Do people like modded content better than vanilla megawads?

[Skullhacker]

I love vanilla doom, and it's even more fun to play on source ports. But unless you have a big map pack to play with something like Boom, vanilla doom gets sort of boring without any mods. But if you're a very dedicated player like me, you can have plenty of fun without a bunch of mods. But as a GZDoom mapper, I wanna know how many people prefer vanilla maps over GZDoom maps. I like Boom and GZDoom, so if I wanna make more projects other than my current one, Acid, I'd like to get some insight on what people think is cool about vanilla megawads or modded megawads.

[Linguica]

Make whatever you want to make. If you have no attachment to vanilla Doom then don't make something for that, that would be silly. For context, last year's main Cacowards had 5 (G)ZDoom-required projects and zero vanilla-compatible projects.

[Skullhacker]

Cool!

[Egg Boy]

I think the question you're asking here is extremely vague. Megawads aren't so black and white that you can seperate them into "modded" or "vanilla." It's more like a gradient with lots of in between. The most popular megawads are frequently Boom compatible which is somewhere between vanilla and modded, closer to vanilla, because the gameplay is rarely modified, but has the benefits of extra effects and actions offered by Boom compatible ports. There's also stuff like "limit-removing" and eternity compatible map sets. Like Ling says, make what you want, but understand that vanilla and "modded" are not the only 2 options.

[Skullhacker]

Thanks for the info. I'll take that into account.

[Boaby Kenobi]

When you say vanilla and modded do you mean vanilla as in Doom levels using Doom sprites, sounds, etc and modded as in non-Doom sounds effects and new sprites, textures, weapons, etc?

[BigBoy91]

I prefer vanilla, to be honest. It's awesome to see projects like Back to Saturn X and such push the original engine to its absolute limit. Stuff that was unfathomable in 1994.

Edited January 17, 2020 by lazy91geek

[Skullhacker]

43 minutes ago, lazy91geek said:

I prefer vanilla, to be honest. It's awesome to see projects like Back to Saturn X and such push the original engine to its absolute limit. Stuff that was unfathomable in 1994.

It really is great how much things have changed.

[Skullhacker]

1 hour ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

When you say vanilla and modded do you mean vanilla as in Doom levels using Doom sprites, sounds, etc and modded as in non-Doom sounds effects and new sprites, textures, weapons, etc?

Most of the time if I wanna mod something I just go all out with weapons, sounds, particles, enemies, map features, mapinfo, ect. But for vanilla I mostly mean stuff that's that's modified but still very compatible such as Eviternity, Back To Saturn X, and others.

[banjiepixel]

I once used mainly PrBoom+ with Boom maps but I have recently started to use Crispy Doom and now I like Vanilla and Limit-Removing maps more. There is just something special about playing something that doesn't use any extra mapping features compared to the original game. I still like Boom and MBF stuff too I feel that feel that I don't have source port for them that would be as easy to use and cleanly designed as Crispy Doom is.

 

I don't like to play (G)ZDoom maps but I do sometimes like to play Complex Doom or other gameplay mods with vanilla maps.

[D4NUK1]

There it's a impresive world with wads with mod stuff, Extermination Day, Soundless Mold. jelp. We will never see something as Order of Odonata in Boom (Eviternity goes close and it's still awesome) but with expanded engines you can see great stuff that in the end it's still Doom.

Im mostly saying wad packs cause gameplay mods, it's a more exotic place, where can be more debate if it's doom or not. So i will leave it there.

[Skullhacker]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

I once used mainly PrBoom+ with Boom maps but I have recently started to use Crispy Doom and now I like Vanilla and Limit-Removing maps more. There is just something special about playing something that doesn't use any extra mapping features compared to the original game. I still like Boom and MBF stuff too I feel that feel that I don't have source port for them that would be as easy to use and cleanly designed as Crispy Doom is.

 

I don't like to play (G)ZDoom maps but I do sometimes like to play Complex Doom or other gameplay mods with vanilla maps.

After all, limit-removing maps are more fun for people who like pushing the boundaries. Like, for example, I made a map pack that had jumping, crouching and freelooking allowed. It had some custom enemies, too. I was proud of the name. It was called Picked Up A Hell Portal.

XD 

I even made my own midis for that project, but I'm mainly working on a GZDoom megawad now.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

4 minutes ago, Skullhacker said:

but I'm mainly working on a GZDoom megawad now.

Good luck!

[Skullhacker]

49 minutes ago, jamondemarnatural said:

There it's a impresive world with wads with mod stuff, Extermination Day, Soundless Mold. jelp. We will never see something as Order of Odonata in Boom (Eviternity goes close and it's still awesome) but with expanded engines you can see great stuff that in the end it's still Doom.

Im mostly saying wad packs cause gameplay mods, it's a more exotic place, where can be more debate if it's doom or not. So i will leave it there.

Personally, I think no matter how much you mod Doom it's still Doom (unless we're talking about something like Project Brutality). The goal for my current GZDoom megawad, Acid, is to make it less like Doom and more like Blood. But that isn't working too well for me right now.

[unerxai]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

I still like Boom and MBF stuff too I feel that feel that I don't have source port for them that would be as easy to use and cleanly designed as Crispy Doom is.

There's Doom Retro which is pretty neat if you don't mind the fact every change is done through a console. There's some non-vanilla behavior that, as far as I know, can't be changed unfortunately, such as objects blocking fireballs.

[banjiepixel]

Just now, unerxai said:

There's Doom Retro which is pretty neat if you don't mind the fact every change is done through a console. There's some non-vanilla behavior that, as far as I know, can't be changed unfortunately, such as objects blocking fireballs.

 

I know about Doom Retro. Actually tried it for the first time just couple of months ago. It is pretty close to what I am looking for but isn't demo compatible and really need better way to for changing options than a console or editing .cfg file. Right now I am leaning most towards using Eternity Engine but it is very close feeling too advanced  and has too many features I don't need. It also has ugly IWAD selection menu and it seems to be impossible to disable. PrBoom+ would work still pretty well for now but I want to use source port that is still being updated. And I know that there is also the UMAPINFO version but that project is still too new and has yet to really find its own identity and direction.

[P41R47]

2 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

I know about Doom Retro. Actually tried it for the first time just couple of months ago. It is pretty close to what I am looking for but isn't demo compatible and really need better way to for changing options than a console or editing .cfg file. Right now I am leaning most towards using Eternity Engine but it is very close feeling too advanced  and has too many features I don't need. It also has ugly IWAD selection menu and it seems to be impossible to disable. PrBoom+ would work still pretty well for now but I want to use source port that is still being updated. And I know that there is also the UMAPINFO version but that project is still too new and has yet to really find its own identity and direction.

Just wait a little longer, maybe @bradharding could move some things around and bring us, finally, a complete ''old-school'' source port, with demo compatibility included.
Doom Retro is still the project of one (great) man, and a few good people that help him bug-hunting the releases, and its pretty new considering Doom source port's history. In just seven years, Brad made it almost completely MBF compatible, have a lot of new dehacked free-stats for making new things. Its my port of choice right now, and if it goes for the complete compatibility, maybe it could find a way around to implement demos.
 

[banjiepixel]

16 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

Just wait a little longer, maybe @bradharding could move some things around and bring us, finally, a complete ''old-school'' source port, with demo compatibility included.
 

 

Doom Retro will stay on my radar, it's still the easiest way to play Boom maps in scaled 640×400 resolution. That has become really important feature for me because Doom in HD resolutions just doesn't look right, too empty and lifeless.

[P41R47]

3 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

Doom Retro will stay on my radar, it's still the easiest way to play Boom maps in scaled 640×400 resolution. That has become really important feature for me because Doom in HD resolutions just doesn't look right, too empty and lifeless.

I play Doom Retro in 640x400, but in the low res option, so it seems almost exactly like the original Doom. Only thing i found a little hard to made it work properly is the engine shading, as it is a little different than vanilla shading, but it still looks perfect to me. 

[DOEL]

Pure unmodded gameplay is what I enjoy, just with differing map sets. I started with GZDoom but now I use PrBoom+ for single-player and recording/watchibg demos.

 

I use Zandronum for online play. I think it has my favorite movement out of the ports I've played, you can feel momentum better especially when changing direction. Since vanilla gameplay isn't quite popular on Doomseeker, I'm more likely to play something modded.

 

Brutal Doom/Project Brutality got me back into Doom but I realized how much more fun vanilla gameplay is.

[Bauul]

It's worth remembering that the more advanced a GZDoom map is, the less modable it is.  

 

If you like playing with mods, the very best kind of map you can make is vanilla or limit-removing, with zero Dehacked work.  If you start making some advanced GZDoom mapset you run the risk of making it completely incompatible with the mods you like.

 

Even Eviternity, which is an MBF mapset (a format finalized in 2004), has severe conflicts with many popular mods.  

[Graf Zahl]

9 minutes ago, Bauul said:

It's worth remembering that the more advanced a GZDoom map is, the less modable it is.  

 

 

The map itself is not the issue here, the moddability issue comes when new monsters and/or weapons get added.

However, it should also be noted that Dehacked is generally far more disruptive for mods than using DECORATE or ZScript for creating new content.

Some mods inherit from original monsters or weapons instead of fully redefining hem, these may be usable in a limited fashion with Decorate, there may be some clashes with replacements not being performed. But using such mods with Dehacked-based mapsets can lead to really undefined behavior, and sometimes even crashes when the Dehacked patch alters things in a way the mod cannot deal with.

 

[Jayextee]

17 hours ago, Skullhacker said:

I'd like to get some insight on what people think is cool about vanilla megawads

I've personally been into making limit-removing and/or vanilla WADs so people can mix up whatever mods they want with them. The topic question "Do people like modded content better than vanilla megawads?" reads to me like 'do people like wearing clothes better than eating food?' -- and, of course, they're different things you can combine together; or not; as much as you like. That's the beauty of it.

[Skullhacker]

28 minutes ago, Bauul said:

It's worth remembering that the more advanced a GZDoom map is, the less modable it is.  

 

If you like playing with mods, the very best kind of map you can make is vanilla or limit-removing, with zero Dehacked work.  If you start making some advanced GZDoom mapset you run the risk of making it completely incompatible with the mods you like.

 

Even Eviternity, which is an MBF mapset (a format finalized in 2004), has severe conflicts with many popular mods.  

When I say "modded megawads," I mean I make my own kids for them, but what you're saying makes a lot of sense.

[Skullhacker]

2 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

I've personally been into making limit-removing and/or vanilla WADs so people can mix up whatever mods they want with them. The topic question "Do people like modded content better than vanilla megawads?" reads to me like 'do people like wearing clothes better than eating food?' -- and, of course, they're different things you can combine together; or not; as much as you like. That's the beauty of it.

Agreed. That's a great point.

[Bauul]

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

The map itself is not the issue here, the moddability issue comes when new monsters and/or weapons get added.

 

Very true, although I have also seen maps themselves cause issues with mods.  An example would be an ACS script that assigns the PlayerPawn a specific TID in order to execute something in the map breaking because a mod assigns the PlayerPawn a different TID.  Or a script that checks for the presence of a certain named Thing not finding it because a mod has replaced that Thing with something else.

 

Granted there are ways to avoid many of these situations through forward-thinking scripting, but not every mapper is aware of them or uses them.  

[Kizoky]

I like them both equally, i get amazed by what people can achieve with Doom engine
Take a look at Total Chaos, feels like a totally different game!

[HorrorMovieRei]

Any map is great regardless of level of limitation if they are well put together. I think the preference for a lot of mappers to not stray further than Boom/MBF(or so it seems that way at least, and something I felt in the few maps I made) is because of the level of compatibility it offers. If your map can resonate with both the more oldschool, and the people who prefer fancier engines, it's a win for everyone.

 

However, I also do think there are not enough zdoom/gzdoom centered maps that are compatible with gameplay mods, which is a shame too. Most modern-engine maps I see go the way of being TCs(or close) in the sense that they add new maps and new everything else(monsters, weapons etc). I seldom play Gzdoom mods on actual GZdoom maps with jumping/crouching/verticality in mind that allow me to fully utilize mechanics in gameplay mods that are tied to those "modern'ish" concepts in Doom, because most of those already have their own gameplay changes set in place.

 

Of course, you can still play, say, Guncaster with Hell Revealed sure, but I don't think you'll want to be using the multiple jump/wing mechanic too much unless you want to sequence break the maps.

But that also goes back to what I said about compatibility: If you're modding for a modern engine that you know has a more niche appeal, why not go all out, yes?

 

That said, I'll reiterate what Linguica said. Everyone should be free to make anything they want for any engine in Doom. Like any art form, freedom of the modder to express themselves creatively reigns supreme.

[Skullhacker]

1 hour ago, Kizoky said:

I like them both equally, i get amazed by what people can achieve with Doom engine
Take a look at Total Chaos, feels like a totally different game!

I'll make sure to check it out!

[cnidaria]

I like both vanilla and TC's, and only tend not to enjoy those that fall in between. I started with GZdoom and only moved onto vanilla doom after a couple years, which is what I favor now, and I pretty much consider them separate games. Whenever I play a mod that has largely vanilla weaponry and enemies but with a few tweaks, it just throws me off and makes me wish I was playing vanilla, but I think GZdoom is a brilliant engine and modding platform for straightforward, visceral shooters such as Ashes 2036 and that the future is bright for such "TC's"

 

There are passes made for extremely well produced projects such as Eviternity, but I feel like most most that try to hit that middle ground fail and would've been better served just using vanilla assets rather than trying to add anything new unless they were going the TC route