Needing assistance downloading/running WADs

[Chewyninja69]

Just bought a new computer, Sunday afternoon. After doing all the obligatory downloads/updates/etc., I made a Steam account and subsequently bought Ultimate Doom, Doom 2, Final Doom, Plutonia, TNT, the works. I downloaded Zdoom, mostly because people from here said it was easy and/or great to use.

Now my question is: how do I download/run WADs that people have created? Like I want to play Alien Vendetta and a crap-ton of other WADs but I'm so tech illiterate that I would spend the rest of the century trying to figure it out on my own. Can anyone point this noob in the right direction? Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[42PercentHealth]

I believe if you are using Windows, you can just drag 'n drop the WAD file onto the ZDoom executable.

Otherwise, if you are comfortable using the command line, the following will work in any system:

path/to/zdoom -file path/to/AV.WAD

... or whatever the name of the WAD file is.

[SuperCupcakeTactics]

https://zdoom.org/Download

The ZDL launcher is a great tool, just show it the paths to your IWADs and sourceports in the settings tab, then just show it the custom wad you want to play with in the main tab.

[Gez]

Most of the levels are available on the idgames archive, that you can browse through Doomworld's interface.

For playing them, I recommend making a shortcut to ZDoom and whatever other ports you want in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo so that from then on you can just right-click any file (or selection of files) and go Sent to->ZDoom.

[The_SloVinator]

Place a WAD file into your ZDooM or GZDooM or PRboom folder & just drag-and-drop it to the exe file. (executable)

It's that easy.

[Chewyninja69]

Sorry for the late response; been too busy working. I appreciate the responses, but like I previously stated, I am very tech illiterate. Well, at least when it comes to doing stuff like this. Could anyone maybe break it down or give like a step-by-step instruction of how to do this? I don't quite comprehend what I'm suppose to do.
Thanks again.

[Doomkid]

You can find all the wads you'll ever need on these various sites:

http://doomshack.org/wadsites.html
http://doomshack.org/wadlist.php

Once you have downloaded a wad, place it in your ZDoom folder. It will be in a folder called ZDoom wherever you installed or unzipped it to.

Make sure doom.wad, doom2.wad, tnt.wad and plutonia.wad are in your ZDoom folder.

Now, download a wad from one of the sites I've listed. If its in a ZIP file, unzip it (using a program like 7zip or winrar) to your ZDoom folder.

Navigate to your ZDoom folder. You should see the 4 Doom iwads, your freshly downloaded/unzipped pwad, and ZDoom.exe. Right click your pwad, click "copy". Now right click ZDoom.exe and click "paste". Bam, you should be playing a wad now!

I apologize if this sounds patronizing at all, just my best effort at breaking it all down. Hope this helps!

[Maes]

I wonder why there isn't a sticky on this subject, already. If a "generic" guide on how to use source ports exists, then why not a similar one for the ONE reason someone would like to try Doom today (mods)? And, TBQH, the subject should be covered in the same guide, as someone who'll follow it to get a source port running, will also want to run some mods soon after, so in that sense the current guide is only doing half the job.

[Chewyninja69]

Doomkid said:

You can find all the wads you'll ever need on these various sites:

http://doomshack.org/wadsites.html
http://doomshack.org/wadlist.php

Once you have downloaded a wad, place it in your ZDoom folder. It will be in a folder called ZDoom wherever you installed or unzipped it to.

Make sure doom.wad, doom2.wad, tnt.wad and plutonia.wad are in your ZDoom folder.

Now, download a wad from one of the sites I've listed. If its in a ZIP file, unzip it (using a program like 7zip or winrar) to your ZDoom folder.

Navigate to your ZDoom folder. You should see the 4 Doom iwads, your freshly downloaded/unzipped pwad, and ZDoom.exe. Right click your pwad, click "copy". Now right click ZDoom.exe and click "paste". Bam, you should be playing a wad now!

I apologize if this sounds patronizing at all, just my best effort at breaking it all down. Hope this helps!

It's not patronizing. I'm thankful you took the time out of your day to type that out and help me. Greatly appreciated.

Maes said:

I wonder why there isn't a sticky on this subject, already. If a "generic" guide on how to use source ports exists, then why not a similar one for the ONE reason someone would like to try Doom today (mods)? And, TBQH, the subject should be covered in the same guide, as someone who'll follow it to get a source port running, will also want to run some mods soon after, so in that sense the current guide is only doing half the job.

^^^This, 100%

Finally got it running; thanks to everyone for your input, especially Doomkid. Props to you, sir. So, I have one more question. I want to use my PS4 controller to play Alien Vendetta. I've tried using DS4Windows and InputMapper, but InputMapper is causing issues (I believe) when I'm trying to boot up AV. Like I can't boot it up while the controller is hooked up; it'll only come on when the controller is off and/or when InputMapper is not active. Is there another program I could try to use? I'm not a keyboard and mouse guy, in fact, this is the first PC I've bought for gaming in my 30+ years on Earth. I'm an inferior controller guy, unfortunately.

Someone suggested to me that I buy a wireless PS4 dongle from Amazon? Would it be worth it? Sorry for the rambling, inane-ness. Thanks again.