Why DOOM will never die.

[Jehar]

Doom arrived in 1994, and still has a huge player base 10 years later. The graphic engine has not gone under any major surgery; most players still use sprites over md2s.

New games appear on the market all the time each with better graphics and gameplay then the last. We buy them. We play them. We DM on them. But then they return to the cd-rack, hardly ever to be played again.

Sure, I get some great thrills from some of these games, and will be thinking about some of these exciting moments for years. But I still eventually stop playing. Why? Because no mattter how huge the game world is, or how many "secrets" there may be, the acutal game time diminishes.

In theory, this expresses quality over quantity, but if we are going to plunk down 50 or more dollars for a piece of software, we will want it to be of use for a considerable amount of time.

But DOOM is different. The programmers had no idea what is was they were making, so they did't make very much. What I mean by this is that they didn't program it to death by confining the players to the levels packaged in the disk. They left it open to player-created rescources and levels. The game was expandable to such an extreme degree, that later improvements would add features such as slopes, colored lighting, and advanced scripting.

I mean, look at the shit out there!

You can play as BATMAN! for crissakes... and HOMER!!!

Look at all the SHIT OUT THERE!!!

My point is is that the engine has few limits, if any, and will continue to be toyed and tinkered with by people like us for years to come.

p.s. you have heard all this before, but i just wanted to put in my two cents. put this in hell. i dont care

[myk]

I guess your title says it all.

[Lutrov71]

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/forumfun/positive7.jpg

[Jehar]

lol i know exactly what you mean... i just had to hear it from my self, if that makes any sense.

[Use]

Well you can talk to yourself in the bathroom...away from other humans.

[Jehar]

yeah, but then my goldfish gives me a wierd look... @_@

[Lutrov71]

WTF is your goldfish doing in your bathroom?

[Linguica]

Jehar said:

Doom arrived in 1994, and still has a huge player base 10 years later.

Please point me to this "HUGE" playerbase, I seem to have overlooked it.

Anyways, Doom is still popular played by some for a few reasons:

* It is a very "generic" FPS -- the texture set has lots of different styles you can do with it, the weapons are basic modern/futuristic stuff, the enemies are creative yet fairly "normal" and not themed around anything except being evil, the gameplay is about as simple as FPSes get.

* It is very easy to make levels / mods / TCs for Doom compared to "modern" engines, at least when measured in man-hours required.

* Doom had enormous momentum when it first came out and for several years it was immensely popular and for good reason. This gave Doom a sort of legitimacy and notoreity that never wore off, and when thousands of levels already exist for the game, it makes a potential level author that much more likely to consider Doom as the base.

* The game is very fast paced and playing a level does not take very much investment in terms of time and energy (usually).

* The game itself is not hard at all. Or, more precisely, it CAN be very easy in terms of skill. Most enemy engagements are on basically flat terrain, and Doom ports preserve the vertical autoaim which means that aiming is for the most a left-and-right affair. Plus the player has a ridiculously fast running speed. These combined make it fairly easy for even a supernovice player to learn to dodge and weave pretty well. But because individual enemies are so easy, level authors can build up layers of difficulty by choosing which enemies, how many, what obstacles, etc etc. The result is that the difficulty range of SP levels can be ENORMOUS as is obvious from playing, say Doom E1 on Knee-Deep as opposed to playing Hell Revealed on NM. Compare this to a modern game like Far Cry where you move slower, enemies are generally harder to hit and strafe you, etc.

[S1lent]

I wouldn't say that DOOM is still a HUGE thing...I mean, it's known by a lot of people but it isn't as popular as it was 10 years ago. Now that DOOM 3 has been announced it will become more popular and reminicent of the old 3 games. But I really wouldn't go so far as to say Doom itself is a HUGE thing at this day and age. True, it is one of the best old-school games and was probably one of the more important one, but like I said, I'm not seeing riots at stores to buy a copy of the game.

[kainisbanned]

people like yall who still play and talk about it will never let it die.

[Lutrov71]

Yes we will.


Eventually.

[boris]

S1lent said:

Now that DOOM 3 has been announced it will become more popular and reminicent of the old 3 games.

Doom 3 has been announced a couple years ago. And a lot moron came to the classic Doom community back then.

[myk]

Jehar said:
In theory, this expresses quality over quantity, but if we are going to plunk down 50 or more dollars for a piece of software, we will want it to be of use for a considerable amount of time.

This really has to do with the tech-base used; newer technology allows more complex environments and artwork (which is more costly to produce.)

But DOOM is different. The programmers had no idea what is was they were making, so they did't make very much.

DOOM is different mostly because it's not "true 3D" and it's minimalistic in regards to playability. Thus it retains the overall qualities of a game much more than most FPS. Even though id was adding to the existing gerne it had helped start up with Wolf3D.

What I mean by this is that they didn't program it to death by confining the players to the levels packaged in the disk. They left it open to player-created rescources and levels.

Not really. Many later games have taken modding into account much more fundamentally, and in some cases, probably due to that, the mods have become as popular as, if not more than, the game itself. DOOM is well know, but its add-ons don't have the reach or reputation that the game does.

The game was expandable to such an extreme degree, that later improvements would add features such as slopes, colored lighting, and advanced scripting.

Perhaps, but while other games might be less basic and thus more work to modifiy, many come prepared to be used as the basis for mods.

My point is is that the engine has few limits, if any, and will continue to be toyed and tinkered with by people like us for years to come.

I've heard some say the code is a mess and a pain to modify in many respects. Again, it wasn't exactly made with the idea of revealing it to the public for editing purposes; not to a great extent, at least. Now that is more common for complex games and the designers have it in mind, since now its clear that a well designed engine is in itself a potential for extra business, and not just part of the game.

[Dittohead]

I think you all think entirely too much to be posting this on a Doom forum.

[Nmn]

DooM is a legend and unique, can't explain, You gotta love it.
Sure it will never die, cause even if us here die our grandkinds will play it :-) (plus, they should remember to put rocket launchers in our coffins)

[Naitguolf]

myk said:
DOOM is well know, but its add-ons don't have the reach or reputation that the game does.[/B]

I disagree: Aliens TC was pretty popular.

[Jehar]

I also disagree.

Other than aliens tc, are we not wetting our pants for the new rtc-3057? Who has not played tei tenga, or memento mori?

I am one who does not usually play the base levels. I usually load up some great pwad to enjoy. I may be wrong, but most of us play the same way, and refer back to the original levels for nostalgias sake.

[Infinite Ammunition]

Lutrov71 said:

WTF is your goldfish doing in your bathroom?

Watching him masturbate?

Anyway Doom's playerbase isn't exactly "huge" especially when compared with newer games.

[dr_st]

But newer games come and go, and DOOM remains.

[DooMBoy]

Dittohead said:

I think you all think entirely too much to be posting this on a Doom forum.

I agree.

[Naitguolf]

dr_st said:

But newer games come and go, and DOOM remains.

WE remains playing. :) In fact, they are a lot of games now. They are a lot of players now. So the diversity is huge.

[Stealthy Ivan]

Wow... Well for me I still play doom cause its the first first person shooter I had ever really liked alot, Wolf 3d was cool but Doom was already out when I first got my computer in late 1993, so I never really got into wolf that much. Doom seemed to have this community base on the bbs I was on and it was so much fun to deathmatch! After that I have played it ever since!!!
And will never stop!

[Dutch Doomer]

because it was an revolution when it came out, gamers saw things that they never seen i a game before.
smart monsters that would come after you an you had to shoot them,dark sinister hallways, death lurking on every corner.

that is the reason why it will never die {in my opinion}.

[UltraMarioMan]

smart monsters that would come after you an you had to shoot them

Um the badguys in Wolfenstein came after you and you had to shoot them...

[Jehar]

but not to the extent that doom monster would. a few times a was shooting at some zombeez at thenn poof they are gone. Im looking around and then OMG there they are right behind that pillar! sneaky demon-possesed bastard...

(of course wolf did not have any pillars or shit like that...)

[S1lent]

actually......it did.

[Dutch Doomer]

well youre wright in a way,but the monsters in doom would teleport to your position, chase you up the stairs,monsters would kill other monsters, all those things would look like that the monsters where a lot smarter than those nazi's.
did the creators of doom make them smarter or where they just as smart as the nazi's from wolf3d?.

p.s. o yeah before i forget,the nazi's in wolf3d did they kill other nazi's if they where hit or not?.
i am just wondering, its been many years ago when i played this game.

thats all folks.

[Scientist]

dd said:

did the creators of doom make them smarter or where they just as smart as the nazi's from wolf3d?.

p.s. o yeah before i forget,the nazi's in wolf3d did they kill other nazi's if they where hit or not?.
i am just wondering, its been many years ago when i played this game.

I think the bullets fired by the nazis went through other nazis, so they were unable to hurt eachother.
Further, the wolf3d enemies were able to walk various predesigned "routes". Something doom enemies cannot. Doom monsters simply stand still until provoked at which point they will move towards you stand still to fire at you, move towards you ect.
If they happen to walk over a teleportation wire they will be teleported to where ever the porter brings them; Monsters do not conciously walk over wires.
So, I'd say monsters in doom aren't smarter than those in wolf3d.

[Dron]

Monsters in Wolfenstein basically walk straight into your bullet. Monsters in doom actually try not to get hit

[Graf Zahl]

Dron said:

Monsters in doom actually try not to get hit

No. It may seem so on occasion but there is absolutely no code there for it.