What are you playing now?

Doom 1 and 2.

With scalliano's 667 Shuffle.

Megamur said:

Isn't basically the entirety of the Lost Episodes terrible?

Nnnnno, there's a few flashes of brilliance. Chris Klie had mostly better maps than his partner, whose name escapes me, but I'd say few if any of them are any better than say HEROES.WAD or most of the Serenity trilogy. Or, uh, anything else featured in the top 100 WADS article.

I loathe E1M8 cause it's two rooms, one of which is a giant pentagram loaded with gunsnammo (iirc). You take the teleporter and bam you're smack dab in a huge room with barons, masterminds and cyberdemons in a death exit floor, so kind of like E1M8 but without any pretense of being something more than a drawn out cutscene. There's a similar deathtrap that lands you in a giant death pit with six cyberdemons in E2, I think, just with no chance of exit.

E3M8 was just E1M1 with a spiderdemon at the beginning. It's more interesting than it sounds. Klie had somewhat unremarkable rooms tied together by small hallways, but his partner just went with massive hallways and massive rooms without the kind of bodycount youd usually see with that much space to fill. Interesting as an early og doom unlicensed commercial project, but the Wraith Corporation Doom 2 Megawads are better in every way.

kmxexii said:

There's a similar deathtrap that lands you in a giant death pit with six cyberdemons in E2, I think, just with no chance of exit.

Now there's a quality product.

Ran through Earth again, since I haven't played it in years. It's a shame that, for how great some parts of it look, half or more of the levels are complete duds.

Map01 is a great intro with a look at those lovely ocean wave animations, some amusing vanilla deep water trickery, and some generally nice island ruins architecture. Map02 is probably the most unique, taking place in a vaguely Egyptian-themed labyrinth, with a central hub that leads to various challenges. Map04 has that really awesome and huge canyon with the not-quite-3D bridge over it, and a large-scale battle.

Then you've got stuff like Map07, which is basically a battle against a huge horde of pinkydemons, about four Mancubi, and exit. The final two levels are mostly you running for your life while lots of bad guys swarm. Map06 is insanely confusing, basically asking the player to seemingly leave the map boundaries in order to find the exit.

The rest of the levels are extremely irritating treks through winding, pitch-black tunnels, often with your automap being rendered nonfunctional, ensuring that navigation is as unpleasant as possible. Seriously, Map08 had two clever ideas--the "ammo pit," where Arch-Viles "make" ammunition for you (and it's basically all the ammo you find in the whole map), and the glass elevator--and then it seems like the author couldn't think of anything else, so he just drew hundreds of random linedefs and proclaimed, "MORE TUNNELS! THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!"

When this levelset shines, it shines brightly. I just wish there was more shining and fewer dark caves.

Also playing School Doom, since I just seem to be on a school level kick lately. This is likely the best one ever, with lots of custom graphics that, while crude, do a fine job of emphasizing the school atmosphere. It also shows off some early silent teleport/fake room-over-room techniques, which are pretty cool. The ear-raping screech of the Imp replacements can give you a startle, too. However, there are levels after the school, which I'm betting are going to take a massive dip in quality, since the author won't have any real-life buildings to base his layout on anymore.

I'll re-play Stronghold Doom again. Wish me good luck! :D

Not unexpectedly, the second level of School Doom was awful. Just a bunch of huge, hideous, randomly-angled, too-dark tunnels (again with the dark tunnels?), and spammed Spider Masterminds. Level 3 was extremely simple--basically just two big rooms--but I liked the attempt at making trees without using sprites. Level 4 was up to the quality of the first map again and had very good, realistic architecture, though it was also a pain to navigate since it had so many rooms. Level 5 was a dull Cyberdemon fight. Then the finale, which made pretty great use of the "THE END" graphic and featured a nifty little end "cutscene."

For as stupid as it was, I had way too much fun playing this WAD (aside from the terrible second level).

Not much time for dooming but Plutonia Revisited has my attention at the moment. Finished the first two maps yesterday and enjoyed them quite a bit. I am late to the party but it's been fun so far. :)

Espi's Back to Basics

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=15174

I love this wad even though I've never managed to complete it without cheating. Not because it's particularly difficult, I simply can't get to the blue key in E2M5. There are pillars over a red (harmless) lava pit, which presumably you need to use as stepping stones to get to the open entrance on the other side, but they're just too far apart. Anyone know if there's something I'm missing here?

I have been playing through Needs More Detail. A great map set. Hope to finish the first episode in the next couple of days.

Plain jane Ultimate DooM Episode 2 with Brutal DooM.

E2M4 is a scary place now.

In reference to Eternal Doom, aside from the "jesus christ what the fuck am I suppose to do?" there were a couple puzzles in there that I swear you had to be a mathematician of the highest intellectual capacity in order to figure them out, so I clipped through the areas I assumed you were meant to advance to. Otherwise, it was a very, very long, but incredibly rewarding experience I won't forget. I plan to eventually go back to it one day.

As of now I'm playing Doom via PrBoom+ because I want an oldschool experience but the ability to play Boom-compatible maps and am surprised at how hard Doom actually is when I set all the compatibility options to the Doom originals. I swear ZDoom is nerfed or something. In addition to the more sluggish feeling via controls and having to hold down run, the infinitely tall actors and collision detection has a way of screwing you over, the latter seems to affect the chance of doing "critical hits" (monsters seem to take a few more shots making them harder to kill) and solid objects like trees, lamps and torches no longer block projectiles, there's also the more aggressive monster behavior (the Archviles are not afraid to get around the level and revive enemies in half the time!). But aside from that, I'm really liking it. Might be a while before I attempt HR on it though..

Finished Memento Mori 2. It's a bit harder than 1, imo, and I liked some of the mapping in MM more, but it's still high quality stuff and the new textures really bring the WAD to life. My only misgivings are on a few maps where the authors locked the SSG behind a secret (MAP06 and MAP26) and Alden Bates' MAP20, "The Experiment," which I particularly disliked. I enjoyed the couple E1 throwbacks, though, especially nice seeing Sean Birkel using Doom 2 monsters in an E1 style map (MAP24).

Currently bouncing between playtesting Valkiriforce's "Reverie" (which is pretty hard on UV) and running through some older WADs I've already played for a more experienced second opinion, as I wanted to load them up to my Doom Blog and found the blurbs wholly lacking in substance ("oh, cool stuff, nice, blah").

Hexen on Doomsday, starting Castle of Grief with Cleric. Had made an absolute joke of the Heresiarch previously.

I'm playing Realm of Chaos as I remember it actually having some good memorable bits

plutonia revisited with ultimate super doom3, was hard.

KwadDamyj said:

Plain jane Ultimate DooM Episode 2 with Brutal DooM.

E2M4 is a scary place now.

Does Brutal Doom make the game harder? I'm interested in finding some mods that boost the difficulty of the stock maps.

Cyanosis said:

In reference to Eternal Doom, aside from the "jesus christ what the fuck am I suppose to do?" there were a couple puzzles in there that I swear you had to be a mathematician of the highest intellectual capacity in order to figure them out, so I clipped through the areas I assumed you were meant to advance to.

I suck at math and I was able to make it through all the levels without cheating. :)

But yes, several of the puzzles left me wandering for what seemed like ages. Click on things that you don't think are worth clicking, try to walk to places it doesn't look like you can walk to, and be prepared to let an Arch-Vile give you a boost or two.

As of now I'm playing Doom via PrBoom+ because I want an oldschool experience but the ability to play Boom-compatible maps and am surprised at how hard Doom actually is when I set all the compatibility options to the Doom originals. I swear ZDoom is nerfed or something. In addition to the more sluggish feeling via controls and having to hold down run, the infinitely tall actors and collision detection has a way of screwing you over, the latter seems to affect the chance of doing "critical hits" (monsters seem to take a few more shots making them harder to kill) and solid objects like trees, lamps and torches no longer block projectiles, there's also the more aggressive monster behavior (the Archviles are not afraid to get around the level and revive enemies in half the time!). But aside from that, I'm really liking it. Might be a while before I attempt HR on it though..

It kind of saddens me how people are so accustomed to playing source ports that the mechanics of the original DOOM start becoming strange to them.

ZDoom is definitely nerfed in several ways. The way it calculates the trajectory of projectiles is different, so shots that would simply pass through enemies in classic DOOM count as a hit in ZDoom. ZDoom also has increased range for player melee attacks, making it much easier to beat pinkies to death without getting a scratch on you, since your arm reaches notably further than their jaws. However, I thought for sure you could enable autorun in PrB+, and the controls shouldn't feel sluggish if you adjust the mouse sensitivity correctly.

In my experience, the fixed blockmap in ZDoom seems to make the game harder, rather than easier in most cases, since hitscanners will hit you more often, as well as your shots hitting them more reliably. At least that's what usually screws me over.

Pinkies are pretty easy to fist in vanilla, but it's much tougher to kill a mancubus with berserk, or an arachnotron with the chainsaw; two things which are painlessly easy in ZDoom.

Mithran Denizen said:

Pinkies are pretty easy to fist in vanilla

Certainly true, but it's even easier in ZDoom. I literally just hold down the attack button while backing up and they eventually just crack their skulls open on my knuckles.

I finally found the red key on MAP15 of njdoom2 (very fun level), which opens the gate to the secret level, but unfortunately the game crashes when run via Freedoom (R_TextureNumForName: GLASS2 not found). Anyway, the TXT file says he didn't really modify MAP31/32, so I just restored my save game and went on to MAP16 instead.

Now I'm up to MAP20, which is the last of the non-hellish levels. MAP19 (Under the City) was a well-done sewers level with good atmosphere, but it reminds me of some newer maps I played before, so those may have been inspired by this one.

Edit: Made it to MAP24. The hellish levels are amazing! And MAP20 had a well-done transition, where things just started getting weird...

I purposely turned off autorun, may have to readjust my mouse sensitivity.

Going to do the Mage next on Hexen. Then eventually do the expansion (which when I finished it like two years ago I didn't really find it all that good). They could of seriously benefited from something new, at least textures. Oh well, it's more Hexen.

Ah yeah, forgot to mention, swapped ports because Hexen pissed me off in ZDoom as the Cleric, the Firestorm's all messed up and strangely underwhelming. It was much more powerful from what I had remembered and thankfully Doomsday seems to have the original damage.

Megamur said:

It kind of saddens me how people are so accustomed to playing source ports that the mechanics of the original DOOM start becoming strange to them.

ZDoom is definitely nerfed in several ways. The way it calculates the trajectory of projectiles is different, so shots that would simply pass through enemies in classic DOOM count as a hit in ZDoom. ZDoom also has increased range for player melee attacks, making it much easier to beat pinkies to death without getting a scratch on you, since your arm reaches notably further than their jaws. However, I thought for sure you could enable autorun in PrB+, and the controls shouldn't feel sluggish if you adjust the mouse sensitivity correctly.

Also, in vanilla Doom, Mancubi can shoot through walls! (I know it's dependent upon the fireball's angle.) One "fun quirk" I experienced (but had previously heard of) while playtesting some of Reverie's maps. Interestingly, it never came up while I was playing Obituary.

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Good luck, AV MAP26 is where I gave up. I was barely staying alive on the previous levels, even despite playing on skill 1. Hell Revealed wasn't made for me. ;)

AV26 is a very good map. I couldn't make a better one myself. ;) It's very intimidating at first, but if you use your brain you can start finding holes and opportunities in the monster placement. If all else fails, I'm pretty sure there'd be an insane UV Max for it that destroys it in 7 minutes or something to give you inspiration. :)

The only shit map off AV is 21. Sooo... boring... flat... and... generic gameplay... :/

DeathevokatioN said:

The only shit map off AV is 21. Sooo... boring... flat... and... generic gameplay... :/

I thought map21 was quite refreshing, small and simple and quite easy, with an interesting name as I recall. The only map that I really disliked was map24, I got very stuck on this map and I don't think it looks or plays that well

I don't find a one dimensional map that has barely any thought put into the layout or gameplay to be refreshing, especially after Kim's masterpiece "Mishri Halek". The gameplay and overrall experience in 21 just felt completely redundant and soulless, especially in comparison to the maps around it, which made it feel even more cheap, the monsters felt like they were just there to keep you occupied while your supposed to be "enjoying" the visuals or something. Pablo Dictter's newer stuff is much better though. Especially his Pcorf community project contribution.

Oh by 24, you mean Clandestine Complex? I personally think that map is beyond amazing. It has a layout and gameplay that's to die for, and it also has fantastic visuals. Unfortunately though, my first experience of it was also ruined by getting getting "lost", making the lights go off in a room where your supposed to climb up crates to progress was unnecessary. Still doesn't change the fact that it's a great map though. ;)

My initial view of One Flew Over the Caco's Nest (av21) was somewhat similar, but at the time I didn't appreciate that it was that way because it was the first map of an episode (for compet-n episode runs, you start on map01, map11 or map21). If you make a point of playing it from a pistol start, then it is quite a nice map, with plenty of scope for punching, and not too badly balanced. And it is pretty.

That said, I still found it odd that when a new map24 was brought in, it was Anders Johnsen's original av25 that got the axe, and not av21. I suppose that as project leader, he felt more comfortable removing one of his own maps.

kmxexii said:

Also, in vanilla Doom, Mancubi can shoot through walls!

Quite true! About the only thing that I can immediately think of that's harder in ZDoom is Arch-Viles, which can no longer hurt themselves with the blast radius of their own attacks anymore, for some weird reason.

Heh, I happen to be playing Alien Vendetta lately as well. First time I played it I used ZDoom but now I'm playing it on the older game engines. Personally I thought the last 10 levels were a bit uninteresting for me, and it was hard to stay dedicated enough to complete the megawad. Hell themes aren't a favorite of mine, add to that the HR-style gameplay and it felt a little more like a chore for me to finish it up. However, I thought the levels looked pretty good for the hellish category; it's really the gameplay that wasn't so great on me. Waves of monster one after another gets a little exhausting, unless done with some restraint (much like how Memento Mori has one particular slaughter map, MAP23, while the rest felt more like levels in themselves). To me, it's sort of like how there's always that, "Dead Simple" type map taking up the MAP07 slot, maybe one every now and then but not all at once.

My favorite hell-themed levels, though, go to both Doom II and The Plutonia Experiment. Requiem had some cool ones as well but I like it when they take things in a different direction (night levels in Icarus).

I'm up to map16 on my scoredoom run on the NDCP megawad, having beaten both secret levels. (Not really secret in the case of that megawad, since you HAVE to play those to continue with the main set)

hex11 said:

Hell Revealed wasn't made for me. ;)

This is why I'm wary of a lot of "must-play" MegaWADs, since "must-play" seems synonymous with "basically impossible" in a lot of cases.