Playing Doom makes you a better person in real life

[Blastfrog]

Olroda said:

What is it with you and rear ends?

Have you ever heard of or played Cybie.WAD (Doomguy's Pimpventures) or any of its sequels?

[40oz]

In hindsight I'm imagining some former or prospective doomworld members who moved on to "more important" things casually lurking around thinking "so how narcissistic is the doomworld community these days" and seeing this thread at the top of the list

"oh... that narcissistic."

[hobomaster22]

40oz said:

In hindsight I'm imagining some former or prospective doomworld members who moved on to "more important" things casually lurking around thinking "so how narcissistic is the doomworld community these days" and seeing this thread at the top of the list

"oh... that narcissistic."

Who me??

Doom improved my life by cluttering my house with boxes of Doom crap so then I can be asked, "Why do you have 50 copies of the same game??" And I still want more.

[Mithran Denizen]

40oz said:

In hindsight I'm imagining some former or prospective doomworld members who moved on to "more important" things casually lurking around thinking "so how narcissistic is the doomworld community these days" and seeing this thread at the top of the list

"oh... that narcissistic."

Current thread aside, the circlejerk factor of this forum seems to have died down considerably, from what it was a few years ago. Then again, I haven't been back for that long yet...

In any case, the intriguing effect in the OP does not seem to work in reverse. Bettering myself in real life has not, sadly, made me measurably better at playing Doom in the slightest.

[Waffenak]

I laughed my ass of when I read stories from time when doom was new. One guy had played doom so much that when he was driving he would stop and pick up blue plastic bags for health in middle of the night.

Doom sure improves my reaction time and senses

[Janus3003]

Mithran Denizen said:

Bettering myself in real life has not, sadly, made me measurably better at playing Doom in the slightest.

Have you tried talking to the demons?

[mrthejoshmon]

"Playing Doom makes you a better person in real life" makes it sound like a crap 90's advert.

Women want to meet him, men want to be him.

What is his secret you ask?

He plays Doom, the cool and rad new First Person Shooter by the cool kids at id Software! Doom is not only a game, it is a self help and future career trainer! Doom has been proven to improve:

- Your reaction times

- Your social skills

- Your work enthusiasm

- Your P.I.M.P level (Perception Into Monsters and PWADS)

- Your horrendous grammar

- Your fame

- Your penis size

Order now and improve your life!

Or some shit like that

Now unfortunately, I don't think playing Doom improves anything of value in real life.

Well, maybe mapping for Doom could possibly make you more creative but whatever.

[MajorRawne]

I would never say *playing* Doom has real-life benefits; a run-and-gun, abstract shooter set in hell doesn't have much to teach me about life. However, I do think that back in the mid-90s, I experienced a brush with depression that was exacerbated by Doom. I didn't know I was aspergers and to be honest the world didn't really know it existed back then. I felt cut off and isolated.

Doom made sense in a way: it was a lonely world where you fought, alone and without glory or recognition, for the survival of the world and the people you love. It felt like a metaphor for my life.

I have come a long, long way since then and now I'd take the real world over the virtual world anyday, come what may. Doom is no longer a prison for my mind. It is a hobby - a game - the greatest FPS ever, but it is nothing compared to real life.

On the defending side, I feel like mapping for Doom is teaching me new skills, allowing me to exercise my imagination in a totally different way and I am starting to feel more connected to the Doom Community. The more I improve as a person, the better my mapping skill grows. So Doom mapping has improved my confidence and given me an outlet for creativity that did not exist before.

[Maes]

MajorRawne said:

I would never say *playing* Doom has real-life benefits; a run-and-gun, abstract shooter set in hell doesn't have much to teach me about life.

TBQH, I thought that the constant "open door, find monster ambush" cliche was a metaphor for Real Life and its constant struggles.

[dg93]

Doomkid said:

Thanks to Doom, I hump walls constantly!

ROFLMAO Best comment I've read in this thread so far!

[printz]

Sad to see that most of the replies are either to make fun of OP's statement, or just say the contrary (that Doom doesn't really have much use).

[IMX]

Doom made me spent $12 on toy guns in an attempt to go full retro when it comes to sprite making.

If anything, Doom also made me aware of the many dangers involving driving.

[june gloom]

The only thing that's made me a better driver is GTA.

Doom hasn't really made me a better person, at least not directly. I feel like learning the history of id Software and its founders is important if you're going into game development (especially if you're an "indie" developer which id Software certainly was at the time of its founding) but it also provides some valuable lessons about hubris, egotism and how a harmonious group dynamic can get very toxic very quick.

Playing Doom is probably not as important unless you play a lot of deathmatch.

[Guest]

Thanks to Doom, I am a 12.0 on the 10 scale of badness.




Also 40oz, I like your threads.

[Guest Unregistered account]

Thanks to Doom, my friends go out of their way to play COD/etc.

[purist]

Since I've been playing Doom, Earth has come under no inter-dimensional invasions from Hell, so there's that...

Although now I come to think of that I worry what will happen if I ever stop :-/

[hayabusa479]

The Columbine shooters weren't exactly "better people".

[Mithran Denizen]

They didn't speedrun enough. If they had played more competitively, maybe their reflexes would've been sharper maybe they would've seen the error of their ways.

printz said:

Sad to see that most of the replies are either to make fun of OP's statement, or just say the contrary (that Doom doesn't really have much use).

Doom has greatly enriched my life, so it's a marvelous hobby, and it has plenty of use. Playing it just hasn't made me a better person in any real tangible sense of 'improvement'.

[Doominator2]

Thanks to Doom my P.I.M.P level, horrendous grammar and fame have improved alot.

[Maes]

hayabusa479 said:

The Columbine shooters weren't exactly "better people".

And yet, nobody has been able to beat their map record yet.

[Memfis]

I thought they were cool people when I first heard of them. I liked how they rebelled against teh stupit society and did something "epic". I was like 13 years old I think. But even now sometimes I find myself kind of fascinated by criminals like this. Perhaps I kind of like the idea that humans are so fucked up that killers are doing the right thing by eliminating them. At least I can somewhat sympathize with fictional characters whose motivation for becoming villans is like this. You listen to Joker in The Dark Knight and you agree with him deep inside. Maybe should have posted this in the confessions thread instead.

[june gloom]

Maes said:

And yet, nobody has been able to beat their map record yet.

I dunno, leave it to the Asian guy to get the high score...

[DoomGater]

BaronOfStuff said:

My car can't strafe.

It surely can. Just drive faster!

[june gloom]

My car straferan right into a wall on Christmas Eve.

Granted, it can't do much of anything else since then, but it could strafe.

[RaphaelMode]

The thread title is like Doom was supposed to in some way enrich you in a psychological way rather that reflexes etc. Now that is not very likely, without mods at laest. Or unless you are very special alraedy.

[40oz]

All it meant is that playing Doom gave me or helped give me skills that have real world application outside of playing Doom or other video games.

I feel like attempting UV-Maxes has made me better at doing things like multi-tasking. Sometimes there's a "fixed" amount of time it takes to do things, and that time can be used to do other things. Such as when cooking, you have to wait for the oven to preheat or for water to boil, and I'll use that time to wash some dishes or set the table or something. Coupled with the second skill I mentioned in the OP, making good estimates of how long things take to do, I can handle many tasks at once without getting overwhelmed by allocating my time to switch tasks when they no longer need my attention and attend to something else while my hands are free with little to no waiting in between.

I think coping with large varieties of monsters in a Doom map while making precise jumps and dodging projectiles, prioritizing killing the most dangerous monster first, and deciding when its safe to activate a door or lift that might invite more monsters into the situation is good practice for real life situations like this, although they're probably not as fun, visually stimulating, or allowed to be retried easily, the skills involved are mostly interchangable.

[Snakes]

40oz said:

In hindsight I'm imagining some former or prospective doomworld members who moved on to "more important" things casually lurking around thinking "so how narcissistic is the doomworld community these days" and seeing this thread at the top of the list

"oh... that narcissistic."

Then they saw it was a 40oz thread and that cleared everything up!

As to the topic at hand, playing Doom really hasn't affected me 'as a person' in any significant manner. It did, however, give me a nice little niche community pop in on whenever I get excessively bored. Also, it gave me a creative outlet that I never though I'd have. So that's cool, I guess.

[The_MártonJános]

Maes said:

And yet, nobody has been able to beat their map record yet.

On to the task!!

[marxr]

It sharpens up your senses and makes you ready for the good old in-out in-out.

[RichardDS90]

Thanks to Doom, I can now notice the slightest difference in walls that are different from the surrounding walls.