Ubik

The shotgun and SSG are very different weapons with different purposes, and I still use them both a lot. Shotgun: -Medium/long-range sniping -Taking out dispersed groups of imps, sergeants, and other single/double-shot enemies -Taking out imps in long, narrow lines (happens more than you think); you have a good chance of taking out multiple imps with one shell every so often. -Ammo conservation in ammo-scarce maps SSG: -Taking out large clumps of imps, sergeants, etc. clustered closely together -Close-quarters fighting against mid- to high-health enemies -"Hit-and-run" tactics with stronger enemies: Rush up, quick SSG shot to the face, retreat/dodge retaliation. Rinse and repeat. -Circle-strafing stronger enemies Basically, the shotgun is most effective against lower-level enemies, from long range to short range, while the SSG is best against mid-level enemies at close quarters and crowd control of lower-level enemies. Usually the WAD or individual map will set the tone for which one I default to, but since most maps seem to be designed with shells as primary ammo it's almost always one of the two. While the huge thud and power of the SSG is undeniably satisfying, it also feels great to zig-zag around with the regular shotgun and take down a (minor) monster with every shot. It's especially fun if you can just hold down the mouse button and aim well enough to hit something every time it fires. :) Side note: Being able to take down a pinky demon with one SSG shot is nice, but if you're not chainsawing every one of those bastards as is practically possible you're doing it wrong. :)

So I guess my idea for making a mod for Demons as a Starcraft race three years back wasn't that original. Ah well. Gonna try this baby out.

Does map06 of Mock2 count (clocking in at a whopping 702 Cybers), or is that DQed for sheer retardedness?

Dear god, a flying spectred Arch-Vile. Now THAT'S evil.

DEALer: "Doom Engine Application Launcher." It doesn't HAVE to be an acronym, you know. /edit: In that case, just call it Gehenna for a roundabout reference to Hell.

If the Baron cheats, I'm pretty sure the Cyberdemon can trump his cheating with a rocket to the face. I'm voting Mancubus and Cyberdemon. And, if it could angle its body right, I'm sure one of the Spiderdemon's legs has powerful enough hydraulics to overpower even a Cyber's arm. Also, Doom marine with a berserk pack could beat all of them. :D

I'll dig out some of the ideas I had from a previous thread of the same theme: Azathoth: My idea for a sprite-type Baphomet. Put a Baphomet-type head atop a body that's wiry yet tightly-muscled (kind of like an Arch-Vile), with numerous cybernetic enhancements - perhaps even an entirely mechanical pelvis and legs. Its defining feature would be a set of giant mechanical wings, made from rusted steel girders and gears and covered in feathers made of sharp, jagged, rusty shards of metal. It would be taller than the Cyberdemon (especially with the wings), but with about as much endurance as a Spiderdemon. Its primary attack would be launching waves of its feathers for moderate damage per projectile, while it could swipe with its claws as a melee attack for high damage. It can also summon Boss Cubes with some regularity (using an animation similar to that of an Arch-Vile attack), and maybe could have some sort of fire projectile attack used only rarely. Hellfire King: A Cyberdemon without the Cyber. I always liked thinking of the Cyberdemon as an enhanced version of a demon lord ranking above the Barons, who chose to sacrifice its magical abilities for higher physical and attack power. So, picture an un-cybered Cyberdemon with powerful magic attacks (maybe similar to those of the Maulotaur) with the ability to use its claws (and possibly its hooves) for melee attacks. However, it would have less physical endurance than a Cyberdemon, probably around 2400HP worth. Shoggoth: An obscenely bizarre mantis-demon. Its body is like a big, hunched-over preying mantis made of black chitin, with numerous legs. Its head is that of a wolf, but instead of two regular eyes it has a half-dozen insectoid compound eyes scattered randomly across the ocular plane; its jaw also opens extremely wide to reveal large, venom-dripping mandibles. Its claws are the strangest part: on one side it has two medium-sized claws, but on the other it has one giant crab-like slasher claw, with two nearly-vestigial "gripper" arms underneath it. It spits gobs of venom from its mouth for moderate damage and slashes with its big claw for massive melee damage, has about the same size and endurance as a Mancubus, and scurries around very quickly. Golgorchid: A hellish flower made entirely of rotting meat, pulsing organs and filthy claws. It's a stationary monster, but throws spore pods that explode into poison gas like Hexen's flechettes. If you get too close, the flower itself will gnash and bite at you for moderate damage. It would have low endurance (less than that of a Revenant), but would appear in small groups or along with other monsters to make its spore-throwing a real liability. Dentati: The upper body of a large, four-armed demon, but "bit off" just above the pelvis. It scurries around like a spider on its arms, dragging its bloody spine and entrails along behind it. Its face is totally blank and featureless, except for a big vertical sucking gash for a mouth. It spits corrosive blood from its mouth at a distance, and at melee range lashes you with its tail like a scorpion. It could either be large (same width as a Spiderdemon but close to the ground) or small, and the larger version has the ability to smash the ground to make "earthquakes" (e.g. a hitscan attack). I think the Motherdemon could translate over to Doom well if done right, and I'd love to see some of Skulltag's variants in the game. I also like the idea of the Berserker mentioned earlier. VileSlay, maybe your "baroness" could be called the Jezebel?

I think I've gibbed imps and zombies with the plasma gun a few times. It's pretty rare though. And it's fun to watch a swarm of zombies disintegrate from just one or two rockets.

Thank you for choosing Valu-Rep!

Something I've been whipping up randomly, from my own ideas about the nature of Hell and Doom's demons. http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ubik/doommonsters.html Not sure if this is the right place to post it, but what the hell. This is also subject to some editing, and will probably have additional material in the near future. /edit Thanks to the mods for moving the topic to the proper place. :)

Deus Vult, Alien Vendetta and Action Doom. No doubt about it. If we're talking about the original games, though, I'd say Doom 2 MAP28 is my favorite singular interpretation of Hell, followed by Doom 1's E3 and Doom 3 (including the Resurrection of Evil version). Although I like how certain parts of E2 showed Hellish influence on our reality. I love Doom 2's skybox for Hell, though. :)

How about a /newstuff for actual new stuff, and make a separate /oldstuff for anything uploaded from the '94 era? Because the mountains of random, ghastly '94 WADs are drowning out the actual new stuff, but still deserve some recognition of their own. Maybe make people who upload old WADs also upload a .txt file with brief descriptions of the files uploaded, and append that to the end of each /newstuff in a Museum of Unnatural History minisection or something. There has to be some way to balance out the two, considering there's two major demands here that cannot adequately be met through the single channel of /newstuff as it exists.

It's very difficult to find a situation where back-facing monsters don't form some kind of trap or gameplay crux, though. For instance: think of a room with a key at the other end, and a bunch of backwards-facing monsters spaced out enough that you can run to the key. There are two main options: either snag the key and try to sprint or fight your way out, or shoot the monsters from behind and start a fight so you can get the key without the "escape" hassle. Either way, you're forced to fight the monsters: which method you choose depends on your gameplay style and what tactics suit the situation best. Do you have enough ammo and health to take them head-on, or will you be forced to zip through the monsters and hope you can get out with the key in time to not get killed? In practical terms, every backwards-facing monster between you and wherever you're going presents this choice. Monsters that meet you head-on basically force a fight (or, in some situations, an escape), but any backwards facing monster you meet gives you two (or sometimes more) tactical options. At the very least, it can be boiled down to, "Do I want this monster facing me head-on, or do I want him chasing me from behind?" There are situations where either is applicable, especially if you get into a monster-blockade/infighting situation. While I appreciate a good trap, however, it get irritating when traps are constantly springing on you and it feels like you're getting "punished" for picking up something as minor as an armor bonus. When used intelligently these traps can add a hell of a lot to gameplay, but in excess they're irritating, tiresome and distracting, bringing you out of the game when the 2347th set of HKs springs out of the walls because you picked up a clip lying around. Doom 3 is far guiltier of this than original Doom, but it's started popping up a lot in more modern WADs. It's another example of how gameplay aspects should be balanced and managed well.

I know, he must really suck at the game to be out of ammo for it constantly. Or he's pulling stuff out of his ass. I just finished the expansion today and I love how it's changed from the tone and gameplay of Doom 3. It's a bit short, but overall it's a lot more engaging and challenging and it was definetely worthwhile.

No kidding, any reasonable construction inspector would condemn every building in the Mars operation within an hour. Especially E2M6. That place is a damn death trap. Then again, with all the corrupt union leaders, mob connections and zombie teamsters, it'll never happen.

Heh, if you replaced the two main lava pools in MAP15 with water, you'd have a nice little water park on your hands. Then again, if you did the same to E3M6, you'd have a wonderful beach home. I'd probably take E1M7 over any of them, though, since it has a great layout and a cozy little backyard. E3M6 will just be my summer home. E3M4 wins for closet space, though, as long as you don't mind keeping all your stuff next to the writhing bodies of tortured prisoners.

Rudimentary Peni.

Actually, my theory on that was always that the "fleshy" parts of Hell were actually labyrinths within the body of the Baphomet. Think about it: a demon whose arms can devastate "untold miles" of Hell and you never see it? Ahh, but you can't see the whole city of Chicago when you're taking the L or walking through downtown. And, considering the extent to which the Baphomet's head is integrated with its environment, why would the rest of its body not follow suit and merge itself with Hell's terrain to become a warped monument of its landscape? That's no mountain... (or moon either)

Does that mean John Romero is a big pussy? :)

Vagary Tetris?

You mean, "Get your ass to Mahs." :)

I always thought the Baphomet could be considered some kind of demon "queen," like that of a termite or bee's nest: not only does it spawn all its servants, in massive numbers, but also commands them and has ultimate authority in the hive. So the Baphomet not only acts as an upper-tier commander in Hell's forces, but has what you could call a perversion of the parental role as well. You could say that they named the wrong enemy the Motherdemon. ;) I'd like to think that Hell is utterly huge enough that, though the Baphomets are relatively few and terrifyingly high in rank, it is still possible to run into dozens, even hundreds, of them before encountering a more supreme demon authority. You never know, there could even be a few tiers of authority between the Baphomets and the ruler of Hell itself, and Doomguy just never encountered any of them because Hell is so unimaginably huge that even a massive invasion of another dimension is beneath the notice of one of these creatures. That's a possibility too, but the world of Doom always seemed too concrete to me to be reduced to mere metaphysical terms. ;) But I like the idea of Hell being one vast, teeming organism of evil, with the demons being mere cells of an unimaginably horrible Body. To be fair, though, I also like the idea of Hell having several different societies and levels of culture within it, as I postulated in the monster "guide" I posted a while back. The idea of there being a species/society of demons on Hell's fringes that even the rest of Hell's minions are terrified of is particularly intriguing to me.

Then shoot up its school. ... WHOOPS!

Actually, the term "industrial" came from Genesis P-Orridge, who also spearheaded the first industrial band, Throbbing Gristle. To paraphrase his words: "Modern popular music can all be traced back to old black slave hymns. We need a new kind of slave hymn for the modern, industrial worker." And that's where the term "industrial" actually comes from. The genre itself has evolved in countless ways in the three decades since, and branched out to merge with other genres to become something new (EBM, industrial rock, noise, etc.). BTW, KMFDM and Ministry fall into the category of "industrial rock," rather than "pure" industrial, which is better personified by Skinny Puppy, Einstürzende Neubauten and Foetus (even though Jim Thirlwell would kill me for including him among the others).

This isn't a suggestion or request thread - I'm simply curious as to which Doom PWADs people are interested in seeing in Doom 3 form, whether they're ultra-faithful to the original or heavily redesigned to fit Doom 3's tone. Personally, I'd absolutely love to see what Asylum of the Wretched would be like in the Doom 3 engine. Its harrowing atmosphere is perfectly suited for it, especially its dark lighting and ambient sound. Although it would require some tinkering, I also think Alien Vendetta map20 would be spectacular in Doom 3 form, considering its atmosphere and architecture. There's just a few larger areas that would need some revamping. Many of Scythe's maps would make for excellent translations as well, considering their relatively small size and intense action. What PWADs do you think would fare well if they were remade as Doom 3 maps?