If you own either game already, you’ll get it for free.
Given the fuckups around definitive editions and the fact that there’s already so many great, free, open source Doom engines and content, this feels like a money grab and a step backwards.
Here’s a grey lining I saw on tumblr:
It’s a weird take from someone kind of uninformed. The assumption that the company would base the release off of the GPL’d version and not the original source code is odd. Also, the claim that it’s Windows only when it’s cross platform so…?
My main takeaway is that the original Dooms owe much of their cultural relevance to work done by the community for free, under the open source ethos.
And then there’s the creative work done using those tools: thousands of hours worth of megawads, total conversions, one offs, and weird little experiments - that have been responsible for keeping Doom actually relevant.
For decades, nothing new happened with Doom 1, 2, or 64, that wasn’t authored by us, and for free. The retro dooms weren’t exactly abandonware, but for all intents and purposes the franchise has been community run. Yeah you buy the official IWADs from their license holders, but that was the extent of it.
Yes they have the legal right to charge for this work, but like, it’s not the coolest move given all the history.
EDIT oh wait I read on a bit - it’s free? That changes things. Definitely wish it was more open, but at least it’s not a cash grab
One of her points that resonated with me was that to get modern levels to work they did have to re-implement Boom features, which were GPL.
Looks like it’s a different engine, actually. So yeah, makes sense that if they needed to reimplement features, it’s new code that wasn’t pulled from Boom, so doesn’t need to be GPL.
Yeah it’s a port to Nightdive’s Kex engine. It wasn’t a literal accusation of a GPL violation, more just being disappointed about seeing open source work being captured into proprietary software.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Doom is the best game ever made.
I tried it out for a bit. it’s not bad at all, but there’s a bunch of stuff in there that doesn’t gel with me personally. I had to turn the crosshair off because it was too high on the screen, and the autoaim was causing me to miss shots due to height differences. It’s neat enough and I’m sure it’s a great option for consoles, but I’ll stick to gzdoom myself.
The MCU advertisement tie-ins are really getting out of hand…
Where are you seeing that?
I’m just making fun of the MCU’s recent announcement that Robert Downey Junior is playing Doctor Doom in some upcoming movies and also the inclusion of Doctor Doom among other Marvel characters in Fortnite.
What if I want to keep the original version? Can I still access it? I’m getting sick and tired of my games being replaced with shit I never asked for, even if it is arguably a “better” version.
If you check the folders as well, all the .WADs are there for everything (if you want to use them with a different port/engine). Not sure if it detected which games I already owned, but my version is actually Doom + Doom 2 + Final Doom + Master Levels + Sigil + NRFTL + LOR (new campaign). Plus all the featured mods (from the recent console ports) and a regular user-driven mod browser.
It’s a pretty overwhelming update to the already decent Kex engine port that’s been on consoles for a while. They added a bunch of dvd-extras too like concept art and such. It’s not my favorite way to play but it’s still a pretty great free update!
Next up, Pac-Man-as-a-Service
