DOOM_epi1 +set game DOOM_epi1 +map doom +set skill 2 +set game DOOM_epi1 +map doom +set skill 1 DOOM: The first 9 Episodes DOOM - The first 9 Episodes First, I would like to thank the following people for helping me out in this labor of love. I met all of them on PlanetQuake's Q2Mapping List. They are responsible for answering the many problems I encountered during this endeavor. They are: Jeff Kieke, Trance, Thomas Aseylum "Escapee" Lees, Gordon White, and KoolMidX. Additional thanks belong to Robert Duffy, QERadiant's author, without which, this task would have been much more difficult. Thanks to Tim Wright, for ArghRad!, a beautiful program. A special thanks to David Hyde, creator of GENSURF, which I used to create some of the outdoor landscapes Thanks to all the iD Software computer nerds, who made it all possible. The original DooM, including textures, music, and levels are all theirs, as is, of course, Quake 2. Without these guys 'n gals, none of this would have been possible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shortly after slogging through Quake 2, I was bored and decided to re-play the original DooM. The step back into Time reminded me how far computer games had come in only a few short years. The cartoon graphics and 2-and-a-half dimensional world of DooM was a far cry from the finely rendered world of Quake 2. As of this writing, the Quake 2 standard is becoming passe. I reasoned that there must be more people who may want to reminisce, but with all the fast machines and video accelerators, wouldn't it be much better to re-experience Phobos Moon under the Quake 2 engine? ENTER THE STORY LINE: The Stroggs, having had their butts kicked, decide to flee to the ancient moon of Phobos. They land there and begin to re-build and take over the complex. It's your job to return to Phobos and do it all over again. Deja Vu... That's it. Who reads story lines anyway, except game magazine editors? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Notes: 1. In maintaining the exact dimensions of the DooM world, I found that the Quake 2 player was a little taller. Occasionally, you'll find yourself having to crouch to get under a doorway. In most cases, I modified these low spots. You'll still find a few here and there though. 2. Don't expect to find any of the original DooM monsters---I couldn't find any modelers willing to help me out in this area. For me to learn modeling would have added another year to this project. 3. Switches "blink" on and off instead of changing from "off" to "on" when you press them. Not all of the original DooM switches were used, only the ones with lights. Some switches that were set into angular walls disappear into the wall, no matter what I did to change the lip pixel size. 4. The Doom textures were all converted to the Q2 palette, since I also used some Q2 textures. Most of them converted well, while others required a lot of manual re-sampling (most notable was DooM's 'Exit Door' texture.) None of the TekWall textures converted well, so I replaced these with some similar textures already found in Quake 2. 5. I gave a lot of thought to taking advantage of Q2's capabilities. I wanted to maintain the original feel of DooM as much as possible. There are a few levels where I augmented the levels. E1M5, for example, had all the slime pits replaced with interconnected water pools, complete with lights and killer fish. In other areas, I used David Hyde's GenSurf to add rolling landscape and water ponds. 6. Lighting was an important consideration while I was making these levels. Some of the DooM levels were quite dark, and I was loathe to maintain this murkiness. Therefore, you'll find most of these levels a little brighter than their originals. One thing you'll notice is the liberal use of spotlights. I had to avoid replicating some of DooM's blinking areas where there were heavy concentrations of monsters, as they drastically slowed down game play. I tested the levels on 3 different machines: a vanilla 200 in software mode, a PII 300 with a Voodoo 2 card, and a 450 mhz professional graphics workstation using a $1,200 32-meg Oxygen 402 card. The first machine displayed acceptable graphics, while the Voodoo 2 machine displayed the levels brighter than I liked. The NT machine showed the levels as dark and hard ot see in some places. 7. Doors and keys: Q2 only has blue and red keys, so the yellow doors in this DooM use Q2's other keys and passes. I took liberties with door movement. Some doors go down, some so sideways, and so on. Since keys are "used up" in the Q2 engine, all keyed doors remain open once unlocked. 8. Placement of health items, weapons, etc: I carefully duplicated DooM's placement of these items, although the two games differ. Since Q2 allows the player to maintain item inventory when changing levels (DooM started you at the bottom each time you moved to the next level), savvy players will find there may be too many health bonuses or weapons. In DM play, there may not be enough. 9. Monsters: I initially tried to replace DooM's bad guys with one-for-one swaps using Strogg monsters. This proved to be an impossible task, since the DooM creatures were much easier to knock off than the Stroggs and there really are no comparison between the two games. So I gave this up and used my imagination. One note here: none of the monsters re-spawn in these levels. 10. Deathmatch and Team play are duplicated, with the orignal spawn points found in DooM. Sorry, no CTF. 11. Any Quake mapper will tell you, "Don't make large, open areas!" since they slow down game play. Unfortunately, DooM had a few of these large areas, especially outer courtyards. I kept monsters to a minimum in these areas. You may experience some Z-buffer problems in a coupla of levels where there is a lot of distance. 12. Strategy: The Quake2 player can jump, whereas the Doom grunt could not. This will change the way a level is solved and in some cases, trap the player inadvertently. You have been warned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Software used: Editor used: QERadiant Graphics: Wally, PhotoShop, WinTex, Graphics Workshop, Corel PhotoPaint, and SkyPaint_GE Other: WADAuthor, WadED (These were my reference programs), GenSurf, ArghRad Author: Terry J. DeLaney (www.homestead.com/ricebug) If you want the CD, contact me. It includes re-recorded music of the original DooM. These tunes rock! No charge, of course.