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They removed old versions from X360, disabled redownload so you have to buy it again.

This stinks.

You don't buy consoles to have PC problems. But here they are - first patches, then installations and now accounts requirements...

I wonder if someone can manage to pull class action lawsuit on them for X360/PS3 versions stuff?
Because it's just outright stealing people's money - they PAID for something and they took it away. Not stopped selling like it happened with some games on Steam - you can't buy it but you can still download if you bought it but completely disabled access.
That's just outrageous.

I think Bethesda.net is being called B.Net, or variants of that, but it is also the name for Blizzard's Battle.net. Wasn't the first time the Doom games were removed from XBLA. The first time it happened I asked Microsoft support for either the games back, or for some kind of credit, and they gave me a PFO letter. They also did that with the Wolfenstein 3D (removed from XBLA also). I had all the achievements for it and I couldn't get it back.

You can't even redownload the old versions? That's terrible, I found those to be the best console versions, I grabbed this new release on Switch and it's got some problems like the music being slower and of course having to sign into bethesda net to play the game.

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The classic games can all be played without the need of Steam once they're installed. No "BNet login" trash either. You're free to use the WADs in ports as you please (in fact, it's probably best that you do unless you're some sort of super masochist that loves DOSBox - no judgements though if you are, we all have our quirks).

That being said, Bethesda backpedaled on the whole login thing. Apparently they weren't "supposed" to launch with a non-optional login feature. Not that such a thing is a solid excuse for competently releasing titles that have existed in some form or another (some quite literally) for nearly 3 decades now.

Here's a video put out by Digital Foundry talking about the shortcomings of the Doom and Doom II ports while dropping some praise toward the Doom 3 ports. You'll also find bits from the announcements about the whole "oops, meant to make BNet logins optional" and the "can't re-download Doom 3 after previously having purchased it" ridiculousness.

"This is the digital future, ladies and gentlemen."
—John Linneman, Digital Foundry

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Pissed that source ports exist? Got any solid news reporting that (not speculating, but flatly mentioning it)? I only ask because it seems like you're making some pretty huge assumptions based off how bungled the recent re-releases of these games were. Not that I'd blame you, since dumping a forced login to games 20+ years old is stupid, even if the intention was to fuel some sort of promotion for the next game in the series and it's hard not to be cynical about it given Bethesda's track record.

Bethesda can't do jack squat about source ports for Doom (or Quake or Wolfenstein 3-D for that matter). The source code for those games was released publicly, the ports were all built around that. The only way they could intervene is if someone started offering the paid game content with distribution of any of the ports and thankfully, none of the people who developed and host the ports do that.

Recent titles for games in the series not being suitable for modding/etc. is unfortunate but it's not as if every game ever made is under some divine mandate to release its source code to the public so they can tweak it as they please. It'd be great if something like that was a reality, but it's not the one we live in.

As for Doom 3 - both the original and BFG editions have existing source ports (seems absolutely nuts that they'd need such things but they indeed have them!). The BFG edition's source port is actually one of the preferred ways to play the game when speed running it, since it allows cutscenes to be skipped (among other things more conducive to speedruns). You can use the Doom and Doom II WADs in the BFG edition in source ports as well. It's like a rabbit hole of choice in that regard.

Wrath is going to have a price, don't allow yourself to think otherwise. They can charge for the product even though they're using the Darkplaces engine for the game, they just have to abide by the licensing terms that the engine has established. 3D Realms has already addressed as much, so the Wrath code itself is going to be covered under a GPL license as a result and should be released when the game launches as well.

Where did you read that? I think that's very very wrong, and whoever wrote it needs to be corrected.

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Ah yes, previous releases. That's ancient history from two decades ago. The current releases are just fine for commercial use.

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