Slashdot Mirror

Heretic? Don't be silly, Heretic requires 486-33, 4 megs RAM, VGA, 10 megs HD space :}. Even crazier though, the shareware download for this game from 1995 is 2.8MB, smaller than a single pic from my smartphone. http://www.doomworld.com/idgam...

Doom (it's classic, but it is hard to play these days after having gotten used to being able to look and move up and down)

Try one of these. You'll be surprised what you can get out of that old game :)

Dammit. Now I'm going to have to find, dust off, and install my Doom collection CD.

Be sure to install a modern source port such as ZDoom (software rendering) or GZDoom (OpenGL). Doom is still fun and playable in 1080p with all the old bugs fixed. Some of the custom levels are phenomenal too.

Fire up the Zandronum source port and play the greatest Doom WAD: UAC Military Nightmare!

As a counterpoint (from your own link) there's this page.....

That's the thing, the atmosphere was absolutely wrong for the game! That creepy dark shit is what Doom was in the minds of elderly busybodies, but fans of the original expected something zany, fast, and over the top.

it was an old hack of the Linux version of Doom, with a barebones 2.0.32-based Linux distro, set up to make relative nice-sounding sound effects through the PC Speaker, bundled up as a .zip that you extracted over a FAT filesystem and from DOS ran a loader that switched to Linux. It's here: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=9704

After that I went to Debian and then to Ubuntu[1], and at the moment I'm using Ubuntu Server as a building-block distro. Considering a switch to Mint. I've used other distros in VMs, and at one time my work PC had Slackware 10 until I needed a version of Samba that could talk to Active Directory.

[1] it was Ubuntu's general polish around 5.10 that made me switch, and especially the graphical sudo, which was far better than anything Microsoft had.

The trick is to use 3 screens, 2 is not enough. With 3 it's fine, everything (incl HUD) lives in the center screen, screens to the left and right are just your periphery.

Two monitors doesn't work for 1st/3rd person gaming because the bezel is In The Way. Three monitors provides a VASTLY superior gaming experience to 1 screen, but the left and right screens are always in your peripheral vision, they're great for having an idea of what's going on around you, but there's no point putting any HUD detail on them because you can't concentrate on their content to any great degree without taking your eye off the action.

The problem with most setups you describe is they not always acceptable in multiplayer games. Having full 180 degree vision is often considered a hack since it gives you a massive advantage over most other players. The developers therefore simply lock the field of view to forward only then use the extra monitors for adding detail rather than increasing field of view.

I remember one of my clan mates had a 3 monitor setup but he had to keep it locked to just displaying forward view over the 3 monitors so he actually lost top to bottom field of view as a result of effectively having a single very wide monitor. This meant if you were slightly above him he simply couldn't see you at all. This was in COD:Black Ops.

If the sequel supports increasing the field of view over 3 monitors to give true side ways view I might consider a multi-monitor upgrade but I am sceptical it will as they know this will give people who spend that level of cash a massive advantage over the single monitor casual players. This might seem ok to those who can afford it but can the game studios rely on us alone to generate the revenues they want.

The other thing that may put me off investing the money would be whether I would be able to use it. In most competitions there will have to be a way of preventing people using setups like this to keep things fair. If that is the case then most servers may simply use the same method to boot people for a having a high field of view.

I suppose what it will come down to is picking an acceptable maximum, but I have a feeling that maximum will have to be something that is still just about useable on a single decent widescreen monitor. Maybe something in the realm of 100-160 degrees which is close to what our eyes see anyway, but I very much doubt the full 270 degree will be available (forward, left, right), or if it is then most servers will simply kick people for using it. Unless the admin has that particular setup of course :)

The real problem that forces a FoV limit though is the idea of a 4 monitor setup. Throw an extra monitor above the middle one then have it showing the view behind you so nobody can shoot you in the back: instant advantage.

PS - Does anyone remember that you could actually do some of this with the version of doom using the command line and a 3 pc setup?

http://www.doomworld.com/pageofdoom/parameter.html

And that's another reason why many developers switch to consoles. Because you cannot predict what configuration the user has. It's not only videocards, it's motherboards, processors, RAM... All kinds of bugs. My own PC reboots from time to time, I have no way of knowing why that happens. And notebooks are even worse.

Passing the handling of hardware related bugs to developers is stupid. In that case videogames would support only specific system configurations and refuse to run on a different hardware. Do you want that?

Since the developers can't even make their games run correctly on consoles, I think it's fair to blame the problem on them.

And is your problem with mystery reboots from Windows automatically updating? Fix that here.

I *knew* I had seen a swastika round the first times I played DooM but later I never found one - I should know DooM, this is my DooM website: Sir Robin's DooM Castle, but then this was on an old version I saw way before I started up my website :)

They're actually pretty close (here's the original Doom Bible for comparison.) The point, though, is that FPSes without plot would have been way less established, and games of the mid-nineties would have gotten something of a better start in being story-bearing things. It would have been cheap science fiction, sure, but at least the story would have been action-movie-grade and not cereal-box-grade.

Speaker Doom was a distribution of Doom for Linux, with Linux that'd been equipped with a PC Speaker driver, so you could get Sound Blaster-like sound effects without an actual sound card.

Basically you got it as a zipfile and extracted it (UMSDOS filesystem), then ran a batch file to boot Linux from DOS, and /then/ Doom would launch. I think this came with v2.0.32 of the kernel. Don't know which distro it was derived from; Slackware maybe.

This would have been 1998, and it's still available:

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=9704

There were 2 critical drawbacks with this engine. One was the pallete of colors. Most people complained about Quakes dull, brown, gray, blue and beige colors, without knowing that it was the only solution for archieving lighting over surfaces. Since each material needs a wide variety of reserved colors for displaying darkened/brightened portions of the surface, the game was limited to just a few colors and all their respective shades. This was when 8-bit displays (just 256 colors) ruled the Earth, and superior color depths were impossible for the mainstream video equipment.

Because we haven't built our base there yet.

story line is simple

There was a story?

I was a bit stunned by the comment, until I remembered that there was a story... sadly

http://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/

Read it and know that it contains everything about the Doom story, and even expands on it a little. It's probably better, come to think of it. I'm pretty sure it was an official release as well, so if you're one of those "canon / not canon" types, you'll love this.

As an old geezer, Phobos & Deimos hold less than romanticmemories.

Ah, memories. Skulls & Chainsaws & BFGs. But maybe that was your point.

As an old geezer, Phobos & Deimos hold less than romanticmemories.

Ah, memories. Skulls & Chainsaws & BFGs. But maybe that was your point.

You forgot the last point for 2008:

* Dig out DOOM again. Find out there's an active community with lots of great new releases and advanced engine versions (source ports). Download all kinds of neat stuff. Play and have tons of fun again!

Seriously. As you say, one of the advantages of older games like DOOM is that they don't expire or put you through a lot of shit just to play them, so why not use that advantage? :)

(Random nitpick, BTW - DOOM came out in 1993, not 1992.)

No, GP is talking about Bobby Prince's Doom soundtrack, in which many songs were based on existing metal tracks. See this page for a comparison between his version and the originals.

I'd rip someone's guts out

Also, if they are huge.. That would mean they would have huge guts.

Enjoy! Don't forget to read all the way through it. It's high concept.

I can't see how anyone could call Doom 3 a misstep. It had a great engine that sold really well to the major customers - other games developers. On top of that id managed to sell the demo to games players as well, a great achievement.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?search

Ooer ... there's my own WAD in there too. Five maps of single-player mayhem, for Doom 2. Released over nine years ago, which was pretty late by Doom standards...

If you want something a bit more modern, there's always this for Half-Life, and this for Half-Life 2: Episode One (Liverpool nil). And some reviews!

Aaaand ... some bonus Quake!

Ahem. That's quite enough links, I reckon!

What about a PC collection?

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/

Hah, this won't hold a candle to GhostBusters DooM2!

So, I followed your link and I was perusing the compatibility list. I made it to the games section and I noticed a mention of WADs for the original DooM. As a former WAD tinkerer, I thought to myself:

- Who still plays DooM and Doomworld?

Following the link took to a site listing the best WADs for DooM over the years. It also had an infamous list (read: not so good WADs).

One of the WADs which made it onto the infamous list was: Imp Ecounter: Second Edition.

Thank you for wasting my time and introducing me to DooM pr0n.

So, I followed your link and I was perusing the compatibility list. I made it to the games section and I noticed a mention of WADs for the original DooM. As a former WAD tinkerer, I thought to myself:

- Who still plays DooM and Doomworld?

Following the link took to a site listing the best WADs for DooM over the years. It also had an infamous list (read: not so good WADs).

One of the WADs which made it onto the infamous list was: Imp Ecounter: Second Edition.

Thank you for wasting my time and introducing me to DooM pr0n.

I hope it matches the sheer genius of the Doom comic.

I know you are joking but, I open Amarok and click Radio, Shoutcast, Game and 40 stations pop up many of which include Doom1,2,3 Level music, in regular rotation.

Not to mention the plethora of sites like http://www.doomworld.com/classicdoom/info/music.ph p

Sometimes its comforting.

While on the subject of doom mods, there is one mod for the zdoom/gzdoom engine (which unfortunately makes it's home on the windows operating system - though zdoom does infact run on gnu/linux) which scared me shitless. Playing it was the first time I have ever been scared by a game. It's called "The Ghoul's Forest" and it works in quite the same way. You find yourself lost in the forbidden woods searching around. You are consumed by the darkness of night and the trees which surround you. You will weave through the forest, unsure of which ghouls are out on the prowl - knowing that they could be hiding behind any tree. The only thing worse then the anticipation (which does a lot of damage on your nerves) is when you actually turn up on one of the bastards.

grab it here: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=15030

It all comes down to resources -- re-qualifying a release of anything takes a lot of time, money, and support, while just shipping the exact same executables was fairly straightforward. While Doom and Quake might be able to justify the work, there is no way a lot of the titles could, so the decision was pretty obvious.

I strongly urge people with a little initiative to go look at the various high quality source ports, because they are better in essentially every aspect than the original sources, but we aren't going to make any of them official.

This page seems relevant about now.

Don't be too sure about that! (Definitely NSFW)

Even before Quake, there used to be thousands of maps available for DOOM

There still are...

ID even shipped a CD, and I forgot the name, which had both a top 10 list for WADS to play, as well as a directory with hundreds of levels.

Sounds like Master Levels, which was a set of 21 good levels (some of which were made by authors who would later be hired by id Software to work on Episode 4 of Ultimate Doom), but also a couple thousand not-as-good levels which were basically dumped from the idgames archive of the time.

I go to a school that uses computers heavily,* and has censorware, so I can relate. Also, the initial reason is that some idiot got looking at porn on a school computer four years ago. Overreacting, much?

Wikipedia is not censored, but sites such as Google Video, (adult) Doomworld, (violence) and even GPF! (porn) Nobody likes the censor, anyway.

Also, is the issue of non-educational sites and games. While it is a school rule, I find that games can be great stress relievers. The point of the rule is supposedly that people would use all their computer time for games rather than homework, but I feel that using games as I have described is valid. (If I'm grumpy- a frequent occurrence, I won't be doing any work anyways.) It seems people are enforcing the rule for the rule's sake alone. There are always exceptions to any rule. *The school is Alameda Community Learning Center, by the way.

Do you mean the BFG9000 (Big Fucking Gun) from doom? http://www.doomworld.com/pageofdoom/weapons.html

There is no random or even pseudorandom level generation.

SLIGE, SCUDD, SLUMP.

Okay, so they don't make breathtakingly amazing levels. But they're still better than 90% of the user-made Doom levels out there...

DOOM (Ultimate DOOM, DOOM ][ and Final DOOM) are still my overall favorite games. I've been playing them since they came out (I'm 24).

One thing I would highly reccomend is using DOOM Legacy. It really improves on the graphics and gameplay.

Also try this level: School DOOM. That was one of my favorites during high school...

Securitron is also awesome, especially if you're a fan of Fear Factory (it's based on the song).

What do you do for a living? because if (like me) you make anything that can be presented in digital form, you just got yourself kicked out of where you live, into the street with no food and no source of income.

Oh? Let's see... Red Hat bases its business model around free (libre) software. Last I checked, they're doing well. You can download music for free on http://www.doomworld.com/fanatic/--but apparently he can afford a computer and an internet connection.

(...) but to propose we "make everything digital free!" ignores the questions of what all the millions of people who currently work in industries that produce content do to put food on the table. (...) will simply mean no more new information.

Your argument seems to be that without copyright law, patent law, DRM and censorship (of the DeCSS program), the people working to create books, software, music, motion pictures, or still images would basically have zero revenue, hence zero motivation, hence zero creations.

Wrong! I've already given you counterexamples for software and music. I'm sure that you know how to use google well enough to find counterexamples for still images and motion pictures.

An interesting question is How do we provide enough economic incentive to the creators, while still letting the public keep as many `usable' freedoms as possible? In the age of the printing press, copying a book was considered an unusable freedom--but in the age of computer networks, it's a very usable freedom (I hope that illustrates well enough what I mean by `usable'). I wouldn't know a sound economic model if it hit me in the face with a sledgehammer, so I won't predict how well each money-earning scheme would do. But look around. Bram Cohen gave away BitTorrent, and he doesn't appear to have gone missing in action.

... the Doom comic?

http://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/

That one sets a pretty high bar. I can only hope a Halo is half as good.

Looks an awful lot like the Cacodemon from Doom.

I second that... I was going to mention Alien TC as well. The whole first level you were expecting them to come - but they never did...

True that, but games spawned some damn fine comics aswell...

(runs for cover)

I don't care how well/badly Doom 3 is faring in the stores... I think you can afford a measely $150.

Yeah, a pure F/OSS Mars trajectory solution would be nice, but once in awhile you have to bite the bullet, and splurge a little.

OTOH, you could probably justify a Phobos shot as R&D for Id,
if you can just keep those engines from burning out...

There was once a text adventure version of Doom2 called Doom2D. But I can't seem to find it anymore.

It's even gone from Doomworld

"BFG" stands for "Big Fucking Gun" in the original games. See the page 55 of the Doom Bible, Tom Hall's original design document for Doom.

They try to make a movie about Doom, and they completely miss the point. They look at a game for inspiration and there's a perfectly good book. A TRILOGY. Forgotten. Prize-winning literature, forgotten.

And don't get me started on the comic.

Chapter I : Knee Deep in the Dead
Anonymous marine lands on the Phobos moon of Mars. The research base appears to be crawling with zombies and he blows his way through them eventually blasting some bigger demons and teleporting to ...

Chapter II : Shores of Hell

.. Mars! Mars base overrun by demonic alien scumbags. Our Hero slaughters them by the truckload, occasionally using the chainsaw! Finally he kills the giant missile launching robot cyberdemon and takes the plunge and heads off into..

Chapter III : Inferno

.. Hell itself! After laying waste to Satan's Army he confronts giant mecha robo cyber Arachnodemon and kills him! (Duh!) Go team Earth!

Full text of the Doom book "Knee Deep in the Dead": http://lib.ru/INOFANT/DOOM/doom1_knee_deep_in_the_ dead-engl.txt

The Doom comic! Yes! Quotable! Read it! http://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/

It's EASY to make good quality cult movie out of that! (But I'm betting they'll screw it up anyway - it's not like this is Peter Jackson).

I've been working on map design for various computer games in my spare time for the last six years or so. I haven't actually released many maps yet, but with my skills in map design and texture art I could almost certainly get a job in the games industry. Several of my friends already have, and are working on games you've almost certainly heard of.

Except I don't want to work there. From what I've heard, EA isn't alone, with many young, idealistic people working for long hours on lacklustre games because, well, it's what they always wanted to do. If they give up because of lack of pay, or quit because they simply can't continue to work like that, then there's always someone else to hire, someone else who hasn't learned how bad some of the employers can be.

So, I keep modding as a hobby, mapping purely for enjoyment. It's much more fun being able to work on your own projects without some looming deadline, without a boss breathing down your back. The games market is already saturated with clones, sequels and utter trash, and the chances of working on something memorable are pretty slight. Instead of working on Barbie's Fashion Adventure 7, I can build my own Twelve Monkeys-inspired, ultra-dark adventure in Half-Life 2 (one of my upcoming projects!)

However, I'm intrigued by Wideload Games' new approach, contracting in work as and when required with just a core team working on a project full-time. It's not so dissimilar to the work I'm doing at the moment, as a freelance web programmer and designer, and I wonder if it'll catch on. No, I wouldn't be able to make a full-time living from it, but it could make for some interesting side work, assuming anyone would want me... :-)