Quick Wolfenstein anecdote

[Koko Ricky]

My dad introduced me to Wolf 3D 20 years ago. He and I played it a lot. My mom, who hates guns and doesn't play video games, once remarked in disgust, "Does he have to hold the gun all the time?" Astonished, my dad retorted that there was an endless parade of Nazis to be dealt with. To this day, I find it hilarious that my mom expected the artists (and programmers) to implement some sort of "not holding the gun" graphic for three different weapons, not to mention that no gamer would have found such a gimmick useful.

[Bucket]

Anecdote in response: holstering your gun to fool guards was actually an important strategy of the original Wolfenstein game.

I always wondered if anyone ever got the notion to mod Wolf3D to resemble the original game...

[Koko Ricky]

Okay, that actually sounds really cool, was it just too time consuming to program or something?

[Bucket]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein

On second thought, it appears that wasn't in the game. Maybe the sequel had it. But you can still disguise yourself as a guard and do stealth kills with a knife.

[188DarkRevived]

GoatLord said:

My mom, who hates guns and doesn't play video games, once remarked in disgust, "Does he have to hold the gun all the time?" Astonished, my dad retorted that there was an endless parade of Nazis to be dealt with. To this day, I find it hilarious that my mom expected the artists (and programmers) to implement some sort of "not holding the gun" graphic for three different weapons, not to mention that no gamer would have found such a gimmick useful.

You could've showed her Catacomb Abyss / Catacoms 3D. Those games use the Wolf3D engine but there's a graphic of an empty hand. :p

[NoWits]

GoatLord said:

Okay, that actually sounds really cool, was it just too time consuming to program or something?

IIRC they were originally going to have fooling guards and wearing their uniforms after you kill them and things like that in it but decided that a pure action approach would be more fun.

[doom_is_great]

Nixot said:

IIRC they were originally going to have fooling guards and wearing their uniforms after you kill them and things like that in it but decided that a pure action approach would be more fun.

It would have been cool if they implemented that into RTCW in the first mission. I think there is uniform in the room where agent 1 was being tortured. The thing I loved about RTCW is that you had the option to be more stealthy and kill nazis quietly. You didn't always have to go guns blazing, although that is fun sometimes too.

[Avoozl]

Perhaps someone will be willing to mod it in with the source code.

[Maes]

Good thing your mother didn't complain about Doomguy's constant bobbing and space-scooter-assisted constant running and carrying capacity ;-)

GoatLord said:

To this day, I find it hilarious that my mom expected the artists (and programmers) to implement some sort of "not holding the gun" graphic for three different weapons

[Scypek2]

doom_is_great said:

The thing I loved about RTCW is that you had the option to be more stealthy and kill nazis quietly. You didn't always have to go guns blazing, although that is fun sometimes too.

It was quite ironic how in that first level being stealthy at the beginning gave you LESS tactical advantage - when taking off the first one with a headshot, you must fight 4 soldiers in one room with a pistol, while letting him scream makes one guy go down and the two machinegunners back away, leaving the machine gun guarded just by one pistol dude.