ENEMY!!!

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.

3 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Can see that happening...

 

''Hey John, how do you play lilith? You do know those washed up colors aren't correct, right?''

 

''Why is it that you still do X wrong in Ultimate Doom Builder?''

 

''So, about Daikatana...''

 

''Oh wait, this is the John Romero from Doom 3, right?''

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.

One thought is that if texture filtering is such a big issue, people could share portable config files with gl_texture_filter set to 0 ("None") or 1 ("None (nearest mipmap)").  In my portable config file it is set to 1.

What's wrong with GZDoom?  To me, not a lot.  It just has a different focus to many of the other source ports and sacrifices a bit of performance on enemy heavy maps for the sake of adding extra features.

I note that I posted in this thread back in 2020 and said that until around 2010-2015 I would definitely have answered Duke, but as of 2020 I was veering towards Quake.  That process has accelerated quite a bit since the 2021 remaster.  Quake's mapping and modding community has really gathered pace recently, to the point where I've recently been enjoying the Quake 1 community's maps as much as the Doom community's maps (and that's saying a lot).  As well as Arcane Dimensions, there's Alkaline, progs_dump, Slayer's Testaments, Remobilize, etc.  That said, if I had to choose between replaying Quake's shareware episode or Duke3D's, I would still give Duke's the nod.

In those circumstances I'd probably revisit Espi's Map27 from Eternal Doom IV.

I think that's the main problem - mapping specifically for Brutal Doom and/or Project Brutality requires a good understanding of how they work and the differences between them and vanilla Doom, and I reckon that once mappers have got into mapping for vanilla or near-vanilla Doom, it tends to be better use of one's limited time and effort to go for something that rather emphasises building on the original gameplay, like UDMF/GZDoom or a mod like Supercharge which doesn't replace the gameplay as much.  It's not a failing of Brutal Doom or Project Brutality, rather an issue that generally arises re. mapping for a mod of a game that changes the gameplay substantially.

3 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

 

Sorry I don't quite understand what you mean here so please clarify. Are you saying that when you played Extermination Day with Brutal Doom it still had the same "Awesome at first but dull and boring later" effect or are you saying that it didn't get dull and boring as fast and it maintained a level of fun throughout the mapset (which is what happened to me when I played Doom 2 In Spain Only)

I meant the second one - I enjoyed much of Extermination Day, I didn't get that "dull and boring later" feel with it.

6 hours ago, Zulk RS said:

 

I'd like to add on to this.

 

I don't know what it is about Brutal Doom and Project Brutality but when I play it for the first time in months, I unironically have more fun with it than vanilla doom. But the feeling quickly fades by MAP04 and it starts to get really dull and boring. I don't know why. One mapset where this didn't happen however, was Doom 2 In Spain Only. I don't know if this is some mapping magic by the talent behind that project or if Brutal Doom actually requires a certain kind of map design to keep the fun going. I will admit the feelings did fade to the point where it didn't have the "Better than vanilla" effect that the first two maps had but even way into the playthrough it didn't get boring or dull like it usually does.

My experience has been much the same, typically it feels great to begin with and then the novelty quickly wears off.  I've tried out Project Brutality and the same applies there.  But it's probably because the vast majority of maps aren't designed with Brutal Doom in mind and Brutal Doom strays a long way from the vanilla Doom mechanics.  Some mapsets work well for me with mods that stay closer to the original gameplay (e.g. Supercharge, Beautiful Doom, even Complex Doom in some cases), but not so much Brutal Doom or Project Brutality.

Maps that were designed with Brutal Doom in mind are another matter.  I haven't tried Doom 2 In Spain Only, but I know this didn't happen to me when I played Extermination Day with Brutal Doom about five years ago.

It's one of those where Chromium based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi etc.) determine the download link to be insecure and block the download without telling you, to protect you from yourself.  The usual workaround is to right click and select "Save As", and that worked for me here.

I'm hoping that in the long run Myhouse might inspire some mappers to experiment more with different ways of playing out the "civilization being slowly corrupted by a demonic infestation" narrative of the Doom series.  Traditionally you start off with a series of maps on Earth or Mars and they gradually turn more hellish.  I could imagine the general Myhouse concept being applied where you start out in a map where everything appears okay and then the player gets silently teleported to different copies of the map which get progressively more hell-infested.  We aren't seeing the fruits yet because maps using that sort of idea will take a fair amount of time to create, but I won't be surprised if we see more experimentation along those lines in maps towards the end of 2023 and through 2024.

A tough choice for me because I personally prefer the TNT style of gameplay over the "knockabout" Plutonia style, but on the other hand I think of TNT as a rather mixed bag and it feels unfinished to me, whereas Plutonia feels like a finished and polished product.  When I weighed up the pros and cons, Plutonia got the nod.

When I think of artistic mappers I'm more inclined to think of mappers with a range of artistic talents, so some of the prolific musicians, e.g. Jimmy, esselfortium, Remilia Scarlet, Dragonfly spring to mind.  Also Insane Gazebo for the later Sunder maps - I'm not a fan of slaughter maps but I sometimes load up the later Sunder maps with -nomonsters and marvel at the architecture and expansiveness of the maps.  Pinchy and FishyClockwork as well, for some inventive portal trickery.

The first name that came to mind was Ben "Makkon" Hale, not just for creating literally thousands of textures, but also creating grand architectural example maps ranging from gothic castles and cathedrals to industrial yards, and also sporadically doing drawings and music tracks.  Makkon isn't a Doom mapper per se but has already influenced a number of Doom mappers.

Another point that I've just thought of, and that hasn't come up much, if at all, is that "off" isn't the only alternative to "texture filtering that smooths everything".

In the last couple of years, I haven't shifted to disabling texture filtering completely in Doom or Quake, but have settled upon "Nearest (mipmap)", which doesn't smooth out the textures and sprites when you're reasonably close to them, but does reduce the shimmering in the distance for example.  The vast majority of the criticisms of GZDoom's default setting relate to the smoothing effect of bilinear and trilinear types of filtering, which doesn't apply to my current preferred setting - but technically, I do still have a form of texture filtering enabled. 

It is partly for this reason that I haven't voted in the poll.  To me, it's not clear if "off" is meant to mean "the pixellated look rather than smoothed" or "completely off".  I am not convinced that completely off, allowing the shimmering effects at a distance for example, would be the optimal default setting for most GZDoom users.

I reckon that there's also a background/cultural context behind this.

While ZDoom came out in 1998, GZDoom first emerged in August 2005.  I remember that during that period, graphics were advancing very rapidly, and most gamers were flocking to the newer games because they looked more realistic, and Doom was getting left behind.  I remember that I preferred bilinear or trilinear texture filtering on at that time because vanilla Doom looked primitive and old to me, and the filtering made Doom sort of look more akin to the newer games, even though it came at the cost of some washing out of the textures and sprites.  I know I'm not your "average" user, but I reckon there's a fair chance that, around 2005, having texture filtering default to on might have helped attract some gamers to old-school Doom who believed that Doom was old hat.

Today, the culture is very different: graphics are still advancing but a strong element of diminishing returns has kicked in.  The difference in graphics between, say, Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, while noticeable, pales by comparison with, say, the difference in graphics between Half-Life and Half-Life 2.  As we're seeing from the tons of 1990s FPS-style indie games being released on Steam and selling well, today there's far more of an appetite for old-school shooters, including a renewed appreciation of the pixellated look of the 1990s shooters.  Because of this, the majority of retro gamers are now looking for something relatively close to the original experience, and therefore not preferring to use bilinear/trilinear texture filtering, which is making the default far less appropriate today than it would have been in 2005.

I remember when I first took up Makkon's suggestion (in the Makkon textures readme) of using nearest filtering instead of bilinear or trilinear, the pixellated look seemed a bit off to me because I was so used to the smoothed out look.  After a while, once I got used to it, I started preferring it to the smoothed out look, especially when using high res textures like the Makkon Quake ones.  People tend to get used to what they're familiar with.  I have a suspicion that Graf's preference, which is reflected by the default, reflects some stubbornness and sticking with what is familiar, especially as I've been guilty of the same thing myself.