Do you guys still have the patience to play a full megawad?

In like 2019 I remember abandoning TNTR on map21 just because that map felt boring after the masterpieces behind.

I generally quit megawads after map20

yes, but not in a one seat. it usually spans a two or three days, interspersed with other equally important things to do.

While I prefer smaller wads, I almost always do finish big megawads. I'll just save and continue it the next days. But sometimes I have saves about megawads I started playing and then forgot about.

Do I have the patience? Sure. But quality beats quantity every time. I'd rather play a short well made WAD than a long one with filler maps just because it has to be 32. A good WAD should leave you wanting more upon finishing it.

One way to make it a full 30-map megawad and keep it fresh is to make the maps relatively short. This might be harder on the mappers, though, I'm not certain.

To those among you that make maps - what do you think is harder? To make one big map that stays balanced and fun beginning to end, or to make several small maps that feel original and fresh?

Of course, no one is forced to play a megawad in one sitting. It is possible to use the natural intermission screens between 11 and 12, 20 and 21 to sort of divide it into 3 sections of roughly equal size.

I've got a lot of mixed feelings about DBP lengths but generally think it's good to fluctuate between smaller and bigger projects. If we're regularly making 32+ map megawads every month then this community has clearly outgrown the DBP format, at least as it exists today. At the same time, if nobody wants to contribute and a project ends up with 2 maps, maybe its time to call it quits. I think the former is more likely than the latter.

I did the math before (iirc, around the time of DBP38) and the average DBP length was about 10-11 maps, which is probably an ideal length - not long enough to be slog and not short enough to feel inconsequential. The shortest DBP is 5-maps long, which I think is fine. 3-4 is fine too but I think if only two people are willing to participate in a community project then something's gone horribly wrong.

I think a full 32-map DBP might be nice as a sort of milestone achievement but I wouldn't want every one to be that long. I'm conflicted though as I feel our longer projects (37, 47, 50) tend to be much more well-received and I think part of the reason they are big in the first place is because either a lot of members want to participate or because the mappers are really inspired, both of which are good things, I think. I mean, if everyone was limited to submitting one map, AUGER;ZENITH would only be 12 maps long.

I don't think we'll have to worry about any of these issues any time soon though.

i really wish id to kept episodic structure from Doom in Doom II. of course, it's still possible to make proper episodes in advanced ports even in D2, but somehow many people are spoiled by the idea that "Real WAD" (whatever it is) should be full 32 maps.

fun thing: id didn't made the same mistake for Q1… and made even worser in Q2. ;-)