Passing pure vanilla IWAD's on UV in old-school way

[UnknDoomer]

While recording a series of videos for the local gaming portal, related to old titles, I've managed to find an answer to a kind of rhetorical question - is it fine enough to play pure vanilla IWADs in 2K22 in a "tractor" (slang word we are using in CIS for such style of playing; players are, in turn, referred to as "tractor drivers") way, i.e. without a mouse / camera rotation in overall, any ports and even on UV difficulty?

 

Well. As it turned out - yes, even if in the current ordinary day you are an avid adherent of GzDoom and sort. The secondary question was a challange with the following conditions:

1. Do not use the mouse.
2. Complete one map from each episode on UV difficulty or equivalent. If there is only one episode available, then go through 3 levels with the same conditions.

3. Don't use saves and don't die.

 

What came of it can be seen in the videos below:

 

The Ultimate Doom - https://youtu.be/wSgFm-tw5SY

Doom II - https://youtu.be/J0d9WwvQmMs

The Plutonia Experiment - https://youtu.be/SEstS8nxJH0

Evilution - https://youtu.be/Y7JQslTwxgk

 

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - https://youtu.be/cqofqk-QAlo

Quake - https://youtu.be/grGadvXWED4

Bonus. Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition - https://youtu.be/eYR9stV9TAg

Edited June 27, 2022 by UnknDoomer

[Shepardus]

Doom always supported mouse turning, and you can even see it in the in-game demos. That said, the IWADs are perfectly playable with just a keyboard.

[Budoka]

Can this misconception die already? Even Wolfenstein 3D had mouse support built in. There's a report on YouTube filmed during the development of Doom("A visit to Id Software") in which you can see Romero himself test the game using mouse + keyboard. Even the setup prorgam for DOOM.EXE has mouse options. The only people who played keyboard only before the advent of source ports either didn't own a mouse at the time(like me), or simply didn't know any better. This has been pointed out multiple times on these forums as it is. 

[SMG_Man]

28 minutes ago, Budoka said:

either didn't own a mouse at the time(like me), or simply didn't know any better.

 

or C. knew that the mouse worked with Doom but thought that it was used INSTEAD of keys since it gave forward and backward movement by default.

 

Haha...

[Gregor]

14 hours ago, UnknDoomer said:

While recording a series of videos for the local gaming portal, related to old titles, I've managed to find an answer to a kind of rhetorical question - is it fine enough to play pure vanilla IWADs in 2K22 in a "tractor" (slang word we are using in CIS for such style of playing; players are, in turn, referred to as "tractor drivers") way, i.e. without a mouse / camera rotation in overall, any ports and even on UV difficulty?

 

Well. As it turned out - yes, even if in the current ordinary day you are an avid adherent of GzDoom and sort. The secondary question was a challange with the following conditions:

1. Do not use the mouse.
2. Complete one map from each episode on UV difficulty or equivalent. If there is only one episode available, then go through 3 levels with the same conditions.

3. Don't use saves and don't die.

i don't understand the OP. What do you mean with "is it fine enough to play pure vanilla IWADs in 2K22 in a "tractor" (slang word we are using in CIS for such style of playing)"? I honestly don't get the meaning of this sentence. What does CIS stand for in this context? Doesn't that imply cisgender? And why would you only play through 1-3 map under these conditions instead of all of them??

Edited June 27, 2022 by Gregor

[Shepardus]

1 minute ago, Gregor said:

i don't understand the OP. What do you mean with "is it fine enough to play pure vanilla IWADs in 2K22 in a "tractor" (slang word we are using in CIS for such style of playing)"? I honestly don't get the meaning of this sentence. What does 2k22 mean? What does CIS stand for in this context? Doesn't that imply cisgender? And why would you only play through 1-3 map under these conditions instead of all of them??

2k22 = 2022

CIS

[sandwedge]

tractor style is a pretty amusing term for keyboard only controls, haha.  I'm just picturing doomguy plowing through techbases on a john deere or something.  Or this:

 

 

[Jayextee]

1 hour ago, Budoka said:

The only people who played keyboard only before the advent of source ports either didn't own a mouse at the time(like me), or simply didn't know any better. This has been pointed out multiple times on these forums as it is. 

Or, and I literally am talking 'in the '90s' here, people with such low-spec computers that they'd have to edit-out mouse support in their autoexec.bat (among other things to wrangle what little spare memory they could out of the system) to get DOOM running at anything even close to playable because they were running it on a 386 or something because that was all they could afford.

May or may not be speaking from experience there... ;)

Edited June 27, 2022 by Jayextee

[Redneckerz]

2 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Or, and I literally am talking 'in the '90s' here, people with such low-spec computers that they'd have to edit-out mouse support in their autoexec.bat (among other things to wrangle what little spare memory they could out of the system) to get DOOM running at anything even close to playable because they were running it on a 386 or something because that was all they could afford.

May or may not be speaking from experience there... ;)

Always wondered how that would run, on a 386.

 

With FastDoom, even a 386 has a chance to run Doom somewhat okay, whilst looking somewhat like Doom.

[Jayextee]

I can't remember my exact specs (only that it wasn't quite the recommended minimum) but at roughly 1/2 screen size and low detail I could get something reasonably-playable, but definitely lower than the 35hz ticrate.

And, I reiterate, this was without mouse control; and sound -- I think the soundcard drivers were the biggest hit on performance, IIRC. I coulda gone with PC speaker sounds, but they were nasty.

[Optimus]

I used to play Doom keyboard only since it's inception, I wasn't aware of the mouse control. It existed, but it wasn't a standard, you'd never play an action game and think "where is the mouse control?". Many years later, when someone showed me Quake 2 with mouse (I even finished Quake one keyboard only on my 486, that's how much I didn't know better), at first I was like "How can you play an FPS like this with keyboard mouse compo?". And I was very awkward when I tried. Years later I was still play ZDoom with keyboard only, before I moved to the full GZDoom mouselook. So, for many of us it wasn't standard, and you didn't even think mouse can be used in a useful way on an FPS game. The wasd+mouse concept wasn't a thing when Doom was out and even a bit later before Quake.

[Lippeth]

New challenge: Only use the mouse.

 

I just realized that I have photo proof of myself playing mouse-only when Doom was still new. It was near the end of a photo album labeled [1991 - 1994] and my whole life I assumed it was around spring of '94 but the photos around it suggest that it was at a Christmas get together in '93, with the last photo being labeled "New Year's Day 1994".

Spoiler

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Lippeth

[Jello]

12 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

New challenge: Only use the mouse.

 

I just realized that I have photo proof of myself playing mouse-only when Doom was still new. It was near the end of a photo album labeled [1991 - 1994]

I had a friend who's Dad would play joystick only. And it was a two button joystick, so essentially a mouse with less precise control. And he was still pretty good at it.

 

I myself always used a mouse+keyboard. The first time I played Doom and Wolfenstein was at that same friend's house, and that's how he and his brothers played it. Never occured to me to just use the keyboard.

[Dark Pulse]

17 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

New challenge: Only use the mouse.

 

I just realized that I have photo proof of myself playing mouse-only when Doom was still new. It was near the end of a photo album labeled [1991 - 1994]

Lookit all them floppies right next to it.

 

Cool picture. But the REAL question is "Which wrestler was your favorite one on that hat?"

[Lippeth]

24 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

Which wrestler was your favorite one on that hat?

Animal from the Legion of Doom, no pun intended!

Edited June 27, 2022 by Lippeth

[rzh]

4 hours ago, Gregor said:

What does CIS stand for in this context? Doesn't that imply cisgender?

This might be the funniest thing I read today.

[Noiser]

15 hours ago, Budoka said:

The only people who played keyboard only before the advent of source ports either didn't own a mouse at the time(like me), or simply didn't know any better. 

This is also a myth. A lot of people simply did not liked to play on a mouse due to the slow sensibilty of vanilla doom + the fact that "ball mouses" were very awkward to use in general. Not only that, but the default control settings (with arrow keys) was not the best for mouse control as well.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Noiser

[magicsofa]

5 hours ago, Budoka said:

Can this misconception die already? Even Wolfenstein 3D had mouse support built in. 

 

I actually first learned to use the mouse in Wolf3D by watching the in game demos. I was like, how are they moving and turning so smoothly? I even thought they might have programmed the demo instead of actually recording it...

It is fun to play doom with keyboard only however, not a bad skill to have in case you want to play on a laptop but don't have a proper mouse/table

[brick]

58 minutes ago, Noiser said:

This is also a myth. A lot of people simply did not liked to play on a mouse due to the slow sensibilty of vanilla doom + the fact that "ball mouses" was very awkward to use in general.

People forget how difficult ball mice used to be. Oxyd was one of my favourite games back then, but I had to spend a few minutes cleaning the mouse before every single play session if I didn't want it to turn into an exercise in frustration. In-game mouse sensitivity was also not a thing, you had to set it with the mouse driver (if that even allowed it...) and going back and forth testing sensitivities until you found the right one for you was not fun. And of course there was no X and Y separation of sensitivity, so making turns more smooth also meant you move forward and back more easily (getting visions of The Chasm now...)

 

Budoka brought up Wolf3D mouse support, but this was much more difficult than with Doom because there were no separate key binds for strafe left and strafe right, and for those of us who got used to doing everything with the keyboard in Wolf, staying with it for Doom was natural. I don't even remember if the early versions of Doom already had the individuals binds (they're definitely there in 1.9). I didn't really start using keyboard+mouse until source ports, some time in 98 or 99. It helped that I was on a P2 by then, and the FPS was much improved over my crusty 386 and 486, which made mouse control easier IMO.

 

I do remember even in 94 or 95 knowing about the mouse being used, even if it was not something I was personally comfortable with. My impression at the time was that it was more "keyboard for casual play, mouse for the pros", and I remember for sure reading about Romero zipping around Doom I maps at superhuman speed.

 

For the record I did beat both main games on UV keyboard-only at the time. Wouldn't do it again though, now that optical mice, ports and all the other QOL are a thing.

 

The pic Lippeth posted is adorable and brings back tons of fond memories of the times.

Edited June 27, 2022 by brick

[Dark Pulse]

7 hours ago, Lippeth said:

Animal from the Legion of Doom, no pun intended!

Have my favorite promo from them of all time, then. Animal was no slouch on the mic, but Hawk always stole the show. Especially here.

 

 

 

"DAVIIIID... CRRRRROCKETT!!!!"

[Murdoch]

14 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Always wondered how that would run, on a 386.

 

The answer you seek is... badly. I speak from experience.

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

 

The answer you seek is... badly. I speak from experience.

But the real answer is.. how badly. All i read are  setups running on 486's or perhaps a high end 386 - I want to read about 386 SX grade hardware. How low can you go? In fact, how low can you go with a source port, like Boom?

Edited June 28, 2022 by Redneckerz

[magicsofa]

16 hours ago, brick said:

Budoka brought up Wolf3D mouse support, but this was much more difficult than with Doom because there were no separate key binds for strafe left and strafe right

 

You can't do independent strafing with just the keyboard either, so the lack of strafing keys makes the game harder to control regardless of using a mouse or not. But, since using the mouse allows you to strafe with a lot more precision, and gives you the ability to do certain motions with a simple swipe rather than several button presses, and allows you to aim quickly, I think making use of it gives you an even bigger advantage over keys-only than it does in doom. 

[Hitboi]

On 6/27/2022 at 3:18 AM, UnknDoomer said:

3. Don't use saves and don't die.

Why no saves? This just makes it a little harder but that doesn't help making it feel old-school.

 

18 hours ago, Noiser said:

This is also a myth. A lot of people simply did not liked to play on a mouse due to the slow sensibilty of vanilla doom + the fact that "ball mouses" were very awkward to use in general. Not only that, but the default control settings (with arrow keys) was not the best for mouse control as well.

I don't agree that this is a myth, but I DO agree that some old PC games had bad mouse sensibilty.

[Noiser]

16 hours ago, Hitboi said:

Why no saves? This just makes it a little harder but that doesn't help making it feel old-school.

 

I don't agree that this is a myth, but I DO agree that some old PC games had bad mouse sensibilty.

Vanilla Doom was made for mouse input, but for many people it wasn't a very good one. I was there and almost no one around me liked to play shooters with a mouse. Quake and Half-Life were the first games were I saw people using mouse and keyboard as a standard.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Noiser

[UnknDoomer]

Quote

Doom always supported mouse turning, and you can even see it in the in-game demos.

I didn't tell that it's not. The context is different.

 

Quote

And why would you only play through 1-3 map under these conditions instead of all of them?? 

Because videos required to be short enough to cover the original task.

 

Quote

2k22 = 2022
CIS

Quote

tractor style is a pretty amusing term for keyboard only controls, haha.  I'm just picturing doomguy plowing through techbases on a john deere or something.

That's right. As you can see in video movements are quite distinctive, at an angle of 90 degrees.

 

Quote

The only people who played keyboard only before the advent of source ports either didn't own a mouse at the time(like me)

Quote

Or, and I literally am talking 'in the '90s' here

 

Originally it's started from this point, or, in other words, one of the main reasons. Locally there were few other points. Some rumors tell that till specific times mice were are quite expensive around. Not to mention the fact that huge part of local folks didn't have computers in overall, rather pirate clones of NES / Sega Genesis from Taiwan, less commonly official Japanese one, same to SNES / 3DO, while if they are then it usually still were old 286 and sometimes 386 machines, while Doom II required:

 

Minimum system requirements:

 

CPU Intel 386DX-40MHz / Athlon;

RAM (memory): 4 MB;

Videocard: 1MB;

Space on disk: 20 MB.

 

Recommended system requirements:

 

CPU Intel 486DX-66MHz / Athlon;

RAM (memory): 8 MB;

Videocard: 2MB;

Space on disk: 100 MB.

 

Quote

People forget how difficult ball mice used to be.

Cleaning and messing with these balls was a separate ritual.

Edited July 10, 2022 by UnknDoomer

[Hitboi]

14 hours ago, Noiser said:

Vanilla Doom was made for mouse input, but for many people it wasn't a very good one. I was there and almost no one around me liked to play shooters with a mouse. Quake and Half-Life were the first games were I saw people using mouse and keyboard as a standard.

Yes, but there's a difference between "meant for" and "people didn't do that".

[UnknDoomer]

Here is the typical "tractor driver" keyboard layout in compare to "nowadays" WASD kind:

Forward - arrow up / w.
Back - arrow down / s.
Turn around hero axis to the left - arrow left (fixed low speed) / mouse left (any speed).
Turn around hero axis to the right - arrow right (fixed low speed) / mouse right (any speed).
Run forward - lshift + arrow up / shift + w.
Run backward - lshift + arrow down / shift + s.
Turn around hero axis to the left - lshift + arrow left (fixed high speed) / mouse left.
Turn around hero axis to the right - lshift + arrow right (fixed high speed) / mouse right.
Straif left - lalt + left / a.
Staif right - lalt + right / d.
Shoot - lctrl / left mouse button.
Second shoot - z / right mouse button.
Open / use - space / e.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by UnknDoomer