Ghosts

I went to gamefaqs.com and felt like looking up PC Doom II. I found a faq on "ghosts" in Doom II. I thought they were talking about spectres, but apparently when an archvile raises a crushed creature, it becomes a "ghost" and can move through objects and wander around the level and things like that. I was just wondering if you had ever seen this yourself?

I'm sure most everyone has been chased by ghosts before. Some of the little beggars are pretty annoying if you have no rockets to dispatch them with.

There are some demos here:
http://members.aol.com/ledmeister/odddemos.htm

And a few pwads actually use them for effect. My next map has them if you use doom2.exe but not if you use ports.

Edit:
Go here and go to the Misc. page.
Look for Archie.wad demo. Ghost demo.
http://www.magikal.supanet.com/

I've never been thrilled with actual ghost implementation, but if you wanna see it, check out these maps:

Icarus map24
Requiem map23
Hell Revealed map26
and most likely others...

Ghosts show up at two different points in hr26, partway through one of the little "side-quests" and at the start area when you've just about finished the level and are ready to exit. From my experience, you may or may not encounter the second batch of ghosts, depending on how lucky you are (the bodies will be there but the archviles can't reach them because the crushing ceiling will have been stopped in a low position :).

Didn't we just have this thread a while ago?

Anyways, I encountered a ghost once in map20 of doom2. scared the bejezus out of my the first time.

First time I saw a ghost, I was playing the Hell to Pay demo. I think it was the habitat deck, those liquid metal horrors kept coming back. (not because of their spawner either) I can thank an archie and a door for those memories.

Yeah, I've seen ghosts before in Doom, but it's usually an in game quirk or coincidence that makes it happen. HeXen is the only game makes extensive use of them without you having to do anything (other tthan fight Korax).

Insomniac said:

Didn't we just have this thread a while ago?

Yes, a forum search will reveal quite a lot of discussion on this topic.

In addition to the maps Vile listed, I can think of the following that make deliberate use of ghosts:
Eternal map25
Wtrfront.wad
Seej.wad
Archie.wad
The Gathering II map05

I got a ghost baron in Murderous Intent map04, but I think that was just due to the general mayhem rather than any deliberate planning.

Searcher: are you sure that your ghosts are Doom2.exe-only? Not all ports "fix" the AV-bug; jDoom (and maybe others) retains it, and it is a compatibility option in some other ports.

Yeah, pretty much everyone has seen ghosts before. The first time I saw one was in Doom2.exe, whatever the name of that map is with two Arch-Viles. I was IDDQD and IDCLIP and I noticed that an imp was following me! I was in the void and it followed me, so I tried the BFG on it and nothing happened. I did SSG for about ten minutes on the thing but it never died. I had it happen in that level twice, and I thought it was some bug with me using IDCLIP and it somehow effected one of the imps. It's really just that room of imps with the doors all around it, and the nearby Arch-Vile.

Adding them on purpose is dumb if you ask me. Only splash damage kills them, which is pretty far fetched if you're going for a "realistic" use of a "ghost."

Edit: MAP16, Suburbs.

No. I think I am going to play DoomII again. This shows how little I know.

Yes idclip, I shot a few Lost Souls in between walls, because of their annoying sound, but in the actual map I never seen any ghosts.

Yeah, first time I saw one was when my friend was playing Monster Condo, and he was in the library at the beginning. That archvile res'd a Hell knight or baron and it kept coming after my friend no matter what he did. Eventualy he left the place and shut the door behind him. But the damned thing went through the wall kept following him. I think it eventualy fell in the pit and we just kind of left it like that, never speaking of it again. :P

I never knew it had to do with crushed monsters though. I always thought it had to do with killing the archvile at the exact right time while he was ressurecting something. I learn something new every day...

I think a maze full of ghost zombiemen might be interesting.

Here's another interesting little map that will show some ghosts pretty quickly.

Insomniac said:

Didn't we just have this thread a while ago?

Actually, I believe we've had like 10 threads on this. :P

But I have encountered teh ghost types, I saw, I ran, I shot, I ran, I shot, I ran, I shot, I ran, I shot, I wondered, I got hurt, I ran, I though more, I got killed, I ran into it again, I ran, I shot, I ran, I shot, I ran, I shot, I thought, I got killed, I avoided the next time around. :D

This has been my experience with them:

See Doomguy.
See Doomguy run.
Doomguy see shotgunguy.
Doomguy shoot shotgunguy.
Doomguy see shotgunguy not die.
Doomguy shoot shotgunguy with bigger weapon.
Doomguy see shotgunguy not die.
Doomguy shoot shotgunguy with bigger weapon.
Doomguy see shotgunguy not die.
Doomguy shoot shotgunguy with biggest weapon.
Doomguy see shotgunguy not die.
See Doomguy run.

Actually, in PSX Doom, in the level Threshold of Pain, I fought some ghost Lost Souls. There were about 3 of them and I couldn't kill them. They kept getting in the way from a jump I had to do. And strangely, I don't think rocket haze could kill them. I've noticed that in the PSX console Dooms, if a Pain Elemental blows up in just the right way near a wall, it makes all the Lost Souls get trapped in the wall.

magikal said:

Here's another interesting little map that will show some ghosts pretty quickly.

Hmm, couldnt get it to work. The archie just wont ressurect them. Maybe its because Im using ZDoom?

Assmaster, I read that the ghost thing only works with the original DoomII execute.

I have XP, so sucks to be me.

Edit: Ran it with -nosound so I was able to see it. I didnt realize ghosts were still solid to the player. That ruins the whole maze idea.

Yeah, I guess. I still have the first style of DoomII with the neat dos execute. I love that cd. :) By the way, Assmaster, would it help if I called you Assmage?

Vulg@r said:

By the way, Assmaster, would it help if I called you Assmage?

It's not the same. You can if you like though, it's a nice gesture :)

Eh, no problem, Assmage. But what about that contest Lut was talking about earlier? How do those work?

Vulg@r said:

But what about that contest Lut was talking about earlier? How do those work?

IMJack said:

No questions until the contest starts. All will be revealed in time.

Lüt said:

Heh, I'm trying to figure them out. I had hoped to have them announced by yesterday but I'm running slow as usual.

:D

Not %100 on topic, but is there a way to make a monster always a Ghosts useing DeHacked?

Ct_red_pants said:

Not %100 on topic, but is there a way to make a monster always a Ghosts useing DeHacked?

I believe so. Of course every monster of that "species" will be a ghost then.

Yeah -- I thought there was some trigger or something for a "mass ghost" option.

In fact if you look in the Doomworld editing section you should find the "Dehacked Grabbag". I think it mentions how to make ghosts in there.
Off the top of my head, I think you can give a noclip attribute to a monster, that should do the trick. I havent looked at dehacked in quite some time though, so I could be totally wrong.

Vulg@r said:

Assmaster, I read that the ghost thing only works with the original DoomII execute.

Not true; see my post above.

For the "purest" original Doom behaviour in XP, use PrBoom with "-complevel 1" in the command line. That means that it will attempt to emulate the behaviour of Doom v. 1.9 as accurately as possible (it is accurate enough that pretty much all the compet-n records play back correctly).

Ct_red_pants said:

Not %100 on topic, but is there a way to make a monster always a Ghosts useing DeHacked?

I'm not too sure about this, but I think the ghost behaviour arises from the monsters still having the same height that they did when they were squished (1 unit?), so setting their height to that using dehacked would do the trick. I might be talking crap here though.

EDIT: I just tried that, and it worked.
EDIT2: To get them to "noclip", the width needs to be set to 1 unit (or something suitably small) too. That reminds me: in Paul Corfiatis's joke wad Spacia, there is a monster than noclips, but can be shot normally.

Ct_red_pants said:

Not %100 on topic, but is there a way to make a monster always a Ghosts useing DeHacked?

In an attempt to make a monster invincible via DeHacked, I made a ghost. If you set a monster's frames to go back to the first moving frame after death, they'll be invincible. I made an imp that, once killed, comes back to life, but it was totally immune to attack after that, so it was impossible to slow down.

Alternately, you could put the "dead body mode" code pointer in the first moving frame, and I think it'd be a ghost.

...Hey wait, that means if I got rid of that code pointer, my invincible imp thing would work, wouldn't it? Heh.

That's awesome. I'd love to see that in action.

I seem to remember fighting off a few ghost wolfies in seej.wad and thinking that was just about the right exploitation of the bugs usage.

It has to be carefully used.