Hatred

This is a pretty complicated discussion, but I’ll try to make a concise analysis on the matter. In short, the SSG is objectively overpowered. The fact is that in order for other weapons to shine, a specific map has to be catered to do just that. Perhaps you only have one SSG; perhaps you remove the SSG entirely; perhaps you create some trick or control point around the ssg (in the first example this wasn’t done but it likely becomes the control point). It is indisputable that this is true. The ssg is the most dominant weapon because of dooms physics and mechanics: you are incredibly fast, typically silent, and the maps that play best in DM tend to be smaller. For that reason, the SSG is the weapon of choice. While the BFG can be powerful in many of these situations, it has some significant drawbacks: it has a charge time to fire, it’s projectile based (though the tracers are hitscan, you can still avoid this), and you don’t get as many opportunities to fire the weapon. In other words, in most scenarios the SSG is the ideal weapon and it requires some creativity from mappers to see to it that these scenarios are balanced out some. This sounds great. Here’s the problem: this simplicity is what makes doom so charming. As doomkid and dev have stated, people love this type of gameplay and removing them from it is a tall task. Maps that do see some balance in weapons tend to dictate that the SSG is ideal, but other weapons are mandatory to use (map01 is the perfect example of this). The question becomes then: does it matter? That’s what people want and it’s the staple of doom2 dm history, so why adjust it? I wouldn’t adjust it at a physics level (I.E universally nerfing it in a source ports code), but instead I’d add weapon mods with equal power. This has been done with some critically acclaimed success in various projects. So what I would say is that if you don’t like SSG-oriented gameplay, there are some good alternatives. However, it is likely that you probably can’t entirely avoid it.

Hi folks, HateDaddy here! Some of you may know this, but I thought I’d share with everyone. I do a doom related podcast focused on doom2 multiplayer. It’s called The Dead Simple Podcast. I’ve done previous interviews with Ru5tK1ng, Nautilus, and DevastatioN. My most recent one was with a former player, coder, server admin, and IDL administrator Ladna. He’s an incredibly intelligent and knowledge guy about doom multiplayer coding, and his insight as both a player and a coder really makes for an interesting conversation. Just to be clear, with the conversation we have, this is just opinion and banter - this is in no way a take that’s made to “expose anyone.” I hope you all enjoy!

Whether it be that you are entirely new to Doom 2, or simply newer to Odamex and the World Doom League model, having an understanding of how the league functions is critical if you wish to get a shot at a spot on one of the many WDL teams each season. So here are some basic aspects of the league followed up by some tips that can help you set a clear goal on how to get noticed as a player for each coming up season: 1.) The amount of teams each season aren't set in stone, so private CTF matters! While each season may see a variance in teams, one thing is always consistent about competitive doom 2 ctf no matter the port, era, or league: private CTF sessions is where you hone your craft and get noticed. First of all, what are private CTF sessions? They are sessions where we join password protected servers running the latest compilation wad of competitive community-made CTF maps and do what is essentially pick-up capture the flag - think like pick-up basketball games. Except here, we have structure. Two captains are selected at random, and they proceed to draft accordingly by the players who have ready'd up. Many players go out of their way to try and include all players so the same 4-6 players aren't hogging the spotlight, but if for whatever reason those same 4-6 are dominating, do not be afraid to speak up and say you'd like to get in a game. Secondly, joining the WDL discord (where you'll need to be approved by an administrator) is the best place to start in order to find these matches. You can join here: https://discord.gg/Sga53bUV8v. This is where people will highlight all the players in the WDL channel to start up a private CTF session. The times can vary, but generally they will happen at random so make sure you're settings allow you to be highlighted! While private CTF tends to happen more around the start-up of each season, getting to know the players that currently populate the WDL community is still a good thing. Moreover, many people look to maintain their form in the off-season, so even messaging people for duels is a great way to get noticed. 2.) The WDL draft is usually announced a few weeks ahead of time, so this is the most crucial time to get meaningful reps in and get your name out there to captains What this means is that you'll want to pay attention to who the captains are. Captains will be announced around this same time, if not at the same time. Knowing who you really want to show out for is important. Even if you don't get drafted, that doesn't not mean you still won't get a shot. Plenty of teams cut players each season for a variety of reasons. Moreover, teams are always looking to practice so even if you don't get picked up, being available to help teams practice is still a great way to get your name out there. It's also a great way to get familiar with the competitive 3v3 structure that the WDL uses, and simply put, to improve - more on that next. 3.) There are no set number of seasons: some years could have 1 season, others maybe 2 or 3. It just depends. Stay up to date in WDL discord! 4.) All the tips mentioned above are great: but the most important thing is developing your skills as a player! Learning about yourself is the most important of all.[u/] This means that you need to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a player. How well do you aim? Should you work on that? Is your movement as clean and crisp as possible? Are you able to cleanly sr40, sr50? Can you maneuver around most maps without bumping into walls? Is your reaction time spot on? These are all questions you need to analyze about your own gameplay as you're practicing. There is no one correct question to ask, but generally when you play against someone and they beat you, it is pretty straight forward to understand where they're having success at and where you are not. Start there. The same aforementioned questions and concepts apply to CTF, but these questions tend to be a little bit simpler. For example, if you're someone that has strong stand-still aim with some quick reaction time, being a defender is probably a good place to start. If your more movement based and deceiving as a player, maybe starting off as a runner is ideal. Floating and doing a bit of everything tends to liken itself to mid-players. All of these positions tend to be arbitrary though, they are descriptions we use to simplify CTF roles. Even though we tend to have static positions overall, good players and teams will often deviate in order to apply the most optimal gameplay. Don't get caught up in this right away, starting off with a simple preferred position is ideal in order to really take your game to the next level. If you continue to play with good players, you'll learn all the nuances of CTF along the way. 5.) Lastly, do not be afraid to ask for help. The WDL discord and competitive doom community is full of helpful and competent players. Many of us want to build you up, not break you down. The WDL discord is not the only place to get a game of doom in. Other ports have competitive players, and while the doom ports have some drastic differences, many of the same philosophies of the game itself transfer over relatively cleanly so long as we aren't venturing off into far more newer doom physics and mechanics. You can go to the discords below to find players (and you'll often see many of the same players in each all of these discords) Multiplayer Doom Federation Discord: https://discord.gg/6KbyvYCgWj Odamex Discord (you must request for an invite be sent to you) ZDaemon Discord (you must request for an invite to be sent to you) There are more than the aforementioned, again, just ask around! Good luck doomers, may your experience be eternal!

I just want to point out that I had a blast working in the prog duel 3 project with my two sons, RustK1ng and struggle. Moreover, having the opportunity to adopt two more children into my now cult-sized infinite supply of offspring, it was a pleasure parenting Dragonfly and whoever that other one was. Here at my household, my children and I would like to thank you all for your dedication to doom. We are humbled by your choice to select us for this award.

Does this need to be posted anywhere outside of this thread for caco nomination?

ye

Currently this is how I’d describe it: zdaemon has the longest history in terms of stability of the three major ports: zdaemon, Zandronum/Skulltag, and odamex. However, this is the least active ZD has ever been. It’s still in pretty good shape, and it’s got some pretty good game modes going for it. Of the three main ports, it’s a perfect medium between the vanilla leaning odamex and the gzdoom leaning Zandronum. Zandronum has the most activity but it’s probably the furthest away from vanilla dooms playstyle. It’s not inexistent in zandro, but it’s not the norm either. You’ll find a variety of different things in zandro as it supports more of the modern doom features (most modern of the three ports - it’s outdated by current overall standards). odamex doesn’t have a huge active public scene, so you’ll have some trouble finding many games there. However, odamex does currently host the most long-standing ctf league, the world doom league. They also have been hosting the QCon events since 2013. This is the closest port to vanilla doom that you’re going to get. all three of the ports are pretty stable. If you’re interested in odamex related leagues/events, join the multiplayer doom federation discord, the odamex discord, and the world doom league discord (you’ll need approval for this one) for more info: MDF: https://discord.gg/HNNQr9U Oda discord: https://discord.gg/TVFTK3w wdl discord: https://discord.gg/M2tvgjr good luck!

Great post! I think one interesting way to help narrow down the history of dueling is to highlight players by maps they were known for as well. for example, badfish was a great d5m1 player during his peak but what few may know now is that he really pushed dweller map11 to the forefront - I’m not saying he “discovered it” by any stretch, but he was known as the original dweller player. He also was more or less one of the first players to really abuse the bfg on ledge play in d5m1, something some of the greatest players absorbed and morphed it into their own styles (JKist3 comes to mind here). there were also lots of absurdly good players outside of the “known.” for example, Turska rarely gets mentioned as a top time duelist but between 2011-2014, that’s the best I’ve seen any player ever look during any era across several game modes. Finland had lots of great players too, heck you can keep it in Turskas family - his brother Tuomio (I’m butchering the spelling) was pretty good. Then you had the likes of Atomi, Nosturi, and obviously ocelot. this has become rambling. I’m gonna stop.

I've been conversing amongst some players the last few days about competitive PvP DooM2 and the history that comes with it. I've had the luxury of doing some color commentating before on games, so I've gotten half decent at it. Ideally, I would select a competitive game from any game mode and review the demo on stream. With ports like Zdaemon, FF and Rewind in addition to pause features exist, making for very good in depth analysis. This also allows folks to see some of the good ol' competitive gaming we did back in the day. Would anyone be seriously interested in viewing such a stream? I'd love to do it, naturally I wouldn't want to waste my time.

good shit, I’ll hit you up :)

I had a great time getting to talk to Karl and a few folks in his discord. I don’t really want to delve too much into separating semantics when we define “greatest of all time.” To be honest, I think most people understand now that such a title comes with a grain of salt on its own because putting anyone on that pedestal is naturally very controversial and divisive. I’ll just say it was really cool to connect with other members of the doom community I’ve little experience with and additionally I got to learn about a great doomer. Naturally as a former top tier duelist and ctf player in my own right back in the day, my ego was a little jarred by this. However, especially in the competitive community (primarily between the 3 major online source ports of ZDaemon, Zandronum, and Odamex), we have a nasty habit of tearing each other down for the sake of preserving our own egos. That’s why I am not going to get into the debate of who the GOAT is because I don’t want to attempt to diminish what zero master has contributed to the game. Karl made a pretty great point during our discussion: there is nothing stopping competitive players from telling their own stories. He’s absolutely right. To date, there isn’t some magical source out there in terms of a YouTube video or some documentary (I chuckled with this one). However, the information is there - it’s just scattered about. I personally own almost all the of IDL demos up to 2014 (16gbs worth) and I’m sure I could probably get all the ZDDL ones, too. I also have relationships with lots of the competitive players from various eras and I can account for almost 15 years worth of first-person testimony on some things. That’s the thing: I’m just one person, I haven’t even gotten to what is scattered about in various forum boards and websites. There’s also players who have way deeper perspectives than I do. I am fortunate enough though to say I got to play with the best in competitive pvp: ocelot, dev, chewy, Jkist, my idol and favorite doomer of all time Sedlo, Turska, the entire country of Finland being naturally good at doom and more (though my single greatest regret is never playing with demonsphere in his prime). Remember when I said I’m just one person? There are so many like me that can give testimony, provide demos, provide context, and make for great sources of information to tell our stories. We just have to do it. so for that reason, I’m going to attempt to organize something and do just that. My idea is to focus on a brief but informative introductory video explaining basic competitive doom2 history from the days of .exe to modern online source ports. Then, I’ll move on to leagues of the past and present. And then, after lots of background information has been provided, I’d like to look at great players throughout doom history. I am pretty inexperienced with video editing, but I’m happy to tackle the challenge and I know folks in MDF will help me because I won’t really give them a choice. In addition to some of the other stuff I’m doing with podcasts and mapping, I think this’ll be a great way to get more of our stories out there. So if anyone has any information they’d like to share in terms of video editing, I’m all ears. tl;dr zero master is great, and while the video mainly highlights speed runners, I am not going to get into trying to debate GOAT status. Instead, I’d like to focus on making our own historical referencial videos from the perspective of competitive pvp players. Great video, Karl.

Hi all in the modding/doomworld community, I finally devalued my dignity and self-worth enough to come here. So here I am. Now that I've gotten that over with, allow me to move onto what I need. I am working on a space map currently and I would like to throw some satellites out there. Of course, I could just draw them up with sectors but I am incredibly demotivated, lazy, and ready to be done with this project. So if you could just give me some satellite textures, that would be great (I've had little luck finding my own).