I don't know how to feel about this article. Four decent sized Doom maps (I'm assuming they're referring to the official iwad maps) doesn't sound like an unusually large map for a community creation. The 2-3 hour time requirement is rather vague (how experienced a player are we talking about? does the time include deaths and re-attempts?) too, but I've certainly played maps that took me as long, and I've watched others play such maps.
I guess there's nothing wrong with TFA per se, but I don't know if there's anything particularly newsworthy in it either. It sounds like the author just isn't aware of what's been going on in the Doom community for the past two decades.
Way to compliment someone on their fantastic 300-hour project that they finished and present to the internet. Typical HN commentary. What this guy has done is a labour of love. I love it. Other people have done great WADs too... so what? Everyone deserves credit for good work.
There's a video embedded in the article of someone playing through the whole map. The video is an hour long. And I just realized has full mouselook.
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Unrelatedly, and perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I find myself wishing some of the more modern Doom variants had more of the aesthetic of the original games. Colors, sizes of the rooms and such.
Well there is nothing worng with playing the original games (perhaps with a beefed up engine if the original is too clunky for your taste). There's plenty of maps too so you'll never get bored. I think I've played around a hundred pwads now and it feels like I've only scratched the surface.
The WAD itself is pretty newsworthy. For someone that's never made a DooM level before, the author definitely read up on a few of the tricks that the engine could use because they did some neat things in the maps. If you watch the video, the switch tower (with all the Lost Souls) was especially cool as it uses a special trigger type to create the effect you see. As someone who is a huge DooM fan, this level wasn't the greatest, but it was pretty cool and noteworthy.
Perhaps they're unaware, or perhaps they just chose a case study they considered interesting as an article subject. "Look at the time and care devoted to this hobby" is a classic article pattern.
> perhaps they just chose a case study they considered interesting as an article subject
That is possible. But the article gives me no reason why this particular map would stand out as interesting apart from all the others. At the very least, if "look at the time and care devoted to this hobby" were the goal, you'd be able to make a much juicier article by considering other cases, more impressive projects, such as one-man megawads that took more than 300 hours to make.. full of maps that are on average larger and harder (and longer in the time required to play sens) and prettier than the original iwad maps.
I guess there's nothing wrong with TFA per se, but I don't know if there's anything particularly newsworthy in it either. It sounds like the author just isn't aware of what's been going on in the Doom community for the past two decades.