Things about Doom you just found out

[Gez]

They're from Sound Ideas Series 1000, aren't they? Doom (in both its original and console versions) is faaaar from being the only game to use those.

[xvertigox]

37 minutes ago, Gez said:

They're from Sound Ideas Series 1000, aren't they? Doom (in both its original and console versions) is faaaar from being the only game to use those.

 

I had a look at Series 1000 earlier today but unfortunately couldn't find links to the various gunshots. I had a look at other popular libraries from around that time and none of those matched. Also, God damn these sounds are expensive... I get that a library would be expensive but some sites want $5 USD for a single gunshot sounds.

[Gez]

They're royalty-free sounds, which means that you basically pay upfront for the unlimited right to use, modify, and redistribute as part of whatever products you make with it. If you want to use these sounds in a commercial project (like, for example, you're id Software in the 1990s and you need sounds for your latest title, working name "it's green and it's pissed") then it's actually quite cheap. You won't have to bother with things like sending them one cent per sound you use per copy sold.

 

Of course if all you want to do is listen to the sounds to compare them to those of old games to try to identify their sources, then yeah it's expensive.

[LadyVader1138]

This one embarrasses me: I found out you only have to flip the top switch in Icon of Sin ONCE.

[fraggle]

Vanilla Doom generates incredibly inefficient PCX screenshots.

 

PCX files use run length encoding which is a primitive form of compression - instead of saying "color X, color X, color X" you can say "color X three times" for example.

 

But whoever it was at id that wrote the code to write PCX files couldn't be bothered to implement this so it just writes one pixel at a time instead. The result is that Doom's PCX files are actually larger than they would be if the format didn't support run-length encoding at all.

 

https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/66a2cc66d7504c9b64e1c461e62ad2a9d964fa95/src/m_misc.c#L479

[seed]

There's patches to upgrade/downgrade the Doom engine games on github. I am so playing a Doom 1.2 and a Doom 2 1.666 IWAD in PrBoom in the future, I've spent all my life on 1.9. Time to see how those games looked and played like back when they first came out (although PrBoom has only partial support for those versions, whatever is that supposed to mean). DOOM2.WAD also lost quite a bit of its size after ver 1.666 for some reason.

 

I've also learned that there's different demos between various versions of Doom (just watched one of Doom 1.2 earlier), some of which recorded on HMP in shareware.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

@seed how do you even apply the patch? O_o

[seed]

27 minutes ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

@seed how do you even apply the patch? O_o

 

Ah yes, I also had problems with that (lack of knowledge, heh), @chungy knows what I mean, he helped me out.

 

So you have multiple options basically, depending on what you want. I'll work with Ultimate Doom to Doom 1.2 as an example.

 

1) You can use either xdelta3 or Delta Patcher, after you download the master archive containing the patches and a few extras. I didn't have much luck with xdelta3 so I won't talk about that, I used Delta Patcher instead.

 

2) Open Delta Patcher, choose the IWAD, then the patch you want to apply (in this case, ud-to-1.2.vcdiff). Now the program will ask for a .xdelta file, in this case you can just change the .vcdiff in the file's name to .xdelta and it works just fine and you'll be able to patch the IWAD. It's not going to create a new file but replace the IWAD you have chosen, so make backups just in case you break something.

 

3) Launch the game with the new IWAD in your port of choice. Now sadly you don't have much choice, if any here. Only PrBoom+, Chocolate Doom devbuilds, and Crispy support older versions than 1.9 as far as I'm aware, but 1.2 is still WIP as far as I'm aware in the last 2, so your only choice is PrBoom+ (and even it has only partial support for 1.666 and 1.2, but seems to work perfectly, including the demos). Choco devbuilds and Crispy support from 1.666 to 1.9 at the moment. With PrBoom+ for a 1.2 IWAD you want to use the -iwad doom.wad -complevel 0 parameters (Doom 1/2 1.666 is -complevel 1, see the usage text file here. That's from Graf's port but it's otherwise the same so it doesn't matter).

[MFG38]

I didn't just find this out - it's been a few weeks - but for a long time, I was under the impression that the "door" in the eastern section of E1M6 opens when you pass a certain linedef. Well, I recently found out that isn't the case. Instead, it closes for a certain period of time and reopens when that time has passed.

[Maximum Matt]

Classic ambush.

[Gez]

2 hours ago, seed said:

3) Launch the game with the new IWAD in your port of choice. Now sadly you don't have much choice, if any here. Only PrBoom+, Chocolate Doom devbuilds, and Crispy support older versions than 1.9 as far as I'm aware

To be more explicit about this: most ports can load and play the IWADs just fine (there may just be an issue with the status bar for pre-1.2 versions) but obviously they will not reflect the small gameplay changes like PrB+ and Choco can do with the right parameters. Some examples of the gameplay changes:

• Pre-1.2: no "Nightmare!" skill
• Pre-1.5: demons have a projectile bite, other monsters have effectively reduced melee range
• Pre-1.666: lost souls count as monsters

[LadyVader1138]

On the Doom Wiki page for MAP03: The Gantlet:

Quote

Upon reaching the watery outdoor area, you will find a "well" set against the southern wall of the southern pool. (sector 67) In order to get into the secret area, the player must run along the raised walkway which leads into the level's final teleporter.

I didn't realize that was the intended way...

 

[seed]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

To be more explicit about this: most ports can load and play the IWADs just fine (there may just be an issue with the status bar for pre-1.2 versions) but obviously they will not reflect the small gameplay changes like PrB+ and Choco can do with the right parameters. Some examples of the gameplay changes:

• Pre-1.2: no "Nightmare!" skill
• Pre-1.5: demons have a projectile bite, other monsters have effectively reduced melee range
• Pre-1.666: lost souls count as monsters

 

Oh cool, so there's more ports that can run pre-1.9 IWADs.

 

But if they don't support the gameplay changes it's a bit self-defeating since pre-1.5 versions have different Pinky behavior. Out of curiosity, do you know if PrBoom can run a Doom 1.1 IWAD? I'm not very interested in that version, so I'm just asking.

 

And what other ports support pre-1.9 IWADs, might check how they work in other ports in the future.

[inkoalawetrust]

On 10/11/2011 at 7:40 AM, Encryptic said:

I realized that Doom would be fucking awesome if it was more like Bulletstorm for XBox. I want to be able to do powerslides into hordes of imps and knock them off their feet and gun them down while they're tumbling through the air in slow motion.

 

Im not sure about this but that kind of thing probably wasn't even technically feasible or would be too hard to implement at the time Doom or Doom 2 were released. But what you are describing sounds like a feature straight out of Brutal Doom or Project Brutality and likely one of the two mods has something so you could try getting both mods an seeing if there's anything like it in them.

[Gez]

3 hours ago, seed said:

Out of curiosity, do you know if PrBoom can run a Doom 1.1 IWAD?

I don't think so. GZDoom can -- I added these few lines long ago, which suffice to create for GZDoom the STBAR graphic it needs so the rest of the status bar code works unmodified -- but obviously it'll be with GZDoom gameplay. Ports that can't do this kind of things will not be able to load the 1.1 IWAD. PrBoom does not have a 1.1 complevel, so I suppose neither does PrBoom+.

[seed]

27 minutes ago, Gez said:

I don't think so. GZDoom can -- I added these few lines long ago, which suffice to create for GZDoom the STBAR graphic it needs so the rest of the status bar code works unmodified -- but obviously it'll be with GZDoom gameplay. Ports that can't do this kind of things will not be able to load the 1.1 IWAD. PrBoom does not have a 1.1 complevel, so I suppose neither does PrBoom+.

 

No, it does not - I thought maybe it just wasn't listed. No big deal, although even if GZDoom can just "do it", without actual gameplay differences that's just half the job done.

 

It would be cool if more ports would add support for older IWAD versions, but the interest would probably be so niche it won't be worth the effort (also community wads are made with 1.9+ gameplay in mind, so there's that as well).

[termrork]

finally I can post something here:

in doom2 map22 is the only map with exit switch in episode 3 instead of teleport exit. a few weeks ago I played the doom2 beta levels and found out that map22 was originally on the slot 04.

they must have changed it into map22 a few weeks before release and forgot to change the exit type. comparing the beta levels and the official release wad one can clearly see that the type of exits was important for them (e.g. a lot of the first few levels had tele exits instead of switch exits)

[axdoomer]

7 hours ago, Gez said:

• Pre-1.666: lost souls count as monsters

I never understood the point of this, considering that monsters resurrected by the Arch-Vile will also count as more kills (thus you can go over 100% at the tally screen).

[Graf Zahl]

10 minutes ago, termrork said:

finally I can post something here:

in doom2 map22 is the only map with exit switch in episode 3 instead of teleport exit. a few weeks ago I played the doom2 beta levels and found out that map22 was originally on the slot 04.

 

 

I can't say I am surprised. This map feels a bit odd and unfitting in the last 'episode',

 

Just now, axdoomer said:

I never understood the point of this, considering that monsters resurrected by the Arch-Vile will also count as more kills (thus you can go over 100% at the tally screen).

 

 

TBH, trying to make sense out of these things won't get you anywhere. The Doom code is so full of unbelievably bad hacks and shortcuts that one has to wonder why it didn't crumble under all this borderline inept code that plagues parts of it.

The real irony here is that making the monster counter dynamically adjust to newly spawned and resurrected monsters would have been a 5 minute affair, but instead they went out of their way to un-count the Lost Soul in the most stupid way imaginable and to top if off, forgot to handle the monsters resurrected by the ArchVile entirely.

[seed]

3 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

TBH, trying to make sense out of these things won't get you anywhere. The Doom code is so full of unbelievably bad hacks and shortcuts that one has to wonder why it didn't crumble under all this borderline inept code that plagues parts of it.

The real irony here is that making the monster counter dynamically adjust to newly spawned and resurrected monsters would have been a 5 minute affair, but instead they went out of their way to un-count the Lost Soul in the most stupid way imaginable and to top if off, forgot to handle the monsters resurrected by the ArchVile entirely.

 

Doom: Determined to fix bugs and limitations with hacks since 1993™.

[seed]

Just learned that health goes only up to 199% in version 1.2, armor can go above 200% (someone probably forgot to cap it).

 

The monster closet with the Pinkies and Barons on E2M6 is still bugged in this version, something that never got fixed it seems. I wonder how id never noticed this honestly, just like how they never noticed they broke the infamous Sergeant on Underhalls. The Pinkies behind the blue door on E2M7 also seem to be blind.

 

And this was pretty neat, for some reason this screen still exists in a full, registered 1.2 IWAD:

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by seed

[Jimmy]

Heretic has a sound effect specifically for when ripping projectiles tear through enemies. I think the Dragon Claw's powered attack is the only projectile that does this by default, but I guess I never noticed it until now because, uh, the dragon claw's sound. The "rip" sound also plays for any custom ripper projectile ripping through enemies when the Heretic IWAD is used.

 

Heretic does NOT have any sound effect for stepping in sludge. It does have a "splash" effect for sludge, it's just completely silent.

[xvertigox]

The fist has knuckle dusters on it. I always thought it was just a knuckle duster ring and never really thought about it covering all the other hidden fingers.

 

[seed]

Cacodemons can still commit suicide after blowing up a barrel in their own face in version 1.2.

 

However, it seems Barons can no longer do it. I tried to trigger this on E1M8 and didn't succeed. Maybe I just failed, or that was a 1.1 thing only.

 

 

[sincity2100]

On August 17, 2019 at 6:57 PM, seed said:

Just learned that health goes only up to 199% in version 1.2, armor can go above 200% (someone probably forgot to cap it).

 

The monster closet with the Pinkies and Barons on E2M6 is still bugged in this version, something that never got fixed it seems. I wonder how id never noticed this honestly, just like how they never noticed they broke the infamous Sergeant on Underhalls. The Pinkies behind the blue door on E2M7 also seem to be blind.

 

And this was pretty neat, for some reason this screen still exists in a full, registered 1.2 IWAD:

 

When I was a kid,I was actually wondering how this Green Guy "Doom Marine" in E2M8, I played it on UV and still didn't show up, definitely this was for Co-op.

[Beginner]

3 hours ago, seed said:

Cacodemons can still commit suicide after blowing up a barrel in their own face in version 1.2.

 

However, it seems Barons can no longer do it. I tried to trigger this on E1M8 and didn't succeed. Maybe I just failed, or that was a 1.1 thing only.

They can, it's just incredibly annoying to setup because, like, 5 out of 8 possible damage rolls oneshot barrel and you need it to survive at least 1 hit, just so it can store it's last attacker.

[seed]

1 hour ago, Beginner said:

They can, it's just incredibly annoying to setup because, like, 5 out of 8 possible damage rolls oneshot barrel and you need it to survive at least 1 hit, just so it can store it's last attacker.

 

Makes sense now, it did blow up the barrels with only one plasma when I tried, so I guess I didn't do it.

 

More stuff discovered:

 

- Underhalls in v1.666 is perfectly functional, the infamous Sergeant is not stuck in a wall, the barrel that clips through a wall down in the dark, blue door area is where it should be, and the room with the 2 Sergeants at the starts has bars protecting both switches, not just the red one like it does in 1.9. I like this Underhalls more, especially that room with the Sergeant, more consistent/symmetrical.

- An Arachnotron is stuck between the stairs and the wall on MAP11 in v1.666.

- 2 Revenants always get alerted too early in v1.666 on Refueling Base for some reason.

- Some Pinkies are stuck in one of the rooms on MAP31: Wolfenstein. None of the secrets are tagged in v1.666 on this map, same for MAP32.

[Andromeda]

12 minutes ago, seed said:

- Underhalls in v1.666 is perfectly functional, the infamous Sergeant is not stuck in a wall, the barrel that clips through a wall down in the dark, blue door area is where it should be, and the room with the 2 Sergeants at the starts has bars protecting both switches, not just the red one like it does in 1.9.

If I recall correctly, the bars protecting the left switch were removed because they were deemed too confusing for players, who thought they needed to hit a switch or find a key to open them.

[seed]

5 hours ago, Andromeda said:

If I recall correctly, the bars protecting the left switch were removed because they were deemed too confusing for players, who thought they needed to hit a switch or find a key to open them.

 

Hm, I was thinking about gameplay reasons. After all, there is also a red barrier so having a regular one in addition to the other should have been clear enough that the first is accessible from the very beginning.

[Ashley_Pomeroy]

On 8/13/2019 at 1:03 AM, xvertigox said:

The pistol fire sound effect from Doom 64 / PSX didn't originate from either of those games. It was used in ELEMENTS.WAD in 1994 which is several years before either of the games were released.

 

Along similar lines the PSX shotgun sound comes from SPACE.WAD, a deathmatch level from 1994. One of the reviews points out that it was probably sampled from Terminator 2.