Doom 2 In Name Only: An indepth review thread

[40oz]

^ Bingo

I played it, felt indifferent towards it, moved on.

[Tristan]

40oz said:

^ Bingo

yeah I'll second that.

[Marcaek]

Processingcontrol, I think you've mistakenly given that thread too much credit. There are many different elements to a so-called "typical" map, and honestly it's the people who try way too hard to be avant-garde who are making those arbitrary definitions as to what constitutes one in the first place. If you go out of your way to ignore as many conventions as possible your map will appeal to people who only care for specific characteristics of a map over how it works as a whole. It's fine to do something different, but if the map overall is too out of convention less and less people will like it. It comes down to how much you care about how people receive your work and if you're mapping more for yourself in creating something than for enjoyment of others. Experimentation is fine, but if you go all the way out there and ignore stuff like smart monster usage and well-meshing aesthetics you reap what you sow.

[Tarnsman]

Processingcontrol said:

Before I started working on the map I was read some thread where someone was splitting up the mappers here into two categories: those who made maps that pandered to the community's common perceptions of taste, and those who ignored the common consensus of what makes a good map and mapped with only they're personal preferences in mind. I was placed in the former category, which I found a bit annoying since I also had more respect for mappers choosing the latter philosophy. I then thought a bit about all the maps that I made and realized that they never deviated too much from the mainstream, and that my placement in the first group was justified.

I decided to experiment with creating something that would clearly fit into the 2nd category. I forget whether I made this decision before or after taking the map06 slot in D2INO, but in any case I chose it for my experiment. I purposely added things to it that I knew would create a polarized reaction - I love cryptic layouts, archvile mazes, and small doses of platforming, but I know that some people hate them all with passion.

The reaction to the map is exactly what I expected. Some like it, some love it, many hate it.

This is what I am trying to get at though. I don't dislike map 06 because it has platforming or a cryptic layout or an archvile maze, I dislike it because I don't think it did any one of those things particularly well. All three of those can be very fun. It's very detrimental to the process of criticism as a whole to instantly jump to the "well you just didn't like what I was trying to do" defense.

The doom community does not have some set of standards they like beyond "is this map good". Things like Alien Vendetta Map 20 are frequently heralded as all time great maps despite having a terrible layout, generally bad monster placement, and being 90% tunnels. It however does what it wants to do very well so the cryptic layout actually works in its favor.

I have no set rules for what makes a map fun beyond "it was fun".

Edit: It has nothing to do with D2INO getting attention, it has to do with people jumping to conclusions when it comes to why I didn't like something. Spoiler: I didn't like it because it wasn't good.

[234233424]

Gifty said:

Having not played the wad, does everyone just feel the need to piss all over it because it got mainstream gaming press and they feel it was unjustified? Because that's how it looks from the outside.

Play it.

There's no 'need to piss all over it' so much as it's dealing out the criticisms and those who do not react well to criticism of any type and rather cover their ears. Hence the D2INO defense brigade.

In the age of casters/speedrunners and twitch.tv and more attention new wads that are getting released are getting, yes..there is going to be more vocal criticism if the said wad is unfavorable.

[mrthejoshmon]

The demo is resisting my charms so fuck it.

MAP04:

I like this map, it is a fun and very interesting map. There is actually nothing I would change about this one, great work!

MAP05:

I hate sewer levels but this map actually made it fun and interesting (props to the author for pulling that off!). This map was a little bit of a kick in the balls with all the damaging sectors but that is to be expected of these waste tunnels. There is 1 or two things I would change:

- There was potential to have the play crawl (not literally) through an empty pipeline to get to another section of the base.

- I would have added one shotgun shell box at the nukage area

- I would have added more Hell Knights...

Despite what others had to say about it, I am enjoying this mapset so far. Even if it does not meet the level names, it is still a bunch of fun for me to blast through.

[mouldy]

So how's the trollfest going? Hmm, running out of things to say I guess. Pretty much like I said.

ClonedPickle said:

I don't get how that's so up to interpretation to you. If Unholy Cathedral needs to be in a (one. singular. uno) cathedral, why can The Courtyard actually be two courtyards? Why can Dead Simple be needlessly complex? There shouldn't be a debate about whether or not D2INO failed at its project goal by having a non-zero amount of maps fail to correctly convey their map title. That's not subjective. They failed to do so.

Project goal was to take the title of the map and use it as inspiration for the content, based entirely on personal interpretation. Not just recreating specific scenery, being creative with it, playing around. Dead simple for example is a nice way of demonstrating complex environment from simple repeating shapes. Think of how simple clouds are in essence and how complex they are in reality. Quite clever really.

Some maps worked better than others at utilising the titles, and we had endless discusssions about this back in the thread, and in the end we collectively decided it wasn't worth getting too stressed out about. Because really, it isn't. This is an eclectic community project, not a homogenous singular experience. You judge each map on its own merits. Coming out with emotive hyperbole like "they failed to do so" is ultimately meaningless in the context of this project.

[elic]

@Marcaek
I agree with what your saying - I did think the idea of that thread was a bit silly, but it still got me thinking about the way I designed my maps.

I'm not sure if your trying to imply that the map lacked "smart monster usage and well-meshing aesthetics" or not, but just for reference, I payed just as much attention to those things as I usually did when creating the map.

@Tarnsman
You may dislike the map for different reasons, but it seemed like JawsInSpace hated it for the things I mentioned in my post, and I'm confident many others did as well.

[Da Werecat]

SlashBane said:

There's no 'need to piss all over it' so much as it's dealing out the criticisms and those who do not react well to criticism of any type and rather cover their ears.

Could you rephrase, please?

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map01: Entryway

While I agree with those saying it would be more clever for the whole map to take place prior to the grand entryway, I can't say I found myself disliking this map, or feeling that it went too long. It had a couple decent traps, some tough monster placements. It was at least offering something in the way of challange, unlike say Stomper Map01 which I just finished prior to playing this. Can't say I have any complaints about this map.

Map02: Underhalls

So far no problems with this one either, run around and shoot things. I like how it loops around on itself. Kind of think that early Green Armor should be flagged Secret. I'm not sure how successful it is or isn't at being an 'underhalls', I suppose it does as fine as one can. I'm not even too clear on what an underhall is other than there shouldn't be a skybox. Decent map, kinda fun even.

Map03: The Gantlet

I've looked up what a Gantlet is and I'm having a hard time conceptualizing a Doom map that wouldn't qualify, so probably no problem there. Progression in this is fine, I like when the crushers start chewing on everything. Probably could be bringing in a few more heavy hitter monsters already since this is UV.

Map04: The Focus

Perfect opportunity to just make a Doom car; the Ford Focus. I kid. The opening outdoor area is kind of tough, I died a few times to hitscan fire. Still sort of hungry for something mid-tier to show up though. I proceed along to downstairs and... ah, this is the focus as in epicenter, hell encroaching and all that jazz. Nicely done. No complaints here either.

Will keep posting, why not. Probably in groups of 4 so as not to spam.

[Dime]

SlashBane said:

Play it.

There's no 'need to piss all over it' so much as it's dealing out the criticisms and those who do not react well to criticism of any type and rather cover their ears. Hence the D2INO defense brigade.

In the age of casters/speedrunners and twitch.tv and more attention new wads that are getting released are getting, yes..there is going to be more vocal criticism if the said wad is unfavorable.

This brings up an interesting point in the sense that I think people kind of underestimate how much the doom community has grown on twitch.tv within the last year. Essentially, there was a race of D2INO featuring around 10 doom runners which turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Now, some mapsets are simply weaker when applied to speedrunning or races but we try our best not to use this as an excuse to bash a mapset. Hell, requiem is awful for speedrunning but is widely considered as one of the best WAD's of all time. D2INO was harshly criticized for having unending maps as well as boring map design + aesthetics. In the end, the racers just weren't having fun playing doom which in my eyes is FAR more telling than random comments about map feel. (That is a bad thing!)

Personally, I didn't enjoy any of the first 9 maps in the set outside of map 8. Naturally, I ended up critiquing the mapset harshly along with many of the other racers.

I couldn't really garner anything out of maps 2 + 3. Gameplay was decent but the visuals felt sub-par.

The idea of map 4 was pretty creative in the sense of an earthquake faultline, but the subsequent tech-base was generic with not much worth speaking about gameplay wise. Android agrees either way that this map is weak.

Map 5 atleast brought along some color with the nukage but was exceptionally cramped which brought along with it boring gameplay.

People say plutonia is brown but it has nothing on the crusher. Didn't enjoy having to backtrack after getting a key, pretty needless way to make the map longer.

Don't get me started on map 7.

I think two small changes could have made the Pit (map 9) a much better experience. Activate the teleporters at the start of the map for more mobility and make the rockface climb more visible to the exit area.

I just ended up quitting after map 9 for the above reason. I just wasn't having fun playing doom.

[ClonedPickle]

mouldy said:

Dead simple for example is a nice way of demonstrating complex environment from simple repeating shapes. Think of how simple clouds are in essence and how complex they are in reality. Quite clever really.

So the "Dead" part is for how it makes anyone who tries to play it feel inside? Sorry, hard not to take the easy dig at that shitty map. Anyway:

mouldy said:

Project goal was to take the title of the map and use it as inspiration for the content, based entirely on personal interpretation.

So the project is just titled incorrectly but close enough to get away with a name and acronym that roll off the tongue better, then? Fair enough.

[mouldy]

ClonedPickle said:

So the project is just titled incorrectly but close enough to get away with a name and acronym that roll off the tongue better, then? Fair enough.

The project is titled "Doom 2 in name only". Because it "only" uses the "names" of the "doom 2" maps. The acronym is d2ino, which does not "roll off the tongue" in any sense I can think of, given that its unpronouncable. It is faster to type "d2ino" than it is to type "doom 2 in name only", which is why this acronym is used. Hopefully this clarifies whatever confusion you seem to have

[234233424]

I'm not all Mr. Negativity.

Citadel (19) is decent and certainly surprising after looking at it's layout. I even recorded it.

Same with Wolfenstein. It's good. Good job Xaser.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map05: The Waste Tunnels

Well this seems to fit the bill from the start. Also finally see some Revenants, nice. Then a perfectly obnoxiously placed Hellknight just as the Radsuit is running out, I can dig that. Some of the backtracking along the tunnels without the suit can be a bit painful, but there's ledge to try and stand on. The trip back to the Red Door is the most egregious probably, as the ledge there is paper thin. Ending section was a little excessive, probably just could've not had the Exit sign so early and it wouldn't have felt even slightly like a problem though.

Map06: The Crusher

Oh shit that is a lot of candles. I remember seeing this one on stream, it certainly looked annoying. So far not too bad though. Odd open ended go wherever one feels like layout, no idea if I'm going the correct way or not. Quite the maze in that regard I suppose, ending of course with that now infamous jerkmove of the switch opening the thing on the other side instead of the current one. But I get ahead of myself. I do like the elevator room with the tiered encounters of Imps and Cacos. I found the skip-across-the-crushers part agonizing, definitely no fun there.

Now finally to the giant maze. Oh boy. Okay, for one thing, mazes really are annoying. I mean, this isn't so bad going in, picking off Archviles and Cacos, that's fine. But then one looks at the automap and sees the whole thing is hidden. Again, agonizing in a not-fun way. I manage to only get crushed once, though the Revenants make work of the bulk of the rest of my health. Now the backtrack through an empty map to find the Yellow Door and Exit. Frankly that part could've done without, but whatever. Map was kind of annoying, and kind of intended to be. Not sure why one would want to be annoying but there you have it.

Map07: Dead Simple

Oh how I have dreaded this one. Another one I saw enough of in the stream to know there is bad news afoot. Well, might as well get to it. I find I'm out of armaments by the time the Mastermind shows up, and instead of go through all that again I say screw it and MDK the damn thing. And now, the lying Exit. If only it were true. If only I could believe you, Exit. But alas this map is Immortal Complicated, and there is no end.

But now? What am I doing now? I'm running around shooting mostly stationary Revenants in an endless seeming network of triangles. Am I making progress? Where are my objectives? Am I wasting my ammo killing all of these things? I have no idea; finally I see a Red Skull atop a pillar, at least now I know something. Progressing past the Red Door, I end up in an endless tech area full of hitscanners. One thing is for sure, there are way too many groupings of Chaingunners in here. It sucks so much. I know there's so much more map to do and I don't want to do any of it. I finally come across a trio of Hellknights and have worked my way back to the starting area again. But what have I accomplished, anything? I circle back through it time and again, coming up empty. I guess I have no clue.

Eventually I head back towards the Revenants area and notice a new way into that area has opened up. There's the Blue Skull. Great progression, map. Okay, so through the Blue Door and it's the fabled Archvile and Revenant area. Lots of Archies. Lots of tedious gameplay too, slowly clearing out the area. An agonizing series of switchhunting and switchhitting later, I end up back in the techbase area. I hit another switch there and it opens back up to the opening area. Okay time to Exit.

But wait, there's more! Still. More. Map. It. Just. Won't. End. Ever. I'm so sick of this by now I just godmode it, I'm done. Let's just see when, if ever, this actually ends. Hellknights, Imps, nukage. I hit a bunch of skullswitches and out come the flying types. The progression is once again fucked, with me having no idea what I'm doing or what it's accomplishing. I hit a switch and get a look at the start area again. I look around for something new. I don't see it. I'm so fucking done with this map, it has enraged me by now. DNF.

I'll do Map08 next time. This map just made me nearly hate the game Doom and everything about it. That's just a crime.

[ClonedPickle]

mouldy said:

The project is titled "Doom 2 in name only". Because it "only" uses the "names" of the "doom 2" maps. The acronym is d2ino, which does not "roll off the tongue" in any sense I can think of, given that its unpronouncable. It is faster to type "d2ino" than it is to type "doom 2 in name only", which is why this acronym is used. Hopefully this clarifies whatever confusion you seem to have

My sincerest apologies for trying to combine "a name that rolls off the tongue" and "an acronym that isn't needlessly long" together and assuming you wouldn't be pedantic enough to make a big deal about it. And while it "only" uses the "names" of "Doom 2" "maps," "it" also "allowed" "mappers" to "take" the "title" of the "map" and instead use it as "inspiration" for a "map," so maybe something like D2MIBOD2T is more "accurate." That's "Doom 2 Maps Inspired By Original Doom 2 Titles," for the record. Boy do I love quotation marks.

[Fellowzdoomer]

So, lots of people don't like various maps. BOO-FREAKING-HOO!! Nothing is stopping you from opening up DB2 and making YOUR OWN D2INO MAPS!

*sigh* I will say, the red skull in The Focus is useless. I could just run through the lava and exit.

[Da Werecat]

ClonedPickle said:

assuming you wouldn't be pedantic enough to make a big deal about it

Most of this discussion consists of people being pedantic enough to make a big deal about things.

[purist]

Fellowzdoomer said:

So, lots of people don't like various maps. BOO-FREAKING-HOO!! Nothing is stopping you from opening up DB2 and making YOUR OWN D2INO MAPS!

Telling critics to 'do it themselves if they don't like it', is a stupid response to negative feedback.* Even if the thing being critised is given for free. You can complain about the taste the feedback is given in or you can comment on whether or not you agree but deflecting it so flippantly suggest the authors do not want (or feel they no not need) to improve their mapping and I know that is not the case.

*see also: 'nobody understands my edgy style', 'your opinion is not the law, so I can choose to ignore it' and (to a lesser degree) 'it's your own fault for playing it wrong'.

[Krivanka]

ITT: Doom Worlds quality control sucks

My opinion: Not every megawad released on this forum is going to be I dont know.. of Alien Vendetta quality and I think some people need to realize that. Play through them, offer your criticisms and go to the next megawad. Or better yet, LEARN TO MAP AND DO BETTER. I played through d2twid and, tarnsman, while your maps were good, weren't masterpieces ( I hate commas)

[mouldy]

ClonedPickle said:

My sincerest apologies for trying to combine "a name that rolls off the tongue" and "an acronym that isn't needlessly long" together and assuming you wouldn't be pedantic enough to make a big deal about it. And while it "only" uses the "names" of "Doom 2" "maps," "it" also "allowed" "mappers" to "take" the "title" of the "map" and instead use it as "inspiration" for a "map," so maybe something like D2MIBOD2T is more "accurate." That's "Doom 2 Maps Inspired By Original Doom 2 Titles," for the record. Boy do I love quotation marks.

I'm just explaining it slowly and carefully in a way that children can understand. Accusing someone of pedantry after putting so much emphasis on the meaning of the title is hypocritical to say the least.

But so far the closest you have come to an indepth review in this indepth review thread is

ClonedPickle said:

shitty map

and a load of waffle about the name of the wad, so I'm guessing you just came in here to be rude and start pointless arguments.

Still its nice to see other people genuinely taking the opportunity to play the wad and make up their own minds.

[mouldy]

purist said:

Telling critics to 'do it themselves if they don't like it', is a stupid response to negative feedback.* Even if the thing being critised is given for free. You can complain about the taste the feedback is given in or you can comment on whether or not you agree but deflecting it so flippantly suggest the authors do not want (or feel they no not need) to improve their mapping and I know that is not the case.

Just to be clear, that guy isn't the author of the map, or any of the other maps in the wad. There are 17 authors in this wad and only one of them has responded badly to criticism, which is why this thread exists.

I have to make this point, because when you take some outsider's commment and extrapolate your response to apply to all the actual mappers it doesn't really help the situation.

[Doomkid]

I'd like to start off by saying, these maps have a very 'classic' feel without having that 'trying too hard to be classic' feel like the "way ID did" series, which is a mapset I also like quite a lot, mind you.

Maps 1-5 are goddamn perfect, I wouldn't change a thing.

Map06 had the potential to be a fun map, but I for the life of me could not figure out how to get to the blue switch (finding the key was fine). The MIDI is pretty bad and gets way repetitive, and when I saw that maze full of archies near the end, I was just thinking "This does not count as level design.."

Map07 reminds me of some sporatic map from 1995, and definitely isn't simple. When the challenge isn't real challenge but just "haha you don't have enough ammo", it makes me lose patience with the map :( Visually, I think it's fine - I'm a fan of using textures in odd ways, but the gameplay could use some work.

(So far, I'm noting that the maps really don't seem to have all that much basis in their names, but this doesn't bother me, and of course I'm only a little way in. A good map is a good no map no matter what you call it, after all.)

Map08 is where things start to pick up again. A few too many revenants for my taste, but I love that "techbase, but not overtly sterile" look. Very challenging.

Map09 - I'll be honest, I didn't finish this one all the way through. The pit is huge, and the level design seems pretty good. My deaths were the result of player error, not mapper error. :x

Map10 is really fucking good. Great MIDI, great design with atmospheric visuals, another where I would say it's more or less flawless. Didn't stretch on too long at all, at least not for me.

I'll continue to review the maps more in depth over time. Just getting a community megawad out the door is a damn hard struggle (DMR proved this to me beyond a doubt), and I wish I could change my /idgames review to be 4 stars.

[Devalaous]

I amusingly only played two maps before getting sidetracked by non-Doom projects I'm working on and of course, Revilution, but I liked them both and found them both very good and very fitting for their name.

I will play the rest (IF I EVER GET TIME. How the fuck is my life 110% busy 24/7 now!?) and I know I'm going to have mixed opinions. Still, at least I wont go on an unholy crusade like some members here do EVERY TIME they get offended by one map.

[Fellowzdoomer]

@purist my point was they could do it if the level is extremely bad.

[mrthejoshmon]

MAP06:

This one is a little bit of a mixed bag to be quite honest, I do like the look of the level and how it fits together but I didn't really like the gameplay involved (seeing as though I had a bunch of ghost Cacodemons floating around the map after the giant crusher). The Indiana Jones like aspect and dynamic design of the map is utterly brilliant though. Things I would have done:

- Those crushers should have focused on more within the map, one section involving crusher platforms let me down quite a bit :(

- The large crusher was a little bit dickish with those Archviles... I would have added a few ground based imps or demons to make it extra dickish.

- Those Cacodemons in close range would have gone.

- The MIDI used is somewhat eerie/mysterious, I would have put the lighting levels quite low to accommodate this.

MAP07:

Every bodies complaint so far. Now I had a different experience with this map (And yes, I think I have also played that 90's map Doomkid mentioned). I actually completed the map with no deaths and had a lot of fun with it (because I sort of knew what was coming thanks to playing the beta releases). Here is my thoughts on what I would have possibly done to every bodies favorite map:

- The starting area could have been the entire map, but that extra triangle cave part was kinda fun.

- Give the player more plasma.

- A pissed off Cyberdemon roving around could have been interesting, but the terrain would have to change a bit to let this work.

- Those Archviles at the start "exit" could have been much further away as I ripped em a new one before they got a shot on me.

Still enjoying this mapset.

[Breezeep]

What was everyone arguing about in the D2INO thread?

[Tristan]

read from about here, and please don't bring it up again, because I'm going to be seriously pissed off if it all kicks off for a third time.

[NuMetalManiak]

think i'll join in on the indepth fun. but only to offer thoughts since the product is finished and i don't feel like talking about what i could do to the maps.

MAP01:

decent opener, gets the job done. no complaints.

MAP02:

everyone says it's a good map, and i can see exactly why. no need to comment.

MAP03:

looked up gantlet, "go through an intimidating or dangerous crowd, place, or experience in order to reach a goal." Makes sense, and this one also works. so far this all seems quite positive.

MAP04:

never was sure what this map was supposed to convey until after reading Jaws' review. now it makes some sense after playing it again. quite an interesting map.

MAP05:

it's alright, weaker than the other ones, but it still makes sense as a "waste tunnels" so that's good.

Will continue with MAP06 soon. so far, I like the first levels.

[Fellowzdoomer]

My Reviews

Prboom+, mouselook enabled, skill 1

=== The Entryway ===

I have the feeling that many people wanted this level to be the outside ---> entryway ---> exit. People didn't like the inner base, but I see this as an Entryway to the whole entire base (1-6). The map is basically easy with the chaingun, so... yeah.

=== Underhalls ===

It seems that the author wanted this to be underground. Again, chaingun makes this one easy, but the SSG makes the map feel as if I'm sliding on butter. IMO, the level ends far too abruptly. An OK map.

=== The Gantlet ===
I have no idea what a gantlet is. Gantlet sounds like it means "holding cup". This level only holds demons and a brown scheme. One of the things I noticed is that this (ironically) begins the exact opposite of the original. (Lift then zombies, not zombies then lift.) Not so terribly bad.

=== The Focus (beginning) ===
OK, the beginning of this level reminds me A LOT of the next to last map of Duke Nukem L.A Meltdown. The goal is to fight the outer enemies, crossing the canyon to get to the other side, only to have grey stones rise from the nukage pit. My phone died at this point, recharged it so I'll give the other half later.