What would Doom 2 be like if Tom Hall stayed and made maps?

[The Doommer]

6 hours ago, GermanPeter said:

excellent level detail (which was already the case in Wolf3D)

Didn't Tom design the Swastika level?

 

(btw big fan)

[Individualised]

8 hours ago, GermanPeter said:

I see a lot of people here say that his maps would be fairly flat and uninteresting, but I don't believe that. Just look at the levels he made for Rise of the Triad and how experimental they are sometimes.

 

"Rocky Plateau" especially gives me Doom 2 city level vibes, making it one of my favorites. It's a large, interconnected map where you can go anywhere you like from the beginning. It looks extremely basic, but has nice detail here and there in the form of waterfalls. There are distinct buildings and landmarks you can visit, with some buildings being entirely optional. It's very much like Downtown, Suburbs, The Factory and Industrial Zone that way.

 

So I feel that if he had made Doom 2 maps, they'd be very similar to what we ended up receiving, just with nicer-looking buildings. Keeping the open-ended nature of them, but making them look more like real cities. I'd even argue that many of the more "out there" maps like Monster Condo, Tricks and Traps and Barrels of Fun would have existed as well, just not in the same form. Again, look at Rise of the Triad and how much usage they tried to get out of the moving walls and platforms, as well as the bounce pads and traps.

 

I think people are judging Tom's maps based on what he submitted when the team was partially stuck in "Wolfenstein 3D mode". Of course they're flat, they had barely figured out the new tools. A ton of Doom 1 maps are very flat, they never did anything like the Chasm or The Pit back then. But with more time and experience, I think he'd have found his groove and combined excellent level detail (which was already the case in Wolf3D) with excellent gameplay.

I think a lot of people think the unfinished levels in Doom prototypes are representative of how Tom wanted them to look which is... just no. I imagine he had a different workflow from John Romero and left full detailing to the last minute, while John Romero developed vertical slices of levels (see the unfinished DM8 for Quake which has a detailed starting area and then... nothing else). I think Tom Hall was the one pushing Adrian Carmack to create detailed textures and unique/specific textures for certain scenarios (things like tables with cards, lockers, whatever BROWNWEL is supposed to be); one of the reasons why Doom 1 in many ways looks more visually appealing and maybe even realistic compared to Doom 2, so we would have probably seen a lot more of that in Doom 2.

 

Something I want to do in the future is a Doom 2 megawad that keeps all the layouts from the original, but actually makes the levels make visual sense, with specific textures for certain instances. And slight geometry changes to accomodate these; nothing layout changing, but things like turning the weird giant cube of rock in MAP15 that can be lowered with a switch into a trash heap, which I think is what they were going for. But I'm not a texture artist, so I would probably have to get other people on board to make it happen.

Edited January 10 by Individualised

[uhbooh]

Hexen hub maps with Duke Nukem earth/city style and ROTT characters.

[GermanPeter]

2 hours ago, Individualised said:

I think a lot of people think the unfinished levels in Doom prototypes are representative of how Tom wanted them to look which is... just no. I imagine he had a different workflow from John Romero and left full detailing to the last minute, while John Romero developed vertical slices of levels (see the unfinished DM8 for Quake which has a detailed starting area and then... nothing else). I think Tom Hall was the one pushing Adrian Carmack to create detailed textures and unique/specific textures for certain scenarios (things like tables with cards, lockers, whatever BROWNWEL is supposed to be); one of the reasons why Doom 1 in many ways looks more visually appealing and maybe even realistic compared to Doom 2, so we would have probably seen a lot more of that in Doom 2.

 

Something I want to do in the future is a Doom 2 megawad that keeps all the layouts from the original, but actually makes the levels make visual sense, with specific textures for certain instances. And slight geometry changes to accomodate these; nothing layout changing, but things like turning the weird giant cube of rock in MAP15 that can be lowered with a switch into a trash heap, which I think is what they were going for. But I'm not a texture artist, so I would probably have to get other people on board to make it happen.

Yeah, even if you look backwards, at his maps in Wolfenstein 3D, they're the most visually coherent (which I made a video about, shameless plug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8sgpHy3bCo). So claiming he doesn't know how to make them look nice is silly. If anything, HE is the reason the Episode 1 maps look so striking and iconic, like you said.

 

Also, I think Civvie had it right - the cube in Map15 was meant to be a collapsing building, leaving only burning ash behind (represented by lava). I'm actually working on a video that's trying to make sense of Doom 2's maps like that.

[The Royal We]

I don't think I was clear when I criticized Tom Hall, because I thought more about the outcome than what could have happened. I don't think Tom Hall is a bad mapper at all, and his contributions to Doom and Wolfenstein 3D were fundamental. His contribution to the use of shadows in the first Doom is something that inspires me to make my maps. What I think is that he had a LOT of ideas at the time they were working on Doom, many that couldn't be executed the way he wanted. I imagine he could have done some beautiful visual storytelling like he did in Wolfenstein 3D, but I feel that many of the ideas he had would be cut out and fitted into an instruction manual. And that would have been frustrating to the point where I can't imagine him doing a job willingly. Working at id at that time must have been hell for him.

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

There would have been a Town Hall themed level named The Tom Hall 

[Maximum Matt]

Hmmmmmm..... now THAT'S an idea for an episode.....

The Sandy Petersen

The American McGulch

Shawn's GreenZone

Romerosphere

Secret levels can be The Super Dario Bros.

[Stupid Bunny]

I've always been of the mind that Tom was gifted in the language of environmental storytelling and that this still shows in a lot of aspects of Doom 1 that get overlooked sometimes--the map screens being an obvious one, of course little things like the playing cards and microwaves and such seen in the alphas.  One of the reasons Commander Keen is my other favorite game series is how much, in a simple, punchy platformer, you can get a feel for the world around you just from the map, from the little details and easter eggs and named places and backgrounds that all made you feel like you were somewhere, not just mastering a game but exploring a little piece of a universe that was bigger than the one on your screen, all without any cinematics or NPCs or anything like that.

 

Doom II still has some of that but a lot of it are just "level" levels, I guess, cool gameplay concepts without a conceptual glue holding them together.  It's a lot more compelling to be like "yes, I'm in an unholy cathedral!  I wonder how the demons worship here?  What is all this for?  Look at those fiery stained-glass-like runes, what could they mean?" than "yes, I'm in the barrel part of hell...with the barrels...of fun.  Most immersive experience since where all those tricks and traps were."  It's not that I'm saying Unholy Cathedral is a better map (or even that good to begin with), but the little fact of it trying to be something, somewhere, makes it a lot more interesting to me personally and brings me back to it more often than I would if it were otherwise.

Edited January 12 by Stupid Bunny

[A339]

On 1/9/2024 at 12:19 PM, The Royal We said:

After Tom Hall left id Software, hiring Petersen gave Doom a great makeover, both in the aesthetic and narrative sense. The game has very much set aside the militarized aura based on the movie Alien and has taken on a cosmic horror feel. A Lovecraft fanatic and aware of the game's technical limitations, Petersen still gave the game a very narrative tone, even without the use of cutscenes or supporting text (as Tom Hall wanted). 

 

Lovecraftian horror lies in what is not seen, in the indescriptive, so Petersen used and abused the play of light and shadows, abstract textures, mysterious layouts that transform the map into the monster itself. Doomguy is, as in the cosmic horror novels, a blank character in which the player can incorporate his own feelings. Doom is a narrative told in images and empty spaces that instigate the player's imagination, and for this reason (and many others) it is a game that has much more story than many players realize. 

A few examples:
- Halls of the Damned (E2M6), by Sandy Petersen, is possibly based on Lovecraft's short story The Nameless City (1921), which also places the player in an environment where the main danger factor is darkness.
- Tower of Babel (E2M8) is another of Peterson's parallels with Lovecraft.  At the end of At the Mountains of Madness (1936), the narrator finds mutilated bodies of creatures he previously thought were responsible for the deaths of his companions; in the last level of the second episode of Doom, the player immediately comes across torn-up bodies of four Barons of Hell, indicating that a bigger monster is lurking around.

- Mt. Erebus (E3M6) is a direct reference to Mount Erebus, site of the magnificent lost city in At the Mountains of Madness.
 

I think everything went in the right direction: Tom Hall's ideas were incompatible with the technology at the time (and remained so for years, as we can see in Rise of the Triad). If Tom Hall had continued and Sandy Petersen hadn't been hired, the game would probably have been an improved version of Wolfenstein. The game would have possibly been more focused on science fiction (with a grand, meh narrative), while the cosmic horror would be noted more for indirect references to Lovecraftian works such as Alien, Evil Dead I & II and Dungeons and Dragons.

 

 

Great post.

 

E2M6 is my favorite map in the original Doom. I don't think it would've been possible to make something like that without Sandy. It's completely non-linear in what way you want to tackle it, and first time playing, you more than likely went through that maze without the night vision goggles, which makes it a scary experience.

 

That is the map I point to when people claim that Doom was just all fast paced action and didn't have horror elements.

[Koko Ricky]

I think the community would have had a far more robust set of assets to work with. Given the cut material that's surfaced, we would likely have had more variation in props, textures, and themes. There would probably be more Hexen/Heretic-adjacent things to utilize as well. 

[_sink]

i misread the first post as 'if Tom Hall stayed and made all the maps' and lol'd

[Maximum Matt]

On 1/13/2024 at 2:26 AM, Stupid Bunny said:

One of the reasons Commander Keen is my other favorite game series is how much, in a simple, punchy platformer, you can get a feel for the world around you just from the map, from the little details and easter eggs and named places and backgrounds that all made you feel like you were somewhere, not just mastering a game but exploring a little piece of a universe that was bigger than the one on your screen, all without any cinematics or NPCs or anything like that.

There was that one Keen game that wizards pacing in certain parts of the level, that when you came up to them they'd tell you something via textbox - surely that counts as NPCs?

[Stupid Bunny]

^Yeah, I suppose there’s a few…there’s them, the Vorticon Elders, Princess Lindsey like twice, a nice chat with Mortimer himself…the Grabbiter?…so I guess the “no NPCs or cinematics” claim was overstated. They’re minor, and brief, but they’re there and definitely contribute to that sense of a thick world that I mentioned.

[roadworx]

On 1/10/2024 at 2:55 PM, GermanPeter said:

Yeah, even if you look backwards, at his maps in Wolfenstein 3D, they're the most visually coherent (which I made a video about, shameless plug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8sgpHy3bCo). So claiming he doesn't know how to make them look nice is silly. If anything, HE is the reason the Episode 1 maps look so striking and iconic, like you said.

tbh tom hall gets tossed aside way too often - the guy was incredibly important to the development of doom, even outside of the doom bible. he helped create a lot of the visual design, he made sure that there was a greater variety of enemies, and he fought hard to get a lot of stuff into doom that we rely pretty heavily on nowadays, like teleporters, secrets, and the level-by-level structure instead of one big thing like carmack wanted. it sucks that people just see him as some sort of in-the-background guy who didn't do a whole lot, because he was vital to making doom, well...doom.

 

it's nice to see him get more recognition lately. he got snubbed hard during doom's development

[GermanPeter]

6 hours ago, roadworx said:

tbh tom hall gets tossed aside way too often - the guy was incredibly important to the development of doom, even outside of the doom bible. he helped create a lot of the visual design, he made sure that there was a greater variety of enemies, and he fought hard to get a lot of stuff into doom that we rely pretty heavily on nowadays, like teleporters, secrets, and the level-by-level structure instead of one big thing like carmack wanted. it sucks that people just see him as some sort of in-the-background guy who didn't do a whole lot, because he was vital to making doom, well...doom.

 

it's nice to see him get more recognition lately. he got snubbed hard during doom's development

It's also noticeable when you look at Rise of the Triad. The game is brimming with personality in every corner, and is a ton of fun to play. The only places where it falters is in the overall gameplay, which feels less like Doom and more like Wolfenstein 3D 2 (which was how the game was first conceived). So it showed Tom Hall knew what he was on about when it comes to the design of a game, just less so when it comes to the programming.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Like Rise of the Triad maps?

[Individualised]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:55 PM, GermanPeter said:

Also, I think Civvie had it right - the cube in Map15 was meant to be a collapsing building, leaving only burning ash behind (represented by lava). I'm actually working on a video that's trying to make sense of Doom 2's maps like that.

Just want to say that I'm really excited for this. I hope you take a look at the early levels too (as well as the early level order), because most of the levels had just switched to their final spots by that point and, some still have remanents from their original placements in the game, which explains a lot of the weirdness and uncertainty of certain elements in Doom 2's final maps. One thing I realised recently is, after remembering that Nirvana was originally a city level, I am pretty sure that level was originally meant to be a movie theatre. You might recognise what I mean just by me saying that; there's an area that looks suspiciously like an edited version of what could have been a cinema screen with seats.

[GermanPeter]

1 hour ago, Individualised said:

Just want to say that I'm really excited for this. I hope you take a look at the early levels too (as well as the early level order), because most of the levels had just switched to their final spots by that point and, some still have remanents from their original placements in the game, which explains a lot of the weirdness and uncertainty of certain elements in Doom 2's final maps. One thing I realised recently is, after remembering that Nirvana was originally a city level, I am pretty sure that level was originally meant to be a movie theatre. You might recognise what I mean just by me saying that; there's an area that looks suspiciously like an edited version of what could have been a cinema screen with seats.

Unfortunately, the video will be already 30 minutes long at least, so there's not much time to discuss the original order :D I try to look at these maps as they are right now, within the context of the final game. So even though Refueling Base was a Doom 1 map and Nirvana initially came sooner, I judge them in the order they appear.

 

I don't think Nirvana is a movie theater, though. Almost all city maps have a theme of being broken in some way, with collapsed floors and caved-in ceilings. The part you're talking about is slanted to one side because of that. But you're gonna see that in a week or so :)

[Maximum Matt]

8 hours ago, Individualised said:

One thing I realised recently is, after remembering that Nirvana was originally a city level, I am pretty sure that level was originally meant to be a movie theatre. You might recognise what I mean just by me saying that; there's an area that looks suspiciously like an edited version of what could have been a cinema screen with seats.

 

6 hours ago, GermanPeter said:

I don't think Nirvana is a movie theater, though. Almost all city maps have a theme of being broken in some way, with collapsed floors and caved-in ceilings. The part you're talking about is slanted to one side because of that. But you're gonna see that in a week or so :)

Wow, you got me thinking of Nirvana now!!! Very interesting....

I can definitely see both theories - I've totally seen loads of '94-'95 levels that try to simulate cinema rooms, with the large steps that represent the seating, usually in front of a wall with a scrolling sky texture :-)

And the 'ruins' theory - I can see that too, like the slime room with all the rock islands that have enemies on them, or that room with all the shotgunners and revenants that's got the one wall that 'crumbles' down.

[nicolas monti]

Some maps would be better, with more identity I think. Take for example the uniqueness of E2M2, E2M4 and E2M7.

Also Tom was prone to human structures which fit the doom2 theme, specially the city episode.

 

[GermanPeter]

5 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

 

Wow, you got me thinking of Nirvana now!!! Very interesting....

I can definitely see both theories - I've totally seen loads of '94-'95 levels that try to simulate cinema rooms, with the large steps that represent the seating, usually in front of a wall with a scrolling sky texture :-)

And the 'ruins' theory - I can see that too, like the slime room with all the rock islands that have enemies on them, or that room with all the shotgunners and revenants that's got the one wall that 'crumbles' down.

I really don't want to say a lot right now, but this makes way more sense in the context of my video. Hopefully I can get it out soon!

[Amaruψ]

I'll be honest, I think that the game would've fared far better and in turn, aged far better than it has now if Hall had stayed on the team. 

 

Along with John Romero and American McGee, I'd say that Tom's work is quite incredible. The planned out set-pieces and environmental storytelling with details was the man's bread and butter. Even in a primitive game like Wolfenstein 3D, you can easily distinguish Hall's maps from John's through how much of detail that he tried to put in, making an otherwise maze made out of bricks feel more like a real place. I've read a lot of negativity surrounding Hall's work here on the forums, judging from all of the old posts that I've come across. The general sentiment being that his work was rather "bland" and "blocky", which is... I wouldn't lie, it's seriously quite funny. It's like judging the taste of a dish before the chef has cooked it. People judging Tom's maps look at them in their alpha stage before Sandy's touch-ups, a stage where the engine is still being developed and the artists are still making textures. Of course, with that early in development I'd definitely say that one's work would come off looking more bland than necessary. Hell, even the segs count was originally 128 only, and was only later bumped to 256, I'm not even sure if that count was even low during the engine's development stages. This was very unfriendly for creating intricate and detailed maps, something that isn't Tom's fault. For the textures, even Sandy himself cites that Tom created maps with only a single texture, because the artists yet have to supply them with the much needed sets.

 

These sentiments are exceptionally hilarious when John's own maps are blocky in Episode 1. They only look better because they held back until they've finished the engine to harness a majority of its strengths in the first episode, Sandy's own words. I would've loved to see how Tom's maps came out to be if he would've stayed on the team and actually had time to finish his maps when the engine was fully complete. And no, Sandy's touch-ups don't count and I think he did more harm than good to Hall's maps with nonsensical texturing. 

 

Doom II feels more unpolished as a result and the maps are loosely connected, which makes it feel as if it was the first ever community project wad. Given that John has now made Sigil and Sigil II, I'd love to hear if Tom's interested in making maps for Doom II again too. 

[Faceman2000]

On 1/8/2024 at 10:36 PM, Faceman2000 said:

I feel it’s safe to assume Tom’s Doom 2 maps had he stayed aboard would’ve been radically different from his work in the Doom alphas.

Now that I’ve learned Tom started E3M6 before he left, I feel this statement is truer than I knew it was when I first said it. E3M6 is such a massive departure from everything we know he did before, and so the Tom who left id was clearly making very different levels than we saw in the alphas.

 

One can only hope more prerelease versions of maps see the light of day sometime so we can get more insight into who did what and how things evolved.

[Amaruψ]

21 minutes ago, Faceman2000 said:

Now that I’ve learned Tom started E3M6 before he left, I feel this statement is truer than I knew it was when I first said it. E3M6 is such a massive departure from everything we know he did before, and so the Tom who left id was clearly making very different levels than we saw in the alphas.

 

One can only hope more prerelease versions of maps see the light of day sometime so we can get more insight into who did what and how things evolved.

 

E3M6? Mt. Erebus was designed by Sandy from start to finish. 

[Individualised]

8 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

 

E3M6? Mt. Erebus was designed by Sandy from start to finish. 

According to John Romero, it's a Tom Hall map finished by Sandy.

[Amaruψ]

3 minutes ago, Individualised said:

According to John Romero, it's a Tom Hall map finished by Sandy.

 

That's news to me, it's always been cited as Sandy's own map. You learn something new everyday.

 

[Individualised]

4 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

 

That's news to me, it's always been cited as Sandy's own map. You learn something new everyday.

 

As of recent I'm starting to believe more and more that Doom's development was a lot more convoluted than is made out. I wouldn't be surprised if all 3 designers touched most of the maps at least once. A lot of things former id Software employees come out with just don't add up. More recently it was discovered that E1M4 had some work done to it by Sandy for example; it's the only level we can now confirm that all 3 designers worked on.

Edited February 5 by Individualised

[Amaruψ]

I could get behind this idea. It's the similar case as Dead Simple, where the initial version in the beta was always cited as Sandy's, but he denies any involvement. 

 

(Though I'm sure he might be forgetting, since the beta one screams of his mapping style.

Edited February 5 by Amaruψ

[Individualised]

4 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

I could get behind this idea. It's the similar case as Dead Simple, where the initial version in the beta was always cited as Sandy's, but he denies any involvement. 

 

(Though I'm sure he might be forgetting, since the beta one screams of his mapping style.

Just wait til you see Doom 1 The Spirit World. Who knows if that's a Sandy or a Tom map. It resembles Tom Hall's work more than it does Sandy Petersen's early work to me, but others disagree.

[Plerb]

Is the exact day Sandy joined id Software known? DoomWiki gives a loose 10 weeks before Doom's release (which is uncited), which would be around late September to early October, not giving him much time to map before the release of the press release beta on October 4th, which has a nearly complete E3M5. This gives three possibilities: either he made the entirety of E3M5 from start to finish in just a few days, Tom Hall started the map and Sandy only finished it up after joining, or the timeline DoomWiki provides is inaccurate. Tom Hall starting it feels like the most likely scenario to me.

 

More evidence pointing to it being started by Tom is this sketch by him, showing a map labeled "The Unholy Shrine". At the very least, he almost certainly came up with the map's concept.