How do you feel the vanilla game has aged?

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Like honey, I don't think they'll ever be too out-dated. Both DooM and DooM 2 are just too timeless to die. <3

[Thedoctor989]

yeah i dove head first into the modding community after playing Brutal Doom

[Liberation]

With the exception of the resolution (as previously mentioned) UD episode 1 still holds up well to this day, gameplay wise Doom 2 has probably yet to be beaten.

[wallabra]

What I think

[geo]

Still awesome! Even after playing hundreds or thousands of .wads and after getting used to Brutal Doom where it has become the normal way I play Doom. Going back to vanilla Doom is still awesome. Even after playing hundreds of modern games... vanilla Doom still feels better than 90% of them.

[Loud Silence]

I love vanilla Ultimate Doom, Doom II. Maps, design, balance, pacing are perfect IMO. Doom is still my most addictive FPS.

Resolution could be higher, but it's possible to get used to 320x200. I don't understand why ID didn't think about future and didn't add optional 640x480 resolution (maybe they use 90's monitors till today?).

Edited October 31, 2018 by Rimantas

[DANZA]

Oh boy, I still love it. Some times I wander off to other games, or fiddle with mods on it (I remember when I experimented with reloading mods... didn't last much), but always return to the classic form.

It's simple and addictive enough.

PrBoom is all I need <3

[[McD] James]

Doom with mods is amazing every now and then, but nothing beats vanilla. 

[DANZA]

And about the level design. I find that the most a game tries to mimic reality or make sense, the faster it ages as soon as a new leap in graphics is introduced. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's only something that happens.

With Doom the team tried to make the game realistic, but ambiguous shapes was all the engine could do, which gives the game (unintentionally) an abstract aestethic that goes really well with the themes presented. Most of the time the place could literally be anything!

The illusion and atmosphere kinda goes away with texture filters, which reveal the plain nature of the poligons and strip the textures of grit, shading and depth. IMO

[Misty]

Honestly, I found that Plutonia aged the best from all those Doom iwads. Closer to Plutonia would be Doom I. Doom II has a lot of dated maps, but still fun to play. TNT is aged worst for me. 

[Maser]

Doom 2 is my main go-to game in the Doom series.  I'm really not a fan of the original Doom game, but there is one positive thing I can say about it.  The first episode is the only Doom game I managed to complete on Nightmare difficulty. 

[xdarkmasterx]

Very well. There are still  few areas in which it feels very dated for instance overly simple boss fights (heretic is much better but still a bit too basic) and some wierd design choices like RNG damage or infinite height monsters, but:

 

The game holds up visually, 

 

level design is open enough that u always have a new way to approach the level on replays,

 

the enemy variety is good and varied

 

technical side such as collision detection, performance and movement are tight enough (they aren't up to modern standards of course but they're much better than those in many other FPS games from this era)

 

finally, many other early/mid 90s shooters feel clunky and unpleasant to play (by modern standards) in a way that Doom doesn't, example build engine and its glitchy scrips and hitboxes, it might sound strange but Doom always felt more "modern" (without source ports) than a lot of games that come later.

 

 

[Spie812]

Paraphrasing a post I made a while back, Doom 1 has aged really well, especially E1. Some of the later maps have not aged, like E3M1, but most of the rest of the game is still excellent. Doom 2 is a bit more subjective due to its more gimmicky level design. Maps like Map04 have aged really well but it's more of a personal opinion whether stuff like Map24 has. TNT has not aged well at all in my opinion. It's a product of its time and some maps are fun, but it was almost immediately outclassed in every way by works like Memento Mori. Plutonia has definitely aged the best out of the four IWADs. Since it basically set the standard for gameplay and level design that is still used today, almost all of the maps still look really good and play really well.

[Gerardo194]

19 hours ago, Ex Oblivione said:

Like a fine wine.

 

[SaladBadger]

it's fine. requires some setup on the end user's side (novert, etc) to get it working comfortably but you can do a modern enough control scheme with it. The first game's levels are admittedly a bit too easy, but I feel Doom 2 took care of that problem. it's still easy but it's a lot more interesting overall.

[hardcore_gamer]

I feel the original Doom levels are enjoying some sort of halo effect where people feel they are better than they actually are simply because they love Doom so much. They aren't bad per say, but if somebody had released them as a level pack right now today odds are they would probably not get more than a 3 star rating.

[jazzmaster9]

1 hour ago, hardcore_gamer said:

I feel the original Doom levels are enjoying some sort of halo effect where people feel they are better than they actually are simply because they love Doom so much. They aren't bad per say, but if somebody had released them as a level pack right now today odds are they would probably not get more than a 3 star rating.

This. If Doom E1 didnt exist and somone released Doom E1 people would complain about the Missalined textures, Hallways and the use of Doors because "breaks the flow".

[kb1]

It amazes me how many people expect games to hold up to software made 25 years later than their release date. More amazing is that Doom actually does.

As I said in a similar thread, has chess aged?

 

It is human perception that ages, not inanimate objects.

 

id prevented Doom from aging, by using the WAD format, and by releasing their tools and their source. And, we're still playing it. Must not have aged that much.

[D4NUK1]

It's feel better than Quake that for sure.

 

[banjiepixel]

I would compare aging of the original vanilla doom to the way games like Super Mario Bros, Megaman 2 and Street Fighter 2 have aged. All these games have sequels that do many things better than the original game but none of these change too much to make the original classic so aged that it feels unplayable. In the other hand games Wolfenstein 3d, Megaman 1 and Street Fighter 1 have aged so much worse than the games than their successors. Major factor is design, well designed game also ages well and that is why some classic games are so playable and fun even today.

 

But it must be said that playing older games requires certain mindset from the player. While Doom's levels felt very much like realistic locations in 1993, you shouldn't expect them to be realistic locations in 2018. Instead player should accept that Doom's levels are abstract digital mazes with some simulated elements to make it feel more realistic. Doom's levels feel these days alot like some kind of VR Missions. Vanilla Doom, especially these days, has also very little common with actual first person shooters and feels more like a arcade shoot'em up. And it's arcade design works so well as such to the point that Doom 2 and Final Doom evolved pretty much everything more into this direction.

 

I think Doom has alot common with Pac-Man, more than with game like Half-Life. But it seems that there are alot people who want original vanilla Doom to be more like Half-Life or Doom 3 which will make Doom feel more aged than it actually is. It is like expecting original vanilla Super Mario Bros to be more like Super Mario 64 instead of it being closer original Mario Bros arcade game. Older games feel alot more aged if you focus on what is missing instead of what is actually there and how well it works. Original vanilla Doom has everything it needs to work as a game that is very fun experience even today. Just like Pac-Man just works still so well as a game in the year 2018 and that game was released in 1980!

[kb1]

9 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

I think Doom has alot common with Pac-Man, more than with game like Half-Life. But it seems that there are alot people who want original vanilla Doom to be more like Half-Life or Doom 3 which will make Doom feel more aged than it actually is. It is like expecting original vanilla Super Mario Bros to be more like Super Mario 64 instead of it being closer original Mario Bros arcade game. Older games feel alot more aged if you focus on what is missing instead of what is actually there and how well it works. Original vanilla Doom has everything it needs to work as a game that is very fun experience even today. Just like Pac-Man just works still so well as a game in the year 2018 and that game was released in 1980!

Pac-Man is a perfect analogy! I don't believe Pac-Man has aged either. It still has exceptional gameplay, and still has beautiful graphics. Like Doom, Pac-Man was a labor of love, and is timeless. Today's developers could learn a thing or two from Pac-Man, and Doom.

[Loud Silence]

Classic Doom is standard for ALL time.

[jazzmaster9]

Doom's fundamentals are timeless for sure, But its execution were bound to the technical limitations and design philosophies of the time.

 

The reason Doom has remained so relevant is because of the mods and mapsets talented individuals created that breaks the limitations of the 90s.

 

Mapsets like BTSX and Winter's Fury uses Doom's fundamentals and improves upon them as well.

[onetruepurple]

Not as well as Quake. ;-)

[hardcore_gamer]

4 minutes ago, onetruepurple said:

Not as well as Quake. ;-)

 

To be honest I think Quake has aged even worse than vanilla Doom. So much in fact that it's not even a contest.

[onetruepurple]

How?

 

The original Doom maps still have some fans, as seen in this thread, but the Quake campaign is still at a remarkably higher level, even including the oft derided Sandy maps (some of which are my favorites to this day). It's still fun to bash a bunch of Ogres with nails in E2M5 in a way getting lost in MAP15 is not.

 

The public's general perception of the game has gone up, since 10 or even 5 years ago people would slag it off as "disparate" and "mashed together" (as if those words had a negative inclination in the first place???). Nowadays there's more appreciation for the jaunting across multiple dimensions.

 

Quake's default art just looks better than Doom's, in my opinion, thanks to the palette not being a garish mess this time. It does a lot more with 256 colors than Doom did. If you take the most "historically accurate" ports of each respective game, and take three screenshots of the best looking areas in each game, the Quake screenshots will always look better than Doom's. Don't even get me started on custom content for each.

 

Even out of the box, Quake had basic tools to make every map feel like a lived-in area, with ambient sounds and patrolling monsters. Doom doesn't have that advantage - even the most recent releases for the most far-out source ports will have silly stuff like a map starting with a horde of Imps trying to walk towards a wall, since they didn't give the monsters standing animations.

 

The original Quake deathmatch is still incomparable to anything - Q3A was a close second, but.

 

I'm not slagging Doom here (or at least I'm not trying to). But even as a failed-RPG-cum-another-shooter-put-together-in-7-months-of-crunch, vanilla Quake comes across as a better game in 2018 than vanilla Doom.

[Loud Silence]

Quake 1-2 are just Doom's clones. I love them too, but Doom still owns FPS genre.

[xdarkmasterx]

20 minutes ago, Rimantas said:

Quake 1-2 are just Doom's clones. I love them too, but Doom still owns FPS genre.

 

Come on dude quake is as much  "doom clone" as doom is a "wolf3d clone". Not taking into acount obvious technical progress (room over room, vertical aim, jumping, more advanced scripting and so) the game feel more "refined" and perfected in gameplay sense than doom was, i would say in nearly as big a leap as there was between wolfenstein and doom.

 

the pacing of the game is even faster and has less interruptions (slow doors and lifts), enemy time to kill is low enough that you won't spend more time dodging their simple attacks than is needed (the healthiest enemy which isn't a unique boss takes 6 seconds to kill give or take with the equivalent of doom's combat shotgun),

 

when you learn how to play the game well and crush the levels quickly this game gives a sense of speed, brutality and freedom that isn't matched by many other games (the first half life comes close but it doesn't quite make it thanks to the long periods of downtime and linear level design, that's fine though, it's its own game).

 

of course, this game has some flaws as usual: enemy damage is really low and the game feels quite easy even on nightmare, the hitboxes are too big, bosses are not so great and i HATE RNG damage OMG >_< but at end of the day what game is perfect?

[Loud Silence]

None of games are perfect. But Doom didn't take many elements from Wolf3D. Quake have similar theme to Doom (some kind of evil...) and similar shotguns, same gameplay. Quake II have BFG10K, lame design (cyborgs, tanks, rocket launching sluts...) in comparison with Doom and Quake 1 and again you are Marine... Doom is most original of those games. Improvements after Doom were only technical.

[jazzmaster9]

55 minutes ago, Rimantas said:

None of games are perfect. But Doom didn't take many elements from Wolf3D. Quake have similar theme to Doom (some kind of evil...) and similar shotguns, same gameplay. Quake II have BFG10K, lame design (cyborgs, tanks, rocket launching sluts...) in comparison with Doom and Quake 1 and again you are Marine... Doom is most original of those games. Improvements after Doom were only technical.

Qauke 1 mabe a Doom clone, but it emphasized vertiacality MUCH more than Doom did and, keep mind, it also created the first real massive FPS multiplayer scene which distinguishes it from Doom

 

and Quake 2 is far from a Doom clone.

 

I would say games like Duke 3d and Blood  Aged far better than Doom, with the later boasting the best level designs of the 90s shooters.

i can play and replay those games vanilla, where as I pretty much only play Doom now with mapsets and mods.