How do you play a megawad?

[jan__64]

Hi

I'm new here, I played Doom on and off in the last 12 years. Currently I started again playing some megawads. I completed Icarus of Team TNT recently and I am currently playing Eternal Doom III now.

I for myself go through a megawad, saving and dying a lot. And I always try to find all secrets and get all kills. But this can be very time consuming so I have rather slow progress. But I only use cheats when I have the feeling the level is unfair (e.g. 3 Cybers protect the exit etc.).

So, I was wondering how you play a new/unknown megawad (of decent quality). Do you just run through all levels? Do you want to find all secrets and have all kills? Do you save often/never? Do you start levels with a pistol always? Do you use cheats?

Cheers

jan__64

[Kristian Ronge]

I play the maps individually from pistol start, on UV, max style (i.e. all reachable monsters dead upon exit, and maximum amount of secrets found). I usually do the maps in order, from e.g. 1-32, or ExM1-ExM9, but this is no hard rule; sometimes I check out "popular" maps first. I don't use savegames or cheats... if I can't find all the secrets or monsters, I exit anyway, check the map in an editor, and then replay it, getting the maximum amount of kills and secrets. Time consuming, but rewarding. :-)

EDIT: Spelling.

[Bashe]

Oh, I thought this thread was how to run the wad. :Þ

When I'm really interested in a wad, I will play it on UV with saves, not trying to get all secrets or kills but just getting through it. If I just wanna do a few levels, I'll play until I die and then quit.

I only cheat when I have NO IDEA how to finish the level and have done basically everything possible to try to figure it out and nothing works. I have only done it once so far.

[Epyo]

See how many levels I can get to the exit on before I get bored, on UV. I save about every 30 seconds, to prevent the agony I would have to endure by playing parts of the level I have already played before.

Once I'm thoroughly covered in boredom (probably by level 5-7) I'll just level skip, and play the first 5 seconds of every level, just to see what they look like, in case there's any cool looking ones, because it would be a shame to miss a map like requiem's thirteenth.

[Sporku]

Most of the time I start playing through a megawad I play through a few maps only to give up and quit playing, not bothering to save. (AV, HR, HR2, etc.) Sometimes I'll actually play through a few maps, save, and then come back and play the rest later, although it's usually more likely that I'll never finish it.

On very, very rare circumstance you may find me play through an entire Megawad all in one sitting. Actually, the only megawad I can think of off the top of my head that I've done that with is Scythe 2, by Erik Alm. That WAD somehow managed to keep me entertained through all of its maps.

I much prefer an episode layout, so you can easily play a WAD in moderation. You can play through an episode, quit, and then just come back and play the other episodes later.

[Epyo]

^your cool

[Lutrov71]

Epyo said:

^your cool

Agreed. :D

I dont play through megawads very often, I just read the txt file, see who made what maps and I'd just go through playing the maps I want to play. If map26 looks good, I'd play that first.

[myk]

Kristian Ronge said:
I play the maps individually from pistol start, on UV,

I do that, generally, but not necessarily killing all the monsters... still the best measure that a wad is well made is gotten by try each map by itself, and then maybe an episode or the whole thing if it's worth it. But using saves is really dull and I do it only if the wad has some issues (like Castle Phobos, for example that didn't play well on a map by map basis all the way.) I used to play by saving at the start of each map (or the end) but like that you don't get a good impression of each map.

[Negatronica]

I load Armas19.wad with whatever I'm playing and start blowing the crap out of everything. If the author makes something annoying like a trap of 20 revenants then I put on god mode and IDFA and blow the shit out of anything that moves with that nuclear BFG.

[RandomMarine]

AgentSpork said:

On very, very rare circumstance you may find me play through an entire Megawad all in one sitting. Actually, the only megawad I can think of off the top of my head that I've done that with is Scythe 2, by Erik Alm. That WAD somehow managed to keep me entertained through all of its maps.

I much prefer an episode layout, so you can easily play a WAD in moderation. You can play through an episode, quit, and then just come back and play the other episodes later.

You played through scythe2 all the way probably because it had its own episode system even though it did not any actual episodes to select at the beginning *Every five maps you ended up telefragging a barrel that killed both you and a John Romero head at the end of the map*

[Sporku]

RandomMarine said:

You played through scythe2 all the way probably because it had its own episode system even though it did not any actual episodes to select at the beginning *Every five maps you ended up telefragging a barrel that killed both you and a John Romero head at the end of the map*

Yeah, I quite liked the idea used with Scythe 2's psuedo-episode system. That, and the totally awesome looking maps and great gameplay kept me interested all the way through. I can't think of one single map in Scythe 2 that I didn't like.

[Lutrov71]

I didn't like map28 that much. :(

[shotgunmasacre2]

Lutrov71 said:

I didn't like map28 that much. :(

Yeah and 29 and 30, but I really hated Map09 just becuase it was so stupid.

Anyways, i like to play the levels that sound fun, or that I have heard good things from. I also like to run through the levels from a pistol start to see how far I can get without a save game. Or if I feel like it I will play the hardest levels in a megawad from a pistol start and see how far I can get on those(damn you HR2 Map32!!!!!! 1700 enemies from the start and like 200,000,000,000 by the end)