NoXion

I liked it when the zombie got both its arms blown off and then couldn't hurt the player. It's little things like that I appreciate in mods.

The idea that the world is getting worse with each generation, or something along those lines. Seriously, you can find quotes from ancient times by old farts complaining about "kids these days". The view that seems fashionable these days of humans as inherently stupid and/or evil. If that really were the case we'd have died out ages ago and/or we'd never have achieved the things we've done so far. Individuals can act like stupid assholes and on the larger scale we've done nasty things like genocide, but that's because we're fallible mortals and not perfect angels. What also strikes me is that such a viewpoint reeks of hypocrisy; why bother trying to improve anything or even bother to continue living if the world is so full of such evil and stupid beings like ourselves? I actually doubt that most people who express such views truly hold to them, and that it is instead a handy excuse to look down on everyone else. Paranoid conspiracy theories are another thing that we're all better off dumping into the trashcan of history. That's not to say that governments and corporations don't conspire to do some heinous shit; but when they actually do so the means and motivations are banal and mundane, it's not part of a thousand-year plan by the Illuminati in cahoots with the New World Order/ALIENS/Reptoids/Satan/hyper-intelligent shades of the colour blue to turn us all into zombies/food/goldfish.

Had a go on this map in Brutal Doom. Warning for anyone trying this; it's a lot harder than vanilla. I think the placement of the very first imp you encounter was very good, because the bastard took me by complete surprise. This is a very impressive map visually speaking. It really does feel like a forest, which is no mean feat in a game like Doom, even without the engine's original limitations. I haven't finished this map, but I like it nonetheless. The only thing I didn't like about it were the what felt like near-constant teleport ambushes. At least there's plenty of health and armour lying around.

I've never tried mapping for Doom before. This thread has inspired me to download DoomBuilder2 which I am currently installing. Scratch that, it just finished. Running program... ... I have no idea what I'm doing. Time to hit a tutorial.

The Oculus Rift is an exciting development in itself, but I was pretty annoyed to learn that Facebook bought it, because fuck Facebook and their creepy stalkerish data harvesting ways (remember as a Facebook user you're not the customer, you're the product). I just hope that it is successful enough for some other less ethically challenged company to come up with a decent alternative or two.

What have they to do with Bill Clinton? They always try to kill me, not suck me off.

Maybe they have blue blood because they're the nobility of Hell? Otherwise I'd favour the hemocyanin explanation.

For me the games that came closest to inducing motion sickness were Portal and Portal 2. Some of the more challenging sections made me feel a little dizzy. I reckon that's because of all the crazy movements one has to pull off in high-detail environments. I reckon if I played a modern game in which one moved as fast as one does in Doom I'd get a bit of a headrush, but modern FPS games have a distinct tendency to have the player move slower than in previous games.

Here's a compromise hypothesis; magic in Hell consists of specific patterns (rituals, spells, etc) that convert Hellish energy (analogous to dark energy in our universe) into matter and other kinds of energy. This is the means through which Imps throw fireballs, Cacodemons launch their ball lightning, and so on. In the case of Cacodemons in particular, they have been engineered (or have evolved) to convert this Hellish magical-energy into an ideal gas that is lifting and non-reactive, explaining it's observed properties. How do the forces of Hell use their abilities when in our universe? Simple, they use the copious amounts of Hellish energy that leak through the same conduit that enables the forces of Hell to teleport from Hell to Mars/Earth. What's you explanation for why Earthly guns can be brought into Hell and successfully used against Demonspawn? Do you agree that matter in Hell is made of the same basic components (atoms, molecules, etc)?

With regards to the physical nature of Hell itself as a dimension, there clearly must be some things in common - for example, matter is made out of atoms and molecules and the same physical forces like gravity and electromagnetism are present. Although that does not preclude additional physical forces being present in Hell, although explaining how they could manifest in "our" reality is a mite trickier. But despite the physical similarities on the human scale, I'm inclined to think the cosmology of the Hell dimension is radically different to that of our own. I tend to imagine it as being an infinite plane, with gravity (or a force close enough to it that it makes no real difference on the personal level) having a universal directionality, so that unlike in our universe there is a common "down" direction that all observers can agree on. I'm not a physicist but that seems like it could have some very wild implications, and it is perhaps those implications that drew the UAC's interest - perhaps they thought that Hell's dimensional properties made it a candidate for faster-than-light travel, but they didn't realise until it was too late just exactly what it was they were dealing with.

Thing is, saying things like "it works by magic" is as good as saying "I haven't the foggiest". Now, this is perfectly fine if you just want to get on and play the game, but for those of us with a tendency to think deeper in our escapism that's unsatisfying as an explanation, hence threads like this. A better way to attack the problem, I think, is to try and put oneself into the shoes of a scientist who's actually studying these things in real life, as it were. Imagine if Doom was not just a game, but also an abstraction of the real-life behaviour of physical and biological entities. Things like infinitely tall actors can be ignored as being merely the limitations of the vanilla Doom engine, but other in-game phenomena like monster infighting can be taken as reflecting an actual property of the "real" demonic beings. It therefore follows that, if one adopts the role of a scientist, one must advance hypotheses in order to explain certain observed behaviours and properties in a consistent manner. Why go through this kind of charade? Well, firstly because it's fun. Or at least I think it is. Secondly because in checking the validity of these fictional scientific hypotheses, one can incidentally learn about how real-life phenomena work. Unless Hell has a potential source of Helium, then the lifting gas most commonly available in a such an environment would be Hydrogen. But it can't be that either, since Cacodemons crumple rather than going up like the Hindenburg, even when hit with rockets or plasma fire.

Imp fireballs I reckon are a temporarily self-contained spheroid of plasma enveloping a payload of burning gases, like a fiery variant of the Cacodemon's ball lightning. As for the momentum issue, my suspicion is that the creation process imparts a Euclidean vector on the fireball with a fixed magnitude (momentum) but an arbitrary direction, rather than the fireball acting like a already-existing ball being thrown in a typical manner. If I were to try and explain why such an object would move like that, I would look into how the fireball interacts with the surrounding atmosphere.

Ooh, speculation time! Thinking about this, my first thought was that Cacodemons are kept aloft by some kind of lifting gas, like helium or more likely hydrogen. The problem with this hypothesis is that it cannot account for the Cacodemon's ability to change altitude or move laterally. When combined with the observation that the Cacodemon collapses instead of bursting when killed, this makes me think that lifting gas is not the answer, even partially. Instead, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Cacodemon's flying abilities are a result of fairly specific psychokinetic or magical powers. Due to these peculiar traits, including the ability to spit forth what looks and sounds like ball lightning as well as their unique anatomical structure (I don't think there is anything on Earth quite like it), I suspect that the Cacodemons are artificial organisms, perhaps even incapable of reproduction on their own and are thus made rather than being born. Perhaps whatever process that created the Cacodemons was the same one that produced the physiologically similar (aside from arms) Pain Elementals. A particular anatomical oddity I would point out in favour of their artificial nature would be their single eye - the vast majority of naturally evolved organisms on Earth have multiple eyes (the only exceptions I can think of are probably worms of some kind), because generally speaking organisms with redundant eyes get to reproduce better than organisms without them. Whether this creation process was biotechnological or magical is a complete unknown, and given Hellish warping & appropriation of human technologies it is entirely possible that the process includes both magical and technological elements.

E1M6 - Laboratory So far the levels have been good fun, but I guess from here on the levels are going to be a lot more challenging, with not one but two Cyberdemons being thrown at you, one after the other. As a suitably sadistic twist of Demonic bad humour, you first get to see the faces of both of those suckers at once and hear their footfalls. On this map there are plenty of small fry - Imps, Shotgunners, even the lowly Zombiemen are still making their appearance, which is one of the reasons I find Doom 1 WADs appealing. While the variety and toughness of the Doom 2 bestiary keeps one highly challenged and mobile, the Doom 1 bestiary encourages mappers to make more use of the human-sized enemies. This suits players like me who sometimes favour a more methodical room-to-room, dodging in and out approach to clearing out the level of monsters. Run and gun is a fun approach, but in the congested hallways of a Techbase it can get one caught on stuff or cornered by large numbers of demonspawn. Especially if they are reinforced with stronger demons like Cacos and Barons with air support provided by the ever-annoying Lost Souls. By the way, my hat goes off to those who do pistol starts with levels like these. If I tried I'd probably give up in frustration. Double points if you only use a keyboard as a controller. The number of bigger monsters like Cacodemons and Hell Barons has increased with this level, necessitating either more use of shotgun shells and bullets or the use of precious rockets or energy cells. This is a problem because this WAD has brought home to me just how damn tough the Cyberdemon is. And I'm facing two of the bastards! Well actually, one now, because I'm saving a lot more now and hence I am forgoing my usual practice of trying to complete whole levels in one sitting. The fight with the Cyberdemon behind the blue door was a tense game of running around corners, popping off shots with the rocket launcher or plasma gun, dodging back before the Cyberdemon's rockets got too close, running back down the hall a bit to make the sure the big doors stayed open (or running back down the hall to get through the closing door if the Cyberdemon was following me), rinse, repeat. Dealing with the second Cyberdemon will require a trick I've learned when faced with tough challenges in games: sit on it. Writing this has helped, because I'm already thinking of different approaches to attacking the problem - literally, in this case! I'm gonna try a another door...

For me it's not so much the colour of the liqour so much as its smell. If it smells, like all the vodkas I've ever come across so far, like the sort of thing that would usually be used to clean engine components, then I'll only be able to drink it when I'm already steaming. If it smells more like the sort of thing that an actual human being would drink, rather than the kind of thing that would be used in some kind of heavy industrial process, then I'm game for it any time.

Which would be brilliant, if it weren't for the fact that the corporate giants are in the perfect position to smack down or buy out potential competitors, and they know it. Governments can do more than the markets in this respect, were it not for the fact that corporations often have governments and regulators wrapped around their little fingers as well. The fact that the 1% don't pay their fair share of taxes is a symptom of that, along with labour and environmental regulations that give perpetrators a free pass while shitting on workers.

Hey, another Southern Comfort fan. I'm not really into spirits myself, I'm more into beer (especially real ale) and cider. Southern Comfort is one of the few I can drink neat, preferably from a large glass tumbler. And NO ICE.

I think you're selling us all short on this one. Just because nobody can provide neat and easy answers to these kind of questions doesn't mean that nothing is achieved by posing them. Indeed, those providing (or trying to provide) neat and easy answers are the ones who are most likely to be mistaken or up to mischief. Even if the original question is poorly formulated, pointing out that fact in one's answer provides a learning experience for the one asking the question as well as for anyone following the thread. Erm... welcome to Philosophy? By the way, when a question covered by Philosophy is resolved or becomes subject to empirical study, that question passes over into science (or possibly mathematics). For example, the shape and nature of the observable universe used to be the kind of subject that philosophers would expound upon, but thanks to greatly improved equipment, such questions are largely the subject of the sciences of astronomy and cosmology. Similarly, if and when we gain a fundamental understanding of how and why minds work, philosophy of mind will become obsolete and its place will be taken by neuroscience and related fields. I'm sure that philosophy professors and theoretical scientists are no more or less healthy than the rest of the population. Actually, what I reckon the OP needs is a more structured environment in which to study such topics, so that they can increase their knowledge and understanding and thus explore such questions in a better way. As for the drugs issue, the OP could be gulping down LSD-and-Mushroom smoothies on a daily basis for all I care. What I think really matters is that they avoid such pitfalls as axioms, assumptions, and answers that are not even wrong.

That strip reminded me of the Omega Point scenario by Frank J. Tipler. As a material naturalist this kind of thing makes far more sense to me than traditional conceptions of God, which fail to account for the fact that in this universe, simpler entities causally precede more complex ones. God (the ultimately complex entity) doesn't exist because we haven't built Him yet. Although my anti-theist tendencies lead me to seriously question whether we should want to do that in the first place.

Is this for Doom 1 or Doom 2? EDIT: Never mind, I'm an idiot.

Artsy, but very short. I'm always intrigued by these kinds of WAD. Exploration of the more abstract possibilities of the format is a unique experience.

I just found out today that the Spider Mastermind (or should that be Spider Mistressmind?) is female. Get away from me you bitch!

I don't know if I'm scared or aroused. Maybe both.

I've never played deathmatch, so I can only speak for singleplayer: I would say that a truly good Doom player is one who is skilled & more importantly adaptable enough to meet all the reasonable challenges imposed by the mapmaker (although I grant that the definition of what is reasonable is subject to considerable debate; I think we can all agree however that troll WADs which deliberately fuck with the player aren't reasonable). All that competition category stuff definitely requires skill to pull of well, but they strike me as a kind of "professionalisation" of what in the absence of competitions would be merely self-imposed challenges. Depending on the exact levels being played, such idiosyncratic approaches to completing levels can constitute crippling over-specialisation. For example, I don't see how a pacifist run would work in E1M8 due to the fact that you need to kill the bruiser brothers to complete the level. Any earnest attempt at speedrunning necessarily entails at least some avoidance rather than engagement with monsters, and given the chaotic nature of the movement of large numbers of monsters this could easily result in the death of the player due to being cornered or surrounded, especially if you can't or won't jump and run over the monsters' heads. Mind you, I'm kind of a latecomer to Doom; I get the feeling that a lot of you guys have been playing a good while and thus might have a different view on things.

I once had a dream where I was in this open-plan kind of Doom level, and instead of the usual enemies it had about half a dozen giant spherical enemies, like custom versions of cacodemons. Each of them had a different look to them, some looking vaguely biological, others looked robotic, and still others had elemental themes like being made of lava or ice. And when I say giant, I mean they hovered over the entire level like grossly swollen suns. They also had different numbers of eyes to each other. Some of them lacked mouths or had guns sticking out of them rather than horns. Kind of makes me wish there was a mod where instead of the traditional level styles, one fights against relatively small numbers of giant and strange monsters in a series of giant arenas.