Capture The Flag: Is it really old school Doom?

[Shane]

I'd like to take this opportunity to bring up a question I don't think has been thoroughly discussed before. The question I ask revolves around tackling issues that people seem to juggle around back and forth what should and shouldn't be implemented in a Doom CTF server/match. Issues of course which involve whether or not the flag should fall through bridges or fake floors, or how powerful the rockets should be to allow for rocket jumping. However as I frequently see when it comes down to it, the main argument for debaters on these issues is "it's not old school doom".

Thats where I draw the line.

Let's take a quick look at Doom for a minute here, when it first was released the most Doom.exe ever had was singleplayer, cooperative (what little there was) deathmatch and even duels (duels just being deathmatch with 2 players, not hard to figure out). You might be asking, well whats the difference between these old school gametypes and the new school gametypes today? Simple, the ZDoom additions. You see from the many revisions and addons that ZDoom/Boom have made, there are no exact numbers or intervals to replicate a complete vanilla feel within a ZDoom port based environment. Things such as the obvious ssg power and accuracy, autoaim, sprite manipulation (such as plasma bump or sr50), sector building, hit detection and collision detection, all vital components into what makes a doom level (or match) work and behave the way that the author designed it to. So what does this all have to do with Capture the Flag? Well CTF is the embodiment of everything that just isn't vanilla. CTF relies on sr50, rocket jumping, smooth sectors and weapons that act the way we want them to. And the reason I bring this up is to finally get the debate about CTF out of the way, what truly is 'old-school' CTF? Why do we go through so many changes when we know CTF is merely a creation of doom players (more specifically Nightfang's creation) and is only really viewed upon as a modification for Doom? If there were to be a example for Doom CTF from another game what game would that be? Unreal Tournament? Quake? Enemy Territories? Also as a bit of food for thought, if we know CTF to Doom is merely nothing more than a mod, why do we shake away from tourneys that include ctf maps with Railguns? And no I'm not talking about railgun-only mods, I'm talking about the wads with railguns replacing the chainsaw or bfg or is a standalone weapon itself.

[Watermelon]

For me, CTF can be played however people want it to, though I view the 'old school' benchmark as the ZDaemon version that came around when CTF was finally introduced. I believe this was based on ZDoom 1.23, and being an older/buggier version of zdoom this sort of set the 'vanilla' standards for CTF even though as you said things like SR50/Rocket jumping/etc aren't part of vanilla doom... end up being I believe grandfathered into the vanilla view for how CTF is believed to be played by the majority of the community. Plus the maps made for it have the buggy physics in mind which encourages people to stick to the above physics.


I don't know why people flip out with railguns on a CTF map. Weren't railguns around when CTF first came out? I don't remember. Personally I'm all for them, though I think what a majority of people want to see is the 'vanilla' game/weapoins with the pseudo-vanilla CTF standards above.

CTF relies on sr50, rocket jumping, smooth sectors and weapons that act the way we want them to.

Tell me if you agree or disagree with what I'm going to say:
CTF semi-relies on SR50/RJ/sectors/weapons functioning in a certain way. While we don't need SR50 or RJ's to play it and win, the competitive side has resulted in a demand for those skills/binds to be able to succeed... thus making it something CTF indirectly (yet actually) relies upon.

[Dark-Assassin]

To me, no. Because it wasn't a part of the original doom.
But there is Oldskool Style, but that's different to just plain Oldskool.

[Hypnotoad]

I am being pedantic, but Zdaemon did not create CTF for doom by the way, for instance CTFDoom was created in 1998.

I think the only important thing is harmonizing standards across ports, it is very unlikely that zdaemon or Odamex will nudge much on the compatibility and engine physics of standard CTF gameplay on their ports, so it is useful for Zandronum to be able to replicate this environment to make the port accessible to a larger number of players.

[Zeberpal]

No it's not. At least because it's strongly recommended to play CTF with jump and freelook.
For example check made levels for CTFdoom (and even odactf heh). You won't find any jumping or freelook advantage there whatsoever.

I'd say railguns are good in deathmatch only. I hate Rail in CTF forever since zdaemon's legendaryctf wad was being played. It was very cheaty and annoying on certain maps.

[The Toxic Avenger]

Couldn't you just patch them into shotguns or something?

[HexaDoken]

Pardon me, but SR50 _IS_ oldschool doom.

The CTF is definitely not oldschool doom though. Even on freelook-less/jump-less maps like ctfdoom, the gameplay of CTF is drastically different from the gameplay of good ol DooM. That is why CTF is anything but oldschool doom.

However, while CTF is not oldschool doom, there is oldschool CTF and newschool CTF. Oldschool CTF being what Zeberpal said and newschool CTF is what Shane said.

[Llewellyn]

Pardon me, but SR50 _IS_ oldschool doom.

It's not oldschool unless you're pressing four keys to do it.

[Ivan]

Pardon me, but SR50 _IS_ oldschool doom.

It's not oldschool unless you're pressing four keys to do it.

Yep, the hipsters who have it bound to a key should read this.

[Shane]

SR50 has always been mythed to be a bug in the ZDoom code that allows players to move faster when strafe keys and mouselook keys are pressed. Not a default mechanic of doom.exe

[Hypnotoad]

No SR-50 was in the original doom.exe, zdoom just makes it much easier to accomplish through use of key bindings and aliases.

[Llewellyn]

SR50 has always been mythed to be a bug in the ZDoom code that allows players to move faster when strafe keys and mouselook keys are pressed. Not a default mechanic of doom.exe

It is not a "myth" it is originally present in Doom, you have to press 5 keys (4 if you mess with the config to turn on always-run, which wasn't a default option) run, turn, forward, sideways, strafe-on.

[Ænima]

No SR-50 was in the original doom.exe, zdoom just makes it much easier to accomplish through use of key bindings and aliases.

Heh, as a young kid playing Doom95 shareware, I one day noticed that using mouse movement in conjunction with keyboard strafing made me go exceptionally fast. :p

[X-Ray]

No it's not Old School

[Catastrophe]

CTF is a doom mod. Of course it's not. People just tend to like that game mode a lot.

[Torvald]

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Given the case of what has been presented, I think it's fair to say that anything would be acceptable for ctf if the players want it. Who's to say we can't have ctf with rail guns, and servers that try to be as vanilla as possible? A little bit of everything would seem ideal.

[Spider]

It's not really oldschool doom If it's mostly played with freelook, jump, etc however there is oldschool CTF but thats different cause I don't see that on Zdaemon or Zandronum or odamex.

[Medicris]

CTF isn't oldschool Doom in the least, but there's oldschool Doom CTF which is a category of its own.

I'll gladly welcome any newschool iterations of CTF with modern map design as well, especially considering our privilege of 3d floors. I'd personally like to see some Quake-1 styled CTF maps here and there.

[AlexMax]

No.

But it is competitive.