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Doom Editing Digest Vol. 01 Nr. 181
From: owner-doom-editing-digest
To: doom-editing-digest@nvg.unit.no
Subject: doom-editing-digest V1 #181
Reply-To: doom-editing
Errors-To: owner-doom-editing-digest
Precedence: bulk
doom-editing-digest Thursday, 23 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 181
The WAD-Missing the point
THEME: The WAD
Split the project! (was: Re: "The WAD": Theme)
Re: Get off!!
Re: The WAD: game engine
Re: "The WAD" Counter
RE: "The WAD": Theme
Re: The WAD: game engine
Re: The Wad (various)
Re: The WAD: game engine
Re: "The WAD" Counter
Re: The Wad.
The Wad
Re: WAD Tricks
Legalities?
Re: The WAD: game engine
Re: THEME: The WAD
Re: "The WAD" Counter
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bill Bessette <dsquid@li.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 08:35:46 -0500 (EST)
Subject: The WAD-Missing the point
I'm getting kind of sick of all this debate. We all seem to
want to do something. We all seem to want something different.
Here's how I see it.
Categories
==========
A) DoomI
B) DoomII
C) Heretic
D) Some Dehacked version of one of the above 3
Now, as if any of you all cared, IMO, a dehacked edition would blow.
Here's why:
A straight up level for any of these three games is fine so
far as it goes, right? But most of us how have gone so far as to
become Doom & Heretic Wad hackers can solve any level in our sleep. What
makes Doom and Heretic eternal is DEATHMATCH. And what kills a
potential deathmatch in its infancy? 'I don't have that version, sorry,
I can't play ya'.
Now Imagine trying to drum up opponents with a dehacked Heretic conversion.
<* Plugh. :P *>
My take: Do a straight up Doom II series. Make 30, 40, 60
wads, whatever. Allow graphics, sound & music. Throw in a level
loader-front end. *DONT* allow Dehacked graphics. You guys that want
to build a TC with pictures of your dog in paintball uniforms, split
off into another group and hand scan to your hearts content.
Produce a quality level, and I may even dedicate some of my
hard disk space to it for half a day.
Those that want to build kickass levels that anyone who owns registered
Doom II can play, and will become as immortal as Ledges or UAC Dead,
come hither. ;)
*I'd* even be willing to set up a web page to cater to such an endevor.
Put the levels up for download, along with running commentary from each
of the team members. In the order they'd appear in the wad-pak(tm).
Also put up textures that team members have created for use by the
others.
If you share this vision, Email me directly with the title: AGREE
And if you don't agree, go ahead and do us one better.
Bill
(author, Nemo.wad)
+====================+========================================+
| William Bessette |"The most merciful thing in the world, |
| Systems Analyst | I think, is the inability of the human |
| New York, NY | mind to correlate all its contents." |
+====================+========================================+
| dsquid@li.net | http://www.li.net/~dsquid/sepia.html |
+====================+========================================+
------------------------------
From: <jdh15@po.cwru.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 1995 14:00:16 GMT
Subject: THEME: The WAD
I think we could combine several suggestions into one cohesive
theme that will be cool. Imagine this:
After the (alien/demon/whatever) invasion of Earth and the
repulsion of the enemies by you, the human population returned, and
there were huge "purges" designed to rout out the last of the hell
spawn still lingering on earth.
Or so you thought.
It turns out that UAC was actually conducting purges to round up
hell spawn for scientific study. Now they have a laboratory deep
underground, where they are holding the aliens and even mutating
them further.
But something went wrong.
Deep under the earth, there is chaos. The aliens have escaped and
killed their guards. Now they are slowly making their way to the
surface, where they will wreak havoc if not destroyed.
It falls to you.
You must travel through the post-invasion devastated city, find the
entrance to the underground research facility, and destroy it.
Along the way, you will face many of the old enemies plus new
ones... more hideous mutant varieties of "common" hell spawn,
mangled guards who have been exposed to mutagens and are looking
for blood, and the robotic guards which have gone beserk and kill
anything that moves.
Good luck.
====================================================================
On a more technical note, keep most the monsters from DOOM I. Ditch
some of the new ones (Revenant, Pain Elemental, Spiderdemon, Lost
soul, any others people don't like) and replace them with
I. mutated human ex-guards (w/ plasma cannon, rocket launcher,
BFG... you name it)
II. mutated hell spawn (flying imps, etc.)
III. a few robotic guards (i.e. battletech-style.)
- -j
Jeremy Holland jdh15@po.cwru.edu http://maniac.cwru.edu/~deth/
] ]]]]]]]] ]]]]]
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]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] ]]]]]]]] ]]]]]
"A really stupid fraternity"
------------------------------
From: Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 15:14:08 +0100
Subject: Split the project! (was: Re: "The WAD": Theme)
On Thu, 23 Feb 95, Ian Springer <ips@remus.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >
[lots of quoted text deleted!]
> >
> well, i guess your original idea has changed since you suggested it...damn,
> get a little creativity! it sounds to me like all you want to do is try to
> make a lame re-make of Doom..I think mose everyone else here has bigger more
> exciting ideas for this project way beyond the scope of what you have in
> mind....
First, please trim down the quoted text when you send a message. The people
on this list received the previous one, so they don't need another copy.
And use attribution lines, like "On <date>, <name> wrote:". This makes
things easier for all readers of the list. If your mail application doesn't
add the attribution line automatically, you can just cut and paste the
date and name of the sender from the "Date" and "From" fields of the header.
Thank you.
[moderate flame mode off]
Now, in reply to your original text (10% of the message): the WAD project
is not a "lame re-make of Doom". It should be a follow-up, like Doom II
was for Doom 1. A kind of "Doom III", if you want.
If we replace all monsters and textures with something new (like you
suggest), then it would probably look like a "lame re-make of Doom". Think
about it: the risks of having something that doesn't have the right
atmosphere is greater is we try to re-design everything.
Sure, everyone has lots of bigger and more exciting ideas for this project.
But how many of them could actually be done in a reasonable amount of time?
Maybe we should have two projects: one for those who want to have a new
set of episodes with a few new graphics here and there (the "simple" approach)
and one for those who want a "total conversion". How about that? Then we
could have the first big WAD released in a short time and the second one
later, with better graphics, new monsters, etc.
My suggestion is: split the project in two.
The first project would concentrate on the design of the levels and use
Doom 1 (with Doom 2 monsters) as a basis. The new WAD would be released in
a few weeks.
The second project would rely more heavily on new graphics, maybe some
DeHackEd patches, etc. It could use Heretic as a basis, because more people
would probably have the registered version of Heretic in the meantime. And
if the monsters are re-designed anyway, there is no need to stick to Doom
anymore. Then we would benefit from the improvements in the engine, like
flying and looking up and down.
- -Raphael
------------------------------
From: thldrmn@sam.neosoft.com (Ty Halderman)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:07:58 -0600
Subject: Re: Get off!!
>We definately need to get the WAD project onto an independent
>mailing list or a CF, my "mail bag" had over 200 records in it
>this morning (accumulated over night) and most of them were
>messages and replies back and forward that were just arguments,
>disagreements etc.. surely they would be better placed in REAL
>TIME, rather than on a mailing list!?
Gee, wouldn't you rather have some activity? I haven't seen anything
interesting on this list in a while (not counting people guessing about DEU
5.3, heh, heh). Dr. Frankenstein would be proud -- "It's Alive!!!"
My $/50.
=-Ty Halderman ( thldrmn@sam.neosoft.com )
"There I stood, mesmerized, like a lemming admiring the sea..."
------------------------------
From: thldrmn@sam.neosoft.com (Ty Halderman)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:07:55 -0600
Subject: Re: The WAD: game engine
>I think new textures, sounds, sprites is a cool idea...basically, a whole new
>game - a Doom/Heretic crossbreed; w/ input from all the experienced gamers
>and level designers on this list, we could make something better than Doom,
>Doom 2, or Heretic..(with a few strategic changes with DeHacked of course..)
>
>------------------< Ian Springer (Rutgers College '98) >---------------------
Yeah and maybe if we work hard we can have a decent version out before Quake.
I'm beginning to think we have 2 camps: those who want to make some really
nice cohesive well-designed and implemented WADs, and those who want to hack
it to the point that no one can tell that it was ever DOOM (Htic, whatever).
Maybe the answer is to have 2 projects, based on that delineation (previous
posts had hinted at engine differences (D,D2,H) being separate projects).
I will reiterate a previous post (I think I made :) ) that I am of the
former group. I think one of the things we can do well is retain the DOOM
flavor and keep the action going without a lot of time patching graphics and
sprites. There are some neat things around, but UAC-DEAD, which is one of
my all-time favorites, just had a different sky texture, my oft-faulty
memory recalls. The neat thing about that one was the level design and use
of existing textures in a way most had never done.
=-Ty Halderman ( thldrmn@sam.neosoft.com )
"There I stood, mesmerized, like a lemming admiring the sea..."
------------------------------
From: thldrmn@sam.neosoft.com (Ty Halderman)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:07:53 -0600
Subject: Re: "The WAD" Counter
>Hello, People
>[snit snip]
> ... I've decided to be
>democratic about it and set up a counter. if you want the doom engine
>then send mail [more snip]
>hopefully this can sort out some of this mess and get this project up
>and running instead of us all standing around bickering.
Geez. 2-3 days of animated free discussion and you're trying to rule our
otherwise democratic environment by unilaterally calling a vote? :)
I think there are good reasons for choices of the engine, many of which are
technical and not subjective in nature. Those need to be discussed if we
are going to have a group effort.
I see in your note that you want us to vote to decide--what do you think
should be the platform and why?
=-Ty Halderman ( thldrmn@sam.neosoft.com )
"There I stood, mesmerized, like a lemming admiring the sea..."
------------------------------
From: Greg Lewis <gregl@umich.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:50:47 -0500 (EST)
Subject: RE: "The WAD": Theme
> Have to voice my agreement here. Talk has stretched too far into
> the "complete conversion" area. I would rather have babies over
> another add-on for Doom2 that gave 30 new levels and several new
> monsters and textures, than a new look Doom, why tamper with
> something that is already excellent and risk turning out
> something that is inferior to what you're trying to improve? DC
(At a risk of wasting bandwidth...)
EXACTLY!
Greg
------------------------------
From: David Damerell <djsd100@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 16:00:32 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: The WAD: game engine
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995 Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se wrote:
> Although DeHackEd is great, I'm not sure that we should use it in this
> project. I think this project should be only a WAD file. Some people would
> never want to touch their DOOM.EXE file and thus would probably not use
> "The WAD" if it requires some modification in the EXE file.
> Besides, are there any good resons to hack the EXE for a project like this?
> Sure, you can create super-powerful weapons or flying Barons of Hell. But
> is this necessary for a well-balanced game? I don't think so.
Aliens-TC, I think, demonstrates why.
David Damerell, GCV Sauricon. djsd100@hermes.cam.ac.uk Trinity, Cambridge
WOODHAL2.WAD ftpable. CUWoCS President. METLMAZE.WAD sometime soonish.
|___| Loneliness pours over you: Emptiness can pull you through. |___|
| | | Your mother's eyes, from your eyes, cry to me... Queen, '39. | | |
------------------------------
From: Greg Lewis <gregl@umich.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:59:27 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: The Wad (various)
> I knew Doom][ used the same engine as Doom, but can someone give a definitive
> answer as to the *exact* nature of this - ie if I got an IWAD for D2, I would
> *have* D2. I had thought that there were at least slight differences in the
> .EXE.
As of version 1.8 (and assumably 1.9) the doom.exe and doom2.exe files
are 100% identical (I did a file compare on 'em and they turned up
identical). So you don't need to worry about that.
On a totally unrelated note, if you've got Doom 2 v1.9 you can rename
your DOOM2.WAD file to DOOM2F.WAD and it'll still work. Differences? I
have no clue.
Greg
------------------------------
From: Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 17:17:38 +0100
Subject: Re: The WAD: game engine
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, David Damerell <djsd100@hermes.cam.ac.uk> quoted me:
> > Besides, are there any good resons to hack the EXE for a project like this?
> > Sure, you can create super-powerful weapons or flying Barons of Hell. But
> > is this necessary for a well-balanced game? I don't think so.
>
> Aliens-TC, I think, demonstrates why.
You are right, but only if we are going for a "total conversion" project.
So I will reiterate my suggestion: let's split the project in two.
* The first project would produce only a WAD, with not too many new monsters
or textures, only new levels. I think it should be based on Doom 1 (with
some monsters from Doom 2 if necessary), for the reasons explained in my
previous messages. It should be released in a few weeks.
* The second project would have new textures, new monsters and could use
some DeHackEd patches. This will be a bigger project, which would be
better to demonstrate what "these guys on the doom-editing list" can do.
I think it should be based on Heretic, because the Heretic engine is
superior to Doom. Since it will take some time to finish this bigger
project, we can hope that more people have registered Heretic in the
meantime.
For the Nth time, my $0.02...
- -Raphael
------------------------------
From: Michael Biggs <mbiggs@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 03:19:08 +1100 (EST)
Subject: Re: "The WAD" Counter
"Ty Halderman recently wrote"
> Geez. 2-3 days of animated free discussion and you're trying to rule our
> otherwise democratic environment by unilaterally calling a vote? :)
>
> I think there are good reasons for choices of the engine, many of which are
> technical and not subjective in nature. Those need to be discussed if we
> are going to have a group effort.
>
Of course there should be discussion about what should be the engine
used but if want to ever get his project underway it should be done soon
as if we let it drag on too long then it will just fizzle out and get
nothing done and this great project will be dead and buried which isn't
what any of us want to see.
> I see in your note that you want us to vote to decide--what do you think
> should be the platform and why?
We'll I personally think that the engine used should be doom and not
heretic mainly due to the lack of cool weapons and monsters in heretic.
sure there good but there isn't as much variety, just the same monster
with slightly different attributes like the golem type guys where some
are just physical attacks and some heave gold balls at you and the same
for the red dragon thingies, that is ok but it is too limiting for there
to be a wide variety of monsters for later hack ups. I also luv the doom
][ weapons, the heretic weapons are too tacky, sure they have some good
points but there are too many crappy weak weapons and no kickass weapons
like the bfg or the rocket launcher (yeah yeah you'll say there is but
they suck anyway). even though I think doom ][ is should be used I won't
be biased my reporting of the actual results that I have recieved.
so far the response hasn't been great (how many are subscribed to this
group exactly?) but the results are 13 in favour of DOOM and 6 in favour
of HERETIC.
- --
/~~~\|~|/~~~\/~~~\|~| |~~~|/~~\ "Order must underlie everything
| '/| | /~~~ /~~~| | | |_ \ \~ however disorderly it may appear"
| ,\| | \/~| \/~|| |_| |_ _\ \ Isaac Asimov
|___/|_|\_/||\_/|||____|__|\__/ mbiggs@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
------------------------------
From: rem@datapoint.com (Ray Morford)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 10:27 CST
Subject: Re: The Wad.
I like the idea of fighting mechanized enemies. Sort of like
in the Terminator. There would be different *models* of robots
with different capabilities - all tough, but some worse.
I like the idea of a laser weapon - maybe change the pistol
and chaingun. What else? Oh, my vote is for DOOM II.
I have a video camera and a video blaster, so I can help in
the graphics department, capturing images of models, textures,
etc. Count me in...
Ray
rem@datapoint.com
------------------------------
From: jefross@ix.netcom.com (Jeff Ross)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 08:39:47 -0800
Subject: The Wad
You can use the three episode format with Heretic, too. And I think Id
would encourage this because I think Doom1 has sold about as much as it
will by now. The incentive has been diffused by the thousands of
previous levels. Heretic on the other hand is new, and they make a tom
of money by selling it direct.
Also, if we keep some old textures and sprites, I don't think we're
distributing copyrighted material. By us not including it in the Wad,
we are using the texture that the player has already paid for, much like
using the game engine they perchased.
I like the INDIANA JONES theme - JonesTC.wad
Maybe we can lend this wad to a cd compilation in advance, and that
company could provide us with copies of Heretic for our trouble.
Doesn't sound illegal to me.
------------------------------
From: JaMu@ix.netcom.com (Carlos Dwa)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:24:36 -0800
Subject: Re: WAD Tricks
I have found that leaving a spectre monster outside of
all sectors will result in random attacks by a truly
invisible monster. At first I thought this was some
wonderful virus that had infected my wad but -it's still
kinda cool.
Carlos
p.s. I recently spoke with a friend who had seen
a comparison of the Doom ][ engine with that
of a first person game soon to be released by David Bradley.
If his report is accurate -and I have every reason
to believe it is - "It blows Doom out of the
water." Graphics are said to be of
much higher resolution, so much so that it makes
Doom look crude. As the blind man said
"We shall see."
------------------------------
From: thekid@ornews.intel.com (Brian Kidby)
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:34:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Legalities?
Please forgive me if this has alredy been discussed, but it's something
that I'm genuinely concerned about...
I know this is not an issue that we *want* to consider, but it's becoming
more and more apparent that we *must* consider it: how will id react to a
project containing all kinds of modifications for the Doom/Doom2/Heretic
.EXE?
I know it's been discussed before and, if I recall correctly, general
concensus was that DeHackEd patches were okay, as long as they were
discreetly distributed. Is this true?
However, it seems that one of the goals of 'The WAD' is mass distribution.
If done well, the end result of this project will be a 'must-have' for
players everywhere, and we have to assume that it will eventually be
available on every Doom/Doom2/Heretic ftp-site, fsp-site :), and web-page
from here to Phobos. That's really what we want, right?
I recommend, to avoid stepping on id's toes and to make this project
as 'user-friendly' as possible, that we limit ourselves to levels and graphics
and stay away from .EXE modifications.
Again, I'm sorry if this has been discussed before.
Brian
- --
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Kid My thoughts and actions are strictly my own.
thekid@ornews.intel.com Do not hold my employers responsible.
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: Andrew Dowswell <Dowswea@AA.WL.COM>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 14:20:57 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: The WAD: game engine
Earlier Rapheal said:
> You are right, but only if we are going for a "total conversion" project.
> So I will reiterate my suggestion: let's split the project in two.
>
> [Details of an initial "Set of Wads" for Doom I followed by
> a more time intensive Heretic "TC" project - deleted for the
> sake of brevity]
I would agree here. The idea that started this whole free-for-all
was the first project - a new "true to the original" set of wads for
Doom. That seems like a great project. Another idea that has come up
is a "Let's show 'em what we can do" set of wads for the (Doom/Doom II
or Heretic) engine - and that also seems like a great idea. Let's split
this into the two (or more) projects and start it up.
I am interested in the first project and would like to offer up my
services for level design and playtesting. I would offer more "artistic"
help - but I have a hard time even drawing flies. :^)
Andy (Dowswea@aa.wl.com)
------------------------------
From: Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 20:03:43 +0100
Subject: Re: THEME: The WAD
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Jeremy Holland <jdh15@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
[...]
> It turns out that UAC was actually conducting purges to round up
> hell spawn for scientific study. Now they have a laboratory deep
> underground, where they are holding the aliens and even mutating
> them further.
[...]
I like this idea! This would keep most of the Doom theme and
monsters and only add some extras.
I have an idea about this, but only for what I call the "second project"
(i.e. the more complex one that would use DeHackEd patches). I don't
think that it has already been done before and I don't even know if it
is possible because I haven't tried it. We could have some peaceful
characters in the game, like lab assisants that are victims of their
own creations (like the guys in the old Wolf3D). These "monsters" would
run straight at you (like the demons and spectres) and cry for help.
They wouldn't do any damage, just stand in your way. But there could be
a surprise: if these guys have been trapped by the monsters (they could
carry a "security collar" that prevents them from escaping - have you
seen that movie with Shwarzie?), they could explode if you kill them.
In short, they would have the same movement pattern as a demon or
spectre, no damage when they hit you, but the death sequence of a
barrel. Instead of the scraping and gnashing sounds, these guys could
say "Help me!" and try to hold your arm. That could be interesting.
Anyone cares to see if it is possible?
> On a more technical note, keep most the monsters from DOOM I. Ditch
> some of the new ones (Revenant, Pain Elemental, Spiderdemon, Lost
> soul, any others people don't like) and replace them with
> I. mutated human ex-guards (w/ plasma cannon, rocket launcher,
> BFG... you name it)
> II. mutated hell spawn (flying imps, etc.)
> III. a few robotic guards (i.e. battletech-style.)
>
I agree too. Don't throw away the monsters that are successful. I would
certainly keep most, if not all, the monsters from Doom 1.
- -Raphael
------------------------------
From: Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 17:41:17 +0100
Subject: Re: "The WAD" Counter
On Fri, 24 Feb 1995, Michael Biggs <mbiggs@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
[...things about the vote for Doom vs. Doom II vs. Heretic ...]
> so far the response hasn't been great (how many are subscribed to this
> group exactly?) but the results are 13 in favour of DOOM and 6 in favour
> of HERETIC.
>
As of today, there are 412 people on this list. Not bad... I think you
should wait a bit before counting the votes. Most people haven't read your
first message yet.
Anyway, I think we should have several votes:
1) - Do we split the project in two?
2) - If we split the project, what engine will be used for the first WAD?
3) - And what engine will be used for the second WAD + DeHackEd patches?
The difference between Doom 1 and Doom 2 should also be noted, because
Doom 2 doesn't have the same intermission screens (the other differences
between the two games can be solved in the WAD).
My votes are:
1) Yes.
2) Doom 1.
3) Heretic.
Count me in...
- -Raphael
------------------------------
End of doom-editing-digest V1 #181
**********************************
