Didn't even look at the articles yet just loved the comment, lol.

Some day when I get time I am going to catch up on Doom releases, hopefully in coop. The gameplay is so fun, even arguably unsurpassed for what it is. THY FLESH CONSUMED was such a great episode; it's so infuriating that Romero was able to design its epic second map in only 6 hours (midnight-dawn); I still remember reading him pointing out in PC Gamer in 1996 that due to 3d and increasing detail map design was now going to take longer and longer and require more work, ie diminishing returns. 

courtesy of Chris Crawford, 1994:
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/the-journal-of-computer/jcgd-volume-7/design-analysis-doom.html

My other complaint is with the tricky timing puzzles. In one example of this, you lower a secret door by walking past a point in a corridor and then you have just a few seconds to run to the door and jump through it before it closes. I am sure that with the appropriate input device this is not too difficult. However, I was using a mouse, and despite my best efforts, I found it almost impossible to get through that damn door. I had to make perhaps ten attempts before I was successful. I suspect that the designers did this with a joystick and found it none too difficult.

heee! 

An expansion on Warren's point about representation:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/12/20-years-of-doom.html


I'm surprised I can't find anyone write about Doom's specific design decisions any more in-depth than LeBreton, though. I want someone who understands this game way more than me to pick apart every monster.

Example: the Arch-Vile's two attacks are perfectly chosen for the tension they create with their overlap - the resurrect means you really really need to focus on it badly, but the blast attack means you really really need to stay out of sight. It makes fighting one an event because you flip back and forth between two opposite states of ohshitohshitohshit. This kind of thing is surely common knowledge to Doom players, but it's written in hundreds of megawads and personal experiences, not in text.

This one comes close:
http://blog.danbo.vg/post/50094276897/the-most-misunderstood-game-of-all-time
(and I'd adore it for no other reason than it opens by calling John Carmack "id's last shred of credibility.") He nicely puts something that's just as true about Quake, which I've always had difficulty articulating: that the player in an FPS like this is fighting the level designer, and even if the enemies are dumb, their arrangement within local architecture and the overall arc of a level is where the intelligence is manifested.

Also, apparently the best Doom level ever is in fact E4M2. Need to scrounge up a copy of TFC again. 

sort of like the opposite of the "shambler dance," since you CAN'T really exploit it easily.

What I liked about TFC, and e4m2 in particular, is how far it took the basic gameplay mechanics and just assumes the player can deal with it; it just throws you into a huge battle right in the open at the start of the map, incorporates not just narrow stairs above lava but even "jumps" that require player agility, and from the start of the map there's just a cyberdemon chilling out guarding the exit. Kind of like Covert Ops for C&C1, this was when the designers were assuming that anyone who bought the expansion was a hardcore veteran of the original game. 

, that second article. Bookmarking his list of recommended doom wads: http://blog.danbo.vg/post/69605500322/some-doom-wads-to-play 

Danbo is spot on on his article imo. 

I often wonder how much of Doom's design was intentional and how much was id stumbling into it ... 

I mean, hear me out ... every game since Doom has had less and less interesting combat.

While I love Quake, the combat is much less interesting than Doom 2. And Doom 3 and RAGE fall even further. I liked RAGE but it's a fairly bog standard shooter by today's standards.

You can't even say it was Romero because, well, he was there for Quake.

So ... 

And level design, which is extrapolated from the game design, must be emergent to be interesting.

In other words a good game has to be a team effort where the good ideas mix coherently and bad ideas are identified and discarded. Bigger teams can achieve more than smaller ones, but I believe there is a critical mass where you just have too many people and good and bad ideas mix into random sludge.

The QA process is a giant safety net for lazy design - bad ideas got polished up and unfortunately good ideas ten to get marginalized.

Then the designers can rest easy, not having to worry if they used enemy X or powerup Y in the most nuanced and clever way possible.

As id got bigger, their games got less effective.

And there's another thing - considering the amount of interactivity in the latest id creations (when comparing them to Doom) are they more games, or products. 

Once the team is big enough, good ideas stop being recognized at all because the only thing that everyone can find acceptable is what no one finds interesting.

Also, Quake's development was far more complicated than just "Romero was there." 

But I kept getting a map error involving the need to build or rebuild nodes. does anyone here know how to construct these additional pylons? 

Hey, the first two levels are damn cool. Better than those frigging Cacowards. Great up-mix of bog doom2. 

Up to map 27. Big arse US launchers, and a few secrets leading to a great easter egg with some nutter.

The whole thing has been great, and only a couple of crazy-hard levels. 

As I was saying in General Abuse there is some serious gold to be made with an actual new "Doom" no matter what the IP/Title of the game.

It is simply baffling that no studio/designer has taken it apart and tried to create a newer version of what Doom actually is.

Ever since Doom came out its all been about the next "Doom killer". My god, why the obsession with "killing" something that works so well ? No one has even gotten close to emulating Doom's strengths, let alone "kill" it...

So much to be done, I ranted off on random ideas on how to "next gen" a so called oldschool game with current tech without obessing on eyecandy. 

Lots of the good doom clones were back in the early 90's. Duke 3d, Blood, Powerslave etc.

Since Half-Life was released people have been more interested in copying that experience. 

Lots of the good doom clones were back in the early 90's. Duke 3d, Blood, Powerslave etc.
Yeah, but not as good. Serious Sam sort of tried to up the gameplay, and Duke3d was awesome - but Doom just nailed it.

Last level of Valiant was epic.. but too tough for my sorry arse :|. 

Doom was also first and defined the experience. That makes it almost impossible to top. 

As much as the Build games are awesome, they do not quite match Doom's monster/weapon/fight styles balance etc.

So Doom clones, no. A clone would means as good as Doom. They were not as good in these same points. And frankly I don't think they were trying for that, they had new things and themes to play with in Build and they are very very fun games, Blood is my number 2 game after Doom but its for different reasons.

Maybe topping it does not have to be the goal here. Maybe a 1:1 gameplay copy with more modern tech and a few additions that do not marr the strengths of the game?
Boring ? Hmmm, maybe... it sure has not been done in 23 years though. So many other things have been redone ad nauseam since then in the games industry. Why not Doom at least ONCE. I agree its stupid to make 25 actual clones, but 1 in 23 years does not seem an exaggeration does it ? 

Part of why I don't think Blood, Duke etc are Doom clones is mostly because they use different enemy and weapon philosophy. Just a simple thought: Build Engine games are much more hitscan-based than Doom, which makes them very different and overall much more difficult than Doom in some situations (Blood especially, this game is torture). 

Exactly Skacky.

And : Pfft, cakewalk. Blood's secret is jump over the enemies frantically :D 

I just have one question. Can you play this map pack in Brutal Doom? 

Doom = hilariously fast player + unnaturally slow and clumsy enemies. Try to imagine that with photorealistic graphics.

I don't think that making a faithful clone today would be an easy and straightforward task. 

Blood is hard because the Cultists, Fanatics, Acolytes, Zealots, and Priests all idle in the weapon-ready-not-firing stance, meaning that there is a single frame difference from spotting you, and actually firing. Yeah their accuracy is also great, their secondary attacks are strong, the whole going prone AND strafing is tricky - but its that "almost always gets the first shot" that makes them so punishing. Have them idle in a walking frame like Doom, Duke, or Shadow Warrior does and it'd be a much easier game. 

Ya, whats the point of the photorealistic graphics there either way dwere ?

Modern tech does not mean de-facto photorealistic crap.

Photorealism is not the only means of using modern tech to create immersion and better gaming experience. 0 loading times, enormous levels, unlimited level building possibilities and enemy quantities, interactive environments, physics, metagames and so on...creativity and imagination are the limit.

Aiming for the "sweetest gfx" really puts a limit as to what gets done with big budgets and latest tech. 

The tide just eventually might turn back.