Doom 1 or 2?

[Abyssalstudios1]

Cjwright79 said:

When people make it their business to be pests, the best you can do is take your leave.

Cjwright79 said earlier:
You guys are idiots. I'm out.

MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

[perkr]

Doom 1's initial levels are great in my mind. I have always loved them since I first played them on my 486SX.

In particular, E1 is amazing. It still is. Look at the detail, the use of SUPPORT to separate different "texture families", the subtle height differences, the way computer panels are inserted into the walls to give an additional sense of depth, the windows that give you glimpse of the Phobos landspace, etc. Amazing. Check out E1M5 and E1M7 in detail and keep in my mind that levels before those were essentially Wolfenstein style. Talk about advancing the state-of-the-art. E1 has also attention to detail in terms of gameplay. For example, many alternative routes are not necessary to explore but reward the player (e.g. E1M2,E1M3), there are areas where the lights go out and imps appear out of nowhere (e.g. E3), and areas where you have to backtrack a little but to keep things exciting enemies come out of secret chambers (e.g. E1M7). What E1 suffers is that it was designed for gamers in 1994, a time when no one really knew how to navigate a 3D game properly. Hence the levels are too easy now and many gameplay elements have become clichés. I still think a run through E1 is highly entertaining, even up to this day. Case in point, I played through Doom 1 on UV on my iPhone and E1 and E4M6 really struck out. Still.

However, past E1 it goes downhill monotonically. I wish Tom Hall would have had the time to complete E2 on his own without Sandy's involvement. Perhaps we would have had a more consistent E2. E2M1, E2M2 and E2M4 are ranging from OK to good, but IMO everything else in Doom 1 is pretty bad with glaring texturing errors. Essentially all maps that involved Sandy suffered borked textures and bland design. Aside from the original three episodes, E4 is particularly embarrassing (in one level the cacodemons are set too close together on UV so they cannot move! They didn't even bother to playtest the mapset...). E4M6 is a jewel though.

Despite getting Doom 2 as soon as it was released I never liked Doom 2's levels. The levels are large and bland. Doom doesn't work without care to mapping details. Without SUPPORT that separates textures, subtle height differences and clever architectural design, Doom becomes Wolfenstein 1.5 instead. What I suspect happened was that there was no real enthusiasm inside ID to make Doom 2. Hence all the bland maps. They could have done so much more with it, but they chose not to. OTOH today I am grateful we got Doom 2 because of the new monsters and textures which perhaps have been instrumental to maintain such a lively community around a 16-year old game.

[Cjwright79]

Abyssalstudios1 said:

MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

Or what?

I left for a while then came back to see if the venom had been expended. I see that it has not!

[Abyssalstudios1]

CJ, I'm going to be incredibly blunt with you.

Personally, I have nothing against you. But there is nothing that makes me want to be empathic towards you, either. I've stayed out of the (admittedly funny) pointless debates that you seem to have attracted ever since you started coming here. I've done my best to find it somewhere in me to be accepting of you. I've mostly done this by ignoring you. But I really don't feel like keeping it up anymore.

You have demonstrated absolutely no semblance of accepting criticism. Your maturity level is absolutely sub-par. Asking people if they're 12 years old only makes you the one who seems like an idiot to every single person who reads your posting.

You upload wads to the archive that are mediocre at best, and are more frequently garbage (judging by the shitstorm that invariably accompanies each /newstuff review). Further, you seem to feel as if it is your duty to enlighten the uneducated masses with your ramblings. The latest stupidity I see in the 'Doomworld News' section only makes me wonder why you're not at least on probation right now.

In short, I do not like you. I realize this contradicts what I said earlier. I'm sure that, in real life, there is a man capable of decency and respect in front of your computer screen. But I've seen no signs of him here, on that avatar named 'Cjwright79'.

I do not presume to say that I speak for all of us. But I do know that I do not speak alone.

That is all; I will not be defending this post against the many, tiny flaws in this post that you will almost undoubtedly point out. But please, try to work on your appearance to us. We have no obligation to make you feel good.

[Kagemaru_H]

I'm not going to flame anyone just because it's the "in" thing. It's just immature and stupid. I never noticed anything about Cjwright so I'll just leave him alone.

[zap610]

Tell us more about what you aren't going to post as you post.

[phi108]

I sort of agree with Abyssal. It seems like you are just spamming topics. If you post less often, and try to never defend every post you make, there won't be long pointless debates anymore, and we will have peace. *Big Darth Sidius grin*

[BrokeAndDrive]

Bastet Furry said:

Stirb in einem Feuer, Hurenkind! Und deine Popo fickenden Freunde gleich mit du widerlicher Bastard!
Der Flachwichser aus Braunau, der Deutschland diese Suppe erst eingebrockt hat, ist tot. Also geh sterben, am besten leise, du kleiner Naziwichser!

Babelfish Translation said:

Die in a fire, Hurenkind! And your Popo fickenden friends equal with you widerlicher hybrid! The Flachwichser from Braunau, which crumbled Germany this soup only, is dead. Thus go dying, best quietly, you small Naziwichser!

I... err... uh... YOUR MOM!

[esselfortium]

Cjwright79 said:

Or what?

I left for a while then came back to see if the venom had been expended. I see that it has not!

That's just, like, your opinion, mannn.

[Bastet Furry]

BrokeAndDrive said:

I... err... uh... YOUR MOM!

Ts, wants to be a Nazi and cant understand German...
F for Fail!

[Kagemaru_H]

phi108 said:

I sort of agree with Abyssal. It seems like you are just spamming topics. If you post less often, and try to never defend every post you make, there won't be long pointless debates anymore, and we will have peace. *Big Darth Sidius grin*

This is a similar reasoning as to why Maddox doesn't update his site every other day - if one just spams posts (like fifty posts per day), there will be a lot more chance that he'll be a shitty poster. If one only posts when he genuinely has something to say, there's less chance of him becoming a shitty poster when he only has one or two quality posts.

So it's all quality over quantity.

[Snakes]

esselfortium said:

That's just, like, your opinion, mannn.

Nobody fucks with the Jesus.

[Kagemaru_H]

Bastet Furry said:

Stirb in einem Feuer, Hurenkind! Und deine Popo fickenden Freunde gleich mit du widerlicher Bastard!
Der Flachwichser aus Braunau, der Deutschland diese Suppe erst eingebrockt hat, ist tot. Also geh sterben, am besten leise, du kleiner Naziwichser!

(Sorry to the others, that had to be said. ;) )

@Topic:
As said before, the demons brought their own reality with them, warping ours. It can be seen as an excuse for bad level design, but in the end it all worked for me. I like Doom 2 maps.

Google Translation:
Died in a fire that bastard! Popo and your fucking friends with the same disgusting you bastard!
The Flachwichser from Braunau, which Germany has brewed this soup before, is dead So go to die, most quiet, you little Naziwichser!

Google Translate < Babelfish.

[Gez]

Kagemaru_H said:

Google Translate < Babelfish.

Still fails a lot.

[hardcore_gamer]

This thread has gone really off-topic. Stop flaming each other guys :)

[kristus]

This whole thread is just one giant flame bait.

[DuckReconMajor]

Kagemaru_H said:

Google Translate < Babelfish.

If Google Translate is worse than Babelfish, then that's pretty bad.

SDL is my favorite

Stirb in a fire, whore child! Friends fucking and your Popo immediately with you repulsive bastard! The Flachwichser out of Braunau, that Germany has first petition stretched this soup, is dead. Therefore go dying, best quietly, you small Naziwichser!

[Gez]

DuckReconMajor said:

If Google Translate is worse than Babelfish, then that's pretty bad.

SDL is my favorite

But its outcome did not reach equilibrium. Though it gave this:

Stirb in the fire, the children of prostitutes! You and your friends and shit, people are now rebound Poe! Braunau Flachwichser This soup is popular in the deaths of Germany's first petition. Therefore, the most peaceful death, a small Naziwichser!

[Six]

Anyway...

In my own personal opinion, Doom 2 never really displayed poor quality in design, as i've never really gone through a map and thought "well, this is shit". It has its good a bad sides, but overall i can stand to play through without being affected by specific layouts considered undesirable. True that it may be less superior compared to Ultimate Doom by terms of design, but the unusual quirkiness of some maps really stuck in mind, and i guess you could say it's something i like about it.

But yeah.

[esselfortium]

Six said:

Anyway...

In my own personal opinion, Doom 2 never really displayed poor quality in design, as i've never really gone through a map and thought "well, this is shit". It has its good a bad sides, but overall i can stand to play through without being affected by specific layouts considered undesirable. True that it may be less superior compared to Ultimate Doom by terms of design, but the unusual quirkiness of some maps really stuck in mind, and i guess you could say it's something i like about it.

But yeah.

Play "Nirvana" again. I dare you. :P

[DuckReconMajor]

Hey man don't bring them into this.

[esselfortium]

[Six]

esselfortium said:

Play "Nirvana" again. I dare you. :P

Best map in the world!

I really have no beef with any levels in Doom 2, seriously, i kid you not. I may be one of the few, but i've played though the game so many times that each level is just as equal as the next in my mind, set in stone and one with the essence as a whole i say. Anyway i must be excused, i'm baking banana bread.

[printz]

esselfortium said:

Play "Nirvana" again. I dare you. :P

It plays exactly like a certain contemporary mapper's creations. Not bad gameplay, weak visuals, low duration.

[esselfortium]

printz said:

It plays exactly like a certain contemporary mapper's creations. Not bad gameplay, weak visuals, low duration.

Mine?

[Kagemaru_H]

I would fit this envelope:

Not bad gameplay, weak visuals, low duration.

But the final release of Relic will be a lot better. Beta was rushed because I wanted to release it ASAP.

[printz]

esselfortium said:

Mine?

Heh, no. I'm not attempting to use any of your medicines on you here because I don't have to. No, it's that contemporary member whom an /idgames comment freak compared to ruba or whoever. He's a Member with 10 characters in the user name and has a dithered photo (MSPaint scaling?). I just don't want to anger or start him. Maps in a very nostalgic Doom 2 style really.

[Kagemaru_H]

Since I'm a Ralphis was here, I guess it's not me.

[Nuxius]

printz said:

and has a dithered photo (MSPaint scaling?).

Nah, it has nothing to do with scaling, it just uses a specific type of dithering called ordered dithering. I always sarcastically call it "Sega CD" dithering, because that's the same type of dithering 95% of all of those shitty Sega CD FMV games used.

[Phobus]

By the looks of this thread (read the whole thing at last...) it'd appear that a lot of people don't find Doom2 fun because (in their opinion) it doesn't look like anything; has no real sense of place in most, if not all, of the levels; is a lot darker and more brown than the first Doom and is poorly designed on the gameplay front.

See, I really enjoyed Doom2. The Chasm annoys the hell out of me to this day, but it's a good idea and it is well done to be challenging. I enjoyed (Ultimate) Doom as well (E4 I find a bit closer to annoying than fun most of the time though), and I felt it introduced a lot of good ideas and themes but largely lacked in challenge. However, I feel Doom2 builds on this spectacularly with a lot of more creative and well thought-out gameplay situations. If anything, the only real problem I have with these two games is that they introduced so many good ideas that people are still largely copying them today, just with small alterations to the base idea. The most obvious examples are definitely every Doom2 megawad having a MAP07 and MAP30 that are just variations on the originals... and these two levels, whilst creative and good at the time, get tiresome quickly for me.

I like a map to look nice, but I really like a good level(-for-level's sake) as the thing I really love is seeing mappers doing the sort of things I try to do as well - come up with new ideas, provide challenging and interesting scenarios and make a level that is fun to play. If a map is abstract, or largely absract, I find it either doesn't matter, or that my mind finds a sort of mood or theme to fit in. As an example, it doesn't matter how "realistic" your highly detailed techbase is, it's still just a generic techbase with no real purpose past housing monsters, puzzles and challenges for me to hopefully defeat and secret areas to find. It just looks nice too in that case.

Even my dad, who's never been much of a gamer, has played Doom2 often enough to pick up on a surprisingly large number of (almost) ingenious puzzles and ideas (The Catacombs, with the different coloured torch at the beginning - you don't really notice it at first, but if you're looking for secrets you just might try it). He cited that particular example to me as something that may well be a good idea to think about myself when making my Doom maps... and that was years ago, when I was still developing Scourge (2004/2005 probably).

Carrying on in that vein, out of Final Doom I'm sure I'm with an awful lot of people when I say Plutonia is the better of two. Why? Certainly not because it looks like much (except MAP29 which still amazes me). You could tell me the whole thing is either a warped techbase or hell, and I'd be happy with that. It looks good though, I think, and the coherent theme is an amazing step up over Doom2. However, what really sells it is the gameplay. There were some really good ideas (like the MAP11 Arch-Vile maze... again something that was good at the time but grows tiresome with the tributes, particularly as none reach the mark in this case) and even the ones re-hashed from Doom2 were well done and suitably upped to fit the more challenging and intense play-style.

And then we get to Evilution... which is probably the only IWAD I particularly don't enjoy. Yeah, it's got some nice ideas (the window in MAP11 (I think that's the map anyway), Mount Heck's Lost Soul teleporting mountain) and yeah the theming is pretty cool, progressive and consistent... barring the uglier textures (tech bases in particular are very well done, but also the new hell stuff, the egyptian temple and the mines stuck out for me). However, the thing I remember about it most is painfully long corridors and largely annoying fights with loads of hitscanners, and a lot of that seems to be due to it trying to be realistic in the techbases (at least to me).

Conclusion? I'm probably quite easy to please, but I really enjoy the concepts and stuff bought up in all 4 Doom IWADs... I just prefer it when those concepts go towards fun or interesting gameplay, which is why Doom2 is probably my favourite.

[/massive wall of opinions]