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Astral-Doomer

Has Doom aged well?

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Graf Zahl said:

I was speaking of the original releases from the 90's. The Final Doom CD I bought in 1995 got Doom95.exe as its main executable on it. The DOS EXEs are hidden in some subdirectories inside install packages but this is not what the average user will see: They will be directed directly to the hi-res Windows version. To ecen install the DOS version you have to search the CD manually.

But anyway, this glorification of the DOS-EXEs from a 'meant to be played this way' attitude is ridiculous. This sure has its place but most definitely not as the one and only genuine Doom experience.


I think you can make a small case for the Doom95 port, because it may have been fairly popular back in the DOOM heyday, but in reality developement ceased after DOOM II and they moved onto Quake. The recent BFG edition is a joke. Not only is it completely disconnected from the early development by decades, but it wasn't even made by the same team. It's like if a record label hired some random guys to do cover songs of a once-popular metal band, but they also told them to tone it down a bit and take out the swearing and other possibly offensive stuff. It's not at all the same as if the old band got together after a couple decades and started jamming together again of their own volition.

But anyway, Final DOOM is still just a 3rd-party spinoff and not the main attraction. The vast collection of PWADs were originally made for DOOM v1.2, and later for DOOM or DOOM II v1.666 or v1.9, but eventually id stopped working altogether on DOOM and the final product was v1.9, and that remains as the historically most signficant version of vanilla DOOM.

This is not a "glorification" of the DOS version so much as a statement of its authenticity. If you want to go back in time and experience DOOM the way it was played by millions of people when it was the most popular game, then that's how you'll play it. There's nothing wrong with using advanced ports, even with extra mods loaded if that's how someone enjoys playing, but you're fooling yourself if you think you're getting the genuine DOOM experience. The fact is, I doubt many people want or like that experience these days, just like many people don't like playing Pong for hours on end every day. They would only play Pong so much if it was an enhanced version with 3D gfx, BFG's, online deathmatch arenas, gory death scenes, and all that shit. But if you do that, are you still playing Pong? Not really, it's a descendant of Pong for sure, but it ain't Pong.

And I personally don't care what port others use to play vanilla maps. That's their business, and what they do has no bearing whatsoever on my experience. The only time it affects me is when I download a "vanilla" map and find it's unplayable in a vanilla engine because it wasn't tested properly, because the author only plays with ZDoom or whatever. There has been a lot of that in the past couple years though. It's at the point where I hesitate to download those so-called vanilla maps unless I recognize the author and can vouch for his ability. And before someone tells me to "just play those maps in a port", well don't. If someone made a vanilla map, I want to experience it exactly that way in the original engine, and if it doesn't work then I simply discard the map (unless author is receptive to bug fixes). That's right, I don't have to compromise here, it's just a game and I'm entitled to play it however I wish. Too many thins in life I have to compromise with, but this isn't one of them.

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scalliano said:

Doom has evolved. That can only ever be a good thing, and this is what does my head in about purism. The beauty of this game is that all players can play it their way, even if that does involve daft enhancement mods.

There's a limit to what can be done with Doom before a more modern engine would be better suited to what you're trying to do. I'm looking at you, 3D models and "advanced" lighting enhancements.

You're right, though. It's remarkably flexible, which has perhaps been instrumental in it's appeal for almost 20 years, even if people like myself have our preferences over what looks good.

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Xaser said:

The real answer: Doom doesn't age. Playing it never gets old.


Doomguy hits real life in the nuts once again.
Well probably because living gets old , isn't it?

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if I play doom using a source port, with or without user generated content, and someone was to ask me what am I playing. I would reply doom.

I've learnt to do new things (and I even look different) as I have aged. But I'm still me.

For 19 going on 20, I think it's aged remarkably well - in no small part to its fans BTW too.

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I don't think its fair to say that the authentic doom experience involves replicating playing it on a 19 year old computer, I think they made doom with the intention that it would be possible to modify and update to allow improved performance, in the same way that they offered many settings to allow it to work on less powerful machines.

Its like george lucas constantly tweaking the old star wars because the new cgi is more like he wanted it to be, I'll bet the guys who made doom would have liked to have built the game with less limitations if they had the choice, and because it was infused with the dna that allowed it to evolve over time it now exists beyond the computer code, inside the collective consciousness of the people who keep it alive.

In this sense 'aging well' is not applicable because it is ageless.

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Difference is that what made Doom's strengths isn't ruined by modern ports allowing greater possibilities; whereas many of Lucas' tweaks honestly make Star Wars a set of dumber films.

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In my opinion Doom has aged amazingly well, and is still top of the game when it comes to classic FPS games.

Since like the early 2000s classic FPS have started to be pushed out of the mainstream by the realistic ones (you know, reloading, 25 kinds of machinegun etc). Myself, I definitely prefer the classic FPS shooters over the realistic ones. Therefore I don't really dig stuff like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Battlefield etc.

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There's been a revival of "classic" FPS with the Painkillers, Serious Sam, Hard Reset, or our very own Carnevil's Wrack; but they generally fail to replicate the original recipe. Still at least it shows that game developers are aware they're missing something.

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Gez said:

There's been a revival of "classic" FPS with the Painkillers, Serious Sam, Hard Reset, or our very own Carnevil's Wrack; but they generally fail to replicate the original recipe. Still at least it shows that game developers are aware they're missing something.

The most important aspect of an engine for me would be strong map creation and scripting support. Cube, Sauerbraten, Wrack, Half-Life 2, and even Farcry are decent steps in this direction. But so far nothing matches Doom Builder for that minutes-to-learn lifetime-to-master magic. At this point, my hope is that Doom Builder splinters off (as it's already begun to) into wild tangents of design; allowing it to do things well beyond the scope of Doom. I'm talking about things like moving/resizing sectors and continued support for 3rd party plugins that do weird, awesome things.

Plus the core game that came with these engines has never been as fun/inspiring as Doom 1/2.

In my dreams, I imagine an indie or open-source ZDoom-like engined game coming out in the future heralding in a new age of mapping and modding beyond what Doom/Duke3D/Blood were ever capable of. I'll know we've arrived there when the buzz on this forum reaches critical mass and we start 'losing' our best mappers.

EDIT: grammar, clarity

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schwerpunk said:

The most important aspect of an engine for me would be strong map creation and scripting support. Cube, Sauerbraten, Wrack, Half-Life 2, and even Farcry are decent steps in this direction. But so far nothing matches Doom Builder for that minutes-to-learn lifetime-to-master magic.

Is there something about WrackEd that makes it not easily picked up? Anything I can do to improve it? The goal is certainly for you to learn it intuitively (as opposed to curling up with a thick manual - ew), so if it's not meeting that goal, let me know.

EDIT: Also, of course has aged well! Of course, in the form of source ports, maps and mods... it's had some work done! :)

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I've been playing Doom lately after not playing it for 18 months. I feel its age now when before I didn't. It feels like a shooting gallery strafe left and right and shoot things. Then I played Wrack and I feel its age too... and its not even a year old. But it uses the same engine. Both feel dated after playing PS3 games for 18 months.

However, all of that being said I played Doom for 15+ years. So that would mean it aged well.

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It has aged better than Wolf3D or ROTT, that's for sure.

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MajorRawne said:

...Has Doom aged well? Let's look at the evidence....
..
..Who gives a fuck about upgrading the super shotgun or BFG?

...Who needs regenerating health? I play the game to kill monsters, not crouch in a corner for thirty seconds of every battle. Just find a megasphere and get back out there..... (And many other reasons 99.9% of modern shooting games suck the dog's nuts)


This may seem a little unrealted, but this thread just reminded me of it.. I think there's actually a thread out there dedicated to this, but... Did anyone see the "Death Battle" on youtube between Master Cheif and Doomguy?

Long time DM-ers know the REAL result instantly... Doomguy would outrun cheif to a BFG or SSG and win practically instantly. Even one of my best freinds who is a big time Halo fanboy, and only a bit of a Doom fan admitted that the Doomguy is way more agile and also has a diverse weapon selection. But then again if you're going by storyline, Cheif is a Spartan and DoomGuy is human, so that's retardedly unfair. Storyline means nothing when it comes to actual gameplay.

Did everyone else here think that Doomguy would absolutely stomp Cheif? Doom has had 3 games in 20 years, Halo has had, what, at least 5 in 10? Doom has aged like a fine wine while many other games are aging like milk (early 3D games, I'm looking at you.. sadly.)

In even further unrelated-ness, the smash bros. comcept applied to FPS would be amazing. A pick of Master Cheif, Doomguy, Duke, Bond, Serious Sam and so on would be the best shit since sliced bread. Everyone getting one or two home stages, Everyone getting their guns and a few random powerups and items from the other games to balance it all out. It would be a fucking blast.

I also totally agree with Hex about the "BFG edition" being a fucking joke. Just watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVFrAsxjxLs ... This guy basically says every reason that new ID sucks, and I couldn't agree more. He uses the term fat and bloated.. Very accurate.

Doom 2 is the best game of all time. There, I said it.

EDIT:

Carnevil said:

Is there something about WrackEd that makes it not easily picked up?


Dude, I really like Wrack a lot. It certinaly won't replace Doom (and I know that's not what it was meant to do, anyway) but it's a definite win for me, Carn. Any improvements you think of are welcome but it's certainly above the average amount of fun you get from the slow ass bore-fests that are in style at the moment.

It feels like a shooting gallery (about Doom)


Just because everything you kill is flat like a cardboard cutout doesn't mean the gameplay is like a shooting gallery! ;) I know what you mean, but I think this has served to keep the game alive longer rather than hinder it. simplicity is golden.

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Doomkid92 said:

Just because everything you kill is flat like a cardboard cutout doesn't mean the gameplay is like a shooting gallery! ;) I know what you mean, but I think this has served to keep the game alive longer rather than hinder it. simplicity is golden.

I might almost agree [w/ MajorRawne], but the main difference being that in Doom the ducks shoot back! Then there are other factors, like environmental challenges, ambushes, puzzles, or limited resources (ammo, health, armour) that add new dynamics to what is primarily, yes, a game about shooting things.

If it feels like a shooting gallery to anyone here, and that's not what you're looking for, then I would recommend playing more complex WADs, or playing on a harder difficulty.

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Captain Ventris said:

Um...


Yeah you heard me :-) Wrack doesn't feel like a Doom clone it literally feels like Doom / Skulltag with a new coat of paint. A clone would be something that would make me think oh this is similar to Doom. Wrack makes me feel oh this is Skulltag (Doom)'s exact engine. Sure the models seem to be 3D, but when playing Wrack I feel like I'd rather be playing Doom / Skulltag :-( If I want nostalgia for Doom I'll just play it. When Super Mario Brothers does an upgrade, they change the engine and add new powerups. When I play New Super Mario Bros I feel like wow this is a new game that FEELS like the old games. But when I played the Super Nintendo version of Mario 1 I thought same engine... different graphics. I never saw a Sonic game come out using a tweaked Mario 2's engine that Nintendo decided to freely release.

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Leaving everything else aside, I certainly don't disagree with your central point that it's still too similar to Doom - specifically in terms of the level design.

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Sorry Carn. Maybe I should delete that and just email feedback. :-)

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Well, that is a pathetic way to diss doom. I for one love running backwards, especially in a huge field. But really, realism dose not matter in doom.

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I guess I was meaning the lack of difficulty due to being able to move 64 mph. Being able to just run past everything without having to fight it. Perhaps that's more a map design or enemy issue.

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The gameplay hasn't aged. New FPS are slow, clunky, lots of cutscenes and boring drama.

Behehee as it gets older it becomes the fastest FPS around.

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Has Doom aged well?

Yes.

hex11 said:
I think you can make a small case for the Doom95 port, because it may have been fairly popular back in the DOOM heyday, but in reality developement ceased after DOOM II and they moved onto Quake.

They simply didn't object because Doom95 was arguably sensible to the distributors from a technical perspective, considering the spread of Windows versus DOS. If you ask Carmack, any game he made earlier is pretty much obsolete, and a company goes by what sells, but the community is something else.

In any case, you started arguing like a pessimist, because what there is of vanilla activity occurs sheerly by people enjoying it and mainly in a good deal of cooperation and feedback with "advanced" ports. You more or less insulted yourself and those who like vanilla in different ways or degrees.

I'm all for specific and practical complaints against poor development proposals, but generic worrying that ports will stamp out vanilla is the backside of the coin assuming that purism is a threat to new source development, which stereotypes it as paleolithic hate.

We don't really need passive aggressive "decadence has come" fears. The community is here to curb the obsoleteness of DOOM by adding new stuff and by sustaining the old. If either of these legs breaks, the community is crippled.

The only time it affects me is when I download a "vanilla" map and find it's unplayable in a vanilla engine because it wasn't tested properly, because the author only plays with ZDoom or whatever. There has been a lot of that in the past couple years though.

You should thank port developers like entryway and fraggle (as well as others that provide feedback or parallel accommodations) and the DOSBox developers for making this a good deal less of an issue than it was a few years back.

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MegaTurtleRex said:

The gameplay hasn't aged. New FPS are slow, clunky, lots of cutscenes and boring drama.

Behehee as it gets older it becomes the fastest FPS around.


MegaTurtleRex's words of wisdom.

Now let's talk about "unreal tourment".

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Not only Doom, but I think Strife has also aged quite well. Maybe not just as well as Doom, but still well.

Oh, and Descent has probably aged just as well as Doom. Not really a Doom-engine game, but it aged so perfect that even today I can't look at it like at a proper retro game. Even though it's from 1995.

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I think Doom is mechanically perfect and has yet to be surpassed. For some reasons FPS have gone in the wrong direction...And the games with better gameplay, like Painkiller and Serious Sam usually come from smaller studios that can't afford to put much polish on them.

However... Borderlands 2 is, in my opinion, one of the first FPS that has gunplay which stand on the same level as Doom and Quake. With the right builds it can be all about speed and dodging projectiles, and it can be very old school if you collect the right guns (I don't keep anything that requires me to aim down sights, unless its a sniper rifle.) (Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrXGD8Hp-0)

Also, this new indie game Paranautical Activity...which is an FPS with the structure of Binding of Issac...has really solid gunplay design..probably most similar to Heretic...but it isn't complete yet.

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tangoliber said:

Also, this new indie game Paranautical Activity...which is an FPS with the structure of Binding of Issac...has really solid gunplay design..probably most similar to Heretic...but it isn't complete yet.



Hmm... Interesting...

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