[DisgustedGrunt]

"Playback on other websites has been disabled by the video owner"

[Radar]

Civvie is getting too big for us plebs.

[Zaxx]

I just want him to get to 100k subs quickly so he'll cover DNF.

[Zaxx]

I was bored so I started to play arcade mode in Doom 2016... and it's fun. At first I was like "wtf is happening here" and I made bad runs like this:

But once you figure out how those stupid points work exactly (and the relics lol) and optimize your routes you can quickly get to the slayer ranking. It's pretty skillful and to some extent tactical.

If you're like me who wasn't interested in this when it came out (since it looks pretty dumb) then give it a shot cause I was wrong, this is fun as hell.

[Zaxx]

I dunno:


Two things I worry about:

- This mode will live or die by the balance so even if they mess that up only just a little bit then the whole thing will suck instantly. They seem to have very few demons though so I'm hopeful.

- The demons don't seem to have very interesting gameplay. If they won't be fun to play as and everynone will prefer Doomguy then the mode is dead in the water.

[MusicallyInspired]

The Doom ports finally have the account login changed to be optionally skipped. Their Tweet:

Quote

We’ve deployed a patch for the re-releases of DOOM and DOOM II, which now adds an option to skip the Bethesda net login requirement and removes the disconnect notification during gameplay.

We are working on a more permanent fix to further reduce the visibility of the optional login. We do not have an estimated release just yet, but we'll let you know as soon as we can. Thank you for your feedback!

[Lunick]

It also looks like the music is going to be fixed in the future too https://www.instagra...d=1t0wl5x3aaw4f

[MusicallyInspired]

Is that guy on the dev/port team?

EDIT: Looks like he is according to his Twitter. Good news indeed!

[HulkNukem]

Any word on split screen resolutions?

https://www.doomworl...-console-ports/

[MusicallyInspired]

I hadn't heard of that problem. Sigh always something.

[MetHy]

 Zaxx, on 10 August 2019 - 03:39 PM, said:

I was bored so I started to play arcade mode in Doom 2016... and it's fun. At first I was like "wtf is happening here" and I made bad runs like this:

But once you figure out how those stupid points work exactly (and the relics lol) and optimize your routes you can quickly get to the slayer ranking. It's pretty skillful and to some extent tactical.

If you're like me who wasn't interested in this when it came out (since it looks pretty dumb) then give it a shot cause I was wrong, this is fun as hell.

Arcade mode was tons of fun for me, its good to be able to jump into the action with no cutscenes and the combo scoring made it engaging; but once I got the best medal in every stage, I haven't thought about it again, I'd rather restart the campaign from scratch again. Still was a nice litte extra that got me one-two extra playthrough worth.

[Tea Monster]

Working on the 'Gang of Four'. Chaingunner needs to be chonked up after the main body is finished. The figures are deliberately squat to match the game art. We felt that normal proportion characters would look out of place in the original Doom.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[MrFlibble]

I don't really understand the appeal of Plutonia. I get it that it was supposed to be a real challenge for experienced/pro players, and I'm not questioning the level design from the progression and traps standpoint, but why does it have to chew on the same castle/ruins/caves theme practically all the way? The levels were probably quite along the expectations back when it was released and compared to the original Doom II but I can't help but to get a feeling of lacklustre details even compared to relative contemporaries like Duke3D. (Well, the player is probably not supposed to enjoy the visuals much anyway amid the nonstop fighting, but still).

On a slightly related note though, is there some kind of classification of Doom/Doom II approaches to user level design? I mean, there's certainly quite a lot of stuff that goes very heavy on intense fights all the way, some following the footsteps of the originals (be it the first or the second game), and there are some maps more focussed on variety, exploration, or at least balancing exploration phases with combat phases (I'm not talking about any gameplay modifications here, only vanilla style gameplay). I'm rather fond of Epic 2 because of the Egyptian theme and scenery, and the variety in both architecture and the situations the players find themselves in.

Yesterday I played Chex Quest's first level, a bit of first level of Chex Quest 2 and then some starting levels from Perdition's Gate. Whatever you might say about Chex Quest's art style (I think it's awesome), in the levels you immediately get a sense of place: here's the spaceport, here's the city, not unlike Duke3D, in a sense. Conversely, in Perdition's Gate I at some point had a feeling that I was simply walking from one room with monsters to another (I guess for Plutonia it would be from one room with traps to another). Also a while ago I tried a little bit of Ancient Aliens. There's some pretty cool visuals there for sure, but that gameplay design that throws you against a Cyberdemon and waves of lesser enemies right away... I wasn't compelled to play very far, maybe you need a right mood for that.

[Ninety-Six]

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

I don't really understand the appeal of Plutonia. I get it that it was supposed to be a real challenge for experienced/pro players, and I'm not questioning the level design from the progression and traps standpoint, but why does it have to chew on the same castle/ruins/caves theme practically all the way? The levels were probably quite along the expectations back when it was released and compared to the original Doom II but I can't help but to get a feeling of lacklustre details even compared to relative contemporaries like Duke3D. (Well, the player is probably not supposed to enjoy the visuals much anyway amid the nonstop fighting, but still).

Yeah I never much cared for Plutonia's visuals. At all. It's very boring, with the same three colors on constant display. Plays fine but I really hate the visuals.

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

Yesterday I played Chex Quest's first level, a bit of first level of Chex Quest 2 and then some starting levels from Perdition's Gate. Whatever you might say about Chex Quest's art style (I think it's awesome), in the levels you immediately get a sense of place: here's the spaceport, here's the city, not unlike Duke3D, in a sense. Conversely, in Perdition's Gate I at some point had a feeling that I was simply walking from one room with monsters to another (I guess for Plutonia it would be from one room with traps to another).

Same applies for Doom and Doom 2, really. They went for a much more abstract approach to level design, where nothing makes sense and it's just a bunch of colorful corridors to shoot monsters in.

Though in credit to Perdition's Gate, there are a few attempts to make rooms look like a place (such as the movie theater in the first level). It's similar to TNT in that regard.

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

Also a while ago I tried a little bit of Ancient Aliens. There's some pretty cool visuals there for sure, but that gameplay design that throws you against a Cyberdemon and waves of lesser enemies right away... I wasn't compelled to play very far, maybe you need a right mood for that.

Ancient Aliens is just straight unfair most of the time. Lots of almost-certainly-fatal beginner's traps (a problem of modern Doom modding in general, really), and there's a chance that cyber in the first level will just kill you without you being able to do much about it.

[Morpheus Kitami]

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

I don't really understand the appeal of Plutonia. I get it that it was supposed to be a real challenge for experienced/pro players, and I'm not questioning the level design from the progression and traps standpoint, but why does it have to chew on the same castle/ruins/caves theme practically all the way? The levels were probably quite along the expectations back when it was released and compared to the original Doom II but I can't help but to get a feeling of lacklustre details even compared to relative contemporaries like Duke3D. (Well, the player is probably not supposed to enjoy the visuals much anyway amid the nonstop fighting, but still).

The earliest complaint I can remember of Final Doom is that it was ugly, even before I heard people call it challenging or making fun of all the revenants and chaingunners. So, it's not just you.

Quote

On a slightly related note though, is there some kind of classification of Doom/Doom II approaches to user level design? I mean, there's certainly quite a lot of stuff that goes very heavy on intense fights all the way, some following the footsteps of the originals (be it the first or the second game), and there are some maps more focussed on variety, exploration, or at least balancing exploration phases with combat phases (I'm not talking about any gameplay modifications here, only vanilla style gameplay). I'm rather fond of Epic 2 because of the Egyptian theme and scenery, and the variety in both architecture and the situations the players find themselves in.

I know that people refer to maps with monster arenas (or just large monster counts) as "slaughterwads" and people tend to refer to old style maps as "1993 levels", but I don't think there's anything else in terms of description. I think the key word for the exploratory levels is literally exploratory. I think you've just got to scan the description for the words you're looking for.

Quote

Yesterday I played Chex Quest's first level, a bit of first level of Chex Quest 2 and then some starting levels from Perdition's Gate. Whatever you might say about Chex Quest's art style (I think it's awesome), in the levels you immediately get a sense of place: here's the spaceport, here's the city, not unlike Duke3D, in a sense. Conversely, in Perdition's Gate I at some point had a feeling that I was simply walking from one room with monsters to another (I guess for Plutonia it would be from one room with traps to another). Also a while ago I tried a little bit of Ancient Aliens. There's some pretty cool visuals there for sure, but that gameplay design that throws you against a Cyberdemon and waves of lesser enemies right away... I wasn't compelled to play very far, maybe you need a right mood for that.

Well, when it comes to the iD originals, you have to understand that the man primarily responsible for pushing realistically designed places was Tom Hall. He wanted there to be exactly the kind of sense you're talking about. In Wolfenstein he claims credit for being responsible for the pots and pans graphic being in-game. When he was fired halfway through the development of Doom, everyone who was left didn't exactly feel they could do realistic, so they went off the rails. This worked when they were making Hell, but it did leave some questions as to how some locations are supposed to be so-and-so. A lot of levelsets either intentionally or unintentionally mimicked how iD did it, so you have some levels that are weird places that don't really make any sense and some places that do. Ancient Aliens has a pretty sweet pyramid later on that was pretty sweet. I don't remember how the gameplay design was off-hand though. It's not that Doom itself isn't capable of places that look like real places or have neat visuals. Twilight Warrior did a fantastic job making the game look like a real place, using mostly stock textures. Its just that everybody seems focused on making tricky levels first and interesting levels second. Thus when you get someone focused on doing something other than imitating John Romero or Sandy Petersen's stuff, you can get some good stuff.

[Mark]

I don't know if Plutonia is something new or old. But after watching part of the video my 1st thought was "big deal, looks like another boring, plain, undetailed map from the 90's that I would be embarrassed to release to the public". It may or may not have great gameplay, I don't know. But visually its a yawner. Maybe thats fine if its a non-stop run and gun map. Even so, I would have loaded it with some eye candy. Thats just my style.

[ReaperAA]

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

I don't really understand the appeal of Plutonia. I get it that it was supposed to be a real challenge for experienced/pro players, and I'm not questioning the level design from the progression and traps standpoint, but why does it have to chew on the same castle/ruins/caves theme practically all the way? The levels were probably quite along the expectations back when it was released and compared to the original Doom II but I can't help but to get a feeling of lacklustre details even compared to relative contemporaries like Duke3D. (Well, the player is probably not supposed to enjoy the visuals much anyway amid the nonstop fighting, but still).

Plutonia was made by Casali bros (2 teenagers) in a span of 4 months (with much worse level editors than today's editors). So it was bound to have lackluster visuals. But despite this, the levels are extremely fun and they are clearly superior to those of TNT Evilution. Hell, I just recently played some 90's wads like Memento Mori (1 and 2), Icarus and Perdition's Gate. None of them hold a candle against Plutonia.

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

Also a while ago I tried a little bit of Ancient Aliens. There's some pretty cool visuals there for sure, but that gameplay design that throws you against a Cyberdemon and waves of lesser enemies right away... I wasn't compelled to play very far, maybe you need a right mood for that.

That cyberdemon is only on HMP and UV. On HNTR, things are much more fair and that cyberdemon is replaced by a mancubus.

 Ninety-Six, on 19 August 2019 - 11:26 AM, said:

Ancient Aliens is just straight unfair most of the time. Lots of almost-certainly-fatal beginner's traps (a problem of modern Doom modding in general, really), and there's a chance that cyber in the first level will just kill you without you being able to do much about it.

Yeah Ancient Aliens has some really unfair encounters. That's why I recommend playing it on HNTR for the first time.

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

I'm rather fond of Epic 2 because of the Egyptian theme and scenery, and the variety in both architecture and the situations the players find themselves in.

If u want good looking maps with variety of asthetics, I recommend playing Eviternity. It is also much more fair compared to wads like Ancient Aliens. Unfortunately it does have some custom DEHACKED monsters. Still u should probably give it a try. I recommend playing it on HMP skill.

I also recommend trying out HellBound. I personally have't played it, but from a few videos that I saw, it has some good city-like levels

[Ninety-Six]

 ReaperAA, on 19 August 2019 - 11:06 PM, said:

I also recommend trying out HellBound. I personally have't played it, but from a few videos that I saw, it has some good city-like levels

I actually have. I made it to MAP17 after having done the secret levels, but then I just couldn't take it anymore. I found it to be kind of a long boring slog. I mean, the aesthetics are very nice. It creates some very believable locations with just stock doom 2 textures.


But the gameplay I found really dull. The most frustrating part is I can't even explain why. I don't know why I found it a slog and mostly a chore. It really doesn't make any sense to me. It's just doom 2 weapons and monsters. If it's not being a jerk about it, how is it possible to go wrong with that?


This is not me being overly harsh on the thing. This is me genuinely confused as to how this happened. If anyone else has played Hellbound and can relate to my experience, please enlighten me as to what went wrong. I wanted to like it...

[ReaperAA]

 Ninety-Six, on 20 August 2019 - 01:01 AM, said:

But the gameplay I found really dull. The most frustrating part is I can't even explain why. I don't know why I found it a slog and mostly a chore. It really doesn't make any sense to me. It's just doom 2 weapons and monsters. If it's not being a jerk about it, how is it possible to go wrong with that?

This is not me being overly harsh on the thing. This is me genuinely confused as to how this happened. If anyone else has played Hellbound and can relate to my experience, please enlighten me as to what went wrong. I wanted to like it...

Although I have not played Hellbound but I had a similar experience with a doom wad called Avactor. I made it to just map 3 of that wad (it has long levels) and gave up. I don't know why.

[Zaxx]

[OpenMaw]

 Tea Monster, on 17 August 2019 - 05:38 AM, said:

Working on the 'Gang of Four'. Chaingunner needs to be chonked up after the main body is finished. The figures are deliberately squat to match the game art. We felt that normal proportion characters would look out of place in the original Doom.

Looking good! Are they going to be LP models put into Doom or are you guys switching to high res sprite work?

[Tea Monster]

No, we're sticking to models. I offered to make some sprites for the Doom community, and it wasn't received very well

[NNC]

 MrFlibble, on 19 August 2019 - 05:08 AM, said:

I don't really understand the appeal of Plutonia. I get it that it was supposed to be a real challenge for experienced/pro players, and I'm not questioning the level design from the progression and traps standpoint, but why does it have to chew on the same castle/ruins/caves theme practically all the way? The levels were probably quite along the expectations back when it was released and compared to the original Doom II but I can't help but to get a feeling of lacklustre details even compared to relative contemporaries like Duke3D. (Well, the player is probably not supposed to enjoy the visuals much anyway amid the nonstop fighting, but still).

On a slightly related note though, is there some kind of classification of Doom/Doom II approaches to user level design? I mean, there's certainly quite a lot of stuff that goes very heavy on intense fights all the way, some following the footsteps of the originals (be it the first or the second game), and there are some maps more focussed on variety, exploration, or at least balancing exploration phases with combat phases (I'm not talking about any gameplay modifications here, only vanilla style gameplay). I'm rather fond of Epic 2 because of the Egyptian theme and scenery, and the variety in both architecture and the situations the players find themselves in.

Yesterday I played Chex Quest's first level, a bit of first level of Chex Quest 2 and then some starting levels from Perdition's Gate. Whatever you might say about Chex Quest's art style (I think it's awesome), in the levels you immediately get a sense of place: here's the spaceport, here's the city, not unlike Duke3D, in a sense. Conversely, in Perdition's Gate I at some point had a feeling that I was simply walking from one room with monsters to another (I guess for Plutonia it would be from one room with traps to another). Also a while ago I tried a little bit of Ancient Aliens. There's some pretty cool visuals there for sure, but that gameplay design that throws you against a Cyberdemon and waves of lesser enemies right away... I wasn't compelled to play very far, maybe you need a right mood for that.

I have dropped Doom after 1996 and one of the reasons was I hated Plutonia (both art and gameplay-wise) and didn't care about Evilution. Duke 3D came out and it looked infinitely better. Returned to the game in 2016 when Romero released Tech Gone Bad, and I was surprised how enjoyable it was. Then I played NRFTL, and it blew me away. This is the thing I care about: sense of place, fluid progression, solid, but not annoying challenge. I loved the map one of the NRFTL authors came out later. And of course the two Romero maps, and now Sigil. There had been some nice content from the community as well, for example I liked some parts of Way Too Many Dead Guys very much, or massive levels like Foursite, but none of them reached the quality of Sigil or NRFTL. Without them I wouldn't even care for this game.

[Zaxx]

I wouldn't say that Plutonia offers a type of challenge that's annoying. Sure, there are a lot of traps but after a while you learn how to deal with those. It also helps that the maps are short so the campaign doesn't drag like how it does in TNT.

What I don't like in Plutonia is the visual style (it's boring) and how the enemy placements become samey after a while. For a bit it's fun that it's always dominated by chaingunners-revenants-archviles but it gets stale.

[Zaxx]

[Ronin]

Great podcast watched it earlier and came here to post it, interesting and super intelligent guy. Love how he discribed himself as "pretty dangerous at one point" due his foray into martial arts. He talked without a break pretty much for the whole podcast, a tsunami of knowledge.

[ReaperAA]

Its a great day for doom mappers. OTEX resource wad has finally reached 1.0 release state. It means that now anyone is free to use and include them in their wads/mods. Porting these to other games is also allowed now and at least one person is busy porting these to quake.

If anyone wants to see what visuals are possible with OTEX, just look at Eviternity.

[axl]

It seems that people either hate or love plutonia.

I love it, both its gameplay and its visuals. At the time it came out, I found this brown, jungle theme very refreshing compared to the dark tech style of Doom 2 and TNT. As far as official classic doom wads, I would rate it just after the original doom. Doom > Plutonia > NRFTL >> Doom 2 >>> Master Levels >>>> TNT.

It also has 2 amazing "unofficial" sequels : Plutonia 2 and Plutonia Revisited. And I'm currently waiting for Final Doom - the way id did (or in this case, the way the casali brothers did ;-) ).

[ReaperAA]

 axl, on 31 August 2019 - 10:46 PM, said:

It seems that people either hate or love plutonia.

This is true. When I played Plutonia for the first time in 2015, I hated it. The visuals were bland and the gameplay was annoying and too hard for me back then. However I improved as a player a lot since then. And when I played Plutonia again just a few month ago, I really liked the gameplay (though I still find the visuals to be boring). In fact I would go as far as to say that Plutonia is the undisputed king of the 90's doom wads.

 axl, on 31 August 2019 - 10:46 PM, said:

As far as official classic doom wads, I would rate it just after the original doom. Doom > Plutonia > NRFTL >> Doom 2 >>> Master Levels >>>> TNT.

For me its NRFTL > Plutonia >>>>>> Doom 2 > Doom 1 > TNT (I haven't played master levels)

 axl, on 31 August 2019 - 10:46 PM, said:

It also has 2 amazing "unofficial" sequels : Plutonia 2 and Plutonia Revisited. And I'm currently waiting for Final Doom - the way id did (or in this case, the way the casali brothers did ;-) ).

Don't forget the upcoming Plutonia 3

[axl]

 ReaperAA, on 01 September 2019 - 12:06 AM, said:

Don't forget the upcoming Plutonia 3

Wow ! I didn't know that ! This made my day ! Thx.