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[vagabondarts]

...

(I'd recommend Hurt me plenty, Brutal Doom on UV will destroy you in most modern wads)

yes this, definitely.

on mapmaking and monster condo merits

I enjoyed that post immensely. Thank you!

 

[Jerry Orbach]

This is a super reductive statement but I always felt like in the DOOM era, levels were made by level designers while nowadays, I feel like they're made by artists.

I think the difficulty today comes from level designers being expected to serve two masters. It's not enough for you to create a place that plays great and looks nice, you also have to shoulder the burden of environmental storytelling. It's easy to make a level that's a good place for a gunfight, somewhat harder to make one that effectively masks the incredibly limited AI of your supposedly-intelligent human (or human-like) enemies, and harder still to make one that does all that AND resembles a place where people once lived and worked. Add to that the demands of today's complex narratives ("Jeff, your level needs to take place in an elementary school where the students were being covertly studied for signs of psychic ability by a nefarious corporation. You'll need to gradually unveil the disturbing details of this research over the course of the level, eventually culminating in a shocking revelation that should hopefully make the player cry and also think. You'll need to weave in a subplot about one of the students possibly being molested by the janitor and a boss fight with the cyborg ghost of the janitor. HD is expensive, so you'll need to do it with 70% recycled assets, most of which were left over from our last game and the rest are from our new sister studio in Shanghai. And it would be great if you could make it so no one ever gets confused or lost, even if they're playing on a gamepad or plastic gun peripheral and have trouble looking around. Thanks man!") and it's a wonder anything playable gets made at all.

 

[wsippel]

I think the difficulty today comes from level designers being expected to serve two masters. It's not enough for you to create a place that plays great and looks nice, you also have to shoulder the burden of environmental storytelling.

That's why Portal 2 works so well. The test chambers in that game are levels in a classical game sense, because Portal is a game within a game. It makes sense. And there's still a lot of environmental storytelling. If such a setup is necessary to make fun levels, more action game developers should try that "game-in-game" approach.

 

[Victrix]

There's two other things working against level design in (non sequel) games, that being that the designers don't necessarily know yet how the game will play, not exactly.

This goes doubly for multiplayer games - designers are almost never the best mp players of whatever game.

Which is why sequels tend to have more refined levels, but a lot of games don't get sequels, and with the trend of games not allowing modding (woo, DLC), you don't often get to see a lot of engines stretched to their fullest extent.

Which is a shame really, not that the level design tools for crazy 3d games are remotely as friendly as something like Doom, I still had way too much fun going through fan maps in doom/quake/unreal, not to mention the tons of crazy mods.

These days? Pay $15 for a few new maps for CoD (a quake 3 engine game, oh the irony).

To summarize: go play Brutal Doom right now you fools

 

[mantidor]

obligatory

 

[Neuromancer]

The reason why nobody can agree on what makes a Doom level is because, even within the original campaign, there were two distinct schools of thought, each corresponding to one of the original level designers.

The first school, the John Romero school, is the one evident in the shareware episode (Knee Deep in the Dead). Romero built his levels like rollercoasters: mostly straightforward affairs ("you have to find the red key before you can get the blue key before you can get the gold key") with memorable set-piece battles (his levels would often begin with a bloodbath, before settling down into a period of calmer exploration, useful for building tension). His levels were aesthetically consistent, often resembling "plausible" locations, and remarkably atmospheric.

The second school was the source of both retail episodes (The Shores of Hell and Inferno), and was the product of Sandy Petersen. Petersen's levels were more like RPG dungeons, perhaps reflecting his background as a writer of pen-and-paper adventure modules: non-linear ("you have to find three keys to lower the three barriers to the exit") with an emphasis on teleporters and environmental trickery (every level included at least one obvious gimmick, and sometimes as many as he could cram in). His levels often looked like a goddamn mess, a nightmare of clashing colors and textures adorned rooms of seemingly random shapes and sizes, presumably intended to help players navigate his more complex and unfettered floorplans without getting lost ("oh right, I'm in the Wood-Paneled Vestibule, I remember this place").

Both designers returned for Doom II, with John contributing six levels and Sandy eighteen. They were also joined by American McGee, a second-generation level designer whose maps suggested a synthesis of his two predecessors' styles, an attempt to merge their strongest individual elements while adding a few quirks of his own.

The map in the original post, Doom II's Monster Condo, is an archetypical example of the Petersen style. Its most prominent gimmick is probably the large rectangular room in the Northwest corner, which contains a teleporter to an identical room in another section of the map. You wouldn't realize you'd actually gone anywhere until you attempted to leave by the same door you came in, at which point you'd find yourself confronted by a hallway full of lava - most disorienting, until you figured out what was going on.

What doesn't show up on this map is the level's visual appearance, which was frankly hideous. Go here to see an isometric perspective of the level, where you'll see the entire thing is an endless expanse of the same dull, muddy brown texture, with a couple of notable exceptions: the trick teleporter rooms are made of an incongruous marble, while the large "library" in the Southeast corner has the same bookshelf painted on every wall (needless to say, many of them slide away, revealing hidden passages). You'll also notice almost all the monsters are packed into closets, just waiting for some lucky marine to come along and trip their release trigger - problematic if you trip more than one at a time, and all the encouragement an attentive player needs to creep along at a snail's pace, carefully managing each cluster individually and breaking the level down into a series of two-dozen or so slightly tedious micro-engagements. Still, a level has to be good if we're still talking about it, seventeen years later!

Awesome post.

And yeah pretty much all of Doom 2 was brown and hideous, not just that one level. One of the main reasons I've always preferred Doom 1.

 

[Coxswain]

[Awesome stuff]

Been said by quite a few people, but seriously: This was good stuff. This place could use more analysis like that.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

Consoles happened. A shoehorned version a genre somehow becomes the most dominant form of playing a genre. Welcome to our slow speed, 2 weapon, auto-aim overlords.

Edit: Although yeah, the level design changed after Half-Life for most shooters to become a bunch of linear pass/fail scenarios.

 

[Orayn]

Mad props for Jerry Orbach for the super-informative post!

If you made the FPS equivalent of Dark Souls/Demon Souls (hardcore gameplay emphasis, minimal presentation elements) and hyped it properly, it would sell.

Maybe even start a new trend.

That could totally work. It just needs to be very modern in a new way, like the Souls games. They aren't King's Field HD, they're extremely cutting edge games, ahead of their contemporaries in many ways (especially with integrating online play into a single player experience).

If we can have Doom redefined this way, it could be pretty huge.

We really should have that thread. First person games in general need their Demon's Souls, and soon.

Consoles happened. A shoehorned version a genre somehow becomes the most dominant form of playing a genre. Welcome to our slow speed, 2 weapon, auto-aim overlords.

Edit: Although yeah, the level design changed after Half-Life for most shooters to become a bunch of linear pass/fail scenarios.

I don't think Half-Life is necessarily the tipping point. Half-Life and even Halo included segments that had mini-hubs, puzzles, and opportunities for exploring and figuring things out yourself. Call of Duty 4 is where I think the straight-up "rollercoaster" design came into its own.

 

[Sinatar]

FPS games did have it's Dark Souls, it was called STALKER.

 

[Orayn]

FPS games did have it's Dark Souls, it was called STALKER.

That's a pretty rough comparison, IMO. STALKER was an excellent game, but in terms of level design it has a lot more in common with the likes of Thief and Deus Ex than Doom and Quake.

 

[Red UFO]

DOOM is a maze game with shooting elements, if you ask me.

 

[Neuromancer]

DOOM is a maze game with shooting elements, if you ask me.

Absolutely, but that was part of the charm. Just figuring out where to go and what to do next. Modern game design (in the CoD style) rarely lets you alone for 30 seconds to figure it out for yourself.

 

[Jasoco]

I did a Let's Play Nightmare Until We Die of Episode 1. Maybe someone might be interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMihwo8__2g

Spoiler:

Spoiler

I make it to the donut bridge on level 3

I will be doing more.

 

[Alchemy]

This thread needs more red key cards.

 

[G-Fex]

1) Why can't you just jump into the game and play? Because the standard has been set by so many other FPSs (and other genres) that doing so would make the game feel "cheap." Gamers expect "cinematic" nonsense in all of their games now. If it isn't there, they feel something is wrong.

(I am the last guy on Earth who will say there is no place for story-telling in video games. But there is no reason it has to be crammed into every game, and it really shouldn't be there in some cases.)

2) What happened to great level design? "Realism" happened.

Remember when a floating disembodied head spitting fireballs used to be commonplace in gaming? Abstract shit like that happened all the time, and nobody thought it was odd. That was just what happened in video games! But these days, that would be "wacky" and would need to have some sort of explanation before the gamer would be expected to accept it (unless the game were some sort of retro throwback in design).

With the rise of more visually complex games and more powerful hardware, some preexisting genres like the FPS started to look a little long in the tooth in terms of design standards. "How can you hit an enemy if you're not aiming directly at it? That's not realistic, and it looks silly with graphics this high quality." Never mind that auto-aiming at anything above or below you in a game like Doom makes the game faster and more about character movement/maneuvering instead of reticule precision. That's "silly" and not realistic, so it has to go. All the other FPSs are doing it, too. Do you want your game to be the dinosaur?

And so levels had to be more realistic, too. The level designs in Doom are awesome, but do they really make sense for a space station? No, so now they're gone. Compare Doom 1 and 2 to Doom 3 for a good example of what I mean.

3) Where did all the secrets go? Games cost more to develop, and that means the developer/publisher wants you to see as much of what they create as possible. (And because everything is more complex to create, they're creating less of it overall.) Content that you might not experience is an investment they may not see a return on, so to speak. Players might not find it (in fact, in a game like Doom, gamers probably won't find most of it), and why put it in if they won't see it? What if they get frustrated and give up?

Some game types just fall out of vogue, but I also think this is probably one major reason FPSs have gotten slower. Games cost more to develop, and the devs/pubs need their games to be as accessible to as many people as possible in order to sell as many copies as possible. Fast games require skilled reflexes, whereas everyone can enjoy a slower-paced FPS. Especially if it has regenerating health, so even less skilled players have a chance!

and this is the shit why I hate modern gaming. I'll stick to my retro stuff from now on.

 

[kodecraft]

Bulletstorm?

It's bare on story, cool looking levels with interesting areas (for skill kills), some hidden things, and two or three big moments mixed in with the constant arcadey action.

Bulletstorm is my fave shooter this gen next to Vanquish, but for what the OP is asking, Serious Sam is a better fit to Doom 2.

 

[Fugu]

I've been asking myself this question for years. The FPS genre used to be my favorite; I was raised on id games. There's not really anything left for me, though.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

this was a holy shit moment

 

[Jasoco]

this was a holy shit moment

You need to lure them to fire at each other and wait for one to kill the other.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

You need to lure them to fire at each other and wait for one to kill the other.

I know, it's still a holy shit moment when you see them both coming down.

 

[Jasoco]

I know, it's still a holy shit moment when you see them both coming down.

Simply get them to notice you, run circles around the upper platform until one hits the other, and leave until you hear one of them die. Man, I want to play through DOOM 2 again.

 

[Christine]

Thank you for bringing Doom 64 EX to my attention. I've wanted exactly that for many, many years now.

I ran through a few levels of that and a few of KDITD, and WOW, I'm so much better at this shit than I was in the 90s.

 

[subversus]

I'm so much better at this shit than I was in the 90s.

especially when you use mouse

 

[InvincibleAgent]

This thread makes me want to make such a game so bad...

 

[Tain]

I ran through a few levels of that and a few of KDITD, and WOW, I'm so much better at this shit than I was in the 90s.

Yeah, that was my thought when I went back to Doom in 2005 after not having played it in ages.

Of course, you can always move on to the bigger challenge with ManDoom:



i'm done posting about this, i promise! i'm just sitting here at work wanting to play it really bad.

 

[Mareg]

I wouls suggest the Turok serie.

Specially Turok 2 on the PC was an amazing doom-like experience. Lots and lots of mazes.

 

[Mechanized]

Just going to leave this here.

The biting commentary on DLC was pretty laughable. I mean, that was really reaching.

The opening part where you actually have a group of dudes helping you... in Doom... was cool. I don't give a fuck.

 

[Jasoco]

I posted a second video. This time I played an old abandoned Total Conversion of DOOM 2 called "The Exiled" that hasn't been worked on since 2006 sadly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mVfTbExFMQ

If anyone is interested in the least. I've never done Let's Plays myself before until a friend and I were talking about DOOM and Hexen a few days ago and dared each other to do some. He dared me to do a Nightmare run of Episode 1 and I dared him to do a blind run of Hexen.

If y'all hate my videos, let me know and I'll stop posting them. Or keep posting them out of spite. Haven't decided yet.