Supergames 2/SupergamesVolume2.bin/faqs/doom.faq

Text File | 1993-11-22 | 12KB | 272 lines

Id Software to Unleash DOOM on the PC
Revolutionary Programming and Advanced Design Make For Great Gameplay
DALLAS, Texas, January 1, 1993

Heralding another technical revolution in PC programming, Id Software's DOOM
promises to push back the boundaries of what was thought possible on a 386SX or
better computer.  The company plans to release DOOM for the PC in the third
quarter of 1993, with versions planned for Windows, Windows NT, and a version
for the NeXTPall to be released later.

In DOOM, you play one of four off-duty soldiers suddenly thrown into the middle
of an interdimensional war!  Stationed at a scientific research facility, your
days are filled with tedium and paperwork.  Today is a bit different.  Wave
after wave of demonic creatures are spreading through the base, killing or
possessing everyone in sight.  As you stand knee-deep in the dead, your duty
seems clear; you must eradicate the enemy and find out where they're coming
from.  When you find out the truth, your sense of reality may be shattered!

The first episode of DOOM will be shareware.  When you register, you'll receive
the next two episodes, which feature a journey into another dimension, filled
to its hellish horizon with fire and flesh.  Wage war against the infernal
onslaught with machine guns, missile launchers, and mysterious supernatural
weapons.  Decide the fate of two universes as you battle to survive!  Succeed
and you will be humanity's heroes; fail and you will spell its doom.

The game takes up to four players through a futuristic world, where they may
cooperate or compete to beat the invading creatures.  It boasts a much more
active environment than Id's previous effort, Wolfenstein 3-D, while retaining
the pulse-pounding action and excitement.  DOOM features a fantastic fully
texture-mapped environment, a host of technical tour de forces to surprise the
eyes, multiple player option, and smooth gameplay on any 386 or better.

John Carmack, Id's Technical Director, is very excited about DOOM: *Wolfenstein
is primitive compared to DOOM.  We're doing DOOM the right way this time.
I've had some very good insights and optimizations that will make the DOOM
engine perform at a great frame rate.  The game runs fine on a 386SX, and on a
486/33, we're talking 35 frames per second, fully texture-mapped at normal
detail, for a large area of the screen.  That's the fastest texture-mapping
around period.
Texture mapping, for those not following the game magazines, is a technique
that allows the program to place fully-drawn art on the walls of a 3-D maze.
Combined with other techniques, texture mapping looked realistic enough in
Wolfenstein 3-D that people wrote Id complaining of motion sickness.  In DOOM,
the environment is going to look even more realistic.  Please make the
necessary preparations.


A Convenient DOOM Blurb

DOOM (Requires 386SX, VGA, 2 Meg)
Id Software's DOOM is real-time, three-dimensional, 256-color, fully texture-
mapped, multi-player battle from the safe shores of our universe into the
horrifying depths of the netherworld!    Choose one of four characters and
you're off to war with hideous hellish hulks bent on chaos and death!  See your
friends bite it!  Cause your friends to bite it!  Bite it yourself!  And if you
won't bite it, there are plenty of demonic denizens to bite it for you!
DOOM where the sanest place is behind a trigger.


An Overview of DOOM Features

- Texture-Mapped Environment

DOOM offers the most realistic environment to date on the PC.  Texture-
mapping, the process of rendering fully-drawn art and scanned textures on the
walls, floors, and ceilings of an environment, makes the world much more real,
thus bringing the player more into the game experience.  Others have attempted
this, but DOOM's texture mapping is fast, accurate, and seamless.  Texture-
mapping the floors and ceilings is a big improvement over Wolfenstein.  With
their new advanced graphic development techniques, allowing game art to be
generated five times faster, Id brings new meaning to *state-of-the-art.

- Non-Orthogonal Walls

Wolfenstein's walls were always at ninety degrees to each other, and were
always eight feet thick.  DOOM's walls can be at any angle, and be of any
thickness.  Walls can have see-through areas, change shape, and animate. This
allows more natural construction of levels.  If you can draw it on paper, you
can see it in the game.

- Light Diminishing / Light Sourcing

Another touch adding realism is light diminishing.  With distance, your
surroundings become enshrouded in darkness.  This makes areas seem huge and
intensifies the experience.  Light sourcing allows lamps and lights to
illuminate hallways, explosions to light up areas, and strobe lights to briefly
reveal things near them.  These two features will make the game frighteningly
real.

- Variable Height Floors and Ceilings

Floors and ceilings can be of any height, allowing for  stairs, poles, altars,
plus low hallways and high caves, allowing a great variety for rooms and halls.

- Environment Animation and Morphing

Walls can move and transform in DOOM, which provides an active and sometimes
actively hostile environment.  Rooms can close in on you, ceilings can plunge
down to crush you, and so on.  Nothing is for certain in DOOM.
To this Id has added the ability to have animated messages on the walls,
information terminals, access stations, and more.  The environment can act on
you, and you can act on the environment.  If you shoot the walls, they get
damaged, and stay damaged.  Not only does this add realism, but provides a
crude method for marking your path, like violent bread crumbs.

- Palette Translation

Each creature and wall has its own palette which is translated to the game's
palette.  By changing palette colors, one can have monsters of many colors,
players with different weapons, animating lights, infrared sensors that show
monsters or hidden exits, and many other effects, like indicating monster
damage.

- Multiple Players

Up to four players can play over a local network, or two players can play by
modem or serial link.  You can see the other player in the environment, and in
certain situations you can switch to their view.  This feature, added to the
3-D realism, makes DOOM a very powerful cooperative game and its release a
landmark event in the software industry.
This is the first game to really exploit the power of LANs and modems to their
full potential.  In 1993, we fully expect to be the number one cause of
decreased productivity in businesses around the world.

- Smooth, Seamless Gameplay

The environment in DOOM is frightening, but the player can be at ease when
playing.  Much effort has been spent on the development end to provide the
smoothest control on the user end.  And the frame rate (the rate at which the
screen is updated) is high, so you move smoothly from room to room, turning
and acting as you wish, unhampered by the slow jerky motion of most 3-D games.
On a 386sx, the game runs well, and on a 486/33, the normal mode frame rate is
faster than movies or television.  This allows for the most important and
enjoyable aspect of gameplay-immersion.

- An Open Game

When our last hit, WOLFENSTEIN 3D was released the public responded with an
almost immediate deluge of home-brewed utilities; map editors, sound editors,
trainers, etc.  All without any help on file formats or game layout from Id
Software.  DOOM will be release as an OPEN GAME.  We will provide file
formats and technical notes for anyone who wants them.  People will be able
to easily write and share anything from their own map editors to communications
and network drivers.
_______________________________________________________________
DOOM, Id, and Wolfenstein are trademarks of Id Software, Inc.


1)      When is doom being released?

>Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 17:49:53 GMT
>
>Well gang, the moment I most dread is upon me.  The moment
>where I have to create and post a message about DOOM not
>making it out by the end of the 3rd QTR '93.
>
>Circumstances beyond our control have caused our
>schedules to slip and us to perform a reality check on our
>previous date range quotes.  In order for us to provide you
>with the quality, bug-free product you expect from Id
>Software we are forced to move our release date to
>12-10-93. At least we are giving a real release date!
>(I can hear the flame throwers clicking on from here.)
>
>Thanks for understanding. (I hope.)
>
>Jay
>Id Software

Thats 10th December, 1993


2)      What are the minimum hardware requirements?
        DOOM (Requires 386SX, VGA, 2 Meg)


3)      Will it be possible to angle your gun up and down?

>From: [e-mail] (Marty Price)
>Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 19:21:25 GMT
>
>Jay Wilbur ([e-mail]) wrote:
>: > Will it be possible to aim your weapon up and down in DOOM?
>: > I've noticed from some of the screen shots I've seen that there
>: > are some great places where a person could cover large areas from
>: > a 'sniping' box.
>
>: This issue is currently on the design table.
>
>Hmm, when I played the alpha, all you had to do was line up your gun with
>them horizontally, and it would hit whoever vertically as well.  But I can
>imagine that with weapons like the rocket launcher, that would be a bit
>impractical..
>                                              Vhold

>From: [e-mail] (Justin Pinder)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:29:45 GMT
>
>Apparently not. They say you can kill the badguys regardless of their
>vertical location. I'm still rooting for vertical movement, though.


4)      What sound cards will Doom support?
        SoundBlaster 16, SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, Gravis Ultrasound.


>From: [e-mail] (Justin Pinder)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:29:45 GMT
>
>Jay says that the SB, Roland SCC-1 and one other which eludes me will be
>supported for SURE. Other cards planned for support include the GUS. If
>support for the GUS is not included in the original release, it will included
>in a future patch. GUS-3D is still a possibility. Stereo panning is supported
>on stereo cards.

>From: [e-mail] (Eric Hsiao)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:37:17 GMT
>
>Don't forget the great and wonderful PAS-16 and all its variants (Soundman 16,
>Spectrum 16, Studio 16, Studio 16XL, Plus, etc.).  Hey Apogee, why don't you
>learn something from ID's soundboard support dept.  The game will still use
>8-bit samples, but at least it will support the PAS-16 with stereo cues.


5)      Is friendly fire dangerous (or can you shoot your friends)?
        Yes you can.

>From: [e-mail] (Justin Pinder)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:29:45 GMT
>
>Yes, there will be a death match mode where the objective is to kill everyone
>else.


6)      What weapons are there going to be?

>From: [e-mail] (Justin Pinder)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:29:45 GMT
>
>Jay says:
>Rifle
>Knife
>Chainsaw (that's right .. chainsaw ;-)
>Plasma Gun
>Machine Gun
>BFG-9000


7)      In multiplayer mode can you communicate with the other players?

>From: [e-mail] (Justin Pinder)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:29:45 GMT
>
>Yes. Communcation is possible between players.


8)      Miscellaneous stuff

>From: [e-mail] (Justin Pinder)
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 19:29:45 GMT
>
>Well, all the information I just posted I got from last night's
>teleconference with the id guys. Some other interesting tidbids:
>
>Footstep sound effects
>No HiColor support
>TCP/IP and Novell support
>Serial line & modem support using broadcast packets
>Infared (night vision) feature
>Moving floors
>and more!