Re: Wolf3D & other FPSes (was Re: More Doom (Sigil II))

On 2025-04-21, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 21 Apr 2025 03:06:01 -0000 (UTC), ant@zimage.comANT (Ant)
wrote:
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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 20 Apr 2025 12:40:32 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man
<rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:

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I ran Doom with a larger sreen, in fact, as big as it could be with just
the status bar.  Maybe shrunk down one level.  It ran like crap, but I
preferred that over looking at tiny, tiny screen.  AFter a while, you
got used to it, and only some levels, like E3M6 really became a major
headache.

>

Oh, me too. I've always given 'quality' the edge over 'framerate', and
have been extremely tolerant of low FPS (as I said in an earlier post,
I first played "Quake" on a 486! ;-)

>

I first saw Wolf3D in the school computer lab, and like you found the 3D
first person perspective exciting.  Nothing like anything else I saw
before, but I only got to play it during school breaks, ie, every 6
months just for an hour or so.

>

Oh, undeniably! Wolf3D was very exciting on its release, and it got a
lot of play-time from me too. I was, perhaps, a bit less enthused than
you (games like "Catacombs 3D" and "Ultima Underworld" made the
viewpoint a bit less novel for me) but no other games on market had
the same mix of detail and speed as Wolfenstein. It was an amazing
game, technically, and felt quite revolutionary. But -again, perhaps
because I had games like "Underworld" or Bethesda's 1991 "The
Terminator" to fall back upon, it wasn't as amazing and life-consuming
as "Doom" would prove to be a few years later.

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Same even though it was slow on my IBM PS/2 model 30 286 10 Mhz PC. I
was jealous with my next door neighbor's custom built 386 PC. Of course,
we sapped with DOOM with my brand new custom built 486 DX2/66 PC! Thanks
God we were next door to each other to hang out a lot. Heck, we even
played over dial-up modem from our homes for online DOOMing. I miss him.
:(
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When I first saw Doom, early April 1994 I think, it looked next
generation, something phenomenal and clearly for a far more powerful
computer.  It was like watching black magic, how these "realistic"
scenes were rendered.  But I didn't quite get drawn into the aesthetics,
the demons, the shotgun, and found it to be like a Wolf3D rip off.  A
couple of weeks later, after playing it a little and deleting it, I
suddenly realised the game was pretty good and got the shareware version
again and finished it.  I was hooked from then on in.  More immersive
levels, flowed and played better.  No huge mazes!

>

Actually, I admit, my initial day-one impressions of "Doom" weren't
too far from yours either. It was very much an "ehn, it's just more
Wolf, but darker and trying too hard to be edgy,* what with the demons
and gore". For all that it's layout is now infamous, E1M1 doesn't
really present "Doom's" strengths very well. I actually remember
playing the game that first time (after a long and arduous download
and install**), and quitting after the first level quite disappointed
at the result.

>

But Usenet was full of talk about how great this game was, so I
eventually returned to the game.*** The next few levels were similar
(E1M3, which starts in a box-filled warehouse, felt like it could have
been a Wolf3D level). It wasn't until E1M7 that I _really_ started
getting into the game, groking its gameplay and atmosphere fully. By
then I'd started seeing "Doom" more than just "Wolf 4" and more as its
own thing; I could see the technical changes (again, the lighting and
elevation changes) and loved how everything came together to create a
mix of brooding, atmospheric horror and off-the-wall non-stop action.

>
I always loved the space marine base levels like in E1, E2M2, etc. I
wasn't a fan of the Earth and hell levels.

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They were fine levels, I'm not saying they weren't. But they initial
levels didn't do much to distinguish themselves from what we'd seen in
Wolfenstein 3D. It led to an intial disappointment by some that it was
just 'more of the same'. Although further playing made those
disappoints vanish.
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The hell-levels were always some of the most fun for me. I think my
favorite was Slough of Despair (E3M2; it was the one shaped like a
giant hand), although "Pandemonium (E3M2; it was the one that used a
little bit of every style in it, and was perhaps the most
"three-dimensional" of all the intial Doom maps, with numerous lifts).
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The later maps in "Doom 2" --especially the ones nominally on Earth
(it was hard to tell)-- were never any of my favorites. The entire
game lacked that creepy slow-burn horror that made the first so
memorable.
>

What is odd is that John Romero said the first level, E1M1 was
specifically designed to show off the new Doom engine features, such as
non-orthogonals walls, differing heights and such.

A lot of people seem to rate E3M2 poorly, but I think its a great level.

Doom 2's level design was a bit all over the place.  I thought it
started well, but it seem more a jumble.

What really helped were those
fan made levels and mods!!!

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Back when EVERYBODY made a level of their home (or office, or town, or
school). After the intial "box" test level, it was the expected next
step ;-)
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Although what modern modders have done with the engine is amazing.
Even when restricted to the base game's limitations, they've made some
incredible creations. Oh for a time machine so I could take some of
these mods back to 1994 and really wow the gaming audience of the day
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(although I'd expect most of them wouldn't be that popular. They're
too dependent on conventions built up over the last thirty years and
they'd lack the background to understand the mods. Gaming -and gamers-
was simpler back then ;)
>

There would be so, so many levels made, which either never left the
computer they were made on, or at most, may have been sent to some
friends.  I still have a couple of levels that my brother made back the
90s, and one a friend made where you come off a ship into an island.
Another friend made a level based on running down a corridor at full
speed, but that is lost.  There another I helped my cousin make when he
was little and one recently I played around with, making with my
daughter.  None of these levels ever went on the internet.

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And I've never lost my admiration of the game since, even if I've not
always enjoyed playing it as much.

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Wolf3D was neat... but Doom was magic.

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Ditto.
...

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