New Wolf3d guard: shotgun or machinegun?

I'm willing to add a new type of guard in a Wolf3d mod I'm working on (sorry, not the 2009 release), to break the monotony of only using the brown and blue guys in my Episode 1. He's going to be a better prepared version of the brown guard, and he'll look like a more realistic SS rendition (credit goes to Wolf Skevos-Jones for graphics) as dressed in black, analogous to the Doom former sergeant.

The question is, what weapon do you think is better for giving him? A shotgun (not yet in the game) or a machinegun (already used by blue SS men)?

The shotgun would require me adding it for the player too (no biggie) and working to balance it out along with the machinegun (more firepower, inability to stunlock). Some measure would have to be taken not to make bosses too easy. But when used by the enemy, I guess I'll make it similar to former sergeant's type: like three consecutive T_Shoot functions. Unfortunately, this means they'll have a huge chance of one-hitting you from melee (behind the corner!), which while realistic, it's probably aggravating.

The machinegun would fit seamlessly with the rest of the game, not requiring me to define another weapon or another shooting function. The new guard would be in all cases weaker than the standard Blue: slower, weaker, less accurate. But sometimes he'll feel redundant or boring.

What weapon do you prefer? Please give reasons though, because I might still be biased. I posted this here because I can't register on the main community Wolf3d forum, while this is a blog anyway.

(edit for the moderator who moved this to wads/mods: this isn't Doom related. That's why I put it in blogs)

I'd say shotgun: Although it might be boring to have shotguns everywhere, it's more boring to have a game with only pistols and machineguns.

If you feel that one shots might be a problem, give the shotgunners a little longer aim duration so getting them first (or running away) would be a bit easier.

Definitely shotgun. That's about the only weapon I wanted in Wolf 3D. Plus it's a weapon you don't see much in Wolf 3D engine games and mods.

I remember playing playing wolfenstein mods with custom nazi's and one of them was a nazi using a rifle of some sort that the player could also use. Like a Gewehr 43 or something. It didn't have an attached scope, fired one projectile at a time, but it kinda reminded me of doom's shotgun and was more fitting to the theme.

I'd heavily advise that since your target audience is for wolf3d fans but also doomers. It's a very decent medium that I'm pretty sure both communities would enjoy. I have a feeling a shotgun would dissuade die-hard wolfenstein veterans (which to my knowledge there isn't exactly a billion of em) while leaving out a shotgun would probably leave common doomers feeling out of place when playing it.

I wish I could remember what the mod was called. I remember it being REALLY good and I was in love with it both because it made me feel like a kid again and it portrayed Spear of Destiny with a more harsh 'dark grey' theme which was a hefty switch from Wolf3d's traditional cartoony graphics and rainbow pallete. And it was lengthy and difficult, even with the newer stronger weapons included.

EDIT: Found it! it was called "The Coming of the Storm" 19 maps, New weapons, New enemies, quite a few boss battles, You don't need wolfenstein 3D to play it (though I think you need to run it in Dosbox if you want sound) I heavily reccomend it. I think I may just play through it again just for nostalgia purposes.

Stick with the original stuff.

People make plenty of Doom mods which add different weapons and all manner of new enemies, I personally find most of them look crap and ruin the feel of the game. They could also take focus away from making good maps and situations.

I imagine I'd feel the same way about introducing new weapons into Wolf3D too.

Nazis with shotguns during WWII?!? You'd be better off giving him a Mauser rifle in that case.

Right, rifle. Fortunately at that low resolution they look similar.

Super Jamie said:

Stick with the original stuff.

People make plenty of Doom mods which add different weapons and all manner of new enemies, I personally find most of them look crap and ruin the feel of the game. They could also take focus away from making good maps and situations.

I imagine I'd feel the same way about introducing new weapons into Wolf3D too.

Well, I can add a Mauser rifle that uses (rare) separate ammo. Like in KDiZD. I could be faced with balance issues though, just like in KDiZD's finale (against bosses).

The thing was that in Doom even the "pistol" guys look like using rifles. In W3d only the more elite ones use something more than hand (or chest)guns. But come to think of it, Wolf has always been about face to face (sometimes wait around the corner) gunfight, and adding someone with more decisive firepower would force me to go in sniper mode (with my gun) and therefore crawl down the game. Even in Doom the sergeants are commonly hated, imagine it in Wolfenstein3d, oh yeah [now I have to add 3d that suffix all the time not to disappoint people]. And unfortunately the rooms are too small for sniping, unlike Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

What about some vehicle that patrols towns (mini bosses). This would require to make open maps, but with the proper use of textures I think it could be done pretty decent on Wolf 3d.

Another weapon, not sure if it's possible, could be a knife that you can shoot. When the knife hits something it falls to the floor and you can pick it up to use again. To make it balanced it'd have to cause more damage than the normal knife (heh, this could be cool for an Under Siege mod).

Well I tested the rifle guys but I liked it. They have three times the firepower, but it's only deadly at melee range. They're slow and weak enough to be stoppable, also. I'll consider putting both types of SS guards in the end (rifle and machine pistol) to add variety and make it look like Doom 3 or Quake 2. Their sounds are taken from the Mac Wolf baddies (taken via Rojas's Wolfendoom).

Vehicle I think not, save for mecha bosses, if any. The blockish gameworld can't fool the player too much that he or she is supposed to be outside to use them, and BJ as a hiker is fast enough. And the always 90 degree walls just aren't cut for outside.

the first level of "Coming of the Storm" is outdoors. It'-- well it's not great, but the illusion is pulled off pretty well. I have no idea how it was done but the whole map has animated rain drops falling from the ceiling. I was pretty blown away by that alone.

Indeed, Wolf3d modders have done all sort's of inpressive things with the source code.

I'd love to see a shotgun in Wolf3d.

Er, it will be an unscattered, single bullet rifle (damn, for reasons like guns I wish we still had military service). It will be a meatshield cracker (kills SS in one shot) but will suck against squads or in the open, since it fires slow. It's expected to be useful when waking up big groups of SS who otherwise would make you run out of ammo (I even managed to easily defeat the SS blocade in E5L2 with this gun!). Won't comically kill half a dozen people in one shot, as in Doom. I tried that Doom effect but it made me far too safe, so I dumped it. How would Doom be without shotguns? Hint: Dehacked test :P

@printz:I know this may sound stupid. But how are you even able to add or replace stuff in Wolf3d? from what I understand of it, everything in Wolf3d is hardcoded. even the enemies. what you are about to would require altering the code to wolf3d, which would a mind - boggling task of epic propotions.

The code to Wolf 3D was released years ago by id. I'm not sure if it's GPL, but it's out there.

If the exe is still not GPL by the time I'm done, I'll probably look for a patch utility or make one. Man I hope it works.

Keyblade Master said:

what you are about to would require altering the code to wolf3d, which would a mind - boggling task of epic propotions.

Not quite. The gameplay code is C, and due to game's simplicity, it's not hard.

Snarboo said:

The code to Wolf 3D was released years ago by id. I'm not sure if it's GPL, but it's out there.

Yes, it has been released under both a non-commercial license and later under the GPL, just like Doom.

I too am working on one, and have a tremendous amount of realistic textures from RTCW, their colours kept in tact for the doom palette in addition to numerous other WW2 type textures from various other 3D games.

add me:

starke_von_oben@live.co.uk