User talk:Fredrik

heh
Oh, ok thanks! I'll keep that in mind :D BTW, I hope I'm not doing to much, if you want me to save some stuff for other people just say so :D

fixed
heh I noticed this and tried to move the page but wasnt allowed. I wasnt really thinking when I uploaded it :D Sorry bout that. BTW, I was wondering if I could upload the sound the Icon Of Sin makes when it sees you, and the the sound reversed (you know the "To win the game you must kill me, John Romero" thing). I doubt but I wanted to ask. Sorry again BTW :D

Hey Fredrik, is there somewhere we can just discuss general things about the Wiki? Like a page we can use as a forum for example? It seems like it would be sensible to add something like this for planning and discussion purposes, perhaps something amusingly named...

I didnt think I had these buttons before... thanks! Fraggle 09:13, 10 Jan 2005 (PST)

log in SpecialChanges
It says: Rights for user "User:Fraggle" set "": +sysop

The sysop should not be between the two last quotes? I think that only sysops can edit the internal wikimessages. Can someone do something? Ducon 10:44, 10 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * Is it actually a big deal? :) - Fredrik 10:51, 10 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * Not enough of one to change it all on 50 wikis, but I did it here and on the central Wikicity anyway. :) Angela 13:20, 10 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * Ah yes, it's cute now. Ducon 13:23, 10 Jan 2005 (PST)

my bad
Sorry about that ;)

talk:minute
Please delete this one too. :-) Ducon 12:25, 11 Jan 2005 (PST)

Will use screenshot tag in the future
So i guess the screenshots are fair use then. Ecellent. I wasn't aware of the tag, but ill use it from now on as the first word in the description Marius 12:47, 11 Jan 2005 (PST)

Where did you get those nice doom II map images
I like your map images you uploaded. Are those from an editor? If so which one. I could use that format in future map uploads. It prolly wouldn't be bad to have a standard automap image style, and the one you are using looks pretty good. Marius 14:42, 11 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * I have written a program to generate them. Fredrik 14:43, 11 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * Cool, should posting map images be left to you then? I wouldn't want to waste my time uploading less nice looking maps, especially if they are likely to get replaced yours.Marius 14:49, 11 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * Yeah, probably. If you have any requests for PWADs etc, just drop me a note. Fredrik 14:50, 11 Jan 2005 (PST)

Doom map render request
Could you make map renders of the maps of the doom 64 total conversion? I would like to use them for an article about doom 64. I can send you the wad if necessary. Marius 07:35, 17 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * I have uploaded D64TC MAP01 map.png through D64TC MAP39 map.png. Two notes: I think it's best to make explicit that the maps are from the TC, and I have manually removed (most) dummy sectors from these (which I really should have done with the Plutonia/TNT maps too). Fredrik 13:15, 17 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * Thanks alot. I will definitely note they are from the tc, but i will use then as though they were from the 64 game. It's too hard to get screencaps from the copy of the 64 game i actually own and 64 emulators are pretty bad. The tc is very true to the original, even having actual room over room. Marius 13:48, 17 Jan 2005 (PST)

Stuff
Thank you for the admin rights. A question: do you know of a way to delete the Doom TNC article (located at Doom:_The_Next_Chapter) now that that it's imposssible to access the article normally due to the bug? I thought I'd just delete the old one and rewrite the article instead of waiting for the access bug to be fixed, if possible. Janizdreg 20:14, 8 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * I don't think it can be deleted. Fredrik 20:32, 8 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * This is now fixed and titles can have "Doom:" in them again. Doom: The Next Chapter for example. Angela 21:28, 8 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * Excellent news, big thank you to whoever fixed this bug. Janizdreg 21:54, 8 Feb 2005 (GMT)

The little red !
Is it possible to blacken the little ! in Recent Changes? It’s actually red and, er… Ducon 18:06, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)

Uh, what red !? Where is it? Illdo 18:31, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * Between Nm and the date of the change. Ducon 18:45, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * Only admins can see it (or maybe only logged in users). See Wikicities:Help:Recent changes patrol. Angela 19:51, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * I’m no sysop here. ;-) Ducon 05:18, 20 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * It's black here. Fredrik 18:47, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * I see it red with Firefox and Galeon (Debian Sarge) and with the classic theme. Ducon 19:12, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * I see it red with Firefox and Windows 2000. Bloodshedder 03:45, 20 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * I tried changing MediaWiki:Classic.css, but that had no effect. I'm not entirely sure where it's getting the red from. The exclamation mark has ! but the css doesn't have a setting for "unpatrolled" as far as I can see. Angela 19:51, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * It's from http://doom.wikicities.com/skins/common/common.css, which is imported by wikistandard.css. Fredrik 19:56, 19 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * I see it black with Firefox and Win98. Illdo 19:45, 20 Feb 2005 (GMT)

Navigation bars
What do you think about defining and using a distinct background color for navigation bars, to distinguish them from other tabular data? radius 11:30, 25 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * Sure, give it a try. I don't have any ideas for a good color though. Fredrik 12:40, 25 Feb 2005 (GMT)

LMP uploads
I notice that all the demos so far have been contributed by you, so I'm asking you this question first. :> Do you suppose we ought to have a policy about how demos are recorded (e.g. what executable is used)? Ryan W 03:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that to be agnostic, vanilla Doom should be used. Fraggle 08:05, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Fredrik 17:37, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Nothing in computing is agnostic if it becomes a headache for most of the users involved.


 * COMPET-N and sites like it, whose main purpose is to evaluate and compare demos (some of which may be 8 or 10 years old!), have good reasons for insisting on complete uniformity. Our purposes are different, so it's not obvious to me that all those reasons are valid for us.


 * Any Doom player who watches other people's demos has to deal with the compatibility issue sooner or later, no matter what executable is on his machine. Writing good walkthroughs is IMHO one of the best possible uses for a site like this (along with the editing tutorials/whitepages and the connections to the wider Doom community), but if we want to standardize the associated demos, we need to ask ourselves how many of the people downloading them will be:


 * still using vanilla and a DOS-compatible OS
 * using an emulator like DOSBox for vanilla compatibility
 * using the path-of-least-resistance implementation (i.e. Doom95 and Windows 98/ME/2000/XP)
 * using something else (a source port, or a completely different OS such as Linux)


 * In the absence of any survey statistics (not sales figures, but how many copies actually survive and are being played), I propose that the vast, vast majority of new/casual players are in category 3, and of the remaining tiny group (hard-core gamers making a serious investment in Doom for the first time), few prefer category 1 or 2 because category 4 is easier to set up and allows them to play/design much cooler PWADs. This will become even more true as time goes on, since category 1 is currently hard to enter and easy to abandon. In that case, if we had to pick one format to standardize on, vanilla would be the worst.


 * I mean, it might make more sense not to even have a strict policy &mdash; just to insist that all demos be labeled with their sources, as Fredrik has done. Then, the individual player can decide, as he already must when browsing COMPET-N or any other existing database, whether it's worth the extra effort to be able to view all the demos. (Posting something that only works with a specific obscure source port, obviously, would be frowned upon.)


 * Writing scientific software in FORTRAN was the only game in town in 1974, and agnostic in 1981, but nobody was doing it by 2003 because it created more problems than it solved. If we were starting this site in 1998, I would be completely on your side, but now that it's 2005, I have serious doubts that we can be that rigid without hurting the site's usefulness as an educational resource. Ryan W 23:43, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a recommendation, not a rule. And the recommendation is that demos are compatible, not that they were recorded with doom.exe. In most cases, Doom95 plays back and records doom.exe compatible demos, as do PrBoom and Eternity. If someone posts ZDoom or Legacy demos (or whatever) in addition, so as to make things more convenient for the visitor, that's even better. Fredrik 09:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I hope I didn't sound like I was crying blue murder. :> I have no problem in principle with MS-DOS programs; I just don't think very many people who want our demos will have them. (In fact, I would be surprised if COMPET-N is still around in five or ten years, unless they change their policy.)


 * In my experience, Doom II/Final Doom demos recorded with vanilla go out of sync about 40% of the time on Doom95 (as soon as I hear DSPESIT, I go to get a drink), but I have yet to see one fail with PrBoom 2.2.6 -complevel 1. Considering that I often watch looong demos (starting with George Bell's original Tyson collection, way back when), I think that's pretty impressive.


 * Um, and I'll go back and label my demos now. Ryan W 15:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

thanks
thanks fredrik :) -- Jdowland

AV MAP25
See the AV MAP25 image map comment page. You made a mistake. Ducon 11:51, 6 Jul 2005 (UTC)

delink name rv
Regarding this rv; indeed, it could be created. And when it was, it'd ideally be in the form described by the Doom wiki:Criteria for people articles, rather than just lil white mouse. -- 82.39.115.248 20:32, 4 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Rates of fire for monster attacks?
The weapon articles have "rate of fire" numbers, but the monster articles don't. You seem to have added (some of) these numbers &mdash; where did you get them? Or do I just need to get DeHackEd and root through a few frame tables? Ryan W 04:37, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * I can't remember adding any firing rate figures. But all data I've added about monsters etc is from DeHackEd. Fredrik 09:37, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * Done it, but only for monsters with repeating attacks, as it's pointless doing it for, say, a Zombieman who only fires once when he attacks.


 * On another note, can I be an Admin? I'm here often and I have made a fair set of contributions which are viewable at http://doom.wikicities.com/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=TheDarkArchon


 * EDIT by : Goddamn copy-autocode. TheDarkArchon 22:50, 10 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Certainly; there you go. Fredrik 03:33, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding the rates of fire &mdash; who knows how long it would have taken me to get to that. :>    I don't agree, however, that it is "pointless" to do so for all monsters; the number would still give the reader some idea of how long the monster takes to start and finish an attack, which might be useful to (e.g.) neophyte players and those thinking of writing DeHackEd patches.   Ryan W 19:33, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Map wikis
I'm wondering if you'd like me to make wikis on some good maps that aren't part of megawads, just standalone wads. Would you prefer to have wikis on only popular maps or the more wad wikis the better? :) -Lutrov71


 * The more, the merrier. The fact that we started with megawads was more or less an accident. Fredrik 11:40, 15 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * If we have specific, definite criteria for web page articles (~1000) and people articles (~5000), why don't you want to have them for PWAD articles (~200,000)? That seems illogical to me.


 * Although Policies and guidelines still says that any released PWAD can have an article, IIRC a few people have voiced the opinion that some are more deserving of articles than others. I personally don't believe that a given PWAD should have an article for no other reason than that [a] one of our editors happens to be very familiar with it and [b] that editor has time to type up a quick monster count and post two screen shots.  I mean, I use 12.WAD from Maximum Doom as a warm-up exercise almost every time I play, so I know it backwards and forwards, but I think writing a walkthrough for it would be silly.  (In fact, I question whether Strife is worth the effort that seems to have been dumped into it here, but I haven't complained because that one is a commercial release, so some of our non-editing users may actually have heard of it.)


 * I would gently suggest that if someone is trying to choose between writing about a completely random PWAD (e.g. DETHRACE.WAD) and writing about one that seems to hold a significant place in Doom's history (e.g. SERENITY.WAD), they should choose the latter, in case they don't have time to finish both.  Ryan W 02:25, 17 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * The people and website critera are basically there to avoid articles along the lines of "Brian lives here and there and likes to play Doom." and articles about websites with the same content. This is only because such articles wouldn't be interesting or useful to anyone (except perhaps the subject), not because we are limited to so many hundred articles on people, or anything along those lines.


 * I do agree with your last paragraph: if a walkthrough for 12.WAD or DETHRACE.WAD would be a waste of time to write, don't do it. But I don't think there's any reason whatsoever to go out of the way to delete a proper article on an "uninteresting" or "not notable" PWAD if someone has already taken the time to write it. I assume that contributors will write about WADs they like personally, which is fine; if a WAD is interesting to someone, it is likely to be interesting to others as well; getting into arguments about whether they are right would be utterly counter-productive.


 * I think something interesting or useful can be written about every WAD in the archives. "Don't waste your time downloading this" is certainly useful for many. So I think our goal should be to write at least that much about each one. It's true that we may not need a separate page for every WAD, though; lists of multiple WADs with Name-Author-Date-Description data and article links for the more interesting ones may be appropriate as well. Fredrik 08:25, 17 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * So what you're saying is, having more restrictive conditions than "if released" would create more problems than it solved, and articles written by people who don't enjoy the levels in question would probably be of dubious quality anyhow.


 * I guess I see how that works, although if someone asked "Which article should I flesh out? I'm willing to do any" (which is how I interpreted Ducon's question), I would still say what I said in my final paragraph above.  I also suggest that it will take years for every historically significant release to have a fairly complete article &mdash; hopefully Wikia can actually stay in business that long.    Ryan W 16:17, 19 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * Heh, you think about my recent work on Kansam's Trial? ;-) Ducon 16:21, 17 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Long Wall Error
I loved your "mining fecality" level you did for mock2. Would it be possible to use it as an example for the Long Wall Error article? Fraggle 11:55, 18 Oct 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure. Are you just asking for permission or do you want me to upload it? Fredrik 14:18, 18 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Two bits of info on my Doom experience
(I'm not sure who to send this to, but you seem to be the most important guy... so I'll send to you! ^-^)

While I was reading through the Doom wiki, I recalled two things that I had found strange when I used to play. (Can't anymore, there's no room on any of the computers for it...)

The first has to do with blast damage. I distinctly remember being in a crowded room with a BFG, and I fired it a few times to clear the room. One of the times, all the monsters were dead, but I accidentally fired near a wall and received a bit of blast damage. I don't know if I read it right, but there seem to be no accounts of blast damage from a BFG listed anywhere in the wiki.

The second is something I'm trying to comprehend to this day. I can't remember what level it was... if I saw it, I'd know... but I was playing around with IDSPISPOPD with IDDQD activated, and I glanced at the map. I put on IDDT, as I had been doing, and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I wandered around outside of the level parameters, when suddenly I landed in a very small, very tightly packed, and pitch-black room with four Barons of Hell in it. It didn't show on the map, and it was pretty scary, because I didn't just walk into it, I fell. I put on IDBEHOLDL, killed the Barons, and booked it.

I'm hoping for an explanation for that one... it worries me. ^-^;;

Anyway, this Doom wiki is quite nicely done. But there is one thing that I was really curious about...

There are three faces that often appear on the large stone tablets, one of which is the Baron of Hell, but there are two others. One brings to mine a horselike image with strange fangs, and the other... the only word I can think of to describe it is a "squid". Who or what are these tablets trying to depict?

That's it for now, I must be off to bed. X3

(Oh yes, my email is mewgaramonATadelphiaDOTnet, and... umm... you can call me Skiba.)


 * Hi Skiba, and thanks for the feedback.
 * As far as I know, hurting yourself with the BFG9000 isn't possible.
 * I don't know which map the one with the Barons of Hell might have been. E4M1 has such a room, but it isn't pitch black. Anyway, there's nothing strange about such hidden rooms; they're used to store monsters that teleport in, and can be found in many maps. Falling into it simply means its floor altitude was placed lower than the part of the map from where you came.
 * The horselike one is the Icon of Sin. Some people think the third image resembles the face of the Arch-Vile, though I remember someone from id Software saying it's some kind of alien unrelated to the monsters (I don't have the quote though, and could be wrong about this).
 * Maybe someone else can provide better answers. Fredrik 15:24, 26 Oct 2005 (UTC)

RE: Two bits...
The monster warping answers the question -- I'd always figured that they needed a place to store them.

As for the images on the walls, I found a screenshot of the squid-like one. Really like to know what it's supposed to be.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5297/image0la.png

(In case you're wondering about the coloring, I found a screenshot of a guy using the invulnerability powerup, so I inverted the color and cropped out that much of it.)

So the Icon of Sin... was it originally intended to be a monster? I've seen some odd imagery around... such as the "Evil Eye", that eye inside of some pentagram-like arrow.

(Personally, since in my family, Doom was like our lives, we gave names to everything... Demons were called chicken-butts, Barons of Hell were Mr. Bigpants, and Cyberdemons were Daddy Bigpants... I made up stories to appease my brother, and the Icon of Sin was like the father of the Cyberdemon, was immensely powerful, and would obliterate the Doomguy faster than you can say "Imp on a stick." The squid-like demon was the father of the Spider Mastermind, and we recognized the Baron's image. As for the eye, I called it "the Eye of the Beholder", and it belonged to Icon of Sin (who was, by the way, "Daddy Daddy Bigpants". Honestly, I was 8, he was 6. What else were we to do?). ...We still call Demons chicken-butts. We always have. ...in fact, it originated because we played the demo of Ultimate Doom on a crappy computer, so the image of a Demon was very pixelated and mangled, appearing like if you sheared the feathers off of a chicken's backside.)

... Well, enought of that.

Interwiki w:
In the Alex St. John article, for one, people have used "w:" in links, apparently intending to link to (English) Wikipedia. Presently, anyway, this is broken because it links to the Wikicities top level. I see that the message at the top of every page ("Wikicities will soon be upgraded...") is also using "w:", but there the intent is to link to Wikicities (and it is presently working). On Wikipedia, I found that "w:" is supposed to link to Wikipedia in the language of your current Wiki, but maybe that's specific to Wikipedias and not Wikicities... Anyway, is it a config bug, or a "feature"? radius 16:40, 20 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * I really don't know. Changing the links here to "wikipedia:" seems like the best solution. Fredrik 17:55, 20 Dec 2005 (UTC)

list articles / red links
Hi - given this revert I guess you have an opinion on the subject of list-articles and redlinks etc. Care to weigh-in on the discussion at Central_Processing? -- Jdowland 15:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Screen shots on level walkthroughs
This is a fantastic idea; I thank you on behalf of neophyte players everywhere. (One map down, 322 to go. :D     Ryan W 00:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

freedoom monsters
These would make great freedoom monsters :, :D -- Jdowland 15:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)




 * Sure... and maybe I'll have time to animate them this summer :P - Fredrik 21:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * And just because you said that, I felt compelled to create a proof-of-concept frame. Fredrik 22:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, in any case, this picture is probably not fair use or GFDL, since you have created a derivative work (in which case id's EULA applies) [1] [2] [3].   Ryan W 05:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


 * P.S. Note to all editors: DO NOT read Wikipedia policy pages from end to end; it will only give you a headache.


 * So we should delete our PWAD screenshots? I don't get it. I could as well have taken the screenshot in a map without visible id graphics, anyway. Fredrik 11:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Authors of PWADs can theoretically be sued for creating derivative works. The community sort of understands that id won't do that, but the legal language is there.


 * Under our current copyright policy, screen shots can be used, but I'm not sure about screen shots that are modified *after* they are taken. The above referenced Wikipedia talk pages essentially ask, "if it's okay to scan a newspaper photo of Winston Churchill, is it still okay if I draw a mustache on him first?"  As I read those conversations, the mustache version is in a gray area at best.    Ryan W 04:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


 * For interest, this post to alt.games.doom appears to be the original one revealing details of the licence people had to sign. (JD)


 * That gun in the second picture looks an awful lot like the BFG in the Doom movie. Are you sure that's compatible with a BSD-like license?    Ryan W 02:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The image is from 2003, so... - Fredrik 03:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)



Back view... Fredrik 04:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

edit to Columbine article
It was apparently not "obvious" to certain early readers (or so the talk page suggests), and anyway, it is by no means "obvious" to the average American that an article about Columbine written by fans of Doom could have defensible motives. I do agree that that paragraph didn't really seem to belong there &mdash; since it describes reasons for an edit(s), though, maybe it needs to be on the talk page instead. Ryan W 03:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

-- I guess the onus there is on American - for myself at least (and I assume Fredrik), it doesn't need stating, but the climate over there certainly seems to be more crazy. I was toying with the idea of removing that para myself, when I did my last edit. I think we should appreciate that the majority audience here might be American, so I'd take your advice on that.


 * IMHO "it's motivation, not content" is sufficient reason by itself for moving that paragraph to the talk page; I wasn't trying to say anything specific about Americans. (Though I am one, and don't travel a lot, so maybe I do it by accident anyway.  :7


 * Trying to analyze our readership is very tricky, and we should probably save that debate for someplace where it's really necessary.   Ryan W 04:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

On the talk page would be no problem as far as I'm concerned. Jdowland 13:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)