Fill me in please

[DMFDxUconn]

Im not new to DooM. But i am new to the community. Im one of those guys whos been playing DooM games steadily for the past 10 years. Ive only recently tapped into the PC realm of DooM games. I have the warez version, to be honest, i thought thats all there was to the PC version. I thought it was an exclusive console game. I guess if i had done a little research i would have known, but finding the game how i did in the 1st place is what lead me to believe it was a warez only game for the PC. After registering here ive found that to be untrue. I cant believe the size of this community and everything in it. Ive been spending the past week or so reading tons of posts, especially the stories people write... good stuff guys.

So tell me, how do i get into all this? I know the first thing i have to do is go and buy the games, but i see talk about all kinds of mods and new levels and whatnot. Whats the best mod out there, for which version of DooM? Where should i start when buying the game.. i want the mods. Ive played all the DooM games through and through dozens of times.. what do i need to get the mods people talk about here? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanx in advance :)

[boris]

On what console did you play Doom 10 years ago?

[DMFDxUconn]

Sega Genesis 32X

[ellmo]

DMFDxUconn said:

(...) what do i need to get the mods people talk about here? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanx in advance :)

First, go to zdoom.org/ and download teh latest ZDoom source port. I will not talk to you before you do so :P

[Grazza]

Please don't just pimp your favourite port when people ask for general advice. We've seen way too many times what happens then. Popular ports include Legacy, jDoom, Zdoom, ZdoomGL, Prboom, Eternity, Skulltag, Zdaemon, EDGE and Vavoom.

Anyway, look here for links to general information, FAQs, ports (including those mentioned above) and levels.

And read this if you haven't already.

[deathbringer]

Yep, general advice is to get the most popular ports, Zdoom (make sure you get the latest version, currently 63a.cab in the "2.0 versions" page, the old 1.22 is out of date), Legacy (its launcher is good if you dont know how to make batch files/shortcuts) and some of the other ones. If you dont know Ports run doom in high resolutions, let you add better effects when you're editing (and see those effects when you're playing), and let you use the mouse, jump and other things, they also run better under windows. Most wads released these days WILL CRASH in normal doom, or doom 95. Then hunt down some editors, nearly everybody in the doom community edits for the game, instead of just playing it. Have a play about with Doom Builder, Wintex and Dehacked/Whacked, and see what you can make..even if you dont wanna release stuff or 'get into' editing, its just interesting. Finally hit doomworld.com/idgames and start downloading wads!, be sure to read the text files so you know what port to use though (old wads from before 1998 or so are called 'vanilla wads', and will run with normal doom, or any port)

[chilvence]

You know, theres gonna be so many newbies dropping in soon, that someone might want to make some kind of introduction to source ports page that we can wave in front of them. Something that links the most popular/active ports and some example wads to play them with...

[ellmo]

Grazza said:

Please don't just pimp your favourite port when people ask for general advice. We've seen way too many times what happens then. Popular ports include Legacy, jDoom, Zdoom, ZdoomGL, Prboom, Eternity, Skulltag, Zdaemon, EDGE and Vavoom.

Oh come on, chill out. It was a joke. But I really think that ZDoom is the first Port to be tried. It's the easiest one to get around with (IMO)...

[chilvence]

Thing is, there will be arguments, and then Grazza or someone else has to clean up the fallout. Its best to pre-emptively avoid them.

[Grazza]

ellmo said:

Oh come on, chill out. It was a joke.

Whatever, lots of threads have been crapped up by this sort of stuff, joke or not.

chilvence: I agree that a good, impartial, user-friendly introduction to the main ports, utilities, how to run wads, etc., would be a nice feature. The current info in the main DW pages (which I linked to) is fine in so far as it goes, but will still leave some people scratching their head.

[Sephiroth]

yea slo the original doom(2).exe may not work in win2000/XP.
if you use those operating systems just get a port, most any will do. dont bother messing with DOS emulators.
you choice of ports is many, but by far the most popular is zdoom.

DONT use the doom95 port! this one is terrible. it usally comes with the games. it has many issues ontop of the original bugs found in the doom.exe

[pritch]

Grazza is right to point out that there are lots of ports to try out but my humble opinion is zdoom is currently the one to recommend because it's under continuous development and is the one people make the most port-specific wads for. These are at least facts, and hopefully if we stick to facts we can't go far wrong.

Of course other ports have their own features as well, and as you don't have to pay for these, why not try, and use, them all?

[Demon Hunter]

boris said:

On what console did you play Doom 10 years ago?

I played doom on the sega 32x. It was my first game console and I had a bunch of other games that came with it. I started looking through them and I came across one inpaticular. It was DOOM. I spent most of my time cleaning the cartridge in stead of playing. good times.
Oh it was like 6 years ago I started playing DOOM

[Linguica]

http://www.doomworld.com/10years/bestwads/ and disappear for a few years

[Mogul]

Err yeah, DOOM wasn't out on a console ten years ago. :D DOOM II wasn't even out ten years ago, at the very moment of this writing.

[DMFDxUconn]

mje said:

Err yeah, DOOM wasn't out on a console ten years ago. :D DOOM II wasn't even out ten years ago, at the very moment of this writing.

You dont know your DooM than.
DooM 32x Page

[Darkman 4]

From Gamefaqs info page:

Release date: 12/02/94

Whoops.

[chilvence]

User submitted FAQ on Gamespot says:

Moving around in DOOM is actually easier then it might seem when you first
strap on your combat armor. And the many ways that you can move in the game
helps novice players a lot, because to dodge a fire-ball you don't need to
"STRAFE" you can RUN foward under the fire-ball or turn and run.

Heh.

[Scuba Steve]

Linguica said:

http://www.doomworld.com/10years/bestwads/ and disappear for a few years

WHERE IS ACTION DOOM!??/

[Grazza]

I was thinking of making a "Best Wads of 2004 So Far" thread, but was too damned lazy.

[Giest118]

Scuba Steve said:

WHERE IS ACTION DOOM!??/

Action Doom was released after Doom's 10th birthday...

[engineer]

Gee thanks, Private Obvious! You are now promoted to Captain.

[DMFDxUconn]

You all talk like to me like you assume i have done this before.

I havnt. I told you all, i never knew about a pc version of doom, let alone a mod for it, or whatever you call it.

What is a WAD? What are ports? How do i use them to play DooM? Like i said, i have a copy of DooM on my PC. But after finding this community, im attempting to go legit. I dont have the slightest idea what to do with the files so many of you told me to get.

In a nutshell, all replies to my initial post are greek to me.

[Use]

Hmm, well a .wad file is a container that holds the game data, like artwork and map layouts and sounds. wad files can contain all of these things, or just some of these things.
Ports are a modification of the game engine, which puts all the stuff in a wad file to work. To use a port, you need a few wad files, the first being doom.wad or doom2.wad. These are called iwads, and they're needed to make a port run. the other wad files you need are any mods or user desgined levels you want to play. These are called pwads, which means they only work if you have an iwad.

If you don't have a PC version of DOOM, you won't have any iwads and can't use a port. If you buy the Doom Collectors Edition, then the iwads are somewhere on the cd, and you can use them in your new port, and play the game with enhancements, and play many mods and user designed levels. PortS are free, and can be downloaded at any time. The iwads, or game data, are not free, so you need those before you do anything else.

Edit:

Okay so you have Doom installed on your computer? Then you go here

http://www.zdoom.org/download.html

And download the zdoom port. Sure there are a few others but we're trying not to confuse you with those. Once it's downloaded, extract the package to a new folder, call it Zdoom, and locate your old Doom installation. You're looking for a file called doom.wad or doom2.wad, depending on if you have doom2, or just orgininal doom. When you locate this file, copy it into the new zdoom folder.

Now in windows, using your RUN box in the Start menu, type:

c:\zdoom\zdoom.exe -iwad doom.wad (or -iwad doom2.wad for doom2)

and hit okay. You should be all set and playing Doom in your new port.

[Demigod]

I was in a simialar position as you about a year ago,and perhaps I can help you get started.

you only need two things to play doom :

a source port: doom legacy,zdaemon,zdoom,prboom,eternity engine,jdoom,vavoom,boom,glboom,skulltag,zdoomgl

all of these are free.

a iwad: doom.wad,doom1.wad,doom2.wad,tnt.wad,plutonia.wad,freedom.wad

if your using windows xp it might not have .wad at the end

ok so what you want to do is download a source port,I would suggest doom legacy if your kind of new to computers and don't know how to use the command line.It also has very good documentation and is very easy to use.jdoom and vavoom are also very easy to use.

then make a folder put doom legacy(or another source port) in there and doom2.wad(or any of the others listed in iwads)

then run legacy or whatever

this includes most of the ports and also a launcher for them all it's worth a look as long as your not on dial-up ;):

http://kingdoom.de.vu/

each of the source ports have different features, jdoom tends to focus on graphics while zdoom adds a whole slew of new things that previously were not possible.Just remember to give each source port a look before thinking it sucks.Most people who have been around for a while, prefer zdoom because pound for pound it has the most features.

[Mogul]

DMFDxUconn said:

You dont know your DooM than.
DooM 32x Page

Dude, ten years ago, the 32X version was not out. December, honey bun, December.

And really -- no offense, but for someone such as yourself to tell me that I don't know DOOM is silly. :)

[Stealthy Ivan]

Grazza said:

Please don't just pimp your favourite port when people ask for general advice.

Heh... Hell no pimp hoe's!!!
Not ports, duh...
j/k
<--- forum asshole :P

[Scuba Steve]

Giest118 said:

Action Doom was released after Doom's 10th birthday...

[Mogul]

Actually, the person that posted that is completely wrong. Action Doom has been around since 1994 or 1995 I think. I remember playing it on my dad's old 486.

Can anybody confirm this?





...

[Bashe]

Okay...in that case, I've been playing Wolfenstein since the 1960s, and I was born in 1990.

Okay, WTF?