DOOM Collector Edition discontinued - Price is climbing quick, Get if you still can..

I noticed on Amazon that the blue-boxed copy of the classic DOOM trilogy (Ultimate DOOM, DOOM 2, Final DOOM, Master Levels) has officially been discontinued... I saw them everywhere in mass a couple of years back on sale anywhere between $9 and $20...

Man, after seeing this...

http://www.amazon.com/ACTIVISION-Doom-Collectors-Edition/dp/B0002IBEJQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6552815-0126305?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1184168874&sr=8-1


Makes me wish I had purchased a handful of them...

$60 used, almost $100 new , and I gurantee, it will rise much higher...


Makes me glad that I still have my Id anthology :)

Heh, thanks for the info dude, I have all of them in there original boxes (Doom 1, Doom2, Final doom and Master Levels). I bought the collectors edition just in case some thing were to happen to my other copys of doom since I play them soo much! Its still un-opened :)

Well, id Software seems to sell it, for $25, but only ships it to certain countries (North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand).

The Collectors Edition doesn't contain the master levels.

id software will probably continue to sell it off of their store for quite a while until they decide to just make it a download like everything else.

is it possible that they are just selling whas left of stock?

Someone on that amazon link specifically states its discontinued (one of the sellers)

I thought it did contain master levels and the DOOM 95 front end?

shame they didnt bundle it with the likes of zDOOM, jDOOM, Legacy, or something like that... are the very least, chocolate-doom... but I guess it gave it the "classic" edge.




LOL, heh, its says I'm a 7-year old newbie? guess I should have spent more times in forums back then rather than IRC... hell, i was around long before '01... oh well.

I miss Caco...

*sigh*

...floats out the window

;-)

It's in my CD rack, somewhere. Well I hope it is still there.

o_O I got that collection a few years ago for $15. There's nothing really "collectable" about it, however. Just Doom95, uncompressed IWADs (nice that you can just copy them without needing to install it), the manuals are in PDFs. It doesn't contain the Master Levels for Doom II, also.

Buckshot said:

is it possible that they are just selling whas left of stock?

Someone on that amazon link specifically states its discontinued (one of the sellers)

I thought it did contain master levels and the DOOM 95 front end?

shame they didnt bundle it with the likes of zDOOM, jDOOM, Legacy, or something like that... are the very least, chocolate-doom... but I guess it gave it the "classic" edge.

;-)

Amazon is most likely pulling the plug on the game because it is 13 years old, and unlikely a real money maker for them any more. Heck I wouldn't buy it from them. So, it is the seller not ID that is pulling the plug. Id can come up with more cd's to burn the game on if they need them. ;)

No master levels on that collection.

I never cared much for the doom 95 .exe

Id would never bundle a non-Id product like a port with their product when they are constantly updated and easily down loadable.

MikeRS said:
There's nothing really "collectable" about it, however.

I'd say they use that term because they're selling an old game (you collect old stuff, like coins and stamps), in a package collecting all the games together. Regardless of what it's called, it's still a convenient way for people to get all the games in one go.

I bought mine when it was 50 bucks. How stupid I was.

ID might as well start selling the IWADs by themselves now with all of our ports.

Heh I still have the big box version; never got the modern version with the Doom 3 content though.

Perhaps ID should seriously consider releasing all of the IWADs with a rehauled "official" source port, even if Windows only.

At least they won't stumble upon the paradox of selling a game with an .exe that cannot be used by modern OSes (or they expect every user to install DOSBox to play it?), or with a so-so windows port (Doom95, I'm looking at you).

they will probably do a rebundle with doom3 and roe

leileilol said:

they will probably do a rebundle with doom3 and roe

Great idea...

I love fish eggs with my first person shooters!

Maes said:

Perhaps ID should seriously consider releasing all of the IWADs with a rehauled "official" source port, even if Windows only.

I'd rather have a bugfree and increased-limit Doom95 than any of the community source ports. The source ports change the gameplay somewhat, Doom95 doesn't. And it should be up to the Doom hobbyist to get his/her own enhancements. id Software should offer what they made. Maybe not Doom95 (I remember reading somewhere it's being held strictly by the Microsoft giant), but something similar. As long as I know it's been worked on by the members of id, either the former or the actual.

I'm glad, I got my id anthology recently. I never played the Master Levels before (besides those on the PSX version). They are of good quality and play well, imho. Except for the super secret level in teeth.wad, which is just silly and almost feels like it was made for mock2.wad.

doom2day said:

ID might as well start selling the IWADs by themselves now with all of our ports.

Since the CD versions all have them in uncompressed form, afaIk, you just can ignore any installer and engine which comes with it. I had to install the Master Levels (and all the older games), though, as they come with the installers taken from the floppy disks.

Maes said:

Perhaps ID should seriously consider releasing all of the IWADs with a rehauled "official" source port, even if Windows only.

Why should they spend an effort on that, when there are already good ports for any needs, and the games sell anyways? Sounds like a waste of money. Actually many other companies could increase there reputation a lot in doing exactly like id software, I guess.

printz said:

The source ports change the gameplay somewhat, Doom95 doesn't.

Then Chocolate Doom is for you. And if you need high resolution, just play PrBoom with vanilla compatibility. Also Doom95 does alter gameplay with some additional cheatcodes. Well, PrBoom does also.

LogicDeLuxe said:

Why should they spend an effort on that, when there are already good ports for any needs, and the games sell anyways? Sounds like a waste of money.

For the same reason e.g. Sega or Nintendo would never sell "legitimate ROM files" on a disk, advising customers to "get a good, free emulator like MAME": they all bundle their own emulator, which, alas, sometimes is greatly inferior to free alternatives.

However it's just the way the market works: no computer or video game manufacturer would ever release "only the data" for a full game without a working .exe: in the case of Doom, the DOS .exes are out-of-place in the modern software scene, and Doom95 isn't exactly the best source port available (though it's the only thing that allows them to still sell Doom as a technically playable game).

Waste of money or not, there is the need for something to allow Doom to be technically compatible with modern OSes, else they wouldn't be selling a game anymore, but just a bunch of data, which no manufacturer has ever done for a complete game (if you exclude data disks and expansion packs which require you to have the complete game already).

It goes without saying that id software, like any other manufacturer, would never use a freely available port "as is", but would, likely, develop one of the existing ones into a special "commercial version".

If they were to release it with a freely available source port. It would also be a rather harsh blow to any of the other source ports out there.

Heh, after looking into this, You could not pay me enough to sell my copys of doom! This game has become a part of me and my familys daily lives, plus as we get older, they will become really hard to find (like in 15 years)... My daughters friend wanted to borrow it from me and I said NO! But I did tell her about id's web page so she can buy a copy befor they are all gone!

Maes said:

For the same reason e.g. Sega or Nintendo would never sell "legitimate ROM files" on a disk, advising customers to "get a good, free emulator like MAME": they all bundle their own emulator, which, alas, sometimes is greatly inferior to free alternatives.

This is true of most games companies; however, Id does have a strong history of interaction with its fanbase, going back to releasing some of the details of the WAD format, designing its games to be extensible by modders, and of course releasing the source code to its games. In Id's case there is a lot more hope. It's worth pointing out that this kind of approach has actually been used already by other companies: Sierra released a "Space Quest Collection" containing all of the Space Quest games, along with a copy of DOSBox to play the old DOS games in.

I think I remember Carmack actually mentioning (on his plan file perhaps, I forget now) the possibility of releasing a Doom collection with Boom included as the source port, so there's even hope.

Frankly, they're crazy not to exploit this stuff more, because they're missing out on a great opportunity. A "Ultimate Collector's Doom" becomes hugely more attractive if you include a collection of source ports, some of the greatest levels/TCs of all time, etc. It's like the D!Zone / Maximum Doom thing all over again, except even better. The only difficult part that I can see is that you might have to spend time getting permission to use some things.

Of course, the real ultimate collector's edition would be a DVD with all the Doom games, the Master Levels, the most popular source ports and a copy of the idgames archive included :-)

fraggle said:
This is true of most games companies; however, Id does have a strong history of interaction with its fanbase, going back to releasing some of the details of the WAD format, designing its games to be extensible by modders, and of course releasing the source code to its games.

Not really in regard to the code, other than in helping the community develop their stuff by providing it. They usually do commercial stuff with stuff from the community when it comes to level design (temporarily hiring designers or occasionally taking some stuff). At most perhaps they could hire one of the coders from the community to build a portable replacement for Doom95 to package with the games, source and binaries for the main operating systems included. That would make sense with an older but legendary game like DOOM.

I think I remember Carmack actually mentioning (on his plan file perhaps, I forget now) the possibility of releasing a Doom collection with Boom included as the source port, so there's even hope.

I don't recall that at all, just that he liked how Boom and GLDoom were developing.

Frankly, they're crazy not to exploit this stuff more, because they're missing out on a great opportunity. A "Ultimate Collector's Doom" becomes hugely more attractive if you include a collection of source ports, some of the greatest levels/TCs of all time, etc. It's like the D!Zone / Maximum Doom thing all over again, except even better. The only difficult part that I can see is that you might have to spend time getting permission to use some things.

Reasons why they wouldn't want to do that:

• As kristus implied, to avoid getting involved in a way that may hamper the community's independent development in various ways.
  
  
• Because the stuff would certainly not be "collectible" if it's in production or in development (by the community).
  
  
• The engines and addons were developed independently of id, and don't really represent their work.

Maes said:

For the same reason e.g. Sega or Nintendo would never sell "legitimate ROM files" on a disk, advising customers to "get a good, free emulator like MAME": they all bundle their own emulator, which, alas, sometimes is greatly inferior to free alternatives.

Doom95 comes to mind. Besides, iwad's don't exactly compare to ROM files, especially since they also offer a downloadable version.

And your statement isn't always true, either.
For example, some Adventure games were sould with ScummVM (a GPL'ed, multi-platform interpreter) lately.
Revolution Software even declared Beneath A Steel Sky as freeware and you can download a version with ScummVM beeing the only interpreter (which in fact includes a port of their DOS engine).
The Amiga ROM's are sould on Amiga Forever, which can be used with free emulators included on the CD.
I'm certain, those aren't the only exceptions to your rule.

Waste of money or not, there is the need for something to allow Doom to be technically compatible with modern OSes

That's why they released the source code. This is absolutely a clever decision money wise, since it cost them nothing.

In the unlikely event that someone bought the game and didn't know of all the source ports, he would certainly search the internet when the game refuses to start and discover them, I'd say.

fraggle said:

and a copy of the idgames archive included

How big would that actually be? (and still growing)

mmmm...

I do not think its wise for any further classic DOOM triolgy collections to be released with nothing but DOOM 95...


Nor do I think its wise to release that same triology with just one source port. That would indefinetely give that mod the unfair advantage, even when it may not offer the best in its field.

I think they honsetly should take the top 5 ports or so, picth the setup files in a folder, with a html/readme doc with a brief description for each one/link to developers URL...

not only that, but I think they should do it with the top map editors and tools as well, and the doom source included.

Some modern/classic pwads and wads as well, and a few links/descriptions of DOOM sites out there to get more of if you'd like...

the original .IWADS can be in their own folder... just as they are.

But Doom95 is iD's official source port for what regards classic Doom. I meant they need to start bundling something else (possibly better and multi-platform) with it.

ScummVM games are really a separate case. Not only the manufacturer made the details of their interpreter public, but they even released the data of some of their older games as freeware, something that iD hasn't done yet.

The Amiga ROMs (I take that to mean the boot ROMs) are another case, as the Kickstart BIOS is still property of Dell computers (I think), who bought the remains of Commodore back in 1995, as well as the Workbench OS. There's some new Amiga Inc. company, but it's really a niche market.

Separate Amiga games and applications are theoretically covered by copyright, like any other intellectual product, and licensing them for distribution as "ROM files" would require tracking each and every copyright holder and asking them nicely "may I distribute this?".

This has been done for certain categories of software, e.g. Nintendo licensed several NES and SNES games for the Wii, but Nintendo is Nintendo and has always had a relatively firm control over who developed for her own systems, while I'm sure that many online services offering arcade ROMs for a monthly subscription must operate in a sort of legal "grey zone", as I can't imagine anyone tracking literally hundreds of copyright holders for thousands of software titles, handling each case separately as conventional trade laws would require.

Funny, I saw one today in gamestop. Didn't check the price though.

Better I'd keep the original executable files as they are, but also include DOS emulators optimized specially for doom.exe. That seems the most fair. VPOs and SGOs don't remember to appear in the originals either.

I also got the Doom Collector's Edition for about 20 bucks a few years ago. It didn't have the Master Levels. It just came with the stuff that MikeRS mentioned.

Wow I'm realy glad I got my collectors edition a few years ago. Deffinetly worth the buy.