[WIP] Doom 2 in Heretic

[Zero X. Diamond]

So I was gone from the forums for a fairly long time. As I was going through backlogged threads, I happened upon a project by DBThanatos that was met with little fanfare and then promptly forgotten. But seeing it got me started on an interesting train of thought: if you can put fantasy textures in Doom, why can't you put Doom into a fantasy setting? It doesn't hurt that there are far, far less wads out there for Heretic and Hexen than there are for Doom. My project here (which has a stupid name and could probably use a better one) is designed to allow Doom 2 wads to run inside of Heretic natively. It's not some sort of hacky mutator for Doom--it literally runs under Heretic's IWAD, making it more of a hacky mod for Heretic.

The project's still pretty early right now. So far, all of the weapons have been replaced (including the Super Shotgun, which I swapped for a Super Crossbow from Realm 667 which happened to be exactly what I was looking for [thanks to Supersonix07 and Phayzon]) most of the artifacts are swapped in and a portion of the monsters are in place. To get maps to look like something other than a mass of missing textures, I'm currently running the WAD with a customized version of DBThanatos' "texture disguise" with all the flats and textures converted to .PNG. It isn't a complete skin and also isn't the greatest solution, but Heretic I've found has about a quarter the amount of textures that Doom has stock and the solution of using ACS' ReplaceTextures function seems a little less than adequate now that I've realized this.

Here's some screenshots from (an also PNG customized) Scythe 2 to prove that this is a legitimate project:

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And here's the juicy details of what I've got planned so far. Keep in mind that I am completely open to suggestions and that all of this is subject to change at a moment's notice.

MONSTERS
Zombie Man: Imp
Shotgun Guy: Imp Leader
Chaingunner: Knight
Imp: Nitrogolem / Golem (Random Spawner)
Demon: Golem / Sabreclaw (Random Spawner)
Spectre: Sabreclaw / Nitrogolem (Random Spawner)
Baron of Hell: Iron Lich
Hell Knight: Some sort of smaller, less powerful Iron Lich?
Cacodemon: Disciple of D'Sparil
Pain Elemental: Some sort of Disciple variant that acts more akin to the Bishop from Hexen? Alternatively, a summoner?
Lost Soul: Maybe a black imp akin to Hexen's Afrit?
Mancubus: Weredragon
Arachnotron: Ophidian
Revenant: Modified Ghost Knight, maybe with turbo trails?
Archvile: Some kind of evil player clone?
Cyberdemon: Maulotaur
Spider Mastermind: D'Sparil
Wolfenstein SS: Something from an earlier Raven FPS. No idea what.

POWERUPS
Stimpack: Crystal Vial
Medikit: Quartz Flask
Green Armor: Silver Shield
Blue Armor: Enchanted Shield
Computer Area Map: Map Scroll
Berserk: Tome of Power
Partial Invisibility: Shadow Sphere
IR Goggles: Torch
Invulnerability: Ring of Invulnerability
Soul Sphere: Mystic Urn

Radiation suit is replaced by a completely new item, Iron Boots. I still have no idea what to do for the megasphere, armor and health bonuses as they have no equivalents in Heretic--suggestions are welcome. The same can be said for Heretic's Morph Ovum, Wings of Wrath, Chaos Device, and Time Bomb of the Ancients as they have no equivalents in Doom.

As for decorations, Heretic is incredibly limited in terms of what it has. Would anyone be opposed to me recycling some graphics from other Raven titles? Throwing in a few things from Hexen would definitely give a lot more variety to the levels instead of every hanging body being identical or replaced with one of four different hanging skulls.

Oh, and uh, one last thing: if anyone's willing to contribute to this project, I could definitely use a hand getting textures better in hand. Not that DBThanatos didn't already do a fantastic job, but his replacement pack is neither finished nor completely polished. And as I said, suggestions are quite welcome.

[Snarboo]

This sounds like a fantastic idea, and I'm surprised nobody has attempted it sooner! Will this mod also work with Ultimate Doom maps?

amv2k9 created a set of new monsters for Heretic, one of which is a Disciple that behaves just like the Arch Vile IIRC. Perhaps you should ask him about it so you can fill out the rest of the monster roster?

Edit:
For the megasphere, perhaps you could replace it with a dual purpose power up that acts both as a mystic urn and as a tome of power? Or perhaps it simply gives you both power ups. The tome is a very important part of Heretic's arsenal, and for wads with inflated monster counts, it's a must!

[Virtue]

revenant should jut be the ghost night, the red axes are powerful enough, and for artistic licence, yeah, id throw in a few Hexen monsters like Chaos Serpents for hell knights, the bishops for elementals, and maybe the Afrits (or alternitivly the Dark Gargoyle from Realm667) for lost souls. I did this kind of thing way back in the 90s with Dehacked

[Gez]

Watch out for monster sizes. Iron liches are a lot bigger than barons, so it might break monster closets or teleport cages if they get stuck in the walls.

Use ghost golems instead of nitrogholems for spectre replacement. You might want to add ghost sabreclaws too.

Earlier Raven FPS would have to be Black Crypt (an Amiga title) or Shadowcaster.

[printz]

This sounds like a fantastic idea, and I'm surprised nobody has attempted it sooner!

Actually, this is similar to using an EXE command-line tool to convert a Doom wad to Heretic. It would be interesting to find a solution to replace the random spawners with "intelligent" spawners that know whether to place monster A or monster B, such as avoiding mixing Sabreclaws with Golems. Also, Disciples seem more numerous in Heretic than Cacodemons in Doom. They do have less health which justifies it. Maybe you can find a way to replace a Cacodemon with several (such as 1.5) Disciples?

[Zero X. Diamond]

This sounds like a fantastic idea, and I'm surprised nobody has attempted it sooner! Will this mod also work with Ultimate Doom maps?

amv2k9 created a set of new monsters for Heretic, one of which is a Disciple that behaves just like the Arch Vile IIRC. Perhaps you should ask him about it so you can fill out the rest of the monster roster?

Edit:
For the megasphere, perhaps you could replace it with a dual purpose power up that acts both as a mystic urn and as a tome of power? Or perhaps it simply gives you both power ups. The tome is a very important part of Heretic's arsenal, and for wads with inflated monster counts, it's a must!

Sadly, this version will not work with Ultimate Doom maps as-is due to the fact that I had to use a MAPINFO lump designed to remove episodes and run 32 levels in order to get it to work with Doom 2. However, altering it to work with Ultimate Doom levels would be a snap. The problem then lies in getting another texture pack that'd work with Ultimate Doom; while in my earliest phase of deciding which maps to run in which engine, I tried running an Ultimate Doom mapset in Heretic with the texture pack I'm using now and there were many missing textures.

The megasphere as a mystic urn and a Tome of Power intrigues me. That's a workable idea for sure.

revenant should jut be the ghost night, the red axes are powerful enough, and for artistic licence, yeah, id throw in a few Hexen monsters like Chaos Serpents for hell knights, the bishops for elementals, and maybe the Afrits (or alternitivly the Dark Gargoyle from Realm667) for lost souls.

I actually already have the Dark Gargoyle and will probably use that since it's more akin to a Heretic version of the Afrit. Bishops would definitely work too, but Chaos Serpents are a bit weak for Hell Knights, aren't they? They are after all one of the more common enemies in Hexen.

Watch out for monster sizes. Iron liches are a lot bigger than barons, so it might break monster closets or teleport cages if they get stuck in the walls.

Use ghost golems instead of nitrogholems for spectre replacement. You might want to add ghost sabreclaws too.

Earlier Raven FPS would have to be Black Crypt (an Amiga title) or Shadowcaster.

I am thinking of actually fudging the numbers a bit and altering the DECORATE for my replacements to make them physically the same size as what they're replacing. For the most part the ones I have in so far seem to be fine with the exception of, surprisingly, golems for imps. They seem to be ever-so-slightly too tall for the smallest space an imp can fit in.

Anyways, thanks for the input guys. I'll be sure to put this to good use later tonight!

[HellCattX]

I did start something like this along time ago.
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30405

[Mikk-]

4 months isn't that long, and this mod aims to do something slightly different to what your mod does.

[HellCattX]

lol was it only four months ago?, and well yes and no, it hasnt been updated, but there was a conversion wad before that classes / spawner mod, and figured it might be of some help.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Earlier Raven FPS would have to be Black Crypt (an Amiga title) or Shadowcaster.

Neither of which are FPS. I suppose you could argue in Shadowcaster's case, though I'd place it more in the category of adventure than shooter. And Black Crypt is a Dungeon Master clone (in the sense of early FPS games being "Doom clones".)

Also, Disciples seem more numerous in Heretic than Cacodemons in Doom. They do have less health which justifies it. Maybe you can find a way to replace a Cacodemon with several (such as 1.5) Disciples?

In my experience Disciples are quite nasty. Their attacks do a lot of damage if all 3 balls hit, and it's a lot harder to dodge their attacks fully compared to the Cacodemon because of the spread.

[SamVision]

Cosmetic suggestion: Can you give the Super Crossbow a slightly different appearance than just two bolts side by side.

[Tapwave]

Shouldn't this be Heretic in Doom 2?

[Zero X. Diamond]

No, that would be if I were running Heretic levels in Doom 2. The game is literally running Doom 2 levels in Heretic, ergo Doom 2 in Heretic.

Cosmetic suggestion: Can you give the Super Crossbow a slightly different appearance than just two bolts side by side.

Give me a sprite set and I'm there. The problem is that I have neither the time nor the skill required to create a set of weapon sprites from scratch for this project.

[Xaser]

I've actually been wanting to make a Super Crossbow type-thing based on some neat resources Neoworm put up a while back (a prototype of the Blasphemer crossbow that ended up being redesigned later).

Wish I still had the sprite lying around. Hmm...

[Gez]

Neither of which are FPS.

Yeah, but they're first person which is all that matters for sprites.