Patch The Doom 64 Re-releases

[Domestic-Weirdo]

Before anyone starts with "petitions don't work", let me say this. I'm well aware of the high probability that this will not budge Bethesda into getting Nightdive Studios to fix the inaccurate Baron Of Hell melee damage or the outdated DirectX 11 shaders.

 

Regardless, I set up this petition anyway because Bethesda Support is practically a brick wall on this issue. It has been over a year since Doom 64 was re-released, yet these problems are still present. Many say that Bethesda hasn't released a patch for Doom 64 because it lacks the popularity of the previous Doom games to provide the incentive for them to do so. If this can get 1,000 or more signatures, it will show that there's demand for post-launch support. Then maybe, a patch will be at least considered.

 

The issues plaguing the Doom 64 re-releases are minor, but fans deserve to have the most authentic experience of this game possible. Considering the lead developer has already found solutions to these problems: Bethesda does not have a good reason for the re-releases to remain unpatched. If anybody is interested, click the link below and leave a "signed" reply here.

 

Link: http://chng.it/vYnGLHJq7N or https://www.change.org/PatchDoom64

Edited July 3, 2022 by Domestic-Weirdo
Shortened topic title

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

10 minutes ago, Reelvonic said:

or just play the original on an n64

That´s not an ideal way, dude.

[Chip]

I think there are several members of the community who work at Nightdive. If I remember correctly, I think @Edward850 @Quasar and @Kaiser all work there. I would speak to Kaiser, although I don't think he's very active here on Doomworld. I think he might be on Discord, or you could get in touch with him by asking the others. Also, @sponge works at ID Software. I don't think he worked on this game, though. Although, I might be wrong. 

[Domestic-Weirdo]

Just now, Chip said:

I think there are several members of the community who work at Nightdive. If I remember correctly, I think @Edward850 @Quasar and @Kaiser all work there. I would speak to Kaiser, although I don't think he's very active here on Doomworld. I think he might be on Discord, or you could get in touch with him by asking the others. Also, @sponge works at ID Software. I don't think he worked on this game, though. Although, I might be wrong. 

@Chip But doesn't Bethesda have final say on whether or not a patch gets released? I read one of Kaiser's tweets which discussed the incorrect and correct formulas for the Barons' melee attacks and that was back in July 2020. Judging by the way he talks about it, he clearly seems upset about the mistake and yet the incorrect attack formula still stands in the present form of the remaster.

 

Edited April 25, 2021 by Domestic-Weirdo
Added commentator's name.

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

@Domestic-Weirdo Sadly this isn't the first time Nightdive was "fucked" over by publishers.

 

A few years ago after releasing Blood: Fresh supply, a lot of older fans noticed a lot of bugs in the port, while the team was able to fix the most critical, they werent allowed to continue the patches, because Atari reign in and took control of the final product, seeing it as acceptable, despite a lot of work to be done still.

[Domestic-Weirdo]

@MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai I remember hearing about that Blood debacle. I didn't know Nightdive worked on that though. It would seem the main difference here is the publisher pedigree. One is a AAA game developer/publisher (and now a subsidiary of Microsoft), the other is just a zombie brand run by inept businessmen. One would think Bethesda would have higher standa... oh, never mind.

 

Anyway, it's never too late. The Unity Doom games are still getting post-launch support so at least they recognize the importance of old-school crowd. Let's just hope that sentiment can cross over to 64.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Domestic-Weirdo

[BunnyWithBeans]

On 4/25/2021 at 12:24 AM, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

@Domestic-Weirdo Sadly this isn't the first time Nightdive was "fucked" over by publishers.

 

A few years ago after releasing Blood: Fresh supply, a lot of older fans noticed a lot of bugs in the port, while the team was able to fix the most critical, they werent allowed to continue the patches, because Atari reign in and took control of the final product, seeing it as acceptable, despite a lot of work to be done still.

 

The Fresh Supply debacle still makes my Blood boil. Atari is a walking corpse of a company at this point (and to my knowledge, not even the same Atari from the 80s.) They've barely had a claim to fame since the early 2000s, and seemingly only hold the Blood IP specifically so that nothing is ever done with it. Poor Blood community will never have that source code release.

 

For Doom 64: I doubt Microsoft sees it worth it to make minor patches for a 5 dollar game at this point, though if you want you should probably contact Kaiser for details (or just play Doom 64 EX.)

 

 

 

[Kinsie]

On 4/25/2021 at 6:04 AM, Domestic-Weirdo said:

Bethesda does not have a good reason for the re-releases to remain unpatched.

Patches aren't free to make, and people don't work for free. It may be that the issues (which I believe amount to a damage inaccuracy and D64EX custom maps not functioning quite right?) are considered sufficiently minor and non-gamebreaking that they aren't worth the money needed for Night Dive development, Bethesda QA and going through the cert/lotcheck/etc. process on Switch/PS4/Xbox/Stadia. It sucks, but such are the cold, calculated ways of business.

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, BunnyWithBeans said:

Atari is a walking corpse of a company at this point (and to my knowledge, not even the same Atari from the 80s.)

Yeah, it's not the same Atari.

 

The 1980s Atari actually split into two companies. The console/home PC divisions were sold off, while the game design side was renamed Atari Games. Those guys kept making arcade games well into the 90s, and did a little bit of home console stuff under the Tengen brand (mostly on the NES). In 1996 they got sold to WMS Industries (which owned the Williams, Midway, and Bally brands), and eventually renamed to Midway Games West in late 1999 before ceasing as a productive studio in 2003.

 

The console/PC hardware side was sold to Jack Tramiel, who reverse-merged with JT Storage in 1996, which then got absorbed into Hasbro in 1998, which was bought by Infrogrames in 2001, which merged it with GT Interactive to become the Atari we know today.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Dark Pulse

[Domestic-Weirdo]

Just now, Kinsie said:

Patches aren't free to make, and people don't work for free. It may be that the issues (which I believe amount to a damage inaccuracy and D64EX custom maps not functioning quite right?) are considered sufficiently minor and non-gamebreaking that they aren't worth the money needed for Night Dive development, Bethesda QA and going through the cert/lotcheck/etc. process on Switch/PS4/Xbox/Stadia.

I don't understand, under this supposition, why they would continually update the Unity versions of Doom/Doom II across Switch/PS4/Xbox One/iOS/Android when they could have just stopped at the 1st or 2nd update(s) that fixed the Bethesda.net login screen and audio/lighting issues because most of the issues that persisted after those updates were fairly minor as well.

 

Nerve Software has continually been addressing bugs and adding extra features to these ports since they launched. Sure, both games are more popular than Doom 64, but the sheer number of comprehensive, substantial updates in addition to current add-on support seems to go beyond what most companies would be willing to do for retro titles like these. That's the annoying thing, seeing two games receive continuous update support with one being pretty much left out entirely. It puts a damper on Doom 64's otherwise grand return to mainstream gaming.

 

[Edward850]

29 minutes ago, Domestic-Weirdo said:

I don't understand, under this supposition, why they would continually update the Unity versions of Doom/Doom II across Switch/PS4/Xbox One/iOS/Android when they could have just stopped at the 1st or 2nd update(s) that fixed the Bethesda.net login screen and audio/lighting issues because most of the issues that persisted after those updates were fairly minor as well.

The first couple of patches were in direct relation to improving sales, and all other patches lined up with releasing the game on yet another platform and thus more sales.

 

30 minutes ago, Domestic-Weirdo said:

Nerve Software has continually been addressing bugs and adding extra features to these ports since they launched.

I'm not certain, but I think all the patches at this point have been done by one guy in-house at Id.

[P41R47]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

I'm not certain, but I think all the patches at this point have been done by one guy in-house at Id.

who, we can mostly assume, its being paid to do maintenace on that port, along other things as an employee of Id Software.

So, @Domestic-Weirdo, were in the world is that bad?
Bethesda owns/owned Id, not Night Dive. That could be one of the simplest reasons of not releasing more patches for Doom 64.

Edited April 28, 2021 by P41R47

[Kinsie]

5 hours ago, Edward850 said:

The first couple of patches were in direct relation to improving sales, and all other patches lined up with releasing the game on yet another platform and thus more sales.

There's also the bit where the issues with the Unity versions were... quite a bit larger and more pressing than the issues that Doom 64 has, which I don't think most players will even notice.

 

5 hours ago, Edward850 said:

I'm not certain, but I think all the patches at this point have been done by one guy in-house at Id.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure everything post-release has been Sponge and the occasional community contractor.

[Devalaous]

The official add-ons don't even need patches to the engine to work, so its probably cost-free or at least skipping whatever ridiculous fees the greedy platform overlords charge.

 

Regardless, refusal to patch things never comes across well to customers in the long run, no matter how many bucks are saved.

[Old-Doomguy]

There was recently a patch for Doom64 on the Switch, which I downloaded the other day. I Didn't fint any patchnotes, anyone know what it was?

[Dark Pulse]

4 hours ago, Devalaous said:

The official add-ons don't even need patches to the engine to work, so its probably cost-free or at least skipping whatever ridiculous fees the greedy platform overlords charge.

Nope. In the console world, every patch must pass platform Q&A as well. Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft want that money.

[Devalaous]

2 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

Nope. In the console world, every patch must pass platform Q&A as well. Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft want that money.

I'm referring to Sponge stating that the add-on system isn't reliant on title updates, so they can add new ones without having to patch the game again and again. I suspect this is key to why they can do it. Syringe was added recently for example, yet no new patch came through.

[Dark Pulse]

4 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

I'm referring to Sponge stating that the add-on system isn't reliant on title updates, so they can add new ones without having to patch the game again and again. I suspect this is key to why they can do it. Syringe was added recently for example, yet no new patch came through.

Yes, I'm just saying anything that would constitute an actual patch is something the manufacturers will want to go through QA, and that costs devs/publishers money, so needless to say there's an incentive to not just throw a patch out there.

[OpenRift]

On 4/24/2021 at 4:10 PM, Reelvonic said:

or just play the original on an n64

I don't have an N64, also FPS controls on the N64 are an abomination.

[jamman39]

I don’t think anybody would even notices these ‘problems’ if Kaiser hadn’t pointed them out. We’re lucky that Doom 64 ever got a rerelease at all. The game looks and performs great, and came out at a price so low that I don’t think anybody is really making money on it.

 

Im not gonna complain. 

[Edward850]

8 hours ago, Old-Doomguy said:

There was recently a patch for Doom64 on the Switch, which I downloaded the other day. I Didn't fint any patchnotes, anyone know what it was?

Just meta data updates for LRG release.

7 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

Nope. In the console world, every patch must pass platform Q&A as well. Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft want that money.

They don't charge for patches, last platforms to do that was PS3/Xbox360. QA costs are purely on internal QA teams at this point.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Edward850

[chungy]

4 hours ago, OpenRift said:

I don't have an N64, also FPS controls on the N64 are an abomination.

The brightness levels on the N64 are atrocious too. Even on the maximum settings, I can barely see anything at all. The re-release is far superior in this regard.

[OpenRift]

2 minutes ago, chungy said:

The brightness levels on the N64 are atrocious too. Even on the maximum settings, I can barely see anything at all. The re-release is far superior in this regard.

Well the brighness is intentional and makes sense. It's supposed to be dark and spooky and stuff. It's essentially Doom 3 before Doom 3 (also better than Doom 3).

[Edward850]

22 minutes ago, OpenRift said:

Well the brighness is intentional and makes sense. It's supposed to be dark and spooky and stuff. It's essentially Doom 3 before Doom 3 (also better than Doom 3).

I don't think you appreciate just how dark it actually was. They made the (self admitted) mistake of making the game on CRTs in dark rooms, as a result it ended up as what I could only describe as under-exposed. Doom 3 was a brighter game.

Curiously in porting the game, the lowest brightness for us is just the normal graphics with no post processing or lighting tweaks, and it's still brighter than the N64 version. They must have been applying some kind of negative gamma to it somewhere on the N64 graphics pipeline.

[chungy]

Yeah, Doom 3 is a fullbright game compared to (the original release of) Doom 64.

 

I've heard that it's more visible on CRT TVs, but at least with my N64 hooked up to a modern LCD, it's too dark no matter what, even playing at night with no light at all outside of the TV.

Edited April 28, 2021 by chungy

[Boaby Kenobi]

6 hours ago, chungy said:

The brightness levels on the N64 are atrocious too. Even on the maximum settings, I can barely see anything at all.

 

The PAL version of Doom 64 has its default brightness setting at 50% greater than the NTSC, so if you turn the brightness up to its maximum settings it's actually not that bad at all. Not sure about the NTSC-J edition but I think it's the same as the PAL.

[chungy]

I'm not going to bother getting European or Japanese N64s plus their localized versions of the game :P

 

Much better to just use this rerelease.

[Doomkid]

I will say that playing Doom64 on a large, high quality CRT in a dark room was an irreplaceable experience, but rarely is that how I play games. I haven't had a CRT since about 2012, it's just too much of a pain in the ass to lug around not to mention the pointless power consumption. By comparison, the re-release looks good on any display.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Doomkid

[Roebloz]

On 4/26/2021 at 10:38 PM, BunnyWithBeans said:

Atari is a walking corpse of a company at this point (and to my knowledge, not even the same Atari from the 80s.)

Yeah, the new Atari is just the old French company Infogrames. (Who are maybe as infamous as LJN among the French retro-gaming community for adapting a lot of Franco-Belgian comics into games during the 16-bit era, were extremely hard and were reviewed by the Joueur du Grenier, who is essentially the French AVGN)

Oh, and speaking about similarities to LJN, in the late 90s they also merged with Ocean which uh...I think you know where this is going. Did I mention they were the one to come to the rescue of the Mission: Impossible N64 game during its tortured development? They aren't that bad compared to LJN, true, but I am not surprised that they would keep the Blood license so nothing can be made with it.

[Seppe]

Signed it

Hope this will change something and not make Doom 64 another remaster by Nightdive that is abandoned by the publisher.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Seppe