[the_raven]

Before anything, I have to say that I did not play Doom back in the 90's, or at least if I did, it was very briefly, like "only once" briefly, so the whole epicness of Doom was lost on me. My first fps game was Duke Nukem 3D, my cousins were playing Doom and Quake (they liked Quake better, I can imagine why), but I was always a Duke3D fan. Duke was my favourite fps game ever for many years since I've first played it. By the time I got to playing Doom, I had already beaten Duke3D several times, and had already been playing Doom2 for quite a while (I think I actually beat that one too, and Quake). You could say that I did not see the appeal of Doom's more primitive engine and design when compared to Duke and Quake, and some of the features that Doom 2 had but Doom didn't were also a bit of a miss for me ("features", right, a couple of extra guns and enemies).

Relatively recently I've started playing Doom again (and yes, I've already beaten it many times by then), but now I was playing with Brutal Doom mod, and Project Brutality mod, and I've noticed something interesting. Unlike Duke, or Quake, or even other classic fps games that I still enjoy and love, Doom - the original Doom - somehow feels like it's got the most replay value. I love Duke3D, it's music, design, humour, et al, but compared to Doom, it just feels somehow limited. It's ironic really, since Doom's always been described as limited compared to Duke3D. I don't know, maybe it's because Duke is more flashed out than Doomguy as a character, making Doomguy more immersive\ relatable; maybe it's the more realistic level design of Duke that's just boring by now. I really can't put my finger on it. I mean, I know that Doom's community is far more active than Duke's, but I've never cared about it until now. Now, I have to say that I actually like Doom - the old, primitive Doom - better than Duke3D (and no, the terrible DNF and the far superior Doom (2016) have nothing to do with it, I'm talking about the original games).

Can anyone shed some light? And please abstain from messages like "Doom is just that great, you're finally seeing the light", because if you write that, at least give more arguments.

Thank you.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Did ya really have to make a new thread for this?

[jkas789]

I mean I kinda agree, but let the_raven have fun BattleWalrus. It's not as if we are having more than 20 new threads per month.

To answer the question, I think I think that it is a combination of factors:

• For starters OG Doom levels IMO are short and action packed, so they are very replay able. Sure if you die you gotta start all over again but it does not have the same impact as if I had to start say, The Abysss from Duke 3D all over again because a trooper killed me. There is advantage to the corridor/labyrinthian/simple geometric design of Doom, which is that you can make easily recognizable landmarks that help the players understand were to go. Contrast this with for example Shop-N-Bag, which IMO in its pursuit of being like a supermarket it could be pretty obscure on occasion. The Build engine is at its best when it is used to make irl inspired levels. That does not mean that any irl building can be conductive to a good level design. Contrast this to Doom 1& 2: want to make a level? Make one in the shape of a pentagon, add some key hunting for progression and voila.
  
• The weapon/monster rooster. Specially with Doom 2 and the introduction of the Super Shotgun ^TM. There is a incredible magical balance that ID achieved in regards to the gameplay balance between both roosters. The weapons, do what you ask them to do, they are tight, fast and high damage with enough spread to counteract the hordes of demons you are facing.
  
• The engine of the game. By now it has practically become a meme that Doom's engine is coded so well people can understand it easily and port it to all most anything. Compare this to the Build engine, which is a bit more... obscure as far as I can gather. I would imagine it is far difficult to experiment with and maintain a Build port than a Doom port. This in particular later ties to...
  
• The modding community. The Doom community (like Duke's) are pretty passionate about the game. However I think that the entry to modding is a bit lower than Duke Nukem's . That does mean that there is a lot of shit being made for Doom, however newbies tend to stay at it for a bit longer than their first map. That combined with high profile mods (most notably Brutal Doom) that have kept it in the public eye give Doom its evergreen appearance.
  
• It is a good game. Good games tend to be good no matter the hardware and tend to age like fine wine. You think I'm wrong? Go play the first Super Mario Bros.

[Fantinaikos]

Cancel this and transfer to this.

[NNC]

Doom's greatest advantage over Duke is its multiple sourceports compared to Duke's one and only. Doom has a classic Chocolate Doom, a limit removing Crispy Doom, a multiplayer friendly Zandronum, the mod friendly GZDoom, and various others. Duke has EDuke32 and... EDuke32. Which is good, but its constant modifications that break mods or levelpacks clearly hurt its legacy (in some versions Enforcers can jump through water, in others palette enemies have double HP, in others shrink ray are blocked in smaller gaps etc etc). The various Doom level editors are also easier to use for many than Mapster32 (which I love for myself, but it still has its 1996 tier flaws like the controls in the 3D plane, the overwhelming number of hotkeys etc). I might open a can of worms here, but I'm fed up how hostile this community can be towards the various other attempts that tried to rival EDuke32 with the questionable reasons of muh reverse engineering and others.

Classic Duke 3D is a better game than Doom, but Doom aged better because its modding community is based on competition and not on seniority. At least in my opinion.

[jkas789]

I mean if you want to be pedantic there is more than one source port for Duke Nukem 3D, but I do agree with the Mapster32 portion of your post. I have been trying to learn mapster in my spare time (thanks this really good tutorial Jimmy made me the favour of sharing with me) and I must say as someone coming from another modding community (Skyrim to be exact), Mapster is a very different beast compared to the Creation Kit.

Quote

but I'm fed up how hostile this community can be towards the various other attempts that tried to rival EDuke32 with the questionable reasons of muh reverse engineering and others.

In regards to Raze (the latest sourceport) it is still in beta, however I have been following its progress and it has managed to won me over with its adding of voxel support. However gameplay does feel different than in any other source port. I guess I could describe movement as feeling almost Doom-ish at times (as off 0.8.1 it still does)? So that is something I think that must be worked on.

As a duke port I think Raze is okay. Heck even as a RR, SW and Powerslave port I think it could be all right. What really gives me pause to migrating to it fully is NBlood and the progress being made there adding more modern types and and XMapedit. You should swing around to the Blood Discord sometime Watchtower. It's like fucking black magic.

Quote

Classic Duke 3D is a better game than Doom, but Doom aged better because its modding community is based on competition and not on seniority. At least in my opinion.

No comment.

[DisgustedGrunt]

The Watchtower, on 27 December 2020 - 07:06 AM, said:

Classic Duke 3D is a better game than Doom, but Doom aged better because its modding community is based on competition and not on seniority. At least in my opinion.

honestly, i bought Doom and Doom 2 more to play mods than to actually play the games. They're both good games, but the vanilla gameplay is too "simple" for me. I can live without jumping/ crouching, but not being able to look up or down just messes with me, i don't trust the autoaim, find it more annoying that useful. Specially with the rocket launcher.
At least the level design has verticality to it, the complete lack of it killed Wolf 3D it for me.

Meanwhile i can play Duke 3D and Quake vanilla (well, has vanilla has you can get with EDuke/ Quakespasm) and have fun every time, no graphic or gameplay mods.

[NNC]

Lazy Dog, on 27 December 2020 - 07:43 AM, said:

honestly, i bought Doom and Doom 2 more to play mods than to actually play the games. They're both good games, but the vanilla gameplay is too "simple" for me. I can live without jumping/ crouching, but not being able to look up or down just messes with me, i don't trust the autoaim, find it more annoying that useful. Specially with the rocket launcher.
At least the level design has verticality to it, the complete lack of it killed Wolf 3D it for me.

Meanwhile i can play Duke 3D and Quake vanilla (well, has vanilla has you can get with EDuke/ Quakespasm) and have fun every time, no graphic or gameplay mods.

I don't mind the autoaim, usually I still play Duke with it (classic levels, including episode 5 are built with autoaim in mind, that's why there are lots of high distance turrets everywhere), but the lack of verticality clearly killed Wolf3D for me even in 1993. Honestly, the whole game is like a big samey maze, I don't think we can talk about level design there.

Another thing that might help Doom is its versatility. You can just build unlimited amount of levels from the existing assets, of course great levels need more creativity, but you can recreate KDITD and other episodes multiple times, it doesn't lose its touch. Duke is more focused on its story, most of the assets are level specific, especially the episode 4 ones, so while there is a rich history in Duke mapping, its not as unlimited as Doom.

[ReaperAA]

The Watchtower, on 27 December 2020 - 07:06 AM, said:

Doom's greatest advantage over Duke is its multiple sourceports compared to Duke's one and only. Doom has a classic Chocolate Doom, a limit removing Crispy Doom, a multiplayer friendly Zandronum, the mod friendly GZDoom, and various others. Duke has EDuke32 and... EDuke32. Which is good, but its constant modifications that break mods or levelpacks clearly hurt its legacy (in some versions Enforcers can jump through water, in others palette enemies have double HP, in others shrink ray are blocked in smaller gaps etc etc). The various Doom level editors are also easier to use for many than Mapster32 (which I love for myself, but it still has its 1996 tier flaws like the controls in the 3D plane, the overwhelming number of hotkeys etc). I might open a can of worms here, but I'm fed up how hostile this community can be towards the various other attempts that tried to rival EDuke32 with the questionable reasons of muh reverse engineering and others.

Classic Duke 3D is a better game than Doom, but Doom aged better because its modding community is based on competition and not on seniority. At least in my opinion.

Completely agreed here. Not just the level editors for Doom are more beginner friendly but the gameplay modding for Doom (I am talking about ZDoom modding here) is also much more beginner friendly. This combined with the sheer size+popularity difference between the 2 franchises (Doom still being mainstream and getting AAA games vs Duke's reputation being tarnished by DNF) means that Doom community is still getting a healthy amount of new modders and mappers and thus more custom content for Doom

[ReaperAA]

the_raven, on 27 December 2020 - 01:12 AM, said:

Doom - the original Doom - somehow feels like it's got the most replay value. I love Duke3D, it's music, design, humour, et al, but compared to Doom, it just feels somehow limited. It's ironic really, since Doom's always been described as limited compared to Duke3D. I don't know, maybe it's because Duke is more flashed out than Doomguy as a character, making Doomguy more immersive\ relatable; maybe it's the more realistic level design of Duke that's just boring by now. I really can't put my finger on it. I mean, I know that Doom's community is far more active than Duke's, but I've never cared about it until now. Now, I have to say that I actually like Doom - the old, primitive Doom - better than Duke3D (and no, the terrible DNF and the far superior Doom (2016) have nothing to do with it, I'm talking about the original games).

Can anyone shed some light? And please abstain from messages like "Doom is just that great, you're finally seeing the light", because if you write that, at least give more arguments.

Thank you.

It could be a variety of factors really. For me, Doom (I mostly mean Doom 2 actually) has more replay value than Duke3D, despite Duke having better level design and better protagonist. For me, one of the major factors is that I like the core gunplay and the enemy roster of Doom more than that of Duke3D.

Doom 2's enemies seem better balanced (like hitscan enemies have high pain chance and less hp) and have more diverse roles like:
- Enemies that replenish the battlefield (Archviles, Pain Elementals)
- Enemies with complex attack patterns (Revenants, Mancubi)
- Area denial enemies (Archviles)
- Turret style enemies (Arachnotrons)
- Strong enemies in levels (like Cyberdemon and SMM) unlike mini-Battlelords that can be shrunk in 1 shot or killed by 6 rockets.

[Hank]

My two cents …
Doom and Doom2 is still, commercially, available. Duke3D, Atomic is not. It’s now The World Tour, with its own modified game engine.
One of the benefits Doomworld has had, is a progressive set of Doom franchise games, while keeping the originals intact and thereby maintaining the loyal group of fans and naturally attracting new ones.

Duke Nukem on the other hand, can be summarized in one word: EDuke32; the only common denominator for this community. All newer mods, TCs and levels are based on it. And EDuke32 tries to be backward compatible, while expanding with more features. Not easy, and there are issues. EDuke32 is also required to play all those older TCs and mods. World Tour alone is not compatible.

And you may have guessed it, I’m a fan of neither. (Never finished off the Queen without cheating, and fuck this Doom II ‘trick’) I loved mapster32, because I could create my own play style. Mapster32 may have an old fashion GUI, it is still relatively easy to learn, and you could print out the key commands, when beginning with mapster32.

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 27 December 2020 - 06:18 AM, said:

There is advantage to the corridor/labyrinthian/simple geometric design of Doom, which is that you can make easily recognizable landmarks that help the players understand were to go. Contrast this with for example Shop-N-Bag, which IMO in its pursuit of being like a supermarket it could be pretty obscure on occasion. The Build engine is at its best when it is used to make irl inspired levels. That does not mean that any irl building can be conductive to a good level design. Contrast this to Doom 1& 2: want to make a level? Make one in the shape of a pentagon, add some key hunting for progression and voila.

I'm not sure I completely agree with this bolded part, to be honest I don't think you do either given the rest of your point and since the next example you use actually counters it (Shop-N-Bag being an example of a pseudo-realistic level that only worked so much, by your own admission). I personally believe the Build engine is at its best when you go nuts with it, the pseudo-realism the base maps featured doesn't have to be applied to every subsequent creation and in fact, successful experimental maps and mods throughout the history of the community that have not just hit hard but also influenced how everybody would approach the engine from then on, with every impactful release revealing new possibilities and directions to explore, are aplenty. Build has on the Doom engine (IIRC) that it's non-Euclidian and thus allows you to draw pentagon-type of abstract levels on pretty much the three-dimensional scale, allowing for the type of gameplay you're describing (and I love it too) just with enhanced depth. But maybe you've been mostly playing user maps that (sometimes tediously) aim at looking realistic and so you have yet to experience the more experimental stuff. If you ask me, personally I'm big into real-life locations in Build, actually, but I do strongly believe that those should be reinterpreted and translated into the language of the game's mechanics, as 1:1 replicas from a world where different physics (speed and jump height to name a few) apply and construction was never optimized for FPS experience can only be so practical.

Also easily recognizable landmarks are just general good design and can be done in Duke, the best maps usually feature them too.

Only meaning to add to your point, by the way, I'm not a contrarian.

[NNC]

Shop-N-Bag is a bad example. Honestly, the supermarket theme was a missed opportunity. It was fixed in Ion Fury though, that's the scale of a real plaza, and a more stylized version could have been made with the v1.5 assets even in 1997. The final level was meh, with no real outdoors, no vertical scale and some nonsense moments (including nonsense enemy placement).

On the other hand, jkas's point was valid. You can't make too many Shop-N-Bags and keep it being fresh.

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 28 December 2020 - 04:41 AM, said:

But maybe you've been mostly playing user maps that (sometimes tediously) aim at looking realistic and so you have yet to experience the more experimental stuff.

ck3D, have you set up a camera in my room, because I'm warning ya! Imma report you to Fox if you don't change the channel right now.

To be fair, I agree with your post on there been good experimental map out there. I'm sure I have played some however memory eludes me atm, and the vast majority of user maps in my hoard are very focused on reproducing irl locations. Gonna have to correct that.

Quote

Shop-N-Bag is a bad example. Honestly, the supermarket theme was a missed opportunity. It was fixed in Ion Fury though, that's the scale of a real plaza, and a more stylized version could have been made with the v1.5 assets even in 1997. The final level was meh, with no real outdoors, no vertical scale and some nonsense moments (including nonsense enemy placement).

Yes I too also hate Shop-N-Bag. No seriously. It's such a chore to play that I have made it a point to skip it in the last 4 playthrough of Duke I have done.

[Merlijn]

I don't think it has anything to do with the level design, Doom and Doom 2 have their fair share of bad maps too (Nirvana, anyone?).
If anything, the Duke 3D city levels aged a lot better than the attempts at city maps in Doom 2.

As others have stated, Doom has a more well rounded enemy roster and more iconic weaponry.

Also, the general setting of Doom (opening a portal to hell) allows for more variety.
As seen in the series itself, it can lean into pure horror (Doom 3), into bad-ass combat (Doom 4) or dive deep into an expanded universe (Eternal)
By contrast, the plot of Duke is "aliens are stealing our chicks". Not much you can do with that, as DNF proved.

Obviously I'm just talking about the official games now, not the user generated content.

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 28 December 2020 - 09:14 AM, said:

ck3D, have you set up a camera in my room, because I'm warning ya! Imma report you to Fox if you don't change the channel right now.

*gets shot in the back by respawning trooper after staring at the security monitor through the span of at least three Christmas quotes*

Don't be too (or any) hard on yourself, experimental maps aren't the most accessible ones as 1/ realism is realism, people are bound to relate and 2/ the branding of Build games itself was all about using that argument (which made sense at the time, too, and perhaps no longer does as much), but in reality there's so much potential the engine holds for abstraction even with base Duke 3D tiles and code, holding the pseudo-realism card as the engine's main strength I'd say is obsolete. I myself was most exclusively drawn to realistic maps for a long time, perhaps years, whereas getting into the experimental levels is more akin to first acquiring a taste for free form jazz. Again, just the engine being non-Euclidian allows so much; once you've looked outside the box, it's kinda hard to jump back in and just keep replicating the base stuff over and over (and to be fair, albeit aiming for a familiar and relatable urban look, a lot about the base levels in design was experimental). For some reason I'll always encourage people to check out stuff like Billy Boy's levels more, just to get (one) idea of what else can be done in Duke than mimicking what already exists. I'd say that type of technical experimentation with pseudo-realism peaked, then gradually died in the mid to late naughts, after which people started pursuing more conceptual designs for user maps - although now strong of the know-how when it comes to building credible structures in practice, resulting in levels where aesthetics are no longer the main focus but really apparent whenever they're just the facade.

Also side note but I think I recently read (maybe in this thread even, I'm not going back to check) that you had started experimenting with the editor, I think that's cool, hoping to play something from you soon even if simple!

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 31 December 2020 - 11:43 AM, said:

*gets shot in the back by respawning trooper after staring at the security monitor through the span of at least three Christmas quotes*

Don't be too (or any) hard on yourself, experimental maps aren't the most accessible ones as 1/ realism is realism, people are bound to relate and 2/ the branding of Build games itself was all about using that argument (which made sense at the time, too, and perhaps no longer does as much), but in reality there's so much potential the engine holds for abstraction even with base Duke 3D tiles and code, holding the pseudo-realism card as the engine's main strength I'd say is obsolete. I myself was most exclusively drawn to realistic maps for a long time, perhaps years, whereas getting into the experimental levels is more akin to first acquiring a taste for free form jazz. Again, just the engine being non-Euclidian allows so much; once you've looked outside the box, it's kinda hard to jump back in and just keep replicating the base stuff over and over (and to be fair, albeit aiming for a familiar and relatable urban look, a lot about the base levels in design was experimental). For some reason I'll always encourage people to check out stuff like Billy Boy's levels more, just to get (one) idea of what else can be done in Duke than mimicking what already exists. I'd say that type of technical experimentation with pseudo-realism peaked, then gradually died in the mid to late naughts, after which people started pursuing more conceptual designs for user maps - although now strong of the know-how when it comes to building credible structures in practice, resulting in levels where aesthetics are no longer the main focus but really apparent whenever they're just the facade.

Also side note but I think I recently read (maybe in this thread even, I'm not going back to check) that you had started experimenting with the editor, I think that's cool, hoping to play something from you soon even if simple!

Apart from Billy Boy's levels, are there other maps you can recommend in the same vein of weird experimental stuff?

In regards to pumping out maps, I must admit that I have not gone further than making square rooms and trying to figure out to get beyond that. I actually have a clear idea on what I want to to make at least for a first public release. However polishing my skills has been hard because covid + doctor equals few time. I have figured out a portable installation in a USB for build games and other shooters to play and mess around on the office however it is not really an ideal environment to work in. Hopefully I'll have something to show this year, unless covid gets worse and aliens invade or some shit.

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 01 January 2021 - 06:36 PM, said:

Apart from Billy Boy's levels, are there other maps you can recommend in the same vein of weird experimental stuff?

In regards to pumping out maps, I must admit that I have not gone further than making square rooms and trying to figure out to get beyond that. I actually have a clear idea on what I want to to make at least for a first public release. However polishing my skills has been hard because covid + doctor equals few time. I have figured out a portable installation in a USB for build games and other shooters to play and mess around on the office however it is not really an ideal environment to work in. Hopefully I'll have something to show this year, unless covid gets worse and aliens invade or some shit.

It's actually a tricky question, in fact I was going to try and include a list of example maps earlier but eventually restrained myself because there are so many ways of making conceptual maps and so many ways to look at one and consider whether it's experimental in this and that aspect or not. Some of the earliest user maps like Anslem, Red Sun, Lair or the Legends series definitely were a unique take on Duke 3D at the time and, simultaneously, not that much of a stretch from the Doom style of levels you were describing (for the lack of a better term), in general I tend to find a lot of user levels from 1996-ish intriguing because people were still trying to grasp the direction of Duke 3D specifically and although the design mostly suffered from that same lack of experience, I always really liked all the little spontaneous creative liberties. Early 2000's maps were a mixed bag in that while most people were super focused on recreating believable environments and city maps (so with a highlight on credible design), some were exploring a completely different genre, see Maarten with Alien Planet X64-2 or Bob Masters' maps, although there surely are better examples and that's in addition to Billy Boy and Zaxtor, for instance I remember Victor's Killing Time or Reginukem's constructions always caught my attention especially because of their quirks. As far as the 2010's are concerned I'd recommend Zykov Eddy's stuff, and as far as the 2020's I'd say we kind of reached a point where people are aware of both aspects of, and possible directions for Duke 3D level design and constantly trying to juggle with the right balance of both worlds, so even realistic settings can be a facade for more abstract scenarii and in the end, while it all kind of blends in, one would be hard pressed to find a 2020 map that's purely all looks. In a sense that trend died with the mid to late naughts, nowadays most of the time what you'll get is conceptual stuff once past the visual camouflage (Lost World, Woudrichem, SG3) which is a great culmination since there was never a reason why both aspects should contradict one another. Again though, I can only speak from my own perspective, and there's probably a shit ton of classic maps and mods I haven't played, and before I had access to the Internet, for the longest time my favorite map had a sector-based 20 feet tall shotgun shells sprite replica in it (island1 by Georg Buol; its sequel The Base was actually really cool back in the day).

Looking forward to checking out your stuff, regardless of what it is eventually, a map is a map, a first map is a first map, square rooms are rooms that are square but never have to be. I do appreciate you aiming for quality right off the bat and planning things out already though, have fun and good luck!