Who is playing Doom today?

[Hellbent]

More specifically I'm curious as to the demographic that visits this website and plays doom. If you could post your age, where you are from and how long you've been playing Doom and using this website, I'd be very curious to know! Or maybe the mods have statistics on this information? A poll would be nice but I no longer see that option. :(

EDIT

I'm a 28 year old male from the southwestern corner of Massachusetts. Have now wasted half my life playing doom. Got hooked in 1994 and basically have been playing ever since! In the last ten years there have been a few short hiatuses. The longest amount of time I have not done anything doom related was about a year when I was doing lots of traveling. I seem to be one of very few others who is still frequenting this website after 8 years when I discovered it in 2000. The turnover in recent years seems to have gone up, which is why I made this post. I want to get a feel of how many people here are new to Doom and how many are more like me--doom veterans. :)

[Dutch Doomer]

I am playing doom today same as yesterday and the day before that, not an day goes by without playing doom or doing some editing for it.My age is 30 and I've been playing doom since its release, and its the only game that I have been playing for this long.I've played it on the psx and atari jaguar as well, now I'm back to the pc and I'm more active than ever.

[Jim Rainer]

18, been playing doom since I was 5.

[purist]

I'm 26 years old and live in Hull, which is in East Yorkshire, England.

I'm a bit hazy with dates, but I started playing Doom around the time it came out on the Atari Jaguar (1996? Would have made me 14). I took a Doom guidebook into class and met my best mate through a mutual appreciation of Doom. He introduced me to Doom 2, deathmatches, custom maps and WADEd.

We dabbled a bit but moved onto other games and I didn't get seriously back into Doom until I came across this site in 2004. Since then I've dipped in and out - at the moment I'm working on My Legendary Great Lost Megawad!

[40oz]

Im 17, and live in Hatfield Pennsylvania. I started playing Doom for the first time at the age of 3, consistently using the iddqd cheat until I went on a hiatus from doom at the age of 5. I came back to it when I was 8, and tried to play without cheating. I hadn't played Doom yet today, but I played yesterday testing a graphics mod I was working on, and I played a little bit of the megawad 'Hellcore'. I also played the first map of the Master Levels a couple times.

EDIT
I'm a 28 year old male from the southwestern corner of Massachusetts. Have now wasted half my life playing doom.

WASTED?? more like enhanced.

[Stupid Bunny]

I first played Doom when I was 6 or something. I was a sensitive lad and got really freaked out by all the, you know, blood and corpses and stuff, and didn't play it for many years.

It was about four years ago that I discovered a really old CD that had the Doom shareware on it, and decided to give it a try. It was incredible in a way that no game I had played up to then had been, and it wasn't long before I got the whole collection. Been playing it ever since then, with varying regularity.

I found this forum at about the same time I got into Doom mods, which was...I dunno, less than four years ago. But that only got me even more into Doom.

Also, I must ask when (and if) anybody got into doing Doom mapping themselves. I did about a year after finding Doom itself, although those early maps sucked. I haven't done many since then.

Oh yeah, I'm 17 and live in the San Francisco area.

[_bruce_]

30 - location: Austria/Vienna


Got in touch with Doom in 1995... more specific: played Doom2 on my P60 for the first time in 95.
Was the first game that I felt was no bullshit...
-the gfx
-the sound
-the playability
-the theme
-the underlying tech aspect

..it pretty much hit a nerve. No bullshit story, no score system, no boring dialogs - just play.

Still today I'm fascinated by it.
The original Doom/DoomII levels are my favs.

I play it on and off, but safe the gusto for networking.
Most of the time cooping with buddies over LAN.

[Janizdreg]

I'm a 24 years old Finnish male. I've played Doom more and sometimes less actively since 1994. I first stumbled across Doomworld at some point in 1998 and have frequented the site ever since. Never the less I took my time in joining these forums, and still mostly lurk around here and tend to post quite rarely.

As for StupidBunny's question, I think I first gave Doom mapping a shot in 1996 or so and by 1997 I managed to build a couple of semi-decent levels. 1998 and 1999 were the most active years of my mapping career, but since then I've done very little map editing.

Nowadays most of the time I invest in doomy things tends to consist of Doom Wiki editing work. Naturally I do play the games from time to time, just not as often as I used to.

[CodeImp]

I quit and abandoned this ancient game. No clue what I'm still doing around here.

[Hellbent]

JohnnyRancid said:

Im 17, and live in Hatfield Pennsylvania. I started playing Doom for the first time at the age of 3, consistently using the iddqd cheat until I went on a hiatus from doom at the age of 5. I came back to it when I was 8, and tried to play without cheating. I hadn't played Doom yet today, but I played yesterday testing a graphics mod I was working on, and I played a little bit of the megawad 'Hellcore'. I also played the first map of the Master Levels a couple times.



WASTED?? more like enhanced.

That's what my 'cultured' friends try to tell me. None of my family and friends think it is a worthwhile pass time, except maybe one friend. But if I felt like it really was a waste of life I wouldn't do it now would I?

Thanks everyone for posting. So it seems like most everyone that has replied so far was introduced to doom when it first came out or soon after. I guess I am curious as to whether anyone discovers Doom posthumously... say... 1999 or later, or because of its age they only bother with newer games.

[Bucket]

I'm 28 and live west of Philadelphia, PA. I started playing Doom in early 1995. A friend and I were PC buddies, so I remember the pain of trying to get Doom working over a serial connection. Over the years I've been mostly a PC gamer, having only bought a PS2 and PS3 since (not including a GBA a girlfriend bought me, which I never play).

There are times when I'll get into modern gaming, but Doom is the old standby. Of course I'm not playing as often as I used to (which was nearly every day), but I'm on regularly. I'm also more involved with the community than I was.

[Butts]

im 16 and i live in the bay area in california, you know, oakland/SF kinda area. i played doom for the first time in 1995, then one year later my dad got the playstation version of final doom w/ master levels and i started playing that for years. i had a hiatus or two, though, and then when i was 11 or 12 (actually maybe i was 10, i dont really know), i discovered the PC version. i bought the Ultimate doom. then i got doom3 on xbox whenever that came out then bought doom2 on computer, and plutonia, all that. then last year, pretty much exactly one year ago (maybe it was 1 year and 1 month) i discovered doom builder and began my editing endeavors. i discovered doomworld shortly thereafter and then eventually joined these forums.

[Enjay]

43 years old. Live in North East Scotland. Been playing Doom since the SW version first appeared on a magazine cover back in late '93.

[Regen]

I only hang around here out of morbid curiosity, and on a fledgingly fragile last string of interest in the game that gos back to my computer beginings. i think i would like for it to be more or as interesting today than it actually is. but i still have my wads on an old box that i scrapped together and my dos 6.22 and my dcc and all the original exes so no need for any ports there, just on xp for when i come accross that elusive wad (that i havent played in 12 years) thats out there, somewhere..

EDIT: egads ill be 44 tommorow, but i too go back to the release of the shareware.

[Mithral_Demon]

16, started playing when my dads friend showed me it (Shareware), and by then I wanted to play it, and then got my hands on it 4 years ago, since then I haven't stopped playing, but I wish I could remember where I put my map I was planning on making when I was 10...

[scorpion]

I'm about 5 months away from being 31, and lived most of my life in the Netherlands. I started playing DooM since mid-1994, started by downloading the shareware version at a school and playing it with some friends over the network there (none of the players were actual students at that school).

I've been playing DooM off and on since then, almost exclusively on PC. I've tried the SNES version for a while, and most recently play it when I'm really bored and not near a PC on my Nokia N73 (Symbian S60 v3).

I've also been mapping off and on, pretty much since I play DooM, starting with DEU, though I have yet to release anything.

[duvel]

I'm 16, from Huntsville, AL (moved from southern Mississippi). I've been playing doom since I was 6, using the website since I was around 13-14.

[Lord_Z]

I'll be 18 in a month. I started playing Doom when I was around 11 (2001-ish), when my best friend showed it to me. At least that's the earliest I can remember playing it. I must have beaten the shareware like 50 times until I finally got Doom 2 from my bro, then eventually Ultimate Doom. I must have started editing wads not long after because it was just that great. I stopped playing it for awhile but I had always wanted to make a great wad so I jumped back in. I have especially had more activity with it since I found this site.

What I find interesting is that I have never met someone in real life that likes Doom as much as me. I have friends that will play it with me at school (gotta keep an eye on those librarians...) but not to the same extent.

[Edward850]

I'm from New Zealand. I just turned 16 (June 4th). I started playing doom when I was 3 because my half brother introduced me to the game. It took me 2 days to complete episode 1 in ITYTD with god mode on.

Fun-Fact: I could play doom before I could talk properly (age of 4).

[SamBeckett94]

I'm 37, been playing DOOM since it was uploaded to the servers of the Uni of Wisconsin-Madison. I don't spend too much time on it - I give the wife, work and Happy Days a higher priority. Still, doesn't stop me from enjoying the game.

[Doctor Faust]

Reading this Website: A little while
Contributing to this Forum: First time

Played Doom for the first time somewhen in 1994, beeing about 15 years old. Suddenly got addicted and played for some years, though i did not enjoy Doom II as much as i did the original Doom (somehow i did not like all that funky music in D2 and the ugly texturing of the city levels).

Recently i purchased a copy of Doom III and played the first three levels. The gfx and ambient sound effects are very nice, but the game itself unnerved me, so i installed PrBoom and bought me the Doom Collectors edition. Since then, i wasted too much time playing the original in good old 256 color mode, but never started D3 again (still i want to complete D3 someday, maybe after finishing plutonia).

Never played a single game as much as Doom I, only Quake I came close. The gameplay is just incredible.

Faust

EDIT: 29y from germany, forgot that.

[LordK]

Janizdreg said:

I'm a 24 years old Finnish male. I've played Doom more and sometimes less actively since 1994. I first stumbled across Doomworld at some point in 1998 and have frequented the site ever since. Never the less I took my time in joining these forums, and still mostly lurk around here and tend to post quite rarely.

This, but 31 years old.

[aleksej]

I'm a 27 years old male from Moscow, Russia. Playing doom since winter '93-94. Prefer vanilla executable and stuck in mid '90 PC hardware because of it.

[BoldEnglishman]

I am 17 and live in Surrey England. I too discovered the game in 1994 (in fact, I remember my dad buying Doom II from PC World when my brother kept wailing on about it). I played it first when I was about 3 or 4 after watching my brother play it for hours, and have been playing computer games rather actively ever since. Not doom all the time though -- I go through phases of concentrating on a game until I complete it.

I discovered custom WAD files for Doom about 4 or 5 years ago now, maybe longer. I remember the /newstuff reviews back then, and playing quite a few levels that were actually rather uninteresting (but having played nothing but the official levels, they weren't far off from them). However, probably this time 2 years ago, I discovered the 10 years of Doom event, and have basically found some of my favourite levelsets from it. It took me almost a year to actually figure out the 10 years of Doom continued to the present day with the Cacowards. I lurked on these forums for a year or two, popping in rarely and seeing what was about, before finally registering this time a year ago.

From my registration to March this year has been my longest Doom phase, as I struck gold with the Cacowards and this website and went completely nuts over Doom. I believe I remarked in a thread a while ago, that connecting with the community in 2007 was an ideal time, as many projects that had been in development for years before were released in that year. Now, I only come back to the forums every few weeks or so as the last project I was anticipating (Dues Vult II) has been released, and apart from projects that will take months and years to be released, I don't have as much of a drive to seek out new and innovating WADs. I'm also just beginning to enter a Thief phase... and will likely play those games from start to end very soon (I just completed the original Quake last week).

In terms of mapping, I have downloaded and experimented with both DoomBuilder and XWE, and I understand the basic concepts of how to make a level and create custom weapons/monsters/what have you. However, I don't really enjoy mapping, for any game, and while I can appreciate the effort that goes into some levels, I simply could not stay focused on a level of my own long enough to make it something worthwhile to play. So, I haven't released anything publicly.

[CODOR]

29-year old guy from southern Ontario, Canada. I first heard of Doom in early or mid-1993, but didn't get a copy of the shareware until summer, 1994 (I can't remember if I needed a better system or it was due to the lack of decent BBSes around here at the time)... Doom II followed that year for Christmas, and Ultimate Doom a year later.

I didn't play it much after 1996 (Quake and other newer games started taking up more time), but I gained new interest in it once the source was released at the end of 1997. I've been especially interested in the various source ports ever since.

I've been reading here since 1998 or 1999 when a friend sent me a link to Doomworld's 5 Years of Doom pages, although I didn't register for several years. I somehow missed Final Doom the first time around, but picked it up with the Collector's Edition in 2001. About this time I started creating my own levels, and maybe someday I'll release one...

I don't play Doom too often, maybe once a month. I finally got my hands on copies of Heretic and Hexen so I've been playing them a bit more lately. Doom is usually one of the first programs I install when setting up a new computer (these days usually in the form of prboom) -- and if it can't run Doom, then it's not worth owning :-)

[Death-Destiny]

How many of you started playing Doom when you were 3 years old? I wouldn't have even known how to work a computer when I was 3. T_T

[Hellbent]

Death-Destiny said:

How many of you started playing Doom when you were 3 years old? I wouldn't have even known how to work a computer when I was 3. T_T

I think I was maybe 8 when I first started playing computer games--and they were ones made with ascii text characters for graphics. :)

[Megaz]

15 year old Australian Male. I've played since I was 4, first with shareware and then with registered. I play Skulltag mostly nowadays. (I would be called Megaaussie but for some reason that name is taken on Doomworld :0)

I originally got into doom because I was young and violent, and doom was both of those, so I got right into it. Around the age of 8 I accidentally destroyed my old copy of doom and went doom-less until 10, when I got the registered version. My activity has dropped and risen periodically since then, right now being in the dropped but rising stage. This style (That I like to call 'Fashion') Takes about a year to fully complete.

[Chow Yun Thin]

25-year-old guy from California. Heard about the Doom games when my family bought our first computer in mid-'95. Bought the Doom Companion CD (shareware + loads of utilities, text files, pictures) that December. Bought The Ultimate Doom about two years later. Bought Doom II in '03 at the same place where I first saw it.

Once or twice a year, I get the urge to play a Doom II megawad for about a month before stopping abruptly. Typically it's because I'm stuck in a hard part in the megawad and end up deleting the save file during a reformat. On the good side, it means playing through the megawad feels completely new.

[Captain Red]

25/m/aussie u!!!!?!????

I'm not sure when I started playing it. Some time in the mid 90's, probably '94 but didn't get into it in a big way until 97 after I played the shit out of quake. Been a member of forums since '01. It was this place that showed me the wonders of the internet.

I still play it fairly regularly and make a point of finishing doom and doom 2 at least once a year. I don't do vanilla doom anymore and I haven't used a port other then Gzdoom in years. I usually throw in a few mods to boot. I'm currently going through an RPG obsession right now so it's not getting the love it usually gets from me, but that will pass. It usually dose.