User:Zaximus

...

Oh! Why, hello there. I didn't hear you come in.

Welcome to my user page. There's nothing really useful here at the moment, but I've been developing an eye-twitch every time I see a Wiki link in red text. I had to do something. :)

About Me
Short version: Doom is good. I like Doom.

Long version:

I was born in August 1984 and grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. But I never really lived until almost ten years later when I got my hands on Doom version 1.2 shareware. I learned every last inch of that game.

I was a little too obsessed with Doom at the time, so much to my devastation my parents (probably rightfully) had it uninstalled from our only computer in the house. Of course that didn't stop me from secretly playing it off of the CD (which slightly less entertaining without the ability to set up sound config) and sneaking over to a friend's house to play Shareware Doom and Doom II!

For a while, I asked friends I met in school and at birthday parties to tell me what I was missing. I learned about Doom II this way. Then I saw a full-page ad for the game in the newspaper - It made my day. I think because the game was so forbidden to me, that might have made it even more attractive. There was no feeling quite as warm as dreaming about what Doom II would be like (as well as Episodes 2 and 3)...

The best and possibly one of the geekiest experiences to happen to me was when I went to a "Computer Camp" in Summer 1996. I see it as my first big LAN party. I got to play registered Doom for the first time and I was also introduced to early versions of Quake. I try to go to LAN parties today when I can, particularly QuakeCon in Dallas each year, though congoers tend not to play Doom anymore. :/

In late Summer 1997 I got my first computer all to myself as a bar mitzvah gift: A 200MHz K6/2 with 32MB of RAM, a 3 GB HDD and Win95. The id Anthology was on shelves, so I grabbed a copy. (Should have grabbed two, if I knew it'd become a huge collector's item.) Mmm, tasty forbidden fruit! I was in heaven again. (Or should I say Hell?)

A year later I discovered the Doom community online thanks to ZDoom and its third party multiplayer launcher ZM, later known as DoomServ. I got most of my deathmatch practice in that way, and soon afterward I joined EfNet #doom2 on IRC. I was kind of an immature shit (being 14yo at the time) and was eventually banned in early 1999. When Doom 3 was unofficially announced in John Carmack's .plan file in 2000 I was among the first regulars in the NewDoom forums, but eventually drifted away.

Today I am for the most part a lurker in the Doom community, though I am enjoying the interaction of Doom Wiki.

Doom Collection
Pics of my Collection

This is how my collection has stood in the past couple years. I am pretty sure nothing has changed since the pics above were taken in 2006.


 * Reaper Miniatures
 * Troopers (x3)
 * Sergeants (x3)
 * Chaingunners (x2)
 * Demon (acquired by Doom 3 pre-order)
 * Cacodemon
 * Mancubus
 * Baron of Hell (acquired by Doom 3 pre-order)
 * Cyberdemon (came with id Anthology)
 * Ultimate Doom poster
 * Doom 3 poster (came with the game...)
 * Fan-made stuff
 * Doom clock
 * UAC employee badge
 * Framed photo of Nuts.wad (!?)
 * Doom Collector's Edition (MINT)
 * Autographs
 * Quake 3: Gold box (by all of id Software as of 2002)
 * Shareware Doom v1.2 CD (by John Carmack)
 * id Anthology (Still contains the following)
 * The T-shirt (worn)
 * The poster
 * Cyberdemon figurine (above)
 * Book of id
 * Books
 * Masters of Doom by David Kushner
 * Doom Battlebook: Secrets of the Games by Rick Barba
 * Doom 3 Prima guide
 * Making of Doom 3
 * Doom novels
 * Knee Deep in the Dead (x2)
 * Hell On Earth
 * Infernal Sky
 * Endgame
 * Doom 3
 * ...and more??

Community Involvement
Short version: I haven't done squat.

Long version:

Actually I don't think I've ever been heavily involved in the Doom community besides having once been a part of the NewDoom forums and sharing knowledge and memories about the game here and there. So I haven't really produced anything.

When I was younger I used to play with QBASIC, so I did make a couple of Doom-related things. One was a text-based tool that simply collected votes and averages on a person's favorite Doom or Doom II monster. I gathered votes by (in retrospect) annoying the hell out of #doom2 until people started joining in with multiple aliases and voting randomly to throw things off.

Using a library called DirectQB, I started writing a game called CacoPet, which would have been a sim/pet game allowing you to raise a Cacodemon and give it toys to destroy such as the Keen doll. This project however was never finished.

I do hope one day to have something more solid listed here. I will probably toy with the Doom source one day, and I believe Doomed Online has a HUGE amount of potential as a Flash port of Doom, so I might toy with that.