Building an original DOOM LAN

[myk]

kmiller1610 said:
My buddy and I are working on finishing TNT and FINALLY had a session last week. You were right. The problem was Doomenu. By using the command line, we were able to go right to any level. (We are now at 28).

Yeah, that seemed likely. Glad to hear you got over the issue!

[kmiller1610]

In our first 4 player Lan Party since last year, we played 8 levels of Neowolfload (sp?) and all 10 levels of Bitchin 97. A good time was had by all.

However I have a question for you Doom2 wad experts.

Before the party, I googled best "cooperative mode Doom2 wads" and found a bunch of likely candidates, all of which are newer than my current list of wads, that date back to 1997-1998. or so. We are still running 1.66 and I noticed that the newer wads run on something other than that. Anyway, none of the newer wads run on my LAN.

Should I upgrade my version of DOOM? Will it make my older wads inoperable?

[SonicIce]

kmiller1610 said:

In our first 4 player Lan Party since last year, we played 8 levels of Neowolfload (sp?) and all 10 levels of Bitchin 97. A good time was had by all.

However I have a question for you Doom2 wad experts.

Before the party, I googled best "cooperative mode Doom2 wads" and found a bunch of likely candidates, all of which are newer than my current list of wads, that date back to 1997-1998. or so. We are still running 1.66 and I noticed that the newer wads run on something other than that. Anyway, none of the newer wads run on my LAN.

Should I upgrade my version of DOOM? Will it make my older wads inoperable?

as far as i know there is no reason not to upgrade to v1.9, and it shouldn't break any of your other wads

[Quasar]

SonicIce said:

as far as i know there is no reason not to upgrade to v1.9, and it shouldn't break any of your other wads

Some very old wads may have non-v1.9 demos in them, and you'll find the game exits if you allow them to play. That's about the only time a PWAD can cause a compatibility problem when you upgrade the IWAD.

[kmiller1610]

Quasar said:

Some very old wads may have non-v1.9 demos in them, and you'll find the game exits if you allow them to play. That's about the only time a PWAD can cause a compatibility problem when you upgrade the IWAD.

Thanks. I do have 1.9 for Ultimate Doom, which has "Hideous Strength" but the last time I tried it for Doom 2, I had problems. But that was again, probably in the late 1990s.

Guess I'll experiment. Thanks for the help!

[Clonehunter]

kmiller1610 said:

http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu176/kmiller1610/P1010014.jpg

That is a dickish way to play with the keyboard. :\

[kmiller1610]

Clonehunter said:

That is a dickish way to play with the keyboard. :\

Actually, I play with a gravis gamepad, but the other three members of our group play keyboard. They were quite efficient, dealing with waves of enemies.

I played the early versions of Doom under Windows and I can play dozens of FPS games with a mouse. That's why I gave it up. I really prefer the gamepad to recreate the original feeling of the game.

[kmiller1610]

Does anyone know how to get a non-commercial wad to load under Doom Legacy? (under XP)

It will load Doom2, TNT, Plutonia, but I can't get any of the other wads advertised to work to load.

[kmiller1610]

kmiller1610 said:

Does anyone know how to get a non-commercial wad to load under Doom Legacy? (under XP)

It will load Doom2, TNT, Plutonia, but I can't get any of the other wads advertised to work to load.

Answered my own question. Zdoom and ZDL make it all easy, plus it looks and feels a lot more like original Doom. Doom Legacy isn't really even close. I still prefer the wads of the late 1990s plus vanilla / DOS Doom, but the new wads under Zdoom are certainly fun.

[FooAtari]

kmiller1610 said:

I played the early versions of Doom under Windows and I can play dozens of FPS games with a mouse. That's why I gave it up. I really prefer the gamepad to recreate the original feeling of the game.

Hasn't Doom always had mouse support?

[kmiller1610]

FooAtari said:

Hasn't Doom always had mouse support?

Yeah and it felt wrong then too. The whole point of Doom is the adrenaline rush of impending death. When you can whip 50 pound weapons around that fast and run like Bob Hayes on Red Bull, what is the point? Ho Hum. Not scary anymore.

[kmiller1610]

We had another Lan party yesterday, using my vanilla Doom Dos LAN. A good time was had by all.

But we ran into problems with Icarus wad on level 6. We skipped the level and the whole thing crashed on level 10 or so.

After reading the wad notes, I realized the 32 levels were designed for Doom 1.9. I am still running 1.66 so that explains some of the problems. The version of Doomenu I am using does not support 1.9.

Yes, I know. You think I should "upgrade" to XP and just use Zdoom.

But I am stubborn. Does anyone know of any reliable wad loaders or menuing systems that work under Dos and Doom 1.9?

Yes, I know. Use the command line. But that's a little tough with a group of 4 when two of them are young teenagers.

Any thoughts are welcomed.

[aleksej]

kmiller1610, supplied DeathManager (DM.EXE) maybe? Quite flexible and usable.

[kmiller1610]

aleksej said:

kmiller1610, supplied DeathManager (DM.EXE) maybe? Quite flexible and usable.

Thanks so much for the suggestion. I'll try it. Yesterday, I upgraded one of the machines to 1.9 and it ran the level we hung on flawlessly. The command line isn't too bad loading the program, but I will try DM to see what it can do.

[kmiller1610]

kmiller1610 said:

I'll try it. Yesterday, I upgraded one of the machines to 1.9 and it ran the level we hung on flawlessly. The command line isn't too bad loading the program, but I will try DM to see what it can do.

Death Manager works adequately. It's not as fast as doomenu, but if you are going to devote a day with three others to vanilla doom gaming, it certainly gets the job done.