The Lost Episodes of Doom

[palko]

Hello!

I am looking for The Lost Episodes of doom add-on released before 8 yars. I hope, some of you bought this book and please, if you could, send me the link where I could be able to download Wad files or please send me them via mail to ostertag@gjh.sk. Many thanks

idh

[DooMBoy]

Um, I'm no authority on this, but I think the Lost Eps of Doom can still be bought online, and therefore asking for the wad itself could be considered warez.

[Grazza]

They were uploaded to the archive a while ago.

Maybe they shouldn't have been, but no one seemed to throw a fit, and they were reviewed and linked to on Doomworld in T/nC at the time.

However, they now appear to have been removed from the archive, so maybe Ty decided that they should be considered warez.

[myk]

I remember that. Not only were they nondistributable but it was also some modified version of the episodes.

The database doesn't clear deleted stuff?

[Grogglogobofink]

heh, afaik whoever made the lost levels never asked id for permission to sell doom levels, so they were the only ones doing something illegal. hell, i bought a book that came with uac_dead and several hundred other old wads, that doesn't make them warez.

[Grazza]

Grogglogobofink said:

heh, afaik whoever made the lost levels never asked id for permission to sell doom levels, so they were the only ones doing something illegal.

If so, then that is a matter for id to consider, and it doesn't mean it is OK for other people to distribute the wad if this was not allowed by its creators.

hell, i bought a book that came with uac_dead and several hundred other old wads, that doesn't make them warez.

That is a different situation, as I'm sure you're well aware.

[Never_Again]

Nobody needs id's permission to sell levels. ANAL, but as long as a binary has no binary code (be it artwork, sound or program code) copyrighted by id, id has no legal right to impose any restrictions on what the author intends to do with it.

That said, the concept of selling WADs is ludicrous, however legal it may be.

As for the book, it is long OOP, so TLE are not easy to come by. Same fate as other forsaken megawads like Hell To Pay and Perdition Gate.

But because the developers and publishers forgot about them as their attention shifted to more lucrative markets, doesn't mean we have to =). At the moment, I got The Lost Episodes on my page, along with a ftp.cdrom.com reject HEROES.WAD; H2P and PD will be up there too, in due time.

[myk]

It's all about respecting WAD distribution text files, when it says don't distribute or don't modify, then just don't. The reason why they aren't distributable or modifiable (or under what conditions this is possible) doesn't really make a difference; it's by respecting the letter of these documents that we can have decency among WAD-makers. It's up to us, it's our thing and our business, if we ignore what these documents say we degrade their value when they (the TXTs) are the best way to communicate how we want the add-ons we spent time on to be treated (not only the ones we release ourselves but also the ones we play or admire.)

[Grogglogobofink]

myk said:

It's all about respecting WAD distribution text files, when it says don't distribute or don't modify, then just don't.

a very good point.

[DooMBoy]

myk said:

It's all about respecting WAD distribution text files, when it says don't distribute or don't modify, then just don't.

Like Baldy said, good point, but who actually reads those lines and takes them seriously anymore?

[Grazza]

Anyone who doesn't want to fail it, I suppose.

[Never_Again]

Those lines are unenforceable but anyone wilfully violating them risks acquiring unsavory rep.

While we're on the subject: it's curious how most ppl seem to acknowledge and respect WAD authors' wishes and requests while nobody seems to mind when well-known, popular projects freely ste...I mean, borrow graphics and music from the still available via retail commercial packages like Hexen and Final DOOM.
Examples include Eternal, Alien Vendetta and the new, but quickly gaining classic status, Scythe.

[myk]

Never_Again, agreed. I,ve been growing more conscious of that as time goes by and recently found myself saying that AV's main flaw is the way it rips from here and there.

As for Final DOOM resources specifically... that's not necessarily a problem, I think, as the licence for the latest release of the DOOMs (I mean the Collectors Edition) says you may use bits of the software in your wads under certain conditions... that software being the IWADs in the CD (including Final DOOM.)

[Fredrik]

I want a copy of the Collector's Edition license text file.

[myk]

http://www.doom2.net/~mykdoom/misc/EULA.TXT

[Grogglogobofink]

You shall not rent, sell, lease, lend, offer on a pay-per-play basis or otherwise commercially exploit or commercially distribute the New Creations. You are only permitted to distribute, without any cost or charge, the New Creations to other end-users so long as such distribution is not infringing against any third party right and is not otherwise illegal or unlawful.

heh, well it looks like whoever created lost levels voided the license, and therefore I personally would say fuck 'em if he doesn't want people to distribute them. since the only reason the author didn't want them distributed in the first place was so he could make money off them illegally anyway.

[NiGHTMARE]

But that version of the license didn't exist at the time Lost Episodes was created and released. Go read some earlier copies of the Doom license and you'll see they're rather different - there certainly is no mention of 'New Creations'.

Besides, for all we know the makers of the Lost Episodes DID get ID's permission to commercially release the wad. Unless someone knows something I don't?

[Grazza]

Grogglogobofink: That is a very, er, unsafe line of reasoning.

[Grogglogobofink]

Grazza said:

Grogglogobofink: That is a very, er, unsafe line of reasoning.

i didn't say i was following it =P i'm just saying i wouldn't feel too bad for the author.

[SyntherAugustus]

That same EULA quote is everywhere. So any homemade level that's made cannot be sold.

[Grogglogobofink]

without id's permission. and i'm very doubtful the authors of that book had id's permission.

[NiGHTMARE]

Grogglogobofink said:

and i'm very doubtful the authors of that book had id's permission.

Why?

[Grogglogobofink]

because a couple other books (that i owned) were written without id's permission. and that interview of the author on the page of doom didn't really make it sound too official. i don't think anyone cared enough then to bother. and even if they did ask, the maps were freely distributable before the book came out, i don't see why they wouldn't still be. if id said "don't distribute shareware doom" now, you still could, since it comes with documentation saying you can share it.

[myk]

What is distributable is a previous release of the first few maps (or first episode) in the Lost Episodes, the ones by Klie, if I'm not mistaken. But the whole thing released with the book goes with the "don't distribute" request. Actually, aren't the better maps in the episodes among the distributable ones? The only reason why people ask for the Lost Episodes is because of how they were distributed (commercially.) They start to think that they might be missing a quality product. But the truth is that they aren't so special, there's thousands of better maps available for free.

When asking for them people should just be told:

A) They aren't distributable because their only way of distribution was by buying them from the publisher. That's a price that WAD has to pay for being distributed like that, and for the fact that the authors didn't do anything about it later or back then.

B) They aren't too good... so if you couple this with the above problem, why bother?

C) Get CHRIS_E1.ZIP by Christen David Klie instead.

[NiGHTMARE]

Better yet get chrisk.wad, which includes everything from chris_e1.wad plus 2 more episodes of nice-ish levels :)

[Grogglogobofink]

yeah, true. lost levels only gets worse as it goes along anyway.

[Graf Zahl]

I really don't get why there is such a demand for these levels. The name 'Master levels' is a joke. In reality this are quite mediocre, even for 1994/1995 standards. When they were uploaded to /newstuff I had a chance to check them out. I found them mostly dull, boring and ugly. Nothing I want to play repeatedly. Now, if I could get my hands on the full versions of 'Perdition's Gate' and 'Hell to Pay'. These were quality work and I want the rest of them...

[Grogglogobofink]

master levels? they're called 'the lost episodes of doom'. but yeah, the levels are pretty meh.

[Never_Again]

BlackFish said:

That same EULA quote is everywhere. So any homemade level that's made cannot be sold.

I think we're going in circles. once again: despite whatever the EULA may claim, you can do anything you want with the levels you create, as long as they don't include id's copyrighted material (i.e. actual artwork and levels).

To Baldy: I don't think id had any problem with The Lost Episodes, otherwise I doubt they'd get him on the Master Levels roster.

[NiGHTMARE]

Graf Zahl said:

I really don't get why there is such a demand for these levels. The name 'Master levels' is a joke. In reality this are quite mediocre, even for 1994/1995 standards. When they were uploaded to /newstuff I had a chance to check them out. I found them mostly dull, boring and ugly. Nothing I want to play repeatedly.

Anyone who dares criticize the work of the blessed and holy John W. Anderson and Sverre Kvernmo deserves to be forever banished from the community, for it is almost as bad as saying that Doom Episode 1 sucks! =P