Hurt Me Plenty - Remembering Doom

Thanks to TotalGames.net for reprinting a GamesTM article remembering the genius of id Software's seminal PC FPS, Doom. The article starts with the question: "How many of the lodestones of modern gaming do we owe to Doom?", and continues by arguing: "Without Doom conceiving the multiplayer deathmatch, it could be radically touted that the PC today would be an abandoned platform insofar as gaming is concerned." The piece finishes with comments on Doom 3: "While tradition alone will endear Doom 3 to many, the long-anticipated game may yet fail to make the evolving grade it was fundamental in establishing. Let it be said that the gaming world is nothing if not perverse."

Comments

Re:Hyperbole to the Nth Degree

[default luser]

If *any* game(s) cemented the shift from SP to MP, and help keep PC gaming alive today, I'd say it was UT and/or Q3, *not* Doom.

Wrong. There are two "games" that helped cement the multiplayer culture, and you're wrong on both counts. One came before UT and Q3 and one was developed concurrently.

First of all, Quake was an evolution in multiplayer gaming. the community-supported Quakeworld was a revolution. It is one of the earliest multiplayer games to feature client-side prediction, and the experience was fluid even on 32-player internet servers...something that would bring a Quake server to it's knees.

Combine this with incredibly popular free mods and total conversions like Team Fortress that revolutionized gameplay, and you had a multiplayer platform that eclipsed even the popularity of Quake II at it's peak.

Half-Life is the second game on the list, not because the original HL multiplayer was anything special, but because it served as a platform for...

Counterstrike.

I know a lot of you bag on this game, but you just don't seem to understand how popular it is. The game is not even at it's peak anymore, and there are still over 100 THOUSAND active players at peak during the week. That's more players than every other current multiplayer FPS COMBINED.

Why?

It was free, well polished, and adapted gameplay styles from other genres. No rocket launchers plus the equipment purchase system made for a fresh look, and people ate it up.