Why is there no Doom 64 section at /idgames?

[hardcore_gamer]

Doom 64 EX has mod support and I find it huge amounts of fun to map for, and yet I can't find any Doom 64 maps on /idgames since there doesn't seem to be a dedicated Doom 64 EX section. Is Doom 64 EX so unpopular with mappers that they just don't bother? If so than that's a shame because I feel the Doom 64 ex engine is very powerful and lots of fun to use.

[Maes]

There weren't many 3rd-party maps for Absolution either, other than an (incomplete) mission pack. Maybe mappers feel that it's a too niche engine/game to map for, or that it "imposes" certain themes on the mapper? Also, neither Absolution nor Doom 64 EX are as accessible, modding-wise, as ZDoom. In the end, it feels like a custom source port, without as much support as the most popular ones, and one which doesn't "play nice" with the majority of existing tools, lump and map editors etc.

[HexenMapper]

I'm sure if you submit something they will make a section for it. At least email them and ask.

[hardcore_gamer]

Maes said:

There weren't many 3rd-party maps for Absolution either, other than an (incomplete) mission pack. Maybe mappers feel that it's a too niche engine/game to map for, or that it "imposes" certain themes on the mapper? Also, neither Absolution nor Doom 64 EX are as accessible, modding-wise, as ZDoom. In the end, it feels like a custom source port, without as much support as the most popular ones, and one which doesn't "play nice" with the majority of existing tools, lump and map editors etc.

I wonder if this will work to my advantage. As fun as it is to make maps for Doom/Doom 2, because of how many of them there are many maps just kinda vanish into the sea after they are released. Perhaps more people will be interested in playing my map once it's done because of the rarity of Doom 64 EX maps? I am having a blast making it. It's not a short map either, as I am aiming for about 40-60 min of gameplay with every theme being used in some way. I still have a lot of work left though, as I would say that I am only about 30% done with it.

I think my biggest love with the game is the lighting. So easy to create cool looking stuff with it. The macro scripting is easy to use and fun to mess around with as well.

[scifista42]

hardcore_gamer said:

I wonder if this will work to my advantage. Perhaps more people will be interested in playing my map once it's done because of the rarity of Doom 64 EX maps?

Check out posts / threads by other D64 mappers here (Dave The Daring, footman, Impboy4, jdagenet, sector666, Z0k...) to see how it worked to their advantage and how many more people they got interested in playing their maps.

Spoiler

I wouldn't say they did.

[hardcore_gamer]

scifista42 said:

Check out posts / threads by other D64 mappers here (Dave The Daring, footman, Impboy4, jdagenet, sector666, Z0k...) to see how it worked to their advantage and how many more people they got interested in playing their maps.

Spoiler

I wouldn't say they did.

That's a shame.

Is there any reason so few people play their maps? I mean I get it why many would not bother making the maps but one would have thought that people would at least enjoy playing them.

I wonder if Vinny or Joel on vinesouce would be interested in playing it once it's done seeing as they are having lots of fun with some Doom stuff currently. That would give it some publicity.

[Impboy4]

The main reason is because for Doom 64 EX it involves one hard step to setup:

1. Download the port (easy step)
2. Find/Download or Extract a Doom 64 ROM (hard step)
3. Run Wadgen (easy step)
4. Run Launcher or DOOM64.exe (easy step)

[hardcore_gamer]

Impboy4 said:

The main reason is because for Doom 64 EX it involves one hard step to setup:

1. Download the port (easy step)
2. Find/Download or Extract a Doom 64 ROM (hard step)
3. Run Wadgen (easy step)
4. Run Launcher or DOOM64.exe (easy step)

Fair enough.

Does anybody know of any Doom 64 EX maps for me to play? I googled Doom 64 EX wads but the results I got just showed people in forums showing their maps with links that are now dead.

[Voros]

Impboy4 said:

The main reason is because for Doom 64 EX it involves one hard step to setup:

2. Find/Download or Extract a Doom 64 ROM (hard step)

Its not that hard to find.

Also, Doom 64 EX may have mod support, but its small compared to Doom's mod support.
I once downloaded a Doom 64 EX map to see if it loads. I couldn't get it to load. There should be tutorial on exactly how to launch a custom Doom 64 EX map.

And I doubt many people here actually make Doom 64 EX maps, when they could just make a Doom map. I even heard that Doom 64 Builder is hard to use.

Until the number of Doom 64 EX maps increases above, say, 5, then I don't think a /idgames section is required.

[hardcore_gamer]

Voros said:

I once downloaded a Doom 64 EX map to see if it loads. I couldn't get it to load. There should be tutorial on exactly how to launch a custom Doom 64 EX map.

All you need to do is making sure that the wad is inside the Doom 64 EX folder before dragging and dropping it into the doom64.exe. Not sure why it would not load for you.

Voros said:

I even heard that Doom 64 Builder is hard to use.

It's slightly more complex but not by much. Only real difference is that some textures work differently and the lighting is more complicated. Though I admit that I STILL haven't figured out how to make switches animate >:[ It's much more powerful if anything since it takes advantage of features exclusive to Doom 64.

[jdagenet]

There's no Doom 64 section because the scene didn't blow up like people thought it would. The map editor as well as the engine are both way to buggy to devote any sort of time to when it comes to megawads or even small episodes. Not to mention that Kaiser just seemed to vanish from the development of Doom 64 EX, so the bugs that limit the creative possibilities of mapping are to remain until he gets enough time to work out the kinks.

[hardcore_gamer]

jdagenet said:

There's no Doom 64 section because the scene didn't blow up like people thought it would. The map editor as well as the engine are both way to buggy to devote any sort of time to when it comes to megawads or even small episodes. Not to mention that Kaiser just seemed to vanish from the development of Doom 64 EX, so the bugs that limit the creative possibilities of mapping are to remain until he gets enough time to work out the kinks.

What bugs are you talking about? So far the only real bug I have encountered is changing sector lighting smoothly via macro scripting doesn't work as intended. I haven't encountered any real game breaking bugs.

[jdagenet]

Switches not working, the editor not saving things that you do, camera jitters around sometimes when using a mouse, player gets stuck inside monsters, macros act strange sometimes.
Though they may not be game-breaking, these issues make the entire creative process very unreliable and just a pain to work with.

[hardcore_gamer]

jdagenet said:

Switches not working, the editor not saving things that you do, camera jitters around sometimes when using a mouse, player gets stuck inside monsters, macros act strange sometimes.
Though they may not be game-breaking, these issues make the entire creative process very unreliable and just a pain to work with.

I haven't experienced any of the things you mentioned.

[Impboy4]

jdagenet said:

Not to mention that Kaiser just seemed to vanish from the development of Doom 64 EX...

Uh go check out the Doom64 EX news on the website; you are wrong.

[jdagenet]

Impboy4 said:

Uh go check out the Doom64 EX news on the website; you are wrong.

No not really, it's been a very long time since he's done anything with Doom 64 EX, and before that post, he went two years before directly mentioning anything about Doom 64 EX. It's safe to say that he vanished.
Though it's good to see that he still has future plans for the project.

[Death Egg]

Kaiser also is involved with other commercial game projects, so it's not a huge surprise D64EX is on the backburner right now.

[hardcore_gamer]

I hope it adds controller support. A bit baffled it's not supported by default honestly.

[Doomkid]

Xpadder is a pretty damn good for using controllers to play PC games.

[hardcore_gamer]

Doomkid said:

Xpadder is a pretty damn good for using controllers to play PC games.

I already own it and tried it with my PS4 controller. It works but is far from ideal.

[Nevander]

jdagenet said:

camera jitters around sometimes when using a mouse

YOU GET IT TOO!? OMG FINALLY!

I've been looking for a fix for this shit forever and never found one. I thought it was my computer or video card/drivers that was the problem. Is it just the damn engine that's bugged?

I noticed 9 times out of 10 if you hit Esc right when it happens and go back, it will go away. Sometimes it won't.

Music has no effect, disabling controller input has no effect, using a different SDL.dll and SDL_net.dll has no effect. At my wit's end because this is the only bug that really bothers me in Doom 64 EX. The other would be the save files not showing the right image and instead a random texture.

I wish Kaiser would get back to Doom 64 EX and roll out 2.6 or even better, a 3.0 version.