If DOOM Didn't exist, what would happen?

[Immorpher]

It makes me wonder if Carmack's philosophy of eventually opening the source of games would have come to fruition. Was the successes of Doom and then Quake, financially and as game engines in general, the tipping point for Carmack to eventually push for their sources to be opened?

I can imagine if early ID wasn't as successful as it was, it would promote a starvation mentality. That is, even if Carmack had the desire to open their sources, the rest of the team might not be as willing to open the engine's source in hopes to skim future revenue.

[speed_your_feed]

The ESRB would not be created, and we would've stayed at the 2D side-scroller games.

[Grazza]

ESRB is a terrible control set-up. WASD or ESDF is much better.

[666shooter]

2 hours ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

There is a game called ShadowCaster which was released 2-3 months before Doom in 93 and you can definitely see its influence in games like Heretic & Hexen so I think maybe Doom never existing would not make gaming from then until now all that different than what it is now.

 

 

By the gods...! His hand is truly all-powerful. Slapping demons and killer plants down like a stone-cold mother. Didn't even need a Berserk first!

[The Doommer]

On 2/29/2020 at 9:27 PM, twistedhydrgoen said:

Spread some thoughts down below on what if doom never existed or never made.

Half-Life would not exist. Cause it was inspired by doom.

 

Quake might not have existed too, meaning FPS genre would never grow to what it is today, at least not soon.

[MaxzG9!]

You guys wouldn't be here in this dumb question! :p

[SilverMiner]

Duke nukem would be be instead

[The Doommer]

58 minutes ago, SilverMiner said:

Duke nukem would be be instead

Pretty sure most early games tried to do what Doom did, but better.

[Deleted_Account]

We would be discussing Catacombs 3D Eternal right now.

[Maes]

Tech wise, other companies had reached a very similar point or were experimenting with it, and maybe not within 1993, but within 1994 certainly another "Doom" would have eventually emerged. Something beyond a simple Wolf3D clone or incremental enchancement a-la Rise Of The Triad. My real concern would be that nobody would have gotten the gameplay quite right, and there might be a "Doom" with a good engine but with meh gameplay, replayability and moddability.

 

The actual Doom just beat them all by being by far the most polished, optimized and advanced offering of its time. Having an original concept and  unparalelled gameplay surely helped, because, let's face it, slowly roleplaying at single FPS digits, Ultima Underworld-style was not everybody's cup of tea back then, just like it isn't today. But almost everybody could enjoy some demonic ass-kicking.

 

Let's face it people, Doom was The Perfect Storm. Take away even one element, and it wouldn't be Doom anymore.

[taufan99]

41 minutes ago, User Name said:

We would be discussing Catacombs 3D Eternal right now.

An AU would have a Wolfenstein x Catacombs crossover in place of either DOOM or QUAKE.

On 3/11/2020 at 5:18 AM, The Doommer said:

Quake might not have existed too, meaning FPS genre would never grow to what it is today, at least not soon.

Fun fact: QUAKE's first idea was actually conceived in around 1991-1992, far before DOOM was even planned. IIRC, the early idea planned it to be a Lovecraftian RPG. (It was even mentioned in the help section of the first Commander Keen game, if memory doesn't fail me.)

Edited March 13, 2020 by InDOOMnesia

[The Icon of Sin]

On 2/29/2020 at 12:41 PM, DiamondDude11 said:

I think if Doom didn't exist, the ESRB debate would have been different. 
Like, when video game companies went into court in the 1990s to participate in a hearing about violence in video games?
That's just me.

That’s untrue Doom was added in later in those hearings Mortal Kombat and Night Trap were the main players 

[Ozcar]

If doom was never released? What going to happened the fps shooter?

[7Mahonin]

Dungeon Crawler style first person games that weren’t really FPS games but were in first person and Wolfenstein 3D clones would’ve went on longer. Blake Stone would’ve been a bigger hit, so would ROTT I guess, but it likely would’ve remained as a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D without Doom. 
 

We likely would’ve seen more “shooter” akin to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (93 DOS game) as well, but the fast paced action of Wolfenstein 3D would’ve caught on still and more games would’ve emulated that style, but there would’ve still been more of a market for those other types of first person games that faded away when Doom came out. 

Edited July 3, 2022 by 7Mahonin

[Wavy]

I'd cry just from the thought alone

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Someone else would have just capitalized and improved on Wolf3D instead of id themselves. With technology advancing pretty quickly, I don't think it took much time for people to look at Wolf3D and say "wow, cool game but what if everything wasn't flat and blue". Other FPS games after Wolf would have still been popular, there would just be one replacing DOOM's status.

 

Like 7Mahonin said, arcade FPS gameplay would have probably gained more mainstream popularity, but I don't think it would have lasted long considering that the 3D era of consoles was just around the corner and games started becoming more "realistic//cinematic" an in a lot of cases, slower.

Edited July 3, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[The Doommer]

1 hour ago, Ozcar said:

What going to happened the fps shooter?

Doom pretty much did a huge leap compared to Wolf3D

So if it didn't exist, I believe something would have been made that was similar or even equal, but in a later stage, probably a couple more years.

I mean Doom made a lot of FPS games be its clone for about 8 years, there has to be some value to that

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, Ozcar said:

If doom was never released?

Then something else would have taken its legacy, just a different title.

1 hour ago, Ozcar said:

What going to happened the fps shooter?

What if users made good threads on DW? What going to happened the just registered new user?

[Snark]

This post wouldn't exist, neither would this answer

[Csonicgo]

If Doom didn't exist, Trump wouldn't have been president. Not saying that's a good thing, or Doom is a bad thing, it's just the truth.

 

To explain why would take me eighty paragraphs, so, uh,  trust me on that one.

[MFG38]

If Doom had never been released, chances are modding would be even less of a thing than it is right now. Because let's be real, Doom sort of kickstarted that.

[The Doommer]

16 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

What if users made good threads on DW?

At least this one is trying to discuss something other than some really strange ones I've seen

 

17 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

just a different title

And probably a different year (maybe around 1997)

 

12 minutes ago, Snark said:

neither would this answer

Neither would Doomworld

 

 

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, The Doommer said:

At least this one is trying to discuss something other than some really strange ones I've seen

You are right. This one atleast presents a hypothetical scenario to speculate over. I have a few of those aswell:

 

• What if reject tables never existed?
• What if the pistol never was a starting weapon?
• What if the bsp compiler was SMP-aware?
• What if sidedefs didn't contain wall texture data for linedefs?
• What if the DMX sound engine was open source?

Anything can be a what if.

 

1 hour ago, The Doommer said:

And probably a different year (maybe around 1997)

I disagree. With Wolfenstein 3D existing and Descent being released in 1994, someone else would have figured out that Doom algorithm at around the same time. It just wouldn't be id that did it.

 

[The Doommer]

1 minute ago, Redneckerz said:

someone else would have figured out that Doom algorithm at around the same time. It just wouldn't be id that did it.

I think it would take a little longer since id built upon what Wolfenstein had to come up with doom.

 

They had the source code for Wolf3D and they knew exactly how the game worked, better than anyone at that time

 

2 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Anything can be a what if.

You're not wrong, but new accounts tend to make less thoughtful posts when they join initially.

Hell, I remember how cringe I was back at 2015

[Redneckerz]

1 minute ago, The Doommer said:

I think it would take a little longer since id built upon what Wolfenstein had to come up with doom.

 

They had the source code for Wolf3D and they knew exactly how the game worked, better than anyone at that time

So they probably would have figured it out anyway. I mean we are talking Carmack here.

 

Saying 1997 would be a full 4 years to figure it out. Quake wouldn't be here, and how about 3D acceleration?

1 minute ago, The Doommer said:

 

You're not wrong, but new accounts tend to make less thoughtful posts when they join initially.

Hell, I remember how cringe I was back at 2015

The thing is new accounts these days (Atleast a significant bit of them) make one of these threads or some of these posts and then leave. Rarely is there a new user who delivers and then sticks around to grow as a mapper/user/so long and so forth.

 

Its why, atleast from my end (But other users display this aswell) the witty and cynical arrive a little faster than it used to do.

[Ozcar]

Hey i apologize for making mediocre question, maybe next time i should put effort in topic. 

[The Doommer]

16 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

So they probably would have figured it out anyway. I mean we are talking Carmack here.

I don't think Wolf3D source code would be available to other companies (at least for a few years)

And I meant that Carmack had his own code and knew how it worked so he could easily build upon it

And no one at the time had the Wolf3D source code other than him

 

16 minutes ago, Ozcar said:

Hey i apologize for making mediocre question

It's ok, just seems like a little too simple ig

[thiccyosh]

Who knows, perhaps I now would be on Super 3D Noah's Arkworld instead of Doomworld. Thinking about strange timelines always is fun.

[TasAcri]

If DOOM was never released, PC gaming would advance slower, if at all. DOOM was basically the game that created a lot of hype for PCs as gaming machines in the mainstream. Before DOOM, PCs were machines for flight sims and point & click adventures.

 

The Amiga brand would also last longer. DOOM was like the final nail on the Amiga gaming coffin, since neither the 1200 or the CD32 were powerful enough to support a decent DOOM clone (let alone port) so they had to come by with all these shitty clones like Gloom, Fears, Breathless, etc.

 

Games like DOOM (and later Duke Nukem 3D) also helped PCs compete with the PS1 before 3D accelerators came along. These are games that are tailor made for fast PC CPUs, without the need of a 3D chip. So, without DOOM, PCs would probably have the same fate as the Amiga when the PS1 was released and changed the standards. That, or PCs would still remain a niche for strategy games.

Edited July 3, 2022 by TasAcri

[Redneckerz]

37 minutes ago, The Doommer said:

I don't think Wolf3D source code would be available to other companies (at least for a few years)

And I meant that Carmack had his own code and knew how it worked so he could easily build upon it

And no one at the time had the Wolf3D source code other than him

But Carmack's code wasn't the end all be all:

• There was Ultima Underworld which was significantly more advanced than Wolf and perhaps even Doom (True 3D Renderer!)
• There was Origin Systems with Strike Commander
• There was Legends of Valour on the Amiga/DOS, which presented a raycasted world similar to (and arguably more advanced then) Wolf 3D

Carmack was at the right place at the right time, but he wasn't the only one doing that kind of tech.