Has Doom aged badly?

[Salt-Man Z]

cq75 said:

Hmm... the opengl ports with filters seem /more/ blurry to me, but maybe that would be better for new players?

I prefer OpenGL, but I turn the filters off. (More specifically, I play in GZDoom with the texture filter mode set to "none (nearest mipmap)" and the anisotropic filter set to "16x".) That way the geometry stays smooth (as opposed to the aliased look software mode has, which I find distracting) but the textures and sprites remain sharp (and pixelated) and not blurry.

[VGA]

cq75 said:

You have a good point, just for laughs I took this old side by side comparison of BJ from Wolf: TNO to the original...



Shrunk it down so that it's 32 high, and resized it back up to 256 so you can see the result:



Obviously the TNO face did not survive that so well (it almost looks like a zombieman face?), there is definitely skill involved in that, and Adrian was good at it.

Hmm... the opengl ports with filters seem /more/ blurry to me, but maybe that would be better for new players?

Holy shit, please someone make a full-framed HUD face out of that!!! It would fit great in BTSX I believe.

Cause it's blue.

[Maes]

cq75 said:

Obviously the TNO face did not survive that so well (it almost looks like a zombieman face?), there is definitely skill involved in that, and Adrian was good at it.

It simply is not possible to just scale down a photo and expect good results -some editing, possibly even major, will be needed. The games that did not do that are easy to spot -for some reason, they are almost all crappy Sega CD type of games or rail shooters.

The Doom sprites, even those that were made from digitized clay miniatures, required extensive editing and recoloring, in order to be presentable. Even the Mortal Kombat fighters required a lot of artist work to highlight important parts of their bodies, remove noise/glitchy pixels etc.

Pixel artists creating resources from scratch already know the tricks to make low-res pics look good (use of gradients, shading, highlighting important details etc.)

[redlid]

joepallai said:

Some of the best vanilla megawads ever made were started 15 years ago, back when the source ports were just fickle and buggy promises of potentially useful programming. If the source ports never came out, most of us would have found some other way to play Doom on a modern system---DosBox comes to mind here...

Yep, so you proved my point. Without source code release the doom would have vanished 15 years ago. Nobody likes to play with dosbox doom, except few purists who still has some 15" RGB monitor. Looks like an ass with any decent monitor.

[redlid]

Doomkid said:

have you seen the thousands upon thosands of wads Doomers were making before the source was released? It's not exactly an 'underground' title.

Yep but doom was about to vanish like at year 1999 already. Source code helped so you actually proved my point in a case of trying to argue against me.

Doomkid said:
I was actually schocked when I used a molecule of patience and got Doom95 running on my PC. It took like 3 minutes, just had to download a simple patch. The thing that shocked me was how well the experience has aged, and how fluent the controls were even without advanced ports. Worth noting, Doom looks just fine at 640x480.

Perhaps on 15" RGB monitor still, not any decent wide screen monitor.

Doomkid said:
I dunno why JDoom/Doomsday is the main focus here,

I'll say it again. It's the best for ordinary people looking to replay doom and it's several megawads like Memento Mori. Yeah I know about the megawads, been playing through doom wikias megawad list. They're great.

Doomkid said:
it's a lovely port with cool features that started development back in 1999 (apparently). It's not alone by a long shot. (Are we just gonna ignore Boom, ZDoom, Doom Legacy, and the many many many other still active or previously active ports that breathe fresh life into Doom, just because they don't use polygons..?)

Those aren't mean for normal people seeking a good replay with an easy to use setup.

Doomkid said:
That's right. The Doom source is so versatile, that different devs could actually have different focus! Crazy right?

It's not crazy, it's fine for me and I am pleased that there are so many ports, even if only couple of them are actually usable for a normal tasks.

Doomkid said:
Yeah those beautiful ports like Skulltag (Zandronum) with their shitty ass OpenGL options that have been there for over 10 years now and add beautiful lighting effects and stuff, yeah they're so shit. Odamex's amazingly helpful and great lookin' 32 bit color option? Rubbish!

Those are never marketed for ordinary people who want's to play doom again with decent opengl graphs and easy setup and they make rarely noise about themselves so we could actually get known what's the deal with those.

Doomkid said:
I know everyone has already gotten worked up over this but I wanted to give you logical reasons why what you're saying doesn't make much sense. If you think Doomsday is the only good looking Doom port, the fact is, you haven't looked. [/B]

So odamex which was terrible 7 years ago has nowadays beautiful 32bit graphs, okay haven't seen that as they haven't actively reported that at all but fine and what's that other, never heard but I think it was some kind of multiplayer first, single player second -port.

[redlid]

StupidBunny said:

It's true. The only reason Doomworld exists is for playing Doomsday. That's why nobody ever posts anything in the WADS and Mods section. (Except a few level editers, but they don't matter, at least until they realize that their maps are NOT FUN because they don't have Bloom and lens flares or whatever.)

You have a problem, or several perhaps. The bloom topic was about the modernization of Doom, which was a fine point imo. If it's too hard to keep up with the topic, then you should go outside for example, doomworld forums are too much for you to handle. :)

[redlid]

cq75 said:

Hmm... the opengl ports with filters seem /more/ blurry to me, but maybe that would be better for new players?

Yeah, all the other opengl ports looks terrible except doomsday. As I said, washed out colours etc.

[Da Werecat]

Those are all obvious things, really. 100 casual players who quietly revisit the game of their childhoods once in 5 years will always be more important for said game's preservation than 1 geek, even though the latter may actually try to evolve it instead of being ashamed of its age. It's pure math.

But no geek will ever accept it. You're wasting your time here.

[BaronOfStuff]

redlid said:

Yeah, all the other opengl ports looks terrible except doomsday. As I said, washed out colours etc.

Yep, looks horribly washed-out.

[redlid]

Full size statusbar and 4:3 screen size not taking any advantage of big resolutions and wide screen monitors. That's terrible.

[mrthejoshmon]

redlid said:

Full size statusbar and 4:3 screen size not taking any advantage of big resolutions and wide screen monitors. That's terrible.

I think you try too hard.

[redlid]

Da Werecat said:

Those are all obvious things, really. 100 casual players who quietly revisit the game of their childhoods once in 5 years will always be more important for said game's preservation than 1 geek, even though the latter may actually try to evolve it instead of being ashamed of its age. It's pure math.

But no geek will ever accept it. You're wasting your time here.

Geeks takes the most noise on internet forums. Other's really don't care to waste the time on a places like forums.

[Da Werecat]

Well, this picture may not be that washed-out, but it commits a horrible crime of not being cutting edge. Where's ambient occlusion? Where's bloom? Detail textures? Anything? I think I can see dynamic lighting from here, but is it really up on par with Doomsday's?

I bet that source port also requires more clicks to install.

[redlid]

mrthejoshmon said:

I think you try too hard.

definetly, widescreen monitors are waste of desktop space and big resolutions are just a waste of gpu power, let's go back to 1998 when the source were released and we all had 15" RBG monitors on our desk and you could dream of plugging your computer for your living room set up.

[redlid]

Da Werecat said:

Well, this picture may not be that washed-out, but it commits a horrible crime of not being cutting edge. Where's ambient occlusion? Where's bloom? Detail textures? Anything? I think I can see dynamic lighting from here, but is it really up on par with Doomsday's?

I bet that source port also requires more clicks to install.

I agree, they got the basic filtering finally right, but status bar taking kinda third of your view size is like they really don't care about the whole thing at all.

about installation click, heh and bah. Funny, but at least it should be easily installable and working out of the box compared to for example hideous bat shit like legacy which doesn't even launch after installation. Even the legacy was brought to this comparison so I think I can use that as an example.

[BaronOfStuff]

mrthejoshmon said:

I think you try too hard.

Yeah, it's all a bit tragic. I don't even know why I'm feeding it.

[Doomkid]

redlid said:

Yep but doom was about to vanish like at year 1999 already. Source code helped so you actually proved my point in a case of trying to argue against me.

The source was released in 1997, so there really wasn't any chance of it vanishing. Even if it wasn't released, my point is it would still be looked back on fondly and revisited by fans. The countless WADs out there didn't require the source to be released. The game was fairly heavily modifiable before that, the source being released just took it to the extreme.

I never once said I disagreed about the source release helping to keep the game alive anyway![/b][/quote]

redlid said:

Those aren't mean for normal people seeking a good replay with an easy to use setup. [...] only couple of them are actually usable for a normal tasks.

Are 'normal' people really that stupid? I figured out how to run ZDoom with WADs when I was a young kid. I thought this new hip generation was supposed to be all tech savvy anyway?

redlid said:

Those are never marketed for ordinary people who want's to play doom again with decent opengl graphs and easy setup and they make rarely noise about themselves so we could actually get known what's the deal with those.

There we go again with the 'notmal people' and the 'ordinary people' - I think the term you're looking for is cumpter-retarded, these things take like 5 minutes to set up and play. If you can setup a game you bought through Steam, you can setup Zandro/Oda/Zdaemon. If you're a console gamer, you're probably gonna get the Doom downloads from PSN or XBLA, so the game is all setup to go anyway, no brain required.

Also typing Multiplayer Doom in Google, of the first 5 results, 3 of them are Odamex, Zdaemon and Zandronum. So I mean they're pretty well 'marketed' for the common googlin' man.

I'm much more into multiplayer than SP but other than becoming more affiliated with one another, I'm not sure what the pots could do to 'market' themselves any better.

Anyway, you think Doomsday is the top of the line port, That's fine, I'm glad it's there for people who care for graphics above all else. You know, I like good graphics too. GTA is one of my favorite series, and they always have stunning visuals at the time of release. It's just that I think that the 2D sprites of vanilla Doom are way nicer than n64-esque polygons, It's just a matter of taste. That's what I'm trying to get you to see here. Actually if we're talking about popularity, Doomsday is criminally underplayed, considering the love that's gone into it.

I also want to stress that the other ports aren't just for rocket scientists. They're quite easy to use and many of them add nice effects. I think that's all there is to say about it.

BaronOfStuff said:

Yeah, it's all a bit tragic. I don't even know why I'm feeding it.

Sometimes, it's oddly fun..

[Salt-Man Z]

Doomkid said:

Are 'normal' people really that stupid? I figured out how to run ZDoom with WADs when I was a young kid. I thought this new hip generation was supposed to be all tech savvy anyway?

Heck, ZDoom might be the easiest port to use, period: drag and drop a ZIP file, and boom, you're playing. Go with GZDoom and you've got that ease of use, plus your pretty OpenGL graphics and filters and dynamic lights and everything.

[redlid]

Doomkid said:

The source was released in 1997, so there really wasn't any chance of it vanishing.

Lulz look at the early 2000's. All the major wad-makers had abandoned the game. New generation would have not taken the doom as a basement of their creations withotu source release.

Doomkid said:
Even if it wasn't released, my point is it would still be looked back on fondly and revisited by fans.

Sure, why there are zillions of questions about how to run doom95 on XP? Not the nicest thing to use, perhaps working but too much work and googling included. That would be the only thing to revisit the game and it's terrible. HEck I can't even replay the blakestone with dosbox because it looks like an ass with my 30" 2k screen as there is no port yet to make it bigger resolutions. You're not even trying to unerstand, just telling me that because that I am so out of the place from your little world, I must be troll.

Doomkid said:
The countless WADs out there didn't require the source to be released.

Then you're a newcomer to a doom if you haven't seen the good wad releases dropped by early 2000 and all the major wad-creators abandoning the game by then.

Doomkid said:
The game was fairly heavily modifiable before that, the source being released just took it to the extreme.

haha can't even switch the resolution, but hey it can take new levels and sprites so it was heavy modifiable with all its VGA-glory, oh and support of wads in doom95 were terrible so back to dosbox if you wanted your pixelated custom wads to work in your new shiney big widescreen monitor.

Doomkid said:
Are 'normal' people really that stupid? I figured out how to run ZDoom with WADs when I was a young kid. I thought this new hip generation was supposed to be all tech savvy anyway?

Really? I have built a PC for a guy who took part of Finnish Assembly demoscene happening, he waon something something there at something something game compo and he has no idea what he's PC is all about. What tech savvy? That's just your wild guess which isn't grounding to anything but new generation of people consuming the games and media with their tech devices, not actually understaning anything about it how those tech devices work. Those geeks who actually understands, are even more marginal than 15 years ago with tech device users.

Doomkid said:

There we go again with the 'notmal people' and the 'ordinary people' - I think the term you're looking for is cumpter-retarded, these things take like 5 minutes to set up and play. If you can setup a game you bought through Steam, you can setup Zandro/Oda/Zdaemon. If you're a console gamer, you're probably gonna get the Doom downloads from PSN or XBLA, so the game is all setup to go anyway, no brain required.

in a legacy case it doesn't even boot after installation so you're wrong.

Doomkid said:
Also typing Multiplayer Doom in Google, of the first 5 results, 3 of them are Odamex, Zdaemon and Zandronum. So I mean they're pretty well 'marketed' for the common googlin' man.

Njah you just lost your ability to read. The point was said like 5 times already that replay the doom, not anything like multiplayer part of the game. You're even yourself switchin the theme of your post from custom wads to multiplayer and can't keep the same politics of your post so you're kinda losing it for me.

Doomkid said:
I'm much more into multiplayer than SP but other than becoming more affiliated with one another, I'm not sure what the pots could do to 'market' themselves any better.

Look, I am not interested about you at all at any level, I don't care what you like or not like, but it was about single player.

Doomkid said:
It's just that I think that the 2D sprites of vanilla Doom are way nicer than n64-esque polygons,

I have no idea what you're talking about. Nintendo 64? At least the part what I could understand, yes, I play also doomsday with original sprites.

Doomkid said:
I also want to stress that the other ports aren't just for rocket scientists. They're quite easy to use and many of them add nice effects. I think that's all there is to say about it.

Nice effects? What port has nicer effects than doomsday and higher quality renderer? I can partially agree that there are some ports which can be actually installed and set up easily nowadays.

[Linguica]

For posterity, here's a rough chart of the number of files on /idgames over time.

[Linguica]

Actually... this is more instructive

[scifista42]

Linguica said:

Actually... this is more instructive

In the years up to 1996/1997, /idgames archive was also accepting demos (I mean lmp files), right? I've seen them in there.

[Da Werecat]

redlid said:

You're not even trying to unerstand, just telling me that because that I am so out of the place from your little world, I must be troll.

Actually, you look like a troll mostly because you're agressive and incompetent. The fact that you're promoting the idea that 1999 graphics with bloom is pretty much the only thing that Doom can rely on in 2014 is just the icing on the cake.

[redlid]

Da Werecat said:

Actually, you look like a troll mostly because you're agressive and incompetent. The fact that you're promoting the idea that 1999 graphics with bloom is pretty much the only thing that Doom can rely on in 2014 is just the icing on the cake.

Why you're trolling? 2nd time, that post was about the modernization of Doom engine and that's it, never said anything about bloom ever after that, it's just you. Didn't click the links, didn't care to read anything if you can't make up the point in summarize way.

Looks like you're really losing it right now.

[Da Werecat]

redlid said:

Why you're trolling?

NO U.

[redlid]

Da Werecat said:

NO U.

So you really used your energy and effort to create some hypertext links for me to read, without making any point what's they're all about?

Look, your effort completely wasted. Didn't click those links ever. How does it feel know? :) Shouldo you be doing something else than creating hypertext links on Internet for people who even won't bother to read them?

[GreyGhost]

scifista42 said:

In the years up to 1996/1997, /idgames archive was also accepting demos (I mean lmp files), right?

Seems they were accepted until 2001. The uploads by year look something like this...

1994 -   45
1995 -  700
1996 - 1234
1997 -  297
1998 -  383
1999 -  166
2000 -   60
2001 -   12

While I'm doing lists - here's one of Megabytes uploaded to the archive (not including .txt files) by year and average file size in kilobytes...

         MB      kB
1994 -   160     129
1995 -   496     159
1996 -   549     168
1997 -   404     296
1998 -   354     320
1999 -   337     505
2000 -   620   1,216
2001 -   463   1,139
2002 - 1,082   3,055
2003 - 2,016   3,746
2004 - 2,225   3,225
2005 - 2,039   2,054
2006 - 3,309   5,045
2007 - 8,775  18,591
2008 - 5,197  14,358
2009 - 1,266   3,459
2010 - 1,056   3,259
2011 - 1,155   3,428
2012 - 1,401   4,562
2013 - 1,621   4,941
2014 - 1,905   3,978

I think that 2006-08 bump is mostly files in /idstuff.

[dew]

redlid said:

Look, your effort completely wasted. Didn't click those links ever. How does it feel know? :) Shouldo you be doing something else than creating hypertext links on Internet for people who even won't bother to read them?

Likewise, shouldn't you be spending your time chasing nobler goals than trying to get a rise from a community that overwhelmingly doesn't give a crap about your attempts to grab attention? Keep going and that Loser title is yours.

[GreyGhost]

It's a bit like listening to a teething baby bawling, after a while you start wondering where the OFF switch is hidden.

[Linguica]

scifista42 said:

In the years up to 1996/1997, /idgames archive was also accepting demos (I mean lmp files), right? I've seen them in there.

I deleted lmps from that graphic.