ENEMY!!!

I used to be a regular member on Doom3World.org which had a lot of Doom 3 editing-related discussions and tutorials, led by BNA!. Sadly it got hacked and an attempt to resurrect it in 2021 as doom3world.com evidently failed because when I open the site it says the domain has expired. Also, from the very early days of Doomworld, Pray for Death by NoPoet which had various controversial reviews of Doom WADs. Some of it is available on Archive.org but for example the most recent review of Plutonia, which I remember reading around 2003-04, doesn't appear to be indexed - I can only find an earlier one from around 2002. https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/http://www.nopoet.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

I'm quite optimistic from what I've read. A Heretic/Hexen reboot is currently looking unlikely because of the Activision IP issues, so a possible way around that would be to set a Doom game in a Heretic/Hexen type universe, and it sounds like this may well be what they're doing. I can also see potential for nods to Quake such as the Lovecraftian elements. But I do tend to think the gameplay will need tweaking a bit from Doom Eternal to make it work, leaning more upon atmosphere and less upon the arcadey side which, while fun in Doom Eternal, may not work as well in a medieval setting.

I'm one of those who thought they were "eye-dee" Software for years, but then found out that they were officially pronounced in a way that rhymes with "did". Over the past decade and a half I've gradually shifted towards the official version, but I still sometimes subconsciously think of them as "eye-dee Software" and by extension "eye-dee games". For me, it seems that "eye-dee games" remains in my subconscious to a greater extent than "eye-dee Software" does - regarding idgames my subconscious is divided roughly 50-50, whereas as for the company, the "id" pronunciation prevails by a ratio of around 4:1.

That sort of chord sequence is pretty commonplace and has a history of not being the kind of thing that gets copyrighted. It often reminds me of the chord sequence in the James Bond Theme, the difference being that after perfect 5th-minor 6th-major 6th it goes up to a 7th instead of back down to the minor 6th. On a related note, I have tried playing James Bond OSTs in the background while playing Doom and in my view the earlier ones by John Barry are often a good fit. I reckon that the Bond similarities are probably coincidental, as Bobby Prince is well known to have been influenced mainly by the likes of Slayer, Metallica, Alice in Chains etc, but it's possible that some of these bands might have been influenced a bit by John Barry and vice-versa.

I used to think they were all great as a result of rose-tinted nostalgic lenses, but these days I find the Doom series OSTs rather mixed. Doom 1 (Bobby Prince) and PSX Doom (Aubrey Hodges) are still favourites of mine, for differing reasons. Doom Eternal's soundtrack (Mick Gordon) is probably my favourite of all, and it's a shame it probably won't get an official release. I particularly like the ambient tracks and their sporadic subtle nods to Doom 1's themes. On the other hand, I find Doom 2's OST less interesting and more derivative. TNT's OST is hit and miss for me, as is DOOM 2016's. Also, I don't think as much of Aubrey Hodges's other ambient soundtracks. I particularly enjoy ambient music when it has a lot of subtle musical content as well as ambient sounds, and I think the PSX Doom and Doom Eternal OSTs have that, but I don't find enough interesting musical content in the PSX Final Doom or Doom 64 OSTs to keep my attention going.

I was immediately reminded of the Monty Python argument sketch here, where someone pays to have a five minute argument. An equivalent exchange could run, "So are we here to discuss Doom?" "I told you once!" "No you haven't!" "Yes I have!" "When?" "Just now!" "No you didn't!" "Yes I did!", etc. The fact that I'm being reminded of Monty Python also reflects my feeling that Romero's offer is rather unusual. I certainly wouldn't pay nearly 100 Euros to talk to someone for 15 minutes, but he may indeed have publicity/press-related reasons that I don't know about, so I don't feel in a position to judge him negatively for it.

After The Given, The Library is the example that second most sticks out for me.

I'm sure it will get imitators, but I doubt that many of the imitators will come close to capturing the sort of atmosphere of Myhouse. It's so multi-faceted that while individual parts can easily be copied, the sum of its parts will be very difficult to replicate. It's not just the non-Euclidean space, there's a specific atmosphere that the WAD generates and it is enhanced somewhat for example by Esselfortium's accompanying music. As a fan of film music I'd draw an analogy with the way Thomas Newman's American Beauty sound became so iconic that many other composers tried to replicate it and most had very limited success.

This is a thought provoking question, as I can't currently think of any. I've always thought of Half-Life 2 as overrated, but to say that I dislike it would be a big exaggeration - I just haven't been able to get into it to the same kind of extent as with the original Half-Life. I still find it pretty good by most standards. In the late 1990s I might have answered Quake 1, when gaming outlets and magazines such as PC Zone UK kept laughing at gamers who still played Doom when Quake was available. But those days are long gone, and today I enjoy Quake as much as I enjoy Doom. Usually these days when I dislike a game, my arguments are at least shared by a minority of gamers, e.g. I'm not a fan of the Call of Duty series but it is quite common in gaming circles for people to bash Call of Duty, so it doesn't fall into the "everybody likes" category for me.

I find Duke Nukem 3D's soundtrack a mixed bag personally, mainly because, with just a few exceptions, Bobby Prince's tracks let the side down for me, often being repetitive and uninteresting. It might be a quirk of my personal taste or maybe Bobby wasn't as musically inspired by Duke3D as by Doom and some other games. But I can't fault Lee Jackson's contributions. Descent had slipped my mind, I certainly had a lot of good times with Descent 1 and 2 (especially 1), though I would still put it a little behind Doom. Again I find the soundtrack a bit mixed but there are certainly some highs for me. I appreciated it when I noticed that Descent 1 Level 8 cleverly mixes fully original music with sped-up remixes of Ase's Death from Grieg's Peer Gynt. I reckon Quake II will get more love in the near future thanks to the remaster. Again, I'm mixed on the soundtrack but really like Descent into Cerberon.

Story: Half-Life. I don't think any other FPS of the 90s comes close. Gameplay: For single player, Doom 1, but for multiplayer, Unreal Tournament. If you include user mods and maps, then for single player Doom 2 overtakes Doom 1, and Quake 1 is increasingly up there. Quake 1 is also second only to UT for multiplayer. Soundtrack: That's a tough one, as I like the soundtracks of Doom 1 (PC and PSX versions equally), Hexen 1 and Quake 1, all for different reasons. On balance I'm going to go for Hexen as that's the soundtrack that I come back to most often. Others have mentioned Duke Nukem 3D, I think it's definitely in my top five for single player FPS experiences in the 90s, but just a bit behind the other games that I mentioned for me.

I've avoided it so far because I hear that it's impossible to tame the algorithm. Social media algorithms are marketed as being there "to provide users with the best possible experience", but really, their aim is to get users addicted, keeping them there for as long as possible so as to be able to maximise their exposure to targeted ads. There have been studies done on TikTok's algorithm and it's no different. On many other platforms, you are able to tame the algorithms. Many companies, notably Google and Facebook/Meta, will provide the option to tame them, but will keep resetting your preferences back to the default of "algorithm fully in control of what you see" at every opportunity, which is far from ideal, but TikTok doesn't even provide the option as far as I know.

As Gregor said, there is indeed a comment to one of the videos where the person claims they have permission from Veddge to share the information, but I have my doubts.

I don't believe that all of the problems that we've been seeing are people blatantly engaging in doxxing. Such people certainly exist, but I reckon that there are much greater numbers who are very curious, who get deeply interested in the true origins of something like Myhouse, and who are naïve about how digging too deeply could undermine the author's privacy, potentially with ugly consequences, or who just don't think enough about the implications while they're digging. I reckon that the videos presenting it as some sort of ARG and (especially) the relevant TikTok content have allowed this to get far worse than it would otherwise have done. If the latter had been released with Veddge's express consent, I would feel okay with it being circulated, but I see no compelling evidence of this being the case, unfortunately, and until/unless this changes, I won't feel comfortable with it being circulated. Generally I'm one of those who tends to be very curious and to want to discover all there is to discover, and to know the truth, but as so often in life, this is only healthy in moderation, up to a certain point. Short of that point, there's been a lot of very interesting and rewarding discussion and detective work, but it is clear to me that Myhouse works much better in immersing the player and creating the right emotions if some details remain speculative and are left to the imagination. It's not just an author privacy issue, it's also a matter of ensuring that people who play Myhouse get the best experience. For these reasons, with each day, it's becoming more obvious to me why Veddge has gone to lengths to remain anonymous and very secretive.

My understanding of the situation is that you're unlikely to get into legal trouble for using a MIDI version of copyrighted music, and may well get your map accepted on idgames, but there's a fair chance that if you or others stream your map, video sharing sites will mute the sound and there's a chance they may take the videos down (this can happen automatically, e.g. via YouTube's Content ID system). If it's a straight copy of copyrighted music, e.g. in MP3 format, you're a lot more likely to get your map rejected on the spot for copyright infringement. But if it's just for personal use then you can use whatever music you like, copyrighted or not. If it's MIDI music you're after, there's no shortage of MIDI music out there created by the Doom community that is free to use and share as long as you credit the original author.