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 ๐ค๏ธ, Gentoo ๐๏ธ, and Nix ๐๏ธ).
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"
