Doom Wad Station Review Thread 2014

[Brad_tilf]

So, I was working on the Doom and Doom 2 total conversions page on DWS (almost finished with that section now) and I came across the Blakestone total conversion At first, I was bummed out because the page only has a link to the author's home page which is now useless because it hasn't been taken care of in like a decade apparently. Anyway, I tried searching for the tc on the internet - couldn't find it, not even in the /idgames archives. I DID find the file on my hard drive however - under the name bspeek.zip, which is an odd name since I was looking for Blakestone or Bstone or something like that. Anyway, if you want to relive a piece of history - go download it.

[Technician]

I'm giving it a try!

[Technician]

OK, nice effort. The TC feels roughly unfinished when it comes to small details like unique audio for all the monsters. Also the pallet modifications totally fuck up existing Doom resources.

Sadly he didn't finish the TC beyond a single map and I couldn't even find an exit switch. If anything I'm almost inspired to start where he left off.

[Brad_tilf]

Gotta say, that would be awesome for sure. It's sad that so many projects go unfinished. I've run into several - especially in the Doom 3 total conversions I have that never went anywhere - like the Zombie TC. I REALLY would have liked to see that one pan out

[Maes]

Well, FWIW you can still access the directory where the guy supposedly had all his maps, though none of them appears to be like "bspeek.zip", in name or size. Maybe it was in another folder or never actually made it to his site? Who knows.

I suspect that some bullshit clause (or lack thereof) will prevent putting any of those maps on idgames though, so grab'em while you can.

Edit: apparently there are more such directories like fsarc.

[Brad_tilf]

Try to remember - that TC was WAY back in the day. 2003 to be exact, and it IS intended to be used with a port

[Brad_tilf]

nice find

[Maes]

Update: the file was on the guy's website after all, found through the magic of HTML source view ;-)

bspeek.zip

Some other stuff found alongside it:

dwlegacy.zip
Fragglescript reference?

[Brad_tilf]

Too bad he abandoned the site
Good find though.

[Job]

Y'know, you could just play Brutal Doom.

*puts on flamesuit*

[Brad_tilf]

Too bad he never finished it either.

[GreyGhost]

Maes said:

Some other stuff found alongside it:

dwlegacy.zip
Fragglescript reference?

Yep - Fragglescript function reference, and dwlegacy.zip contains an unofficial release of Doom Legacy with partial support for Chex Quest. I have a functioning backup of that site.

[wesleyjohnson]

Encountered bspeek.wad a few years ago.
It did not work well at first.

Some of the graphics got much better later. I would have to dig it out to figure out what it was I did to make it work.

Some of it was due to DoomLegacy bug fixes. As I remember one of the fixes eliminated at least one work around I was using.

There may be three or four linedefs that are unique to DoomLegacy, I cannot remember exactly right now. I just remember discovering a few uses of some unique linedefs in the wad, that may appear to be a broken wad on the other ports.

[Waffenak]

fascinating discovery

[Brad_tilf]

So, almost finished with the 2006 reviews for Doom 2 when I ran across a couple near the beginning of the year that really caught my interest - Blood TC for Doom 2 and Duke Nukem Level 1 conversion for Doom 2. Just thought some might find those of interest if they've never played them before.

[Mad Butcher]

There's an updated version of the Duke Nukem level available from J S Graham's old website.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060224211307/http://numerometria.com/DUKEHH1.ZIP

[Brad_tilf]

Thanks. I haven't been focusing on updating the files since I'm still in the process of rebuilding the pages, but I'll add it to the page. :-)

[Memfis]

Tried playng that Duke conversion... Looks very annoying, so much hitscan rape with limited health. I had a hard time surviving just the first few fights. Well, I guess at least it's true to the original game, which didn't have pain chance if I understand correctly, and thus forced the player to corner camp all the time just like this conversion does. Bleh.

[Brad_tilf]

Thank goodness for the web archive, eh?

[mrthejoshmon]

Memfis said:

Tried playng that Duke conversion... Looks very annoying, so much hitscan rape with limited health. I had a hard time surviving just the first few fights. Well, I guess at least it's true to the original game, which didn't have pain chance if I understand correctly, and thus forced the player to corner camp all the time just like this conversion does. Bleh.

Duke 3D does have some kind of pain chance (Loading some enemies with chaingun cannon fire will render them useless), the problem is that the enemies pain state is only marked with a pain noise (and a halt of both movement and attacking for a split second).

A good example would be mulching the brown aliens from Atomic Edition with chaingun cannon fire.

EDIT: I also still have both the Duke TC and the Blood TC from the old version of Doomwadstation

[Avoozl]

I'd rather play the original Blood than the TC really.

[Brad_tilf]

There are a few things missing in the site, but it's like utilities that Looney2ner used to create his stuff. All the Looney Tune Files are online and ready for download. A real blast from the past. But I can't just let them lie on a hard drive somewhere - they belong on the internet where a new generation of Doomers can enjoy them!

Speaking of which - does ANYONE know what happened to him?

Oh - I can't forget this - thanks to GreyGhost who was able to provide me with some missing files. Thanks, man.

[GreyGhost]

You're welcome. I've sent you another small batch of files that have quietly disappeared from the ftp server.

[Nomad]

I remember him. Haven't seen him since the NewDoom apocalypse, so couldn't say I have any info. Doom_Dude might? I feel like I recall them being chummy. Maybe Mr Rocket?

[Memfis]

What you're doing with Doomwadstation is very nice but do you really need to create so many threads about these updates? Your progress reports are a total mess now that's impossible to follow. Maybe you could use just one thread and post all updates there. o,o

[Brad_tilf]

I suppose. But I tried only to mention the more interesting stuff - lit this. It's not like I posted a thread saying - hey, the 2005 reviews are done. But I did put up a post about a couple of older conversions that I thought people might find interesting.

[Brad_tilf]

NewDoom apocalypse?

[Nomad]

Brad_tilf said:

NewDoom apocalypse?

Long story short, there was a mass exodus from the NewDoom forums and I don't remember seeing Loony around since then.

[Brad_tilf]

Ya, I spoke to him on the phone many years ago and then he sort of just disappeared. :-/

[GreyGhost]

Brad_tilf said:

NewDoom apocalypse?

Phoebus ditched the hosted sites and introduced a subscription system for the forums (probably with the intent of having them pay their way), the place is now a ghost town.