For the seasoned WAD player of the Doom community, they've played all the good stuff, all the stuff that had been inspired by the IWADs and then some more. But then again, it doesn't hurt at all to revisit the old IWADs made by id to get re-acquainted with old nostalgia and design, something that most people either love to criticize yet continue to play or just love and continue to play. This post deals with the overall playability of these original Doom levels.
What exactly do I mean by this? Well, most players actually play Doom in singleplayer. It's more or less made for a single player to go alone and get rid of monsters in each given level. Straight and to the point. Wolfenstein 3D was built on this practice, and it was the only game mode there, so id decided to make it multiplayer compatible. Thus we have co-op and deathmatch, allowing for either players to cooperatively defeat monsters together, or to just kill each other together on maps. Now, taking a look at the individual maps is what this is about, how well they play in regards to all three game modes.
By now we know every single level can be completed in singleplayer and was made for that purpose. Co-op for the most part tends to be the same, just with extra things (monsters, items, weapons) around to assist or hinder the journey. I can't recall if a few of the maps are not playable in co-op (some examples would be those with one-time-only doors or switches, but I can't name any off the top of my head). But then we get to the deathmatch part of things. In my opinion, id did a good job ensuring that most of the maps in Doom and Doom II work well for deathmatch. MAP01 Entryway is quite a classic, despite its cramped inner hallway the map is still the most played map for deathmatch. MAP07 Dead Simple is a simple arena and is almost perfectly made for deathmatch gameplay. Almost all the city levels in the second third of Doom II have the sandbox quality for wide-open deathmatch. And Ultimate Doom? I'd say these maps fare pretty well too, even a few gimmick maps like Fortress of Mystery seem pretty fun for deathmatch for some.
I've made a few maps for 32in24 projects, and having to figure out what makes what tic with deathmatch basically amounts to overall movement flow (am I gonna run into a dead-end or is the hallway too tight), weapon availability, hot spots (well these can be anything but usually pertain to chaotic centers of the maps), but overall the flow of how a player can go through a deathmatch session without getting stuck or dying far too often is without a doubt the single most important. I would say that the two maps that are outright terrible to deathmatch with would be E3M1 Hell Keep and E3M9 Warrens, owing to the complete linearity of both and that stupid corridor that would have demons in it. Basically if a map requires you to go through small corridors it's gonna be much worse for deathmatch than the others. Most of the maps are fairly okay, as either they have at least two corridors going through two rooms, or just big hallways. Both do fine, and the best part is that id seemed to know what they were doing overall with making the maps friendly for all game modes.
As for Final Doom? Well that's quite a mixed bag. Quite a few maps probably work out less for deathmatch, particularly in Evilution. MAP05 Hanger has all these corridors that suck, as does MAP08 in a way. The huge expanses in Drake O'Brien's map mean just finding players is a chore. Plutonia does way better in the three modes, and I can't really pinpoint a sore loser out of them deathmatch-wise, even Hunted fairs fairly well for a mazey situation.
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