Evolution of the WAD E1 - Sandy Petersen

[@SandyofCthulhu]

Frankly I don't remember doing any part of "Dead Simple". Thought it was all American McGee's. If someone says I did an early version of it that American then remade I'll have to take their word for it. It was 25 years ago.

[@Fuchsia_tude]

They play the unreleased "beta" version around 10:30 on Episode 2: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jHvTlKmVjrZnnbc Does that look familiar at all?

[@MandaloreGaming]

it's good to see that wads can still be made that aren't giant arenas or fighting 2000 hell knights in the 5 mile corridor

[@Leekster75]

MandaloreGaming Any chance for a video about your favorite DOOM WADs and/or maps?

[@lexyeevee]

Funny story about Dead Simple. There's an interview with Romero on KZbin somewhere (can't remember where, but I think it was some "let's play with devs" thing) where he relates that American came to him really late in the dev cycle, saying that Dead Simple was just horrible and ugly and they could not ship Doom II with it in. Romero asked if American could redo it, American said yes, and I think he whipped up a total replacement the next day. If you check out Romero's dump, there's a nearly-complete Doom II WAD in it, containing a *completely different* and unbelievably ugly MAP07, which I assume must be Sandy's original version. It's a big box containing a mancubus, five arachnotrons, no 666/667 sectors, and no exit. I suspect only the concept was Sandy's, and the final map itself was created entirely by American. Anyway, good stuff, thanks for doing this :)

[@rustedknight_]

no, but there'sa downloadable wad out there. search for d2temp.wad

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

Sandy stated that E2M6 was his first level, the first pitch in his job interview which landed him the spot. Quite amazing given how not only was this incredibly early in the days of first person shooters, Sandy had never worked on any such game before in his life. He also stated that the Arch-Vile library encounter in Monster Condo was based on a recurring nightmare of his, about finding a secret room in his father's library (at times in other places), and waking up just as a hideous ghoul creature which lives there ambushes him from the corner of his eye (combined with his design input on the Arch-Vile itself, he absolutely started the trope of putting them in libraries). Further, The Chasm was also based on recurring dreams, of him crossing huge chasms by walking a tightrope.

[@DrewTangNYC]

Up to Episode 3 so far, awesome series. Very interesting watch/listen for someone like myself who used to play during the 90s but is only now getting acclimated to various wads from throughout the years, new and old. Played nearly 20 so far, mostly sets listed on the yearly Cacowards. Its selection has been consistently great so far. It's also worth noting - Dew is hilarious. Nice stuff.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I really wish you guys made more of this series, it's some of my favorite content on all of KZbin

[@simovihinen875]

"Did the mappers have free rein": yes that would be in accordance to Romero's own principles. I think he said something in an interview to the effect of "modern games don't have the authors' idiom showing through because so many people participate in making a single area".

[@Fuchsia_tude]

@PBJ Actually, words have multiple meanings id·i·om _/ˈidēəm/_ *noun* 1. a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ). 2. a characteristic mode of expression in music or art. _"they were both working in a neo-impressionist idiom"_ Vihinen/Romero used the word in the second sense here

[@Fuchsia_tude]

@PBJ The second definition literally exactly matches how it was used. It'll be OK. Just admit you'd never heard of that sense of the word and move on.

[@GarrettChan]

Can't believe I watched the whole talk show. Really like these type of talk. I have to say Sandy Petersen, in my opinion, always has the most remarkable idea in mapping. However, he's always very "extremely interesting" (don't know how to describe precisely) to me since some of his maps are just there to "annoy" people while some of other maps are just fantastic that no other mappers would ever make this level. E2M2 and E2M6 are two of my all time least favorite. I guess Episode 2 should be tech base, so maybe it limits Sandy's style.

[@tankermottind]

I seem to be in a pretty small minority, but I often like Romero maps letting you escape traps or cheese encounters. I find a lot of modern Doom maps really pushy and irritating in their insistence on forcing you to play one and only one way (usually the most aggressive way possible), while Romero maps gave you more latitude to find your own fighting style, however conservative or risk-taking it might be. It's part of why I've started playing fewer FPS games and more classic RPGs, because they usually allow the player to take more diverse approaches, even ones that might seem less than honorable. A lot of times, when I get locked into a trap in Doom, I feel like the map designer is forcing me to be stupid instead of following my instincts to retreat to a defensible position. That said, Sandy is not like a lot of modern maps that are almost nothing BUT inescapable set piece arena battles.

[@FeelingShred]

What a great journey this video, thanks guys! Watched across many days... When I was 13/14 I messed around with DoomBuilder and made some 12 or 13 maps, but lost the WAD file, what a shame... I wish I could see if my maps stood the test of time... I remember that I liked to put a lot of open areas followed by small corridors, like the same design used in MDK, another great game of the 90's, very linear maps. Now that I played the pure awesomeness that is Deus Ex, if I made a WAD I would for sure think about multiple ways of going through maps.

[@azk5213]

This was informative and entertaining to watch, thank you. Hope to see more of this type of stuff!

[@SeveredLegs]

Mt. Erebus was such a fun level. I should make one that has that feel. I miss the good 'ol days in gaming where sometimes you'd spend time in an area and there would be, quite literally, nothing of interest whatsoever. Reminds me of wandering around in Dragon Quest games ha.

[@andersdenkend]

Wonderful video, gonna watch the rest asap. A lot of interesting anecdotes and talking points, especially for me, since I just started mapping.

[@Vhite]

This is so awesome, can't wait for more!

[@DavidXNewton]

Fantastic video with great commentary (apart from the Nazi stuff, which was twattish) - I watched the entire thing over several days :) You all give great insights into the id team's mapping that I've never really noticed, and MTrop does a terrifyingly good impression of the presidential helltangerine. I'm really looking forward to more episodes - who else do you have lined up to study?

[@Fuchsia_tude]

1:37:50 Petersen says in his Matt Chat interview that he was working for another game company and got let go. One of his friends knew the iD people and got him an interview. The interview was just them taking him out to dinner and talking games. His first week was learning the editor and making maps; the first map he made was Mt. Erebus, so obviously they liked his work. And after a one-month trial period they were like "cool, you're the level designer now" and he made half of the maps.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I'm pretty sure his first map was E2M6

[@Fuchsia_tude]

48:00 specifically, he didn't realize the Spiderdemon was weaker and trivial to kill if you brought weapons from past levels, since he balanced all the maps for pistol start--and never tested entire episodes from beginning to end for playability.

[@sverr0r]

Not that I was there to witness it, but I have it on good authority that many of the maps Sandy finished were actually started out as sketched concepts by Shawn Green...

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

That's pretty interesting.

[@vadimtaranov3041]

It seems to me that chasm originally meant to use a hellish scheme cause there are some unused hellish textures on sidedefs left. Also changing the ceiling texture to f_sky1 adds up to the map nicely.

[@JohnVullo]

Halfway thru this and loving it but someone said something about Romero not having shootable secrets. E1M2??? Surprised this was such an oversight.

[@Fuchsia_tude]

1:11:00 no, the key switch linedef type was added for Doom II, which was initially version 1.666. I believe Map14 was the first to use it.

[@Fuchsia_tude]

29:45 no, there's several fake exits in Wolf3d, including at least one brutal one in I think Episode 1 full of SS guards.

[@abv9118]

As someone who knows nothing about doom mapping, this is super interesting. I wish that there was a bigger comparisons and examples between the other map authors. Like, bullet points and shit. Maybe explain some things more for those that are only watching out of curiosity but don't have much Knowledge of Doom: like for example 1:13:17, what IS a fall texture? but anyways... I LOVE IT.

[@Fuchsia_tude]

Bloodfalls, waterfalls, and nukagefalls. It's a red, blue, or green animated wall texture (respectively) that looks like slimy liquid running down a wall. The outside walls of Icon of Sin, for example, around 3:02:45 in this video. In modern mapping they're basically only used exclusively to create, well, falls, where one liquid floor texture borders another at a lower height.

[@francescoperi7810]

You seriously never played Doom on a crappy old VGA screen from 1992, did you... You would appreciate light amplification back then :)

[@Optimus6128]

1:51:00 I always wondered about that shotgun shells secret. I knew the half wall was going down, but what's the point of that? Didn't know you press the torch to make the other one up. However, I might have gotten that secret by shooting it from the other lift wall strafing and falling to the right. Insane!

[@esmerylan]

Having recently pistol-started E3M8 I'm going to disagree with Tarnsman about that plasma ammo. Even with infighting, you're still going to need rockets to finish the Spider Mastermind off. It's definitely a more fun way to play the map than continuous and just demolishing the Spider with the BFG, but the ammo starvation is real.

[@Cyberdemon2006]

Which track of Aliens is Sinister inspired by?

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

"Going After Newt"

[@Optimus6128]

It took me 3 evenings to watch this. But there are some pretty funny moments. My favorite moment is 3:08:10

[@PS-cf9lc]

Amazing

[@AaronPr19]

maybe the switch use key was a depreciated action but it still says it in the editor because that's eventually what doom 2 did with the number.

[@kylesneed5033]

Around 2:34:00 someone mentions a “Chinese Back to Saturn X.” Does anyone know what WAD they’re referring to?

[@fusedtoast5367]

Hope American McGee is next

[@Bob_Beaky]

Subbed. :)

[@SylkaChan]

4:48 ~ start

[@SylkaChan]

that is my favorite map actually, although e4m9 is the best looking, e2m2 has by far the best gameplay

[@SylkaChan]

Oh, i forgot to mention : i hate what ID did with e3m9 ; especially because the best map they ever designed was the first map in the alpha version 0.5!

[@SylkaChan]

They should have replaced the part of e3m9 that is e3m1 with that alpha map in the Ultimate Doom expansion of Doom 1, by that i mean the exit switch at the end of that gray tech base map opens up a teleporter the hellish room with the cyberdemon.

[@DMPhobos]

3:07:20 I trust that zero master is getting those $500 right? =P

[@Aleteos]

1:32:07 I always die right here.

[@Optimus6128]

3:50 a little bit too long but strangely enough I sat down in two sessions to watch it. And there are more episodes, but don't think will watch all of them now. I just like Doom nerds talking about Doom with all these details though, but a bit too long man

[@CapnClever]

Oh I agree, nearly four hours was way too much, at least as a single episode. Been trying to fit things into 2-hour chunks lately, which I hope will be the maximum as time goes on. And maybe if we're lucky there might be even shorter ones!

[@Liebert69]

_Я видимо тупой_

[@Liebert69]

_апрае_