DOOM Companion (Alt)/DOOM Companion CD-ROM - iso/DOOM Companion CD-ROM.iso/text/dht.txt

PGP Message | 1994-05-08 | 11.4 KB | 245 lines

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                       The DOOM Honorific Titles
                  created by Frank Stajano on 1994 05 01

If you think you're good at DOOM, you'll probably be challenged by the
following. This is a rating system that awards top players with standardised
and universally recognised honorific titles. If you feel proud and/or silly
enough, you can include the relevant letters after your name in your .sig and
impress your fellow DOOM players. Pretty impressive in the Deathmatch phone
directories! Useful with reviews of new WADs as well: if a DOOM Grand Master
says it's hard, then it really is...


                       DOOM Honorific Titles:

     DOOM Master (DM):               can complete any level on Ultra-Violence.

     DOOM Grand Master (DGM):        can complete any level on Nightmare.

     DOOM Grand Ass Kicker (DGAK):   can complete any level on Ultra-Violence
                                     using only fist and pistol.


The titles are awarded by passing an examination. As with most examinations,
this will only be a random sampling of your capacity. You won't be required to
complete all 27 episodes to prove that you can do it.

You will be your own judge for the results. You will receive the text of the
examination, which tells you what to do to be awarded the title you think you
deserve; from then on you just have to produce the corresponding LMPs and
upload them to a specific public place in a specific format to be able to call
yourself a DM, DGM or DGAK. There is no time limit. The LMPs must be produced
especially for the examination -- you can't just send in your old ones. This
is because there is an authentication mechanism which prevents people from
recycling other people's LMPs.


The formal requirements are as follows:

Candidates for the title of "DOOM Master" will have to produce 3 Ultra-Violence
LMPs of the required levels (one per episode) with 100% kills and 100%
secrets, plus one "free interpretation LMP" of a level of their choice (see
below).

Candidates for the title of "DOOM Grand Master" must already be DOOM Masters;
they will have to produce 3 Nightmare LMPs of the required levels (one per
episode) with 100% secrets and with every monster killed at least once. Plus 3
Ultra-Violence LMPs of some other required levels (one per episode) with 100%
kills, 100% secrets, 100 or 199 health, 100 or 200 armour (the lower figure
only where the level does not have the blue sphere or armour respectively).
Plus one free interpretation LMP.

Candidates for the title of "DOOM Grand Ass Kicker" must already be DOOM Grand
Masters; they will have to produce 3 Ultra-Violence LMPs of the required
levels (one per episode) with 100% kills and 100% secrets, using only pistol
and non-berserk fist OR, at their choice and where available, using only
(normal and) berserk fist and no other weapon. Plus one free interpretation
LMP.


The "free interpretation LMP" is whatever the candidate considers appropriate
to show "style": going chainsaw on big monsters, killing big monsters by
trapping them in crunching walls instead of shooting them, clearing out a
whole level without ever being hit once, killing all the monsters in a level
without firing by persuading them to fight each other, and so on. The
level and skill are chosen by the candidate. You may even play on an external
WAD if you really wish. There are no constraints at all on this -- it's just
an opportunity to show how good you are: you're getting a DOOM title, so you
must be worth something! This will certainly bring out some pretty high
quality LMPs.


Since the required episodes are assigned at random to candidates, an
examination may be much harder than another. To be fair, an appeal mechanism
is provided. If one of the required levels is found by the candidate to be
terribly hard, it can be replaced with THREE levels chosen by the candidate
from the same episode. Note that only one replacement is allowed in the whole
examination. Example: I get E1M9, E2M4, E3M4. I really can't manage E3M4 (I
always run out of time before the end), so I swop it for E3M1, E3M2 and E3M5,
in addition of course to E1M9 and E2M4. Yes, in theory an aspiring DM, DGM or
DGAK should be able to do ANY level; but, given that the examinations are a
subsampling and someone could get away by doing just the easier levels, it
seems fair to leave a way out to those that get the harder ones.



The authentication mechanism:

To ensure that the LMPs have genuinely been made by those that are claiming
the title (and thus to add authenticity and value to the title itself) the
following scheme has been devised.

The candidate sends a request to the DOOM Honorific Titles Centre (ha ha :-)),
in the following format:

    To: [e-mail]
    Subject: Please send me a DOOM examination form

    Name: (...your name or pseudonym...)
    Initials: (...your initials, used to generate the exam file name, see
        below...)
    Candidate for: (...DM, DGM or DGAK...)

What comes back is a message similar to this one:

    ---BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE

    This is the DOOM challenge for (...name...)
    aspiring to the title of (...title...).

    Issued on (...date...).

    The required levels are:
    E1Mx, E2My, E3Mz.
    To be completed on skill ..., with ...
    (...plus all the appropriate requirements for this title...)

    The authentication dance is:
    xxxx - xxxx

    Use the file name XXXXXXX.ZIP
        (...this will be something like DM-CBA.ZIP
        for someone whose initials are CBA and who is trying to become a Doom
        Master. I'll add a disambiguating digit in cases where another
        request with the same initials exists...)

    ---BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE
    (...)
    ---END PGP SIGNATURE

The authentication dance is a sequence of eight letters, each of which can be
L (left 90 degrees), R (right 90 degrees) or F (fist). At the very beginning
of the level the candidate must perform the specified short sequence of
movements. This ensures that the LMP was recorded specifically as a response
to the above challenge.

The reason why the authentication dance is done at the beginning and not at
the end when everybody has been killed is so that you don't risk to forget it
or, worse, get it wrong (and have to redo the whole LMP from scratch). However
in some levels (e.g. E3M3) you have a monster heading for you from the very
beginning; in these cases, do the authentication dance AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
after the initial necessary killing. If you mess it up, restart the recording.
Remember, ALL THE LMPs IN YOUR EXAM FILE must start with the authentication
dance.


When you have produced the required LMPs, write a DESCR.TXT file in which you
describe your setup: what controller do you use, how is it configured, what
computer do you play on etc. You should also say what is special about your
free interpretation file. If you gave up on one of the levels and changed it
with some other ones, say so, and tell what was the thing that stopped you
from completing the originally required level. Don't forget to say what
version of DOOM the LMPs are good for (allowing versions other than 1.2 is for
the benefit of people with a PS/2 mouse, who still use 1.1; and also for
future compatibility when the new release comes out). If you use an external
WAD for your free interpretation, be sure to mention its original title and
creator.

Having done that, it's time to package everything together. Rename the free
interpretation file as FREE.LMP (possibly including FREE.WAD) and rename all
the others as E?M?-*.LMP (* being either UV or NM). Include the original
examination form, including PGP signature, in a file named CHALLENG.TXT (this
is very important). Zip everything together, using the name that was specified
in the form. And finally upload the ZIPped exam file to the official
repository. If you are posting an exam file for DGM or DGAK, ensure that your
previous exam file(s) are already present at that site. That's it! From then
on you can rightfully use your new title as and when you like.

I will compete for DOOM Master myself and post my own exam file as an example
as soon as I manage to do it, but I'm sure that someone else will be quicker!
:-)


The "official repository" will be a directory called DHT-EXAMS on some widely
used DOOM ftp site. As of today I would suggest ocf.unt.edu and
wuarchive.wustl.edu but this may change since DOOM things move so rapidly. You
are also invited to upload your file to alt.binaries.doom and you should be
prepared to mail it to whoever requests it from you (and you'll probably be
proud to do it anyway).

As can be seen, there is no "certifying authority" issuing those titles. The
titles are self-awarded as soon as the requirements are fulfilled. Of course
one could easily claim to be a DGAK but anybody may want to verify that, if
nothing else to see the supposedly amazing FREE.LMP; so, all in all, there is
no scope for cheating without looking like a moron to all the other Doom
players on the net.

The exams material is obviously there as proof of authenticity, but is mainly
intended as a way of collecting very good quality LMPs. The main reason for
people to download other people's exams will not be the desire to check
whether they really are in good faith, but rather to watch some amazing DOOM
action.

The names of those who requested forms will not be made public. The names of
those who earned honorific titles WILL be public (that's the whole point --
becoming famous :-)), if nothing else because their exam files will be in the
public place. I am not volunteering to maintain a directory of decorated
players, but I'm sure that someone else will do that, perhaps even offering a
verification and date stamping service.



For those who do not know a thing about PGP, it is a cryptographic program
that allows, among other things, to prove that a message (in this case
CHALLENG.TXT) has not been tampered with.

Given my "public key", which is included at the end of this message, anybody
can "check my signature" on any of the CHALLENG.TXT forms I issue. And PGP
will spot if anything has been changed in the text since I signed it. It's
conceptually similar to a checksum, only much harder to forge.

There is no need to use PGP to claim a title (i.e. to produce an exam file)
and there is no need to use PGP to view someone else's exam file. Nothing is
encrypted. PGP is only required when one wants to verify that a CHALLENG.TXT
from an exam file has not been modified to make things easier for the
candidate or to use someone else's authentication dance.

Public key "fms-dht":
(this is not my normal public key; it is a low security key that is only used
for stuff related to the DOOM Honorific Titles and that lives on the Unix
system at the office. Paranoids may verify the key on a server, but I would
consider this useless for this application.)
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