Just now finally playing 1993 Doom in 2017

[enderandrew]

Edward850 said:

How about instead of calling everything a "personal attack", and dismissing examples because of arbitrary reasons, we try to turn this into an actual conversation?
However to do that, you need to actually play vanilla Doom first, otherwise you're just posting an opinion on a forum and expecting us to accept it for some reason.

No seriously, I'll be more than happy to discuss how Doom is supposed to look and feel, but you need to also need to listen to the other side as well. Of course Doom looks and plays well with updated visuals and gameplay, but shouldn't the original look and gameplay be just as good, no? However we can't discuss that because you claim to haven't have played it yet.

You accused me of lying and had to really reach to do so.

If you hunt through someone's post history to find ammo to attack someone then you're not having a reasonable discussion.

I was aware that any criticism of Doom might not be met well here, but I only posted to provide some new/outside perspective and to have a civil discussion.

And I am capable of discussing the first game, which I've played through entirely now. I can't fully discuss Doom II as I'm only 9 levels in so far.

Very few people have responded to the actual meat of my post. Doom must hold up well enough for enough people to maintain an active community, but even after a few days I'm personally finding it a bit tiring and boring because it wasn't very difficult. Some have suggested to keep pressing forward with Doom 2 where it gets more difficult. I am seeing that, but the difficulty isn't necessarily in AI or even level design so much as just more mobs in smaller areas (though I'm only 9 levels in, so that may change).

I suggested that the appeal to many may be that the game makes you feel like a bad-ass in that Doomguy shrugs off many attacks, you run really fast and one person can quickly kill hordes of demons. One person commented that you don't enjoy the game until you're killings tons and tons of mobs with the BFG. So maybe that is the appeal to other and it probably just won't resonate so much with me. If you throw tons and tons of mobs that just move forward in a straight line into a super weapon that takes out multiple mobs at once, then I'm not sure I consider that an interesting challenge.

I've also seen two very different camps on some features like mouse look. Classic Doom has limited sense of verticality. This was frustrating in some maps when mobs where below me on a staircase or a lower level and I couldn't aim at them. So the auto aim shoots ahead of them into a wall half the time, but they can shoot at me. It is sometimes unfair in my advantage that the game is really easy without ever having to worry about aiming vertically, or at certain angles Imps will always miss me because of a height difference but I can hit them. I've seen some suggest that you have to enable mouse look to make Doom worth playing, but again others insist that if you alter vanilla gameplay then you aren't playing Doom.

There are maps where the ability to jump is effectively a cheat, but most source engines allow you to jump. I avoided shortcuts through jumping to experience the level design as intended.

[Edward850]

To note:

enderandrew said:

(and everything I've read about ZDoom/GZdoom is that they've gone out of their way to avoid changing gameplay itself which is why I picked that engine)

This is actually quite untrue. They change whatever they need to in order to fix whatever is possible. Good idea on its own, but it does mean that it strikes compatibility issues playing vanilla maps constantly.
They changed the entire physics math to be as precise as possible (calculation wise, not authenticity), the PRNG table being different does have an affect on the damage results (hence pointing out the SSG) and even the AI (although quite subtly), and most proof of it all, it'll never play back a Doom v1.9 demo. Heck it wont even play back demos from older versions of itself.

The end result is gameplay that looks the same on the surface, but even the competitive Doom scene (eg deathmatch and speedrunning) wont use it seriously.

Even the partial invisibility sphere has different default behavior, changing encounters with it somewhat.

[Fonze]

I like how people try to start discussion with you, and you accuse them of personal attacks... Shut up Kevin.

[Jayextee]

This just in, it's apparently impossible to enjoy or find merit in things that are not difficult to do.

[Sick Bow]

Fonze said:

I like how people try to start discussion with you, and you accuse them of personal attacks... Shut up Kevin.

I was going to say this. I haven't seen any "personal attacks" in this thread at all. Someone calling you out isn't a personal attack.

[enderandrew]

Sick Bow said:

I was going to say this. I haven't seen any "personal attacks" in this thread at all. Someone calling you out isn't a personal attack.

Two people called me a liar rather than addressing my points. Then someone's response to seeing other people call me a liar is to tell me to shut up, again rather than addressing my points.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

[Edward850]

enderandrew said:

Two people called me a liar rather than addressing my points.

Your points have been addressed, just that you don't seem to quite understand them. Perhaps playing the vanilla game would assist? ;)

[Linguica]

enderandrew said:

I never said I played it or had fond memories of it. Please do not put words in my mouth to insinuate dishonesty just because you don't care for an opinion of mine.

I don't have fond memories of that megawad. I was reading up on the best megawads to download and try and noted that it was the only one to both make The Top 100 list and later wind a Cacoward.

I saw some videos of it and the description. But knowing that it isn't finished and basically abandoned has killed my desire to play it. But people speak of it with glowing praise as some of the most clever expansion of core Doom gameplay.

So you went in a thread titled "The best innovative wads/tc's" and linked to a particular WAD out of hundreds of possible WADs not because you played it, or indeed have played *any* wad/tc at all, but because other people speak of it with glowing praise in some place you came across?

enderandrew said:

rather than addressing my points.

What points? That you don't find Doom's core gameplay very interesting or enjoyable? OK? Sorry to hear that I guess?

[Fonze]

enderandrew said:

Two people called me a liar rather than addressing my points. Then someone's response to seeing other people call me a liar is to tell me to shut up, again rather than addressing my points.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

Hey at least I got your name right!

Also, I don't see any personal attacks in this thread, aside from mine, but you know, you get what you ask for.

Do note that the Reddit Doom community is totally different than the DW community, and different than the zDoom community.

[Xaser]

Side-stepping a bit...

enderandrew said:

Doom must hold up well enough for enough people to maintain an active community, but even after a few days I'm personally finding it a bit tiring and boring because it wasn't very difficult.

If difficulty is really the big concern, I may suggest leaping out of order and playing The Plutonia Experiment (part of Final Doom), if you have it. Or maybe skip ahead and fire up a recent mod like Ancient Aliens to get a real feel for why folks still love the game.

We all adore Doom 1 and 2 here, but tend to admit the base games are quite unrefined in the gameplay department compared to what the community has created post-release.

[Jayextee]

Xaser said:

We all adore Doom 1 and 2 here, but tend to admit the base games are quite unrefined in the gameplay department compared to what the community has created post-release.

Sunlust. Get this motherfucker on Sunlust.

[Xaser]

Fronk!

[Maes]

Just when I thought nobody could top the guy who claimed he would only play stuff rated 4 stars and above on idgames/newstuff.

[sesq]

enderandrew said:

Two people called me a liar rather than addressing my points. Then someone's response to seeing other people call me a liar is to tell me to shut up, again rather than addressing my points.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy

I really just don't know what you're getting at here. Nobody's trying to say that you're bad because you play things differently, people saw you thought it was easy, and have (and keep giving) suggestions for harder WADs. I haven't seen you respond to any of them yet, and your mentions of RTC... It definitely is a pretty excellent WAD, but it feels like you're just digging further into your own contradiction for no foreseeable gain. Maybe you're trying to be like "lol doom is so EZ i'm so much better than u" but I don't want to fall into the habit of misattributing everyone as a troll.

If you think you'd like it, you can try out mutliplayer. Zandronum is basically gzdoom: multiplayer edition, and that could be really challenging for about anyone. Maybe post some screenies of your skills?

I know you didn't like single maps, but if you want some hard ones I'd check out the Chord series. You'll find them in the Top 100 wads, you've looked through it before.

[Memfis]

Is this darknation having fun or something?

[GuyMcBrofist]

This conversation devolved when Linguica made a dubious post and then enderandrew overreacted to it, as far as I see it.

Regarding custom content, I'm no aficionado for Doom WADs but Whispers of Satan is one of my favorites. It's got custom textures so any HD packs will be of no use, but the levels look pretty stellar and have interesting gameplay/progression IMO.

As far as the AI and gunplay goes, I'd say this is the kind of thing where learning the game's mechanics keeps it interesting. There are little dances you can do with specific monsters, and you can use pain chance in a few different ways. Building up something of a repertoire of skills that utilize the game's behavior is what makes it pretty cool IMO.

[sesq]

GuyMcBrofist said:

As far as the AI and gunplay goes, I'd say this is the kind of thing where learning the game's mechanics keeps it interesting. There are little dances you can do with specific monsters, and you can use pain chance in a few different ways. Building up something of a repertoire of skills that utilize the game's behavior is what makes it pretty cool IMO.

This is the truth of DOOM

[Aaron Blain]

Ditto to what Xaser said.

I respect the OP's open-mindedness.

I submit that this is not so much a question of oaks and acorns as of apples and oranges. I personally find modern videogames unbearable because I have different desires.

Also, let's not dump on someone for putting french vanilla in his coffee and ketchup on his steak. Those moments of apotheosis (I call them "doomgasms") won't happen until someone groks the game in his bones and bile.

I'm not crazy about Plutonia, but it's a good place to start. Or perhaps, I dunno, AV? And then something like Valiant or Sunlust.

I've played Doom since the shareware episode appeared on my BBS, but I didn't really develop a deep appreciation for the game until I got drawn into Epic 2 several years ago.

Also I would strongly recommend always playing from a pistol start. You just don't get the structure of the level's progression otherwise. I never cared for Doom 2 until I UV/PS ran it and all the careful game design revealed itself.

One little thing: the AI isn't in the baddies themselves. The level itself is the AI. This is the sort of assumption you might try reexamining. It dawned on me very gradually what a beautiful, sophisticated game Doom is.

[CARRiON]

It sounds like you had really strange expectations as to what DOOM was, and you didn't take into consideration this game is 23 years old now and not everything about it will have aged well. Or you just didn't understand that the DOOM community doesn't so much replay the games and praise them over and over, they play the megawads and mods and discuss the art of mapping for DOOM.

Lots of people here will even admit they don't care for DOOM/DOOM 2/Final DOOM. I myself don't care for DOOM 2. The majority celebrate DOOM for what it brought to gaming and the modding community that id let blossom.

[Lila Feuer]

enderandrew said:

I think this:

http://i.imgur.com/XFbV8JC.jpg

Looks a bit better than Vanilla DOOM:

http://www.flaterco.com/kb/DOOM/DOOM2_1.9.png

Yep, because jacking the gamma correction up to 4 is a fair comparison. :X

[fraggle]

Linguica said:

So you went in a thread titled "The best innovative wads/tc's" and linked to a particular WAD out of hundreds of possible WADs not because you played it, or indeed have played *any* wad/tc at all, but because other people speak of it with glowing praise in some place you came across?

It's entirely possible to find something interesting without having played it yourself, from reading webpages and reviews, watching YouTube videos, etc. I've done this myself with both Doom WADs and full commercial games. Your comments in this thread have seemed a bit unreasonable.

[Doomkid]

Memfis said:

Is this darknation having fun or something?

If it were DN it would be funny or interesting in some way, this thread is neither.

I personally think Doom's simple AI is effective and level design/overall tone is quite exciting, regardless of how hard a particular map may be. Doom runs laps around Wolf3D - the engine is so much more advanced in so many ways, there is a much wider variety of intricate, detailed environments, weapons and enemies, not to mention sound effects and music. I got the impression you've played both Doom and Wolf3D. If that's the case and none of the many overt and subtle differences stood out enough for you to notice, then I'm really not sure what to say. Doom is superior in so many ways.

Not every game is for every person. Some see certain aspects as flaws that others see as points if merit. To each their own, though!

[Aaron Blain]

Poke around on the Wolf3d Dome. A case could be made that Wolf3d has matured just as fully as Doom. I might say that Doom is ultimately superior, but Spear Resurrection and Project Totengraeber gave me a thrill of 'pure videogameness' that can exceed Doom. Again I argue that it's just a different animal.

Generally I find that I get to enjoy things more if I'm willing to be genuinely curious and approach them on their own terms instead of according to my preconceived expectations. The OP has considerable willingness to approach Doom in that way, and I think that's something to applaud.

I think a big part of the Doom community's strength is its pluralism. Weapon mods don't hold my attention very long, and I don't have the patience to rehearse slaughtermaps or speedruns, and it baffles me that so many Doomers don't share my awe for the genius of Doom's fundamental hitscan/projectile dynamic, but Doom is different things to different people. One has a very active, self-defined relationship with the game, which is far removed from the modern trend of having larger and larger quantities of semi-interactive audiovisual content administered through a feeding tube.

[enderandrew]

I want to toss out another unpopular video game opinion I have here and compare it to how I view Doom currently.

Star Wars: KOTOR is generally considered to be one of the best Star Wars video games of all time, and perhaps the best video game story. Some specifically suggest that Revan is the best character from a Star Wars game, and one of the best characters overall in the Star Wars universe.

I personally love KOTOR, but perhaps differently than many others. I like the character of Revan in how he was a Jedi who fell to the darkside, had his memories wiped by the Jedi and once again has to decide between the light and the dark.

In asking a lot of other players what they liked about KOTOR and Revan, many cite that they love how powerful he is. You start the game creating your own character, and only later realizing you are Revan. This is a unique situation in gaming. In most Western RPGs you create your own character and become powerful, but often the world doesn't recognize you for becoming high level. Bandits decide they can take you in Skyrim even though you're slaughtering dragons.

JRPGs have very specific characters in the narrative and you're often handed a character you didn't create. These stories CAN then work that character more directly in the narrative, but even still, said character isn't always described in the narrative as being the best because stories are supposed to be about underdogs persevering. (Some games are the exception, such as FFVII routinely talking about Cloud being a bad-ass, though I think that is part of the reason some people loved playing Cloud.)

Revan is arguably the Mary Sue of Star Wars. You're injecting yourself with whatever character you create of your choosing in the universe and then you are told that you are the most powerful, bad-ass and interesting character in said universe. For anyone not familiar with the term, Mary Sue is a common trope in fan fic, but clearly a pejorative term.

There is obvious appeal for the writer of a Mary Sue fic to envision a parallel version of themselves in their favorite universe, even more bad-ass and important than established characters. In film-making, I sometimes refer to this as Woo-ism. John Woo is certainly not the first person to use this tactic, but he is very much style over substance. He loves to establish how bad-ass one character is only as a benchmark to make the next look even more bad-ass in comparison.

The more I've spoken to people about Doom (and my experiences) the past week in various places, I'm seeing a lot of consensus that the appeal of Doom (which starts more in Doom 2) is playing this bad-ass. You're strong, you're fast and you can take out an entire army at once with the BFG. A silent first-person protagonist allows the player to imagine themselves as the protagonist. Valve has spoken why they went with that specific design for Gordon Freeman.

The game is telling you the player that you're a bad-ass in this universe. It is a Mary Sue emulator in a way, in much the way that KOTOR/Revan is a Mary Sue experience for the player.

I personally prefer a really challenging game/experience where I overcome something difficult and feel bad-ass because I accomplished something, not just because I pressed the win button and the game told me I'm awesome.

I think there is a fine line here. I love playing the Batman Arkham games because it is fun playing a really kick-ass character and feeling like I'm Batman. Their marketing advertises that very experience. So I do enjoy games where I'm made to feel like a bad-ass, but I feel like that still has to be earned.

It has been suggested to play more difficult levels (and I'll get to Plutonia after Doom 2, as well as some fan-made megawads). It was said in this thread that I ignored that suggestion and never responded to it. I'm carrying this conversation on in parallel in a few places, but I thought I did respond to that here as well and thanked people for that suggestion.

Still I feel like there was an antagonistic response from people here merely because I offered criticism of Doom at all here, and frankly, that doesn't really foster a lot of desire to be part of the community long-term or keep playing Doom.

I'm taking a break to work on a visually modified Quake 1 install (via Darkplaces) and running through the 4 episodes of Quake 1. Then I'll come back and finish Doom 2.

My initial impressions of Quake are quite good and I suspect I may enjoy it a bit more than Doom. If nothing else, having levels designed around jumping feels fun. I hate how Doom sometimes forces you to take floor damage rather than giving you an opportunity to jump and avoid it. It is perhaps not surprising that in my initial attempt to play Doom 2, I got to and stopped at level 9, The Pit. The beginning of the level forces you to take damage and I feel like part of the challenge of the game is doing your best to avoid damage.

Why bring any of this up at all? Why post any criticism to begin with? I think if you discuss what and why you enjoy or don't enjoy aspects of certain games, it helps you appreciate game design and pick other games in the future that you'll enjoy even more. With books, movie and TV it seems to be that people really enjoy breaking down and debating the merits of things they enjoy or don't. With music or video games, people get rather pissy and personal that things must be objectively good if they liked them, or objectively bad if they didn't.

[Linguica]

enderandrew said:

The more I've spoken to people about Doom (and my experiences) the past week in various places, I'm seeing a lot of consensus that the appeal of Doom (which starts more in Doom 2) is playing this bad-ass. You're strong, you're fast and you can take out an entire army at once with the BFG. A silent first-person protagonist allows the player to imagine themselves as the protagonist. Valve has spoken why they went with that specific design for Gordon Freeman.

The game is telling you the player that you're a bad-ass in this universe. It is a Mary Sue emulator in a way, in much the way that KOTOR/Revan is a Mary Sue experience for the player.

If this is the response you're getting, I think that is in large part to Doom 2016, which very explicitly retcons this interpretation of Doom / the Doomguy and runs with it. For much of Doom's history, people's interpretation of the game wasn't centered around being an ultimate badass. For an obvious example of this, look at Doom 3, which leaned heavily on the spooky atmosphere, jump scares, etc to promote a feeling of vulnerability and dread in the player. Or to go back further, look at the original text file included with Doom:

Things aren't looking too good. You'll never navigate
off the planet on your own. Plus, all the heavy weapons
have been taken by the assault team leaving you with only a
pistol. If only you could get your hands around a plasma
rifle or even a shotgun you could take a few down on your
way out.

or after Doom 2 Map11:

YOU HAVE WON! YOUR VICTORY HAS ENABLED
HUMANKIND TO EVACUATE EARTH AND ESCAPE
THE NIGHTMARE.  NOW YOU ARE THE ONLY
HUMAN LEFT ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.
CANNIBAL MUTATIONS, CARNIVOROUS ALIENS,
AND EVIL SPIRITS ARE YOUR ONLY NEIGHBORS.
YOU SIT BACK AND WAIT FOR DEATH, CONTENT
THAT YOU HAVE SAVED YOUR SPECIES.

BUT THEN, EARTH CONTROL BEAMS DOWN A
MESSAGE FROM SPACE: "SENSORS HAVE LOCATED
THE SOURCE OF THE ALIEN INVASION. IF YOU
GO THERE, YOU MAY BE ABLE TO BLOCK THEIR
ENTRY.  THE ALIEN BASE IS IN THE HEART OF
YOUR OWN HOME CITY, NOT FAR FROM THE
STARPORT." SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY YOU GET
UP AND RETURN TO THE FRAY.

In the original games, the Doomguy is only fighting the monsters out of a sense of survival / to complete a mission, not because he is an insane murder god.

In general, Doom has always been a mix of "scary and atmospheric" and "lightning fast ass kicking" which allows people to read into it whichever they want.

For a primer on the reasons behind Doom's extreme longevity, this is a good read: http://vectorpoem.com/news/?p=74

[baja blast rd.]

Macblain said:

Ditto to what Xaser said.

I respect the OP's open-mindedness.

I submit that this is not so much a question of oaks and acorns as of apples and oranges. I personally find modern videogames unbearable because I have different desires.

Also, let's not dump on someone for putting french vanilla in his coffee and ketchup on his steak. Those moments of apotheosis (I call them "doomgasms") won't happen until someone groks the game in his bones and bile.

I'm not crazy about Plutonia, but it's a good place to start. Or perhaps, I dunno, AV? And then something like Valiant or Sunlust.

I've played Doom since the shareware episode appeared on my BBS, but I didn't really develop a deep appreciation for the game until I got drawn into Epic 2 several years ago.

Also I would strongly recommend always playing from a pistol start. You just don't get the structure of the level's progression otherwise. I never cared for Doom 2 until I UV/PS ran it and all the careful game design revealed itself.

One little thing: the AI isn't in the baddies themselves. The level itself is the AI. This is the sort of assumption you might try reexamining. It dawned on me very gradually what a beautiful, sophisticated game Doom is.

Some of your phrasing in this post is lovely. :D

[enderandrew]

Linguica said:

For much of Doom's history, people's interpretation of the game wasn't centered around being an ultimate badass. For an obvious example of this, look at Doom 3, which leaned heavily on the spooky atmosphere, jump scares, etc to promote a feeling of vulnerability and dread in the player.

I guess it is hard to say what Doom is precisely when you largely have 3 very different representations of Doom, if not more.

I did say that it was suggested the notion of Doomguy being this total bad-ass doesn't apparently start until the end of Doom 2 when you're slaughtering larger armies with a BFG more frequently. Some people told me the reason I didn't get Doom yet is because I hadn't reached that point yet.

Doom 3 was certainly more atmospheric. I played a bit of that on release but it felt cheap with near total darkness and then spawning monsters behind you in previously safe places (though I didn't realize this at the time that Classic Doom does the same thing differently by opening up doors to hidden monsters in previously safe places).

But I thought it was widely accepted that Doom 3 was a major shift tonally and in gameplay from the originals (to the extent that some call Doom 64 the real Doom 3).

So I'm not sure we can hold up Doom 3 as an example of how to view Doom 1 and 2.

[Jayextee]

enderandrew said:

My initial impressions of Quake are quite good and I suspect I may enjoy it a bit more than Doom.

You disliked Doom for being "easy", right? Quake's enemies are the epitome of this; should you shepherd any regular enemy except spawns and hitscanners, onto their lonesome, you can bait an easily-dodge melee attack repeatedly. Killing shamblers with the axe? Totally possible like this.

You have a point about jumping/verticality of course, but you're otherwise a weird one you know?

[enderandrew]

Jayextee said:

You disliked Doom for being "easy", right? Quake's enemies are the epitome of this; should you shepherd any regular enemy except spawns and hitscanners, onto their lonesome, you can bait an easily-dodge melee attack repeatedly. Killing shamblers with the axe? Totally possible like this.

You have a point about jumping/verticality of course, but you're otherwise a weird one you know?

I haven't really played it enough to get a feel for difficulty. I literally only played E1M1 to test out mods as I'm installing them. So I can't really speak to Quake on the whole, only a brief initial impression that I like the ability to jump and levels designed for it.

And the intent with my Quake install again was to focus on vanilla gameplay and just only improve visuals, but since people will likely criticize me for visual mods anyways, I said screw it and I'm going to include one gameplay mod.

I'm using the "small mod compilation" with Quake with adds in some new monster, monster variety, improved AI, etc (as well as a bevy of visual improvements).

[Lila Feuer]

enderandrew said:

And the intent with my Quake install again was to focus on vanilla gameplay and just only improve visuals, but since people will likely criticize me for visual mods anyways, I said screw it and I'm going to include one gameplay mod.

I'm using the "small mod compilation" with Quake with adds in some new monster, monster variety, improved AI, etc (as well as a bevy of visual improvements).

That sounds cool and all but how are you suppose to judge the original game for what it is with a mod? How can fair comparisons even be made? Mods should be enjoyed after you took the game for what it was, it makes the additions/improvements that much more noticeable.