b0rsuk

It occured to me that there's one more way in which DooM (and Heretic) is unique. It's the best example of a bullet hell FPS. Reasons: - the majority of monsters shoot projectiles - those projectiles are dodgeable - player speed is high compared to missile speed - monsters often come in swarms So we have: Imp, Cacodemon, Hell Knight, Baron, Lost Soul, Pain Elemental, Revenant, Arachnotron, Mancubus, Cyberdemon. Even pinkies can be included because movement is critical to avoiding them. It's NOT a stretch to say dodging is more important than aiming, in DooM. This is a typical trait of a bullet hell game. It could be a fun idea for a mod: make DooM even more of a bullet hell ! Zombiemen, shotgun guys, heavy weapon dudes would shoot verrry fast (but dodgeable) missiles. Even Spider Mastermind could do that. With its spread and rate of fire it wouldn't be trivial. I want more games like that. I don't think Serious Sam qualifies. Too many melee monsters.

Maybe they're just waiting for next gen consoles before they make the annoucement ?

OMG ! OMG ! An encrypted message ! idbehold s v i r a l

But monsters often attack you from different directions, so dodging projectiles from only 1 direction may not be enough. Individual monsters are at different distance from you, so projectiles arrive at your location at different moments. On many occasions a projectile you dodged once becomes dangerous again, because you have to dodge another missile, go back etc. This is typically due to lack of space - you're on some platforms (above lava) and monsters are shooting you, or in tight corridors. DooM is largely a projectile-dodging game. Among FPS games, DooM has exceptionally high number of projectiles to dodge. Although Heretic actually has more...

Yes, it's another way of looking at DooM. While individual enemies except Mancubus don't shoot around player, there are often so many monsters ! So many imps, mancubi. And advanced players learn to dodge Revenant missiles in the open rather than rely on the cowardly corner trick all the time. So saying that DooM is simply outdated is missing the point. It a completely different style of a game. Just like Realm Of The Mad God is the only action RPG which qualifies as bullet hell. It's a MMORPG with autofire !! That makes it look more oldschool than DooM. http://realmofthemadgod.com If John Carmack and company weren't so close-minded, I would totally pay for a "bullet hell FPS" kickstarter project. Bullet hell FPS genre is completely extinct, you could even say no one really tried it to its full potential. Hexen had parts of bullet hell - in many places traps would shoot projectiles from walls, but 1) they were often not dodgeable, like too short distance 2) Hexen was never really about combat mechanics. Out of DooM engine games it has worst combat and very questionable level design (but perhaps the best atmosphere). A very cheap yet effective way to make Bullet Hell DooM: give player permanent partial invisibility ! How evil !

Hi 1. Select "Black Plague Possesses Thee" skill level - the highest. 2. Use a cheat to warp to E1M9. You should only get starting equipment. 3. No prisoners, no survivors. Quite hard actually. I won't spoil things for you, there are unexpected complications. And 'invisible' undead warriors are perhaps the most brutal monsters in the game. Does anyone else know levels which are similarly hard when played from scratch ? It could also be from DooM, DooM II, Hexen. Hexen is the least suited for this(some hubs are impossible to finish if you start in the wrong level), and it's a bit easy to predict the hardest combination. Almost invariably Cleric because he starts with a pathetic weapon.

In E4M6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzUVNlVExNI Look where the crossbow is. Near the yellow door, in the room with Iron Lich and there are multiple saberclaws barring the way :-) No, you don't have enough crystals to kill gargoyles before entering the room. No, you don't have enough crystals to kill all the saberclaws, let alone the iron lich.

It does, at first. Then you realize there are no graves, no coffins, etc. Just a maze of tricky corridors. Heretic levels in general seem closer to their names than DooM levels, and still play very well. River of Fire looks like a river of fire. So does Glacier, Cemetery, Docks... They also have a few quirks: - you find yellow key, then green key, then blue key. Always in this order. This makes navigation easier, you know where to go. - there are very few traps where monsters teleport in. There are also no fast doors, so monster closets are a bit more forgiving.

Still talking about Heretic: E4M6 is a lot harder. I mean try it on "skill5" with no weapons, using the warp cheat. In fact, it's almost impossible, especially if you don't use save/load.

I've just completed E5M4. Not particularly difficult. The swarm of nitrogolems at the start is inconvenient, of course, but you only need to push your way past them. The path is linear and soon you arrive at the comfy room with gargoyles and the crossbow. Then I backtrack to collect backpack and ammo, and kill undead warriors via secret. For killing nitrogolems the door is very useful. Aim a little down, open door and close after each shot. E4M9 is another matter. It's not even that there are swarms and almost no weapons. The map itself is confusing as hell, no landmarks, everything looks the same basically. Secret doors required to progress. I had to use "killall" cheat on lower difficulty and still had problems finding the first door. Then I checked a speedrun on youtube. The main difficulty seems to be orienting in the mausoleum while under fire. You have to memorize where the teleporter chamber is or you're dead within seconds.

There are secrets, and engine bugs which make the map a lot easier if used.

Welcome to 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shovelware Does anyone remember Doomsday Collection CD ?

I'm afraid he may have given up playing DooM II. It's been several days since last video, and they appeared daily prior to that. It's quite interesting to see a newbie's perspective. The part I enjoyed the most is when he started getting his ass handed to him.

I remember at one point SS said with irritation they don't want any more snail mail telling them how to beat the boss in DooM II. Pure gold. As for how the myth came to be, my bet is on ignorance. They may have even written the review before finishing DooM normally, they were only able to reach the level with cheats. Unable to find the way, after an hour of killing monsters aimlessly, they chalked it down to cheat protection. It's not completely insane - remember, DooM doesn't allow cheats on Nightmare skill.

Baron of Hell vs Hell Knight - it sounds cheap at first, but remember that even back then Barons were considered mostly harmless bullet sponges. I remember reading an interview or something mentioning that they introduced Knights as the less boring version. They deal just as much damage but don't require as much time to take down. If you're still not convinced, Heretic has so many monster variations and most of them don't even look different ! Come on, even DooM diehards and fans should admit not everything in DooM was perfect: * The bosses except glorious and frighteningly powerful Cyberdemon were uninspired at best. Spider Mastermind in particular is a letdown as a final boss. * Super Shotgun not so much adds to the game as replaces the ordinary one. You have to bend over backwards to find a reason to use Shotgun, when SSG deals 3x damage for only 2x ammo. * melee monsters are infamous for being pathetic. I can't think of a game where melee monsters were more of a joke. Demons simply can't deal damage to an alert and sober player in vast majority of cases. Almost all exceptions are workarounds like placing demons in groups or placing them in confined spaces. Lost Souls aren't much better. * melee weapons are very hard to use mostly because they're buggy. Fist is hard to hit with even if you touch the monster. Arachnotrons, Mancubi would make great chainsaw targets if it wasn't for the cross-section and blockmap bugs. * Infinitely tall monsters. There's an imp somewhere below, and None Shall Pass. It often turns into a guessing game when you try to find a way down. * Partial Invisibility is just harmful unless there are only hitscan monsters around. It could've been changed to be useful for everyone with some creativity. Make it so monsters shoot at the spot you were 0.5 second ago. That's a lot of time in DooM. -------------- As for things that DooM genuinely lacked, in my opinion: Grenade launcher. Not to bounce behind corners, but to hit stuff in various pits. Interesting flying monsters. There are only cacodemons, which are limited by their huge size, and skulls. Gargoyles in Heretic are an excellent counterexample. They work just about anywhere and are fun to fight. 2 more flyers with unique mechanics would be great. At least a token way to have path over path. Flying magical bridges like in Hexen would be okay, they would even fit in the Hell episodes and some monsters appear to use magic anyway. I disagree about landmines. Would slow the game down, and would enable grind (place mine, lure monster, place mine, lure monster, place mine... not very fun).

I'm pretty sure you meant that both 10 (not 8) and 12 are divisors of 60. But I'm not posting to bash people for imperfect vocabulary. I think it's interesting that base 60 was likely created as a common base between 10 and 12. Base 12 actually was very popular, that's why there are words like 'dozen'. Both 10 and 12 originate from human hand. 12 is the highest number you can count to using your hand. Use your thumb, and count each part of your remaining fingers. You should have 4 fingers left 3 parts each, so 3 * 4 = 12. 10 divides by 1, 2, 5, and 10. 12 divides by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. Traders without the knowledge of fractions might prefer base 12, because it's easier to divide stuff in equal amounts.

I particularly enjoy playing with no saves when I use randomly generated WADs from Oblige. When I do, I just quit the game and delete the file if I die. I only make an exception if I generated a particularly enjoyable level. Playing with no saves is interesting because you have to play carefully. There's never an option to reload or respawn. I think I'll mod spectres to produce no sounds except attack and pain sounds.

How about multiplayer ? In multiplayer - yes, SSG's power affects you even if you choose not to use it. In many circumstances it's the best weapon, instant hit with monstrous damage, no way to dodge. Some servers even make you spawn with SSG.

Most favorite: Plasma Gun, Rocket Launcher. RL is brutal, but unlike in most games it works both ways. DooM is one of few games which have 100% self damage. Quake1, Quake2 reward sloppy play due to 50% self damage reduction. Least favorite: probably SSG. It made me stop playing DooM in multiplayer. b00ring. In single player, SSG is not really an addition to the arsenal. Rather, a replacement. Also, I dislike melee weapons. Yes, they can be useful, but their pitiful range makes them pain in the ass. Also, they're buggy and can't hit big enemies reliably.

I'm waiting for the next part with the punchline.

It took me years to realize Super Shotgun is more than 2x more powerful than regular Shotgun. It's more like it's 3 times more powerful. That's what DooM 2 does to you. You never use SSG on anything past map02, and if you do it's on zombiemen or shotgun guys and you don't notice. I played DooM 1 a lot later, so I didn't remember.

DooM II maps do look quite abstract, but I don't mind. They're very varied and that counts for me. I value gameplay the most. There is a game which has both very good gameplay and has levels that match their names. I'm talking about Heretic. Hexen levels look even better, but they are terrible to play. Really, Hexen is probably the first linear and heavily scripted FPS. In a way it also has a lot of cutscenes - there are many scripted sequences which force you to wait.

I like DooM II maps a lot. I like exploration. I dislike DooM III maps because they're so linear. DooM II is actually very good in this department. It has a lot of landmarks, and levels are fairly easy to memorize with small practice. Now DooM 1 can be a nightmare, because it has so many featureless areas. Hexen has very confusing map design. DooM II is just great. That reviewer is just close/minded. You could ask him to make a graph where Y axis would be game quality and X axis would be time. He would draw a straight line. Or at the very least, he would draw an increasing function without a second thought. I finished Ultima 3 Exodus recently. It has actual 3D dungeons, imagine that ! And not 3D in the sense "monster looks different from different sides" (monsters are not visible in dungeons, they just ambush you). 3D as in "there can be multiple ladders on a level". You don't finish a level and go to the next one. It is possible in some cases, but in many you go back and forth between levels. And Ultima 3 designers had the nerve to leave notes like "Map well!". Imagine that ! Player not only supposed to be good at orienteering, but to be able to create maps. A lost art. No minimap, no automap. Many dungeon levels in U3 have "strange wind" squares which extinguish your torch.

It's quite believable Carmack didn't want that hack in his games. I recall another situation when people were playing DooM 3 at his office, on new 16:10 monitors. He started bitching about it saying the game is not adjusted for it, and primitive transformation from 4:3 to 16:10 has artifacts.

DooM is more of a comic game. It's fun, colorful. Monsters are a bit goofy rather than scary (Cacodemons ? Demons ? Hell Knights ?). And they don't fit particularly well, there are unexplained mixups like Spider Mastermind or Arachnotron. They just wanted something that looks cool... and some actually modeled after Toys R Us toys. Certainly Mastermind and Plasma Rifle. DooM is fast, monsters are quite weak. No other game I know has such a huge gap between monster and player speed. I guess they thought "run" feature would only be used sparely. Quake has amazing sounds, and while it still has remains of Romero's meddling, monsters and tech level are very consistent. Outside of initial levels, only ogres have modern weapons. It's still fast, just on run-in-circles-around-melee-enemies fast. Fiends are welcome after pathetic demons. I used to prefer Quake 2, but Q1 has much better atmosphere. Q2 hubs, like in Hexen, don't add much. Mostly they make it easier to get lost. Which is better - DooM or Quake - is a matter of taste. I like both. And that "quake done 100% quickest", on nightmare, is glorious. I wanted to post it. It shows how quick the game is, and how creepy the atmosphere. Meanwhile custom DooM wads often have silly scripting and messages, colorful and silly images, sounds and so on. Easygoing music. If Blizzard was to make a game, they would make DooM, not Quake 1. Only action would be as dynamic as Borderlands.