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Zalgo Rivera

The curtain call for Xbox Doom 3

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So, like so many others, I had been a little disappointed by Microsoft's decision to abandon LIVE support for original Xbox games. I know that the Xbox version of Doom 3 wasn't so big a hit with our very own Doomworld community as the PC was, for a multitude of reasons (good and bad), but when it came down to it, the multiplayer for Doom 3 was good. No matter what platform, I still found it enjoyable. Even despite the butchering VV did with some of the original game content, and the tolerable dumbing-down of some shader effects - and this is just my personal preference - I enjoyed being able to turn on my Xbox, pop in Doom 3 and play MP online.

Of course we know now that the only multiplayer games people will get on Xbox Doom 3 is via system link, but inevitably my post would go to the direction of modded consoles. Now, I am in no way advocating or glorifying piracy, and modding certainly enables people to do as such, but the one thing I can say homebrew/modding communities and our own Doom community have in common, for sure, is talent and innovation. So my question is, with the abundance of resources and talent available these days, why is there no universal effort between the two communities to drive a mod onto the Xbox version of Doom 3 re-enabling multiplayer? Case in point is that there are some games that have been successfully patched, hacked, or otherwise altered in the vein of functionality in this console. Furthermore I know someone could find an exploit or hardware-based solution to restoring LIVE or a facsimile thereof to the console, even if it was a 3rd party / fan based server browser. There are means, completely within very legal avenues of obtaining the original Doom 3 files from the CDs (without talking about piracy, as some EULAs are a little more lax about copies for personal use not obtained from illegal sources or conversely distributed) and while the Xbox SDK is actually pretty illegal to obtain, well, people have it. And taking the absolute saintly path, there has been official word from Id (namely John Carmack) stating at some point the source from Doom 3 would be released minus the EAX extensions at a 'modest performance cost.'

So is there such a project? Is the subject of such a project absolutely verboten to most? I want to think not. To the people who legitimately and legally own the game, why is it such a horrible thing to want to be able to play the game online again? If an alternative service were set up that, say, allowed a person to download content illegally that would be a different story, but even the ability to drop a console down ingame and connect to an IP address on a listen server, well, that would be pretty damn cool. Not asking for a handout, I would not feel a sense of entitlement to a product or even a straight answer from anyone in the Doom mod community, I suppose it is just a pretty thought along the same lines of how nice it would be to win the lottery, or wake up every morning next to Sylvia Saint.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

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No LIVE for classic XBox? I feel a storm of Xbox fan-boy ragers coming. I'll expect a reaction now similar to Runescape removing the wilderness.

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