Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

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H2Omelon: Aug 31, 2009

So a lot of you here probably remember that time when that level designer for Bioshock demade one of the levels in Doom, it won a Cacoaward back in 2010, and he wrote an article about Doom's gameplay. I assume you all remember it because it's been linked in numerous iterations of this thread enough times of the years.

Well I happened to stumble upon it again today and holy poo poo one of the comments on the article is just comedy gold. What a crazy bastard.

quote:

Although I agree Doom does not feel like modern shooters, it does not feel like 2D shooters in the least. Not having an overhead view of everything drastically changes gameplay.

�This is what Doom�s designers were working from in 1993 � back then, the idea of a first person shooter was barely established, and their closest models for many mechanics were from 2D shooters like Robotron, Berserk and Tempest.�

You must be trying to troll me? Well, you�ve succeeded, I�m right pissed off.

It was my experience, having lived through a the evolution of FPS games, that Fully Immersive Virtual Reality Games (complete with VR Headsets) existed well before Doom� In fact in 1991 the Virtuality game system existed. With it I played Dactyl Nightmare and Exorex. Both WHILE Doom was in development. Are you saying ID didn�t have such games to work with? These may not have been the ones, but the CLOSEST games to draw game play from were 2D?! I think Not!

Just because you have chosen to be an ignorant Philistine and ignore the OVER TWENTY YEARS of 3D First Person Shooters PRIOR to Doom, doesn�t mean we all have. JP, you sir, are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Are you so overly self-absorbed that your retarded revelation that using the IDDT cheat makes Doom into a 2D Shooter to even SEARCH the Internet we build for you before spouting your mindless drivel?!

Here! I shall hold your hand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter#Early_first-person_shooters:_1970s_to_early_1990s

Name ONE. Just ONE 2D Shooter where you can see all the enemies positions, and they only know where you are via 3D Line of Sight calculations� As is played in the IDDT Debug cheat you reference. Robotron My rear end!

�The notion of realism in FPS design wouldn�t appear for another few years� � What Nonsense IS This?! You sir have slapped me, and the ENTIRE 3D INDUSTRY in the face � drat your small-minded self-centered mental masturbation puff-piece to HELL!

ID Made THREE Catacombs FPS games for Softdisk before Wolfenstein3D � Where were YOU? These were all slow paced FPS games, Heavily Concerned with Adding MORE realism in each iteration! o_O

Romero�s Vision of a Fast Paced Visceral FPS, and THOUSANDS of hours of play-testing honed Doom into what it was. Back-pedal all you want, It still doesn�t change the fact that your assumptions and comparisons are WRONG!

Where were YOU, when I was playing a FULLY 3D First Person Perspective Shooter in 1986: Starglider, and the sequel with filed 3D Polygonal MODELS in 1988, on my Home PC, Seven and Five years respectively BEFORE Doom�s release?!

The 3D and FPS Industry helped to sell computers in the 70′s, 80′s & 90′s�

Furthermore, The Demo Scene�s 3D contributions were heavily influential to nearly ALL game designers of the era�

Where were YOU when the SACRIFICE was made to abandon True 3D game play and graphics for the sake of TEXTURES and REALISM!? The 2.5D Era of Textured Graphics evolved from the FULLY 3D FPS game world, NOT the 2D world AT ALL.

There were Hundreds if not Thousands of FPS games, even Gun Toting Games that were very unrealistic with their �plastic� and futuristic solid filled polygon feel that would have made EXCELLENT comparisons to back your Article�s Agenda�

�But Nooo, You Finally decide to make a Doom Map, and all of a sudden you think you�re some wise Oracle, about to educate today�s gamers of the Trials and Tribulations that led to the Revolution in 3D FPS Games?!

JP, You of ALL people should have known better. YOU DISCREDIT and Disrespect Yourself via this article! �It�s better to keep quiet and have others think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.�

I would have thought that YOU of ALL People, a Respected individual in the 3D Industry, would care the slightest bit about the Founders and Trail blazers upon who�s shoulders you stand to at least learn something of your roots� If not for your own edification, at the very least before spouting this nonsense to the masses.

We payed a HEAVY toll as gamers and game makers to make 3D relevant despite the insane costs and an unsure future � Tempest? Berserk?! I would laugh if it wasn�t so disgracefully ignorant.

Look, just because YOU don�t have any prior 3D FPS experience to draw from to make valid comparisons via doesn�t mean your first naive assumption is correct.

I agree that Doom has game play mechanics that are lost to most of today�s FPS playing generation, but Smith and Wesson were NOT influenced by a Neanderthal�s
flint tipped spear!

Additionally, if you actually record a demo of your gameplay in FPS, then record one of the same level in �Top Down IDDT� mode and compare the results � You�ll see two VERY different game-plays. Omniscience and First Person Perspective are wholly game changing factors, even when the same map is played.

I concede your point that an interesting game-play mechanic is largely under utilized, but your attempted execution to convey this severely hampered by your flawed premise.

�[M]any decisions were made simply on the basis of being good for abstract shooter gameplay.�

This statement was true of nearly ALL prior FPS Games! Doom did not evolve from it�s map-mode into the 3D game it is today.

Sharing some small mechanic in PART of a game�s play is not enough to make such strong statements. Correlation dose not imply Causation! Critical Thinking, Man! Learn It!

Clearly good my opinion of you was wrong.

If only the gamers.txt thread were still open.

# ? Dec 3, 2012 20:09

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 12:26

JLaw: Feb 10, 2008; - harmless -

It's like a strange, beautiful, unspeakably awkward and platypus-like endangered creature prancing around its little lair and puffing out its chin sac.

# ? Dec 3, 2012 20:17

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

ten dollar bitcoin posted:

I don't feel Heretic and Hexen ever got enough love. I mean yeah, to some degree they're just Doom reskins but they're fun!

I really enjoyed Heretic, but I feel it's quite a stretch to call Hexen "fun".

# ? Dec 3, 2012 20:31

Jblade: Sep 5, 2006

ToxicFrog posted:

I really enjoyed Heretic, but I feel it's quite a stretch to call Hexen "fun".

Was it ever playable in co-op (originally without ports) I could imagine it being fun there but yeah playing it in SP was tedius as hell. Having only 4 weapons was a really bad idea (giving them an alt-fire might of helped) It's a shame since the later levels were pretty well done and atmospheric.

Having said that, I thought Hexen 2 was a lot more fun than the first one.

# ? Dec 3, 2012 21:31

Convex: Aug 19, 2010

Jblade posted:

Was it ever playable in co-op

It was, but you had to play the entire game in one sitting as you couldn't level skip without breaking things.

Honestly, if any game actually needed a Bioshock style objective arrow... That game was impossible if you took a break of more than a week during a hub.

# ? Dec 3, 2012 22:10

That Ignorant Sap: Nov 20, 2010; YOU AIN'T LOOKIN' AT A
BUNCH OF RHINOS, HERE.

I played a lot of coop Hexen years ago in high school via modem (nooo I said don't pick up the phone!). It was better with a second person to gently caress around with. Discs of Repulsion + high ledges was a hit.
I remember finding one of the F-keys caused you to suicide violently, and I crashed the game by having my friend watch as I jammed it and the use key to gib/respawn/gib repeatedly. It was a font of gore and decapitated heads flying everywhere.
Man, now I need to dig up my Hexen cd...

# ? Dec 4, 2012 06:29

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

I think I remember hearing that Hexen co-op is what inspired the original Team Fortress mod for Quake 1... so I kind of let my dislike for Hexen's horrible cross-map puzzle design slide because of that.

H2Omelon posted:

So a lot of you here probably remember that time when that level designer for Bioshock demade one of the levels in Doom, it won a Cacoaward back in 2010, and he wrote an article about Doom's gameplay. I assume you all remember it because it's been linked in numerous iterations of this thread enough times of the years.

Well I happened to stumble upon it again today and holy poo poo one of the comments on the article is just comedy gold. What a crazy bastard.

If only the gamers.txt thread were still open.

That guy should probably get his blood pressure checked if he gets that angry about blocky demon-punching simulators.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 08:07

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

Hahahaha, I was looking through and kept thinking I found 'the comment' (like the guy saying Marathon is the game to be remembered rather than Doom).

And then I saw it. Wow. "I'm right pissed off!" :bahgawd:

EDIT: HOLY poo poo, I remember Dactyl Nightmare!!! loving hell, haven't thought about that in years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6t69mp0ZhE

# ? Dec 4, 2012 14:32

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Convex posted:

It was, but you had to play the entire game in one sitting as you couldn't level skip without breaking things.

You could - there was some launcher program that shipped with some versions of Doom/Heretic/Hexen etc that let you set up a whole bunch of options, like difficulty, weapon respawns and the like without using command line args.

You could use that to play co-op Hexen starting in a given hub. That's how my friend and I saved our progress as we played through it together. It ruled.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 17:09

Annoying Question: Feb 18, 2011

Talking about Hexen, the guy who made Brutal Doom is now working on Brutal Hexen.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 17:57

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

Annoying Question posted:

Talking about Hexen, the guy who made Brutal Doom is now working on Brutal Hexen.

That looks pretty neat. Hexen could do with fleshing out the combat engine a bit.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 18:17

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

Annoying Question posted:

Talking about Hexen, the guy who made Brutal Doom is now working on Brutal Hexen.

Now you can be a real melee badass with Baratus, instead of "man i should've picked the magic guy and his crazy ranged poo poo".

# ? Dec 4, 2012 18:20

LvK: Feb 27, 2006; FIVE STARS!!

poo poo, I had some theoretical Brutal Hexen fatality sprites I was loving around with last year. Should see if I still have those.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 18:54

Guillermus: Dec 28, 2009

Overhauling the whole melee system is really cool. After that a good bunch of non-key/switch-hunt would be awesome. I really like Hexen's art, music and ambience but Heretic type of maps would be quite better.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 18:59

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

As far as Hexen mods go, I really do quite like Serpent: Resurrection, which was updated again just recently. The intro maps and the mad dash for your weapons around the first island aside (far too much world-building, far too little killing stuff while way underequipped), it really picks up after that.

It's a pity that it needs a fairly beefy CPU - the Doom engine was never meant to do enormous open-world environments.

Dominic White fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Dec 4, 2012

# ? Dec 4, 2012 20:52

Genocyber: Jun 4, 2012

Does anyone have a link for Aeons of Death on a decent download site? I've only been able to find one for sendspace, which has a whopping 100 kbs per second.

# ? Dec 4, 2012 23:59

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

I can't believe I'm only playing Brutal Doom now. What the hell?

It's just... so frantic and violent. :swoon:

I look at it like how Doom is actually meant to be played, only today, not in 1993, if that makes sense. I don't mean that as some sort of commentary on CoD or Battlefield or anything, but what we used to think was gory and gross (and looks almost cartoony nowadays), this is what Brutal Doom feels like; like I'm playing the original all over again, totally re-sensitized to all of the violence.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 00:33

Catalyst-proof: May 11, 2011; better waste some time with you

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

I can't believe I'm only playing Brutal Doom now. What the hell?

It's just... so frantic and violent. I look at it like how Doom is actually meant to be played, only today, not in 1993, if that makes sense. I don't mean that as some sort of commentary on CoD or Battlefield or anything, but what we used to think was gory and gross (and looks almost cartoony nowadays), this is what Brutal Doom feels like; like I'm playing the original all over again, totally re-sensitized to all of the violence.

This. I can't believe how wimpy the vanilla weapons feel compared to Brutal Doom, or how scary Brutal Doom is compared to my now like 17th year of playing Doom.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 01:44

catlord: Mar 22, 2009; What's on your mind, Axa?

Annoying Question posted:

Talking about Hexen, the guy who made Brutal Doom is now working on Brutal Hexen.

Aw, Hell yes.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 01:56

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

I really do recommend Community Chest 4 as a great modern-style level pack to go with Brutal Doom. The original Doom 2 levels really don't hold up so well these days, visually or design-wise. The CC4 crew did a pretty good job of making it challenging and recent-feeling without hitting any crazy excesses that would make it unplayable with gameplay mods.

Dominic White fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Dec 5, 2012

# ? Dec 5, 2012 02:02

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

Dominic White posted:

I really do recommend Community Chest 4 as a great modern-style level pack to go with Brutal Doom. The original Doom 2 levels really don't hold up so well these days, visually or design-wise. The CC4 crew did a pretty good job of making it challenging and recent-feeling without hitting any crazy excesses that would make it unplayable with gameplay mods.

I'll be looking into this next, for sure.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 04:20

Chinook: Apr 11, 2006; SHODAI

Genocyber posted:

Does anyone have a link for Aeons of Death on a decent download site? I've only been able to find one for sendspace, which has a whopping 100 kbs per second.

Yes, I found what I needed here:
http://doom.tc/wads/

# ? Dec 5, 2012 04:54

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Does Zandronum use a newer version of gzdoom as its base? If so, I might get back into making lovely mods to play with my friends.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 06:55

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

Fallom posted:

Does Zandronum use a newer version of gzdoom as its base? If so, I might get back into making lovely mods to play with my friends.

I think it's a newer version of Skulltag, actually. Which is basically saying that yeah, they're related to (G)ZDoom renderers.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 08:41

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Yeah, Zandronum is a continuation of Skulltag, sans all the new Skulltag content (maps etc.) and with a bunch of developer drama resolved.

Aubrey Hodges has finally released an official version of the Playstation Doom soundtrack! :10bux:

on Bandcamp for some wonderfully sinister ambience in a higher quality than the versions in the game... or you can just listen to the streams on the page. The extra tracks from Doom 64 and Playstation Final Doom will be getting their time in the sun soon, apparently.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 08:48

Wild T: Dec 15, 2008; The point I'm trying to make is that the only way to come out on top is to kick the Air Force in the nuts, beart it savagely with a weight and take a dump on it's face.

Annoying Question posted:

Talking about Hexen, the guy who made Brutal Doom is now working on Brutal Hexen.

I'm hoping so much for a gently caress Thyself taunt.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 13:36

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

What's the difference between ZDoom and GZDoom?

# ? Dec 5, 2012 13:54

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

What's the difference between ZDoom and GZDoom?

GZDoom has an OpenGL renderer, so mods can use more than the usual 256 colours. Also, dynamic lighting effect support.

Outside of that, pretty much anything that doesn't rely on weird glitches in the software renderer will work fine in GZDoom.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 13:57

SPACE HOMOS: Jan 12, 2005

The Kins posted:

GZDoom has an OpenGL renderer, so mods can use more than the usual 256 colours. Also, dynamic lighting effect support.

Outside of that, pretty much anything that doesn't rely on weird glitches in the software renderer will work fine in GZDoom.

Just a side note, I noticed if you are making maps that GZdoom will treat lower halves of walls that have the sky texture as a skybox. In Zdoom this results in a hall of mirrors effect as the lower portion should never have the sky box texture, only the upper.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:32

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

The Kins posted:

GZDoom has an OpenGL renderer, so mods can use more than the usual 256 colours. Also, dynamic lighting effect support.

Outside of that, pretty much anything that doesn't rely on weird glitches in the software renderer will work fine in GZDoom.

Mouselook is semi-limited in straight ZDoom too - the renderer in general inherits some more of the old quirks from the Doom engine. GZDoom just feels more modern.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:36

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

Yeah, the software renderer only works horizontally (which is why architecture gets distorted when looking up and down), so the further away from the horizon line you move, the more absurd the rendering becomes. It's explained there.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:49

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

I think it's a newer version of Skulltag, actually. Which is basically saying that yeah, they're related to (G)ZDoom renderers.

I know that part, but Skulltag split off from an old version of gzdoom and they never ported over a lot of the significant updates that came in successive versions.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:55

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Fallom posted:

I know that part, but Skulltag split off from an old version of gzdoom and they never ported over a lot of the significant updates that came in successive versions.

There was a fairly massive change to how G/ZDoom loads resources, and the Skulltag team weren't allowed to import it over because of Internet Drama that nobody in this thread cares about. They can import it now that Zandronum's a thing, but it's a lot harder than just merging source files since the Skulltag/Zandronum netcode has roots in pretty much every part of the engine because of Bad Decisions years ago.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:26

Genocyber: Jun 4, 2012

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

I can't believe I'm only playing Brutal Doom now. What the hell?

It's just... so frantic and violent. I look at it like how Doom is actually meant to be played, only today, not in 1993, if that makes sense. I don't mean that as some sort of commentary on CoD or Battlefield or anything, but what we used to think was gory and gross (and looks almost cartoony nowadays), this is what Brutal Doom feels like; like I'm playing the original all over again, totally re-sensitized to all of the violence.

Gonna quote this guy:

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

Hey you.

Have you ever played Brutal Doom, but found yourself saying, "You know what this needs? A lot more weapons, of middling quality, delivered to me in a randomization system reminiscent of Aeons of Death. Also, give me that rocket launcher from Shadow Warrior, and make the alt-fire dump like 20 drunken rockets into an area so it takes 15 seconds to reload."

Well you're in luck. The alpha for Brutal Doom Arsenal.

I will second Brutal Doom Arsenal. It's still pretty basic, but the guns are quite fun to use. I'd suggest turning on infinite ammo, though; it's easy to run out of it because of the guns sharing ammo (and not automatically knowing which weapons use which ammo type).

# ? Dec 5, 2012 19:25

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

The Kins posted:

There was a fairly massive change to how G/ZDoom loads resources, and the Skulltag team weren't allowed to import it over because of Internet Drama that nobody in this thread cares about.

No, the "not allowed to import" was for Graf's OpenGL renderer optimization. Nothing in ZDoom itself; Randy wouldn't have let him change the licensing conditions to add new restrictions.

The ZDoom resource thing was just the Skulltag developers deciding to stop keeping up with ZDoom since the new archive code was pretty glitchy at first. (All problems have since been fixed, but it took a while.)

At that time Torr decided to focus on fixing bugs instead of keeping up with ZDoom changes, and to resume only once the engine would be bug-free enough. And we're still there years later. The code base has been deemed stable enough for an official Zandronum 1.0 release, but not for a resync with ZDoom.

# ? Dec 5, 2012 21:53

Raneman: Dec 24, 2010; by T. Finninho

Anyone ever played Nitemare 3D? I had never heard of it until I saw it up on some classic DOS emulator.

http://www.classicdosgames.com/online/nite3d20.html

Pro tip: The bookcase in the first room is a secret, found that out shortly after starting.

Raneman fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Dec 6, 2012

# ? Dec 6, 2012 00:58

That Ignorant Sap: Nov 20, 2010; YOU AIN'T LOOKIN' AT A
BUNCH OF RHINOS, HERE.

Heads up, looks like the alpha for Brutal Hexen has been released.

quote:

In this alpha, you can only play with Baratus, and use weapons 1, 2, and 3. Not all monsters are "brutalized", but you can probably play fine the first half of the game. This alpha is for public testing purposes and feedback, and does not reflects the quality of the final product.

# ? Dec 6, 2012 06:41

catlord: Mar 22, 2009; What's on your mind, Axa?

That Ignorant Sap posted:

Heads up, looks like the alpha for Brutal Hexen has been released.

Holy crap, the little I played of that made me feel like even more of a badass than Brutal Doom.

# ? Dec 6, 2012 09:06

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

That Ignorant Sap posted:

Heads up, looks like the alpha for Brutal Hexen has been released.

Haha, out of curiosity, I loaded up the Doom 2 iwad along with the Brutal Hexen alpha, and it worked! I'm running around with the axe and shield instead of a pistol, and both the combo attack and block works.

toasterwarrior fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Dec 6, 2012

# ? Dec 6, 2012 09:13

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 12:26

Fergus Mac Roich: Nov 5, 2008; Soiled Meat

toasterwarrior posted:

Haha, out of curiousity, I loaded up the Doom 2 iwad along with the Brutal Hexen alpha, and it worked! I'm running around with the axe and shield instead of a pistol, and both the combo attack and block works.

I loving love these games/this community.

# ? Dec 6, 2012 09:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

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