Which WADs would you have people play through to get them into Doom?

[SOSU]

Anything Skillsaw made.

[pulkmees]

Seriously doubting people, who suggest Counterattack, Miasma etc to get into doom. Anything even REMOTELY slaughterish is gonna put people off.

Original Doom was never that insane with monster placement. I feel like it's a completely different game people are playing in all these slaughterwads and they kind of get judged as better than vanilla gameplay wads(maybe, idk just a feeling)

 

To answer the question though, I'd say Brutal Doom just because the Hell on Earth Starter Pack has some really good maps in it. Also it's not, you know, very hard, but also not easy too if you haven't played a doom game before or even if you've gone back to playing doom all these years.

[baja blast rd.]

25 minutes ago, pulkmees said:

Seriously doubting people, who suggest Counterattack, Miasma etc to get into doom. Anything even REMOTELY slaughterish is gonna put people off.

Original Doom was never that insane with monster placement. I feel like it's a completely different game people are playing in all these slaughterwads and they kind of get judged as better than vanilla gameplay wads(maybe, idk just a feeling)

 

To answer the question though, I'd say Brutal Doom just because the Hell on Earth Starter Pack has some really good maps in it. Also it's not, you know, very hard, but also not easy too if you haven't played a doom game before or even if you've gone back to playing doom all these years.

I have to admit I don't fully understand this sentiment. Slaughtery monster placement in Doom seems "normal" diegetically -- hell would be full of hundreds and thousands of monsters, hordes that blanket the screen. Rather, monster placement in the style of Doom 1 feels artificially restrained, a necessary concession to computer limits of a bygone era. I'd expect someone who is a blank slate to adjust easily to slaughter style placement and not think anything odd of it -- "Wait, why does this have a special name? It's just more enemies?!?!" It's people who have played some Doom who have gotten accustomed to 98% of wads having sub-slaughter monster densities, and thus might see a slaughtermap as something atypical.

 

Also other games tend to be quite a bit more challenging than standard stock Doom. We're not talking about someone who hasn't played any games at all, or who might request feedback from their small dog while playing Doom -- "ooh what is that skeleton-looking thing? should I shoot it Buddy?!?! Wait get off the monitor you can't actually chew it!!!" I think anyone who has played any shooter or arcade game with a decent learning curve, or any multiplayer games (not even just FPSes), won't find it remotely offputting. That isn't to say they'll do well, of course, but that it won't be unfair to someone who thinks games are supposed to be challenging.

[Deadwing]

BTSX E1 or the first Scythe

[Novaseer]

Just the IWADs themselves in my opinion.

[snapshot]

17 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

 I think anyone who has played any shooter or arcade game with a decent learning curve, or any multiplayer games (not even just FPSes), won't find it remotely offputting. That isn't to say they'll do well, of course, but that it won't be unfair to someone who thinks games are supposed to be challenging.

But why would they want leave cool looking games just to play something as frustrating as slaughter maps, that's not how you get people to like your game, like it or not most casuals won't see much of an interest in that type of levels.

[baja blast rd.]

Fitting undertitle. 

[SOSU]

36 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

It's people who have played some Doom who have gotten accustomed to 98% of wads having sub-slaughter monster densities, and thus might see a slaughtermap as something atypical.

Not really,most first person shooters have low monster counts compared to slaughter maps.Even Serious Sam with it's hordes of monsters is nothing compared to some slaughter maps so most first person shooter fans or video game fans in general will find slaughter maps atypical.Sorry but slaughter maps are a niche interest :( (i personally enjoy slaughter-ish maps :) )

[pulkmees]

42 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

Quoting your reply

Yeah, I think the challenging bit is a bit too challenging. Like no room for error challenging. 

Also I'm not willing to assume ID would have added THAT MANY enemies in Doom if they didn't have the restrictions they had. I'm basing my opinion on what ID did after Doom and those new Romero maps couple years back.

You could be right though, but those restrictions did define how Doom is remembered.

[snapshot]

10 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

Fitting undertitle. 

Slaughter maps don't mean crap to someone who has never played nor is interested in Doom and you're suggesting to throw it at them right away, OK I suppose that's one way to get people to like it.

[valkiriforce]

I could hardly finish Plutonia on UV for the first time when I came back to Doom in 2009. I would rather let people figure out for themselves what they like, but I wouldn't throw them in the deep end of PWADisms unless they wandered there themselves.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

No pwads. Most of us forget a complete newbie won't know any of the things we take for granted. None of the secrets, None of what monsters hide where, no monster abilities unless they noticed them, No idea that revenants projectiles won't always home in, Nothing about specters existence, Hell they won't even know you can strafe or run unless it is mentioned to them or they press F1, Not to mention auto-running.

 

Throwing them into harder mapsets will just get them slaughtered even at lower difficulty settings. Even a cyber in an open area might kill them (Seen it a million time in zandronum's online, hell most of those aren't even newbies).

 

4 hours ago, pulkmees said:

To answer the question though, I'd say Brutal Doom just because the Hell on Earth Starter Pack has some really good maps in it. Also it's not, you know, very hard, but also not easy too if you haven't played a doom game before or even if you've gone back to playing doom all these years.

Brutal Doom isn't the vanilla gameplay. Slaughter maps at least keep the defaults and changes none of them most of the time at least. If they like brutal doom's gameplay it doesn't mean they'll like the different balancing of vanilla or the different monster\weapon behaviors. 

 

If you want to get someone into a game just tell them you know a cool game that they can try. Getting people with the intent of converting them will probably backfire especially if you try to help them as they play. It'll be even more annoying than backseating alone. Especially if they don't like the game -no, it isn't a crime to hate doom- and you start telling them why it is way better than all modern games. 

[Steve D]

6 hours ago, NuMetalManiak said:

You HAVE to ease them in. Don't make a mistake I did a while back.

What did you do, start them with Slaughterfest?

[Scotty]

No Rest For The Living on ITYTD. It's digestible at only 9 maps and is close enough to D1/D2 material (ie the 'classic' Doom experience) but generally has more polished/modern gameplay.

[pulkmees]

I think the OP's question is a bit misleading too. Which WADs would you have people play through to get them into Doom?

I mean obviously play Doom. Because that's what gets you into Doom.

 

But what I'm guessing is people will play the most popular thing first. And what mod has been in the news all the time ?

[Woolie Wool]

Well I think every new Doomer should start off with E1. It's the most cohesive and visually polished of all the Id episodes, and introduces new gameplay elements slowly (Doom II is way too front-loaded for someone coming in without having played the original). Also it's free, legally.

 

On 2/3/2018 at 10:30 AM, fraggle said:

I'd go with the creative mods: look at what fans have done with the Doom engine. Batman Doom, Urban Brawl, SRB2, Pirate Doom. If people want to know "why Doom in 2018?" I want to show them how it's a platform for creativity that can be adapted in different ways.

I'm inclined to agree. A newcomer is not only going to be hopeless at slaughter/challenge wads (starting them off with Ribbiks maps? Seriously?), but they're not going to have the familiarity with Doom's mechanics to understand why anyone would appreciate them. Something like Urban Brawl is much more accessible and makes an immediate, powerful contrast against Doom E1 (Urban Brawl is also an iwad, which means the newbie still doesn't have to make a financial commitment yet). Then would probably come BTSX E1, with an explicit recommendation to play on skill 2.

 

New players, except for a negligible portion who are crazy shmup fanatics or something, are not even going to care about the encounter design subtleties in hardcore wads. All that comes later.

[fraggle]

6 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

I'm inclined to agree. A newcomer is not only going to be hopeless at slaughter/challenge wads (starting them off with Ribbiks maps? Seriously?)

Yeah. While I personally appreciate the variety of different gameplay styles that Doom mappers have developed, it's something that's going to go right over the head of most people. It's also worth remembering that a lot of WADs coming out nowadays are targeted at people who are already Doom fans. Seems ridiculous to try to get people into Doom by starting them off on some tough maps where they're going to immediately die.

 

A lot of people have already played Doom, and if they haven't, E1 still seems like a solid intro ("You've never played Doom before? It's one of the most famous games of all time. Let me set it up for you."). I'd also point out that for many people it's probably going to be a hard sell to convince them to put down their fancy modern military shooter FPS and try playing a game from 1993, let alone a fan mod for it that someone on the Internet made.

 

I suggested creative mods because it makes the case visually without even having to play them - "you've played Doom, look at all these things people have made with the Doom engine". That's what most people find interesting - it's why every 6 months a Doom mod does the rounds of various news websites that piques people's imagination. Usually it's something silly or topical that's funny for about five minutes, but at least it makes people take an interest. But there's a long list of creative WADs that you can show people which aren't joke WADs, but are every bit as interesting for similar reasons. 

[Phobus]

People clearly don't know the difference between "Get people into Doom" and "Show people what I like". My brother (who has a generally high skill level even starting out with a game) had a crack at Doom a few years ago for the first time since the 90s. So I set him up with GZDoom (he fancied the graphical options, plus the easier control scheme) and the IWADs. Initial Doom is a nice difficulty curve to get you used to the game, Doom II widens the cast and ups the ante a bit. Evilution poses an odd challenge to the hitscanner usage, but if you've beaten Doom II then it's not too far out of reach. Plutonia is pretty demanding, but with a bit of time and effort you'll get through.

 

I said to him after he'd done those four that, if he enjoyed it and fancied some more, there's a lot of Doom online and some of it is pretty good. I gave him a vague list based on postings on here before about people's favourites... Alien Vendetta came up often and I confirmed to him it was pretty high quality and seemd to be the benchmark a lot of current mapping has in mind. However, on UV, even coming from Plutonia, he decided he wasn't interested after a couple of maps because of the bullshit difficulty. That was him then moving back to MMOs and other stuff. I can't imagine how he'd have reacted if I'd have said "Yeah, this is what we're doing these days" and popped him into XXXI Cybersky or even Nuts.wad (this was before Ribbiks and the Slaughterfests, I think).

 

To be fair, I can't imagine Eternal Doom III would've been any better received due to the slow progression and lengthy maps... Maybe an early classic might've been alright, but then he'd have been just playing more of the same as what he'd already beaten, which presumably woiuld feel stale after a while too. I think for him the logical progression would've been ZDCMP#1 or something, with wider features to keep his interest, rather than just doubling down on the difficulty whilst changing little else.

[jazzmaster9]

Back To Saturn X

Blade of Agony

Ultimate Torment and Torture

Brutal Doom

Double Impact

 

[rehelekretep]

oh wow look another thread has turned into a slaughter genre discussion; how novel!

 

im inclined to say, let them try out Doom 1 in GZDoom so it looks nicer (with freelook) so they feel more 'comfy' and arent put off by the 'retro' nature. my thinking is if theyre a retro gamer then they would have already tried Doom at this point!

[Deadwing]

Scythe is good because it starts really easy and then becomes more difficult little by little. Then later on you have some Slaughter-lite levels which aren't too hard to discourage the player but shows off a bit of the 'genre'. It was the first pwad I've played until the end.

[Soundblock]

This is an interesting question, as it shines a light to an "unwelcoming" paradox of progression with Doom maps. Levels have become increasingly mesmerising visually, which is a major selling point to hook newcomers, but gameplay of the newer streamlined looking wads seem almost always to contain progressive gameplay also, meaning they're hard as nails to finish, each generation building on the last's difficulty level. I mean, I fired up Ancient Aliens and was greeted by a Cybo in the first area, overlooking all accessible rooms. I'll probably get back to it, but that's the last I've seen of the wad. The instant difficulty turned me off, despite it being utterly awesome otherwise. I truly love the visuals of later generation mapping, and I understand it is neccessary to keep the high-tier players interested and have things move forwards, but for someone who was pretty badass at Doom in the old-school days, the Ribbiks-level stuff begs too much of an effort of me for me to get truly under the skin of it. Some maps are so hard I wouldn't be able to finish them no matter how hard I tried. Not saying its any great loss to lose the odd jaded Doomer, but it at least is a case for implementing all-the-way-to-beginner difficulty levels in your maps, which some classics even omit altogether (e.g. Sunder).

 

I apologise ahead of time, but here comes the own horn tooting part of this post - I do believe it directly ties in with the question posed by OP though. I opted for a "light snack" approach to my megawad Echelon (2016), wanting to create breezy entertainment for seasoned doomers and a ramp in for new ones, with maybe not super-up-to-date mapping skills (my creations will always remain a tad 90'ish) but at least a post-millenial offering also aimed at new Doomers. I made some quirky choices with it, Echelon's not super-populist, but for someone having played through Ultimate Doom/Doom 2, I don't believe it a bad option to continue the journey...

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pulkmees]

Well just so everything is covered...

After the 4 Iwads people would maybe like these.

Doom The Way ID Did and Doom 2 The Way ID Did.

Also Dawn of the Dead, No Sleep for the Dead, The Classic Episode, Double Impact, No End in Sight

 

Toot, toot !

[Urthar]

10 hours ago, Phobus said:

People clearly don't know the difference between "Get people into Doom" and "Show people what I like"...

 

The OP clarified in their opening post that they weren't actually looking for wads that would get people into Doom, but rather wanted a list of 'must-see' things, and why people thought they were great. Naturally, people are going to reccomend things that they themselves enjoyed or respected for the sheer creativity and originality of the work.

 

I was in a bit of a rush, and I didn't provide any commentary, but I'll try to do that now.

 

Scythe

Erik Alm's work has been the inspiration for a lot of later mappers, perhaps most notably Skillsaw. It has a lot of short fast maps that give the player a constant 'hit' of achievement for completing each level, and it works really, really well.

 

Sunder

Insane Gazebo's incomplete epic is once again a heavy inspiration for a lot of later stuff, perhaps most notably Ribbiks. Even if you find it's gameplay overwhelming, it's worth checking out for the sureal majesty of it's architectural wonderland, and there's always mods like Russian Overkill that will grant you excessive firepower to deal with those hordes.

 

Back To Saturn X

Who dreamt a vanilla limitations project could look this good. This is beyond professional quality, and really benefits from having a variety of different mappers who each bring something of their own to each map. When I just want to casually play some Doom, this is often the wad I boot up.

 

Going Down

Mouldy's tour-de-force is the pinnacle of narrative creativity. It can also be tough as nails so be warned. I don't think anyone other than the author could have made 'Going Down', such is it's distinct tone and sense of humour. Do I need to mention that Mouldy is famous the animator Cyriak?

 

No Rest For The Living

Somehow TheCastle and Squibbons managed to wrangle permission to produce an official new episode for Doom II while at Nerve Software. The short mapset combines a relativily modern approach to level design with an obvious love for the original genre. It possesses it's own distinct visual language, and is deliberately balanced to have an accessible level of diffculty.

 

Lunatic

There's a lot of things you could reccomend by Skillsaw, but Lunatic is perhaps the most original of his works, and distinctly his own. If you feel like dipping your toe into a little bit of slaughter-ish gameplay then this is a probably a better place to start than plunging head first into something like Sunder.

 

Bauhaus

Nothing else really looks like Didy's Bauhaus, and in that respect it's one of those things worth checking out for it's own uniqueness. It's sort of like playing Doom inside a modern art installation. Very cool and beautifully crafted.

 

Pirate Doom

Darch's Monkey Island inspired adventure is one of the best Doom total conversions. Seriously, YARRR!

 

Brutal Doom

You may love it, you may hate it. It's author is not a stranger to controversy, and if you've played other Doom mods, some of the content may seem awfully familar. However, it's very good at making something like Knee Deep In The Dead feel new and fresh, while still feeling like Doom, abet a version of Doom turned up to 11 with extra buckets of blood thrown in for good measure.

 

Alien Vendetta

Whenever people ask for reccomendations on somewhere like Reddit, this one tends to often pop up. It has enough old school authors to give it variety, it's certainly inspired other works, but I can't exactly pin down why it works as well as it does. I confess, I've never fully completed it, but the difficulty ramp is gentle enough that you can get quite a long way into, even as a newbie returning to Doom.

 

 

Anyway there's ton of stuff I could have mentioned, such as Viggles Breach, Adventures Of Square, Sunlust, even things like Hell Revealed and Lilith, but I arbitrarily decided to keep it to ten.

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Urthar

[valkiriforce]

On 2/2/2018 at 4:10 PM, stru said:

I'm not actually looking to get anybody into the game, but I just want to hear your opinions of some must-play WADs that anyone who likes FPS games should play before they die. 

Aside from the four IWADs, Memento Mori 1 & 2 are both great, along with Requiem, Icarus: Alien Vanguard (coming out of TNT: Evilution probably), Eternal Doom III and Alien Vendetta. To me, they feel the most like possible sequels to classic Doom. For some reason I can imagine something like Alien Vendetta getting released on the PS2 back then (maybe it's the hidden "PS2" message on MAP31) and Eternal Doom on the Xbox with a PSX kind of atmosphere in soundtrack and sound effects. Not sure why, but I tend to hold these wads as some of the most important for me personally. I think a part of it is because all of these are vanilla wads, and usually anything I've played outside of vanilla tends to feel like a fan-made creation. This isn't a bad thing, as there are plenty of great wads out there that set out to try something different and give a new approach to dooming, but I like to think of classic Doom as being vanilla. That's always been the big reason for my always making vanilla maps, since for me I felt more like I was making a sequel to Doom itself rather than contributing to the community. That's the kind of motivation that makes mapping the most exciting for me. I sort of see Doom Core and Reverie as my own little IWADs, even though they are PWADs, and Eternally Yours being the third installment without being a full megawad. Sorry for going a little off-topic, but I wanted to express my full opinion. :P

 

Honestly though, it's hard to narrow down such a list especially nowadays. I would just point to this list and throw-in some other mentions like Doom II Reloaded, TNT: Revilution and maybe some other ones.

 

EDIT: I should also mention the original soundtracks to MM1/2, Requiem, Icarus and Eternal Doom do an amazing job of making them feel like a legit expansion of Doom as well...

Edited February 5, 2018 by valkiriforce

[Xaser]

Regarding the "introduce someone to Doom" form of the question, I'm dismayed that there's been at least one explicit mention of skipping the IWADs. You can't do that. At that point, you're not actually introducing a newcomer to Doom at all. Episode 1 is a must-play at least, as it stands up even today gameplay-wise.

 

Now, things do need to be modernized a bit, but that's a question of setting someone up with the right port and settings. It'd be folly to sit someone down in front of Chocolate Doom (lovely as it is), as the resolution and control scheme ("no mouselook!?!?") will throw folks right the hell off. Hopefully that goes without dispute. :P

 

Having said all that, I do agree that the best approach after a proper intro to The Game Itself is to show them something that exercises the full capabilities of modding -- go for the "wow factor," as it were. Even though it's sort of an ego-pick, ZDCMP2 would probably be it, since it has a crapton of new content n' bells n' whistles but doesn't actually stray from Doom's core gameplay. As impressive and awesome as things like Batman Doom are, they're a bit too far from Doom to really be a good intro -- though I'd highly recommend it during the second wave of suggestions.

 

I guess to put it all together, I'd do something like the following:

• Set them up with GZDoom with some friendly defaults (modern WASD control scheme, mouselook, "Software" lightmode w/texture filtering & dynamic lights off, and a few minor compatibility setting tweaks like making decorations not block projectiles)
• Start them on Doom E1, then have them move to Doom II
• Once they're done (or they get bored with the IWADs, whichever comes first), fire up ZDCMP2
• From here, the next wad to recommend depends on what it is they liked the most about what they've played so far. Did they prefer the classic gameplay, or the shiny new content? There's no one-size-fits-all path at this point, though the usual well-renowned megawads and TCs are on the shortlist obviously.

At the end of the day, if that fails (i.e. they're still bored/disinterested/think it's ugly/whatever), then they're simply not the target audience for Doom. Still trying to get them into the game via other means (i.e. heavy modding) is fighting an uphill battle, really.

[Memfis]

Maybe these old Tormentor667 maps with beautiful high-res skies, cool tracker music, and pretty detailing everywhere. When I just got interested in pwads, I thought they were the closest thing to "next level Doom"

[Cynical]

17 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

Well I think every new Doomer should start off with E1. It's the most cohesive and visually polished of all the Id episodes, and introduces new gameplay elements slowly (Doom II is way too front-loaded for someone coming in without having played the original). Also it's free, legally.

 

I'm inclined to agree. A newcomer is not only going to be hopeless at slaughter/challenge wads (starting them off with Ribbiks maps? Seriously?), but they're not going to have the familiarity with Doom's mechanics to understand why anyone would appreciate them. Something like Urban Brawl is much more accessible and makes an immediate, powerful contrast against Doom E1 (Urban Brawl is also an iwad, which means the newbie still doesn't have to make a financial commitment yet). Then would probably come BTSX E1, with an explicit recommendation to play on skill 2.

 

New players, except for a negligible portion who are crazy shmup fanatics or something, are not even going to care about the encounter design subtleties in hardcore wads. All that comes later.

Disagreed.  I always thought of Doom as "a boring, obsolete FPS that can't do anything that Quake and Unreal don't do better" until I was pointed to Alien Vendetta and Hell Revealed.  AV26, in particular, is the map that pretty much sealed the deal for me.

 

(I'm another who would advocate skipping the IWADs.  Fite me.)

 

EDIT:

Keep them away from Scythe and Scythe II, those aren't up to "modern" standards, also keep them away from hell revealed and hell revealed II, don't give them Sunder either, because regardless of how legendary and influential these wads have been, someone who wants to get into a game does not care about history classes. History classes is what you can slap them with when they ask for it.

I could not disagree with this more.  The Scythes and Hell Revealed more than hold up today.  Find me a single other megawad in the last five years that plays as well as those three other than Resurgence and maybe Sunlust.  Oh, right, you can't.

[Soundblock]

1 hour ago, Urthar said:

 

OP clarified in their opening post that they weren't actually looking for wads that would get people into Doom, but rather wanted a list of 'must-see' things.

Pandora's Box can not be closed once opened.

[Mayomancer]

I'd probably recommend some fun megawad with short and tematic levels with great variety like Pigeon Speedmapping Session, and i think Ancient Aliens and The Revenant Problem should easily get someone interested in modding the game.