Doom

In that case, Chex Quest is more on-topic than Heretic. Chex Quest actually is a Doom mod.

Disgusted, but not surprised

And one that was licensed for a breakfast cereal, of all things.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

It was actually pretty well-made too. I had fun playing it.

The funny thing is that the Flemmoids in Chex Quest are arguably more powerful than the actual Doom's enemies, since the justification for the non lethal weaponry in Chex Quest is that the Flemmoids are Immune to Bullets (and all other conventional weaponry for that matter). The best the good guys can do is repurpose their "zorchers" to teleport them back to their own dimension.

Edited by M84 on Jun 26th 2019 at 6:41:54 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

Wait till you brutalize it... green snot stains everywhere.

Breaking news: Chex Quest character too angry to die!

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

Wait Vampire Buddha (cool handle btw) doesn't Heretic run on modified Doom engine? Companies always modified engines whenever they licensed them. Tho in GoldSrc's case it's been modified to a point it's barely recognizable. I do remember playing Heretic in J Doom sourceport...

Munch And Crunch, until it is done!

Thank you all for being receptive to discussion of other games! ^_^

Great, now I kinda want cereal! :P
If I recall correctly, all "boss"-monsters are immune to the insta-kill trait of the empowered Firemace.
Indeed, I generally find the Firemace to be a pretty poor weapon: it chews through ammo, is hard to aim, scatters shots everywhere, and doesn't feel common enough to use against less-powerful enemies. The empowered form has too big a projectile for my liking, and while powerful, again feels wasteful against the enemies that it does insta-kill.
It is conceptually neat, at least.
I'm glad to say that I don't think that I'd heard of them before now! Reading up on them, they do seem obnoxious. :/
No, I'm playing the "Heretic Upstart Mapping Project", which has some pretty solid levels, I've found, even a few impressive one.
The level that I just played, in which I found that strategy that I described, was a small puzzle-ish level populated by nothing but eight or nine Maulotaurs. Going in guns blazing was an excellent way to get killed—but each area seemed to have its tricks.
There was also a neat level that had upright portals apparently floating in empty space.
My one frustration is that, as with the official expansions, there are no new enemies or weapons. While the more unusual levels are rather interesting, using the same weapons to fight the same enemies over and over can get wearisome after a while, I find. (Which may be one reason that I've been playing these maps on-and-off.)
I'm pretty sure that that's what I'm running it on at the moment, indeed.
And I very much recommend using a port like this! As mentioned by another, one way in which Heretic is unlike Doom is that it calculates collisions in three dimensions; this means that vertical aiming becomes a part of the gameplay. The game thus very much benefits from having mouse-look!
That's pretty much what they were saying, I believe: Heretic runs on a heavily-modified version of the Doom engine. It adds a number of features that Doom lacks, including a third dimension in collisions (and presumably building on that, flight), and an inventory system.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jun 26th 2019 at 5:21:22 PM

My Games & Writing

Firemace is gimmicky which is a shame because it doesn't try to be a simple replacement. The insta-overkill thing is hilarious with tome effects, now you need to load up Brutal Heretic and watch the all explode into shower of gore.

Obnoxious, and messing with your files. UAC Military Nightmare is full of homophobic and rape remarks. I heard good things about UAC Military Nightmare 2 tho, it helps it's made by someone who's more sensible and has better mapping skills.

Oh I love such intense stuff, 8-9 Maulotaurs? Yeah, anyone who says it's mindless can try it out for themselves. And yes I agree on weapons and additions but it's always been hard to put something meaningful.

One more thing about mouse-look is it doesn't break game's balance like it does for Doom so you don't need to recreate levels potentially to accommodate it.

Indeed! :/
I will say that, while the Ethereal Crossbow is in many ways a derivative of the shotgun, I don't think that it is a simple clone of that weapon. To start with, it's a non-hitscan weapon. But more saliently, I feel, the limited number of bolts per shot, static spread, and pinpoint accuracy make it function more like a rifle, to my mind. I've even used it to pick off distant enemies on occasion.
And while many of the weapons are simple copies of Doom's guns, a number of them become something very different under the effect of the Tome of Power: the "Chaingun" becomes a shrapnel-bomb of sorts; the "Plasma Gun" becomes a devastating damage-over-time area-of-effect weapon; the "Rocket Launcher" becomes a nigh-overpowered flamethrower.
(Although I've never quite figured out what to make of the upgrade to the Elven Wand.) Eh, that's something that I'm not really a fan of, and one of the things that I dislike about a number of modern retro-shooters.
Ugh, lovely. :/
Yeah, that level took some thought, and a few shots at various sections!
To clarify, you don't fight all of the Maulotaurs at once; you face between two and four at once. Still enough that going in guns-blazing is generally a bad idea in this situation.
In some cases, I simply ran, slipping by them, sometimes in corridors that felt all too narrow. In one, it turned out to be a matter of surviving until I reached a certain switch. Other times, I had the means to fight.
A pretty good level, all in all!
I've also been somewhat impressed by the fact that the map-makers managed to include "jumps" of a sort in places. They used a feature of the game's physics to allow the player to skim across gaps if moving fast enough!
Indeed! I actually had a ton of fun playing the original levels with mouse-look, as I recall. ^_^

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jun 26th 2019 at 6:17:07 PM

My Games & Writing

A pilot biopic drama called Masters of Doom is in the works for USA Network.

Based on the book of the same name, it'll detail how John Carmack and John Romero made Doom and how it changed everything for the men.

Pilot? So a TV show? Wonder how far it will go.

“No, I think starting my own studio is a great idea. And I have a great idea for a game too. It’s called...Daikatana!”

I wanna see that.

Edit: just go to twitter directly instead a low respost from reddit lol

you can see dragons in bigger detail as well as some priestly looking figure behind Slayer

Look at those Night Sentinels! Again this feels something out of Warhammer fantasy and 40k thrown in a blender. Some LOTR as well!

Also @Ars Thaumaturgis... what maps/mods for Heretic would you recommend?

I also assumed Elven Wand was supposed to be lowkey shotgun under tome effect :P

Also, I was thinking of third normal weapon ideas for classes in Hexen. Fighter would get an Epic Flail, Cleric would... I actually dunno, I dunno what to find fitting for him. Mage would have like an arcane book shooting white-pink-purple pure lethal magic bolts and whatnot at enemies! All powered by purple mana ^^

yet another edit: I just learned that Tom Hall lurks on Doom subreddit and elsewhere! Awesome.

Edited by Dhiruxide on Jun 27th 2019 at 11:25:08 AM

Ugh, I can't wait to see all the new lore we get from this.

Right? How the Sam Hill is Heaven going to get involved (assuming we ARE seeing heaven)?

And would that mean fighting Cybergod? As in God with UAC implants or whatever?

Anyone gave Hedon a try? You have freeware version on indiedb. Seriously, half demon/orc muscle waifu! https://www.indiedb.com/games/hedon/downloads here be downloads. Linux, Mac, Windows, your choice :P

Tried downloading it but internet borked badly when it came to downloads when I can load pages piss easily. Will try again some other time...

Also Targetmaster Joe, Heaven was explicitly confirmed to be in the game and that you will visit it. Even for the shitshow that was Bethesda's E3 conference, when Marty and Hugo walked to stage and started talking they mentioned Heaven as a place you'll visit.

I have my theory why they might be involved: it's because they perceive Doom Slayer doing a sloppy job. Like they decided to take action because Crucible got taken by Hayden and did shit with it and caused invasion of Earth. Maybe that's why they decided to personally step in? Although that is a poor reasoning considering Doom Slayer never showed incompetence before and that was a planned move by Hayden and Hayden sees worth in DS.

Either that or they don't believe he can do it and are going in to take on the demons on their own terms. I imagine that the Slayer won't care though, as long as they stay out of his way and don't attack him too.

Edited by theLibrarian on Jun 27th 2019 at 6:55:03 AM

This seems most likely theory imo. As story goes on, DS wins back their confidence and respect and call a truce after DS gets into... violent confrontations with some angels. I do think DS doesn't care, since he wants to save humanity and while he hates demons, he is ambivalent and meh towards angels. But some get in his way and he won't hesitate. So yeah, he doesn't give a damn what they think, he does what he wants to do.

That way, Heaven don't come off being so dickish but reasonable and maybe Lawful Neutral.

I guess that's what I want it to be. November 22nd can't come soon enough

Edited by Dhiruxide on Jun 27th 2019 at 2:05:00 PM

Honestly, I haven't played that many. However, I will say that I'm very much enjoying the map-pack that I'm playing at the moment: the "Heretic Upstart Mapping Project". There are quite a few maps included, and there's an impressive amount of variety and creativity within them, I think.

Link

Sort of—it does shoot a spread of hit-scan shots. But it also shoots two (I think it is) projectile shots, one to either side of the hit-scans. o_0

My Games & Writing

...Wow. So HUMP?

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

I'd spice up effects of some weapons under tome effect. Elven Wand instead being low-key shotgun with 2 non-hitscan projectiles, it would be one big exploding projectile.

Ethereal Crossbow would instead be like a ballista, launching one arrow capable of penetrating multiple targets. Kinda like a railgun from Quake series, just not hitscan.

Everything else is for the most part, cool or awesome.

Hexen lacked tome of power sadly but Hexen II brought it but... some effects were meh. The melee weapons were just simple quad damage boosts, only Crusader's hammer functioned like Thor's Mjolnir lol.

Do the maps there have limits removed? Like stacked sectors, angled walls, sloped floors, etc... I feel weird when such limits are in place in vanilla Doom and Heretic and Hexen. I remember in underwater levels of Heretic, there were these water themed tiled walls and floors. So beautiful to look at...

Edited by Dhiruxide on Jun 28th 2019 at 6:41:00 PM

Yeah, I know. >_<;
Still, I feel that it's a good map-pack, nevertheless.

Hmm... But we already have an explosive weapon in the Phoenix Rod. What about rapid-fire homing shots instead? Or, if we stick with explosives, what about a proper grenade launcher, with physics similar to the Firemace-spheres, and that on detonation fires an omnidirectional spray of wand hitscan-shots?

That could be fun, indeed. ^_^
Although I'll admit that I actually somewhat like the Crossbow's empowered form—it's a nice room-clearing tool.
As for spicing things up, I might suggest adding something to the melee staff-weapon. Perhaps give it a stun-lock effect?
I do vaguely recall the Crusader's hammer doing that, indeed. In fact, I think that it's the only such empowered form that I do recall offhand. That was a neat powerup, I think. ^_^

I don't think so, no. Those limits are largely engine-imposed, I think, and thus would only be viable if the source-port differed from the original engine with regards to them. (I imagine that the map-building tools are also designed with the assumption that those restrictions are in place, so it might be difficult to design a map without them in the first place.)
Some of the maps are surprisingly large, I will say!

My Games & Writing

So I got the last two Runes. And I got clips of them. Tomorrow, if anyone is interested, I shall list them.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

[[quopteblock]]doesn't Heretic run on modified Doom engine?[[/quoteblock]]

Modified, yes. So not the same. Heretic cannot run on a vanilla Doom engine because it needs to modifications that Raven made, such as a true Y axis as Ars mentioned.

Fortunately, Master Carmack's influence is such that Raven did release the Heretic and Hexen source code, so the games can be preserved and played forever.

Daikatana was a great idea. And FPS with interesting weapons, an actual story, and NPCs who take part in the action? That's all good stuff, and on its own merits, the game is actually decent.

The problems arise from Romero being a good level and weapon designer, but nowhere near as good a programmer or project manager as Master Carmack. The result was repeated delays and setbacks, and when the game did come out, Half-Life had just done all that stuff better. Had Romero been more disciplined and gotten it released on time, it would be much better regarded today.

Edited by VampireBuddha on Jun 28th 2019 at 12:36:51 PM

Ukrainian Red Cross

That one ad didn't help either, though that wasn't directly Romero's fault.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Kind of a shame how Daikatana turned out, yeah. I mean at least the plot was alright.

What really sucks is how even ten or more so years later, barely any lessons were learned from it.