Best way to play Doom as a newcomer?

Howdy,

I am very interested in playing Doom, and I have heard that there are a number of ways to do it (i.e. different clients to play it on). Which client would you recommend for the overall best singleplayer Doom experience?

After going through all of the games, I would also like to start diving into some of the best WADs available. This may sound stupid, but the client would support any WAD that I throw at it, right?

I'm just interested in experiencing Doom in the best possible way, and though that may be entirely subjective, I figure it wouldn't hurt to ask a lot of experienced Doomers.

Thank you!

Yoknapatawpha said:

After going through all of the games, I would also like to start diving into some of the best WADs available. This may sound stupid, but the client would support any WAD that I throw at it, right?

Not really...

Basically, WAD's are either :
- "vanilla compatible", which means they can be played with the original executables, faithful clones thereof (Chocolate Doom), or most ports
- "limit-removing" means the WAD must be played with a port which removes some limitations of the original executables. Most recent ports are limit-removing, except Chocolate Doom
- "Boom-compatible" means the WAD uses some new stuff from Boom, a famous port from the 90's. Lots of ports are Boom-compatible (ZDoom, etc.), including ports directly derived from Boom (PrBoom, Eternity Engine). A few modern ports, though, such as Doomsday Engine, are deliberately not Boom-Compatible
- Some WAD's are specifically designed for a specific port (ZDoom, GZDoom, EDGE....)

ZDoom's probably the most user-friendly way to play and will run nearly everything you throw at it. As a newcomer, you won't be put off by the little differences.

Edit: Eternity's not bad to start on, either. Wad support won't be as good, just because ZDoom's the go-to engine for gameplay mods.

I will also agree with ZDoom.

Odds are it will run whatever maps you throw at it. It won't run stuff for Edge or Eternity or Doomsday (exclusively), so if you need to deviate, you might need to use those.

ZDoom also won't run some older total conversions (such as Alien TC or Batman Doom), and has some slight gameplay differences from the original game, but yes, it's compatible with lots of stuff, including many WADs devised specialy for it, such as the full games Harmony, Chex Quest 3 and Urban Brawl.

Personally, I now alternate between PrBoom+ and Chocolate Doom, but I've played a lot of GZDoom before.
GZDoom is a nice OpenGL version of ZDoom, try it if you like beautiful lighting (and dislike big pixels).

The Aliens TC version 2.0 does work with (G)ZDoom, but it's true that Batman Doom is incompatible.

Oh, and GZDoom can still give you the big pixels if you want them. I know I do ;)

scalliano said:

it's true that Batman Doom is incompatible.

Only in a couple levels.

I've been dragging non-Doomer friends into the celebration frenzy all day and throwing GZDoom at them. Seems to have worked out okay for them with some fiddling, though I'm amused at the number of "how do I reload" and "can you zoom in" questions I get.

To achieve a more vanilla experience with GZDoom all you have to do is set texture filtering (under display options -> GL options -> texture options) to None, optionally set your resolution (under video options) to something low (800x600 ought to be enough for everybody), make sure stuff like dynamic lights and all that are turned off, and finally go to compatibility options and select either Doom or Doom (Strict). It's not perfect emulation but it's close enough to it. I personally am running on Doom settings, with a high resolution and some brightmaps, GLDefs and dynamic lights addons, my own personal music collection (Sycraft for first-play tracks, various remixes for reuses of songs) and mouselook, but jump and crouch turned off. (I'll always be a fan of Vanilla-But-Better, hence the additions.)

I've made some packages for friends when I want to sell them on Doom...

For example, here's GlBoom+II (45 MB zipped, 140 MB unzipped)
with PrBoom+ and some of the best Dom II WADS, including Batman Doom, Alien Vendetta, Equinox, etc.
Unzip, launch either GLBoom+II.exe or GLBoom+II.bat, enjoy.

This package includes only open-source and shareware stuff (WAD's are run on a mix of FreeDoom and Doom Shareware).
If you want to play with the real Doom, just replace freedoom's doom2.wad with the original doom2.wad (if you own it).

Yoknapatawpha said:

..... I'm just interested in experiencing Doom in the best possible way, and though that may be entirely subjective, I figure it wouldn't hurt to ask a lot of experienced Doomers.

Thank you!

I recommend GZDoom, because of its eyecandy and it will play most every pwad made.

To begin with you could try these pwads
http://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/

and then explore the realm of
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/

The Batman TC is STILL not ZDoom compatible?

Someone needs to make ZDoom compatibility happen now.

GZDoom is the best way to drown a newcomer in redundant and confusing options. Although that can be said about many popular source ports.

I agree to some extent, but it's not like there's anything really better out there. PrBoom-plus and Eternity are just as bad, I forget about Doomsday, EDGE, and Legacy specifically but I remember them all having huge confusing menus too. I'm certainly not going to point a newbie to Chocolate Doom because it takes a special kind of fan to want to play at 320x200. I guess that leaves Doom 3 BFG Edition's engine?

I tried using one of the new versions of Doomsday. What a friggin' nightmare.

If you'd like something that updates the experience but stays true to the original, I'd recommend using the following mods with Zdoom:

http://www.perkristian.net/sounds/pk_doom_sfx.zip

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=16674

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/62403-doom-2-minor-sprite-fixing-project-v1-3-release-updated-6-26-13/

Ragnor said:

The Batman TC is STILL not ZDoom compatible?

Avoozl said:

Someone needs to make ZDoom compatibility happen now.

I am not terribly familiar with Batman Doom's compatibility problems, but I already have some experience with this sort of thing, so if I took it on myself to fix it, I'd probably come up with something in no time.

However there seems to be some perverse rule created by the Doom Gods that ANY TC that requires repackaging or other changes to get around its vanilla installers and work with source port, INVARIABLY comes with some sort of "do not modify" clause that some people take as Gospel, and would rather leave afflicted PWADs broken forever, rather than "going against their author wishes" (though I can't accept that ANY author meant for his work to be rendered unplayable). FWIW, I have posted my thoughts on the matter, in lieu of a manifesto.

As for Batman Doom, as if the aforementioned Doom Gods wanted to mock their "flock" even further, its readme files don't even follow the standard idgames readme format, and so you won't EVEN find the standard infamous MAY/MAY NOT clauses. You will find this, however:

Important: You may NOT use (parts of) this wad file to construct new
wad files without permission of the authors. If you do so, you will go to hell.

So, back to square minus one, gentlemen.

dethtoll said:

I've been dragging non-Doomer friends into the celebration frenzy all day and throwing GZDoom at them. Seems to have worked out okay for them with some fiddling, though I'm amused at the number of "how do I reload" and "can you zoom in" questions I get.

Hah, if they want that, they need to get Brutal Doom.
I'd say ZDoom, it's a pretty fun source-port, if you want multiplayer, get Skulltag. But since Skulltag is no longer running, Zandronum is the way to go for multiplayer.

In fact, I first started Doom on Zandro, which is an updated form of Skulltag, which is based on ZDoom.

First thing, others describe their preferences. This gets very personal and you choose your own favorites.

Second: You are going to end up with several Doom engines, so might as well download a few and try them. They are similar enough in their interfaces that what you figure out from one, is applicable to the others.

There are several criteria to select a first choice.
1. Your OS. Get one that was developed on your operating system.
2. Free Look and AutoAim. This is being able to look around and shoot where you look. Vanilla Doom has auto-aim which aims the shots at the monsters. This makes it very difficult to put a rocket where you want it because it will auto-aim at monsters, or not aim at all. With Free Look you just point where the rocket is to go. You can hit a moving monster by shooting in front of it.
3. Jumping. Can jump up on low ledges and jump over gaps.
Vanilla Doom does not allow jumping, so a low wall is an impassable barrier. You have to run across a gap fast enough that you do not fall farther than the step up distance.
4. Network play. Playing with friends requires using the same port (and version). Some ports can play over the Internet, and some only using local networks.
5. Boom compatibility. A set of linedef enhancements that is more widely supported than others. Includes more door types, keys, moving floors and ceilings, crushers, scrolling textures on ceilings and floors, conveyors, etc...
6. MBF compatibility. Having a dog and friends.
7. 3d floors. Vanilla Doom cannot have room over room, which can really hamper level design and results in strange layouts.
In Vanilla wads, Bridges are made using engine tricks, and will not work with multiple players. Enhanced engines have true 3d floors that allow real bridges, and rooms over rooms.
8. ZDoom-isms like sloped floors.

There are several good wads out there, and to play them you will have to download and install the particular engine they need.
For some you may have to install a DOSBOX (DOS emulation).
Doom Wiki has a description for each of the engines, but not all the details, and not always up-to-date.

I have DoomLegacy, PrBoom, Edge, Eternity Engine.

PrBoom, PrBoom+
- Boom compatible (the Boom source itself runs on DOS).
- MBF compatible.
- AutoAim
- The Boom compatible wads have many more special effects than vanilla wads.

DoomLegacy
- I am describing DoomLegacy here because the other descriptions you may find cannot keep current with the fixes and enhancements.
- Download the latest 1.44 alpha version from the DoomLegacy site. It is greatly improved over the SourceForge 1.42 version.
- plays Doom, DoomII, TNT, Plutonia, Heretic, FreeDoom, and others
- Video: window or fullscreen, video mode selector,
palette or several RGB modes or opengl
- Has Free Look, Auto-aim as options.
- Has jumping
- Is Boom compatible (almost everything now).
- Has multiplayer network play (32 players). Coop and deathmatch.
- Can play in Teams, with skins.
- Has 3d floors with multiple levels.
- Friction, mud, ice, fog, light effects.
- Quake style control assignments.
- Lots of menus, and a control console.
- Developed on Linux. Default port requires SDL library that you must install first.
- Alternative ports include Windows-SDL, Windows-DirectDraw, Linux-X11, and some others that are in various stages of working (due to no one using them in the last 10 years).

Notable wads that will require DoomLegacy to play.
Twilight - a commando simulation with different weapons.
Phobia - Mystical, Esoteric, a different experience from Doom levels.
Chexquest NewLevels

For beginners; PRBoom+, Doom Legacy, Risen3D and Doomsday all have dedicated launchers. Zandronum, G/ZDoom and Edge all support drag-and-drop for mods.

All of these are easy enough to configure, too.

Sweet merciful... wow.

Thanks for all the responses!

I suppose I will give GZDoom (I'm sorry, what is the difference between this and ZDoom) or PRBoom+ a shot. I already own all of the games on Steam, so I just need to choose a client after my exams have ended in a few days and get going!

Cheers!

Looking through all of Doom's history, and all of this user-created content... I can't imagine anyone getting bored even after 4-5 years of sustained play. So much content out there to try!

Yoknapatawpha said:

I suppose I will give GZDoom (I'm sorry, what is the difference between this and ZDoom)

GZDoom features an OpenGL renderer, while ZDoom uses the same software rendering engine as the original Doom engine (with many additional features, though).

So there's some differences in rendering, and GZDoom also has some additional graphic features (brightmaps, point lights, 3D models, etc.) but gameplay-wise, they are mostly identical. Biggest difference is that you can look up and down 90° in GZDoom, whereas the software renderer limits the angle you can use for viewpitch because, in reality, it only renders horizontally.

To play all the original Doom games I would recommend Doomsday, it just looks fantastic has modern support for a lot of features and is easy to use and setup.

However, its not the best for playing custom WADS so I guess zDoom is best for this, its also easy to set up, but personally I think it looks pretty bad, especially with full mouse look....yuck!