Dream Doom feature

I'm sure we've all thought about it at one point or another, especially those of us lacking in programming skills. What's that one thing you always wished you could've added to Doom if you had the chance? It can be big or small, just one change, one addition, whatever, to the game that you'd just love to make.

For myself, I've always wished there was a random music/sky feature. I mean, let's face it, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I am absolutely sick to death of D_RUNNIN and that brown sky when I'm playing a new level I just downloaded. Heck, I almost feel obligated to include a new music file and sky when I release a level just to spare others that torture. I'd love to just have a folder of skies and midis and just have a command line option to make the game pick one at random from that folder. It's just a very minor thing, but I think it would spice up playing new maps just a bit.

I'm also dreaming about the change sky feature actually but not for playing purposes. When I'm making a new map, I ofter have several skies I consider using. It would be really neat if I could just load my map once and change them on the go to quickly decide which one suits the map best.

Some ports have the change music feature, I know that ZDaemon can play music from a folder for example.

Oh wait, you mean random selection, that's a bit different from what I'm talking about then.

An engine and editor like Doom64EX and DB64 for PSX Doom.

Alternatively, no-frills forks of Chocolate Doom/Heretic/Hexen/Strife that can run in higher resolutions rather than scaling 320x200.

Two more: MAPINFO and colored lighting in PrBoom-plus.

Edit: And mouselook in addition to keyboard look in that high res Chocolate fork.

Memfis said:

I'm also dreaming about the change sky feature actually but not for playing purposes. When I'm making a new map, I ofter have several skies I consider using. It would be really neat if I could just load my map once and change them on the go to quickly decide which one suits the map best.

You can use the "changesky" console command in zdoom.


I personally can't think of anything not achieved by sourceports, but if we're talking vanilla I wouldn't have minded some stuff being unhardcoded and left for more flexible editing. Like freaking map names, skies for individual maps, maybe events after killing certain monsters, more customizable linedef actions... Again, all already possible in ports.

Antroid summed up my thoughts pretty well. I wish vanilla linedef actions had variables attached to them. For instance, the switch light feature letting you define the value the light changes to; wall raising/lowering actions letting you specify the height; a completed action triggering another action. Me guessing this is all possible with the right port(s)?

Built-in dehacked/code editor. The ability to point a mouse cursor at a monster or other object and rewrite the code of the game behind the scenes in real time.

Vanilla Doom that supports DeHackEd patches in the wad itself.

I would like to have gameplay statistics but it's not really a dream feature of mine.

Real-time collaborative level editor

A motion detector, like in Aliens.

Bloodshedder said:

Real-time collaborative level editor

Best answer.

What would be kind of useful to me is the ability to point the crosshairs (visible or not) at a monster and have the monster statistics printed next to it. Name, health remaining, and whatever else could be shown.

Now, if this is possible, I'm sure someone would be nice enough to tell me it is so ;)

PrBoom-plus has health bars. Never used them myself, but it's similar to what you want (not sure why you'd need a name).

Being able to load a game from the load menu without having to load the pwad first. You know, load up Doom, go into the load menu, click on a game and the save game and pwad just load. That would make the game a lot slicker if you ask me. :)

Split screen mode.

Krispy said:

Split screen mode.

I use Legacy for this but the same feature in a more stable port would be grand.

Antroid said:

maybe events after killing certain monsters, more customizable linedef actions...

THIS. I've always dreamed about actions triggered with regular monster's deaths.

Bloodshedder said:

Real-time collaborative level editor

+Sliding door linedefs

+In-game wad slot loading (IDWAD01)

There's more, just cant remember.

A built in WAD loader complete with file browser, so that you can load WADs after starting Doom. Eternity is almost there, except that it lacks a file browser and cannot unload wads. Thanks to fraggle for that feature.

An integrated editor like in Doom 3 would be nice too, but not necessary. Being able to modify the map while playing would be interesting though.

Bloodshedder said:

Real-time collaborative level editor

"Dungeon Keeper" mode. That would make for interesting deathmatches.

amputechture32 said:

A motion detector, like in Aliens.

Try using the automap cheat.

Can't think of any that haven't already been mentioned.

Krispy said:

Split screen mode.

The XBLA port of doom has split screen deathmatch and co op.

Someone said:
Split screen.,

Personally, I don't like the feature. I think a doom port that starts with o (cant remember the name.) had it. Many moments I thought I was the guy on top when I was on the bottom. Plus, in dm, in my opinion, its not so fun to know what weapon your enemy has or where they are. Ruins the suprise back ambushrs.

Eris Falling said:

What would be kind of useful to me is the ability to point the crosshairs (visible or not) at a monster and have the monster statistics printed next to it. Name, health remaining, and whatever else could be shown.

Now, if this is possible, I'm sure someone would be nice enough to tell me it is so ;)

Closest i can suggest (and something you all probably know about) is the linetarget command in ZDoom. It gives the name, Spawn health and current health of whatever enemy is in your cross-hairs. Comes in handy when you want to know how much health a cyber has left, or if you want to summon a new enemy that has a very awkwardly obscure name.

Doominator2 said:

The XBLA port of doom has split screen deathmatch and co op.

And annoyingly it's stripped out of the PC version included in Doom 3 BFG Edition. I don't understand why developers do this. The feature's already there, 100% complete. It's more effort to remove it. Who cares if the majority of players won't touch it, I want to play with my friends splitscreen on my PC, same as console players can.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Alternatively, no-frills forks of Chocolate Doom/Heretic/Hexen/Strife that can run in higher resolutions rather than scaling 320x200.

I want an high-res Chocolate Doom too (or even OpenGL).
PrBoom+ is fine, but I don't need Boom stuff.

A program that converts a Doom map structure to any Build engine game in their correct scale.

Definable episodic structure in Doom 2 mode.

Sectors that can move along the x/y axis.

Usable dynamic lighting system / global outdoor lighting and shadow casting.

Distance scaled light corona entities for a Zdoom forked port.

MD2/MD3 primitives with refined collision detection and skins that can be constructed and applied from existing texture resources in the .wad file.

For ZDoom I'd like splitscreen and for EE I'll probably convert when you can fight monsters like normal through those amazing portals.