Jul 28, 2019 This article gives technical information about the Doom II data file. For gameplay information and walkthroughs, see Doom II. DOOM2.WAD is the IWAD used by Doom II. 1 Latest versions of Doom II. The BFG Edition variant of the DOOM2.WAD file is inappropriately marked as a PWAD and the TITLEPIC lump is missing. This will cause some.
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Doom WAD is the default format of package files for the video gameDoom and its sequel Doom II: Hell on Earth, that contain sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data?.[1] Immediately after its release in 1993, Doom attracted a sizeable following of players who created their own mods for WAD files—packages containing levels, graphics, and other game data—and played a vital part in spawning the mod-making culture which is now commonplace for first-person shooter games. Thousands of WADs have been created for Doom, ranging from single custom levels to full original games; most of these can be freely downloaded over the Internet. Several WADs have also been released commercially, and for some people the WAD-making hobby became a gateway to a professional career as a level designer.
There are two types of WADs: IWADs (internal WADs) and PWADs (patch WADs). IWADs contain the data necessary to load the game, while PWADs contain additional data, such as new character sprites, as necessary for custom levels.
- 1History
- 2Types of WADs
- 3Notable WADs
History[edit]
Extensibility in Doom[edit]
When developing Doom, id Software was aware that many players had tried to create custom levels and other modifications for their previous game, Wolfenstein 3D. However, the procedures involved in creating and loading modifications for that game were cumbersome.
John Carmack, lead programmer at id Software, designed the Doom internals from the ground up to allow players to extend the game. For that reason, game data such as levels, graphics, sound effects, and music are stored separately from the game engine, in 'WAD files'. This allowed players to make their own data without making any modifications to the engine. According to Doom's initial design document, WAD stands for 'Where's All the Data?'.
The idea of making Doom easily modifiable was primarily backed by Carmack, a well-known supporter of copyleft and the hacker ideal of people sharing and building upon each other's work, and by John Romero, who had hacked games in his youth and wanted to allow other gamers to do the same. Not everybody in the id Software crew was happy with this development, however; some, including Jay Wilbur and Kevin Cloud, objected due to legal concerns and in the belief that it would not be of any benefit to the company's business.
Utilities and WADs appearing[edit]
Immediately after the initial shareware release of Doom on December 10, 1993, enthusiasts began working on various tools to modify the game. On January 26, 1994, Brendon Wyber released the first public domain version of the Doom Editing Utility (DEU) program on the Internet, a program created by Doom fans which made it possible to create entirely new levels. DEU continued development until May 21 of the same year. It was made possible by Matt Fell's release of the Unofficial Doom specifications. Shortly thereafter, Doom enthusiasts became involved with further enhancing DEU. Raphaël Quinet spearheaded the program development efforts and overall project release, while Steve Bareman lead the documentation effort and creation of the DEU Tutorial. More than 30 other people also helped with the effort and their names appear in the README.1ST file included with the program distribution. Yadex, a fork of DEU 5.21 for Unix systems running X, was later released under the GNU/GPL license.[2] (Carmack additionally released the source code for the utilities used to create the game, but these were programmed in Objective-C, for NeXT workstations, and were therefore not directly usable for most people, who were PC users.)
Jeffrey Bird is credited with creating the first custom WAD for Doom, released under the title Origwad, on March 7, 1994. Soon, countless hobbyists were creating custom WADs and sharing them over AOL and CompuServe forums, and other Internet-based channels. Many of the WADs were made in the style of the base game, others were based on TV series, movies, or original themes. Some of the id Software staff have revealed that they were impressed by some of the WADs; John Carmack later said the following about a Star Wars-themed modification:
I still remember the first time I saw the original Star Wars DOOM mod. Seeing how someone had put the death star into our game felt so amazingly cool. I was so proud of what had been made possible, and I was completely sure that making games that could serve as a canvas for other people to work on was a valid direction.
— John D. Carmack[3]
Another particularly notable early modification is Aliens TC (see below in the conversions section), based on the movie Aliens.
Even though WADs modified Doom by replacing graphics and audio, the amount of customization was somewhat limited; much of the game's behavior, including the timing and strength of weapons and enemies, was hard-coded in the Doomexecutable file and impossible to alter in WADs. DeHackEd, a Doom editing program created by Greg Lewis, addressed this by letting users modify parameters inside of the Doom executable itself, allowing for a greater degree of customization.
Commercial WADs[edit]
Around 1994 and 1995, WADs were distributed primarily through BBSs and via CD collections found in computer shops or bundled together with instruction guides for level creation, while in later years InternetFTP servers became the primary method for obtaining these works. Although the Doom software license required that no profit be made from custom WADs, an id Software member claimed to have taken some measures against distributors of CD-ROM compilations of WADs,[4] some WAD sets and shovelware bundles were nonetheless obtainable for a price at certain outlets.
At the time, id Software was working on their next game, Quake, using new technology, but started projects picking up the most talented WAD makers from the Doom community to create official expansions and to compete with the unauthorized collection CDs. The team produced the 21 Master Levels, which, on December 26, 1995, were released on a CD along with Maximum Doom, a collection of 1,830 WADs that had been downloaded arbitrarily from the Internet. In 1996, Final Doom, a package of two 32-level megawads created by TeamTNT, was released as an official id Software product.
Additionally, various first-person shooter games released at the time used the Doom engine under a commercial license from id Software, as such essentially being custom WADs packaged with the Doom engine. An example is the 1997 release, Hacx: Twitch 'n Kill.
In addition to the many people who contributed to commercially released WADs, various authors became involved with the development of other games:
- Kenneth Scott, who contributed artwork to Hacx: Twitch 'n Kill, later became the art director at id Software and 343 Industries on the post-BungieHalo games.
- Tim Willits, who contributed two levels to Master Levels for Doom II, later became the lead designer at id Software.
- Dario Casali, author of a quarter of Final Doom, was hired by Valve Corporation to work on Half-Life.
- Sverre Kvernmo, designer of five levels in Master Levels for Doom II and member of TeamTNT, was hired by Ion Storm for Daikatana.
- Iikka Keränen, author of several Doom WADs and later Quake mods, was hired by Ion Storm to create levels for Anachronox and Daikatana, and by Looking Glass Studios to create levels for Thief II: The Metal Age. Keränen was later hired by Valve Software.
- John Anderson (level designer), also known as 'Dr. Sleep', author of five levels in Master Levels for Doom II and E4M7 in The Ultimate Doom, later worked on Blood, Unreal, and Daikatana.
- Matthias Worch (level designer) joined Ritual Entertainment to work on SiN. He later contributed to the Unreal series.
Source port era[edit]
Around 1997, interest in Doom WADs began to decline, as attention was drawn to newer games with more advanced technology and more customizable design, including id Software's Quake.
On December 23, 1997, id Software released the source code to the Doom engine (initially under a restrictive license; on October 3, 1999, it was released again under the terms of the GNU General Public License). With the source code available, it became possible for programmers to modify any aspect of the game, remove technical limitations and bugs, and add entirely new features.
These engine modifications, or Doom source ports, have since become the target for much of the WAD editing activity (although some purists prefer the original, unmodified engine). As of 2018, several source ports are still actively being developed, and Doom retains a strong following of people who still create WADs.
Types of WADs[edit]
Doom 1 Full Version Wad
Levels and level packs[edit]
The most common type of WAD consists of a single level, usually retaining the theme of the original game, but possibly including new music and some modified graphics to define a more distinctive setting or mood. Both single-player and deathmatchmultiplayer levels are common.
Also common are WADs which contain several levels, sometimes in the form of an episode, replacing nine levels, and sometimes in the form of a megawad, which replaces 15 or more levels in the game (27 in Doom, 32 in Doom II, 36 in The Ultimate Doom).
