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hobomaster22

Doom misconceptions

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I was pretty young when I first tried Doom. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old when I first loaded up the Doom shareware floppies on the household computer, a Pentium Compaq. I remember being very sure of a few things:

1. I was sure the UAC on BIGDOOR1 and rocket boxes actually said VAC.
2. Imps were hairy. They were like monkeys with spikes that threw fireballs.
3. The dead green marines that appear scattered through the levels were not wearing helmets. The visor was hair with blood in it and the line at the top of the helmet was his mouth.

There might be have been more, but that's what I remember. Also, I never really understood the soul sphere (still don't think I do). It's a blue head with a mouth that's trying to eat something? Does one else remembered having these ideas and realizing later that they're not correct?

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I've always seen the soul sphere as a human soul trapped in an orb, trying to escape. One odd thing was that I did (and still do, sort of) interpret the white pixels on the imp's mouth to be some kind of chitinous beak, rather than teeth.

Also, for years, I was under the impression that you could influence the damage your shots would do depending on whether it was a 'direct hit' or not; I assumed this meant that you had to aim for the centre mass of anything to maximize your ammo efficiency, and I blame Rick Barba and his 'Battle Book' for that entirely.

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The dead marines confused me in the beginning of E1M1 when I was playing the shareware because I was thinking "why are the enemies already dead?" (I was on skill 1).

The Soul Sphere looked really cool to me as a kid too and I was ever joyful when I got 200 health. This was back in a time when I panicked if my health got below 80 (nosebleed face). As for what it is, it is one of the artifacts that came through from "the other dimension" much like the health potions, spiritual armor and other orbs.

What I didn't really understand was why the partial invisibility didn't make me truly invisible. And I just answered my own question.

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hobomaster22 said:

The dead green marines that appear scattered through the levels were not wearing helmets. The visor was hair with blood in it and the line at the top of the helmet was his mouth.

Very much this.

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hobomaster22 said:

2. Imps were hairy. They were like monkeys with spikes that threw fireballs.

Masters of Doom stated that Adrian's concept art for the imp was hairy. Much like the Baron's legs, fur was something very difficult for them to portray.

Mithran Denizen said:

One odd thing was that I did (and still do, sort of) interpret the white pixels on the imp's mouth to be some kind of chitinous beak, rather than teeth.


I don't see it.

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Instead of holding the BFG on one arm, I always envisioned two of the weird robot grabbers over his shoulders and him holding in front of him looking stupid like this, so I always hated it. It wasn't until I saw the Doom comic that I saw doomguy hold it with one arm and I came to respect it again.

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Mithran Denizen said:

I've always seen the soul sphere as a human soul trapped in an orb, trying to escape.


According to The DOOM Bible:

Soul sphere. Contains the life energy of a human soul (and thus, it is a 1-Up)!


So you're probably right.

When I first played DOOM, I actually went along the lines of the DOOM movie and thought the bigger demons were more severely mutated versions of the zombies.

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I thought the soulsphere and megaspheres were stationary enemies early in my Dooming experience, hence I fired at it at first.

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My brother used to look at the Cyberdemon's nostrils and see eyes.

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Jimmy91 said:

My brother used to look at the Cyberdemon's nostrils and see eyes.


I knew I had one with one the monsters but I couldn't think of it. I didn't realize this one for a while. I mean, especially when the cyberdemon is firing the eyes are like non-existent and look almost like glare from firing rockets.

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I'm sure lots of people thought the Revenants were wearing white t-shirts and red shorts. Even the DOOM novel authors thought that and wrote it into their books.

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Playing SNES Doom back in the day, I always thought that the former humans were humanoid demons rather than humans. I always imagined them looking like Baracka for some reason. I also thought the Cacodemons were frightening and thought they were one of the strongest demons. And I thought that killing lost souls with first hurts you (they blew up making the "mm" sound you make humping walls).

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Megamur said:

I'm sure lots of people thought the Revenants were wearing white t-shirts and red shorts. Even the DOOM novel authors thought that and wrote it into their books.


I always viewed them as skeletons in football jerseys.

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PRIMEVAL said:

I also thought the Cacodemons were frightening and thought they were one of the strongest demons.


That's not a misconception. In the original DOOM, before you get to fight any of the boss-type monsters, Cacodemons are frightening and one of the strongest demons. They were my most-hated, pre-DOOM II baddies.

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When I first played Doom I thought I was killing aliens. Since I was sed to STar Wars aliens, I thought that fireballs being conjured out of hands of Imps to be ridiculous, so I thought he had some type of wrist gun.

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Megamur said:

I'm sure lots of people thought the Revenants were wearing white t-shirts and red shorts. Even the DOOM novel authors thought that and wrote it into their books.

I always thought they looked like they were wearing plastic football armor, however, I never mistaken the blood running from his hollow torso as pants, but this seems to be a common mistake with fans.

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I always envisioned the Doom pistol as some sort of misshapened ovalish triangle rather than an actual pistol. It's just.. weird the way it looks.

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Jimmy91 said:

My brother used to look at the Cyberdemon's nostrils and see eyes.

I just knew someone had to have said it before I could. I saw them that way, too, back then. It wasn't until I came back to Doom many years later that I suddenly noticed this upon exploring these boards for the first time.

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I used to think arachnotrons were the strongest enemies in the game. TNT was the first IWAD I played, and I stopped at MAP32, before I could encounter any real boss monsters (I was playing on NTR). Those inactive ones on MAP31 scared the shit out of me, it was really suspenseful waiting for them to be unleashed...

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Megamur said:

That's not a misconception. In the original DOOM, before you get to fight any of the boss-type monsters, Cacodemons are frightening and one of the strongest demons. They were my most-hated, pre-DOOM II baddies.


Couple years later, meeting the Caco in E2M1, I wasn't so impressed. Had the shotty there, too. I think it was just the E3M1 experience when all I had was the pistol and this floating head just stared at me the entire time. Never did beat that version.

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I too thought the soul sphere was an enemy when I played it back in fifth grade.

It was shareware doom.

I also called the demon "beast"

I also thought doom was about aliens, and then Id make up my own story of some of the stuff, etc.


I also, the first time fighting the two barons as a boss, thought the rest of the area floor hurt you so I tried to fight them in that one confined space.

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Wow I can relate to a lot of stuff said in this thread.

I didn't know the gibbed players were actually gibbed players. They looked like mutilated corpses laying sideways. The two chucks sticking up on the left were legs bent backwards and upwards, on the right was his exposed brain.

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Krispavera said:

I always envisioned the Doom pistol as some sort of misshapened ovalish triangle rather than an actual pistol. It's just.. weird the way it looks.


Me too. I still do. It looks more like a silly Buck Rogers "disintigration raygun" than the colt it's supposed to be.

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These are my favourite Doom misconceptions, even if they weren't my own:




...

...

Yeah OK OK I'll give you what you want to hear. The Cacodemon/Pain Elemental both have a poop chute and a vagina, cyberdemons have sexy tan asses, and the imp is female because of impse (and because you can see a black hole between its legs when it dies).

OK.. actually, because I had sticked to Doom v1.1 for a long time, I was convinced that Armor only got up to 199% (the mega armor pickup didn't go all the way up to 200%) and that this was an absolute maximum (never noticed that it could also be broken and go higher). And of course I thought that ouchface occurred only in exceptional situations like getting badly injured and then healed a lot.

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Mine was the cyberdemon's nostrils being mistaken for its eyes. Even now I have a hard time not seeing that due o how hidden the eyes are by the horns.

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hobomaster22 said:

2. Imps were hairy. They were like monkeys with spikes that threw fireballs.


TBQH I only heard of this here on DW, usually in conjunction with furries. I could never wrap my head around that, also because in my first contact with Doom, in PC Master magazine issue of December 1994, imps were described as "Σαυράνθρωποι", lit. "Lizard men", and so I always thought of them as being reptilian in nature.

For similar reasons, I think of Barons/Knights as bovines, because they were described as "Μινόταυροι" (minotaurs), which made perfect sense.

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I used to think that the berserk pack only lasted while the screen was red, and that the Spider Mastermind operated levers to move its walking platform. Also I used to think that shooting Pain Elementals gave them health points.

There also seems to be a common misconception that Serious Sam has the same gameplay as Doom.

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