Sad news on new unreleased content

[Redneckerz]

Romero has a DW account here, so if people still want convincing... convince him to respond here.

 

In the mean time ill go by the latest screens and otherwise by @Diabolución's posting by reason of poster's experience. Diabol certainly would not invent a screenshot like this.
 

23 hours ago, DooM Bear said:

I dare say I doubt he would be able to say anything unfortunately (probably has to have “a public image that is in line with the companies views / let PR deal with everything” clause in his contract or something) :-(

Without any evidence of this nature, this is highly subjective. Sponge has spoken at length about various bits of Doom Unity that provided new details to the public. A personal response on this matter would not be unlikely, but would probably be prefaced with the caption ''These are my own, personal opinions and not those of Bethesda's''.

23 hours ago, DooM Bear said:

 

Although fingers crossed an Id vetted / official statement on why would be awesome :-D I’m hoping they can give a genuine and good reason as to why not but I really struggle to see any harm coming from it.

Perhaps its because of the same Doom Unity port. For that port to work, it has to look at resources made from 1993 and prior. Although there is no direct impact, i can see why they would want to seal that possibility off.

 

4 hours ago, Angered man said:

Execpt they made it worse since they will harass Romero that's alot I hope you happy now.

Such blanket emotional statements hold no cover. Chill out.

[Revenant100]

7 hours ago, Revae said:

Are there any unreleased assets that are known about?

Romero has not posted the full monster sprite sheets he has. As far as the art goes, he's already posted most (to the best of our knowledge) of the decorations, wall textures, flats, and possibly the first person weapon sprites in his possession. However, we know for certain that he also has the entirety of the monster sprite sheets because it was only by a request on Twitter that he posted the long missing rotations for the Possessed Humans and Doomguy.

Had Romero not answered this request six years ago, we'd currently be going 27 years without ever having even seen most of these sprites.

 

It's likely the rest of the monster sprite sheets contain additional unused finalized graphics such as other missing rotations (removed either intentionally or by accident) and cut states, such as the Spider Mastermind's "magic attack" that we only got a glimpse of. This, of course, would all have immense utility to the community and offer greater hitherto unknown insight into the development and design of the games.

[Doom64hunter]

Well I guess that's that. Don't expect the corporate dragon to ever give up anything from its hoard.

[>:(]

That's disappointing. I can't imagine why the new ID owners would want to keep this unreleased content confidential if they're not even using it. Communities like this one have kept Doom alive over the years. Do we start a #FreeRomero trend online? 

[NoXion]

1 minute ago, >:( said:

That's disappointing. I can't imagine why the new ID owners would want to keep this unreleased content confidential if they're not even using it. Communities like this one have kept Doom alive over the years. Do we start a #FreeRomero trend online? 

Apparently the way copyright law is written encourages a very "dog in a manger" type attitude when it comes to intellectual property. Although I'm not convinced that's the whole story; releasing some unused assets for a 25+ year old game wouldn't be a snowball that triggers the avalanche that kills off the franchise for good. Quite the opposite, in fact.

[Nootrac4571]

3 minutes ago, NoXion said:

Apparently the way copyright law is written encourages a very "dog in a manger" type attitude when it comes to intellectual property. Although I'm not convinced that's the whole story; releasing some unused assets for a 25+ year old game wouldn't be a snowball that triggers the avalanche that kills off the franchise for good. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

This is very often misunderstood. Trademarks (sometimes) need to be aggressively defended, copyrighted materials like graphics (trademarked logos aside,) do not.

 

However, that said, a bunch of people have argued that there's no reason for id to have shut Romero down, which isn't quite true. There are several valid reasons why they might have wanted to stop Romero sharing this stuff. Off the top of my head:

 

* If id ever wants to make remastered versions of the original games, or some sort of "making of" production: Incorporating unused assets like this might be a big selling point, which having had them leaked to the community beforehand would undermine. Even if they currently have no plans to do this, they might like to keep whatever trove of unseen assets they have safe just in case it becomes a financially profitable thing to do in the future.

 

* If Romero, with no warning, released something that painted the company in a bad light - whatever it might be, it would potentially impact the current company negatively. Having a potential ticking time bomb like that would make the PR and legal teams pretty nervous.

 

* Lastly, just the simple fact that a former employee was leaking internal development assets without consent (it's almost certain that the data Romero released is still the property of id Software, not himself,) might be enough to piss them off. Forget how much we want to see them - that's not relevant - companies generally don't like former staff members leaking internal data.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm super sad about this, and I really hope that Romero and id find a way to release whatever treasures he has left in a mutually agreeable way at some point in the future, but id aren't really acting illogically or monstrously - they're a company protecting their property. Romero's assets were a gift that probably weren't really his to give, and we were lucky to get them at all.

[MLGari]

Wonder if he'll release Heretic stuff instead id since doesn't really give a fuck about that IP anymore 

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

I'm only surprised by the amount of time Bethesda took to start acting like this. It was just a matter of time.
I thought it would have happened on week one of id's acquisition. We are lucky we at least got missing possessed/doomguy's rotations. (still, I have firm reason to believe this simply got over Bethesda radar, and if they knew of it when it happened, they would probably have went after Romero)

[MLGari]

1 minute ago, Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

I'm only surprised by the amount of time Bethesda took to start acting like this. Thought it would have happened on day one of id's acquisition. We are lucyk we at least got missing possessed/doomguy's rotations.

ain't bethesda owned by microsoft

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

3 minutes ago, MLGari said:

Wonder if he'll release Heretic stuff instead id since doesn't really give a fuck about that IP anymore 

Heretic is owned by Raven, which is owned by Activision/Blizzard.
They are the people who updated their TOS to make sure every mod you create in their games becomes their intellectual property. They surely give lots of fucks.

[Angered man]

1 hour ago, Nootrac4571 said:

 

This is very often misunderstood. Trademarks (sometimes) need to be aggressively defended, copyrighted materials like graphics (trademarked logos aside,) do not.

 

However, that said, a bunch of people have argued that there's no reason for id to have shut Romero down, which isn't quite true. There are several valid reasons why they might have wanted to stop Romero sharing this stuff. Off the top of my head:

 

* If id ever wants to make remastered versions of the original games, or some sort of "making of" production: Incorporating unused assets like this might be a big selling point, which having had them leaked to the community beforehand would undermine. Even if they currently have no plans to do this, they might like to keep whatever trove of unseen assets they have safe just in case it becomes a financially profitable thing to do in the future.

 

* If Romero, with no warning, released something that painted the company in a bad light - whatever it might be, it would potentially impact the current company negatively. Having a potential ticking time bomb like that would make the PR and legal teams pretty nervous.

 

* Lastly, just the simple fact that a former employee was leaking internal development assets without consent (it's almost certain that the data Romero released is still the property of id Software, not himself,) might be enough to piss them off. Forget how much we want to see them - that's not relevant - companies generally don't like former staff members leaking internal data.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm super sad about this, and I really hope that Romero and id find a way to release whatever treasures he has left in a mutually agreeable way at some point in the future, but id aren't really acting illogically or monstrously - they're a company protecting their property. Romero's assets were a gift that probably weren't really his to give, and we were lucky to get them at all.

I hope their's a good ending conclusion, were we get the files and every side be happy and pleased.

[Job]

Corporations always put profit first and foremost. The customers, community, IP history and legacy only have value insofar as they generate more profit. You're deluding yourself if you believe otherwise. 

 

Romero is one of the last active OGs from a time when things weren't quite so black and white. He was also an original founder at id and certainly a maverick in his own right. However you look at it, his continued contributions to Doom irrefutably affirm that. 

[BBQgiraffe]

I hate suits

[NoXion]

2 hours ago, Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

Heretic is owned by Raven, which is owned by Activision/Blizzard.
They are the people who updated their TOS to make sure every mod you create in their games becomes their intellectual property. They surely give lots of fucks.

Thus guaranteeing that nobody will ever do serious modding work on such a game. ActiBlizzard did that because they missed out on DOTA 2, but in doing so they've basically killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Why the fuck would anyone make a mod for a game if the publishers can just snatch up your creations and not give you a penny of compensation for it?

I'm sure that's one of those situations where being a greedy piece of shit actually makes you less money in the long run. Does anyone really think that Half-Life would have been as big as it got without an active modding community along the way? Didn't Counter-Strike start off as a mod for Half-Life?

It's so short-sighted.

[whatup876]

Like, Doom 64's official port exists because of D64 EX and the history of fan ports for that game.

One mobile Doom port worked on by Carmack himself may have used a fork of PrBoom, if i recall.

There's also that one time when most fans reacted to certain changes to what is know Fandom (Wikia) and made the Doomwiki as an alternative.

Even the name "Doomguy" and how fans characterized the character (which took a part in the new games) shows that.

Doom as a series has a strong history with its fanbase, like it was an alternative franchise/universe besides the games themselves.

You might even consider certain side effects of the fanbase or public affecting how people talk about the games or look at them, for better or worse.

Doom is probably harder to seperate from the fanbase than something like Touhou.

[ketmar]

21 minutes ago, NoXion said:

It's so short-sighted.

bleeding profits and players doesn't look as disasterous as losing the control over something big and popular. also, Big Wheels don't care about creating something that cannot make profits right now. it's not a passion anymore, it's an industry.

[Edward850]

28 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

Like, Doom 64's official port exists because of D64 EX and the history of fan ports for that game.

It's an interesting thought but it's not as true as you'd think. Doom64 as a project was pitched because the folks at id were themselves fans of Doom64, such as Hugo Martin. The "fan ports" didn't really apply and to some respects were poisoning the well given most of them were just asset rips in name only. We were actually concerned if the project would have been well received both internally and publicly given how prevalent the whole "just download BD64 lol" mindset was. 

 

Doom64 EX also wasn't a necessary part of the project. It did give us a head start but the rerelease itself was rebuilt out of the initial specs, and disassembly continued from there. Without it we'd simply just have more to disassemble, which we'd have done anyway. 

[wallabra]

1 hour ago, BBQgiraffe said:

I hate suits 

 

I hate ties

[Redneckerz]

3 hours ago, Angered man said:

I hope their's a good ending conclusion, were we get the files and every side be happy and pleased.

That's likely not going to happen as Romero's Gift was a lucky draw and nothing something Bethsoft would have agreed with.

What they are doing now is what any company would do.

54 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

Like, Doom 64's official port exists because of D64 EX and the history of fan ports for that game.

One mobile Doom port worked on by Carmack himself may have used a fork of PrBoom, if i recall.

That's Doom for iOS. It uses PrBoom (Not the PrBoom+) as the GL renderer (So GLBoom) converted to OpenGLES.

 

I for one would love to see a backport of that GLES renderer to PC, would help for a lot of embedded platforms.

54 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

There's also that one time when most fans reacted to certain changes to what is know Fandom (Wikia) and made the Doomwiki as an alternative.

That was mostly because Wikia is a shit tier entity that cares very little about the quality of the content it hosts, leading to every Terry in the world and Amenhotep to add garbage articles of garbage quality.

 

DoomWiki is more set up like an actual encyclopedia: What's there, is factual, and devoid of personal opinion. Its a knowledge base first and formost.

[ChopBlock223]

14 hours ago, Revae said:

Are there any unreleased assets that are known about?

I can't imagine what else hasn't been released.

 

• Five alpha builds of Doom 1
• A couple of beta builds of Doom 1 and Doom 2, a couple of beta builds of console ports
• Massive pile of unused graphical assets and iterative WIPs of used assets, textures, sprites, rotations, cropped weapons, etc
• Photos of unused models
• Unused music
• Earlier builds of maps for Doom and Doom 2
• Tom Hall's Doom Bible
• The fucking source code

What else could there possibly be? I always love seeing more, but I just can't imagine there to be much more of substance, I figure that a lot of iterations and WIPs of levels and assets were simply never archived or saved. Perhaps the unaltered sprites for the original Revenant? Unused sounds?

 

Personally, I figure that what else may remain would be unfinished stuff relating to Master Levels and stuff like that (which can't be much or of any great interest), If there was ever any Final Doom stuff, then I figure it's more likely that old Team TNT members would have that. For PSX and N64, the guys who would have that would be William's and related people, and god knows if they saved anything. I think Seeler or Estrella gave out some old maps a couple of years ago, most which were early versions of Doom 64 levels before the project transformed into a new game.

 

We've gotten some generous give outs of dev contenr over the years, if Romero has any more, what would it even be?

[Bauul]

4 hours ago, MLGari said:

ain't bethesda owned by microsoft

 

Not yet they're not.  Microsoft just announced Bethesda has agreed to be bought by them, but it hasn't actually happened yet.

[Revae]

8 hours ago, Revenant100 said:

 It's likely the rest of the monster sprite sheets contain additional unused finalized graphics such as other missing rotations (removed either intentionally or by accident) and cut states, such as the Spider Mastermind's "magic attack" that we only got a glimpse of. This, of course, would all have immense utility to the community and offer greater hitherto unknown insight into the development and design of the games.

 

I guess I meant more like photos of monitors with the sprites on them etc. Is it known what is missing. For instance one magic attack sprite is floating around somewhere... But are other rotations seen in any old Id office tour videos or what not.

It's not super important, just curious if we're missing out on a little or a lot. I guess no way to know exactly.

[inkoalawetrust]

2 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

leading to every Terry in the world and Amenhotep to add garbage articles of garbage quality.

I'm pretty sure Wikia has tools to moderate whatever wiki you have a moderator or admin role on such as these page options next to the edit button. I would know since I've moderated like 4 Wikia wikis before, and know that it has moderation tools. My own issue with Wikia is the excessive advertisements.

 

2 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

DoomWiki is more set up like an actual encyclopedia: What's there, is factual, and devoid of personal opinion. Its a knowledge base first and formost.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia
 

Quote

Far stricter thresholds for crossover media coverage were imposed, and articles about minor public personages removed by corporate decree, under the guise of editorial neutrality or personal privacy protection. The underlying goal, according to a theory popular at large fan wikis, was to push such communities toward Wikia, whose investors included former Wikimedia principals.

 

Quote

 BFG Edition has a Wikipedia article because it received a modern online-heavy PR campaign with regular social media updates. DEU, far more important to the overall narrative of Doom's impact, does not.

These actual sentences from the Doom Wiki article on Wikipedia don't seem to be very factual or devoid of personal opinion to me.
 

Spoiler

They read more like this.

 

[MurrayTC]

Fucking Bethesda...

[Redneckerz]

51 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

I'm pretty sure Wikia has tools to moderate whatever wiki you have a moderator or admin role on such as these page options next to the edit button. I would know since I've moderated like 4 Wikia wikis before, and know that it has moderation tools. My own issue with Wikia is the excessive advertisements.

Don't do this.

51 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia
 

These actual sentences from the Doom Wiki article on Wikipedia don't seem to be very factual or devoid of personal opinion to me.

What's your point? The article literally explains its existence.

 

Besides that, if that's the article you come up with, you are ignoring the several thousands of entries that centre around the principles laid out.

 

If you want to talk absolute terms, then no, not everything is factual in intent. Relative, as in the vast, vast majority of DoomWiki, is.

51 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

They read more like this.

See above.

[inkoalawetrust]

6 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Don't do this.

What's your point? The article literally explains its existence.

 

Besides that, if that's the article you come up with, you are ignoring the several thousands of entries that centre around the principles laid out.

 

If you want to talk absolute terms, then no, not everything is factual in intent. Relative, as in the vast, vast majority of DoomWiki, is.

See above.

I wasn't arguing against Wikia being bad, I'm saying that it's not the completely anarchistic mess you made it out to be on your previous post, which it only is if the mods or admins of whatever specific wiki don't do anything about it.

I also listed the Doom Wiki article that includes conjecture of some unproven conspiracy/plot to force people to Wikia for profit as an example that not everything on the Doom Wiki (Or any wiki, including physical encyclopedias.) is going to be 100% factual and neutral.


Also because I think that my first reply came off as passive aggresive, I should mention that I didn't intend for it to be so since I dislike passive aggresive behaviour.

[Redneckerz]

16 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

I wasn't arguing against Wikia being bad, I'm saying that it's not the completely anarchistic mess you made it out to be on your previous post, which it only is if the mods or admins of whatever specific wiki don't do anything about it.

Its a blemish. Wikia didn't do Doom good, Quasar can tell you more.

16 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

I also listed the Doom Wiki article that includes conjecture of some unproven conspiracy/plot to force people to Wikia for profit as an example that not everything on the Doom Wiki (Or any wiki, including physical encyclopedias.) is going to be 100% factual and neutral.

See prior response.

16 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

Also because I think that my first reply came off as passive aggresive, I should mention that I didn't intend for it to be so since I dislike passive aggresive behaviour.

None taken.

[Revenant100]

5 hours ago, Revae said:

I guess I meant more like photos of monitors with the sprites on them etc. Is it known what is missing.

Doom is not the only Bethesda-owned IP to be affected by this imposition. Just a few months ago, a few hundred unused Quake textures were identified and posted, and the source is fairly obvious. (Although, to be clear, these originated from a time before Bethesda had started cracking down on the community, i.e. before Doom 2016.)

 

What we can infer from these hundreds of unused Quake textures is that id's internal numbering and naming schemes aren't arbitrary. If you're perusing through their games' files and notice large gaps in the sequential filenames, chances are there were indeed textures/sprites/whatever originally filling in those slots that were cut out of the final product. Granted, regarding Doom specifically, this notion mainly applies to the wall textures and flats, many of which which we can already somewhat account for from Romero's already-released content, but this does give hope that missing monster rotation sprites such as TROOH6, TROOH7, and TROOH8 or properly non-mirrored sprites for SKELK6, SKELK7, FATTJ6, FATTJ7, and FATTJ8 still exist.

 

The curious thing here, though, is that it's not just Romero who Bethesda is putting the squeeze on when it comes to early Doom content. There was this thread from years ago:

Wherein someone with access to something showed us some Doom maps and sprites we had never seen before. The early SSG artwork is usable as-is, of course, but the Doom maps were only provided as Doom Builder screenshots, not the map files themselves. Whoever this person was and whatever happened back then, it's now six years later, and we still only have said Doom Builder shots to ponder over.

 

However, that thread did lead me back to a Romero tweet highly relevant to these troubled times:

 

So, yes, there is indeed "a ton more" Doom, Quake, and other id Software stuff waiting to be seen, as stated by the man himself before Bethesda mercilessly crushed his hopes and dreams with their mighty legal magicks.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Revenant100

[MLGari]

Hopefully, when Microsoft acquires Bethesda they'll undo copyright bullshit or not 

who knows

 

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

5 minutes ago, MLGari said:

Hopefully, when Microsoft acquires Bethesda they'll undo copyright bullshit

Corporations couldn't care less about "undoing" copyright nonsense.