Thoughts on releasing a (mostly finished) megawad by an author who quit playing Doom?

[rodster]

Why not make the screenshots a spoiler? I'm not going to play that since his wish was to not release it.

[kb1]

Oh I feel so dirty...click!

[Fonze]

18 hours ago, kb1 said:

Of course, I'm biased (more WADs > less WADs)...

 

I would normally say honor his wishes. But if he released a beta, later mentioned that it was done and ready for release, and then didn't release the final product, that's what you call "a tease", which is kinda lame...

 

Technically, if you have a copy, it was released.

 

It's strange to release a beta, get good reviews, make the other 24 levels, and then claim it's not up to standards...

 

I'm sure, in time I could come up with more B.S. justifications :)

 

... Sooo since you released a beta of KBDoom to me and I gave it good reviews, does this mean that if I were to just kinda put it out there that I wouldn't necessarily be releasing it? ;p

Edited August 23, 2018 by Fonze

[kb1]

7 hours ago, Fonze said:

 

... Sooo since you released a beta of KBDoom to me and I gave it good reviews, does this mean that if I were to just kinda put it out there that I wouldn't necessarily be releasing it? ;p

Oh no, my secret is exposed :)

 

Heh - yeah, you would be releasing it, and you would be the one explaining why you didn't release the source :)

 

In all seriousness, it's the source that's important to release, so people can build it themselves, mod it, and see how it works. And it needs some serious love before I'm ready for a release.

 

Then again, things fall out of trucks all the time :)

[Doomkid]

On 8/23/2018 at 6:35 AM, purist said:

Eh, doesn't meet the standards for today.

Underrated comment, made me lol

[bioshockfan90]

cool to see this out there,YEAH it really isnt that impressive but i'm glad it wasn't just lost to the sands of time

 

i'd say you can't apply the same logic to every case of a situation like this (saying if i had a BTSX E3 beta and decided to just put it out there bc "they havent released it yet") but this was a pretty warranted scenario.

[Dragonsbrethren]

On 8/21/2018 at 8:57 PM, Myst.Haruko said:

No, history must be preserved. How many wads we lost, because authors thought that their stuff don't meet some weird standards and sent their maps into oblivion, even if maps were decent for that time? 

 

 

I know it has already been released, but this. If anyone has any of my old unfinished work that I've completely forgotten about, please upload it somewhere. It's so easy for digital content to just disappear. I don't even have most of my old Half-Life levels and ROM hacks because I just didn't care about most of them at the time.

[Vermil]

On ‎8‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 2:55 AM, Capellan said:

Unless the author confirms that they've changed their mind, I believe we should honour their expressed wish that it not be released.

 

 

This.

[MegaZzZeux]

On 8/27/2018 at 9:30 AM, Dragonsbrethren said:

I know it has already been released, but this. If anyone has any of my old unfinished work that I've completely forgotten about, please upload it somewhere. It's so easy for digital content to just disappear. I don't even have most of my old Half-Life levels and ROM hacks because I just didn't care about most of them at the time.

Ditto! If I ever found a copy of my 3StepsRevised.wad from 2004... I might be able to finish it 😂

[Pirx]

Did the guy grant permission to modify his maps? If he did, they could get some polish as a community project. 

[MegaZzZeux]

1 hour ago, Pirx said:

Did the guy grant permission to modify his maps? If he did, they could get some polish as a community project. 

Not officially... but I mean he was looking for beta testers for this current "release" back in the mid '00s ... So...

[crazyflyingdonut]

So, apparently I like things that are "subpar". I haven't finished it yet, but as of MAP06, I like what I've seen so far.

[MegaZzZeux]

2 hours ago, crazyflyingdonut said:

So, apparently I like things that are "subpar". I haven't finished it yet, but as of MAP06, I like what I've seen so far.

It's good to see someone playing. I do know msps 1-6 got the most love since they were the maps included in the demo.

[Pirx]

4 hours ago, MegaZzZeux said:

Not officially... but I mean he was looking for beta testers for this current "release" back in the mid '00s ... So...

 

I have a feeling that he won't even notice his work being published on the  net, nor would he give a damn. 

[kb1]

9 hours ago, Pirx said:

Did the guy grant permission to modify his maps? If he did, they could get some polish as a community project. 

Cat's out of the bag now. If the decision to release is iffy, is permission to modify that much of a barrier? Just saying - slippery slope, and all.

Edited August 29, 2018 by kb1

[Pegleg]

Slight preamble. You can skip the next paragraph if you just want to get to my thoughts about the megawad.

 

My Aunt writes poetry. She's not a professional poet, it's just a hobby for her. While she has entered some of her poems into competitions, most of what she has wrote hasn't been submitted somewhere. About 15 years ago, she had a rather old computer (a 286) that she wrote poems on. It was having problems and it wasn't clear if it was fixable or not. She told me that if it could be fixed, fine, but if not, she wanted the hard drive destroyed rather than run the risk of her unfinished material possibly somehow getting out. So, I get the issue of people not wanting their work released.

 

@MegaZzZeux Obviously, there is a big difference from looking for beta testers and looking for people to assist with editing. If, at the time, he was interested in assistant, I imagine he would've said so. So, let's not say he was "unofficially" looking for someone to help edit his maps. He was looking for people to test his maps and provide feedback. End of story.

 

@Pirx @kb1 If Net Nomad has truly put playing Doom in his past, and is completely out of the Doom community, it's probably true that he wouldn't care too much if this work was released. However, we're just using that to make ourselves feel better about releasing something that the author didn't want released. And even if someone took it upon themselves to release it anyway, just because it's out in public now that it's right or even OK to "fix" the levels.

 

I'm all for work not being lost to the mists of time. I would like the megawad to be released. However, the last thing he said on the matter was in 2012, and that was that he was not satisfied with the megawad and didn't want it released. For those keeping track, that was 4 years after he last signed on to Doomworld. So, I think his feelings on the matter were fairly clear. Perhaps they've changed in the last few years, but barring anyone actually having been in touch with him to ask him about this, I think we should abide by his wishes.

 

Yes, the cat's out of the bag, as it were, but us just saying "well, he probably wouldn't care" or "well, it's already out there" is just making talking ourselves into feeling better that we ignored his stated wishes.

[Pirx]

Dunno, just throwing it away because the guy has disappeared seems like a waste. 

 

You could have just released it under a some pseudonym if the author is completely out of the community and doesn't care or even notice and everything would have been fine. 

 

Or throw it into a black hole, information can't be destroyed, whatever.

[Pegleg]

50 minutes ago, Pirx said:

Dunno, just throwing it away because the guy has disappeared seems like a waste.

I agree that it's a waste. As I said, I would love to see the megawad released. I'm just pointing out that it goes against the author's wishes to do so.

 

Terry Pratchett requested that all his unfinished work be destroyed upon his death. It was (the hard drive was crushed by a steamroller). Is the world missing out on something that another author could've finished? Maybe. Was it the right thing to do to honor his request? Probably.

 

On the other hand, Franz Kafka requested that his unfinished work be destroyed upon his death. His executor decided to ignore his wishes and released these unfinished works, some of which have gone down as very influential in literary history. Does that mean it was the right thing to do? Probably not. Is the literary world better off for it? Probably.

 

I realize I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here. I would love to see it released, I just think it's the wrong thing to do. And doubly wrong to modify the maps to "bring them up to the modern standard." It's a bit too late, of course, since they already have been released.

 

If someone (anyone) could contact Net Nomad (or whatever his handle is these days) and ask him, that would be ideal.

[MegaZzZeux]

On 8/22/2018 at 1:23 PM, ReFracture said:

 

 

[MegaZzZeux]

Umm ignore the previous post. It was like that when I started to type a new message and it wouldn't go away.

 

As for Net Nomad, if ANYONE can get ahold of him that would be great IMO...but I do think he is gone from Doom forever. The last and only way to get ahold of him was his old AOL/AIM name... and I tried contacting him a couple years ago(just out of friendly banter), and never got a response. So I doubt we'll ever see or hear from him again.

[Pirx]

2 hours ago, Pegleg said:

I agree that it's a waste. [Snip]

 

 

I know it's superfluous, but there are some very food points from you.

 

 

@Memfis : what about picking this one in October for the Club? :p

 

does it have 32 maps? sucks that I'd have time, being on vacation, just very far from my pc...

[kb1]

8 hours ago, Pegleg said:

@kb1 If Net Nomad has truly put playing Doom in his past, and is completely out of the Doom community, it's probably true that he wouldn't care too much if this work was released. However, we're just using that to make ourselves feel better about releasing something that the author didn't want released. And even if someone took it upon themselves to release it anyway, just because it's out in public now that it's right or even OK to "fix" the levels.

 

Yes, the cat's out of the bag, as it were, but us just saying "well, he probably wouldn't care" or "well, it's already out there" is just making talking ourselves into feeling better that we ignored his stated wishes.

Oh, I totally agree - it's amazing how much blatant "justification" is in this thread. It's the process of getting what you want, and making the reasons "fit" that decision. All jokes aside, my feeling on the matter are that id supported the spirit of sharing and modding big-time, and, if you're going to be a part of that movement, an "all or none" approach seems to make the most sense.

 

And, none of that has anything to do with the work in question. My opinion is irrelevant, as is anyone elses' in this thread. If I had to make a judgement call, I would probably side with those that released it, as I feel that that was the original intention, as demonstrated by the playtesting releases. Thankfully, it's not my call :)

[riderr3]

Here for such topics I like Doomworld.
At the moment, I see a reverse trend when old forum members return. So, anything can happen.

[ReFracture]

No need for others to rationalize and justify at this point.. the cats out of the bag and I'm the only one who really needs to deal with it if he comes back salty about it.

[Catpho]

13 minutes ago, ReFracture said:

No need for others to rationalize and justify at this point.. the cats out of the bag and I'm the only one who really needs to deal with it if he comes back salty about it.

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