What do you do when you are doom bored?

[darkreaver]

I do exactly the same things I do when I havent lost any interest in Doom, except for the mapping/playing.

I just dont bother at all. Eventually it`ll come back.

[Alphawolf]

I give it a rest for a while. For instance I was mapping back in August last year and did 5 levels. Well, 6 to be technical and I haven't worked on it up until recently.

I dusted off the maps I made and tidied them up.

Starting with all kinds of custom content as well was what kept me busy, importing over 20 monsters, experimenting woth lots of weapons and textures got me real bored.

I just go and own people in Call of duty for a while, reliase how rubbish modern games are and then go back.

Also you can live a life outside of the computer, although thats not always easy.

See, in the short space of answering this question you've made me want to play doom. Thanks. Whoahahahahaha!

[Doom Marine]

go find another hobby stop getting bored stop forcing yourself to map thats going to make garbage wads why the fuck do you even bother making these kinds of threads

[Fluffles]

when your back from your break of mapping try just do one project but make it the best you can instead of doing multiple projects which will drain you out n probably be unnoticeable anyway.

[Xeros612]

What do I do? Oh, I don't know. Maybe play another game for a bit? There are tens of thousands of other ones out there, plenty ready to be played. There's no reason to let yourself give one particular game so much attention that you get bored of it, especially these days when a lot of games can be bought for cheap prices.

Of course, there's also movies, other hobbies, life, etc.

[Philnemba]

When I'm not playing Doom(or mapping), I play other fps games(Such as Quake 1, 2, Halo, ect). Other times I still occasionally play some Super Smash Bros Brawl online when I feel like it.

Oh and of course watching countless anime :)

[Dark Claw]

I do something

[Lüt]

Go to school >_>

[bimlanders]

I must be somewhat bored of Doom right now because I've always, ALWAYS defended Doom 2's level design. But recently I'm playing through the 2nd half of the game and I'm noticing just how lousy the level design is! I mean, it's taken me since 1994 until now to realize this! I also get very quickly discouraged when dying on any level on any random pwad.

I've actually been playing Wolfenstein 3D lately. Now, I have never completed all six episodes in order, or even at all. So far I've made my way to episode four and I'm really enjoying playing this. There are so many negative differences between Wolf and Doom that so few focus on the positive differences: for example, the feel of the combat is much different. Hearing the German words coming from behind makes me jump out of my seat. Those machine gun guards can off you in a couple of seconds if you don't react in time (the zombies are the worst, as they are silent and kill fast). This lends so much urgency to what is by its very nature repetitive gameplay. Also, the Chaingun is by far and away more fun in Wolf than in Doom. The awesome feeling of sheer power when mowing down everyone is much more satisfying.

So I guess my answer would be that when one is bored with Doom after spending roughly half of our lives playing it, go back even earlier to even older games. :)

[Malinku]

I do the motobug

[Optimus]

I am quite familiar with that feeling. I was always feeling like that especially in communities where being creative would need much more effort than in Doom. I had this "need to be productive" in the demoscene and asking the same questions to people. "Why can't I motivate myself to write more code for my projects?". I got similar answers, like do something else and it will eventually come to you, play some classic doom WADs and other games for inspiration (watch some classic demos and hear chipmusic for my case), cooperate with some other people on the same project (I wish I could find people at my place who are the same enthousiastic as me though for programming demos and the will to work together), don't press yourself, etc.

Well, for me it's that. Let it go. Don't press yourself. And I know it's hard. Because I wouldn't like myself stop doing this, because being productive on any community for any reason was like a drug for me. It made me personally not feel worthless if I could release something that would be appreciated. I wouldn't let myself pause for a while when I wasn't feeling like finishing that map (or coding for my project in my case), I HAD to continue doing it.

But this is what brings me/you down. Suddenly the hobby becomes a pressure, it becomes something where you have to be creative not because you feel like wanting to do it at the particular time. So it stops being fun. And you start hating it. Then two parts of yourself are fighting, one that wants to be productive in the community no matter what and another who tells me "stop being my slave". I am talking from my own experience of course.

The trick is to build patience and it's hard I know. To be able to tell yourself, I don't feel like doing this right now, so let's do something different for a change. Of course, another trick is to not only rely on this, because sometimes you always procrastinate forever. So sometimes, if days or weeks have passed since I've last worked on some old project, then I decide to "scratch" this project, I mean to just open it and tell myself "it will be just 15 minutes, I am just going to look at my old stuff without any intension to push myself hard with this". And then sometimes the 15 minutes might become a flow of pure creativity for much longer and without oppresion. Till it cycles again. Days of activity and then days of laziness.

It happens on communities where you have your hobby but sometimes you miss the reason for doing it. If it was your job, you would be 8hours per day at your post, though still slacking sometimes. But here you don't get paid, you maybe get "paid" by feedback from people, a feeling of accomplishment, need to be creative for one day, some motivation that cannot be always there all the time.

I admit I haven't found the cure for procrastination though :P
Maybe because it doesn't exist. Maybe because procrastination is there for a reason.

[Dark Claw]

bimlanders said:

I must be somewhat bored of Doom right now because I've always, ALWAYS defended Doom 2's level design. But recently I'm playing through the 2nd half of the game and I'm noticing just how lousy the level design is! I mean, it's taken me since 1994 until now to realize this! I also get very quickly discouraged when dying on any level on any random pwad.

I've actually been playing Wolfenstein 3D lately. Now, I have never completed all six episodes in order, or even at all. So far I've made my way to episode four and I'm really enjoying playing this. There are so many negative differences between Wolf and Doom that so few focus on the positive differences: for example, the feel of the combat is much different. Hearing the German words coming from behind makes me jump out of my seat. Those machine gun guards can off you in a couple of seconds if you don't react in time (the zombies are the worst, as they are silent and kill fast). This lends so much urgency to what is by its very nature repetitive gameplay. Also, the Chaingun is by far and away more fun in Wolf than in Doom. The awesome feeling of sheer power when mowing down everyone is much more satisfying.

So I guess my answer would be that when one is bored with Doom after spending roughly half of our lives playing it, go back even earlier to even older games. :)

mostly correct, however I would say that the wolfenstein level design wasn't exactly great. (I know it's older than Doom, but still) The floors are all the same height, the exits where always the same, the Bosses are almost the same (all wielding chainguns, just varying in the amount of shots per second, speed and health).

Too long; don't read = Wolfenstein level design wasn't too great either (in variation)

[bimlanders]

@Dark Claw.

I agree with you. But if you haven't actually played through it in years, then it will take a while before the said faults you mentioned start to impede on your enjoyment. I see Wolf 3D as the first of its kind, and so am very dismissive of all of its limitations. It's still great fun, in my opinion. But it's no where near the game that Doom is, that I think we can both agree on.

[MytiS]

Regarding not being able to finish projects; I have found that when I lack motivation or inspiration to work on a project that it helps to get away from the computer, go outside, get to some place interesting. Ideas are all around us, going out and seeing thing is a sure way to pick some up. That's the best advice I can give.

As for being "doom bored" the solution is simple. Do something else.