The Dean of Doom series (companion thread)

2 minutes ago, AnonKaiju said:

Wonder what the season finale is gonna be, personally I'm rooting for doom 64 since that's my favorite of the official doom games and I'm very curious what someone who's more experienced in doom things (I personally think it's easily the best doom wad I've seen or played from the 90's but that's up for debate)

I have a feeling its either BTSX E2 (because its a sequel and 2X=20?.....I guess) or Resurgence (because the season started with SoD and it'd be a fitting capper to the season IMO).

I'm super glad Water Spirit showed up here. I mentioned it to him before in a comment after someone on here told me about it. Glad he ended up checking it out! And I'm super glad all 3 maps got As. It's a fantastic WAD, and it's some of Manbou's best work. I wish there were more maps by them. 

Really cool that he covered Doom City which I'm hoping he'll cover all 3 map sets that Shamus Young made(Slugfest, Torment & Phobos: Relive the Nightmare) as I feel they deserved their own episode :)

This episode was a treat. Loved the visuals and the music in this one.

Not sure if I'll enjoy the wads or not though. I was never really a fan of complex or slaughter maps and think they're overrated for the most part. However these might be accessible to me because they're only singular levels and not full megawads. And once again I do love classic Doom music. There's just something about its soundfont that's so perfect and nostalgic to me. And I don't even consider Doom to be a "true" part of my childhood. Does anyone else feel the same?

Excellent! Disturbia, Grove, Nuts 3, and the Chord Series.

23 hours ago, i suck at nicknames said:

I have a feeling its either BTSX E2 (because its a sequel and 2X=20?.....I guess) or Resurgence (because the season started with SoD and it'd be a fitting capper to the season IMO).

He promised Memento Mori because it won a Patreon vote, but I suppose he could've changed his mind....but I think Resurgence has a decent chance of going in next season, and he specfically said BTSX2 would happen Season 3, so.....

12 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

He promised Memento Mori because it won a Patreon vote, but I suppose he could've changed his mind....but I think Resurgence has a decent chance of going in next season, and he specfically said BTSX2 would happen Season 3, so.....

I'm pretty sure (from what little I know of the inside process) material has been done on MM, MtPain hasn't gotten around to it for some reason or another.

3 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Rest assured, I’ve already sent MtPain a 13-page-long essay (a strongly worded one, to be clear!) berating him and telling him why he’s wrong for giving DoomCity a mere C+. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The strength of our friendship is already being put to the test.

I shudder to think what will happen to your friendship if/when MtPain27 reviews Memento Mori.

Woah, I did not expect to see Disturbia. That one is like my favourite death-destiny map.

I hope this inspires our man to make more videos like this. Lord knows there's so, so, SO many smaller WADs that are deserving of coverage on the channel. It'd help diversify is coverage of the community's output even further in terms of creative and technical achievements.

I really like Sawed Off Wads, perhaps enough to say that it's my favorite Dean of Doom video yet. I get the appeal of going map by map in megawads, it really works well with the Dean's grading system, but... shining a light on single map sets is greatly appreciated. I particularly felt that this video nailed the experience of Grove, and listening to Dean recount his time with it is beautiful, much like the map itself. You knocked it out of the park with this one, great job.

Encounters with death-destiny's maps will be a lot more fun if you like arch-viles, and by that I mean serious arch-vile fetish or something.

Death-destiny also tend to throw in a lot of cyberdemons in his maps.(Probably other than Disturbia) So many of them that you basically have to sit back and enjoy spending 30s along with ~40 shells killing one from time to time.

Jesus christ I wonder what do people back then think of his maps, especially when players aren't generally that good at doom.

4 hours ago, Nefelibeta said:

Jesus christ I wonder what do people back then think of his maps, especially when players aren't generally that good at doom.

See for yourself:

No Chance:

Disturbia:

If you want to find DD's other maps then just open DD's profile and search the topics section under content.

The Deliquent bits are amazing

Can't wait to watch this one once I get home!  Really exited to see what they think about it.

Now I have something to look forward to today. Thank you!

i have an incredibly hard time going back to MM and feel pretty similarly about it. even having played it 20 years ago, nostalgia has a hard time saving this one for me. it's definitely a bit of a "growing pains" time capsule as far as doom mapping goes.

+1 to the delinquent gags being great, very happy to see more fun and goofs being injected into the series as it goes on.

"I really don't like Memento Mori."

@Doomkid MtPain just brought a mountain of pain upon you. I feel sorry for you

1 hour ago, Hazel-Rah said:

 

Honestly couldnt agree more.

Played MM around 2 years ago and thought it was just dreadful- so much so that I didnt even bother with MM2.  

Watching a dean getting schooled by professors is something that you don't see everyday, even inside the academic field.

Quote

Known Bugs              : None! This is quality!

Boy i sure hope somebody got fired (by a bunch of Arch-Viles) for that blunder.

Quote

"You can't spell Memento Mori without meme."

"Memento Morons"

"I really don't like Memento Mori"

That's it! I'll file a complaint to the US Department of Education.

Great episode, even if I'm not as harsh on the WAD as Dean gets. I think Klem's music gets passed over too much here; a Dean's Digression talking about early MIDI usage and how this music pack set a standard for community pack soundtracks would have made sense.

The WAD's aged pretty iffy over time, and it holds its place in canon mainly as just being the first major CP more than anything. Some of the maps are still pretty fun so long as you can stomach mid-'90s magnum opus syndrome, and the co-op elements are ahead of their time for sure. At least we got a nice Mustaine map in the mid-section, two straight-up bangers from the Casali bros, and one standout collab from the Moellers where the set might as well just end gracefully.

3 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

A comment from the video: "I think the only reason I love MM so much is because it was my first “real” megawad, with custom textures and custom MIDIs. Seeing something like The Bridge or other great visual moments in the Doom engine was genuinely really impressive once upon a time, hard as that may be to believe! (The music is an A+ though, I won’t waver on that one!)"

 

I still stand by 01, 02, 03, 05, 10, 21, 26 and 30 being damn good maps! Also, just as a little digression.. Wad players took what they could get back in the day, and it maintained "classic" status for so many years because compared to any random 1994 or 1995 wad on /idgames (or GeoCities or Shovelware CDs), it truly is a lot more impressive on average, there's much more to sink your teeth into - not just in mapping but due to having very well made custom assets. That alone warranted a "baseline B+" back then, even if the combat and progression in most of that maps was.. "meh".

 

I really want to lead a community project using the MM assets as a basis, like a spiritual remake but with less convoluted progression and a higher action-to-wandering ratio. I'll have to get in touch with some of the MM crew members who are still hanging around and work something out!

Count me in if it ever happens heh.

Still, I agree. The custom assets are mindblowing. It's not just that it has graphics, but that they look great, even today. It's not just that it has a custom soundtrack, it's that the music is excellent. I really dig what the wad has to offer, but some of the maps aren't the best. Still, for the 90s, this is top tier imo.

Finally, a review of a wad I actually played.

I actually really like the simpleness of 90's wads like MM (the cave face on Map 10 is so Doom cute). I have trouble remembering alot of stuff from it, but I will say I agree with MtPain on it's multiplayer side kinda ruining the progressiveness of some of the maps, like Map 28. And I agree with his thoughts on that midi. It's ANNOYING AS FUCK. In fact, alot of MM's music sounds like something from a circus. The only themes from the wad I dig are Hidden Anger, Slipper, The Wind, and Gerbert. Other than that, I think I enjoyed this one, but I do remember getting lost quite a bit.

Also, love the crossover in this one. I wonder if MtPain, Decino or @Doomkid themselves are up to play Doom coop from time to time cause I'd just love to do it with avid Doom fans like them.

22 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I really want to lead a community project using the MM assets as a basis, like a spiritual remake but with less convoluted progression and a higher action-to-wandering ratio. I'll have to get in touch with some of the MM crew members who are still hanging around and work something out!

Memento Vivere (or Vivi if plural) would be a worthwhile go at celebrating the original. Now that we have a 1995 tune-up project in the works, I'd say it's high time to do a classic co-op-friendly set that really uses the MM assets to their best. We have better ideas/principles these days for designing consistently across solo and co-op play, and there's quite a few unused/underused Klem/Shaw MIDIs from the period which can substitute the more awkward ones.

Another really fun video. I loved seeing Decino and our very own Doomkid joining in and the return of the Delinquent of Doom.

7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I really want to lead a community project using the MM assets as a basis, like a spiritual remake but with less convoluted progression and a higher action-to-wandering ratio. I'll have to get in touch with some of the MM crew members who are still hanging around and work something out!

Are any of them still around? All I know is that Matthias Worch, who worked on MM2, did a level design retrospective of his work (Doom, Quake, Sin) and Thomas Möller left a comment on the MM2 video, but that was 7 years ago.