Doom Archive Reopened

Obiwan Kenobi writes "Computer game history buffs rejoice: Lee Killough's Doom Archive has been reopened at John Romero's site. Its been offline since 1998, when it was handed to Romero to look after, and has finally resurfaced. The info inside is priceless, if a bit Romero-centric, but who can deny the nostalgia of downloadable alpha versions, beta screenshots (complete with wild health meters) and the original Doom Press Release where the game tagline reads "Doom-the sanest place is behind a trigger.""

Comments

...and it's toast.

[Anonymous Coward]

That didn't take long at all.

What a great caretaker

[Raul654]

Its been offline since 1998, when it was handed to Romero to look after, and has finally resurfaced.

Oh, how reassuring.

Re:What a great caretaker

[isoteareth]

That John Romero chick is hot!

Re:What a great caretaker

[(startx)]

I was wondering how long it would take people to start quoting penny arcade in an article that mentions john romero

Re:What a great caretaker

[de Selby]

Sig: Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.

I choose 'enjoy your job' and 'make lots of money.'

Re:What a great caretaker

[qute]

You can bitch as much as you want..

But I had his girlfriend:
rolling stone
picture

I doubt I would have time for caretaking a website. I'd be into some more important "caretaking" :-D

Oh to look back at history...

[inteller]

The game runs fine on a 386sx, and on a 486/33, we're talking 35 frames per second, fully texture-mapped at normal detail, for a large area of the screen.

I think little handheld thingies from Tiger do this now :)

Re:Oh to look back at history...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Close.

The Gameboy Advance literally does do this.

Re:Oh to look back at history...

[PyroMosh]

Actually, there's a true 3D engine for the GBA now. It's called Blue Roses and a port of Wing Commander: Prophecy will be using it.

In other words, the Gameboy Advance doesn't just literally do what Doom did (in 1993), it runs software on a level that wouldn't come to the PC until 1997 (the year Prophecy was released for the PC).

Re:Oh to look back at history...

[punker]

But it is lacking the goodness of the TURBO BUTTON!

Re:Oh to look back at history...

[56ker]

I'm just waiting for the Romero, Romero, where for art thou Romeo jokes to start appearing.

Ok. Time for the +1 funny comment

[Anonymous Coward]

... And now thanks to /., it's offline again!

Doom 486

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot, I remember downloading the shareware version of Doom I to play on my 486-33. It took a while to download around seven 1MB files over my 14.4 modem.

But it was worth it. That was an awesome game.

It was also great that it could fit on a handful of 1.44MB floppies.

Re:Doom 486

[saskboy]

I bought Doom with my brother on two floppies for about $8C from Radio Shack. Then our harddrive crashed before we could install it, and had to live with playing Star Trek 25th on our temporary 10 MEGAbyte harddrive [I kid you not]. When we got our new hard drive, we also upgraded to 8megs of RAM. Wow that game was great. I would play it in a nearly dark room with the speakers up, and still remember JUMPING as some doors opened to imps.

Good times...

psDoom

[RumpRoast]

Anyone ever get that one running? I got the source once...

Re:psDoom

[i_am_nitrogen]

Yeah, it was pretty funny, going into the root room (were the processes separated by user? I can't remember...) as root, with the BFG on an older system with lots of stuff running. It took long enough for psDoom to administer the damage to all the processes that I had ten or fifteen seconds of watching the monsters slowly fall over and the system thrashing the swap until finally init died.

How did your post get moderated off-topic?

Re:psDoom

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, what is up with that?

slashdotted already.

[AltGrendel]

Boy, that didn't take long.

"Like sandblasting a soup cracker" - Dogbert.

daikatana?

[3Y3]

So when can we get a full daikatana archive? What? nobody else want the alpha's for that?

Re:daikatana?

[PBarger]

Diakatana "alpha" aka Diakatana "retail"

Re:daikatana?

[frohike]

Why would you want alpha versions of Daikatana when you could have
this? :D (from the guys who brought you the "All Your Base" song...)

First time I heard Superfly's Johnson I just about fell out of my chair... lol

9 Years Later

[hoagieslapper]

It's been close to 9 years since I first played doom and I still find myself strafing around corners from time to time.

Re:9 Years Later

[oO0OoO0Oo]

I know exactly how you feel (only with Quake in my case) but isn't it really frustrating when you come face to face with a real life shambler and you're left without so much as a shotgun?

. . . What do you mean "too much"?

Re:9 Years Later

[A Gremlin In Kremlin]

Yeah I remember playing this in the computer room at high school after hours. When finally getting out again i found myself looking at both directions before going out from the room. The feeling of it all was complete when there was this one light in the halls that were broken so it was blinking.

But what is just as bad is that when I played Doom, I also found myself moving around with the chair (which had wheels) and when sneaking around i shifted my position in the chair to get a better look around the corner. Sad, really...

Re:9 Years Later

[iabervon]

Strafing around corners isn't actually that bad an idea, so you can see if someone is going to run into you. The time to worry is when you run diagonally and never jump, step up more than 6 inches, or try to move objects.

Re:9 Years Later

[dvdeug]

Strafing around corners isn't actually that bad an idea, so you can see if someone is going to run into you.

Yeah, well, one of my friends tried strafing around a corner while running around in the dorm. It turns out you need some dexterity to do that; I understand the high speed impact with the wall was not very comfortable.

Service Temporarily Unavailable- Here's the index

[Anonymous Coward]

Contents

• Older Versions of Doom
  • Alpha, beta, shareware, and downgradable registered versions
• Doom History
  • History behind many of Doom's features
• Doom Memorabilia
  • Downloadable demonstrations of Doom weirdness, including some (in)famous bugs
• Articles on Doom and id Software
  • Interviews with the Doom crew, plus articles on id
• Scholarly Works Related to Doom
  • Technical reports which could have influenced, or were influenced by, Doom
• Doom Humor
  • Doom Insanity, DOOMed airline, SPISPOPD
• Doom Editing
  • Technical info
• Download Area
  • Links to downloadable files on this site
• Acknowledgements
• Disclaimer
• Back To Main DOOM //ROME.RO Page

Features in the alpha / beta versions

[galaga79]

Does anyone know if the beta and alpha versions had any features that were cut out of the final version of Doom? I noticed two such features just reading the documentation.

The most interesting thing about this version is the different BFG -- it causes many fireballs to come out in many directions. See screenshots.

Fireballs ricochet off of floors and ceilings.

Re:Features in the alpha / beta versions

[Anonymous Coward]

My roommate and I had an alpha ver. that we downloaded from the on-campus pirate BBS (life before the "internet" came to campus). I seem to remember having the feature of climbing walls. You'd get to see the hands grasping at the walls and there'd be a straining/grunting sound. It also crashed our 486DX233 w/8 megs of RAM just about everytime you tried to climb a wall. I don't remember seeing this in any of the releases... wonder why? :-)

Re:Features in the alpha / beta versions

[robson]

Does anyone know if the beta and alpha versions had any features that were cut out of the final version of Doom?

Here's the Doom Bible (and PDF version)... it seems to detail lots of stuff that was planned but didn't make it in.

Re:Features in the alpha / beta versions

[i_am_nitrogen]

I believe that Doom 0.9 had a feature where you could set up three machines in widescreen connected by IPX (Novell's protocol):

doom -net left
doom -net center
doom -net right

or something like that.

Of course, I've never seen it myself.

Re:Features in the alpha / beta versions

[Sludge]

Actually, this was in there until and includingDoom 1.1. (1.2 was the first modem compatible version.) I also, have never seen it.

Re:Features in the alpha / beta versions

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the Alpha/Beta screenshots look better than the final released version.

Yikes

[vasqzr]

Most of the improvment seems to be in the 'lighting' that made the retail game so scary and not so cartoonish.

There doesn't seem to be any lighting in these screen shots, and the game looks VERY amatuer.

Look at some of the other screens. This just shows ID released the game when they had everything looking right, in a 'Doom' sort of way.

Re:Yikes

[dameron]

the game looks VERY amatuer.

No, the game looked state of the art, even without the lighting and level changes. At the time only "Ultima Underworld" was remotely close to what Doom would become.

For a quick kick in the pants to your favorite Luddite show them a screenshot of alpha doom, then show them a movie from the lastest Doom beta while chanting: "It's only been nine years, it's only been nine years..."

Take a close look yourself and realize what the future holds. FPS games in 2011 should make Doom III look like these "amateurish" screenshots. We'll probably have Carmack to thank even then, or in 2022 when Doom VI looks like crap in comparison to Doom III. Should be fun...

Hell, I'll probably be playing FPSs until advanced age makes it too difficult, sometime around 2035... then I'll camp...

-dameron

Re:Yikes

[jez9999]

Doom III? I'm not a doom obsessive (:-)) but wasn't there a game released called something like 'Final Doom' - signifying the last Doom installment?

Re:Yikes

[jafiwam]

Final Doom was a Doom I engine with the first three eposodes, and then a fourth one tacked on. I am not 100% sure, but it was about 8 new levels that were complicated and had some pretty hard puzzles in them. (At least for me they were hard.)

I still go back and play DoomII sometimes, since it's easy to network and play, we use it to warm up while the last guy configures his PC for the LAN party. (Those pink potato-demons make the meanest noise I have heard in a game yet.)

Re:Yikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Final Doom was a Doom I engine with the first three eposodes, and then a fourth one tacked on.

No, that was Ultimate Doom.

Final Doom was two completely new sets of levels for Doom II, developed by many Doom enthusiasts and TeamTNT.

Re:Yikes

[Spacelord]

Nope ... you are thinking of Ultimate Doom.

Final Doom was 2 Doom episodes of 30 levels (Plutonia and Evolution) using the Doom 2 engine where the levels where made by amateur level designers from the Doom community.

Console Programming

[VoidEngineer]

You know... Doom is just the right level of game play, nowdays, for entry level console game programmers. Wanna design a 3D engine for the Playstation 3? A 3D engine for the X-Box 2? I'd bet that those Doom screenshots could be the perfect beginning of a major game manufacturing group for the next generation of gaming consoles. A group of nerds needs to sit down and reverse engineer the mathematics of that 3D engine. Perhaps approach the problem as a programming challenge to design and code the new engine entirely in fractals and menger spaces.

Re:Console Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

asphinctersayswhat?

Re:Console Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

what?

Re:Console Programming

[Order]

A group of nerds needs to sit down and reverse engineer the mathematics of that 3D engine.

Reverse engineer? Why? Doom's open-source.

Re:Console Programming

[VoidEngineer]

Reverse engineer? Why? Doom's open-source.

I didn't say reverse engineer the code for Doom. I said reverse engineer the mathematics of Doom. Would you actually build a PS3 or XBox2 game on the code of Doom?!?!!! I certainly wouldn't...

However, the screenshots have just the right amount of complexity versus simplicity for a group of gamers & nerds to sit down and write a sophisticated fractal/menger engine. Hell, download the game or the source code and do the same thing. I don't care.

However, I'm completely convinced that if you download the source code for Doom and even glanced at it, your final engine won't be as good as if you just downloaded the screenshots for the game. (Note: I'm not saying that the source code for Doom is bad or anything... I'm just saying that it's not the kind of code one would want for a PS3 or XBox2 game).

Re:Console Programming

[feepness]

Ummm, the current generation of graphics programming (Carmack's included) is light-years beyond Doom. Doom was brilliant for what it displayed on the machines you could play it on. Doom isn't even real 3d. There is more processor/programmer power used to generate shadows nowadays.

Re:Console Programming

[pyrrho]

but then, neither are the Doom screenshots the kind of result you want on a PS3 or XBox2 game.

Re:Console Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly.

Re:Console Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please explain in more detail what the hell you are talking about? Why would anyone want to play a game that looks like DooM on the PS3 or XBox 2?

Re:Console Programming

[VoidEngineer]

Can you please explain in more detail what the hell you are talking about? Why would anyone want to play a game that looks like DooM on the PS3 or XBox 2?

Absolutely. There are many reasons why people would want to. Amongst others, these include:

1. First person perspective.
2. Combat oriented gaming (stress relief?)
3. Multiplayer capabilities.

Now then, for a short list of current games which look like Doom and are on the Playstation 2 or XBox:

1. Halo
2. Quake Arena
3. Unreal Tournament
4. Metal Gear Solid
5. All 3D Basketball/Baseball/Football Games
6. Resident Evil
7. Tomb Raider
etc. etc.

Do you understand my point? These games are all Doom and Wolfenstein based. They are not, for instance, based on such games as:

1. Pong
2. PacMan
3. Mario Brothers
4. Pitfall
5. LoadRunner
6. SpyHunter

(All of which happen to be favorites of mine.) Anyhow, compared to PacMan there are a lot of reasons why people would want to play a game that looks like Doom on a PS3 or XBox2.

The question becomes one of programming methodologies: How does an entry level console game programmer enter into the market and compete against people who are making games like Halo2 and LOTR: The Two Towers? Tough competition.

One answer (although not the only one): Leap frog ahead of the competition. Predict what the gaming platform is going to be 2 or 4 or 8 years from now, and begin programming now (hence the reference to PS3 and XBox2, and not PS2 and Xbox... I'm looking 2 years down the road here.).

Anyhow, you estimate the graphics performance of the futuristic box... 256bit processor, 512bit, 1Kbit, whatever; 1 Gig VRAM, 4Gig VRAM, whatever; 800x600 res, 1024x768 res, 1600x1200 res, 1600x1200 stereoscopic res, whatever. Once you figure out your target hardware platform, figure out the algorithms. The trick is to get that target hardware to output something that looks like Doom. Once you've passed that hurdle, you've got 80% of the work done (assuming that you're doing real programming, and writing the device drivers and algorithms yourself, thereby establishing a proprietary 3D engine, and not just ripping off or copying somebody else's work).

Now then, if you go through this process, and approach the mathematics carefully, you might be able to program up a nice engine that utilizes menger spaces and fractals. Now then, some physicists and mathematicians might say, 'Nay, a Hilbert Space is better than a Menger Space any day of the week!' To which, I am not completely convinced. I, personally, think that menger spaces and fractal algorithms have a lower overhead in terms of code manipulation, and produce more graphics performance than linear algorithms. Granted, there are many applications where a fractal algorithm is overkill and produces a lot of waste.

However, when trying to program biological and chaotic phenomena, such as plants, ferns, trees, snowflakes, waves, hair, and so forth, a fractal algorithm can do things in a dozen lines of code which other algorithms require thousands and millions of lines of code.

Ergo

It is my opinion that fractal algorithms are really slick, and I hope that PS3 and XBox2 games are programmed with such methodologies.

For the record, any first-person 3D engine has the basic graphics and math to provide you with the resources to do what I'm talking about. Hell, reality has the basic graphics and math to provide you with the resources to do what I'm talking about. I am merely pointing out that Doom may be good study material for the next generation of console game programmers...

Re:Console Programming

[Ryan Amos]

The math is rather trivial. Take a linear algebra class and you've got the right amount of math skills. Think of creating a world of polygons, then taking their orthogonal projection relative to the screen. Heck, this is all 3d is, well, of course there is some perspective stuff in there (sizing yadda yadda, add shadows for depth, etc) but essentially it's just matrix calculations. Nothing too earth-shattering here.

Modern 3d is a lot easier, because with 3d chips, all the tedious calculations were removed. The 3d card will handle all the scaling, lighting and masking for you, so you don't have to write any slow code to do it; it's all hardware and really fast because the operations are essentially the same for every game (and where they're not, we now have things like programmable shaders, vector units, etc.)

Anyway, I guess the point of this is even if you did what you say, it would give no real insight into modern game programming. It's like learning assembly so you can make a mysql database. Just keep in mind that doom (and doom 2 for that matter) were written before the advent of 3d accelerators. Hell, Doom was the first time 3d was used to create a convincing, immersive environment; before that 3d gaming just seemed like kind of a novelty.

Re:Console Programming

[henele]

I remember a tech demo for the pretty much failed Nuon (a chipset which was installed OEM into standard DVD players to let them play games)which was games of Doom rendered onto the surfaces of spinning cubes...

Another point to suggest Doom is an inspiration to lots of games designers...

Re:Console Programming

[Corporate Troll]

Target for the future: something that can do real-time raytracing (isn't raycasting even better?) on a sub-1000$ machine while attaining at least 50frames per second in complex levels.
I don't care what the hardware should be, but a console/PC that cannot do that isn't worth talking about.

Re:Console Programming

[Galvatron]

You realize that Doom was not a 3d game, right? The height dimension was just an illusion, and hence there were no sloped floors or ceilings, rooms could not be stacked on top of each other, and anything shot at an enemy would automatically angle itself up or down to hit it. On top of that, all the objects were sprites, and there were no light sources. All lighting was just a numerical value assigned to the room, which set the brightness level of the walls and any sprites in the room.

Believe me, NO ONE would play a game that looked like Doom on a modern machine. Especially now that it's been GPLed, why wouldn't your hypothetical entry level game company just use the Quake 2 engine? Or pay ID the going rate to use Quake 3?

Re:Console Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, lets all write our own software 3D engines!

Yay, what year do you think this is, 1990?

Creating a game nowadays is so different from back then that you even compare. Everything uses DirectX and OpenGL on 3D hardware now. No sane person would create a software 3D engine. OK, handhelds still need this, but those games don't compare in visual quality.

Re:Console Programming

[jez9999]

What about Wolfenstein 3d? GUTEN TAG!!!!!!!!!

Re:Console Programming

[ChaosDiscord]

I see you're not encumbered with any experience in the fields of game development, 3D graphics, or software development. If you weren't so earnest, I'd assume you were a troll.

You earlier suggested the people reverse engineer how Doom works. While that might have been interesting nine years ago, it's old hat now. One of the reasons that Carmack is such a god amoung geeks is that he gives talks on how his technology works. In the case of Doom, it's extremely well understood at this point. You can actually buy "How to write a 3D game" books that walk you through creating a Doom-like engine. In fact, the technology in question is out of date. To make Doom and fast and cool as possible, Carmack took a number of shortcuts (like making the game fundamentally 2D). Shortcuts that would be unacceptable these days (and thus Carmack continues to be on the cutting edge, developing a new engine for Doom III.

These games are all Doom and Wolfenstein based.

I'd suggest using "inspired by" instead of "based". Many people (myself in cluded) view "based" as meaning "derived from", as in "sharing some specific elements, probably source code. None of the games you cited are derived from the Doom or Wolfenstein's code. They may share certain algorithms common in 3D graphics, but those same algorithms were well known by computer scientists working on graphics many years prior. You strangely included "All 3D Basketball/Baseball/Football Games". What are you smoking? They certainly didn't inherit the portal based or ray casting systems allowing for large levels. They didn't inherit the first person perspective. They didn't inherit the twitchy, violent gameplay. The didn't inherit the software based rendered. The only thing in common is that they are both 3D.

One answer (although not the only one): Leap frog ahead of the competition. Predict what the gaming platform is going to be 2 or 4 or 8 years from now, and begin programming now....

Trying to guess what sort of hardware you'll be dealing with is insane. The only sure thing is "it will be faster." The console companies in question aren't quite sure what they'll be releasing in 4 years. (Yes, they're working on them now, but their plan will continually shift as their goals and dreams meet budgets and schedules.)

Now then, if you go through this process, and approach the mathematics carefully, you might be able to program up a nice engine that utilizes menger spaces and fractals.

And now you're just babbling.... Just because something sounds impressive doesn't mean it makes any sense. Leave the decisions on technology to people actually doing the work.

Daikatana: such a cool name for a...

[Anonymous Coward]

...mere crappy FPS. I thought it was going to be some expansive strategy game using Samurai mythos, etc. Instead it turned out to be some stupid shooter. :vomit:

Romero's inspiration?

[AnonymousCowheard]

Mr. Romero,

Puting aside all the splattered corpses, deranged vertebrae, snarling beasts of death, and moppy hair, what inspired you to be the the man to control the immortal death-spawning machine of E1M30?

Will I meet you again, some form or another, maybe even in a healthkit, somewhere within the scope of Doom3? It wouldn't be the same without you...Carmack thinks a good game is moreso implementation than creativity. You are the creativity, Carmack was the implementation; separate, we would see somthing less.

and...

[rigelstar]

Who the hell would give a damn?

Stencil Shadows?

[Nasheer]

The source code of Doom was released a long time ago.
Wouldn't it be sweet if Stencil Shadows were implemented, just like it was in Quake 1?

God, I am felling weird again. Just like in the old times of Doom 2...

Re:Stencil Shadows?

[jericho4.0]

Sourceforge is down for maintenence at the moment, but there is a doom+OpenGL,etc hack going on. Havn't tried it, but the screenshots look cool.

Wow 10 years

[RumpRoast]

It strike anyone else that this seems like sort of a long time? It's been almost that long since the original release.

Revolutionary Programming and Advanced Design Make For Great Gameplay

DALLAS, Texas, January 1, 1993-Heralding another technical revolution in PC programming, Id Software's DOOM promises to push back the boundaries of what was thought possible on a 386sx or better computer. The company plans to release DOOM for the PC in the third quarter of 1993, with versions planned for Windows, Windows NT, and a version for the NeXTall to be released later.

Re:Wow 10 years

[Jugalator]

Yikes, makes you wonder what you're doing with life. :-P

I mean...

1993: Playing Doom to death.
2003: Eagerly awaiting Doom III.

That's kinda disturbing... :-(

Re:Wow 10 years

[Duds]

Is 1997 Quake 2?

i.e - half way between Doom and Doom 3.

Interesting.

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

its been offline since 1998, when it was handed to Romero to look after, and has finally resurfaced.

And within two seconds of posting, it's once again offline.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom archives reopen YOU.

Re:Umm... that's like a cool website right?

[Cyno01]

lookit, a screen shot of pong

| |

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"Its been offline since 1998"

[Superfreaker]

And now again in 2002.

yeah

[AnonymousCowheard]

I know what you mean.

Yet Doom was more effective. Given Carmack and Romero were two different design aspects, one man being all about implementation and the other focusing more on content and art; and the question I always receive from people is the same...

"WHO THE FUCK DO I HOLD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CYBER DEMON AND THE SPIDER MASTERMIND TO BARELY FADE AFTER BEING NUKED A HUNDRED TIMES WHEN I AM BUT A MERE MAN WHO CAN BARELY WITHSTAND 1 ROCKET BLAST MYSELF?"

Doom had so much immortal gameplay put into it that strategy of choosing how to fight one of the nearly immortal enemies is what caused many gamers to pass their Quake bootcamp with flying colors. Doom's cheatcodes is what separated the draft dodgers from the 1337 strategists. I'll never forget playing 2 player DOS DOOM1.666 over serial cable...I have never played a multiplayer Doom game ever since; I tried to play csDoom, but at the time some dork made a denial-of-service app and always intentionaly crash the csDoom server 'cause he didn't like the csDoom maintaner and the poor implementation. Go figure?

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

csdoom has been replaced with Zdaemon, a zdoom based multiplayer port. It's better than csdoom, for the most part.

Except that while DM works well, coop is horribly, horribly broken to the point where it's unplayable. Like, it crashes when you switch levels. And you can't see archvile fire. I get the impression that it isn't going to be fixed anytime soon, either.

... And then there's the fact that every server that people play on runs at skill level 5(Double ammo, extra weapon damage) with a level that's about as big as my bathroom. Adrenaline over gameplay. Bleh, no thank you.

Ah well.

Re:yeah

[W32.Klez.H]

well, csdoom is back up, and that seems to be running better than zdaemon, for me at least. Doom Connecter, which supports zdoom, csdoom, and doom legacy, is also around, but it's slower, and laggier. i recently discovered all of these, so I've been playing the field, so to speak.

That's on the list!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you have been playing DOOM too long when...

...going to sleep you open the bedroom's door and instead of turning lights on you fire a missile into the room.

...you sleep with a chainsaw under your pillow,and justify it with 'you never know what lurks in the dark'.

...going into a room or getting off an elevator, you run in and out quickly to see what follows you out.

...you don't worry so much about getting hurt, since you'll probably pick up one of those blue spheres somewhere.

...watching someone come out of an elevator makes your mouse finger twitch.

...the dog growls and you dive over the couch while reaching for a shotgun.

...you find yourself strafing around corners from time to time.

...you push on a wall as you walk down the hall looking for secret entrances.

...you rush for a neon-blue down vest in K-Mart.

...you reach for your chainsaw when your wife's cold gives her the sniffles.

...you search for a radiation suit before going into a swimming pool.

...you instinctively target trash cans while walking around campus/work.

...you look for sniper spots above you when getting in an elevator.

...you can't stop squinting as you walk around your house.

...you think you can actually walk through walls.

...you start making chainsaw noises if you hear a strange noise.

...you wish you had a chainsaw, just in case.

...you buy a radiation suit and Infra-red goggles, just in case.

Hrm, his site may be down

[dethl]

But hes teaching for the Arts and Engineering program at the University of Texas at Dallas (where I'm hoping to go, major in computer science however)... Why yes this IS John Romero's name on the faculty list :P

Re:Hrm, his site may be down

[Bald Wookie]

I guess those who can't really do teach...

Re:Hrm, his site may be down

[Tetrad69]

Tom Hall is also teaching there.

And it's interesting, because Romero apparently drives his Hummer to school on the Friday mornings when he has his lecture... Basically he's making his students make an engine in a semester. Really difficult class from what my peers say.

If you're wondering what book he's using, it's Andre LaMothe's "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus".

domain

[JeffSh]

Did anyone else groan when they saw the domain name? rome.ro .... wonder if its related to the goatse

Re:Umm... that's like a cool website right?

[Anonymous Coward]

fastest shlashdot effect ever?
yes Cyno01, all screenshots should look like this
| |

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, these jokes are sure getting boreing eh?

smashing pumpkins

[WilyKit]

Sign the petition to get IDSPISPOPD in Doom 3!

nice screenshot resolution ;)

[LUN!X]

It's not a coincidence that the screencaptures are all exactly the same resolution as my Casio E125 Pocket PC. Carmack and the boys were way ahead of the curve waaaay back then, coding for my PDA.

Good job!

Re:nice screenshot resolution ;)

[Jugalator]

That's actually an interesting comment, since Blizzard recently announced they're making their pretty ancient games for Gameboy's.

I guess the low system requirements make them easier to port without cutting down on features. :-)

Re:nice screenshot resolution ;)

[NeuroKoan]

Sweet! I was just thinking the other day, that someone needed to make a Blackthorne clone. This, though, is even better news.

Re:nice screenshot resolution ;)

[Lumpy]

Hey Lost Vikings still to this day RULE. I just wish that carmack would release the earlier ID games for creation on the game-boy and advance platform... I would really like to see the earlier stuff updated slightly and portable :-)

Hey, John... I know you read slashdot... wanna try a programming challenge? make a GB color version of everyones most favorite side scroller! you know which one...

Soviet sad man is saying:

[Anonymous Coward]

i am sad that these jokes are sure getting boreing eh :*( ?

ID hit the nail on the head on this one..

[cowmix]

"This is the first game to really exploit the power of LANs and modems to their full potential. In 1993, we fully expect to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world."

Yep, my small little ISP in '93 was brought to its knees because of this program..

Re:ID hit the nail on the head on this one..

[siphoncolder]

"In 1993, we fully expect to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world."

It happened to Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) too - he played so much Doom that it got in the way of his work. Unexpectedly, the record he put out after getting over his Doom addiction ("The Downward Spiral") turned out to be a smash multi-platinum hit. We (should) all know that he went on to do the sound effects & music soundtrack to Quake.

An aside: how many of you DIDN'T know what the "NIN" stood for on the boxes of nails in Quake? (Admit it - I've caught a few people that didn't know that.) It was another iD joke - John Carmack put a NIN graphic on the boxes during beta testing, as a joke & tribute to Trent Reznor, and it make it to the final product.

My favorite quote from the press release...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The game runs fine on a 386sx, and on a 486/33, we're talking 35 frames per second, fully texture-mapped at normal detail, for a large area of the screen. That's the fastest texture-mapping around-period."

Well, we cant argue with the facts...

How can I run those?

[tweakt]

The old versions of DOOM won't run under modern OS's... anyone know how to get them running under, say win XP ? Or do I need VMWare or similar?

Re:How can I run those?

[stmpynode]

yeah try http://prboom.sourceforge.net includes opengl support and tcp/ip support :)

Re:How can I run those?

[(startx)]

For a /. readers OS, I'd recommend PrBoom . For windows, you'd have to go with WinDoom . Of course you have to have the wad files, but I'm sure if your asking how to run it you've allready got those right.........

Re:How can I run those?

[Anonymous Coward]

Original DOOM runs *just* *fine* on XP. I just finished Episode 1 yesterday as a nostalgia trip.

Installed off the *original* DOOM 1.2 floppies.

Re:How can I run those?

[lpontiac]

For a /. readers OS, I'd recommend PrBoom [sourceforge.net]. For windows, you'd have to go with WinDoom

PrBoom has a Windows version. OpenGL supported and all.

Re:How can I run those?

[Anonymous Coward]

ZDoom
Legacy Doom
JDoom

They all use OpenGL and have cool features like dynamic lightmaps, transparency, support for high resolutions, texture filtering, full mouselook, etc etc. There are other projects too, but these three are most mature AFAIK.

Re:How can I run those?

[Anonymous Coward]

And no savegames in the last two slots, right?

Re:How can I run those?

[zuralin]

i reccomend DooM Legacy, works great on my debian box. apt-get install doomlegacy. might need to use unstable servers. llxdoom -opengl -iwad /location/of/the.wad

Re:How can I run those?

[Mitchell Mebane]

Or, if you like 3D goodness, I recommend jDOOM. Grab the 3D model pack, and it looks sweet. See here for some screenshots and locations of some high-res textures. More screenies here.

Re:How can I run those?

[Anonymous Coward]

PRBOOM is tough for a lot of people to set up to run smoothly. better off with "legacy doom" (at sourceforge, for linux and windows and whatever). current version is 1.40, i believe.

Re:How can I run those?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you read? He was asking about modern OSes.

Of course...

[Glendale2x]

now, it's right back offline, due to the slashdot effect.

ID, shark, jumped

[Anonymous Coward]

well, that's what this means to me.

I have a theory DOOM III will be out on 12/10/2003

[antdude]

It might be a demo, full version, or a test version. It would be a good way to celebrate 10 years of DOOM. ;)

To hell with that, show his girlfriend!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now there's an archive worth slashdotting!

yawn, rtfa

[Anonymous Coward]

He answers that question on the site. It was the artists idea to put Romero's head in the game.

Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Hagmonk]

Not just a landmark in the gaming community, but in my life. It sculpted me into what I am today.

Suddenly, fast hardware was important. Getting friends around to deathmatch was important. Writing my own levels and sound effects files was important. I was shelling open the machine, squeezing out as much performance as possible. I was learning about graphics, about 3D design.

My reflexes became honed. I surprised people with my ability to notice pencils rolling off the table and catch them before they even had time to register something was happening.

Out of sheer time at a keyboard, both in and out of the game, I started typing at over 100 words per minute. I could mouse around a GUI quicker than people thought reasonable.

I discovered the internet. I payed $9 per hour to access it in Australian dollars, and that didn't include the timed STD calls I had to make to get to the ISP. I consumed every map file I could lay my hands on. I discovered porn, e-mail, gopher, the web, FTP, IRC in that order. I started making friends with people I had never seen in real life. I used Kali because Doom lacked TCP/IP support.

Now I am an I.T. professional, still as passionate as I was the first time I layed hands on the Doom I shareware installation floppies (that a thoughtful person in a Canberra computer games store copied for me). I still get shivers when I hear the Doom I map 1 music (it's my polyphonic mobile phone ring).

Without Doom, my passion for computers would not have developed, and I would probably not be posting to slashdot today.

May Cthulu bless ID and all their works.

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL i remember when the "Leaked" photoes and the alpha came out on the BBS's .
I ran a BBS and had the files but at that time I only had a EGA monitor.
Spent 700 Bucks on a VGA just because of that game

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Hagmonk]

I'm at work at the moment, having a break and browsing slashdot. Do you mind if I wait until after hours before I resume fucking people? Thanks.

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[DarkAurora]

I can second all of that!

I had almost forgotten about Kali, I remember playing the original Descent with that. That was my first introduction to internet gaming as well.

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like they built you in a laboratory out of parts from lesser nerds!

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwohohohoho, hahahahahaha, hehehehehehe!

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dork. You made me cry. :)

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. However, I'm not exactly sure if I should celebrate with you or weep bitterly.

Re:Thankyou DOOM, ID, and Cthulu.

[kaxman]

Boy you really brought some AC's out of the woodwork, didn't you? Of course we all know it's simply because they (like me) went through the same exact thing :)

This still doesn't make John Romero cool

[thesadjester]

John Romero wishes he were cool still. He'll forever live in the shadows of his former self from id software. While he's forced to make crappy titles and other titles that never make it to the market, the guys at id turn out very sucessful games.

Not that I worship id or anytihng - I just know what a fun game is, and Daikatana sucked. He obviously didn't understand the world either since his company's successful game, dues ex, was initially released without multiplayer support.

What can I say? I wish I had a cool url like, rome.ro....well maybe not. I'm not that much of a loser.

Get a new job, John.

Re:This still doesn't make John Romero cool

[AbRASiON]

Yeah only the thing is John makes GAMES, id software has been an ENGINE maker since he left.

Sure Daikatana was a fuck up but he TRIED - he got it wrong, he's not a good manager maybe but he put an effort in.

If you've ever seen an interview with the guy or READ rome.ro you'd realise this guy has a REALLY great attitude about gaming - he's nostalgic - he enjoys games and he want's to have fun - the guy was crying because some moron like yourself sent him (yet another) abusive email just to make themselves feel better.

That's more than I can say for the id crew who seem to care less and less about each title, John C himself has said multiple times in interviews that certain aspects of a game are just gimmicks (even though said aspects would add to the title such as realistic physics in Doom 3) to put it bluntly as far as _I'M_ concerned Carmack and crew have far less enthusiasm for GAMES than they do engines...

He may have had a few failures in his time, but for christs sakes can we leave the guy alone now please???

Re:This still doesn't make John Romero cool

[Str8Dog]

Untill Doom III I would agree with you. Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3 were simply engines that Raven built good games on. (and hopefully American McGee now....)

But it seems id has renewed its intrest in creating great game play. Grahm was hired and is basically filling the void that Romero left behind.

Having seen the Doom III leak, I have hope. And if id lets me down in the single-player arena, I know that multi will rock and Raven will once again save the day.

quoth

[zephc]

"Its been offline since 1998, when it was handed to Romero to look after [...]"

He's a crappy webmaster too!

Re:quoth

[EvilSmile]

I was reading through this thread and was wondering what one hyped game going bad can do to a developer.

I'm a college students and working on making a game with some of my pals and i can only begin to see what it takes to make a game and ship it (and one as popular as Doom!). It takes immense talent and loads of work to come out with stuff of that kind. It takes a lot of guts to try out what Diakatana started as.

I am not saying it's bad people have all sorts of jokes about him here. What i *am* trying to say here is that he deserves more respect for what he's done.

I believe John Romero deserves more credit and respect than he is given

Re:quoth

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we've found John Romero's bitch. Suck it down.

Odd timing

[Zenithal]

It didn't even occur to me until I'd been looking at the screenshots for a bit, but in a completely independent act of nostalga I've been listening to the Doom & Doom II soundtrack all night, and it's still on now.

Weird.

Just plain weird.

And scary.

for the uninitiated...

[Timmeh]

John Romero is secretely a woman.

Re:for the uninitiated...

[Anonymous Coward]

or perhaps those penny arcade guys have some seriously repressed sexual desires :P but hey, tomay-to, tomah-to

Re:for the uninitiated...

[legLess]

Aw, Timmeh, you killed Penny Arcade :(

Warning: Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /data/users/penny-arcade/www/php_admin_header.php3 on line 11

Tycho's gonna be pissed...

Re:for the uninitiated...

[Timmeh]

oh no, you're right.. now i feel kinda bad.. but the karma felt sooo good! how can something that feels so good be so bad?

Re:for the uninitiated...

[Anonymous Coward]

Noooo! you killed penny-arcade!

Raises a flag to yet another victim of the terrible plague of slashdotting.

Re:for the uninitiated...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean?

Next you'll be saying that this is strange.

Re:for the uninitiated...

[parliboy]

What, you haven't installed XP yet?

Re:for the uninitiated...

[IsoRashi]

Perhaps you're right...

Penny Arcade

Hey, don't forget Breakout

[kfg]

||||*

Which was, like, pong for people without any friends.

KFG

Re:Hey, don't forget Breakout

[Anonymous DWord]

What is this, ASCII video game day? It is? Oh. Well, here's Tetris:

| _ |
| _| | |
| | _| |
| |_| |
| |
| _ |
||_| _ _ |
||_| _|_|_||
||_|_|_|_|_||

Re:Hey, don't forget Breakout

[PD]

* *

*

* ... <

* *

That would be asteroids I think.

Compression filter got me, so I've got to put in some crap here - 2323452 3.14156265

The missing link?

[Scaebor]

Those pictures of the beta levels look an awful lot like some of the levels from quake 3. The technological look with silver walls full of dials and miscellaneous lights really resembles, say the tutorial level in the newer game minus, of course, the whole 3d thing.

Don't be silly

[kfg]

Most people wanted the alpha so badly they payed forty bucks for it.

Of course what they ended up getting was the *pre*alpha. Yeah, most people would love to be able to download an actual alpha version.

KFG

Fear Me!

[teamhasnoi]

IDKFA hahahahahaha!

Romero and the pipes of doom...

[tanveer1979]

Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
------
Doom: The safest place is behind a trigger
Slashdot : Where the safest place is *not* on the front page

Re:Romero and the pipes of doom...

[pinny20]

Yep, it's been offline since 1998, and it looks like it's going to be offline for a few more days! :)

Fear what?

[dillon_rinker]

I'll see your IDKFA, and raise you an IDDQD

Re:Fear what?

[The Bungi]

IDDQD

*grin* Does anyone remember trying this in Heretic... and being majorly pissed?

Trying to cheat eh? Now you die!

...or something like that.

Re:Fear what?

[NeoSkandranon]

I just remember telling my brother to try it =D I knew what it did. He OTOH, was majorly pissed.

Re:Fear this!

[teamhasnoi]

Fine! I call. I've got IDSPISPOPD *and* IDKFA!

Sweet Peat of Ireland!

[AnonymousCowheard]

How long have you had this collection of John Romero comic strip URL's bottled-up in that endless mind of yours?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Soviet sad man is saying:

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia floors and ceilings ricochet off you!

Can you draw...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Tetanus On Drugs?

nostalgia? withstanding the test of time?

[yerricde]

Why would anyone want to play a game that looks like DooM on the PS3 or XBox 2?

Why would anyone want to play a game that looks like the original Super Mario Bros. on a 2 GHz Pentium 4 based PC with a GeForce 4 processor?

Why would anyone want to play Solitaire on that same system?

Why would anyone want to play Tetris on that same system?

Because they're still fun.

"tour de forces" or "tours de force"

[MMHere]

I read the press release, and it makes me want to break out my 486DX just to play it but --

isn't it "tours de force" ?

Re:Playin DOOM

[LUN!X]

uhh no, actually, it was a couple of faggot goth kids with their daddys' guns who were responsible for violent acts like the Columbine shootings. Obviously. You dumb fuckwad. Nice troll though.

You have been trolled by TiggerStripe!! I'll shit you out, kid.

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, sure getting boring are these jokes YOU! .....fuck.

Ahhh the days of multiplayer BBS'ing

[ssstraub]

I heard about this game through a friend. I can still remember sitting in class and him saying how he just played this new game and it's so great. Well, I happened across the shareware disks for sale at a big rummage sale type event. It cost me $9 for the first episode on 3 disks plus an extra fourth disk that had utilities and whatever.

Did I mention I bought it BEFORE we even owned a computer? I bought it just to play at my Dad's work after hours! Without sound or anything. And it was still the best game ever!

After my parents bought a PC (a super fast 486/66!) we figured out BBS's and how to play this 4-player, and I don't think to this day, that I've ever had so much fun with a PC game as those days of 4-player Doom on the local BBS.

Re:Ahhh the days of multiplayer BBS'ing

[Anonymous Coward]

After my parents bought a PC (a super fast 486/66!) we figured out BBS's and how to play this 4-player, and I don't think to this day, that I've ever had so much fun with a PC game as those days of 4-player Doom on the local BBS.

Yeah everyone is so stupid (dumbed down from microcrap wincrap) now they can't use a bbs if they had to. I agree though they were some of the best days.

Similarities between Doom III Alpha and Doom ideas

[Jugalator]

Found some interesting stuff in the Doom Bible by Tim Willits (things not making it into Doom I):

Bruiser Brothers
Twin terrors at the end of episode one

These were never used, but there are an unused "monster_demon_bruiser" in the leaked Doom III Alpha files.

A short while later, a strange alien creature bursts into the room. ("What the hell?") A fight ensures.

No monster breaks into a room in Doom I, but a strange half-machine "pinky" demon does break into a room in the Doom III Alpha.

Just two things I noticed from a quick browse... Perhaps there are more. :)

Card playing marines= Half Life

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the first thing I thought of when I saw that screenshot of the Space Marines playing cards before the dimmensional break. Like the scientist banging on the soda machine looking for his quarter and the Barneys walking around in the locker room and on the can (excuse me I'm in here!). That would be cool if they would re-release the game with all this cutting room floor stuff like more story line and different weapons into the game, like the Dragon in the original Quake that never made it.

Why Doom Sucks.

[cosmosis]

OK, I can't hold it anylong - Doom really sucks

It has done more to ruin the state of game playing than any game in history.

For those of you who were around playing games 10 years ago and longer, have the best chance have understanding why this is. Lets recap:

So what do we have today?

We have fantastic hardware and storage capacity. We have incredibly elegant graphic and AI algorithms that make the gaming experience itself very compelling. The advent of Doom was the first truly compelling real-time 3D engine. And it was precisely at that time that gaming has gone down hill. What Doom did for gaming in a positive way (fast rendering engines) it did as much or more in a negative way (dark, repetitive, single-minded (mindless) activity).

And because of the popularity and thus (financially lucrativness) of Doom we've now had to suffer hundreds of mind-numbing shoot-em-up games since. The overwhelming majority of games on the shelves today, are first-person action games where killing is the primary activity. This isn't so bad, if it weren't for the very depressing worlds, that this mayhem takes place in. Have you ever noticed that all the worlds these games take place in our DARK, DANK, and DYSTOPIAN??

People might counter and say what about Myst, or SIMS, or the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. Well Myst is an exception, but whatever happened to the old-fashioned adventure games? Even the Star Trek and Star Wars gaming franchises have succumbed to the Doominization of gaming. So now you can be a starfleet office whose primary duty is to kill as many bad evil aliens as possible! Whoopee! Or be some variation of a Jedi whose primary mission is to kill as many bad guys as possible. And sure enough all of these killing sprees take place in dark, dank, and depressing settings.

Ok, so what I am proposing?

Bring back the adventure games!!! We have all of the hardware and software algorithms now to make adventure games light-years beyond what was available with Ultima 7 or Zork, etc. Not only could we have far-out sci-fi, fantasy adventure worlds, but also we could explore these worlds in first person 3-D now. We could even throw in some real-time shoot-em-ups to spice it up. Why can't we have a game that combines the best of the spirit of true adventure games with the best of the shoot-em-ups?

Imagine a game, where there are hundreds of planets to explore. All of these planets are unique and compelling. Some of these worlds would have alien civilizations or spaceports and colonists, others would be hostile to life. On each of these worlds, lies mysteries waiting to be explored - pieces of a large puzzle that need to be solved. Perhaps we could just explore these worlds as part of a larger strategy of building our characters like we would in traditional RPG. And of all of this exploring could take place in full-immersion real-time 3D. And why oh why, can't we have worlds that are both compelling and beautiful and inspiring to look at?

Has anyone else noticed? Perhaps this is why I have not bought a single PC game in at least three years now.

Planet P Blog - Librety with Technology.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Corporate Troll]

I with you on this one! Unfortunately it's too late: the youngsters of today only know first person shooters and think that a game should be like that. We oldie can refer to any good game of "back in the day" and even run it (DOS/emulator/on an old machine) to show the youngsters what we liked. However, without NVidia graphics and dolby surround sound they will hardly be impressed. :-(
And in the end it's just the mighty dollar that rules what comes on the market. There is no demand for what you describe, well, at least according to those in charge.

Say, the game you described... wasn't that essentially Elite? Just wondering...

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Proc6]

Amen brother. Amen. I have felt the exact same as you for years. I love games. Yet I cannot find a single one I can stand playing for more than 2 minutes. No one makes "Games" in my opinion. Today's crap should be called "Linear, repetitive, entertainment excersizes."

My definition of a game is something where a rather simple set of rules can turn into an almost unlimited possible outcomes. Think of chess. Chess is like Langston's Ant, where just a few rather trivial rules are pitted against each other, yet the tree of possible outcomes and strategies is absolutely insanely difficult to calculate. You could learn to play in an hour, you can spend the rest of your life reading and practicing and always improve. It's truly beautiful.

So with all this powerful hardware, where are the games like that? Where are the carefuly setup rulesets that provide constraints, yet a chaotic, non-linear equation type amount of freedom? Not this "run, run, jump, jump, duck... ooops slipped. Try again. run, run, jump, duck... oops, slipped, try again." Or "kill everybody in a row, run to the exit. Kill everybody in a row, run to the exit." That is embarassingly idiotic.

But, maybe we shouldn't expect otherwise. Games have fallen into the same trap as movies. The demand for payoff is larger, thus the budget must be bigger, because the audience must be wider. The wider the audience, the more dumbed-down the game must become. Ridley Scott said, in Future Noir, the same thing will continue happening to movies till you just can't even break even anymore. Then ... maybe ... the industry will start over and start nichifying again.

It's sad too. You can see a "hint" of it, like in games like Diablo or Age of Empires, or the Grand Theft Auto series. Give people freedom. That's what they want. Don't setup the path, setup the rules, and people will breathe the kind of life THEY want into the game, by playing it THEIR way. And look what happens, those games become wildly successful. But it's like the idiot game designers miss the point, they give the credit for success to the graphics, so, like for Age of Empires, rather than in the next one, building on the chess like attributes they decided to spend all their time and money on a 3D engine which did exactly nothing for the game. So now we have the exact same ruleset, in fact, dumbed down as compared to AOK, but a glorious new tileset that does nothing for the playability. Its frustrating. Look at this recent Slashdot post and you'll see why the situation isn't going to get any better anytime soon.

Anyway, that's my rant. Sorry, I just agree with the original poster 100% and I hope that one day all the people forwarding the success of the clone army of Quake-style games will taste the true satisfaction of an open/world, Langston's Ant type game, and demand more of it from the game makers.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Negatyfus]

What's wrong with dark, depressing and dystopian? I like dark, depressing and dystopian!

It is true that many mind-less first person shooters have spawned into existence since the release of Doom, but certainly this is not the only sort of game that is unleashed upon humanity today.

As for 3D adventure games, I liked Under A Killing Moon a lot. It has a compelling storyline, great graphics and yes, a dark, depressing and dystopian 3D environment. It's awesome!

More recently, I finished Sierra's Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. It too has beautiful 3D graphics (for its time) and a great in-depth plot. Lots of things to explore and figure out, and I think it does justice to the old adventure genre in that respect.

As for RPG's since Doom, you may have forgotten about Baldur's Gate, which is-- God forbid-- a 2D game, as is it's successor Baldur's Gate II, but if you want 3D exploration, let's have a look at Neverwinter Nights or maybe you've got more interest in mindless hack & slack ala Dungeon Siege. Let's not forget the more recent hits in mindlessness; I think good fun can be had with Grand Theft Auto 3, despite it being mindless, but if you want something more intelligent in that vein, have a look at Mafia.

So, no. I don't think the gaming industry is totally down the drain. It could be better, it always can be. There's no such thing as the perfect game for everybody.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Associate]

This isn't so bad, if it weren't for the very depressing worlds, that this mayhem takes place in. Have you ever noticed that all the worlds these games take place in our DARK, DANK, and DYSTOPIAN??

Sounds like home to me. But then again, not everyone is from the Slums of South Durham.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[mirko]

> Has anyone else noticed? Perhaps this is why I have not bought a single PC game in at least three years now.

I bought a few : Q3 Team Arena (not that dark) and Unreal.

BTW, Doom was really playable and fun, just compare it with "Prince Of Persia" 1 where you had to minutiously hit your keyboard to walk (not run) or just fall in the first hole...

I only know one game which had a better gameplay : Commander Keen (4 to 6) by the same team.

So, I have to say your comment is quite trollish but you explain why : you're not addicted to this genre bvut rather to adventure games.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[cosmosis]

Fantastic post Proc6, and thanks for the compliments. I went to Langstons Ants, and I can assume and hope this is the same Langston who attended my Alma Mater (U of Az) and is the pioneer of Artificial Life?

I discovered Chris Langston back in 1987, when he gave a talk at UofA about his work and his new book Artificial Life (of which there are several volumes now). A few weeks after his talk, I had this huge intuite leap, and started to develop an entirely new Game Engine for Adventure games. The idea, is that there would be a large number of n-variables - people, chain-of-events, scenarios, etc. That way as you played the game it would through various degrees of strength effect the rest of the world in obvious and very subtle ways. Like cause and effect, the rest of the game world would could continue to morph and change on one side while you were playing on the other. Then about 18 months later, the original SIMS game came out, and they beat me to the punch. Oh well.

My original idea for this game, and I would still like to see something like it develop an adventure game where you started out a someone in 1987 earth (now 2003), and your goal was to reach the center of the galaxy. That means that you had to live long enough to make it there, or discover some kind of FTL drive sooner than that. So in the game you would a nearly unlimted number of ways to make it there - make millions so you could have yourslef cryonically frozen, or afford the best longevity medicine, invest in the right technologies such as nanotechnology, allie yourslef with the right syndicates so that you were on the winning side, etc, etc. Anyway, it was a great idea back in 1987, and I would love to see something even remotely close to it now.

I will re-iterate:

The state of gaming today is totally pathetic.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[geekster]

Actually, if you look at the games from 10 years ago you'll see a lot of side scrolling shooters and platform games.

But I agree, more adventure games! Good thing that Sam n' Max 2 and Full Throttle 2 is coming.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[StandardDeviant]

Oh, how can anyone overlook Fallout and Fallout 2? They've come well after doom (fallout was in '97 iirc), and are excellent examples of the adventure/discovery/plot-driven genre. Oh, yes, they're also dark, dank, and quite dystopian. And there's lots of killing. But the violence is secondary to the plot. Let's face it, when you're trying to restore order to an irradiated anarchic wasteland, guns are going to come out at some point...

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Bartmoss]

I think you got the chicken-and-egg problem solved the wrong way. Remember the 60s to 80s? Post-nuclear apocalypse was all the rage, from Wasteland to Mad Max. Why? Because real life threatened the entire world with sudden thermonuclear destruction, and people used movies, books, and games to cope with the issue.

Then we hit the 80s and 90s and cyberpunk and dystopia are all the rage. Economic downturn, return to facist political systems, apathy, culture shock, corruption. Have you considered that this is what is really bothering people, scaring them, and they use the computer games to vent these fears, to deal with them in some way?

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[some damn guy]

Aren't you being a little unfair? I can think of about a million games before and since Doom that were repetitive and violent. Just because it missed an opportunity in your eyes is no reason to criticize it. After all, making that game as immersive as it was took enough work. They can't be blamed for not having the time to make a game with complex and rich gameplay. They did enough- netplay- convincing 3d worlds. I know you think the technology has been wasted since but they really did get the ball rolling. I guess its a glass half full kind of thing for me. As for the violence, it's been the demographic for video games I'm afraid. Fortunately thats changing though.

The sad thing is that depth must be programed by people and that takes a lot of effort and time. The guys at ID know this limitation and strive to do only a few things well while making the tech available as a platform for others ID has consistently done well while many wildly ambitious games have sucked. There's a limit to how much you can do.

If you really want that sort of thing, I think the new MMP RPGs offer a lot of hope. It's hard to make cool worlds, though. Its a ton of work and they're aren't many shortcuts. The money involved in computer gaming nowdays is finally making some of this possible. That wasn't true in Doom's day.

Twitch games have always been a hell of a lot easier to make and surprisingly fun despite their simplicity. No wonder they're everywhere. Its a practical problem and I more than anyone wish it wasn't so. But whatcha gonna do.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[jez9999]

I think Bethesda Softworks have been creating games similar to the ones you want to see. Try playing Daggerfall and now Morrowind. I haven't played Morrowind personally, but it looks incredible :-)

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[jez9999]

Ahem. I LOVED Prince of Persia!! Wonderful graphics and animation for its time, addictive gameplay right through the entire game.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[AndroidCat]

Have you ever noticed that all the worlds these games take place in our DARK, DANK, and DYSTOPIAN??

Oh cool! Sims: Trailer Park!

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[UnknownSoldier]

> It has done more to ruin the state of game playing than any game in history.

And what have *you* done to improve it? What games have you worked on that makes gamers think different?? (And yes, I'm a game developer, so I'm doing my [little] part.)

Blaming Doom for *all* of the problem that publishers (and developers) want to maximize profits at the expense of gameplay shows an extremely ignorant view of gaming history. The obsession with presentation over substance has been going on for the past 10+ years!

While I agree that many developers/publishers have "sequelitis" (I feel the same as you but in the movie industry - I don't go to theaters anymore to see the same plot/explosions retold), and also agree that by and large, more games are just last years games repackaged with better graphics & sound without much thought to improving gameplay - there *are* developers/publishers trying to be innovative - both commercial games (Sims, GTA3, Morrowind, Majesty, Halo, Animal Crossing, etc), and indie games (TreadMarks, etc) There are gems out there, you just have to look.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[tolan-b]

sorry but i really think that's rubbish.

before doom there were stacks and stacks of side scroller and vertical scroller shoot em ups, that had even less diversity that the current drop of first person shooters.

adventure games now tend towards rpgs like planescape torment and baldurs gate 2. what about deus ex? a superb adventure and fps rolled into one!

others have also listed many other notable games that don't fit your description.

i think far more of a problem now is, perversely, the huge market that games have, the volume that come out, and the immense costs associated with making a modern game. this has lead to publishers being wary of new and original games that may not have such large mass market appeal, leading to a dumbing down of a lot of the bigger name games.

luckily the creativity in the games industry holds this at bay, and we still get superb titles like gta3, deus ex, worms (a bit old i'll admit), the final fantasy series, and the total war series.

i think creativity and variety in games are alive and well. consoles could do with some more however.

on a side note, why the hell are most console games single player? i mean come on, the reason i bought my consoles is to play with my mates while chilling in the living room, if i wanted to be a hermit i'd just play pc games...

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Chris Carollo]

Out of curiousity, have you played Thief 1 or 2, System Shock 2, or Deus Ex?

Much of your rant lines up pretty well with the design philosophies we had at Looking Glass (and I know Irrational shared), and that we have currently at Ion Storm. So I'm curious as to your take on how well we've accomplished our goals.

Chris Carollo
Deus Ex 2 Lead Programmer

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Urchlay]

> What Doom did for gaming in a positive way
> (fast rendering engines) it did as much or
> more in a negative way (dark, repetitive,
> single-minded (mindless) activity).

You can't blame Doom for the mindlessness trend in video games. Space Invaders was just as mindless, 10+ years before, and just as popular in its day.

> Imagine a game, where there are hundreds of
> planets to explore.

Star Control II (aka Ur-Qan Masters) anybody?

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Dr Caleb]

Buddy, Desu Ex ROCKS!

I'm replaying the GOTY Edition for the umpteenth time. Each time has been a new experience. Should I play stealthily? Should I go full out fragfest? Will I sell out to the dark side? Will I try to get zero kills, or just pop 'em from afar?

I haven't tried the Thief series, but I have to say that Deus Ex was the biggest diversionary FPS (if you can call it that) since Duke Nukem 3D and Nocturne.

Everything else just seems to be shiny replacements for Wolfenstein.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[FishDog]

It's not Dooms fault. That's what people like to do. Face it. Nothing is more fun than blowing away a live person on the other end of the network, or over the internet. The games out today are the best ever. I like the nascar racing games. But nothing compares to getting in there with the big guns. And Doom, in it's day.. Well, lets just say that when you got a hold of the BFG 9000 you were one bad dude. And all those other games are out there for people who like them. Just my opinion.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[cosmosis]

I think you make a good point, but during the same time period we had scores of fantastic visionary utopian fiction. We got Star Wars and Star Trek during the height of the cold war. We also gots lots of very interesting sci-fi coming out both in print and in movies during that time. But you have me thinking too about what people tend to gravitate towards depending on the current political-social climate. With are rapid slide into opressive facism, I'm curious what type of games and movies will come out in the next couple of years. Speilbergs 'Minority Report' is a perfect response to the current trends such Poindexter's TIA.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Punk Walrus]

Have you ever noticed that all the worlds these games take place in our DARK, DANK, and DYSTOPIAN??

I have several responses:

Smartass: Are you saying it's more like real life in my windowless office pods, living under the marketing office?

Smarmy: How about Serious Sam? I almost got sun blindness looking at the Pyramids.

Patronizing (that's when someone talks down to you with simple words): It's just a game. Chill. Go outisde and play with your little neighborhood friends. No one ever died going, "I wish my games had been better..."

Serious: Okay, I do agree that a lot of FPRs are dark and depressing. So are a lot of sci-fi films. I was told it's a trick so you can use less pixels (or in films, work in a smaller studio).

_________________________________________________
SAT grads to this party is like water is to fire... Mark Jackson, 1987 - www.punkwalrus.com

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[blixel]

Ok, so what I am proposing?

Bring back the adventure games!!!

Yeah - no doubt. A modern day Kings Quest game done as an FPS!! That would rock!

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Dirtside]

The fact that you keep demanding that games do things which aren't feasible indicates that you aren't a programmer... maybe you should learn about the limitations game designers face before snubbing all of their work.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Anonvmous Coward]

" Chess is like Langston's Ant [samskivert.com], where just a few rather trivial rules are pitted against each other, yet the tree of possible outcomes and strategies is absolutely insanely difficult to calculate. "

Are you kidding? Chess is BORING. At least it was until the modding community got a hold of it. Chess Rally Capture the Duck is awesome!

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[xingix]

Mod this parent up! You are exactly correct!

I have to admit that I liked Doom when it came out because it was new technology and it was different. Now that I've upgraded my PC with a fast 3D card and a blazing new CPU, I've found that there *aren't* a lot of good games to choose from anymore.

Whatever happened to games like Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, the Space and King's Quests, even Legend of Kyrandia. Something about those adventure games were compelling.

And *no*, 9 times out of 10, (3D != fun) That's my honest opinion. Now I feel like a dummy for purchasing my GeForce 4TI with 128DDR RAM :-(

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[EggSackLee]

I loved Deus Ex, I recommend it to everyone, and am absolutely waiting impatiently for the next one. Not only that, but it worked for me out of the box...

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[cosmosis]

They are feasible, just not economically lucrative.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Deus Ex was a beautiful game :)
I really should replay it.

System Shock 2 was also very cool.

They're 2 of the best FPS games I've played.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[bnenning]

Out of curiousity, have you played Thief 1 or 2, System Shock 2, or Deus Ex?

Deus Ex: Best...game...ever. Looking very forward to DX 2 (there will be a Mac port, right?)

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Dirtside]

You really think that it's feasible (let alone possible) to write a game that would give you a "nearly unlimted [sic] number of ways" to get off Earth and reach the center of the galaxy? Well, either someone has to code interface, logic, and AI for (at the very least) hundreds of separate mechanisms for doing this, or they have to reimplement reality inside a computer game, so that you have true freedom within the game engine. You really think this is feasible? Then why don't you go ahead and do it, and prove the entire game industry wrong? Go ahead. We're waiting.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[cosmosis]

Huh? If you read my original post, you will see that this n-variable artifical life algrothim has already been implemented in the long line of SIMS Games since 1989. My only complaint is that these same algorithms have not been applied to adventure games. When I say nearly unlimted I am referring specifically to the number of outcomes, just like chess. You can buy a computerized chess game for $19.95 and it has 10^81 possible outcomes. The same goes for most of the SIMS games. And there is no single compelling reason why this cannot be applied to adventure games. Its no longer the technical challenge to make this game - only a temporal and financial one.

Please read my original post and complains about why computer games suck, before critisizing any of my comments. I appreciate your criticism, but I'd like all the more if it were more informed.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[ecc0]

It IS possible to complete Fallout without killing anyone. It's just not nearly the easiest way, but it goes to show that there are nearly infinite ways to complete the game.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Deus Ex rocks!
And System Shock 2 rocks, too!

Unfortunately, the Linux port of DX never saw the daylight. :(

Since you're using the UT2k3 engine to develop DX2 it shouldn't be too difficult to create a linux port, I hope.
It would be very cool if you could release Linux/Mac/Win in one box like Epic did with UT2k3.
That would be utterly cool!

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Dirtside]

My only complaint is that these same algorithms have not been applied to adventure games.

The reason for that is that "number of outcomes" means something totally different in games like SimCity or chess, and adventure games like (say) Diablo II. Why? Because SimCity and chess don't have plots. There's no story. Any outcome is essentially the same as any other -- either you win or you lose.

You can't randomly generate good stories using algorithms. Computers aren't intelligent enough to do such a thing on their own. (Not yet; possibly not ever, depending who you believe.) Not to mention generating the actual game content to match that plot (video, audio, puzzles, mysteries, other gameplay elements). The closest you can get is having some finite number of elements that the computer randomly selects from; but each element still has to be hand-crafted by a human, and after a couple of play-throughs, you start seeing the same elements over and over again.

Now, such a game would be a truly amazing feat -- revolutionary at the very least. Do you really think that it hasn't happened because no one's had the desire to? Be realistic. The reason it hasn't happened is because it's not possible right now.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[cosmosis]

Again your are wrong. Did you ever Play the Blade Runner Game that came out in late 97? It was a fantastic game, and it had hundreds of possible scenarios and plot twists.

The design of my game was similar, the goal of my game was to get to the center of the galaxy, so ultimately there are only a few ways you could achieve that, say a dozen or so. So my games possibilities continued to narrow and the large number of alternate story lines and game play trajectories continued to merge as you played. This game could have easily been created in 1997 and even more so now. And despite the fact that this game can be done right now, it hasn't. My chief complaint is that compelling games are just not made anymore in the wake of Doom, Quake, etc. Its not what the kiddies want, and its not what makes money (at least in the eyes of the game makers).

You have to admit games have gotten increasingly mindless over the years, since Ultima 7, etc. We either have boring/slow strategy games on one extreme, or mindless fast fps games on the other.

To repeat my main point: Where are the adventure games?!

If we could do Ulitima 7, years ago, imagine what we could do today, if only the legion of programmers at a Game Development company were to be paid to make it. Imagine.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Akuinnen]

You should try the Thief series. I just finished the second one. Even though they are old and don't sport fancy graphics they are awesome games. I also loved Deus Ex and played it twice. After the second time I needed more. Thief filled that. There are many different routes you can take to finish objectives. I love sneaking up behind guards and knocking them out, using rope arrows, and water arrows. Or when I'm pissed, just going for the silent kill with an arrow to the back of the head.

Mmmmm..

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[Dirtside]

I'd be rather surprised if Blade Runner's "hundreds of possible scenarios and plot twists" weren't all hand-coded. Which is fine; there's no reason you can't spend several years hand-coding a huge, elaborate, intricate plot. All I'm saying is that the kind of freedom you're asking for (essentially a semirandom simulation of the real world that is entertaining and not boring or repetetive) still isn't feasible for computers to generate on the fly.

You have to admit games have gotten increasingly mindless over the years, since Ultima 7, etc. We either have boring/slow strategy games on one extreme, or mindless fast fps games on the other.

No, I don't. There have been plenty of compelling games since Ultima 7. And I would list them, except you'll just nitpick about the ones you don't like. You may not have found anything compelling, but lots of other people seem to (I certainly have found plenty of games I wouldn't hesistate to call "compelling"). You're basically just acting like an old fogey ("Bah, everything kids listen to today is noise! Now Lawrence Welk, THAT'S real music!"). I call it Nostalgitis -- you had great experiences with computer games when you were younger, and then you grew up and got jaded like everyone does, except instead of seeing reality (there were just as many shit games back then as there are now), you only remember the good games from your youth, forget about the bad ones, and claim that everything sucks now. People do the exact same thing with books, movies, music, art -- all forms of creative endeavor -- while totally ignoring all the absolute crud that's come out over the years. Yes, even when you were young.

Re:Why Doom Sucks.

[BlackHawk-666]

Ha, if you ask me it was all downhill after hack. Now that was a gamers game. All this flashy graphic stuff is for girls.

Come along doggie...
d @

*awaken, rmfp

[AnonymousCowheard]

I asked what *inspired* his head to be on the stick; I know his two fellow graphics artists put his head on the stick, why John Romero? Did JR have bad dander? Why not barney the dinosaur, michael jackson, or McGruff? I just finished looking through all the screenshots of Doom and wow they made some good choices on the end product that would've changed the sales outcome if they hadn't.

Doom Alpha

[AnonymousCowheard]

Is it true? The Alpha platform is not dead yet? Reserected back from the dead? Doom1 is now 64bit? ID Software is porting their software to Alpha? By Joshua! If ID Software can push videocards to improve, think of this being the Jesus Christ of computer platforms! Yahooo! Thanks for pushing Alpha! This proves that ID Software is the only company that can inspire market deman for products! Think of how great this is! And I was told that Doom was developed mostly on NextStep machines...those people of 10 years ago were way off, ID Software was a closet-Alpha all along!

Sincerily,
The Alpha Troll

RGCD.* regulars?

[Manes]

Any of you rec.games.computers.doom.* regulars still alive? Boy, those where the days :)

My very introduction to USENET was that group, actually, it's amazing how much time has gone by.

Oh, and are there any other D2I's here? :)

The Doom song

[Openadvocate]

What a shame they didn't release the song they got on tape before now. But I guess they needed to wait for the MP3 format.:)

Re:Similarities between Doom III Alpha and Doom id

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Bruiser brothers" of E1M8 were later renamed Barons of Hell.

He'll kick your ass

[Anonymous Coward]

or flog you with the 5-foot length of hair he keeps as his whip!

Re:Similarities between Doom III Alpha and Doom id

[Jugalator]

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. Hmm... That would explain why they were two then (at least I recall they were). I guess they changed their name to a more generic name, if they were meant to be "unique" to E1M8 ("bruiser brothers" sounds unique to me) first but later changed into a more generic evil monster. :-)

What's in a name?

[mraymer]

Carmack said, "There is a scene in "The Color of Money" where Tom Cruise shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. "What do you have in there?" asks someone. "Doom." replied Cruise with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry."

Hehe, an interesting look into history, eh? By the way, I beat Ultimate Doom on Ultraviolent. I tried Nightmare but I just couldn't get use to the damn respawning. Umm, I failed a few classes that year, too. In retrospect... of course it was worth it! ;)

Blood on the Wall

[katalyst]

When you do something different, it doesn't have to be special of perfect, because it is different. And that is what Doom did. It may not have been the most creative game around, but it had way to many "firsts" to disregard. Doom is STILL making waves. You will find it on your GBA, and now on mobile phones (the new Nokias)!!! That speaks a lot for its popularity.
Meanwhile, I'm surprised that only ONE post refered to the song.. aka.. blood on the wall. It has been sung my an ex-Nazareth group member.. and that AGAIN says a lot for the popularity of the game. It's a gr8 song, better than lotsa the **** that plays these days....

A somewhat predictive exert.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the press release, "In 1993, we fully expect to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world."

Best as I can remember, they came fairly close to doing just that :)

Perhaps what you're looking for is a Gamecube?

[Galvatron]

Mario Sunshine is certainly not dark and distopian. It gives you worlds to explore. I haven't played anything else from the Gamecube, but given Nintendo's history, I'm sure that there are many other bright, cheerful games.

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[freestyle-fiend]

In Soviet Russia, Boreing is getting these jokes.

Re: Too many dystopian FPS...

[holygoat]

It's true - there are far too many FPS games, and far too many dystopian games.

I remember playing Frontier (despite the odd bug!) for literally years of in-game time. The same for First Encounters: superb games.

A little while ago I found an excellent site which lets me play First Encounters on a modern system (and a Linux port IIRC): Happiness!

I read with joy that David Braben's Frontier Developments would be releasing a PDA space game - but it's a shooter. So it looks like things really have gone bad!

I'd love to see a modern version of First Encounters. Oh well, next time I get free time ;)

Doomlight shadow

[Alioth]

The thing that made DOOM, and no other game since has managed to recreate (apart from the Alien DOOM mod, which was basically DOOM again) was the atmosphere.

DOOM was a favorite on damp winter afternoons. I would play it wearing headphones so as to not disturb others in the house. It felt _creepy_. You felt a bit of anxiety as you could hear another Imp shuffling around the place, but couldn't tell exactly where he was. You'd jump when you went around a corner and suddenly heard one of those half-man-half-goat things shout "Wwooooooooooooooo!!!" and start hurling fireballs at you.

I've not found an FPS since that does that for me. ID got the atmosphere absolutely right on that, and I hope they can recreate this in DOOM 3 - to a bigger extent with the graphics capabilities they should have.

One afternoon, I was playing DOOM and got the fright of my life. I was playing along, headphones on, volume up, creeping around one of the levels when my housemate sneaked up behind me and threw one of those beanbag frogs that were used to prop open doors. The frog landed on my shoulder JUST as a room erupted with Imps. I almost died of fright!

Re:Doomlight shadow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it'll be taken with a groan, but this was actually the reason I initially loved Half-Life, it had that same sense of creepyness and wondering what was gonna lunge at you around the next corner.

Re:Doomlight shadow

[Cohen]

I think there were more games with this kind of atmosphere. First Doom2 of course, Quake, but especially Alien vs. Predator (the original first part). I played that for hours, and the lack of a save feature meant that every death really hurt, especially because the levels became longer AND more difficult.

Re:Similarities between Doom III Alpha and Doom id

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading over that stuff I'm hoping to heck that Doom3 is gonna be blatantly ripped off from their 'original' ideas and not what ended up being Doom/Doom2/Other dooms, cuz frankly the original plot, if implemented in full, sounds like idKFA :)

Not so! Gabe and Tyke are simply gay!

[EnglishTim]

Space Moose says so! (Search for 'gay couple')...

Slashdot...SMASH!!!!!

[curtisk]

Its been offline since 1998
It may not be back online until 2006 by the time it recovers from the Slashdot attack

Why don't you just admit...

[tg_schlacht]

...that you got owned by a twelve year old with one of those 1337 h/\><><0r names?

Your ISP ran IPX?

[Viewsonic]

I don't think GameSpy game out till 94 or so where it encapsulated IPX packets into TCP over the net, and even then it was too damn slow to use.

Re:Your ISP ran IPX?

[Uncle Gropey]

I don't know what he did, but our ISP back then had a special client that you'd dial into the BBS with and it would let you play multiplayer Doom over a dialup with I think up to 3 other players. And you can't be thinking of Gamespy, it didn't exist then.

Doom on your phone...

[Pointdexter]

Now you can download Doom for your Nokia 7650 :)
It works fairly well although the controls are a bit awkward.

My fondest memory of playing Doom was getting to the end and recording what the last boss said into a tape recorder, sampling it back in to the PC and then reversing it so I could understand what was said :D

Re:Doom on your phone...

[schnits0r]

What did it say?

Re:Doom on your phone...

[AndroidCat]

"This is your boss. If you keep playing Doom on company time, you're fired."

Re:Doom on your phone...

[Pointdexter]

What did it say?

"To win the game you must kill me, John Romero"

iirc there was also a picture of John R. on the other side of the wall behind the monster.

I agree.

[Viewsonic]

Sadly, I agree.

I remember trying to get my hands on every magazine about Doom when it came out. All of them contained pictures and articles about Romero. It was great, he seemed so into games, and gaming history and what id wanted to do with the future. He was the chest thumper, which no one has EVER seen the likes of in this industry. And we still haven't seen anyone come close since.

Truely the David Lee Roth of the computer industry.

Oh god

[dirtsurfer]

Before John Romero made this room, a lot of DOOM's levels had pretty consistent ceiling heights. When John created this room, he got the id team into his office to check it out and everyone was impressed: here was a very tall and interestingly lit room

Umm... yeah.. just a BIT Romero-centric maybe? Jeez, what is WRONG with this guy? >_

Where are the Carmack Interviews?

[Rushmore]

I tried to read the Carmack interviews and 2 out of 3 were dead links. :-/

One thing..

[dirtsurfer]

Why is everyone still calling them "ID", no doubt pronouncing it "eye dee"? It's never ID, it has never been ID. It's sometimes written iD, but the name of the company has always been pronounced "id".
I mean, I used to say "eye dee" too, until about the time doom 2 came out and I noticed that that was wrong. :P

People love to bitch

[bonch]

People love to bitch about the "current state of gaming."

You think there weren't shit games when Doom came out? I know; I was there. Crappy puzzle games, endless side-scrollers, bad shooters, and mediocre RTS games.

Have you not played Deus Ex? Or Black and White? How about taken a look at the next SimCity? Do you remember Half-Life? Or, as mentioned before, the Sims?

There have always been good games and bad games. Don't fall into the trap of "things were better back when..."

Lee Killough?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same person who wrote "The Doppleganger Gambit"?

Q:How can I run those? A: Build a DOS box

[Nonillion]

Slap together an old machine. I recently had a trip through memory lane a few weeks ago with DOOM. I went to the local second hand store and bought 3 old pentiums for 10 dollars.

Out of the 3 I had a working AST 5166 pentium 166 with 64 megs of ram. I even installed a network card and a old version of Archane(a web browser for DOS). Loaded DOOM, Quake, Duke Nuke'm 3D, and Jazz Jackrabbit. Back when I played these games the best I was able to muster were 486 machines (a DX2 66 and a AMD 120)

Works just fine and I don't have to try to run these on my main machine..

System Shock 2

[ylikone]

System Shock 2 is another game that gives you chills when you play. This is one of my favourites for all -out fright factor.

Re:Fear this!

[Anonymous Coward]

hah thoes are useless in doom!

iddqd
idkfa
idspispopd / idclip

Sounds effects

[Chris Pimlott]

One of the really effective bits in Doom was the sound effects. In particular, one little trick - they would vary the pitch of the monster sounds by a bit each time they played it. Simple but very effective - when there were a dozen demons somewhere around the corner, it really sounded like a snorting snarling herd and not just one growling over and over and over.

I thought it was strange that I haven't seen this trick in any other games. Am I wrong?

Doom does not suck!

[Sloppy]

It isn't Doom's fault that there have been a hundred imitators. Doom was a very pleasant change and the imagery was fresh and exciting at the time. It was just one game, and it was damned good in its niche.

You can bitch about the legacy (that Doom's niche has somehow perversely become so dominant), that's understandable. But don't blame the one who started it. Your real problem is that people suck (not Doom), because they're so imitative, trend-following, and formulaic.

Um, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now then, some physicists and mathematicians might say, 'Nay, a Hilbert Space is better than a Menger Space any day of the week!'

Since Hilbert spaces *are* trivially Menger Spaces, I doubt they'd say anything of the sort.

You nearly had us believing you understood what you were talking about.

Re:Why Doom Sucks...finaly said

[masterkool]

I've been thinking this same concept since right since DOOM also. I was obsessed with Castle Wolfenstein when it came out. It seemed very revolutionary, (graphics, gameplay, etc) and I have still the upmost respect for it. DOOM was just an improvement of all the Wolf clones and then every other game was just a DOOM clone. Then quake...and the story goes on.

I think that the only thing keeping this first-person-kill-everything-and-escape industry now a days is multiplayer. Sure the AI's are good, but you can play some of these games in a day and find everything. Multiplayer is the only unpredictable aspect of the games becasue you are against other human players. But even taht sucks becasue all the players grew up with Doom, Quake, Wolf so they all have the same skills and techniques.

I do however like the new Wolf (Return to Castle WOlfenstien) because it came out in the wake of Half Life and Deus Ex, but was more oriented to a skill game. You have to snipe once and awhile, mad frenzy once and awhile, listen to all the conversations. But right now I dont think this type of game has anywhere to go.

Ahh, the BFG.

[Inoshiro]

If you played the betas, you did get a really neat looking BFG effect. The thing is, iD only changed how the effect looked, but not how it behaved.

This lead to some really FUN BFG antics. People started calling me a BFG bitch because I knew how to use it :) Essentially, the BFG always had the effect of 2-stage firing. The first was the "zzzzZZZ.. whump-whump" which was shown as a big ball coming out. When the big ball hit the wall and went "zchooo," that's when the secondary fire (shown in betas as streamers from the mouth of the BFG) would act.

So to quickly get a kill on someone you knew was below you, you'd fire, drop down in the second or so you had, and point the muzzle at their avatar. "AAAaaaahhh..." they'd die, cursing you for how every you managed to pull that BFG shot off :) All you had to remember was that when the ball thingy hit, you had to have your targets in your view. If you did, they'd be hit by the (now invisible) streamers your gun put out.

I learned this mainly from the BFG FAQ and experience.

Re:Fear this!

[Anonymous Coward]

i know they are, im just making fun of you tards that still play doom, quake is better!!

I was an alpha tester

[Bruha]

A Comp Sci teacher knew Id employees so in Computer Club we got to play the alpha. Monsters did not move fell through floors and ran through walls it was quite funny.

Sheesh it hasnt been that long.. 94/95?

jDoom

[MegaFur]

If you're on a Windoze system, why not try jDoom? It's got great graphics from the screenshots.

monster names

[MegaFur]

As another commenter has said, the "Bruisers" are Barons of Hell. I have the Doom Legacy source code (one of the source forks of the Doom sources that iD released) right in front of me. The internal name (the name used *inside* the game code) for the Baron of Hell is MT_BRUISER.

Since you're looking for connections between Doom and Doom III and possibly other "Doom lore", perhaps you'd be interested in knowing all the monsters' internal names (for Doom2--the Doom1 monsters didn't change any, so this applies to Doom1 as well).

This list will go in order of Thing number, which should not be confused with the Thing ID which is different. Internal names will be on the left.
MT_PLAYER Player / Doom Guy
MT_POSESSED Trooper / Zombieman
MT_SHOTGUY Shotgun Guy / Seargent
MT_VILE Arch-Vile
MT_FIRE (not a monster--arch-vile fire)
MT_UNDEAD Revenant
MT_TRACER (not a monster--Rev. Fireball)
MT_SMOKE (not a monster--Rev. Fire Trail)
MT_FATSO Mancubus
MT_FATSHOT Manc. Fireball
MT_CHAINGUY Chaingun Guy / Chaingun Seargent
MT_TROOP Imp (not trooper)
MT_SERGEANT (pink) Demon / dog-thing
MT_SHADOWS partially invisible Demon
MT_HEAD Cacodemon
MT_BRUISER Baron of Hell
MT_BRUISERSHOT (not a monster--Baron Fireball)
MT_KNIGHT Hell Knight
MT_SKULL Lost Soul
MT_SPIDER The Spider Mastermind
MT_BABY Arachnotron
MT_CYBORG The Cypberdemon
MT_PAIN Pain Elemental
MT_WOLFSS Wolf SS / Nazi
MT_KEEN Comander Keen

That's it for the Doom monsters. There are many, many other Things in the Things list. Including Heretic monsters as one code-base supports both Doom and Heretic now.

Last Post!

[alpg]

"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now
when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..."
-- Steven Wright

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