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Wadmodder Shalton

Mentions of unreleased Doom betas on a betaarchive topic

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Disclaimer: this discussion does not promote or tolerate piracy, I'm against it and respect the developers and their work.

 

I was Google searching on Betaarchive discussions on abandonware (sometimes warez related releases) when I found this forum thread:

 

https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30401

 

There are mentions of a few unleaked betas of DOOM 1 presumably leaked by warez groups back in 1993, the days before the shareware release of the game (and also the days before the WorldWideWeb was a thing).

 

As far as I know, these betas are never going to likely be seen again. I am not sure any of these warez releases are duplicates of already leaked betas.

Edited by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

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Interesting. The earliest extant doom beta you can find online is extremely primative. Anything earlier than that would likely be little more than engine proof of concepts.

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Heres the few files I found that are related to DOOM 1 and any information on them from that Betaarchive discussion:

 

DOOMBETA.ZIP  1322061  08-21-93  DOOM  - LATEST BETA VERSION -

 

DOOMXMEN.ZIP  1321423  09-29-93  Doom  - Latest Beta Version


DOOMXMEN.ZIP  1323778  09-30-93  DOOM  - LATEST BETA VERSION  -

 

DOOMPR-2.ZIP           10-01-93 DOOM -Pre Beta- dated: 10-04-93     [2/2]


DOOMPR-1.ZIP           10-01-93 DOOM -Pre Beta dated: 10-04-93     [1/2]

 

DOOMPR-1.ZIP  1426647  10-21-93  DOOM -Pre Beta- dated: 10-04-93    DISK: 1/2

 

DVIEW092.ZIP           01-01-94 DoomView beta .92

 

DOOMED12.ZIP           01-01-94 DOOMeD 1.2 beta Doom Trainer

 

Not sure if any of those that say pre-beta (DOOMPR-1.ZIP & DOOMPR-2.ZIP) are duplicates of the Press Release Beta. Also not sure if any of those that say Latest Beta Version (DOOMXMEN.ZIP & DOOMBETA.ZIP) are duplicates of the 0.2, 0.4 or 0.5 alphas (possibly even the 0.3 alpha). If they do get rediscovered then they might be original betas never before seen.

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Those first three zips (doombeta, and two doomxmen) could be stuff newer than Alpha 0.5 but older than the Press-Release Beta. 

 

I was thinking maybe they weren't released because they have most of the levels of the full game.   The Press Release is obviously cut down to thee maps to show, one of each episode.   But it looks like their file sizes are smaller than the PRB, so that's not the case.   Still could be stuff in between the Alpha 0.5 and PRB.

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Those dates are definitely interesting. There’s a huge gap in beta content from May to October, and those files are dated Aug/Sept so there’s a possibility there. I always wondered about a “Doom 0.6” alpha. I’m so curious to see an iteration of Doom’s gameplay between the 0.5 alpha and the near-final gameplay in the Press Release.

 

The naming convention really puts me off the scent though.. Not “doombeta.zip” so much, but “doomxmen” makes me think more of Marvel than anything else.

 

To me, the burning question at this point is, was there ever a version between 0.5 and PR released to testers or other industry people? Some of the old id crew might remember - If so, then there becomes a very real possibility of finding this “missing link” in the Doom alphas.

 

I think the fact that Doom already has so much more beta content than most games has killed any remaining mojo for “the hunt”. Especially since Romero very kindly gave us the tons and tons of unused content a few years back. If any solid-ish evidence comes to light for a missing piece of the puzzle to be found, I’m sure everyone interested in this stuff would be right back into unearthing every last nook and cranny of the internet (and elsewhere!) 

 

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Has anyone here ever tried to extract all the Pre-Release screenshots of previews from magazines mentioned in the Doomwiki's page of Press articles about Doom using image editing software? There hasn't been any standalone versions of these Pre-Release screenshots anywhere, unlike Pre-Release screenshots of Half-Life during that game's development that fortunately has been archived & extracted by the Combine Overwiki and other Valve beta content communities.

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Well, regarding the files mentioned above with dates from August,  September and October, I'm speculating that these files that are mentioned on that Betaarchive discussion were presumably leaked by warez software groups on software BBS boards (in August, September and October of 1993) before DOOM was released in December 1993. 

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1 hour ago, Marisa Kirisame said:

Having had previous experience with what's happened with Unreal, I really wouldn't trust anything going on in Betaarchive.

Exactly. Lets be realistic:

 

How big is the chance that *out of nowhere* a cache of historic stuff of this magnitude pops up like this? Not likely.

 

If you dig through a bit of our recent history here, then you find a lot more stuff that is more useful.

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9 hours ago, Wadmodder RiderPùdu said:

 

DOOMBETA.ZIP  1322061  08-21-93  DOOM  - LATEST BETA VERSION -

 

DOOMXMEN.ZIP  1321423  09-29-93  Doom  - Latest Beta Version


DOOMXMEN.ZIP  1323778  09-30-93  DOOM  - LATEST BETA VERSION  -

 

DOOMPR-2.ZIP           10-01-93 DOOM -Pre Beta- dated: 10-04-93     [2/2]


DOOMPR-1.ZIP           10-01-93 DOOM -Pre Beta dated: 10-04-93     [1/2]

 

DOOMPR-1.ZIP  1426647  10-21-93  DOOM -Pre Beta- dated: 10-04-93    DISK: 1/2

 

DVIEW092.ZIP           01-01-94 DoomView beta .92

 

DOOMED12.ZIP           01-01-94 DOOMeD 1.2 beta Doom Trainer

Based on the dates, any one of these warez groups that were active in 1993 could had leaked these unseen betas on BBS systems back then.

 

Possible groups could be:

 

DrinkOrDie (DoD)

FairLight (FLT)

The Humble Guys (THG)

HYBRID (HBD)

International Network of Crackers (INC)

PARADOX (PDX)

Phrozen Crew (PC)

Pirates with Attitudes (PWA)

Razor 1911 (RZR)

Risciso

SKIDROW

Tristar and Red Sector Incorporated (TRSI)

 

One of those groups presumably once had access to some copies of one of those unseen betas that were sent to some magazines or industry reviewers.

 

Please note this discussion does not promote software piracy in any way shape or form.

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great job on those images, it's actually fashinating to look at them. must have been hella exciting to peep through one of those articles around that time, dying in the awaiting of a game still yet to be discovered, and BOOM. the game is now out, there you have it and you'll be shocked for the rest of your life. :D

 

as for those BBS releases, don't hold your breathe on 'em. they're just the Alpha 0.5 and the Press release.

those filedates are also trickerish, they're the dates those archives were leaked to the web / timestamps those files were copied, but the Press release date is correct (10-01-93).

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Do you mean DOOMBETA.ZIP, the 2 DOOMXMEN.ZIP files, the 2 DOOMPR-1.ZIP files & DOOMPR-2.ZIP?

 

Those files with the dates mentioned on the top of the discussion maybe beta content between the 0.5 alpha and Press Release Beta.

 

They might had been leaked during the BBS days by the warez groups I mentioned above, but this is just my speculation on those file dates.

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1 minute ago, Wadmodder RiderPùdu said:

Do you mean DOOMBETA.ZIP, the 2 DOOMXMEN.ZIP files, DOOMPR-1.ZIP & DOOMPR-2.ZIP?

yes. nothing new in them, but who knows what's still out there.

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We may never even know what content could be behind those ZIP file names I mentioned to you. They might have been never even archived by many computer users, as BBS predates the consumer usage of the WorldWideWeb.

They also likely disappeared from the warez scene, complete without any official sources or traces from any BBS they were originally leaked from.

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1 hour ago, Wadmodder RiderPùdu said:

We may never even know what content could be behind those ZIP file names I mentioned to you. They might have been never even archived by many computer users, as BBS predates the consumer usage of the WorldWideWeb.

They also likely disappeared from the warez scene, complete without any official sources or traces from any BBS they were originally leaked from.

no, I wasn't speculatin, I'm tellin you, that IS what's in those ZIPs! :s

they haven't disappeared..

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Looking at the screenshot where the player stand before a nukage-filled room with metal grate to walk on, I realized that it looks like an early version of Refinery and that is why that map has a floor-to-liquid transition without height variation between them. I can only wonder why they removed that floor texture.

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So DOOMBETA.ZIP, the 2 DOOMXMEN.ZIP files, the 2 DOOMPR-1.ZIP files & DOOMPR-2.ZIP files are indeed duplicates of the 0.5 Alpha and Press Release Beta respectively. Who would had known for an unknown person who releaked those betas back in the day?

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Has anyone ever even tried to recreate pre- release screenshots of Doom & Doom 2 during those development other than just the ones I shown you guys. Also, I just started a ModDB group for the Lost Media Wiki, which I am a member of that site. There are also these screenshots from these links:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/doom/promo

http://toastytech.com/dooma/

https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/doom/cover-art

https://www.mobygames.com/game/doom-ii_/promo

https://www.mobygames.com/game/doom-ii_/cover-art

https://www.mobygames.com/game/ultimate-doom/promo

https://www.mobygames.com/game/ultimate-doom/cover-art

https://www.mobygames.com/game/final-doom/cover-art

 

If you guys are interested in making a PWAD recreating those screenshots, that would be pleasingly.

 

Also here's a link to the LMW's official ModDB page if your interested: https://www.moddb.com/groups/the-lost-media-wiki#groupsform

Edited by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

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The vast majority of those screenshots in the magazines are available as LBMs on the idgames archive, but there's a couple I find curious. The CGW screenshots show a scene with hell textures (it's not actually present in your CGW images, though? the same image appears later down), so I'm morbidly curious if e2/3 content was being developed around the time of the 0.4 and 0.5 alphas, but the alphas were simply restricted to "shareware" content. If they were, I wonder how many workable maps there were at that time. I also find it curious since it's pretty clearly some intermediary version between 0.4 and 0.5

 

Then again, a single hellish level in 0.5 that barely works and a rectangular room in a screenshot barely indicates anything. For all I know, that rectangular room could be in the hallway in 0.5 e2m1 that crashes if you try to go to it. (ed: just checked it, the flats don't match and the hallway is much taller than it's wide, so this is unlikely)

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17 hours ago, Wadmodder RiderPùdu said:

 

Megazin.png.f6c284335607a020a37be5584cd38bb5.png

 

This section reminds me of The Spirit World, but... I don't remember to have seen this place in press release on /idgames! From where it come from? The doom 2 beta maps? Did The Spirit World was already around at the times of first alfas? How can this be possible?

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1 hour ago, Walter confetti said:

This section reminds me of The Spirit World, but... I don't remember to have seen this place in press release on /idgames! From where it come from? The doom 2 beta maps? Did The Spirit World was already around at the times of first alfas? How can this be possible?

 

It's probably an Inferno map, it isn't unlikely at all that Doom 2 recycled some ideas and others were saved for later - Refueling Base, for instance, was originally meant to be part of Doom 1, but ultimately didn't make the cut as it was not finished in time. Games do that all the time.

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Well, in recent years that seems recycled assets to be reused in other games is very rare, and the term of reusing multiple assets is pretty much dead nowadays, outside of easter eggs. Many people may otherwise remember Rockstar Games commonly reusing their RenderWare assets from 2001 with GTA III until 2007 with Manhunt 2.

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I took the time to extract more screenshots, this time from back covers of the game boxes. Used the same methods for those pre-release screenshots mentioned above.

Many of these were sourced from standalone boxed Shareware releases of Doom 1 & others from retail releases, official compilations, screenshots originally on id Software's website many years ago, & a German Magazine Ad all of which of varying resolution, quality & color in-corrections. Also added arrows on the Back Cover of the original mail-order release of DOOM to point out the screenshots. These are also the Pre-Zenimax releases by the way, as I wanted to show you guys these interesting screenshots.

 

Doom & The Ultimate Doom:

Sourced From Shareware/Mail-Order Releases

1810123502_Shareware1.jpg.086215afa2c5a33ddc7bad98a0592646.jpg976296367_Shareware2.jpg.d2707466eb3ee3bbc6e1e2630da6d0b6.jpg945593712_Shareware3.jpg.d0316b099797ec5fa8d4cc0603bd2450.jpg2028848158_Shareware4.jpg.b6ab330085f43e702d8110c94b8ed44c.jpg951650904_Shareware5.jpg.6dcf0a73ea11d6add4819add02163f0f.jpg1646665253_Shareware6.jpg.80ced73c50deb8f844d6547eed22e60b.jpg647995782_Shareware7.jpg.a05adb27578fcd79063235f02465a1f2.jpg61364972_Shareware8.jpg.c84e55bf2f5494e9471cf990204ee3ad.jpg1973287618_Shareware9.jpg.8875b88ef21af82cfbc4d631d601dd70.jpg1047118779_Shareware10.jpg.8c8bce9afe91cc9ea634afbb973d5c81.jpg1609765135_Shareware11.jpg.bb8329c1071edc885761a5c5249167bd.jpg871674419_Shareware12.jpg.e13706950bfb09ccb0ce05f398338e3c.jpg1068096508_Shareware13.jpg.c303a2e7990bf71c4d3acf2b37b1d902.jpg1585260190_Shareware14.jpg.e1e441ed9fc8e398d7271e579155f1f4.jpg1166764504_Shareware15.jpg.5ab47fd239a42785afe07c03d31b76e9.jpg682005429_Shareware16.jpg.b0dfb0b6016918d81f7cc04ad84aef55.jpg2137354282_Shareware17.jpg.f9244e8a40fd1b9ef0f581111f765b57.jpg2117703183_Shareware18.jpg.80296a6eb133621bccb851f295ff4d48.jpg

495032549_BackCoverScreenshots.jpg.9b821d04346ee681ef521b45ccae96e8.jpg

Sourced From Japanese PC-98 release & The Ultimate Doom retail release

343266747_PC-981.jpg.f1495e108e34e9068f9dc4ab8f1e1d09.jpg18641574_PC-982.jpg.e8c1727d4892fd437d73abe931bde1d9.jpg1562157651_PC-9834.jpg.d4f3807136d9daa143468a28fcd47e79.jpg802185426_Retail1.jpg.ff8b44981548dcfd64b3219c84ea0aee.jpg368931707_Retail2.jpg.57a5da21b4493e61daa54f6be90eed2c.jpg237109873_Retail3.jpg.5c3db88029c1a2797dfd25985c43d54b.jpg1083470090_Retail4.jpg.30ca1582368ecf5b934898cc37c331d4.jpg400857119_Retail5.jpg.750f3f8c81bc6306c7234c4e12195a8b.jpg1829637867_Retail6.jpg.3a7af9cb21507e857cb86e2aa5c9b6c7.jpg376633897_Retail7.jpg.66a51fa5d0f846d686cea660df3fa453.jpg549189733_Retail8.jpg.72a7d8cb987a0158053ab055c473b967.jpg1836564408_Retail9.jpg.c7af848ef8558a7ffadaf523b7b4c2b3.jpg1217818361_Retail10.jpg.9d2cfa1d8ed1b6eed4e93961db4fad11.jpg

Sourced from official Compilations

1457604180_Compilation1.jpg.38f80a072e38282d3a935e52637d7240.jpg307363479_Compilation2.jpg.8a749fbf8d9a599ce1d0f2465dcbe69f.jpg708163126_Compilation3.jpg.4add7b62a5519cfcc92e86fae5f7e02e.jpg

Doom II & Final Doom:

2028462465_Retail1.jpg.42b1b8e8e6324e1574dfacceeab945d5.jpg1961765149_Retail2.jpg.3df34cd0d40f35ea7f5f4a6a53a36093.jpg1118205011_Retail3.jpg.0820bc08ea95c7329775fb52f3b7457c.jpg1869373684_Retail4.jpg.a5b7ebc4de68d6568ad9be15ff31afb8.jpg1573124447_Retail5.jpg.b3da702b958b0fbaa952de41bbe5d4e7.jpg2142706996_Retail6.jpg.d89617ee186fc5dfb6795ddf663e68b2.jpg910082718_Retail7.jpg.61dea7eeff77a264b01022dbe3e7f454.jpg580635451_Retail8.jpg.8758c24a503905134d6d2a206004cb31.jpg1093673376_Macintosh1.jpg.07f880e03e536c7fa58627b40f47b32f.jpg1718270119_Macintosh2.jpg.7b1ec810655cc28ab4af36abc5598575.jpg34192616_Macintosh3.jpg.3eea013c9c5c6238d32f1fdedb494861.jpg2011104718_Macintosh4.jpg.75eb6fa45a351d2cbc8bc6ed54547fc3.jpg1014172065_Macintosh5.jpg.42209706828c3495478bd4723a20530d.jpg293983824_Macintosh6.jpg.cc04c73de2b73192e8a7261812c4d02c.jpg1456858563_Macintosh7.jpg.77ded509c5e7c47919021c0e2ee3604b.jpg1443620470_Macintosh8.jpg.4c91b38e896794c7ea51f9a6db66876c.jpg1786485885_Compilation1.jpg.87d8837e163a82e3c47b9ba45e33f7ba.jpg1473580795_Compilation2.jpg.930ca26e6e6bd7d69c20831c15750b8b.jpg690044862_Compilation3.jpg.6c459e7011d102bf2672a76dafe2221a.jpg1481519542_Compilation4.jpg.6cf1ac393946eea5f177dd1dc37f8f45.jpg973129176_Zodiac1.jpg.40c75e4c49dd355c399ffbb2cbe3a665.jpg1265744085_Zodiac2.jpg.edd1f468b332ea905cb62e29707bc891.jpg807300931_Zodiac3.jpg.e3d0e1d05af8adee359b777d5da494ea.jpg39862183_Final1.jpg.6d6c2454698ac5443a22d775f6bf1e9d.jpg2140106698_Final2.jpg.9f130ab77c7184e241b9623163267351.jpg1337035466_Final3.jpg.790baf6ba7c419f18e733cfbdbb3c403.jpg2026420475_Final4.jpg.5910bc589323bb09215c79acf5f0bbbf.jpg1798020246_Final5.jpg.01e2dfde74f1a47ea56c4d56ec17948b.jpg

813086658_GermanMagazineAdvertisement.jpg.249c4f516573dafc0aaebc695a46f2dd.jpg

Most of the screenshots you see in the Doom II & Final Doom section were sourced from the following cover arts or packages: DOOM II: MS-DOS, Classic Macintosh, Tapwave Zodiac, a German Magazine ad & 2 Compilations (The Depths of Doom Trilogy &

Quake and The Ultimate DOOM Compilation even though the latter has screenshots of DOOM II, It isn't included on the latter Compilation) Final DOOM: these 4 Screenshots originally on id Software's website many years ago, and a single screenshot from the back cover of the box.

 

There maybe other screenshots out there that weren't created by users, but that would take me hours or days to find all of them.

Edited by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

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Speaking of Doom betas.   There's a few maps actually released somewhere I'd like to locate.

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/WuNsy

Specifically the first two there, the unidentified map fragment and the newer version than Alpha 0.5's alternate E1M1.

Then the others would just be nice to compare to the ones I got.

 

So annoying that the maps files aren't named in those captions.

 

It seems I've looked through every folder of the 2014 and 2015 Doom resource dumps by Romero.

In the doom-maps/doom2map/notused folder:

comm1.dwd~ = early map28
comm2.dwd~ = early map10

They may be the ones pictured on that imgur page.

 

To convert a dwd file to a wad:

Open it in wordpad, edit+, or something (notepad will screw it up with wordwrap)

And put this in that second blank line below the WorldServer line and above the lines:### line:

 

level:E1M1

 

Then in dosbox type

idbsp whatever.dwd whatever.wad

 

Gotta use idbsp 1.0 and if you have a dwd~ file to convert, first rename it from dwd~ to dwd

 

 

If you want to see an incredible, really trippy finished version of Alpha 0.5's alt E1M1, check out E5M1 of

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/Ports/j-l/lostepis

Unfortunately it drives me nuts with the simple nukage area being set excessively to -20 super hellslime and a teleporter lands you right in the center and hitscanners (on ledges even) are placed behind totally opaque sidedefs.   Otherwise it's amazing, and I haven't seen any of that unfair BS in the other maps in the episode so far.   Keep an eye out for tiny switches in various nooks and crannies and an odd side of a rising platform.   It is based on the older version in Alpha 0.5 (converted to vanilla Doom map format by Deathz0r) and not the newer version pictured on that imgur.   The intermission map screen plotting your journey is brilliant as well.

 

 

 

I'm currently working on a map that's a combination a 3DO extramap + map36 + comm5 + comm6 + shawnmap (just simple spiral staircase, not huge mess of shawn2) + E5M1 (doom-maps/DoomMapSE) + Alpha 0.4 E1M10 (from Deathz0r's converted 0_4resor.wad) + my own transitional bits.

 

Also working on a version of E1M6 mixed with its Alpha versions (It's Alpha 0.4 E1M5 and Alpha 0.5 E1M9).

Edited by Gokuma

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