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Gougaru

What's a wad you went into with zero expectations, but you ended up loving it.

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I have a few favorite sleeper wads and maps. Just curious to know about yours and what made you love them.

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I thought alien vendetta was going to be another good doom wad, But man, instead good wad, its actually awesome wad!

Edited by Ozcar

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Recently i was playing Doom2 in Spain only
At the beginning i feel it was like a joke wad, but it isn't. I found a well made megawad with some funny fresh points

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2 hours ago, WARDUST said:

Recently i was playing Doom2 in Spain only
At the beginning i feel it was like a joke wad, but it isn't. I found a well made megawad with some funny fresh points


I had the same presumption; thought that D2ISO would be a stupid and obvious joke wad, worth only for fifteen minutes of giggles at most. But then I saw someone play it, and tried it myself. It’s a seriously good-quality wad that has a humorous aspect to it, worth playing for the hours it takes to complete each and every one of its 32 maps.

Edited by RHhe82

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I nominate DBP10: Earth Ends.

When I had a first quick look it seemed to be a random jumble of mismatching textures, but it became clear what it all meant to be when actually playing it.

 

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Icarus Alien Vanguard.

 

I had recently beat Ultimate Doom and wanted to get something similar. I had never heard there was a second Doom game, this was around the early 2000 and internet access was not as accesible.

 

I was playing through Doom 2 campaign and did not like it very much, went to gamefaqs forum and saw a post about someone recommending Icarus as one greatest wads of all time. I remember having a blast, and liking it more than the official one, was not expecting much as I did not like the original game a lot. Until 2020 or so i had never played through the official Doom 2 campaign.

 

Nowadays I still prefer the original over 2, at least when it comes to the official maps.

Edited by Garlichead

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For me that would be Moonblood. I don't even remember how I heard of it, but I didn't know much more than that it featured nonlinear maps, which is stated in its text file. Ended up being very much to my taste, in more ways than just the nonlinearity.

 

50 Monsters is a similar story; I didn't know anything about it other than that each map has 50 monsters (obviously), but found a very thoughtfully crafted megawad that doesn't rub its gimmick in one's face.

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Atmospheric Extinction, would't say I loved it, but I went in expecting the usual OTEX 'hard' maps and left surprised by how approachable and varied it was. 

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Deathless, actually. I do not think I was very familiar with Jimmy's mapping work at the time, so I did not expect something as well-crafted.

 

Looking forward to Earthless now, assuming it is still being worked on!

 

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Skulltiverse. It had a few bad maps, but overall it really surprised me with how polished it was. Definitely one of the best community projects I've played.

 

I also enjoyed Return to Hadron more than I thought I would. Specifically episode 3 was the wad to make me remember Cannonball's name and admire his mapping skills.

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51 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

very thoughtfully crafted megawad that doesn't rub its gimmick in one's face.

Yeah, for a long time I had those "mapping gimmick" projects pretty low on my to-play list, but surprisingly most of them I've tried also have more than enough artistic integrity/fun gameplay/etc. The 1000 Lines series is a good example, I tried it because of the gimmick, but probably three maps in I forgot that there even was a gimmick.

 

I think some of the project titles, to be honest, could do with a little more creativity to stand out though. Not because there is anything wrong with any of them on their own, but because it's easy to confuse them when you're not familiar with them. "Fifty Shades of Greytall" is a good example of a "gimmick" project with a title that tells you what the goal is while still being memorable.

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when i was still really new to custom WADs, i heard someone say Back To Saturn X was the best mod ever made. Naturally, i had to try it. while i immensely prefer BTSX 2 (that's my favorite game, like, period.) ep. 1 was still the masterpiece i didn't expect it to be.

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I had no idea what The Rebirth was going to be like or even what it contained, literally nobody talks about it and it is seldom brought up by anyone but myself nowadays.

 

It's actually really good, ballanced, not overwhelming, easy to pick up and play for a few maps casually and one of my all time favourites.

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Not at all a sleeper hit, but fits the question posed in the thread title. . . 

 

Plutonia. I wasn't on Doomworld much when I started it so most of what I'd heard was the usual "it's just chaingunners, revs, and archies in a bunch of BS traps." What I found instead was a finely crafted set of challenging but generally fair levels that pushed me as a player to be better and I loved them.

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Doom Zero I suppose, just because it was my first chance to get in somewhat early and play a newly released WAD.

 

In many ways it's my ideal for a Doom WAD, modest ambition, clever little map ideas, vanilla feel, and just the right amount of tributes to Doom as a whole. 

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2 hours ago, map11has2names said:

when i was still really new to custom WADs, i heard someone say Back To Saturn X was the best mod ever made. Naturally, i had to try it. while i immensely prefer BTSX 2 (that's my favorite game, like, period.) ep. 1 was still the masterpiece i didn't expect it to be.

 

I fell off the PWAD wagon for a few years, and had seen "BTSX" mentioned a couple of times on the forums. Got the BTSX2 beta first. I had no idea what it would be like - was I pleasantly surprised! Then I got 1 later and that was even better. OMG

 

Back in the days, before Doomworld and thorough recommendations with screenshots and all that jazz I had similar experiences with both Eternal Doom (III) and the Osiris TC. Got them both after reading some brief text descriptions of them somewhere - I was absolutely floored by them both, especially ED.

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Witness of Time by Nicolás Monti


After doing a run for it in the Ironeagle competition I decided to give it a go, and I just fell in love with the music and the 90's aesthetic.

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Not a particular wad, but I was pleasantly surprised by this wad pack:

As is usually the case with mod compilations, it absolutely must've consisted of a lot of low quality stuff... Or so I thought. Not sure whether I was that lucky to never stumble upon the not-so-great parts of the pack yet, or if it is REALLY "Like D!Zone but quality", but every time I launch some random wad, I really do expect it to end up being some obscure mishmash of random incomplete amateur maps.

 

And it's never the case. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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RAMP, an all-comers, no real rules map pack with 200 maps, this could of worked out really badly and I wasn't to sure what to expect going in. Which is exactly why it great, you have no idea what your going to get, like grabbing a chocolate out of one of those trays. Well I say no idea but you you do get hints and an idea of difficulty and length going in from the awesome hub map.I love it lets you know at the start of each map if you should have jump enabled or not with a Mario jump sound and a symbol, not knowing if I should or shouldn't on GZDoom maps is a pet hate of mine.

 

You even earn medals for completion and 100% kills that you can use to build an optional garden zone. Obviously qualities a little up and down but I've been pleasantly surprised by most maps although I'm a looong way off done.

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10 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Deathless, actually. I do not think I was very familiar with Jimmy's mapping work at the time, so I did not expect something as well-crafted.

 

Looking forward to Earthless now, assuming it is still being worked on!

 

 

If you haven't already be sure to try Nameless and Safe Haven also, both single map WADs. Safe Haven in particular is my favorite Jimmy map.

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Erkattäññe (hope I spelled it right :) ) Played it because it was made by a mapper from my country, and the first map seemed at a first glance confirm my low expectations due to the very oldskool design tropes. But then I was surprised by a fun mapset with very cleverly crafted secrets and good layouts.

 

Community Chest 1 & 2. Played 2 earlier, mainly because of BPRD's famous Mucus Flow, but ended up loving most maps, 1 is imo even more varied. However I may have a weird taste, I like puzzles and obtuse progression, for example.

 

I also didn't have _that_ high expectations on Eternal Doom, as many were describing it as boring and empty, but it ended as one of my favorite mapsets (and yeah, I played it after 2015, so there's no nostalgia bonus).

 

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16 hours ago, Shepardus said:

50 Monsters is a similar story; I didn't know anything about it other than that each map has 50 monsters (obviously), but found a very thoughtfully crafted megawad that doesn't rub its gimmick in one's face.

 

I'd go as far as saying that the monster limit worked in favor of the whole experience here. It effectively prevented the game from devolving into a 300 monsters / 40 minutes per map type of grind that seems so common for many modern projects. All maps remained focussed on the fun aspect - it was one of the few full 32 map megawads I fully played through more than once without getting bored the second time.

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Speed of Doom, all I expected was cheap pop-up monsters, but being a classic I felt I had to try it nonetheless.

Instead I got a lot of fun, cool atmosphere, (mostly) awesome level design, the perfect difficulty level for me at the time (coming from Alien Vendetta) and lots of cheap pop-up monsters.

Loved it overall, but I won't play the secret maps ever again.

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9 hours ago, PKr said:

Not a particular wad, but I was pleasantly surprised by this wad pack:

As is usually the case with mod compilations, it absolutely must've consisted of a lot of low quality stuff... Or so I thought. Not sure whether I was that lucky to never stumble upon the not-so-great parts of the pack yet, or if it is REALLY "Like D!Zone but quality", but every time I launch some random wad, I really do expect it to end up being some obscure mishmash of random incomplete amateur maps.

 

And it's never the case. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also love this pack, there's a lot of good vanilla WAD's in it

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Freedoom 0.6 - 0.9


Most of it pre 0.10 was very good. Hellonearthstarterpack.wad players may recognize some of the maps because, they are the source maps. The chaingun texture pre 0.10 looks like an actual chaingun and not a single barrel with holes connected to a cylinder with holes. Most of the other weapon sprites were really good. Except the shotgun. That can go to Hell as ID Software has once said. For the monster sprites, eh good enough. Some sprites like the imp are better made in 0.6 - 0.9 than in 0.10. Other sprites look even worse than what they are now in 0.10. Overall good IWAD.

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