Hexen modding

[Necros20]

Just thought I'd ask, how much general interest is there for Hexen mapping around here?

[Bloodshedder]

We get a handful of Heretic maps a year, and I can't remember when the last Hexen map was released.

[GreyGhost]

Hexen appears to be "the game the community forgot". The archive's most recent maps were accepted 21 months ago, which might suggest there's not much interest. Then again - a new project might spark some interest.
Maybe have a "Hexen Awareness Week" - and I'm only half joking about that.

Clarification - the newest Hexen map was accepted 23 months ago - the most recent submission is a pair of `95 maps!

[Nuxius]

And keep in mind that was just a modified Doom 2 map. So are the levels in the upload before that, "Ressurection of Chaos" by Udderdude.

The last wholly original 'made solely for Hexen' map is "Riverwood Village" by CodenniumRed, which dates back to July 2004.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=12733

[Enjay]

GreyGhost said:

Hexen appears to be "the game the community forgot".

I dunno, compare the number of Hexen mods to the number of Strife mods. I know there are circumstances surrounding that, but Strife has to be the most poorly supported by add on WADs. It's not been long since the mention of Strife on these forums would get a bunch of people saying "what's Strife" and even now I bet most people own Doom (in many of its forms), Heretic and Hexen but there will still be a lot of people without a copy of Strife.

[Enjay]

Nuxius said:

The last wholly original 'made solely for Hexen' map is "Riverwood Village" by CodenniumRed, which dates back to July 2004.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=12733

LilWhiteMouse released "Wolfen" for Hexen under Zdoom in August of that year.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=12365

IMO, it's the best Hexen mod to date. Unfortunately, the version in the archives is broken under newer versions of Zdoom.

This topic at Zdoom discuses the new fixed version and provides a link:

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=15414&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

File

http://home.midmaine.com/~lilwhitemo/wolfen.zip

That should work in the latest Zdoom. Well, I played it a few days ago anyway.

[edit] Hang on, stupid MM/DD/YY dates, it wasn't August. Who decided that Medium, smallest, biggest units was the best way to arrange a date? o_O [/edit]

[Necros20]

It seems to me that the number of pwads each game has is really based on
how well known the game is. i.e. Strife has so few pwads because hardly anyone here knows about it. Doom 2 on the other hand has so many pwads because pretty much everyone here knows about it.

[printz]

I think a reason that Hexen is less popular than Heretic can be the rather annoying monsters. Too many meleers and too much slow-motion bruising stuff, unlike Heretic's action-packed sabreclaw and ironlich infested domes.

Strife may be even less popular because of its complexity. Also for its faulty monsters and items? There are too many low-damage sharpshooters and ammo-consuming robots, as well as odd guns (a three-burst machinegun and a low-damage rocket launcher?). Also the strange textures. I can't tell easily among so many supports and black masses.

I have a feeling there'll be more Doom 2 wads with Hexen textures than Hexen pwads.

[DaniJ]

Back in the day I got the chance to play Strife at a friends house. After about 45mins I gave up due to abject boredom.

It wasn't until fairly recently that I decided to give the game another chance using Kaiser's SVStrife. This time around I actually ended up quite enjoying it.

My point is that back then, compared to DOOM and Heretic; I found Strife such a snooze-fest that I can fully understand why it might be ignored by the mod making fraternity.

[Enjay]

My experience with Strife was similar. I'd got used to fast-paced shooters and when I got the Strife demo off a cover disk, I installed it expecting something the same. A Dooom engined game had to pretty much like Doom - right? I completed the demo but wasn't motivated to buy it. A decision I was to regret years later when it took me months to track down a copy to buy. Now I think it is a cracking game, but it does have some flaws. The comments about the weapons already made are fair points. How much better would Strife have been with a weapon something equivalent to the Doom shotty?

As for Hexen, for me its weakest point is only 4 weapons per game. To play through that many levels with such slow weapon progression against so many enemies is just tedious IMO.

Also, less so with Hexen, but both games were kind of behind the technology curve. By the time we were being encouraged to buy Strife, half of us were looking towards Duke and Quake.

[Nuxius]

Enjay said:

LilWhiteMouse released "Wolfen" for Hexen under Zdoom in August of that year.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=12365

No, that was released in January of that year, before the one I posted.

Enjay said:[edit] Hang on, stupid MM/DD/YY dates, it wasn't August. Who decided that Medium, smallest, biggest units was the best way to arrange a date? o_O [/edit] [/B]

You mean to tell me in all the time you've been on US based websites on the internet, you haven't figured that out before now? o_O; :p
(yes, I know you were being sarcastic)

[The Ultimate DooMer]

There's an old thread somewhere that has Heretic episodes/Hexen hubs listed in it, see if you can find it. I found something like 10 hubs in the archives with a few maps in, plus ofc LWM's Wolfen (which is the only post-vanilla hub I know of)

(edit: oops, and Ichor's Fury_ch1/ch2 for JHexen, this one is actually a megawad-in-progress)

GreyGhost said:

Maybe have a "Hexen Awareness Week" - and I'm only half joking about that.

Maybe that'll come when I finally finish my megawad ;) (hopefully by the end of this year)

[myk]

In addition to being less popular than the DOOM games, Hexen is both more complex and feels more "finished", thus modding has a smaller user base, more work to do, and more to live up to. That should explain why historically it has few mods, though nowadays it has more chances since more advanced tools exist to make work easier, and some advanced engines took its source (Doomsday, ZDoom, &c), making its features more familiar (especially in ZDoom's case, that uses the features in DOOM).