Gatling

Bump. Seriously well spoken.

Interesting. The other posts here seem to imply that their suggested wads are good but not great. How would you rate Endgame.wad overall? 20th best wad of all time?

The last unreal game, unreal II from 2003, was not only not doom-like, it was un-unreal-like ...assuming we're talking about single-player gaming in this thread.

Hasn't any official attempt to revamp Doom 3 already been superseded by mods? Does id software really have anything to offer better than Sikkmod and Doom 3 Perfected/Evolution?

yes please. I'll come back in a couple years to see if doomworld will compile a Cacowards Hall of Fame for the 20th anniversity of Doom. There will have been over 200 wads selected for Cacowards by that time!

That's way too many wads for anyone who's looking for 'the best Doom wads'. That's a list of wads you would recommend to somebody who has played over a dozen megawads, but that person would most likely be familiar with the cacowards.

How about the OP compares these new games directly to games from 10 years ago, say 1999-2001? That era's equivalent of, for example, Rage, would be Kingpin: Life of Crime.

Cool stuff. I just tried it out. The first puzzle is a room with at least 18 switches, and I only managed to figure out the effect of 3 of them! The second puzzle is a bunch of blue and red rectangles, each of which teleports to another rectangle depending on which side you try to exit the teleport. I see no pattern at all, so I just can't confirm that these are good puzzles.

It’s not so much that PK&SS play particularly well in large arenas, it’s more that Doom plays poorly in large arenas (I use ‘arena’ interchangeably with ‘horrendous map design’ from earlier.) Given enough room, a player of intermediate skill can simply circle strafe, clumping enemies into packs so that no bullet is wasted and area of effect damage is maximized. Can you imagine entering a large long room in Doom with enemies starting to charge from the other side of the room? Maps like this are not made for Doom but are common in Serious Sam because they are capable of providing a challenge in Serious Sam but not Doom. Small variations in monster numbers which are negligible in Doom can make or break the intensity/fairness of a fight in Serious Sam. There are deeper tactics everywhere. Kamikazes can be killed so that they blow up nearby kamikazes and you can stun kamikazes to position them so that large chains would explode. Boars are best killed with a chainsaw as they charge past you or when they’re turning around (usually at a wall) after having charged. AI may be simple but fast, varied swarms develop into difficult patterns way more chaotic than Doom’s. You find yourself changing weapons and targets on the fly (and killing enemies when they’re 2 seconds away from you), whereas in Doom you either use one just one weapon on a group of enemies, or change them in an order you have mentally prepared earlier like rocket-to-chaingun. And of course, the importance of good aim is understated in Doom. While you can clump Half Life and Bioshock with Call of Duty, I’m a sucker for a third category of FPS games that feature slow unfolding combat like Delta Force, Farcry, Swat, which are on one end of the FPS spectrum with Doom in the other and CoD in the middle.

Wondering if there are any reputable mods that incorporate this. For example, 1. A level with very limited ammo and many switches that unleash monsters or lower floors into dangerous fluid. Learn to flip switches with the correct order and timing to trap monsters or provoke infighting. 2. Scour the many-roomed mansion of a wealthy eccentric. Switches open up passages behind bookcases for just enough time for you to run to the opening before you're shut in. Look for clues as to which secret corresponds to which switch. Discover evil experiments. 3. Kill every human twice to continue. Killing an arch-vile may lead to an unwinnable situation. 4. A certain number of lost souls are necessary to reach critical mass and cleanse the demon infestation. Survive in a closed room while allowing pain elementals to spawn lost souls. 5. Anything surprising.

Hmm, many games have extensive and thoroughly tested "enhancement" mods. I see from your post that when you like a certain game, you look for more content for that game.

Cool, though I guess I was asking a more general question. I mean, is that the way you browse mods? Or do you find dedicated sites like doomworld.com and its links or nexusmods.com? Do you search mods for games you like, or games you find disappointing? Do you ever get games with an explicit determination to play mods on it? (Should I create a new thread, with a poll?) I'm curious about you people because mods are much harder to sort/navigate than commercial games. For example, I got Quake 1 and 2 recently. It is so boring. Levels are so repetitive and monotone, it's like I'm clearing the same room/staircase over and over. Whatever intricacy a level has simply translates into me wandering for a while. The games aren't too hard but enemies seem to take forever to kill and the same methods work every time, this is especially true in Q2 which I see as a step down from Q1. Could mods turn the quakes inside-out? Well, I found the following channel featuring playthroughs of select Q1 mods and, at a glance, most mods seem to take cues from original Q1 level design. There are few apparent mods that take a different approach, like an Indian-themed mod that features open-arena-style combat atop a big castle. Should I abandon Q1,Q2 addons based on my dislike of the originals? Well presented Q1 mod playthroughs: http://www.youtube.com/user/Monster667

How do you find your mods? Do you look for your favorite titles, or titles you just got, and find mods that look interesting on moddb.com or fileplanet.com?

I’m guessing that most people on this forum have played lots of Doom WADs, so you’re obviously open-minded to user-made enhancements. Assuming Doom is not the only game you’ve ever played, I’m curious as to what games you play with WADs or their equivalent.

All those other threads seem buried deep within the forums, and all of them seem written for experienced WAD players, not noobs. That's why I labelled this thread 'wtf' I think you mean add-ons, not mods. Doom WADs are essentially add-ons, extra levels. I don't know much about those so I trust you. I suppose that Doom has the one engine that most modders can approach like professional developers. But videogames very often receive mods that really make the game much much better. These are the mods that don't touch level design and art assets. Instead they improve the engine, squash bugs, tweak game balance, enhance replayability, and so on (the stuff Doom did right in the official product).