Was Doom 2: Hell on Earth just an expansion pack?

[Snakes]

Doomhuntress said:

If anyone can recommend any good video recording software, I swear I'll make a video of me doing so and posting it on Youtube.

Why not just just upload a demo online?

[Varis Alpha]

I'm not really comfortable playing Doom without the ability to freelook.

Fraps... I'll try that tomorrow and see how it goes.

[40oz]

Technician said:

The game has a new weapon, a new item, and a few cool monsters. That's about it.

Yeah it's a shame it didn't come with new levels or textures or significant change in plot or atmosphere or anything.

[Varis Alpha]

Maes said:

I don't get why you doubt Doomhuntress, it's definitively possible to beat E2M8 tyson style, and recently there was even a novel trick introduced to speed it up below the previous compet-n 5+ minutes record. I need to remind myself to actually attempt it myself at least once.

What trick could that be?

[Maes]

Doomhuntress said:

What trick could that be?

Can't find the exact video right now, but it involved getting the Lost Souls to land some (well, plenty) of free hits on the cyberdemon while you kept it busy by dodging and tysoning. If done properly, the Lost Souls actually tried to target Doomguy but were blocked by the cyberdemon and so it got hit all the time, and that extra damage allowed to defeat it in a considerably shorter time than the official UV TYson record (in 5 minutes vs 28 minutes).

[Varis Alpha]

Ah. That's kind of how I did to kill it; what I did was, getting a Lost Soul damaged by the Cyber's rocket splash damage, then pummeled the Cyber with occasional pistol shots so that the Lost Soul could eat away several thousands of it's health.

[Maes]

Yes, but imagine this pulled out in the most optimal way possible: getting the lost souls to land several bites, almost continuously, and keeping the cyberdemon damaged so that he would not turn against the lost souls too soon. This racked up some decent damage pretty quickly. It's really a pity I can't find that video (or .lmp?) again

[Grazza]

Doom was an incomplete prototype, and Doom 2 was the finished product.

[Varis Alpha]

Maes said:

Yes, but imagine this pulled out in the most optimal way possible: getting the lost souls to land several bites, almost continuously, and keeping the cyberdemon damaged so that he would not turn against the lost souls too soon. This racked up some decent damage pretty quickly. It's really a pity I can't find that video (or .lmp?) again

Now THAT sounds like an excellent strategy... I have to try that out.

[Marnetmar]

Grazza said:

Doom was an incomplete prototype, and Doom 2 was the finished product.

No.

[Alphawolf]

Doomhuntress said:

Now THAT sounds like an excellent strategy... I have to try that out.

There is another similar stategy, it will require some balls though and will smash the record. You could theoretically do it in 3 minutes, if you can pull it off.

Marnetmar said:

No.

I have to agree, Ultimate Doom was exactly that. Doom 2 in my opinion is just an addition to Doom 1, more over an echo of gameplay from the original. The original is much more fun.

[Snakes]

Marnetmar said:

No.

An elegant, well-thought, and complete reply.

Seriously, Doom 2 is, to me, the more complete game. It isn't structured as properly as Doom, but it's increase in monster variety and overall better map design make it a stronger product than the original.

As a matter of fact, it's structure changes so completely that it can't be considered an expansion pack by any means. The fact that they dropped episodes entirely changes the entire game. What's more, there's a whole different feel to the wad as a whole. Atmosphere, locale, stylistic choices... Expansion packs, to me, are a smaller addition to what already exits. Doom 2 was a whole different beast altogether.

[Memfis]

Doomhuntress said:

I'm not really comfortable playing Doom without the ability to freelook.

Prboom-plus have freelook. Turn "Extended demo format" on, and then your movements on Y-axis will even be recorded in the demo.

[Varis Alpha]

Alphawolf said:

There is another similar stategy, it will require some balls though and will smash the record. You could theoretically do it in 3 minutes, if you can pull it off.

How?

Memfis said:

Prboom-plus have freelook. Turn "Extended demo format" on, and then your movements on Y-axis will even be recorded in the demo.

Really? I didn't know that.

[bimlanders]

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but it was standard for id to release a commercial followup immediately after a shareware release. Given this pattern, in retrospect no one should be surprised by the fact that Doom 2 was mainly more of the same. But then I really didn't care. I was stoked to have a bunch more Doom to play!

[Fluffles]

I always treated Doom 2 like a whole new game really. Yeah all it really is is new textures and guns etc but tbh if they would of changed too much or updated it abit they could of easily ruined the doom experiance. Just look at Doom 3 compared to Doom 2 heh.

[40oz]

I don't think the world would have really accepted the way Doom 2's and Final Doom's gameplay panned out if it weren't for doom 1's existence though. Doom 1's maps are significantly different in the way they are played than Doom 2 is. Doom 1 is much more generous with ammo and the monsters aren't as threatening as they could be. Doom 2 and Final Doom were much different and really required you to actually be good at the game to get very far. Doom 1 is somewhat akin to your usual modern day rail shooters in the sense that imps and demons are your most prominent monsters and they are easily taken out with a couple of shotgun shells which are generously spotted everywhere in every map. In Doom 2 and Final Doom you are often staged with very dangerous monsters at the start and (assuming the maps are played from a pistol start) and you usually have to rely on the skills you gain like utilizing the player's speed, or getting monsters to kill each other or searching for secrets. Doom 1 was not very difficult to play even without those acquired skills.

[Clonehunter]

Doomhuntress said:

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1084/screenshotdoom201102271.jpg
Liar who?

I want that HUD Face.

[Pirx]

Processingcontrol said:

I like Doom II's final boss a lot better than the Spiderdemon. It looked strange but at least it was an actual challenge. In E3M8 all you have to do is switch to the BFG, open the door, run down the hall, run to the Mastermind, press "CTRL" two times, and you win the damn game.

it dies in just one blast if you run straight into it while firing.

spidey should have been something like the demolisher from realm667, that one has two chainguns, one bfg and much more health.

[Varis Alpha]

It's also slightly overpowered. I mean, it does a shit-ton of damage, more than the Mastermind does, which can be a PITA if used correctly, and then it also has much more health, AND, it fires a BFG blast too?

[Pirx]

it does. speaking of overpowered monsters, you can find also a bfg commando in the beastiary ;)

that spider's bfg isn't hard to dodge if there's some cover. the demolisher is a pain on an open map like e3m8. it takes a lot of ammo to kill it however, i'm not too fond of monsters that eat ammo like popcorn. i was just suggesting a more challenging alternative since people consider the original weak.

[DuckReconMajor]

I still don't understand why so many dislike the Icon of Sin. Yeah it's a wall texture. The evil has taken such a hold here it's embedded in the walls. Yeah it's abusing you with the fact that you can't look up or down. Who wouldn't? Map makers do it all the time when they say NO JUMPING

[myk]

An expansion pack is by definition a package that requires the original. DOOM II is a standalone game. It's the second part of the same game, a genuine sequel, but it doesn't require DOOM. So the answer is "no". DOOM II finishes the game off and adds a more intense part to the introductory DOOM.

Note how I used the term game in two somewhat contradictory ways, but the word can be used in different ways. (One more as a commercial product, the other in a more general creative and playing sense.)

fraggle said:
The Episode 2 battle against the Cyberdemon is something like 1,000x more epic and satisfying, because you're fighting against a real monster, instead of trying to post a rocket into a hole in the wall while being attacked on all sides.

By your own definition, barring the value judgments, I'd have to disagree. It's true the cyberdemon is more elegant graphically, but the final boss really is more fearsome and challenging. And it doesn't have an exploit like standing across the switch device where you can spam rockets at it while it moans helplessly.

[Maes]

myk said:

standing across the switch device where you can spam rockets at it while it moans helplessly.

Near-Freudian description ;-)

To add to the demo/video recording thing though, I discovered long ago that virtualdub can do direct screen captures, as if they were a video source. With some fiddling, you can ask it to make video out of a precise area of the screen and record straight to compressed XVid with audio. It needs to set a specific capture area beforehand though, and recording a game like Doom or MAME speedruns requires putting them in windowed mode, selecting the window area carefully, and be careful not to move it/resize it/overlap with other windows. It also will record "all that you see" within a selected area, including the mouse cursor.

But hey, it's free, it works, plus it spares you the extra encoding step ;-)

For DOOM, I set the window size to something in the 512-640 px width range for YT videos.

[Grazza]

Torr Samaho said:

it dies in just one blast if you run straight into it while firing.

Sigh.

No. Only if a port has changed things is it at all normal for it to be taken down in one blast. (It can happen in vanilla, but with a low probability.) This has been discussed many many times.

40oz said:

Doom 1 is much more generous with ammo and the monsters aren't as threatening as they could be. Doom 2 and Final Doom were much different and really required you to actually be good at the game to get very far.

I wouldn't really agree in the case of Doom 2, as I played that (on skill 2) while still pretty much new to Dooming (only previous experience was stumbling through the shareware once and not being all that amazed by it - it seemed like just a step up from Wolf3D). The difficulty increased fairly rapidly, but not in a way inappropriate for someone who was essentially new to the game. Indeed, you could view the first 11 maps as a course in the basics of Dooming.

In Doom 2 ... you usually have to rely on ... getting monsters to kill each other

Infighting is to me absolutely fundamental to the game. It's the reason why the name Doom is fitting - the monsters are powerful but stupid, and we can use this against them directly. As you indicate, Doom 2 has much more possibilities for infighting than Doom(1), and this is a major reason why I view it as vastly superior. Hell, two of the new monsters in Doom 2 (PE and AV) can be killed by using their own attack against them.

[geo]

Its a sequel. I think people now-a-days feel that a game has to be totally different from the original or else they feel its just version 1.5. Like those people that put up a stink about Left 4 Dead 2. Its silly.

Maybe its Mario 1 to 2 that made us want a totally different game for a sequel.

[elic]

sequil

?

[purist]

He means "sequel". I'd have thought within the context of the post (and thread) that would have been pretty clear.

[Enjay]

esselfortium said:

Yeah... Episode 3's Spider Mastermind battle is similarly disappointing, really.

Indeed, it has always confused me why the big 4000 hit point, rocket spewing cyberdemon was the boss of the middle episode and the relatively weak 3000 hitpoint chaingunning spider was the "big boss" at the end.

OK, I get that the mastermind looks like a giant brain and therefore has the "intelligent creature behind all of this" factor going for it but, ultimately, that's just a picture. I wonder how different it would have felt to have the Cyberdemon use a chaingun (and have less HP) and have the Spider fitted with a rocket launcher and more hitpoints in Doom at that time? That would have kept the mastermind element but swapped the difficulties around (more or less - I know they have different widths etc).

I mean, I know that it can be done easily enough now with things like Zdoom's DECORATE but how would it have felt in 1993 when we were all learning "teh skillz"?

[Phobus]

Even leaving the health the wauy it was and just swapping their arsenals would have an interest effect on how they fight. Particularly as the cyberdemon is more maneuverable than the Spider Mastermind and would serve as less of a huge turret enemy.

You'd have a bigger risk going for the one-shot BFG kill on a Mastermind too, as you'd be begging for a rocket in the face.