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EternalWolf

1.9 to 2.0 Unofficial Patch/WAD Project?

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Is there any interest in starting or combining WADs to form a project like this, mainly for easy access and "perfection"? While many, especially here, would view it as completely unnecessary I still think it could draw some interest.

The goal would be to patch and to an extent, update DOOM as if it was still being patched and again to an extent, developed today. Nothing that would stray away from authenticity would be included, the goal would only be to deliver a high quality, perfected DOOM. Any additions to the game would only be stuff that was "cut" because of Vanilla limitations. It would be what a "1:1" copy of the game would be if it was made for the first time in the present. Things to be included would be...

-Bug Fixes
-Sprite and Texture Fixes
-Smoother Weapon and Sprite Animations
-Widescreen Titlepics, Interpics etc...

I know a lot of this stuff exists in separate WADs PAKs but to be Frank Sinatra, most people just don't know about them compared to the usual "popular" WADs. Most people don't even know about Source Ports... However I think something like this, if done properly, could be "headline" grabbing comparable to Brutal DOOM without detracting from what made DOOM, DOOM.

Stuff like remastered visuals and audio, such as HD Textures, would not be included for a number of reasons but most importantly because it would be near impossible to perfect, nevermind deliver a complete set of Sprites to match. Reinchard is the only person I know of to even come close to delivering proper HD Textures but he apparently died and has been reincarnated as a Cacodemon... Even then I am still not sure it would be proper for a project like this.

The goal isn't to remake but to "fix" and "update" the game. Just gauging interest here.

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Because that wouldn't really work in Vanilla, you'd need to use DeHackEd and that would defeat the purpose of it being an IWAD patch.

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silverdeth said:

Why should he not?

1. These kinds of additions are wrecking authenticity without being important.
2. It's not like we have a bunch of professional artists lying around. And before someone points me to the existing smooth weapon animations: they're very far from perfection.

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EternalWolf said:

-Bug Fixes
-Sprite and Texture Fixes
-Smoother Weapon and Sprite Animations
-Widescreen Titlepics, Interpics etc...


-Bug Fixes <- Yes
-Sprite and Texture Fixes <- Yes
-Smoother Weapon and Sprite Animations <- No
-Widescreen Titlepics, Interpics etc... <- Yes
-Taller skies for look up/down <- Yes

The problem with weapons and sprites is exactly this: You are promoting the creation of an "Official 2.0" unofficial IWAD. I believe you could get 90%+ of people to agree that your fixes are good and sensible, and desirable.

But, no one will ever be able to claim that you have created the be-all-end-all correct, proper, "v2.0 worthy" "fix" to smooth weapons and sprite anims. When are they "fixed", enough to put the "2.0" stamp on them?

On another note, I consider the released IWADs (with maybe the exception of the BFG Edition) to be immutable and "correct", and uneditable, by definition. Even though I'm kinda open-minded about such things, I can always claim to know what is in my IWAD. That is the starting point from which all modifications are derived. Any changes will affect a PWAD somewhere, in some way, so I would never use a custom IWAD. "Custom IWAD" doesn't even sound right to me - IWADs are not custom, they're IWADs!

That is what I think you're up against. Now, a PWAD, that basically loads on top of the IWAD, that includes your fixes, might be a reasonable possibility.

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Heck, the smooth weapon animations already annoy me just because they make the DoomGuy hold his pistol right-handed. And stuff like that is the problem: Someone takes it upon themselves to decide that something is an improvement--that it's better than what Id intended--and starts defying the original game and ruining the whole point of a 1:1 update.

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Lol, for me the problem with smooth animations is that using them feels kinda like playing on 2x speed because sprites change faster. It's too weird.

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Yeah, I don't mind smooth weapon animations but the game's graphics are so abstract, expectations start to form. Your weapon suddenly animates twice faster, but monsters still look the same, liquid falls and flats still update at the same speed, torches still blink with the same rhythm... So it feels off.

The original amount of frames may have been arbitrary, but by now it's part of a cohesive whole. Mess with that and you have to change pretty much everything else to match.

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Phml said:

Yeah, I don't mind smooth weapon animations but the game's graphics are so abstract, expectations start to form. Your weapon suddenly animates twice faster, but monsters still look the same, liquid falls and flats still update at the same speed, torches still blink with the same rhythm... So it feels off.


You need to check out Smooth Doom over the ZDoom forums. It has smooth versions of everything you mentioned.

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NiGHTMARE said:
You need to check out Smooth Doom over the ZDoom forums. It has smooth versions of everything you mentioned.

Hey, wow! I feel so legit. C:

Just want to say that I wholeheartedly support this idea and if it gets off the ground I'd be happy to lend my past and future efforts to the cause. Authenticity is a fine line to tread, but I think the DTWID projects have proven that it's more than possible with a dedicated and quality-conscious community.

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You can count me as being interested in such a project. I actually did put together something like this (just for personal use, no public release), completely vanilla compatible, so no smooth animations.

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KiiiYiiiKiiiA said:

What is the level from 0:05 to 0:12?

[threadjack]It's E1M3 of DTWID.[/threadjack]

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I think this is a good idea. I'm with the others that less objective changes should be avoided. This should be a pack of PWADs rather than IWAD patches. As much as I love it, Perkristian's sound pack should be left out, as well as any smooth animation mods. I think the following should be done in such a project.

Revenant100's sprite fix package should be used as a standalone pack, modified to be sprites, statusbar face, the "you are here" and intermission bloodspat graphics only so that it won't conflict with any IWADs.

Texture fixes like making some textures tile better (eg. SUPPORT2 and DOORSTOP), making switch backgrounds the same (eg. SWxDIRT) and fixing badly scaled textures (eg. Plutonia's SW1SKULL). Maybe a bit of touch-up on clearly awful TNT textures like the MS-Paint barbed wire or the eye-searing bright crates. It should be divided into 4 packs, one for each IWAD (including Final Doom). IWAD exclusive menu graphics (like the help screens) should be in the texture packs too.

Map fixes, one PWAD per IWAD. The Doom Wiki should be used as a reference, since many map bugs are documented there. Probably not a good idea to mess with alignment too much, but if there's an area that looks horizontally inconsistent due to different unpeggged tags, those areas should be fixed. The primary focus should be on exposed untextured lower/upper sidedefs, linedef functions that clearly don't work right (E1M1's nukage walkway having one line that isn't tagged to block monsters for example), monsters stuck in each other or walls. Maybe obvious secrets that don't contribute to the end-level tally should be tagged as actual secrets, but that could be too subjective.

Tall skies should be their own pack, not all ports handle them the same (vanilla and Boom aren't consistent with ZDoom's behavior). Likewise, widescreen graphics should be in their own pack too. Maybe a concrete extension should be made to the statusbar in the widescreen pack?

To recap, this pack should include:

*SPRFIX.WAD
*D1TEXFIX.WAD
*D2TEXFIX.WAD
*TNTEXFIX.WAD
*PLTEXFIX.WAD
*D1MAPFIX.WAD
*D2MAPFIX.WAD
*TNMAPFIX.WAD
*PLMAPFIX.WAD
*TALLSKYS.WAD
*WIDESCRN.WAD

Cire said:

You can count me as being interested in such a project. I actually did put together something like this (just for personal use, no public release), completely vanilla compatible, so no smooth animations.

Interesting. Do you have a change-log?

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"The Fixed/Final Version". There's no such thing. I also believe that the original IWADs are 100% correct and fixed. Nevertheless, I also believe that any effort to create a "New Doom Megawad (Improved)" is valid.

The "Next Doom" could be THE Next Doom, as 100% correct as the original IWADs are, if, and if only, the whole community or a majority of it agrees that it is so. The original IWADs are considered perfect, because they are considered. Period. Then, logically, the same could apply to a Next One. Mappers could develop level by level, and then, through a voting system, the best levels for each original MAPXX level could be selected for the great NEXT DOOM to be available as a very special PWAD (A PWAD considered as a "IWAD", because it could be so good that new PWADs could come from it, but at the same time, it would not damage the previous ones).

Concerning Smoother Things, I think it would be interesting if there were available the crafting/artistry skills necessary for it, and if everyone agreed that it's really innovative and that it does not seem weird (As it becomes clear, such a thing would be hard to achieve).

The UAC/Doom story could be continued, and monsters designed accordingly. All textures recreated.

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EricsonWillians said:

The "Next Doom" could be THE Next Doom, as 100% correct as the original IWADs are, if, and if only, the whole community or a majority of it agrees that it is so. The original IWADs are considered perfect, because they are considered. Period.

This sentiment that the project would need unanimous approval to be valid has been expressed several times now and it doesn't make sense to me. You're never going to get the community's unanimous vote on anything; not even 100% faithful modernisations like OpenXcom, which aim for (essentially) a 1:1 copy of the original, can satisfy every member of the community. That doesn't mean OpenXcom isn't still considered, by a massive number of people, the de facto version of X-Com and lightyears better than the Dosbox version.

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Gifty said:

This sentiment that the project would need unanimous approval to be valid has been expressed several times now and it doesn't make sense to me. You're never going to get the community's unanimous vote on anything; not even 100% faithful modernisations like OpenXcom, which aim for (essentially) a 1:1 copy of the original, can satisfy every member of the community.


I agree that it's not possible to satisfy every member of the community. But I also think that it would be fruitless any attempt in doing so, for even the original oldschool IWADs don't please 100% of every doom player.

A probably valid attempt, however, would be to create X numbers of levels for each Doom Level, and choose them in a way that please a lot of people, not everyone.

Notwithstanding, I doubt that there is a better solution than a voting system when one considers working in community, for it's obvious that not everyone will be pleased (Therefore, the necessity of voting.).

Nevertheless, the moderators could choose arbitrarily, just because they have the power to do so, the judges to judge each submitted map individually, thus removing the necessity of a voting system and guaranteeing the quality by trustworthy experience.

Or, both systems could be used. Moderators could choose judges to judge voted submissions.

One thing is certain: Not every member will be pleased, and that would not be the purpose, because it's undoubtedly impossible.

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That's all well and good, but I think the concept of the project is more about improving what's already there, rather than rebuilding it from the ground up. There's already projects like KZID for that sort of thing. This sounds more in line with the sprite fixing project, or Perkristian's HD sound effects.

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EricsonWillians said:

The original IWADs are considered perfect, because they are considered.

Or maybe because they're official. If I understood you correctly.

EricsonWillians said:

<the rest>

What can come out of this:

1. Another ambitious community PWAD. Maybe they'll even give it a Cacoward. It will never be treated the same as IWADs, because it will be just another ambitious community PWAD.
2. If all the resources will be recreated from scratch, another Freedoom. Except maybe this one will come out in the current decade.

Both outcomes have one thing in common: they have little to do with "perfecting" the original games.

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@Sodaholic Well, what I did was basically combinding the existing vanilla compatible fix projects that I was aware of. I did one PWAD for Ultimate Doom, one for Doom II and one for Heretic. Here's what I included in the PWAD:s

Ultimate Doom:
D1SPFX14.WAD
E4Fix.wad
IWMPP_DoomU.wad
pk_doom_sfx_20120224.wad (with the additional Doom II sound effects removed)

Doom II:
GUS1MIID.wad
IWMPP_Doom2.wad
SPRFIX14.WAD
pk_doom_sfx_20120224.wad
I also included the Doom II titlepic incase one would like to use the BFG Edition IWAD:s with a source port that doesn't accept a missing titlepic

Heretic:
IWMPP_Heretic.wad
HRSPFX10.WAD
HT_GUS1M.WAD
pk_heretic_sfx.wad (with the sound effects converted to Doom format)

A Final Doom variant could probably be based on the Doom II WAD I did, with the map fixes removed and TNT31.WAD merged.

This is just my personal compilation preference though.

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Considering the remark that "most people don't even know about source ports" I'd hardly consider a patch that irons out the microscopic wrinkles of Doom 2 would get any publicity comparable to Brutal Doom, which is bloated with new and original content.

"Remember that HOM in MAP18: The Courtyard?? Now it's got a texture!" is not a selling point that even I would care about, and I know everything about Doom compared to your average nobody.

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Sodaholic said:

To recap, this pack should include:

*SPRFIX.WAD
*D1TEXFIX.WAD
*D2TEXFIX.WAD
*TNTEXFIX.WAD
*PLTEXFIX.WAD
*D1MAPFIX.WAD
*D2MAPFIX.WAD
*TNMAPFIX.WAD
*PLMAPFIX.WAD
*TALLSKYS.WAD
*WIDESCRN.WAD

Can't find those WADs, can you upload, please?

Cire said:

IWMPP_Doom2.wad

And this one too, please.

Thanks!

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PhobosGuy said:

Can't find those WADs, can you upload, please?


They don't exist. They were hypothetical.

Anyway, except for things like map changes, most of this stuff is already done. I see peoe debating about "whether there is enough artistic talent to smooth the animations" but SmoothDoom already exists; likewise, the Sprite Fixing Project exists and adjusts most of the problem areas of the original game (and anyone who says it's perfect is a damn fool; Revenants punching animation looks retarded without fixing the offsets.)

Honestly, there's very little left you could improve.

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