Were Doom cheats known about from the get-go?

[DuckReconMajor]

Gez said:

Certainly not the first, unless there was a leak he never told anybody about.

But reverse-engineering of the compiled code is possible.

Yeah you're right I was just talking stupidly. I meant reverse compiling/.exe hacking.

[Never_Again]

TimeOfDeath said:

Wasn't there a phone number you could call for tips?

That number didn't exist until much later, DOOM2 release at least, IIRC. The 1-800 number you could call in late '93 was a third-party order fulfillment center and it was for orders only.

Krispy said:

I don't think id had help desk technicians.

That in fact was Shawn Green's job.

_bruce_ said:

I guess Shawn hasn't been on board back in 93 so folks like Donna, Hall or Romero may have taken calls themselves...

Donna Jackson joined id in 1994, Tom Hall left months before DOOMsday, Romero was busy coding when he wasn't DMing. If you called id in the second half of '93 you'd get either Jay Wilbur or Shawn Green; for weeks after DOOMsday you'd need a speakerphone with auto-redial to get through.

Maes said:

Heh, so a Greek expat student found the codes? I can see the "Greeks always try and find ways to cheat" ravings coming :-p

I think it's more like a case of



:P

DuckReconMajor said:

So the question still stands: did he look into the source or did he spend hours typing an infinite number of keypress combinations?

Gez said:

Certainly not the first, unless there was a leak he never told anybody about.

But reverse-engineering of the compiled code is possible.

First I thought you meant Elias was not the first to publish the DOOM cheat codes, but now I see you meant "Certainly not the former".

Maes said:

No idea what his actual .exe hacking knowledge was

No doubt it was extensive.

[TimeOfDeath]

He must've been a good gamer too if he beat every level on "Ultimate Violence" in 5 days when it came out. Did people think Doom was hard when it first came out? I know I was terrible at it for several years, but what did hardcore gamers think about it when it came out?

[Use]

Maes said:

I can see the "Greeks always try and find ways to cheat" ravings coming :-p

You're still single...so I guess not.

[Nick Perrin]

TimeOfDeath said:

He must've been a good gamer too if he beat every level on "Ultimate Violence" in 5 days when it came out. Did people think Doom was hard when it first came out?

This impressed me too. Playing with a mouse and keyboard today, allowing for the hyper-control we have over FPS, Doom can still be tough at high difficulties. With just keyboard control it must have been a nightmare... on UV. Don't know what nightmare would have been called.

Thing is, I don't think anyone really found Doom "hard" unless they really weren't into games and had no interest in investing themselves in the game, as the difficulty selection was a pretty smart and well-implemented feature making the game fun for everyone.

EDIT: I should add that when I first played the game, it was my first FPS and I was young, so it was really too hard for me to play on anything but the lowest difficulties, or run through on UV with cheats.

[DuckReconMajor]

I thought Nightmare! was added because people complained UV was too easy.

[Wagi]

I guess it makes sense that he didn't find the IDDT cheat code with all the other ones, since IIRC they were stored in a completely different place.

[purist]

DuckReconMajor said:

I thought Nightmare! was added because people complained UV was too easy.

I thought it was added as a joke and that id didn't think anyone would seriously be able to beat the game in that difficulty.

[DuckReconMajor]

DoomWiki.org said:
Early versions of Doom did not support "Nightmare!" skill. The initial mail-order releases were version 1.1 and only included the first four skill levels. The widely circulated version 1.2 added "Nightmare!" skill support. "Nightmare!" was added with the characteristic dark humor of the Doom games in response to any comments saying the game was too easy on "Ultra-Violence." After selecting "Nightmare!" from the main menu, the player is asked "Are you sure? This skill level isn't even remotely fair." The player must then confirm that he wants to play on Nightmare mode, a step which is unique to this skill level.

Which I don't know if it's true there's no citation this is just where I read it.

[NoWits]

DuckReconMajor said:

Which I don't know if it's true there's no citation this is just where I read it.

There are a lot of [citation needed] worthy points on the Doom Wiki. Like the "It is possible that there was a Doom 0.1 that was lost" on the alpha article.

[Never_Again]

DuckReconMajor said:

Which I don't know if it's true there's no citation this is just where I read it.

Here you go:

ewsgroups: alt.games.doom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
From: ddt@idcube (David Taylor)
Subject: idNews: v1.2 released
Message-ID: <1994Feb18.125307.24315@nntpxfer.psi.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 12:53:07 GMT

Doom v1.2 released

  Isn't this nice?  No release date announced, and it comes out by
  itself!  :)

  Doom v1.2 was uploaded last night all over, including ftp.uwp.edu.
  It contains tons of new stuff, including modem play, nice-to-the-net
  network play, several gamma correction levels, a Nightmare difficulty
  mode for that uppity bunch who claims the game is too easy, changes
  to a couple of the maps to enhance net play, several changes to
  setup.exe, native Pro Audio Spectrum support, and lots of other
  nifty stuff.

  However, although the GUS bug was squashed quite a bit, it wasn't
  quite killed.  It still hangs on occasion.  However, those
  occasions are less often now than they were last week.  Solution:
  save your game often.

  However, there are buttloads o' fixes that are 100% killed.  The
  list is quite long, so the best thing to do is to just download
  the new stuff and see if it works out for you.

No other big news right now comes to mind.

	=-ddt->

source

No telling how serious that is, though.

[Maes]

Nick Perrin said:

With just keyboard control it must have been a nightmare... on UV. Don't know what nightmare would have been called.

Not at all, in an era where most games were played with the keyboard, especially on the IBM PC compatibles.

In fact, Doom controls resemble a modified driving game/tank sim , so if you got used to move in a similar pattern (e.g. planning turns just like if you were driving a car in a driving game) it all became easier. That is, if you were OK with driving games that used the arrow keys for acceleration/braking as well as turning (some people didn't).

Of course if you expected to be making instantaneous 180 turns, tough luck. For standard monster battles, the default controls and the mobility they allow is more than enough (I finished Absolution, Strain and Hell Revealed with classic keyboard controls).

In deathmatch, of course, you would be a fool to go keyboard-only vs mouse opponents, though a "keyboarders only" league would be interesting to watch.

[qoncept]

Maes said:

In fact, Doom controls resemble a modified driving game/tank sim , so if you got used to move in a similar pattern (e.g. planning turns just like if you were driving a car in a driving game) it all became easier. That is, if you were OK with driving games that used the arrow keys for acceleration/braking as well as turning (some people didn't).

I don't see that at all. About the only similarity is that you're controlling from a 1st person perspective, where up logically means move forward and left logically means turn left. And Doom doesn't lend itself to planning your route, unless you're very familiar with a level and very good.

After using a keyboard only for 18 years, I can tell you the game is still very playable. With the mouse I'm generally quicker, but the single situation it helps out most in is a small room packed with barons.

[Maes]

qoncept said:

And Doom doesn't lend itself to planning your route, unless you're very familiar with a level and very good.

AHEM... speedrunners...or just "pretty darn good players" keeping their eyes open ;-)

OK, even if it doesn't exactly play like a driving game (for one, Doomguy only has two fixed speeds to choose from with the keyboard, and an on-off acceleration) still it's the closest equivalent from other games that you can compare it to, and a good mental "stepping stone" for getting used to the controls, especially if you come from a FPS with more realistic walking physics.

In FPS where you can alternate between walking/driving like Battlefield 1942, I gotta say that the driving parts remind me more of Doom than the walking ones ;-)

Even Wolf3D had a similar mechanically stiff scheme: in either game, replace enemies and graphics as to give you the illusion that you're controlling a hovertank of sorts battling other ground vehicles and hovering aircraft, and they would be very convincing in that role, without changing any of the engine physics (maybe only removing bobbing from Doom, the only thing reminding you that you're "walking" rather than sliding/wheeling along).

After all, I always thought that Doomguy's mobility resembles more that of an ATV than a person on foot ;-)

[DuckReconMajor]

I have to agree with Maes

also

[qoncept]

I would argue that Hovertank has more in common with a first person shooter than a driving game. ;)

But I think I probably played Wolfenstein before I ever played a driving game, so maybe my perspective is just completely backwards compared to yours.

[b0rsuk]

OMG ! OMG ! An encrypted message !

idbehold
        s
        v
        i
        r
        a
        l

[RestlessRodent]

b0rsuk said:

OMG ! OMG ! An encrypted message !

idbehold
        s
        v
        i
        r
        a
        l

I noticed that too, don't know what it means though.

[Wagi]

"RIVALS".

[bimlanders]

Wow. It's very cool to see those original posts by Dave Taylor. I remember having cheatcodes from a BBS that posted them. One thing I hated about the codes being so well know, is that all of my friends and brothers seemed to ONLY play it with cheats. That's no fun.

[qoncept]

bimlanders said:

Wow. It's very cool to see those original posts by Dave Taylor. I remember having cheatcodes from a BBS that posted them. One thing I hated about the codes being so well know, is that all of my friends and brothers seemed to ONLY play it with cheats. That's no fun.

I only played with cheats. It was fun. Coop was better though, because I could finish levels without cheating.

[Maes]

IDSPISPOPD was kind of known or at least apocryphally hinted at before Doom was even released, as it came from some bogus name invented while waiting for Doom: "Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Putrid Debris". The rest, as they say, is legend.