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bartwart

D! Zone

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Nmn said:

Matt Dixon I presume? Unfortunately I don't know what are the /oldstuffs You mentioned

linky

Ofcourse one would buy CD's with wads IN THE PAST, but TODAY, we have most of them in /idgames

I believe the /idgames archive has existed since 1994. Not everyone had intarweb connections back then, of course. But the Old Stuff features were in 2000-1, and I believe M8's basic point was that there is lots of good stuff that isn't in the archive.

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I had an internet connection as long as I've had DOom, but I bought a couple WAD compilations just so I had shit to play around with without having to wait to download 100 wads. Doom Heaven was the first one I bought, but it introduced me to UAC_Dead, Star Wars Doom and a few other classics. I bought D!Zone 3 a couple years back because it was selling for like $1 and I really loved the D! frontent back when my dad had it. Man, I wish someone would update that for Windows.

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I bought it back when I first got my 486 (no internet connection). I was duped by the "simulated screenshots" on the back, hoping it would provide a graphical update. Then again, I was probably about 8 years old.

I remember most of the levels being crude distortions of existing levels (mostly ExM1) with changed textures and tons and tons of items added in.

It was also the first time I experimented with Doom editing, with "Renegade Graphics DoomEd" or something like that.

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M8. said:

The guy who used to do /oldstuff Chronicles, for one; based upon those alone, you'd think those old CDs are a veritable treasure trove of hard-to-find goodies. But no, that Dixon guy was a total prick and nobody liked /oldstuff Chronicles anyway, so... who the fuck, indeed?


For what it's worth, /oldstuff was one of my favorite features on doomworld for the short time they lasted

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Quasar said:

The D!ZONE disc was arguably worth it just for the excellent D! frontend, developed by Simply Silly Software, which included the level randomizer, wad reorganizer (let you dynamically build new wads out of existing ones

Would it be possible for someone to develop one of these today? Maybe it's too big of a task since a lot of today's maps include scripting. Nevertheless, the idea of a "SLIGE" that worked with existing wads appealed to me a lot and still does.

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I have D! Zone 2 but havn't used it ages. I used to use the interface all the time many years ago. It has collected many light scratches tho.

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Job said:

Would it be possible for someone to develop one of these today? Maybe it's too big of a task since a lot of today's maps include scripting. Nevertheless, the idea of a "SLIGE" that worked with existing wads appealed to me a lot and still does.

It didn't combine actual maps, just wad files. Like, you could say "take this map from wad 1, this map from wad 2, and all the sprites out of wad 3, then put them all together into one wad for me and run it automatically". This was most useful for deconflicting maps that were using the same level slots without use of command line tools. For example, say you want to play an episode of your 9 most favorite maps, but they all use E1M1. You could fix that using this, with a very intuitive interface that let you click and choose where each map went.

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Grazza said:

linky
I believe the /idgames archive has existed since 1994. Not everyone had intarweb connections back then, of course. But the Old Stuff features were in 2000-1, and I believe M8's basic point was that there is lots of good stuff that isn't in the archive.


Good to know that at least one person out there understands irony.

Cheers, Grazza.
M.

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Quasar said:

It didn't combine actual maps, just wad files. Like, you could say "take this map from wad 1, this map from wad 2, and all the sprites out of wad 3, then put them all together into one wad for me and run it automatically". This was most useful for deconflicting maps that were using the same level slots without use of command line tools. For example, say you want to play an episode of your 9 most favorite maps, but they all use E1M1. You could fix that using this, with a very intuitive interface that let you click and choose where each map went.

Oh. Well...damn.

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I bought D!-Zone 2 sometime last year out of morbid curiosity.

That night, I broke the CD in half and tossed it in the trash. Not a SINGLE GOOD MAP on the entire thing. Not only that, but it had 'simulated screenshots' on the cover.

What a waste.

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VolteFace said:

I bought it back when I first got my 486 (no internet connection). I was duped by the "simulated screenshots" on the back, hoping it would provide a graphical update. Then again, I was probably about 8 years old...

yea i remember those shots. i was really hopeing there was something like that on the disk. however i was happy with the results.

i also remember a Q!zone, for quake. however saw that at a fleemarket. not sure how "real" tha tone was.

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They all got a lot of people pissed off in the day, because we made our levels for free and intended them to be distributed for free, not sold for profit by a bunch of fucking lamers (can you tell I'm bitter? :>). Several of the CDs also clearly violated the author's rights, because there's a section in the classic .wad text file template where you can restrict redistribution, and many of the compilation CDs just blindly ignored this and included .wads which specifically said they weren't to be redistributed on CDs. No-one had much luck getting them taken off, though.

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Of course the restrictions on distribution should have been respected, but those aside, the disks only retailed for $9.99, and when you consider the money spent on packaging, distribution, promotion, and the custom software (like the D! frontend), they're really not charging for the maps, only distributing them along with their own product. Many of the disks, like Demon Gate, noted that the maps on the disk were otherwise available on the internet (the jewel box insert says "Hot off the Internet!" on it in blazing red text), so no one was misguided about their origin either, at least.

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gargoylol said:

*cough*Actura Software*cough*

While this may be interesting in a historical sense, it's not really on-topic. I was only speaking about the various DOOM add-on discs that were released, most particularly the D!ZONE series and Demon Gate.

I'm not sure if the D!ZONE series noted the origin of the maps on its box or not, but ALL of the D!ZONE discs include the original, unmodified text files for each map, and it makes them easily viewable in the D! frontend so that you can see the author info, backstory, etc. Nowhere did WizardWorks or Simply Silly Software try to claim authorship or ownership of the wads, only the rest of the product.

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Thanks for reminding me. I actually just found my D!zone CD while packing things up for moving the other day. I knew I had it around here somewhere. I'll have to fire it up and see what's on it now. I do remember that the ability to turn every monster on a level into a barrel was humorous. Of course I was like 10 then, so it may have changed.

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Heh, I got one of those CDs one, I think it was called doomsday or something and it had a preview for some game (Marbus?) and a load of shitty software. Those were the days ^_^

/E It was called "Maabus" and billed itself as the "Ultimate Videogame". What a crock of shit :|

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quasar: yes, they contained all the original text files. My guess is they were too stingy / lazy even to bother deleting them. The point isn't that they claimed to have created this stuff - they didn't. The point is that they sold things created by other people who had expressly forbidden them to do so, and didn't compensate them in any way. Come on - people didn't pay for these disks in order to get the d!zone launcher...

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heh, I just got done copying all my Doom 'CD archives' to my computer. The Doom disc of the Id Anthology set, D!zone, D!zone2, Doom Mania, Doom Companion, Doom & More, Tricks of the Doom programmng gurus, 3D game alchemy, and 'maximum' off of the Master Levels disc (since I noticed the 'Master Levels' on the Id anthology disc didn't contain the 'maximum' levels of all the third party wads, which might have been the biggest collection of any of those CDs)

It might be nice to find the other discs just to compile all the wads on my comp, just for the hell of it, including all of the other files from those CDs, it's over 1.60 gigs. Even though many were taken against the authors wishes and even their laid out binding terms, it's nice to have them all in one place.

Edit; Recently just found my D!zone Gold, discovered my D!zone was actually D!zone collectors edition (have 900 rather than the 150 maps of the original D!zone), and found Demongate & Death Match 7000 on eBay. Also looking for Level Master II 2400 (and 1)

After compiling the lot of the first ones, I have 2693 separate Doom2 PWADs, and 2042 Doom1 PWADs, I suppose when they say "3000" or so levels, they mean the levels within each PWAD and not infact 3000 or so PWADs.

Are there any wad collectors out there who think they have just about everything ever distributed freely in one place? I'd make a small donation to someones paypal account were they to go to the trouble of compiling it in a few CDRs for me.

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