Things about Doom you just found out

@ Eris Falling + CorSair:

My recommendation is the old xat.com JPEG Optimizer 3.15, still probably the only software available with adaptive macroblock quantization (MagiCompress™); even the newer Image Optimizer is no match IMHO. The registration password for the full version is no more secret...

Unfortunately it doesn't read PNG, but you can convert the PNG to an intermediate maximum-quality JPEG first and then optimize that one, or you can paste an image from the clipboard.

If you want to avoid the "color bleeding" of saturated red areas, you {may disable the chroma subsampling in your preferred PNG to JPEG converter (e.g. IrfanView or XnView, as freeware image viewers, can do so) and} enable "Extra Color" in JPEGOpt. You should also enable the "Progressive" mode, it stores the image with gradually increasing quality (so users of slow "narrow bandwidth" connections can guess early what they will see).

Here an optimized JPEG copy of your spoiler screenshot (Jump'n'run down from the elevator): http://frupic.frubar.net/28958 (41 instead of 868 KB).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm-V5jgvwdo#t=1m25

Hopefully this wasn't posted yet, it's pretty self-explanatory - never noticed that and I've been playing Doom since its release almost

Maldoror said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm-V5jgvwdo#t=1m25

Hopefully this wasn't posted yet, it's pretty self-explanatory - never noticed that and I've been playing Doom since its release almost

The other thing is that Fortress of Mystery is shown only if revealed.

Cell said:

The other thing is that Fortress of Mystery is shown only if revealed.

That's bizarre. Never knew that. I really wonder what the point of the fortress was...wasn't really a fortress at all.

Platinum Shell said:

That's bizarre. Never knew that. I really wonder what the point of the fortress was...wasn't really a fortress at all.

Mostly the "key puzzle" at the end. Impressive, never would have figured out such an unimaginable solution for progression.

Platinum Shell said:

That's bizarre. Never knew that. I really wonder what the point of the fortress was...wasn't really a fortress at all.

It's a... mystery.

By the way I never knew Doom was so buggy. I've been playing it a lot lately and discovered bugs and places you can get stuck.

DoomCollector said:

It's a... mystery.

By the way I never knew Doom was so buggy. I've been playing it a lot lately and discovered bugs and places you can get stuck.

Do you mean buggy map-wise or engine-wise? granted, in the case of playing ultimate/1 in something like DOS, then both are applicable.

The only bug I've really discovered in Ultimate Doom was E4M1, in the room where if you shot you'd awake demons; the upwards crusher. Got stuck there with god mode on, so I still didn't consider it a bug!

Side note: Mappers! We need more raising crushers!

Raising floor crushers actually are bugged pretty badly, unfortunately. There's no guarantee of them actually killing you, so if you have enough health to survive the crushing you end up just permanently stuck in the ceiling. :(

For non-buggy raising crushers, use the "stairs raise" action on a dummy sector connected to the sector you want to use as a raising crusher.

As discussed before, there is also a quite funny implementation in "Revolution!"; it only bit my ass a little. ;)

Yeah, E2M4 on easier difficulties have crushers you can get stuck on and E2M5 always has an upward crusher you can get stuck on.

E4M1 doesn't have a crusher though does it?

I also noticed a lot of shiny lines... "slime trails" I think? Also some places you can see through walls or in E1M7 where you can see the chaingun through a wall. I also noticed if you walk across the raising platforms to get the yellow card key in the wrong order in E2M2 they raise but are still lava, not sure if that's a bug or not.
E4M3 on easier difficulties also has a bug with the lowering pillars that cover the exit that makes some of them get stuck and continuosly make the moving noise, it sounds pretty annoying.

Anyways I've played the game through twice on ITYTD, twice on HNTR and today once on HMP and also at least twice on UV in the past month so I know the maps like the back of my hand by now. Buggy.

DoomCollector said:

I also noticed if you walk across the raising platforms to get the yellow card key in the wrong order in E2M2 they raise but are still lava, not sure if that's a bug or not.

That is actually not, since all the platforms rely on the one raised previously. Anyways, the same goes for the MAP12 area in which you open the BFG place (with diagonal walls and eternal darkness).

Only just discovered you can press M to put marks on the automap. Doh

mouldy said:

Only just discovered you can press M to put marks on the automap. Doh

Try 'G' next. ;)

damn, I lost

Magic Square? :P

Ha, first thing that came to mind was Minesweeper.

...

Wait. Doomsweeper.

I believe that's The Knight's Tour!

Platinum Shell said:

Wait. Doomsweeper.

Someone's got to make this!

Archy said:

Someone's got to make this!

It's there, in Eternal Doom :-P

I never knew ANYTHING about Doom II! :p
I played Doom II on GBA circa 2003 and I clearly remember MAP01-03, the tower in 11 (The O) and parts of 13 (Downtown) and the next time I played it was on Xbox sometime 2005 or so and I only remember one more level from back then where you make a Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind fight. Finally about a year or two ago I tried playing it through on PC and clearly remember 06 (The Crusher) and 07 (Dead Simple) which I died a couple of times on and stopped playing at.

Other than that I really remember absolutely nothing and playing it through again is pretty sweet. The design in the beginning of the game is pretty great for the several first maps of the game really and distinct from the original Doom. I don't like The Crusher or Tricks and Traps though that throw bosses at you and have you kill them really easily... I think Refueling Base had a Cyberdemon too.

Oh and I absolutely did not remember that Hell Knights use the exact same Alien sound effects as the monsters in Abuse... I think the Pain Elemental pain sound is also in Abuse. I can't believe I've forgotten or never noticed that. A walking bull making alien sounds is so out of place.

By the way the Doomwiki mentions a teleporter secret with a backpack in The Gantlet that I wasn't able to find... and the minimap on the wiki shows a small place west of the well I wasn't able to get in to by any means. How do you get in there?

Anyways playing through Doom II like it was my first time is pretty nice. Gonna play Final Doom and Doom 64 for the firs time afterwards as well as a bunch of other ports that don't have any new maps though.

Which are some of the best customs wads by the way? Might as well ask here since it's a thread all about discovering new things.

Archy said:

That was pretty intense yo. I thought he would fail.

DoomCollector said:

By the way the Doomwiki mentions a teleporter secret with a backpack in The Gantlet that I wasn't able to find... and the minimap on the wiki shows a small place west of the well I wasn't able to get in to by any means. How do you get in there?

You're copy of Doom 2 is probably an old version; does your MAP:02 have silver bars blocking the sergeant to the left? (in the room that you're looking at at the start of the level)

Mine used to be an old version but then I used this old patcher utility I found somewhere here on Doomworld that bumped it up to the latest; which had the backpack secret.

DoomCollector said:

Which are some of the best customs wads by the way? Might as well ask here since it's a thread all about discovering new things.

Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta: The COMPET-N Edition, are my two personal favorites, though I'm not sure you'd like them based on your above comment. They're both very hard and can be a bit confusing sometimes. Don't be afraid to play lower difficulties and skip maps you don't like.

Here's my favorite level of AV played by Tatsurd-cacocaco. Anders Johnsen is such a genius! Next to it is my favorite HR map, played by me.

This goes a bit beyond Doom, and it's old news to the computer types, but I was pretty blown away that John Carmack programmed, by himself:

1) The first efficient side-scrolling PC engine (Commander Keen)
2) The first 2.5D engine (Wolfenstein, Doom)
3) The first 3D engine (Quake)

Hard to top that in the annals of game programming history. Also, I believe he scoffed at the Duke Nukem 3D engine as being held together by bubblegum.

SandGator said:

This goes a bit beyond Doom, and it's old news to the computer types, but I was pretty blown away that John Carmack programmed, by himself:

1) The first efficient side-scrolling PC engine (Commander Keen)
2) The first 2.5D engine (Wolfenstein, Doom)
3) The first 3D engine (Quake)

Hard to top that in the annals of game programming history. Also, I believe he scoffed at the Duke Nukem 3D engine as being held together by bubblegum.

"Scoffed" may be a strong word.

The core of the Duke engine was done by Ken Silverman who was in his own way on par with Carmack. In case of Doom vs. "Duke" it was bsp based vs. portal based in regards to what defines visible wall sets.
Both sources contained fine tuned code asm code for the most important functions(in Doom's case the wall/span drawing). As far as I can remember Build had more hand tuned asm code and shot for a higher target processor(Pentium).

Funny fact is that Ken is rather disappointed with his run in the engine industry and therefor doesn't want to delve into the current state of engines too much - he left the industry because he cracked under the pressure... sweating over that his 3d engine was less advanced than Carmack's back then. Looks like the Abrash/Carmack 3d mutant killed off the only worthy competition in those days ^^

You can read the interview on dosgaming or something.

All the id Tech engines were quite hardware demanding when they were released. I remember well how small the 3D window was shrinked when I played DOOM on a 386SX-40; I wonder how I recognized anything. The next PC could display Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior easily in a higher resolution VESA mode, but for Quake I had to go back to VGA resolution.

Quake really ate the success of BUILD based games, due to its support of 3D accellerators (3Dfx Glide and OpenGL APIs). And there weren't even so many really good BUILD based games, IMHO; I would call Exhumed/PowerSlave (for the gameplay), TekWar (for its plot) and Witchaven (for their clay monsters) "embarrassing" at best. A pity for the quite powerful engine, compared to DOOM, which introduced movable sectors but required realtime visibility calculation using a portal technology (the static BSP could not have supported this feature).

SandGator said:

This goes a bit beyond Doom, and it's old news to the computer types, but I was pretty blown away that John Carmack programmed, by himself:

1) The first efficient side-scrolling PC engine (Commander Keen)
2) The first 2.5D engine (Wolfenstein, Doom)
3) The first 3D engine (Quake)

Hard to top that in the annals of game programming history. Also, I believe he scoffed at the Duke Nukem 3D engine as being held together by bubblegum.

I'll give you 1), but not 2) or 3). Descent and Terminator Future Shock were both released before Quake, for example. And heck, don't forget Ultima Underworld.

LigH said:

IMHO; I would call Exhumed/PowerSlave (for the gameplay), TekWar (for its plot) and Witchaven (for their clay monsters) "embarrassing" at best. A pity for the quite powerful engine, compared to DOOM, which introduced movable sectors but required realtime visibility calculation using a portal technology (the static BSP could not have supported this feature).

Aww, I rather fancied PowerSlave, though the Console versions on the Slavedriver engine were better.

Clonehunter said:

Aww, I rather fancied PowerSlave, though the Console versions on the Slavedriver engine were better.

This. It's a shame my TC for Edge from years ago went the way of an old computer, never to be seen again. I'd love to have resumed work on it, as I was aiming for something inbetween the computer and console versions.