What's the story with the default avatars?

Were they all just avatars uploaded at a certain point years ago?

Also, what prompted the decision to only let users have a custom avatar after a large amount of posts? Space, I have to assume. Just curious!

Something gives me the impression that user avatars got collected there.

Essentially, yes. This one :



Is my old original avatar which I uploaded when I regged, donkeys years ago. I can see several others in there which I recognise as specific users too.

Doomkid said:

Also, what prompted the decision to only let users have a custom avatar after a large amount of posts? Space, I have to assume. Just curious!

Probably that - imagine how many newbies would upload custom avatars, soon lose interest and never visit the forum again. Most forum members have post count lesser than 20, and last post (if any) soon after their registration date, anyway. Plus the custom avatar might be taken as a reward for sticking around the forum and posting a lot in such a way that doesn't get oneself banned before he reaches high post count. Just my assumptions, really.

The 250 post requirement is ridiculous imo. I would understand 25 maybe but even that would be kinda unnecessary. I like when new people come to a web forum and they are able to immediately create their own identity by setting a unique avatar.

Memfis said:

The 250 post requirement is ridiculous imo.

I think it's just right IMHO and something tells me it's not going to change anytime soon

I'm pretty sure people have to post 250 times not only because of the interest thing but also just to stop people from signing up and uploading things like porn into their avatars, removing an extra layer of work for admins because nobody is just going to post 250 times to upload porn next to their name that nobody will see when they're banned.

I think it's pretty cool this thing of the 250 posts required. It makes you feel like somehow you earned it.

Personally I think it's a tad high, but I agree with Memfis on the reasoning. 100 posts might be a little more reasonable, but as HavoX said it probably won't change any time soon.

ITT: Babies! 250, too high? Jesus.

If you plan on sticking around and contributing to discussions in some sort of meaningful way, 250 posts is reached rather easily.

BombChel said:

100 posts might be a little more reasonable,

Says the man(?) with 90 posts eheeheehee

Memfis said:

The 250 post requirement is ridiculous imo. I would understand 25 maybe but even that would be kinda unnecessary. I like when new people come to a web forum and they are able to immediately create their own identity by setting a unique avatar.

Agreed, but I can't even change the one I uploaded. I didn't like how small it was and tried to put a Phantasy Star img up. Won't change it, huh. All that for 250 posts!!! It's almost like putting up a UV-Max time and Cybie531 comes along and pounds your time into the ground.

the post count doesn't bother me. i think it might've bothered me when i first registered here (because i was an impatient teen), but eventually i just went eh, picked a default, and eventually i made the 250 count. in the end, it's just a little picture under your name, and there's a bunch of default ones you can use from the get-go. is that really such an issue?

A bunch of the default avatars are SomethingAwful related, I believe specifically from the Cliff Yablonski page. Linguica used to be involved with SomethingAwful and wrote several articles for the site; it's also the origin of Post Hell (which is Doomworld's version of SA's Comedy Gas Chamber).

The remaining avatars are essentially the personal avatars of Doomworld members c. ~2003 (probably earlier). As I recall, it used to be the case that to change your avatar, you uploaded a new one to the gallery and chose it. At some point that functionality broke and so the gallery is stuck in its current state. I don't recall why - maybe it was when Doomworld moved to vbulletin?

For obvious reasons many of the avatars are Doom themed which fortunately means there's a selection that will appeal to most Doomworld members. But it's certainly a very odd bunch. You'll notice there's a significant number of fish avatars, all variants on the pink fish theme. From memory I believe I made some of the odder variants, specifically these ones:

i always liked the different variants of fish. it's a pretty unique thing to see for a forum about a mature-rated game.

Jaxxoon R said:

Says the man(?) with 90 posts eheeheehee

But yeah, I say that with ~90 posts because I feel like I've been around long enough to prove I'm not an asshole or an idiot. Shrug!

Ashstrodamus said:

I didn't like how small it was and tried to put a Phantasy Star img up. Won't change it, huh.

Well I'm seeing a Phantasy Star avatar under your name. Have you tried doing a Shift+Refresh?

250 posts or nothing, besides being able to use a custom avatar after fufilling that requirement sounds quite satisfying.

The PickleHammer avatar I know was/is a member of Doomworld, he also seemed to be a troll but I am not sure. always wondered about that.

The Misfits skull was my first avatar.

I'd like to see a lower requirement, personally.

First one was:


Had another, but didn't quite cut it:


When I did chose that default avatar when I was first part of Doomworld, I thought it was fitting for me. idk why.

Heck, I did use it too on Youtube and DeviantART.

My first one was the Quake 3 Doomguy head. I remember thinking that, even though roughly half of them are Doom related, they couldn't be any more random - Stuff like the blue lost soul and cacodemon-cherry and whatever else. There's also plenty of beautiful, beautiful unknown faces to choose from. Literally the only mug there I recognize is Ali G.

The 250 posts rule first made think:"AAAHHHH! WHY!!!!"
But now im so close to a custom avatar download, it feels satisfactory.
Ive fallen in love with this Quake logo avatar though..

Before I had 250 posts I didn't use an avatar. I don't think much to the defaults.

I don't think it's such a bad thing to have a post count requirement to upload a custom one but agree 250 is probably counter productive. Sure it prevents people intending to make only a handful of troll/flame posts misusing the feature but it also encourages some users who do intend to stick around to post inanely to reach the limit, or at least it sometimes seems so. Same with titles, I suppose.

I can't see anyone's post count, which would usually be revealed below their avatar. I'm guessing you would have to visit their profile or something.

Oh I see there is a blog feature. Purist you haven't posted any updates for a while. How's that job treating you? Still there?

Chezza said:

I can't see anyone's post count, which would usually be revealed below their avatar.

It's exactly in that place, in every post, just invisible by default. You must highlight the place by block-selecting text over it with your mouse. :)

scifista42 said:

It's exactly in that place, in every post, just invisible by default. You must highlight the place by block-selecting text over it with your mouse. :)

Haha awesome I just discovered I have reached the post count thanks to your pointer! Got myself a picture of a Xeno. I feel I ought to have a unique Doom related avatar but my mind is blank for now.

My word Scifista, you're a Doom World fiend. Almost hit 8k posts.

Chezza said:

My word Scifista, you're a Doom World fiend. Almost hit 8k posts.

I'm sure he only passed 7500 like a couple of days ago. I'm also fairly sure he only overtook me this year :P

Chezza said:

Oh I see there is a blog feature. Purist you haven't posted any updates for a while. How's that job treating you? Still there?

I don't blog all that much, I'm surprised I mentioned the new job! I'm still there right now but it's a year to year thing as the Conservative UK government are no longer directly funding the role and at the same time have imposed severe cuts on Local Government spending. It doesn't look good for the position long term but I've been TUPE'd to a Private company with protected terms and no redundancy for 7 years so even if the job goes I'll still have something, somewhere.