Doom2.exe & Doom4 ideas.

Updated the website design once again, I implemented resolution based scaling for the main content div layer, the website will fit in a 1116 pixels wide browser window now, and I probably could tweak it even further. I had some feedback that the website was requiring too wide a browser window, so now that is fixed. The design is just fine now, the text is very readable and the page loads very quickly indeed. I want to get some more posting done now instead of re-designing the page over and over. I have updated to the 3.0.0-rc6 Linux kernel and I found an option in the menuconfig screen for building a kernel to run on Google servers, but that is not much use unless you are working at Google and have access to those machines, but it is interesting to say the least that this option is in there.

My Linux version.

Linux hungry-forest 3.0.0-rc6 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jul 5 22:18:03 EST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This Linux kernel runs very fast and is a release candidate for testing before the stable 3.0.0 release soon. The stable branch is still 2.6.39, but that will roll over to 3.0.0 any day now. I can not wait. Just checked out the Dosemu emulator that provides an emulated DOS environment and found it runs Doom2 v 1.9 very well indeed, although not as well as Dosbox, but I was checking out a little Doom wadfile I am working on and got it to run very well with the old Doom2 code. The Doom.exe & Doom2.exe executables have the same code-base and are pretty much interchangeable insofar as the Doom2.exe can be used to run Doom.wad and Doom1.wad without any problems, the Final Doom version of the Doom2.exe has a teleportation bug where the player would be materialised in mid-air and then fall down. Being able to run Doom2 at a fast speed with music and all is why DOS emulators where invented. There where other FPS games that came out in the olden days like Marathon, Operation Body Count & Corridor 7 that had the first person view and a selection of guns to vanquish your enemies, but they are not as popular as Doom. The Doom games spawned a trilogy of novels, a Doom Comic and the execrable movie starring Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock from the WWE Sports Entertainment show. The Doom movie was crap, Doom fans should help collaboratively develop a script and make a movie somehow that better follows the real Doom story, then it would be worth watching, but this does not seem like it will happen for a long time, any movie that Hollywood touches is a failure like Transformers 2 and The Expendables, that latter movie was absolutely horrid. But at least with the continued success of the Zdoom source port for Linux and Windows, we can continue to run this 16-year-old game on our modern computers. Halo is very popular, but the Masterchief character looks just like the Doomguy in the Doom artwork and is undoubtedly a copy of the space marine. Halo != Doom IMO. Hopefully Doom 4 will be an awesome game just like the original even though it will have high-resolution 3D models which will mean that it could not have enormous monster packed levels like TheSpire2.wad that is an enormous and quite difficult level indeed. Or Deus Vult 2 that has some Lord of The Rings inspired levels like Minas Ithil with monster hordes aplenty. But I hope that it will be brighter that Doom3 that is for sure. If it is set on Earth, it could have bright outside areas and some dark interiors you have to explore like in the movie I am Legend. But do not have all inside areas dark as pitch, have some variations.

A modern versions of Doom2 MAP15 and MAP13 would be good things to see in this new game, considering the familiarity players have with these maps, seeing updated versions of them in a modern engine would be an interesting thing for the nostalgia fans who grew up playing these maps. Blood 2 had good city maps, and the game Sin as well, had a bank you could fight through, you could even use the ATM and hack into it and access the DOS prompt and type commands. Doom3 had some interactivity, but it was still a game where you had to find the keycard to unlock the door like the original game, except the keycards are not glowing bright red or blue. The original Doom engine, now enhanced by the Boom source port and it`s derivatives like prboom & prboom+ is now capable of some impressive effects in Doom maps, like spinning ceiling fans and conveyor belts that can be used to carry a voodoo doll along a path, triggering events along the way. One of my larger Doom2 maps used this to create some cool effects, and enable things to happen over and over again, without scripting. The maps that are coming out for Doom now are a lot better now than they where in 1994, for the most part with better tools like Doom Builder 2 and Slade. UAC Military Nightmare is an exception, it is a set of horrid maps for Skulltag that have cardboard cut-out characters chasing you and a Romero head rapist that can kill you instantly with GOD mode on using BFG blasts. And wow.wad, that is just a square room with a square “illusio pit” in the centre containing a Cyberdemon. As simple as it gets. But maps like that do not get very high ratings, but that goes without saying.