Doomkid

nbd at all, I'll move it. I always liked Crash because I simply thought having a female variant of the Doom marine was a great idea for multiplayer games. They wouldn't even have to call her Crash again, but introducing a new character that has the same concept, maybe even including the aforementioned detail of her being one of Doomguy's trainers, would be a nice touch as far as I'm concerned.

Gotta agree there. I'd go as far as to say the Duke 3D theme is more badass than the Doom theme, and in general his work is just more evocative post-Doom. I kinda like the utter simplicity of Wolf3D and Doom's MIDIs in a way though, they're relatively barebones and I find that makes them work incredibly well in many different map contexts, and I do have a certain appreciation for music that is composed to be "background music" that isn't intrusive/doesn't have a whole lot going on, but still manages to be catchy and sound generally good. Still though, his work on Duke 3D seems to just have more "feel" in it, and at the end of the day, that's what I prefer.

do-tims is still a classic to this very day!

Looks so interesting, I have a small list of wads I'm planning to play for YT soon and this is going right on it.

Oh god, my memory is going.. It's getting to the point where all the community projects are becoming one entity in my mind, LOL. Thank you for recording these! You're very welcome Large Cat, I already liked your map even though it kicked my ass, but I've come to be better and it and like it even more over time, and am really happy to have it as a part of this wad. Also, there's no way Rudy is going to take this sitting down..! Glad to have the updates, I was actually hoping the release thread would prompt a few people to submit some last-call fixes. Will be included in the 1.0 release in probably just under a week's time!

LOL. Fuck. I think when I popped the extra multiplayer starts in the map, my node builder completely mangled this area of the map, and I didn't notice (beyond a bit of visual bleeding) when zipping through. @Rykz is there any chance you have the latest build you ever made of To The Site, that also has 4 coop and DM starts (just to be 100% sure)? I have a feeling this was all introduced through node conflicts.

As far as the map names go, people usually use shortened or abbreviated map names in the DeHacked patch specifically. The full name name can still be shown on the intermission screen through use of CWILV graphics, and the inclusion of a MAPINFO lump is a way to ensure that more advanced ports (like GZDoom, ZDoom, Odamex, Zand, ZDaemon, etc) can still have the full, non-abbreviated map name on the automap, essentially meaning only the people using very old/obscure ports will even see the weird abbreviated versions of the map names - and even then they'll only see it on the automap, since their port of choice is only able to read the DEHACKED lump and not the MAPINFO lump. Other ports like DSDA-Doom, Eternity, Doom Retro etc also have their own ever-so-slightly-different variants of MAPINFO, which can be included to ensure that pretty much every commonly used port won't show the weird abbreviated names on the automap (at that point, the name replacements in the DeHacked lump really are there just for the people using very old or obscure ports to not see boring crap like "Map10: Refueling Base" on the automap). Also, on an unrelated note, is this by any chance inspired by @joe-ilya's 1024ABC? The concept is so similar, and I haven't actually thought about it for years until blabbing with MtPain27 about it somewhat recently, just a week or two back on YT, and now this community project is springing up. I just have to confirm whether or not that's just a strange coincidence!

Wow, didn't even notice that, and I think you definitely may be onto something - looks like Disk 1 had the date correctly changed to 12/93, but the other disk mentions a date of 8/93 bizarrely, well before Doom's release, but well after Wolf3D was out. Even if your theory is wrong (probably can't be proven one way or the other) I'd say that's some solid detective work.

Along with two very minor typo fixes in the textfile, the addition of the new MAPINFO variants by brick (thank you again), and a fix for Peccatum's map (whenever he's able - no rush), I just realized that I totally forgot to record 4 demos for each of the three episodes - D'OH. I specifically recall @xX_Lol6_Xx asking to record these demos when the time came, and well, it has finally come! Let me know when you have those recorded, if indeed you still want to :)

I prefer Doom 1’s soundtrack overall, but I’m gonna go against the grain a little and say Doom2’s soundtrack is better than people give it credit for.. D_RUNNIN is a great MIDI, mappers are all just sick of it. D_BETWEE has a badass drumline, D_SHAWN is heavy as shit and perfectly menacing for the maps it’s used on, D_DDTBLU has this way of building up ever so slightly over the course of the song in an ear-wormy way, D_IN_CIT is just simply a darn good riff, D_DEAD is perfectly evil and would have been right at home in Doom 1 (much like Map10 itself), D_AMPIE and D_MESSAG have this insane chaotic “Hellish vibe” that imo sets the mood well for the last episode of Doom2, and D_OPENIN is nice and creepy, perfect for the hardest of the boss battles a player would have seen up to that point. I also can’t bring myself to shit on D_STALKS - as hilariously unfitting as it is for Doom, at least it is a relaxing and nice-to-hear little tune. D_THE_DA’s starting riff should be played on a tuba to emphasise how goofy, plonky and “waddling” that silly bass line sounds, lol. Possibly one of the most boring MIDIs ever composed, period. If not for the funny little whistle sound right at the end of the track, it would just be completely null and devoid of anything..

Thanks so much for doing this, seriously! Blue Phoenix did SO well with that recolour, I love it. I honestly did forget them.. 😳 You know, I’m not at my PC right now, but I think my Doom Builder uses zennode by default, ancient as it is. I’ll check for sure later though (and if you’re OK with my “box method” for preventing the hard-but-possible softlock, I’d ask if you could please recreate it in your own build of the map to avoid the node conflicts :)) EDIT: Just confirmed, when I save a map, the nodebuilder set in DB is "ZenNode - Normal". We did SO much work in just 3 short days!! How am I not gonna brag about that?! (lol..fixing now)

I personally have all my chips on OFDNSMAPINFO (Original Format, Do Not Steal) being the one to finally unite all ports and clean up this whole mess!

Although it proves nothing, here are some more disks suggesting some kind of link between Apogee and Doom at some point, though I'm starting to wonder if other distributors were mistakenly crediting Doom "to" Apogee, due to the old Wolf3D relationship as Joel mentioned above.

GZDoom, Odamex, ZDaemon and Zandronum also support the old format with no worries! By all means though, if you convert the existing lumps to UMAPINFO, I'd be very appreciative and would be happy to include them in the next revision. Doing the original lumps up was already a pain in the ass, let alone the little variants that have started springing up the last decade like UMAPINFO, EMAPINFO, ZMAPINFO, LOLMAPINFO, OMGWTFBBQMAPINFO and so on (rofl). As you see above, even after a bunch of reviewing I still managed to let a fuckup slide that was caught by Vladguy - lol! Having to revise so many different versions of the same lump would have driven me insane during development, but now that things are essentially wrapped up it should be easy to implement all the various MAPINFO strains.

No-name brand ones SUCK ASS and do not work right at all. Make sure you get one from a known brand: LG, Sony, IBM - basically anything that isn't unbranded. Those unbranded ones will do a number on your discs while not reading them.

D'OH. Fixed, as well as a non-fatal MAPINFO issue on E2 (and adding an omitted credit to the text file as well). Link is the same as before, version number updated to 0.9991!

Wow, after just over a year, version 1 (actually version 0.999) is FINALLY live for the playing, woohoo!!! Started a new thread because this one is so gigantic and unwieldy: Any JJ related posts should go in the new thread from now on :) RIP old contest / development thread, you're a big bastard and you served us well.

...That's right, after 368 days in the oven, the JAMAL JONES TRILOGY is finally ready for release! DOWNLOAD IT HERE (v 1.1) https://doomshack.org/uploads/JM_JONES.zip IDGAMES DOWNLOAD: (coming soon!) Vanilla / CompLevel2 :) * * * Some context about this triple-megawad collection: The Jamal Jones Trilogy is the result of a mapping contest that I held from January 5th, 2022 to March 1st, 2022 to celebrate my 20th anniversary of Doom mapping (as of October 2021). I did a YouTube playthrough series of all the wonderful submissions I got - a whopping total of 54 maps!! - from March 8th through to June 12th. I played 'em all and had a great time, and the 3 winners (Michael Jensen, Rycuz and Big Ol' Billy) were finally announced on June 23rd and paid a couple days later. On July 31st, at the very reasonable request of Cammy, work was started on 10 more maps for E3 to fill each episode out evenly. Most of the work was done by New Years 2023 (well before, actually), so before you today is the product of a very casual and fun year of hard work. I think it paid off well! * * * THE BACKSTORY: "Jamal Jones was part of a squad sent in to do damage control when one of the "well-meaning" UAC's alien research experiments went haywire. Unfortunately, the "damage" greatly outweighed the "control" and now the alien scourge is spreading like wildfire and infecting certain humans in such a way that they transform into brain-craving abominations. With the rest of his squad dead and his little brother Rudy elsewhere in the country on an unrelated mission, Jamal's will is to find Rudy and carve a destructive path through the bastards, hopefully enough to disable their takeover entirely. Can you help Jamal destroy the scourge and save what's left of the human race?" THE NEW MONSTERS: Plasma Guy: Attacks like a much slower Arachnotron, but with far less health. HP = 90 Hazmat Guy: Replaces the annoying little SS Nazi dudes! HP = 50 Alien Imp: Sturdy as hell, but that’s a good thing. Hurls a Baron and Imp fireball in quick succession. Walks faster than his weaker cousin. HP = 130 Blind Pinky: Has the same health as always, but charges quite a bit faster now! HP = 150 Toxicacodemon: A little more aggressive than a standard tomato, and spits a toxic Baron ball rather than a standard Caco ball. HP = 400 Flame Caco: He spits deadly flame at close range, but don't let his followup fireball catch you off guard! HP = 550 ..The lower-tier weapons have also received some nice upgrades: The pistol is now a tougher, faster, and perfectly accurate Rifle, and the fists are now a 4x stronger Bayonet. Additionally the Chainsaw, Shotgun, Chaingun and Rocket Launcher have all received a slight increase to their rate of fire! THE CREDITS: Textures were taken from "High Res Textures w/o the High Res" by 40oz with credits to Kurikai for maintaining the JDTP, DoomCity by Shamus Young, Duke Nukem 3D, FreeDoom, Final Doom, and Alpha Doom. The weapon sprites are from Doom, Alpha Doom, and Doom64, but have been given very beautiful makeovers by chronoteeth. The Hell Knight, Baron, Toxicacodemon and Flame Caco are from Rowdy Rudy, but have been given very beautiful makeovers by Blue Phoenix. The hazmat guy, zombieman, chaingunner and various props are from Doom and Alpha Doom and were edited by Doomkid. The plasma guy is from OSIRIS.wad and was edited by Doomkid. The blind pinky is from Doom and was edited by HorrorMovieRei. The shotgunner is from Doom and was edited by Melodica. The teleport sprite is from FreeDoom. The cool hell sky for E3 is from EXEC.wad and was fixed by Arsinikk. The DeHackEd work, MAPINFO lumps, wad compilation and other general odds and ends were done by Doomkid, with a little help from my friends (who help me get by / high). MAPLIST & MAPPER CREDITS: Episode 1: In Judgment of Evil 1- @Rykz - To The Site 2- @Vladguy - Running Down 3- @Earnesttrout - Dark Secrets 4- @Astronomical - Initialisation 5- @Majipantsu - Shopping Spree 6- @Glikkzy - Pollution Plant 7- @evil_scientist - PACKIN' HEAT 8- @Origamyde - Wheel of Misfortune 9- @Sneezy McGlassFace - Smells Like Cordite 10- Doomkid - Base of Consequences 11- @valkiriforce - The Escapist 12- @big smoke - Toxic Factory 13- @jacnowak - Damned Dam 14- Origamyde - Derelict Row 15- @Weird Sandwich - SINISTER SLUDGE 16- @Sectorslayer - Corporate Secret 17- @Blue Phoenix - Sewage City 18- @Anonymous Space Marine - Vile Streets 19- @Peccatum Mihzamiz - Inner City Evil 20- @Michael Jensen - Warhevil S1 - @Goat-Avenger - FORLORN FANTASY S2 - @Big Ol Billy - UMRK (UAC Muffin Research Kitchen) Episode 2: One Man Jury! 1- @Skronkidonk - Eden's River 2- @E.M. - Mucopurulent Mystery 3- @Borpo The Wizard - Delta Complex 4- @b0n3 - Menagerie Mayhem 5- @mgr_inz_rafal - Techbase Damaged by Hell 6- @Osmosis Bones - Starflippers Inc. 7- @Rymante - Waste 'Em 8- @StrangerRanger - Contaminated Purgatory 9- @Thatonespymain - Tremors 10- Doomkid - Base In the Basin 11- @phoo - Gloves Off 12- @finnks13 - Slime Infestation 13- @antares031 - Alpha Centauri Techbase 14- @Argent Agent - Corrupted Utopia 15- @Synuś Vader - UAC Delta Labs 16- @Blexor - Caustic Canyon 17- @Large Cat - Final Contact 18- @MtPain27 - Ezekiel 25:17 19- @Ricola102 - Industrial Revulsion 20- @Yumheart - Death Leap S1 - @CBM - 1World S2 - @TVdinnermasterchef - UAC R&D Weapons Facility (limit removing) Episode 3: Hell's Executioner 1- @joe-ilya - BASILICA 2- @DrJordo - The Jury is In! 3- @MEMEAIDS - Ironclad Fortress 4- @NeilJohnRips - Reading the Demonic Scriptures 5- @Elto Gaming - Bloodshot Sunshine 6- @Jastrzab Trzeci - Babylon 1816 7- @Hitboi - Devilish Belly 8- @Velvetic - Amongst Blood and Fire 9- @ShadesMaster - BLOOD FOZZLE 10- b0n3 - Underside 11- @Mark Bloom - Mudslide 12- @RastaManGames - Scorched Debris 13- @ChippiHeppu - Charred Remains 14- Vladguy - Rocky Rumble 15- Doomkid - Brimstone Basics 16- @Arsinikk - Technobabel 17- @NiGHTS108 - Scorching Ivy 18- Mark Bloom - The Cauldron 19- @Cammy - Grilled Billions 20- @LGmaire - Future Hometown 21- NiGHTS108 & Doomkid - The End! S1- @Dubium - No Man Village S2- @cannonball - Peyote Ugly MINOR MAP NOTES: E1 Map01 has some sector bleeding on the bridge and in the secret area with the soulsphere. E1 Map16 has a zero-byte REJECT lump and is missing the impassable flag on certain linedefs. E1 Map19 has visual glitches on a particular set of bridges later in the map. E2 Map32 is limit-removing and has a rarely triggerable softlock(?). * * * ..With all that out of the way, I think that about does it for this post! What a journey this last year has been. Seriously, I just want to restate how fun it was and how important all of you, and indeed this whole community is to me. I'm still not tired of it after all this time, and that's saying something! Also, how insane is it that the contest thread got over 1,050,000 views over the course of the last year?! I've had some threads crack 100k before, but that just blows me away. If you want to check out the old contest / development thread, it can be found here: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/129169/. If you want to check out all the YouTube map playthroughs, they can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgU3IUvBpyibL4n5liEHy7RcIiBF9gIMH. * * * ..Well, what are you waiting for? Run along now, there's a TON of demons for you to kill!

That status bar is faker than Jimmy Fallon's laugh

You know, I kind of want to try and reach out to Jay Wilbur and ask how they handled the logistics of mailing out pre-1.666 Doom. We all know mail order was an option for most countries around the world who had access to Doom, but I have to imagine trying to wrangle multiple contacts around the world pre-GT was an enormous pain in the ass. Just checked the Wiki and it looks like they deliberately sabotaged their relationship with GT (for good reasons) with Quake, but regardless I’m so curious about the ins and outs. It looks like they kept at least some ties to Apogee post-Wolf and there are some earlier Doom disks out there that say Apogee, as seen above. Can’t help but wonder if they had some sort of low-stakes deal with them to do some of the initial mail order stuff prior to GT coming into the picture, and possibly having some other similar contacts around the world for the intentional stuff. (Edit: I doubt this in hindsight, Joel's observation about the Apogee thing makes way more sense.) Would be interesting to lay some of the small remaining questions to rest, assuming anyone at id circa 93/94 even remembers any of the details. Romero is ultra-reliable for the software side of things or funny old office tales, but even he seemingly lost some trivial details over the years - I mean honestly, who wouldn’t - for example that Doom and Doom 2 had post-1.666 floppy releases all the way through 1.9 (I vividly remember him saying they “switched away from floppy to CD for Doom 2” - though even then maybe he’s just referring to the primary means of selling the game, and didn’t mean to imply that they had gone cold turkey on floppy disks.)

That sounds like a very reasonable theory, and would also explain why the labels vary in minor ways and why in rare instances different diskette colors were used. It seems like things got much more uniform from 1.666 onward as well, the labels are always red from that version on, whereas there seems to be a mix of red and blue for both versions 1.1 and 1.2.

It's hard to say, because mail order versions of 1.1 and 1.2 seem to have had SO many different minute differences - whether or not the disk is numbered, which itself is done in several different fonts, sometimes it specifies "Regsistered" and sometimes it does not, sometimes a version is specified while other times it isn't, sometimes (if numbered) it says "Disk 2 of 4" while other times it says "Disk 2/4" or simply "Disk 2", sometimes the labels are flipped upside down, and even in rare cases (and seemingly depending on the country) coming in non-black floppy disks. All of these are believed to be genuine copies of registered Doom, and most of them - with the exception of ones sold by Manaccom in Australia - were indeed sent via mail order. Or at least that's the story! Looking at these photos, you can probably see why I suspect disks 1 and 2 are legitimate and belong together, and also why disk 4 is really legitimate looking, but clearly from a different pack originally. But the fact that they're dark red is strange as well.. the presence of blue disks above (and some blue / red upgrade floppies from 1.1 --> 1.2 that were packed in sometimes) makes me think they might really be authentic, and just uncommon examples of non-black disks, maybe only ever sent to the Australian market..?

You got it! I'll release a new build today, but only via Doomshack. Maybe I'll call it v0.999. It's all about whether or not people submit them. I'll be doing a run-down of all the maps with the author and date of submission attached and the custom blurb added where applicable: I know Cammy, MEMEAIDS and LGmaire submitted custom blurbs with their maps, and maybe a few others. Sadly whatever was uploaded to WadHosting.com is now lost, which includes a handful of custom blurbs submitted alongside the maps by the authors..

Guys, I'm gonna level with you. Creating MAPINFO lumps for 3 megawads is a giant pain in the ass. UGH UGHHIHHIWH$_h-wh04-=4h=3h-h=-wsf;,.n;s ..In other news, expect the 1.0 build within the next couple hours. Wohooo!!! Listed below are some bugs that won't be squashed by me, most of them simply because I don't know how - there are some tricks employed that I don't use and in some cases the approach to mapping differs enough from my own that I have a hard time diagnosing the exact cause of these issues. However I of course welcome the mappers to submit fixes if they see fit: • E1 Map01 by Rykz has bad sector bleeding on the bridge and in the secret area with the soulsphere. • E1 Map16 by Sectorslayer has a zero-byte REJECT lump and is missing the impassable flag on certain linedefs. • E1 Map19 by Peccatum has a lot of visual glitches on a particular set of bridges later in the map. (I fixed the softlock with some crates that lower slowly.) • E2 Map32 by TVdinnermasterchef is limit-removing and has a rarely triggerable softlock(?). • E3 Map16 by Arsinikk has a stuck flame caco in the ceiling in the church area. • E3 Map21 by NiGHTS108 uses a non-aspect-ratio corrected version of Blue Phoenix's avatar. ..Pretty tiny stuff, considering the sheer number of maps here! All the other weird shit in the last build like missing co-op and deathmatch starts, missing textures, flats that cause crashes, etc etc.. is ALL* squashed now! *I hope..

Listen, I know perpetual growth. It's a great business model. Fantastic business model. Nobody knows perpetual growth better than me. People are always telling me how great perpetual growth is, and frankly, I agree with them. Incredible business model. The best you've ever seen.