Late to the party?

(I want to start with saying that I don't know if there's already an old thread with a similar topic, I couldn't find it. I'm new to forum culture so feel free to whip me if there's already a big thread on this.)

Doom is thirty years old now, how about that? That's almost a decade older than I am, that's for certain. I grew up with Doom on and off throughout my formative years but never really decided to take a head-first dive into the community until, well, now.
I was introduced to the big world of Doom WADs outside of Brutal Doom-esque gameplay mods of GZDoom back in 2021, that's where I decided to read up on the Doom Lore™ of the past thirty years, reading up on classic wads such as Alien Vendetta, Scythe, Mucus Flow, etc.

One thing I've learned when exploring this world is that all of these WADs have presented new ideas to the mapping community that either fell off or stuck fresh in our minds years later, and it's to the point now where, to some people, it might seem like we've exhausted what Doom is capable of. Within the past decade, we've been given WADs that have truly pushed Doom to the limits of its design such as Dimensions, Sunder, any of Ribbiks's high-profile works, and so much more. But despite all of that, we still keep going, and we keep making new, ground-breaking creations that have attracted both the old guard of the community and new apprentices.

So, the point of this thread is me asking this, to specifically other newcomers (and perhaps some insight from veterans), have you gotten this impression before when arriving to this community? What was your thought process when reflecting on tried-and-true mapping trends that have existed forever, and what are your ideas for either reinventing the wheel, or just improving on an already existing concept or gimmick in mapping?

Yes. Doom is dead!!!

On 10/14/2023 at 10:22 AM, SPACEDETECTIVE said:

it might seem like we've exhausted what Doom is capable of [...] have you gotten this impression before when arriving to this community?

Depends on what you're talking about: Gameplay, level design, or visual design? Vanilla, un-modded gameplay is probably the hardest to innovate on. I think there is a point where all novel Doom gameplay ideas get exhausted, but I don't know how close we are to that yet. I feel like we've already reached it, but I don't know for sure. Once mods are added into the discussion, well, the space for gameplay innovation can then be limitless.

Level design and visual design are, and will always be, infinite and inexhaustible. Anyone can always contribute something completely new in level / visual design that no one has ever seen before. As long as you have the patience to create new art assets.

On 10/14/2023 at 10:22 AM, SPACEDETECTIVE said:

What was your thought process when reflecting on tried-and-true mapping trends that have existed forever, and what are your ideas for either reinventing the wheel, or just improving on an already existing concept or gimmick in mapping?

Doesn't bother me because I focus on building worlds. I don't want to innovate on mapping trends or gimmicks, I just want to create a world no one has seen before. Like a series of techbases built on floating glaciers in the north pole, or a frozen chinese temple on the highest mountain peak at dusk. No one has built those worlds before, so I don't feel like I'm late to the party.

Yeah, I thought I was late to the party in 2000 when I signed up here (after like a year of lurking) -- unbeknownst to me there's always been a thriving community surrounding DOOM, as if it's one of the best videogames ever or something.

In the three years I've been here, people have astonished me with their aptitude for technology and level design again and again. Every year, heaps of cool new projects come out every year at such a frequency that it makes perfect sense how the Doom community has managed to sustain itself and Doom itself for 30 years.

Doom means so many different things to so many different people that I don't think we're going to run out of stuff to do with it any time soon, thankfully!

.

Seeing how much amazing stuff a lot of members have been making these last couple of years, I don't think anyone was late to the party. In fact, my theory is, that just like Minecraft, Doom is having a renaissance right now, seeing the huge influx of new and old members making wads.

Long live Doom modding!

Carmack's Law: when a game is popular enough, and its source code is released, that game is immortal.

Just mathematically speaking, the possible arrangements of map geometry and actor placement are effectively infinite. Of course many of those possibilities would not make fun maps but still, we'll never really exhaust all the options. And that's not even considering the ability to modify those actors' behaviors, and add new ones, and use scripting and other advanced port features.

You see patterns because they do emerge in the collective "meta". If you want to freshen up your creations, it helps to examine the things that you might do automatically and challenge yourself to go against that grain. One of the most obvious cases of this is key progression. It's too easy to just have three key quests, often with all of the locked doors presented right at the beginning of the level. You might have to intentionally get yourself off that rail... It has become a habit for many people, so it can take a little self reflection, or planning ahead to move away from it. Just writing down your goal, such as "make a map with no keys", can really help to stay focused.

Crap

Triple post :(

I'll always stand by the "two cakes" analogy regarding this topic. You don't need to outdo others or yourself every single time, and there's nothing wrong with clearly drawing from your favorite mappers or wads. Unless you're going out of your way to completely plagiarize someone else's work or are putting next to no effort on anything you create, there's bound to be little details or ways of going about stuff that are distinctively yours - and in a field where reasons to like maps can be super arbitrary, you never know whether your very specific "brand" of gameplay/detailing/etc. might just really, really resonate with someone out there.

I also believe there is something about Doom itself or the community that keeps mapping and modding fresh.

for example, could we ask the same question about Skyrim modding? Is Skyrim modding exhausted? Will there be news articles written about a crazy “MySkyrimHouse.esp” in 2040? My guess is no.

I would not go back to Bethesda modding because it’s a bad platform for creating my worlds. 

Just now, RDETalus said:

I also believe there is something about Doom itself or the community that keeps mapping and modding fresh.

 

for example, could we ask the same question about Skyrim modding? Is Skyrim modding exhausted? Will there be news articles written about a crazy “MySkyrimHouse.esp” in 2040? My guess is no.

Doom has a unique simplicity to it that other games don't have.

Shotguns are so stupid...

@SPACEDETECTIVE

Welcome to the community! I first starting playing Doom in 1994 and got into mapping in 1995, but I ended up not doing much mapping from 1997 - 2001 and then taking a complete break from Doom from 2001 - 2016 (except for a couple days in ~2004 where I spent some time on Dr. Sleep' Apothecary and read about the new thing in Doom "JDoom").

The way I see it, the community keeps growing. Every couple years, there seems to be a new crop of mappers that come in and start contributing to projects. This wouldn't happen if the community were stagnant or dying. In fact, from what I understand, there was a time when the bells were tolled for Doom and its demise was forecast as imminent; back in 1997-1998, with the rise of Quake, the end was near for Doom. Of course, looking back on it, that's not what happen. Yes, some left to pursue Quake and other things, but many stayed and reinvigorated the game. Ultimately, I don't think Doom is going anywhere any time soon. Perhaps not every release is "ground-breaking" or "revolutionary" and some releases may remind players of other mapsets, but there's nothing wrong with the same ground being re-trod from time-to-time. As was said, as long as it's not outright plagiarism, it's not bad. If everything had to revolutionize the player's experience, then almost nothing would be released, because the bar would be too high. Are there still new things that make you say "Wow, that changed my outlook on Doom!" when they come out? Yes. Are there also things that don't make you say that, but are still fun to play? Yes. And it's important to have both. And it's the fun that keeps people coming back.

3 hours ago, uber said:

you never know whether your very specific "brand" of gameplay/detailing/etc. might just really, really resonate with someone out there

That's very true, and it is the key to understand when people talk about "what they should make because they want other people to like it." Hey, make what you enjoy because, while you may think that most people will absolutely hate your SR40-mandatory pain sector platforming while dealing with revenants and archviles, I can guarantee you that some group just found their new Saturday night thing.

No. I say if it looks like doom2 go on vacation.