Appreciation of the Doom Community

Hello, all!

I am still new to these forums, and this is my first "new thread", so I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to create new topics yet, or if I am violating the rules in any way, but I was sitting here, playing yet ANOTHER awesome doom wad (Cheogsh 3, overlooked for too long), when I thought, man there is not enough appreciation going around for one of the best classic video games (for any console) of ALL time...

To any moderator: Please feel free to delete this post if it is too off topic/random for these forums.

while I am new to these forums, I am nowhere near new to Doom. I have had the luxury of playing doom ever since its dawning days (i.e., 1993) up until now. In analyzing this time frame, I realize one thing. I have been hooked on this game for 20 years!!

I have played countless video games, from "Ghosts 'n Goblins" to the "Tomb Raider"s to the "Final Fantasy"s to the "Tekken"s, to the "Resident Evil"'s, and even unto the most common games, like "God of War" or "Guitar Hero", not to mention countless, countless others (not just playing once or twice over, mind you, but becoming so involved in them that I felt that I had either mastered all there was to master or experienced all there was to experience). But even considering every game I have ever played (Wanderer's from Y's, MegaMan (and X) series, Super Gradius III, Chrono Trigger/Cross, blah, blah, the list goes on, and on...), I have never ever been hooked on a game for 20 years!

So what is it about doom that keeps drawing me in?

I'll tell you what it is... It's the community.

Without the community, this game would have never evolved into what it is today, nor would it have been all of the wonderful things it has been since then. Without the community contributing countless wads, mods, TCs, PCs, Resource wads, or source ports to keep the game interesting and inspiring, Doom would still be a great game, however would it still be maintaining enough interest to inspire artists to continually saturate DoomWorld with such amazingness?

If it suits you, consider this an "Appreciation of the Contributing Doom Community" thread. After 20 years (and a swift and truly worthy rescue of the Cacowards 2012... ahem*) Doom deserves to have the artists, the play-testers, and really anyone who contributes to the Doom community, at all (DoomWorld especially included), recognized for benefiting millions with simple, relaxing, fun.

So let's, please, never let Doom die not in 2013, nor 3013. My son is 8 and has played doom since he was 5. This took no coercion, he saw me playing it, wanted to himself, and has loved it ever since. But that's Doom doing what it does best, addicting people to the raw awesomness of its powers! :P

Anyway, no prob if this gets ousted from the forums for being such a random rant (LOL), but I just thought after all this time, someone needed to really come out and say this...

-----------------------EDIT---------------------------------

Sorry about originally posting in the wrong place. I live on "Wads & Mods" so much, sometimes I forget there even are other topics...

The Cyberdemon is still one of the most Heavy Metal things ever put in a videogame.

As metal as metalocalypse :)

I like Metalocalypse.

Hear Hear!!

*raises frothy glass in jubilant exultation

it's 03:28 AM and I'm really tired, but I totally agree :)

Well said, well said! Good show. So say we all, and all that.

*Raises a cup of warm milk, downs it, and promptly trots off to bed. Visions of Pinkies and Cacos sure to follow.

Not sure what's caused a recent flush of new community member enthusiasm, but I'm definitely on board.

I just have to agree with this. I'm pretty much new to doom in comparison to the other members here, started in 2008. but in contrast to all the other classic fps games I played, I'll always come back to doom because of the fast and fluid gameplay and the endless community generated content.
It's awesome, there are so much well known mega wads I still have to play. Yeah, a big thx to the community from me as well.

Definitely agree Spooky!

I barely have enough time to complete yet another awesome wad (and I am pretty picky), when I find another one lost (usually as a direct result of a reference found in these forums), like a reclusive diamond among lumps and lumps of coal.

Only the artists in this community could produce such a never ending string of new ideas, creativeness, and just plain fun times :).

Also, let me just state that it didn't always used to be this way. Sure we've always had great artists, but in years past, I would always find another 'gem' beat it and say to myself, "Ah, that was awesome!" Then I would return to whatever other PS2, PS3, GameCube, etc. etc. game I was playing until I was fortunate enough to find another 'gem'.

Now, I think we're finally crossing that threshold where there's enough great artists out there, producing so much great stuff, that I don't have time to get interested in anything else, in my spare time.

This is a testament to the fact that Doom isn't dieing, it's stronger than ever, and I could be wrong, but I think most everyone else in this community would agree.

I've always said one of Doom's strengths is how no two games ever play the same despite playing the same maps with the same monsters.

Compare that to a modern game which jettisons replayability for the chance to shift 50 million copies to kids who never knew any better. You can't really play a scripted modern shooter and have things play out any differently. I notice a few games still feature monster infighting (Minecraft, a couple of others I forgot) but this is difficult to do due to the very limited number of monsters attacking the player at once, and the players are usually killing the bad guys so quickly they never get the chance to infight.

Captain Ventris said:

The Cyberdemon is still one of the most Heavy Metal things ever put in a videogame.

Nah man, the Spider Mastermind is.

MajorRawne said:

I've always said one of Doom's strengths is how no two games ever play the same despite playing the same maps with the same monsters.

Compare that to a modern game which jettisons replayability for the chance to shift 50 million copies to kids who never knew any better.

Agreed. Replayability is important to me, especially in Doom. Take God of War for example. A great display of visual effects and gameplay, however it plays the same every time. Nothing new to offer, thus, for a game like that, I have just payed almost $60 (where I am from) for about 3 to 4 hours of entertainment. When I look at that ratio, it just makes me want to replay all of my favorite doom wads (or pick up another classic non-Doom favorite, like Final Fantasy Tactics, or Metroid Prime again) and gain hours upon hours of entertainment for the low, low cost of $0.

Doom makes me think sometimes that maybe the best things in life 'are' free...

Captain Ventris said:

The Cyberdemon is still one of the most Heavy Metal things ever put in a videogame.

Dude... Lost Soul. It's a flying skull. That's on fire. And has horns. It'd need a motorbike and probably to actually be made out of steel to be any more metal than that!

Phobus said:

Dude... Lost Soul. It's a flying skull. That's on fire. And has horns. It'd need a motorbike and probably to actually be made out of steel to be any more metal than that!

On paper the lost soul is unbelievably badass.. but then we played the game. :\

qoncept said:

On paper the lost soul is unbelievably badass.. but then we played the game. :\

Then there's the Forgotten One:

It's weird, the lost soul in Doom3 was just a human head in flames, but the forgotten one looked just like the lost soul in Doom and Doom2.

VylePhinder said:

Doom makes me think sometimes that maybe the best things in life 'are' free...

Except.. Doom isn't free.

Sure it is: com.com]www.doomtorrentznviruses.ru

But in all seriousness, I think Vyle meant 'of negligible cost.' As in, most of us are just playing with something we bought years and years ago. At this point I've probably payed less than a penny for each hour of Doom/Doom2 I've enjoyed.

Also: today I learned that "com.com" redirects to cnet.com!

schwerpunk said:

But in all seriousness, I think Vyle meant 'of negligible cost.' As in, most of us are just playing with something we bought years and years ago.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant, for the most part, but I really wasn't including the initial Doom wads, as it is after that, that the true spectrum of the Doom wads' variety is unleashed. And, while the original games are the very heart and soul of the game, let's face it, Doom wads have only gotten better, but especially more diverse, and diversity is at the epicenter of maintaining interest. That's not saying anything bad about the original author's, either, I mean, some of the finest Doom wads in the free community have been produced by these same authors.

In short, I guess what I'm saying is that the 'best' things really came after the initial release of the original Dooms, but this is a bold statement, as how good would the 'best' be without a foundation on which to stand?

Either way, I'd play the awesomness of doom, for pennies on the hour (probably much less) long before I would play a lot of the crap released today for the big consoles, even if the price were the same...