which do you like more, doom or heretic.

Which do you prefer to play?

I have fun with both, but I'm more for heretic my self because of more unique weapon design, enemies, and more fun bosses. And I love its "style" and setting.

You're asking a Doom board if they prefer Doom over Heretic?

Hmmm...

Mr. Freeze said:

You're asking a Doom board if they prefer Doom over Heretic?

Hmmm...

well, heretic is alot like doom. I consider both the same game at times, saying DOOM and refering to hexen and doom games.

Now if i brought up...say, duke nukem vs doom, that would be stupid because both are entirely different.

Don't Hexen, Heretic and Duke 3D use the same engine as doom?

Duke 3D is a way different engine. Just look it up... it's a lot more complicated and sophisticated, not mentioning that it results up much more nicely. Doom is simply classic that doesn't like being overdone.

Marnetmar said:

Don't Hexen, Heretic and Duke 3D use the same engine as doom?

Heretic has the same engine
HeXen is a modded engine (IE like ROTT uses the modded wolf engine)
Duke3D uses an entirely different engine, called build3D allowing aiming, jumping, floor above floor, crouching, shrinking, talking, interacting, etc...

But aside from all that I found duke nukem terribly boring. Shadow warrior was fun but gets too hard. BLOOD is my all time favorite...I am sad to say this, but I almost like BLOOD more than doom. Almost.

A riveting topic...

I like both.

Your distinction between Heretic and Hexen as to which uses a "modded" version of the DOOM engine is pretty much false. While Hexen has more significant additions (hubs, polyobjects, scripting, and a slightly different map format to support them), Heretic still had some interesting new features:

• Translucency
  
• Look up/down
  
• Inventory
  
• Current and wind effects
  
• Ambient sound engine
  
• 3D object clipping
  
• Terrain effects
  

This is not to mention that some of its subsystems which appear to have the same function as those in DOOM were actually completely new code, such as the status bar - not a single line of code is shared with DOOM's st_stuff/st_lib modules.

Heretic, while a fine game, loses easily. Here's why: the weapons aren't as fun to fire, and the enemies aren't as fun to kill. It's just that simple.

bimlanders said:

Heretic, while a fine game, loses easily. Here's why: the weapons aren't as fun to fire, and the enemies aren't as fun to kill. It's just that simple.

Also the small amount of textures makes the levels repetitive, the music tracks are too similar (making levels seem even more repetitive)and the second episode has crappy level design.

Quasar said:
Your distinction between Heretic and Hexen as to which uses a "modded" version of the DOOM engine is pretty much false. While Hexen has more significant additions (hubs, polyobjects, scripting, and a slightly different map format to support them), Heretic still had some interesting new features:

• Translucency
  
• Look up/down
  
• Inventory
  
• Current and wind effects
  
• Ambient sound engine
  
• 3D object clipping
  
• Terrain effects
  

Still, functionally, Heretic adds those to the same game backbone structure, while Hexen alters that and makes it looser with player varieties, an open level sequence and customizable scripting. This makes Heretic appear as a "fantasy DOOM variant" while Hexen is more its own type of game.

I'll take Heretic over Ultimate DooM anyday. Although I'd say I'd put Heretic on par with DooM 2...

Although Heretic can technically be labeled as a "DooM clone", it really has it's own unique universe in it, and it's own distinct feel to the gameplay as well, combined with the new resources and an atmospheric soundtrack is enough for me to play it and feel like I'm going through completely different game.

If it weren't for all the mods and things, I'd actually prefer Heretic over Doom. Heretic had more interesting level design and enemy behavior. Especially the gargoyles, those things charge at you and move around at different speeds, etc.

Some of the things they did were pretty lazy, though. For example, in a game with freelook (which interestingly cannot be controlled by the mouse), why would hitscans still have no clipping with floors and ceilings? Why, in a game that has 48 levels, would you have so few textures made? Even with so few textures, though, E5M7 looks pretty damn cool IMO.

Wagi said:

Why, in a game that has 48 levels, would you have so few textures made? Even with so few textures, though, E5M7 looks pretty damn cool IMO.

Quality over quantity. Each level is so well textured and so tastefully constructed that I only noticed this when I looked through the resources in DooM builder. And if you play Curse of D'sparil you'd be surprised at how much variety you can actually pull off with those textures.

<--- Heretic fanboy. :)

Processingcontrol said:

Also the small amount of textures makes the levels repetitive, the music tracks are too similar (making levels seem even more repetitive)and the second episode has crappy level design.

Meanwhile Hexen's weapons are delightful, but level design is terrible (switch hunting, "haha you die" style traps which are almost impossible without reloading, etc.). And there's even less monster variety.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to make Hexen a sequel to Heretic, after all ? Initially it was meant to be an expansion pack. My favourite mod idea is to combine Heretic and Hexen (resources) to create a mod/total conversion on par with DooM variety.

I would in no circumstances call Heretic "tasteful". A lot of it is corny and cheesy. "Evil laugh" type ambient noises, chains, bad use of color. Only a few weapons look good (gauntlets, phoenix rod, hellstaff). Heretic is more fun to play (because it's so close to DooM), but it doesn't have the atmosphere and polish of Hexen.

Shotgun Shells > Ethereal Arrows

Everytime.

I like Heretic and Doom 2 equally, but Ultimate Doom I like better. Heretic in many ways is like more of an expansion to Doom, just with new enemies and guns (Or wands I guess).

b0rsuk said:

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to make Hexen a sequel to Heretic, after all ? Initially it was meant to be an expansion pack.

No it wasn't.

The weapons in heretic leave a lot to be desired, the crossbow isn't as good as the shotgun because its hard to make all 3 of its bolts hit something, it seems less effective against the monsters, with even the lowly gargoyle taking 2 - 3 crossbow shots to kill. The hellstaff is good but it pushes enemies away from it, making it not very effective at range, unlike the plasma gun in Doom. The gauntlets of the necromancer seem to be too much a copy of the chainsaw and I'm not sure what the mace is supposed to be at all, except for a rubbish and disapointing last weapon of course.

That, for me, is why Doom > Heretic

Doom is a masterpiece, Heretic is just a good game.

kristus said:

No it wasn't.

You mean it wasn't a good idea, or it wasn't meant to be Heretic's sequel ?

Raven Software's HeXen actually began development as an expansion for Heretic that was originally slated to hit the shelves as "Heretic II." However, the game design so expanded beyond the original game that this proposed the expansion of the Heretic universe took on a bold new identity of its own…HeXen: Beyond Heretic.

http://www.ravensoft.com/gamesdetail.aspx?xmmid=624&xmid=8&xmview=2

It was never meant to be an expansion. Not according to the producer (Romero) anyway. I dunno who wrote that but the series was always supposed to be 3 games. Heretic, Hexen and Hecatomb. Hecatomb was unfortunately never realized, but according to Romero, several of the ideas were featured in Hexen II.

But then again, I could be mistaken on the initial idea behind it being a trilogy, these things tend to evolve.

I like both :P

kristus said:

Heretic, Hexen and Hecatomb.

Hecatomb sounds too obsessive, like "let's put here a name that's so death-related we can shit bricks". It's like holocaust or bloodshed.

kristus said:

It was never meant to be an expansion. Not according to the producer (Romero) anyway. I dunno who wrote that but the series was always supposed to be 3 games. Heretic, Hexen and Hecatomb. Hecatomb was unfortunately never realized, but according to Romero, several of the ideas were featured in Hexen II.

But then again, I could be mistaken on the initial idea behind it being a trilogy, these things tend to evolve.

All of the headers for the Hexen source code do say "Heretic 2" in them... Romero's memory has been proven slightly dodgy before, so it could very well be that he forgot about his grand plan for the series not being in place until some point *after* Hexen's production started ;)

I see no contradiction here. My interpretation:

1. Heretic
2. They start working on Heretic 2, but for the reasons listed above it becomes Hexen
3. Once Hexen becomes a fact, they decide they want a trilogy. But they fail.

Does anyone have a problem with this chronology ? And before someone jumps in and points out "it was meant to hit the shelves as Heretic2 anyway, and not expansion refers to the world part"... I understand this means an expansion like Doom2 is to Doom1. Doom2, if you call it a sequel, is one of the most faithful sequels ever. We wouldn't call it a sequel by today's standards, just an expansion pack. Heretic2 was most likely meant to be the same sort of "sequel", only adding new monsters, items, possibly new classes. It wouldn't be the first time Heretic did something like DooM.

I stand by my opinion that splitting Heretic and Heretic2(Hexen) was a bad decision. They've made the 2 games incompatible. Doom2 improves upon DooM, but Hexen replaces Heretic.

b0rsuk said:

I stand by my opinion that splitting Heretic and Heretic2(Hexen) was a bad decision. They've made the 2 games incompatible. Doom2 improves upon DooM, but Hexen replaces Heretic.

But you can mix Heretic and Hexen resources in a ZDoom mod, so it's fine now!

I remember reading somewhere that Hexen was going to be called Heretic 2, but after a while they realized it was going to be too different so they renamed it Hexen: Beyond Heretic. Wouldv'e been very been cool to see yet another sequel called Hecatomb, but unfortunately that 3d shit started getting invented.

DeathevokatioN said:

I remember reading somewhere that Hexen was going to be called Heretic 2, but after a while they realized it was going to be too different so they renamed it Hexen: Beyond Heretic. Wouldv'e been very been cool to see yet another sequel called Hecatomb, but unfortunately that 3d shit started getting invented.

Yeah, imagine the DOOM engine given a 4th round of commercial modification. No telling what crazy kind of stuff they might have added :P Of course, there'd be even more hacks and bugs layered on top to go with the features, and Hexen itself is already a literal zoo of them ;)

Spleen said:

But you can mix Heretic and Hexen resources in a ZDoom mod, so it's fine now!

I prefer Vavoom, but I get the idea ;-). Vavoom is Linux-friendly (unlike GZDoom), 64-bit friendly (unlike Doomsday) etc.