Who else has never beat the iwad maps in a single playthrough?

[invictius]

We believe that people playing pwads have already mastered the iwads, right.  Yet the closest I've got is e1 and e3.  I don't know if I just have zoomer attention span but "Use switch to activate something you probably won't be able to find" is tricky.  I know automaps show elevators but it's still confusing as heck.

Tl;dr has anyone out there played lots of pwads despite not completing the iwads.

[tomas7777]

You're not the only one. For a long time I had never finished the IWADs either. I'd mostly just hit "New Game", play the first few maps, then quit, over and over. Eventually I set out to play all the maps for the sake of completion.

 

I personally see it as a sort of "cultural" thing: some of the maps are actually good, others not so much, but they're historically relevant as the maps that first introduced players to the game and conveyed id's original vision of it, so it can be interesting to get to know them if only for that.

[Lila Feuer]

I mean I started playing Doom at 10 and didn't actually go through the game proper without cheating or warping around until almost half a decade later, I imagine many of those who started with the games early did the same thing in my experience.

[slugger]

I'll never beat the iwads in one sitting. I think I've beaten most of the levels individually, but not all of them, especially not the late game ones. Like I don't think I've ever gotten past the first couple rooms of Spirit World. I'm really awful at remembering where doors are, what switches open what, etc.

 

I like it this way -- I like some classics to be too big for me to approach. If I were good enough at Doom to casually beat it, it would feel less imposing and mysterious. I am a little jealous of the people who can pick up a map and immediately find their way through and remember where everything is, though.

[TheHambourgeois]

I don't think I've beaten any wad in one sitting

 

e: other than single level ones obviously

Edited November 9, 2023 by TheHambourgeois

[june gloom]

I can beat an episode in one sitting -- especially Knee Deep -- but the full 30-plus whatever? Not happening.

[Devalaous]

Megawad fatigue ensures I never play more than a couple of maps in a row

[Lila Feuer]

Oh, well if you meant in one sitting then I've beaten UAC Ultra in one sitting once because I couldn't stop playing until I finished it and it's a dozen or so maps long, but that's like a longer episode. I did however beat Doom II in one sitting once and my runtimes are typically 3 hours so doing that all at once just because I thought well I can didn't pay off so great at the end because my ass hurt after I got up.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I'm sure many people have at least never played Doom 2. In fact, I would recommend that people casually checking out the Doom community should play an accessible Doom 2 pwad before playing the game proper. I'm not a fan of Doom 2 for the most part, and you aren't missing out on anything by skipping it - at least until you're curious and ready to learn about the history of the game.

[Lila Feuer]

I feel like maybe less people have even played episodes 2 and 3 because back in the day the concept of a game's length or continuation under the same title and not as a sequel wasn't clearly defined, so they most likely beat the shareware and thus beat Doom.

[DeafPixel]

I blazed through Doom 1's first 3 episodes. Doom 2? It took me years because id always check out after map 10 or so.

[No-Man Baugh]

I remember when I first started playing Doom 2 on PC around 2013-ish? before that I played and beat Doom 1 from Kneed Deep in the Dead to Mt. Erebus on my PS3 and when I finally got my AlienWare 51X I bought the Doom Classic Complete bundle on steam and quickly played Doom 2 on the only sourceport I knew at the time: GZDoom

However that was also when Brutal Doom was at it's peak in popularity (often touted as the DEFINITIVE WAY TO PLAY DOOM) and tho I tried my best to play Doom totally unmodified and as god intended, I eventually got bored half-way and played from the top with Brutal Doom and idclip'd into the IoS. At that point I considered Doom 2 beat and finished

 

Eventually my pre-built alienware got some weird helper lady widgit that I didn't remember installing and it wouldn't back up to an external harddrive I bought specifically for that exact purpous. so I just shelved my computer and never touched it again in fear that it would only get worse, effectively putting my pc gaming, and as such my Dooming, in stasis

And honestly the worst part about that was that I didn't pay much attention to the wider modding community at the time beyond the funny meme ones, not even other Iwads like TNT or the Plutionia Experiment.

 

fast foward to 2021 and I got a macbook as a gift from my dad, and after playing all the other games on my PS4, getting really into Decino, and for the fact that mac has less games than a playstation on launchday; I went and tried to get Doom (emphesis on 'try to get' as steam won't let you so much as download the files of a game that's an os it wasn't designed for, sorry for assuming I actually owned my games). and my first port of choice this time was Chocolate Doom! as I always felt that GZDoom gave me a skewed impression of how the game was really like back in '94 and I wanted to get a better perspective on how Doom was like back then and more respect for what those idboys pulled off in spite of contemporary hardware and having the burden (or honor) of trail-blazing conventions

So this time I went and returned my quest to beat Doom 2: Hell on Earth totally normally and with no fancy shmancy gameplay mods or map packs, I already re-beat all 3 episodes of Doom 1 (not thy flesh lmao) but if I wanted to play top shit like Valiant or Cyb's Freaky Colonoscopy; then I'm gonna have to finally beat the direct commercial sequel to Doom!

But then I hit a brickwall at Downtown and before I decided to skip to the Inmost Dens I watched Icarus' vid on Codename: Demolitionist (rest in peace) and trounced Doom 1, Thy Flesh Consumed, and Doom 2 in near enough one sitting with it. still very much not considering it beaten, but some of the edge was taken off

 

I did eventually, actually, finally beat all 32 most 29 of Doom 2's maps vanilla on UV pistol-start tho, but by this point I had already sampled much of the community's own levels. I think even before I beat The Factory I got up to Map 06 of Alien Vendetta since that was a wad listed on chocolate-doom.org, essentially kick-starting my journey into the wider mapping community

[june gloom]

1 hour ago, Lila Feuer said:

I feel like maybe less people have even played episodes 2 and 3 because back in the day the concept of a game's length or continuation under the same title and not as a sequel wasn't clearly defined, so they most likely beat the shareware and thus beat Doom.

In my experience it was because a retail copy of Doom 2 was much easier to find than Ultimate. I didn't have a legitimate copy of Ultimate -- indeed, neither did I Doom 2 after the CD shattered in the drive -- until the Steam release many years ago.

[Murdoch]

I have never once played through Doom 2 or any megawad for it in a single sitting. Nor any Doom episode, perhaps maybe save episode 1 a singe time.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Murdoch

[Li'l devil]

If you don't beat 5 megawads a day every day, you're not a real Doom fan.

[Maximum Matt]

^^ This is the correct take.  

[Lila Feuer]

18 minutes ago, Li'l devil said:

If you don't beat 5 megawads a day every day, you're not a real Doom fan.

 

I'M A DOOM POSER! 😭

[Professor Hastig]

I take breaks during playing, the only IWAD episode short enough to get through in one go without one is E1.

 

[Guff dotD]

My first playthrough of Doom II was on the Unity Port (yes, I know, I am an infant). When I got to the Catacombs, something happened with my save data and some cloud shtuff, and my save data was lost.

It was pretty discouraging. Enough for me to drop the Unity port as a regular means of play for good.

[mrthejoshmon]

Beat the IWADs? Yes, from Ultimate all the way through to Plutonia and every other official map (NRFTL ect), then everything unofficial but commercial too (Hell2Pay is the best one, Laura Beyer Doom is the worst).

 

In one sitting though? Are you insane? I got a job and shit man, most I can do is one Ultimate Doom episode in one sitting.

Edited November 9, 2023 by mrthejoshmon

[Ravendesk]

49 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

In one sitting though? Are you insane? I got a job and shit man, most I can do is one Ultimate Doom episode in one sitting.

It literally takes 20 minutes.

[bioshockfan90]

Probably not, I've always been very sporadic about the games I play (Doom or not) so short playseshes are my go-to. Like most others here I can probably stomach E1 of Ultimate Doom in 1 sitting at most. Also like others have said, there's been so much objectively better Doom content released that is easier to binge.

 

If we factor in PWADs, I've gone insane sometimes on PWADs, playing for hours at a time either grinding out one map or beating 12-13 in 1 sitting. Right now I'm playing through STRAIN for the first time and it's one of those wads where I just feel like taking my time with it. So I fire it up during the morning after I've had my coffee and beat 1 or 2 maps, write about it in my Journal app, then go on about my day. 

 

I got sidetracked there, sorry! ^^ point being, the IWADs don't lend themselves particularly well to single-sitting playthroughs unless you're a speedrunner. 

[DynamiteKaitorn]

I've beaten episodes 1, 2 and 3 in a single run and that took me a full afternoon to do. Stacking episode 4 and Sigil would need me to spend a whole day on it.

Despite the fact the levels are short, it does take a while to get through DooM (unless you're speedrunning it). I think doing 1 episode a day across 4-5 days is better anyways. Less likely to get burnt out playing by the time you reach episode 3.

[SupremeBioVizier]

I sat down and played ultimate/ DOOM2 all the way through in 2020, I know for certain I played through DOOM2 in one sitting because after I was done, I joined doomworld to vent the tole it took on me brainz.

Edited November 9, 2023 by SupremeBioVizier

[mrthejoshmon]

2 hours ago, Ravendesk said:

It literally takes 20 minutes.

Ok genuis, a world reccord speedrun takes 20 minutes.

 

Slight issue though, I'm not a world record speedrunner.

[Stupid Bunny]

4 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Slight issue though, I'm not a world record speedrunner.

 

well not with that attitude you're not

[mrthejoshmon]

Fine, tomorrow I'll see how long it actually takes, I'll post the demo even.

 

My time for Doom is limited, my time for petty spite however is unlimited.

[TheHambourgeois]

get his ass!!!

[june gloom]

Spiterun!

[Uncle 80]

In ONE sitting?? Never - not even back in the day when Doom was "everything". I can make it through an episode in one sitting, maybe. I have of course beaten all the maps of (Ultimate) Doom, Doom 2 and I think, Plutionia. I have not finished TNT, as I lost interest in that one REAL quick.