Where to start with fan-made levels?

Pleasure Elemental said:

the old shitty graphics

Whoa, whoa, whoa, man! Don't make me brand you a heretic.

There are some "high res textures" packs as well as packs that replace monster sprites with 3D models, but really, the game always end up looking better with the original low-res graphics.

It doesn't help that the models are super-blocky low-poly and that, because of the way Doom handles monster logic and animation, their movements are super-janky (don't expect skeletal animation and ragdoll physics like in modern games; those things cannot be added as the engine was never designed to do things this way).

And the high-res textures end up not looking right in levels because they're off, they will clash with texture edits not included in the pack that will therefore remain low-res, and they're not compatible with offset tricks so they'll appear cut off like wallpapers in place where the original look fine.

I use and recommend qZDL. it is launcher for zdoom/gzdoom.
Most effective way to use it is to copy all iwads (plutonia.wad, tnt.wad, doom.wad and doom2.wad) into your gzdoom folder, then run the launcher and use settings tab to set paths to your iwads and sourceport exe. After that, you just drag your pwads into erternal files window in main tab, every time you want to play something.

here is link: https://github.com/qbasicer/qzdl/releases/tag/v3.2.2.2-stable

and wiki page: http://zdoom.org/wiki/ZDL

Gez said:

There are some "high res textures" packs as well as packs that replace monster sprites with 3D models, but really, the game always end up looking better with the original low-res graphics.

It doesn't help that the models are super-blocky low-poly and that, because of the way Doom handles monster logic and animation, their movements are super-janky (don't expect skeletal animation and ragdoll physics like in modern games; those things cannot be added as the engine was never designed to do things this way).

And the high-res textures end up not looking right in levels because they're off, they will clash with texture edits not included in the pack that will therefore remain low-res, and they're not compatible with offset tricks so they'll appear cut off like wallpapers in place where the original look fine.

I absolutely, positively, wholeheartedly agree and will back you on that statement anytime! You totally nailed it. All respect goes out to the people who make these mods, but they will never be my taste.

One thing about hi-res monsters is that a lot of the animations in doom are exaggerated or slowed down, especially the death frames. If you don't preserve that in new models it doesn't look like doom, but if you do preserve it, it tends to look ridiculous and terrible.

I think GZDoom with dynamic lights and HQ3X filtering makes things look more modern without losing the feel of the original graphics too much. Even just playing in a higher resolution than 320x200 makes a big difference though.

On topic: consider participating in the monthly DoomWorld Megawad club. I'm bad at posting in there but it been fun to play along with other people and see thoughts on different levels. It's also a good way to take part in the community, if you're interested in such a thing. I hope so, because Pleasure Elemental is a hilarous name :D

I'm half-purist about porta. I use GZDoom with Doom Expanded (Full version on better computers, Lite on this one) and happily embrace aesthetic mods, but will not touch models, texture filtering, and features like jumping or mouselook, unless the wad SPECIFICALLY requires it (and is upfront about it too.)

I'd recommend Icarus before anything else; it was made by the same people who made Evilution, thus is a good transition point.

And yes, the name Pleasure Elemental made me laugh quite abit, almost as much as 129th Visplane :)

Hope you stick around pleasure elemental.

I reccomend IDE to all doomers, at it supports the "big 3" of online dooming: Odamex, Zandronum and Zdaemon. I suggest downloading all 3!

If you want to play splitscreen with friends, Doom Legacy is a very solid port.

http://doomutils.ucoz.com/ - IDE is a frontend to browse servers and chat to other doomers through IRC. At this moment there are 1,350 servers and 110 players online. Needless to say, you're getting the biggest selection when you use this frontend.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for providing the download link Doomkid! Did you read my reply on the DMR thread?

Ragnor said:

I'm half-purist about porta. I use GZDoom with Doom Expanded (Full version on better computers, Lite on this one) and happily embrace aesthetic mods, but will not touch models, texture filtering, and features like jumping or mouselook, unless the wad SPECIFICALLY requires it (and is upfront about it too.)

That's sort of funny because I hate visual mods like Doom Expanded, but I think texture resizing* looks nice and think mouselook adds a lot to the game. (Jumping too, but it's too easy to sequence-break levels that were not designed for it, so I jump extremely sparingly). That's OK though, the nice thing about so many ports and mods is that there are different options for different tastes.

(* Texture filtering without a rescaler like HQX to upsize the graphics looks like blurry washed-out crap though.)

That said the port I've been enjoying most the past few days (and linking to wherever I can get an excuse to) is fabian's Enhanced Chocloate Doom port that renders at 640x480 and is limit-raising. Still feels quite oldschool while giving just a little crisper of an image.

Phobus said:

@Pleasure Elemental: Serenity runs on Episode 3 (Inferno) - are you selecting that when you go through the New Game menu?

thank you! now it works

Glad that solved it, PE!

This might seem pretty odd to people unfamiliar with the modding scene, but way back when, it was considered somewhere between illegal and in really bad taste to have a .WAD run with the shareware release of Doom. The easy way around this was to have all custom maps run on any episode of Doom that wasn't Knee Deep in the Dead, although a lot of early maps did ignore this and function on E1M1 anyway.

I didn't mean to bash the original graphics since they're classic, but playing with the Gzdoom is a real treat after playing the old style for so long. It does make things a lot clearer


even though FPShooters have become so much more sophisticated in the last 20 years, there's something about Doom that is just timeless - it's the simplicity and sleekness of the design - it's endlessly playable, and not bogged down with superfluous extras. It's as fun now as it was 20 years ago IMO

Its well worth checking out the links on the doomworld homepage for 10 years of doom:
http://www.doomworld.com/10years/bestwads/
and cacowards:
http://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/
you have 20 years of the best wads right there along with write-ups about them.