Scuba Steve

It would be based as fuuuuck if 'Vanilla essence" was basically implemented as the lowest of the low "DOS Settings."

I think it's been talked about a lot and individuals have constantly brought it up, but I don't think there's ever been a concerted and forceful campaign to explain just how awful it looks; creators hate it, almost every user hates it and it gives novice users a bad first impression. After watching Romero switch to the hardware renderer and assume "that's just how it looks" I decided it was best to just go on a warpath and attempt to kill it as the default setting. Members like @Nash are probably best positioned to put forward a list of "best default settings" that the dev team would ultimately change. This isn't about making fun of Graf, it's about artists and content creators explaining why these settings ruin carefully crafted visuals and GZDoom is doing novice players a disservice by presenting them with a terrible first impression. We artists aren't going to all the trouble of making beautiful sprites and textures just to have them look like a blurry mess for half the player base who doesn't know it's not supposed to look like that.

Bingo. John Romero himself just assumed GZDoom hardware setting looked like that and didn't bother changing anything after he switched from the software renderer which he prefers. It's so objectively ugly everyone who knows that's now it's supposed to look changes it immediately. We know this to be true because every commercial GZDoom project does not use this setting when trying to present their games in the best possible light in videos and screenshots. Selaco, Beyond Sunset, Hedon... all intentionally want you to see their game with nearest-neighbor. This is literally how Doom is supposed to look. Youtube has shown me enough MyHouse videos now for me to see all the graphical glitches that are caused by just casually blurring textures when the author intended for precise texture alignments. The only reason anyone uses it is because it's the default. There is no data to suggest any large number of people enjoy it but there are pages and pages of requests and pleas asking for nearest-neighbor to be the default appearance. I mean, what do you want, for me to explain why, from an artists perspective, it's objectively ugly? At this point, after more than a decade of debating this, I'll be honest, it really just feels like you like it and think it looks good ergo, that's just how it's going to be. You're an exceptional programmer who had the vision and ability to lead a team that turned ZDoom into a fully-fledged game engine... but you're not a content creator and I can tell you as the resident "looks > gameplay" guy, everyone who makes projects for GZDoom despises the look of texture filtering and cringes every time we watch someone play our work with smeared vaseline.

Do you have any evidence the general public likes texture filtering?

General interest in a feature only matters in this case, and not the constant, unending request that texture filtering and other non-standard Doom features be turned off by default.

I wouldn't let the success of MyHouse deter you, if you've got a good idea, you should run with it. In fact, MyHouse isn't even the first Doom mod which involves the concept of deconstructing a house for the purpose of disturbing the player. Besides the obvious horror-themed house mod, Unloved, there is actually a very obscure ZDoom project from about five years ago which was literally called 'My House' which is about wandering around a house and solving puzzles involving mirrors. There's plenty of room for another house-themed psychological horror wad.

I replay Doom City every 6 months or so.

Correct; part of the necessity of a re-release was GZDoom's inability to properly interpret the DEH file that enabled most of the game's tricks.

I dunno... I don't think it's wrong, but I'd love for them to replay and describe where the map itself outright apes the book (beyond the hallway).

I'm not terminally online—but I get some of the liminal references—however I read House of Leaves last Summer (I read it before myhouse made it cool!) and beyond the closet being a direct adaptation of the hallway from the book... I don't actually see any other references to the book in the map. The 'For Sale' sign is a cute little nod, but there really isn't anything else in the map itself which immediately screams 'this is from House of Leaves.' Both attempt to use a familiar medium (a book or the game Doom) and take the familiarity of each and twist it to become unfamiliar causing the reader/player to feel uncomfortable. The journal cribs a bit, but as far as the map itself, I just see slight inspiration.

No, John was running GZDoom in OpenGL with the software renderer enabled. As soon as he switched to the true-color hardware renderer, it defaulted to the normal GZDoom setting which is smeared Vaseline.

Texture filtering The literal creator of Doom was defaulted to texture filtering... can we please have this dogshit feature disabled by default now?

Releasing it anonymously on an old, obscure forum for a 30-year-old game without any promotion whatever in the hopes that it will become an Internet sensation... Doesn't seem like the smartest way to promote something for financial gain.

"I play Doom in DOSBox the way it was meant to be." "...most favorite mod, Brutal Doom." Suffering from whiplash here...

Sure... but it's a chicken and egg dilemma; nobody made Eternity maps so there were no Eternity maps so nobody made Eternity maps. At the time, I heralded Heartland as the first "must-play" exclusive Eternity project and hoped it would lead to the beginning of an Eternity renaissance. I really want to see it happen. Woof: Pro: Good doggies are good doggies. Con: Bad doggies are bad doggies.

Eternity: Pro: Besides GZDoom, Eternity is probably the most advanced port with the capability of creating advanced portals and the ability to script new enemies and weapons. Maintains full compatibility with vanilla Doom and can play every map without fail (the go-to Batman Doom port) Con: Because of the commitment to demo compatibility, Eternity has taken a long time to become feature-rich. As a result, it hasn't cultivated a large base of users who produce Eternity-only maps and mods. Heartland was the first and really only magnum opus thus far made for this port. Mordeth e2 doesn't count because it does not and will never exist. GZDoom: Pro: The most popular and feature-rich port; as a result, has the largest community and the greatest selection of maps and mods that use those features to build fantastic maps that are unique to GZDoom. More than any other port, "If you can think it, you can build it." Action Doom and Urban Brawl run with this port. Cons: Dogshit stock settings (texture filtering?) Settings menu is near unnavigable with too many options available. Players have too much control over visuals and creators have no way of knowing how badly their map will look on each user's setup. Additionally, due to the significant changes under the hood, ZDoom is nearly incapable of properly playing most DeHackEd mods. DSDA-Doom: Pro: Dedicated to the preservation of vanilla mechanics and demo compatibility. UDMF support but I don't think anyone makes maps FOR DSDA-Doom, it's primarily a port to play vanilla wads properly. Con: What is this, like the 4th fork of PRBoom+1+2=3? Retro Doom: Pro: Quirky features implemented by the creator who is going for a faux-retro look and thinks they look neat. Con: Quirky features implemented by the creator who is going for a faux-retro look and thinks they look neat. Chocolate Doom: Pro: It's Doom and it works in Windows on modern systems. Con: It's Doom... that includes all the visplane overflows, slime trails and HOMs Crispy Doom: Pro: It's Chocolate Doom without visplane overflows, slime trails and HOMs Con: Still missing some QOL features that even the Unity port has implemented. Unity Port: Pro: Widescreen artwork Con: It doesn't quiiiiite work flawlessly with every wad file... it still retains quirks of loading files that existed in the vanilla exe. Odamex: Pro: The Go-to multiplayer port with cool death icons. Con: Would you ever use this port for anything other than multiplayer? Zandronum: Pro: Built on the back of older ZDoom, it can run a substantial number of GZDoom maps and those features mean you get some pretty creative multiplayer projects (DoomWare and Urban Brawl multiplayer) Con: It hasn't been updated in, what, like 10 years? I think I heard it got its first update this year? Last year? Skulltag: Pro: Carnbarn Con: It's dead.

Send this joke over-the-top by referencing the actual OSHA code violations each change rectifies.

A blood splatter was originally included in the corner of the official widescreen statusbar, but it was overruled by id Software themselves because they wanted the statusbar to stay nondescript as to not draw the players eye away from the red numbers.

I'm down for this.

The only real question you need to ask when doing this kind of media analysis is "does the piece take its themes seriously?" What you're essentially saying is that a work of art can only elicit emotional responses if the author's stated narrative is nonfiction, anything less is disrespectful to the subject matter. The movie 'Fargo' begins by telling you "This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987" but that's a lie; the film is entirely a work of fiction, but no one watching the film finds themselves less invested in the story of Marge because she's not real. Spinal Tap never tells you the documentary is fake but it doesn't make the commentary about 80s hair bands any less hilarious. The Fault in Our Stars is a work of fiction, but millions of people who have experienced the loss of a loved one to cancer connect with the imaginary characters and their fictionalized grief and loss. In fact, the most prominent and memorable "tribute map" in Doom community history was made by one of MyHouse's musicians, Jimmy. Project Kate isn't rendered any less meaningful because another map's similar themes are couched in a fictional narrative. So I think we have to ask, "does the piece take its themes seriously?" I don't think this wad explodes beyond Doomworld if an identical fictional narrative had led you to a terrywad. There is almost assuredly a true story behind this map however, "At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed."

https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/ We've been writing about the best Doom projects each year for the past 20 years... it's a great place to start. I'd probably recommend starting with 2022 and working backwards. What I find fascinating about the MyHouse phenomenon is just how many people find the map to be technically impressive. Most people haven't followed the Doom modding scene for the past 20 years so they're unfamiliar with the capabilities of modern source ports, so when they see a hugely popular map, it's their first exposure to what programmers in this community have added to Doom. Many of the mods listed in our recent awards are far more technically impressive—Elementalism for example is an almost unparalleled achievement in complex mapping, scripting, and modeling—but, like most Doom mods, never really escaped the Doom community. MyHouse is best described as imaginative in its use of advanced features as opposed to a technical marvel. Edit: sonuvabitch, Jabba!

Myhouse.pk3

CPOS are the frames for the chaingunner... It sounds like you're trying to run it with Ultimate Doom instead of Doom 2. Or maybe there's another wad being run with it?

Maybe there's something wrong with the official Mac build? You could try one of the recent dev build... https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdoom-mac/

Beta 26?