Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Platinum Shell

Is DooM timeless?

Recommended Posts

Just asking how many people think DooM is still one of the best, if not the best FPS game still to this date, and what other opinions on the subject they may have.


I mean, in my humble opinion, I just find DooM so entertaining and fleshed-out in gameplay, I never get bored of it. So many customizations and mods, and TC's,all of it's unique and ranging source ports,and, oh-so much more.

Like today I was just running through the old DooM 2 and I was just savoring every second of the gameplay, enveloped in this wave of gaming satisfaction.

So tell me; what are your opinions on DooM as a game compared to today's standards? And what do you think the current members of the gaming community, both old and young, would be towards DooM?

Share this post


Link to post

Old, blocky, crude and light years ahead of anything else in terms of gameplay.

Selling such a game to today's generation of gamers would be a tall order, though. Mainly due to it being too fast, arcadey and colourful. Who would have thought that THAT would ever be raised as an issue in a PC game (EDGE review notwithstanding)? Not to mention the complete lack of HDR/blooms/cutscenes/hats.

Share this post


Link to post
scalliano said:

Old, blocky, crude and light years ahead of anything else in terms of gameplay.

Selling such a game to today's generation of gamers would be a tall order, though. Mainly due to it being too fast, arcadey and colourful. Who would have thought that THAT would ever be raised as an issue in a PC game (EDGE review notwithstanding)? Not to mention the complete lack of HDR/blooms/cutscenes/hats.


I especially love how you pointed out hats, thanks for the good response.

Share this post


Link to post
scalliano said:

light years ahead of anything else in terms of gameplay.


No it isn't. Doom's gameplay is still lots of fun, but calling it "light years ahead" is just stupid. Doom's gameplay is still loads of fun as I already said, but its also about as old as dinosaur bones in the eyes of many.

I think lots of people who still play Doom tend to forget just how few people still do. The rest (that would be about 96% of almost everyone) either don't know anything about Doom or think it hasn't aged very well. I personally don't know anyone besides myself that is even remotely interested in Doom, and that is saying a lot seeing as almost everyone I know play at least some video games.

Share this post


Link to post

Doom's gameplay is light years ahead of fps shooters that reward eternally hiding behind corners and taking pot shots against hitscanner enemies which all have the same attack, for sure. That's why Doom still has a healthy community.

I'm pretty sure that one day a game is going to come along which brings that spark back into the fps genre, it'll probably take a while for it to happen though.

Share this post


Link to post

Vanilla Doom E1-3 is timeless and unsurpassed in its simplicity and balance. Doom II is very close. Everything else is fail.

Share this post


Link to post

Doom's modability and endless potential for re-creation is what makes it timeless, in my eyes. Every time I give a new wad a whirl, it gives me a new experience. Other games have replaybility, sure... but this one is pretty much limitless.

Share this post


Link to post
hardcore_gamer said:

No it isn't. Doom's gameplay is still lots of fun, but calling it "light years ahead" is just stupid. Doom's gameplay is still loads of fun as I already said, but its also about as old as dinosaur bones in the eyes of many.

I think lots of people who still play Doom tend to forget just how few people still do. The rest (that would be about 96% of almost everyone) either don't know anything about Doom or think it hasn't aged very well. I personally don't know anyone besides myself that is even remotely interested in Doom, and that is saying a lot seeing as almost everyone I know play at least some video games.


Yeah I personally know very few Doomers, although almost everyone I know has heard of it. I used to bring in my laptop on graveyard shift and play it and got a little attention, but noone asked if they could play, or seemed like they knew anything about it. It's pretty much just got a cult following anymore.

Share this post


Link to post

I love how people seem to think that Doom is the only game ever with a modding community as big as Doom's.

But anyway, I agree that Doom is timeless.

Share this post


Link to post
Gordon said:

I love how people seem to think that Doom is the only game ever with a modding community as big as Doom's.

But anyway, I agree that Doom is timeless.


I think (for me anyway, I can't speak for everybody else) what makes Doom's modding community interesting is not that it's bigger than every other one ever, but the fact that it's still pretty large in spite of the game's age. Most games with a comparably sized or larger modding community are much newer than Doom is.

Share this post


Link to post

I have met a lot of people who like Doom, but they just aren't as fanatical as us or they don't realize a lot of people still play it.

Share this post


Link to post

Most of my friends doesn't heard about Doom, I think it's because Doom isn't popular in Asia.

But I still like Doom, the action and maps are fun. If there's more version of Doom seen, I think Doom will still not be timeless. Think about Street Fighters.

Share this post


Link to post
Daiyu_Xiaoxiang said:

Most of my friends doesn't heard about Doom, I think it's because Doom isn't popular in Asia.

But I still like Doom, the action and maps are fun. If there's more version of Doom seen, I think Doom will still not be timeless. Think about Street Fighters.


The main reason it didn't ignite nearly as fast in Asia, is the fact that,

1. It was an American game, so wherever it is initially released will most likely receive the most attention and views.

2.Since Asia was so far away back then, and internet connection wasn't what it is now, it was very difficult then for an Asian to obtain the game. I'm still not sure how DooM was advertised in Asia, no experience at all.

But I do recall my buddy Xin Wu obtaining Ultimate DooM in Asia on his hardrive, and when he came over to America, he told me how he got it.


So yeah, your not the first Asian (no racism intended) to mention that, a notorious DooM WAD speedrunner, tatsurdcacocaco, also mentioned DooM not obtaining as much popularity in Asia.

But thanks for your input, I beleive the main reason so many have forgotten about DooM, is the fact that new games almost always promise new graphics and gameplay and features, and overall a new bundle of excitement, as we progress adding more features and changing gameplay, we are often forgetting and sacrificing other good elements of gameplay, thus churning out other games of unique, good quality, while an equally fun (if not more) original game has a totally different flavor of FPS, while still packing in just as much if not more entertainment value. Unfortunately, alot of the cause for gameplay quality decline is developers enhancing and improving graphics, as the newer generations demand for it (the majority), so they have less time to the deadline,to flesh out the gameplay, and instead work more on the visuals. Over time, this change in video game developement has ushered forth a new wave of casual gamers.

Share this post


Link to post
Platinum Shell said:

So yeah, your not the first Asian (no racism intended) to mention that, a notorious DooM WAD speedrunner, tatsurdcacocaco, also mentioned DooM not obtaining as much popularity in Asia.


Qaatar is also Asian, he's a guy from Mainland China(Beijing) studying in US now.

In fact, weather more people will focus on "New" Doom or not depends on Doom 4. I hope Doom 4 will have more new graphics and weapons, as well as returns of original monsters.

Share this post


Link to post

Doom, in my opinion, is the best FPS ever made. I've never had as much fun with any other.
Want fast-paced, no-crap, online shooting mayhem? Deathmatch on Doom.
Bored? Have a friend over? Co-op all day.
Want an intense single-player experience? Up the difficulty and stay on the edge of your seat playing Doom.

And last but not least,
Bored of the main game? The internet has mountains of WADs, and there's a lot of really good ones.

I'll also add that nothing is more satisfying in video game history than the experience of firing off an SSG into a group of Zombies. The sound, the animation, the result... 100% therapeutic.

Share this post


Link to post

"I love how doomers think so many play doom, I love how doomers think doom is the only game with a significant modding community"... I don't think that's what is being said at all.

The number of people knowing Doom is irrelevant to how good the game is (much less how good the gameplay is), otherwise we have to embrace reality TV shows as the finest form of entertainment and forget anything else.

Same thing with modding. Half-Life 2 and Oblivion, just to pick two examples, got much bigger modding communities than Doom, but most of the maps released for HL² are downright terrible and most of the mods are minor changes. Every now and then comes a great mod that adds a lot, but these tend to take years and are few and far between, compared to the amount of quality megawads for classic Doom.

Quantity =! quality.

One great thing about Doom is that, by chance or by design, the gameplay just works. Add that to the simplicity of mapping for 2.5D, and it's pretty easy and fast for anyone to churn out something that will have some playability.

More advanced games tend to have less satisfying core gameplay and rely on storytelling, good looks, carefully scripted level design to provide an entertaining experience. This is quite a bit harder to do for one dude sitting in front of his computer in his basement, and only seems to become moreso as the technology evolves. It's obviously easier to compete with what half a dozen people made (Doom) than with a hundred (modern games).

Personally, the only other game in which I've been able to just pick up maps more or less "randomly" (that is, within the pool of stuff that is rated 80% or above due to people's tendency to overrate anything that is indie), play and have a good time was Left 4 Dead. Just like Doom it's a game where most of the gameplay is dictated by monster behavior, level layout, pacing and resource management. I'm guessing this has something to do with that.

This post will inevitably be seen and dismissed as fanboyism by some. Trust me, I would like nothing more than for me to be wrong. I've tried so many times to get in mods for other games - again, going to mention Oblivion as so many people rave about unmodded Oblivion being boring and mods completely changing the game for the best ; but each time I try, for any game, it ends up dissapointing me more often than not. Big file sizes, cumbersome installations, either minor changes or questionable ones in a big bundle, compatibility issues, quality that often ends up being far below the original game while at the same time being praised as better by the community, making finding anything good a pain in the ass.

While I really like Doom, I also like plenty of other games and wish the modding community would be up to par, but it just isn't.

Share this post


Link to post
scalliano said:

Selling such a game to today's generation of gamers would be a tall order, though. [...] hats.


You told the solution yourself: buy Doom on Steam, get a Cacodemon hat for your Team Fortress II characters. Blam, two million copies sold overnight.

Simple, really.

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

You told the solution yourself: buy Doom on Steam, get a Cacodemon hat for your Team Fortress II characters. Blam, two million copies sold overnight.

Simple, really.


Yes, but in this case, they would more likely than not have any interest in actually playing the game. Sure, a cool hat is great and all, and you might sell quite a few copies, but it would be a shallow victory; they're only in it for the hats, I'm afraid. (mostly) =/

Share this post


Link to post

Doom is timeless in the same way Pac-Man and Tetris are. They're very obviously dated and simple games, but just about anyone can pick them up and play the hell out of them, and have a great time doing so.

Share this post


Link to post
Snakes said:

Doom's modability and endless potential for re-creation is what makes it timeless, in my eyes. Every time I give a new wad a whirl, it gives me a new experience. Other games have replaybility, sure... but this one is pretty much limitless.


Replayability is why Doom is indeed timeless.

Dark X said:

Bored of the main game? The internet has mountains of WADs, and there's a lot of really good ones.


That and the existence of random map generators (IE Oblige) to provide even more time.

Share this post


Link to post
DeathevokatioN said:

Doom's gameplay is light years ahead of fps shooters that reward eternally hiding behind corners and taking pot shots against hitscanner enemies which all have the same attack, for sure.


This is stupid. First of all, "eternally hiding" and "taking pot shots" do not coincide. Taking pot shots means hiding some of the time, and exposing yourself to shoot otherwise. Second, I don't know what game you might be talking about, but I cannot recall any modern shooter where enemies only had one attack. That's just retarded. Yeah, maybe the enemies in call of duty primarily use automatic rifles against you. But they also have grenades and tanks, and melee.

If you mean to say that doom's gameplay is better than bad modern shooters, that's pretty much a useless statement. Everyone knows that good is better than bad. To say its gameplay is "ahead" meaning more advanced, that is obviously not true. In doom you cannot jump, crouch, climb over things, go prone, etc etc. There's no recoil, no gimping, no headshots.

Obviously, since this is the only message board I consistently use, I love Doom. But, part of why I love it is because it is simple, not because I think it's "ahead" of modern games. Yes, I can agree that emphasis on advanced features (such as graphics) can detract from the gameplay - as we have all seen with zdoom wads. That doesn't mean games with high-end graphics and tactical shooting can't be fun.

Besides, in doom you are usually also rewarded for hanging back, luring monsters away from their buddies, and using corners to shoot around while remaining mostly hidden. I've also seen some memorable moments watching my friend play CoD4 singleplayer, like running from building to building while nearly getting blown up by tank fire. That doesn't sound like hiding and pot-shotting to me.

OT, Doom isn't timeless. I doubt the original data of doom 1.9 still exists today :P

Share this post


Link to post

Why do people say Doom doesn't have emphasis on graphics? I can't think of another FPS from the nineties that looks more aesthetically appealing than Doom.

Share this post


Link to post

Would DOOM, or for that matter HERETIC or HEXEN, still be played today, if there were no editing tools or ports ?
After having played through the levels a hundred times, probably would have killed off any incentive to play it another hundred times.

As far as I see it, the only reason we are still all here is because of all the modding tools, to let our imagination create new maps, in whatever gamestyle you fancy. It's the 'simplicity' of the engine which gives everyone the opportunity to create a map in seconds, or any length of time depending on complexity. And it is this creativity, and for some the desire to publish those creations, which makes DOOM timeless.

Share this post


Link to post
SeanWJF said:

... I can't think of another FPS from the nineties that looks more aesthetically appealing than Doom.


x2

Share this post


Link to post

To say its gameplay is "ahead" meaning more advanced, that is obviously not true. In doom you cannot jump, crouch, climb over things, go prone, etc etc. There's no recoil, no gimping, no headshots.


So, Monopoly's gameplay is ahead of Go, because it uses advanced features such as multi-colored tiles, dice rolling and bank bills.

Share this post


Link to post
Phml said:

So, Monopoly's gameplay is ahead of Go, because it uses advanced features such as multi-colored tiles, dice rolling and bank bills.


Yes. What is your point?

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×