Classic DOOM games available on gog.com starting today!

Gez said:

Apparently, the deal is this:

Heretic: Shadow - Bethesda
Heretic II: Activision
Hexen - Bethesda
Hexen: Deathkings - Bethesda
Hexen II - Bethesda
Hexen II: Portals of Praevus - Activision

The idea is that stuff originally published by id software went to Bethesda, while the stuff Raven originally published with Activision remained there. That's why you cannot find Portals of Praevus, Heretic II, or Wolfenstein 2009 for sale on Steam anymore.

I am certain that if anyone can work out any licensing issues, it'll be GOG.

Gentlepoke said:

I am certain that if anyone can work out any licensing issues, it'll be GOG.

Considering they got System Shock 2, a bunch of Warhammer 40K games, and the classic Goldbox D&D games, I'd say yeah. GOG and Night Dive are killer at their job.

PsychoGoatee said:

Though you only need it to download the game, then your WADs are free and clear.

Yeah, exactly. DRM doesn't really apply to the DOS-based games anyways since you can just extricate the files to where ever else on a whim and play without needing to touch Steam post-install.

Average said:

Loving the Spec suggestions:

Processor: 1.8 GHz Processor
Memory: 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
Graphics: 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended)
Hard Drive: 2GB HDD

Wow. That's some pretty powerful Dooming right there!

Far as I can tell, those are GOG's specs for almost every game in there. As for the reason behind it, you'd have to ask GOG themselves.

RunningWild said:

Yeah, exactly. DRM doesn't really apply to the DOS-based games anyways since you can just extricate the files to where ever else on a whim and play without needing to touch Steam post-install.

not exactly. many DOS games have DRM in form of manual-written passwords or CD-in-drive requirements

I'm so freaking glad it's the non-butchered IWADs..

Oh man, and the tnt fix? That's true attention to detail. Literally every other entity distributing Doom in some form, take note, this is how it's done.

I think the chance of getting Bethesda and Activision to work out the mess that is an Activision-owned expansion to an id Software-published game (Portals of Praevus, specifically) is about nil.

Neither company wants to do anything that benefits the other in any way, and jointly cooperating on an expansion's release would require that.

So as far as I'm concerned, PoP will probably never see the light of day again. And it's a damn shame because PoP was the better part of Hexen II IMO. As an expansion, it was more fun to play than the core game to which it belonged (not to mention you could go back and play the original campaign with the Demoness, who made the game feel more balanced as she's pretty OP).

Gez said:

Apparently, the deal is this:
That's why you cannot find Portals of Praevus, Heretic II, or Wolfenstein 2009 for sale on Steam anymore.

I don't think PoP or Heretic II ever got steam releases sadly.. I bought up all of id's releases on Steam as they came out.

Shame Heretic II probably won't see the light of day on GoG.. it's a bit crash happy on modern PCs and the music doesn't loop properly when mounting the image.

If anyone here has the GOG.com release and is willing to test a change, I've edited Chocolate Doom to try to find the installation directories, but I lack this release myself to test. Can someone try the build I've linked here? https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/issues/600#issuecomment-135932638

It would be best if you tested it with *only* the GOG.com version discoverable on your system. no Steam, DOS installs, Doom95, etc. If the regular 2.2.0 release of Chocolate Doom can't find IWADs (without putting them in its directory), then you're good for testing this one with GOG.com's installer (chocolate-doom-setup might be an easy way to see if it finds all the IWADs: press F2 to get to the warp menu, does the Game list show all that you've installed?)

EDIT: I've got it all sorted out, no need to test anymore :)

ABRACADABRA said:

not exactly. many DOS games have DRM in form of manual-written passwords or CD-in-drive requirements

This was about Steam's DRM, I guess. Anything what happens inside DOSBox still applies when started without Steam as well. When playing a download game, manuals are a matter of looking at a PDF file, and former CD-in-drive is just a mounted image anyway.

GOG does not handle all DOS games the same, though. Some games come with the original CD image intact, so I can burn that, and play the game on my old computer. Unfortunately, there are also many games, which don't, and a pre-installed version in DOSBox without the original setup tools is all you'll get.

Quasar said:

I think the chance of getting Bethesda and Activision to work out the mess that is an Activision-owned expansion to an id Software-published game (Portals of Praevus, specifically) is about nil.

Neither company wants to do anything that benefits the other in any way, and jointly cooperating on an expansion's release would require that.

So as far as I'm concerned, PoP will probably never see the light of day again. And it's a damn shame because PoP was the better part of Hexen II IMO. As an expansion, it was more fun to play than the core game to which it belonged (not to mention you could go back and play the original campaign with the Demoness, who made the game feel more balanced as she's pretty OP).

That sucks, GOG's achieved some insane feats however, so I don't wish to despair yet.