No Sales For The Living

[Kinsie]

Between now and April 7th, the Xbox Live Arcade version of Doom 2 (that's the one with the new Cacoward-winning episode No Rest For The Living, doncha know) is half-price, sitting pretty at 400 Microsoft Points. Hooray.

[Vile]

Thanks for the heads-up. I haven't played it yet.

[Gez]

From the title, I thought the article would be about a commercial failure ("no sales"). I guess maybe "No Rest for Marketing" would have been less ambiguous. :p

[Reisal]

They should just release it on /idgames for even more publicity, as most Doomers play the game on the PC.

Very few even have the balls to charge for an average built episode these days, so why bother?

[Arch-Valentine]

When I heard it was 5 bucks on joystiq I grabbed it. Anyone know why they took off Doom 1? I can't find it anymore.

[Quasar]

Gez said:

From the title, I thought the article would be about a commercial failure ("no sales"). I guess maybe "No Rest for Marketing" would have been less ambiguous. :p

I'd say the current thread title is less ambiguous than it is managing to state the exact opposite of what it is trying to convey :)

[J-selva]

Arch-Valentine said:

When I heard it was 5 bucks on joystiq I grabbed it. Anyone know why they took off Doom 1? I can't find it anymore.

It's a long story. By now, I lost track of the status. But I'd bet it's either permanently not being sold or an indefinite period of time.

[_bruce_]

Played it on the PC. The episode is cool to play through.
The organic design(caves and such) is top notch.

[Janizdreg]

Arch-Valentine said:

Anyone know why they took off Doom 1? I can't find it anymore.

It's due to some kind of a publishing rights mess. The Doom 1 XBLA port was published by Activision but their rights to the game have expired, with Zenimax currently owning id and publishing their games through the Bethesda branch. It's stated here that Bethesda will soon put Doom 1 back up, but that was half a year ago. So I don't really know if there is still some kind of a dispute going on, or are the Bethesda guys just lazy bums.

[Reisal]

Guaaahhhh, fucking Bethesda fucking shit up once again.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Mr. Chris said:

Guaaahhhh, fucking Bethesda fucking shit up once again.

Could very well be Activision's fault too. Publishing rights are a nightmare; just see the mess surrounding the canceled XBLA port of GoldenEye (admittedly an extreme case).

[Xeros612]

Janizdreg said:

I don't really know if there is still some kind of a dispute going on, or are the Bethesda guys just lazy bums.

They are making Skyrim too. I can't imagine fixing the release of an XBLA title having too much priority when a major title is in the works.

[Szymanski]

I'd buy it from Steam or GOG.

[Arch-Valentine]

wow I must say the random pitch levels in this port are absolutely annoying. How in the world did they think this was the best version to put on the consoles.

[Mithran Denizen]

I've always loved Doom's random pitch shifting, and was sad when they took it out of the engine in version 1.4 (which I believe was a result of Paul 'sound code dork' Radek breaking the DMX library between the two versions, or something hairy like that).

The only things that really bother me about the XBLA port are the weird mapping of the weapon selection buttons, and that the music tempo has been slowed down for some reason. The GUS patches that the music is played through are alright, though.

In any case, it's pretty close port overall. I'd always prefer to play with a modern source port on my computer, but it's by no means bad.

[Pirx]

Mr. Chris said:

They should just release it on /idgames for even more publicity, as most Doomers play the game on the PC.

Very few even have the balls to charge for an average built episode these days, so why bother?

isn't this available for pc yet? an official episode after so many years, who would have thought that. i'd really like to see a demo pack for it.

[Quasar]

Torr Samaho said:

isn't this available for pc yet? an official episode after so many years, who would have thought that. i'd really like to see a demo pack for it.

Officially no, but *certain* ports are capable of loading the canonical data file (doom2.disk) if you are able to extract it on your own (keep it fair use guys, no warez :P)

[D_GARG]

cant ID go independent again :'( ? in some way?

[Gez]

D_GARG said:

cant ID go independent again :'( ? in some way?

No. To be truly independent, they'd need to be their own publishers and distributors. And that's something they're not big enough to handle nowadays, which is why they had to make deals with companies such as Activision and GT Software. They've decided to sign with ZeniMax so that they'd have Bethesda to handle publishing and distribution for them.

[Pirx]

Quasar said:

Officially no, but *certain* ports are capable of loading the canonical data file (doom2.disk) if you are able to extract it on your own (keep it fair use guys, no warez :P)

well, i know that ;)
but demo packs require an official pc release (gamepadding through it on the xbox is a pain when you're used mouse+keys). while this doesn't mean big business, i'm sure a lot of people would like to buy the .wad for a few $$ on steam for example.

Gez said:

No. To be truly independent, they'd need to be their own publishers and distributors. And that's something they're not big enough to handle nowadays, which is why they had to make deals with companies such as Activision and GT Software. They've decided to sign with ZeniMax so that they'd have Bethesda to handle publishing and distribution for them.

you can't make games with a small team today like in 1995, they have become too complex. big games have hundreds of people working on them. just look at how 3drealms tried to get duke4ever done with a small team until they had to hire more people and how it went.

[Quasar]

Torr Samaho said:

well, i know that ;)
but demo packs require an official pc release (gamepadding through it on the xbox is a pain when you're used mouse+keys). while this doesn't mean big business, i'm sure a lot of people would like to buy the .wad for a few $$ on steam for example.

True but at some point it will be necessary to declare it a "never-going-to-happen" kind of thing if people do want to record demos against it, IMO. And for that to happen, it really should be done with the canonical data files and not against a version someone customized in any way. The disk file loading module and metadata parser in EE are available under the GPL (with option to go BSD if you really beg & plead :P) if other ports wish to support it.

[tempun]

Quasar said:

And for that to happen, it really should be done with the canonical data files and not against a version someone customized in any way.

I don't think that cutting the PWAD with a hex editor is customization.
About demos: either prboom+ needs to support secret exit there properly, or Eternity needs to remove stupid 8-char demo name limit (which is annoying).

[Quasar]

tempun said:

I don't think that cutting the PWAD with a hex editor is customization.
About demos: either prboom+ needs to support secret exit there properly, or Eternity needs to remove stupid 8-char demo name limit (which is annoying).

1. That's not the only issue. If you just cut out the PWAD then you end up without the correct level names, music, or exit behavior. Also, besides the secret exit you mentioned, the game will NOT end after MAP08. For an episode run of NR4TL to be "valid" in my eyes you need the proper exit behavior. But hey maybe you can talk entryway into adding MAPINFO support to PrBoom-Plus :P

2. Yes, we do. This has been discussed just recently.

[DaniJ]

Quasar said:

The disk file loading module and metadata parser in EE are available under the GPL (with option to go BSD if you really beg & plead :P) if other ports wish to support it.

Nice one Quasar. I'll add this to my big'ol todo list for a future Doomsday release.

I was expecting to have to develop something similar for loading the DOOM64 ROM but I guess I'll be able coerce this module into doing it.

[Quasar]

My first attempt was to load the raw image dump but that's virtually impossible because of the crazy paged file format that has block checksums interspersed throughout the data. Instead I settled for loading the .disk that can be extracted from that, because the tools which are capable of doing it are ubiquitous.

Also, perhaps needless to say, but I've tried to be very quiet about what the feature does. This is the first time I've really talked about it in public and I do so now only for the benefit of establishing wider support.

[Solarn]

Torr Samaho said:

you can't make games with a small team today like in 1995, they have become too complex. big games have hundreds of people working on them. just look at how 3drealms tried to get duke4ever done with a small team until they had to hire more people and how it went.

That's not what that article says at all. The cause of DNF's failure wasn't a small team, it was the developers' inability to focus. They restarted the entire project several times just to get on the latest engine bandwagon and they procrastinated even then.

Small teams can still make pretty sweet games (Frictional Games has like, five permanent employees and about as many more contractors who work with them on any given title, and they gave us the Penumbra series and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, one of the best horror games ever), it's just becoming less and less common. Certainly, huge and complex games like Prey or the STALKER series require more than five people, but most of the staff even on such games is padding and actually slows development down as people working in the same area have to coordinate with each other.