Do People Still Play Vanilla?

[Stru]

Serious question. It seems like all that's ever populated are Complex, Brutal Doom, and Wrath of Cronos. I feel like I'm the only person that would much rather play Survival without any of those crazy weapon/monster mods. I'll start or join a server, but nobody else will join because everyone's too busy playing Complex :/

[TerminusEst13]

There's quite a few people that don't play any of those. There's also quite a few people that don't play without majorly gameplay changing mods.
That being said, the big selling point of Zandronum is the ability to play online with the aforementioned majorly gameplay-changing mods, so they'll always be the majority force.

If you'd like to start up a game of something else, the best thing to do is ask to see if people are interested. Hop on the IRC, make some friends, hang with people. Invite them to tag along, share really cool niche mods you don't see played so much. Etc, etc.

[TheMightyHeracross]

I'd be happy if more vanilla servers were populated too. As much as I love advanced mods, sometimes it's fun to play vanilla, and the most I usually see are "Classic Skulltag Deathmatch" (which still has the ST actors/data) or private servers.

[Medicris]

This is an unfortunate side effect of what happens when "you can mod it!" is the selling point. People will be attracted to modding it and playing mods.

While classic servers get some games going now and then, as garbage as it is I figure the older multiplayer port may be better for more active classic servers unless one wants to invest effort in waiting/planning and starting games yourself. #deathmatch on the IRC is built around gathering games.

[Watermelon]

If you consider chocolate doom 'vanilla' like, then yes I do play duels with Devastation or DS when the chance arises. If you mean strictly vanilla, I haven't done that in probably over a decade.

[fr blood]

After playing complex or hard doom, we can't come back to vanilla because it's too easy,there is no more challenge.
And there would be no logic of using Zandronum/Zdoom/GZdoom if it's not to use them with great mods.

[Daedalus]

coming back to vanilla is hard, because it's too easy, there is no more challenge.

Play vanilla the way it is ment to be played, remove the "new school" stuff like freelook, item respawn and enable infinitely tall actors (basically all the proper dm/compatflags) on a quality map pack such as Resurgence, there is still challenge there (at least for the majority) and it is a ton of fun.

I actually had a server up for a while to try and draw players into it, played through most of the pack and only a couple people joined in the entire time it was up. Not much interest, yeah.

[Combinebobnt]

Nobody plays vanilla doom anymore, only pretend vanilla.

[Stru]

Well, I guess "chocolate" would be the term I was looking for. I'm not talking about Doom2.wad standalone. I'm just tired of seeing the mods that manipulate the gameplay in such a way that it feels like a whole new game. I like playing megawads, just without the Complex or Brutal Doom bullshit.

[ibm5155]

I only play vanilla on a vanilla computer.
and with zandronum i'm just running freedoom iwad with their pwads online

[Stru]

coming back to vanilla is hard, because it's too easy, there is no more challenge.

Play vanilla the way it is ment to be played, remove the "new school" stuff like freelook, item respawn and enable infinitely tall actors (basically all the proper dm/compatflags) on a quality map pack such as Resurgence, there is still challenge there (at least for the majority) and it is a ton of fun.

I actually had a server up for a while to try and draw players into it, played through most of the pack and only a couple people joined in the entire time it was up. Not much interest, yeah.

Wait, weren't you the one that created Complex?

[fr blood]

Play vanilla the way it is ment to be played, remove the "new school" stuff like freelook, item respawn and enable infinitely tall actors (basically all the proper dm/compatflags) on a quality map pack such as Resurgence, there is still challenge there (at least for the majority) and it is a ton of fun.

I actually had a server up for a while to try and draw players into it, played through most of the pack and only a couple people joined in the entire time it was up. Not much interest, yeah.

We already know how works normal doom's monsters, they all got tons of weakness, we can predict what they'll do because they got only 1 attack.

[Daedalus]

Wait, weren't you the one that created Complex?

Doesn't mean that I do not like vanilla, most of my offline play is pure vanilla/chocolate whatever you want to call it.

We already know how works normal doom's monsters, they all got tons of weakness, we can predict what they'll do because they got only 1 attack.

You could predict what they all did shortly after the game released, doesn't mean they cant be challenging if played with the right settings on a decent map pack.

[Stru]

Play vanilla the way it is ment to be played, remove the "new school" stuff like freelook, item respawn and enable infinitely tall actors (basically all the proper dm/compatflags) on a quality map pack such as Resurgence, there is still challenge there (at least for the majority) and it is a ton of fun.

I actually had a server up for a while to try and draw players into it, played through most of the pack and only a couple people joined in the entire time it was up. Not much interest, yeah.

We already know how works normal doom's monsters, they all got tons of weakness, we can predict what they'll do because they got only 1 attack.

Hate me if you wish, but slaughter WADs are my favorite for Survival (especially Chillax). It requires much more teamwork than standard PWADs, so you have to have good communication and some strategy on what area of the map to hit first.