Heretic and Hexen

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Jon said:

To some extent, games like Morrowwind are the spiritual successors, in the sense that they're a natural continuation of inserting more and more RPG elements into the FPS (although I realise they have their own history and evolution from a different root)

Ugh. To me the notion that Heretic/Hexen were "RPGs without enough RPG" like some people seem to regard them is completely missing what the appeal of them is, but it seems to be a common enough approach given how many big Hexen mods these days seem to be going the shitty-Elder-Scrolls-wannabe route. Pressed to say what I think have been good "heirs to the throne" I'd point out Blade of Darkness and Enclave instead, even though they're third person games (but given Heretic II, the series seems to have been moving that way anyway. Not that I liked Heretic II very much.)

[HavoX]

Is it a sin that I enjoyed Heretic more than Ultimate Doom?

[RightField]

Yes.

[Tetzlaff]

Decay said:

I first played Hexen on the N64. The remastered soundtrack is far superior IMO (I mean, check out shadow wood's theme)...

It really is, thanks for the suggestion. I found myself a mod file with the Hexen64 music that I can use with GZDoom.

Jon said:

The Heretic/Hexen Lore was never particularly engaging for me, and I don't think the IP is particularly valuable, so I don't think we'll ever see an official sequel or follow-up.

I think the Heretic/Hexen atmosphere of the first 3 games is really unique and there has since never been an FPS with that dark fantasy setting like that. Painkiller reminded me a bit to Heretic, but it's much more haphazard and psychedelic.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was a FPS/RPG hybrid whith gameplay that I would find fitting for a new Hexen sequel. The setting of Dark messiah was also some dark fantasy, but it feels tame in comparison to the Heretic/Hexen setting.

[Master O]

Since this is the appropriate place to ask:

For anyone who owns a physical CD of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, what are the CRC, MD5, and SHA-1 of heretic.wad and heretic.exe?

Doomwiki has those values for Doom and Doom 2 below, but not Heretic:

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DOOM.WAD

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DOOM.EXE

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DOOM2.WAD

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DOOM2.EXE

Also, how about Hexen, too, while we're on the subject?

[Xerge]

Jon said:

I did see Ziggurat, which looked interesting, but a bit too shiny for my liking. Is there any blood in it?

I haven't really noticed, something that I like about Ziggurat is the movement speed when you run, it seems to be as fast as the original Doom and Heretic.

Here's another gameplay video:

[Jon]

Master O said:

Since this is the appropriate place to ask:

For anyone who owns a physical CD of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, what are the CRC, MD5, and SHA-1 of heretic.wad and heretic.exe?

Doomwiki has those values for Doom and Doom 2 below, but not Heretic:

Yes it does:

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HERETIC.WAD

(1.3. is Shadow Of The Serpent Riders)

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HERETIC.EXE

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HEXEN.WAD

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HEXEN.EXE

[Quasar]

Jon said:

Yes it does:

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HERETIC.WAD

(1.3. is Shadow Of The Serpent Riders)

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HERETIC.EXE

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HEXEN.WAD

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/HEXEN.EXE

Going to suppose he was looking at the wrong site, given the fact those were created recently. Be on the lookout for my upcoming nerdcore album "Stop Usin' Wikia".

[vadrig4r]

Quasar said:

Be on the lookout for my upcoming nerdcore album "Stop Usin' Wikia".

I'll pay for distribution and promotion.

[Captain Ventris]

Quasar said:

Going to suppose he was looking at the wrong site, given the fact those were created recently. Be on the lookout for my upcoming nerdcore album "Stop Usin' Wikia".

You and Jimmy should definitely make this happen. Doomworld needs more PSAs in a form that the kids will think is cool and all that. Say No to Wikia, etc.

[vadrig4r]

Quitters never win, and winners never use Wikia.

[Danfun64]

"They were the ones who quit on us, but we refuse to acknowledge that any quitting took place, period." - Wikia

edit: That's a fake quote btw.

[Master O]

Quasar said:

Going to suppose he was looking at the wrong site, given the fact those were created recently. Be on the lookout for my upcoming nerdcore album "Stop Usin' Wikia".

Out of curiosity, why does that matter? Also, since you're so enlightened, what site should we all be looking at, then?

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Doomwiki.org mobs the floor with the wikia. More content and more up to date stuff!

[Avoozl]

I wish I could do a Co-Op run of Hexen with some of you Doomworlders sometime, I've never played Co-Op Hexen and it would give me an excuse to play it again.

[Gez]

Master O said:

Out of curiosity, why does that matter?

It matters because the wiki that the community is maintaining is not on wikia. The info on wikia is generally obsolete, and no one here will vouch for its current maintainers.

Wikia has become more and more unusable as it went out of its way to bolster its advertizing revenue through any hook and crook possible, so it was decided to abandon ship.

Master O said:

Also, since you're so enlightened, what site should we all be looking at, then?

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Entryway

[Jon]

Master O said:

Out of curiosity, why does that matter? Also, since you're so enlightened, what site should we all be looking at, then?

Here's the history of the split http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Wiki:Departure_from_Wikia

[DeathevokatioN]

Sorry in advance for the grandiose and pretentious tl:dr rant...

I love DooM, it's an amazing game, but I'm biased towards Heretic and prefer the base game as it's theme, underrated level layouts, and use of an inventory system all combine to create something that speaks more to my imagination, and caters more to my taste for dungeon crawlers, early 90's RPGs, and obscure Finnish and Swedish death metal bands (Purtenance, Demigod, Convulse, Darkified, Authorize, (early) EntombeD, Internal Decay, Necrophobic, Expulsion, Depravity, Adramelech, and God Macabre etc), where the lyrics (often) focus on ancient evils, internal struggles (in a way that was less childish and less shallow than nu metal), abstract shit that's often open to interpretation, mythology, and mysterious realms that have been lost in the passage of time etc... and the wad that brought me here was Curse of D'sparil, which I accidentally stumbled across on Youtube while looking for a way to get Heretic working.

That said, it's way more fun to map for DooM as the custom resources made by fans add a lot of variety, and it's a fun and rewarding challenge to see just how far I can push a map's theme and design sensibilities from that of DooM's, while STILL keeping the map feeling as if it's part of DooM's universe, if this makes any sense... when I map for Heretic, while also fun, in my attempts to do it justice my maps become too derivative of it. :P

[pavera]

Hexen is officially the worst game ever because you have to slog through the Seven Portals before getting to any of the game's redeeming qualities. I like the expansion though.

Heretic is kind of a boggler to me. It has potential, but the base game doesn't seem to embrace the way the monsters and weapons work in a way that makes any of the gameplay interesting. Most of the time, I end up being chased by a swarm of sponges through a lifeless and haphazard layout where I occasionally storm into the crowd to lay down a few timebombs. It's a very pretty game though, and I love the look and feel of all the weapons. Yeah, even the pee-pee wand. And there are a smattering of successful level designs throughout the first episode or so.

Anyways, Doom is better than both so whatever.

[Jon]

Pavera said:

Hexen is officially the worst game ever because you have to slog through the Seven Portals before getting to any of the game's redeeming qualities. I like the expansion though.

I've yet to play deathkings, I should really give it a try.

Hexen 2 suffers the same problem: the first hub is the worst, and it gets much better once you've pushed through it. (The Hexen 2 expansion *looks* good too, but I haven't got very far in it ever.)



On the subject of dark fantasy games, someone just showed me this video of "Devil Daggers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig0PiBScaqw

[Cruduxy Pegg]

HexDD starts fun but gets annoying the deeper you get into it. Kinda the opposite of vanilla hexen lol.

[Decay]

Pavera said:

Hexen is officially the worst game ever because you have to slog through the Seven Portals before getting to any of the game's redeeming qualities. I like the expansion though.

Where's that quote from Rottking that best describes Seven Portals. Something along the lines of those maps being the experimental pieces of crap they forgot to replace. I am very glad with some jumping skills you can skip most of it, Seven Portals really is terrible, a big let down after Winnowing Hall that has much more atmosphere than that entire hub combined.

[Tetzlaff]

What's the problem with Seven Portals? I enjoyed buzzing back and forth between the sublevels finding keys and switches to finally raise all the stairs in the middle ground. The distinct scenarios (Guardian of Steel, Guardian of Ice and so on) helped with the navigation.

[pavera]

I just find it to be the most boring hub in the entire game, and probably one of the least interesting hubs in any game that uses the hub format for its mission progression.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

World of Lava\Fire has nothing going on except that bridge which is cool until you figure out it is a piece of cake using the side path. World of steel's gimmicky puzzle is stupid and nonsense causing you to waste hours for no reason. World of ice is actually decent.

[plums]

A lot of people find the switch hunting in Seven Portals pretty vague and lacking direction. I like that hub but I know it quite well by now, it's actually kind of hard to judge it with a fresh mind.

Jon said:

I've yet to play deathkings, I should really give it a try.

Hexen 2 suffers the same problem: the first hub is the worst, and it gets much better once you've pushed through it. (The Hexen 2 expansion *looks* good too, but I haven't got very far in it ever.)

Hexen Deathkings is a fair bit harder, in a way that you may or may not like. Enemies respawn a lot more than in the original game, with one level that stands out in my mind for just throwing tons of Reivers at you.

Hexen 2's expansion is quite different from the original, it's very linear. I think it's decent but not as good as the main game. I like the first hub though, as confusing as it can be it's surely no worse than the Egypt hub.

[Jon]

plums said:

A lot of people find the switch hunting in Seven Portals pretty vague and lacking direction. I like that hub but I know it quite well by now, it's actually kind of hard to judge it with a fresh mind.

Hexen Deathkings is a fair bit harder, in a way that you may or may not like. Enemies respawn a lot more than in the original game, with one level that stands out in my mind for just throwing tons of Reivers at you.

Hexen 2's expansion is quite different from the original, it's very linear. I think it's decent but not as good as the main game. I like the first hub though, as confusing as it can be it's surely no worse than the Egypt hub.

the Egyptian hub had one or two really awful puzzles, but the rest was great, imho, and it looked fantastic. The time travel thing was really clever. I loved the Egyptian specific monsters too, particularly the zombie mummies.

My main problem with Blackmarsh first time around is it's basically a bunch of large featureless grey boxes connected at right-angles (no doubt to keep the vis complexity down for old computers), each with one medieval thing in the middle (such as a single shop). The sky lines are featureless and awful.

[Tetzlaff]

plums said:

A lot of people find the switch hunting in Seven Portals pretty vague and lacking direction. I like that hub but I know it quite well by now, it's actually kind of hard to judge it with a fresh mind.

I actually played Hexen the last (and first) time more then ten years ago, so I played it practically with a fresh mind on my recent playthrough. I didn't find the Seven Portals hub confusing.

I found the hub with the castle (where that clock puzzle is included) much more confusing. One time you just enter a room when a text message says "a door has opened in the gibbet", it doesn't make much sense in the in-game logic.

[ABRACADABRA]

I'm agree with Tetzlaff that the seven portals is not that bad. I remember how I wandered through guardian of steel for hours when I was younger, but it seems like I really didn't understood what I have to do then and solve some puzzles almost by luck. My last and only playthrough was in 2008, so I fired up the game with clean mind and did the whole hub straightforward

[Gez]

Seven Portals is only really puzzly if you want to 100% the hub and open up the way to Bright Crucible. If all you want is reach the exit and go to the next hub, it's not really bad.