| Introduction
Glossary:
AP - Acceleration Profile
BFG - BFG 9000, weapon #7
CG - ChainGun, weapon #4
DS - Deathmatch Start, respawn
PG - Plasma Gun, Plasma Rifle, weapon #6
RL - Rocket Launcher, weapon #5
SG - ShotGun (DOOM I and II), weapon #3 in DOOM 1 and 2
single - single player game
SPS - Single Player Start, respawn in single player game
SSG - Super ShotGun
– Doctor, can I play violin?
– Yes, of course!
– Strange, I couldn’t before, now I can…
Introduction
The following introduction is organized in the form of questions and answers. It’s just to clear up what the stuff you are reading at the moment is and whether you should read it any further.
Q. What is DOOM?
A. ><:-[ ] …. Killed… This manual assumes that you’ve been playing a little at least.
Q. What is “Guide”?
A. It’s a manual. In this case DOOM Guide – manual of DOOM.
Q. What a book is it? It has a very pretentious title …
A. It’s a rather small manual of DOOM play. Well, the title sounds really a bit pretentious but to hell with it.
Q. Am I to play better having read this?
A.If you haven’t been playing good till the moment, I doubt (see the epigraph). At least having just read it... But there is a hope that this stuff will help you get started quicker.
Q. Will you tell me how to run DOOM on NT without lags on P5/90?
A.No. it’s not a technical manual. It’s a textbook of issues concerning playing, especially deathmatch.
Q. So why is DOOM Guide better than RGD FAQ?
A. It’s none the better, it won’t be and it shouldn’t be. DOOM Guide shouldn’t compete with RGD FAQ, as they serve different purposes. RGD FAQ is a collection of answers to questions that aims at its completeness. But to pose a question correctly and to understand an answer you need a certain ground and a right approach to the game. DOOM Guide (its first volume for sure at least) is just to help the reader to find the right approach without useless waste of time.
Q. What does it mean "the right approach"?
A. To begin with, let’s clear up what ‘the wrong approach’ means. Let’s take an illustrative example. Most beginners use the DOOM default keyboard layout with all the following consequences. These consequences are the great difficulties with strafes, most probably with mouse strafes. Some players even those who consider themselves to be good ones (as they know a bit how to use SSG) ;-) don’t use strafe at all and are generally killed by the very first straight face rocket, as it’s difficult to get away from it just moving forward (quite a few knows how to move backward without a mouse) and making a turn. This is a sign of the wrong approach.
What’s wrong about it? It’s that a player neglects the sharpness and freedom of his movements for the sake of shooting, that he doesn’t know how to strafe – i.e. to protect himself, that he doesn’t use, not even try to, all his movement abilities probably together with his spatial imagination to the full. Of course, it’s one but very common example of the wrong approach, there may be a lot of others.
Q. So, will Doom Guide help?
A. Hope so. At least it can help. Especially in finding an approach to the game.
What is a Labyrinth?
Matter is the objective reality given to us in senses (or something of the kind ?)
Definition of matter by Lenin.
This little chapter is a certain kind of introduction. The only thing that I want to do here is to create a very general idea of DOOM level structure in reader’s mind. Thus the questions of level design and all the details necessary for this design will be left aside. So let me outline briefly the level structure.
1. There is no incline. All labyrinths you are dealing with are made up of flat floors and ceilings (horizontal ones), and also of walls that are vertical. Planes are covered with textures.
2. There is only one floor and one ceiling everywhere, there can’t be any sandwich in level design, so you can’t go over the same place on the map on different heights, or rather over two different floors as the floor altitude can change with time.
There are no rooms under the rooms. There are no tunnels intersecting on a map but not in space. DOOM is almost two-dimensional.
3. A level is made up of SECTIONS. A SECTION is an entirely homogeneous area on the level map, so that:
- there is only one floor level and only one ceiling level which is constant throughout a sector (no steps within a sector!);
- there is only one floor texture and only ceiling texture that doesn’t change within a sector (no areas with different textures within a sector!);
- different parts of a sector are equally lighted (no highlight areas within a sector!);
- all parts of a sector behave in the same way (ability to go down or up in a certain circumstances, or to take down player’s health as in the sector filled with lava and etc.)
- all changes of listed attributes that take place with time affect the WHOLE sector thus not breaking its homogeneity (the floor and the ceiling can go up and down but only throughout the entire sector; the lights can also be off and on again but still throughout the entire sector; finally, the sector behavior itself can change but in this case the ENTIRE sector should behave in the altered way).
Sector boundaries are LINES that are straight-line segments. Thus sectors are polygons. Though they might have inner boundaries (cut-out areas), and also there might be several outer ones (a sector can be made up of several parts not connected together).
Most sectors don’t change their attributes with time. But some can receive special control signals that make them change their attributes. The most common example of such a sector is a door, having received a certain outer signal it can be open and close that means a change of the ceiling height.
4. The sources of signals that can change the sector attributes are most often LINES. For example, signals are formed when a player crosses a certain line or when the USE button is pressed as he faces this line (it is the very way that buttons and doors are operated), when he shoots the line. Signal can be also formed when a certain monsters are killed (see DOOM II level 7). If you are looking for a secret, remember the way in which a signal that opens it can be formed… Generally speaking, looking for a secret you are failing to open it’s reasonable to use editors and viewers that can show, for example, the line that the sector is connected with and the connection character.
By Goblin and Littleb |
