Doom2.wad for less than 2€, in case at this point someone still doesn’t have it.
/reads thread about Doom release in consoles in other forums
So…
-It has always online DRM
-It doesn’t have proper widescreen resolution/ratio, it has two sidebars that can’t be turned off and the pixels are slightly stretched.
-You can’t remove the bottom bar and play in full screen, too
-It has some issue with the music, it’s a bit slower than it should
-lightning has some issues
-no 60fps
-no customizable controls
-No online play, only local
-Obviously, no mod support (although, you know, if they enabled mods in console Skyrim and F4, they also should be able to allow user made wads!)
-They removed the old port version from the previous console generation even for people who bought it, there is only a weird workaround with a retail doom3 bfg copy to get them
-No rest for the living console exclusive episode from the previous version weirdly missing.
Uhh…
/hugs pc source ports
This post is one of the funniest things I’ve read all week.
I’ve never played a Doom game before. Can I start with 3 or is there a story that I will be lost on? the first two games seem a bit outdated for my taste tbh.
Some days ago I was comparing performance of different sourceport engines… here:
Map chosen is Brigandine, cacowarded in 2017. It’s a medium sized map, 190 enemies, it looks like this
I don’t move the starting view, so whatever fps I have from the starting point. It has this view
GZDoom, downloaded in a new folder, with default settings then. 1920x1200 res. 310 fps.
GZDoom, downloaded in a new folder, with default settings, except 1920x1200 res, AAx4, and texture filter none (default is trilinear) . 314 fps.
GZDoom, all bells and whistles on, same res, AAx4. 168 fps.
PrBoom+, open gl activated, high settings (the few things you can increase, like trilinear filter, anisox8, use highres textures and resize textures scalex2), with 1920 res and AAx4. 500 fps
…
My previous numbers were from my old computer. I had before a i7 4770k with a mild OC (300-4000 mhz more), 16 gb ram ddr3.
However, that computer broke off, the MOBO died. SoI bought a new amd 3700x, a new mobo and new ram ddr4. Almost a new computer, although I kept the gpu (1080), hard drives, and case.
For funsies, I’m doing the same test I did before, and funnily the olde Doom is maybe the game where I will notice the upgrade the most.
I think I gained around 60-65 fps in GZDoom, and 200 fps more in PrBoom. LOL
OMG I can even have a decent framerate in Sunder map 15!
(usually 90 fps, but in the moste extreme views like that one, it was 48-50 fps)
Verdant Citadel
A pretty level. Not the prettiest or most complex I’ve seen in 2019, but pretty. The first impression is striking, thanks to the red sky contrasting the blue water.
The level consist of a medieval stone stronghold, with some waterworks like channels and sewers inside, with nice eye for details like banners in walls and towers, custom animated water, big stained glass with god’s rays, and even the player is moved slowly on water’s current.
Extra work has been done on a department usually forgotten on people’s wads, the sound effects. There are areas where specific sounds trigger (wind in high open passages), water circulating, or reverberation sound effects on big interiors.
In the early game, the wad presents some fights against enemies like spiders or mancubus before giving you the ssg or the RL, that serves to ramp up the intensity a bit, and although the combat pace is regular, it never reaches a big intensity except in the final trial. The game difficulty isn’t indeed super high, at least the combat encounters are pretty much ‘normal’ (nothing about fight against 3 archviles with a single pillar of cover), nor you have to solve a puzzle while in lava floor, and the enemy numbers are average (for the map’s size). It can be played in UV without pulling your hair. It doesn’t particularly given give a lot of health to the player, take care as each hit will count, although in exchange, it gives plenty of armor.
The flow is interesting, in that the map is more or less non linear, with four? courtyards, that connect to each other in different ways, and even a sewer section below that makes more ‘connections’. The general progression reminds me of a mini-Infraworld Hatehammer, in where you also have to obtain all keys (4 in VC, 6 in IH), that are used to not open up new sections as you play, but all in the same place, put in altars, to unlock the final area with the most intense combat. Despite this non linearity, it isn’t hard, big or puzzley enough to get the player stuck, for which I’m thankful (in constrast, Infraworld Hatehammer was more ambitious design-wise, and in exchange it also had more pitfalls for the player to fall).
I’m finishing up Hell-Forged. It’s pretty good, in special the sprite art for both monsters and weapons is great, and the weapons themselves are pretty original. How does it looks? Watch here
However, it isn’t as good as it could be:
-I feel as if encounter design was lacking. In special in the last two levels, where the level size creeps up, there are a lot of enemies that are just… there, alone or in small groups, and you can easily, with patience, kill them one by one. You basically only have to worry of avoiding their attacks. There are barely any moments of hectic action or switching targets like crazy, and I think Doom shines the brightest when you are overwhelmed a bit, you have this chaingunner here, these revenants there, this archvile behind, this pack of pinkies behind, what do you prioritize, in what order, how do you use the environment to avoid being shot by the rest?? .
The mods feels a bit like Quake 1 in that sense, in part because the visual design is also very inspired by Quake 1 (it also borrows some textures and even sounds from Q1!).
-While he adds two or three new monsters, he also removes all hitscan enemies. And while I know that some people don’t like them, I feel as in the correct amounts, they spice up the game very well, and obviously increase the encounter variety.
-The visual design is great, a mix of hellish, industrial, dark and oppressive. But it’s very one note thing. It’s literally that style for 7-9 hours straight. When you reach a project of that size, you need to vary it up more.
-The game has all several new weapons, but after reaching the final level, and playing it for one hour, I’m still missing two weapons! I think I missed them in some secrets, and surely he will give them just before the final boss, which is a pity, because weapon variety shouldn’t be restricted to people who are secret-hunters. It’s ok to put a weapon in a secret one level before it should be found, but this is ridiculous.
I was recommended the megawad Going Down. And boy it was good.
It has a neat concept, of Doomguy going to a UAC building and killing monsters in the roof, and from there taking an elevator to go to the floor below. This pattern repeats as every level is a new floor you visit with your trusty elevator, until reaching the basement and beyond. Thing is, levels are usually small (or very small) and it’s actually a strong point as it serves to focus on the highlight of the wad, the great variety of concepts and situations that every level presents to the player.
There are levels where you fight in a black mass in a demonic church, others where you participate in a time travel experiment, others where you fight in sewers with the chainsaw against pinkies, another where you have to cross a bridge and fight hundreds of enemies while doing so, another where scientists were clearly experimenting with the demons, another where archviles stalk you like velociraptors in Jurassic Park, another where you have a big stairs as the central feature, another where you fight in a evil library, another where you have to collect a series of items to get out, another where winning is almost impossible and you have to user smartly the powerups, gladiator arenas where you participate, etc.
The mod is pretty hard, if you aren’t a really veteran doom player I don’t recommend it playing it in UV.
Sounds like a weird building.
I remember seeing that one a couple years ago. If I recall, there was one particularly notable map highlighted by Doomworld. I checked that one out.
Kinda makes me wish somebody would do a Diablo total conversion for Doom.
Yes, it won a cacoward in 2014.
Final Doomer has been updated. Three new weapon sets.
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=55061
Impressions of new weapon sets:
WHITEMARE
Thermocoat
Blazeblade
Flare Buster
Drake Knight Shotgun
Dragon King Shotgun
Gatling Fury
Firegrasp
Flamethrower
Sol’s Wrath
That was funny, at first I wasn’t convinced by the orange, cheap looking design of the weapons. Then I started using them and understood why they are orange… there is a very strong theme going on in this weapon set, lol. The names should give a clue. This is fire-DoT city baby.
The Thermocoat is one of those weird, funky items they do from time to time, like the bstx nanocore or stuff like that. It has its own capacity indicator in the hud, that it’s filled out as you burn demons. Upon use, you flame out constantly the stored flames and gain the suit protection effect.
The pistol has a nice animation but the damage is eh, it gives a longer than usual DoT effect but spoiler alert: everything gives DoT in this weapon set, so you don’t have really a reason to use it. Well, one reason: pistols in FD have infinite ammo so you can use it to keep ammo from other weapons.
The SSG has a low range, although you can try to awkwardly use parabolic shots with it.
The minigun is good, it has the typical effect of building up heat as you fire, except instead of making it stop, it does more damage.
The RL is useful, it can be charged up, the minimum shot is less damage than the normal RL, but a charged up shot has twice the damage and explosion radius.
The flamethrower replaces the PG and it’s a pretty different weapon, much more shorter range, and the damage is to be honest so-so. It lights up big crowds of enemies easily, at least.
The BFG is something to behold. In reality it doesn’t do a ton of damage, but visually the effect is pretty nice, it will bring out your inner pyromaniac.
HELLBOUND
Hammerite
Melee
Dual Magnums
Borstal Shotgun
Brigand SSG
Zaiger Rifle
C4 Charges
Aeroslayer Minigun
Totenheim
The first thing I noticed with this is how nice and meaty was the hit with the hammer. Good job there. And it kills skellies in two hits. Overall, the design of some of the weapons (the huge magnums, the big minigun) actually reminded me of PIllowBlaster (Russian Overkill, Guncaster fame) mods.
The magnums are the most powerful pistols in FD, but they have to be reloaded.
The shotguns are fun. The normal shotgun has to be pumped, and it can be done after each shot, or fire up to three shots and then pump 3 times, so the player has decisions to take in how to use it. The SSG is similar to the vanilla version, with two modifications: the pellet spread is bigger so the damage at medium range will be smaller, but it pushes enemies a fair bit so it can be useful as a crowd shaping tool (hell you can even throw enemies off ledges).
The MG is just a powerful, fast-firing MG. Only max 200 bullets, though.
The c4 is an original replacement of the RL. It’s almost you are playing DN3D and not Doom :P. You can throw a bunch (very small gravity dropoff, you are Hercules throwing them) and detonate them. Damage is similar to RL but radius is twice as big?
The last two weapons make me think the megawad that was designed for has to be pretty tough. The PG is replaced by a very powerful minigun. Around 60% more damage than the PG? And the BFG seems taken from Russian Overkill lol. Big nuke that one shots Cyberdemons and it makes the area radioactive (for demons) for a time.
ALIEN VENDETTA
Grav-Staff
Melee
Precision Pistol
Drum Shotgun
Shattergun
Tornado Battery
Mini-Missile Launcher
Phased-Tachyon Cannon
The Vendetta Machine
Big contrast with the previous two. It doesn’t have the damage of Hellbound (normal, AV isn’t considered ‘hard’ anymore by the community) or the strong theme(gimmick?) of Whitemare. In fact in some regards the overall damage is a bit… less instant than normal Doom (although on the long fights the DPS is the same), so it’s a weapon set that can serve a slightly higher challenge for easy wads. Apart from that, it has some interesting twists.
The pistol is ‘mash the button to fire faster’ type of pistol. You won’t use it a lot.
The shotgun is replaced by a weird thing… it’s more like a burst MG that fires wide shots. The reload sound is annoying, to be honest. The theory is that because each burst is fired during 0.5 seconds, you can move the mouse and spread it if you want. But the issue is also that the damage is less immediate in comparison with a shotgun, so enemies may fire back just before they die. The SSG is replaced by a continuous drum shotgun. Fun to use, damage is also less immediate than a normal SSG (at least the DPS of the first 0.1 seconds is lower).
The minigun is the first clear upgrade in comparison with the old minigun. Much higher DPS, bigger ammo capacity, slightly bigger spread, noticeably if you want to ping enemies at long range.
THE RL is half the damage, half the radius, twice the rate of the normal RL. In a way it’s a subtle upgrade, as the DPS is the same, but you can use it much closer to enemies safely.
The PG is a two shots-railgun that goes through enemies. Line em up. The BFG is different than usual, instead of 5 charges it has many more, and you lock in one enemy. It’s pretty good, as it’s good against single bosses (because of the homing nature of the projectiles, so you can circle around without aiming) and also in crowds can be useful because the explosions has a slight pull effect so it will do a carnage of big groups (in theory, the pull effect is small).
In general I think this set will make you use more the MG and RL, a nice change as the mainstays of Doom are usually the shotguns.
Someone has made a great mod with the weapons and enemies of Doom 2016 in classic Doom.
It’s even more impressive because it doesn’t use any sourceport with modding support, it uses a dehacked system (a kind of patch that can be applied to the .exe) to have new features.
.
In the last weeks I played a few WADs:
Breathless
Hard as hell. It’s eye catching, with a void theme and abstract shapes and all using the blue color, but anything it’s secondary to the damn difficulty of this slaughter map. At least it had proper difficulties so by selecting the second easiest, I could beat it. It features a 1000 monster strong encounter as the last battle, that should say everything.
.
Miasma
This is also hard but in a more moderate way. It also mixes more smartly different styles, instead of being balls to the wall slaughter. I liked it a lot, although I didn’t beat it 100%,
It has impressive architecture, and an interesting use of the green accents.
It has some interesting gimmicks in the level progression, like a transforming central area that depending of the configuration it allows passage to different locations, and lots of secret areas with harder encounters in them for the completionists (for example the 3 keys are only needed for secrets).
.
Paradise
A set of 5 maps (well, 7 with the secret maps) based on the theme of a paradisaical island or something, it combines tropical parts with techbase and… lots of lots of waste. In fact it should have been called toxic paradise or something. It’s very good, it combines a nice theme that contrast with the hellish invasion, with an expert enemy encounter design. Some fights where the environment is an enemy and it will test your movement skills, too.
It’s all complemented with a very decent weapon replacement set, and an even better enemy replacement set, with new enemies like the Diabolist (an Archviles that summon timed mines, very fun to fight) and very polished animations.
The Cacowards 2019 are here https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/2019/index/
And the winners are…
- Espi Award for Lifetime Achievement
- James “Jimmy” Paddock
WADS
- Eviternity
- Verdant Citadel
- Paradise
- Hell-Forged
- Finely Crafted Fetish Film
- Hocus Pocus Doom
- Shotgun Symphony
- Lost Civilization
- Remnant
- The Wayfarer
- 32in24-17
- NeonDM
- Doom 4 Vanilla
- Lt. Typhon
- NAKU-NARU
-
Mordeth Award
- Sonic Robo Blast 2
-
Spaceship of Theseus
- Hedon
-
Codeaward
- Doom Neural Upscale 2X
-
Machaward
- Mikoportals
-
Creator of the Year
- ukiro
-
RUNNERS UP
- Sigil
- Doom 3: Phobos
- Infraworld : The Hatehammer
- Lunar Catastrophe
- The Slaughter Spectrum
- Darkest Room
- Cyb’s Freaky Colonoscopy
- Alienated
- Doom Zero
- Entropy
It was a good year. Only Hurt is missing from the list, imo. For the rest, I think I did it pretty well, I guessed 70% of them. Three wads took me by surprise: Finely Crafted Fetish Film, Hocus Pocus Doom and Shotgun Symphony . I tried Hocus Pocus for 10 minutes and it seemed not that interesting to me, but then again it was only 10 minutes, I will give it a second go, and try the other two too. I also got the awarded Heretic wad wrong (Wayfarer instead of Faithless).
But I got the rest of wads right, two of three gameplay mods, and even the shutouts to Neural Scale Project and Otex.
It’s going to take me some time to work through all of these, but I can personally recommend:
- Eviternity
- Verdant Citadel
- Doom 4 Vanilla
- Sigil
Doom mapping is just blowing me away, that after 26 years people can still find new things to do with ostensibly ancient technology is amazing. For anyone dismissing these as being old fashioned, I suggest you try some, you might be really surprised. Verdant Citadel is a good starting point as it’s a single [vast] level, all you’ll need it a source port such as GZDoom and a Doom 2 IWAD.
My recommendations for the year are:
Eviternity https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…ase-eviternity/
Big megawad with six episodes, which are totally distinct styles and all beautiful in their own way, and that plays very well.
Alienated https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…els-for-gzdoom/
Taking inspiration in Ancient Aliens, it presents violent but smart scenarios with cool looking levels.
Lost Civilization https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…-download-link/
A big megawad where most maps are also damn big and detailed, with great sense of flow and fun, that came out of nowhere.
Remnant https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…map-for-doom-2/
Infraworld Hatehammer https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…the-hatehammer/
Hurt https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…er-map-in-hell/
This (and Verdant Citadel too) is the 2019 trilogy for huge, sprawling, superb detailed single-map wads.
Hellforged https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=13397
One of those years-in-development projects that has been finally out in 2019. Great architecture and custom weapons.
Paradise https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…ersion-8222019/
A great discovery that I played this Summer, smart combat encounters and new enemies with interesting attacks.
Faithless https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…etic-hub-final/
Something different than usual, a Heretic wad with a set of interconnected levels like Hexen.
Others / Runner Ups? :
The Slaughter Spectrum https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…um-rc1-release/
The Hellforge https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…ersary-project/
Bloodcide https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…upercharge-v13/
Verdant Citadel https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…erdant-citadel/
GERMS https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top…ms-new-810-fix/
Too many recommendations. This is like recommending 100 indie games.
Verdant Citadel seems reasonable.
Oh snap! Bethesda/id just announced on Twitch that Romero’s Sigil will be officially added for free to Doom. No word yet on which platforms or versions.
And also the original Doom 2 expansion (Final Doom) and No Rest for Living episode too.