Tag That Skull

I think that's a great idea. However, there are a LOT of really good dm maps; and there are so many different 'flavors'. One of the things that makes Doom and Quake so incredible is that many of the singleplayer maps are great in dm. Also, I think that many solid releases(like Overload and Gothic99) were meant to be complete releases that were a standard mapset -- much like Kirsch's q3wctf mapset; not an official release, but definitely a polished, professional work. Something for you crazy developers to consider is: if you made a finished Doom iwad; you could release it under the shareware GPL license and include what you think are the Doom_dm1 - Doom_dm32 levelset! This would become very standard; since it would be a free download - theoretically.

No matter how good they are, declaring a certain set of maps the "standard" doom2 maps is a bit presumptuous. And I suppose you haven't played the quake games a lot, because having standard set of maps kills a game rather than supports it: yeah lets have another round of dm4 or q2dm1. I think the doomserv approach is much better: many custom dm maps are very small and can be easily downloaded. Why repeat "standard" maps if there are so many cool ones out there, discover something new! And when exactly is this client-server thing gonna happen then? --Aardappel

Well, the only reason I'm saying they'll become "standard" is because they'll basically become part of Doom II. Anyone who has client/server Doom will automatically have the maps. I don't really agree with your point of them harming a game rather than supporting it: yes people will play those maps more commonly than others, but that's also the point. It's nice when a map is standard since it actually gets the chance to become really really popular. Had dm4 just been released by some guy for Q1 as "some map I made," it wouldn't have been nearly as popular nor gotten the attention and praise it deserves, even though it would still be the same exact map. If people over play the standard maps and rarely or never try out new ones, well, then that's their fault. But I think having standard maps are equally as important as the ability to create new ones.