I would like to organize a community Doom 2 Deathmatch game (potentially a series if the first one goes well). I'm aiming for 2:00 PM EDT (18:00 UTC) today, May 24th.

Preparation

Source Port (Odamex 12.2.0)

While a number of Doom source ports inherit the networking code from the original game, this network code uses a P2P architecture designed to run over IPX and LAN networks. It has many limitations and is not very practical for casual games.

There are a number of ports designed specifically for multiplayer with a client/server architecture. The "active" ones are Zdaemon, Zandronum, and Odamex. Of these, Zdaemon is proprietary and only supports Windows. Zandronum supports Linux, but has a hard dependency on FMOD, which makes it a nuisance to build.

Odamex on the other hand is fully GPL licensed and lacks this dependency hell, plus it is available as a FlatPak, in addition to Windows installers and some distro packages. So we will be using Odamex 12.2.0

(Heads up, the Odamex website still links to 12.1.0 for some reason. This version uses a network protocol which is not compatible with 12.2.0. You can grab 12.2.0 from the Github Releases page (all platforms), FlatHub (Linux), or possibly your distro package manager (mainly looking like Arch 🤏️, Gentoo 😎️, and Nix 😐️).

Files

You will need a copy of doom2.wad. This is the file from the commercial game which contains all of the maps, textures, sprites, audio clips, music, etc. It is easy to find back-ups on the Internet in case you've scratched your retail CD, or you are unable to read the file from your retail CD because computers don't have CD drives anymore. Technical support may be available on Matrix for people who are struggling to insert their CD into the computer.

A few different versions of this file have existed. Version 1.9 (1995) is the latest. The correct MD5 / SHA256 sums of this file are 25e1459ca71d321525f84628f45ca8cd /10d67824b11025ddd9198e8cfc87ca335ee6e2d3e63af4180fa9b8a471893255

OdaLauncher

Odamex includes a program called OdaLauncher. This is a GUI application which serves as a server browser / configuration tool. Specifically, you need to point it to odamex(.exe) (the game itself), and a directory where you store your .wad files (including doom2.wad, in addition to the unzipped .wad files of whatever map set we're playing).

Map set / Rules

I have an inkling to keep things simple and just run the DWANGO 5 mapset, but I am completely open for suggestions. Brit11 is also a solid option. Keep in mind, the maps must be vanilla/boom/mbf compatible. A lot of maps designed for Zdaemon, Skulltag, or Zandronum use advanced Zdoom / Hexen features which are not available in Odamex. This limitation doesn't impact the majority of deathmatch maps though.

The Odamex client has an included feature which will download .wad files from well-known sites, so as long as you have doom2.wad, the other wads should be fetched automatically if you don't have them.

As far as rules go, 25 frags, no time limit seemed to work well. Difficulty is set to Nightmare (as customary for multiplayer).

Server

The server is running at phobos.matapacos.dog, or you can also find it in the server list as "Hexbear Community Deathmatch"

Ah, that's the way, Patriot. Let the OPECs keep their gasoline. We'll just tap into a far more efficient energy source. Man. Power. If we all learn to pull our weight, nobody, NOBODY, will be able to siphon away our High Life.

The round, led by Bain Capital Crypto, was closed in April 2025 but had not been disclosed until now.

If any of you host a Sharkey or Misskey instance, make sure to apply this update when it lands. If you use either, or are friends with someone who hosts one, pester your admins.

Requires a modern chromium-based browser unfortunately, but this is forgivable for such a ridiculous project.

Folks, if you don't know about it, check it out! KDE Connect is an application you can install on your phone (Android, iOS, and others) which allows you to pair your phone with your PC and do various things, like send SMS messages from your PC, use your phone to do remote input and media control, transfer files back and forth, etc. It's killer.

My wife was trying to watch some YouTube videos on the TV today and they were absolutely killing us with ads, so we plugged in the Fedora laptop (which has Firefox with uBlock Origin) and she was able to run it from the couch.

Funny thing is, we don't even use KDE. There is a Gnome Shell extension called GSConnect which is fully compatible with the mobile KDE Connect apps. The iOS app doesn't have as many features as the Android app, but remote mouse and keyboard input is there.

Along these lines, she asked if there was a way to make the mouse cursor larger, and I was like UHHHH (knowing from experience that the solution to this problem was going to be fucked up). So I did a web search and figured out there's a GSettings key you can tweak, SSHed into the laptop, but before I could run the command she said she figured it out. It's in the accessibility settings.

Following up from last week, @Doubledee@hexbear.net seemed eager to play, so I don't see any reason why not to give Beardrenched another year. No turns have been played since Episode 7, two weeks ago (here's the file). I'm going to ask anybody else who is interested in playing to re-apply here in this thread, so we have an idea of who is still involved and who's turn is coming up in the near term.

In the meantime, there was some discussion of retiring. We could take a poll, but last week a number of people chimed in basically saying they could go either way, so I think what we'll do is play it until the roster dries up. We'll be doing this on a more ad-hoc basis from now on.

We have learned a lot about the lore and nearby societies in Teyo Ametha and the thought of continuing in this world is appealing, but the current save file appears to be corrupted. DFHack gives a scary warning about "Missing Nemesis Records." I noticed this for the first time at the end of turn 6, so if we do want to continue playing in this world, we might want to go back, load Episode 5, and retire the fort from that save.

Finally, if you have anything else going on related to Dwarf Fortress, the floor is yours. This thread is not limited exclusively to the succession game.

Update: So we've still got DoubleDee, Booty, Gay King Prince Charles, and Oreb on board, so it's adamantine or bust, I guess.

You can find talks and videos from here: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/

I am partial to Giacomo's talk, "You Don't Need an ORM," which reflects a rant I went on about 4 months ago. There's a lot here though, and I've only scratched the surface (and not all of the videos have been uploaded yet).

For what its worth, there are also a few presentation subjects which sound absolutely dreadful.