Explanation of Doom levels?

[Doomguy #876]

Is there a list that explains what every level in doom represents? Like in Doom 2, the suburbs level, is it really a suburbs on earth or what?

[GreyGhost]

None that I know of. Apart from being set at some indeterminate point in the future the levels are a bit too abstract to say with any certainty where they're set - apart from the Wolfenstein maps, they're obviously set in a Nazi infested castle.

[Doomguy #876]

It's be cool if someone made a TC that re-imagines all the levels from all the doom games so they make sense.

[Bloodshedder]

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/62339-doom-2-in-name-only/

[bcwood16]

Well Doom Ascension is messing about with stuff like that. All the levels are being re-made along with all 3D assets.

The levels should also be populated with 3D pops such as pipes and stuff that should help create unique feels for each map. Also along with signs that should all help with identity.

Its really early days for all that though, and obviously making all the 3D monsters and stuff is priority.

However, I guess you could argue that Doom 1 maps made more sense them Doom 2 maps...but its a start :)

[Jayextee]

- Entryway
- Underhalls
- The Gantlet
- Waste Tunnels
- The Crusher
- Refueling Base
- The Factory
- Downtown
- Industrial Zone
- The Courtyard
- The Citadel
- Abandoned Mines

All of these Doom II levels are plausible enough as to explanations of what kind of locale they are, and look the part regarding their name.

That's more than enough for me, I kinda like the surreal ones.

[Deleted_Account]

The levels in the Doom series are abstract, so it's best to use your imagination. BTW, where is the Hangar in e1m1?

[GreyGhost]

Piper Maru said:

BTW, where is the Hangar in e1m1?

Probably on the other side of the door you have your back to when starting the level.

[Doomtodeath]

You can tell by the part of the game, Since the three parts contain three different locations.

Part 1:
U.A.C Space Base

Part 2:
Planet Earth

Part 3:
Hell

[Marnetmar]

I believe 40oz did some interpretations of Doom levels a while back as stories. I'll edit this post with the links if I can find them.

EDIT:

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/fan-fics-fan-pics/52068-doom-in-my-eyes-slough-of-despair/

Here's one, I believe he did one for E2M1 as well, but I can't find it.

[_bruce_]

They're purely abstract, thank god, which renders them timeless.

40oz 's take on this matter is pretty cool nonetheless.

[Deleted_Account]

What exactly are The Inmost Dens? Oh Doom and your abstraction lol.

[Marnetmar]

The mancaves deepest within the suburb's basements.

[Dragonsbrethren]

What was hell mining in The Abandoned Mines, and why were they abandoned? I'm guessing only the mining operation was abandoned, since there are still plenty of former humans and demons lurking within them.

[Xaser]

The Running Xasertheory: The Abandoned Mines and Inmost Dens were swapped for some reason, because neither of them makes any thematic sense in their final resting places. :P

[Alfonzo]

Countertheory to Xaser's perfectly reasonable supposition: The Inmost Dens is the old part of the city, similar to the sort you would see in European cities like Bruges or Cologne. The Abandoned Mines is refuse from Earth's surface - the remnants of Earthly domain that got sucked in when the portal was opened in the city center. These two maps aren't at all out of theme in my mind, although I admit I have to stretch a bit to make sense of finding European architecture in the Doom marine's "home city" (which I've always thought to be Salt Lake City for some bizarre, ill-educated reason).

[punnyone]

Abstractness is certainly the name of the game for Suburbs. Although with enough imagination, one of the houses in the center looks as if it has an attached garage. Still, the rest of the level, realism-wise, is anything goes.

My theory is that the center area is what's left of a residential area. The dividing wall around it was demon or man-made, and the rest of the level was areas that were once full of similar homes and neighborhoods but due to the massive blasts, destruction, and warping of the terrain, the areas are now mostly wastelands with a few remaining buildings still standing.

Downtown on the other hand did abstractness right by having the level arranged in a rough city block format, but with unique buildings and a sandbox design.

[Zed]

Well, there's really no explanation. As others have said, some may look like Downtown, or may resemble its title, like The Crusher, but they are mostly abstract places. So:

Jet1337 said:

Is there a list that explains what every level in doom represents?

No.

Jet1337 said:

Like in Doom 2, the suburbs level, is it really a suburbs on earth or what?

No.

Have a good day.

[Luke Dacote]

I've always wanted to know where 'Thy Flesh Consumed' takes place. I used to assume it was Doomguy's battle to escape Hell but some sources suggest it takes place on Earth, just before Doom II begins.

[GreyGhost]

I think the popular theory is that he heads back into Hell to avenge the death of his pet rabbit.

[Da Werecat]

Yellow sky suggests otherwise.

[Luke Dacote]

GreyGhost said:

I think the popular theory is that he heads back into Hell to avenge the death of his pet rabbit.

I thought the events of Doom II was Doomguy's revenge trip and that 'Thy Flesh Consumed' ended with him discovering his decapitated rabbit.

[Marnetmar]

Da Werecat said:

Yellow sky suggests otherwise.

I've always imagined it as somewhere in between Hell and Earth.

[GreyGhost]

Maybe he doesn't have to go any further than Limbo to find sufficient demons to smack down before heading home to Salt Lake City and a cold beer.

[joe-ilya]

Luke Dacote said:

I've always wanted to know where 'Thy Flesh Consumed' takes place. I used to assume it was Doomguy's battle to escape Hell but some sources suggest it takes place on Earth, just before Doom II begins.

It's actually on earth , here's an explanantion
:The end of E3 takes place on earth with an orange sky and E4 uses that sky , so I guess it's on earth , with some hell structures the demons made in the mines.

[Fernito]

joe-ilya said:

It's actually on earth , here's an explanantion
:The end of E3 takes place on earth with an orange sky and E4 uses that sky , so I guess it's on earth , with some hell structures the demons made in the mines.

Came here to say this.

[MajorRawne]

Abstraction is hard for me because I take everything at face value. When I used to play Doom, I was presented with level names like "The Tenements". I knew what tenements actually were, so when I was exploring the map I thought that people must have really low standards to live in a nukage-infested cave.

I didn't know or understand the mindset of Romero et al, so I failed to appreciate the genius behind their level design. My friends and family are not aspergers and they also failed to understand it, so it wasn't just me being awkward.

We just saw a load of random, weird rooms with silly names that didn't fit. The gameplay was so amazing that it made up for this. Who cares how retarded you'd have to be to build a real-life city like Twilight Descends? The map was terrifying and extremely tense.

You can have fun imagining stories behind the maps as other members have done. The Tenements, for example, could have been a slum that was flooded with acid and abandoned or overrun during Hell's invasion of Earth. Threshold of Pain is clearly the border between reality and Hell, Nemesis (from Alien Vendetta) is a castle in Hell, etc.

[Jayextee]

I grew up in the '80s; the early part of which saw such wildly abstract videogames that I didn't really bat an eye at how Doom's environs didn't resemble anything at all; to me, that's part of the whole deal -- the way every part of the gameworld acts as a cohesive whole means that it managed to be quite immersive without the need for such a level of realism. The mark of a good game.

However, retroactively attaching meaning to the levels is fun too.

[Doominator2]

Doomtodeath said:

You can tell by the part of the game, Since the three parts contain three different locations.

Part 1:
U.A.C Space Base

Part 2:
Planet Earth

Part 3:
Hell

Actually after the UAC Base comes the Hellish Outposts

[Stupid Bunny]

MajorRawne said:

I knew what tenements actually were, so when I was exploring the map I thought that people must have really low standards to live in a nukage-infested cave.

I lol'd

As with others, I always found the abstraction to be not only charming but also beneficial for the purposes of gameplay. After all, how many skyscrapers have you been in that have layouts which would make super cool diverse gameplay? At the same time, I do appreciate how the levels often bear some sort of vague resemblance of what they're meant to be, so that the names aren't totally pointless (although with map titles like those in E4, or Nirvana or Gotcha! or ones like those, it's kind of a moot point.) The Spawning Vats even have things that look like vats in that one corridor.

Doominator2 said:

Actually after the UAC Base comes the Hellish Outposts

Well if we get really specific, it's a UAC base on a different moon which seems to become more "hellish outpost" and less UAC base as you get closer to the Tower of Babel.