Marathon series games as possible inspiration?

[MrFlibble]

It has occurred to me that some of the the lore concepts that are evolving for the new monsters bear a similarity to Bungie's Marathon games. Namely, there are several alien races encountered by the player in the Marathon series, with one having been enslaved by another, which seeks to enslave humans as well. The enslaved race then gets liberated and joins the fight against its former masters.

Marathon games run on engines that are largely functionally similar to that of Doom. At the same time, the games are notably different from Doom both in pace and in how the story is narrated. Perhaps some of the design decisions and themes could be expanded upon in Freedoom as well?

Here's several videos of the first Marathon game as played on the original Mac:
Marathon (Classic Macintosh CD)
The original Marathon 1 game on the Macintosh
Marathon Ep. 1: Landing (played on hardest difficulty)

Some of the elements, for example in textures, are, to an extent, reminiscent of Doom. However, instead of tech-bases and hellish environments, Marathon games have a human spaceship that has been boarded by the invading aliens, and various structures built by extraterrestrials on the surface of planets outside the Solar system. Both themes have been explored in Doom PWADs as well, so perhaps this could be the kind of direction that the level design could take (in the context of a more unique nature of Freedoom that is)?

Of course I'm not suggesting to directly borrow any concepts from Marathon games, but I'm hoping that perhaps they may inspire something new and original for the project.

[Angry Saint]

From what I remember playing Marathon, the gameplay was slower than Doom, and the level design inferior to whatever done by id in the same period.

It was not a bad game, and actually it still has a strong player community, but I don't see a particular reason for having it as inspiration.

[Da Werecat]

The first one was rather 1993 in its level design, and the enemy roster wasn't exactly of Doom 2 level.

Things improved with the sequel, and I think there's a lot to be inspired by in such campaigns as Infinity, Rubicon and Apotheosis. But the same can be said about many FPS games from the 90s.

[raymoohawk]

our best source of inspiration is the doom community itself. even if marathon was excellent for its time, what the doom community has done since is so much better and varied

[MrFlibble]

There are some interesting alien designs, like Trooper or Enforcer. These are of course nothing exceedingly original, but there are neat details like the cloak or the transparent helmet.

Also I think it would be nice to have levels in Freedoom taking place inside a spaceship or a space station. There's that starry sky in Phase 1 Chapter 4, which could be used to have viewports in a spaceship/space station. (On a side note, it would be cool to have indestructible viewports protected by force fields, Duke Nukem 3D style, but I think it's not possible with the default engine settings.)

[Nikita_Sadkov]

Compared to Doom or Duke3d, Marathon reminds me of these amateur student projects: cool but still subpar. I think FreeDoom looks more professional already.

I personally think Brutal Doom would be much better source of inspiration.

[MrFlibble]

Only the first game or the whole trilogy?

Anyway, what I mean was more concepts than visuals. Spaceship interior levels. Alien ruins and high-tech bases. A detailed backstory behind the various alien monsters. All of this seems worthy of exploration.

[Da Werecat]

Even the first game, it all its infinite ugliness, looks somewhat better than Freedoom. It's cohesive, at least. It has a certain style and sticks to it. Freedoom is pretty much unfinished - reworking of old assets is underway, and a lot of things got better, but not all of them yet.

Nikita_Sadkov said:

I personally think Brutal Doom would be much better source of inspiration.

I'm not sure I understand. Exactly what ideas can be borrowed by an IWAD substitute project from a Doom gameplay mod?

[Blastfrog]

I freaking love the Marathon trilogy. We should definitely use it as inspiration for atmosphere and environments. I'd love to have a sky texture in the game that looks like L'howon's mountain ranges.

Angry Saint said:

the level design inferior to whatever done by id in the same period.

Far from it, the Marathon games have excellent level design and are quite fun as long as you have some navigational skills. Marathon 2's levels are better than 1's, if you want to check those out.

[Nikita_Sadkov]

Da Werecat said:

I'm not sure I understand. Exactly what ideas can be borrowed by an IWAD substitute project from a Doom gameplay mod?

Making everything more arcade and over the top.

[Blastfrog]

Nikita_Sadkov said:

Making everything more arcade and over the top.

The existing gameplay mechanics are already arcadey and over-the-top. Freedoom isn't meant to touch the underlying gameplay, and I don't want to see it become full of slaughter maps in an effort to be more "action-y" within those parameters.

[Nikita_Sadkov]

Sodaholic said:

The existing gameplay mechanics are already arcadey and over-the-top. Freedoom isn't meant to touch the underlying gameplay, and I don't want to see it become full of slaughter maps in an effort to be more "action-y" within those parameters.

Yes. But Marathon looks just too boring, like half-life. There is already a thread on that:
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/23807-doom-vs-marathon/

I think Carmack did right by laying off Tom Hall, because of him trying to turn doom into an adventure game.

[Da Werecat]

Marathon is a great series, despite its flaws. But it's pretty obvious that on a Doom forum there's going to be a lot of people who prefer Doom. Some of them may talk trash about competitors, especially 10 years ago when passions were stronger than today.

(Disclaimer: I didn't actually read the thread, not least because I saw enough of these discussions.)

[<inactive>Player Lin]

Nikita_Sadkov said:

I think Carmack did right by laying off Tom Hall, because of him trying to turn doom into an adventure game.

Maybe, but who knows.

At least he didn't made Rise of the Triad to an adventure game too. :p

[Ferk]

Personally, I'd much prefer that the hellish magic, demons, blood and skulls atmosphere of Doom was still present in Freedoom. I'd prefer demonic creatures instead of aliens.

But since Freedoom direction seems to be already changing towards alien creatures, and looks like there are even plans on replacing the last few demonic ones, I think it would be appropriate to adopt some ideas from similarly themed sagas, like Marathon or Duke Nukem. As well as ideas from other sci-fi franchises like Stargate, Battlestar galactica, etc.

I mean.. how can you take inspiration from Doom background and plot elements when the core concept (Hell and demons) is being replaced?

Angry Saint said:

From what I remember playing Marathon, the gameplay was slower than Doom, and the level design inferior to whatever done by id in the same period.

How does that matter? We are not talking about changing the gameplay (that's not even possible under Freedoom scope), nor the level design (because level design is tightly dependant on the gameplay). But the theme, background and story. Maybe at most the name of the areas and some graphics/textures to give a theme to the levels, I'd guess.

[mrthejoshmon]

I both love and hate Marathon.

I wouldn't mind seeing some things like enemy design and story being inspired by Marathon.

I would however personally dislike it if the map design and gameplay are used as insipration (fucking pfhoraphobia and simulacrums are two pieces of history that can eat shit and die for all I care)

[Blastfrog]

What if some rouge AI belonging to AGM summoned the aliens, just like Durandal? It could be the phase 2 MAP30 boss.

[Nikita_Sadkov]

playerlin said:

Maybe, but who knows.

I'm pretty sure, if he didn't, we would not be talking about Doom today. Just like nobody cares about System Shock, despite System Shock having technologically more impressive engine. And Doom 3 failed because of trying to imitate Half-Life, instead of being action-packed arcade game.

[Da Werecat]

Nikita_Sadkov said:

nobody cares about System Shock

I think you're out of your depth.

[raymoohawk]

i think the magic stuff can still be included in freedoom, in a marvel or star warsy kinda way

[Nikita_Sadkov]

Da Werecat said:

I think you're out of your depth.

Well, it has that ``cult'' following, the same way Troma movies have their loyal fans.

But that is different from being the most famous game of all time.

[Da Werecat]

Half-Life is one of the most famous games of all time. Yet it's boring, and following a similar formula will only result in Z-grade schlock for marginals like System Shock and Troma movies.

Wait, what.

[andrewj]

raymoohawk said:

i think the magic stuff can still be included in freedoom, in a marvel or star warsy kinda way

Agreed, and I don't think it matters much if we have a "genuine" hell or just hellish alien worlds, similarly "genuine" demons or just weird hostile aliens with supernatural powers.

[HorrorMovieRei]

raymoohawk said:

i think the magic stuff can still be included in freedoom, in a marvel or star warsy kinda way

The mix of technology and magic worked well for Shadowrun. I think we could make it work for Freedoom.

[<inactive>Player Lin]

Nikita_Sadkov said:

I'm pretty sure, if he didn't, we would not be talking about Doom today. Just like nobody cares about System Shock, despite System Shock having technologically more impressive engine. And Doom 3 failed because of trying to imitate Half-Life, instead of being action-packed arcade game.

I still not sure even you explained... I'm not fan of System Shock with its style at all so I don't know and still not interest as I were when it first appeared.

DooM 3, it EVEN didn't had any of feels from Half-Life at all in my own opinion...whatever if HL was boring for some players or not, made a horror-style(adventure shooter or not) game is not a DooM game at all.


In my personal opinion, I don't care about "famous", if a game is fun for me, that's enough...

(I want to try to pull back the Freedoom related but I don't know how can I say, damn that my not-so-good English...)

EDIT : Mixing high-techs and magic elements together also seems like a good idea for me.

[Nikita_Sadkov]

playerlin said:

DooM 3, it EVEN didn't had any of feels from Half-Life at all in my own opinion...whatever if HL was boring for some players or not, made a horror-style(adventure shooter or not) game is not a DooM game at all.

Doom 3 is a Half-Life rip off down to storyline and execution. The the main character arrives and does chores for the next 30 minutes, before any action even begins. Then some Dr. Evil opens a portal to parallel universe and hordes of aliens invade through it, but player will have to shot a few lone zombies. In that way Doom 3 is worse than Marathon, which admittedly had more action.

Serious Sam is probably the only game building on the original Doom gameplay mechanics.

[Da Werecat]

The current direction for monster designs and story is more than suitable for "mystic powers" or somesuch. It reminds me of Unreal, and Unreal had plenty of fantasy influences.

I'd say, a pure sci-fi game would be a worse IWAD substitute, because a lot of PWADs are set in hell and similar locations.

playerlin said:

DooM 3, it EVEN didn't had any of feels from Half-Life at all in my own opinion...whatever if HL was boring for some players or not, made a horror-style(adventure shooter or not) game is not a DooM game at all.

I dunno about that. Doom is more than one thing. It felt pretty scary in the 90s.

[<inactive>Player Lin]

Nikita_Sadkov said:

Doom 3 is a Half-Life rip off down to storyline and execution. The the main character arrives and does chores for the next 30 minutes, before any action even begins. Then some Dr. Evil opens a portal to parallel universe and hordes of aliens invade through it, but player will have to shot a few lone zombies. In that way Doom 3 is worse than Marathon, which admittedly had more action.

I guess it just too weak for me, so I didn't have "story-fu" when I play DooM 3...it just made me feel like playing a horror game with DooM based theme...:|

Nikita_Sadkov said:

Serious Sam is probably the only game building on the original Doom gameplay mechanics.

Yeah, it was the kind of game I love but many years later, after SS3, I just tired on this kind of gameplay...deal with shitload of monsters the same time just too expensive for myself. :(

Da Werecat said:

I dunno about that. Doom is more than one thing. It felt pretty scary in the 90s.

Well, I were actually feel scary at first time play DooM, but after that, just most focused on "shooting monsters" and never feel about scary anymore... :p

[Jaxxoon R]

Nikita_Sadkov said:

Doom 3 is a Half-Life rip off down to storyline and execution. The the main character arrives and does chores for the next 30 minutes, before any action even begins. Then some Dr. Evil opens a portal to parallel universe and hordes of aliens invade through it, but player will have to shot a few lone zombies.

That's because Doom 3 is a remake of Doom 1, and in turn Half-Life's setup is pretty much nearly identical to Doom 1's, anyways.

[MrFlibble]

Da Werecat said:

The current direction for monster designs and story is more than suitable for "mystic powers" or somesuch. It reminds me of Unreal, and Unreal had plenty of fantasy influences.

Right, Unreal also has themes similar to what can be found in the current Freedoom art design.

Maybe it would be helpful to start a separate thread for brainstorming story/lore concepts? They don't have to be borrowed from, or influenced by, any other game in particular, but there are some pretty interesting venues to explore.

Sodaholic said:

What if some rouge AI belonging to AGM summoned the aliens, just like Durandal? It could be the phase 2 MAP30 boss.

I like the idea of a huge AI mainframe as the boss. There could also be System Shock-y overtones as well. The zombie replacements have always felt like (failed) cyborg/genetic mutation experiments to me.