Which is better: Ultimate Doom or Wonderfull Doom?

Since Wonderfull Doom is designed to be a reimagining of Ultimate Doom and the author specifically stated that he made it because he wanted everyone to play Ultimate Doom one last time, I thought it would be interesting to ask: If you could play both Ultimate Doom and Wonderfull Doom as a way of playing Doom for the first time, which one do you think is a better 'version' of the game?

I didn't try wonderfull DOOM, and didn't know about it. Any link?

Vegeta said:

I didn't try wonderfull DOOM, and didn't know about it. Any link?

It is here. You can also vote on it when you are done.

Why do you all (well, 7 so far and one thinks they are equal; the Wonderfull Doom vote is mine) like the originals better?

Wonderful doom is good, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't quite compare to that first time you enter E1M1 and see the mangled corpse, the water, the view out of the window and marvel at the explosive barrel. Also I think the level design is a little better in Ultimate Doom as a few places in wonderful doom were poorly done and the amount of lifts for seemingly no reason got on my nerves to.

Ultimate Doom has a better grasp of English than Wonderfull (sic) Doom.

Gez said:

Ultimate Doom has a better grasp of English than Wonderfull (sic) Doom.

This thread asks you to pretend Wonderfull Doom could be Ultimate Doom itself, plus Doom levels should not ever be judged by their names. So PLEASE do not use names as a factor in your votes.

Yes. In fact, don't use anything but Brandon D. Lade's opinions as a factor in your vote.

Never forget, guys, Brandon D. Lade polls always carry the Serious Business™ mark, certified by the World Poll Consortium (WPC).

Wonderful Doom had such faithful reinterpretations of Ultimate Doom levels that it added little to the gameplay experience. The author recreated just about every single room that was in Ultimate Doom with some new bits here and there. It was a remix without "mixing" in anything new or innovative to the old content.

Why did I miss this WAD until now?

I've just played through Episode 1 and had a quick look at the other levels. It is a faithful re-imagining of the original levels made to a good standard but remaining reminiscent of the style of the originals. And it was fun. It is probably fair to say that some of the levels are probably technically better than the originals too.

However, better than Ultimate Doom? That's kind of like saying Eugene Cernan was a better man on the moon than Neil Armstrong.

"Which is better: Original Knee Deep in The Dead episode or KDiZD ?" could be another poll that could compete with this one.

Noting beforehand that I haven't played through all of Wonderfull Doom in its entirety:

I would consider the original Doom.wad e1 maps nearly impossible to beat. Er, I mean to do a better version of; obviously they're beatable. :P There are so many brilliant examples of layout interconnectivity and visual cues that reinforce the concept of their 3D space, that really makes the levels come alive even within the restrictions of what could be rendered on a 386.

Episodes 2 and 3, though...I wouldn't be surprised at all if many of the Wonderfull Doom maps are a significant improvement over the originals.

I thought many of the levels were better than their original counterparts. It's kind of a pointless poll, though. I think it's possible Wonderful Doom might have made for a better experience had it been the original release of doom (instead of ultimate doom), but on the other hand I still maintain id was onto something with their quirky level designs and oddities, some of which I think may have been lost with Wonderful Doom (I really would have to play it again to compare as it's been awhile).

Man, why the hell have I not heard of Wonderfull Doom before? Just played through E1M1 and it was pretty awesome. I'll have to play through it all with my girlfriend later.

So I can't really say for sure yet, but I don't think it's really possible to neutrally decide this anyway, unless the quality plunges after e1m1 for some reason.

I've played through Wonderfull Doom before and while it is fairly well done, and the theme/atmosphere of the original levels is represented very well, most of the levels just don't seem to "flow" as nicely as the originals do. At least in E1, I haven't played E2 or higher in WD.

NOTE: I was just playing through E1 in WD again, on E1M2 at the gunfire secret in the maze, the shooting is glitched there such that it screws up sector heights all throughout the level. I'm playing on prBoom+ 2.5.0.1 with compatibility off (-1).

Wonderful(l) Doom is very good as a remake, but comes with some tiny flaws ( for instance, you have to find a secret to finish E3M9 ).
Plenty of good ideas and variations of original levels though :)

Still, nostalgia is too strong.
Ultimate Doom gets my vote.

Which is better:

• This poll
• Best of `09 to date
• Best 10 megawads
• Best classic megawad
• The best of 2008
• How good is Plutonia 2
• One of the above
• UAC Military Nightmare
• Conservative's Forum
• Any of the following

You can't really compare a new set of level to the original.

GreyGhost said:

Which is better:

• This poll
• Best of `09 to date
• Best 10 megawads
• Best classic megawad
• The best of 2008
• How good is Plutonia 2
• One of the above
• UAC Military Nightmare
• Conservative's Forum
• Any of the following

I don't understand this question. Is this just a joke or something?

GreyGhost said:

Which is better:

• This poll
• Best of `09 to date
• Best 10 megawads
• Best classic megawad
• The best of 2008
• How good is Plutonia 2
• One of the above
• UAC Military Nightmare
• Conservative's Forum
• Any of the following

all of them

I wandered around in WD1, and it’s not bad at all.

I played it. I liked it but Ultimate Doom is by far better. For one the difficulty was a bit of a jump from in Wonderfull Doom than in Ultimate Doom. I got lost far too many times to give Wonderfull Doom a good rating at all.

Not to say the megawad is bad, I enjoyed it alot in a nostalgic sorta way, but theres little imagination used in the wad to be considered better than Ultimate Doom. Essentially there were a lot of parts where you play in the same rooms as in Ultimate Doom, but you come in from an opposite angle, or lifts that normally went up would lower you down. For some reason sectors that were normally shaped like stars were only four-pointed stars. I'd never used a PWAD to contest against the original IWADs. Not even KDiZD, TSoZD, IZD, and even a TFZD combined would be better than Ultimate Doom.

It would be more interesting to compare different E1 or UD tributes against each other rather than against the original.

JohnnyRancid said:

IZD, TFZD

A little OT, but they're making episodes 3 and 4 too??

Nah I made that up as a comparison to wonderfull doom as it contains all 4 episodes.

I played through episodes 1 and 2 and they are pretty well done for the most part...a nice trip down nostaglia lane as the levels give a good image of playing the original IWAD levels...I'll play E3 and E4 tomorrow.

PS: If you are going to upload it to the Archives, at least fix any mistakes encountered. For example, there is a Cacodemon stuck in E2M7 in the northeast outside secret along a wall near the LITE2 corridor.

FrozenNemesis said:

NOTE: I was just playing through E1 in WD again, on E1M2 at the gunfire secret in the maze, the shooting is glitched there such that it screws up sector heights all throughout the level. I'm playing on prBoom+ 2.5.0.1 with compatibility off (-1).

I didn't know of WD and just played a bit. My first impression was quite positive, until I stumbled over this blunder and got stuck between big HOM's (played in Chocolate Doom).

What version is this actually? According to his thread, there is a v1.1: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/42762-showing-my-wads/
I can't see any version number in the file I downloaded from the archive, and the link in the other thread does not work.

The one on idgames is v1.0, I think. The E1M2 bug had been spotted in the past, so I presume it must be one of the bugs fixed for v1.1. Since Wraith's site is dead and he doesn't seem to post much here, it might be a good idea to contact him by email. Maybe then he'll upload v1.1 to idgames.

I kindly asked him in a PM now.