Doom II IWAD differences (map02 & 03)

Old news probably, but I found this weird.

There's two small differences between the 1994 copy of Doom II and the 1996 "updated" version as I call it, which I've owned.

8/25/1994 9:13 PM

MAP02: The Underhalls, to the left to the first switch there are silver bars blocking it, but they can be opened by simply using them. There is no silver bars in the '96 version.

5/28/1996 11:49 PM

MAP03: The Gauntlet, there is a backpack secret in the blue key area near the other secret with goodies. The lower wall can be used after you've finished the area. This backpack secret is not in the '94 version.

There may be other differences, but I didn't find anything else unusual.

Also the file size for the '94 version is 14.2MB but the '96 one is 13.9MB. What are the odds in that?

I remember being confused when the silver bars were missing when I first played MAP02 on a different copy of Doom 2 that I had. It beats me why they made this changes.

I also remember that in early versions of Doom 2 none of the secrets in MAP31 had secret tags.

I'm personally a fan of the linedef changes on Map14 near the soulsphere/arachnotron room... If you look hard enough, you might actually see what I'm talking about (at least I think that's right)

Cyanosis said:

Also the file size for the '94 version is 14.2MB but the '96 one is 13.9MB. What are the odds in that?

The 1.666 IWAD contains some redundant stuff, such as the map names for all three Doom episodes (WILV00 to WILV28) plus victory graphics for Episodes 2 (VICTORY2) and 3 (PFUB1, PFUB2 and END1 to END6).

I miss the silver bars ;-(

Cyanosis said:

MAP03: The Gauntlet, there is a backpack secret in the blue key area near the other secret with goodies. The lower wall can be used after you've finished the area. This backpack secret is not in the '94 version.

Aha! So I'm not going crazy! I could've SWORN that I saw a backpack in that one corner years ago, but after no avail of finding it in a map editor, I concluded that I was either getting senile, or it was just another awesome DooM dream.

Weird, what other updates are in the '96 version? I thought my version was the last one, as my Ultimate DooM copy is 1.666

Cyanosis said:

MAP03: The Gauntlet, there is a backpack secret in the blue key area near the other secret with goodies. The lower wall can be used after you've finished the area. This backpack secret is not in the '94 version.

Now this is the thing that confused me while I was reading at the wiki there is this secret :S.

Also, MAP32 has many secrets. In 94 they aren't marked as a secret while in the 96 they are. MAP31+MAP16 (I think) are also the same. Where do I get this patch?

I remember in Doom that in E1M9 there was a secret door at one of the stairs found by demo, which I think it is from shareware, now I don't find it.

Mr. T said:

I miss the silver bars ;-(

Carmack sold them so he could pimp out his ferrari some more...

WTF? I had never seen map02 without the silver bars before, nor the shotgun guys stuck on the walls, neither the plasma gun in map01... I'm gonna have to check my IWAD's version when I get home.

Is thier any utility that can check the version of your IWAD files? I'm really curious, as I've never had a problem with my Ultimate DooM IWAD file, but I know that my DooM 2 file has the metal bars in Map 2.

Just get yourself one of those freeware tools that compute the MD5 hashes of files, and look here.

Or maybe this.

Well, i'm glad I have v.1.666.

quite the opposite for me.

I'm not use (nor do I like) the silver bars. The first time I played DOOM2 (on xbox when I got doom3 RoE) there weren't any. And when I did so on PC (steam) there still weren't. And with Zdoom at the time (I was in 7th grade, I believe) when I first learned how to play WADs, I still never saw them.

I have seen them only recently after doing the traditional "download all my doom crap back"

The backpack in Map03 is most interesting to me. I always thought that wall in the former sergeant ambush should have been a secret. This is the first time I knew that it originally was

Mr. T said:

I miss the silver bars ;-(

I still have the version with the silver bars ;)

Snakes said:

I'm personally a fan of the linedef changes on Map14 near the soulsphere/arachnotron room... If you look hard enough, you might actually see what I'm talking about (at least I think that's right)

I tried to run doompatcher but I'm getting this problem. What was changed?

The last version of the classic Doom games is v1.9. My Doom II copy looks like this:



It wasn't until I got another copy of the Doom II IWAD (too lazy at the time to install it via my disc) that I didn't expect there to be silver bars or the backpack secret missing.

I know a number of PWADs (notably some megawads and partial/total covnersions) wanted Doom II patched at 1.9 to work.

EDIT: Interesting, on that last vid Gez posted, toward the end. The PSX version must be based on 1.7a as that's how that trigger works on there, it's easier on PC 1.9.

In my experience, Doom 2 CDs are either 1.666 for DOS or 1.9 for Win95. Whatever other PC releases are floating around (such as the French version) seem to be uncommon - verging on rare.

This thread made me realize that I've got v1.666 of Doom 2 on my PC. Surprising that I did not know this until know.

I guess it makes sense, though, since I'm pretty sure I got my Doom 2 CD between 1995 and 1996 or so (I forget which year, but I doubt it was in '94) and I never patched the WAD file.

No Backpack secret (I didn't know it existed until today) and silver bars in Underhalls, good stuff.