So many WADs to choose from

[Spicy Cacodemon]

You could say I'm being really lazy by posting this, you could also say I'm fairly new to the Doom series. I didn't grow up playing the games, I knew about them but didn't really pay them much attention until recently when I decided to finally play the first two Doom games and check out the mods etc etc.

Doom has clearly been around for a very long time, it's actually a few months older than I am. People have been creating WADs and all sorts of content for Doom games for ages now so I'd like to know what fan made maps *** for DOOM & DOOM 2 *** you all think I/we should play. What maps you personally feel are best for vanilla Doom, for Brutal Doom, for any other specific mods you really like. What WADs and MEGAWADs you feel people need to experience, bare in mind I'm not into speedrunning.

[Danfun64]

There's a comment on the GOG page of Doom 2 listing several popular wads by difficulty.

Easy (Doom - Doom 2 Difficulty) -Doom The Way Id Did It -Doom 2 The Way Id Did it
Medium (Final Doom Difficulty) -Requiem -Memento Mori 2 -Perdition's Gate -Pirate Doom
Hard -Back To Saturn X E1/E2 -Concerned -Going Down -Mercuria Experiment -Plutonia 2 -Plutonia Revisited Community Project -Rush -Scythe 1 -Unholy Realms -Valiant
Very Hard -Alien Vendetta -Crumpets -Resurgence -Scythe 2 -Speed Of Doom Insane Difficulty -Swim With The Whales -Sunder -Sunlust

Not listed: Serenity Trilogy, H2H-Xmas, Hell Revealed series, Icarus, Eternal Doom, DTWID Lost Levels, DTWID No End in Sight, DTWID Phobos Deimos Anomoly,

I'm sure there are other popular and high quality wads I am forgetting, but that should cover most of them.

[plums]

Just today, GoatLord posted that he's playing through all the Cacowarded maps in chronological order. You should do it with him and compare notes!

[Vorpal]

Ricrob had a rather excellent list, that is now frozen in time (not updated since 2000ish)

http://www.doomworld.com/ricrob/

[Doomkid]

Some things that come to mind:

dtwid - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/megawads/dtwid
scythe - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/scythe
hell revealed - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/hr/hr
memento mori - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/mm/mm_allup
1994 tune up - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/1994tu
the devilzwork - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/tdevil2 (shameless plug)
sinister seven - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/sinseven (another shameless plug
coffee break - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/cafebrk1
fava beans - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/0-9/01fava


I'm sure others can list more, but these are all quite oldschool in design and difficulty, relative to modern contemporaries.

[Spicy Cacodemon]

Thanks for your suggestions, I'll in time be checking out these WADs and perhaps making some of my own as I have been building in Doom Builder 2. So should I play these maps in vanilla first then revisit them with any mods I'd like to use? If any of these were designed with a particular mod/setting/port in mind that information would be clearly visible right? If anyone thinks hey you should play these maps with this mod because they work well together I'd appreciate the recommendation.

[Danfun64]

Some of these wads are vanilla compatible, some are limit-removing, some use boom features, some use mbf features, some use Doomsday features, some use Legacy features, and some use (G)ZDoom features.

If you only want to use one port, then GZDoom is your best bet.

Personally, I use PrBoom-Plus for Vanilla, Limit-Removing, Boom, and MBF Single Player, Crispy for Vanilla and Limit-Removing Multiplayer, Boom through Dosbox for Boom Multiplayer, and MBF through Dosbox for MBF Multiplayer. This is mainly due to being a demo recording nut.

[scifista42]

Spicy Cacodemon said:

So should I play these maps in vanilla first

I believe you mean "unmodded", as in "without using any gameplay mods". In this community, the term "vanilla" usually refers to the original Doom.exe executable on DOS (respectively to a particular wad's compatibility with said executable), which not all wads are compatible with (many wads are required to be played in certain source ports), whether you play them with gameplay mods or not.

[Dav_NW]

Smooth Doom works with almost everything, including wads with custom monsters.

Stuff for BD:
Beyond Hell and EarthThis is a WIP project, only 15 maps out of 30, IDK if the author is ever going to finish the other maps. Only works for V19.
Hell on earth Starter Pack
Maps of Chaos

[Reisal]

If you opened the dropdown for MoC, it's for Boom-Vanilla or others. Still challenging without gameplay changing mods.

[Yuki Senmatsu]

If you're lucky, you can find some Shovelware like D!Zone, Deathmatch 7000 etc.

That may be another great way to play wads.

[Dav_NW]

Glaice said:

If you opened the dropdown for MoC, it's for Boom-Vanilla or others. Still challenging without gameplay changing mods.

Yeah i forgot about that, great work with the E3M8 remake. Starting within the central room was a nice unexpected twist.

[T-Rex]

If I were to determine the unlisted ones (most of them):

Easy - Serenity trilogy, Fava Beans, Demonfear
Medium - Hell to Pay, Memento Mori 1, Icarus: Alien Vanguard, Eternal Doom, Reverie
Hard - Hell Revealed, Jenesis, 3 Heures d'Agonie 2, Epic 2
Very Hard - Hell Revealed 2, Kama Sutra

[40oz]

There really is a ridiculous amount of wads to play. Its pretty intimidating really. Sometimes I wonder if ill run out of wads to play and I look at my demo library and see that ive only played 10-15 levels into most megawads, and there's tons of community projects I haven't started yet. I used to feel bad that I dont map as much as I used to but there are so many megawads and great mappers in the community these days, and there's never a shortage of good maps to play, so it doesn't bother me as much anymore.

[Jeffo2448]

Some tough, but good ones

Alien Vendetta
Hell Revealed (1 and 2)
Scythe
Going Down
Sunlust (currently playing this one)


There's plenty more, but I can't remember them all

[Reisal]

Winged_Warrior said:

Yeah i forgot about that, great work with the E3M8 remake. Starting within the central room was a nice unexpected twist.

I don't ever remember moving the player starts.

Also OP, don't forget there is an awesome random map generator out there that produces decent maps to sharpen your skills on, not to mention user created modifications on its forum to further extend 6.20's lifespan while V7 is being worked on.

[DooM_RO]

Try Pinnacle of Darkness. It's hard as shit but you won't be disappointed.

[valkiriforce]

Personally, I think it's a good idea to go through the Doomworld Top 10 from 1994 and onward to develop an appreciation for the older maps as well as the newer ones, as it makes a nice bridge between older & newer styles throughout Doom's history.

[[McD] James]

There's a lot of phenomenal WADs I could recommend to you. But I'll spare you the overload and name only one; Pirate Doom. Pirate Doom is where it's at, my friend.

[Spectre01]

People recommending Hell Revealed are trolling hard at this point. There are plenty of better "Hard(er)" megawads that also happen to not look and play like total ass. Play Sunlust or Speed of Doom for a fun challenge.