Doomkid

Doomworld's Theme Song (Official)

You'll want the following programs to get the best chance of Doom DM, they're all relatively tiny: - Doom Explorer (which lets you scroll through existing servers) - ZDaemon, Odamex and Zandronum, the 3 multiplayer Doom ports. This video should explain all you need to know in an easy way:

Damn. This is the first outright bad take I've ever seen from you, MMM. Other than meme wads (or similar), I pretty much never saw this. It was just people leaving a brief (but honest) sentence about the wad like 90% of the time, assuming it had any reviews at all. The review section for WOW.wad is the exception not the norm lol

The lack of a "random" button that leads me to a file that I can then review, not only to inform people of some basics but as a breadcrumb for myself to know I've already played it, has substantially impacted my Dooming over the years. That was the primary way I used to find old wads from 2008 through to 2017. Sorting through random files and playing like 3-4 in a row that I've already played before a couple years earlier but wasn't able to review happened way too often and became way too tedious, too much noise-to-signal ratio in that particular hobby. Between that and having no easy way to share my thoughts on individual files themselves, I unfortunately have slowly but surely lost interest in the years since. (In sorting through old wads lol not Doom itself, to clarify) There's some weird, hacky ways I could get around this - finding a file I haven't played using "random" on the old frontend, then finding the corresponding page on the new frontend when search works, which can be a bit tedious, then review it there, then finally move onto the next file, but it's like going back to a fax machine after boing spoiled by texting. Don't take this as a harsh complaint post, just posting my personal experience since things got reshuffled. I doubt it had this much of an effect on most people's Doom experience - I'd be an edge case, I sought to review every actual wad on there at some point (and got pretty far before things closed down), I doubt most people were attempting that.

Doom 2's importance in the realm of multiplayer gaming is being seriously undersold here. Sure Doom technically started it, but despite being brilliant conceptually, Doom 1 deathmatch sucks balls because it takes way too long for enemies to die. The SSG was what gave "Doom deathmatch" as a concept a lot more spice, and this (small, but MASSIVE) gameplay changer got the world seriously excited for the concept of online/international multiplayer FPSes. When you look at all the DWANGO map packs from 1995-1996, they're for Doom 2, not Doom 1, again almost solely because of the crucial addition of the SSG. The game feel of Doom 2 deathmatch had a massive impact on Quake's deathmatch. If you play a common/oldschool Doom 2 DM wad from the 90s then play Quake DM the influence/connection is undeniable due to the super-fast frag turnover rate, and the SSG is one of the main reasons for that. So, in addition to the points others have made about Casali (and several others) getting into the gaming industry thanks to their Doom 2 mapping, it had a huge hand in introducing the world to multiplayer FPS gaming, and the influence it in turn had on Quake had a huge roll-on effect for other FPSes released in that era. I can definitely see the argument that being the first boxed Doom sold (officially) in stores also meant a good 40-50% of players started with Doom2 rather than Doom1 shareware, and so despite being kind of an "artificial" reason / not based on the merit of Doom 2 itself, this also definitely factors into how influential the game was near release time. In the economy of the FPS world? Doom 2's gameplay differences certainly had an impact, but not as big as Doom 1 in its entirety, sure. Maybe only mappers consciously realize this, but it takes substantially less effort to make an actually-engaging Doom 2 map than a Doom 1 map because of the SSG and extra enemies. While Doom is always "baseline fun" in a competently-designed map, there's absolutely a higher thrill potential in Doom 2 thanks to the new enemies, which tend to make up the majority of the opposition in huge, grand, sweeping wads these days anyway. Doom 1 still would have been very influential all the same, but it most likely would have halved the number of wads people made, particularly after the mid 90s. Given the quickly-apparent lack of variety in the Doom 1 enemies, it's no stretch at all to think mappers may have needed extra variety for truly engaging gameplay and turned to Duke 3D (or otherwise), or perhaps they just wouldn't have been "gripped" enough to get into it in the first place - shy of modern solutions with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, Doom 1 wads are pretty roundly less engaging on the gameplay front than Doom 2 wads. I'd be really wary of underselling the impact that had on not only the broader industry, but particularly in Doom's staying power - a ton of mappers stayed around (or joined up) in the 30 years after release because the built-in variety of Doom 2 is enough to carry the experience for a long time. I genuinely do not believe the same could be said of Doom 1, much as I love it. The wadmaking economy stayed healthy the whole way through with nearly no dips largely thanks to the Doom 2 roster's inherent fun-factor, which directly paved the path for Doom 4 and Eternal to be developed. I think this further cements the massive impact on the industry in a long-term sense. The timeline of Doom itself and the greater industry would be substantially altered without the existence of Doom 2. Maybe not beyond recognition as other games would have stepped up to the plate and filled that niche, but the Doom franchise would be taking home a noticeably smaller piece of the "long term influence" pie, for sure.

I think I'm just acclimatized to heat. I was born/grew up in Florida (which I've been told tracks..), lived in Hawaii for a few years, then to Australia back in 2008. I love the beach and swimming and cold water/cold winds make those torture lol. Even in some outback towns there's nice public pools, jumping in on a hot day is one of the most refreshing feelings there is, and it's amazing to be able to get that in desert surrounds, especially during a sunset..! I think a lot of people don't know there are snowy bits of Australia though - the snowy mountains. That's where I first saw snow and it's gorgeous, but I wouldn't be able to live in it..

I love snow! It has the courtesy to stay far, far away from where I live c:

There have been several new moderators taken on board since 2016, but AFAIK no one lost their position, certainly not due to anything political. A few have resigned over the years but that was more just being tired of dealing with the thankless nonsense of being a mod, heh. (A lot of socially repressed people hate individual freedoms, that's bloody what!) I don't think things were all that bad proportionally to the rest of the internet even 10 or 15 years ago, though. I'll always go to bat for DW on this one when it comes up: I really do believe that even at its worst, DW was above average in terms of tolerance, especially for a gaming-centric community, even in the mid-late 2000s. Granted, I was already addicted to internet politics and drama by the early 00s, but I still remember that while Doomworld was going "huhuh, gay" there were already other forums which were talking about how "homosexuality is the destruction of modern civilization", the result of "allowing feminine influence in a man's realm", etc.. That might seem like an extreme baseline for comparison, but what I'm getting at is that not only were DW's less tolerant types a relatively tiny minority of the overall forum populace, but the awful social ideas they presented in threads were always lambasted at length before the decision to stop hosting heated political debates on DW was set in stone in 2016. Even before the era where more bigoted ideas were just hell'd outright, they were always mocked! (For those who are like "lol wtf why the FUCK did DW used to openly house political debate threads", remember that DW comes from an era before 100% of the internet was 100% political 24/7. It was kind of like a novelty, back in the day. These days, it's more of a novelty to have refuge from heated political debates.)

Nice idea for a thread. I'm happy that I love where I live. I see a lot of people lamenting their living situations and I feel so lucky to not be one of them.

It's totally fine Fonze, I misunderstood your post and I appreciate you clarifying!

..heh, whoa, didn't think pointing out the joke was played out and that preferring to interact with actual people rather than characters would be seen as so bothersome or that people would be mentioning "punching down" or "bait posts" or anything like that.. I've seen a ton of examples of harmless shitposting that was insta-locked on the grounds of being a meme, but this is different for reasons that aren't immediately clear to me. Granted, I err on the side of thinking that what was grounds for "lockable shitpost threads" as of like yesterday was too harsh and prefer to see it lightened up across the board, but it's still a stark contrast to how shitposting is usually received, that's all Sorry for the misunderstanding and that the 3-4 of us who mentioned the joke being old/preferring to talk to real people are such bothersome negative sticks in the mud.. I guess the line of what harmless shitposting people like and what harmless shitposting people don't like isn't so clear to me, that's all. Then again I feel like I saw a stark IQ drop in the general everyday posting on DW throughout 2023 anyway, so becoming cavemen is the natural conclusion of that arc. It's time for me to reject modernity and embrace rocks.

The mind is the best tool! OooOOooOh how about that answer? (I can go fart sniffier if necessary) On the Grungo thing, imo it's not a big deal by any means, but also sort of unfunny by now. I expected a short lived gag, generally preferring people to be their actual selves (within reason), but oh well

Sandy editing Tom's maps is a perfect example of a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. Tom Hall's rigidly realistic and square level designs needed some zany spice, and Sandy's slapdash nature is conversely reeled in appropriately if it he works from a somewhat bland but highly functional layout, like those Tom made.

Please don't necro threads, BassSlapper will surely update it if there's more to be seen

I think it's not only valid but healthy to see a massive company slapping their IPs all over random packaging and cringing as a result. Any other reaction feels oddly forgiving to blatant corporate shilling and the generally.. let's call them "less beneficial" aspects of capitalism. Long story short, unless those chips are actually seasoned with real doomguys, I'm fucking suing.

(I don't know the name) the CD with 2000 levels is in close contention with Master Levels and Mighty Doom! The rest I could take or leave.

Even though "Zed" is an extremely goofy sounding word, perhaps what you'd call some little alien creature comin down for a visit - it's really useful for phone calls. C and ZEE sound identical in ultra-bitcrushed phone quality, so having a distinct way to say Z is very useful. GeeZedDoom sounds even more painfully stupid and mushmouthed than GeeZeeDoom, but to be real for a sec, nearly every Doom port being a cluster of 2-4 letters followed by "Doom" was always really unwieldy no matter which specific port we're referring to. "ZDoom" is just so clean cut of a name by comparison. it's crazy to think there was a time when just one measly extra letter was enough!! (lol)

For what it's worth, I have clear memories of people on Doom Connector back in like 2003 calling the company "Crapstone Games" and ripping into Bill Shatner's TekWar.. I'm sure the mockery was exaggerated for a laugh, but the narrative that their games aren't good has been around and accepted since before YT existed. I never played the games and don't really have a horse in this race, I've looked through some of their assets and thought they could be used well in a Doom mod - but anecdotally, the common opinion was always decidedly poor (and often coupled with some mocking remarks..) I'm sure the core concepts of these games could be remade into something fun, but even outside this discussion, I almost always prefer "new" to "remake", be it games, films, shows, etc..

...nerdy shit, eh? I think you want that source port

Erm, his name is Mt. Paint 27, thank you very much.

Back when I was mapping more often, fairly straightforward Dooming was my specialty. The Sinister Seven and Rowdy Rudy's Revenge, as well as other short episodes on my idgames wad listing, should hopefully scratch your itch. There's a ton of other excellent straightforward episodes that I'd normally list here, but I'm a bit out of the loop currently :)

This is such an interesting find, I didn't know this sound's origin was known. Good effort on reconstructing it!

I'll be switching to this for my future vanilla Doom sessions. Awesome features here.

If the map is gripping me I'll try to get at least most of the secrets and kills. Otherwise this tends to feel like an express lane to making what was a fun and punchy map a gruelling slog instead. If I happen to 100% any/all categories during play it's like "oh nice" for about 0.1 picoseconds before I forget forever and move onto the next map. The tendency I've seen in many Doom streamers to double or even triple a map's playtime by looking for some secret cubby with a green armor is absolutely mind blowing to me, because they NEVER appear to enjoy the process and would certainly be having more fun shooting enemies in the next map, heh. It strikes me as a strange compulsion much of the time moreso than it is a means of having more fun with the map!

They all excel in different areas, imo. E1 has a great sense of place and thematic consistency for such an old game, absolutely the perfect "hook" episode to have started Doom with, from the perspective of both a developer or as a player. E2 keeps some of that tech essence, but introduces elements of corruption and abstract design by comparison to E1. It also feels a little more abandoned, a little more eerie, and is certainly a distinct notch harder. The atmosphere is where this one shines. E3 admittedly is a bit of a letdown, but the full-on abstract design and hellish themes in some maps is still excellent. Honestly, I think I was just spoiled by playing Doom 2 and about a dozen PWADs before actually getting the full Ultimate Doom, the abstraction and bright glowing red rocks and such probably would have captured me more if it was my first time seeing such maps, but it wasn't. As a babe, E4 felt like what I "hoped for" from E3 for those years of seeing it on the shareware episode select screen. The first two maps absolutely rocked my shit, I couldn't beat them legitimately til a couple years later. I fucking loved that. It felt like there was still more for me to grow toward / look forward to in Doom. I iddqd'd it as a kid and loved the whole damn episode, but as a more discerning adult, it's still great but it's SO frontloaded in terms of challenge and fun, which was a mistake with the gift of nearly 30 years of hindsight. All in all, E3 is the worst of a very important and entertaining bunch, especially for their age and groundbreaking nature.