in busy day to day wiki practice. So yes, please always include a source in the edit summary, if not a cite in the edit itself, especially for contentious ones (and stock level credits are). Also, this issue was muddled by one person referring to an older edit just after another made an (unsourced) edit that was still fresh in my memory.

 

We had some back and forth last month on E1M4's credits, because yes, Petersen's memory has been known to be fuzzy at times, but in that case the claim was consistent since at least 1997.

 

For episodes 2 & 3 however, Romero's big 1998 table is considered the primary source, I think, and there Hall isn't listed for E3M5. That's why a side remark in a 2021 video can be mentioned in the inspiration section, but does not automatically lead to a full credit in the intro and mapper categories.

If Hall can provide useful input, then that would certainly be welcome.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Xymph

[Plerb]

Well, I emailed John "God" Romero, asking him which maps Tom Hall worked on, and he responded:

 

Quote

I thought everyone already knew the maps that Tom worked on. Here’s the list:

 

E1M4 — He made about 70% of the map, and I finished it

E1M8 — Tom started this map early on, Sandy finished it

E2M1 — Sandy finished the map

E2M2 — Sandy finished the map (Tom created the first crate maze)

E2M3 — Sandy finished the map (this was an early map in v0.3-0.5)

E2M4 — Sandy finished the map (in v0.5)

E2M7 — Sandy finished the map (this was the first place the UAC logo was used by Tom)

E3M3 — Sandy finished the map (this was in versions 0,4-0.5)

E3M6 — Sandy finished the map (Tom created the first rocket jump here)

E3M7 — Sandy finished the map (was in 0.5 but had technical issues)

 

So I guess we had most of the list all along, it was just missing E3M6. That probably settles it for Doom 1 at least.

 

After this I asked Romero about when Tom left and Sandy joined, and Tom's involvement in MAP28:

Quote

Tom left id in early August 1993. Sandy joined in September 1993. I don’t have exact dates.

 

I don’t remember that map. If parts of that map were used in DOOM 2 then I’d say Tom made it, as Sandy had a habit of using Tom’s maps as a headstart to get maps made faster.

While this doesn't outright confirm that Tom started MAP28, it sounds very likely.

Edited April 4, 2024 by Plerb

[Amaruψ]

If you're to watch Sandy's videos in which he discusses about his past projects, you'll notice that his memory tends to be rather hazy and he often misremembers things. In case of Doom, it's been over 30 years since he had worked on the game, and you're bound to misremember things after such a long while. He made the claim about the Unholy Cathedral being partially designed by Tom Hall in the same stream in which he cannot remember which maps were his from the scratch and which were Tom's that he ended up finishing (for example, he recalls that Deimos Lab was his map, which is instead Tom's that he finished.)

 

It's been a while, he's completely entitled to misremembering, but at the same time we shouldn't take everything that he says and regard it as an undisputed source. 

[Plerb]

31 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

If you're to watch Sandy's videos in which he discusses about his past projects, you'll notice that his memory tends to be rather hazy and he often misremembers things. In case of Doom, it's been over 30 years since he had worked on the game, and you're bound to misremember things after such a long while. He made the claim about the Unholy Cathedral being partially designed by Tom Hall in the same stream in which he cannot remember which maps were his from the scratch and which were Tom's that he ended up finishing (for example, he recalls that Deimos Lab was his map, which is instead Tom's that he finished.)

 

It's been a while, he's completely entitled to misremembering, but at the same time we shouldn't take everything that he says and regard it as an undisputed source. 

I know, but I felt like the E3M5 claim was plausible enough that it was worth investigating, even if it was ultimately debunked by Romero.