Talk:E1M4: Command Control (Doom)

Design Credit

It was designed by Sandy Petersen

and further down...

E1M4, started by Tom Hall and finished by John Romero

I think one is based on Frans P. de Vries' FAQ post, the other on Romero's page. The differences are mostly that Romero's list puts Hall as coauthor of many of Petersen's maps. The credit for E1M4 differs completely, though. But Romero must be right here: E1M4 was in the early alpha versions, so it can't have been made by Petersen (who joined late in development). Also, Romero has said that he added the swastika, which suggests that he worked on the map. Fredrik 22:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I was just about to ask that!  :>   I looked right at the link to Romero's table without seeing it.    Ryan W 22:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be worth incorporating the inconsistency and the logical conclusion here into the article. -- Jdowland 19:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose much of the design could have been started early on by Tom Hall, then finished by Sandy Petersen near the end of development. Or all three of them could have worked on it at different points... I wonder if someone with a good eye for the different mappers' styles could guess who worked on various parts of the map. CODOR 21:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed a section in "The Official Doom Survivor's Strategies & Secrets" (1994, Sybex Inc. ISBN 0-7821-1546-2) that was written by Sandy Petersen:

John Romero created all the levels in episode 1, Knee Deep in the Dead, from scratch, except for level 1.8. All the remaining levels were done by me, either alone or sometimes by converting someone else's earlier work into a more polished form.

Of course, Petersen is also credited by Frans P. de Vries with supplying the information on the non-Ultimate Doom levels to the FAQ listed above, but he seems pretty definite here that E1M4 was done by Romero. -- CODOR 00:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Featured Article

If any article on the Doom Wiki is worthy of being a "featured article", it's this one. Excellent piece of work. Fraggle 16:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Doom novels

I added the bit about the doom novels, having just read them. I found that part to be amusing. Its stuff like that that made those novels great, before it devolved into a space opera in book 3.

I really don't think we should start putting expanded universe information into articles about vanilla Doom.  It opens up a huge area of cross-reference clutter that would just sit in a corner with no direct relation to the rest of the page (even more so here than in articles about monsters/weapons), and require a horrendous amount of work to maintain even if we could all agree on what was canon.    Ryan W 02:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Sandy Petersen not considered reliable source

I am going to suggest that the edit gets reverted again on the basis of the fact that almost 100% of assertions made by Sandy in the past 3 or so years have proven false and usually contradict all other available sources. --Quasar (talk) 21:45, 2 November 2023 (CDT)

After spending quite some time today with past resources and comments, I am thinking the claim has merit: it goes back much further than 3 years (to 1997) and I dug up an independent third-party source to support it. To recap:

• Romero summarizes level credits in a Usenet posting in 1995, leaving Petersen out of E1M4, and also in his comprehensive 1998 table. I don't know why he left out a third contributor if there actually was one. Perhaps he felt three entries would clutter the table and he left out one with the smallest contribution, but any other guess could apply too.
• In August 1997 I emailed Petersen at Ensemble and received the following reply within a day:

Message-Id: <802B50C269DECF11B6A200A0242979EF339DC6@consulting.ensemble.net>
From: Sandy Petersen <SPetersen@Ensemble-Studios.com>
To: "'Frans P. de Vries'" <fpv@xymph.iaf.nl>
Subject: RE: DOOM II level designers?
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:53:07 -0500
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1457.3)

DOOM 1:
        John Romero did e1m1, e1m2, e1m3, e1m5, e1m6, e1m7, and e1m9.
        I did e1m4 & e1m8, plus all of episodes 2 and 3.

DOOM 2:
Sandy Petersen: 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32
American McGee: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 14, 22
John Romero: 11, 15, 17, 20, 26, 29
Shawn Green: 25
I did 17 levels, John 6, American 8, and Shawn 1. In John's defense, his levels were all relatively large and spacious.

Sandy Petersen.

From this I compiled the levels table also mentioned above – and which I had completely forgotten about until today. ;-) The weak point in this mail is that Hall is not listed, and unfortunately I lacked the presence of mind to quiz him about that. But there is no uncertainty about which levels originate with Hall so it's a minor quibble.

• In this 2017 interview Petersen states: "Also, you get that in E1M8, which is one of the two levels I did for Episode 1." In the resulting DW discussion, Jaws in Space observes this must have been E1M4 because it originates with Hall. It is known that Petersen had been tasked to review/improve all of Hall's levels after the latter departed id, like he repeats in the 2021 video.
• As a minor data point, this level analysis (final paragraph) considers the map "a slightly cloudy jewel" of which the first half "is a bit reminiscent of Sandy Petersen’s sometimes-sprawling designs for Episodes 2 and 3." No evidence or primary source, but it supports the theory.
• During my Usenet years I kept a text log of some news bits related to id. It contains a copy of Romero's 1995 post, several other Usenet postings, and a news post captured from http://www.gamesmania.com/english/news/daily.htm on 26 Jun 1997 (so before I published my levels table based on Petersen's mail):

id Software has lost yet another talent, as Sandy Petersen - who
was a Doom, Doom II and Quake designer - has left id to work for
Ensemble Studios as a game designer.

id CEO Todd Hollenshead confirmed the June 16 departure, without
adding any further comment. However, Petersen tells Gamesmania that
the split "was amicable" and adds that he's "enthusiastic about
working at Ensemble." (He started this past Monday, June 23.) While at
id, Petersen designed 20 of Doom's 27 levels (and wrote the manual),
17 of Doom II's 32 levels (and wrote the manual) and Episode 4 of
Quake (and the manual). Petersen joins a number of other former
id-sters - including John Romero and Mike Wilson - who have found
greener pastures in the gaming industry.

After a short rest, Petersen has jumped right into the development of
Ensemble's second game - a fantasy title involving adventure and magic
spells - that will hopefully be ready for the '98 holiday season.

This site also asserts Petersen contributed to 20 maps, so including E1M4 (and E1M8). Archive.org wasn't very thorough in 1997 yet so I couldn't find an archived copy of the actual page, and you'll just have to trust the archive from my 486DX2-66 days. :-) Again this is a third-party assertion but Gamesmania must have had another source than my table. They also state Petersen wrote the Doom/Doom II manuals, btw. If there is another source for that, this may also lend credence to their 20 maps confirmation.

• I agree on another point made by Petersen being unreliable though, when he claims to have been the one fixing the swastika area. But Romero was the one adding it and he also removed it. This happened some time before the v1.4 release in June 1994, by which time Doom II was heavily into development and Petersen must have been busy with his levels there. So I find it much more plausible that Romero indeed edited that part.

In summary: Petersen's claim of a contribution to E1M4 is consistent since 1997 or longer, and it fits with his tasks in that phase of the game's development. To me it sounds plausible enough to add a wiki credit -- but like everyone else here I wasn't around in their offices. ;) --Xymph (talk) 15:39, 3 November 2023 (CDT)

Color me convinced, then. Good research! --Quasar (talk) 09:47, 13 November 2023 (CST)