[Lance Boyle]

[Lymojo]

I was a huge Doom 2 fan as a kid, but I never got to play the full version of Doom 1 because my dad didn't want to give his credit card information over the phone.

Giving it a shot now. So far so good.
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[Lymojo]

Haven't found a single secret yet. Should I be worried? Seems kind of like a boring slog to try, but is there anything cool there other than powerups and ammo?
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[Lymojo]

Seems like Hexen/Heretic are pretty much the worst elements of Doom distilled. Love the setting and weapons, but man do I ever hate running around looking for hidden doors and switches on every wall in the level.
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[Lance Boyle]

Heretic and Hexen are two very different things, dude.

And yeah, for all the cool things Hexen did (HUB LEVELS! ACS SCRIPTING! CLEVER TRAPS! MULTIPLE CLASSES!) it's heavily crippled by having very dull combat and the annoying switch hunting puzzles of DOOM multiplied by having to do this across several levels.

[Lymojo]

I've played through the first two episodes now. Although I didn't find a single secret in the first episode, I got at or close to 100% secret discovery in every level of episode 2.
Not that any of this matters.

I generally like it. Playing with a mouse makes it absurdly easy compared to what it was like as a kid, and the limited selection of monsters (compared to Doom 2) makes it a bit tedious. That said, I really appreciate what they're doing with the level design. I like the whole hell-gradually-merging-with-reality aesthetic, and I appreciate the little details, like altars that hurt you if you get too close. Plus, it's still so, so satisfying to knock an imp over with a shotgun blast to the chest, which is really what this whole thing is about.

[T.]

so pretty much everything i've played in the last 2 weeks has been doom wads and

sunder is just inhuman. relentless slaughtermaps in the vein of the last maps of hr but with the most striking and perfectly executed aesthetic sense of damn near any game i've seen. immense and stunning and unsettling in the best way. the first room of map 8 is like the oft-mentioned brutalist architecture as interpreted as a surrealist painting, the opening moments of map 10 is :O in a way that only equinox's last map is. it is however way, way too difficult for me (or p much anyone else alive lol)

speed of doom is really cool, and a pretty perfect difficulty level. in the style of av or scythe 2 but not quite as impressive as either. still, good music and good looks

alien vendetta. i must be the last person in the world to have played this?? though its aesthetics aren't as varied or creative as scythe 2 this was just overwhelming in its quality and i'd end every map with a breathless 'now that was the best map'. map 20! jesus! incredible stuff throughout, the last episode especially
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o tempora, o mores

[T.]

oh and i would kill for an av style heretic wad :[
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o tempora, o mores

[Lance Boyle]

I can comprehend Sunder about as well as my computer can render it.

It is truly Something To Behold.

[WhiteMagicRaven]

Heretic and HeXen awesome games. I like it. Its not hard as you imagine it =)
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http://www.hexenmod.com/

[Lance Boyle]

HacX (commercial DOOM total conversion of the late-nineties) is coming to the iTouch / Phone / Pad app store.

FOR FREE.

http://generalarcade.com/hacx-classic/

[Tulpa]

The Undergate supergateway has been repackaged for modern times

It features 101 maps conveniently packaged together in a single hub. These are apparently classic works of the community though I haven't tried or even looked at a level list. Who cares? This will last us all quite a while and maybe renew some appreciation for this game.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Welp there goes my weekend.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Okay so how do I load this? I created a shortcut for fitzquake and added -game undergate +map undergate but then when I start it it tells me it couldn't load the map. Unzipped it to the same folder as quake and fitzquake, should I have put it somewhere else?

Stuck the maps folder in the ID1 directory but now I get a "program error" on startup. Stuck progs.dat in the same directory but get the same error.

edit-"No spawn function for edict 6" don't know what that means.
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[Tulpa]

hold on gonna install it now and get back to you.
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[Tulpa]

Okay what you want is to unzip the contents of the undergate zip into quake/undergate where quake is the directory containing fitzquake.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Couldn't exec autoexec.cfg
Couldn't spawn server maps/undergate.bsp
3 demo(s) in loop

Is what it gives me.

edit-I got it. Hadn't created a dedicated undergate folder, like you said I needed one in the quake directory. Works now, thanks for the tip!
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[Tulpa]

Starting with the Hall of Fame section of Undergate, I'm not too crazy about Perception by XenoN. The scarcity of ammo and some problems with the level geometry reminded me of the expansions.

Quite enjoyed Coagula 2, though. Very chaotic fun, the coagula series has always been a classic.
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[The King]

Nightmare helps Doom's levels seem alive, organic, and hellish. :)

edit:Tried the Terra maps for Quake, nice.
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[Tulpa]

This is rendered in Engoo, colored lights on. Engoo is tied with DirectQ for my favorite quake port. Engoo is software only and can run on a toaster but has a lot of strange advanced features which seem to fit naturally with what the game looked like in 1996.

I'm about to try Warpspasm, a Quake Singleplayer Episode notorious for killing any lesser quake port. It is actually usable as a benchmark of engine design. Will probably post a ton of screenshots. Playing with DirectQ.
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[Tulpa]

I have gotten a quarter way through the second level.

Level 1 has ~76 monsters on normal, quite high for a quake level
Level 2 has 427 on normal. I'm finally getting that frantic action feeling

T. I recommend you play warpspasm.

Here are screenshots.












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[Mr. Mechanical]

Man I want that HUD in my game. Is that an Engoo-only type thing?

Also Warpspasm sounds cool as hell. I'll probably check it out tomorrow. I looked it up and apparently I have to download another thing to run it or something.
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[Tulpa]

the hud is a quakeworld hud, a lot of ports utilize it nowadays. The warpspasm shots were taken in DirectQ (Engoo would not be able to run Warpspasm, the mod breaks every limit). DirectQ tries to look software quake faithful while Engoo IS software quake.

to run warpspasm in fitzquake you need to install quoth and warpspasm, and launch fitzquake with the following commandline options:

-heapsize 64000 -quoth -game warp +max_edicts 2048"
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Wow this is pretty awesome. Quake will never die.

Quoth looks pretty cool too, but man Warpspasm is crazy! I especially like how you go about opening up the nightmare difficulty level at the beginning.
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[HarveyQ]

i love DOOM but can't really get into Quake. i don't know why.
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ghosts appear and fade away

[Mr. Mechanical]

Almost made it through the first level of warpspasm on normal before going to bed this morning. I really like, first of all, how big the level is but I also like how the game isn't afraid to throw a bunch of shamblers at you throughout the level either.

T. you should definitely play warpspasm.
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[Tulpa]

Yeah I'm getting the vibe that normal is like any other mod's hard, maybe even nightmare. It certainly makes the coagula levels seem effortless by comparison. Level 2 is certainly one of the best maps I've played and I'm not even halfway done after a half hour.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

I've almost completed the first level on nightmare. I only lack one secret and eight or so monsters. I really like this so far. Nightmare has 87 monsters in the first level which isn't really all that many for a Quake level. Well, a mid-game to late-game Quake level. I can't wait to see what the second level is like (but I'd really like to find that final secret in the first level first).

The secrets are good too. There are a couple that are really easy to find. Gimmes, basically. But the others are harder to spot and at least one of them opens up a portal that dumps you on top of the building you start out in. So you can basically cover almost the entire level from the rooftops since there's a path you can take that leads you from the first part into the second. Just exploring this level has got me all excited about what the later levels offer.

edit-522 monsters in the second level on nightmare!
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[Tulpa]

man I've been terrible at finding the secrets. Gonna go through warpspasm on nightmare after beating it on normal with the aim of finding all the secrets.

I only found 10/16 secrets on level 2. interestingly, unless I am doing something wrong I am required to grenade jump to reach most of them. At least I've gotten good at timing that again.

100% kills on first two levels on normal. Second level almost feels metroidy with how everything connects to everything else and shortcuts open up at regular intervals.

whoa, nearly one hundred more on nightmare will probably make in fighting a lot easier to trigger. (I've always found nightmare difficulty to be mostly comparable to normal, because of infighting)
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Finding secrets isn't too hard, you just have to shoot at everything that looks even slightly out of the ordinary. Crack in the wall? Shoot it. Unique symbol on the wall/floor/etc.? Shoot it. Computer screen? Shoot it.

Nightmare usually is comparable to normal but here it might be a bit different so long as they don't constantly throw ammo at you. I was out of shotgun ammo by the time I finished the first level (gave up on that last secret btw) but thankfully had enough rockets to take down the final shambler so I still got 100% kills. I'm expecting that triggering infighting will be a necessary survival strategy if ammo is as scarce as I'm expecting it to be.
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[Tulpa]

Ammo should be less scarce in level 2, but you should expect to run out fairly frequently. The occasional effective use of a quad damage really helps with ammo use.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

I am 106 monsters into level 2 so far on nightmare and I'm doing okay for the most part. Out of shotgun ammo but I still have plasma ammo and grenades for the grenade launcher. Think I might have a little bit of nail gun ammo left too but I'm not sure. I've seen some infighting erupt naturally a couple times now and it's always great when that happens. Though I'm starting to be a bit more smart about ammo usage. Playing it a bit more carefully and hanging back whenever possible (sometimes not possible because areas you had previously cleared now have zombies or whatever hanging out when you retreat back through them). Plus lining up my shots more and relying on aim instead of spraying and praying.

Found two secrets so far (Leap of Faith and Wasted Life) and I've seen a couple places I couldn't figure out how to get to yet though I don't know if those are secrets proper or just parts of the level I haven't opened up legit.

This is great, even better than the last level. I love how evocative the green fog-lighting is as well. It's got everything that's great about this kind of game. Big arena-like areas as well as dense, twisting mazes, the occasional trap and the monster spawns are really well done as well. It's always surprising you with some new baddies to take care of around every corner, and even when you do a little back tracking. This kind of gigantic Quake level was something I used to daydream about in junior high but never actually tried to make a reality. I'm glad someone out there did though. I hope the next level is just as good.
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[Tulpa]

the next level is medieval themed and good so far.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Still on the second level. I've killed around 320+ monsters so far so I'm getting closer to the end. Only found 3 secrets so far because I don't really know how to grenade hop. I could learn it if I'd just take a few minutes and practice at it but right now I'm having too much fun pushing forward through this level that I don't want to stop or slow down.
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[Laurel Soup]

How have I never checked out Warpspasm? I'll join the club tonight.
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[HarveyQ]

i beat DOOM 2 the other day, so i've been trying my hand at some other stuff.

first, Final DOOM. having tried the Plutonia Experiment i can't say i like it very much. it doesn't feel "challenging" so much as "frustrating," and they like to spring lots of dumb traps on you. i'm fine through the first two levels but the third one? with all the curvy corridors Doomguy gets hung up on and arch-viles jumping you in tiny congested places where you can't take cover and yeah no thanks.

haven't really made much of an effort at Evilution.
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ghosts appear and fade away

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Tulpa]

To fight large groups of shamblers with very little cover; trigger their melee attacks and back up while using the double barreled shotgun, get your timing down and you should be able to kill them without ever triggering their lightning attacks.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Finished level 2. Took me 122 minutes + all the times I died so probably add another 60 minutes or so onto that. 8 out of 16 secrets found and 517 out of 522 monsters killed.
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[Dracko]

crafty goddamn murder mutants



whoops you fucked up and now you're dead + stupid
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[HarveyQ]

i've actually strafed back and forth in tiny corners and completely avoided damage from pinkies before, that's how limited their range is :o
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ghosts appear and fade away