There's actually a lot more going on in Doom's plot than most people give it credit for. Quite a bit wasn't mentioned here. The story begins when The Doom Marine is ordered by his commanding officer to fire upon civilians, and Doomguy instead attacks his commanding officer in response. Rather than have him court-martialed, which would only bring attention to the officer's lack of moral standing, he was transferred to the Mars division of the Union Aerospace Corporation, a conglomerate of science and technology that has base complexes on every planet in the solar system. He got demoted to essentially janitor duty on Mars and "watching restricted flicks in the rec room". The Mars Division Complex itself was actually split into three parts: One base on Mars and one on each of its moons, Phobos and Deimos. Scientists were developing portal technology in an effort to connect the Phobos and Deimos bases together to transfer goods and the like back and forth more efficiently, but they ran into complications, like equipment going through or near the portals disappearing completely. Same with people. People would go missing, come back dead, insane, or even cannibalistic. Then, the invasion began. Scientists issued a message from Phobos down to Mars that "something fraggin' evil" was coming out of the portal and that the entire moon of Deimos had somehow vanished entirely. It was just gone. The entire moon. So, what little of a marine platoon they had was transferred from Mars to Phobos. As Doomguy was still demoted, but technically had marine training, he was stationed at the edge of the Phobos Wing to safeguard the hangar with a measly pistol, while all the other marines took the rest of the heavy weapons away with them and got promptly slaughtered, eaten, and possessed. And it's finally, FINALLY after all this takes place that the first level actually begins. Once Episode 2 starts up, Doomguy finds himself on the missing Deimos base, which had seemingly vanished from existence, and there's no initial understanding of what happened. Not just yet. But the environments look very different. It's still sci-fi, but there's a lot more strange, gothic, otherworldly structures and imagery out and about. Heck, there's an upside-down cross gate thing near the start of the first Deimos level. It isn't until the end of Episode 2, where Doomguy defeats this giant Cyberdemon Lord (the same demon whom Doomguy's ancestor, William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz from the Wolfenstein series defeated about 200 years earlier in Wolfenstein RPG before The Cyberdemon Lord got his metal augmentation as "The Harbinger of Doom" and seeks revenge on Blazkowicz's legacy), that Doomguy discovers the awful truth in a huge plot twist: Deimos floats above Hell itself! That's where it went! It was swallowed up by its own portal! So, then he drops down to the surface, finds the general or whatever who masterminded the invasion, slays her (Doom II's manual says The Spider Mastermind is female), a door to Earth magically appears with no explanation, and Doomguy heads home. And that's just Doom 1! In Doom II, there's stuff about Doomguy being a war hero, quitting the Space Marine Corp., a city on fire, fleeing refugees, more cannibals, BILLIONS of humans are dead (leaving the human race endangered), Doomguy storming a spaceport that's been seized by demons so that the last of the human race can evacuate the entire planet itself, Doomguy heading back to his own hometown after mission control informs him that the demons' central Hell portal on Earth is there, and him most likely slaying Satan himself, leaving him to "wonder where bad folks will go when they die, now." There's a lot that happens in these games. A LOT. But its story is more in line with the lore of games like Metroid Prime, Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Five Nights at Freddy's, Albino Lullaby, or even the Pixar film, Wall-E. Or just a book. The game's story is much easier to understand and appreciate if you have an imagination. It throws in lots of broad strokes, and leaves the player with a lot of blanks to fill in and details to interpret, much like, say... The Touhou series. Even a bit of environmental storytelling. Pretty much the entirety of The Shores of Hell is oozing with that. Phobos Anomaly sets it up really well. Heck, did you notice an entire level in the Inferno episode was set within the confines of a satanic church? The story in Doom isn't quite so much something to dismiss as most people would have you believe. Honestly, I think there's actually more going on in Doom's lore than that of Half-Life. Also, if you wanna avoid the sloppy controls of yesteryear and use a scheme that's more comfortable and modern, just download a source port (AKA, an "Interpreter") like Skulltag, GZDoom, or Zandronum, and run the games through any of those. It's very accessible.
I think Carmack had a valid point when he said that about story. He's just approaching from the other end of the spectrum, the side that emphasises the GAME aspect. It's the Ludology vs Narratology debate. Those on the ludology side state that story is unnecessary and may distract from play, which is the whole point of games. While I might not be that extreme with the view myself, there is merit to that line of thinking. Games are games and should be taking mechanics and gameplay as priority over the story. That doesn't necessarily mean the story needs to be non-existent. But it shouldn't take priority over the gameplay. Which is part of the problem I have with Mass Effect. People bought that for the story, not the gameplay. It just as easily could have been a point and click text adventure or something ala the Telltale Games. Or, even just a book. The third chapter might not have been so awful then.
Gameplay and story are just two extensions of the same thing: narrative. They're both equally as important and should be taken into consideration when designing a video-game. Look at Deus Ex, Dark Souls, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, for just three examples of this concept taken deeply into consideration -- look at the more recent Assassin's Creed games, Max Payne 3, and Bioshock Infinite for the opposite. Video-games are not just "games"; they have defining characteristics which warrant a specific label, and gameplay is not the only thing that defines them. You can look at video-game design as if you were looking at chess, or solitaire, but that would be missing the point. With that said there is no problem in giving less weight to one factor in favor of the other, as long as there's a reason for it (preference, limitations, genre, to make a point, etc.) There's plenty of space in the medium for diverging lines of thinking and different design philosophies. As a side note, I don't agree with what you said about Mass Effect. I'm pretty sure most people, myself included, bought it for both the gameplay and the story. It's kinda silly to claim otherwise since one of the major elements of that game is the choice/repercussion systems based around dialogue -- a gameplay mechanic -- which would be meaningless without both concepts working together. PS: Google "gesamtkunstwerk".
Prim Roan Story is a series of events. Narrative is the whole package (premise, story, plot, themes, motifs, plus others) and the way these are presented. Gameplay always affects story even if mildly (eg.: "The protagonist fought and defeated a bear after he stepped out of Lothering." This might not have anything to do with the main plot, or even support the rest of the narrative in any way, but it's still an event in the story that was provided through gameplay (the player had to actually put his knowledge to the test and use the mechanics to achieve a certain outcome.)) It's very rare to find an example of gameplay that does not add to the story being told in some way; they're still their own thing, and I'm not disagreeing with you in that notion (although there are still other things more different to gameplay than story, like graphics, for example,) but I still retain the belief that gameplay and story are related and both work towards the whole picture: the narrative. It's how well you combine the elements of the narrative and the way you present them that matters. Of course certain genres don't really need this type of analysis because the whole thing doesn't even have anything to do with telling a story (see Tetris.) I'm exclusively talking about games whose main purpose is storytelling. Regarding Dark Souls, and I'll be brief here, I don't agree that it has an excuse plot. The game barely has any plot to begin with but the little that there is shapes everything you do. Excuse plots are discardable, you can remove them from the game and there'll be barely anything lost in the process (see Plants vs Zombies, or SpacheChem.) In Dark Souls the plot is crucial. As for the nature of video-games: yes, they are games, and it's gameplay that separates them from other mediums. The point I was trying to get at was that gameplay in video-games is, by its own very nature, different from gameplay in other types of games and that that should be taken into consideration. Don't fall into the assumption that all games can be painted with this broad stroke. Again, there's a reason for why video-games deserve their own category (in my own understanding they are so unique when compared to other types of the same kin that to regard them as only being part of the big category of "Games" is a disservice to the medium, and to ignore that is to ignore their potential.) Gameplay is not the only thing that puts video-games on a pedestal of their own, other types of games also have it. Video-games are video-games because of all the other cross-media elements that make a part of it alongside gameplay. That's what makes them special. As for other mediums being better at storytelling than video-games: that's arguable. I would say that they're not better or worse, only with different goals in mind. There are things you can pull off in a film that you can't in a video-game (direct control over what happens and what the audience sees, be more free stylistically,) and vice-versa (branching and emergent narrative, for example -- although the latter is a can of worms on its own I would rather not open.) What's important is to acknowledge these differences and understand what can be done with them. One other thing which should also be acknowledged is that there is no harm at all in borrowing "storytelling tools" from movies and literature, since these mediums are already present in video-games. To not acknowledge that is akin to asking for movies to not "borrow" from music theory for their soundtrack pieces, or from literature for their script writing. To borrow elements from other mediums strengthens what's already there, as long as, again, the differences are taken into consideration. Now, let me be clear here: I'm NOT advocating for cutscene extravaganza or "cinematic experiences". I'm talking about how, for instance, a soundtrack in a movie or video-game has a different dimension to it because the listener understands the context in which it was supposed to be played in. I'm talking about how that soundtrack can be adapted accordingly to the target medium, games in this case, and how you can build something that is dependent on whatever the player is doing at the moment. Watch, copy, and adapt. Video-games should not be afraid to embrace that concept. I feel like I might be preaching to the choir with most of what I wrote here, but hey, no matter.
I don't think he does. The fact that his game company is owned by another game company that took story seriously is proof that he was full on wrong. Obviously one type of game was far more successful than the other.
I loved doom. I still love doom. I will always love doom. I loved doom when I was using the keyboard only, and I still love doom now that I'm using a mouse. Mechanically, I think doom is a masterpiece. The way I engage with encounters is awesome. Its not just standing and shooting bad guys. When I get into an encounter I find myself in a belay with all the enemies, dodging their attacks and picking them off.
It's worth mentioning that, although PC gaming was a thing in the 70's, the reason it took so long to get going was because the technology needed for actually rendering good graphics wasn't there until *after* Doom. For a long time the Nintendo was actually superior to any PC when it came to that. That's why John Carmack does deserve his rep as a brilliant programmer. He made the engine for Commander Keen at a time when people though PC couldn't handle side scrolling. He did the same for Wolfeinstine and Doom. Through programming, he was able to create engines that were ahead of the hardware running them.
Nice see you took up the challenge! While I prefer to listen to narrative ruminations, it's also awesome to hear about the background, development history, and impact of a game as prolific as Doom. Nice job, Arch.
Awesome! As a patron, I was getting a little bit put out with the lack of content I personally have an interest in, but those concerns are now in the past! Thanks!
Archengeia I just realised my original comment sounded a bit dicky. My apologies for that. I am mainly interested in ruminations and discussions. I love your old Q&As, especially the super-long ones. Basically all the stuff that made me become a patron in the first place. The extended LPs and stuff are fun, but I prefer to play a game rather than watch someone else play it. I realise I'm only one person out of however-many-hundreds, but yeah. You are my favourite UA-camr by miles, regardless.
There was one gameplay aspect you didn't mention - getting the enemies to fight each other. Essentially the idea was find some projectile enemy (like the imp), get it to fire (usually by just wandering into its line of sight) and then run about the place so its "allies" trying to reach you, then those enemies shoot back at the first one (especially if you haven't hit them yourself). It is possible to take out half a level with just a pistol if you chain this effect (there is probably a Challenge like that out there somewhere - "Can you beat Doom with just the pistol?" or something). I don't know how intentional this was, but this concept (bug?) didn't normally come up back then and in most games still doesn't. I don't remember it from the many Doom-clones that followed in Doom's success, like RotT or Quake. I don't even remember it in later ones like Half-life. The enemies might complain about being shot by their "allies", but they wouldn't fight amongst themselves over it.
A quick example of Carmack's antics: "I needed to get out, the pressure now mounting. I called John Carmack on his phone extension, 13. “Dude, I’m stuck in my office. My doorknob doesn’t work anymore. I think you should chop down this shitty door.” “I’ll be right over.” I heard a noise on the wall, which had to be John getting his $5,000 custom axe off its mount. He walked in front of my door and tried the knob. Sure enough, the knob doomed the door to a swift death. John was telling the others in the office nearby that he was about to rescue me from my new prison." "BAM! The first swing came through the center of the door, just a little, and sprayed wood fragments across the room, bouncing off the opposite wall. BAM! More wood, splintering and flying. I would have been injured if I were standing in the middle of my room. After about twelve good swings, the center of the door was completely obliterated, and I could climb through easily. I ran to the bathroom as everyone was laughing about the violence that just took place."
It's about time I watched this Rumination. I'm currently playing through Doom 3: BFG Edition (which includes Doom 1 and 2 as well). Until a couple of weeks ago, I haven't even touched a Doom game, but even I knew what the plot for these games was. I'm glad I finally own a copy of these games on a disc; and these games are awesome. *thumbs up*
I like that this Rumination accidentally ended up *ending with* one last example of the "What to Pay" series, which seems to have ended before Ruminations actually began.
Also, I like that comparison with McDonalds, and it is funny to remember that McDonalds used to serve decent food back in the days. I guess the comparison is very accurate except Doom still holds up even today.
I think it's a shame you never touched on any comparisons between Doom (old school FPS) and games like call of duty (modern FPS). Things like the health system, movement, level design, secrets and weapons that emphasise a Run and Gun approach to FPS and provides a different appeal than the more modern games like Call of Duty. I wish that some of the more recent games (such as the new wolfenstein) would take more notes from Doom and make a faster paced game where the player can dodge and weave through projectiles, almost like a bullet hell game but in first person. It would help renew my interest in the genre
I find that this rumination was exactly what we were looking out of you doing Doom, less about the story and gameplay and more about the in depth of it's cultural impact as well as id and the idtech engines, though you never mentioned about how Carmack also had the brilliant idea of making his engines open source which without that we wouldn't be able to put doom on anything because we wouldn't have the source code to mess with.
Must say that I love that a 39 minute long video about doom is seen short ;). But great stuff arch as usual keep up the great work. Also 15 dollers for doom is insane in my mind.
There is a good argument for the idea that games which rely on violence for their mechanics *should* have gore in them, specifically because people such as yourself will be disgusted by the gore and will be pushed away from violence. By creating a more sanitized experience, where shooting stuff is fun and you have "acceptable targets" that don't cause you any visceral discomfort when they die, more recent games have the potential to desensitize people to the act of killing (and it's no secret that the military actively pushes for the creation of FPS-type games specifically because they help with recruitment for infantry soldiers, just as they encourage flight-simulator games for people who might eventually become drone pilots). It's kind of similar to the way food industry people, many of whom are former tobacco executives who have been using addiction as a business model for decades, will dump tons of artificial flavors and lots of high-intensity sweeteners into foods which are not inherently pleasant-tasting, and create something which is bad for your health yet compulsively edible, specifically so that you'll keep eating past the point of satiation and won't be repelled by the smell or taste of something that barely qualifies as food anymore.
You had your controls configured wrongly if your mouse was moving you forwards and backwards. I don't know what sourceport you were using but they do have options to make 'modern' FPS control schemes. Though I guess you deserve some sort of award for playing the game with the old keyboard controls in this day and age. There are a few Doom mods with story, a few that you'd scarcely recognise as Doom at all. There's even a 3D Sonic game as a mod for Doom.
I know this video is nearly a year old, but Doom (Ultimate Doom for that matter) is 5.50 on Steam. It still seems steep for a game that celebrates it's 22nd birthday in a couple months, but it's not near as ludicrous as 15 dollars.
Old video, but I need to correct you on the controls. If you were playing through DOSBox (which you should have for the real experience) instead of Steam the controls would be UP = Forward, DOWN = Back, LEFT and RIGHT = turn, SPACE = Open, CTRL = Shoot, ALT + LEFT/RIGHT = Strafe and SHIFT = Run.
Fun fact about the original DOOM is, that initially it was planned to be an ALIENS-game, but whoever ahd the rights back then wasn't interested in a ALIENS-shooter, so when they then made the game, they basically 'replaced'(they still were in thier planning phase of the game, so nothing was coded yet) the xenomorphs with demons
I remember how i liked Wolf 3D when it came out, then came Doom and i never digged it. Never cared about the rock rip off midi, the "satanic" monsters and i had the same gripe with the controllers then you did (mouse). Now when Quake came out, i LOVED it.
To quote a former friend of mine, from back when this was timely: "Uwe Boll needs to just stop making movies. I mean: it's Doom! Mars...space Marines...demons from Hell! How do you screw that up?"
doom does something i almost never see in first person shooters anymore, and its a crying shame because i love it so very very much. monster infighting. in doom, you are fighting demons. demons are selfish evil fucks with absolutely no sense of anything beyond "I wanna kill you for the fleeting rush of endorphins that will be released into my brain.", and do not care if their projectiles hit an enemy. if the enemy is the same species and doesn't use a hitscan weapon, neither enemy cares., if a baron hits a baron for example, he might as well have thrown a water balloon at him. but if a chaingunner hits a pinky, for example, and its a rather common sight in "slaughter" wads, then the pinky will turn around and attempt to kill the chaingunner. and that works for almost all combinations of enemies. an imp got lightly damaged by a cyberdemon without getting insta-gibbed? it will turn around and try to take on a twelve ton infinite rocket launcher meat mountain! that's why chaingunners and revenants and mancubuses and spider demons do so much damage and have hitscan, tracking, or spread attacks respectively, so you can exploit that! and you'll see this all the time in regular play if you're circle strafing, because again, they don't give a shit if they hit another demon, they just want you dead. and it even makes you have to make decisions! if you get an equal amount of revenants and barons to fight, the barons will always win. but if you just let them win, you'll have to use a lot more ammo to deal with them. so you probably wanna help burst down one baron to get the revenants snowballing, but if you do that you have to deal with the revenants homing missiles and surprisingly damaging skelleton punches. what are you gonna do? if you look at ultra violence playthroughs on the toughest fan-maps a lot of them end up just exploiting that to avoid losing all their ammo. they just make everyone else fight and then sit back and watch them kill each other. the arch vile is the only demon that will never ever ever be attacked by other demons. kill him first. people keep going on about doom being "braindead" to play, but the toughest mods the fans have made need you to understand how to do this to not run out of ammo, no matter how good you are at dodging if you try to kill everything by yourself you will lose all your ammo, and either force you to be extremely good at punching things to death, or reload. and i've never seen another game where you can exploit enemies attacks to this degree! I've never seen a game that copied it!
The interesting discussion point I found in this rumination was that "does reputation of the developer, for good or for worse, should effect the judgement of the game?" There are few game developers I hate, and I don't find their games much compelling. Nevertheless, how much can you separate personal bias from the objective assessment is always a question that requires an answer.
If you want a game from slightly later that does have a story, try the Marathon series, whose story summary has been compared to "a f***ing doctrinal thesis".
About your last point on the price: Duke Nukem 3D is on Good Old Games for $5.99, as are many other titles from around the same time. I think you were right about Id's ego, but I've noticed that most older games on Steam are higher price anyway.
I like to think what is your reason to play this game? So when it comes to story importance I think how much of the game mechanics relys on the conceit or setting of the game. Portal could be anywhere so long as you have the conceit to require a portal gun. You could make the game with a bare bones story and that would scratch an itch. The tech could be in another game and it would scratch an itch or you could add an amazing story with the gameplay. It is like cooking how complicated do you want to make your dish? Do I want tinned soup or do I want to make a stock, then chop up loads of veg and add herbs and spices. I might get joy from the process and a better taste, but I might just want a simple soup. The point of Doom is it is a themed obstical course of shoot and move, with a little backtrack puzzle solve. It doesn't need epic lore and character threads. But other shooters differentiated by using narrative drive.
The constant obsolescence of technology is definitely a problem; I for one have resisted pursuing a career involving computers (other than basic usage of them for things like word processing), because I can't stand the idea of having to run this constant uphill race against an industry that refuses to stand still. So the fact that these guys who grew up in the 80s wanted to act like it was still the 80s, that's tremendously understandable; nobody wants the world to pass them by, and if they are able to get enough money and success, why wouldn't they act as if time should freeze because they tell it to? (I was going to put this more elegantly, I think, but I've forgotten exactly what I meant to say; perhaps it'll come back to me the next time I watch this.)
The storyline reminds me a bit of Half-Life...oh ok, you just mentioned that. =) Sci-fi tech vs. Demons? Excuse plot? Sounds like 'Destiny' to me. XD Have you read a book called 'Masters of Doom' which pretty much gives the history of ID and it's game? Audiobook is pretty good.
Wolfenstein 3D wasn't the first FPS. Id's own Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D came before it. Battlezone is also arguably an FPS. Maze War from 1975 is too, I guess. Sadly, I disagree with you on many points (Doom is in my top 10 games of all time) but I totally get where you're coming from. Doom, for me, is incredibly tactical (which you touch on) and I don't really think that's been replicated in a single-player FPS since in the same way.
And for the record, I couldn't disagree more with the John Carmack quote about the "excuse plot"; I disagree with respect to games, and as an avid consumer of pornography, I disagree there too. Whether it's wankery or gameplay (including not only video games such as Metroid, where the backstory is constantly felt even when you're between cutscenes, but also tabletop games like Magic: the Gathering, where the "cutscenes" exist completely outside of the game and are totally optional), either way the presence of a robust backstory greatly enhances my enjoyment of the material. It's possible to have games or porn with no story at all; after all, Pong was wildly popular back in the day. But you can do so much better. Give me a Final Fantasy game, or an "Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend", any day of the week.
Future historians are going to absolutely hate us, because our extensive use of phrases like "this is a thing now" is going to make our language incomprehensible. I could mention this anywhere, but it's particularly germane in the case of a video talking about Doom, since that's an ordinary word being used in a context where it won't make sense to anybody who doesn't share our current knowledge base.
I called it that Arch wudnt like Doom, I was right xD. I found tendency that you do not like games with heavy focus on gameplay in exchange for narrative. On top of that, Doom was gory game, which I know you dont like.
The lack of knowledge here is staggering. Wolfenstein 3D was not the first FPS. It wasn't even id's first FPS. Hovertank 3D was, followed by Catacomb 3D. Catacomb 3D introduced texture mapping, so Wolfenstein certainly had it. Shadowcaster was also developed by Raven. Carmack developed the engine for it as an iteration on the Wolfenstein engine.
Also, Jesus Christ. Carmack worked developing game engines almost entirely by himself up until he left id. Engines that were the gold standard for the industry. The last game to use an engine he worked on wholly was Wolfenstein: The New Order, and the subsequent id Tech engines have just built upon and modified that engine. Carmack left id and is now CTO of Oculus, where he works everyday perfecting virtual reality hardware and software. He may be an asshole, but "good for his time" isn't just reductive, It's flat out ignorant and wrong. He is still on the bleeding edge of gaming technology. Where he's always been.
@@cazao24 I mean, you're not about to get an argument out of me. id sucked for 20 years because of him and his inability to treat people like human beings. Doesn't mean he's not a technical wizard.
Your welcome. I already knew there wasn't much story in DOOM other than 'You good guy, go kill!', but I did know a little about the egotistical, testosterone filled pissing contest that took place in ID. I mean the company's called ID for crying out loud, what were people expecting? But, yea, the price tag had me tilting my head a little as well. It seemed odd to me, then I remembered, this is ID we are talking about. I would expect no less from the idiots who made gamers look like idiots way back in the day. I still remember the first time I played it. I was twelve and a master of MSDOS. My dad would bring me in to the office to keep from having to call in outside help for their computers. I found one of the guys in the office had it with him and wanted to install it but didn't know how. I installed it and as payment he let me play it for the rest of the day. I loved it. It didn't need much of a tutorial other than figuring out the movement keys and off I went. It's the main reason I love games as much as I do today.
There's actually a lot more going on in Doom's plot than most people give it credit for. Quite a bit wasn't mentioned here.
The story begins when The Doom Marine is ordered by his commanding officer to fire upon civilians, and Doomguy instead attacks his commanding officer in response. Rather than have him court-martialed, which would only bring attention to the officer's lack of moral standing, he was transferred to the Mars division of the Union Aerospace Corporation, a conglomerate of science and technology that has base complexes on every planet in the solar system. He got demoted to essentially janitor duty on Mars and "watching restricted flicks in the rec room". The Mars Division Complex itself was actually split into three parts: One base on Mars and one on each of its moons, Phobos and Deimos. Scientists were developing portal technology in an effort to connect the Phobos and Deimos bases together to transfer goods and the like back and forth more efficiently, but they ran into complications, like equipment going through or near the portals disappearing completely. Same with people. People would go missing, come back dead, insane, or even cannibalistic. Then, the invasion began. Scientists issued a message from Phobos down to Mars that "something fraggin' evil" was coming out of the portal and that the entire moon of Deimos had somehow vanished entirely. It was just gone. The entire moon. So, what little of a marine platoon they had was transferred from Mars to Phobos. As Doomguy was still demoted, but technically had marine training, he was stationed at the edge of the Phobos Wing to safeguard the hangar with a measly pistol, while all the other marines took the rest of the heavy weapons away with them and got promptly slaughtered, eaten, and possessed. And it's finally, FINALLY after all this takes place that the first level actually begins.
Once Episode 2 starts up, Doomguy finds himself on the missing Deimos base, which had seemingly vanished from existence, and there's no initial understanding of what happened. Not just yet. But the environments look very different. It's still sci-fi, but there's a lot more strange, gothic, otherworldly structures and imagery out and about. Heck, there's an upside-down cross gate thing near the start of the first Deimos level. It isn't until the end of Episode 2, where Doomguy defeats this giant Cyberdemon Lord (the same demon whom Doomguy's ancestor, William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz from the Wolfenstein series defeated about 200 years earlier in Wolfenstein RPG before The Cyberdemon Lord got his metal augmentation as "The Harbinger of Doom" and seeks revenge on Blazkowicz's legacy), that Doomguy discovers the awful truth in a huge plot twist: Deimos floats above Hell itself! That's where it went! It was swallowed up by its own portal! So, then he drops down to the surface, finds the general or whatever who masterminded the invasion, slays her (Doom II's manual says The Spider Mastermind is female), a door to Earth magically appears with no explanation, and Doomguy heads home.
And that's just Doom 1! In Doom II, there's stuff about Doomguy being a war hero, quitting the Space Marine Corp., a city on fire, fleeing refugees, more cannibals, BILLIONS of humans are dead (leaving the human race endangered), Doomguy storming a spaceport that's been seized by demons so that the last of the human race can evacuate the entire planet itself, Doomguy heading back to his own hometown after mission control informs him that the demons' central Hell portal on Earth is there, and him most likely slaying Satan himself, leaving him to "wonder where bad folks will go when they die, now."
There's a lot that happens in these games. A LOT. But its story is more in line with the lore of games like Metroid Prime, Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Five Nights at Freddy's, Albino Lullaby, or even the Pixar film, Wall-E. Or just a book. The game's story is much easier to understand and appreciate if you have an imagination. It throws in lots of broad strokes, and leaves the player with a lot of blanks to fill in and details to interpret, much like, say... The Touhou series. Even a bit of environmental storytelling. Pretty much the entirety of The Shores of Hell is oozing with that. Phobos Anomaly sets it up really well. Heck, did you notice an entire level in the Inferno episode was set within the confines of a satanic church? The story in Doom isn't quite so much something to dismiss as most people would have you believe. Honestly, I think there's actually more going on in Doom's lore than that of Half-Life.
Also, if you wanna avoid the sloppy controls of yesteryear and use a scheme that's more comfortable and modern, just download a source port (AKA, an "Interpreter") like Skulltag, GZDoom, or Zandronum, and run the games through any of those. It's very accessible.
Wow.... thanks for sharing this. All these decades and I never knew this much backstory was behind the original game
I think Carmack had a valid point when he said that about story. He's just approaching from the other end of the spectrum, the side that emphasises the GAME aspect. It's the Ludology vs Narratology debate. Those on the ludology side state that story is unnecessary and may distract from play, which is the whole point of games.
While I might not be that extreme with the view myself, there is merit to that line of thinking. Games are games and should be taking mechanics and gameplay as priority over the story. That doesn't necessarily mean the story needs to be non-existent. But it shouldn't take priority over the gameplay. Which is part of the problem I have with Mass Effect. People bought that for the story, not the gameplay. It just as easily could have been a point and click text adventure or something ala the Telltale Games. Or, even just a book. The third chapter might not have been so awful then.
Gameplay and story are just two extensions of the same thing: narrative. They're both equally as important and should be taken into consideration when designing a video-game. Look at Deus Ex, Dark Souls, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, for just three examples of this concept taken deeply into consideration -- look at the more recent Assassin's Creed games, Max Payne 3, and Bioshock Infinite for the opposite. Video-games are not just "games"; they have defining characteristics which warrant a specific label, and gameplay is not the only thing that defines them. You can look at video-game design as if you were looking at chess, or solitaire, but that would be missing the point.
With that said there is no problem in giving less weight to one factor in favor of the other, as long as there's a reason for it (preference, limitations, genre, to make a point, etc.) There's plenty of space in the medium for diverging lines of thinking and different design philosophies.
As a side note, I don't agree with what you said about Mass Effect. I'm pretty sure most people, myself included, bought it for both the gameplay and the story. It's kinda silly to claim otherwise since one of the major elements of that game is the choice/repercussion systems based around dialogue -- a gameplay mechanic -- which would be meaningless without both concepts working together.
PS: Google "gesamtkunstwerk".
Prim Roan Story is a series of events. Narrative is the whole package (premise, story, plot, themes, motifs, plus others) and the way these are presented. Gameplay always affects story even if mildly (eg.: "The protagonist fought and defeated a bear after he stepped out of Lothering." This might not have anything to do with the main plot, or even support the rest of the narrative in any way, but it's still an event in the story that was provided through gameplay (the player had to actually put his knowledge to the test and use the mechanics to achieve a certain outcome.)) It's very rare to find an example of gameplay that does not add to the story being told in some way; they're still their own thing, and I'm not disagreeing with you in that notion (although there are still other things more different to gameplay than story, like graphics, for example,) but I still retain the belief that gameplay and story are related and both work towards the whole picture: the narrative. It's how well you combine the elements of the narrative and the way you present them that matters.
Of course certain genres don't really need this type of analysis because the whole thing doesn't even have anything to do with telling a story (see Tetris.) I'm exclusively talking about games whose main purpose is storytelling.
Regarding Dark Souls, and I'll be brief here, I don't agree that it has an excuse plot. The game barely has any plot to begin with but the little that there is shapes everything you do. Excuse plots are discardable, you can remove them from the game and there'll be barely anything lost in the process (see Plants vs Zombies, or SpacheChem.) In Dark Souls the plot is crucial.
As for the nature of video-games: yes, they are games, and it's gameplay that separates them from other mediums. The point I was trying to get at was that gameplay in video-games is, by its own very nature, different from gameplay in other types of games and that that should be taken into consideration. Don't fall into the assumption that all games can be painted with this broad stroke. Again, there's a reason for why video-games deserve their own category (in my own understanding they are so unique when compared to other types of the same kin that to regard them as only being part of the big category of "Games" is a disservice to the medium, and to ignore that is to ignore their potential.) Gameplay is not the only thing that puts video-games on a pedestal of their own, other types of games also have it. Video-games are video-games because of all the other cross-media elements that make a part of it alongside gameplay. That's what makes them special.
As for other mediums being better at storytelling than video-games: that's arguable. I would say that they're not better or worse, only with different goals in mind. There are things you can pull off in a film that you can't in a video-game (direct control over what happens and what the audience sees, be more free stylistically,) and vice-versa (branching and emergent narrative, for example -- although the latter is a can of worms on its own I would rather not open.) What's important is to acknowledge these differences and understand what can be done with them. One other thing which should also be acknowledged is that there is no harm at all in borrowing "storytelling tools" from movies and literature, since these mediums are already present in video-games. To not acknowledge that is akin to asking for movies to not "borrow" from music theory for their soundtrack pieces, or from literature for their script writing.
To borrow elements from other mediums strengthens what's already there, as long as, again, the differences are taken into consideration. Now, let me be clear here: I'm NOT advocating for cutscene extravaganza or "cinematic experiences". I'm talking about how, for instance, a soundtrack in a movie or video-game has a different dimension to it because the listener understands the context in which it was supposed to be played in. I'm talking about how that soundtrack can be adapted accordingly to the target medium, games in this case, and how you can build something that is dependent on whatever the player is doing at the moment. Watch, copy, and adapt. Video-games should not be afraid to embrace that concept.
I feel like I might be preaching to the choir with most of what I wrote here, but hey, no matter.
I don't think he does. The fact that his game company is owned by another game company that took story seriously is proof that he was full on wrong. Obviously one type of game was far more successful than the other.
Yup.
I loved doom. I still love doom. I will always love doom. I loved doom when I was using the keyboard only, and I still love doom now that I'm using a mouse. Mechanically, I think doom is a masterpiece. The way I engage with encounters is awesome. Its not just standing and shooting bad guys. When I get into an encounter I find myself in a belay with all the enemies, dodging their attacks and picking them off.
It's worth mentioning that, although PC gaming was a thing in the 70's, the reason it took so long to get going was because the technology needed for actually rendering good graphics wasn't there until *after* Doom. For a long time the Nintendo was actually superior to any PC when it came to that.
That's why John Carmack does deserve his rep as a brilliant programmer. He made the engine for Commander Keen at a time when people though PC couldn't handle side scrolling. He did the same for Wolfeinstine and Doom. Through programming, he was able to create engines that were ahead of the hardware running them.
Nice see you took up the challenge! While I prefer to listen to narrative ruminations, it's also awesome to hear about the background, development history, and impact of a game as prolific as Doom. Nice job, Arch.
I lost it at "Doom's been on a cash register before... fully playable" lol 16:31
Awesome! As a patron, I was getting a little bit put out with the lack of content I personally have an interest in, but those concerns are now in the past! Thanks!
As a concerned Patreon person, if you don't mind answering, what content are you interested in personally?
Archengeia I just realised my original comment sounded a bit dicky. My apologies for that. I am mainly interested in ruminations and discussions. I love your old Q&As, especially the super-long ones. Basically all the stuff that made me become a patron in the first place. The extended LPs and stuff are fun, but I prefer to play a game rather than watch someone else play it. I realise I'm only one person out of however-many-hundreds, but yeah. You are my favourite UA-camr by miles, regardless.
There was one gameplay aspect you didn't mention - getting the enemies to fight each other.
Essentially the idea was find some projectile enemy (like the imp), get it to fire (usually by just wandering into its line of sight) and then run about the place so its "allies" trying to reach you, then those enemies shoot back at the first one (especially if you haven't hit them yourself). It is possible to take out half a level with just a pistol if you chain this effect (there is probably a Challenge like that out there somewhere - "Can you beat Doom with just the pistol?" or something).
I don't know how intentional this was, but this concept (bug?) didn't normally come up back then and in most games still doesn't. I don't remember it from the many Doom-clones that followed in Doom's success, like RotT or Quake. I don't even remember it in later ones like Half-life. The enemies might complain about being shot by their "allies", but they wouldn't fight amongst themselves over it.
This was fun. I had no knowledge of the code and programming culture around Doom. As always, thanks for doing these.
A quick example of Carmack's antics:
"I needed to get out, the pressure now mounting. I called John Carmack on his phone extension, 13.
“Dude, I’m stuck in my office. My doorknob doesn’t work anymore. I think you should chop down this shitty door.”
“I’ll be right over.”
I heard a noise on the wall, which had to be John getting his $5,000 custom axe off its mount. He walked in front of my door and tried the knob. Sure enough, the knob doomed the door to a swift death. John was telling the others in the office nearby that he was about to rescue me from my new prison."
"BAM! The first swing came through the center of the door, just a little, and sprayed wood fragments across the room, bouncing off the opposite wall.
BAM! More wood, splintering and flying. I would have been injured if I were standing in the middle of my room.
After about twelve good swings, the center of the door was completely obliterated, and I could climb through easily. I ran to the bathroom as everyone was laughing about the violence that just took place."
It's about time I watched this Rumination. I'm currently playing through Doom 3: BFG Edition (which includes Doom 1 and 2 as well).
Until a couple of weeks ago, I haven't even touched a Doom game, but even I knew what the plot for these games was. I'm glad I finally own a copy of these games on a disc; and these games are awesome. *thumbs up*
16:28 - 16:49
One of the funniest moments on YT. Played it out perfectly.
Thank you for this rumination Lorerunner.
I like that this Rumination accidentally ended up *ending with* one last example of the "What to Pay" series, which seems to have ended before Ruminations actually began.
Also, I like that comparison with McDonalds, and it is funny to remember that McDonalds used to serve decent food back in the days. I guess the comparison is very accurate except Doom still holds up even today.
I think it's a shame you never touched on any comparisons between Doom (old school FPS) and games like call of duty (modern FPS).
Things like the health system, movement, level design, secrets and weapons that emphasise a Run and Gun approach to FPS and provides a different appeal than the more modern games like Call of Duty.
I wish that some of the more recent games (such as the new wolfenstein) would take more notes from Doom and make a faster paced game where the player can dodge and weave through projectiles, almost like a bullet hell game but in first person.
It would help renew my interest in the genre
I find that this rumination was exactly what we were looking out of you doing Doom, less about the story and gameplay and more about the in depth of it's cultural impact as well as id and the idtech engines, though you never mentioned about how Carmack also had the brilliant idea of making his engines open source which without that we wouldn't be able to put doom on anything because we wouldn't have the source code to mess with.
Must say that I love that a 39 minute long video about doom is seen short ;). But great stuff arch as usual keep up the great work.
Also 15 dollers for doom is insane in my mind.
There is a good argument for the idea that games which rely on violence for their mechanics *should* have gore in them, specifically because people such as yourself will be disgusted by the gore and will be pushed away from violence. By creating a more sanitized experience, where shooting stuff is fun and you have "acceptable targets" that don't cause you any visceral discomfort when they die, more recent games have the potential to desensitize people to the act of killing (and it's no secret that the military actively pushes for the creation of FPS-type games specifically because they help with recruitment for infantry soldiers, just as they encourage flight-simulator games for people who might eventually become drone pilots). It's kind of similar to the way food industry people, many of whom are former tobacco executives who have been using addiction as a business model for decades, will dump tons of artificial flavors and lots of high-intensity sweeteners into foods which are not inherently pleasant-tasting, and create something which is bad for your health yet compulsively edible, specifically so that you'll keep eating past the point of satiation and won't be repelled by the smell or taste of something that barely qualifies as food anymore.
You had your controls configured wrongly if your mouse was moving you forwards and backwards. I don't know what sourceport you were using but they do have options to make 'modern' FPS control schemes. Though I guess you deserve some sort of award for playing the game with the old keyboard controls in this day and age. There are a few Doom mods with story, a few that you'd scarcely recognise as Doom at all. There's even a 3D Sonic game as a mod for Doom.
God this made my night.
you need to do a Runimation on Tom Hall's Anachronox
you can actually disable vertical mouse movement in the options
I can't believe you missed your chance, @Lorerunner. You could have called this "Doomination"!
I know this video is nearly a year old, but Doom (Ultimate Doom for that matter) is 5.50 on Steam. It still seems steep for a game that celebrates it's 22nd birthday in a couple months, but it's not near as ludicrous as 15 dollars.
Old video, but I need to correct you on the controls. If you were playing through DOSBox (which you should have for the real experience) instead of Steam the controls would be UP = Forward, DOWN = Back, LEFT and RIGHT = turn, SPACE = Open, CTRL = Shoot, ALT + LEFT/RIGHT = Strafe and SHIFT = Run.
Fun fact about the original DOOM is, that initially it was planned to be an ALIENS-game, but whoever ahd the rights back then wasn't interested in a ALIENS-shooter, so when they then made the game, they basically 'replaced'(they still were in thier planning phase of the game, so nothing was coded yet) the xenomorphs with demons
Can't wait for the Tetris Rumination.
Funny thing is, I think he could pull it off. At the very least the game's development was interesting.
God please don't make me ruminate Tetris. I already did a lore breakdown of it!
Archengeia Total potential there for a magnum opus!
Lore run of Tetris GO! "It's blocks having sex." TEH End.
Also, I don't know where you were looking or if the price has dropped since Oct 2014 but Doom is around £4 on GOG and Steam right now out of sale.
Funnily enough I asked about this just a few days ago while streaming and found out the price had dropped. Go figure.
I remember how i liked Wolf 3D when it came out, then came Doom and i never digged it. Never cared about the rock rip off midi, the "satanic" monsters and i had the same gripe with the controllers then you did (mouse). Now when Quake came out, i LOVED it.
The glare on your glasses is something to try to get rid of (the monitor on or off). The light from the window also makes it. :(
nice review
To quote a former friend of mine, from back when this was timely: "Uwe Boll needs to just stop making movies. I mean: it's Doom! Mars...space Marines...demons from Hell! How do you screw that up?"
I remember Commander Keen from when I was a kid ah good times.
doom does something i almost never see in first person shooters anymore, and its a crying shame because i love it so very very much. monster infighting.
in doom, you are fighting demons. demons are selfish evil fucks with absolutely no sense of anything beyond "I wanna kill you for the fleeting rush of endorphins that will be released into my brain.", and do not care if their projectiles hit an enemy. if the enemy is the same species and doesn't use a hitscan weapon, neither enemy cares., if a baron hits a baron for example, he might as well have thrown a water balloon at him.
but if a chaingunner hits a pinky, for example, and its a rather common sight in "slaughter" wads, then the pinky will turn around and attempt to kill the chaingunner. and that works for almost all combinations of enemies. an imp got lightly damaged by a cyberdemon without getting insta-gibbed? it will turn around and try to take on a twelve ton infinite rocket launcher meat mountain! that's why chaingunners and revenants and mancubuses and spider demons do so much damage and have hitscan, tracking, or spread attacks respectively, so you can exploit that! and you'll see this all the time in regular play if you're circle strafing, because again, they don't give a shit if they hit another demon, they just want you dead.
and it even makes you have to make decisions! if you get an equal amount of revenants and barons to fight, the barons will always win. but if you just let them win, you'll have to use a lot more ammo to deal with them. so you probably wanna help burst down one baron to get the revenants snowballing, but if you do that you have to deal with the revenants homing missiles and surprisingly damaging skelleton punches. what are you gonna do?
if you look at ultra violence playthroughs on the toughest fan-maps a lot of them end up just exploiting that to avoid losing all their ammo. they just make everyone else fight and then sit back and watch them kill each other.
the arch vile is the only demon that will never ever ever be attacked by other demons. kill him first.
people keep going on about doom being "braindead" to play, but the toughest mods the fans have made need you to understand how to do this to not run out of ammo, no matter how good you are at dodging if you try to kill everything by yourself you will lose all your ammo, and either force you to be extremely good at punching things to death, or reload. and i've never seen another game where you can exploit enemies attacks to this degree! I've never seen a game that copied it!
Please go more in depth on daikatana one day , it's always fascinated me .
The interesting discussion point I found in this rumination was that "does reputation of the developer, for good or for worse, should effect the judgement of the game?" There are few game developers I hate, and I don't find their games much compelling. Nevertheless, how much can you separate personal bias from the objective assessment is always a question that requires an answer.
I have been playing Bayonetta 2 and I think you should do a rumination on it.
If you want a game from slightly later that does have a story, try the Marathon series, whose story summary has been compared to "a f***ing doctrinal thesis".
About your last point on the price: Duke Nukem 3D is on Good Old Games for $5.99, as are many other titles from around the same time. I think you were right about Id's ego, but I've noticed that most older games on Steam are higher price anyway.
Doom is open source. Its availible for free.
Dune 2 was the RTS . Dune was primarily an rpg.
Wolf 3D's engine does do texture mapping on walls though
but only on walls. Textures on the floor and ceiling were new to Doom.
Classic games
I like to think what is your reason to play this game?
So when it comes to story importance I think how much of the game mechanics relys on the conceit or setting of the game.
Portal could be anywhere so long as you have the conceit to require a portal gun. You could make the game with a bare bones story and that would scratch an itch. The tech could be in another game and it would scratch an itch or you could add an amazing story with the gameplay.
It is like cooking how complicated do you want to make your dish?
Do I want tinned soup or do I want to make a stock, then chop up loads of veg and add herbs and spices. I might get joy from the process and a better taste, but I might just want a simple soup.
The point of Doom is it is a themed obstical course of shoot and move, with a little backtrack puzzle solve. It doesn't need epic lore and character threads. But other shooters differentiated by using narrative drive.
The constant obsolescence of technology is definitely a problem; I for one have resisted pursuing a career involving computers (other than basic usage of them for things like word processing), because I can't stand the idea of having to run this constant uphill race against an industry that refuses to stand still. So the fact that these guys who grew up in the 80s wanted to act like it was still the 80s, that's tremendously understandable; nobody wants the world to pass them by, and if they are able to get enough money and success, why wouldn't they act as if time should freeze because they tell it to? (I was going to put this more elegantly, I think, but I've forgotten exactly what I meant to say; perhaps it'll come back to me the next time I watch this.)
Was the "D&D, oh I mean Doom" just a slip of the tongue, @Lorerunner? Or is there actually a connection there? I have no idea who Tom Hall is.
Wow. If a printer would come with preinstalled Doom, I'd feel more inclined to buy it.
the first FPS wa maze wars
The storyline reminds me a bit of Half-Life...oh ok, you just mentioned that. =)
Sci-fi tech vs. Demons? Excuse plot? Sounds like 'Destiny' to me. XD
Have you read a book called 'Masters of Doom' which pretty much gives the history of ID and it's game? Audiobook is pretty good.
Forking over 50 dollars for the original red dead redmeption with missing features (the multiplayer mode) is what Rockstar is doing latey.
Doom (unlike wolfenstein) was actually 3D just not the "true 3D" that is common today.
There's a playable copy of Doom on a pregnancy test.
Wolfenstein 3D wasn't the first FPS. Id's own Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D came before it. Battlezone is also arguably an FPS. Maze War from 1975 is too, I guess.
Sadly, I disagree with you on many points (Doom is in my top 10 games of all time) but I totally get where you're coming from. Doom, for me, is incredibly tactical (which you touch on) and I don't really think that's been replicated in a single-player FPS since in the same way.
6:01 lol
I for one like stories in my porn too.
so silent hill is out the question
Currently have one year left of my computer science game programming degree ^^ thanks for this arch
Doom is worth 15 dollars ?!!! No way am I paying that much for it !
It's like 5 bucks on steam
Its freeware.
And for the record, I couldn't disagree more with the John Carmack quote about the "excuse plot"; I disagree with respect to games, and as an avid consumer of pornography, I disagree there too. Whether it's wankery or gameplay (including not only video games such as Metroid, where the backstory is constantly felt even when you're between cutscenes, but also tabletop games like Magic: the Gathering, where the "cutscenes" exist completely outside of the game and are totally optional), either way the presence of a robust backstory greatly enhances my enjoyment of the material. It's possible to have games or porn with no story at all; after all, Pong was wildly popular back in the day. But you can do so much better. Give me a Final Fantasy game, or an "Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend", any day of the week.
Future historians are going to absolutely hate us, because our extensive use of phrases like "this is a thing now" is going to make our language incomprehensible. I could mention this anywhere, but it's particularly germane in the case of a video talking about Doom, since that's an ordinary word being used in a context where it won't make sense to anybody who doesn't share our current knowledge base.
😠dont like doom where my rocks 😡😁 i still play doom on a reg bases its just pure fun
Ironically I've since replayed Doom and appreciated it a lot more. Time and perspective, I guess.
ur such an awesome nerd dude lol
If you think paying 15$ for an old game is too much, and don't have the money atm, why not torrent it?
I called it that Arch wudnt like Doom, I was right xD. I found tendency that you do not like games with heavy focus on gameplay in exchange for narrative. On top of that, Doom was gory game, which I know you dont like.
The lack of knowledge here is staggering. Wolfenstein 3D was not the first FPS. It wasn't even id's first FPS. Hovertank 3D was, followed by Catacomb 3D. Catacomb 3D introduced texture mapping, so Wolfenstein certainly had it.
Shadowcaster was also developed by Raven. Carmack developed the engine for it as an iteration on the Wolfenstein engine.
Also, Jesus Christ. Carmack worked developing game engines almost entirely by himself up until he left id. Engines that were the gold standard for the industry. The last game to use an engine he worked on wholly was Wolfenstein: The New Order, and the subsequent id Tech engines have just built upon and modified that engine.
Carmack left id and is now CTO of Oculus, where he works everyday perfecting virtual reality hardware and software. He may be an asshole, but "good for his time" isn't just reductive, It's flat out ignorant and wrong. He is still on the bleeding edge of gaming technology. Where he's always been.
@@Allen.Christian Fuck John Carmack
@@cazao24 I mean, you're not about to get an argument out of me. id sucked for 20 years because of him and his inability to treat people like human beings. Doesn't mean he's not a technical wizard.
I think you should stop taking suggestions. Doom is the last game you should have done a Rumination on, right next to Duke Nukem and Daikatana.
i saw it as an amusing challenge for arch lol
Your welcome. I already knew there wasn't much story in DOOM other than 'You good guy, go kill!', but I did know a little about the egotistical, testosterone filled pissing contest that took place in ID. I mean the company's called ID for crying out loud, what were people expecting?
But, yea, the price tag had me tilting my head a little as well. It seemed odd to me, then I remembered, this is ID we are talking about. I would expect no less from the idiots who made gamers look like idiots way back in the day.
I still remember the first time I played it. I was twelve and a master of MSDOS. My dad would bring me in to the office to keep from having to call in outside help for their computers. I found one of the guys in the office had it with him and wanted to install it but didn't know how. I installed it and as payment he let me play it for the rest of the day. I loved it. It didn't need much of a tutorial other than figuring out the movement keys and off I went.
It's the main reason I love games as much as I do today.