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Hellbent

BFG code that didn't make it into DooM

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In January, 1994 Alexander Antoniades wrote:

More weapons were added, each with it’s own unique flavor. Unfortunately the biggest weapon, the BFG 9000, had to be scaled down because it was so elaborate, it slowed the game to a crawl every time it was fired.

Wouldn't it have been nice if id had kept this code so that we could have the BFG as it was meant to be. :) Quoted from http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21405 an article recently linked to from rome.ro that was published one month after Doom's release.

Alpha and beta leaks have plagued Id from the beginning, and Doom was no exception. In the early development stages of Wolfenstein, there was an idea to have a contest where whoever found a secret room hidden somewhere on one of the levels would win $10,000. But the first person to call up was a pirate who called during the beta testing cycle, and the whole prize idea had to be scrapped.

Unrelated--it'd be fun to implement this idea in maps released today--except maybe a more appropriate prize.

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Hellbent said:

Unrelated--it'd be fun to implement this idea in maps released today--except maybe a more appropriate prize.

yeah, i promise not to use editors!!!!

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You can use the beta BFG in MBF-compatible ports with a little dehacked tweak to change "A_FireBFG" to "A_FireOldBFG".

In Eternity, you can even change the BFG's regular mode to that without a mod. Go to Options -> Weapons and set BFG type to "Classic".

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I recall at least one port, possibly Eternity, has a setting for the original style BFG.

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This is quite the timeline. Sure glad they did change the behaviour, though, technical constraints aside.

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Gez said:

You can use the beta BFG in MBF-compatible ports with a little dehacked tweak to change "A_FireBFG" to "A_FireOldBFG"

Really? I tried loading this bex in WinMBF:

[CODEPTR]
Frame 77 = FireOldBFG
And it output this without starting the game:
C:\doom_se\winmbf>WinMBF -iwad ..\doom.wad -bex bfgtest.bex        
IWAD found: ../doom.wad
Ultimate DOOM version
Loading DEH file bfgtest.bex

WinMBF exiting.

MBF also supports loading the beta BFG from the menu, don't forget that.

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If the original BFG they're talking about is the one that looks like a Christmas plasma spam, then I'm happy they changed it. I only wish bosses were invulnerable to BFG traces.

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I prefer the BFG we got. It's a great, unique, powerful weapon.

Plasma-spam is great, but we have the Plasma gun for that.

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I think it would've been neat if the BFG had two firing modes, the primary being what we have now, and the secondary being the original fire mode of Plasm spam.

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Don't you just have to run MBF with a -pressrelease commandline argument to get the BFG twothousandwhatever?

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More weapons were added, each with it’s own unique flavor. Unfortunately the biggest weapon, the BFG 9000, had to be scaled down because it was so elaborate, it slowed the game to a crawl every time it was fired.

This is misleading or incorrect. What was scaled down was its use of system resources, not its destructive power. The old BFG shot 80 bouncing plasma balls and the new version fired a ball for 100-800 points plus 40 delayed hitscan tracers that each inflict more damage than two plasma balls.

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Clonehunter said:

I think it would've been neat if the BFG had two firing modes, the primary being what we have now, and the secondary being the original fire mode of Plasm spam.


You sir...are a fucking genius.

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Dual fire modes would be neat in a PWAD. I think there was a dual mode BFG in Beautiful Doom, but I wouldn't mind a standalone version.

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I read somewhere one developer (Carmack?) saying it looked like a Christmas Tree (red and green balls if I recall), and wasn't all that effective. So it's not just performance. Back in the beta plasma gun fired two colors of balls too.

A long time ago I downloaded and tried various alpha, beta and press release versions of DooM. They should be still accessible from the Doomworld main page. One of my strongest impression was how big difference good textures and monster sprites make. Very early versions have shitty textures and weapon spirites, but very good (immobile) Demons, and they stand out.

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http://www.doomworld.com/interviews/int7.shtml

Doomworld: Why was the BFG changed? The "eight billion fireballs" one in the press pre-beta looks cool :)

Carmack: Speed was an issue. One big ball is a ton more efficient than a couple hundred little ones.

The other thing is that the spew of little balls just wasn't that effective. Usually only one or two would hit a given target at a reasonable range, so it didn't deliver that much damage against a single oponent. We wanted the BFG to be a weapon that obliterated rooms full of enemies, and no directed weapon ever really managed that.

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Clonehunter said:

I think it would've been neat if the BFG had two firing modes, the primary being what we have now, and the secondary being the original fire mode of Plasm spam.

I agree.

It's a bit hard to balance, though. At 40 cells a pop, the regular BFG fire seems to overshadow it, especially with how I accidentally made standard fire more useful. Any less, though, and the Plasma Rifle gets slapped in the face even more than before.

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