Good Doom/Heretic/Hexen WADs

[Wunderbar]

Anyone played those fan-made Doom 64 ports like "Doom 64 Retribution", etc? Which of them is the most faithful to the original?

 

[mogwaimon]

Anyone played those fan-made Doom 64 ports like "Doom 64 Retribution", etc? Which of them is the most faithful to the original?

I haven't played but IIRC Bethesda hired the Doom 64 EX port guys to do the official Doom 64 port and so the official port is basically the same as Doom 64 EX but with jumping/vertical mouselook permanently switched off among other things. I imagine that would be the most faithful to the original since Bethesda hired the guys to do it. in fact, here's their blog, including a post where they describe the differences between the final D64 EX version and the official port in detail https://doom64ex.wordpress.com/

 

[Wunderbar]

Anyone played those fan-made Doom 64 ports like "Doom 64 Retribution", etc? Which of them is the most faithful to the original?

I haven't played but IIRC Bethesda hired the Doom 64 EX port guys to do the official Doom 64 port and so the official port is basically the same as Doom 64 EX but with jumping/vertical mouselook permanently switched off among other things. I imagine that would be the most faithful to the original since Bethesda hired the guys to do it. in fact, here's their blog, including a post where they describe the differences between the final D64 EX version and the official port in detail https://doom64ex.wordpress.com/

i wanted to play Doom 64 with animated shotguns

 

[mogwaimon]

well there's no harm in that, of course. tbh I did own Doom 64 back in the day and if you want the real authentic experience you'd need to play it with the janky terrible N64 analog stick to truly appreciate it, kek. just play the port that gives you the features you want and have fun with it man

 

[Zeem]

I remember the mod The Community is Falling 3, which depicted the Doom modder community as completely deranged and power-tripping, with Tormentor and Terminus being assholes of the highest caliber here. Granted, that one was a parody, and before the trannies infiltrating everything, but considering how modders usually are, perhaps it has a grain of truth within it. Shame that WAD is boring.

Terminus was one of those modders who was putting anti-Brutal Doom code into his own mods around the time that Sarge was a pariah in the scene for having forbidden words commented in his source code (like, if the game thought you had Brutal Doom enabled you'd get mauled by infinitely spawning invincible revenants).

The man makes some fun stuff, I enjoyed High Noon Drifter in particular, but just from that behavior he definitely strikes me as a primadonna. Even before the trannyfiltration shit was weird in the Doom community; who would have thought that it would happen to Doom of all games? still I guess I've expressed that sentiment before in this thread.

I remember the golden revenants in Demonsteele and meat shotgun in HND. According to Term it was due to a lot of retards submitting bug reports after trying to run Demonsteele and BD at the same time, despite the mods being completely incompatible.

 

[toughasnails]

He repented and joined the inner circle.

I'm not getting that from the pictured comment... He's just pointing out how much the things changed in a relatively short time and I think he might be even pointing out the double standard bc the two new Machinegames Wolfensteins, especially the sequel, are often extolled by the sort of people who claimed offence at BoA E3.

I think what Terminus said about his break with Doom community might be applied to what happened with BoA and Tormentor. Too many envious and petty people waiting for the first occasion to backstab anyone who gathered some clout in the community. Politics were just a handy tool.

 

[Tacgnol]

Ashes Afterglow is awesome. Really digging the central hub and more open style of objectives.

I enjoyed the original but this feels like an improvement in every way.

 

[robinox]

Ashes Afterglow is awesome. Really digging the central hub and more open style of objectives.

I enjoyed the original but this feels like an improvement in every way.

I agree, truly amazing.

I think that the increased weapon damage of Survival difficulty should be the default damage.
The shooting feels cowboy-ish and more distinct from the doom DNA: you face the badguy and *BANG* the quicker wins (you don't die ofc but you take significant damage).
Another example is the knife: you only need 1 hit (instead of 2) to drop a dude, which enables a brief stealth approach here and there.

 

[Wunderbar]

Afterglow is my GOTY.

Don't care if it is a mod, it's still better than 99% of commercial stuff released in 2021.

 

[Curratum]

Afterglow is my GOTY.

Don't care if it is a mod, it's still better than 99% of commercial stuff released in 2021.

I kept trying to persuade Vostyok to clean up the assets, package 2063 and Afterglow together and release it as a full commercial game. He still insists that the two episodes so far are just "shareware" for Episode 3, which he says will be much bigger and more ambitious than even Afterglow, and might be / will probably be a full commercial game, one day.

 

[Tacgnol]

I didn't realise there was another massive hub after the subway. Even some fairly minor choice/consequence effects and pathing depending on how you handle things in the 2nd town.

As Curratum says, he really needs to consider commercialising Ashes. If he did all this for free, I can't imagine what he could make with more resources at his disposal.

 

[toughasnails]

I kept trying to persuade Vostyok to clean up the assets, package 2063 and Afterglow together and release it as a full commercial game. He still insists that the two episodes so far are just "shareware" for Episode 3, which he says will be much bigger and more ambitious than even Afterglow, and might be / will probably be a full commercial game, one day.

If that's true, I'm struggling to imagine what he intends the next step for e3 to be unless he plans to turn the game into something like Stalker. E2 is already en route to that sort of semi open world design.

 

[Avonaeon]

I would gladly have paid money for both 2063 and Afterglow. GOTY sounds about right!

 

[Strig]

Afterglow is my GOTY.

Don't care if it is a mod, it's still better than 99% of commercial stuff released in 2021.

Absolutely. I'm on the verge of refusing to even call it a mod at this point, it's such a complete and different experience. The level design alone is excellent not only as world-building goes but also from a technical standpoint, I can't even count the times when I opened a door and it looped back to an earlier part of the level. The "huh, I'm really here" feeling is real.

 

[Tacgnol]

Afterglow is my GOTY.

Don't care if it is a mod, it's still better than 99% of commercial stuff released in 2021.

Absolutely. I'm on the verge of refusing to even call it a mod at this point, it's such a complete and different experience. The level design alone is excellent not only as world-building goes but also from a technical standpoint, I can't even count the times when I opened a door and it looped back to an earlier part of the level. The "huh, I'm really here" feeling is real.

The ending of Afterglow left me really wanting a sequel to advance the story. Been a while since a game has done that.

I was impressed that he'd done fallout style ending slides as well.

 

[robinox]

I'm on the verge of refusing to even call it a mod at this point, it's such a complete and different experience.

total conversion?

 

[Strig]

total conversion?

TC is technically still a type of mod. And I don't want to disparage mods in any way, it's more that I want to elevate Ashes 2063 in status for its excellent execution, because nowadays there are very few actual games that offer similar level of quality.

 

[destinae vomitus]

Ashes is great, though I think it would be even greater if at the end of the day you weren't just fighting reskinned zombiemen and what not. The combat is clearly meant to lean towards do-or-die lethality in the same vein as the stuff it has drawn influence from, but I find that the enemies make it miss the mark somewhat since most of them are ultimately still just Doom AI, i.e. not nuanced nor speedy enough to match what it's going for. At the very least that was my experience on apocalypse difficulty, it was fun but not as intense as I think it ought to be. I would hope to see the monster roster get a do-over of sorts if the inevitable follow-up is really gonna go all in and aspire to be more than just a mod.

 

[Curratum]

If you open up the game's files, you'll see nothing is really reskinned and actors have been rewritten entirely. Just the basic pistol thug enemy is around 150 lines of behavior and animation code, so I'd be hard-pressed to call that a reskin.

 

[lightbane]

The Dynamite Duchess sequel is out! And it has a walkthrough LP to boot! The dev has a shit computer that goes slow with literal Doom mods, so the videos might look underwhelming.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/38aaw41mz9f2cn4/detention.zip/file

Spoiler

Example video.

Like the first game, it continues to (un)subtly criticize nowadays' insanity, this time focusing on the brainwashing of students with inane education turning them into literal monsters, encourages ratting out your friends that misbehave for course credits, and how being fair-skinned means you're likely to be a criminal and you must pay for your ancestors' heinous deeds. The protagonist answers in a reasonable way and decides to take down the insane staff.

 

[toughasnails]

I would gladly have paid money for both 2063 and Afterglow. GOTY sounds about right!

Same. Between Afterglow, Hedon Bloodrite and Arthurian Legends, this was a p good year for the genre.

 

[destinae vomitus]

If you open up the game's files, you'll see nothing is really reskinned and actors have been rewritten entirely. Just the basic pistol thug enemy is around 150 lines of behavior and animation code, so I'd be hard-pressed to call that a reskin.

Good to know. The mooks with guns and common mutants just gave me the impression that they were zombies, imps and such mildly retooled, that's what they were in practice to me. Wishing for them to be on par with Build game enemies might be too much to ask for, but that's what I'd hope to see if the third episode is meaning to be even more robust.

 

[Curratum]

I would gladly have paid money for both 2063 and Afterglow. GOTY sounds about right!

Same. Between Afterglow, Hedon Bloodrite and Arthurian Legends, this was a p good year for the genre.

Someone mention Arthurian Legends again and there will be blood

 

[Curratum]

If you open up the game's files, you'll see nothing is really reskinned and actors have been rewritten entirely. Just the basic pistol thug enemy is around 150 lines of behavior and animation code, so I'd be hard-pressed to call that a reskin.

Good to know. The mooks with guns and common mutants just gave me the impression that they were zombies, imps and such mildly retooled, that's what they were in practice to me. Wishing for them to be on par with Build game enemies might be too much to ask for, but that's what I'd hope to see if the third episode is meaning to be even more robust.

Well, yeah. On the topic of new enemies...

99% of what you see in any Doom mod inherits some level of behavior from an existing (GZ)Doom engine actor and either builds on it or modifies it until it's not recognizable.

Even if you open the files of a commercial game like Hedon and look at a monster definition, you're greeted with this:

ACTOR Golem //replaces Revenant

Not trying to belittle or diminish the work done on Hedon in the least. This line is followed by EIGHT FUCKING HUNDRED more likes with multiple death animation per damage type definitions, enemy projectile definitions and all that jazz. What I'm saying is, on some level, almost every enemy you will ever see in this engine inherits at least a little bit of its behavior from a vanilla enemy.

I imagine with ZScript you can make wilder stuff but I'm not familiar with how that works and 99% of all mods and commercial games on the engine, Hedon included, use DECORATE for enemy and item definitions.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I imagine with ZScript you can make wilder stuff but I'm not familiar with how that works and 99% of all mods and commercial games on the engine, Hedon included, use DECORATE for enemy and item definitions.

Pretty wild stuff. I wish I could find the mod now, but among other things, allowed you to duel wield pistols that functioned completely independently of each other. You could fire one and reload the other at the same time. All with stock Doom assets. I think you can also do pretty complex stuff with AI in ZScript, but I haven't actually seen it used in a mod yet.