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

For how much longer will the Doom modding community last?

Recommended Posts

This is actually a thought that often depresses me, OP. There are so many good mappers and designers that either stopped producing content or ended up passing away. What's gonna happen when Ribbiks and Skillsaw decide to stop mapping? Or if Daedalus stops writing scripts and designing new models? Or if Torr stops supporting Zandronum? We already saw ZDoom and Skulltag prod stop.

 

It's definitely dying as the years go on. But what's going to officially pull the plug, I'm yet to decipher.

Share this post


Link to post

When Skulltag died, Torr took the torch and forked Skulltag to make Zandronum. When he quits some time in the future, that won't be the end. Somebody else will pick it up, and Zandronum might not even have a name change. This is bigger than any one of us. New players are coming in all the time, including some very talented people. Doom's doom has been predicted many times over the years (very many), and it has not happened, and it won't any time soon.

Share this post


Link to post
16 hours ago, stru said:

 

It's definitely dying as the years go on.

I don't know if I can even concede that much, to be honest. I feel like I see a faster rate of new members joining not only Doomworld but several other Doom sites as well. If anything, the general momentum seems to have picked up since the mid 00's.

Share this post


Link to post

Until electricity and internet exists. Let's be real - without electricity and internet nobody could connect here and share their doom stuff. 

Share this post


Link to post
6 hours ago, Myst.Haruko said:

without electricity and internet nobody could connect here and share their doom stuff

I use a bicycle generator when I post here.

Share this post


Link to post

But what you guys are failing to realize is that we're moving into a new generation of people who aren't as interested in this like we are. I've only met one other person IRL that is still into Doom. Everyone else I've met won't give it the time of day. We all grew up on the game, this new generation did not. And the chances of them getting into an old game like this is much slimmer now than it was before. New generation likes open-world games and shit, not this. Even though retro gaming is the wave now, it's not a platformer so people don't care. It doesn't get media coverage unless a mapper goes on a shooting spree. It's not a console game. There are so many factors involved in why the Doom community is a dying breed.

 

I'd really like to see a line graph or something of the growth/decline of Doomworld, ZDoom, etc. 

Share this post


Link to post
22 minutes ago, stru said:

I'd really like to see a line graph or something of the growth/decline of Doomworld,

dw_reg_nov2017.png

 

We're on the rise!

Share this post


Link to post

Hm, I dunno. I was born long after Mario. Or chess. But I'm still quite interested in them. We don't need to become mainstream in order to survive. The occasional interest of random oldschool gaming geeks might be enough to keep the community alive for a long time.

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Lüt said:

dw_reg_nov2017.png

 

 

Can someone please explain what's up with the huge spike around 2004-2005?

Share this post


Link to post
On 11/29/2017 at 8:02 AM, stru said:

This is actually a thought that often depresses me, OP. There are so many good mappers and designers that either stopped producing content or ended up passing away. What's gonna happen when Ribbiks and Skillsaw decide to stop mapping? Or if Daedalus stops writing scripts and designing new models? Or if Torr stops supporting Zandronum?

I'm sure folks were asking the same question years back about folks like Iikka Keranen and Malcolm Sailor, long before Ribbiks and Skillsaw were household names, and somehow mapping survived anyway. ;)

 

On 11/29/2017 at 8:02 AM, stru said:

We already saw ZDoom and Skulltag prod stop.

Not only are GZDoom and Zandronum active continuations of these exact projects, they're led by the exact same people who were the de facto lead devs of the discontinued forks. Production certainly didn't stop -- heck, there wasn't even a gap.

 

8 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

Can someone please explain what's up with the huge spike around 2004-2005?

Doom 3's release, I reckon.

Share this post


Link to post
10 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

Can someone please explain what's up with the huge spike around 2004-2005?

Doom 3 came out and internet forums weren't a total relic yet.

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, stru said:

Is this active members? 

New registrations.

 

It's impossible to determine how many might be what you would call "active" without chronicling every individual member, but we can correlate them with the number of new posts and see that they align accordingly:

 

dw_post_nov2017.png

 

Whatever minor activity slump we might have had after 2005 ended in 2009, and it's been steady or upward ever since.

 

Granted, it's also impossible to determine how many of the posts are "on topic" in regard to modding, but given cross-forum post distribution, it's a safe conclusion that forum activity and mod activity are similarly correlated.

 

10 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

Can someone please explain what's up with the huge spike around 2004-2005?

Month of August, 2004: Doom 3 released.

 

The smaller spike toward the end is month of May, 2016: Doom 4 released.

Share this post


Link to post

Idk I guess we'll tell in due time. I'm particularly not going anywhere anytime soon. My backlog of WADs is far too large. I'm hoping I'll be proven wrong.

Share this post


Link to post
3 hours ago, stru said:

But what you guys are failing to realize is that we're moving into a new generation of people who aren't as interested in this like we are. I've only met one other person IRL that is still into Doom. Everyone else I've met won't give it the time of day. We all grew up on the game, this new generation did not. And the chances of them getting into an old game like this is much slimmer now than it was before. New generation likes open-world games and shit, not this. Even though retro gaming is the wave now, it's not a platformer so people don't care. It doesn't get media coverage unless a mapper goes on a shooting spree. It's not a console game. There are so many factors involved in why the Doom community is a dying breed.

If you look at the "How Old Are You?" thread, you'll see that there are a lot of very young players here.

Share this post


Link to post
5 hours ago, stru said:

I've only met one other person IRL that is still into Doom.

Dude most of us here don't know anyone irl that still plays doom,that's why forums exists.

Share this post


Link to post
23 hours ago, Lüt said:

Month of August, 2004: Doom 3 released.

 

The smaller spike toward the end is month of May, 2016: Doom 4 released.

Anyone else find it kinda ironic that Doom 3, a somewhat weaker game compared to other Doom games, caused a bigger growth spike than Doom 2016 which is considered by most as a much better Doom game?

Share this post


Link to post

It was a far greater technological breakthrough than Doom 2016, relative to the other programs of the time. The entire gaming world was interested in how Carmack's engine tech was going to shape the future of the FPS genre, and there was only one source to go to. It was also riding on the hype and success of the prior titles that once before revolutionized FPS gaming. Doom 2016 may have been the better game, but it wasn't going to shape the future of FPS like Doom 3 would.

Share this post


Link to post

Considering the direction in which modern games are going business-wise, I'd expect some renewed interest in those old titles when publishers weren't out to screw their customers yet.

 

And let's not forget Brutal Doom. As controversial as it is, it will bring new people to classic Doom. Not all will abandon that gameplay-mod mindset but some surely realize eventually that the game underneath all this stuff is worthwile all on its own.

 

Share this post


Link to post
On 11/28/2017 at 9:00 PM, Graf Zahl said:

The only problem is, the web is far too diverse to manage that - it will inevitably backfire.

Do you have any link to that Portuguese thing? I cannot imagine it's compliant with EU law.

 

A similar plan is availabe by Vodafone Greece for their "CU" segment (essentially, budget pay plans for students and the such). They do have "generic" data plans, but they also have content/site-specific plans, the so called "Pass" plans:

 

https://www.vodafonecu.gr/paketa/#DataPass-section

 

Sorry, the site is in Greek only, but what they do more or less is that: the "Chat Pass" and "Social Pass" give you 2 GB of data but only towards known domains of supported social networks. IMO these are not much of a bargain.

 

More interesting is the "Video Pass": 5 GB of data for use in Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo and Dailymotion with priority over any "general purpose" data allowance you might have. At 4.5 Eur for 5 GB and lasting 30 days, it's much cheaper than their cheapest "generic" 30-day data plan which would be 600 MB for 5 Eur, esp. if most of your usage is actually watching YT videos.

 

I don't see why it shouldn't be compliant with EU law -it's just a free market offer. If it particularly suits someone despite its somehow arbitrary application, why not?

Share this post


Link to post
On 11/28/2017 at 3:20 AM, MrSkeltal said:

Doom will last until precisely 4/20/69. Not a moment sooner nor later.

Isn't that the date of birth of Hitler?

Share this post


Link to post

Regarding modding a bit, why is it the repository lacks some obvious things for the sake of variety or really interesting DECORATE creations? The DOOM weapon section is a bit of a joke, and some really cool weapons, monsters and items you have to dig through other more bigger projects just to find. It's a bit obnoxious you have to go find a project and dig through it just to get a zombie with a pistol isn't it? I mean, it has things like the Arachnobaron, and how many people are in all seriousness going to use that in their maps? It would also be nice to have more font choices, maybe a HUDs section or a custom skies section.

 

I liked the idea of the repository because it was a centralized hub for custom stuff and is very "plug-and-play" in nature, and it provided the necessary credits for people's work. I would submit a lot of this stuff myself provided I have all the credits for it and would even be willing to create any necessary brightmaps and GLDefs for them all but something tells me it would just get rejected? And I don't mean a billion recolors or frankensprites or monsters just straight up ripped from other games like DN3D and Blood (which the repository actually has), but things like cool and interesting monsters with nice art or simple things that theme your map well. I'd hate to see some of this stuff get buried...

Edited by CARRiON

Share this post


Link to post

I honestly don't think the Doom community will ever die as long as the internet is still around. We're nearing the 25th anniversary of the original game's release, and we still get new fan-made content extremely regularly.

Share this post


Link to post

I most probably will. I'm still playing games from the '90s since pretty few games of this age manage to keep me hooked on long term and miss the soul and passion those games had.

 

And considering the renewal of interest in the franchise, I'd assume the community and modding scene will still be here for quite some time. Sure, times change and the new generations, particularly the ones that seem to be obsessed with ultra graphics will unlikely ever show much interest, if any, in the classics, but as long as people like us are still around it'll likely keep living for a while, but all things do eventually die.

Share this post


Link to post
On 11/27/2017 at 11:16 PM, Nevander said:

I wonder if id Software ever imagined the future that Doom would have back when it was released? Man oh man.

I doubt most developers imagined that far ahead in the future. I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't imagine back then that Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon would still be their best sellers.

Share this post


Link to post
23 minutes ago, MetroidJunkie said:

I doubt most developers imagined that far ahead in the future. I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't imagine back then that Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon would still be their best sellers.

I would't be so certain about Nintendo: Mario was pretty much their go-to, catch-all mascot by the time the Gameboy was released, and every original release titles on every new Nintendo console so far included a Mario game. Zelda became an established franchise too. Pokemon is a bit of an oddity, not even being a Nintendo product in the first place.

 

id's treatment of Doom was quite different: sure, it was big and hot in the mid 1990s, practically the new PC "killer app", but since id turned into an engine tech company at the time, their focus quickly turned to "better, bigger, grittier" Quake as their new killer app. The Doom franchise only got sparingly touched and updated by id ever since in name only, it's not like there was a new official Doom game every year. However, unlike Zelda and Mario, that are pretty much Nintendo's Sacred Qu'ran & Cash Cows, Doom lived on through its user community.

Share this post


Link to post

The game has been here since 1993 and we still have a really strong and active modding community. Also bringing the Brutal Doom v21 dev into consideration, I guarantee we'll be ripping and tearing our way through a few more decades.

Share this post


Link to post

My plan is to have my most productive years in Doom mapping when I retire, or even end up in a retirement home. Coop-ing the classic megawads with my retirement home buddies.

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
×