Tell me about DWANGO.

Considering that I never really got to play DooM over DWANGO, and that I didn't really get into online multiplayer until Quake came out, I am curious as to what Dwango was like.

What parts were there of DWANGO? Was there a message board? A chat room? Just a lobby where you would select someone who wanted to play and join him? Did DWANGO emulate a LAN and allow 4 player matches, or was it just 1 on 1?

What was the environment like? Was it hardcore, or was it easy going? What maps did you guys play? How did you acquire the DWANGO series of maps, and how popular were they in DWANGO itself?

Just curious....

DWANGO - DOOM Wide Area Network something-something...

It was a service that allowed players to hook up from basically anywhere.

It was about 8 dollars a month, if memory serves me.

It was a program you could use, though there were chat rooms and things to arrange games... unlike modem to modem play, it let you have four players instead of just two, so you had some benefits of LAN play, and some negative effects of modem play (lag, etc).

But anyway... that's some of it.

Doom Wide-Area Network Gaming Organization.

The Dial-Up Wide Area Network Games Operation was created early 1994 by Bob Huntly and Kee Kimbrell, who were hooked on Doom deathmatch. They came up with the bright idea of desiging a strealined multiplayer interface (and chat rooms) that would allow people to easily play each other via modem by dialing into the DWANGO servers. Contrary to what you may think, it wasn't easy for them to get the attention they needed from id; they had to fly up to New York to attend the Doom II press conference, and after getting brushed off by Jay Wilbur, they gave their only disk of the software to John Romero.

The rest of id wasn't too enthusiastic about the idea after Romero tried it and found it to be "fucking cool," but after negotiating for 20% of the DWANGO revenues, Romero spent every night on the project, finally releasing it with the shareware version of Heretic in late December of 1994.

By January, ten thousand people were paying $8.95 a month for the server, and the DWANGO team handled the increased demand by setting up servers across the country. For $35,000 DWANGO would set up a server and let the host rake in the cash. One night, the two DWANGO guys spent $10,000 at a strip club. "The strippers were intrigued when they heard the guys made all this money selling deathmatch. Whatever that drug was, they figured, it must be some powerful stuff."

Information taken from David Kushner's Masters of Doom.

haha that's awesome. deathmatch does kinda sound like a drug name (and it very nearly is one in its actual form)