The Doom Confessional Booth

Don't know if I said this or not but,

I nowadays prefer ZDoom UDMF maps, as I have played so much Boom/Vanilla maps to the point where I don't really want to play them anymore.

I'm afraid I got spiritually too old for playing Doom - I've noticed I'm far more comfortable watching other people play Wads than playing them myself.

Or maybe because I'm disappointed by the way I play? Dunno.

On 8/31/2018 at 4:27 PM, Cell said:

I've noticed I'm far more comfortable watching other people play Wads than playing them myself.

Or maybe because I'm disappointed by the way I play? Dunno.

From my POV, I don't think that's the case, perhaps you just need a break from Doom and do something else, or play other games until the thirst for more returns.

Surprisingly, watching other people play Doom megawads played a somewhat important role into getting me into certain genres (read: slaughter). I think a part of me will always be disappointed by my performance too, but at the end of the day I've accepted that I'm just not great at video games overall so complaining about myself isn't going to get me anywhere (ironically, neither will trying harder).

Despite this, since we were on the subject of watching others, I like to think people see things differently than myself. I've watched some of my past broadcasts and it honestly looked pretty decent, yet it feels different when you're playing.

@Agent6 I actually met the subject with quite a tad of console games. Being a PC's man ever since the age 2 or 3, I've never ever owned - let alone played on - games primarily made for consoles, but I've watched a countless number of them being played through (having no other chance, that is). This habit then crossed over to Wad gameplays. I must admit I rarely play anything nowadays. Maybe I should indeed get a little break off the FPS genre as a whole.

On the confession topic: I still use Doom Builder 2, and the last time I updated it was in 2011.

I have the "use" function bound to three different keys in Chocolate, Eternity and ZDoom, and instead of making it consistent I just mentally readjust as soon as I fail to open a door again.

I believe Urban Brawl has better gay representation than Project Einherjar.

23 hours ago, RaphaelMode said:

I believe Urban Brawl has better gay representation than Project Einherjar.

And where you saw that? I'm just curious. 

I think I am now addicted to Doom mapping. :/

29 minutes ago, elend said:

I think I am now addicted to Doom mapping. :/

One of us! One of us!

I don't really know the difference between the "What are you working on? Show me your WADs" and "Post your Doom picture" threads.

I don't really know the difference between the "What are you working on? Show me your WADs" and "Post your Doom picture" threads.

Awww crap. Delete me please. T_T

For some people they're 2 sides of the same coin that they can cross post in for extra likes. (In all seriousness the existence of both threads does tend to split things a bit inconveniently, as it necessitates checking both threads for sweet screenies of new wads and posting in both to reach the most number of people, since just as some only post in one or the other, some only will check one or the other)

That said, and acknowledging the somewhat redundancy of the two threads, I do think they serve slightly different roles. The 'post your doom pic' thread came out first and was basically just a place to post pics of anything doom, which can include our WIP projects, a sweet wad we're playing, or pics of other stuff related to classic doom. The 'what are you working on' thread covers just stuff we personally are working on, which introduces a bit of redundancy with the other thread, however given the nature of the two I always figured the 'what are you working on' was more geared towards discussion than the pic thread, which seems (to me at least) more like it should be just a place to dump screenies rather hijack a thread specifically for pics to talk about one's wad.

So pic thread for mindless pics; show and tell thread for discussion.

I often forget about my coffee when gaming and when i drink it its cold already. I drink it anyway.

Oh! That makes sense of course. Thank you! :D

Even though to this day I still loathe Terrywads with the passion of a thousand suns, I cannot help but be astounded by how they have evolved from crude, straightforward rape jokes to sneaky, fooling, thoughtful branches of mappery with a couple of booby traps thrown in here and there.

In fact... I'd love to see one thread someday disgusting discussing TW's, taking everything but the almost inevitable outcome about them into consideration (yup, AFAIK there are a good few that are, in fact, winnable). ^{Or... maybe that is what Aquarius' YouTube comment section is for?}

28 minutes ago, Cell said:

Even though to this day I still loathe Terrywads with the passion of a thousand suns, I cannot help but be astounded by how they have evolved from crude, straightforward rape jokes to sneaky, fooling, thoughtful branches of mappery with a couple of booby traps thrown in here and there.

And here I come.

I still don't understand what a "terrywad" is up to this day. I suppose it stands for "terrible wad", but that's awfully vague.

A map designed to annoy and\or even harm the user\their PC. People lump terribly designed maps they deem unplayable with terry maps from time to time. 

5 hours ago, Agent6 said:

 

And here I come.

 

I still don't understand what a "terrywad" is up to this day. I suppose it stands for "terrible wad", but that's awfully vague.

They're called that because Terry was the handle of the person who pioneered the genre, if you want to call it that.  It typically designates a WAD designed specifically to troll/annoy the player by looking like a good map at first and then abruptly dropping them into crude and abusive "humor" and possibly messing with their config settings or other malicious behaviors as well.

I don't think I've ever actually played a Terry WAD before. But I have seen the Youtube videos. Going near them seems like a waste of time to me.

I haven't played them nor have I watched any videos on them.

my big great sin

i never passed doom 2 complete in vanilla

4 hours ago, Ajora said:

Going near them seems like a waste of time to me.

5 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

possibly messing with their config settings or other malicious behaviors as well.

Not surprising if that's what some of them do.

Mind you, if a WAD can mess with a source port's configuration, that's a bug in the source port. Has this behaviour been confirmed?

23 minutes ago, damerell said:

Mind you, if a WAD can mess with a source port's configuration, that's a bug in the source port. Has this behaviour been confirmed?

No it's stupider than that, it's technically not a bug. Skulltag added an ACS function called ConsoleCommand, which executed console commands as the user. Any command at all, and thus completely unrestricted access to every user setting and bind. 

Zandro incorporated a blacklist for this function as a result of the damage done, although the function still exists and the blacklist only covers a few of the obvious problems. 

5 hours ago, Edward850 said:

No it's stupider than that, it's technically not a bug. Skulltag added an ACS function called ConsoleCommand, which executed console commands as the user. Any command at all, and thus completely unrestricted access to every user setting and bind. 

Zandro incorporated a blacklist for this function as a result of the damage done, although the function still exists and the blacklist only covers a few of the obvious problems. 

It's a damn shame, IMO. Every now and then, in every executable environment, a developer devises an "interpret at runtime" super function, like ConsoleCommand, or Eval(), or even Microsoft ActiveX/macros in a Word doc. Without a doubt, these functions are cool - extremely powerful and convenient. And, without a doubt, some numbnuts say "Oooh" and do bad stuff with it, ruining it for everyone else. The super function gets marked "evil", when it's really not that function's fault at all.

Every piece of technology needs an "I'm a good guy - let me through" button. But we, as humans, have yet to invent a "Good Guy" detector that actually works.

23 hours ago, Edward850 said:

No it's stupider than that, it's technically not a bug. Skulltag added an ACS function called ConsoleCommand, which executed console commands as the user. Any command at all, and thus completely unrestricted access to every user setting and bind.

I know what you mean but I think where I come from that's a bug, even if it's buggy by design.

6 minutes ago, damerell said:

I know what you mean but I think where I come from that's a bug, even if it's buggy by design.

Nobody will say it isn't flawed, but it's been already well established that the problem has existed for years, and even discussed before Terrywads were a thing.

Saying "this seems like a bug" now isn't bringing anything new to the table. We are already well and truly past that point, and now it's just a waiting game of when the zandro team bucks up and actually removes the disaster function. 

3 hours ago, Edward850 said:

We are already well and truly past that point, and now it's just a waiting game of when the zandro team bucks up and actually removes the disaster function. 

Problem is, removal will break existing maps, won't it?

There's some middle ground possible. Each console command could have a flag "Allow use in scripts?" (Yes/No/Confirm). Same for console variables: "Allow scripts to change?" (Yes/No/Confirm). The 'Confirm' choice is not pretty. The problem is that functions like ConsoleCommand provide services beneficial to have. Providing "ConsoleCommand" is a bit lazy, but the alternative is a bunch of functions that essentially do the same thing, and still need to be locked down.

For scripts setting console variables, another option is to prefix the variable name with the name of the WAD, meaning that the variables only pertain to the loaded WAD.

But, in all cases, it requires the classic tradeoff: balancing power with safety, which is always a complicated compromise.

Are there WADs out there that maliciously mess up a user's config? What console commands are causing problems? What variables are being messed up? Knowing that might lead to a decent compromise solution. (I'm interested in this, as I've been considering adding a similar functionality in my source port. I want my script engine to have the necessary abilities, but I don't want to create a platform that enables mischief.)

I MUST CONFESS

I actually play H-Doom sometimes but only because it's fucken hilarious