DHT6 Design

DOOM Honorific Titles
Created by Frank Stajano on 1994 05 01

Level sets

I have been lucky enough to have the collaboration of many volunteers in defining or refining the level sets. This is an ongoing task and you too, if you like, may help with this.

The proposals that have the highest chance of being accepted are those that have been debated amongst several players, including at least two members of the "Best of the best" section of the Hall of Fame (yes, yes, I haven't yet done anything about the DHT6 hall of fame, and I haven't updated the DHT5 one in ages... I'll get there eventually, believe me!). Those proposals come with a final report that explains how and why the players arrive at those conclusions. The model for such reports is of course the now classic study on D2SG shown below.

DOOM II Speedy Gonzales (now Velox, D2V6)

This extensive study by Yonatan Donner, Mike Pratt (coordinator) and George Bell was the first contribution to the DHT of such depth and accuracy. It has been transferred "as is" from D2SG to D2V6, given that the only change was in the name (in DHT6 I decided I needed one-character names for the title designators).

Tyson: D1T6, D2T6

These level sets were defined by the concerted efforts of Daniel "Demonlord" Lindgren, George Bell, Mike Pratt and Patrick Martin (coordinator), who distilled the accumulated wisdom of the DHT5 Tyson bases and added to that their own thoughts based on their considerable experience.

Fans of the "DOOM Tyson" style should check George's amazing "Tyson Collection". I am really flattered that my 1994 invention of the "Tyson style" (at which I am useless, BTW) was taken so seriously!

Speaking of Tyson, in light of the recent events (a week ago, as I write, the real-life Mike Tyson bit a 1-inch long piece of flesh off the ear of his boxing opponent), some DHT players may object at the idea of fighting to conquer a title that bears the name of a man with such cannibalistic inclinations... But then again, going around and shooting everything in sight with a bazooka isn't a much more praiseworthy attitude so, if you plan to complain, remember that you are a DOOM player! Be ashamed of your own blood lust, not his. Mike Tyson is a pussycat in comparison to you. ;-)

[New addition as of 1997 10 07:] A reasonable comment from Andy Kempling, supported by Daniel Lindgren's opinion, convinced me to modify the D2T6 sets slightly by moving MAP32 from Easy to Medium. I am pleased with my DHT6 design decision of allowing players to re-request a title at any point (after a certain interval) because this gives me more freedom in doing little fixes like this one, in the interest of a better DHT for everyone, without feeling that I am being too unfair to those who had already requested the title.

Pacifist: D1P6, D2P6

Have you ever had a look at the suggestions page? I get some really good stuff once in a while! Look at that, for example: a proposal for a new, original title. I like it! What's "Pacifist", I hear you ask? Well, at the time of writing I still haven't written down the DHT6 rules (that will come too at some point, don't panic), so the only detailed description of this title is in the above proposal, which I hereby accept. Basically the Pacifist is capable of doing the assigned levels without harming any of the monsters he meets. In line with the "Speedy Gonzales", "Tyson", "Schwarzenegger" naming scheme I am almost tempted to rename this title to "Gandhi"... I may do this in the future.

Steffen Udluft wrote to me in May and I told him to go ahead. He's come back to me with a wonderful piece of work. Look at that multi-page HTML report, even pre-formatted like the famous D2SG one! This is cool. If you want to have your proposal accepted, come up with a good idea, team up with some other dedicated players, and finally send me a zip of carefully crafted html pages like he did. I'll have an easy time saying YES!

Congratulations and many thanks to the DHT Pacifist team: George Bell, Yonatan Donner, Istvan Pataki, Kai-Uwe Humpert, John Keniry, Thomas Kroppen, Daniel Lindgren, Patrick Martin, Robert Reevy, Richard J. Sham, Peo Sjoblom and Steffen Udluft (coordinator).

Incubus: D1I6, D2I6

Robert Reevy had such a good time with the team that worked on the Pacifist level sets that he decided to do it again for Incubus. Another excellent team effort. Thanks to him and to Peo Sjoblom, Patrick Martin, Steffen Udluft, Richard Sham, Istvan Pataki, Thomas Kroppen, John Keniry.

Yagyu (formerly known as Grand Master): D2Y6

As you may have noticed I now need one-letter names for titles, so the GM name had become inadequate. The Yagyu were a famous and powerful school of kenjutsu grand masters in feudal Japan (you know, the invincible sword-wielding samurai and all that stuff), so that's where I got the new name from. Fast, deadly and used to fighting against multiple adversaries. Looks like it fits the bill for the requirements for this title.

Andrew Pliml is so keen on the DHT stuff that he's set up his own little project to gather volunteers to define level sets for the missing titles. For D2GM he enrolled our well-known DHT champions and regular contributors George Bell and Mike Pratt, who were later joined in the discussion by Peo Sjoblom (of Pacifist and Incubus fame). Thanks to all, once more. Andrew is coordinating work on the sets for other titles too, which will very probably appear here when he sends me some proper documentation about how they were arrived at.

This is a brief extract from an email by George explaining how they got to these sets; this, instead, is a list of tips and comments on how to succeed on each of the DOOM 2 levels in Yagyu mode: read it only if you're desperate or it might spoil your fun.

Doom 1 Master: D1M6

This long overdue update incorporates the episode 4 levels into the first and fundamental title of Master. It is due to Andrew Pliml and John Keniry, to whom I am doubly grateful as they both previously contributed to the definition of other sets as you can see above.

The "middle" slot is a bit overcrowded for my taste (I like to have E, M, H balanced to within a couple of levels so as to maximise the number of possible triplets) but I don't want to delay any further the introduction of this important update. If only you knew how many months Andrew had to wait for me on this one... ;-)

Here is a cleaned up transcript of the notes that Andrew and John exchanged, explaining how they agreed to these sets.

DOOM, DOOM II, QUAKE © 1993 - 1996 id Software
DOOM Honorific Titles © 1994 - 1997 Frank Stajano
$Date: 1997/10/07 22:42:06 $ UTC