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Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

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Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#11

Post by bkcooper »

Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

Painkiller does feel more like Doom than most other more modern FPSs, but I never felt like the bunny hopping really measured up evasion wise.

The game that I felt captured this dynamic really well, at least in multiplayer deathmatches, was Half-Life. You were surprisingly zippy, and the long jump module gave you a lot of ability to get out of where you were in a hurry. I enjoyed this sort of dynamic because it played well to my strengths. Having mediocre aim but being able to dodge well worked out okay in this setting. Doom and Half-Life are probably the only shooters I've ever been decent at.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#13

Post by angersock »

To get an idea of this madness, it can help to look at some relevant footage.

Speedrun of Dead Simple from Doom 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfijpjvS9Q8&feature=player_de...

Quake Done Quick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpiNDxssUL0

~

That sort of manic movement is, I think, what really sets apart the elite FPS players of the Doom, Quake, and UT era (and the games in the same vein) from folks in the CoD/Halo games.

Also, the level design is pretty much strictly better, because it mattered a lot more. With regenerating health and lots of ammo/easy pickups, you no longer have to be quite so careful when putting together a level, because you know that if the give the player X seconds of time without suffering everything will be okay.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#14

Post by gipp »

twotwotwo wrote: post #7

re: how mod-friendly Doom was, Portal 2's simplified level editor (released 2012, after this was written) was pretty well-done--only exposed a tiny fraction of the things one could do, of course, but enough to build real puzzles, and with just enough default visual interest that the product didn't necessarily look awful. http://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Puzzle_Creator Of the user-made levels, it's surprising how many us…

Not entirely surprising; there was already a gigantic Source modding community well before Portal 2.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#15

Post by lotharbot »

Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

> “maneuverability as defense”

the Descent series is all about this, even in multiplayer.

Here's a video of two of the best players in the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8eCULTB3IQ (with audio commentary from some of the other best players, starting at around 7%.)

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#16

Post by jrobn »

angersock wrote: post #13

To get an idea of this madness, it can help to look at some relevant footage. Speedrun of Dead Simple from Doom 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfijpjvS9Q8&feature=player_de... Quake Done Quick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpiNDxssUL0 ~ That sort of manic movement is, I think, what really sets apart the elite FPS players of the Doom, Quake, and UT era (and the games in the same vein) from folks in the CoD/Halo g…

Watching the Quake video brought back memories of playing the Action Quake 2 mod, where the entire gameplay mechanics revolved around jumping and shooting.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#17

Post by Rolpa »

tdicola wrote: post #10

Interesting article. I played with making Doom levels back in the day and it wasn't exactly easy. The tools (DEU, DETH, etc.) were generally clunky DOS apps that resembled very simplified CAD programs. Documentation was non-existent or spotty at best, so you really had to spend a lot of time figuring out how to do simple things. It would easily take you months to ramp up and start building levels that were more compl…

Having submitted myself through the same process but with modern tools (see DoomBuilder and XWE) and Google, I can only concur. Anything more complicated than room-corridor-room winds up being a major pain in the ass. :)

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#19

Post by gaelian »

angersock wrote: post #13

To get an idea of this madness, it can help to look at some relevant footage. Speedrun of Dead Simple from Doom 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfijpjvS9Q8&feature=player_de... Quake Done Quick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpiNDxssUL0 ~ That sort of manic movement is, I think, what really sets apart the elite FPS players of the Doom, Quake, and UT era (and the games in the same vein) from folks in the CoD/Halo g…

> That sort of manic movement is, I think, what really sets apart the elite FPS players of the Doom, Quake, and UT era

In those days, my friends and I used to get into UT quite a lot. Most of the more experienced UT players I watched would use the double-tap of the left/right arrow button to trigger the short sideways leap as a means of rounding a corner (for a better chance of surprising an enemy), or to make it harder for an enemy to keep a bead on them when they were being fired on. I was always surprised at how - to me at least - this simple mechanic made such a difference to how dynamic the combat felt.

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