John Romero makes first new Doom map in 21 years

[scifista42]

Death Egg said:

I feel I echo many peoples sentiments in that Romero should get together as many of the original mappers as he can and make a whole new Doom megawad.

T-Rex said:

Imagine if Sverre Kvernmo, Jim Flynn, Tom Mustaine, Chris Klie, and the Casali brothers teamed up with the former id Software crew to make an all-new megawad.

Megawad? A short set of several maps (each by one of them) or even a single map (by all of them) would suffice for the awesomeness, I'm sure. It would be a bit more realistically achievable too, particularly the "one map by each of them" option.

[Fonze]

Oh God though imagine all the stupid "xxx makes maps better than yyy!!!oneone!1" from fans.

I'd love to see any (more) maps come from the original guys because I have faith in them that they'll make something nice to play (like Tech Gone Bad) and I have no desire to rate these guys' performances as if theyd been mapping all this time. Not saying my standards are low, just that I'd like to see as many more as I can con Romero and team into making and I think that graciousness is a better route to that than some of the "meh" responses due to fans with expectations set too high.

And God forbid people start rating these ole guys against each other because the end result (extreme) of that will be "xxx is shit compared to yyy" and eventually simplified to "xxx is shit."

[Crunchynut44]

As much as I would happily drag my balls through field of cacti just to have a megawad by the all the original creators, I think the concept might be a bit overzealous. One level each sounds somewhat doable though, and would quench my insatiable thirst for their unique mapping styles and atmospheres.

[damerell]

Macblain said:

By "really annoying" are you referring to the danger of splash damaging yourself by rocketing the lost souls? I agree. I think cybie+ls is a great combo.

No, I fear I mean I got the map names confused. Dis from a pistol start is really annoying. Dis with a full load of ammo is trivial. Tower of Babel is quite fun either way and rocketing lost souls is fine with a bit of practice.

[Avoozl]

I would be interested in him making maps with the episode 2 and 3 themes.

[Aaron Blain]

Dis is actually disappointingly easy. Just run around the ledge clockwise gathering rockets, jump into the arena and circle strafe until the mastermind and the baron start fighting, unload all the rockets into the mastermind while it's killing the baron, then finish it off with that plasma gun in the central room.

A good mastermind fight needs to have enemies who shoot at the player while he's taking cover from the boss, and those enemies need to be in positions where they won't be drawn into infighting with the boss. Resurgence map09 ("Scorching Savanna") is a fairly good example of this, with the player having to fight chaingunners while taking cover from the mastermind. There are enough enemies in the central area to distract the boss, though, to make it quite a bit easier than it would be otherwise.

I don't know if the design style of the iD team translates very well into today's culture of "Pasteurized Game-Style Consumer Entertainment Product". Even if they get the team back together and make something that is as divergent from current norms as Serious Sam was in its day, I think I'd still rather just have some well-crafted Doom maps from them. Or maybe an incremental revision of Doom 2's mechanics, as Doom 2 added to Doom. In any case, spending money on dedicated video game hardware for the sake of fancy graphics hasn't been part of my life for some time now. I'm much happier playing well-crafted games on my old laptop.

That said, I'd probably pitch in on a kickstarter for a new Doom 2-style game, if it were sufficiently indie/hipstery in that it prioritized game dynamics and decision-making over audiovisual stimulation and thematic storytelling blather, and was completely free of any of these godawful modern tropes of levelling up and unlocking and collecting and avatar customization. If it were an Anti-Destiny. I'd be into that.

[Goosepants]

Kinda new here, but, how do I start John Romeros level? I have Zdoom and the wad, but when i type in idclev18, it says unknown command.

[Doomkid]

When you've loaded the wad, type idclev18 when the console is not open, or in the console type "map e1m8".

[Goosepants]

I got it! I typed idclev 18 with a space. THanks, dang this level is hard on UV I can't even get passed the first room :(

[Aaron Blain]

Don't fret. It's pretty normal after that. Romero specifically said the opening fight is meant to beat down players who are carrying over their stuff from previous levels.

[Lycaon]

So last time he made a level for DOOM I was a newborn baby.

[Captain Ventris]

Finally got to play this, and loved the chaos and open flow. The final battle was well staged and looked really neat. Very fun :)

[MegaZzZeux]

Lycaon said:

So last time he made a level for DOOM I was a newborn baby.

And when you were a newborn baby I was playing this game...

[damerell]

MegaZzZeux said:

And when you were a newborn baby I was playing this game...

... in a maternity ward.

[baja blast rd.]

When I was a newborn baby, I was playing Doom.

[Maes]

When you were playing Doom as a baby in a maternity ward, I was making more babbies.

[Fonze]

Can't make babbies in the butt Maes, but I applaud you for trying.

Here is a poem just for you.

[wallabra]

Let's end this Making Babies fuckfest by saying...

Romero, You're Awesome!

Now I hate hard wads. But I opened a exception because

This One Is Awesome!

[Waffenak]

Noice, gotta try this on my freetime

[[McD] James]

I played through the map a few days ago. It was excellent. Challenging but very well balanced. Couldn't find any of the ten secrets. I highly recommend it to anybody that hasn't already played it.

[The_SloVinator]

I loved the map! It was tough & fun & a throwback to nostalgia days.

[Master O]

Definitely a better level than the original E1M8. No question.

[Mogul]

The scene he set up for the bruiser bros is fucking awesome.

[Nuxius]

Awesome news! Looking forward to trying this out. :)

[sincity2100]

Cool map,I Enjoyed it, however,I don't know if this is a cool replacement for the original E1M8, Cuz it didn't feel like this is the final map in the episode.

Other than that it takes me back to the old days of Romero's mapping styles, this one fits the 2000's style more, a lot more detailed and well designed.I like it.

[Solarn]

This is a very nice map. I dare say it's as good as a map in the original, no frills E1 style can get. It does have its faults, I feel like it's maybe too long, it feels more like a "greatest hits of E1" than a single level, and sometimes it gets a bit cramped, but that Bruiser Brothers fight more than makes up for it. If this is you warming up, I'd definitely like to see more maps from you when you've really gotten going.

As for more detailed and intricate maps, one thing you have to keep in mind that most mappers nowadays rely heavily on the grid, to be able to align textures properly, because the more detail you add the more glaringly obvious it gets if line lengths don't match texture lengths and cut parts of them off. There are some mappers who can disregard the grid and still make gorgeously detailed maps, but they also tend to use a lot of custom textures.

[Face23785]

Is it significantly harder on UV than on HMP? I played through episode 1 on HMP and was able to beat his level on the first try. UV is next. Then I'll try pistol starting it.

[MathsDevil]

At first I was a bit put off by the large amount of poison but I only poison-died a few times before I managed to complete the map. The angles monsters attack from are varied and the z-co-ordinate is used beautifully. Only one small criticism --- I was able to do something that made the final boss fight disappointingly easy (don't want to give away spoilers). Definitely 5/5, Romero is a mapping genius.