D! Zone ain't bad...

[Intel17]

So I got my hands on a copy of D! Zone (my dad had it back in the day and just gave it to me) and I've been playing through some of these maps. I have to say, there's enough out of the ~900 maps that it's worth it. Why did these kinds of shovelware discs get so badly panned?

[GreyGhost]

Intel17 said:

Why did these kinds of shovelware discs get so badly panned?

With many of them it's pretty obvious that whoever did the CD mastering put little effort into it, I can almost visualize them attaching a large funnel to their CD burner and dumping shovel loads of random files in.

[Maes]

Because they were made mostly in 1994-1995 and contained a lot of crap too (I have a similar one that has no less than 50 pre-BSP builders E1M1 modifications including some unplayable/unfinished levels).

Of course back then not everybody had internet or even a modem and BBS access, so novelty - ANY novelty, even if it was some lamers' first WAD or an E1M1 modification - was initially warmly welcome.