doom needs more lore

[MeetyourUnmaker]

It's kind of a waste of a setting, especially in a game like Doom 64. You have to look at something like The Spiral and wander why it's for and why it's there

[roadworx]

well, its kinda telling its lore through the game, isn't it? just because it doesn't directly tell you, like mass effect or skyrim, doesn't mean its not there. you just gotta look for it.

[Nems]

I dunno. I like the minimalist approach in Doom when it comes to its lore. I'm a firm believer in "less is more" and that the levels themselves tell a story more effectively than lore entries. The "less is more" approach also welcomes multiple interpretations of what happened.

At the very least, if Doom is gonna have more lore then it should take a page from how Doom 2016 did it. I liked how it approached the lore in that it tells you just enough but also leaves a lot of questions open. I don't want everything given to me. I'd like to make some of my own conclusions.

[Deleted_Account]

There is a legend from the old world of Argent D'Nur. It is has been passed down the generations by the elders. The tale of a man with the strength of a thousand men, the speed of a bolt of lightning and the unquenchable thirst for vengeance. He is often referred to as the demi-god who made catastrophe of demons. The creatures whom the ancients inadvertently let in. The very abominations who run amok in our cities who slaughtered countless men, women and children, who destroyed our homes, burned down civilization. Scaly smiling demons who took great pleasure in the chaos they spread. They took everything from us. But worst of all, they took something from him. The Doom Slayer. They took what was most precious to him. They took his Cap'n Crunch. You know the saying "It's got corn for crunch, oats for punch, and it stays crunchy, even in milk." They took all of it from him. Something in him awakened. His eyes became red like the crimson moon, his face turned into a scowl, like that of a raging demon and he made a life long mission to RIP and TEAR every single demon in existence. He stormed the military compound and grabbed the latest high tech combat suit and a collection of weapons that would make Rambo blush. The demons were caught off guard as he tore through the numbers, they learned to fear him. Eventually they were able to trap him by placing a bowl of cereal in a magical sarcophagus forever trapping him.

-Biggus Dickus Entry 7:11

[Demon of the Well]

I would tend to disagree. Especially considering that so much of the game's lifeblood is found in PWADs--a million different artistic visions with a million different takes on the subject of diegesis (including ignoring it entirely)--I think the vagueness of the overall world is an asset, not a shortcoming. A minority of WADs aim for having a very structured narrative peopled by 'characters' in the proper sense, but in most the 'story', such as it is, is to a greater or lesser degree synonymous with the relatively simple feedback loop of the gameplay (walk/run around, collect stuff, shoot stuff, etc.), and the main 'character' is almost always the environment or setting itself, with you (the player, temporarily inhabiting the slate-grey tabula rasa that is the/a Doomguy) in the supporting role. The tenuous-at-best connection between the actions of the game and the diegetic specifics of the slapdash melting pot that is the Doom mythos is not only convenient/practical, but actually symbiotic, I think--Doom's a generally very straightforward game normally set in heavily stylized or outright abstract environments (though there are of course exceptions to this rule in the wide, wide world of PWADs, which is fine and dandy too), and there's only so far official 'lore' can go in spelling out what each and every sector-inset computer bank in each and every techbase is used to track and monitor before it starts getting in the way of the core gameplay, and arguably/realistically it contributes little of value to the average player even where it's not getting in the way.

This is not to say that story/setting have no place in Doom, however--quite the contrary! Rather, I would argue that the sparseness of official canon lore, which lays out a basic framework and little more, is a part of the core series' genius, or (perhaps more accurately) a happy accident, setting the stage for a boundless panoply of different interpretations and settings, the vast majority of which are fueled by each individual player's imagination (or lack thereof, as the case may occasionally be), a lovely and silky-smooth synergy of player agency/interpretation and diegesis, which in the vast majority of games are elements that are at least a little bit fundamentally at odds with one another. Take something like Sunder, for instance--it has absolutely no 'story' whatsoever, and was never intended to, and so it's up to the player to make what s/he will of its idiosyncractic, visually striking environments and massive hordes of monstrosities pitted against a lone warrior. I've personally always found it quite evocative in its mum majesty, and so I've enjoyed thinking up 'lore' for its maps for myself while playing, some of which I shared in the DWMC's playthrough of the WAD. Am I "correct" in my interpretations? Almost certainly not--one can't really be right or wrong in interpretation of clues to lore which doesn't actually exist--but the point is that this extra stimulation of the imagination adds to the richness of the experience far more than a minutely detailed official tell-all covering each area ever could, and I think the same holds true for the vast majority of the content which exists for the game, ancient and brand-spanking-new alike.

The beauty of this is that one only needs to invest in it to the extent which serves one's own preferences, meaning that lore-fiends and players happy to experience Doom purely as game of integers in motion can still relate to one another in most substantive realms of the experience, again an arrangement of which many other games might rightfully be envious. Speaking for myself, I generally find that the coolest Doom environments--its best 'stories', if you like--are those that suggest much but definitively spell out very little; it's an excellent formula for this type of game.

[RUSH]

Doom is the antithesis of lore. You have a shotgun and you kill demons, that's it.

And that's why it's great.

[Combinebobnt]

ok here

[Voros]

You are a Space Marine.
There is a corporation called UAC.
Two of their facilities on Phobos and Deimos
UAC handles experiments.
They messed up teleporter experiments.
Hellspawn invades as a result.
Being a marine, you fight the hellspawn on both moons.
Then fighting in Hell.
Then head to Earth, which was also invaded.
You kill them all there too.
And again back in Hell to kill the leader.
Then you move on to rebuild Earth.
UAC nukes moons.
Something escaped.
Demons ressurect on abandoned moons.
Shit happens all over again.
You go back to take care of the problem.
Once again, back in Hell to stop it all.
Instead of going back, you stay in Hell for all eternity.

That's one heck of a story isn't it?

As Marty said in the noclip documentary: "take the idea that you are here to kill demons, and that's your story."

Theres plenty of lore in Doom. What makes it different from other games is that its upto the player to decide what the lore really is.

[DooM_RO]

You will like the new one then.

[Grain of Salt]

Doom needs less lore. The "lore" that exists is awful.

[Memfis]

When and why did people start using the world "lore" when talking about games? I don't remember seeing it at all just a few years ago. Now even Russians borrowed it and made an ugly sounding "лор" out of it (which is already a short for otolaryngologist, so it always looks ridiculous when people use it).

[Angry Saint]

Lore is the new background

[Doomkid]

Lore is an asshole, I'm glad he's not in Doom.

[Maes]

Doomguy: wie er in die Welt kam.

DMCHOSHO - the story.

[RestlessRodent]

The dead marine in front of the first door in E1M1 was a father of 7. Born and raised in the UAC Antarctic station. Seeing that his wife was in a military family and he was just a scientist, he decided to become a marine. Then he got dispatched to Mars. Then the invasion happened and he was killed.

[Avoozl]

Doomkid said:

Lore is an asshole, I'm glad he's not in Doom.

Lore from Star Trek TNG?

[MFG38]

Eh, I don't think Doom needs that much lore.

Piper Maru said:

Biggus Dickus

Nice Monty Python reference. :'D

[BigDickBzzrak]

Demon of the Well said:

tl;dr

OK dude we got it, you're smart. :]

Doom doesn't need more lore (hey that rhymes), why? Just start up the game and kill demons, for god's sake. You're good, demons are bad. That's it, there's no more.

[printz]

bzzrak said:

Doom doesn't need more lore (hey that rhymes), why? Just start up the game and kill demons, for god's sake. You're good, demons are bad. That's it, there's no more.

I'd rather like to know why are there demons in the first place. Why is teleportation a hellish practice (that opens the gate to hell)? How far does Hell extend? What is its map? Is it just another planet? Can we tame it? Are spiderdemons and arachnotrons still demons, or superior aliens, not unlike the Strife Entity?

Advanced (partial conversion) megawad idea: Doomguy is still stuck in hell after defeating the Spider Mastermind of Episode 3, and must survive and find a way home. The megawad is a big and bloody journey through hell. How will hell be for Doomguy?

[BigDickBzzrak]

printz said:

post

_{Ha, I saw all those edits! Can't fool me!}

Of course Hell's not a planet, you see Deimos literally torn apart and hanging above Hell. No we can't tame Hell of course, it's limitless. It's flat like the Earth in the 15th century. Except that it's not *hanging* in the void, it is the void.
It is incomprehensible for someone who hasn't been there and even more for someone who has.

Spider Masterminds and Arachnotrons are still demons. They wanna kill you, right? And you find them in Hell, so they're not aliens. Good enough for me. Haven't played Strife, though.

About the teleports, those teleports could've led anywhere, but the UAC dumbasses of course messed that up and opened a gate to Hell, of all places.

As for the megawad idea, sounds cool. You'd need some serious creativity or manpower to make 27/32/36 maps of Hell, though :]


EDIT:

RUSH said:

Or will he be greeted with endless pussy upon returning to earth and discovering that all the survivors are female?

apparently yes
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/female

[RUSH]

Will Doomguy ever get laid again? Or is he doomed to a lonely life of emptiness devoid of human contact? Or will he be greeted with endless pussy upon returning to earth and discovering that all the survivors are female? Or is Doomguy gay???

FIND OUT NEXT TIME

[Voros]

RUSH said:

Or will he be greeted with endless pussy upon returning to earth and discovering that all the survivors are female?

O.o I'd like to know the lore behind that. A world after invaded by demons, now only women remain. What happened to men?

NEXT TIME.

[nxGangrel]

Doomkid said:

Lore is an asshole, I'm glad he's not in Doom.

Lore. That jackass! Did you know he cheated on his wife by using iddqd?

[rehelekretep]

i like to think that teleportation leads to hellish invasion in the same way that the Warp operates in Warhammer 40,000: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warp in that you can travel through it as an alternate dimension but it is also easier for 'bad things' to travel through as well...

i would also agree that a lot of the 'official' Doom lore is mostly garbage, reminding me somewhat of the Alien films post-Alien 3, with Ridley Scott especially committed to removing any mystery that the mythos once had. some things are better left vague.

[printz]

Voros said:

O.o I'd like to know the lore behind that. A world after invaded by demons, now only women remain. What happened to men?

NEXT TIME.

Harmony TC?

[Deleted_Account]

MFG38 said:

Eh, I don't think Doom needs that much lore.

Nice Monty Python reference. :'D

I was hoping someone would catch that.

[Suitepee]

"Revenants exist. Your goal in life is to kill them and stop them from raining homing fireball death upon the masses of Ironman runs. Also, lots of salt may be involved in this decision."

-The Totally-Not-Madeup-For-This-Thread Book of John Suitepee, 2017

[Aquanet]

He who was Tom Hall brought the lore to the circle of id, and the elders looked upon it closely and rejected it and banished him to the desert, where he eventually hooked up with 3D Realms.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Bible

[Aaron Blain]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus

[Agentbromsnor]

I liked the story of the original game. It gave you just enough information to know what your role is, and why you're there. Doom 4 only made it more ridiculous and frankly it all sounds like a bad fan-fiction to me, but I know I'll probably offend some Doom 4 fans with that.