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DOOM (game) and STAR WARS

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Interested about the influence of Star Wars on classic 1990s PC game "Doom"? I was rather under impression that Doom creators' inspiration was rather "generic sci-fi" and nothing SW in particular, but this fragment of (supposedly) original game desing document (very early one, as you will see - i.e. not many of that was in actual game) proves otherwise.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8072/doomvm3.gif
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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i know doom was pretty much ripped off by game star wars : dark forces. a game that became later on part of the jedi knight game series.

and doom ripped off castle wolfenstein 3-D, lol not much originalty going around then.

Even now tons of game come out as nothing but halo clones.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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That design doc looks very early indeed. Do you have any more of this stuff or access to? If it is authentic that is.

Before the term 'First person Shooter' [or fps] became widely used many of these types of games were labeled doom clones [post doom that is]. I think the main reason id made doom was to create something more advanced than they had with wolfenstein.

Even though it was the same style of game, Dark Forces pushed the envelope firther allowing the player to do things they couldn't in Doom. So as much of a rip off as it may have seemed i wouldn't be inclined to label it as such.

Let's not forget all the things Star Wars [the film series] has ripped off over the years shall we

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I like how did you put that, Johnny, so here it is:

http://5years.doomworld.com/doombible/
(both PDF & HTML version)
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
i know doom was pretty much ripped off by game star wars : dark forces. a game that became later on part of the jedi knight game series.

The engines were actually completely different. Dark Forces was superior to Doom's single player, but it had no multiplayer aspect, which was kind of a downer at LAN parties. Unfortunately, LucasArts kept trying to reinvent the wheel, so every game after Dark Forces fell further and further behind the rest of the genre. That is until Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy when they finally decided to license iD's engine.

Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
and doom ripped off castle wolfenstein 3-D, lol not much originalty going around then.


Seeing as how they were written by the same company (iD Software) that's not a very big surprise. And again, Wolf 3D was nothing more than Castle Wolfenstein from the Apple IIe written for PCs and with a 3D look. But again, Wolf 3D was not true 3D as evidenced by the character "sprites" and the levels (elevators and no staircases).

Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
Even now tons of game come out as nothing but halo clones.


I think you've got that backwards my friend. Halo, and 2 and 3, are nothing but clones of Doom, Doom2, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, etc, etc, etc. For some reason, people on consoles (specifically the XBox) think first person shooters and online play didn't exist before Halo. Well, they're wrong on both counts. The PC world had both for years before Halo came out.
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You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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That's a pretty striking coincidence. Another one I might suggest between doom and SW is about the erasure of history in both franchises. Is this right for me to say that the original Doom doesn't exist?
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Originally posted by: generalfrevious
That's a pretty striking coincidence. Another one I might suggest between doom and SW is about the erasure of history in both franchises. Is this right for me to say that the original Doom doesn't exist?


Doesn't exist where? I'm pretty sure I've got it on a CD or a floppy at home. Or are you referring to the script that was posted? I'd say that's more of a rough draft than the final version.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Yeah, I have an old disk of it somewhere too.

As far as clones of video games go, I think of a clone as something along the lines of someone making a Pac-Man game that isn't really Pac-man but tris to get that same kind of feel to it. Usually clones are made as a cheap ways to cash in on or make a freeware version of something original. Dark Forces could be considered a clone because it was made back when Doom/Wolfenstein were the original FPS and there wasn't really anything else like it, but I think of Dark Forces more as one of the pioneers of the FPS genre, afterall I don't think it really tried to emulate Doom so much as it tried to be its own thing. Certainly it was inspired by Doom in a "Hey, that is a great idea, what can we do with that concept?" sort of way. And for Halo clones, maybe Halo had a few original ideas and others picked up on those, but I think we are past the point of cloning when it comes to FPSs. In all honesty the FPS genre doesn't have much variety, there are countless titles, but they are all more or less the same. We need as many Half-Lifes and Halos as we can get. Games that take a step beyond and try to add something new, it is to be expected that newer titles of the same genre are going to pick up on those things. I don't think that makes them clones, I think that is the normal course of evolution for video games.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I think the biggest problem with the Dark Forces "series" was that they waited so long to add multiplayer. The excuse was always "well, it wouldn't make sense to have Jedi fighting each other or to have Han fighting Leia". Um, who cares if it makes sense, it's a game. When they finally did go multiplayer, it was JK2 which was essentially just Jedi vs Sith. I don't believe they ever made Stormtroopers or anyone else playable characters. I know there were mods for Quake 3 that had stormtroopers, chewie, etc, etc. LucasArts just seemed to be stuck in this mentality of trying to make all the games fit into continuity. That is until Masters of Teris Kasi, which they had to wedge continuity into.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Originally posted by: lordjedi
I think the biggest problem with the Dark Forces "series" was that they waited so long to add multiplayer. The excuse was always "well, it wouldn't make sense to have Jedi fighting each other or to have Han fighting Leia". Um, who cares if it makes sense, it's a game. When they finally did go multiplayer, it was JK2 which was essentially just Jedi vs Sith. I don't believe they ever made Stormtroopers or anyone else playable characters. I know there were mods for Quake 3 that had stormtroopers, chewie, etc, etc. LucasArts just seemed to be stuck in this mentality of trying to make all the games fit into continuity. That is until Masters of Teris Kasi, which they had to wedge continuity into.

Dark Forces 2 had MP, it was just hard to use unless you had an MSN Zone account.
Plus, JK2 was good in the end - countless mods.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Yeah lordjedi, I don't know what you are talking about. Dark Forces predated the online multiplayer, while Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had multiplayer from the get go. You could fight any character with any character, with lightsaber, force powers or even just blasters. It was a lot of fun actually. And yeah, there were a lot of mods for it, so you could have a lot of fun with it. Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast also had multiplayer right from the start. As did Jedi Academy.

My goodness, that is one messed up series of games!!! We go from Dark Forces to Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, then with the third game instead of Dark Forces III they decide to continue it from the previous games subtitle as Jedi Knight II (so Dark Forces III: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast??? hehe), then instead of calling the next one Jedi Knight III, they just outright rename it to Jedi Academy (I guess Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy would have been kind of hard to print on the CD). But with all that said, I for one am glade that they dropped the name Dark Forces from the title and renamed the series, since Jedi Knight had very little in common with DF gameplay wise. Kind of sets Dark Forces away from all the extra baggage the later installments brought to the series.

Hmm, I just noticed another minor similiarity between DF and SOTE, the N64 cartridge of SOTE features a StormTrooper, very much like the cover of the original DF box art.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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But that was the problem. You had to have an MSN Zone account. So how many people ended up playing it? Probably not very many compared to the likes of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, where all you had to do was load the game and browse for a server (or use GameSpy).

My point was that multiplayer star wars FPS didn't really take off until JK2, when you could just use GameSpy or the in game server browser. You didn't need an MSN Zone account at that point. All you needed to do was login to a server.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Wow, I didn't even known online play existed back then. It didn't for me because I didn't have internet. But my friends and I would link our computers via null modem cable or later by LAN. One of the games we played the most was Red Alert, but we did spend a good deal of time using the force to push each other around in JK. That will really the highlight of multiplayer in that game, the force powers. Honestly the lightsabers sucked. They looked cool but the dueling system wasn't much.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape