The Future Of Doom?

[KingShinra]

(Layman's opinion).

I'm in computer limbo, so I currently do not have a proper PC to build Doom maps anymore, but something itches at me.

Most of the projects I've seen lately, outside of Cacowards, are weapon/HUD mods, and gameplay edits. Nothing wrong with that. At all.

...but I havent seen some major megawads in a long while. Last I played was Prodoomer, and that was DAMN GOOD.


So I guess I throw it out there...what's the stats on major productions coming up? To be fair, I'm getting older, and getting $$$.

I kind of drew out a business plan to incorporate independent developers to get paid to edit games (still a dream in growth. Will take time), but it's a reality...people are getting older, and time is an issue.

What are we looking at in terms of projects and future developments?

[wildweasel]

If you're not seeing new megawads, you're paying attention to the wrong places. Doomworld's forums are full of them, either community projects or solo endeavors.

[Enjay]

As an aside, I can't remember the last time I gave a megawad a full and proper play through. Sure, I download them, I play the first few maps but, sooner or later, I'll get to a point where I don't want to sit slowly chewing through 32 maps and I start IDCLEVing (often to significant points: such as the original Doom2 theme (sky) change maps) to have a quick look at the remainder. Yes, I do go back and play a few more and I do give serious attention to the maps that catch my eye but it is a very, very long time since I downloaded a full 32 map megawad and played it through from map01 to map30/32 even in a number of different sittings.

What I'm really saying is that I wouldn't be bothered at all if megawads simply stopped appearing because, personally, I prefer playing something that comes in smaller, more digestible bites: a single map or a small episode of 2 to maybe 10-12 maps at most is ideal as far as I am concerned.

I get the appeal of making a 32 map megawad (hell, I've done it). Even if it is somewhat irrelevant in these days of MAPINFO etc. there is something nice about being able to say that you have replaced all 32 maps. The fact that the original game contained 32 maps makes the number 32 somehow magical and a goal in the minds of many project authors. However, as a player, a 32 map project is highly unlikely to be given my full attention and some maps in the project are not going to be played with anything like the attention they would have commanded if they had been part of a smaller set and they may even be missed out entirely.

[edit] Thinking about it, perhaps part of this is that a 32 map set which is populated by Vanilla/Boom compat maps (i.e. the kind of sets that seem to appear over at Doomworld) doesn't hold that much appeal to me anyway. Of course I still enjoy maps in that style but wading through 32 of them is a bit tedious IMO. There usually isn't enough interesting or different about them to hold my interest for 32 maps. [/edit]

[Gez]

You may want to give Valiant a try. It's split into five episodes, so the average episode has only six levels in it.

[Graf Zahl]

I have to agree with Enjay. I can't even remember which the last 32 level megawad was that I manged to play through from start to finish. These things start to drag sooner or later, especially when they are just incoreherent collections of maps without a consistent theme.

The last mod with more than 15 maps that I managed to finish was Back to SaturnX episode 1 (I haven't played ep. 2 yet) but the qualita of that was so far above the common megawad that it is the exception from the rule. Aside from that, most of the time I tire around maps 10-15, especially if the mod goes the worn down standard route from tech->city/gothic->hell. As it stands, tech is my favorite theme and hell my least favorite one, so these megawads inevitavly degenerate for me the closer they come to the end.

I'd rather see some smaller but more focussed projects, they tend to be far more fun.

[Ozymandias81]

(Layman's opinion).

I'm in computer limbo, so I currently do not have a proper PC to build Doom maps anymore, but something itches at me.

Most of the projects I've seen lately, outside of Cacowards, are weapon/HUD mods, and gameplay edits. Nothing wrong with that. At all.

...but I havent seen some major megawads in a long while. Last I played was Prodoomer, and that was DAMN GOOD.


So I guess I throw it out there...what's the stats on major productions coming up? To be fair, I'm getting older, and getting $$$.

I kind of drew out a business plan to incorporate independent developers to get paid to edit games (still a dream in growth. Will take time), but it's a reality...people are getting older, and time is an issue.

What are we looking at in terms of projects and future developments?

... or you just wait until Gore will be released ... (hope that's not so bumpy thiz!)

[VGA]

I have to agree with Enjay. I can't even remember which the last 32 level megawad was that I manged to play through from start to finish. These things start to drag sooner or later, especially when they are just incoreherent collections of maps without a consistent theme.

The last mod with more than 15 maps that I managed to finish was Back to SaturnX episode 1 (I haven't played ep. 2 yet) but the qualita of that was so far above the common megawad that it is the exception from the rule. Aside from that, most of the time I tire around maps 10-15, especially if the mod goes the worn down standard route from tech->city/gothic->hell. As it stands, tech is my favorite theme and hell my least favorite one, so these megawads inevitavly degenerate for me the closer they come to the end.

I'd rather see some smaller but more focussed projects, they tend to be far more fun.

Yes, this obsession with making megawads has certainly resulted in many abandoned projects, or lower quality "filler" maps.

[zrrion the insect]

I tend to manually split long megawads into episodes so that I can play them is small bits. Because, yeah, all 32 at once is too long a stretch without any sort of substantial indicator of progress like an episode offers.

[scalliano]

I have NEVER played a megawad to completion.

[VGA]

I refuse to believe there is a computer that can't build Doom maps. Unless the OP means he doesn't have a PC at all for now.

[GooberMan]

A 286 shouldn't be able to run DEU

(Random fact: the guy that wrote the extended memory code for DEU was one of my teachers at the game programming course I did in 2002)

[Enjay]

Well, you could make one in a hex editor or even a text editor in UDMF. It's been done before.

[Average]

As mentioned above, there are lots of maps released for Doom (2) all the time. Megawads are rarer for obvious reasons. The workload is just huge. Personally, I prefer Doom episodic wads. That way if I get bored of Episode one maps I can start a new game and play one of the other episodes. Perhaps that makes me capricious but I suppose that's modern life for you!

[Nems]

I see I fall in the opposite camp of Doom WAD lengths in that I like megaWADs and do play them to completion, so much so that I'm always on the lookout for something exceeding 32 (or 36 in the case of Ultimate Doom) levels. That's not to say I don't enjoy smaller releases (I do). Just sometimes I curse my lack of time to learn how to compile smaller levels into one large megaWAD. I like the sense of progression, finding new, better gear to face a progressively harder challenge down the road. Of course, I also understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to actually make a megaWAD, especially a good megaWAD so I'm certainly thankful when there is a release of any sort.

Admittedly I also like WAD's that have an "epic" feel to them (i.e. Eternal Doom III and Eternal Doom IV [which I hope is still alive in some capacity]), where there's a good deal of exploration to go with the slaughter and some puzzle solving (though nothing excessive; Artifact and Welcome to Hell by Paul Schmitz and the Odessa series by Bob Evans fall under the excessive category for me). Heck, it's part of why I love slaughterWAD's (even if I do suck balls at them :v). I don't see many of these "epic" WADs but I hold onto them when I find them.

I'm still tempted to just make a massive megaWAD for myself using Oblige, editing the levels it spits out, and just making something really, really long in terms of number of maps (part of this is also to teach myself how to map and use Decorate/Dehacked/general editing).

I should probably stop being a lazy duff and make time to learn all this crap, even if it's just for my own amusement. :U

[wildweasel]

I'd just love to see more stuff like the KZDoom series, Cyb's Zort maps, or something like Hell Factory or TQTrust. Few (if any) custom monsters, new textures and decorations used sparingly, but still liberal use of scripts and ZDoom features.