Maes

So, John Romero is kind of our -misunderstood- Al Bundy?

Well, that still sounds better than being known as the "mastermind" behind Daikatana #obligatory_link_to_Something_Awful's_review. IMO, if John had a sense of humour, he would reuse that ad's concept. Something like "John Romero is about to make you his bitch. This time for real".

Even the reduced approach of making new episodes would soon prompt a reality check: should they be just keep on making something like No Rest for the Living, aka a merely limit-removing, quite oldschool mapset, running on a token "source port"? If that approach had worked/was believed viable, wouldn't they have repeated it by now, since resource-wise it would be the least demanding one? And yet it's been 6 years since Doom 3: BFG edition bundled those maps... Make them for an advanced source port? Which one? Make their own? Or mod for an existing one? And again this brings the "cannot beat source ports (and their modding communities) at their own game" argument at the forefront. Not to mention, even if the first approach was considered viable, well, it would probably cause some kind of Final Doom-like controversy at one point or another. For good or bad, the Doom community as we know it here on DW is quite demanding. It's one thing to please news sites who want nothing more than a good "comeback", "rebirth" etc. story, it's another whole ballgame to please the hardcore crowd here. For now they seem to have avoided those issues by having none else than John Romero himself make the maps, and by playing on scarcity (one NRFTL-type release every 6 years).

Making the registered/commercial IWADs (at least the original/Ultimate Doom's) finally free of charge or even PD should be the Next Big Thing for Doom, but it seems like they are going to milk them for all they're worth 'til Kingdom Come.

This has been debated in the past several times, and the general consensus was that it was a bit too late for id -or anyone else, for that matter- to beat free Doom source ports at their own game with a commercial product. It was too late by the time Doom 3 came out, let alone now. The only edge a large company like Bethesda would have to capitalize on, is offering a more solid multiplayer experience, on par with modern games. That might create a substantial following as well as "ecosystem" of exclusive mods for a commercial Doom source port, if they choose to go their own way. But without that, it would just be a money sink to try and compete head-to-head with e.g. ZDoom or even ZDaemon.

It will obviously be the long-awaited SPISPOPD. Oh common, what's the worst that could happen?

They brought it back with the Archvile though -sorta.

I still think that the mandatory 1994 PWAD "Isolated chainsaw pickup - room fills with pinkies - patiently chainsaw them one by one while backed in a corner" is pretty good Doomin'. Also, I do all of this stuff just to spite speedrunners/UV-MAXers/"competitive" players/level designers.

Ever tried to play on ZDaemon for any regular amount of time, and with regularly updated megawads? If yes, please don't look into your Wads folder, for you might not like what you'll see ;-)

It has been like this for most of the 20th century in Europe, really. You either were a "Free World"-loving conservative/demochristian etc. or a dangerous communist, and before that you were either fascist/nazist or antifascist/communist/subversive, before that you were either a royalist or a libertarian etc. This same mentality, but reversed, was applied after the events of May 1968 in many countries in Europe: now it was "hip" and "good" to be socialist/communist/anarchist, and anyone who wasn't was a fascist. Greece, lagging 3 revolutions behind, still has this mentality strongly, especially now with SYRIZA, whose MPs and ministers think nothing of publicly calling anyone not agreeing with them a "fascist".

The question is: can hardcore_gamer produce content up to the engine's capabilities? *wink* As far as fucked up (un)dead babies go...how about the Atropal Scion from D&D?

Oh no it won't, because there will be the necessary "political massage" and "calls to reason" beforehand. Ya know, "First time, vote with your heart. Second time, vote with your head".

No biggie, in typical euro pinko commie fashion, they'll just bring it up again and again until the "correct" vote passes.

Well, Ratzepimmel's world exists.... I'd say take a lesson from the Ancients and release it in such a way that it flies under the radar, or at least entices the archive maintainer to say "You know what? Fuck it. Let's let it in and see if anybody actually gives a flying fuck" ;-) I mean, FFS, they let UACMN in there....

UNDERSEA.WAD?