Doom2 Megawads vs TCs

I am actually in the mood to do another megawad (OMG!!) but I was wondering, since I don't think this question has ever been asked before, whats more interesting: regular doom2 megawad or a total conversion?


For TCs. More ideas can be cooked up, better imaginations, and most of all, to fool around with that decorate lump for Zdoom.

But after playing with the Master Levels for Doom2 I got the need to make a Doom2 Megawad as well.

I am thinking about making a TC, but still I like to hear anyone's opinion...

Well, you could make a Megawad-TC :-)

I would go for the TC. There's plenty of Megawads around already...
Then again, TCs are a lot more work, especially if you want to replace all the monster sprites as well :-/

I've played and enjoyed lots of megawads, and few TCs have caught my imagination.

Not having to make new textures, monsters and stuff will leave you more time to work on the real substance of the project - fun and inventive maps.

However, the main thing is to decide what you're most interested in making.

FYI, of your projects to date, the one I enjoyed most was DSV4 - just lots of fun to play.

Personally, I don't like TC's at all; only played through Hacx once (after it became free) and it was the only TC I played from beginning to end. I even haven't played Batman TC, though most people top it.

Screw megawads, screw TCs - do a partial conversion instead.
Like, keep it Doom with Doom monsters and guns, but come up with a few new enemies and/or add NPCs.

I'm tired of megawads, but TCs usually suck (except the Doom 64 TC) - what I'm interested in is something that uses clever scripting to add "fresh" elements to Doom's gameplay (which is what ZDoom would be good for).

Most TC's suck. It's either the level design or the sprites that are bad. It's really rare that both are well made (so far the only good ones I have seen are the later WolfenDoom adventures (esp. Arctic Wolf) and ReX's Darkest Hour. Even something as highly regarded as Batman has its problems and I really don't get why it's so well liked (maybe it's just because I can't stand superhero comics but who knows)

I do like WADs that use the standard monsters and add a few new ones. New textures are always great, though.

What DSM said.

What about to make a DOOM 3 (not DOOM³), one that take place after the final chapter in the DOOM series (you decide if it is DOOM 2 or Final DOOM). I think, that is what every doomer dream with. With the new version of ZDOOM you can add additional stuff (monsters, decorations, and I think soon weapons).
If you enjoyed Master Levels, you could add as an enemy "the biggest and baddest cyberdemon that was morphed into a human", that after killing the members of the Cabal he found a way to return to his original form.

A PC that retain the DOOM feel but add additional things is what you want.
Also as it is ZDOOM, you don't need to make exactly 30 maps, and nobody will care.

dsm said:

I'm tired of megawads.

I have to fully agree with that. Most megawads are just a pointless exercise of filling 32 maps with content and in most cases they fail. I much prefer smaller episodes (6-10 levels) Normally they are much better than any megawad out there.

I like megawads, as long as they are well made. I also prefer ones that are made by a team, rather than one person. It's not that one person can't make a great megawad (Scythe, Vile Flesh, Fragport, etc. prove this), but it is a team effort you get a greater range of styles.

I've never liked TCs. Yes, even Batman Doom (although I had a blast playing it on co-op with a friend). I prefer the Doom enemies and weapons over any new ones I've ever seen. Even new sprites tend to take away from the game, I find.

And for the love of god, don't put sprite versions of 3D weapon models in the game. They look tacky.

Adding new textures, flats, music, sounds and sprites can be fun.

Lousy monsters like the SS soldier and the Commander Keen can be redrawn and put to much better use.

Dehacked also allows you to replace some items with new monsters (like some lousy hanging impassible corpses). This way you can make an archvile that can be attacked by other monsters :) and plenty of other funny stuff, like a marine looking monster than can shoot rockets or plasma.

you realize with decorate you can create new monsters and not modify any of the existing ones, right? that way you can make a PC with new sprites and such and not bother messing with the original Doom monsters (unless you want an arch-vile type of enemy, then you need to play with dehacked for the resurrection stuff).

my favorite types of wads are always ones that change stuff about Doom, either adding new monsters or weapons or even just a cool map with neat new textures, but generally I'm very sick of people making E1 maps or techbase or blah blah zzzzzz. I'm also very sick of the stock textures, so find a good texture wad!!

And also:

Cyb's right.

I prefer expanding the original instead of just replacing monsters, textures, etc., adding new things that I believe should have been in the game (Tome of Power in Hexen, Arch-Cyberrevenimpbus Knight in Doom, etc.). As for megawads, the hardest thing about making them is coming up with enough new ideas to span 30-32 maps (and believe me, it's not easy).

Somewhere in between I think. Megawads are commonplace, and although it would likely be more popular (particularly if it's vanilla and demo-oriented) there isn't that much more that can be done with no extra stuff, really. TC's are far too hard to make for one person, and generally lose out in either graphics (unless you're a very skilled artist) or gameplay (if it's extremely un-DooMish).

Graphics - depends on what theme you're going for. A new texture set would help greatly, and the existing textures can be used alongside those. ZDoom features would add nicely to it as well.

Monsters - add a lot of new ones (so you have too many) and confine them to certain areas of the megawad. So the easy monsters appear straightaway but then disappear about half-way through or something, and the harder ones appear a while into the game, but stay to the end. Keeps the variety in the action going, as well as getting harder.

Weapons - wait for 64! But seriously, this one depends more on personal preference (and on the monsters above). Definitely no more than 13 (which covers the top row of the keyboard from 1 to backspc) but something less than that is probably best. Don't forget about new ammo types (which will be possible in 64), as the more ammo types there are, the less likely you are to stop using a weapon because it's inferior to another one with the same ammo type. (compare Quake 1 to Heretic or Unreal)

I love doom2 megawads. How can you have too much of a good thing? Tired of stock textures? Hmmm, maybe tired of stock textures used in the same combinations. Besides recent megawads like Vile Flesh and Rebirth are outstanding.

Use3D said:

How can you have too much of a good thing?

If it were a good thing. Unfortunately most Doom2 megawads are just variations of the same theme - sometimes with more monsters, sometimes with less. When something like Revolution comes along which really shows some ideas it's fine but too many focus on cramming too many monsters in too little space and aside from killing monsters and killing monsters and killing monsters and killing monsters there isn't much in there. I don't want to see the same shit over and over again.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

TC's are far too hard to make for one person, and generally lose out in either graphics (unless you're a very skilled artist) or gameplay (if it's extremely un-DooMish).

It's Kaiser you are talking to, he is one of the few persons who IS up to the the task. :)



Firstly I don't think you should aim at revolutionising Doom Gameplay. Adding new weapons and monsters is all fine and well, but it takes some serious thought and LilWhiteMouse-like godly Zdoom Hax0r skills to pull off properly.
Also you have proven to be able to make some really rock-solid frantic Doom-style action levels.

A good addition to the Doom gameplay could be some proper boss battles. Virgil's Claustrophobia is a good example, though you don't need to make them THAT overblown.

Another way to make Doom seem fresh are textures. A wad like Equinox is in fact, when you look past all the shenanigans just a bog-standard Doom wad. Yet it looks like something never seen before due to the awesome texture theme. To pull such a stunt off you need to replace almost all the original textures though.

I like PC's, great Megawads (Things like Rebirth, and AV), and outstanding single maps (usually Zdoom maps, like Void).

I'm working on my own PC right now, although I have no idea when it will be finished...

Maps like Void are the only reason I still play DooM.

Hmm, I figure I'll toss out the TC idea..

But I really don't want to use specific ports for my megawad, instead I want fully compatible with all ports that support boom/dehacked. I think new textures is a good idea, but I don't want to completly replace all the stock textures (don't want it to look completly un-doomish). Zdoom scripts won't work for me, as it can really effect gameplay (feels like Hexen). I want this megawad as "classic" as possible, but oringinal. I plan on changing themes as the maps progress, tech->castle->hell etc.

But I may just do something like Dsv5 again, (completly new textures, new enemies, new tricks, scripts, 15 maps, etc, but not up to the point where it might look like a TC)

Now that Doom is over a decade old, its getting difficult to keep the community pleased with wad after wad. But I really like to keep the classic style of mapping, which is why I hardly ever make Zdoom/Hexen maps, or any port-specific wad.

I still got a long way to decide on this, still got a lot of crap that I need to finish first..

Good replacement textures are always welcome in a wad, even if they are not the author's own creation.

I get the impression that there are many resources (both texture packs and wads where the author allows others to use his textures from the wad) that haven't been used to the degree that they might.

Scuba Steve said:

Maps like Void are the only reason I still play DooM.

Scuba Steve said:

Maps like Void are the only reason I still play DooM.

This is a very depressing thing to hear. Not because you played Void and liked it, it's because maps like it are the only reason you're here, basically :(

I've always preferred megawads. Mainly because the only reason I play new wads anymore is if I know the levels will be of high-quality, which can easily be done without replacing everything else as well (psst, use3d, hurry up and get done).

TCs just seem to be a lot more of a pain to set up, and they've also generally got killer download times, at least for my 56k sack of shit.

Kid Airbag said:

I've always preferred megawads. Mainly because the only reason I play new wads anymore is if I know the levels will be of high-quality, which can easily be done without replacing everything else as well (psst, use3d, hurry up and get done).

Nice to know there's a few others who appreciate solid no-nonsense Doom maps without a bunch of gimmicky crap!

Download time isn't really an issue (Massmouth 2 took 75 minutes to download and it was really worth it) - it's upload time that's more important (with it being twice as slow). Particularly if your connection times out after so long online.

Deathman said:

But I really like to keep the classic style of mapping, which is why I hardly ever make Zdoom/Hexen maps, or any port-specific wad.

And because of that I, for one, love you.

Well I'd like to see maybe some doom1 themed maps from you Kaiser, if you dont mind me saying so. I dont know If Ive seen many e4 styled maps from ya, which I especially like. Which again brings me to getting pissed off with the fact that many good textures were removed from doom1 that should've been in doom2 (easily remedied, but I can still complain, cant I?). Yeah...

DooMBoy said:

This is a very depressing thing to hear. Not because you played Void and liked it, it's because maps like it are the only reason you're here, basically :(

I'm here because I enjoy Doom, and love to see what people can still pull out of their hats for new ideas. I've played Castle/Tek/Ep1/Hellish maps to death. The only thing I keep coming back for is new stuff. Things like Lutz' P:AR or Void or RTC... are new things I've never seen before, and are very nice to look at. Doom is so simple to edit and the new sources are so powerful, that almost anythin gis possible. If you wanted to make a wad Zombie Ninjas battle Space Vikings from the Future for control over the Cybernetic Raptors of Jurassic Park, by gosh with a little time it could be made. I like to see people make projects that are fun, new and exciting.

Scuba Steve said:

I like to see people make projects that are fun, new and exciting.

I guess that's something we can all agree on. We just have different ideas on what is needed to give a project those qualities.