Even though my opinion on Doom wads is opposite to most folks here (I generally like many of the modern mapsets made the Doom community), I too admit that Doom Zero is very well made and creative wad and one that should have gotten a cacoward. It is a bit simple on the aesthetics and a bit too easy on the difficulty side for me (when playing continuous), but the creative and unique puzzles more than make up for it.
Ha, well I'm not surprised by the things he said in his post, although frankly nobody cares about vanilla compatibility here either and yet you can probably mod more things with DOS Duke than with DOS Doom; but it's funny how it sounds like he was just discovering this stuff. He really didn't seem to know what goes on in the Doom community and that's probably why none of usual modern Doom mapping tropes are present in his maps.
And honestly that is fine. Something that I hate of the overly detailed maps that people post this days is their disregard for performance. Like yeah it is all so very impressive and some of them look like something out of a completely different game, but does that matter if barely anyone can play it on GZDoom (Which is barely optimized as is. I still remember that 4.4 was a shit show.).
MetHy, on 17 December 2020 - 03:47 AM, said:
This being said modularity and being able to combine mods is a prime thing for Doom. I understand not caring about fixing things for every single mod and port out there, especially if there are compatibility issues due to the way Zero is built, and especially if Zero is vanilla compatible, but I understood some years ago players should be able to play however they want and the designers shouldn't feel bad about that for "balancing issues" or other reasons. Doom is a game with cheat codes, saving whenever one wants, tons of mods, etc it's designed so people can play however they want.
I would argue that modularity is a prime thing in any game. It is something that I remember took a while in the Bethesda modding community to take root (I was not actively modding back in morrowind but my naive young nerdy self was lurking around in the forums back then). Still to this day there are some Skyrim modders that get pissy when you ask them if you can publish a version of their mod or a patch that makes it compatible with x/y/z. That said mod authors should not be pressured to ensure compatibility between mods.
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I too admit that Doom Zero is very well made and creative wad and one that should have gotten a cacoward.
I have been looking to spice up my intimate life with Doom and i found out about this mod called MetaDoom. I'm curious to know what is everyone's opinion on this? It looks cool, if a little bloated in scope?
Personally, I don't have much of an interest in randomizers. Doom randomizers especially. Though I will grant that of all the ones I've seen, Meta is probably the one I'd be most likely to try out.
I have been looking to spice up my intimate life with Doom and i found out about this mod called MetaDoom. I'm curious to know what is everyone's opinion on this? It looks cool, if a little bloated in scope?
Must play - Bubble Gum Chewer
This post has been edited by Bubble Gum Chewer: 17 December 2020 - 01:35 PM
Doom mappers also have that terrible habit (which is present here too) to post screenshots from aerial view of their levels which gives the false perception of the map's quality and length. As I said in another thread, the player will never see those screens ingame, and if it's full of unreachable areas, it's a meaningless fat on the maps as well.
The penchant for the first song heard (in any game, not just Doom) to be the only one popularly remembered can be really infuriating at times. Case in point, there are a lot of remixes of Hate Machine from Sigil out there, but almost none for Adrenaline in the Blood. The most you get are those that cover the full soundtrack through various soundfonts and such. Not even Jimmy's official remix contest, which Adrenaline was one of the only three songs to be chosen, had any. It's really unfortunate because I really want to see someone expand on the second half of that song because of how beautiful it is.
Haven't seen this posted on the forum but a few days ago the Heretic & Hexen games were finally added to gog.com: https://www.gog.com/...exen_collection
As previously, Heretic II & Hexen II: Portal of Praevus are still unavailable digitally due to licensing issues I guess. It's too bad because while I have Heretic 2 (and everything else in the Heretic & Hexen series), I never got the Hexen 2 mission pack (when it shows up on eBay it is incredibly expensive).
As for my Doom progress, I did pretty good this week. I managed to finally finish DTWID E2 (in fact the second half of the episode was done yesterday) and reached MAP22 of Herian 2 (completed about 10 maps since I played last time). I will say in case of DTWID, the rest E2 levels were still alright (though had to watch some YouTube videos as usual to plan my routes and see where the secrets are, in case there are parts you can't return to anymore) and I liked how the intermission screen becomes darker as you get closer to the end. I don't think I ever noticed this before. It was a nice detail and the simple fact these are all new intermissions exclusive to DTWID, instead of reusing the vanilla intermission screens we've seen hundreds of times before. I hope E3 will be just as good. I liked the Cyberdemon battle and although I killed him multiple times without dying, it took a while to make sure all lost souls died because in first 1-2 tries I just killed the Cyberdemon directly while ignoring the lost souls. They don't count as kills and there is no stats screen upon finishing M8 of each episode (in this case, I'm using Chocolate Doom), so getting everything is a bit pointless in this level but I tried my best to get everything anyway. The screenshot should show the successful "attempt". It's hard to act quickly because as soon as you kill the Cyberdemon, the level ends. Alternatively, try to heavily injure the cyber, focus on the lost souls, then finish the cyberdemon.
As for Herian 2, I still think it's alright and nicely designed at times (an interesting Heretic/Hexen styled megawad for Doom 2) but some maps were pretty annoying and confusing at times (had to look on some YouTube videos to see what to do in some parts when I got stuck, this was a lot worse many years ago when no one made a playthrough of the wad, the only videos being some random AEOD gameplay on some of the maps, meaning you had to figure everything yourself or cheat to move on). Died once more on MAP18 and it was really an annoying map with the navigation, pressing switches in the lava (though there were many radiation suits, so that area wasn't too bad) and how at one point there were many cacos (reskinned into Heretic wizards) and elementals (reskinned into Hexen bishops) that required me to jump over the damaging water to reach them because they get pushed really far away and they didn't come back to land (and I was sick at how many Lost Souls Heretic gargoyles were being spit at me from miles away, making me use a lot of ammo). Had to spam the jump button while reaching them and BFG-ing them and got back to the shore with just 1% health (yes really, though that was on my lucky second attempt). Didn't help that health wasn't very plentiful in this particular map (got saved by the secret megasphere in the exit room), though most maps feature multiple megaspheres, soul spheres and blue armors throughout. So yeah outside of that and my earlier stupid death in MAP09, this megawad isn't difficult at all, even if many later levels feature at least a Cyberdemon and/or a Spider Mastermind and fights aren't difficult at all (though there are some annoying Stealth enemies being used). But it's incredibly confusing and annoying at times, making me lose interest or only complete a map or two at a time. I wonder how was the first Herian (boom compatible?) wad because I haven't played it before as I'm not exactly sure if it's a vanilla or boom megawad but all I know is Herian 2 is ZDoom only and much better and it was a wad chosen in the Doomworld's Top 100 Wads back in 2003. I'd say it's worth playing but the hidden switches make it difficult to fully enjoy it.
Oh and yeah the secret levels can be easily found in MAP16 (due to being a ZDoom mapset, so they aren't on the usual MAP15 slot), the secret exit is located nearby on the second door (don't go into the exit portal, instead go to second door and press the exit switch). On MAP31 you will see at the end when you get into the boat that there is an arrow pointing both ways, one to the normal exit portal and other to that thing. Press on that tall thing and you will go to MAP32. The second secret level should be very familiar looking.
MAP17 has two cyberdemons (was wondering where is the last enemy in the level), the last one is hidden inside water after you grab the secret megasphere and then he will start surfacing, though he is difficult to handle due to low space and damaging water. Eating 1-2 rockets made me cause to start next level with 95% health and almost no armor. Good thing there were a bunch of stimpacks scattered in the last room, I don't know how I would have handled MAP18 with almost no health.
Hope to finish both these wads next week before the new year. Then I will try my best to also finish the other wads I started back in July, so I can finally move on to play other wads. Don't like leaving stuff unfinished for so long.
DTWID screens which I have to show the awesome intermission screen and the nice 100% completion for each level.
In case I won't be posting in next couple of days on this topic, an early Happy Holidays!
This post has been edited by RunningDuke: 24 December 2020 - 09:54 AM
I was a little disappointed that the darkening map only occurred at the end of the episode, instead of being a gradual darkening that lasted the entire episode (like the Tower of Babel being gradually constructed).
E3 is a little better in my opinion, but the middle parts are probably the worst. It does have great music if you're using the DTWiD music pack though. E1M2 and E3M1 are probably my two favorites.
POOM - PICO-8 powered 8-bit Doom demake with classic tunes, monsters, and guns. Also all new levels. Looks really fun. You can play it on itch or download it.
MusicallyInspired, on 28 December 2020 - 05:39 AM, said:
POOM - PICO-8 powered 8-bit Doom demake with classic tunes, monsters, and guns. Also all new levels. Looks really fun. You can play it on itch or download it.
It is pretty fun, I like it quite a bit.
Pretty solid demake.
It kinda reminds me if Doom was more like catacombs 3d, but with a dark space harrier esque style.
Kinda related sidenote
Spoiler
On the topic of tuning hardware limitations to the maximum.
I'm so excited for paprium though I waited 8 years for that game. It looks amazing for genesis. Have to throw it in there because I thought it was canned, 48 mb past the max limit, and a whole bunch of other feats, custom chip inside the cart, good thing I didn't preorder anyways as the carts aren't currently compatible with gen 1. Idk why they don't release the pc rom for sale on usb or something before it's dumped online.
This post has been edited by Balls of Steel Forever: 28 December 2020 - 05:54 AM
Alright, before the new year comes, let me say a quick Happy New Year and the progress that I did this week when playing various Doom wads.
Finally finished Herian 2, had some close calls on some levels but survived them, though I died 3 times in last level (meaning 5 deaths in whole megawad) and still had to look on YouTube at some levels what to do exactly. Later levels were annoying and some monsters refused to spawn in level, leaving me with some enemies missed, however half of levels don't show intermission screen, it just warps to next level, so I will consider these levels finished either way. Aside from a secret impossible to reach (and requiring noclip I guess) in one of maps (I think MAP18?), found every secret in the game. Last level didn't have any secrets but ZDoom still counted as 100% on the intermission. I got 91% items in last level, not sure where were rest but I could care less as there's many soulspheres and megaspheres in last level scattered around and it has few annoying puzzles, you must not fire a shot too early or else you wake up the monster spawner and it will suck when the level gets filled with enemies. You will see what I mean when you play it. You still have to fire a shot, there is a chaingunner in one of places you have to visit and a spider demon (maulotaur) is right in front of red door and behind red door there's two cyberdemons, archviles and other nasties and after you kill all of them, press the switch, destroy the barrels and kill the boss. Overall, the megawad was ok but the annoying puzzles kinda killed it. Can't say I enjoyed it very much, it's a nice early ZDoom megawad. Also two levels randomly crashed ZDoom 1.22 but otherwise it's fully playable.
Returned to Knee Deep in ZDoom, did the secret level E1M9 (Z1M9). Not much to say about that one, I found the secret super shotgun. I will show a few screens.
Also finally returned to Akeldama. Did maps 12, 13, 14 and 15 and reached the secret exit. I got through all this without dying surprisingly (the only death so far I had was on MAP07 as I said many pages back) but holy shit, there's so many cheap/deadly traps at almost every corner in some of maps that I only managed to survive through sheer luck. Enemies spawning behind you at some times, enemies that can surround you or strategically placed, though many traps are also predictable and sometimes it helps to just equip plasma gun. I didn't get frustrated since I didn't die but I got to say that it got very tedious (and trying my best to not die) and it doesn't help that every single fucking map contains like 200+ monsters, with map 14 having 366 monsters (though most of enemies are just low tier stuff like zombies, imps, demons) and map 31 has like 400+ monsters. The reason why I left Akeldama for 5 months was because I got tired of every map containing 200+ monsters after expecting a vanilla megawad of short maps, now that I returned and it hasn't gotten better. But these levels drag a bit too long imo, they aren't badly designed, just a bit tedious and since I prefer a more careful slow approach (especially since it's a 100% blind playthrough) and I don't think it will get better either. Most likely after the secret levels or in last 10 levels, I can expect each level having 300-400 monsters. I'm glad I'm playing in PrBoom-Plus 2.5.1.4 (complevel 2) because if I were to play in Chocolate Doom, it would have most likely crashed the game. It was a good port choice I made, especially since Eternity doesn't have fully vanilla compatibility enabled by default, only through vanilla parameter and I didn't see Eternity listed as one of ports tested for the wad, so I chose PrBoom+ which was tested. I guess I will prefer PrBoom+ as my main purist port.
But anyway for Akeldama, I don't mean to sound negative, the maps themselves are nicely designed but I think the traps are just overdone these days, I don't want maps to be too easy either. I think based on my skill level, the maps have the difficulty just right, can't say it's too hard or too easy. Maybe I'm being lucky. At least I 100%'ed each of maps so far! Because of that, I have to show some nice screenshots! Oh and found the BFG on MAP15 inside a secret, I'm not sure where was BFG on MAP14 because the doomwiki listed it as a weapon found on that level for first time but I just didn't find it. But at least it helped me greatly when I reached that room that had an invulnerability sitting there, I grabbed it and the cyberdemon appeared along with quite a couple of monsters, I BFG'ed the cyber in 3-4 shots and then got rid of remaining monsters quickly with my rocket launcher while still invulnerable! Yeah! That was one of the best usages of invulnerability! But then I got a bit stuck and had to look and especially to see where was a secret I missed earlier and the secret exit location. I got a bit spoiled and some remaining few enemies that I had yet to encounter but otherwise, it was fun! Like I said, I didn't actually mind the difficulty. Just wait until I play the much harder and unfair wads, that will be time when I will start complaining and ranting about those poorly designed levels! The Akeldama levels are nothing compared to the bullshit that has yet to come!
Oh also a few weeks ago I started two other wads, Equinox and Lilith, former in ZDoom 1.22 and latter in ZDoom 2.8.1. I'm halfway through both of them. I will comment more about them at a later time.
As for DTWID, I haven't played this time, still at E3. Thanks for letting me know, Ninety-Six. I suppose E3 will be a bit better. Maybe more challenging as well.
Now I'm going to prepare for the new year since it's only a few minutes left! Enjoy the screenshots!
KDiZD is one of my personal favorite games. Not as high as some other FPS, but it scores top 20 at least.
I don't care what popular opinion says I had an extremely good time with it. I think the only bad part about it is just using the stock music. I recommend the PSX soundtrack to go with its more ambient tone (which I do when I play it. With one exception: Z1M8 gets the sonic clang version of E1M8).
They like to talk about "hubris" but I never got any sense of trying to out-do the originals. Instead I got the feeling of playing those originals for the first time, which is what the mission statement actually was. E1 remakes are a dime-a-dozen, and with the unchanging monster roster there are no real surprises anymore (bullshit death traps notwithstanding). But KDZiD recreates the trepidation of not knowing what could be behind the next corner thanks to the brand new monsters, it gives you a similar rush of excitement when you find new weapons to play with for the first time. And while the levels could be a bit labyrinthine, I never got too lost (besides, a common (and deserved) criticism of the original game are its own labyrinthine levels).
That must be one of the best "You'll never guess this is still Doom" mods/conversions I have ever seen. Very original and unusual visuals. If it's ever going to be finished, I want to try it.
I kinda like how a lot of people have just recently been finding out about Doom 64, I absolutely loved that game for its atmosphere as a kid and yes I had played both classic Doom games before that, so I was aware of the shift in tone but I totally embraced it. I'm seeing a lot of people claim the game went unappreciated at the time because most people assumed it was one more port of Doom on the Nintendo 64 which I can see to an extent, but I also very well remember that at the time reviewers were really questioning, when not downright put off by the very differences with the PC game, to the point where it used to be sort of a question whether or not it was 'canon' and eventually I think that sort of entrapped it into cultural limbo, and not so much ignorance regarding the product. That was pre-reboot of the franchise with Doom 3 (which I've never played), etc. The color palette in general was especially amazing and the level design was gloomy as fuck, I do remember having remarkable trouble with the darkness at the time though, IIRC default settings on console really lacked visibility which made exploring the maps all the more frustrating in that you wanted to do it, however most often your only reward would be to get lost amongst a bunch of undistinguishable corridors in the dark. I remember really wanting and trying to finish the game a few times exploring everything, but would always give up a few maps in due to how repetitive the experience would start to feel, tasting like going nowhere fast.
This post has been edited by ck3D: 22 January 2021 - 05:49 PM
Haven't posted in a while on this topic, so I might as well talk what I have been playing (mostly random stuff). Before that, to reply to Ninety-Six about KDIZD:
Ninety-Six, on 31 December 2020 - 06:57 PM, said:
KDiZD is one of my personal favorite games. Not as high as some other FPS, but it scores top 20 at least.
I don't care what popular opinion says I had an extremely good time with it. I think the only bad part about it is just using the stock music. I recommend the PSX soundtrack to go with its more ambient tone (which I do when I play it. With one exception: Z1M8 gets the sonic clang version of E1M8).
They like to talk about "hubris" but I never got any sense of trying to out-do the originals. Instead I got the feeling of playing those originals for the first time, which is what the mission statement actually was. E1 remakes are a dime-a-dozen, and with the unchanging monster roster there are no real surprises anymore (bullshit death traps notwithstanding). But KDZiD recreates the trepidation of not knowing what could be behind the next corner thanks to the brand new monsters, it gives you a similar rush of excitement when you find new weapons to play with for the first time. And while the levels could be a bit labyrinthine, I never got too lost (besides, a common (and deserved) criticism of the original game are its own labyrinthine levels).
I agree with you that KDIZD is one of the best ZDoom experiences and the levels recreating the original Doom shareware feeling in an unique way, I have always been impressed by the projects made by Tormentor667 due to the additions (custom enemies, weapons, etc) and attention to detail in the levels, also the Realm667 repository holds a special place in my heart because of all those custom monsters, weapons and items, I remember making my first randomizer mod for ZDoom back in 2009-2010 (at that time I was mostly using Skulltag and playing on multiplayer servers, still using ZDoom/GZDoom for playing some mods) and found some monsters excellent additions to the original Doom bestiary.
Now there are some minor issues about KDIZD which have been pointed out by others but I never found them to detract from the experience (such as the super detailing in levels, the true final boss being just thrown there and other stuff) and I found a lot of people's complaints to be really silly and unjustified attacks according to all the drama that surrounded KDIZD back in 2000s. I can only wish good luck to Tormentor667 to his future projects and I really hope the planned sequel The Shores of ZDoom comes out one day. I don't remember what happened to the project anyway, was it cancelled or put on hold? If anyone knows more information, please let me know!
Now for the wads, I have been playing a lot of varied stuff as of lately, some cool stuff but also some outright trash stuff. In all cases I played on UV skill and most of the stuff was easy, only few things were difficult and I will point out.
Let's start with the good stuff. I finished two Boom-compatible maps (cacoward winners) by Trevor Primmett (iori), the maps are called Songs of the Damned and Drip Feed, they are from 2006 and 2010 respectively. Played in PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4 with parameter -complevel 9. The second map replaces MAP30, so make sure you warp there when you start a new game (I started directly with -warp 30 -skill 4 parameters) and also note the fact that due to MAP30 slot, monsters can telefrag the player and even each other. This resulted in a funny situation where some monsters telefragged each other upon grabbing the berserk pack and running (that was the only teleport trap in the level, so don't worry about these kind of traps).
The maps are quite lengthy, pretty challenging and very well designed. I had a lot of fun playing these two maps, they felt like an adventure and nothing felt out of place. Gameplay wise, it was pretty much Doom 2 at its core, nothing felt confusing. I did them both without dying, thankfully. Had some close calls on second map but I survived until end. Though the maps took me nearly 2 hours each, so I recommend taking breaks if you get bored of playing the map.
Songs comes with a dehacked patch and a gameplay demo that you can watch in ports like PrBoom+ and Eternity. It is useful for revealing an early Megasphere secret and a solution to the yellow key puzzle where you must choose the correct switch (spoiler: it is the second one).
In Drip Feed, after finishing the map, I went back for the missing secret and enemy and I couldn't figure out how to get the BFG secret by myself, so I searched for the internet and couldn't find a full playthrough or anything mentioned on doomwiki.org, until I finally found an UV-Max demo on DSDA, so I watched it and even then I didn't understand how to find that switch to unlock the BFG secret. I at first believed I needed that archvile to reach it but thankfully that wasn't the case (and at that time I was also struggling a bit with health and the green armor was just running out). Thankfully I eventually figured it out, however it was a bit pointless getting the BFG so late as I didn't even need it and even the Plasma I found relatively late. I mostly stuck with the shotgun/SSG (the latter was given halfway in map, I think), chaingun and RL and sometimes the plasma rifle.
The other two secrets are not difficult to find, the first one is easy to find and is a backpack secret (which is much needed), the second one is tricky and requires shooting a switch that briefly gets revealed while going on those stairs leading to red key. The BFG secret requires lowering the beginning lift and pressing that switch quickly, then the BFG platform will lower and you can grab it.
As for other cool stuff, recently I finished Waterlab GZD by Enjay (2017 Cacoward runner-up), was a fantastic GZDoom 2.4.0 mod.
The monster count may scare you away with the 700-800 or so enemies present but most of them are weak, variations of zombies, of which there are many. There are now female zombies variations, zombie scientists and many more! There are also other familiar custom monsters from Realm667, though I won't spoil them. I will however say that the boss fight against Overlord (from Realm667, not the one from Duke Nukem 3D) is really cool!
I found 11/17 secrets by myself and had to watch an YouTube video to get the rest, the last one is found in the last rooms where there's lots of enemies to fight, since I found the BFG earlier in a secret place, I had no problem tearing through them and grab the invulnerability secret. Then there is another invulnerability that appears while the final monsters teleport, so make sure to grab it and fight the Overlord with it!
The ending text is funny and a reference to original Doom shareware ending (see picture). The icing on the delicious cake is that there is even a custom cast screen showing ALL the encountered enemies in the mod. Shame that this didn't win a Cacoward, instead that Lilith shit got one (don't worry, I will get to rant about it). Personally I think Enjay is a very talented ZDoom modder and most of his wads were always great (though I didn't enjoy much his old wad Operation Overlord as it was insanely difficult, I finished it a few months ago 100% and without cheats, had to save/load a lot). He even made some very old Doom wads that I haven't had the chance to play yet.
I've also been playing a few Heretic and Hexen wads. I finished a long Heretic map in ZDoom 2.1.7 (that was latest ZDoom version available when map came out, so I thought to use that instead of latest ZDoom) called Town of Witchcraft. It was made by Kaiser and he has created quite a couple of interesting wads for all Doom engine games, of varying quality. This map was long and pretty good, although progression wasn't clear at times and since ZDoom was recommended (despite the map not using any of its features), I decided to jump and crouch at times and advance the map as I really couldn't figure out what to do next when wandering around for 30 minutes straight while I was getting shot (though rarely hit) by monsters across the map. I know in original Heretic there is no jump at all (and crouching never existed in any Doom engine game) but since I'm using ZDoom, I see no issue with it. An updated version of the map seems to be included in Heretic Treasure Chest megawad which is also limit-removing and mostly for ZDoom ports, so I will try to figure out the progression next time I play through the map, unless I will break it again with jumping, assuming the wad doesn't disable jumping.
Hordes of Chaos series (also for Heretic), currently on HOC2, map 2. It is alright, I guess. I started playing each wad individually (using older ZDoom 2.0.98) and I know Hordes of Chaos X includes the first 4 episodes as well, so I will get to replay them, I was thinking to also play their initial version too. However note that Hordes of Chaos II, III and IV don't include previous entries, only Hordes of Chaos X includes all previous content + episode 5.
Difficulty wise, can't say it's as difficult as advertised, for someone like me, I'm finding these maps fairly easy actually. There are lots of teleporting monsters (spawned by scripts) at times which inflate the monster count but you shouldn't have trouble dealing with them. There are few timed maps as well (second and fourth level in first episode had time limit, the map I reached currently also has a time limit).
Please note that weapons and ammo reset between maps, only health, armor and inventory (1 each item) carries between levels. There are no secrets to find, so only make sure to kill everyone and get all items (inventory items count as one), I was successful to get everything, though I had to replay second half of E1M4 from an earlier save due to missing an enemy at end of level and backtracking wasn't possible. There are monsters taken from Doom 2 and Hexen as well, though the Doom 2 monsters are a bit out of place and their palette also suffers a bit. Thankfully stronger monsters like Barons of Hell and Archviles can be turned into a chicken and get rid of them immediately. Assuming you still have the morph ovum in inventory, so I recommend saving it for those situations. The Hexen monsters fit nicely alongside Heretic ones, however the biggest difference between them is Hexen monsters don't drop anything upon dying, while the Heretic ones randomly drop ammo or artifacts upon dying. So obviously it feels less satisfying to kill Hexen monsters with Heretic weapons and the weapons also aren't as strong as the ones in Hexen, so the combat feels a bit odd at times, not very satisfying. Thankfully there is a fair amount of tomes in some of the levels, so sometimes you can make use of one to clear a room quickly. A bug sometimes happened in this specific ZDoom version where the weapon was still tomed after it expired, so I could still fire a powered crossbow. I rarely took advantage of the bug and it doesn't work on most weapons. Gauntlets remain red after a tome expires (instead of reverting to green) but sadly it doesn't drain health, so this is pointless. The bug is gone upon switching to another weapon. I guess I know why this happens, these weapons are supposed to do the lowering-raising animation (as they do in vanilla Heretic) upon tome expiring and they don't do that here.
I've also done Wolfen wad for Hexen (also in ZDoom 2.0.98) and I think it was ok, although massively overrated when comes to people mentioning it in "Best Hexen wads" topics. I remember not liking it back in 2011 or so and then finally playing it and finishing a few times in 2019 after playing an unofficial fixed version from moddb or something (in latest ZDoom). I replayed recently (the original 2004 idgames release) in an older version of ZDoom mentioned earlier and even then one puzzle item didn't work right, so I had to jump on a tree to get past those spikes that are supposed to lower upon inserting the flame mask. The wad was made for these ZDoom 2.0.x versions and even then it doesn't work correctly. Why didn't anyone report that bug? Because of the level design being too confusing at times? Why does everyone think the level design in Hexen is too confusing?
Difficulty wise, is only sometimes a bit difficult for Fighter, while Cleric and Mage will have an easier time. I liked the Aeon mana abilities (maximum Aeon mana is 70 I believe, as I tried finding all pickups of it) and the Aeon weapon (which is a different reskinned Heretic weapon for each class) and some puzzles were interesting. The final boss is interesting as well with you becoming a werewolf (in reality, your weapons are removed and replaced by a reskinned Doom Fist that look like unused Beast Claws from Blood) fighting against those ettins that shapeshift into Blood cerberus boss, though a bit too easy/lackluster. I also like the secret boss map which involves fighting the author of the wad, acting like a reskinned D'Sparil from Heretic.
What I hate at this wad are infinitely respawning monsters (unlike in Hexen that respawned mostly Ettins at a few minutes, the enemies here, mostly ettins, respawn infinitely as long as there's at least 3 or so present in the map), some cheap insta-kill traps, some annoying enemies like those reskinned arachnotrons, really ugly sprites for most custom content (custom monsters are nothing more than reskinned ones from Doom 2 and Heretic) and there's a few other issues with it as well, mostly the fact the author never updated the wad for newer ZDoom versions, so it's broken if you play in latest ZDoom with puzzle items not working. Even then on ZDoom 2.0.98 the flame mask puzzle cannot be placed but the books puzzle (that unlocks secret level) works fine.
Now back to Doom stuff, I also did Action Doom (again, ZDoom 2.0.98) and I think most of it was great (although outdated by modern standards of course), I enjoyed the level design (inspired by Duke3D at times) and most of the stuff it offered and the secrets (some of which are tricky to find, make sure to find the Mario secret in first level), I also liked that there's different paths leading to different outcomes. What I didn't like is that due to having only 1 HP, you can be easily killed by pretty much anything, though thankfully zombies now shoot projectiles. The final bosses (and even different mini bosses in each path you take in second map) are also interesting, that last normal boss fight is pretty hard and annoying due to infinitely respawning imps (imps have been modified to only kill you upon touching you), it can be done with lots of saving/loading and after defeating the boss, most times I jump to reach helicopter and escape, it seems like the player doesn't jump at all, falls and dies instead...
I also didn't enjoy some parts/paths you take, such as the boat ride, it was buggy/glitchy as hell despite using an older version of ZDoom for around the wad was made, which is same deal as with the Heretic/Hexen wads mentioned above. Maybe I was supposed to run with ZDoom 2.0.63a? I never liked that version TBH, it was fairly buggy to me (like other 2.0.x versions that I tried years ago to play some older wads), I found 2.0.98 more stable imo. Because there was for example an early ZDoom wad I played months ago called RTC-3057 Hub 1 (demo version, didn't play the full release in many years) and it didn't work at all in ZDoom 2.1.7 (refused to start), while on latest ZDoom 2.8.1 you can't pick up/select pistol and are forced to fight with your fists at beginning until you get weapons, so I used 2.0.98 and it worked fine, no pistol bug.
And as mentioned, sometimes difficulty is a bit unfair. You should save often and have multiple save slots just in case but also for replayability. The true final boss appears when you play on Contra (hard) skill, so make sure to play on this difficulty to get the full/intended experience. My final score on my last playthrough (after choosing the right paths that give most points and all secret areas) after defeating the final boss, was 353002, which was also higher than Scuba Steve himself from the credits screen.
Now for the rest mixed bag/trash wads that I enjoyed a bit or didn't really enjoy at all. To not make the post seem very long, I will put them in spoilers.
I finished Equinox last week in ZDoom 1.22 (ZDoom was recommended in text file and that old 1.22 version was latest at that time in 2001 which still retains most of vanilla feeling including the infamous BLOCKMAP bug, also I read that this wad caused to crash most of the ports at that time it came out and since it was made by the infamout author of nuts, I thought ZDoom works the best when playing his wads) it was pretty good (although ammo a bit scarce, had to rely a LOT on chainsawing and monster infighting in general) up to MAP11. No deaths until that point, everything went smooth and I enjoyed my time. After that, surprise surprise, it went downhill.
As soon as MAP12 started, I knew shit was going to get serious. I started dying a lot (kinda strange to go from no deaths to a LOT of deaths, isn't it?) and started getting frustrated. The thing is I initially died like 6 or so times until the last room and I was already starting to run out of ammo at times (despite conserving as MUCH ammo as I could). Because for some retarded reason, there is an invisible IOS spawner in last room which got activated much earlier before I even reached that part and even worse since it's not MAP30, monsters don't telefrag each other, some were stuck inside each other and it was fucking annoying when barons and mancubus and arachnotron stuck inside each other while I was out of ammo and getting killed in process. Even worse that last part is a maze you have to navigate and it contains only a cell pack inside one of the corners, nothing else, so if you are out of health and cells, you are out of luck.
Sure you can skip straight to the exit teleporter if you are fast enough but I wanted to go to the back of maze and grab that megasphere and cell packs before entering the maze while BFG-ing whatever was in my face. EVEN THEN, I started to run out of ammo and health and had to save scum to pass and died 22 times in this map and yeah, I think you get the point how frustrating it was. I can't imagine doing this in a classic port because of infinitely tall monsters, as ZDoom had them disabled even back on this old version, so you don't have to worry about this bullshit.
There were demons on a pit at beginning (which I chainsawed when I dropped down at one point) and those cacodemons in maze, can't imagine doing that in PrBoom+. Ugh the more I think of that map, the angrier I get and I think 96 would agree with me here. Not sure if anyone played Equinox but I'm just warning if anyone wants to attempt playing this wad. Because the last two maps are really bad!
I eventually made it with low health and only a few bullets left. At least there's some ammo at beginning of MAP13 and even a slightly pointless invulnerability secret, as it will almost run out by the time you come back and fight those monsters at start.
If anyone is wondering, no the maps don't have any new names, they are just reusing original Doom 2 level names.
So what's with MAP13? It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, in fact it was easier than MAP12, I only died here 8 times (half of deaths were my fault, the others were bullshit as usual, like a revenant fireball killing me as soon as I opened the door) and yeah sadly you can't get all kills (those Cyberdemons in main huge room for example aren't meant to be killed), plus there's those demons, spectres and some archiviles (at least try BFG-ing the few Archviles) on a bullshit lava area where you must run as fast as you can while invulnerable and there's some imps and barons on some high ledges you can't kill, rest you can kill. I only got 61% kills here (and in previous map over 900% kills) but otherwise I have 100%'ed every map in the wad. The last room is also impossible to clean since you will be almost out of cells, so don't kill anyone that spawns, just run to press the switch which will kill the hidden Romero heads, hidden voodoo dolls and also you (even if you have a lot of health, you will still die with positive health left) and end level at same time.
Since I needed to finish the map 100% before deleting the wad, I turned on Infinite Ammo option in menu after emptying all my ammo on all weapons and just realized none of my weapons worked because in older ZDoom versions you needed to have ammo in order to fire the gun, in this case you also need at least 2 shells for SSG and at least 40 cells for the BFG, so I reloaded a slightly earlier save where I had like 60 cells and went crazy with spamming the BFG for all remaining monsters in the level, including those demons while jumping in lava (in older ZDoom versions up to 1.22, jump height was much lower and it was harder to avoid the lava damage), even then it took a lot to kill those cybers as I needed to strafe a lot in that arena and never get hit by their rockets.
Overall, I think Equinox is a mixed bag, the first 10-11 maps are good (though not as good as some people make it out to be) if not average at times, however it goes downhill on MAP12 and after that it's not that fun. I will say the final map's difficulty varies and can't be harder than the last part of MAP12, though there's some tricky parts. As with rest BRPD (BPRD?)'s wads, they are massively overrated and very few people criticize the wads he has created so far. Sure they have an interesting atmosphere and are uniquely designed at times. But I was never a fan of author's works, I guess.
The other positive things I can say about the wad are the music and the custom graphics, especially that unique status bar design with the face replaced by a graphic depicting a human, which also starts showing critical condition when your health is below 40%. The new weapon sprites (pistol and chaingun) are a bit out of place, made of pre-existing 3D renders (or CGI graphics) I guess. Rest weapons are unchanged.
Spoiler
And now the first of the legitimately awful wads, Lilith.pk3. This crappy (and also somewhat humorous) ZDoom mod somehow managed to win a cacoward instead of the actually good mod Waterlab GZD. I played it last month in ZDoom 2.8.1 and finished it in a couple of days, it wasn't very difficult, just VERY boring at times. I only remember dying once in sixth map (due to those custom pink demons that could somehow melee you from far away) and a bunch of times in final level. Then went for the secret/hidden levels. For some stupid reason, jumping and crouching are disabled... in a ZDOOM mapset! Why? Let me jump and crouch as much as I want, damn it! This is ZDoom, not vanilla Doom! Stop forcing vanilla rules inside ZDoom! At least mouselook is still working and much needed at times. I completed each map 100%, though I admit in some levels I had to IDDT sometimes to see where was an enemy or item missing because I still couldn't find them after searching for 10 minutes straight, then after finding them, quit game and start it again to reset cheat. I also did the same thing in the next ZDoom mod you will see below.
Sure this mod has its qualities because some of the glitchiness was funny and I think it should have been a runner-up or won a Mockaward or something (funnily enough, the next mod you will see below won a Mockaward in 2008) but to win a Cacoward on FIRST spot and dethrone one really great mod that deserved to win and piss off a supposedly salty member that also happens to be the author behind the most powerful and popular Doom source port? That seems like a very immature thing to do and I sure know that I'm 3 years late to this whole thing and I remember that there were many disappointed people by that choice but still, I feel like it was done on purpose and to create an unnecessary controversy between Doom communities in first place.
The next contender of the awful wads is Community is Falling 3. CIF series were made by Kaiser, who created a bunch of Doom wads and also created that 2007 Heretic map mentioned above, a cool 2014 Hexen hub that I will tackle in following weeks and even a few Strife wads that I will play them sometime since I never played Strife mods before.
CIF are a series of awful joke wads that are only created for the sake of being created, much like 99% of the joke wads. The first two CIF I played few months ago in ZDoom 2.0.98 (due to the wads coming in 2004 or so) and they were crappy as I expected. There was some funny dialogue every now and then but the gameplay was awful at times, some parts unfair and required save-scumming to kill some overpowered enemies that could kill you almost immediately.
The third part of the series, which I'm still playing since past two weeks (in latest ZDoom 2.8.1, due to wad released in 2008, so no need for an older ZDoom version in this case) and it fucking sucks ass! I've got a few levels left of this piece of shit and so far I haven't been impressed at all other than somewhat decent level design (which feels inspired by Strife at times) and funny dialogue in general (after all the story is based on an infamous KDIZD leak, which already sounds funny) but the HUD, most of the sprites (especially the melee weapon sprites) and so on are so fucking ugly, some of the worst I've ever seen in a Doom mod! I also fucking hate that animation where you use the drilling machine on most enemies (for some reason melee weapons' attacking frames are also in poor pixelated quality) and an ugly hand appears on screen to clean the blood splattered on screen that even covers the HUD so I can't fucking see my health at that time when I'm fighting!
I have recently finished the secret level and I've got only about 5 levels to do. Difficulty wise, sometimes is fine, other times it's goddamn hard and requires saving/loading. I had quite a lot of bullshit deaths but due to ZDoom's useful ability to reload last save upon press space bar, deaths weren't that painful as I most likely figured what to do and most enemies aren't that bad, plus medkits and stimpacks are plentiful and stored in inventory, it looks like you can hold as many as you want, I don't think I got more than 60 medkits/stimpacks at one time before but it sure doesn't feel like you have a limit of the amount you can carry. Also the inventory seems to be similar to the one from Strife compared to the more common/familiar one from Heretic & Hexen. After all, there are a lot of Strife influences in the mod (not that's a bad thing, I liked Strife but I found a bit meh at times).
So far I had to do levels where I had to escape from an exploding base, a map where I had to defend a computer core while also destroying 9 power couplings, a map where I had to escort a marine and protect him and that secret level I just did. Other than that, I don't think this wad is worth playing other than for story and see what happens next, it's more like a tech demo of random ZDoom features and mostly Strife features where you talk to other people and buy stuff (though I didn't even buy anything so far, as there are plenty of resources within maps, saving the gold for when I actually need to buy stuff). I admit I once laughed and remained surprised after reaching the prison level (after the first true boss fight, you end up captured and put in prison) and first thing you talk to the first enemy that somehow let the door open, since they took all your weapons you can't do anything except talk. Eventually, after talking and answering first choice, you will get the second choice which reads gibberish and does something weird, I don't remember exactly what happened but I think it summons a stick figure riding a giant rock or tank and falls on that enemy's head, allowing you to escape. That was very unexpected and so random but at least it was funny. So maybe only play the wad for a quick laugh at times.
And finally, saving the worst best for the last: Pagan's Run. The map has a great concept, however it was incredibly poorly thought out. A very frustrating trial-and-error focused map that will kill you OVER AND OVER for over 50 times while you are trying to reach the exit! There are cyberdemons right behind you as soon as you start (thankfully I started moving as soon as I began the level), I saved while avoiding rockets (their rockets would also kill whatever other monsters were ahead of me) and as soon as you take the next turn, in the next corner is another pair of cyberdemons and so on, with occasionally changing and there being 3 archviles, a spider mastermind, 3-4 arachnotrons and 4 cyberdemons and well, you get the idea.
It is a series of long linear corridors and you must run and avoid/kill monsters ahead of you while praying the caged monsters don't attack immediately or else you will die. It relies far too much on RNG and most of times I would be dead as soon as I stepped into a new sector, without giving me a chance. Resources were incredibly scarce, most were health bonuses that I had to make sure to collect (if I missed one, I turned backwards and tried to dodge cybers rockets, this rarely worked, I know) and very rarely some stimpacks and a medkit once at few rooms. Plus a green armor given in the third or so room to help you survive a bit.
There are some slightly different things happening later in map with a bit more interesting setups but overall I didn't enjoy this map at all. I'm sorry for complaining but I couldn't stand dying 3 times to a cyberdemon, then dying once to a zombieman (yes because I got to 10 or less HP thanks to a rocket and the zombie before end of corridor actually shamefully killed me), dying 3 times to shotgunners blocking in my way, dying 5 times to next 2 cyberdemons in next room, dying 5 times to archviles in next few rooms, dying 3 times to imps ahead of me, dying 4 times to the spider mastermind, dying 3 times to the arachnotrons, dying 5 times to the crusher because of those two fucking imps that blocked my way right before I got out of that sector, dying 4 times to two hell knights blocking the bridge (where you had to kill with plasma), dying 3 times to cacodemons in front of exit door at last swarm of enemies (and even fucking saved my game once a second before I died, glad I had backups) and so on. I finally reached the ending (and cleared the last 5 chaingunners in exit room) in about 20+ minutes overall (must felt like a whole hour playing this map with all the reloads) with all items found, no secrets available and 79% kills (everything that I could kill on my way, plus the enemies that were fighting in second last room). Then I wanted to get my revenge on all these fucking remaining enemies and after struggling with IDKFA and IDCLIP (I refused to use IDDQD to kill the remaining monsters), I then redid the level with IDDQD + IDKFA and killed every single enemy, sometimes IDCLIP was used to escape from a damaging blood after I got pushed by a Cyberdemon's rocket. The map seemed to be fun with cheats but where's the fun in that?
The icing on the shit cake is the text file claims this runs in vanilla DOOM2.EXE and saving isn't allowed since the map is too large and crashes upon saving due to bullshit vanilla limits (this is one of the few things I absolutely hate at vanilla/DOS Doom) so I didn't even think at doing it in DOSBox, instead I played in PrBoom+ with -complevel 2 command and even then without saving limits (you get 8 save slots in Boom compatible ports instead of vanilla's 6 slots), it was still too much, I absolutely can't imagine doing this shitty-ass map in a single go without dying.
One of the worst maps I've ever played and one of the few maps where I raged and save-scummed like crazy. I'm sorry but I know everyone has his/her own patience. I have my own limits too, sometimes preserving and pushing it to the end and if the wad crosses that line with bullshit difficulty, I will absolutely HATE it, regardless of whether I managed to finish it or not. And after searching for the author who made this garbage wad, I found out the guy behind OBLIGE map generator did this map. I'm actually a bit surprised, to be honest. Maybe I could say this map was randomly generated?
Anyway sorry if the message turned out to be very long as I had to share my experiences with these wads. I have put a spoiler in order for the message to not be too long, so most of ranting is in spoiler.
I will continue my Dooming in February as next week I will mostly prepare for the upcoming Duke3D's 25th anniversary, maybe with an occasional Doom level a day and then I will finally finish stuff like Akeldama, KDIZD, SIGIL and others that I have been dragging for so long and I should have finished long ago. Screenshots time I guess (had more screens but after realizing there's so many, I will upload only the most interesting ones in order to not spam the topic). Kinda wish I didn't delete the Lilith pics because I wanted to show how bad the mod is. Also the Equinox pictures are cropped because old versions of ZDoom don't run well in fullscreen mode, so I have to play in windowed mode.
Oh almost forgot to mention, recently I received my Limited Run Games big box copy of Chex Quest, which I heard it contains just the first game, according to an YouTube unboxing video I have watched a while ago after hearing LRG has started shipping Chex Quest. Either way I think it will sit nicely along the other big boxes I have (Duke3D expansions boxes, SIGIL big box) and even that unopened Chex Quest disc I got recently from eBay in past couple of months. I'm not a hardcore collector but I still enjoy collecting whatever I can afford.
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This post has been edited by RunningDuke: 23 January 2021 - 10:03 AM
I agree with you that KDIZD is one of the best ZDoom experiences and the levels recreating the original Doom shareware feeling in an unique way, I have always been impressed by the projects made by Tormentor667 due to the additions (custom enemies, weapons, etc) and attention to detail in the levels, also the Realm667 repository holds a special place in my heart because of all those custom monsters, weapons and items, I remember making my first randomizer mod for ZDoom back in 2009-2010 (at that time I was mostly using Skulltag and playing on multiplayer servers, still using ZDoom/GZDoom for playing some mods) and found some monsters excellent additions to the original Doom bestiary.
I also have a soft spot for the Realm667 bestiary. As a matter of fact it tends to scratch the itch that I was talking about for Duke and LRWB. Most of the Realm monsters are variants of the vanilla roster which I find to add extra depth to the combat and unpredictability without relying on bullshit traps that require foreknowledge to beat. Really I wish the realm monsters were just used more often to shake up the gameplay instead of relying on that crap. If you're struggling to think up of ways to surprise the player without killing them instantly, there's a whole library you can use.
I also don't know the status of Shores and kinda don't have hope we'll ever see it (and if we do I expect it would instead be Shores of GZdoom instead). Though there was a remake of Refinery made in the KDiZD style by him. And yeah I think KDiZD got unfairly criticized just because Tormentor is a controversial figure in the community. Which is an attitude I really don't like. I believe a work can exist independent of its creator. For instance, I can't stand TerminusEst13 as a person; I think he's just a straight conceited asshole (so nothing new there). But he has also made good stuff that I like. Most notably spearheading the DUMP project, and the gameplay mod that came with the third installment. He even contributed my favorite weapon to the latter, which was a hilariously oversized mallet that made a squeaky noise when it hit an enemy. I loved that weapon and wished so bad I could have it separate from the gameplay mod.
RunningDuke, on 23 January 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:
Now back to Doom stuff, I also did Action Doom (again, ZDoom 2.0.98) and I think most of it was great (although outdated by modern standards of course), I enjoyed the level design (inspired by Duke3D at times) and most of the stuff it offered and the secrets (some of which are tricky to find, make sure to find the Mario secret in first level), I also liked that there's different paths leading to different outcomes. What I didn't like is that due to having only 1 HP, you can be easily killed by pretty much anything, though thankfully zombies now shoot projectiles. The final bosses (and even different mini bosses in each path you take in second map) are also interesting, that last normal boss fight is pretty hard and annoying due to infinitely respawning imps (imps have been modified to only kill you upon touching you), it can be done with lots of saving/loading and after defeating the boss, most times I jump to reach helicopter and escape, it seems like the player doesn't jump at all, falls and dies instead...
I also didn't enjoy some parts/paths you take, such as the boat ride, it was buggy/glitchy as hell despite using an older version of ZDoom for around the wad was made, which is same deal as with the Heretic/Hexen wads mentioned above. Maybe I was supposed to run with ZDoom 2.0.63a? I never liked that version TBH, it was fairly buggy to me (like other 2.0.x versions that I tried years ago to play some older wads), I found 2.0.98 more stable imo. Because there was for example an early ZDoom wad I played months ago called RTC-3057 Hub 1 (demo version, didn't play the full release in many years) and it didn't work at all in ZDoom 2.1.7 (refused to start), while on latest ZDoom 2.8.1 you can't pick up/select pistol and are forced to fight with your fists at beginning until you get weapons, so I used 2.0.98 and it worked fine, no pistol bug.
And as mentioned, sometimes difficulty is a bit unfair. You should save often and have multiple save slots just in case but also for replayability. The true final boss appears when you play on Contra (hard) skill, so make sure to play on this difficulty to get the full/intended experience. My final score on my last playthrough (after choosing the right paths that give most points and all secret areas) after defeating the final boss, was 353002, which was also higher than Scuba Steve himself from the credits screen.
Nah I don't think saving that often is necessary. There are plentiful checkpoints. I also found the difficulty quite fair (well, as long there isn't a tank around); I think it's more a matter of approaching the game with a completely different mindset. Unlike the base game where you can go in guns blazing, AD was heavily inspired by games like Contra, hence the single hit point. Unlike those games though, enemies aren't infinitely respawning, which encourages and is built around you playing with just a bit more caution. Gotta take it a little slower and be much more mindful of enemy attacks, unlike in Doom where you can safely tank some attacks.
Playing AD was also when I kind of realized jut how sorry the modern state of doom modding is. Even past the bullshit death traps, I realized most mappers these days are so solely focused on making pretty sector art. They only want spectacle but after so much "spectacle" it all starts to run together because that's the only thing they give out.
Meanwhile, in mods like AD, there are more genuine attempts to elicit other emotions than just "wow". You get the pumping action of the first level, there's a creepy atmosphere in the base, Hell has never looked more like Hell in Doom, and so on. I played this around the same time I played Sigil which was also a masterwork of eliciting and controlling how a player feels, and combined I really learned why even past the frustrating combat of modern dooming there is just nothing past the surface.
i really gotta stop making long rants about doom modding but i just have so much to say
I remember really wanting and trying to finish the game a few times exploring everything, but would always give up a few maps in due to how repetitive the experience would start to feel, tasting like going nowhere fast.
I liked everything but the control scheme. N64 controller was horrible for first person games.
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MetHy, on 17 December 2020 - 03:47 AM, said:
Duke4.net
DNF #1
Duke 3D #1
