The DWmegawad Club plays: Doom 2 in City Only [vote now]

[Death Bear]

Well, we're at the end, and I've found myself very...busy. I'm slowly making my way through the wad, but I figured I'd share a little about Maps 13 and 33. Only a little.

 

It was an honor to get played and reviewed again, and it was really nice to see positive reviews for MAP13, not counting the bloody softlocks. I'll get those fixed for the final-final version. It's nice to see my work enjoyed, ESPECIALLY City of the Dying Sun. This was my most ambitious map of the grandest scale out of anything I've made to date. I stretched my paws out a little bit and challenged myself to try and make a big map that wasn't a slog, and it really was a challenge after spending the better part of two years making smaller maps. I WILL say that it was supposed to be much bigger, because I wanted the secret path to be a COMPLETE alternate path to the main progression, and lead to an epic alien slugout before going to MAP33. Magnum Opus Syndrome hit me hard, but I don't regret it. For time constraints, it was cut, but maybe we'll see what became of it one day. My biggest personal complaint with this map is that I didn't really account for backtracking, and I think I could've dealt with that a bit better. Thanks for playing!

MAP33 (named for a Star Wars reference) was meant to be a breather, and since I fancy run-and-gun, and this set was sorely missing it in favor of grandeur, I thought it would be enjoyed as something truly different. I guess it came off as underwhelming in context, but oh well...I suppose it would next to a whole bunch of big maps. I shelved the original vision for this, which was originally going to be my ONLY map...which was titled "Metropolis of Falling Stars", and was meant to be even more epic than MAP13, but smaller in physical scale. The problem was all of my time was sunk into the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get MAP13 finished because I spent probably 2 weeks massively frustrated as my map continued to break. I got to learn about nodebuilders and bigger maps, which I'm thankful someone pointed it out finally and fixed my problems immediately. So, yeah, all of my mapping energy went there, and I nearly burned out. In the end, it paid off for at least MAP13, I think, and MAP33 will just have to exist as it is. "Metropolis..." is another map for another day. 

 

Final fact: The Blue Key Shrine in MAP13 was modeled after this, which is a landmark here in my hometown. I've been here several times, and for those who might know THIS MOVIE that I loved growing up, it is actually seen during the training montage. The movie was filmed and took place here and I actually trained under and ran in circles with several of the area Martial Artists that were in the movie. Just thought that was a fun thing to share. This map actually meant a lot to me beyond just being a grand test of my mapping and something I am proud of, at the end of the day.

Cheers, friends! Look forward to seeing this pick back up again in June! 

Edited May 2 by Death Bear

[Magnusblitz]

5 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

I never participated in the club, but I've been reading some club threads recently from various years, and it really looks like the club used to be way more active in the past. What happened? Where are all the long timers? Have people got tired of it? It's weird considering that the Doom community isn't dying at the moment.

 

 

Speaking only for myself, a large part of it was just a change in time availability - I had been working part-time for quite awhile but finally got back to full time about 5 years ago and my participation dropped off. I've still participated in months where I had more free time and/or was really interested in the WAD, but unfortunately that's not the case every month.

 

In terms of overall trends, I could see it being a combination of things... I think @Celestin raises a good one, too much new stuff might splinter interest as people are already dedicating their time to other stuff. I think also as the club has run through a lot of the old stuff worth playing, and turned to newer things, that can work against it, because people might have just already played it and don't want to revisit it so soon. Also, newer stuff in general tends to be bigger and more grandiose than 90s megawads, though of course this isn't always true. There are definitely smaller mapsets, to be sure, but it can be hard to hit that happy medium between "too long to play on a daily basis" and "too short to have anything to say."

 

I certainly hope this isn't the end, as this has really been my central gateway to playing Doom and staying involved, but I'm also one of those oldtimers who's drifted away (though, I did also rarely vote, as didn't know enough about the choices!) So I'll just say big thanks to @dobu gabu maru for continuing to run things even long after he stopped participating himself.

[Li'l devil]

5 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

 It could be that we'd see a surge in activity if we covered ye olde classics again (AV, MM, HR), but I'm still unsure how I'd want to go about doing that. Like Horus & Celestin said, there's still a LOT more out there, and I'd feel bummed if people wanted to always go back to the community's most popular wells.

The way I see it is that there are a plenty of people like me who want to review only wads we've already played, instead of something new or unfamiliar. It's especially fun to tell stories about how you experienced the thing back then and how you experience it now. Problem is, a lot of currently active people who want to do that are out of luck, because they either joined or became active not long ago, so most things they want to talk about have already been played. So yes, I actually think revisiting some wads is worth it, especially since some of them were played over 10 years ago (wow!).

[LadyMistDragon]

Either way, I should be back in June since the long-map wads are over with fornow (probably not Auger; Zenith though since I'd rather take my time with that) and the monthly commitment makes it too hard to do wads with lots of large maps under current conditions.

Edited May 3 by LadyMistDragon

[BluePineapple72]

Seems that they caught the hiatus virus from our server @Death Bear

[dobu gabu maru]

On 5/2/2024 at 11:01 PM, Li'l devil said:

I actually think revisiting some wads is worth it

 

Very true! All good points. I think in my ideal scenario I'd have an "anniversary" thread up at the same time as a regular new thread—for instance, "DW plays Memento Mori Again" while something like "DW plays Auger;Zenith" is going on at the same time. Big issue there is I wouldn't want to split potential interest for both wads, nor do I want to run a second club at all. Could be something I save for August perhaps, the anniversary month for the club.

[Tiramisu]

Just for the record I like the idea of wad re-plays being an anniversary thing, it would certainly make them feel special!

[Xemonix]

On 4/6/2024 at 1:01 PM, Xemonix said:

I'm a bit late to the party. I'm hoping to catch up and finish MAP07 by tomorrow (might be slightly overambitious)

i was

[DJVCardMaster]

DWmegawad Club won't die any time soon as far as I can see, but it may benefit itself and the hosters if the club takes a some months of break.

32-map sets are finite, and short megawads to play or cover at the club are even a shorter set, making long, Eternal Doom type of megawads our only choices for voting so far, unless somebody finds a shady but interesting looking mapset to play hidden at the archive so we can play it. New mapsets still come from time to time, but those are usually journeys too long for casual Doomers to play. In my experience, I usually have little timespans of one hour or so to enjoy Doom maps, and I suspect most of us have to deal with similar timespans. Most maps in longer mapsets, just like Eviternity II, could take us more than we actually have in our spare time, and this, considering new mapsets, that thanks to the power of UMAPINFO are longer than 32-maps, it could make a regular playthrough take more than a month to end. 

So far it's difficult to find interesting 32-map wads that we haven't played yet, that also have short/mid-length maps so we can play at least one map per day, we have already played most of them. Heck, it is even hard to find a good combination of two or three wads that can fill our calendar each month, the 10x10/Heartland/Sigil II combo, for example, had some really looooong and challenging maps for regular players to just sit there for an hour and beat them. And this is also a problem, as this could hurt our reviews or our point of view/opinion about a map to just try and beat a long, challenging map as fast as we can, because of frustration.

If the club takes some months, I hope for it to come back stronger than ever, as it is a great piece of our community, and it is, at this point, something necessary so it keeps on going.
 

[LadyMistDragon]

19 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

 

Very true! All good points. I think in my ideal scenario I'd have an "anniversary" thread up at the same time as a regular new thread—for instance, "DW plays Memento Mori Again" while something like "DW plays Auger;Zenith" is going on at the same time. Big issue there is I wouldn't want to split potential interest for both wads, nor do I want to run a second club at all. Could be something I save for August perhaps, the anniversary month for the club.

Couldn't someone else do the 'anniversary clubs,' though, despite the former would seem to negate that?

[Li'l devil]

Someone should make a knockoff of Megawad Club and call it Omegawad Club, if you know what I'm refering to, hehe.

[Pseudonaut]

I haven't played much Doom lately, but I'll gladly participate if the club revisits some old classic wads. I might participate if the club plays some niche challenge/puzzle stuff.

 

It may be too early to vote for June's wad(s), but I'll probably vote for NoSp2 or NoSp3 when it's time. Hopefully, one of those will catch on with voters.

[Li'l devil]

I'll just vote for the only megawad I played that wasn't played here already, because I'm curious about how this club is gonna end up.

 

+++ 1 Monster Megawad (24 maps, I believe)

Edited May 25 by Li'l devil

[Celestin]

Since it's 26th already, I would say I'm interested in playing something through June. I'm not voting yet, more like throwing some ideas to discuss. Looking through the official add-ons list, there's Scientist 2023 and Syringe with 26 maps total. The former, from what I've seen, is an improved version of megawad from the 2000s, the latter is an episode by an all-star cast.

 

[Horus]

+++Garrulismo

+++Operation Biowar, Equinox

+++NJDoom

[Li'l devil]

Actually, NJDoom sounds interesting. It'd be cool to play one of the very first megawads and see how bad it is. So yeah, on top of my previous vote,

 

+++ NJ Doom

 

Edit: also, +++ Armadosia

(and +++ 1 Monster Megawad from the previous post)

Edited May 26 by Li'l devil

[Azure_Horror]

+++ Pirate Doom 2

+++ The Lost Magic

+++ Valiant (Let's Revisit the classics, 9 years later!)

 

As an aside:

What about allowing 4 or even 5 offerings per vote?

For example

+ + + Glaive 1 & Glaive 2 & Warglaive & Glaive 3 (4 pwads, 32 maps in total)

Edited May 26 by Azure_Horror

[cannonball]

+++ Pirate Doom 2

+++ Abscisson

+++ Nostalgia 2

[SiFi270]

+++Operation Biowar, Equinox

[Heretic926]

I wanted to make reviews for some WADs I played or will play in the future for quite some time now. And that time has come.

 

+++Machete (there's a lot I want to say about this masterpiece)

+++Nostalgia 2

[Pseudonaut]

+++ NoSp2

+++ NoSp3

+++ Operation: Biowar, Equinox

[Zirtonic]

+++ NoSp3

 

+++ Operation Biowar, Equinox 

[RHhe82]

Not sure if I’d be able to commit for the whole month, but:

 

+++Syringe (been waiting for an excuse to replay this)

+++Pirate Doom 2 (is this already released or in RC state?)

+++Crusader (I’ve already played halfway through, but why not. Thread link)

[Insaneprophet]

Im down for whatever but would really enjoy

+++njdoom

[Celestin]

+++ Operation: Biowar, Equinox 

+++ DIY

[Walter confetti]

+++ Equinox

+++ Deadly Standards 3

+++ Deadly Standards 4

[Plerb]

I've never participated in these before (I want to sometime but I don't know if I'd have the motivation), hopefully it's okay for me to vote.

+++ Equinox