Some questions about an open-world Doom RPG

[Shiruban]

Hello everyone!

I am quite new to the community and have some questions. These are very general questions, the answer is not supposed to be technical at all, basically i just want to know if these things would be possible, in order to began working on the map.

(please forgive me if some seem so obvious to the veterans, I tried searching the forum but 17 years of Doom result in a very large amount of topics)

I - Is it possible to add PNJs to the game? Let's say PNJs that speaks when "used". When I say speak, A single pop-up with text would please me.

II - Is it possible to remove the green teleport effect when teleporting?

III - Is it possible to create a leveling system? The simplest of all would be enough, rewarding the player with XP each time he kills a monster (each kind of monster giving a different amount). When the amount is sufficient, the player gains a level and would do a little more damage and would have a little more HP.

My goal is not to change the Doom gameplay, but rather to try to add exploration to it. There would be a lot of different locations to discover. In fact it's all about bringing all that you already know and have seen in Doom into one world. With the rewarding aspect of building your character. Instead of loading a different WAD each time, you continue seemlessly.

I can't express myself as well as I would like to, because I'm French, so I'll do it another way, I'll try to describe what I have in mind about what the gameplay would be and how the player would progress in the game.
I have no scenario in mind whatsoever, and I don't feel like it needs one, like I said, it's still Doom! Although this does not mean that there would be no backgroung nor coherence.
At first I thought about the leveling system with the idea of doing a "Doom Diablo-like". It's basically the same thing now, but with a much larger scope.
(In Diablo you are in a very small village with a handful of PNJs and their respective home, and you goal is to go investigate inside the local church where undead appeared. The game consists in 16 floors down the church, ending in Hell where you fight ... Diablo! Somewhat VERY appropriate background story for Doom I thought.)

So, back to what I was trying to explain. This is all for the exemple's sake. The game would begin in a village with a few PNJs to help you learn about the surrounding locations then you can go explore a bit. You're with your fist only for now, so you can't venture in dangerous places. You would find some small places around to begin with, things like abandonned houses, little caves etc ... You'll find a better weapon and maybe gain a level, so now you can venture farther, let's say you find a haunted mine along your way, you explore it a little but it becomes too hard so you head back for now and continue exploring and decide to enter a tower you found. It's easy enough at the beginning and you gain some levels as you make your way to the top. You find plenty of ammo and a new weapon up there. So now you can go back to the mine and maybe explore a little bit further. Then you continue exploring and find another village. You explore its surrounding and find a beautiful waterfall, and behind the falling water you find a secret cave going down and down. At the bottom you find a strange glowing pentagram on the floor. Walk on it and you're teleported in a Hell-based level.
And so on ... Forever?

You see a huge castle up a mountain. Well, I want you to imagine your favorite castle-themed WAD as what inside this castle would be like. You see a huge mansion, imagine your favorite mansion-themed WAD inside it. You get the idea! Keeping in mind the experience system for a progressive experience. Meaning that better player can advance further with a low level than others, while others can play at their pace, killing weaker monsters in easier locations, taking the time to build up their character to be resistent enough to venture further. More importantly, this system allows for a constant challenge, since you choose where you want to go, and thus the difficulty.

If what I have in mind is makeable, I would be very thrilled! If some other people like the idea, this could end up in a great community project, and maybe an experience a little bit deeper than the usual Doom gameplay.

It's a long post I'm sorry.

[Chopkinsca]

I'll just say this: with source ports, this is very possible to do. Of course, it would take a lot of work.

[Shiruban]

chopkinsca said:

I'll just say this: with source ports, this is very possible to do. Of course, it would take a lot of work.

Thank you for the answer! That's what I think, since I tried to ask the minimum. I'm beginning to work on it seriously then. If anyone is interested with the idea, I'd like all the help I can get. The more the merrier.

[Ahcruna]

I've been working on something similar the past years, but it's not as extreme as you just described and it's single player only.

[Shiruban]

Ahcruna said:

I've been working on something similar the past years, but it's not as extreme as you just described and it's single player only.

Indeed, I would love to make it co-op compatible, but for now, I think about it as a single player thing though, since I don't have the knowledge to think about co-op compatibility. Can you tell me about what you are working on?

[Ahcruna]

It's basically like Hexen2, but with only 1 big hub and stats multipliers to mimic a leveling system. the later is very rough and I'm pretty sure some one else here knows a better method of simulating it, or even actually make a real exp system like in Korax mod.

The reason it's single-player is because it has heavily scripted maps (which was a dumb thing to do from the start)

[Shiruban]

Ahcruna said:

It's basically like Hexen2, but with only 1 big hub and stats multipliers to mimic a leveling system. the later is very rough and I'm pretty sure some one else here knows a better method of simulating it, or even actually make a real exp system like in Korax mod.

The reason it's single-player is because it has heavily scripted maps (which was a dumb thing to do from the start)

I'm going to check Korax, thank you! And good luck with your project.

I think I'll try to edit the first post with a more precise decision of what I want to do. Because I don't want to do this alone, I don't want to map every locations, this would be too long and I think I'm really not up to the standard of quality for the moment. I would love it to be a community based project.

I'm working on a very mini-WAD to try to demonstrate the idea.

EDIT : I've checked out Korax, and it's exactly what I want! I'm going to contact them as soon as I can! Thanks again for pointing that out, as I said, i'm quite new in the Doom community!
In fact now that I know that a leveling system is possible, I don't see anything stopping me from doing this! Well ... I do have some question about HUBs but I'll start searching about it in the Wiki first.

EDIT II :

Ok I've got it all "figured out". Now it's clear where I want this to go. So here's my new question : Where should I talk about it in detail and ask for help ? If really no one is interested I could do it all myself except creating the leveling system wich is way out of my league. And doing it alone would mean greatly reduce it due to some lack of knowledge. So I really need help.
I'm kind of new to forums too, so I dunno if I should post another topic detailing it, or if I should edit the first post or if maybe I should go completely elsewhere? Thanks.