After about 30 years of playing Doom I can say that in my opinion Doom 2 map design is commercial crap

[doomlayman]

After about 30 years of playing Doom I can say that in my opinion Doom 2 map design is commercial crap.

 

Either level names don't match their design or advancing in them doesn't make much sense and anyway levels themselves don't make much sense as they are either too artificially organized or their design doesn't look like that of an advanced humanity capable of reaching and terraforming Mars, rather, just something unclear.

The only earth techbase levels are pretty much level 1 and level 2, which in and of themselves make little sense.

 

A post with a similar message was probably posted many times in the past but the purpose of this post is primarily to ask, now in early 2024, what is the alternative besided the Brutal Doom Starter Pack three episode Doom 2 alternative?

Edited January 23 by doomlayman

[Individualised]

43 minutes ago, doomlayman said:

Either level names don't match their design or advancing in them doesn't make much sense and anyway levels themselves don't make much sense as they are either too artificially organized or their design doesn't look like that of an advanced humanity capable of reaching and terraforming Mars, rather, just something unclear.

<insert tired old speech about doom 2's development, level order being shifted around, textures having to be cut for storage reasons etc>

Edited January 23 by Individualised

[Stupid Bunny]

What do you mean by "commercial crap"?  What's "commercial" about weird progression or texture choices and abstract design?  Was it "commercial" when Sandy used concrete textures and UAC carpets in Inferno maps?  I can see questioning a lot of Doom II's design choices, and do agree with many of those criticisms--they're pretty well-worn by now--but your rather clickbaitey hot-takey thread title has nothing at all to do with any of those criticisms (or if it does you haven't explained the connection).

Edited January 23 by Stupid Bunny

[doomlayman]

22 minutes ago, Stupid Bunny said:

What do you mean by "commercial crap"?  What's "commercial" about weird progression or texture choices and abstract design?  Was it "commercial" when Sandy used concrete textures and UAC carpets in Inferno maps?  I can see questioning a lot of Doom II's design choices, and do agree with many of those criticisms--they're pretty well-worn by now--but your rather clickbaitey hot-takey thread title has nothing at all to do with any of those criticisms (or if it does you haven't explained the connection).

I have edited to explain that I mean solely or primarily to the level design.

 

I find Doom 2 level design pretty much pointless, too artificial, too generic, too repetitive, and too poor in relation to game theme (a battle in a technologically advanced earth, some maps just look almost medieval) and I find the overall organization of the levels nonsensical; it's unclear where DOOMGUY is going and why ("The Gauntlet", "Tricks and Traps", "Barrels o' Fun" ,"Monster Condo"). I don't recall the in-between-episode texts to help with that a lot. Maps weren't even organized by episodes; the team could have done better and I need a strong alternative.

 

I just can't say the same for Doom 1 (excluding Thy Flesh Consumed episode).

Edited January 23 by doomlayman

[dpJudas]

When Doom 2 came out it seemed pretty clear to me that this was a filler game, recycling the Doom engine while they were primarily working on their next real game (Quake). They did the same thing with Wolfenstein 3D and the Spear of Destiny. In fact, loads of game studios have been doing this and many continue to do it to this day.

 

With that said, Doom 2 actually does improve the game significantly in many ways, since Doom 1 got way too few enemies and the lack of SSG makes the bigger bosses of Doom 1 a chore to kill. Some of the maps you mention were kind of entertaining first time I encountered them and the kids I knew found them funny. If you don't like the maps then just don't play them. There's endless of maps from the community you can play instead.

[thiccyosh]

In fact Doom 2 was so crap there is a whole community dedicated about constantly talking trash about Doom 2. Guess where you are right now

 

C'mon at least try with your ragebait :P 

[PsychEyeball]

The alternative is to play 30 years worth of fan-made Doom 2 maps.

 

Of course map design in 1994 is going to be primitive, moreso when the maps are expected to run on a 386/486 processor with single-digits MB of RAM. What are you even thinking?

[Andrea Rovenski]

3 hours ago, doomlayman said:

A post with a similar message was probably posted many times in the past but the purpose of this post is primarily to ask, now in early 2024, what is the alternative besided the Brutal Doom Starter Pack three episode Doom 2 alternative?

what are you asking with this part?

[esselfortium]

[Redneckerz]

3 hours ago, doomlayman said:

After about 30 years of playing Doom I can say that in my opinion Doom 2 map design is commercial crap.

Commercial crap is literally just there to provoke and the rest of your post could be majorily applied to Doom 1 aswell, unless you talk about level flow and even that's a stretch.

 

What is this thread trying to do?

3 hours ago, doomlayman said:

A post with a similar message was probably posted many times in the past but the purpose of this post is primarily to ask, now in early 2024, what is the alternative besided the Brutal Doom Starter Pack three episode Doom 2 alternative?

So basically your introduction of Doom 2 map design is commercial crap is not relevant, and is only posted just for you to ask about an alternative to Brutal Doom's Doom 2 alternative mappack?

 

What?

 

28 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

The alternative is to play 30 years worth of fan-made Doom 2 maps.

Maybe this is a controversial opinion but one could have a good discussion on whether or not the fan-made material for Doom 2 eclipses the original. In fact, i reckon this is a discussion done before. Personally, they are their own individual things. The Doom 2 levels are classic obviously.

 

28 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

Of course map design in 1994 is going to be primitive, moreso when the maps are expected to run on a 386/486 processor with single-digits MB of RAM. What are you even thinking?

There was Dominator.WAD, which is an early slaughtermap. Would have been fun to do on a 486 DX2/66 system!

 

Just now, Andrea Rovenski said:

what are you asking with this part?

Doom Layman.

[DNSKILL5]

This is getting old tbh. 

[doomlayman]

What I ask in this post is what are the alternatives to show an earth of humans sophisticated enough to colonize and terraform mars, beside the specific one I have mentioned?

 

Any recommendations for other Doom 2 re-imaginings would be great.

[jazzmaster9]

If its commercial crap? Then I want more of these "commercial crap" please

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I don't know why you guys are getting so upset, his opinion really is commercial crap - either the thread content doesn't match the thread title, and anyway the post itself doesn't make much sense as it's either too artificially organized or its design doesn't look like that of an advanced human capable of reaching and terraforming Mars, rather, just something unclear.

 

"I don't like it bro, it's too mainstream for my sophisticated taste"

 

Seriously, nothing about the post makes sense - I don't even like DOOM 2 that much, but how the hell you came to the conclusion that it sucks because it's "commercial" is beyond me. Get this, every game you can purchase is commercial! If you've been playing DOOM for 30 years, why did it take you this long to come to such a conclusion? And how did it take you so long to realize that very little of classic DOOM's map design "makes sense"? How is a community map pack an alternative to, specifically, DOOM 2? If map titles matching the map is important to you, why didn't you learn from the first DOOM? Why not just play DOOM 2 In Name Only?

Edited January 23 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Shawny]

I wouldn´t call it commercial crap, but as I person who played Duke3D and then Doom2...
I would call it underwhelming and bit disappointing. I will admit I am not the biggest fan of D2 map design, that being said
there are few really good/interesting ones.

And yes, textures and engine limitations, I get... BUT in my personal opinion there are plenty of questionable
textures that should have been swapped with something resembling buildings and other common "Earthly" textures.

Like maybe having more traditional final boss enemy instead of few huge dodgy textures would have been a good start.

Overall it is what it is.
The good news is that new weapon and monster roster is a stellar base for custom doom stuff for generations to come for "vanilla" mapping.

Edited January 23 by Shawny

[Maximum Matt]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

Maybe this is a controversial opinion but one could have a good discussion on whether or not the fan-made material for Doom 2 eclipses the original.

 

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

There was Dominator.WAD, which is an early slaughtermap.

[Jayextee]

Really easy to harshly judge a game released 30 years ago by the standards said game helped to create, from nothing, with no existing source to base anything on except its immediate prequel.

Fire? Absolute rubbish, mate. We've got fuckin' lightbulbs now. Can't believe those mugs used to light fires at night way back when.

[doomlayman]

36 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I don't know why you guys are getting so upset, his opinion really is commercial crap - either the thread content doesn't match the thread title, and anyway the post itself doesn't make much sense as it's either too artificially organized or its design doesn't look like that of an advanced human capable of reaching and terraforming Mars, rather, just something unclear.

 

"I don't like it bro, it's too mainstream for my sophisticated taste"

 

Seriously, nothing about the post makes sense - I don't even like DOOM 2 that much, but how the hell you came to the conclusion that it sucks because it's "commercial" is beyond me. Get this, every game you can purchase is commercial! If you've been playing DOOM for 30 years, why did it take you this long to come to such a conclusion? And how did it take you so long to realize that very little of classic DOOM's map design "makes sense"? How is a community map pack an alternative to, specifically, DOOM 2? If map titles matching the map is important to you, why didn't you learn from the first DOOM? Why not just play DOOM 2 In Name Only?

 

I don't quite get what you are trying to say besides of making a satire or a parody about me.

It didn't take me 30 years, I just now had an opportunity to post about it, and actually after finishing Doom 2 several times.

I think I did a lousy job in the post itself but my continuation comments could help to better understand me.

[doomlayman]

23 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Really easy to harshly judge a game released 30 years ago by the standards said game helped to create, from nothing, with no existing source to base anything on except its immediate prequel.

Fire? Absolute rubbish, mate. We've got fuckin' lightbulbs now. Can't believe those mugs used to light fires at night way back when.

 

I disagree that I judge DOOM 2 based on todays standards; I don't judge Doom 1 or TNT: Evilution the same way; I think their level design is great in comparison.

Edited January 23 by doomlayman

[Misty]

Yeah yeah, ok, it's just your opinion, mate. 

[esselfortium]

5 hours ago, doomlayman said:

 

I disagree that I judge DOOM 2 based on todays standards; I don't judge Doom 1 or TNT: Evilution the same way; I think their level design is great in comparison.

2/3rds of Doom 1 were thrown together in the two months before release, using whatever scraps they had sitting around. I'm going to refrain from commenting on Evilution.

 

I really don't see how Doom 1's levels pass your "does it look like a realistic representation of a place" test any better than Doom 2's (or why such a test would be important to Doom, to begin with).

[PsychEyeball]

4 minutes ago, esselfortium said:

2/3rds of Doom 1 were thrown together in the two months before release from whatever scraps they had sitting around. I'm going to refrain from commenting on Evilution.

 

I really don't see how Doom 1's levels pass your "does it look like a realistic representation of a place" test any better than Doom 2's (or why such a test would be important to Doom, to begin with).

 

Doom 1 didn't have a random crusher that was built for no reason but for enemies to crush themselves with! This is all playing like a bad Hollywood comedy where the monsters are so helpless that they die by themselves. In Doom 1, I feel terrified when I have to go in that realistic room in Phobos Lab with the middle wall that opens itself and where the lights go repeatedly dim even though it has no electrical equipment in it. Also, that Unholy Cathedral? I went to hell and I can tell you, it's got a confusing teleporter hub and this locked door that doesn't look like one where they store chainsaws.

 

Man realism is great.

[Downcologo one]

The Brutal Doom starter pack is great, but what a boluda complaint, huh.
"Oh doom2 it's very commercial" Suck my left egg and if you want the right one too

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I don't know why you guys are getting so upset, his opinion really is commercial crap - either the thread content doesn't match the thread title, and anyway the post itself doesn't make much sense as it's either too artificially organized or its design doesn't look like that of an advanced human capable of reaching and terraforming Mars, rather, just something unclear.

I am not upset, i am just telling OP how his post comes across.

 

In other words, i am explaining it in layman terms.

 

*snickers

 

30 minutes ago, doomlayman said:

I don't quite get what you are trying to say besides of making a satire or a parody about me.

Au contraire, it is us who aren't understand what you try to say, but when you start in the title that Doom 2 map design is commerical crap, something which is rather said absolutely, you better have a good reason to explain why. 

 

You aren't doing that. In fact, you end your post with the statement that up till then you made the post just to ask a completely unrelated question on whether or not there is an alternative to a Brutal Doom mappack that supposely replaces the Doom 2 levelset.

 

In which case, there is Doom 2 In Name Only. Tried that?

 

16 minutes ago, esselfortium said:

2/3rds of Doom 1 were thrown together in the two months before release from whatever scraps they had sitting around. I'm going to refrain from commenting on Evilution.

 

I really don't see how Doom 1's levels pass your "does it look like a realistic representation of a place" test any better than Doom 2's (or why such a test would be important to Doom, to begin with).

Didn't you know? Doom (and thus, by extension, Doom 2) was always mean't to be a realistic game. You never saw aliens in your backyard? Uhm hellooo, Roswel incident anyone?

[SiFi270]

7 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Didn't you know? Doom (and thus, by extension, Doom 2) was always mean't to be a realistic game. You never saw aliens in your backyard? Uhm hellooo, Roswel incident anyone?

That's exactly the problem! Doom has most of the things I see in my everyday life, but there's a distressing lack of aliens and backyards! How can you expect my suspension of disbelief to stay intact without aliens and/or backyards?

[Roebloz]

I do agree that Doom 2's map design is mostly complete garbage past MAP09, (And no GermanPeter, I don't just mean the city levels, even the hell levels towards the end aren't very fun aside from 28 and 29.) though the new monsters and weapon were critical to making Classic Doom as modded and ported as it is today.

[roadworx]

then go play duke nukem 3d instead of complaining

Edited January 23 by roadworx

[mrthejoshmon]

I find the abstract techno-hell of older FPS games like Doom very appealing.

 

If you come to look at it more through the lens of how games were at the time, if you compare Doom to what was out at the same time (this important, SAME time) then you'd see that realistic 3D environments were not as feasible with the software/engines we had and the one's that tried until say Duke, Blood ect looked like shit quite frankly.

 

This is unrelated to the OP, seeing as the OP seems unrelated to itself, I just want to say my words.

Edited January 23 by mrthejoshmon

[kwc]

I for one think there should be more commercial crap themed maps

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, doomlayman said:

I don't quite get what you are trying to say besides of making a satire or a parody about me.

It didn't take me 30 years, I just now had an opportunity to post about it, and actually after finishing Doom 2 several times.

I think I did a lousy job in the post itself but my continuation comments could help to better understand me.

Your "continuation comments" don't explain at all how you came up with the idea of DOOM 2 being "commercial". And why did you finish something several times if you think it's crap?