How did the majority of people without internet patch their doom/doom2 above 1.2/1.666?

It isn't like they were distributed commercially - unless ID mailed them out for free?  Aside from that, I'm guessing that people relied on the friend of a friend of a friend who had the net? (maybe several more levels of friends given the web wasn't/was barely even a thing back then)

BBS services. If you had a modem you could dial a BBS directly, without internet access. Speeds were usually 9600 baud or less.

1 minute ago, Woolie Wool said:

BBS services. If you had a modem you could dial a BBS directly, without internet access. Speeds were usually 9600 baud or less.

Oh of course, I used one of those in about '98, just before getting the internet.  I remember trying to dial one that had recently gone down, someone kept picking up the phone and getting pissed off, and I couldn't explain what was going on due to no mic...

I simply didn't until I had internet, I remember encountering various bugs in TCs because I was on an outdated version. When I did get internet, idsoftware was running a website and ftp with the patches, so it was painless to update.

Shovelware CDs, in my case.

I have a couple of them that have the Doom 2 patches from 1.666 to 1.9, IIRC. Maybe something that upgrades Doom as well.

8 hours ago, Vorpal said:

I remember encountering various bugs in TCs because I was on an outdated version.

Any examples? Was it a huge problem (totally unplayable levels) or something relatively minor?

1 hour ago, Memfis said:

Any examples? Was it a huge problem (totally unplayable levels) or something relatively minor?

Osiris would crash unless on skill 5, aliens TC had various animation frames that wouldn't render at all. Most that altered dehacked would just bomb out to dos completely though until I got 1.666.

I simply didn’t bother. I got 1.666 retail and never updated it. I think I  only sought out 1.9 in the era of source ports.

Id included patch disks in the registered versions they sent out. This was a pretty straightforward way of avoiding having to reimage old disks (and reprint labels) they had already made.

I didn't upgrade Doom II v1.666 for my everyday Doom II until recently, and, I think I prefer it to v1.9. Not sure why. I know that id screwed up monster placement repeatedly by doing some sort of global offsetting of either the monsters, or the map geometry (probably this). Also, the shotgunner cell on the left, in the first room of Map 02 were removed/changed, which always made v1.9 look strange to me.

Anyone else prefer older versions?

8 hours ago, kb1 said:

Anyone else prefer older versions?

Certainly for Doom 1; this is possibly one reason I have an aversion for Episode 4. I spent a LOT of time playing v1.2 E1 shareware, so things like the swastika change, randomized-pitch sound effects, the demon's bite behaviour, the E1M1 secret switch/outside area (or absence of it), tag 666 behaviour on E*M8 etc. were to me the "normal". My main D2 was 1.666, as I said, so things like the red title bar in the loading screen are also baked into my mind; I never got used to the white one for 1.9.

31 minutes ago, Jon said:

the swastika change ... the E1M1 secret switch/outside area (or absence of it)

I had v.1.2 of the shareware and v.1.666 of the of the full version (a friend of mine gave it to me, so I didn't order it).

I remember the swastika from the shareware and not thinking anything about it, so I was a little surprised when it was changed for 1.666. Then again, I didn't really care that they made the change; it doesn't really enhance or detract from the  On a side note, I'm surprised no one every lost it over a version number with 666 in it.

I only played v.1.9 a couple years ago, so that was my first experience with the switch in E1M1 that led you outside to the area with the blue armor. Maybe it's because E1M1 was the first level I played and that area was the first secret I found (almost 24 years ago), but I don't like that switch. I don't think it adds anything to the single player version of the game and it trivializes the secret. And it fundamentally changes the flow of the level. ... Oh well, get off my lawn.

1 hour ago, Jon said:

tag 666 behaviour on E*M8

Wait, that's why e3m8hell doesn't work anymore (has cyberdemons no spiders)? In that case, how does the engine make an exception for UAC_DEAD? 

On 4/11/2018 at 11:04 PM, invictius said:

It isn't like they were distributed commercially - unless ID mailed them out for free?  Aside from that, I'm guessing that people relied on the friend of a friend of a friend who had the net? (maybe several more levels of friends given the web wasn't/was barely even a thing back then)

@fraggle already showed that id shipped out patch disks, but I wonder if id actually mailed patch disks out separately?

I never actually upgraded past v1.666 (which, as I said, was given to me by a friend), so I don't know this for sure. But, I do know that Sierra and Dynamix (yes, I know Sierra was the parent company of Dynamix) would mail out patch disks. Per @Woolie Wool, they were available on BBS's, but my parents forbid me from using the modem to call long distance after I ran up a huge phone bill dialing up to a BBS in Oregon, I think (I lived in Virginia), so I couldn't do that. As a result, I had half a shelf full of small white cardboard mailing envelopes with patch disks in them. Once, I bought a copy of "Rise of the Dragon" where one of the disks was corrupted. They actually mailed me a new copy of the game free of charge.

So, I would think that id may have done something similar.

2 hours ago, NaZa said:

Wait, that's why e3m8hell doesn't work anymore (has cyberdemons no spiders)? In that case, how does the engine make an exception for UAC_DEAD? 

According to The Doom Wiki entry regarding Tag 666:

"E3M8: No sector action: level ends when all Spider Masterminds are dead."

Also,

"The behavior of tag 666 changed with the release of Ultimate Doom. A constraint was added which restricted tag 666 on E1M8 to triggering only on the death of the last baron, rather than the death of any last boss monster. The classic PWAD Doomsday of UAC relied upon the deaths of both the last baron and the last Cyberdemon to trigger it, making the PWAD unplayable in most modern source ports. The original behavior is supported in Chocolate Doom, Doomsday and PrBoom through optional compatibility options, and in ZDoom, by autodetection of the level.

Specifically, the following code is responsible (A_BossDeath in p_enemy.c):

switch(gameepisode)

{

case 1:

     if (gamemap != 8)

          return;

     if (mo->type != MT_BRUISER)

          return;

     break;

The code in bold type defines the new constraint."

So, UAC_DEAD was only originally playable before Ultimate Doom came out, at which time id they changed the source code. So, without special handling by the source port, the level is now unplayable.

"This map occupied the E1M8 slot in order to use the special tag 666 twice, exploiting a peculiarity of Doom's handling when more than one type of boss monster is present in the map. This peculiarity was changed in Ultimate Doom, and as the Doom source release inherited the change, the map is unplayable in many modern source ports due to the red key being unobtainable. Chocolate Doom, Doomsday and PrBoom have option settings which allow the trick to operate as intended, and ZDoom and GZDoom identify the level through its checksum and automatically apply the correct compatibility flag." --(The Doom Wiki)