What happens when you push the end-level switch? (Doom 1 & 2)

Now this is something i never really understood. Not back in 1994, and still not today;

What happens when you push the switch at the end of a level in Doom 1 or Doom 2?

I mean i know what it does technically, but what exactly is the end-switch supposed to signify?

It doesn't start an elevator (Like in Wolfenstein 3D) and it doesn't comically explode the level (Like in Duke 3D). Now the map shows the player moving from one place to another, but the switch also doesn't open any door (Or suggests it does).

So in short, it doesn't make a lick of sense. I allways accepted it as video-gamey nonsense, but maybe you guys have come up with a good explanation over the years?

Ever noticed how there is that 64x56 steel door behind you in a lot of levels in E1 and other places that are tech base?  Somewhere in my younger days I thought that it would open up some wall in the exit room, or even (despite it making no architectural sense) opening the door at the beginning of the level which lead to the next level, just on the other side of the entry door from the previous level.  Doesn't make much sense when it's in writing, but that's what I had in my head probably some 25+ years ago.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate a demon infested installation/site, kill any hostiles you may/will encounter, rescue any survivors of which there will be none, gather any intel of which there will be none, collect any keycards that may be needed to progress towards your final objective and most importantly, above all else, PRESS THE DAMN SWITCH!!! If you fail to accomplish any or all of your secondary objectives, remember, it is imperative that you PRESS THE DAMN SWITCH!!! You may not survive marine, so we have provided you with a save system, so in case of death, you can reload a previous save and continue towards the completion of your most important task. We need you to, humanity needs you to, our entire future needs you to, PRESS THE DAMN SWITCH!!!

As I understand it, Tom Hall's original vision for Doom involved hub-like maps where you can go back and forth between levels, similar to Hexen. The exit/entrance areas were tekwall/tekpipe rooms with two doors and a switch, and they were supposed to be airlocks. Lore-wise, pressing the switch would cycle the airlock and change which door was active, allowing you access to one of the two levels conjoined by the airlock. Originally, you would have been able to go through the silver start door at the beginning of the map, enter the airlock, press the "exit" switch, and return to the previous map. Doing that would put you at the exit of the previous map, and all your progress from before was saved. So you could backtrack to search for more secrets, collect items you missed/saved, etc.

This idea got scrapped (like a lot of Tom Hall's ideas) but the airlocks remained at the end of levels for much of E1/E2 in the first Doom.

Yeah, even as a kid I always thought the exit rooms needed a purely aesthetic exit door to signify that's where you go after pressing the switch, just like the white doors you start standing in front of in most of the levels.  The ending teleporters make more sense in this context then, especially if you take the end-of-level tally screens literally, and have to imagine poor ol' Doomguy trudging across some barren plain on Phobos for a few miles to get to the next facility 

You mean, what does it mean diegetically? Probably one of two answers:

a) It's not really there in diegesis and is just to end the level technically; or

b) It performs some regular action like opening a door or lowering a wall. See memorial.wad for an example of this.

I just ways thought it was a teleporter. Maybe self destruction.

Yes, I have always thought of the exit switch as a self destruct/killswitch that deactivates the portals that the demons have been using to infest that base/site. Doom guy then travels to the next site/level completely off screen, either by drop ship or some other teleportation device/method.

Every time an exit switch is pressed, Doomguy melts into paste. Elsewhere, another Doomguy materialises.

I actually forgot that there are the small doors, occasionally. In Episode 1 and 2. But in those cases an airlock sounds like a really good in-universe explanation, i like that. I also vaguely remember the hub idea aRottenKomquat mentioned, so that fits.

For the rest i think JoJo_BadDooms explanation is my favorite so far, i'm going with that ;)

19 minutes ago, JoJo_BadDoom said:

Every time an exit switch is pressed, Doomguy melts into paste. Elsewhere, another Doomguy materialises.

6 hours ago, vyruss said:

opening the door at the beginning of the level which lead to the next level, just on the other side of the entry door from the previous level.

Lol, nice. Someone should use that for progression in a hell-themed or otherwise surreal mapset. Maybe make the entry door key-locked for good measure, or openable with a consistent switch. Then put a copy of the next level's first room on the other side of the room to make it visually seamless.

I personally went with making exit switches act as lifts that took you to the silver door of the next map when I combined all of the Episode 2 maps into one huge map, so it's possible that the exit switches just open a door or lower a wall that acts as a lift. Combine it with the Episode 1 airlock idea and it ends up making actual sense.

Ah, the mighty exit switch!

It melts your face, and then you go elsewhere. Superb!

It’s a ticketing kiosk, Doomguy is printing a ticket so he can take the bus to the next level. But the bus to the military base is on a different line so he can only print that if he finds the secret kiosk that’s just there on the other side of that pool of hazardous chemicals

It sends a signal to the UAC biohazard disposal team telling them to come and start cleaning up.

In Doom 1 the exit switch rooms were originally meant to be airlocks - the steel doors at the beginning of the levels had the same texture as the exit doors, and the exit switch rooms would have a locked exit door on the other side of the room:

They actually forgot to retexture E2M3's beginning door so you can still see part of this there. I have no idea why they removed this, these screenshots are from a build only around a month before release. I'm guessing the other episodes didn't have them (how could you do an airlock in a hell level) so they removed them for consistency.

54 minutes ago, Individualised said:

<images>

Is that the fabled JPEGDoom source port I have heard so much about?

I always figured the exit switch just signified a way to "shut down" the base, and that Doomguy gets back out the same way he came in. Like the intermission screen for Dead Simple states that you have to find some secret switch to "turn off" the demonic powers holding humanity hostage. Once the task is done I move on to my next sortie and just kind of always figured that the in-between of how Doomguy gets to the different levels is up to the player to interpret.

Of course this is wholly different in many other wads where the exit area of a level is also the starting area for the new level, where a clear continuity can be established between the levels. I don't really get the same impression from the Doom IWADs so I always thought it just wasn't that important. Some of the hell-themed levels could be argued to have some continuity, but I'm not sure if that was a deliberate choice or the result of just a lot of samey-looking rooms. It would be pretty boring to backtrack to your method of transportation once you beat the level.

So if you ask me what happens when Doomguy flips the switch at the end then I'm going to tell you that he is simply turning off the lights in the base before leaving, being an environmentally-conscious person and all, saving the planet in many different ways.

You know what would be cool? A community project dedicated to imagining the areas in-between each level in Doom 1 and 2. For example the first map would be E1M1.5, which would connect to both the ending room of E1M1 at the start, and the beginning of E1M2 at the end.

9 hours ago, aRottenKomquat said:

Tom Hall's original vision for Doom involved hub-like maps where you can go back and forth between levels, similar to Hexen. 

Has anyone done this yet? I know there are many Doom re-makes but I can't recall one where the map is a Hexen style adventure hub-zone.

8 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

Has anyone done this yet? I know there are many Doom re-makes but I can't recall one where the map is a Hexen style adventure hub-zone.

I don't know if anyone has done that before. And with modern computers and modern source ports, I think it's even less likely to find hubs than before, because the resource constraints that necessitated hubs just don't exist anymore. You can just throw everything into one map and it'll work, and be far more seamless.

EDIT: RAMP, maybe? I've never played it so I don't know if it actually uses the Hexen hub system to save state, or if a level resets each time you return to the main hub.

6 hours ago, aRottenKomquat said:

You can just throw everything into one map and it'll work, and be far more seamless.

I should rephrase, I don't mean the actual technical construction of hubs and maps.

I mean like a mod wherein there is a giant, vast outdoor area representing the Deimos landscape, dotted with a bunch of bases that the player can visit. Open world exploration Doom.

The level ends..

What's cool about the airlock explanation (which I think is the right one) is that they actually implemented the airlock transitions in Doom III.

Edit: Although from what we see in the intermission screens, I don't think the airlock always leads to the next level directly, I think sometimes Doomguy has to travel a bit on foot, from base to base.

Nothing happens, Doomguy just presses that button for stress relief after the level's done, like one of those squeezing office toys

What happens when you push the end-level switch? (Doom 1 & 2)

The next level loads.

pushes the end switch now

On 4/27/2024 at 8:02 PM, DiavoJinx said:

pushes the end switch now

7 hours ago, Scypek2 said:

 

Nice! ;-)