For a span of about a year, for whatever reason, I fell out of the DOOM loop.
I hardly played it at all. Then, I got the bug again. Bad. It was so bad, that
my final project for my dBase class was a database for the WAD files that I had,
plus a bunch of other things relating to DOOM. I was pleased that I got a 98% on
it. It fueled me to continue! Once the class was over, I kept fine tuning and
revising the program while I was working. Then, one day, Shawn, a buddy of mine,
brought Hexen in to work, and we started playing that on the network. We played
during work, and in class. We played DeathMatch and solo games. We even hid it out
on the server, so that we could play it on any PC there! In case you're wondering,
we worked at the college that we went to, running the student network. :) Then,
after a bit of Hexening, I brought in Doom2 and we played that too! We even got a
third person in on it! We had a great time with it! It was great! Then we graduated,
and I once again fell out of the gaming loop. I had even lost the disk that my
database program was on!
Then, a little bit later, I started getting the itch again! I started looking for,
and playing, TC's for Doom. After that, I finally got Quake, even though the computer
I had couldn't run it yet! My next step was getting my PC all set for Quake. While
doing that, though, I was starting to play Doom with more interest, along with
getting engaged. :) Quake kinda fell onto the back burner at that point, and Doom
stayed my main game for awhile longer. Then, after Flirt and I were married, I was
finally able to get Quake going, although, I still mainly played DOOM. And even though
I wasn't looking at the time, I know that I would start doing to Quake what I was
doing with DOOM. After about 6 months, I started looking for my old database
again. Unfortunately, I still didn't find it, so I set about rebuilding it!
At about the same time, my online focus shifted from looking for more FPS games, to
looking for more Quake stuff! A bit after I started searching, I ran across a Quake
addon that would put a computer controlled player (bot) into the game to help you along.
(ZeusBot) Of course, I couldn't pass it up! So I downloaded it and though it was great!
But, of course, I couldn't betray DOOM, and so I found Icarus: Alien Vanguard. (from TeamTNT)
It was another DOOM TC like Memento Mori, which I had acquired before that.
Also, the download of Icarus eventually led me to find other TeamTNT files for
DOOM! Once I found Icarus, I started looking for more DOOM TC's again! About that
same time, I started to get the itch of creating my own levels. I started looking for
WAD editing tools for DOOM. I tried several different ones before finally getting
comfortable with one. I even made my first level, mainly intended for DeathMatch, but
also playable for the single player. It was my first, and so far, last level made
for DOOM, or any other game. It was intended to be a major DeathMatch firefight, but
I've never gotten the chance to play it that way. May DeathMatch contiune to burn in
our souls!
