Talk:E1M5: Phobos Lab (Doom)

Omega

Does anyone else think it's a coincidence that the large partition in the room nearest the *exit* is shaped like the Greek letter omega?    Ryan W 22:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes...I think it is only a coincidence. The wall doesn't even look THAT much like an Omega, and unless someone bothers to confirm by asking the level designer himself (in this case John Romero, who shouldn't be hard to get in touch with) that the wall was intended to symbolize the Greek letter Omega, I would suggest that it is irrelevant and the remark about it in the article should be removed. 207.172.244.251 00:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It looks so coincidental to me that I think it's on the shoulders of a believer to contact Romero for further evidence. 71.58.109.233 00:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Certain people at Doomworld, e.g., can apparently write to him and be fairly confident of a response.  Failing that, however (and I could understand it if he didn't want to be pestered about every marginal item we can think up), there is IMHO no problem with removing it.  It had no basis in an existing primary or secondary source and in hindsight I probably shouldn't have put it in.    Ryan W 01:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK he loves answering emails. If you emailed him and showed him how much you have contributed to the wiki he'd probably want to be your best friend. :P Zack 03:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

What evidence would he have that the e-mail address and the Wikia username were the same person?  In any case, I should think he requires his close friends to know how to code.   :>     Ryan W 01:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The pentagram room

I'm not sure what's supposed to go in the "Inspiration and Development" section but I noticed today that E1M5 in Doom v1.1 does not have a Pentagram room. I'm going to make an assumption here and guess it was added (in v1.2, whence I fondly remember luring demons into a telefrag trap for fun) to be accessed from three parts of the map, filled with treasure, for the purpose of a Deathmatch advantage. (Not unlike the addition to E1M1 in 1.9u). Any suggestions? Is this too presumptuous? Could it go into "Inspiration and Development?" Zack 03:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the level is different in different versions should definitely, absolutely, unquestionably be included.  The controversial part comes when you try to guess why the changes were made, whereas there is no documentation for that, and probably never will be.  The E1M1 remark has remained unchallenged for almost 3 years with no bibliography, which by this site's standards is a fairly solid consensus.  If such statements are obvious to anyone in the Doom community who has played a few thousand deathmatch rounds (i.e. not me, so I personally cannot offer an opinion), then they should be acceptable.  Otherwise, they are not.

As always, I would love to be proved wrong by some period correspondence or by an e-mail from the author(s), but AFAICT they have long since moved on to new projects (I know I would have, if I could do what they do).    Ryan W 15:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)