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 complex than two rooms with a door (and even that was pretty complex to figure out the right line defs, sectors, actions, etc. to just make a door work!). This was before the web took off so you couldn't just Google for a Stackoverflow answer when you got stuck!
Duke Nukem 3D and the Build engine were pretty interesting for level creation. The game engine included the editor so you could actually drop into a mode where you walk through the level and directly modify textures, floor/ceiling height, etc. Was a very cool experience at the time.
The Wolfenstein Map Builder on the other hand was really easy and straightforward. I spend a lot of time building maps with that. Especially silly ones with a lot of hidden corridors (space bar on the wall). First "map" I ever built was just a big room filled with treasure :P
Granted Wolfenstein was a much simpler game. But man I spend hours with that editor.
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. :)
That was part of the point: back then things weren't supposed to be easy nor documented and investing months to really learn how the intricate details of a Doom map worked paid off in giving us years of fun creating our own levels and episodes.
Comments
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 complex than two rooms with a door (and even that was pretty complex to figure out the right line defs, sectors, actions, etc. to just make a door work!). This was before the web took off so you couldn't just Google for a Stackoverflow answer when you got stuck!
Duke Nukem 3D and the Build engine were pretty interesting for level creation. The game engine included the editor so you could actually drop into a mode where you walk through the level and directly modify textures, floor/ceiling height, etc. Was a very cool experience at the time.
The Wolfenstein Map Builder on the other hand was really easy and straightforward. I spend a lot of time building maps with that. Especially silly ones with a lot of hidden corridors (space bar on the wall). First "map" I ever built was just a big room filled with treasure :P
Granted Wolfenstein was a much simpler game. But man I spend hours with that editor.
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. :)
That was part of the point: back then things weren't supposed to be easy nor documented and investing months to really learn how the intricate details of a Doom map worked paid off in giving us years of fun creating our own levels and episodes.
Oh come on. I think they just weren't user friendly tools. I doubt they developed them with the intention of being obtuse.