Yo, long time lurker (reading KF on and off for like three years now, just decided to make an account as this recent shitshow looked like a boiling point to me) and a long standing, Doom modding fella. I didn't want to write a wall of text, but... well, shit happens, I guess, maybe my drivel will be insightful enough. I'm trying to collect my thoughts and remember the timeline, but I was never good at that stuff. Still, I think I can safely point out at least one key moment that I think had led to things to go fully exceptional, at least on the side I do know, as Zdoom Forums was my turf. I evaded Doomworld for obvious reasons.
Eitherway - back when Randy started to distance himself and at some point just vanished from the place (Tormentor misgendering him wasn't really something he went out of his way to do, it looks like a faux pas he forgot about or simply ignored, no one really knew them well - who the fuck keeps track of someone silently leaving the damn place and trooning out, anyway?), he handed the keys to the zdf over to one of the biggest cunts imaginable - SoulPriestess, alias Eruanna, alias Rachael and so on, more typical nicknames I forgot about he had since he became the chairman Mao of the place. And yes, that's a man, baby!
Rachael had a history of being a total twat back when Zandronum was still called Skulltag, being an admin there too. I only occasionally played some mods there in its hayday and that was it, but I guess he didn't learn anything from that - perhaps holding a grudge towards people who didn't want to put up with his shit and stomping anyone into the floor as a form of revenge these days, having an idea for a perfect, """professional""" modding society. At any rate, ever since that switch of leadership happened, more and more trannies and weirdos were silently slipping into positions of power as I was catching myself on posting and caring less. Hell, one of the dudes from their bunch appears like a regular forum user, but he is a moderator, like this is some kind of a severely autistic, secret police-kind of shit. How much worse can this get?
Well, every once in a while Rachael holds those diatribes whenever something "wrong" happens and they "have" to hold a moral high ground over it, the usual suspects piling upon the poor sod who dared to speak up, sperging on and on and on, ending with the topic locked, so no one can even attempt firing back at it, either!... Wildweasel, who I thought was a decent dude, letting this all through... God, why does he cave in to the whims of these insane spastics? Ah right, he also spergs about social justice issues on Twitter, go figure. They used to have a modicum of opaqueness with their bias towards trannydom and having a boner for communism - these days, they ain't even hiding with it.
I don't think I can disclose much of juicy funnies without power leveling my identity, but I'm safe to state the obvious - the community at this point is pozzed as fuck. I didn't participate in the golden era of all the community projects that were ongoing and majority of them were heralded by Tormentor, which these fine gentlemen seemingly (or convieniently) forgot about (and to be fair, they also had more of a typical for any modding community drama to them, but that ain't worth digressing), but I do remember the end of that period and its effects. It often resulted in overdetailed disasters that aged poorly, very quickly (see: KDiZD), but Stronghold wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be, ZPack had its highlights, and can't deny they had the style and flair that was unseen in Doom mods. It was just classic Tormentor at work - style over substance.
People got together to make cool things, and that was what was important for me and what got me hooked. And what do we get these days? Nothing. Everyone stuck in their own clique, desperate for scrapes of recognition and talking incredible amounts of shit about each other, eventually getting so incredibly petty against one of the most down-to-Earth people I knew, TerminusEst13, making him essentially quit Doom modding altogether. And I saw the meltdown in his own Discord server as his so-called friends practically called for his murder, just because he dared to throw in the towel with managing their childish behavior. If you wonder what kinda crap that went down on his side that I talk about,
here's a handy link. I have no reason to not believe him, seeing some of it with my very own eyes.
One thing to take away from this all is the fact that after the golden era - have you seen any decent, community-based projects based on Gzdoom that broke out of the usual mold?... No. Let's be real, not a single one - it's all boom-compat mapsets from the Doomworld fags, all the way through - no UDMF or any attempt at some decent 3D sector based mapping in a long while (there's Elementalism, sure, but that's not even out yet). All the old guard is gone at this point, and everyone else who is still sane are doing their own thing. Yes, I know there's Bridgeburner and his bunch, making those exceptionally detailed maps, but maybe 2% of people can sensibly play these, being slaughter-themed as well. I can't stomach Slaughterwads in their base form, they need... let's just say, a helping hand in form of a gameplay mod for me. I don't have time nor patience to stand around for an hour to let the monster infighting do my job for me. And we know gzd has issues, so I consider them a fad at best, given they require some titanic PC to play, not even fluidly, just to play at all.
This is my perspective, but I think that Tormentor and couple others who were laser-focused on achieving results were the glue that kept it all together. Torm's own, grandiose Wolfenstein-themed mod and many community projects before are a testament to that. Don't get me wrong though, I am not his personal cock-sucking club. I had a personal displeasure (and ironic one at that) with him either, he made many more stupid oops-yikes-um-sweeties before that recent shitstorm, but I can't stress this enough - he and couple others were the driving force to look past all the stupid shit and drama to just make things happen. He may have been an asshole, but at least he gave everyone an honest shot if they wanted to help make things come together, regardless of their status in the community (basically getting free slave labor out of hapless kids or people who should've known better, but still).
In comparison, the community these days is made of petty cliques, filled with people I absolutely detest, acting like they have the moral authority and skill superiority over anyone involved, high from hotboxing on their own farts in their four by four jerking-off session rooms, eager to put down anyone who just happens to voice a non-state-approved opinion. Those ghouls will rise out of their long-forgotten, shallow graves and drown you in the dirt they were resting in, and they will not hesitate nor forget about the littlest slight, making you a persona non grata via the word of mouth. If you just happened to criticize one of their cult members or expressed wrongthink, the entire place is incestous to leave you essentially locked outside, soaking in the storm.
I saw a good friend of mine get tarred and feathered in real time, then demonized afterwards, like he's next incarnation of Sergeant_Mark_IV, his earlier contributions to that wankspot be damned. They invite you over to their Discords and wave around a popular name of yours like a flag for a few minutes, then forget you even exist as they are more busy bitching and moaning in their secret whining channels, fishing for asspats where an entire circlejerk of miserable fucks gather around to sink in their pointless sorrow, jealous of the other's perceived success, rather than keeping it to maybe one-two people they can trust, actually trying to fix their lives and get out of this negative feedback loop. Or better yet, why not just organize a literal attack on a single, hapless dude!... which I personally didn't quite like either, but he didn't deserve even a quarter of what came for him. I know, one can see this everywhere else over the web these days, all sprinkled with peak TRAAAAAAANS-ness and every mental issue imaginable on top. Yet, this is not something I'm gonna sign up for.
tl;dr version - shit's fucked, everyone sane will leave eventually, if they didn't already, and I can see the old Doom community turn into Resetera 0.7 real quick. It's already been on a steady line to NeoGaf 2.0. I dunno if I even wish for that place to survive, given that its mostly populated by banhammer-wielding, narcissistic fucks and their insane sycophants. The moment I'd try to openly talk with some of my other, community-related friends about it, I'd most definitely get put on some list. So the best course of action was to just give up and figure that irl stuff is better and more productive to get worked about.
