Youtube "Reviewer" hates Marathon fanbase

[NobilityV3]

I randomly decided to search up Marathon videos on Youtube and see what new content has sprung up, but upon doing so I came across a very interesting character.

This guy reviewed all three games in the series while he bashes them into the ground basically for the level design (understandable, I suppose), but in the comments he denounces the Marathon fanbase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECXAgirOcbo

I apologize if this is a "bloggy" type post, I know a lot of people aren't a fan of the series but to bash a small, dedicated community doesn't make sense to me. It also doesn't help I haven't seen any hostility towards our community before, so it's strange to see, I guess.

Thoughts?

[Wrkncacnter]

I watched this hoping for some good drama, and I can't figure out what you're talking about. Seems like a pretty simple review of Infinity, where does he mention anything about the fanbase? Also his review of infinity is pretty spot on.

[Pfhorrest]

I thought the same after watching the Infinity review, and so watched half of the Marathon 2 review as well, and there's a bit of whiney-voiced mockery of those who would defend the games, but it's brief and really not worth comment. And then it gets boring going over basically the same things as the Infinity video.

[NobilityV3]

I watched this hoping for some good drama, and I can't figure out what you're talking about. Seems like a pretty simple review of Infinity, where does he mention anything about the fanbase? Also his review of infinity is pretty spot on.

I mentioned in the OP that it's in the comment section.

[Crater Creator]

YouTube comments have a reputation for being full of trolls, flame wars, and other nonsense. Many people ignore them. Plus, one community rallying around what someone in another community said about them is the path to factionalism Fox News endless squabbling.

[Wrkncacnter]

Yeah, and also, no one says anything about the fanbase in the comments section either. At one point he says he doesn't understand why the fanbase likes the game, which is the same as "I don't like this game, so no one else should be allowed to either". Which says more about him than the fanbase itself. Still don't know what you're talking about. Maybe I'm not seeing all of the comments or something.

[RyokoTK]

In fairness, I don't understand why the fanbase likes this game either.

[Wrkncacnter]

In fairness, I don't understand why the fanbase likes this game either.

Nostalgia is the only real reason. There's no reason to think anyone would like the games if they didn't play them back in the day. In any case, I was hoping for something a lot more entertaining when I read the title of this thread. "I don't understand people that like X" is not the same as "I hate people that like X".

[NobilityV3]

In fairness, I don't understand why the fanbase likes this game either.

Nostalgia is the only real reason. There's no reason to think anyone would like the games if they didn't play them back in the day. In any case, I was hoping for something a lot more entertaining when I read the title of this thread. "I don't understand people that like X" is not the same as "I hate people that like X".

I didn't play them back in the day...but I'm also a fan of all old shooters; Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, etc. I basically said the reason people still care about it is to discuss the complex story (story forum) and custom scenarios which can be used to make your own story, and be a brand new game when done properly.

But you all knew that already.

[Crater Creator]

There's no reason to think anyone would like the games if they didn't play them back in the day.

Empirical evidence suggests otherwise. Judging by topics on the Welcome forum, the fanbase is well represented by both people who played Marathon near its first release and people who discovered it many years later.

[Zott]

In fairness, I don't understand why the fanbase likes this game either.

For me, it was the stupid easy-to-use tools for the day. Draw a box? Make a map.

(Ok, technically you need at least 3 connected boxes.)

I still use it as a platform for practicing Lua programming now.

[philtron]

I watched this hoping for some good drama, and I can't figure out what you're talking about.

I kind of see what the OP is talking about.

In all three reviews he really bashes the level design and movement physics. He really hates those two aspects of the game. Over and over.

He's got some good points, but a portion of his complaints have more to do with him than with the games.

For example, he says the story in M2 becomes incomprehensible but I think that just speaks more to his lack of interest in the story than in the story telling itself.

He also says that Marathon is badly designed because he died frequently on normal difficulty, but he can beat Doom on the hardest difficulty. That's not really a criticism of Marathon; that has more to do with him just being really familiar with Doom. And yeah, there are some pretty stupid traps and ambushes in M1, but I think he's exaggerating the issue.

He complains about the movement physics being too floaty and how it's like moving through molasses. Yeah, it's floaty, I get what he's saying. But, again I think this has more to do with him having gotten used to the physics in games like Doom.

One of his biggest complaints about the Marathon series is the complicated, nonlinear level design that snakes in and out of itself. He says the level design in infinity is so bad that no one should ever play it for any reason. And yes, there's definitely some frustrating switch hunts and you can get lost a lot, but getting lost in convoluted nonlinear levels was just an aspect of most FPSes in the '90s. I remember getting lost in the Doom series just as much as I got lost in the Marathon series. And games like Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, and Thief (2?) were also games where I remember getting so lost that I got angry at the game. I think that was just an aspect of the era.

[herecomethej2000]

If I can beat the games, they can't be that difficult... I don't buy it. I mean it, I never beat doom past the first episode. Although that usually is me loosing interest about the time I first croak and never caring to save.

[irons]

Nostalgia is the only real reason.

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[lpetrich]

One of his biggest complaints about the Marathon series is the complicated, nonlinear level design that snakes in and out of itself. He says the level design in infinity is so bad that no one should ever play it for any reason. And yes, there's definitely some frustrating switch hunts and you can get lost a lot, but getting lost in convoluted nonlinear levels was just an aspect of most FPSes in the '90s. I remember getting lost in the Doom series just as much as I got lost in the Marathon series. And games like Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, and Thief (2?) were also games where I remember getting so lost that I got angry at the game. I think that was just an aspect of the era.

Did that reviewer use the Marathon automap feature very much? I've liked that feature a lot and I've missed that feature in the more recent real-time-3D games. It's a great help for navigating complicated levels. When the id people recently showed off a preview of Doom 4, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it has an automap (DOOM Single-player Preview - YouTube, 5:47 and at least one other time).

I once created a taxonomy of game engines.

• Indoor: horizontal view
  
  • 0: sidescroller
  • 1: horizontal: square grid, vertical: constant height -- Wolfenstein 3D, Pathways into Darkness
  • 2: horizontal: arbitrary polygons, vertical: variable height -- Doom, Marathon, Dark Forces, Build engine (Duke Nukem 3D), etc.
  • 3: arbitrary geometry -- Quake, Unreal, etc.
• Outdoor: vertical or oblique view
  
  • 0: flat
  • 1: variable height -- Myth series, etc.

It's possible to do indoor-outdoor hybrids.

For all but the third generation of indoor maps, it's easy to make automaps. Doom 4 looks like it'll be using a 3rd-gen indoor map architecture, and I'm guessing that its automap was made from the walkable surfaces of its main map as part of the compilation of the main map. In any case, it seems like one can rotate one's view of it.

[StrelokATP]

Did that reviewer use the Marathon automap feature very much? I've liked that feature a lot and I've missed that feature in the more recent real-time-3D games. It's a great help for navigating complicated levels. When the id people recently showed off a preview of Doom 4, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it has an automap (DOOM Single-player Preview - YouTube, 5:47 and at least one other time).

That’s my biggest question. I personally enjoy blocky, maze-style levels, but I can understand his complaints to a degree, particularly with the secret doors. However, once I opened the automap, I didn’t find them too confusing otherwise. They follow a logical pattern, albeit a tangled one. They’re nowhere near as confusing as the levels in Descent. I’d argue Quake’s actually worse at times, because you don’t have a map, even though the architecture is more intuitive. As a caveat, I haven’t completely beaten Infinity yet, but I finished the first two games recently, and he made similar complaints when he reviewed them. I can understand his issues with the oxygen tanks, and the series’ habit of throwing you into combat at the beginning of levels, but it didn’t ruin the experience for me.

I’ve found the controls uncomfortably floaty when climbing/descending ledges and stairs, but basic ground movement never bothered me. I actually had more trouble with Doom 2, even in the ZDOOM source port that allows mouselook and jumping.