Whatever happened to dwango9.wad

[Ineedakey]

Wait, did dwango have any name differences in other regions?

[Dreemurr Deceevurr]

I'm pretty sure the name stayed the same in other regions.

[Doomkid]

Yep, and sadly the two Dwango9 maps just have standard Doom2 music

[Wadmodder Shalton]

What the map list of the supposed "Real" DWANGO9.WAD is to this day a mystery beyond the two maps found in the DWANGO PWAD compilation with an Exclamation Mark.

[Reelvonic]

2 minutes ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

What the map list of the supposed "Real" DWANGO9.WAD is to this day a mystery beyond the two maps found in the DWANGO PWAD compilation with an Exclamation Mark.

I have searched for like almost 3 months.  I have spent  entire  nights looking for it.

I have search through archives, old forums. Searched in different languages.

I made it to shell city, I beat the cyclops and I rode the Hasselhoff. I will not rest until I bring the wad back to the people.

 

i will find this wad. or help. or not maybe someone else will find it first. all im saying is that i really REALLY want to play dwango 9

[Doomkid]

Bump because this mystery is finally solved!

 

Voyager7, a DWANGO Houston moderator, recently got in touch with me to set the record straight once and for all:

 

Quote

Here’s how it was: I am Voyager7 and I was a DWANGO moderator on the Houston sever in the ‘90s. I also did work for IVS including running DWANGO BBS (a company’s website back then). Part of that job entailed publishing official DWANGO branded WAD files. This BBS was the official source of tournament maps that players all over the world downloaded from. Bulletin Boards across the globe would download these WADs and distribute them locally. DWANGO servers in other cities were operated independently mainly because of the long distance costs. I personally was also a moderator on the Dallas server for a time, but it was too expensive to maintain. I also did tech support helping players with connectivity issues. So I was less of a hardcore player and more of an enjoyer of the chaotic chat room. That’s where all the fun happened, but that’s a story for another day.

To the best of my recollection, keep is mind this was 25 years ago, Dallas moderators started the tradition of these company branded WAD files for their local tournaments. Houston moderators pitched a fit and there was all manner of squabbling over who gets to compile the next DWANGO WAD constantly. I want to say Dallas did most of them but Houston did the rest. I didn’t care much, just needed to know which one to put on the BBS for people to download. Houston and Dallas were working on DWANGO 9 and 10 at the same time. Here is where things got weird and no one can remember what happened. The files listed above were restored from a 1998 backup of files published on DWANGO BBS. I think Dallas was assigned 9, but named it 10 with graphics to match. Or did they name it DWANGOX? Either way, there was a DWANGO10 and DWANGOX floating around at the same time before DWANGO9 was ready.

DWANGO! Was the last WAD file I was involved with. It is a Houston WAD and I see at least one of my maps in there. There is more than one map in there with the DWANGO9 graphics. Is it DWANGO9 or just a tribute? Did I rename DWANGO9 because it made no sense to have it come after 10 when Dallas jumped the gun and published early?  Did I rename DWANGO9 to BLUDBATH to shamelessly promote my personal BBS, OLYMPUS? Either way, it was a time in my life where boobs became more important and my time with my favorite online service of all time started to fade. Sorry for the delay, but I present to you the closest thing to an official DWANGO9.WAD that ever existed.

 

So, in essence - Dwango10.wad, BLUDBATH.wad* (and maybe DWANGO!.wad) all were planned to be Dwango9 originally, largely due to disagreements about whether the Houston or Dallas server deserved the "fame" of being responsible for the 9th DWANGO. Apparently no real solid agreement was ever reached, so everyone who was compiling the wads they thought were going to be Dwango9 ended up renaming or rebranding them in order to avoid confusion. The final result is that a "real" Dwango9 never came to be. The closest things in existence are BLUDBATH and DWANGO!.wad.

 

Also - and this is my own observation - according to the textfile and timestamps of DwangoX.wad, it was never planned to be 9 or 10, and came out just days after Dwango6. So, in essence, DwangoX was a red herring all along - I'm guessing X was picked simply because of cool factor (think Mega Man X).

 

What a confusing little history lesson, but really glad it's cleared up once and for all. So when someone asks if Dwango9 exists - "Well, no, but technically yes" is about the only valid answer.

 

*BLUDBATH.wad was a "Dwango fan wad" from the start, likely never planned to be Dwango9, according to dmage (another former Dwango user who posted on the last page). So really, DWANGO!.wad is the closest thing there is.

 

Another old mystery DONE, after a quarter century.. Feels good!

 

EDIT: He even attached an image with the proper timestamps for all wads in question, which is neato:

[Astronomical]

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

So, in essence - Dwango10.wad, BLUDBATH.wad* (and maybe DWANGO!.wad) all were planned to be Dwango9 originally

Look's like the real Dwango 9 was here all along.  Kind of sad we didn't get a new set of dm maps, but the mystery is solved at least.

[Mr.Rocket]

I kind of feel that I can rest a little easier tonight knowing that now.

 

Cheers! 

[Voyager7]

25 years and 4 days ago today, I renamed a file that has caused a lot of confusion. First, I am shocked that DWANGO WADs are still played. Second, I'm thrown how Shockwav3 picked up on the ties to BLUDBATH and DWANGO!. Those were the last two files I compiled for DWANGO and OLYMPUS BBS. Both are contenders for the work that should have produced DWANGO9. I came across Doomkid's video and a screenshot from this forum late one night and it melted my mind. All these WAD names sounded so familiar. I restored a backup from '98 this weekend (no, CD backups were not common at that time). Those are the files shown in Doomkid's screenshot and they match the files I uploaded to DWANGO BBS. 

BONUS: One reason DWANGO!.WAD came after DWANGO10 is possibly because of my obsession with what would have been DWANGO9 MAP01. Entryway remakes were all the rage on the Houston server. I worked on this map until the servers were shutdown. It then got updated again in 2002 for a new engine that allowed jumping. It got a few more updates over the years as I used it for local LAN play. It is only one map, it has had many names over the years including DWANGO9, it has updates that would have never made it to a final DWANGO WAD, and it is the only map I have worked on since compiling BLUDBATH and DWANGO!. I like it, but it was never intended to be distributed. If you need one good death match to come out of your search for DWANGO9, submitted for your approval / internet complaining, I give you Beta4Ev.wad. -Voyager7

DWANGO9ish.zip

Edited October 26, 2021 by Voyager7
typo

[Captain Ventris]

Gotta love living history. This thread has been an awesome ride!

[Wadmodder Shalton]

So maybe DWANGO9 was skipped due to disagreements and disputes with the Dallas and Houston servers.

[Shockwav3]

Great to finally know the backstory, after 25 years ... and being a part of resolving it - even tho the bulk credit of course goes to hdrambo, doomkid, Voyager7, dmage and everyone else involved. The "no such wad ever existed" on rarefiles always felt unsatisfying, even back in ~2000 - even when it remains technically/publically correct. This thread finally puts an end to that :)
It's amazing that while there never was an official dwango9 released that the map which lead to the recent discoveries, leading to Doomkids conclusion of "no, but technically yes" which I agree with, managed to have a life of its' own - thanks for sharing beta4ev.wad.

 

About picking up on the ties, I just checked out the whole .zip linked in the initial post back to front one night, discarding stuff I knew from "back then" (I'm part of the 'rebound' era, starting with csdoom and later moving on to zdaemon/skulltag til 2005 or 2006) or which felt like something else - the dwango9 texture of course helped a ton. Always found 80s/90s data time capsules to be extremely interesting and have a background with reverse engineering (I've made a gadget compatible to the disney sound source a few years back - likely based upon my teen ways of thinking "how is a company like disney involved with such a violent game" when seeing the sound option in wolf3d 25+ years back), so it was a given to not leave things at "oh, a dwango9 texture, cool".
Feels great to know my initial suspicion was "kinda right" :)

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Apparently @Voyager7's statement regarding DWANGO9 should be mentioned on the DoomWiki's DWANGO9 article.

[Doomkid]

Oh crap, I forgot about the article! It definitely needs revision now that we know more of the details. If someone else doesn’t do it within the next week, I’ll be happy to do so.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Oh also @Doomkid, you should update the description of your video about the DWANGO9 mystery, as @Voyager7 had since pointed out recently that the PWAD never technically existed, and to mention that both DWANGO!.WAD, DWANGO10.WAD & BLUDBATH.WAD were all intended to be DWANGO9.WAD at some point.

 

This information should also be put into the comments of your DWANGO9 mystery video, indicating that the DWANGO9 mystery is technically solved.

[dmage]

Take V7's word over mine.  As I said in my post, my contribution was pretty minor (some ripped graphics, and one map).  V7 was one of the ones doing all the real leg work.  So my impressions that it was "a fan DWANGO wad" may have been erroneous, a product of misremembering or misunderstanding.  But I'm glad V7 managed to set the record straight - straighter at least.

[Doomkid]

2 hours ago, dmage said:

So my impressions that it was "a fan DWANGO wad" may have been erroneous, a product of misremembering or misunderstanding.

No worries at all, dmage - just having some Dwango alums stop by and weigh in on this at all was an extremely nice surprise.

[roadworx]

2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

No worries at all, dmage - just having some Dwango alums stop by and weigh in on this at all was an extremely nice surprise.

you must be kinda starstruck from this :p

[Xymph]

On 10/5/2020 at 7:20 AM, garbaged said:

http://fuz.fi/doom2/irc/8-97-week1.txt contains a user who talks about not being able to find dwango9 in the ftp servers.  (Ctr-F dwango to find it). 

That link is now dead. Was it ever archived somewhere else?

 

Edit: got it: http://doom2.net/doom2/irc/8-97-week1.txt

Edited March 3, 2022 by Xymph