boom megawads for modern gamers?

Are there vanilla or boom megawads that could be liked by modern gamers who did not grow up with Doom?

One word: Eviternity

Pretty much all of them?  Doom is as enjoyable for modern gamers today as it was 25 years ago.

If you want specific examples though, Eviternity is the obvious current one.

Technically, Eviternity is an MBF megawad. But what Boom-compatible port isn't also MBF-compatible nowadays? Also for MBF, look at Valiant.

For Boom specifically: Ancient Aliens, Going Down, Sunlust.

Can I ask a question: what's the point of MBF? Mappers use it only for an extra monster?

3 minutes ago, dmslr said:

Can I ask a question: what's the point of MBF? Mappers use it only for an extra monster?

Technically a lot of what we call "boom megawads" are in fact MBF ones, as they use line action 271 to change the sky texture - this is an MBF feature.

There's a wiki page here and you can see a full list of features by reading the text file for MBF here - but for the general intents and purposes of playing a wad today, where everyone would use PrBoom+, Eternity, GZDoom and what-have-you, the distinction between boom and MBF is negligible at best. :)

14 hours ago, little egg said:

Are there vanilla or boom megawads that could be liked by modern gamers who did not grow up with Doom?

Of course, why not? Any wad can be appreciated by anyone.

Scythe and Scythe 2 are good starting points imo. Just don't play on UV (if you are not experienced).

are "modern gamers" a kind of different breed or something?

14 minutes ago, ketmar said:

are "modern gamers" a kind of different breed or something?

On 12/20/2019 at 1:05 AM, little egg said:

Are there vanilla or boom megawads that could be liked by modern gamers who did not grow up with Doom?

 
I think he may be making a reference to modern FPS, that is, games where you really know where to go as the games tells you and doesn't give you other choice, games where you can regenerate your health standing still, where you must care for reloading your weapon, and games in where there is an actual plotline that push you into ending the game to know what is happening.

To the OP, sorry to tell you this, but you won't find that kind of experience in vanilla or boom, you can only found that kind of experience in gameplay MODs made for ZDoom family of ports, and some full total conversions.
If you don't know, you can load almost all gamplay mods with any other mapset to play both as a single game, just select the files you want to play, and drag & drop in your G/L/ZDoom (or skulltag, zandronum, etc.)

If you want total conversions that feels modern, here are some:
-Cold as Hell: Special Edition (excellent story and excellent gameplay, hub map with multiple routes and neat difficult settings from cheap modern to nightmare modern)

-Legacy of Suffering (is the Doom 2 pwad that approaches a lot to to Doom 3 gameplay, pretty difficult even in easy settings)
-The adventures of Square (you don't reload weapons here, but this is what you could call the evolution of the ''Doom Experience'', as it comes near to what made Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Ion Fury soo good)
-Anything coupled with Hideous Destructor transform in a very tactical and difficult modenr FPS

-Brutal Doom with Extermination Day or Hell on Earth starter pack is a good choice for modern FPS gaming with a retro feel.

And there are a lot more, but i'm a little distanced from the zdoom community right now, as i prefer vanilla/boom gameplay at this moment.

You can also load Brutal Doom/D4T with almost everything out there to make it feel a little more modern and somewhat similar to Doom 2016.

20 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

I think he may be making a reference to modern FPS

i.e. linear gameplay with no challenge? iddqd+idkfa will do the trick then. ;-)

On 12/20/2019 at 9:13 AM, TheWolfman00001 said:

One word: Eviternity

The truth was told

Boom Megawads For The Modern Housewife

Profile Quiz: Which Modern Boom Megawad Are You?

Boom Megawads & The 20's: Be Cooler Than Your Kids

On 12/20/2019 at 9:18 AM, Gez said:

Also for MBF, look at Valiant.

Didn't skillsaw come out some time ago and pointed out this is a mistake though? That Valiant is commonly considered MBF but it's Boom? I remember reading something like this in a post by him, but do correct me if it's a false memory.

As for my recommendations: Ancient Aliens, Eviternity, Deus Vult 2, Sunlust.

41 minutes ago, seed said:

Didn't skillsaw come out some time ago and pointed out this is a mistake though? That Valiant is commonly considered MBF but it's Boom?

Valiant is 100% a MBF-compatible-only megawad, we're not talking about just something like a few levels using the sky transfer special here, the arachnotron depends on on the MBF codepointer RandomJump and Spawn so as to spawn an arachnorb 50% of the time when killed. The arachnorb itself is a helper dog. You remove MBF's DEHACKED stuff, you break Valiant.

Description of Valiant straight from the readme:

Quote

Valiant is a MBF megawad for Doom II featuring 32 new maps spanning 5 themed episodes. Each map is designed to be played from a pistol start, but some effort has been made to support continuous play as well.

Additionally, Valiant includes a number of new monsters and weapons implemented through an extensive MBF format DeHackEd patch. As a result, Valiant is not compatible with gameplay mods, and can only be played in ports with full MBF DeHackEd support. At present, these include ZDoom, GZDoom, PrBoom-plus (complevel 11), and Eternity.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/valiant

Now if you're using Valiant VE, then sure, it should work fine in plain old Boom. (Except for the levels that are so big their nodes are in ZDBSP format.)

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/valve

Boom megawads for boomers :)

If you want a "modern experience" as in jumping out of a plane to land on a big map with a ton of others where you all search for whatever weapons you can get and then kill the others untill one is left i suggest finding some kind of Doom Battle Royale mod for Zandronum (Or Minecraft Hunger Games)

I don't want a modern experience. I just want to get friends interested in classic Doom

23 minutes ago, little egg said:

I don't want a modern experience. I just want to get friends interested in classic Doom

then you probably asking the wrong question. if you want people interested in classic Doom, then simply let them play classic Doom. they will either like it, or not, it doesn't really depend of them being "modern gamers" or not. i mean, there is no need to get some "special wads" for them. Doom is mostly about fast and furious dancing on a battlefield, controlling your environment in the same time. if people don't like this gameplay, no wad will help.

I keep misreading the title as boomer megawads

On 12/20/2019 at 10:21 AM, Dragonfly said:

the distinction between boom and MBF is negligible at best. :)

agree that for most purposes it's negligible, but I wanna add the nitpick that monster infighting is actually subtly different between the two (with MBF enemies sticking on their targets longer). I've played a few slaughter/"combat puzzle" setups that are consistently beatable on cl9, but are nigh impossible on cl11, for example.

5 minutes ago, Horus said:

I keep misreading the title as boomer megawads

You're not the only one. Then "Boom wads for Boomers" shows up in my mind rofl.

9 minutes ago, ketmar said:

then you probably asking the wrong question. if you want people interested in classic Doom, then simply let them play classic Doom. they will either like it, or not, it doesn't really depend of them being "modern gamers" or not. i mean, there is no need to get some "special wads" for them. Doom is mostly about fast and furious dancing on a battlefield, controlling your environment in the same time. if people don't like this gameplay, no wad will help.

He has a point ^ .

It all boils down to whether they actually like what classic Doom is about, it's combat, and so on. If they hate the base game, no wad will change that, except maybe some ZDoom TCs/gameplay mods, but even that has its limits.

26 minutes ago, little egg said:

I don't want a modern experience. I just want to get friends interested in classic Doom

So levels that are visually attractive despite limitations of the aged technology, fun to play, but not too challenging either?

The titles already mentioned should fit (perhaps not Sunlust, though: it's gorgeous but very hard). I'd add Back to Saturn X for another highly-polished experience. Stuff like Tangerine Nightmare perhaps?

Or just go through the last few year's Cacowards (they're all listed here, except 2019 which hasn't been added yet as I type this) and get what you think your friends will like. You know their tastes better than we do.

Somehow I feel like slaughter maps are not the best choice for most modern gamers, at least not with the vanilla weapons.

With a good feeling, viceral mod like Trailblazer it could be more appealing.

I personally think something more balanced in the exploration/combat aspect with more streamlined map design may work with vanilla weapons.

So no convoluted switch/key hunts, obscure progression etc.

Varied maps and interesting aestethic could also help.

I would guess something Hellbound, Eviternity, Ancient aliens, Valiant, Struggle may be engaging enough.

how come nobody mentioned Avactor yet? ;-)

1 hour ago, little egg said:

I don't want a modern experience. I just want to get friends interested in classic Doom

Then the obvious choice if he doesn't ever played Doom is to play Ultimate Doom from Hangar to Unto The Cruel
Then TNT: Evilution from System Control to Las Call as its better than Doom 2 and similar to Ultimate Doom in its episodic nature; Doom 2 its too abstract in some maps and that might be a big let down as it was for me when i played it for first time, totally hyped for a new Doom experience...

...just then he might like classic Doom.

...after that, its Thy Life Consuming hobbie...

There are almost infinite number of wads and universes out there.

What the fuck does that even mean? Has the doom community gotten this bad that we need maps made specifically for "modern gamers"?

Fortunately we have the Call of Dooty series and also Linear Doom.

9 hours ago, seed said:

 

Didn't skillsaw come out some time ago and pointed out this is a mistake though? That Valiant is commonly considered MBF but it's Boom? I remember reading something like this in a post by him, but do correct me if it's a false memory.

I remember seeing something like this, but I think he was talking about Ancient Aliens, not Valiant.

3 hours ago, StoneMason said:

I remember seeing something like this, but I think he was talking about Ancient Aliens, not Valiant.

Yes. (and it was a reply to a thread I made about a year ago :s)

53 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

Yes. (and it was a reply to a thread I made about a year ago :s)

Yup, that's the one. Heh, but memory switched the wads.

12 hours ago, ketmar said:

how come nobody mentioned Avactor yet?

Avactor is indeed a great wad, definitely deserved one of cacowards. But it doesn't qualify as a megawad, because it has less than 15 levels; 12 levels in total. While the announcement of SIGIL kinda disrupted the definition of the term, it is still true that a megawad must contain 15 or more levels.