Teaching a friend to play Doom
Jan 2, 2018 16:03:45 GMT -5
Post by 40oz on Jan 2, 2018 16:03:45 GMT -5
I recently confided in a friend that I've been talking to about my interest in Doom. He asked some questions about it, and I showed him some comparison screenshots, comparing Doom 2: Hell on Earth to Ancient Aliens and Sunder. He said he's never seen it before and he'd like to try.
I have Doom installed on a USB drive that he can use to play Doom directly from the stick, no installation required. Contained is the four IWADs, prboom-plus, and all the megawads and a bunch of short episodes from the /idgames archive. I don't know if he's going to be any good. All I know about his gaming history is that I played New Super Mario Bros. on the nintendo Wii with him once at a house party and he was terrible at it. He used to play a lot of Call of Duty World at War, I'm not sure if he's any good at that. But he's really good at NHL 2018.
Obviously, from playing years and years of Doom, we've become pretty seasoned to the idea of source ports, downloading wads and playing them, etc. I'd like to make the process very streamlined and user friendly. I don't want him to get too confused and possibly dissuaded from continuing to play.
1. Should I include some sort of frontend to make loading wads easier? What's the simplest one there is?
2. Is prboom too advanced of a source port? I'm predisposed to dislike GZDoom for a variety of reasons, but I can't deny that it's very user friendly. Would it be wise to have a different sourceport that retains the classic feel without interfering with modern game expectations? (Like high resolutions, smooth keyboard/mouse movement, and uncapped frame rate?)
3. What level order would you recommend for him to get started? This guy is an adult with a full time job and a fiance, so I don't think he has many hours in a day to be addicted to this game. That said, he's also never killed an imp yet or opened a secret wall before, and I don't want to sour his experience by making him play 150 levels of boring IWADs just so he can get good first. Is Doom 2 too hard to start with? Are there any short episodes you'd recommend that look good by today's standards but are pretty easy to play?
I have Doom installed on a USB drive that he can use to play Doom directly from the stick, no installation required. Contained is the four IWADs, prboom-plus, and all the megawads and a bunch of short episodes from the /idgames archive. I don't know if he's going to be any good. All I know about his gaming history is that I played New Super Mario Bros. on the nintendo Wii with him once at a house party and he was terrible at it. He used to play a lot of Call of Duty World at War, I'm not sure if he's any good at that. But he's really good at NHL 2018.
Obviously, from playing years and years of Doom, we've become pretty seasoned to the idea of source ports, downloading wads and playing them, etc. I'd like to make the process very streamlined and user friendly. I don't want him to get too confused and possibly dissuaded from continuing to play.
1. Should I include some sort of frontend to make loading wads easier? What's the simplest one there is?
2. Is prboom too advanced of a source port? I'm predisposed to dislike GZDoom for a variety of reasons, but I can't deny that it's very user friendly. Would it be wise to have a different sourceport that retains the classic feel without interfering with modern game expectations? (Like high resolutions, smooth keyboard/mouse movement, and uncapped frame rate?)
3. What level order would you recommend for him to get started? This guy is an adult with a full time job and a fiance, so I don't think he has many hours in a day to be addicted to this game. That said, he's also never killed an imp yet or opened a secret wall before, and I don't want to sour his experience by making him play 150 levels of boring IWADs just so he can get good first. Is Doom 2 too hard to start with? Are there any short episodes you'd recommend that look good by today's standards but are pretty easy to play?
