Talk:Doom II

In which order should be listed the levels? By number or by order of encounter? Ducon 10:14, 9 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * By number, I'd say. -- Schnee 15:44, 9 Jan 2005 (PST)

Release date
September 30th? Is that actually correct? I always thought it was in October... -- Schnee 15:44, 9 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * I found this confusing as well, and dug into it. Dates on Wikipedia have been    throughout the article's history, eventually settling on October 10 for Europe (and the official release party in New York with newspaper coverage), but September 30 for North America when it apparently first appeared in stores. But I haven't found an independent source going back to those weeks to back this up, such as a Usenet "I have it!" post.
 * id's .plan file was updated on Oct 3 still referring to the upcoming release on Oct 10, and I actually retrieved that via a finger-to-mail service on Oct 11 (the mail headers are in my personal archive). The next update mentions that the game is out, but unfortunately they forgot to refresh the Sep 7 timestamp of that section (and I retrieved it on Oct 23, so the Oct 12 timestamp of the update is actually a guess). All that makes a Sep 30 release unlikely, but id may have intentionally delayed .plan updates until past the previously announced official release of Oct 10 (and all the .plan info "could be a TOTAL LIE" anyway ;) ).
 * So unless further info is unearthed, I suppose it's best to keep September 30 as the initial in-store date. --Xymph (talk) 04:30, 30 September 2019 (CDT)

Pain Elemental
'Endless amounts' of Lost Souls? Wasn't the Doom executable hardcoded to limit their number to something like 20 Lost Souls in one level? - Bloodshedder 11:42, 4 Feb 2005 (PST)

Yep, I fixed it. Illdo 00:49, 5 Feb 2005 (PST)

See also: Levels
The intro text in this section is slightly misleading, since there is also an intermission screen between MAP06 and MAP07, and another one at the end of the game. Yet it is "canonical" (going back at least to Hank Leukart's FAQ) to separate the levels into three episodes, not four, so I'm not sure this text should change as it is factually correct now. The textual interludes at least should be described in detail in the appropriate walkthrough articles (MAP06, MAP11, MAP20, MAP31, MAP32, MAP30). Ryan W 22:46, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, informally the "episodes" have always been 3, based on the sky change (just like in Doom). I think it's best not to use "episode" here, so I'd say just using the descriptive part name is precise and clear enough (edited). Who is like God? 12:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ya know...
I always wondered why Doom II didn't have the features of the previously released Heretic. Any thoughts? 58.178.84.26 08:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that a) doom2 development was going on alongside heretic development, b) doom2 is a bit of a cash-in sequel. -- Jdowland 12:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of February 2014
A considerable share of content was removed here (two separate edits) without any messages.

I edited the page already, but since Doom II is one of the central articles here, and so many things got changed, I list my arguments here and keep Doom II in draft stage for possible further editing.


 * He continues on doggedly and selflessly, despite knowing that he will be left behind in order to save the rest of his race. -- Well, how accurate this should be. If the text interlude says "You have won! Your victory has enabled humankind to evacuate Earth and escape the nightmare.", it seems that it was the Marine's altruistic aim to allow the spacecraft to leave, and he considered his own life secondary. Sure, it can still be disputed.


 * Once the Marine accomplishes this, he is free to live out the rest of his time alone on Earth while humanity hopefully continues on elsewhere. But along the way, he begins to learn how he might finally thwart the invasion once and for all... -- "Sensors have located..." and so on. I don't get what's the problem here.


 * developments and no major --> or ; simple --> generic ; several times as one episode ends and another begins --> on each -- These are all OK. The first and the last case are now expressed more simply, and generic fits well to the background image of the intermission screen.


 * Being far more varied and innovative than the original Doom monsters, these dramatically changed the single-player gameplay. -- When so many new medium and high threat monsters were added in Doom II, could someone claim it wouldn't change single-player gameplay dramatically? Compare Doom's cacodemon and baron of hell to the variety of new enemy types in Doom II, and there's a clear difference. However, I agree with the removal of the adjective "innovative" here, because it's less relevant.


 * Also, a Commander Keen figure makes a cameo in the second secret level. -- It's beyond me why this was altered. It's a fact.


 * and a few new decorations, including a burning barrel, a couple of lamps, six hanging mutilated corpses, and three other small pieces of gore. -- This is also a relevant fact.


 * larger (, more complicated maps) -- I agree with removing "larger". It seems vague (is it even true?), and should be changed to something more specific if kept. --Jartapran 02:41, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * My reason for clipping the plot, was because I thought it was only meant for the introduction story (like the plot section in the 'Doom' article) and not the entire story. My reason for removing the monster comment was because I thought it written in too much of a personal opinion sort of way. I didn't think the additional scenery was important enough or suited to this article, to warrant inclusion; would you list every new texture added in Doom2, in this article?.


 * Thanks for the message. It is true that the story section of Doom II goes further than that of Doom, and either of the story headers should be edited to notify about this. I believe the idea has been that Doom's story would be broken into the four episode pages, but so far, only episodes 1 and 4 have story sections. Doom II does not have episode articles, so this is not possible.


 * As for the monster comment, "dramatic" is a powerful adjective, and such should be avoided, but this time it is based on a valid argument (in my opinion) that I explained above.


 * You had a good point with the additional scenery, but I have some objections. I think the new decoration things have been added because they have simply been convenient enough to add (they fit in a sentence), when comparing how complicated a list of new textures or flats would be. Note also that it is easier for a common player to interpret terms "burning barrel" and "mutilated corpses" than terms unknown to gameplay like "METAL2", "PANEL4", "RROCK03" or "SLIME14". Sure, lists would help readers to find out about these textures and flats with editing utilities, but adding such lists would still be less reasonable than telling briefly about the few new decoration things. So, to answer your question, I wouldn't personally list the textures of Doom II, but their absence shouldn't be a reason to remove the mention of the decoration thing types. --Jartapran 04:39, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Rewritten/reworded
I've rewritten most of this article in accordance with User:Quasar/SEO. But I have to say that I think this is an important article and we can do a lot better. There's basically nothing in here about the development of the game and so on. Even the introduction was only a brief single sentence before I expanded it. Fraggle (talk) 22:44, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah there's a blind spot in the form of no History section. Doom is a lot more comprehensive. I think the existing content is in good shape now, and further work should be on additions to it. --Quasar (talk) 05:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Pristine article status lost.
I do not intend to rate the current revision of this page as pristine due to the unsightly and unusable nature of the Competn links that have been added to the External links section. This needs a better solution, sorry. --Quasar (talk) 00:08, 23 March 2016 (CDT)

Legal issues in Germany even for swastikas no longer a case.
Hi folks and thanks for all your informations so far. I just wanted to leave a note here that the rules and regulations for video games in Germany have changed over the last few years for the better.

In 2018 the BPjM (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien) release an announcement that if the overall tone of a video game is not unconstitutional a game might contain unconstitutional symbols. Basically this means it is okay for video games to show symbols like swastikas and SS runes as long as the guys wearing those are the bad guys (like in Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and so on). The first game rated under this new ruleset being the demo version of Through the Darkest of Time. And finally in December 2019 the US version of Doom II was released from the index.

Sidenote: Even most Wolfenstein are no longer banned in Germany and were released. Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny were removed from the index in October 2019. The modern Wolfenstein games since the The New Order are available on the German Steam with an official USK 18 rating. Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein (2009) are still on the index, but that is because no publisher yet asked for a release.

Announcement by the BPjM (now BzKJ) about the use of unconstitutional symbols in video games: https://www.bzkj.de/bzkj/service/alle-meldungen/kennzeichen-verfassungswidriger-organisationen-in-computerspielen-im-rahmen-der-spruchpraxis-der-bpjm-174884

Announcement about Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (US-Version) not being indexed: https://www.bzkj.de/bzkj/service/alle-meldungen/-wolfenstein-ii-the-new-colossus-us-version-nicht-indiziert--174902

Doom on a german fansite about censorship that keeps track of videogame and movie bans: https://www.schnittberichte.com/svds.php?Page=Titel&ID=2119

-- Chris Retro (talk) 00:27, 29 December 2021 (CST)