Romero's Shareware

Long time lurker and downloader of wads, first time poster. Consider this a sincere apology for any social faux pas.

After hearing that Romero had made 2 new levels (replacing Tom Hall's levels) for Doom a friend of mine wanted to play them having only fond memories of playing Doom 2 decades ago. He didn't know anything about how to get Doom running now and doesn't own it on Steam or anything like that. Now certainly I *could* have simply gave him a copy of the files I use, but beyond being technically illegal that was also no fun. So, partially to see if I could do it, I made a new IWAD from doom1.wad and got it recognized by zDoom (fun to dig around in the .pk3 files) so that he could play it.

So now I'm wondering if there is any desire in the community for the IWAD and if the above thing is strictly legal. (It is the Shareware levels with e1m4 and e1m8 swapped out.)

KBlaney said:

... if the above thing is strictly legal.

This is from the README.TXT of DooM:

id Software respectfully requests that you do not modify the
levels for the shareware version of DOOM. We feel that the
distribution of new levels that work with the shareware version
of DOOM will lessen a potential user's incentive to purchase the
registered version.

If you would like to work with modified levels of DOOM, we
encourage you to purchase the registered version of the game.

You can get FreeDooM here:
http://freedoom.soulsphere.org/

Greetings
Funduke

I doubt there'd be much interest in the modded IWAD, since the net effect is the same as loading both Romero's PWADs with -file or a launcher, which is the accepted way to do things. Folks 'round here are used to it.

There's no harm in making such a thing for personal (or semi-personal, in your case) use, though. Tinkering is the first step to getting into modding, and that's great. Though PWADs are certainly the best way to go for future efforts. ;)

Thanks, funduke. So I'll keep it to myself.

I appreciate the link to FreeDooM. I wish I would have thought of that. My intent was to give a "double-click-to-play" sort of version to my friend who didn't legally own the original... but I see him playing Ultimate Doom on Steam now so I think I made a convert out of him anyway.

Edit: I know that the PWAD is the correct way to do it, Xaser. It became a "I wonder if I can..." project pretty quickly because PWADs don't work with unregistered versions and, apparently, I find this easier than telling my friend to drag-and-drop two files in Windows at the same time.

Those new levels aren't strictly vanilla, so they don't belong in IWAD anyway.

KBlaney said:

but I see him playing Ultimate Doom on Steam now so I think I made a convert out of him anyway.

One of us! One of us! :D

hex11 said:

Those new levels aren't strictly vanilla, so they don't belong in IWAD anyway.

Because of the visplane overflows?

Ultimate Doom is pretty cheap to legally acquire, but certain older sourceports/builds allow you to run PWADs with the shareware IWAD. Thing is, if there's even one single custom texture, it will not be supported. It is frowned upon to do this, however I remember playing a select few wads this way many years ago.

Great timing for your friend. On sale and DRM free at gog. Quake's there too:

id shooting range

Bethesda cheeky (scummy enough) to put their name on the bundle but oh well. Still great value if you don't have some of these.

Welcome to Doomworld o/

Correct link: https://www.gog.com/promo/bundleopolis_bethesda_shooting_range_250416

Thanks, don't know how that got mangled.