Doom 2 COOP

[Hellbent]

Well, somehow I got by the last 15 years playing doom without every trying coop play. My friend and I decided to try it today on our laptops right next to each other. I was surprised how fun it is. We first played Doom 1 episode 2 but zdoom crashed on level 3. We tried again, but this time decided to play in doom 2. I was disappointed that the DM weapons were still there in coop. We had all the weapons on level 1! :( Nevertheless, it was fun, and if it was too easy in the first few levels, it soon got harder when cyberdemons started showing up nearly every level. By level 9, using the chainsaw was a common event as we both spent a lot of time out of ammo. It was also disappointing that id didn't add ammo to where they had weapons in secrets (particularly plasma) as there is no reward for finding the four plasma rifles in map16 for example: 160 ammo in SP = 0 in multiplayer. I also wish there was some punishment for dying. Maybe in Scoredoom the player loses a bunch of points for dying? If not, Scoredoom should program that in for coop play. Nevertheless, coop is a lot of fun.

[Edward850]

Hellbent said:

I was disappointed that the DM weapons were still there in coop. We had all the weapons on level 1!

Doom treats DM and coop spawned weapons exactly the same. Zdoom has not changed this behavior for the old doom map format.

[exp(x)]

I grew up playing Doom 2 coop.

[Hellbent]

we saved our game at the start of map18. /me wonders what will be in the courtyard... a cyberdemon perhaps? A spiderdemon? Don't tell me! I'll find out tomorrow when we continue.

[ReFracture]

I played co-op on rare occasion at a friend's house as a kid, but that was it. I spent a LOT of hours in 2003 playing through all of iwads, Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed, Icarus, Hacx, Biowar, Eternal Doom, Memento Mori.. Oh man... 2003 was so fun.. back when doom connector was popular and people actually wanted to play games.

[exp(x)]

Mike.Reiner said:

I spent a LOT of hours in 2003 playing through all of iwads, Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed, Icarus, Hacx, Biowar, Eternal Doom, Memento Mori.. Oh man... 2003 was so fun.. back when doom connector was popular and people actually wanted to play games.

That is one thing I miss about Doom Connector.

[Hellbent]

Mike.Reiner said:

I played co-op on rare occasion at a friend's house as a kid, but that was it. I spent a LOT of hours in 2003 playing through all of iwads, Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed, Icarus, Hacx, Biowar, Eternal Doom, Memento Mori.. Oh man... 2003 was so fun.. back when doom connector was popular and people actually wanted to play games.

What would you recommend for Coop? I prefer wads like the original Doom episodes and don't really want to play something like AV with its ridiculous hordes.

[myk]

Edward850 said:
Doom treats DM and coop spawned weapons exactly the same. Zdoom has not changed this behavior for the old doom map format.

Right, and ZDaemon broke that. I can understand adding the server option to not place those weapons, but eliminating the possibility of the original behavior is plain stupid, especially when various vanilla megawads use those for coop.

[kristus]

People play coop on Skulltag more than anything.

[myk]

Yeah, the above is one of the reasons why they use ZDaemon less. Others are that it breaks linedef based light effects and that some classic WADs break during play.

[BilboHicks]

Wow, co-op is one of the reasons I love Doom, glad you tried it.

Hellbent said:
Maybe in Scoredoom the player loses a bunch of points for dying? If not, Scoredoom should program that in for coop play. Nevertheless, coop is a lot of fun. [/B]

Yes, the player who dies loses 500 points. Scoredoom is based on gzdoom as you probably know, so its better suited to LAN/fast internet connection co-op, and you need to set up the client & host manually, but I have a simple how-to on scoredoom.com to set up a co-op game, with suggested dmflags for co-op.

TRY: +dmflags 1048576 (omitting dmflags2)

[Kyka]

I used to play a lot of Coop, and yes I understand how tight ammo can get. But the more you play with someone, the more these things start to happen.

-You both know when to pull out your chainsaws. "stereo chainsaws" we used to call it. Even in a room full of sergeants, you can usually clear them out without getting hit. Use the sergeant you are killing for cover, often sergeants behind the front row will shoot, hitting the monster you are killing. Chainsaw/chaingun combination can be very effective, even against archviles and barons (Though you gotta be quick and keep moving if you are gonna tackle guys like that)

-you arrange a system for clearing rooms. Say one person shoots always to the left and one to the right when entering a room, so you don't shoot at the same targets. You would be surprised how much ammo you waste because you both fired your single barrel shottys at the same imp, wasting a shell. Do that 20 times in a single level and you see what I mean.

-One person is the designated "first shooter" so that way, if you see an imp, only one of you shoots at it; one shot is fired instead of two.

-Also what works well is having one person use the chaingun and one using the shotty. The guy with the shotty fires at a group of former humans, say, and the chaingun guy picks off whatever is left. You know a hell knight takes 3 doubles to go down, so after three hits, let the chaingunner pick 'im off.

-Have rules like one person always dodges to the left say, coz friendly fire is a bitch. A double barrel in the back can just ruin your whole day.

Some of those tips sound pretty nitpicky, but we found it just added to the fun, soz we survived a lot longer, became coop veterans, and we had plenty of ammo for when we really needed it. We used to play that we had to finish a level without dying or we started over. And we played every level we could get our hands on back then.

Have fun with it, glad you are enjoying it. :)