CapnClever

For anyone wondering how I review maps and mapsets:
 
My reviews are based predominantly on gameplay. This is because the basis of my gaming knowledge stems from how games function with regards to rulesets, victory conditions, and developed content, as well as the satisfaction derived from the previously mentioned. While I can appreciate aesthetic qualities like music, architecture, graphics, animations, storytelling, et cetera, I don't trust myself to understand it enough to form hypotheses that others would find useful. My hope is that people who are looking for "good/bad" gameplay can depend on my recommendations. If it seems unfair to the map or mapset as a whole, know that my own enjoyment is whether the gameplay is fun: fantastic aesthetic will not make up for terrible gameplay, but fantastic gameplay can make up for terrible aesthetic. To put it metaphorically, I rate maps based on how well they function as a chess match, not how well they function as a trip to a museum or gallery.
 
I do my best not to judge a map on stereotypes. There are certain factors that I believe to improve gameplay: useful choices, variety of challenge, and subverting expectations are but three. On the other hand, there are certain types of Doom encounters that attract specific attention: rooms-and-hallways, puzzle combat, arenas, platforming, and whatnot. Even if I do not enjoy some of those types in general, I will still try to produce a review that judges the merit of the design and whatever gameplay results from that design. As a basic example: so-called "slaughtermaps" get a bad rap and a relatively small following because they exploit the rules in a very specific way, but even this subset can produce good or bad gameplay, and maps that perform extremely well should still be enjoyable to anyone that wants a good challenge (whereas maps that perform very poorly will appeal to no one).
 
I will not review something if I have not finished it. I may have to skip around a bit when a map or mapset reaches an unconditionally unwinnable state, but I consider it unfair to rate a map if I didn't even bother seeing it through to the end. Sometimes I'll see a review that is along the lines of "looks cool, downloading" or "got to map07 and stopped": while these aren't entirely useless reviews, they are nevertheless incomplete and I generally find them untrustworthy.
 
My numerical ratings have distinct meaning. This should go without saying, but I see a lot of ratings that don't match their descriptions and an uncanny volume of 1s and 5s when I expect a numerical system to fit more of a bell curve. To specify (number in list corresponds to star rating):
Do not play this, at all. Such a map or mapset contains no redeeming qualities whatsoever and should be considered a prime example of how not to produce interesting gameplay. Expect this rating to be very rare. This does not mean maps with zero discernible gameplay will necessarily receive a 1-star. I may just not end up reviewing them at all, or I might try to provide a rating based on looser criteria. This will be made clear when they occur. You should skip this, but it does have its moments. The map or mapset contains mostly uninteresting gameplay, but will occasionally surprise the player with good encounters or features. Community projects where most of the maps fail to be interesting also fall into this category. If a 2-star map or mapset has redeeming qualities on the aesthetic side, I'll try to point them out, but keep in mind I'm not used to judging such things. Playing this has more to do with your aesthetic tastes. The map's or mapset's gameplay has both interesting and uninteresting features that are decidedly difficult to wholly rate as "good" or "bad". Thus, the deciding factor has more about liking the concepts, themes, or some particular niche that the map or mapset falls into. In community projects, roughly half the maps were satisfying to play and the other half weren't. This will also be used when there is a clear and significant bifurcation of quality (i.e., the first two episodes were great but the third was awful). Recommendations will be based on the sudden split. You should play this. Though there may be an occasional fault, the whole of the work has interesting gameplay and will bring about an enjoyable experience. Community projects where most of the maps succeed at interesting gameplay also fall into this category. Play this as soon as you can. The map or mapset is a thoroughly interesting gameplay experience from start to finish, with virtually no flaws, and just about everyone should enjoy it. Expect this rating to be very rare. This rating is also reserved for gameplay that captivates on such a profound level so as to be almost transcendent of what is typical via Doom engine, while still being at least a pretty good experience overall. It will probably be handed out even less often. It's possible that, in a set, there are maps that completely go against the grain of the rest (for better or for worse). I will be certain to make note of them: sometimes they will bring a 1-star to a 2 or a 5-star to a 4 (to reiterate, 1s and 5s are very exceptional) but that's just the way numerical ratings go.
 
That's about all I can think to write about this topic! Too bad I won't be able to edit, because I'll probably want to word it differently in the future. If anyone else has thoughts about map ratings, though, I'm all ears.

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Evolution of the WAD E9! https://twitch.tv/capnclever

Evolution of the WAD E9! https://twitch.tv/capnclever

nxGangrel Vs. Alfonzo Deathmatch starts in an hour @ twitch.tv/capnclever

Evolution of the WAD E9! https://twitch.tv/capnclever

Evolution of the WAD E9! https://twitch.tv/capnclever

Evolution of the WAD E9! https://twitch.tv/capnclever

Evolution of the WAD E9! https://twitch.tv/capnclever

nxGangrel Vs. Alfonzo Deathmatch starts in an hour @ twitch.tv/capnclever

nxGangrel Vs. Alfonzo Deathmatch starts in an hour @ twitch.tv/capnclever

nxGangrel Vs. Alfonzo Deathmatch starts in an hour @ twitch.tv/capnclever

nxGangrel Vs. Alfonzo Deathmatch starts in an hour @ twitch.tv/capnclever

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Evo E8 soon! twitch.tv/capnclever

I was originally going to post this in a recent thread that basically revolved around the idea that the (mapping) community is actively hostile to new ideas and new mappers, as predicated on some series of events I've not investigated in any real depth where a certain mapper's efforts were barred from a community project for essentially refusing/failing to abide by the project's ground rules. Included was a layout shot of the map itself, which some cursory investigation showed to be essentially a disjointed collection of mostly dissociated rooms and ideas slathered in a motley mix of ZDoom features--a pretty ordinary newbie map of the 'fingerpaint collage' style, in other words, something we've all seen before. As I was writing this, the thread rapidly descended into the worst sort of Internet Melodrama (which was presumably the OP's intent from the get-go), and it seemed somewhat foolish to me to dignify it with a direct response, but I still want to post it somewhere anyway, in the off chance that a new mapper might chance upon it and find a little food for thought. I've edited it to be more general in thrust, but some specific references to the original thread/OP are still there, which surely introduces some awkwardness in parsing, and my posting this here instead of there will  perhaps be seen as needlessly cowardly or passive-aggressive by the reader of a certain social predisposition, but I suppose I can live with that.
 
 
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I've been playing the game more or less actively for as long as it has existed, and I've seen many a design trope or philosophy rise and fall, and in many cases rise and fall again. I suspect I'll see some of them rise and fall a third, fourth, even a fifth time, if I keep watching for long enough. While the play/design styles between some of these forms are as different as day is from night, they've all proved to have lasting appeal for some significant subsection(s) of the community because they learned from, built upon, or honed in on something that people liked about the base game or from one of the WADs/mods that came before, while de-emphasizing or even entirely discarding other aspects of the game of less present interest to the creator. There is no rational or justifiable reason to view learning from what has come before as a necessarily toxic or self-limiting approach to creating, and the implication that the 'established' community at large really only "wants one thing" as a result of some slavish devotion to convention is, at best--and this is me being artificially civil, here--willfully ignorant at best.
 
Lately, for instance, I've been watching one of the community's members stream (on Twitch) the creation of a painstakingly detailed, balls-hard but entirely monster-free puzzle map. This is a map that will--quite understandably!--likely appeal to only a fairly niche audience, but I can almost guarantee you most onlookers will be able to appreciate and respect the level of craft and thought involved in the creation of such a whimsical and idiosyncratic thing, even if it's not the sort of thing everyone might actually enjoy playing in their leisure time. I can also almost guarantee you the map will be remembered a few years down the road, something predicated not only on it being what it is, but also on it functioning correctly and at least reasonably intuitively for what it is, which, again, is a state of affairs largely built on drawing from established wisdom and experience (selectively interpreted, of course!). Certain extreme cases aside, most appeals or references to established practice, particularly those between fellow creators working alongside one another on this or that project, are not used as blunt instruments to stamp out creativity or new ideas, but as whetstones to hone them into the best they can be.
 
I've seen the map screenshotted as a layout in the OP before. I've played it. I first played it in early 1995 or so, when I got my first shovelware CD. I've played it hundreds of times since then, and I'll probably play it many more times in many more iterations before I'm through. I've seen it rendered in a form that will run in the original distro version of the original executable, and I've seen it buried under a veritable mountain of advanced engine features, requiring bleeding-edge SVN builds of modern sourceports to load and launch (I hesitate to say "to function"). It's not without value or potential! I've seen it provide interesting ideas and memorable vignettes that I'm thankful I got to experience. More often than not, I've seen it take the form of a mechanically dysfunctional, effectively and occasionally quite literally unplayable mess, which in the worst cases reads like a tragedy because you can still occasionally see flashes of the cool ideas crushed under the weight of the sundry failures in mechanics and implementation and basic usability design, like a mangled hand poking out of the rubble left in the wake of some natural disaster, weakly grasping at the air. Happily, there have been occasions where I've seen it nurtured, refined, and ultimately built into something worthy of a visit by everyone, giving the cool, sometimes quirky ideas within a chance to shine and get some of the appreciation they deserve. More often than not, though, I've seen them rot on the vine, sacrificed at the altar of wounded pride.
 
I've also seen the Grand Prophesy declared in the OP (** essentially the idea that the community is doomed by being shackled to convention, though basically phrased as "the meek shall inherit the earth and cast down the Tyrants") spoken many, many times before. Not once in over two decades has it ever been vindicated, which, if we take a little flick of Occam's razor, is likely because no one really wants it to be--newcomer or old hand alike. Something to be thankful for, yes?

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