Bethesda adds Base Ganymede as official expansion to Doom?

[Hellbent]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/doom/expansion-pack-bethesda

[Gez]

Yeah: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Official_add-ons

 

Not the first, and hopefully not the last either.

[Rudolph]

That seems kind of random. Not that Base Ganymede does not deserve the spotlight, but why this one in particular?

[Redneckerz]

17 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

That seems kind of random. Not that Base Ganymede does not deserve the spotlight, but why this one in particular?

Khorus. Speedy Shit. Good Shit.

[LadyMistDragon]

Nah. But also, Base Ganymede is actually enjoyable for the most part.

[Faceman2000]

On 5/14/2023 at 5:23 PM, Rudolph said:

That seems kind of random. Not that Base Ganymede does not deserve the spotlight, but why this one in particular?

Well, they’ve got a healthy list of other ones too, so it’s not that out of the blue. As for why this particular wad was deemed desirable, it’s one of a handful of Cacoward winners that meets the criteria for a wad to be added:

 

Vanilla/limit-removing format

All authors of any custom content can be contacted (the shorter this list is, the easier)

No copyrighted material

Plays well with the BethesDoom port

 

With only two authors attached, Khorus and Mr Freeze, its Cacoward status, and its fun twist on the episode format, the wad was a shoe-in to be featured as an addon. Honestly I’m surprised it hadn’t happened before now.

 

Likely future candidates? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Lunar Catastrophe, or Abscission gets added. The reappearance of Years this year makes Nihility a possibility, which would be incredible, and I’d personally love to see Alpha Accident added and Bourgeois DM so that consoles can have some dedicated DM maps.

 

[mankubus]

48 minutes ago, Faceman2000 said:

Well, they’ve got a healthy list of other ones too, so it’s not that out of the blue. As for why this particular wad was deemed desirable, it’s one of a handful of Cacoward winners that meets the criteria for a wad to be added:

 

Vanilla/limit-removing format

All authors of any custom content can be contacted (the shorter this list is, the easier)

No copyrighted material

Plays well with the BethesDoom port

 

With only two authors attached, Khorus and Mr Freeze, its Cacoward status, and its fun twist on the episode format, the wad was a shoe-in to be featured as an addon. Honestly I’m surprised it hadn’t happened before now.

 

Likely future candidates? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Lunar Catastrophe, or Abscission gets added. The reappearance of Years this year makes Nihility a possibility, which would be incredible, and I’d personally love to see Alpha Accident added and Bourgeois DM so that consoles can have some dedicated DM maps.

 

Just wondering, how does this work? Bethesda contacts the authors and asks for permission? do you they get any money? Or they just add whatever they want as official addons?

[Edward850]

25 minutes ago, mankubus said:

Just wondering, how does this work? Bethesda contacts the authors and asks for permission?

Yes.

26 minutes ago, mankubus said:

do you they get any money?

You get a challenge coin.

27 minutes ago, mankubus said:

Or they just add whatever they want as official addons? 

The existing text license for idgames releases do not legally permit this (they don't block it, but they don't permit it either, thus unusable from a commerical perspective).

[Rudolph]

9 hours ago, Faceman2000 said:

Well, they’ve got a healthy list of other ones too, so it’s not that out of the blue.

That makes sense, but when I look at the list of official add-ons, I am a bit confused by the lack of pattern: after adding the obvious candidates like Final Doom, NERVE and SIGIL, they picked 2011's Double Impact, which I am only aware of because of its inclusion as Freedoom: Phase 1's fourth episode; later on that list, they added Jimmy's incomplete Earthless from 2021 followed by 2003's Revolution!

 

Again, nothing against those (although I wish they had waited for Jimmy to finish Earthless), but I am just surprised they have selected them over, for example, any of Paul Corfiatis' mapsets or highly-influential ones like Eternal Doom, Icarus, Alien Vendetta and the Memento Mori.

 

Heck, I cannot help but noticed the absence of The Master Levels for Doom II from the list.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Rudolph

[Professor Hastig]

The pattern is quite simple: They add what they get permission for to add.

Don't expect any logical order here - they need to get in contact with the author and receive their ok, possibly along with some legalese that needs to be provided. The biggest issue here is to actually get in contact with the authors. They'd probably add a lot more if some authors weren't that hard to find.

 

 

[Redneckerz]

8 hours ago, Edward850 said:

You get a challenge coin.

That coin is epic. A physical confirmation of appreciation for any modder elligible for it.

 

I am glad id honors their audience that way. It is befitting and worthy of respect.

16 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

That makes sense, but when I look at the list of official add-ons, I am a bit confused by the lack of pattern: after adding the obvious candidates like Final Doom, NERVE and SIGIL, they picked 2011's Double Impact, which I am only aware of because of its inclusion as Freedoom: Phase 1's fourth episode; later on that list, they added Jimmy's incomplete Earthless from 2021 followed by 2003's Revolution!

One of the reasons why is that Rottking/Ralphis/Jimmy are:

• They are active Doomers
• WADS elligible for inclusion land on the activity of the creators: Many older WADS that would be suitable do not feature active Doomers, meaning requesting permission is more difficult
• Because of this, new mapsets elligible for these are typically from the last 15 years or so, unless the above criteria also apply (Such as with Revolution!: Thomas van der Velden is still an active Doomer, and the MIDI pack brought back attention to it)

16 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Again, nothing against those (although I wish they had waited for Jimmy to finish Earthless), but I am just surprised they have selected them over, for example, any of Paul Corfiatis' mapsets or highly-influential ones like Eternal Doom, Icarus, Alien Vendetta and the Memento Mori.

See above. But i do agree that some of Paul Corfiatis's work should land up on the port considering Paul fits all the criteria.

 

Eternal Doom/Icarus/Alien Vendetta and Memento Mori however, do not, usually because someone isn't active anymore, or in the case of TNT's work, they are deceased (Ty Halderman).

16 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Heck, I cannot help but noticed the absence of The Master Levels for Doom II from the list.

It doesn't fit the criteria:

• Dr Sleep and Jim Flynn are deceased.
• Christian Klie's activity ceased in 1995.
• Tom Mustaine's activity ceased in 1998.
• Tim Willits's mapping activity ceased with Master Levels.
• Cranium's the only active member of Master Levels.

I am not saying these are the actual or definitive reasons why Master Levels or any of your other suggestions haven't been met yet, but i am saying that because of it, it doesn't rule in their favor whatsoever.

[Edward850]

@Rudolph you seem to be doing something disruptive with your post texts, it has a bunch of zero width spaces that makes copy and pasting text from your post actually unsearchable. I copied "Paul Corfiatis" for example and Doomwiki refused to parse the results until I retyped it manually. Copying your post into this tool revealed what was going on.

 

Anyway aside from pcorfs maps which is too complicated to get into, the rest of your suggestions, they can't be used due to several issues with obtaining permissions:

Eternal Doom has two deceased members, Jim Flynn and Ty Halderman, and several other members from Team TNT who haven't been around since the 90s.

Icarus has the same problem with Ty, but also Rand Phares and again with a lot of absent Team TNT members.

Alien Vendetta is in a similar situation to Team TNT (though a couple of mappers still around), and also with deceased member Kim André Malde. It also has a soundtrack with copyrighted sources such as from Duke3D.

I seem to recall something wrong with Memento Mori, it might be the textures? Or maybe just too many authors to contact.

 

Also I'm not sure why Master Levels was brought up when that's included with Doom2 already.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Edward850

[Gez]

Eternal Doom also has textures obviously sourced from Hexen and Heretic, among possibly other sources I don't recognize so readily. Same for Alien Vendetta.

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

@Rudolph you seem to be doing something disruptive with your post texts, it has a bunch of zero width spaces that makes copy and pasting text from your post actually unsearchable. I copied "Paul Corfiatis" for example and Doomwiki refused to parse the results until I retyped it manually. Copying your post into this tool revealed what was going on.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not copy-paste anything.

 

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

Eternal Doom has two deceased members, Jim Flynn and Ty Halderman, and several other members from Team TNT who haven't been around since the 90s.

Icarus has the same problem with Ty, but also Rand Phares and again with a lot of absent Team TNT members. 

Alien Vendetta is in a similar situation to Team TNT (though a couple of mappers still around), and also with deceased member Kim André Malde. It also has a soundtrack with copyrighted sources such as from Duke3D.

Fair enough.

 

That being said, your point regarding the use of copyrighted soundtrack has not prevented Double Impact from being picked; just like Alien Vendetta recently, the soundtrack was replaced by original tracks specifically composed for the occasion.

 

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

Also I'm not sure why Master Levels was brought up when that's included with Doom2 already.

Oh, they are now?

 

I have not checked the Doom II Unity port lately and I distinctively remember having to buy the Master Levels separately some years ago.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Rudolph

[Andromeda]

In the case of Alien Vendetta, Anders expressed interest in creating a "Unity-able" version some time ago (it's been three years already?! - jeez):

 

[Edward850]

8 hours ago, Rudolph said:

I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not copy-paste anything. 

Re read what I said, I never said you copy pasted anything.

[esselfortium]

53 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Re read what I said, I never said you copy pasted anything.

Weirdly the issue you described seems to be affecting your posts as well, and all other ones I'm seeing here. I have no idea what's up with that.

[Rudolph]

Either way, I have not done anything out of the ordinary, so I do not think I can help you there. :S

[mankubus]

20 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Yes.

You get a challenge coin.

The existing text license for idgames releases do not legally permit this (they don't block it, but they don't permit it either, thus unusable from a commerical perspective).

Well that's pretty cool, but I still think they should be paid for their work. They are making additional money by adding new content, thus authors should get a share. We are talking full episodes or god forbid megawads here, trying to finish one is a full time job.

[Edward850]

1 minute ago, mankubus said:

They are making additional money by adding new content

Not exactly, the content isn't sold so attaching a dollar value to it seems... complicated. If they get paid or not however isn't really possible to answer, that would be a contract thing and thus between them and Zenimax. Nobody but the authors can probably answer that.

[LadyMistDragon]

28 minutes ago, mankubus said:

Well that's pretty cool, but I still think they should be paid for their work. They are making additional money by adding new content, thus authors should get a share. We are talking full episodes or god forbid megawads here, trying to finish one is a full time job.

They're not. I know one of the people involved with Base Ganymede and it's safely said the idea of royalties for free content is laughable.

[Biodegradable]

Not sure how they can go about having community mappers receive royalties, but I know that people whose work has been added to the Unity port do receive a bit of dosh. Some time after both Deathless and Earthless were added to the port, I asked @Jimmy if he was compensated at all and he said he was. So don't fret Mankubus, people are given a little bit more than just a cool coin and a handshake.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Biodegradable

[Mr. Freeze]

I got a gift card, that's enough for me. I don't expect royalties, but the recognition is good enough. 

[Varis Alpha]

i don't know what offers is given to everyone, but when i was involved in one project, there was a choice between getting a challenge coin, gift card (only for US residents) and a wire transfer. i chose the coin because i thought it was the neater option overall, the wire transfer required a lot of legal paperwork to go through. given the value of the gift card and wire transfer, i'd imagine the value of "just" the coin would potentially be quite high if you were deciding to sell it.

[Murdoch]

9 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

They're not. I know one of the people involved with Base Ganymede and it's safely said the idea of royalties for free content is laughable.

 

Additionally, the logistics of calculating and distributing royalties on a per download basis would be a complete nightmare. I would personally prefer some form of upfront compensation than, what, 3c every time someone downloads my WAD via the Unity port or some other crazy low figure.

[Rudolph]

Damn, at first, I was enjoying this mapset, but now I am at E2M6 and I keep getting my ass kicked. It is not even really a slaughter map; Khorus clearly loved spawning enemies out of thin air right in front of the player or right behind them because that map does it almost literally at every corner. :S

 

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Rudolph

[Faceman2000]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Damn, at first, I was enjoying this mapset, but now I am at E2M6 and I keep getting my ass kicked. It is not even really a slaughter map; Khorus clearly loved spawning enemies out of thin air right in front of the player or right behind them because that map does it almost literally at every corner. :S

It’s definitely a tough set! I was caught offguard by it initially. E3 is actually significantly easier than E1 and E2 in my opinion - the enemy placement is just as tricky, but he’s less stingy with ammo and especially health which makes things more manageable. Keep pushing on! The set is worth it.

[Rudolph]

Thanks! I eventually made it. E2M8 was worth it: as far as Cyberdemon boss battles go, this one felt appropriately epic and creative.