Have the past few years been the best ever for WADS?

[Captain Keen]

Ironically, it seems like since the pandemic hit there has been more incredible custom Doom content than ever before. From mods like Voxel Doom to endless top quality wads, including some of my favorite map sets that I've ever played. Just off the top of my head, some great wads from the past couple of years: Elementalism, ADO2022, Nostalgia, Anomaly Report, Declaring New Apocalypse, Interception II, Zone 400, TNT2, Solar Struggle, Silence, Serenade, Stickney Installation, Apocaclips, maybe more Earthless... maybe SIGIL 2 coming up...

 

I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff too.

[fai1025]

I mean if you find yourself amidst of a lockdown, you can't go anywhere, you can't do anything, why not spent more time on perfecting a Doom wad

Edited September 19, 2022 by fai1025

[Murdoch]

Well this is one of those points that no doubt someone will want to argue about, but let's not lose sight of the fact that Doom is nearly 30 years old and the modding output rivals if not exceeds every game released since. That singular fact is quite beyond extraordinary. 

[Sonikkumania]

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

Well this is one of those points that no doubt someone will want to argue about, but let's not lose sight of the fact that Doom is nearly 30 years old and the modding output rivals if not exceeds every game released since. That singular fact is quite beyond extraordinary. 

This, and also a wide range of modding. Let's say you just want to map Vanilla style: you learn that pretty quick. Then if  you want to do something more complex, you can. And it's being worked on all the time.

[Captain Keen]

2 hours ago, fai1025 said:

I mean if you find yourself amidst of a lockdown, you can't go anywhere, you can't do anything, why not spent more time on perfecting a Doom wad

Very true. I just mean that the past few years have been rough for the world… but these feel like the golden days for Doom! Though as has been pointed out, it’s amazing how a 30 year old game still has such an active community. I would not be surprised if we’re still seeing dozens of wads and mods created in 20 or 30 years. I wonder who will win a Cacoward in 2042. And will I be playing Doom on hologram yet?

[Pechudin]

Also, Doom Eternal and the recent renaissance of older-style shooters helped introduce new people to Doom.

[Wyrmwood]

Well I only got back into Doom around 2yrs ago, I was utterly amazed at how active the community was. Think early on I came across an issue of the Wadazine, really opened my eyes to the whole Doom scene and the whole scope of it. Been checking WADs and mods daily recently and every other day something awesome drops sometimes several times a day.

 

Would be interesting to hear from some of the guys who've been here at lot longer. Has it always been like this, did the future of Doom seem so bright 10yrs ago?

 

It's seems to me the renaissance of Doom style shooter must owe as much to the popularity of classic Doom as much as the modern Doom games as most of them try to emulate Doom or Quake.

[Deadwing]

Definitely, you can see how Cacowards had to grow in the latest years due to the amount of high-quality stuff that has been released (2021 especially)

[Captain Keen]

28 minutes ago, Wyrmwood said:

Would be interesting to hear from some of the guys who've been here at lot longer. Has it always been like this, did the future of Doom seem so bright 10yrs ago? 

 

Good question. Doom was my favorite thing ever in the 90s, but I kinda lost track of it until the mid-2010s and the amount of wads seemed almost overwhelming at first. Tech Gone Bad and SIGIL honestly are what really brought me back.

 

1 minute ago, Deadwing said:

Definitely, you can see how Cacowards had to grow in the latest years due to the amount of high-quality stuff that has been released (2021 especially)

 

Yep, I feel like last year and this year in particular have been incredible. The past 24 months or so. Moonblood actually was one of the first wads I played when I started getting back into Doom!

[Thelokk]

43 minutes ago, Wyrmwood said:

Would be interesting to hear from some of the guys who've been here at lot longer. Has it always been like this, did the future of Doom seem so bright 10yrs ago?

 

Don't know about ten years ago, but twentyfive years ago... it was just different. At least where I lived, there was no perception of a 'scene' or a 'community': I was simply fed whatever my national PC magazine thought worthwhile at any given month, or whatever shovelware compilation the local physical game store had. Not to mention, to the average gamer Doom was pretty much forgotten once Quake came out. In fact, I distinctly remember how much easier was to get one's hand on a Quake wad than a Doom wad in the late 90s. 

 

I'm fairly sure before the Internet became an actual thing, the 'future of doom' was whatever scraps you could get your hands on at your given place and time, while waiting for the next non-Doom big thing to drop. Mass internet changed that, along with everything else.  

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Thelokk

[yakfak]

i think there's an astounding amount of good doom stuff hitting monthly! although im having trouble finding things that really resonate with me, feeling down on doom because of it. was more into it a decade ago; currently doom is generically exciting to me but i need a profile of someone who's doing specifically exciting-to-me things x3

[Thelokk]

1 minute ago, yakfak said:

i need a profile of someone who's doing specifically exciting-to-me things x3

 

Describe and you shall be given. 

[yakfak]

1 minute ago, Thelokk said:

 

Describe and you shall be given. 

 

messy personal and unsignposted

[Thelokk]

18 minutes ago, yakfak said:

 

messy personal and unsignposted

 

In other words, 90% of what you get from a /random session on idgames. Personally, I got some real endearing jank that way, lately. You should join us and give it a shot. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Thelokk

[Murdoch]

3 hours ago, Thelokk said:

I'm fairly sure before the Internet became an actual thing, the 'future of doom' was whatever scraps you could get your hands on at your given place and time, while waiting for the next non-Doom big thing to drop. Mass internet changed that, along with everything else.  

 

True if you were not online in the early days. There was a burgeoning community on alt.games.doom on Usenet not long after the game was released in January 1994. It was essentially the proto DW forum. That's where early groups like TeamTNT found their beginnings. So the Internet was a thing when Doom was released, it just had not penetrated so far into society yet. As more and more people got online, so more and more people found alt.games.doom and eventually Doomworld as Usenet began to die off.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Murdoch

[Thelokk]

20 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

True if you were not online in the early days. There was a burgeoning community on alt.games.doom on Usenet not long after the game was released in January 1994. It was essentially the proto DW forum. That's where early groups like TeamTNT found their beginnings. So the Internet was a thing when Doom was released, it just had not penetrated so far into society yet. As more and more people got online, so more and more people found alt.games.doom and eventually Doomworld as Usenet began to die off.

 

None of that where I lived,  sadly. Consider in 1996 I was the only kid in my class who owned a pc, and it barely had the specs for Quake. Everybody wanted to be my friend, though.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Thelokk

[Murdoch]

Just now, Thelokk said:

 

None of that where I lived,  sadly. Consider in 1996 I was the only kind in my class who owned a pc. Everybody wanted to be my friend.

 

I got online in either 1996 or 1997. Somewhere around there. My family had PCs for a few years at that point but they were still relatively uncommon.

[akolai]

4 hours ago, yakfak said:

messy personal and unsignposted

i'm working on some dumb shit, keep in touch

[Mystic 256]

there are still a lot of new great wads made lately

 

but it weirdly seems quieter in the doom community nowadays from my experience

It feels like its harder to make/chat to doom friends nowadays and play multiplayer and map together

and its been making me feel a bit isolated

 

[Captain Keen]

2 hours ago, Mystic 256 said:

there are still a lot of new great wads made lately

 

but it weirdly seems quieter in the doom community nowadays from my experience

It feels like its harder to make/chat to doom friends nowadays and play multiplayer and map together

and its been making me feel a bit isolated

 

Hmm interesting points. I do feel like the community has expanded a lot, which is definitely a good thing, but it’s also like the difference between hosting a party with your closest friends vs. a huge bash with 250 people showing up.

[TheSlipgateStudios]

I'd say since the start of 2010's the quality has steadily increased. 

[Sonikkumania]

5 hours ago, Mystic 256 said:

there are still a lot of new great wads made lately

 

but it weirdly seems quieter in the doom community nowadays from my experience

It feels like its harder to make/chat to doom friends nowadays and play multiplayer and map together

and its been making me feel a bit isolated

 

I'd argue, that when the amount of people in this community has increased, the chance of interracting with inviduals always decrease because there's just too many voices channeling at the same time.

 

Also the increased platforms for discussion and publishing. Nowadays there's social media pages, Youtubing and Discord channels. Back in the day when it was mostly Forums, IRC and MSN Messenger there was less to choose from so everybody were using these platforms - thus connections were born easier especially when people had a very common point of interest and hobby. The Internet keeps changing, I personally don't like the course but I can't help it but I'm also growing older, lol, so can't be helped.

 

Also .. The world is more confusing place irl which affects people behaviour.

 

But at the end of the day I think Doomworld is a good platform.

[Doomkid]

On 9/19/2022 at 5:01 PM, Wyrmwood said:

Would be interesting to hear from some of the guys who've been here at lot longer. Has it always been like this, did the future of Doom seem so bright 10yrs ago?

 

It's seems to me the renaissance of Doom style shooter must owe as much to the popularity of classic Doom as much as the modern Doom games as most of them try to emulate Doom or Quake.

I can safely say that there was a notable uptick in activity after Doom 4 was released, but there’s been fairly consistent activity over the years, Doom never really came close to “dying” in any way. The number of “wads per day” was probably technically the highest in 1994/1995, but in terms of actually-decent content, the rate of creation has at least doubled since 2016.
 

The absolute lowest point for Doom popularity was probably right around 2000/2001. While other games were more in the spotlight while new (unsurprisingly), Doom retained a player and mapper base even at this low point due to most any PC being able to run it by 1998. This kept it alive during the low point, and with several source ports starting to get really good, the stage was set for the first big Doom renaissance. 

 

From 2001 to 2005 (right around Doom 3’s release, which did play a bit of a hand in reviving Doom at the time), the popularity of classic Doom was back on a slow but steady rise. More and more people were joining the various subcommunities, and around 2005/2006 multiplayer classic Doom in particular actually peaked, and you could easily find over 200 players online during peak hours. MP Doom sadly did taper back off, and had been consistently “still alive, but small” since about 2010ish. Now you find 50-60 people online at peak, which is low compared to the “glory days” but still not bad for a game from 1993 if ya ask me.

 

To condense this rant: As far as SP Doom and wads go, I’d say it’s been far from “dead” since the early 00’s, but activity has roughly doubled since 2016, and 2021 had to be one of the most “wadful” years since like 1995 in terms of sheer numbers.
 

2022 has slightly less grand-slam projects so far imo (then again it’s not done), but we’re still very much in the midst of a Dooming peak right now. It’s awesome. Don’t worry though because even at low points in the last 20 years, there were still more wads being released than anyone could ever play… We’re a spoiled community!

[Egg Boy]

On 9/20/2022 at 9:51 PM, Mystic 256 said:

there are still a lot of new great wads made lately

 

but it weirdly seems quieter in the doom community nowadays from my experience

It feels like its harder to make/chat to doom friends nowadays and play multiplayer and map together

and its been making me feel a bit isolated

 

I apologize if this is a dumb question, but do you use discord? Most chatting, and getting together is done there rather than here, I don't really think you should struggle finding people to play with and talk to if you join even a few doom discords like Entryway.

[Casketkrusher]

I actually just recently got into this community, I never knew it was so big but that's because back in the 90's I only owned a PS1 with Doom. I didn't had a PC back then. But throughout the years I got into mapping and got into the community and I have played many many wads from different years just to see how it got evolved and yeah I think the last couple of years I've seen some great stuff compared to the older times but that's understandable with the upgrades in these map editors. I can't imagine how it was back in the day to make a map. There's really some impressive stuff from way back. 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I joined in 2020 because there were so many cool things getting released and being worked on, so I think it's a fair assessment to make. A good part of it is certainly due to what Doomkid mentioned about DOOM 2016 getting released and the series gaining popularity in the public eye again. Another thing to remember is that people who played DOOM as children in the 90's are old enough to be nostalgic for it now.

 

Here's a guess as to what happened:

 

>DOOM 2016 releases (in 2016, in case you were confused)

>People experience DOOM for the first time via DOOM 2016/people who haven't played DOOM in years regain interest

>People from both groups decide to play Classic DOOM

>They end up here

>They play wads and decide to start mapping things themselves

>From 2016-2022, they've had up to six years of practice and have been releasing their work

Edited September 22, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Faceman2000]

^ Missed a couple key points here, methinks.

 

> 2018 Eviternity is released and got a lot of press from various game journalists about being “the best Doom’s ever been”
> 2019 John Romero releases SIGIL which generates widespread interest, and id finally rereleases Doom in an updated format

> Around this same time, YouTubers such as Civvie and GGGMan start releasing videos talking about boomer shooters and praising Doom especially

> And then of course Doom Eternal launched right before the lockdown, generating further interest at a time when a lot of people had a lot of time to kill

> The Unity addons has potentially generated a fair bit of interest in user-made content among audiences who weren’t previously exposed to it

 

[Firedust]

I started playing custom Doom maps around ten years ago, and community levels of output have definitely skyrocketed since then. What's also cool is that we're seeing a resurgence in what I call 'classic Doom mapping' - megawads like Silence, Anomaly Report, Akeldama, Stickney Installation, Journey to Hell, etc. 

[Residue]

totally! I think there has been a huge resurgence in Doom's popularity in general since the pandemic. It makes an interesting topic for video essays and the like, analyzing a lot of what makes good level design, as well as the potential for creative approaches to it. Folks seem to be really paying attention to that kind of stuff, and I genuinely do hope that we see a lot more people using that fed knowledge to get interested in wad making since there has already been some amazing campaigns coming out.

[roadworx]

oh yeah, definitely. with the obvious exception of 2021, the size of the community as well as the volume of incredibly high-quality content hasn't really been matched before. i feel that, rn, we're in a sort of peak of community output; however, that doesn't mean that there will be a decline. while all peaks do inevitably go back down, these past few years have been more of a statistical anomaly due to the pandemic than natural growth, and thus it will be more of a correction than a genuine decline. eventually, community output will transition back to a level that, while almost certainly higher than it was pre-covid, is more representative of how it typically is at the current size of the community, and return to the natural peaks and valleys of community activity

Edited October 2, 2022 by roadworx