Doom Development: Maps lost to history...

As Classic Doom's development progressed in 1993, the game's levels were taking shape. Some of these maps, however, never made it into the final release, for a number of reasons, the main one being that id Software gradually shifted away from Creative Director Tom Hall's early concepts, as described in his "Doom Bible," and developed a new vision for their game that kept very few of the old ideas.
In this episode we will take a look at these "dropout" maps, explore their lonely dark corners, and see what could have been. Not surprisingly, they are quite unfinished and rough, but hold some interesting details as well.
We'll be dealing with the Doom Alphas here, so there will be no sound or music. It seems these features were among the last to be programmed into the game...

[@lancebaylis3169]

Apparently the original way the narrative was meant to go was Techbase > Hell > Returning back to the Techbase to find it converted to a hellish version. This would be like playing the finished game as Episode 1, Episode 3 and ending with Episode 2.

[@jess648]

by the final game they gave up on everything being in one location but the thematic progression in the levels is still there

[@hfc2x]

Hello again, Alexei. I want to make some clarifications regarding the early levels. What became E2M7 is the Hangar 2 map (or Secondary Hangar) described in the Doom Bible. As you know, that's where the game was supposed to start. The room that became an "outdoor area" where the blue key is, is the hangar bay. You can still tell it's supposed to be a hangar bay in the released version, even though it uses a sky flat as the ceiling. Like someone mentioned in the comments, the Doom 0.5 alpha was still supposed to have that as a starting level, but I suppose they wanted to show testers the features that were making their way into the game, therefore the different starting map you see here. To see E1M10, E1M11, E1M12 and E1M13 in the Doom 0.5 alpha, you have to type "doom run x", the number corresponding to what level it is (E1Mx). E1M10 in that version corresponds to what became E1M3 (Toxin Refinery). It's probably just named "Refinery" here, and likely corresponds to the "Ref" building in the overworld. This map doesn't come from the Doom Bible, but by the time of Doom 0.5, which was built in May 1993 (meaning Tom Hall was still working at id Software, because he left in August), the Doom Bible had been pretty much abandoned. E1M11 corresponds to Hangar 2 (E2M7), E1M12 corresponds to Anomaly (E1M8), and E1M13 corresponds to Laboratory (E2M4). Interestingly, E2M1: "Entrance to the Dying God" is included in this version of the IWAD, but it's completely inaccessible. This map became E3M7 "Limbo". The reason it cannot be selected is because there's no parameter to run any level from an episode other than 1. Besides, this level is missing pretty much all its textures, so even if you force it by swapping it with another level with SLADE, the game just crashes. You can actually copy this level into Doom 0.4 and run the game with "doom e2m1" in that version, and it will load. It's a pretty interesting first peek at what was supposed to become "Episode 2: Lost in Hell/To Hell and Back". The 0.4 alpha also describes some issues with its versions of E1M12 and E1M13, but the levels aren't in the IWAD. These are presumably Anomaly and Laboratory as well, but in reality no one but id Software employees (past and present) actually knows. Something interesting about the level included as E1M1 in Doom 0.5 is that it actually had a later version, in which you would reach the exit, and instead of finishing the level, it would trigger many walls earlier in the level to lower, and it would force you to backtrack into a level heavily populated with enemies. If this concept sounds familiar, it's actually what seemingly inspired Sandy Petersen to create E3M1 and E3M9 as different versions of the same map. The Tom Hall map was scrapped, but the idea remained in the game to some extent. This was also the case with E3M5 and E3M6. These are not Tom Hall maps, but they were maps created by Sandy Petersen specifically to give those original Tom Hall ideas a fresh spin (like the teleporter puzzle in E3M5 and the rocket jump secret exit in E3M6). This was confirmed a couple years ago by John Romero on Twitter. In alpha 0.3, the SHAWN2 map is a pretty puzzling map. No one is really sure what it's supposed to be. Some people speculate is supposed to be the 2nd floor of Hangar 2, and others think it's supposed to be its own thing. There's something really interesting about it, however, and it's the fact that what appears in alpha 0.4 as E1M11 (which you correctly point out it's supposed to be Supply Depot 1/Warehouse), is originally named SHAWN2 as well. This was not known until 2015, when John Romero leaked a ton of development assets, and that map's DoomEd file was included, named "shawn2.dwd". They apparently tried their best at making it playable, despite being "devoid of real levelness", as described by id themselves. The leaked version has different textures, and it's full of Barons for some reason. On the topic of enemies, you're probably already aware of this, but the names the community knows monsters by were created by Sandy Petersen towards the end of development. What we know as "imp" is actually a Demon Trooper. "Demon", or "pinky" is actually Demon Sergeant, and the "Barons of Hell" are actually the "Bruiser Brothers", AKA the bosses of episode 1. That's why their sprite prefixes in the IWAD are TROO, SARG, and BOSS respectively. The other levels included in the alphas correspond to other locations from the Doom Bible, such as Supply Depot 2 (E1M2 in all versions), Waste Processing (E1M3 in all versions), Comm Tower (E1M5 in 0.4 and E1M9 in 0.5), Recreation and Training (E1M7 in 0.4 and 0.5), Power Plant (E1M8 in all versions), Control Center (E1M9 in 0.4 and E1M5 in 0.5), Observatory (you mentioned it, E1M10 in 0.4), Anomaly (E1M12 in 0.5), and Supply Depot 1/Warehouse (E1M11 in 0.4). You can tell most maps are what they're supposed to be because of the outline that surrounds them corresponding with every depiction of the original Tei Tenga overworld (the green shapes that appear in the Computer Area Map powerup, some textures like COMPSTA2, the 0.5 overworld, etc). There's also some posts on Doomworld by Linguica where he discusses this topic. Tom Hall made his maps basing himself on the outline of the overworld buildings, and filling said outline with rooms and such. Romero didn't do that, and instead made his levels just abstract, which id Software ended up preferring. This is the reason many of Tom Hall's maps didn't make it to Episode 1 when vanilla Doom released, because they were considered unappealing. Personally, I think they're extremely charming. In the case of E1M6 in 0.5, I think that level is also supposed to be Supply Depot 1, but I don't know. Some people think it's supposed to be Enlisted Quarters, and I can see that. It also does look a lot like a warehouse map, so it could be either. Being a Tom Hall map, however, both its entrance and exit fit with the outlines of the building labeled "Ware" in the overworld. What became E1M7 in the released version of Doom is a complete mystery to me, in the sense of what location from the Doom Bible it's supposed to be. It's not really anything, just a very large level that's entirely abstract. According to Romero, all he was trying to do with that map was to create a "bigger and scarier version of [what became] E1M2", so take that as you will. As for people creating something out of these levels, I don't know if you were already aware, but we (my team and I) have been developing the Doom: Evil Unleashed mod for the past 13 years, which is intended to be the game Tom Hall always intended, and we used the earliest versions of the alpha levels as a base to start building our own. We announced on December 10th last year that we're finally releasing a playable preview this year over at Doomworld. I think it will be very interesting to compare the final release to the alphas.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Wow, that's quite a trove of info. Thank you. Sadly, I didn't remember the 0.5 commands in time, so I missed the early Phobos Anomaly. But I could make an addendum video a bit later and maybe even show a bit of the PR Beta, with that lovely hitscan Lost Soul. Oh, a mod that recreates the original "Biblical" Doom would be pretty cool indeed.

[@jess648]

Hey I think I caught a Doomworld or ZDoom forum thread about the mod awhile back while lurking. I had no idea it was even still in development

[@hfc2x]

@@jess648 It is. Turns out making something that follows the Doom Bible is pretty much developing an entire game almost from the ground up. Not something you simply make in a couple months as a hobby. Hence why it's taken 13 years lol.

[@jess648]

@@hfc2xI’m totally here for that fact honestly. screenshots even as placeholder as they are look like they’ve got the general feel Doom 1 down plus a bunch of extra bells and whistles. the actual interconnected level structure, interactive elements and the planned narrative elements seem really interesting as well. I don’t think there’s been anything attempted like this as an actual game disconnected from the whole doom bible element, seems like a halfway point between Quake 2 and System Shock definitely looking forward to trying that upcoming release when it comes. I might even bump the DW thread with feedback on it

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

The BFG in the Press Release Beta fired 80 projectiles, and this was changed late into development to the final version we know today, because according to John Romero, it looked like Christmas and slowed down the performance of lower-end PCs of the day.

[@moviestove2099]

wake up fam, new Alexi just dropped

[@bubliktvyt9269]

hell yeah 40 minutes of doom stuff. Thank you Alexei

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Hopefully, we'll reach 140 minutes some day :P

[@worldoffood123]

Woah! Crazy to see Refueling Base so complete well before Doom 1 was even released! That's some very cool trivia.

[@seamushadron]

Man you're legend, I've never been so addicted to Doom videos like yours. Your job is awesome

[@seamushadron]

The storekeeper reminds me of Strife 😊 edit: ok you said that few minutes later in the video😂😂😂

[@AlexeiVoronin]

@@seamushadron Yeah, it would have been cool to be able to buy stuff with all those demonic treasures you could have collected (something like the black market in Wolf 2009).

[@maese47]

I REALLY love this series man, keep it up!!!

[@EmptyGray]

Found you recently and binged all your videos! Real comfy vibes. Keep up the great work!

[@chlebicek3363]

Love your dives into doom history. Great video as always!

[@user-tx5xz5ws1d]

Hello Alexei i hope you have a good day 😊

[@HerrHick]

Hello Alexei and thank you for the nice Doom video. It feels like a treasure hunter looking at those lost maps.

[@pepe6666]

awesome. i really like looking for the lost maps in the alphas and wondering about what could have been. its interesting to know that tom hall was going for more realistic or plausible maps. cos i did notice that the alphas had more detail to them and wondered about why the maps werent as detailed as they could have been. things like signs etc would have really made it more grounded. i guess they thought that once ya go that level of detail ya need to keep doing it for all 30 maps and it would have been too hard to be fluid & creative

[@robertspeck4935]

NEW ALEXEI JUST DROPPED

[@Markworth]

There's a WAD file out there that reworks some of these maps into something playable with Doom 2 monsters. Unfortunately, not with the original textures. That map with the long dark tunnel is pretty cool.

[@SkeevyDaniel]

Love your videos man, so much that I've watched some multiple times.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Wow, thanks :)

[@r.g.thesecond]

Does the "10" in the intro image imply it is a 20 year old JPEG made for DOOM's 10th anniversary at the time? The model kinda looks like Q3 Marine, and the SSG is similar to Q3 version too.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

It's just an image I put together in a hurry, in reference to the previous (10th) video. Indeed, this is the Quake 3 version of Doomguy - I liked the way he's posing.

[@guyg.8529]

It's extremely interesting to see the alpha maps, how they intended to be quite "realistic", and to compare them to the final result in the released game ! Those maps have a very good feeling, like they were real tech base infested with monsters, real locations, real labs, and so on ! With the graphics and the texture choices, there is something ! I'd love a mod-remake of DOOM in the same vein !

[@teranokitty]

Romero has a story about making a map that had recursive sectors within itself which killed the performance of Carmacks portal based engine and necessitated coming up with BSP. I wonder if the map Romero mentored was a lost map, and I wonder if it was Alpha 0.3 era?

[@AlexeiVoronin]

I'm not quite sure about this, but the map with the recursive sectors may have been a very early prototype of E1M2... but it is possible I don't remember this correctly.

[@rapappathepepper3996]

0.5 i believe still was meant to feature Spawning Vats as E1M1, though it has been renammed to "E1M11", it could've been a literal E1M11, but i believe E1M1 was just a test map in 0.5, and they just added an extra 1 to the file of it, so much so that E1M11 is not normally accessible through 0.5, unless make it a launch command.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Ah yes - sadly, I forgot about the launch commands, so I skipped a few maps... though they could always be shown in an "addendum" video of some sort.

[@rapappathepepper3996]

@@AlexeiVoronin Cool, i'd like for you to show the 0.5 Spawning Vats, it's vastly more complete! And was just a re-naming case. There are other maps of course, one of them is the "Anomaly", one is E2M4, and one of the maps can't be loaded. Oh, and i forgot to mention, 0.5 already has the Shotgun and Rocket Launcher selectable, though you have to pick them up first.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

@@rapappathepepper3996 Yeah, the unloadable map is a very early E3M7, without any textures :P

[@rapappathepepper3996]

@@AlexeiVoronin It took me a while to figure out the command line to load the other maps, it's just -run (map number) (like, 10, 11, 12, 13)

[@jess648]

original title might’ve been because ID was probably already thinking of a followup. the Bible mentions “Chaos Awakes” as a commercial game with the unidentified General demon invading Earth (Doom 2 much lol) also Tom Hall was way ahead of his time with some of his ideas. similar concepts would pop up with Quake 2/Hexen’s interconnected structure, Build games greater commitment to creating believable spaces or Half-Life’s larger narrative elements

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Indeed. Some people even say that Doom 3 was a much closer adaptation of the original Doom Bible concepts, with its greater focus on story and world-building. Heh, I guess the General demon became the Icon of Sin, eventually ;)

[@jess648]

@@AlexeiVoronin worth noting Doom 3 follows the original story structure with the initial invasion, going to hell and coming back to the base being even more overrun I need to find a citation but I believe Carmack said Doom 3 was closer to what he originally wanted to do as well

[@teranokitty]

I love this stuff! Thanks for the deep Doom info!

[@NeilForshaw]

That's interesting. Didn't know there were extra levels as well as the ones selectable in the actual games. Also something I noticed in this video is the alpha versions before 0.5 seem to be running 60+ FPS but when you go to 0.5 it then goes down to what looks like 35 FPS. I wonder if the limit was originall 60 or 70 FPS or maybe it was in fact "unlimited" 🤔

[@AlexeiVoronin]

This is a possibility. An important part of the work on the engine was making it more stable on 1993 hardware. It is possible the framerate limitation was a part of this process.

[@VaterOrlaag]

What, no mention of "Tom is King" and "Jules sucks" in 0.2?

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Oops, forgot about those :P