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Xfing

If Ultimate Doom had used D2's assets (megawad ideas emerging!)

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How would you portion them out throughout all the 4 episodes to make sure every next one has something new and is harder than the previous?

For example IMO the Super Shotgun should only appear in E2 or E3 and the Megasphere shouldn't come earlier than E3.

Chaingun zombies and Hell Knights could come in E2, as could Mancubi. Pain Elementals and Revenants would come in E3 while E4 could finally introduce the Arch-Vile.

What do you think?

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The game would be much harder, that's for sure. I'd expect Chaingunners in E1 after you're introduced to the chaingun. Hell Knights in E2, certainly and maybe the Mancubus too. E3 should have Pain Elementals show up early just to make the player realise how lucky they were to only have to fight Lost Souls before. I'd have the Arch-Vile show up later in E3 too (Unholy Cathedral, perhaps). Revenants and Arachnotrons I'd put in E4, as story-wise you need to see the Spider Mastermind before Arachnotrons, whilst Revenants would be a fitting nasty addition to a tough final episode. Maybe use the Icon of Sin in place of that crappy final Spider Mastermind experience in E4M8, as the Barons usually take her out for you.

As for the SSG... I think we'd want it on E4 as a bonus weapon. The megasphere could be omitted with no real issue. Maybe put it in a secret or two in late episodes.


Saying that, you'd need to redesign the maps significantly to make use of some of the Doom II enemies, due to their size relative to the width of a lot of corridors and passages, so I'd be surprised if this hypothetical line of thought actually would work well in practice.

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E1 - Chaingunner, Hell Knight, Super Shotgun.

E2 - Revenant, Mancubus, Arachnotron.

E3 - Archvile, Megasphere.

E4 - Pain Elemental, Romero Head, Monster Spawner, Nazi.

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It already happened in the PSX version. I'd go along the same lines as the their appearence in Doom II with a couple of exceptions:

E1 - Chaingunner, SSG, megasphere

Wouldn't make sense to have anything tougher than a baron in E1 and the less Hell Knights would take the edge off facing barons for the first time.

E2 - Hell Knight, Revenant, Mancubus, Pain Elemental

The rest of the cast join in with the exception of archnatrons who get bumped for similar reasons to Hell Knights in E2 and the archvile, who I think would be better saved as a late surpise.

E3 - Arachnatrons, Arch vile

I think Arachnatrons could be used as a good foreshadowing of the Mastermind - maybe have a arachnatron gimmick level in E3M7. I'd have the archvile as a sub boss before releasing the Mastermind.

E4

Nothing new, except maybe the IOS it being used more creatively than in Doom II. Viles will be a regular enemy rather than a sub-boss here.

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The Ultimate Doom uses the same executable as Doom 2, afaik you can use monsters and such from Doom 2. You just need sprites and sounds otherwise the game will crash. However the only thing you do not get because it is disabled, is the super shotgun.

For the monsters at least, there is no "commercial" or "retail" check done on them when they are spawned.

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GhostlyDeath said:

The Ultimate Doom uses the same executable as Doom 2, afaik you can use monsters and such from Doom 2. You just need sprites and sounds otherwise the game will crash. However the only thing you do not get because it is disabled, is the super shotgun.

For the monsters at least, there is no "commercial" or "retail" check done on them when they are spawned.

Actually, there is. D2 monster spawn IDs are disabled when playing Ultimate Doom, preventing D2 monsters from being spawned. It can be corrected via DEHACKED by giving them different spawn ID numbers (whatever arbitrary numbers you want), but then you need to make/edit maps specifically to use these edited spawn IDs instead of the default ones, because the engine won't recognize the default ones anymore and would crash upon encountering them in a map.

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scifista42 said:

Actually, there is. D2 monster spawn IDs are disabled when playing Ultimate Doom, preventing D2 monsters from being spawned. It can be corrected via DEHACKED by giving them different spawn ID numbers (whatever arbitrary numbers you want), but then you need to make/edit maps specifically to use these edited spawn IDs instead of the default ones, because the engine won't recognize the default ones anymore and would crash upon encountering them in a map.


Has anyone made a vanilla or limit removing Ultimate Doom megawad with Doom II monsters as (SSG aside) this would have the benefits of both Doom II resources and Ultimate Doom's episode format.

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purist said:

Has anyone made a vanilla or limit removing Ultimate Doom megawad with Doom II monsters as (SSG aside) this would have the benefits of both Doom II resources and Ultimate Doom's episode format.

Xaser's Lost Episode is an Episode 5 megawad (9 maps) which acts as an add-on for Ultimate Doom. It is only properly playable in Eternity or a ZDoom-based port, however. It uses Doom 2 monsters, has the SSG, and has some megaspheres.

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purist said:

Has anyone made a vanilla or limit removing Ultimate Doom megawad with Doom II monsters as (SSG aside)

I don't know but I know such wad as memorial.wad where all Doom's (2) 32 maps were put in one map.

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purist said:

this would have the benefits of both Doom II resources and Ultimate Doom's episode format.

All sounds and graphics would have to be reincluded*, and SSG and Megasphere wouldn't work.

*Maybe not if Doom2 was loaded as a PWAD and the wad contained its own TEXTURE1/PNAMES with resources from both IWADs.

Azuruish said:

I don't know but I know such wad as memorial.wad where all Doom's (2) 32 maps were put in one map.

That's something completely different, though. Memorial is neither an Ultimate Doom wad, nor a megawad, nor vanilla or limit removing compatible.

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Funnily enough, I had a dream last night about a community project to provide alternate THINGS lumps for every Ultimate Doom map that put in Doom 2-specific Things, whether that's the SSG, Megasphere, or, most likely, the new bestiary. Especially Revenants. Revenants got used a lot.

At the end, it was planned that there'd be a tool that took copies of the 1.9 IWADs, took the level files from Ultimate Doom and the new graphics/sound files from Doom 2, and gave you a PWAD for Ultimate Doom that'd applied the THINGS lumps and let you see those Doom 2 monsters/items; only a wad containing the THINGS lumps and that tool would be publicly downloadable. I'm not even sure what source port would support using it in reality (ZDoom, probably), but that's how it worked in the dream.

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Shadow Hog said:

I'm not even sure what source port would support using it in reality (ZDoom, probably),

Any port, even vanilla, would run the resulting PWAD (at least I think so) - as long as there was also a DEHACKED to change spawn IDs (editor numbers) of monsters, the THINGS lumps were made with these new spawn IDs in mind, and no SSGs and Megaspheres were involved.

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antares031 said:

E1 - Revenant(M3, right after obtained the blue key), Hell Knight(M6, after passed the yellow key door)

E2 - Chaingunner(M1, behind the red door), Super Shotgun(M3, replacing shotgun on a round pedestal) Mancubus(M4, replacing Baron of Hell behind the bigdoor)

E3 - Arachnotron(M1, replacing a Cacodemon in a courtyard), Pain Elemental(M2, At the end of Lost soul corridor), Archvile(M6, arena with weapons and invulnerability)

E4 - Megasphere(M1, Nine Inch Nails logo...huh?), Wolfenstein SS(M9, map should be replaced with Wolf3D theme)


I guess there's no need to add Icon of sin in Ultimate Doom.


You mean like.. single instances? :O I was thinking more along the lines of creating a logical difficulty progression using all the monsters D2 has to offer by separating them into 4 episodes. D2's progression isn't as tough, as you don't have to make a pistol start 4 times throughout the game.

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scifista42 said:

All sounds and graphics would have to be reincluded*, and SSG and Megasphere wouldn't work.


Some high profile recent megawads have included all graphics for pallette reasons so it wouldn't be unprecedented. If it's considered frowned upon due to including resources from another game, the frames could at least be used to make some new monsters. The lack of the SSG and mega sphere would be a fair trade off in my opinion.

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Xfing said:

You mean like.. single instances? :O I was thinking more along the lines of creating a logical difficulty progression using all the monsters D2 has to offer by separating them into 4 episodes. D2's progression isn't as tough, as you don't have to make a pistol start 4 times throughout the game.

I think antares031 only suggested their "first appearance", with later re-appearances showing up without a word about them. He also assumed that the level design in UD would stay the same as it exists in "our reality", while other people (like me) assume that the level design could have been completely redone to fit the monsters.

purist said:

Some high profile recent megawads have included all graphics for pallette reasons so it wouldn't be unprecedented. If it's considered frowned upon due to including resources from another game, the frames could at least be used to make some new monsters. The lack of the SSG and mega sphere would be a fair trade off in my opinion.

I have to agree, the idea actually sounds attractive even to me. :)

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As per using Doom 2 stuff in The Ultimate Doom...

  • You can pickup and use the super shotgun, but you cannot switch to it. So once ammo runs out, you pick up a weapon you never had before, or you switch to another weapon; you will no longer be able to use the super shotgun.
  • You cannot pickup the megasphere, so it becomes just an animated decoration you can run through.
  • Doom 2 monsters by their standard thing IDs, a DeHackEd patch would have to change those IDs as previously stated.
On some other unrelated things:

The sound PDIEHI (< 50% health without gibbing) is only played in Doom 2

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GhostlyDeath said:

You can pickup and use the super shotgun, but you cannot switch to it. So once ammo runs out, you pick up a weapon you never had before, or you switch to another weapon; you will no longer be able to use the super shotgun.


Hmm so it could be used once per episode or any time after a pistol start or death exit. Maybe this could be adapted for use as a gimmicky power up type weapon. Maybe restricted to just boss or secret levlels.

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SSG - E2M2, The Doom Bible by Tom Hall originally had a DBS shotgun that could be found in a Storage Facility, so it would make sense for it to appear on the crate that's activated by the switch at the beginning.

E1 D2 enemies would include: Chaingunners (E1M4 onwards), Hell Knight (E1M6/E1M7 onwards)

E2 D2 enemies would include: Revenants (E1M5 onwards), Pain Elementals (E1M5/M6)

E3 D2 enemies: Mancubus (E3M2/E3M4), Archvile (Unholy Cathedral), Arachnatron (E3M6/M7)

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If I have to make an opinion, I think the Cacodemon should have been an E1 monster. With the Doom 2 monsters, here's what I think, Episode 2 could introduce the chaingunners, indicating that the Deimos base has tougher opposition than Phobos and that there's a stronger version of the zombies. It can also introduce Pain Elementals in maps with Lost Souls, and the Hell Knight as being as weaker yet as tough Baron of Hell that are more commonplace than its tougher cousin. I think Arachnotrons should be saved for E4 because having them on E3 would just ruin the mystery of the Spider Mastermind boss. Arch-Viles should also be reserved for E4 given that the episode is meant to be the hardest.

E1 - Cacodemon (E1M5 - onwards)
E2 - Chaingunner (E2M1 - onwards), Super Shotgun and Pain Elemental (E2M2 - onwards), Hell Knight and Revenant (E2M3 - onwards)
E3 - Mancubus (E3M2 - onwards), Megasphere (E3M3 - onwards)
E4 - Arch-Vile (E4M1 - onwards), Arachnotron (E4M3 - onwards)

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I wonder if every single monster in the D1 or D2 bestiary was replaced with a comparable entry from the 667 bestiary, would the game feel different? If so, how drastically? Part of the game's atmosphere comes from recollection of monster types/positions and the associated memories.

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MM2 MAP24 is an E1 style level (with some straight rip-offs too) with Doom 2 assets.

Job said:

I wonder if every single monster in the D1 or D2 bestiary was replaced with a comparable entry from the 667 bestiary, would the game feel different? If so, how drastically? Part of the game's atmosphere comes from recollection of monster types/positions and the associated memories.


It depends on how much the new bestiary will be balanced with the stock weapons, it may become an horrible slog to play (a bit like kdizd).

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I guess it's quite possible to use engine Doom 2 in Doom Builder and put all Doom's maps in one (or separate... 9*4=36 maps) and release that wad but problems can be with... Do you know? yeah! TAGs.
As i know each final map of each episode has tag which triggers something. And i don't know exit from this situation.

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The workaround is to go in the reverse direction- which would be porting all of the textures, music and maps to the MAPxx format.

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Maybe if you're going for low level compatibility but you could easily use an episodic format with ZDoom via scripts. You could even have a sort of choose your own episode hub like with Quake.

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Shadow Hog said:

You lose the episodic format and having secret levels anywhere other than MAP15 that way, though.

This is true- can get around it for zdoom based ports though with MAPINFO! :D

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