Music pack as a separate wad

[Memfis]

In the old times wads with custom music would often come in two parts, e.g. MM + MMMUS, REQUIEM + REQMUS, etc. I almost never see it done this way nowadays. Why did they do it like this? Did they think the download would look more attractive this way? ("wow, it has a full custom soundtrack, I gotta have it!") Was there a big group of players that hated custom soundtracks? Were the authors hoping that people will use these soundtracks for playing other wads as well, and so they bundled the music separately for everyone's convenience?

[40oz]

Was it only Mark Klem that did that?

I think DTWiD has a separate soundtrack too but only because it was debatable if the music preserved the spirit of the Doom IWAD.

For some major projects ive been thinking of keeping everything separated in their own wads and then shipping it out after merging it all together. I guess because smaller wads are a little more organized and easier to work with. I cant think of any practical reason why music is separated in these wads though, unless the authors thought people would want to play without it, which I find hard to believe.

[Memfis]

Definitely not only Mark Klem. The Serenity trilogy is packed in the same way, just like Talosian Incident, 10-Level Wad, Hell Revealed, etc.

[rehelekretep]

doesnt Hell Revealed 2 do this as well? even though that came out in 2003!

[Nevander]

I always assumed it was so the player could choose if they want to hear the new tunes or not. I'm sure there's some out there who don't want to hear anything other than the classic Bobby Prince soundtrack.

[Dgemie]

Memfis said:

people will use these soundtracks for playing other wads as well

I tend to do the opposite because I prefer to load music packs after WADs with no new music or not all music replaced.

[Argent Agent]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a compromise for hard drive space back when megabytes actually mattered on hard drives (even though the music is only around 1 MB). You could just have the maps and play without the music and save that hard drive space for something else.

There are some wads where the textures are separate from the wad containing the maps. Can't really think of anything to explain that method.

rehelekretep said:

doesnt Hell Revealed 2 do this as well? even though that came out in 2003!

Nah, that's the "final fix" for Hell Revealed II.

[hex11]

So files fit easier on floppy disks. Look at the CRINGE! stuff here for example:
http://cd.textfiles.com/sprintos5/WADS/DOOMAC/FILES.BBS
Btw the file_id.diz inside those files looks a lot nicer than the indexer shows.

Sometimes they instead split the zip file into 1.44 MB pieces, like Icarus and others. But it's possibly more stuff than you want, and a floppy disk image took 15 minutes to download on my 14.4K modem. Also a lot of people paid by the minute phone charges, and a BBS normally only gave you 1 hour access time per day.

[rehelekretep]

Zakurum said:

Nah, that's the "final fix" for Hell Revealed II.

wait what? you mean originally there was no separate music? or there was no new MIDIs and they updated it?

[Michael92]

40oz said:

I think DTWiD has a separate soundtrack too but only because it was debatable if the music preserved the spirit of the Doom IWAD.

A bit offtopic, but where can I find this OST? I couldn't find it anywhere. Are there both for 1 and 2?

[Salt-Man Z]

Michael92 said:

A bit offtopic, but where can I find this OST? I couldn't find it anywhere. Are there both for 1 and 2?

The DTWID website has a link at the top of the page.

[Pirx]

Music pack as a separate wad is my preferred solution. How else could I use hrmus.wad or reqmus.wad with various other maps.

[Gez]

Pirx said:

Music pack as a separate wad is my preferred solution. How else could I use hrmus.wad or reqmus.wad with various other maps.

Jimmy's Jukebox?