Hell is filled with sewer levels and made for space marines. Let's play DoomRL!

Marathon runs also establish an opportunity phfor some excellent wordplay.

Who played Marathon? No one. When will you Mac people every let that go?

This is the correct opinion. Trust me, guys, I have some ideas about how to do the Gherrit White entry that will make it neigh-unreadable by any normal human being.

Anyway:



No update this weekend. I apologize, but crazy things are afoot and next week is going to be very busy for me. I'll try and get an update in next weekend, but there are no promises right now.

Never. Sorry. Just one of those universal truths.

But I don't want to derail Stiv's thread. We'll be content with our one delve into heavily obscure nerd-gasm.

Welcome back! This update is late because I've had important things to do over the last two weeks, like buy a dining room table that's longer than I am tall and play a game of Arkham Horror which we actually won. Also I found out that John Romero is actually a very nice man (and that Will Wright is a 'happy drunk'), who hates talking about his own games, and that made me hesitant to write about him as a SPACE ASSHOLE. Then I also found out that Eidos dismantled Looking Glass because of Daikatana and that made me a little more okay with this. Then I also realized that I'm probably not going to be writing a whole lot this update.

Sorry, people who were looking for a fanciful story involving John Romero SUCKING IT DOWN to join some CIVIL WAR REENACTORS MASQUERADING AS SPACE MARINES and go MAKE GUYS HIS BITCH on MARS because JOHN ROMERO is a FUCKING BADASS with his RETARDED HAIR and AWESOME CARS. Actually, if I can get audio to actually record to go along with my video playback (an unlikely proposition, but you never know) there will be some voiceover narration to go with the next thrilling episode.

Anyway. Screenshots are so passe these days, you know? Video Let's Play is the new black, and Let's Play DoomRL is nothing if not super fashionable. This means that I'm trying something a little new with this update, which is to send you guys some video waves over the aether. I apologize for the lack of sound and also a couple of video goofs, namely a bunch of bullshit suddenly appearing in the middle of the screen at some point.


But wait! There are still a couple things to explain from this video and I'm going to explain them the old-fashioned way: SCREENSHOTS. Watch the movie first if you're afraid of spoilers, or catching some kind of eye-related disease from looking at still images before watching the video they're from.



Health Globes function as they do in the original DOOM, as one might expect. They restore the same amount of health as a small medpack (30%) making them incredibly valuable. Even though John Romero took whatever perk it is that decreases his damage by 1, he's still been getting pretty messed up and these things will probably save his dumb life.



Now, to mention 'tactics'. This is an incredibly dumb and misleading name for the difference between 'cautious', 'running', and 'tired'. Cautious and tired, by the way, are the same; cautious means you have the option of running, and tired means you don't. Your ability to run essentially recharges with each new level, and here's what running does: You do everything faster, and you're more likely to dodge shots. Used at the appropriate times this can be extremely useful.

John Romero also picks up a chaingun. Chainguns fire four-bullet bursts that have a very high chance of missing, but if all of them connect, it's going to blow away a dude.

Now's a good time to mention alternate firing modes as well. Every weapon has an alternate mode, which is sometimes special and sometimes not. For pistols, the alternate mode is 'aim', which I imagine just increases your chance to hit. The chaingun alternate mode is pretty great though: It's a continuous fire mode, where after each four-second burst you have the option to keep firing at the same target, and it fires FASTER than just taking a second action. There is literally no reason to not use the alternate mode, as far as I can tell.



You pull on levers. They do things. Sometimes those things are really bad, like fill a room with acid. SPOILER: That didn't happen in this game. Yet.



Berserk packs also function just like in regular Doom. You heal up, you get better at punching stuff. Unfortunately you'll notice that I did something dumb in the video before getting the berserk pack because I thought it was just another health pack.



Hell's Arena! This is a special level that you can sometimes get (or maybe it always appears between levels 2 and 3, I seem to have gotten it quite a lot) where if you slaughter everything, you get some special bonus. That sounds awesome! Not sounding awesome: The enemies are usually pretty tough and you can't leave the level until you've killed a certain number of them.



I have absolutely no idea what this does. Will we find out next update? And is it Ghostbusters 2?

NEXT TIME: John Romero cries when he learns that he prevented both System Shock 3 and another good Thief game.

Any chance of commentary, text or audio? It's not the same without it.

Yeah, this was kind of a bare-bones update. I'm going to try and get audio working for the next one, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to actually try taking more screenshots. I think that the video is kind of necessary though, since this is an action game and a billion static images don't convey its madness appropriately.

I've never played it myself, but from what I've heard that's quite an accomplishment.

It also reduces damage you receive. However, it also lowers your aiming and reduces damage you deal. Unless you're using melee and then it has no drawbacks (except the fact that you're using melee).

It also takes longer to fire.
There's a lot more to it than that actually! The first volley fires slightly slower, but later volleys fire much faster. Also you CAN switch targets, but then your shots will spread - many will be wasted BETWEEN your targets.
It's great when you've got a bunch of targets all in a line or something, but for weak individuals (< Cacodemon) normal fire is better.

Sometimes those things are really REALLY bad, like fill the level with lava.
There is a way to know in advance if you should pull levers, even without the proper perk. But I'll let you figure that bit out.

Advice for the moment: You need to work on when you reload weapons. If there're no enemies in sight, you have no excuse not to reload. If there are enemies that can attack you, you probably shouldn't be reloading. Of course, with a demon or flying skull in your face it's sometimes unavoidable. Some people will actually hold onto extra weapons in their inventory and equip it (do it from your inventory screen, not the equipment screen) - this is a bit faster than reloading weapons unless you've got a few relevant perks for reloading weapons and/or mods to make your weapons reload faster. If you run into double-shotguns it is SIGNIFICANTLY faster to do this.

Today, we join John Romero in the middle of his thrilling adventure through space and time, but mostly space.

CLICK >>>HERE<<< FOR EXTREMELY AWESOME JOHN ROMERO ACTION. CAN JOHN ROMERO SAVE HIS BEAUTIFUL HAIR???

Spoiler: No.

Some of you might notice a little bit of sound in the background. This is because DoomRL is unique in the world of roguelikes in that it includes sound cues, which are awesome on several levels: They are fantastic little MIDI renditions of the original Doom music, and the monster sounds give you a very vague idea of where the creatures are on the level (thanks to the miracle of stereo).

NEXT TIME: Will I make a trip to Radio Shack to buy a better microphone? Probably not.

Looks like the acid floors made John Romero its bitch

Fantastic.

Hey, it's the green slime lever from You Can't Do That On Television!

Only...with more death.

Guys I had a great idea for an update completely prepared for you and was going to finally get around to it tonight, but then my laptop decided that it would be a great idea to shit all over itself. I know it's been three weeks already but please wait a little longer - DoomRL will be back on track shortly, and since I will no longer be spending all my weekends working I might actually be able to update it regularly like I want to!

So, uh, mostly making this post to apologize for the lack of Let's Play zaniness.

A good LP update is worth more than the time spent waiting for it.

In anticipation of the next update, I've been playing the game (on the lowest difficulty because I am a tiny baby man) and I beat it. Huh. That was unexpected.

The end boss is a chump if you have Fireangel.

What a timely thread bump! New update sometime this week.

CLICK >>> HERE <<< FOR AN UPDATE!!!

In which: We learn about why I can no longer drink wine, and also that I might be bad at google.

Supplementary materials: Big Bear does things, Flavor: Delicious

Yeah, Yukabacera was kind of a really obscure reference and I apologize. Sorry, everyone.

Three months after I promised myself I'd update more often...

CLICK >>>HERE<<< FOR AN UPDATE!!!

Tune in next week as I play Far Cry 2! Just kidding, I'll actually be playing Far Cry 2 because that's when my Far Cry 2 let's play starts. Far Cry 2.

(PS: I'll still be updating this LP as well, and by 'updating' I mean 'more than once every three months' and 'playing when I'm not playing Far Cry 2.')

Supplementary materials: Our sponsor, the internet wants to tell you about Zap Rowsdower's hair and truck

DoomRL LP is back? This pleases me.

I am pleased.

Also, I'd like to add Leroy Jenkins to the queue, and request that he take one of the two shotgun skill tree paths.

Okay guys, queue's closed now because I gotta wrap this bad boy up before it ends up running longer than Angband. Gherrit White will still be the last character I run because I have something very special planned for all of you.

So, uh, hi! Hi guys!

Stiv's come down with a case of severe demotivation, so I'll be picking up where he left off. At least, as far as playing the game goes. We'll be doing joint commentary on videos of me trying to get to and subsequently kill the cyberdemon.

Two LPers for the price of one! If this deal sounds too good to be believed, click HERE and have your worries reassured away!

If I remember my plisskan lore properly, he was immune to bullets. There were several instances where guys were using fully automatic weapons within ten feet of him and he escaped unscathed. It was like bullets curved around him.

Anyway, good to see the LP back. It is one of those games that looks really interesting but I know I'll never get anywhere in it, so it's nice to see some of the more interesting features of it.

Yaaay this again! I'll throw in more game mechanics I guess

Speed in this game is fairly straight forward. You do something, and then you have to wait x time units until you can do your next action. x depends VASTLY on what you do and various things. You can check how long moving, normal shots, and reloading take on your stat screen. Different things will affect each time - running greatly decreases movement time, reloader trait reduces reloading time, etc. Another important thing to realize is that your previous action can have a massive effect on the time it takes to do some actions, and sometimes things are done for free if you do something else. Combat shotguns, for instance, load their next shot automatically if you move, but if you don't you have to reload the shot THEN fire (on the other hand, loading the next shot takes about half the time moving does, IIRC). If you're in an open area or something, this means it's often better to zig-zag or run back in between shots with a combat shotgun. With some patience you can actually figure out enemies' speed too, and say, figure out how much you can do before that demon reaches you or whatever. That's probably a bit overboard though.
Berserk is awesome. You get a full health restore, obscene amounts of armor, speed boosts, and some damage boost (REALLY good damage boost for melee but that's still usually not a good idea). It does not stack with running though.
Zig-zagging(Relative to the enemy! Moving left then down can count as zigzagging!) is actually quite effective for dodging enemies' fire. Often if you are just a few move away from good cover it's better to zig-zag to cover then fire, instead of
The arena is actually one of the harder special levels to clear, just because it comes so early and you rarely have anything great to use to deal with it. And Cacodemons. Still, with some careful strategy and use of corners it CAN be done more often than not, but generally you have to accept that doing the whole Arena is a significant risk for your character.

Aaaand on that topic here's a quick summary of how to use corners.
Just because you can see an enemy does NOT mean the enemy can see you. Generally, if you are closer to the corner than the enemy is, and the enemy is only barely in your field of vision, you can shoot them without fear of retaliation. There are a few sweet spots for corners like this:
######1.
######32
bbcc.a..
cc......
........
1 is good for shooting enemies at a, especially if you're hugging a small square block you can dodge around or something, but you have to be careful if your weapon has kick, as this can push them back and into range where they CAN see you and fire back.
2 is GREAT for shooting at enemies hugging the wall a good distance away, such as b or farther up. It's a little harder for the enemies to see you than you'd expect, and if enemies know you're there they'll often hug the wall trying to get to you. Kickback is good in this case too, but shotguns will have trouble as the range is a bit far and the corner can actually block them sometimes, whereas pistols can go around just fine.
3 is best for shotguns against enemies hugging the wall but still a bit away, as in b or c, if the manual-aim works for them. It's... iffy. DoomRL has some odd aim quirks that may not have been fixed yet, I haven't been keeping up. It's also ok for firing normal guns blindly around corners if the enemy is closeish, but firing blindly inflicts a 50% miss chance (not to mention that you could be incorrectly guessing where the monster is), which means using corners that way can chew through ammo fast. But if you have more ammo than health...

This is considerably more complex than I understand about DoomRL! I mean, I get the basic gist of things, like moving perpendicularish to dodge stuff, and berserk being awesome, and certain things taking longer, but most of the time I just go by my intuition. This would probably not work on any difficulty over Hard (or Hurt Me Plenty, as they call it) but it suits me just fine for my games.

Also, I'm gonna try to build characters such that I can show off the most master traits possible. (discounting blademaster because it's silly and I got it for free with the butcher's cleaver apparently)

but I didn't even go into shooting through solid walls with bullets... :/

More seriously though, this game is extremely brutal. For all my knowledge and caution I've never cleared the vaults, nor killed the secret boss, nor killed the Angel of Death (although that one I blame on Berserker trait not working properly). You kinda have to gain a reasonable amount of knowledge of how the game works to finish even a normal playthrough. :/

I never did figure out how to use the dragonslayer though.

Things like that post are reasons why I'm glad I stopped playing the game. Its rules make no sense.

I still don't know how speed works or what Space Mutiny is, but we made a video for you guys anyway.

I have to confess, I am one of those crazy people that tend to wear green armor.
Looking fairly good so far! I've never actually tried the Vampyre trait myself, mainly because I tend to grab Hellrunner. Also Berserker trait has been broken and sometimes didn't give the armor bonus it's supposed to. And melee is kinda suicide late game (Arachnoids!!!).

... good luck with that!

Oh hey so you guys made me play this :P

Had a really promising character earlier. Went for dual-wielding pistols with Gun Kata later, and on one of the first levels I found a room with a combat shotgun and a double-barreled shotgun.
I modded my green armour with a bulk mod, switched to dual pistols once I got dualgunner... And ran into acid because I tend to hold the movement buttons when there are no monsters in the level. Ugh.

I don't go fully melee with this character, actually. Brute does help out when I end up way too close to some of the bigger baddies, but I mostly play this character in a varied sense.

Also, you're indirectly responsible for Asha's best lines in Iji and I only just learned this. I thank you!