John Romero releases first new Doom II map to support UN/Red Cross relief in Ukraine

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

13 minutes ago, Thelokk said:

 

I actually do that a lot when I'm not UDMF mapping. Too many times I merged sectors for sound propagation, and then found myself needing them separate. 

 

I only ever merge teleporters outside the playable map. If something goes wrong, those are easy to delete/redo in vertex mode. Merged sectors are a pain to deal with. Same goes with deleted sectors in my version of Eureka editor. There's no easy way (if any) to recreate the deleted sector.

[Shikamaze]

I don't know a lot about law, but can't he get in trouble by doing this? He is releasing a level for something he doesn't own for money. Even if it's for charity, this doesn't seem legal. 

[NaturalTvventy]

38 minutes ago, Shikamaze said:

I don't know a lot about law, but can't he get in trouble by doing this? He is releasing a level for something he doesn't own for money. Even if it's for charity, this doesn't seem legal. 

He sold SIGIL without issue so I think he's in the clear.

[Clippy]

I can't stop playing this map clearly

 

 

[D4NUK1]

5 hours ago, Shikamaze said:

I don't know a lot about law, but can't he get in trouble by doing this? He is releasing a level for something he doesn't own for money. Even if it's for charity, this doesn't seem legal. 

 

He sells his.wads with some loopholes.

 

Sigil one you're buying the buckethead soundtrack, with extra of a free sigil.wad

 

This mapset it's more like he's giving you a reward for donating to the red/cross UK. 

[Shikamaze]

5 hours ago, NaturalTvventy said:

He sold SIGIL without issue so I think he's in the clear.

 

50 minutes ago, D4NUK1 said:

Sigil one you're buying the buckethead soundtrack, with extra of a free sigil.wad

 

 

Sigil was different in that he "sold" it but also released it for free. Unless i'm missing something this one is only available after a donation. 

[NaturalTvventy]

Can't anyone sell a pwad? It's the iwads which are the issue.

[Edward850]

2 hours ago, NaturalTvventy said:

Can't anyone sell a pwad? It's the iwads which are the issue.

It's a grey area that's thus far unchallenged, given there's no EULA specifically permitting or denying using Doom as a platform for commercial use. Even if it is just a level, you'd still be using Doom as the sales pitch and thus may still run up against copyright.

 

However given it's a) John Romero and b) for charity (and non profit) for extremely important current events, nobody relevant is likely going to bother questioning it.

[Zaxxon]

4 hours ago, Shikamaze said:

 

 

Sigil was different in that he "sold" it but also released it for free. Unless i'm missing something this one is only available after a donation. 

 

I tought he was selling Buckethead's soundtrack and Sigil came as a free bonus to it? Correct me if i'm wrong. It's certainly a currious case. Or maybe he has a permission from id to do these things, and we just don't know about it?

[Dark Pulse]

It should be noted that this is in the WAD's readme file:

 

Quote

You MAY distribute this file, provided you include this text file, with no modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact. I have received permission from the original authors of any modified or included content in this file to allow further distribution.

So this means that technically, the WAD is free to distribute. Anywhere.

 

However, this is also noted in the file...

Quote

One Humanity is released to raise funds to support the Ukrainian people. 100% of the proceeds from this level will be donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to assist in their humanitarian efforts in supporting those displaced and those still in Ukraine.
 

If you obtained this file for free, please consider making a donation to the Ukranian Red Cross or the UN Central Emergency Response Fund. https://redcross.org.ua/en/

...so yeah, the $5 is really purely for a donation. The WAD is free. But the intent is to get money to those who need it in Ukraine.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Dark Pulse

[NaturalTvventy]

Weird random one-way door to the place you just were.

[Arno]

I think this is an awesome initiative, and a fun map too. Good to hear that it is doing quite well. Over €25K raised so far.

 

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Arno

[Hyacsho]

I did it myself! I love what Romero did and why he did it. Also decided to kick off my new WAD review series with One Humanity, if anyone is curious to check it out, or leave their feedback: 

 

[Rudolph]

Does John Romero have any plans to release more SIGIL maps to raise funds for other humanitarian emergencies?

 

As bad as things are in Ukraine right now, it is not the only place in the world right now that needs help.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Rudolph

[amackert]

Donated and grabbed this map yesterday. Love that it's not a complete walk-in-the-park by vanilla style standards and it's forced me to restart several times to learn its layout and tricks/traps. Good stuff. I'd love to see Romero make more maps. This, Sigil and the pre-Sigil couple of maps were fun to go through.

[Nikku4211]

On 3/6/2022 at 9:30 PM, NaturalTvventy said:

Can't anyone sell a pwad? It's the iwads which are the issue.

Specificially, it's the assets contained in the official Doom IWADs that are the issue. 

 

There are definitely completely original IWADs for the Doom engine that the author has the rights to sell if they wanted to.

 

This means that PWADs containing (non-graphical, as Doom's EULA specifically allows the graphics to be used in custom WADs) assets, modified or not, from the official Doom are also legally problematic, and so are WADs containing any assets from other games like Heretic and Hexen.

 

As far as I know(I don't have the WAD), One Humanity only contains a level, no serious copyrighted assets inside the PWAD file itself.

 

On 3/7/2022 at 12:28 AM, Dark Pulse said:

It should be noted that this is in the WAD's readme file:

Quote

You MAY distribute this file, provided you include this text file, with no modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact. I have received permission from the original authors of any modified or included content in this file to allow further distribution.

So this means that technically, the WAD is free to distribute. Anywhere.

 

This looks like it could have been a mistake, to be honest. This is a part of the template for a .txt file to be included with a WAD release, and just doesn't make sense considering the context of how the WAD was released.

 

On 3/7/2022 at 12:28 AM, Dark Pulse said:

However, this is also noted in the file...

Quote

One Humanity is released to raise funds to support the Ukrainian people. 100% of the proceeds from this level will be donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to assist in their humanitarian efforts in supporting those displaced and those still in Ukraine.
  

If you obtained this file for free, please consider making a donation to the Ukranian Red Cross or the UN Central Emergency Response Fund. https://redcross.org.ua/en/

...so yeah, the $5 is really purely for a donation. The WAD is free. But the intent is to get money to those who need it in Ukraine.

 

I don't think this quote implies the WAD itself is supposed to be free with a donation. It looks like it's merely written just for anyone who happened to be given the WAD by someone else who bought it, or anyone who found the WAD somewhere on the internet up for download.

 

Sure, the language isn't really in a forceful tone, but honestly, by that point, not like you can do anything about it.

 

But if the WAD was supposed to be free, John Romero wouldn't release it the way he did. You have to purchase the WAD in order to get it.

Just because all of the money's going to charity doesn't mean the thing being sold is free. Either way, you have to pay for it.

[Dark Pulse]

7 minutes ago, Nikku4211 said:

I don't think this quote implies the WAD itself is supposed to be free with a donation. It looks like it's merely written just for anyone who happened to be given the WAD by someone else who bought it, or anyone who found the WAD somewhere on the internet up for download.

 

Sure, the language isn't really in a forceful tone, but honestly, by that point, not like you can do anything about it.

 

But if the WAD was supposed to be free, John Romero wouldn't release it the way he did. You have to purchase the WAD in order to get it.

Just because all of the money's going to charity doesn't mean the thing being sold is free. Either way, you have to pay for it.

The point is he's aware it will eventually get put out there for free, and is covering his ass - if you "have" to pay for the PWAD, that would potentially risk the wrath of Bethesda coming down on him. It's the exact same situation with SIGIL - you paid for the soundtrack, the PWAD was technically free. Eventually, the PWAD made it out into the wilds; so it will be here.

 

But the point, as demonstrated by the next line, is that he is aware of that it will make it out there sooner or later, so he's doing two things to try to get the point of the WAD hammered home - one, mandating that the TXT be included, and two, in that TXT making a plea to the person to donate to Ukraine relief efforts.

[VanaheimRanger]

I donated and got a decent map.  It feels like it was probably an early to mid-game Sigil 2 map, and I expect it will probably still be included in Sigil 2 when it releases.  I don't mind paying $5 for it now even though it will probably be free later on since that $5 is going to a good cause.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by VanaheimRanger

[Nikku4211]

Just bought the WAD and played it in HNTR in RUDE.

 

It was okay, there's a tutti-frutti on the lava wall though.

 

It took me a while to remember you were supposed to shoot the eye things. It was also so dark it was hard to see everything. I guess John really does like Doom 3...

 

It was an interesting level, though.

[OliveTree]

On 3/6/2022 at 5:50 PM, Shikamaze said:

Sigil was different in that he "sold" it but also released it for free. Unless i'm missing something this one is only available after a donation. 

the readme actually says its ok to distribute one-humanity as long as it includes the text file alongside it

[pcorf]

On 3/19/2022 at 9:14 AM, Nikku4211 said:

It was okay, there's a tutti-frutti on the lava wall though.

 

The map is intended to be played with a limit removing source port.

[Nikku4211]

17 hours ago, pcorf said:

 

The map is intended to be played with a limit removing source port.

 

I was playing with a limit-removing source port. RUDE is a limit-removing source port. It's even a tribute to John Romero.

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, Nikku4211 said:

 

I was playing with a limit-removing source port. RUDE is a limit-removing source port. It's even a tribute to John Romero.

This limit removing port doesn't fix texture tiling limits, which while I'm not sure if we consider part of the limit removing spec, it is something even the official port even does. I think we really only consider it a vanilla limitation at this point.

[Nikku4211]

1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

This limit removing port doesn't fix texture tiling limits, which while I'm not sure if we consider part of the limit removing spec, it is something even the official port even does. I think we really only consider it a vanilla limitation at this point.

Yeah, I can already tell that.

 

The map otherwise works fine under RUDE.

It would have crashed at some point under vanilla and be literally unplayable on it as a result.

 

The term 'limit-removing' has always been so vague. Nothing specific listed about exactly what limits are expected to be removed, the term merely gives the impression of 'literally ANY limit-removing source port'.

 

Compared to vanilla, even DOS Boom is 'limit-removing' to some extent.