DooM: an escape or way of life?

[Hellbent]

What is Doom for you? Is it an escape? A mere distraction? Or is it a passion?

It was meant to have multiple choices. I guess choose the one that is most true.

[Use]

My favorite game (one of) and a creative outlet (one of). So.. cool.

[PRIMEVAL]

All the above?

[gggmork]

Its (not) a great way to plan school shootings.
*gets jumped by 5 patriot act FBI agents who were hiding behind my monitor using their secret shrink technology which probably used to be open source but they stole it, killed all involved, then classified it. They send me to a for profit prison where my diseased mind that they created by forcing me to spend my youth giving oral reports on the old man and the sea in front of bullies can be 'rehabilitated' by being gang raped and shanked daily. I try to constrict my carotid arteries with a sock strand tied to the toilet, so I don't have to spend the rest of my life shitting in the same cell as this other large violent homosexual inmate gang leader, not to mention on camera which probably ends up being footage for some prison docudrama on the discovery channel, that airs between their shows on Little People (profitable modern quasi freak show) and ufo conspiracies since they don't show anything educational anymore. But they prefer ill life over peaceful death so they throw me in a suicide prevention room and probably steal my sperm to conduct experiments on inflicting pain on babies. Later I log back in with a full lobotomy and edit the post to put 'not' before 'a' via Meg whitman's remote control, right before she goes back to her draconian empire to ban more people for no reason since a corporation is a perfect dictatorship.*

[Craigs]

In reality I am a 42 year old morbidly obese unemployed virgin living with my parents but in Doom I am a fearless death defying space marine! Whether or not I'm still a virgin in Doom has yet to be determined.

[Lawstiker]

Personally I'd have to say all of the above, as every one of those apply to me. Its a fun game that I've never lost interest in.

[eargosedown]

Craigs said:

Whether or not I'm still a virgin in Doom has yet to be determined.

Do you consider Impse "canonical"?

[Bank]

It's a game.

[printz]

Doom is a hobby (creative outlet), nothing more, nothing less. Lately I've been having less time for it, let alone Doom 1 or 2, though. I'm well past that "worship Doom" stage.

[Vaporizer]

.

[DoOmEr4LiFe]

I clicked other because it is all of the above.

[Remilia Scarlet]

Well, it's definitely an escape for me, and it carries with it a sense of nostalgia. But I think it's more than that for me.

It's really been a sort of the silent puppet in my life. Doom is what led me to want to learn how to program, since I wanted to create games similar to it and also modify its tools. It also gave me a creative outlet. I started writing music specifically to have background tracks for Doom, and an arrangement of a Doom song ("The Demon's Dead") that was one of my earliest pieces. Then, because of the tools I used back in the days of DOS, it also helped make me much more comfortable on a command line than in a GUI. This in turn helped when I started working with Linux both at home and at work, where I now manage Linux servers.

I sort of owe a lot to Doom. I wouldn't call it my way of life (that I save for anime and aikido), but definitely an important passion.

[Snakes]

A creative outlet. Don't mind the nostalgia I get from it as well. Anything more seems like a strange sort of obsession. At the end of the day, it's still a game.

[StevieWolfe]

Voted for the nostalgic option because for the longest time it was the only game I really got into. Nowadays its more of both that and a creative outlet with doombuilder and such.

[Alfonzo]

Although I voted "creative outlet", it's only now occurred to me that my playing of the game is largely just habitual.

[Technician]

Doom is like Star Trek and Star Wars to some people. It's a way of life.

[lupinx-Kassman]

It is a creative outlet as well as an escape. I noticed that my activity here goes up in direct correlation with how stressful my week is :P. This has probably been my most active year.

[magicsofa]

I also voted other...

I don't spend a significant portion of my time playing doom, but I always come back to it at some point and do plenty of mapping...

I guess you could say it's a distraction much like any form of entertainment. However, distractions that provide creative outlets like mapping (as well as the simple fact that you are interacting with the game rather than, say, watching TV) are obviously less of a mindless zombie type of distraction and more of a potentially productive hobby

[Spleen]

Great stress relief made better by many factors:
-fast-paced and non-linear action
-no cutscenes, no load times, and no story to distract from the action
-good graphics, in an artistic sense (which is how they should be judged, judging graphics by technical merit is stupid)
-vast collection of great levels to play
-coop gameplay
-moddable engine

Load times are one of Doom's overlooked yet distinguishing features these days. How often do you see modern games that you can just start up and enjoy instantly?


Disclaimer: I like Doom but I like Heretic more than Doom :P

[Mr. Freeze]

If video games are your lifestyle, you have missed the point of videogaming.

[Spleen]

Mr. Freeze said:

If video games are your lifestyle, you have missed the point of videogaming.

id's employees missed the point of videogaming?

[Mr. Freeze]

Spleen said:

id's employees missed the point of videogaming?

I mean the guys who's life revolves around videogaming. If you work at a videogaming company, that's not accurate. If you have videogames on your brain 24/7 for other reasons...you're getting closer to what I mean.

What I'm trying to say is: don't take this stuff TOO seriously.

[Coopersville]

Somewhere between 1 and 2.

My friends know I'm the "Doom guy", not that it's a secret when I wear a Doom tshirt occasionally.

On the Internet I constantly psuedotroll video game forums/threads about how Doom is the best game ever made, whenever possible. Though I believe this as a fact, I don't push this opinion on people IRL.

Much of the fanart I've done has been Doom-based. Much of the other art I've done was Doom inspired.

[Spleen]

Mr. Freeze said:

If you work at a videogaming company, that's not accurate. If you have videogames on your brain 24/7 for other reasons...you're getting closer to what I mean.

We wouldn't have innovation if the only games were made by large companies, and if people didn't spend their lives modding and making indie games outside of their employment.

[Sporku]

Spleen said:

We wouldn't have innovation if the only games were made by large companies, and if people didn't spend their lives modding and making indie games outside of their employment.

I have a feeling you're missing the point here. I believe he was referring to the act of playing video games to the point where they're an "escape", not modding them. Two completely different beasts. One is pretty sad if you ask me, whereas the other actually shows some kind of creative purpose and could (eventually) lead to something more than just a pointless hobby. What does gaming 24/7 lead to? Well, nothing.. aside from maybe a lack of social interaction skills and 200 pounds of extra weight.

[Phml]

What does gaming 24/7 lead to?

Winning sports cars and cash prizes, then using that money to create multiple successful companies.

-

As always, gggmork's post is more entertaining than the whole thread. :)

[Mr. T]

Bank said:

It's a game.

[Nomad]

Doom is the girlfriend I wish I had

[40oz]

Doom usually fills in the gaps of time between things that I want to do and things that I have to do. When I'm done classes and off from work I usually prioritize hanging out with friends above anything else. Sometimes I can't make that happen so I resort to Doom to keep me entertained. So in a way I could say it's an escape from boredom.

Doom captures everything I could possibly want from a game, and anything that the IWADs don't contain on their own, I'm welcome to create myself. That's a quality that too many games lack. If you buy a crappy game, you're stuck with that crappy game. With Doom, there are infinite possibilities.

[Aliotroph?]

Nomad said:

Doom is the girlfriend I wish I had

Doom is the escape from boredom when the girlfriend I do have is busy with garbage Japanese games. Well, at least this was true seven years ago. I don't play much Doom anymore.