what was doomworld like in the early 2000s and early 2010s?

[Doominator2]

15 minutes ago, prfunky said:

What's a "Linuxer"?

 

Linux User. Doesn't matter what distro you use, Doomworld will not discriminate.

[Uncle 80]

we had newstuff chronicles and flamewars. I loved checking in each friday or whatever it was to read newstuff and download/play the most favorably reviewed maps. (FP! Props to all logged-in trolls!)

[THEBaratusII]

I recall mostly lurking during the early 2010s, but at the same time I wasn't in a good mindset as a teenager.

 

However I found Doomworld more welcoming atleast compared to a majority of Facebook groups I used to be in, and being in a Facebook group is like constantly falling victim to a person or group's egotistic power trip.

 

Interesting that I still remember Post Hell and the theme song.

[prfunky]

"Sorry about on DW Torm. But what's there to worry about there anyway? Newdoom's an overall better place

for general chit-chat anyway. It may have strict rules but at least morons don't get away with insulting people

just because they're older members." ~ Ninja_of_DooM » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:13 am

 

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=203219

[Mr. Freeze]

chaotic

[Azafran]

10 hours ago, Doomkid said:

..Respectfully, all you pissy babies WHINING your tits off about how "toxic" Doomworld is/was frankly wouldn't know the first goddamn thing about "toxicity" if it brought a paddle to your spoiled asses. :^)

 

Ahem.

 

..Bullshit aside, I really do believe DW has always been well below the "standard internet level" of toxicity. It was (the closest thing to) a reasonably welcoming place for trans, gay and even furry Doomers well before communities being even partially welcoming to those demographics was at all common - I'm talking late 2000s, FFS - and shit, acceptance of those groups is STILL really rocky in many communities, YT or social media comment sections, etc etc... but not here.

 

I been round the various corners of the Doom community since I was a literal child and I never felt "pushed away by toxicity" or whatever such nonsense. Occasionally someone might talk some shit, but usually before I'd even get to respond, someone else would jump in the fray on my behalf. So a little crazy compared to the norm, maybe? Not toxic though. Absolutely below the common internet average, be it 2003, 2013 or 2023. There was (and to a large degree, still is) this sense of camaraderie that I didn't feel at all in other (gaming) communities of the older eras.

 

Maybe that's just my experience though. But man. I cannot imagine even attempting to navigate the greater web, ever, if I couldn't even stomach DW's lite-ass nonsense.

 

I'm not active in many online communities but something that surprised me about Doomworld is precisely the amount of openly trans and gay users there are. It was kind of a burning curiosity for me: there were something particular in classic Doom that attracted more of that demographic? (Being a niche thing to play and mod today can attract more niche people? Definitely not the average casual gamer), or it was that just because it is more accepted those people feel safe here to express themselves vs the rest of the internet which is more toxic?

 

Certainly I never saw that in other communities, but I'm really glad people can feel at home here, and that tells me a lot about Doomworld.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

33 minutes ago, Azafran said:

something that surprised me about Doomworld is precisely the amount of openly trans and gay users there are. It was kind of a burning curiosity for me: there were something particular in classic Doom that attracted more of that demographic? (Being a niche thing to play and mod today can attract more niche people? Definitely not the average casual gamer)

People who are troubled in life are more likely to be introverted, and therefore more likely to spend more time on the internet, more time doing things like playing video games, and therefore more likely to become interested in in-depth or "nerdy" stuff like modding or old video games. Doom is an old video game famous for being moddable. This is in comparison to hot new stuff like CoD/Fortnite, where the audience is more likely to consist of average Joes since those games are targeted at a general audience. I guess things like Skyrim would be somewhere in between. The Doom modding community is accessible, but it's not a mainstream interest and therefore you just end up with a different crowd.

[ChaseC7527]

12 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

People who are troubled in life are more likely to be introverted, and therefore more likely to spend more time on the internet, more time doing things like playing video games, and therefore more likely to become interested in in-depth or "nerdy" stuff like modding or old video games. Doom is an old video game famous for being moddable. This is in comparison to hot new stuff like CoD/Fortnite, where the audience is more likely to consist of average Joes since those games are targeted at a general audience. I guess things like Skyrim would be somewhere in between. The Doom modding community is accessible, but it's not a mainstream interest and therefore you just end up with a different crowd.

in short: doom is 4 oddballz!1!!1!

[OniriA]

Just some themes, topics and things of the top of my head that I remember that defined the forum zeitgeist are:

 

- Some kind of Jetsons meme were everyone pretended to be someone from the Jetsons show or something. It was a mapping collective as far as I remember. Even though I was just a lurker at the time I remember the whole phenomenon just pissing me off for some reason. They always came off as smarmy "I am better then thou" nerds to me (who could gang up like parasites on anyone that disagreed with them).

 

- Fish meme, a time where (almost) everyone was using a fish based pfp. I think it dates back to the early 2000's. One of the oldest Doomworld phenomena that I can remember. Nowadays if you see members with a fish based pfp, then that's highly likely an old-ass DW member.

 

- Action Doom ("puts on sunglasses")

 

- Death Destiny , a peculiar mapping persona from the late 2000's who liked to create stylish but hard as nails maps. Used to check on DW during my highschool and IT classes to check what he was cookin' up. And lo and behold there he was yapping with all enthusiasm about some project or another.

 

- TNT 2 Revilution Drama

 

- Post Hell

 

- There was a time when the Newstuff Chonicles was savage as hell. And I kind of loved it for it, because the reviews were often witty and hilarious. It was something I looked forward to every week or 2 to get my laughs from. There were weeks, often during Summer when the harvest was often meagre and sometimes such that the entire newstuff consisted of shitty troll wads. 

 

Bloodshedder and Scuba Steve reviews were the best and gave me lots of entertaining reading. At the same time whenever there was sometimes actually good, it stood out from the rest like a pearl surrounded by donkey shit.

[Li'l devil]

2 hours ago, OniriA said:

- TNT 2 Revilution Drama

 

I remember a lot of drama, but never even heard of this one. What was it about?

[LadyMistDragon]

Oh god.....I have some clue of that. While it's probably water under the bridge now (one of the principal figures came back in 2021 after having sort of darted in and out under an alias or two).....I just think I'd be embarrassed to be involved in it.

[Devalaous]

4 hours ago, OniriA said:

- TNT 2 Revilution Drama

 

 

Man, that all feels so long ago, and as much as I wish people would forget it, it changed my life for the better.

 

Thankfully, from the brief period I was in the TNT Convilution/Forever development discord, almost all of the drama and hostility has LONG gone and people once flinging shit at each other were working together like nothing happened

[ReaperAA]

2 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

I remember a lot of drama, but never even heard of this one. What was it about?

 

I would just post this comment from Tristan from Devilution thread. Basically the summary of what happened back then.

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1969558

 

It is old drama now and things have cooled down since.

[Bank]

Bigger (pink) fish in a smaller pond. Certain things about old DW don’t make sense anymore, but there was an excitement to the small town internet fame and drama of that time that can’t be replicated. 

[Andromeda]

13 hours ago, OniriA said:

- Death Destiny , a peculiar mapping persona from the late 2000's who liked to create stylish but hard as nails maps. Used to check on DW during my highschool and IT classes to check what he was cookin' up. And lo and behold there he was yapping with all enthusiasm about some project or another.

To think he left the forums over some stupid bullshit...

[LadyMistDragon]

3 hours ago, Andromeda said:

To think he left the forums over some stupid bullshit...

and never looked back (and no, I don't subscribe to the "Darkwave is Death Destiny" theory)

[The Doommer]

On 11/26/2023 at 3:43 PM, Doomkid said:

I really do believe DW has always been well below the "standard internet level" of toxicity. It was (the closest thing to) a reasonably welcoming place for trans, gay and even furry Doomers well before communities being even partially welcoming to those demographics was at all common - I'm talking late 2000s

 

DW isn't that toxic tbh. There are communities that are far more toxic

But I have seen some instances where the toxicity and double standards peaked. In the more recent times too.

 

 

[The Doommer]

In the end, I also agree that toxicity of a community isn't related to a game but mostly the demographic and the human nature

My own experience at Doomworld especially in the beginning of my user days (the old layout for example) is fondly remembered

Tho I did annoy people with my constant posting lol

[ChopBlock223]

I only lurked until recent years, but it seemed better in some ways, worse in others. In some ways it was much the same as now.

 

I always looked forward to each NewStuff Chronicles.

[thecringefactor]

On 11/24/2023 at 10:43 PM, Li'l devil said:

- snip -

Oh my god, that sounds too much like my discord server 😂 Except instead of post hell, we have pins of shame. And muted members can only view two channels: a jail channel with a 6 hour slowmode filled with cursed images from the moderators (mostly clocks filled with baked beans), and the spam ping muted channel which is read only.

[Li'l devil]

According to this archaeological fossil of a thread, back in 2002 if you wanted to have a custom avatar, you'd need to have postcount of >1000. But also the avatars needed to be no more than 36x36 px and 20kB in size. Imagine if it was still like that now.

 

 

[SyntherAugustus]

On 11/25/2023 at 6:58 AM, Ichor said:

Everything was like a silent movie and we all had top hats and handlebar mustaches and we were having our tea and crumpets while playing sepia colored Doom with our pinkies up.

 

And there were the great netscape wars and many, many fish.

[Scuba Steve]

Glorious.

[Searcher]

It was really fun to visit post hell from time to time to see who got a recent thread deleted and themselves possibly banned.  Many people seemed to want to walk that thin line.  There were a lot of real "characters" then.  Heck there was even doom mapping going on and being released using those ancient tools.  Fun and interesting times.

[Koko Ricky]

On 11/26/2023 at 5:20 PM, Azafran said:

 

I'm not active in many online communities but something that surprised me about Doomworld is precisely the amount of openly trans and gay users there are. It was kind of a burning curiosity for me: there were something particular in classic Doom that attracted more of that demographic?

I'm not sure what to think about this, as I fall into the asexual/greysexual umbrella, and tend to be somewhat sex repulsed. The reaction here in the past was generally mocking or dismissive. I found that I couldn't be open about those things without people making it out to be negative. I wonder if that's changed. 

[Doom64hunter]

I feel like it had more of its own culture back then, what with the fish avatars, titles being handed out by moderators, post hell, etc.

 

This place feels a lot more homogenized with the rest of the internet these days.

 

Edit:

 

On 11/27/2023 at 1:22 AM, OniriA said:

- Some kind of Jetsons meme were everyone pretended to be someone from the Jetsons show or something. It was a mapping collective as far as I remember. Even though I was just a lurker at the time I remember the whole phenomenon just pissing me off for some reason. They always came off as smarmy "I am better then thou" nerds to me (who could gang up like parasites on anyone that disagreed with them). 

The Jetsands were the shit. SpaceDM5 ftw

Edited January 12 by Doom64hunter

[OniriA]

You're certainly right about the shit part.

[plums]

On 1/11/2024 at 5:27 PM, Koko Ricky said:

I'm not sure what to think about this, as I fall into the asexual/greysexual umbrella, and tend to be somewhat sex repulsed. The reaction here in the past was generally mocking or dismissive. I found that I couldn't be open about those things without people making it out to be negative. I wonder if that's changed. 

I'm sorry to hear people reacted that way. I know there are several asexual users on here, I'll mention @Sneezy McGlassFace as one because they have an ace flag in their picture. Hopefully things have changed enough for you to feel comfortable talking about it, if you want to.

 

6 hours ago, Doom64hunter said:

I feel like it had more of its own culture back then, what with the fish avatars, titles being handed out by moderators, post hell, etc.

 

This place feels a lot more homogenized with the rest of the internet these days.

It does, but it also feels like a much more tolerant and inclusive place. Doomworld 2012, when I first started lurking, was definitely a Free Speech Zone where it was fine to argue about whether trans people were mentally ill etc. Going back older than that, it seems like there was a lot of culture-specific jokes, but that sometimes came at the expense of other members. This thread by @RestlessRodent gives a good window into some of that: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/123307-why-i-left-this-community/

 

I've come and gone from this place a few times, and every time it seems like things have changed to be more progressive. I do regret not speaking out more against the nasty stuff when it was still common though.

[Scuba Steve]

A big part of that is just changing cultural attitudes in general. Homosexuality was widely derided in 2000 with 7/10 Americans opposed to same sex marriage. Now, it's widely accepted and the numbers completely reversed in support of marriage equality. And we didn't even know what "being trans" really meant... We just laughed at the meme, "there are no girls on the Internet." In hindsight, we probably drove away a couple good members because we were just insensitive teenagers thinking they were "pretending on the Internet."

 

"That's gay" was just common parlance back then. Hell, I had to rewrite segments of urban brawl just because times changed. I don't know if Doomworld really became more tolerant... Or if the world just changed and the rest of us acclimated. 

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, Scuba Steve said:

"That's gay" was just common parlance back then.

 

Still is sometimes. Played a couple of games online recently where the chat made me feel like I'd gone back in time 20 years.