Can one mapper pull off a fake community project?

No idea, but what I can tell you is that it would be incredibly autistic.

i.redd.it/zm1aj2flt3x11.png

Proper answer: someone like you could probably pull it off. You're talented af. Most people most definitely couldn't. I couldn't either, despite being by far the most talented mapper in the entire community.

I'm down to play that shit if you end up going through with it.

I personally don't think I could pull it off myself. The depth of investigative analysis some people put into Doom maps I've seen in blogs, /newstuff reviews, dw megawad club, the cacowards, and many other places of interest in the doom community is pretty epic. There were times where I briefly imagined myself doing a DoomTheWay40ozDid classic episode or megawad, but as much as I think it would be cool to make, I abruptly stop at the immediate and gargantuan prospect of imitating multiple famous map authors precisely without spoiling it with any of my known mapping habits when I've already created many hundreds of maps worth of data points to reference (and intend to make many more)

I forget who said this but I was perplexed when i heard in a video review someone made of one of the DBPs I participated in that they could identify my maps by the particular way I transition from height level to height level using stairs. It's something I was doing completely unknowningly and subconciously and honestly don't know enough about it to fake it without commiting to making a completely flat map. And if the person who pointed that out played it, they'd probably be able to identify my map solely on the way I deliberately mapped my response to them.

I also do some things knowingly and consistently in each and every map I make just because it looks and plays the best in my personal opinion. These qualities might give it away with some clever observation in the gameplay OR in the map editor, I've never heard anyone comment on it, but they may know it themselves even if they're not sure yet how to vocalize it.

In playing/testing many Doom wads across a lot of projects and mappers, I've also encountered a lot of mapping styles or traits that I find personally irreplicable. Whether they be decidedly novice or advanced; technical or artistic; good or bad. The idea of imitating something similar to those peculiar unique traits most mappers tend to have seems much less feasible when I'm imitating a nonexistent map author I fictionally produced in my own head.

This is a bit of a tangent, but here goes. At the inception of doomer boards project, I purposefully opted to credit mapper's names only in the text file rather than other ways such as in intermission map title graphics. I did this for mappers (myself included) not to use the project for their own vanity. This, among other decisions like supplying music to use or curating a sturdy immutable theme per project was strategically implemented to deduce the each mapper's individual mapping personalities to "the doomer boards style;" a style that is as much growing in identity as it is a response to the often labeled "mixed bag" incongruity of most community projects that are built on conventional repeated Doomworld norms across projects. Norms like assigned numbers of maps, claimed mapslots, rejecting maps, and often cases, forum drama.

The doomer boards style is meant to be a semi-countercultural style of doom mapping that is governed by the anarchal pseudo-ruleless pursuit of casual fun under a per-project thematic premise. That, in my opinion, is meant to parallel the way the Doomer Boards forum exists as a rejection of the social expectations and often enforced forum norms of doomworld that I feel negatively impacts the larger doom community.

You should be named God Emperor of the World. Don't you think?

😂

It's funny, because looking back on Reverie I can't help but feel it's all thoroughly my own mapping style in some way, despite trying to go for various themes. I think trying to come up with some kind of personality for the maps themselves is more important. I mean, obviously a map like Triplet II was inspired from Jim Flynn, and there's stuff in Reverie inspired from Jens Nielsen, Orin Flaherty and plenty of other authors, but there was always something of myself getting through all of it. Stuff like 64x64 openings in walls with a SW1MET2 texture, or my overuse of the linedef action 23 (SW1 floor lower to lowest floor) or using too many chaingunners/revenants, those are things I inescapably have ideas for and stick with because it just feels good to me despite being aware of it potentially being overused in some areas.

You did sort of point out the same idea though, with different map authors bringing in very specific things like more blocky map structures, while others work for unorthodox map angles, crevices and inlets for navigation. I think the most simple thing to do though is just to make something very different from what you've previously made, and I feel like that's been my style for a while now. There may be times where I've made something that feels similar to something I've previously made, but there's some new twist to it or a new bending structure to the map's layout that looks alien compared to my other creations. Doom 2 is another good example because almost all of the maps have some kind of personality to them - some had more blatantly obvious gimmicks (Barrels O' Fun with exploding barrels, The Chasm with tight platforming) and others were a little more downplayed (Refueling Base being completely open for exploring with only the exit requiring two keys, and Circle of Death with the circular hub working as a landmark for the map's navigation).

The other really important thing besides map themes I think is how the monsters/weapons are introduced when it comes to megawads. Besides unique map themes this was something I wish could have been more utilized, as introducing specific monsters brings a kind of dynamic with it, and being able to use all-new weapons sometimes is enough to define the map's experience early on. I used to think this about the original Doom with E1M5 introducing the rocket launcher, I sort of thought of it as the "rocket launcher" map as a kid, even if it wasn't largely a defining feature of the map. Of course those moments can be a little hard to replicate these days, but it's interesting whenever I've played some mapset that willingly withholds certain special weapons like it so that it becomes that "eureka!" moment when you finally come upon it later on.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling - if you were to tackle those sort of ideas for a megawad, it would help to keep some kind of document or notepad and write down all of the different kind of themes - textures, gameplay, names or otherwise - and keep it together for any possible future consideration. I like making up lots of map titles and writing them down and occasionally having some kind of glimpse or idea of what a specific map title would look like in-game. Sometimes I like imagining some strange or twisted map layout in a way that almost looks like an art piece itself (how I came up with the idea for Sledgehammer, since I wanted to make a map that resembled one). Usually I have to convince myself the idea's fun and interesting enough to pursue or it's not worth it. All those ideas you mentioned you can write down, and add to it whatever else comes to mind. Whatever happens, keep it fun for you and don't strain too much over it.