A Doom MMO....Yes? No?

[UglyStru]

There are Doom mods consisting of tower defense gameplay, soccer, racing, mini-games, etc. But has anyone considered a Doom-styled MMO? It would take forever to develop quest lines, weapons, gear, a nice UI, etc. But I am all for it and I believe the outcome would be great. The hardest part would be hosting a server and database to save progress (so you dont start at Level 1 all the time like in the Shotgun Frenzy mod).

I'd love to start it, but I can't code, script, or map for absolute shit.

[SyntherAugustus]

It's somewhat possible now that Zandronum has an account system with XP.

http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5866

[UglyStru]

BlackFish said:

It's somewhat possible now that Zandronum has an account system with XP.

http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5866

HOLY SHIT, that's great. Is that being implemented at all on popular Zandronum servers? I haven't touched Zandy in about 2 years, mainly because I only really play Survival and all anyone ever wanted to play was Complex Doom or Chillax.

[UglyStru]

After further reading, I guess it would not be remotely possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but because of Doom's floating point limitation, the map can only be max 16k map pixels in size. I was also thinking of how Unloved.wad worked where you could jump from "map" to "map" depending on your location, but that too would not work because when one player jumps to another map, all players will be forced to change maps too. Doom's networking does not support multiple maps at the same time.

[SyntherAugustus]

Yeah. The most you'll be able to get it something similar to Borderlands.

[Avoozl]

I seem to remember there already being a thread about this a year or so ago.

[DooM_RO]

It could work as a smaller-scale MMO like based on Stronghold.

[FireFish]

This is an idea i have been thinking about for a long long time (a year or 3), seems i am not the only one. Recently i even posted about it in the 'project idea' thread on the Zdoom forum.

For an action based MMO system it would only need something to collect from dead monsters. The defeated monsters need to be replaced with functional ones after a while, and a way to save where the player is, its stats, and inventory. Server side would mean anti-cheat protected, a client side save could lead to massively-multiplayer-cheating-people-online. MMCPO for the humor of it. :)


in my idea Each type of location would have had its own limit removing map.

Deserted rocky lands -> Tech base dungeons -> corrupted dungeons -> hell.

[pming]

Hiya.

I'd love to see a DOOM MMORPG. But there is just no way in hell you could do it with the DOOM engine. The stuff you'd probably have to do to it to get it to work would be more than it would take for someone to make their own engine or license one (like the HeroEngine...something I'm going to pick up a yearly sub for soon as I can just to play around with).

I'd take all the story, background and all things DOOM and use that as a solid base to build on. I can see a "profession" style system; not really a class system...skill based overall, but focuses and bonuses for certain areas of expertise based on your characters profession (e.g., "FrontLine Marine", "Heavy Support", "Medic", "Techgeneer", etc). The focus of the MMO would be typical DOOM... "Support Base Delta, on the dark side of the moon, has been invaded by hell-spawn! Go get 'em and recover whatever you can". DOOM, to me, isn't about in-depth plot lines and Machiavellian schemes...it's about going into some twisted hell-spot and klling demons and zombies!

I can easily picture how it'd look; classical DOOM textures overall, the majority of maps/areas being 2.5D, with only some areas in them being fully 3D...just to keep that DOOM-map feel. Lighting, particles, environment effects (rain, falling ash, smoke and fire, etc) would all be full-on fancy'ness that today's 3D cards and machines are capable of handling. I can't really see a "cash/merchant" thing working...but some kind of "trade-in" or "re-supply" thing could work. Maybe a player could earn "merits" that would allow them to customize colors, looks, and/or switch numbers-to-numbers on some equipment (like taking your Pistol rate of fire down, but increasing damage; or taking your Rocket Launcher and increasing it's range but decrease damage or reduce it's ammo capacity, etc). Overall, keep it core DOOM stuff at the forefront; additional stuff should NOT be "more desirable" than the stuff found in DOOM. Get away from the "grind for better gear" treadmill that so-o-o many MMO's suffer from.

Anyway...I'd love to spend time running around a demon-invaded earth, zombie infested space station, or sulfur-choked landscape of hell itself! :D

^_^

Paul L. Ming

[MFG38]

DooM_RO said:

It could work as a smaller-scale MMO like based on Stronghold.

Possibly, yes. But I'm still skeptical about the whole idea of a Doom MMO.

[40oz]

I really don't see the appeal of an mmorpg being crammed into the framework of an already good engine, gameplay mechanics, and rules that work so well for what its used for already.

If doom were an mmo, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to play it without feeling that its lacking in not having enough interesting places to explore or even an exit.

When I think of an mmo, I think of a really slow moving player character that sucks at everything unless you commit months to playing and levelling up, (which would be counterproductive for people who are already good at the game) in this world that is proportionately a thousand times bigger than it needs to be, with as few as 10 areas of interest, with the rest being hills and mountains and plains. (which don't look good in doom without making it look like an earthquake)

Personally, I feel that the mapper player relationship on doomworld is as much of an mmo as you're gonna get. People travel to different maps, sometimes replaying old areas, while mappers expand the world. You may not be playing with other people directly but you can be sure they're killing monsters somewhere else. Maybe all you need is some kinda interface, like a frontend that can sort of generate a simple world map of all the wads in your wad directory, sort of like a lo-fi version of the doom intermission screens that say "you are here"

Maybe throw in some other features like connecting to a server to see who else is playing and where they are so you can feel like you're not alone.

[Hoodie]

I fail to see how Doom can be an MMO.

[scifista42]

40oz said:

Personally, I feel that the mapper player relationship on doomworld is as much of an mmo as you're gonna get. People travel to different maps, sometimes replaying old areas, while mappers expand the world.

Interesting point of view. You made good points about the tedium of MMOs, and how Doom already works more than great on its own field of entertainment it provides. I don't want any other MMO-like Doom game, it would slow down the action, probably it would downright detract from it - I wouldn't enjoy that, because I enjoy Doom for its gameplay. Being part of the community on the forum + being able to play maps on my own (or even make them) + being able to join a multiplayer server (which I usually don't do anyway), these things together make my ideal "Doom MMO".

[Maes]

A lot of ZDaemon Thursday night survivals and the such, with their chaotic gameplay, novelty features and large numbers of players, come pretty close to that IMO.

[Xegethra]

Hoodie said:

I fail to see how Doom can be an MMO.

How?..take any MMO and slap some Doom characters on it.

The limitations of the current source ports and whatnot may hamper such a game, but an MMO made in a different engine with that genre's ethos in mind could work...just be another game in the genre but with a Doom skin.

So what if the gameplay is slower and a grindfest...some people like that, hence why they play that genre at all. The setting of Doom already is a fantasy thing with it's Hell setting and futuristic science fiction world, as are it's characters, all it needs is some sort of system to accommodate an MMO. The story of it could be set before the events of the main game, and have maps in both base and Hell areas. It could follow the story of the previous Marines sent in to clear out the Demons and you play as one of them doing that.

Or it could follow an alternate universe story line that mimics the main games story, but the Marines survive and there is more than just Doom Guy and you are playing as one of them, or even as the Demons in various Demon classes, as an MMO it would turn the story into an endless war instead of one guy single handedly taking out the forces of Hell...no retconning as it is an alternate take on it.

Gameplay could be set in the mentioned themes, of course with new areas and battle arenas, scattered with the usual MMO type stuff but Doomified. As a Marine you get jobs from other Marines, Scientists, and whatever else humanity has to offer in such a situation..and of course the monsters get jobs from their respective demonic equivalents.

With some effort I think it could be done, perhaps not with a modified Doom game as we have now, I think it would have to be a whole new game.

[Hoodie]

Xegethra said:

How?..take any MMO and slap some Doom characters on it.

Immediately doesn't make sense to make a game based off of that and base it around the Doom universe.

It would obviously be a sell out. I mean, I read your whole thing but your argument breaks as soon as you get the first sentence I quoted out.

[Kotzugi]

MMO? Yes. MMORPG? Not sure. You're turning it into a different genre. If it can work as a single player RPG, then maybe it'll also work as an MMORPG. RPGs are very different, the pacing is different especially, your regular Doom junkie will probably hate it. You're definitely going to appeal to a different crowd, and that's only going to be the part of the Doom community who also likes RPGs AND like the idea of combining them.

[Memfis]

Ubergewei's "ZDaemon City" is kind of like this. It's a big city for you and your friends to explore. You can take quests, collect money, discover secrets, there are special events and stuff.

[Zulk RS]

For this to work, I think you need to make a separate spin-off game on a completely different engine. I'm a noob myself, but I don't think it's possible on the doom engine.
Maybe someday, ID will team up with Blizzard and make a Doom MMORPG Spin off? A guy can dream.

[Xegethra]

Hoodie said:

Immediately doesn't make sense to make a game based off of that and base it around the Doom universe.

It would obviously be a sell out. I mean, I read your whole thing but your argument breaks as soon as you get the first sentence I quoted out.

Well you know what I mean, you build an MMO that looks like Doom.

You can build pretty much any game with any characters and setting if you have the vision, I mean if you wanted to make a side scrolling beat em up based in GTA universe you could for example.

What I'm trying to say is, characters and setting are not limited to one genre...never have been. It's one track minded to think that just because a series did well in an FPS genre that it can't branch out to other genres if it wanted. My argument doesn't break down at all because one style of gameplay is not the be all end all of a world and it's inhabitants.

You just come up with a story, either continuing what there is or starting an alternate line and just build an MMO that looks like Doom...of course it can't play like Doom, that's the whole point of different genres, but it can have the characters, settings and whatnot of Doom.

[pming]

Hiya!

;) ...

Kotzugi said:

MMO? Yes. MMORPG? Not sure. You're turning it into a different genre. If it can work as a single player RPG, then maybe it'll also work as an MMORPG. RPGs are very different, the pacing is different especially, your regular Doom junkie will probably hate it. You're definitely going to appeal to a different crowd, and that's only going to be the part of the Doom community who also likes RPGs AND like the idea of combining them.

... Kinda like someone taking that Warcraft real-time strategy game where you play an army and try and wipe out other armies (orc's vs. humans, vs. elves, and all that). Can you imagine? I have no idea how they would take an RTS, with a *totally* different game play feel and turn it into some "World of Warcraft" MMORPG. Crazy talk I tell ya! No way would something like that fly, let alone even be possible...

... ;) ...

^_^

Paul L. Ming

[Netherstorm]

I don't mind the MMO genre, but if there ever was a Doom MMO, it would probably be similar to the likes of Borderlands.

A few WADs have experimented with the idea of free roam questing and such, plus with gaining levels each time you kill a certain amount of enemies.

[Clonehunter]

Make Strife an MMO. Combat zones are built to allow for weapons. Or else the noobs will complain about getting killed while farming citizens for XP.

[FireFish]

Clonehunter said:

Make Strife an MMO. Combat zones are built to allow for weapons. Or else the noobs will complain about getting killed while farming citizens for XP.

Nah, you would be called a noob because you use a valid weapon provided by the professional creators in a game, by those whom do not understand one single pro fact ; if it is in the game, use it.

[Gez]

stru said:

There are Doom mods consisting of tower defense gameplay, soccer, racing, mini-games, etc. But has anyone considered a Doom-styled MMO? It would take forever to develop quest lines, weapons, gear, a nice UI, etc. But I am all for it and I believe the outcome would be great. The hardest part would be hosting a server and database to save progress (so you dont start at Level 1 all the time like in the Shotgun Frenzy mod).

What you want isn't a "massively multiplayer online" game, but a persistent world online game.

The MM stands for massively multiplayer because the user base can reach several millions, and even if the load is spread across several servers an individual server will still handle far more players than the typical Doom game. Odamex prides itself on having up to 255 players (theoretically), Zandronum can reach 64 IIRC. Compare that to a World of Warcraft server that will juggle over 3000 active players at once without complaining.

[40oz]

Doom has some qualities that would make a fun RTS without changing much. Particularly with how well infighting seems to go.

Id thought of the possibility of making a doom rts using the actual engine without and retrofitting it to work with maps that weren't even designed for it. Like the player and his opponent (CPU or human) could get a miniature icon of sin monster spawner thing that starts on a deathmatch spawn, and the players have to summon monsters and overwhelm the other icon of sin.

I don't know if there would be some kinda currency or mana to regulate how often you can spawn monsters and how many and what type. I haven't really thought it all the way through, but i like the idea of changing some items into uac marines that you can possess with lost souls so you can get your own chaingunners and shotgun guys and fuck shit up.

I've seen a video on eschdoom's YouTube channel of him playing doom in third person from an orthographic perspective, which seemed to me to be perfect camera angle for a doom RTS, and it would use traditional Doom wads with it, so it wouldn't even need its own content. I couldn't find a download link or anything though.
Doom also has inherent infighting strategies that can be made cooler with different quantities of monsters. Revenants take out imps pretty easy and its tricky to group the imps and target the revenant all at once to make a fair fight. An RTS would let you do that.

It would enhance already interesting features that doom has and makes a game with it. I feel like a doom mmo would have to reverse, undo, and rebalance everything in order to function, and with that, it would be on an engine that isn't optimized to what you want for the kind of game you want to make out of it. It's a lot of work for seemingly little return.

[scifista42]

40oz said:

Like the player and his opponent (CPU or human) could get a miniature icon of sin monster spawner thing that starts on a deathmatch spawn, and the players have to summon monsters and overwhelm the other icon of sin.

I don't know if there would be some kinda currency or mana to regulate how often you can spawn monsters and how many and what type.

Sounds close to ZDoomWars on Zandronum. Very fun multiplayer mod, IMO.

[Kotzugi]

pming said:

... Kinda like someone taking that Warcraft real-time strategy game where you play an army and try and wipe out other armies (orc's vs. humans, vs. elves, and all that). Can you imagine? I have no idea how they would take an RTS, with a *totally* different game play feel and turn it into some "World of Warcraft" MMORPG. Crazy talk I tell ya! No way would something like that fly, let alone even be possible...

Hey, I know somebody with a similar name.

Anyways - I think turning Warcraft RTS into a MMORPG was much less of an issue because both types of gameplay are slower (unless you play competitively) and more cerebral. Even Warcraft 3 had elements of RPG in it (hero system) and there are many other similarities, such as the third-person view, zooming, graphics style, etc. I think with Doom it will definitely be more difficult, as I think it is more adrenaline-based and traditionally FPS, people play it because it's fast and hectic and, well, from a first-person point of view, making it feel more real. You might have a point if there are other, similar cases of FPS franchises which have successfully been transformed to MMORPGs - I don't know any but feel free to prove me wrong.

Of course, my skepticism doesn't mean that it cannot be done - it's just how I see things at the moment.

[UglyStru]

pming said:

Hiya.

I'd love to see a DOOM MMORPG. But there is just no way in hell you could do it with the DOOM engine. The stuff you'd probably have to do to it to get it to work would be more than it would take for someone to make their own engine or license one (like the HeroEngine...something I'm going to pick up a yearly sub for soon as I can just to play around with).

I'd take all the story, background and all things DOOM and use that as a solid base to build on. I can see a "profession" style system; not really a class system...skill based overall, but focuses and bonuses for certain areas of expertise based on your characters profession (e.g., "FrontLine Marine", "Heavy Support", "Medic", "Techgeneer", etc). The focus of the MMO would be typical DOOM... "Support Base Delta, on the dark side of the moon, has been invaded by hell-spawn! Go get 'em and recover whatever you can". DOOM, to me, isn't about in-depth plot lines and Machiavellian schemes...it's about going into some twisted hell-spot and klling demons and zombies!

I can easily picture how it'd look; classical DOOM textures overall, the majority of maps/areas being 2.5D, with only some areas in them being fully 3D...just to keep that DOOM-map feel. Lighting, particles, environment effects (rain, falling ash, smoke and fire, etc) would all be full-on fancy'ness that today's 3D cards and machines are capable of handling. I can't really see a "cash/merchant" thing working...but some kind of "trade-in" or "re-supply" thing could work. Maybe a player could earn "merits" that would allow them to customize colors, looks, and/or switch numbers-to-numbers on some equipment (like taking your Pistol rate of fire down, but increasing damage; or taking your Rocket Launcher and increasing it's range but decrease damage or reduce it's ammo capacity, etc). Overall, keep it core DOOM stuff at the forefront; additional stuff should NOT be "more desirable" than the stuff found in DOOM. Get away from the "grind for better gear" treadmill that so-o-o many MMO's suffer from.

Anyway...I'd love to spend time running around a demon-invaded earth, zombie infested space station, or sulfur-choked landscape of hell itself! :D

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Paul, I totally support this 100%, and is exactly how I pictured it. The engine cannot handle it though and you'd definitely have to fiddle with another engine. Other engines could definitely handle it, but you will lose the Doom feel instantly when leaving the id Tech engine. Think of Wrack. It was decent, but it wasn't Doom because Carney used his own engine BASED on the Doom engine. It'd be EXTREMELY hard to replicate the id Tech engine to create a sandbox. A man can dream, but I don't think it's possible unless a style similar to Borderlands is implemented. As for people saying they wouldn't enjoy it because they need an "exit" or that it'd lose its fast-paced action are right, but I don't like every WAD that's out there. I don't expect a Doom MMO to get a 100% approval from the whole community, especially when you consider there are a lot of Doomers who will only play vanilla. I'm like that too, but I'd love to experiment with the idea. Brutal Doom, Samsara, etc. aren't too fun to me, but incorporating an MMO style to it would make it more interesting and would grasp my attention much more.

Paul Ming had the best idea, and I hope this can one day become a thing. I'm willing to join a dev team if anyone is serious about attempting this in the future.

[UglyStru]

Kotzugi said:

Hey, I know somebody with a similar name.

Anyways - I think turning Warcraft RTS into a MMORPG was much less of an issue because both types of gameplay are slower (unless you play competitively) and more cerebral. Even Warcraft 3 had elements of RPG in it (hero system) and there are many other similarities, such as the third-person view, zooming, graphics style, etc. I think with Doom it will definitely be more difficult, as I think it is more adrenaline-based and traditionally FPS, people play it because it's fast and hectic and, well, from a first-person point of view, making it feel more real. You might have a point if there are other, similar cases of FPS franchises which have successfully been transformed to MMORPGs - I don't know any but feel free to prove me wrong.

Of course, my skepticism doesn't mean that it cannot be done - it's just how I see things at the moment.

I see what you're saying. However, have you ever played a survival/invasion with a server-full? Killing hordes of enemies PvE can definitely feel like an FPS dungeon, but you don't gain anything from it. There's no Exp or leveling system, very little customization, no loot, so you really don't have anything to play for unless you're trying to get the most kills in the level. Not saying there has to be roles when raiding (DPS, Tank, Healer, etc.), but just to incorporate the above list would add an interesting twist that I'm willing to experiment with. However, doing so will require regular maintenance, server(s), and a team of admins to watch over the entire project.