Had some great comments on the Doomworld and reddit threads: www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/94894-what-i-found-by-watching-a-twenty-year-old-doom-ii-deathmatch/ www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/6l6d9w/what_i_found_by_watching_a_doom_ii_deathmatch/

I have no idea why this got recommended to me, but I'm not sorry.

"...minority of players refuse to record demos reportedly to keep their tactics a secret. This selfish decision has relegated them to obscurity..." I like it when I hear a line that speaks volumes of truth. GREAT video! Never knew it existed but I like how the video was so detailed that it had actual profiles on players, well developed profiles at that.

At around 6:19, the reason why he went up on that ledge and fell onto the plasma spawn was to open the rocket launcher secret.

Spawn camping, weapon spawn. Halo? Cod? I remember doom in high school. Brought in a 3.5 disk, put it on the Q drive so we could play mp

One big advantage those sprite FPS games had over modern ones: being able to display an unlimited number of corpses forever. The pride you felt running through a nearly completed level and seeing the OCEAN of monster corpses you had left everywhere. "Oh yeah, I remember that fight." None of this corpses disappearing after 30 seconds. Also something younger people wouldn't get: the MINDBLOWING feeling of playing a game with someone remotely for the first time. Very first FPS match with Doom, very first RTS match with Warcraft 1. It was downright scary knowing there was an actual person behind the enemy and your heart was racing. Not to mention to "holy shit!" moment when you actually saw the very first text chat message from another human. Seeing your friend's "Hey" for the first time was eye-popping amazing.

Honest competition in its purest form: No sponsors or "esports" degeneracy, just a desire to improve, talented players, and some frozen pizza.

Thanks for letting me relive some of that excitement through your video!

There is a fair bit of inaccuracies and errors in the video :) In the video you can briefly see me as the rightmost guy in a grey sweater, 0:46. :) The others are from left: Henning, Bahdko, Ocelot, Andy, and then me. For more info, check out the doomworld thread.

You took such an obscure slice of gaming history and made it really interesting. Subscribed. :)

I see a fair amount of confusion about the BFG9000. The "silencing" is done by making the player start another sound just after the BFG chargeup sound. A player can only play one sound at a time, and there's a maximum of 8 sound channels in the later versions of Doom. Was 4 in the early ones if I'm not mistaken. This can be achieved by landing from a height, pushing a wall, taking damage, etc. Basically anything that makes the player play a new sound. It also works for other weapons, but since the BFG is very quiet in the start of the sample and has a long and fairly well known sample, it's more useful. As for the aiming and strange way it is being used. The main projectile's vector is used when firing the 40 invisible beams, but they are fired from the player object. Where the player is currently facing does not matter. The beams arc out in a roughly 90" angle, about the same as the player file of vision. At close range all, or most beams, will hit the enemy player. At range fewer, one or none will hit. The range is unlimited. It should be noted that the game runs on 35 updates per second, in a VGA mode 13 unchained mode at 70Hz, so every other hardware frame can be a new frame. This means that you can easily "cut" sounds if you're 1 tick into a sample and a new sample starts getting played. There is also a tiny delay of a few ticks from when the BFG main projectile explodes until the rays are fired. Enough time for a player to respawn. You can kill a player twice with the same shot. The main projectile only damages one player, so even in a 4 player match, one can only score 4 frags from one BFG shot. It is often tactically sound to not instantly respawn if you're in a BFG fight to avoid double frags. The rays are also fired out even if you're dead, so should you be killed by a SSG shot after an oposing player dodges your BFG shot, one should still wait to see if one can't get a free frag. If I'm not mistaken, respawning creates a new player object, and you do not get credits for frags caused by the old player object. Especially on maps like map07 in 4 player FFA, it can pay off to wait for all your projectiles to detonate. Firing a BFG shot that will take a long time before it detonates can be used as a nice 'insurance and surprise' when heading into a possible ambush. As for item respawns. The classic style is generally used on smaller maps like map01 and map07, since it makes the weapons always available, making it hard to control a map. On bigger maps like map11, altdeath (deathmatch 2.0) and map control is the often favored gameplay, since all the powerups and weapons respawn. This makes it possible to track a player and control the map. In the 90s, Xoleras was considered one of the early masters of map11, there's probably demos of him playing the map online. It should be noted that DOOM on LAN is not the same game as online DOOM due to the peer to peer networked nature of the map. It should be noted that the green player has a minor advantage due there being a slight but noticable delay for the indigo player. Therefor when playing proper deathmatches, one generally plays one round as green and one as indigo, and adds up the scores, to get a better measure of the true skill difference. IPXSetup.exe uses the nic mac hardware address when determining who is which player, so a replacement executable is used to swap this. The lowest mac address is player 1.

Oh. From the title, I thought he found some unknown bug or secret about Doom from watching the video or something.

OMG, amazed that half a million people saw this match. Thanks Alistair. I'm Galiu.

Back in high school in the late 90s I actually won our Doom deathmatch contest at school. Still the best teacher I ever had, much love Mr. Lobdell

One thing to note is that the chaingun will always fire in multiples of two; a single press of your fire key will always fire those two perfect bullets. If you're having trouble with the technique, start by slowly tapping your fire key, then reducing the delay between taps until you can consistently fire just those two perfect shots.

Wow... this reminds me of playing Duke Nukem 3D deathmatch on LAN at my mate's flat in 1997. Seems like a lifetime ago. Never realised at the time that esports would ever be a serious thing. These two players must be about 40 now haha

In 1997, they were still called LAN parties.

Didn't realise that the player runs so fast around until I saw this. If I was a demon in Doom i'd be shitting myself lol

Deathmatch reminds me of chess or fencing. It's not enough to see your enemy, but you have to anticipate your enemy's next move and proceeding move, taking chances like firing at spawn points, pre-firing corners, etc. It's fascinating. None of this looks fun in the slightest, but I still respect the fan base. They were the frontiersmen who not only pioneered the new frontier of the internet but also competitive gaming. It must have been thrilling to be on equal footing with developers and ahead of the curve in some cases to the rest of the world.

this video was so boring yet fascinating

Its so awesome to see stuff like this again after so long. You should post more content in this category!

He opened the secret door because it also opens the room that has the rocket launcher in it

I love old, obscure internet time capsules. This sort of video is right up my alley. thanks!

Yes, yes. Doom 2 my first deathmatch back in 1995. We had direct connect pc and startet shooting at each other in that spider level. There was no corpse despawn those days.

Damn. This is some of the most entertaining gameplay I have ever seen.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I kinda want to have a LAN party in 2017.

"lemme tell you about map 1. its called map 1" XD

This was really damn cool man, thanks for sharing! That part about it not actually being a recording kind of blew my wee little mind x3

Love these kind of videos, digging back in the past with great detail and the hows and whys!

i need to try classic doom deathmatching atleast with bots

This is such a cool video, thank you for all the excellent commentary!

Just from watching this, the way you describe the players makes them sound like good sport competitors. Your analysis of their style and tactics is exactly why I have just subscribed with notifications :)

At 11:05 the player performs a wall-run exploit by strafing along it at an angle. It only works on walls situated along that plane. Also note how the players "bump" the wall before firing a BFG shot. This grunting sound cancels the gun's SFX; making it silent.

"It was the most popular map for deathmatching in the 90s." MAP07 would like a word with you.

Wow. This was an absolutely fascinating analysis. If you ever decide to go into journalism, I'd definitely use this as a demonstration of your writing skills and delivery. It's well written, and your delivery style reminds me of certain reporters on Newsy or Vice. It's also a testament to your research skills that you got the details correct. As someone who was actually around during the birth of video games, I can't tell you how many times younger people pull info off the web thinking everything is factual, and how many times they get it completely wrong. Well done! Subscribed.

So glad I clicked on this video randomly. What cool insight into a time long past. This is one of the most interesting videos I've watched in a long time.

The nostalgia I'm experiencing is overwhelming. I still play Doom 2 every couple years, still so good.

You should put more of these up and offer commentary. This is a really interesting pseudo-realtime-documentary. Love this. Thank you, Alistair.

This video is golden. Thanks for bringing that era of gaming to spot. Won a subscription from me.

Very interesting video (match included). You did a great job with the commentary.

what did u find out

I kind of wish I knew people who played this when I was growing up. No one really played Doom back in elementary school. This video hits home how it gaming used to be.

journey to the childhood right here. This was way more fascinating then I had anticipated. Thanks bud!

Dude, I just want to say great vid. Well done. This was so fascinating.

I read this as "twenty year doom match" and was very intrigued

1:28 since the game records keystrokes it also means had they patched certain things they could have totally fucked up replays..... See starcraft broodwar games :(

5:25 her eloquent choice of words in describing his skills is so cool.

This was the most interesting video I've seen in a long time hope to see more from you in the future

The fact that the matches were archived with keystrokes only was pure genius. The only way you could have "recorded" a game effectively in those times

I only paused this video to sent link to my friends. Such satisfying nostalgia.

I didn't know what to expect from this video, but damned if I didn't learn a ton about a game I haven't played in probably 15 years, great job man!

I'm not really sure why this got recommended to me but it's pretty dope. Nice work man! Watching csgo esports and then seeing this is just kind of amazing to see. How far esports had come but also how little it's changed. It really makes me happy to see gaming like this.

Man, this was pretty enjoyable. I was like 13 when this game was everything to the gaming community. I was more of a console player even back then but my dad always had a pc and this was one game we both played, man he was cool.

This is very interesting. Too bad I was 6 and only knew about playing checkers on my PC.

I've come back to this video like 4 times now, not sure why but it's always been in the back of my mind since I first watched it

Very well done and takes me back so hard. Thank you. Subscribed.

If any video was needed to prove to the console generation of the dominance of M+K, then this is it. Fast, precise, skillful and very playable. . I'm afraid the skill twitch MP shooters has gone forever. Joypads will never, ever compare to this.

This happened before I was born Edit-didn't think this comment would get so many likes LOL

Simply for looking at something no one else really would, you've peaked my interest in this scene. You also gained a subscriber, so better deliver!

Really cool. Hope that you will make more of these sorts of videos.

@ 12:10 you speak of Steve Polge. He was the AI programmer who made the Reaper bot for Q1, and yeah, he went on to code Unreal's (and a few other Epic releases) bot AI. He found a great home at Epic and was there as project lead for Unreal Tournament 2004, which I worked on with the entire crew. I sat between him and Dave Hagewood (both of them consummate masters), and they programmed while I made kickass vehicles for UT2K4. It was the best professional joy of my entire 3d career, despite it being a time of personal hardships. I'll never forget working with them.

Really like the video, left a detailed comment on DW :)

Very awesome, ive watched tons of demos off of doom2.net demos archive and this was unexpected to see in my reccomendations :)

awesome video man. that was very interesting and very intense

January 1997. I was a Jr. in high school and playing deathmatch in the school's computer lab and at LAN parties fairly regular. Good times. These guys would have kicked my ass all over the map. I miss stuff like this. The internet is an amazing thing, but gaming over the internet just isn't the same. Lugging a desktop across town was, admittedly, a pain in the ass, but there is something about sitting in the same room with the guys you're talking shit with that can't be emulated over the internet. Besides, its hard to throw a shoe at someone on the other side of the country, and that is so satisfying at times.

How did this get so many views so quickly? BTW great vid.

Amazing piece of gaming history! Thanks for sharing this, Alistair! God bless!

very nice i subscribed because no one posts doom content anymore i love your explaining during the frag video as well

I logged in just to like this.

Wow, this got a lot of views fast! I'd really like to see you review some demos from other maps such as SSL2, Judas23 or Dwango5 Map01!

By reading the title, I thought you were building up toward something over the course of the video. This was still a pretty cool video, getting me interested in something I wasn't even planning on learning about today!

This is a really good video, thanks!

damn i forgot about this back then

Whenever he picks up a weapon, dat face is just disturbing.

The algorithm strikes again! Not sure why or how your vid got promoted by KZfaq but I'm glad it did. Enjoyable video and commentary, thumbs up!

This was fascinating! Thanks for sharing it!

I'm watching this in fascination and half way through realized that if I showed this to most people I know; they would think I'm retarded for enjoying this so much. Some things never change.

I never played doom seriously, but after you explained it all it actually became really facinating watching the match, thanks.

dunno why this was shown to me in my feed but i liked it, subbed

Yeah, good soundcard and headphones made a difference. Wow, it's been a long time since I've seen Doom II play, let alone played it, great video.

I thought he was gonna pick the chainsaw and go full leatherface mode!

Would have beaten both in 94 95 96.... Not sure by 97 but probably. We took champion on Concentric Network in 95. Was really good. Now I'm old lol.

Subbed in the hope that you do more content like this. A great wee video to stumble upon. Doom and Quake bots are intriguing things and 'simple' Doom MP is also fascinating. Thanks for sharing. :)

This is very interesting - great video!

I clicked on your link and there don't seem to be any matches in January 1997 between Galiu and BahdKo. There are two from June 1997, one from 2004, and one from October 1996 with 4 people including them. Is there a larger list? Also, holy shit, girl gamers from the 1990s were the real thing, unlike today. Sadly I never had much opportunity to deathmatch others but talk about a hard target.

I'm guessing BFG means Big Fucking Gun?

This is gold, ty

i LLLLOVED the video. Your commentary was always really interesting and pertinent to the match. It would have been pretty easy to just blabber over the gameplay but you've managed to compliment it really well. I hope you go on to make more videos some time soon because i'd be interested in seeing what else you can do.

"What I found by watching a twenty-year-old Doom II deathmatch" .... 13 minutes without an answer of what he found~ just being the Madden of Doom

holy shit I was born in January 1997

This is actually really fascinating, given how quickly things have changed.

Hijinks, Strata, Langolier, JohnPaulJones, Silk, days of yore! Representing Doom 2 H2H San Diego! God we took this game way too fucking seriously. It was all we had.

Before our times, my friend (if you are were born 2000 and up)

This kind of hasty behaviour would not get you very far in today's deathmatch standards, not in this map anyway. This map is known for being more about tactics and mind games rather than rushing in all the time. Controlling the spawns with fast actions is important, but running around mindlessly chasing your opponent with pistol or chaingun while there's an option to obtain bfg and play it safe will get yourself fragged.

Make more videos like this , i love all this historical videos and nostalgic things.

6:19 Actually if you take a really close look, not only is he opening the Rocket Secret, he also fires the BFG into the wall... and the shot also connects with the wall at the end of the corridor on the bottom floor. Since he does this at the exact same moment he drops from top floor to bottom floor, I would imagine the game code has a hard time calculating that and we get the result seen. Also notice how the BFG blast down the corridor is in perfect alignment with his crosshair as he lands. We can also confirm that SHE was not using the BFG at the time, since a rocket explosion is seen as he finishes firing the BFG. BFG plasma can be 'teleported' over or through terrain during immediate floor transition.

But my dude,why?

Doom has hipsters doing yt commentaries on old demos now? Good thing I'm done with that community.

I think I first watched this video like 2 or 3 years ago but remembered it again and thought it be worth posting a comment. You are the reason I found out that aunt Laura was into DOOM. She moved to Finland while I was still young (I'll be 20 in December) so I didn't really get to know her and only talked to her through email on a few occasions. Even though it was only one clip you showed at the beginning, holy shit it is so weird seeing footage of my house from 19 years ago. My brother and I went down a little rabbit hole when we saw this video and came across aunt Laura's website and found all of the pictures from that LAN party she had in 2003. There's even a picture of my mom holding me as a baby! It's also nice to know that a love for tech and video games runs in the family lul. Thank you for making this video. Who'd knew it'd turn into some rando's familiy time capsule!

God I miss this...so many memories, my brother was one of the best deathmatchers in the UK even before this lmp...I can still read the game perfectly, and remember all the tactics by the players...nostalgia overload. Plasma tunnels, silent shotgun, silent plasma, silent rockets, strafe running and along walls to speed you up even more, exactly how the bfg works etc. It's amusing to see the posts by all these younger gamers and hear their confusion about the game and it's various facets of DM play. Trust me the gamers back then were every bit as hardcore as any today... @2:07 Galiu demonstrating strafe running along the hallway wall to speed up his running... @03:05 Galiu shooting the Plasma into the wall to try and confuse his opponent and bring them out. @03:20 Galiu backs into the wall as far back as he can and shoots the plasma, doing that means any opponent at the other end of the corridor will NOT hear it being fired and will walk into plasma as they step into the corridor. @03:22 more strafe running along the wall.. @06:13 That's correct 'using' a wall gives an umph sound which will mask the sound of the BFG charging if timed right, also jumping down from somewhere and firing the BFG at the right time will achieve the same effect. @06:23 jumping onto the plasma gun podium opened a corridor to the rocket launcher at the other end of the tunnel, which he picks up at 06:30. @06:42 out of interest - UK players ALWAYS played with item respawn off and on ultra violence difficulty, while Americans always preferred respawn on. @07:59 the only weapon outside is a single shotgun. @08:01 more wall running. @08:13 silent rocket (as plasma earlier) That's enough, got to get back to work... XD maybe I'll finish this later...thanks for the vid...